Category Archives: Arizona

Who Left The Asylum Doors Open?

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In a letter to the Arizona Republic, a Democratic voter stated that he was going to vote a straight Republican ticket. His reasoning was that he was tired of the Republican whining and wanted to give Republicans the opportunity to fix the economy themselves. What genius! Let’s reward the very people who created this mess in the first place. At the same time, let’s penalize the people who have spent the past two years trying to fix it.

I now think I’ve read and seen it all this election season. Candidates who recommend the bartering of chickens for health care services instead of “Obamacare.” Candidates who consider the minimum wage and unemployment insurance unconstitutional. A candidate who dresses up in Nazi uniforms. A candidate who wants to abolish public schools. A candidate who thinks civil rights is a bad idea. Candidates who want to limit the vote to landowners. A whole host of candidates who want to solve our deficit problems by giving billions more in tax breaks to the nation’s wealthiest people. And a candidate who has to run a commercial saying “I am not a witch.”

These are the people the letter writer wants to fix our economy?

I guess Arizona’s education system is even worse than I thought!

A Petri Dish For Wingnut Ideas.

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Since Janet Napolitano was selected by President Obama to head Homeland Security, the inmates in the asylum otherwise known as the Arizona Legislature have run wild.

Without adult supervision (and a strong Governor to veto their lunacy), legislators have unleashed a torrent of right wing legislation signed into law by Jan Brewer. In addition to the ill-conceived immigration law (SB1070), they banned classes on Latino cultural studies in public schools. They passed a law to fire teachers who have an accent. They made it legal for anyone to carry a concealed gun without a permit. They slashed spending on public schools (AZ now ranks 51st out of 50 states and D.C. in spending per pupil). They cut funding for highway rest stops and for state parks, forcing many parks to close, despite the fact that tourism is one of the state’s largest industries. And they voted to eliminate health care for children of low-income families until they discovered that the state would lose federal funding by doing so, which would cost the state more than it saved.

For 15 years in a row, the Arizona Legislature has cut corporate taxes. So corporations now contribute just 9 percent to Arizona’s total tax revenue. At the same time, the Legislature refuses to close billions of dollars in tax loopholes available to corporations. To compensate for the lost revenue, the state has raised sales taxes which place a disproportionate burden on the poor (in my town, the sales tax is now more than 10 percent). Moreover, much of the legislation represents solutions in search of a problem. For example, they passed a law requiring candidates to produce a birth certificate (take note, President Obama). And they have challenged the supremacy clause of the U.S. Constitution, spending tens of millions to defend legal challenges by the Federal government.

As a result of all this, Arizona now has one of the largest budget shortfalls in the nation along with one of the highest levels of unemployment. The Legislature and the Governor have driven more than 100,000 people out of the state, made up stories about kidnappings and decapitations in the desert and told the world that Arizona is too dangerous to visit.

But the wingnuts aren’t yet finished with destroying the state.

The upcoming election has even more wingnut ideas on the state ballot. Legislators want to cut a program for Early Childhood Family Education and sweep the money into the general budget. They want voters to pass an amendment allowing the state to opt out of the national health care program. They also want voters to pass a NRA-backed amendment making it unconstitutional for the DNR to restrict hunting, even for an endangered species.

If you’re unhappy with the bickering in Congress, it may be tempting to send a message by electing a bunch of angry, uninformed Tea Party candidates to Washington. You may even think that Congress couldn’t possibly get any worse with them in charge. If so, you don’t have to wait to see the consequences to our nation. Just look at Arizona.

Republicans Offer Dirty Tricks Instead Of Ideas.

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Ever since Tricky Dick Nixon and his Watergate crew, the Republican Party has seemed fascinated with gaining unfair advantage through political stunts. For many years, the party and its allies have created a series of shadow groups as a way of getting around campaign finance laws. Such shadowy organizations as the Cato Institute, the Goldwater Group, American FreedomWorks, 60-Plus, American Enterprise Foundation, etc., etc. have all spent millions to attack Democratic candidates.

In 2004, Republicans used just such a group to put together the so-called “Swift Boat” commercial questioning Sen. John Kerry’s status as a bona fide war hero. In 2008, with the help of Fox Noise, they trotted out a series of accusations and false controversies about then-Senator Obama to upset his election chances. And, in this election cycle, Republicans have resorted to vilifying minorities such as Latinos and Muslims in an attempt to frighten voters.

The same kinds of tricks occur on the state and local levels, too. For instance, in Arizona, Republicans recruited homeless streetpeople to run as Green Party candidates in hopes of splitting the progressive vote. And, in my small community, Republicans placed signs next to the Democratic Election Headquarters, took photos of their juvenile handiwork (with apologies to juveniles) then removed the signs themselves and, accompanied by police and a reporter, accused Democrats of stealing them.

Although I’m sure there are a few, I can think of no such instances of Democratic tomfoolery.

If Republican candidates are so great for our nation, why do they have to resort to chicanery to win? Shouldn’t they be able to win elections based on ideas, instead?

The Politics of Fear.

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Following World War II, Gustave Gilbert, a German-speaking intelligence officer and psychologist, was granted access to all of the prisoners held in the Nuremberg jail. During one of his conversations with Nazi leader, Hermann Goering, Gustave said, “I did not think that the common people are very thankful for leaders who bring them war and destruction.”

“Why, of course, the people don’t want war,” Goering responded. “Why would some poor slob on a farm want to risk his life in a war when the best that he can get out of it is to come back to his farm in one piece? It is the leaders of the country who determine the policy and it is always a simple matter to drag the people along, whether it is a democracy or a fascist dictatorship or a Parliament or a Communist dictatorship.”

Gustave countered, “There is one difference. In a democracy the people have some say in the matter through their elected representatives, and in the United States only Congress can declare wars.” “Oh, that is all well and good,” said Goering, “But, voice or no voice, the people can always be brought to the bidding of the leaders. That is easy. All you have to do is tell them they are being attacked and denounce the pacifists for lack of patriotism and exposing the country to danger. It works the same way in any country.”

You could easily see this philosophy at work in Bush’s run-up to the 2003 invasion of Iraq when those opposed to the war were questioned for their patriotism, and our long-time ally, France, was vilified for not participating in the war.

And today, in the midst of mid-term elections, we can see Goering’s principle at work again. Despite much evidence to the contrary, Republicans like John “McNasty” McCain and Jan “Clueless” Brewer have focused anger on Mexican immigrants, blaming them for everything from crime to unemployment to our budget woes.

Led by Fox Noise Channel, Republicans have created a similar right wing outcry against Muslims for daring to propose a community center near Ground Zero. The ensuing “debate” has fueled anti-Muslim fervor across the nation, resulting in the arson of a Tennessee mosque and wingnuts calling for an “exception” to our Constitutional right to freedom of religion.

Conservatives have fueled anti-Obama hatred with vile emails accusing him of being an un-American-Socialist-Communist-Nazi-racist-Muslim. They have falsely accused him of banning prayer in military academies, of forcing the removal of crosses from military cemetaries, of promoting Muslim holidays…the list is too lengthy to continue.

As a result of this nonsense, it appears that Republicans are poised to win many more seats in Congress despite policies that led to two wars, an economic collapse and the raping of the middle class by the wealthiest two percent of this nation. I guess the lesson is that it’s easy to win elections by creating hatred toward minorities. It’s much more difficult to win elections on ideas and relevant issues.

The Border Fence.

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Throughout his primary campaign, U.S. Senator and teabagger wannabe, John McCain, has repeatedly called on President Obama to “finish the dang fence.” Of course, he’s referring to the fence being built along the border between Arizona and Mexico that has already cost billions of dollars.

McCain and Gov. Jan Brewer would have you believe that illegal immigration is the source of all our problems – crime, unemployment, the drain on social services, and the deficit. They would also have you believe that the fence, along with stationing thousands of National Guard troops in the desert will solve all of our problems. After all, who could get through a fence?

Well, for starters, how about the three escaped murderers who recently left an Arizona medium security prison by cutting a hole in a fence? Or how about the Mexican drug cartels that have breached the border fence by cutting holes in it and building ramps to drive over it? Or how about the human smugglers who have tunneled under it? How come McCain and Brewer never talk about that? And when they talk about adding National Guard troops at the border, why don’t they ever mention the nearly 10 border security guards per mile already stationed there?

Throughout history, there are plenty of examples of fences and walls that failed their purpose. The Great Wall, the Roman wall across England, the Berlin Wall…there are many more. What makes McCain and Brewer think this border fence will be any different? The point is that, if people are desperate enough, they are not going to let a fence stand in their way.

The immigration issue is extremely complex, driven by poverty on one side of the border and by the greed and need of employers on the other. In Arizona, as well as in other states, many of our homes have been built with the help of cheap labor provided by illegal immigrants. Much of our food is harvested, prepared and served to us by illegal immigrants. Many of our hotel rooms are cleaned by illegals. The list of products and services provided, wholly or in part, by undocumented workers is quite lengthy.

Who’s at fault? The workers? The employers? The Mexican government? The succession of administrations and Congresses that have failed to deal with the issue? The U.S. and Mexican economies? The Central and South American economies? Or those of us who knowingly purchase goods and services provided by undocumented workers? There is plenty of blame to go around.

Ramping up racist hatred through jingoistic campaign commercials does not help.

Immigration Update From The Front.

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Whatever happens to Arizona’s notorious SB 1070 in the courts, I believe the real problem with illegal immigration is that corporations continue to hire undocumented workers. (After all, why pay $10/hour to a US citizen, when you can hire an illegal for $6/hour or less? And the illegal won’t complain about the hours, demand benefits or expect raises.)

To deal with this problem, the tough-talking AZ State Legislature passed the “Legal Arizona Workers Act” in 2007 which then-Governor Janet Napolitano signed into law.  This law demands that all Arizona employers verify a prospective employee’s status before hiring. The penalty for hiring an undocumented worker is a fine for the first violation and the revocation of the company’s business license for the second offense. Yet two and a half years after the law went into effect, The Arizona Republic states that “only about half of new hires in Arizona have been vetted by a federal system that checks their status.” And lest you government-haters start blaming Obama, the newspaper also found that only “about a third of the state’s estimated 100,000 employers have signed up for the E-Verify program.”

So where is Maricopa County’s Sheriff Joe, the so-called “nation’s toughest sheriff” when you need him? He’s big on arresting and deporting illegal workers. But, apparently, he could care less about the businesses that hire them. In Maricopa County (the county that encompasses most of the Phoenix metro), only two businesses have been sanctioned for hiring illegals. And none have lost their licenses. This despite Homeland Security estimates of more than 460,000 illegals living (and working) in the state.

So the magnet that draws illegals to Arizona is still in place.

But if, like me, you’re thinking that preventing businesses from hiring undocumented workers would be more effective and less costly than building multi-billion dollar fences along the border, or maintaining a force of 10 border patrol agents per mile, Gov. Brewer and Senator McNasty would tell you that’s Socialist thinking. Like most Republicans, they believe businesses should be unencumbered by regulations to feed their greed.

Brewer And McCain Telling Racist Lies For Political Gain.

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You know how Gov. Jan Brewer and teabagger wannabe, John McCain, talk about the “illegal immigrant crisis” in Arizona? You know how they portray the state as the most dangerous in the nation as a result of illegal immigration?

Well, I hate to get in the way of a good political campaign theme, but the facts tell a very different story.

Truth is, violent crime has been dropping in AZ for decades. In 2009, violent crime was the lowest since 1983. And property crimes were the lowest since 1968. Some crime wave, huh? By comparison, for 2007, there were 177 more violent crimes in Sarah Palin’s Alaska than in Arizona. And there were 241 more violent cimes in neighboring Nevada.

In Nogales, AZ which sits on the border with Mexico, there were 23 violent crimes in 2000 and only 19 in 2009. In fact, the Sheriff of Pima County, Clarence Dupnik, has been quoted as saying “…the border has never been more secure.” Statistics back that up. According to a report in the Arizona Republic, there are nearly 10 federal agents per mile of Arizona border – more than any time in our history. And President Obama just dispatched more than 500 National Guard troops to the Arizona/Mexico border – twice what Gov. Brewer requested. Yet she continues to say that the current administration has done nothing to curb illegal immigration and violence along the border!

Brewer and McCain also imply that illegal immigrants commit a disproportionate percentage of crimes. Although the state and federal government do not track the number of crimes committed by illegals, there is one indication that’s another lie. In Cochise County, which borders Mexico, only 4 percent of the crimes are committed by illegal residents – roughly equal to their proportion of the population.

So, as it turns out, you have little to fear from illegals by coming to AZ. And though I believe we must do even more to curtail illegal immigration, there are many other things of more pressing concern for our state – like Arizona traffic. There were 1066 traffic deaths in the state for 2007. But many of the same people who are screaming about illegal immigration have demanded that the state remove its photo radar cameras which target those who speed and run red lights. Now those people are scary!

AZ now stands for Assinine Zealots.

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For the past 15 years, Arizona Republicans have cut taxes for corporations and the wealthy in an attempt to intentionally bankrupt the state. At the same time, they’ve transferred funds through tax credits to private and parochial schools while hacking away at public school funding. And as the state’s population blossomed, they did little to expand the economy, choosing to rely instead on home building and tourism.

So what are they doing now that both industries have collapsed? In addition to raising sales taxes (in my locale, the current rate is 10.5 percent on all purchases) and further slashing funding for public schools (funding that already ranked 51 out of 50 states), they’re blaming our problems on illegal immigrants.

For centuries, oppressive regimes around the globe have deflected criticism by blaming minorities. Of course, illegals are in no position to defend themselves. They have no ability to vote. By necessity, they don’t even want to admit their status.

So instead of trying to create new jobs in Arizona or even eliminate government waste, the Republican–dominated Legislature and Governor Jan Brewer deflect attention from their abysmal performance by villainizing illegals. Even the wannabe teabaggers, John McCain and Jon Kyl have gotten into the act. They falsely claim that Phoenix ranks 2nd in the world for kidnappings. They falsely claim that most of the undocumented workers are drug dealers or mules. They falsely claim that the Obama administration refuses to take action to seal the border. And they falsely claim that undocumented workers contribute nothing to the state’s economy while flooding social services.

The truth is that undocumented workers contribute a great deal to the state’s economy through hard work, purchases and taxes. Many pay income taxes, Social Security taxes and Medicare taxes despite the fact that they will never benefit from them. All rent or purchase homes. They also pay sales taxes on purchases of cars, appliances, furniture, clothing and food. And now that SB1070 has been passed into state law, those contributions are fleeing the state putting even more stress on the state’s economy. Home values continue to drop. Owners of apartment buildings report record vacancies. Employers in numerous industries report that they are having difficulty filling jobs. On top of that, thanks to SB1070, cities and groups around the country have cancelled meetings and conventions in our state. Even if they aren’t directly boycotting Arizona, many don’t want to become embroiled in the controversy.

Of course, there are angry, old white people from other states who have organized a few “buycotts” in Arizona. Indeed, a group from Texass recently sent a busload of rednecks to Phoenix in support of SB1070. They spent a day touring the city admiring the soutwestern architecture and culture ending with a rally in, of all places … a Mexican restaurant.

Immigration News from Ground Zero.

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The zero stands for the combined IQs of Governor Jan Brewer, the Arizona Republican legislators and Senator John McCain. That couldn’t have been more apparent following Brewer’s statement that most undocumented immigrants are drug dealers.

Never mind that these people take landscaping jobs that require them to work in the sun on 110-degree days for less than $10 an hour. Never mind that they’re hired by hotels to clean up after tourists for minimum wage and no benefits. If these people are drug dealers, they must be the most unsuccessful drug dealers in history!

Thanks to McCain’s and Brewer’s desperate attempts to be re-elected, the immigration issue has been politicized as never before. These two nincompoops continue to portray Arizona as the second-ranked kidnap capital of the world – as a place of complete lawlessness with a parade of human smugglers and drug smugglers pouring across the border, a drug dealer on every corner and illegal immigrants pushing citizens aside to claim their jobs. And their lies have cost Arizona businesses millions in lost tourism revenue.

The truth is that most illegals enter the U.S. legally and overstay their visas; that drug trafficking and illegal immigration are very different, and separate, issues; that illegal immigration has dropped significantly in the past 2 years; that crime in Arizona has dropped dramatically; and that many illegals left our state when a law was passed to punish the businesses that hire them.

Despite the facts, McCain and company would have you believe that President Obama has completely ignored border issues since taking office. Nothing could be further from the truth! In fact, during the past year, since The President’s Strategic and Integrated Southwest Border Strategy was launched, the Administration has:

1- Doubled the personnel assigned to Border Enforcement Security Task Forces.

2-Tripled the number of ICE intelligence analysts along the Southwest border in April 2009.

3- Begun screening, for the first time, 100 percent of southbound rail shipments for illegal weapons, drugs, and cash.

4- Deployed 13 additional cross-trained canine teams, which identify firearms and currency, to the Southwest border to augment the five teams already in place.

5- Deployed 326 additional Border Patrol agents between ports of entry and 58 more Customs and Border Patrol officers at the ports of entry.

6- Deployed five additional Z-Backscatter Units, which help to identify anomalies in passenger vehicles, to the Southwest border to augment the six already there.

7- Seized $85 million in illicit cash along the Southwest border—a 22 percent increase over the same period during the previous year.

8- Seized 1,404 firearms and 1.62 million kilograms of drugs along the Southwest border—increases of 22 and 14 percent respectively from the same period during the previous year.

9- Seized $29.5 million in illicit southbound cash along the Southwest border— a 39 percent increase over the same period during the previous year.

10- Deployed two new DEA Southwest Border Enforcement groups in El Paso and Phoenix, and added 25 new DEA intelligence analysts.

11- Deployed two new FBI Border Corruption Task Forces in Del Rio and Houston.

12- Added 200 new U.S. Marshal service positions at the Southwest border.

13- Surged ATF agents to Arizona to target gun trafficking to Mexico.

14- Hired nearly 50 additional Department of Justice (DOJ) attorneys to prosecute drug and arms trafficking and bulk cash smuggling, and added five DOJ attorneys to focus exclusively on extradition requests from Mexico.

15- There were 107 extraditions from Mexico to the United States in 2009 compared to 12 in 2000.

16- Increased cooperation with U.S. and Mexican law enforcement to target money laundering and bulk-cash smuggling.

17- During the past year and a half, “Project Deliverance” resulted in more than 2,200 arrests, seizure of approximately 74 tons of drugs and $154 million in cash; “Project Coronado” resulted in 303 arrests, seizure of $3.4 million in cash, 729 pounds of methamphetamine, 62 kilograms of cocaine, 967 pounds of marijuana, 144 weapons and 109 vehicles; “Operation Xcellerator” resulted in more than 750 arrests and the seizure of 23 tons of narcotics and $59 million in cash.

All of this money and effort has resulted in a significant reduction in the number of people attempting to illegally cross our borders, with apprehensions having dropped 23 percent in FY2009.

But no amount of Border Patrol, National Guard troops and fences will be able to seal the border as long as there is a large disparity in economic opportunities from one side of the border to the next.

One way to equalize those opportunities is to help lift the fortunes of people on both sides of the border. The other is to keep spending billions in a futile attempt to “close” the border until we’re as poor as the people trying to cross it.

Teabaggers Aren’t As Crazy As You May Think.

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They’re worse!

Rand Paul, the teabagging Republican candidate to replace Kentucky Senator and Major League doofus, Jim Bunning, has famously stated that he wouldn’t have voted for the 1964 Civil Rights Bill in its current form. He believes that individuals and privately-owned businesses should be free to discriminate in whatever way they want against whomever they want.

Sharron Angle, the Nevada teabagger who hopes to unseat Senator Harry Reid, is running on a platform to abolish Social Security, Federal income taxes and the Department of Education. And her former primary opponent, Sue Lowden, suggested that health care access could be solved by returning to a barter system in which patients paid their doctors with chickens.

In Arizona, ex-Maverick, noted mud-slinger and teabagger wannabe, John McCain, is searching for ways to seem even crazier than his primary challenger, J.D. Hayworth. Despite the fact that illegal immigration and crime have dropped dramatically in Arizona, he now proposes that the border be turned into a heavily fortified militarized zone. Indeed, McCain almost makes his former running mate, Sarah Palin, look like a liberal.

Locally, a teabagger candidate for the AZ lege told me, “Those damn Mexicans who come across the border are only here to steal our jobs and live off our taxpayers. They don’t pay taxes or contribute in any way. They aren’t interested in our culture, our language or in becoming citizens. They only want to take advantage of us.” When I replied that his statement was one of the most racist things I’d ever heard, he came completely unglued and began screaming “I am not a racist!” as I left the room.

Wherever you look across the political landscape you’ll see candidates crawling out from under the woodwork with hopes of rewinding the way-back clock a century or more. You know, back to the good ol’ days when rich people could own their workers and when poor people had no rights and no security net in addition to having no money.

But the teabaggers do offer one positive.  They actually make the incumbents (even mainstream Republicans) seem more attractive.