Deporting Our Best, Keeping Our Worst

And the representation in the population of privileged white conservatard men rises every day that working, patriotic Americans are railroaded out of the country.

With every lost immigrant, America gains more gun-crazed, racist and misogynistic assholes just panting for the chance to kill more ni**ers and cunts.

We are eating our seed corn.

From Wonkette:

Another turn of the New Cruelty screw: Miguel Perez, Jr., 39, a green card holder who has been in the USA since he was eight years old, is facing deportation because he’s one of those criminal aliens we’re all supposed to be terrified of. Perez joined the Army in 2001 and served two tours of duty in Afghanistan, and he mistakenly thought taking his oath to defend the nation made him a citizen, but it didn’t. He could have applied for expedited citizenship, but didn’t since he didn’t look into the details. He also says his superiors in the military never offered him any help with becoming a citizen.

After three judges from the 7th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals turned down his request to stay in the US last week, he announced Wednesday that he would begin a hunger strike. He believes that if he were sent back to Mexico, he’d be targeted by drug cartels, who seek out combat veterans to join them. If he were to refuse, he believes he’d be killed. That argument didn’t convince the three-judge appeals panel, which decided he needs to be deported.

“If it comes down to me being deported, I would rather leave this world in the country I gave my heart for,” Perez said in an interview from the detention center where he has been in custody for the last year.

Shame on those judges.  Shame on the U.S.Army for not defending one of their own.  Shame on the fucking fascists of ICE.   Shame on every piece-of-shit trump voter.

 

Gov. I Got Mine Fuck You Doesn't Know What Education Is

Bevin's exposing the real agenda of repugs in disparaging public education and demanding colleges teach nothing but computer coding:

They don't want informed citizens.  They want mindless drones who will work for pennies an hour.


Bruce Schreiner, AP:

Gov. Matt Bevin bluntly suggested Tuesday that some academic programs on Kentucky’s college campuses have outlived their necessity in times of tight state budgets.
 
With a pointed jab at the job prospects of interpretive dancers, the Republican governor challenged public university boards and presidents to consider eliminating some courses that don’t produce graduates filling high-wage, high-demand jobs.

His message comes as the state tries to fix its failing public pension systems, and economists estimate Kentucky faces a $200 million shortfall when the fiscal year ends in mid-2018.

 “Find entire parts of your campus … that don’t need to be there,” Bevin said in a speech to a higher education conference. “Either physically as programs, degrees that you’re offering, buildings that … shouldn’t be there because you’re maintaining something that’s not an asset of any value, that’s not helping to produce that 21st century educated workforce.”

We already have a 21st century workforce.  What we lack is 21st century wages and benefits that workforce earns.

What we lack is 21st century citizenship on the part of workers who will fight for their right to vote, and rich fucks who will pay their fair share of taxes, and corporations who use their profits to invest in our communities rather than socking those profits overseas where they don't have to pay taxes.

And that kind of citizenship is only learned in public education classrooms and college seminars that value a broad liberal arts education.

Including "interpretive dance" that Bevin so disparages.

Read more here: http://www.kentucky.com/news/local/education/article172961586.html#storylink=cpy

Read more here: http://www.kentucky.com/news/local/education/article172961586.html#storylink=cpy“Find entire parts of your campus … that don’t need to be there,” Bevin said in a speech to a higher education conference. “Either physically as programs, degrees that you’re offering, buildings that … shouldn’t be there because you’re maintaining something that’s not an asset of any value, that’s not helping to produce that 21st century educated workforce.”

Read more here: http://www.kentucky.com/news/local/education/article172961586.html#storylink=cpy

The Resistance: Vow to Preserve and Protect

A gesture, sure, but one that stirs something in people who still value citizenship.

Crooks and Liars:

In response to the most unqualified person in history taking the oath of office as President, the ACLU is organizing a movement to get all of us to swear to uphold, protect, and defend the Constitution of the United States. You can do this on your own, and/or you can visit their website and download a shareable statement for social media and blogs.

PS. The ACLU isn't wasting any time. They have as of this writing, filed a FOIA request for Donald Trump's financial records to conduct an audit of his conflicts of interest.

It will be the first of many opportunities the ACLU will take to say to Donald Trump

The Resistance: Be a Citizen

Via Political Animal, President Obama:

So, you see, that’s what our democracy demands. It needs you. Not just when there’s an election, not just when your own narrow interest is at stake, but over the full span of a lifetime. If you’re tired of arguing with strangers on the Internet, try talking with one of them in real life. If something needs fixing, then lace up your shoes and do some organizing. If you’re disappointed by your elected officials, grab a clipboard, get some signatures, and run for office yourself. Show up. Dive in. Stay at it.

What would happen if they deported 11 million people

Not to the people deported.  To the ones left behind to try to survive without the thriving economy the deportees built.

D.W. Gibson at The Nation:

“All I do is work. I get up at 5 o’clock in the morning and I go to work. And I come back at 7 o’clock at night. That’s every day, except for Sunday. On Sundays I play baseball.”

What could possibly be more American than baseball and too much work? Except in this case, it is not the voice of an American, legally speaking, but a 29-year-old Mexican man named Bernabe who, for the past 12 years, has built a home in tiny Middletown, New York. He has done almost everything that the American government asks of a model citizen: He pays taxes, he doesn’t break the law, he works hard. But Bernabe is not a citizen; he’s one of the estimated 11 million people who came to the country illegally and whom Donald Trump says he will deport if the real-estate mogul and reality-TV star wins the presidential election.

“If he gets to be president,” says Bernabe, “probably he’ll send me back to Mexico. But I don’t know how you catch all the people. I don’t think the taxpayers here want to pay for that.”

He raises a good point. Setting aside questions about the morality of Trump’s deportation agenda for a moment, there are, of course, the practical issues. Among them: 

Undocumented immigrants are both the economic and cultural lifeblood of places like Middletown all over the country. Even if you could deport mass numbers of people—an expensive and legally challenging task by itself—doing so would erase years’ worth of slow, steady revitalization that immigrants have brought to America’s postmanufacturing towns. “You don’t have to look any farther than places like Dayton, Ohio, and Detroit, Michigan,” says Kamal Essaheb of the National Immigration Law Center. “Rust Belt cities, great American cities that have undergone economic depression—these are the places that immigrants are reviving. And these are the places that will suffer if mass deportations take place.”

SNIP

While we’re talking, there’s a loud picnic across the street from his house. The music swells and the smell from the barbecue pit comes in through the open window. “Basically, all the streets are Mexicans. So if you empty this whole thing,” he says, motioning out the window, “there would be no one here. You don’t see white people or black people around here, only Spanish people. All the houses would be empty. All the people who own houses here, they would have trouble. Who’s going to pay the rent?”

 

It’s a good question, not only for Middletown and Liberty, but also for places like Hazleton, Pennsylvania, and Peoria, Illinois—cities and towns that have undergone economic depression and are now seeing migrants and refugees help to revitalize the local economy. The endless influx of immigrants has always been the identifying characteristic of the American project: “The United States is a receiving country,” says the ACLU’s Wang. As for Bernabe and Dulce, they stand ready to enter whatever system will enable them to continue contributing to their communities and their local economies, this time with a lawful immigration status.

It's been a while since I wrote this reminder, so here you go:  If your ancestors arrived in this country more than a hundred years ago, like mine, all they had to do to become citizens is get a sliver of their physical selves across the border.

There was and remains no such thing as an "illegal" immigrant.  You're here, you work, you pay taxes, you vote.

That's America. 

New Immigrants Taking Over Just the Way the Old Immigrants Did

My Irish and German immigrant ancestors did exactly this.  They faced down the Know-Nothing Nativists screaming "dirty Micks!" and "Kraut traitors!" and voted and ran for office just as Americans have always done, and are still doing.

Political Animal:

Over the years President Obama has come up with a line he uses whenever people at his rallies boo at things like Trump’s remarks. He always says, “Don’t boo…vote!” That is exactly what the Somali community in Minnesota did this week.

Neighborhood activist Ilhan Omar made history Tuesday by winning a fiercely competitive DFL primary in a Minneapolis House district, which means she likely will become the nation’s first Somali-American legislator next year…

Born in Somalia, Omar, 33, and her family escaped civil war and lived for four years in a Kenyan refugee camp before ultimately moving to the Somali-American neighborhood of Cedar-Riverside, where she has lived for nearly two decades and is currently director of policy initiatives at Women Organizing Women…

“Tonight we made history,” Omar told the crowd. “Tonight marks the beginning of the future of our district, a new era of representation. Tonight is about the power of you.”…

Omar’s dramatic victory threatened to overshadow another upset, this one from 24-year-old Fue Lee, who was born in a refugee camp in Thailand and currently works in the office of Secretary of State Steve Simon. He defeated 10-term incumbent Rep. Joe Mullery, DFL-Minneapolis.

Both upsets came in heavily DFL districts, which means they are virtually assured of victory in November.

And remember: unless you are a full-blooded Native, you're the descendant of immigrants, no more "American" than that Muslim Syrian refugee who just took the oath of citizenship, and who you better believe is going to be voting on November 8.

Any Immigrant is More American Than Donald Traitor

Immigrants have to fight a mountain of obstacles to get to America.  They don't get born one day and find themselves birthright Americans.

Immigrants have to earn every dime they get, and by earn I mean bust their asses every day cleaning the disgusting toilets of privileged asses like Donald Traitor.  Who steals their wages anyway.

Immigrants have to endure the abuse and mistreatment and bigotry that every generation of immigrants endures, always from immigrant descendants who have forgotten where they came from.

Immigrants learn citizenship the hard way, by living it every day.  They don't get to ignore the rules like those who are born white, male and rich.

Immigrants have to want America bad.

Donald Traitor wants a bad America.

TPM:

Senate Minority Leader Harry Reid (D-NV) thinks Donald Trump needs to take a test before he is elected president.

In a press release Monday afternoon, Reid called on Trump to take the U.S. naturalization test – the test that immigrants must pass to become citizens of the United States. The test includes questions about the country's history, founding, laws and Constitution.

“Since Donald Trump wants to impose new tests on immigrants, he should take the one test every immigrant has to pass to become a United States citizen. He would almost certainly fail, given his general ignorance and weak grasp of basic facts about American history, principles and functioning of our government," Reid said. "The fact is, Donald Trump is nothing more than a spoiled, unpatriotic drain on society who has earned nothing and helped no one."

Reid said that unlike immigrants,"Donald Trump represents none of the qualities that make America great. "

"Immigrants work hard to get here and become Americans, while Trump inherited everything from his father and works hardest at Tweeting insults and ripping off hard-working people with two-bit scams," Reid said.

Reid also claimed that while immigrants must denounce loyalties to foreign governments to become citizens, Trump "plays footsie with Putin and invites the Russian government to launch cyber attacks against our country."

Eviscerating Citizenship

Joel Rogers at The Nation:

What happened (last week) was this. The US Supreme Court declared that, depending on your employer’s views, you may not in fact have any right to health insurance that enables your management of your own body. The same day, it also declared that, as you trudge to work at some stale apartment house to clean up and feed a disoriented Alzheimer’s victim, or read to and feed and otherwise try to comfort a disabled kid, you don’t have the right to join a union powerful enough to raise your wage. Recently, this term as well as last, it has clarified the foundational right of rich people to purchase as much political power as they can wish.

So why, dear citizen, would you ever think that this Court, especially under its reading of the First Amendment, thinks you have any right to be part of a society fit to live in?

Read the whole thing. 

No, Not An Imperialist War Machine At All

From Firedoglake (not the Onion):

- A woman was rejected for citizenship in the U.S. because she objected to war on moral grounds

Think about that.  If you object to war on moral grounds, you are not fit to be an American citizen.

No wonder non-violent peace protesters are beaten, tasered, tortured and imprisoned. They are, according to the official immigration rules of the United States government, literally anti-American.

Even if they fought, killed and were wounded in the service of their country. 

Immigrant Denied for Atheism

UPDATE Below

Name one freakazoid ever denied citizenship for thinking an invisible sky wizard runs the world.

Divine Irony:

abaldwin360:

theperplexedobserver:

After More Than 30 Years as a Permanent U.S. Resident, Atheist Ordered to Join a Church or Be Denied

Margaret Doughty, an atheist and permanent U.S. resident for more than 30 years, was told by immigration authorities this month that she has until Friday to officially join a church that forbids violence or her application for naturalized citizenship will be rejected.

Doughty received the ultimatum after stating on her application that she objected to the pledge to bear arms in defense of the nation due to her moral opposition to war. According to a letter to U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services by the American Humanist Association on Doughty’s behalf, officials responded by telling her that she needed to prove that her status as a conscientious objector was due to religious beliefs. They reportedly told her she’d need to document that she was “a member in good standing” of a nonviolent religious organization or be denied citizenship at her June 21 hearing. A note “on official church stationary [sic]” would suffice, they said.

[READ MORE]

Hopefully the Freedom From Religion Foundation, American Humanist Association and the ACLU will join forces to take the U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services to court and overturn this illegal, unconstitutional and discriminatory requirement.

Sign the petition demanding Homeland Security Stop denying U.S. citizenship to people based on their lack of religious affiliation at: http://campaigns.dailykos.com/p/dia/action3/common/public/?action_KEY=442

This is so completely fucked up. You can have a moral objection to something without it being backed by a religion.

True, but this isn't about moral objections needing to be backed by religion.  This is about freakazoids in Homeland Security demanding religious belief as a requirement for citizenship.

That's a religious test, and it's blatantly unconstitutional.

UPDATE: Somebody in either the legal or public affairs department finally figured it out. Homeland Security backed down.

Good Riddance to Galtians

Firedoglake:

They are showing signs of meeting or exceeding the 1997 record:  the rich who’d rather denounce their US citizenship than pay US taxes.

Good.  Let's replace them with a few million undocumented immigrants who will gladly pay lots of U.S., state and local taxes in return for citizenship.

Repug Aims at the Browns, Hits Everybody Else

I wish this were a satirical attempt to point up the unconstitutional absurdity of denying birthright citizenship, but apparently this motherfucker is serious.

 

He is also so blinded by fear and hate of everyone who is not white he can't see that his bill would strip the citizenship of every single American who is not 100 percent full-blooded Native American Indian, since everybody who ever came to America from somewhere else was undocumented under our current laws, so therefore all their descendants would be illegal under this bill. Including himself.

 

Ian Millhiser at Think Progress:

The Fourteenth Amendment to the Constitution expressly provides that nearly anyone born in the United States is a citizen, regardless of the immigration status of their parents. Yet, despite the Constitution’s clear command, Rep. Steve King (R-IA) wants to ignore our founding document and prevent the children of undocumented immigrants from becoming citizens:

It’s the first week of the 113th Congress, and one House member is already trying to stop children born in the United States to undocumented parents — whom he calls “anchor babies” — from gaining citizenship.

Rep. Steve King (R-Iowa), an outspoken hardliner on immigration, introduced a bill on Thursday that would “clarify those classes of individuals born in the United States who are nationals and citizens of the United States at birth.” The Supreme Court has consistently held that anyone born in the United States, regardless of their parents’ immigration status, should receive citizenship under the 14th Amendment.

King disagrees, as do 13 co-sponsors on the bill, including Reps. Louie Gohmert (R-Texas), Virginia Foxx (R-N.C.) and Mo Brooks (R-Ala.).

The Constitution is clear that King’s bill is unconstitutional. Under the Fourteenth Amendment, “[a]ll persons born or naturalized in the United States, and subject to the jurisdiction thereof, are citizens of the United States and of the State wherein they reside.” The word “jurisdiction” refers to people that are subject to American law. Thus foreign diplomats and their families, who are granted broad immunity from U.S. law, are not entitled to citizenship under the 14th Amendment. Likewise, at the time the Fourteenth Amendment was drafted many Native Americans were subject only to tribal law and thus were not “subject to the jurisdiction” of the United States. Undocumented immigrants and their children, by contrast, are not immune to U.S. law. And thus fit squarely within the Fourteenth Amendment’s command.

In the past two years, more than 200,000 parents have been removed from the country who say they have a U.S. citizen child.

 Really, they'd have better luck if they just came right out for deporting/executing everyone who is not white, straight, freakazoid and repug.

What America Really Needs is a Formal Caste System

This is brilliant. But it doesn't go anywhere near far enough.

Let's have separate classes of citizenship to accurately reflect the separate economic classes we already have. Then maybe the need for the not-top classes to rise up and defeat the social parasite classes will finally become obvious.

Because the non-rich will be a lower class of citizen, we can eliminate all forms of publicly-funded support for them. After all, the real citizens will all be rich, and will have no need for food stamps or unemployment compensation, or public education, or municipal drinking water, or toll-free highways. The people who do need those things will be a lower class of citizen and therefore not entitled to the benefits of rich-people citizenship.

Or we could approach the class designations from a different direction: according to your actual value to society. Not your claimed magical ability to create invisible jobs, as rethuglicans claim for their obscenely wealthy parasite masters. But your actual, tangible, daily contribution to making life for your fellow Americans just a little more tolerable.

By that measure, the highest citizenship class with the most citizenship benefits will be awarded to garbage collectors, farmworkers, janitors, waitstaff in diners, nurse aides (the ones who change bedpans and bathe the bedridden), social workers, probation officers, grocery stockers, daycare workers, firefighters, beat cops, special-education teachers and plumbers.

The lowest citizenship class, the one that bars voting, would be assigned to people who live off inherited money or interest on investments, corporate CEOs, lobbyists, consultants, celebrities who are famous for being famous, defense contractors, fossil-fuel industry executives, public relations hacks, televangelists and all media purveyers of thumbsucking conventional wisdom.

And revoke citizenship altogether for everyone who dares to claim that some citizens are more equal that others.

Cross-posted at They Gave Us A Republic ....