Arizona dodges the "late night monologue punchline" bullet for once*

* - Well, maybe; the people behind the state's latest embarrassment don't seem like that they have gotten the "Wait, people have heard about this.  Never mind" message.

From the Arizona Capitol Times, written by Hank Stephenson -

America’s civil rights legacy has been “hijacked” by blacks, and revisionist history unfairly denigrates “English-speaking white citizens” even though they freed the slaves and ended segregation, according to a group planning a “civil rights conference” on the floor of the Arizona House of Representatives later this month.

The American Unification Movement is an anti-immigration group headed up by Los Angeles-based activist Ted Hayes, who has teamed up with local conservative activist Ron Ludders to host the all-day event at the statehouse on May 21.

Shortly after the original story was published, this update was appended to the story -

UPDATE: About a half-hour after the story below was published, the Arizona House of Representatives said that the American Unification Movement event had been canceled.

Sounds good...but the American Unification Movement doesn't seem to have gotten the message.

Their latest post on their Facebook page -

From the front page of their website -

Hmmm...yes, it's possible that the webmaster/communications folks at AUM are a little slow (and to be fair, this whole thing exploded in the face of David Gowan, the Speaker of the Arizona House of Representatives and the person who approved this wasteful use of public resources, just this afternoon) but it is also (very) possible that the Speaker's office said whatever they thought would make the controversy go away.

In other words, keep an eye on the Capitol on May 21.