give the President some credit for workin’ the problems, …

and not in Crawford, cutting brush every other weekend!

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Hispanics Flee Alabama’s Immigration Law

Via: Bloomberg

When Tuscaloosa, Alabama, begins rebuilding more than 7,200 homes and businesses leveled by an April 27 tornado, it may find itself missing a workforce capable of putting the city together again.

That’s what Ever Duarte, head of the city’s Hispanic soccer league, said after losing a third of his teams in a week. Tuscaloosa County’s 6,000-strong Hispanic population –including roofers, sheetrockers, concrete pourers, framers, landscapers and laborers — is disappearing, he said, before a law cracking down on illegal immigrants takes effect.

“They’re leaving now, right now,” Duarte, 36, said during a pause in a pick-up soccer game last week in a neighborhood gym. “I know people who are packing up tonight. They don’t want to wait to see what happens. It started last week. Our league had 12 teams the week before that. Last week, it was eight.”

Governor Robert Bentley signed Alabama’s 72-page measure June 9, calling it “the strongest immigration bill in the country.” Alabama became the fifth state to enact sanctions against undocumented workers, following Arizona, Utah, Indiana and Georgia, where a federal judge yesterday blocked part of the restrictions. Tuscaloosa is getting an early gauge of the law’s effects in its state.

“Hispanics, documented and undocumented, dominate anything to do with masonry, concrete, framing, roofing, and landscaping,” said Bob McNelly, a contractor with Nash-McCraw Properties, during an interview at a coffee shop near a destroyed gas station and bank. “There are very few subcontractors I work with that don’t have a Hispanic workforce.”

The city of 90,000 imposed a moratorium on major reconstruction that ends Aug. 8 to enable it to plan its remaking. The rebuilding, McNelly said, will be harder and more expensive without them:

“It’s not the pay rate. It’s the fact that they work harder than anyone. It’s the work ethic.”

http://www.bloomberg.com/news/2011-06-28/alabama-law-threatens-tornado-recovery-as-hispanics-flee.html
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personal thought:

I worked construction my whole career; and I agree, it is the ‘work ethic’.

However, make no mistake, the undocumented workers you see lined up each morning outside of your typical Home Depot get paided a hell of a lot less.

“When they say it ain’t about the money, they lyin'”

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(2 of 2) Santorum Is VERY UPSET With Obama For Attacking Private Jet Tax Owners

Via: Think Progress

“UGLY,” “DIVISIVE,” and “ACRIMON[ious]” — that’s how GOP presidential hopeful Rick Santorum described President Obama’s press conference yesterday, in which he called for ending a tax break for corporate jet purchases.

A visibly angry Santorum told Fox News host Greta Van Susteren that Obama’s targeting of corporate jet owners defies the candidate’s pledge to bring Americans together.

http://thinkprogress.org/politics/2011/06/30/258309/rick-santorum-jet-owners/

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personal thoughts:

‘Bring Americans together’ is a great idea:

1. Eliminate the $3B corporate jet tax break

and then,

2. Have the dicks fly Southwest

perfect

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(1 of 2) Obama picks fight with GOP over tax cuts for the rich

Via: Washington Post

The primary goal of President Obama’s presser, which just wrapped up, was obvious: He was clearly out to pick a major public fight with Republicans over tax cuts for the rich. Obama mounted a surprisingly aggressive moral case  for ending high end tax cuts, casting it as a test of our society’s priorities, and argued — crucially — that anyone who fails to support ending them is fundamentally unserious about the deficit.

He also went out of his way to highlight GOP opposition to raising revenues by ending a perk for corporate jet owners. This proposal would raise only $3 billion, which means it’s trivial in the larger scheme of things, and Obama’s mention of it seemed deliberately designed to provoke howls of outrage and cries of “class warfare” from Republicans — with the obvious goal of maneuvering Republicans into the role of arch defenders of the interests of the wealthy.

Obama is picking this fight in order to reframe the deficit and debt ceiling debate as a battle not over government spending — losing turf for Dems — but over who has the most balanced priorities and who is really working in the interests of the whole country.

Here’s the key quote, which mentions the corporate jet tax break no less than three times:

“If we choose to keep those tax breaks for millionaires and billionaires, if we keep the tax break for corporate jet owners, if we choose to keep tax breaks for oil and gas companies that are making hundreds of billions of dollars, then that means we’ve got to cut some kids off from getting a college scholarship. That means we have to stop funding certain grants for medical research. That means that food safety may be compromised. That means that Medicare has to bear a greater part of the burden. These are the choices we have to make…

The Republicans say they want to reduce the deficit. Every single observer who’s not an elected official or politican says we can’t reduce our deficit in the scale and scope we need to without having a balanced approach that looks at everything. Democrats have to accept some painful spending cuts that hurt some of our consituencies that we may not like. And we’ve shown a willingness to do that for the greater good…”

http://www.washingtonpost.com/blogs/plum-line/post/obama-picks-fight-with-gop-over-tax-cuts-for-the-rich/2011/03/03/AGHTMsqH_blog.html

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personal thought:

I find it somewhat amusing, and sad, the GOP teabaggers can’t seem to grasp the idea the $3B for corporate jet tax breaks costs THEM money!

oh well

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His State In Record Heat Wave, Inhofe Bails On Climate Denier Conference: ‘I Am Under The Weather’

Via: Think Progress

As record-shattering heat cripples Oklahoma, Sen. Jim “global warming is a hoax” Inhofe (R-OK) failed to show for an fossil-industry-funded climate denial conference. A shrinking band of far-right economists, lawyers, and a few scientists have gathered in Washington, DC, for the Heartland Institute’s sixth International Conference on Climate Change, funded, like Inhofe himself, by Koch Industries and Exxon Mobil.

Inhofe was scheduled to be the denier conference’s keynote speaker, but he bailed out, explaining appropriately that he is “under the weather“.

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The “drought’s impacts have been enormous,” and “very little relief is in sight,” Oklahoma’s state climatologist, Gary McManus writes.

The average high temperature in Oklahoma City in June 2011 was 10 degrees above normal, 97 degrees instead of 87 degrees. “Any way you slice it, it has been hot,” Oklahoma City’s Stephen Mullins explains:

– Today marks the 29th consecutive day over 90. That is a record.

– Today is forecast to be the 10th day above 100 in June. That is a record

– Today marks the 34th consecutive day above normal

– June 2011 set or tied single-day record high temperatures on the 17th, 18th, 19th, and 27th. Those record temperatures were 103, 104, 101, and 103 degrees, respectively.

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UPDATE:

“Yes, I know, it’s just coincidence, not a karmic backlash,” Joe Romm writes at Climate Progress.

“But then again, climate science projects a permanent dust bowl for the Southwest if we keep listening to Inhofe.

It also projects that by century’s end, the state will be above 90°F for 135 days a year!”

http://thinkprogress.org/green/2011/06/30/258416/his-state-in-record-heat-wave-inhofe-bails-on-climate-denier-conference-i-am-under-the-weather/

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1936 – Cimerron County, Oklahoma

photo by: Arthur Rostein

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