Category: focus on the fascists

I just read this article in the NY Times and it made me audibly gasp.  I just can’t wrap my mind around how this president can say he supports life–more than the rest of us mind you–, and then do this.  The “this” I refer to is a new Medicaid policy where newborns born in this country (and thus, under our Constitution, citizens) are being made to apply for benefits by showing a birth certificate before receiving care.  For the past 22 years the policy (and the law) have been that an infant born to illigal immigrants in this country is automatically covered. 

The last time I went to the ER a lady came in to admitting in labor and they just sent her on up to maternity–no questions asked.  Even though I was terribly weak, I thought to myself “Thank God we are getting right on this.”  No matter how you feel about immigration, I would hope that simple kindness, simple humanity, would tell you that this was not the time for politics or for paperwork.  It is a baby coming into the world.  That trumps everything.  I don’t care if it is Eva Braun having a baby, a woman in labor deserves kindness. 

And once that baby, a U.S. citizen, is born, that baby deserves health care.  Where exactly does it get us to deny that baby care?  Hmm, let’s not treat a condition for the first three months and let’s see if it gets less expensive to treat–not likely.  These babies are citizens, so it will wind up that they are eligible for coverage, so why make it more expensive to treat them?  (Wait, I know, we are hoping that the parents will take them “back where they belong” instead of applying.  Or maybe we can get lucky and they will all die before the paperwork goes through.)

This is vindictive, cruel and short-sighted.  Not to mention directly contrary to federal law.  How can they keep getting away with this sort of thing while proclaiming their goodness, righteousness, and moral superiority?  How can Kerry’s misspeaking be bigger news than deliberate cruelty and mind-blowing hypocricy?  Why are Americans swallowing this?

The New York Times reports on the incredibly important work being done by the Southern Poverty Law Center to uncover a fairly terrifying upsurge in neo-Nazi and skinhead infiltration of the military. The Army cracked down on this after being embarrassed by revelations about Timothy McVeigh’s white-supremacist conversion while in the Army. But you know, the Oklahoma City bombing is so ’90s and we need every solider we can get–except “teh gay,” of course. So recruiters under pressure to meet their quotas are just smiling and nodding while homegrown terror groups build a fifth column inside the military.

A decade after the Pentagon declared a zero-tolerance policy for racist hate groups, recruiting shortfalls caused by the war in Iraq have allowed “large numbers of neo-Nazis and skinhead extremists” to infiltrate the military, according to a watchdog organization.

The Southern Poverty Law Center, which tracks racist and right-wing militia groups, estimated that the numbers could run into the thousands, citing interviews with Defense Department investigators and reports and postings on racist Web sites and magazines.

…The report cited accounts by neo-Nazis of their infiltration of the military, including a discussion on the white supremacist Web site Stormfront. “There are others among you in the forces,” one participant wrote. “You are never alone.”

An article in the National Alliance magazine Resistance urged skinheads to join the Army and insist on being assigned to light infantry units.

The Southern Poverty Law Center identified the author as Steven Barry, who it said was a former Special Forces officer who was the alliance’s “military unit coordinator.”

“Light infantry is your branch of choice because the coming race war and the ethnic cleansing to follow will be very much an infantryman’s war,” he wrote. “It will be house-to-house, neighborhood-by-neighborhood until your town or city is cleared and the alien races are driven into the countryside where they can be hunted down and ‘cleansed.’ ”

He concluded: “As a professional soldier, my goal is to fill the ranks of the United States Army with skinheads. As street brawlers, you will be useless in the coming race war. As trained infantrymen, you will join the ranks of the Aryan warrior brotherhood.”

This is not pretend, not made up, and these people are serious. In a climate where mainstream Republicans are demonizing and dehumanizing immigrants and gays in violent terms, these fringe groups are more empowered to act. Maybe it’s just the time I spent in the wreckage of the Murrah Building, but I’m a lot more scared of these people than I am of Zarqawi and bin Laden. I’d rather fight Whitey at home than fight Jihadis over there.

When the president starts spying on his citizens without having to demonstrate to anyone that it’s legitimate, what would you expect the legislature to do? I’ll give you a hint: remember, the whole idea of checks and balances built into the three branches of government?

No?

Well, that’s ok. Neither does the legislature.

When the president breaks the law and spies on Americans, apparently the legislature’s job is to do absolutely nothing.

• Would someone please give W a blowjob so we can impeach the fucker. Since apparently serious crimes aren’t enough to do that.
• Would someone please tell all those conservatives who railed against the Soviets’ spying on their own citizens during the Cold War and are now not worried about W doing it that they’re big fat stupid hypocrites.
• Does anyone else feel a bit like the Seahawks at the Superbowl? We could be winning this thing, but the refs keep making dirty calls.
• Why does the Senate hate America?
• I’m going to cry now.

In case you missed it, Tim Eyman, our statewide superhero for selfish anti-community, anti-transit, anti-tax irritations has broadened his horizons and is now also a full-on crusader for bigotry.

Yep, Tim and his crew of ignorant little creeps want to try get an iniative on the ballot to undo the anti-discrimination billl that finally passed the state legislature last week.

Of course, the thing is, in reading his diatribe, it’s clear that not only is he a bigot, but an enormously stupid one at that. What’s his rationale for opposing the law? That preferential treatment for a class of citizens is wrong. Uhm? Right. Which is why the law is good. Remember, it undoes the preferential treatment that straight people had under the law before, and now provides equal protection.

I’d like to propose an initiative for the ballot as well–that for the good of the people, Tim Eyman be banished to one of the Aleutian Islands. Or, it might be just as satisfying to kick that bastard in the nuts.