Every time the Orange County Register does a story about the Reconquista and refers to local Know Nothings as “anti-illegal immigration activists”, I laugh. Loudly. Nelson Muntz style. As we've documented in this paper since forever, it's never been about the legal part in our immigration wars–whether it was Jamaican laborers in the 1940s, Vietnamese refugees in the 1970s through the 1990s, or Mexicans since forever, it's always been immigrants and their weird culture that has antagonized pendejos, period. But, whatever: the Reg has to maintain the illusion of objectivity, especially for its wacky readers who'll still paint them as Aztlanistas–HA!
Usually, the “anti-illegal immigration activist” quoted is Barbara Coe, the batshit loca head of the California Coalition for Immigration Reform. Here's a simple question for Grand Street: why are you so afraid of labeling CCIR and Coe as the hate group they are?
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The Southern Poverty Law Center, which has exposed hate groups for decades, has listed Coe's coven in their hate-group map for more than 10 years, if not longer. Yet in all those years, the Register has mentioned that CCIR is a hate group exactly once–in a 2002 article that allowed Coe to deny that they are and portray herself as a victim.
I've written in the past about how the Register is foolish for even treating Coe as a legitimate opinion on the subject of immigration, so the least the Reg can do is at least tell readers the rest of the normal world considers CCIR as a hate group–but they won't. The closest they've ever come to acknowledge Coe's hate is in a July article about the rise of conspiracy-obsessed folks in the local Republican Party, in which veteran political reporter Martin Wisckol wrote that Coe “believes that Obama was foreign-born, that there is a Marxist takeover
afoot, that radical Islam is infiltrating the government, that radical
Muslims and Latinos want to kill Americans, and that the government is
putting poison in jet-fuel systems as part of a “chemtrails” effort to
poison the country from the skies above”–all insanities the Weekly exposed.
And yet this past week, Wisckol quoted Coe for a story about how Know Nothings like her think Texas governor Rick Perry isn't Know Nothing enough, referring to her as a mere “anti-illegal immigration activist.” What about the truth, Marty? Scared she'll sic her crones on you? Just talk to them about Benny Goodman, and they'll be fine…
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