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:

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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.

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

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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.

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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."

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