Pinal County Greens Call on Sheriff Paul Babeu to Be Nicer to His Ex-Boyfriends: "Deporting Them Is Tacky," Says PCG Co-Chair Richard Grayson

APACHE JUNCTION, Ariz., Feb. 18 -

The Pinal County Greens today passed a resolution calling on Pinal County Sheriff Paul Babeu to be nicer to his former boyfriends.

"Threatening to deport your ex is really tacky," said Richard Grayson, Pinal County Greens co-chair and a gay activist who is the author of such gay-themed books as The Silicon Valley Diet, And To Think That He Kissed Him on Lorimer Street, and Vampires of Northwest Arkansas. "He needs to apologize right away, maybe send some nice flowers."

Grayson is also a candidate for President in the February 28 Arizona Green Party presidential preference primary.

The Pinal County Greens' resolution also said the organization would volunteer to provide couples therapy for the sheriff and his former boyfriend, Jose Orozco,

whom he allegedly threatened to deport to Mexico. "We'd be happy to help them work things out," Grayson said. "I am good friends with all of my ex-boyfriends."

Pinal County Greens Call for Sheriff Arpaio's Resignation in Light of "Damning" Justice Department Report of Illegal Activities

Apache Junction, Ariz., Dec. 15 -

In light of today's "damning" Justice Department report detailing illegal discrimination against Hispanic Americans by the Maricopa County Sheriff's Office, the Pinal County Greens today passed a resolution urging Sheriff Joe Arpaio to resign immediately.

"Enough is enough," said Richard Grayson, Pinal County Greens co-chair. "Sheriff Arpaio has done so much wrong during his terms in office that it would take 500 servers to contain all the data of his misdeeds. Joe, it's past time for you to go, and everyone but you apparently knows it."

Today's Justice Department report said that Arpaio oversaw a pattern of unconstitutional conduct that targeted Hispanics and retaliated against others who criticized the practices.

“We found discriminatory policing that was deeply rooted in the culture of the department - a culture that breeds a systemic disregard for basic constitutional protections," said Thomas E. Perez, assistant attorney general for civil rights. He laid the blame at Arpaio’s door, adding: “These issues go to the highest levels of the department."

Grayson, speaking for the Pinal County Greens, said, "It is unconscionable how little Joe Arpaio and his local apologists care for the Constitution. Even Maricopa County is a government of laws, not of unscrupulous men of zeal like the sheriff.

Arizona law enforcement needs to turn the page on Arpaio's sad chapter and let law-abiding officials create a compelling narrative of twenty-first century American justice for all."


The Pinal County Greens are members of the Arizona Green Party in Pinal County and supporters of Occupy Phoenix.

Pinal County Greens congratulate Activist and Prescott College Prof. Randall Amster on his article, "U.S. Greens Work to Stem Anti-Immigrant Tide"

Apache Junction, Ariz., July 25, 2011

The Pinal County Greens congratulate the well-known activist/author Randall Amster, graduate chair of humanities at Prescott College, on his article, "U.S. Greens work to stem anti-immigrant tide," posted on Friday on Green Pages, the national newspaper of the Green Party of the United States.

Randall Amster's article includes this excerpt featuring the good work of the Arizona Green Party leadership and its 2010 candidates:

In June of this year, both Alabama and South Carolina passed measures that are rhetorically competing for the misbegotten title of the “nation’s toughest immigration law.” According to Reuters, the South Carolina law will require police to check the immigration status of any individual they suspect is in the country illegally after they have stopped that person for another reason (akin to Arizona’s SB 1070); will allow the state to revoke the business license of any employer who knowingly hires “unauthorized aliens;” and will create a new (and pejoratively named) “Illegal Immigration Enforcement Unit.” Alabama’s new law, as reported by the Associated Press, “was modeled on Ari­zona’s” and contains additional provisions “requiring schools to find out if students are in the country lawfully and making it a crime to knowingly give an illegal immigrant a ride.”

The passage of these new draconian laws has prompted the U.S. Department of Just­ice to initiate a review and call for meetings with state law enforcement officials in order to ascertain whether the federal government will file lawsuits similar to the successful challenge it launched against SB 1070. Yet here in Arizona, well before the federal government stepped in, the state Green Party took a strong stance on immigration issues, as reported by the local FOX News station: “Besides its position on the environment, there is another issue the Green Party is very clear about and that is its position on immigration. The Green Party is the only party that supports amnesty. ‘We want comprehensive immigration reform. We do not support any of this legislation, whether it’s SB 1070, anti-ethnic studies legislation, employer sanctions, English only,’ says Angel Torres, AZ House candidate.”

During the 2010 election cycle, Arizona Green Party (AZGP) candidates for state office were outspoken about immigration issues, including AZGP co-chair Torres, who noted that “as a Puerto Rican/Xicano and life-long Arizonan, SB 1070 is an insult to me, my family and the entire Latino community. To scapegoat or racially profile an entire community does not solve the problem. Our economic and immigration policies need to serve the interests of all working-class folks, not the interests of the corporations.”

Linda Macias, AZGP vice co-chair and 2010 State House candidate, added: “We need major federal reform of our immigration laws. Immigrants come to the United States in hope of a better life. We need to give them citizenship now and write immigration laws that are humane and just.”

The AZGP further issued a press release asserting that “Arizona’s anti-immigrant legislation does not address the root causes of migration: poverty, lack of economic opportunity, war and political conflict, and environmental devastation…. The Arizona Green Party encourages all Arizonans to join the grassroots movement to overturn SB 1070, and organize for comprehensive immigration reform.”

As indicated by Leenie Halbert, AZGP and national Green Party co-chair, some im­portant gains were made here, “In Arizona, we’ve been able to use our special status under the state’s Clean Elections laws, in which we participate in organized televised debates, to directly address issues like im­migration and SB 1070, without parsing our words and hedging our positions like the Democrats do. We’re looking forward to the upcoming election cycle, as we pre­pare to field candidates who will represent our intention to become an electoral arm of a growing political movement against the state’s racist and draconian anti-immigrant laws. We are the only poli­tical party in the state that’s aligned with this perspective.”

(Photo courtesy of Bart Everson on Flickr)

"We urge everyone to read this article by Randall Amster," Pinal County Greens Co-Chair Richard Grayson said. The Pinal County Greens are a group of members of the Arizona Green Party residing in Pinal County, which according to the 2010 U.S. Census, is the second-fastest-growing county in the nation.

Pinal County Greens Pass Resolution Regarding Arizonans Who Object to Weather Term "Haboob"

Apache Junction, Ariz., July 22, 2011 -

Today the Pinal County Greens, members of the Green Party in Pinal County, Arizona, passed a resolution regarding those Arizonans who object to meteorologists using the weather term "haboob," as documented in this New York Times article by Marc Lacey:

The massive dust storms that swept through central Arizona this month have stirred up not just clouds of sand but a debate over what to call them.

The blinding waves of brown particles, the most recent of which hit Phoenix on Monday, are caused by thunderstorms that emit gusts of wind, roiling the desert landscape. Use of the term “haboob,” which is what such storms have long been called in the Middle East, has rubbed some Arizona residents the wrong way.

“I am insulted that local TV news crews are now calling this kind of storm a haboob,” Don Yonts, a resident of Gilbert, Ariz., wrote to The Arizona Republic after a particularly fierce, mile-high dust storm swept through the state on July 5. “How do they think our soldiers feel coming back to Arizona and hearing some Middle Eastern term?”

Diane Robinson of Wickenburg, Ariz., agreed, saying the state’s dust storms are unique and ought to be labeled as such.

“Excuse me, Mr. Weatherman!” she said in a letter to the editor. “Who gave you the right to use the word ‘haboob’ in describing our recent dust storm? While you may think there are similarities, don’t forget that in these parts our dust is mixed with the whoop of the Indian’s dance, the progression of the cattle herd and warning of the rattlesnake as it lifts its head to strike.”

Dust storms are a regular summer phenomenon in Arizona, and the news media typically label them as nothing more than that. But the National Weather Service, in describing this month’s particularly thick storm, used the term haboob, which was widely picked up by the news media.

“Meteorologists in the Southwest have used the term for decades,” said Randy Cerveny, a climatologist at Arizona State University. “The media usually avoid it because they don’t think anyone will understand it.”

Not everyone was put out by the use of the term. David Wilson of Goodyear, Ariz., said those who wanted to avoid Arabic terms should steer clear of algebra, zero, pajamas and khaki, as well. “Let’s not become so ‘xenophobic’ that we forget to remember that we are citizens of the world, nor fail to recognize the contributions of all cultures to the richness of our language,” he wrote.

Although use of the term often brings smirks, Mr. Cerveny said the walls of dust could have serious consequences, toppling power lines and causing huge traffic accidents. Although ultradry conditions in the desert are considered one cause for the intensity of this year’s storms, Mr. Cerveny pointed to another possible factor: the housing bust that left developments half-finished and unmaintained, creating more desert dust to be stirred up.

The Pinal County Greens' resolution commended Mr. Wilson for his enlightened, intelligent views and named all the xenophobic Arizona residents who object to the term haboob as "ignorant morons."

"Inshallah, these bigoted boobs will all leave the state soon so Arizona will no longer be, in Sheriff Clarence Dupnik's words, a mecca of bigotry and prejudice," said Richard Grayson, Pinal County Greens Co-Chair. "Maybe they'll all be swept away by a tsunami."

Pinal County Greens Support Severing Arizona in Two, Creating New State of Baja Arizona

Meeting today, the Pinal County Greens passed a resolution. based on current and pending legislative actions, calling for Arizona to be severed in two, with creation of a new state, Baja Arizona.

"The non-moronic parts of Arizona must secede from the crazy racists," said Pinal County Chair Richard Grayson.

Arizona Lawmakers Push New Round of Immigration Restrictions
By MARC LACEY
Published: February 23, 2011

PHOENIX — Arizona lawmakers are proposing a sweeping package of immigration restrictions that might make the controversial measures the state approved last year, which the Obama administration went to court to block, look mild.

State Senator Russell Pearce, Republican of Arizona, said, “If you are ever going to stop this invasion, and it is an invasion, you have to quit rewarding people for breaking those laws."

Illegal immigrants would be barred from driving in the state, enrolling in school or receiving most public benefits. Their children would receive special birth certificates that would make clear that the state does not consider them Arizona citizens.

Some of the bills, like those restricting immigrants’ access to schooling and right to state citizenship, flout current federal law and are being put forward to draw legal challenges in hopes that the Supreme Court might rule in the state’s favor.

Arizona drew considerable scorn last year when it passed legislation compelling police officers to inquire about the immigration status of those they stopped whom they suspected were in the country illegally. Critics said the law would lead to racial profiling of Latinos, and a federal judge agreed that portions of the law, known as Senate Bill 1070, were unconstitutional.

Similar legal challenges are likely to come in response to the latest round of legislation, some of which cleared a key Senate committee early Wednesday after a long debate that drew hundreds of protesters, some for and some against the crackdown.

“This bill is miles beyond S.B. 1070 in terms of its potential to roll back the rights and fundamental freedoms of both citizens and noncitizens alike,” said Alessandra Soler Meetze, executive director of the A.C.L.U. of Arizona. She said the measures would create “a ‘papers, please’ society” and that a new crime — “driving while undocumented” — would be added to the books.

Despite boycotts and accusations that the state has become a haven of intolerance, Arizona won plaudits last year from immigration hardliners across the country. On Tuesday night, the Indiana Senate voted to allow its police officers to question people stopped for infractions on their immigration status, one of numerous proposals inspired by Arizona’s law.

“If you are ever going to stop this invasion, and it is an invasion, you have to quit rewarding people for breaking those laws,” said State Senator Russell Pearce, the Senate president, who is leading Arizona’s effort to try to make life so difficult for illegal immigrants that they stop coming, or leave.

Opponents said the changes were a drastic rewriting of the core values of the country. In Tucson, a community group was so enraged by what it called the extremist nature of the proposals from Phoenix that it proposed severing the state in two, creating what some call Baja Arizona.

“Denying citizenship to children because they have parents without documents is crazy,” said the Rev. Javier Perez, a Roman Catholic priest and immigrant from Mexico who waited in the legislative chamber into the night Tuesday for a chance to speak. “Honestly, I don’t think anything I say will change their minds, but it’s immoral what they’re doing and we have to say this is against the values of America.”

The measures would compel school officials to ask for proof of citizenship for students and require hospitals to similarly ask for papers for those receiving non-emergency care. Illegal immigrants would be blocked from obtaining any state licenses, including those for marriage. Landlords would be forced to evict the entire family from public housing if one illegal immigrant were found living in a unit. Illegal immigrants found driving would face 30 days in jail and forfeit the vehicle to the state.

The measures are not assured of passage. Although Republicans have a majority in the Legislature, the restrictions on citizenship failed to win approval in the Judiciary Committee this month, so they were rerouted to the Appropriations Committee, where they won passage.

Some state lawmakers said their constituents were furious over the Obama administration’s lawsuit challenging the last immigration law and wanted the state to continue pressing the issue. Gov. Jan Brewer, a Republican, said the state would file a countersuit against the federal government accusing it of not enforcing immigration laws.

Supporters of the crackdown include Katie Dionne, who described herself as an “average, everyday American” who wanted to prevent illegal immigrants from changing her way of life. “If their life is so wonderful why did they leave where they’re from?” she asked senators.

Janet Napolitano, the secretary of homeland security and a former Arizona governor, cites statistics showing that the influx of illegal immigrants across the Arizona border has declined markedly with significant increases in federal resources. But that has done little to ameliorate the feeling of crisis expressed by many Arizona politicians.

The state’s business community, stung by a boycott that has reduced the number of conventions in the state, generally opposes the new round of restrictions. “This will put Arizona through another trial and hurt innocent businesspeople who are just trying to get ahead,” said Glenn Hamer of the Arizona Chamber of Commerce and Industry.