Well, the BP oil spill is now officially the biggest oil spill of all time. Congratulations to Tony Hayward and everyone who worked so hard on this. Give BP credit—they took a potential problem and did everything they could to make it happen, from the initial safety violations to the half-assed response. 5 million barrels! This is the largest accidental spill of all time. Heck, they’d be hard-pressed to beat that with an intentional spill.In other toxic news, Mitch McConnell has joined the chorus of GOP voices calling for changing the 14th Amendment that grants birthright citizenship. Republicans claim we can’t control the border. So their solution is to try and get rid of people who were born on this side of the border. Brilliant. If a person isn’t an American if they’re born in America, then what is the criteria? Call me simple-minded, but that “if you’re from here, then you’re from here” rule is pretty straightforward. Maybe Republicans want to make another tier of citizenship, or create a whole class of people who don’t have any rights. I think we tried that when we launched this country—it was called slavery, and it didn’t work out very well. Conservatives won’t say it, but their ideal for determining who’s an American is by skin color… with an exception carved out for John Boehner, of course. If we want to tackle immigration, we do have the option of going after employers who hire illegals. But Republicans think it’s a better idea to go after the Constitution. It’s a crazy idea—and that’s why GOP politicians are embracing it. Republicans don’t care how looney an idea is, as long as they can use it to fire up their base for an election.
If you want to get progressive voters out in a midterm election, you might do what California did and put an initiative to legalize marijuana on the ballot. Hey, given the condition California is in, they could use something to mellow them out. It’s the same concept as putting anti-gay measures on the ballot to drive conservative voters to the polls. They’re hoping that lefties love pot as much as conservatives hate gay marriage. Can pro-pot initiative get pot heads out to vote? It depends what’s on TV. It’s a good thing Adult Swim comes on after the polls close. If opponents of the measure are smart they’ll schedule a “Family Guy” marathon for Election Day.
The late George Carlin from 2005 on the American Dream (explicit language):
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