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I think we've all noticed the increasing tendency of right-wing pundits to openly indulge in racist stereotyping these days as somehow an acceptable form of discourse -- because, you know, they're just jokes! C'mon, dontcha have a sense of humor that includes hating on people different than you? It's all for the sake of ratings, you know. Jeez, don't be such a stiff!

Andrea Nill over at ThinkProgress' WonkRoom came across this one:

This weekend, Human Events posted an offensive parody of the famous Christmas song, “Feliz Navidad,” entitled “Illegal Aliens In My Yard.” Besides repeatedly referring to undocumented immigrants as “illegals,” a term that’s considered pejorative and offensive by immigrants rights organizations, the song primarily focuses on spreading false and hateful stereotypes about Latinos who are portrayed as bug-carrying invalids:

Illegals in my yard.
Illegals in my yard.
Illegals in my yard.
Sixteen arrive in a stolen car[...]

They’re getting free organ transplants this Christmas.
They’re going to have anchor babies this Christmas.
They’re going to scream “sí, se puede” this Christmas.
Those illegals in my yard[...]

They’re going to spread bubonic plague this Christmas.
They’re going to bring me lots of bed bugs this Christmas.
They’re going to pass tuberculosis this Christmas.
Those illegals in my yard.

Bad enough that they reflexively dehumanize immigrants by calling them "illegals". But the plague? Bed bugs? Tuberculosis?

That's Lou Dobbs territory and beyond. Disease carriers and criminals, that's what Latino immigrants are.

No wonder the Republican Party keeps shrinking into itself.

Things are tough all over...unless, of course you're one of the elites.

Not one of those liberal elites Fox News is always grumbling about. But the true elites. You know, the ones who get bonuses bigger than the ones they received last year despite being bailed out by the Feds. Or who post record profits despite a soft economy and record gas prices. Or who complain that they can't possibly compete with a federal public option, despite having a literal cartel and a near monopoly. Those who tell you that the problems in this country can be blamed on labor unions, illegal immigrants, lazy people who won't try harder to get off unemployment rolls, or gay people who want to have their partnerships legally recognized.

What do those elites have in common?

Greed. Simple, all-American greed.

In the last thirty years, greed has over taken our society and economy, grabbing our politicians, our media and too many people for whom the benefits don't trickle down into their Chicago School of Economics/Friedmanesque/free market-worshipping grasp. We have gone from Gordon Gecko's "Greed is good" to the GOP's implicit mantra "Greed is patriotic" and that force to get the most for ourselves, the hell with everyone else has driven this country to the brink of a second great depression and all but killed our middle class.

Jonathan Tasini has chronicled the reasons and people responsible for the looting of America in his new book, The Audacity of Greed. The corporate executives who bust unions and lay off workers while jet-setting in their multi-million lifestyles; the politicians too beholden to corporate interests to regulate industries to protect Americans to the media that reinforces and celebrates the robbing of average Americans as something to which one should aspire.

From Jonathan's official bio:

Jonathan Tasini is executive director of the Labor Research Association. The longtime president of the National Writers Union, he was the lead plaintiff in Tasini vs. The New York Times, the landmark electronic rights case that took on the corporate media's assault on the rights of freelance authors. In 2006 he ran against Hillary Clinton for the Democratic nomination for the US Senate in New York. He has written about labor and economics for a variety of publications including The New York Times Magazine, The Washington Post, Los Angeles Times, and The Wall Street Journal, and has appeared on CNBC and Fox News. He is currently challenging Kirsten Gillibrand for the 2010 Democratic nomination for US Senate from New York.

Howie Klein has an autographed copy of The Audacity of Greed that we will be giving out to the C&Ler whom Jonathan has determined asked the best question.

So with that, please join me in welcoming Jonathan Tasini to C&L.

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Ali Noorani of the National Immigration Forum was on The O'Reilly Factor last night with substitute host Laura Ingraham, talking about the coming battle over immigration.

Ingraham, predictably, dismissed the key component of immigration-reform plans -- creating a path for citizenship for those immigrants already here -- as "amnesty". Cluestick to Ingraham: Since when is paying an appropriate fine for a civil violation -- which is what having illegal-immigrant status is in under our current laws -- "amnesty"? Because that's what the current plans call for.

Ingraham, though, wants all of those illegals to go back home first before they can get back in line. Noorani, fortunately, was able to point out the utter impracticality of that idea.

So Ingraham tried yet another tack: Why should we let all these undocumented workers into the workforce when we're suffering massive unemployment right now?

But that argument is predicated on the notion that immigrants "take jobs away from Americans" -- which is indeed a fundamental flaw. As Cristina Jimenez at The American Prospect pointed out a few months back, comprehensive immigration reform in fact "is a cost-effective path to short-term stimulus and long-term recovery":

Under current law, undocumented workers are at the mercy of employers to the same extent that unprotected native-born workers were before the union victories of the 1930s. Distance from those historic triumphs makes it easy to forget that when immigrants and non-immigrants are equally empowered, job quality improves and wages rise, because the common interests of immigrants and non-immigrants become much stronger than the artificial conditions that divide them. Today, as in the past, cooperation and coalition-building would benefit all immigrants and native-born Americans trying to work their way into the middle class.

The Immigration Policy Center [PDF file] explains (in a reform plan written for members of Congress):

In this economic downturn, many may argue that immigration reform is not a priority. However, reforming our broken immigration system is an important part of improving our economy. Currently, unscrupulous employers are able to exploit undocumented workers and create unfair competition by violating labor laws and paying sub-minimal wages. This is harmful to U.S. businesses and U.S. workers. Our immigration system needs to work for all Americans, not just for those employers looking for low-cost labor. We need to recognize that it would be far better if immigrant workers were here legally and could exercise the same rights on the job as native-born workers. Leveling the playing field for both workers and employers by legalizing all workers and enforcing labor laws against bad-apple employers will eliminate unfair competition and improve the wages and working conditions of all workers. Putting immigrant workers in the formal economy and higher wages will increase tax revenues and consumption.

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The pressure is mounting on President Obama's Justice Department to take on the case of Luis Ramirez, the Latino man whose killers were set free by a rural Pennsylvania jury that likely indulged in classic race-based nullification -- and Exhibit A in the debate over why we need a federal bias-crime law.

Yesterday, Latino advocates held a news conference outside the Capitol to make the push:

Joined at a news conference outside of the Capitol by U.S. Sen. Robert Menendez, D-NJ, and Rep. Mike Honda, D-Calif., members of the Mexican American Legal Defense and Education Fund, Anti-Defamation League and the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People said the federal government should press civil rights charges against Brandon Piekarsky, 17, and Derrick Donchak, 19.

... "This trial sends a message that the Department of Justice and our congressional leaders should be very concerned with," said John Amaya, legislative staff attorney at the Mexican American Legal Defense and Education Fund. "If you are Latino in America, if you are brutally attacked because of your ethnicity, if you died as a result of that brutal beating that is senseless and unjust, there is no justice for you."

The Justice Department has acknowledged it has an open investigation in the case, but has declined to be specific.

Gladys Limón of MALDEF has a piece up at CNN explaining in more detail why the case needs a closer examination -- at least, the sound legal reasons.

But there are larger reasons. As the Editors at The Sanctuary put it, murders like Ramirez's are an essential building block "in the process of establishing a subhuman class":

The third, overarching, shocking reality thrown into sharp relief by the murder of Luis Ramirez is how easily an environment of violently xenophobic rhetoric and targeted hate has normalized a modern-day lynching to the point that it is absorbed and diluted with barely a blip into the everyday news cycle and into public consciousness. How effortlessly a subhuman category of being is constructed and subsequently reviled. How a verdict has been passed on just how to deal with this synthesized Creature, and how effective that virulent messaging has been evidenced in a death like this one and in a pattern that plays out in various towns, cities, and states across the country. Seemingly unconnected cells of hatred hammer the dominant culture's sentence down upon a targeted group, and the system nods and winks when all is done.

The populace nods and winks along with them, too. This is particularly the case in rural areas, where bias crimes are rarely reported, rarely investigated or prosecuted, and even more rarely ever produce a conviction. As you can see in the above news reports, back in Schuykill County, the denial is layered on thickly:

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