† Thomas Friedman Wants To Blame The Stiletto (And You, Too) For the Gulf Oil Crisis (second item): A new survey by Public Policy Polling finds that 50 percent of LA voters, including 31% of Democrats, think President George Bush did a better job with Katrina than Obama's done dealing with the spill. In comparison, 65 percent of voters approve of how the state’s governor, Bobby Jindal has handled the aftermath of the spill. Being a community organizer is no substitute for executive experience, after all.

 

† A To Z Approach On Illegal Immigration In AZ: AZ State Sen. Russell Pearce (R-Mesa), who sponsored the law criminalizing illegal immigration (yes, it’s an oxymoron, thanks to liberal morons), is now working on new legislation to withhold U.S. citizenship from anchor babies born to illegals on our side of the border, reports Politico:  

 

Critics … say it would fly in the face of the 14th Amendment to the Constitution, which grants citizenship to anyone born within the country. …

 

“This is an orchestrated effort by them to come here and have children to gain access to the great welfare state we've created,” Pearce said of Hispanic immigrants.

 

Pearce contended that the bill would not violate the 14th Amendment, saying only that “we would write it right.”

 

Previous efforts to get around the citizenship provisions in the amendment, including one in the late 19th century challenging the citizenship of the children of Chinese immigrants, have been unsuccessful.

 

Still, Arizona Republicans - including Gov. Jan Brewer - have indicated support for the bill.

 

Like CA, TX, NJ and other states with large numbers of illegals, AZ is being bankrupted by having to build schools and hire teachers (Table 23 and accompanying discussion) to educate anchor children and is looking to reduce this Supreme Court-mandated cost. The Stiletto, who is the first member of her immediate family to be born in America after her parents (legally) immigrated here, would like to suggest a middle ground: "Graduated citizenship" - akin to a "graduated license" for teenage drivers - for anchor babies whose parents are deported. As minors, they would be required to accompany their parents, but upon turning 18 years old they may re-enter the U.S. with full citizenship rights - including in-state college tuition - should they wish to leave their families to live in this country. If upon re-establishing residence in the U.S. they join the military, their parents and siblings should be put on a fast-track to citizenship. 

 

† Obama Is Just About Every U.S. President All Rolled Into One!: In this (literally) Kafkaesque tale of “Gregor Samsa, the general counsel of an exterminating company” who fell into a coma in 1970 after a flowerpot fell on his head “from which he awakened only last week,” Washington Post columnist Richard Cohen - who is fast becoming The Stiletto’s favorite liberal opinion slinger - likens President Barack Hussein Obama to LBJ and Nixon (a two-fer):

 

Almost immediately, he read the major newspapers with astonishment. "For some reason, they've changed the name of Vietnam to Afghanistan," he said.

 

Samsa read on. Other than the name change and some other minor differences, he noticed that everything else was the same. …

 

Samsa turned the page. There, as he expected, he found that the battle of Marja, which was once going to be the "turning point" of the war, was now seesawing back and forth. …

 

The war, Samsa was learning, was now in its eighth year. My God! How had this happened? LBJ was always promising an end to it all. Nixon said he had a secret plan. Samsa had once supported the war, but eight years seemed to him to be enough. What had gone wrong?  …

 

Samsa read that every month this year had produced more American casualties than the same month a year earlier. He read that additional troops were on the way. He read that Karzai reportedly doubted that America would win and wanted to make peace with the Taliban, which was what the Viet Cong was now apparently calling itself. …

 

[I]f the war could not be won - not that anyone much knew what comprised winning - then it ought to end. The situation saddened the newly awakened Gregor Samsa. Then he brightened.

 

"A Democratic president would end it all," he thought.

 

Meanwhile, in its analysis of last night’s Oval Office speech on the Gulf Coast oil spill disaster The Associated Press finds a similarity between Obama and President George Bush (with nods to Presidents Reagan, Kennedy and – again - Nixon):

 

President Barack Obama's vow to leave the Gulf Coast in better shape than before the oil spill sounds familiar. It eerily echoes President George W. Bush's pledge after Hurricane Katrina to rebuild New Orleans "higher and better."

 

Bush wasn't able to keep that 2005 promise. And Obama probably won't be able to keep his either. …

 

Presidents have long used the Oval Office format in times of crisis. Bush spoke from the Oval Office on the night of Sept. 11, 2001. Ronald Reagan used the Oval to talk about the space shuttle Challenger explosion. John F. Kennedy spoke from there about the Cuban missile crisis. Richard Nixon announced his resignation from the famous room.

 

The Stiletto can’t decide which is more fatal to Obama’s flailing presidency: Conservatives comparing him to Jimmy Carter or liberals comparing him to Nixon.

 

† FML=MLF: NYC’s Metropolitan Transit Authority will re-do new signage at the Sixth Avenue and 14^th Street subway station so references to the M,F and L lines, which intersect at that transit hub, are placed on two separate lines instead of on one line. The MTA made the change after becoming award of Internet buzz that pointed out “MFL” is a rude acronym. MTA spokesperson Charles Seaton tells The New York Times that only that one subway station is affected, and the change will not be costly since “[i]t’s just vinyl stickers.”

 

† President Obama Channels Gov. Paterson: With Tea Partiers and fiscal conservatives making their voices heard loud and clear on “Super Tuesday” Dems are balking at new deficit spending proposals, reports The Washington Post, and President Barack Hussein Obama’s new stimulus plan “ran into the political buzz saw of the Senate”:

 

Democratic leaders began chopping apart an aid package for unemployed workers and state governments in an effort to lessen its impact on the deficit.

 

The slimmed-down measure was still evolving late Tuesday. But Senate Majority Leader Harry M. Reid (Nev.) was trying to salvage one of Obama's top priorities - $24 billion to avert the layoffs of state workers - by scaling back other pieces of the sprawling package, including a provision to postpone a scheduled pay cut for doctors who see Medicare patients. Instead of postponing the cut until 2012, Reid is considering protecting doctors only through the rest of this year.

 

In other words, Reid wants to throw Granny under the bus to save union jobs.

 

Meanwhile, Gov. David Paterson (D-NY) is showing Obama up by warning the state Legislature that he refuses to sign any budget that relies on deficit financing, reports the New York Daily News:

 

“I think that will clear this up once and for all, so we don’t have to discuss it any further.”

 

He said that includes borrowing, refinancing of tobacco settlement bonds, or any other mechanism.

 

Paterson wants a budget on his desk by June 28^th or he will make cuts as he sees fit in an emergency spending bill, which only be adopted as is or rejected. If the Legislature rejects the $327 million in spending cuts in Paterson’s emergency spending bill, the state government will shut down.

 

† Updates To Previous Posts (third item, Only The Little People Pay Taxes): Wanting to prove to the restive voters back home that they have seen the light on runaway government spending, Congressional Republicans have been busy attaching amendments to spending bills that freezes pay levels for 2 million federal workers, even though the effort is doomed to defeat, reports The Washington Post:

 

Similar proposals have failed in the House and Senate, and Democrats probably will vote this one down as well. But Republicans say they are determined to keep pushing the issue, arguing that federal employees should not receive pay increases while many private-sector workers face cuts in pay, hours and benefits, as well as layoffs. …

 

President Obama has proposed increasing federal workers' pay by 1.4 percent this year, less than recent increases. He has also called for freezing spending at most agencies for the next three years.

 

At the same time, Democrats argue that the GOP proposal for federal pay is largely symbolic. The national budget deficit last year was more than $1 trillion; the pay freezes would save less than $3 billion.

 

"We need to reject this cynical ploy to make federal employees a scapegoat for spending after congressional Republicans added trillions to the debt when they were in the majority," Rep. Steny H. Hoyer (Md.) said before the House voted down one of the pay measures.

 

Only in Washington is $3 billion a “symbolic” amount of money. The Stiletto rejects Hoyer’s cynical ploy of claiming that, because Repubs were irresponsible in the past, Dems should not be expected to be responsible now.

 

† Updates To Previous Posts (sixth item, Life Imitates “A Law Abiding Citizen”): Aaron Vargas, 32, was sentenced to nine years in prison for killing Darrell McNeill, who had molested him since the age of 11, reports The Associated Press:

 

Judge Ronald Brown said he imposed the harsh sentence because he believed Vargas had gone to McNeill's house with the intent to kill him. He also said he could not condone the use of violence to solve problems. …

 

Hundreds of Vargas supporters asked the judge for leniency, saying Vargas needed therapy and was not a threat. The Mendocino County courtroom was packed Tuesday, with many people wearing buttons saying, "Free Aaron Vargas." …

 

Court records state that three days before the shooting, Vargas met and talked with other men who allegedly had been abused by McNeill. Vargas spent the next few days trying to deal with his feelings.

 

On the night of the shooting, Vargas' blood-alcohol content was about .15 — nearly twice the legal limit, according to court records.

 

Vargas testified his memory of the night was faulty. He said he recalled McNeill denying the accusations before Vargas yelled back that McNeill wasn't going to hurt anyone anymore. Then the gun went off, Vargas said.

 

The victim's wife, Elizabeth McNeill, was just a few feet away. She said Vargas kicked and cursed at the dying man while stopping her from seeking help.

 

Despite the violence, she later attended a fundraiser for Vargas' defense. In a letter to prosecutors, she said "something having to do with Aaron's childhood sexual abuse caused Aaron to snap, and do what he did."

 

Vargas' family plans to appeal the sentence, and wants to launch a nonprofit in his name to help victims of childhood sexual abuse.

 

† Updates To Previous Posts (last item, Obama’s Family Values: Part V): Rep. Steve King (R-IA) wants to call President Obama's aunt, Zeituni Onyango, to testify to Congress about whether she was given preferential treatment when she was granted asylum, reports The Washington Times:

 

After initially being ordered deported, Zeituni Onyango was granted asylum by an immigration judge last month. [King], the ranking Republican on the House immigration subcommittee, said that raises questions that she must answer. He said he wants to invite Ms. Onyango to be a witness at a hearing Thursday.

 

"I am concerned about the public perception that favoritism played a role in the grant of asylum to Ms. Onyango," Mr. King wrote in a letter to subcommittee Chairwoman Zoe Lofgren, California Democrat.

 

"In order to better determine whether favoritism played a role - especially because Ms. Onyango had been earlier turned down for asylum and was ordered to be deported in 2004 before her nephew became president - the subcommittee needs to hear from Ms. Onyango herself," he said. …

 

A spokesman for Ms. Onyango's lawyers said she will not testify, and said Mr. Obama did not exercise influence in the case. …

 

The Washington Times notes that the government can appeal the grant of asylum. As if.

 

† Updates To Previous Posts (last item, 10 Reasons Michelle Obama Should Be Proud – Really Proud – Of America): This latest installment in The Stiletto Blog’s ongoing series meant to help instill the necessary pride of country in Michelle Obama’s consciousness to enable her to serve as an unofficial ambassador focuses on 11-year-old Olivia Bouler, who has raised more than $70,000 for the National Audubon Society by drawing pictures of birds and exchanging them for donations. USA Today reports:

 

A fifth-grader from Long Island, N.Y. …Olivia has visited the Gulf of Mexico several times, where she has enjoyed fishing and feeding dolphins with her grandfather. After the oil rig explosion, her grandparents in Orange Beach, Ala., called one night and explained how the wildlife are struggling to survive.

 

Olivia says she "sobbed uncontrollably." But rather than continue to cry, she ran to her room for markers and paper and wrote a letter to the Audubon Society. "It said: 'I want to help, and I want to make a difference and show that the birds are important, and we need to preserve them,' " Olivia says.

 

The organization liked the drawing of a cardinal Olivia included in the letter and suggested she draw pictures of birds in exchange for donations. Olivia, who aspires to be an ornithologist (a person who studies birds), agreed.

 

Since she started in mid-May, Olivia has drawn and painted 150 original pieces. People have requested various species, such as the brown pelican, heron and blue jay. Donations have ranged from $10 to $250.

 

AOL also got wind of her Save the Gulf campaign and offered to help by donating $25,000 and posting Olivia's artwork on its homepage.

 

After CNN, BBC and The Huffington Post featured her story, requests for drawings flooded in. "My hands were sore by the end of the day," Olivia says.