Immigration

Polarization Schmolarization

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Crossposted from DemocraticDiva.com

pew polarization

Pew (and others) discover the SHOCKING TRUTH that people who pay attention to politics are polarized! You won’t believe what happens next!

Here’s Vox‘s Ezra Klein on a research paper by Pew analyzing “polarization” in the American electorate:

Perhaps the single most important fact about American politics is this: the people who participate are more ideological and more partisan, as well as angrier and more fearful, than those who don’t.

The finding emerges from Pew’s massive survey of 10,000 Americans, which concluded that “Republicans and Democrats are more divided along ideological lines — and partisan antipathy is deeper and more extensive — than at any point in the last two decades.”

But everyone already knew that. Here’s the real kicker: “these divisions are greatest among those who are the most engaged and active in the political process.”

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District 11 can do way better than Steve Smith – elect Jo Holt to the Arizona Senate

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SteveSmithRep. Steve Smith (R-Maricopa), running for the Senate in Legislative District 11, is part of the anti-immigrant “Super Friends,” with Russell Pearce, Cap’n Al Melvin, John Kavanagh, and Joe Arpaio.

There is no problem in Arizona for which the “Super Friends” do not blame on people for breathing while brown.  Smith is an ideological extremist of the first order, for whom the voters of Legislative District 11 should hang their heads in shame for having ever elected him.

Smith carried the disgraced Sen. Russell Pearce’s anti-immigrant bills  after his recall that would require school districts to count the number of students who are in the country illegally, HB 2289 (2013), and to require hospitals to report patients who cannot prove their lawful status. HB 2293 (2103). Both measures are unlawful under existing law.

Smith also sponsored the bill to build a border fence using private donations. Arizona legislator ends bid to build privately funded border fence.

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9th Circuit Court of Appeals strikes down Prop. 100 (2006) denying bond to undocumented immigrants

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Arizona is really bad at enacting constitutional laws. It could have something to do with the fact that the persons who propose these laws follow a constitution that only exists in their fevered minds, as opposed to the actual Constitution, with which they disagree. They believe in an “aspirational” constitution as they imagine it to be.

Earlier this year, the 9th Circuit Court of Appeals struck down the ‘Kochtopus Anti-ObamaCare Prop. 106. This was the so-called “Health Care Freedom Act,” aka the Arizona Health Insurance Reform Amendment, Proposition 106, promoted by “Kochtopus” front man Dr. Eric Novak.

gavelToday the Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals sitting en banc struck down another Arizona law, Proposition 100 (2006), which amended the Arizona Constitution to deny bond to undocumented immigrants charged with “serious” crimes. The case is Angel Lopez-Valenzuela v. Joe Arpaio, (No. 11-16487). You can read the Opinion Here (.pdf).

The en banc Court reversed a three judge panel of the Ninth Circuit upholding the district court’s grant of summary judgment. Prop. 100 “violates the substantive component of the Due Process Clause of the 14th Amendment.”

The Arizona Republic reports, Another Ariz. immigration law shot down:

Another of Arizona’s immigration laws was struck down today when the 9th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals ruled unconstitutional a law denying bond to undocumented immigrants charged with “serious” crimes.

The law, known as Proposition 100, was passed in November 2006, during the height of anti-immigrant sentiment in the state Legislature.

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President Obama: executive orders on immigration ‘will be taking place between the November elections and the end of the year’

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President Obama addressed the Congressional Hispanic Caucus Institute’s 37th Annual Awards Gala this week. Read the President’s full remarks here (excerpts):

Obama[T]he point I want to make is the progress we’ve made has been hard, sometimes it’s been slower than we want, but that progress has been steady and it has been real.  We have done big things together, and we’re going to do more.  And tonight, I want to make something clear:  Fixing our broken immigration system is one more, big thing that we have to do and that we will do.  (Applause.)

Now, I know there’s deep frustration in many communities around the country right now.  And I understand that frustration because I share it.  I know the pain of families torn apart because we live with a system that’s broken.  But if anybody wants to know where my heart is or whether I want to have this fight, let me put those questions to rest right now.  I am not going to give up this fight until it gets done.  (Applause.)

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Fact Check: McSally ‘Equality’ Ad & Website Reveal Flip-flopping

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Congressional candidate Martha McSally stands with white women.
Congressional candidate Martha McSally stands with young, white women.

When Congressional candidate Martha McSally ran for Congress in 2012, she was full Tea Party:

  • militarize the border
  • protect the military industrial complex
  • fight for big business and small government
  • balance the budget on the backs of the middle class and the poor
  • repeal and replace Obamacare;
  • fight for the “sanctity of life” (because of her deep faith in God)
  • ignore the civil rights struggles of workers, women, immigrants, people of color, the poor, and LGBTQ.

Fast forward to 2014, and we find that Tea Party Martha with her flight pants, t-shirts, and natural hairdo has morphed into Corporate Republican Martha, with a complete makeover of her ideas and her image. God, the sanctity of life, repeal and replace, and War on Women denials have quietly slipped off of McSally’s campaign website.

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