Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell joined an array of Republican lawmakers who feel we should examine whether to rescind all or part of the 14th amendment to the Constitution to prevent some children born in the U.S. from being granted U.S. citizenship. The pro-life, pro-family Republicans are now pro-neonatal detention and deportation. It isn’t enough to drive out the people not born here, now they want to drive out the ones that were.

Actually, I agree with Senator McConnell. We absolutely should hold hearings as soon as possible to discuss whether we should amend the U.S. Constitution to make newborns deportable. We need a high-level national discussion in both Houses of Congress on the issue of whether to station federal ICE agents in every maternity ward and delivery room right between the OB-GYN and the expectant father.

Rep. Luis Gutierrez, Congressman

Great, so Rep. Gutierrez is already fear mongering up a storm with scenarios of Gestapo enforcers stomping around in maternity wards. I can’t help but wonder how liberals separate this type of fear based campaigning from the Sarah Palin death panels. Both contrive wildly extreme possibilities in order to discredit legitimate concerns, and neither attempts in any way to identify a solution.

I’m sorry, but I find it poetic that the one amendment to our Constitution that was enacted without rightful ratification and is also unconstitutional in its inclusion of ex post facto law, should now be the subject of such debate. The 14^th Amendment obviously did the right thing in providing citizenship to blacks and guaranteeing due process and equal protection, but the way in which it was enacted was an abomination. And now, the Party that illegitimately enacted the amendment wants to review and possibly rescind it. Now that’s poetic!

Personally, I‘d like to see the amendment changed, but that certainly doesn’t mean that I would support any retroactive application. The truth seems evident that the enacting Congress didn’t address the potential for abuse from illegal immigrants having children in order to obtain citizenship. That’s the just the way it is.

People like me, who believe that the abuse warrants a change, have but one form of recourse — amend the Constitution. That’s the way we do it in the United States. To do otherwise is to subvert the very spirit of our democracy.

I for one would welcome a national conversation on this topic. I’d like to hear the reasoning of people who believe that a child born of parents in the United States illegally should be granted citizenship. Is there an ethical argument? Is it simply a position of practicality? I’m sorry, but to me it wreaks of defending the rights of litigation for the guy who climbs on somebody’s house to burglarize them and falls through their skylight and gets injured.

I know, I know — there’s a child involved. But what I don’t understand is why there’s not more outcry against parents who would use their child this way. Break the law and hide behind a child . . .  now that sounds unethical to me.

Whatever side people are on, wouldn’t it be great if we could all just state our piece and work together toward a solution? It would be quite remarkable, but we’ll never get there so long as every issue is met with all the fear-mongering hyperbole currently waged by conservatives and liberals alike. How about instead, we stop the posturing, listen to one another and open a dialog?

If the Republican campaign message for 2010 was something like, “Yes, we know that we caused all these problems in the Bush years, but we’ve learned our lesson, and now we are offering these new ideas to fix things in the future,” I would understand (if not agree with) the equating of the problems with Republican gains. But that’s not what the Republicans are offering. Rather, the GOP campaign message for 2010 is essentially the same message as the Bush years, only more militant (and more wacky, thanks to the Angle-Paul tea party influence). Their pitch is built around deregulation, lower taxes for the rich, and less government, the very things that got us into this mess in the first place.

Mitchell Bard, Huffington Post

The Republicans have blocked everything in the Senate; the only plan they ever have is tax cuts for the rich, deregulation, cuts to social programs and privatization of government. They follow their strategy of running up deficits when in power as if it was a natural law, and then they suddenly become fiscally responsible when in the minority — a simple yet effective Republican tactic to defund liberal programs. They support big business, not the people, and they aggressively exploit the middle class and the environment to forward the greedy agenda of their corporate overlords.

This is all indisputable fact. It’s readily apparent to the most casual observer, yet somehow the Republicans are actually able to get elected . . . why?

It’s either because the Democrats are complicit in hiding the truth from the American public, or because they’ve yet to figure out that elections aren’t about issues — they’re about perception.

Perception is reality, and the Republicans have mastered spin. They have no shame! They will say anything, twist anything, and run to devise a scheme to cover anything said. They’ve not a care about the facts. By contrast, Democrats try to win debates politely. They offer rational arguments. It’s the rare exception when somebody like Reid says the GOP is purposely trying to make things worse.

IT IS NO SECRET that the GOP represents government by sabotage. Their platform is “government is bad,” and they routinely do everything they can to make that true. Why isn’t this message a resounding battle cry for the Democrats? If it was, it might actually be newsworthy by media standards, and the people just might discover the truth.

In reference to the 13 states attorneys general who have filed suit against the recent healthcare bill:
“So this is how the attorneys general who have instituted suit, the Tea Party and the Republicans view aiding the public and protecting the Constitution.”
Judge H. Lee Sarokin

Read the Article at HuffingtonPost