The Dish

Friedersdorf's proposal.

A reader writes:

Whenever I read about the absurdity of the Arizona law (and of course, the lawyer that I am, I went out and read the law), my thoughts turn to my family.  I'm half Cuban, my family has been here for more or less 40 years – citizens, naturalized or natural born, all.  What I think about most is my 85 year old grandfather (or my 75 year old great aunt) whose English isn't very good (it's deteriorated a lot in the last ten years since my grandmother passed away).  He's a naturalized citizen, he doesn't have "papers."  He may have a passport, but are we really going to say that you have to carry your passport for domestic travel (which, by the way, is unconstitutional)?  How, exactly, is he suppose to prove his citizenship?  Or for that matter, my mother, who was so young when they came to the US that she was naturalized because her parents were naturalized?

There are a lot of people who are going to be harassed under this law.  And they're not going to be illegal immigrants, they are going to be American citizens.

 I've already heard the line coming from people on the "right" that "no one should be ashamed to declare their citizenship."  But seriously, why should we have to?  It's no different than saying "if you haven't done anything wrong, you don't have anything to worry about."  And more importantly, what happens when the law enforcement officer doesn't believe someone who says (in broken English, or another language) that they are an American citizen?  How do you prove it if you don't have "papers"?

This is California Prop 187 all over – but in a digital age.  This may well be the undoing of the GOP.

Another reader:

I'd like to comment briefly on Bryon York's excerpt in the "Showing Your ID" post. If you don't want to produce ID at the airport, you can choose not to use the airport. The same goes for using a credit card, entering a government building, or any of the other services he lists. A person does not need to produce ID provided that they agree to forgo using any of the services that require it. The Arizona law, on the other hand, is very much a "where are your papers" scenario in which law enforcement can presume that you are in the country illegality unless you have the documentation on your person that proves otherwise. As a natural born citizen of this country, that scares the hell out of me.

Yet another:

A person who gets stopped and doesn't have adequate proof of citizenship will get fined $500. In other words, if you go out for a jog and don't have your drivers license or whatever the police that stops you thinks is appropriate, you'll get fined. That will happen to people who are legally here…even citizens. Matter of fact, the only people that would get fined are legally here, since presumably the undocumented would get put into federal custody.

This means, in theory, that everyone needs to be carrying papers constantly in case they get stopped. Of course, many people know full well that they won't get stopped. This is the main reason why the Tea Party crowd, who cry "fascism" throw up pictures of Adolf Hitler for things like health insurance reform, are not the least bit outraged by this. This is the main reason why Arizona

Legislators, who have passed resolutions against the Real ID act and tried to ban speed cameras as police overreach, is not the least bit outraged by this. I suppose we won't see any true outrage "small government conservatives" unless this gets enforced against folks that look like the people who are supporting this.

Who looks more illegal: the blonde Norwegian U of A student who overstays her visa or the Army vet in Guadalupe who is sweaty after a day of yard work? Our trouble is that we know the answer that many of the politicians supporting this law would give.

And by the way, I don't think it is a stretch to call the people who are pushing this racist. Sen. Pearce got dinged a few years ago for forwarding neo-Nazi propaganda to his e-mail list and for hanging out with a white supremacist leader.

Another:

I don't have a deep thought about the new Arizona law, but I can give you a personal perspective that I'm sure many US born non-white citizens share.  I will not go to Arizona with my children for a very simple reason.  I'm a 40 year old of Chinese Mexican background.  In some parts of this country (from Los Angeles to Massachusetts), I have been stopped or denied services for the way I look.  I'm not going to Arizona because I do not want my family to share that experience, which Arizona has set up to be inherently humiliating.  All the policy issues pale in comparison. 

I'm very sorry for this since I was recently thinking of taking my children to experience the Grand Canyon.  What a loss.

Another reader:

I am a legal immigrant to US and love it here. I have been legal all my 10 years in this country and never had any issues with law enforcement. I must correct Byron York that the Arizona law is not about the drivers license. The law requires immigration papers to be shown wherever requested. A drivers license is a simple thing to show but carrying all immigration documents always is a nightmare. Do supporters of the bill even know how long it takes for USCIS to replace those documents if stolen or lost? If American citizens think DMV is hell, then USCIS/INS is super-hell.

Say they change the law to make it such that a drivers license is enough, even then I don’t want to carry my drivers license for when I go for a quick 10 minute run around the block. And the biggest question of all is “what is  reasonable suspicion”? Being different color? Being a tax-paying, law-abiding LEGAL immigrant, I definitely consider this law to be racist and being close to police-state.

Cesar Conda's post gets into the nuts and bolts of this. Another:

While technically correct, your correspondent who said that legal immigrants must carry their documents, misses a big point. First, these documents fall apart fast. But the major point is, WHEN HAS ANYONE BEEN ASKED TO PRODUCE THEM? If you get pulled over for speeding and produce a valid license, what would make a cop ask for your birth certificate? I don't carry mine. I'm a legal immigrant in a sense; I was born in Scotland to American parents. My birth certificate disappeared years ago, when my mother got Alzheimer's and evidently misplaced a lockbox.

This law places a new burden on a cop. Does the driver or any passengers look like a wetback? Do any of them not speak English? Do they wear Mexican clothes? Do they look shifty?

When I was a kid, some friends of mine were pulled over and one had a joint in his pocket. During the trial, the cop said, well it was four long-haired kids in a Volkswagen. So I had probable cause. Even the judge, a total fascist, was outraged.

The case was thrown out. And this law will be too.

(Photo: Undocumented Mexican immigrants are searched while being in-processed at the Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE), center on April 28, 2010 in Phoenix, Arizona. Across Arizona, city police and county sheriffs' departments turn over detained immigrants to ICE, which deports them to their home countries. Last year the federal agency deported some 81,000 illegal immigrants from the state of Arizona alone, and with the passage of the state's new tough immigration enforcement law, the number of deportations could rise significantly. By John Moore/Getty Images.)

Dramatic news via Spencer Ackerman from the military commission case of Omar Khadr, the Canadian detained by the US when he was just 15 and sent to Gitmo:

In the hearing’s most dramatic moment, Flowers said at least one interrogator would testify to having personally taken part in Khadr’s abuse. As detailed in a motion filed by the defense in 2008, Khadr claims in his affidavit that his interrogators threatened him with rape, denied him medical treatment for gunshot and shrapnel wounds he suffered in his July 2002 capture in Afghanistan, and used him as a “human mop” to clean up his own excrement. The interrogator, referred to in the hearing only as “Interrogator #1,” will testify on behalf of the defense that he personally threatened Khadr “with rape” by threatening to render Khadr to an undisclosed Arab country where he would face the abuse.

Yes, this was America. But we should move on, right?

"By ruling out a VAT when it could keep the federal deficit in check, politicians have all but guaranteed that the debt crisis, when it comes, will be more damaging. But by then, everyone will be clamoring for a VAT, so it will be safe to endorse it," – David Ignatius.

A reader pushes back against the new Susan Boyle of British politics, Gillian Duffy:

Her question was, "All those Eastern Europeans what are coming in, where are they flocking from?" Hmmm, how to answer the question? I’ve got it! The Eastern Europeans are flocking from Eastern Europe. Mrs. Duffy obviously knows the answer to her question; it’s contained in the question itself. So the question has to be about something other than its surface meaning; it’s not unreasonable to infer that her question is really code for “Those Eastern Europeans don’t belong here; Britain for the British!” 

Brown has just reminded her that the welfare state is now tied to work — contradicting her fantasy of immigrants taking welfare away from “real” Britons (“too many people who aren’t vulnerable who can claim and people who are vulnerable can’t get claim”) — and that it doesn’t discriminate between immigrants and non-immigrants.

She then says, “You can't say anything about the immigrants because you're saying that you're … All those Eastern Europeans what are coming in, where are they flocking from?” She refuses to acknowledge that she’s failed at reasoned discourse on the immigration issue, and begins to bemoan the fact that she can’t even talk about immigration the way she wants to, lest she get tarred as a bigot. Next thing you know, she makes a full stop, looks at a camera, decides she can’t hold it in anymore, and says something that is actually bigoted.

I’m sure that there are other ways to interpret the video of the conversation. Perhaps I’m just being a smug and ugly American (of Eastern European descent, incidentally). But I’d like you, or one of your readers, to offer a compelling reading of what’s actually going on. At present, I can’t help thinking that while the conversation shows that Brown is a horrible campaigner and the last gasp (or fart) of Labour, it also shows a sickly underside of the British Anglo working class.

A reader writes:

Americans may be more familiar with the feature film spin-off of "The Thick Of It" – In The Loop. The clip you posted of Malcolm Tucker's expletive rant was great, but here's a compilation of his greatest hits from the movie. The actor, Peter Capaldi, is truly a master of the foul mouth. (In the vein of another great Scottish actor, Robert Carlyle, in Trainspotting.)

Totally not safe for work, so use your headphones if you have them. The c-word is not as radioactive and far more common in Britain as it is in America. Mercifully, Fallows approves too – so I'm not the only profanity-promoting turd in the Atlantic punchbowl.

“He is incapable of treating the British public like adults, and I think you don't deserve to win if you treat people like fools. The defining characteristic of his whole approach is what can I get away with'. And he has done this every single time,” – David Cameron on Gordon Brown.

Matt Hardigree describes this unconventional scene:

As a tribute to [murder victim David Morales Colón], the Marin Funeral Home treated the body and then dressed him up in his typical riding outfit complete with helmet on top of the Honda CBR600 F4 the man's uncle had given to him. As you can see in the video [here], the mortician positioned the body as if he were riding his bike all the way to heaven, though it appears to be little solace to the crying friends and family in attendance.

And yes, this is real.

The parody videos have begun:

Milena Popova, an Eastern European immigrant, says Duffy was bigoted:

[I had the] slow, sad realisation that the political culture in the UK is such that no politician has any choice but to grovel to the bigots. Because standing up and explaining to them instead that immigrants make a massive contribution to the economy, let alone that all people deserve to be treated with dignity and respect regardless of nationality, citizenship or contribution, would be political suicide.

Daniel Finkelstein:

There is an interesting legal and political consequence to yesterday’s terrible coverage for Labour. The broadcasters are legally obliged to match the time given to one party with time given to the others. Labour’s epic quantity of airtime yesterday entitles the other parties to an equivalent amount of coverage to even up the score.

Peter Hoskin:

How much should Cameron and Clegg use Brown’s gaffe against him?  My thinking is that they’ve played it well so far – only offering limited comment along the lines of “I think the words speak for themselves” – and that they should continue the same approach tonight.  If they say anything more direct, if they politicise the situation ahead of talking about the economy, then they risk triggering the (slight) possibility of a sympathy backlash in the PM’s favour.  This is one Brown disaster where they’re better off keeping more or less schtum – and letting him stew in it.  

Nate Silver’s current projection:

 

According to Judith O’Reilly this is a real statement from Michael Weatheritt, the UKIP candidate in Berwick:

If mass immigration continues, the weight of people in the country will cause the island to start sinking and if global warming is to be believed and the sea level rises, then the EU will eventually gets its wish and Britain will disappear forever beneath the waves

To which O’Reilly replies:

I am tempted to ring him up and ask him to do his bit and quit with the pies. Frankly, the pies won’t be helping at all.