America's Sheriff? For Bush's Overspent AmeriKa, Maybe

Be sure to catch the East Valley Tribune's five-part series on Sheriff Joe Arpaio's conversion of the Sheriff's Office to a state branch of ICE. Key findings:

• "Deputies are failing to meet the county’s standard for response times on life-threatening emergencies. In 2006 and 2007, patrol cars arrived late two-thirds of the time on more than 6,000 of the most serious calls for service.

• "MCSO's arrest rate has plunged the past two years even as the number of criminal investigations has soared.

• "The sheriff’s “saturation” patrols and “crime suppression/anti-illegal immigration” sweeps in Hispanic neighborhoods are done without any evidence of criminal activity, violating federal regulations intended to prevent racial profiling.

• "Rampant overtime spending on immigration operations drove the agency into financial crisis and forced it to close facilities across the county. Although MCSO officials have said state and federal grants covered all the expense, illegal immigration arrests actually are costing county taxpayers millions of dollars.

• "Despite the money and manpower expended, the sheriff’s office has arrested only low-level participants in human smuggling rings: drop house guards, drivers and the immigrants they ferry.

• "Deputies regularly make traffic stops based only on their suspicion that illegal immigrants are inside vehicles. They figure out probable cause after deciding whom to pull over."

Sure looks like racist's wet dream and a tax-payer funded re-election scam to me.

Racist Nation: Loser Nation

This from the Bottleneck Blog at the LA Times:

Random searches of passengers and their belongings will begin next week on Metrolink commuter trains, the agency announced Thursday. Passengers got the news via a flier left on train seats.

Sheriff's deputies will be setting up random screening stations at random times. "Access to the station platform will be restricted; passengers must pass through the checkpoint to gain access to the station platform," stated the flier.

The release goes on to say that some passengers will be selected from those lines and have their baggage searched. Anyone who refuses to be searched won't be allowed to get on the train. Deputies are looking for "explosives" or other "dangerous items."

Metrolink spokeswoman Denise Tyrrell told me this morning that the searches are not in response to any threats that have been made against trains.

"It's more in response to what has become standard procedure at other commuter rail agencies across the country," she said. "We were one of the few who wasn't doing this, and we thought it would be a good idea to step up the security a little bit."

She said police are primarily looking for explosives, but won't turn a blind eye to other issues. "They are police officers," Tyrrell added. "If you have a half a pound of hash in your book bag, they are going to arrest you. I would suggest if that's the case you are one of the people that wants to walk away."

There's more if you're interested.

Not happy. No US passenger train has been a successful target of terrorists. It's election season. LA is pretty much border country. There's a war on brown people. Privatized prisons need prisoners to make a profit, and there's just no telling what can turn up in a random search. WHOOOHOOOO!!

You say, "Yes, but just because they haven't blown up a train doesn't mean they won't"?

Yes, and just because they haven't used a yacht to blow up a harbor doesn't mean they won't. Let's randomly detain and sweep yachts, what say!

I doubt this is about security. I think this is one more goose step toward a fascist police state. We'll kvetch and argue, and the Fearful will support it because, "You know, it COULD happen here! I mean it DID happen in Madrid!" And while we're busily selling out, random searches and seizures on subways will be added to spying on our emails, letters, parcels, and phone calls. Just in case.

What's next? Random house searches? Well, why not? Exactly where's the logical distinction between private homes and private backpacks in the "Well it Could Happen" school of constitutional law?

This makes me angry. I strongly suspect that this is Joe Arpaio-style intimidation aimed at the LA immigrant population. This is about undocumented workers. Any number of them--Latino, Chinese, African, and others--ride the LA tube. It will mean that many won't take the subway, won't make it to work, and then won't have a job. Some who lose their already all-too-insecure jobs will lose their homes. So, once again in the USA, while we're having our pedicures and Jiffy Lubing the Beemer, human beings will be turned into hungry, frightened prey. And once again, the cover of dealing with "illegal immigration" will blind us to how smoothly we're simultaneously being habituated to life in a police state.

Who's next?

Conservatives who think this incrementalism is just hunky-dory as long as we're talking "terrorism" seem to have forgotten core conservative principles like the sanctity of private property and "reasonable suspicion." But this is only to be expected from the party of idiots like Newt Gingrich and Pat Buchanan. They're denouncing (!) the Supreme Court for upholding habeas corpus!

You just have to wonder. As many have observed, detention and imprisonment are government's most terrifying power, short of outright assassination. But habeas corpus is one of the few thin walls standing between you and that government out of control. You'd think a conservative would get that, wouldn't you?

I think they do get that, when it comes to yachts and white people. When it comes to the rest, all I can think is that they're vanguard soldiers in the police state or stockholders in the Corrections Corporation of America. Or both.

For seven years, our government has only had to whisper "terrorism" to stampede us from defending the world's noblest experiment in democracy. We celebrate racist campaigns not seen since WWII. We welcome violations of the Constitution and make laws to protect the perpetrators. We just don't get it that when we strip the rights from some of us, we strip the rights from all. It's inevitable.

I have just one question: Why are we such pathetic, sell-out losers?

AZ GOP Strikes Again at State's Economic Base

Two bits of news today that might be of interest to our AZ state legislature.

One: A just-released April 2008 economic analysis shows a LOSS of $1.757 TRILLION in spending, a LOSS of $651.511 billion in output, and a LOSS of 8.1 million jobs nationwide if current hard-line Rightwing expulsion policies are pursued.

This is not news in Arizona, reeling from severe losses in both the construction and the agriculture sectors due to hard-line anti-immigrant policies championed by GOP leaders like Rep. Russell Pearce and his allies.

The study is titled "An Analysis of the Economic Impact of Undocumented Workers on Business Activity in the US with Estimate Effects by State and Industry." A PDF file can be downloaded from Americans for Immigration Reform.

Two, AP reports that AZ GOP Rep. John Kavanagh's bill to prevent day laborers from seeking jobs at public streets, sidewalks, and even certain private property made it through our state legislature:

Initial OK given to Senate bill on day laborers
Associated Press
May. 20, 2008 01:29 PM

A bill to prohibit day laborers from seeking work on public streets and sidewalks and private property under some circumstances is nearing the finish line at the Legislature but faces an uncertain fate after that.

The bill is sponsored by Rep. John Kavanagh. The Fountain Hills Republican says it applies both to day laborers and those who hire them.

The state Senate on Monday gave preliminary approval to the House-passed bill.

Kavanagh says the bill is intended to lessen the traffic disruptions caused by day laborers and, as a secondary benefit, help lessen the state's problems with illegal immigration.

What Kavanagh says and the truth seem to have nothing in common. His bill is an attack on documented and undocumented Latino day laborers--specifically those at the Macehualli Center and others that might develop like it. It also targets citizens and green-card holders from waiting in areas near home repair stores and garden centers looking for day jobs, and would affect immigrants, citizens, resident aliens, Latinos, Anglos, African Americans, and everybody else who does free-lance day labor.

I call it the "Keep Arizonans Unemployed Act, Part II," and can't tell you how much I look forward to Parts III and IV.

Obviously, Arizona's Republican lawmakers have decided to declare all-out war on the state's economy. Maybe it's retaliation for that Clinton vote in 2000?