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This weekend, Fox News' Julie Banderas featured a segment discussing the way Republicans are gearing up to get nasty and nativist on immigration this coming year -- particularly in state legislatures where a batch of anti-14th Amendment "anchor baby" laws are about to come bubbling up. She invited on Bob Dane, spokesman for the nativist hate group FAIR, and Frank Sharry of America's Voice, who pointed out that Republicans are slitting their own throats politically by taking this route.

Banderas: Bob, what do you make of that? Frank just pointed out that the Republican, they have leaned right -- very hard to the right, in fact, on the illegal immigration issue -- is this going to drive Hispanics into the hands of the Democrats?

Dane: No. You know, look, one of the things the Republicans are going to have to keep in mind, now that they've got the responsibility of the leadership mantle in the House, is they've got to demonstrate to the American public on the immigration issue that they 'get it'. That Americans have had it with the cost and impact of illegal immigration. And Republicans are going to have to be careful that they do not revert to the soft-on-enforcement and teasing-around-with-amnesty policies of '06 and '08 that led to their own demise.

Hmmmm. Maybe Dane has different sets of election results than I do. But the numbers don't lie: In 2008, Latinos provided Barack Obama with the bulk of his electoral muscle. In 2010, they turned back the Tea Party tide in the Senate. And indeed, in the ensuing months since those elections, Republicans continue to do their damnedest to push Latinos into voting Democratic for the foreseeable future.

But Dane made it clear -- especially in declaring that "amnesty is off the table" -- that the right-wing nativist faction now controlling the Republican is only interested in deporting 12 million undocumented immigrants. They have no interest in working out a system under which they can get right with the law. Which means that absolutely NOTHING will get done in terms of addressing immigration reform -- including the ongoing reality that the American economy generates hundreds of thousands of unskilled-labor jobs every year and yet only provides 5,000 green cards to cover them.

President Obama should take note too: Even though his administration has been objectively tougher about enforcing immigration laws than any preceding, the right-wing nativists will ALWAYS claim that he has been lax on enforcement. Maybe he should just give that particular malfunctioning strategy a break -- and put his shoulder to the wheel in getting real reform done. It may never pass this House, but Democrats still control the Senate and can set the stage for an immigration debate there. Obama could and should become a real leader in that debate -- because Americans really do want something done. And deportation isn't it.

Vanity Fair floats allegations GOP chief Hastert took Turkish bribes

The Raw Story has the scoop.

JAG Memos Revealed Discourse.net

Marty Lederman has an important post about the torture scandal, The Heroes of the Pentagon's Interrogation Scandal -- Finally, the JAG Memos
. As Marty says, "These memos reveal the JAGs as the real heroes of this story."

The memos are extraordinary. They are written by JAGs from the Air Force, Navy, Army and Marines. As Senator Graham put it on Monday, these folks "are not from the ACLU. These are not from people who are soft on terrorism, who want to coddle foreign terrorists. These are all professional military lawyers who have dedicated their lives, with 20-plus year careers, to serving the men and women in uniform and protecting their Nation. They were giving a warning shot across the bow of the policymakers that there are certain corners you cannot afford to cut because you will wind up meeting yourself."
It is fair to say that these accounts reflected sustained, uniform and passionate opposition to the OLC legal theories that were being foisted upon the military. Indeed, the tone of the memos is one of barely concealed incredulity, and outrage--disbelief--that a young legal academic from DOJ could sweep right in and so quickly overturn decades of carefully wrought military policy, using legal analysis that almost certainly would not withstand scrutiny outside the Administration and around the world. ...

In particular, these memos eloquently warn of the grave harms that could result from such a radical shift in policies and legal understandings--harms not only to the prospects for nation's efforts to stop terrorism, but also to military interrogators and officers who could face domestic and international prosecution for engaging in such conduct, and, most importantly, to U.S. forces who are themselves detained in this and future conflicts.

He's also got the text of six key JAG memos. Essential reading.

It is fair to say that these accounts reflected sustained, uniform and passionate opposition to the OLC legal theories that were being foisted upon the military. Indeed, the tone of the memos is one of barely concealed incredulity, and outrage--disbelief--that a young legal academic from DOJ could sweep right in and so quickly overturn decades of carefully wrought military policy, using legal analysis that almost certainly would not withstand scrutiny outside the Administration and around the world. ...

In particular, these memos eloquently warn of the grave harms that could result from such a radical shift in policies and legal understandings--harms not only to the prospects for nation's efforts to stop terrorism, but also to military interrogators and officers who could face domestic and international prosecution for engaging in such conduct, and, most importantly, to U.S. forces who are themselves detained in this and future conflicts.

He's also got the text of six key JAG memos. Essential reading.

Weird wingnuttery

or (A little Powerline bashing is always a good thing)

via Ezra Klein

Powerline's Hindrocket has a strange post about an apparent error that the NYTimes made in posting its article about the pope's death. They seem to have accidentally published it before it was finished, and so it read as follows: go to the article

I don't think I understand what the big deal is. The NYTimes article is very fair ("he defied easy definition: For all his conservatism on social and theological issues, he was decidedly forward-looking"), and Powerline's statement that they had their criticism ready to go, but had to go looking for a good quote is speculative at best. The only thing, in fact, that is clear is that the NYTimes intended to present more than one side. In the context of Heather's post below about the Washington Times' one-sidedness below, Hindrocket just looks like he's trying to pick a fight.

Michelle Malkin cites it as an example of how

The death of the Pope just couldn't stop the libs in the media from showing their true colors.

What are their true colors? That they wanted to make sure they had a quote from a supporter? Those crazy liberals, always trying to be fair...

Ron Artest calls penalty too harsh while promoting his CD!

"I don't think it was fair — that many games," Artest said in an interview with NBC's "Today" show. "I respect (NBA Commissioner) David Stern's decisions, but I don't think I should have been out for the whole season."

Interview: Video

Afterwards Billy Hunter, the ex. director of the player's union said that he should only be suspended half the season and be entered in anger management.

Katie replied: Wasn't he already in anger management?

Hunter: No, not really...he was before..

Did Ron actually think holding up his cd while smiling was going to be perceived to be an apology? It seemed more like a promotion interview. For a man who has been suspended 10 times he got off lucky at one year. I'm sure though the NBA will cave and reduce his suspension because Ron is a star player.

The fake "moral majority" will say it's Hollywood's fault.

Is this Arafat's legacy?

I took a taxi cab ride in Philadelphia around 1999. I asked the driver to take me to get a cheese steak sandwich (of course) and he joined me saying he was hungry also. After a few minutes of small talk, he told me that he was Palestinian. I asked him, "Do you ever think there will be peace between Israel and Palestine?" He stopped eating and and said one word: Never! I asked him how come? " They kill babies in the streets! They threw my family out of their homes. How would you like it if someone came to the house that you lived in all of your life and kicked you into the streets?" After a few minutes I said, "Wouldn’t it be better for your people to finally make peace as long as it’s fair so that your families can heal and your society would begin to grow? He threw his sandwich to the ground and said, "There will never be peace! Never! "As long as we still breathe, we would all rather die!"

He was so angered that he took me back to the hotel and radioed in to his boss and told him that he couldn’t work the rest of the night.

At the time I was naive to the whole conflict and I thought I was asking an innocent question. I've heard that resentments are the number one offender in twelve step programs, and as this one goes, well… I’ve never felt hatred like I did talking to that man.

Will a new leadership help to create peace? With that type of resentment embeded in their hearts, I don't see it anytime soon.

FAUX NEWS ALERT(not a real one)

John O’Neal, leader of the Swift Boat Veterans for Truth was just hired as a political analyst for Fox News.

Roger Ailes, Chairman and CEO, Fox News Network, in a brief statement said today:

"We are ecstatic at hiring one of the bright new voices in the political world today. His reputation is outstanding and he brings a unique sense of honesty into the FNC stable of fair and balanced reporting."

An insider said they they may build a 30 minute show around Mr. O'Neal, where he will have an open forum to continually bash Senator John Kerry for the remainder of his life.

For now you can see John O'Neal weekly on the "Hannity and Colmes Show."

Bill O'Reilly just can't stand that Jon Stewart is more popular!

O'Reilly on young voters: "Are they gonna leave the bong and stand in line for an hour?"

From the October 28 nationally syndicated broadcast of The Radio Factor with Bill O'Reilly:

CALLER: I'm calling today because I think it's fair to say that a large amount of the youth that are involved in this election now, this time around. And I just think that the majority of them are voting Kerry. Is that crazy?

O'REILLY: Yeah, I think the stoned slackers'll go for Kerry. I think he'll carry that vote. ... The stoned-slacker vote. Ummm -- but I don't know if they're gonna go. You know, look, Puff Daddy [Combs] and his crew -- they're running around, "Vote or Die!" and all that. Yeah, it's good publicity to get on TV. Are they gonna get out? Are they gonna leave the bong and stand in line for an hour? I don't know.

Yes Bill, the young vote is out there and voting because they are the ones that have to go to Iraq. They are the ones to have to pay off the debt and hope socoal security is still around.

When Michael Moore asked you if you would send your kid to Iraq, what did you say?

MMFA

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We've been pointing out for a long time the powerful connection between right-wing hate talk directed at illegal immigrants -- generated by the whole spectrum of media pundits and nativist anti-immigration organizations -- and the predictable and powerful explosion of hate crimes directed toward Latinos in recent years.

Indeed, the now-infamous case of Luis Ramirez in upstate Pennsylvania is not just a classic illustration of the problem, but equally a demonstration of the real need for a federal bias-crime statute.

More pointedly, perhaps, the case of Shawna Forde and her gang of Aryan Minutemen -- who killed a 9-year-old girl in cold blood in a botched home-invasion robbery in Arizona -- makes abundantly clear how the kind of anti-immigrant rhetoric being stirred up on the Right by "respectable" nativists like the Federation for Immigration reform is whipping extremists into their usually violent courses of action.

The Washington Post yesterday reported on the connection between the nativist immigrant-bashing that has been endemic to the immigration debate and these kinds of hate crimes:

U.S. civil rights leaders said yesterday that an increase in hate crimes committed in recent years against Hispanics and people perceived to be immigrants "correlates closely" to the nation's increasingly contentious debate over immigration.

Hate crimes targeting Hispanic Americans rose 40 percent from 2003 to 2007, the most recent year for which FBI statistics are available, from 426 to 595 incidents, marking the fourth consecutive year of increases.

As the report explains, the crimes are being whipped up by a combination of grotesquely irresponsible media figures like Lou Dobbs, Bill O'Reilly and Glenn Beck, and "respectable" nativist organizations such as the Federation for American Immigration Reform and the Center for Immigration Studies.

All of these folks have adamantly denied they have anything to do with these crimes. Dobbs and O'Reilly have been patently disingenuous in running away from their culpability. Meanwhile, FAIR, CIS, and the rest of the John Tanton Network have done likewise.

And as Eric Ward observes, they're doing likewise in trying to flee their connection to Shawna Forde. Their press release responding to reports of the connection mostly continued to attack the Southern Poverty Law Center, one of their most persistent critics.

Well, as we reported, it's not entirely clear how Forde came to be identified as a "spokesperson for FAIR" at a 2006 immigration forum in Yakima. But what's more than abundantly clear is that the Minuteman Project organization which originally empowered Forde and with which she has extensive connections was heavily promoted by FAIR.

Forde has a particularly extensive background of connections to Jim Gilchrist, the founder of the Minuteman Project. She appeared onstage with Gilchrist in 2007 in Everett, Wash., at an "Immigration Summit" organized by local right-wingers.

Michael Hood wrote up a riveting account of this affair for The Stranger:

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Those upstanding nativists and xenophobes employed by the John Tanton Network -- and particularly the Federation for American Immigration Reform, which was designated a hate group by the SPLC awhile back -- have been complaining vigorously about how unfairly they are being treated. Why, they have nothing to do with the manifest racism swirling around the immigration debate -- so they claim.

But the recent arrest of Minuteman offshoot leader Shawna Forde for the murder of an Arizona man and his 9-year-old daughter -- part of a broader plan to rob drug dealers and use the money to finance their Minuteman operations -- has ripped the veneer off the fake walls these nativists use to pretend that they have nothing to do with the racists who seem to swell their ranks as though they belonged there naturally. (Funny thing, that.)

Back in 2006, you see, Forde appeared at a public "town hall" forum on immigration in Yakima, Wash., a central-Washington city whose main economy is agricultural, particularly apple orchards. As Jackie Mahendra at America's Voice notes, she was presented as a "spokesperson for FAIR" as well as the Minutemen.

As you can see from the video above, Forde was outrageously incendiary, accusing immigrants of bringing crime and disease to the state and costing taxpayers in health-care costs, particularly for their "anchor babies."

At one point, host Enrique Cerna asked Forde:

Cerna: Shawna, let me ask you about the issue of economics. You've heard constraints from growers, you know, that the apple harvest is very important in this state, particularly in this region. What do you say to the growers?

Forde: We've got a prison system. Let's utilize it.

She later wrapped up with this:

Forde: I'd like to see two things on there. Not just about the people who came here legally, and are here legally, but how about the Americans who have been affected and died because of the illegal invasion in our country? How about our sovereignty?

And securing our borders and protecting our nation is extremely important. And I know the Minutemen and many organizations will not stop -- we will start at the local level and work our way up -- we will not stop until we get the results that we need to have.

However, it was unclear to me if Forde really was a FAIR representative or whether she had just lied about that, as seems to be her pattern in many instances.

But in untangling the puzzle, what emerged was a clear portrait of FAIR officials commingling freely with Minutemen and the many seedy characters who occupy their ranks -- so much so that what they become is a "respectable" front organization for a ragtag bunch of thuggish nativists.

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