Category: Republicans

Open letter to Ted Harvey

After the disgusting behavior during the “debate” about illegal immigration during the special session here in Colorado, I was inspired to write the following letter to my local Representative, Ted Harvey:

Mr. Harvey,

As a resident in your district, I am shocked and embarrassed at your statements about illegal immigration. Your statement about Mexican gangas was bad enough. And your defense that you were just repeating something out of a newspaper article is not really a defense. Repeating a racist statement that someone else made doesn’t make it less racist. I would like to know what that article said, actually. But I digress.

The statement that specifically made me write this letter is the following: “This session has to do with protecting the citizens of Colorado from having to subsidize illegal immigrants no matter where they’re from. By throwing out those words and accusations, they’re shutting down a debate on a serious public safety concern.” This is an amazing distortion of what’s happening. Colorado citizens aren’t “subsidizing illegal immigrants” because most illegal immigrants don’t use public services. Why would they, when this puts them at risk of being discovered and deported? This phrase that you use is a red herring, meant to distract us from the real goals of your immigration stance.

Granted, I have no idea why you are so anti-immigrant. If you truly wanted to reduce the number of illegal immigrants coming into this country, then you would back bills that punish businesses for hiring undocumented workers. People come to this nation for one reason: jobs. If business stop hiring undocumented workers, then the illegal immigration issue would be resolved. No jobs = no undocumented workers.

But for some reason, you don’t want to do this. Could it be that you don’t want to lose your “Guardian of Small Business” accolades? Instead, you seem to advocate punishing those who came here in search of a job, to what end? Are you planning on putting 11 million people in prison? Deporting 11 million people? What would this do to our economy? And more to the point, what would keep more people coming in to fill the jobs that those who are being deported are leaving empty?

As a constituent, I ask that you abandon this extremist approach to illegal immigration and join a course of action that can actually make positive changes, instead of villifying a group of people.

—
Michael Fierro
Littleton, CO

Harvey is a really vile toad of a Representative. He prides himself on being a complete neandrathal regarding reproductive rights and women’s privacy. He also seems to have at least racist tendencies. I think he truly believes that Mexicans are all unlawful punks who can’t wait to get to America to join street gangs and terrorist cells. That he was voted into office is scary; that he was voted into office by my neighbors is even scarier.

God I love Howard Dean!

How many different ways do I love Howard Dean? I dunno if I can list them all. But let me try starting with this quote:

Dean said in Wednesday’s speech that Democratic incumbent Bill Nelson is “going to beat the pants off Katherine Harris, who didn’t understand that it is ethically improper to be the chairman of a campaign and count the votes at the same time. This is not Russia and she is not Stalin.”

Now really, who can argue with that? Harris did act much in the same manner that Stalin would have concerning “elections.” Rigged election? Check. Make yourself the person in charge of said election so it’ll never be questioned? Check.

Of course, Harris’s camp whined about Dean’s statement:

In a statement Thursday, Harris’ campaign said Dean’s comments comparing her to a communist dictator responsible for millions of deaths “reflect a lack of understanding and basic decency.”

Which is the equivalent of saying, “MOMMY! Howie was mean to me!”

(Source: TheDenverChannel.com)

Report: Women misled on abortion risks

This is absolutely disgusting, assuming that the report is accurate. According to Boston.com, a report by “Democrats on the House Government Reform Committee, women are being given false, alarmist information regarding abortion risks. From the article:

Care Net, an umbrella group for evangelical pregnancy centers across the country, instructs its affiliates to tell callers there is a possibility that abortion can lead to greater risk of breast cancer, according to Molly Ford, an official with the organization. She said there have been several studies that say it does, and several that say it doesn’t.

“I know the report is wanting to say that it’s conclusive, but it isn’t,” Ford said.

None of the pregnancy centers the committee staff called was identified, and it could not be determined if any were linked to Care Net, which has helped about a quarter of the nation’s pregnancy centers begin operations.

One pregnancy center told a congressional aide the risk of cancer after an abortion could be 80 percent higher, the report noted. Ford said she doubted a pregnancy center would go that far, but the Web site for a pregnancy center in Albuquerque says the risk for cancer after an abortion is 50 percent or greater.

In February 2003, a National Cancer Institute workshop concluded that having an abortion or miscarriage does not increase a woman’s subsequent risk of developing breast cancer. [Emphasis mine]

How disgusting is this? Are anti-choice groups really so desparate that they would flat-out like to a woman, trying to both scare her and not give her the information she needs to make an informed decision? How can one justify this? It’s a horrible practice, and a horrible thing to do to someone who is trying to face one of the hardest decisions of her life.

If you have to lie to someone to justify your beliefs, then your beliefs are probably wrong.

Stem Cell Veto

I was planning on writing a massive rant on how horrible Bush’s veto of the stem cell research bill was, ’til I saw this Daily Show clip where Jon Stewart skewers this much better than I ever could. So I’ll just link to that here instead:

I still don’t understand how Bush can handle his own hipocracy. And the next time that someone says that an embry is a “human life,” I think I am gonna scream. I also want to know why it is better that excess embryos from fertility clinics are destroyed rather than used for research that could save millions of lives…

Congressman Pitts makes a bad situation worse…

Okay, try and stay with me on this one. In a June 14th hearing of the House Subcomittee on Commerce, Trade and Consumer Protection, Congressman Joe Pitts, a Pennsylvanian Republican, made the following horrific statement:

During the subcommittee’s period of opening remarks on June 14th, Pitts said, “It’s safe to say that a wealthy kid from the suburbs can play ‘Grand Theft Auto’ without turning to a life of crime, but a poor kid who lives in a neighborhood where people really do shoot cops and steal cars and deal drugs might not be so fortunate. There’s almost certainly a child somewhere in the America who is going to be hurt by this game. Maybe his dad is in jail or his big brother is already down on the corner dealing drugs.”

Jon Stewart rightly flamed Pitts on The Daily Show, referring to Pitts and other House Republican wackos as “insane jackasses.” Pitts decided that, instead of apologizing for his horrifyingly prejudiced statement, he would attack The Daily Show, saying that his statement was portrayed inaccurately. How the above quote can be portrayed inaccurately, I don’t know. And reading the release from the Pitts camp doesn’t make it much clearer. As near as I can tell, Pitts is basically saying, “Don’t pay attention to the words that I actually said. What I realy meant was…” Which IMHO is the cowards way out. Why not just admit, “Yes, I made a horrible remark, and I apologize for it?”