Arizona In the Spotlight

Arizona is making headlines again and they are not good. Our dimwit governor, Jan Brewer, embarrassed herself by giggling through a senior moment and by using bad grammar. Will that turn the voters off? Probably not. Given the fact that voters have the attention span of a flea, it will be forgotten by election day. Gov. Brewer will not make that mistake again because she has refused Terry Goddard's repeated request for more debates. The lady knows her brain is on hold.

Here are a few things going on in my State that I wish were not happening, but remember we have the Grand Canyon and the Sonora Desert. Please don't write us off because of a few nutcases in our government.

Excerpts from the Gail Collins op-ed piece in this morning's NYTimes:

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

The evening ended when she stomped away from reporters who were yelling: “Governor, please answer the question about the headless bodies.”

Brewer is an unelected governor, a Republican who moved into the job when Janet Napolitano, a Democrat, was named secretary of homeland security.

The governor has been on national programs on Fox 20 times since April to talk about illegal immigration, but she has been generally unavailable to the Arizona reporters.

Inquiring minds wanted to know about the beheading part. “Oh, our law enforcement agencies have found bodies in the desert — either buried or just lying out there that have been beheaded,” she said in an interview. This was both memorable and untrue.

Politicians, in search of a winning issue, created the fear all by themselves. During John McCain’s sterling performance in his primary campaign this summer, he contended that cars full of illegal immigrants “are intentionally causing accidents on the freeway.”

The nonexistent beheadings and alleged drive-by assaults are being brought up at a time when, as Goddard (Democratic candidate for governor) points out, “violent crime is at the lowest level it’s been since 1983 and crime along the border is at least at a 10-year-low.”

Goddard, who is the state attorney general, is absolutely passionate on this subject. He can go on for hours about the Treasury Department’s failure to follow the dirty money. He worked with Western Union to stop the smugglers’ ability to receive payments by wire for their human cargo. He’s outraged about the way our laws limiting the amount of cash people can carry across the border haven’t kept up with the modern methods of transferring money.

Brewer also said that the difference between her and her opponent was that “I’ve done something. Terry hasn’t did anything.” one of these issues, alas, are nearly as exciting as headless bodies or demonic drivers.

!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

Amy Collins is an Arizona resident and she had this to say as posted on Truthout.:

~~~~~~~~~~~

I'm only assuming that Brewer's community college radiological technician training, which makes up the sum of her formal education, did not likely include debate as part of its curriculum.

A recent report by the Pew Hispanic Trust shows that illegal immigration numbers are down by over two-thirds, and recent reports by the FBI have indicated that crime is significantly down in Arizona. Another government report shows that undocumented immigrants actually improve the economy and boost wages and jobs. The drumming up of fear tactics on the part of Brewer, has now revealed to be the only ace she is holding to guarantee her election bid. Her mendacity about balancing the state budget, an inability to articulate how she plans to bring jobs to the state and her sidestepping the fact that her top advisers have well-publicized ties to prison corporations - prisons that are now shown to be unsafe to the general public - all added up to show a woman who is sadly out of her depth and is clutching the life preserver of the "immigration problem" as her only hope.

!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

More news from the state of the weirdos. Arizona may finally get justice. The sadistic sheriff, Joe Arpaio is being sued again. This time the DOJ is not headed by a Republican administration that turned a blind eye to his shenanigans. From Truthout, Nadia Prupis writes:

The US Justice Department (DOJ) filed a lawsuit against controversial Arizona Sheriff Joe Arpaio on Thursday for alleged civil rights violations and refusal to cooperate with a federal probe.

"The actions of the sheriff's office are unprecedented," said Thomas E. Perez, assistant attorney general for the Civil Rights Division. "It is unfortunate that the department was forced to resort to litigation to gain access to public documents and facilities."

Tthe DOJ has attempted to investigate Arpaio for a litany of alleged civil rights abuses, including racial profiling, unconstitutional searches and seizures and enforcement of English-only policies in his jails.

A separate probe launched this year by a grand jury is looking into abuse of power charges against Arpaio after he conducted baseless prosecutions of political opponents. In 1997, the DOJ also investigated Arpaio for civil rights abuses within his jails, alleging that he deliberately failed to discipline guards who subjected inmates to excessive use of force. Arpaio's compliance in that case led to the implementation of more humane jail policies, including the limited use of pepper spray, stun guns and restraint chairs.

Arpaio expressed disappointment in the ongoing investigation. Arpaio said. d to proceed with "I'm going to continue, maybe tomorrow, to enforce all the illegal immigration laws ... As [State Senator Russell Pearce] always says, 'Take the handcuffs off the cops.' I'm not going to be intimidated by the federal government going to court against us."

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

Lest you forget, the same Russell Pearce is the one responsible for that unconstitutional law, SB1070.

Arizona's Shame II

By now all the arguments, for and against, have been heard regarding the law mistakenly titled "Support Our Law Enforcement and Safe Neighborhoods", as it continues to head the news. I will repeat my arguments against this misguided law.

• A suspect is guilty until proven innocent under this anti-immigration law.
• 
  
• The unintended consequences are already apparent. Tourists and conventions will avoid this state because it appears to be racist.

• Mexican nationals, who normally add to Arizona's economy, will be reluctant to shop here.
• 
  
• It will cost Arizona much needed funds to fight the coming lawsuits.
• 
  
• Arizona's image has been tarnished world wide. The residents of this state are perceived to be backward and lacking in compassion.
• 
  
• The law does nothing to address the real problem of human and drug trafficking and the accompanying violence. Those criminals are already expert at evading the law officers. Nothing will change after this law is enforced.
• 
  
• It is very divisive, pitting Anglos against Hispanics.
• 
  
• There is no way to enforce it without racial profiling as Tucson's sheriff, Clarence Dupnik. has made clear. (He is refusing to enforce the law.)
• 
  
• It will separate families of those undocumented immigrants who are caught without their papers. Constitutional law makes children born in the U. S. automatic citizens, whether the extremists like it or not. If parents are deported, what shall we do with the children?
• 
  
• It will make life more unpleasant for legal citizens who happen to have dark skin and brown eyes.
  

• It will overwhelm our Department of Immigration with more undocumented immigrants to lock up and the cost will be astronomical in money and human lives.

In defense of this law I found only one valid argument; it shines a light on a very pressing problem that needs to be resolved. It may, or may not, force the lawmakers in Washington to deal with the issue. However, it was the very same ones who applaud this Arizona law who defeated George Bush's sensible attempt at Immigration Reform by screaming "Amnesty" and demanding that all 11 million undocumented immigrants be deported. How illogical is that?

Political opportunists like Arizona Senators, John McCain and John Kyle have an ad running in Arizona with their own unworkable solution to securing our borders. They will put 30,000 National Guardmen and Federal troops on the border and build more fence. I think most of the National Guard is in Afghanistan and I would applaud that part of their proposal if it would bring those guys home to safeguard our borders. As to the fence; fences can be breached so easily that it is almost pathetic that some people think this is a solution. We are not a medieval walled city. Even though the fence will keep some out, it is so expensive that it isn't worth the cost.

George Will calls the opposition to this law, liberal hysteria. He bases part of his argument on the fact that it has been a federal law since 1952 that every alien have proof in his possession of a receipt or certificate of alien registration. While this is true, it is quite another matter to require a proof that you are here legally
(Like having proof that the car you are driving is registered) as opposed to giving the police the authority to stop and demand to see the papers of any person who looks like he/she might be an undocumented immigrant. That is where the comparison to Nazi Germany is relevant.

George Will goes on to say that Cardinal Mahony's statement comparing asking for papers to Nazi Germany or Stalinist Russia is a liberal tradition. He basis this vile argument on FDR's talk of returning tho the 1920's as the "spirit of Fascism".

This morning Frank Rich, NYT, tied this law into what is happening with the Tea Party movement. Here are a few paragraph's from his commentary.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~

The more you examine the law’s (AZ law) provisions and proponents, the more you realize that it’s the latest and (so far) most vicious battle in a far broader movement that is not just about illegal immigrants — and that is steadily increasing its annexation of one of America’s two major political parties.

Arizonans, like all Americans, have every right to be furious about Washington’s protracted and bipartisan failure to address the immigration stalemate----- is hardly tantamount to being a bigot. But the Arizona law expressing that anger is bigoted, and in a very particular way. The law dovetails seamlessly with the national “Take Back America” crusade that has attended the rise of Barack Obama and the accelerating demographic shift our first African-American president represents.

The crowd that wants Latinos to show their papers if there’s a “reasonable suspicion” of illegality is often the same crowd still demanding that the president produce a document proving his own citizenship. Lest there be any doubt of that confluence, Rush Limbaugh hammered the point home after Obama criticized Arizona’s action. “I can understand Obama being touchy on the subject of producing your papers,” he said. “Maybe he’s afraid somebody’s going to ask him for his.” Or, as Glenn Beck chimed in about the president last week: “What has he said that sounds like American?”

To the “Take Back America” right, the illegitimate Obama is Illegal Alien No. 1. It’s no surprise that of the 35 members of the Arizona House who voted for the immigration law (the entire Republican caucus), 31 voted soon after for another new law that would require all presidential candidates to produce birth certificates to qualify for inclusion on the state’s 2012 ballot. With the whole country now watching Arizona, that “birther” bill was abruptly yanked Thursday.

The legislators who voted for both it and the immigration law were exclusively Republicans, but what happened in the Arizona G.O.P. is not staying in Arizona. Officials in at least 10 other states are now teeing up their own new immigration legislation. They are doing so even in un-Arizonan places like Ohio, Missouri, Maryland and Nebraska, none of them on the Department of Homeland Security’s 2009 list of the 10 states that contain three-quarters of America’s illegal immigrant population.

The one group of Republicans that has been forthright in criticizing the Arizona law is the Bush circle: Jeb Bush, the former speechwriter Michael Gerson, the Homeland Security secretary Tom Ridge, the adviser Mark McKinnon and, with somewhat more equivocal language, Karl Rove. McKinnon and Rove know well that Latino-bashing will ultimately prove political suicide in a century when Hispanic Americans are well on their way to becoming the largest minority in the country and are already the swing voters in many critical states.

The Bushies, however, have no power and no juice in the new conservative order. The former president is nearly as reviled in some Tea Party circles as Obama is.

When Graham had the gall to work with Chuck Schumer of New York on an immigration reform bill, the hard-line Americans for Legal Immigration punished him by spreading rumors about his private life as loudly as possible. Graham has been backing away from supporting the immigration bill ever since.

It’s harder and harder to cling to the conventional wisdom that the Tea Party is merely an element in the G.O.P., not the party’s controlling force — the tail that’s wagging the snarling dog. It’s also hard to maintain that the Tea Party’s nuttier elements are merely a fringe of a fringe.

The Times/CBS poll of the Tea Party movement found that only 41 percent of its supporters believe that the president was born in the United States.

The angry right and its apologists also keep insisting that race has nothing to do with their political passions. Thus Sarah Palin explained that it’s Obama and the “lamestream media” that are responsible for “perpetuating this myth that racial profiling is a part” of Arizona’s law. So how does that profiling work without race or ethnicity, exactly? Brian Bilbray, a Republican Congressman from California and another supporter of the law, rode to the rescue by suggesting “they will look at the kind of dress you wear.” Wise Latinas better start shopping at Talbots!

In this Alice in Wonderland inversion of reality, it’s politically incorrect to entertain a reasonable suspicion that race may be at least a factor in what drives an action like the Arizona immigration law. Any racism in America, it turns out, is directed at whites. Beck called Obama a “racist.” Newt Gingrich called Sonia Sotomayor a “Latina woman racist.” When Obama put up a routine YouTube video calling for the Democratic base to mobilize last week — which he defined as “young people, African-Americans, Latinos and women” — the Republican National Committee attacked him for playing the race card.

The rage of 2010 is far more incendiary than anything that went down in 1988, and it will soon leap from illegal immigration to other issues in other states. Boycott the Diamondbacks and Phoenix’s convention hotels if you want to punish Arizona, but don’t for a second believe that it will stop the fire next time.

Arizona's Shame

Well, she did it. Jan Brewer, governor of Arizona, just signed one of the worst pieces of legislation into law in a history of bad laws in AZ. Unless you have been hibernating in a cave, you know the law I mean; the anti-immigration piece of garbage the Russell Pearce, just foisted on us.

Ms. Brewer just gave new meaning to the jokes about dumb blonds. (I suspect that her blond has come from a bottle, though. Meow.) I was sickened when I heard this lame brain governor give her rationale for signing this stupid piece of legislation.

Where is our former governor, Janet Napolitano, when we need her? Oh, darn, she was so good that Obama tapped her to be in his cabinet. Janet vetoed similar legislation time after time when the fringe wingnuts in our leggie passed similar legislation. You do know that Jan Brewer was not elected, but was selected to replace Janet, don't you? Who did that dastardly deed, I wonder.

Arizona is cutting vital school programs right and left because we are out of money. Now we will be spending money to defend this idiotic bill because sane people are already lining up to sue Arizona. Our own Senator in Washington, Rual Grivala, is urging a boycott of our State. So there goes one of our main sources of revenue, tourism. I am sure conventions will stay away in droves from this backward leaning state. In addition, I am sure the Mexican Nationals across the border will be afraid to come do their shopping in Arizona now. That is another big source of revenue that will go down the drain. Some business's are against this legislation because they use guest workers for farm labor, etc; backbreaking work that others do not want to do. Unintended consequences are going to further put our state in financial trouble.

I believe that this law will not stand the test of constitutionality. It is unconstitutional for a state to pass laws that supersede Federal laws. Immigration is the province of the Federal Government. In addition, it will be impossible to implement this law without racial profiling, which is a crime.

From the President to the lowliest citizen the condemnation of this mean spirited law is being broadcast all over the nation. Here are a couple of excerpts in this morning's papers.

From Creator's editorial page, Mark Shields wrote: Reason has not stopped the Arizona state legislature from passing a bill to require every presidential candidate to provide a birth certificate in order to be listed on the state ballot. This is the poison harvest of a political paranoia that demonizes and dehumanizes one's opponents. We, the real majority who care about our country, have an obligation to reject the politics of personal destruction and the Big Lie on every side and to give our political opponents the benefit of the doubt — that they may very well care just as much about America and their children's future as we think we do. ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

From the L. A. Times: Cardinal Roger M. Mahony of Los Angeles said the authorities’ ability to demand documents was like “Nazism.”

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

Paranoia, extremism, bigotry and hatred make bad laws. We certainly have our share on the books. How in God's green earth can you identify an illegal entrant without racial profiling? This law is aimed directly at the Mexican illegals who usually have dark skin, brown eyes and dark hair. Guess who will be stopped by a racist policeman? A fair skinned, blue eyed illegal from (say Poland) is perfectly safe here.

It will also be a misdemeanor to fail to have your papers with you proving your status. If you fit the description of a Mexican you will need to have a valid driver's license issued in the U. S., or other proof of citizenship or some other paper such as a Green Card to prove you are in the U. S. legally or you will be fined. What rot. Is this America, the land of the free? Is this the land that Lady Liberty said to bring the huddled masses and they would be welcome? No longer in Arizona.

Unless stopped by legal means, this law goes into effect in August. What a pity.

Late News: April 26 addition to this post. A necessary read to bolster my points. Please read the following article in today's Huffington Post.

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/robert-creamer/the-arizona-of-2010-the_b_551062.html