Blog For Arizona

Proud Terri keeps on turning (out fabrications)

by David Safier

Terri Proud and/or her handlers want Terri to be a player -- something like LD-26's Frank Antenori, I guess. But in the process, she keeps on turning out howlers. The Republic's AZ Fact Check looked at one of her latest assertions and said -- rather politely, I think -- her statement is "incorrect."

Proud stated,

"The IRC is costing our citizens almost $10 million when we can really least afford it."

According to the Republic,

To date, the current redistricting commission has been authorized to spend $3.5 million.

To bend over backwards to be fair, the Republic acknowledged that, over its ten year existence, the previous redistricting commission spent almost $10 million. I expect Proud to come back with that figure, but the fact is, her statement says "is costing," not "will possibly cost over the next decade." Those Proud pants of hers are definitely on fire.

Big bucks behind charter school advocacy

by David Safier

Progressive-minded supporters of the charter school movement, this should make you wary. Not wary of charters per se. Wary of the people pushing them and what that means about the direction charters are heading.

The Walton Family Foundation puts big bucks into charter school advocacy. These are the Walmart folks -- very, very conservative people. Their latest contribution is $900,000 to fund the Florida Charter School Alliance. A million here, a million there . . . For the likes of the Walmart family, that adds up to chump change. (Would that progressives had the kind of money allowing them to start dozens of well-funded organizations which can set up branches in states across the country!)

Deep pocket alliances like the new one in Florida exist all over the country, including in Arizona. The Walton Family Foundation is one of the major contributors to these pro-charter efforts.

Think what a million bucks means to an organization headed by some of Florida's heavy hitters who have the legislators' ears already. It means the Charter School Alliance can get new charter laws to bend in pretty much any direction they want.

What direction is that? Ay, there's the rub. When conservative money funds educational special interest groups, they're looking to maximize privatization, minimize regulation and maximize the ways their buddies can make a profit. Improved education? If it happens, it's a side effect, not a goal.

Corporatization of education. Remember that phrase. Some of us in progressive educational circles support the theory behind charter schools, but in practice, charters are increasingly moving toward the McDonalds franchise model, where lots of money can be made -- even if the schools are "non-profit" -- and away from the independent schools run by creative, independent educators.

AIRC Update: Commissioners respond to Brewer, Tea-Publican tyranny threatens Special Session on Tuesday

Posted by AzBlueMeanie:

The Arizona Independent Redistricting Commission (AIRC) and individual commmissioners have responded to our lame-duck Governor's demand letter, calling her allegations unwarranted. The Arizona Capitol Times (subscription required) reports IRC responds to Brewer, says allegations unwarranted - Arizona Capitol Times:

An attorney for the Arizona Independent Redistricting Commission said the host of allegations lobbed at the panel by Gov. Jan Brewer are not grounds for removing individual commissioners, and that the governor is not following the constitutional process for ousting members of the IRC.

Mary O’Grady, an attorney for the IRC, refuted Brewer’s accusations in letter to the governor on Monday. The letter, written on behalf of the entire IRC, was a unified response from the commission to Brewer, who initiated the removal process last week with a formal letter detailing various allegations of “neglect of duty” and “gross misconduct in office.”

* * *

Brewer’s Oct. 26 . . . does not meet constitutional muster because the governor did not make any accusations against individual commissioners, O’Grady wrote. Instead, the governor leveled seven “general allegations” at the IRC as a whole. The governor’s letter was addressed to all five commissioners.

O’Grady said Brewer overstepped her constitutional authority by attempting to resolve questions that are currently being investigated in the court system. Brewer accused commissioners of violating state open meeting laws during the hiring of the IRC’s mapping consultant, which is the basis of an investigation initiated by Attorney General Tom Horne.

“A court, not the governor, should determine in the first instance whether the commission has violated constitutional open meeting requirements,” said O’Grady, a former Arizona solicitor general. “Until a court resolves the pending constitutional issue regarding open meeting requirements and determines that a violation of the open meeting law has occurred, you have no basis for even considering the removal of any commissioners for open meeting violations.”

O’Grady said Brewer’s accusations that commissioners failed to cooperate with the attorney general’s investigation are unwarranted because they were following statutory procedure. Furthermore, she said, three commissioners’ refusal to be interviewed for the investigation was backed up by the courts when Maricopa County Superior Court Judge Dean Fink on Friday removed Horne from the investigation, citing a conflict of interest.

* * *

O’Grady once again accused Brewer of intruding on the court’s judicial review function. The accusation that commissioners did not properly use constitutional criteria are unfounded, she said.

“The Constitution’s removal provisions for serious misconduct and gross neglect do not give the governor any authority to review the maps to determine whether she believes they satisfy constitutional requirements,” O’Grady said. “The draft maps are not final and the commission will take all public input into consideration when making its adjustments in order to create final maps.”

O’Grady urged Brewer to abandon any efforts to remove commissioners from office and prevent the IRC from completing its work.

“The five commissioners have done nothing to justify a notice from the governor threatening to remove them from office,” she said.

The Tea-Publican leadership of the Arizona legislature appears ready to disregard these well-reasoned legal arguments against Governor Jan Brewer's overreach, and has signaled that a Special Session on Tuesday will be announced by the Governor later today. The Arizona Capitol Times (subscription required) reports Lawmakers told to prepare for special session on IRC - Arizona Capitol Times:

State lawmakers have been told by leadership to prepare for a possible special session on Tuesday to deal with the Independent Redistricting Commission, the Arizona Capitol Times learned today.

The special session call by Gov. Jan Brewer would likely be issued this afternoon.

It would deal with two items on the agenda: The adoption of a memorial containing the Legislature’s comments to the redistricting commission and the possible dismissal of IRC members, according to a source familiar with the plan but is not a lawmaker.

* * *

Rep. Bob Robson, R-Chandler, confirmed that House Republicans received an email today from Majority Whip Debbie Lesko “giving us the heads-up that we might be looking at 1pm tomorrow” for a special session.

Lesko said that she was waiting on final confirmation from the speaker and the Senate, but that it would “most likely” be happening Tuesday, with a vote being taken around 1 p.m.

This Tea-Publican tyranny to violate the Arizona Constitution and the rule of law and to vitiate the AIRC, a quasi-legislative independent body created by the voters of Arizona, cannot be allowed to stand. If the Governor calls this Special Session, it's time to Occupy the Capitol. Go Wisconsin on their ass! It's time to defend democracy against Tea-Publican tyrrany. Enough is enough!

Media finally takes a critical view of GOP economic policies

Posted by AzBlueMeanie:

Are the blinders that the media villagers have been wearing for 30 years finally coming off? The media finally takes a critical view of GOP economic policies in two reports.

The first report is by Charles Babbington of the AP (all propaganda) which remarkably gets the facts right for a change. Studies challenge plans GOP candidates tout:

Key proposals from the Republican presidential candidates might make for good campaign fodder. But independent analyses raise serious questions about those plans and their ability to cure the nation's ills in two vital areas, the economy and housing.

Consider proposed cuts in taxes and regulation, which nearly every GOP candidate is pushing in the name of creating jobs. The initiatives seem to ignore surveys in which employers cite far bigger impediments to increased hiring, chiefly slack consumer demand.

"Republicans favor tax cuts for the wealthy and corporations, but these had no stimulative effect during the George W. Bush administration, and there is no reason to believe that more of them will have any today," writes Bruce Bartlett, an economist who worked for Republican congressmen and in the administrations of Presidents Ronald Reagan and George H.W. Bush.

As for the idea that cutting regulations will lead to significant job growth, Bartlett said in an interview, "It's just nonsense. It's just made up."

The Bureau of Labor Statistics, which tracks companies' reasons for large layoffs, found that 1,119 layoffs were attributed to government regulations in the first half of this year, while 144,746 were attributed to poor "business demand."

Mainstream economic theory says governments can spur demand, at least somewhat, through stimulus spending. The Republican candidates, however, have labeled President Barack Obama's 2009 stimulus efforts a failure. Instead, most are calling for tax cuts that would primarily benefit high-income people, who are seen as the likeliest job creators.

* * *

To the degree the candidates addressed housing, they mainly took a hands-off approach. "We need to get government out of the way," Cain said. Romney told editors of the Las Vegas Review-Journal: "Don't try and stop the foreclosure process. Let it run its course and hit the bottom."

The second is an editorial opinion from the Neocon Washington Post which one would expect to support the "conventional wisdom" of this Republican idea because that's what the Post does. Not this time. No time for a corporate tax ‘holiday’ - The Washington Post:

A DEMONSTRABLY BAD idea in pursuit of a possibly worthy goal is still a bad idea. In this instance, the demonstrably bad idea is giving corporations a federal tax break — make that another tax break — on “repatriated profits,” money they earn overseas and bring home. The goal is an infrastructure bank to help build roads and other projects. Such an entity could help rationalize the hodgepodge of politically dictated projects and leverage private capital. But arithmetic’s basic laws must prevail: You can’t pay for an infrastructure bank with a tax break that costs money.

U.S. firms can now defer paying corporate tax on profits they earn overseas until the money is brought to the United States. The notion of a repatriation tax holiday is that the high U.S. tax rate, 35 percent, deters firms from reinvesting overseas profits and “traps” enormous sums, as much as $1.4 trillion, from being put to productive use in the United States. A temporary tax holiday — a reduced tax rate — would boost revenue in the short term as companies took advantage. But it would cost tens of billions in the longer run from lower taxes on income that would have been brought back eventually. The congressional Joint Committee on Taxation has estimated that cutting the tax rate to 5.25 percent would generate $25.5 billion in the first two years but end up costing $79 billion over 10 years.

Meanwhile, the holiday is not apt to create jobs. A Goldman Sachs analysis concluded that “the short-term economic benefit of such a policy would likely be minimal.” A tax holiday would not produce “a significant change in corporate hiring nor investment plans,” Goldman found, because “most firms with large amounts of overseas profits are likely to have adequate access to financing, so the availability of cash on hand is unlikely to be a constraint on investment.” It would reward companies that maneuvered to shift profits to tax havens. Finally, a tax holiday could have the perverse effect of encouraging companies to shift operations — and jobs — overseas in the expectation of another break down the road.

This is a provably bad idea. Congress passed a repatriation tax holiday in 2004. The Congress­ional Research Service reported “little evidence” that new investment was spurred. A recent study by the Democratic staff of a Senate subcommittee found that the 15 companies that repatriated the most profits, more than $150 billion, ended up cutting their U.S. workforces by nearly 21,000 jobs.

The Post's Greg Sargent asks the relevant question, Calling BS on GOP ideas for job creation - The Plum Line:

I continue to insist that the following question is absolutely central to understanding what’s happening in our politics right now: In the view of experts, are both parties making a serious and legitimate contribution to the debate over what to do about a severe national crisis that’s causing suffering among millions and millions of Americans? Or is only one party making a real contribution to that debate?

It is clear that Tea-Publicans are unserious about governing and are doubling-down on the disproven and discredited faith based supply-side "trickle down" GOP economics that have destroyed our economy. They have made it an article of faith in their socio-politico-economic religion, which means that they are unable to abandon demonstrably false ideas that caused great harm. And that represents a threat to this country.

Arizona Republican Party and its Tucson city council candidates violate campaign-finance laws - so where's the investigation?

Posted by AzBlueMeanie:

Last Thursday, Secretary of State Ken Bennett announced that three independent expenditure committees active in the Phoenix mayoral and council elections will be audited to crackdown on special interests that may be trying to skirt campaign finance laws. Arizona to audit 3 campaign groups:

Bennett said Thursday that groups selected for the audit will be asked to give up accounting records and show that they have spent most of their money doing something else other than influencing an election.

* * *

The complaints have mainly come amid two big elections approaching Nov. 8: the highly contentious Phoenix mayor's race between Wes Gullett and Greg Stanton, and the state's first-ever recall of a legislator, involving Senate President Russell Pearce, R-Mesa, and challenger Jerry Lewis.

The secretary of state also said he will forward three more campaign-finance violations to the state attorney general for enforcement:

- Citizens United for Progress, a pro-Lewis group, for failing to give the secretary of state notice that it spent more than $2,500 on mailers.

- Residents for a Better Arizona, which backed Eric Sloan in the District 5 Phoenix City Council election, for not providing information to demonstrate that its purpose isn't primarily to influence elections.

- Americans for Responsible Leadership, which opposed Bryan Jeffries in the District 2 council race, and was found violating the same laws as Residents for a Better Arizona.

* * *

Bennett's office will audit only three of the 18 groups registered with the state. Independent expenditure organizations active in the Phoenix mayor and council races, however, will not be part of the audit, because those groups file with the City Clerk.

The Phoenix City Clerk has forwarded complaints about several of those groups for Bennett's office to review.

* * *

Bennett said he hopes to have the audits completed before the Nov. 8 election.

Secretary Bennett also referred Olivia Cortes to the Attorney General's office for investigation of her campaign-finance violations in the Pearce Recall election.

Which raises two questions about the City of Tucson mayor and council elections. Has the Tucson City Clerk forwarded any complaints to Secretary Bennett's office regarding the campaign nondisclosures by the Arizona Republican Party and its candidates? Is the Arizona GOP illegally 'earmarking' funds for Tucson City Council elections? And will Secretary Bennett conduct an audit before the November 8 election and/or refer these campaign-finance law violations to the state Attorney General for enforcement?

I understand that the Pima County Democratic Party has filed complaints with the Tucson City Clerk. So where's the investigation?

Here are the latest press releases from the Pima County Democratic Party:

Republican Rawson Fails to Disclose Ad Buys

Tucson City Council candidate Jennifer Rawson is making a joke of her promise of accountability and transparency as she failed to disclose how much she is paying for her TV ad buys.

Her commercials are up and in regular rotation in living rooms across Tucson and she says her campaign paid for them, yet she did not include it in her campaign finance report. Nor did she include the ads as debt or in-kind contributions. So the Pima County Democratic Party has filed the accompanying complaint with the Tucson City Clerk.

Increasingly, Republicans appear to be running in the 2011 election on the Karl Rove model predicated on the idea “anything goes” short of getting indicted. They've illegally spammed city employees with fund-raising e-mails, requested matching funds they haven't been entitled to and improperly counted contributions that did not legally count toward matching funds. And the Arizona Republican Party filed a report with the city clerk that claimed it started with no money, raised no money but still managed to spend $141,000, in an apparent effort to hide their donors.

“We're losing count of how many ways the Republicans have violated campaign laws,” said Pima County Democratic Party Chairman Jeff Rogers. “This is a pretty good indicator of what kind of council members they would be -- the kind that thinks one set of rules applies to them and another applies to the rest of us.”

Arizona Revised Statutes 16-915 requires that all disbursements be included on the proper campaign finance report. Rawson's ads were paid for prior to the initial airing on Oct. 17. The reporting period ended Oct. 19, with no mention of these ads or any reference to debt to a third party, if the ads were paid for by a vendor.

“We’re sick and tired of filing these complaints but we’re more sick and tired of these Republicans breaking the rules that our candidates faithfully follow,” Rogers said. “This isn't some minor oversight. This is $24,000 at two stations alone. This is failing to disclose the bulk of her expenditures.”

###

And another press release:

Fuzzy Phoenix Republican Math! Nothing, Plus Nothing Equals $141,398.50

If you start with zero dollars in the bank and you raise zero dollars, how much money do you have to spend on the Tucson city election?

For 99.99 percent of us governed by cold, hard math, the answer, of course, is zero dollars.

If you are the Arizona Republican Party, the answer is $141,398.50.

Unless they have learned some strange Lehman Brothers accounting tricks or have mastered alchemy, they really don’t want to say where they got the money in the reporting period. The Pima County Democratic Party is -- slack-jawed -- calling on the three Tucson City Council candidates and Mayoral candidate Rick Grinnell to explain where their Phoenician benefactors got their money.

“Any claim that the Republican candidates believe in transparency and accountability is absolutely shattered if they won't reveal where they got $141,398.50 in political help from Phoenix political bosses,” said Pima County Democratic Party Chairman Jeff Rogers. “No one else in the world, outside of hedge fund managers can leverage zero dollars into $141,298.50.”

This comes the day after Arizona Secretary of State Ken Bennett warned political groups that they must reveal their campaign contributions regardless of a recent Supreme Court decision allowing unlimited corporate cash into campaigns. Bennett was worried that new groups might not understand state law governing state and local campaigns. But the state Republican Party has been around for a while.

“What are they trying to hide?” Rogers asked. “They couldn't have gotten an illegally ‘earmarked’ campaign contribution from a donor could they? It’s worth pointing out that the state party is also drowning in red ink, showing debts of nearly $250,000. How can they be in debt if they can make money out of thin air?”

###

Pearce Recall Update: Olivia Cortes to be investigated for campaign-finance law violations

Posted  by AzBlueMeanie:

Let this be a warning to anyone who signs on as the treasurer to a campaign. You are the "designated felon" should you fail to disclose or file your reports improperly.

I almost feel sorry for Olivia Cortes. "King" Russell Pearce's operatives talked her into running as their stalking horse candidate to siphon off votes in the recall election. They also had Ms. Cortes list herself as the treasurer to her own campaign. Not only was Ms. Cortes disgraced when she was exposed as a sham candidate and withdrew from the race, but now she faces an investigation for campaign-finance law violations. LaurieRoberts - Olivia Cortes to be investigated for campaign-finance law violations:

Friday was Disclosure Day, that much anticipated time when we were supposed to find out who put up all those ¡Si, Se Puede! signs for Cortes. It was the day the now-former candidate was required by law to disclose who paid to circulate her nominating petitions – the ones that East Valley Tea Party Chairman Greg Western filed so that she could challenge Senate President Russell Pearce in the Nov. 8 recall.

The ones she had not a clue about.

“I never know who was circulating my petitions,” she told a judge earlier this month. “I was told that people would be helping me.”

Helping her, as it turns out, right into a prosecutor's in-box.

No one's owning up to the signs and the pro-Pearce forces that convinced Cortes to run against one of the state's most powerful politicians – bleeding off votes from his real competition -- have left her hanging.

On Friday, the Secretary of State's Office asked the Attorney General's Office to investigate Cortes, saying it found “reasonable cause” to believe she violated campaign finance laws by not reporting who paid for her petitions.

“It is with great trepidation that this referral is made,” State Elections Director Amy Chan wrote, noting that a judge found ‘no wrongdoing' by Cortes but that her campaign still must account for the in-kind donation that paid for her petitions.

Attorney General Tom Horne, who has endorsed Pearce in the recall, plans to transfer the case to Gila County Attorney Daisy Flores.

* * *

 Meanwhile, the schemers who set up a stooge to help their hero eke back into office have gone to ground.

As for Cortes, she's left holding the (tea) bag.

Koch brothers fund propaganda news and the right-wing alternate reality

Posted by AzBlueMeanie:

The billionaire bastard Koch brothers are not satisfied with setting up right-wing think tanks that produce bogus research and draft legislation for Tea-Publican legislators, oh no. They are also funding propaganda news that fuels the right-wing alternate reality in the echo chamber of the right-wing noise machine. And other right-wing organizations are following their example.

Sarah Jerving writes about the Franklin Center: Right-Wing Funds State News Source | Truthout:

As newsrooms across the country shave off staff due in part to slipping ad revenue and corporate media conglomeration, The Franklin Center for Government and Public Integrity, is rushing to fill the gap. The group has 43 state news websites, with writers in over 40 states. Its reporters have been given state house press credentials and its news articles are starting to appear in mainstream print newspapers in each state. Who funds Franklin and what is its agenda?

The websites started sprouting up in 2009. Some of these new sites go by the moniker "Reporter" as with the Franklin Center's Wisconsin Reporter that was launched in January as a website and wire-like service. Others have taken the shared name of "Watchdog.org," or "Statehouse News." The websites all offer their content free to local press -- many of the news bureaus send out their articles to state editors every day. The sites also offer free national stories that media can receive daily by subscribing. 

The websites are coordinated and funded by a new non-profit group that calls itself the "Franklin Center for Government and Public Integrity." The Franklin Center told the Center for Media and Democracy that it does not disclose its funders, but some of its funding can been uncovered from foundation reports. Franklin acts as a hub that distributes funding that it receives from right-wing institutions such as the Wisconsin-based Lynde and Harry Bradley Foundation and the Chicago-based Sam Adams Alliance. The North Dakota and DC-based center works with reporters embedded in conservative think tanks and others who have their own news bureaus. 

According to Media Transparency, a media watchdog group that was acquired by Media Matters Action Network in 2008, the Bradley Foundation's clear political agenda and network has allowed it to have extensive influence on public policy. The media group notes that while the Foundation's "targets range from affirmative action to social security, it has seen its greatest successes in the area of welfare 'reform' and attempts to privatize public education through the promotion of school vouchers." The Bradley Foundation gave the Franklin Center $190,500 last year.

The Franklin Center was launched with the help of Sam Adams Alliance, which calls itself "SAM." The CEO of SAM, Eric O'Keefe, has been featured at events funded by David Koch's right-wing group called "Americans for Prosperity" (AFP). As the Center for Media and Democracy/PRWatch.org has previously noted, O'Keefe frequently and positively profiles the Tea Party and attacks health care reform and other progressive ideas. He also helped launch the "American Majority" group which trains conservatives to run for office. He sits on the Board of Directors of the Club for Growth Wisconsin, which ran divisive ads in support of Scott Walker's radical overhaul of collective bargaining rights for Wisconsin workers. He previously worked for David Koch's AFP predecessor group named "Citizens for a Sound Economy," among other roles. 

O'Keefe's latest enterprise, SAM, gets part of its funding from the State Policy Network (SPN), which is partially funded by The Claude R. Lambe Foundation. Charles Koch, one of the billionaire brothers who co-own Koch Industries, and his wife and children, along with long-time Koch employee Richard Fink, comprise the board of this foundation. SAM is named after Founding Father Sam Adams, one of the leaders in the Boston Tea Party tax protests.

In its first year, the Franklin Center had a budget of $2.9 million, much of it from O'Keefe's SAM.

Many Franklin staffers have ties to conservative activist groups and the GOP.

* * *

In late July, Erik Telford, the Director of Membership Online Strategy for Koch's AFP, announced that he would take on the position of Vice President for Strategic Initiatives Outreach for the Franklin Center. He had worked at AFP for four and a half years. In his farewell letter, he minced no words in explaining the activist role he will play in his new position, "As I move on to a new challenge, I look forward to staying involved with AFP, but now in an even more important capacity: that of a member and grassroots activist."

The Franklin Center's Director of Donor Relations, Matt Hauck, is a former Associate at the Charles G. Koch Charitable Foundation. The center's Chief of Staff, Gwen Beattie, is the former Director of Development and Operations at America's Future Foundation, an organization committed to "identify and develop the next generation of conservative and libertarian leaders." The Franklin Center's 2009 IRS 990 form lists Rudie Martinson as director and secretary. He formerly worked as the assistant state director for North Dakota's chapter of Koch's Americans for Prosperity.

The Franklin Center was one of the sponsors of the Western Republican presidential candidate debate in Las Vegas this month, along with Americans for Prosperity and other right-wing groups. 

* * *

At the 2011 American Legislative Exchange Council (ALEC) annual conference in New Orleans, The Franklin Center was listed as a "Vice-Chairman" level sponsor of the ALEC conference. In 2010, this equated to a gift of at least $25,000. It was also one of about 60 companies and institutions represented in the conference exhibition hall. ALEC brings corporations, such as Koch Industries, and state legislators together in task forces to vote on so-called “model legislation” that benefits the corporate bottom line or ALEC's ideological agenda. These bills are then introduced by legislators in state houses across the country, without any mention that corporations previously approved such legislation behind closed doors, as the Center for Media and Democracy has reported.

* * *

The journalistic integrity of these sites has been called into question by media watchdog groups. Laura McGann, assistant editor at the Nieman Journalism Lab at Harvard University, wrote in a 2010 piece in the Washington Monthly, that the Franklin Center sites are engaging in distorted reporting across the country."As often as not, their reporting is thin and missing important context, which occasionally leads to gross distortions," wrote McGann, who pointed to several instances where the Watchdog websites wrote stories that turned out to be misleading or untrue."This sort of misleading reporting crops up on Watchdog sites often enough to suggest that, rather than isolated instances of sloppiness, it is part of a broad editorial strategy," she wrote.The Pew Research Center's Project for Excellence in Journalism, using a sliding scale of highly ideological, somewhat ideological and non-ideological, ranked the “Watchdog.org” franchise "highly ideological."

* * *

Dave Zweifel, co-founder and long-serving president of the Wisconsin Freedom of Information Council, and editor of the Madison-based Capital Times, told the Center for Media and Democracy that the Wisconsin Reporter is a new breed of news reporting. . .  "This outfit masks itself as an investigative journalism service that provides free content to newspapers, many of which are cash-strapped these days, and eager for such a product.... You have to give these guys credit for capturing the moment when the press is particularly vulnerable."

This manner of producing and distributing 'news' is such a clever idea that its inspired other right-wing think tanks to devote resource to news production. The Heritage Foundation launched the "Scribe," a blog that features reports complimentary to the Foundation's stance on policy issues. It cites the Franklin Center's successes in expanding think tank journalism as a reason for its launch.

Keep an eye out for this propganda reporting and object when you see your local news using these sources.

AIRC Update: Cap Times finally exposes FAIR Trust

Posted by AzBlueMeanie:

The Arizona Capitol Times (subscription required) has finally followed up on the secretive GOP redistricting organization FAIR Trust that Steve Muratore and I have been posting about and exposes the organization today in FAIR game? - Arizona Capitol Times (excerpts):

FAIR Trust’s attorneys say they want to help the commission adhere to the legal requirements that govern the high-stakes, once-in-a-decade political remapping process, and the group’s name suggests it is interested in fairness.

But what FAIR Trust’s attorneys refuse to say is that they’re actually representing a group of incumbent Republicans from Arizona’s congressional delegation and the state Legislature.

The legal arguments FAIR Trust makes aren’t presented to the redistricting commission as serving the interests of those politicians, but the recommendations they’ve made would create safe districts for the four Republican members of Congress who will seek re-election in 2012: U.S. Reps. Trent Franks, Paul Gosar, Ben Quayle and David Schweikert.

And if the incumbent politicians behind FAIR Trust decide the final maps don’t meet their desires, the group’s role will likely shift from lobbying to litigating. Led by a team of high-powered attorneys, a lawsuit by the group would take months or years, costing tens of thousands of dollars in legal fees.

And if they have it their way, the group’s financial backers will remain a secret.

Little is publicly known about FAIR Trust, and that’s exactly what its members want. They’ve gone out of their way to hide who is involved and who is paying for the cadre of costly attorneys. And so far the group has done a good job keeping that information away from the public.

The group is a legal trust, which is essentially a banking vessel that allows people to anonymously deposit money into an account and others to take money out. The only formal document required for such a trust is an agreement that belongs to the bank and the principals of the account.

Campaign finance laws don’t apply to legal trusts, state lobbying disclosure rules don’t apply to the redistricting commission and FAIR Trust’s attorneys have repeatedly told the commission, members of the public and the media that their clients have forbidden them from saying who they represent.

It’s not surprising to see a group like FAIR Trust emerge in Arizona, said Justin Levitt, a Loyola University Law School professor who studies redistricting.

Similar groups have surfaced in other states where voters have authorized an independent redistricting commission, instead of the Legislature, to draw political lines.

* * *

An email obtained by the Arizona Capitol Times sheds light on at least a partial list of who might be involved in the group.

Steve Twist, a longtime Republican operative in Arizona, sent the email on June 9 to top staff from every Republican member of Arizona’s congressional delegation, top staff for Republicans in the state Legislature and two FAIR Trust attorneys.

U.S. Rep. Trent Franks confirmed to the Capitol Times that Twist is at the head of FAIR Trust, but Twist has refused to discuss anything about the group.

* * *

The email is short on details, but in it Twist tells the legislative and congressional staffers that the first agenda item they need to discuss is attorney-client privilege — the way in which communications between attorneys and their clients can be legally kept secret.

The email addresses used for every recipient on the list except for the two FAIR Trust attorneys are non-official email addresses, which avoids creating a public record of the email and avoids opening any state employee from accusations that they’re using public resources for partisan political activity. Although there are numerous exemptions, broadly speaking, such activity is illegal.

All of the legislative staffers listed on the email either denied having participated in the call, said they don’t remember participating in the call or said they wouldn’t answer any questions about it.

None of the congressional staffers included on the email returned a request for comment.

* * *

A public records request submitted to both chambers of the Legislature requesting telephone records for the staff members included on the email was denied, because the telephone records are not archived more than 120 days. Initially, House staff told the Capitol Times that they might get to the request by mid-November.

One of the email recipients, John Mills, a “legislative special projects” staffer for the House Republicans, has attended most of the redistricting commission’s meetings and often sits and talks privately with FAIR Trust’s attorneys. Mills also sometimes reviews technical mapping software with FAIR Trust’s attorneys on his laptop.

Mills has said his attendance at the commission’s meetings is not related to FAIR Trust, that he doesn’t work for the group and that he hasn’t been on any FAIR Trust conference calls.

* * *

Instead, Mills has said he has been monitoring the IRC in preparation for the formal review that the Legislature is constitutionally entitled to submit on the commission’s maps. He delivered a detailed account of the commission’s recently adopted draft maps and the progression that led to them at a recent meeting of the ad hoc Joint Legislative Committee on Redistricting. That committee is currently reviewing the commission’s plan.

* * *

Linda McNulty, one of the two Democrats on the commission and an attorney herself, interrupted David Cantelme, a FAIR Trust attorney, during his Sept. 16 public testimony to say that she knows attorneys pick the arguments that suit the interests of their clients, and that she was skeptical of FAIR Trust because they won’t say who their clients are.

“If you’re going to come in here and you’re going to make very detailed comments about things but you won’t tell us on whose behalf you’re making those comments, I can only assume that those comments are based on and motivated by self-interested individuals who won’t disclose themselves,” McNulty said.

José Herrera, the other Democrat on the commission, joined McNulty during the meeting in criticizing the group for not disclosing who they work for.

“They’ve not been open about who they are,” Herrera later said of FAIR Trust. “I approach their advice with skepticism.”

Despite the Democrats’ criticisms, Cantelme reaffirmed the fact that FAIR Trust is not required to disclose who they represent and that he would not do so.

The Arizona Capitol Times names names on the Swift email:

Recipients of Twist’s email

Wendy Baldo, Arizona Senate Republican caucus chief of staff, said she was in San Diego that day and didn’t take part in the call.
Greg Jernigan, Arizona Senate Republican caucus general counsel, said he can’t remember if he was on the call and that even if he could, he wouldn’t answer the question.
Victor Riches, Arizona House of Representatives Republican caucus chief of ctaff, said he wasn’t on the call.
Peter Gentala, Arizona House of Representatives Republican caucus general counsel, said he wouldn’t comment on it.
John Mills, Arizona House of Representatives “legislative special projects” staffer, said he wasn’t on the call.
Matt Specht, chief of staff for U.S. Rep. Jeff Flake, did not respond to request for comment.
Randy Kutz, chief of staff for U.S. Rep. Trent Franks, did not respond to request for comment.
David Sheasby, legal counsel for Franks, did not respond to request for comment.
Rob Robinson, chief of staff for U.S. Rep. Paul Gosar, did not respond to request for comment.
Anthony Smith, district legislative assistant for Gosar, did not respond to request for comment.
Renee Hudson, chief of staff for U.S. Rep. Ben Quayle, did not respond to request for comment.
James Ashley, deputy chief of staff for Quayle, did not respond to request for comment.
Oliver Schwab, chief of staff for U.S. Rep. David Schweikert, did not respond to request for comment.
Kevin Knight, director of coalitions and outreach for U.S. Rep. David Schweikert, did not respond to request for comment.
Mike Liburdi, FAIR Trust attorney, refused to talk about the call.
David Cantelme, FAIR Trust attorney, refused to talk about the call.

At least two Legislative staffers, Greg Jernigan, Arizona Senate Republican caucus general counsel, and John Mills, Arizona House of Representatives “legislative special projects” staffer, are already the subject of a complaint to be filed by Democrats for their partisan testimony before the Tea-Publican Committee to Interfere With the AIRC last week. GOP staffers cross the line at Tea-Publican Committee to Interfere With The AIRC:

Schapira and Campbell, who were watching the committee hearing from the hallways of the Legislature, said they plan to file a formal complaint.

The two said Jernigan, and perhaps House Republican legislative staff member John Mills, may have broken a rule that bars state employees from getting involved in partisan or election-related activity.

What we need now is a Department of Justice lawsuit like the one currently in litigation in the state of Texas where the DOJ has subpoenaed emails in addition to correspondence and telephone records through litigation discovery to make its case of intentional discrimination by state Republicans. DOJ: Texas redistricting maps intentially discriminate against Hispanic voters, and The E-Mails The Feds Say Show Texas Lawmakers Trying To Limit Voting Power Of Hispanics | TPMMuckraker.

Foreclosuregate Update: 'Foreclosure Mill' law firm mocks its victims

Posted by AzBlueMeanie:

Dante may need to create a new ring of hell for these soulless evil creatures. The law firm of Steven J. Baum is what is commonly referred to as a “foreclosure mill” firm, and is, in fact, the largest such firm in New York; it represents virtually all the giant mortgage lenders, including Citigroup, JPMorgan Chase, Bank of America and Wells Fargo. Joe Nocera writes What the Costumes Reveal - NYTimes.com:

On Friday, the law firm of Steven J. Baum threw a Halloween party.

* * *

The party is the firm’s big annual bash. Employees wear Halloween costumes to the office, where they party until around noon, and then return to work, still in costume. I can’t tell you how people dressed for this year’s party, but I can tell you about last year’s.

That’s because a former employee of Steven J. Baum recently sent me snapshots of last year’s party. In an e-mail, she said that she wanted me to see them because they showed an appalling lack of compassion toward the homeowners — invariably poor and down on their luck — that the Baum firm had brought foreclosure proceedings against.

When we spoke later, she added that the snapshots are an accurate representation of the firm’s mind-set. “There is this really cavalier attitude,” she said. “It doesn’t matter that people are going to lose their homes.” Nor does the firm try to help people get mortgage modifications; the pressure, always, is to foreclose. I told her I wanted to post the photos on The Times’s Web site so that readers could see them. She agreed, but asked to remain anonymous because she said she fears retaliation.

Let me describe a few of the photos. In one, two Baum employees are dressed like homeless people. One is holding a bottle of liquor. The other has a sign around her neck that reads: “3rd party squatter. I lost my home and I was never served.” My source said that “I was never served” is meant to mock “the typical excuse” of the homeowner trying to evade a foreclosure proceeding.

A second picture shows a coffin with a picture of a woman whose eyes have been cut out. A sign on the coffin reads: “Rest in Peace. Crazy Susie.” The reference is to Susan Chana Lask, a lawyer who had filed a class-action suit against Steven J. Baum — and had posted a YouTube video denouncing the firm’s foreclosure practices. “She was a thorn in their side,” said my source.

A third photograph shows a corner of Baum’s office decorated to look like a row of foreclosed homes. Another shows a sign that reads, “Baum Estates” — needless to say, it’s also full of foreclosed houses. Most of the other pictures show either mock homeless camps or mock foreclosure signs — or both. My source told me that not every Baum department used the party to make fun of the troubled homeowners they made their living suing. But some clearly did. The adjective she’d used when she sent them to me — “appalling” — struck me as exactly right.

These pictures are hardly the first piece of evidence that the Baum firm treats homeowners shabbily — or that it uses dubious legal practices to do so. It is under investigation by the New York attorney general, Eric Schneiderman. It recently agreed to pay $2 million to resolve an investigation by the Department of Justice into whether the firm had “filed misleading pleadings, affidavits, and mortgage assignments in the state and federal courts in New York.” (In the press release announcing the settlement, Baum acknowledged only that “it occasionally made inadvertent errors.”)

MFY Legal Services, which defends homeowners, and Harwood Feffer, a large class-action firm, have filed a class-action suit claiming that Steven J. Baum has consistently failed to file certain papers that are necessary to allow for a state-mandated settlement conference that can lead to a modification. Judge Arthur Schack of the State Supreme Court in Brooklyn once described Baum’s foreclosure filings as “operating in a parallel mortgage universe, unrelated to the real universe.” (My source told me that one Baum employee dressed up as Judge Schack at a previous Halloween party.)

Here's hoping that New York Attorney General Eric Schneiderman successfully prosecutes these soulless evil creatures out of business.

Global warming is real? Who knew?

by David Safier

The Star has a very short print excerpt from a longer AP article about physicist Richard Muller's discovery that global warming is for real. This should be about as earth shattering a news story as an 1850 piece like, "Astronomer discovers Earth revolves around Sun." But Muller was the global deniers' scientific ace in the hole. "See, here's a guy who's not a nutjob or a corporate hack like the rest of us, and he thinks the numbers have been cooked just like we do."

Indeed he did, because he didn't trust the methodology used by climate change scientists. So, non-nutjob that he is, he decided to start over and do the analysis right, funded in large part -- I love this -- by the Daddy Warbucks of deniers, the Koch Brothers.

What Muller found was, the difference between his findings and that of the climate change scientists basically amounted to a rounding error. They were right! he decided.

There is no reason now to be a skeptic about steadily increasing temperatures, Muller wrote recently in The Wall Street Journal's editorial pages, a place friendly to skeptics. Muller did not address in his research the cause of global warming. The overwhelming majority of climate scientists say it's man-made from the burning of fossil fuels such as coal and oil. Nor did his study look at ocean warming, future warming and how much of a threat to mankind climate change might be.

Still, Muller said it makes sense to reduce the carbon dioxide created by fossil fuels.

"Greenhouse gases could have a disastrous impact on the world," he said. Still, he contends that threat is not as proven as the Nobel Prize-winning Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change says it is.

Muller still maintains a touch of skepticism, but he's clearly changed sides.

So, deniers. Your one credible witness has turned on you, not because he doesn't like you (after all, he'd have an endless source of funding if he came stayed in Denier Land), but because he's an honest man who believes in good science and good data.

Now it's your move. I know what you're going to say, but it's gonna be fun to watch you say it.

The 'Herminator' is having a really bad day

Posted by AzBlueMeanie:

Well, now we know why Herman Cain plans to cut back appearances -- scandals! The "Herminator" is having a really bad day.

Talking Points Memo reports Aides’ Corporation May Have Illegally Gotten Cain Campaign Off The Ground:

Long before Herman Cain chief of staff Mark Block was appearing in the most mocked campaign ad of the presidential campaign so far, he and deputy chief of staff Linda Hansen started a Wisconsin corporation that the Journal Sentinel reports illegally helped the GOP presidential candidate get his campaign off the ground.

According to sources and documents obtained by the newspaper, Prosperity USA, founded by Block and Hansen, footed the bill “for tens of thousands of dollars in expenses for such items as iPads, chartered flights and travel to Iowa and Las Vegas - something that might breach federal tax and campaign law.” Daniel Bice reports:

It is not known if Cain’s election fund eventually paid back Prosperity USA, which now appears defunct. The candidate’s federal election filings make no mention of the debt, and the figures in the documents don’t match payments made by the candidate’s campaign.

In addition to picking up these expenses at least initially, Prosperity USA also paid as much as $100,000 to the Congress of Racial Equality, a conservative black organization, shortly before Cain was a featured speaker at the group’s annual Martin Luther King Jr. dinner in mid-January. 

Records show that Prosperity USA’s largest asset was nearly $40,000 owed to the organization by “FOH” — Friends of Herman Cain — which the Journal Sentinel reports owed “nearly $15,000 for an ‘Atlanta invoice,’ about $17,000 for chartered flight service and $5,000 for travel and meetings in Iowa, Las Vegas, Houston, Dallas and Louisiana. The document says the Cain campaign had been billed $3,700 for iPads purchased on Jan. 4.’”

The Journal Sentinel said the records suggest that Prosperity USA “had been underwriting travel for Cain even before he announced his plans to run for president.”

“I just don’t see how they can justify this,” a national election expert told the Journal Sentinel. “It’s a total mess.”

Read the full report here.

But the scandal that the salacious media villagers will focus on because of their unquenchable prurient sexual interests is an old sexual harrassment claim. (Has anyone checked for Karl Rove's fingerprints on this story?) Politico reports Exclusive: 2 women accused Cain of inappropriate behavior: 

During Herman Cain’s tenure as the head of the National Restaurant Association in the 1990s, at least two female employees complained to colleagues and senior association officials about inappropriate behavior by Cain, ultimately leaving their jobs at the trade group, multiple sources confirm to POLITICO.

The women complained of sexually suggestive behavior by Cain that made them angry and uncomfortable, the sources said, and they signed agreements with the restaurant group that gave them financial payouts to leave the association. The agreements also included language that bars the women from talking about their departures.

In a series of comments over the past 10 days, Cain and his campaign repeatedly declined to respond directly about whether he ever faced allegations of sexual harassment at the restaurant association. They have also declined to address questions about specific reporting confirming that there were financial settlements in two cases in which women leveled complaints.

POLITICO has confirmed the identities of the two female restaurant association employees who complained about Cain but, for privacy concerns, is not publishing their names.

Cain spokesman J.D. Gordon told POLITICO the candidate indicated to campaign officials that he was “vaguely familiar” with the charges and that the restaurant association’s general counsel had resolved the matter.

The latest statement came from Cain himself. In a tense sidewalk encounter Sunday morning outside the Washington bureau of CBS News — where the Republican contender had just completed an interview on “Face the Nation” — Cain evaded a series of questions about sexual harassment allegations.

* * *

POLITICO learned of the allegations against him, and over the course of several weeks, has put together accounts of what happened by talking to a lengthy roster of former board members, current and past staff and others familiar with the workings of the trade group at the time Cain was there.

In one case, POLITICO has seen documentation describing the allegations and showing that the restaurant association formally resolved the matter. Both women received separation packages that were in the five-figure range.

On the details of Cain’s allegedly inappropriate behavior with the two women, POLITICO has a half-dozen sources shedding light on different aspects of the complaints.

The sources — which include the recollections of close associates and other documentation — describe episodes that left the women upset and offended. These incidents include conversations allegedly filled with innuendo or personal questions of a sexually suggestive nature, taking place at hotels during conferences, at other officially sanctioned restaurant association events and at the association’s offices. There were also descriptions of physical gestures that were not overtly sexual but that made women who experienced or witnessed them uncomfortable and that they regarded as improper in a professional relationship.

Peter Kilgore, who was the association’s general counsel in the 1990s, and remains in that position today, has declined to comment to POLITICO on whether any settlements existed, saying he cannot discuss personnel matters. 

But one source closely familiar with Cain’s tenure in Washington confirmed that the claims related to allegations of sexual harassment – behavior that disturbed members of the board who became aware of it, as well as the source, who otherwise liked Cain.

“I happen to know there were sealed settlements reached in the plural. I think that anybody who thinks this was a one-time, one-person transgression would be mistaken,” this source said.

* * *

On Oct. 20, POLITICO first approached Gordon, who serves as the campaign’s vice president for communications, about whether Cain had been the subject of complaints of sexual harassment.

After several days of not responding to the question, Gordon emailed on Oct. 24 that any dispute about Cain’s conduct at the restaurant association “was settled amicably among all parties many years ago.” 

“These are old and tired allegations that never stood up to the facts,” Gordon said in an email response. “This was settled amicably among all parties many years ago, and dredging this up now is merely part of a smear campaign meant to discredit a true patriot who is shaking up the political status quo.” 

* * *

As to whether the association under Cain ever paid a monetary settlement to women who had leveled such accusations against him, Gordon referred the question to the restaurant trade group.

* * *

Revelations about the settlements come as members of the association’s board planned to meet this month to talk about ways to use the organization’s clout to boost Cain’s campaign.

The scent of blood is in the water and the media villager sharks are circling. Herman Cain is about to get the close scrutiny from the media that he so far has avoided until he became the "frontrunner." Not for long.

Media bias in reporting on the GOP assault on the AIRC

Posted by AzBlueMeanie:

The writers at this blog and Steve Muratore at The Arizona Eagletarian have described how the publication by lobbyists and for lobbyists, the Arizona Capitol Times and more specifically its sister publication, the political gossip rag The Yellow Sheet, played a major role in advancing the GOP talking points against the Arizona Independent Redistricting Commission. They published it first, then other media repeated it in the echo chamber.

Attorney General Tom Horne even cited the articles in these publications as "evidence" for filing his politically motivated witch hunt against the AIRC. The media provided cover for the politically motivated intimidation and harassment of the AIRC by Tea-Publicans.

The other major political news service in Arizona is Howard Fischer of Capitol Media Services. The writers at this blog have previously expressed concerns about Mr. Fischer's political views being expressed in editorializing opinion in what is supposed to be objective reporting. This has been evident in his reporting on Sen. Russell Pearce, and in particular, in his reporting on Governor Jan Brewer.

In fact, in recent months it appears that Howard Fischer has been acting as Jan Brewer's publisher PR agent for the release of her book, "Scorpions for Breakfast," to be released on November 1. No one has written more on this topic. Here are just a few of his releases:

- 'Scorpions for Breakfast': Brewer writing her memoirs (May 9, 2011)

- Brewer: If 'Scorpions for Breakfast' book is late, blame Obama (August 22, 011)

- Brewer book done, Palin writes foreword (October 4, 2011)

- Brewer goes on tour, singing Arizona's praises (October 8, 2011)

- Obama was patronizing during their DC meeting, Brewer says in new book (October 21, 2011)

Recenty, Jan Brewer declared war on the AIRC beginning the process to remove commissioners by sending a demand letter to the commission demanding answers to questions by Monday, October 31 -- on the eve of the release of her book.

Keep this in mind when reading Fischer's biased reporting on the Governor's assault on the AIRC today. Independent, Dems on Arizona redistricting panel vote to shore up legal defense - at public expense - East Valley Tribune:

Three members of the Independent Redistricting Commission voted Saturday night to spend public funds to hire lawyers for each of them to respond to questions raised about their conduct by Gov. Jan Brewer.

The move, which followed a closed-door session, came over the objections of Scott Freeman, one of the two Republicans on the panel. He said it is not "appropriate'' for the panel, which already is paying two law firms to represent the commission as a whole, to shell out more cash for more attorneys.

So the other three -- independent Chairwoman Colleen Mathis and Democrats Linda McNulty and Jose Herrera -- voted to leave Freeman and fellow Republican Richard Stertz out and instead get more legal help only for themselves.

Ray Bladine, the commission's executive director, said the attorneys will work over the rest of the weekend in a bid to meet Brewer's deadline to respond to her questions by 8 a.m. Monday.

* * *

The decision to retain three lawyers to respond to Brewer is likely to only exacerbate the controversy.

* * *

In her letter last week to the commission, the governor questioned an earlier decision to hire those same attorneys as legal counsel for the same three commissioners.

That was to respond to a separate probe of the panel that was being conducted by Attorney General Tom Horne. Brewer said she does not believe there is legal authority to retain multiple attorneys.

Freeman and Stertz did not seek legal help there, either, opting to testify about possible Open Meeting Law violations rather than fighting his authority to question them.

In his comments Saturday, Freeman said spending more money on lawyers to deal with Brewer's concerns "would compound the concerns ... in the governor's letter.''

* * *

Freeman said the commissioners themselves should respond to Brewer, without getting more lawyers involved.

"I don't think it's appropriate at this time to take the step of authorizing the expenditure of additional public funds to have additional legal representation for individual commissioners,'' he said.

In a separate vote, the panel directed Mary O'Grady, one of the two staff attorneys, to respond to a separate letter by Brewer questioning some of the decisions the panel made in drawing the congressional districts. What they told O'Grady to tell the governor, though, is not known, as that, too, was discussed behind closed doors.

The other staff attorney, Joe Kanefield, will not be participating in that response. That is because he used to be the governor's chief legal counsel and still represent her, as an attorney in private practice, in several other legal matters.

So what is missing from Fischer's biased reporting? Any discussion of attorney-client conflict of interest and joint representation of clients (except for his acknowledgment of Kanefield's conflict of interest). This goes to the heart of the reason why Attorney General Tom Horne was recently precluded from proceeding with his politically motivated witch hunt of the AIRC by a Superior Court judge.

The Commission's attorneys represent the Commission as a legal entity. They have provided legal advice to the Commission that is subject to attorney-client privilege. Those discussions cannot be disclosed in response to Jan Brewer's demand letter.

Horne and Brewer have raised allegations of misconduct by specific commissioners. Their legal interests are separate and distinct from the Commission's legal interests as a legal entity. Moreover, these commissioners may have conflicting legal interests with respect to one another, and therefore they are entitled to separate legal counsel. It would be a conflict of interest for the Commission's attorneys, now just Mary O'Grady after Joe Kanefield has been conflicted out, to jointly represent both the Commission and the individual commissioners accused of misconduct.

This is frequently the case with corporations and individual board members or even company employees. Corporate counsel is required to notify individuals that they should seek their own legal counsel due to a potential conflict of interest. There is nothing "controversial" or even remarkable about this, Mr. Fischer. It is required by the Rules of Professional Conduct. You are fabricating a "controversy" with your biased reporting.

Commissioner Scott Freeman, who is a lawyer, also knows this to be true. He would be required to do the same in representing multiple clients with potentially conflicting interests. Freeman's comments are political posturing, and he shoud be ashamed.

The only real controversy here, Mr. Fischer, is a highly coordinated assault on the AIRC and the Arizona constitutional provision which created the commission by Arizona Republican elected officials, from our GOP congressional delegation and their "soft money" redistricting organization FAIR Trust (and its attorneys/lobbyists), the GOP caucus of the Arizona legislature, and state executive officers including the Governor and Attorney General. This is a conspiracy by Arizona Republicans to violate and to vitiate the citizen's initiative Prop. 106 that was approved by the voters of Arizona (a super-legislature) which created the AIRC.

Only 35.5 percent of voters are registered as Republicans in Arizona. Yet this minority is behaving as an authoritiarian regime to dictate to the majority that they will have no voice and have no choice in elections. A "permanent Republican majority" will be engineered by disregarding the will of the voters and undermining the AIRC, either through stacking the commission with GOP-friendly commissioners who will gerrymander districts to the satisfaction of elected Republicans (as occurred ten years ago), or destroying the commission entirely. This is the real story. But our political media in Arizona is failing us by carrying water for the GOP.

UPDATE: By way of comparison, kudos to Mary Jo Pitzl of the Arizona Republic for her objective factual report. 3 Arizona redistricting commission members hire legal counsel. And a surpise to me, I must admit, kudos to the editor of the Arizona Republic who penned this editorial opinion today. Brewer's threat against officials oversteps office:

Governor, put down the ax. The process of drawing new congressional and legislative districts has been messy enough.

Now comes your letter to all five members of the Arizona Independent Redistricting Commission notifying them of allegations of "substantial neglect of duty and gross misconduct."

The words are as menacing as an ax blade: They're the constitutional grounds for removing commissioners from office. You have the power to do so, with two-thirds concurrence from the Senate.

You should drop that weapon.

Whatever the flaws in the process, nothing rises to the level of booting out commissioners.

* * *

Governor, your intrusion into the judicial realm is surreal. You're demanding that commissioners submit signed declarations by 8 a.m. Monday - "failure to respond will be taken as an admission." Are you planning to act as judge on complex open-meeting questions based solely on their responses? If they disagree, will you rule on who's right?

* * *

Voters established the redistricting commission through a constitutional amendment in 2000. The goal was to take the once-a-decade mapping task away from legislators with their vested interests and put it into the hands of a volunteer panel.

Governor, let the commission do its job.

And in a real shocker, even über-conservative Robert Robb in a roundabout way concludes Brewer's map-panel attack unjustified:

Brewer sent all five commissioners a letter Wednesday accusing them of "substantial neglect of duty and gross misconduct" and giving them until Monday morning to prove their innocence.

* * *

At this point, threatening commissioners with removal is at best premature. At worst, it is an abuse of power itself.

* * *

[B]ad map-drawing isn't neglect of duty or gross misconduct.

* * *

The [open meetings law] accusations are in the process of being investigated and adjudicated. The commission is arguing that the Open Meeting Law doesn't apply to it. The governor and state Senate are not an adjudicatory body with any right or competence to judge that legal claim.

Moreover, Open Meeting Law violations are ordinarily treated as the equivalent of governmental speeding tickets. Providing the death penalty for a single violation would be hugely disproportionate.

* * *

[T]he initiative gives the commission unrestricted contracting authority. It can do what it wants.

* * *

[T]he state Supreme Court has said that the commission has considerable latitude in balancing competing factors in drawing the maps.

* * *

[N]othing that is on the public record so far justifies removal from office or the threat thereof.

Political Calendar: Week of October 30, 2011

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.

Happy Halloween!

The Arizona Independent Redistricting Commission will be holding public hearings in Marana on Friday and Green Valley on Saturday. This is your last chance to testify in person or to submit your comments online. www.azredistricting.com.

It's that time of year again, we need to rally our volunteers and keep Tucson BLUE! Ballots were mailed on October 19. So VOTE!

Early Voting location: Tucson City Clerk Election Center, 800 E. 12th Street, open October 20-November 7, 8:00 a.m.-5:00 p.m. (Mon.-Fri.)

All vote-by-mail ballots must be in the possession of the City Clerk by 7:00 p.m. on Election Day in order for your ballot to be counted. The final day to vote (Election Day) is Tuesday, November 8. For a list of voting locations on Election Day see http://cms3.tucsonaz.gov/sites/default/files/clerks/Ballot%20Replacement%20Sites.pdf.

Please remember to sign and date the affidavit portion of your ballot envelope.

Then come on over for GOTV, and bring a friend!

New Volunteer Hours!

Coordinated Campaign Phone Banks!
Pima Dems HQ- 4639 E 1st St
Monday - Thursday 10:00 am & 5:00 pm
Friday & Saturday 10:00 am

Neighborhood Walks!
Every Saturday 9:00am
Sundays 2:00 pm
Jonathan Rothschild HQ, 3400 E. Speedway

and
Saturdays 9:00 am
Mission Mannor Park, 6100 S. 12th Ave
Walking in support of all of our Democratic candidates
and the Sunnyside Bond & Override

Political Calendar For The Week of October 30, 2011

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. Contact: www.livingliberallytucson.org.

Monday, October 31, 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. CORRECTION: Featured speaker is Attorney Kathleen Williamson on the topic: Bank and Mortgage Frauds and their connections to other seemingly unrelated industries. November 7: Featured speaker is Lisa Hoffman on ALEC - Who writes your laws – model bills and strategy. Visit DGT's web site at www.tucsondemocrats.org. Following Week: Rev. John Fife on the topic: A Culture of Cruelty: The systematic abuse of migrants in the borderlands.

Tuesday, November 1, 5:30 p.m.: Greater Huachuca Area Democratic Cub meeting, at Cochise County Democratic Party HQ, 1010 E. Fry Blvd. (Sierra Vista). For more information please contact Maggs at (520) 417-1533 or maggzilla2u@yahoo.com.

Wednesday, November 2, 7:00 p.m.: Legislative District 28 meeting, at Pima County Democratic Party HQ, 4639 E. 1st Street (one block South of Speedway and West of Swan). For more information please contact Ted Prezelski at prezelski@aol.com or (520) 326-3716 (leave message).

Thursday, November 3, 6:00 p.m.: Axe the Flat Tax! Forum, at St. Marks Church, 1431 W. Magee Road (Tucson). A forum on a harmful plan that will raise taxes for the poor and middle-income and lower taxes for the rich. Visit Axe The Flat Tax.

Friday, November 4, 6:00 p.m.: Arizona Independent Redistricting Commission public hearing, at the Marana Municipal Complex Auditorium, 11555 W. Civic Center Drive (Marana).

Friday, November 4: LAST DAY TO MAIL YOUR MAIL-IN BALLOT. Do NOT mail it after Friday, but hand-deliver it to any ballot replacement center on Election Day, Tuesday, November 8.

Saturday, November 5, 10:00 a.m.: Arizona Independent Redistricting Commission public hearing, at Desert Hills Social Center, Desert Hills Auditorium, 2980 S. Camino Del Sol (Green Valley).

Saturday, November 5, 2:00 p.m.: Legislative District 30 meeting, special election for chair, at the Green Valley Democratic HQ, Continental Shopping Plaza, 240 W. Continental Road (exit 63), Upstairs Meeting Room (elevator is available). For more information please contact Mariana Spier at mariana_spier@hotmail.com.

Note: for additional Democratic Party events around the state see http://azdem.org/events/Calendar/.

Special Announcements:

DCSRA Discussion Group

Wednesdays, 11:00 a.m.: Democratic Club of the Santa Rita Area hosts a Current Events Discussion Group at Green Valley Democratic Party HQ, Continental Shopping Plaza, 240 W. Continental Road (exit 63), Upstairs Meeting Room (elevator is available). Join us at the weekly meeting of the Democratic Headquarters Current Events Discussion Group. We'll talk about some of the major events of the previous week, including but not limited to political topics, and try and go behind the news for a deeper understanding. For more information, please contact Amy Johnson at acalkins10@aol.com.

Monday, November 7, 7:00 p.m.: Douglas Area Democrats meeting, at Los Obreros Hall, 406 8th Street (Douglas). For more information please contact Corny Munoz (520) 227-7125 or douglasrfl@hotmail.com.

Tuesday, November 8, 7:00 p.m.: Election Night Celebration. The Pima County Democratic Party invites you to join Council Members Regina Romero, Paul Cunningham, Shirley Scott and Jonathan Rothschild, the first Democratic Mayor in twelve years to celebrate all of our victories at Tucson’s hidden treasure, Lodge on the Desert, 306 N. Alvernon Way. Cash Bar and refreshments provided. Event is free, but contributions are always appreciated.

Friday, November 11: Veteran's Day.

Saturday, November 12, 10:00 a.m.: Mule Mountain Democratic Club meeting, at the Bisbee Senior Center on Collins Road (behind the Safeway and off Naco Road). For more information please contact John Viverto at 432-2366 or Vivertos@aol.com.

Democratic Women in Action "Women Make a Difference" Fashion Show Luncheon

Saturday, November 12, 11:00 a.m.: Democratic Women in Action host the annual "Women Make a Difference" Fashion Show Luncheon, at the Diamond Center, Desert Diamond Casino, 7350 South Nogales Highway (Tucson). Apparel will be provided by Encore Classics of Green Valley and Twice As Nice & Desert Vintage of Tucson. The event will host a Silent Auction, Centerpieces by Lisa Aiken of All Natural Soap & Bodycare Products, and VIP models. Tickets are now on sale for $49 each. For more information please contact Denise Morse at drcampo@q.com or (520) 762-1957, or visit our web site at http://azdemocraticwomen.org/.

Saturday, November 12, 3:00 p.m.: Saddlebrooke Democrats meeting, at the Saddlebrooke Club House. For more information please contact Holly Lyon at (703) 989-0764.

Saturday, November 12, 7:00 p.m.: Sowing the Seeds Floricanto Fundraiser for Saving Ethnic Studies, at the Fluxx Studio, 414 E. 9th Street (Tucson). Sowing the Seeds of Tucson, a collective of women writers, will be hosting a Floricanto Fundraiser to support Saving Ethnic Studies in the fight against Arizona's HB 2281, which bans the teaching of ethnic studies in K-12 public and charter schools. Committed to supporting Ethnic Studies in Arizona, the writers of Sowing the Seeds are leading a community Floricanto (poetry reading). Featured readers included members of the group and invited poets. There will also be an Open Mic session. Free admission, donations accepted at the door! Poets interested in participating please contact Andrea Hernandez Holm at ahholm@email.arizona.edu with questions.

Sunday, November 13, 2:30 p.m.: Axe the Flat Tax! Forum, at Cochise College, 1025 South Highway 90 (Benson). A forum on a harmful plan that will raise taxes for the poor and middle-income and lower taxes for the rich. Visit Axe The Flat Tax.

Monday, November 14: ABC News prime time special with Diane Sawyer. Interview of Rep. Gabrielle Giffords and her husband, Astronaut Mark Kelly, on the eve of the release of their joint memoir, "Gabby: A Story of Courage and Hope." (check local listings for time).

Monday, November 14, 6:00 p.m.: Axe the Flat Tax! Forum, at Holy Trinity Parish, 1300 N. Greasewood Road (Tucson). A forum on a harmful plan that will raise taxes for the poor and middle-income and lower taxes for the rich. For more information please call (520) 792 4515. Visit Axe The Flat Tax.

Monday, November 14, 6:00 p.m.: Legislative District 29 meeting, at the Sam Lena Library, 1607 S. 6th Avenue. For more information please contact Matt Kopec at LD29Chair@gmail.com or (520) 400-3020.

Monday, October 14, 6:30 p.m.: Pima County Democratic Party Executive Committee meeting.

Monday, November 14, 7:00 p.m.: Democrats of Oro Valley meeting, at the Oro Valley Library, 1305 W. Naranja Drive (at the corner of La Canada and Naranja Drive). The Democrats of Oro Valley will host Bunny Davis, J.D., M.Ed., who will explore the Constitution and Bill of Rights. The meeting is open to the public at no cost. For more information please contact Mike Dayton at (520) 742-3774, or visit our web site at www.demsov.org.

Tuesday, November 15, 6:30 p.m.: Oracle Democrats meeting, at the Oracle Fire Department, 1475 W. American Avenue (Oracle). For more information please contact Cecile at (480) 983-7853.

Wednesday, November 16, 7:00 p.m.: Pinal County Democratic Party meeting, at Pinal County Democratic Party HQ, 350 N. Main Street (Florence). For more information please contact Joe Robison at pinaldemocrat@gmail.com. 

Thursday, November 17, 6:00 p.m.: Casa Grande Democrats meeting, at Eva's Mexican Restaurant, 2033 N. Pinal Avenue (Casa Grande), For more information please contact Cecile at (480) 983-7853.

Friday, November 18, 6:00 p.m.: Axe the Flat Tax! Forum, location TBD in Yuma, AZ. A forum on a harmful plan that will raise taxes for the poor and middle-income and lower taxes for the rich. For more information please call (520) 792 4515. Visit Axe The Flat Tax.

Abandoned Mine Safety Silent Auction Fundraiser

Friday, November 18, 6:00 p.m.: Silent Auction Fundraiser benefitting Abandoned Mine Safety, at The Rosson House Museum at Heritage Square, 113 N. 6th Street (Phoenix). Abandoned Mine Safety is a non-profit organization dedicated to the closing and securing of abandoned mines in and around our communities, as well as providing abandoned mine safety education to schools K-12, private organizations, businesses, and public events. Please RSVP to abandonedminesafety@gmail.com or call (623) 388-4945.

Arizona Democratic Party Fall State Committee Meeting, Yuma, AZ - Save The Date!

Saturday, November 19, 9:00 a.m.-5:00 p.m.: Arizona Democratic Party Fall State Committee Meeting, at the Hilton Garden Inn, 310 N. Madison, Yuma, AZ. For Full info packet go to www.azdem.org/about/state_committee_and_other_committees/.

Cartoon of The Week

Posted by AzBlueMeanie:

The upcoming week - Special session (maybe), special meetings, and more

By Craig McDermott, cross-posted from Random Musings

Note to Southern AZ readers:  Feel free to ignore the stuff after the redistricting info; it's mostly Maricopa County-related anyway.

 

...The biggest meeting of the week is only a rumor at this point, but it is a rather persistent one.  There is a strong rumor going around that Republican Governor Jan Brewer is going to call a special session of the legislature to remove the Independent and Democratic members of the Arizona Independent Redistricting Commission (AIRC).  One of the rumors going around was that the special session would be on Monday, but that seems to be off of the table.  It may have been R posturing, or it may have been due to an inability to line up enough votes to do the deed on Monday (they need 20 of the 21 Rs in the Senate to be in attendance and on board to pull this off, if they go the special session route.

Details if/when they become available.

...In a perhaps related development, the AIRC has scheduled a business meeting for Monday at 6:20 p.m.  at the Adams House in Phoenix (1100 W. Washington Street).  The one action item on the agenda:

Legal advice, direction to counsel, discussion and possible action regarding actions relating to letter from Governor Brewer concerning Commission conduct. Commission may vote to go into executive session, which will not be open to the public, for the purpose of obtaining legal advice and providing direction to counsel (A.R.S. §38-431.03 (A) (3) and (4)).

...The AIRC has a full slate of public hearings scheduled for the week - Phoenix on Tuesday, Cottonwood on Wednesday, Scottsdale on Thursday, Marana on Friday, and Casa Grande and Green Valley on Saturday.

However, stay tuned - if the Governor and her associates in the legislature go through with their craven scheme to ignore the will of the voters and blow up the independent redistricting process, that schedule of public hearings on the new lines for Congressional and legislative districts will change to a schedule of court appearances, dates and times TBA.

- Also on Monday, the Joint Republican "Legislative" Committee on Messing With The Redistricting process and Commission is scheduled to meet at 1:30 p.m. in HHR4.


...In other areas of interest...

- The Arizona Corporation Commission's hearing schedule is here.  In addition to the hearings, they are holding two special open meetings for Tuesday/Wednesday and Friday.

- The Maricopa County Board of Supervisors is meeting Monday and Wednesday.

- The Scottsdale City Council is meeting Tuesday, both in a special meeting for appointments to City boards and commissions and a regular meeting.  One item of interest to political geeks: an item to remove John Washington from the City's Airport Advisory Commission.  Recently, the Council has OK the building of well more than 1000 apartments near the Scottsdale Airport, something that Washington thinks is ill-advised and more importantly, a violation of some agreements with the FAA that the Scottsdale airport operates under.  Washington has contacted the FAA directly, and because of that contact, Mayor Jim Lane has agendized a motion to remove Washington from the Commission.  I can't say for certain how the vote will turn out, but whatever happens Tuesday, don't be shocked if Washington runs for Council or Mayor next year.

- The Tempe City Council is meeting Thursday.


Early notice:  On Wednesday, December 7, the Community Involvement Group of the North Indian Bend Wash Superfund Site will meet at 5:30 p.m. in the Scottsdale Center for the Performing Arts.  More details as the date gets closer.

Goldwater Institute: Vouchers on Steroids for Everyone!

by David Safier

Arizona's new vouchers on steroids -- Education Empowerment Accounts (SB1553) -- are the Goldwater Institute's bold new idea made law. They're the first of their kind in the country, a brilliant and diabolical concoction designed to take the "public" out of public education and turn free market education into a three ring circus. Buyer Parents beware!

The basic idea, which I explained in depth in an earlier post, is to put the cost of a child's education into a state-run savings account which the parents can dip into to buy nearly any kind of educational experience or equipment -- private schooling, tutoring, "educational therapy," AP and SAT tests, store-bought curriculum, you name it. What the parents don't spend each year rolls forward to be spent later, even, if some is left at the end of K-12 schooling, for college tuition. It's a seductive idea, but if educated parents salivate at the thought of being able to tailor their children's learning experiences on the government's dime, profiteering hucksters are positively drooling at the endless possibilities for big bucks to be made on shoddy educational goods and services sold to unwitting parent/consumers.

The current version is only for students with learning disabilities, but that's just sticking the elephant's trunk into the public school tent. Supporters have been very clear: the eventual goal is to go Full Elephant and turn this into a universal voucher program.

Now the Goldwater Institute has said just that in a short policy brief linking to a longer pdf: A Custom Education for Every Child: The Promise of Online Learning and Education Savings Accounts. Expect an expansion of today's Education Empowerment Accounts to be pushed by G.I. and Republican legislators, here and in other states, in coming years.

The actual G.I. paper is a mess. To make the Voucher on Steroids idea sound high tech, the paper conflates online learning and the new vouchers. In fact, online learning, which has moved from its infancy to an overglandular adolescence which shows definite possibilities for maturation but is still experimental and only partially successful, is already very much a part of public education. No need for vouchers to partake in online education. You can find it in school districts and charter schools. But G.I. knows if it talks about its idea as Vouchers, admitting most people will use the funds to pay for private school tuition, that would raise people's visceral objection to the idea.

One thing the paper brings up it probably shouldn't have mentioned is the natural tendency for parents to look for the cheapest possible education so they can roll the money in their savings accounts forward. Imagine, if you will, the hucksters saying, "For only $3,000, we will give your child a prep school education which will ready him/her for the Ivy League." The paper makes seeking out cheap education sound like a good thing, but anyone who knows anything about education will spot the minefields in this approach. Money won't assure a good education, but lack of money is nearly a 100% guarantee of poor quality educational goods and services.

Pearce Recall Update: 'Outsider' Pearce should look in the mirror

Posted by AzBlueMeanie:

"King" Russell Pearce has complained from day one that the recall effort against him was from "outsiders" who do not live in his District 18. He even suggested that financial support for the recall comes from out of state.

Well, more than 10,000 of his neighbors in Distict 18 signed petitions to recall "King" Russell Pearce. They were certainly not "outsiders." And according to the Arizona Capitol Times (subscription required), Jerry Lewis’ fundraising reports show mostly Mesa support - Arizona Capitol Times:

Republican Jerry Lewis’ fundraising figures show his core support is homegrown, a far cry from insinuations that he’s backed by “outsiders” intent to topple Senate President Russell Pearce and quash Arizona’s battle against illegal immigration.

Perhaps "King" Russell Pearce should look in the mirror to discover the "outsider" bankrolled by campaign donations from outside of District 18. The Arizona Republic reports Most of Pearce's campaign money from outside Mesa:

The majority of Lewis' donors were from Mesa. That was not the case with Pearce, who had a large number of donors from out of state and brought in tens of thousands of dollars from state and national political committees.

* * *

Most of the donors to Pearce gave $100 or less, but dozens of lobbyists, attorneys and Arizona business owners also gave larger donations.

High Ground political consultant Chuck Coughlin gave Pearce $100. Rep. Cecil Ash, R-Mesa, gave $200. Lobbyist Kristen Boilini with KRB Consulting gave the maximum $424, as did lobbyist Meghaen Duger with Public Policy Partners. Craig Berge, owner of Mesa's Berge Ford, gave $424. Gun lobbyist and Arizona Citizens Defense League president Dave Kopp gave $424. Housing developer Steven Robson and his family members gave a total of $2,120.

* * *

The Home Builders Association of Central Arizona spent $5,520 sending out mailers supporting Pearce. The American Federation for Children spent $21,140 sending out mailers supporting Pearce. The group, based in Washington, D.C., advocates for school vouchers and scholarship tax-credit programs.

Arizona Deserves the Best, which lists a Laveen address that belongs to Republican political consultant Constantin Querard, spent $18,939 on behalf of Pearce.

It should not surprise anyone that Pearce attracted donations from capitol lobbyists. He was the top recipient of special favors from the Fiesta Bowl in the Fiesta Bowl lobbying scandal.

It's time to kick this corrupt king to the curb! If you are a voter in District 18 and you have not already voted, vote early for Jerry Lewis or cast your vote for him on Election Day, November 8. It's the first step to a better Arizona.

UPDATE: Stephen Lemons at the Phoenix New Times adds Russell Pearce's Extremist Pals, Including a Neo-Nazi, Donate to Patriots for Pearce, and laugh out loud funny: Russell Pearce's Pals Tom Tancredo and Bay Buchanan Pony Up a Measly $424 to Save Russ. I guess there won't be any "Team America" sing-a-long.

UPDATE:

(Update) Pimps for Private Prisons and Profit

Posted by AzBlueMeanie:

A Maricopa County Superior Court judge refused on Thursday to halt the bidding process for planned private prisons, not on the merits but on the legal question of standing. The Arizona Capitol Times (subscription required) reports Judge refuses to halt private prison bidding process - Arizona Capitol Times:

Judge Arthur Anderson ruled that the plaintiffs – parents of a man incarcerated in a private prison and a Quaker group – lacked standing to bring the suit. They were asking the court to stop the bidding until the Arizona Department of Corrections (ADOC) completed a required biennial cost benefit analysis comparing state-run and private prisons.

Caroline Isaacs, a spokeswoman for American Friends Service Committee, a social action arm of the Quaker faith, said the group is considering an appeal.

* * *

The Quaker group filed suit Sept. 12 to stop the bidding until the study was completed, arguing that the department has created a public safety issue by not complying with the law, citing security failures at a private prison in Kingman where inmates escaped in July 2010. One of the escapees now stands accused of murdering an Oklahoma couple before he was captured.

* * *

In siding with state, Anderson wrote in his ruling that the function of the statute requiring the study isn’t to ensure public safety or use tax dollars wisely, but to only make sure the report gets done and sent to the Legislature.

Well, your honor, since you dismissed this case on the question of standing and not on the merits, your comments about the statute amount to mere dicta.

The Department of Corrections has until Nov. 22 to award the bids.

GOP staffers cross the line at Tea-Publican Committee to Interfere With The AIRC

Posted by AzBlueMeanie:

The Tea-Publicans have thrown out all institutional norms and rules in their quest to "blow up" the Arizona Independent Redistricting Commission (AIRC).

It is bad enough that House Republican Caucus staffer and dirty tricks guy John Mills (he of the Republican voter fraud "Green" scheme siphon scandal in 2010) has been paid to attend almost every public hearing of the AIRC. I have personally observed Mills accost two witnesses after their testimony at these hearings in what can only be described as an attempt to intimidate these witnesses with whom he disagreed. He should have been disciplined by his employer for his actions, and if he worked for me this punk would have been fired. It is completely unacceptable behavior.

Mills has also been caught red-handed in feeding Tea-Publican witnesses GOP talking points when the witness has identifed him as their source in public testimony. The Arizona Eagletarian: Redistricting -- disturbing developments UPDATED ([W]hen Gila County Supervisor Tommie Martin testified before the AIRC, she specifically named GOP taxpayer funded political operative John Mills as the source of her information).

But it gets worse. GOP staff attorney Greg Jernigan, an attorney who should know better, presented partisan testimony at the Tea-Publican Committee to Interfere With The AIRC dog-and-pony show. This is unheard of and violates institutional norms and rules. The Arizona Capitol Times (subscription required) reports GOP staffer claims IRC gerrymandered maps; Dems promise complaint - Arizona Capitol Times:

A Republican legislative attorney claimed today that the state’s redistricting commission gerrymandered its maps to benefit certain Democratic incumbents and harm GOP politicians.

The claim by Senate GOP staff attorney Greg Jernigan that the Independent Redistricting Commission blatantly violated the state Constitution is the latest in the escalating tangle over the maps.

Within minutes of Jernigan’s testimony at the Joint Legislative Committee on Redistricting, Democratic leadership from both chambers of the Legislature ratcheted up their complaints that the committee is a waste of taxpayer dollars and an attempt to protect Republican interests.

Senate Minority Leader David Schapira and House Minority Leader Chad Campbell said they will be filing a complaint against Jernigan, saying his testimony to the committee represents a violation of the prohibition against state employees being involved in partisan political or election-related activity.

Jernigan took his partisan talking points testimony one step further by making accusations based upon speculation and conjecture, or more accurately, Tea-Publican paranoid delusions:

Jernigan’s explanation: McNulty was fed maps by a secret outside source.

Jernigan didn’t expound on this idea, but said he’s sure that McNulty and whoever potentially gave her maps to create will try to keep their identity hidden.

Jernigan declined to comment further on his assertion that McNulty must have been getting maps from outside the commission.

Schapira and Campbell, who were watching the committee hearing from the hallways of the Legislature, said they plan to file a formal complaint.

The two said Jernigan, and perhaps House Republican legislative staff member John Mills, may have broken a rule that bars state employees from getting involved in partisan or election-related activity.

* * *

Campbell said he’s felt that Mills has long taken part in work that falls outside of what’s permitted, but that today’s testimony is the most egregious violation he’s seen.

“The fact that they’re using staff to make baseless partisan attacks underscores everything we’ve said about this committee, which is that it’s a complete joke,” Campbell said. “John Mills is nothing more than a Republican Party staffer being paid for with taxpayer dollars, and apparently so is Jernigan.”

The House Democratic Caucus released this press release on Friday (which oddly does not name Greg Jernigan directly):

Tea Party extremists hit new low in attack on IRC citizen volunteers

STATE CAPITOL, PHOENIX – In yet another day of sad and whiny attempts to keep Arizona under Tea Party rule, extremists drunk with power hit a new low today by enlisting the help of their own legislative staff.

A taxpayer-funded partisan staffer testified in the Senate Committee on Redistricting and spread baseless speculation about the Independent Redistricting Commission maps.

“These partisan extremists have launched a full-scale attack on citizen volunteers who are trying to build a fair and competitive Arizona,” said House Minority Leader Chad Campbell. “It is unbelievable the lengths to which they will go because they are afraid of competitive districts that more accurately represent Arizona.”

The staffer testified and made baseless comments that singled out members of certain districts in Arizona implying the maps were drawn specifically for them. This is the latest in a string of blatant attacks from Tea Party elected officials like Gov. Jan Brewer and Congressional and legislative Tea Party lawmakers against the IRC. Just hours before the committee hearing, a Maricopa County Superior Court judge disqualified Tea Party Attorney General Tom Horne from moving forward with his bogus investigation on the IRC due to conflict of interest.

“The fact that they had to use one of their taxpayer-funded staffers to come up with slanderous testimony they've been looking for shows just what a partisan witch hunt this committee has been," said Senate Minority Leader David Schapira. "I'm sick and tired of their attempts to undermine the will of Arizona voters."

###

A Halloween Story

Posted by AzBlueMeanie:

From the Arizona Daily Star's David Fitzsimmons. On Halloween, watch for chupacabras:

Break out the campfire marshmallows! Here is a Halloween story for the kids:

After a healthy breakfast of scorpions, Gov. Jan Brewer donned her wicked witch of the Southwest hat and fired up her crystal ball. Spying the Independent Redistricting Commission drawing a competitive map for the voters, she cackled, "I'll get you, my pretties, and your little dogs, too!"

Standing on the parapet of her grim castle, she waved her hands out over the state, calling on her winged monkeys in the Senate to oust the offending commission members. "Fair races in this state? I wouldn't hear of it. Why my little party's just beginning." The sky filled with flying simians wearing spurs and bola ties.

The voters of Arizona created the independent commission to draw our congressional districts because letting our elected munchkins draw the maps was disastrous. Upon hearing this, the wicked witch of the Southwest cried "Oh, what a world!" And "What a world!" she howled when her winkies cornered the commission members.

"Helping democracy along, are you? Stay away from our hold on this state, or I'll stuff a mattress with you! And you, I'll make you into a beehive. Here, Colleen Mathis, want to play ball?" She tossed a ball of fire at the horrified commission members. Waving her broomstick, she circled them.

She snarled, "Your proposed congressional maps are too competitive, just no fun, and I say they're unconstitutional!"

And the voters, knowing she was all wet, recalled the witch and every last one of her winged monkeys. "You cursed brats! Look what you've done! I'm melting! melting! Oh, what a world! What a world! Who would have thought a good little state like you could destroy my beautiful power-hungry wickedness?"

The End.

Talking Baseball: 11th Heaven: Wild Cards win World Series!

Posted by AzBlueMeanie:

In August, the St. Louis Cardinals trailed the Atlanta Braves by 10½ games for the wild ward spot in the playoffs. By the last week of September, the Cards still trailed the Braves by three games with seven to play. The Comeback Cards captured the wild card spot on the last day of the season when the Atlanta Braves completed one of the worst collapses in September in baseball history.

The Comeback Cards defeated the team favored to win the World Series, the Philadelphia Phillies with relative ease, then defeated their central division rivals who won the division title, the Milwaukee Brewers.

Game 6 of the World Series was an elimination game, with the Comeback Cards trailing 3 games to 2 to the Texas Rangers in the Series. It turned out to be a game for the ages, much like game 6 between the Boston Red Sox and New York Mets in 1986. The Comeback Cards trailed by two runs in the bottom of the ninth and were down to their last strike. They miraculously tied the game. The Rangers returned the favor in the top of the tenth inning. The Comeback Cards were down two runs in the bottom of the tenth and down to their last strike. Again, they miraculously tied the game. In the eleventh inning, hometown boy David Freese hit a towering walk-off home run to center field to win the game. (Freeze would be named Series MVP).

The gods of fate and destiny were on the side of the Comeback Cardinals. The anchor of their pitching staff, Chris Carpenter, would start on short rest in the decisive game 7. He immediately gave up two runs in the top of the first. But the Comeback Cards tied the game in the bottom of the frame. From there on out, it was all Cardinals on their way to winning their eleventh World Series title. The Texas Rangers, like the 1986 Boston Red Sox, will be forever haunted by the knowledge that they were one strike away from winning the World Series and let it slip away.

What the St. Louis Cardinals achieved is historic in the annals of baseball history. The Comeback Cards have essentially been playing elimination games every day since August when they trailed the Atlanta Braves by 10½ games. They rose to every challenge and found a way to win it all. It is arguably the greatest comeback in sports history. I tip my hat to manager Tony La Russa and the Comeback Cards for an historic season and their World Series title. We'll get you next year!

From the St. Louis Post-Dispatch today: 11th Heaven: Wild Cards win World Series

Poor ol' Russell Pearce is getting picked on (Just ask Russell Pearce)

by David Safier

"Poor me!" Pearce wails in a recent fundraising email. "Poor, poor me!"

Will you help me defeat [Lewis]? I know I’ve asked for a lot but I must have the necessary resources to defend my record. We cannot allow their vicious lies and personal attacks to go unanswered. If we do, we lose. It’s just that simple.

I’m going to need the support of good people like you behind me. I’m not a wealthy man. I don’t have the personal resources to put into this campaign. I’m reaching out to you because I desperately need your support – again.

Will you stand with me to stop this recall?

I hate asking for contributions, but I've been around elections long enough to have learned this simple truth: if I do not ask you for money, this group of left-wing extremists will successfully engineer the taking of my Senate seat this November. I have to rely on the contributions and prayers of thousands of likeminded Americans like you, in the hope that you care enough about the values we share to contribute to the effort.

Clearly Pearce thinks the seat belongs to him, by divine right or something. "My Senate seat," he calls it. November 8 will tell the tale.

Tom Horne disqualified by conflict of interest from pursuing his AIRC witch hunt

Posted by AzBlueMeanie:

Tom "banned for life by the SEC" Horne was diqualified by a Superior Court Judge today from pursuing his politically motivated witch hunt of the Arizona Independent Redistricting Commission, based upon a professional conflict of interest.

Even nonlawyers could have easily explained to Horne that because the AG's office was legal counsel representing the AIRC and provided the commission with training on Arizona's open meetings law that the AG's office could not then switch sides and pursue its own client for a claim related to the advice and legal representation that the AG's office provided the commission. Attorney-client privilege expressly prohibits it. This was clear to everyone from the very beginning, except Horne apparenlty.

The real conflict of interest here is that Tom "banned for life by the SEC" Horne is first and foremost a partisan political hack who is abusing the power of his office to pursue politically motivated litigation. Eventually he is going to find himself in front of a State Bar of Arizona disciplinary proceeding, just like his friend, disgraced former Maricopa County Attorney Andrew Thomas.

The Arizona Capitol Times (subscription required) reports Horne disqualified from investigating IRC - Arizona Capitol Times:

Attorney General Tom Horne will no longer be able to pursue an open meeting law investigation into members of the Independent Redistricting Commission, as a Maricopa County Superior Court judge has ruled the attorney general is saddled with an existing conflict of interest.

Judge Dean Fink today granted a motion to disqualify Horne[.]

* * *

At issue is the fact that the Attorney General’s Office previously advised the commission members about the compliance with state law, including open meeting laws that Horne claims to have a reasonable belief that the commission violated.

Ethical rules established by the Arizona Supreme Court govern attorneys’ duties to former clients and generally prohibit attorneys from leaking information about former clients that could be damaging.

* * *

Fink found the AG’s previous IRC representation as “fundamentally related” to the current investigation, and he regarded the scenario as a “changing of sides.”

The judge was also not swayed by Horne’s claim that another court-established ethical rule grants government attorneys greater leeway in their dealings with former clients in order to respect the duty of prosecutors investigating instances of possible malfeasance by government officials.

Fink found that Horne’s claim did not overrule attorney-client privileges held by the IRC, which, like other public officials, could find themselves under investigation but are still “entitled no less than anyone else to the loyalty of their lawyers.”

* * *

Horne said that he would not appeal Fink’s ruling in the interest of saving what he called “precious time” that could otherwise be spent investigating the commission. The case, he said, would be immediately transferred to Maricopa County Attorney Bill Montgomery, whom Horne said would “pursue the matter as vigorously as I did.”

* * *

Attorney Paul Charlton, who represents IRC Chairwoman Colleen Mathis... praised the ruling as a “vindication of the caution” that Mathis and Democratic commissioners José Herrera and Linda McNulty displayed by not cooperating with Horne.

Charlton stressed that attorneys general are rightfully charged with investigating and prosecuting government officials who are technically clients as long as the prosecutions are not related to the subject of the advice given.

“Here, the attorney general had given the commission very specific advice about open meeting law issues, and, in particular, serial communication (contacts outside of public government meetings) issues,” Charlton said. “The attorney general then said, ‘Now, I am going to pursue a civil prosecution because they ignored the advice I gave them.’”

UPDATE: Judge Fink also delayed the previously scheduled November 7 hearing date for three weeks to give the state time to retain counsel and to prepare for the hearing.

As you might imagine, the Arizona Democratic Party has been burning up the "internets" with press releases following the events of the past two days as new evidence comes to light about the Tea-Publican conspiracy to "blow up" the AIRC:

Foreclosuregate Update: Merscorp Inc. sued by Delaware for deceptive practices

Posted by AzBlueMeanie:

This is big. Vice President Joe Biden's son, Beau Biden, Attorney General of the State of Delaware, has filed a lawsuit against Merscorp Inc., the operator of a national mortgage registry used by banks, in the Foreclosuregate scandal. Mortgage Registry MERS Sued by Delaware Attorney General - Businessweek:

Merscorp Inc., the operator of a national mortgage registry used by banks, was sued by Delaware’s attorney general for allegedly using deceptive practices that hide information from borrowers.

The MERS database, which tracks ownership interests in mortgages, impeded the ability of homeowners to fight foreclosures and obscures its data, Delaware Attorney General Beau Biden said in a complaint filed today.

“MERS engaged and continues to engage in a range of deceptive trade practices that sow confusion among consumers, investors and other stakeholders in the mortgage finance system, damage the integrity of Delaware’s land records, and lead to unlawful foreclosure practices,” Biden said.

 * * *

Biden described MERS as “a front organization” at a news conference today in Delaware.

“The unreliability of the MERS System, when compounded with MERS’s reliance on the records in the MERS System, is deceptive and harms consumers by permitting and encouraging foreclosures for which the authority has not been fully determined and may not be legitimate,” the attorney general said.

* * *

In his complaint, Biden said as loans are transferred, the changes are only recorded in MERS’ database, and the records of the transfer aren’t generally accessible to the public. MERS doesn’t have safeguards in place to ensure that transfers on its system accurately reflect actual transfer of ownership of the loan, according to the complaint.

The MERS system is “frequently inaccurate,” Biden said in court papers. When the MERS system doesn’t reflect the true owner of a mortgage loan, any action MERS takes on behalf of the purported owner is without authority, according to the attorney general.

“The MERS system has raised serious questions about who owns what in America,” Biden said at the press conference.

Biden asked the court to bar MERS from initiating any foreclosure actions in the company’s name, from acting as a nominal mortgage lender when it didn’t have a “beneficial interest” in the property and from recording such mortgages in the company’s name.

Biden also asked the court to stop MERS from assigning or taking any other actions on Delaware mortgages until the company’s system has been “audited and corrected,” according to the complaint. The court should order MERS to correct the chain of title on Delaware mortgages that were recorded in county offices, Biden said.

The case is State of Delaware v. MERSCORP Inc., CA6987, Delaware Chancery Court (Wilmington).

* * *

Separately, New York Attorney General Eric Schneiderman subpoenaed Merscorp for information about how mortgage servicers including Bank of America Corp., JPMorgan Chase & Co., Wells Fargo & Co. use the system, according to a person familiar with the matter. The subpoena is part of an existing investigation with Delaware about mortgage operations of banks, according to the person, who declined to be identified because the investigation isn’t public.

MERS faces multiple unrelated lawsuits by counties over allegations that the company cheated them out of mortgage filing fees.

Dallas County, Texas, which sued last month, claims the system allows banks that own stakes in MERS to buy and sell loans without properly recording transfers with counties and paying the fee. Dallas County District Attorney Craig Watkins, who also sued Bank of America, said his county may be owed as much as $100 million.

New York Attorney General Eric Schneiderman is working with his Delaware counterpart, Beau Biden, to investigate what he called possible “criminal acts” by financial institutions tied to the foreclosure crisis. New York Working With Delaware on Criminal Foreclosure Probe - Businessweek:

“This was a man-made crisis -- it was created by regulatory neglect and greed,” Schneiderman said last night in a TV interview.

“Beau Biden, who is the attorney general of Delaware, and I thought we really needed to dig in a little bit deeper,” Schneiderman told MSNBC’s Rachel Maddow. “We’re also looking at the conduct of individual institutions and individuals to see if there were misrepresentations made, to see if there was any fraud committed, to see if criminal acts were also a part of this.”

Interview begins around the 3:30 mark.

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

Schneiderman has been investigating mortgage practices of banks as state and federal officials negotiate a settlement with lenders over foreclosure and mortgage-servicing conduct.

All 50 state attorneys general last year announced they were investigating bank foreclosure after disclosures that faulty documents were being used to seize homes. Negotiations with banks including Bank of America Corp. and JPMorgan Chase & Co. haven’t produced a settlement more than a year since the investigation began.

* * *

Schneiderman and Biden have said any settlement with the banks shouldn’t provide liability releases to the companies for matters that haven’t been fully investigated, including the packaging of loans into securities.

Maybe we will finally see "somebody going to emergency, somebody going to jail" for the greatest fraud ever perpetrated in history.

AIRC Update: Brewer's 'nuclear option' includes election rigging plan to repeal Prop. 106

Posted by AzBlueMeanie:

The immediate concern is that our lame-duck Governor and the Tea-Publican legislature will abuse the powers of their office to "impeach" (remove) one or more citizen volunteer commissioners from the Arizona Independent Redistricitng Commission, and appoint a replacement(s) who will do their bidding and give them everything they demand, destroying the "independence" of the commission and making a mockery of it. That is bad enough.

But there is an even more sinister plot under consideration by the Tea-Publican tyranny, as revealed by the Arizona Capitol Times (subscription required) Brewer lofts ‘nuclear’ option, setting off redistricting turmoil - Arizona Capitol Times:

Sen. Frank Antenori (R-Tucson) said he prefers an idea that some lawmakers have been kicking around to refer Prop. 106 back to the ballot. Sen. Al Melvin (R-Saddlebrooke) agreed, saying the state could hold the special election on Feb. 28, the day of Arizona’s Republican presidential primary.

* * *

If they hold the special election on Feb. 28, however, Republicans would have one major factor working in their favor — many Republicans are already planning to come out and in the hotly contested GOP primary, while Democrats, who have no presidential primary to vote in next year, are likelier to stay home.

How convenient. That's called election rigging -- holding an election on a date when only your voters are voting in an election. These Tea-Publican tyrants are pure evil.

NOTE: To all the Occupy protests across Arizona: If Governor Brewer calls a special session to assault the AIRC, your protests should all head to Phoenix to Occupy the Capitol. Focus attention on this tyranny.

In Memoriam: Judy Burns, child advocate and educator

Posted by AzBlueMeanie:

Sad news on Thursday; long-time child advocate and TUSD school board member Judy Burns passed away unexpectedly from a heart attack. TUSD board member Judy Burns dies:

Longtime TUSD Governing Board member and child advocate Judy Burns died Thursday after suffering a massive heart attack.

Burns, 63, served on the board for 11 years, though her time as a TUSD volunteer spans more than two decades.

Before being elected to the board, Burns - the mother of two TUSD graduates - volunteered as a teacher's aide, served as a PTA president and worked on various advisory committees.

One of the more outspoken members of the board, Burns didn't shy away from taking a minority position and often was critical of district inefficiency and spending on matters she thought took money away from the classroom.

"Judy fought for kids, and whether you agreed or disagreed with her, you knew that in her heart that's where she was coming from," said board member Adelita Grijalva, who served with Burns for nine years.

Added former TUSD board member Bruce Burke: "Judy was a fierce and tireless advocate for public education. Her heart was always looking out for students and the employees who did their daily work."

One cause championed by Burns was the district's Mexican American Studies program, which has been under fire by state and local critics for years.

"Judy's perspective was very, very clear," said TUSD Superintendent John Pedicone. "It was about what it did for kids, and if it did good things for kids nothing else was as important as that result."

The Arizona Daily Star has a nice editorial opinion honoring Judy Burns. Every child needs someone just like Judy Burns:

Burns, who died unexpectedly from a massive heart attack Thursday, was a complicated person.

She was an unwavering advocate for children and education. She could be incredibly kind, but equally cutting, in her position on the TUSD Governing Board.

With Burns, there was no wondering where you stood. She didn't gussy things up.

She was funny, she was insightful and she was methodical. She didn't accept information as fact because someone with a title said it was true.

Burns wasn't afraid to give or receive criticism, and once she made up her mind about something or someone, it was made up. Everyone got a chance with Burns, but her continued support had to be earned.

She was generous with her time and attention but could also alienate people. And that's just how it was.

Every school district needs a Judy Burns - a person who isn't afraid to make others mad. A person who digs and nitpicks and knows her own mind.

A person who is tireless and devoted. A person who will see things through.

* * *

Burns showed up. First at her own children's schools, and eventually as an elected Governing Board member. She saw a problem and she did something about it.

She would do research, talk with people and pepper TUSD employees about why they were doing this, why they weren't doing that, what about this option or that possibility, why isn't this working, why can't we do what is working at one school at every school.

Burns dug into district technology problems over the years, and she got into the weeds on issues that didn't make headlines but made a difference in schools.

Most recently, Burns was energized by her advocacy for TUSD's ethnic studies classes. She defended the program, its teachers and students against critics in Tucson and in state government.

She was zealous and outspoken and took a lot of criticism for her actions.

* * *

The best way to pay tribute to Burns is to follow her example. Get involved in your kids' education. If yours are grown or you don't have children, support education because it's the right thing to do.

Ask questions, demand answers - real answers, not just a response. Keep kids at the center of what you do. Show up. Work hard even when it's difficult and no one is watching.

Be unafraid to make waves.

Because every child needs a Judy Burns.

Burns is survived by her husband, Ben, and her two children.

U.S. Rep. Raúl Grijalva and Pima County Schools Superintendent Linda Arzoumanian expressed their condolences Thursday to Burns' family and the TUSD community.

"We will all miss Judy's unwavering commitment to public education and to the future of our children," Arzoumanian said.

I will update with funeral/memorial service information when it becomes available.

A luncheon honoring Charles G. Koch today - tell him what you really think of him!

Posted by AzBlueMeanie:

You have got to be kidding me. The Philanthropy Roundtable is honoring Charles G. Koch today as the 2011 recipient of the William E. Simon Prize for Philanthropic Leadership with a luncheon at the Phoenician in Scottsdale. And they are giving him a $250,000 grant for a charity of his choice! (It will be one of his own nonprofit organizations for sure).

The Roundtable says "Mr. Koch has been at the forefront of long-term strategic investment in ideas, think tanks and academic research" (sic). He wants to sustain and strengthen America as a land of freddom and prosperity" -- as in his Americans for Prosperity. Koch is an integral cog in the right-wing propaganda machine designed to undermine democracy and to usher in the corporatocracy. Not to mention his long-standing association with the fringe John Birch Society that his father cofounded. And his Richie Rich friends are honoring him for this!

I understand that there will be a protest at 64th and Camelback to give Mr. Koch the welcome he deserves.

I was sent this Op-Ed with a request to share. The Arizona Republic declined to publish this joint Op-Ed by Bob Edgar and Aaron Dorfman. Why am I not surprised?

PHILANTHROPY THAT SUPPORTS PRIVATE WEALTH

By Aaron Dorfman and Bob Edgar

This week, a few hundred people who lead foundations will gather in Scottsdale, Ariz., for the annual meeting of Philanthropy Roundtable, an organization that promotes independent giving to solve America’s challenges while encouraging laws and regulations that make it easy for wealthy people to engage in private philanthropy with little oversight.

At this meeting, the organization will pay homage to Charles Koch who, along with brother, David, is owner of Koch Industries, the second largest privately held company in America. The firm runs oil refineries and owns consumer brands like Lycra fabric and Brawny paper towels. The brothers are the fourth- and fifth-richest men in America; each has a net worth of $25 billion.

According to Philanthropy Roundtable, the principles that govern Charles Koch’s philanthropy are simple: “He wants to sustain and strengthen America as a land of freedom and prosperity. He wants to give others the same opportunity to succeed that he has had. Having benefited from the capitalist system, he wants others to prosper in the same way.”

But closer examination suggests that Charles Koch’s “philanthropy” is mostly about influencing our political systems to promote and strengthen domestic policies that favor Koch Industries, while at the same time, hurting the rest of us.

The Kochs and their corporations are players in an informal alliance of business executives and conservative theorists who promote an ambitious political agenda. The Kochs use their vast corporate resources to fund an entire political network that includes think tanks, elected officials and undisclosed front groups to advocate for public policies and the dismantling of regulations that help their bottom line, but are bad for the public. They favor dramatically lower personal and corporate income taxes, less government oversight of industry – particularly environmental regulations that impact their businesses. They have spent millions to fight health care reform, energy independence and combating global warming,

The Charles G. Koch Charitable Foundation has made multimillion-dollar investments in the Institute for Humane Studies (IHS), which Charles Koch chairs; the Mercatus Center; and George Mason University in Virginia, which houses both of these free market institutes. Koch gave $1.1 million in 2008 and $2.4 million in 2009 to IHS. The university received nearly $2.8 million and $91,500 in 2008 and nearly $5 million in 2009.

The Wall Street Journal called the Mercatus Center “the most important think tank you’ve never heard of.” The Journal reported that when George W. Bush first took office, his “hit list” of 23 regulations to be repealed or modified included 14 suggested by Mercatus, including EPA pollution regulations and energy efficiency standards. Koch gave $3.9 million  in 2006, nearly $2.7 million in 2007 and $1 million  in 2008 to the center.

Other notable grants in 2009 include $67,556 to the Americans for Prosperity Foundation, started by his brother David and closely involved with the Tea Party movement; and $75,858 to the American Legislative Exchange Council, known for peddling industry-friendly “model” legislation to state legislatures.

Companies controlled by Koch Industries have rigged prices with competitors, lied to regulators and repeatedly run afoul of environmental regulations, resulting in five criminal convictions since 1999 in the U.S. and Canada. Common Cause has highlighted  the Kochs’ ties to Supreme Court Justices Antonin Scalia and Clarence Thomas, who were “featured” guests at two political fundraising and strategy sessions sponsored by the company. Koch Industries was a major beneficiary of the court’s decision in the landmark campaign finance case, Citizens United v. Federal Election Commission, which overturned longstanding regulations limiting corporate spending around elections. Both justices sided with the position benefiting the Kochs.

When a wealthy person like Charles Koch creates a private tax-exempt foundation, he or she is indirectly diverting a portion of tax revenue that goes to pay for things like supporting the military, building and maintaining roads and public transportation and public schools to projects of his or her liking.

When that happens, the rest of us – especially the lower and middle-class - who don’t have foundations and fancy tax lawyers shoulder more of the cost of public services.

Philanthropy, at its best, involves selfless giving by individuals and foundations to advance equity and democracy, and promote the common good. It reaches down to serve the poor and powerless, such as by assuaging homelessness, hunger and illiteracy and through advocacy for public policies aimed at solving those problems. Paying for policy reform that harms the public good and benefits one’s own economic interests isn’t consistent with the spirit and history of philanthropic giving in this nation.

Given his self-interested giving, Charles Koch seems an odd choice to become philanthropy’s poster boy. It says a lot about the Philanthropy Roundtable that they chose Koch over the many other outstanding philanthropists in the country to receive this year’s award.

Aaron Dorfman is executive director of the National Committee for Responsive Philanthropy in Washington, D.C. Bob Edgar is president and CEO of Common Cause in Washington, D.C.

Bush-era gun walking, Mexico, and Fast and Furious

by David Safier

The Star's Tim Steller punches another hole in the Republican meme that Fast and Furious was a crime-of-the-millenium outrage unprecedented in recent history.

True, Fast and Furious was a botched ATF operation that let guns walk into Mexico without yielding the hoped-for results of leading us to the higher-ups in the Mexican crime chain. But recently two similar operations were uncovered, carried out during the Bush administration, including the 2006 Operation Wide Receiver which was based right here in Tucson.

True, attack dog Darrell Issa tried to point out the difference between the Bush- and Obama-era operations:

". . . we know that under the Bush administration, there were similar operations but they were coordinated with Mexico, they made every effort to keep their eyes on the weapons the whole time."

The only problem with Issa's assertion is that it's wrong, as Steller points out:

From what I've seen so far, that's not true. In one 2006 investigation, Tucson-based Operation Wide Receiver, hundreds of guns went to Mexico, and that country's government apparently was not involved. In another Arizona investigation, which began in 2007, there appears to have been at least one attempt to inform Mexican officials.

In fact, according to Steller, in the Tucson operation, coordination with Mexico would have destroyed the operation.

(For Fast and Furious wonks, Steller links to his previous stories and well as others about the Wide Receiver Operation.)

Government agencies screw up frequently, sometimes because of incompetence and sometimes because, as Robert Burns once wrote,

The best-laid schemes o' mice an' men
Gang aft agley, [Approximate translation of "Gang aft agley": Often go awry]

Screw ups need to be pointed out and examined. If they are willful or negligent, those responsible need to be dealt with accordingly. But if you're looking for the most egregious gun "crime" of the past decades, it's not Fast and Furious or Wide Receiver. It's the wanton sales of arms to people who buy them with obvious criminal intent, for dissemination and use in this country and in Mexico. If Issa was a dedicated public official, that's the problem he would be investigating and trying to correct.

The Less Than Do Nothing Tea-Publican Congress in One Chart

Posted by AzBlueMeanie:

h/t Daily Kos: The do-nothing Republican House

CBO Study: Income Inequality in America

Posted by AzBlueMeanie:

You may have seen this story in your local newspaper today Rich are getting much richer:

The richest 1 percent of Americans have been getting far richer over the past three decades while the middle class and poor have seen their after-tax household income only crawl up in comparison, according to a government study.

After-tax income for the top 1 percent of U.S. households almost tripled, up 275 percent, from 1979 to 2007, the Congressional Budget Office found. For people in the middle of the economic scale, after-tax income grew by just 40 percent. Those at the bottom experienced an 18 percent increase.

* * *

"The distribution of after-tax income in the United States was substantially more unequal in 2007 than in 1979," CBO Director Doug Elmendorf said in a blog post. "The share of income accruing to higher-income households increased, whereas the share accruing to other households declined."

The top 1 percent made $165,000 or more in 1979; that jumped to $347,000 in 2007, the study said. The income for the top fifth started at $51,289 in 1979 and rose to $70,578 in 2007. On the other end of the spectrum, those in the 20th percentile went from $12,823 in 1979 to $14,851 in 2007.

The report also found:

- The top 20 percent of the population earned 53 percent of after-tax income in 2007, as opposed to 43 percent in 1979.

- The top 1 percent reaped a 17 percent share of all income, up from 8 percent in 1979.

- The bottom 20 percent reaped just 5 percent of after-tax income, vs. 7 percent in 1979.

Jon Perr provides the details the news media tends to leave out. PERRspectives: GOP Candidates Double Down on Record Income Inequality:

This week, the Congressional Budget Office (CBO) provided just the latest analysis confirming that U.S. income inequality is at record levels. But while the income gap is at largest in 80 years even as the total federal tax burden is at its smallest in 60, the 2012 Republican presidential field is proposing to make both much, much worse. As the numbers show, the GOP field's toxic mix of massive upper-class tax cuts, mountains of debt and draconian spending cuts would ensure the yawning chasm between the top 1% and everyone else grows wider still.

Rick Perry, Mitt Romney, Newt Gingrich, Herman Cain, Jon Huntsman and Ron Paul would all slash the top income tax rate starting in 2013. Each would reduce corporate taxes, already down to their lowest percentage share of federal revenue since 1950, from 35% to as little as 9%. All would eliminate the estate tax, a $25 billion a year windfall to the richest families in America, only a quarter of one percent of whom now pay it. All but Romney would completely zero out the capital gains tax. (As the Washington Post recently explained the impact of the already historically low 15% capital gains tax rate, "Over the past 20 years, more than 80 percent of the capital gains income realized in the United States has gone to 5 percent of the people; about half of all the capital gains have gone to the wealthiest 0.1 percent.")

Regardless of which Republican emerges as the party's standard bearer in 2012, the result as John Harwood explained on CNBC, is that the richest Americans would get back "hundreds of thousands, maybe even millions of dollars" annually from the U.S. Treasury.

* * *

It's also no wonder that on the same day the CBO reported that "top earners doubled share of nation's income," a new CBS/New York Times poll found:

"Two-thirds of the public said that wealth should be distributed more evenly in the country. Seven in 10 Americans think the policies of Congressional Republicans favor the rich. Two-thirds object to tax cuts for corporations and a similar number prefer increasing income taxes on millionaires."

Americans have heard the Republican story before. And no matter how Mitt Romney, Herman Cain, Rick Perry or any other of the GOP White House hopefuls tell it, the ending is always the same:

Just say no to faith based supply-side "trickle down" GOP economics.

AZ GOP Congressional Caucus (FAIR Trust) is strong-arming Governor and Legislature on AIRC

Posted by AzBlueMeanie:

Fallout from our lame-duck Governor Brewer's autocratic attempt to assault the "independence" of the Arizona Independent Redistricting Commission is continuing. It has come to light that the Arizona GOP Congressional Caucus, i.e., the "soft money" GOP redistricting organization FAIR Trust, is responsible for bringing pressure to bear on our lame-duck governor and Arizona legislature for action against the AIRC.

This is a full-court press by congressional Republicans for "incumbency protection," something the voters of Arizona expressly rejected when they enacted Prop. 106 in 2000 to create the Arizona Independent Redistricting Commission. This is Tea-Publican tyranny.

Press release from the Arizona Democratic Party:

AZGOP congressmen strong-arming Legislature
to impeach citizen-volunteer commission

Trampling on voter-approved Prop. 106 to help themselves stay in power,
Quayle, Schweikert, Gosar, Franks join forces with Gov. Brewer

PHOENIX -- Gov. Brewer has some powerful lieutenants in her march toward impeachment of the citizen volunteers on the Arizona Independent Redistricting Commission. Our state's congressional Republicans have joined her in using their influence to strong-arm senators in the state Legislature into voting for impeachment.

An excerpt from Thursday's Arizona Capitol Times' Yellow Sheet Report (emphasis added):

GOP DELEGATION MAKING REMOVAL PUSH
The congressional delegation has been calling Senate Republicans to gauge support for removing at least one of the redistricting commissioners, ostensibly with the hope of convincing Brewer to begin removal procedures by showing her there are the 20 votes needed in the Senate. One unidentified senator confirmed that Franks, Gosar, Schweikert and Quayle have contacted members of the majority caucus directly or through subordinates in order to press for some sort of action.... “They’re all frantic and they’ve started to get engaged when they should have been engaged all along. Now they want the Senate to do something they can’t do.”

-----

Luis Heredia, Arizona Democratic Party executive director, gives this response: "The voters who passed Proposition 106 took redistricting out of the hands of politicians, but now those politicians are waging all-out war to get it back. Republicans are trying to force their will on Arizona voters -- and they just might get away with it."

###

'Payday' Paton loses round one in his quest to kill clean elections

Posted by AzBlueMeanie:

I recently posted about the wannabe tinhorn dictator of Tucson, Jonathan "Payday" Paton's attempt to kill Arizona Clean Elections in order to kill the City of Tucson's Clean Elections system -- a twofer! Jonathan 'Payday' Paton still trying to subjugate the citizens of Tucson:

[In 2010] was Paton's attempt to dictate to the residents of the state of Arizona that you are all just a bunch of rubes for enacting Arizona Clean Elections, Proposition 200 approved by voters in 1998. Arizona Clean Elections has proved to be popular with both voters and candidates seeking office. (In 2000 only 26% of the primary candidates ran using clean elections funding. In 2008 participating candidates increased to 65%.)

* * *

Sen. Ken Cheuvront pointed out that Paton's proposal, while banning public funding of elections, does not spell out where the money still being raised would end up going. Paton conceded the point, saying he would have a separate measure later this session - and a separate ballot question - to deal with that.

"I'm not sure this is an honest way to do it," he said.

Paton, however, said he had a political reason for that decision: A straight-out repeal would be asking people to "repeal Clean Elections," something he said might cause voters to have second thoughts about killing the system.

Paton's purposefully deceptive bill to kill Arizona Clean Elections was not passed until last session by his Tea-Publican allies in the Arizona legislature. SCR1025, a referendum to be referred to the ballot in 2012, would have repealed the financing mechanism of Arizona Clean Elections and would have confiscated money from the City of Tucson for the state of Arizona, effectively ending clean elections in Arizona.

The proposed referendum was challenged in court, and on Wednesday, the court struck the measure from the 2012 ballot. The Arizona Capitol Times (subscription required) reports Judge tosses Clean Elections ballot measure - Arizona Capitol Times:

A Maricopa County Superior Court judge today struck from the 2012 ballot a measure that would have ended Arizona’s system of publicly financed political campaigns.

Lawmakers placed the measure on the ballot earlier this year, largely due to the near-unanimous support of Republican legislators. However, backers of Clean Elections and officials from the City of Tucson, which operates a similar public financing option for municipal candidates, quickly challenged it in court.

In a ruling today, Maricopa County Superior Court Judge Dean Fink agreed with the plaintiffs that the measure violates a state constitutional prohibition on ballot measures that ask voters to accomplish more than one goal at a time.

Fink found that the measure, SCR1025, offered voters a decision on what he deemed a common purpose of banning public campaign financing on the state, legislative and municipal levels. However, he ruled that the proposed constitutional amendment ran afoul of the single-subject requirement because it would sweep the money in Tucson’s campaign finance system into the state’s coffers.

“That money is not being ‘returned’ to its source, the common fund of the municipality and its taxpayers, for them to dedicate to other uses. Instead, it is being taken from Tucson and given to the state: it is, in effect, not a reallocation but a retrospective forfeiture,” Fink wrote.

* * *

Fink’s ruling contained a side note to what is known in political circles as “logrolling,” or the practice of forcing voters to decide multiple issues on one ballot measure.

He noted that Tucson residents are outnumbered in Arizona by “more than 10 to one,” and that residents of other locales stood to benefit from SCR1025.

“This strikes the court as classic logrolling: it is easy to imagine that a voter indifferent to the mechanics of Tucson municipal elections might well be inspired to vote for ‘free’ money,” he wrote.

Goldwater Institute attorney Clint Bolick, who defended the referendum in court, said he found a silver lining to Fink’s ruling. “We prevailed on the most important issue, which is whether we could present to voters the question of banning taxpayers’ money from being given to politicians on a statewide basis,” he said.

Indeed. "Payday" Paton now has a how-to guide from the court how to draft another bill to kill Arizona Clean Eelctions and possibly qualify for the 2012 ballot. Jonathan 'Payday' Paton still trying to subjugate the citizens of Tucson:

"Payday" Paton has a Plan-B should the Court reject the deceptively named ballot measure to kill Arizona clean elections:

After the hearing, Paton told reporters that he would again lobby the Legislature to pass a referendum aimed at crippling Clean Elections, Arizona’s public campaign finance system for statewide and legislative candidates, if Fink were to rule SCR1025 illegal.

“This is going to be on the ballot next year,” he said.

So this authoritarian will short circuit the democratic process by turning to our colonial overlords in the state of Maricopa to have the "big brother" Arizona legislature subjugate its renegade colony, the City of Tucson, by dictating to the city how it must conduct its elections -- all to appease this wannabe tinhorn dictator of Tucson.

Pima Dems call on 'Rio Nuevo' Rick Grinnell to denounce Governor Brewer's naked power-grab over AIRC

Posted by AzBlueMeanie:

Did you know that the the Tea-Publican's "Hail Mary pass" write-in candidate for mayor of Tucson says that he is "nonpartisan" on his campaign materials -- materials paid for by the Arizona Republican Party with a hefty contribution from GOP money-man Jim Click? Lucky for him campaign materials are not subject to Arizona's Consumer Fraud statute for false and misleading advertisements.

But then Tea-Publicans have a disregard for the law as our lame-duck governor Jan Brewer so vividly reminded us on Wednesday. The Pima County Democratic Party has issued this press release:

Republican Mayoral Candidate Rick Grinnell Should Denounce Gov’s Redistricting Power-Grab

Republican mayoral candidate Rick Grinnell likes to call himself non-partisan and if that’s the case he should stand up to Gov. Jan Brewer’s effort to remove members of the Independent Redistricting Committee for daring to draw competitive districts as prescribed by law.

In 2000, Arizona voters approved a measure to remove politicians from the process of drawing Congressional and Legislative boundaries so that they would be more competitive. The committee has done that, angering Republicans who want gerrymandered districts guaranteeing them the maximum number of safe districts.

If Grinnell is indeed non-partisan, he should stand up to Brewer’s power grab and let the volunteer commission do its job without threat of political retribution.

Grinnell sent out a mail piece calling himself non-partisan. Brewer’s move is one of the most blatantly partisan maneuvers in Arizona history, meant to protect the Far Right from having to answer to a cross-section of voters.

“If Grinnell's non-partisan claim is to pass the laugh test, he at the very least should stand up to Brewer’s effort to hide Republican politicians from swing voters,” said Jeff Rogers, Pima County Democratic Party Chairman. “Meanwhile, Grinnell is trying to hide from voters the fact that he’s a Republican. Well, Rick, if you talk the talk, walk the walk. Speak out for independent voters.”

Grinnell, meanwhile, is the beneficiary of Phoenix Republican money and influence. The Arizona Republican Party has taken over the local campaign and hired a Tempe-based firm to direct day-to-day efforts in Tucson.

“The test of a leader in Tucson is how willing he is to stand up to Phoenix political bosses,” Rogers said. “Phoenix political bosses want to choose voters for their lawmakers rather than have voters choose their lawmakers. Will Rick stand up for democracy and stand up to the Jan Brewer?”

###

Lame-Duck Governor Brewer Threatens the AIRC: Give her a Piece of Your Mind

Posted by AzBlueMeanie:

Our lame-duck Tea-Publican Governor often gets credit from our feckless political media for being the "adult in the room," i.e., less crazy than the Tea-Publican members of the Arizona legislature, simply because she vetoed a few of their bills this past session. That's setting the bar pretty low.

Apparently these media villagers do not recall Jan Brewer from her days in the Arizona legislature when she was always good for a crazy quote in one of their reports.

Well, any notion that Jan Brewer is the "adult in the room" should be forever banned from political reporting after Wednesday. Our lame-duck Governor went the full Tea-Party paranoid by threatening the "independence" of the Arizona Independent Redistricting Commission.

It was only yesterday that I posted 'Paranoia strikes deep' at the Tea-Publican Committee to Interfere With The AIRC:

Tea-Publican paranoia strikes deep out of fear the Arizona Independent Redistricting Commission might create competitive districts or -- God forbid, districts in which Democrats stand a chance of being elected -- and deny Tea-Publicans a "permanent Republican majority" in Arizona. "We have a divine right to rule!" Democrats realistically point out that the draft maps of the AIRC are far from being competitive and do in fact preserve the Republican majority that has existed in Arizona since 1966.

Now our lame-duck Governor wants to compete for the title of most paranoid Tea-Publican. Brewer to redistricting panel members: I want answers:

Gov. Jan Brewer on Wednesday turned up the heat on the Arizona Independent Redistricting Commission, giving the five commissioners a Monday deadline to respond to allegations of "substantial neglect of duty and gross misconduct in office."

Failure to do so, she said, would lead her to conclude the commissioners are guilty of the allegations. But answers would help her determine whether she should initiate proceedings to remove one or more of the commissioners, something the Arizona Constitution empowers her to do.

Brewer's letters can be found here (to AIRC chair Mathis) and here (to each of the five commissioners).

Let's break this down. First, Brewer is reciting the "magic words" of the state constitutional provision which would permit her to call a special session to seek the removal of one or more commssioners. Article 4 Part 2 Section 1, Paragraph 10:

(10) After having been served written notice and provided with an opportunity for a response, a member of the independent redistricting commission may be removed by the governor, with the concurrence of two-thirds of the senate, for substantial neglect of duty, gross misconduct in office, or inability to discharge the duties of office.

Brewer's assertion that a failure to respond will be taken as an admission of guilt is an affront to the American system of justice in which an accused is "presumed innocent until proven guilty in a court of law," NOT by executive fiat from a governor who is abusing the powers of her office. This is Tea-Publican tyranny.

Brewer's demand letter comes on top of a lawsuit filed by Attorney General Tom Horne to obtain the sworn testimony of commissioners in his witch hunt for possible violations of the state's Open Meeting Law, and a counterclaim filed by the AIRC asserting Horne's investigation of the commission is unconstitutional. Redistricting Commission Asks Court to Rule on Independence of Commission. Maricopa County Judge Dean Fink has set a Nov. 7 hearing on Horne's request to have the court force three of the five commissioners to testify in his investigation into alleged Open Meeting Law violations.

Jan Brewer's injudicious demand letter to the AIRC raises constitutional issues of separation of powers. This is a matter now properly before a court of competent jurisdiction where the rights of litigants can be decided upon the weight of the evidence and the rule of law. Brewer is attempting an end-run around this legal proceeding by intruding upon the power vested in the judiciary branch.

Brewer wrote in her letter that “The IRC has violated constitutional requirements,” announcing her predetermined verdict without consideration of any evidence or an opportunity for the accused to be heard and to confront their accusers. This is Tea-Publican tyranny.

Democrats were alarmed at the governor's autocratic action, with state Democratic Party Chairman Andrei Cherny stating:

"Governor Brewer is drunk with power. She is moving toward impeachment of citizens on the Arizona Independent Redistricting Commission simply because these volunteers have fulfilled their duty to draw fair and competitive districts. Such a brazen power grab would rival any in Arizona history, and it proves that the only thing Brewer and the Republicans will be satisfied with are maps that guarantee total GOP control despite an electorate divided roughly into thirds. If this goes forward, the voices of mainstream Arizonans will be silenced for the next decade. All independents, Democrats and honorable Republicans who believe in the rule of law should step forward to denounce this action."

Senate Minority Leader David Shapira stated:

“This is another instance in the ongoing and orchestrated campaign by Republicans to threaten and intimidate the Independent Redistricting Commission and undermine the will of Arizona voters,” said Schapira.

“The Attorney General, the Republican Legislature and now the Governor are abusing their public offices for partisan gain. The voters told them to butt out, but they won’t take no for an answer.”

House Minority Leader Chad Campbell stated:

"Like all Arizonans I am sick of the partisan politics and gridlock hurting our state, and now Republicans have begun to launch attacks on voters by trying to sabotage an independent redistricting process with their partisan politics. The entire point of having an independent redistricting commission is to keep politicians' hands out of a fair process for voters in Arizona. But today, and just about weekly, we have seen Republicans sticking their hands where they don't belong," said Campbell.

"Arizona voters don't need to be told what to do by politicians - it should be the other way around - and it is time for fair, competitive districts so we can move forward with a government that works for the people and brings jobs and a stronger economy to Arizona."

Steve Muratore has AIRC Executive Director Ray Bladine's response. The Arizona Eagletarian: Redistricting - Brewer threatens AIRC, takes tea party bait UPDATED:

Below is a statement from Ray Bladine, executive director of the Arizona Independent Redistricting Commission, regarding letters received today from the governor:

“Today, Arizona’s Independent Redistricting Commission received two letters from the governor’s office.

“The first letter provided comments on the draft congressional map. The commissioners will consider the comments, just as they will any input the governor may submit regarding the draft legislative map.

“The second letter made serious allegations against all five commissioners. The commission’s legal counsel will respond to those allegations. Hopefully, that will resolve the matter, because continuing down this precarious path could end up sticking the taxpayers with substantial legal expenses.

“The commission has worked hard to incorporate all six constitutional criteria and certainly is interested in improving upon the draft maps. That’s why it is holding three weeks of public hearings around the state – to find out how Arizonans think the maps can be refined.

“The commission will continue to move toward adopting final congressional and legislative district maps that can, and will, be approved by the federal Justice Department. This will be done in full view of the public, as was intended by the citizens who in 2000 passed Proposition 106 to create Arizona’s independent redistricting process.”

Stuart J. Robinson
Public Information Officer
Arizona Independent Redistricting Commission

The Governor's demand letter represents an apparent change of heart for Brewer, who told Arizona Capitol Times on Oct. 20 that she had no indication that there would be a special session. She indicated that she would wait until after the IRC’s 30-day public comment period ends on Nov. 5, and expressed hope that the commission would make changes that would make a special session unnecessary. Brewer takes first step in removal of redistricting commissioners - Arizona Capitol Times.

So where are we possibly headed?

If Brewer initiates the removal process, it is unknown whether she and the Senate would focus only on Mathis, an independent, or expand it to include the commission’s two Democrats and two Republicans.

If Mathis were ousted, Democratic Commissioners Jose Herrera and Linda McNulty and Republican Commissioners Scott Freeman and Richard Stertz would choose a new chair from a pool of three candidates selected by the Commission on Appellate Court Appointments.

* * *

It is unknown whether the new members of the IRC would have enough time to complete the redistricting process if one or more commissioners were removed. The U.S. Department of Justice has 60 to 90 days to approve or reject Arizona’s proposed maps, and candidates for elected office will need time to collect signatures and organize their campaigns before the May 30 filing deadline.

If the process were not finished in time, a lawsuit could force a panel of three federal judges to draw the maps themselves, as happened in 1992 with Arizona’s congressional districts.

Oh, ther'es going to be a lawsuit, lady. You just guaranteed it. The Department of Justice is going to want to investigate this brazen intimidation of the constitutionally appointed AIRC by Tea-Publican elected officials, their "soft money" redistricting group FAIR Trust and its lawyers/lobbyists, and organized Tea-Publican intimidation of the AIRC, including the Tea-Publican Legislative Committee on Interfering With The AIRC holding its dog-and-pony show hearings this week. You have just invited the biggest voting rights case in recent memory that will expose the entire Republican Party establishment in Arizona to litigation discovery.

I urge readers to contact the Governor and let her know how you feel about her disregard for the will of the voters in establishing an INDEPENDENT Redistricting Commission, her disregard for the constitutional rights of the accused and due process, her disregard for the rule of law and justice, her disregard for separation of powers and her authoritarianism, and her willing participation in this coordinated intimidation of the AIRC by Tea-Publicans for purely partisan political reasons.

The Honorable Janice K. Brewer
Arizona Governor
Executive Tower
1700 West Washington Street
Phoenix, AZ 85007

Telephone, Fax:

Phoenix Office: (602) 542-4331
Tucson Office: (520) 628-6580
Fax Number: (602) 542-1381

In-State Toll Free 1-800-253-0883 (outside Maricopa County only)

E-mail form: Contact the Governor

AZ GOP illegal push poll in Tucson City Council elections

Posted by AzBlueMeanie:

The Arizona GOP's dirty politics Is the Arizona GOP illegally 'earmarking' funds for Tucson City Council elections? is deeper in the gutter today with an illegal push poll in the Tucson City Council elections.

Press release form the Pina County Demcoratic Party:

Floundering GOP Campaigns Resort to Anonymous Smear Tactics

Trailing badly in the polls, the Tea Party Republicans are resorting to smear tactics and rumor mongering as the 2011 city elections draw to a close. 

A “push poll” conducted and paid for by an unidentified group sure seems like the handiwork of Phoenix political consultant Nathan Sproul but voters can’t tell because this push poll does not identify the party responsible. Failing to disclose who paid for the expenditure is illegal but it’s hardly the first time the Republican candidates have violated campaign finance law this year (1, 2, 3). 

Sproul has been brought on by the Arizona Republican Party in Phoenix to run the GOP campaign for Tucson City Council and has been tied to numerous voter suppression efforts (1, 2, 3).

 A “push poll” is when a caller “pushes” a message disguised as an unbiased pollster. They are used to lie to voters about candidates and spread rumors. This is the same tactic that George W. Bush used against John McCain in 2000, when supporters of his campaign asked South Carolina Republicans if they would support McCain if “he had a black child out of wedlock.” 

“It seems like typical Nathan Sproul,” said Jeff Rogers, chairman of the Pima County Democratic Party. “His penchant for voter suppression and win-at-all-costs mantra may play well in Phoenix, but here in Tucson we expect more from our candidates. Tucson isn't buying the snake oil that Sproul is selling.” 

The Tea Party candidates seeking to take over the City Council may have friends in big Phoenix's halls of power but they are failing to compete in the general election because they are out of step with the people of Tucson. Anonymous last-resort smear tactics and rumor mongering are simply acts of desperation, Rogers said. 

“If the Republican candidates have something to say, they should have the courage to tell voters directly and not do this kind of school yard rumor-mongering,” Rogers said. “It just shows that these extreme, Tea Party candidates are out of touch with mainstream Tucson values.” 

###

DOJ: Texas redistricting maps intentially discriminate against Hispanic voters

Posted by AzBlueMeanie:

The Arizona Independent Redistricting Commission should take notice: the U.S. Department of Justice (DOJ) is aggressively defending the Voting Rights Act of 1965. If the commissioners want DOJ preclearance "on the first try" as Chair Colleen Mathis has set as an objective, they had better not have a retrogressive effect for Hispanic voting power.

Justice Department lawyers said in a court filing late Tuesday that there is “ample circumstantial evidence” that the congressional and state representative redistricting maps signed by Texas Gov. Rick Perry had not only the effect but the intent of limiting the voting power of Hispanic voters. Feds: Rick Perry-Signed Texas Redistricting Plan Reduces Voting Power Of 479,704 Hispanics:

DOJ is seeking to block the maps, filing to deny Texas’ request for summary judgement in a case involving allegations that officials in the state tried to limit the voter power of Hispanic voters in violation of Section 5 of the Voting Rights Act.

Federal lawyers contended in the newest filing that there is “ample circumstantial evidence of a discriminatory purpose with regard to both the State House and Congressional plans” and that in the new maps nearly half a million fewer Hispanics would live in districts where they would have the ability to elect a candidate of their choosing. [their brief to the court].

“The proposed Congressional redistricting plan has a retrogressive effect because, compared to the benchmark plan, it decreases the percentage of districts in the Congressional plan in which minority voters have the ability to elect and because under the proposed plan 479,704 fewer Hispanics will reside in districts in which they have an ability to elect a candidate of choice,” lawyers with DOJ’s Civil Rights Division write. “Both plans were also adopted with a discriminatory purpose, and there are a substantial number of material facts in dispute with regard to both prongs of the Section 5 standard.”

Race and ethnicity, the lawyers wrote “were common themes during discussions between the Republican leadership and others, including a United States Congressman and staff. State leaders viewed race as a proxy for party, leading to redistricting decisions and movements of population based solely on the basis of race.”

The member of Congress in question is Rep. Lamar Smith (R-TX) — who as it so happens chairs the House Judiciary Committee, which has primary oversight over DOJ. [How convenient] Smith’s emails are cited as an example of officials plotting to protect their electoral interests while taking race into account.

“While the existence of contemporaneous statements of direct racial intent related to current redistricting efforts may be rare, the email exchanges between United States Congressional representatives and staff, and State officials involved in devising the State’s plans, provide riveting circumstantial evidence bearing witness to the process discussed above, where data as to race and ethnicity rather than partisan data drove the line drawing for the proposed Congressional plan, and where the State sought to exclude minority representatives from the redistricting process,” DOJ lawyers said in reference to emails to and from Smith.

A redistricting expert hired by DOJ, Theodore S. Arrington, contended in a study included in the filing that the emails showed that Republicans and officials conspired to “make sure that no one who might look out for minority voters would be included” and that participants in the emails were aware of the “trade-offs between drawing minority election districts” and GOP prospects.

Justice Department officials said the only way this could be settled is for the facts to come out in court.

“Deviations from procedural and substantive standards, as well as racially-charged contemporaneous statements, also provide significant evidence of a discriminatory purpose,” DOJ lawyers argue. . . Assessing the credibility of these witnesses and resolving other disputed factual issues cannot be performed until trial.”

Which brings into question the emails and other correspondence between the Arizona Republican Caucus who comprise the GOP redistricting group FAIR Trust, its lawyers/lobbyists, and Republican House aide John Mills, for whom Pima County Libertarian Party Vice Chair Jim March previously made a public records request, but was denied.

The DOJ is going to be interested in how the Arizona GOP has sought to "stack" Hispanic voters into a few VRA districts to improve the voter registration edge of Republicans in all other districts, as well as their plan to use prison-based gerrymandering to create "phantom" VRA districts in places like Pinal County. The Arizona GOP's organized intimidation of the AIRC may also draw DOJ scrutiny.

When the DOJ makes a request for production of documents, including electronic discovery of emails and hard drives, it will not be so easy for these GOP operatives to avoid turning over the evidence. We may finally find out what our political media have failed to report.

Ayn Rand acolyte Rep. Paul Ryan tells a whopper about 'economic mobility'

Posted by AzBlueMeanie:

In a speech before the conservative Heritage Foundation on Wednesday, Republican budget guru and Ayn Rand acolyte Rep. Paul Ryan of Wisconsin (who looks just like Eddie Munster) rejected the notion that wealthier Americans should pay higher taxes to sustain or broaden a social safety net for poor and middle class workers and retirees, i.e., the social contract of the New Deal.

Instead, Ryan argued, policy should be geared toward allowing high earners to grow the economy, i.e., the failed and entirely discredited faith based supply-side "trickle down" GOP economics that has been destroying this country for the past 30 years.

Ryan argued that "trickle down" economics facilitates upward mobility for the working class. Hold on there, Ayn Rand. CHART OF THE DAY: Paul Ryan Wrong About Upwardly Mobile America | TPMDC:

“We are an upwardly mobile society with a lot of income movement between income groups,” he argued. “Telling Americans that they’re stuck in their current station in life, that they’re a victim of circumstances beyond their control, and that the government’s role is to help them cope with it — that’s not who we are, that’s not what we do.”

[This is a strawman argument. No one says this to my knowledge.]

That is what they do in class-riven Europe, he said, where “Top-heavy welfare states have replaced the traditional aristocracies, and masses of the long-term unemployed are locked into the new lower class. The United States was destined to break out of this bleak history.”

[Class-riven European societies long predate the "welfare states" of post-war Europe. His cause and effect argument is like comparing Herman Cain's "apples and oranges."]

Turns out that is — not true. [You're shocked, I'm sure.]

There is a lot of data available on this issue, but the clearest chart comes courtesy of the Economic Mobility Project, which looked at the correlation between parent and child income in various countries. Turns out in America, you’re more likely to stay rich if born rich, and stay poor if born poor, than you are in most European countries.

“Most studies find that, in America, about half of the advantages of having a parent with a high income are passed on to the next generation,” their report concludes. “This means that one of the biggest predictors of an American child’s future economic success — the identity and characteristics of his or her parents — is predetermined and outside that child’s control. To be sure, the apple can fall far from the tree and often does in individual cases, but relative to other factors, the tree dominates the picture. These findings are more striking when put in comparative context. There is little available evidence that the United States has more relative mobility than other advanced nations. If anything, the data seem to suggest the opposite.”

You can read their entire report below.

Economic Mobility

Rocky Mountain Poll: Obama leads GOP field in Arizona

Posted by AzblueMeanie:

I really don't like these early "horse race" polls for media consumption as you know, but I will post this press release from the Arizona Democratic Party as a favor to some friends working hard for OFA. "Yes we can!"

Rocky Mountain Poll:
In Arizona, Obama leads Romney & GOP field

PHOENIX -- A Rocky Mountain Poll of Arizona voters has President Barack Obama leading Mitt Romney and other potential Republican challengers for the presidency.

The results are the latest evidence that, as CNN's Political Ticker wrote today, Arizona is looking "competitive in the general election."

The poll shows President Obama with a 45-40% advantage over Romney in a hypothetical general election showdown, and Obama with a 44-38% advantage over Rick Perry and 45-38% advantage over Herman Cain.

"All year long, we've seen Republican presidential candidates overreach and go to extremes," said Andrei Cherny, Arizona Democratic Party chairman, "and Mitt Romney's recent call to let homeowners hit rock bottom only reinforces that the GOP is out of touch with the mainstream. Republicans may be in for a rude awakening in 2012."

Click here to read the full story about the poll.

###

The candidate from Koch: Cain's homage to the 'cigarette smoking man' from X Files a warning

Posted by AzBlueMeanie:

Herman Cain has been putting out some of the weirdest presidential campaign web ads this cycle. They are meant to attract the attention of the D.C. media villagers and Beltway bloviators to get them talking about his web ad in order to get some free air time. The media villagers took the bait hook, line and sinker for the video below released on Tuesday. They are so easily manipulated.

I can just hear Cain saying, "I don't care what you say about me, just spell my name right," in the old adage that "any news is good news" if it builds name ID. Cain will not like what I say about him.

Huffington Post's Jason Linkins broke down the latest theories on the Cain campaign's decision to have Block light up a cigarette:

Why do this? The Buffalo Beast's Ian Murphy speculates that Mark Block, who "was, until recently, the Wisconsin State Director of Americans for Prosperity," is just giving a shout out to AFP's generous funders from the tobacco industry. Cain has also worked closely with cigarette manufacturers in the past. As the head of the National Restaurant Association, he lobbied against higher cigarette taxes and smoking bans in restaurants.

I previously posted about Cain's ties to the Koch brothers AFP and Mark Block. Herman Cain, Trojan horse candidate for the Koch brothers:

AFP tapped Cain as the public face of its “Prosperity Expansion Project,” and he traveled the country in 2005 and 2006 speaking to activists who were starting state-based AFP chapters from Wisconsin to Virginia. Through his AFP work he met Mark Block, a longtime Wisconsin Republican operative hired to lead that state’s AFP chapter in 2005 as he rebounded from an earlier campaign scandal that derailed his career.

Block and Cain sometimes traveled together as they built up AFP: Cain was the charismatic speaker preaching the ills of big government; Block was the operative helping with nuts and bolts.

Block is now Cain’s campaign manager.

A few reporters were quick enough to recognize this ad is an homage to the shadowy figure The Cigarette Smoking Man character in the TV series X Files. Here is a clip from the classic "Musings of a Cigarette Smoking Man" that is a prophetic warning about this candidate from Koch: there are shadowy figures operating behind Cain.

Personally, I would have gone with the classic anti-Forrest Gump "Life is like a box of chocolates" speech from "Musings of a Cigarette Smoking Man." This would have kept the media villagers speculating for weeks.

Axe the Flat Tax! Forum

Posted by AzBlueMeanie:

Panel to discuss Legislative plan to raise taxes on middle class
Would cut taxes for those making over $100k annually

State Capitol, Phoenix - Organizers in southern Arizona are gearing up to stop the Legislature’s Flat Tax bill - an income tax plan that will raise taxes on 8 out of every 9 Arizonans while giving the rich a massive tax cut.

A forum sponsored by State Senator Paula Aboud and the Arizona Ecumenical Council will host a panel discussion with audience questions on Nov. 3rd from 7-8:30 pm at St. Marks United Methodist Church, 1431 W. Magee Rd in Tucson.

Panelists will include UA economist Dr. Alberta Charney, CPA Annette Stevens and Dana Naimark, President & CEO of Children's Action Alliance. They will discuss the real world impact of the flat tax on Arizona's middle class families.

One such shocking impact is that people earning less than $10,000 adjusted gross income would see a 20,000 percent increase in their taxes and median income earners would see a 30 percent hike. Meanwhile, those making over $100,000 annually would get a tax cut and the lucky few who make more than $500,000 a year would have their taxes cut nearly in half (source: Arizona Department of Revenue).

“In these hard economic times the wealthy should be giving to charity – not getting it,” said Senator Paula Aboud. “And it is wrong for the Legislature to raise taxes on the middle class without receiving the public’s input. That’s why I’m facilitating these forums: to give the public a chance to be informed about this change that could be coming their way.”

The "Flat Tax" (HB2636) was approved in the House last session with the support of 40 Republican legislators. It then made it through the Senate Finance Committee only to be held by the sponsor when military leaders and the Arizona Association of Realtors objected. The bill would eliminate deductions for mortgage interest, charitable donations, military pay exemptions and veterans’ and pension benefit exemptions.

"This 'Reverse-Robin Hood' scheme represents an out-of-touch agenda," Aboud said. “Taxing struggling Arizonans to benefit the wealthy is no way to improve our state’s weak economy.”

See documents: Joint Legislative Budget Council Analysis and Arizona Republic editorial

###

'Munger!' The man behind 'loser pays' to bar the courthouse door to litigants

Posted by AzBlueMeanie:

I posted the other day about how the former Chair of the Arizona Republican Party, John Munger, like the Wizard of Oz, is the man behind the curtain of the Rio Nuevo District Board. The GOP 'troika' behind Rio Nuevo:

On the Jerry Seinfeld show, Jerry would always say "Newman!" in a sneering dismissive tone whenever his neighbor Newman was mentioned. Whenever you hear Rio Nuevo your first thought should be "Munger!" in a sneering dismissive tone.

Well, here's another "Munger!" moment. Munger is the man behind a bill by Rep. Ted Vogt (R-Tucson), the "younger smarter brother" of The Phisher King (Tyler Vogt), deceptively promoted as tort reform for what is "loser pays." The Arizona Capitol Times (subscription required) reports the Bill would allow judges to make losers pay more often:

Rep. Ted Vogt said he expects to scale down next year’s version of his “loser pays” tort reform bill, SB1404, which stalled in the House Committee of the Whole this year.

The loser pays concept has broad opposition in the legal community.

* * *

Vogt said the resistance is to loser pays in its purist form, where a judge is allowed to award attorney fees to the winner in any contested lawsuit, which is what SB1404 proposed. He said that makes negotiating fairer and discourages frivolous lawsuits.

* * *

Arizona’s Rules of Civil Procedure and state statute already allow a judge to award attorney fees if he or she finds upon clear and convincing evidence, the second-highest standard of proof, that a claim or defense was frivolous.

Vogt said he’s considering a bill that would lower the standard of proof.

“There’s no reason why it needs to be clear and convincing,” said Vogt, who passed the State Bar of Arizona exam in June.

Just great. A wet-behind-the-ears newbee grad who has never tried a case deems to dictate to the legal community. Apparently this wet-behind-the-ears newbee never learned about Rule 11 in his Rules of Civil Procedure class, which already provides the Court with discretion to impose a version of "loser pays" as well as sanction attorneys for bringing a frivolous lawsuit. (Arizona law already provides for an award of attorneys fees and costs in contract matters). Vogt wants to take away the discretion of the court and make "loser pays" mandatory. And where did he get this idea?

You guessed it, "Munger!"

John Munger, a former chairman of the Arizona Republican Party, said loser pays has worked in contract disputes in Arizona for years and he has seen it at work in his own practice.

Munger, a proponent of the concept who worked with Vogt on the failed bill last session, said plaintiffs always think twice before proceeding to court after he advises them they might be on the hook for attorney fees if they lose.

“They think, wow, I might have some skin in the game,” Munger said.

Munger said it’s time for Arizona to go loser pays, pointing to Texas, which this year adopted its own version.

Bill Jones, a partner with Jones Skelton and Hochuli, a lawyer for whom I have professional respect, begs to differ. 'What Texas did, and that’s the one they keep waving in our face, is something we’ve had for 20 years or more,” Jones said. “The whole idea Texas did something and called it loser pays doesn’t mean we need to go do something that hasn’t worked anywhere it has been tried in the North American continent.'”

“'You’ve got the plaintiffs bar and the defense bar walking down the aisles of the Capitol arm in arm singing Kumbayah, you’ve got to believe you’re dealing with something that is probably not in anybody’s best interest and that’s what’s happening here,' said Jones."

I will give you an example. Employment discrimination claims under Title VII of the Civil Rights Act and the Arizona Civil Rights Act provide for an award of attorneys fees and costs to a successful plaintiff, but only in a "clear and convincing" case of a frivolous claim may the Defendant employer recover attorneys fees and costs as the successful litigant.

The public policy reason behind this is straightforward: an employee who has been discriminated against at work, already at risk of termination, will suffer a "chilling effect" of bringing a claim to enforce their legal rights under the law if they are also at risk of having to pay the attorneys fees and costs of their employer if they are unsuccessful. Their legal rights exist in name only as they are effectively barred from the curthouse door as litigants by the risk of "loser pays" for attorneys fees and costs.

Which is why corporations and insurers advocate for this idea. Imagine an employee of Wal-Mart suing their employer for employmwnt discrimination at the risk of having to pay the legal fees milked by a team of over-priced corporate lawyers defending the lawsuit. That employee risks losing everything they own with an adverse judgment. They will not sue. And the employer will be free to go on violating their legal rights.

There are many laws designed to award attorneys fees and costs to successful plaintiffs, but not automatically to successful defendants for this public policy reason. The law that Munger is promoting would be in conflict with numerous federal laws, including the aforementioned Title VII of the Civil Rights Act.

If this "loser pays" rule is limited to state law claims, it will also have an adverse effect on the legal rights of litigants. It forces plaintiffs to frame their claim as a federal law claim and go to federal court, where the federal courts are already overwhelmed by the caseload. It creates inefficiencies and denies a speedy remedy and justice to litigants.

By the way, I see that Munger Chadwick, P.L.C. is advertising for attorney positions at its new Phoenix office in the Arizona Attorney. Has Rep. Ted Vogt perchance been offered a position with Munger Chadwick now that he passed the State Bar? This would add another layer to this story.

'Paranoia strikes deep' at the Tea-Publican Committee to Interfere With The AIRC

Posted by AzBlueMeanie:

Paranoia strikes deep
Into your life it will creep
It starts when you're always afraid
Step out of line, the man come and take you away

(We better) Stop, hey, what's that sound?
Everybody look - what's going down?
- For What It's Worth, by Buffalo Springfield

Tea-Publican paranoia strikes deep out of fear the Arizona Independent Redistricting Commission might create competitive districts or -- God forbid, districts in which Democrats stand a chance of being elected -- and deny Tea-Publicans a "permanent Republican majority" in Arizona. "We have a divine right to rule!" Democrats realistically point out that the draft maps of the AIRC are far from being competitive and do in fact preserve the Republican majority that has existed in Arizona since 1966.

Some of the recent paranoid delusions of Tea-Publicans would be comical if not so disturbed. This is what has been going on at the Tea-Publican Committee to Interfere With the AIRC dog-and-pony show. Lawmakers consider recalling redistricting panel members over gripes - East Valley Tribune:

Ken Moyes, who is doing work for the possible congressional campaign of state Sen. Frank Antenori (R-Tucson), charged that the commissioners created a "Trojan horse'' district that they claim is politically competitive but actually tilts Democratic if the voting patterns of independents are considered.

* * *

Moyes said he has discovered grounds.

He said that, on paper, the lines for the congressional district that would be created from the Catalina Foothills section of Tucson through Green Valley, Sierra Vista and Douglas appears to be highly competitive, where a candidate from either party has a chance to win. In pure party registration, 34.5 percent of voters are Republicans against 34.4 percent Democrats. But he said that Strategic Telemetry, the mapping firm retained by the commission that Republicans contend is biased, created a district where 73 percent of the remaining independents have shown a propensity to vote with the Democrats.

"So they can literally create a non-competitive district, calling it competitive, and that's what we think they've done,'' he said.

"They know where the independents are voting,'' Moyes told lawmakers. "It is a Trojan horse.''

What makes that illegal, he charged is a constitutional provision which says that all of that information is off limits when first crafting a map. Only after the initial phase does the law allow party registration and voting history to be used, and only to "test maps for compliance'' with various goals, including competitiveness.

Moyes said, though, he believes Strategic Telemetry used the voting patterns early on the process in several districts, all to the benefit of Democrats.

"There's no smoking gun,'' he conceded. But he said the way the lines were drawn suggests no other reasonable explanation.

Get a clue. In Pima County, Independents tend to vote Democratic. Even moderate Republicans, who have left the GOP because of the radical extremism of Tea-Publicans like Frank Antenori, tend to vote Democratic. That is why Pima County is a blue island in a red state.

Antenori is just upset that the AIRC did not create a "safe" congressional district for him to run in as would have occurred if the Tea-Publican Arizona legislature still controlled the redistricting process. Which is why the voters of Arizona created an Independent Redistricting Commission in the first place. Antenori sees conspiracies out to get him. There's always a job opening at World Nut Daily, Frank.

But the prize for paranoia goes to Birther Rep. Carl Seel (R-Phoenix), who brought shame upon this state by sponsoring the only Birther bill to pass a state legislature. Even our batty Governor thought that was too crazy and vetoed the bill.

The Arizona Capitol Times (subscription required) has this report which exposes the paranoia of Seel who also sees conspiracies out to get him. Seel would fit right in at World Nut Daily, clearinghouse central for Birther conspiracies. Seel suggests mapping firm retaliated for his bills:

Rep. Carl Seel suggested that the Independent Redistricting Commission’s mapping consultants may have put him in a less Republican district in retaliation for his legislative record.

Speaking at Monday’s meeting of the Joint Legislative Committee on Redistricting, Seel questioned why Strategic Telemetry – which has ties to Democratic candidates and causes, including President Barack Obama’s 2008 campaign – put him in a new district that eliminated much of his conservative support.

“My district has gone from a solidly Republican district where I am positioned, interestingly enough, to a district that may be considered a competitive district. Now, I don’t know if that has anything to do with the legislation that I’ve sponsored or not,” Seel said during his testimony to the committee.

Seel told the Arizona Capitol Times that he is not accusing Strategic Telemetry or the IRC of gerrymandering him into a less favorable district – and he had no proof that such a conspiracy took place.

* * *

Seel said his sponsorship of HB2177, known to many as Arizona’s “birther bill,” could theoretically make him a target. “I would imagine that if I were Obama and this is the only bill in the nation that got through a Legislature, that it might get his attention, and therefore it would probably get the attention of Obama’s chief strategist, Ken Strasma,” he said.

* * *

Seel also suggested that Strategic Telemetry might have ties to the recall campaign against Senate President Russell Pearce.

* * *

Seel also noted that Strategic Telemetry assisted recall efforts against Republican legislators in Wisconsin, and floated the idea of doing the same to Gov. Scott Walker, who gained national fame earlier this year for taking on public employee unions in his state.

“I don’t have specific information or facts to that, but I have some indications that there may be some clear connections between Strategic Telemetry, SEIU, MoveOn.org and the (assault) that’s happening against my esteemed colleague, Sen. Russell Pearce,” Seel said at Monday’s committee hearing.

Someone this paranoid delusional has no business serving in elective office. As I have said before, we need to require mental competency exams for people who run for elective office. New Rule: Mental Competency Exams for Politicians.

UPDATE: It appears the Tea-Publican Committee to Interfere With the AIRC dog-and-pony show is just another venue for Tea-Publicans to vent their anger at everyone who does not agree with them. The Arizona Capitol Times (subscription required) reports Redistricting committee may not make concrete recommendations to IRC:

Rep. Jim Weiers, who co-chairs the committee, said the litany of complaints with the committee heard about the IRC may end up being the basis of a report the committee sends to the IRC. But it may not make any specific recommendations about what changes the commission should make to the congressional and legislative draft maps it approved this month.

“I don’t know if we’ll even get to the point of recommendations, other than saying here is what a number of people are saying,” Weiers said. “The charge of this committee is to have open comment, let people at that point bring forth what they believe (is) right and wrong.”

Your tax dollars at work, being pissed away to appease angry Tea-Publicans.

State Supreme Court to hear appeal of 'Paton's Law'

Posted by AzBlueMeanie:

I posted about this last week. Jonathan 'Payday' Paton still trying to subjugate the citizens of Tucson:

"Paton's Law" attempted to dicate to the City of Tucson, a charter city, that its city elections had to be non-partisan and election by ward only. The City of Tucson challenged "Paton's Law" as violative of the Arizona Constitution, and the Court of Appeals agreed. Victory for the City of Tucson over 'Paton's Law':

The holding of the Court of Appeals:

The city argues the court erred because the Tucson city charter regarding local elections supersedes the legislature‟s 2009 amendments to A.R.S. § 9-821.01. Because the method and manner of conducting municipal elections is solely a matter of local concern, we reverse and remand.

That decision is now on appeal to the Arizona Supreme Court. The Court will decide on October 25 whether to hear the appeal.

On Tuesday, the Arizona Supreme Court agreed to hear the appeal. State justices to consider nonpartisan city elections:

Without comment, the Arizona Supreme Court on Tuesday agreed to consider arguments by attorneys for both the state and the Southern Arizona Leadership Council that the Legislature is legally entitled to require all cities to elect a mayor and council members without regard to party affiliation.

Tucson is the only city in Arizona that has partisan elections.

The high court also will consider whether to void Tucson's modified ward election system, in which candidates are nominated in a ward-only primary election before moving on to a citywide general election.

* * *

[T]he Court of Appeals ruled unanimously that lawmakers have no business telling Tucson it has to have nonpartisan elections. The judges said the Arizona Constitution gives charter cities like Tucson broad authority over matters that are solely of local concern, rejecting arguments that the state has a legitimate interest in the issue.

The appellate court split, however, over the question of whether Tucson had to scrap its modified ward system, with the majority siding with Tucson.

Appellate Judge Joseph Howard, writing for the court, said the state's arguments that nonpartisan elections promote "effective and efficient local government" is legally irrelevant.

"The relationship of voters to their municipality is purely a local matter," he wrote. "Tucson voters have the right to make their own choice in that regard."

"Tuesday's decision does not mean the justices intend to overturn the ruling earlier this year by the state Court of Appeals, which voided efforts by state lawmakers to force a change in Tucson's elections."

In fact, if recent decisions are any guide, the Supreme Court wants to affirm the decision of the Court of Appeals based on long-standing precedents to make clear to the Arizona Legislature that it is exceeding its authority and abusing its power when it attempts to dictate to local governments. So much for "small government" conservatives. These authoritarians believe in "big brother."

An interesting aside in Howard Fischer's report: " Paton's desire for nonpartisan elections is limited to local races. He opposes a proposed 2012 initiative that would extend that to legislative, congressional and statewide elections." Which just confirms that "Payday" is motivated by retaliation against the City of Tucson for rejecting him for Congress. I can't imagine why.

AIRC Update: Prison Policy Initiative submits testimony to AIRC on prison-based gerrymandering

Posted by AzBlueMeanie:

Update from Leah Sakala at Prisoners of the Census. I apologize, Ms. Sakala, for reproducing your post at length here, but your analysis is so concise it bears repeating. Small changes to AZ redistricting map would mean a big win for democracy:

The Prison Policy Initiative today submitted testimony to the Arizona Independent Redistricting Commission, suggesting that the Commission make some simple fixes to their redistricting map proposal that would minimize the distortion caused by prison-based gerrymandering.

The issue of prison-based gerrymandering has been on the Commission’s radar throughout the redistricting process, thanks to the efforts of local advocates and political bloggers. The Commission discussed the issue in depth during the public hearing process, concluding that prison-based gerrymandering has the potential to seriously undermine Arizona’s democracy. As Commissioner Richard Stertz explained at the September 8th hearing, the Commission,

“… [doesn’t] want to give any indication of creating a non-voting population in a particular legislative district that would lead those that can vote into a hyper-majority by virtue of having so many prisoners in a particular legislative district.”

The Commission has also raised the issue of how prison populations can confound analyses of minority voting power, and members promised to exclude incarcerated populations from their analyses of majority minority districts.

With all the progress that the Redistricting Commission has made to address the issue of prison-based gerrymandering, it should be easy for the Commission to make a few small changes that would make a big difference in minimizing the distortion caused by prison-based gerrymandering:

First, all of the Florence prisons in Pinal County have been lumped together into Legislative District 8, but some of these prisons could easily be transferred to neighboring District 11. District 8 appears to be drawn 1.53% heavy, but without the prison populations the district is 6.9% too light, diluting the votes of all residents in all other districts. We recommend:

• Shifting ASPC- Eyman (Tract 000803, Block 1059) to District 8. Extending District 11 north 1.5 miles to pick up ASPC- Eyman has no impact on the voting population of the districts because the census blocks in between have no population, and
• Increasing the voting population of District 8 by adding the remainder of a split precinct — VTD 0402171 — (currently shared with District 16) back into District 8.

Second, a similar strategy — adding more population to a district with a large prison — should be employed in Proposed District 1 in Pima, Cochise and Graham Counties. Proposed District 1 would be the 2nd smallest district in the state with the 5th largest correctional population. This district is underpopulated even when using the prisons as padding, and without the prisons this district is 5.3% smaller than the ideal district. An additional precinct should be added to this district.

You know what to do. The AIRC is in Baja Arizona all this week taking public testimony, and there will be another week of public hearings next week. You should testify in person and post your comments online. Public Input.

Pearce Recall Update: Pearce Plagiarism Scandal

Posted by AzBlueMeanie:

Ol' Russell just loves him some white nationalists, doesn't he? He just can't quit them.

Jeff Biggers at Huffington Post has the latest "King" Russell Pearce Scandal. Jeff Biggers: New Arizona Recall Scandal: Did Tea Party President Pearce Plagiarize (Again) for "White Nationalist" Press?:

In a scandal-ridden recall election, Arizona state senate president Russell Pearce revamped his campaign website earlier this summer after I published an investigation on Salon.com that demonstrated the self-proclaimed "Tea Party President" had cut and pasted large sections of texts from some of the most notorious white nationalists and fringe third party candidates from across the country.

New evidence now raises further questions over whether the architect of Arizona's controversial SB 1070 immigration law also borrowed -- in truth, plagiarized -- significant parts of an outrageously inaccurate email on immigration from one of his state's own fringe lawmakers, state Sen. Sylvia Allen, for an article he authored in a widely denounced white nationalist publication.

* * *

In the 2010 summer issue of the The Social Contract Press, which a Southern Poverty Law Center study found "routinely publishes race-baiting articles penned by white nationalists," Pearce authored an article, "Arizona Takes the Lead on Illegal Immigration Enforcement."

In the article, Pearce opines on "why we need SB 1070," and the need to follow the rule of law. He rails against "leftists here and in DC," and asks, "how long will it be before we will be just like Mexico? We have already lost our language; everything must be printed in Spanish. We have already lost our history since it is no longer taught in our schools. And we have lost our borders."

* * *

However, earlier that summer, Sen. Sylvia Allen . . . had sent out a very public email on May 3, 2010, explaining her views on SB 1070.

* * *

In her email, Allen also reported that "17 dead bodies and two Koran bibles" had been found on a rancher's property, and also stated without any factual evidence that "in the last few years 80% of our law enforcement that have been killed or wounded have been by an illegal."

Allen also asked:

"How long will it be before we will be just like Mexico, Canada or any of the other Central American or South American countries? We have already lost our language, everything must be printed in Spanish also. We have already lost our history it is no longer taught in our schools. And we have lost our borders." 

In fact, Allen's email and Pearce's article are nearly identical, which begs the question: Did Pearce plagiarize from Allen for his white nationalist publication, or did Allen plagiarize from Pearce for her public email?

Read the post with the text from the emails and articles in question. Jeff Biggers: New Arizona Recall Scandal: Did Tea Party President Pearce Plagiarize (Again) for "White Nationalist" Press? 

If you are an LD 18 voter and have not cast your early ballot in the recall election, go and vote for Jerry Lewis today. Voters will have to wait ubtil next year to toss Sylvia Allen out of office.

Occupy Tucson Update

Posted by AzBlueMeanie:

During the call to the audience at last Tuesday's city council meeting, several members of Occupy Tucson asked the council to address TPD targeting the Occupy Tucson protestors for citations. The council could not take any action on the public complaints because the item was not on the agenda.

It appears that the council has not put the item on this Tuesday's city council agenda for action. Mayor and Council to hold ‘Occupation’ discussions behind closed doors - Tucson Progressive:

No decisions on these items could be made last week because these issues were not officially on the agenda.

These issues are still not on the agenda for tonight’s Mayor and Council meeting. Instead, they are flagged as an executive session item on the  study session agenda. In addition to not dealing with the Occupation in public today– unless, of course, Occupiers speak at the call to audience again– the Mayor and Council are not scheduled to have another open meeting until Wednesday, November 9 (after the election).

Last week, Mari Herreras at The Range: The Tucson Weekly's Daily Dispatch joined in my suggestion that the Tucson City Council do what the Los Angeles City Council did, tell police not to dish out citations or make arrests — plus they passed a resolution in support of Occupy LA that you can read here: 69353494-Los-Angeles-Occupy-resolution.pdf.

Apparently the city council is slow-walking this process out of an abundance of caution, with mayor and council elections only two weeks away.

UPDATE: Occupiers get no help from Tucson City Council:

Occupy Tucson protesters didn't get any relief Tuesday from the Tucson City Council, which so far seems satisfied to let the consequences for the protesters to play out in court.

Protesters, who have racked up more than 300 citations since the protests began in mid-October, wanted the city to waive the citations or change its rules on park use to accommodate them. But the council took no action after meeting with its legal staff Tuesday.

* * *

Protesters addressed the council for about two hours in the evening session, with several saying they would cooperate with the city regarding the turf and other scheduled events.

City Attorney Mike Rankin told the council that he's been keeping tabs on how other cities are dealing with the protesters, and the responses vary widely across communities. But, he said, the city's codes are valid and constitutionally defensible.

Birther Governor Goodhair has a 'flat tax' plan too!

Posted by AzBlueMeanie:

The Arizona Republic today published this bit of lame analysis from the Washingtopn Post, Perry adding heft to team, touts tax plan Welcome to Rick Perry 2.0:

The Perry campaign announced Monday that it has hired several veteran operatives with national campaign experience to augment a team that had been dominated by people who had long work histories with Perry in Texas.

The most notable of the new hires is senior adviser Joe Allbaugh, who was campaign manager for George W. Bush's presidential run in 2000.

The personnel moves came as Perry prepared to give a speech today in South Carolina in which he will announce a proposal for a national flat tax to replace the current income-tax system.

* * *

Perry's embrace of the flat tax could help him win back conservatives who like Cain's proposal to overhaul the tax code and replace it with his "9-9-9" plan, which includes a national sales tax.

"Putting lipstick on a pig" immediately comes to mind. This lame analysis leaves out entirely the fact that "Rick Perry 2.0" went full Donald Trump birtherism over the weekend in an attempt to attract the votes of the crazies. Steve Benen writes at the Political Animal - Stepping on his own ‘reset’:

[T]he Texas governor has a new economic plan, he recently gave a big energy policy speech, he’s hired a team of new advisers, and Perry appears eager to put the recent collapse of his political standing behind him.

But instead of talking about Perry’s comeback strategy, the governor is stepping all over his own message by peddling “Birther” nonsense — again.

* * *

Talking to CNBC’s John Harwood, Perry followed up on his questions about President Obama’s birthplace published in Parade over the weekend, rehashing the issue all over again. Perry told Harwood he’s “not worried” about the president’s birth certificate, but he nevertheless kept talking about it and Obama’s college transcript. “It’s fun,” Perry said, “to poke at him a little bit and say ‘Hey, how about let’s see your grades and your birth certificate.’”

Harwood gave Perry a chance to say he was kidding about all of this, but the governor wants to play both sides here — he’s calling it a “distractive” issue, while deliberately signaling to the right-wing conspiracy theorists that he’s sympathetic to their silliness.

Indeed, Perry said plainly that this is “a good issue to keep alive.”

In other words, there’s an actual strategy here. Perry wants the conspiracy theory to get some additional attention. Instead of having the political world spend the day talking about his economic agenda, he’s inviting observers to keep the Birther nonsense in mind instead.

This makes Perry look like a fool to sensible people everywhere, but all things considered, maybe he doesn’t mind — any serious look at Perry’s tax plan arguably makes him look even worse.

Well, le'ts look at the nonsense of Governor Goodhair's "flat tax" plan today. Political Animal - Rick Perry has a tax plan:

Republican presidential hopeful Rick Perry, desperate to get his flailing campaign back on track, has a new idea. He calls it “Cut, Balance and Grow” (not to be confused with “Cut, Cap, and Balance”), and presents his pitch in a Wall Street Journal op-ed this morning.

While Perry’s plan has some fairly dramatic flaws — it’s a comical right-wing fantasy, built on numbers that don’t add up — I’ll at least give him credit for thinking big. Some candidates would be content unveiling a ridiculous flat-tax proposal, but the Texas governor is pushing a ridiculous flat-tax proposal and a ridiculous plan for partial privatization of Social Security and a ridiculous effort to eliminate the Estate Tax and reducing the capital-gains tax to 0%.

But wait, there’s more!

Perry also intends to repeal the entirety of the Affordable Care Act and remove safeguards from the financial industry and amend the U.S. Constitution to require balanced budgets and impose draconian caps on all federal spending.

How would Perry pay for all of these massive tax cuts? He doesn’t say. But don’t worry, the governor believes he can do all of this while also balancing the budget.

Is anyone really supposed to take this nonsense seriously?

* * *

[Perry] chatted with John Harwood about his plan, in an interview that aired this morning on CNBC. When Harwood noted that the plan looks like a massive giveaway to the rich, Perry replied, “I don’t care. I care about them having money to invest.”

In other words, Perry isn’t pretending about his intentions. The goal here is to identify those who already have the most money — and who are already getting richer all the time, consolidating an ever-growing percentage of the nation’s wealth — and shower these fortunate few with even more expansive tax breaks so they’ll have even more riches. Perry will try to pay for some of this by, of course, gutting measures that benefit working families.

This isn’t a tax policy. It’s a bad comedy.

Martin Bashir on MSNBC had the best line today. He said he'd "compare Rick Perry to Forrest Gump, but that would not be fair to Forrest Gump. He won the Congressional Medal of Honor."

Josh Marshall at Talking Points Memo asks the obvious question:

A Flat Tax and Privatized Social Security are fast becoming the new litmus test of the 2012 Republican campaign.

How long till Mitt submits?

"Mittens" Romney opposed Steve Forbes' flat tax in 1996, when he called it a "tax cut for fat cats." He even opposed it during the 2007 campaign when he called it unfair. But this shapeshifter has been testing the GOP primary electorate to see whether he should flip-flop on this issue as well. Daily Kos: Romney sets stage for flat tax flip-flop. Oh, you know it's coming.

Job-killer Willard "Mittens" Romney and the 1% Economy

Posted by AzBlueMeanie:

I previously posted about job-killer Willard "Mittens" Romney's false claim of being a job creator in Willard 'Mittens' Romney, the anti-jobs candidate:

[I]sn’t Romney the guy who succeeded in business by laying off thousands of American workers so he could get rich? Why, yes he is! Political Animal - The anti-jobs candidate:

I think Romney’s biggest problem is that the message brings to the fore his key weaknesses — Romney’s record on jobs is atrocious.

* * *

And this is the part of Romney’s record he’s most proud of. Romney slashed American jobs as if his career depended on it — and it did.

Complicating matters, during Romney’s only service in public office, his state’s record on job creation was “one of the worst in the country.” Adding insult to injury, “By the end of his four years in office, Massachusetts had squeezed out a net gain in payroll jobs of just 1 percent, compared with job growth of 5.3 percent for the nation as a whole.”

How bad is Romney’s record? During his tenure, Massachusetts ranked 47th out of 50 states in jobs growth.

Yes, Romney has a simple message: “I’m a successful businessman, I’ll create jobs and fix the economy.” It also comes with an equally simple response: “Mitt Romney is the anti-jobs candidate.”

Now Benjamin Wallace-Wells at New York Magazine examines the career of this successful businessman who was an arbitrage specialist at Bain Capital which bought up distressed businesses, fired its employees and sold off the company's assets to turn a profit. That's what a Vulture Capitalist does. Mitt Romney’s Corporate Idealism -- New York Magazine (excerpts):

In his quick, casual reply—corporations are people—Romney had seemed to give something away, though it wasn’t immediately clear what. The press chose to play the episode as a “gaffe,” as ABC’s Jake Tapper described it, a moment in which the weakness in Romney’s political pitch, the gap between his own privileged experience of the world and that of working-class voters, had been exposed.

* * *

The incident, in retrospect, did less to peg Romney as a creature of privilege than it did to reveal something deeper. For Romney, the corporation has long been an object of a certain idealism. It is something he has spent much of his adult life—first as a management-strategy consultant, then as CEO of the private-equity firm Bain Capital—working to perfect, to strip of its inefficiencies until it might function as a perfectly frictionless economic unit. 

 

The political genuflection to businessmen is so gauzy and generic that praise for a candidate’s private-sector acumen can often sound phony. But Mitt Romney is the real thing. He was, by any measure, an astonishingly successful businessman, one who spent his career explaining how business might operate better, and who leveraged his own mind into a personal fortune worth as much as $250 million. But much more significantly, Romney was also a business revolutionary. Our economy went through a remarkable shift during the eighties as Wall Street reclaimed control of American business and sought to remake it in its own image. Romney developed one of the tools that made this possible, pioneering the use of takeovers to change the way a business functioned, remaking it in the name of efficiency.

* * *

The protests going on at Zuccotti Park now have raised the question of whether that transition was worth it. What emerged from that long decade of change was a system that is more productive, nimble, and efficient than the one it replaced; it is also less equal, less stable, and more brutal. These evolutions were not inevitable. They were the result, in part, of particular innovations developed by a few businessmen beginning a quarter century ago. Now one of them has a good chance of becoming president.

Continue reading Mitt Romney’s Corporate Idealism -- New York Magazine.

UPDATE: Governor Goodhair Rick Perry of Texas this morning began pressing Romney to make his tax returns public — a step Romney has refused to take in all of his many previous attempts at public office. (If elected president, it is standard practice to release the president's tax returns. So why should Romney get a pass as a candidate?)

Jonathan Rothschild's new campaign ad

Posted by AzBlueMeanie:

Democratic candidate for mayor of Tucson Jonathan Rothschild has a new 30 second ad of testimonials from supporters who have known him for many years.

His campaign has uploaded longer interviews with a number of people who have known him over the years. They're on his YouTube channel: JRothschildAZ. Take a look. Click on any of the videos - watch part or all of them.

The Phisher King, Tyler Vogt, spamming Tucsonans with 'Swift Boat' ad

Posted by AzBlueMeanie:

"It's Tool Time!" The Phisher King, Tea-Publican troll Tyler Vogt, is still spamming Tucsonans, this time with a "Swift Boat" attack ad on his opponent, Shirley Scott.

The same right-wing consulting firm that swift-boated John Kerry in 2004 is trying to do the same to Democratic City Council candidates in an effort to seize control of the City Council for the Tea Party.

The Beltway firm Stevens, Reed Curcio and Potholm crafted the "Swift Boat" ads in 2004, slandering John Kerry's service in Vietnam with specious claims and unfounded accusations, is doing the ads for Tea-Publican mayor and council candidates. Even President Bush criticized the ads saying "I think they’re bad for the system." Bush calls for halt to Swift Boat ads - msnbc.com.

This is the same firm responsible for the attack ad against Harold Ford, Jr. that his GOP opponent, Bob Corker, demanded be pulled from the air because it was "distasteful," and that even some Republicans denounced as racist. Tennessee ad ignites GOP squabbling -msnbc.com. Bill Cohen, a former Republican senator from Maine, criticized the ad in an interview on CNN as “a very serious appeal to a racist sentiment.”

This firm is bottom-feeding sewer dwellers. Which speaks volumes to the character of the politicians who hire them. This shoud be a disqualification from serving in elective office.

Vogt's attack ad suggests that Shirley Scott is under "a fraud investigation." No, that would be the Rio Nuevo District Board, which is under the control of state of Maricopa Republicans, as detailed by the Arizona Daily Star. The GOP 'troika' behind Rio Nuevo. Some of whom likely contributed to pay for this attack ad, which we will discover only when the Arizona Republican Party stops violating campaign finance disclosure laws. Is the Arizona GOP illegally 'earmarking' funds for Tucson City Council elections?

Vogt's attack ad also claims he wil create jobs. What experience does this Tea-Publican troll have in creating jobs? He works for Raytheon where, as we learned from Tea-Publican congressional candidate Ruth McClung in 2010, anyone can call him or herself a "rocket scientist." Is Raytheon going to hire everyone who needs a job? I don't think so. Rocket Man is making claims he can't back up.