GOP Legislative Candidate Marilyn Wiles has an Anti-Tucson Agenda

This is part two of a two-part article on what the Republicans say behind closed doors. Part one is Pima County Republicans Cheer Kelli Ward, who Jeers McSally

Marilyn Wiles
Marilyn Wiles

Speaking at this week’s Pima County Republican Meeting, candidate Marilyn Wiles promised “to do something about Tucson and what’s going on locally.”

“I want to take a real hard at local government overreach. Why don’t we have a commission to look at local governments across the state, particularly here in Pima County, to see what we can do to make sure that our taxpayer dollars go to what best serves us as taxpayers.”

She did not explain what overreach she was talking about. Wiles spoke at a packed meeting on May 15 at the Murphy-Wilmot Library in Tucson, to a crowd of 75 to 100 Republicans. 

This office. No, that office!

At first, Wiles was running for Tucson’s CD2 congressional seat, but she abruptly changed her mind. She said she is now running for the state Legislature in District 10 (the East side of Tucson). “I will be running against Senator David Bradley. We need a very conservative person to get things done and get them right.”

She explained her fiscal policy this way: “I want a pot roast with potatoes, carrots and onions and beans and gravy. They put everything in one big blender and stirred it up, it no longer tastes like pot roast and carrots and potatoes. I want to maintain the integrity of the pot roast, you get money for carrots, we know we’re spending it on carrots. When we get money for potatoes, we’re spending it on potatoes.”

“You want transparency and accountability where our money goes. And not these surprises we seem to keep getting,” she said, without elaborating.

Read more

Democratic Candidates for Tucson’s CD2 Congressional Seat Renew their Demand for Gun Safety

Democratic candidates for Congress in CD2:
Democratic candidates for Congress in CD2: Yahya Yuksel, Billy Kovacs, Ann Kirkpatrick, Mary Matiella, Bruce Wheeler, Barbara Sherry and Matt Heinz.

On the day when a teenage shooter killed 10 and injured 10 at a Texas school, all seven of the CD2 Congressional candidates renewed their demand for gun safety legislation.

The candidate forum took place on Friday, May 18, for the residents at an active-living retirement community in Tucson. The candidates are Yahya Yuksel, Billy Kovacs, Ann Kirkpatrick, Mary Matiella, Bruce Wheeler, Barbara Sherry and Matt Heinz.

Mary Matiella

“My heart is broken over the shooting in Santa Fe, Texas. That is horrible. One more time we are just beyond ourselves with the pain we feel.”

“I have a cousin who was murdered in her home in front of her children. The most vulnerable are the children in schools. Women in the US are 15 times more likely to be killed by a gun than in other developed countries. We have to do something big. All we want is sensible gun legislation. We’re not trying to take on the Second Amendment. We should keep guns out of the hands of domestic abusers. Why would you not do that?”

Ann Kirkpatrick

“Just today my heart was broken one more time because 10 families are not going to have their children home for dinner because of a school shooting today. I was a law clerk for Judge John Roll when he was shot and Gabby was injured. It was something I’ll never, ever get over. Enough is enough.”

“Preventing gun violence has nothing to do with the Second Amendment. It says people in the US have a right to bear arms and to have a well-regulated militia. What we have is a completely unregulated system, that we need to have regulated to keep our children and victims of domestic violence safe, and to keep terrorists from getting guns in our country.”

Read more

Political Calendar: Week of May 20, 2018

The Political Calendar is posted on Sundays. Please send us notice of your political events prior to the Sunday before your event (7 days would be most helpful). See the calendar icon in the right-hand column of the blog page for easy access to the calendar.

Send notices of your events to blogforarizona@gmail.com.

Note: For Event Notices and Fliers, click on the “Calendar” button in the menu options above.

Progressive_values

Political Calendar for the Week of May 20, 2018:

Monday, May 21, Noon: Democrats of Greater Tucson luncheon, Dragon’s View Restaurant (400 N. Bonita, South of St. Mary’s Road between the Freeway and Grande Avenue, turn South at Furr’s Cafeteria). New price: buffet lunch is $10.00 cash, $12 credit; just a drink is $3.50. Featured speaker is Kiana Sears, candidate for Arizona Corporation Commission. Next Week: No DGT in observance of Memorial Day. Following Week: Catherine Ripley, candidate for LD 10 house.

Read more

The anatomy of a right-wing conspiracy theory, debunked

The conservative media entertainment complex is a mixture of wild conspiracy theories and right-wing propaganda. Its goal is to create alternative facts and to distract from the known truth, in creating a post-truth society in which facts do not matter. In a just world, this would be considered a crime against humanity.

This week the Rupert Murdoch owned Wall Street Journal’s Kimberley Strassel and National Review’s Andrew McCarthy opined that a secret “source” of the FBI and CIA was used against the Trump campaign. When he appeared on Rupert Murdoch owned FAUX News aka Trump TV’s Fox and Friends, McCarthy went further: “There’s probably no doubt that they [FBI] had at least one confidential informant in the campaign.”

As we all have sadly come to learn, from Fox and Friends lips to the ears of the Twitter-troll-in-chief Donald Trump: a conspiracy theory is born. Trump marks Mueller anniversary by claiming FBI ‘spied’ on his campaign.

Screen Shot 2018-05-19 at 8.58.40 AM

Read more