You can view this video right here by getting the latest version of Flash Player!

DOWNLOADS: (31)

PLAYS: (74)

CNN Oct. 18, 2009. Don Lemon's softball interview with Alberto Gonzales painting him as a "legal trailblazer". After what Gonzo did to the Department of Justice during his term there, the words "legal" and "trailblazer" are hardly what come to mind for me.

Although Lemon does ask Gonzales about the accusations against him, he allows him to claim that "a lot of what happened towards the end, I would say 98 percent was political" and that he's been cleared of any wrong doing.

Having the DOJ give you cover by not going after the higher ups on torture or some right wing extemist Cheney fixer judge dismissing a civil suit is not the same thing as investigations confirming someone's innocence. Everyone from the Congress to the current AG's office has dropped the ball on following through on investigating Gonzales and now the man is on the television claiming they did and cleared him and Don Lemon allows it. Astounding.

LEMON: So right here on this program we're profiling Latinos who overcame obstacles and shattered stereotypes to make history. It's part of our series "Pioneros: Latino Firsts." Tonight, the first Latino to become a U.S. attorney general. Alberto Gonzales. I met up with him in his new role on the campus of Texas Tech University.

(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)

LEMON (voice-over): When last we saw Alberto Gonzales, he was wielding the power and influence that come with the title U.S. attorney general. Today he is in a new role on campus at Texas Tech University in Lubbock, Texas. A recruiter for minority and underrepresented students, and a visiting professor, teaching a course called Contemporary Issues in the Executive Branch.

Gonzales knows all about issues. He was pressured to resign after 2 1/2 years as George W. Bush's attorney general. Dogged by accusations he misused the Patriot Act to uncover private information on U.S. citizens, denied rights to prisoners held in U.S.-run detention camps and then lied to Congress about all of it.

(on camera): Is there something that you want people to know about that experience or what happened? Why you resigned?

ALBERTO GONZALES, FIRST LATINO U.S. ATTORNEY GENERAL: I think unfortunately because Washington can be political, a lot of what happened towards the end, I would say 98 percent was political. Quite frankly.

LEMON: Explain that. What do you mean?

GONZALES: Listen, you had members of Congress making allegations that I engage in perjury, criminal wrongdoing. And we now have these investigations that has been confirmed that none of that is true. But I think that for some people, it was an opportunity to perhaps embarrass the president by going after someone they perceived as close to the president.

Even to the end, President Bush fully supported you. How much did that help at all?

Continue reading »

You can view this video right here by getting the latest version of Flash Player!

DOWNLOADS: (789)

PLAYS: (2042)

Chris Matthews was off this week with Norah O'Donnell filling in so there is one good thing I can say about this week's show. None of the guests were interrupted or talked over. That said, check out this ridiculous "Matthews Meter" question. And six of their panelists thought the venom was partly Obama's fault, including Howard Fineman.

Once again driftglass nails this one in his post Sunday Morning Comin' Down -- "The Tell-Tweety Heart" (warning, not safe for work):

Epilogue:

While six of the "journalists" who make up the "Matthew's Meter" say, yes, the anti-Obama hatred was unavoidable, six say Obama partly brought it on himself.

Fineman: He didn’t talk to Main Street. He needs to spend every minute of every day constantly reassure crazy people on the Right that he doesn’t want to abort Sarah Palin's baby and shoot grandma in the head or turn Murrica into a Franco-Islamic Communist Caliphate. This is perhaps unfair, but after all, he is Black.

Jokeline: I was at some town meetings this summer, most recently in Arkansas. And this is an awful lot about race. And not just because of Obama’s name or skin color. If you’re working class white, you’re seeing Latinos and Asians.

driftglass: And bears. Oh my.

But why is this coming up now during a health care debate?

Jokeline: Because they’re being egged on by demagogues in the Republican Party. By Boss Rush Limbaugh. And I call him The Boss, because there is not a single, Republican elected official who is willing to call him out on his lies.

Cooper: Because there are a lot of White people – particularly in the South – who have just lost their s#%t over a Black man being President.

Fineman: Let me repeat it in case I was not condescending enough the first time – this White House needs to constantly kiss wingnut ass every way they can think of. Maybe it’s unfair, but after all, he is Black. Also he was forced to behave like a filthy, filthy Liberal to save the economy from crashing and burning, and the doublewide trailer crowd who his policies probably saved from living in refrigerator boxes and begging for nickels on freeway overpasses will never forgive him for it.

There's lots more at driftie's place. Go on over there and check out the entire post. I don't want to give too much of it away to spoil the fun, but I thought it was priceless.

You can view this video right here by getting the latest version of Flash Player!

DOWNLOADS: (992)

PLAYS: (5695)

"Empathy for one party is always prejudice against another." -- Sen. Jeff Sessions, R-Alabama

I was struck by this key sentence in Sessions' opening remarks Monday in the Sonia Sotomayor hearings, especially because he presented it as the essential logic behind their opposition to Sotomayor -- their abiding fear that when she sits on the court, she'll be ruling against every white man who crosses her path.

We know this, according to their logic, because she is Latino -- and because she emphasizes her "empathy" for other Latinos, she will be prejudiced against any non-Latinos in her courtroom.

It is, as logic goes, about as obviously faulty as syllogisms get. Normal human empathy is not exclusive -- that is, our ability to feel empathy for one party does not necessarily exclude empathy for another party (or moreover, in Sessions' formulation, necessitate an animus to any other party). Being empathetic typically means the ability to place oneself in another person's shoes regardless of background. Identifying closely with one group at the exclusion of another typically is the antithesis of empathy.

What Sessions is describing is not empathy but rather the crude tribalism that underscores and animates most racist belief systems, and has done so since time immemorial. It is, essentially, an almost astonishing confession to being racist on Sessions' part.

And it animates not just Sessions but nearly the whole of movement conservatism and the Republican Party. If you were to poll Republican senators this week and ask them if they agreed with Sessions' "logic," I'd wager the numbers would be in the vicinity of 90 percent.

Nor is it just the senators. Look at Pat Buchanan yesterday, and Rush Limbaugh every day. The same core belief -- that empathy for Latinos, or black people, or any nonwhite, equals prejudice against whites -- indeed animates nearly the entirety of the conservative movement. I'd like to find a single conservative who would repudiate Sessions' formula. I bet I won't.

Rachel Maddow provided an ample survey of how bad it is out there last night. She was especially appalled by his column calling for Republicans to indulge in nakedly racial appeals to gain the sympathy of white voters -- though of course, for Buchanan, this is nothing particularly new. Back in 1989, he was arguing to the GOP to gradually adopt David Duke's positions at the time. And you know what? They did.

Maddow says Buchanan will be on her show to explain himself tonight. That should be entertaining. She won't need to ask Buchanan if he agrees with Sessions -- I think we already know the answer.

You can view this video right here by getting the latest version of Flash Player!

DOWNLOADS: (3355)

PLAYS: (13324)

You don't have to have been from rural Pennsylvania to have been able to predict the outcome of this case:

Some satisfied, others outraged with verdict for immigrant's death

Friends and relatives of two teens accused in the beating death of a Mexican immigrant struggled to contain their relief as not-guilty verdicts were announced on the most serious charges against the former high school football stars Friday.

Gasps filled the courtroom and some had to be restrained by sheriff's deputies as they tried to rush the defense table after Derrick Donchak, 19, and Brandon Piekarsky, 17, were acquitted of aggravated assault, reckless endangerment and ethnic intimidation for the death of Luis Ramirez.

Piekarsky was also found not guilty of third-degree murder for the death of Ramirez, who died of blunt force injuries after an encounter with the teens last summer.

As Avery Friedman argues persuasively in the video from CNN yesterday, this was a pretty clear-cut case of jury nullification: the weight of evidence against the accused was so powerful that it's clear the all-white jury -- like similar juries in the South during the Civil Rights struggle -- was not going to convict two young white men of murdering a Mexican. Even if, as Friedman says, "the only reason he is dead is because he was Mexican."

Prosecutors alleged that the teens baited the Ramirez into a fight with racial epithets, provoking an exchange of punches and kicks that ended with Ramirez convulsing in the street, foaming from the mouth. He died two days later in a hospital.

Piekarsky was accused of delivering a fatal kick to Ramirez's head after he was knocked to the ground.

As they poured out of courthouse, the teens' supporters shouted "I was right from the start" and "I'm glad the jury listened" at cameras that caught the late-night verdict.

But Gladys Limon, a spokeswoman for the Mexican-American Legal Defense and Education Fund, said the jury had sent a troubling message.

"The jurors here [are] sending the message that you can brutally beat a person, without regard to their life, and get away with it, continue with your life uninterrupted," she said.

Considering some of the details of the killing, it's also inordinately clear this was a classic bias crime, with the incident instigated by racially charged taunts that made clear the victim was selected because of racial animus:

Continue reading »

We wrote a lot about John McCain's temper during the election, but this latest one is a doozy.

“He was angry,” one source said. “He was over the top. In some cases, he rolled his eyes a lot. There were portions of the meeting where he was just staring at the ceiling, and he wasn’t even listening to us. We came out of the meeting really upset.”

McCain’s message was obvious, the source continued: After bucking his party on immigration, he had no sympathy for Hispanics who are dissatisfied with President Obama’s pace on the issue. “He threw out [the words] ‘You people — you people made your choice. You made your choice during the election,’ ” the source said. “It was almost as if [he was saying] ‘You’re cut off!’ We felt very uncomfortable when we walked away from the meeting because of that.”

The idea that when he said that "you people" were just voters who didn't back him rings very hollow. His intent was quite clear. If you brown people would have backed me--I would have won the election. There were a lot of people that didn't back McCain for the election and losing his temper just shows how unhinged these privileged men in power actually are. He did push the Bush immigration deal, but you know it was just response to the anger many Latinos felt overSensenbrenner's HOUSE bill.

But, as National Journal notes, “one person’s straight talk is another person’s vitriol”:

But one person’s straight talk is another person’s vitriol. “My hands were shaking,” one source said. “I was nervous as no-end.” The senator’s comments went on for several minutes at least. And by the end of the meeting, another participant, who had supported McCain in last year’s presidential election, was so shaken by the display of temper that he decided it is good that McCain isn’t in the White House.

Digby writes:

I think one of the things I find most reprehensible about the Republican Party and their Big Money backers is that they think it's OK to play Russian Roulette with the country (and the world) by nominating people to power who have completely inappropriate temperaments for it. George W. Bush, with his thin skinned, shallow understanding of the world, bottomless need for flattery, is a good case in point.

The most recent well-publicized anti-Latino bias crime -- this time involving the death of an Ecuadorean immigrant -- has prompted the National Council of La Raza to push for the passage, at long last, of a federal hate-crimes law:

Today the National Council of La Raza (NCLR)—the largest national Hispanic civil rights and advocacy organization in the United States—joined leaders from the National Hispanic Leadership Agenda on Capitol Hill to urge Congress and the new Administration to make passage of the “Local Law Enforcement Hate Crimes Prevention Act” a priority. Following on the heels of November's brutal battery and murder of Marcelo Lucero in Suffolk County, NY, another senseless death has provoked outrage in communities throughout the nation. Two Ecuadorean brothers were assaulted on December 8 in the Bushwick section of Brooklyn. Jose Osvaldo Sucuzhanay died last week as a result of his injuries.

“President-Elect Obama and the new Congress should not waste any time in immediately passing the ‘Local Law Enforcement Hate Crimes Prevention Act’ so that more lives are not lost in senseless attacks,” said Janet Murguía, NCLR President and CEO. “The wave of hate unleashed by the polarized debate over immigration has led to an increase in violence and hate groups targeting Latinos. These recent deaths are a direct outcome of the anger and hatred spurred on by people who mischaracterize all Latinos and the institutions that serve them as a threat to our country.”

No doubt Lou Dobbs and Bill O'Reilly will promptly find ways to distort this debate. But they need a little reality check:

As the SPLC reports:

Hate crimes targeting Latinos increased again in 2007, capping a 40% rise in the four years since 2003, according to FBI statistics released this fall.

As anti-immigrant propaganda has increased on both the margins and in the mainstream of society — where pundits and politicians have routinely vilified undocumented Latino immigrants with a series of defamatory falsehoods — hate violence has risen against perceived "illegal aliens." Each year since 2003, the number of FBI-reported anti-Latino hate crime incidents has risen, even as a swelling nativist movement has become larger and more vitriolic.

This about more than just Latinos, though. This is about black people (remember the Jena 6?), gays and lesbians, Muslims ... every kind of minority. And for that matter, it's about white straight people too:

Continue reading »

One aspect of the 2008 election outcome that will likely have real long-term consequences for the nation's political alignment is the emergence of the power of the Latino vote.

It's looking increasingly as though Latinos have moved semi-permanently into the Democrats' column, in large part because the Republican brand has been semi-permanently tainted with the ugly nativist bigotry that has immersed movement conservatism. It certainly played a significant role in the voters' repudiation of all things conservative.

Andres Ramirez at NDN Blog likewise pored over the numbers and found, among other things:

Hispanics Improved The Margin of Victory in These Four States - In Colorado, Obama’s Hispanic support accounted for 7.9% of the electorate, while Obama won by 9%. In Florida, Obama’s Hispanic support accounted for 7.9% of the electorate, while Obama won by 3%. In Nevada, Obama’s Hispanic support accounted for 11.4% of the electorate, while Obama won by 12%. In New Mexico, Obama’s Hispanic support accounted for 28.3% of the electorate, while Obama won by 15%.

If These Trends Continue, the National Map Will Continue to Get Harder for Republicans – Of the nine states that flipped from Bush 2004 to Obama 2008, four were heavily Latino states. Just as Pete Wilson’s taking on Hispanics in the 1990s contributed to the transformation of California, home of Richard Nixon and Ronald Reagan, from a swing to the bluest of blue states, the demonization of Hispanics by the national GOP is turning very critical battleground states much more blue.

A recent study by America's Voice looks at how 19 out of 21 pro-reform candidates beat nativist hard-liners in key battleground contests around the country:

Here's the essence: swing voters chose candidates that stood up for a more comprehensive approach to immigration reform than their hard-line opponents. Latino voters turned out in record numbers and voted down the anti-immigrant rhetoric of the Republican Party. Their participation in the 2008 elections contributed to Senator Obama's wins in key battleground states like Colorado, New Mexico, Nevada, and Florida, and also helped Democrats win contested House and Senate races in these states and beyond.

Meanwhile, the anti-immigrant forces that have all but hijacked the Republican Party proved to be inconsequential at best, except for their role in potentially driving the GOP into the political wilderness with Latino and New American voters.

Continue reading »

We knew beforehand that the Latino vote was going to be a major player in the 2008 election.

And they were:

About two-thirds of Hispanics voted for Obama, decisively surpassing the 53 percent who voted for Democrat John Kerry in 2004, exit polls showed. That year Bush enjoyed a high-water mark of GOP support from Hispanics with 44 percent of the vote from the nation's fastest growing ethnic group.

America's Voice reports in a press release:

• The Latino Vote Surged in Size: The Latino vote comprised at least 8% of the overall electorate, according to exit polling. This works out to approximately 10.5 million voters, given the expected 130 million votes cast. This figure represents a jump of 3 million voters since 2004, when 7.6 million Latinos cast ballots, and is almost double the Latino turnout of 2000.
• The Latino Vote Broke Democratic: In 2004, Democratic candidate John Kerry won the Latino vote 56-44% against George W. Bush. Yesterday, Barack Obama won the Latino vote by a 66-32% margin against John McCain, and even won a majority of Latino support in Florida, a former Latino stronghold for the GOP. Given the increased size of the Latino electorate, this means that 2.9 million more Latino votes went to the Democratic candidate compared to 2004.
• Barack Obama Swept the “Latino Battleground” States: Both the Obama and McCain campaigns focused their Spanish-speaking advertising and outreach on four key battleground states – CO, FL, NM, and NV. Within these states, the Latino vote’s rapid growth and break towards Democratic candidates played an important role in Democratic victories.

Continue reading »

DOWNLOAD (55)

PLAY (59)

MSNBC's Chuck Todd had on Amy Walter of Hotline to talk about the nation's racial demographics and the internal dynamic affecting the outcome of Election 2008, and Walter had this to say:

Todd: Amy, on Election Day and we look at these returns coming in on the South, and if it is no longer a solid Republican South, then isn't the story: Race benefited Barack Obama? Race is the reason why he won a state in the South, be it North Carolina, Virginia, Florida, Louisiana -- it's popped into single digits, South Carolina has popped into single digits. Georgia. There's only one reason --

Walter: We always assumed that race was going to be a negative. That that was the issue coming into this. Well, you say, well, race is a negative as in the "Bradley effect," as in turning off white voters. But -- and I think you've pointed this out too -- I think there are two issues: One is, yes, in a place like -- let's not say Georgia or Mississippi, I still think those states are tough calls for Barack Obama, but certainly can be helpful to the Senate candidates -- but a place like North Carolina, certainly, are very important.

But it's Latino vote too. When all is said and done, and we've spent a lot of time talking about white working class voters, we've spent a lot of time talking about the African American vote, what we haven't spent a lot of time talking about is how dramatically Latino voters are breaking against John McCain and breaking for Barack Obama in the states that could decide this election: Colorado, Virginia (another one of those), Nevada, New Mexico.

This trend has been building for awhile now. I guess McCain's "I heart Latinos but just don't tell anyone" strategy hasn't worked out so well. As Politico's Jonathan Martin goes on to note:

Chuck, I think the McCain folks spent so much time focusing on the trends in the Democratic primary [when Latino voters trended heavily toward Hillary Clinton] and taking lessons from that contest, but it seems like that wasn't necessarily a smart thing to do. I think they picked their running mate based in large part on this primary, and talking about these demographic factors. It was based on the primary.

Chuck, the thought was, Jewish Americans, Latinos, blue collar [whites] wouldn't go for Obama based on the trends in the Democratic primary. A funny thing happened. McCain is cleaning up among Latinos.