Two More Police Officers Killed, Two Wounded In Shootouts With Apparent White Supremacists

[Cross-posted at Crooks and Liars.]

It's beginning to emerge that the two men who shot and killed two police officers and wounded two more before being killed themselves in West Memphis, Arkansas, on Thursday were probably white supremacists from a small operation in southern Ohio. Why they opened fire on the cops remains a mystery, but this could be an important developing story:

Two police officers were fatally shot and another two were wounded Thursday in two separate shootings allegedly by the same suspects in West Memphis, Arkansas, police said.

The two suspects, who were using an assault weapon, were themselves fatally shot, said Inspector Bert Shelton, who is assigned to city hall for the West Memphis Police Department.

The incident began around 11:36 a.m. (12:36 p.m. ET), when West Memphis patrolman Bill Evans made a traffic stop on a white minivan traveling eastbound on I-40 at Airport Road, said Bill Sadler, public information officer for the Arkansas State Police.

After the vehicle exited the Interstate onto an off-ramp near College Avenue, Sgt. Brandon Paudert arrived on the scene as backup, Sadler said.

"It is our belief that Officer Evans was shoved to the ground by one of the suspects in the minivan and gunfire was directed at both officers," Sadler said.

The suspects then fled, driving east in the minivan, leaving one man dead and the other fatally wounded.

Within minutes, officers from other agencies -- including the Arkansas State Police and the Arkansas Fish and Game Commission -- began to converge on the area, looking for the suspects, he said.

About 90 minutes later, a minivan believed to be the one that had been seen leaving the shooting site was spotted in a parking lot of a nearby Wal-Mart, Sadler said.

There, it was approached by Crittenden County Sheriff Dick Busby and Chief Enforcement Officer W.A. Wren, who were traveling in the same vehicle, he said.

Both men were wounded in a gunbattle initiated by the suspects, who were using a long rifle and a handgun, Sadler said.

It turns out that the white van you see in the video was registered to an old Aryan Nations church in the small town of New Vienna, Ohio:

The two gunmen connected to the shootings in West Memphis that left two West Memphis police officers dead Thursday, drove a van that's registered to a church in Ohio. According to records with the Ohio Department of Motor Vehicles, the plates on the gunmen’s van are registered to “House of God’s Prayer” in New Vienna, Ohio.

The church was once affiliated with Harold Ray Redfeairn, a white supremacist preacher who died in 2003. Redfeairn was a leader of the Aryan Nation. He was also convicted of trying to kill a cop in 1979. According to the Southern Poverty Law Center, which tracks hate groups across the country, Redfeairn was sentenced to four consecutive seven-year minimum terms for attempted aggravated murder, but was paroled in 1991.

It cannot be proven the gunmen are tied to the Aryan group, but the van used by the suspects in this shootout was never reported stolen. The vehicle’s plates were renewed last summer, and set to expire next month.

The two shooters have been identified, but not much is known about them yet:

People claiming to be relatives of the two, however, told The Commercial Appeal they could identify them from numerous videos and photographs taken at the crime scene and available on Memphis media websites. They identified the men as Jerry Kane, 45, of Ohio and his 16-year-old son, Joseph.

Kane's own website this morning bears a note indicating the two were "shot down" by law enforcement in West Memphis.

The Commercial Appeal could not independently confirm the suspects' identification.
Attempts to verify the information led to a woman named Donna Lee in central Florida who said she was married to Jerry Kane and that Joe, as she called him, was her 16-year-old stepson. She wanted to emphasize Joseph Kane is a minor. She said the white minivan belonged to Jerry and was positive from photos and videos from the scene that the two unidentified dead suspects were Jerry and Joe Kane -- and that the dog she saw exiting the minivan was a labrador-rottweiler mix named Olie.

Another man, Jake Jefferson, said he was a nephew of Jerry Kane's and said he was positive that the dead person he saw in news accounts was 16-year-old Joe Kane, that the white minivan had belonged to Jerry for some time and they traveled the country helping people with mortgage and foreclosure issues. He also said he recognized the dog, and that Jerry and Joe had spent a month with him at his home in the Phoenix area over Christmas.

Jefferson and Lee both said Joe's mother had died previously. Jefferson said they traveled with a box of her ashes in the van.

"That's them," he said. "And why do I think they fired on police? Because they must have believed the police were going to fire on them."

The Internet company that hosted a website devoted to Jerry Kane's business has now published a memorial page that says "Jerry Kane & Joe Kane. Father and son killed in W. Memphis." At the top of the site it says, "Funds are now needed to bring Jerry and Joe back to Florida and for their funeral costs."

A local TV station reports:

Kane's business website, which lists information and classes on how to fight mortgage fraud and get around government regulations and taxes, has a memorial section dedicated to Joe and Jerry Kane. The website also says the two were on their way back from Florida, where they were now living with Jerry Kane's new wife and claims their initial traffic stop was unlawful and unjust.

The website lists Jerry's business address and phone number in Springfield, Ohio. Jerry and Joe were riding in a van with Clinton County plates, registered to a now defunct church in New Vienna, Ohio-it's not clear yet why they had the van.

...

The Kane's website says, "Jerry Kane and his beautiful son Joe (age 16) were shot to death during an alleged traffic stop by law enforcement on Thursday, May 20th, 2010. Jerry, Joe and their two dogs, while on their way back to their home in Florida have been made out to be everything from drug smugglers to hispanics, which we all know is typical of the media spinners. The police said it was a traffic stop. But their van had more bullet holes in it than Bonnie and Clyde's."

It goes on to say, "Last month, Jerry was stopped on I-40 in New Mexico and arrested for not having a drivers license. He recently completed his administrative process for the unlawful arrest. Coincidence? I-40 sounds like the good ole boy stretch-of-highway, where if they spot you, and they already dont like you, you'could get killed. Even if you are just a Dad and son with your two dogs on your way home, minding your own business."

The local Fox affiliate in Ohio has more on the van:

The van is registered in New Vienna, in Clinton County, about 60 miles north-east of Cincinnati.

The Mayor, Keith Collins and the Police Chief, James Holcomb, both told FOX19 they've never seen that van around town.

It is a small enough community, people pretty much know who's doing what, driving what and where things are happening.

And, our FOX19 investigation of public records shows the van could be linked to a white supremacist group that was once here in Ohio.

New Vienna, Ohio was the home of the Jesus Christ Christian Church, led by a self proclaimed white supremacist, the Aryan Nation Church and its leader Ray Redfairn, made headlines 13 years ago.

The van involved in Thursday's shooting in West Memphis, AR, was registered to the House Of God's Prayer, and that address is 143 West Main Street in New Vienna. Clinton County, OH records show the New Vienna property is owned by something called The Universal Life Of The Good Shepherd Church. It has an address 50 miles away in Middletown, OH.

Butler County records show the Middletown property is owned by Hoge and Mary Tabor. A man named Hoge Tabor is prominently mentioned in a book about the Aryan Nation in Ohio. Tabor told FOX19 on the phone that he indeed owns the New Vienna property, but then hung up the phone.

FOX19 tried knocking on the front door at 143 west Main Street and also tried beating on the rear door, but the police chief and the mayor said haven't seen anybody walk in or out of that building in years.

"Right now it's vacant," said Chief Holcomb. "There's nothing in that building at all."
"They were part of the Aryan Nation clear back in the 90's but they weren't really active because I think they're main headquarters was somewhere down in Clermont county," Collins said. "So they used this just basically for a base and just a mailing address and held church services back in the 90's."

While the information so far does not definitively confirm that the two dead shooters were white supremacists, both the van registration and their response to being approached by law enforcement are powerful indicators that this is the case.

Also, you can see Jerry Kane conducting a seminar here. As you can see, this appears to be a Freeman-style operation based on old Posse Comitatus garbage.

We'll have more information as it emerges.

Meanwhile, we hope Michelle Malkin adds these to her list of police officers felled by extremists. As we noted back when she and the rest of the right-wingers were loudly complaining about the DHS bulletin for law-enforcement officers warning of the threat posed by resurgent white-nationalist extremists:

A recent study by the National Consortium for the Study of Terrorism and Responses to Terrorism lays out in painful detail the very real threat that right-wing extremists pose to people in law enforcement:

Research led by Dr. Joshua D. Freilich (John Jay College, CUNY) and Dr. Steven Chermak (Michigan State University) and funded by the National Consortium for the Study of Terrorism and Responses to Terrorism (START) has revealed a violent history of fatal attacks against law enforcement officers in the United States by individuals who adhere to far-right ideology.

* In the United States, 42 law enforcement officers have been killed in 32 incidents in which at least one of the suspects was a far-rightist since 1990.

* 94% of these incidents involved local or state law enforcement. Only two events—high-profile attacks at Ruby Ridge and at the Murrah Building in Oklahoma City—involved federal agents. Much more common are events like the tragic Pittsburgh triple slayings.

* Attacks on police by far-rightists tend to occur during routine law enforcement activities. 34% of the officers killed by far-rightists were slain during a traffic stop, and a number of law enforcement officers have been killed while responding to calls for service similar to the domestic violence call that precipitated the Pittsburgh murders.

* Firearms were the most common type of weapon used during these fatal anti-police attacks. 88% of the incidents involved guns, while only 6% involved explosives and 6% involved knives. 81% of the victims were killed by guns.

* Only 12% of the suspects in these attacks were members of formal groups with far-right ideologies. The vast majority—like Poplawski—acted alone. This greatly complicates law-enforcement efforts to anticipate which individuals might pose a threat to police officers.

* Beyond these law enforcement murders, far-right violence presents a broader threat to national security and American citizens. Since 1990, far-rightists have been linked to more than 275 homicide incidents in 36 states. These crimes have resulted in the more than 530 fatalities, including the 168 victims murdered by Timothy McVeigh when he bombed the Alfred P. Murrah Federal Building in Oklahoma City. The vast majority of these suspects are white and male, with almost 70% being 30 years old or younger.

Rand Paul Is A Bright Young Apple Who Falls Directly Beneath His Daddy's Tree -- Out There In The Orchards Of The Far Right

[Cross-posted at Crooks and Liars.]

In his defense of Rand Paul yesterday, the normally admirable Dave Weigel offered the following quote, by way of suggesting the unfortunate fate that had befallen Paul in his devastating entanglement with Rachel Maddow:

"As a result of National Review’s above-the-fray philosophizing," wrote Edwards, "and Barry Goldwater’s vote, on constitutional grounds, against the Civil Rights Act of 1964, the albatross of racism was hung around the neck of American conservatism and remained there for decades and even to the present."

This, like so much conservative and libertarian mythologizing, is a large load of bunk.

Conservatives have been associated with racism and white supremacy since at least the days of Dred Scot and John J. Calhoun. It was Southern conservatives who defended slavery, who led the South into secession and civil war and ruin, and who led the resistance to Reconstruction that overturned the verdict of the war and produced a century of Jim Crow and segregation that followed. It was conservatives who authored Plessy v. Ferguson, and it was conservatives who successfully led the fight to prevent Congress from ever passing an anti-lynching law. It was racist Southern conservatives who opposed the civil-rights movement at every turn -- well before Barry Goldwater ever tipped his vote in 1964.

But this kind of mythologizing serves a useful function: By idealizing the actual role of right-wing ideologies in history, it severs them from the historical realities they produced. Trotted out here, it lets us pretend that somehow the racist outcome of Rand Paul's ideology -- he at least told Rachel he wouldn't force private business to not discriminate racially -- are simply an accidental byproduct of his intellectually rigorous and consistent approach. As Blue Texan says, that's pretty pathetic.

Bruce Bartlett, a non-libertarian conservative, sagely observes:

As we know from history, the free market did not lead to a breakdown of segregation. Indeed, it got much worse, not just because it was enforced by law but because it was mandated by self-reinforcing societal pressure. Any store owner in the South who chose to serve blacks would certainly have lost far more business among whites than he gained. There is no reason to believe that this system wouldn't have perpetuated itself absent outside pressure for change.

In short, the libertarian philosophy of Rand Paul and the Supreme Court of the 1880s and 1890s gave us almost 100 years of segregation, white supremacy, lynchings, chain gangs, the KKK, and discrimination of African Americans for no other reason except their skin color. The gains made by the former slaves in the years after the Civil War were completely reversed once the Supreme Court effectively prevented the federal government from protecting them. Thus we have a perfect test of the libertarian philosophy and an indisputable conclusion: it didn't work. Freedom did not lead to a decline in racism; it only got worse.

This is a rhetorical game with very real stakes. It is a game Rand Paul knows well, and obviously plays well -- because it's a game his father, Ron Paul has mastered over his several decades in Congress: camouflaging real extremism with a pleasant facade of mellow libertarian reasonableness.

Indeed, this whole fight is over a facet of Rand Paul's ideology that is nearly identical to his father's. As Josh Marshall observes:

I fear though that that's not the whole story with Paul -- father or son. The truth is that there's a long and hard to explain history of both Pauls being associated with a lot of people who are avowed or crypto-racists. There's the well-known story of Ron Paul's early 1990s era newsletter which was rife with racist and homophobic commentary. Paul later distanced himself from the newsletter, claiming that items written under his name were penned by a ghost-writer and that he wasn't familiar with what had appeared there.

And then there was the case back in December in which Rand's Senate campaign spokesman Chris Hightower had to resign because of racist posts on his Myspace page. Looked at in broad terms you've got a couple of guys who apparently aren't racist in any way but happen to stumble their way into close associations with racists with an astonishing frequency. It's almost like a painful race version of that classic Onion headline: "Why Do All These Homosexuals Keep Sucking My ----." There is of course the fact that Ron Paul became the darling of numerous skinhead and white supremacist groups -- but that's in a very different category because you're not responsible for who supports you but what you yourself support.

Recall, if you will, the contents of those Ron Paul newsletters:

Martin Luther King Jr. earned special ire from Paul's newsletters, which attacked the civil rights leader frequently, often to justify opposition to the federal holiday named after him. ("What an infamy Ronald Reagan approved it!" one newsletter complained in 1990. "We can thank him for our annual Hate Whitey Day.") In the early 1990s, a newsletter attacked the "X-Rated Martin Luther King" as a "world-class philanderer who beat up his paramours," "seduced underage girls and boys," and "made a pass at" fellow civil rights leader Ralph Abernathy. One newsletter ridiculed black activists who wanted to rename New York City after King, suggesting that "Welfaria," "Zooville," "Rapetown," "Dirtburg," and "Lazyopolis" were better alternatives. The same year, King was described as "a comsymp, if not an actual party member, and the man who replaced the evil of forced segregation with the evil of forced integration."

While bashing King, the newsletters had kind words for the former Imperial Wizard of the Ku Klux Klan, David Duke. In a passage titled "The Duke's Victory," a newsletter celebrated Duke's 44 percent showing in the 1990 Louisiana Republican Senate primary.

"Duke lost the election," it said, "but he scared the blazes out of the Establishment." In 1991, a newsletter asked, "Is David Duke's new prominence, despite his losing the gubernatorial election, good for anti-big government forces?" The conclusion was that "our priority should be to take the anti-government, anti-tax, anti-crime, anti-welfare loafers, anti-race privilege, anti-foreign meddling message of Duke, and enclose it in a more consistent package of freedom." Duke is now returning the favor, telling me that, while he will not formally endorse any candidate, he has made information about Ron Paul available on his website.

The same was true of Ron Paul's record in Congress, where he has consistently tried to make it easier for racial and ethnic discrimination to occur in our society:

H.R.3863:

A bill to provide that the Internal Revenue Service may not implement certain proposed rules relating to the determination of whether private schools have discriminatory policies.

H.R.5842: A bill to make all Iranian Students in the United States ineligible for any form of federal aid.

H.R.4982: A bill to provide for civil rights in public schools.

[This was the "Public School Civil Rights Act of 1984", an anti-busing bill: "Eliminates inferior Federal court jurisdiction to issue any order requiring the assignment or transportation of students to public schools on the basis of race, color, or national origin."]

-- He would propose an amendment to the Constitution to gut the Fourteenth Amendment by denying citizenship to people born here whose parents aren't already citizens "nor persons who owe permanent allegiance to the United States". That latter part could produce some serious political discrimination, especially if radicals can have their citizenship revoked:

H.J.RES.46: Proposing an amendment to the Constitution of the United States to deny United States citizenship to individuals born in the United States to parents who are neither United States citizens nor persons who owe permanent allegiance to the United States.

I've also written at length about Ron Paul's history of far-right extremism, including his associations, both accidental and intentional, with far-right extremists:

Paul's associations with the radical right, in fact, are fully relevant, on three levels:

1) He has a fully documented history of actively seeking their support.

2) His ideological framework -- fighting "the New World Order," eliminating the Fed, the IRS, and most federal agencies, getting us out of the U.N., ending all gun controls, reinstating the gold standard -- meshes neatly with theirs.

3) The organizations with whom he's associated are not benign, nor merely even "controversial", but are truly noxious elements that no responsible politician should be seen endorsing: racists, xenophobes, conspiracists, and frauds. This isn't the Rose Garden Society we're talking about here, or even the NRA.

As I recently pointed out:

[I]if you run through the broad array of kooky theories about the federal government promoted on the far right, you can find any number of Ron Paul's positions -- particularly regarding the gold standard, the Federal Reserve, the IRS, and the United Nations -- floating about there. Notably, Paul also played a significant role in Congress' ongoing failure to confront the growing problem of conspiracy-driven tax protests by diverting the blame to the IRS itself. But that's who Ron Paul is -- a "constitutionalist" who deals in conspiracy theories and extremist anti-government beliefs. It's who he always has been, and who he is now.

It isn't just an accident that Paul very recently spoke to a group with troubling racial ties, or that he attended a Patriot Network banquet in his honor in 2004, or that he gave an interview to a conspiracist magazine the same year. Hell, he's been operating within those same circles since 1985.

Rand Paul was an adult when his dad's racist newsletters were being published; someone should ask him about them.

The problem Rand Paul is having right now is that no one asked his father these questions about civil rights when he ran for president. Because they should have.

Ron Paul and Rand Paul both like to present radical ideas in reasonable clothing. But the consequences of their ideas have outcomes that we have seen proven in our own history as toxic and destructive to our democratic ideals. Their ideas were long ago discredited, and simply fluffing them up in new language will not make their real-life consequences any less horrific.

There is, after all, a simple reason the Pauls attract racists to their campaigns: Their ideologies would make racist discrimination legal again. You can call it a matter of deep intellectual consistency if you like. I call it selling cheap rationalizations for real evil in the world.

Who cares if they themselves are racist or not? What matters is the fruit from the tree. As ye sow ...

2nd Grader Tells First Lady: 'My Mom Said Barack Obama Is Going To Take Away Everybody That Doesn't Have Papers'

[Cross-posted at Crooks and Liars.]

As Art Linkletter useta say ...

"My mom said … Barack Obama is going to take away everybody that doesn't have papers," one girl told the first lady.

"Yeah, well, that's something that we have to work on, right?" Mrs. Obama replied. "To make sure that people can be here with the right kind of papers, right? That's exactly right."

The girl countered, "But my mom doesn't have any."

"Well, we have to work on that, we have to fix that and everybody's got to work together in Congress to make sure that happens. That's right," Mrs. Obama said before moving on to the next question.

I know Rahm Emanuel and his Blue Dogs wanna put immigration reform off for as long as they can. But I'm not sure how long they're going to be able to. The real-world pressure to solve this mess is mounting. And the best part is: progressive solutions will work.

As the LA Times piece notes:

"This heartbreaking exchange says more about the current state of the immigration debate than the remarks of the two presidents in the Rose Garden," said Frank Sharry, executive director of America's Voice, a pro-immigration reform group, noting that deportations nationally have gone up under Obama.

The Department of Homeland Security's Immigration and Customs Enforcement agency says its priority is to remove illegal immigrants who are violent criminals. But it maintains a goal of 400,000 deportations this year, which would be a record. Most of those people would not fall into the criminal category, agency statistics show, and some probably would include parents of children who are U.S. citizens.

No doubt the right-wingers will demand that federal officials track down this little girl's mother and deport her posthaste. Sounds like a job for Stalkin' Malkin.

Rand Paul Hurriedly Tries To Back Away From His Maddow Interview, Now Claims He Supports Civil Rights Act

[Cross-posted at Crooks and Liars.]

Sure enough, no sooner had Rand Paul's revealing interview with Rachel Maddow hit the air than Paul began rapidly backtracking, trying to claim he didn't really believe the things he had gone on national television and said.

This morning he issued a petulant "clarification":

“I believe we should work to end all racism in American society and staunchly defend the inherent rights of every person. I have clearly stated in prior interviews that I abhor racial discrimination and would have worked to end segregation. Even though this matter was settled when I was 2, and no serious people are seeking to revisit it except to score cheap political points, I unequivocally state that I will not support any efforts to repeal the Civil Rights Act of 1964.”

“Let me be clear: I support the Civil Rights Act because I overwhelmingly agree with the intent of the legislation, which was to stop discrimination in the public sphere and halt the abhorrent practice of segregation and Jim Crow laws.”

“As I have said in previous statements, sections of the Civil Rights Act were debated on Constitutional grounds when the legislation was passed. Those issues have been settled by federal courts in the intervening years.”

“My opponent's statement on MSNBC Wednesday that I favor repeal of the Civil Rights Act was irresponsible and knowingly false. I hope he will correct the record and retract his claims.”

By mid-morning, according to Greg Sargent, he was in full-out "retraction" mode:

A spokesman for Rand Paul just clarified to me that the candidate does, in fact, believe that the Federal government should have the power to ban private businesses from discriminating based on race.

Paul had earlier claimed he didn't support that role for the Federal government, sparking a raging controversy. A statement he issued today in hopes of quieting the firestorm affirmed his support for the Civil Rights Act, but only said he backed it for stopping "discrimination in the public sphere."

Asked for further clarification, Jesse Benton, a spokesman for the Paul campaign, confirmed that Paul does in fact think the Federal government should have the power to ban private businesses from commiting racial discrimination. He told me:
"Civil Rights legislation that has been affirmed by our courts gives the Federal government the right to ensure that private businesses don't discriminate based on race. Dr. Paul supports those powers."

That's a reversal from what Paul said last night on Rachel Maddow's show. Maddow asked Paul to clarify his previous expressions of doubt about parts of the Civil Rights Act, querying: "Do you think that a private business has the right to say we don't serve black people?"

"Yes," Paul answered, repeatedly decrying racism but saying he was reluctant to "limit their speech."

But now Paul's campaign is clarifying that he does, in fact, think this is an appropriate role for the Federal government.

Rep. James Clyburn of South Carolina ripped into Paul this morning on the Andrea Mitchell show on MSNBC, pointing out that Paul was confused about just which Civil Rights Act gave black people full civil rights -- beyond 1964, there were further acts in 1965, 1968, and 1972, all of which brought incremental change. But most of all, Paul seems not to understand why and how those laws came about, and particularly, the continuing need to safeguard the advances they represented -- not to roll them back to some libertarian utopia:

Clyburn: I would say to Dr. Paul that he needs to come clean with the American people and say exactly what it is he wants to do if he's elected to the United States Senate. He made himself the face and the spokesperson for the Tea Party movement at his victory party on Tuesday night. And then he set out the next morning, yesterday, to lay out the philosophy of that movement. And I think he made it very clear to the voters in America exactly what that movement is all about. They are parsing words, they are sending signals, they are saying things that ought to give all of us great pause.

Indeed. That's no doubt why Sen. Jim DeMint, guru of the Tea Party set and one of Paul's main supporters, is also backtracking as fast as he can, via ThinkProgess:

TP: Last night your candidate Rand Paul said that he would oppose the 1964 Civil Rights Act.

DEMINT: I haven’t seen the interview yet so –

TP: Do you agree with him? [...] But do you support the 1964 Civil Rights Act, it’s a simple question. [...] Sir, you have no comment on that?

DEMINT: Yes I do. No, I support the Civil Rights Act.

TP: What about the Americans with Disabilities Act? Rand Paul says he wants to abolish that as well.

DEMINT: I’m going to talk to Rand about his positions–

You will be excused if this interview evokes loud guffaws. Or even low mordant chuckles.

Beck Won't Devote 'Precious Airtime' To Refuting Rep. Weiner. Instead, He'll Devote It To Hawking Gold

[Cross-posted at Crooks and Liars.]

On his show yesterday, Glenn Beck decided to finally confront Anthony Weiner's investigation of his Goldline scam -- in predictable Beck fashion:

Step A: Frame such attacks in a paranoid light -- "They're out to destroy me because I speak the truth to you!"

Step B: Double down on the scam by promoting it directly on the show.

Yet as Rep. Weiner noted:

"It is not surprising that Glenn Beck is attempting to deflect from his behavior in promoting Goldline," Weiner told Yahoo! News in a statement. "But the facts are clear. Goldline rips off consumers and Glenn Beck helps."

In the report (on Weiner's House website as a PDF), Weiner charges that Goldline "grossly overcharges" for coins and makes false claims about gold being a good investment. Goldline touts gold as a more solid investment in this economic climate.

The report says the gold retailer has entered "an unholy alliance with conservative pundits" — among them Beck, Fred Thompson, Dennis Miller, Mark Levin and Laura Ingraham — to "promote Goldline by playing off the fear of inflation."

"What we have found, by looking through the public records, is that very often they use their public programs to advocate purchasing gold, and then immediately, advertisements begin for Goldline," Weiner said in a news conference Tuesday.

As Will Bunch notes, Mother Jones just published a months-long investigation of the practices of Goldline and its gold-industry cohorts, and the results aren't pretty:

The price of gold has increased 133 percent since the beginning of 2006, yet many Goldline customers say they have lost money on their purchases after discovering—as Richardson did—that they had badly overpaid for their gold coins. Richardson is one of 44 people across the country who have filed complaints against Goldline with the Los Angeles BBB in the past three years; customers have also griped about their dealings with the company on message boards such as Ripoff Report and PissedOffConsumer.com. Regulators in Missouri have sanctioned the company for pressuring an elderly couple to liquidate their other investments to buy overpriced coins.

The Federal Trade Commission received 17 separate complaints about Goldline's sales tactics between early 2006 and May 2010, according to information obtained through the Freedom of Information Act. Many of those stories mirror Richardson's.

And of course, our favorite Insane Wingnut plays an important role in all this:

Beck, whose various media enterprises brought in $32 million last year, according to Forbes, has a particular interest in plugging gold. Since 2008, Goldline has been one of his most reliable sponsors, underwriting his comedy tours and investing heavily in his radio show. Last year, after Beck called President Obama a racist, and mainstream advertisers bailed on his cable show, Goldline stuck by him. And its loyalty appears to have paid off. In an email, Goldline's executive vice president Scott Carter says that while its Beck sponsorship doesn't bring in the majority of its customers, it "has improved sales," which exceed $500 million a year.

... The more worked up Beck gets about the economy or encroaching socialism, the more Goldline can employ those fears in pitching their products to his audience. But in putting his seal of approval on Goldline, "the people I've trusted for years and years," Beck has gone beyond simply endorsing an advertiser.

No doubt Mother Jones will be appearing on Beck's chalkboard soon, too.

Sue Lowden Tries To Claim She Didn't Say What The Tapes Show She Said About Chickens For Health Care

[Cross-posted at Crooks and Liars.]

I'm always impressed by the sheer brass of Republicans who will go on TV and flatly lie about things that are easily substantiated. Like when Sarah Palin went before the cameras and asserted the Troopergate report had exonerated her when in fact it had done just the opposite. Or Lou Dobbs pretending he hadn't defended his leprosy coverage.

That takes a special level of psychopathy. Very impressive.

Then there's Sue Lowden, she of chickens for health care fame. As Greg Sargent reports, she recently went on another Nevada TV show and tried to claim she didn't actually phrase her thoughts on chicken-bartering for health care as the host had quoted her saying -- even though it was something the tapes clearly show her saying:

Lowden got into a testy exchange over chickens-for-checkups with Nevada journalist Jon Ralston at yesterday's GOP Senate primary debate ...

Lowden rebukes her host, insisting that he go out and see for themselves that people are bartering for health care. But the best part comes towards the end.

Ralston directly confronts Lowden with her own words, and she denies ever saying them.
Ralston points out that Lowden talked about how people used to barter chickens for checkups in the old days, and he quotes her saying: "I'm not backing down from that system."

"No, I never said `from that system,'" Lowden shot back. "I never said, `from that system.'"

Well, just so you can see for yourselves, we've included the original video from her April 19 TV appearance. As you can see, this is precisely what she said:

I’m telling you that this works. You know, before we all started having health care, in the olden days our grandparents, they would bring a chicken to the doctor, they would say I’ll paint your house. I mean, that’s the old days of what people would do to get health care with your doctors. Doctors are very sympathetic people. I’m not backing down from that system.

I also rather enjoyed Lowden suggesting to Ralston: "Where have you been? You need to get in my RV or some other means of transportation and visit the folks here."

Oh, does she mean the RV she obtained through an illegal donation?

Here it is:

I dunno about you, but having once been a rural working-class stiff myself, I can tell you what kind of message a big luxury bus like this sends. And it isn't "I'm one of you folks."
Sure hope Lowden wins that GOP primary, don't you?

Arizona's Police-state Immigration Law Gives Local Cops Federal Powers -- But Its Defenders Try To Obscure That Fact

[Cross-posted at Crooks and Liars.]

Greta Van Susteren hosted the execrable Kris Kobach, co-author of Arizona's police-state immigration law, earlier this week to explain some of its deeper nuances -- for instance, what new powers does the law give to Arizona police?

Kobach, as is his wont, prevaricated:

Kobach: Well, this law is actually quite narrow in scope. The law basically says that police officers, when they are making a stop for some other violation of law, and they, in the course of that traffic stop would be typical, they develop a reasonable suspicion -- and that's a well-defined concept in the courts, as you know -- they develop reasonable suspicion that the person is an illegal alien, then they have to act on that suspicion and contact ICE, which has a hotline that's been in place for fifteen years, and they have to determine if the person is actually lawfully present in the country.

It also requires -- it makes it an Arizona misdemeanor to fail to carry the documents that a person is required to carry by federal law if the person is an alien. For the last seventy years, it's been a requirement of federal law that aliens in the United States register and carry certain documents with them. The Arizona law just says, if you're breaking this federal law, you're also committing a misdemeanor in Arizona.

But that leaves begging, of course, what happens when legal citizens are asked to produce proof of citizenship. Already, we have an ongoing problem with ICE accidentally (or otherwise) deporting American citizens -- and that's the agency where people are supposed to be specially trained to avoid such cases. When you have every rural deputy in Arizona enforcing federal immigration, well, it will be only a matter of time before the Kafkaesque qualities of this law become manifest.

But Van Susteren still wanted to know:

Van Susteren: I guess that's what's sort of curious -- what I don't quite get about the law is what authority that anyone gets from this law. In some ways it just seems like a way for the state of Arizona to engage the feds to finally come down and do something about their national immigration policy.

Kobach: Well, what it does is it requires officers not to turn a blind eye to that reasonable suspicion. It says, look, if you discover a situation where you've got a packed minivan, like they are alien smuggling --

Van Susteren: But yeah, that's like if you stop someone for speeding, and you go up to the car and you get a driver's license, you run the driver's license and you find out that the person is driving after revocation. You may not give a ticket for the driving -- the speeding, because it might have been a warning, but you're going to arrest the person for driving after revocation.

Kobach: Right. And in the example you gave, the person acted on the additional crime he found. Here, for example, the same as if he discovered drugs -- you wouldn't tell the officer, 'Turn a blind eye, pay no attention to the bag of marijuana on the passenger seat.'

Actually, there's a very simple and direct answer to Van Susteren's question: SB1070 puts local and state police officers in charge of enforcing civil violations of federal law. This is a clear usurpation of federal immigration authority, and one of the key reasons why the ACLU and other civil liberties organizations have sued to overturn the law -- namely, it "violates the Supremacy Clause of the Constitution by interfering with the federal government's authority to regulate and enforce immigration."

As this National Immigration Forum backgrounder [PDF file] explains, local police have traditionally stayed away from enforcing federal immigration for a number of reasons -- not the least of which is that it's an unneeded burden that frequently dilutes and interferes with their ability to combat real crime.

As to the enforcement of immigration laws, it has historically been the case that state and local police do not have the authority to enforce federal civil immigration laws. While state and local police have often worked with federal agents on criminal matters, they have generally steered clear of the enforcement of administrative/civil immigration laws.

Indeed, there is an important distinction between civil and criminal violations of immigration that comes into play here, as the NIF piece explains:

Immigration law is extremely complex, and is constantly changing. There are criminal and civil violations of immigration law. Civil violations include, for example, illegal presence and failure to depart after the expiration of a temporary visa. Criminal violations include illegal entry, re-entry after deportation, and failure to depart after an order of removal. To make matters more complicated, those in this last category are committing a criminal offense only if the government can show that they “willfully” failed to depart; but most removal orders are entered in absentia. If failure to depart is not “willful” (if, for example, the person was not aware that there was a removal order entered against them), the offense is a civil violation.

It's important to remember that unless people are caught in the actual act of crossing the border, and not merely found on a freeway crammed into a minivan, there is no criminal violation that any officer could suspect them of. The only violation likely to arouse suspicion would be a civil one.

Thus, as you can see, Kobach's and Van Susteren's analogy comparing someone suspected of being in the country illegally to someone pulled over with a bag of pot on the seat, or some other criminal violation, is all wrong.

A more apt analogy would be a situation in which a police officer approached a suspect for a drinking-and-driving violation and began to suspect that the same person was a tax cheat because he was a wealthy white Republican. Certainly, there are no shortage of those in Arizona.

If the Arizona law were applied similarly regarding all federal civil violations, well, the officer would be required to call the IRS and have that person audited.

Anyone wanna bet the Arizona Legislature won't be demanding that of their police officers anytime soon?

Newt Gingrich Gets Free Rein To Embrace His Inner Fearmonger On Hannity's Show

[Cross-posted at Crooks and Liars.]

Newt Gingrich got to continue his Fox News Book Promotion Tour last night on Sean Hannity's show, pitching his new book, To Save America: Why Liberals Want to Eat Your Children, picking up where he left off on Sunday's gig with Chris Wallace.

Let's just say that Gingrich without the restraints of Wallace's, ah, probing questions is kind of like root-canal work without the benefit of anesthetics.

Unlike Wallace, Hannity was openly promoting Gingrich's story line, to wit, that President Obama and the evil liberals are going to destroy America by instituting a "secular socialist" state. Hannity could scarcely contain himself as they contemplated Obama's supposed deep-seated radicalism.

Hannity, you see, believes with Gingrich that "we are in a battle for the heart and soul of America -- in fact, the greatest battle since the Civil War."

Just in case there was anyone out there wondering when right-wingers were going to get around to declaring civil war on liberals.

There were lots of prime bon mots, but perhaps my favorite was this one:

Gingrich: By the early 1990s, I thought, you know, we've proven all the major tenets of modern American conservatism. And it never occurred to me that the hard left would just dig in, bury themselves -- in the academic world, in the news media, in the labor unions -- and now have come back more left-wing, more radical, more determined than ever.

See, this is what we call "projection". Because as we all know, and are still experiencing, the "major tenets of modern conservatism" have just been exposed as a complete sham, a mockery of modern governance, by the eight years of the Bush administration -- eight years in which conservatives destroyed the economy, destroyed America's standing in the world, and horribly impacted the global environment.

And yes, you'd think after that experience, conservatives would stand back in shock at the recognition of what they've done to the economy and mend their ways. Probably no one (except those of us who know them too well) would imagine that they would just bury themselves in the work of denying heatedly that they just brought the nation to its knees and become more determined than ever to seize the reins of power by any means necessary. Including trying to invoke a civil war.

But then, some of us know them better than that.

Another 'Family Values' Republican Bites The Dust: Abstinence Advocate Mark Souder To Resign Over Affair With Staffer

[Cross-posted at Crooks and Liars.]

Awwwwwww. We're shocked, shocked we tell you:

Indiana Republican Rep. Mark Souder announced Tuesday he would resign from Congress, effective Friday, because he had an affair with a staffer.

The eight-term congressman apologized for his actions but provided no details.
"I am so ashamed to have hurt the ones I love," he said at a news conference in Fort Wayne. "I am sorry to have let so many friends down, people who have worked so hard for me."

... Souder, 59, said he would not be a candidate in the fall election. It will be up to Republican Gov. Mitch Daniels to decide whether to call a special election to fill the vacancy or wait until the November ballot.

"I sinned against God, my wife and my family by having a mutual relationship with a part-time member of my staff," Souder said. "In the poisonous environment of Washington, D.C., any personal failing is seized upon and twisted for political gain. I am resigning rather than put my family through a painful drawn out process.

Yeah, it's the nasty environment in Washington that made him resign, you see.

According to Fox News, Souder had an affair with a part-time staffer named Tracy Jackson -- the woman you see interviewing Souder in the video above.

As Justin Elliott at TPM Muckraker notes:

The eight-term Indiana congressman is, of course, a vocal proponent of traditional family values. He has been married since 1974 and has three grown children.

"I believe that Congress must fight to uphold the traditional values that undergird the strength of our nation," he says on his official website. "The family plays a fundamental role in our society. Studies consistently demonstrate that it is best for a child to have a mother and father, and I am committed to preserving traditional marriage, the union of one man and one woman."

Souder adds: "I am committed to fighting the assault on American values."

Including, evidently, the value of boinking your staffers.

Beck Compares America To The Titanic. A Better Analogy: His Fast-sinking Show

[Cross-posted at Crooks and Liars.]

Well, we don't call Glenn Beck the Fearmonger In Chief for nothing. Yesterday on his show, he compared the Ship of State to the Titanic, featuring a clip from the movie of the same name (made, incidentally, by a director who despises him).

It's pretty much standard Beck-style apocalypticism: incoherent, raving, arm-waving nonsense. Yawn. Like we haven't seen this act before?

Indeed we have. Last November, he used the exact same analogy, except that he was more explicit about who was to blame:

Beck: So as I tell you these things, know that there is hope on the other side. But we are about to walk through a wall of fire! We are about to be baptized through fire.

It's because we weren't protecting liberty. But let me tell you -- let me tell you we have a choice ahead of us. I see -- I see America as the people on a boat. The boat is the Titanic. We've had a crew and a captain who took this ship and rammed her right upside the iceberg. She's been takin' in water for awhile, all the while the captains, the crews, they've been comin' and goin' and they say, 'Don't worry, don't worry, it's the Titanic, it's unsinkable.'

Then we elected a new captain and crew, and they took that thing and they backed it up, and now they are ramming it into the iceberg! Now they're taking this ship and they're taking it and they're -- with health care, and cap and trade, and stimulus -- they're doin' the same amount of damage that all the other crews did, just faster!

All the while they're telling all the passengers, you just go back into your stateroom, everything's just fine, you go ahead in the salon. There's some drinks up there for you, you go listen to the music, everything's fine.

Let me tell you something. Each and every one of us are here, and wide awake. Each and every one of us are a passenger on this ship, and it's our damned ship!

Truth is, the whole schtick is getting worn out and tedious. Indeed, that's the best word to describe Beck's show these days: an extended exercise in wide-eyed tedium.

Which is what makes this analogy so ironic: It would be much better applied to Beck's fast-sinking ship of a TV show, as Eric Boehlert observes:

It's getting difficult to even remember when Beck's show was averaging three million viewers each night, even though that was just four short months ago. These days, Glenn Beck is more likely to draw two million viewers, which means that yes, the Fox News host has lost one-third of his audience already this year.

Not only that, but there are increasingly days where Beck no longer hits the two million mark. Like on April 9, when, according to Nielsen data, the show drew 1.97 million viewers, which set the year's low mark. Then on April 22, the show dipped down further, to 1.82 million viewers. And now Glenn Beck has set yet another ratings low: May 14, the show attracted 1.77 million viewers. That is almost exactly half the audience the show was getting at its peak in late January.

Wow.

Beck might do better if he started featuring explosions of monster truck rallies. Something like that.

Will A Driver's License Suffice As Proof Of Citizenship In Arizona? Maybe, But Only If You're From Arizona

[Cross-posted at Crooks and Liars.]

One of the claims being made by defenders of Arizona's police-state immigration law is that Latino citizens won't have to carry their birth certificate or other proof of citizenship in order to avoid arrest should they have contact with police -- all they need to carry is their driver's license.

Among others making this claim is the bill's co-author, State Sen. Russell Pearce, last week on Neil Cavuto's Fox News show:

Pearce: Citizens aren't required to carry any documentation they weren't required to carry yesterday. In Arizona, if you have a driver's license, a state ID, an identity card, that's presumption that you're in the state legally.

Pearce is far from alone in claiming this. In his NYT op-ed on the law, Kris Kobach -- another key player in the bill's authorship -- wrote the same thing:

Because Arizona allows only lawful residents to obtain licenses, an officer must presume that someone who produces one is legally in the country.

Roy Beck's nativist outfit, NumbersUSA, made a similar claim on its fact sheet:

The majority requests for documentation will take place during the course of other police business such as traffic stops. Because Arizona allows only lawful residents to obtain licenses, an officer must presume that someone who produces one is legally in the country.

And Byron York, in his much-quoted (by conservatives) defense of SB 1070, writes similarly:

But what if the driver of the car had shown the officer his driver's license? The law clearly says that if someone produces a valid Arizona driver's license, or other state-issued identification, they are presumed to be here legally. There's no reasonable suspicion.

Here's what the text of SB 1070 says:

A PERSON IS PRESUMED TO NOT BE AN ALIEN WHO IS UNLAWFULLY PRESENT IN THE UNITED STATES IF THE PERSON PROVIDES TO THE LAW ENFORCEMENT OFFICER OR AGENCY ANY OF THE FOLLOWING:

1. A VALID ARIZONA DRIVER LICENSE.

2. A VALID ARIZONA NONOPERATING IDENTIFICATION LICENSE.

3. A VALID TRIBAL ENROLLMENT CARD OR OTHER FORM OF TRIBAL IDENTIFICATION.

4. IF THE ENTITY REQUIRES PROOF OF LEGAL PRESENCE IN THE UNITED STATES BEFORE ISSUANCE, ANY VALID UNITED STATES FEDERAL, STATE OR LOCAL GOVERNMENT ISSUED IDENTIFICATION.

But as Stephen Lemon points out, this language is actually pretty startling: You will be presumed to be an illegal alien in Arizona unless you can produce one of these four kinds of ID.

Now, I haven't been able to find anything in Arizona code requiring citizens to carry one of these forms of ID with them at all times. But SB1070 certainly does create that requirement. As Lemons says:

If during any police investigation, a cop has "reasonable suspicion" to think you're in the country illegally, he or she can presume you're an undocumented alien unless you provide one of several forms of ID.

... Subsequently, even U.S. citizens could be held until someone from Immigration and Customs Enforcement is called to sort them out.

Keep in mind that a cop can stop someone and begin the process during the "enforcement of any other law or ordinance of a county, city or town or this state." That's so broad as to include weed abatement and barking dogs.

But this also raises a huge question: What if you're from another state? What if you're only carrying an out-of-state driver's license?

Many states refuse to require proof of citizenship when issuing driver's licenses: they wisely understand that it's more important to have people driving their roads with licenses and documentation than not, and requiring citizenship papers is a good way to discourage it.

So if someone -- say, a fourth-generation Latino citizen with an accent -- traveling through Arizona with a California or a Washington driver's license has the misfortune to be pulled over in a traffic stop -- or maybe just one of Sheriff Joe Arpaio's roadblocks -- and has the similar misfortune to arouse an officer's "reasonable suspicion" (say, he has a heavy accent or looks nervous), he could be hauled in and arrested under SB 1070, until someone back home can fax the birth certificate.

Finally, as much as the law's apologists might make this claim, the reality is that Latino drivers in Arizona are already being arrested for failing to carry a birth certificate of proof of citizenship. Remember this fellow?




He first showed the officers who arrested him his driver's license.

All this would explain why ConsumerTraveler.com issued the following advisory:

U.S. legal resident aliens, and especially U.S. citizens, normally don’t carry proof of their immigration status or citizenship, when traveling domestically. In fact, most U.S. citizens don’t even have proof of citizenship. Fewer than 22% of Americans have passports, and probably fewer than 30% have “certified” birth certificates. Most Americans only have “hospital” birth certificates. U.S. Citizens could carry their passport, passport card, certified birth certificate if born in the U.S., or naturalization papers to prove citizenship, but that would be a first for U.S. citizens, traveling in their own country, to have to prove citizenship.

After reviewing the new law, and carefully considering the statements of the law’s supporters and critics, especially if you’re a swarthy skinned traveler in Arizona, I’d recommend you carry proof of U.S. citizenship or legal immigration status to avoid possible detention, if this law goes into effect.

Travel agents with whom I’ve spoken are unanimous, that if the law goes into effect, they will add a strongly worded advisory, to all client invoices and itineraries for travel to or through Arizona, to carry proof of citizenship or legal immigration status.

And if you live in Arizona, I would not count on the assurances of Russell Pearce and Kris Kobach. Because a driver's license may get you off the hook -- or maybe not. It'll depend on the officer, apparently.

Sure sounds like a police state to me.

Is It Time To Blow Up The Leaking Gulf Oil Well? BP Doing Its Best To Keep That Option Under Wraps

[Cross-posted at Crooks and Liars.]

Shepard Smith had a fascinating segment on the catastrophic Gulf oil spill today, featuring an interview with a former nuclear-sub captain who argued persuasively that it was time -- past time, really -- to blow up that leaking oil well in the Gulf and put an end to the massive pollution that's resulted from its being open.

Smith originally brought on Christopher Brownfield to discuss the potential for using a nuclear bomb to stop the leak, and Brownfield said that yes, it was decided a viable way to stop it -- it has been done four times previously. But he gave many compelling reasons NOT to use a nuclear warhead for the job -- the biggest one being that the same job could be accomplished with conventional explosives.

So why aren't we talking about doing this? Well, Brownfield explained that too:

Brownfield: If we demolish the well using explosives, the investment's gone. They lose hundreds of millions of dollars, from the drilling of the well, plus no lawmaker in his right mind would allow BP to drill again in that same spot. So basically, it's an all-or-nothing thing with BP: They either keep the well alive, or they lose their whole investment and all the oil that they could potentially get from that well.

As Brownfield explains, "We need to seal this thing off." Desperately. But why hasn't anyone been bringing a complete shutdown of the well to the table?

Brownfield: Yes, I think -- stopping the spill immediately. And the reason why we haven't seen that option is because, frankly, BP is still at the helm. I think President Obama needs to take charge of this, bring all the assets of our military to bear, bring the U.S. Army Corps of engineers, bring the U.S. Navy, and bring in all the private-sector organizations that have the equipment for deep-sea operations to make this happen. Let's explode this, collapse the well, and put an end to it.

I don't know about the rest of you but this story seems like it should be the final straw:

Scientists are finding enormous oil plumes in the deep waters of the Gulf of Mexico, including one as large as 10 miles long, 3 miles wide and 300 feet thick. The discovery is fresh evidence that the leak from the broken undersea well could be substantially worse than estimates that the government and BP have given.

“There’s a shocking amount of oil in the deep water, relative to what you see in the surface water,” said Samantha Joye, a researcher at the University of Georgia who is involved in one of the first scientific missions to gather details about what is happening in the gulf. “There’s a tremendous amount of oil in multiple layers, three or four or five layers deep in the water column.”

The plumes are depleting the oxygen dissolved in the gulf, worrying scientists, who fear that the oxygen level could eventually fall so low as to kill off much of the sea life near the plumes.

If Brownfield is right, BP has had its chance to save its well. The time has run out.

If Brownfield is right, it's time for the president to seize control of the situation and blow this well up.

Juan Varela's Family Says White Neighbor Gunned Him Down Over SB 1070, Demand Hate-crime Charges

[Cross-posted at Crooks and Liars.]

John called out the case in Phoenix involving the murder of a Latino man by his white neighbor the other day: Turns out the murder indeed involved Arizona's new immigration law:

Tension surrounding the passage of Arizona's tough new law cracking down on illegal immigration contributed to the slaying of an Hispanic man, allegedly shot by a white neighbor, a representative of the dead man's family said Friday.

Police and the family said the arrested man, 50-year-old Gary Thomas Kelley, allegedly directed racial slurs at 44-year-old Juan Daniel Varela before the May 6 shooting near their homes.

...

A probable cause statement filed May 6 said Kelley confronted Varela outside Varela's home and repeated racial slurs at Varela. Varela then apparently attempted to kick Kelley who then allegedly pulled out a revolver and shot Varela, police said.

A police statement said the two men had gotten into altercations several times in recent years. The family wants Kelley charged with premeditated first-degree murder, not second-degree murder, with a hate crime allegation, Galindo said.

"This family wants justice. They're asking that violence stop and that Gov. Brewer and other elected officials take responsibility for this hostile atmosphere they have created" by the immigration law and other legislation, Galindo said.

But Phoenix Police Department spokesman, Officer Luis Samudio, said Friday the shooting was not a hate crime, an allegation that under Arizona law could subject a person convicted of a crime to a stiffer sentence.

Robert Shutts, homicide bureau chief for the Maricopa County Attorney's Office, said the case remained under investigation and that the murder charge could be upgraded to first-degree and a hate-crime allegation added if evidence warrants.

Shutts wouldn't comment on whether the new immigration law was a factor in the case. But he said authorities weren't trying smooth over the case or minimize it, as the Varela family has alleged.

"That's not even close to the truth," he said. "We are treating this case with ... utmost seriousness." Kelley on Friday remained jailed in lieu of $750,000 bond, facing one count each of second-degree murder and aggravated assault.

The AZFamily.com story has more details:

The alleged killer was yelling racial slurs seconds before he fired the shots that killed 44-year-old Juan Varela.

Varela was a third-generation American, yet his family claims he was called a “wetback” who was going to be sent back to Mexico by the man who murdered him.

They claim it was a hate crime and the police are not doing their job. That is a charge the department denies.

A family spokesperson says, “We ask for justice, that’s what the family wants is justice.”

As someone reasonably knowledgeable about hate crimes, I can say that this case throws up all kinds of red flags. It is true that the mere use of ethnic slurs in the commission of a crime is not enough by itself to warrant hate-crime charges, but it is a potential piece of evidence in such a case. More significant is the fact that he had a prior history of agitation in the neighborhood, and it sounds as though that was racial too.

There certainly is plenty to investigate here. The Phoenix police should not be dismissing the potential for this to be a bias crime. And frankly, second-degree murder sounds pretty light, too: This guy went over to his neighbor's property with a gun and began shouting racial slurs at him. Those sound like powerful elements of premeditation to me.

There's some comfort in knowing, at least, that the case is not being handled by Joe Arpaio's detectives. But this case bears close watching.

There's A Reason We Need To Keep Reminding People About George W. Bush

[Cross-posted at Crooks and Liars.]

The other day, Rep. Ed Markey made the following mundane but true observation:

For years, the Bush administration's oil strategy placed the granting of drilling leases ahead of safety review.

This irked Neil Cavuto no end:

Ipso-facto — Bush to blame for the big leak-o.

Just like he's apparently behind that big thousand-point swing-o.

Just like he's to blame for the unemployment rate that's higher than when he left office, and the deficits that are much higher than any year he was in office.

All problems, all Bush, all the time — probably until the end of time.

Cavuto wants a "statute of limitations" on blaming Bush. "Just give it a break," he pleaded.

Nuh-uh.

It's true that the miseries we're currently enduring are not merely the fault of the sole personage of George W. Bush, the man now widely viewed by conservatives as The Man Who Betrayed Conservative Values. He had lots and lots of help. In fact, he had millions of little helpers -- all those movement conservatives who now want to pretend that he wasn't a real conservative.

This is because, in reality, Bush is The Man Who Nearly Destroyed the American Economy. It wasn't Bush's "betrayal" of the "conservative values" they believe are so time-honored and proven that caused his abysmal failure -- it was those values themselves, and Bush's steady adherence to them throughout his tenure. Right-wingers like Cavuto and everyone else at Fox, however, simply cannot accept this cold reality; the resulting cognitive dissonance has now driven them pretty much insane.

The conservative approach to mis-governance comes up at every turn today for the liberals and centrists now dealing with repairing the damage, from managing the economy back onto its feet to fighting the two wars Bush got us into to coping with environmental disasters produced by his safety regulations. And it would be stupid to pretend that it's not what we're dealing with.

Because you see, if we don't constantly remind people of the disastrous consequences of conservative rule, they start listening to people like the talking heads at Fox News. They start forgetting just who got them into this big damned mess in the first place. Some of them even start blaming liberals for it (especially the hard-core insane conservative defenders).

We can't let that happen. Conservatives need to be slapped with the Bush legacy on a daily basis.

Sure, they'll whine. But they have it coming.

Polls On Arizona Immigration Law Remind Us Of A Historic Truth: Discarding The Civil Rights Of Others Is Always A Popular Idea

[Cross-posted at Crooks and Liars.]

Recent polls are showing that Arizona's police-state immigration law is broadly popular with the public -- and boy, are they all over THAT story at Fox News.

Here are the ugly results:

The Pew Poll, conducted in early May, shows that more than 60 percent of Americans support the Arizona law's separate provisions, which give police increased authority to question and detain people they suspect of being in the country illegally.

... Pew Research Center President Andrew Kohut said he was surprised by how popular the elements of the law are.

"What's going on here is while the public has had moderate views on dealing with the immigration problem, like support for a path to citizenship, they've long thought that more has to be done to protect to borders and to get better enforcement," Kohut said.

Kohut said he was particularly surprised about the level of support among Democrats. Fifty percent of Democrats said they support the law provision allowing police to question anyone they think may be in the country illegally.

... A similar poll conducted by the Wall Street Journal and NBC tells a similar story: 64 percent of American adults support the Arizona law.

Bill O'Reilly, upon seeing these results, naturally brought on Karl Rove to chortle about how these polls bode ill for President Obama and Democrats. And no doubt these polls are a heads-up to Democrats that they need to aggressively take control of the message, instead of letting Fox talkers and nativists define the terms of the debate.

Of course, if Rove devises the talking point, you can count on Fox's "news" shows to begin repeating them ad infinitum. Which, of course, is exactly what happened the next morning, especially on Megyn Kelly's America Live program. Kelly ran several segments on the poll numbers, including a "fair and balanced" debate with radio host Mark Levine and the utterly incoherent Mike Gallagher:



I'm always amused by right-wingers like Gallagher -- guys who make a fetish out of the Constitution, regularly claiming that President Obama is somehow violating it and instituting a "police state" -- who seem utterly unconcerned when their side tramples all over the Constitution, and Levine clearly explains why the law is unconstitutional.

Levine also says something well worth repeating:

Kelly: Mark, why would the president get involved in this? You've got -- you know, you've already got legal challenges that will be mounted by many other groups -- why would the Department of Justice, according to our attorney general, Eric Holder as of May 9, be considering challenging this law on their own when you've got these kind of approval ratings of the law on a nationwide basis?

Levine: It's a fair point, Megyn. Anyone can challenge the law, it's clearly unconstitutional -- it violates Article I, Section 8 -- and you're right that anyone can challenge it. I think the president, though is making clear that anytime you have a majority attack the rights of minority, that's something where you want the Justice Department involved.

I'll give you a great example: Jim Crow laws in Alabama and Mississippi were vastly supported by the great majority of people in the 1960s. That didn't make them right. Anytime you have a majority infringing on the rights of a minority, then that's usually when the Justice Department does need to stand up.

And Levine also points out one of the really disturbing aspects of the poll:

Levine: Hold on, Mike -- 71 percent said -- this is the most interesting poll -- 71 percent of Americans think that legal Latino citizens will be harassed by police. 71 percent! So you have 71 percent of Americans thinking that Latinos, legals, will be harassed, and they still support the measure! [Note: Kelly shortly points out that the actual figure is 66 percent.]

Of course, at this point Gallagher becomes simply incoherent, and meanders off into claiming that the recent defeat of an incumbent Democrat in West Virginia was related to the Arizona immigration bill.

Eh?

Well, it's true that laws like the one in Arizona that purport to deal with a "real problem" -- that is, drug-related crime -- by taking away the rights of a despised minority have in fact always been popular.

Levine is right that Jim Crow laws enjoyed broad popular support for many years. I can think of an even more vivid example of a broadly popular measure to strip minority Americans of their civil rights:



Those who've read my book Strawberry Days: How Internment Destroyed a Japanese American Community are aware that not only was the evacuation and incarceration of 120,000 Japanese Americans -- including some 70,000 American citizens -- during World War II an extremely popular measure, it was in fact avidly demanded by a near-hysterical public, particularly along the Pacific Coast, after Pearl Harbor.

From Personal Justice Denied: Report of the Commission on Wartime Relocation and Internment of Civilians:

From March 28 to April 7, as the program evolved from voluntary to mandatory evacuation, the Office of Facts and Figures in the Office for Emergency Management polled public opinion about aliens in the population. Germans were considered the most dangerous alien group in the United States by 46 percent of those interviewed; the Japanese, by 35 percent. There was virtual consensus that the government had done the right thing in moving Japanese aliens away from the coast; 59 percent of the interviewees also favored moving American citizens of Japanese ancestry. The answers reflected clear educational and geographic differences. Relatively uneducated respondents were more likely to consider the Japanese the most dangerous alien group, and they were also disposed to advocate harsher treatment of the Japanese who were moved away from the coast. The east considered the Germans most dangerous, the west the Japanese. People in the south, in particular, were prone to treat Japanese harshly. The Pacific Coast public led all other regions in believing the evacuees should be paid less than prevailing wages.

I'll have to go do some archival hunting for the actual numbers, but I've seen Gallup polls from the period that showed in excess of 90 percent public support for the evacuation policy. Historian Roger Daniels, one of the foremost experts on the internment episode, conjectures that evacuation, far from being ignored by apathetic citizens as some have suggested, was actually one of the most popular acts of the war.

I did find this in Audrie Girdner and Anne Loftis' The Great Betrayal: The Evacuation of the Japanese Americans During World War II, discussing the sentiments of the American public about what to do with the internees after the war was over:

A Gallup poll conducted at the turn of the year, 1942-43, reported that while there was almost unanimous approval of the evacuation and detention of the Japanese minority, 53 percent of those polled would allow citizens to return to their homes. Of this figure 29 percent would include both citizens and aliens, and an almost equal number would oppose return of either group. A poll conducted by the Los Angeles Times at the end of 1943, on the other hand, revealed 9,855 readers would exclude American Japanese from the Coast as against 999 opposing exclusion.

This reflects a little-reported aspect of the internment episode, which I in fact described in some detail in Strawberry Days -- namely, the campaign by white xenophobes to keep Japanese American citizens from being allowed to return to their former homes after the war was over:



And the lessons of history apply deeply here, because the fate of this campaign is highly instructive in the current environment. Here's an excerpt from Chapter 6 of Strawberry Days:

The new Japanese Exclusion League was organized that spring with help from Miller Freeman and others. The core ideology seems to have been built off the bones of Freeman’s old Anti-Japanese League, which had gradually ceased activity after the passage of the Asian Exclusion Act in 1924. Freeman was a financial supporter of the new entity, but most of its leadership represented fresh blood in the anti-Asian movement, men named Dale Bergh, C.G. Schneider, Ralph Hannan, and Arthur J. Ritchie. And their June 1945 newsletter, dubbed the Japanese Exclusion League Journal, made their agenda quite explicit, describing the JEL as “an organization dedicated to legally, peaceably and permanently ridding this Coast and, ultimately, this country of the Japs.”

The newsletter was chock-full of various attacks on the Japanese. A Bainbridge Island resident named Lambert Schuyler attacked Japanese strawberry farmers:

“The beating that the Japs gave Bainbridge acres amounts to assault and battery,” Schuyler told the Journal. “The fact is that the Japs made their fortunes here by mining the soil—leased soil. Take a good look at our so-called berry fields today. Most of them will not even grow good weeds. At best they will produce very inferior berries. And it will cost plenty to restore them to any kind of farming. The reason: chemical fertilizers and no crop rotation. . . .

“Don’t believe it, either, when someone tells you that the Jap has brought wealth to our community. Actually, they mined this region. They made money, but they lived in filth and poverty. They did their spending in Jap stores, put their savings into Jap hotels and grocery stores in Seattle, sent the balance to Japan to help build battleships. They didn’t build us up. They tore us down. We want no more of them. . . .

“We can raise better strawberries ourselves than the Japs can. With the help of machinery and crop rotation we can produce them just as cheaply, too. Here is opportunity for some of our farm boys, returned from the wars. In strawberries we have natural advantages of soil, climate and market.

“Keep the Japs away and the white farmers will make money in berries just as they did before the Japs came in and drove them out of business.”

A Journal editorial titled “A Program That All Can Back!” outlined the League’s political agenda:

Almost daily letters come into the headquarters of the Japanese Exclusion League from persons who are anti-Jap but who confess their inability to go along with the League’s program because “it sets a precedent that will undermine the fundamentals of the Constitution and imperil other minority programs.”

Let’s re-inspect the program and see:

Item 1. Induce the government to keep all Japs out of the Western Defense Command until the war is over. That’s just good sense, with a war on. If only one among them was a saboteur, the exclusion of all, to prevent his dirty work, would be justified. And we heard a man, close to the military intelligence service, say in a public speech that six known Japanese spies were now operating in Seattle alone.

Item 2. Deport all alien Japs and all disloyal Japs. Who will argue that this is either un-American or unnecessary?

Item 3. Stimulate interest in a national post-war election (so the soldiers can participate) to amend the Federal Constitution and provide that, after a certain date, NO MORE descendants of persons not eligible for citizenship may automatically become citizens merely because their alien mothers were here when they were born.

Japanese now constitute only one-tenth of 1 per cent of our population. No great danger there. The peril lies in permitting fast-breeding races that are not assimilable to go unchecked, and to make American citizens of them as fast as they are spawned. Give them a few years and they will make good of their boast of dominating America. And they’ll do it without firing a shot. They will VOTE OUR COUNTRY AWAY FROM US.

If that kind of law is un-American, we set a bad precedent many years ago. We had such a law once. And we kicked it out the window.

This position was explored in greater depth in a pamphlet that Lambert Schuyler published independently: The Japs Must Not Come Back! Schuyler’s core arguments were not very distinguishable from those offered twenty years before by the exclusionists:

As a nation we stand prejudiced against orientals. This is something which our bleeding-heart idealists have overlooked. They claim our basic laws, the principles upon which America rests, are unanimously in favor of regarding all men as equals. The fact remains, however, that according to our statute books all men are created equal except those with yellow skins. Any race, color or creed, say our laws, may become naturalized citizens of our country except the Japanese, Chinese and Hindu. These are judged unfit for assimilation in our society.

Mind you, we on the Pacific Coast are glad of it. What irks us is the loop-hole in our Constitution through which orientals may purchase the farm next door to us and defy us to kick them out. The loop-hole is this—all babies are created equal providing they are born in the United States. The Japs, Chinese and Hindus are no exception to this rule. Oriental babies born here are automatically American citizens. . . . Obviously this is a contradiction of principle which cannot be justified within the bounds of either religious or political idealism.

For Schuyler, in keeping with the anti-Japanese tradition, the tenets of white supremacism and pseudoscientific racial eugenics were paramount:

The dividing lines between the races are necessary to prevent mixed breeding. The white race does want to survive!

There is no dodging it. This is a white man’s country. The white man runs it. And he is not going to let his own rules of behavior drive him from his own soil. So, as long as we remain a people of spirit we will refuse to sanction the mixing of colored blood with ours.

Japanese in America will never be the social equals of the whites for the simple reason that they are not assimilable. Germans? Italians? Jews? Yes. We can assimilate any of the whites. But the colored races are different. We reserve the right to reject from our midst those who are not patently assimilable.

His final solution: designate a passel of Pacific islands permanent territories of the United States, and then remove all persons of Japanese descent to this new permanent homeland. Of course, no one of Japanese blood would be permitted to become a permanent resident of the mainland afterward.

---

As is often the case with well-laid plans, the Bellevue “mass meeting” of Monday, April 2 [1945] didn’t quite run according to script. Much to the dismay of the Japanese Exclusion League, some people actually showed up to voice their opposition.

As expected, the Overlake Elementary community hall was filled to overflowing with about 500 people. The parade of speakers began with assurances—soon shattered—that the organizers supported the principles of free speech. Crandell launched into his expected diatribe against the evacuees, concluding that “the one and only way to solve the Japanese question is to exclude them forever from all American territory!”

League executive A.E. McCroskey of Seattle added that the entire nation “is fully aware of the danger of giving American citizenship to those who have proved unworthy of it time and again.” He then went on to make a pitch for league memberships, asking for a show of hands from all “who favor exclusion of all American-born Japanese from this country,” and about 400 hands went up. Ritchie, who had previously tried to make a quick buck by selling busts of FDR by a “famous Northwest sculptor,” held up for the audience door prizes he promised to give away: busts, created by the same artist, of “America’s No.1 Jap hater”—and as he peeled away the tissue, the image of Gen. Douglas MacArthur was revealed.

However, there also were about 100 people in the crowd who apparently weren’t ready to sign up at all. Some of them began questioning the league’s positions, and two women began heckling the speakers. In response, McCroskey decided free speech wasn’t such a good thing after all and threatened to oust their antagonists, telling them to “hire your own hall to heckle in . . . and if there are any more outbreaks you will be ejected.”

The outburst apparently put a damper on the evening, because at the end of the night, only 200 or so of those who had raised their hands stayed to put up their $10 for a Japanese Exclusion League membership.

A similar fate befell the would-be organizer of an anti-Japanese effort in Seattle announced the same day as the Bellevue gathering. Lloyd Young, who ran a glass shop in South Seattle, announced he was going to cobble together a local chapter of the Remember Pearl Harbor League, though his dues would only cost $5. But that mattered little to the 150 or so University of Washington students who showed up at his meeting that Thursday to distribute pamphlets and ask questions making clear their opposition to his plans. The opposition far outnumbered the would-be league members. The students refrained from heckling the speakers, but spontaneous laughter erupted at times—as when a speaker declared that white pioneers had “taken this country away from the Indians and now the Japs are trying to take it away from us.” The would-be organizers were taken aback by the opposition and said little afterward. No record exists of any further activity by the league in Seattle.

The interest appears to have waned almost as quickly in Bellevue, despite the reported sponsorship of the first meeting by “business men and women.” In the edition of the Bellevue American following the meeting, no account of the gathering itself appears, except for a discussion of it in a front-page editorial by editor A.J. Whitney.

Whitney backed away from his earlier pro-exclusion tone, though his inclinations against the Japanese were still evident—reflective, perhaps, of his long association with Miller Freeman, who actually purchased a minority interest in the paper a few years later. He bemoaned, for instance, the fact that there was little anyone could do to stop Japanese citizens from returning to their own land. “We were unable to discover anything that could be done about relocation—except protest,” his editorial in the April 5 edition observed. “But, even a protest is effective, and we believe that it is honest and fair to notify in advance those Japanese who are planning to relocate here that many people here do not want them to return now.”

Whitney was also aggravated by the fact that the internment camps had been closed before the end of the war in the Pacific, and seemed inclined to the Japanese Exclusion League’s suggestion of a national plebiscite: “We are of the opinion that the War Relocation Authority . . . made a terrible mistake in trying to force the relocation of the Japanese on the Pacific Coast during the war. Instead, we believe the Japanese should have been encouraged to stay where they were until peace is established, and the nation can attack this grave problem in a rational manner.”

He did, however, suggest that a proposal to pass a constitutional amendment to exclude all Japanese from the country “presents many difficulties.” And he noted that he “holds no brief for the Japanese Exclusion League,” adding: “We do not guarantee the men who are organizing the league. We cannot tell you how the money [collected for memberships] will be spent.”

---

Within a week, a counter-meeting had been organized. Whitney was in full retreat. A headline in the lead positions of the April 12 American announced yet another “Town Meeting,” this one to be held in the Bellevue School Auditorium on April 19. The meeting, the story declared, “indicates that East Siders believe in fair play and want to know all the facts on the problem of American citizens of Japanese descent.”

The story listed organizers from each Eastside community. All were important civic, business, and church leaders, and all wanted the other side of the debate heard. The Bellevue contingent included Charles Bovee, whose wife had been the kind overseer of Mitsi Shiraishi’s dog (and who also had sparked the Japanese “panic” two years before).

Again, several hundred attended. Support for their Japanese neighbors’ rights was voiced. “I’m not for or against any group,” said speaker John Fournier, publisher of the weekly newspaper in Kent. “But as a newspaper publisher and King County businessman, I am deeply concerned to see that the Constitution is upheld and the rights of citizens respected.” Other speakers questioned the motives of the exclusionists. Some observed that many of the anti-Japanese backers were businessmen who stood to gain by having the Japanese lands remain vacant.

The tide changed quickly in Bellevue as the town’s deeper nature manifested itself. Among longtime Bellevue residents, Miller Freeman was—discreetly—viewed as an overbearing self-promoter and a rich man with little in common with the average rural Bellevue resident. Moreover, many of the former neighbors of the Japanese, who had lived among them and attended school with them, were repulsed by the jingoism they were witnessing. They knew better.

“There were people around here that were madder than all get-out about the Japanese,” recalled Robert Hennig. “I didn’t particularly feel that way. I was mad at what happened at Pearl Harbor, but as far as the Japanese that lived here, it wasn’t their fault.
“I know one guy, lived over here on 24th, and he says, ‘Well, if a Jap ever came to my house, I’d shoot him right off the bat.’

“And I said, ‘What the hell for? . . . You ever realize that there’s a bunch of them over there in Europe, 442nd, the most highly decorated bunch in the Army? . . . They’re fighting for us.’

“Well, he—he was a knothead anyway.”

Of course, Hennig had a cautious perspective on the entire internment episode, considering his own German ancestry: “I always had to laugh about it, because—I said, they shipped all the Japanese out of here, Japanese descendants—they’d never been near the country of Japan—and here I am a hundred percent German descent and they didn’t even look at us.”

Bellevue at the time was largely populated with working-class people like Hennig, and his attitude about their Japanese neighbors was relatively common, though often unspoken. As the weeks went by, that view prevailed. The Japanese Exclusion League dropped entirely out of sight; there was no evidence that it organized any further meetings or published any more newsletters. And the American, as expected, never was able to report how the membership money had been spent.

The experience in Bellevue, in fact, was largely replicated along the Pacific Coast: Attempts to prevent the return of the Japanese occurred in every community in which they had been present, and in every one of them, the campaign was largely a failure, inspiring counter-campaigns to welcome back their former neighbors.

What we saw in this episode is that it's very easy for the public, angry and eager for some kind of action to resolve an urgent fear, to embrace some kind, any kind of action, even if it takes away the rights of someone other than themselves. And with a certain segment of the population, there is real relish in taking those rights away.

But much of the population goes along with these kinds of solutions often thoughtlessly, and then when confronted with the very human realities and consequences of them, realizes its mistake, changes course, and then works to repair the damage.

That certainly is the course of the American experience when it took away the basic civil rights of all its citizens of Japanese descent: We wound up paying huge amounts of money to the victims in the end, and the long-held public view is that the internment was a horrendous mistake of catastrophic proportions, one of the true black blots on the nation's history of protecting civil liberties.

Of course, at the time, it was extremely popular. Most great mistakes are.

I suspect, in the long run, we will see the same thing happen with Americans and the Arizona immigration law. Once they see that, put into action, the laws really will create a nightmarish police state for anyone of Latino descent or with an immigrant background, their basic decency will rise to the fore, the tide of popular opinion will shift, and we will again wind up having to work to repair the mistake.

In the meantime, it will be the duty of Americans of good conscience to wait for the tide to change -- and to work for it. Because doing the right thing is not very often the popular thing.