Surprise, surprise: Russell Pearce prevaricates yet again
Sometimes I wonder if state Senator Russell Pearce would know the truth if it bopped him upside his mutton head. Known for spewing bogus stats conflating crime with Mexican migration, he can't seem to help himself, no matter how bogus the factoids he throws out or how many times they're debunked.
Take this latest example from local radio host Carlos Galindo, who caught up with Pearce at the pro-SB 10470 Tea Party rally at Wesley Bolin Plaza on June 12. Asked what his message was to Hispanics, Pearce blathered the falsehood that they support SB 1070 by a wide margin.
"They're on our side," Pearce told Galindo without a blink. "Sixty-one percent of Hispanics support this legislation."
He went on to assert, with a straight face, that Latinos are the people who would "benefit the most" from SB 1070. I guess so, if you call being singled out by the cops for harassment a "benefit."
However, Pearce's 61 percent is nonexistent. All of the polls out there show that Latinos overwhelmingly are against the law and believe that it will target them unfairly because of the color of their skin.
A Rocky Mountain Poll found that Arizona Hispanics oppose the law by 69 percent. Similarly, the polling firm Latino Decisions discovered that 70 percent of Arizona Latinos are against the law. What is the source for Pearce's contrary information? Apparently his own imagination.
Polls have also found majorities statewide and nationwide in support of the law, but there is an ethnic divide, and for good reason: Latinos know they will be the subject of intense scrutiny because of SB 1070, as most undocumented aliens in Arizona are from Mexico and Central America. Anglos, however, are aware they have nothing to fear in this regard.
Pearce no doubt thinks shoveling bull about Hispanics supporting this new law will insulate him from charges of racism. On the contrary, his prevarications make his animus toward Latinos just that more plain.
