PHXations—Tuesday, June 13, 2010
More on the “All-Star Boycott; this time from Milwaukee:
As Major League Baseball prepares for its All-Star game in California, immigrants-rights protesters are rallying outside the Milwaukee office of Commissioner Bud Selig
They want Selig to move next year’s All-Star game out of Arizona. Tuesday’s rally is part of a campaign to boycott the state after it passed a tough new law on Immigration enforcement.
About two dozen protesters picketed outside downtown Milwaukee’s U.S. Bank building. They chanted and held signs saying, “Move the game,” and “Boycott hate.”
Looks like Mills is ‘Buz-ing’ off:
Buz Mills' campaign manager says the candidate for the Republican nomination for Arizona governor is “suspending” his campaign.
Mills campaign manager Camilla Strongin says Mills is halting his campaigning because the campaign is now focused on immigration and border security, not the jobs and budget issues that drew Mills into the race.
The temperature is supposed to hit 110 today, as high as 114 Thursday.
As the stars of baseball met in Anaheim for this year’s All Star Game, the talk there is of …
…. boycotting next year’s game, scheduled to be played July 12, 2011 at Phoenix’s Chase Field.
From the Republic:
Milwaukee Brewers pitcher Yovani Gallardo spoke in the strongest terms when he said, “If the game is in Arizona, I will totally boycott.”
Detroit Tigers relief pitcher Jose Valverde called it “the stupidest thing you can ever have.”
6:38 PM
Pot, Meet Kettle
John McCain must really be getting desperate. First, he falsely accused Spreme Court nominee Elena Kagan of blocking military recruited at Harvard, nor he is saying that the lawsuit against SB 1070 is a political ploy:
The U.S. Justice Department’s lawsuit challenging SB 1070, Arizona’s anti-illegal immigration law, appears to be motivated by racial politics, Sen. John McCain (R-Ariz.), said Saturday in Ahwatukee Foothills.
“This has all the trappings of a political effort to solidify the Hispanic vote,” McCain said just after a public town hall meeting at the Grace Inn at Elliot Road and Interstate 10, which attracted about 70 people.
Astute political observers will remember that before his ill-fated presidential bid, he was one of the lead supporters for comprehensive immigration reform) including ‘legalization’ for undocumented workers.
Now just a few years later in a desperate battle to stave off political irrelevancy, he’s suddenly against it? Talk about'playing politics.'
3:07 PM
ICE contests SB 1070
The director of ICE doesn’t like Arizona’s intrusion into border regulation. From the Republic:
States should not follow Arizona’s lead and enact strict new immigration laws because ridding the country of illegal immigrants is the federal government’s job, the director of the nation’s immigration enforcement agency said Tuesday.
[…]
So far, lawmakers in about 20 states have said they will push similar measures, with bills already filed in five states – South Carolina, Pennsylvania, Minnesota, Rhode Island and Michigan.
“I don’t think that 50 different immigration enforcement laws is the answer to our immigration troubles,” U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement Director John Morton said in an interview. “I understand the frustration that many communities feel over the question of illegal immigration, but having a patchwork of state laws, I don’t think is the right way to go.”
Read more here.
3:57 PM
Jan and the onion
Happy Bastille Day.
This from the Arizona Daily Star, by Rhonda Bodfield:
After speaking at a state tourism conference, Gov. Jan Brewer stopped to answer a few questions about her vision for the state.
Q: You just spoke at a tourism conference. Leaving aside signing SB 1070, which triggered some of the negative reaction, you have made comments about drug running and beheadings that presumably could hurt tourism by raising fears of violence. Have you overstated the violence Arizona is seeing?
A: I don’t know that they (the comments) hurt tourism. I think it’s part of what America is facing in regards to illegal activity that’s taking place in Mexico, and it is a fact. Information has been provided to me by residents, if you will, that they have found body parts, separations of the head from the body. It’s an unfortunate situation, but that just shows you the extreme violent nature of the drug cartels.
Indeed, how could the prevalence of “body parts, separations of the head from the body” possibly discourage tourists?
Read the rest of the interview here.
From The Onion:
LOS ANGELES—According to a Los Angeles Times survey published Tuesday, an increasing number of Americans believe undocumented immigrants pose a threat to their favored spot on the couch, with many expressing concern that illegal aliens are “actively plotting” to take their seat as early as the next time they get up to go to the kitchen or bathroom. “I’ve been sitting on this part of the couch for 40 years, and I’ll be damned if some foreigner thinks he can sit down right here where my father sat, and my grand-father before him,” survey respondent Earl Lockwood of Tulsa, OK said. “I earned this spot.” The poll also found that a majority of Americans support the recently enacted Arizona law requiring immigrants to present proper identification before calling dibs on a particular seat.
6:31 AM