Joe Arpaio's posse

Background checks have found all sorts of reprobates working as volunteers in Arizona Sheriff Joe's posse..

Arizona laws and a box of crayones

Maybe it's time to let them go....

Maybe it's time to let all of the southern and conservative states opt out of the United States. Yep, withdraw all support (including defense, welfare, health care, etc.) and let them fend for themselves. If we were to withdraw all governmental establishments (offices, military bases, defense contracting, etc.) what would they have left? Texas bitches the loudest about the Federal Government and gets more in subsidies and government contracting than any other state in the nation. Hypocrites.

The right-wing is very militant and ready to shoot on sight

There is a great debate going on in the media over whether or or not the shooting of Congresswoman Gabby Giffords was brought on by harsh language from the right-wing political machine in the U.S.  Many Republicans are defending their speech by labeling the shooter as bat-shit-crazy (which he probably was) and telling us that none of their speech or publications inspired him.  Well - then how about the gun-crazy mentality of the state of Arizona where it is perfectly legal for any citizen to carry a concealed weapon without a permit?

Arizona's extremism in the spotlight

from Daily Kos by Joan McCarter

In his Saturday news briefing, just hours after the shooting, Pima County Sheriff Clarence Dupnik said:

The anger, the hatred, the bigotry that goes on in this country is getting to be outrageous.... And unfortunately, Arizona I think has become sort of the capital. We have become the mecca for prejudice and bigotry.

While a couple of Arizona Republicans, Rep. Trent Franks and Sen. Jon Kyl, took issue with Dupnik's remarks, a few Arizona Democrats have first hand knowledge to back up the Sheriff. For instance, Rep. Raul Grijalva:

MINUTEMAN WISHES GRIJALVA DEAD ON FACEBOOK - A well-known activist with Arizona's Minutemen, an armed, anti-immigration vigilante organization, celebrated the attack on Giffords in a Facebook posting, lamenting that Rep. Raul Grijalva, a Democrat who also represents the Tucson area, wasn't also killed, according to the local Tucson Citizen. "AZ Congresswoman Gabrielle Giffords (Dem) assassinated in Safeway store parking lot in Tucson by another Democrat! Too bad Traitor Raul Grijalva wasn't with her! He won't be missed!" wrote Laine Lawless, a Minuteman activist and the founder of the extremist group Border Guardians.

In just the past eight months, Grijalva has experienced three terrorist threats against him or his office, "And we’re not logging or complaining about some of the other vile statements that are made."

In July, someone shot out the window of Grijalva’s Yuma office. Grijalva had bulletproof glass installed. In October, a bag of white powder was mailed to Grijalva’s Tucson office in a package decorated with swastikas. Again, police ordered his staff home. The FBI later said the powder wasn’t toxic.

Or how about Mary Rose Wilcox, a member of the Maricopa County Board of Supervisors in Arizona.

Wilcox herself was shot in 1997, while walking out of a board meeting, by a man who later said he was angry at her support for a baseball stadium tax. The first Hispanic woman elected to the board, Wilcox, a Democrat, had been the target of talk-radio tirades telling Maricopa County residents to "take her out."
"I knew at the time that the hate had been caused by a lot of the rhetoric that had gone on," Wilcox told HuffPost. "At the trial, the man actually said, 'I shot her because the radio said I should take her out.'"

The "radio said I should take her out." But no, hate talk isn't a problem. Meanwhile, Glock sales in Arizona have surged since Saturday.

Tom Tomorrow on Arizona violence (cartoon)

Surge in gun sales

Official Arizona Police Chart

From Acerbic Politics

The Arizona Carch-22

Frommer's Boycotting Arizona

Frommer's Boycotting Arizona Over Ridiculous Gun Laws [The Wild West]

from Gawker by The Cajun Boy

Arthur Frommer, the founder of the handy Frommer's Travel Guide empire, announced that he's personally boycotting the state of Arizona after seeing a bunch of wingnuts openly packing heat at an Obama speech earlier in the week.

The 80-year-old made the announcement on his blog:

I am not yet certain whether I would advocate a travel boycott by others of the state of Arizona; I want to learn more about Arizona's gun laws and how they compare with those of other states. But I am shocked beyond measure by reports that earlier this week, nearly a dozen persons, including one with an assault rifle strapped about his shoulders and others with pistols in their hands or holsters, were openly congregating outside a hall at which President Obama was speaking to the Veterans of Foreign Wars.

For myself, without yet suggesting that others follow me in an open boycott, I will not personally travel in a state where civilians carry loaded weapons onto the sidewalks and as a means of political protest. I not only believe such practices are a threat to the future of our democracy, but I am firmly convinced that they would also endanger my own personal safety there. And therefore I will cancel any plans to vacation or otherwise visit in Arizona until I learn more. And I will begin thinking about whether tourists should safeguard themselves by avoiding stays in Arizona.

According to the Phoenix, Arizona, police, people with guns including assault rifles do not need permits in Arizona, but can simply carry such weapons with them, openly and brazenly, when they gather to protest a speaker at a public event. The police also acknowledge that about a dozen people carrying guns, including one with an AR-15 assault rifle, milled about outside the event at which President Obama spoke.

I would feel as I do regardless of the political identity of the speaker whom these thugs attempted to intimidate. The continued tolerance of extremists carrying guns is a frightening development which strikes at the heart of the political process and endangers the ability to carry out a reasoned debate. Is there any responsible citizen of the United States who believes that people should carry guns to a public debate or speech? If Ronald Reagan were delivering a political talk in Phoenix, Arizona, would they have felt it was proper for protestors with guns to mill about outside the hall from which he would leave?

Whatever, unless you're a golfer or college student looking to score drugs and easy ass, there's really no need to visit Arizona anyway. So good on you Arthur Frommer.