Month: February 2013

Crazy Uncle Joe Arpaio’s questionable posse to do a school-shooting simulation this weekend – supervised by actor Steven Seagal

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Posted by AzBlueMeanie:

What could possibly go wrong? As reported earlier this year, Crazy Uncle Joe Arpaio endangers your children:

Phoenix CBS affiliate KPHO (CBS 5) decided to investigate who these
volunteer posse members are. After a six month investigation it
discovered that some of Arpaio's posse members have criminal records. Criminal pasts don't disqualify members of Arpaio posse.

Now comes this, Joe Arpaio's Posse Doing a School-Shooting Simulation, and Steven Seagal's Supervising. No, seriously:

Folks, Sheriff Joe Arpaio's school-patrol posse is so serious about school safety that posse members will be setting up a school-shooting simulation this weekend as a test.

Have we mentioned yet that actor Steven Seagal will be supervising the festivities?

"On Saturday, February 9, 2013, qualified armed volunteers from Maricopa
County Sheriff Joe Arpaio's posse will undergo their first ever
training event which simulates an actual school shooting," an Arpaio
press release says. "Sheriff Arpaio, who ordered the training, says six
instructors will lead 40 armed posse volunteers through four different
scenarios where a shooter or shooters come onto a school campus with the
intent to kill."

Arizona’s Neo-Confederate dead-enders and secession

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Posted by AzBlueMeanie:

I warned you about this at the start of the legislative session. Neo-Confederate dead-enders revive  discredited 'nullification theory' again.

AZConfederacyRemember the "Checks and Balances in Government" citizens initiative aka the "nullification" initiative from a nutty Scottsdale millionaire businessman, Jack Biltis, that failed to qualify for the ballot due to an insufficient number of signatures last year? Businessman spends $1.2 million to put nullification measure on ballot.

Biltis has decided to bypass the expense of another initiative effort and to take the easy route of getting his fellow Neo-Confederate dead-enders in the legislature to repackage his "nullification" initiative as a constitutional amendment referred to the ballot by the Arizona legislature. SCR1016 is sponsored by the usual suspects, Sen. Rich Crandell (R-Heber), Sen. Judy Burges (R-Sun City West), and cosponsors Sen. Cap'n Al Melvin (R-Saddlebrooke), and Rep. Brenda Barton (R-Payson).

Rep. Steve ‘Secession’ Smith revives English Only – seriously?

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Posted by AzBlueMeanie:

This guy, again. As I previously posted, "Rep. Steve "Secession" Smith (R-Maricopa) is determined to win the title of biggest asshole in the Arizona legislature. Dude, the title is yours! Now knock it off!" Rep. Steve 'Secession' Smith carries Russell Pearce's anti-immigrant bills.

The latest bit of assholery from Little Stevie is his revival of the age-old fight over "English Only." Seriously? It's like the movie "Groundhog Day" in Arizona — it's the same damn thing over and over again. Arizona ‘English only’ document plan touted:

The debate over providing government documents only in English is re-emerging at the Arizona Legislature, a controversial topic many thought had been resolved seven years ago with a successful ballot measure.

The House Government Committee on Tuesday passed House Bill 2283, which would forbid state agencies from mailing out certain documents in any language but English. It still needs a vote of the full House before moving on. But critics already warn it could violate the federal Civil Rights Act.

(Update) The flaw in Jan’s Plan to expand AHCCCS

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Posted by AzBlueMeanie:

I posted a few weeks ago about The flaw in Jan's Plan to expand AHCCCS. ICYMI, The Arizona Republic's Robert Robb reached the same conclusion last week, i.e., that Governor Brewer is going to need a two-thirds super-majority vote in both chambers of the legislature to pass the hospital bed tax provision in her plan for expanded Medicaid (AHCCCS in Arizona) because of Prop. 108 (1992). See, there are things on which liberals and conservatives can agree. How many GOP votes does Medicaid expansion need?

A lot of attention has been paid to the substance of Gov. Jan Brewer’s Medicaid expansion proposal. Less attention has been paid to a political and legal question that may be more important in determining its fate: How many Republican votes does it need in the Legislature to be enacted?

The assumption is that all the Democrats in the Legislature will vote for it. They may be tempted to attempt to bargain for something else in exchange for their support. If they are serious about the priority they claim to put on the expansion, they will forgo that temptation. Republican votes for expansion will be tricky to come by. If Brewer has to sell not only the expansion but what Democrats want in exchange for their votes in favor, it might become a bridge too far.

A “Name Al Melvin’s Special Interest” contest

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by David Safier

(h/t to Craig McDermott of Random Musings [who cross posts on BfA] for his Arizona Legislature: The Coming week… post that alerted me to this story.)

Here's the question: What's the name of the education company Al Melvin wants to give $30 million in state funds to? (By the way, I don't know the answer, but I mention a possibility at the end of the post.)

Al Melvin is the sole sponsor of SB1239, a bill that would give one "educational technology provider" as much as $30 million to furnish a "technology-based reading intervention" strategy to the state to be used with K-3 students whose reading skills are lagging. The bill has an incredibly detailed shopping list of criteria — about 20 in all — which makes it sound like there are very few companies that could meet all of them — possibly only one. There's no way Al Melvin or any legislator could have come up with such an extensive, detailed list without a lot of help.

Here are some of the criteria:

  1. The programs must be "research-based" and "technology-based."
  2. The programs must be "designed to accelerate language and literacy development by delivering individualized instruction that is designed to teach each pupil phonics, phonemic awareness, vocabulary, comprehension and fluency."
  3. The programs must allow students "to practice reading on the computer by recording the pupil's readings and comparing the pupil's readings to the reading model."
  4. The programs must "explicitly teach pupils academic vocabulary that is related to core content areas."
  5. The programs must "provide tutorials that introduce pupils to the computer and mouse and other hardware."
  6. The company must "provide software that is current with frequent content and technology updates that occur at least once a year."
  7. The company must provide "on-site assistance and support for technnical problems in less than twenty-four hours."