Thread: ROGER HEDGECOCK: OBAMA’S WAR ON ARIZONA

July 6, 2012
San Diego Union Tribune

By Roger Hedgecock

President Obama is waging an unceasing propaganda, judicial, and now regulatory war on the state of Arizona.

Arizona passed SB 1070 to enforce federal immigration law when it was clear Obama would not enforce the federal law he swore to uphold.

Obama sued the state to stop the law and even included SB 1070 as an example of “human rights violations” in the U.S. in a 2010 report to the United Nations Human Rights Council.

Last week, the U.S. Supreme Court upheld part of SB 1070 that requires local Arizona law enforcement officers to detain for federal immigration officers anyone who, at a traffic stop or other contact, could not produce a drivers’ license or other I.D. to show they were legally in the U.S.

On the next day, Obama declared yet another illegal amnesty by voiding the 287(g) cooperation agreements between the fees and Arizona law enforcement agencies and told Arizona that federal immigration officers would not respond to calls to verify the legal status of those who had been detained.

Similar cooperation agreements in more than 30 other states remain in effect. Only Arizona has been singled out.

On the same day, the federal Environmental Protection Agency issued a Federal Implementation Plan (FIP) partially voiding a state plan to control air pollution from three state electricity-generating plants. The FIP requires further nitrogen oxide emission reduction.

Arizona utility companies had already invested millions of dollars in NOx emission control. Compliance with the new federal rules will cost Arizona utility ratepayers at least $500 million more and may cause older power plants to shut down.

Obama is intent on using the full power of the federal government to crush Arizona.

Arizona’s reaction against illegal immigration started when Cochise County rancher Roger Barnett was sued in 2004 by four illegal immigrants he had detained trespassing across his land and ordered to pay them $87,000.

Barnett’s friend and fellow rancher Rob Krentz was killed on his ranch by a drug cartel assassin.

Arizona voters reacted.

In 2004, Arizona voters approved by 56 percent Proposition 200 to require proof of citizenship in order to register to vote.

In 2006, 71.4 percent of state voters approved Proposition 300 to ban illegal immigrants from any state-funded social service and from in-state tuition or financial aid for college.

In 2006, 77.9 percent of Arizona voters also passed Proposition 100, which prohibits bail for illegal immigrants in serious felony cases.

In 2008, 59.2 percent of state voters passed Proposition 202, a mandatory E-Verify law requiring Arizona employers to verify, using a federal database, that applicants for employment had Social Security numbers that matched their names.

Obama sued Arizona to void Proposition 202 and lost that case at the U.S. Supreme Court.

Obama’s Homeland Security secretary, Janet Napolitano, who left office in the middle of her term as Arizona’s governor (leaving behind a $2 billion deficit), has turned her back on her state.

About 60 percent of the winter vegetables available in the U.S. come from Mexico, largely imported through the border crossing at Nogales, which connects Sonora with Arizona.

The fees have spent $200 million to enlarge the border crossing at Nogales to 12 lanes to accommodate the truck traffic carrying the vegetables and other legal cargo.

Napolitano has restricted the number of customs officials at the crossing so that only six of the 12 lanes can be opened, causing massive truck traffic backups.

Napolitano refuses to meet with state officials who have pleaded with her to fully staff that border crossing.

Obama’s attorney general, Eric Holder, is hiding behind Obama’s claim of executive privilege and refusing to release documents relating to who knew what and when about the Fast and Furious gunwalking scandal that allowed more than 2,500 guns into the hands of the Mexican drug cartels.

One of the “walked” guns was found at the scene of a shootout in the Arizona desert in which Border Patrol Agent Brian Terry was killed.

Fast and Furious was run by Holder’s Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives out of its Phoenix office.

But the same Eric Holder is suing Phoenix-area Sheriff Joe Arpaio, claiming Arpaio is hiding and refusing to release documents regarding alleged civil rights violations of illegal immigrants. Arpaio maintains he is enforcing the law and will continue to do so.

Gov. Jan Brewer famously wagged her finger at Obama, asking him to stop this war on Arizona. Obama walked away mumbling “I don’t need this.”

Consequence? In the November election, Arizona is not a swing state anymore.

One Old Vet

ROGER HEDGECOCK: OBAMA

If Mr. Obama is the antichrist, and I don't know if he is or he isn't,
what is the significance of his singling out Arizona for retaliation?