Immigration

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

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Progressive Mikel Weisser-- from the Left Coast of Arizona-- is challenging Tea Party favorite Paul Gosar for the CD 4 seat.
Progressive Mikel Weisser– from the Left Coast of Arizona– is challenging Tea Party favorite Paul Gosar for the CD 4 seat.

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 21st century America.” (Public forum and candidate details after the jump.)

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Tucson to aid refugee children from Central America

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The local Tucson community is rallying to aid the refugee children from Central America who are being brought here by immigration officials in an humanitarian crisis. (h/t photo: The Arizona Republic).

The children who are coming from Honduras, Guatemala and El Salvador are suffering from gang and drug violence, and from a depressed economy. The Arizona Daily Star reports, Bishop Kicanas, other leaders plan aid for immigrant women, children:

RefugeeChildrenBishop Gerald F. Kicanas of the Roman Catholic Diocese of Tucson met with community leaders and local and federal officials Friday to plan for humanitarian aid for immigrant women and children being dropped off at the bus station downtown.

The Department of Homeland Security began dropping off several hundred immigrants a week at the Tucson Greyhound station for about three weeks, expecting them to find their own way to cities across the country to report to immigration offices there.

Large numbers of mostly Central Americans and families from Mexico are being apprehended in south Texas in the Rio Grande Valley and being flown to bus stations in Tucson and Phoenix because federal officials cannot handle the influx of immigrants in Texas for processing.

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Craven Jan Brewer fundraises off of humanitarian crisis

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There is nothing more craven than a politician who would exploit a humanitarian crisis involving young children from which to financially enrich him or herself. Cue Governor Jan Brewer. Gov. Jan Brewer is using the federal government’s shipments of migrants to Arizona to fatten Jan PAC coffers:

brewer_hateGov. Jan Brewer is using the federal government’s shipments of undocumented migrants to Arizona to fatten her federal political action committee, Jan PAC.

In a message to supporters titled “Abandoned in Arizona,” Brewer says President Barack Obama can ignore her pleas to address the issue, but “he cannot ignore the unified demands of the citizens of this country.” She asks supporters to help “bring respect and security” back by signing a petition to end “his appalling practice.”

“If we continue to let ourselves be walked over, Arizona will become the battleground it is starting to resemble,” the message said. “We must seize the opportunity now and start fighting if we want to redeem our state before it’s too late.”

In a post script to the message, Brewer asks supporters to fund her efforts against the federal government: “It only takes 2 minutes to make a donation to a fight that is worth every penny.”

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

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Crossposted from DemocraticDiva.com

statue of liberty

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:

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Coalition files complaint on behalf of refugee children in Nogales

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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:

JesusFacepalm2Hundreds 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.]

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