Politics

Renewed Effort to Make Over School Lunches

Written by Jessica Acee

Students in America’s public schools eat garbage for lunch.

This is nothing new. We’ve known for a long time that the meat served in public school lunches is a few steps below what is served in fast-food joints, and that the government money given to schools for lunch programs hasn’t increased since the ‘70s.

America’s pathetic school lunches have even attracted the attention of England’s Naked Chef who has been spending a lot of time in Huntington, West Virginia (the obesity capital of the world). Jamie Oliver’s newest TV show, Jamie Oliver’s Food Revolution, aims to transform school lunches from the artery clogging to the leafy green and nutritious, one school at a time.… Read more

Politics

Minutemen Civil Defense Corps Now Defunct

Written by Cloee Cooper

Last week, the Minutemen Civil Defense Corps announced that it will officially dissolve. The announcement distributed by President Carmen Mercer of Arizona mentions that the organization’s termination grew “out of concern for their volunteers’ safety and accelerating liability threats.” She cited concern about being held liable if members take their anti-illegal immigrant crusade too far. For those of us who remember the murder of Brisenia Flores last year by alleged spokesperson for FAIR and leader of the Minutemen American Defense, Shawna Forde, Mercer’s concern with violent associations is not surprising. Meanwhile, in the wake of the announcement, minutemen affiliates and former members have released statements attempting to take over leadership of… Read more

Politics

Top to Bottom, FAIR is Steeped in Extremism

Written by Jill Garvey

‘What’s in a name?’ is an especially relevant question when it comes to the Federation for American Immigration Reform (FAIR). For an organization with such a benign moniker, it has a whole lot of hate propping it up. Go to FAIR’s website and at first glance it may seem like just another conservative, beltway organization; relatively boring, chock full of links to articles and “factual” data on immigration, but lurking a few clicks away are clues to FAIR’s more sinister core.

FAIR was founded 30 years ago by John Tanton to address his obsession with racial eugenics, population growth, scarcity of resources, and more specifically which population group would have control of… Read more

Politics

Cross-post: Fox News, Health Care, and the Right-Wing Nervous Breakdown

Written by Imagine 2050 Editors

Eric Boehlert posted this article on Media Matters for America on March 23, 2010.

Watching Fox News personalities recently come unglued as the realization set in that (surprise!) Democrats might actually have the votes to pass health care reform — and noting how extraordinarily loopy and dire both the attacks on the White House, and the proclamations for pending, apocalyptic doom were becoming — I was getting nervous that one of Fox News’ more unhinged hosts might finally just snap and pull a Rev. Jim Jones, beseeching viewers to make the ultimate sacrifice.

Honestly, unless you’ve been monitoring the ticking time bomb that is the far-right media in recent days, you probably don’t appreciate how

… Read more

Politics

Bad Week for Nativist Attorney Kris Kobach

Written by Imagine 2050 Editors

Following up on widespread claims that anti-immigrant attorney Kris Kobach was being paid large sums by the Maricopa County Sheriff”s Office, Stephen Lemons of Feathered Bastard got a hold of the official contract between MCSO and Kobach.

Kris Kobach, the far right-wing nativist attorney Sheriff Joe Arpaio’s hired to train the MCSO in immigration matters, is receiving $300 per hour, plus expenses, including airline tickets to and from Arizona.

Though Arpaio’s Chief Deputy David Hendershott surmised in his recent deposition in the civil rights lawsuit Melendres vs. Arpaio that Kobach was making anywhere from $250-$300 per hour, to be paid from the MCSO’s RICO slush fund, I just got the official contract

… Read more

Politics

Tanton Memo of the Month – The Promotion of Eugenics

Written by Sarah Viets

This month’s Tanton Memo of the Month focuses on John Tanton’s eugenics project, Society for the Advancement of Genetics Education (SAGE).

In the mid 1990s, John Tanton, the founder of a host of anti-immigrant organizations, including NumbersUSA and the Center for Immigration Studies, decided to develop a platform to educate the public on eugenics without using the term “eugenics.”

Eugenics was used to justify slavery in the U.S. and Nazi Germany’s crimes against Jews, and Tanton recognized that the American public had come to reject pseudo-scientific arguments that certain racial or ethnic groups were inferior to others.

Politics

Negative Population Growth and the Tanton Network’s Obsession with Population Control

Written by Stephen Piggott

Negative Population Growth, an anti-immigrant group financed by the Federation for American Immigration Reform (FAIR) recently published its latest forum paper titled “Haiti’s Problems, and their Lessons” by Walter Youngquist. The two page paper essentially argues that the one of the root causes of Haiti’s problems is its population growth.

This is not the first attack on Haiti by the John Tanton Network since the horrific earthquake that ravaged the country earlier this year.

In the immediate aftermath of the earthquake, FAIR called the Obama Administration’s plan to give Temporary Protected Status (TPS) for Haitian nationals “reckless and overboard.” The John Tanton Network continued its lack of sympathy for the Haitian… Read more

Immigration

Food Processing Companies Need to Treat Workers Like Humans, Not Machines

Written by Carlos Rich

Can you imagine being severely hurt at your job, then going to the company doctor only to be told that you’re fine and you need to return back to work immediately? This is what happens to many immigrants and refugees in the food processing plants around the Midwest. When I first came to Southeast Iowa about two and half years ago, the first person I met was Juan*. He approached me in town because he had not seen me there before, and he invited me to his house. As we talked I learned of his story.

He told me of being injured at work; a deep cut on his left thumb. He showed me the… Read more

Healthcare Should Be Just the Beginning

Written by James E. Johnson Jr.

The parable of the talents should be a cautionary tale for members of our government. In the parable the master (the voters) entrusted three servants with a number of talents based on their abilities and told them to do his work.

To the first servant whom he deemed the most able (President Obama) he entrusted five talents. To the second servant whom he deemed second most able (Congressional Democrats) he entrusted two talents. And to the servant whom he deemed least able (Congressional Republicans) he entrusted one talent. Then the master went on a long journey (two years between elections).

Politics

Hardcore Racists Flock to NumbersUSA’s Campaign

Written by Chris Bober

NumbersUSA deployed its counter-action to the immigration reform march in Washington D.C over the weekend. The plan, S.T.O.P Amnesty in four days, contained carefully crafted talking points that tea party and hard-core, anti-immigrant activists used to lobby state and federal lawmakers. NumbersUSA’s anti-immigrant rhetoric was used once again to demonize immigrants and create the illusion that Americans are strongly opposed to immigration reform.

In order to facilitate its efforts, NumbersUSA re-tooled its home page to include webcasts, detailed action alerts, and a social media feed. Not surprisingly, its attempt to create a web-based community backfired as its action alerts and website brought out racists, bigots, and the worst of the anti-immigrant movement. Even… Read more