Bob Lord Laurie Roberts recently reported on Doug Ducey’s semi-confrontation with business leaders over a possible ballot initiative to raise sales taxes by one percent point in order to restore education funding.
Okay, get your dart guns ready, because I’m on Ducey’s side on this one, albeit for entirely different reasons.
Demagoguery is frightening. It underlies all of the ugliest chapters in human history. It’s always out there, but it tends to wax and wane.
We may be experiencing one of those waxing moments.
Two of the nation’s leading demagogues, Bill O’Reilly and Donald Trump, are leading a charge to adopt what they’ve named “Kate’s Law”, a law that would impose automatic 5-year prison sentences on all those non-citizens who enter illegally after being deported previously for illegal entry. Why? Because Kate Steinle was tragically murdered by an undocumented immigrant who previously had been deported.
What alarmed me about this was seeing a Facebook post a former Democratic legislative candidate, Paula Pennypacker, appealed to her Facebook friends to support Kate’s law:
This is the issue that is a game changer for many Americans. As a Democrat, I will be supporting Kate’s law. A law now being considered in Congress whereby undocumented aliens who are deported and return to the United States would receive a mandatory five year sentence in a federal penitentiary upon conviction. Until Donald Trump spoke about Kate’s murder — I considered him a fringe candidate — not anymore. He totally got my attention when he spoke about the senseless murder of the woman who was in the prime of her life. Democrats, and Hillary in particular, had better get out front of this issue. Please join me in signing the pledge.
Is there any rationality behind Kate’s law?
My post on Wednesday, Final Chapter (or, really, an Epilogue) on the Holder Justice Department, drew some fire. Oddly enough, although the point of view I was taking really is not distinguishable from Elizabeth Warren’s, the fire came from the left. (The political left, that is, not my left)
As I suspected he would, Matt Taibbi weighed in on the subject as well in Eric Holder, Wall Street Double Agent, Comes in From the Cold. Taibbi’s coverage was more comprehensive than mine or David Dayen’s, so if you’re interested in the subject, click through and read or, if you prefer video, scroll to the end of the Rolling Stone piece for Matt’s interview with Amy Goodman.
Taibbi confronts head on the argument of the “Don’t Blame Holder” chorus and, in doing so, exposes a shining example of political doublespeak, for which we can thank President Obama. The argument to which I refer is that no one on Wall Street broke any laws. A comment to my post emphasized, through the use of all caps, that the actions of the banks were “perfectly legal.” Here are Obama’s words, from a 60 minutes interview, which are the source of what Taibbi appropriately labels this “preposterous meme”:
Can you detect the doublespeak?
A year or so ago I wrote this post: Face to Face With an Angry One Percenter. The post was about a one percenter (in all likelihood, a point one percenter) I encountered at a cocktail party who was screaming mad about the share of the income tax paid by the top one percent, but … Read more
If someone wants to argue the opposing view here, please use the comment section to do so. We can bet a virtual beer on the outcome.
The Hollywood Chamber announced today that Bill Cosby’s star on the Walk of Fame would not be removed, the LA Times reported in Hollywood Walk of Fame official says Bill Cosby’s star won’t be removed and neither will Donald Trump’s. Here’s their reasoning: