Razing Arizona

If you've been wondering how Arizona could get even classier and find a way to top its "HEY! YOU LOOK MEXICAN!" law, they're here to tell you they've finally thought of it. You know how we all hate the Constitution? You're in luck, Arizona does too.

Buoyed by recent public opinion polls suggesting they're on the right track with illegal immigration, Arizona Republicans will likely introduce legislation this fall that would deny birth certificates to children born in Arizona — and thus American citizens according to the U.S. Constitution — to parents who are not legal U.S. citizens. The law largely is the brainchild of state senator Russell Pearce, a Republican whose suburban district, Mesa, is considered the conservative bastion of the Phoenix political scene.
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But the likely new bill is for the kids. While SB1070 essentially requires of-age migrants to have the proper citizenship paperwork, the potential "anchor baby" bill blocks the next generation from ever being able to obtain it. The idea is to make the citizenship process so difficult that illegal immigrants pull up the anchor and leave.
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But that was 1868. Today, Pearce says the 14th Amendment has been "hijacked" by illegal immigrants. "They use it as a wedge," Pearce says.

Ah yes, the quintessentially American state of mind that causes us to see our laws and way of life as under an imaginary threat ("The Mexicans is takin' over illegally!") and then go about dismantling those freedoms, undermining that way of life, and violating our laws in order to "protect" ourselves. This time that onerous 14th Amendment has to go. Just who does that legal document outlining the supreme law of the United States think it is?

So head back to Mexico illegals and take your US citizen children with you. The Governor says so. Stop plaguing us with the "wrong" and "immoral" ways in which you situation confiens to our Constitution. What did your children do to deserve to be citizens anyway? It's not like they did what Governor Brewer and Rep. Pearce did to become citizens: be born white and then act with a smug sense of entitlement that they "earned" their natural born citizenship.

So eat it, Mexicans and the Constitution. Mexicans, sure, your US born kids might be US citizens, but consider this your first lesson in the way American works: our laws usually have tons of wiggle room when it comes to "the tans" and "the darks". Teach your kids that... from Guadalajara. And to the Constitution, sure we may bleat on and on about how you're the supreme law of the land, but that's only when you don't piss off right wing white people and their attempts to demonize minorities for naked political purposes. Then you're an onerous burden. Shape up or we'll start ignoring you on even more stuff besides the 14th amendment and all the war on terror/spying stuff. Get it straight.

Bang on, Supreme Court!

A week ago, the Obama Administration and Republican Senator Lindsay Graham were in negotiations to "modify" (read: weaken) the Miranda Law. Why? Of course it was because of teh turrists and turrism and our new found principles that to protect our rights, we must weaken, remove, and ignore our rights.

It was one of the residual pants shitting maneuvers left from the Times Square bomber. And none to soon. Once it was revealed that the authorities read him his rights, everyone went nuts. "How dare they read a terrorist his rights!" That he talked, was cooperative, and gave us useful intelligence and answers afterward is ignored. By refusing to immediately waterboard him, declare him an enemy combatant, and start in with the Jack Bauer shit, it didn't make us feel manly as a country. This cannot stand! So we must step in and take manly Miranda weakening measures.

About that. Seems the Supreme Court decided to get there and weaken it first.

A right to remain silent and a right to a lawyer are the first of the Miranda rights warnings, which police recite to suspects during arrests and interrogations. But the court said that suspects must tell police they are going to remain silent to stop an interrogation, just as they must tell police that they want a lawyer.
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"Thompkins did not say that he wanted to remain silent or that he did not want to talk to police," Kennedy said. "Had he made either of these simple, unambiguous statements, he would have invoked his 'right to cut off questioning.' Here he did neither, so he did not invoke his right to remain silent."

Justice Sonia Sotomayor, the court's newest member, wrote a strongly worded dissent for the court's liberals, saying the majority's decision "turns Miranda upside down."

"Criminal suspects must now unambiguously invoke their right to remain silent - which counterintuitively, requires them to speak," she said. "At the same time, suspects will be legally presumed to have waived their rights even if they have given no clear expression of their intent to do so. Those results, in my view, find no basis in Miranda or our subsequent cases and are inconsistent with the fair-trial principles on which those precedents are grounded."

Will everyone act surprised when I tell them that this was a 5-4 decision? It was a 5-4 decision! And cue shocked faces.... nicely done, dear readers.

That's right, the Supreme Court ruled that in order to have an inherent right, you must invoke it. I think that's the way most inherent rights works. I mean if something is inherent that means you have to explicitly state it aloud or it doesn't apply. That's what inherent means, right?

I mean that's how we work free speech and freedom of the press. Unless we start each statement or news story with "I am invoking my rights to free speech from now until the end of this statement/story" we are liable to be thrown in jail for whatever we say/write. This decision just codifies that for legal proceedings and the Miranda Law.

So, bang up job, Supremes. With you and our elected betters at work, we're well on our way to making it so that the only rights we have are the ones we're told we're allowed to have in the designated areas and times we're allowed to have those rights in. I'm sure this'll be the death blow to Al Qaeda and all who would do us harm.

Raaaaaaaaaaandy

This post-primary period has been tough for Ran Paul. When everyone in the national media rushes to point out how childish your ideology is when it's said out loud and you have to spend all your time backtracking and assuring people that you want black people to vote, things aren't going great. Then the libertarians completely back away from you and Senate Minority Whip and fellow Kentuckian Republican Mitch McConnell starts intimating that you need to seriously consider shutting the fuck up and going away.

So what does one do to shore up these mistakes and prove your libertarian, Constitution loving bona fides? By advocating for insanely expensive methods of capturing Mexicans and opining how you'd love it if someone would pass a law that violated the 14th Amendment. Naturally.

I recently have been talking more about satellite observation. They say you can sit in front of the store here and a satellite can read the headline on your newspaper. So I think you could also monitor your border with satellites, and then you just have to have some means of intercepting people who come in illegally. You could have helicopters stations positioned every couple of hundred miles. . .

We’re the only country I know of that allows people to come in illegally have a baby and then that baby becomes a citizen. And I think that should stop also.

Hey nothing says libertarian quite like government agencies using spy satellites to direct surveillance and black helicopter brigades to anyone suspicious on the border. But it's nice to know that a man who admits to getting nude and rubbing himself down with the Bill of Rights and feels that before passing a piece of legislation Congress “should point to where in the Constitution they get the authority for it” has no qualms with passing a law that directly violates the Constitution. I just wonder what part of the Constitution he's going to point to when he tries to pass this "Fuck you, freeloading babies" Law. Maybe he'll fake a siezure or claim he was being asked "gotcha" questions.

I guess that libertarian/strict constructionist line of thought goes out the window when it either deals with issues that affect Rand himself or deals with Mexican bashing making it easier for him to get elected.

Ah, but we're talking as if gross hypocrisy and appearing to be a little bit racist against blacks and Mexicans is actually a negative in a Kentucky political contest. He's ahead right now anywhere from 3 points to 25 points. We at TB Industries look forward to Raaaaaaaaaaandy dragging down the intelligence level of the US Senate. We didn't think that was possible.

Keep on staying classy, Arizona

Pop quiz, hotshot. How do you know someone is a fierce advocate for Constitutional rights?

Well, for one, they're probably shouting it at the top of their lungs. Secondly, if they're a lawmaker, they're shouting it right in the moments before they try to do something grossly and nakedly unconstitutional.

In this case, our example comes from the Great State of Arizona. "Great" being infused with all the sarcasm and bile I can possibly muster, which is considerable. You remember Arizona, right? In order to protect themselves from Santa Anna's new covert invasion and protect the Constitution that Jesus died writing, they passed a law basically saying they could stop anyone for anything and then demand they prove citizenship or face jail and deportation. You know, like our founding fathers intended.

They followed that up with an attempt at some small bore racism against Mexicanos by prohibiting ethnic studies classes and proclaiming that people with accents couldn't teach English classes. Because I think that they think what you learn in High School English is actually how to speak English and not how to get by without fully reading the ultra-gay books of Salinger, Shakespeare, and Chaucer.

So it's with those two laws in mind that the architect of the immigration one deciding that in order to protect the United States of Freedom and the Constitution, he had to declare war on America's newest enemy: babies. Freeloading babies.

A Phoenix news station (KPHO) is reporting that the state Senator behind Arizona’s new immigration law, Russell Pearce (R), does not intend on stopping at SB-1070. In e-mails obtained by the local CBS affiliate, Pearce said he intends to push for an “anchor baby” bill that would essentially overturn the 14th amendment by no longer granting citizenship to the children of undocumented immigrants born on U.S. soil.
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KPHO obtained a troubling email from one of Pearce’s constituents who is encouraging him to pursue the “anchor baby” legislation. KPHO reports:

One of the e-mails written by someone else but forwarded by Pearce reads: “If we are going to have an effect on the anchor baby racket, we need to target the mother. Call it sexist, but that’s the way nature made it. Men don’t drop anchor babies, illegal alien mothers do.” [...]

Pearce said his new idea is not only legal but constitutional. “It’s common sense,” Pearce said.

This law that he says is Constitutional is otherwise known as completely violating the 14th Amendment. You know, the one where it says you're a citizen if you're born here. Who can be bother with reading the fine print on an Amendment? There's Mexicans tunneling under the border to pick strawberries! Our way of life is being threatened!

But I think we all understand where Pearce is coming from. I mean these Mexican babies haven't done all the hard work to be an American that Pearce and his fellow Arizona GOP members did when they were born: namely being born white. I mean if these Latino babies were smart and truly worthy of being Americans, they would have known better than to have been born Latino. It's common sense.

So congrats to Arizona. You've moved beyond merely violating the spirit of the Constitution to assuage your right wing rage at the brown people and gone straight to picking out specific amendments you wish to violate. Well done. Toss those babies over the border, no matter what that 14th Amendment say. If it was meant to be taken seriously they would have placed it higher than 14th. Keep on stayin' classy.

The teabaggers have a notion

Over the last year the tea party movement has a supportive boon to the GOP. Not in any sort of "legislative victory" or "marshaling public support" kind of way, but by mobilizing 4% of the country to support corporate interests in the name of Liberty, Freedom, and No Black Socialists, they've been able to make it look like their policies aren't as unpopular as they are. Plus it's been a positive boon to the long fading snakes on flags industry, which must be a considerable boon to the Gadsden estate.

But the teabaggers have also provided lots of bad press for the Republican party as well; from their seething low rent racism, to their mispelled signs, to their fundamental inability to understand the basic principles which they're shouting about, to the wealth of comedy and mockery they inspire, to the various creepy militia overtones, the calls for assassinations and intimidation of government officials, and weak secession threats. But throughout all these problems the GOP has stood tight with the Tea Party movement.

So it begs the question: what exactly would it take for the Republicans to look at the teabaggers and go "you've gone too far this time." Turns out the answer is "threaten their aspirations for higher office".

There are signs that tea party calls to repeal the 17th Amendment -- taking the selection of U.S. Senators out of the hands of voters and putting it in the hands of state governments -- are proving to be a bridge too far for Republican candidates desperate to steal some of the movement's mojo.
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The "Repeal The 17th" movement is a vocal part of the overall tea party structure. Supporters of the plan say that ending the public vote for Senators would give the states more power to protect their own interests in Washington (and of course, give all of us "more liberty" in the process.) As their process of "vetting" candidates, some tea party groups have required candidates to weigh in on the idea of repeal in questionnaires. And that's where the trouble starts.

So now we have our answer. Standing toe to toe with people as they rant about socialism and the analysis they've done of our Kenyan interloper's faked birth certificate: sane, normal behavior. Standing toe to toe with people who say that the people shouldn't elect Senators: beyond the pale.

Shame, because that's at least an idea that the teabaggers have. Sure, "Repeal the 17th" is a completely stupid idea and would result in even more corruption and screwing over of the people than the teabaggers think is going on now, but you can at least have that debate. It's at least a policy. "Nancy Pelosi is stealing the Earth's sunshine as part of a socialist conspiracy against nice days" and "Burrackobamuhizamooslumraaargh" isn't.

So c'mon GOP, don't run from the one idea (besides "Uhhhh... taxes... bad") that the teabaggers have had. Maybe this can finally help move our national debate from being wholly consumed with imaginary conspiracies and threats mixed with aggrieved persecution complexes to merely about debating intensely stupid ideas that would never work in a thousand years. It's progress.

It begins...

God love RNC Chairman Michael Steele. He may be massively incompetent and unfit to run the RNC, but he is entertainingly dim. Only he could set the bar on crazy Elena Kagan statements mere hours after she was announced as Obama's pick for the Supreme Court. It was tucked away in a little statement after a jag on the "liberal agenda" she supports. See if you can point it out.

Given Kagan's opposition to allowing military recruiters access to her law school's campus, her endorsement of the liberal agenda and her support for statements suggesting that the Constitution "as originally drafted and conceived, was 'defective,'" you can expect Senate Republicans to respectfully raise serious and tough questions to ensure the American people can thoroughly and thoughtfully examine Kagan's qualifications and legal philosophy before she is confirmed to a lifetime appointment.

It's right there at the end: her support for statements suggesting that the Constitution "as originally drafted and conceived, was 'defective,'". Why that look innocuous enough, you might be saying. He's just taking the same "liberals hate the Constitution" track that every Republican takes after a hard day of working to undermine the Constitution.

But you have to look a little deeper into Kagan's statement to get the full breadth and depth of Steele's stupidity. Oh yes, she did agree with and describe the Constitution as "defective", but she and the man she was agreeing with, Thurgood Marshall, might just have had a point.

Just one problem -- Kagan was writing about comments made by Supreme Court Justice Thurgood Marshall. And Marshall was referring to slavery.
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Marshall's speech gave particular note to the constitution's original definition of a slave as counting for only three-fifths of a person. Kagan wrote in her piece that "it was the role of the courts, in interpreting the Constitution, to protect the people who went unprotected by every other organ of government."

That's right, they were criticizing the part of the Constitution that legalizes slavery and treats blacks as three-fifths of a person. Now I know we have to pretend that the Constitution is an unflawed document handed down from God to Jesus On The Cross, who proceeded to sign his name all big like at the bottom with a blood soaked nail. But can we maybe agree that the parts that enshrined slavery and an entire race as second class citizens/fractional people were... I don't know... bad? Everyone doesn't have to do it. Maybe just people like, say, the black chairman of the RNC. No?

Still want to stick to that criticism of Kagan, Mike? Yes? Don't want to admit you didn't read anything she said before firing off a press release accusing her of not giving slavery its due? No? OK, then. Keep up the good work.

Guns for terrorists

With the recent Times Square bombing plot foiled and capture of the alleged perpetrator, we are again bombarded with suggestions from our political betters on what to do with such haters of freedom.

They want the terrorists interrogated to the exacting dramatical standards of our top terrorism related TV shows. Gitmo! Under no circumstances are they to be Mirandized or afforded any sort of minor legal protections... even if it helps out intelligence gathering and legal efforts. If they are in fact American citizens, just strip them of that citizenship so we can torture and imprison them easier. Double Gitmo! Smoke them for hours over mesquite chips, thinly slice them, pile them up on rye bread with brown mustard, and eat them... for liberty's sake. It doesn't matter, just make sure these people aren't afforded any discernible legal protection or allow them to be within shouting distance of anything that could be called a Constitutional right.

Well, unless....

New York City Mayor Michael R. Bloomberg's appeal to what he called "common sense" at a congressional hearing Wednesday morning failed to sway two Republican senators who said that giving the government the ability to block the purchase of guns by suspected terrorists would undermine the Second Amendment's right to bear arms.
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Admitting that "at first blush" the bill "seems to be an obvious step that we should take," Collins said that many people on the FBI's watchlist don't belong there. "None of us wants a terrorist to be able to purchase a gun, but neither should we want to infringe upon a Constitutional right of law-abiding Americans," she said.

Graham described the bill as an instrument of those who would ban guns altogether. "We're talking about a constitutional right here," he said, explaining that he could not support a bill that would force "innocent Americans" to "pay the cost of going to court to get their gun rights back."

Graham wasn't nearly as concerned about rights when he launched into a disquisition on the treatment of American citizens accused of terrorism. "I am all into national security," he said. "I want them to stop reading these guys Miranda rights."

That's right, these terrorists are dangerous, America hating monsters and they should be treated as if they have no legal rights... but it'll be a cold, cold day in hell before you're allowed to infringe on a terrorist's right to by a gun in America. I mean you can sit back all day and listen to GOP lawmakers tell you all the ways in which terrorist suspects aren't really people and aren't covered by any facet of US law, international law, or the Constitution... except when it comes to the Second Amendment. No, the Second clearly has a specific clause about infringing the rights of terrorists.

So remember, no matter how much Mirandizing suspects and treating them as if they had legal rights helps us gain information, it is a practice we should stop. But if say there were a way to stop terrorist suspects from buying guns or at least identify that they were purchasing guns, like say... in March... in Connecticut... a month before they were to attempt to bomb Times Square... we should under no circumstances try to stop it. Because of the Constitutional protections that don't seem to apply when dealing with any other aspect of terrorists rights.

In case you wanted to know how completely owned our elected betters were by the gun lobby... that's how completely owned. They won't even oppose taking guns away from terrorists inside our country. Stay safe!

Stay classy, Arizona immigration law supporters

If the Arizona immigration law that makes you a suspicious person if you're caught breathing while Latino, has been good for one thing: the comedy resulting from those who support the law. Not so much "funny ha-ha" comedy, but more of a "oh sweet merciful Christ, these are elected representatives... in America... in 2010" kind of funny.

Even worse on the unconformable comedy of awkward discomfort scale are the people who have viewed this law as a gaslight for them to rush out and espouse their brilliant ideas about ways in which this country can go further down into a racist hole with immigration laws. Take Iowa Republican (shocking) congressional candidate Pat Bertroche

“I think we should catch ’em, we should document ’em, make sure we know where they are and where they are going,” said Pat Bertroche, an Urbandale physician. “I actually support micro-chipping them. I can micro-chip my dog so I can find it. Why can’t I micro-chip an illegal?

“That’s not a popular thing to say, but it’s a lot cheaper than building a fence they can tunnel under,” Bertroche said.

Micro-chipping every illegal immigrant? You know, maybe Georgia was on to something with their crazy "no robit hunks in mah body" law. That being said, if we could catch every single illegal immigrant to the point where we could perform invasive microchipping surgery on them... wouldn't we just cart them over the border? I mean we go to all the trouble of catching them to scientifically experiment on them and we just release them back into the wild even though they're illegal? Methinks someone needs to mull over his "Mexicans are exactly like dogs" immigration plan.

But then there's Republican (shocking~!) Rep. Duncan Hunter the Younger of California, who isn't merely content to treat immigrants like stray dogs. No, he's got a better plan.

QUESTION: Would you support deportation of natural-born American citizens that are the children of illegal aliens?

HUNTER: I would have to, yes. [...] We simply cannot afford what we’re doing right now. California is going under. How much in debt are we? Twenty billion dollars? [...] And we’re not being mean, we’re just saying it takes more than just walking across the border to become an American citizen. It’s what’s in our souls.

Yeah, fuck them. Who ever said that being born here means you're a citizen? The 14th Amendment? Balderdash! Let's repeal it and start chucking American citizens who aren't sufficiently white over the border. Their souls aren't American.

But if advanced GPS tracking, a catch and release Latino program, or grossly violating the Constitution in the name of racial paranoia aren't your thing, have you thought of just claiming all your Latin opponents of wanting to cede American soil to Santa Anna and his Mexican hordes? Then get on board with Republican (shocker) Rep. Steve King (shocker) from Iowa (shocker).

I’m wondering if we look at the map of Congressman Grijalva’s congressional district if we haven’t already ceded that component of Arizona to Mexico judging by the voice that comes out of him, he’s advocating for Mexico rather than the United States and against the rule of law, which is one of the central pillars of American exceptionalism.

He is of course talking about Rep. Raul Grijalva, a Latino himself and Arizona representative, who decried the law and advocated that people boycott Arizona in response. Of course that means he doesn't sufficiently love America, is probably a Latin sleeper agent, hates the law, freedom, and baby eagles, and is probably the point man for the Mexican Reconquista movement. Aztlan!

So stay classy everyone. I know we all though that a re-fried bean swastika was about as low as the debate could sink. But we didn't count on the prides of Iowa and a second generation half-witted reactionary race-baiter deciding that this was the perfect opportunity to offer up their brilliant ideas on better ways to dehumanize entire swaths of the US population. Wonderful. It wells me up with so much pride for the country.

A census taker once tried to test me...

If there is one thing to respect about the tea baggers -- and believe me, saying there's one thing to respect about them might be giving them way too much credit -- it's their steadfast commitment to staying crazy and abiding by their principles of not understanding anything in every field, not just the fields of taxes and health care.

As you may know, it's a census year. Which means the government takes up it's Constitutionally mandated duty to count the number of Americans for means of Congressional seats, electoral votes, and government funding. As with all things tea bagging, there is apparently also some sort of nefarious conspiracy also attached to the census. Michele Bachmann used to be at the forefront of raging against the census conspiracy, feeling that it was just a front for a future Japanese-style internment among other things, before it was explained to her that if Minnesota ended up losing a Congressional seat because of the census... it would be her seat. She seemed to see the error of her ways.

But she didn't seem to sway many of her fellow tea baggers in believing that the 2010 census isn't a conspiracy between Muslim Caliph Obama and the lizard people to punish and eat those who opposed health care. You thought that with all their whinging about health care and its unconstitutional nature, they would have read the part in the Constitution about the census. Nope. And that has many states worried.

Texas is counting on the 2010 Census to deliver four new congressional districts, four new Electoral College votes in presidential elections, and millions of dollars in additional federal aid. But, as some elected officials are starting to worry, Uncle Sam can't deliver anything to the rapidly growing Sun Belt state unless Texas residents deliver their forms back to the government.
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Instead, a new and growing threat to an accurate national head count is coming from anti-government conservatives who may not fill out their forms to protest against “Big Brother” in Washington.
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There is a reason for the enthusiasm gap on the census: A number of prominent conservative and libertarian Republicans have been blasting the census for months.
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“We've got that hard-to-count element, along with these fringe (anti-government) groups that are advocating resistance,” she said. “They think they are hurting the government. They are really hurting themselves and their communities.

It's funny because it's happening to Texas. Aside from the electoral vote and Congressional representation issues, it is estimated that every uncounted American means a loss of about $12,000 in funding for their state over the next decade. But then again, you do get to take a massive sense of unjustified pride knowing hat you really stuck one to the man and that when the black helicopters come for the people that buy Sean Hannity's books, your ingenious move to not fill out the census will have save you a lifetime of toil in comrade Obama's work camps.

For those of us who don't see a conspiracy around every corner and actually take the time to fill out all 10 ultra-complex questions, it'll just mean our state gets more and Texas will have 1-4 less idiots like Louis Gohmert screaming about God knows what on the TV. It's a good thing.

For a less dumb, but still dumb, form of protest, Facebook has offered up the group For Race, Write Human, where you are supposed to write "Human" in the race sot instead of ticking the box marked American Indian, Negro (seriously), Caucasian, or Asian. I tried, but I accidentally ended up writing "WHITE!!!!!!" with six exclamation points.

Quote of the Day

One of the great things about Sarah Palin is not so much her media appearances, but the way she effects other Republicans' media appearances. Like when GOP lawmakers and pundits have to spend half their interview time trying to justify her existence as an important member of their party. Good times.

Because the media is cruel, one of the questions that invariably comes up is the old "Is Sarah Palin qualified to be President" question comes up. The actual answer is "no, of course not", but no one in the GOP can bring themselves to say this. So after their eyes nearly bug out of their head when the question is asked, they then, through gritted teeth, declare "yes, yes she is" before moving on. You can actually see their minds recoil in horror as they say it.

But gritting his teeth and telling an absurd lie is just something that Gov. Haley Barbour (R-MS) just couldn't do. So he got literal up in this bitch.

In an appearance on Hardball yesterday, Gov. Haley Barbour (R-MI) was asked if Sarah Palin is qualified to be President in 2012. Barbour responded "Well, constitutionally, she sure is."

Barbour continued: "I don't know anything that disqualifies her from being president."

I concur. Palin not only is a natural born citizen (...or is she? SOMEONE CHECK HER BIRTH CERTIFICATE!), but she is 35 and has probably resided in this country for at least 14 of those years. Yup, those are the legal qualifications to be President. Well argued, Haley. You didn't have to make the baby Jesus cry by telling a lie. Just remember if someone tries to follow up with a "no, I meant ethically, morally, and intellectually" to fake a seizure. Those sons of bitches can never make you give a real answer.

Department of sensible racism ideas

If there's one thing that we can all agree on hating, it's that stupid little idea that just because you were born here that makes you a citizen. I mean what asshole wrote that? James Madison? Abe Lincoln? Senator Jacob M. Howard of Michigan? Citizenship is earned, either through the military means of the movie 300 that I half remember or through the military means of Starship Troopers that I half remember. Service means citizenship or something, I think there was also some large wolf based fighting. Whatever. At least one smart man agrees with my DVD catalog: U.S. Rep. Nathan Deal. His solution? Fuck the Mexicans.

U.S. Rep. Nathan Deal, a Republican candidate for governor of Georgia, has proposed changing the long-standing federal policy that automatically grants citizenship to any baby born on U.S. soil, a move opposed by immigrant rights advocates.

Supporters of Deal's proposal say "birthright citizenship" encourages illegal immigration and makes enforcement of immigration laws more difficult. Opponents say the proposed law wouldn't solve the illegal immigration problem and goes against this country's traditions of welcoming immigrants.
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"This is a sensible, overdue measure that closes a clause that was never meant to be a loophole," said Bob Dane, spokesman for the Federation for American Immigration Reform, which seeks tighter immigration restrictions.

Under Deal's proposal, babies born in the U.S. would automatically have citizenship only if at least one of their parents is a U.S. citizen or national, a legal permanent resident of the U.S., or actively serving in the U.S. military.

Meant to close a loophole that was never supposed to exist?

All persons born or naturalized in the United States, and subject to the jurisdiction thereof, are citizens of the United States and of the State wherein they reside. No State shall make or enforce any law which shall abridge the privileges or immunities of citizens of the United States; nor shall any State deprive any person of life, liberty, or property, without due process of law; nor deny to any person within its jurisdiction the equal protection of the laws.

Seems pretty cut and dried to me. But then I'm no Constitutional scholar. Deal also has a plan to change the inscription of the Statue of Liberty from "Give me your tired, your poor, Your huddled masses yearning to breathe free" to "Hey you, pregnant foreigner! Don't even fuckin' think about going into labor here! Hold it in!" I just think that's it's nice to know that in this day and age someone has the guts to demonize the Constitution, infants and people wishing to become American citizens through a law solely intended to target one race. The people of Georgia are so lucky to have this man running for Governor.

Look before you leap

As Obama prepared to give his speech yesterday the RNC was looking for anything to hit him for and criticize him for. And why not, that's their job. So as the gerbils ran furiously around the wheel in Michael Steele's head, he finally seized upon what he thought was a slice of fried gold: Obama was making a point to speak in the hall of the place that held the Constitution and the son of a bitch once had the nerve to call that document "fundamentally flawed". Jackpot! To the Twitter-machine!

RNC: as he prepares to deliver remarks in hall that holds the constitution, flashback obama: "constitution flawed" http://bit.ly/tFL7O #RNC [Twitter, 5/21/09]

The problem? The fundamental flaw Obama was referring to was the fact that the Constitution not only allowed slavery, but only counted black people as 3/5th's of a person. That the framers did not see blacks or slavery as "a moral problem involving persons of moral worth."

So the RNC basically just went out of it's way to criticize the President for thinking that blacks should have been bumped up to a whole 5/5th's and maybe got paid for their work. It's a bold strategy. The "We believe the Constitution was so right that we need to go back to using the 3/5th's compromise" move is a risky gambit, but I can see why the RNC wants to try it.

I'm not sure the Democrats will go for it, so I think I've come up with a new compromise: blacks go back to 3/5th's but we bump gays up to having the marital rights of 2/5th's of a person. Add it in together and that constitutes the two groups having the rights of a full person. We honor the Constitution like the RNC now thinks we should (except for the parts about the President followin' laws and stuff) and we make our country 2/5th's of the way more progressive towards gays. Win-win.

Broken News: Second Amendment Moves to Kill First

WASHINGTON--In an unprecedented move, the Second Amendment vowed today to conquer and replace the First Amendment "by any means necessary.” While there has been no official response from First, notorious gossip, the Ninth Amendment, claimed First was cowering in a urine-soaked corner and pleading for someone to save it from so manly an amendment as Second.

Sources close to the FBI say that, after being contracted for a hit on the Fourth Amendment last week, Second did not report back to his holding cell inside the FBI Laws and Amendments compound at Quantico. Later that day, the body of Second's longtime partner, the Eighth Amendment, was discovered in several tattered pieces behind the escaped operative's toilet.

Those same sources allege that Second seized upon an opportunity to make his move and become the only amendment to the US Constitution. This accusation was confirmed today when Second surfaced just long enough to release a pamphlet entitled "Bill of Right" in which he stated that it was his patriotic duty to eliminate all the other remaining Amendments, starting with the First. He wrote "Do we need a First Amendment when your gun can do the talking for you?"

The Second Amendment, occasionally known as “The People’s Amendment”, was originally devised by the founding fathers as a means for the populace to protect itself from a tyrannical government, a codicil perhaps influenced by their having come of age in a monarchy. Second rose to prominence as America’s favorite because, as Supreme Court Justice Antonin Scalia said in the recent Heller decision, "it can be pointed at a burglar with one hand while the other hand dials the police."

[Editor's note: That is an actual quote. We are incapable of making this shit up.]

Seemingly buoyed by the Supreme Court's recent 5-4 decision overturning DC's handgun ban, not to mention hundreds of trillions of dollars in NRA lobbying efforts over the last four months, constitutional insiders say that Second has, “long been primed and ready to go gunning for the numero uno slot, he just needed an opening.”

“Frankly, it’s time.” said Wayne LaPierre, CEO and Executive Vice-President of the National Rifle Association. “With the court the way it is, we can pretty much 5-4 ourselves to whatever we want. Besides, First is weak and needs to be put down like a sick dog. So long as we're all forced to agree by a politically rigged court, why do we even need First? Or any of them? Second is King! I worship at its sacred altar! All hail Second! It is our right!"

Over the years, debate amongst constitutional scholars has raged over whether this right was intended for all Americans or, as the Amendment states, only those in "well regulated militias, being necessary for the security of a free state." The argument has been compounded by the fact that militias are no longer this country’s primary means of defense, as we have a military with laser-guided bombs, thirty-ton tanks, and munitions that can destroy everything but the fillings in your teeth. Militias, on the other hand, consist almost exclusively of unregulated coalitions of backwoods conspiracy theorists resigned to distilling moonshine and protecting small parcels of land covered in deer shit and tin shacks from imminent invasion by the federal government.

None can seriously doubt that First is weaker than ever, given a cursory glance at its provisions:

--Freedom of speech was badly injured after 9-11, when Americans collectively decided that, were they to speak their minds or abstain from crass consumerism, the terrorists would win.

--The right of the people to peaceably assemble has been turned over to the government in good faith, with the tacit understanding that the arrangement will not affect sporting events or concerts.

--The right to petition the Government for a redress of grievances has been abandoned in favor of a “Government knows best” policy.

--Freedom of the press is missing, presumed dead, after the professional news media decided questioning the government was too taxing and it was best to regurgitate official press releases and argue incessantly over party-sanctioned talking points while emphasizing high school-style gossip and not the petty little trivialities of policy decisions impacting literally billions of human lives. In fact, the media buried the death of the Free Press on page A28, below the fold.

In fact, only Making no law respecting an establishment of religion is thriving. as Americans, despondent over their benign neglect of the country, have turned to a new regionalized crops of fringe zealotry.

“It’s just been depressing,” says Professor R.J. Gumby of St. Pooves, one of the newer faiths. “We’ve just handed over these rights, not fought for them, and gotten bent over and banged roughly for going on eight years now. We’re pining for someone to do something as a Norwegian Blue pines for the fjords. Why won’t anyone fix things for us?”

According to the latest footage, Second is said to be stalking the streets, armed, ironically enough, with long knives, in search of the battered and abused First. Rumors have begun circulating that First has bought a Bowflex and every Rocky movie in hopes of making a stand sometime in late October or early November. Whether "Ol' Firsty" can survive that long is a matter of debate. Will he will be consigned to the law and amendment dustbin like so many others, notably “Free Pie Tuesdays” and that Slavery one? Only time will tell.