Who’s Behind It: The Arizona Immigration Law

Among hundreds of bills drafted by an alliance of business, lawmakers: Arizona’s immigration law. NPR investigation illustrates how private prisons created Arizona’s controversial immigration law for their own benefit.

(October 28, 2010) “Last year, two men showed up in Benson, Ariz., a small desert town 60 miles from the Mexico border, offering a deal. Glenn Nichols, the Benson city manager, remembers the pitch.

“The gentleman that’s the main thrust of this thing has a huge turquoise ring on his finger,” Nichols said. “He’s a great big huge guy and I equated him to a car salesman.”

What he was selling was a prison for women and children who were illegal immigrants.

“They talk [about] how positive this was going to be for the community,” Nichols said, “the amount of money that we would realize from each prisoner on a daily rate.”

But Nichols wasn’t buying. He asked them how would they possibly keep a prison full for years — decades even — with illegal immigrants?

“They talked like they didn’t have any doubt they could fill it,” Nichols said.

That’s because prison companies like this one had a plan — a new business model to lock up illegal immigrants. And the plan became Arizona’s immigration law.

Behind-The-Scenes Effort To Draft, Pass The Law

The law is being challenged in the courts. But if it’s upheld, it requires police to lock up anyone they stop who cannot show proof they entered the country legally…

But while the debate raged, few people were aware of how the law came about.

NPR spent the past several months analyzing hundreds of pages of campaign finance reports, lobbying documents and corporate records. What they show is a quiet, behind-the-scenes effort to help draft and pass Arizona Senate Bill 1070 by an industry that stands to benefit from it: the private prison industry.”

Click here for the full story from National Public Radio.

“Ground Hog Day for Oil” – by Timothy Egan

“In Alaska, we saw how that turned out: after nearly two decades of legal foot-dragging, Exxon got exactly what it wanted: a Supreme Court that consistently backs the powerful and well-connected reduced punitive damages from $2.5 billion to $500 million — in a good year, just a single week’s profit for the company.” For the full article, click here.

“I have not moved out of the comedian’s box into the news box; the news box is moving toward me.” – Jon Stewart

(From the New York Times) …

“Last week that comedian did something that the hosts of “Fox & Friends,” the morning show on Fox News, did not do: he had his staff members call the White House and ask a question.

It may have been in pursuit of farce, not fact, but it gave credence to the people who say “The Daily Show” is journalistic, not just satiric. “Fox & Friends” had repeatedly asked whether the crescent-shaped logo of the nuclear security summit was an “Islamic image,” one selected by President Obama in his outreach to the Muslim world. The White House told “The Daily Show” that the logo was actually based on the Rutherford-Bohr model of the atom. Please click here for the full article in the New York Times.”

From the New York Times: “A once united GOP emerges, in identity crisis”

Click here for the full article:

“One thing was clear: the Republican Party was no longer the party of George W. Bush. But exactly whose party was it, and whose should it become? Senator John McCain never quite succeeded in presenting a coherent alternative version. Can someone else do better?

The answers that have emerged so far reflect the party’s current confusion. A coalition once notable for its disciplined unity is now threatened by sectarian rifts that could widen significantly in the weeks ahead. Already, neoconservative defense hawks are pitted against isolationists, libertarian antitax brigades resist the values-driven politics of social conservatives, and the party’s intellectuals operate at a growing remove from the base.”

Controversial Georgia Senator Saxby Chambliss appears headed for runoff

George W. Bush and Senate ally Saxby Chambliss

  Saxby Chambliss, the controversial Republican Senator from Georgia, apparently failed to win enough votes in yesterday’s election and will now face a December 2nd runoff against Democrat Jim Martin. Chambliss, who avoided service in Vietnam due to a ‘bad knee,’ is notorious for attacking the patriotism of former U.S. Senator and Vietnam Veteran Max Cleland, who lost both legs and one arm serving his country.

Fake Registrations an Unlikely Vehicle for Fraud

 (From Pro Publica – Journalism in the Public Interest) Fake Registrations an Unlikely Vehicle for  Fraud: 

 ”For weeks Republican leaders have warned that widely reported problems with fake voter  registrations could result in a flood of phony votes in pivotal states.

But Ronald Michaelson, a veteran election administrator and member of the McCain-Palin Honest and Open Election Committee, said in an interview that he could not name a single instance in which this had occurred… A review of prosecutors’ statements and documents filed by Republicans in the most serious new cases alleging voter fraud shows that none offer an example in which a fraudulently registered person managed to cast a valid vote. While several cases argue that such frauds are possible, none sketched a scenario for how massive numbers of people could fake registrations and then vote.

Asked for specifics about the dangers of fake registration, Ben Porritt, a spokesman for the McCain campaign, provided links to 13 news clips and a 2003 Missouri state auditor’s report. Eleven of the cases did not involve registration fraud. Two recounted how felons appeared to have cast illegal votes under their own names. The lone example of a forged registration leading to an illegitimate vote comes from The Wall Street Journal’s John Fund, who in April 2006 wrote that a community organizer had improperly registered a noncitizen, and then “someone eventually voted in [the noncitizen’s] name.”

For the full text of the article, click here.

My little Sis votes in Atlanta… in just under four hours

 My sister got to her early voting poll in Atlanta at 6:20 pm tonight and was able to  complete voting by 10 pm. There were 501 people ahead of her, and she was told the  likely wait next Tuesday would be 8 hours. She stood next to a 40 year old African  American woman who had her five year old twins in tow – voting early because she  may not have the opportunity Tuesday. According to the New York Times, the  commitment of African American voters in this election may have an impact on even the most Republican areas.

This year’s vote: Very large, and unpredictable

From the New York Times: “Paul Gronke, a professor at Reed College in Oregon who oversees its Early Voting Center, said this season’s early-voting patterns pose particular challenges for those trying to analyze changes in the electoral landscape. “There are flies in the ointment that make things particularly complicated this year,” he said, noting the expected high numbers of new voters, or young people using only cell phones. “Past patterns are not doing very well in predicting the current state of the world.”

My 71-year-old Aunt Macrina: Reagan Republican for Obama

  My  conservative Republican Aunt Macrina, from Jacksonville, North Carolina, loved  Ronald Reagan, believes in small government and military action only when national  security is truly at issue and the mission is clear (Macrina was a military wife for many  years). She raised five boys, mainly on her own, the oldest of whom was severely  mentally retarded. 

Several months ago, Macrina asked me if I were registered to vote in North Carolina, and proceeded to tell me that I’d better be — because George W. Bush and the GOP “got us into a war we never should have been in, failed to finish the job in Afghanistan, and have destoyed our economy.”

She’s been volunteering daily in the Obama office in Jacksonville. I tried to ring her today, and she told me she’ll have to call me back: she’s driving people to the polls – had driven three already this morning – and her next shift was coming up in 15 minutes. 

I guess there’s hope for us yet.

…and work to suppress the vote in Ohio as well.

  ”In Ohio, local Republicans — with the explicit approval of the McCain campaign — sued  to allow observers at early voting locations after Democratic Secretary of State Jennifer  Brunner said they weren’t mandated.”