Walter M. Basch: The Obama administration is a welcome change from the Bush–Cheney years. However, much of what President Obama is doing appears to be an extension of Bush–Cheney values.
Why the GOP’s Bizarre Attack on the 14th Amendment
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Andrea Nill: it likely boils down to two things: riling up their base before November’s midterm elections and creating a toxic environment to kill any chance of the DREAM Act passing if and when it is introduced this fall.
J.D. Hayworth Challenges Administration on Immigration Enforcement Weeks Before National Guard Deploys to Border
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Seth Hoy: Campaign politics aside, challenging the Obama Administration on immigration enforcement—an issue that immigration advocates have criticized the President as being too heavy-handed on, in fact—just doesn’t make sense.
Abel Maldonado: Poster Child for Prop 25
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Paul Hogarth: As Gavin Newsom runs for Lieutenant Governor, he would be wise to make the passage of Proposition 25 a central part of his campaign – which ends the “two-thirds rule” for passing a budget. Because there is no better poster child for how Sacramento’s dysfunction has thrown the state off a cliff than Abel Maldonado – Newsom’s Republican opponent.
Conservatives Repeat False Claim That Phoenix Is ‘Kidnapping Capital of the World’
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Andrea Nill: Mike Huckabee defended SB-1070, telling Greta Van Susteren that Arizona was perfectly justified in passing the draconian immigration law partly because the state is the “number one kidnapping capital in the world.”
Arizona Senators Decry DOJ Lawsuit Yet Won’t Support Immigration Reform
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Seth Hoy: The point is that the “federal government’s responsibility”—a government which Sens. McCain and Kyl are certainly a part of—to reform our broken immigration system is being thwarted by the same senators who complain that the government isn’t doing enough.
Arizona Legislator on Difference Between Her and Jan Brewer: ‘I Believe In The Facts’
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Andrea Nill: Brewer has also defended her decision to sign off on SB-1070 by stating that Arizona is “under siege” by Mexican drug cartels and undocumented immigrants and has repeatedly slammed the federal government for not securing the border.
Obama’s Unkept Promises to Labor New Outrage Exposes Obama’s Failure To Help Unions
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Randy Shaw: Candidate Barack Obama pledged to end undemocratic union elections, and recommitted to this reform when he spoke at the AFL-CIO Convention in September 2009. But Obama has not even acted to get legislation addressing the loophole introduced.
Divisive Rhetoric Will Not Solve Illegal Immigration Problem
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Tracy Emblem: The United States and Mexico must partner to resolve economic problems related to Mexico’s poverty, employment, income disparity, drug corruption, and democratic governance. Unless we change our policies, “securing our borders” will continue to be another catchy phrase used by politicians without real results.
LA Progressive Articles: June 6-12, 2010
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Articles by Anthony Samad, Gil Troy, Paul Hogarth, Seth Hoy, Carl Matthes, Andrea Nill, Randy Shaw, Tom Degan, Marcy Winograd, Seth Hoy, Mark Bowen, Gary Coseri, Michael Sigman, Tom Hall, Sharon Kyle, Robert Reich, Tom Degan, Sikivu Hutchinson, Adam Eran, Carl Bloice, Shamus Cooke, and Tina Dupuy
When Does Border-First Become Border-Only?
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Seth Hoy: While President Obama and Gov. Brewer agreed that “federal inaction on a comprehensive immigration overhaul is unacceptable,” she has done nothing to substantiate that notion. Meanwhile, Gov. Brewer admits that crime is down in Arizona (as well as other border towns), even though she has repeatedly claimed that her state is “under siege” from border crime
Friday Feedback: Enforce Immigration Policy
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Friday Feedback: Let’s stop being so naïve about how we’re used by those who want to increase their political and economic power. It’s in our best interests and it’s even better for our immigrant populations if we enforce immigration policy, not just ignore the lawbreakers until the right wing can use it as a wedge issue.
Bald Pols: To Pay or Not Toupee
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Michael Sigman: It’s tough to be a politician and a member of what Larry David calls “the bald community” in America, particularly when your shoulders also carry the burden of taking our country back. On last week’s Real Time with Bill Maher, one of the host’s New Rules was, “If Rand Paul is a true libertarian, he has to free his toupee.”
Judging the Judges 2010
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Sharon Kyle: Studies have shown that the average voter goes to the polls with little to no information on judicial races.Every election cycle, we are asked to vote for people few of us have heard of for offices that few of us know very much about. Yet these offices carry tremendous power.
What in the Sam Hill Is Wrong with Arizona?
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David A. Love: I don’t know what it is exactly about Arizona, but I do know that the state needs to be boycotted like a Montgomery bus. That state must realize that you cannot treat any group of people as lesser than the rest, nor can you disrespect the country’s largest minority group and expect to emerge unscathed. There must be a price to pay this time, and what better place to start than with the Arizona economy? When an Arizona lawmaker wants to boycott his own state, you know how bad it is.
At Long Last, Obama’s Going Bush
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Robert Illes: The tea baggers had finally encroached on, and engulfed, the mainstream of the Grand Old Party. As John McCain cringed the other day in Arizona, the running mate he made famous, Sarah Palin was re-filling her 15 minutes of fame card. (McCain cannot stop making the same deal with the devil he made that put her on the ticket in the first place) She gave her “ich bin ein Tea Partyer” spiel… dragging the desperate old maverick along with her. He made no mention of his promise of no cooperation with the Democrats for the rest of the year – perhaps because he had already fulfilled that promise in the first part of the year.
Arizona Students Arrested for Protesting Police State
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Mario Solis-Marich: The arrests led to even more unrest as supporters of the incarcerated youth turned up at the jail and demanded their release. Today passions remain strong as young Latino activists commit to continue to hit the streets demanding national leadership on the immigration issue and a veto of the Arizona State Bill 1070.
Arizona Governor Jan Brewer to Choose the Future
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Mario Solis-Marich: In a single stroke of her pen Governor Brewer can set back her party even deeper into a demographic hole, transform her state into a national social pariah, and downgrade her political future to that of a speaker on the circuit forged by Tom Tancredo and Lou Dobbs. Is Brewer Tom Tancredo or is she Ronald Reagan? This week we shall find out.
News/PR Line Gets Blurrier
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Michael Sigman: Many of the thirty-thousand-plus newspaper journalists laid off in the past two years have signed on to corporate public relations gigs, further blurring the already-murky line between PR and news. When the handful of corporate chieftains who control most mainstream media hire as PR agents the journalists who used to expose them, they’re one giant step closer to commandeering the information narrative in America.
Bet on Barbara Boxer in November
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Randy Shaw: The media always promotes Republicans like Campbell or John McCain who are reactionary and corporate-owned on most issues but have a few stands that are common to Democrats. This makes them “mavericks,” and allegedly shows they can appeal to Democrats.
McCain: Arizona A ‘Wonderful’ Place For Hispanics
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Andrea Christina Nill: McCain is understandably proud and defensive of his home state, however, his oblivious dismissal of the plight of Arizona Latinos demonstrates just how out of touch McCain is with a Latino electorate which used to constitute a large part of his base.
Obama and U.S. Foreign Policy
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K.C. Johnson: Unlike his predecessor, Obama has avoided any shattering foreign policy mistakes. But as our political culture shows no signs of improving, he will remain a President whose foreign policy choices are very much complicated by the poisonous atmosphere in which he operates.
Sarah Palin at the Tea Party Convention: She’s Baaaaack
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Sharon Kyle: When asked if the movement was broad enough to attract conservative democrats, Palin said, “they’re already peeking in — it’s pretty cool to see some of the Blue Dog Democrats peeking under the tent and finding out what is this movement all about and, holy geez, I’m scared if I’m not a part of this.”
Gibbs: Obama’s Immigration Position Unchanged
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Andrea Christina Nill: According to Gibbs, the question isn’t whether President Obama still supports passing comprehensive immigration reform, but rather, whether the White House can be convinced that there is enough bipartisan support to get it passed. A recent affirmative statement from Sen. Lindsey Graham (R-SC) indicates that at least one key GOP member is reaching out to his colleagues and encouraging them to embrace the immigration issue. Meanwhile, themajority of Republican and Independent voters already support comprehensive immigration reform.
Why Immigration Reform Prospects Didn’t Change Overnight
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Andrea Nill: Brown’s voters also support comprehensive immigration reform by a wide margin and overwhelmingly voted for Sen. Edward Kennedy (D-MA) — an avid champion of immigrant rights — year after year. If anything, Scott’s win represents a frustration with partisan-driven inaction. It also encompasses a collective sense of impatience with the lack of economic recovery. Immigration reform could speak to both.
A Self-Described ‘Wiser Lou Dobbs’ Supports Legalizing Undocumented Immigrants
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Lou Dobbs: Despite his new proclaimed emphasis on border security and legalization, during the beginning of the segment a supposedly “wiser” Dobbs told O’Reilly that a recent bill introduced by Rep. Luis Gutierrez (D-IL) is nothing but a “a list of what the open-borders amnesty crowd wants.”
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Arpaio Slams McCain’s ‘Open Border’ Policies
Andrea Christina Nill: Local news outlets are reporting that last week, Arizona Sheriff Joe Arpaio disseminated a stinging letter urging Republican primary voters to support right-wing shock jock and former Congressman J.D. Hayworth over Sen. John McCain (R-AZ) in his bid for Arizona’s U.S. Senate seat.