Dispatch From The Inferno State: Sex, Lies And Videotape

-by Doug Kahn

I lied, there’s no sex here.
 
It could be worth reading anyway, if you’re interested in the newest confabulations of Blue Dog Gabrielle Giffords (AZ-8). (I’m going to scratch around and see if I can’t turn up some videotape too.) This time Giffords is using a large chunk of her cash-on-hand on a television buy that attacks the national boycott of Arizona and “these groups<” promoting it. 

Everyone here understands that means every group representing Latinos in Arizona. It’s also a direct personal attack on another member of the House, Raùl Grijalva, whose district adjoins hers. Howie wrote this up the other day, because it’s right up our alley: Blue Dog vs. Progressive Raùl Grijalva, co-chair of the House Progressive Caucus. Giffords has been a shameless promoter of the big lies of the racist brown-bashing creeps who run this state. Her press releases over the past year mostly yammer on about border violence and the “solemn responsibility to secure our border.”
 
I’d like to take this opportunity to thank Gabby for that authentic frontier gibberish. 



Parraz vs. McCain? 

First, an update on the U.S. Senate race. I think Randy Parraz is going to get the Democratic nomination for the McCain Senate seat. Both days I dropped in on his phone bank, 20+ people were making calls.
 
I was told the campaign had paid for 90,000 robo-calls to likely voters, the kind where you’re asked to listen all the way through and then make choices by pressing buttons on your phone. Out of 27,000 completed to Latino voters, more than half listened. That is astonishing if true, and I hope it is.
 
175 people showed up at an election rally last weekend in Tucson. I don’t know how politics goes where you live, but out here, that’s unheard of. It’s four candidates, Parraz is the only Latino, the only progressive, and he speaks his mind. Motivated supporters make a difference in this kind of low-turnout election, and people will really need to be motivated in order to vote tomorrow, because it’s going to be over 110º in Phoenix. So we’ll see the first electoral test of the resolve of the Latino community in what they call Sand Land. 

I saw Randy talk to a group at Arizona State University last night. My impression is that he knows how to move people to action. Having seen John McCain in action, I’m looking forward to the matchup. I’ve got $100 that says Randy can make him lose his temper before 2 weeks have gone by. 

Gabrielle Giffords, Bad Dog

If you go to her Congressional website, this quote is front and center: “Securing our borders is my top priority. Click here for more on my fight against smuggling, drug cartels and violence.” Her Border Security page has links to 124 articles, most of them praising Gabby for some damn thing or another. 
Here’s the video, if you can stomach it. The big lie: “Drug cartel violence increasingly threatens the lives of our citizens.” Drug cartel violence does threaten the lives of citizens, Mexican citizens in Mexico. That’s because we true-blue Americans smoke an incredible amount of weed, and there’s an all-out war in Mexico over who’s going to get the profits. Got a solution to that: legalize marijuana.
 
Over here in Arizona, we obey the law. That’s why our legislature just got rid of all the freeway speed enforcement cameras, because no one speeds here anymore! I know I don’t. Crime in every single border jurisdiction in Arizona continues to decline; violent crime, property crime, all kinds of crime.

At the beginning of her oration, Gabby uses the death of rancher Bob Krentz for political advantage. No one knows who killed Bob Krentz, but what the hell, let’s blame a Mexican. Footprints led toward the border, according to the police report. This proves nothing, of course. If you had just shot someone and were trying to avoid U.S. officers, you’d have to be a moron not to head over the border. 

Another Day, Another Idiot Sheriff

Lying can be contagious, and Sheriff Paul Babeu of Pinal County has told some real whoppers over the past year himself, like his claim that his officers were involved in 64 high-speed pursuits of smugglers in one month. “Babeu said he knows all the pursuits were by ‘illegals’ and largely drug smugglers, based on conversations with his officers.” Of course they all outran his officers and disappeared into thin air, and this bullshit is fully documented in police reports that exist in some parallel dimension. Read the full article here.

Pinal County is not actually on the border, but it can be a dangerous place nonetheless. 774,383 lbs. of cannabis sativa was seized by the DEA in 2008; yes, 387 tons. (I’ve been told that an ounce of marijuana doesn’t actually weigh an ounce, usually. I don’t know this from personal experience; I’m high on life.) Imagine how much got through. Marijuana is bulky stuff, and it has to go somewhere.  

One of Babeu’s deputies was shot in April. I should say that Deputy Puroll sustained a gunshot wound, origin unknown. Once the state police investigators got past the blarney and asked this guy tough questions (which he wouldn’t answer), the stories about automatic weapons and smugglers shooting at rescue helicopters just didn’t add up. Speculation is that he accidentally shot himself, and that’s the most innocent possibility; no one really knows. From the Phoenix New Times: 

Says a veteran crime-scene detective (not involved in the case) who analyzed the DPS report for us: "There are red flags all over this situation, starting with the fact that [the DPS] was unable to do as thorough a report as they would have wanted, mainly because they weren't allowed to interview the the deputy-- the alleged victim-- who lawyered up. This thing looks very, very suspicious on any number of levels."

 
KPHO had a story which was based on the statements of the Sheriff and his dudes and dudettes. 

The five suspected drug smugglers shot as many as 30 rounds from two AK-47's. [No: only 9 shell casings were found, other than the 45 rounds that Puroll fired.] One of those rounds pierced Deputy Puroll through the abdomen, just missing his kidney.
 
The smugglers even fired at the helicopter trying to rescue Puroll. 

"We had helicopters up in the air. They were taking gunfire from the suspects as well. They had to pull out. We got extra resources in and we were able to pull our deputy out," said Pinal County Lt. Tamatha Villar.

 
Completely, totally made up out of whole cloth. They told other media types it took 4 hours to find Puroll, and that fairy tale was missing the helicopters.
 
We desperately need to find a nickname for Giffords 
When Giffords and other elected Democrats repeat and amplify the xenophobia of Arizona Republicans, it does more than paint Arizonans as dunces (again). It makes it okay for everyone else to talk trash about immigrants, and in public. You heard me. Twice in the last month I’ve overheard thinly-veiled racist commentary passing for casual conversation. Maybe I don’t get out much, but I hadn’t heard this kind of thing since I was at college.
 
Our accidental Governor Jan Brewer is famous for citing numerous ‘beheadings’ in Arizona. “Our law enforcement agencies” told her about beheadings, she says. I probably don’t have to prove this is a deliberate lie, but you can read the Arizona Guardian article here. She also said the majority of undocumented immigrants crossing the border were smuggling drugs into Arizona. People are afraid to send their kids to school, she says. All made up. 

Who needs to organize a boycott of Arizona? You’d have to be crazy to vacation here, what with Phoenix being the kidnapping capital of the world. It is true that many people are held against their will at gunpoint here, but it’s not tourists or U.S. citizens. Police report that immigrants who’ve already paid to be smuggled into the U.S. are commonly victims of extortion here in the Phoenix area: they have to pay hundreds of dollars more to their ‘travel agents’ on this end of the trip. 

Giffords isn’t blaming Jan Brewer and crew for depressing the travel and hospitality industry here, it’s “these groups,” darn them. This is typical of hate-speech: unnamed enemies, everyone gets to fill in the blanks. Giffords has got to go. If we gain a new House seats in the coming reapportionment, a real Democrat, a progressive if we have anything to say about it, will have a better chance of getting the Democratic nomination with Giffords gone. The same goes for Harry Mitchell and Anne Kirkpatrick, two more spineless Dems, but let the Republicans deal with them.
 
We’re going after two Blue Dogs this fall, and Gabrielle Giffords is one of them.
 
Election day is today. Giffords doesn’t deserve your vote. Leave it blank. 

The Wild, Wild West 

We do have crime here. I’ve got to look up the statistics on bank robberies, because I’m feeling that reports of them have been increasing in the Arizona Republic. That would make sense in severe economic times, although now that I think about it, haven’t I read that crime decreases in hard times? That means that one of the preceding two sentences could be semi-delusional. Or not. I promise to get back to you on that, but first I have to read about how Winston Churchill covered up a UFO, a headline I saw in the Huffington Post.
 
Anyhoo, there was a failed bank robbery in Phoenix a few weeks ago. The teller refused to hand over any cash, so the young inmate-to-be just ran out the door. He’s described as having a tattoo on his forearm that says, cryptically, “Arizona.” Police are unsure what that word refers to. (Local experts think it’s a Basque phrase, aritz ona, meaning ‘good oak’.) A reward of $1,000 is is yours if you can identify the man, and it should be easy if you know him, since he posed for a photo while at the bank. 

The Phoenix police statement alleged that this tyro first gave a hand-written note to the teller, who said he couldn’t read the scribbles. It was his subsequent verbal demand for money that was refused. Good thing for the teller he wasn’t carrying a gub.