Olberman: Medicare for EVERYBODY ...

Listen:

Sometimes Keith Olberman is utterly superb.

Enhanced testing procedures?

In order to renew my vehicle's registration it must pass an emissions test. Waiting in line with the engine running I pass the time by reading whatever is posted:

Enhanced testing procedure are a direct result of federal law.

Enhanced? Where have I heard that word used by the federal government before? Oh yeah!

Enhanced interrogation techniques

Enhanced testing procedure? Information, warning, threat? I don't know. The only other, possibly related, bit of information was that IF your vehicle doesn't pass you are instructed to park and go to the office for 'help.'

Vehicle passed. Whew ...

We must SAVE the Free Market with taxpayer money ...

NOW they tell us why it's called a Free Market. They are not responsible for THEIR mistakes, but not only are we, the citizens, responsible for our mistakes, we are also totally responsible for whatever disasters or just plain bad luck we run into.

Let me just ask. I'm sure somebody out there has the answer. After all, they had reasons why Katrina victims deserved to drown and die, be forced from their homes and screwed by their insurance companies and disregarded by their country. They had reasons why uninsured children didn't deserve health care, why those who died from a lack of medical attention only got what they had coming. They had reasons why the people who came to emergency rooms were just looking for drugs, they had reasons why thieves got rich and saints got shot, they had all kinds of explanations for everything that looked to everybody else like a fucking problem we needed somebody to solve. (via The Sideshow)

And Steve Soto writes so sanely about the same topic: Chasing Wealth, Not Jobs. Why not Steve Soto for President. But like Gore, Clinton and many others, he's too smart and rational for the press (and probably even the crowd at dailyKOS) to be objective, truthful or actually informative; you know doing that journalist thing journalists are supposedly supposed to do?

From Arizona's governor ...

Watching, these past 7 plus years, how Republicans work one can just imagine the 'feds' working to cause Arizona's crops to fail. The state may lean Republican, but its still rational enough to elect a Democratic Governor.

We've learned that Republicans deal solely in dirty, corrupt and criminal politics. The Republican Authoritarian State uber alles.

Governor, don't trust the Bush appointed gangsters. But I'm sure you know that already ...

Friday, February 29, 2008

Dear Friends,

While the federal government continues to kick the can down the road on comprehensive immigration reform, we all know that Arizona is paying a high price. For instance, about 90 percent of the lettuce served and eaten in the entire country during the winter is grown and picked in Yuma County – but growers there continually report that they can’t find workers for the harvest because of a dysfunctional guest worker system.

The federal H-2A visa system is supposed to allow seasonal workers from other countries to enter the U.S. temporarily to fill these kinds of jobs. But the program is riddled with bureaucratic inefficiencies, and is so unsuccessful that it accounts for only two percent of farm jobs in our country.

It’s essential that even while the federal government fails to make needed reforms in immigration policy, we do what we can to address the challenges of the border in Arizona. That’s why I am proposing that Arizona become a pilot state to test out a revamped temporary guest worker program, so that a broken system doesn’t cause our crops to rot in the fields.

Earlier this month, the federal Department of Homeland Security and the Department of Labor began a long-overdue process to update the H-2A system and rewrite its regulations to make it work better. This week, in Washington, D.C., I met with Labor Secretary Elaine Chao to talk about needed changes to the H-2A system, and to extend Arizona’s offer to lead in reform efforts and to pilot a new and improved guest worker program. States, particularly border states, are best suited to help develop a sensible program that will help our agricultural communities thrive. I will continue to push this idea forward in Washington, so that Arizona leads on an issue so important to our state.

We must find an interim approach that resolves these agricultural labor woes, creates a more efficient system, and protects the rights of workers. When the federal bureaucracy continues to block real reform, states like Arizona must step up to lead and get things done.

As always, feel free to call my office at 602-542-1318 if you have questions or thoughts. Or, please visit our Web site at www.azgovernor.gov for information and news in state government.

Yours very truly,

Janet Napolitano
Governor

Really? ...

The Tucson Citizen copies a USA Today article: Police brutality cases rising --Officials worry relaxed hiring, promotion policies are to blame

They report that federal prosecutors "are targeting a rising number of law enforcement officers for alleged brutality, Justice Department statistics show."

So do Justice Dept stats show that law enforcement officers are being targeted or that the brutality of law enforcement is rising? And who would trust the Bush US Justice Dept to care or any stats coming out of this administration?

After the Bush Federal Government led the way in demonstrating how brutality is really done they now 'are worried' about an increase in police brutality? Don't think so.

Federal records showed the vast majority of police brutality cases referred by investigators are not prosecuted.

[...] The increasing Justice numbers generally correspond to a USA TODAY analysis of federal law enforcement prosecutions using data compiled by the Transactional Records Access Clearinghouse at Syracuse University.

Those data show 42 law enforcement prosecutions during the first 10 months of fiscal 2007, up 66 percent from all of fiscal 2002 and a 61 percent increase from a decade ago.

I'm sure it's a mistake that some areas of the government continue to operate for a while. After all Bush couldn't destroy everything at once. And while these few prosecution continue and are recorded it's best to blame "reduced standards, training and promotion of less-experienced officers."

Riding while brown ...

The Tucson Citizen has an article titled: Lawyers' advice to migrants: Stay out of cars by Claudine LoMonaco

How does this work? Do they question all the brown colored people in the car?

So the police stop me for a non-working turn signal (which used to happen frequently years ago in my Datsun, 'scuse me, Nissan) and any and all passengers who look like they might have had ancestors from down south get interrogated? But us sorta German/English looking sorts only just get a ticket instructing us to get our car fixed (again).

A ticket for operating an unsafe vehicle is the price of a well regulated society. But interrogation for those riding in a car that got a ticket because you might possibly have entered the country illegally is called a police state. If our society is going to question all passengers in order to identify possible illegal aliens then why not collect ID's on all the passengers and run them through to see if there are any other crimes these people might be involved in. Why don't we set up road blocks every 25 miles and check everyone. Why not have them searched and require that they take their shoes off to check for bombs.

Just think how 'safe' we could be ...

Arizona Republic wiggles around about Renzi ...

Mike Madden and Dennis Wagner of the Arizona Republic wiggle around the issue of a political purge of some of the country's top prosecutors. Though they are political appointees, the duty of the US Attorneys is to the law and the Constitution, not to the whims of the President, the GOP or the Congress.
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The Arizona Republic: Renzi inquiry at issue in ouster by Mike Madden and Dennis Wagner.

The Bush Administration protects us by hiding 100 year old government documents ...

The Bush Administration is removing willy-nilly millions of pages of historical documents from public view. Some of the document being removed are over a hundred years old.

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USA Today: 1M archived pages removed post-9/11 by Frank Bass and Randy Herschafthttp

What it took to raid a small Arizona drywall company for illegal immigrants ...

Mark Kimble at the Tucson Citizen presents some figures related to last weeks ICE invasion of a small Arizona business for hiring non-documented individuals.

• 16 month investigation involving multiple organizations
• 200 law enforcement officers serving 11 federal search warrants in 37 locations
• 8 arrests of the companies managers and such
• 10 illegal immigrants arrested

As I have said before, this is not the way to handle this problem. First we need reasonable and fair laws and policies. Draconian enforcement does not improve the situation.

What really amazes me is, given the deterioration of the US employment picture in general, people are still coming to this country illegally to get jobs. That says more about the areas they came from than about the U.S. We cannot solve this problem by ourselves nor by enforcement alone (unless we want to turn the US into one big police state; which I, for one, do not).
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Tucson Citizen: Illegal immigrant roundup a fantasy by Mark Kimble

Employer arrests, but not at WALMART ...

Just too much trouble for embassy and immigration officials to help these people out ...

Really these people must take Bush as an example of how to behave as they appear impervious to the claims of humanity or compassion, not to mention competence.

Mexican wife seeks visa to see ill spouse

Bush's government gives death sentence to cancer patient ...

No surprise really. Bush's government chooses death for thousands and thousands of people world wide.

Why pick on sick people too? Don't they have a big enough pool of blood, already?

From DailyKos: Medical Marijuana, The Feds and the Banality of Evil by xxdr zombiexx

By no means should we distract ...

... our elected national representatives from their own private wealth accumulating agendas by making them think about their responsibilities to the nation. Oh no, shouldn't do that!

"At the federal level, impeachment talks are more distracting than productive," added Murray spokesman Alex Glass. [Stop impeach talk, legislators urged by Melissa Santos, seattlepi.com via Hullabaloo]

Nice to see so called anti-war faux Democrats Sen. Patty Murray and Rep. Jay Inslee doing Bush and Cheney's dirty work.

Washington Senator Patty Murray has been in Congress since 1992. Washington Representative Jay Inslee's has been in office since 1999 and also served between 1993-1995. Obviously we need elected officials more in touch with their state (and the country) and less beholden to the corrupt environment infesting our country.

Because the Federal Government is Broken ...

State senators in Arizona voted in favor of a volunteer 'Homeland Security Force' that will not be part of the National Guard and will be available to handle those situation the National Guard is no longer able to handle like responding to

"... the governor's orders to any natural or human-caused disaster, when "necessary to protect lives or property," or to help along the border to spot people coming into the United States illegally."

According to the article "nearly two dozen other states have similar militias separate from Guard units."

Via the Arizona Daily Star: Senate votes to set up volunteer militia by Howard Fischer, Capitol Media Services