Nine activists protesting state Senator Russell Pearce’s anti-immigrant bill SB 1070 chained and locked themselves to the doors of the Arizona Capitol today, forcing the Capitol Police to use bolt cutters to unchain the nine and arrest them for disorderly conduct. As a demonstration of hundreds denouncing SB 1070 raged…
Cardinal Roger Mahony of the Archdiocese of Los Angeles denounced state Senator Russell Pearce’s anti-immigrant legislation SB 1070 on his blog Sunday, likening the bill to the police state tactics of Nazi Germany and Communist Russia. Calling the bill “the country’s most retrogressive, mean-spirited, and useless anti-immigrant law,” Mahony spoke…
With a three-ring circus of gun enthusiasts, pro-immigrant protesters, and lobbyists swirling outside the Arizona legislature, state Senator Russell Pearce’s police state/anti-immigrant bill, SB 1070, passed its final read today on the Senate floor and was transmitted to the governor. Governor Jan Brewer now has three options: veto it, sign…
Speaking to attendees of the Arizona Hispanic Chamber of Commerce’s Black and White Ball Saturday night at the downtown Phoenix Sheraton, Governor Jan Brewer refused to say whether or not she would sign state Senator Russell Pearce’s police state/anti-immigrant bill SB 1070. But she assured the crowd that she understood…
With summer approaching and the death count of migrant bodies found on the Mexico-Sonoran border in the high 80s according to the watchdog group Derechos Humanos, there may be no better time for Margaret Regan, author of The Death of Josseline: Immigration Stories from the Arizona-Mexico Borderlands to be visiting the Phoenix area…
State Senator Russell Pearce’ s anti-immigrant/police state legislation is scheduled to go to the Senate floor Monday for its final read. There, legislators are expected to approve the amended version that just emerged from the state House. From the Senate, it will be transmitted to Governor Jan Brewer, who will likely…
Today, U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement, with the help of numerous other law enforcement agencies, arrested 47 suspects and 17 non-criminal aliens while taking down a human smuggling ring that operated mostly in central and southern Arizona. ICE is touting “Operation In Plain Sight” as “the most comprehensive human smuggling investigation in…
State House Minority Leader David Lujan was made to eat a plate of crow stew last night at a debate sponsored by ASU’s Young Democrats among Democratic candidates for state Attorney General. His rival Vince Rabago, a former assistant Attorney General from Tucson, lit into Lujan from jump for missing the…
It’s state Senator Russell Pearce’s Arizona, and the Democrats just live in it. The Republicans? They do as they’re told.Such is the state of affairs after the passage of Pearce’s police state/anti-immigrant legislation SB 1070 in the Arizona House today. The handful of disgruntled Republicans who’d been promising quietly (and…
Attorney David Selden on Russell Pearce’s SB 1070As I previously blogged, state Senator Russell Pearce’s police state bill SB 1070 is going to the floor of the House today for COW and a possible third read. Pearce’s arguments for it are filled with half-truths and racist shibboleths, as he demonstrated…
The state House has just posted the agendas for its Committee of the Whole and Third Reads for Tuesday: Russell Pearce’s police state legislation SB 1070 is the first order of business. Pearce was pushing the legislation hard on this week’s Sunday Square-Off on Channel 12, claiming he has the…
Yuma County Sheriff Ralph Ogden is urging legislators to hold off on passing state Senator Russell Pearce’s immigration bill SB 1070, saying that his county would have to pick up the tab for training costs related to the legislation, and the cost of holding more inmates on state charges in…
Watching state Senator Russell Pearce defend his police state bill SB 1070 on Channel 12’s Sunday Square-Off with Brahm Resnik, I was reminded of what state Representative Daniel Patterson (D-Tucson) had to say about Pearce recently, after challenging the Mesa bigot-boy on some of his dubious factoids. Patterson complained to Pearce…
Look out Latinos, whether or not you’re a citizen, or otherwise here legally. Sheriff Joe’s announced that his next anti-immigrant dragnet will occur within the next three weeks, according to a just-posted AP report. As everyone was reminded after Arpaio’s recent raids on four area McDonald’s, it’s round up the brown folk first,…
After a brief break from the airwaves, the gals in brown were back with a vengeance last night, and one of them threw us a bit of a curveball — she showed a little human decency. Officer Lindsey Smith both protected and served when she stopped a man for not…
Arizona is a state of cowardly little white men with handguns. They need their guns to prove their manhood. Without them, they have nothing but fear.This is one reason why Sand Land remains so benighted. Any illusions you may have had that we live in a civilized state should be…
Dan Saban has dropped his lawsuit against the Republican Party, Sheriff Joe Arpaio, and various players linked to the shady fund-raising club called the Sheriff’s Command Association. The suit, filed last year in the wake of revelations about the officials behind the SCA, alleged that the former candidate for sheriff’s reputation was damaged…
State Senator Russell Pearce, along with his colleague state Senator Al Melvin, have added an amendment to a bill that creates an anti-immigrant vigilante force on the Arizona-Mexico border, and grants it $200,000 with which to do business.Melvin offered the hastily-drafted provision as part of a package forming an Arizona…
The men of the Phoenix Police Department’s Career Criminal Squad will be able to continue their work, investigating violent, street-level hate crimes according to City Manager David Cavazos.The squad, which also investigates murder-for-hire and other cases, was supposed to be disbanded as of this Monday, officially for budget reasons. But…
First it was WrestleMania, now Glendale will be playing host to another form of white trash entertainment, though boring and preachy by comparison.This Saturday, April 10, wingnut lip-flapper extraordinaire Glenn Beck will be in town as part of his “American Revival” tour, a grueling eight hours of Beck and assorted…
Arpaio, Wilcox and Pearce on GeraldoIn case you missed it, here’s video from Geraldo Rivera’s March 29 show on Fox, where he takes on Sheriff Joe for the umpteenth time, and features footage of Maricopa County Supervisor Mary Rose Wilcox and state Senator Russell Pearce.The footage of Wilcox is from…
The dastardly murder of Arizona rancher Robert Krentz has sent the nativists into public paroxysms of jingoist ecstasy. Tom Tancredo, J.D. Hayworth and others of that ilk are exploiting the killing to inflame hatred toward new arrivals of a brown hue. Even mainstream pols like Senator John McCain and Democratic Congresswoman Gabby Giffords are using…
