Year: 2019

“Migrant Justice Now” panel discussion

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“Join us at the gallery for a panel discussion co-hosted with the ACLU of Arizona at 5:30pm, January 24, 2019, at Etherton Gallery, 135 S. 6th Ave. (south of Broadway Blvd) in Tucson. Moderated by Nancy Montoya of Arizona Public Media the panel features three attorneys — Billy Peard, ACLU Attorney; Erendire Castillo, Castillo Law; … Read more

Trump’s ‘compromise’ is a bait-and-switch sham

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Compromise is impossible with someone incapable of acting in good faith, who repeatedly lies and reneges on agreements, never intending to follow through on any agreement. It’s like nailing jello to the wall.

President Trump and Republican leaders are engaged in a hostage taking demanding ransom to release the hostages: $5.7 billion for Trump’s “big beautiful wall” on the Mexico border in exchange for ending the government shutdown.

Make no mistake, extortion and hostage taking are criminal acts, not mere policy disputes. It is criminal misconduct that cannot be rewarded (which Democrats have regrettably done in the past in order to end GOP shutdowns of the government) because it only encourages further criminal misconduct.  There is a federal debt ceiling extension pending in March, and the federal budget due at the end of the fiscal year on September 30. Trump and Republicans will do this again.

Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer, D-N.Y., argued Tuesday that President Trump made a “bad faith” offer to end the shutdown over the weekend, and is still holding federal workers hostage to his border wall demand. Schumer: Trump using ‘hostage tactics’ in shutdown talks:

“It was not a good faith proposal. It was not intended to end the shutdown,” Schumer said on the Senate floor, adding that it’s only intent was to “shake things up” in negotiations. “The president’s proposal is one-sided, harshly-partisan and was made in bad faith.”

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BfAZ Image Calendar not functioning well

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Hi loyal BfAZ readers, I guess you’ve been wondering “Where in the World is Carolyn Classen?”, since the image Calendar hasn’t added any new events since late December 2018.  Around that time Word Press (our system) updated automatically and somehow blocked/disabled the Calendar link.  I have not been able to add any new events, can … Read more

Arizona Reps. Gosar, Biggs Vote Against “NATO Support Act”

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The U.S. House of Representatives voted tonight 357-22 to approve the bipartisan “NATO Support Act”. Arizona Reps. Paul Gosar (R-CD4) and Andy Biggs (R-CD5) were among the 22 Republicans to vote no. (149 voted “aye”.) Although the text is not yet available on Congress’ website, it was introduced last week by 5 Republicans and 5 Democrats on the House … Read more

The case to begin hearings to determine whether impeachment is warranted

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The Constitution allows impeachment of the president for abuse of the authority of his office, and also for obtaining his office by corrupt means.

Cass Sunstein provided the history behind the impeachment clause in an opinion piece last year:

[The impeachment clause] says that a president may be removed only for “Treason, Bribery, or other high Crimes and Misdemeanors.” The reference to treason and bribery, together with the word “other,” suggests that the president must have violated the law — and that the violation must be quite egregious (“high Crimes”).

But the debates at the Constitutional Convention offer a radically different perspective. An early draft of the founding document said that the president could be impeached for “malpractice, or neglect of duty.” That draft provoked an extended debate, featuring three distinct positions.

An extreme view, attracting little support, was close to [President Gerald] Ford’s: The legislature should be able to remove the president at its pleasure. An equally extreme view, obtaining considerable support, was that the president should not be impeachable at all. The third position, which carried the day, was that the president should be impeachable, but only for a narrow category of egregious abuses.

Promoting that compromise in 1787, George Mason argued that the Constitution must allow a response if the president obtained office by corrupting his electors. That argument led other delegates to agree that impeachment might be permitted in situations of “corruption & some few other offences.”

James Madison concurred, pointing to cases in which a president “might betray his trust to foreign powers.” Gouverneur Morris added that the president “may be bribed by a greater interest to betray his trust; and no one would say that we ought to expose ourselves to the danger of seeing the first Magistrate in foreign pay without being able to guard against it by displacing him.”

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