Ed Schultz

Ed had a great segment on tonight's show, all about how the stimulus really did work despite the lies the Republicans have been saying. He lays it out nice an clearly about who has done what and who you should trust with the economy. And he's got a chart! I love charts!

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Immigration

Ed Schultz has really been raking Arizona over the coals lately for the new, racist law that is just waiting for the governor's signature. It ended up being longer than I intended so I thought I'd post it here:

ED:

This is the most complicated issue we have today and I really don't think there is a good solution. And both sides are split on it, each having reasons for and against.

For the Right, the business owners want cheap wages first, and to drive down wages in general. But the rest of them want all the brown people out of their country.

On the Left, first there is just plain old compassion for people in trouble, people who left everything and risked everything to find a better life. And we are a country of immigrants, it's just a matter of when our ancestors came here. On the other hand, they are driving down wages for all workers, and in some cases, such as construction here in SoCal, have pretty much destroyed the industry for American citizens. And if you happen to be an American born Hispanic good luck getting a decent job with a decent wage.

There is a price for Mexico, too. All the best and brightest, the strong and brave, are leaving to come up here. These are just the people Mexico needs to bring their country out of poverty. The only real solution is for Mexico to improve enough that it isn't worth it to come up here, but how does that happen when all the entrepreneurs, the risk takers, are up here?

Amnesty is a bad idea, when Reagan did it there were 2 million illegals here, 25 years later and there are 12 million of them because amnesty was great advertising.

I've worked in a business for 30 years where the entire warehouse crew is always Hispanic, most not speaking English. These are very nice people, when my wife died they all chipped in and bought a big bouquet of flowers to throw on her ashes when we spread them out at sea. There is no way for any employer to tell who is legal and who isn't. Every place I've been at was very strict about every employee having the correct ID, and all the illegals had them, it's a big business down here.

The Republicans always come up with draconian solutions that are always unworkable, and frankly, evil. That's what this law in Arizona is. Not only is it racial profiling so that any dark skinned citizen will get stopped and maybe go to jail because what citizen has "papers"? But it makes the police the enemies of immigrants, illegal and legal. None of them will call a cop if they are robbed. None of them will come forward to be a witness or even talk to a cop if they can avoid it. This means evil people will prey on them and the cops will not be able to do real police work.

Here in California a few years ago there was a big stink about illegals at ER's, getting expensive medical care the state had to pay for. The stink was so bad that illegals stopped going to the ER when they needed to and we started to get a TB epidemic. One idiot even put it on the ballot that all ER workers, doctor's, nurses and everyone else who worked there was supposed to keep an eye on everyone and call the cops if anyone looked suspicious. That's all we need, doctors and nurses moonlighting as immigration workers.

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The Ed Schultz Show!

This is progressive radio that isn't Air America. It's nice to know there are others out there, after all, Air America has almost gone out of business a couple of times.

Big Eddie's show comes on at noon out here on the west coast, although I have to tune in to a Seattle radio station online to hear him because the LA station doesn't have him until 7 PM.

I didn't like Ed too much at first, he makes one really bad first impression because he sounds so much like Rush Limbaugh. I've talked to others who say they can't listen to him for that reason alone and I have to admit it was disconcerting for a long time. Also, he didn't seem like much of a liberal to me. He says; "I’m just a fat, red-headed, white guy from the mid-west." Also an ex-football player and even an ex-Republican. It took his wife, Wendy, to get him on the liberal track, so I doubted his commitment to being a liberal, or progressive if you prefer.

But there was nothing else at noon except Randi Rhodes, and I really can't stand her. Over time he won me over. He proved he's a real progressive by the way he's talked about the issues, even didn't like Hillary all that much because she isn't liberal enough. He never said that directly but I picked that up after listening long enough. I have to say he and I are in exact agreement on all things political, and I'm a REAL left-wing liberal. Only thing he's gotten wrong is in his support for biofuels and his refusal to see the problem with them, especially with corn. But hey, nobody is perfect.

But he's funny and boisterous and does his show with a lot of energy, humor and conviction. He is also making the rounds on the TV news talk shows, though usually not the same ones as Rachel Maddow. He is on Larry King a lot and sometimes even on Fox. Like I said, no one is perfect. But he and Rachel were on a show together recently which was fun. Can't remember which one it was, though, either Dan Abrams or Dick Greogory.

But he is worth tuning into, he's my third favorite radio guy after Rachel and Thom Hartmann in the number 2 position. He will sound less like Rush Limbaugh the more you listen to him, I promise. You can find him online at wegoted.com