Psst Governor Bentley! There's a problem with your stand on the state line to refuse Syrian refugees...

You can't

Just in case there is any doubt, President Obama has explicit statutory authorization to accept foreign refugees into the United States. Under the Refugee Act of 1980, the president may admit refugees who face “persecution or a well-founded fear of persecution on account of race, religion, nationality, membership in a particular social group, or political opinion” into the United States, and the president’s power to do so is particularly robust if they determine that an “unforeseen emergency refugee situation” such as the Syrian refugee crisis exists.

Despite popular and uniformed opinion, Alabama is still a part of the United States of America.  Sir.

The problem for Jindal, Abbott and the other governors opposed to admitting refugees, however, is that there is no lawful means that permits a state government to dictate immigration policy to the president in this way. As the Supreme Court explained in Hines v. Davidowitz, “the supremacy of the national power in the general field of foreign affairs, including power over immigration, naturalization and deportation, is made clear by the Constitution.” States do not get to overrule the federal government on matters such as this one.

Editorial Carton for Alabama Media Group by J.D.Crowe

You can take a whole row of seats now. 

An armed, unregulated, populace, keeping real and imagined tyranny at bay, one assault weapon at a time

The Real Threats to America's Security

What do you want to bet if this was a picture of a   black man, with a Black Liberation flag hanging in the background, watching The New Black Panther Party on TV, surrounded by weapons, calling for black people to take up arms against the government,  accusing the government of trying to take their guns away and calling it  tyranny,  we would have us some gun control legislation quick, fast and in a hurry?

I'm just saying....the NRA has riled up the survivalist....you know...the people who have been buying up guns every since President Obama was first elected, and who want to secede from the Union because he was re-elected.  

It makes you wonder whose side some, not to be confused with all, law enforcement officials and elected officials are on.

Our vision of this country is the same: We want a place where we all have rights. Specifically the right to own a pile of military assault weapons without anyone monitoring us so we can train and plan and then secretly block the emergency exits to the building. It's a country where we have the right to fight for our freedoms against all enemies, foreign, domestic... or even the ones that might be imaginary. It's a home where my right to swing my fist ends where your nose, torso, neck, and the back of your head begin. But only after it's all over, because people don't have the right to ask what I do with my guns, or where I'm keeping them, or whether several psychiatrists think I need to be heavily medicated. That's just like what the Nazis did.

Radio Boy, this Parody is just for you!  Enjoy!

Weapon Wonderland Song Parody (to be sung to Winter Wonderland)By Madeleine Begun Kane
Gun sales surge. Are you listenin’?
Ammunition keeps glistenin’.
They’re arming tonight and causing a fright.
U.S. Constitution arms the land.
People die for no reason.
Children shot! ‘Tis the season.
A terrible blight, each night after night.
Gun rights absolutists harm our land.
NRA and cronies claim our homeland
Must allow their arms in every town,
Claiming guns will help us.
We say “No man!
“The murder stats have got to go way down.”
Weapon fans have conspired.
Now our nation is mired.
With lives we have paid.
New laws must be made.
Or soon we’ll have a gun in every hand.

Are we safe yet?

Secession, the Media, Milestones, and Cults

Alabama Governor Robert Bentley (r), and Alabama Senator Richard Shelby (r) touring the tornado devastation with President Barack Obama (D)  in Tuscaloosa, Alabama following a press briefing.

Side bar with a sigh

If you look closely at the photograph attached to this diary of a VIP group walking with President Obama, I count nine individuals....Two in the front row, three in the middle row and four in the back, one of whom is barely visible as a pair of grey-trousered legs and the corner of a face. Two of them -- counting the President -- are non-white, one more may be.
The proportion of non-white persons in Alabama's population is about 29%, so 22%, or better 33%, persons of color (2 or 3 out of 9) would not be far out of line with the state population.
According to the same source, the proportion of persons in the population of Alabama who happen to be female is almost 52%. Female persons in the VIP group including President Obama: precisely zero.

Hell No they ain't fergittin!

I guess we shouldn't be surprised the reddest of the red states want to secede from the union in wake of the reelection of President Barack Hussein Obama.   Remember when CNN's Anderson Cooper and others accused Alabama State Senator Hank Sanders of race baiting when he said he didn't want to go back to the days of slavery and Jim Crow in a robo call to democratic voters in 2010?  Well, these are the same states who fought a war to keep slavery, instituted Jim Crow after they lost.  Yep, they were so sure the tried and true  southern strategy was going to work for them again.

Also, this is the same media who had people believing Mitt Romney was going to win, who enabled Bush and Dick to take us to war based on dead wrong intelligence, and house republicans to impeach President Bill Clinton for trying to conceal a consensual sex act from his wife, daughter and the country.

President Obama should handle the secessionist movement the same way my mother handled me when I decided I wanted to secede from the family unit because I didn't want to abide by the rules.  Out of the kindness of her heart she packed some of my clothes, two peanut butter and jelly sandwiches and an orange in a brown paper bag and wished me well.  I seceded down the road to my best friends house and hung out there all day, but when it started getting dark her mother told me it was time for me to head on home.  Then I remembered I'd  run away from home and didn't have any place to go for food, shelter and comfort.

So guess what I did.....I say let those who want to secede go.  They don't need a military to protect them.  Interstate highways to travel on.  Hospitals when they get sick.  Post offices to receive and deliver their mail.  Public works and sanitation.  Airports, train and bus stations.  And god forbid they have a hurricane, tornado, wild fires or a flood.  They might leave, but they will be back with a new attitude.  Trust me.

On a personal note, I can't let this day pass without noting a milestone, November 13, 2012 marks the third anniversary of the day Political Ideology Trumped Family and Friends ,and my front page privileges were revoked at leftinalabama.  It still hurts I am banned from participating in the Informed.  Involved.  Progressive. discussion at the place where it all started for me, where I dared be a voice for the voiceless.  So I will will mark this milestone the same as before, by respectfully asking my privileges be reinstated at Left in Alabama.

Cults demand their adherents break with friends and family; political parties shouldn't.

Today's Must Read
Open Letter to the GOP:  Here is Why You Lost