Yesterday, white supremacist J.T. Ready apparently gunned down a toddler and three others before killing himself in Gilbert. This is a fascinating video, edited and produced by Dennis Gilman, on ex-Sen. Russell Pearce and his rocky relationship with J.T. Ready.

Come with me to the Supreme Court hearing for SB 1070, Arizona’s immigration law.

“Arizona’s SB 1070 case, along with another on the Affordable Care Act heard by the court earlier this year, are two landmarks that will shape the Obama administration’s legacy. In both cases, Solicitor General Donald Verrilli faced off against Paul Clement, a former solicitor general who frequently appears before the court. On Wednesday, Verrilli lost focus and failed to drive home key points as he was questioned by conservative justices and gently rebuked by liberal justices. At one point, Justice Sonia Sotomayor told Verrilli she was “terribly confused” by his answer; at another, she noted: “Your argument isn’t selling very well,”  I wrote for The Daily Beast today. To see the rest of the story, and read what Justice Breyer told the Obama administration’s solicitor general, and how the solicitor general appeared to be outmatched, click here.

To read the bizarre but true tale of the stop and detention, but not arrest, of Arizona activist Randy Parraz in a Senate hearing room (you won’t believe it) click here.

The Republican National Committee held a three-day meeting for state chairmen at the Scottsdale Princess Resort this week. and as you can tell from an earlier post, I covered the Romney McCain luncheon for The Daily Beast.

Just the day before, Joe Biden had visited Phoenix.  Michelle Obama is slated to visit Tucson in late April.  Dems hope to take Arizona, and it looks like GOP-ers are getting nervous. Arizona is a battleground state, that’s for sure.

Each party needs to win over moderates and Latinos to win Arizona. And, since Romney has said he’d veto the  Dream Act and he approves of SB 1070, an awful lot of Anglo Republicans are going to have to vote to counter the Latino vote. Here’s the story I wrote.

I also wrote a bit about Jan Brewer — now that she’s a national conservative celebrity, is she in line for consideration as Veep or for a cabinet post?

I wish you could come with me when I cover big political events, like the  Mitt Romney and John McCain rally at the Scottsdale Princess Resort.  If you had come with me today, here’s what we would have seen together.

1. A good many journalists sitting at long tables in the back of a big room. They’re mostly men. They’re  pecking away at laptops and checking their emails. They’re eating  hard candy from little candy dishes.

2. About a dozen wait staff  setting places on about two dozen round tables with tablecloths.

3. On a riser, a bunch of TV folks setting up cameras. They’re testing their sound connections to a podium where Romney and McCain will soon pretend to be mutual fans in order to unite the GOP. (I can’t imagine they really are mutual fans, after the two fought so bitterly for  the 2008 Republican presidential nomination. But maybe they worked out some sort of deal, a la Game Change.)

4. Several Secret Service guys with those earpieces you see in movies.

5. Concierge-type hotel staff  in blazers  who look most accommodating.

6. Here come the GOP state chairmen, exhausted from all the convention-attending in the last two days. They are all, as far as I can tell, white. Next, McCain and Romney come in. McCain looks like a retiree. Romney looks like a president.

7. They sit down. They eat salad. They eat chicken. They eat apple  pie.

8. McCain speaks.  He extols Romney. He trashes Obama.

9. Romney speaks. He extols McCain. He trashes Obama.

10. Everyone leaves the room except for a couple of journalists.

11. A lot of the women head to the bathroom.

12. In the bathroom, a middle-aged Mexican maid wipes the sinks.

Arizona’s Jan Brewer is walking a political tightrope.  She needs to tend to her conservative base, while appeasing moderates that Republicans must win over to cement the presidential election.

In today’s The Daily Beast, I explain how the governor’s decision to sign a constitutionally unnecessary law permitting  an elective class on how-the-Bible-influences-Western-Civilizations. The class elective is intended for Arizona public high schools (and charter schools) and  amounts to a clever act of political counterbalancing.

Because that  same day,  Brewer vetoed  a bill that would allow Arizonans to pack heat in libraries, schools, etc.

In other words,  the gun-bill  veto appeased moderates but outraged Brewer’s Tea Party base.  Signing the Bible bill into law appeased the base but outraged moderates.

The Bible law is very likely to face constitutional challenges if teachers are caught proselytizing. But by then, Brewer will likely be out of office.

Her focus now is keeping Dems from  winning over a demographically-changing state with a growing population of Hispanic voters still mightily offended by Arizona’s immigration laws — including SB 1070, which Gov. Jan signed.

To keep Arizona in the Republican fold, the governor must appease both  moderates and conservatives.

Just because the governor’s grammar falls short sometimes, don’t take her for a fool.

Dina Rampelotto was born in a little community on the Santa Cruz River, a green oasis in the high desert grasslands of Sonora. 

The village sat just a few miles south of the United States-Mexico line.

 Dina recalled a happy childhood, complete with a family donkey, devoted parents, three brothers, and a big sister named Vilma who would always be Dina’s counterbalance.

In Santa Cruz, as Dina grew up, she became known as  “La Gallina Clueca,” which is Spanish for “ The Mother Hen.”

Dina didn’t earn the nickname because she looked or sounded like a hen – she was a tall, blue-eyed girl who laughed easily and had many friends.  She earned the nickname because neighbor children thought she was so cool they waited to walk to school with her. By the time she arrived at the school house, she’d be trailed by a scatter of children, just as a mother hen is trailed by her little chicks.

Those children understood the generosity and kindness of Dina’s soul, a generosity and kindness that would shape and define her life.

It was a life shaped also by Dina’s own DNA, which carried a rich immigrant tradition of sacrifice and bravery, of risk-taking and courage, of great loss and great achievement.

Europe was in a state of chaos after World War I.  Countries had been conquered, occupied, ripped apart. Borders were erased and redrawn.

Italy, Germany and Austria were among the hardest-hit nations.Some World War I refugees, including  Dina’s future parents, made their way to the coal mines of Belgium. Here, they struggled to earn enough to buy boat tickets to America.

Palmira Angela Forrer was a young widow with Bavarian and Austrian roots. Her dead husband, the father of her child, had been  German.

Jose Rampelotto was Austrian-Italian. His country was descending into the madness that would lead to the future rule of dictator Benito Mussolini. 

Separately, Palmira and Jose immigrated to Mexico, leaving behind the building terror that would lead to the unspeakable horrors of the Third Reich and World War II.

Palmira and Jose met up again in Mexico, and eventually married.

Adolfo, Palmira’s son from her first marriage, soon had four siblings – Gino, William, Vilma and Dina.

Dina was a blonde Mexican child who spoke a Spanish imbued with a slight Austrian-Italian accent.

She made many close friends as a child and would cherish these friends her whole life.

As she grew up, she drew suitors who were smitten by her beauty inside and out.

As a young woman, Dina wanted to work in Mexico – maybe in a shop or bank or phone company.

She wanted to wear pretty outfits.

She wanted to enjoy her many friends.

She wanted to find and marry Mr. Right.

But her parents had other plans for her.

Recognizing that Mexico was less stabile than the United States, these immigrant parents from a war-ravaged continent encouraged their own daughters to also become immigrants – to the United States.

The job was far from glamorous.

Dina and Vilma would be servants on an isolated cattle ranch in Arizona.

But while the job lacked glamor, it guaranteed legal and safe passage into the United States.  It guaranteed a future.

Dina begged her parents not to send her away.

She never wanted to be a servant, to dress in a dull uniform, to clean the house of rich people and answer the call of their dining-room bell.

But Dina ceded to her parents will.

The year was 1953. Dina was 19. Vilma was 22.

Dina and Vilma lived and worked on the ORO Ranch for about six years.

****

I was 4 years old when Dina and Vilma came to my parents’ house on the ORO Ranch.

They were like big-sisters-second-mothers to me.  

I have always been deeply grateful to these two young sisters for giving so much time to a pesky, socially awkward, overly inquisitive and lonely little kid.

On the flip side, I think I was a pretty interesting kid, and I like to think I broke the monotony.

Vilma and I carried on long conversations, and translated cookbooks as well as newspapers like La Opinion and The New York Times. 

Vilma taught me to make chocolate chip cookies and German jelly doughnuts and empanadas. She taught me how to hang clothes on the line when she could have put them up more easily herself.

Dina taught me to belt out heart-wrenching songs like the one about the little dove that went cu-cu-ru-cu-cu.

Dina let me iron dishtowels as she ironed my father’s white shirts. She taught me embroidery. She took me on walks to the creek, where we’d wade or dig craters into the sand.  Sometimes, we’d poke around Indian ruins. Sometimes, we’d go hang out with the horses.

Like the kids in Santa Cruz, I tagged along behind Dina, drawn by her kindness, patience and love.

I knew, of course, that she wasn’t happy on the ranch.

*****

After Vilma married Angel Delgadillo and moved to Seligman, Dina eventually settled in Cananea, Sonora. 

She found her Mr. Right and married Ricardo Matus in 1966.

That summer, I visited Dina in Cananea.

To her own surprise, I think, she was no longer happy in Mexico.

She wanted to move back to the United States and raise a family. She wanted her children to be born as Americans.

With her reluctant husband in tow, she returned to the ORO ranch in 1966.  Thanks to this sacrifice, Vilma, Ricardo and Gino were born Americans.

The Matus family eventually settled in Seligman in the early 1970s.

Dina devoted herself to her children.

They were among the most loved children on this earth.

Dina’s life did not turn out as she had planned it as a young girl, she often told me, but she had no regrets because in the end it gave her Vilma, Ricardo and Gino.

And, eventually, those children gave her grandchildren that she prized and loved.

And Gracias a Dios they are all Americans, she would say. 

***

Dina Rampelotto Matus sacrificed willingly.

She lived a strong and kind life.

When she died last week, La Gallina Clueca had no regrets.

Phoenix activists Lydia Guzman and Todd Landfried hope to design a phone app for immigrants ensnared by the rash of recent immigration laws that have swept the nation. The app would alert family, lawyers and social media outlets of the stop, detention or arrest. I wrote about the SOS phone app for immigrants and, as Landried told me, anyone who looks like an immigrant. You may recognize Guzman’s name — she’s a longtime activist who designed a phone texting system that responded to Sheriff Joe’s raids, back in the day before he had his wings clipped by DHS and DOJ. Landfried works for Arizona Employers for Immigration Reform, and travels across the country speaking about the economic pitfalls of harsh immigration laws.

As Republicans prepare for what might be the last debate on the primary season, Arizona Democrats are working feverishly to take Arizona in the fall. Democrats believe the extremist GOP  fringe that has taken over the Arizona state house will send moderates and independents to the Democrat tent.   Rolling Stone profiles Arizona on debate day with examples of GOP overreach, Democrat strategy, the Pearce Recall, Sylvia Allen’s militia bill, and, of course, Papigate.

Req for DOJ investigation Babeu

This letter was sent to DOJ by a Hispanic Civil Rights group, Respect-Respeto.  The group seeks an investigation of alleged abuse of power by Sheriff Paul Babeu. In the letter, the group says it wants to know whether Babeu, in allegedly threatening to deport his former boyfriend, abused his position of power and authority.

Respect-Respeto notes  immigrants are commonly intimidated with  threats of deportation by lovers, bosses and landlords.

Stay tuned for a Justice response.

On the eve of the Republican presidential primary debates in Mesa, Pinal County Sheriff Paul Babeu has been making the rounds, explaining his relationship with his ex-beau Jose, who outed the sheriff in Phoenix New Times on Friday. Jose alleged that once his love affair with Babeu went south, Babeu’s lawyer threatened him with deportation if Jose went public about their long affair. This is Jose’s side of the story.

Understand that Jose doesn’t speak a lot of English, so when he said the sheriff threatened him with deportation, he didn’t go into the nuances of immigration law that he may understand better than most of us.

Remember that Babeu,  an  ambitious congressional candidate, came out  on Saturday and blamed Jose’s allegations on  his political enemies trying to destroy him. The sheriff said he’d  never threatened Jose with deportation.

But the sheriff also repeatedly said in public that Jose had  committed  “identity theft” by hacking into Babeu’s social media accounts.

If you’re a Mexican immigrant living in the Phoenix area, the mere words “identify theft” conjure up deportation.

Identity theft is a felony.  Sheriff Joe frequently slaps felony identity theft charges on immigrants caught up in work place raids. Sheriff Babeu understands the law.

Immigrants residing legally in the United States, as Jose apparently is, still can be deported if found guilty of a felony.

It’s unclear why Babeu, the self-professed immigration  hawk  who keeps accusing Jose of identity theft, didn’t turn his case over to another law enforcement authority for prosecution.

Unless, of course,  Babeu  didn’t want the publicity.