Mario Piperni dot Com

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Is being an asshole a prerequisite for being a Republican these days?

…tens of thousands of illegal Haitian immigrants can remain temporarily in the U.S. while their country rebuilds after Tuesday’s devastating earthquake.

The announcement to grant “temporary protective status,” or TPS, to Haitian nationals allows immigrants already in the U.S. to live and work freely here until conditions in Haiti improve. After 18 months the status could be revoked.

So who with a shred of decency would object?

While several liberal groups and members of Congress had urged the administration to declare TPS for Haitians, conservative immigration groups, as well as a Republican congressman, had said such a move would amount to a slippery slope to “amnesty.”

“This sounds to me like open borders advocates exercising the Rahm Emanuel axiom: ‘Never let a crisis go to waste,’” Rep. Steve King, R-Iowa, said in an e-mail message to ABCNews. “Illegal immigrants from Haiti have no reason to fear deportation, but if they are deported, Haiti is in great need of relief workers, and many of them could be a big help to their fellow Haitians.”

Actually, “never let a crisis go to waste” should be the Republican motto these days. They have been relentless in politicizing every single issue which has made the news. And if there is no crisis, they invent one.  Republicans have shifted so far to the right they now exist in a world where paranoia is the norm and where demons and bogeymen inhabit every nook and cranny of their demented minds.

Pathetic does not begin to describe what the GOP has become.

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Politics aside, asking Bill Clinton and George W. Bush to head up the fund raising effort for Haiti is the right thing to do. Both of these men are proven in their ability to raise enormous amounts of money.

Clinton Bush Haiti Fund

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Tragedy.

The U.S. Army says 12 people have been killed and 31 wounded in a shooting rampage on the Fort Hood Army base in Texas. Lt. Gen Bob Cone said at a news conference that one shooter has been killed and two suspects were apprehended on Thursday. He says they are all U.S. soldiers.

Shooting suspect identified as Major Malik Nadal Hasan. He was killed and two other suspects have been apprehended, Lt. Robert W. Cone said.

Oh god, here we go.  I fear what the bigots are going to do with this one.

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NYT…

The day dawned different and stayed that way. Traffic was thin and sidewalks quiet. The stock exchange didn’t open, nor the airports, the schools, Broadway. People loaded up on bottled water, batteries, canoes. The law enforcement presence was intense: men with machine guns, gunboats circling the harbor.

Downtown, fires burned, smoke plumed. The odor stood.

It was a city humbled and scared, where the possibilities of destruction had been recalibrated. It was Sept. 12, 2001. The day after.

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