The following originally appeared on Project Economic Refugee.

Arizona Republicans pulled a suicide pistol on their political careers by passing such racist unconstitutional and therefore anti-America law. These politicians and their allies in the Tea Party crowd are about to get a lesson on what a real rally looks like.

So where is your city going to be meeting to rally against racist authoritarian police laws (like Arizona’s), and demand immigration reform?

Here’s a map plotting planned marches (via reformimmigrationforamerica.org) across the United States; you can also see their running list here.

Here’s another working list (via immigrantsolidarity.org) of rallies and meetings points across the nation.

Articles:

Reuters: Arizona immigrant law energizes Hispanics, Democrats

New America Media: After Arizona, 100,000 Expected for LA’s May Day March

CNN: Group plans protests for immigrants’ rights in 39 cities Saturday

For more, visit this site.

The following originally appeared on Project Economic Refugee.

Just in case you still doubted that Arizona’s new authoritarian police law (aka SB 1070) was racially motivated, watch the video here.

Also, via Imagine 2050:

The anti-immigrant law just signed into effect in Arizona was introduced by Arizona Republican Russell Pearce (shown here hugging a neo-nazi) and written by the Federation for American Immigration Reform (a designated hate group by the Southern Poverty Law Center).

Read more here.

The following originally appeared on Project Economic Refugee.

Thanks to Immigration Talk with a Mexican American for sounding the alarm off on this. Watch Senator Huppenthal squirm as he falsely states that this new law does not legalize racial profiling (it in fact, does legalize racial profiling because it forces police officers to stop someone if they have “reasonable suspicion” of someone looking like an “illegal”, which can be dangerously interpreted as anything the police arbitrarily chooses, for ex. if someone merely looks brown). See for yourself: incredibly, it appears Sen. Huppenthal does not even know what was in his own bill. The video is up on the Project Economic Refugee blog.

The following originally appeared on Project Economic Refugee.

Now that Governor Brewer has signed SB1070 into law, there’s been a lot of talk in the past few days about boycotting Arizona (besides the protests, the lawsuits, and the election consequences that are sure to come down on those that supported the law).

Here’s the list of Senators and their district numbers that voted YES (via the AZ legislature website):

Sylvia Allen (R-5)
David Braswell (R-6)
Chuck Gray (R-19)
Jack W. Harper (R-4)
Barbara Leff (R-11)
Al Melvin (R-26)
Russell Pearce (R-18)
Jay Tibshraeny (R-21)
Ed Bunch (R-7)
Linda Gray (R-10)
John Huppenthal (R-20)
Steve Pierce (R-1)
Thayer Verschoor (R-22)
Frank Antenori (R-30)
Ron Gould (R-3)
John Nelson (R-12)
Robert “Bob” Burns (R-9)

Notice that they were all Republican. In fact, the only Republican to vote “No” was:

Carolyn S. Allen (R-8)

Here’s the list of those that voted for it and their district numbers in the AZ House or Representatives (via Project Vote Smart):

Rep. Lucy Mason (R-1), Rep. Andrew Tobin Sr. (R-1), Rep. Doris Goodale (R-3), Rep. Nancy McLain (R-3), Rep. Tom Boone (R-4), Rep. Judy Burges (R-4), Rep. Bill Konopnicki (R-5), Rep. Amanda Reeve (R-6), Rep. Carl Seel (R-6), Rep. Ray Barnes (R-7), Rep. Nancy Barto (R-7), Rep. John Kavanagh (R-8), Rep. Michele Reagan (R-8), Rep. Debbie Lesko (R-9), Rep. Rick Murphy (R-9), Rep. Doug Quelland (R-9), Rep. James Weiers (R-9), Rep. Adam Driggs (R-11), Rep. Steve Montenegro (R-12), Jerry Weiers (R-12), Rep. Cecil Ash (R-18), Rep. Steve Court (R-18), Rep. Kirk Adams (R-19), Rep. Rich Crandall (R-19), Rep. John McComish (R-20), Rep. Warde Nichols (R-21), Rep. Steven Yarbrough (R-21), Rep. Andy Biggs (R-22), Rep. Laurin Hendrix (R-22), Rep. Frank Pratt (R-23), Rep. Russell Jones (R-24), Rep. David Stevens (R-25), Rep. Vic Williams (R-26), Rep. David Gowan (R-30), Rep. Ted Vogt (R-30).

As you can see, all were Republicans on the House side. So in summary the only Republican to vote “No” in the whole Arizona state congress was Senator Carolyn Allen.

Updates on the boycott are developing quickly. Please visit this site to learn more.

The following originally appeared on Project Economic Refugee.

1st: Check out Heal the Bay’s fun and interactive “Trash Your Friends” Campaign:

Here’s how it works:

a. You log into http://trashed.healthebay.org/

b. Click on “trash your friends”

c. Enter the website address you want to “trash”; it can be any web page.

d. Enter the e-mail address of the person you want to notify that you “trashed” that particular website.

e. Enter your e-mail address so the person knows it comes from you.

f. Click Next

g. You then choose the trash character you want to use (click on the character)

h. Personalize your note

i. Click Send

The campaign is to raise awareness in a fun, interactive way about the problem of disposable plastic bags polluting our ocean.

2nd: Check out this article on how veterans are pushing for a Climate Bill to fight global warming and defend our national security.

3rd: Learn about the experience of Latinos in California’s water crisis by checking out this previous post of mine here.

Happy Earth Day everyone!

Find out more about Project Economic Refugee.

The following originally appeared on Project Economic Refugee:

[...] his name might as well be “poisoner”, though. He’s been attacking economic refugees by calling them “illegal aliens” and going all Lou Dobbs on them. Current Insurance Commissioner Poizner has been doing this in a particularly venomous manner throughout his almost now desperate campaign (he’s behind in the polls) to gain the nomination of the Republican Party in California to be the state’s governor against fellow Republican candidate Meg Whitman. His commercials are everywhere on local TV stations and are filled with poisonous rhetoric. Here’s one where he uses the dehumanizing and bigoted term “illegal alien”; watch the video here.

Notice that he keeps on blaming California’s economic crisis on “failed liberal policies”, when in reality a large part of the blame should go to conservative obstructionist policies via the Prop. 13 catastrophe that has resulted in California’s dysfunctional government. But he’ll never admit to that, of course.

Here’s his latest piece of work where he uses the usual conservative line of fear mongering, using overdramatizing images to blame everything that is wrong with California on immigrants-and by implied extension of course, on Latinos. What’s particulary interesting about his latest videos is that he drops the term “illegal alien” for “illegal immigration”. I wonder if that was deliberate, or someone in his camp told him to cool it a bit if he is to actually be successful at winning the governorship, which would be a near impossible task without the Latino vote.  To watch that video, visit this link.

His attempts at posturing himself at being the “tough enforcer guy” are just plain sad and tragic. Not only does he look as the antithesis of being macho right-wing guy, but with his skinny mousy insurance clerk physique and look, his persona just comes across as him being dishonest, nasty, negative, and wreckless (and not in the sexy bad boy kind, but rather in the loser kind).

To add insult to injury, he slams fellow Republican Meg Whitman for supposedly having the same “liberal” immigration policy preferences as President Barack Obama. In watching the video below, you have to wonder: who is advising this guy? Are you serious? Mr. Poizner is running in a state that have entire counties that are now or will be soon predominantly Latino and have strong connnections to the immigrant experience, on a state that voted overwhelmingly for Barack Obama (even in counties that are typically conservative-leaning) and STILL approve of Obama by large margins. It is clear that the majority of Californians agree with President Obama’s policies on a number of issues, INCLUDING on immigration. So why is Mr. Poizner committing political suicide by not only angering the Latino and other minority voting blocks that will take deep offense to his negative campaign messaging but also by running against President Obama himself?  Watch for yourself here.

Painting Meg Whitman as Obama-lite might even be working in Whitman’s favor. In a weird way, it’s almost like Steve Poizner’s commercials are having the unintended consequence of telling people to vote for Whitman because she is the Obama candidate, not State Attorney General Jerry Brown (the actual Democratic Party potential candidate). Mr. Brown is not helping the situation either: he’s actually positioning himself as a “centrist”, which is code for progressives for “Conservative Democrat”, a category that has become toxic in progressive circles. By positioning himself as a conservative-lite on a number of issues (including immigration) and even going as far as pledging to work with the racist “Tea Party” people, Mr. Brown has painted himself as not exciting to his base, which is typically a huge political mistake to do because it can have the unintended consequence of tranlating into Democratic voters staying home come election night. In some ways, what happened in Massachusetts with Scott Brown is happening in California: the focus is so much on the Republican nominees that Mr. Brown, devoid of an exciting progressive message, is getting lost in the background (and this is independently of the fortune that Meg Whitman is pouring into her marketing campaign). Not surprisingly, Meg Whitman, who has by the most part stayed away from such direct hate-on-immigrants tactics, is surging on the polls because she has chosen to do what has also proven to work on political campaigns: offer a hopeful and positive message (which has proven to yield powerful results: Obama and Reagan are practically exhibit A’s of this). What’s even more remarkable, although Meg Whitman appears to be on the same page as Steve Poizner on immigration, she is doing it low-key in a way that is not so public and in-your-face: through one-on-one debates with him, not on full-blown TV commercials. In fact, Meg Whitman has gone so far as to pledge during the state Republican convention that if elected, she “will ban undocumented students from attending California’s higher education system” and yet this has received very little focus in her campaign to the larger public.

By comparison, it is clear that Mr. Poizner is either not listening to smart political advise because his own ideological bigotry is blinding him from reality, or he is just surrounded by incompetent advisors. Via The Los Angeles Times:

[Poizner's] campaign strategist, Stuart Stevens, said the emphasis on illegal immigration stemmed not from polling data but from Poizner himself.

“It’s something that Steve Poizner feels passionately about,” he said.

Stevens brushed aside the concerns of some Republicans that concentrating on the issue could extend the backlash among Latinos, the state’s fastest-growing ethic group and one the GOP is eager to attract for its long-term survival.

“There’s zero concern. . . . I don’t buy into the notion that 187 is the root of difficulties in California that the Republicans have had with Latino voters. I think it’s a specious argument.”

He attributed the breach to the GOP’s attraction to “big money and status quo power” candidates — like, he said, Whitman.

Others, however, see the emphasis as a sideshow in an election in which voters are focused laser-like on other matters.

“There’s absolutely no sign it’s helping Poizner at all,” Quinn said. “The overwhelming issue affecting Republicans and Democrats is the loss of jobs and the budget mess.”

Yeah, keep on living in denial Poizner camp. There is NO question that Prop. 187 WAS the poison that killed the Republican Party in California and that completely destroyed Pete Wilson’s aspirations of running for President. Granted, even in this day and age you might get some short term gain from your attacks on economic refugees, but let’s be clear Mr. Poizner: you and your party will pay a high prize for it, just as it happened after Pete Wilson’s Prop. 187 passed and the Republican Party was decimated at the polls in the subsequent years by the Latino vote.

Regardless, we cannot let Mr. Poizner’s media onslaught against immigrants go unanswered. His tactics might very well be hurting his own political campaign but that is nothing compared to the damage that he’s doing to the entire state of California through his bigoted poisonous rhetoric.

Let Steve “the Poisoner” know that Latinos and other immigrants will not tolerate being his floor mat. Contact him to let him know that his campaign messages against “illegal aliens” are an attack on decency and are filled with hate and that you will not tolerate it come election night. Here’s Steve Poizner’s contact information:

Steve Poizner’s Facebook Page

Steve Poizner’s Twitter Page

You can write a letter to him to this address:

Steve Poizner for Governor
520 Capitol Mall, Suite 220
Sacramento, CA 95814
(916) 325-6800

…and you can contact him through his website here.

Update: be sure to also tweet Steve Poizner’s Press Secretary, Bettina Inclan on her twitter account @BettinaInclan, who is a Latina herself. Also take a moment to send a tweet over to Mr. Poizner’s official campaign team account at @TeamPoizner.

Here’s a couple of sample tweets you can send their way (don’t forget to ask people to “RT”!):

plz RT: @StevePoizner @TeamPoizner Prop13 pushd CA economy off cliff, NOT hardworking ppl tryng 2escape poverty http://digg.com/d31Nsm2?t

Poizner zeros in on an untimely issue:http://bit.ly/bXyNfM – wonder if he’s listening to advice from @bettinainclan, or is he getting any?

@StevePoizner, @BettinaInclan@TeamPoizner, What’s with the ”illegal aliens” campaign message? Is @GlennBeck a campaign advisor? #CIR#HATE

Update #2: when you send your tweets to the people above, please use the following hashtags for maximum effect:

The following originally appeared on Project Economic Refugee.

In case you haven’t heard, the Arizona state legislature just passed a new law that will force the police to go after economic refugees (aka “undocumented immigrants”), even when that state’s Association of Chiefs of Police actually opposes this; therefore destroying any sort of confidence or working relations that the police might’ve had with the Latino and other immigrant communities in reporting and fighting crimes in Arizona.

The National Day Laborer Organizing Network has issued the following statement, which encapsulates our emotions on this:

For Immediate Release / Please Distribute

Contact: Marco Loera, 602-373-3859 and

newman@ndlon.org

Date: April 13, 2010

The following is a statement by Chris Newman, Legal Director of the National Day Laborer Organizing Network:

“Arizona is on the verge of enacting the most anti-immigrant legislation the country has seen in a generation. We are hopeful Governor Brewer will consult with her legal counsel, issue a veto, and spare Arizona the expense of defending an unconstitutional, unwise, and odious bill in federal courts. Arizona has long been a laboratory for anti-immigrant experimentation, and its demagogue leaders have become folk heros for white supremacists throughout the United States, but this bill ushers in a new chapter of disgrace for the state that resisted celebrating the life of Martin Luther King.”

This new Arizona legislation could become law as early as next week! Here’s what you can do to help stop it (via the UFW):

1. Arizona’s Governor Brewer has not responded to any of the tweets that have been sent to her asking her to veto SB 1070. However, she is tweeting on other stuff and she just tweeted, “Don’t forget to sign up to be a fan on Facebook at http://www.facebook.com/GovJanBrewer.”

So, join her fan page and leave a wall message asking her to “say NO to racial profiling by vetoing the SB1070!”

2. You can also sign the UFW’s twitter petition by tweeting the following message:
petition @GovBrewer Veto AZ’ SB1070. Say NO to racial profiling. http://act.ly/1wg RT to sign #actly #ufw

[The petition to Arizona’s Governor was actually the #2 tweet of the week at one point].

3. Call the Governor’s office at: 1800-253-0883 or 602-542-4331.
4. TAKE ACTION. The UFW has an action alert up on this that sends a fax to the governor asking her to veto this bill at http://action.ufw.org/az410

Update # 1: CREDO Action has sent out this action alert to 21,000 members in Arizona. In less than two hours, they generated 623 faxes to the governor’s office!

Here is the direct link to the fax action. Below is the email that was sent out:

Tell Gov. Jan Brewer: Stand up for civil rights and veto SB 1070
Don’t let Arizona become a police state.

Dear [friend],

Yesterday, we received an email from our friends at the United Farm Workers. They wanted to alert us to a chilling new Arizona law that has been passed by the legislature and will soon land on the desk of Gov. Jan Brewer for her signature.

If signed into law, the bill would create a unique and frightening police state within Arizona’s borders. A state where anyone who forgets to carry identification or papers proving immigration status could be picked up by police. A state where someone who appears to be a Latino or speaks English with an accent will be at constant risk of being stopped and interrogated by police.

It’s up to Gov. Jan Brewer to put a stop to this law. Send a message today urging her to veto the bill.

As Alessandra Soler Meetze, president of the American Civil Liberties Union of Arizona, says, “A lot of U.S. citizens are going to be swept up in the application of this law for something as simple as having an accent and leaving their wallet at home.”

And its not just the Arizona ACLU and civil rights groups that are raising the alarm. The Arizona Association of Chiefs of Police opposes the bill because it will deter immigrants who are witnesses to crimes from coming forward and helping police.

Not only does the bill make it a misdemeanor not to carry proper immigration paperwork in Arizona. It would also require police officers to demand verification of immigration status whenever they have “reasonable suspicion” that someone is undocumented. Under current state law, officers can inquire about immigration status if an individual is a suspect in another crime, but the wholesale racial profiling required by SB 1070 is not condoned.

Gov. Jan Brewer has not taken a public stand on SB 1070. She needs to hear from us that we expect her to stand up for civil rights and veto SB 1070. Send her a fax today!

Thank you for standing up for civil liberties.

Becky Bond, Political Director
CREDO Action from Working Assets

Update # 2: in case you haven’t been paying attention to Arizona’s growing authoritarian trends towards terrorizing the Latino community, check out what Rep. Luis Gutierrez just published on Huffington Post.

It is open season on the Latino community in Arizona. In Phoenix, Tucson, and across the state, people in Latino neighborhoods are afraid to leave their houses, afraid to be apart from their children for even a minute, and afraid to walk the streets because they feel their arrest on suspicion of being an undocumented immigrant could happen at any moment. It is a horrifying glimpse at what our future holds across the country if we continue down the path the Obama administration is leading us on immigration.

This week, we saw how destructive things are getting. The combination of a harsh piece of anti-immigrant legislation advancing in the Arizona legislature and a massive, well-publicized federal enforcement action against a broad human smuggling network has sent the unmistakable message to Arizona’s one million immigrants and two million Hispanics: there is a target on your backs and authorities are coming after you.

To read the rest of the article, click here.

***Updates on this are developing quickly. To read the latest, visit this site.

The following originally appeard on Project Economic Refugee:

Palin pal’ing around with teaparty terrorists, putting down America’s taxes that help build our country.

Looks like Sarah Palin is up to her tricks of pandering to the Tea Party people (who have demonstrated their destructive racist tendencies) as tax day approaches. If you recall, Sarah Palin has denied in the past that taxes are in fact, linked to patriotism.

Watch the video here.

Palin might want to turn her back on America and do away with all taxes; but unfortunately there would be a high price to pay for that in our nation. George Lakoff put it best on his book Don’t Think of An Elephant (p. 108):

Isn’t tax relief that natural way to talk about taxes? I’m a progressive, but I have to admit, they do seem burdensom sometimes.

Homework in school is burdensome too, but you have to do it if you’re going to learn anything. Exercise is burdensome, but you have to do it if you’re going to be in good physical shape. Taxes are necessary if we are going to make wise investments in our national infrastructure that will pay off for all of us years and years in the future. That includes investments in things like education and health care for those who can’t afford it. Education and health care are investments in people. They are wise investments because they give us an educated citizenry, and educated workforce, and a healthy and efficient workforce. Those are the practical reasons for taxes. Other reasons for taxes are public services-like police and fire, disaster relief, and so on.

Those are the practical reasons for taxes, but there are moral reasons as well. Education and health are important factors in fulfillment in life, and this country is about fulfillment in life. There is a reason why the Declaration of Independence talks about the pursuit of happiness and links it to liberty. The reason is that they go together. Without Liberty, there can be no fulfillment in life. Thus there are practical reasons why it makes sense to understand taxation as an investment, and there are moral reasons to understand taxation as paying your dues in a country where you can pursue happiness because there is liberty and freedom.

Update: if you’re on twitter, please join the movement to ask Sarah Palin to stop putting down America. If you could tweet the following:

Plz RT 4 #taxday @SARAHPalinUSA pal’ing around #teaparty terrorists http://bit.ly/aRHb0D putting down America & what builds our country #p2

Update # 2: here’s another great passage from Don’t Think of An Elephant regarding the topic of taxes (p. 117).

The government has made very wise investments with tax-payer money. Our interstate highway system, for example. You couldn’t build a highway with your tax refund. The government built them. Or the Internet, paid for by taxpayer investment. You could not make your own Internet. Most of our scientific advances have been made through funding from the National Science Foundation and the National Institutes of Health-great government investments of taxpayer money. No matter how wisely you spent your own money, you’d never get those scientific and medical breakthroughs. And how far would you get hiring your own army with your tax refund?

Update # 3: funny how the rich like Sarah Palin refuse to support America by not paying their fair share; guess it’s not surprising-they KNOW they’re not like you and me.  Watch the video here.

The following originally appeared on Project Economic Refugee:

John Paul Stevens has announced his retirement.  This automatically gives President Obama the opportunity to appoint another Supreme Court Justice. Via MSNBC:

Stevens was able to draw the support of the court’s swing votes, now-retired Justice Sandra Day O’Connor and Justice Anthony Kennedy, to rein in or block some Bush administration policies, including the detention of suspected terrorists following the Sept. 11, 2001, attacks, its tilt toward protecting businesses from some lawsuits and its refusal to act against global warming.

Many progressives have been arguing that Obama needs to appoint someone that is to the left of Sonia Sotomayor, if the balance of the court is to be kept in check (the court is currently tilted to the conservative right, even with Stevens currently in the court). This is specially significant in light of the aftermath of the disastrous recent Supreme Court decision (which was favored by the conservative members) on the Citizens United v. Federal Election Commission case that opened up American political candidates’ campaigns to the control of foreign corporate or rogue powers (like God forbid, Osama Bin Laden).

Update: let the speculation regarding who will replace Stevens begin! MSNBC is mentioning, among other women, Secretary of Homeland Security Janet Napolatino. This would be particularly, shall we say, interesting, being that Napolitano has had a mixed record on immigration. While she has been a pioneer in the way we talk about immigration: she’s in fact admitted (much to the uproar of the right-wing) that coming into the country with no documentation is in fact, NOT a criminal offense but rather a civil offense, she has also been slow to fix or unwilling to do something about how ICE continues to terrorize and put into privatized detention centers (under terrible conditions) members of the Latino and other immigrant communities. Another interesting choice would be current Secretary of State Hillary Clinton, which surprisingly is not getting a lot of attention in the media: many have been arguing that it would be nearly impossible for Republican Senators to fillibuster her nomination. This approach would also correct the situation of someone that was passed over and reportedly wanted the post of Secretary of State: John Kerry. Paradoxically, that would endanger his Senate seat if he were to no longer run for re-election and instead shift to the post of Secretary of State.

Update #2: with all this hooplah about who is going to be Stevens’ replacement, please don’t forget to thank him for all of the work he did for the American people on the Supreme Court. Visit this site to sign the thank-you petition.

Update #3: here’s a video doing a good summary of what a progressive icon John Paul Stevens actually was.

Update #4: looks like the Republican strategy is trying to delay the confirmation vote of the next Supreme Court Justice until after the November elections since they expect to pick up seats in the Senate. Their talking point seems to be “Obama and Stevens ought to postpone bringing someone new in this election cycle climate because it will only create more congressional gridlock.” It seems that they realize that the sooner an actual vote for confirmation takes place, the better chances of Obama’s new Supreme Court Justice nominee being confirmed.

Update #5: watch President Obama’s remarks about Stevens retiring and on how he plans on moving forward to fill the vacancy.

Update #6: just as predicted by Project Economic Refugee, looks like the name of Hillary Clinton has now officially enter the conversation. Now being reported by the Huffington Post:

WASHINGTON — Sen. Orrin Hatch says he’s heard Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton’s name mentioned in connection with the Supreme Court vacancy brought about by the retirement of Justice John Paul Stevens.

Hatch didn’t elaborate in an interview Monday. Appearing with Senate Judiciary Committee Chairman Patrick Leahy on NBC’s “Today” show, the Utah Republican said only, “I heard Sen. Hillary Rodham Clinton’s name today and that would be an interesting person in the mix.”

Read the rest here.