Thursday Bag o’ Comments

Two things that distinguish online from print news are links and reader comments. Online news articles include embedded links, making it easy for readers to call up sources and related stories. This is the best thing about online news IMO. The worst thing about online news is reader comments. Print newspapers and magazines filter comments, generally […]

Follow the Money (Part II)

Remember my earlier post about following the money involved in catching, holding, processing, and deporting illegal immigrants in Arizona?  And how much of that money finds its way to the private prison industry and associated private contractors? I started following the money in May. Rachel Maddow started following it in August, quickly picking up on […]

Follow the Money (Part I)

In a post about Arizona’s new immigration law the other day, I naïvely posted this: I estimate that the Border Patrol catches around a hundred illegal border-crossers a day in Arizona alone.  Anywhere you go in southern Arizona, you see Border Patrol checkpoints and the big white ex-Greyhound buses they use to haul the day’s […]

What Part of “Illegal” Don’t I Understand? (Part I)

What part of “illegal” don’t I understand? Uh, the part where loudmouthed white assholes get to speed and smoke pot and cheat on their taxes, while American citizens of Hispanic descent have to prove they’re not breaking a law any time a cop looks at them sideways, and oh by the way while Mexicans, Hondurans, […]