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A Truly ‘Christian’ Nation Would NOT Deport Refugees (video)

July 8, 2014July 8, 2014 by Pamela Powers

Honduras violence — Screen capture from a video by Phoenix videographer Dennis Gilman. Full video below.

“We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal; that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable rights; that among these are Life, Liberty, and the pursuit of Happiness…
— US Declaration of Independence

Not like the brazen giant of Greek fame,
With conquering limbs astride from land to land;
Here at our sea-washed, sunset gates shall stand
A mighty woman with a torch, whose flame
Is the imprisoned lightning, and her name
Mother of Exiles. From her beacon-hand
Glows world-wide welcome; her mild eyes command
The air-bridged harbor that twin cities frame.
“Keep, ancient lands, your storied pomp!” cries she
With silent lips. “Give me your tired, your poor,
Your huddled masses yearning to breathe free,
The wretched refuse of your teeming shore.
Send these, the homeless, tempest-tost to me,
I lift my lamp beside the golden door!”
— Emma Lazarus’ poem inscribed on the Statue of Liberty

… One nation, under God, with liberty and justice for all.
— US Pledge of Allegiance

It sucks when our national public relations story doesn’t match our actions.

On Monday– just a few days after the US celebrated the signing of the Declaration of Independence– our government released a statement saying that thousands of the unaccompanied child refugees who crossed the US-Mexico border fleeing violence and seeking safety and family members will likely be deported.

This is unconscionable. If we send these children back home to die, we must scratch Emma Lazarus’ poem off the Statue of Liberty and take “God” out of our political speech.

‘Gale Force Progressives’ Weisser, Woods & Williamson Challenge Arizona’s Tea Party Congressmen

June 19, 2014 by Pamela Powers

Arizona’s Congressional delegation includes nine members of the House of Representatives: five Democrats Ann Kirkpatrick (CD1), Ron Barber (CD2), Raul Grijalva (CD3), Ed Pastor (CD7, retiring this year), and Kyrsten Sinema (CC9) and four Republicans Paul Gosar (CD4), Matt Salmon (CD5), David Schweikert (CD6), and Trent Franks (CD8).

At Blog for Arizona, we complain often and loudly about Blue Dog Democrats and their votes, but our country’s real enemy in the fight for freedom, democracy, and self determination is the Tea Party. They pontificate poetically about family values, but they vote for laws that deny food security, basic healthcare, quality education, and a living wage to millions of Americans. They talk about freedom, but they support for-profit mass incarceration and widespread surveillance of Americans– not to mention forcing us to live in fear due to lax gun laws. They wave the flag and promote patriotism, but they send soldiers to fight in useless wars and cut their benefits and ridicule them when they come home. And, above all, they spout folksy, vacuous platitudes, while they dutifully serve their corporate benefactors and ignore “the little guy”.

Arizona’s Republican Representatives in the House are full-fledged Tea Partiers. (In fact, Franks is one of the most conservative members of Congress, according to GovTrackUS.) In the 2014 elections, the “Gale Force Progressives”, Mikel Weisser, James Woods, and W. John Williamson, are challenging Arizona Teapublicans Gosar, Salmon, and Schweikert, respectively, for their Congressional seats.

“I knew it was an uphill battle when I started,” laughs Weisser. “It is about bringing a fight to GOP ideas I know are wrong for America. About stopping Republican terrorism and backwards thinking and working for a 21^st century America.” (Public forum and candidate details after the jump.)

Wilcox makes a dick move against Gallego in AZ07

June 12, 2014 by AZ BlueMeanie

Let me disclose that I’ve been for Ruben Gallego since he announced he was running for the seat that veteran Congressman Ed Pastor is retiring from this year. I haven’t made an issue of it because I’m not well versed in the political climate of South Phoenix, despite having a lot of friends there. I’m just impressed by Ruben’s accomplishments and his vigor and, let’s face it, the guy has a solid track record of electoral success, both for his own campaigns and those of others.

I also didn’t have any major beef with Mary Rose Wilcox. It’s purely anecdotal, but that was the sense I got from a lot of Gallego supporters. I have not encountered the kind of animus toward Ruben’s main opponent in the CD07 race that you often see in contested primaries. If anything, Gallego supporters (at least the ones I’ve been around) haven’t liked everything she’s done as a County Supervisor but they were sympathetic to Wilcox over her travails with the Maricopa County Sheriff and former County Attorney.

But then Wilcox’s camp had to go and launch the dumbest and most ham-fisted attack I’ve seen in a long time. Yes, this article is behind a paywall but I’m quoting the relevant facts here:

Time to admit it: Trying to get immigration reform from Republicans is a waste of time

June 11, 2014 by AZ BlueMeanie

Crossposted from DemocraticDiva.com

When Eric Cantor lost his primary Tuesday night, and his position as House Majority Leader, a lot of liberals were exultant because why the hell shouldn’t we be? It was comical watching the whole thing unfold, since the Cantor camp had been assured of a 30 point victory by their own advisers. And Eric Cantor is a dick anyway. A huge wingnut. A wingnut with access to lots of money, therefore an “establishment Republican”, but that didn’t moderate a single one of his stances. It’s been Cantor leading the GOP House majority in obstructionism, even to the point of endangering the country’s solvency.

Oh wait, he was “good on immigration” or something like that, so I’ve been told by party poopers who insist that “immigration reform is dead now”. Meh. It’s true that immigration reform is looking pretty moribund these days, but that already the case before Cantor’s primary loss. I’m not sure what people think Eric Cantor would have done on immigration in the next few weeks that he won’t now that he’ll be resigning as Majority Leader next month. His past performance on the issue has certainly been less than impressive, as Vox‘s Dara Lind explains:

Coalition files complaint on behalf of refugee children in Nogales

June 11, 2014 by AZ BlueMeanie

E.J. Montini of the Arizona Republic picks up where I left off in yesterday’s post about the Central American refugee children in Nogales. Politicial hacks treat immigrant kids like rotten fruit:

Hundreds of young border crossers from Central America were shipped by bus from Texas to Arizona and stacked like rotting fruit in a warehouse, and instead of saying, “How can we help?” the first thing Arizona politicians and political candidates said was, “Who can we blame?”

I blame them — for a lack of compassion, of conscience, of humanity.

It’s a long list, stretching from Republican gubernatorial candidates like State Treasurer Doug Ducey to members of Congress to Maricopa County Attorney Bill Montgomery to Gov. Jan Brewer to elected officials whose names you wouldn’t recognize (for good reason.)

The word Wednesday is that a coalition of civil and human rights groups has filed an administrative complaint with the U.S. Department of Homeland Security demanding that the department reform policies that, according to a press release from the group, “have permitted enduring and widespread abuses of children in the custody of U.S. border officials.”

[The press release from the ACLU is below.]