Occasional Repost; We Can't Afford To Be Wrong

Occasionally, we will repost pieces we appreciate. Here is a little something from our friend/writer Ruth Ann Satchfield. Although it is not everyone's number one concern this election season, Proper Gun Ownership Registration and Training oughta be one of the issues we address nationally...finally. We do it for cars, and cars aren't intended to kill. It should be a no-brainer to do it for weapons that are designed to kill.

We Can't Afford To Be Wrong

By Ruth Ann Satchfield

The issues of gun ownership registration are certainly on the table.

Every time we choose a new president there are important things to consider. Occasionally we get the opportunity to choose between two very good people, and the choice should be made by their stances on the issues, their experiences and their chances of defeating whoever represents the GOP. There are going to be pluses and minuses for each candidate, and I am going to try to explore these issues as fairly as I can.

After the horrific murders in Charleston this last week, we have some differences arise between our leading Democratic candidates which I would like to explore. What do you think? Was there just one cause for the deaths in Charleston? For myself I believe it was a combination of things. Since President Obama was elected, racism has come out in the open, partly because of the talkers on conservative media encouraging racist beliefs. There has never been less respect shown to an elected president in my "baby boomer" lifetime. From the killer’s own words we know racism was clearly the motive. We also know that his beliefs were encouraged by the radical right-wing on the internet.

Since he threw his hat in the ring, Bernie Sanders has been polling well.

Sanders
From his words, we know that Senator Bernie Sanders recognizes this, but that was as far as he went. He doesn't want to address the gun issue. Sanders, saying his home state of Vermont has “zero gun control,” acknowledged that different parts of the country have different outlooks on guns.

I think the people of Vermont understand that guns in Vermont are different than guns in Chicago or guns in Los Angeles,” Sanders said, telling the assembled journalists that he thinks “it is wrong” when people who are “in some cases suicidal and in some cases homicidal” are “still able to purchase guns.”

Senator Sanders is right we have a problem, and it is growing. Where are the calls for Sanders to take a stand on the problems we have with the availability of guns, and the proposed solutions out forth by other members of Congress? Will he be able to come up with a national solution, other than a zero gun control stance.

Is this election outcome inevitable for Hillary?

Clinton

From her words, we know that Secretary/Senator Hillary Clinton also recognizes that our country has a problem with the availability of guns to the wrong people, but has another take on the problem.

“How is it possible that we as a nation allow guns to fall into the hands of people whose hearts are filled with hate?” she said, voice rising. “We can have common-sense gun reforms that keep them out of the hands of criminals and the mentally unstable while not penalizing responsible gun owners,” Asked Secretary Clinton.

O'Malley adds his voice to the race.

O'Malley
If you’re concerned about keeping guns out of the hands of killers, you may be interested in this Democratic Candidate’s ideas. In 2013, the Washington Post reported on O'Malley's gun responsibility proposals.

"Maryland Gov. Martin O’Malley (D) will seek to institute some of the nation’s strictest gun-licensing requirements, ban assault weapons and restrict visitor access to schools in one of the most expansive government responses sought to last month’s school shooting in Newtown, Conn. 

Perhaps most controversially, O’Malley is making plans to ask the General Assembly to force prospective gun owners to provide fingerprints to state police, complete a hands-on weapon-familiarization and gun-safety course, and undergo a background check to be licensed. And the governor is seeking new measures to keep guns out of the hands of those with mental illness who show violent tendencies."

It is interesting to note that to be licensed for conceal carry in Texas today, you must do everything Gov. O’ Malley proposed then.

The Gun Issue
The weapon of choice by these people looking to become infamous through murder has been the gun. So what are we going to do about it?

These regularly occurring terroristic events are now part of our collective consciousness as a country, and argument for Proper Gun Legislation has been proven over and over with these mass murder events. Killers do not usually commit mass murders with other weapons. It can be done, of course, such as in Oklahoma City. If someone wants to, sure, they can always figure out a way to do harm.

Bringing the Fight To White Supremacists
Why are Republicans protecting these criminals by making it more difficult to enforce gun laws?

There are hate groups all over the country. It seems these groups are associated with crime sprees. Years ago, members of a group of white supremacists were caught robbing banks in the Pacific-northwest to fund their activities, and they were taken down. When Texas realized they had the same thing going on there, Federal Agencies focused on, and broke up, a White Supremacy group that was selling drugs to get the money to finance their activities. The Feds were making headway in breaking up some of the criminal groups who follow the white supremacist beliefs, but the GOP representatives in congress cut their funding.

The KKK and white supremacists are teaching children to hate, encouraging their members to join our military so that they will get weapons training and be prepared for the race war they are determined to start.

There are hate groups all over the country. Unfortunately their members do not have a problem getting guns or ammunition. The killer in Charleston wanted to start a “race war.” The two killers in Las Vegas - who killed a couple of police officers who were having breakfast - did so with the purpose of starting a revolution.

The NRA has made things worse with their insistence that guns be available to anyone who wants them. In Indiana, the NRA pushed a law that made it legal to shoot police in your own home or vehicle. In Louisiana, the NRA pushed an amendment permitting felons to own guns and the Republicans in that state passed it. As if that was not enough, the NRA is now pushing to make it possible for people charged with domestic violence to keep their guns.

When are we going to wake up? These incidents are multiplying, and the issues of hate and gun control are linked together. When will the insanity stop?  Of course, we must keep criminals from having guns. Every person who buys a gun must be required to pass a background check. We must stop straw purchases, and the loop-holes that allow gun sales without back-ground checks. And lastly, something must be done to require lawful gun owners to store their guns safely.

Of course, if the Democrats back the wrong candidate, and we lose, the Republican we help elect will most likely not protect us from guns in the hands of the wrong people, nor will they do anything about the white supremacists, because the white supremacists are their supporters. Ya know, those people who are buying up all those confederate flags now that they are losing favor in the public marketplace. To continue to be considered a viable national candidate,

Cruzing into a solid 7th place in the GOP candidate ratings.

Cruz
Ted Cruz is having to refund donations to Citizen Council donors as we speak, but he is not the only Republican to take them. How many of these organizations do you think are donating to the Republicans?

I have no doubt what we have found out recently is only the tip of the iceberg.

Originally Published in The Blue Route ~ June 22, 2015

Occassional Repost: History Gets The Last Word

As you know, occasionally, we will repost pieces we appreciate. Here is a little something from our friend/writer Bruce Lindner who is always right on.

History Gets The Last Word

by Bruce Lindner

I sometimes marvel at how short-sighted this president’s adversaries are. As everyone knows, when he was sworn in six years ago, Senator Mitch McConnell announced that his primary goal was to make President Obama a one-term president. And true to his word, he’s hindered this president’s efforts whenever possible. The economy was in the porcelain fixture and President Obama found himself as welcome by the Republicans as if he had a rattlesnake slithering out of his pocket. So whatever was to become of his presidency, he’d either get ALL the blame or ALL the credit; with the Republicans pushing hard for the former.

The Bush recession was so deep and the bleeding of jobs so bad, it had nowhere to go but up. Not that this president’s policies didn’t contribute to turning things around, but the point being, the efforts of the Republican opposition — by their own decree — would be to contribute nothing. Had they had any smarts at all, they’d have cooperated at least enough so that they could later claim part of the credit for whatever successes were inevitably to come. But they didn’t. They stuck to their goal of pushing this president towards failure. Sorry about your luck Mr. Turtle; he didn’t fail. You did.

In the coming decades (assuming Karl Rove doesn’t get to write it), historians will record that the greatest economic dip in almost a century happened under an incompetent Republican administration that rammed through Republican foreign and domestic policies, largely opposed by the Democrats but backed with enthusiastic Republican support. We all know how that turned out. And the man who succeeded him, a Democrat who was met with open, often racially tinged hostility, turned things around before his two terms were up. In less than six years, all the jobs lost during the Great Bush Recession had been restored, the deficit had been whittled down by two-thirds, the stock market had gone through the roof, women’s equality, gay and immigrant rights had been advanced, Public Enemy No. 1 had been vanquished, the taxpayers spared from absorbing the healthcare expenses of uninsured patients, all without so much as a pinky being lifted by a single Republican…except for the ones this president had the courage to seat in his cabinet.

Things may look like the food fight scene from Animal House right now, but when historians have finished documenting and assessing the events of the Obama era, he’s going to come out looking like a saint, whereas the rabid opposition is going to look like a mob of Tasmanian Devils. Because of their own documented words and misdeeds, there’ll be no denying who did what, which party oversaw the Great Recession, and which president reversed it. Not even by Turdblossom himself.If he/she were smart – and that’s a BIG if – the next Democrat who runs for president should run on this record and remind the electorate daily of why the Republican candidate deserves zero credit for where things stand in November 2016. Because they contributed ZERO to any of the achievements listed above. And the record backs it up.


Bruce Lindner

Immigration And Our Looming Baby Boomer Problems

Immigrants can save our looming Baby Boomer problems. And there are baby boomer problems, believe you me. Our post-WWII wonders are getting to that age now, and for the next wave of retirees hoping to move to warmer climates, it's not looking good.

What do we know? The Boomer generation has been hit hard with misfortune on their way to retirement age. They will get to 64 or 65, and not have enough to sustain them for their projected life expectancy. Many of them may have to work through to their 80s. Their children had to move home, due to the massive international layoffs of 2008, so that makes even more mouths to feed.

Overall, the Boomers retirement funds were stolen by Enron, by the crash of investment banks, by the crash of pensions, oil and gas deals, or by lying insurance companies who could never make good on their debt. We're looking at you, AIG, Anderson Consulting, and your mystical twin Accenture. But those are stories for another day. Let's get back to the problem we have today.

Don't get me wrong, these baby boomers were made of some tough stuff, from hippies to yippies to preppies, they believe in YES WE CAN. So they tried, they picked themselves up, and dusted themselves off, but they just couldn't replace that nest egg. Not quick enough to retire comfortably. In a few years, the front of this wave will hit our economic markets, eventually affecting every aspect of life in the US. And things will stay that way for another 25 years, constantly coming like a wave.

Of course, there will be no more gold watches after 50 years; who has funding for that anymore? And without enough savings, you need to figure out how to live on Social Security, and how to navigate through Medicare.

And then, just when they are packing up their ferns, and enjoying their goodbye cakes, your average retiree is told their social security is gone, or cut, or no longer tied to inflation. Finding huge donut holes where insurance doesn't cover you appropriately for medication, these become daily realities. 

It isn't going to be cheap to keep these people alive, bottom line. Social Security, and Medicare, are supposed to be tied to inflation, but in reality, they could be cut anytime; even this newly voted-in Congress could do it. {{Shivers}} Now don't be angry at the drama. We have some options. 

What if I told you where to find $606.4 billions dollars. Would you be interested? That's $606.4 billion with "B." Well, you'd probably say we need to get our hands on that life-safety-net type money before it is too late, cause then we'd get behind the problem. And that would be bad. Well, we're hear to tell you, we could get that money back in taxes.

What are we saying? Yes taxes. From the 11 million immigrants currently in the United States, and we would most likely only integrate a portion of those applicants. Anyone with criminal records would have to reviewed, turned away and most likely deported. 

We could get that $606.4 billion injection into Social Security alone, but the payments would have to happen over the next 36 years. If we can get the proposed legislation S. 7844 passed and signed, we make that projected $606.4 billion. If you think of any other way our country could suddenly find an extra $606.4 billion with a "B" to pour into our Social Security fund, please do tell. 

The worst part is, these are only baby steps to solving those problems. Even if the undocumented population were able to gain legal status and citizenship under S. 744, the solvency of the Medicare trust fund could only be extended by four years, but that's enough of a reason for me. Or at least a starting point. Congress needs to make the big reform moves moving forward. Long term. And right now that bill is sitting on the steps of Capitol Hill, left swaddled by the Senate, waiting to be discussed and debated by The House.

At this time, there is another bill created by House Dems, and also ignored. We need to see this problem for what it is. What some members of Congress are not seeing is that this issue will exist for the next 25 years, the length of the Baby Boomer generation.

There are lots of humane reasons why we should process these immigrants completely and now. But, as you see, there are pragmatic financial reasons for doing it too. Citizenship would allow millions of undocumented immigrants to work on the books and contribute to Social Security. Over the next 25 years, these contributions to the Social Security system would support 2.4 million American retirees. 

Everything about S. 744 makes sense. As mentioned, this legislation already passed in the Senate, but the house won't even vote to vote on it. They won't even vote to debate it.

If "some people" could get over their phobia of the 11 million people already surrounding them, perhaps we could move forward. 

We think there's a whole bunch of deportation type stuff as well in S. 744. We know if we can make this happen immigrants, who are currently living in the United States off the grid, could make an additional net contribution of $155 billion to Medicare over the next 30 years. That's 3/4s of a trillion dollars this bill generates. At least that is the projection.

Hear me out on the real digits you need to know about immigration. As Baby Boomers retire en masse over the next 20 years, and yes they are coming, immigrants will be crucial to fill those then empty job posts. It is projected, by several stats gurus, that 58.6 million new workers will be needed to fill those Baby Boomer retirements. That's 58.6 million workers needed, and only 51.3 million native-born Americans are projected to enter the workforce, meaning that immigrants and their children will be crucial to filling the additional 7.3 million job openings while also furthering growth in the labor market. Woah, what did I just say?

Yes, immigrants would, in fact, promote growth in the labor market. We have 11 million immigrants to process. More than two-thirds could enter the labor market replacing retiring workers. The rest are probably already in our labor market, undocumented. What we propose here, is that we get these people legally documented without scaring them to death. If they are working, give them a work visa. No job, end of the line. Refugee, front of the line. Do you have a Sponsor, front of the line. Why? Because all those people could start to have bank accounts, and spend money, creating jobs, yes creating jobs. It is a win, win. Again, these human beings are already here. We have to do something. Our current laws aren't equipped to handle 11 million immigrants all at the same time.

The Policy Geek

Discussing The Status Of Immigration Reform

Coming back to the discussion of Immigration Reform, let's policy geek out the issues on the table. In the last couple of days, pundits have suggested which way to go on the issue. Chuck Todd of Meet The Press says, Obama 'has to act.' The Wall Street Journal reports that any executive order attempting to tackle the problem would make durable reform harder to pass. Let's get into this.

What Can The President Do On His Own?

We begin with this, POTUS has broad legal authority to take executive action on immigration. While only Congress can act to permanently fix the nation’s broken immigration system, the president has wide legal latitude to begin the process. Through what is known as prosecutorial discretion, the president can focus resources and time to pursue serious criminal offenders, instead of low-priority immigrants. These low-priority immigrants could be granted deferred action, a process by which they could register, pass background checks, receive a work permit, and a reprieve from deportation.

Why Hasn't Obama Already Done Something?

June 2012, the Obama administration announced that it would use its inherent executive authority to explicitly protect a group of DREAM Act-eligible undocumented youth from deportation. The program allows this population to apply for temporary protection from deportation and for work authorization. As of March 2014, more than 553,000 applicants were granted deferred action, and just more than 20,000 were denied protection.

December 2012, U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement announced it would limit its detainer policy. The agency will no longer issue a detainer request to local police directing them to hold someone identified as a potentially undocumented immigrant unless that person has been charged with a serious crime or has been convicted of multiple misdemeanors. This announcement aligns with the agency’s evolving effort to apply so-called prosecutorial discretion to immigration cases: prioritizing criminals—rather than long-settled and hardworking immigrants—for detention and deportation.

March 2013, U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services changed its policy to better observe its principle of family unification. Effective March 2013, the U.S. government reduced the amount of time that spouses and minor children of U.S. citizens are separated from their families when applying for legal permanent resident status. The new rule allows qualified applicants to apply for a hardship waiver while still in the United States. In the waiver, the applicant must establish that if the family were to be separated, the applicant’s spouse or parent with citizenship or legal permanent resident status would suffer extreme hardship.

August 2013, the Obama administration issued a directive that advised immigration authorities to exercise prosecutorial discretion when they detain undocumented immigrant parents. While the directive does not prevent the deportation of undocumented parents, it does allow detained parents to make some caregiving decisions that were formerly difficult to guarantee, such as ensuring their family members are aware of their detention and are able to care for their children.

November 2013, the Obama administration acted to allow undocumented family members of individuals serving in the U.S. military to be paroled in place. Parole in place allows certain family members of U.S. military personnel who entered the country without inspection—but who are otherwise entitled to legal status based on their family relationships—to file for adjustment of status and remain in the United States during the process. Without parole, as we mentioned earlier, they would be required to leave the country and to endure a potentially lengthy separation from their family.

The mystical, magical green card.

Did you know?
In June 2013, the Senate passed a bipartisan immigration reform bill with a vote of 68 to 32. The Senate bill remains viable for reconciliation with a House bill until the 113th Congress ends on December 31, 2014. It could be done. All that has to happen is for the lame duck House to take it up. Now what are the chances of that?

The Senate-passed immigration reform bill, S. 744, provides a tough but achievable pathway to citizenship for undocumented immigrants. The bill would put the majority of the 11 million undocumented immigrants on a 13-year pathway to citizenship. In the meantime, registered provisional immigrants—the first step on the pathway—who have met certain requirements, passed background checks, and paid fees and fines will be able to live in the United States, work, and travel abroad without fear of deportation. In response, House Republican leaders have not brought any immigration bills to the floor. What DID they do instead? House Speaker John Boehner (R-OH) announced his party would not move forward on immigration until members of the House regained their trust that President Obama would enforce immigration laws. Has this been a problem?
House Democrats have tried their best, introducing a version of the Senate-passed immigration reform bill, H.R. 15. The bill includes almost all parts of the Senate bill, substituting the border provisions with House Committee on Homeland Security Chairman Michael McCaul (R-TX)’s border security bill. In September 2014, the bill had 199 co-sponsors, but House Republican leadership refuses to even bring it to the floor for debate, let alone call for a vote on it.

S. 744 also significantly increases border security, so the nutcases on the border with their own guns, and their own rules, should be thrilled. The bill mandates significant increases in technology, personnel, fencing, and funding to ramp up border security to an unprecedented level. The bill mandates that the U.S. Department of Homeland Security, or DHS, complete 700 miles of pedestrian fencing, increase the number of full-time U.S. Customs and Border Protection agents from today’s 21,391 to 38,405 by 2021, and deploy a litany of technology on the southern border.

S. 744 mandates that all employers in the country use E-Verify—the government’s Internet-based work-authorization system—within five years of the bill’s enactment as a means of ensuring that unauthorized immigrants are not granted employment.

S. 744 clears the long backlog of people who have been approved for a green card. The bill ensures that the 4.3 million people who have been approved for a green card but have been waiting for years, even decades, to come to the United States because of the long backlogs in the system can finally reunite with their family members. Even with this passed, S. 744 would take a decade to clear the backlog we currently have. Yes, it's that bad.

S. 744 expands the number of green cards for highly skilled, advanced-degree professionals; significantly increases the annual cap for H-1B visas; creates a new lesser-skilled “W” visa category; and establishes a bureau tasked with analyzing economic, labor, and demographic data to help set annual limits on each type of visa.

The first wave of baby boomer retirees are leaving the jobs market.

Baby Boomer Problems
There are lots of humane reasons why we should process these immigrants completely and now. But there are pragmatic financial reasons for doing it too. Citizenship would allow millions of undocumented immigrants to work on the books and contribute to Social Security. If undocumented immigrants gained legal status and citizenship, they would provide a net $606.4 billion contribution to Social Security over the next 36 years—the same time period when retiring Baby Boomers will place the greatest strain on the system. These contributions to the Social Security system would support 2.4 million American retirees. Everything about S. 744, legislation passed by the Senate, yet kept off the table in The House, makes sense.

The solvency of the Medicare trust fund would be extended if the undocumented population were able to gain legal status and citizenship. Immigrants, who are currently living in the United States without proper paperwork, could start to pay in to Medicare, and over the next 30 years, make a net contribution of $155 billion to Medicare.

As Baby Boomers retire en masse over the next 20 years, immigrants will be crucial to fill these job openings and promote growth in the labor market. More than two-thirds of new entrants into the labor market will replace retiring workers. However, while 58.6 million new workers will be needed to fill these retirements, only 51.3 million native-born people are projected to enter the workforce, meaning that immigrants and their children will be crucial to filling the additional 7.3 million job openings while also furthering growth in the labor market.

But The Border...
Border agents: 21,391 Border Patrol agents patrolled the borders in 2013—1,391 more than the goal set in 2007.

Fencing: 651 total miles of fencing have been built along the southwest border as of 2012, just one mile shy of what the Secure Fence Act of 2006 mandates. This includes 352 miles of pedestrian fencing and 299 miles of vehicle barriers.

Surveillance: 179 mobile and video surveillance systems and 168 radar and camera towers have been installed along the border—more than what the 2007 benchmarks required. The increase in unmanned aircraft systems and mobile surveillance systems surpassed the 2007 goals by 2 and 47, respectively.

Increased consequences: The Department of Homeland Security has the resources available to detain 1,300 more people per day than the 2007 goal set out to meet. The Border Patrol ended the process of catch and release, a practice where two out of every three border crossers apprehended from outside of Mexico were released into the United States pending removal hearings. The department instead expanded the consequence delivery system to the entire border. This system steps up criminal penalties for people caught illegally crossing the border and often returns immigrants to unfamiliar and far-away border cities in an effort to cut the migrant off from the smuggler who helped with his or her previous border-crossing attempt.

“Operational control”: In 2006, when only 23 percent of the U.S.-Mexico border was deemed to be under “operational control.” Today, 81 percent of the U.S.-Mexico border meets one of the U.S. Department of Homeland Security’s three highest standards of security: controlled, managed, and monitored. The remaining sections of the border are in its most inaccessible and inhospitable areas. Total control of the border is impossible, but Customs and Border Protection continues to make great strides toward gaining control of important sectors.

Border agents now patrol every mile of the U.S. border daily, and in many places, they can view nearly all attempts to cross the border in real time. Although elevated, today’s apprehension levels remain well below those seen since the 1970s. Even with the influx of child refugees at the southern border, net undocumented immigration is still at historic lows. Including the 66,127 unaccompanied minors and 66,142 families—mostly mothers with young children—who have arrived at the border in FY 2014, overall unauthorized immigration is still low. Tell that to your uncle on Thanksgiving.

Net undocumented migration from Mexico is now at or below zero. ZERO.

Americans want immigration reform with a pathway to citizenship
A majority of Americans support a pathway to citizenship for undocumented immigrants. A June 2014 poll conducted by the Public Religion Research Institute and the Brookings Institution found that 62 percent of Americans support an immigration bill that provides a way for undocumented immigrants to become citizens. An additional 17 percent said that they should be allowed to become legal residents.

A majority of Americans believe it is imperative that Congress passes immigration reform by the end of 2014. A July 2014 poll conducted by CBS News found that 59 percent of Americans believe passing legislation that addresses unauthorized immigration is important, while only 6 percent of Americans thought it was not important at all.

Tea Party Republicans support a pathway to citizenship or legal status. A May 2014 poll by the Partnership for a New American Economy, Americans for Tax Reform, and the Tea Party Express revealed that 70 percent of Republican primary voters who identify with the Tea Party support a way for the undocumented to attain citizenship or legal status.

Voters in key Republican congressional districts support immigration reform with a pathway to citizenship. July 2013 Public Policy Polling surveys conducted in seven key congressional districts across California, Colorado, Minnesota, Nevada, and New York unequivocally show that Republican and independent voters want Congress to fix the country’s broken immigration system. Americans support executive action on immigration. An ABC News poll conducted in August 2014 found that 52 percent of Americans support President Obama taking unilateral action on immigration reform if Congress does not act.

CBS News: The majority of Americans favor the pathway to citizenship and soundly reject legal-status-only approaches (January 2014)

In a CBS News poll, a majority of Americans—54 percent—felt that unauthorized immigrants should be allowed to become citizens. Importantly, while most Americans are in favor of the pathway to citizenship, they strongly reject approaches that would leave unauthorized immigrants with second-class status: Only 12 percent of respondents believed that unauthorized immigrants should receive legal status but not be able to become citizens. Two-thirds of Democrats supported the pathway to citizenship, while only 43 percent of Republicans did. However, a smaller percentage of Republicans—9 percent—than any other group supported a legal-status-only approach to immigration reform. This final result should give pause to congressional leadership as they propose, as Republicans did with their immigration principles, legalization without citizenship for unauthorized immigrants.

Fox News: More than two-thirds of Americans support the pathway to citizenship and reject mass deportation (January 2014)

When asked, “Which of the following comes closest to your view about what government policy should be toward undocumented immigrants currently in the United States?”, 68 percent of Americans favored a pathway to citizenship for unauthorized immigrants in the country if they meet requirements such as paying back taxes and passing background checks. Support for requiring all unauthorized immigrants to be sent back to their home countries stood at only 15 percent. Support for the pathway to citizenship has increased slightly, by 2 percent, since May 2013, while support for sending unauthorized immigrants home has dropped 5 percent.

As Greg Sargent of The Washington Post points out, “GOP stalling on immigration is not about ‘distrust of Obama.’” From the polling above, it is clear that it is not about public opinion either. Americans support immigration reform, including the pathway to citizenship, and will be disappointed if Congress fails to pass legislation this year. The window for acting on immigration reform is open through 2014, the public supports it, and now is the time for the House to step up and pass it.

Are you talking about this with your friends? It may come a time, and soon, where we all have to write, call, fax, and visit our representatives to help push this through. Where do you sit on these policy decisions? What do you think?

The Policy Geek

Occasional Repost: The GOP Invited Dems to a Red Wedding, the Dems Obliged

We occasionally repost amazing articles from friends who hit the mark, perfectly. Here is David Phillips take on The Great Democalypse that was the 2014 midterms.

Red Wedding In The Capitol

A Red Wedding.

In Game of Thrones speak, this refers to a scene in the HBO series where the King of the North, his wife, and his mother--along with everyone else in their camp--is led into a trap based around a wedding meant to draw the two warring sides together in peace. The king and his crew let their guard down. They relax and believe that everything will turn out just fine. What follows is a massive bloodletting orchestrated by Lord Walder Frey where no one is spared--not even the honorable king's unborn child. It is a gruesome bit of television that has already taken its place in tube lore. It couldn't compare to what happened Tuesday night in the 2014 Midterms. The Senate flipped, the House got housed, and the guvnas got guvna'd.

Still, to spring this trap on unsuspecting Democrats, Lords McConnell, Boehner, Priebus, and Christie needed the unwitting compliance of two groups of people. Democratic voters and pols. They could not have asked for more.

If showing up is 80% of life, as it has often been attributed to Woody Allen, the Democratic voter was well short of that. Somehow, this happens nearly every midterm election and yet the left seems to never learn that the progress often made in presidential election years must be consecrated two years later. It's a common refrain that Democratic voters are lazy. Nothing about last night will make that refrain less common anytime soon. As usual, the electorate in this off-year election was paler, maler, and staler than in presidential years and again, Democrats paid the cost of too many of their flock only being interested in the big show every four years.

As well, we Democrats are an easily dispirited bunch. Susceptible to disappointment and wanting to punish our party for not doing enough while not recognizing the alternative to our way of thinking is more reliable and therefore more than willing to fill the void during our off-year siestas. This lurching back and forth from election to election is made possible not just by the Right's efforts to disenfranchise minorities and young people--although that's certainly a factor--but by our own occasional lack of interest. And if you think voter ID laws are making it harder to get the base to the polls now, just consider the contests for Governor we lost last night. Illinois, Maryland, Massachusetts Florida, Maine, Wisconsin and perhaps Colorado are either flipping and going R or are staying that way. All in states that should be either slam dunks (IL, MD, MA) or at least competitive (the rest). Does anyone think it's going to get any easier to access the ballot box in any of these states now?

PAUSE: If any Democratic leader ever lets Martha Coakley (two time loser in sky blue Massachusetts) or Charlie Crist (who has now lost as a Republican, an Independent, and a Democrat) run for office under their banner again, please push them into traffic. RESUME.

As well, many on the left are feeling less than inspired by our current President. We buy into the fears over ISIS and Ebola, even though not a single American has died from either on domestic soil. We are displeased with the rate of economic growth even though we are outpacing every other first world nation post Bush II's Crash of 2008. We don't think he's done enough on immigration, disentangling us from overseas conflicts, and too much on privacy invasion and national security in general. There are reasonable arguments to be made in each of these cases. They are not won by not voting. Even if you think Obama's merely the lesser of two evils, when presented with the two, what idiot would not take that which would harm you the least?

Not to mention, all the state and local issues we failed to represent for Tuesday night. Even if your congressional vote was hopeless (as mine was), would you not at least want to mitigate the damage by at minimum, keeping your own backyard short of insanity? Don't get me wrong, the average voter in even the red states on election night was pretty strange. By and large voting 'yea' on liberal issues such as the legalization of marijuana and raising the minimum wage, while also voting for candidates who oppose both, but we already know these types vote against their own interests. At least they can be bothered to turn out, no matter how much head scratching ensues by us thinking types afterwards.

As irresponsible as the left leaning non-voter was last night, it's quite possible our candidates were even worse. Nearly all of them ran away from any sort of accomplishment Democrats may have won over the last six years. An improving, if fitful economy. A health care law that is literally addressing the needs of millions of people while also bringing down costs, and a country that is embroiled in fewer major conflicts and has not had one terror attack take place in this country from anyone outside of the occasional lone wolf. That's a story one could tell...if one were willing to tell it. See, when you act embarrassed by that which you have achieved, not only does it show, but your avoidance of those successes allows your foe to define those achievements as anything but. Therefore, you had a lot of politicians with a (D) by their name running on...what the fuck I don't know.

A perfect example is Mark Warner of Virginia. A former very popular Governor of Virginia who won his Senate seat in 2008 with more than 60% of the popular vote. This year, he had to scrape by former Bushie, Ed Gillespie, whom the Republicans (thankfully) barely bothered to fund. Warner was once a short lister for VP and even, in some circles, discussed as a future top of the ticket possibility. Tell me this though, what the fuck does anyone know about Mark Warner? What significant piece of legislation has he ever been attached to? Did anyone in Virginia even know what Warner was running on? Much like Indiana's former nondescript Democratic Governor and Senator, Evan Bayh, the only thing I know about Warner is he wins elections--if this year, only just.

Too many Democratic candidates ran this sort of safe race about nothing last night. Some were even worse. Many of those up for a vote on election day pretended we didn't even have a two-time electoral landslide winning Democratic President of the United States until they were asked directly about him. Then they turned into "See and Says." Only instead of pulling the string and having them--like the toy--say "the cow goes moo" or "the rooster goes cockadoodledoo," the candidate went "I disagree with the president" with every jerk of the chain.

Even worse, Senate candidate in Kentucky, Alison Lundergan Grimes, when asked whether she voted for the president she served as a state delegate for in 2012, fell only one denial short of a Peter/Jesus relationship with her party's standard-bearer. This was the norm for the Democratic candidate in 2014. Take credit for nothing, run on nothing, and when asked about your relationship with a guy who knows how to win elections, speak as if that guy was nothing too. The funny thing is, you know who that guy was more popular than? Both chambers of congress.

This sort of weak-kneed campaigning led to Republicans overachieving everywhere. Even in the few places Dems pulled out a win. Take New Hampshire, where the relatively popular former Governor and current Senator, Jeanne Shaheen, barely outpaced the carpetbagging former Senator from Massachusetts, Scott Brown. A candidate so committed to his new state, he could hardly admit to any interest in staying in it should he lose. I don't know what all Mid-Atlantic states have Dems up for the Senate in 2016, but I do suggest they start their opposition research on Brownie now, just in case.

To these short sighted pols, I would like to ask, what did this "safe" strategy net you? Dems lost to a turtle in Kentucky, a man afraid of a circular fan in Florida, and a proud castrator of hogs in Iowa. I'll now share with you my favorite gallows-humored tweet of the night from former Daily Show correspondent, Wyatt Cenac: "For all the Democratic candidates that campaigned by distancing themselves from the President... it worked. They will be nowhere near him."

I will say this for Democratic non-voters and candidates, you did accomplish something unexpected last night. You made a lame duck President more relevant than anyone could have anticipated. Now he's all that stands between you and the policies you despise. I'm sure that's what you had in mind while watching the electoral map run red like the floor of Walder Frey's banquet room.

David Phillips

Talking About Immigration Reform

Administering the oath of citizenship at naturalization ceremonies.

Taking Action On Immigration

So what exactly is it we are going to do about Immigration? What is it the Republicans are going to propose? What will be included in Obama's Executive Order, should he be pushed to draft something from GOP inaction and obstruction?

Immigrants are taxpayers, entrepreneurs, job creators, and consumers. Hard to believe, we know, but immigrants are people too. They are income earning, often hard working, tax paying, and goods consuming small business owners. Still, there is no doubt the immigration system is broken and in need of serious reform. The U.S. border is not really the problem. People can just fly in for a visit, and stay. The idea that every person trying to get into the United States is crawling over the border, and then running to the nearest welfare office, is ridiculous. In fact, the border now is more secure than ever as a result of decades of steadily increasing border and interior enforcement.

At the same time, what we also have are rigid, out-of-date laws. And We The People know that. The idea that immigration reform is needed, one that includes a clear pathway to citizenship, or work visas, for undocumented immigrants living and working in the United States, is supported by Americans in large percentages. Americans of all political stripes want Congress to pass some sort of safe and sane immigration reform, with just more than half of all Americans in a CNN/ORC International poll arguing that the first priority on immigration should be to provide a pathway to legal status for unauthorized immigrants living in the country. Most intelligent people who have seen a map of the United States realize that a pathway to legal status is key to solving the problem at hand, while building some sort of fence ~~ not so much.

Of course, in this article, it doesn't really matter how many people think we need reform. What matters is that you know we need a legal path for immigrants to follow in order to integrate into our society, pay taxes legally, and save us millions of dollars annually in round-them-up and ship-them-out money. What matters is that you write to your newly elected representatives, and tell them that. Call them, write-in, and sit-in. That's the way this will get done.

Common-sense reform would restore public faith in the system and level the playing field for all Americans, while supercharging the economic benefits from our immigrant population. Amongst all the white collar workers that come here for a better life, these immigrants also watch our children, mow our lawns, clean our toilets, and harvest our food. To ignore that with some sort of isolationist attitude is to doom these caregivers to "illegal" status for no good reason.

(The Star Forum, 2006)

Thanks to our friends at Center For American Progress, below are the latest and most essential facts about immigrants and immigration reform in our nation today. The facts are broken down into the following sections:

Today’s immigrant population

Demographics and political power of new Americans

Immigrants and the economy

Federal immigration policy

Public opinion polling on immigration

In the news: Unaccompanied children at the U.S. southern border

Did you know...

Immigrants are less likely to commit crimes or to be incarcerated than native-born Americans. A 2007 study by the Immigration Policy Center found that the incarceration rate for immigrant men ages 18 to 39 in 2000 was 0.7 percent, while the incarceration rate for native-born men of the same age group was 3.5 percent. In fact, crime rates have dropped as immigration rates have increased. While the foreign-born share of the U.S. population grew from 8 percent to 13 percent between 1990 and 2010, FBI data indicate that violent crime rates across the country fell by about 45 percent, while property crime rates fell by 42 percent.

How many people are we talking about? By the end of 2012, there were approximately 11.2 million undocumented immigrants in the United States, and that number remained constant into 2013 with 11.3 million undocumented immigrants. 

Six states are home to the majority of the undocumented population. As of 2012, 22 percent of the nation’s undocumented population lived in California. Fifteen percent lived in Texas, 8 percent lived in Florida, 7 percent lived in New York, 4 percent lived in Illinois, and 4 percent lived in New Jersey.

Many undocumented immigrants could be sponsored for a green card, but cannot adjust their status because they are presently undocumented. Hundreds of thousands of undocumented immigrants could qualify for a green card by virtue of having a relative who is a U.S. citizen, but—because of bars to re-entering the United States that were put in place in 1996—most would have to leave the United States for a period of at least 10 years before becoming eligible to reunite with their families. 

For those of you who think you can just marry into citizenship, think again. One in five undocumented immigrant adults has a U.S. citizen, or lawful permanent resident, spouse. Of the 10 million adult undocumented immigrants living in the United States in 2012, approximately 767,000 were married to a U.S. citizen, and 944,000 were married to a lawful permanent resident, yet remained undocumented due to insane backlogs of bureaucratic processing.

(Fly Paper Magazine, 2014)

Election Results

President Barack Obama was re-elected in 2012 with the support of 71 percent of Latino voters and 73 percent of Asian American voters. These groups are a key part of our multiethnic, multiracial, and cross-class Progressive coalition, which also includes African Americans, women, young people, professionals, and economically populist blue-collar whites. These groups generally vote with the Democrats. Unfortunately, without this issue adequately being addressed, a majority of eligible Latino and Asian American voters stayed home on Election Day in 2012, pointing to significant room for improvement in voter participation. Just imagine the Congress we could have had, the leads we would have had, the control we could have kept, if they were motivated to vote.

Here are the sleeping giants we need to tap into in order to take back control of Congress in 2016. While a record 11.2 million Latinos cast votes in the 2012 presidential election, 12.1 million eligible Latino voters did not vote, giving Latinos a 48 percent voter participation rate. Similarly, although 3.9 million eligible Asian American voters cast ballots on Election Day in 2012, 4.4 million did not, giving Asian Americans a 47.3 percent voter participation rate.

What do those numbers mean? Well, 57.5% of all eligible voters voted in 2012, 62.3% of all eligible voters voted in 2008, 60.4% cast ballots in 2004, and in 2000 the turnout rate was 54.2%. Clearly, just in the Latino and Asian sector, their 47% and 48% show-up rates are much lower than the national average. Again, imagine what the outcome would have been, and what the status of control of Congress would have been, had intelligent reform been put into place. If you are angry about the outcome of the 2014 midterms, take a second, and think on those numbers. Then work to figure out how you can support, or even help shape, immigration reform moving forward.

We know that the fast-paced growth of the Latino electorate, and the slow or negative growth among non-Hispanic whites, will change the voter makeup in the United States by 2016. Over the next four years, the number of eligible Latino voters nationwide is projected to increase by more than 4 million people to 27.7 million, which lands us directly at the midterms for whoever will be President next. By 2016, we can expect Texas to have 905,500 new Latino voters, making up 58.1 percent of the net increase in all eligible voters in the state. Most of the races this year were close, very close, down to the wire. How foolish it is that we alienate (pun intended) these demographics by ignoring the realities of the situation. Kicking the can down the street won't get at the problem. Renewing our embargo on Cuba doesn't show our commitment to this growing portion of the electorate. 

Much of the growth in the number of eligible Latino voters can be attributed to the relative youth of the Latino population. More than 90 percent of Latinos under age 18 are U.S. citizens, and about 800,000 Latinos turn 18 and become eligible to vote every year. Again, young voters in general tend to vote with Democrats. If we continue to dismiss the dreamers, how can we hope to continue to lead the electorate? Sure, the Republicans aren't doing any better with this segment of the population, but that is no excuse for us keeping the status quo. We lose when we don't move on this issue, and in our opinion, we just lost by not moving on this issue.

Let's just talk about those who have followed all the rules up til now. Millions of legal permanent residents are eligible to become U.S. citizens and vote. A total of 8.8 million legal permanent residents, or green card holders, were eligible for naturalization in 2012. In 2013, a total of 503,104 people were naturalized and became eligible to vote. Barriers to naturalization, including the $680 application fee, effectively deny many residents the chance to become U.S. citizens and exercise their right to vote. Is it possible that these voters could punch the holes for Democrats when they enter the voting booth?

(FamilySearch.org)

Radical Republican radio hosts and bloggers claimed that Democrats ran to register undocumented children at the border as Democrats. Well, of course, that's insane. Children don't vote. Non citizens don't vote. That was just garbage. But, what if we did help these immigrants, already living here, already working here, become U.S. citizens. Our grandparents, and great grandparents did it. Why can't they? Why can't they, in this day and age, be processed in a timely and intelligent manner. How can we do something simple like increasing the quality of customer service in this sector? What does it actually cost us to allow eligible residents to become citizens? Does it somehow make our citizenship less valuable? If you listen to Rush Limbaugh, that would be your takeaway.

Nonetheless, A February poll by both Democratic Global Strategy Group and Republican firm Basswood Research found that nearly 79 percent of all Americans want immigration reform, and nearly three out of four Americans will be disappointed if Congress fails to act. Despite members of Congress saying that immigration reform can wait, it is clear that voters disagree.

A Rising Wage Lifts All Workers

One of the reasons big business doesn't want these people legalized is that legalization and naturalization of undocumented immigrants would bolster their wages.The annual income of unauthorized immigrants would be 15.1 percent higher if they were granted legal work status. In addition, if undocumented immigrants earned their citizenship, their wages would rise by an additional 10 percent. This wage increase would occur because legal status provides the undocumented legal protections, grants access to better jobs, promotes investments in education and training, and fosters small-business creation.

Trickling sideways, immigration reform would increase the earnings of all Americans. Immigration reform that includes a five year pathway to citizenship for undocumented immigrants would increase the earnings of all American workers by $618 billion over the next decade.With higher incomes, all of these people would also spend more, causing an instant boost to the overall economy of the United States. The wages might cut into the bottom line of major corporations, who have been showing ridiculously record profits over the last few decades, but it will also give the American public a new buying power that, in and of itself, could lift us out of the despair we've been left with since the crash of 2008. But then, Obama would be a hero, and the Republicans just can't have that. McConnell's plan, despite his new conciliatory tone, has been and remains STOPPING OBAMA.

11/5/14 ~~ At the 'day after' GOP Press Conference,
Republican strategy remains oppose President Obama at every step.
(MSNBC) 

To be abundantly clear, all studies agree that permitting undocumented immigrants to gain legal status and citizenship would expand economic growth. Naturalized workers earn higher wages, consume more goods and services, and pay more in taxes, which in turn creates economic growth. If the undocumented immigrants in our nation were granted legal status today, and citizenship in five years, the 10-year cumulative increase in U.S. gross domestic product, or GDP, would be $1.1 trillion. So what's the hold up?

We've established granting citizenship to undocumented immigrants would create jobs and increase tax revenues. In fact, if undocumented immigrants acquired legal status today, and citizenship in five years, the economy would add an average of 159,000 new jobs per year, and formerly unauthorized workers would pay an additional $144 billion in federal, state, and local taxes over a 10-year period. Immigration reform would translate into a significant additional decrease in the federal budget deficit. The nonpartisan Congressional Budget Office, or CBO, found that S. 744—the Border Security, Economic Opportunity, and Immigration Modernization Act, as passed by the Senate—would reduce the budget deficit by $135 billion in the first decade after the bill’s passage and by an additional $685 billion in the second decade, when most undocumented immigrants would become eligible for citizenship. Heck, with those numbers, big corporations and the wealthy, who mostly don't pay taxes anyway due to loopholes and deductions, could have their tax rates reduced like Republicans are always begging to do, leaving the draconian budget cuts we suffer today completely unnecessary.

How else can we put this? 
Passing the DREAM Act (which is a section of S. 744) would provide a pathway to legal status for eligible young people who complete high school and some college or military service. If the DREAM Act became law, $329 billion and 1.4 million jobs would be added to the American economy over the next two decades. That's a jobs bill everyone should be getting behind.

Another section of S. 744 calls for an expansion of the Deferred Action program, which would immediately yield billions of dollars in tax revenues, while increasing wages and job security for all Americans. Allowing low-priority unauthorized immigrants who have been in the country for five years to apply for deferred action—a temporary work permit and deferral of deportation—would mean that they could earn higher average wages and benefit from protection from exploitation. This would have a significant impact on the U.S. economy, yielding $6.1 billion in payroll tax revenue in the first year and increasing gains of up to $45 billion over the next five years.

(Decisive Magazine)

We are NOT talking about freeloaders. We are NOT talking about those who "drain our public resources, and live off food stamps, or welfare." Undocumented immigrants pay billions of dollars in taxes annually. Households headed by unauthorized immigrants paid $10.6 billion in state and local taxes in 2010. This includes $1.2 billion in personal income taxes, $1.2 billion in property taxes, and more than $8 billion in sales and excise taxes.

As it stands, despite protestations from the right, immigrants—even legal immigrants—are barred from most social services, meaning that they pay to support benefits they cannot even receive. Taxes paid by legalized immigrants more than offset any use of social programs. The CBO found that increases in costs to social programs are modest and will be more than paid for by the tax contributions of immigrants. The increase in spending in Social Security and Medicare from 2024 through 2033, for example, will be $65 billion—just 4.4 percent of the total increase in tax revenue. That's another 95.6% of their tax revenue for Congress to fight over. Where would they spend all that money? Just imagine.

What happens if we just continue to do nothing?
Inaction on immigration reform carries a heavy cost. Each day the House of Representatives fails to pass immigration reform costs the United States $37 million in missed tax revenue. As of October 2014, the House’s inaction has cost more than $17.7 billion. Maintaining the status quo is not revenue neutral. With only one-third of unauthorized immigrants working in the formal economy and contributing about $12 billion in payroll taxes each year, the United States loses around $20 billion in payroll tax revenue annually.

The United States spends more on immigration and border enforcement annually than the annual gross domestic product of 80 countries. In fact, the United States now spends $3.5 billion more on immigration and border enforcement—a total of nearly $18 billion per year—than it does on all other federal law enforcement combined.

The Need For Action
This issue requires a long discussion. It requires debate. It definitely requires more than stump speeches, or claims of Ebola children on our southern border, or tales of headless migrant farm workers left in the desert. It requires sober and thoughtful consideration by the people we elected to Congress. Can any of you remember when Congress debated fairly and squarely the issues of the day with an eye toward negotiation and high quality results? All we've seen over the last 6 years is a perfectly executed plan by the right to stop all forward movement entirely. Power seekers all, with no regard for the safety, sanctity, or quality of life of the average American citizen. We are in shambles. And if the Republicans really cared about what the rest of the world thought about us, the first item on their agenda, now that they are "in charge," oughta be getting to the business of governing, instead of playing capture the flag.

Gas Prices Down. Here's Why.

(RocklandToyota.Net)

Gas Prices Down
If you loaded up the family, and took to the road this summer, you, like millions of others crossing U.S. highways, undoubtedly noticed that gas prices had come down. A welcomed relief leading into the back-to-school and holiday spending seasons.

WJXT out of Jacksonville, FL reports, "Despite the conflict in the Middle East, and even with recent concerns over long term Russian energy supplies, gas is averaging $3.41 a gallon for regular unleaded. That's the lowest since 2010, when you compare Labor Day gas prices from year to year."

Domestic Oil Production Up

These days, in the United States, we are producing more of our own oil, which helps bring the prices down. As of April 2014, there were 1,835 operating oil and gas rigs, up over 18% from 1,553 when President Obama took office in January 2009. Total domestic oil output is up 8% this year, after declining under President Bush. In fact, domestic natural gas production is on pace to set a new record high in 2014, up nearly 25% from 2008.

None of that really helps toward investing in alternative fuels, or lowering green house gases; still, lower gas prices are always welcome, and prices are expecting to continue to fall through November.

'Yay, Mr. President, Great Job!!!' reports all the news outlets? FOX loves oil wells, drill baby drill, and all that. 'Yay, Mr. President!! You heard us! You drilled!' reports Steve Doocy of Fox And Friends. Really? Of course not.

Who Do We Blame?
Back in 2008, while the world's markets were starting to tank, FOX went into overdrive to defend the rising gas prices under George W. Not surprisingly, Fox Business Network Anchor Cheryl Cason jumped on the case, saying, "No President has the power to increase or to lower gas prices. Those are market forces," adding, "It really is tough for this President (Bush Jr.), because he really does not have any control what is going to happen with the markets and with the economy, and with oil prices, and supply and demand in gasoline, it really is out of this President's (Bush Jr) hands."

"The next time you hear a politician say he or she are going to bring down oil prices, understand it's complete BS." ~~ Bill O'Reilly on Fox News.

President Obama would agree. While stumping in North Carolina, POTUS warned, "The next time you hear some politician trotting out some 3 point plan for $2 gas, you let 'em know, we know better."

We Still Blame Obama
When reviewing the numbers from this last Labor Day, and comparing them to past Labor Days, gas prices are the lowest they’ve been in four years, at an average of $3.41 a gallon of regular unleaded nationwide. Last year’s Labor Day saw an average price of $3.59 per gallon, and the year before that it was $3.83 per gallon.

If you switch to Murdoch's channel, and we don't suggest you do, Fox and Friends is reporting,"Gas goes up almost double under this President. Did anyone see that coming? He's (Obama) been nothing but bad for the economy. The President is going to have to explain his role in causing these gas prices to go up. President Obama is the first to try to actively stop supply and production in the United States from increasing. Why isn't anybody talking about this?"

That is a good question, Steve Doocy. Why isn't anyone else saying that? Maybe because you are just making things up as you go along, Fox News.

The Facts
1. Oil production is up 25%, since President Obama took office.

2. In the US, this fall, the price of a gallon of gas is slightly down, and despite the turmoil in the Middle East and Russia, gas prices are expected to keep falling through November.

3. If you ask FOX, or Obama, nobody has anything to do with any of it.

Want to find out the gas stations with the most reasonable prices in your area? Check out Gas Buddy. It's free. You enter your zip code, they search for the cheapest gas in your area, and steer you in the right direction.

Angry White Men

One of the enduring legacies of the 2012 presidential campaign, and some may argue the 2008 campaign as well, was the demise of the white American male voter as a dominant force in the political landscape. On election night, after Obama was announced the winner, a distressed Bill O’Reilly lamented that he didn’t live in “a traditional America anymore.” He was joined by others who growled their grief on talk radio, the preferred bellow ground of angry white men. The racist-like din that had previously been stored in back rooms, and spoken of quietly and with a slight look around, has bubbled over and become a ranty ragey roar.

FOX barely hides their disdain. Even those running for office freely throw red meat out at every event, stirring that pot of fear, spreading the seeds of racism and misogyny like a virus, using the power of hate to motivate an uneducated and unevolved sector of the electorate. Changing demographics, however, are shrinking white voters as a segment of the voting population. These developments would, from a realist’s point of view, signify good health in the electorate. But more and more GOP candidates are hoping that their Tea Party followers will come out in force and line up at the polls this November. It’s possible. They did it in 2010. The GOP candidates are making their final pitches in their states, and with today being election day, the field is becoming clearer.

Hate is being used as a weapon of the obstructionists. They hate Obamacare, they hated cash for clunkers, they opposed any kind of New Deal possibility and they have obstructed even the debate of any kind of infrastructure investment. Why are they so angry? Sociologist Michael Kimmel, one of the leading writers on men and masculinity in the world today, spent hundreds of hours in the company of America’s angry white men–from men’s rights activists to young students to white supremacists–in pursuit of an answer. So we recommend his book Angry White Men as a part of our continuing study into the mind of the obstructionist.

Perhaps here is the answer as to why there has been unpresidented push back against this seated President. By any measurement, this President has had it harder than most when it comes to filibusters and blocked nominations. More often than not the calculated lack of productivity on the part of this Congress and the one before that, and the one before that, can simply be chalked up to racism in the guise of partisanship. These angry white congressmen see through brown-colored glasses when viewing the troubling issues at the forefront of America today and, when asked for solutions, they just lay down in the road and nap.

Kimmel’s Angry White Men provides useful insight we so sorely search for: What are these Congressional Republican obstructionists made of, and how have their damaging selective perceptions not dissipated when confronted with our current reality? The economy is doing better despite them. Obamacare is doing well despite them. Imagine what could have been done if Congress woke up one day and remembered they were all on the same team all along.

Kimmel locates this increase in anger in the seismic economic, social, and political shifts that have so transformed the American landscape. Downward mobility, increased racial and gender equality, and a tenacious clinging to an anachronistic ideology of masculinity, has left many men feeling betrayed and bewildered. Raised to expect unparalleled social and economic privilege, white men are suffering today from what Kimmel calls “aggrieved entitlement”: a sense that those benefits that white men believed were their due have been snatched away from them. Snatched, I tell you! And it’s all big goverment’s fault.

Packs of angry white men also like to say that things that are done by Democrats are being jammed down their throats. That brings up a visual that most would agree is horrible, but we are kind of unsure what is being crammed down who’s throat here. Veteran funding, not there, unemployment extensions, not there, jobs program, not there, desperately urgent and potentially fatal infrastructure upgrade requests ignored. Why? Because an oath was taken back in 2009 to block the black man from getting to work.

Angry White Men discusses, among others, the sons of small town America, scarred by underunemployment and wage stagnation. When America’s white men feel they’ve lived their lives the “right” way–worked hard and stayed out of trouble–and still do not get economic rewards, then they have to blame somebody else. Even more terrifying is the phenomenon of angry young boys. School shootings in the United States are not just the work of “misguided youth” or “troubled teens”–they’re all committed by boys. These alienated young men are transformed into mass murderers by a sense that using violence against others was their right.

The future of America is more inclusive and diverse than that. The choice for angry white men is not whether or not they can stem the tide of history: they cannot. We will outlive them. Their choice is whether or not they will be dragged kicking and screaming into that inevitable future, or whether they will walk honorably alongside those they’ve spent so long trying to exclude. By explaining their rage, Kimmel is able to point to a possible future that is healthier, happier, and much less angry.

Can we all evolve? Yes We Can.

Recommend: Angry White Men

The Policy Geek