GOP Civil War: candidates turn on Gov. Brewer and her PAC

dark_moneyIt turns out that Tea-Publican candidates are none too happy about Governor Jan Brewer using her political action committees (PACs) to attack them in the GOP primary.

The GOP gubernatorial candidates have all been attacking each other for “illegal campaign coordination” with the dark money groups pouring money into supporting or opposing their campaigns.

Now the GOP Civil War has broken out into the open with Tea-Publican candidates directly accusing Governor Brewer and her PACs of illegal campaign coordination.

“Cathi’s Clown” Doug Ducey now has the tears of a clown that he did not get Gov. Brewer’s endorsement. So he is lashing out in a jealous rage against Brewer’s favored suitor, Scott Smith. Howard Fischer reports, Ducey campaign questions Brewer giving cash to Smith:

Unable to get Jan Brewer’s endorsement for himself, Doug Ducey is now angling to prevent the governor from spending her own political funds to help elect Scott Smith.

Ducey press aide Melissa DeLaney said it is clear that Smith and his allies provided the governor with inside information, including polling, on how he can win the Republican gubernatorial primary. She said that makes Brewer privy to campaign strategy.

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(Update) CD 1 Clusterfuck GOP Primary

wlinkht_lThe CD 1 Clusterfuck GOP Primary is looking like the political version of the game show Weakest Link: “You are the weakest link. Goodbye.” None of these guys deserves to win.

The Arizona Capitol Times (subscription required) reports that the anointed GOP establishment pick, House Speaker Andy Tobin, can’t raise money and he has pissed away what money he has on consultants, legal teams and campaign advisers, forcing him to “go dark” in the final weeks of the GOP primary. Tobin struggles in CD1 despite opponents’ gaffes:

In the last campaign finance reporting period, which covered between April 1 and June 30, Tobin spent 96 percent of the $176,000 he raised on the campaign trail, leaving him with a net profit of only $6,000 for the three months. Kirkpatrick, by comparison, brought in $420,000 for the quarter and increased her war chest to $1.3 million.

And the lack of campaign funds is visible on the campaign trail, where Tobin is the only Republican in the race without a commercial on TV.

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Journalists Arrested in #Ferguson: ACLU Issues ‘Know Your Rights’ Bulletin

Tucson Police
TPD officer filming me filming him while his partner gave me a ticket for being at Armory Park during Occupy Tucson. He ignored me when I said I was a journalist and had a right to be there and to film him and Occupy.

Twitter and Facebook have been ablaze with stories and photos about the shooting of Michael Brown by police in Ferguson, Missouri. (Check out the AZBlueMeanie’s poignant analysis here, photos from the New York Times here, and running updates here from Huffington Post.)

As you are well aware, Michael Brown’s shooting is just one in a very long and disturbing list of unarmed young blacks (primarily men) being shot by police or armed citizens. What the hell is going on?! Do ya think there are way too many guns out there?

In this world of smart phones and social media, everything from cute kittens playing with boxes to police violence is photographed and shared. Problem is: the police don’t like being photographed or videotaped. Journalists are citizens are often arrested or roughed up and cameras confiscated or broken when they try to record police behaving badly. That is illegal!

Following the arrest of two journalists in Ferguson today, I found this very helpful post from the American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU) about photographer rights. Here is an excerpt. Check out the link below for more.

Photographers Know Your Rights

Taking photographs of things that are plainly visible from public spaces is a constitutional right – and that includes federal buildings, transportation facilities, and police and other government officials carrying out their duties. Unfortunately, there is a widespread, continuing pattern of law enforcement officers ordering people to stop taking photographs from public places, and harassing, detaining and arresting those who fail to comply. Learn more »

Your rights as a photographer:

  • When in public spaces where you are lawfully present you have the right to photograph anything that is in plain view. That includes pictures of federal buildings, transportation facilities, and police. Such photography is a form of publicoversight over the government and is important in a free society.

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CD4 Candidate Mikel Weisser Smacks Down Center for Arizona Policy

CD4 Candidate Mikel Weisser
CD4 Candidate Mikel Weisser

Recently the AZBlueMeanie posted a story about CD2 Candidate Martha McSally’s non-answers to Cathi Herrod’s Center for Arizona Policy candidate survey. Herrod is a right-wing operative in Arizona, so it’s odd that Tea Party Darling McSally didn’t answer CAP’s survey. (Remember SB1062? That was Cathi’s baby.)

One Congressional candidate who DID answer Herrod’s questions is progressive CD4 Candidate Mikel Weisser. Wow. Weisser offers a collection of no-holds-barred answers to CAP’s anti-science religiosity and their support for discrimination, the subjugation of women, and the prison industrial complex. Below are his answers.

Weisser is running against CAP stooge and incumbent Republican Paul Gosar. Gosar’s answers to this survey here. His answer to #8 sums up his stance on civil rights and equality for women: “All men are equal. Special categories are unnecessary.” (Emphasis added.)

Mikel Weisser’s Answers to Center for Arizona Policy Survey Questions
1. Repealing the Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act.

Greedy corporations, irresponsible think tanks and heartless doctors have attacked American patients for too long. Attacks on the ACA have to be stopped.

2. Providing federal funding to Planned Parenthood and other organizations that provide abortions.

Planned parenthood is our most important women’s health organization and its opponents create havoc and misery. Groups like CAP must stop trying to control vaginas.

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Two Americas, and two alternate realities

Remember when many pundits suggested that America had become a color-blind Post-racial America after the election of Barack Obama in 2008? Yeah . . .

I watched the news coverage from Ferguson, Missouri last night. It reminded me of  Mayor Daley’s police riot at the Democratic National Convention in Chicago in 1968. Spike Lee could use Ferguson as the setting of a sequel to his Do the Right Thing (1989).

I was struck by the disparity between two events this year.

Screenshot from 2014-08-14 16:06:28First, the Bundy Ranch standoff between armed right-wing militias seeking a confrontation with the “tyrannical” federal “guvmint” come to enforce a lawful seizure order of the court for the cattle of a deadbeat rancher who does not recognize the federal government, the government to which he owes a $1 million dollars for grazing fees and court costs, because “freedom!” Not a single shot was fired, and not one person was arrested for their armed insurrection against law enforcement officers.

The conservative media entertainment complex portrayed these anti-government insurrectionists as “patriots.”

Second, Ferguson, Missouri, where an unarmed teenager, Michael Brown, was shot allegedly multiple times by a police officer for walking in the street. Ferguson has a history of racial tensions with the local police. Even before Michael Brown’s slaying in Ferguson, racial questions hung over police. Wednesday night was a peaceful protest of citizens exercising their First Amendment rights of freedom of speech, peaceable assembly, and to petition their local government for a redress of grievances. A militarized police force insisted that they could not. Nor could the media covering the protest exercise its First Amendment right to freedom of the press. The police opened fire with rubber bullets, tear gas, and flash grenades. And arrested members of the media.

The conservative media entertainment complex portrayed the Black citizens of Ferguson as “lynch mobs,” Laura Ingraham calls protestors in Ferguson “lynch mobs”, and Fox News Fearmongers About The New Black Panther Party. And Conservatives Attack Reporters For Being Arrested In Ferguson.

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