Who knew Fox News Sunday mashes up so well with Monty Python? (via yours truly) It's always a trip to see what Jon Kyl gets away with on Fox News Sunday. That said, I'm looking forward even more to seeing what everyone else will NOT get away with on Meet The Press, given that Rachel Maddow is on the panel this morning:
The Chris Matthews Show: Panel with Joe Klein, Time magazine; Trish Regan, CNBC; Katty Kay, BBC; Clarence Page, Chicago Tribune.
Meet the Press: White House Press Secretary Robert Gibbs. Panel: David Brooks, New York Times; former Rep. Harold Ford Jr. (D-Tenn.); Ed Gillespie; Rachel Maddow.
ABC's This Week: White House advisor David Axelrod; Rep. Arizona immigration law: Brian Bilbray (R-Ca.); Rep. Luis Gutierrez (D-Ill.). Panel: Ron Brownstein; Ruth Marcus; the Washington Post; Reihan Salam, National Review; George Will.
Fox News Sunday With Chris Wallace: Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu. Senator Jon Kyl (R-Ariz.); David Axelrod, White House Senior Adviser.
Representatives Steve King (R-IA) and Brian Bilbray (R-CA) have staked out roles as two of the most vehement and controversial anti-immigrant mouthpieces in Congress. Recently, they have offered their collective expertise to Arizona law enforcement, who have spoken out strongly against the state’s new profiling law, SB 1070, because of the way that it inhibits community policing and fighting real crime.
The Representatives' advice to worried police has been simple: “just check their shoes!”
Shoe fetish aside, Rep. King also made the absurd statement Monday that law enforcement could spot those here illegally by either noting indicators such as, “What kind of clothes people wear…what kind of shoes people wear, what kind of accent they have, the type of grooming that they might have…” or:
“…just a sixth sense...”
America's Voice decided to have some fun envisioning King’s worldview as a horror flick.
Yesterday on Hardball I heard the most amazing spin/lie I think I have ever heard. While discussing the new law in Arizona that says candidates must show their birth certificate to be on the ballot, Rep. Brian Bilbray (R-CA) decided to totally twist the reason for the new law and declare that it is aimed at John McCain:
This is a very interesting statement, and one that follows politics at all knows to be false. John McCain has been on the ballot in Arizona for over three decades and it was never an issue before. It didn’t become an issue until the crazy birthers came out questioning President Obama’s citizenship – something that has been disproven time and time again.
I’ll hand it to Matthews for handling this idiot rather well. I am also kind of shocked this exchange hasn’t gained more attention in the blogosphere. I doubt Bilbray is just speaking from the crazy corner of his brain. I got a feeling this is the kind of spin we will hear a lot more as people talk about Arizona’s transformation into a police and birther state.
On Friday, Arizona Governor Jan Brewer signed a blatant profiling bill into law, securing Arizona’s title as the first official police state in the nation. If enacted, a whopping 30% of Arizonans – or nearly two million Latinos—would be walking around with a target on their backs.
Under the law, police must stop anyone who they have “reasonable suspicion” to believe may be an “illegal immigrant.” President Obama slammed the new law as a severely “misguided” way to deal with immigration. Republican lawmakers, on the other hand, are scrambling to excuse the fact that the bill mandates racial profiling and could waste hundreds of millions of taxpayer dollars. According to Rep. Brian Bilbray (R-CA), former lobbyist for the anti-immigrant group behind the bill, FAIR, police can use plenty of other cues—like people’s hair, or shoes—to determine immigration status.
The irony here is that what was supposed to be a bill that mobilized the nativist elements of the GOP base has instead become a rallying cry for Latino and immigrant communities that have hosted intense, round-the-clock vigils and protests for the last six days in Arizona.
A line of activists and protesters filed in front of the state Capitol on Friday morning to rally against the immigration bill, joining those that had stayed the night. [...]
Student protesters have been out front, protesting the Governor all the way to her hotel Thursday night to demand she veto the bill, while posting pictures on twitter with the hashtags #SB1070 and #altoarizona (“alto” means stop in Spanish and AltoArizona.com is a hub of activity around the bill).
On Friday, the mainstream media finally began to cover this grassroots display of outrage and power – CNN’s Rick Sanchez reported that protests of the bill were sending twitter over capacity and posted pictures from the thousands of protesters waiting outside to hear the Governor’s decision. As the final decision came down, pictures streaming across twitter showed the bill’s opponents gathered peacefully on their knees, in a moment of silence for human dignity that was echoed across Spanish radio, facebook, and twitter. Not your average tea party.
