The American Heritage dictionary recently came out with the John Tanton and Russell Pearce  definition of  “anchor baby.”

Read about this deeply-offensive-to-many dictionary definition in this Immigration Impact blog.

Then lets move on to video-enary definitions. The first, by Californians for Population Stabilization, affiliated with Dr. John Tanton. I think Tanton is the guy who walks in front of the camera on the first video. The second video, of O’Reilly and Russell Pearce, shows how closely affiliated Pearce is with Tanton’s thinking.

Russell Pearce, who sponsored Arizona’s immigration law after it was written by the legal arm of the Federation for Immigration Reform, which still hosts Tanton on its board, was recently recalled and is no longer in office in Arizona.

PHOTO OF RUSSELL PEARCE VIA FLICKR BY GAGE SKIDMORE LICENSED BY CREATIVE COMMONS

In an exclusive salon.com  story,  Jeff Biggers carefully documents how the sponsor of Arizona’s famed SB 1070, Arizona Senate President Russell Pearce, “borrows” entire passages from extremist nut jobs for his Facebook page and in his writings. In at least one case, the “borrowed” material had already been thoroughly debunked as hate-filled nonsense before Pearce copied it.

Biggers reinforces in a new and fresh way what Arizona journalists have been pointing out for years.

Pearce lacks integrity.

For years, Arizona journos have been pointing out that Pearce, a former director of the Arizona Department of Motor Vehicles, had to leave that post after allegations of tampering with a driver license record of a constituent.  He was not prosecuted.

Although Pearce has long spouted off about family values, both is former and current wives told police Pearce bullied them. One wife said Pearce tried to choke her, but later retracted the statement.

Pearce’s son Joshua is a troubled soul with a substance abuse problem and an arrest record. CPS took his kids, Pearce’s grandchildren.

In December, Phoenix New Times published my investigative piece documenting Pearce’s ties with the extremist group FAIR, the powerhouse behind SB 1070 that was founded by John Tanton and is closely allied to its cousins NumbersUSA and Center for Immigration Studies, or CIS.

Now Pearce is the only legislator in Arizona history to face a recall election. It’s scheduled for early November.

Russell Pearce’s long, sorry saga has long evoked outrage in Arizona.

But should it also evoke pity?

Tom Fitzpatrick, a Pulitzer-winning Arizona columnist, died several years ago.

When he wrote for Phoenix New Times, I thought of him as an old guy. But I loved his writing.

He wrote about topics I write about now — crime, politics, race.

And every once in a while, he titled his column something like: If you asked, I would have told you.

I like that idea, and I’m going to borrow it from time to time.

So….if you asked, I would have told ya:

1. The New York Times online site is known for its graphics.  Check out this graphic seeking comment on the debt brouhaha. It is so cool.

2. Mormons and conservative Republicans who oppose Russell Pearce need to reach out to Dems and Latinos for the Pearce recall election.  Otherwise, Pearce will be re-elected. He’s energized, and has some very controversial groups supporting him. And these groups are raising funds for the battle ahead.

3. Um, speaking of battles. Sen. Scott Bundgaard, a Pearce favorite who has pleaded not guilty to charges associated with an alleged  freeway slapdown of his ex-girlfriend,  fascinates me.  He’s a former felon (felony expunged) and longtime politico. But the senator probably won’t  be re-elected if he is found guilty of hitting the ex-girlfriend. He says he didn’t hit her. She says he did. We’ll see who the judge believes.

Arizona’s most famous state senator, Russell Pearce, the guy who sponsored SB 1070 on behalf of very controversial right wing non-profits,  is now facing a recall election on Nov. 8.  (I snapped this photo of Pearce, flanked by Sheriff Joe, in October 2009, when Pearce announced he’d push a “trespassing bill” through the Senate. That “trespassing bill” morphed into SB 1070.)

Photo by Terry Greene Sterling

This recall is history-making. It’s the first time a legislator has ever faced a recall election in Arizona. The  Mormon church seems to be behind the recall in a big way. (Pearce is a Mormon, but he’s not a popular one. ) The Mormon hierarchy in Salt Lake City recently signed off on the Utah Compact, which says immigration is a federal, not a state, issue.  After all, the church includes many undocumented immigrants

A conservative Mormon and former church bishop will likely run against Pearce in the recall. Democrats hope nobody else will run against Pearce, not even a Democrat. They dislike the guy that much.

And they’re not the only ones. On St. Patrick’s Day, the Arizona Chamber of Commerce and several conservative Republicans successfully quashed six of Pearce’ proposed immigration bills, including the “birthright citizenship” law that would have made aliens out of babies born in the United States if their parents were unauthorized migrants.  It was a stunning  defeat and marked the decline in Pearce’s power as senate president. It took courage to stand up against Pearce, because he’s a bully backed by an electorate that includes bikers and face smashers. One of Pearce’s (defeated) critics, Rep. Bill Konopnicki,  told me last year he got a death threat after speaking out against SB 1070. He thinks the threat came from Pearce supporters.

But for years, few stood up to Pearce.

Not the two wives who claimed he was a violent and ill-tempered mate. (His current wife  later retracted the charge.) Not Janet Napolitano, then the Arizona Attorney General, who many say should have prosecuted Pearce after he stepped down from the DMV for allegedly tinkering with a friend’s DUI record. Not the son with the addiction problem, the removed kids, and the sad face.

Pearce grew so powerful it finally took a church, a chamber of commerce, an  immigrant-rights movement and moderates in two political parties to force the recall.

And now Russell Pearce is  scared.

Very scared.

Russell Pearce, the controversial state senator who introduced Arizona’s famous immigration law, SB 1070, which makes it a state crime for unauthorized immigrants to set foot in Arizona, now faces a recall election.

I wrote about Pearce, the recall, and his controversial past for The Daily Beast a few months ago.

For years, Dems have virtually given Pearce his office by not investing money or viable candidates to run against him.

Pearce hails from a quirky East Mesa district, long stereotyped as a conservative Mormon stronghold that would elect  Pearce (a Mormon) every time.

But judging from the number of valid signatures stemming from the recall effort ( led in part by Chad Snow, also a  Mormon ) conservatives, moderates and liberals banded together to force a recall. The recall leaders did not focus on Pearce’s immigration stance, but rather on what they viewed as the failure of the Arizona Senate president to lead effectively.

Apparently, thousands of East Mesa voters agreed.

Signs of Pearce’s waning popularity were already evident — several rebel Republicans backed by  the powerful Arizona Chamber of Commerce joined with Dems to  squelch a series of Pearce-sponsored immigration laws, including  a birthright citizenship measure, earlier this year. The chamber said SB 1070 had been bad for business.

Expect to see money poured into this recall election by non-profits like Ban Amnesty Now, which is  already raising money to help Pearce win the recall election.

I wrote about Pearce, the non-profit genesis of his anti-immigrant message, and the effort to scare the hell out of  penny-pinched Americans  for Phoenix New Times in December, 2010.

Stay tuned.

ARIZONA LAWMAKERS HOPE THE GOVERNOR DOES TREAD ON BILLS WITH VETOES

Just about twelve hours ago, during the waning hours of Arizona’s bizarre legislative year  I filed a story for The Daily Beast on Gov. Jan Brewer’s counter-intuitive vetoes of two bills beloved by Tea Party aficionados  — a birther bill and a bill allowing folks to pack their semi-autos or whatever on “public pathways” near schools.   I reported that Democrats viewed the vetoes as part of a well-organized plan by Republicans to maintain power in the Arizona Legislature. Here’s how it worked, according to Sen. Krysten Sinema:  Republicans who disapproved of the birther and gun measures voted for them anyway, knowing Brewer would veto them.  The Republicans needed to vote this way to appease the fringe voters who decide elections in primary campaigns. And Brewer, who can’t run again because of term limits, could take the flak, and party leaders could still  voice approval of her.

Since I filed the story, the Arizona Legislature has wrapped up its session. According to The Arizona Republic, the legislature passed several bills that Brewer has 10 days to veto, sign into law, or not sign. (If she doesn’t sign or veto the bills, they still become law.)  Among the measures the Republic says await  the governor’s consideration: A law allowing Don’t Tread on Me License Plates; a law making the Colt Single Action the state gun; a law allowing the governor to build an AZ-Mexico border fence on federal, private, or state land; a law sending $1 million to Arizona’s new sheriff star of Pinal County for border enforcement, even though county isn’t on the border; a law forcing the removal of “nearly a dozen panels from the [state]  9/11 memorial, including one that says, 9 15 01 Balbir Singh Sodhi, a Sikh, murdered in Mesa.”

For those of you who need a little context, if you can call it that, the legislature seeks to remove the reference on the public memorial to the “Sikh murdered in Mesa” that was a hate killing, white-on-brown, in the wake of the 911 tragedy. The victim’s death was directly related to the 911 tragedy, even though he had nothing to do with it. He was mistaken for a Muslim by his ignorant assassin.

The murder took place in Mesa, Arizona, which is the political power base of Russell Pearce, the state senate president who identifies himself as a “Tea Party Senator.”  I will write more about Pearce in future columns, but suffice it to say for now that Pearce supported most of the  laws on the governor’s desk.

And so did a lot of “moderate” Republicans who, Sinema says,  want to appease their fringe base. 

They’re just hoping and praying  Gov. Jan Brewer will veto the laws they voted for.

VILLAGE VOICE MEDIA INVESTIGATION BY TERRY GREENE STERLING TIES “CENTRIST” THINK TANKS AND GROUPS TO WHITE NATIONALISTS, REVEALS  MISLEADING REPORTS ARE USED TO ASSAULT 14TH AMENDMENT, AND SCARE THE HELL OUT OF PENNY PINCHED AMERICANS.

Among the findings:

1. The  “cost of illegal immigration” by Federation for American Immigration Reform include cost of educating American citizen children with one or more parents who are unauthorized immigrants. Economists consider education an investment, because it pays off after the child becomes an adult and begins working, paying taxes, and consuming goods. But the economic counterbalance  is missing in the FAIR report, making the cost staggering.

2. 14th Amendment “birthright citizenship” “anchor baby” movement tied to White Nationalists.

3. FAIR and sister organizations  drive immigration debate but are  tied to White Nationalists.

4. Unauthorized immigrants are not an undue burden on the economy, most economists say.

5. A special section on White Nationalist books.

6. Ties of White Nationalists to Arizona’s immigration law hardliners.

Here is the story.

Here’s a quick roundup of Maricopa County Sheriff Joe Arpaio news.

With great fanfare, he opened a new tent for all those “illegals” he hoped were going to be slapped with misdemeanors for being in Arizona illegally, a new state crime under SB 1070, slated to go into effect July 29.

Then a federal judge slapped  slapped injunctions on several key parts of SB 1070 on the day before it was to take effect.

Sheriff Joe Arpaio said he would conduct a “crime suppression” operation anyway, because there were plenty of state laws that would allow him to conduct these famous raids.

His deputies arrested several people blocking the crime-suppression vehicles.

Next, Sheriff Joe Arpaio heard from the Department of Justice. He’s long been  investigated by Justice Department for alleged racial profiling.  The department says Sheriff Joe needs to cough up documents related to a racial-profiling probe (the raids on heavily Latino neighborhoods and workplaces) or it will sue on August 17.  Here is the Justice Department Letter to Arpaio.

The sheriff is also the subject of a federal grand jury probe in Phoenix for alleged abuses of power and harassment of political enemies. That probe is ongoing.

To top it all off, the sheriff says he’s got a $1 million hit on his head, supposedly by those drug cartels. The alleged hit is the topic of an e-mail from Russell Pearce, the sponsor of SB 1070, to his supporters. Here is the e-mail.

The two key Arizona  lawmakers who pushed SB 1070 through the Arizona Legislature expressed outrage after President Barack Obama voiced  support for comprehensive reform of federal immigration policy earlier today.

You can read a really good analysis of  just why, exactly, Obama chose this time and place to speak about immigration in a big way. Just link here. Obama delivered his talk at American University, in Washington. He  said this, in a nutshell: It’s time to reform federal immigration policy using a four-pronged approach of border enforcement, workplace enforcement, visa policy modernization and a stand-in-line-and-pay-your-fees pathway to a green card. (Citizenship, and voting privileges, would come years later.) (Oh, and the comprehensive immigration reform Obama touted is not new;   Senators Ted Kennedy and John McCain, with President Bush’s blessing, tried to get it passed  back in 2006. )

Obama also took a couple of jabs at Arizona and SB 1070, saying the law pummels law enforcement authorities with burdendome expenses and responsibilities, and, of course, opens the door to racial profiling.

Almost immediately after Obama stepped down from the podium,  John Kavanagh, a Fountain Hills legislator who has become a key spokesman for SB 1070 after sponsoring a similar law in the Arizona House, appeared on TV in Phoenix. He told  FOX News he was offended that Obama lumped immigrants who came here illegally with immigrants who came legally, like his grandparents. He said the Obama plan meant “amnesty” and SB 1070 protected against racial profiling.

Kavanagh had recently done a little offending of his own, when  he “joked” to a roomful of Latino journalists that Canadian “illegals” could stay in Arizona because they had money. You can read about that here.

Sen. Russell Pearce, the main sponsor of SB 1070, told Phoenix FOX news that Obama was fear mongering and just wanted “amnesty.” Pearce has been accused of fearmongering, too. The Arizona Republic noted that Pearce erred when he attributed 9,000 deaths to “illegal immigration.” In a fascinating and informative profile, reporter Gary Nelson notes:

Pearce has frequently cited a soaring crime rate caused by illegal immigration as one of the reasons for his stance.

However, statistics from the FBI’s Uniform Crime Reports show that violent and property crimes in Phoenix have decreased in the last three years at a rate that is even faster than the nation’s as a whole.

As recently as two months ago, Pearce wrote a constituent that illegal immigrants are responsible for “over 9,000 American deaths every year.” The number has been attributed to U.S. Rep. Steve King, R-Iowa, who said he “extrapolated” from a Government Accountability Office study. The study, however, was on illegal-immigrant prison populations and does not mention that figure.

Read more: azcentral.com

Just days before Pearce accused the President of fear mongering, Gov. Jan Brewer talked about “beheadings” that couldn’t be substantiated, and said all those “illegals” crossing the border were drug mules.

Here’s Brewer’s beheadings video: Brewer talks about beheadings.

The beheadings couldn’t be substantiated, according to Politico.

SB 1070 has long been promoted by proponents as kicking in only after a  cop  lawfully stops detains or arrests someone they suspect of committing a  ”crime”  ( the ” crime” category includes   city ordinances and  traffic violations) and then only after “reasonable suspicion” exists that the  person is in the country illegally.

Today, thanks to  Evan Wyloge, a rising star  journalist who has been covering this angle relentlessly we learn:

Lyle Mann, director of the Arizona Peace Officers Standards and Training board, said what constitutes a “stop, detainment or arrest” is really much broader than the law’s supporter’s have been conveying since the law was signed April 23.

“The truth of the matter is an officer can stop anyone for any reason and ask them anything,” Mann said. “Is that kind? Is that brutish? That’s another question.”

Does this broad interpretation also apply to US citizens who are lawfully stopped detained or arrested while driving their undocumented relatives?

We’ll know for sure on July 29, when the law kicks in, barring court injunctions.

Children are the next targets of the people who wrote SB1070.

I wrote about this, and why the numbers are deceptive, in The Daily  Beast.