Wednesday Open Thread
Welcome to your Wednesday open thread. Nothing big going on today. It’s not like I have a big meeting with governor or anything.
Kansas Republican Connie O’Brien has special illegal immigrant-detecting powers.
Speaking in favor of repealing the law, Rep. Connie O’Brien (R-KS) began telling an anecdote at the hearing about how her son had difficulty in getting financial assistance to attend college. She explained that she took her son to a financial aid office, and as she was waiting in line, she believed there was a girl waiting in line with them who was “not originally from this country.” Fellow committee member Rep. Sean Gatewood (D-KS) asked O’Brien how she knew this student was “illegal.” O’Brien replied that she knew because the student “wasn’t black, she wasn’t Asian, and she had the olive complexion”
I think I’m surrounded by illegal immigrants! There are swarthy-looking people everywhere!
Speaking of governors, new Wisconsin governor Scott Walker has started his term with huge controversy. He’s proposing huge pay cuts for public employees, pension and benefit changes and wants to end collective bargaining (basically a wingnut’s dream). He’s even said he’ll call the national guard to keep workers from striking. The AFL-CIO had a huge demonstration yesterday. Superbowl champions Green Bay Packers released a statement of support for the state workers.
We know that it is teamwork on and off the field that makes the Packers and Wisconsin great. As a publicly owned team we wouldn’t have been able to win the Super Bowl without the support of our fans.
It is the same dedication of our public workers every day that makes Wisconsin run. They are the teachers, nurses and child care workers who take care of us and our families. But now in an unprecedented political attack Governor Walker is trying to take away their right to have a voice and bargain at work.
The right to negotiate wages and benefits is a fundamental underpinning of our middle class. When workers join together it serves as a check on corporate power and helps ALL workers by raising community standards. Wisconsin’s long standing tradition of allowing public sector workers to have a voice on the job has worked for the state since the 1930s. It has created greater consistency in the relationship between labor and management and a shared approach to public work.
These public workers are Wisconsin’s champions every single day and we urge the Governor and the State Legislature to not take away their rights.
Thank you, Green Bay Packers for supporting public servants. We should all realize that as unions lose rights, we all lose rights.
Tags: Open Thread
They changed the date, and then changed the location for the Sussex GOP meeting formerly known as the Valentine’s Day Massacre.
Via DP:
yeah right.
That statement from the Packers was awesome. You Dems that don’t like unions need to get over it. In the absence of a Democratic Party dedicated to supporting workers rights, unions are all that stands between us and complete oligarchy.
Also – vote for me ignite Wilmington topic! Thanks.
Coons and Carper voting for the re-authorization of the Patriot Act… worthless.
By the way, where is all the anger from you civil liberty loving and anti-war liberals about the Patriot Act and the continuation of the Afghanistan war? Where is the anger about the drone strikes Obama authorized in Yemen? Where is the anger and sense of betrayal that Senator Franken voted for the re-authorization of the Patriot Act? Why do you liberals get so suddenly silent about war and civil liberties when Democrats come to power and extend the same legislation that Bush, whom you all were calling a tyrant and a war criminal, enacted?
Yes, you post about Bush exaggerating the mobile labs, but you never post about the continuing violation of the fourth amendment.
Libertarian my ass.
When you lost the Packers, you lost the state. It’s gonna be a long 4 years for that nimrod
of a gov.
And turning down high-speed rail funds? Wait a few years until all those commuters realize the money overpaid and time lost for Madison to Chicago flights all because it might cost some cash for upkeep. But eff them. We’ll take the funds here in the NE corridor – aka REAL America, you know, where the whole damn thing started! 🙂
Same goes to the gov of america’s wang.
Ha, and DL’s concern for the soul of progressivism is touching 🙄
All I got out of that was conservatives don’t love civil liberties and love war. But that’s common knowledge.
Von Cracker,
I’m not concerned for the soul of progressivism, I’m concerned about civil liberties and overreaching government power in any shape or form.
A few years ago, I thought Democrats actually cared about civil liberties. But I was wrong. This issue for y’all is just a means to an end, a mechanism to win elections. The issue doesn’t actually mean anything to power-grabbing Senate Democrats (and Republicans too).
To be precise, the Senate is grabbing the power for the executive branch, so they don’t look so wimpy when the executive grabs it for himself.
I’m surprised that the “brutal and sustained” sexual assault that happened to a CBS journalist in Egypt has not received the kind of media attention that usually occurs when another member of the media is involved. Where is the outrage? I guess it doesn’t quite fit the “yes we can” mantra that the media has attached to this event.
Is anybody shocked that this could happen in Egypt? Can these people even handle Democracy?
In all seriousness, I do agree with you on those points. I, and I’m sure others here, felt the same way when all the abuses were taking place by the DoJ and the Executive. It’s a battle that cannot be won right now – especially with the GOP and Fox Media Outlet ready to jump all over opponents with slurs of terrorist sympathizer and whatnot. And given how uneducated and scared half of the whites in this country are, it’s a chance moderates and liberals in Congress are unwilling to take. Now Obama is a different situation. An executive rarely gives up power, regardless of the reason. I’m not saying it’s right, but don’t expect Obama to do anything about the P-act until the end of a second term; if ever.
The way i see it , the only way the act would be repealed is if conservatives lose most of their seats. But yes, it’s cowardice for the sake of short-term political viability.
No woman should be subjected to the treatment that Logan was subjected to.
Why should anyone be shocked that this happened in Egypt, though? American women are subjected to brutal sexual assaults every single day right here in the USA and no one is questioning *our* ability to handle Democracy because of it. But I guess it is all different for the brown ones, though.
Given the results of the ’10 elections, I do question most of our nation’s ability to handle democracy.
Yup, the whole “can they handle democracy” line sounds eerily similar to what they said about blacks and higher education back in the 40s, I mean 50s, er 60s? Shit, the bigots are still saying it today!
“American women are subjected to brutal sexual assaults every single day right here in the USA and no one is questioning *our* ability to handle Democracy because of it.”….cassandra
Do you really think a sustained sexual assault like that could happen in a crowd in the US, even if there was no law?. I have more faith in us than that. If I thought that could happen, I would move.
Uh yes an attack can happen like that in the US and has with a teenage girl as a matter of fact. It was video’d on kids cell phone while they laughed and did nothing about it.
here you go Blue Hen…
http://www.truecrimereport.com/2009/10/a_dozen_watch_as_a_girl_is_gan_1.php
try not to lose your blind faith. Let me know where you are moving. I’ll warn them a blind ideologue is coming their way.
“Yup, the whole “can they handle democracy” line sounds eerily similar to what they said about blacks and higher education back in the 40s, I mean 50s, er 60s? Shit, the bigots are still saying it today!”…Von Cracker
When are we going to stop putting so much emphasis on color? Get over it.
When are we going to stop putting so much emphasis on color? Get over it.
File this under “only something a white person will say.”
“American women are subjected to brutal sexual assaults every single day right here in the USA and no one is questioning *our* ability to handle Democracy because of it.”….cassandra
Do you really think a sustained sexual assault like that could happen in a crowd in the US, even if there was no law?. I have more faith in us than that. If I thought that could happen, I would move.”
YUP. it is called woodstock 94, 97, any frat party, raves, … should i keep going or now that you KNOW it can happen because you have been shown proof that it DID happen have you moved to Happyland?…
When are we going to stop putting so much emphasis on color? Get over it.
Pandora is right — only people protected by their racial privileges can afford to ignore the atrocities in his own backyard, while using the same atrocities to comment on the inferiority of Others.
conservatives remind me of those kids in school who give “flat tires” (stepping on your heal to pull your shoe off), flick rubber bands at other kids, make rude remarks into their hand so no one sees where it is coming from, then when someone calls out the little shit, or retaliates, they whine and cry that they are being picked on.
These kids are also usually fat and white.
Lol. Gang rape is solely an old-world issue!
I don’t know if it was intentional or not, and I hate to use HIS words, but the “can they handle democracy” meme falls under the GWB’s “soft bigotry of low expectations” category.
If it doesn’t, I don’t know what does!
And to Ben’s point, wasnt there a 30-year study just recently done where it determined that conservative adults tended to be anti-social pricks with low self-esteem? If anyone can find it…
FlightyBlueHen is Santorum. Just google Santorum for the truth.
“try not to lose your blind faith. Let me know where you are moving. I’ll warn them a blind ideologue is coming their way”.
Come on donviti, you know it’s not the same situation.
BTW, they call me a liberal over at DP.
I don’t know that actually. You could argue what happened right here in teh good ol us of a was worse…
You got this one wrong FBH and need to walk back from it. This is not a social phenomenon isolated to Egypt. It’s a social phenomenon that happens all over the world and right here in merika. I gave you an example of a similar instance of people watching and doing nothing.
That’s the crux of the issue here. Not that they are a sub species allowing it to happen. the fact that you are implying one population is better than the other and use that as an argument to prove it is where you get it all wrong.
even psych 101 courses in college cover the issue of people watching a crime being committed and no one stopping it or calling the police.
“Pandora is right — only people protected by their racial privileges can afford to ignore the atrocities in his own backyard, while using the same atrocities to comment on the inferiority of Others”.
My racial privileges…lol. I’ll try and remember that while I’m working at my landscaping job.
Your landscaping job doesn’t have anything to do with your racial privileges.
And way to avoid dealing with the issue that the same atrocities against women happen right here in the US.
I know NPR isn’t really considered liberal media, but Jamie Tarabay was interviewed today about the attack on Lara Logan.
Correction. As children, conservative adults were more likely to be whiny brats with low self-esteem.
Man, I love winding you guys up, but seriously I don’t think that could have happened in the US.
but it did, you just don’t want to admit it. which is why you don’t get respect around here is my guess. A good example of something similar, if in fact not worse was shown to you, and you still argue your point. Wrongly.
enjoy the respect you get around here, you obviously deserve it.
Your landscaping job doesn’t have anything to do with your racial privileges.
but it certainly explains his steady stream of manure.
I guess Uber left-wing elitist Nir Rosen did not get Obama’s civility memo via the commander-in-chiefs’ Arizona speech:
http://dailycaller.com/2011/02/15/nir-rosen-trashes-lara-logan-dismisses-her-sexual-assault/
Awesome reporting by Frank Knotts on the Sussex GOP meeting last night (where’s that red headed clown avatar?) Still picking popcorn out of my teeth.
They insisted on secret ballots for everything, on blue slips of paper. My favorite part:
I blame ACORN.
So Vance Phillips has slipped the SC GOP the watermelon of doom. I can only hope that he feeds the poison cittrullus lanatus to the few Delawareans left who call themselves Republicans.
Also, I wonder how Ross felt about being in the same room with the guy who threatened to shoot him in the head?
Google: Tom Ross angers delaware Republicans. To see a YouTube video of Ross defending “dog catcher”
I dimly remember another report a few years ago from the Sussex GOP when they got their vote count wrong… anybody have a better memory? I think it was blogged about at the time. Or was it the House GOP caucus…
The venue change is still curious. I just drove by the SCAOR building and there were over 100 cars in the parking lot. I guess they fixed the leak last night.
Perhaps they just didn’t want to have to clean blood out of the carpet.
What is it with Republicans. leaks, and plumbers?