Year: 2019

Get me Roger Stone! (Updated)

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I have wanted to see long-time GOP ratfucker Roger Stone in prison since his Watergate days. That a creature so vile and devoid of any human decency has been allowed to practice his dark arts freely for so long with impunity is a blot on the American justice system.

But my faith has been restored this morning! Roger Stone Arrested in Mueller Investigation Into Trump Campaign:

Roger J. Stone Jr., a longtime informal adviser to President Trump, was charged as part of the special counsel investigation over his communications with WikiLeaks, the organization behind the release of thousands of stolen Democratic emails during the 2016 campaign, in an indictment unsealed Friday.

Mr. Stone was charged with seven counts, including obstruction of an official proceeding, making false statements and witness tampering, according to the special counsel’s office.

Read the Stone Indictment (.pdf).

Before dawn on Friday, F.B.I. agents arrested Mr. Stone at his home in Fort Lauderdale, Fla., and he was expected to appear in a federal courthouse there later in the morning.

The indictment is the first in months by the special counsel, Robert S. Mueller III, who is investigating Russia’s interference in the 2016 election and possible coordination with Trump campaign associates.

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Catherine Ripley is New Executive Director of the Pima Democrats

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Catherine Ripley, Executive Director of the Pima County Democratic Party
Catherine Ripley, Executive Director of the Pima County Democratic Party

Catherine Ripley, a former Democratic candidate for state House in Tucson’s LD10, has been named as the new executive director of the Pima Democratic Party, adding to a sweep of new voices in the party. She starts work on Friday, Jan. 25.

Ripley will replace Heath Butrum, who will stay on the job till Jan. 31. New county chairwoman Alison Jones and members of the executive committee interviewed three candidates before selecting Ripley.

The hiring decision solidifies Jones’ change in course for the county party and the goal to incorporate some 65 community activist organizations that sprouted up in a vacuum created by the county party.

Ripley’s presence is expected to heal the disunity in the party caused by holdover supporters of Jo Holt, who was defeated as party chair by a vote of precinct committeemen on Dec. 15.

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Politico Updates Rural Arizona Transit Woes Due To Government Shutdown – “We’re Out of Business”

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Politico has updated an earlier Arizona Republic story about effects of an ongoing federal government shutdown threatening rural Arizona transit service. In fact, Yavapai Regional Transit could be “out of business.” The shutdown is now into its second month, and today’s votes in the Senate mean that there is no solution currently in sight. Yavapai Regional Transit Board Chairman Ron … Read more

Deal, no deal on federal government shutdown

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In December, the Senate approved unanimously by voice vote a spending bill that had been approved by party leadership to which President Trump had agreed.

But then racist polemicists Rush Limbaugh and Ann Coulter told the president that he was done with his white nationalist racist base if he did not build the “big beautiful wall” on the Mexico border that Mexico was going to pay for, as he had promised his gullible MAGA supporters. Trump then reneged on the deal he had agreed to with his party leadership.

House Speaker Paul Ryan dutifully substituted a bill which contained $5 billion dollars for a border wall, a round number which Trump simply pulled out of his ass, which the lame-duck losers of the Republican caucus who had just been tossed out of office by the largest Democratic landslide since the post-Watergate 1974 election voted for the bill on their way out the door. Good riddance.

The new Democratic majority Congress that took office in January passed the Senate bill to which President Trump had previously agreed (before reneging on his deal), and sent it back to the Senate where it should have been a no-brainer to pass (it already passed the Senate unanimously).

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Steve Benson is an Asset to the Arizona Republic; How can Gannett lay him off?

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  The war on journalism by conservative corporate interests continued yesterday. The Gannett Company, like Sinclair in other media outlets, is apparently attempting to steer the bias of journalistic coverage towards a conservative orientation. The latest example is Gannett’s January 23, 2019 decision to lay off 1993 Pulitzer Prize-Winning Editorial Cartoonist Steve Benson. Working at the … Read more