Bwak bwak?

And if the "illegal immigrants" are stealing jobs from US citizens, why did only 25 to 30 people show up for the Koch owned chicken processing plant job fair which had 680 job openings?

Exactly.

From turbines to sniper rifles... what's not to love?

Wind turbine trees.

The 9 teachers who just received awards from the White House were all in the U.S. illegally.

Earthquake preparedness.

Earth from space.

That useless liberal arts degree is needed in the tech business.

Jimmy Carter says we're not a democracy anymore.  We're an oligarchy. (h/t to Steve Bates.)

Hacking a self-aiming sniper rifle.

Horsey

Returning to their roots....

Alabama brings back slavery for Latinos: Here's how: pass a draconian immigration law, lock up 'illegals' in private prisons, then get the new inmates to work in the fields

From here to there, from near to far...

From Digby: Xe (Blackwater) turning into mercenaries for the rich Arab countries.... after all the taxpayers' billions we gave Erik Prince, too!

And a quote from this article about making money off jailing illegal immigrants:

...this is the right's idea of a jobs program --- building prisons for illegal immigrants and charging the taxpayers for it. And the Feds are ruining it by shipping their "product" back to Mexico.

Boehner has gone nuts:

After having been sensible for quite a while, House Speaker John Boehner (R-Ohio) has adopted a remarkably dangerous position on the debt ceiling. His approach remains a hostage strategy — he’ll hold a gun to the American economy, until Democrats give him a series of spending cuts.

The Speaker’s position has been criticized by the White House, Wall Street, American business leaders, the Treasury, the Federal Reserve, and independent economists, all of whom want the debt limit issue resolved quickly and efficiently. For his part, Boehner told “Face the Nation” this morning that he doesn’t necessarily want to wait until early August.

Japan widens evacuation zone around Fukushima nuclear plant

Wisconsin Governor Moves To Block Hospital Visitation Rights For Same-Sex Couples

An amazing speech appropriate even now, made in the 1997 movie Good Will Hunting:

I thought they loved the Constitution so much

That it could not be touched...

Rep. Steve King (R-IA), the staunch opponent of illegal immigration who is set to become the chairman of a key subcommittee on immigration, is setting his sights on the right-wing cause of ending birthright citizenship for the children of illegal immigrants -- which many experts say would be unconstitutional.

And, as King told the local paper Cityview, his plan is to pass a statute anyway, and if it gets overruled in the courts, to then step up the effort to a constitutional amendment...

"Segregation now, segregation tomorrow and segregation forever"

The words of the famous Alabama governor George Wallace. Kinda fits Arizona at the moment though...

The Onion has the best take: Arizona High Schools To Now Teach Spanish Entirely In English

Arizona

Purging anyone brown from the state:

Maybe lawyers can restore the integrity of the Constitution, a document that forbids states like Arizona and towns like Freemont from fueling diasporas with their own immigration policies.

But what can lawyers do about jackals always tracking the immigrant's dusty footprint?

What do we do about the pregnant 31-year-old woman who was the target of another U-turn stop because of a faulty license-plate light on the back of her car? She was slammed into the hood of her vehicle when she did not readily consent to a search for non-existent narcotics. A U.S. citizen of Latin descent, she clearly remembers being told: "I can be an asshole if you're going to be a bitch."

What would you tell the 17-year-old child, an American, who was followed into a gated community on her way home from school? When asked for identification, she produced a valid Arizona driver's license. The officer insisted upon further proof, claiming he was required by law to get more documentation.

Though she speaks perfect English and knew the law wasn't scheduled to go into effect until this week, she was frightened half to death. She allowed the officer to tail her another couple of blocks to her home, where she retrieved her passport for inspection.

Each of these crude assaults upon dignity happened without benefit of SB 1070. Each happened to an American.

While Jan Brewer, state Senator Russell Pearce (1070's author), Barry Wong, and Joe Arpaio sport conservative mufti, this is neither a right nor left issue. The feckless few, Goddard, Giffords, and Mitchell, are not without incriminating shadow.

Historically, America attacks immigrants, only embracing the foreigners long after the Yankee has pummeled them to within an inch of their ethnicity. Progressives and those who should know better have their place in this roll call of sulfurous shame.

And the result?:

Area businesses also say they're seeing the effects of people leaving the state.

Steve Salvato, manager at the family-owned World Class Car Wash, just around the corner from Belleview Street, said business is down 30 percent. Salvato said the car wash relies mostly on Hispanic customers and points to the new law for the recent decline in business.

"A lot of people have just packed up and moved," he said, adding that a strip mall across the street used to be bustling on weekends. "Now it's like a ghost town."

A nearby Food City grocery store reports a 20 percent to 30 percent drop in business.

While the Obama administration is deporting more illegals than Bush ever did:

In a bid to remake the enforcement of federal immigration laws, the Obama administration is deporting record numbers of illegal immigrants and auditing hundreds of businesses that blithely hire undocumented workers.

The Immigation and Customs Enforcement agency anticipates deporting about 400,000 people this fiscal year, nearly 10 percent above the Bush administration's 2008 total and 25 percent more than were deported in 2007. The pace of company audits has roughly quadrupled since former President Bush's final year in office.

The effort is part of President Obama's larger project "to make our national laws actually work," as he put it in a speech this month at American University. Partly designed to entice Republicans to support comprehensive immigration reform, the mission is proving difficult and politically perilous.

Obama is drawing flak from hawks who contend the administration is weak on border security and from doves who are disappointed that he has not done more to fulfill his campaign promise to help the country's estimated 11 million illegal residents. Trying to thread a needle, the president contends enforcement -- including the deployment of fresh troops to the Mexico border -- is a necessary but insufficient solution.

The next step is supposed to be a free-for-all killing spree, right?

Isn't that what all hate speech leads to in the end?

CIUDAD JUAREZ, Mexico – A U.S. Border Patrol agent fatally shot a 15-year-old Mexican boy after a group trying to illegally enter Texas threw rocks at officers near downtown El Paso, U.S. authorities said Tuesday.

The shooting, which happened Monday evening beneath a railroad bridge linking the two nations, drew sharp criticism from Mexico, where President Felipe Calderon said Tuesday that his goverment "will use all resources available to protect the rights of Mexican migrants."

The government "reiterates its rejection to the disproportionate use of force on the part on U.S. authorities on the border with Mexico," the president added in a statement.

It was the second death of a Mexican at the hands of Border Patrol officers in less than two weeks, and the case threatened to swell into a full-blown international incident when U.S. and Mexican officials traded suggestions of misconduct.

Land of the free

Bits and bytes

Rate your lawmaker.

California voting issues.

Andre Bauer: 'Flat-Out Lazy' People Are The Real Cause Of The Immigration Problem

Dick Cheney rises from the dead.

Tom Tomorrow takes on Glenn Beck.

Goldman Showers ... the title of our new era. (via trifecta in comments)

Boycott Arizona.

Don't give them any of your money.

Update: Murder is totally predictable:

Arizona militia recruiting veterans with ‘kill records’ to patrol border.

And they will probably be Americans:

Arizona congressman Grijalva's offices to close because of death threats

More on our own concentration camps

Private prisons run for profit and taking all comers. Locking up innocents with no access to lawyers or hearings. What country does this sound like?:

America's detention system for immigrants has mushroomed in the last decade, a costly building boom that was supposed to sweep up criminals and ensure that undocumented immigrants were quickly shown the door.

Instead, an Associated Press computer analysis of every person being held on a recent Sunday night shows that most did not have a criminal record and many were not about to leave the country _ voluntarily or via deportation.

An official Immigration and Customs Enforcement database, obtained under the Freedom of Information Act, showed a U.S. detainee population of exactly 32,000 on the evening of Jan. 25.

The data show that 18,690 immigrants had no criminal conviction, not even for illegal entry or low-level crimes like trespassing. More than 400 of those with no criminal record had been incarcerated for at least a year. A dozen had been held for three years or more; one man from China had been locked up for more than five years.

Nearly 10,000 had been in custody longer than 31 days _ the average detention stay that ICE cites as evidence of its effective detention management.

Especially tough bail conditions are exacerbated by disregard or bending of the rules regarding how long immigrants can be detained.

Based on a 2001 ruling by the U.S. Supreme Court, ICE has about six months to deport or release immigrants after their case is decided. But immigration lawyers say that deadline is routinely missed. In the system snapshot provided to the AP, 950 people were in that category.

Stop the immigration raids

In 2008, thousands of workers were arrested in workplace raids, an eight-fold increase since 2002. Many of the workers were deported leaving behind children without parents, spouses (some of whom were U.S. citizens) without partners, and broken communities. The raids of businesses and homes occur at any time of the day or night, creating an atmosphere of terror in immigrant communities.

On February 24th the first immigration raid of the Obama Administration took place in Bellingham, Washington. Some 28 workers in an engine manufacturing plant were arrested. The raid violates President Obama’s vision of a united America full of hope, opportunity, and equal rights for all.

Indiscriminate raids by U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) target people solely for being undocumented. They arrest contributing members of our society. They hurt workers, businesses, and communities, and aggravate current economic hardships. Raids are not having any significant impact on the number of unauthorized workers. They are not raising wages in low-wage jobs. They seldom penalize employers who abuse workers. But fear about raids is crippling immigrant communities.

The raids must stop. Comprehensive reform of U.S. immigration policy to provide for family reunification and a path to citizenship must be enacted by Congress and signed by the President.

Tell President Obama to stop the raids.

Our own concentration camps

Outed.

"You can't work, you can't leave and you can't stay"

Bush's illegal immigration policy in action: (my bold)

The town of Postville, Iowa, population 2,000, has been turned into an open-air prison. Jerry Johnson, who works at nearby Luther College, called it something out of a bad science-fiction movie or the kind of thing a 1930s totalitarian regime might have cooked up.

"This was not only a grievous injustice but a shame on the state of Iowa and the federal government," said Mr. Johnson. "These were good, decent people who were also the most defenseless."

On May 12, immigration officials swooped in to arrest 400 undocumented workers from Mexico and Guatemala at the local meat-packing plant, a raid described as the biggest such action at a single site in U.S. history. The raid left 43 women, wives of the men who were taken away, and their 150 children without status or a means of support. The women cannot leave the town, and to make sure they do not they have been outfitted with leg monitoring bracelets.

"The women are effectively prisoners," said Father Paul Ouderkirk at St. Bridget's Roman Catholic Church. "The difference between them and anybody who is in jail is that in jail the government pays for them, but if they're on the streets we pay for them.

"What kind of a government makes prisoners of 43 mothers who all have children and then says, ‘You can't work, you can't leave and can't stay?' That boggles the imagination."

A spokesman for Immigration and Customs Enforcement said the law does not provide for work authorization for illegals.

Update: Wanted to include this post about illegal immigration/ undocumented workers. Read the comments for more facts.

Blog sprinkles

Hoots at Hootsbuddy's Place has complied an excellent list of sites about Obama's background as a professor.

David at Twenty One Times Two discusses (after the major rumpus caused by Google's spambot shutting out people from their blogs) how to back up your blog's content.

Mustang Bobby at Bark Bark Woof Woof notes the Republican huffiness on being called over playing the racism card:

Mr. Tapper would seem to prefer that Sen. Obama, like all Democratic Party nominees before him, not respond to the attacks from the McCain campaign. But Mr. Obama insists on standing up to them. It's like he doesn't know his place.

Oh, and if Mr. Obama and his campaign is too politically savvy to come out and say outright that the McCain campaign and his minions are doing the racist/xenophobic dog-whistles, a lot of other people are.

Steve Benen of The Carpetbagger Report: Keeping track of the amazing flips and counterflips of flipflopping John McCain.

Blue Girl of Blue Girl, Red State talks about the ugliness exposed with the undocumented worker raids and the harsh treatment following.

Morse of Media Needle observes that Obama is too fat.

Tengrain of Mock, Paper, Scissors has a comparison picture for you to puzzle out.

And finally, from Think Progress, the best ever response by a judge:

Last Friday, police in Des Moines, Iowa arrested four people who attempted to make a citizens’ arrest of former top White House aide Karl Rove, who was in town to speak at a GOP fundraiser. A retired minister and three members of the Des Moines Catholic Workers community were cited for trespassing. However, according to a press release, the judge presiding over the case praised their efforts:

[Mona] Shaw was the first called before Polk County Fifth Judicial District Associate Judge William Price.

After entering her plea, the judge asked Shaw, “Mamn, what were you doing at the Wakonda Country Club?”

“I was attempting to make a citizen’s arrest of Karl Rove, your honor,” Shaw answered.

“Well,” the judge looked up and said, “it’s about time.”

Who takes care of the jailed immigrants' children?

Born in America, they are Americans. They are often separated from nursing mothers, left wandering the streets, stuck at daycare, abandoned to strangers, lost in the Child Services system.

WATERLOO, Iowa — In temporary courtrooms at a fairgrounds here, 270 illegal immigrants were sentenced this week to five months in prison for working at a meatpacking plant with false documents.

The prosecutions, which ended Friday, signal a sharp escalation in the Bush administration’s crackdown on illegal workers, with prosecutors bringing tough federal criminal charges against most of the immigrants arrested in a May 12 raid. Until now, unauthorized workers have generally been detained by immigration officials for civil violations and rapidly deported.

The convicted immigrants were among 389 workers detained at the Agriprocessors Inc. plant in nearby Postville in a raid that federal officials called the largest criminal enforcement operation ever carried out by immigration authorities at a workplace.

Matt M. Dummermuth, the United States attorney for northern Iowa, who oversaw the prosecutions, called the operation an “astonishing success.”

Oh, good for you, Mr. Dummermuth. The article continues: (my bold)

The unusually swift proceedings, in which 297 immigrants pleaded guilty and were sentenced in four days, were criticized by criminal defense lawyers, who warned of violations of due process. Twenty-seven immigrants received probation. The American Immigration Lawyers Association protested that the workers had been denied meetings with immigration lawyers and that their claims under immigration law had been swept aside in unusual and speedy plea agreements.

The illegal immigrants, most from Guatemala, filed into the courtrooms in groups of 10, their hands and feet shackled. One by one, they entered guilty pleas through a Spanish interpreter, admitting they had taken jobs using fraudulent Social Security cards or immigration documents. Moments later, they moved to another courtroom for sentencing.

The pleas were part of a deal worked out with prosecutors to avoid even more serious charges. Most immigrants agreed to immediate deportation after they serve five months in prison.

Why is there such frantic haste? Why are they pushing these raids just before a presidential election? ... oh.

Remember what has happened to other immigrants who were swept up into the private prison system



(which is doing a very nice business at the moment), do we know what is happening to them? Do they have access to their families?

The article points out the evilness of these aliens:

All but a handful of the workers here had no criminal record, court documents showed.

And clearly, the businesses who hired these evil illegal aliens have been jailed or at least fined, right? The article continues:

No charges have been brought against managers or owners at Agriprocessors, but there were indications that prosecutors were also preparing a case against the company. In pleading guilty, immigrants had to agree to cooperate with any investigation.

Chaim Abrahams, a representative of Agriprocessors, said in a statement that he could not comment about specific accusations but that the company was cooperating with the government.

Ah. The corporations actually are pissed because lack of exploitable workers raises prices. They've even tried treating workers from India as they do the Mexicans, but it didn't go very well.

Note this amazingly unacknowledged fact:

"In 2001, the Social Security Administration concluded that undocumented immigrants "account for a major portion of the billions of dollars paid into social security that don’t match SSA records," which payees, many of whom are undocumented immigrants, can never draw upon. As of July 2003, these payments totaled $421 billion."

How about we spend the money intended for the border wall to start businesses in Mexico and Guatemala so these desperate families stay home?



Making these undocumented workers the scapegoat for our economic ills has been a traditional ploy in our political theater. It also brings out the truly ugly part of our society.

Is this the America we want to be?

crossposted at SteveAudio

When racists believe society supports what they do

They become truly vicious and ugly.

Minutemen unvarnished.

Minutemen Uncensored.