500,000 march in LA

The White House's recent efforts to remind the public that we need to be frightened and can only trust the Bushies to protect us from terrorists have largely overshadowed that other reliable election-year tactic: xenophobia. But not for everyone.

Thousands of immigration advocates marched through downtown Los Angeles in one of the largest demonstrations for any cause in recent U.S. history.

More than 500,000 protesters — demanding that Congress abandon attempts to make illegal immigration a felony and to build more walls along the border — surprised police who estimated the crowd size using aerial photographs and other techniques, police Cmdr. Louis Gray Jr. said.

Wearing white T-shirts to symbolize peace, the demonstrators chanted "Mexico!" "USA!" and "Si se puede," an old Mexican-American civil rights shout that means "Yes, we can."

In Denver, more than 50,000 people protested downtown Saturday, according to police who had expected only a few thousand. Phoenix was similarly surprised Friday when an estimated 20,000 people gathered for one of the biggest demonstrations in city history, and more than 10,000 marched in Milwaukee on Thursday.

There's a very good reason for Milwaukee to be on the list-- the proposed legislation that sparked the rallies "would make it a felony to be in the U.S. illegally, impose new penalties on employers who hire illegal immigrants, require churches to check the legal status of people they help, and erect fences along one-third of the U.S.-Mexican border." And the driving force behind it is Wisconsin's Jim "Babyman" Sensenbrenner, a committed Bush Republican and the author the bill.