Inspire Political Discourse

Idiot Quote of the Week: Sarah Palin on Hannity

The woman who was labeled by TIME magazine as one of the “top 25 WORLD leaders” has still never, ever given a press conference. There is NO reason you should wonder why.

"This is the problem with that lamestream media throughout our country, it's not just this issue but so many. One of the media outlets the other day just, ah, just was killin' me on this one, Sean, where they had a caption across their screen that said this Arizona law will make it -- it will make it illegal to be an illegal immigrant -- some bizarre type 'a headline like that where it was just this illustration that they just don't get it." Sarah Palin on the Hannity show on April 27.

She makes me cringe with embarrassment for my country.

VIDEO: Republican Congressman, Duncan Hunter Supports the Deportation of Babies and Children Who Are US Citizens

Representing the 52nd District in California, Duncan Hunter [R] is calling for the deportation of children born to undocumented immigrants. Children and babies who are U.S. citizens, no less.

"Would you support deportation of natural-born American citizens that are the children of illegal aliens," Hunter was asked. "I would have to, yes," Hunter said. "... We simply cannot afford what we're doing right now," he said. "... It takes more than just walking across the border to become an American citizen. It's what's in our souls. ..."

The Fourteenth Amendment:

1. All persons born or naturalized in the United States, and subject to the jurisdiction thereof, are citizens of the United States and of the State wherein they reside. No State shall make or enforce any law which shall abridge the privileges or immunities of citizens of the United States; nor shall any State deprive any person of life, liberty, or property, without due process of law; nor deny to any person within its jurisdiction the equal protection of the laws.

Contact Hunter to let him know how you feel.

If you'd like to contact me about a legislative issue, you can reach me via e-mail, by phone at (202) 225-5672 or regular mail.  Please mail all correspondence to: Congressman Duncan Hunter; 1429 Longworth House Office Building; Washington D.C.; 20515.

Via Steve Benen.

Russell Pearce, Original Sponsor of Draconian Arizona Immigration Law, Has Ties to White Supremacists

Russell Pearce is the chief sponsor of the Arizona bill, and as many have noted, the bill, in effect, legalizes racial profiling. From the Fayetteville Observer [emphasis mine]:

Arizona Immigration Bill Sponsor Russell Pearce Has White Supremacist Ties, Nativist Views

In 2006, Arizona state legislator Russell Pearce got himself into a bit of trouble.

Pearce is the chief sponsor of Arizona's brutal new immigration law.

In '06, he circulated emails from the National Alliance, a white supremacist group. The email defended a racially conscious white person who "looks askance at miscegenation or at the rapidly darkening racial situation in America." (Miscegenation refers to interracial relationships.)

The email went on to blame the media for forcing on the public the notion of equality of the races, the truth of the Holocaust and "the wickedness of attempting to halt the flood of non-White aliens pouring across our borders ... ."

Pearce claimed later to not know what the group was or what was in the email, but the chairman of the state Republican Party called the email a "severe mistake."

Then-U.S. representative J.D. Hayworth, who is no softy himself on illegal immigration, said: "Given the regrettable and disturbing nature of the e-mail Russell Pearce circulated earlier this week, I cannot in good conscience lend my endorsement to his candidacy for State Representative."

If the email "slip" had been Pearce's only tie to racism and nativism, maybe it would be no big deal on the scheme of things. But there's more.

• Pearce, who is now a state senator, has been videotaped and photographed palling around with nativists and white supremacists at anti-immigrant rallies, including with neo-Nazi and white power activist J.T. Ready.  
  [......]

Arizona Legalizes Racial Profiling, Ctd

Via Bob Cesca @ Huffpost on the Arizona law and neo-slavery:

And now this is the law of the state of Arizona -- arresting people, citizen or not, simply for appearing Hispanic. The ghosts of Green Cottonham, "anti-vagrancy" laws and Black Codes. America has resurrected its predilection for rounding up brown people based on flimsy excuses and good ol' boy lawmaking.

While there's no evidence that the Arizona law will feed the rise of a new underground forced labor market in the United States, it's clear that the various components of neo-slavery are here now. And the optics and civil liberties violations, say nothing of the long-term consequences, are horrible. We're on the brink of rounding up Hispanic people on ridiculous charges while American corporations are actively engaged in the trafficking of illegal immigrant labor.

How soon, I wonder, until we read about Hispanic people -- citizens or otherwise -- being picked up for not having their birth certificates and other "papers" in their back pockets and consequently shipped off on some sort of prison "work release" program to a cabbage farm or meat packing plant?

Arizona Legalizes Racial Profiling

The Arizona Republican anti-immigration bill. Where to start. A bill that legalizes the worst kind of racial profiling, making it a crime to be an illegal immigrant in Arizona.
In my opinion, it harkens back to the creation of neo-slavery in the South after the Emancipation Proclamation.

Bill Moyers Journal

Sullivan on Palin and 2012

I hope he’s wrong, but I’ve been saying this for at least a year, implausible as it seems, and nothing would surprise me in our weird political climate.

While the political wisdom has it that Obama would roundly defeat her in such a contest, it makes me extremely nervous to see her get that close to the presidency. Sullivan:

She is the biggest political power after Obama in this country. And, unless the full truth emerges with such force it cracks even the FNC/RNC sealed universe, she will run against him in 2012.

---

DAILY VID: Foo Fighters – Long Road to Ruin

Arizona’s Anti-Immigration Bill Likely to Pass

Arizona Gov. Jan Brewer, has until tomorrow to sign, veto, or allow the nation's toughest bill on illegal immigration to pass without her signature. It is expected that she will sign it, making it a crime to be an illegal immigrant in Arizona.

Civil rights activists have said the bill would lead to racial profiling and deter Hispanics from reporting crimes. Hundreds of Hispanics protested the legislation at the State Capitol complex on Thursday.

UPDATE: President Obama's comments on the Arizona bill this morning:

Our failure to act responsibly at the federal level will only open the door to irresponsibility by others. That includes for example the recent efforts in Arizona which threaten basic notions of fairness that we cherish as Americans as well as the trust between police and their communities that is so crucial to keeping us safe. In fact, I’ve instructed members of my administration to closely monitor the situation and examine the civil rights and other implications of this legislation.

But if we continue to fail to act at a federal level, we will continue to see misguided efforts to open up across the country.

President Obama on Wall Street

On Thursday, President Obama went in to the veritable 'lion's den' and made a strong case for financial reform:

“As I said on this stage two years ago, I believe in the power of the free market.  I believe in a strong financial sector that helps people to raise capital and get loans and invest their savings.  That’s part of what has made America what it is.  But a free market was never meant to be a free license to take whatever you can get, however you can get it.  That’s what happened too often in the years leading up to this crisis.  Some -- and let me be clear, not all -- but some on Wall Street forgot that behind every dollar traded or leveraged there’s family looking to buy a house, or pay for an education, open a business, save for retirement.  What happens on Wall Street has real consequences across the country, across our economy. [emphasis mine]

DAILY VID: Blondie - Heart of Glass

Nuclear Power Making a Comeback

Carbon-free nuclear power set to go large scale. The image is of the Enrico Fermi Nuclear Generating Station, located near Monroe, Michigan. Via The New York Times:

With 17 applications in hand from companies that want to build 26 reactors, the agency is likely to name a lot more inspectors; it also expects five more applicants in the next few years.

Is this the long-awaited renaissance of the nuclear construction business, after years of being moribund?

Certainly, some crucial ingredients are falling into place. Nuclear power provides 70 percent of the nation’s carbon-free electricity, important at a time when environmentalists track carbon in the atmosphere the way baby boomers check their cholesterol levels.

DAILY VID: Foreigner - I wanna know what love is…

Live, 1985.

Cesca: Beck Uses Classic Televangelist Techniques

Fascinating. But…..I could only listen to the audio of Beck for a couple of minutes. blech.

During yesterday's Glenn Beck radio show, Beck delivered a 10-minute monologue in which he hit all of his phony-baloney touchstones -- some of them, as I've been writing for the last several weeks, are dangerous and some are simply ridiculous. But primarily, Beck was in full televangelist mode about God and something about a "plan" and, in the process, he dovetailed into a little McCarthyism and, as usual, a little historical revisionism. He even shrunk into a defensive bit refuting the accusations that he's a faker who's conning his audience. [……]

Dodd Excoriates GOP for Obstructionism on Financial Reform Bill

Via Think Progress

Despite months of bipartisan negotiation and promises of cooperation, Republicans recently threatened to filibuster the bill. A visibly angry Dodd took to the Senate floor today to condemn the GOP’s obstructionism, calling out their “very false talking points” and warning them that they will have to explain to Americans, “I’m sorry but we’re not on your side:”

DODD: A letter from the Minority Leader said we’ve got 41 votes here to stop you from even debating this bill. Well, you explain that to the American taxpayer, to the small business, to the American family, and to others out there who are paying an awful price because the the mess that the very institutions who are today leading the charge against us getting a bill. Explain to them why the status quo is in their interest and their benefit. Mr. President, those who vote to block this bill will be sending a clear message to American families, businesses, community bankers and tax payers and that message will be, I’m sorry but we are not on your side. We are choosing another side of this equation.

Last month, my good friend the Minority Leader and the Republican senator responsible for campaign fundraising participated in meeting in New York with Wall Street executives. … Comes back right afterwards and we get all of a sudden, we get this rhetoric about too big to fail and we can’t possibly go to this bill. Don’t tell me that miraculously, these things happen and all of sudden we find ourselves with 41 senators [opposed to this bill].

Break up the big banks?

Economist, Paul Krugman:

Clearly, there was a massive increase in financial concentration, with a few true behemoths emerging. It’s easy to argue that this creates moral hazard, because the giant firms know that they’re too big to fail – which is also an easy slogan to remember. The idea that size is the problem has gained a lot of credibility from Paul Volcker, who personally embodies the truth of too big to fail (if you’ve ever met him); more seriously, Volcker has argued strongly that the repeal of Glass-Steagall, allowing financial firms to grow big in part by merging conventional banking with investment activities, set the stage for the crisis.

My view is that I’d love to see those financial giants broken up, if only for political reasons: it’s bad to have banks so big they can often write laws. But I’m not sold on the centrality of too big to fail to the crisis, for reasons best explained in terms of the second doctrine.

Economist, Simon Johnson:

There is no social value to having banks above $100 billion in total assets and we all now understand the danger of allowing banks to become 10 times that size – let alone entering the $2-$3 trillion range; we will gradually and responsibly force our biggest banks to become smaller.  This worked for Standard Oil – no one can claim it hurt the oil industry.  And who would really want to go back to having AT&T run a monopoly in any part of telecommunications?

DAILY VID: Joe Cocker – You Can Leave Your Hat On

One of my absolute favorites…..

Palin and the Separation of Church and State

The silly twit never seems to get the history. Has she ever even read any American history? Or European? Is she even aware of that thing called The Enlightenment? You know, that period that the Founding Fathers were a part of, and that strongly influenced the founding of this country, as well as the principles contained in our Constitution. We are, in fact, blessed with a "Godless" constitution.

A certain former half-term governor appears to be drifting even further away from the American mainstream. Over the weekend, appearing at an evangelical Christian women's conference in Louisville, Sarah Palin rejected the very idea of separation of church and state, a bedrock principle of American democracy.

She asked for the women -- who greeted her with an enthusiastic standing ovation -- to provide a "prayer

AIG in the Mix

And more to come, we can be sure.

The slide show Goldman used to pitch Abacus is pretty damning.  It starts with so many pages of fine-print "disclaimers" and "risk factors" that it seems like a Viagra ad ("call your doctor if ...").  There's a lot in there about well-respected (but at best gullible) ACA, this firm that Goldman claimed was picking the bonds.  About half of the 66 slides sing ACA's praises, but there's no mention of Paulson. There are long descriptions of ACA's capabilities, their "internal" and "external data sources," and their "defensive trading" designed to "minimize real market value exposure."

Here's where it gets uncomfortable for Geithner and some executives.  Remember all that criticism of the taxpayer-funded AIG bailout, and how under Tim Geithner's direction (he was running the New York Fed then) AIG paid 100 cents on the dollar to Goldman and other "counterparties" for its debts?  It turns out that AIG insured seven Abacus deals, and the debts they were ordered to pay may have included payoffs on some of these deals.  It turns out that AIG reportedly wanted to pay 60 cents on the dollar, but Geither's New York Fed directed them to pay the full amount.

AIG paid $13 billion from its bailout to Goldman at Geithner's direction.    And now, as the Wall Street Journal reports, the SEC "is investigating whether other mortgage deals arranged by some of Wall Street's biggest firms may have crossed the line into misleading investors."  And, while "It isn't known what deals the SEC is investigating," the Journal adds that "among the firms that created mortgage deals that soon went sour were Deutsche Bank AG, UBS AG and Merrill Lynch & Co., now owned by Bank of America Corp." [......]

Wall Street is a House of Cards

And the cards are collapsing, one by one. Or more. [Emphasis and link, mine.]

Goldman Sachs has been drawn into a fresh controversy as lawyers demand to know whether it was partly responsible for triggering Lehman Brothers’ downfall by shorting its rival’s shares.

The Wall Street behemoth is already being investigated by a number of financial regulators around the world in addition to the US Securities and Exchange Commission’s fraud charges over derivatives mis-selling. It has now been named in a court filing seeking information about short-selling Lehman shares.

Goldman has been subpoenaed to hand over documents to Lehman’s Bryan Marsal, the man responsible for winding up the bank’s affairs and repaying creditors. Goldman was named in the court filing along with four other firms, including hedge funds SAC Capital and Citadel. Goldman declined to comment on the Lehman case.

DAILY VID: Loser – Beck