Securing The Border: A Euphemism For Keeping America White?

The Article: Does ‘secure the border’ mean ‘keep America white’? by LZ Granderson on CNN Online.

The Text: Grand Rapids, Michigan — In case you plan to see Wednesday’s GOP debate, allow me to offer up some crib notes so you don’t get lost.

First, when you hear the candidates talk about “job creators,” that’s just another way of saying “rich people” or “the guy bankrolling my super Pac.”

When someone says “family values,” that’s to remind the audience that they don’t like gay people; “religious freedom” means “Christianity”; and it’s not really a GOP debate until a candidate attacks the “liberal media” for asking questions they’re too afraid to answer.

Now there will be plenty of other buzz words and euphemisms that will be tossed around during the debate, but since it is being held in Arizona, chances are the most popular phrase will be “secure the border.”

We must secure the border.

The candidates will argue that it’s a matter of national security. That it isn’t just the friendly illegal immigrants looking for work we must worry about, but terrorists, drug lords and other criminals who seek to make their way through our porous border. They will say if they were president they would build walls, add troops, even commission a Death Star to keep this country safe.

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I’m Not A Follower, I Don’t Take Things As They Come

You Know You Like It by AlunaGeorge off of their EP of the same name.

An Op-Ed From Satan Regarding The GOP

OP-ED CONTRIBUTOR: Not Even a Single Mention of My Infernal Glory? What Gives? By Satan

All the buildup and excitement was for naught. The broadband cable I had installed throughout the dark reaches of Hell so my minions and the damned could watch… for nothing. I thought I’d be the man of the hour, the name on everybody’s lips. The only guy that everyone hoped CNN Debate Moderator John King would ask about.

But did he ever mention my name?

Not once!

You have to go back to the early 19th Century to see my name being used as a weapon against another candidate as frequently as it is today. If my name were a registered trademark, Rick Santorum would owe me big time! I don’t mind being interjected into politics, per se. I get sort of a vicarious thrill out of it. But when Rick Santorum said that I was specifically targeting the United States of America, I nearly spit out my brimstone biscotti. I look at the warlords of Africa as they steal and hoard food sent by humanitarian organizations while their people die miserable, starvation-induced deaths; I look at the former Soviet Union as their Mafia fiat governs more than their legally elected representatives. All you have to do is take a look at the Middle East. Nice people, but here they are, killing each other because of the name they use to refer to “You Know Who.” (I am technically forbidden from using His name.)

With all of that said, Rick Santorum still thinks I’m targeting the United States of America for special treatment? I haven’t actually done anything in America since placing James Brady between John Hinckley and Ronald Reagan back in 1981. Reagan had much more work to do for me, and damned if I was going to let some little piss ant with a “Taxi Driver” fixation spoil that.

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The Missing American Dream

The Danger Of An Endless GOP Primary

The Article: The Danger Of An Endless GOP Primary by David Sirota in Salon.

The Text: Among progressive friends and colleagues of mine, there seems to be a consensus that the longer the Republican presidential primary continues the better for progressives. The idea is that Republican infighting weakens the ultimate nominee and exposes just how radical all of the GOP candidates are. As the domino theory goes, that will help more Americans see the ugly truth about what the Republican Party really is, which will subsequently convince more Americans to vote against the GOP, which will eventually force the GOP to moderate its politics.

Straightforward as this hypothesis is, I don’t buy it — I believe the longer the Republican primary battle continues, the more the GOP’s most extreme proposals are given a mainstream platform, the more their ideas are granted public credibility and the more conservative propaganda is invisibly woven into our most basic political assumptions. In other words, I believe in the Goldwater Principle, which suggests that while the eventual nominee may fail to win the cycle’s general election, the elongated nomination contest — with its news cycle dominance and hardcore ideological edge — will help permanently shift the supposed mainstream “center” of our public debate to the fringe right.

Consider the heated attacks Mitt Romney’s campaign is now lobbing at Rick Santorum in the run-up to Super Tuesday. By calling the former Pennsylvania senator “Big Labor’s favorite senator,” the effort aims to paint the viciously anti-union Santorum as nothing short of the flesh-and-blood reincarnation of Paul Wellstone. Romney is clearly hoping that such a portrayal will spur a GOP voter backlash, and sensational headlines across the country spur his framing on. The result is a troubling ripple effect that could transcend a single election.

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