Two of Arizona’s most prominent bigots did not fare well yesterday. DOJ sued Joe Arpaio over civil rights abuses and Jan Brewer made a complete fool of herself.

Once, thirty years ago, I spent a weekend in the Maricopa County Jail. I was picked up on a Friday night on a random stop and released on Monday morning when I went to court and proved that I really had paid the speeding ticket they said was delinquent. While I was there I witnesses extreme racism against Latinos. Guards called them every derogatory name I have ever heard and beat one man brutally for throwing up. I hear things are even worse since Crazy Joe took over.

The Justice Department filed a lawsuit on Thursday against Sheriff Joe Arpaio of Maricopa County for not cooperating with an investigation into whether his department was systematically violating the rights of Hispanics. Obama administration officials called the suit the first time in 30 years that the federal government had to sue to compel a law enforcement agency to cooperate with an investigation concerning Title VI of the Civil Rights Act of 1964. “The actions of the sheriff’s office are unprecedented,” Thomas E. Perez, assistant attorney general for the department’s civil rights division, said in a statement. “It is unfortunate that the department was forced to resort to litigation to gain access to public documents and facilities.”… [emphasis added]

Inserted from <NY Times>

If I were guilty as sin, I might stall too.

On to Jan “Show me your papers” Brewer.

It will go down as one of the most painful openings to a political debate in recent memory. Gov. Jan Brewer stumbled and stammered through her opening statement during a televised debate Wednesday night, suffering through an embarrassing, cringe-eliciting pause that lasted more than 10 seconds. With her hands clasped in front of her, she looked at the camera, then down, possibly at notes, and back up at the camera. She smiled, let out a loud exhale, then resumed her statement with a pronouncement of her record as governor. "We have, uh, did what was right for Arizona," Brewer said, using a grammatical misconstruction she uttered twice during the debate. Then, she bolted from a post-debate question-and-answer session with reporters after refusing to respond to queries about a past statement about bodies supposedly found beheaded in the Arizona desert… [emphasis added]

Inserted from <AP/Google>

Keith Olbermann has the video as he and correspondent, Paul Waldman, discuss the incident.

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Brewer was right about one thing. The did demonstrate the difference between her and her Democratic opponent. Terry Goddard is not a bigoted idiot.