Blogger Jesus’ General launches “Burn a Confederate Flag Day,” timed to overlap with Glenn Beck’s and the tea partiers’ September 12 rallies.
TPM Reader RW on birthright citizenship …
In some sense, birthright citizenship is birtherism writ large–Obama is the son of a non-American born on American soil. It draws attention to Obama’s alleged “foreign” origins. It isn’t a mere stalking horse–in other countries, including, until recently Germany, the child of a male citizen and a female non-citizen was a citizen but the child of a female citizen and a male non-citizen was not a citizen. Although equal protection would likely prohibit such an interpretation here, attitudes like this are installed deep in some human psyches.
There was a very important development this afternoon which Sam Stein of the Huffington Post managed to get the jump on: Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-KY) has come out in support of congressional hearings into the matter of whether the US Constitution grants citizenship to every person born in the United States — so-called ‘birthright’ citizenship. (The Hill followed up with a more detailed story.)
In a sense this isn’t surprising. Opposition to birthright citizenship — or as its called by anti-immigrant forces, ‘anchor babies’ — has been rising on the right for some time, as we’ve been reporting: here for instance is a round-up we did just a few days ago of all the various Republicans coming out against it. One of them was Sen. Lindsey Graham (R-SC), who’s usually above that sort of crass demagoguery.
But McConnell’s decision signifies not only that this is now the mainstream, establishment Republican position but also that the GOP plans to make it a key plank of their 2010 campaign. Read More
I hate to say it. But anybody got a guess how long Christiane Amanpour lasts at This Week?
To be clear, I think she was an absolutely inspired choice by the ABC brass. Brilliant. But with this pushback from the right, do they have the stomach?
By issuing a legal opinion, Virginia’s ultra-conservative Attorney General has brought Virginia into line with Arizona’s new anti-immigrant law. Virginia police can now check people’s immigration status during routine stops. So, no new law has passed. But Virginia’s policy is now the same as Arizona’s.
It’s really painful to be reminded. But Peter Beinart has more on the shame of the ADL’s decision to come out against the so-called ‘Ground Zero Mosque’.
A few days ago, Charlie Cook, noted election watcher, pointed out that for two straight weeks the Gallup ‘congressional generic’ poll had moved clearly in the direction of the Dems, despite other pollsters still showing continued Republican strength. Blip or trend?
Now we know. At least for the moment. Gallup’s latest number came out this afternoon. And it’s gone right back into the Republican column — GOP up 48% to 43%.
Here’s the TPM Poll Average trend graph for the Congressional Generic …
(Click the TPM logo on graph to see the full size graph.) Read More
Robert Reich on why we really, really, really shouldn’t be re-enacting the Bush tax cuts.
Things are getting to a good place when prison guards are blowing away lawyers to steal their guns to stockpile said guns in preparation for the coming overthrow of the federal government.
The accused, Pennsylvania prison guard Raymond Peake, 64, says that he and Thomas Tuso have told authorities they are members of the organization that is going to overthrow the government. But he’s declined to provide its name.