By Salvatore Caputo

Jewish News of Greater Phoenix Online

U.S. Rep. Gabrielle Giffords ( D-District 8 ) is joining a bipartisan working group that will oversee implementation and enforcement of U.S.-approved sanctions against Iran aimed at getting the Islamic Republic to halt its nuclear weapons program.

“Iran poses a threat to many countries,” she told Jewish News. In addition to deep concern about Iranian threats toward Israel, she said, “If Iran gets nuclear weapons, it could wreak havoc and destruction on our allies and potentially on the United States.”

Giffords, who has served on the House Foreign Affairs Committee since taking office in January 2007, received the invitation to join the working group from Rep. Howard Berman (D-Calif.), the committee chairman, and Rep. Ileana Ros-Lehtinen (R-Fla.), the committee’s ranking member.

The group will work with the administration, ambassadors and the legislative branch to implement and enforce the Comprehensive Iran Sanctions, Accountability and Divestment Act, which Giffords co-sponsored. The bill was signed into law in June by President Obama.

“In a Congress and political climate that’s extremely partisan and nasty and politically divisive, we are united – Democrats and Republicans, House and Senate – on enforcement of U.S.-approved sanctions on Iran,” she said.

She said the law imposes tough economic sanctions to dissuade Iran from continuing its nuclear program. The act targets businesses that support Iran’s Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps, Iran’s illicit nuclear program or its support for terrorism.

by Dylan Smith

TucsonSentinel.com

President Barack Obama signed a $600 million border bill Friday morning.

The product of a merry-go-round process between the House and Senate, the Southwest Border Security Bill will put more agents and equipment on the border with Mexico.

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The Arizona Conference of Police and Sheriffs (AZCOPS) Local 7077 has endorsed Rep. Gabrielle Giffords.  In his endorsement letter, AZCOPS President Larry Lopez praised Gabrielle’s “support for public safety officers and willingness to listen to [their] concerns.”

AZCOPS is Arizona’s largest association of public safety officers, with more than 8,000 members from 95 local police and sheriffs affiliates. As the “voice for officers in their hometowns,” the Association’s mission is to ensure officers have the tools they need to keep Arizona’s communities safe.
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CD 8 Republican primary candidate Jonathan Paton has launched an ill-informed and misguided attack on Gabrielle Giffords for her work to save the lives of servicemembers and countless taxpayer dollars by strengthening the U.S. Defense Department’s long-term strategic energy position in Iraq and Afghanistan.

Paton, the longtime payday lending lobbyist and former state legislator, was so quick to attack Giffords on Monday that he misspelled “soldiers” in his sloppily written release. More importantly, he completely fails to understand why our nation’s top military leaders consider our dependence on fuel a strategic disadvantage, particularly in Iraq and Afghanistan.

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By Gabrielle Giffords

The Hill

Our nation’s border security efforts are a litany of failure.

Robert Krentz was a victim of that failure, murdered by a suspected drug smuggler on a Southern Arizona ranch that has been in his family since territorial days.

Pinal County Sheriff’s Deputy Louie Puroll was a victim of that failure, shot by a suspected drug smuggler while on patrol in a remote stretch of desert south of Phoenix.

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By Nathan Thornburgh

Time Magazine

Published June 14, 2010

The trackers mustered at Tex Canyon Road, 20 miles north of the Mexican border, on the afternoon of March 27. There were border-patrol agents, six search-and-rescue units from the Cochise County sheriff’s department and dogs trained to track escaped inmates from nearby Douglas State Prison. Several ranchers were also there, many of them descendants of the Germans and Irish who came to the San Bernardino Valley a hundred years or more ago. Back then, the ranchers settled here in part to feed the U.S. troops stationed at the border. One military mission in those days: prevent the chaos of the Mexican Revolution from spilling into the Territory of Arizona. Now another period of powerful unrest in Mexico had brought a different kind of war to the valley, and the ranchers were mindful that the violence might have claimed one of their own, a man named Rob Krentz.

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by Brady McCombs

Arizona Daily Star

President Barack Obama will deploy 1,200 National Guard troops to help secure the U.S.-Mexico border. But Sen. John McCain of Arizona says that is not nearly enough. (May 25)

The White House plans to send as many as 1,200 National Guard to the U.S.-Mexico border to assist with surveillance, intelligence, training and drug enforcement.

President Obama has also asked that $500 million be included in supplemental spending legislation to be used to fund more agents, more prosecutors, more technology, and improve information sharing among local, state and tribal law enforcement, said an Obama administration official via email.

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by Brady McCombs

Arizona Daily Star

Tuesday, May 25, 2010 11:33 am

The White House plans to send as many as 1,200 National Guard to the U.S.-Mexico border.

A press release from the office of Rep. Gabrielle Giffords, D-Ariz., says that President Obama will authorize the deployment of up to 1,200 National Guard troops to the southwest border, and request that $500 million be included in supplemental spending legislation for enhanced border protection and law enforcement activities.

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by Brady McCombs

Arizona Daily Star

Smugglers using ultralight aircraft to fly drugs over the border could face stiffer penalties if caught, under proposed legislation.

A bill introduced by U.S. Rep. Gabrielle Giffords, a Tucson Democrat, would amend the Tariff Act of 1930 to include ultralight aircraft under the aviation smuggling provisions.

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by Megan Neighbor

Arizona Daily Star

U.S. Rep. Gabrielle Giffords held a conference call Monday to discuss her efforts to address border issues.

In her opening and closing comments, Giffords said she was angry “because the federal government has failed to secure the border, and this is unacceptable.”

She said she hoped to change that by encouraging more funding for the U.S. Border Patrol and projects such as Operation Stonegarden in the next U.S. budget.

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