Last week, hate radio host Michael Savage, in conjunction with the Thomas More Law Center, filed a lawsuit against Homeland Security Secretary Janet Napolitano. They claim DHS has violated the plaintiffs’ First and Fifth Amendment rights by “attempting to chill their free speech, expressive association, and equal protection rights.” GWU Law Professor Orin Kerr responds:

Isn’t the lawsuit frivolous? As I read it, the lawsuit is claiming that the issuance of a government report criticizing certain groups violates the plaintiffs’ constitutional rights. But the Constitution doesn’t provide a constitutional right to have the government not say things that might be considered criticism. Perhaps the plaintiffs want the Constitution to be radically reinterpreted by activist judges to invent some brand-new constitutional rights?

Today’s Progress Report has more here on what the DHS report actually says and how conservatives are reacting.

On Monday, ThinkProgress interviewed freshman Rep. Joseph Cao (R-LA), who fled Vietnam at the age of 8 after the fall of Saigon to become the first Vietnamese-American to serve in Congress.

We asked him to respond to comments from right-wing radio host Michael Savage, who said that political refugees “who have never used a telephone, a toothbrush, or toilet paper” come to the U.S. and “bring their destitute ways to this country, and they never assimilate.” “And then their children become gang-bangers,” Savage added. Cao condemned the statements as “racist” and “repulsive.” “I have assimilated, and assimilated well, I believe,” said Cao, who had never used a toilet before coming to America.

On Tuesday, Savage defended his remarks, restating that “most refugees” — “particularly from certain countries” — do not assimilate to the United States:

SAVAGE: We’re arguing over a junior Congressman from Louisiana, Republican at that, who is already attacking Michael Savage for saying what I believe to be true, which is that most refugees who come here, particularly from certain countries, do not assimilate to this nation. … All I have to do is have you go look around a mall, you’ll see many 14-year-olds pushing carriages with two babies because it’s a meal ticket for them.

Listen here:

Savage’s ire seems most directed at non-European immigrants — immigrants like Cao. He insisted that today’s immigrants are “not the same as European immigrants” in the early 20th century, and that the U.S. “must have a dialogue as to which immigrants and from which nation they want.”

Other extreme right-wingers have suggested that only Europeans should be allowed to immigrate to the United States. For example, Pat Buchanan — who warned against the dissolution of the “civilization that we as whites created in Europe and America” — said the U.S. “should favor folks from cultures and civilization that have been assimilated before,” i.e., Europeans.

What’s more, a recent study by the Manhattan Institute found that “immigrants of the past quarter-century have been assimilating in the United States at a notably faster rate than did previous generations.”

Yesterday, conservative talker Michael Savage joined Rush Limbaugh and Mike Gallagher in arguing that Gen. Colin Powell’s endorsement of Sen. Barack Obama (D-IL) was based entirely on race. As Media Matters first noted, Savage expanded on his argument by claiming, “[T]he only people who don’t seem to vote based on race are whites of European origin.” Listen here:

Powell said specifically during his Meet the Press appearance that his endorsement was not based on Obama’s race. “If I had only had that in mind, I could have done this six, eight, 10 months ago,” he remarked.

In the ongoing fallout from his screed against children with autism, right-wing radio host Michael Savage has been kicked off Los Angeles’ KGIL and will be replaced by conservative talker Lars Larson, according to a Larson press release. LA is the second largest radio market in the country. Already, radio stations in Ohio, Mississippi, and Virginia have dropped Savage, and a host of advertisers have done the same.

Last week, Media Matters caught right-wing radio talker Michael Savage claiming that autism is a “fraud” and “a racket” where “99 percent of the cases, it’s a brat who hasn’t been told to cut the act out.” But Savage’s controversial remarks about autistic children have gotten him booted off Cleveland’s airwaves, the Cleveland Plain-Dealer reports:

WHK AM/1420, the only Cleveland-area station carrying Savage’s radio talk show, is breaking its contract with Savage’s syndicator, Talk Radio Network, said Mark Jaycox, who manages the Cleveland stations under the Salem Communications corporate umbrella.

“This guy’s a knucklehead, and I want to get rid of him,” Jaycox said. The radio station Super Talk Mississippi announced recently that they were canceling Savage’s show because of the autism comments.

Responding to right wing radio host Michael Savage’s recent comments that autism is “a fraud” where “99 percent of the cases, it’s a brat who hasn’t been told to cut the act out,” insurance giant Aflac announced that it will no longer advertise on his nationally syndicated show:

“Aflac has a strong commitment to helping children through the Aflac Cancer Center and Aflac Foundation,” said a rep. “We understand that radio hosts pick on any number of targets however we found his recent comments about autistic children to be both inappropriate and insensitive.“

This isn’t the first time an advertiser had ditched Savage’s show. Nearly 20 companies pulled their ads after the Council on American-Islamic Relations launched a campaign last year urging radio listeners to express their concerns about Savage’s hate-fueled remarks. His program reaches nearly 8 million listeners each week.

Last week, Media Matters caught right-wing radio talker Michael Savage claiming that autism is a “fraud” and “a racket” where “99 percent of the cases, it’s a brat who hasn’t been told to cut the act out.” Parents of autistic children are outraged, saying Savage’s comments were “way, way, way over the line and cruel.” But Savage refuses to apologize. On Larry King Live last night, he told guest host Glenn Beck that he had simply been “taken out of context” by “men who specialize in hating families and children, namely Media Matters.” Watch it:

Though Beck said he was sympathetic to someone being taken out of context, he told Savage that “as a dad with a child with special needs,” his baseless attack on autistic children “cuts right.”

Transcript: Read more

Yesterday on his radio show, right wing talker Michael Savage said that autism is “a fraud” and “a racket” and that “in 99 percent of the cases, it’s a brat who hasn’t been told to cut the act out.” Savage then asserted that all these “brat[s]” need as a father to tell them to “stop acting like a putz“:

That’s what autism is. What do you mean they scream and they’re silent? They don’t have a father around to tell them, ‘Don’t act like a moron. You’ll get nowhere in life. Stop acting like a putz. Straighten up. Act like a man. Don’t sit there crying and screaming, idiot.’” Savage concluded, “[I]f I behaved like a fool, my father called me a fool. And he said to me, ‘Don’t behave like a fool.’ The worst thing he said — ‘Don’t behave like a fool. Don’t be anybody’s dummy. Don’t sound like an idiot. Don’t act like a girl. Don’t cry.’ That’s what I was raised with. That’s what you should raise your children with. Stop with the sensitivity training. You’re turning your son into a girl, and you’re turning your nation into a nation of losers and beaten men. That’s why we have the politicians we have.”

Savage later claimed that there was “an asthma epidemic amongst minority children” because “the children got extra welfare if they were disabled.” Media Matters has the audio.

On the Wednesday edition of his radio show, far right talker Michael Savage declared his support for the execution for any lawyer who represents accused terrorism suspects. “I’d execute any lawyer who would do this to this country in a time like this,” said Savage. Later, while talking with a caller, he specifically said he would “hang every lawyer who went down to Guantanamo“:

SAVAGE: Yeah, that’s why they had a pipe bomb and their lawyer said they were firecrackers. I tell you, I’d hang the lawyer. If I ran this country, I’d hang the lawyer. I would try her for aiding and abetting terrorism — I’d hang her and I’d hang every lawyer who went down to Guantánamo to defend those murderers.

Many of the lawyers defending detainees at Guantanamo Bay are actually members of the military. Media Matters, who has the audio, points out that in March, Savage advocated putting “left-wing lawyers” in Abu Ghraib.

Earlier this week, after Sen. Edward Kennedy (D-MA) was diagnosed with a brain tumor, right-wing talker Michael Savage offensively mocked Kennedy’s condition by playing the Dead Kennedys song “California Über Alles” and reading aloud its lyrics on his radio show. In an expletive-laden interview with the Boston Phoenix, Dead Kennedys lead singer Jello Biafra responded to Savage’s use of his song, saying he took the “song way the hell out of context and did it deliberately.” From the interview:

But the bigger issue is Savage himself and how the hell he gets away with stuff like saying this, and saying that people with AIDS should be put in concentration camps. And then when people protest at the station, he calls on his own listeners to come down and beat them up.