So are gas prices falling yet? A new poll now shows that a troubling 4 in 10 Americans are experiencing or will be experiencing serious financial hardship because of the high gas prices, impacting their purchasing power and thus the economy in a very serious way.

Project Economic Refugee has been following this topic as it relates to Wall Street speculators and as it has been linked to the death of Osama bin Laden (which, disturbingly enough, converges with oil prices on another level: did you know that Wall Street speculators ironically fulfilled Osama’s wish of $144+/barrel?).

Project Economic Refugee also started a petition over at Change.org, which you can access here (you can help to promote it by signing and passing it along and then promote it on your blog, facebook, and/or twitter) asking the U.S. Attorney General to launch a Grand Jury investigation on high gas prices.

It’s been interesting to see the reactions since the petition was launched. Conservatives have tended to react with their typical worship of Wall Street and a mantra of “don’t interfere with the market- let it ride wild and free”, missing the entire point of reigning back corporate greed. Meanwhile, some liberals have reacted with an elitist “oh there you go complaining about crack prices so you can feed your addiction” missing also the point of a solution that can resonate with the electorate in a more immediate sense (not just a long term one) since progressives in my opinion have historically lacked one (the conservatives have their own: get more oil by drilling more/release oil reserves-nevermind of course the consequences on the environment).

Meanwhile all we see coming from the White House is “get rid of the tax breaks for oil companies.” Ignoring the terrible framing on that issue and while that may be an excellent idea, virtually nowhere in the enviro circles I run into do I hear a serious conversation about how high gas prices affect low income communities of color the most or how lack of public transportation options are at play here, resulting in lack of employment opportunities (since many can’t afford the higher rent rates that tend to occur in areas where there’s more businesses that can offer good jobs), thereby resulting in a cycle that goes like this: poor people can’t afford to live near good paying jobs resulting in more cars on the freeway because there are very little or nonexistent public transportation options. This topic was highlighted recently by a USC blog offering South Los Angeles as an example of this:

Everyone here drives and in order to survive in the City of Angels, you need wheels to be your wings.
However, some low-income and minority segments of Los Angeles do not own cars. For decades, this has denied them access to goods and employment in other parts of the city.

So yes, it would be great if everyone could just afford to either move closer to work or buy a Hybrid. However, the reality is that for some people, these are not viable options. It’s time for us to move the discussion where it ought to be: finding solutions that can actually have more immediate impact both for the health of our environment and to strive for socio-economic justice, rather than get stuck in the same stale old arguments that lead nowhere but political gridlock.

Again, here’s the link to my petition; I hope you sign:

http://www.change.org/petitions/tell-us-attorney-general-enough-monitoring-high-gas-prices-launch-grand-jury-investigation

Will the Republicans' latest branding effort work?

This effort, like with their pledge to overturn President Obama’s health insurance reform package, is dead on arrival, being that Republicans simply do not have the votes nor legal standing to advance any of such proposals and are really putting on this show of theatrics for symbolism sakes. As former Bush Adminstration official and former Texas solicitor General, James C. Ho pointed out in the Wall Street Journal:

A coalition of state legislators, motivated by concerns about illegal immigration, is expected to endorse state-level legislation today at the National Press Club in Washington, D.C., to deny the privileges of U.S citizenship to the U.S.-born children of undocumented persons.

This effort to rewrite U.S. citizenship law from state to state is unconstitutional–and curious. Opponents of illegal immigration cannot claim to champion the rule of law and then, in the same breath, propose policies that violate our Constitution.

In the aftermath of the Civil War, members of the 39th Congress proposed amending the Constitution to reverse the Supreme Court’s notorious 1857 Dred Scott v. Sandford ruling denying citizenship to slaves. The result is the first sentence of the 14th Amendment: “All persons born or naturalized in the United States, and subject to the jurisdiction thereof, are citizens of the United States.”

The plain meaning of this language is clear. A foreign national living in the United States is “subject to the jurisdiction thereof” because he is legally required to obey U.S. law.

Not only is the effort undeniably unconstitutional, it is equally counterproductive because it will further enrage the continuously growing Latino vote and throw Republicans into the risk of a repeat of the shellacking that the Latino vote handed to the Tea Party’s efforts to take over the Senate in the last midterm elections. So why is the GOP sending these conflicting messages? On then one hand, the Republican Party is clearly attempting to brand itself as “the party of the constitution”, on the other, in a sense they are seemingly intent on destroying it. The GOP has a major messaging problem on this, no doubt about it; however, do not be fooled into thinking that their efforts will “result in nothing accomplished.” If there’s one thing that the Republicans have proven, is that they know who their audience is and will stop at nothing to turn out their base to win elections for them and to influece the media to parrot back their right-wing talking points as “fact”, consequences be damned.

For more updates on this, please visit Project Economic Refugee.

Since Sarah Palin popularized the term “death panels”, these disturbing cases of conservative politicians letting people die in Arizona beg the following question: will Palin denounce what is taking place in that state, or will she conveniently ignore them, once again siding with extremists all in the name of advancing her political career?  Keith Olbermann did two segments on this case of Republican government action that will actually condemn low-income residents to death.  Watch the report here.

Project Economic Refugee’s analysis of the Sonia Sotomayor factor in the November 2010 midterm elections.

Did Sharron Angle, challenger to Harry Reid for the Nevada Senate seat, open up a can of worms by implying that Justice Sonia Sotomayor is not ‘bright enough’ (to put it mildly), along with Justice Elena Kagan, to “understand the constitution” during the recent debate between Angle and Reid? Watch video here.

Much has been said about the importance of registering new voters and of reminding Latinos to vote against those politicians that blocked passage of the DREAM Act and that are against a path to legalization for undocumented workers. Yet, not one progressive Senator (as far as I know) has aired at least one ad in Latino media outlets whether in Spanish or English to remind Latinos to vote against those that opposed Sonia Sotomayor’s confirmation to the Supreme Court. After all, polls showed that the attacks against her nomination did have an effect in Latinos’ views of the Republican Party. Furthermore, I’m surprised that Democrats have not jumped on those that voted “NO” on confirming Sotomayor by tying Republicans to the most racist, sexist, and vile comments prominent figures of the GOP made during the confirmation process. Take the example of what Republican operative and convicted criminal G. Gordon Liddy (he actually served four years in jail) said of Sotomayor (access the video here).  In fact, Liddy was not the only Republican to join the hate-fest (more video here).

Also Via Truthout:

Michael Savage, Rush Limbaugh, Glenn Beck, and the other leading lights of right-wing demagoguery raised a similar-sounding ruckus. Limbaugh went so far as to compare Sotomayor to disgraced racist Republican David Duke – a strange comparison, as this would normally be a reason for Limbaugh to support Sotomayor – and all of a sudden, many so-called “responsible” members of the GOP suddenly found themselves rushing to contain the damage.

“Republican leaders scrambled yesterday to contain some of the more incendiary and racially tinged remarks that have been aimed at the judge,” reported The Washington Post on Friday, “fearing that continued personal attacks on Sotomayor could severely damage the GOP’s appeal to women and Hispanics. Sen. Jeff Sessions (Ala.), the ranking Republican on the Judiciary Committee, said he was ‘uneasy’ with some of the remarks and urged Republicans to focus on her legal record.”

…but I guess I shouldn’t be surprised that Democrats are not rubbing it in the Republicans’ faces that conservatives were just on the wrong side of history concerning Sotomayor. Generally, Democrats tend to shy away from bragging about the good things they’ve actually accomplished. Yes, that might be either because some Democrats are either too humble, too incompetent in marketing their campaign messages effectively, or simply too wimpy to stand their ground and not be ashamed of the progressive values they actually stand for … just look at how many Democrats have stayed away from touting in their campaigns’ messaging the historic Health Insurance Reform they were actually able to get done (Democrats had been trying since President Truman, for God’s sakes).

Regardless, Democrats should remind voters of the good things they’ve actually accomplished and the confirmation of Sonia Sotomayor should be one of the top ones to brag about.

For more udpates, please visit Project Economic Refugee.

In her last debate with Jerry Brown, Meg Whitman again called for measures that in the end really just hurt people like guest worker programs and E-Verify systems that really don’t support comprehensive immigration reform . Watch the clip here.

What Chris Matthews failed to mention is that a guest worker program and E-Verify are two measures that have been largely criticized as demeaning and discriminatory. The National Immigration Law Center has documented examples of rampant cases of discrimination because of E-Verify:

Database errors incorrectly identify U.S. citizens as not authorized for employment.

• A U.S. citizen and former captain in the U.S. Navy with 34 years of service and a history of having maintained high security clearance was flagged by E-Verify as not eligible for employment. It took him and his wife, an attorney, two months to resolve the discrepancy.
• A U.S. citizen was hired for a job at a poultry company in Georgia but received a “tentative nonconfirmation” (TNC) notice. The employee wanted to contest the TNC, but the company did not grant her time off to do so. As a result, the employee had no time to contest the TNC and was fired.
• Juan Carlos Ochoa became a citizen in 2000. When he was offered a job at a car dealership in 2008, his employer used E-Verify to verify his employment eligibility. The employer received a TNCnotice due to an error in the Social Security Administration’s (SSA’s) database; SSA did not have any record of Ochoa’s naturalization. Upon receiving the notice, Ochoa’s employer fired him, a violation of E-Verify rules. Because he is out of work, he is late on his rent and his electricity has been shut off. Though Ochoa has a U.S. passport, the local SSA office told him he must bring in his naturalization certificate to prove his U.S. citizenship. Ochoa, however, lost his naturalization certificate years ago and will now have to pay close to $400 and wait up to ten months for a replacement certificate.
• A naturalized U.S. citizen was hired by an Oregon telecommunications company but received a TNC because SSA records did not accurately reflect his citizenship status. He successfully contested the TNC at an SSA office, but the SSA representative did not correct his record. E-Verify then automatically issued a final nonconfirmation, at which point the employer is required to dismiss the nonconfirmed worker. The employer did not immediately terminate the worker, however, but ran another query in E-Verify and got another TNC. The employee went back to SSA, and this time a representative updated his record but still failed to post the change to E-Verify. Once again, the employee received a final nonconfirmation. Finally, he called the Office of Special Counsel for Immigration-Related Unfair Employment Practices (OSC), which called the SSA field office to explain proper E-Verify procedures so that the employee could keep his job.

Read more examples of how E-Verify has screwed up people’s jobs here (PDF).

Furthemore, if employers are forced by law to utilize E-Verify in its current broken form, what will the full impact be on discriminatory practices at the job site? Imagine2050 highlights the troubling implications:

Here is the truth: E-verify encourages discrimination in hiring. The harder it is for employers to properly utilize the system (and it sounds nearly impossible), the more potential employees they will pass over. Don’t be surprised to one day hear reports of employers who admit to resorting to racial profiling because it was easier than E-verify.

The following originally appeared on Project Economic Refugee.

The conservative network that is currenlty serving as the mouthpiece for the Republican party in the U.S. has launched a website that will be targeting Latinos: FoxNewsLatino.com. When I first heard of it, I thought “holy mother of God, Fox News is launching a whole cable TV network to brainwash Latinos and turn them into conservatives?!” It’s not a TV network, of course, just a website … but I wouldn’t be surprised if a whole TV network is in the works, being that Rupert Murdoch, who owns Fox News with Roger Ailes, has often said that he does not agree with his own network in the way that it attacks Latino immigrants. In addition, it is clear that Republicans can see the writing on the wall: the Latino vote will only continue to grow and become stronger as time goes by and as of now, Republicans have done everything in their power to alienate this key demographic, basically driving Latinos to support the Democratic Party. As The Hollywood Reporter points out:

This year’s census is expected to show a further increase in the U.S. Hispanic population, which has in recent years attracted increased attention from advertisers and media executives.

At first sight, it appears that the Fox News conglomorate is being cautious and using the site as a place where it can show a more “caring” side of conservatives to recruit Latinos into “liking” the conservative points of view, while the regular Fox News website and cable channel continue to spout off its hatred of Latino immigrants. I don’t know if they got the memo, but CNN already tried a similar approach: having someone as hateful as Lou Dobbs on prime time, while catering to Latinos via its CNN en Español. Nevertheless, it appears Fox News is willing to give it a try at having it both ways. Putting things into context highlighting Senator Vitter’s racist ad as an example, ThinkProgress elaborates:

Aside from the Spanish-language content, there are also a few stories posted on Fox News Latino which have been conveniently left off of Fox News’ main site. “Latino Group Calls Louisiana Political Ad Offensive” and “Who’s Afraid of Spanglish?” are nowhere to be found on FoxNews.com. In the past, Fox News has reported quite extensively and largely in favor of the English-only movement.

I wonder what will the progressive response be, if any? Progressives and Democrats need to be careful not to take the Latino vote for granted. Yes, progressive ideology is more in line with the needs and values of the Latino community, but where is the appeal to cultivate and grow the passion in Latinos for the progressive movement? Take for example what happened with the DREAM Act on progressive media outlets recently. On MSNBC, Keith Olbermann was the only progressive prime time host on that network to even cover the momentous vote that was gearing up to take place on that piece of legislation. Furthermore, where is the Latino appeal on MSNBC’s cable channel and website? Where are the Latino hosts?

Don’t get me wrong, the work that MSNBC’s progressive hosts do is invaluable because it has been a tremendous help in exposing the racism in many conservatives’ policies that have come about over the years. However, the question nevertheless remains: where is the progressive response to this new Fox News Latino?

For more updates on this, please visit Project Economic Refugee.

California gobernatorial race: in a sign of just how essential the Latino vote has become in the state of California, Democratic candidate Jerry Brown and Republican candidate Meg Whitman made history as they faced off in a first-of-its-kind all-Spanish debate hosted by Univision.

Project Economic Refugee highlighted the following question during the debate, (watch here): “is help to the undocumented good for the economy?”

On the video following that question, notice how Meg Whitman sidestepped the topic of rewarding the hard work of undocumented immigrants for their positive contributions to our economy. Her only proposal was a “guest worker” program, which would not give these immigrants full working rights and protections. Good on Jerry Brown for calling her out on it and pointing out how such a program would only amount to squeezing these human beings for their labor and just send them back when people like her are done with them without even a thank you for their hard labor (an issue that received quite a bit of media attention recently thanks to Stephen Colbert’s testimony to Congress).

Watch video of the entire debate: in English here and in Spanish here.

Here’s the complete transcript of the debate in English.

Putting things into perspective: if Steve Poizner had won the Republican nomination instead of Whitman, do you think Poizner would have agreed to making history like this?

For further updates, visit Project Economic Refugee.

In a sign that perhaps Pete Wilson is still pulling the strings in her campaign, the following words came out of Meg Whitman’s own mouth: “I wouldn’t support a path to legalization”. Watch the video from the debate for yourself here.

The question that asked the candidates to state their positions on immigration was “do you see any positive impacts of immigration to California and would do you support a path to legalization?”

Interestingly, both candidates skipped the first part of the question: “do you see any positive impacts of immigration to California?” Instead, they both chose to focus on the usual “secure our borders, go after employers” mantras. It’s not surprising, being that politicians hardly ever stand up to talk about the actual positivies that immigration has in our economy like how undocumented immigrants basically subsidze our way of life because undocumented immigrants pay taxes, they do some of the hardest-labor jobs, save our Social Security from going into the hole, etc. etc.

Moreover, it was particulary interesting to see Meg Whitman say she opposes a path to legalization, which by definition would be included in any comprehensive immigration reform. This was of particular interest being that her position would be at odds with most Californians. Via this Public Policy Institute poll back in March 2010 which showed that:

Seventy percent of Californians believe undocumented immigrants who have been living and working in the United States for at least two years should be allowed to keep their jobs and eventually apply for legal status.

On the other hand, Jerry Brown bragged about how he signed on California to the so-called ”Secure Communities Program”. Too bad that the program actually makes our communities unsafe because it punishes the good guys and lets the bad ones go. Nevertheless, kudos to Jerry Brown for the reference he made to Eastern European authoritarian regimes of the past, reiterating that authoritarian laws that only focus on inhumanely rounding people up are just plain wrong. Also, kudos for not letting Meg Whitman off the hook for her inconsistencies on her stand on immigrant economic refugees. Jerry Brown’s Facebook page highlighted the following after the debate:

JUST THE FACTS #5: MEG WHITMAN FLIP-FLOPS ON ILLEGAL IMMIGRATION

Meg Whitman’s position on how California should handle its undocumented immigrants is riddled with inconsistencies. She initially embraced the strict, anti-illegal immigrant rhetoric of her campaign chairman, former Gov. Pete Wilson, during the Republican primaries. However, in a transparent attempt to pander to moderate voters, she has muddled many of her positions saying that her past statements should be viewed in light of her unfamiliarity with the issue.

Whitman Names Prop. 187 Champion Pete Wilson Campaign Chair, Nowhere To Be Found After Primary

• “In the GOP primary…Whitman brought out her campaign manager, former Gov. Pete Wilson, a man celebrated by many conservatives and reviled by many Latinos because of his highly visible support of Proposition 187. Wilson appeared in a radio ad called ‘Tough as Nails,’ in which Whitman said, ‘Illegal immigrants should not expect benefits from the state of California.’” [Los Angeles Times, 7/14/10]

• “During the Republican gubernatorial primary, Meg Whitman responded to her rival, Steve Poizner, by enforcing her opposition to amnesty for illegal immigrants. She even went so far as to enlist former Gov. Pete Wilson, who declared Whitman “tough as nails” on the issue. But that was then. Now, Whitman is on the air with two new Spanish-language ads, and Wilson is nowhere to be found. Instead, the ads discuss Whitman’s opposition to Arizona’s immigration law and to Proposition 187, the 1994 measure backed by, you guessed it, Pete Wilson.” [Los Angeles Times, 6/17/10]

Whitman Says She Would Let The Arizona Law Stand For Arizona

• “I would, you know I think, I understand that immigration is a federal issue, but I would say, you know, the states have got to be able to decide what is right for their state, so I would let the Arizona law stand for Arizona.” [Meg Whitman on Talk Radio Network's "America's Morning News," 7/28/10]

• “If the Arizona law is correct, are you [Meg Whitman] going to be an advocate to get a similar law passed in California? Oh, wait a second. California has different geography? Oh, I understand now. ” ["The John and Ken Show", KFI 640 AM, 8/2/10]

Whitman Supports Forced Reporting Of Undocumented Immigrants-Which Was Part Of Proposition 187

• “Whitman said…that schools, hospitals and law enforcement agencies should be required to report undocumented immigrants to federal authorities. She later backtracked on schools, saying, ‘I want to think about that a little bit.’” [Los Angeles Times, 2/11/09]

Whitman Wants To Ban Children Of Undocumented Immigrants From Public Universities

• “As governor, Meg will support policies that will not allow undocumented immigrants admission to state-funded institutions of higher education, such as UC, CSU and community colleges. [Meg Whitman, Meg 2010: Building A New California]

Whitman Says She Is Unfamiliar With Illegal Immigration Terminology

• “[Whitman] has struggled to explain her past and current positions on the issue. She said…her lack of familiarity with the issue and her newness to politics had caused the misunderstanding. ‘When you’re new to politics, sometimes you use words that have like a meaning to people who have been in politics for 20 years,’ she explained.” [The Washington Post, 5/31/10]

For other video clips from the debate, visit KABC’s site here.

The following originally appeared on Project Economic Refugee.

When you defend America’s freedom, it doesn’t matter about whether you are black, brown, white, yellow, Republican, Democrat, gay, straight, or whatever other label you might want to use. None of that matters; or at least it’s not supposed to matter. All that it matters is making sure that you got the back of your buddy next to you, your fellow soldier. Currently, the U.S. government bars youth that are undocumented from serving in the U.S. military, in a country that these kids have grown up in and is all that they have ever known and loved. Many of these young adults have been brave enough to come out of the shadows and make their voices heard. Via Citizen Orange:

Military Hopefuls Continue to Grow Outside McCain’s Office
Undocumented youth asking to join military grow in numbers in Phoenix

Phoenix, Arizona – Undocumented youth are now on their 4th day outside of Senator McCain’s Phoenix office. Michael, an undocumented aspiring serviceman, is leading a boot camp that has extended for four fays outside of the senator’s office with a simple ask, “let me be a soldier.”

The following originally appeared on Project Economic Refugee.

Even though the blogosphere and twitter have been on fire the past few days since Harry Reid made the announcement and Keith Olbermann featured the news of the DREAM Act being voted on next week, to this day the Rachel Maddow Show has not done a segment on it. It would not be a stretch for her to cover the momentous vote on the DREAM as a first step towards comprehension reform, being that her team has been doing quite a lot of coverage this year on the topic of reforming our immigration system; just take a look at her MSNBC Blog archives. In fact, it would be a perfect follow up story for her.

So, following the queue from Citizen Orange’s petition to ask Keith Olbermann to have DREAM Act youth leaders on his show, I’m starting Project Economic Refugee’s own petition to ask Rachel Maddow to finally cover the DREAM Act. Actually, if Rachel Maddow features the DREAM Act youth activits before Keith Olberman does, she would not only make up for the snub she unwittingly made against hot immigration reform news but she would be outdoing her peer Mr. Olbermann all in one swoop. The twitter petition can be accessed here and asks the following:

petition @maddow to FINALLY cover #DREAMAct YouthActivists on her show #p2 #ri4a http://act.ly/2en RT to sign

So who are the DREAM youth activists? There’s lots of them … would you like to meet them? Well, for starters you could check out Citizen Orange’s Letters to Obama, DREAMActivist.org, or you can see them on video-DREAMpositive has lots of video featuring these inspiring courageous leaders.

For more updates on this, please visit Project Economic Refugee.