Month: January 2018

Rep. Martha McSally announces her bid for the Senate (Updated)

by

Southern Arizona’s media invention mythical moderate Republican, Rep. Martha McSally, who is really a wingnut hardliner who has embraced our nativist and racist President Donald Trump, voting in support of his agenda 96.7% of the time, announced today that she is running for the Senate seat being vacated by Senator Jeff Flake.

Good riddance from your constituents here in CD 2, Martha, and here’s looking forward to your being unemployed come November (don’t worry, the congresswoman from Raytheon no doubt already has a job waiting for her in the military-industrial-congressional complex).

The Hill reports, McSally announces bid for Arizona Senate seat:

Arizona Rep. Martha McSally (R) has officially announced her bid for Senate, a long-awaited announcement that caps a busy week in the race to replace retiring Sen. Jeff Flake (R).

McSally formally announced her bid Friday morning in a tour across the state, but her campaign tipped its hand by releasing a video hours before.

Screen Shot 2018-01-12 at 11.26.13 AM

The spot leans heavily on her experience as the first female combat fighter pilot and portrays her as an ally of President Trump.

Her blunt talk in the video shows a push to connect to Republicans across the spectrum, an important challenge for McSally considering she will be facing off in the GOP primary against two controversial candidates in former Sheriff Joe Arpaio and former state Sen. Kelli Ward.

Read more

Racist Trump blows up DACA deal: a ‘bipartisan agreement died yesterday’

by

Our always insecure egomaniacal man-child Twitter-troll-in-chief made a vague attempt today to deny his racist comments to a group of senators negotiating a DACA deal on Thursday, Trump attacks protections for immigrants from ‘shithole’ countries in Oval Office meeting:

President Trump grew frustrated with lawmakers Thursday in the Oval Office when they floated restoring protections for immigrants from Haiti, El Salvador and African countries as part of a bipartisan immigration deal, according to two people briefed on the meeting.

“Why are we having all these people from shithole countries come here?” Trump said, according to these people, referring to African countries and Haiti. He then suggested that the United States should instead bring more people from countries like Norway [i.e., white Europeans], whose prime minister he met Wednesday.

Our Twitter-troll-in-chief Trump acknowledged ‘tough’ language but appeared to deny ‘shithole’ remark:

President Trump acknowledged Friday that he used “tough” language during a meeting on efforts toward a bipartisan immigration deal but appeared to deny using the term “shithole” to refer to some countries.

“The language used by me at the DACA meeting was tough, but this was not the language used. What was really tough was the outlandish [bipartisan] proposal made — a big setback for DACA!” Trump wrote on Twitter. (More on this below the fold).

Spokespeople for the White House did not immediately respond to a request for clarification Friday. The White House had not denied Thursday that Trump used the vulgarity, first reported by The Washington Post and later confirmed by numerous other news outlets.

Our Twitter-troll-in-chief is also a pathological liar, which is well documented. President Trump has made more than 2,000 false or misleading claims over 355 days. You can add his latest tweet to this list.

Read more

Past, present and future tribulations

by

When the Gadsden Purchase was completed in 1854, Mexico received $10 million from the United States for the 29,670 square miles of territory, south of Gila River, which the U.S. government added to the New Mexico Territory. At the time, the only military presence in the vast purchase area was the Mexican force stationed at the Tucson presidio. In November 1856, four companies of U.S. dragoons arrived with orders to establish a garrison in the vicinity of Tucson. After scouting the area, they established Fort Buchanan, named for the new president, at the headwaters of Sonoita Creek on the eastern side of the Santa Rita Mountains.

As the troops stationed at Ft. Buchanan chased down outlaws, tried to counter Apache raids and provided protection for the Butterfield stage line, the national political consensus was unraveling due to sectional quarrels over the issues of states’ rights and slavery. Regrettably, President Buchanan and the other national politicians of the day failed to find a peaceful resolution to the sectional crisis. After President Lincoln took office, hostilities erupted in South Carolina in April 1861. As a result, Fort Buchanan was abandoned in July 1861, its troops transferred to places more vital to the war effort. Fortunately for the fragmenting United States, the European powers decided to stay mostly on the sidelines. In America, the Lincoln administration fought a bloody Civil War as slavery and its attendant issues were settled by four years of warfare.

Read more

ERA in Arizona House

Arizona House Dems Drop 2018 ERA Bill

by
ERA in Arizona House
Arizona House representatives dropped the Equal Rights Amendment (ERA) into the hopper on January 11, 2018.

In 2017, the Equal Rights Amendment was introduced in eight states, debated in three, and ratified in one– Nevada. The Arizona Legislature was one of the bodies that debated the ERA. (Watch the video.) I have vowed to introduce the ERA every year until it is ratified by the states. Only two more states are needed. This could be the year the ERA is finally sent back to Congress to become an amendment to the US Constitution.

On Thursday, January 11, 2018, I dropped the ERA– with the help of some of my Democratic sisters. All of the House Democrats signed the bill. I stopped asking Republicans to sign the ERA, when I confirmed that Republican Rep. Michelle Ugenti-Rita also has introduced the ERA this year.  Ugenti-Rita and Rep. Heather Carter were the only two Republicans who voted to hear the ERA in 2017 (rather than shutting down debate, as the Republican leadership wanted to do.)

You’ll remember that in 2017 the Democrats forced the ERA debate by using parliamentary procedures. We did this because Rep. Eddie Farnsworth, chair of the Judiciary Committee, refused to hear it in committee. (Committee chairs often kill bills with this parliamentary procedure.)

In 2018, the ERA is coming in the front door of the Arizona Legislature.

Read more

Deal, No Deal on DACA

by

There have been conflicting reports on a DACA deal all week, with some news organizations saying that a deal looks imminent, and others saying Congress is divided and we are headed for a government shutdown next Friday over DACA.

Reuters is reporting today that 6 US senators say they have reached immigration deal:

A bipartisan group of six U.S. senators said on Thursday they had reached agreement on immigration reform and are now working to build support for the deal in Congress.

“We have been working for four months and have reached an agreement in principle that addresses border security, the diversity visa lottery, chain migration/family reunification, and the Dream Act – the areas outlined by the president,” the so-called Gang of Six said in a statement.

The Washington Post, however, reports White House: No deal yet on immigration:

White House press secretary Sarah Huckabee Sanders told reporters that there is no deal yet on immigration, “However, we still think we can get there.”

Six senators working on immigration issues “have an agreement in principle. We’re shopping it to our colleagues,” Sen. Jeff Flake (R-Ariz.) told reporters on Thursday afternoon.

Sen. Lindsey O. Graham (R-S.C.), another member of the group, added that “we have answered the call” of Trump, who brought a cross-section of Democrats and Republicans together at the White House this week and called on them to reach a deal he can sign.

Read more