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.