The Scamming of the Minutemen

There is a certain irony in the fact that extreme right wing movements tend to end up victimizing the very people they claim to fight for. In the heyday of the KKK, for example, when it was at the appogee of its influence and membership, Stetson Kennedy documented how KKK leaders used the organization to … Read more

Reconsidering a Guest Worker Program

I have done that naughtiest of things: I have flip-flopped. I have concluded that a policy I used to tepidly  favor is, in fact, a poor idea and losing proposition for the Democratic Party. So, now I guess I’m unelectable. Oh well… The Gordian knot of immigration is the conflict between the GOP’s nativists, Democrats’ … Read more

Senate Progress on Immigration Compromise

I got a very interesting mailing from the Democratic Party’s National Immigration Forum and Dean’s new outreach center, the American Majority Partnership, the other day. I reproduce it here entirely. It outlines the amendments to the Senate compromise that have been offered, those under consideration, and those likely to be considered in the near future.

Chairman Dean has made our position on immigration reform clear: We
support comprehensive immigration reform that strengthens our borders,
protects U.S. workers and their wages, reunites families, and allows
those who pay taxes and obey the law to earn the opportunity to apply
for the rights and responsibilities of citizenship.

These are the right policies and the right values. Democrats may not be polling with a majorities on every single issue we support on immigration, but we are standing for what’s right and principled, and that is more important to building an enduring consensus of principle, than to tack with every gust of the political winds.

 

“I will blow your freaking heads off…”

I was rather surprised to see this press release from Roy Warden, the anti-immigrant provocateur who burnt a Mexican flag in the middle of a pro-immigration rally in Tucson. The first surprise was the risable charges against Pima County officials of illegal-alien smuggling and (I can’t help but chuckle as I type) formenting civil war. … Read more