Connecticut to Allow Undocumented Immigrants to Apply for Driving Licenses
The Connecticut state senate on Thursday narrowly approved a measure that will allow undocumented immigrants to apply for driver’s licenses. Democratic Governor Dannel Malloy has pledged to sign the bill, which passed the Senate by a 19-16 vote.
“This bill is first and foremost about public safety. It’s about knowing who is driving on our roads, and doing everything we can to make sure those drivers are safe and that they’re operating registered, insured vehicles,” Gov. Malloy said in a statement. “There’s a reason these measures have been supported by local police and city leaders, and that other states are taking similar common-sense steps. They’re changes that benefit everyone taking a car out onto our roads and highways.”
Malloy also called on the federal government to allow all immigrants to apply for driving licenses.
“It should also be noted that, like many issues, action on the federal level would address this problem in an even more comprehensive and sensible way. I continue to support those broader efforts at national reform, and urge Congress to follow the example being set by Connecticut and other states,” Malloy went on to say.
Immigrant rights advocates are also applauding the decision.
I know there are a lot of people who don’t think this makes sense but really it does benefit all of us in terms of reduced insurance premiums. The fact that you won’t have a bunch of uninsured drivers on the road, the fact they will be paying fee revenue to the state,” Angel Fernandez-Cavero of the immigrants right group CONNECT told WTNH.
The new law, which will make 54,000 undocumented immigrants eligible for a driving license, takes effect on January 1, 2015. (There are about 120,000 illegal immigrants in Connecticut, according to Reuters.)
Maryland, Illinois and Oregon adopted similar legislation that allows undocumented immigrants to apply for driving licenses this year. New Mexico, Washington and Utah have permitted undocumented immigrants to apply for drivers licenses for several years.
The New York Senate has passed a bill making it illegal to “harass” a police officer by “any type of physical action” — even action that does not otherwise constitute interference, obstruction or assault. Given that “obstruction” and “interference” are famously broad, it’s hard to imagine what conduct the police and the NY Senate believe they need to control by statute, though there’s a clue in the statutory language, which makes it a felony to “harass, annoy, or threaten a police officer while on duty.”
In other words, if you cause any physical contact with a police officer, even unintentionally, even if the contact does not rise to the level of assault or obstruction or interference, you can be convicted of a felony and imprisoned if the officer can show that your conduct “annoyed” him. This is the kind of statute that seems calculated to allow the police and prosecutors to put people in jail for very long stretches (remember that 97% of people indicted for felonies in the USA plead guilty under threat of decades of prison should they fight and lose) just because they don’t like them very much.
New York Senate makes it a felony to annoy a police officer - Boing Boing
So, it’s alright for the NYPD to harass, threaten and annoy people on the street based on race, but don’t you dare flip them any shit in the process.
(via jenn2d2)
What the fuck ny
(via americandementia)
Obamacare more unpopular than before, NBC News/WSJ poll shows
(Photo: Mandel Ngan / AFP - Getty Images)
President Barack Obama’s signature health care reform law remains unpopular with the American public just months before it fully goes into effect, according to the new NBC News/Wall Street Journal poll.
Surprise! CBO report shows 50% of government tax expenditures go to top 20% of earners
Maybe Republicans will now stop being assholes about federal disaster aid.
Paul Ryan Refuses to Tip Elderly Black Waiter
Rep. Paul Ryan refused to tip an elderly waiter today at a Washington-area soul food restaurant.
According to witnesses at Auntie Ruth’s Bistro in Northeast D.C., Ryan stiffed his server on the grounds of “personal austerity” and proceeded to tell the 72-year-old man to “get a real job.”
The situation started when the Wisconsin Republican showed up with 15 of his staffers to have a two-hour working meeting at the restaurant. Although he didn’t have a reservation and no one called ahead, the staff at Auntie Ruth’s worked hard to accommodate his request.
James Anderson, who’s been waiting tables at the restaurant for 20 years, skipped his lunch break to serve the congressman and his entourage.
After hours of backbreaking work, the congressional staff returned to their offices and Congressman Ryan stayed behind to put the bill on his government credit card.
Human of the Year
When Ryan attempted to leave the premises without paying any tip at all, Anderson politely asked Ryan if he was satisfied with the service.
“Listen, I was satisfied with the service,” Ryan explained, “but I’m not paying you a cent. You know why? Because you’re a taker. I’ve already paid for my meal. I’ve spent the money I’m legally obligated to spend - and here you are begging for more.
“Why don’t you go out and get yourself a real job? Get an education and then go be an engineer or something. Don’t sit around doing shitty jobs your whole life and then expect me to pay for your bad decisions.
“You don’t like the fact that you work a minimum wage job? Tough. You should have used your parents’ inheritance money to get a college education instead of wasting it on booze and women.”’
Genius Next Door
For his part, Anderson says he was fully within his rights to suggest Ryan leave a tip and is “disappointed” by Ryan’s comments.
“I didn’t take my lunch break just to serve Ryan’s table,” he explains. “I was serving 15 people. That ‘s a big group, and I worked very hard. I rely on tips to pay my bills, so I felt I had to ask.
“The truth is, I never got any inheritance money from my parents. My folks were sharecroppers down in Georgia, never had a dime to their name. What little money I ever had went to pay for their health care.
“I was the top of my class in high school. And I got a scholarship to go to Georgetown University. But when I showed up, the school withdrew the money. They didn’t know I was black.
“So I’ve just been here in Washington ever since. Doing odd jobs. Just trying to make enough to get by. I think I would have made a great engineer. Math was my best subject. But those were the segregation days.”
A spokesperson for Ryan says he has no plans to apologize to Anderson, and claimed “those people” are the reason why this country is going bankrupt.
EDIT: Well Fuck Me, It’s a Hoax….
"The left, which is largely made up of people who don't believe in Jesus Christ's blood as being necessary for our salvation, view inanimate objects as possessing their own will. That’s animism! That's a return to the most pagan of paganism! And look at what nutty political views it ends up supporting!"
Gun Owners of America director Larry Pratt, explaining why he thinks progressives are so concerned about gun-caused violence.
Read more of the right’s “Craziest Anti-Obama Gun Reactions” here.
Real Joe Biden crushes fake Joe Biden on Twitter
(Photo: whitehouse.gov via Twitter)
Today, the pranksters at the Onion offered up an “Ask Me Anything” meet-up on Reddit with a parody version of America’s vice president, a pretender known as “Diamond” Joe Biden. To lure in the crowds, fake Biden offered answers on “my Trans Am, things you can make into a pipe, Barack, or where we can hook up later” among other things. The real veep was less than impressed, and one-upped the faker with the flick of a Twitpic.
White House to unveil ‘concrete’ gun plan
(Photo: George Frey / Getty Images)
President Obama will announce his gun-safety proposals on Wednesday, including some executive actions in addition to legislative proposals
Indian women participate in a candlelight vigil protesting a leader of the ruling Congress Party on accusations he raped a woman in a village in Gauhati, India, Jan. 4, 2013. (Anupam Nath/AP)
On January 9, 2013, the Saudi Ministry of Interior announced the execution of Rizana Nafeek, a Sri Lankan domestic worker convicted of killing a baby in her care in 2005 when she was 17 years old.
Saudi Arabia is one of just three countries that executes people for crimes they committed as children. Rizana Nafeek is yet another victim of the deep flaws in Saudi Arabia’s judicial system.
Rizana was just a child herself at the time of the baby’s death, and she had no lawyer to defend her and no competent interpreter to translate her account.
For more than a decade, pundits, historians, generals, and the chattering classes have argued about how the “Vietnam analogy” applied to Iraq and Afghanistan — and yet for all the ink (and blood) spilled, they managed to miss the one unfailing parallel between America’s wars in all three places: civilian suffering. For all the dissimilarities, botched analogies, and tortured comparisons, there has been one connecting thread in Washington’s foreign wars of the last half century that Americans have seldom found of the slightest interest: misery for local nationals. Civilian suffering is, in fact, the defining characteristic of modern war in general, even if only rarely discussed in the halls of power or the mainstream media.
In my latest TomDispatch article, I offer a set of portraits of war victims along with some staggering statistics about the levels of wartime civilian suffering in Vietnam, Afghanistan and Iraq. Read the full piece here.
Photo credit: Larry Burrows, 1966