Badges?! We DO need some stinking badges!!

The Dispatch/Argus had a piece about a meeting recently held in Rock Island by the Minutemen, a recently formed and growing group led by some right wingers from the southwest who have taken to appointing themeselves extra-legal defenders of our borders from illegal immigrants.

The impending opening of the enormous Triumph hog slaughtering and processing facility and the possibility that many of the jobs there may eventually end up beign taken by imported and illegal immigrants has attracted the Minutemen to the area in hopes of recruiting more wing-nuts to their cause. They, along with their counterparts, "Casa Guanajuanto" and it's president Stella Schneckloth, have both taken advantage of and are trying to demagougue the issue beyond it's true scope.

I didn't post about the Minutemen and their appearance as it's a messy issue, and these people don't help and their presense on the scene serves to bring a rather ugly element into the reasonable concerns some have over the issue of illegal immigrants coming to the area. They're coming to the area is scarcely justified, nor is the efforts of Schneckloth to inflate the issue from the other side of the spectrum.

Dave Barrett at "Moline Democratic Maverick" attended the meeting held by this group of wanna-be vigilantes and offers his insight.