Immigration

By Karl Reiner

In 2012, Arizona's merchandise exports to India totaled $80.7 million.  During the first half of 2013, they reached $64.8 million.  In August, Governor Brewer led a trade mission to India to promote exports, investments and develop relationships with an emerging trading partner.  Although not developing as rapidly as China, India is one of the world's expanding economies.  With a population of 1.2 billion, it has economic potential.

Exports also ship out of Arizona to countries closer to home.  For the first six months of 2013, the state sent $1.25 billion worth of goods to Canada.  During the same time period, Arizona's exports to Mexico (the state's largest export market) amounted to $3.46 billion. Tucson's exporters ship about $2.5 billion in exports to Mexico per year.

Posted by AzBlueMeanie:

Completing the trifecta, or "hat trick" for hockey fans this week in the House, the GOP has killed comprehensive immigration reform. Steve Benen reports, 'It's just not gonna happen now':

Though it got less attention, there was also a bipartisan House "gang" that's been [crafting comprehensive immigration reform legislation]. In May, the House lawmakers announced they were just about done with a comprehensive bill. And then again in June, they said the House bill was very nearly complete. And then in July, the House members said their bill really, truly was poised to be unveiled.

But
then, nothing. For all the periodic assurances about success, the
House's "Gang of Seven" was always standing in the doorway, ready to
enter, but unable to take the next step. Greg Sargent reports this morning that the bipartisan group is ready to call it quits.

In a blow to the hopes of passing immigration reform anytime soon,
the bipartisan House "gang of seven" plan is probably dead, and almost
certainly won't be introduced this fall as promised, a top Democrat on
the "gang" acknowledges.

"It doesn't appear that we're going to move forward with the group of
seven," Dem Rep. Luis Gutierrez, a key player on immigration as a
member of the gang, said in an interview with me. "The process is
stalled. I don't believe we're going to produce a bill anytime soon."

What seems to be the trouble? Gutierrez told Greg that
the Republicans in the "gang" haven't received support from House GOP
leaders, and just can't bring themselves to endorse the bipartisan
proposal. "It's just not gonna happen now," the congressman added.

By Tom Prezelski

Re-blogged from Rum, Romanism and Rebellion

Online comment sections are generally regarded as a miasma of ignorance, malice, and outright lies
which makes one wonder why so many publications think it necessary to
have them. They may have started as a noble experiment, but the forums
quickly degenerated into a platform for socially inept malcontents whose
rantings are too poorly sourced or too badly articulated to meet
editorial standards. In some cases, publications like the Arizona Daily Star have made too-little-too-late
moves to rein in the excesses, but editors generally seem reluctant to
take responsibility for providing a respectable platform for hate speech
and personal attacks.

By Tom Prezelski

Re-blogged from Rum, Romanism and Rebellion

Yesterday, I wrote here about how the Martin Luther King Jr. of the
public imagination has been reduced into a cuddly Care Bear to make him
palatable to the picket fence crowd, enabling movement conservatives
claim his legacy by forgetting nearly everything he stood for. In fairness, I was not the only one who did so, Salon’s Joan Walsh said more or less the same thing, in a beautiful case of great minds thinking alike.

It was only later that day that I read that Governor Jan Brewer had issued a call for Arizonans to ring bells in honor of the 50th anniversary of The March on Washington.

Old timers may remember that this is the same Jan Brewer who, as a
State Senator, supported the  notorious Governor Evan Mecham and voted against the MLK holiday twice.

By Tom Prezelski

Re-Blogged from Rum, Romanism and Rebellion

Folks who claim that our modern border militiamen are part of a proud Arizona tradition would do well to read what Captain John G. Bourke,
an officer who accompanied General George R. Crook during the pursuit
of Geronimo, had to say about their 19th century antecedents. Bourke
characterized them as "rum-poisoned bummers" and "senseless cowards who
sought to kill a few peaceable Indians and gain a little cheap
notoriety." The captain went on to describe how their gun-happy
amateurishness did nothing but make a bad situation on the frontier even
worse.

The latest manifestation of the worst of the wild west
spirit comes, of course, from Maricopa County, where a member of one
such band of self-styled "militia minutemen" is in serious trouble for having pointed a rifle at a uniformed Sheriff's deputy in the desert near Gila Bend.