Category Archives: Teapublicans

The Sad State Of Arizona (2015 Edition)

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Before the GOP-created Great Recession, Arizona’s state economy was based on the fantasy that construction could continue until the entire Sonora Desert was covered by homes, shopping malls and golf courses. So since the housing market crashed, Arizona’s economy has languished.

While other states were trying to mend their losses by diversifying, stimulating their economies and raising taxes, Jan Brewer and the GOP-dominated legislature chose, instead, to make cuts. Deep, desperate budget cuts. Yet, despite facing a large deficit, they chose to further reduce revenue by cutting taxes for corporations. At the same time, they put teachers out of work by cutting the funding of public schools. Indeed, since 2009, only Oklahoma has cut more from student funding than Arizona. As a result, the state’s per student funding is now just 69 percent of the national average and its student performance stands at 47th out of 50 states and the District of Columbia. Only 1 in 18 students who enter an Arizona high school will receive a degree from a college or technical school, and those who do earn a degree will likely be buried in student loan debt.

Not content with destroying schools and jobs, the GOP also did what it could to destroy tourism, the state’s 2nd-largest industry, by closing state parks and highway rest stops. And to make the state even less appealing to tourists, they passed the anti-Latino law, SB1070, which made tourists and conventions spurn the state costing us tens of millions of dollars in lost revenue.

It was as if the GOP was intent on pushing our citizens into its ideological clown car and driving us off a fiscal cliff.

Now along comes the new GOP governor, Doug Ducey, who must have frozen his brain while peddling questionable franchises for Cold Stone Creamery. During the campaign, he and his supporters ran millions of dollars in misleading attack ads accusing his Democratic opponent of raising tuition to the state’s universities. But, now that Ducey has been sworn into office, he has presented a budget that would cut $75 million in funding for post-secondary education. And, though he pledged to increase K-12 education funding during the campaign, he is attempting a shell game in which he proposes to take as much from the already stressed school administration and operations budgets as he would add for classrooms. Moreover, his budget completely ignores the hundreds of millions of dollars a court awarded public schools as the result of previous cuts to education in violation of the state constitution.

Of course, one budget item that will increase is the money allocated to corrections. True to the GOP’s commitment to line the pockets of private prison corporations, Ducey proposes building yet another privately-operated prison at a cost of $5.3 million. But there is no money for the education and rehabilitation of prisoners, so after they serve their time, they are all too likely to commit more crimes. And since the privately-operated health care system for prisons doesn’t track or treat infectious diseases, they are also likely to spread infectious diseases into our communities.

In their obviously delusional minds, Ducey and the Teapublicans still seem to believe that, by further cutting the state’s already low corporate taxes, they will be able to attract corporations to relocate to Arizona bringing with them thousands of high-paying jobs. Anyone who has ever consulted with corporations seeking a place to expand or relocate knows that’s a fantasy.

Corporations, at least good corporations, look for places to expand that offer quality transportation, abundant resources, an abundant high-skilled and well-educated workforce, abundant and low-cost energy, a high quality of living, and affordable taxes…usually in that order. Arizona’s approach will only result in the relocation of corporations that offer low-skill, low-paying jobs or gun manufacturers who are drawn to the state by our heavily-armed population and our virtually non-existent gun laws. Even then, they will only come to Arizona if the state is willing to pay for changes in needed infrastructure, provide further tax cuts and pay for other incentives. All of which explains why, when high tax states like California and Minnesota are thriving with low unemployment and budget surpluses, Arizona has failed to emerge from recession and faces annual budget deficits of $1 billion or more.

In the competition to build a sustainable, thriving economy, it would seem that Arizona can only compete in a contest of Biggest Loser against other red states like Kansas and Mississippi. And the biggest losers of all will be our students.

State Of The World.

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On the day following President Obama’s inspiring State of the Union address, I think it appropriate to wonder, if a world leader were to make a State of the World address, what would it be? What would be the calls to action? What accomplishments would it tout? What dire warnings would it contain?

If I was that world leader, my address would include the following:

Accomplishments? There are very few. Charities and non-governmental organizations have nibbled at the edges of some problems, such as access to clean water, housing and food. But most of these are mere symptoms of larger issues. For example, many nations have contributed to refugee camps while ignoring, or even exacerbating the conflicts that created the refugees in the first place. We have killed terrorists while creating others as a result of those very same killings, all the while ignoring the causes that led to much of that terrorism in the first place. And though we have discussed environmental problems, we have solved few. Sometimes, these two larger issues overlap. For example, at the current rate of killings (an elephant is killed every 15 minutes), African elephants could disappear from the wild in just 11 years. The reason for the slaughter? Ivory is expensive and highly sought after for jewelry, so terrorists are killing the elephants to claim the ivory in order to fund their terrorist activities.

According to a new scientific study, the world’s oceans are on the precipice of mass extinctions. The oceans are being overfished and horribly polluted. Coral reefs are being destroyed by cruise ships and, most especially, container ships in order for large corporations to increase manufacturing profits by exploiting low labor costs in underdeveloped countries. There are large “islands” of trash and plastics floating in our oceans. BP and other oil companies have polluted our waters with oil spills consisting of millions of barrels of crude oil. Fracking is pumping benzenes and other toxic chemicals into our aquifers and polluting our drinking water, even causing earthquakes. Chemical companies and large corporate farms are responsible for toxic runoff from farmlands that have created “dead zones” in our oceans at the mouths of rivers. Those same chemical companies have contributed to the near catastrophic collapse of bee colonies needed to pollinate our food plants. As a result of the tsunami at Fukishima, radioactive water is pouring into the ocean unabated. And the effects of that mess are, as yet, unknown.

Back on land, white rhinos are now extinct in the wild and virtually non-existent in zoos. Black rhinos are greatly endangered. Amur Tigers are virtually extinct and all large cats are endangered. Pandas, which have long been on the edge of extinction, are now even more threatened by climate change. Mountain and Lowland Gorillas are endangered, in addition to Orangutans – both as the result of wars and habitat loss. Rain forests are being denuded in order to exploit them for exotic hardwoods and palm oil. Some forests are being cleared under the mistaken belief that the land can be used for agriculture.

Polar ice sheets and glaciers are melting at phenomenal rates inevitably leading to rising seas that will displace millions and millions of people. And the cost of relocating many of the world’s largest cities will run into the hundreds of billions, likely trillions, of dollars. The loss of ice pack in the Arctic is also threatening the existence of Polar Bears and other species. Of course, it has been well-established that ice melt is the result of our love affair with fossil fuels, but only a few nations are taking the problem seriously. As a result, 2014 was the warmest year on record. Global warming is leading to larger, more violent and more numerous storms. To make matters worse, the Koch-bought US Congress is intent on passing laws that will defund the Environmental Protection Agency, cut environmental regulations for large corporations and maintain tax breaks for the world’s largest polluters, all the while denying their impact on climate change.

Economic inequality and religious extremism have led to an explosion of wars and terrorism worldwide, resulting in the deaths of millions and the displacement of millions more. The immigration of those fleeing violence and economic oppression has led to the rise of hate, racism and right wing extremism in the refugees’ host nations. Meanwhile, economic inequality continues to get worse. It is estimated that, by 2016, 1 percent of the world’s population will own more than 50 percent of the world’s wealth! Yet conservative politicians in the US, Europe and elsewhere continue to vote to cut taxes for large corporations and the wealthy. The beneficiaries then contribute to political campaigns to help elect those who will do their bidding, and the cycle repeats. (Actually, it’s less of a cycle than a death spiral.)

Such is the sad state of the world today. And, thanks to conservative politics, things are only getting worse.

MLK Day: An Update.

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As we celebrate Martin Luther King Day, it seems appropriate to look at King’s legacy in the area of civil rights. By the time Martin Luther King, Jr. was assassinated in 1968, he and his movement had made great strides. The Civil Rights Act of 1964 had been signed into law making it illegal to discriminate based on race, color, religion, sex or national origin. In addition, the Voting Rights Act of 1965 had been enacted guaranteeing all citizens the right to vote as protected by the 14th and 15th Amendments to the Constitution.

It seemed that segregation and racism in the United States were coming to an end. However, that has not been the case.

According to recent studies, the US is more segregated today than it was in 1968. The white flight from the inner cities to the suburbs and the end of forced busing of school children has led to nearly lily white, well-funded suburban schools and mostly black, underfunded schools in the inner cities. More and more children from wealthy white families have been enrolled in virtually all-white private schools. And, to further accelerate segregation, Teapublican legislatures and Congress have passed new laws authorizing the redistribution of funding from public schools to charter schools, private schools and religious schools.

With regard to voting rights, Teapublicans have enacted restrictive voter ID laws in numerous states to suppress the black vote. They have limited polling hours making it more difficult for poor, working people to find time to vote. They have reduced the number of polling stations in poor, black neighborhoods creating long lines of voters. And the conservative-dominated Supreme Court has eviscerated the Voting Rights Act to make it more difficult for the Justice Department to prevent voter suppression.

On the positive side, the GLBT community has won the right for same sex marriage in 36 states. Yet, with the Supreme Court agreeing to review a lower court decision to uphold same sex marriage bans in four states, the gains in other states are now in limbo.

The opportunity for poor black students to have access to a college education is also in doubt following a 2013 Supreme Court ruling which limits affirmative action. Yet another Supreme Court decision has created special rules for religious organizations, and numerous state legislature bills have opened the door for further religious discrimination as if it isn’t already bad enough. (A recent study found that atheists are marginalized and subjected to discrimination. For Muslims, the situation may be even worse.)

Finally, racism is on the rise, made worse by the events in Ferguson, Missouri, Cleveland, Staten Island, the Bronx and elsewhere. And the Southern Poverty Law Center, which tracks hate groups, has noted a tremendous rise in the number of hate groups since the election of our first black president.

It’s clear that much of what Martin Luther King, Jr. lived for and died for is in jeopardy. It’s up to all of us to ensure that he did not die in vain.

How Our Media Are Failing Us.

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The US news media were once the envy of the world. TV news gave us legendary journalists such as Edward R. Murrow, Walter Cronkite, David Brinkley and Chet Huntley to name just a few. These were people who proudly informed Americans, exposed corruption and provided context for politics. So what happened? How did we go from Walter Cronkite to Rush Limbaugh, Sean Hannity and Bill O’Reilly. There is no single answer. Instead, a number of factors have led to the demise of journalism in the US. Here are the most prominent:

1- Media Have Chosen Sides: Newspapers have long leaned to one side or another. The Wall Street Journal was always conservative as The New York Times was always liberal. But despite their leanings, they at least tried to present both sides. That no longer is the case. Fox News Channel gets its daily talking points from the Republican National Committee and, since the end of the Fairness Doctrine, talk radio has become more than 90 percent right wing with almost no liberal counterparts.

2 – Infotainment And Ratings: Far too many so-called “news” shows have become infotainment – more devoted to creating high ratings than presenting actual news and information. They focus on the most bizarre, sensational and macabre stories rather than news that matters. As a result, we know more about the murder trial of the day than what Congress is doing.

3 – Equating Equal Time With Accuracy And Fairness: Fearful of backlash from the party faithful, the media tend to report both sides of a political story rather than dig for the truth. I call this the “We report, you decide” syndrome. This is no substitute for actual journalism. With no reporter focused on getting to the truth, the falsehoods from one side become accepted as fact.

4 – The Horse Race Syndrome: During the run-up to elections, the news media have refused to report the truth. They are more interested in reporting the results of polls with the idea of finding a winner. As a result, we hear two disparate views of issues with no context available to help us choose a candidate.

5 – Accepting Politically-Biased Nomenclature: Republican strategists are constantly trying to win a literal war of words. For example, Estate Taxes were once widely accepted as a way of preventing dynasties in the US – so that the extremely wealthy could not pass unimaginable wealth onto their heirs. But once the GOP labeled them Death Taxes, the media picked up the term and, as a result, public opinion began to change. The same thing happened when the abortion foes changed the description from anti-abortion to Pro-Life.

6 – Newsroom Cutbacks: In the late 1970’s, the owners of news organizations began seeking greater profits. They found them by eliminating foreign news bureaus and eliminating many reporters and staff photographers. As a result, they now rely on stock photos and wire services. Reporters no longer have the time to investigate corruption or to check facts.

7 – Laziness: Too many reporters are willing to accept what they are told by one source. It requires too much effort and too much time to seek other sources or to research the issue in order to provide context. It’s more convenient to go with the story half-finished. For example, business reporters often report that US corporate income taxes are the highest in the world. What they neglect to say is that is only the stated tax rate, not the effective tax rate which is often just one or two percent. And they never report the amount of subsidies and other forms of corporate welfare received by the very corporations that complain of high income taxes.

7 – Expediency: In the rush to be first, news media no longer take the time to verify the story through multiple sources. False stories are often repeated over and over before the mistake is uncovered and, if it is, the retraction (if there is one) is scarcely noticed. This was never more apparent than with Lara Logan’s false and misleading 60 Minutes report on Benghazi. The original story was nearly an hour. The retraction was only a minute or two.

8 – Economic Self-Interest: The vast majority of our media are now owned by just 6 conglomerates. (And if the Time-Warner/Comcast merger is completed, that number will drop to 5.) These corporations are less concerned with news than they are with profits. There are no longer firewalls between news departments and corporate operations. So if a story will harm the corporation, it is too often buried.

9 – Fear Of Retribution: Chuck Todd’s recent admission about treatment of Teapublicans on Meet the Press is exhibit A. When he said that he didn’t dare challenge a Republican lie or they would not appear on the show, he was, in effect, being a whistle-blower for the profession of journalism.

10 – Overwhelming Number Of Lies: As Politifact.com found, Teapublicans tell nearly 3 times as many lies as Democrats. They tell bigger whoppers, too. It’s hard for journalists to keep up. And with fewer journalists willing to challenge the lies, the politicians keep on telling them. Eventually the lies become accepted as fact. There are hundreds, if not thousands, of examples. One of the most popular lies is that the Keystone XL Pipeline will create thousands of jobs. Yet independent studies show that the number of jobs is grossly inflated and that they don’t justify the environmental risks.

Despite the media’s many failings, all is not lost. There are still numerous, credible news outlets. But the best way to be informed is to actually work at it. After all, that’s what our Founding Fathers expected of us. It’s not even all that daunting. The Web can be a very convenient and useful tool. The basic rule is to never accept anything from a biased source, or even a single source, as fact. Seek out information from independent sources, as well as conservative-leaning and liberal-leaning sources. Then check the information through Websites such as FactCheck.org, Politifact.com and Snopes.com.

The very future of our nation depends on it.

Journalism: A Eulogy.

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Last week’s admission by Chuck Todd, the host of Meet The Press, was a recognition that he no longer makes any pretense that his show is about journalism. For those who missed it, Todd stated that he dared not challenge a Teapublican guest by challenging a false statement or by asking a difficult question. For, if he did, they would never again appear on the program. In other words, Todd is admitting that he is not a journalist and that his show no longer makes any attempt to follow journalistic standards. This is especially troubling since Politifact.com found that Teapublicans lie far more than Democrats.

And Todd is not alone. The Sunday morning shows have long been the megaphone for Teapublican leaders who can say whatever they want without being challenged. Indeed, studies have shown that the number of Teapublican guests on these shows dramatically outnumber the Democrats who are invited to appear. So rather than being news, with the exception of Fareed Zakaria’s Global Public Square, the Sunday morning shows are little more than propaganda tools for the Republican Party.

Such is the fate of most so-called news outlets.

One independent study of Fox News Channel found that those who rely upon the channel for news actually knew less about national and world events than those who watched, listened to, or read no news at all. Though it fared significantly better in the study, MSNBC is slanted toward the Democratic Party. And the American-based news organization cited as the most reliable? It’s none other than National Public Radio, which is constantly under attack from both Teapublicans and Democrats for being biased toward one side or the other.

So what happened? How did we go from the reporting of legendary journalists such as Edward R. Murrow, Walter Cronkite and David Brinkley to Chuck Todd? You can blame the Federal Communications Commission which caved to conservatives by eliminating the long-standing Fairness Doctrine. Within a year of the repeal of the Fairness Doctrine, 92 percent of talk radio was conservative. A few years later, so-called “news radio” had degenerated to non-stop right-wing hate with no pretense of fairness. Things were further complicated by cable TV’s “news” channels who have a need to fill 24 hours of programming 7 days a week. They have an insatiable need for guests willing to contribute opinions and no desire to get at the truth.

The cable channels also increased the urgency of reporting events. Immediacy replaced accuracy as the primary goal of journalism.

By the time Rupert Murdoch’s Fox News Channel hit the wires with the false claim of “fair and balanced,” conservatives had the ability to lie and propagandize 24/7. So why not threaten to boycott news media such as Meet The Press if they don’t like the questions? The Teapublicans have nothing to lose. If their lies are challenged, they can simply retreat to the media known to support their viewpoints and still reach a very large portion of the population who believe they are getting the news.

Of course, the blogosphere has further contributed to the death of journalism. It is now possible to confine your “news” exposure to only those sources with whom you agree. For conservatives, that means all conservative viewpoints all the time…on the Web, on Fox News Channel, on hate radio.

For all intents and purposes, journalism is a moribund profession. Conservatives have become a large group of ditto heads uninterested in other viewpoints. Many independents have given up on politics or they’re too busy to be bothered with anything outside their own personal lives. And, though many liberals are still exposed to other viewpoints through NPR and PBS, they are largely influenced by liberal-leaning media.

So RIP, Journalism. You had a long and important run as the 4th Estate. You made a difference while it lasted. Unfortunately, our national lack of curiosity and fairness led to your untimely death. Sadly, it was left to a political hack to unintentionally read your eulogy. Ironically, his admission on Meet The Press may have been the only time Chuck Todd ever resorted to actual journalism.

Why US Must Prosecute Its Architects Of Torture.

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When President Obama took office, he and Attorney General Eric Holder declined to prosecute crimes committed by the Bush administration…the fraudulent case for the Iraq War, the illegal detention and treatment of the prisoners at Gitmo, and the failure of government agencies to regulate the gambling addiction of Wall Street. The feeling was that the nation needed to heal…that, in the midst of two wars and an economic calamity, the prosecution of crimes would only make the festering wounds worse. As a result, Bush administration officials were given a pass for war crimes and Wall Street bankers were given a “stay-out-of-jail” card for massive financial fraud.

It’s time for Obama and the Department of Justice to revisit that decision.

The Senate report on the Bush-led torture program chronicles the depravity of our extraordinary renditions and enhanced interrogations. It shows that, under the Bush administration, our nation sank to new lows, placing us among the world’s worst actors. Instead of claiming the high ground in our war on terror, in many ways we joined the so-called “Axis of Evil” as decried by former President Bush himself.

We cannot ever again claim to be the “beacon of hope” or that “shining city upon the hill” as described by Ronald Reagan if we refuse to seek justice against those who committed war crimes in our name. That means an open, and very public, trial of Bush, Cheney, former CIA Director Michael Hayden, former Attorneys General John Ashcroft and Alberto Gonzales, former Secretary of Defense Don Rumsfeld, former NSA Director Condoleezza Rice and anyone else within the Bush administration who authorized and ordered torture. We should demand that Richard “The Dick” Cheney repay his share of the reported $39.5 billion in profits made by Halliburton from the Iraq War. We should also reclaim the $81 million paid to the two psychologists who recommended the various forms of torture and, if they refuse to repay their “consulting” fees, we should arraign them on criminal charges.

“But what about the political divisiveness such actions would create?” you may ask.

That ship sailed long ago. It left port on the day of Obama’s inauguration when Mitch McConnell and his Teapublican cronies plotted to make Obama a one-term president by obstructing his nominations and every aspect of his agenda. It gained speed when Senate Teapublicans used the filibuster a record number of times and the GOP House voted to repeal the Affordable Care Act more than 50 times. And it sped out of sight when the GOP House voted to sue the sitting president of the United States.

Despite the president’s best efforts, there has been no healing of the wounds opened by the Bush administration. And there can be no healing of the US reputation unless those who chose to torture prisoners in violation of the Geneva Conventions and the UN treaty against torture are held accountable. Moreover, without a proper accounting, our own citizens and troops will be more vulnerable to torture in conflicts around the world. Does that mean a former president, vice-president, CIA director and assistant attorney general should go to prison? If we were to follow the precedent established by the Nuremburg trials of former Nazi leaders, the answer could very well be yes.

We cannot be a true democracy unless every crime is prosecuted fairly and equally under the law, and unless everyone is held accountable for criminal actions.

Scandals That Weren’t.

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Since Teapublicans took control of the House in 2011, Rep. Darrell Issa, Rep. Paul Gosar and other extremists have conducted a barrage of hearings with the intent of exposing the misdeeds of the Obama administration. They began by examining government loans made to administration “loyalists” at Solyndra, a start-up manufacturer of solar panels. They moved on to the failed ATFE “gun-running” program in Arizona. After that it was Benghazi, Benghazi, Benghazi, interrupted briefly by IRS scrutiny of conservative “non-profits.” Finally, they turned to the Ebola crisis.

After dozens of hearings, numerous investigations and millions of dollars in expenses, here’s what they found:

The loans to Solyndra were initiated during the George W. Bush administration and finalized during the first year of the Obama administration. The company failed when faced with competition financed, in part, by the Chinese government. And, instead of losing millions as Teapublicans claimed, the government actually made a $5 billion profit on the sale of Solyndra’s assets.

Though Issa and his Teapublican investigations found that Fast & Furious resulted in hundreds of guns being trafficked across the border into Mexico; and though Teapublicans blamed the Department of Justice, calling for the resignation of Attorney General Eric Holder; the facts show that the blame was entirely misplaced. Yes, the ATFE allowed guns to cross the border with hopes of tracking them to the leaders of Mexican drug cartels. But, thanks to Arizona’s loose gun laws, guns have been trafficked across the border for decades. Fast & Furious was created out of frustration with the courts’ refusal to allow charges against so-called straw buyers. The hope was that, by tracking the guns, the ATFE would be able to disrupt the pipeline of illegal weapons.

With regard to Benghazi, contrary to an endless stream of Teapublican propaganda, 7 non-partisan investigations have found absolutely no wrongdoing by the administration or anyone else. There were no orders for rescuers to stand down. And absolutely no evidence of an administration cover-up. It was simply an unexpected and spontaneous attack by terrorists resulting in the deaths of 4 Americans…the kind of attack that led to many more deaths in American embassies under previous administrations. Yet, despite the findings of 7 investigations, Teapublicans are still insisting on spending millions more for yet another investigation by a “select” committee of Teapublican fools.

As for the IRS scandal, there is little evidence of wrong-doing. Yes, Lois Lerner and her IRS colleagues compiled a list of watch words indicating a political committee disguised as a charitable non-profit in order to ferret out those intent on skirting election laws to flood political campaigns with dark money. Yes, that list included numerous words used by Teapublican groups. And, yes, more Teapublican groups were subjected to extra scrutiny by the IRS. But it is also true that, thanks to the Koch brothers and other right wing billionaires, more Teapublican groups had applied for non-profit status than Democratic groups. Moreover, following a series of questionable Supreme Court decisions, Lerner’s IRS department was overwhelmed with such requests. And none of the groups affected were denied such status.

Finally, the Teapublican’s weakest attempt to scaremonger was the Ebola “scandal.” So far, only two people have died of the disease in the US. And though it appears that the Dallas hospital was ill-prepared to deal with the disease, the CDC and NIH quickly responded. There have been no further events and no “epidemic” despite the fact that Teapublicans dramatically cut the budget for the Center for Disease Control, making it unable to conduct necessary research.

And what were the Obama administration’s failures in all of these scandals? None. Yet, thanks to Teapublican control of Congress, the investigations, and the propaganda, will continue.

UPDATE: It is estimated that the direct costs of investigations by Issa’s committee have exceeded more than $26 million to date. The indirect costs of the time needed to provide thousands of documents in compliance with the committee’s demands may have exceeded $1 trillion.

The Difference Between The Facts And The Truth.

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Since President Obama’s Executive Order on immigration, various news organizations have been crawling all over each other to “fact-check” the president’s statements. Predictably, they found a number of things that were at odds with the “facts.”

What those news organizations fail to recognize is that the facts don’t necessarily represent the truth. So I’ll do their job for them. The truth is that illegal immigration, and the resulting influx of undocumented workers, has been a large problem for many years. As a result, President Obama has overseen the greatest expansion of border security in history in addition to an unprecedented growth in deportations. In addition to the “fence,” we now have 21,000 border patrol agents. We have at least one agent for every half mile of the border. Combined with slow job growth (as opposed to a slow economy), that has resulted in a net loss of illegal immigrants.

The fact is that many immigrants have crossed our southern border. The truth is that 40 percent of undocumented immigrants entered the US legally through our airports, bus stations, and seaports and they have overstayed their visas. Building a bigger fence and stationing more agents at the border will do nothing to stop these immigrants.

The fact is that an estimated 11 million undocumented immigrants work in the US. The truth is that these workers do not take American jobs. They do the work that very few Americans will. For example, despite advertising for American workers to pick his fruit, a fruit grower in Georgia could not find a single American to do what undocumented workers will.

The fact is drugs are still being smuggled into our country illegally. The truth is that most of them are being smuggled into the US on airplanes, in freight cars, in boats. Few are being brought in by human mules.

The fact is that some criminals cross our borders illegally…drug smugglers, human smugglers and gang members. The truth is that these people represent a very small percentage of illegal immigrants.

The fact is that we pay to educate the children of illegal immigrants. The truth is that these children grow up to contribute far more to our society than their education costs. It is also true that illegal immigrants cannot receive food stamps and welfare benefits. Neither can they vote.

The fact is that many immigrants came across the southern border in search of a better life. The truth is that these immigrants had little choice. Many came to the US as refugees in the 1980’s when the Reagan administration was supporting dictators and death squads in El Salvador and Nicaragua. (Remember Iran-Contra?) Many were small farmers who were put out of business by our large corporate farms that dumped low-priced corn into Mexico and Central America as a consequence of NAFTA (North American Free Trade Agreement) and CAFTA (Central American Free Trade Agreement).

The fact is that thousands of children recently crossed our southern border. The truth is that few tried to sneak across the border. Most simply turned themselves into Border Patrol officers seeking asylum from the violence in Honduras and El Salvador.

The fact is that our border security has greatly limited the number of illegal crossings. The truth is that is has also greatly limited the billions of dollars in trade between Mexico and the US. 6 million US jobs depend on exports to Mexico and the US receives nearly $9 billion per year in tourism from Mexico. Yet despite being on the border, thanks to SB1070, Arizona ranks 21st in exports to Mexico behind Wisconsin and Minnesota!

The fact is that millions of undocumented workers are employed in the US. The truth is that most of these workers pay federal and state income taxes, sales taxes and licensing fees. They also contribute approximately $7 billion per year in payroll deductions to Social Security and Medicare even though they will never benefit from these programs.

The fact is that we need comprehensive immigration reform. The truth is that Republican politicians have used the issue of immigration to promote racism and fear in order to be elected.

The fact is that President Obama acted alone in an attempt to solve the immigration crisis. The truth is that the US House of Representatives had more than 500 days to vote on the Senate’s bi-partisan comprehensive immigration bill, but Speaker Boehner refused to bring it to a vote. Republicans also refused to negotiate the issue with Democrats. The president was left with no other option than to act by Executive Order.

An Informed Voting Public?

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Our Founding Fathers created a democracy based on informed voters carefully selecting a representative government. The reality is that, after nearly 240 years, we have neither an informed public nor a representative government. The most recent election is a case in point.

After six years of Teapublican obstruction, the approval rating of Congress was lower than the approval of cockroaches. So what did our “informed” voters do? They re-elected the vast majority of the incumbents and gave extra seats to members of the party that was responsible for the obstruction. Our national political pundits explained this phenomenon as the result of a low voter turnout and massive spending of “dark money” to elect candidates who would repay their benefactors with fewer regulations and more tax cuts. I explained that it was the result of the failure of the Democratic Party to promote its record of pulling our economy out of perhaps the biggest hole in history, making affordable health care available to most Americans, improving our nation’s standing throughout the world, expanding consumer protections and attempting to expand civil rights to all segments of our population.

There’s a better explanation.

This past Sunday, Fareed Zakaria, on his CNN show Global Public Square, featured an Ipsos MORI international study that measured the political ignorance in 14 western nations. The study asked respondents from those nations about various issues ranging from unemployment to immigration. While Italy ranked number one as the least informed citizenry, voters in the US ranked a close second. For example, when asked about unemployment in the US, our respondents guessed that the figure was 32 percent when the real number is less than 6 percent nationwide. When asked about the number of recent immigrants in our country, Americans guessed that they make up 32 percent of our population, when the real number is about 13 percent. Asked about the number of Muslims in our country, Americans guessed that Muslims comprise 15 percent of our population, when the real figure is 1 percent.

The large number of poorly informed voters explains why voters continue to vote against their own self-interests; why poor people vote for officials who give large tax breaks to the wealthy and large corporations; why they vote for officials who refuse to raise the minimum wage; why women vote for officials who refuse to demand equal pay for equal work; why the retired and near-retired vote for representatives who want to eliminate Social Security and Medicare.

Of course, we also have to ask ourselves why so many Americans are so poorly informed. The answer can be summed up in two words: schools and media.

Many of our schools no longer teach civics. As a result, many of our young people have never read the Constitution. They don’t even know how our government works. In addition, many of our nation’s textbooks are edited and approved by Texas conservatives so that they more resemble Christian and military propaganda than American history or science. For instance, we are still teaching children that Christopher Columbus discovered America when historians agree that he didn’t. And many of our schools are forced to teach “creationism” as an alternative to evolution, even though evolution is a fact as established as the theory of gravity.

Further, our so-called news media have placed an emphasis on entertainment and sensationalism to drive ratings at the expense of real news and information. As a result, we all know about the latest murder trial or the marital status of celebrities. But we don’t know the beliefs and agendas of the candidates on our ballots. Neither do we know world events that will ultimately affect us. We don’t even know that the US has been fighting wars for all but 13 years of our nation’s history. And we don’t know that our own actions led to most of them. Worse yet, we don’t know that our nation is no longer a democracy. Numerous political scientists and economists have proven that, by definition, it has become an oligarchy. (Of course, our poorly educated public likely doesn’t even know what an oligarchy is.)

The point of all this is to say that, if you don’t like our government, it’s not entirely the fault of those who were elected. It’s not necessarily the fault of one political party or our political system. The fault is our own, because we voted the scoundrels into office without ever bothering to ask what they will do. We’re only interested in which tribe they belong to – red or blue.

The Not-So-United States.

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It’s the day after Veteran’s Day. After flying the Stars and Stripes one last time to honor those who served our nation, Arizona citizens and businesses should be folding up their American flags and storing them away. Or, for the few who still pledge allegiance to the flag, they should remove the star representing Arizona. At the very least, they should cut the star in half.

Why?

Because, in our most recent election, Arizona voters passed Proposition 122. This new law, which will go into effect on January 1, 2015, makes it illegal for any Arizona state employee to enforce a federal law or regulation which our nincompoop-dominated legislature deems unconstitutional. Why trust the already far-right-dominated Supreme Court to make such decisions? Why pay attention to the Constitution’s federal supremacy clause?

Arizona’s legislators know best.

This brilliant piece of legislation, which legal experts have pronounced blatantly unconstitutional, was written by the late Tea Party Senator Chester Crandell and co-sponsored by other Tea Party legislators in response to the armed standoff by Cliven Bundy and his militia buddies against the Bureau of Land Management’s attempts to make Bundy pay more than $1 million in back fees for grazing his cattle on federal lands. Despite the fact that other ranchers pay the fees without complaint, the militant Tea Party seems to view the government’s attempt to collect the fees as blatant government over-reach. Arizonans certainly wouldn’t want the evil BLM to try to collect bills here.

In reality, Prop 122 is secession-lite.

The Arizona Tea Party “Patriots” would really like to secede from the United States (apparently nothing says patriotism like lifting a middle finger to your nation’s government and all those who have fought and died for it), but the state simply can’t afford to secede. After all, Arizona is a “taker” state. According to the most recent data, it receives approximately $1.50 in federal subsidies for every dollar the state’s citizens contribute to the federal government in taxes.

So we have Prop 122, instead, created by our legislature, passed by our voters and supported by Arizona’s governor-elect and attorney general-elect. That means Arizona’s citizens should be prepared to, once again, be the laughing stock of late night TV and the Comedy Channel. Moreover, Arizona taxpayers should be prepared to spend tens of millions in legal fees in a futile attempt to defend the state’s actions against the federal government. But, hey, enough of those taxpayers voted for the bill to allow it to pass by the slimmest of margins…slightly more than one half of the 44 percent of registered voters who actually made the minimal effort to vote.

It’s difficult to have much sympathy for Arizonans. The state that brought you the racist SB 1070 and the legalized discrimination SB 1062 has now fired the first salvo in secession. It’s as if the state has denounced its status of statehood and set the way-back clock to 1911 when Arizona was still a territory.