It used to be that as a public servant, particularly an elected one, even if you felt superior to members of minority groups you felt constrained from calling them names for fear of a backlash from either your boss or your constituents. Not any more, apparently. Rep. Steve King of Iowa (a Republican, of course) …
Archaeologists occasionally find things the rest of us would rather not know about. The early Jamestown colony has been romanticized in our histories, not as much as The Lost Colony at Roanoke, but pretty widely just the same. The Pilgrims at Plymouth got more ink, but the Virginians and their plight were also covered in …
It’s not the full-blown DREAM Act the President and the Democrats tried to pass in 2010, but it’s a big step forward. Today the President announced a policy change which will allow people under 30 who came to the US as children and have no criminal background to remain in the US. More specifically, According …
Sometimes Kevin Drum at Mother Jones gets flak for being too polite. Well, get a gander at the headline on this post: “Hispanics Hate the Republican Party” And he backs it up with polling data!
Kids didn’t go to school in fear that this law might result in their parents’ deportation. Think Progress quotes an Alabama news site: Many of the 223 Hispanic students at Foley Elementary came to school Thursday crying and afraid, said Principal Bill Lawrence. Nineteen of them withdrew, and another 39 were absent, Lawrence said, the …
Yesterday Janet Napolitano’s replacement as Governor of Arizona, Jan Brewer, signed a law which essentially says Arizona’s law enforcement personnel can stop anyone who looks like an illegal immigrant and ask them for their identity papers. From Article 8 of Arizona SB 1070 (.pdf): For any lawful contact made by a law enforcement official or …
What can we conclude from the demise of the immigration bill and the SCOTUS school decision today? Why, that the conservative party of this country really does want to move society back to a time when black and Hispanic people were invisible at best and a troublesome minority to be trampled at worst. I liked …
Immigrants are lazy bums who live off the taxes their betters pay and use up social and educational services, or so the Republican party would have you believe. Ellen Chesler begs to differ. Natalya Berezovskaya, the class salutatorian with a 3.99 GPA, was just seven years old when her family escaped political unrest and a …
Lemme get this straight. The Immigration Service demolished nearly 1,300 lives just to spur Congress to do something about immigration reform? Ostensibly this was an attempt to capture people who had committed identity theft, but only 65 of the 1,282 rounded up have been charged. This week’s raids on Swift & Co. meatpacking plants are …
Heard on PRI’s The World just now (audio here): “This is a Southern American city [she’s in Tennessee], and I can’t drive down my main street and read the signs anymore.” Now, really. That’s just plain dumb. Lady, can you still find an English-language Safeway and Walgreens?