Immigration rights marchers begin trek to Labrador’s Meridian office

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WILDER — About 20 people gathered Monday near Chula Vista Acres in Wilder to begin a three-day, 30-mile walk from that spot to Meridian City Hall in the name of immigration reform, today’s Idaho Press Tribune reports.

“The walk is symbolic,” said Ruby Menendez, a member of the Idaho Community Action Network. “We are collectively taking a path, current voters and future voters, to recognize that real change, lasting change to our immigration system will build a future together.”

The event is a collaborative effort between the ICAN, the Coalition for Immigrant Rights of Idaho and the Community Council of Idaho. The group walked to Our Lady of the Valley Catholic Church on Monday and held a vigil Monday night and will continue walking to Nampa all day today.

On Wednesday, they plan to arrive by 1 p.m. at Meridian City Hall for a press conference and rally, and will deliver “thousands of petitions” to Idaho Rep. Raul Labrador’s office to pressure him to vote in favor of the immigration reform bill.

And Labrador sees any compromise at this time as “pandering to Hispanics.”

“In fact, the biggest mistake we can make as conservatives is to pander to the Hispanic community and to think that the only way we’re going to get votes is to vote a certain way on immigration,” Labrador said at the monthly ‘Conversations with Conservatives’ event. “Because what we start doing is, we start pandering and we start giving goodies out to people, then we’re going to get into a bidding war with the Democratic Party.”

Labrador said that inciting a bidding war with Democrats over issues such as immigration would only result in Republicans losing because “Democrats are always more willing to give goodies to a certain group than we are.”.

The congressman went on to say he wishes that Republicans would stop basing legislation and policies off of politics because the American people want immigration legislation based on the principle of a secure border.

A bit of history:

On June 5, Labrador, a former immigration attorney, informed his colleagues that he was leaving the bipartisan group negotiating a House immigration bill because he was not satisfied that taxpayers would not have to foot the bill for immigrants in the country illegally in their legislation.

Rather than agree to detailed language on healthcare, the group decided instead to essentially punt the issue and hew to the contours of the Senate Gang of Eight legislation, which makes clear that undocumented immigrants in a provisional legal status cannot receive federal benefits from the 2010 healthcare law.

GOP “Scamdal”-mongering Just Reminds People Why They Hate Republicans

EXCERPT:

Every once in a while, Republicans forget the first rule of being a parasite: Hide.  For a while, they prospered in the relative obscurity of doing nothing, contributing nothing, and obstructing all attempts by the Obama administration to do Something, at the behest of their ultra-wealthy masters who don’t need and don’t want American government to work (or even really exist).  Like barnacles on the Ship of State, they were known in the general public largely by the constant drag on progress they exerted, which had the ironic – and for them, desirable – effect of being blamed on the guy at the wheel.

For most people, the Republican Party’s brazen corruption, hypocrisy, and treasonous lust to punish the nation for voting against them was an unseen irritant that only served to increase their annoyance with the President for not acting as though the difference in visibility were a difference in power.  And then Republicans went ahead and reminded everyone that, yes, they are The Problem, and have been The Problem all along.  At a time of economic hardship created by them and exacerbated by their refusal to pass any form of economic stimulus in years, they’ve opened the taxpayer spigot to fish for scandals to benefit themselves, and are publicly making a spectacle of the fact that they consider the US government their private property.   Thanks for the reality check …

 READ THE FULL STORY

 

Suspected Boston Bomber Receives All-Star Defense Team

Boston bombing suspect Dzhokhar Tsarnaev managed to say just one word to a federal judge when charges were filed against him in a makeshift courtroom held at the side of his hospital bed, “No.”

No, he could not afford an attorney.

As a result, Tsarnaev, 19, who is facing the possibility of the death penalty for his alleged role in last week’s terror attack, will be represented by one of the most experienced and well respected public defenders in the country, Miriam Conrad.

Conrad heads the Federal Public Defender Office in Boston and her resume includes defending “shoe bomber” Richard Reid in 2001 for trying to blow up a Paris to Miami jetliner.

Read the full story on ABC NEWS!

Glenn Beck Clings to Boston Conspiracy Theory

Glenn Beck has spent lots of time in recent days alleging that the Boston Marathon bombing was carried out by a conspiracy that revolved around a shadowy Saudi national questioned by police in a Boston hospital in the immediate aftermath of the tragedy.

OK, is he just winging it here, or does the ex-Fox, now-independent radio and Internet video host have any real evidence for this charge?

He says he does, unsurprisingly. On his show Wednesday morning Mr. Beck produced a document that he claimed is an official US “event report” showing that the Saudi in question is a bad, bad man who was on a no-fly list and already subject to visa revocation.

Yahoo! News has the full story.