Esperanza's soccer team with its coach, Phoenix civil rights leader Sal Reza

There's not much that would get me out on a hot Arizona afternoon to watch a high-school soccer match, but Sal Reza as "coach" is one of them.

Reza, the bane of Sheriff Joe Arpaio and former state Senate President Russell Pearce, the guy who's led thousands in marches protesting both Senate Bill 1070 and Arpaio's anti-immigrant enforcement measures, coaches a co-ed soccer team for Esperanza High School, a small charter school in North Phoenix that caters mostly to the children of working-class Hispanic families.

Think of a Latino Bad News Bears playing futbol, and that's Esperanza, which means "hope" in Spanish. Reza told me it's the first year Esperanza has had a soccer team, and he was practically drafted into coaching, as the school could not afford a professional coach. 

"I know nothing about soccer," Reza shrugged. "But nobody else would do it."

Despite the civil rights leader's inexperience, despite the impoverished backgrounds of many of the kids, and despite a run-in by one of their star players with U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement last week, Esperanza came within one point of taking their division's championship on Monday, losing to rival Phoenix College Prep, 3-2.

That made for tough loss, especially since Esperanza had come back from a 2-0 hole to tie the game at 2-2, only to have PCP score a crucial goal and clinch the win.

Still, Esperanza wasn't even supposed to be on that field at Phoenix's Desert West Park where the championship game took place. The team started its season with a loss, one that depressed the players, until they were given a sign of sorts.

A hawk circled above the team following the defeat, and one of the kids asked Reza what it meant.

"It means you can either fly like an eagle, or crawl like a snake," he told the teens.

More >>

Ana Tijoux performs tonight at Puente

I know as much about Chilean hip-hop as I do Bolivian death metal or Finnish free jazz. That said, you don't need a translator to be able to see or hear that French-Chilean MC Ana Tijoux is talented. Just sample any of her music videos online and you're sure to be intrigued, if not downright smitten.

Tijoux's song "1977" from the album of the same name

The daughter of Chilean exiles living in France during dictator Augusto Pinochet's reign in Chile, Tijoux's music is popular in Latin America and continues to gain ground here in the United States, where she's performed with The Roots, and had her music featured on the AMC series Breaking Bad.

Tonight, Tijoux will be hosted by the Phoenix human rights group Puente during its Noche de Mujeres, or "Night of Women" festival, which will feature an all-female mariachi band as well as performances by Tijoux and others. Add in food, art and political discussion, and it's more than worth the $5 donation at the door. 

Tijoux's song Shock, about the 2011 student uprising in Chile

Tijoux is here in solidarity with Puente in its struggle against Sheriff Joe Arpaio and the federal government's Secure Communities program. So, if you go, not only will you experience an evening of socially conscious music, you'll be helping Puente and its political ally the National Day Laborer Organizing Network fight the MCSO, which is always a worthy cause. 

Noche de Mujeres begins at 6 p.m. tonight at Puente headquarters, 1306 E. Van Buren Street, in Phoenix. A $5 donation is suggested, but no one will be turned away for lack of funds. For more on Tijoux's music, check out her website at anatijoux.com. 

Think Pearce will laugh? Yeah, probably not

My good friend Dennis Gilman was kind enough to upload this delicious new parody for me of the much-spoofed "raving fuhrer" scene from the 2004 German film Downfall, starring Bruno Ganz as Adolf Hitler.

Long have I dreamed of having one of these Downfall spoofs made with recalled state Senate President Russell Pearce in the starring role. And now my dream is reality. Thank you, Yahweh! 

It will be a pity if ol' Russ chickens out and decides not to meet fellow Republican Bob Worsley on the field of battle (aka, Legislative District 25). Think of all the fun we could've had doing parodies like this through August, ending with Pearce being crushed yet again by a political neophyte.

The rumor is Pearce falls on his sword Monday sometime. (Pearce has denied all to several in the media.) Apparently, Pearce's former pals at Highgound provided the sword. 

J.T. Ready poses with Russell Pearce

However, if Pearce's pet anaconda Constantin Querard gets his way, maybe these reports of Pearce's political demise will prove premature.

The best thing about it is, either way, I win. If Pearce drops out of the GOP primary for state Senate, then I helped drive him from power in the first place by mercilessly berating Pearce in print long before doing so was cool. (Even the Republic's on that bandwagon these days.)

But if Pearce stubbornly stays in a race he's destined to lose, I get to slap him around verbally for a few more months. As Jackie Gleason was wont to say, "Mmmmm-hmmm-hmmm, how sweet it is."

Soft and cuddly this Mesa muttonhead will never be

I sure hope recalled ex-state Senate President Russell Pearce doesn't bow out of the GOP state Senate primary in Legislative District 25, as some have been speculatin' in the blogosphere.

Why? Well, because that would rob me of the immense pleasure of watching the 12-point loser get crushed yet again by a newbie Republican politician, in this case deep-pockets SkyMall-founder Bob Worsley. 

Also, it would leave me with one less deserving target of my invective. Pearce, disbarred former County Attorney Andrew Thomas, J.T. Ready, they're all falling by the wayside, all of the far right loonies. Well, not all, but some of the most heinous of the lot, that's for sure.

If Pearce stays in the game, that allows me a couple more months of material while I seek out new villains to torment. Material like the lame video above of a kinder, gentler Pearce, no doubt created by Pearce's creepy snake-in-the-grass consultant, the ever-slithery Constantin Querard. 

This thing is freaking hi-larious. The soft lighting. The living room setting. The attempt to make Pearce seem like a human being instead of an aggro bully-bigot who's one step away from donning a sheet and reenacting the Klan scene from O Brother, Where Art Thou?

Well, I hate to break it to you, Russ, but no matter how gentle you try to seem, no matter how many babies you hold for the camera (like the one at the end), and no matter how much you lie and claim that you're for improving education, you'll always be what you are: an ogre with a record of doing everything in your power to hurt this state's kids.

The last year you were in the Legislature, Pearce backed a budget that slashed $148 million from K-12 education. According to Education Week, Arizona currently ranks 44 overall out of the 50 states and the District of Columbia. Pearce has done nothing to help lift that ranking.

More >>

Tom Perez blasts Sheriff Joe in Phoenix yesterday

Hey, did you hear that the U.S. Department of Justice is suing Sheriff Joe Arpaio?

Well, in case you were hibernating beneath a saguaro on Thursday, Assistant U.S. Attorney General Tom Perez was in town to blast everyone's least-favorite sheriff for his racial-profiling, Latino-hatin', constitution-trashin' ways, and to explain the reasons for the DOJ's lawsuit. 

Independent journalist and videographer Dennis Gilman was on the scene and caught Perez's entire press conference. 

This is part one of that historic presser. Gilman will soon post Perez's Q & A session with reporters. Gilman got in a significant query about whether or not the DOJ will join the ACLU's racial profiling lawsuit against Arpaio, which goes to trial July 19. So stay tuned for part two.

A transcript of Perez's remarks is below. Sure, we'd rather see Arpaio marched through the streets of Phoenix in stripes and shackles, like he did to many of his Hispanic prisoners a couple of years ago. But here in Sand Land, we'll take what we can get, justice-wise.

Update: See Part 2 of this presser after the jump.

More >>

A screenshot from the March 13, 2007 ADL forum where J.T. Ready was publicly exposed

I've often said that in Arizona you don't have to be a swastika-carrying neo-Nazi to have the same or similar beliefs. Which is why the presence of neo-Nazis and other right-wing wackjobs in the midst of the immigration donnybrook here in Sand Land has caused little or no outrage. 

And yet, when the rhetoric of hate leads almost inevitably to bloodshed, the rationalizations and excuses begin. In the case of murderous neo-Nazi J.T. Ready, the historical revisionism and denial of guilt has found its ultimate shill in wingnut anti-immigration advocate Linda Bentley, a way-loony scribe who masquerades as a reporter for the über-right Cave Creek freebie, Sonoran News.

Bentley's column this week deals with Ready's massacre of four unfortunates, including a baby girl, before reportedly turning the gun on himself. But the purpose of her column is not to decry the horror of what happened, commiserate with the victims, or discuss how the community should deal with the tragedy.

Nope, all Bentley cares about is covering for Ready's onetime associates, such as state Senate President Russell Pearce, and all the other nativist haters on Bentley's side of the fence. 

When it suited their purposes, they embraced dangerous radicals like Ready. Now that he's branded a baby-killer, they have an extra-special need to claim Ready was not part of their movement.

Buffalo Rick Galeener, second from right, in the audience of the March 2007 ADL forum

Here's what Bentley writes along those lines:

More >>

Lakeland, Florida acknowledges one of its own...

I knew Gilbert massacre shooter J.T. Ready was from Polk County, Florida, and I had contacted some relatives of his over the weekend seeking comment. (No luck, alas.) But until today, I could find no mention of him in his hometown newspaper, The Ledger, located in Lakeland, Florida.

Thankfully, Ledger reporter Elvia Malagon fills in some of the blanks. Seems Ready had a bad attitude as a young man as well. Here's an excerpt from Malagon's piece:

Cobb, 36, of Lakeland, said he knew Ready from ROTC and hung out with him a few times. He remembers Ready being interested in the military.

Cobb said he saw how enraged Ready became at the Lakeland students the night of the party.

"He was dead-set ready," he said. "Beat them up, basically."

Cobb said he broke ties with Ready after that night and was shocked to hear about last week's shootings.

Lyn Stevens, 50, still lives next door to the home Ready grew up in Lakeland.

Stevens said she didn't know Ready well, but knew he showed an early interest in guns and the military.

"He was strange," she said. "Jason was into guns really heavily."

Stevens said Ready joined the Marines but was later discharged.

You can read Malagon's story in full at theledger.com.

The 39 year-old anti-Semite once told me with a straight face that his mother was Jewish, though I always figured he was full of it. 

Malagon didn't score an interview with Ready's mom, so I guess a debunking of this improbable piece of Ready lore will have to wait.

One of Ready's final hate-grams, posted on Stormfront.org

Neo-Nazi J.T. Ready could be quite lucid and genial. Sometimes, he came off as an autodidact, widely read if not highly educated. That impression would last only so long, however. Inevitably, he would make some anti-Semitic or racist comment, or go off on some related tangent involving eugenics or the supposed superiority of Caucasians. 

You could tell he believed the insanity he was spouting.

The Anti-Defamation League, which dogged Ready for years, has released what it says are some of Ready's last online comments both to the white supremacist message board Stormfront.org and Youtube.  

More ravings, this time on YouTube...

ADL's blog reports that Stormfront erased Ready's account from its site not long after the Gilbert massacre in which Ready killed himself and four others, including a baby girl. But the ADL was able to retrieve Ready's messages, either through Google cache or through the responses other posters made to his racist blatherings.

The ADL's blog discusses these posts in detail. Here is an excerpt:

More >>

One of my photos of Ready and Pearce working a crowd together in 2007

Why is it that some lies are so difficult to rebut? One reason: eviscerating untruths is made infinitely harder when the media is complicit in perpetuating them.

For many years, I've written about the ties between ex-state Senate President Russell Pearce (who believes it's the Legislature's "duty" to "reimburse" him $260,000 for money that his failed recall campaign spent) and well-known neo-Nazi, alleged kid-killer, and apparent suicide victim J.T. Ready.

And yet, Wednesday night, more than one TV news show uncritically reported Pearce's self-serving statement about his relationship with Ready, whom authorities believe offed himself and four others at a Gilbert home Wednesday afternoon. Some news anchors related the press release as if it were true, failing to challenge Pearce's skewed version of his own personal history.

As I've demonstrated on numerous occasions, Pearce is a serial prevaricator. I've spent a lot of time cataloging his dishonesty on several subjects, including his connection to Ready, to whom he was close at one time.

Indeed, the pair once were so close that Pearce attended Ready's baptism into the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, and in 2004, Pearce ordained Ready an elder in the church's Melchizedek priesthood, an office held by adult men of the Mormon faith.

Pearce's entire statement on the Gilbert massacre is reproduced below. In it, Pearce paints himself as the victim, whining about reporters and editors calling him for comment. He accuses these journos of trying to "score the ugliest of political points off of this tragedy," when, in reality, calling a political figure who was at one time publicly affiliated with Ready is a no-brainer in light of current events.

In the statement, the erstwhile legislator admits to having known Ready but insists that he was ignorant of Ready's extremist views and associations when they were pals. Reports to the contrary are false, he insists.

"In the past several years, the local media has worked hard to try to tie me to the J.T. Ready that preached hate," Pearce asserts. "And that is nothing more than a lie. When I learned the truth about him, I made it clear how wrong I thought it was, and I worked to remove him from our party."

Pearce claims he thought Ready was just a stand-up ex-Marine, and that Ready's turn to the dark side only became evident later.

"At some point in time, darkness took his life over. His heart changed," Pearce writes. "And he began to associate with the more despicable groups in society. They were intolerant and hateful and like so many who knew him from before, I was upset and disappointed at the choices he was making."

And if you buy that, I've got a bridge in Lake Havasu I want to sell you.

A photo Ready texted me on April 17, which came with this message: "No bullshit today I was wearing same shirt as Russell in the pic today and didnt even know til dude @ circle k mentioned it in nt."

Pearce supported Ready's run for Mesa City Council in 2006. You can see video of Pearce endorsing him for that post in a mini-documentary videographer Dennis Gilman and I did on the Pearce-Ready relationship, here. It also includes a exclusive interviews with Ready and video of the 2007 speech mentioned below.

During 2006, Ready was involved in a strange, almost comical "shootout" with an illegal alien in Mesa as Ready drove back from a trip to Walmart. Other outlets reported on a 1992 aggravated assault charge in Florida that Ready had on his record.

Ready also told the press that he was courting the support of the Mesa Hell's Angels in his city council bid. If that's not a red flag, I don't know what is.

After Ready lost the election, the East Valley Tribune exposed his checkered history as a Marine, including the fact that he had been court-martialed twice, then drummed out of the military. 

In March 2007, the Anti-Defamation League of Arizona exposed Ready as a white-supremacist during a forum at the state Legislature on extremism in Arizona's anti-immigrant movement. Then state House member Kyrsten Sinema sponsored the event. You can watch video of that forum, here.

More >>

Ready and Pearce, then bosom buds, at a nativist rally in 2007

J.T. Ready, Arizona's most prominent neo-Nazi and the one-time political protege of recalled state Senate President Russell Pearce, reportedly is dead by his own hand in what's described as a multiple murder-suicide in Gilbert that left four others slain, including a 2-year- old.

A one-time member of the neo-Nazi National Socialist Movement, Ready, 39, was a committed white supremacist, a former Republican precinct committeeman, and a failed candidate for the Mesa City Council. 

Charismatic and articulate, he was once a rising star in Arizona's burgeoning, anti-Mexican nativist movement where his inflammatory rhetoric and radical political ideas were largely embraced. 

See the full slideshow of the Gilbert massacre here.

However, his far-right extremist ties eventually became so overt that the anti-immigrant movement shunned him as an embarrassment.

Ready openly marched with neo-Nazis in the streets of Phoenix, Riverside, California, and elsewhere, sometimes in full battle gear, other times carrying a swastika flag or a portrait of Adolf Hitler, whom he called "a great white civil rights leader."

In recent years, he took to patrolling the desert in search of illegal immigrants and cartel members with groups of neo-Nazis and white supremacists whom he led. 

The most recent incarnation of these militias was U.S. Border Guard, whose patrols regularly ran across stranded or dead migrants and drug stashes in the an area of the desert on the border of Pinal and Maricopa counties called the Vekol Valley.

Despite the fringe nature of the group, the U.S. Border Patrol regularly took custody of migrants that Ready's group captured. Ready also turned over drug caches he claimed his group had stumbled upon to the agency. 

Ready often posted pictures of these desert forays, and his cohort, NSM member Harry Hughes, would write accounts of the outings in his blog Just another day. Videographer Dennis Gilman and I once accompanied one of Ready's patrols, which was equal parts absurd and creepy. 

A mini-documentary Dennis Gilman and I collaborated on, detailing the history of the Pearce-Ready connection

Perhaps the most controversial aspect of Ready was his relationship with ex-Senator Pearce, who helped him join the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints and groomed him, according to Ready, for a possible run for the legislature.

More >>