May Day ... and ... SB 1070

[Political Waves]

This is a post on the Supreme Court, Arizona's divisive immigration law and the politics of the election -- but before we begin, the first of May is right around the corner and some of us will be participating in May Day activities. Those of us who think the Left has always been a wishy-washy, capitulating group of dreamers -- unwilling to face realities or do the hard, often dangerous work liberty demands -- need to read some history, confirming that NOTHING involving the early years of the labor movement was for sissies -- go here:

May Day's Radical History: What Occupy is Fighting for This May 1st

Not quite a General Strike, and as yet a small movement, May first in the OWS this year is a day of resistance -- here are some ideas. And me, I suggest we think outside the box. Maybe this is the day to jump on the blogs you usually read, spread some encouragement and scatter some seeds for Shift!

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On to the days business: what is extraordinary about America has been her ability to accept into her vast melting pot the talent, skill and strength of a diverse population and create it as one people with a unique view of the world. In the last years, our post-9/11 xenophobia has created a thin-lipped, mean-spirited immigration policy along with new state laws that echo old Jim Crow laws and renewed dialogues about racism. In a recent interview with Rolling Stone, Obama mentioned that he never put much stock in the "post-racial presidency" stuff -- and ain't THAT the damned truth!

I see Lou Dobbs is back on FOX and I'm sure his viewing-faithful welcomed him with open arms. Since he left CNN, Arizona has turned into a Neo-Confederate bastion and produced the worst legal repression of an ethnic group since Jim Crow policies were de rigueur in the South. As Bobby Reich points out, below, the Pubs may pay a steep price for that in this coming election.

Early feedback from oral arguments against the Arizona discrimination laws in the High Court was not encouraging for the Obama administration or for the Left. The Federalist judges seemed quite hostile to any attempt to defend Arizona citizens from harassment, approving overt racial profiling -- in a largely Latino state -- as long as it weeds out illegals. No decision yet, but the DOJ does not appear hopeful. On the other hand, the pony in the horseshit is that nothing unifies people like repression and loss of liberty.

Meanwhile -- if you ask me -- brassy, repugnant Gov. Jan Brewer IS the bride of Satan. I can't even look at pictures of her without curling a lip. Pffffft!

The reads, below.

Jude


Justice Scalia, Your Racism Is Showing
Jessica Pieklo
April 25, 2012
http://www.care2.com/causes/justice-scalia-your-racism-is-showing.html#ixzz1tMwAi1c7

It’s impossible to have a debate about federalism and the relationship between the federal government and the states without, to some degree, harkening back to the ultimate issue of federalism in this country’s history, slavery. Yet that is exactly what proponents of Arizona’s controversial anti-immigrant law managed to pull off during oral argument before the Supreme Court, and by every indication the conservative wing of the court was more than happy to enable that historical whitewash.

Solicitor General Donald B. Verrilli had not yet even started his argument when Chief Justice Roberts made it clear what the court would not be discussing. The court would not be discussing racial profiling, despite the fact that racial profiling is at the center of the political dispute surrounding the bill and that racial profiling and the impact of the federalism arguments go hand in hand.

“I just want to make clear what this law is not about,” Roberts said. “No part of your argument has to do with racial or ethnic profiling, does it?” At this point Verrilli had an opening to explain to the court that yes, your honors, the issue of race and racial profiling, while not immediately briefed before the court, informs the very heart of the Arizona bill and therefore the very spirit of this argument before the Court. I won’t armchair quarterback here except to say that Verrilli appeared to make the same mistake here as in the health care arguments, and that is assuming that most of the justices exist in a world of law and not of Fox News politics.

For a case that wasn’t about race, the justices spent the remainder of the arguments talking about immigrants in the most racially charged and unflattering manner possible. Justice Scalia referenced the “invasion” of undocumented immigrants, comparing them to a roving band of armed thieves. Scalia even threw a bone to the nativists suggesting what the Obama administration was really looking for was a ruling that would allow the US to “enforce our laws in a way that pleases Mexico.”

When Verrilli did muster up the courage to suggest that Arizona’s Latino population was implicitly, if not explicitly targeted in the law, it was obvious that Scalia had never considered the possibility that many of the state’s Latinos are there lawfully. “Are you objecting to harassing the people who have no business being here? Surely you’re not concerned about harassing them.”

Ladies and gentlemen, I give you Justice Scalia in all his unbridled racist glory.

Justice Elana Kagan recused herself from the case, which means there is a possibility the justices could split 4-4 on their decision. If that were the case then the 9th Circuit ruling striking the 4 provisions on appeal would stand. But there’s not a guarantee that will happen. Former prosecutor Justice Sonia Sotomayor was sympathetic to the state’s case and to the arguments that an overwhelmed local law enforcement should have the ability to act. She could very well side with the neo-Confederate wing of the court on this one.

A decision on the case is not expected until late June. ++


Is the Supreme Court About to Mobilize Latino Voters?
This week, the court is considering the constitutionality of Arizona's harsh immigration law. The justices' decision may well change the shape of American politics.
Adam Serwer, Mother Jones
Thu Apr. 26, 2012
http://www.motherjones.com/politics/2012/04/arizona-sb-1070-supreme-court-political-fallout

Almost two years ago to the day, activists in Arizona assembled in front of the state capitol in Phoenix to protest SB 1070, the harsh immigration law that the Supreme Court heard oral arguments about on Wednesday. The activists' 100-day vigil signaled a growing political awakening of Arizona's Latino residents—a shift that could affect the outcome of this year's election and many more to come. If the Supreme Court allows the Arizona law to stand, activists say, it could trigger an even greater shift in Latinos' attitudes.

"If the Supreme Court gives Arizona the green light to legitimize discrimination and racial profiling, it's going to mobilize Latinos in an unprecedented way in the 2012 election and beyond," says Frank Sharry, the executive director of the pro-immigration reform group America's Voice. "I think it'll be a defining moment."

Immigrant rights' activists say they've seen this story before. In 1994, while running for reelection, California Republican Gov. Pete Wilson supported a ballot referendum, Proposition 187, that would have ended access to any public services for undocumented immigrants and directed local law enforcement to question anyone suspected of being in the country illegally. Wilson and Prop 187 won handily. A federal court found the law unconstitutional, and it never actually went into effect. But political scientists credit the fight over Prop 187 with turning the state of California solidly blue by making Latino voters in the state overwhelmingly Democratic.

Before Prop 187, "except for the Lyndon Johnson-Barry Goldwater debacle, no Democrat had won a majority of California vote in a presidential election since the Second World War," explains Gary Segura of the polling firm Latino Decisions. But the electoral landscape in the state shifted dramatically during the 1990s. Of 1.1 million new voters in California registered between 1990 and 2000, over 90 percent were Latinos, according to a study by the Field Research Corporation.

Activists on the ground in Arizona say they'll keep mobilizing regardless of how the Supreme Court rules. Ben Monterroso, director of Mi Familia Vota, which seeks to increase Latino civic participation, got his start in politics organizing against Prop 187. He says the anti-immigrant fervor of the 1994 Prop 187 campaign drove him into politics.

"I'm the son of Prop 187," Monterroso says. "I had relatives who were not legal status in this country yet, [I remember] how fearful they were, they didn't know what was going to happen. I felt that in my life, and in my own experience, and nothing has taken that fear away from me, or the fear I felt at that time." Since SB 1070, he says, he's seen young activists in Arizona go through the same thing.

"The changes that we have seen in California, as a result of [Prop] 187," Monterroso says, "those are the changes we are going to see in Arizona."

The fight over the Arizona law could also serve to distract voters from other parts of Obama's immigration record. Although Obama has deported a record number of people during his first three years in office, fulfilling a campaign promise to enforce immigration laws, the reform side of his immigration agenda lies in shambles. Obama's attempts to pass comprehensive immigration reform and the DREAM Act—which would give immigrants brought to the country as children a path to citizenship if they go to college or join the military—both fell to GOP obstruction. By challenging Arizona's SB 1070, which the Obama administration says violates the federal government's constitutional authority to enforce immigration law, the president can draw a serious contrast with Republican rival Mitt Romney, who has said he would have let it stand.

The Arizona case "is a win-win for Obama no matter what the outcome is," says Segura, the pollster. "Ironically, I think Obama's helped more if the United States loses the case, but it's at a huge price for Latinos, upon whom the court will have declared open season."

There's already evidence that the backlash to SB 1070 is having an impact. The law's chief architect, former Arizona state Sen. Russell Pearce, was deposed in a recall election after his attempts to pass more anti-immigrant measures were blocked by members of his own party. In 2010, Latinos in Arizona had a higher turnout rate than Latinos in any other state. A Morrison Institute poll released on Monday showed Romney and Obama within the margin of error in Arizona, with Romney leading by only two points, 42 to 40 percent. Obama lost Arizona to McCain by about nine points in 2008.

"It's gonna be very close in Arizona, and it's possible Obama could win here if it falls into place for him," says Arizona pollster Bruce Merrill, who directed the poll. Other issues, such as the state of the economy, will be more decisive than immigration, Merrill says, but he still believes the SB 1070 decision and the Senate candidacy of former Surgeon General Richard Carmona could turn Arizona blue eventually, if not in 2012. "The movement in many of the western states is moving more towards convergence with California," Merrill says.

Republicans, on the other hand, argue that the immigration issue is a wash for Obama, since he already has the Latino vote well in hand.

"The swing vote in 2012 isn't Hispanics; it's suburban white women, working-class white men," one Republican strategist says. "Americans don't believe the border is more secure. Obama can toss stats all day long. Gut matters." In a weak economy, "gut" could certainly overwhelm the facts about illegal immigration. But the Pew Hispanic Center recently found that, because of the economic downturn, immigration enforcement measures, and an improved economic outlook in Mexico, net migration to the United States has fallen to zero.

Nevertheless, the Supreme Court seemed inclined Wednesday to uphold at least part of the Arizona law. While Obama is likely to win the majority of the Latino vote anyway, if Arizona's law remains intact it could propel Latinos to the polls in just the kind of numbers Obama needs to win the state.

"Are Latinos sufficiently disappointed in Obama to stay home?" Segura asks. "Fear is a good mobilizer." ++


The GOP's Death Wish: Why Republicans Can't Stop Pissing Off Hispanics, Women, and Young People
Robert Reich, his blog via HuffPo
04/27/2012
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/robert-reich/republican-campaign-2012_b_1460495.html

What are the three demographic groups whose electoral impact is growing fastest? Hispanics, women, and young people. Who are Republicans pissing off the most? Latinos, women, and young people.

It's almost as if the GOP can't help itself.

Start with Hispanic voters, whose electoral heft keeps growing as they comprise an ever-larger portion of the electorate. Hispanics now favor President Obama over Romney by more than two to one, according to a recent Pew poll.

The movement of Hispanics into the Democratic camp has been going on for decades. What are Republicans doing to woo them back? Replicating California Republican Governor Pete Wilson's disastrous support almost twenty years ago for Proposition 187 -- which would have screened out undocumented immigrants from public schools, health care, and other social services, and required law-enforcement officials to report any "suspected" illegals. (Wilson, you may remember, lost that year's election, and California's Republican Party has never recovered.)

The Arizona law now before the Supreme Court -- sponsored by Republicans in the state and copied by Republican legislators and governors in several others -- would authorize police to stop anyone looking Hispanic and demand proof of citizenship. It's nativism disguised as law enforcement.

Romney is trying to distance himself from that law, but it's not working. That may be because he dubbed it a "model law" during February's Republican primary debate in Arizona, and because its author (former state senator Russell Pearce, who was ousted in a special election last November largely by angry Hispanic voters) says he's working closely with Romney advisers.

Hispanics are also reacting to Romney's attack just a few months ago on GOP rival Texas Governor Rick Perry for supporting in-state tuition at the University of Texas for children of undocumented immigrants. And to Romney's advocacy of what he calls "self-deportation" -- making life so difficult for undocumented immigrants and their families that they choose to leave.

As if all this weren't enough, the GOP has been pushing voter ID laws all over America, whose obvious aim is to intimidate Hispanic voters so they won't come to the polls. But they may have the opposite effect -- emboldening the vast majority of ethnic Hispanics, who are American citizens, to vote in even greater numbers and lend even more support to Obama and other Democrats.

Or consider women -- whose political and economic impact in America continues to grow (women are fast becoming better educated than men and the major breadwinners in American homes). The political gender gap is huge. According to recent polls, women prefer Obama to Romney by over 20 percent.

So what is the GOP doing to woo women back? Attacking them. Last February, House Republicans voted to cut off funding to Planned Parenthood. Last May, they unanimously passed the "No Taxpayer Funding for Abortion Act," banning the District of Columbia from funding abortions for low-income women. (The original version removed all exceptions -- rape, incest, and endangerment to a mother's life -- except "forcible" rape.)

Earlier this year Republican legislators in Virginia, Pennsylvania, Idaho, and Alabama pushed bills requiring women seeking abortions to undergo invasive vaginal ultrasound tests (Pennsylvania Republicans even wanted proof such had viewed the images).

Republican legislators in Georgia and Arizona passed bills banning most abortions after twenty weeks of pregnancy. The Georgia bill would also require that any abortion after 20 weeks be done in a way to bring the fetus out alive. Republican legislators in Texas have voted to eliminate funding for any women's healthcare clinic with an affiliation to an abortion provider -- even if the affiliation is merely a shared name, employee, or board member.

All told, over 400 Republican bills are pending in state legislatures, attacking women's reproductive rights.

But even this doesn't seem enough for the GOP. Republicans in Wisconsin just repealed a law designed to prevent employers from discriminating against women.

Or, finally, consider students -- a significant and growing electoral force, who voted overwhelmingly for Obama in 2008. What are Republicans doing to woo them back? Attack them, of course.

Republican Budget Chair Paul Ryan's budget plan -- approved by almost every House Republican and enthusiastically endorsed by Mitt Romney -- allows rates on student loans to double on July 1 -- from 3.4 percent to 6.8 percent. That will add an average of $1,000 a year to student debt loads, which already exceed credit-card debt.

House Republicans say America can't afford the $6 billion a year it would require to keep student loan rates down to where they are now. But that same Republican plan gives wealthy Americans trillions of dollars in tax cuts over the next decade. (Under mounting political pressure, House Republicans have come up with just enough money to keep the loan program going for another year -- safely past Election Day -- by raiding a fund established for preventive care in the new health-care act.)

Here again, Romney is trying to tiptoe away from the GOP position. He now says he supports keeping student loans where they were. Yet only a few months ago he argued that subsidized student loans were bad because they encouraged colleges to raise their tuition.

How can a political party be so dumb as to piss off Hispanics, women, and young people? Because the core of its base is middle-aged white men -- and it doesn't seem to know how to satisfy its base without at the same time turning off everyone who's not white, male, and middle-aged.

Get #BeyondOutrage ++


Is Anti-Immigrant Rhetoric About Maintaining a White Majority?
Paul Canning, Care2
April 27, 2012
http://www.care2.com/causes/is-anti-immigrant-rhetoric-about-maintaining-a-white-majority.html#ixzz1tNCIM4N4

“I believe that unarmed truth and unconditional love will have the final word in reality. That is why right, temporarily defeated, is stronger than evil triumphant.”
~ The Reverand Martin Luther King

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