Arizona Governor Jan Brewer earned her 15 minutes of deserved infamy during the 2010 campaign when she blabbered on about "headless bodies" in the Arizona desert -- the result, supposedly, of drug mules or other south-of-the-border criminals invading our sacred white sanctuary.
Not long after the Chatty Cathy of governors sputtered that inanity a few journalists who remembered what their job is -- investigating statements rather than simply repeating them -- began looking into Brewer's claim. What they found was that not one headless body had turned up recently in the Arizona desert, nor had any law official in any county reported finding a body sans cranium. When confronted with the headless whopper by NBC reporter Brahm Resnik, Brewer did what she always does -- stall, stammer, lie, pivot:
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It took another couple of months before Brewer admitted she was wrong about the beheadings. By then, however, her tough anti-immigrant stance had put her well ahead in the polls, even after her 13-second meltdown during a televised debate with AG Terry Goddard, who must spend his days thinking, "I lost to this knucklebrain?!"
Well, today that same knucklebrain is lobbing another scare tactic, and in the process trying to save the bigoted hide of Senate President Russell Pearce, who faces a recall election on November 8. It's telling that the Governor would put party above commonsense or her own job performance and support this shitheel, since he has made her tenure a living hell.
On the other hand, she probably owes her seat to Pearce, since it was his grandstanding about illegal aliens in 2010 that garnered and eventually cemented support for the far-right Tea Party cabal, and Brewer embraced it -- as she knew she must, in order to even win the GOP nomination. Once she became Governor, though, Pearce's far-reaching anti-immigrant, anti-women, anti-education, anti-GLBT, and anti-healthcare policies have made her state fodder for late night comedians, and the nation's armpit for many tourists and corporations looking for a headquarters. It got so bad during this year's legislative session that dozens of local CEOs, not exactly the lefty crowd that watches Rachel Maddow nightly, sent a letter to Pearce asking him to quit acting like such a racist dickhead. He wasn't capable of doing that, but fortunately enough Republicans listened, and Pearce's craziest and most mean-spirited bills bit the dust.
So, for any Governor trying to rebuild Arizona's economy following the hard housing tumble the state took in 2008, you'd probably rather sniff rotting gila monster farts than see the Mesa Mormon, supremacist chum, and confirmed wackadoodle Russell Pearce sitting in the Senate President's chair. But there the oaf sat after the election, and he governed like it was he, not Brewer, who ruled the state: passing his own gun laws, creating a blacklist to keep protestors out of his chambers, banning the public from press conferences. And pissing off a whole lot of Democrats and moderate Republicans in the process, particularly in Pearce's own conservative district, to the point they gathered far more signatures for their recall than were necessary.
So today, to reward the bigoted blowhard who helped install her in the Governor's chair, Jan Brewer sent an email to her fan base, asking them to support Pearce by donating to the group that's fighting the recall:
In my 28 years of public service, I have always fought for conservative principles by standing up to Democrats, media bias, Nancy Pelosi, Al Sharpton, and everyone else in Washington who think they know what is best for Arizona. I'm writing today because I need your help! Brewer Email
Because if there is anyone who's stopping Arizona from hauling itself out of the economic and social sewer the state is drowning in, it's that radical rag The Arizona Republic and Al Sharpton. He's been all over our policies, stopping progress at every turn! Then she lets loose with another whopper:
The very same organizations and individuals who organized boycotts of Arizona, who opposed me in my last election, and who have consistently been advocates for unsustainable government spending are at it again. This time they mean to recall from office my friend and colleague State Senate President Russell Pearce.
WTF? I said WTF?! Stephen Lemons correctly points out that the people who "organized boycotts of Arizona" over SB 1070, are not the "very same organizations" who headed up Citizens for a Better Arizona, the recall group:
There was only one organization involved in gathering the signatures that made the recall a reality, Citizens for a Better Arizona. And neither of the co-founders -- Republican Chad Snow and Democrat Randy Parraz -- organized boycotts of Arizona.
"That's just factually a lie," Parraz said of Brewer's statement. "If she wants to take her shots, she should at least get her facts straight." New Times
Earlier in the month Pearce beat Brewer to that same lie when he issued his own statement about the recall's success:
"Today a group of outside interests filed petitions in an effort to force a recall election. This push is unlike anything we have seen in Arizona politics. Typically these recall efforts are created after some alleged malfeasance in office. That is of course not the case here. These outsiders don’t like my hard line on illegal immigration and my belief in balanced budgets, spending only the money you have." Sonoran Alliance
He just can't handle the fact that "insiders," many of them conservative Mormons, hate his guts. Citizens for a Better Arizona was not led or funded by "outsiders." The leaders of CBA were from Arizona, and many pavement-pounding volunteers came from Pearce's district; they refused to accept corporate donations, and more than 90 percent of the contributions CBA received came from Arizonans (at the same time Pearce was using Tom Tancredo's front group to beg for "outside" corporate cash). The line about outsiders not liking "my hard line on illegal immigration" is also pity-me hogwash. The recall website and materials didn't mention immigration; instead CBA highlighted the unmitigated embarrassment and failure Pearce has been as Senate President -- in terms of jobs, education, healthcare, image. It's not necessary to remind people Pearce is a racist when he's also a jerk who has failed us big time.
In her email today, Brewer naturally drags out that tired old border refrain, "the federal government has failed to do its job," even though she never uttered that garbage when a white Republican was in the White House. Truth is, immigration is down, crime along the border is down, the Obama administration has deported more immigrants than Bush, and he has sent more patrols and resources to the border than his predecessor. But that doesn't stop Brewer from anointing Pearce as our savior:
His unwavering dedication to enforcing the rule of law will help save our country from an Obama administration dedicated to undermining our nation's immigration laws.
Throughout Brewer's email there are no less than five big blue bolded and underlined sentences that encourage you to CLICK HERE so you too can join the fight against lefties like Rev. Sharpton. Click there and it'll take you to the "Protect an American Patriot" website, where there's a picture of Russ in a flag shirt holding a flag. No namby pamby lapel pin for this patriotic stud: no, he's probably wearing a jock strap that makes you wanna stand and salute.
Brewer saves her best Friday the 13th line for near the end:
Until the rule of law is established on both sides of the Arizona-Mexico border there will be no peace, no future economic opportunity and no hope or resolving these issues undermining Arizona's continued economic prosperity.
Sheesh, "no peace" and "no hope" without Russell! The "headless bodies" crap and other fear-mongering worked during the election, so there's no need to cool it now with the scare tactics aimed at blue hairs in Sun City and haters everywhere. Says Jan, we won't have any "rule of law" in the state unless Russell Pearce remains in the Senate, because the rest of us are all open-border, amnesty-loving Marxists, if you read their statements. And how's that "economic opportunity" stuff working out for you both? I had to re-read that line about "continued economic prosperity" ... I didn't get the memo that it had started.
Jan Brewer has been in state politics a long time, historically a moderate Republican, dim but harmless. She's shown in the last couple years what's really beneath that blonde helmut: someone willing to scare old ladies with lies in order to get elected, someone willing to embrace a hateful immigration policy that even many Republicans here would've found odious just a decade ago, someone prepared to place her name alongside one of the most vile human beings to sit in a state legislature -- and she knows it.