In the most disgusting, reprehensible, and irresponsible comments of his political career (and that’s saying a lot), Arizona’s senior U.S. Senator John McCain is blaming illegal immigrants for Arizona’s recent plague of wildfires, saying it’s the reason the country needs a “secure border.”As reported by CNN, the former presidential candidate…
Pro-immigrant lawyers and activists are slamming the director of U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement for recently announced policy “changes” that they say will do nothing to improve the way illegal immigrants are being deported.ICE director John Morton is saying he will give the department’s lawyers more decision-making options on what immigration…
Larry Black, Maricopa County Sheriff Joe Arpaio’s former No. 3 man, is no longer listed on the Phoenix International Raceway’s Web site as director of security. We can only speculate that he’s lost the lucrative job he’d had since 1998 in the wake of damning allegations that caused Arpaio…
They say all politicians are by definition liars, but I’m beginning to believe state Senate President Russell Pearce could teach a college course in it.Sand Land’s Professor of Prevarication was on KAET’s Horizon Thursday to discuss the recall effort against him with host Ted Simons. Almost from jump, he began dishing falsehoods and…
A Phoenix man is suing the City of Phoenix, former Phoenix police Chief Jack Harris, and several others over a beating he says he received from two Phoenix police officers who initially mistook him for a drug dealer they’d previously arrested.According to the suit, filed in Maricopa County Superior Court…
I’ve just finished reading the Cambium report on Tucson Unified School District’s much-maligned Mexican American Studies Department. It’s a shocker.Know why? Because the report itself concludes that “no observable evidence was present to suggest that any classroom within Tucson Unified School District is in direct violation of the law [Arizona…
Most of Pearce’s 2010 donations were from outside LD18I plan to ride around town with a dead crow in my car, so the next time I see local hack Howie Fischer, he of the one-man “Capitol Media Services,” I can carve him off a slice for his dinner.See, Fischer, like…
Pro-immigrant activist Sal Reza, leader of the Phoenix human-rights group Puente, announced Tuesday that he’s suing state Senate President Russell Pearce in federal court for falsely arresting him on suspicion of trespassing and denying him access to the Senate building.In addition to Pearce, the complaint names as defendants two Arizona…
Yesterday marked Maricopa County Sheriff Joe Arpaio’s 79th birthday. L’chaim. Yet the aging law dog swears he plans to run for another four-year term as sheriff — laughably, he’s also not ruled out a run for the presidency.As a reader pointed out in the comment section of New Times’ official…
Maricopa County Sheriff Joe Arpaio turns 79 today — which marks the one-year anniversary of his birthday getting “ruined” by blind people.On the sheriff’s 78th birthday, he pouted all day because the National Convention for Guide Dog Users gave Joe the boot as its keynote speaker at a convention in…
As Sheriff Joe Arpaio brags for arresting six immigrants heading for the southeastern United States, a group of United States Senators is releasing a report noting that 70 percent of captured guns used by drug cartels in Mexico originated in the United States. One of these smuggling problems is worse than…
Maricopa County’s corrupt top cop, Joe Arpaio, is boasting about six illegal immigrants his deputies arrested yesterday — he’s so impressed with himself, in fact, he wants a thank you.The immigrant roundup went down in the north Valley. The Sheriff’s Office says the immigrants paid smugglers $2,000 to bring them…
Miguel Aparicio’s story is a prime example of how the U.S. immigration system can take someone from one extreme to another.In 2009, as he was driving down to a friend’s house in Casa Grande to do some electrician work, he was pulled over for a minor traffic stop. In the…
Even though I’m on deadline for this week’s column, I couldn’t miss today’s action by the Russell Pearce-recall group Citizens for a Better Arizona, during which organizer Randy Parraz attempted to deliver to the state Senate President his first ever (to my knowledge) unemployment “check” dated December 5, 2011. That…
The state Legislature recessed indefinitely today from its special session without making a minor change in state law that would allow some 45,000 jobless Arizonans to continue receiving unemployment checks.Around 15,000 out-of-work Sand Landers will receive a check this week, and then no more. The Arizona Department of Economic Security…
Vicente Fernandez, a Mexican ranchero singer, angered some in Arizona’s Latino community when he decided to not only perform in an anti-immigrant state, but also because he is being sponsored by Budweiser.Scores of people showed up at US Airways Center Friday evening to show their disdain for the beloved Mexican…
State Senate President Russell Pearce and the Republican-controlled Legislature couldn’t be bothered today to change one word in state law to extend unemployment benefits to 15,000 out-of-work Arizonans.But Pearce has had the copious free time to compose a lengthy, five page letter to Arizona Attorney General Tom Horne arguing that…
Senate President Russell Pearce claims illegal immigration costs taxpayers beaucoup cash; in reality Hispanics, legal and illegal, are aiding the state’s economy.A boom in Arizona’s Latino population has resulted in a powerful purchasing bloc that could help save the state’s struggling economy.This, according to a just-released report by the Arizona Hispanic…
our previous post about Joe Arpaio’s immigrant roundup at a downtown Phoenix restaurant this morning, America’s self-proclaimed “toughest sheriff” issued a press release, in which he boasts that his agency “is the only law enforcement agency in the state that is currently enforcing employer sanctions laws.””Employer” being the operative word.However,…
A few women at the state Capitol invited Arizona Senate President Russell Pearce into their daily lives to show him what a few hundred dollars a week from unemployment benefits can buy.Carla Mannes, one of the women at a press conference held by Citizens for a Better Arizona, explained that a…
America’s self-proclaimed “toughest sheriff” conducted another of his signature illegal-immigrant roundups this morning, this time at the Old Spaghetti Factory in central Phoenix.Maricopa County’s corrupt top-cop was targeting seven suspected illegal immigrants following an eight-month investigation. Sheriff Joe Arpaio’s boys in beige only nabbed three of the targets, who were…
Extending unemployment benefits to around 15,000 Arizonans still looking for work should be a no-brainer, assuming the wingnuts at the state Capitol had a pound of gray matter among ’em.It’s federal money that’s pumped into the state’s struggling economy, which according to the most recent numbers still suffers a 9.3…
