Arizona's Own Espresso Pundit

Even California voters support SB 1070

This from the L.A. Times.

California voters are closely divided over the crackdown on illegal immigration in Arizona, with sharp splits along lines of ethnicity and age, according to a new Los Angeles Times/USC poll.

Overall, 50% of registered voters surveyed said they support the law, which compels police to check the immigration status of those they suspect are in the country illegally, while 43% oppose it. That level of support is lower than polls have indicated nationwide.

Words Don't Mislead People; Reporters Mislead People.

Here's a great example of a fundamentally misleading mainstream media story.  The theme is that "increasingly liberal" gun laws are creating tension with restaurant owners and among customers.  Here's how the story opens...

Gloria DiCenco was chatting amiably with a few Italian speakers at Beyond Bread on North Campbell Avenue on April 20 when armed men began coming in.

First there were two, then more. Finally, maybe 20 people carrying holstered guns and, in some cases, ammunition, arrived and ordered food, DiCenco said. A hush fell over the restaurant, she said, and her group's happy mood turned tense.

Dude, open carry has always been legal in Arizona...and I mean "always", like before Tombstone.  So this scary story in which nothing happened is nothing new, which means that it has nothing to do with the story.  But it makes for great drama.

 

Here's an interesting Twist...

Want to know how SB 1070 is playing out politically?  Check out this factoid---Attorney General Goddard and Governor Brewer are sparring over who gets to defend the state in the SB 1070 lawsuits. 

Governor Brewer said she had removed the state’s attorney general from defending Arizona’s controversial new immigration enforcement law, accusing him of colluding with the United States Justice Department as it weighs whether to challenge the law in court.

But the matter remained in dispute on Saturday, as the attorney general, Terry Goddard, said in an e-mail message that he was “definitely defending the state” in legal challenges to the law.

I guess Goddard has an understanding of how popular the law really is. 

Isn't This Sign illegal?

I'm sure you have noticed these signs cropping up.  Although many of the signs are connected to Governor Brewer's signs, they don't appear to be associated with her campaign.  In fact most of the signs have been moved so that they are no longer using her posts.

The goal of the sign appears to be to promote the "Expect More Arizona" website.  That's clearly illegal.  Unless a sign is promoting a candidate or a ballot measure, then it has to follow the normal sign code. 

That's why I can't put up signs to advertise espresso pundit or my favorite pizza place. 

They also have a set of signs that are designed to harass Republican candidates.  I saw one that said "Are They 4 Education" and it was between to Republican Gubernatorial signs. 

If you go to the "Expect More Arizona" Website, you will see that it's funded by the who's who of liberal advocates--Helios, Virginia Piper, UA Foundation and the ASU Foundation.

Those guys have a ton of money and if they want to get their message out, there are plenty of legal options...

So I invite the advocates behind these signs to use the comment section to argue why the signs should be allowed to stand. 

If they can't come up with an argument that the signs are legal, then we are going to spend the weekend cutting them down.

Occupying the Field

I moderated a CD 5 Candidates debate at for the Ahwatukee Republican Women's group on Tuesday.  I would guess estimate the crowd at about 100, and I tried to shake things up a bit to get the group off of their stump speech.

I think the size and quality of this field is an indication of how vulnerable the Democrats are perceived to be this year.  There are six candidates in this race and at least three, and possibly four are actually credible. 

You are seeing the same thing in CD 1 and CD 8.  Large fields of credible Republicans facing vulnerable Democratic incumbents in swing districts.  When the dust settles, I think that at least two of those districts will be occupied by Republicans. 

  

Arizona Was Right...

The lawyers who run Powerline have an interesting point. 

Arizona's law that attempts to enforce existing immigration statutes was premised largely on the fact that the federal government, which has constitutional responsibility for border control, has essentially abdicated--not just failing, but actually refusing to carry out its constitutional responsibility, as a matter of policy. President Obama, other members of his administration, and many more on the left responded with vicious attacks on the people of Arizona, accusing them of racism, irresponsibility, and so on.

But the American people didn't agree, and the White House has been reading the polls. So now Obama has announced that he is sending 1,200 National Guard troops to the Southwestern border and will increase funding for federal immigration law enforcement.

So is Obama now prepared to admit that Arizona was right all along? That its complaints about lax federal enforcement were legitimate, and not motivated by racism or hysteria? And that if National Guardsmen can enforce immigration laws without resort to unwarranted racial profiling, so can Arizona law enforcement personnel?

Of course not. Obama is just trying to get out from under one more bad decision that has caused him to take a thumping in the polls. It would be nice, though, if he learned a lesson about slandering his fellow Americans.

Two Out of Three Ain't Bad.

I like to make predictions.  Sometimes I'm right and sometimes I'm wrong, but you always know what I think and unlike most of your bloviating friends, my predictions are public, written and archived.

Actually, I think that making written predictions is as important as having written goals.  The best way to get a true assessment of your ability to plan ahead is to write your predictions down and then go back and assess not only your accuracy, but the effectiveness of the plans that you made based on those predictions. 

Exactly two weeks ago, I predicted that the DOW would fall below 10,000.  Prop 100 would fail and Brewer would be re-elected.  Well, the Prop 100 prediction was way off, but it looks like the other two are going to be on the money. Sure, the collapse of the DOW is a week later than I thought it was, and Governor Brewer's re-election is still a ways off, but it's looking like I can put them in the win column.

Of course my DOW prediction is actually just a subset of this prediction that I made nearly a year ago.  

Sometimes you Feel Like a Nut...

By now you know that the mainstream media's coverage of SB 1070 has been so inaccurate as to be considered journalistic malpractice.  I've pointed out that much of the original incorrect information came from a botched April 22nd Republic Editorial.

However I must acknowledge that since that time, the Republic has done an outstanding job analyzing the bill.  On Sunday, the paper took the extraordinary step of printing the entire text of the law together with analysis from several law professors.

And the paper has finally settled on a Nut Graph.  A Nut Graph is a concise paragraph that falls mid story and explains the significance or key points of the story.  Here's the Republic's description of the bill.

The law makes it a state crime to be in the country illegally. It states that an officer engaged in a lawful stop, detention or arrest shall, when practicable, ask about a person's legal status when reasonable suspicion exists that the person is in the U.S. illegally.

That's pretty close, but even that paragraph didn't mention that in addition not requiring the officer to ask about immigration status if it's not "practicable," the law also allows the officer to take into account whether or not asking about the immigration status  would interfere with an investigation.  That provision provides even more protection for witnesses and victims.

Now compare the nut graph to what Republic editorial writer Linda Valdez wrote in the April 22nd editorial that created an national firestorm.

The broad anti-immigrant bill passed by the Legislature this week makes it a crime to be in the country illegally and gives local cops the job of demanding documentation if they have reasonable suspicion someone lacks it.

The need to carry proper "papers" falls squarely on Arizona's Latino population - including those born and raised in the Grand Canyon State.

Unfortunately it was Valdez' inflamatory and innacurate description that went around the world while the accurate nut graph was still putting on its shoes.

Montini is Right...The Media Are Idiots

Have you ever attended an event and then seen the coverage of the event and said two yourself "that's not what happened."   The open secret that journalists refuse to admit is that mainsteam media coverage is oftentimes simply not accurate.   Two local news stories have vaulted onto the national stage in the last few weeks and the coverage has been so strikingly wrong that even the Republic's E.J. Montini commented:

Occasionally, we in the media go out of our way to prove to the general public what they already know:  We’re idiots.

Montini goes on to cite an excellent example--ACC Commissioner Gary Pierce's letter to L.A. Mayor Villaraigosa.

Pierce taunts L.A. over its decision to boycott Arizona, saying, essentially, that if L.A. doesn’t like Arizona it shouldn’t take any of the power it takes from Arizona generating facilities. 

It was not a threat. It was more of a joke. And ALL of a political stunt.

Montini then goes on to cite examples in which the national media incorrectly describes pierces letter as a "threat". 

Incredibly--three days after the Montini complaint--the  Republic uses prime space on the Sunday Editorial page to highlight a guest comment under the title.  "Regulator is a Poor Role Model."  The author writes:

I am referring, of course, to state Corporation Commissioner Gary Pierce's irresponsible and childish threat to withhold electricity from California.

So in addition to not reading Pierce's actual letter, the Republic editor who chose to feature the inaccurate commentary didn't even bother to read Montini. 

So can Pierce get a correction?  After all, Montini complained in advance that the national media has been incorrectly characterizing the letter as a threat and then three days later, the Republic prints a commentary in which the author refers to Pierce's "irresponsible and childish threat..." and the paper uses the article to conclude that Pierce is a poor role model. 

Surely a correction is in order. 

Don't bet on it.  Newspapers only correct trivial mistakes.  So if the Photo Caption says that "Fido, Caught the Frisby", you may see a rather formal sounding correction on A2 the next day informing you that it was actually "Rover that caught the Frisby."

But when a newspaper REALLY botches something and it has HUGE consequences, there's rarely a correction.

That brings me to the second story which has gone national--SB 1070.  I think that even the Republic Brass have been shocked at the way the bill has been mischaraterized by the national media.  To their credit, last Sunday, the Republic took the extraordinary step of printing the entire text of the law together with commentary from four law professors who explain what the bill actually does.  I think the media is beginning to discover that the bill doesn't actually do very much. 

However, now that the Republic Brass understand what the bill actually does I'm sure they have realized that much of the initial incorrect information that swept the country originated with an outrageous and inaccurate Republic Editorial that ran on April 22nd.  Those false claims were picked up by Washington Post Columnist E.J. Dionne and from there spread to media across the country.  I wrote about the disaster here.

While I don't think the economic fallout from the boycott will be significant, I believe that the cost of the damage to Arizona's reputation has been incalculable--and much of that damage was based on incorrect information published by the Arizona Republic.

So what should the Republic do now?  They have done a good job by finally printing the correct information about the bill.  But it's also time to acknowledge the error, tell us who wrote the editorial (or just confirm that it was Linda Valdez) and issue a correction. 

So Montini is right...they are idiots.  Much of what we read in the Mainstream Media is based on shoddy reporting and incorrect facts.  However, the media used to be good at acknowledging their mistakes--now we will see if that willingness to admit when they are wrong has been lost too.

Will the Republic acknowledge the incorrect facts that led them to Characterize Pierce as "a poor role model?"  Will the paper admit that it started the SB 1070 avalanche with its initial incorrect and wild eyed claims?  Doubtful.

Perhaps the only thing worse than being idiots is being cowards.

Who Lost Yuma?

I was on Sunday Square Off this weekend and AEA President John Wright said that the legislature would have a "very different make up" next session.  The statement is so strange that I don't really even know what he meant.  My response was that there are 35 Republicans in the House and 18 Republicans in the Senate and that next year there will be 37 Republicans in the House and 19 in the Senate.  After all, it's probably going to be a Republican year and the Democrats are now forced to defend some great wins that they picked up in 2006 and 2008. 

Then I realized I was wrong about the Senate.  Sure, it's a Republican year yada yada yada.  But the best opportunity for Republicans to pick up a Senate seat is Yuma's District 24--and we DON'T EVEN HAVE A FRICKIN' CANDIDATE!

Amanda Aquire is running UNOPPOSED.  That's a swing distrcit...and it's on the border...you know, the front line in the immigration issues and she voted against SB 1070. 

Do you want to see a great example of leadership?  Do you want to see a great example of actually getting stuff done?  Turn back the time machine to late June 2008 when Democratic State Representative Mark DeSimone got in a bit of a bind and decided late that he wasn't going to seek re-election.  He was in a solid Republican district and he left the Democrats without a candidate--well after the signature deadline had expired.  So the Democratic leadership, pouted and whined about how unlucky they were...oops, that's wrong.  The Democrats found an SUSD School Board member named Erik Meyer and ran him has WRITE IN candidate.  He got enough write in votes in the primary to qualify for ballot status in the general and then defeated one of the Republicans.  It was brilliant.  It took leadership and drive.

So now Republicans have a great opportunity in Yuma; there are 4 days left to get signatures and still no candidate.  Look.  With enough Party effort, a candidate can get all his signatures in a single day. 

So next year when your legislation flys through the House and bogs down in the Senate and you are one vote shy of trying to get something done.  Ask yourself the question...Who lost Yuma?