April 14 Meet & Greet with January Contreras for Arizona Attorney General

Saturday, April 14, 10:00 a.m.:   Precinct 167 Meet & Greet with Special Guest January Contreras, candidate for Arizona Attorney General.” All are invited to join us at the home of Rebecca Cramer at 2016 E. Water Street, Tucson, AZ  85719, to hear from  January.  Precinct 167 is located in central Tucson between Campbell Ave. and Tucson Blvd. near Grant … Read more

My letter to the City Council urging them to fight against TEP’s gas-fired generators

I want to thank everyone who took a stand against TEP’s proposed RICE gas-fired generators. We are awaiting responses from the Pima Department of Environmental Quality regarding our comments. I’m afraid this is just the beginning….

Here is my e-mail to Mayor Rothschild and the Tucson City Council members detailing our efforts and asking for them to join the good fight. I hope this inspires you to write a letter to your council member (maybe not so long…lol)

Find your City Council Member here.

Find which ward you are in here.

Dear City Council Member_____,

The city council committed to support the Paris Climate Agreement and take steps to combat climate change. But it will take a more proactive approach than adding some solar panels on city property or installing a few water recharge basins.

With some strong leadership, Tucson could become a model for sustainable practices. An oasis in the desert. A destination for ecological tourism. But none of this will be possible if we continue to accelerate climate change by allowing TEP to install 10 gas-fired RICE generators, encouraging our car culture by widening roads, and approving perpetual development (beyond what our annual rains can sustain.)

First things first. As you know, TEP is proposing modernizing the Sundt Generating Station by replacing two 1950’s era steam units with ten natural gas fired combustion engines. The purpose of the new generators is to ramp up more quickly and to balance the variability associated with solar and wind energy generation. TEP claims that these units are part of a larger goal for 30% renewable energy by 2030. But gas fired engines should not be equated with clean, renewable power from wind and solar. The RICE units are fossil-fuel based generating units that would create significant greenhouse gas emissions. According to the Pima County Department of Environmental Quality, the project expects to cause an increase in emissions of carbon monoxide, particulate matter (fine particles PM2.5 and coarse particles PM10) and volatile organic compounds.

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Professors Lay Bare Koch Scheme to Corrupt Arizona Universities

150 people attended "Dark Money, Charles Koch, and the UA Freedom Center" at the University of Arizona.
150 people attended “Dark Money, Charles Koch, and the UA Freedom Center” at the University of Arizona.

Professors and activists laid bare the Koch Brothers’ plot to corrupt Arizona’s universities to advance their anti-worker, anti-consumer and anti-public school agenda. 150 people attended “Dark Money, Charles Koch, and the UA Freedom Center” at the Tucson UA campus.

The speakers called on University President Robert C. Robbins to put the so-called “Freedom Center” under rigorous scrutiny, and they urged citizens to call and write Koch-funded Gov. Ducey to end the unique $2.5 million budget line-items especially for the Freedom Center.

Freedom Center DonorsThey are members of Kochs Off Campus! — a nonpartisan group of Tucson residents, UA faculty and students concerned about the undue influence of right-wing money on public education.

Donors to the Freedom Center are a whos-who of right-wing advocates, including the Charles G. Koch Foundation, the Templeton Foundation, Randy and Ken Kendrick, the Thomas W. Smith Foundation and even local car dealer Jim Click, according to Douglas Weiner, Professor of History.

“There has been a lack of transparency in the operation of the Freedom Center,” Weiner said, pointing out secret donor agreements, undisclosed donors and surreptitious planting of Koch textbooks in Tucson high schools.

“One of the biggest issues of the academic neutrality of the Freedom Center is that Director David Schmidtz has a long association with libertarian politics,” Weiner said.

See Koch Brothers Deeply Infect the U of A and Tucson Schools.

Koch Structure for “Social Change”

The Koch brothers political agenda is to promote private schools, defund public education, eliminate consumer and environmental protections, minimize employee rights, and abolish taxes on their businesses.

Samantha Parsons, Campaign Organizer of UnKoch My Campus, said 419 campuses have taken funding from the Kochs. “It is highly inappropriate for a donor to have this control over a university. They are holding the universities hostage,” she said.

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Governor Ducey’s so-called school safety plan runs into opposition from both Democrats and Republicans

The Arizona Capitol Times obtained a rough draft of Governor Ducey’s so-called “school safety plan,” his knee-jerk reaction to the mass shooting in Parkland, Florida that inspired a mass student protest movement, resulting in the Florida legislature actually passing new restrictions on firearms for the first time in decades. Legislature poised to work on Ducey school safety plan:

The legislation includes provisions to take guns away from those deemed a danger to themselves or others [deemed a Severe Threat Order of Protection, or STOP order], mandatory active shooter training for school resource officers, creation of a school safety center within the Arizona Counter Terrorism Information Center and mental health first-aid training for public school students across the state.

Florida is known as the “gunshine state,” a laboratory for the N.R.A., just like Arizona. Governor Ducey’s plan does not even go as far as the minimalist new laws recently enacted in Florida, i.e., raising the minimum age to purchase a firearm to 21 and extending the waiting period to three days. Within hours after Republican Florida Governor Rick Scott signed the legislation, the merchants of death at the N.R.A. filed a lawsuit in Federal District Court to block the legislation.

Nor is Governor Ducey nearly as bold as Republican Governor Phil Scott of Vermont, who said he will sign three bills passed by the Vermont state legislature:

S.221, known as a “Red Flag bill,” which permits law enforcement to seize guns from a person deemed an “extreme risk” to themselves or others. [Similar to Ducey’s Severe Threat Order of Protection, or STOP order].

H.422, known as “the domestic violence bill,” which sets in place a process for police to confiscate firearms from people cited or arrested on domestic violence charges.

S.55, a bill that expands background checks, bans bump stocks, raises the age to buy a gun to 21 and sets limits on the size of magazines – 15 rounds for handguns and 10 for shotguns.

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