Who’re worse, behavior-wise, the nativists or the neo-Nazis? Sure, neo-Nazis are nefarious and nuts. But the nativists make the neo-Nazis look urbane by comparison. And in some ways the nativists are more violent, despite the fact crazy old crones with canes and old dudes in mobility scooters are overrepresented in…
In a speech today before the Center for American Progress, the think-tank that essentially acts as the Obama administration’s gray matter, Department of Homeland Security Secretary Janet Napolitano spoke about comprehensive immigration reform, mostly from a law-enforcement perspective. Afterwards, Napolitano fielded questions about her old Arizona political ally Sheriff Joe…
Maricopa County Superior Court Judge Susan Brnovich has set a “firm trial” date of December 14 in the case of alleged “Salon Bandit” and former New Times scribe Joe Watson. Brnovich ordered all subpoenaed witnesses to appear in court on that date. Watson, who has been incarcerated in county jails…
SKIN BUSTERS I’m not the type for formal to-dos. The dress code kills me. Last time I wore a suit was for Methodist Sunday school, back before I’d had my first smoke. I made an exception for the Anti-Defamation League of Arizona’s Torch of Liberty Award Dinner, held recently at…
I’m not going to weep any tears for CNN’s erstwhile token nativist Lou Dobbs, who resigned on air Tuesday, handing a victory to Latino groups who’ve sought his ouster through the Basta Dobbs campaign, led by activist/writer Roberto Lovato’s Presente.org.Dobbs has been a despicable opportunist, cynically dousing the anti-immigration bonfire with gasoline,…
California videographer and activist Naui Ocelotl Huitzilopochtli captured some cool footage of Saturday’s Nazi march and demo at the Arizona state Capitol, including a little confrontation with a swastika-licker from Missouri that I had. Didn’t amount to much. Plus, there was a DOJ guy right beside us, and cops all…
Lynne Stevens has always been one of the odder figures in the local anti-immigrant movement, mainly because she doesn’t fit the profile of angry old coot, as personified by her peer, convicted public urinator Buffalo Rick Galeener. A persistent protester of Salvador Reza’s Macehualli Day Labor Center, and of the ongoing…
Some 150 anarchists and other counter-demonstrators showed their mettle yesterday afternoon against a troop of around 60 neo-Nazis, mostly from out-of-state, who marched from 12th Avenue and Adams down to the Arizona state Capitol, flipping sieg heils and crying, “White power” all the way. The anarchists, who made up the majority…
If you haven’t seen J.T. Ready on the boob tube lately, you haven’t been watching TV. Seems like the wannabe Ernst Roehm of the East Valley has been getting his moment in the media sun defending the views of the National Socialist Movement, even though he states in this interview…
There’s no great irony in the fact that a week after the neo-Nazi anti-immigration rally at the Arizona state Capitol this Saturday, there will be another anti-immigration rally at the Capitol on November 14, this one put together as a Tea Party Against Amnesty and Illegal Immigration. It’s being spearheaded…
BURKE’S BUMBLE CBS 5’s recent special report on Sheriff Joe Arpaio’s pattern of retaliation against anyone who criticizes or opposes his office put some serious wind into the sails of Joe foes. Though it was not so much the partial recounting of Joe’s enemies list in the nearly 10-minute segment…
There’s one group talking a big game about confronting the neo-Nazi scum at the state Capitol this Saturday: the anarchists, the traditional foes of goosesteppers going all the way back to the Spanish Civil War, and then some. They’re often badmouthed in many activist circles here in town for being…
Let’s not mince labels, here: The neo-Nazi National Socialist Movement members who’ll be rallying at the state Capitol this coming Saturday afternoon are lowlife degenerates. And I don’t just mean that their anti-Semitism, outright racism and adoration of mass-murderer Adolf Hitler (you know, the guy that’s always on the History…
AlterNet scribe Isabel Macdonald’s scored again. You’ll recall her as the Brooklyn-based journalist who along with cameraman Mark Read captured Arpaio losing it a few months back. This, during an interview with our corrupt top cop in his offices. I posted some of Macdonald’s hilarious footage to my blog of…
Like we needed more evidence of the insidious culture of corruption that pervades the entire Maricopa County Sheriff’ Office: Check out this video from Channel 12 News, as reported on by Joe Dana. According to Dana, the video is of a court hearing last week for jail inmate Antonio Lozano,…
CBS 5’s nearly 10-minute segment on Sheriff Joe Arpaio’s abuse of power last night did not disappoint. Essentially, reporter Morgan Loew and producer Gilbert Zermeno laid out all of the major cases of retaliation by the MCSO against the sheriff’s political opponents: Maricopa County Supervisor Don Stapley, Phoenix Mayor Phil…
Is Sheriff Joe “America’s Toughest Sheriff,” or “America’s Biggest Wimp”? That’s what I can’t help wondering as I read this latest press release from his PR staff. It lamely attempts to link the folks who protest Joe almost daily outside downtown Phoenix’s Wells Fargo Building — where Arpaio keeps two…
Everyone’s seen the recent Cronkite/Eight numbers showing that Sheriff Joe Arpaio remains popular in Maricopa County, with a 61 percent approval rating overall, and a 65 percent positive rating of those with an opinion. The same poll showed Arizona Attorney General Terry Goddard with a 55 percent approval rating statewide…
LOCAL HEROES Ever since the MCSO’s contract for police services with the town of Guadalupe was renewed earlier this year, a small band of residents of the square-mile town has sought to monitor the interaction of sheriff’s deputies with Guadalupanos. A month and a half ago, these half-dozen or so…
Editor’s note: This is one of a group of individual accounts of racial profiling by Sheriff Joe Arpaio’s forces. Fili Gaucin is a bright 12-year old, an American citizen born in this country who, like most boys his age, likes to play video games and watch TV. In fact, Fili,…
In doing research on Chris Simcox — the minuteman posterboy currently waging a quixotic campaign for the 2010 GOP U.S. Senate primary nod against the ancient, lizard-skinned Senator John McCain — I came across an odd exchange of legal paperwork between Simcox’s current wife Alena, and Alena’s mother Barbara Lang-Lyras…
CBS 5’s tantalizing promo for their Thursday report Set the DVR this Thursday night for KPHO CBS 5’s 10 p.m. newscast, which will feature an eight minute mini-documentary on Sheriff Joe’s abuses of power while in office. The award-winning team of producer Gilbert Zermeno and reporter Morgan Loew boasts sources…
