boooooo!

happy halloween, #7,000,000,000

that's scary!

isn't that scary, boys and girls?

trick or treat!?

"a decent respect to the opinions of mankind..."

a wha-a-at? tha's some kind o' joke, right? we're americans! we don' owe nobody nothin', an' we don' listen t' nobody's opinions but our own! so tell them damn furriners t' go f**k themselves!

an' you c'n go sit on a roman candle an' have a happy 4th o' july!

an' another thing: what th' hell does "self-evident" mean?

eml from media matters

Here [is] today's news [item] from Media Matters for America, click on the title or 'read more' to read the entirety of [the] story.

Wall Street Journal Spins Fracking Study To Downplay Risks
A Wall Street Journal editorial obscured the fact that a Duke University study strongly suggested methane from a natural gas extraction process known as hydraulic fracturing, or fracking, contaminated water supplies. Read More

Here are [yesterday's] news items from Media Matters for America, click on the title or 'read more' to read the entirety of each story.

Neal Boortz Uses Mythology To Say The Bush Tax Cuts "Worked"
Writing in the Atlanta Journal Constitution, syndicated radio host Neal Boortz perpetuated the myth that tax cuts increase revenue to bolster his argument that the Bush tax cuts "worked." Economists have said the Bush tax cuts reduced revenue and had little positive impact on the economy. Read More

Washington Times' History Of Anti-Gay Attacks
The incoming editor of The Washington Times, Ed Kelley, recently suggested he was not familiar with the newspaper's long history of anti-gay attacks, saying the only controversy he had heard on the issue was "a change in whether or not the term either civil unions or gay marriage or something, whether or not there were going to be quotes used around the term or not." In fact,The Washington Times has long history of extreme rhetoric and smears against the LGBT community. Read More

Here [is 6/24's news item] from Media Matters for America, click on the title or 'read more' to read the entirety of [the] story.

Fox Panel Teams Up To Promote A Bushel Of Misinformation On Health Care Reform
A seven-minute segment on Fox News' America Live featured a deluge of falsehoods and distortions about President Obama's health care reform record, including the false suggestion that PricewaterhouseCoopers found that health care reform is responsible for rising costs. In fact, Pricewaterhouse found that reform is "expected to have minimal impact on [the] medical cost trend in 2012." Read More

Here are [6/23]'s news items from Media Matters for America, click on the title or 'read more' to read the entirety of each story.

Another "Indoctrination" Freakout: Right-Wing Media Attack MD's Environmental Literacy Education Requirement
Right-wing media have attacked a recent Maryland State Board of Education ruling that requires high school students to be "environmentally literate" before graduating as "indoctrination" and "brainwash[ing]," while using it as an opportunity continue the right-wing's longstanding war on climate science. Read More

Right-Wing Media Strain To Portray Obama's Speech As A "Mission Accomplished" Moment
Following President Obama's speech announcing the drawdown of troops in Afghanistan, right-wing media have strained to portray the announcement as a "mission accomplished" moment. However, Obama acknowledged that "huge challenges remain" in Afghanistan and "[w]e'll have to do the hard work of keeping the gains that we've made." Read More

Right-Wing Media Launches Kitchen Sink Attack On Obama's Afghanistan Speech
The right-wing media reacted to President Obama's address on troop withdrawals in Afghanistan by dredging up familiar, petty attacks, such as criticizing the number of times Obama referred to himself, and claiming the address was a "campaign speech" instead of a "war update." This follows a long history of the right-wing media launching frivolous attacks over speeches Obama makes on all manner of issues. Read More

Fox Uses Oil Reserve Announcement To Demand More Drilling
After President Obama announced that the U.S. will tap the Strategic Petroleum Reserve, Fox News figures falsely suggested that government restrictions are encumbering domestic oil production. In fact, drilling is nearing a twenty-year high, and countless economists have explained that expanded U.S. oil production is not a solution to high oil prices. Read More

Right-Wing Media Attack Vargas With Stereotypical, Anti-Immigrant Vigor
Jose Antonio Vargas, a Pulitzer Prize-winning journalist, recently revealed that he is an undocumented immigrant. Right-wing media responded with virulent anti-immigrant attacks, with Don Surber of the Charleston Daily Mail writing: "kick the lying, illegal alien Jose Antonio Vargas out." Read More

Here are [6/22]'s news items from Media Matters for America, click on the title or 'read more' to read the entirety of each story.

Plane Falsehoods: Krauthammer Continues To Misinform About Boeing's Alleged Union-Busting
Previously, Fox News contributor Charles Krauthammer misinformed the public on a National Labor Relations Board complaint that Boeing illegally moved jobs away from a unionized facility, claiming that "paying off the unions to [President Obama] is more important than a healthy export economy." Krauthammer spread more falsehoods in a Washington Post column in which he suggested that the NLRB is a political organization "trying to get the [South Carolina] plant declared illegal" because "Democrats need unions." Read More

Beck Guest Falsely Claims Oil And Gas Companies Get "Zero" Government Subsidies
On his Fox News show, Glenn Beck hosted several oil and gas industry executives to attack President Obama's energy policies and tout fossil fuels. During the show, Beck hyped the false claim by one of his guests, the CEO of the American Petroleum Institute, that "the oil and natural gas industry gets zero subsidies" from the federal government. Read More

Fox News "Headline" Is A GOP Press Release
Fox News adopted its "headline" for today straight from a press release from the office of Republican Rep. Paul Ryan, claiming that the Congressional Budget Office estimated that "government spending as a share of our economy will increase by nearly 70 percent by 2035." In its long-term budget outlook, CBO projected that spending would increase from 24.1 percent of GDP in 2011 to 27.4 percent in 2035. Read More

Fox Protects Investment By Attempting To Spin Lack Of Enthusiasm For GOP Field
Fox News has recently tried to spin GOP voter dissatisfaction with the 2012 presidential field by suggesting it is a manufactured Democratic talking point designed to "handicap" the candidates, when, in fact, polling has consistently shown Republicans are dissatisfied with the GOP field. This spin comes as Fox is investing a significant amount of resources into promoting the GOP presidential candidates. Read More

With Renewed National Focus On Immigration Reform, Fox Revs Up Anti-Immigrant Campaign
As immigration reform has re-entered the public debate, Fox News has spent the past several weeks misleading on the issue and slanting its news coverage to paint immigrants in a negative light. Read More

Jon Stewart Gets It Right About Fox News
Fox News has attacked Daily Show host Jon Stewart for claiming that Fox News viewers are "the most consistently misinformed viewers" of cable news. However, Stewart was correct -- Fox News consistently misinforms its viewers, and its viewers are found among the most likely to hold misinformed beliefs about current events. Read More

Here are [6/21]'s news items from Media Matters for America, click on the title or 'read more' to read the entirety of each story.

Eric Bolling: Fox News' In-House Corporate Lobbyist
Fox News' Eric Bolling has been promoting what he described as his own stimulus plan, a plan centered on tax breaks for multinational corporations on money currently parked offshore. Bolling's proposal is remarkably similar to a plan reportedly promoted by corporate lobbyists during a Washington, D.C. conference on June 15 - the day before Bolling discussed his plan on Fox News. Read More

Fox Still Misrepresenting NLRB's Case Against Boeing
Fox News has repeatedly suggested that the National Labor Relations Board (NLRB) is engaging in unlawful or "anti-American" activity by filing a complaint against Boeing for deciding to build a new plant in the "right to work" state of South Carolina. But the NLRB complaint alleges that Boeing moved to South Carolina in retaliation for union workers' decision to strike, and experts say that allegations in the case represent an "absolutely standard violation" of federal labor law.Read More

Fox Hyped McKinsey & Co. Study But Ignored Admission That It's Not A "Predictive Economic Analysis"
After hyping a McKinsey & Company survey that predicted the Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act (PPAC) would cause millions of employees to lose their employer-basedhealth care coverage, Fox did not cover that McKinsey & Co. admitted that their findings were not meant as "a predictive economic analysis." Fox further failed to note a study reinforcing President Obama's claim that employer-sponsored insurance (ESI) markets would be virtually unchanged by the health care bill. Read More

Here are [6/20]'s news items from Media Matters for America, click on the title or 'read more' to read the entirety of each story.

Fox News Maligns Scientists With Baseless Accusation Of "Doctoring" Sea Level Data
Following the lead of the Heartland Institute, Fox News trumpeted the utterly baseless claim that scientists at the University of Colorado are "doctoring" sea level data to "exaggerate theeffects of global warming." In reality, the scientists used a standard and transparent procedure performed by other research groups around the world, and even the climate skeptic cited by Fox News objects to the implication that the group engaged in scientific wrongdoing. Read More

Fox Hosts Official From Extremist-Linked Pro-Gun Group To Distort Link Between "Carry Laws" And Crime
Fox & Friends hosted John Velleco, director of federal affairs for Gun Owners of America (GOA), to argue in favor of concealed weapons laws by dubiously claiming that "crime goes down" when "a state tries to relax concealed carry laws." But according to PolitiFact, crime data shows no "straight-line correlation between states with 'right to carry' laws and crime rates"; moreover, GOA's executive director has been tied to militia groups, white supremacists, and has a history of extremist rhetoric. Read More

homophobia fades, xenophobia lingers
[&, of course, racism remains]

Senate votes to repeal ban on gays serving openly in the military

DREAM Act fails to advance in Senate

Facts Can't Trump Politics In Immigration Debate

A major national survey has found that the flow of unauthorized immigrants into the U.S. has slowed dramatically over the past five years, leading to the "first significant reversal" of growth in their population in two decades.

Border security has benefited from an infusion of federal money. Deportations of those in the country illegally are up. FBI statistics point to a consistent drop in violent crime rates in U.S.-Mexico border towns.

And Arizona Gov. Jan Brewer — the high-profile Republican proponent of the state's controversial immigration law — has acknowledged that her incendiary and debunked claim that headless bodies had been found along the border in her state was "an error."

Could it be that the country is moving toward what immigration expert Audrey Singer of the Brookings Institution has hopefully noted could be a "moment of reflection" in the emotional and often fact-free national discussion on illegal border crossings?

Maybe not.

[more]

can't say i enjoyed all of these, but...

Common Nonsense: Glenn Beck and the Triumph of Ignorance by Alexander Zaitchik
Over the Cliff: How Obama's Election Drove the American Right Insane by John Amato
Toxic Talk: How the Radical Right Has Poisoned America's Airwaves by Bill Press
Tears of a Clown: Glenn Beck and the Tea Bagging of America by Dana Milbank
Liars For Jesus: The Religious Right's Alternate Version of American History Vol. 1 by Chris Rodda
Idiot America: How Stupidity Became a Virtue in the Land of the Free by Charles P. Pierce
How to Win a Fight with a Conservative by Daniel Kurtzman
Wingnuts: How the Lunatic Fringe is Hijacking America by John Avlon
The Eliminationists: How Hate Talk Radicalized the American Right by David Neiwert
The Great Derangement: A Terrifying True Story of War, Politics, and Religion by Matt Taibbi
True Enough: Learning to Live in a Post-Fact Society by Farhad Manjoo
The Wrecking Crew: How Conservatives Rule by Thomas Frank
Republican Gomorrah: Inside the Movement that Shattered the Party by Max Blumenthal
American Fascists: The Christian Right and the War on America by Chris Hedges
Killer Politics: How Big Money and Bad Politics Are Destroying the Great American Middle Class by Ed Schultz
Great American Hypocrites: Toppling the Big Myths of Republican Politics by Glenn Greenwald
God and His Demons by Michael Parenti
How the Republicans Stole Religion: Why the Religious Right is Wrong about Faith & Politics and What We Can Do to Make it Right by Bill Press
Conservatives Without Conscience by John W. Dean
Fighting Words: A Toolkit for Combating the Religious Right by Robin Morgan
A Tragic Legacy: How a Good vs. Evil Mentality Destroyed the Bush Presidency by Glenn Greenwald
The Promise: President Obama, Year One by Jonathan Alter
Broken Government: How Republican Rule Destroyed the Legislative, Executive, and Judicial Branches by John W. Dean
The Man Who Sold the World: Ronald Reagan and the Betrayal of Main Street America by William Kleinknecht
The Squandering of America: How the Failure of Our Politics Undermines Our Prosperity by Robert Kuttner
The Backlash: Right-Wing Radicals, High-Def Hucksters, and Paranoid Politics in the Age of Obama by Will Bunch
A Presidency in Peril: The Inside Story of Obama's Promise, Wall Street's Power, and the Struggle to Control our Economic Future by Robert Kuttner
The Progressive Revolution: How the Best in America Came to Be by Michael Lux
Trainwreck: The End of the Conservative Revolution (and Not a Moment Too Soon) by Bill Press
Glenn Beck: The Redemptive Story of America's Favorite Political Commentator by Xander Cricket
Anti-Intellectualism in American Life by Richard Hofstadter
God Hates You, Hate Him Back: Making Sense of The Bible by CJ Werleman
What Liberals Believe: Thousands of Quotes on Why America Needs to Be Rescued from Greedy Corporations, Homophobes, Racists, Imperialists, Xenophobes, and Religious Extremists by William Martin
Bait and Switch: The (Futile) Pursuit of the American Dream by Barbara Ehrenreich
Were You Born on the Wrong Continent?: How the European Model Can Help You Get a Life by Thomas Geoghegan
The Age of American Unreason by Susan Jacoby
Washington Rules: America's Path to Permanent War by Andrew Bacevich
Bad Sports: How Owners Are Ruining the Games We Love by Dave Zirin
The Evolution of Everything: How Selection Shapes Culture, Commerce, and Nature by Mark Sumner
Democracy Incorporated: Managed Democracy and the Specter of Inverted Totalitarianism by Sheldon S. Wolin
The Christian Delusion: Why Faith Fails by John W. Loftus
Empire of Illusion: The End of Literacy and the Triumph of Spectacle by Chris Hedges
Washington by Meg Greenfield
The Rise of the Fourth Reich: The Secret Societies That Threaten to Take Over America by Jim Marrs
Kingdom Coming: The Rise of Christian Nationalism by Michelle Goldberg
Does God Get Diarrhea?: Flushing 4,000 Years Of Lies, Myths, And Fairy Tales Down The Toilet by Odin Zeus McGaffer
Unequal Protection: How Corporations Became "People" - And How You Can Fight Back by Thom Hartmann
Smells Like Dead Elephants: Dispatches from a Rotting Empire by Matt Taibbi
The Republican Noise Machine: Right-Wing Media and How It Corrupts Democracy by David Brock
What's the Matter with Kansas?: How Conservatives Won the Heart of America by Thomas Frank
The Real America: Messages from the Heart and Heartland by Glenn Beck
Hopes and Prospects by Noam Chomsky
Freethinkers: A History of American Secularism by Susan Jacoby
Truth and Consequences: Special Comments on the Bush Administration's War on American Values by Keith Olbermann
A New American Tea Party: The Counterrevolution Against Bailouts, Handouts, Reckless Spending, and More Taxes by John M. O'Hara
Dismantling the Empire: America's Last Best Hope by Chalmers Johnson
The Conservative Nanny State: How the Wealthy Use the Government to Stay Rich and Get Richer by Dean Baker
An Inconvenient Book: Real Solutions to the World's Biggest Problems by Glenn Beck
Before the Storm: Barry Goldwater and the Unmaking of the American Consensus by Rick Perlstein
The Bitter Pill of Truth: A Cure for Judeo-Christianity by J M Ladd
Fables for Our Time and Famous Poems Illustrated by James Thurber
The Atheist's Introduction to the New Testament: How the Bible Undermines the Basic Teachings of Christianity by Mike Davis
Crazy for God: How I Grew Up as One of the Elect, Helped Found the Religious Right, and Lived to Take All (or Almost All) of It Back by Frank Schaeffer
Rush Limbaugh Is a Big Fat Idiot by Al Franken
50 Reasons People Give for Believing in a God by Guy P. Harrison
The Family: The Secret Fundamentalism at the Heart of American Power by Jeff Sharlet
Revolutionaries: A New History of the Invention of America by Jack Rakove
Last Call: The Rise and Fall of Prohibition by Daniel Okrent
Jesus: Neither God Nor Man - The Case for a Mythical Jesus by Earl Doherty
The Shallows: What the Internet Is Doing to Our Brains by Nicholas Carr
Pinheads and Patriots: Where You Stand in the Age of Obama by Bill O'reilly
The Bridge: The Life and Rise of Barack Obama by David Remnick
Nonsense on Stilts: How to Tell Science from Bunk by Massimo Pigliucci
Hitch-22: A Memoir by Christopher Hitchens
Helluva Town: The Story of New York City During World War II by Richard Goldstein
Religious Literacy: What Every American Needs to Know--And Doesn't by Stephen Prothero
Freefall: America, Free Markets, and the Sinking of the World Economy by Joseph E. Stiglitz
The Spirit Level: Why Greater Equality Makes Societies Stronger by Richard Wilkinson
Autobiography of Mark Twain, Vol. 1 by Mark Twain
The Strain by Guillermo Del Toro
American Jesus: How the Son of God Became a National Icon by Stephen Prothero
A History of God: The 4,000-Year Quest of Judaism, Christianity and Islam by Karen Armstrong
Family of Secrets: The Bush Dynasty, America's Invisible Government, and the Hidden History of the Last Fifty Years by Russ Baker
Pandora's Seed: The Unforeseen Cost of Civilization by Spencer Wells
Scout, Atticus, and Boo: A Celebration of Fifty Years of To Kill a Mockingbird by Mary McDonagh Murphy
The Official CIA Manual of Trickery and Deception by H. Keith Melton
Glenn Beck's Common Sense: The Case Against an Out-of-Control Government, Inspired by Thomas Paine by Glenn Beck
Star Island by Carl Hiaasen
Thurber: Writings and Drawings by James Thurber
Godless: How an Evangelical Preacher Became One of America's Leading Atheists by Dan Barker
WAR by Sebastian Junger
Snakes in Suits: When Psychopaths Go to Work by Paul Babiak
The History of White People by Nell Irvin Painter
Living in the End Times by Slavoj Zizek
Nomad: From Islam to America: A Personal Journey Through the Clash of Civilizations by Ayaan Hirsi Ali
Role Models by John Waters
Being Wrong: Adventures in the Margin of Error by Kathryn Schulz
Arguing with Idiots: How to Stop Small Minds and Big Government by Glenn Beck
How Pleasure Works: The New Science of Why We Like What We Like by Paul Bloom
Game Change: Obama and the Clintons, McCain and Palin, and the Race of a Lifetime by John Heilemann
13 Bankers: The Wall Street Takeover and the Next Financial Meltdown by Simon Johnson & James Kwak
Anatomy of Fascism by Robert O. Paxton

Critics: Elite rangers not welcome at Texas border

McALLEN, Texas – Rancher Mike Landry recently came upon a group of unarmed men dressed in camouflage burglarizing his guest house and stealing a truck from his 11,000 acres in Terrell County, rugged country bordering the Rio Grande in West Texas.

A couple of shots over their heads from his hunting rifle kept nine of them, all Mexican citizens, in place until Border Patrol agents arrived.

"It has really gotten to be pretty spooky," said Landry, who has run cattle in the area for 29 years.

Stories like Landry's seem to bolster Gov. Rick Perry's recent decision to send elite teams from the state's top law enforcement agency, the Texas Rangers, to remote borderlands to help them with security and deter a spillover of the gruesome drug-war violence plaguing Mexico. But Landry's situation never grew violent, and many other ranchers, sheriffs and politicians along Texas' 1,200 mile border with Mexico found the governor's announcement puzzling.

"We have landowners all along the border who are finding their farms and ranches overrun by smuggling operations," Perry said in an announcing how he would spend a fraction of the $110 million the Legislature approved this year for border security.

Since security was tightened at checkpoints in cities like El Paso and Laredo, immigrants and smugglers have been squeezed into places like Terrell County. The county sits between Big Bend National Park, which is too arid for safe passage, and Del Rio, another high-security spot.

Though traffic is up, people in those areas say they fall far short of being "overrun."

Perry's critics note that border crime has been falling in recent years....

xenophobia

is

against

the

national interest

Giuliani says illegal immigration is not a crime

WASHINGTON - Republican presidential hopeful Rudy Giuliani said illegal immigration is not a crime, prompting rival Mitt Romney to accuse him of not taking the problem seriously.

The two have clashed for weeks over illegal immigration, an issue that inflames GOP conservatives who influence primary elections. The irony is that both candidates have in the past taken more liberal stands on the issue.

"It's not a crime," Giuliani said Friday. "I know that's very hard for people to understand, but it's not a federal crime."

'08 campaign

• Immigrants scramble to find family members after Ohio raid

FAIRFIELD, Ohio (Reuters) - When 300 US immigration agents surrounded the chicken processing plant where Danny Alvarez-Reyes works, he did the only thing he could think of: he gave his coat to a scared friend determined to hide in the walk-in freezer.

Alvarez-Reyes, 27, works legally at the Koch Food plant near Cincinnati and could only watch as co-workers were rounded up during a raid on Tuesday that netted 160 illegal workers.

But after an exhausting day trying to help his friends' families, Alvarez-Reyes was still worried about the five co-workers he watched hide in the giant freezer.

"I don't know if they ever got out, that's all I want to know," he said, gathering with friends at a neighborhood taco restaurant to rehash the trauma of the day and trade rumors about who will be deported.

2 Va. counties OK immigration crackdown

MANASSAS, Va. - Ines Olivia Martinez wonders if her family will be denied medical care. Even her mentally disabled 13-year-old son has been anxiously pointing out police cars amid fears of a local crackdown on illegal immigrants.

Resolutions to deny a potentially wide range of public services to illegal immigrants have thrust two northern Virginia counties into the nation's immigration debate. The measures passed in July in Prince William and Loudoun counties join a flurry of recent efforts by local governments nationwide that believe the federal government has not done enough to stop illegal immigration.

But while other jurisdictions have focused largely on landlords and employers who knowingly rent to and hire illegal immigrants, the Virginia resolutions take a more direct approach. The National Association of Counties says the two counties are the first it knows of to pass measures aimed at denying services.

Warner's Iraq proposal roils White House

WASHINGTON -- Sen. John Warner's suggestion that some troops leave Iraq by the end of the year has roiled the White House, with administration officials saying they've asked the influential Republican to clarify that he has not broken politically with President Bush.

House Democrats reaffirm anti-war stance during conference call with Pelosi

WASHINGTON - House Democrats returning from the August recess plan to press ahead with legislation to end the war in Iraq, despite some evidence that the recent troop surge is succeeding.

US Falters In Bid to Boost Iraqi Business

More than a year after the Pentagon launched an ambitious effort to reopen Iraqi factories and persuade US firms to purchase their goods, defense officials acknowledge that the initiative has largely failed because American retailers have shown little interest in buying products made in Iraq.

Washington eyes precision bomb sale to Singapore

WASHINGTON (Reuters) - The US Defense Department said Friday it was tentatively planning to sell Singapore up to 84 precision-guided bombs for its F-15 fighter fleet as part of a military package deal valued at up to $200 million.

didn't have time to post yesterday:

• Study: US visa backlog creating 'reverse brain-drain'

WASHINGTON (AFP) - The huge backlog in US immigration visas is leading to a "reverse brain-drain" that will force skilled workers to return to their home country, a report released Wednesday concludes.

• VA Tech panel recommends new reforms

BLACKSBURG, Va. - Virginia Tech's internal review of the campus massacre recommended Wednesday more monitoring of troubled students, classroom locks and other security measures.
...
Cho, a senior, had shown signs to professors and others of being mentally troubled before his rampage. He had been removed from an English class because of his violent writing and offensive behavior. He also was ordered to receive outpatient treatment after an overnight involuntary commitment at a mental health center in December 2005 after police received a report that he was suicidal.

in spite of the last paragraph, they made no recommendations to the state regarding gun buys.

• Over-the-counter sales of morning-after pill soaring

NEW YORK - In the year since it was approved for over-the-counter sales, the morning-after pill has become a huge commercial success for its manufacturer, but its popularity and solid safety record haven't deterred critics from seeking to overturn the milestone ruling.

Troops in Iraq to reach record level

WASHINGTON - The number of US troops in Iraq could jump to 171,000 this fall—a record high for the war—as military leaders expect stepped-up insurgent attacks timed to a progress report from American commanders in Baghdad.

Extended buildup would exhaust US forces

WASHINGTON -- Sapped by nearly six years of war, the Army has nearly exhausted its fighting force and its options if the Bush administration decides to extend the Iraq buildup beyond next spring.

War Stress Pushing Army Suicides Higher

WASHINGTON - Repeated and ever-longer war-zone tours are putting increasing pressure on military families, the Army said Thursday, helping push soldier suicides to a record rate.

Rove keeps up heat on Clinton

CRAWFORD, Texas - Master GOP strategist Karl Rove won't let up in his attacks on Democratic presidential hopeful Hillary Rodham Clinton, but the intriguing question is why.

McCain: Immigration issue led to threats

ASPEN, Colo. - Republican presidential candidate John McCain said Wednesday that the issue of illegal immigration angered people unlike no other, including the unpopular war in Iraq, and sparked unprecedented death threats against him.

Giuliani: 'Leave My Family Alone'

Republican Rudy Giuliani said Thursday that people should "leave my family alone" when asked by a New Hampshire woman why the presidential candidate should expect loyalty from voters when he doesn't get it from his children.

Somebody's Watching You

A convicted felon turns cameras on the cops, putting a balance of power, he says, back in the hands of the people.

Dems pledge to help labor organize

WATERLOO, Iowa - Six Democratic presidential contenders, courting one of the party's most crucial interest groups, pledged Wednesday to work to reverse decades of decline in the nation's union movement.

McConnell slams ‘Old Europe’ Democrats

Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-KY) mocked congressional Democrats Wednesday, attacking the new leadership of the 110th Congress for attempting to ram through proposals that would turn the American government into “Old Europe.”

i recall “old europe.” don rumsfeld said it to put down countries that didn't help us invade iraq.

Arizona employers feeling heat of immigration backlash

Phoenix - Arizona leads the nation in population growth. More illegal immigrants cross its border than any other in the United States. Now, in an apparent backlash to those trends, the state is leading the charge to halt illegal immigration by cracking down on employers.

but

The ink had barely dried on Governor Napolitano's signature of the new law before employers began scrambling to figure out how to comply with the measure that many have dubbed the "business death penalty."

He has endeavoured to prevent the population of these States; for that purpose obstructing the Laws for Naturalization of Foreigners; refusing to pass others to encourage their migrations hither, and raising the conditions of new Appropriations of Lands.
—seventh item of king george iii's "history of repeated injuries and usurpations" enumerated in the declaration of independence, 1776

the founding fathers voted that passage into the declaration, so they must have agreed immigration is good for this country.

the ku klux klan does not.

so it's the founding fathers versus the KKK.

whose side are you on?

are we pandering to people's fears?

david brooks thinks the furor over the port deal is due to politicians and "reactionaries" of the left and right playing on public ignorance and xenophobia of anything arab. after all, the dubai firm was fully vetted by an interagency panel, and nobody objected.

i'm not so sure it's really pandering, tho. we've lived in an atmosphere of fear since 9/11, and the story didn't break till after the new management arrangement was a done deal, so public anxiety was inevitable.

if the review had been completely out in the open—with full congressional involvement as suggested by the constitution's commerce clause—the ground would've been prepared gradually. the wisdom of having our ports run by a firm owned by a foreign government could've been hashed out. folk would've had ample opportunity to get informed and assured.

but no. that's not the way this administration does business. everything gets done on the sly and snuck past us, because what we don't know won't hurt us.

the monkey wrench in the works is that the truth will out. bush's crowd seems to think it won't matter if we learn what they've done after it's a fait accompli. we'll all be content to know they're watching over us and we don't have to worry our pretty little heads about a thing.

what they fail to anticipate is that when the truth comes like a bolt from the blue, all us little chickens will think the sky is falling.

it's basically the same phenomenon we just saw when ariel sharon, with g w bush's backing, ordered the israeli pullout from the gaza strip. it had to happen sooner or later, so why not do it and get it over with without any fuss, right? the master strategists totally failed to foresee the explosive palestinian reaction and hamas's ability to take credit for forcing the withdrawal. to avoid that and the hamas election win, all they needed was to strengthen abbas's hand by negotiating the pullout rather than doing it unilaterally.

like the sharon-bush decision, the port deal was made behind closed doors. bush can pass the buck as he always does by saying he knew nothing of it, but his people did it, and he hired them, so almost nobody's buying his excuses for a change—at least for now.

but the spin doctors haven't finished. we've yet to hear from big guns cheney, rummy, and rice, all of whom i'm sure will have "no doubt" about dubai, just as they had none that saddam was lying about wmd.

and if congress acts now, bush's veto threat still stands.

cop beat

every time cops get videoed brutalizing somebody, questions get asked for a news cycle or three, then we all forget about it till it happens again.

you know what questions i mean. race questions mostly, but also how-to-prevent-it questions once in a while.

maybe they always drop the issue after a few days because nobody ever comes up with a useful answer.

so here's a couple [society now owes me 2¢ each]:

• the solution to the racism question is to root out racial phobias, which i suspect are related to xenophobia.

it might take a while to force psychotherapy down millions of americans' throats, so i suggest doing it thru media. get some shrinks together with some copy writers and produce a series of public service announcements. mix humor with information and common sense. put things in perspective for phobes. treat 'em like adults.

for example, show a soccerball with a voiceover saying "this is your brain." then put an arrow thru it so it deflates and say "this is your brain on racism. get over it."

i know it's derivative, but you've got to admit a soccerball looks a hell of a lot more like a brain than an egg does, but a soccerball in a frying pan makes no sense at all.

here's another: show a healthy dog instead of a ball. DON'T SHOOT THE DOG! bandage up one of its forelegs so it hobbles around on 3 legs. use the same voiceover as above.

another possibility is to substitute "country" for "brain." racism has harmed this country to an extent the most fanatical anti-american drug fiend can't even begin to contemplate.

• now for a remedy just for cops:

i'm not going to say forget about sensitivity training. for all i know it does some good. but what we need is a simple, easy-to-follow universal rule that can be drummed into cops heads by repeating it to them once a day just before they hit the streets.

it has to be stronger than "be careful out there" and more specific than "protect and serve." ideally it should be law, and the biggest law is the constitution, which all cops have sworn to uphold.

we don't need to amend it. the answer's already there: the equal protection clause of the 14th amendment.

at the end of roll call, just before cops leave the ready room, the sarge says: "it can get rough out there in the land of the free, but remember, the supreme law of the land says we owe everybody the equal protection of the laws."

ok, it don't have to be that hokey, but you get it?