As I mentioned in my Bird column this week, actor Benjamin Bratt’s in town with his brother director Peter Bratt to promote their new film La Mission, a “cinematic love letter” to lowrider culture and the San Francisco Mission District where both men were raised.Bratt plays Che Rivera, a tough…
Nativist attorney Kris Kobach, the man who essentially wrote Arizona’s new “papers, please” law and who had been retained by Sheriff Joe Arpaio to train his deputies on immigration matters to the tune of $300 per hour, has been cut loose by Maricopa County Attorney Rick Romley, albeit in a…
Know that old song by Elvis Costello, “Watching the Detectives”? Well, Phoenix Copwatch does it for real. The volunteer organization monitors all cops in the area, but pays particular attention to Sheriff Joe Arpaio’s boys in beige, especially when the MCSO is doing one of its notorious anti-immigrant sweeps of Hispanic communities. Copwatch…
Catherine Figueroa, one of Arpaio’s many victims, is slated to testify at a Congressional hearing Thursday Arizona Congressman Raul Grijalva’s office has released a schedule of witnesses for the hearing he’s holding Thursday afternoon in D.C., and it includes several Phoenix residents, some of whom have been victims of Sheriff…
It’s official: Joe Arpaio’s endorsement is worth squat beyond the confines of Sand Land, particularly when we’re talking about California.All of the politicians Arpaio plugged, campaigned for, raised money for, or just had a kind word for went down in flames in California primary and local elections yesterday.Republican gubernatorial candidate…
Arizona has made the cover of the Summer 2010 issue of the Southern Poverty Law Center’s Intelligence Report magazine, but for all the wrong reasons, as you might expect.The issue is devoted to the resurgent “patriot” movement, a conspiratorial grab-bag of nutjobs, Obama-loathers, extremist gun rights proponents, and tax resisters.The…
Tucson ABC TV news station KGUN 9 is reporting that Arizona Congressman Raul Grijalva will be holding hearings on Sheriff Joe Arpaio’s anti-immigration sweeps this Thursday, and, um, no, it doesn’t sound like Sheriff Joe was invited. Apparently, one reason for the hearing is to show what SB 1070 will look like…
Phoenix journalist Valeria Fernandez has single-handedly emasculated neo-Nazi hugging state Senator Russell Pearce, and in Spanish no less.How she got Pearce to sit down for an interview for CNN en Espanol, I don’t know. But listening to the best known Hispanic-bashing bigot in the state, and perhaps the nation, being…
The cranks are all here in this video of the June 5 Phoenix Rising rally by videographer Dennis Gilman: Russell Pearce, Joe Arpaio, and lesser known wackjobs such as “Chemtrail Chelene” Nightingale, “Loopy Lupe” Moreno, self-loathing, wannabe white-boy Ray Herrera, and black apologist for slavery Ted Hayes. Gilman braved aggro,…
A fruitcake of nativist rage and looniness baking in the Arizona sun: That’s what was generally to be found at Wesley Bolin Plaza this Saturday, June 5 for the pro-SB 1070 Phoenix Rising rally, which drew around 2,000 mostly white participants to the state Capitol. Not everyone was as nasty…
On Thursday night, Maricopa County Sheriff Joe Arpaio conducted a raid of the Burlington Coat Factory in the Arizona Mills Mall. He arrested three undocumented workers — and we stress the word “workers.” With the huge number of un-served, felony warrants in Maricopa County, and the coyotes and drug smugglers…
When it comes to campaign contributions from the Phoenix Law Enforcement Association, headed by anti-immigrant opportunist Mark Spencer, Republican U.S. Senate candidate J.D. Hayworth just barely edges out the Arizona Democratic Party. For the current 2009-2010 election cycle, Hayworth, the Mexican-bashing former radio host has taken $10,000 from the Phoenix…
As many of you have no doubt learned, the anti-immigrant stunt Sheriff Joe Arpaio was planning that I mentioned in a blog post yesterday, ended up being an MCSO “raid” — if you can call it that — on the clothing store Burlington Coat Factory at Arizona Mills Mall in…
Yesterday, Maricopa County Sheriff Joe Arpaio used his Twitter page to ask the public for some suggestions on what he should do for his upcoming birthday. Arpaio turns 78 on June 14, so we figured loyal New Times readers had a little more than a feliz compleanos for the sheriff and asked for your best…
Arizona could have one killer rock concert, on par with Coachella, if all the bands who’re cancelling Cactus Country gigs or boycotting the state due to SB 1070 were to participate.The East L.A. Chicano rock band Los Lobos is the latest to kill a concert here in Sand Land over…
(Note: Please see the statement from the National Day Laborer Organizing Network on Obama’s treachery below, as well as an update on Arpaio’s raid.) It was all way too polite, and obviously calculated by the White House in an attempt to protect President’s right flank. I mean Governor Jan Brewer’s…
I’ll never be able to watch reruns of The Incredible Hulk in quite the same way.In this video from Tempe’s recent, pro-SB 1070 “buycott” rally, Lou Ferrigno appears onstage with Sheriff Joe Arpaio, flexing for the crowd before Arpaio addresses the nativist faithful about how the Obama administration’s been pickin’…
Former minuteman leader and ex, self-described “senior advisor” for J.D. Hayworth’s U.S. Senate campaign Chris Simcox allegedly threatened to kill his wife and family according to a petition for an order of protection filed by his estranged spouse Alena Simcox. A Maricopa County court commissioner granted the petition April 16,…
Nearly two million views and growing, Stevens’ redneck anthem “Come To the U.S.A.”I’m sure everyone under the age of 45 is scratching their heads, going, “Ray, who?” But Ray Stevens was actually popular in the ’70s for a second, crooning silly comedy songs about streaking and one called, believe it…
If you have any doubts about the massiveness of Saturday’s big anti-SB 1070 march to the Arizona state Capitol, this latest YouTube offering by everyone’s fave revolutionary videographer Dennis Gilman should put them to rest. The organizers’ count of 100,000 even seems a tad conservative in hindsight. Though it’s…
[jump] Fortunately, I was spared this grotesque sight as I was blocked by Arpaio henchpersons Lisa Allen, Lt. Brian Lee, and Deputy Chief Brian Sands. No New Times allowed in the room, particularly this New Times employee. Instead, they called out lovingly for Arizona Republic scribe JJ Hensley, and waved other media…
Democratic Diva’s Donna Gratehouse went in search of big companies being represented out at the pro-SB 1070 “buycott” at Tempe’s Diablo Stadium this Saturday. Know how many she found? Zip. Zilch. Zero.Well, Tempe’s Xtreme Bean Coffee was there. (Hardly a biggie.) But otherwise, it was just vendors selling buttons, flags,…
