The MountainGoat Report

Minnick's Pathetic Racism

Walt Minnick has become a hero to white nationalists.  With his continuing descent into bigotry, using his first "Willie Horton" ad as just a warm up to his most recent "Willie Horton" ad (which even the Libertarian Republican calls "nasty" and on par with Sharron Angle's ad), white nationalists are praising Walt Minnick for his "patriotism."

The latest evidence appears at the white nationalist website VDARE.com, described by the Southern Poverty Law Center as "an anti-immigration hate website" which "also regularly publishes articles by prominent white nationalists, race scientists and anti-Semites."  It would be hard to argue with the SPLC assessment after reading some of VDARE's material.  Witness this excerpt from a July 21, 2003 post by Sam Francis entitled, "Abolishing America, Cont’d: Mexicans Want Reparations Too":

"America was defined — almost explicitly, sometimes very explicitly — as a white nation, for white people, and what that means is that there is virtually no figure, no law, no policy, no event in the history of the old, white America that can survive the transition to the new and non-white version. Whether we will want to call the new updated version ‘America’ at all is another question entirely."

Now in a post claiming "Many Immigration Patriots Poised To Win House Races," VDARE.com champions Minnick as an "immigration patriot," proclaiming Idaho's 1st District race "one of the most important races" to watch.

Republicans are not always the strongest immigration patriots. In Idaho, incumbent Democrat Walt Minnick has a pretty good record on immigration co-sponsoring the SAVE Act and expanded E-Verify. When given Numbers USA’s survey, he answered in favor of reducing legal and illegal immigration (though not favoring ending birthright citizenship.)

[...]

In fact, of course, there is a glaring “obvious reason” why Minnick decided to be a patriot. White Idahoans still make up over 91% of the population of Minnick’s district. They never voted to make their days as a “lily white enclave finished”.  And they are not keen on attorneys who helped bring forth these unwanted changes.

Walt Minnick "decided to be a patriot."  That's what they think.  To them, racism is patriotic and even they see Minnick as playing to the fears of "white Idahoans."

That isn't patriotism.  It's pathetic.

Update 10.31.10, 12:10:  Minnick has won the endorsement of another racist group.

From Imagine 2050 [emphasis added]:

Earlier this week, Brian Griffin aka “Hunter Wallace,” writer for the overtly white supremacist website Occidental Dissent, put out his own list of endorsements. Over 130 candidates are on his list, and all are running on an anti-immigrant platform and have received the “true reformer” seal of approval from NumbersUSA. Wallace, in his article, directs his readership back to NumbersUSA’s report cards. NumbersUSA is part of an array of anti-immigrant groups founded or funded by John Tanton, a white nationalist who has single-handedly orchestrated the anti-immigrant movement in the U.S. Also part of the Tanton Network are Federation for American Immigration Reform (FAIR) and Center for Immigration Studies (CIS) among others.

A sampling of the candidates endorsed by Hunter Wallace includes Brian Bilbray (R-CA), Sue Myrick (R-NC), John Boozman (R-AR), Tom Tancredo (Constitution – CO), Gene Taylor (D-MS), and Walt Minnick (D-ID).

The post goes on to quote Wallace:

“I will flatly state that immigration is by far the most important issue facing the White Nationalist community. In the long run, changing racial demographics will determine the electoral context in which every other issue is decided, and ultimately the fate of our race on this continent.”

Nice.  This is your Democratic congressman, Idaho.

"Skidding to a loss," indeed.

Each Has a Story

From "Young, All-American, Illegal" at High Country News:

"Immigration reform" returns cyclically to the national conversation, much the way unemployment, health care, energy policy and presidential elections do. We are a country of immigrants, we say, reciting it like a national mantra. But the kind and color and number we welcome change with the tides of world events: Wars, blights, currency fluctuations, trade policies, manufacturing trends, coups, and the relative strength of this or that country's economy.

People seek out new countries because life in their own has become untenable -- impoverished, hopeless or even terrifying. It is rarely an easy choice to leave one's motherland:  Children and parents are yanked apart, families splintered, generations disconnected, traditions shattered.

Still, people keep coming to the U.S., one fraught way or another. If an immigrant's children are born here, the children automatically become citizens. But if kids are brought here, well, it becomes tricky. The kids can go to public K-12 schools, thanks to the U.S. Supreme Court's 1982 ruling in Plyler vs. Doe, which said that it was unconstitutional for Texas to pull the plug on public education for immigrant children. In the words of Justice William Brennan, our immigration policies "raise the specter of a permanent caste of undocumented resident aliens" who provide "cheap labor" but are "denied the benefits ... of lawful residents."

Here is the story of one:

Read the rest here.

Is Minnick Still 'Pleased?'

Despite radical views expressed by leaders of the Tea Party Express, Idaho Congressman Walt Minnick accepted their endorsement.  Now that Tea Party Express is active in supporting Arizona's new anti-immigration legislation will Minnick continue to accept their support?

"I'm pleased to have their endorsement."

That's what Congressman Minnick said last month upon learning that he had been named a Tea Party Hero and endorsed by the Tea Party Express.  "They're just ordinary folks who think the government ought to balance its budget.  There's nothing very radical about that," included Minnick.  Campaign spokesman John Foster acknowledged that there were some fringe within the group but implied that those weren't the views of the group as a whole.

Seven months earlier this was Tea Party Express Chairman Mark Williams on CNN with Anderson Cooper:

Partial transcript via Crooks and Liars:

COOPER: But I mean, Mark, what you're saying makes sense to me here when I'm hearing what you're saying. But then I read on your blog, you say -- you call the president an Indonesian Muslim turned welfare thug and a racist in chief.

WILLIAMS: Yes.

COOPER: Is that the kind of...

WILLIAMS: That's the way he's behaving.

COOPER: But I mean...

WILLIAMS: I mean, if he cares to be...

(CROSSTALK)

COOPER: Do you believe he's Indonesian? Do you believe he's a Muslim? Do you really believe he's a welfare thug?

WILLIAMS: He's certainly acting like it.

More here.

Calling the President "an Indonesian Muslim turned welfare thug and a racist in chief" would seem radical to most ordinary folks, but that's not just some "fringe" element within the group; that's the chairman of the Tea Party Express--the group whose endorsement Congressman Minnick is "pleased" to accept.

Now we learn that the Tea Party Express is actively circulating a petition in support of Arizona's onerous anti-immigration law, with its potential for civil rights violations considered problematic by a wide array of groups from the Southern Poverty Law Center to the Christian Science Monitor.

Is Walt Minnick still "pleased" to have the endorsement of the Tea Party Express and what would it take for the Congressman to denounce this group?

Jorgenson Bill Drafted By Nativist

You had to know this was coming.

The man that Idaho State Senator Mike Jorgenson (R-Hayden Lake) relied on for legal help in drafting his controversial anti-immigration bill has been profiled as a leader in the anti-immigration Nativist movement by the Southern Poverty Law Center.

Here's a bit from the SPLC profile of Kris Kobach:

The man behind many of the deeply flawed anti-illegal immigrant laws passed recently is Kris Kobach, the "national expert on constitutional law" who works for the Immigration Reform Law Institute (IRLI). IRLI is the legal arm of the Federation for American Immigration Reform (FAIR), recently listed as a nativist hate group by the Southern Poverty Law Center. At IRLI, Kobach has been a prime mover behind ordinances in Farmer's Branch, Texas, and Hazelton, Pa., among other places, that seek to punish those who aid and abet "illegal aliens."

The laws have not done well. The Hazelton ordinance, crafted by Kobach and fellow IRLI attorney Michael Hethmon, was struck down last year by a federal judge who also charged the city for all legal fees. "Everything he does has been a failure," Mira Mdivani, a Kansas immigration lawyer, told The Pitch in January 2007.

[...]

Kobach also has taught constitutional and immigration law since 2003 at the University of Missouri-Kansas City School of Law, but has come under attack there for anti-immigrant bias. In January 2007, for instance, fliers appeared on campus accusing Kobach of inflating his credentials and crafting bad law.

Jorgenson has also indicated that Kobach would appear to testify (at Jorgenson's expense) should his bill get a full hearing.  Yeah, imagine that.  

Since when did Idaho need to import racist ideology?

Hoffman on Immigration

If you haven't read Nathaniel Hoffman's piece on immigration over at NewWest, you really should.  It's chock-full of interesting insights; like this one from Senator Larry Craig:

Small farm towns across Idaho had their labor camps and every summer the populations of Idaho’s rural counties swelled, the sounds of accordions from the borderlands filling the evening air.

It was a “basic workforce who can stoop over and pick up things” as Sen. Larry Craig, put it to me.

Much of that workforce, as Craig rightly pointed out, had higher aspirations. Many became equipment operators and foremen.

Take the time and read the whole thing—you won't be sorry.