Blog For Arizona

The Face of the Arizona GOP

Posted by AzBlueMeanie:

RNC National Committeeman, Bruce Ash (right), also appears on the Arizona Illustrated segment "Face Off," currently with Paul Eckerstrom, former Pima County Democratic Party Chair. Bruce will try to appear reasonable and rational as he recites the GOP talking points of the day to host Bill Buckmaster. Snooze.

The real Bruce Ash, the unhinged nut who does his one minute commentaries on the John C. Scott radio show, who has his own vanity web site at Ash for Arizona, and who usually leaves his angry rants at Tedski's R-Cubed blog, has graced our readers today with some insight into the hatred that consumes his soul in a blog comment. This is the face of the Arizona GOP.

Here is Ash's comment:

Comments

Bruce Ash said...

Are there any democrat events of note for Rhonda or anyone else to even report on????????

Like perhaps the hot contest for the democrat governor's primary ......Oh shoot......I forgot.........the lefties annointed Sam Goddard Jr. So I suppose nothing happening there to report on.

Hmmm......let's see US Senate..... ummmm.... wrong again ........ isn't everybody supporting Rodney ( I like turtles ) Glassman? Oh , I forgot you guys have effectively conceded that race to the GOP if you go with Glassman ( whoever gets the GOP nomination that election otta be a blow out ).

Any HOT debates for closely watched dem primaries .......like the big one for Treasurer? For AG? Some real humdingers there I'd say. With your electrifying slate a debate should be "a happening" as we used to say in the 60's

Oh.... Oh now I have the event.......... a healthcare town hall. No , forgot that one has been done before also . All of the Congress Lady's shills showed up with their bleeding heart stories about needing the PUBLIC OPTION. No one else in the community was buying that either. Public support for ObamaCare about 40% and dropping like an anchor.

The lefties could have a great event though ........ let me give you the set up ........... the ANTI Obama Rally. Because as scared as the POTUS makes all of the rest of America you guys of the left actually don't think he's gone left enough. Guys like you and others of similar ilk would come out in droves. Maybe put me on as a PR consultant for the democrat party. What do 'ya think?

That ought to get The Star, The Explorer and the weakly out in force.

How does it feel to be a lefty democrat in 2010? I'll give you a hint it must suck as much as it did to be a Republican in 2007 and 2009. The shoe's on the other foot now pal. Let's see how that hope and change works out for 'ya. Pay back's a bitch.

 February 28, 2010 at 10:13 AM

Way to stay classy Bruce. Readers may want to call KUAT and ask Bill Buckmaster why he invites someone as unhinged as this to appear on the usually staid Arizona Illustrated.

I am curious -- of all the posts I have written here, this is the one that gets Bruce's panties in a twist? Do you think maybe I hit a nerve about the relationship between the Arizona Daily Star and the Arizona GOP? Is he upset that I credited Scarpinato with something that maybe he did? Curious.

Oh, and it still sucks to be a Republican, Bruce -- because they have guys like you.

"49th in state-funded financial aid"

by David Safier

The bottom doesn't belong to Arizona's spending on K-12 education alone. According to a Star article about growing university tuition costs, we're at the bottom in the amount the state kicks in for financial aid to university students as well. That means students who pay full tuition subsidize those who pay less.

The regents require 17 percent of tuition and fees to be set aside for need-based financial aid.

The UA goes beyond that amount to fund some merit-based aid.

And that, of course, helps drive tuition up.

But tuition redistribution isn't the prime mover behind the increases.

The Legislature has cut UA's appropriation by about 25 percent, or about $100 million in two years.

These days, it always circles back to our Republican-majority legislature.

The Arizona constitution says university instruction should be "as nearly free as possible." But the terms "nearly free" and "as possible" leave a lot of wiggle room.

[T]he Arizona Supreme Court's interpretation of "as nearly free as possible" is that resident tuition shall be neither "excessive nor unreasonable."

I have nothing against high university tuition if it's balanced out with generous financial aid -- kind of a "progressive tuition," comparable to progressive taxation. That being said, I went to U.C. Riverside for almost nothing, and that's my ideal for public education. But if we need to raise tuition, cost should not stop qualified students from attending. Education is the greatest social mobility tool there is, and keeping promising, low income students out of universities denies them the opportunity to better themselves and denies the rest of us the social and economic benefit of their intellectual gifts.

Where in the World is Rhonda?

Posted by AzBlueMeanie:

Rhonda Bodfield writes the "Political Notebook" (i.e., gossip column) for the Arizona Daily Star. She took over the Political Notebook and its gossip column format from Republican embedded reporter Daniel Scarpinato who now works for Jonathan Paton's campaign - what a surprise - not!

I know that the format of the Political Notebook is imposed by the editors of the Daily Star. Daniel Scarpinato revealed as much in an e-mail that many of us have seen. Scarpinato's reporting on Republicans and their political events was understandable given that he was the embedded Republican reporter at the Daily Star after all.

But Rhonda, you're a real journalist. You have won awards for your reporting. You teach journalism. And I know that you know Democrats. You even worked for Democrat Patty Weiss when she ran for Congress in 2006.

So when I read the Political Notebook and all the news is about Republicans and Republican events (the personal interest story last week about Jonathan Paton and his gourmet doggy bag from ex-felon Fife Symington was clearly spoon-fed to you from Scarpinato), it's as if Scarpinato is still writing his lame gossip column.

NBC's Today show does a series called Where in the World is Matt Lauer? Today we are going to launch a feature for our readers called "Where in the World is Rhonda?" The Arizona Daily Star is Tucson's only daily newspaper. You're all we've got Rhonda. Do you think we post the Political Calendar here for our own amusement? It is to let the political reporters in this town, especially you Rhonda, know where you can go to report on actual political news instead of silly gossip. What a novel idea.

Blog for Arizona wants its readers to report on which political reporters, if any, show up to report on your political events. Let us know who is doing their job.

It may be a little like George W. Bush searching for WMD's in his comedy skit for the 2004 Radio and Television Correspondents Association Dinner. As David Corn of The Nation reported:

"[A]t one point, Bush showed a photo of himself looking for something out a window in the Oval Office, and he said, "Those weapons of mass destruction have got to be somewhere."

The audience laughed... But that wasn't the end of it. After a few more slides, there was a shot of Bush looking under furniture in the Oval Office. "Nope," he said. "No weapons over there." More laughter. Then another picture of Bush searching in his office: "Maybe under here." Laughter again."

Yep, media villagers and Beltway bloviators making their profession proud (sarcasm). And you wonder how this country got into the mess it is in - corporate media.

NB: Send news of your events to Rhonda at rbodfield@azstarnet.com. Good luck.

For the record, the only local political reporter I have observed at any Democratic candidate or party event is Jim Becker - KOLD News 13. Kudos to Jim for making the effort.  Keep up the good work.

H/T for photo to Arizona Newspapers Association

UPDATE: Greg Patterson, the conservative hack who writes the Espresso Pundit blog, took exception to this post. Arizona's Own Espresso Pundit: "Teacher! Daniel Stole My Lunch Money." In Greg's fantasy world, he spins this post to be about Rep. Gabriel Giffords and "Team Gabby," even though there is no reference to Giffords. The man needs a reading comprehension course. I rarely write about Rep. Giffords, that's Dave's thing. The complaint above is about the lack of news reporting in the Arizona Daily Star about Democratic candidates and local campaign events in general - you know, the kind of thing local newspapers are supposed to report to inform their readers - and the godawful "Political Notebook" gossip column specifically. Even Bruce Ash got it.

Stimulating Hypocrisy

Posted by AzBlueMeanie:

I still think they should change the party symbol to a hippo named "Crit."

The McMedia infatuation with John McCain

Posted by AzBlueMeanie:

Presidential candidates defeated in a landslide are rarely heard from again. They are usually mocked and ridiculed for their humiliating loss by a media which takes pleasure in doing so and often claims credit for their defeat. Not so John McCain.

The McMedia loves John McCain. They are his political base. One would never know that McCain suffered the worst ppresidential landslide defeat at the hands of a Democrat since Lyndon Johnson beat the last conservative crank from Arizona, Barry Goldwater. It's almost as if the media collectively said "never mind," and continued its infatuation with John McCain. Daily Kos: If it's Sunday, it's McCain Day:

Republicans don't like John McCain, and Democrats certainly don't. But don't worry, the DC Beltway media just can't quit him. Just watch Meet The Press, announcing its Sunday guest:

This Sunday: Exclusive! Sen. John McCain (R-AZ)

Exclusive! Wow!

Benen:

I especially enjoyed the "Exclusive!" with the exclamation point, as if this were a rare, special occurrence -- instead of McCain's fourth "MTP" interview since March.

For those keeping score, this will be McCain's 20th appearance on a Sunday morning talk show since Obama's inauguration. That's an average of 1.5 appearances a month, every month, for over a year -- more than any other public official in the country.

Since the president's took office, McCain has been on ABC's "This Week" three times (9.27.09, 8.23.09, and 5.10.09), "Fox News Sunday" four times (12.20.09, 7.2.09, 3.8.09, and 1.25.09), CNN's "State of the Union" four times (1.10.10, 10.11.09, 8.2.09, and 2.15.09), and CBS's "Face the Nation" five times (1.24.10, 10.25.09, 8.30.09, 4.26.09, and 2.8.09). His appearance on "Meet the Press" this weekend will be his fourth since Obama's inauguration (2.28.10, 12.6.09, 7.12.09, and 3.29.09).

Quite the schedule for a backbencher with no power base within the party, a loser whose re-election to the Senate -- heck, survival in his own primary! -- is in serious jeopardy.

When I was on Meet the Press in December, David Gregory asked me what he could do to make the show better. I said, "stop having John McCain on". He and his producers nodded, seemingly acknowledging the ridiculousness of McCain's incessant appearances.

And yet there he is again. They really just can't quit him.

Political Calendar: Week of February 28, 2010

Posted by AzBlueMeanie:

The Political Calendar is posted on Sundays. Please send us notice of your political events prior to the Sunday before your event (7 days would be most helpful). See the calendar icon in the right-hand column of the blog page for easy access to the calendar.

USA v. Canada for the hockey gold medal this afternoon. Go team USA!

Political Calendar For The Week of February 28, 2010

Sundays, 6:00 p.m.: Drinking Liberally, at The Shanty, 401 E. 9th Street (at 4th Avenue). An informal, inclusive progressive social group, and lively discussion.

Monday, March 1, Noon: Democrats of Greater Tucson luncheon, Dragon's View Restaurant (400 N. Bonita, south of St. Mary's Road between the Freeway and Grande Avenue, turn south at Furr's Cafeteria), buffet lunch costs $8.50. Featured speaker this week is Jonathan Peck, Executive Director of the Tucson Urban League.

Monday, March 1, 6:30 p.m.: Pima County Democratic Party Executive Committee meeting.

Tuesday, March 2, 6:30 p.m.: Pima County Democratic Party African-American Caucus meeting, at the Pima County Democratic Party headquarters (4639 E. 1st Street, one block south of Speedway Boulevard, west of Swan Road). Featured speaker is Rep. Cloves Campbell, Jr. (LD 16) and interim chair of the Arizona Democratic Party African-American Caucus. For More information please contact Cheryl Rodgers at (520) 326-3716.

Wednesday, March 3, 7:00 p.m.: Legislative District 28 meeting, at the Pima County Democratic Party headquarters (4639 E. 1st Street, one block south of Speedway Boulevard, west of Swan Road). Featured speakers are Vince Rabago, candidate for Arizona Attorney General, and Mara Mackinnon, field organizer for the Baja Arizona Democratic Coalition. For more information contact Wood Sanders at LD28chair@gmail.com.

Wednesday, March 3, 6:30 p.m.: Northwest Democrats, at the Thunder Canyon Brewery (upstairs level) at the Foothills Mall, 7040 N. La Cholla Boulevard. Featured speaker is Jason Williams, candidate for superintendent of Public Instruction. For more information contact Rod McLeod (520) 297-0095 or Marty Drozdoff (520) 742-1019.

Thursday, March 4, 7:00 p.m.: An Evening With Rodney Glassman, at the historic El Casino Ballroom, 437 E. 26th Street, Tucson. Admission is a $20 contribution to Rodney Glassman for U.S. Senate exploratory committee. Chances to win raffle prizes. Pay online at: http://my.rodneyglassman.com/robinsonsarah to get 2 extra raffle tickets. Please RSVP to Sarah Robinson at (520) 358-8565 and pay at the door with an RSVP.

Saturday, March 6, 9:00 a.m.: Coolidge Cotton Days, at Coolidge Park, 320 W. Central Avenue (Coolidge). The Pinal County Democratic Party will be tabling voter registration and PEVL. For more information please contact Barbara Njos at (520) 868-0072.

Saturday, March 6, 10:00 a.m.: Legislative District 30 meeting, at the George Miller/Golf Links Library, 9640 E. Golf Links Road (Tucson). Neighborhood canvas following meeting. For more information please contact Suzanne Newton at (20) 733-0627 or aznewton4@aol.com.

Saturday, March 6, 10:00 a.m.: Coconino County Democratic Party quarterly meeting, at the Federated Community Church, 400 W. Aspen Avenue - at corner of Sitgreaves (Flagstaff). All Democratic candidates are invited to attend for a $50 table fee. Please make your table reservation to 928-214-0393 or nicolec@ccdem.org. State and County candidate petition signing. Enjoy some delicious food by Archuleta's Catering, orders now being taken, call 214-0393. Also a Tamale Sale.

Saturday, March 6, 11:30 a.m.: Book Release Party with the Grijalvas and the Glassmans, at the Loft Cinema, 3233 E. Speedway Boulevard (Tucson). Congratulations to Tucson Vice Mayor Rodney Glassman and his wife, Sasha Glassman, on the release of their first children’s book, Jeremy Jackrabbit Harvests the Rain! This whimsical children’s book on rainwater harvesting was written by the Glassmans and illustrated by over 50 children in the Pima County Public Library system. Congressman Raúl Grijalva and his wife, Mona Grijalva, will hold a reading of Jeremy Jackrabbitat the Loft Cinema with the illustrations projected behind them on the main screen! Copies of the book will be available at the event, with proceeds benefiting the Pima Library Foundation and their upcoming water harvesting project at the Wilmot-Murphy Ward 2 Library. The book is also for sale at a variety of locations including Bookmans, the Audobon Society, and Patio Pools. For more information, please call Katie Maass at (520) 791-4687 or e-mail katie.maass@tucsonaz.gov.

Sunday, March 7, 2:00 p.m.: "Fireside Chat" Fundraiser for Andrea Dalessandro, candidate for LD 30 House, in the "Little Theatre" at Buena High School, E. Buena School Boulevard - from Charleston Road (Sierra Vista). As an added attraction,FDR's granddaughter, Nina Roosevelt Gibson, Chair of Andrea's committee, will offer her comments about her grandparents' lives and answer questions. Tickets are $20. Please pay secure online at www.ANDREAforAZ.NET or make checks payable to "Andrea for AZ" and mail to P.O. Box 945, Green Valley, AZ 85622-094. For more information call Andrea Delassandro at (520) 648-2092.

Special Announcements:

Legislative District 29 2nd Annual Wine and Cheese Party

Saturday, March 13, 4:00 p.m.: Legislative District 29 2nd Annual Wine and Cheese Party, at 840 S. Meyer Avenue (between 18th and 19th Streets), Tucson, AZ. You bring your choice of wine (or non-alcoholic beverage), cheese, fruit or crackers, and a $10 contribution for LD 29. For more information or to RSVP please contact the "good" Dr. Laura at (520) 465-5390 or LD29chair@gmail.com.

Democratic Club of the Santa Rita Area (DCSRA) Pot Luck and Attorney General Candidate Forum

Saturday, March 13, 5:30 p.m.: The Democratic Club of the Santa Rita Area would like to invite all interested persons to their monthly meeting to be held at the GVR East Center Auditorium, 7 South Abrego Drive, Green Valley, AZ. The meeting will feature a potluck dinner and a Forum with our candidates for the Arizona Attorney General. Former Assistant Attorneys General David Lujan, Vince Rabago and Felicia Rotellini will address the group and respond to questions from the audience. Please bring a hearty appetizer for 10-12 people. Soft drinks, coffee and dessert provided; the event is BYOB. For more information and to RSVP, please contact Laura Mann at (520) 445-6688 or by email at Lamann_@msn.com.

Legislative District 28 St. Patrick's Day Annual Fundraiser

Sunday, March 14, 2010, 2:00 p.m.: Legislative District 28 St. Patrick's Day Annual Fundraiser, at the home of George and Margie Cunningham, 630 N. Alamo Avenue, Tucson, AZ. Purchase tickets in advance: $20 prior to March 10th; $25 after that date. Limited number of tickets are available. See event notice and ticket order form at Event Notice: LD 28 St. Patrick's Day Annual Fundraiser. For more information or to RSVP please contact Wood Sanders at LD28chair@gmail.com.

Legislative District 28/Saguaro Eastside Democrats House Candidate Debate

Friday, March 19, 7:00: Legislative District 28 and the Saguaro Eastside Democrats club jointly host a an LD 28 House candidate debate at the New Spirit Lutheran Church, 8701 E. Old Spanish Trail at the northeast corner of Camino Seco (Tucson). Socializing begins at 6:30 p.m. The debate is scheduled for approximately 90 minutes. This event is free and open to the public. For further information about the meeting or SED, please call (520) 850-6755.

Center for Progressive Leadership Training Program

The Center for Progressive Leadership offers a comprehensive training program for progressive individuals planning or thinking about running for an elected office in the near or distant future, as well as those wishing to hone their skills as campaign managers. The Center is currently accepting applications for the session held on the weekends of April 10-11, May 1-2, and May 22-23 (all workshops are in Phoenix). The program fee is $100. Applications are due by March 22. For more information or to register, please contact Angelica Delgadillo at (602) 254-1495 or adelgadillo@progressiveleaders.org.

Hayworth challenges McCain to debates

by David Safier

In a press release, J.D. Hayworth -- "The Consistent Conservative," he calls himself on the header -- challenges McCain to debate. And not just once or twice.

Hayworth Asks For As Many McCain Debates As McCain Asked Of Obama, Conservative Challenger Wants At Least Ten Debates with 24-Year Incumbent

Here's the money passage:

Hayworth feels that, given the years Senator McCain spent away from Arizona to run for President, he can certainly spend a few days away from Washington to better inform the people of Arizona he represents

“It should not be acceptable to any Republican, indeed any Arizonan, that Senator McCain would debate more in Iowa, New Hampshire and South Carolina than he would before his constituents,” Hayworth said.

Your move, McCain. Or are you waiting for Hayworth to respond to your "Hayworth is a birther" ad?

Let the games begin continue! (The Conservalympics? The Conservative Race to the Bottom?)

Rep. Trent Franks on the 'good old days' of slavery

Posted by AzBlueMeanie:

This is what happens when you elect people to office consumed by single-issue (anti-abortion) politics.

BarbinMD writes at Daily Kos: Trent Franks and the good old days ...

This takes the, you can't make this shit up, to a whole new level -- Trent Franks (R-AZ) on African Americans in today's society:

[From StarkReports.com beginning at around the 6:10 mark]

"In this country, we had slavery for God knows how long. And now we look back on it and we say "How brave were they? What was the matter with them? You know, I can't believe, you know, four million slaves. This is incredible." And we're right, we're right. We should look back on that with criticism.  It is a crushing mark on America's soul. And yet today, half of all black children are aborted. Half of all black children are aborted. Far more of the African American community is being devastated by the policies of today than were being devastated by the policies of slavery. And I think, What does it take to get us to wake up?"

One has to wonder, as Franks' curses the Thirteenth Amendment, what other aspects of the good old days does Franks' pine for?

This is not just Rep. Franks unplugged. This is actually a new tactic by the anti-abortion movement to expand their movement to African-Americans. To Court Blacks, Foes of Abortion Make Racial Case - NYTimes.com:

Across the country, the anti-abortion movement, long viewed as almost exclusively white and Republican, is turning its attention to African-Americans and encouraging black abortion opponents across the country to become more active.

A new documentary, written and directed by Mark Crutcher, a white abortion opponent in Denton, Tex., meticulously traces what it says are connections among slavery, Nazi-style eugenics, birth control and abortion, and is being regularly screened by black organizations.

* * *

The factors fueling the focus on black women — an abortion rate far higher than that of other races and the ties between the effort to legalize and popularize birth control and eugenics — are, at heart, old news. But they have been given exaggerated new life by the Internet, slick repackaging, high production values and money, like the more than $20,000 that Georgia Right to Life invested in [80 billboards around Atlanta that proclaim, “Black children are an endangered species.”]

Another headline this week from Utah that takes the, you can't make this shit up, to a whole new level -- Utah Bill Criminalizes Miscarriage (expect to see this bill in the Arizona Legislature).

A bill passed by the Utah House and Senate this week and waiting for the governor's signature, will make it a crime for a woman to have a miscarriage, and make induced abortion a crime in some instances.

* * *

The bill passed by legislators amends Utah's criminal statute to allow the state to charge a woman with criminal homicide for inducing a miscarriage or obtaining an illegal abortion.

* * *

[U]nder Utah state law a woman could not be prosecuted for attempting to arrange an abortion, lawful or unlawful.

The bill passed by the Utah legislature would change that. While the bill does not affect legally obtained abortions, it criminalizes any actions taken by women to induce a miscarriage or abortion outside of a doctor's care, with penalties including up to life in prison.

"What is really radical and different about this statute is that all of the other states' feticide laws are directed to third party attackers," Lynn M. Paltrow [executive director of National Advocates for Pregnant Women] explained. "[Other states' feticide laws] were passed in response to a pregnant woman who has been beaten up by a husband or boyfriend. Utah's law is directed to the woman herself and that's what makes it different and dangerous."

In addition to criminalizing an intentional attempt to induce a miscarriage or abortion, the bill also creates a standard that could make women legally responsible for miscarriages caused by "reckless" behavior.

Using the legal standard of "reckless behavior" all a district attorney needs to show is that a woman behaved in a manner that is thought to cause miscarriage, even if she didn't intend to lose the pregnancy. Drink too much alcohol and have a miscarriage? Under the new law such actions could be cause for prosecution.

"This creates a law that makes any pregnant woman who has a miscarriage potentially criminally liable for murder," says Missy Bird, executive director of Planned Parenthood Action Fund of Utah. Bird says there are no exemptions in the bill for victims of domestic violence or for those who are substance abusers. The standard is so broad, Bird says, "there nothing in the bill to exempt a woman for not wearing her seatbelt who got into a car accident."

Such a standard could even make falling down stairs a prosecutable event, such as the recent case in Iowa where a pregnant woman who fell down the stairs at her home was arrested under the suspicion she was trying to terminate her pregnancy.

* * *

While many states have fetal homicide laws most apply only in the third trimester. Utah's bill would apply throughout the entirety of a woman's pregnancy. Even first trimester miscarriages could become the basis for a murder trial.

How common are miscarriages?

Miscarriage occurs in about 15-20% of all recognized pregnancies, and usually occurs before the 13th week of pregnancy. The actual percentage of miscarriages is estimated to be as high as 50% of all pregnancies, since many miscarriages occur without the woman ever having known she was pregnant.

Lynn M. Paltrow says this bill puts a lie to the idea that the pro-life movement cares about women.

"For all these years the anti-choice movement has said ‘we want to outlaw abortion, not put women in jail, but what this law says is ‘no, we really want to put women in jail.'"

The Coming Week - Legislative Edition

Apparently, some of the PTBs at the lege have taken pity on me - instead of the super-packed committee agendas that were the norm for the last few weeks, they've cancelled all but two committee meetings next week, and both of those are on Monday.

From the announcement from Senate President Bob Burns -

Consistent with his commitment to focus on the state budget crisis, Senate President Bob Burns has suspended all Standing Committee hearings for the week of March 1. The postponement allows members to give full attention to the issue Arizonans want addressed: completing budgets for FY 2010 and FY 2011.

Ummm...if he is so "committed" to focus on the state budget crisis, why are we 8 months into the current fiscal year operating under a budget that has *never* been balanced?

...I digress.  Must focus... :)

On Monday, the House Rules Committee will meet at 1 p.m. in HHR4; Senate Rules will meet in Caucus Room 1 upon adjournment of the floor.  Both Rules committees are generally little more than rubber stamps for their respective chambers' leadership, frequently approving all bills on the agenda in one motion.  Occasionally, there are nuggets of interest on a Rules Committee agenda, as is the case with Monday's Senate Rules agenda.

On it is one separate item that screams "vehicle bill" - request for approval of late submission of a technical correction bill, relating to "legislature; disqualification".

There are also five bills that have been assigned to only the Rules Committee - SB1041, SB1042, SB1043, SB1044, and SB1045.  Right now, all five are technical correction bills related to bonding and budget issues.

"Technical correction" bills generally contain fixes to the law related to vocabulary or spelling or such, and almost never go forward in their original form.  Almost all are submitted in order to be used at a later date as a "vehicle" for a "strike everything" amendment.

Those five bills (SBs 1041 thru 1045) look like that they are strikers waiting to happen.

Look for those five to be integral parts of any budget-related activies next week.

Anyway, the Senate has posted a "third read" (aka - "final approval") calendar for Monday here: the House has posted two COW calendars for Monday here and here.

More later this weekend...

G.I. Guarantee Watch: Day 2

by David Safier

It's after 6pm, so Day 2 of the G.I. Guarantee Watch comes to a close. Still no reply from Matthew Ladner to my second request that the Goldwater Institute honor its written guarantee and note on its website that Ladner made an error in one of his Daily Emails.

I didn't mention in my Day 1 post that I cc'd Darcy Olsen, President and CEO of G.I., on both emails to Ladner. Interestingly, when he replied, saying he was kinda wrong and he wouldn't do it again, he didn't include Olsen in the email. What, did he think this was just between him and me, man to man?

I admit, people reading about this incident might say I'm making a big deal about a small error (If you missed the Day 1 post, it discusses what Ladner wrote). My reply is, if it's a small error, it should be no big deal for G.I. to put a correction on its website. Newspapers do it on a daily basis, with errors far less important than this one.

Parent X had an interesting comment on the Day 1 post:

Ladner's propaganda has been getting pretty sloppy as of late, and I have been wondering if anyone 'in-house' at Goldwater is maybe raising an eye or two about assertions.

I have to agree. Ladner has stayed faithfully on message, but he's gotten lazy. His leaps of logic have been jaw dropping of late, like he's not really trying. But maybe that doesn't matter at G.I. so long as you keep getting speaking engagements and the media continues asking for your "expert analysis."

Kirk Adams: We're not anti-solar energy, just stupid

by David Safier

HB2701, which would have killed the solar energy momentum in Arizona and cost the state business and jobs, has died a humiliating death. When the entire Corporation Commission opposes the bill and its Republican chair Kris Mayes can't believe the "disconnect" of some legislators "unfortunately from my party," even Republican legislators understand they may be in a bit of trouble and are ready to cut their losses.

Who would be foolish enough to put their names onto legislation this bad without thinking about the consequences? you might ask. Who would neglect to talk with their Republican friends on the Corporation Commission and get some friendly input on energy related legislation?

The answer is, over 50 Republicans, including, from southern Arizona, primary sponsor Frank Antenori and co-sponsors Al Melvin, Vic Williams, David Gowan, David Stevens and, yes, thinks-he's-ready-for-prime-time Jonathan Paton.

Republican House Speaker Kirk Adams doesn't want anyone to get the wrong idea, though.

“Recent news stories have depicted the Arizona House of Representatives as being anti-solar energy,” Adams said. “I wish to set the record straight.”

That's quite a choice, isn't it? Either 50 plus Republican legislators are anti-solar, or they're mindless lemmings who will follow any leader off the nearest cliff.

Ladies and gentlemen, I give you, our Republican legislative majority!

65% solution: Districts spend one-third more in classrooms than charters

by David Safier

An article in today's Star looks at the percent of their budgets Arizona districts spend on classroom instruction. It comes up with districts spending about 57% in the classroom, considerably lower than the proposed 65% Solution bill being pushed by Russell Pearce and his district-school-bashing cronies.

When I ran the same numbers on a selection of Arizona charter schools, they averaged 36% spent on classroom instruction, about 1/3 less than school districts.

Districts: 57%. Charters: 36%. More than a 20 point difference.

In case you think I cooked the books on the charters I chose, I included BASIS Tucson in the charter sample. BASIS spends about 51% in the classroom, which is still 6% lower than the average district. If I leave BASIS out of the sample, the other charters average about 32%.

I created my comparison as carefully as I could, using the Districts' and charters' own calculations of expenditures.

Districts and charter schools submit identical Maintenance and Operation Fund Expenditures forms to the state, with number codes supplied by the Auditor General to indicate the category of each expenditure. All district and charter expenditure forms can be found online.

Code #1000 is for "Classroom Instruction." When I pulled up the form for TUSD and divided its "#1000 Classroom Instruction" expenditures by its total education expenses, I got 55.5%. The Star article used 53.5% as the figure for TUSD, so my calculations differ from the Star's by 2%, showing I was using a similar calculation.

I performed the same classroom instruction calculation on the same forms submitted by charter schools and arrived at an average of 36%, 21 points lower than what the Star article arrived at for the districts. Even if my charter figures changed a few percentage points if I used exactly the same method as the Star article, the difference between the classroom spending of District and charter schools is still dramatic.

I took my investigation one step further and looked at administrative expenditures of Districts and charter schools. According to the Star article, districts spend an average of 9.2% on administration. My calculations for TUSD showed the district spending 8%, so once again, I'm in the same ballpark.

Using the same calculation, the percentage spent on administration by charter schools in my sample varied from a low of 12% to a high of 40%. (BASIS came in at 30%.) The average was 23%.

If, as Pearce and his cronies say, districts spend too little on classroom instruction and too much on administration (though to my mind, 9% on administration doesn't seem out of bounds), they should be breathing fire and tearing their hair out over the expenditures at charter schools -- something like 1/3 less on the classroom and 3 times more on administration than Districts.

I have a suggestion. In the 65% Solution legislation, add the phrase "and Charter Schools" after every mention of "District Schools." They're all public schools, so they should be subject to the same scrutiny. Either that or withdraw the ridiculous piece of legislation and look at how to increase school funding instead of playing the Republican game of blame-the-schools to divert attention from the Republican legislators' failures.

Goo-Goos Gone Bad (redux)

Posted by AzBlueMeanie:

Back in January 2009 I posted a piece on Goo-Goos Gone Bad. "Goo-Goos" is a shorthand acronym for "good government" activists. Goo-Goos have successfully enacted several measures over the years that on their face probably sounded like a good idea to most voters at the time, but in practice have proved to have had seriously negative consequences for this state over time.

My list of Goo-Goos Gone Bad

1. Prop. 108 (1992).This measure amended the Constitution to require a two-thirds super majority vote of the legislature to pass any increase in taxation levels or a reduction in credits and exemptions. This measure is kryptonite to any Goo-Goos who believe in fiscal responsibility and sane government. This measure permits a small number of anti-tax zealots - 21 members of the House and only 11 members of the Senate - to engage in a "tyranny of the minority" by obstructing any adjustments to tax rates, tax exemptions and tax credits by a simple majority vote of each chamber. Once the legislature has approved a tax cut, for example, the 10% reduction in income taxes over two years approved by the legislature in 2006 and signed by Governor Napolitano, it is virtually impossible to raise tax rates later when economic conditions warrant and it is the fiscally prudent and responsible thing to do. The anti-tax zealots have tied one hand of the legislature behind its back. The legislature cannot increase tax revenues to meet the state's expenditures even when a majority of both chambers agree that it is the fiscally prudent and responsible thing to do because they can be held hostage by a tyranny of the minority. This is a highly undemocratic provision and should be repealed.

2. Prop. 107 (1992). This measure amended the Constitution to enact term limits on various offices. The federal courts struck down the limitations on federal offices as unconstitutional (too bad, John McCain would have been history a long time ago). Term limits only apply to statewide offices and legislative offices. A handful of legislators have been creative in getting around term limits by spending eight years in the house, then eight years in the senate, and then back to the house again. You know who you are. Hey, their constituents keep electing them, which makes my point that term limits was a really dumb idea. The unintended consequences of this measure has been a loss of institutional knowledge and memory among legislators, i.e., knowing how to get things done, and a concentration of political power in the hands of legislative staff and lobbyists. I believe this was why Sen. Tim Bee fired long-term senate staff when he became Senate president. Unelected and unaccountable staff wielded far too much power. And lobbyists are in control of your Arizona legislature, don't let anyone tell you differently. This is a failed experiment in good government that should be repealed.

3. Prop. 200 (1998).This measure established the Citizens Clean Elections Commission and provided for public financing to candidates in statewide or legislative elections. Public financing of campaigns was intended to reduce the influence of special interest money in elections. The unintended consequences of this measure was to empower fringe candidates on the extremes of their parties, which has led to a polarization of politics. I agree with Jim Nintzel from the Tucson Weekly who has long argued that Clean Elections only served to empower far-right candidates from the Christian Right who now had access to public money to challenge more moderate business oriented Republicans in GOP primaries in heavily GOP voter registration districts. The winner of the primary is the general election winner. These fringe candidates could never have mounted a credible primary campaign if they had to run a traditional campaign raising funds from GOP businessmen. The result has been a polarization of politics within the GOP, with the party moving to the far right. There are also exceptions in the law permitting "independent expenditures," which in recent years have been committees financed directly by the political parties. The exceptions have swallowed the rule and rendered the law useless. Moreover, Judge Roslyn Silver recently struck down the matching funds provision in litigation before her court, which puts any Clean Elections candidate at the mercy of the independent expenditure committees who have no spending limitations. This is a failed experiment in good government that should be repealed.

4. Prop. 106 (2000).This measure amended the Constitution to establish the Citizens Independent Redistricting Commission to draw legislative and congressional district boundaries. Goo-Goos argued that taking redistricting away from the legislature would lead to fairer and more competitive districts. The problem with their theory is that the commission members are not accountable to the public for their decisions as are legislators who must stand for election. The legislature's actions can always be reversed by legislation. But the Redistricting Commission must be sued in court. The Redistricting Commission produced a district map that [was]the subject of litigation in court for over seven years now. This measure turned out to be nothing more than a full employment bill for the law firms representing the parties to this litigation. And the court decisions interpreting this provision have put the interest of more competitive districts at the end of the list of factors to be considered by the Redistricting Commission. That worked out well. This is another failed experiment in good government that should be repealed.

Interestingly enough, the Arizona Legislature is in the process of referring two of these matters back to the voters this November for their reconsideration.

I would prefer that the Citizens Clean Elections bills in the Legislature provide voters with a "clean" choice of keep it or kill it. Instead, the bills by Sen. Jonathan Paton propose to leave the Commission in place but hollow out its funding source, rendering the Commission effectively useless. Public financing of elections all but dead | The Sierra Vista Herald Paton consciously chose this devious and authoritarian path admitting that he does not believe voters will vote to get rid of Citizens Clean Elections as he desires if they are given a "clean" choice. This is cynical and cowardly. If you want to repeal Citizens Clean Elections, them make the public case for it.

The second matter which may be referred back to the voters this November is term limits. Legislature about to ask voters to end term limits:

On a 5-2 margin, the House Judiciary Committee approved plan to dump the 1992 voter-approved law limiting state legislators to no more than four two-year terms in the same office. Several hours later the full Senate gave preliminary approval to an identical measure.

The last word, though, will rest with voters, who would have to approve the change in November.

The one Goo-Goo measure that could end Arizona's annual budget fiasco and allow the Legislature to finally tackle long overdue tax reforms and address the structural budget deficit is the repeal of Prop. 108. But that is not even on the radar because the Grover Norquist "no tax" pledge Republicans who rule by a tyranny of the minority would be disempowered by the simple majority vote, you know, democracy. If you want to push for one measure on the ballot this November, this is the one.

Finally, with the decennial census about to get underway, the flaws in the Citizens Independent Redistricting Commission should be addressed before redistricting gets underway next year. Competitive districts should be a higher priority than other factors the Commission is authorized to weigh and consider. And please, can we find some way to keep this out of court for the next decade?

GOP LD 30 District Election this Sunday

Posted by AzBlueMeanie:

GOP Legislative District 30 Republican precinct committeemen in Pima County will hold their district election this Sunday to select three nominees to refer to the Pima County Board of Supervisors who will decide which nominee replaces Sen. Jonathan Paton.

What: District 30 Election

When: Sunday, February 28, 2010 at 2:00 p.m.

Where: Desert Christian High School, 7525 E. Speedway, Tucson

Meeting is open to the public. Only elected precinct committee members in Pima County can nominate and vote. (State law).

You know what Blog for Arizona wants from you: videotape, audiotape, or your written report verified by other other reliable sources.

One can imagine "Don't make me angry" Frank(enstein) Antenori's moment in the spotlight going horribly wrong by getting angry and scaring the villagers. "Ooper duper."

The GOP Taliban's Winter Offensive

Posted by AzBlueMeanie:

David Safier touched upon this the other day in Read 'em and weep. The GOP Taliban have been on their Winter offensive this past couple of weeks, and no one has been spared from their cruelty and ideological purity dictates. The Crazies is not just a movie premiering in theaters this week, the crazies are in charge of the asylum that is the Arizona Legislature.

Here is just a brief list of the recent GOP Taliban attacks on the citizens of Arizona:

The House passed a package of corporate welfare give-aways designed to help businesses that will cut state revenues by more than $940 million a year by the time it is fully implemented seven years from now, transferring the corporate tax burden to you, which you will pay for through higher residential property taxes. Study: Tax proposal to cut Ariz. revenue

Governor Jan Brewer's proposed cuts to AHCCCS health care would drain an estimated $2.7 billion in state and federal funding from Arizona's economy and result in the loss of 42,000 jobs, according to an analysis by economists at Arizona State University. Proposed state health-care cuts could cost billions, opponents say Even Taliban leader Ayatollah Glenn Hamer (Arizona Chamber of Commerce) is opposed to this idea.

The Senate Appropriations Committee voted to pass a bill on to the full Senate that requires the posting of a Ten Commandments monument at the state's old Capitol building. Sen. Sylvia Allen, R-Snowflake, said "People [the minority] need to be tolerant of the majority's beliefs..." Sen. Russell Pearce, R-Mesa, who crafted the measure, said it's wrong to think of the commandments as religious. Instead, he called them "ten little rules."

Sen. Russell Pearce sponsored a bill to make it legal to carry a concealed weapon without a permit, and eliminate any background checks and training classes for people to carry hidden guns. "All we're doing is handcuffing good people, restricting their constitutional, God-given right to carry and perhaps their ability to defend their families," said Sen. Pearce. Maybe ol' Russell should actually read those "ten little rules."

The Senate Judiciary Committee approved a bill that would prohibit local governments from enforcing stricter rules on firearms ownership than what’s written in state law. The shoe is now on the other foot with that big bad government thing.

The House Committee on Military Affairs and Public Safety approved language that, if adopted by voters in November, would prohibit any law or regulation “that unreasonably restricts hunting, fishing and harvesting wildlife or the use of traditional means and methods.” It also would constitutionally make hunting “a preferred means of managing and controlling wildlife.” Darren LaSorte, lobbyist for the National Rifle Association said hunting needs protection from the “tyranny of the majority.” Maybe he should explain that concept to Sylvia Allen about the Ten Commandments.

The House approved a bill sponsored by Rep. Warde Nichols, R-Gilbert, that gives priority to placing adoptive children with married couples over single individuals. The bill moves on to the Senate. Sen. Jack Harper has submitted a bill banning adoption to homosexuals in the state Senate. That bill has yet to be given a hearing. Oh, it will.

The House Government Committee voted for the proposal by Rep. Judy Burges, R-Skull Valley, to require presidential contenders to prove to Arizona's secretary of state they're "natural born citizens" to get their names on the ballot. 40 Republican "birther" lawmakers want President Obama and possibly every presidential candidate to prove they are a natural-born U.S. citizen to get on the Arizona ballot. Sen. John McCain (who was born in the Panama Canal Zone) says the "birthers" are crazy (You can see the ad here.) Finally, something McNasty and I can agree upon.

The House Government Committee approved a bill sponsored by Rep. Carl Seel, R-Phoenix, that would require schools to annually report how many illegal immigrants are enrolled and how much it costs to educate them. What, was Sen. Russell Pearce too busy? The Arizona Department of Education would be required to collect data on public school students who cannot prove their lawful presence in the United States. That data would be compiled into a report that would be submitted every year to the governor, the Legislature and the state treasurer. GOP Taliban legislators want to be federal ICE agents now.

Rep. David Stevens, R-Sierra Vista, wants to go one step further: he wants GOP Taliban legislators to be criminal investigators and to have access to the names of Arizonans who receive government-subsidized Medicaid, long-term care or whose kids receive discounted health care. Stevens claims that, because of his background in computers, he is qualified to make sure that the data each state agency has on participants is accurate. He would use his personal computer to sift through the data and "flag" suspect information. Inspector Clouseau wants to look for the mythical "welfare queen" of Ronald Reagan legend.

There is a House bill that includes a ban on “knowingly” creating or “attempting to create a human-animal hybrid.” Seriously. I guess Rick "man on dog" Santorum will not be visiting Arizona any time soon.

Rep. "Don't make me angry" Frank Antenori has a bill that says incandescent light bulbs produced in Arizona should not be subject to federal laws or regulations. This "Tenther" wants to sue the big bad federal government over "commerce clause" legal theory rejected since the 1930s.

House lawmakers approved a proposal to make the colonial Spanish horse the state horse. This proposal may not survive in the Senate where Sen. Russell Pearce will discover that honoring Spanish colonialism is part of the Aztlán movement and is a conspiracy by La Raza and MEChA.

The House Government Committee approved a proposal by Rep. Frank Pratt, R-Casa Grande, to make milk the official drink of Arizona. Please tell me I do not have to suffer through TV ads of Pat Boone saying "milk, it does a body good"? Rep. "Don't make me angry" Frank Antenori said "There's an old saying in Arizona, 'Whiskey's for drinkin', water's for fightin'," suggesting that the former "probably would be a more appropriate state drink." I'll drink to that.

So what are sane Arizonans who live in the "reality-based" community to do? This constant assault upon our intellect, reason and rationality is too much to bear. The Age of Enlightenment is being replaced by a new Dark Ages.

Maybe what we need is a movement of our own to rally our troops. The Democratic Resistance (aka Freedom Fighters) of the Free Republic of Arizona needs to go on a Spring counter-offensive against the GOP Taliban from the State of Maricopa. The GOP Taliban insurgents operating within the territories controlled by the Free Republic of Arizona need to be rolled up and defeated. Our goal is to drive the GOP Taliban insurgents back within their stronghold of the State of Maricopa. Even within the State of Maricopa, the Freedom Fighters of the Democratic Resistance have established bases of operation. It is time to go on the offensive and to topple the GOP Taliban regime.

This requires boots on the ground and lots of money. Volunteer for the Democratic candidate of your choice or your local Democratic Party organization. Run for office yourself if no one is running against one of the GOP Taliban in your territory. Open up your wallet and give until it hurts. We only have one chance to reverse the gathering storm of a GOP Taliban Dark Ages. Defeat is not an option. Rise up and fight back!

G.I. Guarantee Watch: Day 1

by David Safier

The Goldwater Institute has a "Guaranteed Research" policy.

If the accuracy of any material fact or reference to an independent source is questioned and brought to the Institute’s attention with supporting evidence, the Institute will respond in writing. If an error exists, it will be noted on the Goldwater Institute website and in all subsequent distribution of the publication.

A week ago, I sent an email to Matthew Ladner pointing out an error in one of his Daily Emails.

He emailed back and said, basically, Yeah, it was kind of wrong. I won't do it again.

I replied to his email, writing, basically, Not good enough. Honor your guarantee and note the error on your website.

I haven't received a reply. So today, a week later, I am beginning the G.I. Guarantee Watch, which I will update daily. (Not on weekends, of course. That would be wrong.)

Here is the Daily Email passage with the error:

The National Center for Education Statistics reveals that of the 104,630 employees at Arizona school districts in 2007-08, only 54,032 of them were teachers. What is more worthy of funding: maintaining an almost 1-to-1 teacher to bureaucrat ratio or maintaining services for the mentally ill? [Bold face added]

The statement labels every non-teacher in Arizona school districts as a bureaucrat. That's an obvious error. Bus drivers, maintenance workers and food services workers cannot be considered bureaucrats.

Ladner replied. He excused himself by saying the word bureaucrat "has rather broad definitions." but "I'll use a term like non-teachers going forward."

Not good enough, I replied to his reply. There is no way to interpret "bureaucrat" to include bus drivers, maintenance workers and food service workers. I looked up a dozen definitions and couldn't find one as "broad" as that. An error is an error is an error. It needs to be corrected to fulfill the spirit and the letter of the G.I. Guarantee.

A week later, Ladner hasn't replied. A week is plenty of time to wait for a reply. No more Mister Nice Guy.

Today is Day 1.

Todd Camenisch, Candidate, LD30 Senate

by David Safier

I sat down with Todd Camenisch, the Democratic candidate for LD30 Senate, a few mornings ago. He's a serious guy and a serious candidate.

The wheel is still very much in spin on the Republican side of the LD30 Senate race. First, we don't know yet who's going to be the temp sitting in Paton's empty seat. Second, Marian McClure is running against Antenori for the Republican nomination, and I can't imagine either of them ceding the advantage to the other. So the Republican field is wide open.

Whichever Republican is still standing after the primary should expect some serious competition. Camenisch tells me he's in it to win it. And after talking to him, I take him at his word.

Todd is an Assistant Professor of Pharmacology and Toxicology at UA's Steele Children's Research Center. His research is in children's heart development.

[Question: Is there a UA Center doing research on the underdeveloped hearts of Arizona Republican legislators? If we could get a few of those hearts functioning properly, the state would be in far better shape.]

Todd has served on the Foothills School Board since 2008, after serving on the site council at his daughter's school. He says others saw his passion for education and encouraged him to run. Seeing more of the educational landscape from his vantage point on the Board, he realized the problems confronting Arizona's education have to be addressed at the state level. Education is his primary issue, though he's not a one issue candidate.

If anyone has a right to claim the label, "moderate," it's Camenisch. He was a registered Independent until last October. When he decided to run for state office, he registered as a Democrat, because he shares basic Democratic values. But he's neither doctrinaire nor a politician by inclination. He's someone who plans to make a difference. He wants to change the balance in the Senate by making LD30 a Democratic seat, and he wants to make his voice heard, advocating for issues he cares deeply about.

The editor of the Green Valley News wrote an editorial praising Camenisch by saying, in essence, "What's with this guy? He actually believes in being nonpartisan and wants to talk about the issues and listen to others. What a concept!"

In other words, he's the polar opposite of Mad Frank Antenori. If Todd can get his message out across the district, he's the kind of candidate who can win over independents and moderate Republicans. And that's the magic formula for getting elected in LD30.

If you're in LD30 -- or if you're just interested -- check out Todd Camenish's website.

Constitutional Amendment to reverse Citizens United v. FEC introduced

Posted by AzBlueMeanie:

Sens. Tom Udall, D-N.M., and Chris Dodd, D-Conn., have introduced a constitutional amendment to reverse the Citizens United Supreme Court ruling, which allows corporations and unions to spend unlimited money on independent political expenditures. Udall, Dodd introducing constitutional amendment to overturn SCOTUS ruling « New Mexico Independent:

The amendment was introduced by Dodd, who is retiring after this election cycle, but Udall is an original cosponsor.

The constitutional amendment would allow Congress to regulate how money for federal races is raised and spent, including independent expenditures which are at the heart of the Citizens United decision. It would also allow states to regulate such spending at their level.

Udall and Dodd also announced they would support legislative efforts to “blunt the Supreme Court’s ruling, ncluding increased disclosure requirements on corporate campaign spending and other efforts to further limit the influence of foreign corporations in the democratic process.”

Some commentators have said that the Citzens United ruling could work as an effective wedge issue for Democrats, much like gay marriage bans and abortion laws have served as wedge issues for Republicans.

Eight in 10 poll respondents say they oppose the high court's Jan. 21 decision to allow unfettered corporate political spending, with 65 percent "strongly" opposed. Nearly as many backed congressional action to curb the ruling, with 72 percent in favor of reinstating limits. Poll: Large majority opposes Supreme Court's decision on campaign financing - washingtonpost.com The poll revealed relatively little difference of opinion on the issue among Democrats (85 percent opposed to the ruling), Republicans (76 percent) and independents (81 percent).

McCain's revisionist history lie about the TARP bailout - Part II

Posted by AzBlueMeanie:

Ealier this week, Senator McNasty, John McCain, told bold-faced lies to the editors of the Arizona Republic about how he suspended his campaign in 2008 for the TARP bailout. McCain's revisionist history lie about the TARP bailout Now McCain has doubled-down on his lies. Or is it the onset of senile dementia?

Johnny Liar is oblivious to the existence of newfangled technology like videotape, audio recordings, newspaper reports or even books. Johnny Liar is so used to the Arizona McMedia simply reporting whatever he says without any fact-checking that facts don't matter - his situational reality is whatever he says it is at that moment.

Jed Lewison at Daily kos reports Daily Kos: Still confused:

John McCain, 2010 (emphasis added):

"I suspended my campaign -- as did Senator Obama -- to come back to Washington because the President had told me that we were in a world financial collapse. That's why I did what I did. I always said that consistently."

McCain's claim that Barack Obama suspended his campaign comes a few days after McCain claimed that Bush had asked him to suspend his campaign, and it's just as false.

In case McCain needs a reminder of what actually happened, here's video of then-Senator Obama rejecting McCain's demand that he suspend his campaign and skip the presidential debate:

There's lies, there's liars, and then there's John McCain.

Response to McCain's "Hayworth is a birther" ad

by David Safier

Orly Taitz, who wants to own the birther franchise, has taken McCain to task for his "birthers are crazy, and Hayworth is one of them" ad. (You can see the ad here.)

Orly Taitz, the best-known national activist in the Birther movement, has posted a statement on her blog slamming Sen. John McCain (R-AZ), for posting a Web ad that attacked his opponent in the Republican primary, former Rep. J.D. Hayworth, by tying Hayworth to Taitz and the Birthers.

In her statement, Taitz accuses McCain of improperly influencing various federal judges who are set to rule on her various motions and lawsuits against Obama's eligibility to be president.

Come on, J.D., join the party. Why don't you and the 40 AZ legislators who backed the Arizona Birther Bill hold a press conference? Don't let McCain make fun of you like that!

Senator Obstruction, Jon Kyl, obstructing unemployment benefits extension

Posted by AzBlueMeanie:

Why does Senator Obstruction, Jon Kyl, hate the working men and women of this country? Earlier this week he tried to filibuster the jobs bill and eventually voted against the bill. Now Senator Obstruction is once again obstructing an unemployment benefits extension (as he did last year) over -- wait for it -- the Paris Hilton Tax (estate tax).

That's right, Senator Obstruction is obstructing unemployment benefits to out-of-work Americans in danger of losing their homes and trying to feed their families because the uber-rich want the estate tax dealt with first. Mcjoan at Daily Kos posts Kyl Threatens to Block Unemployment Insurance Extension:

How despicable can these guys get? Unemployment insurance and COBRA subsidy extensions expire in three days. Reid stripped the extensions out of the jobs bill that just passed in order to keep the bill narrowly focused and get it passed, which worked. Reid attempted to bring a short term extension last night under unanimous consent, but was blocked by Bunning.

And now, Jon Kyl:

Well, it seems like at least one Republican is not, in fact, going to ensure that unemployed workers keep their benefits without first trying to cut taxes for the heirs of multi-millionaires:

On Wednesday, a top Republican leader said a deal on the bill would depend on working out the fate of the expired estate tax...Minority Whip Jon Kyl, R-Ariz., said that Republicans will block consideration of the new bill unless they get “a path forward fairly soon” on the estate tax.

“I will insist on an agreement on how to proceed [on the estate tax], if we’re going to have unanimous consent on how to proceed with any of these subsequent bills,” said Kyl.

Paris Hilton matters more to Jon Kyl than millions of unemployed workers who are on the verge of losing what is for many their sole means of financial support. Jon Kyl's phone numbers are: (202) 224-4521, (602) 840-1891, and (520) 575-8633. You can e-mail his office using this form.

Senator Obstruction, Jon Kyl, is a pants on fire liar

Posted by AzBlueMeanie:

Arizona's twin embarrassments, Senator Obstruction, Jon Kyl, and Senator McNasty, John McCain are both congenital liars.

But Senator Obstruction was really over-the-top, disingenuous, pants on fire liar on Wednesday repeating the GOP talking point of the day:

Sen. Kyl: It is reported that the speaker has already said that she has the process for reconciliation figured out. It was never designed for a large, comprehensive piece of legislation, such as health care, as you all know. It‘s a budget exercise. And that‘s why some refer to it as the nuclear option.

No, no one does, senator. Nothing is further from the truth, and this congenital liar knows it. It is an entirely fictionalized GOP talking point. Yet the corporate media, like the good little stenographers they are, repeat this blatant lie without ever calling out Sen. Kyl for his blatant lie. The corporate media amplifies the right-wing media echo chamber (i.e., FAUX News) that intentionally misinforms the public.

Visit msnbc.com for breaking news, world news, and news about the economy

From 'The Rachel Maddow Show' for Wednesday, February 24th:

MADDOW: Republicans have, indeed, used reconciliation repeatedly to pass their own agenda items. They used reconciliation to pass not one, but two giant tax cuts during the Bush administration.

You want to say reconciliation was never used to change the health care system, Senator Kyl?

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

KYL: It was never designed for a large, comprehensive piece of legislation, such as health care, as you all know.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

MADDOW: Actually, that‘s completely, utterly 100 percent, knowingly wrong. That is not true at all, Senator Kyl. And you know it‘s not true.

Reconciliation is how the health care system has been essentially formed in this country, over and over and over again.

You ever heard of COBRA? COBRA is the law that lets people keep their employee health insurance for a while after they‘ve been laid off. You want to know what the “R” in COBRA stands for? “Reconciliation.” Oh, yes, look at that.

In 1986, Congress passed the Consolidated Omnibus Budget Reconciliation Act, COBRA, which forever affected health care coverage in this country. Do you ever heard of SCHIP, the State Children‘s Health Insurance Program? CHIP was created in a budget reconciliation bill in 1997.

Reconciliation is how we make changes to our health care system. As NPR pointed out today, quote, “Over the past three decades, the number of major health financing measures that were not passed via budget reconciliation can be counted on one hand.” Health Care No Stranger To Reconciliation Process : NPR

This is how health reform is done in this country. And this effort to say that using reconciliation would be the nuclear option, that it would somehow be unprecedented is a lie. It is a lie and it is—it is disingenuous. It is disingenuous in the sense that it‘s not just a misunderstanding, they know they‘re lying about it.

And people in the media who repeat what Republicans are saying about this instead of challenging them on it are helping Republicans spread a lie.

I would call the corporate media "media whores" but that would be an unfair slander to working girls. What the corporate media does is a truly heinous crime. Media continue to push GOP rhetoric on reconciliation; For second day in a row, Wash. Post's stable of Bush speechwriters attacks reconciliation. The corporate media fails to inform the public and all too often intentionally misinforms the public to advance the financial interests of their corporate ownership and advertising sponsors. Conservative media revive "nuclear option" falsehood to accuse Democrats of reconciliation hypocrisy; Fox News continues to attempt to redefine "nuclear option".

Health care and reconciliation actually have a lengthy history. "In fact, the way in which virtually all of health reform, with very, very limited exceptions, has happened over the past 30 years has been the reconciliation process," says Sara Rosenbaum, who chairs the Department of Health Policy at George Washington University. Health Care No Stranger To Reconciliation Process : NPR:

A History Of Reconciliation

For 30 years, major changes to health care laws have passed via the budget reconciliation process. Here are a few examples:

1982 — TEFRA:The Tax Equity and Fiscal Responsibility Act first opened Medicare to HMOs

1986 — COBRA: The Consolidated Omnibus Budget Reconciliation Act allowed people who were laid off to keep their health coverage, and stopped hospitals from dumping ER patients unable to pay for their care

1987 — OBRA '87: Added nursing home protection rules to Medicare and Medicaid, created no-fault vaccine injury compensation program

1989 — OBRA '89: Overhauled doctor payment system for Medicare, created new federal agency on research and quality of care

1990 — OBRA '90: Added cancer screenings to Medicare, required providers to notify patients about advance directives and living wills, expanded Medicaid to all kids living below poverty level, required drug companies to provide discounts to Medicaid

1993 — OBRA '93: created federal vaccine funding for all children

1996 — Welfare Reform: Separated Medicaid from welfare

1997 — BBA: The Balanced Budget Act created the state-federal childrens' health program called CHIP

2005 — DRA: The Deficit Reduction Act reduced Medicaid spending, allowed parents of disabled children to buy into Medicaid

Rep. Anthony Weiner (D-NY) speaks truth to power

Posted by AzBlueMeanie:

On the floor of the House on Wednesday afternoon during a debate over a planned vote to revoke the anti-trust exemption (McCarran-Ferguson Act) for health insurance monopolies, Rep. Anthony Weiner (D-NY) declared that "the Republican Party is a wholly-owned subsidiary of the insurance industry" (no, I do not write his speeches, but immitation is the sincerest form of flattery). Hey, the truth hurts. "Deal with it."

Rep. Dan Lungren (R-CA) objected to Weiner's remarks and asked that he be chastised by taking down his remarks. Rep. Weiner agreed to withdraw his remarks and substitute other remarks, to which Rep. Lungren also objected, in effect obstructing his own efforts to chastise Rep. Weiner for chastising Republicans for their obstruction. Unrepentant, Rep. Weiner jumped out of the penalty box and returned to hard check the Republicans into the boards again. Take that hoser. I love this guy!

The House later voted to revoke the anti-trust exemption for health insurance monopolies on a vote of 406-19 after this Republican attempt to obstruct the measure. House Votes to Revoke Health Insurers’ U.S. Antitrust Exemption The measure now goes to the Senate.

Rachel Maddow has the play-by-play action from the floor:

Visit msnbc.com for breaking news, world news, and news about the economy

Rachel Maddow gets it exactly right in her post-game commentary. 'The Rachel Maddow Show' for Wednesday, February 24th

I was in Washington recently. And a center-right influential columnist, think-tank guy - I was talking with him about health reform, and he sort of rubbed his hands in glee and said he hopes that Anthony Weiner keeps going on TV a lot, because Anthony Weiner gives health reform a bad name.

He hopes Anthony Weiner keeps going on TV a lot because he makes health reform look bad. I don‘t know about that. I think the way Congressman Weiner talks about health reform shows what it looks like for Democrats to stand up on their hind legs and fight, to be bare knuckled about getting something passed, to say that bipartisanship is a farce if one side wants to pass something and the other one doesn‘t.

I think the [conventional] wisdom guys in Washington hate that. They‘re terrified of it. But I think it‘s what a lot of people, who voted in a huge blue tide of Democrats in the last two elections, have been waiting to hear.

And consider it in context, too, substantively. Profits at the top five largest for-profit insurance companies rose 56 percent last year.

They made $4.5 billion more in 2009 over what they made in 2008, while dropping more than 2.5 million people as customers.

And for those companies, that‘s great news. That‘s how it works. That‘s business. Don‘t blame them for that. Well, do if you want, but don‘t blame them entirely. This is business 101. It‘s how they profit.

It‘s not for-profit insurers‘ fault that they do everything they can to not pay out when people they insure get sick. It‘s not for-profit insurers‘ fault that they do everything they can to avoid giving insurance to people who actually need health care.

It‘s not for-profit insurers‘ fault that they hike premiums by anything they can get away with, by double digits every year, year after year, after year, so we‘re getting to the point where $1 in every $5 we spend on anything in this economy is spent on their dumb, evil health system and that‘s with 15 millions still uninsured.

I mean, times are great for Wellpoint, right? In 2008, 39 Wellpoint executives were getting paid more than $1 million a year. In 2007 and 2008, Wellpoint spent $27 million on retreats for their executives. And they‘ve got us over a barrel, 39 percent rate hikes here in California this year.

In Maine, Wellpoint‘s going for a 23 percent rate hike this year after five consecutive years of double-digit premium increases on those same policies. Wellpoint‘s hiking rates by up to 50 percent in Indiana this year. Twenty-nine percent hike in New York State for small businesses insured by Wellpoint.

Things are going great for Wellpoint. Don‘t blame them. It‘s not their fault. They‘re a private for-profit business. They do not care about this country. It is not their job to care about this country.

They‘re not a person. They do not have feelings. They‘re a corporation. They‘re a company. They are not a person. [The radical five on the U.S. Supreme Court beg to differ.] They‘re doing the job that is their fiduciary responsibility to do for their own shareholders. It is not their job to get health care for the American people.

It is their job to make as much money as possible off of the fact that American people, like all people, need health care, which is expensive, which we don‘t have the luxury of shopping for like we shop for cars or eggs or sneakers.

Because it‘s cancer. It‘s pregnancy. It‘s appendicitis. It‘s a compound fracture. It‘s a heart attack. It‘s diabetes. It‘s relief of pain at the time of death.

We have private for-profit companies who are trying to make as much profit as possible off our need for that care. And the point is not to blame them for them wanting to make a profit, but to not look at what they‘re doing and call it a health care system.

It‘s a profit-making system for companies that are not designed to meet your needs or my needs or our needs as a country. The better business health insurance companies do, the worse off the American people and the American economy are. The incentives are wrong.

Health insurance companies are the health care system in this country. By and large, that‘s what our system is. It‘s for-profit companies. And that means there is a problem in the system. The incentives are wrong.

It is individually rational for each private for-profit company that makes up this system to make decisions that are bad for the country. So we end up with a bad system.

Republican invitees to the health care summit tomorrow include Wisconsin Congressman Paul Ryan and Tennessee Congresswoman Marsha Blackburn. Their proposals on health care are to get rid of the main system that saves the elderly in our country from the for-profit system that would eat them alive.

The Republican plan, the plan favored by the Republican negotiators, is to end Medicare, get rid of it. Go to a purely for-profit system. Let Wellpoint and all the goodness in Wellpoint‘s heart take care of the 85-year-olds among us who they want to buy private insurance on the open market.

Some Democrats, like Anthony Weiner, want the opposite. They want the Wellpoints of this world out of it all together. They want Medicare for all.

Let companies find their profits and make millionaires out of their executive and fund their dozens of multimillion dollar retreats at resorts from a sector of the economy that isn‘t health care, that isn‘t cancer and hospice and broken bones.

Republicans want it to be all Wellpoint, all for profit, no safety net, not even for old people - kill Medicare. That‘s who they‘re bringing to the health summit.

Up on their hind legs, Democratic fighters like Anthony Weiner want Medicare for all. Democrats aren‘t even letting him in the door to that summit tomorrow.

So to the White House, I say this. A lot more people are with Anthony Weiner and against the insurance companies than are with Marsha Blackburn and Paul Ryan who want to hand the insurance companies even more of our blood and treasure. You ignore the public option and the appeal of Medicare for all at your very grave peril.

Read 'em and weep

by David Safier

Legislative news from today's Star:

• SB1097, mandating that schools submit the names of children who are not in the country legally to the DOE, was approved by its Senate committee. Another bill says the state will not give any money to schools for students not here legally, though I'm not sure of its current status.
• Homolovi Ruins State Park is set to close. It was made a state park in 1993 to protect the fragile ruins from looters, who will no doubt return. (Some of these idiots tried to take paintings off the rock walls. They came up with nothing but worthless pieces of rock, and the paintings were destroyed. Others brought in backhoes to try and uncover precious and fragile pieces of history Thank God we don't have idiots in Arizona anymore, so we don't need to protect our history!)
• HB2441, which says presidential candidates have to prove they are "natural born citizens" to our Secretary of State, was approved by its House committee. Primary sponsors of the bill include Vic Williams (who couldn't resist putting his fingerprints all over the birther bill) and Gowan. Co-sponsors include Melvin, Antenori and Stevens. In all, 40 of the 75 Republican legislators have signed on, proclaiming themselves birthers or birther wannabes.
• Cutting state health care funds will cost jobs, drain federal money from the state and endanger the quality of health care for everyone. So says Glenn Hamer, president and CEO of the Arizona State Chamber of Commerce.
• The Star's editorial condemns HB2701. Among other things, the bill would add nuclear energy to the list of renewable energy resources along with solar and wind. The result will be a virtual halt to new solar and wind efforts, chasing businesses and jobs from the state. The entire Corporation Commission opposes the bill, with Republican Chair Kris Mayes bemoaning the "disconnect" between some Republican lawmakers "unfortunately from my party" and the rest of the state. Antenori is a primary sponsor. Melvin, Williams, Paton, Stevens and Gowan have co-sponsored the bill.

Read 'em and weep. Or read 'em and act. The crazies are in charge. Even their natural allies are furious.

Vote 'em out!

LD 28 Candidate Forum - House Candidates

Posted by AzBlueMeanie:

Special thanks to volunteer Curtis Dutiel for videotaping the LD 28 Candidate Forum and editing the videos.

The LD 28 House candidates spoke in alphabetical order. Incumbent Rep. Steve Farley spoke first, following the pyrotechnics between Sen. Paula Aboud and former Rep. Ted Downing.

Ted Prezelski, whom many of you know from his Rum, Romanism and Rebellion blog, and a former district officer in Legislative District 28 spoke next.

Mohur Sidhwa, former vice chair of the Arizona Democratic Party, former First Vice Chair of the Pima County Democratic Party and former Chair of Legislative District 28 spoke next.

Tim Sultan, who last ran for Congress in the Democratic primary in 2004, spoke next.

Finally, Bruce Wheeler, a former Tucson City Councilman and former state legislator who represented the old District 13, concluded the speeches for the evening.

Blog for Arizona strongly encourages citizen journalism in the "new" media era. We encourage Democrats to videotape their candidate forums and debates, and we will make them available here to better inform the voting public. We also encourage readers to videotape Republican Party events. If you capture something noteworthy, i.e., a "macaca moment," we really want you to send it to us. The advertiser sponsored (directed) corporate news media will not report on your campaigns. Democrats have to create their own alternative media coverage.

AEA on latest AZ ed bill

by David Safier

From an Arizona Education Association alert:

Today HB 2395 passed in House Government Committee.  This bill, sponsored by Rep. Laurin Hendrix, will prohibit school boards from allowing Association dues to be collected through payroll deduction.  Since the bill was last on the agenda, AEA staff and leaders stayed through the entire 7+ hours of the committee hearing in order to testify against the bill and show solidarity as a union.
 
AEA Vice President Andrew Morrill spoke on behalf of the Association along with other local association members and leaders.  The bill passed along party lines, 6-1, with Rep. Chad Campbell as the only NO vote.  HB 2395 takes away control from teachers' personal freedom to choose how they want the funds from their paycheck distributed and it limits teachers' abilities to make personal business decisions.
 
This bill is another example of the legislature attacking Arizona's teachers and infringing on their rights in an attempt to punish teachers for lobbying on behalf of school funding, specifically for rallying in front of the Capitol last March 4.  HB 2395 continues the work of the policy changes passed during special session last year that eliminated contract dates, RIF recall rights, and seniority protections for teaching professionals.

The Predator Class and the Predator State

Posted by AzBlueMeanie:

Two economics essays from the past decade are worth reviewing again with a look backwards from where we have come for lessons learned, and a look forward to where we want to go drawing upon those lessons.

The first essay is from 2003 by Dick Meyer, who writes the Against the Grain commentary for CBS News. The Predator Class:

The stock market boom of the 1990s, the proliferation of 401(k) plans and the mass use of mutual funds so greatly increased the number of Americans who own equities that a new demographic term was born: the investor class.

The emerging accounts of thievery in the world of mutual funds confirm, for me at least, something I have suspected since the go-go 1980s -- the existence of an economic predator class.

I believe there is now a professional, well-trained elite, supported by large institutions, that is adept and willing to use corrupt practices to accumulate wealth. Despite assurances from game-theorists and anthropologists that the criminal cadre in the species remains a constant percentage over time, I believe today's mainstream, sanitized, and institutionally sanctioned financial crime rackets are being run by a new breed of crook. There have always been scandals and crooks in the history of American money, but our predator class is a distinct creation of the late 20th century.

I believe there is no way the counter-class made up of regulators, watchdogs and do-gooders and hack columnists can match wits with the predator class. Today's piles of money are so huge, great fortunes can be amassed by swiping the tiniest of slices in the wiliest of ways long before picked pockets are discovered.

I also believe that my darling baby-boom generation and our successors in gens x and y, reared in raised consciousness, righteousness and me-first, are probably to blame.

The docket of this still running corporate crime spree has grown far too long to be dismissed as either a passing fluke, a few bad eggs or as regularly scheduled financial event. It is a more permanent condition of commercial culture. And it is barely scorned.

It is partly, of course, simple Wall Street and boardroom greed, a cousin to the greed and gargantuan rewards in entertainment and sports. It is partly the degradation of professional standards, of the concept of the fiduciary, akin to the same market-driven devolution in divergent fields such as medical care, Hollywood, publishing and, yes, journalism.

My guess is that financial historians will start the clock in this epoch with the big merger scandals of the 1980's -- Ivan Boesky, Michael Milken and scads of lesser cads. Next came the long running, now forgotten, S&L scandals. Then a lull (maybe), punctuated by the pretty picture of the tech boom. That delusional portrait was been redrawn when we learned of the rigged IPO's, insider trading, completely corrupt "analysis" practices at the Wall Street giants and old-fashioned flimflam.

Coveting the vast instant riches of the techno-boomers and baby billionaires was way more than many titans of less glamorous industries could bear and in virtually all companies executive salaries soared beyond all proportions of the post-war era. And in many of those executive suites, greed morphed into felony -- Tyco, Enron, Rite-Aid, Adelphia, Global Crossing, WorldCom, ImClone, Lucent, KMart, MicroStrategy, Qwest Communications. And then scandals at the supposed auditors, like Arthur Andersen, insulted the injury.

As the market turned down, the corporate crime spree didn't wane as some theorists said it should. Hot stocks, IPO's, M&A were no longer where the Willy Suttons with MBAs, Turnbull & Asser shirts and Patek Philipe watches saw the money. They saw it in those huge piles of money accumulated by working people for savings and retirement -- corporate pension funds, public pension funds, 401(k)'s and mutual funds. Who would notice a few mil or bil siphoned off in arcane late-trading deals? They'll never know what hit them.

So, pension funds were raided, an entirely legal scandal. And now we're learning about the mutual fund grifting rampage that may affect Main Street as much as prior fiascos: Putnam, Alger Management, Bank of America, Morgan Stanley, Strong Capital Management, PBHG Funds, Bank One Corp., Alliance Capital, Janus Capital Group are some of the implicated names.

So now we'll be told that the market, smarter than any deliberately organized system, will correct this. After all, who would invest in a known corrupt game? No one, so the market will make fix it. Plus, the regulators are on the case.

This time, I don't buy it. The predator class will not be exterminated by cease and desist orders, Senate hearings, independent boards of directors and the invisible hand. It's a culture. And essentially, it's our culture.

Meyer was writing about the first series of Wall Street investment "bubbles" before the sub-prime mortgage real estate bubble began to burst in 2006 and nearly destroyed the world's economy by September 2008.

The second essay is from 2006 is by economist James K Galbraith. The Predator State | Mother Jones:

WHAT IS THE REAL NATURE of American capitalism today? Is it a grand national adventure, as politicians and textbooks aver, in which markets provide the framework for benign competition, from which emerges the greatest good for the greatest number? Or is it the domain of class struggle, even a “global class war,” as the title of Jeff Faux’s new book would have it, in which the “party of Davos” outmaneuvers the remnants of the organized working class?

The doctrines of the “law and economics” movement, now ascendant in our courts, hold that if people are rational, if markets can be “contested,” if memory is good and information adequate, then firms will adhere on their own to norms of honorable conduct. Any public presence in the economy undermines this. Even insurance—whether deposit insurance or Social Security—is perverse, for it encourages irresponsible risk taking. Banks will lend to bad clients, workers will “live for today,” companies will speculate with their pension funds; the movement has even argued that seat belts foster reckless driving. Insurance, in other words, creates a “moral hazard” for which “market discipline” is the cure; all works for the best when thought and planning do not interfere. It’s a strange vision, and if we weren’t governed by people like John Roberts and Sam Alito, who pretend to believe it, it would scarcely be worth our attention.

* * *

McCain throws down the birther gauntlet

by David Safier

Now things should get interesting. Marlene Phillips points out the weird birther triangle forming in Arizona's Republican party.

Side one: Hayworth is anywhere between a semi-birther and an outright birther, calling for Obama to show his birth certificate.

Side two: McCain is not a birther and, what's more, put out a video calling Hayworth a weird conspiracy theorist for siding with the birthers (video below). [To be completely accurate, the video was put out by "Friends of John McCain." But it's on the JohnMcCain.com youtube channel, which sounds pretty official to me.]

Side three: AZ Republican legislators agree with Hayworth:

[O]n Tuesday the state House approved a bill demanding presidential candidates show them, the Arizona state legislators, a birth certificate before they're allowed to appear on the Arizona ballot. While the bill says 'all presidential candidates' it's obvious target is President Barack Obama. The birther bill was sponsored by 40 of the 90 Arizona legislatures, all Republicans.

So, by extension, McCain just called the majority of Republican legislators (40 of 75) weird birther conspiracy theorists.

I can't wait -- can't wait! -- to see the next move.

GOP Economics 101: The rich get richer and you pay for it

Posted by AzBlueMeanie:

One of my favorite economics bloggers, Jon Perr at crooksandliars.com, recently posted this insightful analysis. Richest 400 Taxpayers See Incomes Double, Tax Rates Halved This must read analysis is reposted in full:

For Democrats wavering in their resolve to end the Bush tax cuts for the wealthiest Americans, shocking new data from the IRS should hopefully stiffen their backbones. Between 2001 and 2007, the 400 richest taxpayers doubled their annual incomes to an average of $345 million, while their effective tax rate plummeted to only 16.6% from 29.4% in 1993.

Following recent analyses confirming that income inequality in the United States has reached record levels, noted tax journalist David Cay Johnston summed up the new data, "The incomes of the top 400 American households soared to a new record high in dollars and as a share of all income in 2007, while the income tax rates they paid fell to a record low. The numbers tell the tale of the widening chasm between the rich and everyone else:

In 2007 the top 400 taxpayers had an average income of $344.8 million, up 31 percent from their average $263.3 million income in 2006, according to figures in a report that the IRS posted to its Web site without announcement that were discovered February 16...

Adjusted for inflation to 2009 dollars, the top 400 enjoyed a 27 percent increase in their income, or nine times the rate of increase for the bottom 90 percent...Since 1992, the bottom 90 percent of Americans have seen their incomes rise by 13 percent in 2009 dollars, compared with an increase of 399 percent for the top 400.

Unsurprisingly, the public disclosure of the top 400 report first introduced by the Clinton administration was halted by President Bush (only to be reinstituted by the Obama White House last year). Unsurprising that is, because the sheer size of the massive windfall for America's rich due to the Bush tax cuts would make a Warren Buffet blush.

As the Center for American Progress noted, the Bush tax cuts delivered a third of their total benefits to the wealthiest 1% of Americans. And to be sure, their payday was staggering. The Center on Budget and Policy Priorities detailed that by 2007, millionaires on average pocketed $120,000 from the Bush tax cuts of 2001 and 2003. Those in the top 1% stashed an extra $45,000 a year. As a result, millionaires saw their after-tax incomes rise by 7.6%, while the gains for the middle quintile and bottom 20% of Americans were a paltry 2.3% and 0.4%, respectively. (Other CBPP studies demonstrated that the Bush tax cuts accounted for half of the mushrooming deficits during his tenure in the White House and will continue to do so over the next decade.)

And as the New York Times uncovered in 2006, the 2003 Bush dividend and capital gains tax cuts offered almost nothing to taxpayers earning below $100,000 a year. Instead, those windfalls reduced taxes "on incomes of more than $10 million by an average of about $500,000." As the Times revealed in a jaw-dropping chart, "the top 2 percent of taxpayers, those making more than $200,000, received more than 70% of the increased tax savings from those cuts in investment income." So it should come as no surprise that the income share of the 400 richest Americans doubled over the past decade.

And yet, the usual suspects among the Republican Party (and some quislings among the Democrats) are pleading that the rich should be spared even as their share of the national wealth reaches stratospheric levels. Arguing in the Wall Street Journal that the upper bracket tax rates should not be restored to their Clinton-era rates, Ari Fleischer insisted that the top 10% of taxpayers are "supporting virtually everyone and everything" and "their burden keeps getting heavier." Fleischer added, "It's also what's called redistribution of income, and it is getting out of hand."

Oh, it's gotten out of hand all right, just not in the direction Fleischer claims.

But as ThinkProgress detailed, failing to restore upper bracket tax rates to their Clinton-era levels of 39.6% from 35% not only won't help spur economic recovery, it will blow a gaping hole through the federal budget even as it needlessly lines the pockets of the wealthiest Americans:

In an era when everyone seems to be running around screaming about the deficit, there's absolutely no reason to extend these cuts, which this year will give millionaires more in tax breaks than 90 percent of Americans will earn in income. The Bush tax cuts have delivered $715 billion to the wealthiest one percent of the country over the last ten years, and extending the cuts would give households in that one percent $60,000 in additional breaks per year, with millionaires receiving a $150,000 annual break. Over ten years, that amounts to another $1.2 trillion in lost revenue.

Last August, the always excellent David Leonhardt of the New York Times described the toll that the Bush recession had taken on the coffers of the richest Americans. "Over the last two years, they have become poorer," he wrote, "And many may not return to their old levels of wealth and income anytime soon." But the last time they paid a 39% income tax rate, the United States enjoyed a booming economy, rising incomes, low unemployment and expanding budget surpluses.

It may not have been quite as good a deal for the Bush 400, but it worked pretty well for almost everybody else.

Puny G.I. response to AEA's Wright shows G.I. playing defense

by David Safier

AEA's John Wright and G.I.'s Matthew Ladner debated the "Florida Educational Miracle" reforms moving their way through our legislature -- piecemeal measures which don't really touch on some substantive reforms Florida made. Wright came armed with facts, and he  punched holes in some of Ladner's major assertions. Ladner isn't used to being challenged with facts beyond those he cherry-picks to reach his ideologically based conclusions. So he decided to hit back in an arena where Wright couldn't respond: G.I.'s Daily Email.

The screaming headline on today's G.I. Daily Email is AEA president has facts wrong about Florida education reforms. Then Ladner goes on to pick around the edges of one statement Wright made. This is a standard conservative tactic: pull out one small portion of a statement by an opponent and use it as a club, ignoring everything else. It's amusing to watch fast-and-loose-with-facts Ladner get all lawyerly about the exact wording of Wright's statement -- and still get it wrong.

Here's Wright's statement, quoted by Ladner:

“The steepest increases that Florida saw in both reading and math scores were between 1994 and 2002--before most of these reforms took place.”

Ladner replies:

. . . the Florida legislature enacted most of the reforms in 1999, which falls between 1994 and 2002.

Matthew, I shouldn't have to remind you that "enacted" is not the same thing as being put into practice. As you well know, 3rd grade retention, the biggest of the two Florida-related reforms working their way through our legislature, may have been "enacted" in 1999, but it was put into place during the 2002 school year.

Wright is right. Ladner is wrong.

Then Ladner goes on to criticize Wright's statement by playing games with numbers. Ladner appears to have a point -- until you look at what he's saying.

Between 1994 and 1998, Florida’s reading scores increased by two points. After the reforms, Florida’s scores increased by 18 points between 1998 and 2007.

Ladner compares a 4 year stretch -- 1994-1998 -- to a 10 year stretch -- 1998-2007. That's ridiculous on its face. But even worse, he begins the 10 year stretch in 1998, 4 years before the 3rd grade retention or Florida's reading improvement plans actually began. (So far as I know, the only real change from 1998 to 2002 was grading Florida's schools on an A-through-F system.) Any gain during those 4 years confirm Wright's point.

Once again, Wright is right. Ladner is wrong.

I could go further into Ladner's argument, but I'll stop here -- except to say that Ladner pulls out his favorite $9700 per student figure which is only relevant as a piece of propaganda. No matter how many times Ladner says it, it's still the same tired old, meaningless statistic.

To devote an entire email to evidence this thin, Ladner must be worried that his hoped-for monopoly on educational facts and figures is being challenged -- and the media is beginning to catch on to what's going on.

The dysfunctional U.S. Senate and the Grand Obstructionist Party

Posted by AzBlueMeanie:

First, the good news. The U.S. Senate managed to pass a slimmed-down jobs bill today. Senate passes $15 billion jobs package:

The Senate on Wednesday approved a $15 billion package of tax breaks and highway spending that aims to bring down the country's stubbornly high unemployment rate. By a vote of 70 to 28, the Senate approved the bill and sent it on to the House of Representatives, which could approve the measure quickly for President Barack Obama to sign into law.

* * *

The bill includes a $13 billion payroll tax break for businesses that hire unemployed workers, along with subsidies for state and local construction bonds.

It also extends the highway-construction fund through the end of the year.

The bill's costs are offset by a crackdown on offshore tax shelters.

Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid said he expects to take up a second jobs bill this week that could extend unemployment benefits, renew an expired research-and-development tax break, and provide money to cash-strapped states.

Today's vote was made possible only because five Republican Senators defected on a cloture vote on Monday to kill a Grand Obstructionist Party filibuster of the bill. That's right, the GOP's legislative agenda to simply oppose everything includes opposing assistance to the more than 10% unemployed Americans in this country and reviving our national economy. Harry Reid snags victory on $15B jobs bill Remember in November.

The Grand Obstructionist Party now forces a cloture vote on even the most routine of legislative matters. The U.S. Senate has been rendered dysfunctional by this extraordinary abuse of the filibuster (recently dubbed the "Tarantino" in a viewer contest on the Rachel Maddow Show because it "kills bills." Too clever.)

Despite today's bipartisan vote for the jobs bill, there remains a backlog of 290 bills passed by the House but stalled in the Senate. Senate sitting on 290 bills already passed by House; tension mounts - TheHill.com

Exasperated House Democratic leaders have compiled a list showing that they have passed 290 bills that have stalled in the Senate.

* * *

An aide to House Speaker Nancy Pelosi (D-Calif.) says the list is put together during each Congress, but that this year’s number is likely the largest ever. However, he said Pelosi blames GOP senators, not Majority Leader Harry Reid (D-Nev.) or Majority Whip Dick Durbin (D-Ill.).

“The Speaker believes that the filibuster has its place, but clearly Senate Republicans are taking what was once a rare procedural move and abusing it to the detriment of progress for America’s working families,” said Pelosi spokesman Drew Hammill.

* * *

In January, House Majority Whip James Clyburn (D-S.C.) suggested the Senate was out of touch with Americans, and did not differentiate between the two parties.

“[Senators] tend to see themselves as a House of Lords and they don’t seem to understand that those of us that go out there every two years stay in touch with the American people,” Clyburn said in an interview with Fox News Radio. “We tend to respond to them a little better.”

Earlier this month in an MSNBC interview, House Democratic Caucus Chairman John Larson (Conn.) said, “There’s a host of things that we’ve passed already, and there needs to be action in the Senate, and people are tired of it,” adding that he was “glad the president cited the House” for making more progress than the Senate in his State of the Union address.

The list of stalled bills includes both major and minor legislation: healthcare reform; climate change; food safety; financial aid for the U.S. Postal Service; a job security act for wounded veterans; a Civil War battlefield preservation act; vision care for children; the naming of a federal courthouse in Iowa after former Rep. Jim Leach (R-Iowa); a National Historic Park named for President Jimmy Carter; a bill to improve absentee ballot voting; a bill to improve cybersecurity; and the Wall Street Reform and Consumer Protection Act.

Hammill said Pelosi’s office also compiled a second list in December of 90 pieces of legislation that have passed the House, more than 60 of them with at least 50 Republican votes.

“There’s a perception that the House is really partisan these days, but the actual numbers show otherwise,” Hammill said.

Reid, like Pelosi, blames Republicans for the legislative logjam. In a speech late Monday on the Senate floor, he took the GOP to task for opposing a job-growth bill pending before the chamber, and said Republicans are abusing the filibuster.

“We had to file cloture some 70 times last year,” Reid said. “Seventy times. That’s remarkably bad. Let’s change that.”

Arizona's twin embarrassments, Senator Obstruction, Jon Kyl, and Senator McNasty, John McCain, are leaders of the Grand Obstructionist Party legislative agenda to simply oppose everything. Sen. Obstruction voted against cloture and the jobs bill. Sen. McNasty missed the cloture vote but voted against the jobs bill. U.S. Senate: Legislation & Records Home > Votes 00024, 00025.

Arizona, among the states with the highest rate of unemployment and a devastated state economy, has two senators who led the fight against the jobs bill. Arizona's twin embarrassments care more about partisan political warfare than doing the work of the people and serving the best interests of Americans.

We here in Arizona have the power in our hands to begin to restore functional government and our democracy. Let us begin this year by throwing that bitter old man, Sen. McNasty, out of office.

Out of the mouths of comic strips . . .

by David Safier

From today's Non Sequitur:

The LD 28 Candidate Forum - Senate Candidates

Posted by AzBlueMeanie:

Special thanks to volunteer Curtis Dutiel for videotaping the LD 28 Candidate Forum and editing the videos.

Today we have the two Democratic candidates for the Senate seat, incumbent Sen. Paula Aboud and her challenger, former Rep. Ted Downing. This is a rematch of the nasty 2006 Senate primary, and apparently what will be a grudge match this year.

Sen. Paula Aboud begins the festivities by asking Ted Downing to drop out of the race for the sake of party unity and to allow her to spend her time working for the election of Terry Goddard as governor. I don't know, that sounded a little to me like "do it for Terry's kids" (a riff of the Jerry Lewis MD Telethon). I'm confident that every Democrat running for office will be supporting Terry Goddard for governor, the future of our state depends on it.

As you might expect, this appeal for unity did not sit well with Ted Downing. He took the gloves off and came out swinging. Downing cited a recent hit piece in the Arizona Daily Star about Democratic legislators' attendance and voting records. The old maxim that "there are lies, damn lies and statistics" applies here. What made the Arizona Daily Star hit piece journalistic malpractice is the same reason why Downing's argument is suspect: context. Raw data without context is meaningless.

We have a Republican dominated Legislature. The majority leadership does not consult the minority leadership in most instances, and loves to play partisan games. The majority leadership will schedule votes without adequate notice to members and strategically timed to produce the vote they need to pass a measure. These votes often are scheduled when members of the Legislature who do not live in the Taliban State of Maricopa have already returned to their homes in the Free Republic of Arizona. This was especially true last year with five Special Sessions. Most times, the Republican majority has the votes it needs without a single Democratic vote. There are sometimes strategic reasons why a Democrat would not want to take a position on a particular bill. Other times, there are tactical reasons why Democrats are not on the floor to vote, i.e., to deny a quorum or to stage a protest against procedural violations of the rules (which occurs all too frequently), etc. Context matters.

Curtis says he will have the LD 28 House candidate speeches available shortly. The House candidates stuck to their scripts of talking about their own campaigns, and not attacking one another. Not the kind of thing the local media types report on - they want controversy and "he said, she said" accusations. The local media types will have to satisfy their blood lust with this Senate race.

The Farley Report: February 23, 2010

Posted by AzBlueMeanie:

Time once again for the Farley Report from Rep. Steve Farley (D-LD 28):

Welcome to the Farley Report's 100th Edition! I hope you are still aglow over US Secretary of Transportation Ray LaHood's visit to Tucson last Thursday.

You can visit my website (http://www.FriendsOFarley.org) to see a photo of the Secretary and I holding that big $63,000,000 check that represents the final piece to the funding puzzle for Tucson's Modern Streetcar.

It's been nine long years of working together with many of you to get this done, and we deserve to savor a true victory for Tucson. The streetcar will produce hundreds of jobs this year, and thousands more in coming years as it makes Downtown Tucson the economic engine for the region, powering us out of this recession.

Yes, you and I will be riding the Streetcar from the University Medical Center through the UofA campus, Fourth Avenue, Downtown, and the Westside Mercado District in less than two years. I'm hoping our dedication day will coincide with the Arizona Centennial -- February 14, 2012.

Meanwhile up I-10 a ways, it's Striker Week here at the Arizona Legislature wherein many otherwise inoffensive bills gain strange new evil powers when their guts are stripped out and replaced with all new internal organs.

It not only sounds like a horror story, it is!

Republican legislators always drop a few bills per member each session that make technical corrections or declare milk as our state beverage (yes, that's a real one -- Rep. Pratt's HB2611 -- I say, why not horchata?) or duplicate other bills that they have introduced.

These bills routinely pass through committees, and then, when you least expect it, they become the dead hosts for parasitical language that is not required to bear any resemblance to the original subject. That is known as a Striker Amendment, a tool only available to lawmakers of the majority party.

This chilling transformation can happen at any time in any committee in the House or the Senate, but it is most likely to happen on the last week to hear House bills in House committees or Senate bills in Senate committees. This is that week.

We heard one of these strikers in Ways & Means yesterday in the form of HCR2057. This bill is a near-duplicate of a bill passed last week which would phase out the business personal property tax. Once that bill passed, HCR2057 became the perfect victim for a striker amendment.

The parasitic language in this case is an all-star zombie that has risen from the dead ten separate times after being vetoed by every governor of both parties since Jack Williams forty years ago. It would put before the voters a constitutional amendment to allow the Legislature to spend restricted federal money any way it deems appropriate.

Aside from adding to what promises to be a record-breaking number of referenda for the November ballot, this is a completely illegal grab of funds (such as CDBG -- community development block grants) that local governments and nonprofits have in many cases spent years seeking in order to fund a specific local priority. It would violate major federal laws, possibly including the US Constitution, and was placed in the form of a referendum specifically to end-run another Gubernatorial veto.

Federal law-breaking aside, you may ask how it's going with that budget problem we used to talk so much about. The Republicans are now meeting with their own members only in small groups behind closed doors, and the word is that they are going to try to get the budget done next week for fiscal 2010 and 2011.

Whether that will happen or not is anyone's guess, but their sadly predictable exclusion of Democrats from the process indicates they believe once more that they can go it alone.

They are going to introduce a budget that is very similar to the Governor's proposals. You may remember that she wanted to toss 400,000 kids, seniors, and people in poverty off their health care, cut $750 million from education, and chop many other vital services amounting to $1.3 billion in additional cuts in the next two years, EVEN IF voters PASS the one-cent sales tax on May 18. If we do NOT pass that tax, she will take that as a mandate to slash and burn most of what's left of what used to be our government.

The Republican Legislative budget will likely include "triggers" that will indicate what will be cut and by how much if the sales tax is not approved, and what will be saved if it is approved.

We do not yet know a couple of things.

1) Will the Republicans still insist on their corporate bailout package that would jack up property taxes on homeowners while giveaways to big corporations and the rich blow an additional billion-dollar annual hole in our deficit? How will that get paid for?

2) How will the new budget make up for the faulty assumptions in the Governor's proposal that a) the sales tax would be in place next month, and b) she is no longer pushing for a tax on repair services that would have increased revenues by $160 million a year?

The Governor's proposal to roll back the voter-approved Prop 204 funding of healthcare for people in poverty at least recognized that this move needed to be re-approved by voters. But the Legislative Republicans are now proposing to just override the voters' will on their own, and kick these 310,000 Arizonans off their health care immediately.

This is a pretty clear case of breaking the law that protects voter-approved initiatives (Prop 105), and will be overturned in court after we spend a few million dollars more in legal fees, so it is unclear that this will do anything but cost us money and put 310,000 people out in the cold while the lawsuits play out.

And it will force our hospitals to treat these folks in their emergency rooms without reimbursement, causing insurance premiums to rise and hospitals to teeter on the edge of bankruptcy. Hey, there's that leadership thing again!

But don't worry... We can always drown our sorrows in a nice cold glass of Arizona's new state beverage, Milk.

The Coming Week: Legislative Edition - Chapter 5, Wednesday and Thursday

Posted by Craig McDermott

As usual, all info gathered from the website of the Arizona Legislature, except where noted, and subject to change without notice...

On the Senate side...

Wednesday:

...Veterans and Military Affairs will meet at 1:30 p.m. in SHR2.  The highlght of this one seems to be a striker to SCR1021 relating to greenhouse gases and asking Congress to not allow the EPA to enact greenhouse gas control regulations that aren't industry-friendly.

...Public Safety and Human Services will meet at 9 a.m. in SHR3.  The highlight of this one seems to be a striker to SB1147.  It would remove mental disease or incapacity as a valid reason to rescind parental rights.

...Healthcare and Medical Liability Reform will meet at 9 a.m. in SHR1.  Seems quiet so far.

Thursday:

...Government Institutions will meet at 10 a.m. in SHR1.  Seems quiet so far.

Over on the House side...

Wednesday:

...Military Affairs and Public Safety will meet at 9 a.m. in HHR3.  Highlights include:

HB2632, banning "sanctuary city" policies, turning all of AZ's law enforcement officers into ICE agents, and other anti-immigrant language;

HCR2008, establishing the Arizona constitutional right to hunt and fish.

...Health and Human Services will meet at 9 a.m. in HHR4.  The highlight here seems to be HB2124, allowing urgent care centers to open for service without being inspected first. 

Thursday:

...Natural Resources and Rural Affairs will meet at 8 a.m. in HHR5.  Seems quiet so far.

...Water and Energy will meet at 9 a.m. in HHR5.  Seems quiet so far.

...Transportation and Infrastructure will meet at 9 a.m. in HHR3.  Seems quiet so far.

Later...

Republicans running amok: It isn't just Arizona...

Posted by Craig McDermott

This isn't exactly heartening, per se, but it's nice to know that Arizona isn't the only state where the loons are running wild in the legislature. On the other hand, it really sucks for the rest of the country that they have to deal with some of the same garbage that we have here...

There are a lot of things that are unique to Arizona - the Grand Canyon, saguaro cactus, days where we have both the highest and lowest temperatures recorded in the continental U.S. and more. However, that species of creature known as the "Legislative Republican Loon" is not one of those "unique to Arizona" things.

To whit...

....In Virginia, Republican Bob Marshall, a member of VA's House of Delegates (akin to the House of Representatives here), stated that he thinks handicapped children are "God's vengeance" upon women who have had abortions. Lest you think he is a one-dimensional ideologue, focused solely on making misogyny a guiding principal of public policy in Virgina, he has sponsored or co-sponsored bills like: HB32, arming college instructors; HB340, listing qualifications of presidential candidates that must be proven before the candidate can be listed on a ballot; HB345, withdrawal from the Medicaid program upon passage of federal health care reform legislation; HB69, stating that firearms manufactured in and remaining in Virginia are exempt from federal regulation; and HJ125, a Tenth Amendment/state supremacy resolution.

...In Oklahoma, they've proposed things like HB2279, limiting divorce except under certain extreme circumstances; HB2532, drug testing welfare applicants and recipients; and HB2884, stating that firearms manufactured in and remaining in Oklahoma are exempt from federal regulation.

...In South Carolina the loons have introduced measures like H4501, mandating that tax bills are paid in gold and silver bullion or coins;

...in Michigan, bills like SB1127, eliminating no fault divorce;

...in Utah, HB255, changing the requirements of the already-existing "divorce orientation course" by mandating that a divorce cannot be granted until the filer for the divorce takes the course, no matter the grounds for the divorce action (and this doesn't even include the lunatic scheme in Utah to abolish 12th grade in order to save the state some money);

...in Alabama, SB319, extending the waiting period for divorces to 180 days (no minor children involved) and 365 days (minor children involved);

In case some readers have noted the similarities between some of the proposals before the various state legislatures, there *is* some organization behind these efforts. Perhaps the most influential of the ideologically-based organizations is the American Legislative Exchange Council (ALEC). It's an industry-supported organization dedicated to advancing the causes of its corporate clients/donors. ALEC allows industry lobbyists to get together with legislators from all over the country to craft "model" legislation that if enacted, would benefit their clients. There are other national organizations dedicated to influencing state-level legislation, but few do it quite so effectively.


"Organized loons"?

Can't that phrase be used to describe other conglomerations of whack jobs, dedicated to undermining and even destroying the fabric of our nation? Al Quaeda? KKK? I digress...

Anyway, it really was nice to see that we aren't alone in the fight against legislative lunacy, even if it does seem that we have a higher concentration of loons per capita than almost any other state.

Later...

Studies question 3rd grade retention

by David Safier

I just read that the House Education Committee has approved HB2732, which would hold 3rd graders back if their reading scores are below a set level (the bill includes a number of exceptions -- some ELL students, some students with learning disabilities, etc.). So the legislative wheel is in spin.

I've noted in my Floridation of Arizona Education series how shaky the data is on the value of retaining 3rd graders. Today, I found a few studies which reinforce my concerns, including one saying any academic gains for students held back in Florida are short-lived.

Yesterday, Education Week posted a blog item, Early Retention Benefits Can Be Fleeting, Study Finds (It may be subscription only).

. . . most, but not all, studies on grade retention suggest that in the long run, the practice may not work out so well for the students. Most disheartening of all, some studies show, in fact, that students who repeat a grade in school are more likely than their nonretained counterparts to drop out later on.

The article refers to a study on the psychological effects on students being held back, which, the study says, grow more negative as the students move through school.

Some other studies talked about the academic effects of retention. The most interesting is a 2008 study, Third-Grade Retention: A Four Year Follow-Up, published by the Miami Dade County Public Schools. It says that, after a boost in reading scores for a few years, students who were held back do no better, and possibly a little worse, than equivalent students who weren't retained.

I won't get too deep in the weeds here, except to say the study takes students who were held back in the 2002-3 school year and compares them with equivalent students who weren't held back the year before, before the retention program was put into operation.

In the chart, you can see the retained students (the blue line) spiked ahead of the others (the red line), then leveled off and ended up, in 4 years, slightly behind those who weren't retained.

Interestingly, the researchers used a model created a few years before which showed the significant 2 year gain by the same students and concluded that retention successfully increased students' reading scores. The 2008 report revisited the students 2 years later and concluded that the gains didn't continue in later grades.

I've often accused G.I.'s Matthew Ladner of being obsessed with 4th grade reading scores. The reason may be, as I've suspected, the 4th grade scores serve his purpose, while more longitudinal data, following the students through later years, make the gains appear more questionable. Ladner, who has far more expertise in Florida reforms than I do, must know of these studies. But they add too many shades of gray to the black-and-white, up-and-down, good-or-bad conclusions he's so fond of reaching.

Paton on his resignation: I'm graduating from high school

by David Safier

Jonathan Paton, who usually has nearly perfect pitch when it comes to self promotion, may want to take back this analogy on his resignation from the state Senate, quoted in Jim Nintzel's blog:

“It’s kind of like graduation day,” Paton says. “There’s a certain wistfulness. You never want to leave high school, but you do want to go to college.”

I guess Paton sees the state legislature as a bunch of not-quite-mature teenagers sitting around in student council deciding where to hold the prom. What you're doing is a little silly, but you get your name in the school newspaper, you get to make cool speeches, and it's good for your resume when you're applying to college.

Unfortunately, Paton's analogy may be all too accurate. Would that the only thing that immature gaggle of a Republican majority could screw up were the senior prom!

But if that's all Paton's time in the legislature was to him, a way to get himself noticed and to have something important looking to put on his resume for application to the U.S. House, that's a pretty poor reflection on the guy's seriousness as a legislator. Here too, Paton's analogy may be more accurate than he meant it to be.

Horne's comment about Huerta on TV News

by David Safier

Here's a news clip from KTVK-TV Phoenix on Horne's dismissal of Delores Huerta as "Cesar Chavez's former girlfriend."

My favorite moments:

• Horne's testimony in front of the House Education Committee at about a minute into the clip where he uses the "girlfriend" phrase. That's how Horne chooses to typify someone who has achieved iconic status in the Hispanic community and historic status in the nation. He's dismissive and derogatory -- a combined racist/sexist taunt.
• When Horne is confronted by Ruben Gallego near the end. Asked to apologize for the statement, Horne goes on the offensive instead. Republican rule: say something outrageous, then ignore your original statement and turn the conversation to the issue you were going after in the first place. It's only effective if Democrats and the media play into it.

Event Notice: LD 28 St. Patrick's Day Annual Fundraiser

Posted by AzBlueMeanie:

The LD 28 St. Patrick's Day Annual Fundraiser is the unofficial campaign kick-off event in Pima County. Anyone who is anyone running for political office in Arizona wants to be seen at the home of George and Margie Cunningham celebrating St. Patty's day and giving a short stump speech.

In the past, this has led to a crush of people at the door waiting to pay the price of admission. This year, LD 28 is selling tickets in advance. Buy your tickets now! Please mail payment with a completed contributor form to the LD 28 mailing address below. For more information please contact LD 28 District Chair Wood Sanders at (520) 319-0345 or LD28chair@gmail.com.

Event Notice: LD 29 Second Annual Wine & Cheese Party

Posted by AzBlueMeanie:

From the "Good" Dr. Laura, LD 29 District Chair:

The coming week: Legislative Edition, Chapter 4 - Tuesday

Posted by Craig McDermott

Because of some unexpected developments, I wasn't able to do a complete examination of this week's committee schedule, nor was I able to visit the lege on Monday (missing some interesting happenings like Sen. Jonathan Paton's resignation from the Senate in order to run for Congress, and Tom Horne's demonstration of why he doesn't have the temperment or professionalism to be the state's Attorney General.) Fortunately, those events were covered in other blogs.

Here are Tuesday's committee schedule and highlights:

On the House side of the quad -

- House Public Employees, Retirement, and Entitlement Reform will meet at 2 p.m. in HHR3. The agenda is a short one (two items). The more interesting of the two seems to be HB2344, barring "public employees" from engaging in lobbying or political activities during work hours. This one seems to be directed at teachers and others such as day care or health care workers who have objected to some of the lege's attacks on their areas of the budget.

- House Government will meet at 2 p.m. in HHR4.

Highlights:

HB2382, a bill that mandates that schools report all sorts of data regarding students who are unable to "prove lawful presence in the United States." Nativist election year posturing.

HB2395, barring school boards from authorizing payroll deductions for union dues. More payback for last year's criticisms and protests from the educators in the state.

HB2441, a "birther" bill regarding qualification of presidential candidates that must be proven before a candidate's name can be placed on the ballot.

A striker to HB2641, to override local regulation of "consumer fireworks." I don't know which lobbyist is paying for this one, but they must be paying well - this one has died before but it keeps coming back. This time it has been resurrected by Rep. Judy Burges.

HCR2039, a proposed amendment to the AZ constitution that would allow the lege to "suspend" voter protected funding via a majority vote of the lege. Given that this lege has proven beyond any doubt that it is utterly incapable of governing responsibly, or of even wanting to do so, this one is badbadbadbadBADBADBADBAD.

HCR2041, a proposed amendment to the AZ constitution to require a periodic reauthorization of voter mandated spending. Another legislative attempt to completely wrest control of the state away from the voters, particularly when those voters approve something that the Kool-Aid drinkers don't like.


- House Environment will meet at 2 p.m. in HHR5. Looks quiet thus far.


On the Senate side of the quad -

- Senate Commerce and Economic Development will meet at 1:30 p.m. in SHR1.

Highlight:

SB1126, Sen. Al Melvin's assertion that the federal government cannot regulate nuclear fuel that is produced and used in Arizona. Even if this one passes into law, the feds may have a slight difference of opinion with Melvin on the matter.

- Senate Appropriations will meet at 1:30 p.m. in SHR109; that agenda was covered in an earlier post.

McCain's revisionist history lie about the TARP bailout

Posted by AzBlueMeanie:

This morning the Arizona Republic reported on comments made by Sen. John McCain during a meeting with the Editorial Board. Sen. John McCain: I was misled on bailout:

[S]enator McCain says he was misled by then-Treasury Secretary Henry Paulson and Federal Reserve Chairman Ben Bernanke. McCain said the pair assured him that the $700 billion Troubled Asset Relief Program would focus on what was seen as the cause of the financial crisis, the housing meltdown.

"Obviously, that didn't happen," McCain said in a meeting Thursday with The Republic's Editorial Board, recounting his decision-making during the critical initial days of the fiscal crisis. "They decided to stabilize the Wall Street institutions, bail out (insurance giant) AIG, bail out Chrysler, bail out General Motors. . . . What they figured was that if they stabilized Wall Street - I guess it was trickle-down economics - that therefore Main Street would be fine."

* * *

McCain said Bush called him in off the campaign trail, saying a worldwide economic catastrophe was imminent and that he needed his help. "I don't know of any American, when the president of the United States calls you and tells you something like that, who wouldn't respond," McCain said. "And I came back and tried to sit down and work with Republicans and say, 'What can we do?' "

Once again Johnny Liar is oblivious to the existence of newfangled technology like videotape, audio recordings, newspaper reports or even books. Johnny Liar is so used to the Arizona McMedia simply reporting whatever he says without any fact-checking that facts don't matter - his situational reality is whatever he says it is at that moment.

To his credit, Republic political reporter Dan Nowicki at least cited a passage from Henry Paulson's new book about the financial crisis.

In his new book "On the Brink: Inside the Race to Stop the Collapse of the Global Financial System," Paulson belittles McCain's contribution to the response, noting that "when it came right down to it, (McCain) had little to say in the forum he himself had called." He also called McCain's decision to return to Washington, apparently without a plan, "impulsive and risky" and even "dangerous."

Reporting at the time is undisputed that it was McCain who first suspended his campaign in a desperate gamble to save his faltering campaign, and then McCain called Bush to ask him to call the meeting. Anyone with any recollection of the television news coverage of that meeting will recall that McCain sat largely silent at the meeting and it was Barack Obama who demonstrated his leadership skills. The auto bailout plan did not even occur until after the election. McCain's revisionist history about these events is a lie.

McCain lied to the Republic's Editorial Board - that collection of enablers who have been making excuses for and covering for John McCain for decades. I would like to know whether any of these editors called McCain on his obvious lie at the time he said it, or whether they just nodded their heads in agreement with a "harrumph." I expect to see an editorial opinion from the Republic criticizing McCain for his audacious lie to the Editorial Board.

Here is a commentary from Keith Olbermann to help get you started.

Visit msnbc.com for breaking news, world news, and news about the economy

Bonus at the end of the video: check out the Faux News chyron that says "J.D Hayworth, former Arizona congresswoman." Whoa! That's one big girl.

What's the McCain campaign theme again - "character matters"? Yes it does Johnny. And being an habitual liar is not character.

BTW, the betting pool is still open as to when McCain will suspend his senate campaign in a desperate attempt for attention from his adoring Arizona McMedia.

Horne and McCain: separated at birth?

by David Safier

No, I don't see any physical resemblance between Horne and McCain. It's just that the two of them are becoming equally addlepated in their quests to appeal to crazy-base right wing voters. They've both turned into walking, talking Saturday Night Live skits.

I won't detail McCain's latest tacks to the right. To be honest, I can't keep up with him. He's awfully spry on the flip flop for a man of his years.

But Horne . . . Wow.

As AZ Blue Meanie reported, in Horne's recent attempt to see and raise his previous slurs against Delores Huerta -- if you're Horne, you can't repeat too many times how awful those Hispanic people are -- he referred to her as "Cesar Chavez's former girlfriend." Way to demean a national icon, Tom.

According to R-Cubed, at today's Democratic press conference slamming Horne for the statement, Horne showed up. He said he may have used the wrong word to describe Huerta. He also said he may have read or heard somewhere that she was Chavez's girlfriend. Uh uh, Tom, that wasn't some casual comment. You knew exactly what you were saying, and why.

According to Tedski, when Horne was pressed, he couldn't come up with any information about Huerta, other than the fact that she said Republicans hate Hispanics. Maybe he needs to take a La Raza class to fill in the gaps in his knowledge of American history.

Horne is a Harvard educated lawyer. How many times each day does he hit himself over the head with a wooden mallet to make himself dumb enough to appeal to Republican voters?

Rep. Grijalva would "enthusiastically support" Obama's health care proposal with a public option

Posted by AzBlueMeanie:

Press release from Rep. Raúl Grijalva: I Would 'Enthusiastically Support' Obama's Proposal If It Had A Public Option:

"I appreciate the president working to move the health care agenda forward. Given the gridlock produced by constant Republican obstructionism, the White House's continued effort to reach a meaningful solution is welcome. The president's plan includes several essential elements - including efforts to hold down premium increases and eliminating the special Nebraska deal in the original Senate bill - that I think are vital.

I and many other progressives would enthusiastically support the bill if a public option, which would provide insurance industry competition and greatly reduce the deficit, were a higher priority. I am also concerned that affordability credits are not sufficient for many working Americans who often have to choose between health care and other equally basic expenses each month. Insurance industry regulations in the bill could be stronger, and I will look carefully at the outcome of final negotiations on this point.

I look forward to finalizing a reform package that will give all Americans adequate, reliable health care access. Although the president's bill does not include certain elements that I consider fundamental to successful reform, I applaud his commitment to the issue and fully expect to work with other lawmakers to produce a strong final product that we can be proud of."

Cap Times Reports Sen. Jonathan Paton to Resign Today

Posted by AzBlueMeanie:

The Arizona Capitol Times reports that Sen. Jonathan Paton (R-LD 30) will resign today. Arizona Capitol Times » Paton to step down today:

Sen. Jonathan Paton said today will be his last in the Arizona Senate.

He said being a lawmaker was the most exciting thing he’s ever done.

“I wouldn’t have wanted to be in any other place,” he said.

Paton’s final act as a lawmaker will be to finish today’s hearing in the Senate Judiciary Committee. He is chairman of the committee.

Paton was a member of the House from 2005 until 2008 when he was elected to the Senate. He now intends to run against U.S. Rep. Gabrielle Giffords in Arizona’s 8th Congressional District.

Republican Party officials in Pima County will choose three people as possible replacements for Paton. After that, the Pima County Board of supervisors will appoint one of those three to fill in for Paton during the rest of this year’s legislative session.

The wannabe tin horn dictator of Tucson can do us no more harm, thank God. He is just another unemployed politician seeking another job. Maybe he will return to some freelance lobbying.

Now, let the games begin! "Don't make me angry" Frank(enstein) Antenori is no doubt leaning hard on his county supervisor, Ray Carroll, to appoint him to the seat. The Tucson Weekly reported earlier that Frank has recruited former state legislators Bill McGibbon and Randy Graf to be the other two candidates submitted to the Pima County Board of Supervisors. They would serve as a seat warmer if the supervisors do not give in to Frank's extortionary demand. Antenori Chases D30 State Senate Seat While McClure Resets Aim On August Primary

Former Rep. Marian McClure has filed to run for the Senate seat in LD 30, but reportedly has withdrawn her name from consideration to be one of the three candidates submitted to the Board of Supervisors. There is always a chance Marian could be persuaded to change her mind. The GOP precinct committeemen in the Pima County portion of LD 30 will decide the three names to be sent to the Board of Supervisors.

Ultimately, the only vote that really matters is the Board of Supervisors. Start your lobbying now:

Ann Day, District 1
(520) 740-2738

Ramón Valadez, Chairman, District 2
(520) 740-8126

Sharon Bronson, District 3
(520) 740-8051

Ray Carroll, District 4
(520) 740-8094

Richard Elías, District 5
(520) 740-8126

J.D., we hardly knew ya

by David Safier

I always believe Fox News, whether they're trashing all things liberal or praising all things conservative.

So I gotta believe they got this right, especially since Fox has instituted a "zero tolerance for on-screen errors," after making more than a few typos.

So if Fox calls Hayworth "Former Arizona Congresswoman," who am I to argue?

 

Gender politics have taken a whole new turn in Arizona.

An interesting choice in the CD 3 GOP primary

Posted by AzBlueMeanie:

I received a press release from a Republican candidate for Congress who announced last week. As you know, Blog for Arizona is a resource for Democratic candidates. But when I saw the wingnuts over at Seeing Red AZ immediately attack this candidate, I decided to take a closer look.

The announcement was for Paulina Morris, a Republican candidate for Congressional District 3. From her press release, Ms. Morris is a first generation Cuban-American who made "her way west from the tough streets of Chicago to attend the University of Arizona, the Political Science major graduated cum laude. Paulina earned her juris doctorate from the University of Arizona. In 1998 Paulina attended graduate school at Arizona State University and earned an MBA and Master of Health Services Administration. Paulina most recently served as Deputy Director and General Counsel for the Arizona Department of Administration. She also served on the Governor's transition team and was one of Arizona's co-chairs of Hispanics for John McCain for President 2008."

Ms. Morris is married to her husband Jason and has two sons. Ms. Morris was elected to serve on the Maricopa County Special Health District Board of Directors from 2004-2008. She describes herself as a conservative (well, of course).

A quick Google search turned up this recent article in Latino Perspectives Magazine Paulina Vazquez Morris for U.S. Congress - Latino Perspectives Magazine - February 2010:

Paulina Vazquez Morris has announced she is considering a run to seek the Republican nomination for Rep. John Shadegg’s congressional seat. Shadegg (R-AZ) announced last month he would serve out his current term, but wouldn’t seek reelection to the U.S. House of Representatives. “I’m humbled by the people encouraging me to run for the Congressional District 3 seat and am seriously considering the race,” states Vazquez Morris.

* * *

Paulina is no stranger to public service. She served as a legislative and legal intern in the United States House of Representatives and the Arizona State Senate. She has also served as a legal extern to the Federal District Court of Arizona.

She joined the Brewer administration as part of the transition team and was recently promoted to deputy director and general counsel at the Arizona Department of Administration. She has served as an elected board member to the Maricopa County Special Health District, and was twice elected by the board as its chair. She has also served as an assistant director and administrative counsel to the Arizona Department of Economic Security and as board counsel to the Arizona Board of Regents.

In the private sector she has worked for Banner Health, Doctors Community Healthcare Corporation and the national law firm of Kutak Rock.

She holds a B.A. and a J.D. from the University of Arizona and dual master’s degree in business and health administration from ASU.

Given her credentials and experience, it would make sense for the talented, capable and well-poised Vazquez Morris to make immigration, health care and education her top priorities, matters which Arizonans have consistently ranked as top issues affecting our state.

Ms. Morris sounds like a credible contender, right? Well, this is where Republican primary politics gets weird and the slugs on the far-right crawl out from under their rocks. AZ CD 3: Pro-abort Paulina Vasquez Morris makes it official « Seeing Red AZ:

Paulina Vasquez Morris, with boxing gloves aloft, recently launched her campaign by maliciously attacking her opponents in the Republican primary. In the most unusual of ploys, she accused them of “breaking promises to voters to further their own political aspirations by running for various other offices.”

To prove her point, Morris, a staunch advocate on behalf of abortion, distributed campaign material from other candidates in the CD3 race which shows some had opened exploratory campaigns for various other offices prior to this seat becoming available. Opening an exploratory campaign is a widely used and acceptable means of dipping a toe into the political waters. It does not a campaign announcement make.

Morris has made her bent clear by appointing Deborah Carstens, of the pro-abortion WISH List National Board of Directors as her campaign co-chairman. Lisa Graham Keegan, a former McCain aide, shares the chairmanship duties with Carstens.

On the supposedly Republican national WISH list home page are these telling words: “We’re working hard to make sure these outstanding women leaders have the resources they need to battle the right-wing extremists hoping to eliminate them!”

Paulina Vasquez Morris can hand out brochures from other’s campaigns in her transparent and vain attempt to sully them, but her association with the abortion movement proves her disconnect from the conservative-leaning congressional district she seeks to represent.

Let’s see if she includes that fact on her own brochures.

Now I don't know anything more about Paulina Vasquez Morris than what has been written about her above. But a pro-choice Hispanic woman makes for an interesting choice in the CD 3 GOP primary. There was a time, not that long ago, when there were Republican women who were pro-choice and even supported the Equal Rights Act. It would be refreshing to see this nearly extinct species return once again to the wilds of the Republican Party.

Melvin confirms Krugman's analysis

by David Safier

Paul Krugman restates the obvious in today's column, but it needs to be restated. Conservatives want to "Starve the beast," the Beast being government, so they can use budget deficits to cut social programs.

The idea — propounded by many members of the conservative intelligentsia, from Alan Greenspan to Irving Kristol — was basically that sympathetic politicians should engage in a game of bait and switch. Rather than proposing unpopular spending cuts, Republicans would push through popular tax cuts, with the deliberate intention of worsening the government’s fiscal position. Spending cuts could then be sold as a necessity rather than a choice, the only way to eliminate an unsustainable budget deficit.

Sometimes, the truth confirming Krugman's statement comes from the mouths of conservatives, who usually know better than to say what they mean. Case in point: Al Melvin, soon after he was elected in 2008. He talked about the growing state budget deficit as a good thing.

". . . contrary to popular thought, difficult economic times are the best of times to get things fixed,” Melvin said.

“When everyone is on their knees, so to speak, from the adverse economic situation, you can get more accomplished in a fundamental way than you can if you’re flush with revenue and cash.”

In flush times, “nobody’s going to compromise, nobody’s going to do anything,” he continued. “Under these circumstances, you can effect fundamental change. I’m looking forward to it. We can make historic decisions that will benefit the state.” [bold face added]

Shorter Al Melvin:

Drastic budget deficits: Good. People on their knees because they're losing their jobs and their homes: Better. Now we can finally gut education and health care and all those poor-coddling social services.

Paul Krugman, meet Al Melvin, right wing poster child.

Is the fix in to put brakes on AZ solar?

by David Safier

I'm out of my area of expertise here, but this is worth discussing. I hope others will chime in.

HB2701 would include nuclear energy as a renewable energy resource. This seems ridiculous to me on its face, since the source of nuclear power has to be mined and refined. It's definitely a finite, non-renewable resource.

But apparently the legislation is more insidious than ridiculous. If nuclear power is legally considered renewable, that takes away the incentive to add solar and wind power in Arizona. According to the Phoenix Sun,

Under current law, the Arizona Corporation Commission’s RES mandates that utilities must generate 15 percent of electricity from renewable sources by the year 2025. Since the state’s largest utility, APS, already gets approximately 27 percent of its electricity from a nuclear power plant outside of Phoenix, HB 2701 would allow the company to stop adding any new renewable power sources.

Sean Seitz, president of American Solar Electric, one of the largest solar installers in the valley, agreed with Mayes’ assessment of HB 2701. “If this bill passed in its current form,” predicted Seitz, “the current program…would be a skeleton of itself.”

The bill would make Arizona the only state that includes existing nuclear power plants in an RES.

The Arizona Corporation Commission chair, Kris Mayes said HB2701 "would surely be the death knell for advancing solar energy in the state.”

HB2701 has, by my count, 52 sponsors. Included, not surprisingly, are southern Arizona's own Al Melvin, Vic Williams, Frank Antenori, David Gowan, David Stevens and Jonathan Paton. (Does Paton want to pick a fight with Giffords on solar energy? That could be worth watching.)