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Looks like Grandpa McCain has got himself a birther challenger to run against in the Arizona Republican Senate primary race. Given Hayworth's ties to Jack Abramoff and the PAC payments made to his wife, it looks like he's counting on the voters of Arizona to have short memories if he hopes to get elected.
MATTHEWS: Most people will look at this race as John McCain being a -- somewhat of a middle-of-the-road conservative, I guess a mainstream conservative, and you as a bit further right than him. I most people will look at that.
Are you as far right as the Birthers? Are you one of those that believes the president should have to prove he`s a citizen of the United States and not an illegal immigrant? Are you that far right?
HAYWORTH: Well, gosh, we all had to bring our birth certificates to show we were who we said we were and we were the age we said we were to play football in youth sports. Shouldn`t we know exactly that anyone who wants to run for public office is a natural-born citizen of the United States, and is who they say they are?
Let me pause and make another point, because I`ve read --
MATTHEWS: No, I`m reading your letter that says the president should go back and get his birth certificate from the governor of Hawaii. You dated this November 6th, 2000. I`m just asking, do you stand by this letter? Should the governor of Hawaii produce evidence that the president is one of us, an American? Do you think that`s a worthy pastime for the governor of Hawaii right now?
HAYWORTH: No, look --
MATTHEWS: Should she do it?
HAYWORTH: I`m just saying, the president should come forward with the information. That`s all. Why must we depend on the governor of Hawaii?
The bleeding kept her up all night, drenching her black-and-white-striped jail uniform.
Alma Chacón feared her baby would arrive early. Her nightmare had started with a traffic stop a day earlier. She'd been weeping since. "What if the baby is born here, in the jail?" she thought.
In the afternoon, she was shackled and transported to Maricopa County Medical Center, where she gave birth in a "forensic restraint." She couldn't hold her baby daughter or kiss her. She could only watch as hospital personnel carried the infant out the door. She wouldn't see the baby for 72 days.
Her case raises questions about the use of racial profiling by Maricopa County sheriff's deputies during traffic stops, but, most importantly, sheds light on the mistreatment of unconvicted immigrants inside county jails. Read on...
Chacon did have two warrants for her arrest, but this sort of barbaric treatment goes beyond the pale. The officer claimed he had no choice, but it does raise some serious red flags. Somehow I doubt he truly thought Chacon was a flight risk, or capable of doing serious harm to hospital staff in the middle of giving birth. There is an online petition to remove Sheriff Arpaio, you can view it and sign it here.
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James Verini at the Daily Beast notices something we've been tracking here at C&L too: Neo-Nazis and far-right extremists are not only recruiting more openly, they're being much more public in their full-on expressions of racism, nativism, and xenophobia. Unlike David Duke, these characters aren't even trying to hide it:
A year after President Obama's election, hate groups are feeling bolder than they have in over a decade, and their usually insular anger is beginning to spill into the public realm. This weekend, the National Socialist Movement, a neo-Nazi organization, held rallies in Arizona and Minnesota. Those demonstrations came on the heels of similar actions in Southern California, where epithet-spewing white supremacists were forced to disband by rock-throwing counter-protesters. The upsurge in visibility is more than anecdotal—law-enforcement officials are monitoring levels of agitation among extremist groups that they say are the highest since Timothy McVeigh’s deadly attack in Oklahoma City nearly 15 years ago.
The outcries of right-wing tea-partiers, death panellers, birthers, and the like are accompanied by increased activity all along the paranoid fringe.
“It’s sort of a beehive now,” says James Cavanaugh, a special agent with the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives. Cavanaugh was one of the agents at the standoff at David Koresh’s Waco, Texas, compound in 1993 (which McVeigh timed his terrorist act to commemorate, two years later, on April 19, 1995). Last October in Tennessee, Cavanaugh aided in the arrest of two white supremacists charged with plotting to assassinate Obama, and in 2007 he helped bring down members of the Alabama Free Militia, who were found with hundreds of hand- and rifle grenades and other explosives. The arrests had an unsettling familiarity. “We haven’t had that kind of activity since the 1990s,” Cavanaugh says.
“We believe there is a real resurgence,” adds Lieutenant David Hall, director of the Missouri Information Analysis Center, which tracks antigovernment extremist groups around the Midwest. “The atmosphere is ripe.”
That was obvious to anyone who was in downtown Phoenix, Arizona, this past weekend:
The Arizona Republic reports that, as is so often the case, the anti-Nazis outnumbered the actual Nazis by about 10-to-1:
Members of the National Socialist Movement, a neo-Nazi group based out of Detroit, were met with a greater number of protesters.
Phoenix police kept the groups apart, as members from both sides shouted insults at each other.
Jeff Schoep, a NSM leader, said his group was standing in defense of America.
J.T Ready of Mesa also spoke at the America First Rally. He said the group was defending his country against invaders.
After about an hour, the neo-Nazis left the capitol to march down Jefferson Avenue before getting into their cars at 12th Avenue.
Andy Hernandez of Phoenix said he was surprised at the different types of people who showed up to protest the neo-Nazis.
"There's all kinds of people, from different races and colors," Hernandez said. "We represent America. We didn't shut them down, but we gave them a counter protest. We just oppose what Nazi represents."
Ironically, that was just what Ready himself whined to a reporter for Phoenix's Fox station in the video above:
Reporter: Do you consider yourself a National Socialist?
Ready: National Socialist? I am.
Reporter: Weren't Nazis considered National Socialists?
Ready: Well, there's a term that starts with an 'N' for calling black people too, uh, so I think that the 'N' term for National Socialists, calling them Nazis, is the same thing.
*Sniff* Gosh, we all should bow our heads in shame for having referenced National Socialists derogatorily. Lord knows they don't deserve it.
The FBI is looking into accusations that Maricopa County Sheriff Joe Arpaio is using his position to settle political vendettas.
Over the past year, 5 Investigates examined more than two dozen complaints against the sheriff from business owners, government workers, mayors and law-enforcement officials.
They claim they spoke out against Arpaio, and shortly after, deputies paid them unwelcome visits.
Among the public officials who have been victimized by Arpaio's little reign of terror in Maricopa County:
-- Dan Saban, who ran against the sheriff in 2004 and 2008
-- Arizona Attorney General Terry Goddard
-- Maricopa County Manager David Smith
-- The Maricopa County Board of Supervisors
-- Superior Court Presiding Judge Barbara Mundell
-- ACLU attorney Daniel Pochoda
We described Arpaio's incredible thuggery late last year in his dealings with the public, especially those who dare criticize him. An anti-Arpaio group called Maricopa Citizens for Safety Accountability, which formed last year in response to investigative reports and studies demonstrating that Arpaio's insane obsession with illegal immigrants was destroying his office's ability to actually deal with real law enforcement work, began showing up at county board meetings and asking to speak. Arpaio actually sent out his deputies in force to patrol these meetings, and they arrested people for merely applauding Arpaio's critics.
The KPHO reporters also talked to former U.S. Attorney David Iglesias, made famous as one of the people fired by Karl Rove for failing to be political enough in his prosecutions. His assessment was damning indeed;
"I've been in and around law enforcement for about 20 years -- state, local and federal level (and) even some military prosecution work. I've never seen anything like this," Iglesias said after he looked through 5 Investigates' research and did some on his own.
If he were handling the case, Iglesias said, "I would work very closely with the civil rights division in Washington, D.C., and based on the information I have, I would seek an indictment."
Arpaio did offer a response in his inimitable smear-the-critics style:
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So it turns out that Contessa Brewer had good reason to see a connection between the rabidly hateful rhetoric spewed by the likes of Pastor Steven Anderson and the angry, gun-toting protesters turning out for presidential events: One of the most prominent of these, an African-American man named "Chris", is in fact a member of Pastor Anderson's congregation.
"Chris" was on Alex Jones' "Prison Planet" radio show late last week and discussed how "my pastor was beaten up" at a Border Patrol checkpoint.
Yes, that pastor is indeed Steven Anderson, who was arrested in April by the Border Patrol for being uncooperative at a patrol checkpoint. Anderson attempted to make himself something of a national martyr to the conspiracists out there by posting a video to YouTube about it that quickly went viral.
Jones took note of the Anderson connection:
Jones: Now I'm starting to get a clearer picture. You go to Pastor Anderson's church, I see.
Chris: Yeah, yes I do. Proudly. I think it's the best church in the world.
The funny thing about these gun-toting protesters is that they like to portray themselves as being simple, honest defenders of their gun rights when they show up for public events, especially those featuring the president, packing heat publicly.
They adamantly deny that they're bringing their guns to intimidate their fellow citizens from speaking out with a contrary view. But this is beyond disingenuous; it doesn't take a genius to figure out that the vast majority of the people who attend a public debate will perceive someone with a gun as someone they should fear -- particularly if they have an opposing view. Most people will see someone with a gun at an event that does not deal with guns as a potential threat. And you can't tell me that most of these gun-toters are not perfectly aware of the intimidation factor they carry with them and are not in fact packing heat for just that reason.
Moreover, these gun-toters want to assure us they pose no threat whatsoever to either the president or his supporters by bringing these guns. They're just ordinary citizens standing up for their rights, right? The Secret Service need have no fear about their motives.
But then we find out that at least one of them ardently admires a pastor who preaches how much he hates Obama and wishes him dead, in order "to save this country."
And we're supposed to tell these "innocent" gun nuts from the people who might actually aim their weapons at the president how?
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Isn't this special? Even Ed Henry was flustered by these people openly carrying assault rifles and other guns outside of an Obama rally in Phoenix, AZ. As Henry stated, this is legal, but at what point does the Secret Service get involved and say, you know what if you've got a weapon out in the open with these crowds, it's time for you to go?
These are not concealed weapons. They are being carried out in the open where maybe someone who doesn't have a permit or own the gun could take the gun away from the person carrying it and shoot people in the crowd. I would love for someone who knows something about what the conceal and carry laws are in Arizona to explain to me why this is legal? It just looks down right irresponsible to me to be carrying an unconcealed, loaded weapon in a crowd even if you do have a right to carry it.
And for the record, I'm not some anti-gun zealot. I have no problem with those that own and handle guns responsibly. My husband hunts and we've got a safe full of guns at our home. That said, if he brought one of them loaded into a crowd like these people did and had it right out in the open where anyone might take it away from him, I don't think we'd be married any more. I think it is completely irresponsible and if the gun laws in Arizona allow this, there's something wrong with their laws.
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John McCain with a bit of verbal acrobatics on CNN's American Morning, trying to say the stimulus package was a failure while decrying the "politics" being played when Ray LaHood told his Governor they were free to follow McCain and Kyl's advice and turn down the money for Arizona.
CHETRY: All right. Republicans are hitting the Obama administration hard, not only over the cost of overhauling health care, but also the stimulus plan. Whether it's working effectively and whether it's worth the billions it cost. In Arizona, it turned up to a dustup between one senator and members of the administration, and now Senator John McCain is joining that fight over whether the stimulus spending should be outright canceled. Senator John McCain is joining us live from Capitol Hill this morning.
Good to have you with us again, senator. Thanks for being here.
SEN. JOHN MCCAIN (R), ARIZONA: Thank you, Kiran.
CHETRY: Well, you know, your fellow senator, Arizona's Jon Kyl, has said that the stimulus should be canceled. He called it a failure. Do you think that we should stop the spending?
MCCAIN: Jon Kyl was on a talk show on Sunday, talking about how the stimulus has failed, which it has, and only 10 percent of the money has been distributed, and the predictions of the administration were there would be eight percent unemployment. We're now at 9.5 percent, headed for 10.
So, in an arrogant use of power, the president's chief of staff, Mr. Rahm Emanuel, told four cabinet secretaries to send a letter to our governor and ask her if she wanted the money or not. Now, our governor is right in the middle of a fiscal crisis and doesn't need that kind of harassment. So, the point is that the money has been, is being spent. The money has been allocated, and it is a failure and that's what Jon Kyl was talking about. And what Rahm Emanuel did was an arrogant use of power, that's all.
CHETRY: Well, what you're referring to is letters that went out to the governor of Arizona. One of them came from Transportation Secretary Ray LaHood, a Republican, who wrote that if you prefer to forfeit the money we are making available to your state as Senator Kyl suggests, please let me know.
But politics aside, do you think Arizona should say...
MCCAIN: Astonishing that they are making available? My state of Arizona is a donor state. We send more money to Washington than it sends back, so secretary of transportation is making available to Arizona our own money? I tell you, that's a remarkable statement. A remarkable statement.
CHETRY: What I'm wondering, though, is so we have Jon Kyl criticizing the stimulus, and saying that it's failing.
MCCAIN: As have I, and it is.
CHETRY: Right. And both senators from the state are saying that. So, what about perhaps putting your money...
MCCAIN: We're saying it failed.
CHETRY: What about putting your money where your mouth is and, OK, let's not take any money.
MCCAIN: We are saying that it failed, it has failed by any measurement. And by the way, one of the cabinet secretaries told me over the phone in these words that the letter that was sent is political b.s. That's what he said to me. And you know what? He's right.
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Well, we've seen plenty of recent evidence that Sheriff Joe Arpaio, the nativist law-enforcement chief of Maricopa County, Arizona, attracts genuine extremists in support of his cause.
This recently released YouTube by Humanleague makes the case even more starkly. Its centerpiece is the opening comments by an avid supporter of the Minutemen and Sheriff Arpaio named Brandi Baron, who opines thus:
Baron: I say, give orders to shoot to kill, and kill any man, woman or child who comes across the border illegally. I'll bet you, you kill enough of them, right off the bat, people will stop coming over that way.
[Questioner]
That's what I just said. Personally, I think a minefield would be good. Why build a fence when you can plant some mines?
Q: You just said that you would kill kids.
Baron: If they're being drug across the border, hell yes. The difference between those people and us -- Our country is No. 1. Theirs? Pffft!
This sort of inhuman callousness and disregard for human life is part and parcel of why nativist movements like the Minutemen -- and the mainstream embrace of such factions by public figures like Arpaio -- inevitably spawn violent offspring like Shawna Forde and her gang of killer Minutemen, who gunned down a family in cold blood because they mistakenly believed the father was a big-time drug dealer with cash on the premises. There's a powerful continuum between gangs like Forde's and "mainstream" nativists like Arpaio and his supporters.
This is exactly why Shawna Forde felt justified in breaking into a Latino family’s home and murdering a little girl and her father.
While some of the individuals featured on this video may be unstable or exhibit strange behavior, they are not crazy. These are functioning adults who are perfectly capable of behaving in a reasonable manner. They choose not to. They choose hate over tolerance. They choose to advocate violence over rational dialogue. Violence against immigrants occurs because bigots in positions of power (Sheriff Joe) set the stage and provide an atmosphere that make it acceptable.
Arizona state Senator Sylvia Allen (R) voices support for opening up uranium mining in the state. Sen Allen responds to statements by environmentalists by assuring them that the "Earth is 6,000 years old..." Twice.
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Last week we reported on Sheriff Joe's recent photo op with a clutch of neo-Nazis who came out to counter-protest at a march held to raise a stink about Arpaio's racial-profiling ways.
Lemon's story has a wealth of detail, but the most disturbing aspect is the extent to which he uncovers an actual operational relationship between Arpaio's office and these white supremacists:
Yet the sheriff's involvement with extreme hate groups is not incidental. The relationship has been prolonged and intentional, arguably helping him get re-elected last year in a county where much of the electorate is hostile toward Mexican immigrants.
Since 2007, Arpaio has appeared at nativist events, accepted awards from groups such as the Minuteman Civil Defense Corps, welcomed U.S.A. leader Rusty Childress into his immigration sweep headquarters, spoken at nativist meetings frequented by neo-Nazis, and used petitions circulated by extremists to justify his immigration dragnets.
... This May 2 dalliance with Coletto and J.T. Ready wasn't the first time Arpaio has associated with the neo-Nazis. In March 2008, the sheriff spoke before a United for a Sovereign America meeting at a Veterans of Foreign Wars post in Sunnyslope, where U.S.A. affiliate Elton Hall was in attendance. Hall, 75, is a legend in Arizona neo-Nazi circles, venerated by racist skinheads for his work as an organizer for George Lincoln Rockwell's American Nazi Party in the 1960s.
...
Despite its infamy, U.S.A. has drawn visits from such local, far-right luminaries as State Senator Pearce, Maricopa County Attorney Andrew Thomas, and Arizona GOP Chairman Randy Pullen. But it's Sheriff Arpaio who arguably has the tightest ties to the organization.
Much of this was already known about Arpaio. But what we didn't know is that his office was coordinating things with a liaison with the USA faction:
Now, I know that Sheriff Joe told Glenn Beck he "welcomes" any investigation into his bordering-on-fascist rule in Arizona's Maricopa County. But I bet that nonetheless, he wasn't smiling yesterday:
The U.S. Justice Department has launched a civil-rights investigation of the Maricopa County Sheriff's Office after months of mounting complaints that deputies are discriminating in their enforcement of federal immigration laws.
Officials from the Justice Department's Civil Rights Division notified Sheriff Joe Arpaio on Tuesday that they had begun the investigation, which will focus on whether deputies are engaging in "patterns or practices of discriminatory police practices and unconstitutional searches and seizures."
An expert said it is the department's first civil-rights probe related to immigration enforcement.
... The Justice Department frequently receives racial-profiling complaints against police departments, but investigations are rare, said David Harris, a University of Pittsburgh law professor and racial-profiling expert.
"The fact that this has come to their attention and they have announced their intent to investigate is highly significant," Harris said. "It says there is enough there to be investigated. It's not an iffy case that (can be ignored)."
Harris said this is the first civil-rights investigation stemming from immigration enforcement. The probe could last several months.
Maybe the DOJ can take inspiration from Arpaio's Brazil-esque reality-TV show on Fox, in which unsuspecting schlub criminals are duped into being busted on TV. They could build a reality show around investigating Arpaio, including footage of interviews with his victims.
Of course, in the past, Arpaio hasn't been very tolerant of people who criticize him. If you got caught applauding anti-Arpaio comments at county meetings, for instance, you might be arrested by Arpaio's deputies. But I suspect that won't work too well with DOJ investigators, especially the FBI.
This is a hopeful step forward in dealing with the mess Arpaio has made in Maricopa County, and will help make clear to the right-wing nativists out there that scapegoating Latinos is not the way to deal with whatever issues they have with immigration. It makes a mess not just in Arizona, but the whole country.
Glenn Beck, on his Fox News show yesterday, hosted Maricopa County Sheriff Joe Arpaio, whose misbegotten approach to law enforcement last week inspired the House Judiciary Committee to join the ranks of those calling for a Justice Department investigation.
After Arpaio -- in typical Crazy Bigoted Joe style -- loudly proclaimed that the Latin American-style kidnappings now taking place in Phoenix are a product of illegal immigration (in reality, they seem to revolve around drug dealing and human trafficking), he got a nice rubdown from Beck:
Beck: But Joe, you're now facing heat in Washington. Here you are, a guy who has cleaned that town up more than anybody could -- I mean, if you go away, it ain't gonna be good. But you're facing heat now from members of Congress who are trying to shut you down.
Arpaio: Well, I'm gonna give you a scoop. I'm writing a letter to those members -- these four liberal Democrats on the Judiciary Committee -- didn't have the courtesy to call me. I think I know what goes on at the border -- fourteen years I've spent there with the feds. So I'm gonna write them a letter. I'm going to invite them down to visit the fence and visit our operations.
This is all part of the local politicians going to bed with these congressmen, going to the new attorney general. The mayor of Phoenix has already gone to the attorney general last year to try to get me investigated.
But let them all come down. Call the FBI, call everybody, if you think I'm doing something wrong. So I welcome all these investigations.
Sure. And Dick Nixon welcomed the Watergate investigations, too.
There might be a reason, after all, that local politicians -- and not merely the mayor of Phoenix -- want Arpaio investigated. The state's civil-rights commission is only the most recent entity to join the bandwagon demanding his racial profiling and outright refusal to follow civil-rights laws be brought to a halt.
And just how much has Arpaio "cleaned up" Maricopa County? Well, thanks to his blinkered, racially driven emphasis on illegal immigration in everything he does, even the Goldwater Institute found that actual law enforcement work in his county was being badly neglected:
Although MCSO is adept at self-promotion and is an unquestionably “tough” law-enforcement agency, under its watch violent crime rates recently have soared, both in absolute terms and relative to other jurisdictions. It has diverted resources away from basic law-enforcement functions to highly publicized immigration sweeps, which are ineffective in policing illegal immigration and in reducing crime generally, and to extensive trips by MCSO officials to Honduras for purposes that are nebulous at best. Profligate spending on those diversions helped produce a financial crisis in late 2007 that forced MCSO to curtail or reduce important law-enforcement functions.
In terms of support services, MCSO has allowed a huge backlog of outstanding warrants to accumulate, and has seriously disadvantaged local police departments by closing satellite booking facilities. MCSO’s detention facilities are subject to costly lawsuits for excessive use of force and inadequate medical services. Compounding the substantive problems are chronically poor record-keeping and reporting of statistics, coupled with resistance to public disclosure.
If that's Glenn Beck's idea of "cleaning up" a town, I'd hate to live in his town.
Now, finally, the House Judiciary Committee is calling for the Justice and Homeland departments to investigate Arpaio's activities:
House Judiciary Committee Chairman John Conyers, Jr. (D-Mich.), and Immigration Subcommittee Chairwoman Zoe Lofgren (D-Calif.), Constitution Subcommittee Chairman Jerrold Nadler (D-N.Y.), and Crime Subcommittee Chairman Bobby Scott (D-Va.) called on Attorney General Eric Holder and Homeland Security Secretary Janet Napolitano to investigate allegations of misconduct by Maricopa County (Arizona) Sheriff Joe Arpaio.
Sheriff Arpaio has repeatedly demonstrated disregard for the rights of Hispanics in the Phoenix metropolitan area. Under the guise of immigration enforcement, his staff has conducted raids in residential neighborhoods in a manner condemned by the community as racial profiling. On February 4, 2009, Arpaio invited the media to view the transfer of immigrant detainees to a segregated area of his "tent city" jail, subjecting the detainees to public display and "ritual humiliation." Persistent actions such as these have resulted in numerous lawsuits; while Arpaio spends time and energy on publicity and his reality television show, "Smile… You’re Under Arrest!", Maricopa County has paid millions of dollars in settlements involving dead or injured inmates.
"Racial profiling and segregation are simply not acceptable." said Conyers. "Media stunts and braggadocio are no substitute for fair and effective law enforcement."
The Judiciary Committee also asks the Department of Homeland Security (DHS) to review the agreement that DHS has signed with the Maricopa County Sheriff's Office under Section 287(g) of the Immigration and Nationality Act, which Joe has so roundly abused. Report after report has shown that Sheriff Arpaio regularly engages in racial profiling in Latino neighborhoods. It's part of the reason he has 2,700 lawsuits filed against him.
For his latest publicity stunt, Arpaio paraded immigrant detainees through the streets of Phoenix in order to segregate and relocate them to a "Tent City" surrounded by electric fencing. The 287 (g) agreement gives the Sheriff authority to enforce federal immigration laws, but it does not provide permission to use racial profiling or other tactics that violate an individual's constitutional rights.
It does not give one the right to create mini-Gitmos.
