Defending the homeland…from Gomez and Ramirez

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Writing at Truthdig, Molly Ivins sees the president’s apparent tilt toward the enforcement-first approach to immigration reform favored by the House as “the early warning sign that we’re about to get an all-out immigrant-bashing campaign for the fall, complete with xenophobia, racism and blaming the weakest, least powerful people in the country for everything that’s wrong with it.”

House Republicans, who know a good socially divisive issue when they see one, are perfectly happy to blame illegal workers for everything. Trade policy, repealing taxes for the rich, corruption in Congress—it’s all done by illegal workers. Everywhere you look in this society, there’s a bunch of people named Gomez and Ramirez, all of them making decisions from the top—in charge of the Pentagon, heading the military-industrial complex, deciding the rich need tax relief, in charge of this stupid war, making decisions on Wall Street.

And, if I understand California Rep. Ed Royce correctly, these Gomez and Ramirez characters are also somehow connected, in unspecified ways, to…well…threats to the homeland. Royce, who is chairman of the International Relations Subcommittee on International Terrorism and Nonproliferation, held a hearing today at the Mexican border to belabor his point that America’s security depends on swift passage into law of the House’s draconian immigration bill. He said:

It’s elementary that to defend ourselves against our determined and resourceful enemies, our border must be secure.”

Better get used to this sort of thing. House committees will hold hearings outside Washington later this month on, among other things, making English the United States’ official language.

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We just wrapped up a shorter-than-normal, urgent-as-ever fundraising drive and we came up about $45,000 short of our $300,000 goal.

That means we're going to have upwards of $350,000, maybe more, to raise in online donations between now and June 30, when our fiscal year ends and we have to get to break-even. And even though there's zero cushion to miss the mark, we won't be all that in your face about our fundraising again until June.

So we urgently need this specific ask, what you're reading right now, to start bringing in more donations than it ever has. The reality, for these next few months and next few years, is that we have to start finding ways to grow our online supporter base in a big way—and we're optimistic we can keep making real headway by being real with you about this.

Because the bottom line: Corporations and powerful people with deep pockets will never sustain the type of journalism Mother Jones exists to do. The only investors who won’t let independent, investigative journalism down are the people who actually care about its future—you.

And we hope you might consider pitching in before moving on to whatever it is you're about to do next. We really need to see if we'll be able to raise more with this real estate on a daily basis than we have been, so we're hoping to see a promising start.

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