The BRAD BLOG tried to warn you (and him) long ago...
By Ernest A. Canning on 5/29/2010, 7:38am PT  

Guest editorial by Ernest A. Canning

Shortly after she signed SB-1070 into law, Arizona's Republican Governor Jan Brewer sought to deflect criticism of Arizona's "show me your papers law," by claiming that criticism amounted to "hysteria." While acknowledging that racial profiling is "illegal," Brewer dismissed any notion that SB-1070 authorized Arizona police to engage in that illegal activity for the police "must ask that person for identification if there's reasonable suspicion that he or she is in the country illegally."

The temerity of the dissembling and unelected AZ governor, who claimed she did not know what an illegal immigrant looks like, but failed to identify just what factors, other than the color of one's skin, or perhaps the language one is overheard speaking, give rise to a "reasonable suspicion" that a given individual "is in the country illegally;" her enthusiastic embrace of a subsequent anti-ethnic studies law, aptly described by Pima County Legal Defender Isabel Garcia as a form of ”cultural cleansing” should not come as a surprise to long time readers of The BRAD BLOG.

We warned you long ago...

Back on Nov. 20, 2008, in what could now appropriately be referred to as an "I told ya so" post, Brad Friedman warned President Barack Obama that if he appointed Arizona’s then elected Democratic Governor Janet Napolitano to head Homeland Security, he would produce a "nightmare" for Arizona; that, by law, Napolitano would be replaced by then Secretary of State Jan Brewer, whom he described as “a right wing loon” and one of this nation’s “worst” Secretaries of State.

Friedman noted that where a state Secretary of State bears the responsibility to insure “transparent, fair, and accurate” elections...

Brewer signed the contract (see an incredible video here) to bring unverifiable Diebold touch-screen voting systems into the state, long after they had been shown by computer scientists and security experts to be inaccurate, unreliable, and easily tampered with. She has been aggressively opposed to virtually every move towards transparency and citizen oversight in her state's elections, in favor of purges and restrictions against legal voters at the polls, and even went as far as to publicly call her own citizens who spoke up against her embrace of the use of unverifiable Diebold voting machines "anarchists" and "conspiracy theorists."

She and her office have also blatantly lied to their citizens about their voting machines...

It matters not whether the President was aware of Friedman's article before he moved forward with the Napolitano appointment. A competent President would have explored the political ramifications, as well as the availability of other individuals who could have been appointed Secretary of Homeland Security, without subjecting citizens to such potentially adverse consequences, especially when the individual who is elevated to high office is a shameless and deceptive advocate for unverifiable, democracy-destroying voting systems.

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Ernest A. Canning has been an active member of the California state bar since 1977. Mr. Canning has received both undergraduate and graduate degrees in political science as well as a juris doctor. He is also a Vietnam vet (4th Infantry, Central Highlands 1968).

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