Friday Political Sausage

War is heck.

“Obama Administration to stop deporting younger undocumented immigrants and grant work permits” (Huffington Post)

A little more background: the president has directed the Department of Homeland Security  to not deport anyone under the age of 16 that is not a serious criminal, threat to public safety or national security, or serious immigration law violators. At the age of 16, individuals will be able to apply for a waiver/reprieve and eventually a work permit.

Let’s be clear: this isn’t the full DREAM Act. However, it’s a step in the right direction. Consequently, the GOP, especially the Congressional delegation, is liable to start howling about this any second now.

“As punishment for opposing anti-abortion bill, male Michigan House leader bans two female Reps from speaking” – Amanda Peterson Beadle (ThinkProgress)

If anyone would like to contact the Michigan House GOP, here’s their twitter: https://twitter.com/#!/MIHouseGOP

“What Romneycare 2.0 looks like” – Charles P. Pierce (Esquire)

Let’s sum up: block grants to states, no regulation on private insurance, elimination of oversight on exchanges, and tort reform.

Basically, Mitt Romney wants to eliminate all regulation over the payment of healthcare in this country, and in the event your doctor gets drunk and chops off the wrong leg you’re only going to be able to sue him for pennies. Also, forget about public assistance; all that money is going to go somewhere else to shore up leaky state budgets before you ever get your hands on it.

As CPP notes, this is the same Republican healthcare plan from 1992 that Clinton was beating the hell out of the GOP on, which lead them to create the plan eventually enacted by Mitt Romney in Massachusetts when he was Governor. That plan, of course, became the foundation of the Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act several years later, also known as Obamacare.

“The Kids will be Alright: Christian leader says Millennials will grow into Conservatism” – Evan McMorris-Santoro (TPM)

While it’s true that as my generation ages we will become more conservative, as every generation before us has done, it’s unlikely that that conservatism will look the same as what Ralph Reed is pushing today.

Simply put, the intolerance embodied by the evangelical movement with their stances on gay rights, abortion, social justice, etc. doesn’t jive with what we as a generation believe.

I genuinely believe we’ve reached the high water mark for religion in the United States. The advent of the internet and the “shrinking” of the world, especially as it relates to ideas, as well as ongoing demographic trends, all indicate that evangelicalism is not sustainable in the long term. Moreover, the gangster-like attitude and actions exhibited by organizations like the Catholic Church further diminish the long term prospects of organized religions.

Of course, all that has never stopped men like Ralph Reed from going outside and shouting into the wind.

“The People who brought you the Iraq War release a new ad: bomb Iran” – Eli Clifton (ThinkProgress)

You remember John McCain singing “Bomb bomb bomb, bomb bomb Iran.” in 2008? What no one realized at the time is that that was just the first lines of the song. They wrote a whole lyrics sheet for it. In a Political Sausage exclusive, here’s the complete lyrics to the 2012 soon-to-be-classic, “Bomb Iran” (Sung to the tune of the Beach Boys “Barbara Ann”:

Ah Bomb bomb bomb, bomb bomb Iran
Bomb bomb bomb, bomb bomb Iran

Oh bomb Iran, glass that sand
Bomb Iran
You got us fightin’ and a-killin’
Fightin’ and a-killin’
Bomb Iran
Bomb bomb, bomb bomb Iran

Went to the spooks, lookin’ for some nukes.
They said “Bomb Iran!” so I said “Lets do it!”
And bomb Iran, bomb Iran
Glass that sand
You got us fightin’ and a-killin’
Fightin’ and a-killin’
Bomb Iran
Bomb bomb, bomb bomb Iran

Bomb bomb bomb, bomb bomb Iran
Bomb bomb bomb, bomb bomb Iran

Oh bomb Iran, glass that sand
Bomb Iran
You got us fightin’ and a-killin’
Fightin’ and a-killin’
Bomb Iran
Bomb bomb, bomb bomb Iran

Tried Afghanistan
Tried Pakistan
Tried Iraq too
But I knew they won’t do
So Bomb Iran, bomb Iran
Glass that sand
You got us fightin’ and a-killin’
Fightin’ and a-killin’
Bomb Iran
Bomb bomb, bomb bomb Iran

Oh bomb Iran, glass that sand
Bomb Iran
You got us fightin’ and a-killin’
Fightin’ and a-killin’
Bomb Iran
Bomb bomb, bomb bomb Iran

You got us fightin’ and a-killin’
Fightin’ and a-killin’
Bomb Iran
Bomb bomb, bomb bomb Iran

Oh bomb Iran, bomb Iran,
bomb Iran, bomb Iran,
glass that sand
Bomb Iran
You got us fightin’ and a-killin’
Fightin’ and a-killin’
Bomb Iran
Bomb bomb, bomb bomb Iran