Marc Cooper, writing in LA Weekly, says the Arizona Minutemen are far less in number and impact than they make themselves out to be:

The Minutemen were basically a flop. Despite organizers’ claims that 450 people showed up the first day (befittingly on April Fools’ Day), reporters visibly equaled or outnumbered the actual participants. At no point could any reporter see evidence of more than 150 Minutemen gathered in one place — even though the first two days of activities were all about concentrating their forces in a pair of protest rallies.

But the bulk of the coverage continued to play along with the fiction that a mass of American citizens had come down here to stand against the immigrant hordes.

Not only that, but this militia is not really a militia. Most of the men aren't even armed.

Could the Bureau of Immigration and Customs Enforcement be gaining a heart?

Ming Kuang Chen, the Chinese delivery man who got trapped for three days in a Bronx elevator will not face deportation proceedings according to an ICE official:

``Getting locked in an elevator for three days doesn't make you immune to removal proceedings,'' said Immigration and Customs Enforcement spokesman Marc A. Raimondi. But top priority, he said, goes to aliens ``who pose the greatest threat to public safety and homeland security.''

No one should have asked Mr. Chen about his immigration status to begin with, let alone leaked it to the world:

Update: Investigation over, no forcible detention.

Update: Chris Simcox, one of the minutemen, was on tv tonight. He couldn't see anything wrong with making the undocumented man hold up the tee shirt, particularly since he was allowed to keep it.

**********
This didn't take long. Three of the self-styled Minuteman patrolling the Arizona border are under investigaton for their treatment of an undocumented person whom they allegedly forced to pose for the camera with a t-shirt that read:

"Bryan Barton caught an illegal alien and all I got was this T-shirt."

A stepping stone to the abuses of Abu Ghraib? Let's hope the Sheriff stays on top of it.

by TChris

A New Jersey school tried to teach Ryan Dwyer the wrong lesson: if you criticize your principal or teachers, even in your own home, writing on your own website, you will be punished. A federal judge taught the school the correct lesson: kids, like adults, are protected by the First Amendment.

On his Web site in the spring of 2003, Ryan noted that the Maple Place School didn't live up to its vaunted reputation and that he really hated it. He also discussed the disciplinary methods of the principal. He took note of some teachers he didn't like. And, it must be noted, he lauded some teachers he looked up to.

Offended by Dwyer's ideas and language, school district administrators ordered Dwyer to shut down his website. Then it suspended him, kicked him off the baseball team, and refused to let him take a class trip. Dwyer responded appropriately: he sued the school for violating his right to freedom of expression. Judge Stanley Chesler ruled in Dwyer's favor, vindicating Dwyer's right to be free from governmental retaliation for engaging in private speech, even if it offends school administrators. That's a lesson the school needed to learn.

David Lane, lawyer for embattled Professor Ward Churchill, wrote a letter Monday to University of Colorado acting chancellor Philip DiStefano, concerning the faculty committee investigation into Churchill's Indian heritage:

[Lane] wants officials to clarify how they intend to prove he is an American Indian, asking if they plan to use "the Nazi standard for racial purity."

"Do you wish to employ the Nazi standard for racial purity? Do you wish to employ the standard adopted by the United States government for determining Japanese ancestry in order to qualify for internment?"

Four of five pages of the letter were an attack on CU's investigation:

Campus protesters have scored a big victory in New York.

A planned CIA recruiting event at New York University (NYU) was canceled after the Campus Antiwar Network (CAN) called a protest demanding the CIA abandon its recruiting program at NYU. Twenty hours before the recruiting event was scheduled to begin, its organizers sent an e-mail to all those who had registered, headlined, "The CIA Speaker Event scheduled for Thursday, March 31 @6PM has been CANCELED due to the possibility of a protest by the Campus Antiwar Network."

Fred Korematsu died at 86 this week.

Fred Korematsu, 86, who unsuccessfully fought Japanese American internment camps during World War II before finally winning in court nearly four decades later, died March 30....

Mr. Korematsu became a symbol of civil rights for challenging the World War II internment orders that sent 120,000 Japanese Americans to government camps. His conviction for opposing the internment was overturned in U.S. District Court in 1983.

Mr. Korematsu helped win a national apology and reparations for internment camp survivors and their families in 1988. He was honored by President Bill Clinton in 1998 with the nation's highest civilian honor, the Presidential Medal of Freedom.

He was an unsung hero.

His legacy is the reminder that the Constitution must protect basic rights, even in wartime.

This should be an April Fool's joke, but it's not. Colorado state Representative Jim Welker of Loveland, Colorado (same neck of the woods as U.S. Congresswoman Marilyn Musgrave, chief proponent of the Federal Marriage Amendment that would ban gay marriage) warned his fellow legislators, with a straight face, that if we allow gay marriage today, we'll be inviting marriages between humans and animals tomorrow.

"Where do you draw the line?" Rep. Jim Welker asked. "A year ago in India, a woman married her dog."..."A guy in Boulder tried to marry his horse a couple years ago," Welker said.

These weren't even back-room comments....he made them at a press conference supporting a state constitutional amendment to ban gay marriage.

And people think Ward Churchill is dangerous?

Illinois Governor Rod Blagojevich has struck back at pharmacists who think it's okay to play the morals card at work:

Gov. Rod Blagojevich filed an emergency rule Friday requiring pharmacies that sell contraceptives to fill prescriptions for birth control quickly, following recent incidents in which a Chicago pharmacist refused to fill orders for contraceptives because of moral opposition.

"Our regulation says that if a woman goes to a pharmacy with a prescription for birth control, the pharmacy or the pharmacist is not allowed to discriminate or to choose who he sells it to or who he doesn't sell it to," Blagojevich said. "The pharmacy will be expected to accept that prescription and fill it ... No delays. No hassles. No lectures."

[link via Atrios.]

May she rest in peace.

Is this going to be a pattern? Remember "the kicker" at the Republican National Convention and how no one wanted to give him up? He's still at large.

Now there's the case we wrote about yesterday, of the Denver Three. No one in the Republican camp wants to identify him....as Jim Spencer says in the Denver Post, the Run-out has become the Runaround.

Terri Schiavo's parents' legal appeals are now exhausted. The Supreme Court has denied their their latest filing (pdf). Scotus Blog reports the same.

May she die and rest in peace. Time to move on. Robert Friedman's column in the St. Petersburg Times has a persective that I suspect will be echoed frequently in coming days. [link via Atrios.]