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Arizona Immigration Law May Lead to Consensus
Tweet Share on Facebook May 4, 2010 Comment (77)By Mary Kate Cary, Thomas Jefferson Street blog
I was traveling this weekend to a family reunion and got seated on the plane between two beefy guys, who were on a business trip with some similarly beefy colleagues in the next row. When I asked where they were headed, they replied, “To a mock riot.” Huh? It turns out they were all prison guards (“Call us corrections officers, please!”) going for annual training in how to suppress an inmate uprising. Between a lot of joking with me, good-natured teasing of my mother nearby, and some prison-related banter (their prison movie all-time favorites: The Shawshank Redemption and Escape from Alcatraz; their favorite tool for controlling inmates: water cannon), I asked who their most notorious inmates were. They said it was a group of high school boys who were charged with hate crimes and murder in the racially-motivated killing of an Hispanic man in 2008. It was a horrible crime. That led us to start talking about the controversial new immigration law in Arizona.
While none of us thought the law was perfect by any stretch, and while we all believed that immigrants helped make this country great, we also all agreed that the frustration of the people of Arizona is understandable, given what’s going on in some of the border towns. We all agreed that securing the border must be one of the top duties of the federal government. They hadn’t read Peggy Noonan’s column over the weekend, but we talked about this part:
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Virginia Attorney General Goes on Climategate Witch Hunt at UVA
Tweet Share on Facebook May 4, 2010 Comment (21)By John Aloysius Farrell, Thomas Jefferson Street blog
"Malfeasance" is one of the various causes cited in the Virginia constitution for proceeding with impeachment proceedings against a high state government official. By his own warped logic of what constitutes cause for an official interrogation, Attorney General Ken Cuccinelli II should be investigated for malfeasance, and possible impeachment.
In an interview in today's Washington Post, Cuccinelli said his newly-launched probe into the background of former University of Virginia professor Michael Mann is justified because, as the attorney general put it, "there does seem to be at least an argument to be made" that scientists "including potentially" Michael Mann, have been "steering a course to reach a conclusion" on global warming. Alright. There seems to be "at least an argument to be made" that dishonest politicians, "including potentially" Ken Cuccinelli II, are abusing their power to promote their political careers at the expense of the citizenry. If Mann can be investigated for fraud, Cuccinelli should be investigated too.
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Is a Church Cashing In on Women's Porn Addiction?
Tweet Share on Facebook May 3, 2010 Comment (28)By Bonnie Erbe, Thomas Jefferson Street blog
I must admit I fell right into the trap predicted by one church leader. But I have a hard time believing that "women addicted to pornography" is a growing problem and a trend that is going to exacerbate in the future.
The New York Times ran a story today about a Kansas mega-church that runs a program to help women addicted to pornography kick the habit. My initial reaction: How many women could be "addicted" to pornography? At best, I would believe it's a niche problem. One Craig Gross, a self-described youth pastor (apparently earning almost $10,000 per month selling 30-day online memberships to his program that helps people kick the pornography habit) told the Times some 20 percent of his customers are women: -
Why Illegal Immigration Should Worry Democrats
Tweet Share on Facebook May 3, 2010 Comment (28)By Scott Galupo, Thomas Jefferson Street blog
One of the things that continually puzzles me about the immigration debate—not just in Arizona, but generally—is how the left almost exclusively frames it in terms of economic opportunity and civil liberties.
And yet the cost of undocumented immigrants has an appreciable impact on just about every policy arena that liberals care most about--whether it’s rising healthcare costs, schools that are long on pupils and short on funding, the environmental degradation and aesthetic blight of exurban sprawl, pressure on low-income wage-earners, or widening inequality.
Illegal immigration is not the lone culprit of any of these problems, but, at the very least, it exacerbates them.
Maybe it’s the perception of conservative racism or xenophobia; maybe it’s the potential bonanza of future Democratic votes. Whatever the case, liberals are oddly tone-deaf to the challenges of importing so much poverty.
If I’m wrong about this—if I simply haven’t read widely enough—I’ll happily stand corrected. -
On Citizens United, Democrats Demagogue Free Speech
Tweet Share on Facebook May 3, 2010 Comment (10)By Peter Roff, Thomas Jefferson Street blog
The Democrats appear to be so afraid of free speech, applied equally in the political arena that they have taken to—let’s be charitable—misstating the facts about the U.S. Supreme Court’s recent decision in the Citizens’ United case. Case in point is the assertion, which President Barack Obama himself made in his most recent State of the Union address, that the court’s ruling in Citizens’ United would “open the floodgates for special interests--including foreign corporations--to spend without limit in our elections.”
The idea that foreign interests might subvert the nation’s independence by interfering in the U.S. electoral process is a concern almost as old as the nation itself. It’s one reason the Founding Fathers included in Article II of the U.S. Constitution the provision that “No Person except a natural born Citizen, or a Citizen of the United States, at the time of the Adoption of this Constitution, shall be eligible to the Office of President.”
As applied to the Citizens United decision, the idea that foreign dollars are suddenly going to pour into U.S. campaigns is big lie No. 1. Nevertheless, as my bloleague Linda Killian wrote here Saturday, the Democrats have made a prohibition against it the centerpiece of their legislative proposal to overturn the court’s decision. Such a move is unnecessary and demagogic.
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Virginia Attorney General Ken Cuccinelli's Wardrobe Malfunction
Tweet Share on Facebook May 3, 2010 Comment (9)By John Aloysius Farrell, Thomas Jefferson Street blog
One of the few pleasant side effects of a deep recession, like the one from which we are now emerging, is that while grown-ups grapple with reality, a few infants are invariably elected by grumpy voters, giving the rest of us many enjoyable moments watching their antics.
That is what has happened in Virginia, where Attorney General Ken Cuccinelli II has decided that the state seal, which was good enough for the Founding Fathers and many succeeding generations of Virginians, needs a wardrobe adjustment.
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Politics Trumps Bipartisanship on Immigration, Campaign Finance
Tweet Share on Facebook May 1, 2010 Comment (19)By Linda Killian, the Thomas Jefferson Street blog
When the Democrats announced campaign finance reform 3.0 Thursday on the steps of the Supreme Court, their answer to the court’s Citizens United decision allowing corporate funding of political activity, one man was noticeably absent. John McCain, whose name is on the 2002 campaign finance reform measure which was the focus of the court’s decision, was nowhere in sight.
When I asked Sen. Russ Feingold, the legislation’s other namesake, where McCain was, he quipped that McCain was a little busy fighting off a primary challenge in Arizona and would probably ultimately support the legislation.
Feingold was probably trying to be ironic, but his comment was closer to the mark than he may have meant it to be. McCain’s personal political situation, and that of many others this election year including Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid, are inextricably linked to major legislation dealing with some of the most difficult issues this nation faces.
