Tuesday Mashup Part Two (7/6/10)

(Part One is here.)

I have a leftover item from the holiday weekend here from the New York Times. The paper ran a few articles about how the Fourth would be observed at some historical landmarks (including the Liberty Bell), and one place they reported on was Tampico, Ill, one of the two locations in that state claiming to be the Reagan birthplace…

Visitors climbed a steep staircase here the other day and crowded into a second-floor apartment-turned-museum. This was the simple bedroom where Ronald Reagan’s mother gave birth to him.

Here was the neighbors’ window he was handed through when the Reagans needed a baby sitter. Out another window, across Main Street in this western Illinois village of 800, was the store where the future president’s father sold shoes.

For all but the most studious Reagan followers, though, there comes a moment of confusion. Was he truly from here or was he from Dixon (a city 30 minutes away and almost 20 times as big)?

…

“People go to Dixon first” (where Reagan spent his “formative years” hating Democrats I’m sure, a party to which he was once a member – ed.) acknowledged Joan Johnson, volunteer coordinator of the Tampico museum. “It’s not as far off the beaten path.” When Ms. Johnson gets caught up in the Tampico-Dixon question, she said others calm her with a reminder: “This is Bethlehem. That is Nazareth.”

Geez, when I refer to him as “The Sainted Ronnie R,” I’m only kidding, but it seems these people are serious (by the way, you may have to click on the "Gipper" icon in the upper right corner of the page to read the story).

Also, Florida Senator George LeMieux (holding the seat until the election is decided in the fall, and once more, to help out a worthy Dem, click here) recently complained here that “there are only 20 skimmers” off the coast of his state to try and dispense of the oil approaching from the BP disaster.

Funny, but according to this story, Florida had 112 skimmers at work. That’s quite a difference, I would point out.

Just sayin’…

Finally, this “Hill” post from Eliseo Medina of the SEIU tells us the following (and yet again, you can tell how correct she is by the level of vitriol in the comments, including one person calling him (?) a "gangster," I believe)…

Those of us frustrated by perpetual inaction on immigration reform were reminded yesterday that President Obama was elected president, not king. Despite his every effort to deliver a federal fix to our broken immigration system, the president cannot act alone.

The smart, workable reform plan laid out by the president would target the bad actors that profit off of our broken immigration system, restore the rule of law, and move us forward together. But despite months of outreach by the president and Democrat lawmakers, where on earth are the Republicans?

Where indeed, particularly since Huckleberry Graham decided to pick up his toys and go home; as noted here by Politico…

(Senate Majority Leader Harry) Reid suggested he would push an immigration bill ahead of comprehensive energy legislation, a schedule Reid has now agreed to reverse. But Graham has said he will not back a bill this year — a move designed in part to help protect Sen. John McCain (R-Ariz.), who is facing a tough Republican primary.

The policy behind Graham’s move is ridiculous, but the politics have a certain lunatic logic to them, with Graham trying position himself ever rightward with McCain in AZ, particularly since the Obama DOJ has made good on its promise to challenge that state’s “illegal to be brown” law here.

One irony about this, though, is that Obama has actually gone to the right of the GOP on immigration reform, as noted here…

The Obama Administration has exceeded Bush Administration efforts on border control. Last year saw the highest number of people ever deported: 387,790, up from 116,782 in 2001 and 349,041 in 2008. Thus far this year, some 185,887 people have been deported, a record pace that, if maintained, will nearly double the number of deportations in 2010 to 604,133. The Administration has also doubled the number of agents assigned to the Border Enforcement Security Task Force and tripled intelligence analysts along the Southwest border.

In fact…some immigrant-rights groups, already peeved at the lack of action on comprehensive reform, are calling for a boycott in the 2010 elections. It is a powerful threat. Latino voters are credited with helping Obama flip red states in the 2008 elections, including Florida, Nevada, Colorado and New Mexico. And Democratic candidates in close races in those states and in California, Texas and Arizona are hoping for similar high levels of Hispanic turnout as Dems look at potentially losing more than 30 House seats.

The Time article by Jay Newton-Small also tells us what has happened to the 23 Repug senators, including “Straight Talk” McCain, who supported reform in ’06 (hence his rightward shift due to his primary challenge from J.D. Hayworth alluded to above).

The real story about the Repugs and immigration, though, is surmised by Kevin Drum here, who tells us that, “The Republican leadership caved in to rabid fearmongering, Hispanics defected en masse to the Democratic Party, and the entire topic has been radioactive ever since. If you want to know what's happened to the Republican Party over the last decade or so, this is it in a nutshell.”

And make no mistake, on this issue perhaps above all others, the Repugs take their marching orders from this guy (and I dare a single one of them to go on his show and tell them that that isn’t the God’s-honest truth).