Confirmed: US to sue Arizona over SB1070.

Via Hot Air, este reportaje que el gobierno de los Estados Unidos va a llevar a las cortes el estado de Arizona sobre la Ley SB1070 de imigrantes ilegales. Aparentemente la Casa Blanca decidió primero divulgar esta noticia a los ecuatorianos, como parte de la visita de la Secretaria de Estado Hillary Clinton a Ecuador; por lo tanto es adecuado reportarlo en español. Depués de todo, no es como si la administración de Obama tenga antecedente ninguno de hablar claro en inglés*.

Thanks to Fausta for the translation: also check out her conversation with IBD’s Monica Showalter on Hillary Clinton being friendly with Ecuadorean President Correa in the first place.  That the American electorate rejects the idea of a federal challenge to the law by a two-to-one ratio is irrelevant to this administration, of course; given their tendency to mistake a tin ear for principles, that’s hardly surprising.  If Rasmussen put out a poll demonstrating that most Republicans and independents oppose the practice of people hitting each other in the groin, it’s highly likely that the White House would react by endorsing it for the 2010 midterms…

Moe Lane

Continue reading Confirmed: US to sue Arizona over SB1070.

Gov. Brewer removes AG Goddard from immigration law defense.

Let me put it a different way: Gov. Jan Brewer (R, AZ-GOV) removes AG Terry Goddard (D-CAND, AZ-GOV) from the defense of the illegal immigration law that the former supports and the latter opposes.

Late Friday night as the Memorial Day weekend began, Arizona’s Republican Gov. Jan Brewer, in effect, suspended the state’s Democratic attorney general from defending the new law in upcoming legal challenges. The measure, known as S.B. 1070, is due to take effect this summer and, among other things, allows local police under federal guidelines to check the immigration status of people they stop.

[snip]

The governor’s abrupt action against Terry Goddard, her likely Democratic opponent in this fall’s gubernatorial election, came after months of disputes between the two and at the end of a long day of legal maneuvering in both Arizona and the nation’s capital.

Continue reading Gov. Brewer removes AG Goddard from immigration law defense.

Do you agree with the State Department, Ambassador Huntsman?

You’ll be wanting to answer THAT WOMAN’s question, methinks.

It’s widely rumored that Jon Huntsman (former Republican governor of Utah, and current ambassador to the People’s Republic of China) has future political ambitions: I submit that those ambitions will quickly die the True Death if he does not address the recent ridiculousness over our State Department apologizing to the People’s Republic of China for Arizona’s enforcement of the government’s own illegal immigration policy. Because it’s now officially part of the national discussion:

The absolute low point of this campaign came last Friday, when a U.S. State Department delegation met with Chinese negotiators to discuss human rights. Apparently, our State Department felt it necessary to make their Chinese guests feel less bad about their own record of human rights abuses by repeatedly atoning for American “sins” – including, it seems, the Arizona immigration/pro-border security law. Asked if Arizona came up at all during the meeting, Assistant Secretary of State Michael Posner answered:

“We brought it up early and often. It was mentioned in the first session, and as a troubling trend in our society and an indication that we have to deal with issues of discrimination or potential discrimination, and that these are issues very much being debated in our own society.”

Note that he said “We brought it up” – not the Chinese, but the U.S. State Department’s own delegation. Instead of grilling the Chinese about their appalling record on human rights, the State Department continued the unbelievable apology tour by raising “early and often” Arizona’s decision to secure our border.

Continue reading Do you agree with the State Department, Ambassador Huntsman?

San Diego to Arizona: “Look, just because we called you racist bigots…”

Ain’t a ‘misunderstanding,’ by the way.  Arizonans got the message loud and clear. Louder and clearer than desired, in fact.

UPDATE: Welcome, Instapundit readers.

“…doesn’t mean that you shouldn’t visit:”

San Diego tourism leaders and hoteliers fear they could lose a sizable chunk of business this summer from valued “Zonies” who are so angered by elected leaders’ recent censure of Arizona for its illegal-immigration law that they’re mounting an informal boycott of their own.

The San Diego Convention & Visitors Bureau and several hotels report receiving e-mails and letters from Arizona visitors saying they intend to change their plans to travel here in light of local outcry over their home state’s anti-illegal-immigration stance.

Tourism officials are striking back. In an open letter, they urge Arizona residents to overlook local politics and come to San Diego just as they always have for its mild climate, beaches and attractions.

Read the whole thing, especially the parts where the Democratic legislators involved are stammering over the alarming revelation that their act of political … ah, ‘auto-eroticism’… actually had adverse consequences in Big-Person Land.  I encourage the San Diego hospitality industry to contemplate the implications of this; and to further contemplate that the solution to their problems with an insulted customer base lies with dealing with the insulters, not the insultees

Moe Lane

Crossposted to RedState.

#rsrh Two AZ anti-1070 drives abandoned.

Apparently, with a bit of pique involved:

The two proposed referendum drives challenging Arizona’s new sweeping law targeting illegal immigration are being abandoned, organizers said Monday. Andrew Chavez, a professional petition circulator involved in one of the efforts, said its backers pulled the plug after concluding they might not be able to time their petition filings in such a way as to put the law on hold pending a 2012 public vote.

Jon Garrido, the chief organizer of the other drive, attributed its end to a belief that the law would have been subject to legal protections under Arizona’s Constitution if approved by Arizona voters.

(Via Hot Air Headlines) Put more simply: the first one was abandoned when people realized that they couldn’t game the system sufficiently to shut the law down until it got re-ratified in 2012, and the second was abandoned because losing might interfere with the drive to get Arizona’s court system to declare that Arizona’s adoption of federal immigration law requirements was a violation of the Arizona constitution. No, you’re not the only one who finds that reasoning of theirs to be fairly incoherent.  Give them a break: they don’t want to say that the Arizona legislation polls well… actually, no.  Don’t give them – or the Democrats supporting them – a break on this; after all, they’re pretty explicitly calling the majority of the population dirty racists for wanting illegal immigration gotten under control.

It seems only fair that they deal with the consequences of their rhetoric.

What to take away from this Rasmussen AZ-GOV poll.

The very short version: all four GOP candidates for Governor beat the likely Democratic nominee. The hidden message: Arizona voters don’t like the Democrats’ health care debacle.

Over the past month, despite even higher opposition to the new national health care plan in Arizona than is found nationally, [state AG General Terry] Goddard has refused to join other state attorneys general in suing to stop the plan from becoming law. He argues that the suit will be unsuccessful and is a waste of taxpayer money. [Republican governor Jan] Brewer has gone ahead with a lawsuit anyway, delegating the legal work to her general counsel.

Now Brewer, who became governor when Janet Napolitano moved to Washington to be secretary of Homeland Security and has been plagued with severe budget problems ever since, earns 44% to Goddard’s 40%. A month ago, Goddard posted a 45% to 36% lead over the governor. were virtually tied in January.

Which should surprise nobody, but probably will. Ach, well, maybe May will see the sudden blossoming of support by the American people for a scheme that threatens to extend governmental control over 1/6th of the economy.

Moe Lane

Crossposted to RedState.

If we take back 45 seats, we make Biden wear a Little Lord Fauntleroy suit.

Via @baseballcrank, promises, promises:

Vice President Joe Biden said today that if Democrats were to lose 35 House seats they currently hold in traditionally Republican districts, it would mean doomsday for President Obama’s agenda.

Biden said Republicans are pinning their political strategy on flipping these seats.

“If they take them back, this the end of the road for what Barack and I are trying to do,” the vice president said at a fundraiser for Rep. Gabrielle Giffords (D-AZ) today in Greenville, Delaware.

Giffords, Giffords, Giffords: where have we heard that name before? Right: she was one of the Democrats who ran and hid from her constituents during the August town halls.  As I recall, she was so scared of them that she only felt safe on a military base – which was an impressive display of cowardice, even for a Blue-in-Red Democratic Member of Congress.

Yes, definitely, she needs to be one of the Thirty-Five.  I’m thinking that it’s going to be Jesse Kelly for this one: his website is here and you can contribute here.

Moe Lane

Crossposted to RedState.

It’s not even a ‘Battle’ of the Signs. No contest.

This video by Short for Ordinary (via Breitbart TV) contrasting the sign-acquiring strategies of the folks against health care rationing vs. those of the ones for it:


(For those without ready video: the 1000+ demonstrating against health care rationing at the Tuscon Recess Rally [Giffords*] made their own; the 200 demonstrating for it were generally handed them at about the same time that they got their juice and bagels)

…is illustrative of two things: first, all the creativity and energy seems to be flowing through the folks who are trying to stop health care rationing. The folks brought in to astroturf support for it are… dull**. Second: screaming names at these people doesn’t seem to be stopping them; they instead look like they’re using the insults as a reminder of why they keep going out there to say their piece. Which is as good a reason as any to conclude why they’re not going away.

While I am not of course privy to the thoughts of the President, I suggest that perhaps this is not the community he thought that he’d be organizing once he took office…

Moe Lane Continue reading It’s not even a ‘Battle’ of the Signs. No contest.

I think MSNBC is trying to get the President shot at.

(H/T Ace of Spades, NewsBusters, & Hot Air) I’m aware that’s kind of an inflammatory statement, but hear me out.

OK, remember last weekend, when there were a bunch of reports of armed people at the Arizona town hall? Lots of stories of bemused reporters trying to get their heads around the notion that in Arizona you can wander around with an AR-15 –

Which is not a fully automatic weapon, by the way. You can’t buy fully automatic weapons in the USA*. I mention this because this is apparently news to our journalistic class.

– anyway, lots of bemused reporters, not least because of this picture (via here):

Health care rationing protester, by the way. See also this video, and stop at about 0:28.

OK, yup, same guy. Now watch this: Continue reading I think MSNBC is trying to get the President shot at.

Meet Jesse Kelly (R Cand, AZ-08).

Website for Jesse Kelly here: contribute here.

AZ-08 is a R+4 district: its current holder (Gabrielle Giffords) picked up the seat as part of the 2006 shellacking. In time-honored Blue Dog fashion, she’s handling the health care rationing controversy by hiding from it: Giffords abruptly canceled two Thursday meetings by ‘combining’ them into a RSVP-only whatever-it-was at a military base. Fairly typical behavior, in other words.

Enter Jesse Kelly: Marine, businessman, and more than happy to go to the canceled town hall and talk, same time, same place.  How did he do?  Judge for yourself: Continue reading Meet Jesse Kelly (R Cand, AZ-08).