pacino wrote:great post tomatopie(I don't think I've said this before), but somehow I doubt that the 70% of the country that wants 12 million people deported tomorrow would agree with any of it. The majority is unreasonable and unrealistic on this issue. Many see it as 'taking our jobs' or some fraud crime issue or even take the Bill O'Reilly school of thought that filthy liberals want to 'change the complexion' of America.

dajafi wrote:Also, who are the "bigots on the left"? And don't give me Lou Dobbs; bigot yes, lefty no. He's more like a less evidently nutso Ross Perot...

TomatoPie wrote:

dajafi wrote:Also, who are the "bigots on the left"? And don't give me Lou Dobbs; bigot yes, lefty no. He's more like a less evidently nutso Ross Perot...

Bigots on the left include many who want to choke off immigration or who bleat about them displacing jobs here.

pacino wrote:great post tomatopie(I don't think I've said this before), but somehow I doubt that the 70% of the country that wants 12 million people deported tomorrow would agree with any of it. The majority is unreasonable and unrealistic on this issue. Many see it as 'taking our jobs' or some fraud crime issue or even take the Bill O'Reilly school of thought that filthy liberals want to 'change the complexion' of America.

TomatoPie wrote:I'm no fan of O'Reilly, but you're taking him out of context.

His main point, which is accurate, is that the left generally favors quick and easy citizenship for immigrants, including illegals, because 3/4 of them will become reliable Dem voters.

O'Reilly is not saying that power should belong to folks with white skin and weiners. He's merely noting, with accuracy, that the left's goal is to remove power from that traditionally powerful pale-hung group.

TomatoPie wrote:There's no great culture war nor violence over immigration that is an, err, imminent threat.

Bottom line on illegal immigration, and nearly every Washington pol understands this, though none will voice it:

1) The vast majority of illegal immigrants are people coming here to seek a better life. They want to work, they take the crappiest jobs, and they are good for the USA in ways too numerous to count. To deny the value of immigrants today is to deny the way this nation was built.

2) Even though these immigrants want to work, they of course want to enjoy any free bennies they can get.

3) There is just no freaking way to round up 12+ million illegals. IT would be even more pointless than the war on drugs.

4) We NEED these people for the economy. Bigots on the right and on the left won't concede that, but it's true.

5) These folks are here to stay, so how to deal with them? My heart tells me, and most liberals, that they need a beeline to citizenship. Get 'em legal and paying taxes. My head tells me that, because they like free stuff, they would be overwhelmingly Democratic voters. If we make citizenship easy, the GOP will never win another election and we take one major step to French style socialism.

My solution is to find some middle ground -- if you came here illegally, we define some category to make you a legal resident & taxpayer, but with less than full citizenship rights, especially voting rights. Reserve voting rights for those who gain entry & citizenship thru regular channels.

kimbatiste wrote:I love Gravel, at least he knows he's extreme and just right of crazy. Kucinich on the other hand acts like he's a real candidate.

Newsweek's Howard Fineman -- last seen expressing admiration for the "reassuring" "male" qualities exuded by the GOP presidential field -- was on Hardball last night heaping praise on Fred Thompson. According to Fineman, Thompson not only is "tough on defense," but he himself is "a tough guy." Fineman also swooned: "He's got a strong record on cultural issues as a cultural conservative from the South."

What, in Fineman's mind, makes Thompson "tough on defense" and gives him credibility as "a tough guy"? Fineman obviously means that as a high compliment, but what -- in actuality -- has Thompson ever done that warrants such praise for his alleged "tough-guy-ness"?

Here is Thompson's biography -- his own official, endorsed version. He's been a government lawyer, an actor and a Senator. Though Thompson does not mention it, he also has been -- for two decades -- what a 1996 profile in The Washington Monthly described as "a high-paid Washington lobbyist for both foreign and domestic interests." This folksy, down-home, regular guy has spent his entire adult life as a lawyer and lobbyist in Washington, except when he was an actor in Hollywood.
...
And then there is Fineman's assurance that Thompson has "a strong record on cultural issues as a cultural conservative from the South." In what way, exactly, is Thompson a "cultural conservative"?

Unlike, say, Barack Obama, Hillary Clinton, and John Edwards -- all of whom are still married to their first spouse -- Thompson divorced his wife (and the mother of his two children) after 25 years of marriage and then proceeded to marry a woman 25 years younger than he.
...
Beltway pundits are so easily fooled, because they are so eager to be. Their brains and emotional reactions -- and thereafter their political statements -- are dominated by these shallow and inauthentic symbols of masculinity and piety which overwhelm reality. They search so desperately for these attributes that they find two-dimensional cartoon images which are just archetypes -- really caricatures -- deeply satisfying.

Thus, parading around in military costumes or excitedly talking about sending people to war is infinitely more important for showing "toughness" than actually doing anything that evinces toughness. Warning in a Southern drawl that God wants marriage to be between a man and a woman is infinitely more important for demonstrating one's "cultural conservatism" than the question of whether one's behavior is actually "culturally conservative."

There is nothing in Fred Thompson's life that he has actually done that makes him "a tough guy" in the sense Fineman means it, nor is there anything that makes him a "cultural conservative." If anything, what his life actually is -- his behavior in reality -- seems to negate those characterizations.

But the illusion of manliness cliches, tough guy poses, and empty gestures of "cultural conservatism" are what the Republican base seeks, and media simpletons like Fineman, Halperin and Matthews eat it all up just as hungrily. That's how twice-and-thrice-divorced and draft-avoiding individuals like Newt Gingrich and Rush Limbaugh become media symbols of the Christian "values voters" and "tough guy," "tough-on-defense" stalwarts.

And it's how a life-long Beltway lobbyist and lawyer who avoided Vietnam, standing next to his twenty-five-years-younger second wife, is held up by our media stars as a Regular-Guy-Baptist symbol of piety and a no-nonsense, tough-guy, super-masculine warrior who will protect us all.

Rep. William Jefferson, D-La., was indicted Monday on federal charges of racketeering, soliciting bribes and money-laundering in a long-running bribery investigation into business deals he tried to broker in Africa.

The indictment handed up in federal court in Alexandria., Va., Monday is 94 pages long and lists 16 alleged violations of federal law that could keep Jefferson in prison for up to 235 years. He is charged with racketeering, soliciting bribes, wire fraud, money-laundering, obstruction of justice, conspiracy and violations of the Foreign Corrupt Practices Act.

Jefferson is accused of soliciting bribes for himself and his family, and also for bribing a Nigerian official.

Phan In Phlorida wrote:Jury Indicts Jefferson

Rep. William Jefferson, D-La., was indicted Monday on federal charges of racketeering, soliciting bribes and money-laundering in a long-running bribery investigation into business deals he tried to broker in Africa.

The indictment handed up in federal court in Alexandria., Va., Monday is 94 pages long and lists 16 alleged violations of federal law that could keep Jefferson in prison for up to 235 years. He is charged with racketeering, soliciting bribes, wire fraud, money-laundering, obstruction of justice, conspiracy and violations of the Foreign Corrupt Practices Act.

Jefferson is accused of soliciting bribes for himself and his family, and also for bribing a Nigerian official.

dajafi wrote:Lefty blogger Glenn Greenwald roughs up "TV's Fred" Thompson:

Newsweek's Howard Fineman -- last seen expressing admiration for the "reassuring" "male" qualities exuded by the GOP presidential field -- was on Hardball last night heaping praise on Fred Thompson. According to Fineman, Thompson not only is "tough on defense," but he himself is "a tough guy." Fineman also swooned: "He's got a strong record on cultural issues as a cultural conservative from the South."

What, in Fineman's mind, makes Thompson "tough on defense" and gives him credibility as "a tough guy"? Fineman obviously means that as a high compliment, but what -- in actuality -- has Thompson ever done that warrants such praise for his alleged "tough-guy-ness"?

Here is Thompson's biography -- his own official, endorsed version. He's been a government lawyer, an actor and a Senator. Though Thompson does not mention it, he also has been -- for two decades -- what a 1996 profile in The Washington Monthly described as "a high-paid Washington lobbyist for both foreign and domestic interests." This folksy, down-home, regular guy has spent his entire adult life as a lawyer and lobbyist in Washington, except when he was an actor in Hollywood.
...
And then there is Fineman's assurance that Thompson has "a strong record on cultural issues as a cultural conservative from the South." In what way, exactly, is Thompson a "cultural conservative"?

Unlike, say, Barack Obama, Hillary Clinton, and John Edwards -- all of whom are still married to their first spouse -- Thompson divorced his wife (and the mother of his two children) after 25 years of marriage and then proceeded to marry a woman 25 years younger than he.
...
Beltway pundits are so easily fooled, because they are so eager to be. Their brains and emotional reactions -- and thereafter their political statements -- are dominated by these shallow and inauthentic symbols of masculinity and piety which overwhelm reality. They search so desperately for these attributes that they find two-dimensional cartoon images which are just archetypes -- really caricatures -- deeply satisfying.

Thus, parading around in military costumes or excitedly talking about sending people to war is infinitely more important for showing "toughness" than actually doing anything that evinces toughness. Warning in a Southern drawl that God wants marriage to be between a man and a woman is infinitely more important for demonstrating one's "cultural conservatism" than the question of whether one's behavior is actually "culturally conservative."

There is nothing in Fred Thompson's life that he has actually done that makes him "a tough guy" in the sense Fineman means it, nor is there anything that makes him a "cultural conservative." If anything, what his life actually is -- his behavior in reality -- seems to negate those characterizations.

But the illusion of manliness cliches, tough guy poses, and empty gestures of "cultural conservatism" are what the Republican base seeks, and media simpletons like Fineman, Halperin and Matthews eat it all up just as hungrily. That's how twice-and-thrice-divorced and draft-avoiding individuals like Newt Gingrich and Rush Limbaugh become media symbols of the Christian "values voters" and "tough guy," "tough-on-defense" stalwarts.

And it's how a life-long Beltway lobbyist and lawyer who avoided Vietnam, standing next to his twenty-five-years-younger second wife, is held up by our media stars as a Regular-Guy-Baptist symbol of piety and a no-nonsense, tough-guy, super-masculine warrior who will protect us all.

Grotewold wrote:

Phan In Phlorida wrote:Jury Indicts Jefferson

Rep. William Jefferson, D-La., was indicted Monday on federal charges of racketeering, soliciting bribes and money-laundering in a long-running bribery investigation into business deals he tried to broker in Africa.

The indictment handed up in federal court in Alexandria., Va., Monday is 94 pages long and lists 16 alleged violations of federal law that could keep Jefferson in prison for up to 235 years. He is charged with racketeering, soliciting bribes, wire fraud, money-laundering, obstruction of justice, conspiracy and violations of the Foreign Corrupt Practices Act.

Jefferson is accused of soliciting bribes for himself and his family, and also for bribing a Nigerian official.

One of my biggest pet peeves with the media is when they print just the maximum possible jail sentence, which the sentence almost never comes even close to.

I remember the Inky said AI could get like 20 years for waving that gun at his wife or whatever and I wrote in to complain about how pointless and sensational it -- them printing the 20 year sentence thing -- was but they keep right on doing it.

pacino wrote:Ralph Nader with a hairpiece = Tommy Thompson