The great Republican Minority outreach of the Steele era continues, and now they want to deport… citizens:
At a tea party rally in Ramona in San Diego County over the weekend, Hunter fielded a question about the issue.
“Would you support deportation of natural born American citizens that are the children of illegal aliens?” a man in the audience asked.
“I would have to, yes,” Hunter said.
He continued:
You can look and say, ‘You’re a mean guy. That’s a mean thing to do. That’s not a humanitarian thing to do.’ We simply cannot afford what we’re doing right now.
“We just can’t afford it anymore,” Hunter said. “That’s it. And we’re not being mean. We’re just saying it takes more than walking across the border to become an American citizen. It’s within our souls.
At this point, I fully expect some wingnut to propose torturing them first just to teach others a lesson.
For some perspective on how fucking crazy Republicans have come, ten years ago this month, Republicans were pitching an absolute fit about allowing Elian Gonzalez to go back to Cuba, demanding he be made an American citizen because… his mother almost walked across the border. Ten years later, they want to kick out Hispanic citizens because… their mothers walked across the border.
These people are just vile and un-American.
*** Update ***
WHERE DO YOU DEPORT U.S. CITIZENS TO YOU BLEEPING MORON?
Prolly some place foreign, like Massachusetts. If you have never heard Duncan Hunter, Jr., speak, he makes Mike Pence look smart.
BTW- are you all beginning to understand why Harry Reid is so eager to start discussing immigration reform? The Republicans simply can not control themselves and are totally going to lose it.
Nick
I’m pretty sure babies born in California didn’t “walk across the border”
CynDee
I think we can tell what’s in his soul.
jibeaux
WHERE DO YOU DEPORT U.S. CITIZENS TO YOU BLEEPING MORON?
I’m sorry, I’m going to take the caps off now. Just for a minute there, it was in my soul. Seriously, do you know what you call a U.S. citizen summarily sent to Thailand or Suriname or Mexico or Turkey? AN ILLEGAL IMMIGRANT.
schrodinger's cat
The immigration rules are different if you are from Cuba. You make it to the US soil, you are entitled to a green card, that ‘s the law.
Irregardless
The rules are different for Democratic presidents.
jamie
They’re made of spite in incoherent tribalism.
And cheetos, but mostly the spite and tribalism.
(Hey, I _like_ cheetos in moderation.)
whetstone
Fix’d.
SpotWeld
Elian Gonzalez wasn’t about citizenship as far as the GOP was concerned. It was about denying Castro political points.
Because popularity is a zero sum game.
That’s why Obama is getting such flak from the right with all his diplomacy, he’s essentially sitting with the uncool kids at lunch.
rob!
The GOP has completely, utterly, lost its mind.
They might make some small gains here and there, but I think they have slit their own throats in the long term.
A Thousand Faces
Idiotic and self-centered, yes. But I just don’t like the word un-American. It just rubs me the wrong way.
Mike Kay
but the democrats are no different than the republicans.
/PUMA-Firebag Axis.
JK
Duncan Hunter doesn’t fall far from the tree. He’s every bit as much of a wingnut as his father.
Dave C
If I lived about 5 miles east of where I currently am, that douchebag of a congressman would be my representative. Ugh.
joe from Lowell
These people have misread the public’s mood. They’re walking into another Terry Schiavo.
You mark my words. We’re looking at Macaca moments from now until election day.
stuckinred
@rob!: Neither one of those Hunter punks had a mind to lose.
Mike Kay
So when do they deport JLo?
mark
That’s mighty darn close to Obama himself. This is a dog-whistle to birthers. Also. And you know what they were saying about his father while a student and his mother as a sympathizer traitor lover.
Drive By Wisdom
Republicans have always been for repatriation. Especially the Democrats favorite: Abe Lincoln.
Loneoak
We’re just saying it takes more than walking across the border to become an American citizen. It’s within our souls.
Sooo … a naturalization ceremony is a baptism? And how does one determine whether a soul is American?
toujoursdan
@jibeaux:
Exactly. These people would be STATELESS which would make them illegal no matter where they went.
This is all so self defeating.
The WHITE population is ageing and has a low fertility rate. Get rid of all the Hispanics and this country goes into demographic and economic decline even faster.
Litlebritdifrnt
Look it is obvious that the RWNJ talking points have gone so far off the reservation that they can’t even see the dust anymore. As you know I listen to Rush every day when I am driving around running errands. You know who the latest target of his ire is? Guess. Okay Firefighters and Police Officers and other government workers that retire and get a retirement check. I am not shitting you. He says that his rich friends complain about having to pay property taxes for “a firefighter who works for twenty years then draws a retirement check for forty, it is just unsustainable, that is why California is in so much trouble, we cannot afford to pay these people these retirement checks” this is his latest meme. Personally I hope his house is broken into and then burns the fuck down. If I was a local Police Officer or a Firefighter I wouldn’t piss on him.
maye
One way to handle the enforcement problems the new law will cause is to round everyone up who has brown skin, check their papers, and if they’re legal, make them wear a gold star on their clothing. Then as new legal people get permission to be here, they can put the star on their clothing. So it really is very simple, you see.
mr. whipple
A week ago, I had reservations about the politics of Democrats doing a IR bill before the midterms in a bad economy.
After seeing this level of disgusting crap in AZ and the microchipping and assorted other wingnut blatherings, I’ve changed my mind. Do it as soon as possible.
beltane
Only something like 25% of this country is of predominantly British descent. Some of them are liberals. The rest of them will be just about all that’s left of the Republican party in a few years.
We have this same debate in the US every few decades, and the Know-Nothings always end up losing in the end, which is a good thing because American cuisine and popular culture would be pretty gross without the contributions of the racially impure.
stuckinred
@Mike Kay: After the full body search.
Martin
You deport them to Hawaii, obviously.
MikeTheZ
ReThugs clued into the fact that voting against Wall Street reform following massive economic collapse is a baaaaad idea.
beltane
@Litlebritdifrnt: That is kind of funny considering that many cops and firefighters listen to Limbaugh religiously. It sounds like he sure put his foot in his mouth on that one; he must have been hungry.
Cacti
This reminds me of when some of the wingnuts were referring to Sonya Sotomayor as an “immigrant” from Puerto Rico.
Brian J
Wouldn’t it take a massive expansion of government to spend time and money trying to figure out where the parents of these people came from?
KRK
Uh-oh. He used the immigration policy debate equivalent of “no backsies.” Now the villagers will have to call foul on anyone saying this is a mean-spirited position.
Good thing we’ve still got asinine and unAmerican, among about a billion other pejorative descriptors, to use.
Chyron HR
@Drive By Wisdom:
Repatriation: the process of returning a person back to one’s place of origin or citizenship.
To where exactly would you repatriate American citizens who were born in America?
(No, marching around with a giant sign that says “NIGGARS” is not a valid answer. Try again.)
jonas
@Brian J: Of course. But remember the Wingnut/Bagger credo: expansion of government in the service of oppressing dark people is no vice.
Annie
Deport them…unless they agree at birth to join Focus on the Family, immediately become Republicans, and promise to join the next teabagger rally….
I heard on wingnut radio today — my daily self-torture — that allowing illegals to stay is all part of Obama’s grand plan to “brownize” the American electorate, so whites become a minority, and “browns” will ensure that Obama rules forever.
Rick Massimo
I love my son more than anything, but when he was born there was nothing in his soul but “poop,” “pee,” “cry,” “sleep” and “where’s that thing with the milk in it?”
The words Hunter is looking for are ubermenschen and untermenschen. Seriously, I don’t say this often, but that is straight-up Nazi shit right there.
The reason that was different is because, despite what Hunter says, there is a large percentage of the conservative mindset that is all about being an asshole, for its own sake and for its own sake only. That’s all there is to it.
Wherever you want. It’s not like those brown-people countries have governments or anything. And if they do give you any lip, bomb ’em. It’s all about
racial puritysmall government and saving money.Bob K
I’m thinking these people would have been right at home in the Hilter Youth Movement, KKK, Salem Witch Trials, Spanish Inqusition and the Children’s Crusade. Did I leave anything out. Oh yeah. The Ultimate Wing Nut Event.
LushBeck-palooza (not sponsored by Fox News)
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sVxM5IBLeU4
Mike Kay
Obama should nominate another latino to the Supreme just to watch the nativist’s heads explode.
Litlebritdifrnt
@beltane:
That was my thought exactly. I wondered what the percentage of his listeners who are retired government workers was, I would say it would be a pretty big percentage. I mean really he has got to be pissing off his base.
Mark S.
What makes a person a US citizen?
COMING OUT OF A VAGINA IN US JURISDICTION
See
Faux News
What about Governor Anchor Baby Bobby Jindal? Can we deport him and his immigrant parents back to India? I think this would be a good start.
Cacti
Rep. Hunter is correct that he’s not being mean.
He’s simply showing that he lacks even a High School Civics understanding of the Constitution he took an oath to uphold.
I wish he were only being mean. It would be a lot less frightening.
Rosali
Umm, Elian’s mom didn’t make it. But the Cuban GOP wanted Elian to stay because his Mom *planned* to get to the US.
JLo’s parents and most likely her grandparents were born US citizens.
Drive By Wisdom
Chyron, everything you know is wrong:
stuckinred
Citizen_X
Pardon me, everybody. I am going to yell.
Dear Teabaggers:
FOURTEENTH. FUCKING. AMENDMENT.
Even as you teabagger idiots go on and on about the Constitution you also yell about ANCHOR BABEEZ! and changing that shit pronto! But changing that would require another constitutional amendment. Good luck with getting that done, Mr. and Mrs. 28%.
redoubt
@mark:
Fixed. Hey, it was 1961.
FTR: I live in Georgia, and I can easily see the Republican-controlled state legislature coming up with something equally stupid and our Republican governor signing it. And when they do, they can kiss the crops goodbye.
Chad N Freude
@jibeaux: That’s an easy one, just look at Wikipedia. SATSQ
toujoursdan
@Drive By Wisdom:
It’s the same in Canada. The only exception is if a parent is a diplomatic or consular officer or other representative or employee of a foreign government in Canada or an employee of such a person.
stuckinred
@redoubt: You got it, these fucking morons won’t know whether to shit or go blind when the peanuts rot on the vine. Of course Moonpie Perdue will be fishin by then.
Litlebritdifrnt
@Annie:
No shit, twitter was rabid today with the Puerto Rico thing, the teabaggers heads were exploding at the thought of however many more “brown” people voting in US elections. It was quite amusing to watch to be honest. Howard Dean was on the Ed Show tonight and was saying that unless the Repubs push back on this Arizona thing then the Hispanic vote will be lost to them for decades, much like the black vote was after the civil rights fight.
Comrade Kevin
Remember, the Republicans are the ones who are looking to “defend” the Constitution from the Kenyan Islamofascist Marxist in the White House.
Mnemosyne
@Mike Kay:
Nah. Asian-American. Any thoughts you might have had about conservatives not being quite as racist towards a “model minority” as they were towards a Latina would fall away right quick.
Anoniminous
HuffPost yesterday:
In a tight race the current governor just pissed off 17% of the voters and the fastest growing demographic in Arizona.
Meanwhile, the State Attorney General, who is responsible for laying down the guidelines to enforce this “No Beaners Act of 2010”, is running for governor and slowly pulling ahead. And has just been given the greatest of all great opportunities to give the AzGOP a wedgie that will be up their cracks for the next uppity-umph years.
Can’t make this shit up, I tells ya.
fourlegsgood
I am looking forward to this fight. The goopers are batshit crazy, and they will not be able to hide it.
MikeJ
@Litlebritdifrnt: Wow. I hadn’t heard anything about the “Puerto Rico thing” today. Popped it into google news and what came up? Glenn Beck, Right News, and the John fucking Birch Society blog.
Martin
@Mark S.: So C-Section is just a guest visa?
Chad N Freude
@Mark S.: So infants born by Caesarean section are not citizens?
WereBear
A common saying in therapy, (or at least it should be,) is when someone expresses puzzlement about another’s motivations.
It is simply to see what they do, and your question has been answered.
Chad N Freude
@Martin: Damn! Beat me by a minute. And funnier, too. Also.
schrodinger's cat
@Rosali: Yes I think you are right, now I remember. His mother died and his father wanted him back, he had some relatives in Florida who wanted to keep him here, that’s what I remember.
fourlegsgood
@Citizen_X: I had a republican tell me tonight that he thought they could get a constitutional amendment passed.
BWA HHAHAHHAHAhAHHAhAhahaHhaHAhAhAA!!!!
I about laffed myself sick.
Drive By Wisdom
It is unconstitutional.
Brian J
@jonas:
Sadly, that’s true.
And in response to Hunter’s claim that we just can’t afford “it,” or rather immigration, a really simple calculation is to take the money we spend on immigration enforcement and services to help them live and compare it to the economic benefits immigrants bring by, you know, being economic participants. Time and time again, I’ve been led to believe, they bring more in benefits than we spend on them. So yes, we can afford it.
Mike Kay
Alberto Gonzales start packing.
Brandon
Everything really does start in California. The subject of the Californication of our national politics has come up. But the national Republican Party decided that they first forgot Pete Wilson themselves with their own Prop 187.
Also, for more Glibertarian hilarity, see here.
Rosali
@redoubt:
Digby has a chart of other states that are proposing laws similar to Arizona’s. The red states must be in a contest to see who can be more unconstitutional.
Chad N Freude
@Drive By Wisdom: True! It is only an amendment and therefore does not reflect the Founding Fathers’ original Original Intent.
Brad Hanon
I was looking at a gun auction website today, and one dealer insisted “WE ONLY SALE TO USA, WE DO NOT SALE TO CALIFORNIA” [sic], so I suppose you could deport all the U.S. citizens to… um, the state where 10% of us already live. Hm.
This may be trickier than it looks.
Joseph Nobles
This is why Aunt Pittypat threw a conniption at the very thought of immigration reform soiling his mighty climate change concession.
After all, Democrats yelling about cap-and-trade plays into Republican talking points (cap-and-tax). No wonder Graham was happy to usher along a climate change bill (even though he would never have voted for it in the end). Immigration reform will simply tank the Republicans for another generation.
Democrats: “That’s a real nice Southern Strategy you got there. It would be a shame for you to have to rely on it for another generation or two. A crying shame.”
d.s.
Yeah, the conventional wisdom is that immigration is a horrible issue to bring up during times of economic anxiety, and I agreed. But with Republicans like these, who knows…
They’ve already started shooting themselves in the foot before Dems even attempted to make immigration an issue.
If teabaggers are out in force screaming about deportation, anchor babies, welfare “reinas”, etc. every Southwestern Democrat is going to be breathing a sigh of relief.
Mark S.
C-SECTIONS DO. NOT. COUNT.
Litlebritdifrnt
@Mark S.:
Not according to the birfers, according to the birfers you have to be born on US soil to TWO US Natural Born Citizens, De Vattel and all that, which would pretty much mean that no one in the entire US is a natural born citizen. But you know they are birfers after all.
General Egali Tarian Stuck
In fairness to the computations of the lizard brain beam, they were saving him from being a godless commie like his pappy and Castro, and giving him a chance to be a bonafide Murrican Wingnut who loves baby jeevus would have voted for George Bush and his waterboard.
Them dirty Mixicans ain’t nothing but secret Sandinistas and future Obamunists that will bake a bean truck full of brown brats that will suck the white money teet dry. And idnt that Yugo Chavez pinko from down there somewheres. Fucking Read Devils.
And bully for you pendants. I know Yugo is a cheap Volkswagon. Probly made in Mother Russia.
Litlebritdifrnt
@Chad N Freude:
Not according to Alan Keyes, and no I am not joking.
The Main Gauche of Mild Reason
@Litlebritdifrnt:
You know, that sounds a lot like the arrangement for retired military folks. Surely Rush wouldn’t dream of having them give up their retirement benefits?
Drive By Wisdom
Well, it certainly did not reflect the view of any Democrat. Not one Democrat voted for the 14th Ammendment.
Not in John Cole’s history book.
Omnes Omnibus
@General Egali Tarian Stuck: That was impressive. You should seek medical help; your ability to channel idiocy might be a sign of a serious medical problem.
Chad N Freude
@Mark S.: Well, I was born via C-section and I count. In binary, octal, decimal, and hex [also].
RJ
At what point will the right try to deport Obama, not for being some creepy illegal Kenyan immigrant, but for being a natural born citizen?
Omnes Omnibus
@The Main Gauche of Mild Reason:
Yes, he would.
Omnes Omnibus
@Drive By Wisdom: You are an idiot. That is all.
Chyron HR
@Drive By Wisdom:
I don’t think you quite understand what “Drive-By” means.
Chad N Freude
@Drive By Wisdom:
They were against it before they were for it.
Litlebritdifrnt
@The Main Gauche of Mild Reason:
Oh no Rush has been VERY VERY careful not to mention military retirement in his rants, he knows that dissing the troops is a loser (why he doesn’t think that dissing firefighters and police officers is not a loser is beyond me) but he somehow exempts the troops from this “unsustainable retirement checks” theory.
Chad N Freude
@Omnes Omnibus: Dude, check out the link he provided. Serious history video.
General Egali Tarian Stuck
@Omnes Omnibus: I live in America. Serious as dick cancer.
redoubt
@Rosali: Thanks. Nathan Deal has no shot, though, and he knows it.
(I would pay money to see such a law enforced in the DeKalb County North Precinct.)
slippy
@Drive By Wisdom: Jesus Christ. More cherry-picking Constitutionalism by ignorant fucks who know exactly dick about the law. “Judge” or no judge.
Omnes Omnibus
@Chad N Freude: I understand that part. But the Democratic Party of the 1860s is not the Democratic Party of today. The Republican Party of the 1860s has also changed into something different today. Someone who does not understand that is an idiot.
slippy
@Drive By Wisdom:
The insane rantings of unhinged racist nutjobs do not overrule the due process of the Constitution you addle-brained shithead.
Chad N Freude
@Omnes Omnibus: Of course. But it is politically incorrect to point out stuff like what the Democrats were like 150 years ago on this blog. We are perfect now and have always been perfect. That’s why Bj has such reasoned debates.
I have to go now, but I’ll check in in a couple of hours to see how badly I’ve been mauled.
Litlebritdifrnt
You know I was having a discussion with my DH about this new Arizona law he was sort of cool with it. I said “well you know what baby doll? If you and I are driving through Arizona in the summer (when he gets real dark tanned and he has black hair) and they stop us, I am golden, I have a green card, what do you have?” He said “a drivers license” “not good enough” says me “where is your birth certificate?” he looked at me like I was insane. But the bottom line is me a legal immigrant with a green card will have more protection against this unbelieveably stupid law than will an American citizen born here. I mean lets say for the sake of argument that you don’t have a drivers license, or a social security card (you left it at the house). I as an immigrant am more legal than you, you being someone who was born and raised in the good old USA!
jenniebee
I’m part Native American, part Eye-talian WOP. What’s he going to do with me?
AnotherBruce
@Drive By Wisdom:
I see that you’re still fighting, and still losing the civil war.
BDeevDad
@Dave C: Unfortunately, that’s where I live. I have a fucking idiot for a Congressman who got the job because of his idiotic father, my former Congressman.
I can’t wait for my neighbors to tell me what a good idea this is just so I can ask them if they’ve read the Constitution.
JSpencer
People who don’t have souls shouldn’t talk about souls.
Omnes Omnibus
@Chad N Freude: 150 years ago most of us would have been Radical Republicans. They were the liberal Dems of their era.
MikeJ
@Litlebritdifrnt: Social Security card doesn’t count as ID or proof of citizenship. They won’t let you in at the border with just a social security card, I don;t see how the cops could accept it.
Violet
@Litlebritdifrnt:
This.
American citizens don’t have “papers” to prove they are citizens. A drivers license doesn’t do it in a lot of states. Neither does a Social Security card. Even a birth certificate might not prove it, if you’ve emigrated to another country, say. What, exactly, proves you are an American citizen here legally? A passport? What if you don’t travel and don’t have one. And even if you have one, you don’t carry it on you all the time as a citizen.
These people are crazy.
aimai
The GOP is the party of spite and sour grapes–they were all for the hispanic vote when they thought that they could get it by simply appealing to its “natural conservative nature” and “shared religious values” (ie catholics were assumed to be anti gay and anti abortion) but now that the teabagging base has decided to go full metal blood and soil the GOP hierarchy is going to decide they never wanted those dirty old latino votes anyway. And they are going to go for this in a huge way. Jeb Bush and the odd Rubio or two can say what they want but the rest of the Republicans are not going to be able to stop throwing oil on the fire.
I’ve already received an organizing email from my former brazilian babysitter–brazilians in MA have heard rumors that similar anti immigrant laws could be enacted here and they are really upset about it. That’s a fuckload of organized, practical, hard working, registered to vote people to have pissed off at the Republican party. Just a day or so ago we were hearing the pundits say things like “this won’t affect anyone outside of AZ” and “other immigrant groups won’t care…” Bullshit. This is going to radicalize thousands of people who were just keeping their heads down and staying out of politics before.
aimai
MadRuth
Why stop there? Why not deport the grandchildren of illegal immigrants, or their grandchildren? Let’s all go to Europe and leave the country to the Native Americans.
WereBear
All this driver’s license talk is really beside the point. Those who have one don’t even think about not having one, obviously.
What about the people who don’t have a driver’s license?
They’re too young. They’re too old. They’re blind or otherwise unable to operate a motor vehicle. Or maybe you were born in Manhattan and never learned to drive; there’s lots of those people in New York City.
None of them can go to Arizona?
FoxinSocks
It’s a bit complicated, but my Mom came to this country legally, overstayed her welcome by some small amount, and it eventually got worked out.
Does that mean I’d get kicked out of the country and end up living in some airport in Romania? Do you think Switzerland would take me in? I hear they have good chocolate.
DonkeyKong
Is it just me or does Duncan Hunter look like his face was stitched on by a crank snorting baboon.
ellaesther
I repeat: My great-great grandfather jumped ship to stay in this country. He swam across the border. I have no idea what his citizenship status was when my great-grandmother was born in Michigan.
It’s within our souls? Our SOULS? Really?! What the fuck does that even mean?
I give up, man. I just give up.
Violet
@WereBear:
Who would want to go to Arizona at the moment?
ellaesther
@jibeaux: I think I love you.
Warren Terra
@jibeaux:
You do know that we already deport people who were brought across the border as children or infants, are fluent in no language but English, and have no idea how to live in their “homeland”, don’t you? It’s not like the consequences for the deportee keeps these people up nights. Obviously, the fact that these proposed deportees are citizens makes the legal injustice of the proposition blatantly obvious – but we do this already to people whose homeland in any functional sense is already the USA.
Omnes Omnibus
@FoxinSocks: Otopeni airport isn’t too depressing as Eastern European airports go.
El Cid
Where will they send Michelle Malkin?
Midnight Marauder
@joe from Lowell:
Big time. It’s been interesting listening to all the doom and gloom prognostications lately about how the GOP is going to have a surging majority in the fall, and the Democrats are going to be swept away, and it’s all going to be so horrible. And now suddenly, Immigration Reform is being tossed into the mix, and an already volatile Republican primary season is about to explode into a bigotry lollapalooza. I can’t even imagine what the “moderate” Republicans are going to say when pressed on this:
Are you fucking kidding me?! Michele Bachmann doesn’t want to touch this?! Wow! The literal extreme of extreme crazy in the Republican Party doesn’t even want to even acknowledge this thing’s existence and the guy who is poised to be the Speaker of the House if the Republican Party just so happens to sweep back into power’s only defense is “the law has 70 percent support.” And that’s based on a Rasmussen poll. L.O.L. These clowns are toast.
Hey, I’m really happy for you, Sen. Lindsey Graham, and I’mma let you finish your Climate Change bill tri-partianship lovefest, but Harry Reid is one of the greatest racial panderers of all time!
aimai
How come no one has said it yet?
“This is how realignments happen.”
aimai
Jay
@Chad N Freude:
Maybe the issue, Chad, isn’t so much that pointing out “what the Democrats were like 150 years ago” is “politically incorrect” , but that it is purely fncking irrelevant to discussions of contemporary political issues. Is the concept that political parties might shift their ideological or sectional bases over the passage of time – like a godd@m century – really so hard to grasp?
Rosali
On the bright side, when Antonin Scalia gets deported, there will be another vacancy on the Supreme Court.
Omnes Omnibus
@Jay: To some it is.
Mnemosyne
@Chad N Freude:
So that means the 2nd Amendment isn’t a real part of the Constitution, either, what with being tacked on as an afterthought and not part of the Constitution proper.
Awesome.
Warren Terra
I love the romantic image of Lyndon Johnson as a true convert to the cause of racial equality, and the scene where he turns to Bill Moyers after signing the Civil Rights Act and says that he’s just signed away the South to the Republican Party for a generation. And I trust that that image is fairly true. But it’s worth remembering that Johnson was also a calculating SOB, and he may have realized that once the Republicans got addicted to the Southern Strategy, they Republicans would start signing away everything but the South for generations to come.
In any case, whether or not LBJ saw it coming, that could be what’s happening. I’m a Jew, and for generations the Rs were lucky to get 10% of the Jewish vote. Even before Obama, it was hard to imagine 10% of African-Americans voting Republican. I’ve got a PhD, and I can’t imagine many educated people voting for the Party of Palin. And with the Arizona Police State act and idiots like Duncan Hunter Jr, I suspect we’ll get a whole generation not only of Latinos that will never vote R, but also of Americans who claim heritage from other non-white groups. If the R’s really restrict themselves to being the party of uneducated White Christians, they’ll get to keep Wyoming forever, but they’ll never get a national majority.
WereBear
Yep. So true.
And encouraging!
One of the things I loved about the Obama campaign was that it really wasn’t the usual, “I” type thing. It was about what “we” can do, and if he can ramp that up again, all the business as usual predictions will be blown out of the water.
gbear
@Midnight Marauder:
Well the MN republican candidates for governor are only too willing to pick up her slack:
I hope they stay loud and proud about it and help take Bachmann down (along with all of Tim Pawlenty’s political ambitions).
Violet
@Warren Terra:
Speaking of LBJ, I heard a snippet of Hannity’s radio show today and caught him referring to LBJ as “Republican President LBJ who passed the Civil Rights Act.” Whoever was on the phone or being interviewed or whatever didn’t call him out on it – just murmured agreement.
If Republicans are claiming LBJ, things really have gone mad.
Svensker
@Chad N Freude:
Um, wut?
Yutsano
@Svensker: I have no idea, but I’ll have what he’s having.
Omnes Omnibus
@Svensker: He rolled that little grenade into the room and left.
KRK
@Omnes Omnibus:
More fart than grenade.
Belafon (formerly anonevent)
@Drive By Wisdom: And I love it when Republicans point out that they were the party that freed the slaves. “Then why are you backing racists now?” The don’t get a free pass to be racist just because their political ancestors did the right thing.
Mark S.
@Chad N Freude:
I think everybody here knows that, but if anyone doesn’t, take a look.
For the life of me, I can’t understand why anyone would describe what goes on here as “reasoned.”
MikeJ
@Yutsano:
A lobotomy?
PurpleGirl
@jenniebee: Well, if you’re like my Aunt M, you’re sort of a golden olive and I’d suggest carrying every piece of documentation you have, maybe even your Italian ancestor’s papers because they ain’t gonna believe you’re a natural born citizen.
Mark S.
@MikeJ:
Oooooooh, that sounds ever so nice. Thinking makes me tired!
Andrew
As disgusting as this immigration blow up has been, it is the best thing that could’ve happened before the Mid-terms, nothing like Wingers getting their hate on to scare undecideds into voting against Republicans and this is one issue I don’t think even Dems could mess this up.
MikeBoyScout
No doubt, this is very, very good news for president Grandpa Walnuts.
PurpleGirl
@WereBear: For those who can afford it and can get to the state agency: a Non-Driver’s License. You get from your state’s motor vehicle department and it’s an ID just like a driver’s ID except for the restriction — Non-Driver. They began issuing them about30 years ago so people could use checks to pay for things even if they didn’t drive. I have one from NYS.
Glidwrith
If you all will excuse the profanity: goddamn m-fing SON OF A BITCH. That bastard Hunter is my Rep and as far as I can tell not one damned person is actually running against this piece of shit (we’re R+9 according to Nate Silver). I spent all of the health care debate dealing with this asshole. All he does is parrot every single talking point, complete with half-truths, out of context quotes, basically every deceitful trick you can name that we talk about. I finally got fed up with him and sent him the following:
Dear Mr. Hunter, I honestly don’t think you will enjoy hearing from me. Your most recent columns and talks on NPR lead me to call you a sanctimonious, unmitigated jackass. You and your party have sat on your butts, busily distorted every last positive thing that might be accomplished by Congress and tried your damnedest to keep people unemployed so that you can later reap political benefits. I tried to communicate with you several times last year concerning the health care debate. You consistently cherry-picked data, ignored counter-arguments and just plain lied. I left the Republican party for many reasons and you have reinforced every last one of them. I tried to talk to you about facts and it didn’t work, so now I’m trying an emotional one. I know exactly who is to blame for this mess and no media spin is ever going to change my mind. In their own bumbling way, at least some of the Democrats (and not the hypocritical Blue Dogs) are trying. My favorites at the moment are Bernie Sanders and Alan Grayson, with Al Franken bearing them good company. Take a good hard look at what they say and do. That is what you are supposed to be doing. You people are supposed to be in the business of governing, not looting the citizenry and destroying financial and safety regulations to line the corporations’ pockets. Sincerely,
Warren Terra
Arizona has made it clear that out-of-state drivers’ licenses aren’t proof of citizenship, b/c some states would rather regulate speeding hunks of metal than deny licenses to undocumented immigrants.
BDeevDad
@Glidwrith: I’m with you and also one of his constituents. I actually asked how many years he has not received gov’t funded healthcare and got no answer.
Unfortunately, if Mike Lumpkin, a retired Navy SEAL commander who also served in Iraq and Afghanistan couldn’t beat him in 2008, no one will.
Dr. Loveless
It’s at times like this that I wish Steve Gilliard were still around. He’d be having a field day.
I’ve been saying for a while to anyone who’ll listen that if you think the HCR debate brought the crazy, just wait till immigration reform hits the table. The GOP is going to have to march straight off the cliff with this one. Their base won’t let them do anything else.
OTOH, Duncan Hunter’s constituents out in Lakeside and Santee (“Klantee” to us locals) are no doubt lapping this shit up.
RJ
You know, we’re all foregetting something: this is excellent news for John McCain.
RJ
Ahem – `forgetting’
Yutsano
Deport me. Please. My grandfather barely made it into the US as it is. Then I could have a sane national government and single-payer health care. Send me back into that briar patch I dare you!
kgsoto
Yep – this guy is my Rep also, as was his dad. Unfortunately he’ll have this job for life and he’s young. R+9 doesn’t even begin to describe this district.
Panurge
From what I can tell, “It’s within our souls” means “This is something we can have a fairly clear conscience about.” More in sorrow than in tribalism, yadda yadda. For what that‘s worth. Man, you’d think that White America was actually shrinking or something.
Cain
@aimai:
You damn right it will. It is only a matter of time before they’ll come after the rest of us. I hope Indians get their collective head out of their asses. They are naturally republicans since they are neither fiscally liberal or socially liberal as a whole.
cain
danimal
The beauty of watching the GOP piss off Hispanics is that they won’t see it coming. They’ll dominate talk radio, Fox and the conservosphere and think that everyone agrees with them.
Meanwhile, Univision and Telemundo will be a 24 hour a day outrage-a-thon of GOP ignorance and hate; the real ‘Murkins won’t even notice until it’s way too late.
Pavlov's Dog
I remember when Rove was being called the brilliant strategist for getting the anti-gay marriage initiatives on the ballot during Bush Jr. – That would be some excellent karma if Obama does the same with immigration.
Chad N Freude
@Jay: In my defense, DriveBy was being trashed for pointing out that no Dems voted for the 14th Amendment. The rest was snark based on long experience reading and occasionally commenting on this blog.
Chad N Freude
@Svensker: Please see @Chad N Freude for the solution to this puzzle.
Uloborus
@Chad N Freude:
I totally got that it was snark, and well appointed snark, since people got snippy about it. I was just too late to point that out before the moment had passed.
But let me be fair in return. It’s not like they haven’t seen crazy yahoos say those kinds of things seriously.
Wile E. Quixote
@Violet:
Hey, LBJ has a lot in common with George W. Bush. They’re both Texans. They both had bogus military records (Johnson was briefly in the Navy during WWII and Bush of course was in the Texas Air National Guard). Neither one was elected to his first term in office. They both got us into unwinnable foreign wars based upon false pretenses (LBJ and the Gulf of Tonkin, GWB and Iraqi weapons of mass destruction) and they both massively increased the size and scope of the federal government.
Chad N Freude
@Mark S.: Well,
occasionallyfrequently there is reasoned discussion. There are many thoughtful, intelligent commenters here. But sometimes some of them forget that they are thoughtful and intelligent and take umbrage at facts or opinions that don’t comport with the opinions that they have have thoughtfully and reasonably arrived at.Chad N Freude
@Omnes Omnibus, @KRK: Sadly, I have obligations that occasionally conflict with rolling grenades and farting. But I said I’d be back, and here I am.
LA Dave
The New Colossus
Not like the brazen giant of Greek fame,
With conquering limbs astride from land to land;
Here at our sea-washed, sunset gates shall stand
A mighty woman with a torch, whose flame
Is the imprisoned lightning, and her name
Mother of Exiles. From her beacon-hand
Glows world-wide welcome; her mild eyes command
The air-bridged harbor that twin cities frame.
“Keep ancient lands, your storied pomp!” cries she
With silent lips. “Give me your tired, your poor,
Your huddled masses yearning to breathe free,
The wretched refuse of your teeming shore.
Send these, the homeless, tempest-tost to me,
I lift my lamp beside the golden door!”
Brachiator
@Andrew:
I’m waiting for some hard evidence that this issue has moved or will move significant numbers of people into the Democratic Party camp. Even though this Arizona law is despicable, the plain hard fact is that the immigration issue is marginal to many citizens’ lives or worse, some people will acquiesce to what is happening because even though they don’t like the law, this is one area where the Democrats don’t have any solutions.
Also, it’s not that people are undecided. There are people who are not that thrilled with the efforts of either party. What liberals most have going for them is a call to conscience, but these are hard times, and hard times rarely bring out the best in people.
ThinkBlue
Kinda late entering this thread, but the question about where the legal illegals would go made me think of a South Park episode where Saddam Hussein was killed and returned to hell. When asked how he came back, he replied, “Where else was I going to go, Detroit?”
Wile E. Quixote
@Warren Terra:
I’ve heard this a million times but after reading Before the Storm and Nixonland and re-reading A Bright, Shining Lie I’ve come to the conclusion that what killed LBJ wasn’t civil rights, but Vietnam. Vietnam killed LBJ’s chances of winning the nomination in 1968. If LBJ hadn’t ginned up the Gulf of Tonkin incident and had kept the US out of Vietnam then yes, Vietnam would have fallen to the communists but I don’t think it would have been as potent of an issue as “losing China” was in 1952. Look at how well Barry Goldwater’s sabre-rattling did in 1964, and look at how George Wallace’s campaign imploded in 1968 after Curtis LeMay came out and basically said “C’mon you pussies, get over your fear of nuclear weapons!”. After the Cuban Missile Crisis the American people really lost their taste for that sort of thing.
So if LBJ hadn’t gotten us into Vietnam he still would have been the Democratic nominee in 1968 and the Democrats wouldn’t have been split between the pro-Vietnam and anti-Vietnam factions. If you look at the numbers you can see that even with Vietnam, civil rights, the clusterfuck in Chicago and the third party candidacy of George Wallace Nixon only won the election by seven tenths of a percent in the popular vote, which translates into about 512,000 votes, give or take.
It’s an interesting counterfactual to wonder what a contest between Nixon and LBJ would have been like. Both of them were total bastards when it came to political infighting and dirty tricks. It would have been fun to watch, from a distance.
Dr. Loveless
@danimal:
That was one of the things that made the 2006 immigration protests such a thing of beauty. They were organized/publicized almost exclusively on Spanish-language media, and via text messaging and MySpace — the English-speaking MSM were completely blindsided by it. I still relish the memory of watching a million people filling downtown L.A. while every talking head on CNN alternated between befuddled exclamations of “Whoa, where did these people all come from?” and making nervous jokes. It’s like affluent Anglos such as those in the Village don’t really imagine that Latinos really exist, except when cleaning their homes or doing their yardwork — like magical elves, or something.
Anne Laurie
Rush would insist that he pays his own private security service and has a state-of-the-art sprinkler system to protect his property, because Free Market Fvck Yeah! Of course, if the EMTs he calls next time he experiences “chest pain” while vacationing in some tropical paradise don’t show up quickly enough, or they’re not properly respectful, it will take Limbaugh approximately 2.3 seconds to play the “Don’t you people know I’m paying your salaries? ! ?” card. And then I hope the paramedics pull out the shock paddles… just because they can.
Brachiator
@Dr. Loveless:
Yeah, you are right about this, although it is not clear that the protests had a huge political impact afterward in Los Angeles or statewide.
The GOP clearly believe that they can afford to piss off Latinos. Is it blindness or a calculated risk? I’m not sure of the answer yet.
It is also useful to keep in mind that immigration is not just an issue here in the United States. In the UK, prime minister Gordon Brown’s immigration gaffe is a huge PR blunder for the liberal Labour Party (Brown ‘bigot’ row overshadows debate):
And here, for those keeping score, the illegal immigrants are mainly from Eastern Europe.
Comrade Kevin
I just noticed that the event was in Ramona, CA. That place is absolutely awful. Total SoCal right-wing troglodyte country. The only surprise to me is that it wasn’t in Fallbrook, home of Tom Metzger.
Mnemosyne
2007’s immigration protest was much more influential in LA since that was when the LAPD decided to break up the protest on live TV.
c marvel
Duncan run jr is my congresscritter he is an embarrassment to the folks in the 50th I saw a quote over at alicublog
remember, they have no principles only a sense of entitlement, resentment when it’s challenged, and rage when it’s thwarted. Bout sums um up.
c marvel
duncan hunter congressdouche of the 52nd sorry my mistake.
It is sadly true that Mr. Hunter has been hardly challenged. He was handed the seat, did not begin to earn it and it should be taken away.
Cacti
The way the media headlines have chosen to spin this is…
“Rep. Hunter supports deporting children of illegals”
Rather than…
“Rep. Hunter supports deporting U.S. citizens of Mexican ancestry”
Way to go librul media.
Lupin
Do you tag them before you deport them?
http://crooksandliars.com/david-neiwert/another-republican-solution-illegal
lonesomerobot
here’s a point I’ve been meaning to make:
spot the dissonance…
righty: get the government out of our lives! they’re coming to take our guns and put us in camps!
same righty: deport all illegals!
but righty apparently doesn’t realize that deporting 12 million or so undocumented immigrants, aside from costing an estimated $750 billion, requires that the government would have to have an apparatus in place that was capable of rounding up millions of people and moving them around the country…
is that what righty REALLY wants?
kay
They better all get on the same page.
Radical anti-abortionists are trying to expand the definition of “person” in the 14th Amendment to “at conception”.
Radical anti-immigration conservatives are trying to limit the definition of “person” in the 14th Amendment to “has (at least) one citizen-parent”.
Maybe not. Maybe this gets them both there.
We’ll have to determine if the person was conceived in the US, and by whom.
toujoursdan
@Brachiator:
They’re not even illegal. These pensioners are whinging about Polish plumbers and Romanian prostitutes. These eastern European countries are part of the EU and, as such, their citizens have the right to live anywhere within the union.
If the Brit bigots are going to retire to Spain, they need to deal with the fact that the eastern Europeans may want to work in the UK.
Rick Massimo
@Belafon (formerly anonevent):
More to the point (since they can always deny that the racists they’re backing are racists), ask “Well, then why are Republicans the only ones who are so big on Confederate History Month?”
elmo
@Dave C:
I grew up in Santee. Lived there for almost 25 years, went to Santana HS. Tell me about it.
elmo
@Loneoak:
Easy. It comes surrounded in white skin.
Jon
Something folks need to focus on more: We deport American citizen children *now*. It’s called “de facto deportation.” If a noncitizen is being deported to another country, and she has a US citizen minor child, nine times out of ten the kid’s going to go with her — not only may there not be anyone in the US with whom the kid can stay, but in any event parent and child don’t want to be separated. There are immigration-law provisions under which in really rare cases a parent can avoid deportation because of the “exceptional and extremely unusual hardship” that relocation would cause to her citizen child, but the provisions are almost impossible to satisfy. The only saving grace is that, as a citizen, the kid has the right to return to the US once he’s an adult.
jayjaybear
Ah, but Elian, Prince of Dolphins, was different because GAWD was leading him out of the blood-rouged hands of a murderous, godless, Communist dictator and into the USA, the blessed land of godly Capitalism.
And more importantly, into the Cuban exile community of Florida, which, at the time, voted Republican in numbers far out of proportion to other Hispanic groups and made up a sizable percentage of the Miami-Dade metropolitan area and its contribution to the deliverance of Florida’s electoral votes.
ellie
@stuckinred:
Good-bye to my Juan, good-bye Rosalita
Adios mis amigos, Jesus y Maris
You won’t have a name when you ride the big air-plane
And all they will call you will be deportees.
libarbarian
Bah.
These guys are half-assing it.
Everyone should have to prove, as a condition of receiving a B.C., that not only are their parents legal but that ALL OF THEIR ANCESTORS have been legal. Well, at least as far back as they first set foot upon this soil. If parents can’t prove that every single one of the new child’s (and, hence, their own) ancestors has been legal upon coming to America then “buh-bye now” to them and their kid(s) and their parents and their grandparents etc. Ship the lot of them out.
Yeah. That sounds perfectly reasonable and I challenge anyone to assert that it might cause problems.
sardonic_sob
Oh, come on.
We talked about this issue when I took Family Law in law school… fifteen YEARS ago. The rule then was the same as the rule now (the case discussed in most law texts at the time involved Russian parents with American-born minor children who didn’t want to leave the country with their parents – who were leaving of their own accord.)
Summary: The children are citizens. When they reach the age of majority they can enter the US freely and enjoy the rights of citizenship. Until then children belong with their parents and if the parents leave, either voluntarily or by deportation, so go the children. This isn’t some kind of Republican Tea Party Plot To Deport Democratic Voters-in-Waiting. It’s just the law, it’s how every other country in the world handles things (although very few other countries are as generous with citizenship as the US is,) and it’s the best and most consistent way to deal with a bad situation. Calm. The Hell. Down.
John Anderson
In 1923, Massachusetts-born freshman Democratic Senator Burton K. Wheeler of Montana visited the Soviet Union, and made the controversial suggestion that the U.S. should recognize its government. One of his constituents wrote him a letter saying that Wheeler should be deported for such a suggestion, to which he responded, “Where would you deport me–back to Massachusetts?”
Mnemosyne
@sardonic_sob:
When the claim is that “just walking across the border” isn’t enough to make you an American citizen because being an American is “within in our souls,” I think he’s making a different point than, “Children belong with their parents.” His point seems to be that if your parent(s) came here illegally, you shouldn’t be a citizen. And, unfortunately, he wouldn’t be the only one pushing that idea — Google “anchor babies” sometime.
timb
@sardonic_sob: Must have been a fantastic law school! How was the Bahamas anyway? Did you meet Dr. Nick from the Simpsons there too?
Darkrose
@redoubt:
Yeah, I notice that no one here in the Central Valley is talking about that shit.
sardonic_sob
@timb: Your attempts to insult me would be much more effective if you pointed out why what I said was wrong. It has been fifteen years. I might have just remembered wrong. If I did, I did, and my comment would deserve ridicule.
Alas, daiquiris and excessive sun were not the obstacles to my education that miserable Chicago winters were, so that shot misses the mark. Nice try, if a bit adolescent. Another go? I won’t even go look it up in the meantime. Have a run at it.
sardonic_sob
@Mnemosyne: I am not justifying xenophobia and racism. I am merely pointing out that just because a racist xenophobe wants the law enforced doesn’t mean the law is racist and xenophobic. The law does what he wants it to anyway, and for good reason. To say otherwise is to complain of the laws against assault and battery because some people just deserve a good shot in the mouth. The law may prevent reasonable acts (or mandate unreasonable ones) but it does it for a purpose which, at least in theory, produces results which justify this.
Raven
I learn something new about geography every day! A walkable Cuba-U.S. border?
And to where should we deport U.S. citizens?
Well, obviously, to New Mexico!
(For those not aware, that is the one state of the U.S. most often mistaken for a foreign country.)
Raven
(1) At a very public and very well photographed/televised event in Arizona — I would suggest a professional baseball game, sheerly because of the number of Hispanic players — let numerous prominent native-born U.S. citizens of Hispanic descent (nationally known celebrities in the audience, players, even the pitcher on the mound) be accosted by police with the cameras nearby, and required to show ID. Of course, none will have more than a driver’s license, and each will loudly announce the fact along with their own name. Each will be arrested (for no crime!), handcuffed, dragged off in full view, a national shock to the conscience repeated over and over and over during the ballgame. (If you do not understand the rationale here, please review the careers of M.K. Gandhi and M.L. King Jr.)
(2) The “birther” argument will be brought up, put soundly to rest with a clear copy of Obama’s Hawaii birth certificate… and the the hypocrisy of the whole affair will be exposed as “pre-emptive tu quoque” (blaming the other side for what in fact oneself is doing) — as Obama’s 2000 opponent John McCain is dragged into the light. You see, it is McCain who was not born in the United States of America; McCain was born in Panama, and at the time (1936) that meant he was not a “natural-born U.S. citizen”. Congress passed a law in 1937 making children born to U.S. citizen parents also “natural-born U.S. citizens”, but by then McCain was already almost a year old — and the Constitution forbids retroactive (“ex post facto”) laws. See NYTimes: A Hint of New Life to a McCain Birth Issue, 7/11/08.
So (3) at an equally public and televised event, pressed by that that lovely Arizona law that forces police to enforce laws whether they want to or not, police must confront their own state’s Senator McCain and demand to see his papers. If no birth certificate — or when it shows “Panama”, and there is no naturalization paperwork — arrest, handcuffs, dragging off, and the beginning of deportation proceedings. To Panama, of course.
Raven
“…Obama’s 2000 opponent John McCain…”
Geh. 2008, of course.
Raha Y.
@schrodinger’s cat: that’s just it, Elian’s foot wasn’t “dry”, remember? he was floating in an innertube when he was picked up by a boat.
Aileen
You need to muster up some class & apologize for the fact that you misrepresented one person’s statement as the supposed right wing Conservative position about the children of illegal immigrants. Shame on you – how cheap, sleazy, false & inaccurate can you be? Obviously, if you and most of these commenters had any sense, you would see everywhere around you that people have differing opinions on this subject & that includes Republicans. BTW, Republicans are not anti-immigration; they are supporters of legal immigration which allows for slow growth & fairness to all citizens & future citizens including those who have desperately waited for years to legally enter & become citizens & oftentimes to reunite with their family members already living here. I never see most liberals discuss their desire to screw over all the Russians, Europeans, South Americans, etc. who have waited for years only to be put on hold because of those who have chosen to illegally invade our country.
Aileen
@MikeTheZ: I didn’t vote for Bush either time, but it is a fact that he sent over 25 requests down to Congress to regulate Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac from issuing the majority of subprime loans. The Democrats went crazy accusing Republicans of being heartless – heaven forbid banks should ask borrowers to have a downpayment and be solvent. And who invented “NINJA” loans – (No Income,No Job or Assets)? Democrats. Obama was a part of the votes that wouldn’t stop the subprime loans. Penny Pritzker from Countrywide was a big culprit in all these corrupt banking policies-she was financial head of Obama’s campaign. Dodd, Frank, Raines – all connected strongly to Obama – all should be sitting with orange jumpsuits in a prison cell – yet they all made money off of it.