A perfect summary of the Grand Old Party’s relationship with the U.S. Constitution comes from Texas Governor Rick Perry at Mike Huckabee’s candidate forum on Fox News last Saturday. Governor Perry claimed as president he could overturn a law passed by Congress by executive order (he can’t), and then to show his bona fides on the subject he pulled out a copy of the Constitution from his breast pocket – displaying it proudly to the national audience.

Of course, he held his prop upside down.

And said, “It’s all right here.”

Indeed.

Republicans love to worship the Constitution as scripture. Perry keeps his next to his heart. They also love to talk about adding some Even Newer Testaments to this sacred document. They’re strict constructionists believing in the original intent but they’d prefer to see it improved drastically. Translation: It’s so perfect they’d like to see it changed.

Saturday, candidates talked about amending the Constitution to outlaw abortion, keep marriage heterosexual, term limit the Supreme Court and take away citizenship from children born to illegal immigrants.

English author Samuel Johnson famously said patriotism is the last refuge of a scoundrel. For Republicans, talking about amending the Constitution is the first defense against having actual policy discussions. The 112th Congress has grinded to an all out halt by GOP obstructionism and instead of having an authentic plan to help the country that elected them, they opted to vote in (among other symbolic bills) a Balance Budget Amendment. This of course, like the majority of the bills the House will pass this year, will never become law.

This is bureaucratic busy work. A great display of government waste Republicans love to spend their time on the federal payroll talking about.

In order to amend the Constitution you have to get two-thirds majority in both Houses and then it has to be approved by three-fourths of state legislatures. Meaning: You have to build a broad consensus to change the founding document of our nation.

Republicans are not consensus builders – they’re talking point pounders. They’re re-branders. They’re more likely to ram through laws on the fly like Ohio Governor John Kasich’s union busting law which was months later overturned by voters - than super majority-sized popular things like taxing the rich. The middle-class will see a tax hike this year due to the payroll tax expiring. It appears Republicans are going to allow this to happen in order to protect the wealthiest Americans from paying more of their easier-earned cash to the federal government. Those who are being squeezed? Tax hike! Those who are squeezing? Lowest tax rate in two generations. Not a popular stance - but Republicans are taking it.

A Constitutional amendment demands wide support, something Republicans don’t bother themselves with.

Face it: they will never amend the Constitution even though it’s their favorite go-to non-starter.

However, a group that’s all about consensus building – at least at their meetings I’ve sat in on across the nation – is the Occupy movement. And their list of grievances includes money in politics and corporate personhood.

To Occupiers, corporations are like robots in every sci-fi movie ever made: they’re created by man, having taken on human traits (or in this case legal rights) and are turning on their makers … to eventually destroy the world. The Occupiers don’t see one party or another as an answer. They’re not like the tea party who are just a voting bloc for conservatives. They see both parties as being hostages to corporate money and complicit in the extreme economic inequality in the country.

How do they plan to tackle this? By calling for an amendment to end corporate personhood – to in effect overturn Citizens United. You’ll hear whispers of this among activists as a way to solve the problems that have prompted nearly 5,000 Americans to be arrested for nonviolent civil disobedience all across the country. Some polls show that over two-thirds of Americans would like to see the Constitution amended to overturn that decision.

The problem is we’re very used to this empty go-no-where non-solution of a Constitutional amendment from Republicans who know theirs will never happen; in that way Republicans have already preempted any earnest campaigns for an amendment.

I’ve brought this up to Occupiers and they are undeterred. They tell me they are, after all, the 99 percent, and there's power in those numbers. They replied with what I’ve heard them say before: “We’re not going fast. We’re going far.”

The "new tone" in politics apparently doesn't apply in Cullman, Alabama. You'll remember that city as the place where an infamous Jim Crow-era sign warned, "N****r Don't Let The Sun Go Down On You In This Town." Brown is the new black; maybe lynching and peonage will make a comeback next?

For those who haven't heard, Alabama Senator Scott Beason invoked the Wallace tradition of lies and bigotry at Saturday's Cullman County Republican Party breakfast, where he ended a talk on illegal immigration by asking the crowd to "empty the clip and do what has to be done." Pressed for an apology, Beason doubled down instead. Gadsden Times:

“I talk about people who ignore the problem and people (who) won’t take a shot at the problem and then those who continue to shoot until it’s fixed,” Beason said Monday in a telephone interview. “You can’t just say you’re going to do something. You have to work at it until you do so effectively.”

Beason said his reference to “empty the clip” was taken out of context. He said he had told his audience an Internet-circulated joke about how you can tell the political beliefs of a liberal, a conservative, and an armed Southerner who are confronted by a mugger in New York City.

Much more after a video and the jump...

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The ACLU raised all kinds of hackles the other day from defenders of Arizona's police-state immigration law, SB1070, when it issued a travel warning giving all out-of-state Latinos a heads up about the potential problems they face if they travel there:

The nation's top civil liberties group on Wednesday issued travel alerts for Arizona, saying the state's new law cracking down on illegal immigrants could lead to racial profiling and warrantless arrests.

American Civil Liberties Union affiliates in Arizona, New Mexico and 26 other states put out the warnings in advance of the Fourth of July weekend. The Arizona chapter has received reports that law enforcement officers are already targeting some people even though the law doesn't take effect until July 29, its executive director said.

The alerts are designed to teach people about their rights if police stop and question them.

The Arizona law requires police, while enforcing other laws, to question a person's immigration status if officers have a reasonable suspicion that the person is in the country illegally. It also makes it a state crime for legal immigrants to not carry their immigration documents and bans day laborers and people who seek their services from blocking traffic on streets.

Attorneys defending the law against constitutional challenges filed by the ACLU and others argue that the Legislature amended it to strengthen restrictions against using race as the basis for questioning by police. Five lawsuits are pending in federal court, and the U.S. Justice Department is believed to be preparing a legal challenge.

Despite the legislative action, the ACLU still believes that officers will inappropriately target minorities.

"We have a long history of racial profiling in this state, and this is basically going to really exacerbate that problem," said Alessandra Soler Meetze, executive director of the ACLU of Arizona.

The story has since been a hot topic at Fox News, where they've been searching up anybody who will say unkind things about the ACLU. Stuart Varney, filling in for Neil Cavuto on Your World on Fox yesterday, decided to ask Democratic Rep. Ann Kirkpatrick of Arizona's 1st District about the advisory. And though Kirkpatrick opposes SB1070, she thinks the travel advisory is a "bad idea" -- just like the various boycotts of the state that erupted after the law was passed.

But Kirkpatrick doesn't explain why it's a bad idea, except to suggest that it will hurt innocent Arizonans (her same rationale for opposing the boycotts). What both she and Varney -- and for that matter, the Associated Press story -- neglected to explain to their audiences was that, if and when SB1070 is enacted, Latino American citizens who travel to Arizona will need to produce more than just their drivers licenses to prove their citizenship.

Radio host Mark Levine made this point clearly and succinctly to Laura Ingraham the other night when she was filling in on The O'Reilly Factor:

Levine: Certainly, a month from now, if this law goes into effect, all kinds of Latino American citizens may be in danger and I think what they're doing is they're telling people --

Ingraham: In danger?

Levine: Absolutely. Look, Laura, do you have --

Ingraham: How are they in danger? If they're legally in the United States, how are they in danger?

Levine: I'll explain. SB1070, the Arizona law, says if you're not carrying an Arizona drivers license, you can be stopped, and you can be arrested.

Ingraham: No profiling.

Levine: Let's say you're from New Mexico, or Utah, or Nevada, or any of the other fifteen states that don't require you to be a citizen in order to have a drivers license. I don't have an Arizona drivers license! Luckily for me, I don't look Latino, but if I go to Arizona without a drivers license, they can stop me.

You'll notice that Ingraham has no reply except to say that the law is popular anyway. (Yeah, we noticed that. So what?)

We explored this point in some depth previously:

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The campaign to dehumanize immigrants -- both those without documents as well all legal immigrants, especially Hispanics -- in America is on in full force. Microchipping them was just the start.

When I saw the grasshopper graphic I chuckled for a moment because it's so surreal, it's so not of this earth. It couldn't possibly come from a member of Congress, could it?

Speaking on the House floor last night, Rep. Ted Poe (R-TX), who has been a vocal voice in the bipartisan movement to increase border security, had a peculiar and offensive way of framing the issue.

Poe: "Now it seems to me that if we are so advanced with technology and manpower and competence that we can capture illegal grasshoppers from Brazil, in the holds of ships that are in a little small place in Port Arthur, Texas on the Sabine River. Sabin River, madam speaker, is the river that separates Texas from Louisiana. If we're able to do that as a country, how come we can't capture the thousands of people that cross the border everyday on the southern border of the United States? You know they're a little bigger than grasshoppers and they should be able to be captured easier.

Here's how Poe really feels about non-whites in America.

I was wondering if it came from a David Lynch movie. You know how he likes insects. Blue Velvet, maybe. The GOP, teabaggers and conservatives remind me of Frank Booth. (Not for children video clip.)

It sure looks like Republicans have been huffing the good stuff over this issue. As always, it brings out the eliminationist impulse, doesn't it?

Fox News' morning crews -- both Fox and Friends and the regular newsroom -- were going ape about the Moonie Times' report on the pushback by liberal Democrats on including undocumented immigrants in the current health-care reform effort:

Fearful that they're losing ground on immigration and health care, a group of House Democrats is pushing back and arguing that any health care bill should extend to all legal immigrants and allow illegal immigrants some access.

The Democrats, trying to stiffen their party's spines on the contentious issue, say it's unfair to bar illegal immigrants from paying their own way in a government-sponsored exchange. Legal immigrants, they say, regardless of how long they've been in the United States, should be able to get government-subsidized health care if they meet the other eligibility requirements.

"Legal permanent residents should be able to purchase their plans, and they should also be eligible for subsidies if they need it. Undocumented, if they can afford it, should be able to buy their own private plans. It keeps them out of the emergency room," said Rep. Michael M. Honda, California Democrat and chairman of the Congressional Asian Pacific American Caucus.

Of course, this really is only common sense, especially from a public-health perspective; do we really want people not getting treated for contagious diseases simply because they can't prove they're here legally?

However, as sensible as it may be, these efforts realistically have little chance of succeeding, given the toxic political environment about immigration and health-care reform that's been floating about us ever since Joe Wilson shouted out, "You lie!"

Nonetheless, this set wingnut gums a-flapping about the horrid prospect of actually using taxpayer dollars for something they're already required by law to pay for anyway.

And the folks at Fox were all over this angle. Notably, they kept referring to these immigrants as "illegals". Illegals, illegals, illegals -- it was running on the chryon and out of their mouths.

There's a reason the National Association of Hispanic Journalists urges their colleagues to avoid dehumanizing terms like "illegals":

The term criminalizes the person rather than the actual act of illegally entering or residing in the United States without federal documents. Terms such as illegal alien or illegal immigrant can often be used pejoratively in common parlance and can pack a powerful emotional wallop for those on the receiving end.

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This story was on June 23 on CBS:

A Republican gubernatorial candidate's call for creation of a forced labor camp for illegal immigrants drew rebukes Friday from two GOP lawmakers, who labeled it a low point in the immigration debate.
Don Goldwater, nephew of the late Sen. Barry Goldwater, caused an international stir this week when EFE, a Mexican news service, quoted him as saying he wanted to hold undocumented immigrants in camps to use them "as labor in the construction of a wall and to clean the areas of the Arizona desert that they're polluting." The article described Goldwater's plan as a "concentration camp" for migrants....read on

Update:

The Spanish news agency EFE apologized to Republican gubernatorial candidate Don Goldwater, saying a story distributed by the agency on June 21 mischaracterized Goldwater as wanting to use "concentration camps" as part of efforts to combat illegal immigration. Goldwater has called for a work program for illegal immigrants convicted of nonviolent crimes to help construct a border wall and clean up desert areas where illegal border-crossers have left trash and damaged the environment.

AP: "Thousands of people across the country protested Friday against legislation cracking down on illegal immigrants, with demonstrators in cities such as Los Angeles, Phoenix and Atlanta staging school walkouts, marches and work stoppages. Congress is considering bills that would make it a felony to be in the United States illegally, impose new penalties on employers who hire illegal immigrants and erect fences along one-third of the U.S.-Mexican border. The proposals have angered many Hispanics...read on

Drum again:

"Laws that require local officials to report illegal immigrants may be increasingly popular, but it turns out that no one-neither local officials nor federal immigration officials-thinks these laws will work. In fact, they're likely to make things worse"

Federal authorities have arrested 26 illegal immigrants working for a subcontractor at Northrop Grumman Ship Systems. Agents searched the Pascagoula facility for suspected undocumented workers identified through Northrop Grumman records. The 26 illegal workers had access to or attempted to access the shipyard, authorities said...

As Steal This Website notes: "You have 26 undocumented workers arrested at a major U.S. shipyard and no one says anything. Let me say it again: 26 people in the country illegally, who, for all we know since their identities and nationalities haven't been released, are of Mideastern descent, are caught working for a contractor of the 3rd largest U.S. defense contractor, and who have or have attemtpted to gain access to the shipyard in which our most important naval ships are being built, are arrested, and the national news media hasn't reported it. Unbelievable."

via Politics in the Zeros:

Employers of illegal immigrants face little risk of penalty

Owners of hotels, farms, restaurants and retail stores who hire illegal workers — never widely sanctioned to begin with — now face a negligible risk of being penalized.

What the Minutemen don't realize is they will be taking on entrenched business classes who need that cheap labor. They probably think, being good right wingers and all, that they are allies with business. They will learn differently.

I'm not kidding.

FOX NEWS Ariz. — Volunteers who have converged on the Mexican border to watch for illegal immigrants are disrupting U.S. Border Patrol (search) operations by unwittingly tripping sensors that alert agents to possible intruders, an agency spokesman complained Monday...

Download | play -Wmp

Download | play -QT

Gilchrist:Those sensors are being tripped by ACLU observers.

(AZ to train ACLU observers)

Colmes laughs...

That's what James Gilchrist from the MMP said tonight on Hannity and Colmes. I guess he must be listening to Bill O'Reilly lately. Oh..it's the ACLU.

Chris Simcox , one of the leaders of the group has been convicted of federal weapons charges, and The Aryan Nation is doing a little recruitment work. I'm waiting for Powerline to go on the offensive and prove that since the ACLU was in the vicinity they must have done it.