Open door at restaurant in the French Quarter, New Orleans.
Four leading Alabama church leaders, the US Department of Justice and the Southern Poverty Law Center and a coalition of other civil rights groups all have sued to block Alabama's draconian - yet passed in 2011(!) - immigration law, which was to take effect September 1st. Today a federal judge issued a temporary injunction until September 29, to consider the law's constitutional implications.
As it stands, the law is "a sweeping attempt to terrorize undocumented immigrants in every aspect of their lives and to make potential criminals of anyone who may work or live with them or show them kindness," the New York Times says in an editorial.
Read more about the country's most inhumane immigration measure to date. Read it and weep that in 2011, any thinking person could support such inhumanity: the Alabama law defies every principle of decency, fairness and equality. Shame on Alabama Governor Robert Bentley and the state legislature for their unconscionable actions!
Meanwhile, the Electronic Frontier Foundation is returning to court to fight AT&T and the US government's warrantless wiretapping. Read more about the cases here.
Among previous posts about warrantless wiretapping at Paris Parfait:
AT&T maintains secret room for NSA, documents allege
What? Oh, Tara, I'm embarrassed you know more about what is happening here than I do lately. Our political issues have me in a stew all the time, but this is really too much.
Posted by: jeanie | 31 August 2011 at 05:27
Charles, you're absolutely right: intelligence vs. ignorance, as well as the ongoing class warfare, with many rich corporate-types (i.e. the despicable Koch brothers and Rupert Murdoch) trying to manipulate and control everything. It's a sad and sorry state of affairs for our once-great country.
Posted by: Tara Bradford | 30 August 2011 at 17:07
Yes we can "just throw everyone out and start over" but we don't. It is easy to dismiss Bentley, Scott, Perry, et al., as aberrations, but how does one account for the hundreds of thousands, perhaps millions, of Americans who support and encourage them? The American Civil War never really ended; it is being fought still; the opposing armies are now called Intelligence and Ignorance. And Ignorance is gaining strength in numbers.
Posted by: Charles Robert Baker | 30 August 2011 at 16:25
Tara,
Thank you for sharing this. Disgusting, and yes, we are better than this. At least many of us. But I am beginning to despair of the self-centered and very destructive partisanship, that is willing to blow up the economy and take the country down, to further their minority agenda.
Immigrants, legal or otherwise, are first and foremost, human beings, and come here to find hope, after leaving countries filled with despair.
Don't let me get started on the homeless mentally ill, who need care, and are fending for themselves on the streets instead.
Posted by: Mary Jane | 30 August 2011 at 12:04
Marilyn, that makes millions of us! Most of them should be fired for failing to do their jobs.
Posted by: Tara Bradford | 30 August 2011 at 10:45
Bonnie, I have been reading about Scott's outrageous antics; let's hope he's a one-term governor, so he can't do further damage. It is shocking that basic services are being dismantled and environmental protections cast aside, in favour of profit. This behaviour goes against everything we believe, as Americans. I've never seen a crazier group of politicians than the ones in office now. It's shameful that corporate money can propel such nuts into office to do their worst. I really don't know what happened to the Republican party - they once were reasonable. It seems the GOP has been hijacked by a bunch of extremists who care nothing for anyone but themselves and their corporate masters. Pity the nation and pity the states!
Posted by: Tara Bradford | 30 August 2011 at 10:40
Karena, I often think the same thing, especially since the GOP is refusing to compromise on anything - in effect, they're refusing to do the job they were elected to do: govern, which means fixing problems; not adding to them! It's disgraceful.
Posted by: Tara Bradford | 30 August 2011 at 10:36
Can't we just throw everyone out and start over?
Come and join my new fashion Giveaway from Fresh Produce!
xoxo
Karena
Art by Karena
Posted by: Karena | 30 August 2011 at 06:06
ahhh...
If you think Alabama Governor Robert Bentley
is unbelievably BAD
you should Google Florida Governor Rick Scott,
who by all rights should be in prison
for major Medicare fraud.
Scott is ready to completely overlook The Clean Water Act
which protects drinking water for the entire state.
All this to let developers build in the wetlands.
Most recently,
his antics completely cut the Mental Health Department
out of my county's budget as of July 1, 2011,
And i could go on and on...
Do not EVEN get me started
on Texas Governor Rick Perry
and his group of crazies...
Posted by: somepinkflowers | 30 August 2011 at 01:20
I think I am just totally disgusted with our government in general and each thing I hear makes me more so.
Posted by: Marilyn | 30 August 2011 at 00:01