Year: 2018

I-11? NIMBY!

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Picture Rocks (a rural, unincorporated community west of Marana) was the place to be this past Tuesday night when representatives from the Arizona Department of Transportation (ADOT) and the Federal Highway Administration (FHWA) came to a Citizens for Picture Rocks (C4PR) meeting to brief residents about the proposed I-11 highway. I counted about 120 people overflowing the community center and although people were mostly polite, it was obvious feelings run raw on this subject.img_2037.jpg

I-11, is a new north-south Interstate Highway envisioned to someday run from Mexico to Canada. In Arizona, the project is at the Tier 1 Environmental Impact Study (EIS) stage to identify a Selected Corridor Alternative on a 280-mile long corridor between Nogales and Wickenburg. This EIS was authorized by the State Transportation Board in December 2014 and was slated to run for three years at a cost of $15 million to determine the “preferred alternative” route.

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Russian asset Donald Trump blocks congressional attempts to secure the 2018 midterm election from cyber attacks

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The New York Times reported earlier this week that Facing New Russian Hacking, Senators Signal They Are Ready to Act:

Faced with new evidence that Russian hackers are targeting conservative American research groups and the Senate’s own web pages, key lawmakers from both parties signaled on Tuesday that they were ready to move forward with punishing new sanctions legislation capable of crippling the Russian economy.

And in three separate hearings on Capitol Hill, senators prodded the Trump administration to do more with its existing authorities to deter Russia and protect the United States’ political infrastructure.

But administration officials argued that the current sanctions regime provided all the authority they needed, and they dismissed concerns that President Trump’s equivocation on questions of Russian interference had harmed their efforts.

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Forces of ‘dark money’ block Outlaw Dirty Money initiative from the ballot, appeal filed

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Our corporate overlords got their lickspittle servants in the GOP to enact a requirement in 2017 that all efforts by voters to enact their own laws by citizen initiative must be in “strict compliance” with each and every election statute, reversing more than 70 years of the courts applying the “substantial compliance” doctrine.

Our corporate overlords got their lickspittle servants in the GOP to enact a 2014 law that requires judges to toss signatures from circulators who don’t show up in court in response to a subpoena. Failure to show up in court in response to the subpoena means a judge must invalidate all the signatures collected by that individual – even if those signatures are valid.

These two provisions of law designed to undermine your constitutional right to enact laws through citizen initiatives were successfully used by the forces of “dark money” to prevent the Outlaw Dirty Money initiative from qualifying for the ballot. An appeal has been filed.

The Arizona Capitol Times reports, Court ruling, lack of signatures sink ‘dark money’ ballot measure:

A new court decision Thursday has left backers of a ban on “dark money” even further from their goal of getting the measure on the ballot.

In an extensive ruling, Maricopa County Superior Court Judge Teresa Sanders rejected arguments by attorney Kim Demarchi that Secretary of State Michele Reagan had improperly and illegally disqualified some petitions submitted in July. Sanders said Reagan acted within what the law requires when petitions do not conform with legal requirements, i.e., strict compliance.

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Lea Márquez Peterson tries to separate herself from Donald Trump – sorry, but no (Updated)

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Lea Márquez-Peterson, President/CEO of the Tucson Hispanic Chamber of Commerce, is a regular fixture on Republican campaigns in Arizona, frequently serving as a co-chair on campaigns.

She is now running in her own right for Congress in CD 2.

In 2016, for the first time in the organization’s 38-year history, the US Hispanic Chamber of Commerce endorsed a presidential candidate, Hillary Clinton. In a first, the US Hispanic Chamber of Commerce endorses Hillary Clinton.

The Tucson Hispanic Chamber of Commerce did not endorse a presidential candidate, but the group’s president and CEO said she understood why the national group would do so. US Hispanic Chamber Backs Clinton; Tucsonan Understands:

“We’re in an interesting position because as business owners and business leaders, which the majority of our 1,800 members are, you tend to want to look to a government that is a little more limited, it’s not adding regulations, it’s concerned for business taxation, and that is certainly top of mind for us,” said Lea Marquez-Peterson.

On the other hand, she said she understands social issues can be equally important.

“I think anyone would realize that some of the comments that have been very divisive that Donald Trump has made have resonated in a negative way with the Hispanic community,” she said.

Lea Márquez Peterson is still trying to separate herself from Donald Trump in a recent interview in Politico, ‘Separate the man from the policy’: How one Republican woman runs for Congress in the Trump age:

With Donald Trump as president, it’s not easy running for Congress as a Republican woman this year.

For Lea Márquez Peterson, who’s a GOP primary contender in Arizona’s 2nd Congressional District, that means having to develop a strategy that both embraces the president’s policies and distances herself from him personally.

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Morally bankrupt GOP opts for another racist ‘Willie Horton’ style campaign in 2018

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While most of America on Tuesday was following news of Donald Trump’s former campaign manager being convicted by a jury on eight counts (and it would have been all 18 counts but for one rogue juror, Lone holdout on Manafort jury blocked conviction on all counts, juror says), and Trump’s former personal lawyer and consigliere (fixer) Michael Cohen pleading guilty to eight counts and implicating Donald Trump in two counts of campaign finance violations involving hush money payments to Stormy Daniels and Karen McDougal, the alternate universe of FAUX News aka Trump TV was reporting that authorities in Iowa filed charges against an undocumented immigrant in connection with a recovered body believed to be that of 20-year-old University of Iowa student Mollie Tibbetts, who disappeared from her home a month ago. Republicans want to make Mollie Tibbetts a household name:

Former Speaker Newt Gingrich emailed Axios‘ Mike Allen to make sure that we’d be covering this story, which Fox News led with on air and online Tuesday evening, ahead of the Cohen-Manafort news. His take: “If Mollie Tibbetts is a household name by October, Democrats will be in deep trouble. If we can be blocked by Manafort-Cohen, etc., then GOP could lose [the House] badly.”

Newt Gingrich, the spawn of Satan, is channeling GOP ratfucker Lee Atwater and the infamous Willie Horton campaign ad by George H.W. Bush in 1988.

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