God Perhaps Sees Error of His Ways after that Last Fiasco, Scales Back Next Divine Executive Appointment to State Level

God's Own Archangel Jan.

Aaaaaaand here we go again with the chosen one. No, not the "Chosen One" tag derisively hung on Barack Obama by detractors who think he's the Antichrist, but Jan Brewer's actual belief that God got distracted from the pennant race long enough to reach down into Arizona to pluck her from the obscurity of the lieutenant governorship and install her as the our ruler. Stop me if you've heard this one before.

Gov. Jan Brewer said Wednesday that she believes "God has placed me in this powerful position of Arizona's governor to help guide our state through the difficulty that we are currently facing."

Delightful, but harmless, no? I mean, as long it's limited to delusions of grandeur and doesn't intrude on state business, no big deal. Because it doesn't, right?

Brewer detailed to a group of pastors of the Missouri Synod of the Lutheran Church how she relies on her faith and in prayer to deal with many of the issues she faces as the state's chief executive. Brewer also said there are times when, during a meeting with staffers, one will suggest praying about an issue.

"And we stop, and we take that time, and we pray about it," Brewer, a Missouri Synod-Lutheran herself, told the group meeting here. "And it does make a difference."

Oh. Uh.

Brewer goes on to assure us that she recognizes the dangers in tying personal religious beliefs too intimately to the business of governing, or, as she puts it, the belief that "we can convert God's truth into a political platform, a set of political issues, and that there is 'God's way' in our politics. I don't believe that for a moment." Okay, fair enough, and can I just get a whew from the non-Missouri Synod congregation on that one? Unfortunately, she follows it up with this little gem:

Brewer, in response to audience questions, said she has been "blessed because so many people of great faith" have helped her with their prayers.

"And that has caused me, of course, to be grateful that we are a country of Christianity," she said.

"I don't think under the circumstances that anybody's in the position of living at this turbulent time, these terrible, critical times of our nation, can possibly get through without asking for help and guidance from Jesus Christ and from God," the governor told the ministers.

Granted, she was speaking to a group of Lutheran ministers, not giving a State of the State address. But. Please. It wasn't exactly a whisper in the confessional, even if Lutherans had such things, which they don't. They did have reporters with microphones, and despite that, in one fell swoop Brewer simultaneously promulgated the "Christian nation" falsehood and pooh-poohed everything falling outside the box labeled "Christianity." After quite openly proclaiming that state business is regularly guided by a Christian prayer circle.

The former governor, now HHS chief Janet Napolitano, was an observant Methodist who nonetheless elevated secular notions of civil rights above theology and managed to keep the rabidly conservative state legislature at bay. Now God's Own Jan, about whom exactly zero rumors of lesbianism have swirled, has set the governor's office on a Godly and explicitly Christian path. And her greatest hits to date include signing into law a bill that severely restricts reproductive freedom (see yesterday's post) and eliminating benefits for the domestic partners of state employees, which affects a few disabled adult dependents but overwhelmingly targets fornicatin' straight couples livin' in sin and, of course, the gays. And the kids of all the people involved.

But don't worry; there's one realm Brewer not only keeps her religion's teaching firmly out of, but also claims to not even know what that teaching might be.

Brewer, facing a question about illegal immigration, said she does not know the stance of her church. But she said her views are governed by her elected position.

"As the governor of Arizona, I stand on the law that they're illegal, they ought not to be here," she said.

Seriously, what were you expecting?

Welcome to Arizona. Hope you brought your cross.

In Which Jan Brewer Does Something That Does Not Piss Us Off

Newsflash! Arizona's harpy-in-chief, new Governor Jan Brewer, is showing signs that she may just possibly have a brain that occasionally functions independently of the Arizona State Legislature's Republican caucus. Faced with an umpteen kazillion dollar deficit, Brewer addressed the legislature yesterday and told them they're going to have to consider a temporary tax hike to make up about a billion dollars of Arizona's looming shortfall. Her Republican colleagues responded in a disappointing, if utterly predictable, manner.

Brewer, a former state lawmaker, said it's the Legislature's job to work out the details of both the tax plan and the $1 billion in cuts. And they have no plans to let her idea move ahead.

"She proposes, we dispose. That's how it works," said Senate President Bob Burns, R-Peoria.

I suppose that's how it works when "it" means "ideological obstructionism at all costs," but right now, Arizona really really needs "it" to mean "rational legislative responses to our impending financial meltdown." And as much as I loathe Brewer's uber-conservative position on social issues, I have to give her credit for recognizing exactly how shitty the situation is and that clinging to a false Reaganesque mantra of taxcuttaxcuttaxcut will do exactly jack and squat to fix anything:

"I think we have some denial on the right that they are not, nor do they want, to accept the fact that we are in a financial crisis and that they are going to have to step up and make some tough decisions," Brewer said. "Sometimes one feels that they can just cut and cut and cut. Well, I think we know we have to do some cutting. But that's not going to solve the problem."

Of course, she's offered no details on what form a tax hike might take, and is still looking for an additional billion dollars in spending cuts--and a temporary exemption from state laws requiring funding in targeted areas. About the only tax increase Republicans might support is a jump in the sales tax, which will be opposed by Democratic legislators because it disproportionately impacts poor people. As discussed last week, the corporate property tax could be reinstated, but the Republicans will block that from happening. Maybe the only consolation here is that Brewer will get a taste of what life was like for Janet Napolitano when she had to deal with a hostile legislature day in and day out. Will there be a material consolation for Arizona? Stay tuned.

Stop the Presses

Arizona Governor Jan Brewer showed glimmers of rational thought yesterday, vetoing the legislature’s latest two entries in the ongoing Worst Laws in the History of Forever competition they probably have locked up anyway. Maybe she just wants to keep things fresh? Anyway, the birther bill and the carry-guns-on-campus bill are history, for now.

The gun veto is somewhat surprising, since she tends to support unlimited gun rights underpinned by very vague reasoning, but she nixed the bill that would have permitted carrying in public rights-of-way on campus because (surprise, it’s Arizona!) it was poorly written and potentially confusing. Ron Gould, the Teabagger genius from Lake Havasu City who sponsored the bill, got his feelings hurt.

Gould called her veto "very rude." He said the measure, approved twice by the Senate and once by the House, was apparently clear enough for legislators to understand.

GUNZ GUNZ GUNZ is indeed very easy to understand, and Brewer—against all odds—noticed that it’s also open to interpretation. Moving along...

The birther bill fizzled for similar reasons, but this veto came with even more critical thinking attached. The mind reels.

Brewer said giving the secretary of state authority to decide if a candidate is eligible, as the law would have allowed, "could lead to arbitrary or politically motivated decisions."

She also suggested there was an "ick" factor in the measure, noting candidates who could not produce a "long form birth certificate" would have the option of instead furnishing other documents.

"I never imagined being presented with a bill that could require candidates for President of the greatest and most powerful nation on Earth to submit their 'early baptismal or circumcision certificates' among other records to the Arizona secretary of state," Brewer wrote.

OMG PENIS. Hooray for the ick factor finally working in our favor!

Next up on Brewer’s desk: the campus gun bill’s BFF, a bill that permits carrying guns into government buildings unless they have airport-style metal detectors and Brinks-style armed guards. Mr. Sensitive from Lake Havasu sponsored this one too, and is already sulking about its veto potential.

"It's kind of looking bad," Gould said of the chances Brewer will sign that bill.

Heady times indeed in Arizona. Stay tuned.

Brewer Loses, Mostly

Remember the lawsuit filed by Arizona Secretary of State Jan Brewer regarding Proposition 102, which would amend the AZ Constitution to outlaw same-sex marriage, in an attempt to keep voters from being informed that Arizona law already bans it? That was settled yesterday when Brewer and Attorney General Terry Goddard agreed on compromise wording that, at least to me, is more in line with what Goddard wanted than what Brewer was hoping for.

They settled their differences by agreeing to a statement that voting "no" would stop a proposed constitutional amendment to define marriage as between one man and one woman, while keeping intact the current state law, which outlaws same-sex marriage.

It's entirely possible that Brewer's leash-holders in Arizonans for Marriage are correct in fearing that the approved, honest wording will confuse anti-equality people into voting "no" because they think that means voting to outlaw gay marriage. So between the reading-comprehension-challenged segment of the population and the more capable conservatives and libertarians who don't like redundant legislation cluttering up their universe and the rest of us who think discrimination is not the best thing to write into any constitution, maybe we have a chance here.

A separate group of Prop 102 supporters filed another lawsuit in response, demanding that all references to existing statutes be eliminated, but since the order was given last night to start the printing process, it probably won't matter. It is illustrative, though, of their bulldog-like tenacity on this. An amendment was already voted down in 2006, but they keep coming back, tinkering with scope and wording in the attempt to find something, anything that will appease the wingnuts while remaining palatable enough to the average unengaged voter to pass and officially relegate the homos to second-class status, just because they can.

It's too early to speculate about what my reaction will be if the proposition passes. It's very easy to harrumph that no self-respecting homo should stay in and continue to pay taxes to a state that officially and gleefully and spitefully spits on you. In the real world of established careers, job security, family ties, and that small but vitally important issue of your kid being able to stay anchored to the place where he grew up, it's not so easy to pick up everything and flip a coin to decide between opposite edges of the continent. I don't really have a dog in this fight. But living with the knowledge that more than half of my voting statemates have decided (1) to arrogate to themselves the right to decide whether my relationship is valid, and (2) that it's not, tends to wear a body down. So for now I suppose just not thinking about it is the way to go. Check back with me in November.

Jan, Janet, What's the Difference?

The difference, unfortunately, comes down to life in Arizona having been mostly tolerable due to Democratic Governor Janet Napolitano's heavy veto pen keeping a rabid Republican legislature at bay, and now having the prospects of being far less tolerable once uber-conservative Republican Secretary of State Jan Brewer sails into the seat Napolitano will vacate in January to become head of Homeland Security.

That could result in the state pulling back from Napolitano-backed efforts on climate change, emissions caps, increased health insurance and education spending. It also could push the state forward on immigration controls and penalties for businesses hiring illegal immigrants and abortion rights restrictions, according to officials familiar with Brewer and Napolitano.

“I think we can kiss goodbye to the climate change efforts and any leadership on that,” said Sandy Bahr, state coordinator for the Sierra Club environmental group. “I don’t think much of the environmental progress will stay. With this legislature and Jan Brewer, we are in a world of hurt when it comes to protecting the state’s resources.”

Napolitano vetoed anti-abortion bills coming out of the Legislature, including a partial-birth prohibition that would have piggybacked on a federal ban. Napolitano signed off on some get-tough immigration bills forwarded by the right-wing Republicans but vetoed others.

For a state that is rapidly churning through its few remaining pristine open spaces that are in proximity to urban areas and has local and county boards that roll over for real estate developers on a regular basis, a state that languishes at the bottom of the nation when it comes to primary and secondary education and teen pregnancy, well, this isn't great news. It's spectacular for land speculators and the Southern Arizona Home Builders Association. Saguaros and public school kids in South Tucson? Not so much.

Jan Brewer also vigorously opposed the inclusion of language in the gay marriage-banning ballot measure explaining that gay marriage was already illegal under Arizona statute. And she was happy to bring the lovely Diebold touchscreen voting machines to Arizona, and then called Arizonans who objected to their use--after they had been demonstrated to be unreliable and unverifiable--anarchists and conspiracy theorists.

So Brewer and the Republican legislature get two years to de-fund public education and slash environmental protection in Arizona and make 700,000 East Valley voters deliriously happy to the point that they vote her back in for an additional 4 years, and in return Arizona gets... what? The honor and prestige of having an Arizonan serve as the head of a cabinet-level but really poorly structured department? And what, really, does Napolitano get out of it? If she manages to streamline DHS and get it to do something actually useful, like, say, maybe checking shipping containers and airline cargo, maybe she gets a pat on the head. Will it springboard her into the Senate, if that's where she sees this ending? Not likely.

Impending senses of doom keep me from my rest.

In Which the Arizona Governor's Race Gets Even More Stupid

So the guy who lost the Democratic senate primary in Arizona to closet Republican Rodney Glassman (who will be trounced by Maricopa County Republicans voting for John McCain anyway) posted this little nugget Friday on his Facebook:

Is it just because Jan Brewer looks and sounds like a chain-smoker who's been lying out in the Phoenix sun eight hours a day for the last 40 years? I'm more concerned with her lack of mental acuity than the tarballs she hacks up each morning, and actual attributable information is always a plus, but to each his own.

Brewer's puppetmaster, private prisons lobbyist Chuck Coughlin, sprang to her defense with the kind of class that, frankly, we've come to expect: he called Terry Goddard, Brewer's opponent in the gubernatorial race, gay.

Her top campaign adviser blamed her opponent, Terry Goddard, for fanning the gossip and said it was irrelevant.

But then the adviser, Chuck Coughlin, went on to say that if the media are inquiring about Brewer's health, reporters should question Goddard about his sexual orientation.

Remember, Arizona: there are only 20 days left before November 2, and Chuck Coughlin has set the bar for political discourse pretty frickin' high here. Get on it, son!

AZ Secretary of State Shows Odd Aversion to Sunlight

In our latest installment of All You Need to Know, all you need to know about opponents of marriage equality is contained in their apoplexy when they are required to use plain, clear language to explain their constitutional amendment ballot initiatives. The group pushing California's Proposition 8 were furious when they couldn't strike wording that says a yes vote will have the effect of eliminating the current right of same-sex couples to marry, because, well, all they're trying to do is protect marriage and that just makes them sound like bigots.

Now comes Arizona's turn. A no lesser person than the secretary of state, Republican Jan Brewer, has filed a lawsuit in an attempt to avoid having to remind voters that Arizona law already prohibits same-sex marriage.

In a lawsuit filed Friday, Brewer said the only thing she needs to explain on the ballot is approval of Proposition 102 would amend the state constitution to define marriage as a union of one man and one woman.

She wants to limit the legally required explanation of the effect of voting "no" on the measure would "have the effect of retaining the current laws regarding marriage."

And she wants Maricopa County Superior Court Judge Mark Aceto to block efforts by Attorney General Terry Goddard to expand the explanation to say existing laws already include "a statutory ban on same-sex marriage."

Wow, that seems like a lot of trouble to go to, Jan, especially when the outcome you're working so hard for is a less-well-informed electorate. After all, the language you're suing over is the exact wording that was included on the ballot the last time around, back in 2006, and you didn't object to it then. Why push to do it now?

Brewer said she believes the measure is clearer without the language Goddard wants.

Huh. Well, fair enough, but is there more to it than that? Oh, look. Yes. Yes, there is.

She also said one reason she wants the shorter version is she heard from the group pushing Proposition 102 that it believes mentioning the existing law would confuse voters and cause many to vote against the measure.

Oh, yeah, by the way, there's, like, this group that thinks if we tell voters exactly what the amendment would do, they won't vote for it, so, like, I sued. Whatever. One Peter Gentala, of Arizonans for Marriage (I assume Arizonans for Marriage by Any Two Random Opposite-Sex Individuals Whether They've Been Together for Decades or Just Met in a Bar Last Night was too long for the letterhead) explains:

In a letter to Brewer, Gentala said a poll conducted after voters defeated the 2006 proposal shows some people who voted against it — voters who were exposed to the language about existing state law — said they thought they were voting for the constitutional ban.

Gentala also said telling people same-sex marriages already are against the law "includes an argument against the proposition." He cited comments by Gov. Janet Napolitano, who, in announcing her opposition to Proposition 102, said it is unnecessary because "we already have a statute that defines marriage."

I'm not sure why Mr. Gentala is concerned about the presence of an implicit contradictory argument within the amendment proposition, since in his first comment he fairly convincingly argues that his constituency has the reading comprehension levels of below-average first graders.

No word on when the lawsuit will be resolved, either way. I stand appalled that the secretary of state would pull such a blatantly partisan move designed to manipulate the outcome of the balloting, especially when it's coming at the behest of that kind of interest group. Here's a hint for the Prop 8-ers and the Prop 102-ers and every similar group working to enshrine discrimination within their own state constitutions: if you'd like to avoid plain, descriptive wording about your amendments that plainly paint you as hurtful bigots, try to avoid proposing hurtful, bigoted amendments in the first place. Unless you're comfortable giving me, a person you've never met and who does not know you, the power to vote on the validity of your most important adult relationship, keep your nose, ballots, and amendments out of mine.

Jan-Jan and R-Pea Explain It All For You

A facet of the immigration debate that tends to be overlooked is the impact on families when half the people in a household are citizens or legal residents and half are not, and the undocumented half get deported--specifically, when the undocumented people are parents, grandparents, or other caregivers and the citizens are minor children who were born here. It's such a problem in Tucson that the Sunnyside Unified School District has joined a lawsuit challenging the constitutionality of SB1070, Arizona's "papers please" law that compels municipal law enforcement to determine the immigration status of anyone they stop who they think is Mexican may be in the country illegally.

State Senator Russell Pearce (R-Fuck Mountain) and Governor Jan Brewer (brrrrrrr) floated competing solutions in which they both attempt to be Solomon, but without getting that Solomon wasn't really serious with that whole chop-the-baby-in-half thing. Brewer--who, by the by, has perfected the facial shrug like nuthin' you've ever seen over the past couple of months--says that deported parents should just take their kids with them back to Mexico (cannot embed; go watch) Problem solved!

It is illegal to trespass into our country. It has always been illegal. And people have determined that they want to take that chance, and that responsibility, it's not gonna tear them apart. They can take their children back with them.

We are a nation of laws. That's why we are America.

Of course, this is the same Jan Brewer who explained her refusal to sign a bill banning texting while driving this way:

"You can write all the laws that you want," Brewer said. "But it sometimes doesn't make a whole lot of difference. People don't follow them."

O_o.

Pearce, on the other hand, thinks the best way to alleviate the problems faced by mixed-status families is to eliminate them altogether. What's that you say? 14th Amendment to the what? I do declare, sir; you may force me to brandish my cane in anger! Jesus.

Pearce needs a civics refresher--preferably in any state other than the 50th-ranked for education, of course, so OMG ROAD TRIP TIME--if he really doesn't understand the Constitutional issue in play here.

First of all, that's not the law. It's an unconstitutional declaration of citizenship for those born, uh, in the Wong Kim, uh, decision before the Supreme Court, it made it very clear in the statements from the senators at the time that the 14th Amendment was written, made it clear it did not pertain to aliens and those we did not, who did not have legal domicile in the United States. It's the most irrational and uh, uh, self-defeating provision you can have.

True, the 14th Amendment was written specifically to ensure that the children of freed slaves would be automatically accorded citizenship, without thought to waves of people coming to the US from points south 100 years later, but, just as the 1st Amendment has been interpreted to apply to forms of speech media and the 2nd to high-power firearms that were inconceivable when the amendments were originally penned, the 14th is interpreted to apply to all people born within our borders. In fact, that interpretation comes from the very Wong Kim decision Pearce erroneously cites as proof that anchor babies are really alien babies who should be sent home on the next saucer outta Roswell.

The 14th Amendment's citizenship clause, according to the court's majority, had to be interpreted in light of English common law tradition that had excluded from citizenship at birth only two classes of people: (1) children born to foreign diplomats and (2) children born to enemy forces engaged in hostile occupation of the country's territory. The majority held that the "subject to the jurisdiction" phrase in the 14th Amendment specifically encompassed these conditions (plus a third condition, namely, that Indian tribes were not considered subject to U.S. jurisdiction) - and that since none of these conditions applied to Wong's situation, Wong was a U.S. citizen, regardless of the fact that his parents were not U.S. citizens (and were, in fact, ineligible ever to become U.S. citizens because of the Chinese Exclusion Act).

Pearce appears to be construing "subject to the jurisdiction" as "have a green card in their pocket," which isn't mind-bogglingly narrow and stupid (although it is) so much as it is so incredibly transparently hypocritical as to barely merit a response. Because, in Pearce's book, undocumented people are double-dog subject to every other jurisdiction in the US, especially the ones that are now empowered to dump them on the other side of the fence from the Nogales Burger King if they don't have their birth certificates on them when they're pulled over for a busted taillight.

So there you have it. Pack up your kids and walk away from the better life you came here to give them, or... well, or forget about the better life thing altogether, because the Constitution only applies to people we think it applies to. And there's no point in writing laws, because people ignore them, unless, of course, it's a law that white people don't need to worry about, in which case WE ARE ALL ABOUT THE LAW, PEOPLE. Oh, Arizona. You never fail to disappoint.

Oh No She... Did.

The plus side? Arizona Governor Jan Brewer appears to be aware of the literary device called "metaphor." The downside? Picking apt ones is still a leeeeeeetle bit out of her reach. She was sworn in yesterday and, while she did manage to get through her speech without any agonizing dead air or giggles, the actual words she put together into sentences included these:

"When I took the oath of office two years ago, I took the helm of a marvelous state that had been poorly commanded, badly navigated and was dead in the water," Brewer said. "Worse, it was leaking, and sinking fast."

"You and I, will be forever guided and sustained by God's grace in a calling that draws us together on this mighty ship - Arizona - now fit for any peril on the sea," Brewer said.

Um. Yes, Arizona was indeed a mighty ship. Unfortunately, it's also sitting on the bottom of Pearl Harbor and is full of corpses.

Pick your scenario, and, as always, death is not an option: (1) she has no idea what image "Arizona" + "ship" automatically brings to mind for Americans, even ones educated in Arizona, or (2) she knows exactly what image "Arizona" + "ship" automatically brings to mind and still thinks it was the best way to characterize the state.

New New Year's Resolution: drink far, far more.

As Previously Reported

Arizona joined several other states in collectively punching women in the ladybits when Governor Brewer signed SB1305 (previously noted here).

An obscure part of the law allows states to restrict abortion coverage by private plans operating in new insurance markets. Capitalizing on that language, abortion foes have succeeded in passing bans that, in some cases, go beyond federal statutes. "We don't consider elective abortion to be health care, so we don't think it's a bad thing for fewer private insurance companies to cover it," said Mary Harned, attorney for Americans United for Life, a national organization that wrote a model law for the states.

Not content to be bandwagon-jumping posers, our legislature managed to set us apart by not including the usual sops to what passes for reason--you know, the holy triumvirate of exemptions (rape, incest, mother's life) that let the misogynists behind this tripe convince themselves they're not being total bastards about things. Those exemptions are for pussies, apparently, and Arizona's not having it.

Exceptions are made only under extreme circumstances in which the procedure saves the life of the woman or will "avert substantial and irreversible impairment of a major bodily function of the woman."

No rape exception here, bucko! Unfortunately, Tennessee promptly trumped Arizona by making their insurance law completely void of exemptions, meaning that if you're a Volunteer female you'll need to set up and pay for a separate rider covering the possibility not only that you'll be raped, but that a pregnancy might kill you, and since that last bit there about the potential for maternal mortality applies to every pregnancy across the board, every woman in Tennessee will need to pay extra for essential coverage that had been included in her insurance right up until this moment. Tell me again, Mary Harned, how abortion is not healthcare?

One more question, this one for Governor Brewer. Is my uterus state-owned property? No? It isn't? Then stay the fuck away from it. And everyone else's.

Never-ending Nightmare Never Ends

Ever had a nasty 24-hour stomach bug? The kind where you feel increasingly miserable and then puke and feel much better, but then have your blissful, blessed relief cut short by another wave of nausea, and then another, until you are certain that you will be vomiting every 20 minutes for the rest of your life?

Welcome to Arizona, where the legislature and governor have just heaved our collective shoes into the bucket with a prohibition against ethnic-studies curricula that don't meet Tom "the most fun chant for me was 'drill, baby, drill' used by three separate speakers" Horne's approval.

Gov. Jan Brewer signed a bill limiting what kind of courses schools can offer in the name of cultural diversity Tuesday.

Without comment, Brewer signed the controversial legislation, which declares students "should be taught to treat and value each other as individuals and not be taught to resent or hate other races or classes of people.''

The law, aimed specifically at the ethnic studies program at Tucson Unified School District, is far more complex than that goal.

It makes it illegal for public schools to have any courses or classes that promote the overthrow of the United States government or promote resentment toward a race or class of people. It also bars any programs "designed primarily for pupils of a particular ethnic group."

My 7th grade social studies teacher would be in deep shit on this one, given how his World War II lectures made me resent the hell out of the Nazis. And my son's Native American Literature teacher made the class read Bury My Heart At Wounded Knee this semester, which left him feeling not that great about--gasp--the United States government! Well. That's a bit of hyperbole. Tom Horne isn't going to march in and string up teachers who might give white students a moment of pause when they consider the atrocities perpetuated by governments on this continent and in Europe, but if you get the Mexicans riled up, you're toast. Oh, and by the way, if you're trying to teach the Mexicans to speak English, make sure your accent isn't too thick. Because Arizona doesn't like that either.

You'd be perfectly justified, at this point, to ask who the fuck thinks all this is a good idea. There's an obvious and troubling answer, and now, this morning, a less obvious and possibly more troubling answer. First, the no-brainer: the white supremacists, of course, think this is all kinds of awesome. But it's more than just them, and that keeps me from my rest. Large chunks of the country are going nativist now, or at least large chunks of slightly more than a thousand registered voters with landlines who happened to answer their phones and take part in a poll are, and that should give us all pause.

A strong majority of Americans support Arizona's controversial new immigration law and would back similar laws in their own states, a new McClatchy-Ipsos poll found.

A separate Pew Research Center poll on the Arizona law released Wednesday found similar sentiments.

In the McClatchy-Ipsos poll, 61 percent of Americans - and 64 percent of registered voters - said they favored the law in a survey of 1,016 adults conducted May 6-9.

Strikingly, nearly half of Democrats like the law, under which local law enforcement officers are tasked with verifying people's immigration status if they suspect them of being in the country illegally.

Swell. And here's the best part:

In addition, about 69 percent of Americans said they wouldn't mind if police officers stopped them to ask for proof of their citizenship or legal rights to be in the country; about 29 percent would mind, considering it a violation of their rights, and about 3 percent were unsure.

Hell no, I wouldn't mind if a nice police officer stopped me and asked me for proof of citizenship! People who say this are people who have never been hassled by a cop in their entire lives for having the wrong skin color or wrong kind of clothes for the neighborhood they're walking in or the car they're driving. It's very, very easy to hit play and blast out the title track from Unexamined Privilege's Greatest Hits, Vol. 1: If You're Not Doing Anything Wrong (You Don't Have Anything To Worry About), until the day comes when you really aren't doing anything wrong and get busted anyway. If you're white enough and not screaming in Farsi at the top of your lungs, no, you probably don't have to worry about it, and if for some unfathomable reason you were stopped and questioned and didn't have your ID or birth certificate (long form, please) on you, you could talk your way out of it. And hey, if you don't have to worry about it on a personal level, you get a pass from having to worry about it on a conceptual level. It's not just the Arizona way any more. It's the American way, bucko, and don't you forget it.

Pass the pepto, if you please. Every time I think it's got to be over, another wave comes.

Governor Notices Arizona Only Ranks 5th in Nation on Teen Birthrates, Acts Accordingly

Arizona's teens are currently getting their collective birth-giving asses handed to them by the kids in Mississippi, New Mexico, Texas, and Arkansas, so Governor Jan Brewer is springing into action by opening the floodgates to the federal abstinence-only funding that her rational predecessor, Janet Napolitano, said uh, no to.

"This governor believes that abstinence education is the right path to take," said gubernatorial spokesman Paul Senseman. He said the fact the program won't cost the state anything only bolsters Brewer's belief that it makes sense.

See? It's free! What's not to like? Oh.

Napolitano, in refusing to take more federal funding last year, cited a study by the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services. It found that teens in abstinence-only programs "were no more likely than youth who were assigned to the 'services as usual' control group to have abstained from sex."

Acting state health director Will Humble (no relation to state environmental quality "commissioner" Benjamin Grumbles) likes the abstinence-only curriculum because it promotes self-esteem and decision-making for teenagers, at least when that decision is to not have sex. Interestingly, while Humble thinks pairing those inarguably important skills with actual information about contraceptive would be a good idea, he's not even inching out onto that limb when it comes to his official job of, I don't know, safeguarding kids' health.

Humble also said he personally believes that birth control "probably should" be part of a high school curriculum. None of these funds, however, can be used to tell those teens who are going to be sexually active how to prevent pregnancy or avoid sexually transmitted diseases.

Yeah, "probably." But with contraception off the table, what kinds of things, then, will the federal dollars allow teachers to tell Arizona children?

Federal regulations say the dollars can be used only for programs teaching that abstinence from sex outside of marriage is the "expected standard for all school-age children." Programs also must teach that sex outside of marriage "is likely to have harmful psychological and physical effects..."

In other words, the federal funding cannot be used to provide factual information about preventing pregnancy and life-threatening diseases, but it can be used to tell kids lies. Because nothing prepares kids for healthy adult sexual relationships like instilling the belief that a gold ring will magically protect them from whatever viruses their spouses might have picked up before the second or third time they renewed their virginity by making yet another purity vow, or will miraculously transform an abusive or exploitative relationship into the stuff dreamed by rainbow unicorns who breathe whipped cream with sprinkles. And, honestly, the greatest part of that funding by necessity will have to go toward busy-work modules that can be stretched to cover an entire semester's worth of classtime, since abstinence education can be boiled down to "no sex before marriage because it will make you insane and then kill you; the end," which can be communicated in just about as much time as it took you to read the sixteen words between the quotation marks there. Even allowing an extra second's dramatic pause there to accomodate the semicolon, it leaves an awful lot of instructional time to fill. And when you can't talk about things like biology or contraception, well, worksheets all around! Don't color outside the lines, kids!

The state of Illinois is re-evaluating abstinence programs this week too, with, not surprisingly, the same sets of arguments and data at loggerheads there as well, with the difference that sex-ed curricula are determined by local school districts rather than being standardized by the state education department. Roughly 40 percent of Illinois students get the abstinence-only classes, and the patchwork of lessons taught in middle schools makes high school health teachers pull their hair out.

Joliet Central High School teacher Susan Cailteux is reminded of how varied the sex education curriculum is at the elementary and middle school level every time she begins a unit with a 25-point quiz on the reproductive system.

"I'll get kids with a 5. They don't even get the uterus right," said Cailteux, who teaches high school sophomores about both abstinence and contraception. "It's very frustrating at times because you expect them to know the basics, but the basics have not been taught."

Sophomore Tim Nemec, 16, of Joliet acknowledged that he never learned much about reproduction or the risk of infections until he took the health course required of all sophomores at Joliet Central. After that, he noticed a shift in some classmates' attitudes.

"There were some kids who went in like, 'I don't care. I'll do what I want,' " Nemec said. "But after a while, they were sort of like, 'Wow, I don't know if this person is clean or not,' or, 'I could actually get someone pregnant.' "

In a country where two-thirds of high school seniors report being sexually active, with one in five of those reporting more than three partners, the need for universally taught, accurate information would seem to be self-evident, but too many people favor the fingers-tightly-in-ears, eyes-closed, la-la-la-I-can't-hear-you approach to their kids' *shudder* sexuality.

Abstinence-only advocates contend that, just as adults drill teens not to drink and drive, educators should teach them to avoid risk by maintaining celibacy until marriage.

They have their metaphors slightly out of focus. Providing accurate data about biology and contraceptives is not. the. same. as tossing your 16-year-old the car keys and a fifth of Jack. No, we don't want kids driving drunk. So we tell them not to drink, but we also tell them that if they do drink, or if the person they're riding with drinks, that they can call us for a ride home with no questions asked. We put a cab company's number in their cell phones and give them a twenty to keep in their wallets so they'll have a safe way out if they get into that situation. That in no way equates to saying well, I know you're going to drink anyway, so go ahead and take the Mustang! Driving drunk does not equate to having sex, but it does equate to having unprotected, stupid sex you're not mature enough to handle. So we do tell our kids that the only surefire way to avoid pregnancy is to keep penises far, far away from vaginas, and the only surefire way to avoid every STD is to not touch anyone ever, but then we also equip them with knowledge and the means to protect themselves when reality asserts itself. Because to do otherwise is to willfully punish them for their humanity by letting their lives get really fucked up by unwanted pregnancies and unwanted viruses, whether they're married at the time or not. And no amount of federal freebies--or the prospect of Arizona being NUMBER ONE!--can ever make that a good bargain.

In Which Jan-Jan Does Her Best Sharron Angle

You've seen our esteemed governor's "opening statement" in the debate Wednesday night, if "..." properly qualifies as an opening statement, and while 36 hours really isn't enough time to recover from that display of fuckitude, now there's more, courtesy of the ABC affiliate in Phoenix and the Tucson Citizen.

In Governor Brewer's defense, this was a difficult situation for her, and not one that lent itself to her staff's go-to problem-solving tactic, which is, of course, to stop everything and pray. Maybe that's what she was doing in her head during the lengthy pause between the question and her declaration that it had been an interesting evening; clearly, the prayer warrior consensus went something like this:

This morning, in a stunner, Brewer announced she's not doing any more debates.

"All you guys were doing and talking were beheadings, beheadings, beheadings," the governor said. "That is something that has stuck with you all for so long, and I just felt we needed to move on."

Beheadings are such a drag, people. Move along. Nothing to see here.

In Which Arizonans Baffle Me By Being Even Stupider Than I Feared

Jan Brewer verbally stumbled, went silent and mangled her grammar during last week's televised debate.

The result of her performance, a new statewide survey indicates, is that she is even more popular.

Pollster Scott Rasmussen found 60 percent of the 500 likely Arizona voters questioned in the automated telephone survey on Tuesday said they intend to vote for the incumbent. That's up three points from a survey taken a week before the debate.

Just as soon as I finish banging my head against this nice big rock I found, I will remind myself that polls conducted via landline calls disproportionately sample old people, and that old people in Arizona disproportionately think good thoughts about reanimated corpses (see: Jan Brewer, John McCain).

Meanwhile, the Arizona Green Party is trying like mad to get rid of the Democratic vote-diluting fake candidates Log Cabin Republican Steve May recruited from a pool of homeless street performers in Tempe. I need to stop going to bed thinking the sun has just set on the stupidest day possible, because it keeps coming up the next morning, dragging even more idiocy along with it.

A Bright Spot

Today's entry in the Never Let It Be Said department starts like this: Never let it be said that I do not recognize the rare occasions upon which a conservative politician does something that pleasantly surprises me. In a rare flash of rational thinking, Gov. Jan Brewer has vetoed Arizona's birther bill.

"I never imagined being presented with a bill that could require candidates for president of the greatest and most powerful nation on Earth to submit their 'early baptismal or circumcision certificates,' among other records, to the Arizona Secretary of State," Brewer said in her letter. "This is a bridge too far."

Because "circumcision" means she would have to think about Rick Santorum's wang and possibly John McCain's withered member as well, so, yeah, eww. The Republican-dominated legislature won't try to override her, which ends this particular chapter in the Big Book o' Arizona Stupid but still leaves us with building the dang fence, ending public education, and the gun-of-the-month club or whatever.

As Expected, Arizona Restricts Access to Abortion

Governor Jan Brewer signed a few highly annoying abortion restrictions into law yesterday, including a required 24-hour waiting period, a reiteration of the ban on intact dilation and extraction, a redundant requirement that women seeking an abortion be informed of its risks and alternatives, strengthened parental consent requirements for minors, and a self-righteousness conscience clause exempting healthcare workers from participating in an abortion or even dispensing emergency contraception.

Because nothing should give a fundamentalist pharmacist a bigger hard-on than denying Plan B to a woman who may then end up seeking an abortion as a result.

None of this is surprising, as all of these measures had wound up on former governor Janet Napolitano's desk at one time or another over the past few years, only to be vetoed. Despite Brewer's unexpected rational thinking about state taxes in the face of a monster deficit, her social conservaservaSERVAtism is as unchanged as ever.

Curiously, I find myself more frustrated by the emergency contraception clause than by the restricted access to actual abortion this time around. Maybe it's because the exemption betrays a continuing ignorance of how Plan B actually works, which, if you're a medical professional--and particularly if you're a pharmacist--is inexcusable. I've flogged this to death on this blog, in comments on other blogs, in letters to the newspaper, and to random people I meet in the grocery store, but it apparently bears repeating: Plan B is not an abortifacient. Plan B does not interfere with conception or implantation. Plan B functions only to inhibit ovulation for the length of time that sperm are viable after ejaculation. Plan B does not cause abortions. It has been hypothesized that in a very small number of cases, Plan B might prevent implantation, but this is both highly unlikely and untestable, as there is no test for conception prior to implantation. So demanding that scientists prove that Plan B does not interfere with implantation is on the same level as demanding they prove that eating Twinkies or staring at the sun or hopping on your right foot five times while chanting nobabynobabynobaby does not interfere with implantation. You can't prove a negative, but you can predict with pretty good certainty that a drug that acts to maintain the uterine lining will not make the uterine wall a hostile environment to a zygote.

So science is trumped by hysteria, and Arizona women woke up this morning to find that the barricades between them and a still-legal medical procedure have been piled even higher with razor wire and old tires, and some of the tires have started to be set on fire. How's that DHS job treating you, Janet?

Maybe I Should Just Give Up and Be Comforted by Consistency

So much for thinking charitable thoughts. Yesterday, Brewer and Pearce went back to not failing to disappoint.

Gov. Jan Brewer and Arizona Senate President Russell Pearce said they see no reason for Arizona to limit the sale of high-capacity ammunition magazines.

I can think of nineteen reasons. Here, and here, and here, and here.

Arizona Strives to be Number One in yet Another Mind-boggling but Somehow Unsurprising Way

Well, the final fatality in the January 8 shootings was buried at the end of last week, so the time was ripe for some Lake Havasu mope in the state legislature to bust out with SB1201. Heavens to Betsy, the circulation must have gone plumb out of his hands after sitting on them for three whole weeks before giving Arizona yet another gift that will keep on giving, the Firearms Omnibus Bill.

Senate Bill 1201, sponsored by Sen. Ron Gould, R-Lake Havasu City, would do a number of things, including:

- Allow people to carry firearms into all government-run facilities and many public events. The only places or events that could ban firearms would be those that post the correct sign, provide firearm lockers and have armed security and a metal detector. The law would apply to university classrooms, city buses and community festivals that get government permits. It would not apply to K-12 schools.

- Change the wording of last year's concealed-weapons law to require an individual to answer "truthfully" when a law-enforcement officer asks whether the person is carrying a concealed weapon. The current wording requires the person to answer "accurately." Law-enforcement officials say the change could give leeway to a person who, for example, forgets a gun in a bag and inaccurately tells an officer he or she isn't carrying one.

- Change the wording of Shannon's Law to make it a crime to "knowingly" discharge a firearm within city limits. It's currently a crime for someone to discharge a firearm with "criminal negligence." Bill opponents said the change would mean people could be convicted of violating this law only if the prosecution could prove they knew that shooting the gun could result in someone's death or injury.

- Allow people to sue if they feel they were illegally stopped from carrying a firearm into a government facility or event. If a person wins the lawsuit and the government agency doesn't pay within 72 hours, the person has the right to seize as payment "any municipal vehicles used or operated for the benefit of any elected office holder" in the relevant government agency.

Hoo-eee! That last provision is pure gold. I am sorely tempted to mosey over to Black Weapons Armory for an AR-15 that I will then carry on to city buses, into MVD offices, and through county-sponsored Oktoberfests until I've won enough lawsuits from sluggish agencies to have seized so many cars that I will need to build my own personal parking deck. If I play this right, Jan Brewer's Escalade will be mine within the year. I got yer return on a $1,499.99 investment right here! Boom!

But seriously? Seriously, Jesus Christ. We're looking to let untrained and barely vetted people carry guns just about everywhere, make it easier to avoid consequences for lying to cops about having a gun, make it easier to avoid consequences for being an idiot with a gun, and make public agencies skittish about appealing punitive awards against them for saying is it too much to ask that you not bring your goddamn Glock and pocketsful of extended-capacity magazines into the D.A.R.E. Family Fun Fair? Too soon? It's Arizona. Apparently here it's never too soon.

Life in the Petri Dish, Part Two

Yesterday it was a proposal to permanently eliminate business property taxes and significantly cut corporate income and capital gains taxes in a state that's looking at a major budgetary shortfall. Today in Jan Brewer's Arizona, we are reminded of exactly how important the Janet Napolitano firewall was in the statehouse.

A major abortion bill has cleared its first hurdle at the Arizona Legislature.

The House Health and Human Services Committee on Wednesday endorsed the Republican-sponsored bill on a 5-0 vote, with Democratic opponents boycotting the hearing and not voting on the measure.

The legislation would require a pre-abortion waiting period and mandatory disclosures to women seeking abortions. It also allows pharmacists and health care providers to refuse to participate in abortion or emergency contraception on moral grounds. Other provisions toughen the existing law on parental rights.

Let's look at that scorecard. Gutting public education, gutting health and human services, instituting a conscience clause, mandating anti-abortion scare tactics? Check, check, check, and checkaroony. I normally deplore slippery slope speculating, but I really have to wonder what's next on the all-conservative-policies-all-the-time experimental agenda. The Sonoran Desert Protection Plan has to be on shaky ground these days, along with any other environmental conservation measure that's been flung up in the path of the belly scrapers. Perhaps some even nastier anti-immigration policy is in the works. Maybe we'll one-up North Dakota and give full personhood rights to sperm and unfertilized eggs (as long as they reside in the bodies of legally-here heterosexual Americans, of course). I'm sure all we need to do is wait until tomorrow to get even more good news.

Conscience clauses. Fuck me. Waiting periods. "Mandatory disclosures." I certainly can't wait to get some clarification about what that entails. Wait, wait, let me guess. Did you know your baby has fingernails? Fuck. Me. Oh, wait, here we go.

[The] proposal also would require that a patient be informed of alternatives to abortion, medical benefits and government assistance available pre- and postnatal, the medical risks associated with both having an abortion and carrying the fetus to term and the probable gestational age and physiological characteristics of the fetus.

Ur behbeh haz fingernalz! Check.

Now how about that conscience clause? Here's the full text of the bill. At the very top of the document it's made clear that "abortion does not include birth control devices [or] oral contraceptives used to inhibit or prevent ovulation or conception." Okay, great--it's a nutter bill, but at least it's grounded in a rational definition of abortion, right? What could go wrong? Oh. Apparently the definition can be ignored when it comes to constructing the conscience clause.

A pharmacy, hospital or health professional, or any employee of a pharmacy, hospital or health professional, who states in writing an objection to abortion, abortion medication or emergency contraception on moral or religious grounds is not required to facilitate or participate in the provision of an abortion, abortion medication or emergency contraception.

So given the fact that the bill goes out of its way to clarify that oral contraceptives intended to inhibit ovulation--in other words, exactly what emergency contraceptives are--are not abortion equivalents, it's pretty clear that the inclusion of Plan B within the conscience clause is purely a sop to pharmacists who either failed the progestin section of the final exam or are too interested in making sure whores suffer the consequences of their wanton fucking to care. Or it's a sop to the legislators who will vote for this anyway and like to think Plan B is abortion. And, by the way, the reporter who wrote the story for the Citizen should be just a little bit ashamed for wording the article in a way that conflates EC with pharmaceutical abortion. In either event, Rep. Barto can't be bothered by the problems this might cause to women in rural areas of the state--and remember, no less a luminary than Cindy McCain herself said the only way to get around Arizona is by small private plane since there are no roads here:

The prime sponsor of the legislation, state Rep. Nancy Barto, downplayed any hurdles the provision would represent.

"Certainly, people in rural areas are accustomed to traveling long distances for services," said Barto, R-Phoenix. "This isn't going to keep women from receiving these prescriptions."

See, if you're already used to having to drive 50 miles to the pharmacy, it won't be at all inconvenient to drive another 50 when the first pharmacist invites you to fuck off, and then another 50, and another 50 until you manage to hit a Walgreen's with a pharmacist who will actually do his job! Why are you complaining? Harpy!

I hope Sec. Napolitano totally rocks Homeland Security and turns it into an effective, functional agency so that it will have been worth it for her to give the Maricopa County Republicans a two-year head start on turning Arizona into a conservative politician's paradise. But this sets the bar impossibly damn high.

Arizona Voters Do Not Fail to Disappoint

Pima County acquitted itself fairly well yesterday. The rest of the state, unfortunately, not so much.

Governor: Jan Brewer bravely overcame the revelations that she is (1) in bed with the private Prison industry, and (2) a blithering idiot, to beat Terry Goddard, although at 53%-40% it wasn't quite the trouncing I expected. Her first priority is to scrounge money from dedicated funds to move into the state's general fund, but, luckily, one of the few bright spots in the statewide balloting was the defeat of initiatives that would have let her raid the land conservation and early childhood development funds.

Senate: Walnuts McCain stomped Democrat (nee Republican) Rodney Glassman, surprising exactly no one. I am not at all sure that Glassman would have been better for Arizona so much as a different flavor of sleazy.

US House: Still undecided! Raul Grijalva and Gabrielle Giffords are currently clinging to leads of a couple thousand votes with about 350,000 left to be counted. Most of the yet-to-be-counteds are from Pima (hopeful!) and Maricopa (brrrr!) counties, which might end up canceling each other out. We hope.

AZ Attorney General: Noted dim bulb Tom Horne edged out a Democrat I'd never heard of but who, I thought, had at least a coin flip's chance of having a few more brain cells to rub together than Horne does on any given day. The bright spot? He's no longer in charge of what passes for an education department. The dark spot? Tucson Unified School District has been in his sights for a long time for having the temerity to offer Latino heritage and culture classes to their Latino-majority student body, even after Arizona passed a law explicitly aimed at making ethnic studies programs Tom Horne doesn't like illegal. And now he's the chief prosecutor in the state? Have fun with that, TUSD!

Secretary of State, otherwise known as Lieutenant Governor: Republican Ken Bennett in a wash, meaning that if Jan-Jan resigns or just plain forgets to come in to work for a year or so, the governorship stays in Republican hands. Which does not bode well for the future, considering that noted white supremacist-consorting, private prisons lackey Russell Pearce is the new president of the state senate.

Prop 106 (Fuck Healthcare): I must say that I'm impressed with the drive and determination of Arizona voters. Not content to be at the bottom of national rankings for education and children-in-poverty levels (we recently passed Alabama to claim that title), the voters made sure that we will soon be at the bottom for healthcare as well. Prop 106, which passed by 130,000 votes, amends the state constitution to say no Arizonan is required to buy health insurance or participate in a health plan. Yeah, we'll see.

Prop 107 (Fuck Nonwhite Nonmales): The voters decided even more resoundingly to make affirmative action illegal. There are still many questions about whether this will end programs designed to keep female and nonwhite students in college (despite the fact that Arizona universities and colleges currently do not consider race or gender in admissions). Tom Horne is undoubtedly lining up the lawsuits as we speak.

Prop 203 (Medical Marijuana): Barely losing at the moment.

Well, at least Ken Buck and Sharron Angle won't be haunting Capitol Hill. Unfortunately, Rand Paul and Marco Rubio will, and, saddest of all, Russ Feingold will be watching this one from the bench. I remember how the morning after Election Day 1994 felt. This feels worse.