Conservatives Do Not Believe In States’ Rights

The most conservative judges on the Supreme Court since the 1930s issued a decision yesterday that said police could racially profile people in Arizona.  Some of the writings and statements made yesterday were overtly political – exactly what judges should not be.  The politicization of the Supreme Court by right wing extremists has reached new heights with this group.  That was the state of affairs forecasted to occur by non-partisan experts asked to comment on President Bush’s unqualified nominees.  And that is the state of affairs that has developed.  Based on the aforementioned writings, the conservative judges defended the so-called “right” of Arizona to “defend” itself against people that those in power don’t want in the state: brown people.

Is the immigration system broken?  Yes.

Are most government systems broken?  Yes.

Why are they broken?  Because those same right-wing extremists have put policies and personnel in place to ensure the systems don’t operate as they were designed.  The more they can wreck things, the truer their complaints that government doesn’t work rings true.  It’s called fulfilling their own prediction.

But hold on one moment.  Those same so-called “pro-states’ rights” folks are equally silent on the right of Montana to enforce a 100-year old law to keep corruption out of government.  Folks used to publicly pay for legislators – including U.S. Senators – to get the policies they individually wanted implemented.  The people of Montana stood up to that kind of nonsense.  Alito, Romney, Limbaugh and all the other right-wing nuts out there didn’t say word one about Montana’s right to pass a state law in the absence of national laws and a broken election system.

There are dozens of corporate media articles proclaiming Romney’s unwavering belief that states’ rights are paramount.

Except that it isn’t.  The corporate media is part of the problem.  If they sold themselves as stenographers, dutifully copying down everything fed to them by whatever source they could dredge up, that would be one thing.  But they continue to try to pass their industry off as legitimate.  The results?  Declining participation in a democratic process.  Disapproval of all branches of government.  These conditions won’t last forever.  Movements will arise and succeed in putting the ship back on course.  The wealthy and powerful won’t like it, but that’s not the real issue.

At the end of the day, conservatives believe in states’ rights.  Except when they don’t, which is more often than when they do.

Dems “Vow” To Push Climate Legislation

Excuse me while I yawn after reading something so silly.  Senate Democrats have vowed to introduce this legislation for the past 15 months.  It has yet to be introduced.  Senate Democrats have no idea what they’re doing in terms of controlling the schedule or the debate on most issues.  They botched the stimulus (certainly not enough, as  I fear we’ll come to find), they botched health care legislation (which turned into a massive health insurance giveaway), they botched climate and energy (the House has been done with their bill for almost a year now) and they’ve botched immigration (I don’t think it’s the leading issue of our time, but they certainly allowed racist Arizonans to decide when it was going to be handled).

So when I read the Senate Democrats are planning on introducing their climate and energy legislation this Wednesday, after last Monday’s false start thanks to Arizona, consider me underwhelmed.  The American people by large numbers wanted something, anything to happen with regard to health care.  Those numbers don’t exist for climate and energy legislation, despite the obviously larger degree of necessity for a 21st century policy approach.  What I think that means is there won’t be 60 votes to stop the pathetic batch of losers known as the Senate Cons from stopping everything from moving forward.  The Cons think they need to move even further toward the political fringe because a minute number of over-spoken, wealthy white men have managed to convince the corporate media that they’re more politically important than demonstrable majorities of the rest of America.

If Democrats cannot introduce and pass progressive climate and energy legislation while they control historic majorities in the House and Senate while also controlling the White House, it won’t happen any time soon.  By the time it does, critical tipping points will have been handily passed and any future actions taken will be more expensive and less effective than if they had been passed in 2009 or 2010.

Because here’s what the entire topic boils down to: the climate doesn’t care what kind of political support climate legislation enjoys in any country.  The climate is a physical process that is responding to our forcing more than it is responding to natural forcing.  It will do what it will do.  We can push it even further out of the balance it was in for most of past few hundred thousand years or we can stop forcing it and allow it to regain an equilibrium more suitable for the current variety of life on this planet.

Joan Fitz-Gerald on Jay Marvin Show

This morning, Colorado Senate President Joan Fitz-Gerald spoke with the morning talk-show host for the Denver/Boulder area, Jay Marvin on AM760. Joan is running to represent Colorado’s 2nd congressional district (CO-02). Her Democratic opponents include Jared Polis and Will Shafroth. There is an Aug. 12th primary election that will decide who the Democratic nominee for the seat will be. Then in November, the winner will face off against other party opponents. As CO-02 is solidly Democratic, the primary really constitutes the only meaningful race. The current CO-02 representative, Mark Udall, is running for the open U.S. Senate seat. Thus, there is no incumbent.

Joan started the conversation by telling Jay she has a sense of urgency about the state of the country that she doesn’t see in other members of Congress. She spoke about inertia in our political system. I think this was likely in reference to introducing “new” concepts/policies and getting them implemented. My opinion? Democrats have had a harder time than Republicans. Look at what Republicans passed in the six years from 2001 to 2006. Will Joan lead the charge to introduce progressive policies if elected?

She was asked to list her top three issues. She named the war, the economy, and health care as top concerns CO-02 residents identify. Then she went into some detail about each.

She said she was the only candidate who supported immediate withdrawal. I don’t consider this to be true. Jared Polis helped craft something called “The Responsible Plan to End the War in Iraq“. Currently, 54 Democratic House candidates have endorsed it. Joan Fitz-Gerald is not one of them. She has said it is a bad plan, that it won’t accomplish what it says it will. I’m not aware of any specific points she disagrees with. And I definitely haven’t heard any specifics on how she would propose we immediately withdraw from Iraq. Unfortunately, this sounds just like climate change delayers: criticize everybody else’s plans, but don’t come up with your own. I don’t consider that to be leadership.

Bob Schaffer & Jack Abramoff

There’s been quite the kerfluffle in the blogosphere surrounding Bob Schaffer‘s presentation of the Northern Marianas as a good example of a guest worker program. If you haven’t heard about the background story, you certainly will in the coming months. Big Oil Bob has reopened the books on some huge ethics ghosts from Republican past: Jack Abramoff and Tom DeLay. But wait, it gets better. The story also deals with … forced abortions. I’m going to enjoy watching Republicans trying to spin their way out from all this.

The least shocking thing about this is the utilization of sweatshops in the Marianas. As disgusting as it is, it’s a logical extension of the right-wing effort to destroy workers’ rights here in the United States. What would corporations give to employ workers for next to nothing while increasing the prices on products sold in the U.S.? A lot, considering the way they’ve shut down manufacturing plants state-side and opened up factories in countries with more conservative labor laws (read: little to none).