Is it really “open season” on Latinos in Arizona? Maybe, but that’s partly up to the governor.

The new law, just signed, gives local cops the job of demanding proof of citizenship or a green card from anyone they think might be in the country illegally, e.g., people who look Latino. Those who lack the proper documentation are subject to arrest.

E.J. Dionne quotes Gideon Aronoff, the president and CEO of the Hebrew Immigrant Aid Society: “Arizonans are now living in a world where police may impound vehicles transporting anyone found to be an undocumented immigrant, which means that Arizonans who don’t check the papers of the kids they drive to Sunday school may now be engaging in illegal activity.”

That last quote suggests a lot of Arizonans who are gung-ho to get tough on illegal immigrants haven’t thought this bill through.

The drug wars in Mexico — genuinely nasty business — has spilled over into Arizona, and it’s understandable that people want something done. As usually, however, the right-wing blowhards who favor this “get tough” move are not necessarily in sync with law enforcement professionals, who say it will stretch their resources very thin.

Note that the law allows citizens to sue police to compel them to enforce the law. This could get dicey. Further, some commenters suggested that Arizona police could lose the trust of Latino communities, which could make law enforcement more, not less, difficult.

How hard law enforcement comes down on innocent Latinos depends in part on what direction the governor might give for how the law is carried out. Right now, there are a lot of unknowns, including what exactly might make a person a “suspect.”

As Dionne says, “It’s rather strange that many who say they mistrust government overreach could support a law of this sort.” Not strange at all, really, if you follow Righties. On this very day some of the same bloggers expressing support for the Arizona bill have been protesting “big government” by making a hero out of Guy Fawkes, and they see no inconsistency to that.

From what I can tell, the righties are laboring with a false dichotomy — you’re for the Arizona law, or you favor “open borders.” That many people really don’t favor open border but still think the Arizona law is an abomination flies right over their empty heads.

Amanda Terkel writes,

Yesterday, hate radio host Rush Limbaugh talked about the volcanic eruption that’s affecting air travel over much of Europe, saying it was “God speaking” in response to the passage of health care.

Somebody send God a map.

The New York Times asked a number of political analysts and historians to give their impressions of the Tea Party movement. With the exception of The Usual Corporate-Sponsored Hackery (TUCSH?) dished up by Steven Hayward of the American Enterprise Institute and Amity Shlaes of the Council on Foreign Relations, the responses provide some good insight.

Alan Wolfe acknowledges that the Tea Party movement vindicates Richard Hofstadter.

Michael Lind wrote,

Pitchfork-wielding populists like William Jennings Bryan they are not. They are more like the affluent members of the Liberty League who vilified President Roosevelt in the 1930s — a sullen, defensive mobilization of the Have-Somes who dread the Have-Nots. The Tea Partiers put the “petty” in petty bourgeoisie. They are disgruntled conservative Fox Republicans.

Alan Brinkley:

This is a profile that matches other highly motivated protests over many decades — the supporters of Joseph McCarthy, for example, in the 1950s. Today, the target is not communism, which is no longer a major issue for the right (although “socialism” appears to have taken its place). But what seems to motivate them the most is a fear of a reduction in their own status — economically and socially.

See also comments from Rick Perlstein, Paul Butler, Lorenzo Morris, and Bob Moser.

Having spent the bulk of the past two days finally facing up to taxes (3 hours preparing tax forms, 29 hours stewing about preparing tax forms), I am now ready for the annual walk to the post office to get it over with. So how’s it going with you?

I’m way behind with a lot of other work, so for now I’m just going to briefly note a couple of things:

A blog post titled Do women today have more libertarian freedom than in 1880? caught my attention, but for the life of me I can’t figure out what anything in the post has to do with the “libertarian freedom of women.” It appears to be a discussion among a bunch of men having to do with some abstract notions of government coercion that have no connection to the genuine concerns of women.

Abortion, for example. A remarkable percentage of libertarians I have seen are anti-choice, which suggests that they are not at all opposed to government coercion as long as it’s someone else being coerced. Nebraska just passed a law that would ban elective abortions and many non-elective abortions after 20 weeks’ gestation. Exceptions are made for a woman’s imminent death or “substantial and irreversible physical impairment of a major bodily function.” However, if a woman discovers at 20 weeks’ gestation that her baby will be born with anencephaly, too bad. She has to carry the doomed infant to term.

Seems to me this law is a direct challenge to Roe v. Wade, which permits states to ban elective abortions after 23 weeks’ gestation (time of earliest possible viability), but gives doctors more discretion to decide which abortions are medically indicated.

Another provision that was just signed into law in Nebraska requires that all women seeking abortion get a physical and mental health evaluation. This law hasn’t gotten nearly as much attention as the other one, but seems to me it will impact a lot more women, making all abortions in Nebraska more costly and burdensome. It also reeks of Big Government Patriarchy, especially the mental health part. Just don’t hold your breath waiting for libertarians to care.

Also: The Great Minds of the Nation continue to evaluate the Tea Party movement. I swear no one has ever gone to such lengths to plumb the depths of the American Left, even in the glory days of the New Left counterculture, ca. 1969. Anyway, the New York Times published an article about another new poll:

The 18 percent of Americans who identify themselves as Tea Party supporters tend to be Republican, white, male, married and older than 45.

They could have saved their polling money and just asked me. I would have told them that.

Steve M has looked at the data more closely than I have, and notes that the Tea Partiers on the whole seem to be content with being Republicans. This contradicts their own rhetoric, but they are less likely than the general population to want a third party. They also deeply dislike Congress except for their own congress critters, who are all exceptions to the rule.

Digby notes that they buy into Republican Party propaganda about who’s to blame for the economic downturn:

Here’s an interesting factoid that tracks with my intuition about these people: they blame George W. Bush and Wall Street far less for the economic situation than the rest of the country does. They hold Obama and congress mostly responsible. But then, if you listen to wingnut gasbags and FOX news crazies all day, that’s what you would think.

Any illusions that these people are angry at Wall Street or big business needs to be dispensed with ASAP. They don’t blame the money people at all.

So, they tend to be Republican, white, male, married, older than 45, and ignorant as bread mold. I could have told them that, too.

Shawn Millerick of Now! Hampshire quotes an anonymous source (naturally) to claim that state Democrats are recruiting “liberal activists willing to attend so-called tea parties on Thursday and carry signs expressing racist or fringe sentiments.” Similar “crash the party” efforts are taking place around the country, Millerick says.

Talk about inoculation! From now on whenever some wingnut carries a wingnut sign at a wingnut rally, the other wingnuts can claim it’s all the work of “liberal activists.”

If true, it’s a stupid thing to do, for the simple reasons that (1) it does provide inoculation, and (2) when your opponents already are making themselves look ridiculous, it’s really bad tactics to get in the way.

However, unless the wingnuts can come up with some more solid evidence than “anonymous sources,” this story bears all the marks of a clever fabrication.

Update: I partly take the last comment back. According to Evan McMorris-Santoro at Talking Points Memo, some flaming idiot named Jason Levin has organized a Crash the Tea Party effort in Oregon to infiltrate the Party and push it further Right. Stupid, stupid, stupid.

Oklahoma may raise a new state militia to defend itself against the federal government. I assume there are enough sane legislators in Oklahoma to prevent this from going forward, but it’s being talked about.

Frustrated by recent political setbacks, tea party leaders and some conservative members of the Oklahoma Legislature say they would like to create a new volunteer militia to help defend against what they believe are improper federal infringements on state sovereignty.

Assuming such infringements are real, haven’t these people ever heard of “courts”?

Thus far, the discussions have been exploratory. Even the proponents say they don’t know how an armed force would be organized nor how a state-based militia could block federal mandates.

This is easy. Guns are magic. All people have to do is wave their mighty guns, and all problems are solved. Never mind that the feds have guns, and tanks, and an air force, and missiles, and even nukes.

State Sen. Randy Brogdon, R-Owasso, a Republican candidate for governor who has appealed for tea party support, said supporters of a state militia have talked to him, and that he believes the citizen unit would be authorized under the Second Amendment to the Constitution.

The catch here is that “the militia” in the body of the Constitution (Article I, Section 8, paragraphs 15 and 16) is also partly under the authority of the U.S. Congress.

[The Congress shall have Power] To provide for calling forth the Militia to execute the Laws of the Union, suppress Insurrections and repel Invasions;

To provide for organizing, arming, and disciplining, the Militia, and for governing such Part of them as may be employed in the Service of the United States, reserving to the States respectively, the Appointment of the Officers, and the Authority of training the Militia according to the discipline prescribed by Congress;

And, of course, the Second Amendment says,

A well regulated Militia, being necessary to the security of a free State, the right of the people to keep and bear Arms, shall not be infringed.

I suspect most constitutional scholars would argue that the “well regulated Militia” mentioned in the Second Amendment is the same Militia provided for in Article I Section 8. And then there’s the matter of federalizing the Militia, which immediately puts it under the authority of the President (Article II, Section 2, 1st paragraph).

So, in theory, any militia that takes its authority to exist from any part of the U.S. Constitution could be federalized at any time, which would kind of neutralize them, I would think. (If you trace the history of the original state militias, you see that they eventually became the National Guard.)

That said, I don’t believe there is any constitutional provision that says a state may not create its own militia separate from the Militia provided for in Article I Section 8 and mentioned in the Second Amendment. I don’t know that it’s ever been done (except by the states in rebellion during the Civil War), but I don’t think there’s a barrier to it.

However, I am reasonably certain that organizing an armed force, whether by state authority or not, for the purpose of resisting federal authority is an act of sedition. And if this seditious little crew actually takes action against federal officials or employees, that is insurrection. And then constitutionally the feds could federalize all the National Guard troops it wants and send them marching into Oklahoma. Maybe they could even parachute into Oklahoma. Cool.

Tea party leader J.W. Berry of the Tulsa-based OKforTea began soliciting interest in a state militia through his newsletter under the subject “Buy more guns, more bullets.”

“It’s not a far-right crazy plan or anything like that,” Berry said. “This would be done with the full cooperation of the state Legislature.”

Not a far-right crazy plan at all. At least, not from a far-right perspective.

Update: Data show tea partiers more bigoted than general U.S. population.

No, it’s what happens when you can’t think. One of the newer issues causing wingnut hysteria is a study that alleges Democratic districts got more stimulus money than Republican ones. The study’s author writes,

Controlling for the percentage of the district employed in the construction industry, a proxy for the vulnerability to recession of a district, I find no statistical correlation for all relevant unemployment indicators and the allocation of funds. This suggests that unemployment is not the factor leading the awards. Also, I found no correlation between other economic indicators, such as income, and stimulus funding.

Nate Silver, bless him, finds the correlation:

The district that received the largest amount of stimulus funding in the 4th Quarter of 2009, according to de Rugy’s tally, is California’s 5th Congressional District. Is there anything notable about the 5th Congressional? Well, it is home to the state capital, Sacramento. Let’s keep that in mind.

Next on the list is New York’s 21st Congressional District. The largest city in the 21st is the state capital of New York, Albany.

Third is the 21st Congressional District of Texas. It contains parts of Texas’ state capital, the wonderful city of Austin. (Another district that contains parts of Austin — the 25th — ranks 14th on de Rugy’s list.)

At this point, it ought to be pretty obvious what is going on. The three districts receiving the largest amount of stimulus funds are home to the capitals of the three largest states — New York, California, and Texas. Let’s pause for a moment and make a bold prediction. I’ll bet you that the district that ranks 4th on the list will contain the capital of the 4th largest state, Florida.

Bingo. Up 4th on the list is Florida’s 2nd Congressional, home to Tallahassee.

Fifth is Pennsylvania’s 17th, which hosts the state capital, Harrisburg.

In other words, the stimulus funds went from the federal government to state agencies, which nearly always have main offices near the state capitol buildings, which then distributed the monies throughout the state.

All together now: Duh.

Nate provides a chart showing that the whopping majority of districts hosting state capitals are “D” districts, and this is true even in “R” states such as Georgia, Tennessee, Mississippi, and Texas. As Nate points out, these districts tend to be relatively urban and home to state universities — that’s not always true, of course. But they’re also home to lots of government employees who have college educations. Hence, they are more likely to be “D” voters. It’s becoming more and more apparent that your average “R” can’t critically think his way out of a wet paper bag.

The wingnuts, however, continue to hyperventilate over the “fact” that Democrats districts are getting almost twice as much money on average than Republican districts. Check out the comments at Breitbart’s Big Government site, if you have the stomach for it.

Update: More about the study and the study’s author:

de Rugy wrote her paper for the Mercatus center at George Mason, a libertarian outpost where she is a senior research fellow. She testified about the paper before Congress, she’s an adjunct scholar at the Cato Institute, a director of the Center for Freedom and Prosperity, a former scholar at AEI, a columnist for Reason, and and a frequent contributor for National Review Online. There are hundreds of people like her in Washington, most of them conservative, living well-compensated lives of pure ideological hackery.

If you are a wingnut, and you can dress yourself and don’t smell too badly, you too can be a senior adjunct fellow scholar columnist and make a dandy living in Washington.

“How Should Conservatives Deal with the Left’s Disrespect and Lack of Empathy?”

You really can’t make this stuff up.

I can’t tell from news stories exactly why the feds raided a Midwestern “Christian militia” group called “Hutaree” and arrested seven members. There is vague information about unspecific threats against Muslims, but I would think a big, splashy raid and several arrests would require something more substantive.

However, it’s fun to watch the bold freedom fighters of other Midwestern militia groups trip all over themselves running away from Hutaree.

Mike Lackomar, of Michiganmilitia.com, said both The Southeast Michigan Volunteer Militia and the Michiganmilitia.com were not a part of the raid.

Lackomar said he heard from other militia members that the FBI targeted the Hutaree after its members made threats of violence against Islamic organizations.

“Last night and into today the FBI conducted a raid against homes belonging to the Hutaree. They are a religious cult. They are not part of our militia community,” he said.

And via Steve M, Mike Vanderboegh (who recently made a splash by suggesting that people who don’t like Democrats should break their office windows) wrote,

The Hutaree have indicated in the past that, much like John Brown, they WANTED to start a civil war, which is why no responsible militia group in Michigan was willing to ally with them.

However, Vanderboegh also said,

But here’s the deal, Feds. If you kill anyone or burn somebody’s house or church down with them inside, you will have started a civil war, no matter how despicable the Hutaree are, or how crazy, or how provocative. If that happens, there will be NOTHING responsible leaders of the constitutional militia movement will be able to do from our side to stop it. You will have crossed the Rubicon.

In other words, if the federal government takes action against a group about to engage in armed insurrection against the government (assuming that’s what Hutaree was doing), then the government, not the insurrectionists, will have started the civil war.

Again, there doesn’t seem to be much information out there about why an arrest warrant was issued for Hutaree members. It had better be a good reason. But somehow I’m not too concerned that there will be an armed uprising in support of Hutaree. Posturing, bombast, probably some midnight vandalism, yes. But no armed uprising.

Update: Yes, I’d say these charges are worthy of arrest warrants and big, splashy raids. They planned a mass killing of police. Nine people have been indicted. Keep in mind this is a Christian militia.

Update: Today the feds also indicted a man who threatened to kill Republican Senator Eric Cantor. This indictment also seems to me to be justified. I’m not even going to guess at the number of rightie bloggers who think this indictment is good but the indictments against the Hutaree militia members are bad.