The New York Times is Feeling the Pressure Over Using "Illegal Immigrant" to refer to Non-White Immigrants

ColorLines

The New York Times public editor and readers' representative, Margaret Sullivan recently deliberated on the i-word and decided she was for keeping it. In a span of a few days she read through multiple reasons and a compelling case delivered by leading linguists, scholars, lawyers [https://t.co/Cg5cTtla], readers from across the country, the Drop the I-Word campaign, Times editorial board member, Lawrence Downes and Pulitzer-prize winning journalist Jose Antonio Vargas who kicked off the conversation with her a little more than a year after coming out as undocumented (not as "illegal") in the pages of the Times.

Sullivan weighed in saying that she sees "no advantage for Times readers in a move away from the paper's use of the phrase 'illegal immigrant.'" She said "It is clear and accurate; it gets its job done in two words that are easily understood. The same cannot be said of the most frequently suggested alternatives - 'unauthorized,' 'immigrants without legal status,' 'undocumented.' She said this, all after linguists and attorneys have weighed in with expertise on the opposite. Now, in a welcome and exciting turn, colleagues in the field of journalism are calling out the Times, too.

Christina Costantini and Ted Hesson reporting via the new ABC/Univision partnership have noted racially charged and discriminatory language from the outlet's past. And Costantini also reported this week that, The Times Is Behind the Times noting that "when it comes to the term 'illegal immigrant,' the Gray Lady is late to the game."

The article includes a run-down of the reasons why the following papers have dropped the i-word: The Huffington Post, NBC News, CNN, Fox News Latino, San Antonio Express News, The Miami Herald, ABC, Univision and the ABC/Univision partnership.

Forward-thinking reporters, editors, news outlets and journalism associations are making it clear that although the racially charged term "illegal immigrant" was once normalized, it's on it's way out. They are dropping the i-word for the sake of accuracy, respect and to maintain credibility, all core values of journalism. There is a growing division between these changing institutions that get it, and those who don't, like The New York Times and the AP. It's disappointing, but we will continue to encourage them to change course. By not dropping the i-word, they are jeopardizing their values, credibility and a really smart segment of readers.

In addition to these outlets, the 7,800-member Society of Professional Journalists (SPJ) passed a resolution in 2011 to discontinue use of the term "illegal alien" based on the idea that describing someone as "illegal" is unconstitutional. They recommended that members re-evaluate the implications of the use of "illegal immigrant." And, the campaign to Drop the I-Word was endorsed by the national UNITY alliance of over 10,000 members comprised of the Asian American Journalists Association, National Association of Hispanic Journalists, Native American Journalists Association and most recently, the National Lesbian & Gay Journalists Association.

Let's keep the outreach and pressure on, it's working!

Jim Lehrer Punked Out: No Questions about the 47%

Citizens for Legit Gov

Left-leaning commentators hit President Barack Obama hard on TV and the Internet after the first presidential debate in Denver on Wednesday night, saying GOP presidential nominee Mitt Romney handily defeated his more experienced opponent. MSNBC hosts were "stunned" by Obama's performance, suggesting the president was rusty for not having debated in four years. "I don't think he explained himself very well on the economy. I think he was off his game. I was absolutely stunned tonight," Ed Schultz said. "Where was Obama tonight?" Chris Matthews asked. [Did Barack Obama cut a deal -- make history, serve one term, clear the plate and the 2008 ill-tasting GOP palette, pardon the Bush era war criminals, then turn the reigns of power back over to a (more obvious) Wall Street guy? Note that key elements of Obamacare don't take effect until 2014. Yes, 'health care reform' was born with a 'suicide gene' so that Obama's successor could overturn it 'on Day One.' And what about, in the words of Howard Fineman, the 'criminally negligent' moderator [sic], Jim Lehrer? Lehrer could not bring his useless self to utter a single question regarding Mitt Romney's '47 Percent' comments or that fact that GOP leaders met on Inauguration Day 2009 to 'submarine' Obama's presidency and plot a path to ensure that Barack Obama would be a 'one-term president.' --LRP]

U.S. Unadjusted Unemployment Rate at 7.9% in September

Gallup

U.S. unemployment, as measured by Gallup without seasonal adjustment, was 7.9% for the month of September, down slightly from 8.1% for August. Seasonally adjusted unemployment was 8.1%, unchanged from August.

Consumer Racial Profiling Presented to PSU: Blacks Get Bad Customer Service or Suspected Shoplifters

Clockonline

Ph. D and professor of criminal justice at Penn. State Harrisburg Shaun Gabbidon spoke at Plymouth State University on Mon., Oct. 1, to inform the campus on the social cost of being black in America. Gabbidon’s presentation, “The Black Thief Stereotype, Shopping While Black, and Consumer Racial Profiling in the 21^st Century” displayed his research and explanation to the contemporary problem.

“I don’t just look at what happened last year. I look at the long view,” Gabbidon stated, beginning with the slave era when the black thief stereotype was produced.

“When slaves ran away, they were committing a crime. Do you know what the crime was? Stealing. Slaves were property and when they ran away they were stealing themselves.”

Gabbidon began noticing consumer racial profiling as a security manager in Virginia before he left to pursue his doctorate. While achieving over 100 scholarly publications, Gabbidon distinguished two types of racial profiling; minorities being treated with a lack of service and being suspected as thieves.

Gabbidon conducted research on consumer racial profiling and found that 80% of the victims polled do not report the incident, while about half of the victims make purchases after the incident only to prove they do not intend to shoplift.

“Minorities go in to stores, get treated poorly and go back without reporting the problem. This repetition makes the stereotyping normalized,” Gabbidon stated.

In his research, Gabbidon found that 14% of the people involved support consumer racial profiling. “It’s that 14% I’m interested in,” he stated and now plans to continue his research to help end the minority abuse.

“I’m not saying there aren’t variations with certain groups doing certain things. It’s when that is irrationally intensified that an issue arises,” Gabbidon stated. This irrationality has a negative impact of a minority’s self-worth and Gabbidon claims it is his, “mission to change this.”

New research and publications are in progress for Gabbidon because the fight against racial profiling is far from over.

“Culture change is very difficult and it takes a long time. We are only in the infancy of studying this issue.”

Click to read more ...

GOP Plan to Not "Re-nig in 2012" Getting Worse: In New ‘Bombshell’ Video, Obama Criticizes Federal Response To Hurricane Katrina

ThinkProgress 

All day, the right-wing media have teased an “explosive” new video that exposes the “real” Barack Obama. The video turned out to be a speech from June 2007 at Hampton University, which was widely reported at the time. The full transcript of his prepared remark has been available for years.

The “explosive” news, according to the Daily Caller, is that Obama briefly deviated from his prepared remarks to comment on Hurricane Katrina. Obama said the federal government should do more to rebuild New Orleans, including waiving some requirements of the Stafford Act as the federal government did after 9/11 and Hurricane Andrew. Fox News, apparently, thinks this statement is outrageous and controversial. Here’s a screen shot from Sean Hannity’s show, which featured the video: [HERE] 

Drudge bills Obama’s 2007 remarks as a “race speech” because of the suggestion that the rebuilding of Katrina is connected to a history of racial discrimination. There was another President who made the same connection, George W. Bush:

That poverty has roots in a history of racial discrimination, which cut off generations from the opportunity of America. We have a duty to confront this poverty with bold action. So let us restore all that we have cherished from yesterday and let us rise above the legacy of inequality. When the streets are rebuilt, there should be many new businesses, including minority-owned businesses, along those streets.

During his Hampton University speech, Obama also recognized his former pastor, Jerimah Wright. Video of those comments has been available since at least 2008. 

Drudge bills Obama’s 2007 remarks as a “race speech” because of the suggestion that the rebuilding of Katrina is connected to a history of racial discrimination. There was another President who made the same connection, George W. Bush:

That poverty has roots in a history of racial discrimination, which cut off generations from the opportunity of America. We have a duty to confront this poverty with bold action. So let us restore all that we have cherished from yesterday and let us rise above the legacy of inequality. When the streets are rebuilt, there should be many new businesses, including minority-owned businesses, along those streets.

During his Hampton University speech, Obama also recognized his former pastor, Jerimah Wright. Video of those comments has been available since at least 2008.

CBS News’ Jan Crawford follows Drudge’s lead, says Obama’s comments about Katrina have news value.

In Shell Case, Will Supreme Court's View of Corporate Personhood Mean Liability for Crimes Abroad?

DemocracyNow

The Supreme Court opens its 2012-2013 term today with a landmark case to decide whether survivors of human rights violations in foreign countries can bring lawsuits against corporations in U.S. courts. The case centers on a lawsuit that accuses the oil giant Shell’s parent company, Royal Dutch Petroleum, of complicity in the murder and torture of Nigerian activists. Some legal analysts are comparing this case, Kiobel v. Royal Dutch Petroleum, to the landmark campaign finance ruling in Citizens United. In 2010, the Supreme Court ruled corporations have broad rights under the First Amendment and can directly fund political campaigns. The court is now being asked to decide if corporations have the same responsibilities as individuals for violations of international law. The court’s ruling will also impact numerous other human rights cases being heard by lower courts. We’re joined in New York by Baher Azmy, the legal director of the Center for Constitutional Rights.

Click to read more ...

"Don't Re-Nig in 2012": White Party Lackey George Will Suggests Obama Would Be Losing If He Weren't Black (if Will were Black he would be unemployed)

Media Matters

Washington Post columnist George Will claimed that President Obama's "administration is in shambles, yet he is prospering politically." Will suggested that the explanation for this alleged contradiction may be that Americans seem "especially reluctant not to give up on the first African American president."

From Will's October 1 Washington Post column:

Obama's administration is in shambles, yet he is prospering politically. This may not, however, entirely be evidence of the irrationality of the electorate. Something more benign may be at work.

A significant date in the nation's civil rights progress involved an African American baseball player named Robinson, but not Jackie. The date was Oct. 3, 1974, when Frank Robinson, one the greatest players in history, was hired by the Cleveland Indians as the major leagues' first black manager. But an even more important milestone of progress occurred June 19, 1977, when the Indians fired him. That was colorblind equality.

Managers get fired all the time. The fact that the Indians felt free to fire Robinson -- who went on to have a distinguished career managing four other teams -- showed that another racial barrier had fallen: Henceforth, African Americans, too, could enjoy the God-given right to be scapegoats for impatient team owners or incompetent team executives.

Perhaps a pleasant paradox defines this political season: That Obama is African American may be important, but in a way quite unlike that darkly suggested by, for example, MSNBC's excitable boys and girls who, with their (at most) one-track minds and exquisitely sensitive olfactory receptors, sniff racism in any criticism of their pin-up. Instead, the nation, which is generally reluctant to declare a president a failure -- thereby admitting that it made a mistake in choosing him -- seems especially reluctant not to give up on the first African American president. If so, the 2012 election speaks well of the nation's heart, if not its head.

Click to read more ...

Rush Limbaugh: George Will May Have A Point About "Obama Being An Affirmative Action Hire"

Media Matters

From the October 2 edition of Premiere Radio Networks' The Rush Limbaugh Show:

Obama’s support among Latino voters higher than ever, according to poll

NBCLatino

He isn’t likely to say it publicly, but President Obama has to be feeling good after the latest version of the Latino Decisions tracking poll, shows his support from Latino voters has hit a record high, with 73 percent support and only 21 percent for Romney. 

The Latino Decisions polls have shown growing enthusiasm among Latino voters for Obama since the convention and the weekly tracking polls paint a clear picture. In the six weeks since the tracking poll began, the president’s support had risen eight points from 65 to 73 percent. During the same period Romney’s support has dropped from 26 to 21 percent.

The shake up in the poll numbers coincides with the high-profile release of a secret video by Mother Jones, in which Romney told a group of wealthy donors at a private fundraiser, that he wasn’t worried about 47 percent of Americans who will vote for Obama because they are dependent on government, are victims and don’t take personal responsibility. Since the video’s release the president’s campaign has jumped on the comments, releasing ads playing audio of Romney’s comments along with images of Americans who represent the 47 percent.

“While Republicans had hoped the weak economy would provide an opening to win over Latinos, almost three-fourths of Latinos say they have more confidence in Obama to fix the economy, “ said Matt Barreto of Latino Decisions.  ”Romney’s infamous comments about the ’47 percent’ are clearly hurting him among Latinos.  He appears out of touch with the average working class family.”

If there is a silver lining for Romney, it’s that while his national support among Latinos looks bad, the numbers are better in battleground states. In the ten battleground states of Arizona, Colorado, Florida, Iowa, Missouri, North Carolina, New Hampshire, Nevada, Ohio and Virginia, Obama’s support is 61 percent and Romney’s is 33 percent.

Geller Calls D.C. Metro’s Decision To Delay Anti-Muslim Ads ‘Absurd’

ThinkProgress

A hearing on Thursday will decide whether a set of controversial advertisements that refer to Muslims as “savages” will be posted in Washington, D.C.’s subway system. The injunction hearing comes following Pam Geller’s complaint that that the ads, funded by her American Freedom Defense Initiative, have been blocked by the Washington Metro Area Transit Authority (WMATA) system in violation of her freedom of speech.

The move to temporarily block the ads came in light of the current tensions around the world due to the infamous “Innocence of Muslims” video that sparked worldwide protests. WMATA Police Chief Michael Taborn in court documents asserted that he himself recommended the delay, after consultation with the Department of Homeland Security, due to the “unique target” the Metrorail system poses. Geller — who features prominent in CAP’s report last year on the Islamophobia network in the U.S. — said the delay “grows less timely and more absurd by the day.”

The American Freedom Law Center (AFLC) is representing Geller and claims on its website that “Sharia-adherent Islamists are waging a war against our Nation and its Judeo-Christian principles reflected in our Constitution.” Waging war on the non-existent Sharia threat seems to be the primary cause of the AFLC, as seen in this interview with the “Sharia Awareness Action Network”:

What Romney & Obama Missed - Poverty, Urban Violence, Incarceration Ignored

FinalCall

Poverty, urban violence other crises are missing as Romney and Obama pursue the middle class vote and a seat in the White House.

With the Republican and Democratic conventions behind them, President Barack Obama and Republican rival Mitt Romney are fine tuning their debate skills. The first of three nationally televised debates is set to air Oct. 3, live from the University of Denver’s Magness Arena. 

The debate is not open to the public, and university students are selected randomly to attend via a special lottery drawing of tickets allocated to the university by the Commission on Presidential Debates.

As the election draws nearer both parties share a shameful commonality, neither has shown major interest in issues facing Blacks and the poor in 2012. 

What does that portend regardless of which candidate wins? Should 40 million or more Blacks, who support the president by a super majority and polled literally zero support for Mr. Romney expect more of the same after Nov. 6? 

According to recent Census Bureau reports, Blacks suffer disproportionately from poverty, hunger, joblessness, urban violence, incarceration and lower income.

Will these subjects even come up in the presidential debates and be part of a vision for the next four years? It’s highly unlikely and perhaps impossible. [MORE] 

Click to read more ...

Don't Re-Nig in 2012: White Party (GOP) Shocked That Firm Known For Voter Fraud Was Doing Voter Fraud For RNC

Wonkette

Back in 2004 and 2008, GOP operative Nathan Sproul was constantly being accused of voter registration fraud — including having his workers misrepresent themselves as nonpartisan, and then having them throw away or destroy registration forms turned in by Democrats. (One Utah Republican noted, “the difference between ACORN and Sproul is that ACORN doesn’t throw away or change registration documents after they have been filled out.”) But back in 2004 and 2008, Republicans hadn’t spent a year trying to disenfranchise olds, poors, youngs and minorities with voter ID laws, so so what, who cayuhs? Now the RNC is shocked — shocked! — that the man they’ve paid $2.9 million to so far this year to conduct voter registration in five battleground states has apparently been caught turning in voter registration forms for dead people in Florida. No really, they’re shocked. They have totally fired him, and he’s super-blacklisted until Karl Rove’s Crossroads or the Koch Brothers’ AFP puts him on the payroll. (Or until, like Blackwater, he changes his firm’s name.) So we figure he’ll still be blacklisted until at least next Tuesday.

So what was Sproul’s Strategic Allied Consulting doing this time? Oh, just turning in voter registration forms for dead people, giving their addresses as gas stations and a Land Rover dealership. Fully a third of the forms they turned in to the Palm Beach registrar look to have been fake.

This is excellent news for John McCain.

Click to read more ...

California Approves Driver's Licenses for Young Undocumented Immigrants

ColorLines

On Sunday, Governor Jerry Brown signed Assemblymember Gilbert Cedillo's (D-Los Angeles) AB 2189 in to law, which will allow DREAMers who are granted deferred action to apply for a California Drivers' License. The bill states that any document received by a person granted deferred action will be accepted as proof of legal presence for the purpose of applying for a California Drivers' License.

"It is a victory for those who were brought here through no choice of their own, played by the rules, and are only asking to be included in and contribute to American society," Cedillo said in a statement. "I wholeheartedly thank and congratulate Governor Brown for signing this bill into law making California the first state in the nation to grant drivers' licenses to this worthy group of people."

Gov. Brown's spokesman Gil Duran said "President Obama has recognized the unique status of these students, and making them eligible to apply for driver's licenses is an obvious next step."

Undocumented immigrants were eligible for driver licenses in California until 1993, when the Legislature passed SB 976. Gov. Pete Wilson signed the bill which required residents to provide a Social Security number and proof that their presence in California "is authorized under federal law" in order to obtain a license to drive.

"What we're seeing now are the fruits of the hard-driving immigrant youth movement," said Julianne Hing, immigration reporter for Colorlines.com. "There's clear support for undocumented youth in the state. It should be noted that Cedillo was the author of last year's successful California Dream Act, a new law which grants undocumented college students eligibility for public financial aid. But there's not necessarily so much goodwill toward their parents or the larger immigrant community, judging from Gov. Brown's veto of the TRUST Act and the Domestic Workers Bill of Rights."

Utah, Washington and New Mexico are the only states in the nation that allow residents to access driver's licenses regardless of immigration status.

Drones Will Soon Be Able to Kill During War Without Human Assistance - Professor

Citizens for Legit Gov

Drones could soon operate without the help of humans. Agence France-Presse is reporting that the Pentagon wants its drones to be more autonomous, so that they can run with little to no assistance from people. "Before they were blind, deaf and dumb," Mark Maybury, chief scientist for the U.S. Air Force, told AFP. "Now we're beginning to make them to see, hear and sense." Ronald Arkin, a professor at the Georgia Institute of Technology, believes that drones will soon be able to kill enemies on their own independently.

Sharpton's Group plans rally in Saginaw Police Murder of Black Man Shot 46 Times

SF Gate

The Rev. Al Sharpton's National Action Network says it will hold a rally in Saginaw Saturday in response to the fatal shooting of a homeless, mentally ill man in a parking lot this summer.

Police say 49-year-old Milton Hall refused to drop a knife, and six officers fired 46 shots at him, hitting him 11 times July 1.

A Saginaw police supervisor has been demoted and two officers disciplined for their roles in Hall's death. Prosecutors and state officials have said officers wouldn't face criminal charges.

According to WNEM-TV (http://bit.ly/RYWb72 ), the National Action Network said Monday it will continue fighting for justice in Hall's killing and plans a demonstration on Saturday.

In addition, a group called Concerned Citizens of Saginaw plans to ask federal authorities to continue examining the case.

Click to read more ...

15 minute call to prison could cost $17. Families urge FCC to lower price.

ColorLines

Earlier this week, FCC Commissioner Mignon Clyburn heard from friends and relatives of people who are in prison who urged her to help lower the cost of calls from U.S. prisons. Advocates say regulation would both reduce the price-gouging that the families of incarcerated people and contribute to the social good by reducing recidivism.

“For example, one fifteen-minute interstate phone call from prisons in two different states—one in the East and one in the West—costs about $17. For those families, they will spend an additional $34 over and above their basic monthly phone rate to speak twice a month for a total of 30 minutes,” Clyburn said in a statement released after she met with the family members (PDF).

According to a Prison Policy Initiative (PPI) study, some families are forced to choose between keeping in touch with a relative behind bars and, in some cases, putting food on the table.

The issue falls clearly along racial lines: 35 percent of those incarcerated are Latino and 37 percent are Black. And many of them are poor, according to statistics from the Bureau of Prisoners.

A Colorlines.com story published earlier this year noted that close to 88 percent of people awaiting trial or serving time in jail had no income or made less than $1,200 a month.

In that same story, Colorlines interviewed a woman named Martha Wright, who said a 5-minute calls with her grandson could cost up to $18.

“You just have to get everything out in one line,” Wright said with humor.

In most parts of the country states have no incentive to regulate prison phone companies because they also get “commissions.” More details from PPI’s report “The Price to Call Home:”

Prison phone companies are awarded these monopolies through bidding processes in which they submit contract proposals to the state prison systems; in all but eight states, these contracts include promises to pay “commissions” — in effect, kickbacks — to states, in either the form of a percentage of revenue, a fixed up-front payment, or a combination of the two. Thus, state prison systems have no incentive to select the telephone company that offers the lowest rates; rather, correctional departments have an incentive to reap the most profit by selecting the telephone company that provides the highest commission.

“Connecting husbands to wives, parents to children, and grandparents to grandchildren should be a national priority because these tangible means of communicating not only will help these families keep in contact, but the general society benefits overall, as studies show that prisoners are less likely to re-offend if they are able to maintain these relationships with their loved ones,” FCC Commissioner Clyburn said.

Along with hearing testimonies from friends and relatives of people who are incarcerated, the FCC officials attended a screening of “Middle of Nowhere,” a feature film written and directed by Ava DuVernay that captures a woman’s struggle to maintain her relationship with her incarcerated husband. DuVernay made history earlier this year when she became the first black woman to win the Best Director prize at Sundance.

Click to read more ...

Words Matter: Research proves how the term "illegals" dehumanizes Latinos

ColorLines

An important new study by the National Hispanic Media Coalition (NHMC) has confirmed many of our hunches about how negative media narratives and portrayals of brown people play out in the minds of non-Latinos. The report, Impact of Media Stereotypes on Opinions and Attitudes Towards Latinos, was commissioned by NHMC and conducted by Latino Decisions. The NHMC has shared the data with the Federal Communications Commission (FCC) and the National Telecommunications and Information Administration (NTIA), with a request for the institutions to study the impacts of hate speech in media. It would be tremendous for these organizations to recognize there’s a problem and to be accountable to our community, at the Drop the I-Word campaign, it matters profoundly.

The term “illegal immigrants” was used in the study specifically to “test the extent to which respondents would use or avoid the phrase.” Study participants were exposed to negative and positive media frames and messages in the news on TV, radio and print as well as in entertainment media. According to the study, non-Latinos no matter what the media format, think that Latinos and “illegal immigrants” are one and the same. There was a higher percentage of people who agreed that Latinos are “illegal immigrants” when exposed to negative frames, but even when exposed to good messages, people still held on to that view. Additionally “over 30 percent of respondents believed a majority of Latinos (50 percent or greater) were undocumented. And in terms of how language matters, “while 49 percent of respondents offer ‘cold’ rating of undocumented, 58 percent rate “illegal aliens” coldly.

This all points to the extent to which the racially charged and dehumanizing i-word and the concept that people could be “illegal” has become normalized through the media. It also makes it very clear that the immigration debate and the i-word, in fact, impact perceptions about and treatment of mestizo and first nation migrants with or without papers, no matter how many generations they’ve been on this land.

A Fox News Latino poll earlier this year, found that nearly half of Latino voters think the term “illegal immigrant” is offensive. I’ve wondered about the other folks that were ok with the i-word and if it’s that they found the term useful in distinguishing themselves and creating a distance from the dehumanization that comes with the i-word. That thinking will not save anyone from being profiled or discriminated against. It’s dangerous thinking that widens the net of people who are at risk of being criminalized or attacked.

The NHMC study looked at all types of ideas and stereotypes ranging from neighborliness and religiosity, to use of welfare and gang culture.

Stereotypes are unavoidable. When I first meet people and it comes up that I’m Salvadoran, I get different types of reactions. Some people smile and say, that’s cool, my dear friend such and such is Salvi, or my favorite, I’m Salvi too — to which I usually squeal with joy even at the stuffiest conference, or random bodega. Or I’ve been there, it’s beautiful. Bonus points. Those are the best interactions. Other people will confide in me that they love pupusas, or they will tell me their favorite pupusa stuffing. Very recently ever since that Marta Stewart segment, now people want to say pupusas are “the next taco.” 

All benign responses, chevere. No mention of our general badassness or happy disposition. All good, because at least they are not the folks that within the first five minutes want to mention Mara Salvatrucha, sometimes jokingly, usually disgracefully. You can always tell the people who watched that unfortunate National Geographic special with Lisa Ling that depicted all gang members as monsters. The story then becomes about monsters and not the US involvement and funding of Central American wars which led to mass migration and separation and hardship for families, which led to young people seeking familial ties and being exposed to gangs in the US that were later deported back to Central America. There’s so much more to tell there. The point is, the stereotype.

In 2006 mainstream immigrant rights organizations fighting the draconian Sensenbrenner bill helped perpetuate a “good immigrant/bad immigrant” dichotomy, saying “We’re not all criminals.” This created a distance from people with a range of convictions who also did not want to be separated from their families. I was in Los Angeles at the time and even then it seemed incredible that many did not want to acknowledge how the racially biased criminal justice system would funnel loved ones and a lot of young people into deportation. At the time, the organization I’m on the board of, Homies Unidos, was fighting and sometimes winning deportation cases of young people who had convictions while they were making interventions in the community to prevent people from joining gangs and helping others make fresh starts away from gang life. The directly impacted community there remains front and center on policy and organizing. They have lived the impact of stereotypes but they continue to fight the stereotypes and the shame they come with.

Negative stereotypes often have some truth to them, but they simplify a lot of racial inequities and injustice. At the same time they challenge us to reject the shaming they are packed with, kick some serious knowledge about the systems at play and work toward justice. It’s not just offensive that people think Latinos in general are “illegal.” Or that Latinos are gangsters and criminals. What’s more offensive is the idea that any person can be considered “illegal” or be dehumanized in any way and treated unjustly. Language and stereotypes impact all Latinos because of a widely held bias against all of us. We have clarity about how non-Latinos think of Latinos. Let’s be equally vigilant about how we think of ourselves and our own communities.

Click to read more ...

RNC Cancels All Swing State Voter Registration Drives

DailyKos

The GOP voter registration fraud story here in Florida broke on Tuesday with an article in The Palm Beach Post saying that questionable forms had been sent to the state attorney general for review. The same newspaper reported on Saturday that the indications of more fraud had been found in other counties when Okaloosa County Elections Supervisor Paul Lux saw the first story online and sent it all the other elections supervisors in the state.

When the story first broke, the RNC claimed that the questionable voter applications were the work of one worker. That claim fell apart when suspicious forms started being found in more counties around the state of Florida. Now Nathan Sproul, the brains beyond the Strategic Allied Consulting firm behind the scandal, is now claiming it was just a few individuals among the 2,000 workers they had dispatched in Florida.

On Wednesday, The Rachel Maddow Show had a segment about the fact that Florida's ballot this year is huge. The point of the segment was the fact that Florida had long lines in 2008, and yet this year with the even larger ballot Florida has cut early voting days.

You can understand that elections officials have their hands full getting ready for the election. The GOP passed new voter laws recently, and the effect of one of the new rules is that when third parties register voters and turn in those applications to the State they have to be tagged with the identity of the group that turned them in. The Los Angeles Times reported on Friday that 45,917 voter registration forms have been turned into the state by the GOP. This adds more work on election officials as they now have to find and review each of those 45,917 forms.

The Brad Blog has a lengthy recap (H/T AnnetteK for sending me the link) of what has happened so far in the scandal. It's an extremely long article, but well worth the read if you want to catch up on all the pieces that have come out so far.

It took several days for the story to go national, and for the RNC to eventually take action in firing the company that Sproul says he was specifically asked to create for them, but only after the Republican Party of Florida, and then the North Carolina GOP fired the firm first. The state parties say they had hired the company "at the request" of the RNC. They fired Strategic after allegedly fraudulent and purposely changed voter registration forms turned in by the group emerged in other counties beyond Palm Beach County, FL where the Supervisor of Elections Susan Bucher initially discovered and then turned in over 100 "questionable" forms to the State Attorney last Monday.

The story has been moving quickly over the past 24 to 48 hours, even as the RNC and Strategic have been trying, with the initial uncritical help of the AP and others in the media, to downplay the scandal as the work of just "one individual".

Nationwide GOP Voter Registration Fraud Scandal Widens, Becomes Criminal Matter in Florida

Josh Marshall and his team at Talking Points Memo is interested in this story and promises to stay on it. Meanwhile, Marshall wrote a long front-page post explaining the difference between voter fraud and voter registration fraud. He also wrote about what a bad actor Nathan Sproul has been in doing this kind of voter manipulation on behalf of the GOP for years.

Vote fraud is what most of us think of: voting twice, voting when you’re not eligible to vote, stuffing ballot boxes with phony ballots and so forth. Voter registration fraud is registering people to vote who don’t exist or signing up legitimate voters without their signatures or permission and so forth. Big difference.

Ironically it’s been Republicans, in their effort to pass vote-suppressing voter ID laws, who’ve intentionally conflated the two (often with the help of ignorant reporters). To be clear, just because you register Mickey Mouse or Mary Poppins to vote doesn’t mean they’re going to show up to vote. Indeed, they’re not going to. Because they don’t exist. And even when it’s John Smith or Party Morgan, conspirators don’t show up to vote in those people’s name either. There’s abundant evidence and simple logic that attests to this. Most of what voter registration fraud does is clog up voting lists with phony names.

(snip)

All that said, Mr. Sproul isn’t just any bad actor. As longtime TPM Readers know, back in 2004 he was credibly accused of doing something far more nefarious: impersonating Democratic-leaning groups, registering as many Democrats as possible and then destroying those legitimate registrations rather than turning them into local canvassing boards. This wouldn’t create fraudulent ballots but it would convince a lot of legitimate voters that they were registered only to show up at the ballot box and realize they weren’t — thus effectively blocking their Democratic votes.

About Mr. Sproul

I especially enjoyed an article from The Miami Herald on Saturday just because the opening made me laugh, and also because it points out that not until several state Republican Party groups fired Strategic Allied Consulting did the national RNC follow suit.

For the better part of two years now, Gov. Rick Scott and the Florida Republican Party have been scouring the state like a sheriff and his posse, hot on the trail of election bandits.

Turns out, our Republican gunslingers didn’t have far to look. The wily varmints corrupting Florida’s electoral process have been working right under their noses.

(snip)

After the story broke last week, roiling through the newspapers, political blogs and cable television, the Florida Republican Party fired the outfit. So did the state Republican Party organizations in North Carolina, Colorado and Virginia. And finally the Republican National Committee, which had paid the firm $2.9 million to work its magic in swing states, announced that it was severing its relationship with Strategic Allied Consulting. The Florida party bosses also filed a formal election fraud complaint against its own vendor.

State Republicans find fraud close to home

Page two of the article also has some juicy snark worth reading if you enjoy a good laugh when it is points out that after months of trying to weed out noncitizens from the Florida voter rolls, the state has found "198 suspect voters out of 11,446,540 registered statewide." Actually the total, according to the Florida Division of Elections website is 11,583,367. That number includes 4,173,177 Republicans and 4,627,929 Democrats, which means there are currently 454,752 more Democrats than Republicans registered in Florida. So if Rick Scott's desire to decrease that Democratic advantage, he failed miserably while wasting tax payer dollars on the project. Rick Scott has also made it a priority to increase Republican registrations in the state. Bloomberg Businessweek reports:

For more than a year, Scott also has made registering new voters a priority. He recruited top Republican fundraisers to collect money for the effort to help erase party’s deficit with Democrats, who have an edge of about 455,000 voters.

That in-house effort from Florida Republicans resulted in about 7,000 applications in the two months before hiring Strategic Allied in July at the suggestion of the Republican National Committee, [Florida Republican Party spokesman Brian] Burgess said. None of the applications collected by the state party have been questioned, Burgess said.

Expect this story to be a hot topic of conversation on the 24/7 cable news channels this week as more information comes to light and other swing states where Strategic Allied Consulting had voter registration operations going start to weigh in and be questioned about applications they've received from the group. Of course, don't expect to see anything on Fox News because as Media Matters reports they don't think it's important enough a topic to report about.

Four years ago Fox News helped turn ACORN into a dirty word among conservatives by leading an often-hysterical right-wing crusade against the community activist group, charging it time and again with "voter fraud" on behalf of candidate Obama. In order to bolster its flimsy "voter fraud" attacks, the network repeatedly harped on reports that ACORN canvassers had submitted questionable voter registration forms.

Yet this week Fox has shown little interest in covering the unfolding story out of Florida, where the state's Republican Party has cut ties with a consulting firm accused of handing in more than 100 dubious voter registration forms.

Why Isn't Fox News Covering Florida "Voter Fraud" Story? Hint: It Involves The GOP

There is a report already in Monday's edition of The Charlotte Observer that election officials in North Carolina are reviewing voter registration forms in light of the revelations about Strategic Allied Consulting.

The North Carolina board of elections is contacting local boards of elections in the state to see if they have found any discrepancies or questionable forms being submitted by Strategic Allied. The board will decide whether to launch an investigation, said board Director Gary Bartlett. “Right now, we’re looking to see if there’s been any impropriety,” he said. “No one yet has brought to my attention that there is something wrong here, but I asked my investigator to see if we have a problem. And if we do, we will deal with it.”

State probe looms for firm registering GOP voters
Questionable registrations in Fla. prompt N.C. leaders to fire firm amid election officials’ review

North Carolina election officials have already been bogged down with hundreds of hours of extra work this election season when a Tea Party group submitting 30,000 names of dead people they claimed were still on the election rolls. And now they have an extra burden of reviewing all the voter registration applications submitted by Strategic Allied Consulting.

RNC Cancels All Swing State Voter Registration Drives

Also waiting for Monday morning news readers is a report that the RNC has cancelled all efforts to register voters in five swing states (Florida, Colorado, Nevada, North Carolina and Virginia) that have registration deadlines between October 6 and 15. The pressure was evidently mounting from the growing scandal so they fired Strategic Allied Consulting. Of course, the RNC is trying to put lipstick on the pig by claiming there would be no impact because they were wrapping up registration efforts anyway. Oh, and those pigs with lipstick can fly too. Oh, and of course none of the blame should be placed at the RNC's feet.

The Republican National Committee ended efforts to sign up new voters before the deadline in key states for the presidential race because of questions raised over registration applications tied to the party.

(snip)

The company was required to report any instances of applications being questioned by elections officials to the state party, Burgess said.

Nathan Sproul, who owns the company, said that wasn’t true.

“Every morning, a conference call was held to discuss the project using their conference call number,” Sproul said in an e-mail. “It’s impossible for them to claim with credibility that we didn’t communicate clearly.”

Sproul said the company had 2,000 workers in Florida and that the problems were caused by a few individuals.

Republicans End Swing-State Voter Sign-Up After Firing Company

If you ready my diary on Saturday, RNC Asked Nathan Sproul to Create Shell Companies to Mask Payments, you know it's very obvious what's going on here. The RNC wanted to use Nathan Sproul's services, but they did not want people to be reminded of his past scandals so they asked him to create the shell company, Strategic Allied Consulting, to run voter registration drives in the swing states. But, as Lee Fang at The Nation uncovered, it is very likely that Nathan Sproul has voter suppression operations going on in other states, specifically “Grassroots Outreach, LLC” in California. Certainly, the RNC will label this a conspiracy theory, but is it that far of a stretch of the imagination?

I dedicated several hours on Saturday trying to see if I could find more companies in other states. First I found out that Strategic Allied Consulting LLC was organized in Virginia and the registered agent was CT Corporation System, which is a company that provides this service for a lot of companies. Remembering that one of the clues in Fang's article was that the wording of the online ad to hire "Voter Outreach Representatives" was almost identical. I tried searching for similar jobs only to discover that when the phone number and/or company name was listed, it turned out to be a temporary staffing agency. Most of these ads advertised a pay rate of $12 per hour. As somebody who's paid temporary agency bills for companies before, I know they the mark-up can be anywhere from 25% to 75%. Think about that. Sproul had 2,000 workers in Florida at $12/hour and paying mark-up on top of that. Many of the articles I've read say that many state Republican organizations were spending as much as half of their budget or more for these services.

Finally, I spent several hours at the Federal Election Commission's website trying to go through the reports state Republican parties have submitted to see if I could discover the names of organizations other than Strategic Allied Consulting that had been paid for voter registration. The reports look like this. The problem is there is not way that I could find to search on the description field for "voter registration" and like services. Nor was a able to find a way to search by vendor name, although I was looking for names other than Strategic Allied anyway. Also, you have to look at each report individually, clicking through several links to get to each report. It's not a very user friendly system.

Hopefully reporters with the skills and tools to root out more information about what the Republican Party has actually been doing around the country will continue to dig into this story. I may be labeled a conspiracy theorist, but I think there is a reason Strategic Allied Consulting was only limited to the swing states and that Nathan Sproul has set up other shell companies in non-swing states. Why would they be interested in pushing these voter suppression efforts in every state in the country? It's not the presidential election that concerns them. It's the down ticket races. It's also state races. Look what the GOP did in 2010 when nobody was paying attention. They took over governorships and state houses around the country. That's where the 2011 spike in their legislation (voter ID laws, abortion) came from. They've figured out that they need to build from the bottom up. And one way to do that is to get in and suppress Democratic votes in every district.

UPDATE: The U.S. Chamber of Commerce Launches GOTV for GOP Congressional Candidates

Perhaps this is the reason that the RNC isn't too worried about the impact stopping their registration efforts in the swing states will have on the election.

The pro-business lobbying group unveiled VoteForJobs2012.com, a website designed to educate voters and get them to the polls. The site will include voter registration forms, absentee ballots and polling place locators. It also will include information on House and Senate races and a comparison of the candidates on the issues.

(snip)

The Chamber has spent more than $19 million on ads this election cycle, much of it targeting Democratic candidates. It is expected to spend millions more in the next five weeks before Election Day. It recently bought $2 million in ads in Florida to challenge Democratic Sen. Bill Nelson and $390,000 in North Dakota to air spots against Heidi Heitkamp. The Chamber also invested about $3 million in California for commercials going after eight Democrats in House races.

Chamber launches get-out-the-vote effort to boost GOP congressional candidates

Click to read more ...

GOP-Hired Firm Under Investigation For Voter Fraud In North Carolina

ThinkProgress 

The North Carolina board of elections is determining whether a GOP-allied firm, Strategic Allied Consulting, submitted fraudulent voter registration forms in the state, following reports the group submitted 106 “questionable” forms in Florida. In the midst of Republican efforts to uncover extremely rare in-person voter fraud, the likeliest source comes from their own firm. North Carolina officials are contacting local boards of elections to determine if wider investigation is necessary. The Republican National Committee has paid Strategic Allied $3.1 million to run voter registration drives in multiple swing states, but the ongoing criminal investigation has caused the RNC and state Republican parties to cut all ties.

Click to read more ...

Hearing Channel Zero Harmful to Black Children - TV Bad for Kids even if only on in the Background

theGrio

Several studies have found evidence that too much television is bad for the development of children, even when it is only on in the background.

A new study in The Official Journal of the American Academy of Pediatrics (AAP) has tracked just how much background TV American children are exposed to. The results are a startling 232.2 minutes, or 4 hours, every day.

Unfortunately, children who are African-American, younger or from low-income families are absorbing the most background television.

Children living in single-parent households and those with parents having less formal education were exposed to much more background television. African American and younger children were found to get, on average, 5.5 hours per day, and children from poor families nearly 6.

The report also cites that children from these groups are typically at risk for other “social and cognitive problems” such as “struggle with self-regulation and have higher rates of obesity.”

The study used a national phone survey asking 1,454 parents with at least one child between 8 months and 8 years of age. Parents were asked questions such as: “whether the child had a television in his/her bedroom (0, no; 1, yes), number of televisions in the home, and how often the television is on even when no one was watching it (0, never; 5, always).”

Background television exposure has been “linked to lower sustained attention during playtime, lower quality parent-child interactions, and reduced performance on cognitive tasks.” Even though more research has been put into the effects of foreground television, USA Today reports:

“Heather Kirkorian, an assistant professor of human development and family studies a researcher at the University of Wisconsin-Madison  who has published studies on background television’s impact on both parent-child interaction and children’s play patterns, says “until now we could only guess at the extent of the impact in children’s day-to-day lives.” The new study “documents just how great the real-world impact may be, particularly for very young children.”

What the study does show is how pervasive television has become in the lives of Americans. The results hope to bring awareness to the relationships of adults with television and the effects on children within the home.

AAP suggests children under the age of 2 years not be exposed to any television at all. And in order to reduce background television, turn off the television at key points of the day such as bed time and mealtime, and also when no one is watching.

Click to read more ...