A coalition of activist groups including Somos America, Sal Reza’s Puente Movement, and the National Day Laborer Organizing Network has just announced that tomorrow they’ll be detailing a series of anti-SB 1070 protests and actions that will be occurring statewide. I’ll provide more details as I get them, but Puente…
John McCain’s latest I’m-tough-on-border-security campaign ad was released today, and it features several Arizona sheriffs standing in solidarity to show their support for “The Maverick.”Absent from the bunch: America’s self-proclaimed “toughest sheriff,” Joe Arpaio.A tough-on-immigration ad just doesn’t seem like a tough-on-immigration ad without Arpaio’s jowly mug hoggin’ the camera,…
Arizona neo-Nazis J.T. Ready and Harry Hughes have apparently been busy to judge by a recent item on Hughes’ blog “Just Another Day… ” There, he’s posted photos of Ready, himself and others wearing camouflage and toting high-powered firearms as they watch over 11 illegal aliens that Hughes claims the group encountered Wednesday,…
No More Deaths, the non-profit humanitarian group that leaves water in the wild for migrants crossing the Arizona desert, wraps up its art auction/fundraiser tonight at Bragg’s Pie Factory, 1301 N.W. Grand Ave., in Phoenix. You may recall that I first gave you a heads up about the fundraiser a couple…
With the cries of demonstrators on both sides of the SB 1070 debate reverberating inside the steamy glass cage of Phoenix’s Sandra Day O’Connor U.S. Courthouse, a special prceedings room filled to overflow with lawyers, reporters and average citizens became the scene of the first major hearing in a challenge to Arizona’s new breathing-while-brown…
This just in: MCSO’s fearless leader Sheriff Joe is heading into the desert today to hunt for illegal aliens in the oven-like temperatures. And he’s breaking out the big guns, or at least one of them — a .50 caliber machine gun, in case they run into any of them-thar narco-terrorists. His…
Crusading U.S. Senate candidate and former New Times journalist John Dougherty has fired a salvo at what he refers to as “Arizona’s axis of hysteria.” That is, this odd fundraising venture on the part of Sheriff Joe Arpaio and neo-Nazi-hugging state Senator Russell Pearce called B.A.N., or Ban Amnesty Now.On…
True to its June 29th promise, the Zack de la Rocha-led, anti-SB 1070 musicians’ movement Sound Strike has announced a benefit concert for Friday, July 23 at the Hollywood Palladium to benefit organizations fighting SB 1070 on the ground here in Arizona.Rage Against the Machine and Conor Oberst and the…
As much as many folks despise our ancient geezer of a gendarme Sheriff Joe, you have to give him props for his quip to a nativist rally for SB 1070 author and Kansas Secretary of State candidate Kris Kobach in Overland Park, Kansas yesterday.The “Illegal Means Illegal” rally, attended by…
The Maricopa County Sheriff’s Office seems to have a little egg on its face after one of its deputies crashed a police cruiser into a guy’s yard for — as far as we can tell — no reason other than he was driving recklessly. The officer and a passenger — in the car for…
Note: Please see response from Governor Brewer’s office below.Back in May, I warned that a new racist, white nationalist organization out of California known as the American Third Position, or A3P, was attempting to gain a political toehold in Arizona with a quixotic effort to get on the ballot as…
There’ve been a couple of oddball YouTube videos kicking around lately alleging that J.T. Ready, Arizona’s best known neo-Nazi, is an FBI informant. One of them, put up by the YouTube channel HOLLYWOODILLUSION received massive views, but has since been pulled by the user. The other, posted by the YouTube channel Warrior4god13,…
The Nogales International ran a story this past Friday on yet another mysterious shooting of an unarmed migrant nearby Rio Rico in Santa Cruz County, Arizona. The shooting, which occurred July 2 according to the report, wounded Jose Enedion Acosta-Amaniego in the back. Acosta-Amaniego survived the incident and was treated…
Embattled former minuteman leader and ex-J.D. Hayworth advisor Chris Simcox has come out swinging against estranged wife Alena Simcox and former minuteman associate (now nemesis) Stacey O’Connell. You’ll recall, from a story I broke in early June, that Alena Simcox claimed in a petition for an order for protection granted in…
Happy Monday! Here’s a funny video from radio host/activist Carlos Galindo, showing what happens when he attempts to debate a Tea Party nutjob regarding SB 1070 outside the Mexican Consulate in Phoenix.I love the part where Galindo has to explain what a “fiscal conservative” is to the guy. Enjoy!…
Maricopa County has put Sheriff Joe Arpaio and former County Attorney Andrew Thomas on notice that they may have to pay legal costs and possible settlements or awards arising out of ten different lawsuits, if they have violated any laws or acted wrongfully in those cases.In a letter approved by…
A group of seven activists either arrested or cited by the sheriff’s office as a result of demonstrations at Maricopa County Board of Supervisors’ meetings have settled their claims for wrongful arrest and malicious prosecution for a total of nearly $500,000. All seven were suing the county separately, and had submitted notices of claim for hundreds of…
Now this is the sort of art show I can get with: an exhibit of anti-SB 1070-themed work, drawn in part from the big May 29 march to the state Capitol, which drew tens of thousands in defiance of Arizona’s “papers, please” legislation. You can get all the details from…
I was just on a news radio show in Los Angeles today, and the host wanted to know how people were reacting to Governor Jan Brewer’s recent cancellation of the 2010 Border Governors Conference, which was scheduled for September. With overwhelming indifference, I told him. Sure the New York Times…
As was anticipated, the U.S. Department of Justice filed suit today in federal district court against the state of Arizona and Governor Jan Brewer over Arizona’s new “papers, please” legislation, SB 1070.In the lawsuit, the United States government “seeks to declare invalid and preliminarily and permanently enjoin the enforcement of S.B…
We took the bait and tuned in to the Maricopa County Sheriff’s Office’s latest stab at reality TV, Lockup Extended Stay: Maricopa County Jail, over the weekend and it seems as though if you’re a lesbian living in the Valley, the county jail is — as one inmate describes it…
Check out this link for a bit of common sense amidst all the anti-immigrant hysteria now swirling throughout Sand Land. It’s a videotaped interview with Santa Cruz County Sheriff Tony Estrada by Eric Byler, co-director of the documentary 9500 Liberty, which chronicled the rise and fall of a measure similar…
