by David Safier
Not to be outdone by Frank Antenori (see post below), Russell Pearce and Ron Gould proved they could go Rambo too.
Lawmakers did agree to remove a controversial provision which would have reduced state aid to cities immediately by $17 million to help keep the budget in balance. That occurred after lobbyists for cities said they were counting on the money and that such a cut would result in laying off police officers and firefighters.
That claim angered Sen. Russell Pearce, R-Mesa.
“I know better than that,” he said, saying city officials were purposely being alarmist. “I can tell you parks ought to close before you lay off police and fire.”
Right. Close the parks. That'll teach the little bastards for making Pearce give them back their lollipop.
“Gov. Brewer has proposed that the state Legislature use federal stimulus money dedicated to child care assistance to temporarily restore all or part of the former income eligibility levels,” the letter reads. And it promises to tell people they will get their subsidies back “if the Legislature acts on the governor’s proposal.”
“I don’t respond well to threats, I don’t respond well to blackmail,” said Sen. Ron Gould, R-Lake Havasu City. “And I don’t respond well to people waving letters that are going to my constituents if I don’t vote a particular way.”
"This is a windfall at a time when we can't afford a windfall," Pearce said.
This is what passes for wisdom with these guys. It's becoming a cliche, but it's still true: You can't make this stuff up.
The cuts to DES also cut was medical services to disabled and at risk children, which under state and federal laws shouldn’t even be possible, and yet for some reason, they think that they can implement these cuts no matter what the law says. Does Brewer really think it is okay to threaten the health, welfare, and future of infants in Arizona to get the tax increase that she wants, and to loosen the Voter Protection Act? Talk about emotional blackmail!
Point taken, flounder. I still don’t like your original approach, but I think this comment does the job.
I’m one of those English teachers who loves non-standard English and hates “correctness” for its own sake. The term, “the King’s English,” for “proper English” says it all. Accepted forms of language are often class based. Everyone who wants to have a mainstream job that pays well needs to learn the standard English (“standard,” not “correct”), but I want them to keep their love for their own rich usage which is a reflection of their history and heritage.
Anyway, that’s where my comment came from.
David,
sheapenny is arguing thinly veiled dislike toward Hispanics, and on in this thread complains about having to “press one for English”. This is the old “English only” “nativist” line. I just feel that people who are making “nativist” arguments about the (moral) superiority of the English language should be held to a real high standard in using the language, or else they are hypocrites. Basically, if sheapenny loves English so much and thinks it somehow exemplifies America, why is sheapenny so willing to trash the English language (and thus trash America)?
In this sense I am not insulting sheapenny, but directly objecting sheapenny’s argument. I could have cared less about sheapenny’s grasp of the English language until sheapenny used English language comprehension to imply that someone else is less American. And isn’t it ironic that Spanish was spoken in Arizona hundreds of years before English was? Who’s the elitist again?
On that note I found this picture someone snapped of sheapenny at the ARIZONA TEAPARTY last week:
http://www.bradblog.com/Images/Protestor_EnglishOfficalLanguage.jpg
P.S. I think that is snark, isn’t it?
Flounder and vice: as an old English teacher, I object to your negative comments about a writer’s grammar. I find it petty and elitist. Seriously. If you object to what sheapenny has to say, that’s fine — fair game. That’s what we do here. But criticizing the writer for lack of capitalization and punctuation is the rough equivalent of saying, “Oh, by the way, nice nose!” It’s a cheap insult.
Let’s stay on the level of ideas here, folks. Snark is fine, but petty insults lower the level of discourse and blur the issues we’re here to talk about.
Dude,
English aside, most of shea’s posts are incoherent sentence fragments strung together into nonsense paragraphs with no beginning or end. In that last post, for example, I don’t even know what the hell s/he was talking about nor what it had to do with the post.
I don’t know how else to say it….it’s just…nonsense.
sheapenny. You don’t capitalize the first letter in your sentences, and you ask a question but don’t use a question mark. And seriously, what language is the following sentence written in?
“I hope you are happy what you have done to destroy the Constitution of The United States that ended in 2008!”
For someone with a very limited grasp of the English language, you sure have a lot of nerve acting like it is a personal affront to have to “press on for english [sic]”.
You should spend a little less time worrying about other people’s English abilities and tend to your own deficiencies.
If an out of state special interest group like the one run by Grover “drown government in a bathtub” Norquist blackmails Republican Ron Gould, he, as Republican Ayatollah Rush Limbaugh would describe “bends over and grabs his ankles”.
What is the budget for clown shoes for Arizona Republicans? It isn’t enough.
The Star is next according to its Editor.
they have shifted to a pro hispanic format to save what is left by printing a hispanic paper.
My question is do I have to press one for english as the liberal agenda seems to love what is going on in Mexico City and has elected politicians that are right out of the Cuban playbook to go to Washington.
I hope you are happy what you have done to destroy the Constitution of The United States that ended in 2008!
I’ll quibble with your metaphor, ie, “taking a lollypop out of a baby’s hand….”
It’s more like snatching loose change out of the hands of the poor, sick and the infirm.
Bullies never pick on someone their own size.
We must all work very hard to elect Dems to the legislature in 2010.
What an anomoly that in a year that swept Democrats into office all across the country, Arizona strengthened it’s far right hold on the legislature.
I suggest that when campaigning starts, volunteers from Baja Arizona go to Mesa to campaign for anyone who can defeat Russell Pearce.
These guys do not want to take responsibility for what they’ve done, what they’re doing, and what they plan to do next year–some of them have been rubbing their hands together in anticipation… Either they don’t care that many of these programs can mean the difference between survival and non-survival of human beings OR, they assuage their conscience with assumptions that people who aren’t working don’t want to work; people who work part-time aren’t willing to work full-time, people who work full-time at low-paying jobs have lots of money to put into those health-savings accounts, etc. etc. Sorry for the tirade, but I’m sick of hearing this clueless, selfish B.S.