Happy Labor Day everyone! I hope you’re all enjoying the last hurrah of summer (although I doubt the summer temperatures are done with us). What’s on your mind today?
Just days after Arizona Governor Jan Brewer was finally forced to admit there’s been no headless bodies in Arizona, Pinal County Sherriff Paul Babaeu says that Mexican drug cartels control part of Arizona.
“Mexican drug cartels literally do control parts of Arizona,” Babeu told the Times. “They literally have scouts on the high points in the mountains and in the hills and they literally control movement. They have radios, they have optics, they have night-vision goggles as good as anything law enforcement has.”
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Sheriff Babeu’s office did not return calls for comment from TPM, but the sheriffs of Santa Cruz and Pima counties (which both border Mexico, unlike Babeu’s Pinal) told TPM the cartels do not control any territory. Neither disputed the seriousness of the problem posed by the cartels, or the fact that drug smugglers operate in Arizona. But they did reassure TPM that the cartels are not on an annexing spree.
“They do not have control of any territory,” Santa Cruz County Sheriff Tony Estrada told TPM. “That would be like saying we are useless and we’re not here and we’re out of the way.”
“They do have sophisticated technology and scouts and all that, that’s been known for years,” he said.
I find the whole Arizona immigration fear-mongering quite bizarre. You have the top officials of a state saying that their state is dangerous and scary, despite statistics saying the opposite. How much are Jan Brewer & John McCain hurting Arizona tourism by presenting their state this way?
Here’s some good news – the White House is going to push for a $50B infrastructure improvement package. It’s desperately needed. Republicans will probably say no but Democrats desperately need to pick a fight.
Seeking to bolster the sluggish economy, President Barack Obama is using a Labor Day appearance in Milwaukee to announce he will ask Congress for $50 billion to kick off a new infrastructure plan designed to expand and renew the nation’s roads, railways and runways.
The goals, according to the White House: “Rebuild 150,000 miles of roads — renewing our commitment to the backbone of our transportation system … . Construct and maintain 4,000 miles of rail — enough to go coast-to-coast … . Rehabilitate or reconstruct 150 miles of runway — while putting in place a NextGen system that will reduce travel time and delays.”
The measures include the “establishment of an Infrastructure Bank to leverage federal dollars and focus on investments of national and regional significance that often fall through the cracks in the current siloed transportation programs,” and “the integration of high-speed rail on an equal footing into the surface transportation program.”
“To jumpstart job creation, this long-run policy front-loads — through a $50 billion up-front investment — a significant share of the new infrastructure resources,” the White House said in a fact sheet. “As with other long-run policies, the Administration is committed to working with Congress to fully pay for the plan.”
There’s also rumors about a possible Elizabeth Warren appointment. She’s changed her Harvard teaching schedule at the last minute. Keep your fingers crossed!