Arizona's madness

It is a terrible time in this state.

* Arizona has lots of racists, and their most powerful patron saints are Senator Russell Pearce & Sheriff Joe Arpaio. Backed up by hatemongers on radio and TV, these two have maintained power by relentlessly engendering fear in white voters and conflating hardworking migrants and drug smugglers .

* Pearce's new law SB 1070 (yes, I have read it all) is a stew of bills that he could not get passed before. It legally binds every law officer in Arizona to question people about their status if the officer is suspicious -- read brown people.

* It makes it a crime to give shelter or a ride to undocumented people if you know they are undocumented. Even waving your hand to request yard work is a crime.

* It makes it a crime for documented immigrants to move around without their papers -- again read brown people.

* Arizona's budget deficit is over $3,000,000,000 and the state is chopping education and healthcare and even closing highway rest stops, But this insane law is going to cost millions -- and it will distract police from fighting real crime.

* Hispanics are going to be afraid to report crimes like assault, sex abuse and robbery to the police.

I urge readers across Arizona, across our country and beyond to stand against this outrageous racial-profiling law. You can help by asking your relatives and friends to join in boycotting Arizona -- as tourists, sports fans, hikers, whatever. If they work for a company that plans a convention in Arizona, they can push for cancellation and choice of another state. Anyone can complain (24 hours) to Gov. Jan Brewer who signed the bill -- at 602-542-4331.

Si, se puede -- yes we can!

Looney in America

What a chorus of screwball hatemongers. Rush Limbaugh and Glenn Beck (I can never figure out which of these two is worse.) Michelle Malkin and Sean Hannity and Ann Coulter. Michele Bachman and Virginia Fox. A looney-tunes choir like nothing we've seen before.

And then there is Tom Tancredo, the former congressman who is so xenophobic that he appears apoplectic.

Yesterday he outdid himself when he told a bunch of Tea Party folks in Greenville, South Carolina. that he wanted them to send President Obama "back to Kenya."

This is the same Tancredo who recently said that Obama was elected by "people who could not even spell the word 'vote', or say it in English." He went on to say that there should be a civic literacy test--which is of course a clear call to return to even more racist times.

Looney they are. And very, very dangerous.

Catching up (but I've tweeted daily)

These are strange times.

On the one hand, we have elected an African-American president. A decade ago, how many of us would have guessed our country would make such progress by now?

On the other hand, we have more and more whackos coming out from under the rocks:

* "Birthers" who don't believe Barack Obama is an American

* "Deathers" who think Obama is going to kill their grandparents

* Nazifiers who think Obama is the new Hitler

* Neo-Confederates who are longing for Civil War Two

* Secessionists who want Texas to secede from the Union

* Vigilantes who carry guns and hunt Mexican migrants

* White supremacists who love to hate

* Religious fundamentalists who think Obama is the Anti-Christ

* Hypocrites who scream "Socialism!" while getting help from Social Security and Medicare

* And then there are all those sad souls who think Glenn Beck and Rush Limbaugh care about something other than getting rich by spewing poison

Not just strange times. Very crazy times.