The Illinois Coalition for Immigrant and Refugee Rights is calling on GOP gubernatorial candidate Bill Brady to cancel his plans to appear onstage with Illinois Minuteman leader Rosanna Pulido at a Tea Party event this Saturday in Bartlett. Pulido, a one-time congressional candidate, is known for her inflammatory language and hard-right views on immigration policy, a subject Brady broached on the trail last week. The group asked the same of 14th District Congressional GOP nominee candidate Randy Hultgren, who is also a confirmed speaker for the event.
On last night's 9 p.m. broadcast, Fox Chicago featured an interview with Illinois Minutemen Project Director Rosanna Pulido. At one point in the discussion, anchor Jeff Goldblatt highlighted a press conference yesterday in which local religous leaders denounced Arizona's draconian new immigration law. After watching a clip of Father Larry Dowling saying that the legislation "has its roots in white supremacist ideology," Pulido responded: "It's name-calling. What the left only knows how to do is name-call." Watch it (full video here):
It's kind of amazing to hear Pulido decry "name-calling" considering that, in comments posted to the right-wing Free Republic website under the pseudonym "chicagolady," she called gays "fudge packers" and repeatedly referred to Barack Obama as "Osama." And while we're on the topic of white supremacy, she once described Mexicans as the new "Klu Klux Klan with a tan."
Why this woman gets airtime on our local network stations is beyond me.
Looking for competing viewpoints in the coverage of the Wrigley Field immigration protest yesterday, WTTW's Chicago Tonight crew tracked down Illinois Minutemen Project Director Rosanna Pulido to get her say on the Arizona law. Not surprisingly, the inflammatory former congressional candidate criticized immigrant rights groups, saying that their outrage has been driven by "a lot of spin and a lot of emotion." Watch it:
PULIDO:
It's a lot of spin and a lot of emotion. And what people need to do is
understand that the Arizona law simply unties the hands of police
officers, when they do make a stop, to find out if the person that they
stopped is a fugitive that is wanted in some jurisdiction. That is a
police officer's job.
In fact, Pulido is the one "spinning" about the Arizona law. It doesn't "untie an officer's hands" when he or she make a routine stop. The law instead requires police officers to question a resident's immigration status -- regardless of behavior -- if
the official has any "reasonable suspicion" to believe the person is
undocumented. Forcing police checks at the grocery store or a local
school can't just be dismissed as a normal part of a police officer's job. Why WTTW is quoting her as a credible source on this subject is beyond us.
In an op-ed published today,
Illinois Coalition for Immigrant and Refugee Rights (ICIRR) executive director
Joshua Hoyt writes that, while the defeat of Republican and anti-immigrant activist Rosanna Pulido
in yesterday's 5th Congressional District special election was &...
During last night's WTTW debate betwen the three candidates in the IL-5 special election on Tuesday, GOP candidate Rosanna "Chicagolady" Pulido not surprisingly laid out a few of her extreme right-wing policy positions. For instance, she said she opposes a cap-and-...
In her recent note on the right-wing website Free Republic, 5th Congressional District GOP candidate Rosanna "Chicagolady" Pulido apologized for her inflammatory comments in that forum over the years, acknowledging that her racist and homophobic statements (which ...
In their editorial endorsing Mike Quigley in the 5th Congressional District special election today, the Sun-Times takes a moment to point out that they're no fan of GOP candidate Rosanna "Chicagolady" Pulido:
A brief word about Pulido. She is the founder ...
As we noted on Monday, a newly-created blog has been compiling inflammatory comments posted to the Free Republic website by Rosanna Pulido, the Republican candidate in the 5th Congressional District race. For years, Pulido has contributed to the right-wing site under the ...
This coming Monday, the disability rights organization Access Living will be hosting a forum with a multi-partisan group of candidates in the 5th Congressional District race. Here's the list of those who have confirmed:
Democrats
Mike Quigley, Sara Feigenholtz, ...
