Arizona Corporation Commission member Gary Pierce has threatened that the state may cut off power to Los Angeles if that city goes forward with a boycott of his state over its controversial immigration law. The city gets 25 percent of its power from Arizona.
In his letter, Pierce stated:
If an economic boycott is truly what you desire, I will be happy to encourage Arizona utilities to renegotiate your power agreements so Los Angeles no longer receives any power from Arizona-based generation.
I am confident that Arizona’s utilities would be happy to take those electrons off your hands. If, however, you find that the City Council lacks the strength of its convictions to turn off the lights in Los Angeles and boycott Arizona power, please reconsider the wisdom of attempting to harm Arizona’s economy.
Here is the full letter to the Mayor: Letter to LA
For the full story, click here.
Gyges:
Ah! My eyes! They burn! They BURN!! The visual would be pretty disturbing, but overall, I think it would be pretty damned funny!
VLF (in regards to your first post):
I often wonder how this sort of thing would work out if all parties involved were naked.
Woosty’s, mespo, Elaine and Buddha: thank you all for your kind remarks.
Mike A:
You are my idol 🙂
BIL:
I prefer to use more “colorful” language to get my point across 🙂
Mike A.,
Outstanding job. Well played, sir.
“It’s not likely that the city of Los Angeles could bring down the state of Arizona in one fell swoop or cause Arizona to rethink its law. So, Pierce’s cordial-but-insulting letter was just another empty, political gesture and seems more like a who-can-jump-farther kind of competition. (Note: Pierce is up for reelection this year.)
After fielding media responses all day Wednesday, Pierce admitted Arizona didn’t have the power to pull the plug and that it was just a way to call out L.A.’s hypocrisy. This isn’t middle school, and these kinds of passive-aggressive games could really affect important issues and people’s lives.
Pierce told one news organization he was surprised by the national media attention his letter received. It’s really not that surprising considering most news organizations tend to take threats pretty seriously, whether the bully can follow through or not.”
From http://blog.newsweek.com/blogs/thegaggle/archive/2010/05/19/arizona-threatens-los-angeles-sort-of.aspx
vlf2112,
Seems Newsweek adopted your “big dick” theory about Peirce’s posturing even if they did use the “jumping” language.
Mike A.
“But since death comes even to the faithful, Tootie’s ideas will die with her, leaving only her acidic remains to produce a healthy new crop of blue hydrangeas, proving once again that beauty, like truth, always survives hatred, intolerance and bitterness.”
Love it! Thank you.
I guess I’m one of those folks Tootie’s ranting about. My father and all of my grandparents came to the US from Eastern Europe.
I should add that unless Tootie is descended from the indigenous peoples of North America–she too is the spawn of immigrants. Those early British colonists and their descendants did a pretty good job of eliminating much of the native population of this continent. Talk about genocide!
MIke A:
Cogent psychoanalysis as always.
OMG!!! Holy Hannah!
this is the best line of this whole twisted conversation…
“The gist of it is that hordes of illegal immigrants come into the states in order to feed at the public trough and generally take it easy. This argument confuses illegal immigrants with politicians.”
thank you! hahahaha ….that says it all!
unfortunately it may be true 🙁
One more thing…
Arizona Uber Alles!
This is why among other reason we should have a Nationalized Power Grid and in fact Nationalize all Major Energy..
Until we do this we won’t move into the 21st Century, or really be able to compete Globally but also if we do this and have a Single Payer Heath Care System which would also cut costs and took the burden off our companies we could create an Economic Boom!
I know this isn’t the Legal analysis but it is the Solution look at the BP disaster and the corruption of our government by the Power Industry and Oil industry and Coal Industry and Underground Mines there’s I hear 16,000 unanswered violations pending by stalling with appeals in the mean time men die and more men will die, fodder to our 19th century model.
I imagine this could be argued to violate the Constitution the Commerce Clause comes to mind, but this was what I wanted to say we need solutions apparently Obama is adverse to solutions from what I’ve seen…
Responding to a stream of consciousness rant which clogs rational discourse is much like responding to a serious case of diarrhea clogging the toilet. It produces a stench, but cannot be ignored. And instead of tackling the problem in reasonable bits, it is necessary to simply pick up a plunger and attack as best one can.
That is the task facing anyone who wishes to reply to Tootie’s posts on the issue of immigration. But in an effort to unclog the discourse with some semblance of order, I will attempt to break down the intellectual sewage into some of its component myths, as follows:
1. The Non-Assimilation Myth: This is perhaps the oldest complaint about immigrants. Even Benjamin Franklin complained about Pennsylvania Germans who refused to learn English. When I lived in El Paso, Texas from 1958-1964, I had many Mexican-American friends, not because I sought them out as potential Democrats, but because they constituted the largest ethnic group in El Paso. All of my friends spoke English and in many cases, sadly, their parents would not permit them to speak Spanish at home, all out of a desire to become “Americanized.” A few years later I lived in a Polish farming community of approximately 2,000 people in western Massachusetts. Many of the older folks in that community spoke no English at all. There was even a Catholic Church in that town exlusively for Polish Catholics in which services were conducted in that language. Those who were my age all spoke English, of course, but I simply do not recall any organized efforts to make English the official language of Massachusetts or to ban the consumption of golumpkis. The fact is that it is a desire common to all people to feel a part of their surroundings. That includes Hispanics. Those who advance arguments which defy our common experience of human nature should re-examine their own attitudes and beliefs.
2. The Dr. Strangelove Myth: This myth is so named because its adherents remind me of Gen. Jack T. Ripper, who argued that fluoridation of drinking water was part of a Communist plot to “sap and impurify our precious bodily fluids.” This is part of the myth of Anglo-Saxon superiority which regular raises its ugly visage in immigration debates. It is the argument of the Know Nothing Movement of the 1840s, a particularly virulent reaction to Irish immigration in the previous decade. It is the argument behind the Chinese Exclusion Act of 1882 and the “Gentlemen’s Agreement” with Japan a few years later. It is the argument of the eugenics movement in the early part of the last century, when Tootie’s spiritual forebears argued that the influx of “undesirable classes” from southern and eastern Europe threatened to end the dominance of the Protestant English and northwestern Europeans who had, after all, created a society of intelligence, good breeding and culture. This myth is closely related to
3. The Myth of Immigration as Political Weapon: On this issue Tootie takes us back to the years before the New Deal, when Republicans were in firm control of government and Protestants were in firm control of everything else (they were, of course, the same people). Republicans, as one would expect, behaved as they do now, stalwart in their belief that the wealthy enjoyed God’s favor and were entitled to make the rules, that labor unions were organized mobs hell-bent on destroying the sanctity of contract doctrine which enabled every man to freely agree upon the terms of his indentured servitude, and who reveled in a Wall Street culture in which they and all of their friends could, with diligence and an absence of government regulation, amass great fortunes. We all know how that ended. Fortunately, the great influx of Irish Catholics, Jews, southern Europeans and other undesirables which filled our cities and manned our factories from the late 1880s onward were motivated to push the Democrats into power to free themselves from Republican benign neglect and usher in the New Deal. But that movement was a reaction; those immigrants were already here, not bused in like so many Tea Party demonstrators.
4. The Myth of Welfarism. This argument has its purely domestic counterpart in the “welfare queen” myth popularized by Ronald Reagan among those who either have no clue as to how much it costs to raise a child, or who have darker motives. The gist of it is that hordes of illegal immigrants come into the states in order to feed at the public trough and generally take it easy. This argument confuses illegal immigrants with politicians. It also ignores fundamental laws of economics and national pride. A person who willingly leaves his wife, his children and everything familiar to him in order to make a dangerous crossing into a country filled with people who resent him, who speak a language he does not understand and who are quite willing to take advantage of him given the opportunity, is displaying a courage which few of us possess, driven by the desire to ease the debilitating proverty of those he loves in spite of the risks. That is his motivation. The demand for his services is the cause. We have illegal immigration for the same reason that we have border drug wars, to feed a seemingly insatiable American demand for highs and cheap labor.
5. The Myth of American Exceptionalism: It is the preservation of this myth which primarily drives the others. It is the belief that this is, and was intended by God to be, a nation of Protestant Christians, charged with serving as proof of the Almighty’s blessings on those who conform to certain theological tenets. So we see the constant efforts to eliminate separation of church and state. We see the constant efforts to introduce religious doctrine into the teaching of history and science. We see the constant efforts to deny equal rights to those who refuse to accept narrow, sectarian beliefs. It is the destruction of this myth above all else which motivates much of what passes for “enforcing” immigration laws.
In the end, Tootie wants to preserve her version of America, whether or not it actually exists. Any beliefs or political programs which takes issue with her reality are conspiracies, therefore, and their proponents are, ipso facto, anti-American, even treasonous. But since death comes even to the faithful, Tootie’s ideas will die with her, leaving only her acidic remains to produce a healthy new crop of blue hydrangeas, proving once again that beauty, like truth, always survives hatred, intolerance and bitterness.
rcampbell,
I certainly agree with everything you’ve written on this thread with one small caveat:
Clinton and his Secy of Treas., Rubin played a role in the groundwork (the 1999 repeal of the Glass-Steagall Act of 1933, which effectively had split investment banking and brokerages from commercial banks)that led to the financial disaster under Bush.
Rubin was co-chair of Goldman from ’90-’92 and after leaving Clinton’s administration in 1999, served as Director and Senior Counselor of Citigroup and, for a short time in 2007, as Chairman. In 2009, after being criticized for his performance, he resigned Citigroup. In the 8 years he worked for Citigroup he received more than $126 million in cash and stock.
toots
“To gloss over the seriousness of eliminating an entire race from a continent (whites were once about 90 percent of the population and are soon to be about 50 percent) and to shrug off the monumental breech of trust used to do it by telling me that there are some nice immigrants is to miss entirely the profound moral complexities and injustice of the situation.”
Ummm … Native people were once 100% of the population and are now less than 2% of the population. They actually were the victims of genocide, via intentional infection with smallpox, mass murder etc. (as opposed to fantasies about the genocide of white americans). If you want to get your knickers in a twist about the elimination of an entire race from the continent, it seems to me you should be railing about the monumental breach of trust and injustice of that.
Oh wait. Native people aren’t white. never mind.
By the way, the Obama administration has deported more undocumented immigrants than President Bush’s ever did.
“The number of deportations each year more than tripled during the Bush era — and has kept going up since then. During fiscal year 2009, the first fiscal year of the Obama era, 387,790 immigrants were deported — almost 100,000 more during the last full fiscal year of the Bush presidency. Department of Homeland Security officials stress one big difference between Bush and Obama policies: that the percentage of convicted criminals among the deportees is rising dramatically.
In fiscal year 2008, 31 percent of the 369,221 deportees had criminal records. From October of 2009 to late April of 2010, that figure was up to 48 percent.”
But, by all means, don’t let facts get in the way of your delusional rants.
I stand by what I said. Conservative have nothing to offer anyone at anytime on any subject.
The New Colossus:
Not like the brazen giant of Greek fame,
with conquering limbs astride from land to land;
Here at our sea-washed, sunset gates shall stand
a mighty woman with a torch, whose flame
is the imprisoned lightning, and her name
Mother of Exiles. From her beacon-hand
Glows world-wide welcome; her mild eyes command
The air-bridged harbor that twin cities frame,
“Keep, ancient lands, your storied pomp!” cries she
with silent lips. “Give me your tired, your poor,
Your huddled masses yearning to breathe free,
The wretched refuse of your teeming shore,
Send these, the homeless, tempest-tost to me,
I lift my lamp beside the golden door!”
“In 1883, Emma Lazarus was a 34 year old poet and member of a prominent New york Jewish family. She was invited to submit a poem for the Art Loan Exhibit, the proceeds of which would be used to fund the statue’s base. At first she refused, but two days later submitted the poem “The New Colossus” inspired by her horror at the anti-Semitic riots in Russia and the sight of refugees who fled them.”
http://www.endex.com/gf/buildings/liberty/libertyquestions.htm
Stinkin’ ferners.
Woosty: OKEY DOKEY
rcampbell:
The person I responded to apologized for not being precise enough in the response I answered which set you off in a tizzy. If that is good enough for me it should be good enough for you.
And I thought that the blood-thirsty people who agree to snuffing out the lives of 48 million human organisms in the womb had a remote ability to teach morals to others, I’d say so.
Byron:
The American people, according to the law of nations which during our time is a more tangible reality, have always had the right of a people–any people–to self determination.
When the American people were last consulted officially by their representatives in Washington D.C. as to who, and what kind, and what type of people they would be or remain while a legal immigration system was operating in this country, the promise by those government officials was that the ethnic makeup of the country would not change as a result of immigration.
You may not like that promise or you may not like the attitude of the people who gave their assent to that promise, but that is the last official discussion between the government of United States and the American people about the most serious matter of immigration. A matter of national security and survival.
To gloss over the seriousness of eliminating an entire race from a continent (whites were once about 90 percent of the population and are soon to be about 50 percent) and to shrug off the monumental breech of trust used to do it by telling me that there are some nice immigrants is to miss entirely the profound moral complexities and injustice of the situation.
Not only has the ethnic makeup of this country been quite disrupted, actual genocide is occurring. Indeed the immigration groups now work against the best interests of the country including fighting the people who invited them in in the first place.
Pointing out that a handful of successful immigrants from non-western lands, who we have always had here even before the 1965 Immigration Act, does not wipe clean away the sweeping nature of this most devious legislative crime committed against against any people ever.
There is nothing in the annuals of history that remotely resembles, on this scale, the heinous act by a government which intentionally eliminates its own racial population in exchange for another, through legislation against the will of its people.
This is being done solely for political reasons. Democrats cannot get many more converts to their insane political party. So they are importing them.
And so, I find it interesting that when the United Nations was setting up (in 1948) the legal definition for genocide, Joseph Stalin refused to agree to the definition if it included the elimination of political groups. In other words, he felt a government should be able to exterminate groups for political reasons.
That is exactly what democrats are doing!
They want amnesty because they know they can bribe largely Hispanics immigrants in particular. That translates in votes and that overthrows the whole political system by fraud. A thing Stalin would agree with. Naturally.
At just what point will enough genocide satisfy the democrats? When whites are 25 percent of the population? I have no idea. Democrats are insane, and I don’t understand insane people.
But I can tell you this, if I proposed laws that would replace the black population of Africa with whites, I would likely be murdered for it if I left the country.