Credit where it is due, as Dana Milbank dismembers Jan Brewer and John McCain:
Last year gave us death panels and granny killings, but compared with the nonsense justifying the immigration crackdown, the health-care debate was an evening at the Oxford Union Society.
Two months ago, the Arizona Republic published an exhaustive report that found that, according to statistics from the FBI and Arizona police agencies, crime in Arizona border towns has been “essentially flat for the past decade.” For example, “In 2000, there were 23 rapes, robberies and murders in Nogales, Ariz. Last year, despite nearly a decade of population growth, there were 19 such crimes.” The Pima County sheriff reported that “the border has never been more secure.”
FBI statistics show violent crime rates in all of the border states are lower than they were a decade ago — yet Sen. John McCain (R-Ariz.) reports that the violence is “the worst I have ever seen.” President Obama justifiably asserted last week that “the southern border is more secure today than any time in the past 20 years,” yet Rush Limbaugh judged the president to be “fit for the psycho ward” on the basis of that remark.
You really need to read the entire thing- I knew Brewer was full of it, but I had no idea she was spewing nonsense about headless people in the desert and other such fairy tales. At any rate, as I was reading it, it occurred to me that this story sounds a lot like the summer of the shark a few years ago. Only difference is then it was news announcers whipping up the scare, now it is our political leadership.
aimai
Essentially no good news can be true. So the more the Dems try to explain the actual facts of anything–if those facts redound to democratic advantage, the less they will be believed. Put “the border is safer” down with “Obama lowered your taxes” as things that the average right winger is totally primed to disbelieve.
On a similar note I heard some assholes being interviewed on NPR and a guy called in, very angry, because “Obama ran on a platform of limiting executive power” but is obviously betraying this by having the Justice Department defend the Federal government’s role in immigration enforcement by suing AZ. See–executive privilige, the unitary executive, and the federal government (including Congress and the Senate) are all the same thing so every time Obama and his administration try to enforce federal law they are actually promoting a dictatorship. Or something. This came right after some jerk explained to NPR that the democrats had “lost the PR” battle on the AZ law because 56 percent of people surveyed who were just as stupid as the guy who called in thought that maybe some version of the AZ law might be a good idea. Fuck it. I give up.
aimai
twiffer
dear lord, it sounds like these people are taking email chain letters at face value.
Maude
@twiffer:
You mean they aren’t true?
DrDave
That’s great work by Milbank. Rational thought and facts make a fine substitute for hyperbole and hysteria.
It makes you wonder why the Dems don’t bitch slap the GOP with facts but I think it’s hard to bitch slap anyone if you can’t find your own spine.
Kryptik
I can think of another major difference. After all, no one lost an election based on shark hysteria.
John Bird
This is the rhetoric they’ve been pouring on us in NC forever. I think we’re just a little more skeptical that the Hispanics around us are all coke-slinging Kings who are waiting drunkenly at every stop light to run over our kids and sell their organs.
I mean, some people do believe it, and they live in Johnston County or whatever, and we just know to drive through it as fast as we possibly can.
Check out this winner: http://www.newsobserver.com/2008/09/07/85689/tolerance-wears-thin.html
Michael
Sort of OT, but speaking of newsies, do you remember Ruth Marcus’ sad over Obama’s cynical and evil democracy destroying recess appointment of Berwick?
http://voices.washingtonpost.com/postpartisan/2010/07/obamas_cynical_recess_appointm.html
As it turns out, Dubya did it too.
http://www.bloomberg.com/apps/news?pid=newsarchive&sid=aRmnD1Wa8MWw&refer=top_world_news
And this was relevant because:
http://www.ftc.gov/commissioners/leibowitz/index.shtml
Ruthie needs a good curb stomping.
schrodinger's cat
Hating on immigrants is easy since they can’t vote.
elmo
Gosh. I wonder what is suddenly driving the hysteria about brown people taking over the country? What could have happened in the last two years?
I keep thinking that there must have been something…
MikeJ
Why does this reporting of the facts have to appear in an opinion piece? Wouldn’t it be nice to have a straight news story that reports, “Republicans say X, facts say they lie.”
flounder
Brewer took the stories of headless bodies turning up in the Superstition Mountains due to people hunting for the Lost Dutchman’s Mine and projected them onto the immigration debate.
cleek
@DrDave:
how’s that old saying go… “if you’re explaining, you’re losing”.
the spine thing, too. and the lack of political skill. and the lack of solid leadership. and, because of all that, the GOP has figured out that there’s simply no downside to simply making shit up. nobody calls them on it. and the Dems have nothing to say: individually or as an organized party. and if the media pays any attention, it will be to talk about the “controversy”.
this is why Palin will win
Waynski
The Dick Whisperer finally got one right. Could this be a sign that the Village media is finally, you know, going to do their job? Too much to hope for I guess.
Agoraphobic Kleptomaniac
This is awesome. Most of this stuff has been floating around on the internet in unconnected posts and links for quite a while now, and I kept having to search for these stats whenever a Facebook argument came up about “Stand by Arizona!” Good collection of information here.
Kryptik
@MikeJ:
That just means that the facts are biased and not balanced.
Jon H
Hey, they just want their states to be Judenfrei. But with Mexicans instead of Jews.
And it’s no coincidence that we’re seeing this in Arizona, hit hard by the housing crash.
Redshirt
@cleek: Yeah. When there’s no downside for lying, cheating, acting like an ass, and in fact there’s upside, it’s just human nature I suppose to proceed with lying, cheating, and acting like an ass.
If I’ve learned anything over the internet the past ten years, is that lack of consequences (i.e. anonymous posting) allows for all manner of horrible behaviors.
General Stuck
Pretty cool TDS segment on AZ pols and illegal immigration. Delivered by the delectable Olivia Munn.
D0n Camillo
As I recall, 2001 was the Summer of the Sharks. Maybe the time spent worrying about swimming safety would have been better spent worrying about airliner safety. I wonder what other threats we might be missing now?
geg6
They are having a fucking “Arizona Tea Party” on the lawn of my county’s courthouse next weekend. A fucking Arizona Tea Party in Beaver County, Western PA. For reals. You know, because there are so many illegals running around here and the border problems are so bad that crime is rampant.
Oh, wait. Those border problems are from the people in Steubenville and Wheeling, not brown people. Just your average Appalachian hillbilly assholes, just like my neighbors.
wasabi gasp
Although some folks down there do appear to have lost their heads.
Kryptik
@Redshirt:
Anonymous nothing. Just look at our schools. Republicans are the bullies that know that the school faculty will never call them out on their bullshit, and their bullying targets have fully internalized the idea that their wholly inferior to the superior bullies. And the ones that DO fight back end up getting suspended by the school for ‘picking fights’.
Rosali
The summer of the sharks was 2001 when Dubya was breaking records for most vacation days taken by a president. That was also the summer when the lights were blinking red.
ellaesther
@DrDave: Rational thought and facts make a fine substitute for hyperbole and hysteria.
I may have to embroider that on a pillow.
No – I will do the modern-day equivalent. I’m going to see if I can figure out a way to make it a tag line on my blog. And I’mma tweet it, too. You just see if I don’t!
(I like the rest of what you said, too, but have no time to respond. I have to go look for my Internet embroidery needles).
geg6
@Michael:
Whoa. Nice catch. Has anyone written to Ms. Marcus-Liebowitz to ask her about the apparent hypocrisy inherent in her little rant the other day?
Kryptik
@geg6:
Are we talking about the same paper that employs several former Bush speechwriters to explain why Bush was so much better than Obama? How Bush subverting the Geneva Conventions was actually saving world piece? How torture is really the most humane and moral thing we can do?
Hypocrisy is a fucking employment prerequisite.
cat48
Dana forgot about the “kidnapping capital of the World” allegations Brewer, et al. spout, McCain’s “Mexicans causing wrecks on freeways by deliberately running into people”, and Brewer telling a news anchor that “there were beheadings too, especially in the desert!” Politifact checked the kidnapping allegation and found it False.
licensed to kill time
Jan Brewer and John McCain try to believe in at least six impossible things before breakfast. The Mad Hatter thinks that is an excellent practice.
We are Through the Looking Glass.
Brachiator
@cleek:
The GOP gets called on it. Here’s part of a CNN story on Arizona crime statistics.
Unfortunately, Tea baggers and other conservatives have immunized themselves against truth. If they read or hear something that doesn’t jibe with their fears, they dismiss it as biased mainstream media lies and then run to Rush or to Faux News to get their daily dose of nonsense.
ellaesther
@DrDave: Ok, it’s been tweeted, but by God WordPress doesn’t want me to figure how the hell to change anything other than to MESS EVERYTHING UP.
If I figure it out, I’ll let you know….
/mumble grumble, FYWP/
El Tiburon
Mexican Shark?
You rang?
jrg
Oh my God! Could this be the start of a period where verifiable, empirical facts are treated with more weight than the “truth” as defined by whatever a GOPer pulls from their anus? What a world that will be!
Pangloss
@aimai:
Exactly. Judging from the comment section in my local paper, you’d think the gutters in my town were running with blood. Yet those lyin’ liberal crime statistics indicate crime in most categories is half the rate it was in the early 90s, and the lowest its been since the early 60s or before.
Zifnab
@MikeJ:
At this point, I’d settle for “Facts say X”. But if “Facts” aren’t about 20-something pseudo-celebrities with rich parents or the current media fixation of the week (so this week I suppose it’s all LeBron James, all the freak’n time), then facts are not news worthy enough to make it past page A47.
I know they say No News is Good News, but the last ten years seems to suggest that No News is the Media Vacuum Where Crazy Conspiracy Theory Bullshit Grows.
Chat Noir
Not only is she spewing bullshit, she’s spewing it using improper English.
bobbo
Was it here? Atrios? where someone pointed out how ludicrous it is for a governor to run around the country telling people how horribly crime-ridden her state is. It’s almost like she’s saying, “Don’t boycott because us of our racist immigration law; boycott us because if you do business here you will be murdered by an illegal.”
Update: bobbo fail: Milbank says it in the first line of his piece.
Sly
Maybe Jan Brewer has been drinking one too many pints of Mad Bitch beer.
I know, I know. Too easy. Big ups to Milbank. The article was superb, and the comments are a fuckin’ hoot.
DickSpudCouchPotatoDetective
Write the story sometime about how you knew that, because damn few people even close to the ground knew it when SB1070 hit the front page. The same newspaper that is now reporting flat crime rates was running front page stories every time an illegal immigrant jaywalked out here, pumping up the fear and hysteria. A Gannett newspaper, owned by USA Today, not exactly some small town wingnut trailer park operation, by the way. I applaud them doing their jobs … now … and getting these facts straight, but it would have fucking helped if they had been getting it right two years ago, one year ago, even six months ago. Apparently their reporters are sitting around eating pork rinds and watching FoxNews on tv.
But … all of that said, Jan Brewer has signed onto a Republican scheme, which is to demagogue this issue into votes this November. That is their entire agenda. They don’t give a rat’s ass about the facts or the security of the border. What’s more, they are using this issue here as a jackalope to deflect attention from 20 years of Republican legislative fuckups that have created sinkholes of useless laws with costs that go unfunded thanks to a nihilistic, anti-tax approach to revenue production for the state. The state is broke, and Brewer doesn’t want to talk about it when she can scoop up votes by shrieking “Border Control” every time the microphones are turned on.
Fucking goddam Republicans.
daveNYC
I know you, you’re that tricky land shark.
No ma’am, I’m a Mexican.
Mark S.
Dear fucking god that’s complete and utter horseshit.
Honus
@geg6: yeah, every time I go back home I marvel at the fact that it is one of the few places where white people still work in convenience stores.
Joel
@DickSpudCouchPotatoDetective: Really Charles, people will think-
what I tell them to think.
cleek
@Brachiator:
“cannot be proven” ?
whew. that’s some harsh language!
“some say the earth is flat, but this cannot be proven!”
Mariano Castillo better watch himself, the wingnuts don’t take kindly to criticism from the media these days.
Calouste
@Mark S.:
It’s true in the same sense that the Senate is “the greatest deliberating body” in the world, rather than its poshest retirement home.
Davis X. Machina
That’s the leaders.
The followers cannot be disabused by facts because you can’t refute a theology.
Movement conservatism is a revealed religion, insupportable by the evidence of the senses, which is why idiocy like this gets traction. Anyone can believe plausible things — that requires no faith, and so garners no merit. The greatest merit comes from having the greatest faith, and the greatest faith is the ability to believe impossible things — like Obama’s Kenyan citizenship, or global cooling, or imminent hyperinflation.
Credo quia absurdum — Tertullian for RNC chair.
DickSpudCouchPotatoDetective
Don’t kid yourself, she knows exactly what she is doing, and all the anti-immigration Republicans do. This is the perfect dogwhistle-jackalope issue for them, and they are going to parlay it into governorships and congressional seats and statehouse seats this fall, in the south and west.
This is all about leveraging their minority position and, frankly, catching Democrats asleep at the switch. Now holding Congress since January 2007, the Dems have done JACK SHIT to address immigration and border issues, no leadership or proactive policy whatsoever. Unless there is profound Dem voter turnout this fall, which is Job One out here in Arizona for our side …. the GOP scores big with this issue.
Only bright spot I have seen, would be something like this. But it’s a long shot at this point, given the current political climate.
General Stuck
Brian Ross introduces this canard
Glenn Beck, amongst other morans, runs with it and Polifact debunks the claim of Phoenix as number 2 in world for kidnappings.
El Cid
Another part of this which is absolutely disgusting is that now they are referring to crimes from narco-traffickers as from ‘illegal immigrants’.
The deputy who was shot a month or two ago had stumbled across a large marijuana field.
It wasn’t fucking Jose the guy aspiring to be a carpenter or Maria seeing if she could maybe get a job in a restaurant or cleaning houses. It was fucking narco-traffickers, who will never, ever, ever give a shit about the laws when there’s a multi-billion dollar US market for illegal drugs.
Brewer of course, has gone even further, alleging that most people illegally crossing the Southern border into Arizona are carrying drugs.
El Cid
@General Stuck:
Hey, man, it’s not the quantity of kidnappings which get you to the silver medal, but the quality.
Greg
Since immigration status is not recorded for most transactions, it is very easy for people to just make up statistics since they cannot be disproved. I am from the Central Valley in CA (AZ light) and they make stuff up there all the time. My favorite is “There are 6 bazillion illegals in our county which costs us a gazillion dollars every year and they send 80 quadrillion dollars a year to Mexico instead of spending it here which puts an undo strain on our systems and ruins our schools and I am sick of pushing 1 for English and seeing signs at Home Depot in Spanish”
Butch
I was back in the Midwest for the holidays talking with a relative who I normally regard as educated and smart, who offered the opinion that the underwear bomber was evidence of the problem with “illegals.” I dunno….
DickSpudCouchPotatoDetective
Without comment, this material from Maricopa County Attorney Rick Romley (this is the Phoenix metro area, and Romley runs one of the largest prosecuting attorney shops in the country, grinding out about 2200 felony convictions per month, 100 for every court business day year in and year out).
I personally think the SB1070 law is more bark than bite, and a waste of time and money for law enforcement, but it is political gold for Republicans.
handy
@Michael:
Priceless. Everybody, all together now: IOKIYAR!
El Cid
@Greg: Greatest summary yet.
asiangrrlMN
Eh, whatever. She can spew her shit and not be held accountable. Angle is batshitcrazy and still has a legitimate chance to win in Nevada. The Republicans have a shot to take back the House this election cycle. My very own state will probably elect a guy who thinks a server in a restaurant can make a hundred thou a year and therefore all servers should be exempt from the minimum wage law. It doesn’t matter how well-informed we all are because even though the crazies are the minority, there is a swath of people who aren’t crazy, but who aren’t informed who are still buying much of the media crap. Explaining is not a good defense, but that’s all the Democrats really have given that the inevitable slant of a story will always tilt for the sensational/to the right.
DickSpudCouchPotatoDetective
@Greg:
In once proved to a friend in CA that illegal aliens were costing her about $1 a week. This was 15 years ago and I had to do a lot of research to come up with the figures, but I am pretty sure I was in the ballpark.
So after listening to her rant about illegals for a while, I would say, you know what? You have used up your dollar’s worth of bitching time with me this week.
Shut her right up.
MattR
@geg6: I thought it was kinda funny/sad that the Arizona Iced Tea Company had to put out a press release declaring that they are not based in the state of AZ, have never been based there and please don’t boycott us as a result of SB1070.
Cacti
Jan Brewer has gone all-in on the crazy and is literally just making shit up as she goes along now.
Her Dad died fighting the Nazis
Most Border crossers are smuggling drugs
The cheese had slid completely from her cracker.
geg6
@Honus:
LOL! So true. Convenience stores are major employers of the pasty white hillbilly brigade around here. You know, all the Tea Baggers.
daveX99
@Michael: Sorry to pile on, M, but a ‘curb stomping’ is one of the most revolting things I’ve ever heard of:
(urban dictionary)
“To place someone’s mouth on a cement curb, and then stomp on their head from behind to break out their teeth.”
You sir, are fucking gross.
Cacti
John McCain is a worthless old crank who’s doubled down on the fear/racism because it’s the way the political winds are blowing with AZ republicans.
His “build the darn fence” commercial was filmed with “Border Sheriff” Paul Babeu…
whose county is a good 80 miles from the border.
geg6
@daveX99:
Not nearly as gross as Ruth Marcus, though.
Personally, I think it’s too good for the likes of her.
Corner Stone
@Greg:
We get this exact same argument in Harris County, TX. But they also used it during HCR to throw in the additional strain illegals put on hospitals and ER wait times, etc.
It’s actually kind of like saran wrap and can be fitted to shape over any debate that’s taking place.
burnspbesq
@Mark S.:
Brewer haz a sad because the one person in Phoenix that everybody wishes would be kidnapped (Matt Leinert) hasn’t been.
Davy McBongo
Mock all you like, you won’t be laughing once the border coyotes acquire the oil spill-mutated HOVERSHARK.
burnspbesq
If I were a taxpayer in Arizona, I would be pissed about AB 1070, because there are going to be a lot more settlements like this.
Wile E. Quixote
One can only hope that this issue will backfire with everyone who isn’t a dumb, white racist and that the GOP will end up jumping the Mexican shark.
Cacti
@burnspbesq:
It’s sooooo much worse than that.
We’ve already had to close every highway rest area in the state for lack of funds (read: there are no roadside crappers open in the entire State of Arizona), and we’re already 49th in the country in education spending. The real estate market that propelled economic growth here cratered when the economy crashed and will take years to recover…
But somehow, we’ll come up with the funds to incarcerate thousands of potential new inmates, and train 15,000+ law enforcement officers how to enforce this debacle without racial profiling.
Judith Tarr
Just for lolz, here’s what came down this week: http://ht.ly/27AJ4
Oh NOES!!! Tourists aren’t coming to Arizona! Because of all the drug traffickers and the shootouts in the streets and the headless bodies and and and and and! But that’s NOT TRUE! We lied! It’s really safe! Please come spend your money in our state!
GOPper thought processes on parade.
Also bear in mind that Maricopa and Pinal (where John McCain’s favorite sheriff is–and oh my is he a piece of work) are not border counties. The Superstition Mountains, where all the bodies allegedly are, are north of Phoenix–a good ways away from anything resembling border action.
I’m in Pima County, which is on the border, and my sheriff says the whole thing is stupid and unenforceable and there’s no reason for it anyway. He, unlike the noisemakers in the news, knows what the hell he is talking about.
Meanwhile the rural wingnut brigade and the retirees march in lockstep to the polls (where there are nasty voter ID laws because of all the “buses full of illegals coming up to vote in our elections”). Better hope McCain wins his primary. He’s bad enough, but his Teabagger opponent is worse. I can’t see the Dem making it, not with the right-wing scream machine turned up to max.
Which of course is the whole point of the exercise.
Nick
@DrDave:
It’s hard to bitch slap someone who has no feeling.
Bootlegger
The freakenomics boys explain the lack of love with a cartoon.
burnspbesq
@Judith Tarr:
He might say that even if it weren’t true. He has to get votes in Tucson, which is as close to a DFH enclave as there is in AZ (love those college towns).
Jeroen Janssen
The same shit is going on over here in the Netherlands.
I live in Amsterdam and if you listen to our resident teabagger, Geert Wilders, it sounds like I’m living in a war zone where hardworking (white) people are raped and pillaged by swarthy foreigners on a daily basis.
In spite of the fact that we do have a semi-functioning press, that sometimes calls Wilders out on his bullshit, a large and growing number of people support him.
I don’t think the increase in fear and hatred of immigrants, especially muslims, can be attributed to the economic downturn, this has been going on for a long time. Unfortunately, the Netherlands is no longer the tolerant, relaxed country the world think it is.
We might win the World Cup, though!
But probably not. Curse you, Paul the Calamari!
burnspbesq
@Cacti:
The only way the bullshit might stop is if Joe Arpaio somehow becomes personally liable for his department’s misconduct. And even that might not work: the Wingnut Welfare apparat will gin up a defense fund and thousands of dumbasses who can’t afford to contribute, will.
Every day, in every way, Mencken is shown to be correct.
burnspbesq
@Jeroen Janssen:
The only people being raped and pillaged by swarthy foreigners are opposing forwards who have to deal with Boulharouz.
anonymous
Wait…no way…
Bootlegger
Type “illegal alien crime stats” into teh Google and you’ll see why people believe this shit.
The commie leftist criminologists though, like Sampson or Fox (not the news), clearly hate America.
Nick
@aimai:
I decided to take it upon myself to be the deliver of Democrats messaging in the last few months.
“The economic crisis happened because Clinton wanted everyone to have a home and minorities all got mortages they can’t afford”
“Actually, no, the truth is most defaults occured among the middle and upper class, and the financial crisis was triggered because banks made bad bets and were able to do it because the industry was deregulated starting during the Reagan years”
Nope, I was wrong I was told.
And it goes on like that.
it’s not the Democrats messaging that’s the problem, it’s that this country is so imbedded in the believe that government sucks and it is the job of media to keep it that way, that nothing the government (Democrats) say will be believed.
Republicans, on the other hand, can appeal to Jesus and the flag and have the country eating out of their hands.
Bootlegger
@burnspbesq: Or have their legs broken in midfield by De Jong.
Jeroen Janssen
@El Cid: Somewhere a gop staffer is writing that line down, thinking: “Hey, that makes sense, let’s use that in our next speech.”
The Other Chuck
Mexico would really love it if we secured our borders. The guns that they’re using to kill people down there are pouring in from the USA.
Maybe they should move their military to the border and start randomly searching the gringos.
Brachiator
@Cacti:
Years ago, McCain tried to sponsor some mild immigration reform. But after selling his soul to win the GOP presidential nomination, he’s apparently decided that there is no point in even pretending that he has any principles any more. The additional irony is that no matter what he does, the tea baggers and wingnuts still love Sarah Palin more than they ever cared for him.
asiangrrlMN
@Judith Tarr: He was on Colbert. He made sense. I hope he keeps his job. I love the part where he said he’d be sued either way, so he might as well do the right thing.
Jeroen Janssen
@Bootlegger: Hey, I resent that! De Jong is not swarthy.
burnspbesq
@Bootlegger:
“Destroyer” is supposed to be a euphemism when applied to defenders and d-mids. Someone needs to explain that to ol’ Nigel.
burnspbesq
@Jeroen Janssen:
And Holden resented missing six weeks.
It was a bad tackle – late and high.
sukabi
there have been times in the past where I’ve had to wonder at my mother’s sanity for becoming so caught up in her TV series that she’d talk about the characters as if they were real…. I think this is what’s happened to Jan Brewer, she’s got an episode of Criminal Minds stuck on a loop in her brain…. too bad she didn’t stay tuned for the epilogue.
sukabi
@Brachiator: McCain’s always done the expedient thing for HIS CAREER, whether it was immigration reform half-measures or finance reform or you name it… he’s always “supported” the position that would garner him the most favorable press, whether he followed through on promises made, or undercut them when the cameras were off has been determined solely on the basis of if it would benefit HIM.
Urza
Question:
Why is rape, robbery, and murder lumped together? They seem to me to be incredibly different things. If you had 19 murders in a town of 20k thats a serious problem. If you have 19 rapes you have a problem. 19 robberies could be a purse snatcher.
A couple of murders or rapes in a town of 20k each year, not good but not terrible. As in less than 5 each. 19 robberies seems rather low and a great place to move to with the kids.
DickSpudCouchPotatoDetective
@Judith Tarr:
Actually, due East.
Visible from where I sit, if you get up above the treeline.
Where I sit is approximately at St. Joseph’s Hospital and Medical Center, 7th avenue and Thomas.
auntieeminaz
@DickSpudCouchPotatoDetective: How far are you from the grocery store with the underground parking?
daveX99
@geg6: eek. I let a lot go when I read the net (& I admit: there’s somthing about this particular ‘metaphor’ that really creeps me out), but really – that level of physical violence? For being an idiot? That’s sick.
MattR
@Urza: I started coming up with a reasonable guess that those crimes are grouped together because they are all violent crimes against individuals where the victim suffers a loss, but I realized the answer is more likely “because those are the types of crimes those Mexicans commit”
DickSpudCouchPotatoDetective
@auntieeminaz:
For a fee, I can give you that information.
Make me an offer.
MattR
@daveX99: Just wanted to say you are not alone about the curb stomping thing. For some reason that particularly imagery freaks me out. I think I was permanently scarred by American History X
Bootlegger
@Jeroen Janssen: @burnspbesq: At least we cn agree he is a Bad Boy.
geg6
@daveX99:
The level of violence we talk about here is nothing to the levels I’d unleash if I let my rage at these assholes really fly.
Bootlegger
@Urza: Those are classified as “violent crimes”, usually along with assault. But there are always way more assaults than the other three so sometimes they are parsed this way. Still, only 19 combined, that is pretty damned low.
Brachiator
@sukabi:
I agree that McCain’s earlier positions on immigration got him good press, but I don’t think it got him a lot more votes. Here McCain (and later Dubya’s) stance on immigration reform made the business interests happy, but did not appeal to regular GOP voters.
Bill Section 147
@Brachiator: John Dean in his book Conservatives Without a Conscience mention studies on people who believed. They actually took a group of people who believed some authoritarian crap and had verified experts from the government (I think it was some former CIA guys) come in and debunk the myths. The result, the strength of their belief in the face of actual demonstrable facts went up not down. They found that subjects who leaned authoritarian actually took it as a test of will to resist being de-programed.
True believers believe.
Doonesbury had a send up of this concept with two radio hosts, one liberal and the other conservative. They discussed an event and the liberal actually considered the possibility that the other guy might have had a point. Checkmate.
libarbarian
WHAT-EVER! Look, these little lies don’t change the BIG TRUTH – Mexicans are scary.
S. cerevisiae
@asiangrrlMN: Emmer is not going to win, Dayton will clean his clock. I actually like Entenza, but the Dayton machine will bury him with money.
The comments to the Milbank article are really out there, and people keep quoting a paragraph of supposed FBI statistics which say among other things that 95% of murder warrants in LA are for illegal immigrants – that really sounds bogus.
r€nato
@flounder:
FFS. I’ve hiked the Superstitions quite a bit myself. There’s no epidemic of beheadings there, the only time anything bad happens is when some idiot doesn’t pack enough water or gets lost.
General Stuck
deleted posted in wrong thread
El Cid
@libarbarian:
What with their sombreros and bandoliers and leaning against cacti.
suzanne
@r€nato: Word. These hasn’t been any crime epidemic over there (I’m in Chandler) in God knows how many years. Just the fuckin’ Renaissance Faire!!! (Which is frightening in its own way.)
Brewer’s such a fucking dumbass. I’m all excited to sound like a liberal elitist, but I learned recently that she never even finished college. She went through two years at the notable educational institution of Glendale Community College. (Notable only because Glendale makes me pray for my own death.) The woman isn’t qualified to lead a fucking kindergarten classroom, never mind a STATE.
I never thought living here would make me miss the wretched hive of scum and villainy that is Tucson, but I feel so adrift in a sea of man-eating sharks living up here. My car is, like, the ONLY one with a Goddard sticker in probably the entire East Valley.
sukabi
@Brachiator: McCain’s been all about the “good NATIONAL press” whether or not it translates into local votes for him… his whole career (at least the last 15 years) has been to position himself for the Presidency, and the pundits and other national press outlets have been more than willing to help him construct his “war hero, maverick, independent” image… now all that’s left, since his presidential aspirations were done in, is a half-crazed old man willing to say anything — the nuttier the better, to hang on to his seat.
Cacti
@r€nato:
Or when some out of stater comes searching for the non-existant Lost Dutchman Mine.
r€nato
@Chat Noir:
Brewer attended, but did not complete her degree, at Glendale Community College.
Naturally, she’s a perfect leader for the Arizona GOP.
slag
@Pangloss:
Your local paper comment section? Heck, I can remember harrowing tales of illegals speeding down highways right in these very Balloon Juice comment sections. I guess someone here has been watching too many Speedy Gonzales cartoons.