Walmart's $20,000 Gift

Walmart spent well over a million dollars last year on its efforts to beat back big labor’s big box ordinance and has announced an ambitious plan to build new stores all over town. So it’s not much of a surprise that the county GOP took another $20,000 contribution from Walmart on February 10…Customs and Border Protection chief Alan Bersin, in Tucson two weeks ago touting the effectiveness of President Obama’s border policies, was greeted by a hostile news release from Cochise County sheriff Larry Dever. The Republican announced he was quitting the Alliance to Combat Transnational Threats, a task force that Bersin said had cut border crime: “I cannot buy into the politicization of the whole dang thing,” said Dever. “I simply cannot be a party to this federal government hypocrisy and duplicity. I’ll continue to fight the battle for security, but I won’t participate in spreading propaganda based on false statistical premises.” In response, a federal spokeswoman told a local TV station that the task force was responsible for seizing more than 1.6 million pounds of marijuana, 3800 pounds of cocaine, and 1000 pounds of methamphetamine, along with making 270,000 border apprehensions “between ports of entry.”