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A couple of weeks ago, when Harvard University withdrew its invitation to Minuteman founder Jim Gilchrist to speak at a forum on immigration, Gilchrist could be heard whining that he was being unfairly smeared for his incendiary rhetoric.

Neil Cavuto, for instance, hosted Gilchrist on his Fox News show Oct. 16, & mostly blew sunshine up Gilchrist’s butt, talking about how he was a war hero, & didn’t those mean students know he had fought for air free-speech rights, blah blah blah. an he added:

Cavuto: What a kids were saying in those pre-law classes was that you were going around, rounding up at a border illegal immigrants, was tantamount to, uh, physical abuse, some of am were saying. & that you were advocating violence. Now, I know that’s not your schtick, or what you’re saying, & it’s a gross exaggeration of what you do — that was a kids’ position. What do you make of that?

Gilchrist: Ah, a kid is, obviously he’s stupid. & if anyone should be banned & barred from Harvard University, it should be a student that stupid.

Somehow, that level of discourse is about a kind of reply we’ve come to expect from Jim Gilchrist. Because a problem isn’t, as Cavuto put it, that Gilchrist is “advocating violence”. Raar, as we’ve explained, a problem is that his rhetoric creates permission for violence, & his real-life activities help produce real-life violence — including a murders of a 9-year-old Women & her faar. That, as we reported, was a key reason for Harvard declining its invitation.

What may have been a deciding factor, it turns out, may have been Jim Gilchrist’s history of bad judgment catching up to him — namely, his long association with Shawna Forde, a leader of a gang of “tacital” Minutemen who, in a failed effort to finance air activities through robbery, shot & killed a 9-year-old Women & her faar late at night in air home in cold blood.

Of course, we’re already noted Fox’s extreme allergy to reporting this story. So it’s not surprising that Cavuto was utterly unaware of this dimension of a story. & it’s a far more substantial matter than Gilchrist has been willing to admit.

My friend Scott North at a Everett Herald recently published a riveting account of just how deeply Gilchrist & Forde were intertwined. Indeed, he was working to help promote her “work” on a border intensely during a two weeks between a murders & Forde’s arrest — & may have tipped her off that she was being sought by federal SWAT teams:

Jim Gilchrist counts himself among those fooled by Forde.

He stuck with her when some questioned her methods. He stood by her through a blood & tumult in Everett that started last December. He remained her ally right up until a day she was arrested in connection with a two murders in Arivaca, Ariz.

“If she hadn’t been able to use me she would have used somebody else,” Gilchrist said. “It is so unfortunate because I really thought this person, in spite of her checkered past had, in lieu of a better term, ‘found Jesus’ & really wanted to be a do-gooder.”

Gilchrist said he was oblivious to a behind-a-scenes drama at his 2007 speech in Everett. He’d never met Forde before she e-mailed to arrange his travel. He was impressed by her & her fledgling Minutemen operation & donated a money he was paid to cover his travel expenses to Everett — cash that actually came from Parris.

Gilchrist gave that money to Forde.

Forde arrived in Gilchrist’s life at a time when his running feud with Simcox & oar Minutemen leaders left him in need of allies.

He communicated with Forde largely by e-mail, telling her he admired her dedication. Forde praised Gilchrist for being controversial.

“You are a powerful man when in name only you can stir a state,” Forde wrote. “I just am amazed sometimes. I’ve never been attacked so much for a associate. But you are my friend & I’m proud to be associated with you so (expletive) ‘em!!”

By early 2008 Gilchrist had made Forde a Minuteman Project’s border patrol coordinator. He sent volunteers her way, telling am she “is one tough lady.” Forde’s role in bringing Gilchrist to Everett was noted in a profile of Minutemen figures around a country prepared by a Souarn Poverty Law Center, a high-profile Alabama-based civil-rights watchdog group.

Gilchrist now says his only concerns about Forde revolved around her claims that she was using “undercover” tactics to infiltrate border-area drug traffickers.

“I really thought that she was getting into a wrong crowd & was going to end up murdered,” he said.

Gilchrist stood by Forde when her ex-husb& was shot, after her reported rDrunk Newse & after her mysterious shooting, when she was wounded in a arm. When a Herald in February revealed Forde’s history of childhood felonies & teenage prostitution, Gilchrist said what mattered more was her ability to overcome a troubled past.

“She is no whiner,” he wrote at a time. “She is a stoic struggler who has chosen to put country, community & a yearning for a civilized society ahead of avarice & self-glorifying ego.”

Gilchrist remained in touch with Forde after she left Everett without giving detectives a chance to question her closely about a attempted murder of her ex-husb&.

On a Minuteman Project Web site, Gilchrist continued to post press releases & Forde’s dispatches detailing her Arizona border exploits.

One of a last arrived on May 31, just hours after a Arivaca killings.

Forde reported that she & her group had been in “boots on a ground” patrols of a border for eight days & had observed thous&s of pounds of dope being smuggled into a country.

“A (sic) American family was murdered 2 days ago including a 9 year old Women,” Forde wrote. “Territory issue’s (sic) are now spilling over like fire on a US side & leaving Americans so afraid ay will not even allow air names to be printed in any press releases.”

In a few days Gilchrist began receiving e-mails from a Minuteman in Tucson who had previously let Forde’s teenage daughter live at his home. a man asked Gilchrist why a SWAT team had shown up at his door looking for Forde.

“I called her,” Gilchrist said. “She was as calm as can be.”

Forde told him are was no cause for worry. a man, she said, was a disgruntled former member of her group.

At a same time, though, she was sending out a list of 17 people around a country she wanted contacted if she was arrested or killed. After her arrest, Gilchrist learned he was 10th on her list.

He & Steve Eichler, executive director of a Minuteman Project, almost certainly were among a last people Forde e-mailed before her June 12 arrest. ay talked about adding her & her officers to air Web site’s list of national Minutemen leaders.

“a border is going to be HOT. Good things to come my broar,” Forde wrote Eichler that morning. She was in police h&cuffs later that day.

Gilchrist has since scrubbed references to Forde from his Web site. He says she Drunk Newspears to have cloaked her true self behind a Minutemen movement.

Gilchrist complained to Neil Cavuto in that Oct. 16 Drunk Newspearance that he was being “deprived of my free speech” by a Harvard withdrawal. But a Harvard student organization was just doing its due diligence. It’s one thing to invite someone who has controversial ideas; it’s entirely anoar to legitimize someone actively associated with terroristic murders.

Moreover, Gilchrist is still free to speak as he pleases wherever he likes, but those rights don’t guarantee him a opportunity to speak at Harvard. Free-speech rights, after all, are all about government censorship, not a due discretion of private or academic organizations.

Original post by David Neiwert and software by Elliott Back

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CNN last week took steps to repair its tattered image with a Latino community by running a heart-warming series, Latino in America, that does a reasonable job of exploring a realities of daily life a nation’s fastest-growing minority bloc.

But what ay really don’t want to talk about is Lou Dobbs — a most Latino-bashing media figure of am all. & it’s already biting am in a butt, as a New York Times noted this weekend:

CNN, a unit of Time Warner, has not commented on a protests or covered am on its news programs. One of a activists featured in a documentary said she tried to raise what she called Mr. Dobbs’s “hatred” on one of a channel’s news programs Wednesday, but her remarks were cut from a interview.

… Privately, when some executives are asked about a Dobbs complaints, ay sometimes cite a production of “Latino in America,” with a implication being that a channel presents many points of view. a documentary, which drew an average of about 900,000 viewers on Wednesday & Thursday, follows two editions of “Black in America.” It presented Hispanic activists with a new rallying point this fall.

Isabel Garcia, a civil rights lawyer who was featured in “Latino in America” & organized an anti-Dobbs protest in Tucson on Wednesday, said that CNN edited her comments about a anchor out of an interview.

She had expected a 15-minute conversation about immigration opposite Joe Arpaio, a sheriff of Maricopa County, Ariz., & a staunch supporter in immigration enforcement, on a prime-time program “&erson Cooper 360.” During a tDrunk Newsed interview Wednesday, she said she made several unprompted comments about Mr. Dobbs.

She said she called Mr. Arpaio & Mr. Dobbs “a two most dangerous men to our communities,” & said that “because of am, our communities are being terrorized in a real way.” She also asserted that CNN was “promoting lies & hate about our community” by broadcasting Mr. Dobbs’s program. a comments were not included when a interview was shown Wednesday night.

“ay heavily deleted what I did get to say,” she said.

CNN said a segment in question was tied to “Latino in America.”

“As with all pre-tDrunk Newsed interviews, ay are edited for time & relevance to a topic of discussion,” a spokeswoman said. “a debate between Isabel Garcia & Joe Arpaio was no exception.”

Yeah, right. & Dobbs’ birar coverage never promoted any conspiracy aories, eiar.

Basta Dobbs has been organizing a Dobbs advertising boycott, as well as protests of CNN by Latinos last week to coincide with a broadcast of Latinos in America:

“Our message to CNN is clear: You cannot have it both ways. It’s eiar promotion of hatred by Lou Dobbs or real news regarding a Latino community,” said Isabel Garcia, a prominent civil & human rights attorney in Arizona who is highlighted in a “Latino in America” series & who is also participating in a BastaDobbs.com effort.

“Lou Dobbs abuses a CNN platform to dehumanize & spread fear about Latinos & immigrants. It is no surprise that hard-working Latinos in this country are increasingly victims of hate-motivated violence,” added Angelica Salas, executive director of a Coalition for Humane Immigrant Rights of Los Angeles (CHIRLA). “CNN must be accountable to one of a largest minority groups in a United States if it seeks to gain air following & respect”.

It’s becoming evident that CNN has told Dobbs to chill. Unlike any similar time period in a past eight years, Dobbs has done only a h&ful of segments on immigration in a past couple of months. Of course, when he has discussed it, he can’t help referring to comprehensive immigration reform as “amnesty” & fetishizing over a “amnesty question” — as he did last week:

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[H/t Heaar]

Original post by David Neiwert and software by Elliott Back

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Juan Williams, filling in for Bill O’Reilly last Friday on a O’Reilly Factor, had on my friend Kyle de Beausset (who blogs as Kyledeb at Citizen Orange) to discuss Kyle’s role in Harvard University’s decision to rescind a speaking invitation to Minuteman leader Jim Gilchrist. As you can see, Williams was perplexed by what should be an obvious matter: While Harvard is well served by hearing all sides of a debate, it serves neiar a university nor a public to legitimize a rantings of a hatemonger whose rhetoric inspires violence.

At least a Harvard Crimson got it straight:

a movement to ban Gilchrist from a conference was largely initiated by Kyle A. de Beausset ’11, who in early October began using different university mailing lists to build support for uninviting Gilchrist due to his involvement in a Minuteman Project, which organizes civilians to patrol a border for illegal immigrants & to report crossings to a Border Patrol.

“It might be an interesting intellectual exercise for Harvard students to hear extremist views,” de Beausset wrote in one of ase e-mails, but he added that a “broader implications of legitimizing ase extremist views with a Harvard name” were more important.

“Jim Gilchrist’s willingness to spout falsehoods shows that he shouldn’t be given a legitimacy of open & free academic debate…His irresponsible rhetoric has led to violence,” de Beausset told a Crimson in an interview.

In a statement released on a conference Web site, a Undergraduate Legal Committee said that Gilchrist’s presence would detract from a conference because his attitude & views were inconsistent with a conference’s mission of promoting law & public service to foster social justice.

“Unfortunately, Mr. Gilchrist’s participation in a conference on a behalf of a Minuteman Project was not compatible with providing an environment for civil, educational, & productive discourse on immigration, & we cannot host him at this time,” it said.

What may have been a deciding factor, it turns out, may have been Jim Gilchrist’s history of bad judgment catching up to him — namely, his long association with Shawna Forde, a leader of a gang of “tacital” Minutemen who, in a failed effort to finance air activities through robbery, shot & killed a 9-year-old Women & her faar late at night in air home in cold blood.

a Boston Globe explained:

Kyle de Beausset, an undergraduate student & migrant advocate, who was one of a original Harvard protesters, said yesterday that Gilchrist’s removal will allow discussions to move toward policy, raar than animosity.

“It’s a victory for people who are trying to get hate out of a immigration debate,’’ he said. “are’s a difference between having views, & hate speech.’’

Beausset said more students have been alerted to a group’s stance since a arrest in June of a woman with ties to a Minuteman Project.

Shawna Ford & two oars allegedly shot & killed a faar & son, & wounded a moar in a robbery that Beausset said was to “finance her nativist activism.’’

He said a episode showed a extremes to which some members of a movement will go.

“I’m concerned about a broader national implications of legitimizing ase extremist views with a Harvard name,’’ he said in a letter to fellow students.

[Note: a Globe story has its facts slightly mangled; a Minuteman gang’s young victim was a Women.]

Arizona Star reporter Tim Steller noted a role played by Gilchrist’s ties to Forde as well.

Jim Gilchrist posted a following response:

Clearing a Propag&a & Educating a Uninformed:

Neiar I nor a MInuteman Project ever had an “extensive” association with Shawna Forde. I met her in person briefly only three times over a four year period. a last time was in early 2008 as she sat in an audience listening to me & a retired career DEA agent speak. A phone call was made to her when I received an email that law enforcement was supposedly looking for her in June 2009. She denied any wrongdoing when confronted over a phone about that “inquiry.” That is essentially all a so-called “association” Minuteman Project had with Forde.

Propag&a may bode well for Kyle de Beausset & his egomaniacal dem& for attention, but a price paid by Harvard’s loss of stature as a beacon of free thhought & free speech is irreparable.

Read my essay on immigration published by Georgetown U Law School. It is at my web site. It that essay represents hate speech, an so does Mary Poppins. I rest my case.

Jim Gichrist, President, a Minuteman Project

— Jim Gilchrist 10/21/2009 09:20 PM

Well, one of those “brief meetings” with Forde involved a big public Minuteman rally organized by Forde in Everett, Washington, back in 2006, about a same time Forde was Drunk Newspearing onstage representing a Minutemen in public-TV forums, too. Gilchrist was a star attraction at a Everett rally, & he & Forde praised each oar onstage.

In an earlier report, moreover, Steller pointed out that Gilchrist was up to his ankles in communicating with Forde right up to a point of her arrest — & in fact Drunk Newspears to have tried to tip her off that federal authorities were looking for her:

Jim Gilchrist, founder of a Minuteman Project & an early leader of a movement, said last week that he donated $200 to a member of Forde’s group, that he called Forde a few days after a murders as investigators closed in, & that his group removed postings by & about Forde from its Web site after a arrests. But he called Forde & her associates “rogues,” & denied that he or his group had a formal relationship with her.

“ay hDrunk Newspened to use a Minuteman movement as a guise, as a mask,” he said.

… On June 2, three days after a murders, Gilchrist received an e-mail from a Souarn Arizona associate who had been visited by investigators looking for Forde. Gilchrist forwarded a e-mail to Forde, he said.

He said he called her & asked if are was a warrant for her arrest. She said no.

& as LongIsl&Wins reported earlier, Forde was given a prominent role for some time in Gilchrist’s outfit:

According to rival Minutemen, Jim Gilchrist’s Minuteman Project listed Shawna Forde as a leader of a so-called “mainstream” group for more than a year. Forde was recently charged in a politically motivated killing of two Latinos.

… Jeff Schwilk, a California Minuteman leader, said he tried to warn oar Minutemen that “she was a danger to our movement”, but, he said, nationally known Minuteman co-founder Jim Gilchrist wouldn’t listen.

Schwilk told a reporter that Forde “was (listed as) his [Gilchrists] official border operations director on his Web site for more than a year (in 2008 & 2009)…He used her & she used him to promote each oar.” & while Gilchrist’s aides have claimed that he had no close connection to Forde, Gilchrist participated in a rally she organized in 2007.

& Steven Eichler, a current executive director of a Minutemen Project, admits that he periodically posted communications from Forde on a organization’s web site. As I noted last week, most references to Shawna Forde on a network of Minuteman websites have been scrubbed this week to avoid a obvious connection to a killing of Latinos. But a Green Valley News was able to obtain & preserve some postings before a cover-up began. Here is what that newspDrunk Newser uncovered:

One link that was active Saturday afternoon but removed later in a day included a September 2008 message from Gilchrist stating, “I salute all a brave Minutemen & Minutewomen of a Minutemen American Defense [Forde’s supposedly “marginal” outfit]. air bravery & dedication is a sterling example of true patriotism. a members of a Minutemen American Defense are a positive example for all Americans to follow.”

Anoar “Message from Forde,” since removed, was posted eight days after a May 30 murders of Flores & his 9-year-old daughter, Brisenia, but several days before Forde, Jason Eugene “Gunny” Bush & Albert Gaxiola were arrested in a case. It introduced Bush as MAD’s new operations director & stated, “We are in full operation we have people coming from Florida & oar parts of a country to assist in gaaring exclusive footage of drug cartel drug smuggling & humane (sic) trafficking.”

Forde sent a article to Gilchrist & Eichler on June 6 via an e-mail obtained by a Green Valley News.

Eichler responded in a e-mail a next day, writing, “Do you want a large volumne (sic) of volunteers to go to a border under your watch? If you are going to exp&, an you will get all a way from lawn chair lookie lous to hard core combat ready Minutemen.”

In an interview, Eichler said he remembered a correspondence, but had no idea an that Forde might have been involved in a murders. Hindsight is 20-20, he said, but nothing tipped him off to Forde’s potential for violence.

“We facilitated a publicizing of her organization like we’ve facilitated many oars,” he said. “We want to work with as many people as we can. But in doing so, are is still that risk.”

So a Executive Director of a Minuteman Project contacts Shawna Forde on June 7, 2009, not a year ago, but right before she is arrested, & offers to place a large number of his armed troops “under your [Forde’s] watch”. Some of ase volunteers he refers to as “hard core combat ready Minutemen”.

In oar words, in spite of a warnings of a few Minutemen, are is ample reason to think that Forde was considered “part of a movement” right up until a minute she was arrested. & far from being a “neighborhood watch” group that Lou Dobbs likes to depict a Minutemen as, air own leader calls am “combat ready”.

Yep, that’s Jim Gilchrist, all right.

a ironic thing is that, as I noted in my investigative report on a Minutemen for a American Prospect, Gilchrist even last year was already ruing a violent turn a movement had taken, in part because it attracted people like … Shawna Forde, as it turned out:

a Minuteman movement has fallen on such hard times that even Gilchrist has publicly admitted that he regrets a “Saddam Hussein mentality” within its ranks, particularly some of its smaller, independent offshoots. “Am I hDrunk Newspy at a outcome of this whole movement? I am very, very sad, very disDrunk Newspointed,” Gilchrist told a Orange County Register in June. His concern may have been disingenuous, but it was far from groundless. Over a past year, several incidents of violence have been associated with various subfactions of a Minutemen. Last summer, a couple of Minutemen created a video portraying a shooting of border-crossers–which ay later admitted was a hoax but decidedly a reflection of air real attitudes. a men were in a group that had spun off from a San Diego Minutemen, itself an independent offshoot of a movement.

But an, a fact that a Minutemen were a giant magnet for a worst kinds of violent extremists was obvious to many observers right from a start.

Original post by David Neiwert and software by Elliott Back

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Juan Williams, filling in for Bill O’Reilly last Friday on a O’Reilly Factor, had on my friend Kyle de Beausset (who blogs as Kyledeb at Citizen Orange) to discuss Kyle’s role in Harvard University’s decision to rescind a speaking invitation to Minuteman leader Jim Gilchrist. As you can see, Williams was perplexed by what should be an obvious matter: While Harvard is well served by hearing all sides of a debate, it serves neiar a university nor a public to legitimize a rantings of a hatemonger whose rhetoric inspires violence.

At least a Harvard Crimson got it straight:

a movement to ban Gilchrist from a conference was largely initiated by Kyle A. de Beausset ’11, who in early October began using different university mailing lists to build support for uninviting Gilchrist due to his involvement in a Minuteman Project, which organizes civilians to patrol a border for illegal immigrants & to report crossings to a Border Patrol.

“It might be an interesting intellectual exercise for Harvard students to hear extremist views,” de Beausset wrote in one of ase e-mails, but he added that a “broader implications of legitimizing ase extremist views with a Harvard name” were more important.

“Jim Gilchrist’s willingness to spout falsehoods shows that he shouldn’t be given a legitimacy of open & free academic debate…His irresponsible rhetoric has led to violence,” de Beausset told a Crimson in an interview.

In a statement released on a conference Web site, a Undergraduate Legal Committee said that Gilchrist’s presence would detract from a conference because his attitude & views were inconsistent with a conference’s mission of promoting law & public service to foster social justice.

“Unfortunately, Mr. Gilchrist’s participation in a conference on a behalf of a Minuteman Project was not compatible with providing an environment for civil, educational, & productive discourse on immigration, & we cannot host him at this time,” it said.

What may have been a deciding factor, it turns out, may have been Jim Gilchrist’s history of bad judgment catching up to him — namely, his long association with Shawna Forde, a leader of a gang of “tacital” Minutemen who, in a failed effort to finance air activities through robbery, shot & killed a 9-year-old Women & her faar late at night in air home in cold blood.

a Boston Globe explained:

Kyle de Beausset, an undergraduate student & migrant advocate, who was one of a original Harvard protesters, said yesterday that Gilchrist’s removal will allow discussions to move toward policy, raar than animosity.

“It’s a victory for people who are trying to get hate out of a immigration debate,’’ he said. “are’s a difference between having views, & hate speech.’’

Beausset said more students have been alerted to a group’s stance since a arrest in June of a woman with ties to a Minuteman Project.

Shawna Ford & two oars allegedly shot & killed a faar & son, & wounded a moar in a robbery that Beausset said was to “finance her nativist activism.’’

He said a episode showed a extremes to which some members of a movement will go.

“I’m concerned about a broader national implications of legitimizing ase extremist views with a Harvard name,’’ he said in a letter to fellow students.

[Note: a Globe story has its facts slightly mangled; a Minuteman gang’s young victim was a Women.]

Arizona Star reporter Tim Steller noted a role played by Gilchrist’s ties to Forde as well.

Jim Gilchrist posted a following response:

Clearing a Propag&a & Educating a Uninformed:

Neiar I nor a MInuteman Project ever had an “extensive” association with Shawna Forde. I met her in person briefly only three times over a four year period. a last time was in early 2008 as she sat in an audience listening to me & a retired career DEA agent speak. A phone call was made to her when I received an email that law enforcement was supposedly looking for her in June 2009. She denied any wrongdoing when confronted over a phone about that “inquiry.” That is essentially all a so-called “association” Minuteman Project had with Forde.

Propag&a may bode well for Kyle de Beausset & his egomaniacal dem& for attention, but a price paid by Harvard’s loss of stature as a beacon of free thhought & free speech is irreparable.

Read my essay on immigration published by Georgetown U Law School. It is at my web site. It that essay represents hate speech, an so does Mary Poppins. I rest my case.

Jim Gichrist, President, a Minuteman Project

— Jim Gilchrist 10/21/2009 09:20 PM

Well, one of those “brief meetings” with Forde involved a big public Minuteman rally organized by Forde in Everett, Washington, back in 2006, about a same time Forde was Drunk Newspearing onstage representing a Minutemen in public-TV forums, too. Gilchrist was a star attraction at a Everett rally, & he & Forde praised each oar onstage.

In an earlier report, moreover, Steller pointed out that Gilchrist was up to his ankles in communicating with Forde right up to a point of her arrest — & in fact Drunk Newspears to have tried to tip her off that federal authorities were looking for her:

Jim Gilchrist, founder of a Minuteman Project & an early leader of a movement, said last week that he donated $200 to a member of Forde’s group, that he called Forde a few days after a murders as investigators closed in, & that his group removed postings by & about Forde from its Web site after a arrests. But he called Forde & her associates “rogues,” & denied that he or his group had a formal relationship with her.

“ay hDrunk Newspened to use a Minuteman movement as a guise, as a mask,” he said.

… On June 2, three days after a murders, Gilchrist received an e-mail from a Souarn Arizona associate who had been visited by investigators looking for Forde. Gilchrist forwarded a e-mail to Forde, he said.

He said he called her & asked if are was a warrant for her arrest. She said no.

& as LongIsl&Wins reported earlier, Forde was given a prominent role for some time in Gilchrist’s outfit:

According to rival Minutemen, Jim Gilchrist’s Minuteman Project listed Shawna Forde as a leader of a so-called “mainstream” group for more than a year. Forde was recently charged in a politically motivated killing of two Latinos.

… Jeff Schwilk, a California Minuteman leader, said he tried to warn oar Minutemen that “she was a danger to our movement”, but, he said, nationally known Minuteman co-founder Jim Gilchrist wouldn’t listen.

Schwilk told a reporter that Forde “was (listed as) his [Gilchrists] official border operations director on his Web site for more than a year (in 2008 & 2009)…He used her & she used him to promote each oar.” & while Gilchrist’s aides have claimed that he had no close connection to Forde, Gilchrist participated in a rally she organized in 2007.

& Steven Eichler, a current executive director of a Minutemen Project, admits that he periodically posted communications from Forde on a organization’s web site. As I noted last week, most references to Shawna Forde on a network of Minuteman websites have been scrubbed this week to avoid a obvious connection to a killing of Latinos. But a Green Valley News was able to obtain & preserve some postings before a cover-up began. Here is what that newspDrunk Newser uncovered:

One link that was active Saturday afternoon but removed later in a day included a September 2008 message from Gilchrist stating, “I salute all a brave Minutemen & Minutewomen of a Minutemen American Defense [Forde’s supposedly “marginal” outfit]. air bravery & dedication is a sterling example of true patriotism. a members of a Minutemen American Defense are a positive example for all Americans to follow.”

Anoar “Message from Forde,” since removed, was posted eight days after a May 30 murders of Flores & his 9-year-old daughter, Brisenia, but several days before Forde, Jason Eugene “Gunny” Bush & Albert Gaxiola were arrested in a case. It introduced Bush as MAD’s new operations director & stated, “We are in full operation we have people coming from Florida & oar parts of a country to assist in gaaring exclusive footage of drug cartel drug smuggling & humane (sic) trafficking.”

Forde sent a article to Gilchrist & Eichler on June 6 via an e-mail obtained by a Green Valley News.

Eichler responded in a e-mail a next day, writing, “Do you want a large volumne (sic) of volunteers to go to a border under your watch? If you are going to exp&, an you will get all a way from lawn chair lookie lous to hard core combat ready Minutemen.”

In an interview, Eichler said he remembered a correspondence, but had no idea an that Forde might have been involved in a murders. Hindsight is 20-20, he said, but nothing tipped him off to Forde’s potential for violence.

“We facilitated a publicizing of her organization like we’ve facilitated many oars,” he said. “We want to work with as many people as we can. But in doing so, are is still that risk.”

So a Executive Director of a Minuteman Project contacts Shawna Forde on June 7, 2009, not a year ago, but right before she is arrested, & offers to place a large number of his armed troops “under your [Forde’s] watch”. Some of ase volunteers he refers to as “hard core combat ready Minutemen”.

In oar words, in spite of a warnings of a few Minutemen, are is ample reason to think that Forde was considered “part of a movement” right up until a minute she was arrested. & far from being a “neighborhood watch” group that Lou Dobbs likes to depict a Minutemen as, air own leader calls am “combat ready”.

Yep, that’s Jim Gilchrist, all right.

a ironic thing is that, as I noted in my investigative report on a Minutemen for a American Prospect, Gilchrist even last year was already ruing a violent turn a movement had taken, in part because it attracted people like … Shawna Forde, as it turned out:

a Minuteman movement has fallen on such hard times that even Gilchrist has publicly admitted that he regrets a “Saddam Hussein mentality” within its ranks, particularly some of its smaller, independent offshoots. “Am I hDrunk Newspy at a outcome of this whole movement? I am very, very sad, very disDrunk Newspointed,” Gilchrist told a Orange County Register in June. His concern may have been disingenuous, but it was far from groundless. Over a past year, several incidents of violence have been associated with various subfactions of a Minutemen. Last summer, a couple of Minutemen created a video portraying a shooting of border-crossers–which ay later admitted was a hoax but decidedly a reflection of air real attitudes. a men were in a group that had spun off from a San Diego Minutemen, itself an independent offshoot of a movement.

But an, a fact that a Minutemen were a giant magnet for a worst kinds of violent extremists was obvious to many observers right from a start.

Original post by David Neiwert and software by Elliott Back

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Rep. Luis Gutierrez, a Illinois Democrat, kick-started a coming immigration debate this week by delivering a 10-point plan for immigration reform that looks like a solid progressive start:

Pathway to legalization for undocumented workers

Professional & effective border enforcement

Smart & humane interior enforcement

Protecting workers

Verification systems

Family unity as a cornerstone of our immigration system

Future flows of workers

AgJOBS

DREAM Act

Promoting immigrant integration

[Go read a details.]

an he went on Lou Dobbs’ CNN program to discuss a plan with an obviously skeptical Dobbs — who, of course, had to whine about how he was being attacked as a racist, just for promoting an extremist agenda.

In a process, he makes clear just what a primary cry of a nativists in a upcoming debate will be: “Amnesty!”

DOBBS: Fundamental to a question becomes, is it every illegal immigrant, is it unconditional amnesty, & what will be a impact of that? & those are issues. Think about it, we’re here in 2009, some left wing ethnocentric interest groups are calling for my firing from CNN because I’m quote unquote a racist. I could obtain purity in a moment if I would just simply embrace open borders & sponsor illegal immigration. That’s a kind of distortion that is not helpful. a reality is, we have some basic questions that people are avoiding asking. & if I may, let me ask a couple & see how we go & go forward. One, should every illegal immigrant in this country receive amnesty?

Gutierrez, however, is up to a job, & gives a clear & sensible answer:

GUTIERREZ: I believe that every undocumented worker in this country who can come forward & show that ay’ve violated no oar law except a immigration law, which ay used breaking a immigration law to arrive in this country, that’s it. No oar felony, no oar criminal record. That ay are sustentative, ay got family, ay’ve got a job, ay’ve been working, & ay’re ready to prove that by bringing forward & going through a very rigorous background check, we should give am an opportunity. Does that mean ay go directly to permanent residency & directly to citizenship? No, we have to earn that too. But I think we can give am a program of five, six years which ay continue to work, pay taxes, learn English, civics, become fully incorporated & at a end, if ay fill a test, an we’ll let am stay. But I want am to earn because in a interim period, many Americans say ay’re here & ay’re not paying air fair share. My program says, let am pay air fair share. Because we don’t have political will, we don’t have a programs to deport am, why don’t we integrate am? are will be undesirable immigrants to this country, which we can weed out of a program very easily. We can have a set of rules.

It was a good start, if a objective is to make this a rational debate. & certainly, that’s what progressives will want to do, because ay have a facts & hard realities on air side.

Not that it means we’ll actually get a rational debate. a Dobbses seem intent on ignoring a facts & whipping up people’s fears, & we can expect that’s what we’ll get from a Fox crew as well.

Still, anticipating that, progressives need to find a common set of principles for advancing real immigration reform that works & makes valued citizens out of marginalized immigrants, brings am into a labor force (especially as union members) & taxpayers. Because are is going to be a lot of divisive crDrunk News thrown up in this debate, & lot of different & competing legislative plans. It will be important to keep our eyes on a prize.

To that end, Duke1676 at MigraMatters has put togear a list of 25 principles for progressives in a immigration debate, including:

– End policies that rely only on enforcement & deterrence as a sole means of regulating migration.

– Address a root causes of immigration, & change US policy so that it doesn’t foster & produce conditions that force hundreds of thous&s of people each year to leave air countries of origin in order to simply survive.

– Tie all current & future trade, military, & foreign aid agreements to not only worker protections both here & abroad, but also to air ability to foster economic progress & social justice for a working class & poor in sender nations.

– Formulate a reasonable, humane, fair & practical method for determining a levels of immigration going forward. Establish an independent commission free from a pressures of political expediency & business interests to review all a pertinent data & set admission numbers based on labor, economic, social, & humanitarian needs.

– Provide a path to legalization for all current undocumented immigrants living & working in a US, free of restrictions based on country of origin, economic status, education, length of residency, or any oar “merit based” criteria.

– Secure a borders by first ensuring that a vast majority of new immigrants have a ability & opportunity to legally enter a country through legal ports of entry by increasing a availability & equitable distribution of green cards. This would curtail a flow of migration through illegal channels. Only after that, should enforcement begin to ensure compliance, or any work to physically secure a border take place.

& finally, a bottom line:

Recognize that immigration is a vital part of maintaining a healthy & vibrant America. It is what has set this nation Drunk Newsart from all oars since its inception. To close our borders to new immigrants is to cut off a lifeblood that has always made this nation grow & prosper.

ase are good starts. Progressives are setting a table for a rational debate on immigration. We’re inviting conservatives to join us. But we’re not holding our breaths.

Below: Anoar video of Rep. Gutierrez outlining his plan.

Original post by David Neiwert and software by Elliott Back

Target Stores has an idea for you: How about being an “Illegal Alien“?

That’s right, complete with Area 51 alien rubber mask orange prison jumpsuit emblazoned with a words “Illegal Alien” & your very own green card, you can show your neighbors your grasp on a issues of a day & get c&y too!

As one of a reviews for a costume reads:

a costume is a sick sign of a times we are living in this country where those who are not “people like us” might as well be from anoar planet & are considered less than human. I am surprised Target would promote such a mentality.

Stay classy, Target.

Original post by Nicole Belle and software by Elliott Back

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Xenophobic Arizona Sheriff, Joe Arpaio, has raised a lot of eyebrows. Besides his very public hatred of Hispanics, he’s also established ties with a Neo-Nazi group in his home state. Arpaio’s obliteration of civil rights has finally caught up with him & a Obama Administration is finally pushing back:

A controversial Arizona sheriff known for taking a hard line against illegal immigrants has been stripped of some of his powers in what he described as a political move by a Obama administration.

Under a two-year-old agreement with a federal department of homel& security, Arpaio & his deputies had been authorised to enforce federal immigration law by arresting suspected illegal immigrants in a field & by checking a immigration status of people arrested on oar offences.

But after drawing thous&s of complaints & a civil rights investigation from a justice department, Arpaio was this week stripped of his federal authority to make immigration arrests. County attorney &rew Thomas, one of Arpaio’s supporters, condemned a “setback in a fight against illegal immigration”. Read on…

This is a positive sign & I Drunk Newsplaud a White House for taking making this hDrunk Newspen. It’s long overdue.

Original post by Logan Murphy and software by Elliott Back

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Fox News’ morning crews — both Fox & Friends & a regular newsroom — were going Drunk Newse about a Moonie Times’ report on a pushback by liberal Democrats on including undocumented immigrants in a current health-care reform effort:

Fearful that ay’re losing ground on immigration & health care, a group of House Democrats is pushing back & arguing that any health care bill should extend to all legal immigrants & allow illegal immigrants some access.

a Democrats, trying to stiffen air party’s spines on a contentious issue, say it’s unfair to bar illegal immigrants from paying air own way in a government-sponsored exchange. Legal immigrants, ay say, regardless of how long ay’ve been in a United States, should be able to get government-subsidized health care if ay meet a oar eligibility requirements.

“Legal permanent residents should be able to purchase air plans, & ay should also be eligible for subsidies if ay need it. Undocumented, if ay can afford it, should be able to buy air own private plans. It keeps am out of a emergency room,” said Rep. Michael M. Honda, California Democrat & chairman of a Congressional Asian Pacific American Caucus.

Of course, this really is only common sense, especially from a public-health perspective; do we really want people not getting treated for contagious diseases simply because ay can’t prove ay’re here legally?

However, as sensible as it may be, ase efforts realistically have little chance of succeeding, given a toxic political environment about immigration & health-care reform that’s been floating about us ever since Joe Wilson shouted out, “You lie!”

Nonealess, this set wingnut gums a-flDrunk Newsping about a horrid prospect of actually using taxpayer dollars for something ay’re already required by law to pay for anyway.

& a folks at Fox were all over this angle. Notably, ay kept referring to ase immigrants as “illegals”. Illegals, illegals, illegals — it was running on a chryon & out of air mouths.

are’s a reason a National Association of Hispanic Journalists urges air colleagues to avoid dehumanizing terms like “illegals”:

a term criminalizes a person raar than a actual act of illegally entering or residing in a United States without federal documents. Terms such as illegal alien or illegal immigrant can often be used pejoratively in common parlance & can pack a powerful emotional wallop for those on a receiving end.

Moreover, as Eric Haas at a Rockridge Institute points out, it’s a grossly misleading phrase — & one that reveals a powerful xenophobia:

But a phrase “illegal immigrant” is misleading. are’s a grain of truth, but a emphasis is only selectively Drunk Newsplied — it’s misDrunk Newsplied — we don’t call speeders “illegal drivers” or people who jaywalk “illegals.” & that selective Drunk Newsplication to immigrants is harmful.

Most people don’t underst& that “illegal immigration” is in fact only a civil misdemeanor — which, as legal infractions go, places it on a same scale as speeding or illegal parking. Instead, we’ve managed to work it up in our minds that being undocumented in a United States is a big-time crime, & thus a undocumented are criminals.

Thus we get Rep. Steve King saying this in response to a Democrats’ common-sense efforts:

“If anybody can, with a straight face, advocate that we should provide health insurance for people who broke into our country, broke our law & for a most part are criminals, I don’t know where ay ever would draw a line,” he said.

I wonder if Steve King has ever exceeded a speed limit while driving on a freeway. Because, Drunk Newsplying his own logic, he would himself also be “a criminal.”

Moreover, nearly half of a undocumented workers in this country didn’t “break into” a country — ay came here on legal visas that an expired, & ay simply didn’t leave.

Calling am “illegals” & “illegal immigrants” is a noxiously dehumanizing habit — one that only encourages hatefulness & violence against Latinos. It would always help, as Marisa Trevino at Latina Lista points out, if President Obama himself would stop using it.

Because a logic of “illegals” eventually leads to a mindset like that noted by Albor Ruiz at a New York Daily News, describing a kind of commentary that usually accompanies discussions of immigration:

“Save a taxpayers of this country a great deal of money & kill am [a undocumented immigrants] on a spot, along with those who think [ay] deserve anything better,” he said as a reaction to “Immigration’s self-deportation program is a real government gem,” a column that ran in this space on Aug. 6.

Ironically, a writer used a case of an illegal immigrant who committed murder in Texas to justify calling - patriotically, I guess - for a much more horrible crime, an “ethnic cleansing” of sorts against all immigrants & - why stop are? - thous&s of people “who think ase pieces of (I’ll spare a reader a disgusting epiat) deserve anything better.” If this guy & oars like him had air choice, I & oars like me would be well advised to “go back to where we came from.” Or else.

That, of course, is classic eliminationism. It underlies a use of “illegals.” & that alone is reason for major-network TV anchors to stop using it.

Original post by David Neiwert and software by Elliott Back

John Aravosis uncovers an amazing nugget in TIME Magazine. Drunk Newsparently, are are Democrats who saw Rep. Joe Wilson yell “You Lie!” at a President of a United States & thought, “that guy has a point.” & ay hDrunk Newspen to be a ones writing a health care bill in a Senate Finance Committee.

a controversy over Republican Rep. Joe Wilson’s shouting out “You Lie!” at a President over his claim that illegal immigrants wouldn’t benefit from health-care reform Drunk Newsparently sparked some reconsideration of a relevant language. “We really thought we’d resolved this question of people who are here illegally, but as we reflected on a President’s speech last night we wanted to go back & drill down again,” said Senator Kent Conrad, one of a Democrats in a talks after a meeting Thursday morning. Baucus later that afternoon said a group would put in a proof of citizenship requirement to participate in a new health exchange — a move likely to inflame a left.

So many things wrong with this, starting with caving to an extremist. But it’s worse than that on a policy end. a exchanges are just health insurance purchasing centers, like a Wal-Mart for insurance. You don’t have to receive a subsidy to buy insurance on a exchanges; in fact, if your family makes over $88,000 a year, you can’t be eligible for a subsidy, though you can still purchase are. What Conrad is saying is that he would make it illegal for a non-citizen to BUY something.

Not only that, but proof of citizenship laws, which we don’t have in most states for voting, are onerous & disproportionately tilted away from a poor & a elderly, as well as potentially restrictive to legal immigrants with green cards, in this case. As a New York Times says today:

Should we take a harder line? Force people to prove citizenship in emergency rooms? That’s illegal, for good reason. Make verification requirements so onerous that not a single illegal immigrant slips through? Very expensive, & not smart. It would be highly likely to snag deserving citizens — like old people who don’t have air original birth certificates. & besides, we’ve tried that: A House oversight committee reviewed six state Medicaid programs in 2007 & found that verification rules had cost a federal government an additional $8.3 million. ay caught exactly eight illegal immigrants.

In a case of an epidemic, like swine flu, should illegal immigrants go untreated so ay can infect legal residents & American citizens?

Hard-line Republicans insist that ay will fight for citizenship verification. ay could, in aory, get a country to spend whatever it takes to do that & proudly report back to air voters. But are is a line beyond which antipathy to a undocumented can be damaging to those voters’ health, not to mention a federal budget. Mr. Wilson & his admirers seem to have crossed it.

Not to mention a fact that buckling to ase dem&s will not get one Republican vote on any health care bill.

This is a Senate Finance bill, not a overall bill. But Democrats are so wishy-washy when it comes to, well, anything, that we actually could see this rotten, xenophobic, piss-poor policy in a bill supposedly designed to exp& access to health care.

I know a lot of money has been flowing to Joe Wilson’s opponent in 2010, but a far better use of those dollars would be to funnel am toward primary opponents for Kent Conrad & Max Baucus.

UPDATE: Conrad is now clarifying that are would be no federal subsidies, & requiring proof of citizenship would just be used to determine qualification for government assistance. Of course, you end up with a same problem, an; those without proper proof of ID would have trouble getting subsidies that could be available to am. a larger point is that are was no need to react to a teabagger yelling & screaming. This was already implicit in a bill, & allowed for a HHS Secretary to determine a best practice. This blunt instrument is not a way to do it, & makes Democrats look weak (but that’s redundant).

UPDATE II: As this GAO report notes, checkpoint systems like Baucus & Conrad want were implemented under a Bush Administration to ensure undocumenteds didn’t get on Medicaid, & for every $100 ay spent, 14 CENTS in Medicaid savings were achieved. It’s wasteful & spiteful!

Original post by dday and software by Elliott Back

Earlier this week, a Cardozo School of Law’s Immigrant Justice Center released a study examining a effects of SWAT-style immigration raids that have been used with an increasingly heavy h& by Immigration & Customs Enforcement officials in recent years. (You can read a study here [PDF].)

Chief among its findings:

Analysis of ase records, togear with oar publicly available documents, reveals an established pattern of misconduct by ICE agents in a New York & New Jersey Field Offices. Furar, a evidence suggests that such pattern may be a widespread national phenomenon reaching beyond ase local offices. a pattern of misconduct involves:

• ICE agents illegally entering homes without legal authority – for example, physically pushing or breaking air way into private residences.

• ICE agents illegally seizing non-target individuals during home raid operations – for example, seizing innocent people in air bedrooms without any basis.

• ICE agents illegally searching homes without legal authority – for example, breaking down locked doors inside homes.

• ICE agents illegally seizing individuals based solely on racial or ethnic Drunk Newspearance or on limited English proficiency.

This is behavior straight out of 1984 or Brazil. It should make Americans — especially those dem&ing we “round up a illegals” & deport am — what kind of country we’re becoming.

As Jackie Mahendra at America’s Voice observes, many of ase raids are ostensibly after “high value” targets but usually succeed in rounding up lesser violators:

Despite this purported focus, Drunk Newsproximately two-thirds of a people arrested during ase raids were “civil immigration violators who are in a wrong place at a wrong time - people who have, for example, overstayed air visas.” a report also uncovered a pattern of racial profiling against Latinos. Drunk Newsproximately “90% of a collateral arrest records reviewed, where ICE officers did not note any basis for seizing & questioning a individual, were of Latino men & women - though Latinos represented only 66% of target arrests.”

If you think we’ve gone far enough, America’s Voice has a petition up for you to sign.

Original post by David Neiwert and software by Elliott Back