The Hollywood Liberal

McCain Disagrees With Gov. Jan Brewer: Most Undocumented Immigrants Are Not ?Drug Mules?
Last week, ThinkProgress reported that, during a recent primary debate, Gov. Jan Brewer (R-AZ) falsely claimed that the “majority” of undocumented immigrants who come to the U.S. are “coming here and they’re bringing drugs” and “doing drop houses and they’re extorting people and they’re terrorizing the families.” On Meet the Press today, Sen. John […]

Last week, ThinkProgress reported that, during a recent primary debate, Gov. Jan Brewer (R-AZ) falsely claimed that the “majority” of undocumented immigrants who come to the U.S. are “coming here and they’re bringing drugs” and “doing drop houses and they’re extorting people and they’re terrorizing the families.” On Meet the Press today, Sen. John McCain (R-AZ) admitted to David Gregory that he does not agree with Brewer’s fallacious comments, but refused to address whether such gross exaggerations “make the debate harder”:

GREGORY: Do you agree with the Governor of Arizona that most people who come across the border are actually drug mules?

MCCAIN: No. I think that there’s a large number. I think that she’s right that drug cartel movement has drastically increased and the violence — 23,000 Mexicans have been killed in the last three years in Mexico!

GREGORY: Do those kind of comments make the debate harder, make it a hotter debate?

MCCAIN: I think the Governor of Arizona has done a good job in this whole debate. I may not agree with one sentence that she uses, but she’s standing up for Arizona. And I think the people of my state deserve a better environment than the one they are getting from the federal government now.

Watch it:

Perhaps the reason McCain refused to say whether Brewer’s inaccurate generalizations contribute to a toxic environment of misinformation is because he too has been misleading the public with his fear-mongering. McCain once described undocumented immigrants as “God’s children” and reminded people that “the overwhelming majority of people who come to this country are honest, god-fearing, hard-working people.” Now, when discussing immigration, McCain prefers to bring up the “murderous, barbaric behavior” of drug cartels and the appalling death toll in Mexico. However, what he and his colleagues don’t tell voters is that, despite violence in Mexico, the U.S. side of the border is safer than it’s been in years.

Recently released FBI crime statistics show that, despite an increase in illegal immigration, crime has been dropping in Arizona for years. Not only is violent crime declining in Arizona, immigrants themselves are actually less likely to commit crimes and more likely to contribute to the safety of communities they live in. A study of more than 50,000 U.S. cities revealed that “the cities that experience the greatest growth in immigration were the same one that were experiencing the greatest declines in violent crime.”

During his interview with Gregory, McCain also insisted that Congress can not pass immigration reform until the border is secure. Just a few years ago, McCain called an “enforcement-first” strategy an “ineffective and ill-advised approach” and insisted that “the only way to truly secure our border and protect our Nation is through the enactment of comprehensive immigration reform.”

BP Slick Reached Mississippi While Haley Barbour Went Fundraising In Washington
June 26 NASA satellite imagery shows long ribbons of oil have entered the Mississippi Sound. As significant amounts of oil from the BP disaster moved past Mississippi’s barrier islands this week, Gov. Haley Barbour (R-MS) partied in Washington DC to raise money for Republicans. On Wednesday, boats were skimming oil near the Petit Bois Island at […]

June 26 NASA satellite imagery shows long ribbons of oil have entered the Mississippi Sound.

As significant amounts of oil from the BP disaster moved past Mississippi’s barrier islands this week, Gov. Haley Barbour (R-MS) partied in Washington DC to raise money for Republicans. On Wednesday, boats were skimming oil near the Petit Bois Island at the Mississippi-Alabama border. Barbour decided to attend to his duties as a political fundraiser:

Barbour on Thursday held Washington fund-raisers for the Republican Governors Association, which he heads, and for one of his political action committees, which is raising money for GOP congressional candidates. His fund-raising is receiving some national media attention and feuling speculation that he is already gearing up for a run for president in 2012.

“The most important thing right now is the 2010 elections,” Barbour told reporters.

Continuing his record of dismissing the magnitude of the BP disaster, Barbour said on Friday after he returned to Mississippi that major slicks miles long within the Mississippi Sound “shouldn’t be a cause for alarm.” By Saturday, there were “long, wide ribbons of orange-colored oil for as far as the eye could see and acres of both heavy and light sheen moving into the Sound between the barrier islands.”

The system for responding to a major oil spill depends on coordination between the federal government, the responsible oil company, and the state government. Out of the 6,000 National Guard troops President Obama has authorized for response in Mississippi, Haley Barbour has mobilized only 58. However, he has declared today to be a Day of Prayer “to remember the Mississippi Gulf Coast.”

Anger doesn’t tell whole story of 2010 election season
Angry voters are everywhere. Watch any cable news chat show, read any political blog or peruse the pages of any major newspaper and you will be bombarded with headlines about how the American electorate is mad as hell and not going to take it anymore.


Relationships – Anger – Anger Management – People – Men

Political Digest: Senate candidate subpoenaed to testify at Blagojevich trial
CAMPAIGNS Senate candidate Alexi Giannoulias said Sunday he has been subpoenaed to testify at the corruption trial of ousted Illinois governor Rod Blagojevich (D).


United States Senate – United States – Barack Obama – Rod Blagojevich – Government

As Kagan confirmation hearings begin, Republicans struggle for line of attack
For weeks leading up to the start of Elena Kagan’s Senate confirmation hearings Monday, Republicans have struggled to find a compelling line of attack to take against the Supreme Court nominee. But their efforts to wield an effective cudgel against President Obama’s second nomination to the…


United States – United States Supreme Court – Elena Kagan – Politics – Barack Obama

The Juice: The Kagan hearings drama at the staff level is unseen but intense
When Elena Kagan’s Supreme Court nomination showdown kicks off Monday in the Senate Judiciary Committee, the ritualistic partisan jousting will begin. But on the sidelines, away from the cameras, a more intense match will play out between the top Democratic and Republican staffers on the panel.


United States – Elena Kagan – United States Supreme Court – Government – Legislative Branch

Lessons from the McChrystal Debacle
Frank Rich, New York Times
THE moment he pulled the trigger, there was near-universal agreement that President Obama had done the inevitable thing, the right thing and, best of all, the bold thing. But before we get carried away with relief and elation, let's not forget what we saw in the tense 36 hours that fell between late Monday night, when word spread of Rolling Stone's blockbuster article, and high noon Wednesday, when Obama MacArthured his general. That frenzied interlude revealed much about the state of Washington, the Afghanistan war and the Obama presidency "” little of it…

Dark Clouds That Spelt Doom for a PM
Peter Hartcher, Sydney Mng Herald
The specific sequence of events leading to Kevin Rudd's destruction began with the results of opinion poll.Specifically, it was a "˜"˜word cloud,'' a cluster of the words that voters offered when asked to describe their prime minister.Each word is printed in a typesize to reflect how commonly it came up. The dominant word glaring from the “cloud” was ''arrogant'', followed by ''weak''. Never mind that these seem to convey wildly different conceptions of the man. The Labor powerbrokers who …

Why China Has Reason to Worry
Jonathan Fenby, The Guardian
If it wasn't so utterly predictable one would have to admire the symmetry. Having resisted pressure to make their child behave better, the parents of the errant offspring suddenly announce a week before the annual meeting of parents and teachers that they will fall into line. There is relief all round and, indeed, the child does do as the authorities and other parents want. Once the PTA meeting is over, however, the old game resumes.That looks rather like China's currency policy. Last week, the central bank in Beijing announced a “flexible” regime for the yuan with a…