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As you may have heard by now, Obama has been sued by 17 states who think keeping families together is bad for America:
Texas. Alabama. Georgia. Idaho. Indiana. Kansas. Louisiana. Maine. Mississippi. Montana. Nebraska. North Carolina. South Carolina. South Dakota. Utah. West Virginia. Wisconsin.
The lawsuit, filed in federal court in Brownsville, Tex., was the first major legal challenge to initiatives Mr. Obama announced Nov. 20 that will provide protection from deportation and work permits to up to five million immigrants in the country illegally.
-17 States Suing on Immigration
How will the future look back on this day? What will it say to those seventeen states for taking up arms against a democratic ideal that sought to serve the powerless and keep them bound to their families, honoring the work ethic of millions of
the hardest-working people on the planet who found themselves on American soil? Will we look back at this day as the political equivalent of dogs and firehoses unleashed on honest people just trying to carve out a small slice of the American dream?
Or will history say, "It made all the sense in the world, given the many other faults in your Republican stars"? The only time in American history that an entire House of Congress has sued a sitting President of the United States happened last week because that President passed a law to help grandmothers get better care at the hospital and parents offer their children a healthier childhood and working families afford the costs of taking care of the people they work so hard for in the first place. After Obama and Democrats found a way to pass universal health care, Republicans voted 50 times to repeal or cripple the new law. 50 times. Republicans voted 50 times to hurt you and me and the 291 million American citizens that make us who we are. They spent nearly $50 million dollars doing that, enough to build an elementary school or two and still have money left over to buy books and buy every kid at that school breakfast and lunch for who knows how long.
But Republicans don't care about schools or books or food for undernourished kids. They don't care about building a brighter future. Their leader, John Boehner, has said outright that its number one priority is rolling back Obamacare, a healthcare law representing the luckiest break women and young people in urban and rural areas alike have caught in decades.
They don't care about your beloved aunt battling fibromyalgia, or your first-born son navigating the world with autism either. They don't care about your daughter the brilliant young scientist who aspires to greatness, if there's even a world left for her to actually do great things for after Republicans are done with it.
Republicans like Texan Governor-elect Greg Abbot, who has sued Obama 31 times since 2008 and just launched an unprecedented 17-state lawsuit against the Obama administration for offering to help 5 million people who will contribute $25 billion in deficit reduction over the next ten years to our economy stay with their families, have nothing to offer our country but anger:
The suit added to the broadside by angry Republicans against Mr. Obama’s unilateral actions. In Washington, Republicans in the House of Representatives moved toward holding a largely symbolic vote on Thursday on a bill to dismantle the president’s programs, with a plan to vote next week on a spending bill that could fund the Department of Homeland Security, the agency administering the new programs, for only a few months.
The states’ lawsuit also argued that the Obama administration had failed to comply with requirements the federal government must follow in issuing new rules, and it warned that Mr. Obama’s measures would encourage a new wave of illegal crossings at the Southwest border, forcing Texas and other states to spend additional funds on law enforcement, health care and education.
The President has only authorized a paltry 1.3% of all
Executive Orders ever authorized by presidents of the United States, but because some of those executive orders actually help big swaths of people in our country, and despite the fact that both
Reagan and Bush Senior executed similar immigration measures in their days, the GOP is happy to spend its days suing the first black President of the United States for attempting to help people:
“I go into the office, I sue the federal government, and I go home,” Mr. Abbott has told audiences at public events and political rallies. But with being joined by other states, Mr. Abbott’s new lawsuit seemed likely to become a primary vehicle for Republicans’ efforts to halt Mr. Obama’s immigration actions through the courts.
Republican millionaires abusing their power in order to sue the government to prevent it from helping people who
earn 27 times less. Think about the fact that
we used to help certain immigrants get in, and now our Democratic presidents
have to go it alone in order to keep immigrants from being thrown out. Think about that the next time you have the chance to vote for a Democratic governor or senator or president but choose to sit it out.