Smearing the Chicago Minuteman Project

I just read this article over at The NewStandard. I hardly know where to start.

In the eyes of the Chicago Minuteman Project, Rosa Ramirez and Jorge Ibarra are burglars, having "broken into the country and stolen American jobs."

But the jobs Ramirez and Ibarra "stole" were paying only half the state minimum wage.

Notice the use of quotes to sarcastically indicate disbelief of the words in quotation marks. Two in the first two sentences. Much akin to my telling you that Kari Lydersen, the piece's author, is a "journalist." (See more in my post titled I Just Stepped into a Pile of Crap)

Lydersen goes on to sympathetically tell the story of Rosa Ramirez & Jorege Ibarra, two illegal aliens who have filed a labor claim against Illinois Republican gubernatorial hopeful Jim Oberweis. My previous coverage of that story is here and here.

Joshua Hoyt is director of the ICIRR, which helped Ramirez & Ibarra file the claim.

Hoyt believes the calls for his prosecution arise from resentment. The Chicago Minuteman group supports Oberweis for making illegal immigration a main campaign issue. "No one likes to have the hypocrisy of their heroes pointed out to them," Hoyt said. "So [the Minutemen] responded with howls of distress and called me a traitor and tried to deport the workers who were brave enough to report the minimum-wage violations."

Hoyt thinks Rosa & Jorge were "brave enough to report the minimum-wage violation?" How about the Minutemen being brave enough to report the immigration violations? Hoyt would make heroes of the illegal immigrants who broke our laws to come here. So I guess he didn't like it when the Minutemen pointed out the hypocrisy of his heroes filing a legal claim that came about because they were breaking the law?

"[The Minuteman members] speak to the racism and small-mindedness of a minority, but that kind of hate doesn’t fly in Illinois," said Hoyt. "The general population in Illinois hasn’t shown any appetite for this. People here have big hearts, not small minds."

I would also copy and paste in the response of the Minutemen to these inflammatory charges for you to read, except that, in all her journalistic integrity, Kari Lydersen didn't get any.

Shocker.

As seen @
third world county (note the proper geographic scale)

Diane's stuff (good luck, BWBW!)

Stuck On Stupid (I know I am, but what are you?)

TMH's Bacon Bits (bacon? for Christmas?)

Is It Just Me? (Yep, sorry)

Illegal Immigration
Journalism
Media Bias
Jim Oberweis