jan brewer

Mexico: The War Party’s New Target?

by on November 27, 2010 @ 3:13 pm · 1 comment

in Drug Policy, Immigration, Imperialism, Police Statism, The Right, War

For decades, some elements of the Right (occasionally abetted by people who should have known better) have peddled the notion that Mexico has created a vast and well-organized “fifth column” within the United States dedicated to La Reconquista — the re-conquest of territories seized by the U.S. during the Mexican-American War. In this scenario, non-assimilated Mexicans by the millions are stealthily enlisting in a campaign of subversion orchestrated by the Mexican government with the help of foundation-funded anti-American groups on this side of the border — and, when the time is right, this fifth column will erupt in an orgy of violence and mayhem.

Whatever revanchist sentiments may exist in Mexico are the residue of Washington’s seizure of roughly half the country through a war of aggression. Washington’s proxy narco-war, which has killed tens of thousands of people since 2006 and displaced hundreds of thousands more, has done nothing to palliate those feelings. An actual U.S. invasion might be the only thing that would turn the alarmist fantasy of a nationalistic uprising on the part of Mexicans living on the U.S. side of the border into something akin to a self-fulfilling prophecy.

Since 2007, when the Fed’s most recent economic bubble collapsed, immigration from Mexico has tapered off dramatically. In Arizona, immigration (both legal and illegal) and violent crime have both been in decline for a decade. Yet the state’s Republican leadership, and much of its law enforcement apparatus — from Maricopa County Sheriff Joe Arpaio, the corrupt septuagenarian headline whore, to Pinal County Sheriff  Paul Babeau, his younger and more telegenic understudy — insist that the state is under unremitting siege.  Governor Jan Brewer,  who claimed that the “majority” of illegal immigrants from Mexico are “mules” in the employ of drug cartels and that illegal immigrants had committed “beheadings” in Arizona, was headed for electoral oblivion following an unpopular tax increase — until she seized on the immigration issue, which propelled her to a dramatic political recovery.

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Jan Brewer, Big Fat Liar

by on September 8, 2010 @ 11:49 pm · 6 comments

in Immigration, Vulgar Politics

Big Fat LiarNot that a politician caught stating a mis-truth is shocking news to anyone, but this particular lie was pure gasoline poured onto the already-raging firestorm surrounding illegal immigration:

In a column released online today, the Washington Post’s Dana Milbank noted that Arizona Republican governor Jan Brewer, a strong proponent of her state’s controversial immigration bill, has claimed that Arizona’s “law enforcement agencies have found bodies in the desert either buried or just lying out there that have been beheaded.”

As Milbank noted, the Arizona Guardian checked that claim out and found no evidence of beheadings; Brewer’s office did not respond to a request from the columnist for documentation for the beheading claim.

Months later, as Brewer campaigns to remain Arizona’s governor, she finally admits she might have, sort of, kind of, not really told the truth:

But the claim has come back to haunt her after her stammering debate performance in which she failed to back it up and ignored repeated questions on the issue from a scrum of reporters.

Brewer has spent the time since backtracking and trying to repair the damage done from her cringe-worthy debate against underdog challenger Terry Goddard.

“That was an error, if I said that,” the Republican told the Associated Press on Friday. “I misspoke, but you know, let me be clear, I am concerned about the border region because it continues to be reported in Mexico that there’s a lot of violence going on and we don’t want that going into Arizona.”

She said she was referring to beheadings and other cartel-related violence in Mexico in comments she made earlier this summer about decapitated bodies found in the state’s southern region.

No, that’s not what she was referring to.  She didn’t say anything about headless bodies found in Mexico, unless Arizona law enforcement is now engaging in operations south of the border (emphasis added):

Appearing on a local television show Sunday morning, Gov. Jan Brewer described how bad Arizona’s illegal immigration problem has gotten.

“Our law enforcement agencies have found bodies in the desert either buried or just lying out there that have been beheaded,” she said.

No reasonably literate person could read that statement and interpret it to mean that she was referring to drug war violence in Mexico.  Brewer lied in a grandstanding attempt to gin up support for the state’s fascist anti-immigration bill.  Everybody knows she lied, including her Democratic opponent in the governor’s race, the press, and most other people paying attention.  Unfortunately, that doesn’t include Arizona voters, who still favor her over Goddard by a nearly two-to-one margin.

What’s worse, Brewer’s mendacity, or the Arizona electorate’s gullibility?  It’s an embarrassment in either case.

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