Kansas has all but banned abortion in the state by passing restrictive building code rules specifically applicable to abortion clinics. Kansas GOP leaders realize the rules will be deemed unconstitutional…..they passed it anyway. Kansas is where the forced-pregnancy terrorist, Scott Roeder, assassinated abortion doctor George Tiller.

Ohio House Republicans passed a bill which would ban abortions for women before they know they are pregnant. Most likely influenced by the "smaller government", "keep government away from my Medicare", Tea Party scholars. The forced-pregnancy Ohio House Republicans banned all abortions after a fetal heartbeat is detected, which can be as early as 5-6 weeks after conception. No word on whether heartbeats were detectable in those who voted for the measure.

Minnesota has shut down it's state government over Republican resistance to raising taxes on their state's wealthiest citizens to help pay for a budget shortfall of $5 billion. Wealthy Minnesotans, like wealthy Americans in every state, have been enjoying historically low federal and state income tax rates for almost ten years now…..so you can understand why Republicans want to keep that streak alive. Or not.

Georgia and South Carolina have each passed strict new immigration laws similar to the law Arizona has had blocked by federal injunction. In South Carolina, Palin/Bachmann clone, Governor Nikki Haley…despite tough financial times, is creating a $1.3 million illegal immigration Enforcement Unit employing 12 full time officers. The unit will serve as a liaison between local police and federal immigration officials. The unit will also have "its own unique uniforms and vehicle markings."

On a national level, Senator Chuck Schumer (D-NY) is finally saying publicly what The Reverend has been telling readers here for a very long time….

"[W]e need to start asking ourselves an uncomfortable question — are Republicans slowing down the recovery on purpose for political gain in 2012?" Schumer said. "Senator McConnell made it clear last October that his number one priority, above everything else, is to defeat President Obama. And now it is becoming clear that insisting on a slash-and-burn approach may be part of this plan — it has a double-benefit for Republicans: it is ideologically tidy and it undermines the economic recovery, which they think only helps them in 2012."

Destroying the village in order to, you know, save it. Which brings me to the wars of Empire report. Drone hellfire missiles were launched into Somalia last week prompting the Washington Post to say….

The airstrike makes Somalia at least the sixth country where the United States is using drone aircraft to conduct lethal attacks, joining Afghanistan, Pakistan, Libya, Iraq and Yemen. And it comes as the CIA is expected to begin flying armed drones over Yemen in its hunt for al-Qaeda operatives.

Apparently, the Authorization to Use Military Force resolution passed in 2001 was actually a declaration of war by the United States….on the entire world.

Naturally, taxes cannot be raised to pay for our world war, or anything else for that matter….because then we wouldn't be free. And, after all, that's why we are at war at home and with the world….to protect our freedom.

I give you this rundown of stories today before I get out of Dodge for the weekend….to have you ponder the state of our "land of liberty"……the land of liberty we will pay lip service to, if even that, this 4th of July holiday.

Is what is happening inside America…and outside….the way it has always been….or is something fundamentally different now? And if so….what is that something? I have a few of my own partial answers, but I'd like to hear yours.

I will resume blogging Tuesday. Have an excellent 4th of July weekend.

Former president, and still unindicted war criminal, George W. Bush, had some interesting things to say over a week ago when he spoke at Southern Methodist University, home to W's hagiographic library…..

"What's interesting about our country, if you study history, is that there are some 'isms' that occasionally pop up — pop up. One is isolationism and its evil twin protectionism and its evil triplet nativism. So if you study the '20s, for example, there was — there was an American first policy that said who cares what happens in Europe?…And there was an immigration policy that I think during this period argued we had too many Jews and too many Italians; therefore we should have no immigrants. And my point is that we've been through this kind of period of isolationism, protectionism and nativism. I'm a little concerned that we may be going through the same period."

Definition of "nativism"…..the policy of protecting the interests of native inhabitants against those of immigrants.

Fox Wingnut Queen, Laura Ingraham, took exception to what W. said about nativism. Ingraham and her other nativist buddies,…..Sean, Bill-o, Rushbo, and Glenny (like the Marx brothers, only zanier)…..led the anti-comprehensive immigration bill strike force team back in 2005-06, rallying the AM radio listening set to pressure Congress into refusing to include a path to citizenship in with their plans to reform immigration laws.

Any path to citizenship, any legislation which attempted to deal with the thorny issue of what to do with millions of immigrants now living in the U.S. without documentation……other than round them up and deport them……was, and still is, dismissed by the new nativists at Fox. "No amnesty" was the clarion call of Fox nativists back in 2005, and "no amnesty" is still the call of Foxians and Tea Partiers now.

George was the second Bush to speak out against conservative wingnut opposition to comprehensive immigration reform. Jeb Bush has called this nativist tendency in the Republican Party, "incredibly stupid", a comment Ms. Ingraham didn't take lightly.

So, what do we have here?

What we have is a conservative movement in America which has lost it's way. A political movement in which even George and Jebby Bush are too liberal…..too progressive, "elitists" even.

That characterization is confirmed elsewhere in early talk about challenges in the 2012 GOP primary to such communists as Senator Dick Lugar (R-IN), Senator Olympia Snowe (R-ME) and the grand-daddy of RINO's, Senator Orin Hatch (R-UT).

My point here is that I find in almost extraordinary how quickly the U.S. conservative movement has moved even more significantly to the right….into purely reactionary territory. Just in the last 10 years, the Bushes have become undesirable "elites" willing to destroy every last bastion of the rule of law by "seeking a path to citizenship" for millions of undocumenteds.

When even George and Jeb Bush call you out for being nativist, for pointing out that the uber-right's noisemaking over immigration isn't really about the rule of law but rather,…."the policy of protecting the interests of native inhabitants against those of immigrants"……it should give Tea Partiers as well as other conservatives pause.

Quite frankly, I think that the conservative movement's effort to stop any reasonable path to citizenship which doesn't include deportation, isn't rooted in any concept about a rule of law, but rather, the political law that minorities tend to vote for Democrats. More Hispanic citizens, more Democratic voters.

Venom spewer, Ms. Ingraham…sees it just the opposite…..

Ingraham: …..why did he attack a key priority for many Tea Partiers, namely, getting our borders under control and preventing mass amnesty for illegal immigrants?

Now that's an interesting way to court future GOP voters given their overwhelming opposition to amnesty, Gov. Bush. Maybe President Bush was right. We are suffering from an outbreak of ism's. Elitism comes to mind.

Ingraham is more concerned about the dwindling number of existing pale-faced GOP voters rather than gaining any future Hispanic Republican voters. To rationally calculate that Hispanic voters will become more and more important in the outcomes of elections moving forward….and to suggest that a nativistic approach to immigration will be self-defeating for America, as well as the Republican Party…..is now a symptom of "elitism."

Like running off the interstate on the right hand side and insisting that turning the steering wheel just a little bit more to the right will prevent any mishaps, any damage.

Good luck with that.

After teevee talker Glenn Beck and his friend Sarah Palin hosted a gathering for Tea Party members and other conservatives last summer at the same location that Martin Luther King gave his "I have a dream speech", Reverend Al Sharpton made this comment….

"The folks who criticize our marches are now trying to march themselves," Sharpton said. "They may have the Mall, but we have the message. They may have the platform, but we have the dream. The dream was not states' rights."

Sharpton was right. M.L. King's dream was not about a nation made up of 50 states where each state would, or would not, extend rights to minorities as their individual state populations determined. Equality for blacks, ending legal discrimination against blacks in America wasn't just a state by state concern, it was a national concern.

And that is why the civil rights legislation of the 60's was written and passed by the federal government and not by the states individually…..unlike, say, our current state by state piecemeal approach to gay rights.

The cry of "states rights", the battle cry heard so often by the Tea Party movement today, was also declared by many southern states during, and after, equal rights legislation passed Congress in the 60's.

Segregationist, George Wallace, governor of Alabama and four time presidential candidate, stood on the side of "states rights", once saying….

"The President (John F. Kennedy) wants us to surrender this state to Martin Luther King and his group of pro-Communists who have instituted these demonstrations."

I think it's worth mentioning how themes haven't changed all that much in the last 50 years. At the same time, thankfully, much progress has been made.

The sharpness on Sharpton's point is found in the distinction drawn by him over the central theme of two opposing political elements. The one theme is very much a resistance-theme directed against actions done by the federal government. When citizens who do not want to participate in, or comply with, legislation passed into law by the federal government…those same citizens, more often than not, claim that they have the right to resist complying because the 10th amendment gives states the right to determine all laws not specifically spelled out in the Constitution.

That was George Wallace's claim in the 50's and 60's. That is the conservative Tea Party's claim today as seen in states attempting to nullify federal health care reform legislation passed by an overwhelming 60% to 40% margin in the U.S. Senate.

The immigration issue in America today has been met with similar resistance. Arizona decided that it had the right as a state to exceed the power granted exclusively to the federal government by the Constitution in the area of immigration. In a manner of speaking, Governor Jan Brewer became the modern George Wallace by insisting that no president, no Congress, could stop her state from dealing with immigration problems the way that they desired.

New Kentucky Republican Senator, Rand Paul, makes similar "states rights" claims. While defending the government side of the civil rights legislation of 1965, that is, that the federal government could not discriminate according to race….Paul disagrees that the federal government has the legitimate right to prohibit discrimination by private citizens. That, he says, is up to the individual states.

Now, the new Utah Senator, Republican Mike Lee has gone as far as to declare that….really…..child labor laws, laws which prevented the exploitation and abuse of children by profit-seekers…..are unconstitutional. It's the individual states, Lee claims, who have the exclusive right to fashion laws like that. Even though the Constitution clearly states….

The Congress shall have Power To lay and collect Taxes, Duties, Imposts and Excises, to pay the Debts and provide for the common Defence and general Welfare of the United States;

If "general welfare" does not include all children inside the U.S., then, words really don't have any meaning. Yet Utah's Tea Party darling senator, Mike Lee, makes that claim as he stands under the banner of those who stood against M.L.King….the claim of "states rights."

M.L. King's theme was one of non-violence, non-gun brandishing, non-inciting-to-riot. His message was one of peace and unity. His dream was of an America which treated all it's citizens….all of them….with equal respect according to law. King's message resonates today. It is not a message of each state going it's own way in some kind of lone-star-state, self-determination kind of way. Instead, King's theme was of one nation, one people…united to continue the Founder's quest to bring equal liberty and justice to all.

Yesterday and today I am blogging about the Portage County Tea Party. My intention is to inform anyone interested in finding out what it is that the Partyers really stand for. National Tea Party Senate candidates, such as Sharron Angle, Joe Miller, Rand Paul and Christine O'Donnell refuse to answer media questions, I suppose, to avoid having to explain their extremely radical positions on many policy issues. So, The Reverend has to do their job for them.

Continuing, then, with what the Portage County Tea Party lists as their "beliefs"……

Reducing Government spending

This "belief", according to my blog bud, King, is the Tea Party's reason for being. This "belief" finds it's juice from Obama's stimulus spending bill.

While reducing government spending in good times is a healthy thing to do, it is just the opposite when times are bad, like now. The stimulus bill was necessary to replace demand lost because of the failures of the U.S. banking system. How big was the threat before TARP and the Obama stimulus?

According to Representative Paul Kanjorski, speaking on C-SPAN in January 2009, the collapse of Lehman Brothers precipitated a $550 billion run on the money market funds on Thursday, September 18.

In one day. I include this in order to illustrate the magnitude of the crisis major Wall Street banksters put the country in by their reckless behavior.

My point is that government spending was absolutely essential in early 2009 to prevent a dustbowl of national economic depression. Anyone who thinks that a $550 billion run on money market funds in one day foreshadowed anything other than a national disaster……doesn't have a clue.

Secondly, on this specific "belief", Tea Party advocates say they are Taxed Enough Already. Tea Partyers believe in lower taxes. Most TP'ers do not want the Bush-era tax cuts to expire…..even though prolonging those tax cuts will mean that the federal government will have to borrow almost $4 trillion more over the next 10 years…..spending all of it on paying for those tax cuts.

If the Tea Party's "belief" in reducing government spending was a mental health patient…..it would be diagnosed as suffering from schizophrenia.

Next comes a TP'er Twofer….

Putting a STOP to ILLEGAL immigration
Fixing LEGAL immigration

The all-caps are on the handout….suggesting that immigration is really, really, important to Tea Party folks.

George W. Bush tried to reason with radical conservatives in 2005 about reforming our immigration policy. However, what he quickly discovered was that demands for "no amnesty" were more important to the right fringers than solving our immigration problem.

Centrist Republicans and most Democrats think that a "path to citizenship" including a monetary fine and learning English, among other requirements, is the way to deal with our double digit million undocumented problem. Tea Partiers call that "amnesty". Tea Partiers want to send ALL undocumenteds back to their nation of origin. In order to accomplish that goal, Tea Partiers want law enforcement to be aggressive in their hunting down of undocumenteds. That's the purpose of Arizona's new law and the copycat state laws written since.

Ronal Reagan, to today's Tea Partiers, was a champion of amnesty having agreed in the 80's to give undocumenteds inside the U.S. then a pathway to citizenship. Today's Tea Party movement would not, in good conscience, recommend voting for Ronald Reagan…..which, I think, says quite a bit about the Tea Party.

The last "belief" I want to cover:

Belief that ONLY business creates jobs

Once again, notice the all caps from the original.

This is what I call the WTF belief.

In the 1950's, when America began it's brief glory years period, do you think that Eisenhower's signing of a national interstate highway construction bill resulted in the creation of any jobs? Has our national public school education system ever created any jobs, ya' think? How about tax-payer sponsored police departments or fire departments? Any jobs created?

To state that ONLY business creates jobs…..is obviously ridiculous and should be dismissed out of hand as crankery. But I'm not leaving it at that. Tea Partiers need to have their face rubbed in it just a bit on this topic.

Today…right now….private business is sitting on trillions in cash. Sitting on it. They are sitting on this cash because, ever since the Wall Street-caused financial collapse, there hasn't been enough demand to justify expansion, expansion which would, you know, create jobs.

So the cocky Tea Party "belief" that ONLY business creates jobs is currently being countered by flush businesses who ARE NOT creating any jobs. When this situation occurs….the ONLY entity which can save and create jobs is the federal government. Why? Because business isn't doing it.

Sure, the government could simply stay out of the demand-supplying business when free market businesses fail the nation so drastically……but do the Tea Partyers really want to see 15-20% unemployment rates? Do they really want more millions of Americans to lose their jobs, health care and homes? Pray tell, how would that be better for our nation?

I admire the go-get-'em spirit of activism reflected in the Tea Party movement. I do. But a go-get-'em spirit of activism devoid of factual information and, dare I say it?….basic common sense…..in the long run, will only do further damage to an already-troubled country.

Let's play some Tea-Ball, shall we? If it's all the same to you, I'll just go ahead and Tea the Tea Party Belief Ball up……and then hit it too.

Yesterday, I listed the candidate names recommended by the Portage County Tea Party on a handout circulated to county residents this past weekend. These candidates, the handout says…."share with us a belief in the following ideas and principles."

1) Belief in INDIVIDUAL Rights and Freedom

Yes, the word individual was in all caps on the handout.

Rights and freedoms…..who is against either of those? No one……oh, wait….

Tea Party beliefs, as we've witnessed in the Tea Party supported candidates, are quite extreme. Just as Sharron Angle, for example, has refused to answer media questions about her extreme beliefs to avoid the potential fallout from stunned Nevada voters,…..so too, the Portage County Tea Party doesn't really want voters to know the extremity of their "beliefs."

The word INDIVIDUAL is in all caps because that's the most important part of belief number 1 to Tea Party members. It is the same individual right that Rand Paul spoke of when he said that private, INDIVIDUAL business owners had the Constitutionally protected right to refuse to serve blacks at their lunch counters.

Rand Paul: I like the Civil Rights Act in the sense that it ended discrimination in all public domains and I'm all in favor of that.

Questioner: But…?

Rand Paul: (nervous laugh) You had to ask me the "but." um.. I don't like the idea of telling private business owners – I abhor racism – I think it's a bad business decision to ever exclude anybody from your restaurant. But at the same time I do believe in private ownership.

Individual rights and freedoms…to Tea Party groups….also means that a pharmacist has the INDIVIDUAL right to refuse filling some prescriptions for certain customers. The Tea Party rationale here is that the INDIVIDUAL right of the pharmacist trumps the rights of customers.

Businesses that discriminate against customers based on skin color, sexual orientation, religion, etc…..or pharmacists who discriminate against customers because their religious fee-fees might be bruised if they didn't…..that's the Tea Party idea of what Individual rights and Freedom means.

2) Belief in following the Constitution

Once again, who does not believe in following the Constitution? I mean, other than Dick Cheney?

Let me suggest who doesn't believe in following the Constitution…..the Tea Party folks.

The 14th Amendment, the 17th Amendment, and at least in part, the 10th Amendment, have come under seige by today's Tea Party-driven extremists.

Rejecting the 14th (if you're born here, you're a citizen)….. is for the purpose of lashing out at Hispanic immigrants. All part of the "no amnesty" insanity. Rejecting the 17th….which guarantees state elections for citizens to vote for their federal Senators…..is for the purpose of replacing those elections with state-legislature appointed federal Senators. I guess that's called freedom, liberty…..but it kind of looks like giving freedom away to elected state officials to me. Radically reinterpreting the 10th Amendment is for the purpose of negating Obama's health care reform. States rights, often screeched in the past by conservatives in an effort to nullify civil rights legislation, is now being screeched to deny access to health insurance for all U.S. citizens.

That is what Tea Party groups call "belief in the Constitution." They want the Constitution radically changed. That's how much they believe in it.

3) Lower taxes on all Americans

Again, who does not want lower taxes? That's right, no one.

It is a fact that income tax rates, capital gains tax rates, and dividend income tax rates are at their lowest level in at least 30 years. In addition, Obama has lowered taxes for small businesses and given 95% of workers a cut on their payroll taxes.

Why then the Tea Party belief in lower taxes still? All part of a wider conservative effort to "starve the beast". The thinking is that if the government doesn't have any revenue, they can't spend any revenue. Can't the government just borrow to meet any Tea Party imposed shortfall? Not if another Tea Party "belief" bears fruit….

4) Ending government borrowing

As Lou Reed sang, it takes a busload of faith to embrace that "belief." For example, if a bad recession, you know, happens…..then the federal government could not extend unemployment benefits, food stamps, basic social safety net stuff….. if the feds had to borrow the money. How do you think that would work out? On a larger scale, if the federal government had been restricted from borrowing in 2008 …..millions more citizens would be unemployed today.

Conservatives tell me they want the federal government run like a business…..bring in the oh-so-experienced CEO's to run the government, they say. How in the hell can a business operate without access to borrowing? So, too, the federal government.

To be continued tomorrow…

In May of this year, President Obama ordered the deployment of 1200 National Guard troops to the Mexican border.

Obama did not issue that order because crime or violence had increased on the U.S. side of the border. He did it because of this…

The president announced the deployment shortly after he returned from lunch with the 41-member Senate Republican Caucus, who told him that U.S. borders first need to be secured before work could start on a sweeping overhaul of U.S. immigration laws. Arizona's two Republican senators said the deployment wasn't enough.

President Obama ordered those 1200 National Guard troops, not because the situation had deteriorated on the border, not because the U.S. had seen alarming increases in violent crime there…..he did so in order to appease his opponents in the Republican Party. Something that Obama still has not learned…can't be done.

Conservative media in the U.S. have been raising the temperature of their rhetoric over alleged Mexican border violence, and the imminent threat of some undocumented Latino Armageddon, to a fever pitch this entire year. It is one of many policy issues in which conservatives are actively working overtime in order to damage President Obama's presidency in the hopes of Republicans recapturing Congress.

However, just like with so many "news" stories in the last couple of years, the truth is rarely told.

Assistant Police Chief Roy Bermudez shakes his head and smiles when he hears politicians and pundits declaring that Mexican cartel violence is overrunning his Arizona border town.

"We have not, thank God, witnessed any spillover violence from Mexico," Bermudez says emphatically. "You can look at the crime stats. I think Nogales, Arizona, is one of the safest places to live in all of America."

FBI Uniform Crime Reports and statistics provided by police agencies, in fact, show that the crime rates in Nogales, Douglas, Yuma and other Arizona border towns have remained essentially flat for the past decade, even as drug-related violence has spiraled out of control on the other side of the international line. Statewide, rates of violent crime also are down.

To listen to AM radio talkers and conservative teleprompter readers on teevee, one could come to the conclusion that U.S. border states have become hellholes of misery and violence,…..places where American law enforcers are rarely ever seen, along a border as full of holes as swiss cheese.

"Everywhere you turn, there's some kind of law enforcement looking at you," Bermudez said. "Per capita, we probably have the highest amount of any city in the United States."

……

Clarence Dupnik, the sheriff of Pima County, said there always has been crime associated with smuggling in southern Arizona, but today's rhetoric does not seem to jibe with reality.

"This is a media-created event," Dupnik said. "I hear politicians on TV saying the border has gotten worse. Well, the fact of the matter is that the border has never been more secure."

Even Cochise County Sheriff Larry Dever, among the most strident critics of federal enforcement, concedes that notions of cartel mayhem are exaggerated. "We're not seeing the multiple killings, beheadings and shootouts that are going on on the other side," he said.

…..

Cochise County's crime rate has been "flat" for at least 10 years, the sheriff added. Even in 2000, when record numbers of undocumented immigrants were detained in the area, just 4 percent of the area's violent crimes were committed by illegal aliens.

No, these Arizona law enforcement officials don't carry the influential weight of, say, Fox News…..but they do have something Fox News doesn't….first hand factual information.

The ugly and hateful "discussion" going on in America's dark conservative circles has been ratcheted up even further into the wingertopian stratosphere with Arizona's now-struck-down new immigration law.

Recently, the '"bipartisan" Republican Senator, Lindsey Graham (R-SC), stoked the hate-fire which warms the extreme right….

“I may introduce a constitutional amendment that changes the rules if you have a child here,” Graham said during an interview with Fox News’ Greta Van Susteren. “Birthright citizenship I think is a mistake … We should change our Constitution and say if you come here illegally and you have a child, that child’s automatically not a citizen.”

Asked how intent Graham is on introducing the amendment, the South Carolina Republican responded: “I got to.”

“People come here to have babies,” he said. “They come here to drop a child. It’s called “drop and leave.” To have a child in America, they cross the border, they go to the emergency room, have a child, and that child’s automatically an American citizen. That shouldn’t be the case. That attracts people here for all the wrong reasons.”

Now, presumably, the American public has to endure some asinine "serious debate" over whether the 14th Amendment should be abolished. Minority Leader McConnell (R-KY) has demanded Senate hearings. Maverick John McCain (R-AZ) seconded McConnell's political fearmongering. John of Orange Boehner (R-OH), presumed to be sober when he said it, agrees.

All of this is meant to be a political distraction by the seemingly-crazed Republican right. How do I know this?

When Senator Jon Kyl (R-AZ) was asked whether the overturning of Proposition 8 would be raised as a wedge issue in the upcoming midterm election campaigns….Kyl said that Republicans already had their wedge issue…..immigration.

P.S. By the way…..today is August 9, 2010……8-9-10.

On April 29, The Reverend typed up these words…

….the new Arizona immigration law appears to be unconstitutional on two fronts. The first is that states do not have immigration law powers over and above what the federal government has determined. The second concerns itself with the "reasonable suspicion" threshold with which Arizona law enforcement will now determine whether a suspect should be stopped and papers demanded.

Yesterday….

U.S. District Judge Susan Bolton granted the Obama administration's request for a preliminary injunction on the grounds that immigration enforcement is the responsibility of the federal government, not states.

……

In her 36-page court order, Judge Bolton blocked several provisions of the new law, which was to take effect Thursday. Most notably, she blocked a requirement that police check the immigration status of people stopped for such routine infractions as traffic violations, if police suspect they are in the U.S. illegally. She also blocked a section that required law enforcement to detain individuals until their legal status was clarified.

Unfortunately, as clear as it was back in April that Arizona Governor Jan Brewer's new law was unconstitutional, yesterday Brewer responded this way….

Arizona Gov. Jan Brewer, reacting to the ruling, said the "fight is far from over" and vowed to take the case "all the way to the Supreme Court if necessary."

Whatever, Governor Brewer. Even with the 4 Horsemen of the Coming American Apocalypse sitting on the Supreme Court, I still don't see Arizona winning this case, should it get that far.

The most important aspect of yesterday's ruling is that other like-minded state legislatures will reconsider passing their own versions of Arizona's unconstitutional immigration law.

But consider…..

Far right conservatives, like Brewer, want to impose harsh, now deemed illegal, measures against Latinos in America. These conservatives argue that because the federal government, they claim, is failing to enforce immigration laws, the states must usurp the feds constitutionally mandated jurisdiction and pass unconstitutional racial profiling and "reasonable suspicion" state laws.

Yet, when the Bush presidency attempted to pass a comprehensive immigration bill with the hope of defusing concerns now voiced by Gov. Jan Brewer…..it was the very same far right conservatives who screeched "no amnesty", at the top of their lungs…..for weeks.

The fig leave being used here by extreme conservatives is that undocumenteds inside the U.S. have 'broken the law'….they are inside the country 'illegally', and therefore, must be punished. The "no amnesty" crowd on the conservative side wants to send all the undocumenteds, and their families, back to the nation where they came from. That's right….all 12 million of them.

I can't help but think that many conservatives really don't want to solve this immigration conundrum.

Why would that be the case? I would suggest….note: only a suggestion…..that if undocumented Latinos are given a path to citizenship, with the U.S. political dynamic the way it is now,…a large majority of those Latinos will eventually become Democratic voters. After all, it is GOP voters who want to intern undocumenteds in camps and bus them all back to Mexico and Latin America.

The Reverend's conclusion: What all the hype and sceeching and new unconstitutional laws about immigration are really about is stopping the Democratic Party from garnering a huge new block of voters.

Purely political…all of it.

I have long understood that all the craziness, insanity really, that we've witnessed over the last 18 months, all the corporate media bobble heading about such things as the economic stimulus, national health care, and financial reform could be reduced down to one common and simple denominator….

The Bush-Cheney tax cuts end in 2011.

I'll say that again….

The reason that corporate media played every townhall bustup they could find on a 24/7 loop during the entire summer of 2009…..the reason that Village media deception artists continue to take America's craziest people seriously…people like Limbaugh, Beck and Palin,….lately Rand Paul and Sharron Angle….the reason that a cartoonish Tea Party "movement" is spoken about as anything other than a prefabricated box of rocks…..IS…

The Bush-Cheney tax cuts end in 2011.

It certainly is not breaking news that America's current economic problems were brought about by reckless, apparently uncontrollable and insatiable…greed. Some non-sentient conservative beings will argue otherwise, of course,….but who cares? Those conservatives have been wrong about almost everything over the last 30 years.

Those who have paid the slightest bit of attention during the past few decades know that America, shamefully, has fully adopted the Gordon Gekko model…."greed is good."

We're all Gekkoians now.

Those who want the Bush tax cuts to be made permanent, Republicans and their overpaid media Lapdogs, also don't want Americans to know this…..

· The single largest contributor to the increase in the projected long-term deficits has been the Bush tax cuts, amounting to more than half (51 percent) of the $2.3 trillion that has been added by legislation to the deficits between 2001 to 2006.

..or this…

The Bush tax cuts have delivered $715 billion to the wealthiest one percent of the country over the last ten years, and extending the cuts would give households in that one percent $60,000 in additional breaks per year, with millionaires receiving a $150,000 annual break. Over ten years, that amounts to another $1.2 trillion in lost revenue.

..or understand this…

The top one percent….those whom Dick Armey's Tea Party minions have been working hard for….stands to lose, on average, $60,000 per year if Bush's tax cuts are allowed to expire in 6 months. Millionaires stand to lose $150,000 per year.

Ironically….not to those who are beyond irony….but to me, the huge increase in deficits, deficits that Village Media deceivers and Republican propagandists go on and on about, clutching pearls and wringing their hands incessantly in the process…..were primarily caused by the same Bush tax cuts that GOP'er and Villagers are fighting to maintain.

Here's one example from the "liberal" Washington Post, which illustrates what I'm getting at…

Staff writer, Frank Ahrens, puts on his Gordon Gekko suit.

I started with Peter Boockvar, equity strategist at Miller Tabak.

My e-mail was short: "Double-dip or slowdown?"

His response was equally abrupt: "Depends on who wins Nov. elections and what taxes get hiked in 2011."

The tax cuts enacted by President George W. Bush expire at the end of this year. President Obama has proposed extending those cuts — except for families that make more than $250,000 a year. If Republicans win Congress in November, it's a good bet that the wealthiest Americans will keep their tax cuts. If the Democrats hold the Hill, it's unlikely.

"Our fragile economy CANNOT handle any tax hikes whatsoever, particularly on capital and the income of those who invest, save and spend the most," Boockvar wrote, meaning those American families that make more than $250,000 a year. The all-caps are his, but the feeling is shared by many.

I cannot overstate the importance of this sentence….

"If Republicans win Congress in November, it's a good bet that the wealthiest Americans will keep their tax cuts. If the Democrats hold the Hill, it's unlikely."

Now, let's take a trip down the last 18 month's memory lane, you know, to put everything in perspective.

Rushbo declared that he wanted Obama to fail at just about the same time the Activist Judge, John Roberts, botched Obama's oath of office. Rick Santelli's and Dick Army's Tea Partys began three weeks later. The summer of 2009 brought a flood of incoherent townhall buster-uppers who were mad…about something. Then came more Tea Partys. "Death panels" were sighted behind every health care rock. Followed by a crescendo of screeching that Obama, a moderate pragmatist, was in actuality, Mao back from the dead. There were the loaded weapons at political gatherings, the spitting and expletive-shouting at black Democratic representatives.

When health care passed, despite the new Republican President Scott Brown replacing Ted Kennedy, we saw the "state sovereignty" movement file bogus lawsuits against the implementation of the health care legislation.

Now the Village's focus is on the totally bogus and contrived new immigration law in Arizona. Governor Jan Brewer knew going in that Arizona's new law was unconstitutional…..but the point wasn't about legality….the point was about rallying the already-angry conservative nut-base…..again. Rally the nuts to come out and vote to return Republicans to the House majority this November. Keep the crazies angry

If Republicans take the House back….as the Washington Post's interview of the "equity strategist" clearly stated….

"If Republicans win Congress in November, it's a good bet that the wealthiest Americans will keep their tax cuts."

And that is what all the craziness, all the stupidity, all the outbursts, and all the "anger" that thoughtful Americans have been shaking their heads over these last 18 months…..has really always been about.

Do you know what's in more demand than Apples' newest I-Phone?

Drones.

Everybody wants one….needs one. They're all the rage.

Tornado researchers want to send them into storms to gather data. Energy companies want to use them to monitor pipelines. State police hope to send them up to capture images of speeding cars' license plates. Local police envision using them to track fleeing suspects.

The U.S. has been using drones since 2005 along the border with Mexico. More drones have been allocated recently for the border states. And here's why…..

"It adds another layer of security. You have your boots on the ground. You have your ports of entry. You have cameras. You have sensors. The drone is like another tool in the toolbox to provide security along the border," he said.

My favorite phrase…."another tool in the toolbox."

Wiping out the 4th Amendment protection against government's illegal search and seizure of Americans' private communications during the Bush Jr. administration was simply…"another tool in the toolbox" to keep us safe, remember? Torture, famously, has been described as yet another "tool" in our endless war against…..those who hate us because of our "freedoms."

Now drones are just another "tool in the toolbox". I'm guessing that there will be a run on, like, bigger toolboxes in the future. Those drones are quite a bit larger than, you know, Uzis……at least the fully loaded models.

Just like with the use of torture, drone use for protection against those dreaded "illegals" isn't effective either…..which guarantees that America will use more of them….

The Department of Homeland Security inspector general noted that based on limited tests, the drones were less effective than manned aircraft in assisting with the apprehension of undocumented immigrants. In most cases where the drones were used to help law enforcement officers, the officers had already detected the undocumented immigrants by other means, the report said.

Anyway, I think it's clear that drones are not just for the purpose of mistakenly killing the wrong people over in Pakistan,…wedding parties, journalists, children…not anymore. Drones are now the "new tools" to keep us all safer here at home. And who doesn't want to feel safer?

With the 4 Horsemen of the Coming American Apocaplyse confirming this week that the Founders simply made a typographical error, an oversight, really, when they included the words…."a well regulated Militia, being necessary to the security of a free State…" in with the 2nd Amendment…….there's nothing to prevent all Americans from owning and operating their own private drone, you know, for personal safety issues, or self-defense, or for some other justification that is also not found in the 2nd Amendment.

Hey, American citizens have the right to defend themselves against….everybody and anybody…..and if my ownership and operation of a remote controlled "protection device" makes me feel safer, strengthens my personal sense of security…..how could Thomas, Roberts, Scalia and Alito disagree?

They won't.

How could the oh-so-sensitive to personal security Rogue Roberts Court deny equal rights to own a drone to citizens who only want to protect themselves against the hordes of criminals surrounding them…..how could the "balls and strikes calling" Horsemen deny U.S. citizens the god-given right to own one more "tool" of protection?

One might say that the Framers never mentioned the word "drone" in their 2nd Amendment guarantee as a challenge to the constitutionality of all Americans owning drones. But that would just be a silly, most likely liberal, excuse to aid America's enemies. Besides, what did the Framers know about anything? As the 4 Horsemen noted this week, just because words are in the Amendments doesn't mean the Framers intended for those words to be there. Hey, Framers can make errors too.

Now that the Activist Roberts Jihadists have scrubbed the 2nd Amendment of all words connecting gun ownership with Militias…..and reduced the 2nd to a guarantee to self-defend using weapons…..how could any weapon or "tool" be denied to all average American citizens who feel afraid all the time?

Once drone ownership becomes widespread and Americans are feeling all better about their personal security……then other "tools" can be added in with the other invisible words of guarantee of the 2nd Amendment.

For example, the Framers used the word "arms" when they spoke of what Americans were guaranteed they could own and "bear."
Everybody knows that "arms" are not just guns, long or short, anymore. Helles Belles….."arms" today include rocket launchers, helicopter gunships….and nukes.

I can't see any reason….in light of the Activist Roberts Court ruling this week…..to deny Americans access to ANY "tools" available today with which they can defend themselves.

America's secure future, made oh-so-much-brighter by the redactionist conservatives on today's highest Court……will be full of new security "tools". Today, a drone in every garage…..tomorrow intercontinential ballistic missiles in every backyard silo.

Makes sense too.

Will Arizona's new "papers please" immigration law soon come to Ohio?

Maybe.

An area lawmaker and law enforcement official known for their tough stances on illegal immigration have asked Ohio officials for legislation similar to a controversial Arizona law.

Butler County Sheriff Richard Jones and state Rep. Courtney Combs sent letters Tuesday to Gov. Ted Strickland, Senate President Bill Harris and Speaker of the House Armond Budish urging them to develop and pass a law that mirrors Arizona's Senate Bill 1070.

Under the new law, legal immigrants would (be) required to carry documents to prove their status and law enforcement officers would be required to check the legal status of anyone they suspect of being undocumented.

Who are Jones and Combs?

Jones and Combs, a pair of Republicans who have teamed up before to promote changes to immigration laws, hope to travel to Arizona to meet with Gov. Jan Brewer, who signed the bill into law April 23, to discuss the legislation.

The sheriff's outspokenness on illegal immigration has driven many Latinos from the area, residents said, forcing many businesses and restaurants to close.

"Sheriff Jones has basically plowed over this place," said resident Heather Komnenovich. "It's beginning to dry out; it's just beginning to dry out."

Butler County is in the far southwest corner of Ohio, near Cincinnati.

Seems as if the Butler County Sheriff Department has a bit of history dealing with immigrants…..

Butler County reached a $100,000 settlement last week with an illegal immigrant who was arrested at a construction site and later deported to Mexico.

Attorneys for illegal immigrant Luis Rodriguez, who was accused of providing false documentation, filed a federal lawsuit in 2008, saying Butler County sheriff's employees illegally questioned him.

The lawsuit also said the sheriff's office did not have authority to enforce federal civil immigration law.

Strict state immigration laws have been tried before…..

Arizona's passage of SB 1070 represents the most serious incursion by a state into the federal province of immigration regulation and enforcement since California's Proposition 187 in the 1990s. A federal court threw out much of that law because the state had overstepped its authority to engage in immigration matters. The Supremacy Clause of the United States Constitution similarly prevents Arizona from taking federal immigration enforcement into its own hands.

As Jonathan Turley, law professor at Georgetown University said last night, the new Arizona immigration law appears to be unconstitutional on two fronts. The first is that states do not have immigration law powers over and above what the federal government has determined. The second concerns itself with the "reasonable suspicion" threshold with which Arizona law enforcement will now determine whether a suspect should be stopped and papers demanded.

When asked, "what does an illegal immigrant look like?"…Arizona Governor Jan Brewer said this….

Governor Brewer "doesn't know what an illegal immigrant looks like." I wonder if Arizona or Ohio police know? And if they do, what criteria do they use to know who is an illegal immigrant and who isn't? If the answer to "how do you know"…is…."they look Hispanic"….then wouldn't that, by definition, be racial profiling? And isn't racial profiling in the U.S….illegal?

What, then, are Arizona and Ohio leaders trying to tell the rest of the country when they set forward unconstitutional state laws usurping federal authority while blatantly targeting Hispanics?

First, I think, conservatives are trying to rally their base for this fall's election. In 2005, George W. Bush attempted to move comprehensive immigration reform forward only to hit a brickwall of far right resistance to a "pathway to citizenship" provision. AM hate-radio was on fire in opposition to W's proposal during that time.

Conservatives, as we saw during the "let's bash the gays" state initiatives of the 2004 election….are not shy about trying to motivate their base voters to come out to vote with emotional calls of hate, fear or ignorance of the "other."

Second, as we've seen in Virginia with the Confederacy Appreciation nonsense….as we've seen with conservative governors mouthing off about refusing stimulus funds….as we've seen in the numerous red state challenges to the new health care legislation…..when Democrats control Washington, conservatives respond with an extra-wingnut-helping of "states rights" initiatives. The message conservatives hope to convey is one of defiance towards a perceived-to-be ineffective, Democratically-controlled federal government. Conservatives hope to weaken a Democratic president, politically, with these efforts

Third….simple racism. A portion of the modern conservative movement,…..I don't think it's the majority,….have become apoplectic about the prospects of whites reaching minority status sometime in the forseeable future. Recent harsh state immigration legislation, I think, contains at least a tad of that apoplexy.

I often now hear the word "tribalism" thrown around by all the millionaire teevee kewl kidz. Tribalism may seem less offensive than the word racism…but I see little difference in the two words.

This Media Matters piece is also worth reading on this topic.

Also, recent "Crazy Legislation From Across The Nation."