Like a lot of DREAM Activists, Phoenix’s Daniela Cruz is both elated and skeptical in the wake of President Barack Obama’s watershed decision not to deport young immigrants such as herself. “I’m happy, and at the same time, I know it’s all politics,” the 21-year-old says following the June 15…
Parraz skewers Kunasek like an Easter lambAll I’ve got to say is, “Wow.” Check out this YouTube video from Santiago James Chavez of Citizens for a Better Arizona’s Randy Parraz going mano-a-mano today with Maricopa County Supervisor Andrew Kunasek. This, over a proposal to accept donations to pay for Sheriff…
The fun begins around 6:55 inWhat in tarnation is wrong with Ken Bennett? Before he drank the birther Kool-Aid, then publicly spat it up, Arizona’s Secretary of State was regarded as a moderate Republican with a lick of common sense.But a month after the flap over Bennett’s asking the state of Hawaii to…
Anyone, and I mean anyone, who tells you with certainty the precise day that the U.S. Supreme Court will issue its opinion on Arizona’s breathing-while-brown statute Senate Bill 1070, is full of something that rhymes with the word “twit.”I wish I had a dime for every journo, TV talking head…
Republicans are stumbling all over themselves to denounce President Barack Obama’s executive action today to block the deportation of students who would benefit from the proposed DREAM Act. And in doing so, they’re bumbling right into the trap the White House has laid for them. Obama’s move, initially announced with…
FINAL THOUGHTS 10:14 P.M.: I drove by Oaxaca on my way home from the office this evening. Apparently, they’ve been getting nasty calls from the nativists telling the staff that the business will be “boycotted” because its management chose not to host Arizona’s biggest hatemonger and a passel of his…
Seems there’s there’s no room at the posada for former state Senate President Russell Pearce. Yesterday, I gave you a rundown of the nativist goons set to appear at Macayo’s Mexican Restaurant on Central Avenue tonight for a fundraiser to benefit Pearce, a veritable who’s who of anti-Mexican bigots in…
It takes a twisted individual to delight in the sufferings of the mentally ill. A special type of sick, sadistic bully. The kind employed in spades by the Maricopa County Sheriff’s Office. The December 16 killing of Army veteran Marty Atencio is the latest example of the above, one of…
Thursday from 4:30 p.m. to 7 p.m., just about all of the anti-Mexican bigots in Arizona politics are scheduled to be in the same place: at the Macayo’s Mexican Kitchen on Central Avenue in Phoenix, raising money for disgraced, recalled ex-state Senate President Russell Pearce.So beware a run on white…
The campaign of former Phoenix Police Sergeant Paul Penzone says it is supporting a challenge to Scottsdale Police Lieutenant Mike Stauffer’s nomination signatures, a challenge that threatens to strike Stauffer’s name from the November general election ballot for Maricopa County Sheriff.Phoenix lawyer Andrew Gordon tells me the challenge will be filed today…
A Worsley TV ad, part of a $10K ad buy, according to the Worsley campAs disgraced ex-state Senate President Russell Pearce recycles old signs from last year’s historic recall election, his GOP primary rival Bob Worsley is running $10,000 ad buys on cable TV and racking up endorsements from Mesa…
Channel 3’s report on Farinas’ death Given Sheriff Joe Arpaio’s track record when it comes to dead inmates, it’s difficult not to anticipate foul play in the death of Raymond Farinas, the latest Latino to die in MCSO custody. Particularly when Arpaio-victim Marty Atencio’s family just filed notices of claim…
An obscene cross between a Three Stooges short and a snuff film. That’s the gruesome scenario depicted by two notices of claim served on the City of Phoenix and Maricopa County totaling $20 million for the wrongful death of Army vet Marty Atencio.The claims, submitted by Phoenix attorney Mike Manning…
Today in America, one in four Latino voters knows someone in deportation proceedings. The justices of the U.S. Supreme Court don’t care. What else can be concluded from their questions and comments during oral arguments over Senate Bill 1070, Arizona’s notorious stab at ethnic cleansing? And Latinos shouldn’t expect any…
Here’s one place you can be certain not to run into Sheriff Joe Arpaio this Thursday night: At a forum on his multifarious abuses of power, sponsored by Citizens for a Better Arizona, the group responsible for making the recall of disgraced, ex-state Senate President Russell Pearce a reality. The…
I’ll give Sheriff Joe Arpaio one thing, the guy is a class-A schmoozer. The almost-octogenarian knows how to butter up his adversaries for public consumption, all while he’s plotting to have them arrested, investigated, tailed, or worse. Though Arpaio is nominally in law enforcement, this is a classic la cosa nostra…
No doubt you’ve heard of driving while brown, particularly regarding Arizona’s infamous ethnic cleansing law Senate Bill 1070. Well, if you’re Hispanic and plan to continue living in this state, get ready for running-out-of-gas-while-brown, walking-to-the-7-Eleven-while-brown, picking-up-your-kids-from-school-while-brown, going-to-work-while-brown, and while you’re at it, add in witnessing- or being-a-victim-of-a-crime-while-brown.Not that blatant racial…
NB: Please see my update at the end of this blog item, with links to the full autopsy and toxicology reports.The Maricopa County Medical Examiner’s Office has issued a determination as to the cause of death for Marty Atencio, the Army vet brutally beaten and Tased in Sheriff Joe Arpaio’s…
Shut down Sheriff Joe Arpaio’s notorious outdoors-deathtrap Tent City? Sounds like a solid idea to me, and one the Phoenix human rights organization Puente will be pushing Saturday, June 23 during a rally and vigil outside Joe’s al fresco gulag.I had to look twice at the announcement for this action…
According to one Gilbert neighbor, neo-Nazi baby-killer and anti-immigrant vigilante J.T. Ready boasted of hunting “two-legged varmints” just days before a massacre in which Gilbert police believe he murdered four, including a 16-month-old girl, and then committed suicide. In a police report released Tuesday by the Gilbert Police Department, Budd…
Many would like to believe that even the most guileful and nefarious of individuals are capable of compassion, particularly toward the weakest among us.Sadly, human behavior argues otherwise. To rationalize away the sufferings of others is a fairly easy mental trick, and when the payoff for doing so is political power, pangs…
Wearing flip-flops, grass skirts and Hawaiian leis, with surfboards in tow and the pungent odor of sunscreen trailing behind them, around 15-to-20 members of Citizens for a Better Arizona stormed the 19th Floor of Phoenix’s Wells Fargo Building this afternoon, briefly taking over the entranceway to Sheriff Joe Arpaio’s tony…
