Arizona and Paul Simon: Still Crazy After All These Years

Arizona is still crazy.  Exhibit 451: Senate Bill 1188, sponsored by Sen. Linda Gray, R-Glendale, would require an adoption agency to "give primary consideration to adoptive placement with a married man and woman."  Exhibit 452: Senate Bill 1187, also sponsored by Gray, would allow someone going through a divorce to ask the court to extend the 60-day waiting period required before a divorce can proceed.  Both of these measures were rejected last year by the state legislature.  So while we continue to ignore budget deficits, illegal gun sales, and foreclosures, Ms. Linda Gray has decided that the state is best served when legislating morality and family issues.  So I guess that kind of big government is OK?  To think I liked her when she played Sue Ellen on Dallas.

Kids say the darndest things:  Former first daughter: "I am Barbara Bush, and I am a New Yorker for marriage equality. New York is about fairness and equality. And everyone should have the right to marry the person that they love."  In a related story Illinois Governor Pat Quinn signed into law, effective June 1, legalizing civil unions giving gay and lesbian couples official recognition from the state and many of the rights that accompany traditional marriage, including the power to decide medical treatment for an ailing partner and the right to inherit a partner's property.

So the Obama administration isn’t tough on immigration or crime?  The Transactional Records Access Clearinghouse (TRAC) said that felony immigration prosecutions in federal court systems along the border from Houston to San Diego went up 259 percent from 2007 to 2010, increasing nearly 16,000 to 36,321.  In complex top-priority areas, drug prosecutions rose modestly to 26,805 last year, up from 26,336 in the last year of the Bush administration. White-collar crime prosecutions topped 9,700 last year, up from 8,108 in the last year of the Bush administration. There were 727 public corruption prosecutions last year, up from 675 in the last year of the Bush administration. Organized crime prosecutions were 572 last year, up from 450 in 2009 and 481 in 2008.  Yeah Holder is a softy and not as tough as Mukasey.  Facts hurt.

So what’s next for the healthcare debate?  A series of lower court rulings and appeals, possibly a no vote on repeal in the Senate, continued build up of infrastructure at the state level, growing anti-repeal sentiment from the populace, and eventually a trip to the Supreme Court.  How symmetrical that the push for healthcare reform was Ted Kennedy’s torch to carry, and now it will likely end up being another Kennedy, Justice Anthony Kennedy who may decide the fate of the current reform.  One side note; this isn’t likely to be a digital outcome: yea or nay.  Instead, expect an analog answer where the mandate may be severed from the law and the rest of the law stands.

We need to secure the borders immediately.  Illegal immigrants are pouring over the border.  Thankfully the agents at ICE stopped another smuggling ring.  What’s that?  They didn’t come over the border?  They were Indian illegals falsely enrolled at Tri-Valley University in Pleasanton, CA?  Sort of, they were here on student F-1 visas, enrolled at a university that only existed as a webpage, and were actually working in other parts of the country.  Wasn’t the movie Accepted about a fake university?

Is it ironic, indicative, or illuminating that the Republican National Committee (RNC) is $23Million in debt?  Sounds just like the GOP’s borrow and spend fiscal conservative lawmaking.