Blog For Arizona

Grassroots Astro-turfing the Mini-Dorm Overlay and Superpowers

Michael Goodman, the owner of NW University Equities LLC, took out a quarter page last Saturday's Arizona Daily Star excoriating the Tucson City Council for creating an overlay district to slow the growth of mini-dorm redevelopment in the University region. He supplies a nice little cut-out form for affected owners to fill out and mail to the Mayor with a claim for diminished valuation under Prop. 207. Then the mayor can place them all carefully in the special round file he keeps handy for such obvious astro-turf.

In passing any regulation of mini-dorm development, the City Council was painfully aware of the potential to inadvertently fall afoul of Prop 207 - itself the product of a much more successful astro-turf campaign by the ironically named billionaire New York developer Howard Rich and abetted by the woefully short-sighted Arizona Chamber of Commerce, whose members are apparently more than willing to swat flies on their noses with high-velocity .357 rounds.

What is truly remarkable about this quixotic campaign by Mr. Goodman is its tone, not its content. The content is the standard limitless property rights claims of the fringe right-wing, which have in recent years migrated into mainstream Republican circles like a metastasizing cancer.

But the tone is truly something to behold. You know how Super Heroes and Super Villians tend to be created by some thematic catalysm? You know, guy gets buried in a sand pit and hit with million volts and becomes The Sand Man. Well, apparently Mr. Goodman was caught in the explosion of a Libertarian reading room at the very moment that Milton Friedman and Alan Greenspan were performing a hot homosexual sex-magic ritual on their private altar to Ayn Rand. Thus was born THE OBJECTIVIST!

Able to ignore market failures with a single rationalization. Ready to fight predatory government bureaucrats by outsourcing their jobs to market-based entities. THE OBJECTIVIST stands fast in defense of the absolute divine right to extract the highest possible value from property. His only weakness is an inability to conceive that markets are the product of laws, not natural phenomenon.

Some examples of THE OBJECTIVIST'S principled defense of the oppressed landed class:

"The Arizona electorate WISELY RECOGNIZED the POWER HUNGRY NATURE OF SOME BUREAUCRATS, who try to control the lives of productive people and their property rights, and reacted by WISELY ENACTING "PROPOSITION 207" to stop these CONFISCATORY TENDENCIES. These people ANGRY, ENVIOUS OBSTRUCTIONISTS who, because they haven't the foggiest idea of how to, or the ability to, do anything productive, can only JUSTIFY THEIR EXISTENCE through SOCIAL ENGINEERING AND THE REDISTRIBUTION OF THE PROPERTY AND PRODUCTION OF OTHERS."

The all caps and bold face delivery is not my addition - that's original, 100% pure, crankitude. This is a Super manifesto if I've ever seen one. Bold ideas and heart-felt truths that can't be constrained by mundane rules of grammar or sullied by copy-editing. It sounds like a few pages of Atlas Shrugged, wherein Dagney Taggart rants about the parasitical state while humping John Galt, got wedged into THE OBJECTIVIST'S brain by the explosion that created him. I love the claim that purpose of this ordinance is not to control mini-dorms from ruining neighborhoods, but simply to justify the existence of unproductive, clueless losers who live to redistribute other's wealth. Priceless.

But it doesn't stop there. THE OBJECTIVIST just keeps giving:

"WITHOUT PUBLIC NOTIFICATION OR EVEN PUBLIC DISCUSSION a new act of governmental confiscation was furtively passed, WITHOUT ANY REGARD TO THE WISHES OF THE MAJORITY OF THE ELECTORATE as expressed by last year's passage of Prop 207. Certain Tucson officials recently, WITH STEALTH TECHNOLOGY, rammed through the passage of a new demolition ordinance DESIGNED TO KEEP YOU and the HIGHEST VALUE OF YOUR PROPERTY PERMANENTLY SEPARATED!"

THE OBJECTIVIST sees all! Even the STEALTH TECHNOLOGY for ramming ordinances that mere mortals cannot even perceive. Those damned confiscatory officials! They are so sneaky, they are even capable of passing laws furtively in a public meeting!

THE OBJECTIVIST understands the categorical moral imperative that developers must be allowed to tear down crappy old houses and replace them "productive, spacious, modern, light-filled, and energy-efficient" mini-dorms, pack them with brats, and extract the highest potential value from them (as long as someone else has to live next to it). The noblest and highest calling of man is to make a killing on mini-dorms! THE OBJECTIVIST has spoken!

"FILL OUT the form below with your NAME, ADDRESS, DATE, and the AMOUNT you feel you are reasonably entitled to & MAIL IT to MAYOR WALKUP
THE CITY IS SUPPOSED TO PAY YOUR CLAIM OR RELEASE YOU FROM THE NEW ORDINANCE. - EITHER WAY YOU WIN!"

Yes! THE OBJECTIVIST has determined what the city is 'supposed' to do, and surely that's the last word on the matter.

One should take a moment to be properly appreciative of the fact that whether THE OBJECTIVIST is Super Hero or Super Villian, at least he's not on our side.

Nancy Pelosi Should Go

Wow. I have seldom seen less effective communication of the Democratic strategy on Iraq. I suppose I should be more charitable, as there apparently is no Democratic strategy on Iraq. CNN's Wolf Blitzer sat down with Speaker Pelosi for a softball session. If ever there was an opportunity to lay out a clear Democratic vision on Iraq, it was here and now:

Instead, we have Nancy with a mouth full of mush, portraying the Democratic Congress as powerless and helpless, repeating her brain-dead vow not to impeach those fucking criminals in the White House, fluttering around trying to explain parliamentary procedure and the details of various amendments and plans that have already failed when no one gives a flying fuck at a rolling donut as to why Democrats have utterly failed. We want to know what's next.

Pitiful. There will be another installment of the interview tomorrow, but I don't expect any better.

What Speaker Pelosi needed to communicate more clearly than anything else - what should have been her sole message, in fact - is that we aren't getting out of Iraq now without a Democratic President. That's the bottom line take-away message. Here's what that sounds like:

"Americans overwhelmingly want an end of the occupation of Iraq. So do I. But the only way we are going to get that, now that the Republicans in the Senate have closed ranks with their failed President and his ruinous policies on Iraq, is to elect a Democratic President in 2008."

But Pelosi couldn't even manage that.

I can't even begin to express my contempt for Pelosi's continued 'promise' not to allow Congress to use its constitutional power of impeachment. It's as if she promised not to pass any legislation, or not to fund the government, or not to make war on an enemy who attacks us. Who would put up with those promises by a Speaker? Who in their right mind would elect a Speaker who made such promises? The second she uttered those words, promising not to allow Congress to exercise its rightful authority under the Constitution, she should have disqualified herself for the Speakership.

It is completely irresponsible to make such a blanket statement about impeachment. What if congressional hearings turn up yet more testimony and evidence of blatant Executive crimes? What if Bush arrogates yet more unconstitutional powers? What if he declares a state of emergency and suspends the rule of law? What if Bush and Cheney cook up a war with Iran? Will she continue to block invocation of Congress' constitutional powers in those circumstances? Is that what 'off the table' means? All these things seem not only possible, but increasingly probable, and the only way to halt them and reign in this out-of-control Executive is to use impeachment as the Founders intended.

It's as if a burglar has broken into the nation's home and begun to steal our rights, our freedom, and our honor, rape our wives, torture our children, kill our brothers, and terrorize the entire neighborhood, and Nancy has locked away our only weapon, which was provided precisely to protect us against this very kind of violation.

And she won't give anyone the key.

No, we have to allow the burglar to steal, destroy, and kill as he likes, because Nancy made the burglar a promise not to harm him, so he feels perfectly free to do what he wants. Nancy is thereby making 'Democrats' synonymous with 'gutless victims' in the eyes of an entire generation. She's a disgrace and a failure.

I've had enough. It's time for a no-confidence vote in the caucus. Nancy has had 9 months to craft a strategy for dealing with the worst, most corrupt Administration in history, and she's only made things infinitely worse. It's time a for new speaker who isn't stupid enough to lock up our only real leverage over a criminal Executive and then ask us to bear with her until the criminal runs out of laws to break.

Southern Arizona Media Telling Bee to Decide

Now both the Arizona Daily Star and the Green Valley News have weighed in on Tim Bee's kabuki dance of indeterminacy: They no likey.

Is Bee a congressional candidate or an Arizona Senator? He can't be both. Or can he? It's Schroedinger's candidate! Just don't open his bank account to see how much he's raising for the general election and he can hover in a state of quantum legality until January.

I don't imagine it will be long before other papers in the district begin to editorialize on Tim's contempt for the spirit of Arizona's constitution and the intelligence of the people he proposes to represent (or does he? nobody knows...). But so far, Tim is batting zero.

Congress More Popular with Republicans!

Link: Congress approval rating is substatially higher among Republicans than Democrats.

Though it doesn't actually surprise me, given how the Democratic majority has enabled the President and allowed the minority to be obstructionist without even a loud and symbolic protest (such as making them actually filibuster everything, instead allowing the procedural nicety of letting the matter drop quietly after a failed cloture vote in the Senate). But the gains in favorable opinion among Republicans are not, I suspect, approval of how the Democrats are steering the ship, or more precisely how they are steering it right at a reef, but for how industriously the Republicans are staving in the timbers down below the waterline in a very effective attempt to scuttle the ship.

This is an intolerable state of affairs. I want the Republicans to absolutely HATE the Congress. They are amused, and I want them infuriated. To be fair to the Democrats, we are fighting with one hand tied behind our backs: and we tied it there. The first thing we did upon retaking the majority was to restore regular order in the rules of Congress. By doing so, we allowed the minority Republicans a voice and say in the process that they denied to us by making the Congress less of a deliberative body than Bush's own private parliament. We could have continued playing by those corrupt rules, but America would no longer have had a democratic legislature, but a just a dictatorial rubber stamp body for the use of whoever could capture the majority. I applaud the wisdom and the statesmanship of our Democratic leadership than preserved us from that fate. I have no doubt that if and when the GOP retakes the majority, minority rights will soon end once again. That is a point that every Democratic Congressional candidate should make central to their campaigns. But that's the price of being the party that actually practices democracy.

But even worse that the Republicans' evident amusement is that Independents take an even more jaundiced view of Congress than do frustrated Democrats. That does not bode well for 2008 and should merit very close attention by pollsters as to whether that dissatisfaction stems from the Democrats' captaincy or the Republicans' sabotage.

Democrats have accomplished a surprising amount of decent policy given their narrow margin and a hostile President, but all of our accomplishments in the majority have not even begun to claw back the worst excesses of the Bush Administration. Nor are our best efforts likely to do so as long as Republicans command a veto stamp and 41 votes in the Senate. Those weapons are sufficient to stave off any real reversal of the Bush legacy. But we can make them pay politically for that rear-guard action.

We can make sure their intransigence has to be loud, public, explicit, and electorally costly. But our leadership in Congress is failing to do that. What is reflected in the polling is a failure for the blame to fall where it belongs, and that is entirely the fault of Democrats who insist on pretending to a degree of 'bi-partisanship' in their legislative strategy. It is a tempting trap. Many GOP members are deeply uncomfortable with the results of the last 7 years. Bi-partisanship enough to make those on the margins side with you often enough to squeak out some victories seems productive and laudible. But what we really need to do is to unapologetically frame issues that force them to choose sides: are you with the American people, or your dysfunctional party? Too often our leadership is failing to force that choice on wavering Republicans.

We have another 15 months of the Bush Presidency; until Bush is out of office, bi-partisanship is just a means of handing political victories to the GOP. I don't care if not a single additional piece of legislation is passed until January 2009, we have to make it clear what our agenda is though our proposed legislation, and make the minority take a stand and show that the GOP is absolutely unwilling to let Americans have that agenda. We need to stop focusing on slicing the baby so that we get a little bit of it, and instead show the American people what that infant would look like if allowed to grow into full and ambitious legislative agenda. We need to make Bush and the GOP fight tooth and nail to kill that kid.

The SCHIP issue is a great example of good legislative strategy. Hearing Bush threaten that veto brings a smile to my face. The ads write themselves, "President Bush and the Republicans in Congress say they want 'No Child Left Behind' but yet they want to leave millions of your kids behind without health care..." That's the way we need to be running the Congress. We should do family leave, mandatory sick time, universal health care, new consumer protection and environmental laws - everything we would do if we have a larger majority and a Democratic President. Then make the GOP kill it all messily and tragically dead. Over the next 15 months, I want to see Bush use his veto enough to make up for the past 6 years of inaction, and I want every GOP Senator to have sleep deprivation-induced psychosis from all the late-night shifts maintaining filibusters. You'll see those polling trends standing on their heads.

Pity The Nation

Pity the nation whose people are sheep,
and whose shepherds mislead them.
Pity the nation whose leaders are liars,
whose sages are silenced,
and whose bigots haunt the airwaves.
Pity the nation that raises not its voice,
except to praise conquerors and acclaim the bully as hero
and aims to rule the world with force and by torture.
Pity the nation that knows no other language but its own
and no other culture but its own.
Pity the nation whose breath is money
and sleeps the sleep of the too well fed.
Pity the nation--oh, pity the people who allow
their rights to erode
and their freedoms to be washed away.
My country, tears of thee, sweet land of liberty.

            -Lawrence Ferlinghetti (founder of City Lights Bookstore in SF)

Busted Budgets

So far, Arizona state financial projections expect a $600 million shortfall this year. Last year the state legislature was forced to accept a 'mere' $600 million tax cut. One might be tempted to see a certain symmetry in those figures, but it's just a coincidence. The budget shortfalls that are likely to result from last years' irresponsible tax give-ways by the GOP (most of which, in classic GOP class warfare style, will go to the very wealthiest Arizonans, BTW) are likely to be much larger next year. That $600 million dollar tax cut is likely to cost us far more in terms of lost investments, interest payments on debt accrued to keep the state running, and the toll that the loss of necessary services will take on Arizonans' lives as budget cuts impact fundamental state services.

This is where conservatives who have voluntarily turned their brains off in service to the 'movement' will cite supply side, trickle-down, investment-driven, Laffer curve supported nonsense. There is no arguing people out of an irrational conviction that is contradicted by all available evidence, so I've just stopped bothering to try.

Governor Napolitano has done her best to deal with the fallout from the GOP's feckless budget busting tax give-away. She's proposed a combination of $100 million in agency spending cuts, $300 million in short-term debt, and $200 million taken from the $700 million in the state's 'rainy day' fund. Of course, it often seems to be the entire purpose of the GOP to be unreasonable and to criticize the Governor's proposals, and, unsurprisingly they demand that the entire amount come out of agency spending. Once you realize that about $8 billion of the state's roughly $10 billion dollar budget is statutorily off limits to the legislature's budget process, it is apparent that the GOP majority is proposing to cut $600 million from essentially a $2 billion dollar discretionary budget: that's more than a 25% cut to vital state services and investments.

That might scare the hell out of you, and it should, but it's nothing compared to next year. The GOP purposely back-loaded the income tax cuts it demanded last year so that it could claim political credit for cutting taxes without having to actually create a budget that pays for that loss of revenue: that unpleasantness was left for the future, and the future is now arriving. The cuts reduced state revenues by a bit less than 1.5% this year. That, combined with increasingly difficult times for states' revenue collection across the board, resulted in our current $600 million shortfall. It will be a challenge to bridge that gap this year while minimizing the harm to Arizona's residents while the GOP is in charge of the legislature, but the real fun begins next year.

Next year the GOP's income tax revenue reductions will reduce state revenues by at least 3%. The magnitude of the resulting shortfall in state revenue is anyone's guess, but it is likely to be significantly larger than this years', especially amid a falling dollar, rising interest rates, and the continuing across-the-board slide of state sales and corporate tax revenues.

GOP politicians like to tout themselves as fiscally responsible and business-like in their approach to government. Well, let's examine that premise. When confronted with a budget surplus (also known in the real world as 'profit') a corporate CEO and his Board has several choices. One popular option is to distribute that profit to shareholders in the form of dividends. That is a proper and prudent management decision.

But imagine a CEO and Board who say, "Well, we can expect this level of profit or more every year, so we'll go ahead and promise our shareholders not only this years' profit as dividends, but the expected profits for the next two years, and we'll guarantee those dividends no matter what our actual revenue actually is." The shareholders would revolt and throw the idiots out. That's not fiscally sound management of the enterprise, that's foolishness. Yet when the GOP legislature does this exact thing, they hail themselves as champions of the shareholders. Sure, the feckless, stupid and greedy shareholders love these guys, but investors who care about the future growth and viability of the enterprise are rightly disgusted by such chicanery.

This little example is exactly what the GOP legislature did last year. They parlayed one year's profit (surplus) into a multi-year agreement to distribute dividends (tax cuts) from future years without any guarantee those funds would actually be available without having to liquidate parts of the enterprise. In business, that would be considered stupid at best, outright fraud at worst; in todays' GOP politics, it's called "fiscal responsibility."

But what else can a corporation do with a profit? Another popular option, especially if you are a fast-growing company intent on gaining market share and investing in your company's future growth is to retain at least a portion of that profit to invest in the company. When a company is lagging significantly in important metrics behind its competitors it isn't even really open to judgment that one must reinvest profits in future growth and better serving your customers, rather than issuing dividends. A CEO and Board who failed to invest in future growth and competitiveness of their enterprise wouldn't last the year.

Yet even as Arizona finds itself to be the fastest growing state in the union, it's mediocre or bottom of the barrel in important metrics for sustaining future growth and quality of life. Management that starves the enterprise of investment to improve productivity and market leadership to serve the greed of a few shareholders and their own venal ambition, would soon preside over either a high-flying failure or, if prudent investors got their way, a lemonade stand outside their mother's house. In Arizona politics, we call them the Speaker of the House and Majority Leader of the Senate.

What kind of rational organization puts people in charge who are vocally and openly hostile to the success and future welfare of that organization? Imagine a CEO or Board issues a press release saying, "We intend to run this company, in which you shareholders have invested your savings, through which you employees support your families, and upon which our customers and partners rely, straight into the ground. We want to denigrate and destroy it so that we can wrestle it into a bathtub and drown it." They would be turfed out by the time it hit the wires. To those who consider themselves rational, prudent, common-sense conservatives, I say, "wake the hell up!" Your party is run by yahoos without a lick of sense, and they are going to ruin you. Take back your party.

Todays' GOP fails even the most fundamental measurements of wise and prudent business leadership. I can understand why people fall for their shtick. If you promise people something (a modern system of governance) for nothing (continually lowered taxes), you are going to have a lot of takers. Unfortunately, when they are through destroying your credit, the grown-up professionals who understand that there isn't any such thing as a free lunch have the thankless job of stepping in, picking-up the pieces, and informing people of the unpleasant and hard realities of life. Sometimes the job of being a Democrat is just no fun at all.

National Security Letters and You

One of the most egregious violations of our constitutional traditions in the so-called PATRIOT Act is the power of issuing National Security Letters given to the FBI. These letters allow the FBI to harvest massive amounts of private and confidential information without a warrant, judicial review, any means to challenge the demands' validity, or any independent oversight of the absurdly low evidentiary standard under which the letters issue. The recipient of such a letter is put under a perpetual gag order, except that now under an amendment to the Act a recipient may now consult a lawyer, but may not even tell Congress about the letter. Worse, the information collected has no expiration, even if it turns out to be useless to any investigation. Instead the information is warehoused in a giant database currently consisting of over 500 million records that over 10,000 federal employees have access to, and an untold number of state employees through joint terror task forces.

The FBI's own internal audits have found that there have massive abuses of the letters, failures in training, and that there is not a single instance when these powers have led to the arrest or prosecution of a single terror suspect. Instead these powers have been used in thousands of standard criminal investigations, especially drug cases. Regardless of the efficacy of such tactics, these extraordinary powers were not instituted to make the FBI's job easier when pursuing street criminals, but in an attempt to keep us safe from terrorist attack. Of course it would be easier for police forces everywhere to be able to simply dispense with the judicial oversight provided by the Fourth Amendment's warrant requirement, but soon thereafter this would no longer be a free society.

The following documentary, "FBI Unbound," tells the story of how these letters came to be, their legal significance, and their use and abuse. Bruce Fein, who is quickly becoming, along with Bob Barr and Ron Paul, one of my conservative heroes, also makes a compelling case that this power is irresponsible, unconstitutional, and violative of our deepest American values. Please watch; it's well worth the time.

PART 1:

PART 2:

Sniping from Petraeus' Skirts

I'm like a dog with a particularly nettlesome bone with this issue. I seem unable to move on...

Anyhow, the Resident has given me fresh energy to worry my bone. He made a scurrilous final question comment during yesterday's press conference claiming essentially that Democrats hate the military. He's not alone in saying such things, that damned lie is a constant and lamentable theme of right wing pundits, but he's the fucking President (as much as it burns my fingers to type it...) and there are just some things that are off-limits to the Commander in Chief, and claiming political ownership of the military for his party in such a nakedly partisan fashion is on that short list.

Well, I could rant and I could ratiocinate as to why what the Resident has done is cowardly, hypocritical, and dangerous to our democratic government, but I think someone else said it all very well already, as he so often does...

Strokes and Raps

This Stroke goes out to Rep. Gabby Giffords, my Congressperson.

Gabby fought for expansion of health care to children from families with low incomes through SCHIP. Americans United For Change recognized her stand on the issue and cut a radio ad supporting her because she has been targeted by the insurance industry as a result of her stand.

Here's the ad: Play Cover_Giffords_Approval.mp3

Gabby also did the right thing on a recent vote on ratcheting back the counterproductive embargo on Cuba. Rep. Rangel's amendment was defeated with a surprise showing of strength by the U.S.-Cuba Democracy PAC, but Gabby voted on the right side of the issue, proving she's ready to bring common sense and the power of trade back to our dysfunctional relationship with Cuba. Despite the fact that she was one of 22 freshmen Democrats who received donations from the U.S.-Cuba Democracy PAC, she was one of a mere handful of those Representatives that voted for Rangel's amendment and against the position of the PAC. Still, the measure was defeated and 17 of those freshmen Democrats did exactly what the PAC wanted. The system is clearly broken, but Gabby swam against the tide of special interest influence on this one.

Today's Rap is on Jon Kyl and John Shadegg, as well as Raul Grijalva and Gabby Giffords.

The recent kerfluffle over MoveOn.org's 'Betray Us' ad really made clear how full of shit some GOP politicians are, and how spineless some of our Democrats can be.

The Republicans declared war on MoveOn and demanded that Democrats repudiate the ad and return any MoveOn donations. These Republicans of delicate sensibility are full of crap because they really don't give a rat's ass about what might be said about General Petraeus, they are just looking for a way to bash Democrats, portray us as fringe and rude, and throw a wedge between elected Democrats and their base. And I can prove it. I don't hear any criticism of Admiral William Fallon, Petraeus' former CENTCOM commander, from the Republicans, despite Fallon calling Petraeus "an ass-kissing little chickenshit." They obviously don't care about slurs on the General's honor, they only care where they come from and what use they might be put to.

In this case, they were used to good effect because it scared some Democrats into making more or less spineless disavowals. Gabby, without even seeing the damn ad, she said it was improper, and that she disavowed it. Wow. Talk about folding before the cards are even on the table. Gabby, you need to keep your cool under fire better than this. When they are coming at you with a long knives, it is not considered a sound strategy to throw up your hands and scream, "Don't hurt me!" We expect you to stand up for Democrats' right to political expression, even if you don't agree with what we might say. You don't get to decide what is proper or improper. You are our Representative, not our mother.

By comparison to Giffords, Grijalva comes of as positively gutsy. In a phone interview from Washington, Grijalva said: "I think we should have stuck to the facts. I do not disagree with the fact that the general is carrying out the party line, but it took away from the debate." He added, "I'm not as offended by it as other people." He at least affirmed the underlying truth of the ad; that Petraeus is carrying the Administration's water, not looking out for what is best for American national security. Petraeus even admitted in his testimony that he had not actually considered whether Iraq is enhancing or harming our national security - which might just be a weasely way of saying he really believes it is harming us and just can't say so because of politics.

The bottom line is that there is no benefit to Democrats from bashing MoveOn or disavowing anything they do, and a considerable downside. MoveOn has raised millions for Democratic candidates and causes. Millions of Democrats are members of MoveOn. By acquiescing to Republican demands to drag MoveOn out back of the woodshed, Democratic officeholders are simply setting themselves up to look like money-grubbing hypocrites. If they denounce MoveOn, but then keep their money, and/or take more money from them in the future, they provide Republicans with a free and easy shot. If the Republicans succeed at so easily separating Democrats from a pipeline of grassroots cash, all the better. There is simply is no winning position once you've given in to the threat that you must throw your ally, MoveOn, under the bus for political crimes against the GOP's twisted and hypocritical notions of political honor. Consider the nefarious rat fucking they get up to, and then tell me if they really have the moral stature to come over all offended by a political ad?

No, Democrats need to stand up for each other and not allow GOP operatives to throw down challenges like this. Gabby, Grijalva and every Democrat who failed to take a stand and tell Republicans to get stuffed richly deserve a Rap.

Huge Upset in the Making in NH?

The Manchester, New Hampshire Republican Committee reports that their GOP straw poll resulted in an astounding win for Ron Paul with 66% of the vote. The next nearest competitor was Fred Thompson with just 10%!

This points to a possible upset in NH far more disruptive of the GOP status quo than McCain's 1999 upset victory over Bush. Indeed, the signs are pointing to a revolt among GOP voters on par with the Dean surge in 2003-4 that very nearly led to an upset in the 2004 Democratic nomination. Note the strange symmetry that both Howard Dean and Ron Paul are doctors with two first names... spooky!

It looks like the GOP is going to have to play some hardball to keep the nomination out of Libertarian hands. Expect to see even more efforts on the part of mainline candidates such as Thompson, Giuliani, Romney, and even Huckabee, to marginalize, demonize, and browbeat Dr. Paul and his supporters.

I gotta say, even though many Dems don't understand my support, that Ron Paul has my full support to be the GOP nominee. His message of peace in the heart of the war party is, by itself, a significant contribution to the American political discourse and world peace. He's forcing the GOP to include a critique of the security policies of the Bush era in its internal conversation, and to justify their anti-civil rights, pro-war, terrorism-baiting cant. That is far more powerful a positive influence on the GOP and Republican voters than anything any Democratic candidate can achieve.

The longer Dr. Paul can last and the more he can prove himself viable, the less likely it is that the general election will just be a pose off between candidates trying to prove "who's your daddy." Democrats tend not win such pissing matches, in case you hadn't noticed. Therefore, Dr. Paul is doing Democrats a tremendous favor by showing GOP primary voters that there is a thoughtful and responsible alternative to perpetual siege state his confederates seem intent on creating.

Drinking Liberally on KXCI

For the vast majority of you who likely missed it, here's a podcast of me on KXCI's '30 Minutes' talking with guest producer Elaine Schramm about Drinking Liberally. For those of you readers who haven't heard of Drinking Liberally or attended one of our parties, please visit the mother site or the local site.

Listen to KXCIMikeSept07.mp3

Leave Petraeus Alone!

Heh! This is a hoot. Some of you will be familiar with the media squall over an emo kid named Chris Crocker who bawled his eyes out on YouTube over the negative buzz on Britney's big come-back performance; for those of you who have a life, and haven't clue what I'm on about, click the Crocker link - you will quickly be sucked down a very silly media hole.

Crocker's performance begs to be parodied, and, indeed a number of parodies of Crocker's absurd tantrum have emerged among the more net-saavy entertainers. One of them is the following romp with an ersatz Bush pewlingly defending the clunker performance of his BFF, General David Petraeus:

via videosift.com

My Party

Republicans Whine Conspicuously

Link: Republicans introduce measure condemning MoveOn ad.

Oh please... General Petraeus or General Betray Us? Offensive? Probably to some. Juvenile? A bit. Outside the bounds of political debate? Not in a free country.

Who do these Republicans think they are, some kind of tender-witted political Pollyannas? These are the assholes who made 'Swiftboating' a verb. Now they whine about a little rough and tumble with their pet General. Give me a fucking break. I bet the General thinks their ninnyish defense of his honor is sickening. If ever there was a guy who can take care of himself in a fight...

Oh, I know the drill. Evil MoveOn.org is calling the General a traitor! No, they did not. That is the sort of lie that the Right is getting rather too adept at. Moveon points out, rightly, that the General is betraying his duty to tell the whole unvarnished truth to the American people by slanting his testimony toward the political agenda of the White House. That's a betrayal of his oath and his duty to this country and to his soliders. It doesn't make him a traitor, it makes him a political hack and tool, which is something he does not have the luxury of being while he wears an American uniform.

MoveOn.org's critique is not baseless political posturing. They were extremely careful to carefully document and support their contention that the General has betrayed his duty.

I will say that the GOP knows how to make hay out of any genuine political opposition to their goals in order to whip their partisans into a fine lather. The propaganda machine is cranking and the talking points are hot off the fax machines and email lists. Anyone who dares support or agree with MoveOn.org's critique is to be tarred and feathered and labeled some sort of Macarthyite (though, given that many conservative apparently revere the man, I don't understand where they get off using him as a political bete noir, as well...). Democrats are being asked to condemn MoveOn.org's ad. If a single one does, they lose my support and respect. I have little doubt that some of those useless pussies in Congress will do exactly what they are told rather than showing any spirit or spine.

Well, I agree with MoveOn.org. And to those conservatives who want to make some trouble over that considered and patriotic expression of my disappointment at the politicization of our officer corps, specifically, the craven toadying of General Petraeus, I quote three words of wisdom from your crypto-leader, Dick Cheney, that I think are perfectly appropriate to the occasion...

Impeachment, Not Just for Kids Anymore...

So you think impeaching Bush and Cheney is a waste of time? That it would provoke a backlash, as did the impeachment of Clinton? Do you really think those are equivalent? Really? Sometimes something has to be done simply because it is the right thing to do. Impeaching the tyrants inhabiting our White House is the right thing to do, for our posterity, for history, for preserving our Republic. But more than any of that - which I know won't hold much water with modern politicians who are only concerned with the next election - it is strongly supported by voters, especially Democratic voters.

What do we gain through impeachment given the 'short time' Bush has left in office? How about 500 days in which Bush and Cheney cannot launch another disastrous war, or veto more good legislation that our people need, or nominate more federal judges, or Supreme Court Justices? How about a constrained and chastened Executive who will stay within the bounds of the Constitution, and a Congress reestablished as the rightful repository of ultimate sovereign authority? How about a future free of a doctrine of Unitary Executive power that claims the right to snatch you off the street, deport you, torture you and kill you without any check or oversight or opportunity to challenge your persecution? Talk about needing a government of angels, not men... I think a few folks think that these things might be worth the candle of impeachment, and that we should light that bad-boy right away.

Here's a real gob smacker for you: almost 90% of respondents support impeachment in a recent MSNBC non-scientific poll. That's a lot of pissed off people, even if it is not a scientific poll.

So maybe the poll is being pushed more strongly by Democratic sites than Republican ones. Maybe people who feel betrayed and powerless are more likely to use such a poll to express their outrage. But 90% of more than a half a million respondents is hard to argue with.

But if you insist, then OK. Let's look at some scientific polling, Mr. Skeptic. Let's keep one thing in mind when looking at these polls. No specific article of impeachment is on the table yet. No investigations or hearings of an impeachment inquiry have been televised. No top level political appointee from the White House has been forced to testify under oath. In other words, all the American people have to judge this President's actions by is open press sources. How many more might decide it's time for the Administration to go when they learn the dirty secrets still hidden by "executive privilege" and find out what Cheney is hiding in his man-sized safe?

ARG's poll in July indicated that  Americans are already split as to the immediate impeachment of Bush. The county is divided in half. I think I'll take those odds even if I'm a sniveling politician, considering I've got truth a subpoenas on my side. Even better if I'm a sniveling Democratic politician, almost 70% of my base are with me, as well as a clear plurality of Independents. Hell, I could probably win election on this issue alone.

And the numbers only get better if you put Cheney in the sights first: then 54% of respondents want you to pull the trigger. Heck, nearly one in five Republicans want Cheney impeached. How much ass coverage does a Democrat need? These are not one-time anomalous results. Over and over, multiple polls over time are getting similar results. The American people are ready - nay, demanding that our Congressional servants defend our Republic from the criminals who inhabit the White House.

It is time for the tyranny to end, and short of the people rising and exercising their ancient right expressed in the Declaration of Independence to "alter or abolish" such tyranny, the only power under our Constitution that can protect the people from tyrants in the White House is Congress wielding the power of impeachment. Impeachment is the sword of liberty and the Congress should not be halting in using it to defend Americans' liberties.

To any members of Congress in a position to buck our leadership's pusillanimous unilateral constitutional disarmament who may read this, I have a great book that I would like to share with you. It is John Nichols' "The Genius of Impeachment: The Founders' Cure for Royalism," and I have a free copy waiting just for you. Call me, and I'll gladly give you a copy I've reserved just for you. Hell, if you want, I'll come over and read the damned thing to you myself...

Pearce and Bee Demonstrate Democratic Process 101

Russel Pearce is challenging Jeff Flake for the the Republican nomination in Arizona's 6th District. He outlines in detail on his website how much he intends to raise and what he's going to do with it. He's practically a model of candor and transparency.

"Our first goal is to raise $25,000 to pay for critical research and polling so that we can be sure that this race is winnable. If we determine that it is, then we can formally begin a campaign to take back this district for the people of Arizona, and perhaps inspire a movement to take back America one state at a time.

Let me know how you can help and please, if you are able, make a contribution. As soon as we raise the $25,000 we will do our work and report directly back to you what we have found."

That is a stark contrast with Tim Bee's campaign website which literally tells you nothing. Figuratively, however, Tim's website speaks volumes. It says, "I don't have to tell you anything, because I don't have to care what you think." It says, "The voters haven't any choice but to accept it when I stone-wall and obfuscate my intentions, because the Republican primary voters of CD8 haven't any choice but me."

Tim has had the Republican primary cleared for him by the political bagmen of the GOP in Southern Arizona. An attendee at the meeting at which the nomination effectively took place told me that the cabal of big donors sat down all the potential candidates for the GOP nomination to CD8 and told them flat-out they were not to run: the nomination belonged to Tim Bee. So far, their writ has run, and there are no other GOP challengers for CD8.

Whereas Pearce knows he has to answer to the primary voters to survive, Tim Bee knows the primary voters in his district aren't going to get a choice. Thus, he can keep them in dark, treat them with contempt, and get away with it.

This is what happens when politicians get to choose their constituents and are able control access to the political process. The voters are treated like mushrooms: kept in the dark and fed bullshit.

It is heartening that Tim Bee finally did the right thing by allegedly filing as an exploratory committee with the FEC (though as of this writing I still do not find any filing, it sometimes takes awhile for materials to come on-line), it is only a small first step. If Tim plans on raising funds for his challenge of Gabby, as opposed to funds required solely for judging whether he should run, then he is no longer exploring and must file as a candidate and, if that occurs before January 2008, resign his seat in the Arizona Senate.

I suspect, however, that Bee will continue gaming the campaign finance rules to perpetuate his use of the high-profile political position he is entrusted with to his own political advantage. Since the normal rules of political competition don't apply to him, by fiat of the plutocratic poobahs of the GOP, why should any other rules apply?

ACLUtv Screening

Freedom of speech is a given in America, right? Not if you're Muslim hip-hop poet Amir Sulaiman, who spoke his mind on national television, and then found the FBI on his doorstep. Or groups of protesters at the Democratic and Republican national conventions who were relegated to "free speech" zones far from the politicians with whom they disagreed.

This episode of The ACLU Freedom Files tells the stories of everyday Americans who were exercising their right to free speech and dissent, only to be harassed or arrested.

SEE THE TRAILER AT
     http://www.aclu.tv/episodes/dissent

"Dissent" will be shown by the ACLU-AZ S Arizona Chapter at:
Mission Branch Library
      3770 S Mission Rd, Tucson
      Saturday September 8 at 2pm
Everyone is welcome!

Nuclear Power: Global Warming Savior or False Hope?

There is a good deal of controversy in the environmental movement regarding how to continue generating energy to maintain our economic well-being while cutting or eliminating the energy industry's heavy carbon footprint (roughly 40% of carbon emissions are related to energy generation). There are some in the environmental movement, not to mention those in the nuclear industry, who point to nuclear power as a way to reduce carbon emission from the energy sector.

It is true that nuclear generation of electricity itself is not a significant source of carbon emissions, but there are serious economic feasibility, safety, and environmental issues, in addition to carbon emissions associated with the entire life-cycles of nuclear fuels and generation plants.

Southern Arizona is blessed with a number of experts on the industry and its environmental impacts. MyCommentary, records the viewpoints of local activists and concerned citizens. The project brings us the video commentaries of two local nuclear activists, Russell Lowes, and Jack Cohen-Joppa. I share those commentaries with you here:

Commentary by Mr. Cohen-Joppa

Commentary by Mr. Lowes

In addition, the local public affairs program, Political Perspectives with Cynthia Dickstein, covered the nuclear issue recently with Jack Cohen-Joppa and Russell Lowes as her guests. They were joined by Arizona environmental justice advocate Steve Brittle for a panel discussion that constitutes an excellent primer on this topic.

More after the click...

Guest Commentary by Karl Reiner: The World’s Richest Man Is a Symptom of Mexico’s Shortcomings

A number of business publications recently carried reports regarding Carlos Slim. With a fortune estimated at $60 billion, the Mexican businessman has become the world’s richest man.  Slim replaced Bill Gates of the United States who held the top spot for a number of years.  According to the reports, Slim’s family business holdings in Mexico account for an astounding 5 percent of the country’s gross domestic product.  The companies controlled by Slim have a massive impact on the Mexican economy.  They comprise 35 percent of the value of the Mexican stock market.  Slim holds a dominant position in the telecommunications industry and is a major player in the automotive, retailing, and banking sectors.

The Mexican government has followed an imprudent policy of opening some markets to privatization and limited competition, while at the same time doing little to regulate them.  Slim and other shrewd business operators have taken advantage of the situation and have become billionaires in the process. One of the sad consequences of this policy has been the stifling of competitiveness and innovation in the Mexican economy. The government has allowed a colossal concentration of economic power to develop in a country desperately in need of real competition and the new investment needed to spur economic growth.  According to Mexico’s Finance Ministry, the country has recorded an atrocious zero percent increase in productivity during the last 25 years. 

Mexico could be said to be on the road to becoming a plutocracy - a government of, by and for the rich.   As economic power concentrates and the economy languishes, the 7 percent annual economic growth rate needed to improve education, create jobs and trim down the country’s staggering poverty level has become unachievable.  Those unfortunate enough to be caught at the stagnant bottom end of Mexico’s economic spectrum have little choice but to trek north, to search for work on the U.S. side of the border. 

Carlos Slim can’t be faulted for taking advantage of the irresolute regulatory situation prevailing in Mexico.  With his business acumen, he would have also found success in a more structured commercial environment. His triumph does, however, highlight the need for the Mexican government to make the changes needed to foster true competition, implement the rule of law, attract investment and deter corruption. Given the power of the entrenched interests with a stake in maintaining the status quo, it is going to be a difficult process. The reformers in Mexico are going to need all the outside support they can get. With the immigration situation the U.S. faces as a consequence of Mexico’s flagging economy, it is high time we acted.  President Bush didn’t press the matter in talks with Mexican President Calderon at the Summit of the Americas meeting held on August 20-21 in Quebec.  Being the former governor of a border state, one would have assumed he would have been willing to put a great deal more emphasis on the subject.

What would have been the result if Congress decided 15 years ago that national security considerations required our government to support Mexico in getting its sputtering economy up to snuff?  What would the relationship be like today?  There probably would not be a crisis on the Arizona-Mexico border and a large number of additional jobs would have been created in Arizona as a consequence of the growing Mexican market.  The fact that the problem has been ignored in the past by lawmakers, doesn’t excuse continued inaction.  Arizona’s congressional delegation needs to take a stand and start pushing the subject in Washington.  The issue can’t continue to be ignored because it affects Arizona’s security and long-term economic welfare.

If Mexico’s south, which is economically lagging and hemorrhaging people, got into a development mode, things would be a lot better on both sides of the border.  If we adjusted our policies to support the effort, the North American Free Trade Agreement could actually turn out to be a remarkable arrangement between three countries (Canada, the United States and Mexico) with similar standards of living.  Our total merchandise trade (exports & imports) with Mexico totaled $332.3 billion in 2006, continuing the upward trend of the past several years.  Our support of economic reform in Mexico would guarantee the upward trend will continue.

Karl Reiner is a friend of this site and an active voice for a fact-based approach to the issue of immigration from Mexico. He asked me to post this commentary here on BlogForArizona.com. This blog published previous articles by Karl on the failure of the immigration bill considered by Congress this year and the economic underpinnings of Mexican immigration, as well as the transcript of an erudite lecture Karl gave on that subject.

Karl managed international trade and economic policy analysis at the U.S. Department of Commerce in Washington, DC. He served as an acting deputy assistant secretary during the first Bush and Clinton administrations. A Vietnam veteran, he is a graduate of the Ohio State University and holds a MS degree from the Garvin School of International Management. After retiring from government service in 1994, he did consulting and authored a novel, "Sgt. Bellnapp’s Secret", published in 2001, and a collection of historical essays, "Remembering Fairfax County, Virginia," last year.

 

Guest Action by Steve Brittle: Hayden and the Superfund

Hayden, Arizona is a small company town with one industry – the ASARCO copper smelter. This is one of the nation’s top polluters. ASARCO has admitted in public reports its releases into Hayden’s air of thousands of tons of arsenic, lead, barium, copper, zinc, and sulfuric acid over the years. It is now proposed that Hayden be declared an EPA Superfund site, but the company, and elements of the town and county government, are determined to resist.

ASARCO has left a trail of environmental contamination with over $1 billion in environmental cleanup liability around the country. When faced with the costs of these cleanups, the company instead filed for bankruptcy.

Governor Napolitano has to concur with the decision to list Hayden as a Superfund site and will decide by September 20th. But given the actions of ADEQ, obviously intended to sell out the community, she needs to hear from everyone that she should concur with the EPA’s proposal to designate the area a Superfund site. The people of Hayden need everyone’s help to prevent them from their continuing toxic nightmare.

Please contact Governor Janet Napolitano by mail, phone, and/or fax, and urge her to concur with the EPA’s proposal to list the town of Hayden as a Superfund site.

Janet Napolitano, Governor of Arizona
1700 West Washington
Phoenix, Arizona 85007
Telephone (602) 542-4331
Toll Free 1-(800) 253-0883
Fax (602) 542-1381

More about the story of ASARCO's history in Hayden and the effort to clean up ASARCO's mess after the click...

Can Tim Bee Amass a Campaign War Chest Without Declaring His Candidacy?

Tim Bee is being very cagey and playing a delicate game by refusing to resign his Arizona Senate seat even as he admittedly raises significant funding for a race against Gabby Giffords for Arizona's CD8 Congressional seat. Bee is arguably on safe legal ground under state law, but the office he seeks is governed by federal law, which isn't as forgiving.

Arizona has a resign to run constitutional clause that requires declared candidates to resign their state office if they are not in the last year of their term. Tim Bee won't be in his last year until January, so he can't officially declare until then without resigning his seat in the Arizona Senate.

An important question becomes "what makes a declared candidate under Arizona law?" The answer to that seems clearly to be that you have to actually say you are a candidate, or file nomination papers with the state, according an Attorney General opinion from Grant Woods' term. So, under state law, Bee might be within the law no matter how much money he raises, as long as he doesn't declare or file.

But Bee is running for a federal office and therefore also has to comply with federal campaign finance law and Federal Election Commission regulations. The rules as to when he becomes an official candidate are not the exclusive province of Arizona law. In fact, Arizona law specifically defines a candidate for the purposes of election law as a person who is running for a non-federal office. So, what does federal law say when it comes to when a candidate is "declared"?

The Federal Election Campaign Act also deals with the issue of when a candidate becomes "declared" and thus subject to filing requirements. Under the Act, a federal candidate may "test the waters", as Fred Thompson is currently doing in his Presidential bid, for a limited time to gauge support for one's candidacy without the trouble of filing federal financial disclosures. The purpose is that if the potential candidate decides against running, he never has to bother filing the funds donated to and expended by his campaign committee; the federal government doesn't care, because that potential candidate never became a candidate. Clearly, this exception to financial disclosure is ripe for abuse by a candidate who fully intends to run, but who wants to dwell in the "testing the waters" limbo to keep his finances under wraps for as long as possible. 

The federal law doesn't just have a bright-line rule like Arizona's law, so it is harder to game the system. Where under Arizona law a "declared" candidate may be one who has announced or filed papers, the federal law looks objectively at what a potential candidate does to determine if "testing the waters" has ended and the candidate has declared.

Some of the activities that will move a candidate from an exploration of candidacy to "declared" candidate include:

• Raises funds in excess of amounts reasonably required for exploratory activity or amasses funds to be used after candidacy is established;
• Conducts activities over a protracted period of time or shortly before the election;
• Uses public political advertising to publicize his or her intention to campaign;
• Makes or authorizes statements that refer to him or her as a candidate; or
• Seeks ballot access.

Actual filing of candidacy papers is but one measure of a declared candidate under the federal rules. Much more important is the potential candidate's financial behavior. If Bee is raising significant funds, or if he is raising funds that are clearly for purpose of building a war chest for an electoral contest, not to help him "test the waters", then he is a candidate under federal law no matter what he might say publicly.

Tim Bee has not filed committee formation papers with the FEC, nor yet made any financial disclosures with either the FEC or the IRS that I have been able to find, so we don't know how much he has raised, or what he has spent it on. I am willing to assume that Bee is in the exploratory phase of his candidacy, and that certainly seems consistent with his public statements that he is exploring the support for his potential candidacy. But Federal law only allows him to raise a limited amount of money to enable him to pay for activities reasonably related to that purpose, such as polling, hiring some consultants, traveling to meet potential supporters and donors, etc.

As the FEC complaint against Fred Thompson for abusing the "testing the waters" phase illustrates, the law does recognize some limits on how long one can remain in the "testing the waters" phase, on what you can do, say, and spend money on, and on how much you can raise before having to file.

The federal threshold at which a federal candidate must generally begin to file disclosures and become an official "declared" candidate under federal law (as opposed to the very pro-forma Arizona requirements) is raising over $5,000 dollars. The reason for this is obvious. Above that arbitrary limit it becomes increasingly likely that, if a candidate is not subject to disclosure, he will violate the spirit of the "testing the waters" exception, despite whatever he may say publicly.

Thompson's case illustrates that even when one raises significant money (in Thompson's case, IRS filings indicate that he has raised substantially more than $3 million), one does not automatically become a candidate, but the complaint against him illustrates that he is probably bending the rules considerably by not filing with the FEC like a "declared" candidate at this point. And Thompson's announced intention to declare formally this week is a good indication that the FEC complaint wasn't wide of the mark; Thompson was almost certainly violating FEC rules.

Sources within the Arizona GOP assure me that Bee has already far exceeded the $5,000 threshold of FEC rules. Given that he is expected to need at least $1 million for a credible challenge, that seems quite reasonable. So, can Bee amass a significant war chest for a run while in the "testing the waters" phase under federal campaign finance law? And if Bee is forced to file disclosure with the FEC and the IRS, ending his "testing the waters" phase, can he still remain an undeclared candidate under state law for the purposes of the constitutional resign to run clause?

I don't know if there is a definitive answer to these questions. The legal structure of our electoral system has many gaps and seams such as this one. The reason is that often the limits of the legally acceptable haven't yet been explored by a sufficiently devious and motivated candidate. It is only when candidates push the law in an attempt to game the system and exploit its gaps for their own partisan gain that the limits of the law become apparent.

In this case, Bee is clearly trying to steal a march by remaining in a very influential office while running for office yet remain free of financial disclosures as he builds his war chest. He is trying to have his cake and eat it, too. Bee wants to have it both ways, and while it looks like Arizona law may be inadequate to stop him, the federal office he seeks imposes a federal set of rules that he'll be hard-pressed to side-step.

If Bee continues to stockpile funds for his bid for Congress while holding an Arizona office outside our constitutional bounds, an FEC complaint should be filed against him for abusing the "testing the waters" phase in an attempt to avoid becoming a "declared" federal candidate.