Maricopa County, Arizona Sheriff Joe Arpaio was recently stripped of his federal authority to make immigration arrests after repeated complaints that he abuses power and uses racial profiling to target Latinos in his community.
Salvador Reza, U.S. Air Force veteran, community organizer and renowned immigrants rights activist, joins Laura for an exclusive interview on Arpaio's ongoing abuses.
Dennis Gilman brought us video footage from an Arpaio raid and from protests in Arizona, where white supremacist groups showed up to support Arpaio's policies.
The National Book Awards were announced this week; Colum McCann was honored for his fiction work
Let the Great World Spin: A Novel
, and T.J. Stiles' biography of
Cornelius Vanderbilt
won the nonfiction prize. Dave Eggers, author of Laura's book of the year,
Zeitoun
, received this year's Literarian Award.
In honor of the book awards, Jeannie Vanasco of
Lapham's Quarterly, Julian Brookes of the
Progressive Book Club and Sir Harold Evans, of
The Week magazine and former president and publisher of Random House trade group, join us to discuss other books we loved.
One of the many things that angered people about Sarah Palin was her support for
aerial hunting of wolves. In honor of the release of Palin's book (and Nation editors Betsy Reed and Richard Kim's response book,
Going Rouge), our Got Docs feature this week is
Return to the Wild: A Modern Tale of Wolf and Man from
MoFilms. This documentary takes a look at the ways people and wolves can and do coexist, as well as the conflicts that inevitably arise.
New America Media brings us this story of one young woman shuttling back and forth from her mother's and sister's homes in San Francisco. Her story reminds us that homelessness takes many forms--she feels at home in one place, but realizes that it is bad for her.
The latest
Brower Youth Award winner from the
Earth Island Institute is
Adarsha Shivakumar, who used his proceeds from winning a spelling bee to co-found a project growing sustainable jatropha, a plant that can be used as biofuel, in India. Thanks to Rikshaw Films for the video.
Finally,
Brave New Films brings together U.S. military veterans, including
Matthew Hoh, to ask Obama not to send more troops to continue a war that is on its way to being America's longest in history.
Where does the Sheriff get his power?
I don’t know what the Federal Government is going to do about the Good Sheriff. Sheriffs are Constitutional officers, not U. S. Constitution but State Constitution.
The people created the Constitution which empowers the Federal government to protect the people. Also, he Tenth Amendment reserves to the states respectively, or to the people, any powers the Constitution did not delegate to the United States, nor prohibit the states from exercising.
The office of sheriff is created by the Constitution of the great State of Arizona. The sheriff is bound by the oath to uphold the Constitution of the state and answerable only to the people of the county NOT the Federal Government. The office of sheriff IS a part of the checks and balances of the United States of America. It is there to prevent the Federal Government from doing what it is trying to do today.
So what is the Federal Government going to do? Amend the Arizona State Constitution? I think not.
One question, did Sal take a shower before showing up to the studio or did he stink like he usually does?
By phoenician on November 22nd, 2009 at 12:09 am
Why on earth shouldn’t people who are in a country ILLEGALLY not live in fear??? I thank God that I live in Maricopa county so that I live where something is actually being done to rid us of these TRESPASSERS! They have no right to be here and need to be sent home immediately. I’m sick and tired of seeing these people loitering in parking lots, street corners, etc. ‘looking for work’. We don’t let hookers do that so why on earth should we allow them to? Maybe that is acceptable where they come from but it is an eye sore that is turning many of our neighborhoods into dumps.
America always has and always will welcome good people from all over the world who respect us and our country enough to obey our immigration laws and come here LEGALLY. All others can stay in their own countries because they don’t deserve to be here bringing their disrespect and bad habits to our great country.
By americanpride on November 25th, 2009 at 6:11 am