Tag: immigration reform

Alabama’s Brain Drain

The state of Alabama on Thursday passed the strictest illegal immigration legislation imaginable.  In November, Republicans took formal control of both the state House and Senate for the first time since Reconstruction.  However, this by itself was not necessarily the determining factor to ensure passage.  Until this session, a majority of very conservative Democrats by in large peopled both chambers.  But, back then, there were enough voices present who held other ideological views to push back against reactionary bills like this one.  Even with the prior legislative balance of power, sentiments like these often found political favor.  In an economically poor state desperate to find a scapegoat to explain recent financial woes, it was only a matter of time before migrant Latino workers were targeted.  When all else fails, find someone different than you to blame.          

The Week in Editorial Cartoons, Part I – BP’s Soup Recipe

Crossposted at Daily Kos and The Stars Hollow Gazette

John Sherffius

John Sherffius, Comics.com (Boulder Daily Camera)

Note: Due to a deluge of editorial cartoons over the past week or so, I’m going to, time permitting, post Part II of this weekly diary in the next few days.  In addition to some of the issues covered in this edition, I’ll include more cartoons on the floods in Pakistan, the withdrawal of combat U.S. forces in Iraq, and Rupert Murdoch’s $1 million contribution to the GOP.

The Week in Editorial Cartoons, Part II – Climate Change Obstructionism

Crossposted at Daily Kos and The Stars Hollow Gazette

Nick Anderson

Nick Anderson, Comics.com, see reader comments in the Houston Chronicle

The Week in Editorial Cartoons (Part I) – Dropping the Ball

Crossposted at Daily Kos and The Stars Hollow Gazette

John Sherffius

John Sherffius, Comics.com (Boulder Daily Camera)

Note:

Due to the unusually high number of editorial cartoons published over the past week or so (I literally have another 300+ cartoons saved), I’m going to try and post another edition of this diary by Friday, August 6th.  It something I’ve never done before.

The Week in Editorial Cartoons – The Real Costs of Fossil Fuels

Crossposted at Daily Kos

Matt Bors

Matt Bors, Comics.com (Idiot Box)

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The Week in Editorial Cartoons – BP is the New BS

Crossposted at Daily Kos

THE WEEK IN EDITORIAL CARTOONS

This weekly diary takes a look at the past week’s important news stories from the perspective of our leading editorial cartoonists (including a few foreign ones) with analysis and commentary added in by me.

When evaluating a cartoon, ask yourself these questions:

1. Does a cartoon add to my existing knowledge base and help crystallize my thinking about the issue depicted?

2. Does the cartoonist have any obvious biases that distort reality?

3. Is the cartoonist reflecting prevailing public opinion or trying to shape it?

The answers will help determine the effectiveness of the cartoonist’s message.

:: ::



Taylor Jones, Politicalcartoons.com, Buy this cartoon

The Week in Editorial Cartoons – The Cheney/Halliburton Connection

Crossposted at Daily Kos

THE WEEK IN EDITORIAL CARTOONS

This weekly diary takes a look at the past week’s important news stories from the perspective of our leading editorial cartoonists (including a few foreign ones) with analysis and commentary added in by me.

When evaluating a cartoon, ask yourself these questions:

1. Does a cartoon add to my existing knowledge base and help crystallize my thinking about the issue depicted?

2. Does the cartoonist have any obvious biases that distort reality?

3. Is the cartoonist reflecting prevailing public opinion or trying to shape it?

The answers will help determine the effectiveness of the cartoonist’s message.

:: ::



Cheney Spews by Pat Bagley, Salt Lake Tribune, Buy this cartoon

The Week in Editorial Cartoons – The Oily Axis of Evil

Crossposted at Daily Kos

THE WEEK IN EDITORIAL CARTOONS

This weekly diary takes a look at the past week’s important news stories from the perspective of our leading editorial cartoonists (including a few foreign ones) with analysis and commentary added in by me.

When evaluating a cartoon, ask yourself these questions:

1. Does a cartoon add to my existing knowledge base and help crystallize my thinking about the issue depicted?

2. Does the cartoonist have any obvious biases that distort reality?

3. Is the cartoonist reflecting prevailing public opinion or trying to shape it?

The answers will help determine the effectiveness of the cartoonist’s message.

:: ::

Steve Sack

Steve Sack, Comics.com (Minneapolis Star-Tribune)

Obama Barks, Arizona Bites

obama immigration reform

Everyone is outraged by the new law in Arizona, SB1070, which allows local law enforcement officers to target brown people even more easily than they had before, during the glory days of Sheriff Joe Arpaio, a beneficiary of the law that allowed this new law to exist, 287(g):

The Bush Administration granted the largest and most powerful 287(g) contract to Sheriff Arpaio, despite the fact that jails under his supervision cost his county over $43 million in death and abuse lawsuits. Arpaio is accused of housing prisoners in tents, making them appear before media TV cameras wearing pink underwear, shackling them in chain gangs, and trespassing into neighboring jurisdictions to unlawfully dump immigrants at the border for deportation. Traffic violators and day laborers are Arpaio’s main targets.

Even President Obama condemned the new Arizona law, and yet it is his own Administration’s ICE under the auspices of Homeland Security, that has paved the way for SB1070, an unjust law, to get on the books.

Under the Obama Administration’s Department of Homeland Security, Janet Napolitano is expanding the 287(g) program.

Recent studies (warning, pdf) show this law doesn’t work as intended.

The Week in Editorial Cartoons – A Cry for Help

Crossposted at Daily Kos

THE WEEK IN EDITORIAL CARTOONS

This weekly diary takes a look at the past week’s important news stories from the perspective of our leading editorial cartoonists (including a few foreign ones) with analysis and commentary added in by me.

When evaluating a cartoon, ask yourself these questions:

1. Does a cartoon add to my existing knowledge base and help crystallize my thinking about the issue depicted?

2. Does the cartoonist have any obvious biases that distort reality?

3. Is the cartoonist reflecting prevailing public opinion or trying to shape it?

The answers will help determine the effectiveness of the cartoonist’s message.

:: ::

John Sherffius

John Sherffius, Comics.com (Boulder Daily Camera)

We Need Every Voice in the Fight

Photobucket

Yeah, I know, it’s hilarious to speak of “voices” in a “fight” when we are at this moment witnessing the kabuki kongress and the other bozo-bloated branches of government.

Yesterday, as rossl recounts in this excellent essay, we find there were around, oh, 1,500-2,000 teabaggers and up to 10,000 antiwar demonstrators.

Well it is good that folks are yelling louder.

But today, yes, it is delicious irony that on a day where we’ve never felt more like failures as Americans, hundreds of thousands of our fellow human beings marched in Washington just for the chance to make it so that they (or their mother, or their father, or their children or their friends or their … ) could have the rights and privileges of citizenship.

Here’s a recent report from their website:

raylab:

Ok, that’s it from us here. It’s been an amazing, beautiful and historic day here in Washington, DC. But, I want to remind everybody, this is just the beginning. Now the real work to pass immigration reform starts. We were 500,000 strong for the cause today and we should carry that strength and power with us as we move forward. Tomorrow, call your Senator at 866-877-5552 and tell them you want immigration reform now. We can win this, but we need every voice in the fight.

What I have learned from the HCR national debate is that my own supposed allies, Democrats, are willing to throw out human rights and human dignity as negotiating tools without even fucking using them.  That steams me.

The liberal white blogosphere, I have also come to learn, is not going to consistently cover this aspect of the upcoming immigration debate.

Buhdy spoke the other day about negotiation.

Fool me once.

I’m not watching C-SPAN or following live blogs of corrupted government officials voting for legislation that utterly devalues our most precious American values, the values that the demonstrators today feel strongly enough about to want to be citizens, even with all the problems in our country.

I’m watching folks 500,000 strong.  The media may not pay any attention to them and the white liberal blogs may see them only as a political calculation instead of as brothers and sisters.

I don’t have much of a voice tonight.  But I’m enough of a loudmouth to fake it when necessary.

Si Se Puede!

What We Lost, What We Won

gay liberation

We lost on HCR.  Plain and simple.  The only mistake is to think the bill couldn’t have been worse.  We could have co-ops and triggers, you know.

But I don’t really care.  Political loss is no stranger to the left here in the US of A.

This weekend, I will witness what we won, only one of the jewel treasures won for ALL Americans from the left.

People whose only wish is to become citizens of the United States of America will be gathering in Washington D.C. on March 21.

And their idea of the spirit of being American is not of Thomas Jefferson or George Washington, not of Anita Bryant or John Wayne or the Chief Justice of the Supreme Court, Mr. Roberts.

Their inspiration is Harvey Milk and gay liberation.

It is now a fact that Harvey Milk was a great gay American, and the American story of the continuing fight for liberation by GLBT citizens is so firmly planted in our culture that immigration groups can use this American struggle as an inspiration that embodies the best and highest values of our society.

To me, that is a win.

From the Dream Act Portal:

March 15 marks the beginning of the United We Dream Network’s “National Coming Out of the Shadows Week.” This campaign draws inspiration from the struggle for equal rights by the gay and lesbian community. On the homepage of dreamactivist.org, the online hub for the United we Dream Network, the following quote from famed activist Harvey Milk is prominently displayed to encourage undocumented students to disclosure their status to advocate for equal rights and the passage of the Dream Act:

Brothers and Sisters, you must come out! come out to your parents, come out to your friends, if indeed they are your friends, come out to your neighbors, come out to your fellow workers. Once and for all, let’s break down the myth and destroy the lies and distortions. For your sake, for their sake. For the sake of all the youngsters who’ve been scared by the votes from Dade to Eugene. On the Statue of Liberty it says “Give me your tired, your poor, your huddled masses yearning to be free.” In the Declaration of Independence it is written, “All men are created equal and endowed with certain unalienable rights.” For Mr. Briggs and Mrs. Bryant and all the bigots out there, no matter how hard you try, you can never erase those words from the Declaration of Independence! No matter how hard you try you can never chip those words from the base of the Statue of Liberty! That is where America is!

Approximately 3.2 million undocumented immigrant children and young adults live in the shadows. It has been almost ten years since Congress promised them the American Dream. The wait has become increasingly insufferable.

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