Immigration reform: What role will Ron Barber play?

The Republican vs Republican-lite Congressional District 2 race has finally been called. Congressman Ron Barber defeated Colonel Marthy McSally in a very tight contest.

With the special election primary, the special election, and the general election, Barber has been running for office for 10 months of this year. Now, he can finally relax into his new Capitol Hill seat.

But, wait, there’s more… now, he has to stand up and be our Congressman.

And immigration reform– a hot-button Southern Arizona issue, for sure– is at the top of President Barack Obama’s priority list, after his rainbow-hued election win. With his delayed deportation for Dreamers and his focus on deporting undocumented criminals (and not your housekeeper), Obama has been inching forward on immigration reform.

What will the role of Baja Arizona’s new Congressman be? Find out after the jump.

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Border bust: Barking dog earns her kibble (video)

Ding-caliby Pamela Powers Hannley

When my dogs race out the doggie door at night and start barking at passers-by, I figure they're just doing their job–warning ne'er-do-wells to move along and not linger by my gate. After all, there are plenty of seedy characters wandering the dimly-lit streets of midtown and downtown Tucson at night. If you live near the US-Mexico border, the seedy characters your barking dog encounters could be much more dangerous than drunken students, hookers, or small-time dope dealers.

After the jump, watch what this Bisbee dog found outside of her fence.

PDA: Envisioning a more progressive Arizona Democratic Party


Taxby Pamela Powers Hannley

Are you one of those Democrats who grumbles about the
Arizona Democratic Party’s (ADP) slide into Republican-lite territory?

 Are you tired of Blue Dog Democratic candidates?

 Are you tired of the party’s weak stances on hot-button
issues?

Did you ever wonder why the ADP’s Progressive Caucus has so
little power—despite being the state party’s largest caucus? (Maybe you didn’t
even know that the ADP had a progressive caucus?)

Are you ready for change?

If you said, “Hell, yeah!” to any of the above questions, then
it’s time to stop muttering and start acting. On Wednesday, Nov. 14, the Tucson
Chapters of Drinking Liberally/Progressive Democrats of America (PDA) are
holding a special meeting  at The Shanty—beginning
at 6 p.m. with FREE pizza. The focus of the meeting will be on envisioning and
brainstorming a more progressive Democratic Party in Arizona. Former Arizona Legislator and PDA
Tucson coordinator Phil Lopes will lead the discussion.

Why should you attend? Read the details after the jump.

Governor Brewer Signals Support of Comprehensive Immigration… and Then Walks it Back

By Michael Bryan

hat tip to Crooks & Liars:

Perhaps Governor Dingbat's staff should just stop allowing her to do live interviews.

Brahm Resnick interviewed Brewer post-election and prodded her regarding the softening in her party nationally on comprehensive immigration reform after the drubbing her ticket got among Latinos (a 44% gap on the Presidential line). He asked Brewer if she would now be open to a comprehensive immigration deal now that her enforcement first position has so thoroughly alienated Latino voters.

"But here's the thing," Resnik pointed out. "With John Boehner and Sean Hannity, Grover Norquist and [Maricopa County Attorney] Bill Montgomery — what he said in particular was, 'You know what? We can do both at once. We can secure the border and do comprehensive immigration reform.' Is that something you're on with? Because it sounds like you are just a secure-the-border-first person."

"What ever works," Brewer replied. "If we can do both at the same time, I'm fine and dandy with that. But we cannot resolve these kinds of issues today and then have the problems still existing."

Well, that's certainly a new tune for Brewer.

Of course, she didn't really mean it. On Sunday, KPNX reported that Brewer's office had contacted Resnick after the interview was recorded on Friday to walk back her support for comprehensive immigration reform in concert with securing the border.

Spokesman Matt Benson said, "the governor still believes in securing the border first," Resnik wrote. "He added that she was willing to 'come to the table' to deal with all immigration issues. Later Friday, the governor's office issued a statement reaffirming her 'secure the border first' stance."

It should not come as a surprise that Brewer's head remains buried in the sand. Toward the end of the interview she clearly implied that the Obama Administration intentionally leaves the Tucson sector "unsecured" in order to whip up racial animus to secure the Latino vote.

GovBrewerObamaWhen asked if the GOP, and the AZGOP especially, deserved any blame for alienating Latinos, she replied, "No, President Obama, in the last four years, they've had four years to get our borders secured and they refused to do it, but yet we know they can. We know that they can secure the borders. Why won't they secure the border? Because they wanted that out there because they knew that they could turn it into an issue of all about racism."

Say what? So Obama has purposely left the border insecure (despite cleverly covering his tracks by plowing more billions into enforcement, deporting at a record clip, and radically expanding manpower on the border) in order to alarm white folks so much that they'll go batshit, pass a bunch or racist legislation and piss off Latinos, so that in turn Latinos will feel so disrespected by the GOP that they'll vote for him in droves? Now we're deep in the crazy…

Reality adjustment just isn't in the cards for politicians like Brewer and Arpaio. They are incapable of acknowledging that their belief that the Obama Administration and Dems are exploiting racism is nothing more than projection of their own racist motives onto the opposition. The AZGOP has been successfully exploiting racial animus and the fears of white America to win elections for several cycles now. Expecting them to stop now and support a reasonable resolution is like expecting a Coatimundi to ditch its own tail rings.

If the GOP wants a fresh start with Latino voters, they can only do so with fresh GOP politicians who didn't cut their teeth on denigrating Latinos and scaring the shit out of white voters (with headless corpses in the desert, for example…)
to get elected. Of course, that disqualifies nearly every currently elected AZ GOP pol… 

See the video after the click…

Life and death on the border (video)

by Pamela Powers Hannley

Loneprotestor has done it again. Check out her poignant video about recent deaths along the US/Mexico– in honor of the Day of the Dead.

Eight days after Border Patrol agent Nicholas Ivie was killed by friendly fire on the U.S.- Mexican border, a sixteen year-old boy was shot seven times through the border fence by a Border Patrol agent. Yet – in spite of involving the murder of a child across international lines – one incident received national attention for weeks, but the other was largely unknown except in the town where it happened. On November 2, the Mexican Dia de los Muertos, both sides of the border in Nogales, Arizona, walked to honor Jose Antonio Elena Rodriguez and the sixteen others killed by Border Patrol in the last three years, and called for an end to Border Patrol immunity.

Video after the jump.