Not Legal Not Leaving

A few excerpts from Time magazine's cover story this week on the plight of undocumented immigrants who came here as children and aren't leaving and for all practical purposes are Americans.

'Why haven't you gotten deported?'

That's usually the first thing people ask me when they learn I'm an undocumented immigrant or, put more rudely, an "illegal." Some ask it with anger or frustration, others with genuine bafflement. At a restaurant in Birmingham, not far from the University of Alabama, an inebriated young white man challenged me: "You got your papers?" I told him I didn't. "Well, you should get your ass home, then." In California, a middle-aged white woman threw up her arms and wanted to know: "Why hasn't Obama dealt with you?" At least once a day, I get that question, or a variation of it, via e-mail, tweet or Facebook message. Why, indeed, am I still here?

The contradictions of our immigration debate are inescapable.
...

The probusiness GOP waves a KEEP OUT flag at the Mexican border and a HELP WANTED sign 100 yards in, since so many industries depend on cheap labor.

'Why don't you become legal?'
...

"I haven't become legal," I told William, "because there's no way for me to become legal, sir."

Sharon jumped in. "You can't get a green card?"

"No, ma'am," I said. "There's no process for me." Of all the questions I've been asked in the past year, "Why don't you become legal?" is probably the most exasperating. But it speaks to how unfamiliar most Americans are with how the immigration process works.

Obtaining a green card means navigating one of the two principal ways of getting permanent legal status in the U.S.: family or specialized work. To apply for a green card on the basis of family, you need to be a spouse, parent, child or sibling of a citizen. (Green-card holders can petition only for their spouses or unmarried children.) Then it's time to get in line. For green-card seekers, the U.S. has a quota of about 25,000 green cards per country each year. That means Moldova (population: 3.5 million) gets the same number of green cards as Mexico (population: 112 million). The wait time depends on demand. If you're in Mexico, India, the Philippines or another nation with many applicants, expect a wait of years or even decades. (Right now, for example, the U.S. is considering Filipino siblings who applied in January 1989.)

Much, much more. An interesting and frustrating dilemma that is only now coming to be addressed.

Related:

Mitt Romney Still Has No Position On Obama’s Immigration Bombshell

That's understandable - it takes time to come up with a lie that balances the need for cheap labor by his big donors and the scaredy-cat xenophobia of the mouth-breathers whom he is trying to convince to vote for him. It would be so much simpler if the Fat Cats could just BUY the Presidency for him outright. He'll fix that on Day One.

From a rich guy ...

I've seen Hanauer on Ed recently and he's absolutely correct.

...

But sometimes the ideas that we know to be true are dead wrong. For thousands of years people were sure that earth was at the center of the universe. It’s not, and an astronomer who still believed that it was, would do some lousy astronomy.

In the same way, a policy maker who believed that the rich and businesses are “job creators” and therefore should not be taxed, would make equally bad policy.

I have started or helped start, dozens of businesses and initially hired lots of people. But if no one could have afforded to buy what we had to sell, my businesses would all have failed and all those jobs would have evaporated.

...

Transcript from his entire speech is at the link along with a video.

Personally ...

I hate it when people use sports as metaphors for some kind of way of living (except for football [soccer] which, when played well [not MLS], is like lovemaking).

...

It's rarely pretty when our young conservatives try to "hip" themselves to popular culture in general, but their attempts at wedging sports into the ongoing shouting match between the voices in their heads are usually the most hilarious. (A while back, The Weekly Standard essayed an all-sports issue that actual sportswriters laugh at to this day. I mean, honestly, Fred Barnes on the NBA? That would have been like sending young Bill Kristol to CBGB back in the day.) This is an attempt to enlist Bryce Harper, the authentic phenom of the Washington Nationals — and I'm not kidding, he came into Fenway and lit the joint on fire a week or so ago, and you you should see him if you have the chance — into the author's personal quest for a guest slot on Hannity.

...

It always amazes me the way the conservatives are constantly looking for a "hero", a Great White Hope that will inspire and lead all of us to that great right-wing nirvana. They're as bad as young Japanese boys and their worship of AV Idols.

A handy guide ...

To surviving* the Right's austerity policies:



They didn't add "bend over and kiss your ass goodbye" but that's what it all boils down to.

*Good luck with that.

Great thanks to our pal Montag for the pic.

Live Bluegrass

The annual Fathers Day Bluegrass Festival in Grass Valley, California on KVMR. Audio player only here. Goes 'til about 11 tonight OWT* and starts up again about 11AM Sunday. There's a good group on right now! Enjoy.

*Out West Time

Like, Duh Headline of the Day

Politico Reporter Admits The Press Is Covering For Republican Obstructionism

And this tidbit from Seniors for a Democratic Society Facebook page via The Pragmatic Progressive Page:

"The reason conservative bleating about bias is so effective is that many journalists feel a certain consciousness of 'guilt,' a buy-in to the notion that the media really might have a 'liberal bias.'

"The defect in this thinking is that liberalism, in the classic sense, is an absence of bias, whereas conservatism is necessarily biased, is, by definition, a narrowing of thought. A Democrat can favor a tax cut if it’s what’s best for the country, or a tax increase if it’s best for the country. A conservative can only do one of those things. A Democrat can (and most do) personally oppose abortions, and try to reduce the number of abortions through education and access to contraception, or by supporting legislation that restricts abortion access. A Conservative can only do one of those things.

"The press needs to realize that when conservatives whine about 'liberal bias,' what they’re really complaining about is an absence of conservative bias (my em - G). Until they do, things like the plainly obvious GOP sabotage of the economy will continue unchecked."

Besides, it's very hard, even for professional gasbags journalists to tell the truth about the Repugs when their paychecks depend on their not doing so.

Republican Jesus ...

Stolen from the Americans Against The Tea Party FB page.

Saturday Emmylou Blogging

Pretty version of the Gram Parsons tune,

Emmylou Harris & Spyboy ~ Hickory Wind

Thanks to Larry Privat, Shanghai.

Shopping Day

Off ta The Big City today. Spa day for the pups, breakfast at Q's for us. Maybe even W**M*** for some bug bulbs! How much excitement can one man stand?! See yas.

The Jukebox in my mind ...

Cheap Trick - Surrender

I guess it's in my head because Father's Day is coming up. Happy Father's day, you mothers. Heh ...

Mother told me, yes, she told me I'd meet girls like you.
She also told me, "Stay away, you'll never know what you'll catch."
Just the other day I heard a soldier falling off some Indonesian junk that's going round.

Mommy's alright, Daddy's alright, they just seem a little weird.
Surrender, surrender, but don't give yourself away, ay, ay, ay.

Father says, "Your mother's right, she's really up on things."
"Before we married, Mommy served in the WACS in the Philippines."
Now, I had heard the WACS recruited old maids for the war.
But mommy isn't one of those, I've known her all these years.

Mommy's alright, Daddy's alright, they just seem a little weird.
Surrender, surrender, but don't give yourself away, ay, ay, ay.

Whatever happened to all this season's losers of the year?
Ev'ry time I got to thinking, where'd they disappear?
When I woke up, Mom and Dad are rolling on the couch.
Rolling numbers, rock and rolling, got my Kiss records out.

Mommy's alright, Daddy's alright, they just seem a little weird.
Surrender, surrender, but don't give yourself away, ay, ay, ay.

Away.
Away.

I wonder ...

If the GOP will give Barry credit for this, you know, since it was his fault the prices went up a few months ago, right?

WASHINGTON — A measure of U.S. consumer prices fell in May by the most since December 2008, pulled down by a plunge in gas prices. Excluding volatile food and energy costs, prices rose only modestly.

The Labor Department said Thursday that the consumer price index dropped 0.3 percent. Gas prices sank 6.8 percent, also the most since December 2008. Food costs were unchanged.

...

I wonder which Rethug will be the first to step up and give the President a pat on the back? Heh ...

The deal ...

Charlie Pierce translates Jamie Dimon's bullshit testimony before Congress yesterday and gives the CEO a little reality:

...

See, Jamie, here's the deal: Nobody trusts you bastards anymore. I'm not talking about that kept press, or by the walking sublets you have haunting the halls of Congress. I mean out in the world where people are still suffering the aftershocks of what the lot of you did to the country over the previous decade. Maybe this matters to you. Very likely, as long as you have the two entities I mentioned in your crisply tailored pocket, it doesn't. But there were some interviews in a Democracy Corps poll yesterday that ought to give you pause:

...

I tell ya what; if these fuckers crash the economy again, they won't have time to jump because they're gonna be hung from the light-poles long before they get to that point. "Excessive government regulation" would be the least of their worries.

Just shut up and shoot ...

Silly GI. Don't you realize the people who are foreclosing on you are the ones you're fighting for?

Stolen from the Sexy Atheists FB page.

Headline of the Day

Photos That Make the Rude Pundit Want to Smoke Meth and Down a Six Pack of Bell's:

Seeing stuff like that always makes me wanta take those (unloaded) things away from those idiot wannabes and put them where they can't see them.

"One Hitters", er, smoke STOTUS!

WaPo, links at site.

Anyone notice a cloud hanging over the Mall last week? That might have been the White House softball team getting absolutely smoked by the team fielded by the marijuana lobby.

The One Hitters, the team of pro-pot activists, beat STOTUS (the Softball Team of the U.S.) 25-3.

Marijuana doesn’t seem to dampen athletic prowess (which we already knew — hello, Michael Phelps!). Still, the victors were gracious about the rout. “The One Hitters enjoyed slugging it out with the White House,” said Aaron Houston, executive director of Students for Sensible Drug Policy, the group that sponsors the team. “Hopefully we can play them again when they aren’t totally absorbed in work.”

We almost missed the pun hidden there. Hint: David Maraniss’s latest book revealed that President Obama’s high-school pot smoking philosophy included “total absorption” of the precious weed.

Heh. The only game I can play when "totally absorbed" is trying to get the Twinkie package open. I usually fail and just eat the whole thing. Cardboard, cellophane, Twinkies, mox nix. The munchies couldn't care less.

TAGS: Religion, Scandal, Europe, Corruption

I fuckin' love it!

RT

The former head of the Vatican Bank has become the Papacy’s Enemy Number One, after police discovered a trove of documents exposing financial misdeeds in the Holy See. The banker now reportedly fears for his life.

As well he should. He wouldn't be the first the Holy Wise Guys have offed to conceal their crimes.

Several months ago, he reportedly told his friends that he began collecting an exhaustive dossier “in case something happened to him.”

It is this dossier that the police have now apparently discovered.
The Vatican is barely concealing its panic – and wants the folders handed back unopened.
...

Italian prosecutors have frequently been at loggerheads with the Vatican and have accused it of using its sovereignty as a shield against proper regulation.

No shit. The Vatican is a worldwide 10th century criminal organization with a death grip, pretty literally, on a billion people. Pedophiles, misogynists, liars and thieves making up things "God" says to enslave people who still fall for it.

Note to the carabinieri: Just build a prison around it.

Facebook in sweet decline

If it's Wednesday it must be Morford expounding on Faceplantbook.

Is it time? Are we about done with the hype and the bluster, the over-amped, OMG-what-has-happened-to-the-world amphetamine breathlessness? Can we get on with it, already?

Did you hear? Facebook went public and nobody cared. Check that: Facebook went public alongside the most dizzying howl of orgasmic hype and "biggest-IPO-ever" mania imaginable and very quickly slumped, thudded, flopped around like an awkward fish in an insufferable hoodie.
...

Oh sure, we've pondered. Is Facebook making us lonely? Is Facebook making us dumber? Is Facebook making us jealous, depressed, stalker-y, megalomaniacal, vain, suicidal, popular, loved? Is Facebook ruining marriages? Inducing murder? Inviting pedophilia? Helping teens cope? Fostering community where none existed before?

Answer: [...]

Heh.

One can dream ...

...

The only good news for the president is that the campaign has barely started, and he has loads of time to reboot the argument. And even if “hope” is hard to come by right now, Americans do not have to give up on the idea of change. So here are a few ideas for reclaiming the argument for “change.”

...

Some good suggestions including a WPA-like program for college-age kids. Good luck getting any of them to come to fruition but it's something Barry should be bashing the GOP with.

Heh ...

Stolen from my favorite spaceman George Takei.

Statistics ...

Works for me.

Stolen from the I Love Smoking Weed FB page.