Day: August 27, 2018

Judge Denies APS-Backed Challenge To Clean Energy Signatures; On To The Supreme Court (READ Opinion)

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Maricopa County Superior Court Judge Daniel Kiley today denied an effort by an APS-backed effort – along with the Chamber of Commerce and some lawmakers – to knock the Clean Energy initiative off of the November ballot. An APS representative has already indicated that an appeal to the Arizona Supreme Court is coming.

(The 33 page ruling is published in full below.)

After a five-day trial, Judge Kiley found that most of the challenges by Arizonans for Affordable Energy were not proven and/or appropriate. The group had claimed that only 22% of the submitted signatures should be considered valid, which would have left Clean Energy for a Healthy Arizona considerably short of the 225k signature threshold.

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Strike Fast Food

The Arithmetic of the CEO-Worker Pay Divide

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[Cross-posted from Inequality.org]

Sometimes percentages alone don’t do justice to the injustice of corporate compensation.

The Economic Policy Institute reported earlier this month that the average CEO of the 350 largest firms in the U.S. pocketed $18.9 million in 2017, a 17.6 percent pay increase over 2016.

At the same time, typical worker compensation remained flat, rising merely 0.3 percent.

If you do some quick math, dividing 17.6 percent by 0.3 percent, you might conclude that CEO pay in 2017 increased about 60 times faster than worker pay.

But if you take a moment and do some more careful calculations, that CEO-worker pay gap will soar incredibly higher — to a CEO pay boost over 15,000 times the pay hike for workers.

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LWVGT’s Guide to Voting in Pima County

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Tomorrow is the Arizona Primary 2018 , with polls open 6 a.m. to 7 p.m.  Many have already voted early, being on the PEVL (Permanent Early Voting List).  If you don’t vote tomorrow, please mark your calendar for the November 6, 2018 General Election.  Up for re-election this year are the Arizona state officers (Governor … Read more

Message from the Tsarina of Public Instruction to her staff: Vote for me

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Superintendent of Public Instruction Diane Douglas

This has been a difficult few months for Arizona Superintendent Diane Douglas.

She has four primary opponents from her own party that think she is unfit for a second term.

She and her “internal reviewers” ignited controversy when they revised the proposed new Science Standards by taking out most if not all references to evolution, the Big Bang Theory, and climate change.

She sparked condemnation from educators by threatening “McCarthyite” reprisals against striking instructors from the Red For Ed Movement.

Now one of her surrogates, treating the Superintendent as if she had a Divine Right to her office, is trying to influence Department of Education staffers on which Superintendent candidate to vote for.

On Friday, one of the commissars for the Superintendent thought it was only right to send an email to Department of Education staff urging them to remember to vote for Diane Douglas, “the Wonder Woman of Education” in the primaries on Tuesday.

When faced with the latest “miscalculation,” Douglas had the email pulled, sent an apologetic email to the Department staff, and pledged that the person who originated the first email would be terminated.

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A caretaker, not a replacement for Sen. John McCain’s seat

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Our egomaniacal narcissist Twitter-troll-in-chief offered condolences on Twitter to Sen. John McCain’s family, but this small and petty man rejected plans for a White House statement praising McCain: President Trump nixed issuing a statement that praised the heroism and life of Sen. John McCain, telling senior aides he preferred to issue a tweet before posting one Saturday night that did not include any kind words for the late Arizona Republican.

U.S. flags at the White House returned to full staff on Monday morning as the nation continued to mourn the death of Sen. John McCain (R-Ariz.). Flags at White House return to full staff after brief tribute to McCain.

The malignant cancer of “Trumpism” is self-evident in the GOP primary here in Arizona. In most of the country, McCain is being lauded as a hero. On Arizona’s GOP campaign trail, he’s a pariah.

The Arizona Republican Party that nurtured McCain and his retiring Senate colleague Jeff Flake, whose seat those candidates are seeking, has been overrun by the party of Donald Trump. For Republican candidates now, the imperative is to embrace the president lest they lose his voters — and many of those voters share Trump’s antipathy to McCain.

Some analysts expect McCain’s death will only hasten the state’s political transformation.

[T]here will be another opportunity to demonstrate the GOP shift.

Arizona Gov. Doug Ducey will appoint a replacement to fill McCain’s seat until 2020, when a special election will determine the occupant until 2022, when McCain’s term would have ended.

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