Jan Brewer's big day in DC!
Arizona’s conscienceless governor, cynically ridding a wave of ungenerous and unpleasant anti-immigrant fervor, takes a trip to DC to meet personally with Barack Obama.
Based on the story in the Republic this a.m. it looks like she’s going to use the meeting as a chance to further spread misinformation about the issue:
Arizona Gov. Jan Brewer said she will paint a picture of her state as “under siege” by Mexican drug cartels and illegal immigrants when she meets today with President Barack Obama.
[…]
“We are the gateway to America for (cross-border) drug trafficking, extortion, kidnapping and crime, and we in Arizona are no longer going to put up with it,” Brewer said at a Capitol Hill hotel on the eve of her meeting. “People along the border are living in fear daily. I don’t think the president really understands that.”
Has anybody yet asked Brewer how she reconciles such language with the facts of Arizona’s crazily low crime rate?
Brief CNN interview here:
7:05 AM
Brewer doubles down on her misstatements about her father's war record
Caught lying, a politician has three choices.
He or she can, for example, acknowledge the act and apologize …
But, let’s face it—they almost never do that.
So there’s really only two alternatives. One is fudge and obfuscate.
The other is just get all defiant and insist that the lie isn’t a lie.
That’s the tack Jan Brewer has taken after, let’s face it, telling a whopper about what her father did in World War II.
She was trying to get sympathy for allegedly being called a Nazi by opponents of SB 1070. She told the Republic:
The Nazi comments…they are awful. Knowing that my father died fighting the Nazi regime in Germany, that I lost him when I was 11 because of that…It hurts. It’s ugliness beyond anything I’ve ever experienced.
“My father died fighting the Nazi regime in Germany.”
Well, no. Her father worked in a munitions plant in Nevada, never went to Europe, and died ten years after the war.
It’s no big deal having a rosy memory of one’s parent. But it’s cheap to use that in a sympathy dodge, particularly when the truth is she’s using a hateful and unconstitutional law to play to the state’s massive political cheap seats.
How did Brewer respond? First, her office tried to dodge questions from the biggest news operation in the state:
Paul Senseman, the governor’s spokesman, did not immediately return calls or e-mails from The Republic seeking comment. But he told another local media outlet that Brewer has been very clear in the past about how her father died.
“She wasn’t embellishing the story at all,” he told The Arizona Guardian, referring to the governor’s comments in The Republic. “You’re reading something into this that isn’t there.”
“She wasn’t embellishing the story at all.”
Well, no.
And now, Brewer herself is insisting what she said was correct, too:
“I’m proud of my father and I have no reason to embellish,” Brewer told The Associated Press in a telephone interview from Washington. “Everybody was fighting for the freedom of America. He did fight … and I will say it until the day I die.”
“He did fight.”
Well, no, he didn’t.
PHXated’s father, for example, spent the 1950s and 1960s doing defense work, and died some decades later from a cancer most likely brought on from chemical exposures during that time. But he didn’t die fighting the Cold War, for crying out loud.
Deomcrats lie a lot too, of course, but Republicans are so sanctimonious about things like truth and honor and supporting the troops.
Here’s a case where right-wing hypocrisy hits the trifecta. Or a hat trick. Or something. I’m not good with the sports and betting metaphors.
Everyone’s having fun with this one. Heat City posting here
Democratic Diva posting here.
7:50 AM
PHXations—Thursday, June 3
Hey look!, Phoenix tops a list of cities!
Essentially, sprawl is a sure killer of whatever bohemian character a city might have. A big car-dependent city like Phoenix has very little in the way of a bohemian culture, and I suspect this is largely due to the car dependency of that city. All the neighborhoods are partitioned off by big four-lane roads and freeways.
Cities with more organic zoning codes – and especially historic districts in many towns which were built before modern zoning codes took effect – tend to be much more bohemian and interesting.
I’d definitely give Phoenix a spot in the top-ten least bohemian cities in America.
(emphasis added) /yaa
Los Lobos is taking a pass on AZ:
Los Lobos has canceled its June 10 performance at the Talking Stick Resort on the Salt River Pima Maricopa Indian Community in Scottsdale as a boycott statement in response to the new anti-immigration law.
“We support the boycott of Arizona,” the Grammy Award-winning band said in a prepared statement. “The new law will inevitably lead to unfair racial profiling and possible abuse of people who just happen to look Latino. As a result, in good conscience, we could not see ourselves performing in Arizona.”
/yaa
Looks like Russell Pearce isn’t a fan of Bruce Springsteen: ‘Born in the U.S.A.’ not enough
With Senate Bill 1070, state Sen. Russell Pearce and his supporters went after illegal immigrants. Next, they’re going after babies.
Pearce plans to introduce legislation in Arizona that would deny birth certificates to children born here to non-citizen parents.
[…]
They are citizens of the country of their mother,“ he said. "That’s why they are called in some cases ‘jackpot babies’ or ‘anchor babies.’”
Still, Pearce’s belief is not how the Constitution has been interpreted – so far.
/yaa
11:59 PM
Downtown's Missing Ingredient
It’s not much of a stretch to say that most of downtown Phoenix is owned or operated by commercial interests. They are abetted by City Hall’s current inhabitants seemingly insatiable appetite to leave a legacy, no matter how vapid.
As a result, Phoenix’s urban ‘public’ areas are being increasingly privatized and do not support the values usually associate with public spaces: the experience of community, the sharing of ideas, the fostering of creative efforts, the collaboration of cultures, and, equally important, the pursuit of fun.
Indeed, downtown has (d)evolved to the point where is supports pedestrianism only as far as office workers seeking lunch, or conventioneers and sports fans seeking a drink after a game or event. Street life in Phoenix is heavily regulated, from patios to public expression. Heck, participants in this year’s No Pants Day were even kicked out of the faux-public space of the Arizona Center for wearing boxer shots. It should come as no surprise then, that the words “busker,” “performer,” and “panhandler” continue to be confused by city officials. Don’t even get me started on our treatment of the homeless.
Even where fun managed to evolve naturally, such as along Roosevelt Row, the authentic expression of community doesn’t last long. A few years ago, vendors began to spring up on the (admittedly privately owned) empty lots adjacent to the galleries and bars. Within a few months, the city started to crack down. Eventually the vendors were allowed back, but instead of allowing the vendors to operate on the city owned vacant lots, however, local businesses were asked to pay to have roads closed down, hire police officers to monitor the crowds,and rent port-a-potties. In other words, sanitize the area.
Now Roosevelt Row is avoided by the majority of the locals on First Fridays. The true urbanites have found refuge in other parts of the city. For the most part, the ‘Row’ has been left to suburban tourists and high school kids settling for a poor reproduction of authentic urbanism.
By privatizing and sterilizing our city’s shared spaces, the City is doing far more than merely addressing downtown noise complaints and preserving order. It is stifling essential aspects of our urban mix. Our streets and public spaces are more than simply a way to get from point a to b. They are valuable threads of our urban fabric, and more importantly of our self expression. They need to be free and open to all residents for a wide range of activities, not just what the NIMBY’s and corporate interests deem appropriate.
12:51 PM
Young Martin Cizmar, Sexy Beast and Maybe, Some Day, An Author™, gets some New Times ink
The Chow Bella blog at New Times, where Martin Cizmar is music editor, picks up on the news that has titillated literary circles around the Valley.
The cry goes ‘round: Young Martin is writing a book!
The paper’s Jonathan McNamara gets the scoop from Martin himself:
“It’s about how I lost weight without going to a gym filled with spray-tanned douchebags in muscle shirts, taking up some odd grapefruit-centric diet, or joining a pathetic for-profit club of weak-willed, middle-aged women in ill-fitting Old Navy jeans,” Cizmar tells Chow Bella. “It’s a diet that works for someone who is, for example, employed as the music editor at an alternative-weekly newspaper in Arizona, which is a super cool job that I’m very lucky to have and which I’m hopefully going to continue doing for long time.”
“Pathetic, weak-willed middle-aged women in ill-fitting Old Navy jeans.” Nice!
12:34 PM
2Is Jan Brewer Trying to Rewrite the Dictionary?
Yesterday, it came to light that Governor Brewer had tried to reinterpret the phrase ‘fighting the Nazi’s.“ Today, it looks like see wants to reinterpret the word ’cordial.'
President Obama hosted Gov. Jan Brewer at the White House today for what Brewer termed a “very cordial discussion” on Arizona’s new anti-illegal immigration law, in which Obama promised to send top White House officials to the state in advance of a new influx of border troops.
[…]
“I would like to see construction started on the fence on the border, and I tried to get that kind of information from him today,” Brewer said. “I was not successful.”
Brewer said Obama refused to discuss the possibility of a lawsuit aimed at striking down the new law. Instead, Obama has said he will leave that decision up to his lawyers, a position he stuck to today.
[…]
It seems that Brewer wants us to believe that cordial is another word for ‘shot down.’ Nice try, but I’m not falling for it.
1:37 PM
Jan Brewer: "You're trying to make a liar out of me!"
The governor lets loose on the Arizona Guardian, which has been at the forefront of reporting on her tall tales about her father’s military service.
You’ll recall Brewer said her father “died fighting the Nazi regime in Germany”—whereas he spent the war in Nevada and died more than ten years after it ended.
In a new story on the Guardian site, the governor, interviewed while still in D.C. gets combative with reporter Dennis Welch:
Brewer said the story was unfair and hurtful.
The governor said her father did help fight the Nazis because of his work and sacrifice at the ammunition factory. That should not be diminished, she said, “just because he didn’t go overseas.”
“There is no way I have ever misled anybody,” she said. “You’re trying to make a liar out of me.”
Obviously, no one’s trying to “diminish” her father’s service. Just as obviously, when Brewer added the words “in Germany” to “Nazi regime,” she wasn’t trying to distinguish it from Nazi regimes in other countries. She was plainly saying that that’s where her father died.
The story wasn’t unfair at all. She was obviously fabricating not just service overseas, but a noble combat death. Isn’t that more than a little cheap?
4:16 PM
Got tongue?
From the Arizona Republic’s “Things to do this weekend” page:
World Series of Beer Pong qualifier at Sandbar
If playing beer pong is a pastime for you, consider signing up for the World Series of Beer Pong qualifying competition at Sandbar Mexican Grill in Scottsdale. Sign up with a friend and play to your heart’s content against other beer pong enthusiasts. The winning team gets to travel to Las Vegas for the championships. There will be $2 draft beers and shots on special, and ladies who play get to pay half price for entry.
Only the Republic could run a photo even the organizers of a “Beer Pong World Series” might find tasteless.
We just have one question: Is the impressively outstretched tongue part of the Scottsdale gang sign the large-breasted woman is flashing?
Or was it just a sort of personal fillip of her own design?
(h/t Tyler Hurst)
6:23 PM
Jan Brewer and her father: 205 stories and counting....
From Google News at 6:45 this evening:
Having cannily ridden a wave of irrational xenophobia all the way to a meeting at the White House with Barack Obama, Brewer blows it and loses the news cycle with her own buffoonery.
Meanwhile James King at New Times talks to her GOP primary opponent, Dean Martin, who unsurprisingly has little good to say about it:
After Governor Jan Brewer’s office failed to call us back regarding the gov’s bogus claims that her father “died fighting the Nazi regime in Germany,” we thought we’d give Treasurer Dean Martin, Brewer’s opponent in the GOP gubernatorial primary, a chance to weigh in.
“Trying to use the death of a loved on for political gain is appalling,” Martin tells New Times.
Also:
Vanity Fair calls Brewer imperial sun queen of Arizona’s chromatocracy.
Wishy-washy Newsweek says Brewer “seems to have been ambiguous” about her father’s war record.
This is obviously a mistake.
The magazine meant to say that “There are signs that some say could indicate the prospect of different views of whether Brewer was ambiguous or not.”
6:45 PM
"The border is safer now than it's ever been"
That’s U.S. Customs and Border Protection spokesman Lloyd Easterling, quoted in an extensive AP investigation into crime at the bordor.
The upshot:
MEXICO CITY — It’s one of the safest parts of America, and it’s getting safer.
It’s the U.S.-Mexico border, and even as politicians say more federal troops are needed to fight rising violence, government data obtained by The Associated Press show it actually isn’t so dangerous after all.
The top four big cities in America with the lowest rates of violent crime are all in border states: San Diego, Phoenix, El Paso and Austin, according to a new FBI report. And an in-house Customs and Border Protection report shows that Border Patrol agents face far less danger than street cops in most U.S. cities.
The story has lots of stuff like this:
Even residents of the border region who want more security are surprised by the talk of violence.
“I have to say, a lot of this is way overblown,” said Gary Brasher of Tuboc, Arizona, who is president of the Coalition for a Safe and Secure Border.
Jan Brewer makes a knuckle-headed cameo, too:
In Arizona, a stringent new immigration law takes effect next month, requiring police to question suspects' immigration status if officers believe they’re in the country illegally. Arizona Gov. Jan Brewer said in a televised interview last weekend: “We are out here on the battlefield getting the impact of all this illegal immigration, and all the crime that comes with it.”
There’s one big flaw in the story: No mention of the supposed 300-plus kidnappings a year alleged to occur in Phoenix alone.
Previously in PHXated:
9:04 PM
What's the "race" of the folks who go to Phase 54 in Chandler?
Nothing more irritating than reading a news story that raises more questions than it answers.
Phase 54 is some sort of dancing and concert venue in Chandler, at I-10 and Ray Road. It’s having a legal dispute with its landlord and some of the other businesses in its little suburban strip-mall enclave, and this has evidently turned into an actual trial.
East Valley Tribune story here.
The legal issue is apparently whether the place is a concert venue or a night club; its operations have apparently overwhelmed the mall’s available parking, which has turned the businesses nearby, including an Outback Steakhouse, against it.
The property owners, according to the story, says the lease doesn’t allow a “night club,” though it’s apparently allowed to be a “concert venue” and a plain old club club.
None of these distinctions are explained, so the story’s irritating to read.
But even that’s the the big question raised. That comes in this passage:
On Tuesday, Gama found that a transcript of a taped conversation from an Outback [Steakhouse] manager complaining about the race of club patrons will not be allowed in the case. He said it would create confusion for the jury.
Jon Harris, Phase 54’s owner, said that the real reason the restaurants don’t want the club to stay open is because they’re concerned by the racial background of club patrons.
Shouldn’t the paper tell us what race we’re talking about here?
Asians?
Hispanics?
My god, perhaps even … whites?!
The story says the club plays Top 40 music, which isn’t a specific enough clue.
The Phase 54 web site is here.
One thing the owners of Phase 54 are definitely guilty of is recycling Studio 54’s logo:
6:53 AM