Fortress Arizona

In light of the recent immigration law, Arizona police are required to check the residency status of those believed to be in the country illegally. Members of the state's Navajo Nation have asked policemen to check out Governor Jan Brewer.

Well, not really, but wouldn't that be cool?

This lady is quite the piece of work. Previously, she took steps to redefine "dependents," thus eliminating domestic-partner benefits for state workers--benefits that largely help gays and lesbians.

So, she doesn't like gay people. She doesn't like immigrants. She's one minority group away from winning a Glenn Beck t-shirt! We're rooting for paraplegics. There's just not enough official discrimination against the disabled.

At the risk of sounding naive, we don't even understand how this immigration law is supposed to work. Proponents claim the law will not lead to racial profiling. Let's say we accept that at face value. Since the law calls on police to check the documents of anyone who is "believed" to be in the country illegally, then police must do one of two things: Stop everyone who "looks" foreign, which is profiling no matter how you slice it; or just ask for papers from everybody. (On the plus side, this will ensure that we get rid of all those feckless Canadians marauding across the greater Phoenix metropolitan area.)

Police stopping people randomly, demanding to see "zeir pa-pers!" Is this Arizona or Berlin circa 1938? And yet the Tea Party would have you believe that Barack Obama is the one taking away our freedoms.