Politics

Ingraham & FAIR Make Strange Bedfellows

Written by Jill Garvey

The Federation for American Immigration Reform is featuring conservative radio host Laura Ingraham in its new campaign to support the recently enforced anti-immigrant law SB 1070 in Arizona.

On a website called borderbands.com, dedicated to the sale of wristbands to fund anti-immigrant group Federation for American Immigration Reform (FAIR), is a prominent photo of Laura Ingraham showing off her “border band.” The border bands campaign may have a separate website from FAIR, but don’t let that fool you. As this video featuring FAIR president Dan Stein clearly illustrates, FAIR is driving the fundraising campaign.

At first glance the Ingraham connection may not seem so far-fetched. But it’s an odd… Read more

podcast

Audio Blog: Freedom of Religion Defines America

Written by Jessica Acee

Press play below or click on the microphone

If you’ve watched the network news lately, you’ve probably seen coverage of the proposed Mosque and Islamic Cultural Center near the former site of the World Trade Center towers.

A huge amount of prime time space has been given to protesters of the Mosque, a group that includes Tea Party members, anti-Islamic activists and, sadly, the Anti-Defamation League or the ADL.  The ADL is a long-standing Jewish civil rights organization that released a statement in opposition to the planned Mosque and Cultural Center.

While the ADL’s statement is disappointing to say the least, it shouldn’t overshadow the Jewish community as a whole that… Read more

Politics

Student Delegation Tours Arizona Amid SB 1070 Enforcement

Written by Cloee Cooper

Today, a national student delegation launched a five day tour of Arizona in the midst of the recent enactment of controversial law SB 1070. The Center for New Community, a national civil rights organization based in Chicago, is sponsoring the trip. Students from Washington D.C., New York, Chicago and Colorado applied to join the delegation in order to gain a better understanding of the debate over SB 1070. A total of nine undergraduate students were selected to take part.

The majority black student delegation will be hearing directly from local Arizona spokespeople on national immigration issues such as the economy; migration and the border; the criminal justice system; the anti-immigrant movement; and community organizing.… Read more

Immigration

Immigration Acrostic

Written by Ken Brown

Asinine interjections of anti-immigrant hate create

Bathos to any expectation of intelligent thought

Coming from people who, in their own insecurities,

Denigrate those who cross oceans and cross burning deserts—having been

Excluded from all that mutual wealth

Free trade agreements egregiously guaranteed.

Greed runs rampant as big bosses make profits while

Hypocritical descendants of immigrants clamor about an

Imagined invasion, their ignorance exceedingly ugly.

Politics

Cross-Post: Massive Censorship Of Digg Uncovered

Written by Imagine 2050 Editors

Posted on Alternet.org by oleoleolson, August 5, 2010

A group of influential conservative members of the behemoth social media site Digg.com have just been caught red-handed in a widespread campaign of censorship, having multiple accounts, upvote padding, and deliberately trying to ban progressives. An undercover investigation has exposed this effort, which has been in action for more than one year.

“The more liberal stories that were buried the better chance conservative stories have to get to the front page. I’ll continue to bury their submissions until they change their ways and become conservatives.”
-phoenixtx (aka vrayz)

Digg.com is the powerhouse of social media websites. It is ranked 50th

… Read more

Immigration

Tea Party Nation Asks Supporters to Tell “Horror Stories” About Undocumented Immigrants

Written by Stephen Piggott

Since the Tea Party vehicle started there has been a constant debate over whether the movement is racist. While critics aren’t painting the entire movement as such, there are Tea Party leaders that have made headlines with racially insensitive rhetoric, and evidence of racist sentiments at Tea Party events across the nation abound.

In the beginning, the main issues for the Tea Partiers were big government and government spending, but as time goes on the issue of immigration has turned into a focal point for the movement.

One faction of the Tea Party that is not afraid to associate with nativism and xenophobia is the Tea Party Nation, led by Tennessee lawyer… Read more

Politics

After the Gavel – Anti-Immigrant Groups Respond to SB 1070 Ruling

Written by MJ Olahafa

The wrestling match between the Department of Justice and the State of Arizona ended with a bang – literally – on July 28 when Judge Susan Bolton gave her ruling over the controversial SB 1070 law, merely hours before it was supposed to go into effect.

The law, nicknamed ‘papers, please’, has caused quite a stir since it passed on the state level a few months ago because it called for racial profiling and the mistreatment of immigrants. This is not a very surprising fact considering that the anti-immigrant organization FAIR [Federation for American Immigration Reform] crafted SB1070 through its legal arm IRLI [Immigration Reform Law Institute].

Immigration

Anti-Immigrant Hidden Cameras & Neo-Nazi Patrols

Written by Rebecca Poswolsky

The anti-immigrant group Center for Immigration Studies (CIS) released its “hidden camera” documentary film this past July. A ten minute video titled, “Hidden Cameras on the Arizona Border 2: Drugs, Guns and 850 Illegal Aliens,” is the second “hidden camera” video from CIS in the past two years.  CIS states that this film “focuses primarily on the environmental destruction caused by illegal activity on federal lands, highlighting in more detail waste and threat to wild animal life.”

This is not the first time CIS has attempted to reach out to environmentalists. Center for Immigration Studies (CIS) was founded in 1985 as a project directly under the control of the Read more

Politics

Aryan Nations Leader Running Unopposed For School Board in California

Written by Stephen Piggott

UPDATE: Last night another person filed papers to run for the school board position which means that Daniel Schruender is no longer running unopposed.

Daniel Schruender, the director of publications and information for the California chapter of the Aryan Nations 88, has filed papers (scroll to page 58) to run for a school board position in Rialto, California. Schruender announced his plans on his blog in which he stated, “Today, August 2, 2010, the Aryan Nations has moved from talking about running for political office to actually doing it. Many of you read a previous post on the forum, and an article in the last issue of the Quarterly where I… Read more

Immigration

FAIR’s Stein Unmasks: 14th Amendment Should Not Be Allowed to “enslave our thinking”

Written by Rev. David L. Ostendorf

If you consider yourself committed to civil, immigrant, and human rights and have ignored the white nationalist agenda of the organized, anti-immigrant movement, Federation for American Immigration Reform (FAIR) president Dan Stein’s recent assertion on the 14th Amendment to the Constitution ought to get your attention.

In a Wall Street Journal article on the mounting political attack against birthright citizenship, Stein stated, “”We should not allow language from 1868 to enslave our thinking…in the 21st century.”

“Enslave” our thinking?  “Enslave?”  Stein would speak of one of the most important Amendments to the Constitution—guaranteeing citizenship to African Americans from 1868 onward—as “enslaving” our thinking?  His choice of words is utterly mind-boggling, and scathingly… Read more