Brontoforumus Archive
Discussion Boards => Thaddeus Boyd's Panel of Death => Topic started by: Thad on December 28, 2008, 12:09:13 AM
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Fox gives Arpaio a reality TV show. (http://www.google.com/hostednews/ap/article/ALeqM5hbXvD9hNcmiY24QkC2hrmzJwAMxwD95AKFK00)
(2009 edit: This is an old post split into a new thread. I have not heard anything new about an Arpaio reality TV show.)
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Never a more appropriate title for this thread.
I can't imagine what'll happen once the rest of the country starts paying attention to him though.
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My first thought is on the privacy concerns for people who haven't actually been convicted of anything. I assume faces will be blurred.
Some years back, Arpaio put live webcam feeds in booking rooms; it got smacked down by the courts.
The way I see it, if I were locked up in Tent City, I'd probably be better off with a webcam on me at all times -- I'd already have no privacy, and honest to God I'd feel safer with a worldwide audience than left to the mercies of the Maricopa County Sheriff's Department. But if I haven't actually been convicted of anything, fuck you, you don't get to put my face on your website and brand me a criminal.
(Arpaio would, of course, go on to launch a grand jury indictment of the New Times for posting his home address on their website. Even though it's published on the County website.)
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Oh that Joe Arpaio, when will you stop being such an obviously corrupt
individualsheriff? (http://tpmmuckraker.talkingpointsmemo.com/2009/10/americas_toughest_sheriff_teams_with_beltway_gop_p.php)
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Man, why did you have to remind me that Joe "Positional Asphyxia" Arpaio still occupies space on this miserable earth?
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Because you haven't fixed the problem yet. Get to it.
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Because you haven't fixed the problem yet. Get to it.
If only the SWAT tank in that botched Ahwatukee raid had rolled over him, we'd be rid of one more putrid caricature of a human being. I guess I'll just have to find some way to make Arizona sink into the sea.
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Because you haven't fixed the problem yet. Get to it.
If only the SWAT tank in that botched Ahwatukee raid had rolled over him, we'd be rid of one more putrid caricature of a human being. I guess I'll just have to find some way to make Arizona sink into the sea.
Well, considering California would have to sink first, you've got your work cut out for you.
On the other hand, two birds, one stone...
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A friend of mine showed me this one about America's Toughest Sheriff. Apparently, he cited a non-law used by the Federation for American Immigration Reform (a designated hate group) to justify racial profiling, which he denies doing even though he basically does! (http://wonkroom.thinkprogress.org/2009/10/22/joe-arpaio-racial-profiling/) This just makes me /pffflol (http://i101.photobucket.com/albums/m78/yoji_00/pffflol.jpg)
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I remember driving by Arpaio's little prison camps when I still lived in Arizona. He seemed to always be in the local news and it is wild to see him making headlines outside of Arizona these days. He is definitely one of those guys with a few good ideas but mostly really ass backwards and borderline cruel ideas. The whole making the prisoners dress in pink so they don't steal uniforms, supposidely, was amusing but the hard labor and feeding them almost expired food thing was a little off. He always used to strike me as one of those cops with his hand always on his cudgel just eyeballing and praying that you try to fuck around and give him a reason to go American History X on you.
EDIT: I suppose I should actually adress the article.
A sherrif in a largely Republican state bordered by Mexico who is overly suspicious of illegal aliens? Color me unsurprised.
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Pretty sure Arpaio is actually quite a bit darker than even your summary mentions. Isn't he the guy where if you're arrested and handicapped, they might just strap you down and let you choke to death, ignoring your condition entirely?
Like there's just a colossal laundry list of stuff that he should personally stand trial for and is overall a disgusting, inhuman bastard.
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But he's personifying an important
archetype stereotype: The literally unbelievably cruel jailer.
And he's keeping up the tradition of jailers from ... whenever people decided to start putting people in a small room instead of killing them.
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To my knowledge, no less than 11 people have been killed/maimed under his watch since 1993.
Charles Agster, died three days after being forced into a restraint chair in August 2001.
Scott Norberg, died of positional asphyxia according to the Maricopa County medical examiner in 1996.
Brian Crenshaw, died in March of 2003 due to injuries consistent with a beating, though the sheriff's office claimed he fell from his bunk.
Richard Post, a paraplegic rendered partially paralyzed from a neck injury as he was forced into a restraint chair in 1996. Video capturing the event showed the guards involved smiling and laughing during said injury.
Jeremy Flanders, suffered severe brain damage after being beaten by fellow inmates in the Tent City in 1996. The weapons used were pieces of unsecured rebar that had been used in a prior riot, but knowingly left vulnerable by the Sheriff.
Ambria Renee Spencer, arrested for drunk driving while nine months pregnant, complained of severe stomach pains but was denied medical treatment in 2006. Several hours later, she miscarried due to placental abruption, internal bleeding resulting in loss of blood to the baby. This is just one of several other reported miscarriages under the Sheriff's watch.
Jose Rodriguez, died in a pool of his own vomit in 1996. Calls for help from him and fellow inmates went unanswered by guards.
Phillip Wilson, beaten into a coma by members of the Aryan Brotherhood in 2003 and never recovered. He was being jailed for a non-violent offense.
Deborah Braillard, died from diabetic shock from a lack of insulin in 2005.
Clint Yarbrough, suffocated in a restraint chair in 2007.
Thomas Bruce Cooley, one of four inmates of the psyche ward who hung himself. It appears that no action was taken to resolve the issue of overhanging structures to prevent this.
Say what you will about immigration policy, but you know there's something wrong when the guy's gotten the attention of the ACLU, Anti-Defamation League, American Jewish Committee, and Amnesty Freakin' International.
...I was a little unsettled looking up this information. Not just because of the list of human rights violations, but that it had been removed from the Wiki article.
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And yet, he's still in office.
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Of the few things on God's green earth I am thankful for, one of those is that we do not elect our Sherrifs or Judges.
EDIT: That second line is not really a corollary to the first. They are separate points.
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Don't know how we missed this one, but they apparently won a ruling saying they could legally lie to people all they goddamn want (http://ceasespin.org/ceasespin_blog/ceasespin_blogger_files/fox_news_gets_okay_to_misinform_public.html)
Didn't miss it; as Transportation notes, it's years-old news. Story was written in '03; I first heard about it in a documentary called The Corporation (http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0379225/) around that time.
I saw that last night, and it made my father-in-law laugh out loud.
Barney brings up a good point, asking what planet she's from.
We need more Democrats like him, who just respond to absurd questions and statements by pointing out that they are in fact absurd.
Maybe this just belongs in the religion thread.
Pastor Steven Anderson inciting violence against Obama (http://videocafe.crooksandliars.com/cspanjunkie/why-i-hate-barack-obama-pastor-steven).
(Death threats up 400%? Wonder how high they were to begin with.)
Eeeeyeah, he's been local news 'round these parts for awhile now.
I hear there have been some nice peaceful protests around his church recently.
xenophobe at 3:10 touting English-only schools that can't spell "diapers" right
/pffflol (http://i101.photobucket.com/albums/m78/yoji_00/pffflol.jpg)
JESUS CHRIST WHAT IS WRONG WITH YOU PEOPLE
Oh, yeah, I've been noting my entire life that the people who shout "SPEAK ENGLISH!" the loudest are the ones with the poorest grasp of it.
I will fucking come unglued if you start some kind of false equivalence bullshit in here. leave that to retards like R^2, please.
I see Brent's comment less as "they're exactly the same" than "Let's not get carried away here and act like they're not bad too."
And if you're going to start giving people shit for indulging in hyperbole, well, Jesus Christ. BTW, fewer posts where you just see how many ad hominems you can fit into a single sentece, please.
I remember driving by Arpaio's little prison camps when I still lived in Arizona. He seemed to always be in the local news and it is wild to see him making headlines outside of Arizona these days. He is definitely one of those guys with a few good ideas but mostly really ass backwards and borderline cruel ideas. The whole making the prisoners dress in pink so they don't steal uniforms, supposidely, was amusing but the hard labor and feeding them almost expired food thing was a little off. He always used to strike me as one of those cops with his hand always on his cudgel just eyeballing and praying that you try to fuck around and give him a reason to go American History X on you.
Tip of the iceberg. His latest wrist-slap was for putting a woman in solitary, outdoors, in the summer, in Phoenix. She was not the first prisoner to die in the care of the Sheriff's Department, and she will not be the last.
Pretty sure Arpaio is actually quite a bit darker than even your summary mentions. Isn't he the guy where if you're arrested and handicapped, they might just strap you down and let you choke to death, ignoring your condition entirely?
If you're referring to the incident at the airport a couple years back, that was actually City of Phoenix PD, not Maricopa County Sheriff's Department. But yeah, same basic idea.
And yet, he's still in office.
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Of the few things on God's green earth I am thankful for, one of those is that we do not elect our Sherrifs or Judges.
EDIT: That second line is not really a corollary to the first. They are separate points.
Hm?
Arpaio is indeed elected. The fact that he keeps getting reelected pretty much terrifies me.
...I was a little unsettled looking up this information. Not just because of the list of human rights violations, but that it had been removed from the Wiki article.
You kidding? He had the publishers of our local independent paper ARRESTED a couple years back. It's a convoluted story which I've told before, but basically:
They've been on his ass for years.
They posted a story about his shady real estate dealings which included his home address.
There is a law on the books stating you can't post law enforcement officials' addresses online. (There is no law saying you can't publish them in print.)
They were subjected to a grand jury investigation for publishing his address online, despite the fact that it is on the Maricopa County website.
When they reported on the grand jury investigation, they were arrested, because it's illegal to report on grand jury investigations. (This is a complete inversion of the protection, of course; the reason it's illegal to report on grand jury investigations is to protect the DEFENDANTS. Punishing the defendants for reporting on it THEMSELVES is completely contrary to the spirit of the law.)
It was briefly national news; the County backed down, the prosecutor was fired and made an example of, everybody forgot about it and both Sheriff Joe and County Attorney Thomas were reelected in landslides.
Connecticut Republicans violate Twitter TOS, commit fraud, complain about free speech violations when caught. (http://thinkprogress.org/2009/10/22/twitter-connecticut-gop/)
This logic never ceases to bug me.
Even aside from the libel point, free speech doesn't mean you can say whatever you want WHEREVER you want. I remember there was some kvetching back during the "nappy-headed ho's" kerfluffle that Imus's free speech was being impeded, but there's no fucking Constitutionally-provided right to have your own fucking radio show, or if there is, I would like mine now, please.
What's funny is I guaran-damn-tee these are people who will argue at length about how the government shouldn't interfere with private business and should let the market regulate itself...up until a private business says "Yeah, hey, no First Amendment here, sorry."
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Here's another trend that seems to be on the rise: Shackling incarcerated women during childbirth. (http://www.latina.com/lifestyle/news-politics/video-sheriff-joe-arpaio-forces-woman-give-birth-while-shackled) (starring Sheriff Joe Arpaio)
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Here's another trend that seems to be on the rise: Shackling incarcerated women during childbirth. (http://www.latina.com/lifestyle/news-politics/video-sheriff-joe-arpaio-forces-woman-give-birth-while-shackled) (starring Sheriff Joe Arpaio)
Waitwaitwait...AGAIN? I mean, I hope this is the same story I'd heard about before, because if it's not...well, I can't honestly say I'm SURPRISED if the Sheriff's Department let it happen again after it had already been reported on in the past. Mainly I'd just like to move.
My girlfriend told me that, while I was at work the other day, some MCSD goons hauled an old Latino man out of his car and cuffed him. Apparently for no reason, as they eventually let him go. But not before calling in 4 more cars as backup. And, when my girlfriend and visiting grandparents asked them what was going on, telling them to go back in the house.
She remarked that it was probably a good thing I did not come home for lunch that day, as I would likely not have gone back in my house and then been the next guy on the hood of a police cruiser.
As it was, my grandfather referred to them (presumably out of their earshot) as fascists. And he's the kind of guy who's usually ready with a gentle rebuke when I use language like that.
EDIT: Started that "WTF, Arizona?" thread people had suggested earlier. May merge some other stuff in, though it appears we've got plenty to make it into just the Sheriff Joe thread. Dunno about slicing up any more threads just yet; that post where I reply to six different people feels a little awkward here, but it IS the best summary of the New Times arrests that I've posted on these boards.
Other relevant threads on the "WTF, Arizona?" point: Corruption (http://brontoforum.us/index.php?topic=117.0), which includes a short list of Arizona politicians who have been involved in various scandals, and Media Scapegoating and Censorship (http://brontoforum.us/index.php?topic=304.0), which opens with an Arizona House bill that would have illegalized anything with a tenuous connection to anything.
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This warmed my black heart, regardless of which thread is appropriate (http://www.hispanicbusiness.com/newswire/2009/12/1/joe_arpaio_illegal_immigration_hardliner_heckled.htm) (Arpaio heckled off stage at university by protesters singing Bohemian Rhapsody)
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I enjoyed the article comments deriding the loss of Arpaio's free speech.
The other rights that Joe regularly trammels with impunity, well, those just aren't as important.
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Huh? I didn't read anything like thaFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFF :MENDOZAAAAA:
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I'm glad I don't pay attention to local politics. It's so fucking depressing every time I do. At least I live in Pima county, where we waste money, but not on insane civil rights violations.
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So, let's see....
My list of American STATES I WILL NEVER GO TO EVER BASED ON POLITICS is up to
- Alaska
- South Carolina
- Arizona
Any others I should add?
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Texas, on general principle. Virginia wrote into its Constitution disallowing any sort of arrangement that bestows any benefits similar to marriage on any homosexual couple, so you can't even give your friend power of attorney. Florida won't even recognize gay adoptions from other states, so if your kid gets sick there you can be completely fucked.
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Texas, on general principle.
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Having lived there for 16 years I agree with TA.
For once.
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Oh, and Mississippi has seen fit to enshrine a symbol of racial hatred, murder, and treason on its flag, and in 2001 voted down a measure to correct it with a 65% majority. Might wanna not give them any tourism dollars.
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So, you know. Just go ahead and cross off every last Red State.
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Sound advice.
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Texas, on general principle. Virginia wrote into its Constitution disallowing any sort of arrangement that bestows any benefits similar to marriage on any homosexual couple, so you can't even give your friend power of attorney.
Which reminds me. (http://www.star-telegram.com/local_news/story/1770445.html) (Marriage possibly illegal in Texas, on the grounds that marriage is, in fact, a legal status identical to marriage.)
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That claim is just bullshit posturing. It is not and will never be held to be true. Radnofsky is just trying to get her name in the papers to help her AG run.
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I hope someone with too much time hires a lawyer to attempt to annul someone else's marriage sometime soon. Just to get a precedent in.
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That's what I'm saying, though. That suit would fail miserably, probably dismissed at the outset as frivolous. The legislative intent is clear and very well documented, and that's a big part of judicial statutory interpretation.
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Arizona should be visited for the incredible natural wonders we have. If I recall all of them, you can avoid Phoenix entirely, which is always a plus whether you know it or not. Any day you are not in Phoenix is better for it, unless you're in El Paso.
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Arizona should be visited for the incredible natural wonders we have. If I recall all of them, you can avoid Phoenix entirely, which is always a plus whether you know it or not. Any day you are not in Phoenix is better for it, unless you're in El Paso.
or fresno, or bakersfield
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Any barren landscape some cock decided to fill with heat absorbing material, really.
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Any barren landscape some cock decided to fill with heat absorbing material, really.
Doesn't that describe the whole state?
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Not in the unique way it describes Phoenix. Tucson, for instance, is sheltered in a valley formed by four mountain ranges, and has two major rivers (that we dammed up of course, but that's beside the point). Phoenix is built on the flattest, hottest place they could find.
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Tucson, for instance, is sheltered in a valley formed by four mountain ranges, and has two major rivers (that we dammed up of course, but that's beside the point).
The rivers that we didn't dam we just drained absolutely bone dry. The sight of the rillito "river" is of course always bewildering/amusing to visitors!
I did almost drown in the rillito once though, true story.
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Flagstaff is wonderful and I miss it every day.
Well, not so much today. Because frankly I'm feeling a little chilly in goddamn Tempe. ...But fuck it, yeah, I'd still rather be there than here, even (ESPECIALLY!) if I were biking to class on ice.
Arizona is not in fact all desert. We've got a good bit of forest left, despite the droughts (and resultant bug infestations and fires) wiping big chunks of them out.
And the Grand Hole is worth checking out at least once in your life.
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Like I say, come for the natural wonder, and then just don't stay at all, it really isn't worth it.
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That claim is just bullshit posturing. It is not and will never be held to be true. Radnofsky is just trying to get her name in the papers to help her AG run.
Point? I like me some bullshit posturing in this case. Reminds me of some of the proposed legislation against human cloning that would have, read literally, required the mandatory abortion of identical twins. It doesn't just reveal a flaw in the language, but a flaw in the intent. Posture the fuck away.
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http://www.latimes.com/news/nation-and-world/la-na-joe-arpaio12-2009dec12,0,5578766,full.story
Sheriff Joe goes out hunting dirty illegal immigrants the day after the federal government tells him to knock that shit off.
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Isn't it great what mob support will do for you?
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Arizona makes it a crime to not be white (http://articles.latimes.com/2010/apr/13/nation/la-na-arizona-immigration14-2010apr14)
Okay, that's a bit hyperbolic. Basically it allows police officers to determine the immigration status of someone who doesn't have an ID on them. What this will inevitably be used for it just detaining Mexicans or any non-white, really.
Another part of the article that caught my eye, though, is this:
In 2006 the state passed a law that would dissolve companies with a pattern of hiring illegal immigrants.
I remember Arizona making raids on companies and trying to discourage it, but for a state so densely populated with teabaggers, "libertarians" and conservatives who all rant about the free market, that law right there just reeks of government intervention. What a bunch of hypocrites.
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A couple of questions:
What constitutes an identification card?
Do that many non-whities not have a drivers licence?
SICK MIND OPTION:
If Arizona is that interested in stopping illegal immigration, why don't they just invest in a minefield? You guys are the foremost authority on some of craziest land mine technology...
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Arizona makes it a crime to not be white (http://articles.latimes.com/2010/apr/13/nation/la-na-arizona-immigration14-2010apr14)
Okay, that's a bit hyperbolic. Basically it allows police officers to determine the immigration status of someone who doesn't have an ID on them. What this will inevitably be used for it just detaining Mexicans or any non-white, really.
Another part of the article that caught my eye, though, is this:
In 2006 the state passed a law that would dissolve companies with a pattern of hiring illegal immigrants.
I remember Arizona making raids on companies and trying to discourage it, but for a state so densely populated with teabaggers, "libertarians" and conservatives who all rant about the free market, that law right there just reeks of government intervention. What a bunch of hypocrites.
As far as I can tell, most of the tea party movement has no real idea what small government and conservatism mean. The reality that they want for America is a christian theocracy where they pay no taxes and the roads are paved with faith and the love of Jesus Christ, while businesses self-regulate out of the good of their hearts and don't fuck americans over, and don't get bailed out when they fail, but aren't privatized or federally regulated in any way.
I wish I was being facetious about that, but living with a self-proclaimed teabagger who is legally blind, deaf, living on government disability, a medicare recipient for the last 20+ years living in the bottom 5% of the nation's poverty belt... It's the only thing I can really come up with here.
My favorite phrases in this house are "Obama is a socialist" and "Obama is in bed with big business"
I'll let you guys mull that over.
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You guys are the foremost authority on some of craziest land mine technology...
What? When did this happen? Why didn't anyone tell me?
Did you know about this, Thad?!
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Just fucking sick to my stomach about this.
What constitutes an identification card?
Do that many non-whities not have a drivers licence?
They're not just talking about state ID, they're talking about immigration papers. The law is license for police to stop people on the street and ask for their papers. Ostensibly they have to have reason to suspect they're here illegally; in practice, that reason will be "because they're brown". Anyone who claims this won't result in racial profiling is either lying or hopelessly naive. People who were born here are going to get hauled off to jail for not having papers.
Governor Brewer can still veto, but it will cost her the Republican primary if she does, so I don't see it happening.
The governor we elected, the governor I voted for, would have vetoed the bill if she hadn't abandoned her duties to take a cabinet position. If Brewer signs this into law, Napolitano shares the blame for handing her the fucking pen to do it with.
Related: I saw Arlo Guthrie perform this song a week and a half ago, and it stuck with me. He commented that Woody had written it probably seven or eight decades ago but it could have been written yesterday, and said, "On the one hand, it's great that my dad's work has that kind of shelf life. On the other hand, it's too bad the world still sucks."
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TN3HTdndZec
Oh, also our House passed a fucking birther bill (http://www.azcentral.com/news/election/azelections/articles/2010/04/21/20100421arizona-birther-bill.html) today. We're looking at laying off thousands of teachers, firefighters, and police officers if we don't pass a tax increase (http://www.yeson100.com/why-you-should-support-100/) next month, and our fucking legislature is pissing our money away on conspiracy theories and racist police-state policies that will never survive a constitutional challenge.
I'm too young to remember Mecham and McCain fighting against honoring Martin Luther King Day, so I can legitimately say that I have never in my life been as embarrassed to be from Arizona as I am today.
I need a fucking beer.
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Damn it, fuck this shit. You're fearing yourselves into Californian unsustainability.
Step 1: Amnesty to anybody who makes it over by land. This includes everyone who's already here. Get them out of the dark so you can document them and learn about who they are, the sooner you can force them to pay taxes at gunpoint.
Step 2: Purchase miles of land by border
Step 2.5: Lay multi-staged landmines in purchased land, antipersonnel through both trip detonated and command-detonated in border areas. Invest in anti-tunnel technology, or whatever the Egyptians plan to use by 2014 ( they really reaaaaly don't like Hamas and their smuggling to Gaza on fear of growing influence in the Muslim Brotherhood).
Step 3: Link command-detonated landmines to a website where users who log in from a united states location (no proxies) can sign up a user name based on their social insurance number and some tax information so that these volunteers can command-detonate fields covered by surveillance equipment, killing anyone who tries to make it across. Ensure that website is ad-supported, and that those found guilty of activating landmines with no visible presence of attempted border hoppers, or any other indication will be liable for the cost of replacement of the landmines ensuring fraud doesn't take place.
Step 4: Place phones and aid stations on american side of border for successful illegal immigrants. Include fast-track green card forms, first aid, food, and water. Entering the shack will alert federal authorities, who will welcome illegal immigrant with a hug, a Martguerita, a USA baseball cap, and anything that's required to integrate the individual into american society....
For if someone really wants to be a US citizen so hard that he's willing to risk the worst kind of life and limb, then I guarantee you that as soon as he or she learns the language, the citizens those types will make will be a vast improvement over some of the nuts on both side of the political divide willing to shout down their gov while sucking off its teat.
That and it's probably more humane that what they already go through. It would probably cost a lot less to implement and keep the crazy redneck types at bay: "I got one!"
Also: If anyone complains about the minefield: Catapult them into the minefield.
2nd clarification: This is a joke, brought on by reading too much PJ O Rourke and John Ringo. In no way do I really condone using landmines on civilian targets, as not only is it against the Ottawa Treaty of which my nation is a signatory, but considering the command-detonated mines, government sanctioned murder is not acceptable in areas which are not considered theaters of war, and then only against those which are deemed to be reasonable targets by someone with no less than executive power.
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Yeah, I heard about that.
I've taken to listening to Sirius XM's talk radio programming despite my better judgement. I've found myself screaming loudly at Glenn Beck, Andrew Wilkow, Sean Hannity, Stephanie Miller, and a handful more.
Anyway, yeah. Someone on Sirius' America Left channel was talking about the birther bill, and I was glad I hadn't eaten lunch yet.
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At first I thought this bill was ridiculous.
But then I realized I am totally in favor of it.
See, the upshot is, Arizona turning into a Orwellian nightmare land will definitely stop illegal immigration into the state, which I'm all for.
It will also stop legal immigration into the state, which I'm doubly for.
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Man SCD, you are all kinds of fucked up, I blame the military.
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pfft... at least my moral values are coherent :glee:
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Which Caesar is that, anyway?
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Augustus.
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Figures.
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pfft... at least my moral values are coherent :glee:
Say what you like about the tenets of National Socialism, Dude, at least it's an ethos.
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Damn it, fuck this shit. You're fearing yourselves into Californian unsustainability.
Step 1: Amnesty to anybody who makes it over by land. This includes everyone who's already here. Get them out of the dark so you can document them and learn about who they are, the sooner you can force them to pay taxes at gunpoint.
Step 2: Purchase miles of land by border
Step 2.5: Lay multi-staged landmines in purchased land, antipersonnel through both trip detonated and command-detonated in border areas. Invest in anti-tunnel technology, or whatever the Egyptians plan to use by 2014 ( they really reaaaaly don't like Hamas and their smuggling to Gaza on fear of growing influence in the Muslim Brotherhood).
Step 3: Link command-detonated landmines to a website where users who log in from a united states location (no proxies) can sign up a user name based on their social insurance number and some tax information so that these volunteers can command-detonate fields covered by surveillance equipment, killing anyone who tries to make it across. Ensure that website is ad-supported, and that those found guilty of activating landmines with no visible presence of attempted border hoppers, or any other indication will be liable for the cost of replacement of the landmines ensuring fraud doesn't take place.
Step 4: Place phones and aid stations on american side of border for successful illegal immigrants. Include fast-track green card forms, first aid, food, and water. Entering the shack will alert federal authorities, who will welcome illegal immigrant with a hug, a Martguerita, a USA baseball cap, and anything that's required to integrate the individual into american society....
For if someone really wants to be a US citizen so hard that he's willing to risk the worst kind of life and limb, then I guarantee you that as soon as he or she learns the language, the citizens those types will make will be a vast improvement over some of the nuts on both side of the political divide willing to shout down their gov while sucking off its teat.
That and it's probably more humane that what they already go through. It would probably cost a lot less to implement and keep the crazy redneck types at bay: "I got one!"
Also: If anyone complains about the minefield: Catapult them into the minefield.
...You know, honestly, as much as I know you were mostly joking, I still have to agree that it's way better than the system we have now.
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A quick clarification on my landmine immigrant control cum citizenship policy for those nameless people who have asked: Yes, the hats will be made in the USA.
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So a Democratic Representative received some death threats (http://www.salon.com/news/politics/war_room/2010/04/23/raul_grijalva_closes_office_due_to_threats/index.html) for speaking out against the law, and the President is even denouncing it as misguided. (http://www.jaxobserver.com/2010/04/23/arizona-immigration-bill-has-national-impact/)
I understand that states need a certain amount of autonomy to operate, but there should be some kind of national safeguard to veto anything that infringes on the Bill of Rights.
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I understand that states need a certain amount of autonomy to operate, but there should be some kind of national safeguard to veto anything that infringes on the Bill of Rights.
That's pretty much the entire purpose of the Supreme Court.
in theory
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Really federal or state courts. Part of why the judiciary exists to slap down unconstitutional legislation, and this law is indefensible in that regard.
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http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yDPuNA7L0QU
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I think immigration falls under the jurisdiction of the president, actually. It's a federal issue, not a state one.
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So a Democratic Representative received some death threats (http://www.salon.com/news/politics/war_room/2010/04/23/raul_grijalva_closes_office_due_to_threats/index.html) for speaking out against the law.
This is something that really needs to be dealt with fast and swift. One of our MPs in Canada who I really dislike just in the same timeframe got hit with some online death threats after pointed out that we have some extremists growing (last time he did that, he got brutally beaten and a plane blew up a few months later), to which the provincial Attorney General (of the provincial government who pushed the same man out of the leadership of the province) jumped fast and hard with criminal investigations, promising to ensure that people just can't hide online and make death threats.
This is the second time this week where your citizens have buckled under death threats relating to something people said, the first resulting in censorship from a Viacom subsidiary. This one seems more serious, as elected officials should be above being threatened for their lives, regardless of how much people dislike him and his opinions. I'm saddened that I didn't run into this myself, and that chances are your nation will continue rewarding such threats.. Something I like to call "giving into terrorism".
In America: Ironic, isn't it?
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I think immigration falls under the jurisdiction of the president, actually. It's a federal issue, not a state one.
Well, yes and no. Federal agencies (like ICE (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/U.S._Immigration_and_Customs_Enforcement) and CBP (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/U.S._Customs_and_Border_Protection)) are responsible for implementation and detainment and such, but local law enforcement agencies work with them all the time, such as when somebody is arrested for a crime who turns out to not be a citizen. So this is where things will get very silly - state law enforcement may end up arresting a lot of people who, once turned over to the appropriate federal agency, will promptly be released. However, this also means that the law only works inasmuch as federal agencies let it - if the Obamastration really like this bill, they might simply opt to not take people arrested under this bill. At Secretary Napolitano's discretion, immigration enforcement in Arizona could dry up overnight, and the state would have no recourse whatsoever, as they simply aren't empowered to address immigration issues.
Something I like to call "giving into terrorism".
In America: Ironic, isn't it?
Depending on which theorists you ask, initiating military involvement in the Middle East was giving in to terrorism.
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No you see in America terrorism is only done by brown people.
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I think immigration falls under the jurisdiction of the president, actually. It's a federal issue, not a state one.
The proponents of the new law say that the federal government hasn't been doing its job and the state needed to act.
At Secretary Napolitano's discretion, immigration enforcement in Arizona could dry up overnight, and the state would have no recourse whatsoever, as they simply aren't empowered to address immigration issues.
Which she won't do. And which would be rather more roundabout than just vetoing the thing in the first damn place, which is what she would have done if she hadn't ditched her constituents to take a better job.
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It's weird being an Arizonan right now. I feel safer as an American with her in the position she has now, but much less so as an Arizonan, because the governor is a fucking lunatic.
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...seems I was wrong on the proof of identity and a state ID WILL work. Of course, if your ID's from out of state, or they can come up with any other reason to suspect it's fake, that's not going to help.
I also heard that if you don't have your ID with you you can just give your name and they'll see if you're on a list. Which, again, isn't going to help you if you're from out of state. Or, I imagine, if you have a common name.
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One of the main arguments I've heard for this is that since they're in the country illegally, this is just giving the police the power to enforce the law, which puts me in mind of what Martin Luther King Jr. said about how "a law can be just on its face and unjust in its application". That's something this law seems to be perfectly set up for, especially with people like Sheriff Joe running the show over there.
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And of COURSE, Arizona wants federal help paying for it. (http://www.usatoday.com/news/nation/2010-04-26-arizona-immigration_N.htm)
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:lol:
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Wouldn't they have to go through Janet Napolitano for that?
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So it turns out this law is starting to have some very predictable results: namely, making a very large group of voters very angry at the Republicans in an election year.
I do not think that Brewer thought her brilliant plan all the way through.
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AriZona Iced Tea tells people they're from New York, not Arizona, in the face of several boycotts on Arizona-based companies (http://consumerist.com/2010/04/arizona-iced-tea-dont-hate-us-were-made-in-new-york.html)
Also FTA: Pressure is mounting on the MLB to move the All-Star Game from Phoenix to someplace not so fucked up.
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Well, the MLB probably doesn't want any of their players accidentally deported.
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Overheard on Fox News this morning: Texas state legislature to introduce anti-immigration measures similar to Arizona's at next legislative session.
:rage:
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Overheard on Fox News this morning: Texas state legislature to introduce anti-immigration measures similar to Arizona's at next legislative session.
:rage:
EDIT: After doing a little digging...
Texas Governer Rick Fucking Perry says that Arizona's law isn't right for Texas (http://www.foxnews.com/politics/2010/04/29/texas-governor-arizona-immigration-law-right-texas/)
... :OoO:
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By which he means that the people who fund him make mad bank off immigrants and it'd be career suicide to deport their slave workers.
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Or rather he saw how the Arizona law was going over like a lead balloon and is trying to keep it from dragging him down in the closest electoral battle he's ever had. The second largest ethnic group in Texas is hispanics, and they're also the fastest growing. Perry probably wants to avoid pissing them off in an election year.
I may hate Perry and think he's a murderer and an idiot, but he's at least a shrewd enough politician to realize when his career would be hurt.
So basically, watch this space after 2010.
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Yeah guys, the extended wait might be painful, but if you're feeling down about the usual abysmal state of things, all you need to remember is that eventually sheer demographics will crush the right-wing nuts.
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That's why they're trying to deport them.
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They might as well try to deport water.
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Ha (http://www.azbottledh2o.com/).
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Law narrowed so that police can only check papers of people they've stopped for other reasons.
It's not going to stop Arizona's Finest from harrassing brown people for littering, but at least we're moving away from PICK UP THAT CAN territory.
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Can you be more specific on the "stopped for other reasons"? Because with Terry and Whren, it's very, very easy for the police to justify a stop.
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That's how I assumed the law worked in the first place. They pull you over for speeding, then because you're hispanic they ask you for your papers, if you don't have them they throw you in jail, regardless of whether you're a citizen or not.
Of course, the more I think about this law the closer to just an unlawful detention law it seems. What's really to stop police from just throwing anyone they want in jail because they don't have identification? Obviously the biggest target hispanics, but if a cop stops you for jaywalking or littering and demands your ID and you don't have it, they can just throw you in jail on these grounds because they don't like you.
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One of the main arguments I've heard for this is that since they're in the country illegally, this is just giving the police the power to enforce the law, which puts me in mind of what Martin Luther King Jr. said about how "a law can be just on its face and unjust in its application". That's something this law seems to be perfectly set up for, especially with people like Sheriff Joe running the show over there.
Yeah, it's really quite amazing seeing all the people dismiss concerns about racial profiling with "Well, it says RIGHT IN THE LAW you can't use racial profiling," like that's the end of the discussion.
So it turns out this law is starting to have some very predictable results: namely, making a very large group of voters very angry at the Republicans in an election year.
I do not think that Brewer thought her brilliant plan all the way through.
Sure she did. If she'd vetoed the thing, she wouldn't get the Republican nomination for governor. There's really no disputing that.
Of course, she might STILL not.
She might be running against fucking Arpaio (http://ktar.com/?nid=6&sid=1289934).
But it IS going to galvanize the Latino vote. Not just in Arizona but nationwide.
The New Times (which, for purposes of perspective, I will note would be flattered to be referred to as "a left-wing rag") has an article (http://www.phoenixnewtimes.com/2010-04-29/news/sb-1070-many-shout-that-arizona-s-new-immigration-law-has-awakened-a-sleeping-giant-who-s-ready-to-kick-some-political-and-economic-backside/) about the backlash:
[Reverend Warren H. Stewart] called upon the Biblical story of Joseph in Genesis. Joseph had been made governor of Egypt, after he'd been sold into slavery by his own brothers. Joseph's brothers worried about revenge.
But according to Stewart, Joseph told them, "Do not be afraid, even though you intended to do harm to me, God intended it for good in order to preserve a great people.'"
Then Stewart thanked the Arizona Legislature for passing the bill and Brewer for signing it.
"You may have intended it to do harm, to thousands of people of color and Latino descent," he preached, "but God intended it for good for his great people.
"Thank you, Arizona, for SB 1070 . . . you have awakened the 21st-century civil rights movement!"
I'd sure like for this to be a big rallying point like that, a moment that changes the course of the future...even though it sucks that my home is the negative example against which the future will be judged.
Anyhow, yeah, boycotts are rolling in. MLB's liable to be a biggie. NFL could be too. Essentially what forced AZ into recognizing the MLK holiday was the Super Bowl pulling out to another state.
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Hey, uh, Thad. We got some bad news. We're rolling out an Arizona boycott on these forums, so uh... yeah. We'll see you around again when the law is repealed!
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If you want to boycott me, you're going to have to start paying me first.
Though I'll admit I do jobs nobody else wants to.
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While we're on the subject, you've probably been asked before, but why do you choose to keep living in that oven filled with and run by people you strongly disagree with?
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Find me a job somewhere else and I'll start packing.
Related (http://www.google.com/hostednews/ap/article/ALeqM5htzIUbAlELwOFkzhzLC5WAGOh-LwD9FC9LBO0):
The report examined fine particulate matter over 24-hour periods and as a year-round average. Bakersfield, Calif., had the worst short-term particle pollution, and the Phoenix-Mesa-Scottsdale area of Arizona had the worst year-round particle pollution.
My family moved here because my great-uncle had asthma. Ironically, I want to get out of here because of mine.
And, you know, because it's an oven filled with and run by people I strongly disagree with.
(Also: I love how, even in stories that mention other cities in Phoenix metro, Tempe STILL doesn't fucking exist. Phoenix-Mesa. Yeah. Because there's nothing in between those two cities except some sort of bizarre space-time rift and a faint smell of sulfur. Certainly not a city of 175,000 with a major university or anything else of note like that.)
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Do you program, or just do admin? I know a place in Virginia that really needs more software engineers, though part of it would be convincing the boss that that's true.
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From the place that just banned brown people to the place currently celebrating the subjugation of black people? Well, it's not ideal, but I'm listening. Yeah, I've got a CS degree. Mainly Java but I'm a quick study.
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Christ, man. You're a techie of no mean skill. Why you don't hit the bay area is fucking beyond me. Hell, you could suck dicks for dollars for the first few months, if need be.
:itsatrap: I just want my dick sucked.
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I don't suppose it surprises anyone that Arizona is the first state to force limits on abortion coverage in health insurance policies. (http://wonkroom.thinkprogress.org/2010/04/27/arizona-exchanges/)
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Hey hey, nice job beating Utah.
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To be fair, we've got damn near as many Mormons as they do.
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...so in a brief moment of sanity, the state senate voted down the birther bill. Presumably because they realized the rest of the country already thinks we're a bunch of insane racists and decided now would not be the best time to throw fuel on that fire.
Also, Sheriff Joe's not running for governor. Though that's not a sign that he doesn't think he'd win so much as a sign that he realizes he'd have to resign as sheriff and let the County Board of Supervisors replace him with somebody who'd cooperate with the feds' investigation of him.
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Or that he's setting his sights on a national office.
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Deprofiler (http://www.deprofiler.com/): removes reasonable suspicion.
I love that one is a baby.
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Or that he's setting his sights on a national office.
running on a strong anti-immigrant platform for the senate or house would be really dumb considering how many hispanic voters Arizona has, and running on an anti-immigrant platform for the presidency would be even more dumb. I hope he goes for it.
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Sarah Palin.
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Yep, and she cost the republicans the presidency in 2008.
Let's hope we can rekindle that magic in 2012.
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I'm just saying, it'd be a step up.
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running on a strong anti-immigrant platform for the senate or house would be really dumb considering how many hispanic voters Arizona has
...you...haven't been following McCain versus Hayworth, I see.
I think I got into it earlier in the thread (EDIT: nope, it was in the 2010 (http://brontoforum.us/index.php?topic=4339.msg132397#msg132397) thread), but McCain's being challenged from the right by a really nasty guy, my former Congressman, who's running pretty much on a straight anti-immigrant platform and, as a result, causing McCain a serious run for his money, forcing him to go hard right of his usually moderate immigration stance.
Now granted, that's the Republican primary, not the general election, but I really don't see a Democrat taking that seat. The last time we elected a Democrat was in '88 -- and HE endorsed Arpaio in '08 (http://www.phoenixnewtimes.com/2008-11-06/news/ice-s-matthew-allen-and-dennis-deconcini-get-ripped-apart-by-the-taloned-terror/). Fuck, I don't even know who's RUNNING for the seat on the D side.
Now, 1070 has real potential to create a groundswell in Hispanic voting, both in Arizona and nationwide, and I sincerely hope it does -- but historically, no, race-baiting has been a perfectly good way to get elected in Arizona.
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CBS (http://www.cbsnews.com/8301-503544_162-20004262-503544.html): Flagstaff and some place called Tuscon are suing the state over 1070.
...seriously. The article misspells "Tucson" EIGHT TIMES.
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To be fair, it does make no sense.
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Bet you didn't expect to see anything new in this thread, eh? (http://tpmlivewire.talkingpointsmemo.com/2010/05/brewer-signs-bill-restricting-ethnic-studies-programs-in-az-schools.php?ref=fpblg) Well, to be fair I haven't heard the details or read the law yet. Some are arguing it is racism and some are arguing that is is fighting racism. If it's the latter, not much of a story and commendable, I guess. It sounds bad but time will tell the details, I am sure. It is a new story so it won't stay in the dark for long.
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Fuck you, Mexicans, you don't get to have a past.
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They're not trying to curb racism, they're trying to get away with being racists themselves, it seems like. They want to, essentially, persecute Hispanic and Latino people, but they don't want the Hispanic and Latino people to feel persecuted.
Anyway, shouldn't this law be considered unconstitutional? Seems like it flies right in the face of the First Amendment.
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That link was worth it just for this cute little exchange in the comments:
Doesn't this run counter to the law she signed last month??
Republicans are immune from cognitive dissonance. Otherwise their heads would all explode
...If only their heads would do just that...if only.
Vacuums tend to cause implosions.
:glee:
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Similar type of bill: Anti-affirmative action
Claims to be anti-racist, but is actually countering a counter measure of racism.
It's hard to argue about against it, without being called a racist yourself*. Yet all it is, is a bunch of racists/denialists cleverly forcing through a bill that adds no actual protection for anyone, but harms minorities.
*Because we've somehow redefined racism not as something that is actively against or harmful to a group of people, but any act that perpetuates the thought that the groups are different from one another and/or not entirely equal on social, legal, or biological terms--which let's face it, they're not.
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not entirely equal on social, legal, or biological terms--which let's face it, they're not.
I'm just jealous of African genetic diversity. You don't need to rub it in my face anymore.
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Technically, racism refers to bias based on genetic differences, which has been disproved.
This makes me a culturalist.
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A nun approved a lifesaving abortion at St. Joseph's Hospital and was demoted (and possibly excommunicated.) (http://www.azcentral.com/news/articles/2010/05/15/20100515phoenix-catholic-nun-abortion.html)
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Dirtbike link the source for your avatar already
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...well, occasionally we fail to do something utterly self-destructive.
Looks like that 1-cent tax increase passed (http://www.azcentral.com/elections/) and we're not going to have to lay off thousands of government employees, so that's good.
Hell, the .02% tax increase in Tempe passed 2-to-1.
Anyway, not a big surprise but a bit of a relief, and a sign that the place I live still has some very small amount of sanity remaining.
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I'm sure the argument there was "Oh hey guess who's actually going to be catching all these taco niggers?"
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Great, now I have an overriding urge to go get a Mexican girlfriend so I can call her that in bed.
I'm sorry my life turned out like this, Mom.
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I'm sure that's part of it.
The point where I was pretty sure it was going to pass was when my right-wing grandma told me she was voting for it. In her case it was mainly because of funding for senior centers.
But anyway, she's a pretty reliable barometer for how the Republican base thinks. I figured, correctly, if SHE was for a tax increase, it was going to pass overwhelmingly.
Also close to home: girlfriend's sister is a teacher, and she'll probably get to keep her job now. Probably.
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A nun approved a lifesaving abortion at St. Joseph's Hospital and was demoted (and possibly excommunicated.) (http://www.azcentral.com/news/articles/2010/05/15/20100515phoenix-catholic-nun-abortion.html)
And according to the medical ethics director for the diocese, Rev. John Ehrich, the mother should have died. (http://www.alternet.org/story/146991/catholic_leader_says_woman_should_die_with_her_fetus_--_when_did_woman-hating_go_mainstream/?page=entire)
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Artists ordered to lighten the skin tones of children in multicultural mural. (http://www.azcentral.com/news/articles/2010/06/04/20100604arizona-mural-sparks-racial-debate.html)
I can't decide if the best quote in that article is "We asked them to fix the shading on the children's faces," he said. "We were looking at it from an artistic view. Nothing at all to do with race."
or "To depict the biggest picture on the building as a Black person, I would have to ask the question: Why?"
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You have changed the ambience of that building to excite some kind of diversity power struggle that doesn't exist in Prescott, Arizona. And I'm ashamed of that.
I'm not entirely sure where to even begin with this.
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Wait, hang on.
Prescott has black people now?
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I'll believe it when I see it.
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They had black people, but they made them lighten their skin tones.
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BBC did a piece on this today on NPR.
Not much new, but one moment of hilarity when they interviewed a supporter of the bill
I believe that president Obama is currently in favor of letting the illegal immigrants in... I think he knows they're the only one's who'll vote for 'im next election.
:THATWAY: Not even fully legal immigrants can vote.
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Obama to sue Arizona (http://www.google.com/hostednews/afp/article/ALeqM5gygkZIQtQpi7rPGyshQ7lVF6-57A)
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Brewer refuses to allow state justice dept. to defend against lawsuit, Fox News spins it to make it look like the state attorney general's decision. (http://www.foxnews.com/politics/2010/06/18/arizona-attorney-general-says-wont-defend-states-immigration-law/)
...which, depending on what side of the fence you're on, might kind of be a glorious backfire.
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Not mentioned in the article: AG Goddard will almost certainly be Brewer's opponent in November's election.
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Oh Arizona (http://www.nydailynews.com/news/national/2010/06/19/2010-06-19_arizonas_next_illegal_immigration_target_babies.html)!
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The political advertising has started in earnest on local TV and they are honestly some of the most sickening ads I've seen in the state in a long time. The two Republican candidates seem to be competing to see which can appear the most racist without actually coming right out and saying it. It's pretty amazing to watch.
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Oh Arizona (http://www.nydailynews.com/news/national/2010/06/19/2010-06-19_arizonas_next_illegal_immigration_target_babies.html)!
Yeah, pretty horrifying. Best part is Pearce's claim that people are "misunderstanding" the Fourteenth Amendment when they read "All persons born or naturalized in the United States, and subject to the jurisdiction thereof, are citizens of the United States and of the State wherein they reside" to mean "All citizens born in the United States are citizens of the United States."
Of course, he's already shown his understanding of the equal protection clause to be pretty sketchy.
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So, United States-born children of illegal immigrants are, obviously, "born or naturalized in the United States".
And Pearce claims that they are not necessarily citizens of the United States.
Therefore, it is clear that Pearce is arguing that they are not subject to the jurisdiction of the United States.
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Fun Fact: Tea Party hates every amendment except the second. And the tenth, when it suits their purposes.
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Therefore, it is clear that Pearce is arguing that they are not subject to the jurisdiction of the United States.
I've been rolling this phrasing over in my head, and the question I have to ask is:
If they're not subject to US jurisdiction, whose jurisdiction ARE they subject to?
Does Mexico claim children born in the US as citizens?
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You don't have to go home, but you can't stay here.
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This is just getting silly. (http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20100717/ap_on_re_us/us_neo_nazi_patrols;_ylt=Ag2UxCBRjpKZW7c4tSVhV7us0NUE;_ylu=X3oDMTNuNmd0MThuBGFzc2V0A2FwLzIwMTAwNzE3L3VzX25lb19uYXppX3BhdHJvbHMEY2NvZGUDbW9zdHBvcHVsYXIEY3BvcwM0BHBvcwMxBHB0A2hvbWVfY29rZQRzZWMDeW5faGVhZGxpbmVfbGlzdARzbGsDbWFud2l0aG5lby1u)
THAD EDIT: Ziiro's link is to an article titled "Man with neo-Nazi ties leading patrols in AZ". You're welcome.
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I like how that article puts "nacro-terrorist" in quotes, like this guy is the only person to use that term.
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I think they put it in quotes because it's a stupid, made up, fear mongering word no matter who uses it.
Also Arizona is extremely racist, so I'm not surprised by this at all really. We didn't recognize MLK day until, what, '91?
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So, how is it news that neo-nazi fuckwits with guns are looking for brown people to shoot at?
I would actually prefer diseased, drug-smuggling, criminally-inclined illegal immigrants than those racist bastards. (Not implying that illegal immigrants are all possessing such attributes, but stating the assumed the worst-case scenario)
I actually think all neo-nazis should be imprisoned. Under the rationalization that one voids their basic human rights if one advocates taking away a group's basic human rights. At the very least I think these sort of people don't deserve the right to bare arms as they pose too much of a threat to society to possess them.
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At the very least I think these sort of people don't deserve the right to bare arms
I don't know that making them wear long sleeves in Arizona is really very fair at all.
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I actually think all neo-nazis should be imprisoned. Under the rationalization that one voids their basic human rights if one advocates taking away a group's basic human rights.
You just argued yourself into a prison cell, genius.
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I actually think all neo-nazis should be imprisoned. Under the rationalization that one voids their basic human rights if one advocates taking away a group's basic human rights.
:scanners:
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(http://img215.imageshack.us/img215/6859/circularreasoning.gif)
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What's wrong with sleepy terrorists
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Can't you see?! They're dreaming up new ideas!!
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This is just getting silly. (http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20100717/ap_on_re_us/us_neo_nazi_patrols;_ylt=Ag2UxCBRjpKZW7c4tSVhV7us0NUE;_ylu=X3oDMTNuNmd0MThuBGFzc2V0A2FwLzIwMTAwNzE3L3VzX25lb19uYXppX3BhdHJvbHMEY2NvZGUDbW9zdHBvcHVsYXIEY3BvcwM0BHBvcwMxBHB0A2hvbWVfY29rZQRzZWMDeW5faGVhZGxpbmVfbGlzdARzbGsDbWFud2l0aG5lby1u)
THAD EDIT: Ziiro's link is to an article titled "Man with neo-Nazi ties leading patrols in AZ". You're welcome.
The New Times has been on this for years (http://blogs.phoenixnewtimes.com/bastard/2007/09/russell_pearces_willie_horton.php) but for some reason the MSM hasn't paid a lot of attention to it. Memo to reporters: yes, comparing people to nazis is usually hyperbolic, distasteful demagoguery...but NOT WHEN THEY'RE ACTUALLY NAZIS.
To wit, my absolute favorite somebody-doesn't-even-know-what-nazi-is-short-for quote:
In his write-up on ABC 15's site, [reporter Christopher] Sign states that [National Socialist Movement] is "considered by many to be a neo-Nazi hate group."
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Ready called NSM "the premier white civil right [sic] organization in the world," and informed Sign that the "respectful term" for his ilk would be "National Socialist," insisting that he and his fellow SS-wannabes are "American patriots."
I wonder if claiming overriding loyalty to the actual literal former German government can be legally considered treason.
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I'm sure the president would approve. :itsmagic:
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OH SHIT. WE CALLED OBAMA A SOCIALIST AND A NAZI!! WE CAN'T AGREE WITH THEM!
Then they all vanished in a puff of logic.
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I actually think all neo-nazis should be imprisoned. Under the rationalization that one voids their basic human rights if one advocates taking away a group's basic human rights.
You just argued yourself into a prison cell, genius.
Only because of my awful choice of wording. Going by on an individual basis, rather than 'all neo-nazis', which are actually internally homogeneous on the point of hating everyone else by definition, I have not.
Better although probably still pretty bad wording:
If an individual believes that a group of people do not deserve their basic human rights, and said group is based on attributes that those within it do not have control over (such as race, gender, or country of origin), then they have provided sufficient evidence in my mind of no longer deserving the basic human rights that they believe the group should not have.
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Cruel and inhuman punishments are being carefully described in tiny paragraphs so they won't conflict with the Constitution (which, itself, is being modified in order to accommodate THE FUTURE).
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Doubleplusgood example of thoughtcrime there, Catloaf.
EDIT: I'm sorry, that should have been "crimethink". My Newspeak is a little rusty.
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I think you guys may in fact be giving Catloaf too much credit.
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So he's not an Orwellian neo-fascist, he's just stupid?
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I've got a bag of hammers here, and compared to Catloaf, they've got a PHD in advanced rocket surgery.
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No matter what you guys say, I <3 catloaf because he says all of the things I do when I'm too busy having opinions to be self-aware.
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So a federal judge blocked the nastiest bits of 1070 from going into effect. Score one for the good guys, but this is a long way from being over.
This is why we have three branches of government. (Though the "This is a REPUBLIC, not a democracy!" crowd seems strangely quiet on that score.)
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Can't find an article yet but my coworker just told me he heard on NPR -- like, within the past hour -- that the feds are threatening to cut off Arpaio's funding due to his noncompliance with their subpoenas for his records.
Not exactly firsthand and I may have the details wrong; more as it develops -- but it sounds an awful lot like news I've been waiting to hear for 15 years.
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So I've mentioned before that people in Phoenix metro -- not brilliant goddamned drivers in the first place -- are totally incapable of operating motor vehicles in the rain.
To wit: 69-car freeway accident. (http://www.kpho.com/news/24800361/detail.html)
Surprisingly, nobody dead and only 7 hospitalized.
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Can't find an article yet but my coworker just told me he heard on NPR -- like, within the past hour -- that the feds are threatening to cut off Arpaio's funding due to his noncompliance with their subpoenas for his records.
Not exactly firsthand and I may have the details wrong; more as it develops -- but it sounds an awful lot like news I've been waiting to hear for 15 years.
Was there any news on this?
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Kinda.
ABC (http://blogs.abcnews.com/politicalpunch/2010/08/justice-department-gives-second-ultimatum-in-sheriff-arpaio-investigation.html) is spinning it as "Feds talk tough, give us the records or else," while Stephen Lemons of the New Times started off the 25th with an article called Joe Arpaio Punks the Feds Yet Again? (http://blogs.phoenixnewtimes.com/bastard/2010/08/joe_arpaio_punks_the_feds_agai.php) and then wrote a second later that day called Joe Arpaio Gets New Deadline from DOJ; County Offers Its Subpoena Power To Feds (http://blogs.phoenixnewtimes.com/bastard/2010/08/joe_arpaio_gets_a_new_deadline.php).
At stake are federal funds received by Maricopa County. These are governed by Title VI of the 1964 Civil Rights Act, which "prohibits discrimination on the basis of race, color, and national origin in programs receiving federal financial assistance," the DOJ's Web site explains. (http://www.justice.gov/crt/cor/coord/titlevi.php)
Though, as his first article notes, they've already extended his deadlines multiple times.
And at this point, our county attorney is a lame duck; Arpaio's hoping to wait out the clock until November, at which point his hand-picked candidate will get the job. (Via the Feathered Bastard (http://blogs.phoenixnewtimes.com/bastard/2010/08/why_rick_romley_cant_run_as_a.php) again, "Montgomery takes over as County Attorney as soon as the final canvass of the votes is done in the general election. (No, we don't have till January.)")
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It would appear the Feds got tired of waiting (http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20100902/ap_on_re_us/us_arizona_sheriff_lawsuit).
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Jan Brewer, caught in 'immigrant beheadings' lie, runs from the press (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=d1xV7nTSqww#)
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I'm so confused, Arizona is beheading immigrants now?
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Brewer Claims Illegal Immigrants Are Beheading People (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YTbbIinH8Is#)
She had previously claimed that Immigrants were Beheading people. (http://www.care2.com/causes/politics/blog/arizona-gov-brewer-claims-illegal-immigrants-decapitated-people/)
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You have to understand, for context, that she is a fucking lunatic.
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It would appear the Feds got tired of waiting (http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20100902/ap_on_re_us/us_arizona_sheriff_lawsuit).
...Duke Nukem Forever gets a release announcement AND Arpaio's getting sued?
I really need to go on more vacations.
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Holy fucking shit.
A top Arpaio aide, Deputy Chief Frank Munnell, has issued a 63-page complaint against his second-in-command, Chief Deputy David Hendershott. azcentral (http://www.azcentral.com/news/election/azelections/articles/2010/09/16/20100916joe-arpaio-aide-requests-david-hendershott-investigation.html) has the story; the Village Voice has the complete complaint (http://vvoice.vo.llnwd.net/e14/5357958.0.pdf). Worth at least skimming; there's a hell of a lot in there. I think I'll run an OCR and put a nice HTML version up on my website if I get the time.
Arpaio's handed the complaint off to Pinal County Sheriff Paul Babeu, a close ally. It's entirely possible he's doing it so the whole thing will go away. Stephen Lemons at the New Times (http://blogs.phoenixnewtimes.com/bastard/2010/09/joe_arpaios_boys_larry_black_a.php) brings up a different possibility: Arpaio (and possibly Munnell) may be using Hundershott as a sacrificial lamb. The memo depicts Arpaio as a victim, ignorant of all the corruption within his department; it would be awfully convenient to lay everything at Hendershott's feet just when the MCSO's being sued by the feds.
Whatever happens, I think it's going to be big.
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Joe Arpaio's office misused up to $80 million, Maricopa County says (http://www.azcentral.com/news/articles/2010/09/22/20100922joe-arpaio-misused-funds-maricopa-county-says22-ON.html)
Other major findings by county budget officials substantiated that the Sheriff's Office tapped the jail-operations fund to pay for functions not allowed under jail-fund rules, such as salaries for deputies who worked on public-corruption investigations into county supervisors and judges.
[...]
Wilson said the Sheriff's Office kept a separate set of personnel books detailing actual work assignments. Those assignments are different than information kept on the county's official human-resources records.
Ah yes, the Bialystock and Bloom school of bookkeeping.
Shit's coming down. I don't see him wriggling out this time; too many allegations from too many different sides.
I'm sure I'm a bad person for picturing Arpaio going out like Warden Norton. Not nearly as bad a person as he is, though.
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The image of Sheriff Joe singing "I Want To Be a Producer" while signing off illegal warrants and doing roundups.
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Ka-DOUBLEPOST!
Sheriff Joe's office taps the general funds to the tune of $64 million. (http://www.azcentral.com/news/articles/2010/09/22/20100922joe-arpaio-county-to-tap-general-fund-22-ON.html)
TPM's placing it in the neighborhood of $80 million.
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Jesus christ, is he keeping secret files on John Lennon too?
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Thad, I need your help. Jan Brewer can't really win, can she? I mean, she's fucking crazy, and everyone knows it. Tell me I don't have to move.
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Well, Bal. As an outside observer, it is my opinion that you should look at your options.
I mean, even after saying she will no longer debate - she still has supporters. (Final line of the article, and read the comments.) (http://www.politico.com/news/stories/1010/43659.html)
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Good God, that picture is terrifying.
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Fortunately that's only a photo. As a gorgon, her true visage would have turned you to stone.
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Frankly I'm surprised it's as close as it is. Goddard's the longshot here, not her.
(I DO find it amusing that she supports prop 111; wish she'd make it retroactive.)
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See, with a nearly competent Democratic party, I'd be thrilled to see her elected. Absolutely elated. I would start drawing up plans to give her and I am Not a Witch the most publicity any elected official has ever received. Let her talk as muuuuuuch as she wants. MAKE her talk. Make that drooling hag the thing people think about when they think about conservatives.
But no mostly she's just going to quietly fuck up a backwater state that a couple of my friends for some reason insist on living in.
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Though I guess we already got Sarah Palin, and she wasn't much help.
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See, the problem with that is that Jan Brewer is going to be our fucking Governor, which means nothing to anybody but the poor, benighted citizens of Arizona. Maybe if Gabriel Giffords loses it will become part of the overall "tea party can't get anything done" movement about to happen in Washington, but I don't want that either, because I live in her district.
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I don't know what it is with people in this part of the country, this entire southwest region here. Most of the electorate just seems to eat crazy fed straight to them with a spoon, even when all the logic in the world is staring them right in the face.
Had a conversation with another driver when I first started here at Papa Johns about taxes; it went like this-
Me: "Man, I can't believe how high our taxes are in this state. I pay more income tax in Oklahoma than I ever did in Michigan, and our sales tax is twice as high, but the roads suck, we're 49th in education, and our social programs stink. If I'm going to pay this much in taxes, I'd like to see something done with it."
Him: "Yeah, it's all those fucking people living on welfare and collecting unemployment, they think, he's working so I shouldn't have to work."
Me: "You know, I could understand that argument normally, but this state hardly pays out anything in social programs, my wife gets social security and her case worker couldn't qualify for food stamps or any kind of income assistance despite being a single mother making 900 dollars a month from her job."
Him: "Yeah, I know what you mean, I had this guy I worked with for a while who got laid off, and 90 days after being laid off he still didn't have a job, and there's no excuse for that, I mean I'm paying, blah blah, obama etc"
Paraphrasing, but not exaggerating - I'm serious, he just blew through everything I was saying to rant off the party line about how welfare is stealing from taxpayer pockets. In some parts of Oklahoma, we pay a 12% sales tax, our only good roads in the entire state are our turnpikes (which were supposed to cease being toll roads 8 years ago when they finished paying for themselves, but that never ended up getting done) which we pay a ridiculous amount to use, and income and property taxes are ridiculous, and yet we have nothing here. In a state where reasonable, sane people lived, people would be demanding accountability, people would want to know where the fuck all of this money was going. It's a southwest thing, I guess. The only thing more important than religion here is whether or not we're going to run out them damn mexicans. Expect crazy from us.
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Though I guess we already got Sarah Palin, and she wasn't much help.
Well, fortunately no board members live in her state.
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Gabrielle Giffords wins! Yay! So does Jan Brewer, oh shit.
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I wonder how that whole Prop 106 thing is going to go down.
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It passed, but it won't be tested for awhile I suspect.
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You can't keep a good moustache down.
In other news, a guy I went to law school with got poleaxed by John McCain in the Senate race. Following Rodney's political "career" so far has actually given me some perspective on how party machines work and why they are so successful. You throw the neophytes in to races they can't win to start out and see how they do, and the ones who actually do pretty well end up running against vulnerable candidates a few years down the line. Third party candidates without that system of pseudo-apprenticeship, to say nothing of money, don't stand a goddamn chance.
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Election link (http://www.azcentral.com/elections/) for those who don't know what the hell a 106 is.
It passed, but it won't be tested for awhile I suspect.
Well, we're already suing the federal government. 106 is a money sink; we're going to lose a shit-ton of money defending it and the courts are going to say sorry, commerce clause.
107, the anti-affirmative action one, is probably going to cost us too.
Nice to see 109 didn't pass, at least. That was the one where they tried to get us to give up our right to ballot initiatives concerning hunting and fishing. One of the guys in the "for" section actually spent several paragraphs basically saying "You're too incompetent to vote for things; please give up your rights and let the grownups handle it."
110's too close to call, which is odd because it seemed to have pretty broad bipartisan support -- everyone from Chamber of Commerce to Sierra Club -- and I don't recall any arguments "against" in the packet.
Lieutenant Governor fails, which, blah, I don't have strong feelings one way or another about it, but it sure would have been nice not to have Brewer as governor.
112's a dead heat. What the fuck was 112 again? Oh, pushing the signature deadline to earlier in the year. I don't like it; more advantages toward people who already have a well-organized machine.
113, the anti-union one passes. Disappointing but not surprising.
Medical marijuana still too close to call.
Oh hey, we didn't completely defund the land conservation fund. And holy shit, it failed by FIFTY POINTS. This is the single surest sign that there's some shred of sanity left in this state.
Didn't defund early childhood development, either; failed by 40. Okay, I'm feeling a LITTLE better about this election.
District 7's too close to call but Grijalva's up just a bit. That would be the surest repudiation of 1070 we've had.
Anyway, blah. No further comment.
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So it turns out the immigration law was basically written by private prison lobbyists. (http://m.npr.org/story/130833741)
See thread title.
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Goddard tried to run on the private prisons issue. He could have done a better job. But even if he had, this just wasn't his year.
I expect the private prison scandal to build quickly in the coming years -- did you guys hear about the inmates who escaped and killed somebody? -- but it's not there yet. And it's not going to make a difference in terms of public approval of SB1070.
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President of Arizona Senate: "I don't make the law, I enforce the law." (http://blogs.phoenixnewtimes.com/bastard/2010/11/russell_pearce_freaks_out_when.php)
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(http://static.tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pub/images/judge_dredd-1.jpg)
"AN I'M DE LEGISLATIVE BRANCH!"
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Well no wonder he sucks at his job. He thinks he's a police officer. Which just reinforces his racism.
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So uh is he going to stop making laws then? That's fine with me.
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Arizona has finally lots its shit (http://www.azcentral.com/community/scottsdale/articles/2010/11/07/20101107tea-party-trash-fountain-hills.html#ixzz14i7fvBOK)
Fountain Hills apparently cares way too much about who is collecting their garbage.
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The green police will arrest you for not recycling. Are you fucking kidding me?
Jesus christ, look at what Fox News has done to our country. These people were, no doubt, always fucking crazy, but having a major news network encouraging them to say the stupid fucking shit brewing in their head (HE'LL PAINT THE WHITE HOUSE BLACK HURRRR MUSLIM HURRR BONE THROUGH THE NOSE WITCH DOCTOR OBAMACARE) is just really making us look like a nation of morons.
"It seems counterintuitive, but in order for this proposal to pass, I believe I had to downplay the benefits of recycling," she said. "When ideology prevents rational discussion of a really pretty mundane topic, trash, there is no perspective. Everything is suspect, which paralyzes us."
:facepalm:
You know, there's honestly some pretty good arguments to be made against recycling (at least in terms of cost to overall benefit and how much space we actually have to dump our trash) but we're talking about putting a little square bin next to your garbage can that you don't even have to fucking use. On top of all of that, cutting themselves down to a single trash hauling company is probably saving the city hundreds of thousands of dollars a year, that they probably really need to save because republican leadership in Arizona makes sure that nobody has the funding they need because hurr durr taxes.
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I think the bigger issue here is, who fucking cares who picks up the god damned trash? Unless the whole operation is mobbed up or something, who gives a flying fuck? Honestly? So long as I can take the bin out to the curb once a week and someone makes it empty, I don't fucking care who that guy is.
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I think the bigger issue here is, who fucking cares who picks up the god damned trash? Unless the whole operation is mobbed up or something, who gives a flying fuck? Honestly? So long as I can take the bin out to the curb once a week and someone makes it empty, I don't fucking care who that guy is.
The sentiment might be, "if they decide who takes our garbage away without our input, regardless of the validity or practicality of our input, then we're one-step closer to absolute government control of our lives." Mussolini : trains :: Fountain Hills town council : garbage trucks.
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Except for that input they got when they elected their city council representatives.
The tea party movement seems to be bent on dismantling representative government.
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They want lighter taxes like we have in California.
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The tea party movement seems to be bent on dismantling representative government.
This is my surprised face.
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No, representative government is fine, as long as it's their guy.
My guy didn't get elected. Stomp stomp stomp whine whine whine. Do it over until we get it right.
WRT 2008, "Whine whine whine" means "*insert racial epithet* in the White House."
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The tea party movement seems to be bent on dismantling representative government.
Nah. They're just against anything that makes sense. In Houston, for example, they were against Prop 3 -- the continued use of Red Light Cameras.
I shouldn't have to tell you that it didn't pass.
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Well, that's because WHO IS THE GOVERNMENT TO TELL THEM THAT THEY CAN'T RUN A RED LIGHT, HUH?
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I'm not crazy about the things myself -- I got caught by one once in a situation where a human officer would have let it slide. (According to the video, I was 0.26 seconds behind the light change and there was nobody else in the intersection.) I see that flash go off erroneously all the time, and the framerate on the Flash video they linked me to in my ticket was too slow to actually confirm the moment I crossed the line -- and it had a note at the bottom claiming it was inadmissible in court.
But Daily Show did skewer the whole controversy pretty wonderfully when they interviewed the cosponsor of 1070 and got him to talk about how traffic cameras are a gross violation of people's rights.
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It's basically impossible to make a left turn here without being caught in the intersection on red, so the camera exists essentially to piss off the locals and freak out the visitors.
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Red light cameras are actually terrible, and demonstrably increase accident rates at intersections where they are known to be placed.
Part of this is that 99% of the time they put a red light camera at an intersection, they shorten the amount of time the light is yellow.
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I understand that in most of the country, the red light cameras are really just used as a source of income for local municipalities to make up for the fact that they're underfunded. We don't have them for the most part here in Oklahoma - just speed traps every 30 feet set up by the local police to prey on every idiot who comes through who isn't from the area and goes even a few mph over the speed limit. They don't really ticket the locals. Apparently my city was so bad about giving out speeding tickets that the state threatened to put a moratorium on speeding tickets for a while for the city, and have state police watch the road for violations instead.
This is the same city that housed The Honorable Judge Dick Pump (http://www.usatoday.com/news/nation/2006-08-18-judge-sentenced_x.htm). I can even make a good bet as to where he got that penis pump of his.
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Red light cameras are actually terrible, and demonstrably increase accident rates at intersections where they are known to be placed.
Part of this is that 99% of the time they put a red light camera at an intersection, they shorten the amount of time the light is yellow.
I'd like to see the stats if you've got a link. I've heard the numbers on speed cameras but not red light cameras.
(My biggest beef with speed cameras is that drivers predictably drop to TEN MILES BELOW THE SPEED LIMIT when they see a speed enforcement sign.)
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This whole article series (http://www.weeklystandard.com/Content/Public/Articles/000/000/001/078ftoqz.asp) talks about both red light and speed cameras, and is a good read, but the meat of my point is in part four, pages two (http://www.weeklystandard.com/Content/Public/Articles/000/000/001/082izwax.asp?page=2) and three (http://www.weeklystandard.com/Content/Public/Articles/000/000/001/082izwax.asp?page=3).
Retting had estimated that the use of red-light cameras had resulted in a tiny 3 percent increase in rear-enders at all signalized intersections. But after expanding the definition of an intersection to include 100 feet into the approaches, where rear-end accidents would logically occur, Kadison found that during the time of Retting's study, rear-end crashes at red-light camera intersections increased from 18 (before installation) to 156, for a total rear-end accident increase of 767 percent.
The cameras were installed in 1998. Between the years 1997 and 2000, accidents increased at 5 of 13 intersections for which Howard County's Department of Public Works provided statistics. Rear-end accidents increased at 7; they more than doubled at 4, tripled at one, and quintupled at one. All told, the red-light-camera intersections reported a 21 percent increase in rear-end accidents, while total accidents increased 15.9 percent. Figures for all other county intersections also show an increase in accidents, but a smaller one (a 13.4 increase in total accidents and an 8.5 percent increase in rear-end accidents).
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WOAH! THIS law is DANGEROUS!
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Arizona passes medical marijuana (http://www.nytimes.com/2010/11/15/us/politics/15arizona.html) for the third time; hopefully this time the legislature won't have a loophole to shut it down.
I was concerned there'd be a recount, but 4341 votes is more than the 0.1% that triggers one.
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AZ Supreme Court-appointed ethics investigator recommends disbarment (http://www.azcentral.com/news/election/azelections/articles/2010/12/06/20101206andrew-thomas-discipline-arizona-supreme-court.html#ixzz17MtF6i1f) for Arpaio cronies Andrew Thomas and Lisa Aubuchon.
• Thomas and Aubuchon brought up charges against county Supervisor Don Stapley knowing they were outside the statute of limitations. Gleason wrote, "Thomas and Aubuchon did not prosecute Stapley to seek justice, but rather to pursue the political and personal interests of Thomas." Gleason also indicated that the first investigation into Stapley by Arpaio and Thomas may have been initiated by Aubuchon or another former deputy county attorney, Mark Goldman. Goldman has since served as Aubuchon's legal counsel. According to the report, Goldman "has been identified as attending MACE meetings and handing out information about Stapley" at a 2007 meeting of the unit.
• In the case involving [Judge Gary] Donahoe, Arpaio "came up with the idea of charging the judge" on Dec. 9, 2009, because there were concerns in the Sheriff's Office that Donahoe would remove Arpaio's office from investigations regarding county personnel. Charges were filed against Donahoe despite a sheriff's investigator acknowledging he had "no knowledge as to the truth or falsity of the complaint."
•Thomas and Aubuchon had conflicts of interest in pursuing a grand jury investigation of Donahoe, county Supervisor Andy Kunasek, County Manager David Smith, Deputy County Manager Sandi Wilson and private Board of Supervisors' attorney Tom Irvine. The investigation involved looking into a sweep of county offices for illegal listening devices.
Like I've said: it's finally all coming down. There's no way they're going to wriggle out now.
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Any news on nailing Arpaio himself to the wall?
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I'm hoping for a classic "Warden Norton" exit, myself.
But only because there's no way that he'll be hung.
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Multiple investigations are ongoing; this is one of them.
I predict multiple things happening.
First of all, the MCSO's made a habit of setting up fall guys. An attorney got fired over that flap a few years back where they had the publishers of the New Times arrested, and of course there's that lengthy complaint from a few weeks ago trying to pin everything on Chief Deputy Hendershott. (Arpaio hands it off to his buddy Pinal Sheriff Babeu, in the hopes that it'll go away, but if Babeu DOES go off-script, Hendershott gets in trouble and Arpaio -- hypothetically, at least -- gets away clean.) Expect to see more of the same with Aubuchon, though I don't think Arpaio will turn on Thomas unless he's absolutely desperate. He'll stick to the "this is a witch hunt" story. (It is, of course, a witch hunt; it's just that Thomas was the guy conducting it and that's why he's looking at disbarment.)
I think what's going to be interesting is seeing which cronies circle the wagons and which turn on Joe. If Bill Montgomery isn't a complete moron, he's going to take this as an object lesson in what happens to county attorneys who use their office to harass and intimidate the Sheriff's political enemies; I expect he'll be a lot more reluctant to serve as Arpaio's attack dog than Thomas was.
And I see Babeu supporting Arpaio as long as it's politically convenient and then turning on him as soon as THAT'S politically convenient. He's got the most to gain here: he can be the NEW America's Toughest Sheriff.
So, in summary: no, nothing sticking to Arpaio just yet, but the entire department's getting investigated at the county, state, and federal level and his cronies are starting to go down. It's only a matter of time. It took a very long time to finally get this far, but now it's all happening pretty quickly.
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I'm hoping for a classic "Warden Norton" exit, myself.
But only because there's no way that he'll be hung.
i like the cut of your jib, mongrel
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guys I made the Warden Norton reference back on page 9.
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:glee:
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wait a minute but that means
i like the cut of your jib, thad
:ohshi~:
:scanners:
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So okay. The City of Glendale is trying to stop the Tohono O'odham Nation from building a casino on its border.
Solution? Brewer just passed a law saying Glendale can just seize the land (http://www.eastvalleytribune.com/local/the_valley/westvalley/article_e0f41d66-2e82-11e0-83fb-001cc4c03286.html).
I have to imagine Indians are pretty sick of that shit at this point.
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Yeah, but that kind of stuff seems pretty common. Its no more common, at least, than it happening about other things considered low brow. (a local city passed a law saying someone couldn't build a strip joint in the town, and then when he bought a building outside of the town to do it, they extended the city limits so that they could apply the rule to the place he did buy.) The only thing that is a little bit of a pisser is the fact that a casino is a SHIT TON of jobs that place didn't have before.
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The problem is that the state is saying that the city can seize tribal land, which is nominally a Federal jurisdiction.
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And is also an act that has over a hundred years of brutal history behind it.
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Guys I think Joxam is well aware of the implications. He's just saying this kind of shit happens all the time and it's not like indigenous people are surprised by having their land taken away anymore.
(The irony is, of course, that giving someone something and then taking it away is referred to as "Indian giving".)
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Exactly. That's how we give stuff to the Indians.
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Yeah, its bullshit. My tribe has had a seventh casino worked into their gaming compact since 2008 and we still haven't gotten all the pieces together to make it happen yet, despite even the local towns around our chosen location all saying they want us to build it*. The BIA has stopped us twice so far over technicalities but largely our State and Local governments don't actively try and stop us.
You should look into exactly what your local tribes give to your local government in their gaming compacts or any good will donations. Our tribe pays 60 million dollars PLUS 5 percent of our net yearly win and if that total exceeds 350 million dollars we have to pay 5.5 percent instead of 5 percent. On top of that we also support monetarily every local emergency response team in the areas that we have casinos built in to insure that they can properly respond to incidents at our gaming facilities as we do not have a tribal police.
*I have to say, by the way , the fact that people actually want us to build a casino in their area shows me more than anything exactly how bad the job market has gotten. I've lived in the south and man indians might as well be Mexicans up here. :D
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It looks like my "State trumps Federal" (http://www.azcentral.com/members/Blog/EJMontini/117684) interpretation has some pretty high-level support.
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Oh wow, the comments on that post are amazing.
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I can't decide if that's a bad thing.
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See, this is what happens when you pay your state legislators 20 grand a year so rich hobbyists are the only ones who can do it.
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http://media.mtvnservices.com/mgid:cms:video:thedailyshow.com:381267 (http://media.mtvnservices.com/mgid:cms:video:thedailyshow.com:381267)
You got a real winner there Thad!
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The good news is he's retiring.
The bad news is, we're not likely to replace him with someone who's any better.
The good news is, his replacement won't be whip.
The bad news is, they're not likely to replace him with someone who's any better.
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Birther Bill officially too crazy for Jan Brewer. (http://www.washingtonpost.com/politics/arizona-gov-vetoes-birther-bill-that-would-have-required-presidential-qualification-proof/2011/04/18/AFPZko1D_story.html?hpid=z2)
Or this has to do with the fact that Mitt Romney refuses to release his birth certificate for some reason.
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“In addition, I never imagined being presented with a bill that could require candidates for president of the greatest and most powerful nation on Earth to submit their ‘early baptismal circumcision certificates’ among other records to the Arizona secretary of state,” she said. “This is a bridge too far.”
Would this bill actually have required that candidates prove they were baptized, meaning only Baptists or Catholics or members of whichever religion does this would be recognized as presidential candidates in Arizona? That seems to be a pretty blatant violation of the First Amendment.
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My god the entire internet seems to be asking that exact same question, except they zero in the circumcision part of that. No, it wouldn't. It provides a list of possible documents, and doesn't require any specific one.
The bill is ridiculous enough without misreading it.
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But it WOULD put circumcision/baptism docs on stronger legal footing than the actual legal documents Hawaii has repeatedly provided verifying Obama's birth there.
She also vetoed a bill allowing people to carry guns on college campuses. So that's TWO things too crazy for her.
On the minus side, she signed one granting preference to "married couples" (meaning, of course, straight couples) in adopting children.
Until recently my grandparents lived nextdoor to a lesbian couple who adopted three kids. They credited Napolitano with the progress that had allowed them to adopt. Brewer's just undone all that progress -- though as always, Janet shares responsibility as she is directly responsible for Brewer becoming governor.
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So remember that 60-page memo about Arpaio's second-in-command and how it was given to the Pinal County Sheriff to investigate?
The Feds want the report by the 4th. (http://www.azcentral.com/news/election/azelections/articles/2011/04/21/20110421joe-arpaio-aides-report-subpoena-brk21-ON.html)
Things are about to get interesting again. Arpaio was interviewed by investigators for about 6 hours the other day.
The New Times got its hands on some of the evidence for the investigation and published a cover story (http://www.phoenixnewtimes.com/2011-04-14/news/two-mcso-deputies-love-connection-is-at-the-heart-of-the-sca-scandal/) about it last week; the beginning focuses unduly on E-Mails indicating a relationship between two of the top deputies being investigated, which of course is relevant to the case but for my money doesn't warrant a headline and a lede.
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Pretty much what we expected: Hendershott and Black have been forced to resign, while Arpaio continues to claim he knew nothing.
It is, of course, not over by a longshot.
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Officers Fired After Taking Patrol Car To Vegas (http://www.ktla.com/news/landing/ktla-glendale-police-misconduct,0,1011170.story)
This is a very minor story, and has little to do with this thread's overall theme, but it's too much of a gas not to share.
THAD EDIT: added headline instead of just straight link.
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Huh, thought I URL'd that. Oh well.
CAR 54 WHERE ARE YOU?
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Officers Fired After Taking Patrol Car To Vegas (http://www.ktla.com/news/landing/ktla-glendale-police-misconduct,0,1011170.story)
If I were an attorney, I would have advised them to rent a very fast car with no top. And they'd need the cocaine. Tape recorder for special music. Acapulco shirts.
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But it's too late, they already went to Las Vegas.
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They should have taken their attorney with them, clearly.
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3 deputies arrested (http://www.azcentral.com/12news/news/articles/2011/05/24/20110524phoenix-area-maricopa-sheriff-search-warrants-abrk.html) on human and drug smuggling charges.
Lemons asks where the hell are the indictments (http://www.phoenixnewtimes.com/2011-05-19/news/the-feds-have-been-investigating-arpaio-since-2008-so-where-the-hell-are-the-indictments/).
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Why hasn't he been indicted, exactly?
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tl;dr the Justice Department is more interested in making threatening remarks about medical marijuana.
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State of "Emergency" declared in AZ town over "Allegations" (http://news.yahoo.com/emergency-declared-az-town-over-allegations-211928629.html)
So basically Arpaio is just symptomatic of a whole state run amok at the local level?
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Look. We can explain. See, it's REALLY, REALLY hot.
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Seems like a legit excuse to me. Carry on.
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Quartzsite is Froot Loops. My grandfather lives there and once told me that his dogs had been poisoned as political revenge against the mayor, who he was friends with.
I am not saying that his dogs were actually poisoned as political revenge against the mayor. I am merely saying that if they weren't and my grandfather's just a conspiracy nut, then he's fairly representative of the general population there.
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Sheriff Joe hires Steven Seagal to conduct a raid using tanks and heavy ammunition for Seagal's reality show, kills man's dog and 100 roosters. (http://talkingpointsmemo.com/archives/2011/09/wow_what_could_go_wrong.php?ref=fpblg)
Fuck those men sideways.
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It's not even the first time MCSO's been accused of killing somebody's dog in a raid involving a tank (http://www.phoenixnewtimes.com/2004-08-05/news/dog-day-afternoon/full).
It also bears noting, for those not from 'round here, that Arpaio's also set himself up as a champion against animal cruelty (http://www.mcso.org/Mash/AnimalCruelty.aspx).
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County pays $100K settlement (http://www.azcentral.com/news/election/azelections/articles/2011/09/02/20110902maricopa-county-claim-paid-judge-Fields.html) to retired judge who sued after Arpaio and Thomas bullied him.
We'll be seeing plenty more like this.
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Is someone you know in an Arizona prison? Do you want to visit them?
That'll be $25. (http://colorlines.com/archives/2011/09/arizona_state_prisons_now_charging_25_for_visits.html)
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What happens if you don't pay?
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There's a lawsuit. On the grounds that the "background check fees" are not being used for background checks.
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Republicans in the same district as Gabby Giffords raffle off a handgun. Same kind of handgun used to put a bullet in Giffords' head and killed a little girl who would've turned 10 in a couple of days. (http://politicalticker.blogs.cnn.com/2011/09/01/county-gop-in-giffords-district-raffles-handgun/)
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A specific couple of days.
That is some pretty hardcore trolling.
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While I think it's stupid that a political organization is giving away a gun, I consider this a tempest in a teacup. Glocks are extremely popular handguns, and in another article I read it said that while they're the same make, they're not the same model. Loughner used a Glock 9, they're auctioning a Glock .45 from last year. So the really creepy part is just them giving away a gun in the first place, but the right-wing is a culture of violence, brutality and death, so it's not surprising.
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Yeah, the article itself mentions that they do gun raffles now and again and that this was an unclaimed prize from an earlier raffle ("Can't let this perfectly good popgun go to waste, amirite?").
That's said, the "optics" are terrible. An exchange from two fellows I know about sums it up:
Grak: It seems like it wasn't done with the intention of being a dick. I am willing to give them the benefit of the doubt.
Dantes: Oh, I agree. It's just that you'd hope someone would stop and think for a minute.
Grak: If people would stop and think for a minute they wouldn't be in the GOP
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So what's the latest out of Arizona?
Well, Arpaio's old sidekick, former County Attorney Andy Thomas, is being investigated by the State Bar. Give a read to azcentral article Judge says bribery case was bogus (http://www.azcentral.com/news/election/azelections/articles/2011/10/05/20111005thomas-case-judge-Donahue-testifies-about-bribery-case.html) -- and then picture a story like that coming out EVERY DAY, for WEEKS. We've had one public official after another -- judges, county supervisors -- come forward and say that Thomas destroyed their careers with frivolous RICO suits.
I don't see this ending any way but disbarment, and it can't come soon enough.
Arpaio is still, inexplicably, popular, but his cronies have started dropping like flies this past year. Again, it's not happening fast enough for my tastes, but at least it's finally happening.
MEANWHILE, SB1070 architect Russell Pearce is facing a recall election next month. He's got one major challenger, a guy named Jerry Lewis, and there's also a lady on the ballot named Olivia Cortes. Nobody's ever really heard of Cortes before, and she hasn't made any public appearances or done any campaigning to speak of.
The cynical among you may guess that Pearce's supporters just found some lady with a Hispanic name and convinced her to run in the recall to take votes away from Lewis.
The cynical among you would be right.
An elections lawyer has sued Cortes as a sham candidate, and gotten petition gatherers to admit, under oath, that yes, they're actually Pearce supporters and just wanted to split the recall vote. The judge in the case has, as yet, chosen not to have Cortes removed from the ballot, though there's another hearing scheduled for tomorrow -- but the important part is that now the public, at least, knows that she's a sham candidate, and she's not likely to siphon off too many votes from Lewis at this point.
Unfortunately, Mesa being Mesa, I still lay pretty good odds of Pearce beating the recall -- though if tomorrow's hearing shows hard evidence that he was complicit in propping up Cortes, that may change.
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What are the chances of making it public enough to swing all of Lewis' votes to Cortes?
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Well, given that she's either guilty of fraud or a complete blithering idiot, I'm thinking she'd be better off running for governor.
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I was thinking more that she's clearly easy to manipulate, and more likely to capitulate to the entire Latino community than a sheriff in the process of getting his ass kicked.
..so yeah, Governor it is.
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Sure, and even if Lewis won we'd be exchanging one Mormon Mesa Republican (which is pretty much a tautology) for another.
BUT, he appears to be relatively sane on immigration, so he's an improvement.
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And Cortes drops out
She says it's due to harassment, and honestly that's totally plausible. But still and all, I can't help wondering who they were planning to call tomorrow, and what their testimony would have been.
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Saw something on the news last night to the effect that Pearce had made a comment to the effect that the Mormon community had pushed for SB1070 -- and some prominent members of that community are saying hey, not so fast.
The church hasn't taken an official political stance, but in general it appears to favor a more compassionate approach than Pearce's.
I'd love to see the church come out more forcefully in favor of treating immigrants like human beings, but I don't really think that's likely. Certainly the Mormons in Pearce's district seem to share his views on immigration, and I still think he's likely to survive the recall.
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Latest to fall in the various Arpaio scandals is Captain Joel Fox (http://www.azcentral.com/news/articles/2011/10/21/20111021mcso-fires-captain-joel-fox.html), which is surprising only inasmuch as I thought he'd already been kicked out along with Hendershott and the rest of his cronies.
Locally, the Tempe mayoral race (http://www.statepress.com/2011/09/27/two-new-hopefuls-announce-bid-for-tempe-mayor/) is shaping up to be interesting. We've got Harry Mitchell's son Mark, owner of a local flooring business, running. There's CPA Linda Spears, who I don't know much about but who discusses maintaining city parks and repairing city water mains, which are good ideas.
The guy who's getting most press at the moment, and who's gotten the current mayor's endorsement, is Michael Monti, owner of Monti's in downtown Tempe. And I'm going to take a minute to talk about why that's important.
Downtown Tempe is historic. It's got the old Hayden Flour Mill (our main street is called Mill Avenue) and other buildings that go back generations. Monti's is across the street, in a building originally constructed by town founder Hayden in 1871.
The 1990's saw Downtown Tempe largely transformed into corporate cookie-cutter bullshit. Out went Changing Hands and Long Wong's, in came Borders and Hooters. Mill lost its character, and started looking like any other corporate-run shopping area in America. (I remember, walking in downtown Jersey City in 2005, first thinking "This place is a dump," and then doing a sort of double-take as I realized there wasn't a chain in sight; every single business was local. At that point I decided, dump or no, I preferred it to Mill.)
The trend continued until the real estate market collapsed. Gentle Strength Co-Op got torn down and the damn lot is still empty; a couple blocks away we've got two ugly-ass towers that were built and then abandoned when the developer killed himself; at least somebody's finally bought the damn things and is going to do something with them.
On the plus side, Mill's slowly and steadily being overtaken by local businesses again.
What Monti has to do with all this is that he's managed to keep his business, which is an institution and part of the character of this city, through all this mess. There was talk of tearing it down at one point, and then some ridiculous nonsense about keeping it but building a high rise over it. Monti managed to hang in there.
And so when he centers his campaign around reviving Mill with vibrant local businesses, I don't doubt for a second that he means it or that he knows what the hell he's talking about.
At any rate, I don't know much about any of these three candidates. But at first blush, they all look like pretty good options. Maybe I'm wrong and I'll find out horrible things about them. But so far I like the way this is going.
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Meanwhile, in Pearce news, Stephen Lemons writes, Yellow Sheet Admits Senate President Is On the Ropes (http://blogs.phoenixnewtimes.com/bastard/2011/10/russell_pearces_yellow_sheet_a.php).
Now, Lemons wears his bias on his sleeve. His job is to go after Arpaio and Pearce. And he loves his job. So "on the ropes" is a bit of an exaggeration, but the larger point is a fair one: even conservative papers are expressing concern that Pearce could lose this one.
I'm not optimistic, but it's not out of the question. Lemons says he's seen internal polling data that puts Lewis within 1% of Pearce, with Cortes still polling at 5% -- and if Lewis DOES end up losing by fewer votes than Cortes gets, then there's bound to be a lawsuit.
And even if none of that happens, I think Lemons is right on his overall point: the fact that there's a recall at all is tremendously damaging to Pearce, and even if he keeps his seat he's not going to be as powerful as he was.
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Oh and hey, apropos of Mill Avenue, azcentral just posted this: Signs of life on Tempe's Mill Avenue (http://www.azcentral.com/community/tempe/articles/2011/10/21/20111021tempe-mill-avenue-downtown.html). Apparently one of those damn towers is finally open!
There's a place called Fuzzy's Taco Shop. Jesus, what is it with local restauranteurs and taco puns?
And Barney's Boathouse is closed, but that's not exactly surprising.
See, here's the thing: there's this building right across the street from campus. It's also across the street from a church. Which creates a zoning issue: you can't have a bar that close to a church.
The difference between a bar and a restaurant is, of course, the relative amounts of alcohol and food served at a given establishment.
People keep opening "restaurants" in this building, but they inevitably wind up serving way the hell more alcohol than beer. Because the building is directly across the street from campus. And next to the Chuckbox, another one of those old downtown Tempe institutions I was talking about earlier and the best burger place around. (I don't eat burgers but quite enjoy their chicken.) So if somebody wants to walk across the street and grab a bite to eat, they're going to Chuckbox. Hence, the place nextdoor inevitably becomes a bar.
And it's changed hands a truly ridiculous number of times over the past decade or so. Off the top of my head it's been Dos Gringos, Flip-Flops, and Daisy Duke's. All have closed up. (Dos Gringos was popular enough to move to a new location; AFAIK the others were not.)
Don't think I ever went there after it became Barney's. (I only ever went there when I was working at the computer store with Brad and he'd stop off for a quick beer there after we knocked off for the day. That was 2005, which I believe was still the Daisy Dukes period.)
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Every single name you've mentioned sounds extremely unappetizing.
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Oh come on, Chuckbox is awesome.
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it's like a chuck wagon without wheels! what do you mean chuck wagon isn't any more appealing!? get out of here, you seditionist! you ninnyhammer!
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Fuzzy's isn't local.
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It is for us.
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Good to know. There's a perfectly good Mexican joint one block over anyway.
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So, okay.
Some years back Arizona passed a referendum appointing an independent commission to be in charge of drawing district lines, instead of letting the legislature do it.
Well, the legislature (and governor) don't like how the independent commission has drawn the district lines, so they've just voted to fire the head of the commission.
Now, given that I try hard not to fall into partisan traps, I have to ask myself if I'd be pissed if the shoe were on the other foot and a Democratic legislature fired an independent commissioner for redrawing district lines to decrease the Democrats' power. And I'm pretty sure I would.
Now, there ARE some weird-looking districts there. But Pacobird's made the point before that gerrymandering can serve a positive purpose: it can protect a minority population from tyranny of the majority.
And of course that's the entire reason we voted in an independent commission in the first damn place: so a two-thirds Republican legislature can't entrench itself. (Even if that's pretty close to the demographics in the state -- one-third Republican, one-third Democrat, and one-third Independents who tend to vote Republican.)
Anyhow, once again Brewer's in it to thwart the will of the public as expressed in ballot initiatives. Rather like how she's had the opening of medical marijuana dispensaries indefinitely postponed (though granted she had help from the Obama Administration on that one).
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For a while there, the independent commission on redistricting was one of the very few things I could point to in Arizona state government that they got right, outside of the generally-pretty-great things they've done for groundwater preservation. Of course, it isn't really a politically independent body at all if it can be removed by a politically elected legislature.
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I tend to think checks and balances are a good thing, and it's a good idea to be able to hit the brakes in extreme situations.
Unfortunately, as in the Bush Administration, the extreme situation in this case is "two branches of government are controlled by crazy people."
Quis custodiet ipsos custodes?
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The Pearce recall election is Tuesday.
Lemons (http://www.phoenixnewtimes.com/2011-11-03/news/prediction-state-senator-russell-pearce-will-be-kissing-his-political-career-goodbye-on-november-8/) is optimistic. Again, that's his job, but he makes some good points: he describes a recent Pearce rally as tiny, made up of the same people he's seen at other rallies, half of whom aren't even from Pearce's district, and even Arpaio making the point that it's people in LD18 they need to convince.
And, in a twist straight out of a Dick Dastardly cartoon, if Pearce DOES wind up losing it's going to be because he fought dirty.
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I tend to think checks and balances are a good thing, and it's a good idea to be able to hit the brakes in extreme situations.
Unfortunately, as in the Bush Administration, the extreme situation in this case is "two branches of government are controlled by crazy people."
And the people who wrote the law agree (http://www.azcentral.com/news/election/azelections/articles/2011/11/03/20111103brewer-gop-blasted-redistrict-panel-ouster.html)!
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Lewis is beating Pearce in the latest polls, albeit within the margin of error. Close race, anyway, which bodes well.
I'm beginning to feel a bit of cautious optimism. And as noted before, even if Pearce wins, he'd better be ready for a deposition.
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New Pearce robocall (http://blogs.phoenixnewtimes.com/bastard/2011/11/russell_pearce_supporter_ron_l.php) tries to convince Democrats/Latinos to vote for a write-in candidate instead of Lewis.
Meanwhile, we're starting to see stories of early voters who cast for Cortes (http://www.kpho.com/story/15972928/mesa-resident-says-she-mistakenly-voted-for-cortes) before finding out she was a sham.
Again, even if Pearce manages to win this, he's looking at some rough times.
EDIT TO ADD: For the most of you who haven't been following this beyond what I've been saying, the Arizona Republic (http://www.azcentral.com/community/mesa/articles/2011/11/07/20111107mesa-recall-lewis-recall-election-preview11052.html) (our state paper and generally center-right) has a nice concise rundown of how we got here.
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Queen - 'Another One Bites the Dust' (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rY0WxgSXdEE#)
Here's the headline I wanna see in newspapers across the country: "Immigration bill architect recalled in historic election."
If it were up to me, it would be followed by a picture of Pearce looking shifty, captioned "Clean out your desk, you racist fuck."
Oh, Mesa, I take back most of the bad things I said about you.
This is a big deal. A big, big deal.
It's not over, of course -- SB1070's still working through the courts, and we've still got a governor and legislature doing their best to thwart multiple voter referenda. And Sheriff Joe still sits atop his dark throne in Barad-Dur.
But the good guys are starting to win.
Mesa gets all the credit here; this was a local election and it was a true grassroots campaign. But it's a good day for Arizona -- and dammit, for America.
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(ALSO: I just realized that Arizona government now has a Dean Martin AND a Jerry Lewis.)
(And also a Paul Newman.)
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Dinner and a show, people.
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So our new Senate President is...a guy named Pierce (http://www.kpho.com/story/16014190/sen-steve-pierce-is-new-ariz-senate-president).
It bears repeating that our last three governors have been named Jane, Janet, and Jan.
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Oh snap, more good news. Remember that whole thing where the New Times' publishers got arrested by Arpaio's goons? Still in court (http://blogs.phoenixnewtimes.com/valleyfever/2011/11/new_times_wins_appeal_lawsuit.php), and immunity for Arpaio and Thomas is still up in the air.
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Nice, hope they manage to get that one to stick.
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http://www.cnn.com/2011/11/10/politics/gop-candidates-arpaio/index.html (http://www.cnn.com/2011/11/10/politics/gop-candidates-arpaio/index.html)
Republican presidential candidates court Sheriff Joe.
Wow. Pandering to the base. God, the Republican field knows how to make me vomit that special way.
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Yeah, a few weeks ago Cain did a photo-op with Arpaio (the one that got all the play for the "It COULD be electric! I'm not walking away from that!" comment) and Bachmann did one with Pearce. :whoops:
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More from Lemons (http://blogs.phoenixnewtimes.com/bastard/2011/11/russell_pearce_whupped_by_near.php) (who wasn't around to cover election night as he was in the hospital getting a gallstone removed, in one of the best metaphors ever). He notes that the margin for Lewis's win has widened to double digits -- even McCain only beat Obama in Arizona by 9%. It is now fair to say that Pearce was a SERIOUSLY unpopular guy.
He also suggests that Pierce-with-an-I is from the moderate wing of the party. Again, I think he may be a little too optimistic, but he points out that Pierce DID help scuttle Pearce's "let's ignore the Fourteenth Amendment" nonsense, which was really the beginning of the end. (OTOH, Pierce-with-an-I DID support the damn birther bill, as Lemons also notes.)
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Good news: Lewis sees his election for what it is, and before he even takes office he's pushing for adoption of principles similar to the Utah Compact (http://www.azcentral.com/news/election/azelections/articles/2011/11/11/20111111jerry-lewis-focus-moderate-migrant-bill.html):
The compact -- endorsed by numerous political, business and religious leaders in Utah -- says the nation must find ways other than strict enforcement to deal with people who are here illegally but working productively.
It states that immigration is a federal problem requiring federal solutions, says local police should focus on serious crime rather than civil immigration violations, encourages policies that keep families together, recognizes immigrants' contributions to the economy and says immigration policy must be based on the principles of a free society.
He's got his work cut out for him, but I'm impressed.
Bears repeating that the Mormon Church is a big part of this conversation; it's working hard to improve its image, and a compassionate stance on immigration is part of that. Mesa is a heavily Mormon city, and Pearce and Lewis are both LDS.
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There's really no pithy way to describe this. (http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/45329512)
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GOD DAMMIT PACO!
There's nothing in that post that gives even the mildest hint as to where the fuck the link goes.
HERE IS THE HEADLINE:
American stranded in Ukraine in online dating scam:
Former write-in candidate for Arizona governor found ill on streets
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For a while there, the independent commission on redistricting was one of the very few things I could point to in Arizona state government that they got right, outside of the generally-pretty-great things they've done for groundwater preservation. Of course, it isn't really a politically independent body at all if it can be removed by a politically elected legislature.
Good news: AZ Supreme Court's reversed it. (http://www.latimes.com/news/nationworld/nation/la-na-arizona-redistricting-20111118,0,7182586.story)
I expect that about now Jan's wishing Andy Thomas had made AG so she could just have them all prosecuted under RICO.
Though maybe I'm giving her too much credit. Any time I try to imagine her thought processes, it winds up looking a lot like the "inside Homer's brain" gags in old Simpsons.
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Except that she's just punching a Mexican over and over.
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To wit:
COLMES:What did Colleen do that was inappropriate, Colleen Mathis?
BREWER:Well she acted, uh, inappropriately. Well it was very, pretty much obvious that she in communications, and doing things, uh, not in the public, and the people of Arizona deserve that...
COLMES: You mean she was doing things secretly? Like what?
BREWER: They just simply need to operate in a lawful and open fashion...
COLMES: I'm trying to understand what she did. What are you accusing her of having done?
BREWER: Well, she wasn't operating in the proper manner.
Meanwhile, Arpaio is going with the unusual strategy of tying his campaign to a guy who just lost a historic recall election by 12 points (http://blogs.phoenixnewtimes.com/bastard/2011/11/joe_arpaio_juan_farias_mendozalea_for_more_milli.php). (Warning: contains graphic photos and descriptions of Juan Farias Mendoza, who was beaten and Tasered to death by Arpaio's thugs.)
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Heard on the radio that Jan and the legislature are seriously considering another go at firing Mathis; they figure if they actually can provide a reason for it, then they'll be in the clear.
Whereas I legitimately think that if she makes a SECOND attempt, she's the next one looking at a recall.
I also heard a legislator -- didn't catch her name -- talking about pushing an initiative to repeal the initiative that established the independent committee and give redistricting back to the legislature. She spouted some bullshit about how it wasn't really the will of the people (which is odd, because I'm pretty sure that's what a ballot referendum is) and was pushed by Democrats and has failed in every state where it's been implemented.
Which is kinda odd, because our CURRENT district map was also established by an independent committee, and is pretty fucking red.
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I also heard a legislator -- didn't catch her name -- talking about pushing an initiative to repeal the initiative that established the independent committee and give redistricting back to the legislature. She spouted some bullshit about how it wasn't really the will of the people (which is odd, because I'm pretty sure that's what a ballot referendum is) and was pushed by Democrats and has failed in every state where it's been implemented.
They should set up a committee to examine the initiative to repeal the initiative to repeal the independent committee.
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This check will go into funding a committee to decide what to do with this check.
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Brewer's still looking for ways to fire the head of the redistricting committee, because, well, she's legitimately stupid. Honest to God, she may be the dumbest person I've ever seen in American politics. You watch Dan Quayle or George W Bush speak, you can at least tell what they're TRYING to say. Even the likes of Palin and Arpaio are shrewd, after their own fashion; at any rate, they're very good at charming people.
Jan -- there's really nothing there. Most of you probably saw that Daily Show clip last year where she just froze up after being asked a question. That's not an exceptional occurrence. See that quote a few posts up where she can't even describe what Mathis did that warrants a firing? Not only is she not prepared to explain why she is doing the things she is doing, she's worse at bullshitting and stalling than Herman Cain.
Anyhow. On to the task at hand: after the AZ Supreme Court smacked her down, Jan filed a motion to reconsider (http://blogs.phoenixnewtimes.com/bastard/2011/11/jan_brewer_body_slammed_by_ari.php); they smacked that down, too.
There are some good bits in there, particularly at the end where it lays out how Jan's approval rating has dropped in recent weeks and how even Arpaio is pretty even on approval/disapproval at this point.
I'm not holding my breath for any more recalls, but if the crazies in the Governor's office and state legislature keep fighting the redistricting committee, ultimately that's going to be good for Democrats, independents, and moderate Republicans.
Oh also the proposed redistricting map combines my district with the one Ben Quayle is currently serving in. I've never rooted for Schweikert before, but given the choice...
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I'm just imagining her clenching her fists, stamping her feet and whining "but I'm the Goveeernooor~"
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Kinda how I imagine Perry.
"What do you MEAN I can't be president?! I thought being Governor of Texas was a prerequisite!"
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Nah, Perry's another on the "not as dumb as she is" list. Not only is he capable of a nuanced, compassionate stance on immigration, but even his brainfarts don't make him look like he's completely asleep at the switch. Yeah, people made a lot of hay out of his "What was the third one?" bit, and rightly so, but forgetting one bullet point is not the same as not being able to produce any kind of coherent explanation for your stance at all.
And he's another one, like W and Quayle, who when he fucks up you can at least tell what he's TRYING to say (like in the "is this the Mitt Romney who was before he was before it before" yammering). With Jan it really IS "But I'm the Governoooor!"
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It her face weren't so incredibly taut, maybe she could try pouting.
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The worst part about Perry is that he's going to be known for blowing his candidacy with one momentary lapse instead of blowing his candidacy by being a lackwit in general.
As opposed to Brewer who seems to live perpetually within the Perry Moments. It's like a nightmarish cross between Groundhog Day and Flowers for Algernon. I'm convinced that Arizonians are actually the most big-hearted people on the planet and gave her the office out of warmth and pity.
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Actually, we just panicked when Obama swiped our old Governor for his cabinet.
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The worst part about Perry is that he's going to be known for blowing his candidacy with one momentary lapse instead of blowing his candidacy by being a lackwit in general.
It is ever thus, though; convenient media narratives rule.
Remember, Howard Dean's failure in 2004 had absolutely nothing to do with depleted coffers, a departing campaign manager, and losing the Iowa caucus. It was the scream, and nothing else.
I'm convinced that Arizonians are actually the most big-hearted people on the planet and gave her the office out of warmth and pity.
Actually, we just panicked when Obama swiped our old Governor for his cabinet.
She was in the right place at the right time: she lucked into Napolitano's chair just in time for SB1070 to come across her desk, and won election to a second term on that and that alone. She stumbled into the office during that perfect little window where most of the state was still really enamored of this whole racism thing.
She wouldn't have been elected (governor) in '06 and she wouldn't be elected today. I find that comforting.
But I will never forgive Napolitano for sticking us with her.
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I hate that we ended up with Brewer, but I like Napolitano where she is. If only she could be two people.
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I don't. DHS is as goddamn worthless as it's ever been, and I voted for Napolitano for the exact reason that she would veto shit like SB1070.
She's an opportunistic ladder-climber who sold us out the first chance she got. Her first duty was to her constituents, and she threw us to the wolves.
Then again, I suppose if she'd finished out her term, Pearce would still be in office and we'd probably have a Republican governor who was moderately smarter than Brewer.
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Alex, what is "the Democratic National Committee"?
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Heard Brewer on the radio this morning. Asked why she was continuing the fight even though it's unpopular, she responded (this is from memory but is pretty close to the actual quote), "Well, we could believe the polls, or we could believe that voters don't understand what has happened and what the Constitution says."
So not only is she stupid, she's publicly stating that the voters are stupider than her.
I would very much like for her to keep talking, and for her to keep up this fight.
And while I absolutely believe we're approaching the point where a recall is entirely justifiable, I can't see supporting one. Because absolutely nobody sane ever runs as a Republican candidate for governor in Arizona.
The last time we had a moderate Republican campaigning for the office? Jane Hull, 1998. And she was running because she was the incumbent, having been appointed when Symington was removed.
The last time we had a moderate Republican campaigning for the office, before Hull? I don't know. If it was in my lifetime, it would have been a month after I was born; apparently somebody named Leo Corbet ran in '82 and lost to Babbitt.
Anyhow. '86? Mecham (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Evan_Mecham); became a historical footnote for his opposition to the MLK holiday. Impeached; convicted of misuse of government funds and obstruction of justice.
'90 and '94? Symington (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fife_Symington_III); indicted for extortion, false financial statements, and bank fraud; convicted for bank fraud but pardoned by Clinton before appeals were done.
'98? Hull; already covered. The only moderate in this list, and she didn't originally run for Governor.
'02 and '06? Salmon and Munsil, respectively. How bad were they? Well, let's put it this way: solid-red Arizona twice elected a Democrat who was popularly believed to be a closet lesbian. Salmon and Munsil could not get elected in the state that elected Mecham, Symington, and, later, Brewer. They are fringe bloody loonies; Tea Partiers before they were called that.
(In fairness, Salmon came pretty close; Napolitano beat him by about a percent. In a race where an independent -- my candidate of choice that year, Richard Mahoney -- got about 7%, and a Libertarian got around 1.5%. Munsil, by contrast, got fucking trounced; granted, that was the Democratic sweep of '06 and Napolitano was the incumbent, but still and all, she beat him by almost 30 points.)
So no, I can't really see supporting a recall of Brewer. Because the way this state works, her opponent would be someone equally crazy and less stupid.
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Lemons has a profile on Brewer (http://www.phoenixnewtimes.com/2011-12-01/news/jan-brewer-s-sniveling-new-memoir-laughably-paints-her-as-a-tough-as-nails-governor/) in the wake of her book release. It is very cruel, completely deserved, and a great crash-course on who she is, what her history is, and the myriad things her ghostwriter has lied about.
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So remember that Pulitzer-winning piece a few years back about how the Sheriff's Department's relentless pursuit of illegal immigrants came at the expense of stopping actual violent crime?
Well, unsurprisingly, that includes rape.
Much more surprisingly -- and this coming from me, a guy who's not exactly unprepared for stories of corruption, abuse, and incompetence from the MCSO -- the documented cases of botched sex crime investigations number around 400 (http://abcnews.go.com/US/wireStory/critics-tough-sheriff-botched-sex-crime-cases-15083848#.Ttz7olbGCkR). (Warning: you'll be happier not reading that article. I couldn't make it all the way through it.)
Raul Grijalva (http://blogs.phoenixnewtimes.com/valleyfever/2011/12/should_joe_arpaio_resign_over.php) is calling for Arpaio to resign; good for him. (Sheriff Joe's response: "YOU leave Canada, please!")
Meantime, Lemons has more on Melendres v Arpaio (http://blogs.phoenixnewtimes.com/bastard/2011/12/joe_arpaio_racial_profiling_ca.php), which, as you might assume, is a racial profiling case. A summary judgement hearing is settled for December 22 (thank you, Santa) and the judge sounds less than sympathetic to Arpaio.
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Arpaio tries various ways of blaming other people for his office bungling 400 sex crime investigations; announces that he will find more people to blame next week. (http://blogs.phoenixnewtimes.com/valleyfever/2011/12/joe_arpaio_unintentionally_hol.php)
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SCOTUS to take SB1070 case. (http://www.usatoday.com/news/washington/judicial/story/2011-12-12/supreme-court-arizona-immigration/51826852/1)
I don't like that it's being approached from the jurisdictional standpoint. The problem with 1070 isn't that a state is arresting people for violating a federal law, it's that it's grossly violating the civil rights of an ethnic minority.
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I love that infographic. Half of the states that haven't passed immigration laws don't share a land border with any other countries.
But what kind of immigration problem does North Dakota have?
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Quite honestly I'm looking forward to a ruling that says that the mandatory checking of legal status is constitutional, but the profiling is not, and therefore SB1070 remains in effect with the "only if the police suspect the individual is not here legally" provision stricken out*. Quick show of hands, who here carries around their passport and/or birth certificate at all times?
* They can/do strike out parts of a law and not the entire thing, right? I am fail civics.
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Oregon actually has a strangely large problem with illegals. It's a larger presence than you'd think.
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They can/do strike out parts of a law and not the entire thing, right? I am fail civics.
The lower courts already have, yeah.
Quite honestly I'm looking forward to a ruling that says that the mandatory checking of legal status is constitutional, but the profiling is not, and therefore SB1070 remains in effect with the "only if the police suspect the individual is not here legally" provision stricken out*. Quick show of hands, who here carries around their passport and/or birth certificate at all times?
Technically I THINK they'll accept a driver's license or state ID. But it's not actually mandatory to carry ID in Arizona (except, of course, your license if you're driving).
All of which is a fig leaf. There's absolutely nothing to stop the police from finding something wrong with your ID if they want to harass you.
That said, yes, more absurd examples of white people being arrested under 1070-like laws would be instructive. Have you heard the story of the Mercedes Benz exec arrested in Alabama (http://www.npr.org/blogs/thetwo-way/2011/11/22/142658357/ala-immigration-law-back-in-spotlight-after-mercedes-benz-exec-is-arrested)?
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"Sometimes we forget in Alabama that when we label a group as a problem and when we paint the brush so broadly, we've included most of the world," said David Bronner, chief executive of the Retirement Systems of Alabama and a key player in luring new business to the state.
I highly doubt this is a case of "we didn't realize it meant the whole world." This is a case of "yeah, we do think we're better than the whole world, except this guy because he is pretty useful to us right now. Love you germany ♥"
Reuters reports that the incident has even Republican Governor Robert Bentley, who was a supporter of the law, reconsidering. Reuters reports that the governor was considering revisions because of a "number of unintended consequences."
If only those unintended consequences would have been given two minutes' thought before the assholes in legislature said "yeah, mexicans are bad!" and voted for the damn thing. Nearly every problem in government could be solved if anyone considered the unintended consequences.
But hey, we don't pay congressmen to think about laws. We pay them to fuck us in the ass at the whims of whatever corporation paid them last.
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SCOTUS to take SB1070 case. (http://www.usatoday.com/news/washington/judicial/story/2011-12-12/supreme-court-arizona-immigration/51826852/1)
I don't like that it's being approached from the jurisdictional standpoint. The problem with 1070 isn't that a state is arresting people for violating a federal law, it's that it's grossly violating the civil rights of an ethnic minority.
No, the problem is that a state is enforcing a federal law. If a cop is violating your civil rights, the Supreme Court does not have the time or energy to hear your lawsuit unless it actually involves something controversial*.
*actually controversial, not the definition of controversial we use when we really just mean gross
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I highly doubt this is a case of "we didn't realize it meant the whole world."
No, it is.
Because it quite clearly is supposed to just mean Mexico.
I don't like that it's being approached from the jurisdictional standpoint. The problem with 1070 isn't that a state is arresting people for violating a federal law, it's that it's grossly violating the civil rights of an ethnic minority.
No, the problem is that a state is enforcing a federal law. If a cop is violating your civil rights, the Supreme Court does not have the time or energy to hear your lawsuit unless it actually involves something controversial*.
Fair. But focusing on the jurisdiction issue sidesteps the most important legal and ethical problems with the law. To use an old analogy, it's like nailing Capone for tax evasion.
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New Times: Governor Brewer's Lawsuit Vs. Medical Marijuana Act Criticized by Federal Judge; Says State Must Choose Sides (http://blogs.phoenixnewtimes.com/valleyfever/2011/12/governor_brewers_lawsuit_vs_me.php)
Governor Jan Brewer's lawsuit against Arizona's medical marijuana law took a beating today in federal court, where a judge told the state's lawyers to pick a side on the issue.
[...]
Brewer and Horne, however, don't have the chutzpah to actually argue against the voter-approved law -- something that could be politically dangerous.
[...]
Their lawsuit relies on the creation of 20 fictitious defendants -- 10 who believe the new state law violates federal law and 10 who don't believe it -- to bolster their position that a dispute exists.
But Bolton said today that she planned to dismiss all of the fictitious defendants, adding that the tactic cannot "persist" in federal court.
[...]
Bolton was highly skeptical of the state's argument. In a nutshell, Brewer and Horne argue that state officials who would regulate dispensaries risk getting busted by the feds. Lawyers for the U.S. Justice Department, in yet another irony (considering Obama's crackdown (http://www.laweekly.com/2011-10-27/news/obama-s-war-on-weed/) on medical weed in California), take the position that Arizona's law doesn't necessarily threaten state workers. They want Brewer's case (http://blogs.phoenixnewtimes.com/valleyfever/2011/08/feds_want_court_to_dismiss_jan.php) tossed out.
Kee-rist, this thing's like a pretzel.
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Sheriff Joe says that none of the 400 rapists he failed to investigate went on to rape anybody else.
The guy who broke the story in the first place plugs one of their names into a search engine and oh hey, actually Joe... (http://centerforinvestigativereporting.org/node/4900/)
The most recent story prompted Arpaio to apologize this week to the victims, “if there were any victims,” he added.
Stay classy, Joe.
(via (http://blogs.phoenixnewtimes.com/valleyfever/2011/12/el_mirage_rape_suspect_ignored.php))
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Hey Thad, how's the weather in AZ this time of year?
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Moist as of late, but generally dry and chilly.
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Moist as of late, but generally dry and chilly.
That's what she said.
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Hey Thad, how's the weather in AZ this time of year?
This week, or last week?
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DoJ threatens suit against Arpaio (http://www.cnn.com/2011/12/15/justice/arizona-justice-department-investigation/?hpt=hp_t1) over that whole racism-as-the-central-tenet-of-his-operating-procedure thing he does. Would be nice, and certainly nice to see a story like that on CNN instead of just the local news, but the DoJ's dragged its feet far too much up to this point.
Lemons (http://www.phoenixnewtimes.com/2011-12-15/news/trigger-pull-don-t-bet-on-arpaio-resigning-over-the-el-mirage-botched-sex-crime-cases/) points out the obvious, that Arpaio's not likely to resign unless the DoJ gives him an ultimatum. Has a great rundown of Arpaio's many crimes and scandals:
From Arpaio's framing enemies and ginning up the specter of fake death threats against himself to a body count of unconvicted inmates who've either died from the abuse of guards, other prisoners, or from medical neglect in his vast incarceration complex.
New Times has pointed out — over and over — that Arpaio is the most sued sheriff in the nation, that wrongful deaths in his horribly run facilities have cost county taxpayers more than $50 million (at last count) in legal fees, lawsuit payouts, and settlements.
The majority of the voting public shrugged. No matter how egregious the wrongdoing — no matter the depth of the corruption — Arpaio had the public's number.
He gave them bread and circuses, stunts, and shuck and jive. Pink underwear and jail stripes and a broken tank that had to be pulled around like a Christmas parade float.
When nativist hatred toward the undocumented began to rise in 2005-06, Arpaio ditched his cavils that being illegally present in the United States was not a crime. He transformed the MCSO into a county version of the U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement. People ate it up.
Subsequently, the MCSO's scandals have grown to gargantuan proportions.
Arpaio teemed up with now-disgraced former County Attorney Andrew Thomas, pursuing vendettas against county judges and supervisors and even newspapermen, like Village Voice Media executives Michael Lacey and Jim Larkin.
Later came the so-called "Munnell memo," exposing the illegal activities of Arpaio's then-Chief Deputy David Hendershott, the outside investigation of Pinal County Sheriff Paul Babeu, the results of which are still being sifted through; the theft by Arpaio's office of $100 million in county funds; and Arpaio's laughable testimony in the State Bar of Arizona's disciplinary proceedings against co-conspirator Andrew Thomas, in which his favorite phrase under oath was "I don't recall."
Lemons adds that, unassailable as Arpaio's been up to this point, he's weakening slightly under the weight of the most recent scandal and the general shift in public opinion on immigration issues. He floats US Marshal David Gonzales as an ideal challenger.
I don't know much about Gonzales but I'll agree that Arpaio's vulnerable now in a way that he hasn't been before. I wouldn't bet on him losing the election next year, but for the first time I'm granting the possibility that it COULD happen.
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More on the DoJ report from the NYT (http://www.nytimes.com/2011/12/16/us/arizona-sheriffs-office-unfairly-targeted-latinos-justice-department-says.html).
After an investigation that lasted more than three years, the civil rights division of the Justice Department said in a 22-page report that the sheriff’s office has “a pervasive culture of discriminatory bias against Latinos” that “reaches the highest levels of the agency.”
[...]
Sheriff Arpaio was singled out for criticism in the report, which said that he had distributed racially charged letters he had received and that he helped nurture the department’s “culture of bias.”
Asked at a news conference about Sheriff Arpaio’s role in the department’s problems, Mr. Perez said, “We have to do cultural change and culture change starts with people at the top.” Mr. Perez made a point of reaching out to Sheriff Arpaio’s underlings. “These findings are not meant to impugn your character,” he said to the department’s deputies.
[...]
The inquiry’s findings, which Sheriff Arpaio is sure to contest, paint a picture of a department staffed by poorly trained deputies who target Latino drivers on the roadways and detain innocent Latinos in the community in their searches for illegal immigrants. The mistreatment, the government said, extends to the jails the department oversees, where Latino inmates who do not speak English are mistreated.
[...]
The report said Latino drivers were four to nine times more likely to be stopped in the sprawling county, which includes Phoenix and its environs, than non-Latino drivers. The expert who conducted the study called it the most egregious racial profiling he has ever seen in this country, said Mr. Perez, the prosecutor.
The report said that roughly one-fifth of the traffic-related incident reports generated by the department’s human smuggling unit contained information indicating the stops may have been conducted in violation of the Fourth Amendment’s prohibition on unreasonable seizures.
The report also suggested that Sheriff Arpaio’s well-publicized raids aimed at arresting illegal immigrants were sometimes prompted by complaints that described no criminal activity but referred to people with “dark skin” or to Spanish speakers congregating in an area. “The use of these types of bias-infected indicators as a basis for conducting enforcement activity contributes to the high number of stops and detentions lacking in legal justification,” the report said.
[...]
The report quotes from some people characterized as victims of the department’s overzealous ways. It cites the case of a Latino driver who won a $600,000 legal settlement after a deputy intentionally struck him with his patrol car during a traffic stop.
In another case, an inmate was not allowed to use another inmate as an interpreter to tell a detention officer that her sheets were soiled. She was told she had to make the request herself in English, even though she did not speak the language well.
After Mr. Arpaio received a letter complaining that employees of a McDonald’s in Sun City, a retirement community, did not speak English, the sheriff forwarded the letter to a top aide, who mounted an immigration raid in the area.
Good fucking start.
We all know what happens next: Arpaio holds a press conference, he conducts another "sweep" to try and distract everybody (http://www.phoenixnewtimes.com/2011-12-15/news/trigger-pull-don-t-bet-on-arpaio-resigning-over-the-el-mirage-botched-sex-crime-cases/), and he stonewalls.
Hoping the DoJ doesn't sit on that lawsuit threat for very long.
EDIT TO ADD: DHS removes MCSO's authority to conduct illegal immigration screenings (http://www.usatoday.com/news/nation/story/2011-12-15/arizona-sheriff-racial-profiling/51979836/1?csp=34news).
My first reaction is "Well, good."
My second reaction is, "Wait a minute, god dammit...DHS gave MCSO the authority to conduct illegal immigration screenings? The Department of Homeland Security? The one Janet fucking Napolitano is in charge of?"
Good thing somebody finally told her about this Arpo guy!
EDIT 2: A nice bulleted list of the DoJ's findings (http://blogs.phoenixnewtimes.com/valleyfever/2011/12/sheriff_arpaio_oversaw_worst_r.php) at the New Times.
Arpaio has a news conference scheduled for 4 p.m. today on the Justice Department's findings.
:popcorn:
It's half an hour off yet but permit me to summarize it:
"We didn't do it, and anyway I didn't know anything about it, but we totally didn't do it and this is just a witch hunt by Democrats like Janet Napolitano and Barack Obama, who I can prove was born in Kenya by the way, and I'm just enforcing the law, and I totally just arrested FIVE MEXICANS in a raid."
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It's half an hour off yet but permit me to summarize it:
"We didn't do it, and anyway I didn't know anything about it, but we totally didn't do it and this is just a witch hunt by Democrats like Janet Napolitano and Barack Obama, who I can prove was born in Kenya by the way, and I'm just enforcing the law, and I totally just arrested FIVE MEXICANS in a raid."
Damn, how could I forget "Now, thanks to the federal government, we're going to have to release DANGEROUS ILLEGALS out onto the streets!"
Because dammit, if you're accused of a crime and want Sheriff Joe to just let you out into the general population with no repercussions, that crime had better be rape.
But other than that I sure nailed it (http://blogs.phoenixnewtimes.com/valleyfever/2011/12/joe_arpaio_and_pals_call_dojs.php).
Oh, and also, it sounds like the Ninth Circuit (http://blogs.phoenixnewtimes.com/valleyfever/2011/12/joe_arpaios_lawyer_grilled_by.php) is pretty skeptical of his demand for immunity in the New Times case.
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Why isn't he being tried at the fucking Hague. Jesus tapdancing fuck.
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I'm going to say something incredibly reactionary and stupid:
Why hasn't anyone put a fucking bullet in his head yet?
Why can't we get the kind of radicals the right has? We get the Unabomber, and then what, nothing? Fuck!
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The Venn diagram of people who are opposed to Joe Arpaio and people who are cool with completely bypassing the legal system in favor of taking the role of judge, jury, and executioner on themselves has very little overlap.
I'm sure there are Mexican gangs who would love to take him out. I submit the fact that they haven't is pretty object evidence that he is lying every time he claims he is in danger from Mexican gangs.
...would appreciate no more assassination talk, please, even as a joke.
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Haha, so noted.
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I'd actually like to see a discussion of outlaw vigilantism as a power check as long as it's completely obvious that nobody here is interested in actually enacting that sort of thing, but I understand being a little worried about it if you happen to actually BE a peasant from Nottingham.
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Works great in fiction; I find nonviolent resistance is a whole lot more effective in real life.
It's taken a long damn time, but ultimately the legal methods of dealing with Arpaio are bearing fruit. The pen is indeed mightier than the sword, even -- ESPECIALLY -- if the guy with the sword uses it to throw the guys with the pen in jail.
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Unfortunately we've endowed the government with both pen and sword.
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So become the government.
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Be careful for now, your government has the biggest swords and is in the process of taking away all the paper.
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Well, that's fine. Their Swords are mightier than My Pen.
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And the hits just keep on coming.
So MCSO spent months stonewalling record requests (related to the Hendershott/Black/Fox scandal -- see earlier in the thread) by the Arizona Republic and Channel 12 News. To the point that they had to file a lawsuit.
Well, I don't know why this just hit the news, but apparently two weeks ago a judge ruled that MCSO has to pay them $50K in legal fees (http://tucsoncitizen.com/arizona-news/2011/12/16/judge-mcso-must-pay-republics-legal-fees/).
What a week. Thank you Santa.
(Granted, that's $50K of our tax dollars that Arpaio just blew. But frankly I'd rather my tax money go toward hurting him than helping him. Course, like as not now he's just gonna embezzle some from another budget.)
EDIT: In less cheerful but still terrible-for-Arpaio news, one of his inmates had to be hospitalized (http://blogs.phoenixnewtimes.com/bastard/2011/12/joe_arpaios_latest_victim_rush.php), allegedly due to a "scuffle" with deputies. Some scuffle.
Official word is he's in critical condition; Arpaio's opponent in the next election is alleging that the man is braindead but I don't see official confirmation.
Fuckers can't even help themselves when the feds are on their ass and it makes the national fucking news. Anyone with a brain developed beyond the reptile lobe would probably think of this as the perfect time to lie low.
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Or it could be a legitimate scuffle caused by the growing certitude in border crossers that Arpaio's boys are all thugs and would-be-murderers operating under the auspices of legitimate authority. You know, like the stereotype Americans have of various latin american law agencies.
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The Federales wish their corruption was this sophisticated.
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The victim's brother (http://blogs.phoenixnewtimes.com/bastard/2011/12/joe_arpaio_and_mcso_murdered_m.php) seems to corroborate the story that he's braindead. He believes the officers Tasered him until his heart stopped, then threw him into a cell, only later calling an ambulance.
He wants the world to know that his brother was "the most patriotic guy on the planet," a military vet, proud of his country. He also described his brother as having "special needs," and said his brother's medication for his illness was "not balanced" at the time he was arrested.
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And back to Andy Thomas's disbarment hearings:
From the closing argument:
Thomas and Aubuchon became obsessed with pursuing particular individuals involved in these disputes through criminal investigations and then a civil RICO action. Their obsession with Supervisor Donald Stapley, attorney Thomas Irvine and Judge Gary Donahoe caused multiple conflicts of interest, dishonesty in documents they filed in court, and the filing of criminal charges without any evidence that a crime had been committed.
Thomas and Aubuchon committed multiple serious violations of their obligations as lawyers, and they can no longer be permitted the privilege of practicing law.
...(their) actions have brought disrepute to the Bar and especially other prosecutors.
(Thomas) acted not on evidence, but on vague and unsubstantiated rumors about Stapley.
One unsubstantiated rumor was that Stapley told Presiding Superior Court Judge Mundell that she would not get the Court Tower if she did not hire attorney Tom Irvine. This rumor marked the beginning of Thomas's obsession with Tom Irvine.
Thomas and Aubuchon never talked to the source of this rumor, Jack LaSota, and did not perform any investigation of this alleged bribe. Nevertheless, in January 2007, soon after the lawsuit against the Board was settled, Thomas's Special Assistant County Attorney Mark Goldman began to investigate whether there was a connection between Stapley and Irvine.
I think I know what the NEXT piece of bad news for Arpaio is going to be.
...actually, the ruling's not due until spring. So I'm confident all kinds of other bad news for Arpaio will come out between now and then.
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The hits just keep on coming!
Remember this from '09?
Here's another trend that seems to be on the rise: Shackling incarcerated women during childbirth. (http://www.latina.com/lifestyle/news-politics/video-sheriff-joe-arpaio-forces-woman-give-birth-while-shackled) (starring Sheriff Joe Arpaio)
Waitwaitwait...AGAIN? I mean, I hope this is the same story I'd heard about before, because if it's not...well, I can't honestly say I'm SURPRISED if the Sheriff's Department let it happen again after it had already been reported on in the past. Mainly I'd just like to move.
Well, funny story: yes, in fact they DID continue shackling pregnant women, including one just three weeks after that post! (Merry Christmas!)
And now she's suing. (http://blogs.phoenixnewtimes.com/bastard/2011/12/joe_arpaios_expectant_mom-shac.php)
You know, I could set this shit to The Twelve Days of Christmas.
Except that "Four Tasers tazing" would probably be in incredibly poor taste.
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Well, to be fair, it was.
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And "five plaintiffs suing" (http://www.azcentral.com/news/articles/2011/12/21/20111221racial-profiling-suit-vs-mcso-arpaio-begin.html) doesn't fit the song either.
...wait, I don't think that's even the same racial profiling suit I just heard about on the radio, because there's no mention of the ACLU. I am now officially having trouble keeping track of the lawsuits against MCSO.
Oh, and here's a fucking headline for you: Army Vet Tased To Death In Custody (http://www.newser.com/story/135937/army-vet-tased-to-death-in-custody.html). Merry fucking Christmas, Joe; you've earned it.
Meanwhile, Arpaio's new sidekick, County Attorney Bill Montgomery, lets his pals off the hook in the Fiesta Bowl scandal (http://blogs.phoenixnewtimes.com/valleyfever/2011/12/fiesta_bowl_fiasco_did_county.php) (tl;dr a bunch of politicians got a bunch of bribes; it's part of what sunk Pearce).
In nonpolitical "WTF, Arizona?" news, ASU students still don't know it's a bad idea to go out on dirt roads in Flagstaff in December (http://www.foxnews.com/us/2011/12/22/snowbound-asu-student-survives-ten-days-on-candy-melted-snow/). I'm glad she's going to be all right, and I don't mean to kick her when she's down, but dammit, this is one of those lessons you shouldn't HAVE to learn the hard way, even if you ARE from a place where it never snows.
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Video of MCSO deputies Tasing man to death does not show him doing anything that warranted Tasing. (http://blogs.phoenixnewtimes.com/bastard/2011/12/joe_arpaios_latest_victim_mart.php)
Unsurprised of course. No snarky comment to add. They murdered this guy and it's sad and sick and I just want them and their boss to go to prison for the rest of their lives.
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Edit; you know, i guess it is kind of shitty to make snarky comments.
::(: fuck Joe Arpaio.
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Maybe the fact that he was a war vet will finally penetrate the shell of old guard republicans who keep reelecting him because he's "tough on crime". Which I suppose is technically true.
Have you measured the crazy grandma barometer on this one yet, Thad?
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he's "tough on crime". Which I suppose is technically true.
Well, as long as the crime isn't rape. Or embezzlement. Or false arrest, police brutality, intimidation...
Have you measured the crazy grandma barometer on this one yet, Thad?
I don't think she's ever actually mentioned him.
Grandpa, on the other hand, quite vocally hates him.
I assume these two things are related but I'm not sure whether she doesn't mention Arpaio because she doesn't want to speak ill of a fellow Republican or because she doesn't want to listen to the ranting that will result from her praising him. I'm inclined to believe the former because I've never known the latter to stop her before.
At a guess she's probably voted for him in the past out of party loyalty more than any particular appreciation for him, but might support a primary challenger -- particularly this guy from the Scottsdale PD.
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New Times: Sheriff Arpaio's Office, in Seeming Defiance of Judge, Arrests Five Suspected Illegal Immigrants on Human-Smuggling Charges (http://blogs.phoenixnewtimes.com/valleyfever/2011/12/sheriff_arpaios_office_in_seem.php)
There's your answer, DoJ. Now make with the indictments please.
MEANWHILE, in lighter WTF, Arizona? news, Arizona Legislators Still Want Guns on College Campuses (http://blogs.phoenixnewtimes.com/valleyfever/2011/12/arizona_legislators_still_want.php).
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The history of gun use on college campuses is quite a remarkable one, when you think about it.
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People in my art classes who keep advocating for guns on campuses, acting like making everything like the wild west would solve problems.
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Today is Arpaio's deadline to respond to the DoJ.
Maricopa County Sheriff Joe Arpaio said he intends to send a letter to the U.S. Justice Department on Wednesday promising cooperation with federal officials.
[...]
Sheriff's Deputy Chief Jack MacIntyre [...] would not reveal its content but characterized the Justice Department findings as "a pile of unsubstantiated allegations."
"We promise to cooperate with the Justice Department but totally do not acknowledge any validity whatsoever to its claims."
So basically, another stalling tactic. Surprise surprise.
Arpaio is 79 years old. I legitimately believe that at this point his strategy is to stonewall until he dies of old age.
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...crap, when did Fiddlesticks (http://www.azcentral.com/arizonarepublic/business/articles/2011/12/28/20111228apartments-planned-fiddlesticks-site.html) close?
Meanwhile: Joe Arpaio Meets DOJ's "Cooperation" Deadline by Making Demands, Setting Deadline (http://blogs.phoenixnewtimes.com/valleyfever/2012/01/joe_arpaio_meets_dojs_cooperat.php)
In a 29-page letter to Assistant Attorney General Thomas Perez, who heads the DOJ's Civil Rights Division, Arpaio's attorneys pledge cooperation with the federal government -- but only if the DOJ provides evidence for all the allegations it's made against the MCSO.
[...]
The sheriff also wants evidence of every "individual account" the DOJ cites as evidence that Latinos are stopped by MCSO deputies based on their appearance.
Makes sense. After all, he once demanded that the New Times turn over records of every single IP that had ever viewed its website.
My girlfriend, on hearing that Arpaio was demanding evidence of racial discrimination, suggested that maybe the DoJ could just direct him to that video of the deputies beating Marty Atencio to death.
Aaaand, Governor Jan Brewer's Lawsuit Against Medical-Marijuana Law Dismissed by Federal Judge (http://blogs.phoenixnewtimes.com/valleyfever/2012/01/arizona_lawsuit_against_medica.php).
U.S. District Judge Susan Bolton dismissed the case without prejudice and invited the state to file an amended complaint to correct the flaws in their argument. However, Brewer and state Attorney General Tom Horne have made it clear they're loathe to do what Bolton asks: Pick a side for or against the law.
More. (http://blogs.phoenixnewtimes.com/valleyfever/2012/01/governor_brewer_to_ponder_medi.php)
I understand why Horne won't come right out and just say he's opposed to medical marijuana, but Jan's not worried about reelection. Wonder what her waffling is about. Does she just want people to like her?
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My girlfriend, on hearing that Arpaio was demanding evidence of racial discrimination, suggested that maybe the DoJ could just direct him to that video of the deputies beating Marty Atencio to death.
Unfortunately, that's no good; the MCSO could easily avoid charges of discrimination by filming themselves beating a white guy to death. And then you have to find something else to put them away for.
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The question is, are they willing to beat a white guy to death on camera to duck those charges?
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If it's one of the prosecuting attorneys, no problem.
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Or a county supervisor.
Or Stephen Lemons.
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Governor Brewer to spend $105 million to buy back the leases to the Capitol buildings. After selling them for $81 million two years ago. (http://www.yumasun.com/articles/state-75831-brewer-arizona.html)
My favorite line?
[Brewer press aide Matthew Benson] said that $24 million difference should not be seen as an exorbitant interest rate for just two years of borrowing. Instead, Benson said, it actually is a savings: If the state had taken the full 20 years to pay off the debt, the cost would be far more.
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If I'm figuring this right, she ended up with a 26-27% APR on that secured loan.
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Hey, considering what people with bad histories of revolving debt are seeing as aprs on mortgages these days, that's not too bad!
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A stuck clock is right twice a day -- Brewer's not the one who screwed the pooch on this one, the legislature is, and she's right to say they should buy the damn things back.
Where she's wrong is in letting her 1-cent tax increase expire so that we don't actually have any way to pay for them.
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DoJ (http://blogs.phoenixnewtimes.com/valleyfever/2012/01/feds_respond_to_joe_arpaios_de.php) responds to Arpaio's stalling and request for evidence of racism in his office:
In fact, the basis of our findings is largely in your possession. Since our Title VI lawsuit, you have provided us with thousands of documents including policies, procedures, reports, correspondence, training materials, raw data and other documents prepared and kept by MCSO. In addition, we interviewed dozens of MCSO command staff, staff, deputies, detention officers, and posse members. MCSO was fully aware of each employee and posse member interview, and counsel for MCSO was present for the interviews with command staff. Compliance with the majority of your requests would require us to return your own documents to you. If you review your own documents, or consult with the attorneys who were present for many of the interviews, you will be able to gain ample understanding of our findings.
Oh and meanwhile another inmate died in Tent City. MCSO's claiming natural causes. That's all the information they've released at this point.
Nice to hear the DoJ's unimpressed with Arpaio's stalling tactics. Now where are the indictments?
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Hey, Arizona State Legislature! Do you have any incredibly, embarrassingly stupid ideas to share with us this week?
Universities and community colleges in Arizona would not be allowed to require their students be immunized, under a bill (http://www.azleg.gov/DocumentsForBill.asp?Bill_Number=2383&Session_Id=107&image.x=0&image.y=0) that won the approval of a state House committee Wednesday.
Well, that's pretty fucking stupid, all right! But come on, I know you can do better than that!
State Representative Eddie Farnsworth, a Gilbert Republican, says he decided to sponsor the bill after a constituent told him a community college would not let him take classes to get trained as a certified nursing assistant, because he hadn’t been immunized.
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All of a sudden building a big concrete wall around the entire state to keep out immigrants sounds like the best idea ever.
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How... how did immunization ever become a controversial issue again? Is it just that the government is essentially forcing people to do something, and this in itself is wholly resented?
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Aren't there people who claim their religion forbids immunization?
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Some Jehova's Witnesses, but in my anecdotal observation most are willing to bite the bullet and get their kids shots so they can go to school.
I'm guessing that the constituent in question likely objects on religious grounds (and was probably homeschooled prior to trying to enroll in the community college), but that's all a guess on my part. Don't know anything about Farnsworth and his profile page (http://www.azleg.gov/MembersPage.asp?Member_ID=22&Legislature=48&Session_ID=85) is pretty useless (except that it says he's on both the K-12 and Higher Ed committee, which would be terrifying if I were still capable of being terrified by how uniquely unsuited our officeholders are to their offices). But at another guess, he's probably in it both for the "government regulation bad" AND the "government interfering with religion bad" angles.
...I should add that I still have just enough faith in my state legislature to believe this thing is DOA and has no chance at passing. But it's a fucking embarrassment that it even got out of committee.
Meanwhile the top stories on Google News seem to be about Governor Jan arguing with Obama yesterday. It's none of it very relevant to much of anything, but man that photo of her wagging her finger at him is going to see a lot of play.
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If I ever go into politics I'm getting my index finger cut off, just in case.
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How... how did immunization ever become a controversial issue again? Is it just that the government is essentially forcing people to do something, and this in itself is wholly resented?
There was this one, single bullshit cherry-picked study that linked autism to immunization shots in children, which created a stigma against immunization in general, which then got conflated with Obama-era Neo-Conservative anti-government rabble-rousing.
It's a regular rolling snowball of stupid.
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The anti-vaccination movement has existed in one form or another since the first vaccinations. The objections have varied wildly, from early groups saying that it was somehow subverting god's will, to claims that they're medically dangerous in recent times. The most prominent thing right now is the MMR vacine and autism being linked (they're not).
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Don't forget conspiracy theories of mind control!
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It's still a pretty fringe viewpoint. We chatted about it a bit last September during Bachmann's "HPV vaccine gives you mental retardation" insanity; Sei (http://brontoforum.us/index.php?topic=1582.msg202914#msg202914) quoted a statistic saying 25% of parents believe in the autism link, while 10% have "refused at least one recommended vaccine".
I responded by saying that the latter is the more important statistic and that, out of context, we don't really know what it means, and the actual number who refuse on religious or other dogmatic grounds is likely well under 10%.
Actually, the anti-vaccination movement has existed, in one form or another, since the first vaccines.
Shit. We really DO just have the same conversations over and over here.
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Kelly was a girl who lived in a faraway land. She was bored a lot, so she decided to go on an adventure, when she saw...
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And then the world exploded.
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Kelly blinked. "What a weird little story," she said to herself, and then got on with her life.
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One of my psych professors was leery of some vaccinations, believing that one allegedly killed its sample with mercury. And then injected some non-negligible amount of mercury into the recipient.
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Mercury used to be used as a preservative, but the amount was basically non-existent. They don't use mercury as a preservative any more.
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Also the mercury they used wasn't the toxic kind. Also even normal mercury isn't toxic at that dose. Also they took it out before the study that told people about it.
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And the study in question was heavily falsified anyway.
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The Republic's got a week-long feature running called The Air We Breathe (http://www.azcentral.com/news/air-quality/?content=1-overview); today's entry is titled In the long term, bad air hurts all (http://www.azcentral.com/news/air-quality/?content=3-lifestyle).
Nice seeing this get some attention. I've mentioned before that I've recently developed asthma and it's made a pretty major impact on my quality of life. Two of my grandparents have developed it too, and my girlfriend's dealing with allergies so severe we've had to rip out all our carpet.
I heard on the radio this morning that a recent poll said that most people in Arizona don't buy the argument that reducing EPA regulations will create jobs. I think this is a good sign, though it's also a sign of how bad the problem is -- even as Republican/Libertarian a state as ours can't ignore the brown cloud making everybody sick.
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"The" brown cloud? *hits up Google*
Holy fuck.
I like how every time I think about making a joke that Arizona is a hell hole, I don't even have to make the joke.
I know "just pick up and move" is bad advice reserved for making fun of people who live in Tornado Alley, but... damn.
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I've been trying to get Thad to pick up and move for years now.
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It's mostly just Phoenix that's the hell hole. It's a sprawling urban wasteland that wishes it was LA. Metro Phoenix is fucking awful.
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the old pueblo is quite charming
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Oh also the proposed redistricting map combines my district with the one Ben Quayle is currently serving in. I've never rooted for Schweikert before, but given the choice...
Yes and no, actually.
The northern part of my current district will indeed be part of the new District 6 that Schweikert and Quayle are competing for. However, Tempe is NOT part of District 6, so regardless of who wins, Schweikert will not be my Congressman anymore.
I will, instead, be living in...
(http://l.yimg.com/bt/api/res/1.2/sW9CpDQiBagWOcEeLQOZcA--/YXBwaWQ9eW5ld3M7Zmk9aW5zZXQ7aD02MTI7cT04NTt3PTQxNA--/http://media.zenfs.com/en_us/Movies/PhotoG/district-9-tristar-sony-still-poster-28697.jpg)
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a broken .jpg?
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:(
...how'bout now?
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Good to go!
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So here's a bit of sanity: the Commerce Committee has approved a bill to charge tax on online purchases (http://www.azcentral.com/members/Blog/PoliticalInsider/154731) for retailers who have a presence in the state. Meaning, of course, Amazon.
The headline is a rather dickish "Are you ready to pay 9% on that Amazon purchase?" Well, yes. Yes I am.
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I was rather enjoying my system cheat, but I'm not going to argue that it's fair (which is of course why I'm a dirty liberal).
...oh wait, that's just Arizona. Well suck it then.
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I believe that technically, when making out-of-state purchases for which sales tax is not charged, you're supposed to report and pay a Use tax (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Use_tax) equivalent to the sales tax had the purchase been made in-state.
Not that anybody ever does this, of course. Enjoy your tax fraud!
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Yeah, charging sales tax for online purchases is nothing new. It's usually only applied to sales where the retailer and the buyer are in the same state (that's why you see labels like "Massachusetts residents add 6% Sales Tax" or whatever on some sites.
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Hey Arizona Legislature. Any stupid ideas we should know about?
Well, they want to pass a law that would force teachers to be fired for using profanity (http://www.azcentral.com/news/politics/articles/2012/02/09/20120209arizona-teachers-speech-censor-bill.html). As defined by FCC broadcast rules. As you might expect, I am pissed at that fucking shit and the motherfucking cocksucking tit twat cunts pushing it.
Oh, and they want to amend the state constitution (http://www.azcentral.com/news/articles/2012/02/13/20120213arizona-bill-restrict-recall-elections.html) to add partisan primaries to recall elections. So clearly a good chunk of the legislature still thinks the Pearce recall was cheating because it was too democratic.
In less funny and more immediately terrible news, yeah those private prisons are a really bad idea (http://www.azcentral.com/news/articles/2012/02/15/20120215arizona-private-prisons-slammed-by-report.html). And I say that knowing what our government-run prisons are like.
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Well, they want to pass a law that would force teachers to be fired for using profanity (http://www.azcentral.com/news/politics/articles/2012/02/09/20120209arizona-teachers-speech-censor-bill.html). As defined by FCC broadcast rules.
If there were such a law here in Michigan while I was in school, I don't think I would've had anyone to teach me. Of course, this is coming from a high school where upon turning in a bag of weed and a pipe I found sitting in the teacher's room during lunch, the teacher promptly sniffed it and proclaimed, "and it's not even good stuff!" and finally when prompted further by shocked baffled amusement continued, "This is some of the lowest quality pot I've ever seen. This guy was an idiot in all sorts of ways." The purchase of the silence of the five or so students (including myself) whom heard it was unspoken, immediate, and more than fully payed for by the laughter we all shared.
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http://www.phoenixnewtimes.com/2012-02-16/news/paul-babeu-s-mexican-ex-lover-says-sheriff-s-attorney-threatened-him-with-deportation/ (http://www.phoenixnewtimes.com/2012-02-16/news/paul-babeu-s-mexican-ex-lover-says-sheriff-s-attorney-threatened-him-with-deportation/)
The people in Talking Time bring up a good point: how the hell does a gay mexican get involved with a Republican sheriff in Arizona of all places?
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Oh the Sheriff was going to run for Congress too! Oh now that's delicious!
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I assure you, Arizona is replete with faggots.
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Oh the Sheriff was going to run for Congress too!
Hasn't withdrawn yet.
The campaign has taken in around $3,000 from 46 donors since the scandal broke, said Chris DeRose, Babeu's campaign manager and the lawyer representing him in the dispute with the ex-boyfriend. But one donor sought a refund of his $2,500 contribution, DeRose said.
I still think it's fair to say he's got his work cut out for him.
I've mentioned Babeu before. He did his best to be Pinal County's version of Sheriff Arpaio. He was also in charge of the investigation into the allegations in the Munnell Memo, which of course resulted in a bunch of the highest-level deputies being forced to resign while Babeu assured everyone that Arpaio had no idea what was going on in his department.
I acknowledge some schadenfreude at seeing another hypocritical bigot crash and burn.
The people in Talking Time bring up a good point: how the hell does a gay mexican get involved with a Republican sheriff in Arizona of all places?
Opposites attract, I guess.
I took a rather interesting sociology of sex course in college; one of the videos we watched was about a fetish club. There was more than one example of a submissive wanting to be dominated in a racially-charged roleplay -- a black man wanting to play the role of a slave and be dominated by a white "owner", a Jew wanting to be dominated by a woman dressed like a Nazi prison guard, and so on.
Not saying that's what happened here, but it's a fascinating bit of human psychology. (And I also admit a certain amusement at trying to guess who was the top.)
MEANWHILE:
Well, they want to pass a law that would force teachers to be fired for using profanity (http://www.azcentral.com/news/politics/articles/2012/02/09/20120209arizona-teachers-speech-censor-bill.html). As defined by FCC broadcast rules.
I was talking to a teacher about this the other day. She said, "Wait...so I'll be able to say anything they can say on TV? That's 'bitch', 'ass', 'damn', 'hell'..."
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Documents: Babeu ran private boarding school with history of physical abuse (http://www.abc15.com/dpp/news/local_news/investigations/documents-babeu-ran-private-boarding-school-with-history-of-physical-abuse)
I think it's safe to say he will not be serving in the 113th Congress.
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I don't know. I wouldn't want to look soft on pre-crime.
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Welp, in another piece of "What took so long?" news, ACLU sues the AZ prison system (http://blogs.phoenixnewtimes.com/valleyfever/2012/03/aclu_files_big_class-action_la.php).
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Oooh! I get to beat Thad in posting something to this thread!
http://www.statepress.com/2012/03/12/senate-judiciary-committee-endorses-controversial-contraceptive-bill/ (http://www.statepress.com/2012/03/12/senate-judiciary-committee-endorses-controversial-contraceptive-bill/)
Arizona House Bill 2625, sponsored by Debbie Lesko, would allow companies to monitor what employees are getting birth control for.
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Yeah that seems totally not illegal under federal law.
If it passes expect a bizarre increase in the various conditions BC Hormones treat
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Not mentioned in the article: since Arizona is a right-to-work state, under that law, employers could also fire employees for using birth control.
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I love how they tricked everyone into using the term "right-to-work state" instead of "right-to-get-fired state".
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I remember commenting at some point during my unemployment last year that it was great to have the RIGHT to work but I'd really appreciate having the OPPORTUNITY.
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...coulda sworn we had a thread called "It Is Now Illegal to Annoy People on the Internet", but I can't find it. Maybe it was way back in the Pyoko era.
Anyway, yeah, Arizona legislature passes bill making it illegal to be annoying on the Interent (http://blogs.phoenixnewtimes.com/valleyfever/2012/04/arizona_legislature_apparently.php).
I wouldn't bet on Brewer being smart enough to veto; indeed I wouldn't bet on Brewer being smart enough to [fill in the blank]. So, well, it was nice knowing you guys.
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...wow.
WOW.
Get out of that state, Thad. We don't need you to be our inside man anymore.
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Oh god I am fucked.
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Oh good:
Arizona "tea party" members are pushing through legislation to quash government-funded efforts to reduce pollution and improve energy efficiency in cities, counties and the state.
Opponents of Senate Bill 1507, sponsored by Sen. Judy Burges, R-Sun City West, say the bill would shut down any government-led environmental initiative, such as Energize Phoenix, a $25 million, stimulus-funded project to improve energy efficiency in homes and businesses along the light-rail corridors in central Phoenix.
[...]
Originally, SB 1507 was a bill about "unemployment," but through a strike-everything amendment with the purpose of a "technical correction," Burges proposed substituting it with her measure, which won majority approval in the Senate Judiciary Committee and on the Senate floor.
Wes Harris, a Phoenix resident and tea-party member, also testified with Burges, repeating theories about the declaration that have been floated among conservative organizations such as the John Birch Society, which refer to the declaration as "Agenda 21."
Harris claimed the declaration "is an attempt to implement a one-world order. It's been going on for 20 years. It has not been ratified by the U.S. Senate. It has been snuck around the back door by the Clinton administration."
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So the Arizona Tea Party has gone full-on Captain Planet villainy.
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Well that's a relief: Internet Trolls Can Breathe Easy for a Minute -- HB 2549 Has Been Stopped (http://blogs.phoenixnewtimes.com/valleyfever/2012/04/internet_trolls_can_breathe_ea.php).
It is fair to add that the vast majority of the crazy shit our legislature proposes doesn't actually get passed.
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AP (http://www.google.com/hostednews/ap/article/ALeqM5jbKrQ4jcPSiYYaNpL1T-Nh6yYBvw?docId=83da681bc49041aba76b0ecbc58cae51): the DoJ has apparently finally worked out that Arpaio never intended to cooperate with them and is just stalling.
The feds are, at long last, finally threatening a lawsuit. I've been waiting long enough that I'll believe it when I see it, but at least it's a good sign.
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http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rY0WxgSXdEE# (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rY0WxgSXdEE#)
Thomas and Aubuchon disbarred. (http://www.azcentral.com/news/politics/articles/2012/04/10/20120410thomas-aubuchon-stripped-their-legal-licenses.html)
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Arizona bans abortions after 20 weeks (http://content.usatoday.com/communities/ondeadline/post/2012/04/ariz-lawmakers-vote-to-ban-abortions-after-20-weeks/1#.T4SkPtXqVXs). This one is apparently not that big of a deal since it's close to the legal limit anyway, but I found this bit a lot more alarming:
The bill (HB 2036), which pertains to only a small fraction of abortions in Arizona, requires the state to set up a website featuring photos of fetuses at various stages of development, the Associated Press says. Reuters notes that the measure also changes the currently mandated ultrasound for all abortions from one hour before to at least 24 hours before.
Six other states have enacted similar late-term bans in the past two years.
Arizona state Rep. Kimberly Yee told Reuters the legislation was needed to "protect the health and safety of Arizona's women from the dangerous practices of the abortion industry."
So apparently the state of Arizona is now one of those protestors that sits outside of an abortion clinic holding up a fetus sign.
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It doesn't end with disbarment; Thomas, Arpaio, Hendershott, and a couple others are still being sued (http://blogs.phoenixnewtimes.com/valleyfever/2012/04/federal_lawsuit_against_sherif.php) for their intimidation tactics against judges and supervisors.
The New Times excerpts the disbarment ruling (http://blogs.phoenixnewtimes.com/valleyfever/2012/04/andrew_thomas_and_sheriff_arpa.php) to note that yes obviously Arpaio was involved but he of course is not subject to disbarment.
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A little bird told me Al Madrigal was back in Arizona for another segment, which will air in two weeks.
I both love and hate that my state has become a major target for The Daily Show.
According to the local press (http://www.azcentral.com/community/pinal/articles/2012/04/11/20120411arizona-ethnic-studies-ban-anger-comedy-central.html), at least Madrigal's last segment has people fired up over the ethnic studies ban. As well it should.
Meantime, things heating up with DoJ (http://www.azcentral.com/news/politics/articles/2012/04/11/20120411feds-head-toward-lawsuit-vs-arpaio-discrimination-complaint.html):
"It is clear that DOJ's concerted effort to attain voluntary compliance by your client has failed," Deputy U.S. Assistant Attorney General Roy Austin wrote to Arpaio attorney Joe Popolizio.
"It is also clear that we should not discuss anything else by telephone because you will not accurately portray those conversations," Austin continued. "At this point, it is best to let a court determine the appropriateness of appointing an independent monitor as well as imposing other relief in order to address MCSO's constitutional and federal statutory violations."
Popolizio responded that he believes the Justice Department's characterization of his requests for information as a "nuisance" was ridiculous and said the Sheriff's Office essentially has no choice but to wait for a federal lawsuit to be filed.
Nice. But:
A Justice Department spokeswoman did not comment late Wednesday on when the federal government would sue the Sheriff's Office.
It's looking good. But dammit, it's taken far too long already.
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If this does not end with "Joe Arpaio, Convicted Felon", there is no justice in this world.
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I dare not set my hopes that high. "No longer sheriff" will satisfy me, anything more is just icing.
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Jan Brewer signs abortion ban defining pregnancy before conception (http://www.rawstory.com/rs/2012/04/13/jan-brewer-signs-abortion-ban-defining-pregnancy-before-conception/)
Republican Arizona Gov. Jan Brewer on Thursday signed one of the most controversial and restrictive abortion bans in the country, which experts say effectively bans abortions after 18 weeks and declares that a woman could be pregnant 2 weeks before she even had sex.
I know Shinra talked about it up there, but this is the point to really drive home.
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That's no woman! That's a MAN, baby!
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Actually that's probably a good thing -- at least, comparatively.
A court is much, much likelier to throw out something that patently stupid than a law just banning abortions at 18 weeks.
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...I know that oral arguments fall under "too early to call", but early indications (http://www.sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?f=/n/a/2012/04/23/national/w120219D97.DTL&tsp=1) are that the Court will uphold SB1070 on separation-of-powers grounds and make no ruling on the racial implications.
However, in an unusual comment, Chief Justice John Roberts made clear at the outset of the administration's argument Wednesday that the court was looking only at state-versus-federal power, not the civil rights concerns that already are the subject of other lawsuits. "So this is not a case about ethnic profiling," Roberts said.
This may be confirmation bias on my part, seeing as I've been saying all along that the federal-versus-state aspect was much less important than the civil-rights one.
If I had to guess, I'd say that this will be one of those cases where it's not over even after a Supreme Court ruling.
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So uh our Senate Republicans are now claiming that we need to pay Pearce $260K (http://blogs.phoenixnewtimes.com/bastard/2012/04/russell_pearce_wants_260000_of.php) to reimburse the money he spent losing the recall election.
They're using this bit of the State Constitution as justification:
The general election laws shall apply to recall elections in so far as applicable. Laws necessary to facilitate the operation of the provisions of this article shall be enacted, including provision for payment by the public treasury of the reasonable special election campaign expenses of such officer.
Here's the thing, though: first of all, Pearce didn't pay that money out of his own pocket, it was donated to him.
Second, define "reasonable".
And third, ARE YOU FUCKING KIDDING ME?
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At long last, DoJ sues MCSO (http://www.azcentral.com/news/politics/articles/2012/05/10/20120510joe-arpaio-doj-lawsuit.html).
MEANWHILE, a week before the Tempe Mayoral Election, allegations (http://blogs.phoenixnewtimes.com/valleyfever/2012/05/mark_mitchell_says_hes_just_be.php) are coming out that candidate Mark Mitchell molested a 10-year-old neighbor when he was about 14.
I'm not going to dismiss the allegations out-of-hand, and obviously they're horrible if true. But when accusations that something happened 30 years ago come out, for the first time, the week before an election, well, my default assumption has to be that it's a really nasty smear campaign. Especially given that Monti was ALREADY running a really nasty smear campaign based on decades-old events (http://blogs.phoenixnewtimes.com/valleyfever/2012/04/michael_monti_brings_out_mark.php).
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Tempe mayoral race still undecided, as provisional votes haven't been counted. Current count has Monti up by 277 votes.
I liked Monti prior to this race. I don't think he'll be a bad mayor. But if he wins, it's because of the ugliest campaign I have ever seen.
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Mitchell pulls it off (http://www.kpho.com/story/18431368/monti-holds-slim-lead-in-tempe-mayors-race), by fewer votes than my weight. I guess it's nice to feel like my vote actually made a difference.
I like to think this will serve as a signal that negative campaigning doesn't work...but I'm afraid that, with that narrow a win, it's more likely to just make guys like Monti's team think "Dammit, if only we'd managed to get the story out a couple weeks sooner, we could have TOTALLY flipped 150 mail-in voters."
In Monti's defense, his statement as quoted in that article is classy.
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A father of five is deported, tries to return to the US, and dies in the Arizona desert. (http://www.nctimes.com/article_46185bd0-3c04-5d81-b24d-7f6c99d21eed.html)
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(http://blogs.phoenixnewtimes.com/valleyfever/i-dont-want-to-live-on-this-planet-anymore-11372-400x250.jpg)
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Well-come to Planet Arizona.
Nanu-nanu.
And brown people are illegal.
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Up until the final stinger of the police knowing about and refusing to help him, the whole tragedy was the father's own stupid goddam fault. Good thing the Border Patrol managed to show up at the very last possible moment to remind us all what horrific failures of humanity they are so we can all be mad at them instead.
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http://thenewcivilrightsmovement.com/pregnancy-begins-2-weeks-before-conception-now-the-law-in-arizona/politics/2012/04/13/37993 (http://thenewcivilrightsmovement.com/pregnancy-begins-2-weeks-before-conception-now-the-law-in-arizona/politics/2012/04/13/37993)
something something pregnancy begins at the end of the most recent period.
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So what does this mean for the law? Are birth control pills that alter a woman's period suddenly illegal? Or prevent it? Is the diaphragm considered abortion now? The IUD?
I think Jim in your avatar has the right idea.
let's run with this further
in Arizona, if a woman falls down the stairs, is she a murderer or attempted murder for the loss/potential loss of her unborn child, because she is in a constant state of pregnancy/nonpregnancy?
Does this mean that all female smokers in Arizona, with or without children are bad mothers?
Schrodinger's Pregnant Woman is the craziest scenario.
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This is also a month old. We probably had this discussion already.
Edit: I can't find where though.
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Except in Arizona, where it may be six weeks old.
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http://prospect.org/article/pro-life-paradox (http://prospect.org/article/pro-life-paradox)
So Arizona's banned abortions after 18 weeks, about the time when abnormalities can be detected in the fetus. That means that a lot more developmentally-disabled children will be born. Except they're also cutting funding to social programs that would help those children.
"Sorry kids, once you're out of the womb, you're on your own!"
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That has always been the position of the pro-life movement. They've never given a fuck what happens to these kids, just as long as they're born.
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Shockingly, Russell Pearce is having trouble finding a Mexican restaurant to hold his fundraiser (http://blogs.phoenixnewtimes.com/bastard/2012/06/russell_pearce_fundraiser.php) at.
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New Times: Ex-Police Chief's Book Details Arpaio's Negligence in El Mirage Cases (http://www.phoenixnewtimes.com/2012-06-21/news/ex-police-chief-s-book-details-arpaio-s-negligence/)
The author is Bill Louis, who took over in El Mirage after Arpaio's contract there ended. I hadn't heard his name before but apparently he was in charge of the investigations that brought down three serial killers in '06, so I am inclined to think he's good at his job.
Last December 5, Arpaio was forced to call a press conference to respond to the firestorm wrought by the chilling allegations in the AP articles. The sheriff at first seemed to concede that his agency had failed badly to bring a host of alleged sex perverts to justice.
But Arpaio couldn't help himself.
"If there were any victims . . . I apologize," the sheriff blurted in his trademark blend of cynicism and bluster, which his many supporters seem to equate with toughness.
Arpaio then added, "If there were any," spitting out the word "if" with obvious disdain.
Bill Louis says he was watching the press conference on TV at his home in Peoria.
"It pissed me off so bad that I didn't know what to do or say," he recalls. "Joe Arpaio knew — and knows — what happened out there, and he uses the word 'if'? He's not tough on crime. There's a bunch of assholes who would be in prison right now if Joe Arpaio were tough on crime. What he's tough on is his political enemies and on Mexican gardeners and people who wash shirts for a living. He's much more than just an 'embarrassment' to law enforcement. He's a totally political beast who gets to wear a badge and call himself sheriff."
I think I may like this guy.
Arpaio's vulnerable, for the first time. I still think he'll probably manage reelection -- this is looking to be a three-man race and unfortunately a split vote might give Joe a plurality -- but it's up in the air. (I will vote for whichever challenger is doing better in the polls right before the election. Not kidding.)
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Justice Department suing Colorado City (http://blogs.phoenixnewtimes.com/valleyfever/2012/06/colorado_city_sued_by_justice.php) for religious and housing discrimination, alleging that child rapist Warren Jeffs is still running the show from his prison cell. The police there are pretty much in the FLDS's pocket and helped protect Jeffs and his buddies -- and, worse, returned child brides who tried to run away -- for years.
There was a bill in the legislature recently that would have replaced the Colorado City Marshal's Office with out-of-towners; it got shot down basically on bullshit "The State shouldn't be taking control of local PD's" grounds. AG Horne has responded by funding the Mohave County Sheriff's Office to patrol Colorado City so the Marshals aren't the only cops in town. I'm not Horne's biggest fan (though God knows he's better than the guy he defeated in the primary, now-disbarred former County Attorney Andy Thomas) but I gotta side with him on this one; sending in cops who don't give child rapists a free pass sounds like a pretty good use of executive power to me.
...speaking of cops giving child rapists a free pass, fill in your own Arpaio joke here.
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SCOTUS has ruled on SB1070.
To recap:
The administration chose to prosecute this one on jurisdictional grounds, figuring that the most effective way to get it overturned was to say it was a matter of a state stepping on feds' toes.
I thought this was a mistake, as the most pernicious flaws in SB1070 are inseparable from the issues of race, civil rights, and equal protection under the law.
Well, from the ruling, it seems that we were both right. 3 sections of SB1070 got thrown out on jurisdictional grounds -- but one, the infamous "show me your papers" section, was upheld.
With a "for now", of course. This isn't over; there are civil rights suits wending their way through the courts right now and I see it as inevitable that it'll get thrown out once somebody goes to the Supreme Court and says "Oh hey you can't actually define 'reasonable suspicion' of someone being a Mexican without taking race into account." But that'll take years.
The lawyer my local NPR affiliate had on this morning advised that any legal immigrants keep their papers on them for now, which is contrary to the claim I've seen in some places that an ID is good enough. Of course, that's not going to help people who were born here and don't HAVE immigration papers. And, complicating things further, Arizona does not require citizens to carry ID -- though SB1070's stop-and-frisk provisions deal primarily with traffic stops, and I'm not sure if there are any cases about it being invoked on people walking down the street.
Anyway. It's a start. But I sure as hell wish they'd overturned the "it's okay to harrass brown people" part.
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Senate candidate Jeff Flake apparently supported the apartheid government of South Africa (http://www.buzzfeed.com/zekejmiller/did-arizona-senate-candidate-jeff-flake-lobby-for)
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On the one hand, yeah, that's fucked up.
On the other, it's 25 years old and just got dredged up by a Tea Partier who's challenging him in the primary on the claim that he's a crazy socialist.
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He's got an out anyway: The language of the resolution used the old dodge that "sanctions make it worse for the blacks in SA, not better", which was just window dressing on lobbying for a mine, but give him the wiggle room needed to squeak out if he's smart.
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Racial profiling class-action finally going to court. (http://www.azcentral.com/news/politics/articles/20120703joe-arpaio-legacy-balance-lawsuit.html) (The Republic actually uses the word "finally" in its description.)
The case began when Manuel de Jesus Ortega Melendres, a Mexican tourist who was in the United States legally, was stopped outside a church in Cave Creek where day laborers were known to gather. Melendres, the passenger in a car driven by a White driver, claims that deputies detained him for nine hours and that the detention was unlawful.
Eventually, the case grew to include complaints from two Hispanic siblings from Chicago who felt they were profiled by sheriff's deputies, and from an assistant to former Phoenix Mayor Phil Gordon whose Hispanic husband claims he was detained and cited while nearby White motorists were treated differently.
U.S. District Judge Murray Snow expanded the complaint last December into a class-action lawsuit that includes all Latino drivers the Sheriff's Office has stopped since 2007.
The lawsuit does not seek monetary damages. Instead, the plaintiffs want the kind of injunctive relief that the Sheriff's Office has resisted in the past -- a declaration that spells out what deputies may or may not do when stopping potential suspects, and a court-appointed monitor to make sure the agency lives by those rules.
Lawyers for Arpaio, who is seeking re-election to a sixth term in November, will argue that the agency does not need a monitor because there is no systemic discrimination, only a few deputies who might have violated office policy and who were punished for their transgressions.
But the plaintiffs' attorneys are armed with anecdotal evidence, their own statistical analysis of the sheriff's operations, some of the sheriff's own internal communications and constituent notes that disparage Latinos. They will claim that such information, taken as a whole, would force any reasonable person to conclude that Arpaio's immigration-enforcement policies opened a door to racial profiling through which sheriff's deputies followed their leaders.
Chickens, roosting, etc. I don't see how he can wriggle out from under this one.
We'll see what his next stalling technique is.
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Arpaio on the witness stand. (http://www.azcentral.com/news/politics/articles/2012/07/23/20120723arpaio-expected-testify-today-racial-profiling-case.html)
But Arpaio, as he had done in countless depositions and sworn statements through the years, attempted to deflect responsibility for some of those statements on to his staff members and the co-author of his autobiography.
'Bout sums it up, don't it?
But it actually gets better. The New Times version of the story (Joe Arpaio Looks Like Tired, Old Racist on Stand During Racial-Profiling Trial (http://blogs.phoenixnewtimes.com/valleyfever/2012/07/sheriff_arpaio_looks_like_tire.php)):
But the sheriff made his worst impressions while answering questions about his book, Joe's Law.
Basically, anytime Arpaio was shown some of the blatant bigotry in that book, he blamed it on co-author Len Sherman. And this was despite being read back his testimony from a previous deposition in which he'd said he didn't need to read his own book because he'd written it himself.
Arpaio was forced by Young to back off from a couple of statements in the book, including one in which he wrote that Mexicans don't come to the United States with the same hopes and dreams as people from other countries.. In another part of the book, Young pointed out, Arpaio wrote that second- and third-generation Mexican-Americans were not part of the American "mainstream."
"My co-author wrote that," Arpaio blurted out.
More to come; I don't think he's done for the day, and the trial's got another week.
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Heard another fun bit on the radio this morning: the plaintiff cited an E-Mail where someone requested that Arpaio raid a local McDonald's because nobody behind the counter spoke English. Arpaio's defense was that HE didn't act on that tip, he passed it along to his chief deputy and HE conducted the raid.
Arpaio's gotten this far by always having someone to take the fall for him. But now that he's actually, at long last, in front of a judge himself, I don't think it's going to work.
More from New Times (http://blogs.phoenixnewtimes.com/valleyfever/2012/07/sheriff_arpaio_struggles_to_an.php):
Some of the most damning anecdotes by Young came from the collection of bigoted letters that Arpaio kept in his "illegal immigration" file.
Time and time again, Arpaio would receive a letter from someone railing against "Mexicans" standing on street corners or speaking Spanish, and Arpaio would highlight what would appear to be the most bigoted portions of the letter just before distributing it to his staff or asking his secretary to write a thank-you letter to the sender. Close observers of Arpaio's office would have recognized many of Young's examples from both news articles (http://blogs.phoenixnewtimes.com/bastard/2011/04/joe_arpaio_admits_racial_profi.php) and the allegations levied against Arpaio's office in December by the U.S. Justice Department. (http://blogs.phoenixnewtimes.com/valleyfever/2011/12/sheriff_arpaio_oversaw_worst_r.php)
Some of the letters that Arpaio forwarded to underlings were accompanied by brief, scribbled notes that encouraged some action, such as "handle this."
Arpaio swore that the notes didn't really mean anything, that he never followed up on his suggestions and that his staff took care of all that nitty-gritty enforcement detail.
"When I sent those letters, it doesn't mean that I agree with them, or mean (MCSO employees) should take action," Arpaio said.
[...]
In several mini-Perry-Mason moments, Arpaio denied that he said or did something, only to caught in traps by Young, who played videotapes of depositions and news conferences or presented Arpaio with his own previous statements. For instance, Young asked Arpaio if his policy was to go after illegal immigrants first, and their crimes second.
"That is not correct," Arpaio answered, his voice sounding tired. As he'd done during his testimony at the disciplinary hearings of former County Attorney Andrew Thomas, Arpaio claimed he had the flu. (http://blogs.phoenixnewtimes.com/valleyfever/2011/10/sheriff_joe_arpaio_scheduled_t.php)
Young then played the video from a news conference in which Arpaio state bluntly that he has "pure" program that targets illegal immigrants and "not the crime first."
[...]
Young asked Arpaio if he believes it's possible to spot an illegal immigrant "if they look like they're from another country."
"No," Arpaio said flatly.
Young then played an excerpt from an interview with Glen Beck in which Arpaio said just that. Even Beck told him "that sound like profiling," and Arpaio answered (in the video interview) that a 1996 law gives him the right to target people based on how they look.
"You think that someone without identification who looks like they just came from Mexico is an illegal immigrant?" Young asked.
"No," said Arpaio.
And Young played another tape that proved Arpaio wrong.
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You know, few things say "Way too fucking far" as much Glen Beck telling you "Er, that might be a little bit much, Joe."
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I'm glad they've built up a strong enough case that they can pin him like this. Lord knows he gave them enough time to do so.
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Ain't over till the fat lady sings, but yeah I think he's going to have a pretty tough time wriggling out of this one.
Even if he loses that doesn't mean he'll be booted out on his ass (it's still going to be a tough election, and keep in mind it's a three-man race), but they'll probably put a leash on him like the feds have been pushing to do.
I'd really love for one of the plaintiffs' attorneys to ask him "So what exactly DO you do, since you're apparently not responsible for anything your department does?"
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that's a really awful tie to wear with that suit and shirt by the way
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Michael Marin, former Wall Street trader, took cyanide after arson conviction (http://www.cbsnews.com/8301-504083_162-57481400-504083/michael-marin-former-wall-street-trader-took-cyanide-after-arson-conviction-says-autopsy/?tag=strip)
It was a bizarre ending to a case that began in 2009 when he emerged from his burning Phoenix-area mansion in scuba gear.
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I can't say I particularly blame him for punching his ticket, but cyanide is a fucking horrible way to go.
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Oral arguments have ended (http://blogs.phoenixnewtimes.com/bastard/2012/08/joe_arpaio_racial_profiling_tr_1.php); closing arguments will be submitted in writing.
The crux of Joe's argument THIS time seems to be, once again, blaming someone else:
An exacting jurist with an obsession for detail, [Judge] Snow noted that in videotaped testimony Sheriff Joe Arpaio's lawyers had played for the judge earlier, Alonzo Pena, former Special Agent in Charge of U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement's Phoenix office, said race could be used, along with other factors, in developing probable cause regarding an individual's immigration status.
Snow, who is both judge and jury in this bench trial, observed that in the Ninth Circuit, Pena is "dead wrong," according to a precedent set in U.S. v. Montero-Camargo, a 2000 Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals ruling that eliminated race as a factor in most immigration stops.
If the MCSO used race as "one factor among many," does it matter if they believed they were following the law, as instructed by ICE? That is to say, if MCSO deputes intended to use race as a factor, does it matter if they did not intend to violate the law?
I don't really think Snow's likely to buy the "But ICE said it was okay!" argument. I don't think Arpaio's going to wriggle out of this one.
Snow's extended the deadline for closing arguments to 8/16, and the ruling will likely be a few weeks after that.
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Remember how scathing the Dover creationism ruling was? I want that.
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I'd say Penzone isn't pulling any punches (http://blogs.phoenixnewtimes.com/bastard/2012/08/joe_arpaios_replacement_paul_p.php), but
The campaign also previewed the ad to anti-child abuse advocacy groups. The feedback?
If anything, the ad is "not tough enough" on Arpaio, they told Pearson.
So as far as they're concerned, he actually IS pulling punches.
Still and all, nice to see a Democrat go for the jugular.
I heard someone on the radio the other day saying that what they SHOULD be doing is saying "Arpaio did some good work but he's not suited for the position anymore" or some other conciliatory horseshit designed to peel off moderate Arpaio supporters. I gotta say, in addition to "Arpaio let a bunch of child molesters off the hook" being a more viscerally satisfying ad, I think it's better politicking too.
His work's still cut out for him, especially in a three-man race. But I'm beginning to like this guy.
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(http://i.imgur.com/Bsdt7.png)
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...muh?
must be a REALLY slow news day.
Can't even remember the last time I watched local news.
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They're just suspicious of it because it's black.
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Man, I cringed just typing that out.
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Alternatively:
Someone better check that flashlight for its papers!
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It gets better, you guys.
3rd Ave and Jefferson?
The station building is located at 5th Ave and Adams.
It's like they literally just had their camera crew start wandering around the neighborhood looking for something to report on.
Bit of context, though: there have been real, actual flashlight bombs planted around town, so it's not ENTIRELY frivolous.
That said, the bombs have all been big yellow flashlights, not small black ones.
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Does Joe have jurisdiction over this flashlight?
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He's deporting the flashlight to China, as it didn't have it's papers.
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Arpaio ad (http://blogs.phoenixnewtimes.com/bastard/2012/08/joe_arpaio_cares_about_the_kid.php) highlights all the stuff he's done to help children.
That's...a subject you'd think he'd want to avoid this election.
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Look, man. Joe Arpaio is the ultimate wing man to kids. He helped them get laid.
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According to a memo written by a Maricopa County sheriff's deputy assigned to a botched sex crime case now threatening to cost the county millions, fraud investigations took precedence over a 13 year-old girl's report of being raped by her uncle.
The March 13, memo from MCSO detective G.J. Edgar to Sergeant P. Dougherty, identified as a supervisor of the Special Victims Unit, offers insight into how such a heinous crime, now the subject of a $30 million notice of claim to the county, was ignored for several years.
[...]
Edgar relates that when she was transferred to the Special Victims Unit in 2008, she was told to take with her "a mortgage fraud case that was a special assignment from Deputy Chief B. Knight."
Knight called her a few months later and asked if she had done anything with the mortgage fraud case. Edgar said no. Knight ordered her to tend to it.
"Because this project was from a deputy chief," Edgar writes, "it was made a priority."
She says she told a supervisor at the Special Victims Unit about her working the mortgage fraud investigation.
"I was told to finish the case," she explains.
Gets worse from there.
Penzone seems to be making this the centerpiece of his campaign. Good.
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:rage:
mortgage fraud was a more important use of time than child sexual abuse? What the fuck is wrong with Arpaio? I get that he was running the office into the fucking ground, but really.
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A special victims detective was assigned to a mortgage fraud case?! ARE YOU FUCKING KIDDING ME
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I hear that's the next Law and Order spinoff.
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That'd be a show I watch. Police procedural where it opens with some horrific murder or rape, then the detective is assigned to handle petty larceny cases. At the end, they determine it's got to be that illegal driving downtown, and pull a Hispanic guy - who speaks perfect English - out of his car and throw him jail. Case closed.
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And then they get sued. Law & Order: Sheriff's County
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Arpaio denied immunity in arrest of New Times owners. (http://blogs.phoenixnewtimes.com/bastard/2012/08/joe_arpaio_joins_lawyer_dennis.php)
It's not a conviction -- and Thomas, unfortunately, HAS been granted immunity (pending appeal), but at least he's been neutralized -- but it's one more step. Expect "Village Voice sues Arpaio" headlines soon.
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Feds won't charge Arpaio. (http://blogs.phoenixnewtimes.com/valleyfever/2012/09/joe_arpaio_criminal_charges_us_attorney.php)
Hey Holder? Fuck you.
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That is incredibly depressing.
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So Thad, how are you feeling about justice right now?
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Mainly I'm wondering what the fuck kind of idiot I must be to keep thinking she's going to let me kick that football this time.
It's not too close to the election to switch to Independent, is it?
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Don't give the rest of us your illness.
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Unless there was some August deadline I'm unaware of, I think it's fair to assume they picked the Friday before Labor Day on purpose. Story flies under the radar; the Democrats get to keep patting themselves on the back for how much they're doing for Hispanics.
There's still the civil suit, Melendres v Arpaio. Ultimately I think that's probably going to accomplish much the same things that a criminal case would have, in forcing independent oversight. From that perspective I can see how somebody would have thought charges would be redundant, but -- again, unless there was some August deadline I never heard about -- I can't see why they didn't wait until after the verdict came out in the civil case. Unless it really is because Obama's worried about winning over Arpaio supporters.
No fucking idea.
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Hey, we're #1 in SOMETHING!
(It's cuts to education (http://www.azcentral.com/news/politics/articles/20120904study-arizona-1st-in-cuts-schools.html).)
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Don't worry, Thad, your state will never be as insane as Florida.
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Drunk Cop Puts Hand Up Woman's Skirt But Judge Blames Victim (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Ho8CCpKBw2M#ws)
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Dear Princess Celestia,
Today I learned something positive about friendship and about vulnerability. Above all, I learned not to wear short skirts because drunken men in positions of authority will shove their fingers into your genitals. I also learned to stay the fuck out of Arizona. Seriously, fuck that hellish death hole and the sun-fried assholes who live there.
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If you get all your information about MLP from the internet you might understand why she would have to write such a letter.
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A FEMALE judge (http://www.azcentral.com/news/articles/20120907arizona-groping-victim-wants-apology-judges-comments.html), which makes the whole thing even crazier.
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The ability of privilege groups to internalize biases that work against their own interests is perhaps the most disturbing and most ubiquitous phenomenon abetting institutionalized discrimination.
EDIT:
In short, it's depressing, but I feel like I shouldn't be as surprised by it as I am.
Though I get the feeling that as part of the conservative backlash against civil liberties, people who don't at least pay lip service to the status-quo tend not to get judge's seats.
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... I like how Thad didn't even say anything about me calling Arizona a hellish death-hole inhabited by sun-fried assholes. Like, I know he made this thread, but still, not even a limp-wristed "it's not THAT bad."
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...actually, since you mention it, this happened in Flagstaff and Flagstaff is amazing.
But you can still get pretty sun-fried there. It's 20-30 degrees cooler than here but it's also about a mile and a half higher up.
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Some of the best vacations of my life have been in high desert.
That said, they were vacations. I didn't have to live with the fucked up politics of the region.
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What the FUCK, Arizona? (http://www.theatlanticwire.com/politics/2012/09/kyl-compares-cairo-embassy-tweet-blaming-rape-victim/56794/)
Jon Kyl: It's like the judge telling the woman who got raped, 'You asked for it because of the way you dressed.' OK? That's the same thing. 'Well America, you should be the ones to apologize, you should have known this would happen, you should have done — what I don't know — but it's your fault that it happened.' You know, for a member of our State Department to put out a statement like that, it had to be cleared by somebody. They don't just do that in the spur of the moment.
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The Mayor of Phoenix takes up a challenge to live on a food stamps budget for a week (http://thinkprogress.org/economy/2012/09/26/917651/phoenix-mayor-attempts-to-live-on-a-food-stamp-budget-im-tired-and-its-hard-to-focus/)
OK- ran out the door today with no time to scramble eggs or even make a sandwich. So I’m surviving on an apple and handful of peanuts, and the coffee I took to the office until dinner. I’m tired, and it’s hard to focus. I can’t go buy a sandwich because that would be cheating- even the dollar menu at Taco Bell is cheating. You can’t use SNAP benefits at any restaurants, fast food or otherwise. I’m facing a long, hungry day and an even longer night getting dinner on the table, which requires making EVERYTHING from scratch on this budget. It’s only for a week, so I’ve got a decent attitude. If I were doing this with no end in sight, I probably wouldn’t be so pleasant.
It's something, at least.
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Good for him.
$29 a week -- Jesus.
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Jesus fuck, is that how low it is in Arizona? That's... just... fucking criminal is what it is.
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This should be a requirement for every elected official at any level.
Also, it should be for a month.
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As someone who is functionally barred from holding any public office, I feel that making people who want to hold public office suffer is a great practice.
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I'm 100% serious, though, and it's not about "I DEMAND THAT YOU FEEL MY SUFFERING" or anything like that. I mean, look.
My budget practices, to this day, are based on a system I developed back when I was living, alone, on minimum wage, back in inflation-infested Boulder, CO.
Back then, it was a matter of fucking raw survival. Today, it's a matter of... well, coming off as being muct more wealthy than I actually ought to be, basically. My income is pretty high on a national scale but around here I'm sort of a higher working-class, and everyone else in my salary range still rents and makes payments on their Camries.
I have no illusions about the fact that, had I not been forced to adapt to fucking eat, I would be every bit as broke today as I was back then. Probably moreso, since I'd be taking a leisurely swim in a bottomless pool of debt.
So demanding that the people in charge of our budget at least experience a little bit of ascetism isn't petty, it's goddam practical. This country's economy has been run into the ground 100% by privileged ignorants who never had any frame of reference for understanding how money works when it's actually practically limited. Most of them aren't even really rich, per se - it's mostly the comfortably middle-class people who have never been poor enough to understand why an underwater mortgage is a fucking bad idea.
If I had my way with society, every man and woman would have to live for a year independently with their wages capped at minimum before they could be considered an adult. It's like young Leonidas killing a wolf, only in this case the vicious predator is Capital One.
Short of that, though, demanding that the lawmakers and macro-economists have at least a working understanding of how people live? I'll settle with that, for now.
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I'm a firm believer in the idea that shared points of reference (especially suffering) is the ultimate key to human empathy.
Also it turns out I still can't read:lawmakers and macro-economists have at least an understanding of how working people live?
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My budget practices, to this day, are based on a system I developed back when I was living, alone, on minimum wage, back in inflation-infested Boulder, CO.
Yeah, it's funny how those habits form.
This year has been fucking bizarre because I've been making more money than in any previous job and yet I've been keeping less of it. My paychecks are bigger and yet I've all but exhausted my savings. And I haven't made lavish purchases (I bought a sound system at the beginning of the year, a phone last month, and I keep a modest entertainment budget; I got an Xbox 360 but that was with my fiancee's new computer and all told I've spent less than $100 on it); it's just that for the first time in my life I've been the sole breadwinner in a two-person household. (Since then she's gotten a scholarship and that's helped us breathe a little easier -- though I'm out of a job in three weeks now.)
So demanding that the people in charge of our budget at least experience a little bit of ascetism isn't petty, it's goddam practical. This country's economy has been run into the ground 100% by privileged ignorants who never had any frame of reference for understanding how money works when it's actually practically limited. Most of them aren't even really rich, per se - it's mostly the comfortably middle-class people who have never been poor enough to understand why an underwater mortgage is a fucking bad idea.
Yeah, I think of that Tea Party numbnut who, on his first day in office, whined about how he didn't have healthcare yet.
Head of State wasn't a great movie but it DID have some fucking great Chris Rock speeches in it. Most of which, yes, were about the total disconnect between the ruling class and the common man.
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$29 a week -- Jesus.
I cook almost everything from scratch, try my darndest to buy only stuff that's on sale, and live in an agricultural area where fresh produce is inexpensive and plentiful, and even then I would find it difficult to spend less than 40-50 dollars a week on food unless I was willing to settle for cheap, low-nutrition/unhealthy processed stuff.
29$? Man, I'd have to sell drugs or something.
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Hm... $3 for a week's bread if I buy cheaper stuff like pumpernickel, about $4 for fruit. Bag milk's $4, but that's two weeks worth, so call it $2. So breakfast cuts me down to $20 (no lie, my breakfast really is just 2pcs fruit, some bread or pita, and milk).
I've been trying to give up lunch entirely in favour of earlier dinners, so that's a savings already. But then I do still eat snacks, so not really.
We can probably get a good 4 meals out of our more common scratch-made stuff, but those still cost $15-$25 in ingredients. Joke answer: Guess I could just go to the local roti place 7 nights in a row (one $6.50 meal is good for 2 dinners worth of food, so it barely works!).
Technically possible for me, and not THAT far from my actual practice, but I do eat out often (mostly lunches at work) and eat way too many snacks.
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Man, I'd have to sell drugs or something.
I get the impression that having undocumented (and therefore, untaxed) income is how most people make this work.
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Arizona privatized health care in its prisons three months ago. How's that going? (http://www.mohavedailynews.com/articles/2012/10/01/news/state/doc506948d09df7d564548878.txt)
Pittsburg-based Wexford Health Sources Inc., was fined for the actions of a nurse who caused a hepatitis C scare in August [...]
In the state cure letter, a series of problems were noted. They included a Wexford nurse administering medication to an inmate by having the inmate “lick the powdered medication from her own hand,” instead of putting the medication in a small cup of water.
Other problems included a significant number of inmates not receiving medication. One of those was a Florence inmate who was found hanging in his cell Aug. 23 after not getting his psychotropic medication for the entire month. The letter does not state if the inmate died.
Wexford's already been kicked out of prisons in WA and NM for similar problems, but Arizona is getting tough: they're socking them with a $10,000 fine. Their $349 million contract remains intact.
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Judge blocks Arizona law that bars funding to Planned Parenthood (http://ca.news.yahoo.com/judge-blocks-arizona-law-bars-funding-planned-parenthood-002128026.html)
The fact that this was even an issue is troubling enough.
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The Atencio family files suit. (http://blogs.phoenixnewtimes.com/bastard/2012/10/joe_arpaios_us_veteran_victim.php)
It may be October but it's not really much of a surprise. Still, "Remember when Arpaio's goons beat a mentally ill veteran to death last year?" is probably a good headline right before the election.
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In Maricopa County? Might be a good headline for Arpaio ads. "Sheriff Joe will keep you safe from all the things you fear most. Immigrants. The Mentally Ill. Veterans. Jews. And all the other undesirables that are ruining our sun blasted wasteland home."
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MCSO inmate escapes (http://blogs.phoenixnewtimes.com/valleyfever/2012/11/mcso_inmate_escapes_after_dupi.php) by putting his jail uniform over a stack of milk cartons. Tough on crime, rule of law, etc.
Meanwhile, in Gilbert, woman doesn't understand how electoral college works, blames husband for Obama's reelection, runs him over with her car. (http://blogs.phoenixnewtimes.com/valleyfever/2012/11/obama_reelection_mitt_romney_holly_solomon_gilbert.php)
Man, how could someone lack such a basic understanding of how our electoral system works?
On a completely unrelated topic, Gilbert just voted for $17M in budget cuts for their elementary school district.
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Lemons (http://blogs.phoenixnewtimes.com/bastard/2012/11/maricopa_county_board_of_super.php) runs down the final Maricopa County ballot tally.
On the whole, the percentage of provisional ballots was up by a point and a half from 2008, but the percentage of REJECTED provisional ballots was actually DOWN four points.
Lemons believes, and the final tally seems to support, that the people faced with provisional ballots were largely a cross-section, and the problem doesn't seem to have disproportionately targeted Hispanics, though he acknowledges it wasn't consistent across all districts and he still has some numbers to crunch before he can say that for sure.
Something he doesn't mention: even acknowledging that 2008 had a similar number of provisional ballots, I don't remember reports of long lines and hours-long waits. It is entirely possible that thousands of people walked away before their turn came.
So I guess the good news is it looks like there wasn't a concerted effort against Hispanics -- at least, not a very successful one. The bad news is, not a whole lot has changed; my county's still pretty far to the right.
The sorta-good news is that at least it's starting to swing just a little bit toward the left. The Republicans no longer have a legislative supermajority, and my district put Democrats in office at both the state and federal level. (Bit of a pyrrhic victory in Ableser's case; I generally agree with him and have voted for him in the past, but the redistricting put him up against Jerry Lewis -- a guy who I don't agree with on a lot of issues but who I respect as the guy who toppled Russell Pearce in last year's recall -- and Ableser ran a pretty disgusting campaign. Including sending flyers out that insinuated Lewis supported Pearce, which is of course about as far from true as any statement can conceivably be. I was incensed enough by it to leave the state senator box blank and not vote for either candidate; I couldn't bring myself to vote for Lewis on policy, but I couldn't bring myself to vote for Ableser on principle.)
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Where in the World is
Carmen SandiegoJan Brewer? (http://thehill.com/blogs/blog-briefing-room/news/270909-arizona-senators-dont-know-gov-jan-brewers-whereabouts)
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This after jabbing a reporter in the arm (http://blogs.phoenixnewtimes.com/valleyfever/2012/12/jan_brewers_contact_with_chann.php) for asking about global warming.
"Where in the hell did that come from?" Er, you're standing outside in 78-degree weather in December; I'm sure if you take an hour or two you can puzzle it out for yourself.
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shallowgraveshallowgraveshallowgrave c'mooooon shallow grave.
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But then Birther Bennett would be governor. He's just as evil, more competent, and eligible to run for another term.
Bad plan, Bal. Bad plan.
...then again, he might win in 2014 anyway. In which case we'd be better off if he were ineligible to run for another term after that. Now I'm conflicted.
...anyway. She's actually in Afghanistan. (http://www.abc15.com/dpp/news/state/arizona-gov-jan-brewer-talks-unannounced-trip-to-afghanistan-raw-video)
Or possibly someone just drove her out into the desert, spun her around a few times, and told her she was in Afghanistan. Hard to tell.
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http://www.salon.com/2013/02/13/joe_arpaio_hired_a_convicted_child_sex_criminal_for_armed_school_%E2%80%9Cposse%E2%80%9D/ (http://www.salon.com/2013/02/13/joe_arpaio_hired_a_convicted_child_sex_criminal_for_armed_school_%E2%80%9Cposse%E2%80%9D/)
(http://f3.to/minifapo/gal/1360863343head_shaking.gif)
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Not only am I not surprised, I'm no longer surprised that anyone else is surprised.
Arpaio made a big show in front of the cameras, actually made everybody less safe, his supporters are still his supporters because they don't actually give a fuck about anything past the "big show in front of the cameras" part.
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If you molest our guns then only molesters will have guns.
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If you want to see a Sheriff Joe supporter's perspective (or possibly a troll pretending to be a Sheriff Joe supporter's perspective), it's never hard to find one in the New Times comments section (http://blogs.phoenixnewtimes.com/valleyfever/2013/02/joe_arpaio_and_steven_seagal_s_1.php):
Holey Moley!!! Out of thousands of volunteer posse members (glorified security guards), is it really possible that a few of them were criminals at one time or another? That seems pretty goddamn shocking to me. And cybercy, you don't need to worry about anyone failing to look into a purported misdeed of the MCSO. There are people whose sole task it is to investigate and report on every potential mistake the MCSO has ever committed
and this all happened in 2009... the guy probably hasn't even been here since then, let alone been serving in Joe's posse
if you looked further into the issue, you will see that the man convicted of sending explicit materials to children was an MCSO correctional officer for 7 years before being charged with his crimes. He was subsequently fired from the department and, being a citizen of Canada, was entered into deportation proceedings with immigration & customs. The "news" media is reporting this as if Arpaio knowingly hired a sex offender to his posse when in reality, the guy was a member and MCSO officer before he was accused of committing the crimes. I highly doubt MCSO failed to perform background checks on these people
Case closed. Thanks, azcumsquelcher.
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:done:
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With a name like azcumsquelncher...
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"He committed the offences on duty, rather than at a prior date" is an amazing defense.
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Went to campus today to run some errands. A nice man asked me to sign a petition to recall Arpaio. I don't hold out a whole lot of hope, but what the hell else you gonna do? Gotta keep trying.
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"Well of COURSE a vigilante posse is going to contain a bunch of crooks!" is cute too, but again, azcumsquelcher.
I suspect most actual conservatives are just leaning against the standard argument that anything that even seems like criticism against conservatives is part of a massive homobortionist conspiracy. Hell, they're all up in arms right now because people had the GALL to think Marco Rubio's water break moment was kinda funny.
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http://thinkprogress.org/lgbt/2013/03/20/1748851/arizona-lawmaker-introduces-bill-to-prosecute-transgender-people-who-use-the-wrong-bathroom/ (http://thinkprogress.org/lgbt/2013/03/20/1748851/arizona-lawmaker-introduces-bill-to-prosecute-transgender-people-who-use-the-wrong-bathroom/)
why why why why why
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Arizona Group Will Give Away Loaded Shotguns To ‘Take Back’ City From Criminals (http://thinkprogress.org/justice/2013/03/27/1780641/tuscon-gun-giveaway/)
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Funny enough, that exact item came up elsewhere, prompting the following conversation:
<Monty> I'm normally in favor of the scientific method, but I feel like "free shotguns" might be a risky plan.
<burboy> that is the most unamerican thing ever said on this board
<Monty> Sorry. I'll try again
<Monty> Giving away shotguns to the poor? That's nothing but socialist welfare!
<burboy> now you're catching on
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handing out free shotguns in neighborhoods with high crime rates.
Even in Arizona where I can now unfairly base my generalizations entirely on Prescott Valley I have trouble believing that people can read that sentence and not realize what's wrong with it.
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You really think they read anything more than FREE SHOTGUNS?
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All guns bought in Arizona buy-back program are now required to be resold by retailers (http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2013/04/30/jan-brewer-guns_n_3182436.html).
:facepalm:
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Things that make me smile: Arpaio's scared. (http://www.corporate-sellout.com/index.php/2013/05/02/watch-the-bigoted-shit-squirm/)
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And then he died on the way back to his home planet.
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I heard en passant this afternoon that Arpaio's office has been found guilty of blatant profiling and obstruction?
Can any of our Arizona residents elaborate on the news?
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Arizona is not the best place to find anti-Arpaio news.
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I haven't had a chance to read the details but from what I understand it's another damn slap on the wrist. Will tell you more when I get a chance to read up on it.
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Here's Lemons's take. (http://blogs.phoenixnewtimes.com/bastard/2013/05/joe_arpaios_doomsday_arpaio_lo.php) I think he's exaggerating quite a bit; again, it bears remembering that's his job.
Near as I can understand it, the only actual punishment that's been handed down so far is that Arpaio has to stop racially profiling people.
HOWEVER, the judge has also said that "Plaintiffs are entitled to injunctive relief to protect them from usurpation of rights guaranteed under the United States Constitution." He hasn't actually mandated any yet, but I think that statement pretty strongly implies that he's going to.
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Lemons has a pretty good rundown (http://www.phoenixnewtimes.com/2013-05-30/news/judge-snow-s-decision-damns-not-just-arpaio-but-all-of-maricopa-county/full/) of Arpaio's history of pandering to racists. It's worth noting that, while he was certainly an asshole from the beginning, he didn't adopt the nativist schtick until he discovered it was a useful tool for pandering.
Oh, and the recall effort didn't collect enough signatures. That sucks, but at this point it no longer surprises me when Arpaio wriggles out of something.
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Arizona Minutemen try to vigilante Sheriff Joe's deputies (http://bigstory.ap.org/article/ariz-sheriff-armed-militias-beware-or-be-shot).
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Malley, 49, was arrested over the weekend for pointing a rifle at a Maricopa County sheriff's deputy he apparently mistook for a drug smuggler.
An understandable mistake. :whoops:
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Thanks, this has been a fucked up week and I needed a laugh.
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Joe Arpaio Loses: New Times Co-Founders Win $3.75 Million Settlement for 2007 False Arrests (http://blogs.phoenixnewtimes.com/valleyfever/2013/12/joe_arpaio_loses_new_times_co-.php)
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I suppose it's too much to hope that is coming out of Joe's pocket, rather than the state's?
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County's pocket, not the state's, but yeah. They're left holding the bag there.
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Worth it.