Jan Brewer doubles down on lying
The governor said last week that the majority of illegal immigrants were smuggling drugs.
In the face of the predictable outcry—even John McCain distanced himself from the statement over the weekend—Brewer could have acknowledged an overstatement and moved on.
Instead, she’s doubling down on the lie, getting shriller and making even less sense.
Her original quote:
“The majority of them, in my opinion and I think in the opinion of law enforcement, is that they’re not coming here to work. They’re coming here and they’re bringing drugs, and they’re doing drop houses, and they’re extorting people, and they’re terrorizing the families.”
Asked in an interview whether he agrees that most illegal immigrants are “drug mules,” the Republican senator said: “No.”
With the media continuing to press her on the statement, Brewer’s office released a slightly unhinged followup. From the PBJ:
“There has been some media attention in the last several hours regarding statements I made this morning regarding the level of drug and crime activity being perpetrated by illegal immigrants coming into and residing in Arizona,“ Brewer’s said in the statement. "The simple truth is that the majority of human smuggling in our state is under the direction of the drug cartels, which are by definition smuggling drugs.”
Notice how she’s blurring the issue from “illegal immigrants are smuggling drugs” to “they are being smuggled by drug cartels.”
The story continues:
“It is common knowledge that Mexican drug cartels have merged human smuggling with drug trafficking. For example, the Los Angeles Times on March 23, 2009, reported, ‘The business of smuggling humans across the Mexican border has been brisk, with many thousands coming across every year. But smugglers affiliated with the drug cartels have taken the enterprise to a new level — and made it more violent — by commandeering much of the operation from independent coyotes, according to these officials and recent congressional testimonies.’ This article and many federal government reports have drawn the same conclusions.
“The human rights violations that have taken place victimizing immigrants and their families are abhorrent. Border crossers are used by drug cartels as commodities. Mexican drug cartels have merged human smugglers who use their expertise in gathering intelligence on border patrols, logistics and communication devices to get around even tighter controls. U.S. border officials have stated that traffickers are gaining control of much of the illegal passage of immigrants from Mexico to the United States.”
As with so many debates in this state, the real issue here isn’t what it seems.
Of course Brewer is lying. She knows it’s not true that a majority of illegal immigrants are smuggling drugs. We know from numerous government reports that a big chunk of them are just people who’ve overstayed their visa, and we know that most of the rest are doing menial labor, a lot of it outside in incredible heat, just from simple observation.
The real issue is the state of politics in this state. Brewer’s campaign strategy is now apparent. She’s just going to repeat her mantra:
“Illegal immigration, illegal immigration, drugs, violence, illegal immigration, drugs, violence, illegal immigration, drugs, violence, illegal immigration, drugs, violence, child porn, tax cuts blah blah blah.”
And the question for the future of the state is whether Terry Goddard can come up with an effective enough campaign to combat it.
7:16 AM
PHXations—Tuesday, June 22, 2010
Arizona Democrats are asking the state Supreme Court to disqualify two GOP candidates:
Democrats on Monday asked the state Supreme Court to overturn a judge’s decision that kept two Republicans on the Aug. 24 ballot, even though the judge found they had broken the law in getting there.
The appeal comes in the wake of a ruling that state Sen. John Huppenthal, a Republican candidate for state superintendent of public instruction, and Bob Thomas, who is seeking the GOP nomination for state Senate in central Phoenix, violated the law when they collected signatures on their nominating petitions.
The two collected signatures before they had formed their campaign committees, Judge Robert Oberbillig found, which is against state election law.
But the punishment for that violation is a fine, he ruled, not removal from the ballot, which is the remedy the state Democratic Party had sought.
Party officials then turned to the state’s highest court for an appeal. Spokeswoman Jennifer Johnson said it would be hard to assign a dollar value to signatures that were collected outside of the official period. A more fitting punishment would be removal from the ballot, she said
Arizona’s Border Security is getting a $50 million boost:
A new $50 million pot is available to local law enforcement in Arizona and along the U.S.-Mexico border for border-security projects.
The money comes from a $94 million settlement that Attorney General Terry Goddard’s office reached with Western Union earlier this year to end a seven-year investigation into drug smugglers' use of wire companies to move money across the border.
Goddard’s office sent out grant applications Monday to city, county and state law-enforcement agencies in Arizona, Texas, California and New Mexico. Each state is guaranteed at least $7 million, Goddard said.
The money can be used to attack the issue of cross-border smuggling of drugs, people, weapons or money, he said. The drugs and people come north into the U.S., and the weapons and money go south to fuel the cartels' operatio
Read more at the AZ Daily Star.
Heat City is reporting that the Mexican government has joined the fight to stop Arizona’s immigration law:
The Mexican government formally joined the fight to stop Arizona’s new immigration law on Monday, telling a U.S. court the law “threatens to poison the well” of diplomacy between the two nations and exposes Mexican citizens to racial profiling by police.
In a 28-page brief (pdf) filed in the U.S. District Court of Arizona, lawyers for Mexico said the creation of the law, widely known as S.B. 1070, “has been closely followed at the highest levels of the Mexican government and throughout Mexican society.”
The government said it believes the Arizona law, which among other things makes it a state crime to be in the country illegally, violates the U.S. Constitution. It asked the court to throw the law out entirely.
More here.
Border agents captured some elusive prey on the border: More than 100 piñatas of Disney characters, according to an AP story on the KTAR site:
DOUGLAS, Ariz. – It was no fiesta on the Arizona-Mexico border for the driver of a shipment of pinatas that looked like Disney characters.
U.S. Customs and Border Protection spokesman Rob Daniels says officers at the Douglas port of entry stopped a tractor-trailer coming from Mexico for further inspection on Friday.
Officers found the tractor-trailer was loaded with papier-mache items, including 108 pinatas in the likeness of Disney characters on their way to Thornton, Colo.
The story quotes a border official saying, stopping counterfeit goods is “a vital element in national security.”
NYT story on the piñata underground here.
12:22 PM
PHXations—Monday, June 21, 2010
Looks like Republican Attorney General candidate Tom Horne has a short memory:
In a series of annual reports for his law firm, Superintendent of Public Instruction Tom Horne wrongly denied having a bankruptcy in his past.
Reports filed with the Arizona Corporation Commission from 1997 to 2000 for Horne’s law firm show that when asked if any partner in the firm had ever been a partner in a business that went bankrupt, Horne checked “no” and signed the form.
In fact, Horne was the president of T.C. Horne & Co., an investment firm that went bankrupt in 1970 and led to him receiving a lifetime trading ban from the Securities and Exchange Commission.
[…]
Horne, who is seeking the Republican nomination for attorney general, said he regretted not disclosing the bankruptcy. He said he likely made the error because the bankruptcy happened long ago.
“I didn’t think about it because it was 40 years ago,” he said.
More here
Today, Democrat Gubernatorial candiate confirmed one of the the worst kept secrets in Arizona political circles: campaign manager Rodd McLeod is leaving.
McLeod, who joined Goddard’s campaign in January, said he expected to leave when his firm’s contract with the campaign ended on June 30. He said the move was not prompted by any disagreements with Goddard or the campaign.
“It’s been a great honor to work with the attorney general and be part of this campaign,” McLeod said. “I think we’re positioned to do very well in November, particularly when you look at the rough primary on the other side and the infrastructure we have been able to build.”
[…]
“As the campaign’s contract with MSHC (Partners Inc., McLeod’s firm,) ends and McLeod returns to fulfill commitments to other clients, he leaves a strong infrastructure for the next stage of the campaign,” campaign spokeswoman Janey Pearl said in a press release. “McLeod continues to manage during the transition. Goddard for Governor will have other announcements in the coming weeks.”
The campaign announced the addition of political director Aaron Marquez and Southern Arizona director Catherine Nichols. The campaign also hired consulting firm Strother Strategies for media consulting and the firm WebStrong Group for new media and social networking.
Via Arizona Capitol Times.
The Republic fronts a story discussing the efficacy of Joe Arpaio’s crime sweeps.
It notes that besides the illegal immigrants it catches few actual criminals:
[T]here is no clear data demonstrating the crime-fighting effectiveness of such policies. While it succeeds in locating illegal immigrants, its effectiveness in combating major crimes is questionable, and there are concerns that such sweeps draw resources away from activities that do combat major crimes.
Advocates of the sweeps say their value is largely in discouraging illegal immigrants from remaining in the community.
However, critics suggest they simply scare legal and illegal immigrants alike and drive a wedge between members of the community and law enforcement.
Catching up on an odd bit of election news from late last week:
A longtime Phoenix lawmaker running for justice of the peace has been kicked off the ballot.
A Maricopa County Superior Court judge on Thursday ruled that Democratic Sen. Ken Cheuvront collected nominating signatures on the wrong form.
Cheuvront used forms for a nonpartisan race, but justice of the peace is a partisan office.
Cheuvront, a term-limited state senator, is also the proprietor of Cheuvront restaurant on Central.
2:08 PM