WP: Headless bodies and other immigration tall tales in Arizona

[Pirate Smile]

Headless bodies and other immigration tall tales in Arizona

By Dana Milbank
Sunday, July 11, 2010

-snip-
But those in fear of losing parts north of the neckline can relax. There's not a follicle of evidence to support Brewer's claim.
The Arizona Guardian Web site checked with medical examiners in Arizona's border counties, and the coroners said they had never seen an immigration-related beheading. I called and e-mailed Brewer's press office requesting documentation of decapitation; no reply.

Brewer's mindlessness about headlessness is just one of the immigration falsehoods being spread by Arizona politicians. Border violence on the rise? Phoenix becoming the world's No. 2 kidnapping capital? Illegal immigrants responsible for most police killings? The majority of those crossing the border are drug mules? All wrong.
This matters, because it means the entire premise of the Arizona immigration law is a fallacy. Arizona officials say they've had to step in because federal officials aren't doing enough to stem increasing border violence. The scary claims of violence, in turn, explain why the American public supports the Arizona crackdown.

Last year gave us death panels and granny killings, but compared with the nonsense justifying the immigration crackdown, the health-care debate was an evening at the Oxford Union Society.
Two months ago, the Arizona Republic published an exhaustive report that found that, according to statistics from the FBI and Arizona police agencies, crime in Arizona border towns has been "essentially flat for the past decade." For example, "In 2000, there were 23 rapes, robberies and murders in Nogales, Ariz. Last year, despite nearly a decade of population growth, there were 19 such crimes." The Pima County sheriff reported that "the border has never been more secure."

FBI statistics show violent crime rates in all of the border states are lower than they were a decade ago -- yet Sen. John McCain (R-Ariz.) reports that the violence is "the worst I have ever seen." President Obama justifiably asserted last week that "the southern border is more secure today than any time in the past 20 years," yet Rush Limbaugh judged the president to be "fit for the psycho ward" on the basis of that remark.

-snip-
So what is this "terrible border security crisis" that Brewer says has only "gotten worse"? She complained recently to Fox News's Greta Van Susteren about the Obama administration's handling of the border: "They haven't did their job."
But really the person who hasn't did her job is Brewer. She should screw her head back on and start telling Americans the truth.

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2010/07/09/AR2010070902342.html?hpid=opinionsbox1

[bluesbassman]

1. The truth is so inconvenient.

How these people sleep at night is beyond me.

[hvn_nbr_2]

11. They think that their imagination is reality.

Like O'Liely, they think that if they make it up, that makes it true.

[boppers]

2. Hey, I wonder if Dana Milbank can cover the "meth epidemic", too.

Same game.

People will be looking at this country in 50 years from now asking if we had all seriously lost our minds.

[Pirate Smile]

3. This a great piece calling out so many lies spewed by Brewer, McCain, Republicans, the media, etc.

We need to spread it far and wide because so many of their BS talking points are being accepted as true but most people.

[mwb970]

5. And this is just about a single subject - immigration.

Every issue area has become polluted with the constant lies and dishonesty from republicans. I particularly can't get over the lies that are so easily disprovable by merely referring to official records, often maintained by the office of the very republican hack doing the lying.

Will we eventually reach a point where each and every statement made by each and every republican each and every day is a lie? When they become completely, totally, 100% truth-free on all occasions? What happens then?

And what kind of political party stakes its political future on denying reality, anyway?

[Pirate Smile]

I suppose one that believes that they control the means of communication to a huge segment of the

voting public - ala Fox News, Rush, Wall Street Journal, etc. It is shocking though when they keep spewing stuff that is clearly false and everybody knows it.

Remember how long Palin continued using the "thanks, but no thanks on that bridge to nowhere" line ever after everybody knew it was a lie. She just kept saying it.

[Pirate Smile]

12. Whoops. My finger did a double-click for no good reason except habit. Bad finger.

;)

[Desertrose]

4. Waht's with all the unrecc's on this?

??

[Pirate Smile]

6. I know. It's crazy but DU now has a significant minority of posters literally working against Dems.

[Jennicut]

7. Of course they lie, they need a scapegoat. They need something to scare people

into running to Rethugs. It is a game to them. Will the American people ever wake up?

[Pirate Smile]

8. Most people - including Dems - believe the lies Milbank knocks down here. We need to get the facts

out. It would show how much of this is Republican BS. I just love how after decades of this problem they attack Obama constantly - "Mr President, do your job" while they prevent him from moving forward. He actually has changed and increased the enforcement in a variety of ways that make sense but you can't fully deal with the problem without legislative reform.

[ShadowLiberal]

14. Indeed, the GOP's southern strategy is all about blaming persecuted minority groups for everything

Ever since the GOP decided to abandon the party of Lincoln and become the party for racists and bigots the GOP has been all about blaming others for their problems, that's why they're blaming Hispanics for our problems now. The GOP doesn't seem to get it that they're doing lots of long term damage to themselves with all of the many groups they've persecuted over the years, that in some cases went from strongly supporting the GOP to strongly opposing them (such as African Americans, I believe Muslims also had a complete U-Turn after 9/11 and the GOP started persecuting them). Hispanics, while not overwhelmingly supporting the GOP, still had a significant minority in the Hispanic community that supported them before they were scapegoats, are having their numbers start to look more and more like African American's support for democrats.

[Jefferson23]

9. K&R

[frylock]

10. knr

[Pirate Smile]

13. kick

[Pirate Smile]

15. kick