"I've said from the beginning that we can't reform immigration laws until we control immigration, and we can't control immigration unless we control our borders and our ports." - Lou Dobbs

We've heard that statement in various forms a millions times, repeated ad infinitum by various politicians and talking heads since Frank Luntz first advised anti-immigrant Republicans to stress that ""A country that can't control its own borders can't control its own destiny" to sell an anti-immigrant agenda to the American public.

But it has always gone without saying that the border that needed to be controlled has been the one to the south.  Rarely, if ever, has the northern border been mentioned in most border security screeds.

Congress has appropriated funds for vast amounts of added security on the southern border, and walls are being constructed as we speak to further limit access across the 1900 mile stretch.

Of course the need to stem the flow of "illegal immigration" is always given as the chief cause for such expenditures. But additionally, the need for general "border security" is often cited.

Anti-immigrant politicians and talking heads are always quick to conflate the flow of economic refugees with the flow of drugs and the threat of international terrorism to pepper their anti-immigrant rants with even higher levels of fear and trepidation.

On May 1st 2006, millions took to the streets in cities and communities throughout the nation to finally have their voices heard.

Out from the shadows came the forgotten, the marginalized, the nameless, faceless, mass of humanity who toil daily in thankless jobs with little reward or recognition.

Those who had labored invisibly for years as they quietly provided a nation with prosperity of which they could never partake, took to the streets to say "no more".  We will no longer be marginalized ... We will no longer be demonized ... We will not be criminalize ....We Are America.

That day, as pundits and politicians tried to grasp the seismic shift taking place, attempting to read the tea leaves of public opinion and formulate positions that would serve them politically, two men had the courage to do not what was safe or politically expedient ...but rather, what was right.  

Today, two important events demonstrated just how far to the right the Republican Presidential candidates are shifting on the immigration issue. The first was the endorsement of Iowa front runner, Mike Huckabee, by Minutemen founder, Jim Gilchrist -not so much for the fact that Gilchrist is once again is trying to thrust his agenda center stage - but rather Huckabee's willingness to embrace it.

147 - just keep that number in the back of your mind for the time being - I'll get back to it's significance a little later on . ... but for now, just file it away somewhere where we can find it when we need it.

For almost three years now, anti-immigrant forces have been ratcheting up  their message of opposition to  anything short of deportation and/or attrition for the approximately 12 mil unauthorized immigrants currently living and working in the US, coupled with increased militarization  and "security" along the southern border as the only way to solve their self-defined "immigration crisis."  Armed with talking points crafted by Republican right-wing spinmeisters like Frank Luntz and zero-population-growth advocacy groups like the  Federation for American Immigration Reform and NumbersUSA, pundits, politicians and talking-heads have hit the airwaves with a constant barrage of misinformation and distortion.

By now we all know the drill.

The Democratic Party finally released what appears to be their official strategy/talking points intended to counter the Republican immigration wedge.

Now, I'm not a high paid consultant, or a professional Washington strategist with a long history of losing campaigns, but for the life of me I can't seem to figure out what the Democratic leadership is trying to accomplish with this plan.

Up until now it appeared that the "Republican-lite" strategy developed by Rahm Emanuel and the DLC centrists looked like it would become the party line. But with this new strategy, recently released on the party's website, I frankly haven't a clue what the Dems ultimate plan is.

In the early morning hours of May 12th, about a dozen Iraqi insurgents ambushed a small Army outpost in the village of  Quarghouli in the Sunni Triangle. With a volley of rocket-propelled grenades and small arms fire it wasn't long before they overwhelmed the seven soldiers from the 10th Mountain Division.

By the time a relief force reached the site, four US servicemen and their Iraqi Army interpreter lay dead.  The fate of the other three soldiers was unknown, but there was evidence that they had been abducted.  Within hours, a group calling itself Al Qaeda in Mesopotamia announced that it was not only responsible for the ambush, but was holding the three missing Americans.

A massive search effort was initiated utilizing 4000 US soldiers, 2,000 Iraqi troops, helicopters, search dogs and FBI interrogators. In the following days the manhunt was massive, homes were searched , canals drained, hundreds interrogated, and many arrested …but still no sign of the missing soldiers. Two more servicemen lost their lives in the search effort, but to no avail

In the mid-nineties US policy towards Mexico changed in two significant ways that eventually set the stage for the current "immigration crisis." In January 1994, NAFTA went into effect and a new era of prosperity and progress was to begin in Mexico. At the same time, a new strategy was enacted along the southern border intended to stem the flow of unauthorized migrants. The policy of "prevention through deterrence" involved quintupling border-enforcement expenditures, building new fortified checkpoints, high-tech surveillance, and deploying thousands of additional Border Patrol Agents. Additionally, border barriers were built along portions of the California and Texas border to prevent migrants from entering through the most highly trafficked urban areas.

More than a decade later it's become evident that the promises of these two policies, rather than bringing economic change to Mexico and decreasing unauthorized migration to the US, have led to conditions that more than doubled the flow of immigration....and brought added death to the border.

NRC Broadcasting has refused to run the newest campaign ad by Bill Winter, Democratic candidate for U.S. Congress in CD-6. The ad, that began running earlier this week, highlights Congressman Tom Tancredo's personal and financial ties to a number of leaders and organizations in the "White Power" movement.  

Winter's campaign manager, Berrick Abramson, was informed by the General Sales Manager at NRC that the ad was pulled on direct orders from NRC Broadcasting's CEO, Tim Brown, a major Republican donor who has given over twelve thousand dollars to various Republican candidates in 2006 including Marilyn Musgrave, Doug Lamborn, Scott Tipton, Rick O'Donnell, Rick Santorum and Winter opponent Tom Tancredo.

Thirty-six hours ago Tan Nguyen was a little know Republican congressional candidate from Orange County CA with no chance of winning and no prospect of ever garnering national attention. That was before it came to light that he was most likely behind a failed effort to intimidate Hispanic voters  in hopes of deterring them from showing up at the polls. With that one move, he now becomes the newest poster boy in an election season ripe with disclosures of Republican racism and malfeasance.

The revelations of George Allen's bigotry and hidden past of racist activity shed new light on the undercurrent of racism that has run through Republican politics for years. Yet, Nguyen represents a new, and perhaps more toxic, kind of Republican; those drawn into politics by the volatile issue of immigration.  With its ability divide people along the lines of race and ethnicity, the immigration "issue" has drawn a new breed of activists and politicians.  These new "movement racists," with ties to organized hate groups, are bent on dragging both their party and the nation down a path of intolerance and bigotry not seen before.

The last time most Americans saw Raj Bhakta, he was being unceremoniously fired by Donald Trump on the TV show, "The Apprentice2." Now, he's running for Congress as a Republican and riding elephants through the Rio Grande to prove...well, quite frankly....that he's still an idiot.

He was practically giddy as he started the lead-in to the news from Escondido California. Like a crazed Oberführer exhorting on his xenophobic minions in their quest for racial purity, Lou Dobbs gleefully announced that one more local community had taken up his crusade to rid the nation of those he deems unworthy of inclusion.

By a vote of 3-2 the city council of Escondido had voted to make it illegal for landlords to rent to undocumented immigrants.

Dobbs appeared so overjoyed, he looked as though he was about to break into a dance (a little jig at the Wolfsschanze perhaps). He smirked knowingly as the reporters discussed how the immigrants lived in such "overcrowded, (and) unsanitary conditions" the council had no choice but to  "penalize property owners who rent to illegal aliens" in hopes for removing the scourge from their city.

As has been the case in all of the other instances where local governments have decided to pass their own versions of "immigration legislation," Escondido was painted as just "the latest American city to try to do the job the federal government will not do."  

Yet, despite what Dobbs tells us, these local initiatives have little to do with immigration policy.

For the third time in a little over a month George Allen must face questions stemming from remarks and actions that demonstrate what could be politely termed racial intolerance, but in fact reek of old fashioned racism. According to a recently released article in Salon, Allen's former college teammates are now coming forward with tales of blatant racism that some, like Rush Limbaugh, will characterize as "college pranks,"  but clearly border on hate crimes. In one incident, Allen had his friends drive him to the local black neighborhood so he could take the severed head of a deer and stuff it into a mailbox.

While Allen's case may be extreme, it says something about what has happened to Republican Party. For some it's been a game of "catch me if you can" with racism for years. Late night comics tell jokes about "how few Blacks Republicans there are," but the American people have known for years about the underlying truths behind those jokes. The Republican Party has increasingly become a home for racists of every stripe and the sooner that party starts to come to terms with that reality, the better.

No longer content to patrol the borders from the comfort of their Winnebego's, propped in lawn chairs with binoculars and two-way radios, the Minutemen Defense Corps, has decided to take their fight for closed borders directly to the American electorate through their political action committee Minutemen PAC.

According to its controversial leader, Chris Simcox, the PAC has already raised upwards of $350,000 to help anti-immigration candidates, and successfully influenced primary contests with Minutemen sponsored TV and radio advertising on behalf of their chosen candidates.

Republican Congressional candidate Vernon Robinson continued his campaign of hate and bigotry, releasing a new radio spot featuring his sick and twisted idea of humor. Like a drunken bore at a company picnic who insists on telling anyone within earshot the same racist, off-color joke over and over again, Robinson, who is running in North Carolina's 13th Congressional District, continued his one-trick-pony campaign of hate mongering with a new radio ad titled "Beverly Hill-Miller " that parodies the TV theme song with derogatory lyrics about gays and "illegals"

Like previous ads by Robinson, this one relies on the kind of misinformation, bigotry and ignorance, that would clearly qualify as "hate-speech" in less inflammatory times. It is only in the current political climate that someone of Robinson's ilk could possibly be the candidate of a major political party. In more rational times, he would have long been relegated to the oblivion of the political fringes as an obscure third-party kook.