The Tea Party Wants a White Homeland; Support Obama's Immigration Plan

"Scripture tells us that we shall not oppress a stranger, for we know the heart of a stranger -- we were strangers once, too. My fellow Americans, we are and always will be a nation of immigrants. We were strangers once, too." -- President Obama, November 20, 2014 (White House)

Don't care much what Scripture tells us, but I like the sentiment expressed last night.

So-called Christians are going to have to square their professed beliefs in compassion, decency and kindness with the first steps of making immigrant families Americans, attacked by motley crew of racists, and rightwing militants.

The rightwing is screaming "anarchy," "censure" the president (Fund, The National Review), (Cost, The Weekly Standard); and Obama is acting like a "king" and a "monarch," (Rand Paul)—no surprise from Paul with his racist past.

Right alongside the relatively restrained rhetoric comes the openly racist warnings from the whites-only crowd.

The long-standing position of StormFront maintains its warning the "immigrant invasion threatens America's survival"—right next to the odious group's disquisitions on: Was There Really A Holocaust?

President Obama should welcome the enmity of The White Party of America now firmly embedded in the Republican Party.

There is a mass sentiment in America for out-and-out fascism (though not pervasive enough to win a national election): Nativism, militarism, bigoted, misogynistic, homophobic and anti-Semitic racists embraced by the GOP until their hate becomes too obvious or is revealed in uncovered emails. (Walsh)

By the way, one wonders if the Republican Party is going to have to give Ronald Reagan, brain-dead monster that he was, a rethink:

Sarah Palin: Obama Is Pushing 'Myth That Racial Profiling Is Part' of Arizona Immigration Law

Amid a backlash from civil libertairans and law enforcement officials, Sarah Palin defedned Arizona's new immigration bill.

Sarah Palin appeared on Fox News and straightened out the record: No racial profiling in Arizona after-all. Sure, if you look brown and have no papers, you land in jail. The Fourth Amendment, the 14th Amendment, these rights are for wusses.

From Huffington:

Sarah Palin called Arizona's controversial new immigration bill a "reasonable...wake up call" Tuesday, and criticized President Obama for "perpetuating this myth that racial profiling is a part of this law."

In an interview with Fox News's Sean Hannity -- who introduced the segment by accusing "pro-illegal immigration" protesters of not actually reading the legislation -- Sarah Palin said "there is no ability or opportunity in there for the racial profiling" in the law.

Critics have argued that the broader powers of law enforcement officials to stop and question suspected illegals who would, with this legislation, be considered to be "breaking the law" if they are in the state, will inevitably lead to racial profiling.

Palin, however, denied these claims.

"Shame on the lamestream media again for turning this into something that it is not," Palin insisted. "Governor Jan Brewer did what she had to do as the CEO of that state to help protect the citizens of her state she had to do what the federal government has refused to do and that is help secure the borders."

ACLU Hits Back at Arizona's 'Your Papers!' Law

Update: AP: Arizona's new immigration law is unconstitutional

A civil liberties fight looms on Arizona's new look-like-an-immigrant law on Fourth Amendment and 14th Amendment grounds, as the political consequences of the newly signed statute look to dampen the GOP's appeal to America's largest-growing ethnic group.

The Obama adminstration stated last Friday it will "examine the civil rights ... implications of this legislation."

From the ACLU:

Arizona Immigration Law Threatens Civil Rights And Public Safety, Says ACLU

PHOENIX – Arizona Governor Jan Brewer today signed into law Arizona's discriminatory immigration enforcement bill which requires law enforcement to question individuals about their immigration status during everyday police encounters. The law creates new immigration crimes and penalties inconsistent with those in federal law, asserts sweeping authority to detain and transport persons suspected of violating civil immigration laws and prohibits speech and other expressive activity by persons seeking work. The American Civil Liberties Union and the ACLU of Arizona strongly condemn the governor's decision to sign the unconstitutional law and are dismayed by her disregard for the serious damage it could cause to civil liberties and public safety in the state.

"Governor Brewer and the Arizona legislature have set Arizona apart in their willingness to sacrifice our liberties and the economy of this state," said Alessandra Soler Meetze, Executive Director of the ACLU of Arizona. "By signing this bill into law, Brewer has just authorized violating the rights of millions of people living and working here. She has just given every police agency in Arizona a mandate to harass anyone who looks or sounds foreign, while doing nothing to address the real problems we're facing."

The new law, which will not go into effect for more than 90 days, requires police agencies across Arizona to investigate the immigration status of every person they come across whom they have "reasonable suspicion" to believe is in the country unlawfully. To avoid arrest, citizens and immigrants will effectively have to carry their "papers" at all times. The law also makes it a state crime for immigrants to willfully fail to register with the Department of Homeland Security and carry registration documents. It further curtails the free speech rights of day laborers and encourages unchecked information sharing between government agencies.

"Forcing local police to demand people's papers and arrest those who can't immediately prove their status will do nothing to make us safer," said Dan Pochoda, Legal Director of the ACLU of Arizona. "What it will do is divert scarce police resources to address false threats and force officers to prioritize immigration enforcement over all other public safety responsibilities. It is a dark day for Arizona when the goalof appeasing one state Senator, Russell Pearce, takes priority over fundamental rights and economic needs of residents."

Before the governor signed the bill, President Obama criticized it harshly, calling it "misguided" and saying that it threatens to "undermine basic notions of fairness that we cherish as Americans." Obama promised to "closely monitor the situation and examine the civil rights and other implications of this legislation."

The president's statement is consistent with his longstanding opposition to anti-immigrant laws that attempt to bypass the federal government. As a senator, he lauded the 2007 legal ruling blocking the anti-immigrant law in Hazleton, Pennsylvania, calling the law "unconstitutional and unworkable."

Despite the president's statements, his administration has not taken strong action against state and local anti-immigrant laws, paving the way for extreme laws like the one signed today. Currently, the administration has a prime opportunity to take a stand on the issue, because the solicitor general will soon file a brief explaining the administration's position on Arizona's unconstitutional employer sanctions law, passed in 2007, which creates a state-level immigrant employment verification and sanctions regime.

"Actions speak louder than words," said Omar Jadwat, a staff attorney with the ACLU Immigrants' Rights Project. "As the federal government sits on its hands, Arizona's anti-immigrant brushfireshave turned into a firestorm. We call on the administration to file a brief categorically opposing Arizona's employer sanctions law to demonstrate its commitment to stopping anti-immigrant laws that interfere with federal authority, wreak havoc on businesses and cause discrimination against Latinos."

Additional materials on the "Support Our Law Enforcement and Safe Neighborhoods Act" signed by Governor Brewer today, including the ACLU of Arizona's analysis and written testimonies against the law, are available at: www.acluaz.org/legislature.html

The ACLU's cert petition in the Arizona employer sanctions case, Chamber of Commerce of the United States of America et al. v. Candelaria et al., is available at: www.aclu.org/immigrants-rights/chamber-commerce-united-states-et-al-v-candelaria-petition-certiorari

Anti-ACORN Activist Attended Racist Conference

The anti-racism group One People's Project has a blockbuster that rightwing rising star James O’Keefe, attended a white supremacists' conference in 2006 held at a satellite building for the Georgetown University Law School in Claredon, Virgina, and O'Keefe manned a literature table full of anti-black, anti-Latino, and anti-Semitic literature.

"The truth shall set me free," said O'Keefe in a federal courthouse after being arrested for the attempted bugging of U.S. Sen. Mary Landrieu's (D-Louisiana) office. Guess again O'Keefe, now even the GOP won't have you though Fox News seems to have taken a shine to your ways.

From the One People's Project:

Interesting what could have been - or not have been - had we caught this four years ago. Back then, there was this white supremacist forum that we had called attention to and eventually attended that featured American Renaissance's Jared Taylor and National Review's homophobe extraordinaire John Derbyshire.

Max Blumenthal picks up the O'Keefe-outed-as racist story at Salon:

Many of the conservatives who gleefully promoted James O’Keefe’s past political stunts are feigning shock at his arrest on charges that he and three associates planned to tamper with Louisiana Sen. Mary Landrieu's phone lines. Once upon a time, right-wing pundits hailed the 25-year-old O’Keefe as a creative genius and model of journalistic ethics. Andrew Breitbart, who has paid O’Keefe, called him was one of the all-time ‘great journalists’ and said he deserved a Pulitzer for his undercover ACORN video. Fox News’ Bill O’Reilly declared he should have earned a ‘congressional medal.’

His right-wing admirers don't seem to mind that O’Keefe's short but storied career has been defined by a series of political stunts shot through with racial resentment. Now an activist organization that monitors hate groups has produced a photo of O'Keefe at a 2006 conference on "Race and Conservatism" that featured leading white nationalists. The photo, first published Jan. 30 on the Web site of the anti-racism group One People's Project, shows O’Keefe at the gathering, which was so controversial even the ultra-right Leadership Institute, which employed O'Keefe at the time, withdrew its backing. But O'Keefe and fellow young conservative provocateur Marcus Epstein soldiered on to give anti-Semites, professional racists and proponents of Aryanism an opportunity to share their grievances and plans to make inroads in the GOP.