Nation responds to State Sen McLachlan's birther bill

Ya Know... (4.00 / 1)

The more I think about it, the more intriguing McLachlan's proposed bill becomes.

Imagine if once every four years there's a "Certification Day," where all candidates for Pres and Vice-Pres (or a representative) arrive at the State Capitol to present their birth certificates to the waiting Secretary of State. It'd be a throwback to the royal courts of old, complete with "nobles" (State Senators & Reps) watching from the sidelines with vested interest.

...Then again, there's a reason why we rebuffed monarchistic systems. Also, this bill would not have been proposed if Barack Obama weren't president. Shame on you, Senator McLachlan, for if you are not a racist, you're playing the game of the racists. And that game sucks.  

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by: ChanceKell @ Tue Feb 01, 2011 at 17:34:57 PM UTC

Orly Taitz:12 states have bills (0.00 / 0)

If Gayle Slossberg wonders if McLachlan is acting on his own or as part of a group, well, we can at least say that a particular group is very enthusiastic about this CT bill.  

Posted at "Dr. Orly Taitz, Esquire"'s website, but in ALL CAPS:

As the Queen of the Birthers I would like to state that it is my royal pleasure to welcome the State of CT in the birther kingdom. It is the 12th state that filed an eligibility bill. Great job everyone. We need to keep working hard to make sure that each and every state in the Nation files such bill.

http://www.orlytaitzesq.com/

HMMM...I know, why doesn't GAE gut the bill and instead propose a mandatory "critical thinking skills" pretest be given to anyone running for the state legislature?  We can do so in a low-budget year as follows:  Permit each candidate to view Taitz's website for 60 seconds.  Anyone who does not tiptoe away quietly but instead asks for more time fails the test.  

McLachlan's website conveys that he is also very excited about the Florida decision re: Health Care Reform's "unconstitutionality". Is it possible to look up who's making significant donations to this senator and also learn to whom else are they donating?  It would be worth getting big picture here as to who is sponsoring him and how many other people they are sponsoring.  

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by: greenpeas @ Tue Feb 01, 2011 at 22:57:36 PM UTC

Is this a GOP grassrroots fundraising effort? (0.00 / 0)

Bills that follow the teabagger agenda may attract wingnut non-constituent (read: zero accountability) donations that the GOP can use for its 2012 races.

Is there a method to thi madness?  Can McLachlan redirect as he chooses any funds that come his way as a result of birther madness?

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by: greenpeas @ Tue Feb 01, 2011 at 23:36:33 PM UTC

MoJo provides an answer (0.00 / 0)

Silly me.  Birthers have hatched a plan whereby the SOS's of various states can have requirements in order to certify a candidate for president.  Remember literacy requirements?  Same intent.  If you have a Certificate of Live Birth, then they want a Long Form.  

The point is apparently to keep Obama off the ballot.  See the piece in Mother Jones linked below.  

http://motherjones.com/politic...

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by: greenpeas @ Wed Feb 02, 2011 at 02:29:12 AM UTC

[ Parent ]

This Just IN: Extraterrestrials Living Among Us (0.00 / 0)

This may be an East Coast exclusive (not sure):

. . .Mr. Wills, who is 6 feet 8 inches tall, talks about how he was adopted by a human family, how he dealt with his unusual abilities growing up, how he was visited regularly by an extraterrestrial delegation that briefed him on his extraterrestrial identity and his mission, how during these visits he was told to watch for specific signs during the 18-year period preceding 2012 as to whether the earth and the human population would veer toward peace or war, and how these visits stopped on the day of September 11, 2001, Mr. Wills' birthday and the date a regularly scheduled visit was of the extraterrestrial delegation to occur.

In conversation with Alfred Lambremont Webre, Mr. Wills speaks about the 2012-13 catastrophic timeline and the 2012-13 positive timeline and what this means to all of us.

http://www.examiner.com/exopol...

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by: greenpeas @ Wed Feb 02, 2011 at 02:49:25 AM UTC

What the hell happened to Danbury (4.00 / 1)

I grew up in Danbury and although,like every town in Ct,we had are fair share of wackos they were never handed the keys to city Hall or sent to Hartford to represent the people of Danbury.

The Danbury I remember was a pretty progressive town that welcomed with open arms immigrants (mostly Portegese when I was growing up there) and although we had our racial tensions that exploded in the High school yearly we seemed to have ended that rediculous tradition in the late 70s.

When and what happened there that made Danbury become the Alabama of Connecticut?

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by: ctkeith @ Wed Feb 02, 2011 at 18:17:01 PM UTC

Mark Boughton is what happened (0.00 / 0)

along with his merry band of racist thugs.  

For years they have been railing on the illegals in town.  This dumb sack of shit is my state senator and he's just a Boughton Lackey who stepped into the hole left by another dumb sack of shit Cappiello when he decided to run for the US House vs Murphy.  

Unfortunately he represents the part of the city that is populated by mostly white upper middle class people around Richter Park sprinkled with alot of older white decended from eastern Europe who watch Fox News and believe the bullshit.  

I have a birther on my street who once in a while comes over and starts with his 'the economy sucks and Obama is the fault nonsense' which I immediately turn right back around to the bankers and the republicans for looking the other way under Bush.  One time he tried to start with the borth certificate nonsense and I asked him if he really thought that Obama somehow managed to get elected all those times without ever showing a birth certficate and that Bush a Republican somehow let him do it.  That was enough to turn him off the subject with mumbles of how they are all in on the fix.  Another time he came down and asked me if the big truck parked on our street belonged to my tenant (which he didn't say but insinuated was illegal).  Unfortunately for him my tenant is not illegal, (although his wife is) and the truck belonged to someone else.  Being a wise ass I told him it didn't belong to my tenant and that my tenant wasn't home because he was working plowing our streets.  This was during one of Boughton's winter emergency threat levels where you can't park cars on the street and the guy was being the unofficial watchman of the block or something.  It's not the first time he's asked about cars parked by my house.  He knows my tenant is spanish and I don't think he likes him much even though he doesn't know the guy like I have known him for going on 9 years.

I have another neighbor, older single very rich, Irish decent woman woman who a few years ago walked our neighborhood with a petition against immigrants or some nonsense.  This is in a neighborhood with Portuguese, Polish, Jamaican, Laotian, Vietnamese, Spanish, Brasilian, Mexican, Irish, Ecuadorian and lord knows what other nationality.  I politely told her I would not sign it and why.  She invited me to one of their anti immigrant meetings.  If ignorance does equal bliss then this woman is truly blissful.  Especially since she lives right next to the Mexican family.  The sad part is she even went to the Jamaican family who live next to me.  They related to me how thair meeting went.  They were like WTF?!?  Is this woman crazy?  

That's MacLachlan's constituents in a nutshell.

I don't know what the Dems run strong candidates against these people.  The Dems in Danbury are not the most organized and for several years after Eriquez left they have mailed it in as far as candidates from mayor on down.  One year they had an older gentleman running against my state rep who is another dumb as a bag a of rocks republican, Jan Gigler.  He was a likeable person with some great ideas but no support whatsoever.  He was walking the streets alone and that was pretty much his campaign.  He did it because the Dems didn't have anyone so he was the sacrificial lamb.  The sad part is with some party support we can knock out both Jan Geigler and this dumb shit MacLachlan.  A sold grassroots get out the vote campaign will do it.  These people don't win with overwhelming vote totals.  When all is said and done they get like 10% of the peoples votes.  Hell even Boughton only wins with 10% of the people in town.  I think last time he got like 8,000+ votes, out of 80,000 people and about 35,000 registered voters in town.  The problem is the Dems run candidates nobody knows or respects who even the registered Dems don't vote for.  The last 2 Dem candidates for Mayor each got like 4,000 votes.  There are 11,000 registered Dems in town.  When not even half of the registered Dems show up for you, that's pathetic.    

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by: DisNoir36 @ Mon Feb 07, 2011 at 13:35:28 PM UTC

[ Parent ]

Thanks for weighing in (0.00 / 0)

You mentioned a lot of factors in the changes in Danbury.

What's the unemployment rate like there, and what are the biggest employers?  Is this a combo of influx of relatively rapidly increasing numbers of immigrants mixed with limited opportunities for the old timers?

Contrast this with an article in the NY Times this weekend about the Jackson Heights section of Queens which is gaining popularity among younger professionals -- it is a highly diverse area and that is part of what makes it interesting to increasing numbers of people.

I just heard that 7% of marriages among younger generation are mixed-race marriages.  (grin -the blood pressure in some sections of Danbury just went up...).  Forget where, but a commenter on some column about MLK day (don't think it was here, was it?) said that an adult was explaining to a child who MLK was and how he stood up because people with dark skin were not allowed to do the same things people with white skin were allowed to do.  The kid thought the whole concept of discrimination based on skin color was just plain weird.  Bravo.

Life is changing in the US, whether the Boughtonites like it or not. With compassion for all and malice toward none, we CAN create great communities together.   Danbury desperately needs both candidates who can communicate and inspire people with a vision for the future, plus a working grassroots Democratic GOTV apparatus.  That's a tall order.

As to the Dems in Danbury: If your characterization of their ineffectiveness is accurate, is laying down like a dead dog a flaw or a feature of the local Dem operation?

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by: greenpeas @ Mon Feb 07, 2011 at 15:10:55 PM UTC

[ Parent ]

Unemployment in Danbury is low (4.00 / 2)

relative to the state.  We have a good mix of businesses in Danbury.  Alot of high end like GE Capital and Cartus Financial.  Alot of high tech like Barden Industries and Fuel Cell.  Alot of Pharmaceuticals like Boehringer.  We have the Danbury Mall which is one of the largest malls in the region.  We have the airport and related businesses.  We have the Hospital which employs alot of people.  Western Connecticut State University.  Construction was also big.  We had a huge project off exit 2 on I-84 near the Union Carbide site (Union Carbide is gone but their corporate HQ was sold and is a class A office park which is fully leased I believe) that called for like 2,000 condo units.  The company WCI went under but Toll Brothers bought it this past year and are going forward with Phase 1.  So there is alot of jobs, in various sectors.  Office space is mostly leased as opposed to other areas where their is a high vacancy. Median income is higher than state average too.  Plus the fact that you can hop on 684 and get to NYC in an hour or so is a big plus

The problem with Danbury is there was a rapid influx of Spanish and Portuguese/Brasilian speaking immigrants.  This followed an influx of Asians (Laotians, Cambodians, Vietnamese, etc) in the 80's-90's.  The old timers, seeing these people coming in have just reacted in a very negative fashion.  The mayor and fellow republicans have fueled that fire.  

First several years ago they tried to ban volleyball games because Ecuadorians would usually have volleyball games and would attract lots of people.  

Then they tried to ban 'spontaneous celebrations' because the Brasilians would get real festive after their team won a World Cup match and it would spill out from their businesses on Main Street to the streets and snarl up traffic.  Unfortunately rather than redirect their celebrations to Rogers Park which is at the end of Main Street and consists of several athletic fields and open space, the mayor used the issue to pit other Danbury residents against the Brasilians.  BTW I witnessed some of those celebrations and for the most part they were harmless.  Much more so than say when national sports teams win and their fans go crazy burning cars and trashing local businesses.

After that Boughton created a 'task force' that goes around and busts people for housing violations.  Of course they always patrol the downtown areas where minorities live and never target the areas around the 2 golf courses which have all sorts of illegal apartments in basements and over garages.

Lately it's been just an outright targetting of everyone who looks brown.  Boughton brought in ICE and it's caused all sorts of havoc.  In one case a whole family of Brasilians was deported except the youngest daughter who was born here. The whole family had been here for 18 years.  The 2 older brothers came when they were still in diapers and the family had been trying to become legalized all that time.  The girl was 17 and she had to watch her whole family be shipped back to a country that her 2 brothers didn't even know.  One case I witnessed, a Hispanic guy was pulled over driving his boss's truck and he got pulled over for air fresheners hanging off the rear view mirror.  Air Fresheners.  The reality was he was guilty of DWB and everyone knew it.  Driving While Brown.  

Suffice to say there is alot of tension.  With the bust of the housing market and the bullshit they have had to endure many of the immigrants have decided to go back in many cases leaving their houses to the banks.  It's not worth it.  No jobs and a constant fear of being picked up while walking down the street or driving or hanging out at night.  The result is the multi family market has tanked.  Multi family homes are literally worth HALF what they were selling for 4 years ago and the rent is down alot because there are too many vacant units and not enough people looking to rent.

The good news is that this is literally the last gasp of these older white bigots.  The minority communities are growing and the kids in my son's school for example don't really have a clue about racism.  My son didn't even know what it meant.  His friends are of all nationalities and they don't really get what is different.  It's all normal for them which is great.

As for teh politics, Danbury needs a strong Dem party that focuses on the immigrants and highlights it.  The party is really weak.  Danbury is a very diverse community with something close to 100 nationalities represented.  We have Greek festivals, Irish, Italian, Lebanese, Portuguese and on and on.  Many nationalities have community centers including the Portuguese Cultural Center which is HUGE and the Amerigo Vespucci Lodge, plus all sorts of churches, eateries and businesses.  You can go downtown and literally eat foods from a few dozen nationalities from Peruvian, El Salvadorian, Ecuadorian, Japanese, Thai, Brasilian, Mexican, Portuguese, Chinese, Italian, french and lord knows what else.  

If the Dems came out and embraced the multi cultural nature of the city they would do well.  Right now for example there are all these festivals but no cohesion.  We have a Taste of Danbury festival where they all sort of get together but it's small.  If they proposed to bring all the festivals together, a mass ad campaign for example and have a series of festivals culminating in a great Taste of Danbury it would attract people from all over.  For example, everyone knows that the first Sunday of June is the Portuguese festival.  We have a parade and then all sorts of activities at the Cultural Center.  Rather than we advertising for it independently, we could pool our resources and cross promote the other festivals.  Make it regional in scale to attract people from all over.  Newark NJ typically has a Day of Portugal as well in the Ironbound section of Newark. In years past it was HUGE and would draw people from miles away.  The mayor Corey Booker kind of put a kibbosh on it.  Danbury could easily fill the void.  Every weekend there could be a different festival highlighting a different culture.  It could be held at Western Conn State University, any of the assorted public parks around town, downtown on the green or at the other community centers.  It would be no different than the film festival held in Danbury every year.  The mayor has wasted all sorts of time and money on a study and coming up with a plan for the downtown area to attract businesses and so on, but he's done nothing to attract people to those businesses.  This would attract people to Danbury.  

Not to mention his plan if I'd call it that sucks which is another area the Dems could focus on.  Rather than cracking down on night clubs like Boughton has done, the Dems should instead focus on incentivizing landlords to lease to people looking to open up retail shops, night clubs and more eateries downtown.  Sort of like Stamford or South Norwalk have done.  Alot of the downtown commercial is low rent office that can easily be placed on second floors or off Main Street like Insurance Agencies, fitness centers and so on.  They typicaly rent for almost nothing whereas retailers or restaurants or clubs would rent for more and would generate more foot traffic which would benefit other businesses in the area.  We now have 2 parking garages off Main Street so parking is not an issue, especially if people are parking and visiting more than one place.        

Another thing that can be done is to instead of cracking down on people celebrating the World Cup, have our own World Cup.  Lord knows we have plenty of nationalities that could participate.  Hold the matches at the cultural centers or any of the public parks, have open pavillions with the real matches on and charge a nominal fee for people to watch them there, have the local eateries pitch tents with some of their food being served and so on.  The great thing is it would centralize the festivities and make it easier to control, it would bring in revenue to the town and attrack tourists and visitors.  Rather than working against the immigrants if the Dems showed the would work WITH the immigrants they would gain their support.

If the Dems did some of these and show that they were the party of inclusion, innovation and fresh ideas as opposed to the crusty lily white Gop party of exclusion and no ideas, they would win in landslides.  Of course better candidates would also help, but there are alot of untapped areas for voters and supporters ready for the taking.    
                     

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by: DisNoir36 @ Tue Feb 08, 2011 at 05:07:53 AM UTC

[ Parent ]

Run, DisNoir36, run! n/t (0.00 / 0)

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by: greenpeas @ Tue Feb 08, 2011 at 06:16:34 AM UTC

[ Parent ]