After getting up my posts yesterday I watched the Senate coverage of filibuster reform games. That was depressing. I’m up to date on comments and have two items today.
Jig Zone Puzzle:
Today it took me 3:55 (average 4:48). To do it, click here. How did you do?
Short Takes:
From Christian Science Monitor: Arizona – already tied up in federal court over its controversial immigration law – has launched another effort regarding illegal immigrants sure to be fought over on constitutional grounds. At issue are what immigration hard-liners call “anchor babies” – children born to illegal immigrants but who automatically are US citizens under the 14th Amendment to the US Constitution.
Arizona lawmakers this week filed legislation requiring citizens of the state to be US citizens, with the added requirement that each person must have at least one parent who was born in the US or is a naturalized citizen.
There is no end to self-defeating Republican hatred for Latinos.
From CBS: In an attempt to end the "birther" myth that President Obama was not born in the United States (and thus not qualified to serve as president), five Democrats on the Hawaii state legislature have introduced a bill that would allow anyone to obtain a copy of President Obama’s birth records for a $100 fee.
They should make it $100,000!
From Think Progress: There’s three things Sen. Mike Lee (R-UT) likes in a sentence: a noun, a verb, and “unconstitutional.” Indeed, Lee has recently claimed that federal child labor laws, FEMA, food stamps, the FDA, Medicaid, income assistance for the poor, and even Medicare and Social Security violate the Constitution. Yet Senate Republicans have inexplicably chosen to put Lee on the very Senate committee that has jurisdiction over constitutional questions and the judiciary. [Judiciary Committee]
This promises to bring some very ugly hearings, and that could actually be beneficial.
Cartoon:
TGIF!
15 Responses to “Open Thread–1/28/2011”
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Recognizing that Constitutional “nullification” is one of the current popular Flavors of the Month favored by hate-mongering Teabaggers – but since it ain’t gonna happen, it’s difficult to understand the logic of Arizona’s attempt to nullify our Constitution’s 14th Amendment.
While they may get a bit of momentary satisfaction in their brief chest-thumping, they simultaneously alienate what is becoming a huge voting bloc.
Bienvenido al Partido Demócrata, mis amigos.
Si! Vamos a derrotar Republicanos! 😉
4:05 Missed it by 10 seconds. I am now 7 out of 28.
Close one!
I sure wish they’d take a class in the Constitution like immigrants must to gain citizenship.
I commented on Newsvine that if the “anchor baby nullification” law takes effect, about half or more of us will be deported if they made it retroactive. I’d bet good money that we all have one or more illegal aliens in our ancestry. How about those pilgrims? The original Illegal immigrants.
The problem is that they just had a class in the Constitution… as seen by Michele Bachmann and Antonin SScalia.
Someone is going to get pissed enough to blow up that state. I mean really, enough is enough.
I heard about the fee, but I think it should be much higher, like $1K. That will shut those assholes up.
Maybe he should read the Constitution before he’s put on the the committee.
I like the crazy eyes on Bachmann; she always has those crazy eyes whenever I see a pic of her! 😛
I think we just need to move the wall and give them back to Mexico.
I suggested $100K
It wouldn’t help.
Me too!
I generally don’t get all giddy over cartoons. This one, however, was giddy-worthy.
Now that I think about it, the cartoon would have been much more powerful without the verbal explanations. The artist should not have labeled Bachmann, as it is obvious who it is, and the two people to the right (and their commentary), weakened the overall effect.
It is still very good, though.
Thanks John!
Hi Tom! I have been absent too long. Another masterful piece of writing that reflects our troubled times, and I loved that cartoon. As to Arizona? What can one say? From what I hear their governor seems to revel in all things that deny humans their basic rights!
Thanks Mike, as me from yours, but I’ve made a couple trips there since I last saw you. 🙂
Michele Bachmann the IDIOT!!!
Talk about pure stupid and total ignorance about American history Congresswoman Michele Marie Bachmann and Republican Sarah Palin. Give all white women a horrible name! Michele Bachmann in her response to President Obama “ Nation Address” mis-stated American history about American Founding Fathers! For her information former President Thomas Jefferson was a slave owner and pure racist! Jefferson disliked seeing women take political roles, Historian Richard Morris wrote, “Abigail Adams excepted, Jefferson detested intellectual women. Annoyed by the political chatter of women in Parisian salons, he wrote home expressing the hope that ‘our good ladies … are contented to soothe and calm the minds of their husbands returning ruffled from political debate.'” While President, Jefferson wrote that “The appointment of a woman to office is an innovation for which the public is not prepared, nor am I. According to historian Stephen Ambrose: “Jefferson, like all slaveholders and many other white members of American society, regarded Negroes as inferior, childlike, untrustworthy and, of course, as property.
Jefferson published his views that blacks were inferior to whites in his book, Notes on the State of Virginia, saying blacks were inferior “in the endowments both of body and mind.” ! Supervising and owning hundreds of slaves, including their children, Jefferson believed that blacks were equal to lazy animals and were inferior to whites in reasoning, mathematical comprehension, and imagination. This was Jefferson’s rationalization for their condition of slavery. In effect, Jefferson believed that the difference between blacks and whites was “fixed in nature”, and was not dependent on their freedom or education.
Jefferson could see no way for African Americans to live in American society as free people, saying “Nothing is more certainly written in the book of fate than that these people are to be free. [But] the two races…cannot live in the same government.” For a long-term solution Jefferson believed that slaves should be freed then deported to African colonies. Otherwise, he feared war and that in his words, “human nature must shudder at the prospect held up. We should in vain look for an example in the Spanish deportation or deletion of the Moors. This precedent would fall far short of our case.”[
Jefferson was indeed a man of contradictory views. He was a product of the times in which he lived, but fortunately he left us with the flexibility for our Constitution to evolve with the times.