Finally—a beheading!
You’ll remember that Governor Brewer has been obsessed with beheadings. Such gruesome activity at the border, she said, is one of the impetuses behind her signing SB 1070.
There actually weren’t any, creating priceless moments like this one, which comes at the 1:16 point in the video below:
At any rate, we are happy for Brewer’s sake that there finally has been a beheading reported, and that at least one of the culprits, police say, is a genuine illegal immigrant.
The Republic:
Chandler police are investigating the bizarre case of a man who was stabbed, decapitated and left in a pool of blood in a central-city apartment.
One man has been arrested and police are seeking three more suspects in what appears to be the city’s first beheading.
“We don’t go to many cases where the victim has been decapitated,” said Chandler police Detective Frank Mendoza.
The story, incredibly, doesn’t mention the ongoing role the act has had in the recent political race.
7:40 AM
Another academic group debates holding a conference in Arizona, using terms like "self-fornicate"
From the Chronicle of Higher Education:
A national organization devoted to medieval studies is facing a backlash from some of its members over its decision to go ahead with a conference next April in Arizona, where a controversial immigration law enacted this year has drawn sharp criticism from many academics.
Some members of the Medieval Academy of America wrote an open letter this month to the organization assailing its decision to keep the conference in Tempe, Ariz., despite previous complaints in May.
The latest group, whose number isn’t specified in the story, is leaving the organization in protest.
The best part of the story are the comments, in which an anti-immigrant guy not too up on the actual issues crosses swords with one of the academics, resulting in remarks like:
A couple of suggestions to you, genius. 1. A not so leisurely survey of the supremacy clause of the US Constitution 2. Self-fornicate.
To which the right-wing guys says:
Now go start another doctorate in something equally as relevant like…“Chicano studies”.
Later on in the discussion, a different commenter makes this hard-to-argue-with point:
Medieval Studies (if the convention includes papers on Medieval Thought) seems like an appropriate convention for Arizona. Where else would you find such backward thought?
And later on, one poster corrects another’s German grammar.
7:09 AM
PHXations—Monday, August 9, 2010
Gangplank, the Chandler idea incubator cum social space, got feature treatment in the Sunday EVT, complete with cute pix:
It’s the lede story on the site this a.m.
The AP is reporting that the anti SB 1070 protests helped boost hotel occupancy in Phoenix. Alas it was a small drop in the bucket compared with the impacts of the SB 1070 inspired boycotts:
The days leading up to Senate Bill 1070 were good for the hotel industry.
Arizona Hotel and Lodging Association spokeswoman Kristin Jarnagin says most downtown Phoenix hotels and a lot of other nearby hotels were filled with media, protesters and supporters.
Jarnagin says 2009 was the worst year on record with the hotel and convention industry losing 30,000 tourism jobs.
Jarnagin says boycotts cost the state at least $15 million and 40 conventions.
She fears those numbers will get worse given that conventions are booked years in advance and those groups may go elsewhere.
5:28 PM
Arizona has more than one hysterical and reckless sheriff
When you see a Drudge hedline like this, you figure it’s about Joe Arpaio:
It’s actually Paul Babeu, the attention queen who appeared in John McCain’s “Complete the danged fence” commercial.
The story is just a posting on a far-right fake-news web site that allows Babeu to natter on about how Barack Obama and the ACLU are teaming up to stop him, Babeu, from protecting the country from a “homeland security threat.”
6:55 AM
Aftermath of the SB 1070 ruling
The last goes into effect today—or at least what’s left of it.
From the Republic this a.m.:
Leading up to 12:01 this morning, when the law took effect:
• Police struggled to figure out how they should enforce portions of Senate Bill 1070 that were not blocked by Bolton’s ruling in favor of the U.S. Department of Justice.
• Gov. Jan Brewer and her attorneys debated whether to fight the preliminary injunction before deciding to appeal amid speculation that the case may wind up before the U.S. Supreme Court.
• Demonstrators for and against the statute discussed whether to proceed with statewide protests, including plans for civil disobedience.
• Illegal immigrants, many of them hunkered down or contemplating an exodus from the state, remained in limbo.
• And everyone awaited further rulings from Bolton, who has yet to deal with motions in six additional lawsuits filed against SB 1070 by the ACLU, other activist groups and police officers.
There’s a recipe for chaos!
The federal judge who ruled on Arizona’s tragic, noxious new immigration law on Wednesday did not stop all of it from taking effect Thursday, but she preliminarily halted the worst of it. And although appeals are certain, Judge Susan Bolton offered clear and well-reasoned arguments affirming the federal government’s final authority over immigration enforcement. We hope this is the beginning of the end of the misbegotten Arizona rules and what they represent.
8:16 AM
Russell Pearce: "Phil Gordon is an anarchist!"
Arizona’s goofiest state senator faced off on John Stossel’s Fox show with Nick Gillespie, the longtime editor of Reason magazine, the leading Libertarian publication, and now the head of Reason.TV.
After Stossel asks Pearce about the Phoenix police chief Jack Harris’s opposition to SB 1070, Pearce starts sputtering that Harris is a political appointee “of an open-border, anarchist mayor.”
Hilarity, as they say, ensues:
Later Gillespie and Stossel try to get Pearce to address the plain fact that crime in the state has been dropping steadily for a decade.
If you listen carefully to Pearce’s sputterings in response, you can hear him assert that “child molesters” are coming over the border.
8:22 AM
An anti-SB 1070 concert in LA
It’ll be led by Rage Against the MAchine and Conor Oberst and held Friday, July 23, at the Hollywood Palladium, Stephen Lemons reports:
Rage Against the Machine and Conor Oberst and the Mystic Valley Band will headline the fundraiser, which Sound Strike is anticipating will raise more than $300,000 for such organizations as Phoenix civil rights leader Salvador Reza’s Puente Movement, and the Florence Project, a non-profit organization that provides free legal services to immigrants detained by Immigration and Customs Enforcement.
The concert is part of a week of activism heading toward July 29, the day SB 1070, Arizona’s new breathing-while-brown law, is scheduled to go into effect. The press release notes that this is [Rage’s] “first concert in their hometown of Los Angeles in 10 years.”
7:27 AM
The mysterious disappearing All-Star Game boycott of Arizona
Yesterday, you’ll remember, the Republic front page was all abuzz with talk at this year’s All-Star Game in Anaheim about boycotting next year’s game, which is currently scheduled for Chase Field in Phoenix.
Funny, today the paper fronts another big story about the All-Star Game coming to Phoenix…
… with nary a word about boycotts or SB 1070.
The same writer, too—Nick Piecoro.
This is what I hate about the Republic. How dishonest it is.
From the outside, it sure does seem like there were some high-level discussions at the paper about the splashiness of the possible boycott story Tuesday.
One might even speculate that some behind-the-scenes power brokers with some financial interest in the game’s being held here gave the paper hell.
And then, obviously, someone ordered up a “redo”—essentially the same story, scrubbed of anything that might offend the town’s sports swells.
It’s almost like rewriting history.
10:27 AM
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
The Daily Show visits Phoenix—again
The show’s newest correspondent, Olivia Munn, asks doltish state Rep. Carl Seel why speed cameras are unconstitutional but SB 1070 isn’t.
| Arizona's Photo Radar | ||
8:04 AM
A gay and lesbian group takes a conference away from Phoenix
From the PBJ:
The Gay & Lesbian Leadership Institute has chosen Las Vegas instead of Phoenix for its 2011 international conference citing Arizona’s new immigration law.
The gathering brings together gay and lesbian leaders from across the country for training and education.
Phoenix City Councilman Tom Simplot and state Rep. Kyrsten Sinema, D-15, were leading the charge to attract the group to Phoenix as part of a Phoenix Host Committee.
“Although we are disappointed by their decision to go elsewhere, the reality is that many elected officials can’t or won’t travel to Arizona in their official or unofficial capacities until the federal government, legislature, courts or the people sort out the immigration dilemma,” Simplot said in a statement.
A letter from the GLLI to the committee said that “the current political and legal climate in Arizona makes it complicated to accept your hospitality.”
6:41 AM
PHXations—Wednesday, July 7, 2010
…and the boycotts continue to pile up:
The Gay and Lesbian Leadership Institute, who had been considering holding its 2011 conference in Phoenix, has chosen Las Vegas instead.
Up until recently, Phoenix was considered the frontrunner to host the December 2011 conference.
The Phoenix Host Committee, led by Councilman Tom Simplot and Rep. Kyrsten Sinema, had been working furtively to secure the conference. The conference would have attracted hundreds of gay and lesbian elected leaders.
GLLI alluded that the immigration debate in Arizona caused them to chose another site, according to the Phoenix Host Committee.
GLLI said in a letter, “The current political and legal climate in Arizona makes it complicated to accept your hospitality.”
GLLI helps equip gay, lesbian, bisexual and transgender people with the tools for success. The institute assists hundreds of individuals who go on to influential careers in politics, government, business and advocacy each year.
Mary Jo Pitzl is reporting that the voter surge resulting from SB 1070 is overwhelming benefitting independents:
The latest voter registration figures show increases in all categories, but the biggest gain continues to be in the ranks of independents.
In raw numbers, 14,716 Arizonans registered as “party not designated,” which is the technical term for independents. That’s more than the increase in Democrats (+3,879) and Republicans (+7,852) combined.
The numbers reflect registrations from May 5 to June 1, according to the Arizona Secretary of State’s office. That means they capture at least some of the aftermath of SB1070, when Democrats were saying that Latino voters were registering with the Ds as a protest against the state’s new immigration law.
And perhaps they were (registration numbers don’t include a demographic breakdown). But the Democrats' gains were eclipsed by increases in the GOP, and especially by independents.
The effects of the federal lawsuit against SB 1070 its effects are likely to go beyond simply determining the law’s constitutionality:
The high-profile battle over illegal immigration could sway voters, helping determine whether Democrats retain or lose their majority in Congress. It could be a boon for Arizona Republicans who have supported the law. Some vulnerable Democrats urged the Obama administration not to file the suit.
The outcome of the case also could fuel or shut down efforts now under way to replicate the law in more than a dozen other states.
The lawsuit brought more national attention to the Grand Canyon State, which has weathered protests and boycotts since Gov. Jan Brewer signed the bill into law on April 23. Supporters say that they will successfully defend the suit and that it will hold up like other immigration-related laws that have faced court challenges the past few years.
Read the whole article here
Meanwhile, three Democrats Arizona legislators are worried about the effect the feds' lawsuit will have on their election battles this fall, Politico reports:
At least three Arizona Democrats saw trouble they could face in November, and broached the topic with the White House well in advance of the court filing, which the administration first announced last month.
Three House Democrats who are all facing tough re-election fights—Reps. Ann Kirkpatrick, Harry Mitchell and Gabrielle Giffords—asked the Obama administration last month to ditch any planned court battle, saying legal maneuvering isn’t going to fix a system that’s widely seen as broken.
The story quotes Kirkpatrick and Mitchell attacking the lawsuit as a sideshow.
Jan Brewer doesn’t like the feds' suit against SB 1070, the Business Journal reports:
Arizona Gov. Jan Brewer characterized the federal lawsuit challenging the immigration law she signed in April as an “attack” from President Barack Obama and the Department of Justice.
The governor promised to assert the state’s rights and said Arizona will prevail against the lawsuits.
The NYT details how the Department of Justice decided to go after the law on the relatively uncomplicated issue of pre-emption: That immigration enforcement is a federal concern. Holder and company have the civil rights implications of its enforcement in their pocket for another day.
In a background call with reporters, a senior department official said the decision to file the lawsuit — and to do so on the ground that it pre-empts federal authority, rather than on civil rights grounds like racial profiling — followed extensive deliberations with the Civil Rights Division and others inside the department, and a trip to Arizona to meet with state officials.
Should the department fail to persuade the courts to block Arizona’s law, the official said, it would closely watch for signs that people of Hispanic appearance were being singled out.
4:07 PM
Next, in the latest episode of "Everyone Hates Jan" ...
The New York Times has a story detailing how an annual get-together of border governors from both Mexico and the U.S. is in limbo after Jan Brewer signed SB 1070.
The conference was supposed to be in Phoenix this year. Then all the Mexican border governors said they weren’t going to come, for the obvious reasons.
Brewer said, Fine, I’ll just cancel it.
But now some of her embarrassed colleagues, notably Arnold Schwarzenegger in California and Bill Richardson in New Mexico, are trying to reconvene the meeting sans Brewer.
I haven’t seen this story in the Republic. While looking for one, I notice that Brewer herself didn’t make the meeting last year, while waiting until the last minute (as she did with SB 1070), about whether she would sign a state spending proposal during the budget crisis.
8:36 PM
Jan Brewer doubles down on lying
The governor said last week that the majority of illegal immigrants were smuggling drugs.
In the face of the predictable outcry—even John McCain distanced himself from the statement over the weekend—Brewer could have acknowledged an overstatement and moved on.
Instead, she’s doubling down on the lie, getting shriller and making even less sense.
Her original quote:
“The majority of them, in my opinion and I think in the opinion of law enforcement, is that they’re not coming here to work. They’re coming here and they’re bringing drugs, and they’re doing drop houses, and they’re extorting people, and they’re terrorizing the families.”
Asked in an interview whether he agrees that most illegal immigrants are “drug mules,” the Republican senator said: “No.”
With the media continuing to press her on the statement, Brewer’s office released a slightly unhinged followup. From the PBJ:
“There has been some media attention in the last several hours regarding statements I made this morning regarding the level of drug and crime activity being perpetrated by illegal immigrants coming into and residing in Arizona,“ Brewer’s said in the statement. "The simple truth is that the majority of human smuggling in our state is under the direction of the drug cartels, which are by definition smuggling drugs.”
Notice how she’s blurring the issue from “illegal immigrants are smuggling drugs” to “they are being smuggled by drug cartels.”
The story continues:
“It is common knowledge that Mexican drug cartels have merged human smuggling with drug trafficking. For example, the Los Angeles Times on March 23, 2009, reported, ‘The business of smuggling humans across the Mexican border has been brisk, with many thousands coming across every year. But smugglers affiliated with the drug cartels have taken the enterprise to a new level — and made it more violent — by commandeering much of the operation from independent coyotes, according to these officials and recent congressional testimonies.’ This article and many federal government reports have drawn the same conclusions.
“The human rights violations that have taken place victimizing immigrants and their families are abhorrent. Border crossers are used by drug cartels as commodities. Mexican drug cartels have merged human smugglers who use their expertise in gathering intelligence on border patrols, logistics and communication devices to get around even tighter controls. U.S. border officials have stated that traffickers are gaining control of much of the illegal passage of immigrants from Mexico to the United States.”
As with so many debates in this state, the real issue here isn’t what it seems.
Of course Brewer is lying. She knows it’s not true that a majority of illegal immigrants are smuggling drugs. We know from numerous government reports that a big chunk of them are just people who’ve overstayed their visa, and we know that most of the rest are doing menial labor, a lot of it outside in incredible heat, just from simple observation.
The real issue is the state of politics in this state. Brewer’s campaign strategy is now apparent. She’s just going to repeat her mantra:
“Illegal immigration, illegal immigration, drugs, violence, illegal immigration, drugs, violence, illegal immigration, drugs, violence, illegal immigration, drugs, violence, child porn, tax cuts blah blah blah.”
And the question for the future of the state is whether Terry Goddard can come up with an effective enough campaign to combat it.
7:16 AM
How to think about boycotts
The essay on the boycott by Nate Schulman Yuri Artibise posted earlier brings up some good points about a curious modern political conundrum:
How the victims of a boycott who support its aims should respond to it.
Schulman’s essay makes an interesting point about the double standard to which Arizona is held vis-a-vis California.
After all, California passed its own version of SB 1070 more than fifteen years ago, and it’s true it did pass an anti gay–marriage bill in 2008. (I could even cite an even older example people forget about – the recall of most of the California Supreme Court thirty years ago, which wrenched the state’s courts rightward en masse and produced one of the most repressive judiciary systems in the world.)
The answer to this charge is ..
… Life isn’t fair.
A boycott won’t work in California, even if it deserved it. It’s too big, and its economy, even while it suffers like that of many other states’, is too diversified.
You’d have to boycott Google and California citrus … Pixar and Northrup … Hewlett-Packard and Safeway … Wells Fargo and that great bud from Mendocino.
Second, the lines in California are blurry. The issue with Prop. 8, the anti-gay marriage initiative, wasn’t a statewide hostility to gays, it’s that the liberals in the state got outhustled by the yahoos and bigots. (The fecklessness of liberals in the state is a subject for another time.)
Indeed, the state these days (partly as a result of upheavals in the state following its immigration fights in the 1990s) is famously liberal; the Prop. 8 issue isn’t anything that brands the state as worthy of boycotting.
Arizona’s SB 1070, by contrast, fits nicely into the image given to the rest of the country over the last few years:
Boneheads toting machine guns at presidential appearances … Sheriff Joe running around like a latter-day Bull Connor … and now SB 1070.
In other words, Arizona has been asking for it. Any debate over the fairness of a boycott should address that unhappy reality.
7:17 AM
Harper's scorches Arizona
A 5000-word feature in the new issue ($) by political writer Ken Silverstein starts out with a quick portrait of the comical and bumbling architectural and construction history of the state capitol.
That’s just a setup for the very long piece’s thesis statement:
The general unsightliness of the capitol makes it a fitting home for today’s Arizona legislature, which is composed almost entirely of dimwits, racists, and cranks.?Collectively they have bankrupted the state through a combination of ideological fanaticism on the Republican right and acquiescence and timidity on the part of G.O.P. moderates and Democrats.
The article alternates between depressing accounts of the state’s financial mess …
… and ever more depressing accounts of the bozos in charge of fixing it:
In January, Senator Jack Harper, an immaculately combed zealot who speaks in the patter of an
infomercial voiceover, submitted a bill that would allow faculty members to carry guns on university campuses, saying it was “one very small step in trying to eliminate gun-free zones, where there’s absolutely no one who could defend themselves if a terrorist incident happened.” The house passed a measure that would force President Barack Obama to show his birth certificate to state officials if he runs for re-election, as well as a bill that bars Arizona from entering into any program to regulate greenhouse gases without approval from the legislature. “There are only two ways to vote on this,” said Representative Ray Barnes of the latter initiative. “Yes, or face the east in the morning and worship the EPA because they own you.”?
The upshot: Arizona has been lowering taxes for decades, partly from a clumsy and unworking political philosophy and partly from the usual political corruption (tax breaks for big business with lobbyists), using the former as cover.
This has plainly not worked. Indeed, it’s destroyed the state’s economy.
And yet the political forces that put us here remain in power.
The full article is available only to subscribers, but the beginning of it is here.
6:11 AM
PHXations—Tuesday, June 22, 2010
Arizona Democrats are asking the state Supreme Court to disqualify two GOP candidates:
Democrats on Monday asked the state Supreme Court to overturn a judge’s decision that kept two Republicans on the Aug. 24 ballot, even though the judge found they had broken the law in getting there.
The appeal comes in the wake of a ruling that state Sen. John Huppenthal, a Republican candidate for state superintendent of public instruction, and Bob Thomas, who is seeking the GOP nomination for state Senate in central Phoenix, violated the law when they collected signatures on their nominating petitions.
The two collected signatures before they had formed their campaign committees, Judge Robert Oberbillig found, which is against state election law.
But the punishment for that violation is a fine, he ruled, not removal from the ballot, which is the remedy the state Democratic Party had sought.
Party officials then turned to the state’s highest court for an appeal. Spokeswoman Jennifer Johnson said it would be hard to assign a dollar value to signatures that were collected outside of the official period. A more fitting punishment would be removal from the ballot, she said
Arizona’s Border Security is getting a $50 million boost:
A new $50 million pot is available to local law enforcement in Arizona and along the U.S.-Mexico border for border-security projects.
The money comes from a $94 million settlement that Attorney General Terry Goddard’s office reached with Western Union earlier this year to end a seven-year investigation into drug smugglers' use of wire companies to move money across the border.
Goddard’s office sent out grant applications Monday to city, county and state law-enforcement agencies in Arizona, Texas, California and New Mexico. Each state is guaranteed at least $7 million, Goddard said.
The money can be used to attack the issue of cross-border smuggling of drugs, people, weapons or money, he said. The drugs and people come north into the U.S., and the weapons and money go south to fuel the cartels' operatio
Read more at the AZ Daily Star.
Heat City is reporting that the Mexican government has joined the fight to stop Arizona’s immigration law:
The Mexican government formally joined the fight to stop Arizona’s new immigration law on Monday, telling a U.S. court the law “threatens to poison the well” of diplomacy between the two nations and exposes Mexican citizens to racial profiling by police.
In a 28-page brief (pdf) filed in the U.S. District Court of Arizona, lawyers for Mexico said the creation of the law, widely known as S.B. 1070, “has been closely followed at the highest levels of the Mexican government and throughout Mexican society.”
The government said it believes the Arizona law, which among other things makes it a state crime to be in the country illegally, violates the U.S. Constitution. It asked the court to throw the law out entirely.
More here.
Border agents captured some elusive prey on the border: More than 100 piñatas of Disney characters, according to an AP story on the KTAR site:
DOUGLAS, Ariz. – It was no fiesta on the Arizona-Mexico border for the driver of a shipment of pinatas that looked like Disney characters.
U.S. Customs and Border Protection spokesman Rob Daniels says officers at the Douglas port of entry stopped a tractor-trailer coming from Mexico for further inspection on Friday.
Officers found the tractor-trailer was loaded with papier-mache items, including 108 pinatas in the likeness of Disney characters on their way to Thornton, Colo.
The story quotes a border official saying, stopping counterfeit goods is “a vital element in national security.”
NYT story on the piñata underground here.
12:22 PM
More on the "Do illegal immigrants cause crime?" debate
The occasionally off-balance Espresso Pundit links to Tom Maguire’s conservative but rigorous Just One Minute blog, debating the premise of the NYT’s Sunday piece looking at Arizona crime figures.
(While the anti-immigrant forces harp on the supposed crimes committed by immigrants, the facts show that crime in the state has been trending broadly down for a decade.)
Maguire makes an interesting point:
That while crime is down greatly in cities like Phoenix, a careful parsing of FBI figures shows that crime is up in non-city and rural areas:
Now, note that the number of crimes is down even in smaller cities, though declining population forces the crime rate higher.
The steep rise in crime in rural areas, though, is interesting. The rate rise is nearly 50 percent. Is that due to alleged crimes committed by illegal immigrants?
Neither Greg Patterson nor Maguire make that case.
As the debate continues, these, it seem to me, are the central questions:
1) First, obviously, are the crimes committed by illegal immigrants … or just good old-fashioned god-fearing, gun-toting, wife-beating thoroughly Caucasian and all-American Arizona stock?
2) Similarly, what kind of crimes are they—car thefts, armed robbery, the sort of things that might be associated with the lurid idea of a predatory immigrant moving north?
3) Rural Arizona is a big place. Are the crimes happening in border towns or up north?
4) What number of crimes are we talking about, anyway? Again, the rate of increase is high.
In sheer numbers, though, the increase totals a bit more than 100 new crimes committed in an area the size of … well, the size of Arizona.
Ninety-nine percent of the state is rural—and the rural population totals about 4 percent of the state’s.
And 100 crimes equals … one third of one percent of the number committed in Phoenix and Tucson.
7:25 AM
The Arizona Republic takes a stand!
The Arizona Republic is so randomly put together and edited, despite the good work of a lot of its good writers, that it’s hard to get a bead on it.
Just to surprise us, the paper runs an unassailably documented, incredibly long, and cogently argued editorial about the much bruited-about political issue of “securing the border.”
The bad news is that it ran on the front page as a news story under a tag of “analysis.”
It was written by Dennis Wagner; it’s a great piece that lays waste to the creeps and poltroons stirring up the cheap seats with fear tactics, and it’s the kind of thing the paper should run more of.
Since it is basically an opinion piece, it’s going to attract a lot of flak, but it’s hard to argue with anything Wagner writes:
Anyone with a minimal knowledge or understanding about the nearly 2,000-mile swath of land between Mexico and the United States realizes that requiring a secure border establishes an impossible standard.
…There is no way to conclude success because authorities have no idea how many undocumented immigrants are getting through. Authorities can count only the number of unauthorized intruders captured. Such unavoidable uncertainty prevents any absolute assurances that no one is sneaking over, making declarations of victory impossible.
The story includes this mischievous passage:
Here is another way to consider the problem: Maricopa County Sheriff Joe Arpaio, a leader in the anti-immigration movement and acclaimed as America’s toughest sheriff, cannot secure his own jails. Every year, despite armed guards, electronic locks and video monitors, inmates smuggle drugs in from the outside and sometimes even escape.
No one would blame Arpaio. All penal institutions, regardless of security measures, have breaches. Yet imagine if America adopted a position that no new laws could be passed regarding prison reform “until the nation’s jails are secure.”
Lots and lots of facts and figures in the (very long) story, which is here.
7:24 AM
Brewer and Hayworth go on the attack against Clinton
… after the secretary of state mentioned in a public interview with the Ecuadoran president that the Obama administration was going to sue to overturn Arizona’s new immigration law, Politico reports.
“This is no way to treat the people of Arizona,” said Brewer, who recently set up a legal defense fund to combat challenges to the law. “To learn of this lawsuit through an Ecuadorean interview with the secretary of state is just outrageous.”
“If our own government intends to sue our state to prevent illegal immigration enforcement, the least it can do is inform us before it informs the citizens of another nation,” Brewer added.
[…]
Hayworth called Clinton’s comments “appalling” in a statement criticizing her for making “a major domestic policy announcement on foreign soil.”
6:56 AM
PHXations—Friday, June 18, 2010
The AP is reporting that White House staffers will meet with Governor Brewer in Arizona on June 28th
The White House set a June 28 date for staffers to meet with Arizona Gov. Jan Brewer on her turf and provide more detail on sending National Guard troops to the U.S.-Mexico border.
When Brewer met with Obama at the White House two weeks ago, promises were made for the follow-up meeting. The White House announced Friday it was keeping its promised date. Obama is not planning to attend.
CBS News confirms that the federal government will challenge SB 1070:
It was unclear yesterday whether Clinton’s comments were simply a prediction or mistake or whether instead she was getting ahead of a planned announcement by the administration.
Now a senior administration official tells CBS News that the federal government will indeed formally challenge the law when Justice Department lawyers are finished building the case. The official said Justice is still working on building the case.
Whodathunkit? GOP hiding facts about immigration law
It’s typical of Brewer and her Republican friends who consistently have failed to crack down on the violent and criminal acts that accompany illegal immigration. Their patchwork policies do nothing to solve the real problem that Arizonans experience every day.
They failed to point out that the new law will do nothing to stop the coyotes, human traffickers and dangerous drug and arms dealers who cross our border every day.
They don’t mention that the new law is an unfunded mandate and gives police no resources or money to implement the new law. Brewer and Republicans took police officers off the streets when they massively cut public-safety funding this year.
Read the whole thing at Arizona Capitol Times
While Arizona’s politicians have spent time persecuting gays and Mexicans and letting the state’s finances go into the toilet, more industrious folks in town have been working to put us on the map in an important national ranking, the Republic reports:
Arizona now ranks fourth for mortgage fraud nationally. It’s the first time the state has cracked the top five for the problem, according to data released this week from the Mortgage Asset Research Institute.
Florida, New York and California (in that order) rank ahead of Arizona in 2009 mortgage-fraud cases. The most prevalent type of home-loan fraud is application misrepresentation, which includes borrowers lying about income. Overall, U.S. mortgage fraud climbed 7 percent last year.
Officials on the state and federal level are (finally) going after mortgage fraud, the paper says in a related story:
A federal and state law-enforcement task force has accelerated arrests and prosecutions of Arizona residents accused of participating in mortgage-fraud schemes involving kickbacks, inflated property appraisals, phony buyers and other tactics.
There have been 51 Arizona indictments and 13 convictions since the task force was assembled March 1, all of them involving allegations of fraud against lenders, a spokesman for the U.S. Attorney’s Office said.
2:23 PM
PHXations—Tuesday, June 15, 2010
The Yuma Sun is reporting that mayor Al Krieger has attempted to apologize for the comments he made about gays in the military during a Memorial Day speech:
In a phone interview with the Yuma Sun Friday afternoon, Krieger apologized to the gay community.
As mayor I must respect the lifestyle choices of others, no matter how disagreeable they are with my personal beliefs or my personal moral standards.
I apologize for my comments at the Memorial Day service at Desert Lawn cemetery on Memorial Day.
It’s a pretty ‘limp’ apology, if you ask me. Hopefully, the personal beliefs and moral standards of the citizens of Yuma are enough to thrown Krieger out of office next election.
A majority of US mayors have come out against SB 1070:
The U.S. Conference of Mayors has approved resolutions condemning Arizona’s new immigration law and asking Congress for an overhaul of federal immigration policies.
Conference spokeswoman Elena Temple-Webb says both resolutions were approved on a voice vote, with some opposition.
Phoenix Mayor Phil Gordon sponsored the first resolution opposing the Arizona law that makes crossing the border illegally a state crime and requires police to verify people’s immigration status. The law goes into effect July 29.
A second resolution by Los Angeles Mayor Antonio Villaraigosa calls for the repeal of the Arizona law and for Congress to pass comprehensive changes to immigration law.
An estimated 200 mayors attended the conference Monday in Oklahoma City.
Starbucks announced it will roll out free wifi in its stores July 1. Wired story on the announcement here.
What can *you do? Continue to patronize the local stores who have been offering wifi as a service to customers for years.
There’s Lux, the Lolas, Fair Trade, Hob Nobs, Unlimited, Copper Star …
The Starbucks method:
Each customer must log in to Wi-Fi and the Starbucks Digital Network with a unique identifier, so Starbucks won’t only know where you are, but who you are, potentially allowing for targeted messaging to offset cost further.
9:13 AM
What exactly does Arizona's Tea Party stand for?
Mike Sunnucks, in the PBJ, analyzes the things that motivates Arizona’s wing of the Tea Party folks:
[T]he anti-tax wing of the tea parties was nowhere to be found when the Proposition 100 sales tax referendum was easily passed by voters. Brewer backed that sales tax hike despite it going against conservative dogma. The governor’s signing of the immigration bill erased her tax increase sins.
Right now, the tea party blend in Arizona is anti-immigration and socially conservative. Sure there are tea party folks who care about spending, taxes and Wall Street bailouts, as well as some who simply don’t like Barack Obama being president or trust his own birth papers. But right now, immigration and its social implications are fueling everything political in the state — including the tea party.
6:58 AM
Jon Talton on SB 1070
Talton articulates something that’s been bubbling under the discussion biut hasn’t been laid out so clearly:
The measure was always a crafty weapon to maintain power, keep the base hysterical and intensely involved, sow fear and defeatism among Mexican-Americans and put Dems on the spot. As I’ve written, the bill was never intended to shut down illegal immigration — the state economy and not a few of the businesses that support the white-right would collapse. It is a brilliant tactic, like guns, God, gays and abortion — a faux existential threat that must never be really solved because it is so politically profitable.
Emphasis added.
12:26 PM
PHXations—Tuesday, June 8, 2010
An ABC News/Washington Post poll suggests that support for the Tea Party movement is weakening:
“Do you have a favorable or unfavorable impression of the political movement known as the Tea Party?” the survey asked.
Thirty-six percent gave thumbs-up to the Tea Party, while 50 percent had a “Somewhat” or “Strongly” unfavorable view. Fourteen percent had no opinion.
Support for the right-wing populist movement was down from 41 percent in March.
Via GOOD)
/yaa
Buying local has big impacts:
A study released today found that SCF Arizona, the state’s largest workers’ compensation insurer, had a $528.3 million economic impact in Arizona in 2009.
The Phoenix company sourced 82 percent of its goods and services from other Arizona companies, according to the study released by Local First Arizona, a nonprofit that encourages Arizona businesses to buy locally.
Kimber Lanning, executive director of Local First, said the purpose of the study was to demonstrate how one major employer can have a significant impact on Arizona’s economy when buying from other Arizona-based companies. She said this is the first fully scientific study that measures the economic impact of a single employer.
SCF is in the process of becoming a private company. Gov. Jan Brewer signed Senate Bill 1045 into law in May, directing SCF to become a mutual insurance company, which means it would be owned by its policyholders. Created in 1925 as a state agency, SCF Arizona covers more than 35,000 businesses and has about a 40 percent market share in the state.
/yaa
The Republic reports on one benefit of SB 1070:
In the seven weeks since Republican Gov. Jan Brewer signed Arizona’s tough new immigration law, there has been a sharp increase in the number of Latinos registering to vote as Democrats, party officials say, jumping from about 100 a week before to 500 now.
Many of those registering are young Latino citizens whose parents may be undocumented.
“Before, it used to be hard,” said Luis Heredia, executive director of the Arizona Democratic Party. “Now, they are just saying, ‘Can you give me a form?’ or, ‘I am already registered, but I know someone who isn’t.’”
Regardless of their political affiliation, ethnicity or reason, it is promising to see a new generation of citizens getting involved in politics.
/yaa
In the Arizona Capitol Times, Jeremy Duda reports on the Supreme Court’s administrative decision that effectively blocks matching funds for this election cycle:
The U.S. Supreme Court blocked Arizona’s Clean Elections system from distributing matching funds, throwing a number of high profile campaigns into disarray just weeks before candidates were to start receiving money.
The court on June 8 granted a request by the Goldwater Institute to halt a recent ruling of the U.S. Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals that declared matching funds constitutional. The justices ordered that the distribution of matching funds be put on hold until it can hear a full appeal of the matching funds system.
Goldwater Institute attorney Nick Dranias said he doesn’t expect the court to hear the appeal in McComish v. Bennett until around October, meaning matching funds are essentially finished for 2010.
The primary election is Aug. 24. The general election is Nov. 2.
/yaa
Hall & Oates have joined the list of artists boycotting Arizona. From the PBJ:
“Private Eyes” won’t be watching Phoenix next month.
1980s rock duo Daryl Hall and John Oates have canceled their July 2 concert at Chase Field because of Arizona’s contentious immigration law. They had been scheduled to perform after the Arizona Diamondbacks’ game with the Los Angeles Dodgers.
6:51 PM
The Republic profiles Russell Pearce
The paper ledes today with a long, if not really in-depth, look at the bozo who’s been at the forefront of taking the state back into the stone age.
Here’s how it begins:
Nothing stops Russell Pearce.
Not a heart attack. Not a stroke. Not a bullet in the chest.
And most certainly not the criticism from opponents who have long accused him of putting politics ahead of facts, pushing too hard and cooperating too little.
The story does its best to deal with a few of Pearce’s most obvious vulnerabilities, but as usual with the Republic, the staff there just doesn’t seem up to the task.
For example, the reference to “putting politics ahead of facts” in the third paragraph is an initial taste of an issue the story flits back to, but never deals with head-on:
How Pearce talks incessantly about immigrant-fueled crime, when the facts clearly show that crimes' been declining in the state for a decade.
The reporter, Gary Nelson, interviewed Pearce for the story. There’s a lot of he-said she-said in the story about crime, but he never confronts Pearce with the facts, so Pearce is never forced to deal with his fabrications and fear-mongering.
There’s a lot on Pearce’s background with a wacko Mormon fringe figure, W. Cleon Skousen. (The article describes him with a straight face as a “Mormon political theorist.”)
But we don’t get to hear from Pearce what his vision is about church and state. (And nothing about how the Mormons feel about SB 1070.)
And one more thing: Pearce could have been asked why, if he’s so devoted to the Constitution, he’s promoting a bill about immigrant births that plainly is rendered moot by the 14th Amendment.
5:08 PM
For Jan Brewer fans only! A Saturday morning humor reading
“Shame on you Dennis Welch and shame on you Jennifer Johnson.”
Those are the lugubrious, choked-up words of soi-disant Espresso Pundit Greg Patterson, driven nearly to tears defending the honor of Jan Brewer after she was caught lying about her father’s military record.
Welch is the Arizona Guardian reporter who quoted Brewer saying her father had died “fighting the Nazi regime in Germany.” Johnson is a state Democratic Party functionary who, like the rest of us, thinks it’s pretty cheap to try to invoke sympathy for yourself by inventing an Inglourious Basterds-style military career for your dad.
Patterson really gets going relating the noble history behind Brewer’s gaffe.
And history it is!
He begins not in medias res but, more dramatically, at the beginning:
Hitler attempts to take over the world and uses the war as cover to launch the Holocaust….
Fortunately, the Allies mobilize! But wait—back in America…
Meanwhile a guy name Wilford Drinkwine leaves a farm in the midwest and takes his family to Nevada to work in a munitions plant….
… and with an O. Henry-like twist, Drinkwine turns out to be Jan Brewer’s father!
No one would mock his death, however he died or whatever caused it. But it’s also a bit skeevy for Patterson to try to get us all worked up about Drinkwine’s death (not to mention the Holocaust) in an attempt to distract attention from what Brewer said, which was …
… that her father died fighting the Nazi regime in Germany.
Previously in PHXated:
Jan Brewer is Keith Olbermann’s “Worst Person in the World”
Jan Brewer and her father: 205 stories and counting….
Brewer doubles down on her misstatements about her father’s war record
8:57 AM
Jan Brewer is Keith Olbermann's "Worst Person in the World"
… for saying her said died “fighting the Nazi regime in Germany,” and having a spokesperson who said she hadn’t meant, by saying that, that her dad had died fighting the Nazi regime in Germany.
Meanwhile, Politico piles on, mercilessly dissecting Brewer’s appearance on Greta Van Susternen last night, on which she blamed the media for her troubles:
Brewer […] incorrectly asserted that she “never” said her father died fighting, despite having been quoted by both the Guardian and the Arizona Republic as saying so, and strung her statement to mean that her father died from the exposure to chemicals while working in a munitions factory during the Second World War.
“My father died fighting the German regiments of Hitler,” she said. “And he did. He was building the bombs.”
“I never said he was overseas,” she contended, though her initial statement seemed to indicate otherwise. “I never once said he was in the military.”
8:05 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:
About all that immigrant-fueled crime…
Phoenix murders drop by nearly half in two years
9:04 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
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
PHXations—Wednesday, June 2, 2010
Brewer seems to be be getting use to the politician thing. She can bend the truth with the best of them:
Gov. Jan Brewer said in a recent interview that her father died fighting Nazis in Germany. In fact, the death of Wilford Drinkwine came 10 years after World War II had ended. During the war, Drinkwine worked as a civilian supervisor for a naval munitions depot in Hawthorne, Nev. He died of lung disease in 1955 in California. Brewer made the comment to The Arizona Republic while talking about the criticism she has taken since signing SB 1070, the new immigration law that makes it a state crime to be in the country illegally.
“Knowing that my father died fighting the Nazi regime in Germany, that I lost him when I was 11 because of that… and then to have them call me Hitler’s daughter. It hurts. It’s ugliness beyond anything I’ve ever experienced,” Brewer said in the story, published Tuesday.
Officials with the governor’s administration said her statement should not be taken to mean that she was claiming her father was a soldier in Germany during the Nazi regime.
(/yaa)
Why should speculators have all the real estate fun?
More state buildings go up for sale next week as Arizona officials hope to raise $300 million and help close the budget deficit.
It’s the second time this year that the state has sold off buildings in a sale-leaseback plan. The first one in January raised $735.4 million and that prompted Arizona lawmakers to authorize a second sale.
The sale will be conducted June 8 and investors will be required to make purchases in $5,000 installments. Investors must work through a list of underwriters provided by the state.
The sale-leaseback comes on the heels of last week’s action in which the state borrowed $450 million against the proceeds of future state Lottery revenues.
(/yaa)
The city of Tucson is joining a suit against SB 1070, another sign of the ferocious divisions the law has engendered in the state.
The suit is the one by the Latino Tucson cop who was one of the first to attack the law legally.
From KGUN-TV in Tucson:
In the cross-claim, the city agrees with Escobar that SB 1070 will violate the United States Constitution. Specifically, the cross-claim states that the new Arizona law conflicts with the commerce clause of the U.S. Constitution and also with the federal Immigration and Naturalization Act. The city’s filing asks the federal court to intervene to stop implementation. The cross-claim names the State of Arizona and Governor Jan Brewer as defendants.
(N.B.: PHXations are posted by various PHXated contributors throughout the day).
4:35 PM
PHXations—Tuesday, June 1
Brewer, Obama to meet on immigration
President Obama intends to meet with Arizona Gov. Jan Brewer on Thursday, a White House official told FoxNews.com, after criticism mounted over reports the president wouldn’t be able to meet her while she is in Washington this week.
More on FOXNews.com
Arizonans to vote on medical marijuana:
A statewide measure allowing for medical marijuana clinics to be opened in Arizona has qualified for the November ballot.
The Arizona Medical Marijuana Project said Tuesday the Arizona Secretary of State’s Office confirmed the necessary 153,365 voter signatures to qualify the measure for the ballot. If approved, the Arizona Department Health Services would regulate medical marijuana clinics in state. Patients suffering from conditions or diseases such as Parkinson’s, cancer, multiple sclerosis and HIV/AIDS would be able to buy pot for medical and pain alleviating uses.
A different legislature? One can only dream.
Even if all of the incumbents running for the state Legislature win their bids for re-election on Nov. 2, the Capitol will be a very different place next year.
Twenty-four lawmakers have reached the end of their four consecutive two-year term limit and cannot run for their same seat; another 15 have announced they will not be seeking re-election.
Alas, I’m not holding my breath. In Arizona politics it seems that the more things change, the more they say the same…
Courts rejects Goldwater Institute… again
The U.S. Supreme Court on June 1 refused to block the distribution of so-called “matching funds” to candidates running for office under Arizona’s Clean Elections law.
The court denial of the request filed by the Goldwater Institute and some candidates left the door open for a full appeal of a lower court decision.
That April 21 decision upheld the parts of the law that provide extra taxpayer support for publicly funded candidates who are outspent by privately funded opponents or independent groups.
Let’s give it credit: The Arizona Republic covers dog news as well as any paper in America.
Dogs on Twitter, dogs on Facebook, “Posh pads for pampered pooches” …
Today, the lede story in the Living section story about a doggie named Gabriel who … (sniff) died.
The hedline is “Gabriel gets his wings.”
The web hedline is “Gabriel’s Angels therapy dog left indelible paw prints on children’s hearts.”
The story says that, since he died, Gabriel has gained 1000 new followers on Twitter.
It’s been three years since noble Bandit was left in a Chandler cop car, which the Valley’s media outlets scrambled the jets to cover over a period of what seemed like months.
Arizona’s new one percent sales tax goes into effect today.
As we drive around in our Hummers and SUVs to this Starbucks or that Whole Foods, let’s remember that poor and working people will be buying their kids one percent less food, taking their families out for one percent less fun, and come fall, spending one percent less on back-to-school clothes.
But it’s just one percent. It’s not like these folk weren’t already under enormous pressure living in an economically backwards state whose jobs base, spurred by an unsustainable housing bubble and nothing else, wasn’t already in the toilet.
Oh, wait …
5:34 PM
How many people protested in Arizona yesterday?
The Republic says “more than 5,000” gathered at Tempe’s Diablo Stadium to voice support for the law.
The paper’s main story on the anti-SB 1070 march still says only that “thousands” walked from Steele Indian School Park to the state capitol.
The Capitol Times is sticking with its “tens of thousands ” estimate, and quotes Alfredo Gutierrez, an organizer as estimating it at 50,000.
The EVT says “at least 10,000 to 20,000 protesters braved the 94 degree heat.”
The NYT has a story on the march, too, saying that “thousands” turned out in “withering” heat.
The FOX 10 news site has a story that seems about two days old, saying only that certain numbers of protesters were “expected”.
12 News keeps with “thousands” as well:
8:40 AM
Today's march headed toward the state capitol
The Republic estimates the crowd at 10,000:
The throng of people banged drums, chanted slogans asking President Barack Obama to intervene and waived American flags as they made their way toward downtown Phoenix. Organizers were scattered throughout the protesters picking up trash and providing water to the marchers as the day got progressively hotter.
Shortly before 12:30 p.m., the first of the protesters reached the Capitol after the long march from central Phoenix. A stage is set up in the middle of the Capitol complex where speakers will address the crowd in a post-march rally.
Arizona Capitol Times is covering the march, too, but ups the crowd-size estimates considerably:
Tens of thousands of protesters, composed of activist groups and unions from around the country, marched from Indian Steele Park in mid-town Phoenix on their way to the state Capitol May 29, trying to send a message to state and federal politicians: Repeal Arizona’s new immigration law.
1:05 PM
A perhaps more productive way to deal with the fallout from SB 1070
Pro AZ is a site that is encouraging people to shop at businesses that support equal rights for all Arizonans.
Here’s their mantra:
Pro AZ loves the United States of America and we love AZ.
Pro AZ believes to have a healthy Arizona, we must have an equal Arizona.
Pro AZ encourages residents to support local businesses that publicly display their respect for all Arizona communities.
The group says businesses can print out the logo above to show their support. You can order the postcards here.
2:45 PM
PHXations—Friday, May 28
He would know: Sheriff Joe calls troops at the border election year gimmick
ORO VALLEY (KOLD) – Maricopa County Sheriff Joe Arpaio says when the Obama Administration talks about 1,200 troops along the border, they really mean 400.
According to Arpaio’s math, if each soldier works 8 hours a day, there can be no more than 400 of them on the border at once.
“What took so long to do it now?” Arpaio asks, during a campaign event for republican congressional candidate Jesse Kelly. “Is it an election year? You think 400 troops are going to solve that problem.”
“You solve the problem like I’m solving it,” he adds. “You go after all aspects of illegal immigration. You arrest anybody that violates the law.”
Arpaio says he supports Kelly, because the two think alike on border and immigration issues.
Kelly is running against State Senator Jonathan Paton. The winner of the republican primary faces Rep. Gabrielle Giffords in the November general election.
RIP Gary Coleman.
Child actor Gary Coleman died at approximately 12:05 p.m. Mountain. Standard Time at Utah Valley Regional Medical Center. Family members and close friends were at his side when life support was terminated.
Mr. Coleman suffered an intracranial hemorrhage at his home in Utah on the evening of May 26, 2010. As of mid morning on May 27, Mr. Coleman was conscious and lucid, but by early afternoon that same day, Mr. Coleman was slipping in and out of consciousness and his condition worsened.
Family members express their appreciation and gratitude for the support and prayers that have been expressed for Gary and for them.
—-Information from: Utah Valley Hospital.
The NYT has an overview article today on the reactions of Hispanics in Arizona to SB 1070, which delves into the problems that already existed between Hispanics and some police:
Judge Jose Padilla of Maricopa County Superior Court in Phoenix, says that twice since he became a judge in 2006, the police have pulled him over, alleging minor traffic infractions. Even though Judge Padilla, 60, did not disclose his occupation, he ended up not receiving a ticket. He said his complaints to the police department led to sensitivity training for the officers.
Judge Padilla believes the stops were based on his Hispanic ancestry and the fact that his 1988 pickup truck has large wheels and resembles a low rider, a customized car popular in Mexican-American culture but also favored by some street gangs.
“This has been lifelong, these stops,” he said, “and it is not just me.”
There’s a sidebar as well, detailing a campaign by some musicians against the state since the law’s passage:
The campaign, called the Sound Strike, has been organized by Zack de la Rocha, the lead singer of the rap metal band Rage Against the Machine, and is endorsed by English-language rock and rap performers like Massive Attack, Kanye West, Conor Oberst, Sonic Youth and Joe Satriani. But the signatories also include Spanish-speaking reggaetón artists and Los Tigres del Norte, perhaps the most popular and influential exponent of Mexican regional music in the United States.
An article in Slate argues that the constitutional approach to looking for illegal immigrants is checkpoints:
If Arizona truly wants to identify undocumented aliens in a way that does not undermine legitimacy, it should try randomized checkpoints. Checkpoints are widely used by police to enforce drunk-driving laws and other routine safety checks—such as seat belt laws—that save lives. Police can do a good job finding offenders without having to play their hunches. Policing agencies are required to have a good reason to set up a checkpoint, of course. But once a checkpoint is set up, individual officers don’t need to exercise their discretion. In fact, they can’t under constitutional law.
The Arizona Republic says that schools are reporting anecdotally but consistently that immigrant families are leaving in the wake of the passage of SB 1070:
Teachers and principals at Alhambra elementary schools in west Phoenix, for example, are saying goodbye to core volunteer parents, who tell them that the new migration law threatens their family stability and that they must leave. The district expects the new law to drive out an extra 200 to 300 students over the summer.
Balsz Elementary District in east Phoenix lost 70 families in the past 30 days, an unprecedented number, officials said.
12:18 PM
President Obama on Arizona, SB 1070, and immigration reform
From his press conference this a.m.:
Q Mr. President, you announced — or the White House announced on — two days ago that you were going to send 1,200 people to — 1,200 members of the National Guard to the border. I wanted to — if you could — precise what their target is going to be, what you’re planning to achieve with that, if you could clarify a bit more the mission that they’re going to have. And also, on Arizona, after you have been — criticized so much the immigration law that has been approved there, would you support the boycott that some organizations are calling towards that state?
PRESIDENT OBAMA: Okay. I’ve indicated that I don’t approve of the Arizona law. I think it’s the wrong approach. I understand the frustrations of the people of Arizona and a lot of folks along the border that that border has not been entirely secured in a — in a way that is both true our — to our traditions as a nation of law and as a nation of immigrants.
You know, I’m the president of the United States. I don’t endorse boycotts or not endorse boycotts. That’s something that the private citizens can make a decision about.
What my administration is doing is examining very closely this Arizona law and its implications for the civil rights and civil liberties of the people in Arizona, as well as the concern that you start getting a patchwork of 50 different immigration laws around the country, in an area that is inherently the job of the federal government.
Now, for the federal government to do its job, everybody has got to step up. And so I tried to be as clear as I could this week. And I will repeat it to everybody who’s here.
We have to have a comprehensive approach to immigration reform. The time to get moving on this is now. And I am prepared to work with both parties and members of Congress, to get a bill that does a good job securing our borders, holds employers accountable, makes sure that those who have come here illegally have to pay a fine, pay back taxes, learn English and get right by the law.
We have the opportunity to do that. We’ve done — we’ve gotten a vote of a supermajority in the Senate just four years ago. There’s no reason why we shouldn’t be able to recreate that bipartisan spirit, to get this problem solved.
Now, with respect to the National Guardsmen and women, you know, I have authorized up to 1,200 National Guardspersons, in a plan that was actually shaped last year.
So this not simply in response to the Arizona law.
And what we find is, is that National Guardspersons can help on intelligence, dealing with both drug and human trafficking along the borders. They can relieve border guards so that the border guards then can be in charge of law enforcement in those areas. So there are a lot of functions that they can carry out that helps leverage and increase the resources available in this area.
By the way, we didn’t just send National Guard; we’ve also got a package of $500 million in additional resources because, for example, if we are doing a better job dealing with trafficking along the border, we’ve also got to make sure that we’ve got prosecutors down there who can prosecute those cases.
But that the key point I want to emphasize to you is that I don’t see these issues in isolation. We’re not going to solve the problem just solely as a consequence of sending National Guard troops down there. We’re going to solve this problem because we have created an orderly, fair, humane immigration framework in which people are able to immigrate to this country in a legal fashion, employers are held accountable for hiring legally present workers.
And I think we can craft that system if everybody’s willing to step up. And I told the Republican Caucus when I met with them this week, I don’t even need you to meet me halfway; meet me a quarter of the way. I’ll bring in the majority of Democrats to a smart, sensible, comprehensive immigration reform bill, but I’m going to have to have some help, given the rules of the Senate, where a simple majority’s not enough.
12:58 PM
PHXations—Thursday, May 27
Easier said that done:
Former Supreme Court Justice Sandra Day O’Connor says Arizona must figure out how to show it appreciates, respects and admires the Hispanics who live there after passing a tough new immigration law.
Read more: O’Connor: Arizona must show it’s not biased – AZCapitol Times.com
Better than I would have thought:
Arizona drivers rank 17th for their knowledge about the rules of the road, according to a study of the nation’s licensed drivers by GMAC Insurance.
The insurance company surveyed licensed American drivers from across the country asking 20 questions taken from Department of Motor Vehicles written exams. Arizona drivers averaged 78.5 percent on the tests with 16.2 percent failing.
More McCain, this time from the Arizona Capitol Times:
Sen. John McCain plans to launch new radio and television ads Thursday that blast his primary opponent for supporting special funding requests known as earmarks, his campaign said…
According to AZ Central’s AZ/DC Blog, Former Massachusetts Gov. Mitt Romney, one of Sen. John McCain’s toughest rivals in the 2008 Republican presidential primaries and one of his biggest allies in his 2010 re-election bid, returns to Mesa next week to headline a McCain town hall in Mesa.
The joint appearance is scheduled for 11 a.m. Friday, June 4, at the Mesa High School auditorium, 1630 E. Southern Ave., Mesa. For planning purposes, the McCain campaign is requesting RSVPs at www.johnmccain.com/mitt.
Lots of Joe Arpaio news. The county moves ahead on its spending investigation of Arpaio’s office:
Suspecting Maricopa County Sheriff Joe Arpaio’s office has misspent money, the Board of Supervisors imposed significant financial restrictions against the office in two special meetings Wednesday morning.
The five supervisors unanimously decided to force the Sheriff’s Office to justify the need for outside bank accounts, limit employees' use of county credit cards, require staff to re-apply for cards by June 11 or face cancellation. They also asked county officials to develop a policy that would limit all non-emergency travel for sheriff’s employees next fiscal as well as additional general financial and management recommendations.
Meanwhile, the U.S. Department of Labor is ordering Arpaio’s office to cough up $2 million in back pay.
His office was apparently making detention officers attent department briefings before their shift began.
2:55 PM
The Justice Dept. preparing a legal attack on SB 1070
So reports the Republic this afternoon, citing “sources”:
Top Justice Department officials have drafted a legal challenge that could be filed in federal court in Arizona asserting that the state’s new immigration law is unconstitutional because it impinges on the federal government’s inherent authority to police the nation’s Southwest border with Mexico, sources said Wednesday.
At the same time, the government officials said, the department’s civil rights division is considering possible legal action against the law on the basis that it amounts to racial profiling of Latinos who are legally in Arizona but conceivably could be asked to provide documents proving their citizenship.
The story says U.S. Attorney General Eric Holder met with ten police chiefs who oppose the law—the story doesn’t say whether any were from Arizona—and says he told them his department would take action “soon.”
9:44 PM
Another cancelled convention due to SB 1070
The Republic reports that another group has cancelled an upcoming convention in the city:
A minority suppliers group that would have brought 7,000 convention attendees to Phoenix this fall has moved the meeting to Florida because of Arizona’s new immigration law.
The National Minority Suppliers Development Council, Inc. released a statement, which Phoenix officials received today.
The story doesn’t explicitly say so, but the group was apparently set for the convention center.
The story notes that convention center cancellations hit the city twice; first because of the last money that would otherwise have been spent in the city, and then second because the city operates the convention center and owns the nearby Sheraton Hotel.
The Republic has a list of cancelled conventions and announced boycots here. The list is confusing and not particularly well put together—the National Urban League is listed twice, doing two different and contradictory things, for example.
Read carefully, however, and it looks as if the minority suppliers is only the fifth officially pulled convention.
6:20 PM
NYT looks at Arizona again
The angle this time, detailed in a front-page story: Political fault lines in the GOP SB 1070 is causing.
Republican lawmakers and candidates are increasingly divided over illegal immigration — torn between the need to attract Latino support, especially at the ballot box, and rallying party members who support tougher action.
Arizona’s new measure, which requires that the police check the documents of anyone they stop or detain whom they suspect of being in the country illegally, has forced politicians far and wide to take a stance. But unlike in Washington, where a consensus exists among establishment Republicans, the fault lines in the states — where the issue is even more visceral and immediate — are not predictable.
11:28 AM
Jon Talton: The return of a native (of sorts)
Talton, a former Republic columnist and now a Seattle-based journalist and mystery writer, maintains a blog that has quickly become one of PHXated’s favorites: Rogue Columnist.
He’s back in town visiting, and has been posting some impressions. The first graf has a lot in it:
Traveling around Arizona, it’s difficult to imagine how the state can turn itself around, even if a majority understood the term. For most, a turnaround would mean a return to 40-percent population growth every decade, more sprawl, more “active adult resort living — with championship golf!,” more spec retail development and office “parks” to house the real-estate outfits, mortgage boiler rooms and call centers. The dirty secret is that as an economy, Arizona outside of Phoenix and Tucson is “the Third World,” as a prominent booster economist once told me, not for attribution. An overstatement of course, although the Third World also has its gated enclaves of the super-rich and depends heavily on tourism. But among the states, Arizona including Phoenix and Tucson performed dismally on almost any measure of economic well-being except for housing starts and population growth, the latter a mixed indicator that carries huge costs, too. And this was before the Great Recession.
The rest is here.
1:02 PM
SB 1070--The Mormon anti-immigration bill?
The Republic reports that the LDS is suffering some backlash because SB 1070 author Russell Pearce is a Mormon:
Kenneth Patrick Smith, a Mesa lawyer and president of the Valencia Branch, a Spanish-speaking LDS congregation in Mesa, said missionaries from his church have had doors slammed in their faces since Arizona’s new law was signed by Gov. Jan Brewer in April.
“They say, ‘Why would we want to hear anything from a religion that would do this to the Hispanic community?’ ” said Smith, who emphasized that he was speaking for himself, not the church. “It’s a great disconnect because on one hand the missionaries are out there preaching brotherly love, kindness, charity, tolerance, faith, hope, etc., and then they see on TV a quote-unquote Mormon pushing this legislation that makes them not only … terrified but terrorized.”
The church itself says it doesn’t have a position on the legislation, though Pearce himself uses the church’s teachings to defend his law:
Pearce has repeatedly said his efforts to drive illegal immigrants out of Arizona and keep them from coming here is based on the Mormon Church’s 13 Articles of Faith, which includes obeying the law.
Pearce is a cretin and ordinarily it wouldn’t be fair to tar the church with his membership. But even the Catholic Church has smacked Pearce’s hateful bill; just by being silent, the Mormons are fostering bigotry …
…. as they have of course done against homosexuals.
Previously in PHXated: “Temples of Bigotry”
7:35 AM
New Times is funding the ACLU's lawsuit against SB 1070
So write the company’s owners, Jim Larkin and Michael Lacey:
Village Voice Media [that’s the name of the Phoenix New Times' parent company, which owns 15 papers across the country] is underwriting the cost of the American Civil Liberties Union of Arizona’s forthcoming litigation against Senate Bill 1070, as well as two other immigration lawsuits.
Senate Bill 1070 mandates that a police officer who has “reasonable suspicion” that someone is a Mexican must detain that person. The cop must ask: Are your papers in order?
Similar legislation is under discussion in seven other statehouses.
The pair note you can make a fully tax-deductible contribution to the case online at the ACLU’s local web site or via mail at:
American Civil Liberties Union of Arizona Foundation P.O. Box 17148 Phoenix, AZ 85011
1:02 PM
The NYT goes after Arizona again
An editorial today, entitled “Los Suns,” approvingly cites the basketball team’s position on SB 1070 and goes on from there to scold the state every which way:
Before this goes any further, Arizona should check the scars of the early ’90s when the state arrogantly rejected Martin Luther King’s Birthday as a holiday and prompted cancellations of more than 100 lucrative conventions and events, including the Super Bowl. It’s pathetic that Arizona’s politicians would put the state through that once again. Arizona should repeal this law immediately.
2:59 PM
AZ Republic says some fans didn't like "Los Sun" logos
One outraged fan told The Arizona Republic that she shredded her four lower-level tickets to Wednesday’s game against the San Antonio Spurs in protest. Meanwhile, 84 letters to the editor were sent to The Republic on Wednesday, 79 opposed to Sarver’s decision.
“I’m very unhappy, and I don’t think they should get involved,” said Roger Gibbard, who lives outside Queen Creek and has been a Suns fan since 1981.
7:34 AM
Which AZ sheriff thinks SB 1070 is "racist" and "disgusting"?
Pima County’s Clarence Dupnik, that’s who. The source is Tucson TV station KGUN, channel 9:
TUCSON (KGUN9-TV) – Pima County’s top lawman says he has no intention of enforcing Arizona’s controversial crackdown on illegal immigration. Sheriff Clarence Dupnik calls SB 1070 “racist,” “disgusting,” and “unnecessary.”
Speaking Tuesday morning with KGUN9’s Steve Nunez, Dupnik made it clear that while he will not comply with the provisions of the new law, nor will he let illegal immigrants go free. “We’re going to keep doing what we’ve been doing all along,” Dupnik said. “We’re going to stop and detain these people for the Border Patrol.”
The sheriff acknowledged that this course of action could get him hauled into court. SB 1070 allows citizens to sue any law enforcement official who doesn’t comply with the law. But Dupnik told Nunez that SB 1070 would force his deputies to adopt racial profiling as an enforcement tactic, which Dupnik says could also get him sued. “So we’re kind of in a damned if we do, damned if we don’t situation. It’s just a stupid law.”
1:20 PM
Jeb Bush has come out against SB 1070
So Politico reports:
“I think it creates unintended consequences,” he said in a telephone interview with POLITICO Tuesday. “It’s difficult for me to imagine how you’re going to enforce this law. It places a significant burden on local law enforcement and you have civil liberties issues that are significant as well.”
Bush’s remarks demonstrate the difficulties Republicans in states with large Hispanic populations are going to have with immigration issues.
Indeed, the story continues:
Bush’s comments came on the same day that former Florida Speaker and Senate candidate Marco Rubio also came out in opposition to the Arizona law.
Rubio, whose parents were Cuban immigrants, said the legislation could “unreasonably single out people who are here legally, including many American citizens.”
8:04 PM
Jon Stewart and Stephen Colbert on Arizona's immigration law
The Daily Show on Arizona, “the meth lab of democracy”:
| The Daily Show With Jon Stewart | Mon - Thurs 11p / 10c | |
| Law & Border | ||
The Colbert Report:
| The Colbert Report | Mon - Thurs 11:30pm / 10:30c | |
| The Word - Docu-Drama | ||
9:11 AM
About that Rasmussen poll on support for SB 1070 ...
The poll found, shockingly, 60 percent support for the new Arizona immigration bill.
But Nate Silver at 538.com analyzes the polling questions and find that the pollster both misrepresented the law and didn’t fully describe it, particularly the civil liberty issues it provokes.
He concludes:
[T]this poll seems to be emblematic of a commercial polling industry that gravitates toward surveys that are about a mile wide and an inch deep. That approach might be perfectly fine for horse-race (election) polling, where many of the “non-traditional” pollsters (including Rasmussen) do just fine. Polling on policy issues, however — particularly policy issues like a new state law on which the public is liable to have limited familiarity — ought to inspire more thought and more finesse.
8:28 AM
Updated: "9500 Liberty" to play the Valley Art this week
N.B.: Bill Goodykoontz review of the film here.
Arizona isn’t the first jurisdiction to try telling its local police force to go after potential illegal immigrants. A county in Virginia, just outside of Washington D.C., tried it first.
9500 Liberty is a documentary about the unexpected things that happened next. It seems to have gotten some good notices; according to a release I’m inserting below, a buyer for Harkins is bringing it to town on an expedited basis after Brewer signed the now-notorious SB 1070.
The film opens at the Valley Art on Friday.
The film’s official site is here.
Press release below. Here’s a trailer:
===========
Immigration Documentary Could Shake Up Arizona Tempe, Phoenix to host 9500 Liberty, filmmakers for “emergency” premiere
FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE
(TEMPE, AZ) April 26, 2010 – This Friday, Harkins Theaters will host the theatrical premiere of 9500 LIBERTY, an award-winning film about a Virginia county’s short-lived police mandate requiring officers to question people they had cause to suspect were undocumented immigrants.
Arizona Gov. Jan Brewer signed a similar measure into law on April 23, and Harkins made a deal to exhibit 9500 Liberty 24 hours later. The Prince William County mandate was repealed after two months due to negative economic, legal, and public safety impacts. Critics of HB 1070 predict the same fate in Arizona, citing 9500 Liberty as documentary evidence.
9500 LIBERTY STARTS FRIDAY April 30, 2010 Harkins Valley Art Theater 509 S Mill Ave • Tempe, AZ 85281 Special Premiere Event Friday at 7:00 PM Daily 2:00, 4:30, 7:00, 9:30
The film’s directors Annabel Park and Eric Byler are traveling to Arizona in coming days. Byler arrives tomorrow evening while Park will arrive next week. Recently Park and Byler have been more focused on Coffee Party USA, a grass-roots movement that began on Facebook and became a national phenomenon in a matter of weeks. Both said they will speak as independent filmmakers, not as Coffee Party founders in the context of the Arizona law.
“I’ve been to several film premieres in my life, but this will be the first emergency premiere,” Byler said.
Earlier this month, Byler accepted the Phoenix Film Festival’s Breakthrough Filmmaker Award on behalf of Park and producers Chris Rigopulos, Alex Rigopulos, and Jeff Man. The next day, Harkins Theaters Film Buyer Barry Bruno approached Byler to discuss a theatrical engagement later this year. But as the controversy in Arizona erupted, the two agreed to an unusually accelerated schedule.
“One week’s lead time is unheard of, but the situation warranted it,” Bruno said.
Harkins Theaters has venues throughout Arizona, as well as in Denver, Texas, and California. Bruno said that additional theaters may soon be added
#
8:10 AM
PHXations--Friday, April 23, 2010
New Times Stephen Lemons, probably the best chronicler of the bill’s progress through the legislature, writes an opinion piece for CNN online this a.m.
Lemons notes the statement of some activists who chained themselves to the fence around the state capitol: “Our purpose is to expose Arizona’s apartheid legislation, and to uphold our dignity and human rights.” He continues:
If the use of the word apartheid seems extreme to the uninitiated, all I can say is that you have to know this bill, and this state, to understand that it is, unfortunately, all too correct. Brewer should veto this dangerous, abhorrent and costly measure.
The Arizona Republic slams the bill around in an editorial this a.m. as well but, oddly, never comes out and advocates that the governor not sign it.
Arizona faces sticker shock and buyer’s remorse if Gov. Jan Brewer signs the immigration bill on her desk. […] If the governor signs it, this bill will cost the state in many ways."
If she signs it. If …if …
So she should veto it. Right? Right?
Meanwhile, President Obama this morning called the proposed Arizona law “irresponsible”:
“Our failure to act responsibly at the federal level will only open the door to irresponsibility by others,” Obama said at a naturalization ceremony for service members. “That includes, for example, the recent efforts in Arizona, which threaten to undermine basic notions of fairness that we cherish as Americans, as well as the trust between police and their communities that is so crucial to keeping us safe.”
What will Brewer do?
There are signs she is laying the groundwork to veto the bill. Here’s a report from MSNBC.com:
*** Brewer in the spotlight: A TELEMUNDO reporter last night asked Gov. Brewer if she was concerned that the immigration bill would lead to racial profiling in the state. Her response: “I am … am looking at that particular bill. I’ve been meeting with lawyers, and I’ve been looking at it very diligently. And when I make my decision, you will be one of the first to know.” The reporter followed up by asking if she was concerned that Arizona is sending the wrong message to the rest of the country with the bill’s potential for racial profiling. Brewer’s reply: “You know, I think that we should be concerned about racial profiling. Um, it’s illegal.”
6:05 PM
One of the more dispiriting things about the immigration bill...
…comes from this Laurie Roberts blog post yesterday:
A new Rasmussen Poll reports that 70 percent of likely voters in Arizona approve of the illegal immigration bill now on Gov. Jan Brewer’s desk.
Contrary to the national uproar, just 23 percent of likely Arizona voters oppose Senate Bill 1070, with six percent unsure. The poll of 500 people was conducted last week and has a margin of error of 4.5 percentage points.
7:17 AM
PHXations--Thursday, April 22, 2010
Now US Airways says it has broken off those talks with United about merging. A couple of weeks ago the WSJ and NYT scooped the Republic on the talks, which made front-page news across the country.
No word still on whether Brewer will sign the immigration bill. Meantime, former Mesa police chief Gascon is continuing his opposition to the bill. Today in the Republic, various business leaders whack it:
Tourism executives say the bill doesn’t help their cause in luring business and leisure travelers, and their dollars, to the state.
“I don’t see anything good for tourism in this,” said Bruce Lange, managing director of the Westin Kierland Resort and Spa and former chairman of the Valley Hotel & Resort Association.
“It’s just one of those issues that makes people uncomfortable. When people get uncomfortable, it’s a lot easier to say, ‘I don’t want to go there,’ ” he added.
Diane Enos, president of the Salt River Pima-Maricopa Indian Community, which last week opened the 400-room Talking Stick Resort and casino east of Scottsdale, said the bill is not good for Arizona.
“It does not put our best face forward to visitors, particularly to international travelers,” she said in a statement.
Well duh. The story also notes this:
Several key organizations, including the Arizona Office of Tourism and the Greater Phoenix Economic Council, have so far remained silent, at least publicly, on the political hot potato.
7:06 AM
The immigration bill—now it's a federal issue
If state Sen. Russell Pearce and Co. wanted to further spread Arizona’s image as an intolerant backwater, SB 1070 sure has done it.
Politico reports that Hispanic lawmakers in D.C. are asking the Obama administration to reassert federal authority over immigration law if Gov. Brewer signs the bill:
“The governor of Arizona should veto the bill and if she doesn’t the president of the United States Barack Obama should assert the federal government’s preeminent role in regulating and enforcing our nation’s immigration law,” Rep. Luis Gutierrez (D-Ill.), said Tuesday.
A senior White House official said the administration is studying the Arizona law.
Meanwhile, Steven Lemons reports that LA Cardinal Roger Mahony went after the law on his blog Sunday:
Arizonans now reverting to German Nazi and Russian Communist techniques whereby people are required to turn one another in to the authorities on any suspicion of documentation.
Are children supposed to call 911 because one parent does not have proper papers? Are family members and neighbors now supposed to spy on one another, create total distrust across neighborhoods and communities, and report people because of suspicions based upon appearance?
And finally, Sen. McCain is running away from another part of his maverick past. He endorsed Pearce’s bill over the weekend.
And the Huffington Post has a story today with video of the senator saying that illegal immigrants …
…. are intentionally causing accidents on the freeway.
The claim comes in the last seconds of this clip:
1:03 PM
Will Brewer sign the immigration bill?
The bill passed the senate and now goes to Brewer. New Times’s Stephen Lemons watched the debate this afternoon:
Ken Cheuvront (D-Phoenix) pointed out that regulating immigration was “exclusively a federal power,” so the bill was likely to be found unconstitutional. He called the legislation “extremely un-American” and bemoaned the fact that the bill will target ordinary people.
“We’re going to make criminals of folks who just happen to be grocery shopping, picking up their kids from school, going to visit relatives,” he said.
A full Arizona Republic story on the passage is here.
Will Brewer let Arizona become the harshest anti-immigration state in the country, further cementing the state’s reputation of a xenophobic and intolerant backwater? Given she’s running in a Republican primary for election to a seat she succeeded to, it seems like a moot question.
A few days ago Lemons predicted she would sign it, or let it go into law without her signature. Yesterday, though, he noted that Brewer, speaking before a Hispanic group over the weekend, told the crowd she would “do what I believe is the right thing so that everyone is treated fairly.”
7:54 PM
NYT: Arizona's looming new immigration bill is an "outrage"
The yahoos in Arizona don’t care what the New York Times thinks. Other people do, from business leaders who might open up offices here to convention planners who might be pondering over where to direct a 10,000-member organization.
Here’s what they read this a.m.:
The Arizona Legislature has just stepped off the deep end of the immigration debate, passing a harsh and mean-spirited bill that would do little to stop illegal immigration. What it would do is lead to more racial profiling, hobble local law enforcement, and open government agencies to frivolous, politically driven lawsuits.
The bill is a grab bag of measures to enlist law enforcement and government at every level to expose and expel the undocumented. Opponents say it verges on a police state, which sounds overblown until you read it.
Emphasis added. The editorial goes on to demolish the bill’s provisions.
The bill goes back to the state senate tomorrow. AZ Republic story on the logistics here.
The governor hasn’t said whether she will sign it; Stephen Lemons of New Times, who’s been covering the bill’s hateful supporters better than anyone, says it’s likely she will — or will let it go into law without her signature.
6:39 PM
