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…

If a large segment of a society believes in hocus pocus, then the irrational inevitably affects reality.Wars have been fought in the name of religion, i.e., the worship of supernatural beings that do not exist. People in some parts of the world still wear talismans to ward off “the evil eye.” Not…

Arizona Secretary of State Ken Bennett, a relatively moderate Republican, wants to be Governor. But to have any kind of shot at the 9th floor, he figures he must placate the activist base of Sand Land’s GOP, which is deeply, rabidly insane. Hence, the predicament he finds himself in, having to…

It can only be described as a massive violation of human rights, what this country has done to deny a future to an entire generation of individuals, who for all intents and purposes are Americans.I’m talking about the hundreds of thousands of bright, undocumented youth who would qualify for a…

Three fundraisers are planned this week to help the families of J.T. Ready’s victims. On May 2, Ready shot and killed his girlfriend Lisa Mederos, 47; her daughter Amber Mederos, 23; Amber’s fiance Jim Hiott, 24; and Amber’s one year-old baby girl Lilly, in a murder spree that ended when Ready…

Click-clack/Where your papers at?/We under attack/Fight back/It’s warOne of the best songs to put Senate Bill 1070 and the whole police state mentality that reigns in Arizona on blast is “Papers,” by the Phoenix hip hop duo Shining Soul.With the U.S. Supreme Court scheduled to rule on SB 1070 by…

The campaign of Legislative District 25 state Senate hopeful Bob Worsley today announced a major endorsement, that of Mesa Mayor Scott Smith, a GOPer many consider a future contender for Governor of Sand Land.”I have known Bob Worsley for over 30 years,” Smith states in the press release, which you can…

The Worsley camp’s latest, and how true it is…At the Red Mountain Tea Party Monday night, recalled, disgraced ex-state Senate President Russell Pearce did not bow out of the GOP primary in Legislative District 25 for state Senate, as some in the blogosphere had anticipated.Instead, according to those in attendance,…

There’s not much that would get me out on a hot Arizona afternoon to watch a high-school soccer match, but Sal Reza as “coach” is one of them.Reza, the bane of Sheriff Joe Arpaio and former state Senate President Russell Pearce, the guy who’s led thousands in marches protesting both…

I know as much about Chilean hip-hop as I do Bolivian death metal or Finnish free jazz. That said, you don’t need a translator to be able to see or hear that French-Chilean MC Ana Tijoux is talented. Just sample any of her music videos online and you’re sure to be…

Think Pearce will laugh? Yeah, probably notMy good friend Dennis Gilman was kind enough to upload this delicious new parody for me of the much-spoofed “raving fuhrer” scene from the 2004 German film Downfall, starring Bruno Ganz as Adolf Hitler.Long have I dreamed of having one of these Downfall spoofs…

Soft and cuddly this Mesa muttonhead will never beI sure hope recalled ex-state Senate President Russell Pearce doesn’t bow out of the GOP state Senate primary in Legislative District 25, as some have been speculatin’ in the blogosphere.Why? Well, because that would rob me of the immense pleasure of watching…

Tom Perez blasts Sheriff Joe in Phoenix yesterday Hey, did you hear that the U.S. Department of Justice is suing Sheriff Joe Arpaio?Well, in case you were hibernating beneath a saguaro on Thursday, Assistant U.S. Attorney General Tom Perez was in town to blast everyone’s least-favorite sheriff for his racial-profiling,…

I’ve often said that in Arizona you don’t have to be a swastika-carrying neo-Nazi to have the same or similar beliefs. Which is why the presence of neo-Nazis and other right-wing wackjobs in the midst of the immigration donnybrook here in Sand Land has caused little or no outrage. And yet,…

I knew Gilbert massacre shooter J.T. Ready was from Polk County, Florida, and I had contacted some relatives of his over the weekend seeking comment. (No luck, alas.) But until today, I could find no mention of him in his hometown newspaper, The Ledger, located in Lakeland, Florida.Thankfully, Ledger reporter…