Arizona at it again; targets "anchor babies"

This has to be my favorite part:

"If you go back to the original intent of the drafters ... it was never intended to bestow citizenship upon (illegal) aliens," said [John] Kavanagh, who also supported Senate Bill 1070 -- the law that gave Arizona authorities expanded immigration enforcement powers.

Read the rest of the article here.

In summary:

A proposed Arizona law would deny birth certificates to children born in
the United States to illegal immigrant parents...

John Kavanagh, a Republican state representative from Arizona who supports the proposed law aimed at so-called "anchor babies," said that the concept does not conflict with the U.S. Constitution.

"If you go back to the original intent of the drafters ... it was never intended to bestow citizenship upon (illegal) aliens," said Kavanagh, who also supported Senate Bill 1070 -- the law that gave Arizona authorities expanded immigration enforcement powers.

Under federal law, children born in the United States are automatically
granted citizenship, regardless of their parents' residency status...

Kyrsten Sinema, a Democratic state representative, strongly opposes the bill.

"Unlike (Senate Bill) 1070, it is clear this bill runs immediately afoul of
the U.S. Constitution," she said.

"While I understand that folks in Arizona and across the country
support S.B. 1070, they do so because we have seen no action from the federal
government," said Sinema. "Unfortunately, the so-called 'anchor baby' bill does
nothing to solve the real problems we are facing in Arizona."

The founding fathers were illegal aliens. In fact, the first few presidents weren't born here. James Madison was the first president born in the nation known as the United States. We are a nation made of immigrants (unless you are Native American Indian). If children born here, even to illegals, are not citizens, then what exactly would qualify as citizenship? Do infants now need to apply for citizenship?

I don't agree with illegal immigration. It's illegal. And we have to do something about it. But not this. Children born here have always been, and always should be, United States citizens. Arizona is seeking to directly punish children for the crimes of their parents. And that just isn't right.

What further angers me is that this bill is being pushed by Republicans. Republicans, the party of Abraham Lincoln. Republicans, the party that pushed for the end of Slavery. The party that has expoused patriotism so fiercly, is now pushing yet another unpatriotic law, built upon unpatriotic ideas.

If this passes, can the Union recover? Probably. But we'll definitely be a little further away from the Constitution than we were yesterday.

Crossposted to Republicans United

Obama indoctrinating schoolchildren

...or not. Susannah, over at Get the Big Idea, posted on this. Obama, on Tuesday, September 8th, which will be the first day of school for most of the country's schoolchildren, will be delivering an address over the internet that most schools will be broadcasting into every classroom.


In Susannah's post, she likens this to the "Hitler Youth," and in her comments links to a video where children were pledging their undying support to Hitler in Nazi Germany. She says she will be pulling her children out of school due to this "unprecedented 'Presidential address' to the captive audience of our nation's school children." She has said she will be pulling her children out of school, which is her right, but is a little ridiculous. I normally wouldn't say anything, but she correctly points out that "hundreds of thousands of other parents across the nation" are doing the same, and she says it is because "Our country’s current political climate has produced unparalleled Government control in our society, and has raised to high alert suspicions of socialist motivations (& worse). In such a climate, for the President to deliver an unprecedented “address” to every child in the nation’s public schools..."


Susannah isn't alone in her hysteria. That's why it is scary. I'm seeing so much hysteria on both sides right now...the left saying the right wants to kill Obama, the right saying the left and Obama want to round them up and put them in concentration camps...enough!

The hysteria has to stop. Susannah, I do respect you, but you are just as guilty as the left in falling into hysteria about the opposition's President.

This address isn't socialistic, nor is it unprecedented.

On the U.S. Department of Education Web site Secretary Arne Duncan wrote that the speech was about "the importance of education."

"The president will challenge students to work hard, set educational goals, and take responsibility for their learning," Duncan wrote. "He will also call for a shared responsibility and commitment on the part of students, parents and educators to ensure that every child in every school receives the best education possible so they can compete in the global economy for good jobs and live rewarding and productive lives as American citizens."
...
President George H.W. Bush addressed the nation's students in a televised speech during school hours in 1991. ''I can't understand for the life of me what's so great about being stupid,'' Bush said, according to news reports from the time. He told students to ''block out the kids who think it's not cool to be smart'' and ''work harder, learn more.''

Democrats at the time criticized the speech. "The Department of Education should not be producing paid political advertising for the president, it should be helping us to produce smarter students," said Richard Gephardt, then the Democratic majority leader in the House of Representatives.

Republican Newt Gingrich defended Bush's speech, though. "Why is it political for the president of the United States to discuss education?" Gingrich said at the time. "It was done at a nonpolitical site and was beamed to a nonpolitical audience. . . . They wanted to reach the maximum audience with the maximum effect to improve education."

Everyone needs to calm down.

Waterboarding saved NO lives.

I have previously blogged about the morality and legality of waterboarding here, here, here, here, here, and here. There are other articles out there that deal with this, such as the illegality of threats of imminent death. But this post will be about the other argument I've heard: "It worked." Not true.

Even though Cheney has claimed that documents would vindicate his claim that his "enhanced interrogation techniques" [torture] saved "hundreds of thousands of lives," (a claim he later backtracked on, implicity denying that they saved a single life in reality) one of the FBI's best interrogaters has shown that, in reality, waterboarding doesn't work.

Here are some of the highlights of the article:

Former FBI Interrogator Ali Soufan testified on the use of torture before a subcommittee of the Senate Judiciary Committee and stated that the so-called enhanced interrogation techniques are "slow, ineffective, unreliable, and harmful to our efforts." Soufan was able to obtain valuable intel using techniques labeled the "informed interrogation approach", which are consistent with the Army Field Manual. His testimony is fascinating.

Soufin was the agent who first interrogated Abu Zubaydah, the man now famous for being waterboarded 83 times. Zubaydah had been badly wounded in the struggle to capture him and was almost immediately taken to a hospital. It was there that Soufin began his interrogation, and gained "important, actionable intelligence" within the first hour regarding the role Khalid Sheikh Mohammed played in the 9-11 attacks. Committee Chair Sheldon called this "one of the more significant pieces of intelligence information we've ever obtained in the war on terror."

Soon the CIA-CTC was brought in, and a private contractor instructed them to subject Zubaydah to harsh interrogation techniques. Michael Isikoff wrote that: "Agency operatives were aiming to crack him with rough and unorthodox interrogation tactics—including stripping him nude, turning down the temperature and bombarding him with loud music." Soufan told the committee that Zubaydah "shut down." Later, Soufan interrogated the man again, using Army sanctioned methods, and Zubaydah disclosed information about the alleged "dirty bomber" Jose Padilla. According to Soufan, the contractor soon reasserted control, ordering the use of "enhanced" techniques and Zubaydah shut down again. Worried, Soufan objected to his FBI superiors, and was soon ordered home by Director Mueller, who also decreed that FBI personnel should no longer participate in CIA interrogations.

Soufan's account of this interrogation contradicts the May 2005 memo from the Office of Legal Counsel which implied that this valuable information was elicited from Zubaydah as a result of the harsh interrogation techniques used. Soufan's account is deeply damaging to arguments about torture's effectiveness Dick Cheney and other Bush-era officials have been making of late.

Soufan describes his methods as follows:
The approach is based on leveraging our knowledge of a detainee's mindset, vulnerabilities, and culture together with using intelligence already known about him. The interrogator uses a combination of interpersonal, cognitive, and emotional strategies to exact the information needed. If done correctly, this approach works quickly and effectively because it outsmarts the detainee using a method that he is not trained nor able to resist.

He then critiqued the "enhanced techniques":
The Army Field Manual is not about being soft; it's about outwitting, outsmarting, and manipulating the detainee. The approach is in sharp contrast of the enhanced interrogation method that instead tries to subjugate the detainee into submission through humiliation and cruelty. The idea behind it is to force the detainee to see the interrogator as the master who controls his pain. It's merely an exercise in trying to force compliance rather than elicit cooperation. A major problem with it is it is ineffective. Al Qaeda are trained to resist torture. As shocking as these techniques are to us, their training prepares them for much worse. The torture that they would receive if caught by dictatorships, for example. In a democracy, however, there is a glass ceiling the interrogator cannot breach. And eventually, the detainee will call the interrogator's bluff..... The technique is also unreliable. We don't know whether the detainee is being truthful or just speaking to mitigate his discomfort. The technique is also slow. Waiting 180 hours as part of a sleep deprivation stage is time we cannot afford to waste in a ticking-bomb scenario.
-----

There is more in the article linked above. It's a good read. We could've gotten the information in many different ways. But no, we wanted to feel better and [torture] our detainees, getting back at them for 9/11. But we did not have to, and it was an exercise in futility.

Here is something else that has bothered me in this whole debate: the questioning of our patriotism if we have a legitimate problems with torture, even of our enemies. I personally have had my Republican credentials questioned because I didn't, and never will, support torturing our enemies.

I think this summed it up quite well for me:

Conservative pundits casually liken waterboarding to prep-school initiation, and claim that anyone who opposes prisoner abuse must simply hate America. The president himself asks us to move on. And the great number of ordinary Americans who have, in fact, expressed outrage are dismissed as members of the bloodthirsty "hard left."

Right-wing paranoid delusions: We are better than that.

From the Progressive Republican's article Nightmares
and Dreamscapes:
----------------------------------------------------
In a conference room. Maybe seven or eight government employees in their late 30s-early 40s. They’re wearing suits from Ann Taylor, or Men’s Wearhouse sitting on one side of a conference table that looks like it came right out of the Office Depot catalog In one hand they’re holding cups of coffee, or cans of Diet Coke (or some other caffeinated drink - they’ve been working late the last couple of nights) , the other hand busily hammering the keyboards of their mid-tier laptop computers, jotting down notes, trying to capture what the lady on the side of the table is saying.

Across the table is a woman in her mid 60s. Her blouse and pants recently purchased from the local Wal-Mart, her shoes from Payless Shoes. She’s nervously playing with her purse handles as she shuffles her feet. She’s not sure how to answer this last question. She should have been prepared for this question. She was…until just this second.
“We’d all like to get out of here today, Ma’am, so please answer as best you can,” the Committee chair sighs as she asks the question for the third time, “When you the government no longer finds you insurable…” she pauses, not for effect, but because she still can’t believe she has to ask the question.
“…how do you want to die?”
Chilling isn’t it? Cold, bureaucratic evil, like a scene out of the film CONSPIRACY. If certain right wing celebrities are to be believed this won ‘t be that far from the truth should Barack Obama’s health care plan pass both House of Congress.

But they are not to be believed. This is a a nightmare scenario crafted by self-styled leaders of the Republican Party. This is the kind of thing that has to stop.


Let’s be honest: Obama’s Plan is a bad one. It’s costly beyond comprehension. It adds bureaucratic roadblocks to an already excessively bureaucratic process. And, despite all the costs, it only provides additional care for a small percentage of the nation’s uninsured.
It’s a bad plan with any number of weaknesses that Republicans can point to as reasons we should be vehemently against it. Is it necessary to make things up about it?

Who is helped by devising scenarios like the one described above? Does Sara Palin making up spooky stories about Obama’s DEATH PANEL, really add weight to the argument against the real plan?

Does comparing the health plan to Nazis [limbaugh-20090806-hitler.flv] like friend of the blog, Rush Limbaugh, has done?

No. This type of rhetoric serves only to cheapen the debate.

Yes, Democrats spent a large portion of President Bush’s Presidency engaging in these very same tactics. Whether it was calling the President a Nazi for the War in Iraq or shouting down Republican members of Congress, the extreme left showed their true colors by acting insane on the public stage in support of their various causes. We justifiably condemned them for that behavior. We don’t need to turn around use those same tactics.

Not when we have the facts on our side. House Republicans have made some very clear arguments why they are against the current bill :

…was unnecessarily rushed through the Committee without proper understanding or even a reading of the bill by Members;
The massive spending and tax increases will damage an already reeling economy;
Americans will lose coverage they have and like;
The bill gives the government control over Americans’ personal health decisions
Clear, cogent arguments from the men and women we have elected to represent us in Congress. This is what we should be basing our resistance on. Not the overblown rhetoric of extreme right-wing celebrities. We have more sense than that.
-----------------------------------------------------------

I couldn't have said it better myself. People screaming "socialism!" "Nazis!" "Communism!" "Death Panels!" or other such nonsense are detrimental to the cause.

Stick to the facts: this plan sucks. We need a better one, not false and crazy accusations.

Republicans: Denounce Norm Coleman

Seriously. The Minnesota citizens have waited long enought for representation. Its been now eight months since they voted. And they still don't have their senator.

The party that cried "Sore Looserman!" in 2000 (Gore was being a bit of a tool with all those recounts (and his invention of the internet haha)) needs to take their own advice.

Al Franken leads Coleman by at least 312 votes after all recounts. Yet he is still fighting. This isn't a noble fight, however.

Its a blatant voter rip off. The people spoke. They chose Franken. Deal with it dude. Stop being such an ass, and stop putting your career above the people you swore to serve. They don't want you!

The lower courts of Minnesota have spoken: Franken is the winner. Coleman is the loser. Stop denying the Minnesota Citizens democracy for your stupid partisanship.

Please, Republican Party: If you really stand for what you say you stand for, denounce Coleman and let the people speak.

Source

Sotomayor + Rush's ignorance...

Furthering my theory that Rush in uneducated lifewise, or purposefully ignorant, Rush Limbaugh came out against Sonia Sotomayor, saying

"Do I want her to fail? Yeah. Do I want her to fail to get on the court? Yes. She'd be a disaster on the Court.
Do I still want to Obama to fail as President? Yeah, -- AP, you getting this?
He's gonna fail anyway, but the sooner the better here so that as little damage can be done to the country."

And why would she be a disaster? Oh, because Obama appointed her. Nothing else.

He forgets to mention that she was first appointed to the bench by President H.W. Bush in November 1991. She's also considered a political centrist by the American Bar Association, which is what you want in a Judge; you want someone not tied down by party lines.

Not to mention that George W. Bush also considered her as a supreme court nominee, not to mention she is more qualified than anyone else currently holding the position.

Rush Limbaugh only cares because Obama appointed her. That's all. Why? Because he wants Obama to fail. Not in his "socialist agenda," but wants "Obama to fail as President."

Partisan, ignorant, fear-monger.

Good luck, Sonia. Rush Limbaugh has his drug-addled sights set on you.

George W. Bush on torture.

"Torture anywhere is an affront to human dignity everywhere... I call on all governments to join with the United States and the community of law-abiding nations in prohibiting, investigating, and prosecuting all acts of torture."~George W. Bush, June 2003

This goes with the below post.

We impeached Clinton for lying. Huh.

Another reason I'm no longer a Republican.