Undocumented immigrants:

• Commit a disproportionate number of crimes throughout the country.
• Rely heavily on taxpayer-funded services while paying no taxes themselves.
• Bring to America rare and nasty diseases, such as leprosy.

Sound familiar?

That could be because you’ve heard it all before on cable news, where derogatory myths about immigrants are regularly presented as fact.

Last summer the Intelligence Report revealed that several major cable news hosts, most notably CNN’s Lou Dobbs, were broadcasting discredited information as part of their ratings-grabbing anti-immigration polemics, in some cases relaying falsehoods that originated with white supremacists.

Now, a new report from the Media Matters Action Network further debunks the most pernicious of these rumors with statistics from respected sources, and offers a blistering criticism of three cable programs whose hosts — Bill O’Reilly, Glenn Beck and Lou Dobbs — never seem to tire of blaming illegal immigrants for various societal ills or demonstrating a reckless disregard for the truth.

“When it comes to this issue [of anti-immigrant rhetoric], cable news overflows not just with vitriol, but also with a series of myths that feed viewers’ resentment and fears, seemingly geared toward creating anti-immigrant hysteria,” states the introduction to Fear & Loathing in Prime Time. ( continue to full post… )

[CO] White Supremacist Threatens To Kill Judge
Pueblo Chieftain / May 17, 2008
Aryan Brotherhood member Jay Gregory threatened at a sentencing hearing to have a federal judge murdered and referenced the 1984 assassination of a Jewish radio show host by the white nationalist group The Order.

[OK] Man Arrested For Trying To Sell Cyanide To Aryan Brotherhood
The Oklahoman / May 15, 2008
Texas resident Jeffrey Don Detrixhe allegedly agreed to sell 100 pounds of cyanide for $10,000, a thermal imager and a fully automatic AK-47 to a federal informant that Detrixhe believed was
representing the Aryan Brotherhood.

[PN] ACLU: York Public Assembly Law Still Unconstitutional
The York Daily Record / May 17, 2008
Proposed changes to a York, Penn. law governing protest rallies, several provisions of which were struck down in court after a white supremacist group sued the city, are not enough to make it constitutional, according to the ACLU.

[CA] Sacramento Men Arrested For Gay Bashing
Orange County Register / May 16, 2008
Micah Jontomo Tasaki, 21, Gregory Lee Winfield, 20, and Robert Lee Denor, 19, allegedly uttered anti-gay slurs then beat and kicked a gay man just hours after the California Supreme Court issued a ruling overturning a state ban on same-sex marriages.

Editor’s Note: Future Hatewatch Headlines postings will be grouped together here.

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Every election season brings a new crop of political hopefuls from the radical right. So far this year, their win-loss record is a respectable 1-1.

Black voters in Lake Wales, Fla., are claiming they were “snookered” into voting for John Paul Rogers, the former Florida grand dragon, or state leader, of the United Klans of America (UKA), who was sworn in as Lake Wales city commissioner May 6. “We were caught asleep at the switch on this thing,” black civic leader Clinton Horne told The Ledger, a regional daily paper.

Though he refused to answer any questions from The Ledger concerning his past Klan activities, Rogers pledged to treat blacks fairly. “I don’t let my personal views interfere with the basics,” he said.

Rogers, 66, told Florida law enforcement investigators in 2005 that he joined the Klan in 1963 or 1964, rising to become the Florida state leader of the UKA, a post he occupied until 1988. That year, the Southern Poverty Law Center bankrupted the group by winning a $7 million judgment for the family of Michael Donald, a 19-year-old black man who was murdered by Klansmen in 1981. The UKA disbanded as a result.

It’s not clear what Rogers’ current racial attitudes are. A few years ago, the former Klan chieftain served as the campaign manager for Booker Young — a black civic activist — in Young’s unsuccessful bid for city commissioner. This year, Young returned the favor by campaigning door-to-door with Rogers in northwest Lake Wales, which is predominantly black.

Less surprising were the results of the May 6 Republican primary in Indiana’s 2nd Congressional District, in which Crown Point, Ind., lawyer Tony Zirkle (right,speaking) finished a distant third with 16% of the vote after openly pandering to uniformed neo-Nazis. ( continue to full post… )

Peter LaBarbera has spent more than 20 years on the hard edge of the religious right, ranging from a stint as a reporter for The Washington Times to a whole career as what he calls a “conservative critic of the homosexual activist movement.” He has been an official of far-right groups like Concerned Women for America, the Family Research Council, the Illinois Family Institute, and Accuracy in Media. The founder of the gay-bashing Lambda Report, LaBarbera is now president of Naperville, Ill.-based Americans for Truth About Homosexuality.

LaBarbera is no friend of gay people, whose lifestyles he characterizes as “aberrant” and whom he accuses of working diligently to “penetrate” the schools. But up until now, he hasn’t relied on the help of radical anti-Semites.

That ended the other day when LaBarbera — who claims to operate “in a spirit of love and truth” — posted portions of an article by one Ted Pike (right), the Oregon-based reverend who heads the National Prayer Network and who was described by LaBarbera as simply a “pro-family advocate.” (Pike’s article described an April 12 encounter in Champaign, Ill., which ended with one college student charged with an anti-gay hate crime for attacking another.) Pike may or may not be pro-family — but he is most definitely anti-Jew, as reflected in his endless rants about the “Jewish origins of bolshevism, Jewish dominance of Hollywood and the media, [and] Jewish control of Congress.” Last year, Pike said that the Jewish holy book, the Talmud, “is full of moral filth” and attacked mainstream Christian evangelical leaders for “carefully concealing the Jewish identity of those who corrupt Christian culture.” ( continue to full post… )

[IL] Simcox To Speak At DePaul University
The Chicago Sun-Times / May 18, 2008
DePaul University is asking a student group to put up $2,500 to cover the cost of private security officers at a lecture by Minuteman vigilante leader Chris Simcox.

[AZ] Arizona Governor Terminates Controversial Sheriff’s Immigration Contract
The Arizona Daily Star / May 14, 2008
Gov. Janet Napolitano ordered the state to cancels its $1.6 million a year immigration enforcement contact with Maricopa County Sheriff Joe Arpaio, who’s facing widespread accusations of racial profiling.

[CA] Minuteman Project Mobile Consulate Protests Criticized
The Press-Enterprise / May 11, 2008
Recent Minuteman Project demonstrations targeting the Mexican consulate’s mobile services program seem designed more to intimidate immigrants than to reform immigration policy.

[USA] Anti-Immigrant Hate Speech Thrives On Right-Wing Radio Shows
The (Waltham, Mass.) Daily News Tribune / May 19, 2008
Racial slurs and harsh rhetoric demonizing all Latinos have found a home on conservative radio broadcasts.

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WESTCLIFFE, Colo. — A top aide to imprisoned fundamentalist Mormon polygamist leader Warren S. Jeffs has purchased $2 million worth of property in five locations along the remote eastern flank of the rugged Sangre De Cristo Mountains about 175 miles southwest of Denver, Hatewatch has learned.

Men, women and children members of the Fundamentalist Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-Day Saints, or FLDS, are occupying at least three of the properties. Their presence is causing anxiety among neighbors and public officials unsure how to react to the presence of a racist sect known to coerce underage girls into plural marriages.

“Quite frankly, we don’t know what to do,” said Custer County Sheriff Fred Jobe. “We are definitely aware that they here … but until they break some laws, there isn’t much that we can do.”

The real estate purchases by Lee A. Steed, a senior member of the FLDS, constitute the largest known cluster of land holdings outside of the FLDS-controlled communities of Colorado City, Ariz. and adjacent Hildale, Utah. Mr. Steed paid $725,000 cash to acquire two of the properties, real estate records show.

County commissioner Dick Downey said government officials have been quietly observing the influx of FLDS into the community but have not made it publicly known. But rumors abound in this small town and adjacent Silver Cliff, Colo., with a combined population about 1,000. ( continue to full post… )

[MO] Two Men Convicted Of Hate Crime Thrill Killing
The Kansas City Star / May 8, 2008
Kansas City residents Gary Eye, 21, and Steven Sandstrom, 22, were both convicted of randomly shooting to death a homeless black man targeted for the color of his skin in March 2005.

[CA] Public Defender Blames School For Murder Of Gay Student
The Los Angeles Times / May 8, 2008
The lawyer representing 14-year-old Brandon McInerney, who allegedly shot to death a gay classmate, argued that school officials should have quelled tensions between the two boys rather than allowing the victim to wear feminine accessories and flirt with McInerny.

[MI] Neo-Nazi Leader Schemes To Exploit Ailing Economy
The Livingston Daily Press & Argus / May 12, 2008
National Socialist Movement commander Jeff Schoep, who relocated the NSM to the Detroit area last December, sees recruitment opportunities in the region’s economic malaise and racial tensions.

[WI] ‘Die, Jew’ Scrawled On Synagogue Doors
The Wisconsin State Journal / May 5, 2008
Vandals drew three swastikas and wrote “Die, Jew” on the outside door and walls of the Beth Israel Center in Madison.

[GA] ‘Swastika Lawn Mower Man’ Re-Arrested
The Atlanta Journal-Constitution / May 9, 2008
Steven Whitfield, 31, who was arrested April 16 after he mowed swastikas into his lawn and pointed a rifle at passerby, was taken into custody again for aiming a firearm at a juvenile girl.

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[TN] Hate Crimes Against Hispanics Spiking In Tennessee
The Tennessean / May 10, 2008
As “illegal alien” for many people became synonymous with anyone Hispanic, the number of hate crimes targeting Hispanics in Tennessee more than doubled between 2006 and 2007.

[MO] FAIR-Backed Missouri Group Pushes Higher Education Ban
The Columbia Missourian / May 8, 2008
Missourians Against Illegal Immigration, a group founded by the Missouri state adviser to Federation for American Immigration Reform, placed advertisements in newspapers across the state to support a Senate bill that would ban illegal immigrants from higher education and jobs.

[CA] Lawyers For San Diego Minutemen Argue Highway Sign Case
The International Herald Tribune / May 10, 2008
Lawyers for the San Diego Minutemen argued in federal court that the state of California violated the group’s constitutional rights by relocating its Adopt-A-Highway location away from a border patrol checkpoint.

[CA] Minuteman Project Extends Consulate Protests
The Press-Enterprise / May 8, 2008
Minuteman Project activists continued demonstrating outside Mexican consulates in San Bernardino, Santa Ana and San Diego.

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It’s been a bad month at Black Rock for the Patriots Border Alliance, a border vigilante group formed last year by disgruntled former Minuteman Civil Defense Corps officials.

First Phoenix New Times blogger Stephen Lemons unearthed a photo of Patriots Border Alliance leaders and members posing with a wheelchair-bound Elton Hall, a septuagenarian neo-Nazi and past Arizona organizer for George Lincoln Rockwell’s American Nazi Party who still frequently attends racist skinhead festivals and anti-immigration demonstrations in the Phoenix area. Hall was injured in February when he was struck by a car while participating in a Patriots Border Alliance-sponsored protest outside a day labor center. The photo of him surrounded by adoring Patriots Border Alliance activists was posted on the group’s website accompanied by this caption: “PATRIOTS BORDER ALLIANCE HONORING ELTON HALL: In appreciation for your service, devotion, commitment to securing American border and promoting THE RULE OF LAW.”

Three days after the Hall photo surfaced, the El Paso Times ran a story in which Border Patrol spokesman Doug Mosier debunked several outlandish claims made by Patriots Border Alliance president Bob Wright at a recent meeting of the far-right Eagle Forum in Alamagordo, N.M. ( continue to full post… )

On May 1, the racist British National Party (BNP) won a seat on the 25-member London Assembly, which has the power to amend the London mayor’s budget and investigate and publish findings on matters of interest to Londoners. Richard Barnbrook, who will take the BNP seat after coming in fifth in the mayoral race and winning 5% of the overall vote, became the extreme right’s most visible elected politician in Britain as a result. All major parties had denounced the BNP in the run-up to the city elections, saying that it represented “hatred, violence and stupidity.”

In 2001, BNP head Nick Griffin, a Holocaust denier, told reporters that his party did not admit anyone not descended from European whites or “kindred” peoples. (The BNP has since accepted a tiny handful of people of color in order to bolster its battle against Muslims.) The party is particularly well known for its hardline anti-immigrant views. Its officials have proposed deporting all illegal immigrants and even paying legal immigrants to leave England, promising “voluntary resettlement whereby those immigrants who are legally here will be afforded the opportunity to return to their lands of ethnic origin.”

Despite his party’s affiliation with white nationalism, Barnbrook tried to reassure foreign-born Londoners after his election. “Do not be nervous. As long as you abide by our identity and laws of this land, come to me and I will see where we can help,” Barnbrook told the BBC.

Barnbrook was the best known of several BNP councillors — the rough equivalent of local City Council members in the United States — before his May election to the higher-ranking post. He was well known to most Londoners, in part because in 2006 he was accused of making a film 17 years earlier that was widely described as gay pornography. (The BNP opposes the “promotion” of homosexuality.) He angrily disputed the charge, saying it was simply an art film about “sexuality.” ( continue to full post… )