Month: February 2013

Posted by AzBlueMeanie:

For those of you who do not have the intestinal fortitude to suffer the mindless stupidity of the conservative media entertainment complex that is FAUX News Fraudcasting, their faux scandal of the week was that President Obama said he and his guests at Camp David go skeet shooting "all the time." The hue and cry from the mindless morons of FAUX News Fraudcasting was "Oh yeah, prove it!" Suddenly they had a new long-form birth certificate scandal to promote to the scared old white people who watch FAUX News Fraudcasting all day: "SkeeterGate."

The feckless corporate "lamestream media" demonstrated what a bunch of worthless losers they are by following the lead of the conservative media entertainment complex: "If they are talking about, so do we!" Even the Washington Post's subjective "fact" checker, Glenn Kessler, had to get in on the act with this fact check column that was republished in our sad small town newspaper, the Arizona Daily Star. White House mum on Obama's skeet-shooting claim.

The White House did not want to let this "SkeeterGate" nonsense to get out of control like the long-form birth certificate nonsense did, and decided to "shoot it down" on Saturday by releasing an official White House photo from last August of President Obama shooting skeet at Camp David. In short, the White House told the conservative media entertainment complex, "here's your photo, now STFU!" White House posts photo of Obama skeet shooting.

(Official White House Photo by Pete Souza)

Posted by AzBlueMeanie:

Democratic Massachusetts Rep. Jim McGovern last Tuesday introduced two
Constitutional amendments in Congress that would overturn the
Supreme Court’s Citizens United v. FEC decision. From Rep. McGovern's press release announcing the proposed amendments:

U.S. Rep. Jim McGovern, D-MA, on Tuesday introduced two
Constitutional amendments to overturn the Supreme Court’s decision in
the Citizens United case, which unleashed a flood of corporate and special interest money into the American political system.

The first amendment, HJ Res 20 [Text of Legislation] advances the fundamental principle
of political equality for all by empowering Congress and the States to
regulate political spending.  It will allow Congress to pass campaign
finance reform legislation that will withstand Constitutional
challenges.   

Posted by AzBlueMeanie:

Despite the fact that GDP declined in the fourth quarter due mostly to the Pentagon substantially reducing spending in anticipation of the fiscal cliff austerity crisis negotiations and the pending sequester cuts (which has now been delayed), the economy continued to add jobs in January. Steve Benen reports, Economy adds 157k jobs in January, revisions way up:

Expectations for job creation were pretty close to perfect according to the new report
from the Bureau of Labor Statistics, with the economy adding 157,000
jobs in January. The big news, however, is in the revisions.

First,
let's note the basics. The unemployment rate was effectively unchanged
at 7.9%, and as is often the case, austerity measures undermined the
employment landscape — while America's private sector added 166,000
jobs in December, the public sector lost 9,000 jobs. Indeed, over the
last three months, the nation's private sector added 624,000 jobs, while
24,000 government jobs were lost.

It'd be easy for Washington to
improve the latter number and lower the unemployment rate, but
congressional Republicans won't allow it.

Regardless, today is the
day the BLS publishes its revisions for all of 2012, and that's where
we see the genuinely good news. Not only were the job totals for
November and December revised up considerably — 127,000 jobs combined
— but for the entire 2012 calendar year, we learned this morning of an
additional 335,000 jobs that had not been previously reported.

That
means 2.17 million jobs were created just last year, which is the best
annual total since 2005, and tops seven of the eight years Bush/Cheney
was in office.

Posted by AzBlueMeanie:

The Goldwater Institute, a charter member of the billionaire bastard Koch brother's web of corporate funded far-right think tanks and political action committees known as the "Kochtopus," has its Tea-Publican stooges in the Arizona legislature pursuing its anti-union, anti-public employee bills in committee this week.

The Goldwater Institute authored HB2330, a proposal to open up collective bargaining between a representative of a public body and a representative of an employee organization about salaries and benefits subject to the open meeting laws. It would also prevent local government bodies from going into executive session to discuss these issues and would require all discussions to be recorded.

In other words, the Goldwater Institute and other secretly funded corporate lobbyists of the "Kochtopus" want to insert themselves into contract negotiations between public bodies and employee organizations through open meeting laws (employee contracts are done in executive session and are exempt from open meeting laws).

And why should these self-styled government watchdogs secretly funded corporate lobbyists have a seat at the negotiation table you ask? Good question. They shouldn't. This is over-reaching by anti-union, anti-public employee corporate lobbyists.

I have to agree with Roman Ulman from AFSCME. “If you’re going to have open meeting laws, then I want open meeting laws for any time the Goldwater Institute even has a discussion with any of our representatives. I want that to be pre-posted.”

Posted by AzBlueMeanie:

Since Blog For Arizona did not receive a press release from Respect Arizona (ahem), here is the Phoenix New Times report on Thursday's press conference. Sheriff Joe Arpaio Target of Recall — It's Official — By Same Community Leaders Who Successfully Ousted Senator Russell Pearce:

A campaign to recall Maricopa County Sheriff Joe Arpaio is under way, with the penning of the first of the 335,000 signatures needed for an election to take place in November.

William James Fisher, a local attorney, is the chairman of Respect Arizona, a political action committee formed to oust the sheriff.

Fisher says, "Arpaio has failed in many ways," citing the sheriff's wasteful spending, the mismanagement of his office, the racial profiling in which his deputies engage, and his preference for publicity over doing his job.