Let the Trump-a-geddon Destruction of the GOP Begin!

We are already seeing the conservative establishment walls come tumbling down!  

We see it in the primary struggle John McCain finds himself in, running for re-election. It signals that the GOP might be losing the senate, and argues for them to suffer losses in the house as well, at least in part because of Trump as the nominee.  This as Hillary Clinton is moving ahead in traditionally conservative Arizona, home of far right wing worst-loser presidential former candidate Barry Goldwater. Trump might perform worse than Goldwater!

As of today, per Epoch Times:

Arizona

Clinton leads Donald Trump 45 percent to 42 percent in Arizona, a state that voted for a Democratic presidential candidate only once in the last 64 years. Phoenix-based OH Predictive Insights surveyed 996 likely voters on Aug. 1 in a poll that included Libertarian Gary Johnson and Green Party candidate Jill Stein.

We can see that in part, in the failure of Trump with Hispanics which can be key in states like Arizona.  Let's also not forget as we see the Trump purple heart fiasco and his on-going feud with Gold Star parents the Kahns, that Hispanics are the single largest group of Medal of Honor winners, and comprise one of the largesr and fastesr growing ethnic group of our serving military.

   

Meanwhile, as far back as June, his likely Democratic challenger is pulling ahead in the polls. It might have been a good idea for McCain to hang up his campaign race shoes, and retire gracefully; but it is too late for that now.

Here's where McCain stands in his primary race - the primary election is next week, and how Trump support figures into that election.  From Salon, earlier today:

It’s been a big week for Kelli Ward, John McCain’s challenger in the Aug. 30 Republican primary. McCain offended the Trumpian base — which is particularly strong in Arizona — by criticizing Donald Trump’s attacks on Khizr and Ghazala Khan, parents of a fallen soldier who have been denouncing Trump’s anti-Muslim bigotry. Trump then returned the favor by refusing to endorse McCain, even though McCain is facing a competitive primary.
Enter Ward. The 47-year-old osteopath has been serving as a state senator in Arizona for four years and has been polling the strongest in a primary race against McCain. Now that one of the other challengers, Alex Meluskey, has dropped out, Ward is even better set to coalesce the anti-McCain vote behind her.
Ward doesn’t believe that Trump’s popularity is, as some might think, a cult of personality situation, but the result of a conservative revolt against the “political elite.”
“He said things that many Americans were thinking,” she told Salon in an interview Tuesday afternoon. Trump is “surfing” a wave of conservative anger and resentment, she explained, and she believes she is “at the top of the wave.”

I think we can look to Trump having other negative effects on conservative candidate outcomes.

But meanwhile returning for the moment to the race for the White House, from Business Insider also today:

Donald Trump's support collapses in 3 of the most important major battlegrounds

Donald Trump received a wave of discouraging polling news Thursday as an extraordinarily damaging week neared its conclusion.
Polls in Pennsylvania, Michigan, and New Hampshire suggested that a once tight race in the battlegrounds had shifted in favor of Democratic nominee Hillary Clinton.
The polls showed Clinton with a 9-point lead in Michigan, an 11-point lead in Pennsylvania, and a 17-point lead in New Hampshire. In mid-July, polls conducted in each state found the race to be within 3 points in either direction.
In Michigan, where a Detroit News poll found Clinton to hold about a 9-point lead in a contest that included Libertarian Party nominee Gary Johnson and Green Party nominee Jill Stein, the pollster described "shocking" leads for Clinton in Republican strongholds in the western part of the state.
"He's sitting in the cellar right now, and they're going to have to do something to dramatically turn this around," said Richard Czuba, the president of the Glengariff Group Inc. polling firm. "If I were a Republican running on this ticket right now, I'd be beyond nervous."
The past three polls conducted in Michigan before the Detroit News survey found Clinton with leads of 3 points, 5 points, and 3 points.
"I know that there's a lot of numbers that matter in politics, but Twitter followers still don't trump poll numbers," Michigan Republican strategist Greg McNeilly told the News, referring to Trump's massive social-media following.

and here was the news for PA:

The 11-point advantage in Pennsylvania, found in the poll conducted by Franklin & Marshall College, was the largest lead enjoyed by Clinton since late April, before Trump had sealed the GOP nomination. The poll found Clinton with a 49%-to-38% edge among likely voters that expanded to a 48%-to-35% edge among registered voters.
Trump has made a strong push to put Pennsylvania in play this cycle, though the state hasn't voted for a Republican in the presidential race since 1988.
Between May 8 and July 11, just two of seven polls in the state found the race in the Keystone State separated by more than 2 points, according to RealClearPolitics. Since then, Clinton has enjoyed leads of 4, 9, and now 11 points.
Another eye-opening statistic from the poll: Just two in five Pennsylvania voters who watched the Republican convention last month said it made them more likely to vote for Trump. On the other hand, 53% said it made them less likely to do so.

The numbers were virtually flipped for Clinton, as 62% of those who watched last week's Democratic convention — held in Philadelphia — said they were more likely to vote for the former secretary of state. Only 39% said it made them less likely to vote for the Democratic nominee.

And then we have New Hampshire -- where Sen. Kelly Ayotte is running for senate as well, and is NOT endorsed by Trump:

The other battleground poll released Thursday morning, conducted by WBUR in New Hampshire, found arguably the worst results for Trump.
The Manhattan billionaire now faces a massive 17-point hole in the Granite State — a state where he was found to be within 2 points in mid-July.
WBUR's poll showed Clinton with a 51%-to-34% advantage over Trump. Just 63% of Republicans said they would vote for their party's nominee, while 86% of Democrats were ready to cast ballots for Clinton.

Thursday brought the latest in a wave of bad polling news for Trump that has shown Clinton to be taking bigger national leads. A Fox News poll released Wednesday found Clinton holding a 10-point lead over the real-estate magnate among voters nationwide.

Now Ayotte has said she would vote for Trump, while Trump lashed out at her.  It looks as if there is no way to win with Trump in the mix, either pro OR anti.  He's just TOXIC.

From the WaPo also today:

Sen. Ayotte down 10 in latest New Hampshire poll

Sen. Kelly Ayotte (R-N.H.) is trailing her Democratic rival, Gov. Maggie Hassan, by 10 points in what has been one of the tightest Senate races in the country, according to a new poll from WBUR Radio.
The poll, which was conducted between July 19 and Aug. 1, shows 50 percent of respondents saying they would vote for Hassan if the election were held today, compared with 40 percent for Ayotte. Ayotte is one of the most vulnerable GOP senators up for reelection in a year in which Republicans can afford to lose only three seats if they hope to maintain control of the Senate.

The boost for Hassan also mirrors the surging popularity of Democratic presidential nominee Hillary Clinton in New Hampshire. Clinton leads Republican presidential nominee Donald Trump 47 to 32 in the state, according to the same poll. Her favorability rating also climbed to 45 percent from 35 percent in May. Meanwhile, Trump’s favorability fell from 33 to 29 percent.

and here is where Ayotte is facing something similar to McCain from the more extreme right:

Ayotte has also been attacked from the right as she prepares for a Sept. 13 primary in which she will face four Republican opponents. She is widely expected to win and go on to face Hassan in November, but conservatives have used the opportunity to frame her as an out-of-touch Washington insider.

So long as whoever is the GOP candidate in these respective senate races lose to the Democratic candidate, I don't really care who runs.  But I would disagree with the assumption that Ayotte will win  the primary; rather like McCain, I expect her numbers to continue to dive under the pressure of Trump toxicity alienating sane conservative voters, leaving five candidates to divide up the remaining conservative lunatic fringe.

Kim Davis: Conservatives usually support theocracy - part 4

When citizens of this country approach their government, they do so only as Americans, not as a members of one faith or another. And that means that even in a partly legislative body, they should not confront government-sponsored worship that divides them along religious lines." - Associate Supreme Court Justice Elena Kagan, in a dissenting opinion

The Kim Davis controversy is like other right-wing efforts to support theocracy and to undo the decisions of the SCOTUS which are mandated by our Constitution as the ultimate arbiters of what is and is not constitutional.  We saw it in the Hobby Lobby decision, we have seen it in other attempts at challenging marriage equality.  When conservatives dislike a ruling, they attempt a do-over and use the litigation as a delay to social justice.

The dissenting decision quoted above came from a court case where the conservative Christian majority on the Supreme Court upheld specifically Christian prayer in city council meetings, asserting that they could open council meetings in the name of Jesus. Previously the town council had a long tradition of opening with a simple moment of respectful silence, prior to 1999.  Further, before making it to the SCOTUS, lower courts found the prayer to be preferential treatment violating the establishment clause. From CNN:

"The faith of the prayer giver does not matter at all," said John Auberger, Greece's board supervisor, who began the practice shortly after taking office. "We accept anyone who wants to come in and volunteer to give the prayer to open up our town meetings."

A federal appeals court in New York found the board's policy to be a violation of the Constitution's Establishment Clause, which forbids any government "endorsement" of religion. Those judges said it had the effect of "affiliating the town with Christianity."

What should be concerning to ALL citizens however is the larger push against secularism that seeks to install a radical religious control of government.  Kentucky is not the only location with such a conflict.  It is a truism that all politics are local - and in equally if not more conservative Arizona, a local city council just did this, more of the same kind of action as Kim Davis effectively interfering with same sex couples getting married, under the name of individual freedom of religious expression, from If You Only News:

Arizona City Council Passes Resolution To Discriminate Against Non-Christians During City Prayer

...On Monday, a resolution that would allow all religious groups the ability to open city council meetings with prayer was put before the city council of Coolidge, Arizona.
This wasn’t good enough for Councilman Rob Hudelson, though. The Baptist pastor, either oblivious to the SCOTUS ruling or deliberately ignoring it, asked for a change to the resolution, restricting the right to pray before city council meetings to Christians only.
The modified resolution, discriminating against other religions, passed by a 4-2 vote.
So the solution is not to have any prayers at all, regardless of religion. But that never set in with the city council, even though they’re being warned that this will lead to lawsuits if approved.
City Attorney Denis Fitzgibbons said of the resolution, “As long as they all have a fair opportunity to come and give an invocation, then it’s going to be legal.” But that’s not the case here, and when Fitzgibbons warned of the inevitable lawsuit, Hudelson bunkered down, telling Fitzgibbons the city paid him “to avoid us getting into these problems.”
Hudelson insisted that it was our “heritage” and that we shouldn’t “be ashamed:”

That’s our heritage, we should not be ashamed of it, nor should we be pushed into a corner because Supreme Court decisions. The first prayer in Congress ended by saying thy son, our savior, based on the merits of Jesus Christ our Lord and Savior Amen.

The Arizona ALCU has already stepped into the fight, sending the city a letter warning that it was in violation of the First Amendment if it approved the rule.
The legal director, Victoria Lopez, told AZCentral, “There isn’t a legal question. It’s problematic on First Amendment grounds, certainly, and it seems like a really bad policy position to take” and “They are creating a policy that will advocate for a particular religion” which sends the message that other religions aren’t welcome in government affairs.

We are not Christian or non-Christian; we are all Americans.  We should not be giving preferential treatment in or by government to any sect or faith to act against the civil rights of others, or to be otherwise discriminated against in government.

Ask yourself, if you held a different faith than the city council member here, Hudelson, do YOU feel you could expect fair treatment?  Consider if for example, you had previously disagreed with Hudelson about the location of a fundamentalist church parking lot.......or some other petty local issue.  Would you expect an unbiased vote from this man? I would not.  If you are a known Muslim or Jewish, or Hindu or Buddhist, or atheist? How about if you are openly gay? Then I think it would be even worse for you in that Arizona town in front of that city council.  You could not expect fair treatment, free from religious prejudice and creeping theocracy.  THIS is the real issue, one that is being fought on many fronts at many levels of government, fair and equal treatment.

And THAT is the essential battle being waged over Kim Davis, that has been cynically used by the radical religious right to try to take over the state of Kentucky.  They DO want such preferential treatment, they DO want the authority to strip you of YOUR religious AND civil rights if you DARE to disagree with them -- and they are usually wrong, so you should be expecting to disagree with them.  But to disagree effectively, you have to learn to think independently and to look at the issues pragmatically, rather than taking them as defined at face value.

WHY is the Radical Religious Right pushing PRO-Discrimination Laws under the guise of religious freedom?

In Arizona, there are five municipalities, including Phoenix, which have local anti-discrimination ordinances that prohibit treating gays (or disabled people, etc.) differently in service/accommodation, in housing, in hiring and so on.  The number of people living in these municipalities comprise roughly one third of the AZ population.

Most large corporations routinely require the same fair and equal treatment of people in their internal corporate rules and regs.  Passing such ordinances was seen as making those communities more attractive to potential employers who could offer the state - and the cities - well paying jobs.

Outside those municipalities, any kind of discrimination against LGBT people was and is perfectly legal.  Further, state law outweighs municipal laws, so any law suit under those ordinances has at best limited use.

What the advocates for these laws claim as religious freedom is false, just as you cannot discriminate against people on the basis of race claiming religious belief.  There were multiple law suits that have established that, for example in the Bob Jones University cases where discrimination was not allowed against black people, or against mixed race married couples or mixed race dating.

The arguments that are being presented, that Jewish or Muslim restaurant owners could be forced to serve pork sandwiches are false, so false they can fairly be called lies.  No one is now or has ever under the guise of anti-discrimination forced a business to provide a product or service.  What anti-discrimination has required is that if you sell something (a product or service) to others, you can't refuse to do so to a group of people because of the religion, race, gender, etc. of that group.

So no one is going to force any bakery to bake penis shaped cake --- but under anti-discrimination laws, if they DO make such cakes for heterosexual customers (like bachelorette parties) THEN they have to sell them to a gay customer too.  If you sell wedding photography to straight couples, then you have to do so to gay couples.

The one argument that is made in support of such legislation that is valid is that a photographer who provides their services to events could be required to provide them to an event with which they do not agree.  A parallel example of how that is in fact the very definition of freedom is that, for example when the National Socialist Party of America aka American Nazis versus Skokie, IL, Nazis had as much right as any other group to freedom of assembly in parading through a city where many Jewish Holocaust survivors lived.  The SCOTUS correctly decided that special protection or accommodation could be made for those people on the basis of religion, while the Nazis, however repellent they were as human beings, did have the right to freedom of assembly in public places --- and ONLY in public places.

However much radical religious right extremists wish it to be so, corporations or other businesses are not people.  PEOPLE have individual liberties; other entities have some rights as entities which are legal fictions, but they are not people.  If you are a person doing business as a business entity, then you have to abide by the laws regulating businesses, which does not include religious discrimination.

But, by the same token, political beliefs by a group are not a protected area of activity.  You can say HELL NO to a bunch of KKKluckers [members of the Klu(eless) Klux Klan] just because you don't like the glare coming off their ugly little bald skin-heads or because you object to their stupid little recycled bedsheet outfits.  You don't need the protection of freedom of religion to reject them as clients.

Likewise, there is not instance where anti-discrimination could result in someone being rounded up and forced to march in a gay pride parade.  If you are a bigot, you can't prevent such a parade, the same way aggrieved Jewish Holocaust survivors couldn't prevent a rally or a parade by offensive Nazis.  In fact, under freedom of assembly and freedom of speech, you can protest at such an event.

If you don't like selling gay wedding cakes (penis optional) or taking photos at a gay wedding, get out of the business.  You aren't protected by the Constitution from serving clients you don't like on the basis of your religion, just like you can't refuse to seat Jewish or Muslim people in your restaurant because you are a disgusting and reprehensible bigot --- so what?

Conservatives seem to have a pattern of desiring to discriminate against other people, while claiming, falsely, and usually in an annoyingly whiny way, that they are victims themselves, when they are not.

Which prompts the inevitable question -- why do conservatives persist in defining their freedom in terms of denying freedom and dignity to others, over and over and over?  Shame, shame on them.  Why as well, do conservatives persist in lying, and in trying to scare people when there is no reason for fear?

They are just silly, and perhaps they are so used to projecting their own lies on others, they can't believe anyone else is a better human being than they are.  They assume the worst, and they are wrong.

Shame on Arizona, shame on all the other states trying to legislate religious prejudice and bigotry, shame on all the states trying to promote radical right wingers taking away liberty from people. THEY are UN-AMERICAN.

Gov. Jan Brewer VETOES Bill By Conservatives, For Conservatives, to Legalize Discrimination

The only two things conservatives like MORE than whining they are victims when they are not, is to discriminate against a minority and/or women, and to shoot people they don't like.

Ok, sometimes they combine all of the above, as we saw in the recent trial of Michael Dunn in Florida.

NOT to be outdone, the fine (by which I mean totally incompetent) conservative legislators of Arizona passed legislation justifying discrimination for religious bigot soup nazis.

Yes, Pat Robertson believes in soup nazis. Via Right Wing Watch:


Other advocates for the AZ law, versions of which are being passed by idiot bigot conservatives in other states, make false claims for the need for such laws, asserting that they are necessary to avoid being forced to march in gay pride parades (Seriously), or to protect delicatessen owners from having to serve pork sandwiches.

Which, of course is ridiculous. No such fake atrocities are taking place. What IS taking place is that state by state, marriage equality is being recognized, and it is becoming increasingly more difficult to discriminate against gay people, on any pretext including religion.

So if you sell wedding cakes or sell wedding photography, you can't refuse to do so to people on religious grounds - like you think Muslims are evil, or you hate gay people and want to cloak it in religion to try to cover up that you hate someone.

And what makes this particularly funny is that of course, Arizona hasn't recognized same sex marriage. YET.

Texas did so just yesterday when a court found, quite properly, that same sex marriage bans were unconstitutional (and immoral, and unethical, and if you eat too much gay wedding cake - fattening).

The issue of allowing entities, like - for example Bob Jones University - to deny an education to black people, or to deny people the right to free association by punishing inter-racial dating or inter-racial marriage -- in other words, discriminating on the basis of race on religious grounds, was NOT constitutional.

Currently, gender and sexual orientation do not have the same protected status as race or religion, or disability - but they will, it is only a question of when -----AND QUITE PROPERLY SO!

Not to put too fine a point on it, American Conservatism is REPUGNANT, OFFENSIVE, and DENIES FULL AND EQUAL FREEDOM TO PEOPLE whenever they think they can.

Jon Stewart, as usual, NAILED the tacky and bizarre failed reasoning of the laws promoters:






It's not like Arizona is the only state with Crazy conservatives pushing toxic fake religion. It happens in conservative misinformation and miseducation locales like Florida and New Mexico as well. Because conservatives lie and hate, and don't know the difference when they do. It is conservatives who are the persistent threat in our nation, and to our children; linking it to religion is just the feeble attempt by conservatives to give their hate and bigotry some tattered legitimacy. That is a legitimacy they don't deserve, and it debases and demeans honest religion and spirituality with a failed and hateful ideology.

But heck, at least it gives Seth Meyers some great shtick for an outrageous game show, "Fake or Florida".

In Other Arizona News, Bad-Ass Sheriff Arpaio Faces Civil Rights Violations

Politico and other media are reporting that brutish authoritarian Sheriff Joe Arpaio is facing federal charges he violated civil rights and engaged in racial profiling.

I'm betting that given the track record for the feds successfully going to court, where they win more than 90% of their cases, because they don't take cases they don't have a really, really good chance of winning, that they probably have the bad sheriff dead to rights, along with some of his staff.

Arpaio appeals to the Right Wing Authoritarians, the type who enjoy being abusive and humiliating those over whom they can gain control, the kind of individual who is abusive and brutish with power and authority.  In other words, Arpaio appealed to the right wingers, courted them, was a hero of sorts to them.

In reality he was no hero at all; he was an incompetent, and apparently not very law abiding sheriff, the kind who eventually ALWAYS becomes a disgrace, and who more often than not runs afoul of the law as it is properly enforced.  Sheriff Joe, you've had this coming to you for a long, long time.

Anyone want to start a betting pool on the side that Arpaio is going to try to distract and defect blame for his actions, instead of owning them, by blaming this on his birther silliness?  It would be classic right-wingery to play the victim card, and the conspiracy cards next, in a last-ditch appeal to his supporting fellow authoritarians.  I wouldn't be particularly surprised if it turns out that there is some corruption rot in the woodwork, that will be unearthed by the grand jury, given the recent convictions of some of Apraio's close buddies, like convicted prosecutor Andrew Thomas.  Arpaio doesn't appear to be squeaky clean, by any stretch of the imagination.  Arizona appears to be a far too prone to right wing corruption and abuse.

From Politico.com :

Joe Arpaio to face lawsuit over alleged civil rights violations

 

Arpaio has denied the racial profiling allegations. | AP Photo

By ASSOCIATED PRESS | 5/10/12 11:41 AM EDT

PHOENIX (AP) — Federal authorities have said they plan to sue Arizona sheriff Joe Arpaio and his office over allegations of civil rights violations, including the racial profiling of Latinos.
The U.S. Justice Department has been seeking an agreement requiring Arpaio's office to train officers in how to make constitutional traffic stops, collect data on people arrested in traffic stops and reach out to Latinos to assure them that the department is there to also protect them.

Arpaio has denied the racial profiling allegations and has claimed that allowing a court monitor would mean that every policy decision would have to be cleared through an observer and would nullify his authority.

The self-proclaimed toughest sheriff in America has been a national political fixture who has built his reputation on jailing inmates in tents and dressing them in pink underwear, selling himself to voters as unceasingly tough on crime and pushing the bounds of how far local police can go to confront illegal immigration.
DOJ officials told a lawyer for Arpaio on April 3 that the lawman's refusal of a court-appointed monitor was a deal-breaker that would end settlement negotiations and result in a federal lawsuit.
The "notice of intent to file civil action" came Wednesday from Assistant U.S. Attorney General Thomas Perez in a letter to an Arpaio lawyer.
Perez, who heads the DOJ's civil rights division, noted that it's been more than 100 days since the sheriff's office received the DOJ's findings report and federal authorities haven't met with the Maricopa County Sheriff's Office counsel since Feb. 6 to discuss the terms of a consent agreement. Federal authorities plan to hold a 10 a.m. MST news conference to discuss the allegations against Arpaio's office.
At a news conference Wednesday afternoon, Arpaio defended himself in the face of the pending lawsuit.
"If they sue, we'll go to court. And then we'll find out the real story," he said. "There's lots of miscommunication emanating from Washington. They broke off communications.
"They're telling me how to run my organization. I'd like to get this resolved, but I'm not going to give up my authority to the federal government. It's as simple as that," Arpaio added.
Last December, the DOJ released a scathing report accusing Arpaio's office of racially profiling Latinos, basing immigration enforcement on racially charged citizen complaints and punishing Hispanic jail inmates for speaking Spanish in Arizona's most populous county. Maricopa County includes Phoenix and its surroundings.
The DOJ also accused Arpaio of having a culture of disregard for basic constitutional rights.
The civil rights allegations have led some Arpaio critics to call for his resignation, including the National Council of La Raza, a prominent advocacy group for Latinos.
The sheriff's office also is facing criticism over more than 400 sex-crimes investigations — including dozens of alleged child molestations — that hadn't been investigated adequately or weren't examined at all over a three-year period ending in 2007.
Arpaio has apologized for the botched cases, reopened 432 sex-crimes investigations and made 19 arrests.
Separate from the civil rights probe, a federal grand jury has been investigating Arpaio's office on criminal abuse-of-power allegations since at least December 2009. That grand jury is examining the investigative work of the sheriff's anti-public corruption squad.

Conspiracy Theorists = Crackpots with Guns, (and occasionally, grenades); Conspiracy Theorist Crackpots Blame J.T. Ready's Death on Jews

In response to the dubious conspiracy theory comment made by a recent newcomer to Penigma, I did a quick update on the latest J.T. Ready news.
I expect that we will be seeing more factual information forthcoming as the results of autopsies and other investigations develop to their conclusions.
But here is just one of the hate mongering right wing extremists explanations for conduct from which they hope to distance themselves.  We should be paying attention to these events, because while we don't have any nut job border patrolling vigilantes here in Minnesota, we do have our own extremist neo-nazi group that has been identified as an armed and potentially dangerous hate group in the central Minnesota area - Neo Nazis in Champlin and Mora, and our own branch of the KKK, and an assortment of militias who like the one that J.T. Ready belonged to, don't seem to be connected to either the main stream or reality.  And then of course we have the anti-gay crazy dishonest preacher who defrauds people by misrepresenting his organization, Bradlee Dean, and a group of racist skinheads who go by the name of Vinlanders Minnesota.

While these groups invariably - it's boring really - identify themselves as patriots, they are simple extremists insurrectionist wannabes who like to play with guns because they tend to be less than empowered or successful in their real life.  It is nothing more than a gun fantasy of heroic escapism, which has no justification in objective reality.

I like to go to the local media whenever possible, as they tend to have the best detail, and the best connections for getting to the facts of events:

From one of those, which I didn't know existed until today, we have the Jewish News of Greater Phoenix reporting that now, in addition to trying to float the drug cartel silly ass conspiracy, we also have the extremists trying to blame the Mossad for killing J.T. Ready.  Frankly, all these conspiracy theories seem to do is to give these guys a flimsy pretext to imagine they are important in a world where they are anything but significant, other than as slightly scary curiosities and walking, talking bigotry cartoons.

The tragedy is that it was in promoting total lies about new world order nonsense, and similar trite bullshit, that the very nice, not-hateful conservatives in the affinity scam we have covered here were suckered into the 2nd largest ponzi scheme in Minnesota.  The greater harm is that people change how they live, and hand over their hard earned money, based on all these claims of things being factual that are any thing BUT factual --- and are as opposite from factual as they could be.  The harm is broader than the occasional gun nut losing it and shooting up his loved ones.  More pernicious are the batshit crazies like birther queen (and jew)  Orly Taitz.

It seems both real justice and poetic justice to give notice to the other side of the conspiracy claims.

From the JTA / Jewish Global News

Neo-Nazi J.T. Ready’s death linked to Israel, sympathizers say

May 10, 2012

(Jewish News of Greater Phoenix) -- The still-open investigation into the death of Arizona neo-Nazi sympathizer T.J. Ready has left some sympathizers speculating that he did not commit suicide and that Israel may be involved.
On May 2, Ready entered the home he lived in with four others, including a 15-month-old girl, and shot them dead before turning the gun on himself.
Ready, who had a record of violent tendencies, was discharged from the U.S. Marines after two courts-martial and was a self-proclaimed member of the National Socialist Movement.
Stormfront.org, a white supremacist message board where Ready was an active participant, suggested the shooting was a hit put on by a Mexican drug cartel as a result of Ready’s leadership role with U.S. Border Guard, a small but heavily armed citizen militia group he founded to patrol the border for those crossing illegally. U.S. Border Guard's website “has been suspended indefinitely out of respect to the friends and family of the deceased,” according to its site, usborderguard.com.
Other Stormfront users blamed the ZOG (Zionist Occupied Government), and one even pointed the finger at Mossad, Israel's intelligence agency. Many accused the media of inaccurate and biased reporting, and said they refused to believe any scenario in which Ready murdered anyone.
Ready’s final post to Stormfront came at 7:18 a.m. the day of the shooting.
“NEVER a Jew to blame!” Ready wrote in one of his last Stormfront posts. “Jews are the ‘chosen ones’ don’t ya know. They can do no wrong. In fact, Jews don’t ever even exist in space or time if a crime is committed by them. They float around in the matrix of racist imagination and conspiracy universes until some evil Nazi conjures them up. Then they only materialize out of thin air if they are suddenly persecuted for some strange reason. We must never blame the Jew for anything!”
In the days leading up to his death, Ready also posted a number of similarly themed comments on YouTube videos.
“Hitler was right,” he commented on a video titled “Our War: The Invisible Enemy,” a documentary about the British army. “And if you are too stupid to see that then you deserve to get pushed off your island into the sea by a bunch of foreigners. Jews like Jack Straw have sold you down the river(,) mate.”

Arizona Mormon Nazi Shooting Update - Who Shot Whom?

From the Fox News station in Phoenix, it appears the house had numerous firearms, that the Mormon Nazi believed to have shot the others was wearing body armor, and it is a possibility that one of the other people in the house shot him.  Amber Mederos was the daughter of Ready's girlfriend.

Amber Mederos has been listed as a treasurer with the JT Ready for Sheriff campaign. This happened at the home of Lisa Mederos, where Ready had been living for the past 2 years.

Ready is dead, but it's not clear whether the wound was self-inflicted, "as there is multiple weapons on scene," an official said. There were reports of a domestic violence incident between Ready and his girlfriend earlier in the day Wednesday.

We've learned another daughter of Lisa's, a 19-year-old, is alive and found the blood bath. 

It appears that Ready was wearing body armor at the time of the incident.
I'm surprised that Ready would meet the qualifications for the job of sheriff; apparently he had a conviction for assault at 18, was discharged from the marines, twice, for bad conduct, including theft.  This was not a law abiding man, yet he was able to own 'multiple weapons' despite a pattern of conflicts with law enforcement over a period of years.
While Ready claimed to be running as a Democrat, he did not have the support or endorsement of the Democratic party which was supporting their popular incumbent candidate, Clarence Dupkin.
One more gun nut who shot himself and a lot of other people, one more ugly gun incident in the lax gun state of Arizona.

Tea Party speaker, Mormon Neo-Nazi Candidate for Sheriff Apparent Shooter in Mass Murder / Suicide in Arizona

Would this be a good time to point out the inherent problems with the lax gun laws of Arizona? I think so.  I can't wait to learn his permit status, if any and how many gunzzzzz he had accumulated.
This creep could easily be the poster child for NRA gun nuts - the individuals who are obsessed with firearms, obsessed with finding someone to shoot, obsessed with threats lurking around every corner about to getcha (because you're so appealing/good looking/rich/ important/ sexy - if only in your own mind). That would be as distinct from the sane individuals who don't feel a need or desire to go armed everywhere, who aren't afraid of imminent home invasion, who don't wet themselves over improbable heroic fantasies involving their fetish objects, and who practice sound, sane gun safety for normal firearm activities like skeet shooting or hunting where a firearm is a tool in an activity, but not an essential fetish prop to a person's core identity.
J. T. Ready, who mostly personifies the National Rifle Association demographic of an old looking (he's  white overweight angry guy with right to extreme right wing leanings, killed himself and four other people in Arizona.  Ready was a speaker at Tea Party events, where he was embraced.  Ready had also attempted to be part of Occupy events, where his participation was rejected because of his hateful and extremist views.
While many on the right have tried publicly to distance themselves from the anti-immigrant, anti-Semitic, and racist views of the white supremacists, the reality is that the right has courted and embraced them.  They have been part of CPAC, the Conservative Political Action Conference, where all four of the then running GOP presidential candidates spoke.  Right wing bloggers are featured and presented with awards, including Pamela Geller who shares a number of views that she holds in common with right wing extremist mass murderer Anders Breivik in Norway, demonizing anyone who isn't white, and exclusively culturally western European. The right wing is concerned about keeping domination in the U.S. for white European-descended people, and desire to keep black, brown, and presumably Asian people in a subordinate relationship.
Ready was running for Sheriff, but he appears to be doing so - so far as I could tell - without an official endorsement.  Popular Democrat Clarence Dupnik, who gained national attention as the sheriff who took Jared Loughner into custody in 2011 is running for his party, and as of last week, Terry Frederick was the candidate was running for the Republicans, and Mark Napier was running for the Tea Party Patrios in Pima.   Ready identified that he was running as a Democrat, but it doesn't appear that the Democrats were willing to have him either - they directed the good citizens of Pima not to sign any petitions on behalf of Ready.
The conspiracy theory driven right wing-nut tin-foil-hat-brigade is positing all sorts of silliness, including that the murder suicide was really a cartel murder, and that Ready was a secret federal informant.  These people are nuts, just plain wackadoodle nut jobs, who believe any garbage, the more stupid the more it appeals to them.  It's not a reach to imagine them all huddled around playing a game of 'telephone' making up details and passing them back and forth between themselves as they fondle their arms full of firearms with frissons of gun fetish thrills and the adrenaline rush of fear - and loving it!
Here are just a few of the extensive Youtube video collection about the now-late TJ Ready.  He and his colleagues are far more damning than I could be about them.  For those of you who don't readily recognize him in some of these clips, recalled right wing majority leader Russell Pearce was a close buddy of Pearce, including having converted him to Mormonism, and then catapulted Ready right to an important status position in the church.  For those not familiar with the acronym, ADL is the Anti-Defamation League.

I could point out these guys are ignorant extremist red-necked- red-state racist, bigoted assholes, but that would be redundant.

If this piques your curiosity, wikipedia has an entry on him.  This is from that entry:

He also served as president of the Mesa Community College Republican Party Club and as a precinct committeeman for the Maricopa County Republicans. In 2006, he sought a seat on the city counsel for Mesa, Arizona. He put forth as his motto that "The Purity of the Aryan Race is the most precious resource Nature has to offer All of Humankind."^[2]

As the Brits would say, Ready seems to have fancied himself a superior human being.  I don't see that in any aspect of him.  I would worry that might offend his surviving family and friends, but he appears to have shot them all.

I would not have thought this guy had anything whatsoever to do with a college edumacation; maybe he just presided over the college Republicans, but wasn't actually a student himself.  We're talking Arizona after all.  Republicans, Tea Partiers, Neo-Nazis; gun nuts all, they deserve each other, but the rest of us don't.

Update on Recall Scheduling

The dates are set!  Let the campaigning commence!
Two states which are like Minnesota, in having northern borders with Canada, in having Republican majorities which have been destructively polarizing, are Michigan and Wisconsin.  Both of those states have recall options built into their government. I'm undecided if that would be a good course of action for Minnesota to follow, but it makes a heckuva lot more sense than any of the Constitutional Amendments the Republicans in Minnesota are putting on the ballot for November 2012.
Here is an update from Ballot News, an excellent non-partisan site that generally does a very good job of being unbiased.  In addition to accessing the specific article through the link, readers can access it through the listing on our blog roll at any time; our blog roll is on the lower left column alongside our posts.  (There is a small blurb on a successful recall of an Arizona extremist, included for interest; the same nut job is running again in the November 2012 Arizona elections.)

Wisconsin

The Wisconsin State Senate finished its work for the year on Thursday, the last day scheduled for passing bills, after meeting for less than an hour. The Assembly, however, did not adjourn until late Friday after Democrats held a 30-hour long filibuster over a bill that would have dissolved the Milwaukee Area Technical College board. Democrats returned to the floor at 3 a.m. on Friday, giving speeches and interrupting GOP attempts to adjourn until Republicans finally agreed late in the afternoon to reappoint the current members of the MATC board.^[9]
The contentious end of the two-year long session was just the latest in a long line of partisan fighting that began in February 2011 when Gov. Scott Walker (R) introduced his budget repair bill which limited collective bargaining rights, compensation and fringe benefits of public employees. Also noteworthy was the passage of a bill allowing citizens to carry concealed weapons and one to require photo ID at the polls, which Democrats argued was unconstitutional.^[10] Last week a circuit court judge agreed with Democrats, issuing a permanent injunction against the Voter ID measure.^[11]
The end of the session saw a firestorm over a mining reform bill aimed at getting Florida-based Gogebic Taconite to open an iron mine in northwestern Wisconsin, creating hundreds of jobs. Republicans were unable to amass the necessary number of votes when Sen. Dale Schultz (R) sided with Democrats against the bill. Schultz and Democrat Bob Jauch are being targeted for possible recall over their opposition to the bill, while Republican leaders are said to be considering a special session to try and get the measure passed.^[12]

Recalls

Currently, 18 states permit the recall of state officials. Between 1913 and 2008, there were just 20 state legislative recall elections in five states. Of the 20 state legislative recall elections, 13 out of 20 resulted in the state legislator being recalled. In 2011, there were 11 state legislative recalls in three states, 4 of which resulted in the legislator being recalled.

Arizona

Former state Sen. Russell Pearce (R) became the first legislator to be removed in state history when voters recalled him from office last November. Up till now he has not made his future plans clear, but that could change today – Pearce is speaking at an event where many expect him to announce a campaign for state Senate. Following redistricting, Pearce was moved from the 18th to the 25th District – if he does chose to run that could set up a primary between Pearce and current Republican incumbent Rich Crandall.^[13]

Michigan

2011 saw a wave of recall attempts in Michigan. While most of those efforts dried up, at least two campaigns are continuing on (the recall of Paul Scott was successful on November 8, 2011). Organizers of the campaigns to recall Bruce Caswell (R) and Phil Pavlov (R) are aiming for the August 2012 ballot.

Wisconsin

Democrats in Wisconsin filed recall petitions on November 15, 2011 against four Republican state senators – Pam Galloway, Scott Fitzgerald, Terry Moulton and Van Wanggaard.^[14] Campaign organizers turned in more than the necessary number of signatures in each of the four races on January 17, 2012.
Last week was a busy one – on Monday the board dismissed all of the challenges submitted by the senators against the petitions, voting unanimously to order recalls against all four.^[15] On Tuesday, GAB received an extension on their deadline to certify the results, giving them until March 30. The following day Dane County Circuit Judge Richard Niess signed an agreement scheduling primaries for May 8 with general elections on June 5. If there is no primary the general election takes place on May 8.^[16]
The Senate wrapped up their 2012 session on Thursday^[17], and on Friday Sen. Galloway announced she was resigning her seat, effective the following day, but said it had to do with her family and not the recall. GAB said the recall will continue as scheduled and Republicans are now seeking a candidate to take Galloway’s place.^[18]
Meanwhile, conservative group Citizens for Responsible Government said they are going forward with plans to recall senators Dale Schultz (R) and Bob Jauch (D) who both worked to reject a compromise on a bill aiming to increase the speed of the state’s approval for iron ore mines. CRG is expected to announce more details about their plans today.^[19]

Guns and Politics - Update on the Arizona gun culture of violence

This is rerun from last month when we were still trying our wordpress experiment.

I want to post it here, because we have legislation in this state, and in the nation, which addresses how we regulate guns and how we use guns.  Our gun culture creates problems, and those are never more acute than in an election year.

So, by way of an earlier penigma publication, and by way of my writing on mikeb's blog, and crooks and liars -

Update: Disturbing and Possibly Racist

From ABC, we have the photo,and we have the casual treatment of this act, of shooting at an item of clothing as if it were a person, a human target.


It is one thing to shoot at an anonymous human silhouette target. It is another thing altogether to personalize that target in some way that makes it represent an actual human being, particularly as in this case where it would be an unarmed human being.

It is at the very least bad taste to treat shooting a sitting President as humorous, given the number of assassinations and assassination attempts in our history. It is insensitive to the man in office, it is vile to do to his wife and children and colleagues, who legitimately fear those who are political extremists that threaten his life. What it is NOT is a reasonable expression of free speech; there is no expounding of ideas here, no wit, no political position, only hatred and violence.

“I don’t think that the shooting of that T-shirt is that big of a deal,” Sgt. Pat Shearer, who took the photo, told ABC 15.

I don’t think one of these police officers would find it nearly so acceptable if this was done to one of his uniforms, or to a silhouette with a photo of one of their colleagues on it, or to a sports uniform of one of these kids. I don’t think their families would either. No supervisor would tolerate this as a simple expression of dissatisfaction with a work relationship, for example.

No one would find it funny, or just kidding around. Guns are not for kidding around about shooting other people. This IS the state where a year ago Gabby Giffords was shot, where other members of Congress had their offices shot up or otherwise violently vandalized in conjunction with verbal threats made to office staff.

This is another instance of the kind of dubious judgment that calls into question the expertise and intelligence and decision making when done by people in authority and with the power of force entrusted to them. The reality of what they did should be explained to them, if they are too stupid to understand it on their own. I don’t really believe they have failed to understand it. Rather they simply believe that such hatefulness is acceptable even admirable. The taking of this photo, and the way it is posed, is a kind of boasting, a macho swaggering attitude towards guns and what guns empower them to do.

And that is NOT acceptable from law enforcement officers, or their buddies. It is especially NOT the correct example to be setting for teenaged males who fall into the worst possible demographic for gun violence.

Romney Campaign Departure over Hypocrisy and Sexual Orientation

Romney has been courting the Log Cabin Republicans, the gay conservatives, but at the same time he has expressed some anti-gay positions, trying to have it both ways.

This is, I believe, the sheriff who was in the 'wall' campaign video made with John McCain in the 2010 election cycle.  Pinal County is NOT a border county with Mexico in Arizona, which was the source of a certain amount of criticism, as the ad implied he had direct border experience.

The scandal is not only that the sheriff is gay, something he has only admitted because of the scandal, but that his lover was a Mexican citizen whom he attempted to deport to enforce his silence about Babeu's sexual orientation.

This is a perfect example of how sexual identity intolerance forces people to lie about themselves,and possibly worse.  I don't know if the claims about the attempts to use deportation, or the threat to misrepresent the legal status of the sheriff's lover is true; time will tell. But clearly there did appear to be an issue of secrecy over the sheriff's orientation. Anti-homosexuality is an issue of ideological purity on the right, it is a position of many of the campaigns for the conservative presidential nomination.  John McCain is one example of the homophobe right politically.

This is exactly the kind of thing that the Bush era RNC chair, who is himself gay, came out to apologize for in previous elections, using homophobia as a wedge issue.

It is time and past time to stop demonizing people for the sexual orientation with which they are born.

This is the reality of the right wing.

From MSNBC.com:

Ariz. sheriff quits Romney campaign, says: 'I'm gay'


Pinal County Sheriff Paul Babeu speaks at a news conference on Saturday in Florence, Ariz. Babeu was forced to confirm he is gay amid allegations of misconduct made by a man with whom he previously had a relationship.

By msnbc.com staff
Pinal County Sheriff Paul Babeu speaks at a news conference on Saturday in Florence, Ariz. Babeu was forced to confirm he is gay amid allegations of misconduct made by a man with whom he previously had a relationship.
By msnbc.com staff

A sheriff has stepped down as Arizona co-chairman of Mitt Romney's presidential campaign amid allegations of misconduct made by a man with whom he previously had a relationship.


At a press conference Saturday outside his office in Florence, Pinal County Sheriff Paul Babeu called the man’s allegations, published Thursday in a Phoenix New Times story, "completely false."
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
He said the only information mentioned in the article that's true is "I'm gay," The Arizona Republic reported.

Babeu, who is also running for Congress in Arizona’s new 4th Congressional District, quit his position as Romney’s Arizona co-chairman but vowed to stay in the congressional campaign.
"Sheriff Babeu has stepped down from his volunteer position with the campaign so he can focus on the allegations against him," Romney spokesman Ryan Williams told The Arizona Republic in a statement. "We support his decision."

Babeu, who was elected in 2008 as the first Republican sheriff of Pinal County, has gained national media attention for speaking out against illegal immigration and the unsecured U.S. border with Mexico.

Freedom 1, Arizona 0

Arizona Madness - The Totalitarians Continue

State of Arizona, Senate Engrossed House Bill 2281

"I'm not interested in preserving the status quo; I want to overthrow it."
Niccolo Machiavelli

"In the human heart new passions are forever being born; the overthrow of one almost always means the rise of another."
Francois de La Rochefoucauld

"This country, with its institutions, belongs to the people who inhabit it. Whenever they shall grow weary of the existing government, they can exercise their constitutional right of amending it, or exercise their revolutionary right to overthrow it."
Abraham Lincoln

The title of this post doubles as a link to the official Arizona website for texts of that state's legislation. (I was playing with the blog features again.) For those who do not recognize the law by the Legislation identification, this is the controversial legislation recently signed into law, intended to control the teaching of K-12 electives described as ethnic studies.

I would encourage Penigma readers to take a few moments to look at the actual legislation; the pertinent section begins on the top of page 1, comprising only 49 lines, and continues for another 9 lines on page 2 of 4. The remainder of the bills 4 pages consists of an introductory cover on page 1, or unrelated amendments on the balance of pages 3 and 4, addressing school disciplinary modifications, such as expulsions. It is a quick read.

Beginning with the end of page 4, I was a little surprised to see that this Act does not go into effect until "from and after December 31, 2010", which struck me as a rather long lag time for legislation which presumably is intended to affect the 2010-11 school year.

The time frame caught my interest because one of the main advocates for this new law, Tom Horne, has had it in the works for some time. One might think that the lag time is the result of changes across the state in curricula, but in researching the background to the legislation, it turns out to be directed pretty much entirely at classes on the schedule of one single school district, the Tucson Unified School District; and within that one school district, specifically focusing on the Mexican American Studies Department. This law does not contemplate a very big amount of change on the statewide scale of curricula, so the lag time is curious.

But I find it interesting beyond the curiosity, because this statewide law that is directed at one department of one school district, was the work of the conservative Republicans in Arizona. Conservatives who profess to favor as a fundamental, core principle smaller and less intrusive, less far-reaching government. This law, which has a lot of problems in it from my humble reading, would seem to be a clear example of the extent to which conservatives are willing to throw out their core principles on the flimsiest, stupidest provocation. This hypocrisy is the basis for my distrust of conservative slogans, my distaste for conservative actions in direct violation of their stated principles we are asked to believe are dearer to them than their very lives. Core values we are asked to believe are fundamental to patriotism. I harbor the deepest skepticism that a state law was required to address the elective classes taught by one department of one school district. If this is not an over-reach of government, an abuse of power, an attempt to impose the beliefs of one political group on others thereby curtailing their liberties and freedoms, I don't know what is.

This is using a sledge hammer to swat a fly. The danger inherent in using a sledge hammer for fly control is the damage that the force of the sledge hammer does to the surrounding surface, as well as the unlikely chances it will actually do anything to the fly.

Sam Stein in his piece in the New York Times, "Arizona: The Gift That Keeps On Giving" wrote a very well researched column, despite it appearing in the Opinionator column of the Opinion section: http://opinionator.blogs.nytimes.com/2010/05/17/arizona-the-gift-that-keeps-on-giving/?emc=eta1 Stein addresses the aspects of politicizing education in Arizona, on the part of the school district, and on the part of the Republicans who passed this law far better than I can.

Stein concludes his column with these words:

"This is one case, however, where the remedy is worse than the disease, or rather is a form of it. Rather than removing politics from the classroom, House Bill 2281 mandates the politics of its authors, who, in the bill’s declaration of policy, set themselves up as educational philosophers and public moralists, and even, given the magisterial tone, as gods: “The Legislature finds and declares that public school pupils should be taught to treat and value each other as individuals and not be taught to resent or hate other races or other classes of people.” The declaration tendentiously, and without support either of argument or evidence, affirms a relationship between critically questioning the ideology of individual rights — and make no mistake, it is an ideology — and the production of racism and hatred.

This would be a great surprise to those communitarian theorists like Robert Bellah, Michael Sandel and Robert Putnam, generally as American as apple pie, who contend that an excessive focus on the individual results in an unhealthy atomization and tends to loosen and even undo the ties that bind society together. The idea of treating people as individuals is certainly central to the project of Enlightenment liberalism, and functions powerfully in much of the nation’s jurisprudence.

But it is an idea, not a commandment handed down from on high, and as such it deserves to be studied, not worshipped. The authors of House Bill 2281 don’t want students to learn about the ethic of treating people equally; they want them to believe in it (as you might believe in the resurrection), and therefore to believe, as they do, that those who interrogate it and show how it has sometimes been invoked in the service of nefarious purposes must be banished from public education.

The moral is simple: you don’t cure (what I consider) the virus of a politicized classroom by politicizing it in a different direction, even if that direction corresponds to the notions of civic virtue that animate much of our national rhetoric. The political scientist James Bernard Murphy has been arguing for years that teaching civic virtue is not an appropriate academic activity, both because schools are not equipped to do it and because the effort undermines the true function of education — “enthusiasm for the pursuit of knowledge” — and even corrupts it. Teaching students either to love or criticize their nation, Murphy wrote in The Times in 2002, “has all too often prompted textbook authors and teachers to falsify, distort and sanitize history and social studies.”

Lots of evidence of that in Arizona on all sides of the dispute. Teach ethnic studies by all means, but lay off the recruiting and proselytizing; for if you don’t you merely put a weapon in the hands of ignorant and grandstanding state legislators who, as the example of Arizona shows, will always be eager to use it."

I always prefer to go to the actual text of controversial legislation, to see for myself, and I will address the specifics of the law here. From page 2, line 5, immediately under "15-111 Declarations of policy" THE LEGISLATURE FINDS AND DECLARES THAT PUBLIC SCHOOL PUPILS SHOULD BE TAUGHT TO TREAT AND VALUE EACH OTHER AS INDIVIDUALS AND NOT BE TAUGHT TO RESENT OR HATE OTHER RACES OR CLASSES OF PEOPLE.

Really? Now I agree that it is not appropriate for a public school to teach hatred for others, including groups which might be unpopular -- say for example, Muslim Americans, or illegal immigrants. But in view of the mood on the right in Arizona towards their border issues and crime problems, this strikes me as a bit of pot calling kettle black.

Line 9, under 15-112 Prohibited courses and classes; enforcement, A. A SCHOOL DISTRICT OR CHARTER SCHOOL IN THIS STATE SHALL NOT INCLUDE IN ITS PROGRAM OF INSTRUCTION ANY COURSES OR CLASSES THAT INCLUDE ANY OF THE FOLLOWING:
1. PROMOTE THE OVERTHROW OF THE UNITED STATES GOVERNMENT.
2. PROMOTE RESENTMENT TOWARDS A RACE OR CLASS OF PEOPLE.
3. ARE DESIGNED PRIMARILY FOR PUPILS OF A PARTICULAR ETHNIC GROUP.
4. ADVOCATE ETHNIC SOLIDARITY INSTEAD OF THE TREATMENT OF PUPILS AS INDIVIDUALS.

I looked at the educational philosophy being targeted, "Teaching for Social Justice", and the Marxist Brazilian educator who is central to it. I don't run away screaming at the word Marxist; but neither do I embrace Marxism. My own education included an objective and critical look at it. Marxism is not illegal in this country, nor is communism, or socialism, although it is unpopular in many quarters. But it is not fundamentally anti-American, or bent on the overthrow of the United States government, or any state or local government within the United States. I looked at the web site for the Tucson Unified School District, and frankly it just wasn't all that different from any other school district in this country. It stresses the same ideas of courtesy, individual achievement and excellence as you will find anywhere else. The Brazilian educator, associated with "Teaching for Social Justice" is addressed by Stein at greater length than I will go into here.

The essential point is that there is NO teaching taking place so far as I can find, or that anyone else can find apparently, advocating the overthrow of the United States government. This is an unnecessary law. We have laws addressing advocating the overthrow of government, federal laws. If we follow the logic of including this, giving it priority in the list no less, then we cannot in fairness teach the writings of the figures quoted above - Machiavelli, Rochefoucauld, Lincoln, or many others, if you take these authors from the past, and consider applying their thoughts to our modern world. But that does not appear to be the intent of this law; this law is intended far more specifically to enable a few individuals to go after other people with whom they disagree, allowing them to impose their views on others. This state law addresses elective classes, not graduation requirement material, and over-reaches what should be the local school districts determinations as reflected in the decisions of the elected school board and the school districts employees. This is NOT smaller government, less intrusive government.

As to number 2, promoting resentment towards a race or class of people........I did come across a number of references to a guest speaker saying "Republicans hate Latinos." It was a personal opinion, protected by First Amendment freedom of speech, it was not part of the formal curriculum, and it is not a justification for a state law. While it is a very partisan opinion, one to which I can appreciate Republicans might object, even if it represented a pattern of the exercise of free speech, it is not a matter for state intervention; it is a matter for the residents of the school district. There are better ways of dealing with this as an issue, including news coverage, assemblies, rallies, and other interaction between the community and the school district, and between the rest of the state and the community. We need to ask the supporters of this law if the still value our first amendment, or not.

Number 3, line 14, addresses classes "designed primarily for pupils of a particular ethnic group", but if has the glaring fault of failing to define how this is to be determined. I would imagine this makes the law too vague to be enforced, given that I could not find any classes in this district which restricted enrollment on the basis of race or ethnicity; classes are open to all academically qualified students.

And number 4, the line which addresses ethnic solidarity. Again, the law consists in this regard of the single brief line. There is no definition of what constitutes teaching 'solidarity' or teaching against 'individuality'. There is no evidence of how ethnic solidarity is remotely damaging. I don't see how they can construe the one, 'individuality', as contrary to the other, 'ethnic solidarity'. Is it ethnic solidarity, for example, when an ethnic group has a Cinco de Mayo celebration, or observes Sytten de Mai, or Saint Patrick's Day, Guy Fawkes, or some other event? (I celebrate a very eclectic calendar of holidays.) Even the United Nations came out against this aspect of the law, something I don't recall seeing before in response to state legislation, noting that all people have a right to learn about their linguistic and cultural heritage. Without defining what constitutes ethnic solidarity, without defining how to identify and measure a failure to teach the importance of individuality, this law is again, profoundly flawed.

The Tucson Unified School District makes it very clear they promote individuality. If they are correct, then it doesn't matter if this law comes into effect on December 31, 2010, or next Tuesday. Given the severe flaws inherent in its very concepts, the moment there is an attempt to enforce it, particularly applying the financial penalties that are included in this section of the law, there will be challenges in court, challenges I would not expect this law to withstand. What the very nature of such a poorly conceived law entails is to increase the contentiousness of the situation while attempting to expand inappropriately the reach of government to allow the views of a few at the state level to over-ride the views of local citizens. That is not freedom; that is not patriotism; that is tyranny. We should be most wary of tyranny when it is cloaked in claims of liberty, and patriotism.

Ihre Dokumente, Bitte

The right of the people to be secure in their persons, houses, papers, and effects, against unreasonable searches and seizures, shall not be violated, and no Warrants shall issue, but upon probable cause, supported by Oath or affirmation, and particularly describing the place to be searched, and the persons or things to be seized.
Amendment IV, Constitution of the United States

The Legislature of the State of Arizona did something recently which reflects poorly on both the United States and the people of that state. The legislature passed and Governor Jan Brewer signed a sweeping bill which criminalizes being in the state of Arizona without legal status. SB 1070, which will go into effect 90 days after the end of the legislative session, makes it a criminal offense to be in the state without being either a US Citizen or to have legal permission to be in the United States. The bill makes it very clear that it is attempting to enforce federal law relating to immigration control and control of the borders.

This law contains some troubling constitutional provisions. The first, most troubling section is quoted below:

"B. FOR ANY LAWFUL CONTACT MADE BY A LAW ENFORCEMENT OFFICIAL OR AGENCY OF THIS STATE OR A COUNTY, CITY, TOWN OR OTHER POLITICAL SUBDIVISION OF THIS STATE WHERE REASONABLE SUSPICION EXISTS THAT THE PERSON IS AN ALIEN WHO IS UNLAWFULLY PRESENT IN THE UNITED STATES, A REASONABLE ATTEMPT SHALL BE MADE, WHEN PRACTICABLE, TO DETERMINE THE IMMIGRATION STATUS OF THE PERSON. THE PERSON'S IMMIGRATION STATUS SHALL BE VERIFIED WITH THE FEDERAL GOVERNMENT PURSUANT TO 8 UNITED STATES CODE SECTION 1373(c)." (capitalization from original)

The troubling phrase here is "where reasonable suspicion exists that the person is an alien who is unlawfully present in the United States". This is a violation of the right of persons to be free from unreasonable search and seizure. The US Supreme Court has determined that where a police officer stops a person and demands identification, that such as stop constitutes "a seizure" within the meaning of the 4th amendment. "It must be recognized that, whenever a police officer accosts an individual and restrains his freedom to walk away, he has 'seized' that person." Terry v. Ohio 392 US 1 (1968). What then, constitutes reasonable suspicion that a person is an alien who is unlawfully in the United States? The statute is silent on what constitutes a reasonable suspicion, but it does not take much to extrapolate from there: anyone who is Hispanic will surely face suspicion, anyone with an accent, (especially Hispanic) will be subject to stop and a demand for their papers. The law essentially means that anyone who can be potentially stopped should carry their papers on them at all times. That US citizens will be stopped and accosted, and thus, have their civil liberties violated is an absolute certainty.

An associate of the author's is a specialist in immigration law. His views on this statute, after reading it were that the bill's author had little if any grasp of federal immigration law and how the three federal agencies who enforce and regulate immigration, Citizenship and Immigration Service, Customs and Border Patrol, and Immigration and Customs Enforcement (CIS, CBP, ICE) operate. Further the definition used for a trespassing alien is linked to 8 USC 1304 (3) and 1306 (a). 8 USC 1304(3) deals with a requirement for an alien to carry their green card, when it has been issued legally. There are a multitude of reasons for someone who is a lawful permanent resident but not have a green card, including renewals, lost or stolen cards, spouses or children of lawful permanent resident, etc. 8 USC 1306(a) deals with aliens being required to register with immigration authorities when required to do so by the Secretary of Homeland Security. Not all immigrants are required to do so, mostly those from countries who are defined as sponsors of terrorism, etc.

The Constitution of the United States grants to Congress the right to determine standards for entry into the United States. (Article II, Section 8) During the early part of US history, immigration control was the furthest from the minds of both the public and Congress. However, in the 1880's, ugly bouts of racism and bigotry took place, resulting in the Chinese Exclusion Act of 1882. A series of acts over the years now restrict who can enter the United States and qualify for residency and the right to work in the US. Throughout all this period of time, however, it has been Congress which has passed and dealt with immigration and nationalization matters. The Supreme Court made this perfectly clear in Ping vs U.S. 130 US 581 (1889) where Justice Field wrote, "That the government of the United States, through the action of the legislative department, can exclude aliens from its territory is a proposition which we do not think open to controversy. Jurisdiction over its own territory to that extent is an incident of every independent nation. It is a part of its independence." 130 US at 603. The logic used by the Court was that control over its borders is a part of sovereignty, and that it is a nation which has control over its borders, not individual provinces or subdivisions within that nation.

It is widely agreed that our immigration system is broken. However, what isn't widely known is that there are already laws on the books to discourage unauthorized entry into the United States. People come to the United States to obtain jobs and to try and support their families in their native lands. They take jobs that not many people want, because these jobs often pay minimum wage or even less. They usually do not have any form of benefits or heath insurance. However, if there are no jobs for these people, the incentive to come and stay in the US becomes less. Certainly, the draw of family and a wealthier lifestyle is important. During fiscal year 2008, slightly over criminal 1,100 arrests were made by Immigration and Customs Enforcement (I.C.E.). Of these, only 135 were of owners, managers and human resources officers charged with knowingly harboring or employing aliens. The remainder were undocumented aliens who were further charged with identity theft and social security fraud. It was not until 2009 that Homeland Security Secretary Napolitano issued guidelines that indicated that more effort is going to be placed on worksite enforcement. This is long overdue.

Immigration reform is something that is needed in the United States, although perhaps not with the addition of new and onerous requirements on employers. Rather, enforcing existing law, requiring all employers to verify the eligibility of all potential employees and requiring that any name/social security number mismatch be fully investigated would resolve many of the immigration problems through reduced work opportunity for those without legal authorization to work and catching those with false papers earlier. As technology gets better, as the databases and fingerprint systems get better, it is already becoming more difficult for those without valid permission to work in the US to be here.

The Mexican government has issued a travel advisory to its citizens who are living or traveling in Arizona, urging them to make sure they have their papers on them at all times and to report harassment by law enforcement to any of the five consulate offices in Arizona. However, the action by Arizona has not helped Arizona's reputation, and if there is anything that would discourage tourism, this is a good example.

This law has already resulted in a number of conventions and other planned events which were planned for Arizona to consider other locations. Both the Republican and Democratic Conventions had been considering Arizona, and both parties have expressed concern about this law. The Arizona Hotel and Convention industry has been pleading with the rest of the country and world not to blame them, but, in honestly, why not? Its the voters of Arizona, including their members, who put the racist and bigoted lawmakers who approved this bill in office. They can and must speak loudly to their legislature to either rescind this bill, or the voters will, at the ballot box, rescind the members who voted for it. Hispanic voters are a voting block which increased clout. The Arizona politicians and their supporters may find themselves in trouble at the polls come November.