(Updated) Legislatively-referred constitutional amendments on the 2012 ballot
May 21, 2012
Posted by AzBlueMeanie:
I need to update and correct an earlier post Legislatively-referred constitutional amendments on the 2012 ballot, now that Secretary of State Ken Bennett has finally got around to posting the information on his web site in between making calls to Hawaii regarding President Obama's birth certificate. Ballot Measures.
Prop. 114 – The Crime Victim Protection From Liability For Damages Amendment, SCR 1020 (2011) (PDF)
The measure would amend Aticle II, section 31 and Article XVII, section 6 of the Arizona Constitution.
The measure would prohibit crime victims from being subject to a claim for damages for causing harm to a person if that person is killed or injured when engaging in, or fleeing after, a felony crime.
Prop. 115 – The Judicial Department Amendment, SCR 1001 (2011) (PDF)
The measure would amend Article VI, sections 4, 12, 20, 36, 37, 39, 41, and 42 of the Arizona Constituion.
The measure would modify the Appellate and Trial Court Commissions. If it passes, specifically the measure would increase the terms of judges from six to eight years and the retirement age from 75 to 70. In addition to these changes, the State Bar of Arizona will be allowed to appoint only one of five attorneys to a judicial nominating commission. Currently, the governor appoints five attorneys that are vetted by the bar association.
This arises out of GOP displeasure with the Appellate Court Commission selection of the five members of the Arizona Independent Redistricting Commission in 2011.
CD 8 Veterans Issues Forum in Sierra Vista
May 21, 2012
Posted by AzBlueMeanie: The Sierra Vista Herald provided thorough reporting on the veterans Issues forum this past Saturday in Sierra Vista. Unfortunately, the Herald put it behind a "premium member" wall. While I do have the full report, there is no way for me to summarize this lengthy report on the candidates' responses to some nine questions. Suprisingly, the … Read more
Dr. Richard Carmona op/ed on student loan dispute in Congress
May 21, 2012
Posted by AzBlueMeanie:
Dr. Richard Carmona's op-ed in the Ahwatukee Foothills News last week. Carmona: Hiking student loans would limit opportunity:
Access to higher education is the great societal equalizer and what ultimately makes the American Dream possible. It’s what gives every parent hope. And for kids who grew up poor like me, it’s what allows us to achieve success.
My grandmother always told me to get an education because it would set me free.
She was right, even if I didn’t immediately follow her advice. Like my friends and siblings, I dropped out of high school and ran the streets before joining the U.S. Army.
I served in Vietnam, and returned home a combat-decorated veteran. Despite earning my GED in the Army in order to qualify for Special Forces, when I returned home I still couldn’t get into college.
It was an open enrollment program for veterans at Bronx Community College that opened the door for me. It was an opportunity that changed my life. In one generation, I went from being a homeless kid on the streets to becoming the 17th Surgeon General of the United States.
Recent coverage of Dr. Richard Carmona senate campaign
May 21, 2012
Posted by AzBlueMeanie:
Going through my inbox of things to catch up on. . . There is an exceptional profile piece of Dr. Richard Carmona, candidate for the U.S. Senate, by Terry Greene Sterling at The Daily Beast. Dr. Richard Carmona Faces a Tough Race as the Democratic Candidate for Senate in Arizona. (The caption is based upon the premise that this is a Republican-leaning state and Rep. Jeff Flake has a substantial campaign war chest). The caption detracts from what is an otherwise must-read piece.
Dr. Carmona was also a guest on former Michigan Governor Jennifer Granholm's show on Current TV, "The War Room." Yeah, I don't get that cable channel either. Posting the video here will probably get more views than Current TV. Carmona calls for statesmanship in politics: 'I've always been a straight shooter' – The War Room with Jennifer Granholm:
Dr. Richard Carmona, Democratic candidate for senator in Az., calls for change and action. Carmona says Washington is “a toxic, hyperpartisan environment.” The fix? “We need to return civility to governance,” Carmona says. “It’s reprehensible that health issues are being politicized,” Carmona tells Jennifer Granholm. Women’s health issues are health issues, not women’s issues, he says. Most of all, he says people must be able to have confidence in their government. “We can’t run a democracy when 90% of people don’t trust the government.”
Video below the fold. (Video may run slower than the audio in some browsers).
Pima Republican Chair defends Kelly’s positions on issues Kelly pretends not to have a position on
May 21, 2012
by
by David Safier On KUAT's Political Roundtable, Pima Democratic Chair Jeff Rogers sparred with Pima Republican Chair Carolyn Cox, mainly over the Barber-Kelly race. Carolyn Cox possessed a laudable quality Kelly had in spades in 2010 and is running away from in 2012 — the courage of her convictions. She defended eliminating the minimum wage, … Read more
Jesse Kelly Shoots Mouth Off at Marana Chamber of Commerce
May 21, 2012
By Michael Bryan
Jesse Kelly is trying to run from his past radical statements regarding eliminating and privatizing Social Security and Medicare, eliminating the minimum wage, slashing taxes on the wealthiest, and eliminating vital oversight of the free market to ensure the public is protected.
Well, he's still a radical, and it comes out when he's not appearing in carefully crafted campaign ad. In the video after the fold, we see Kelly addressing his base at the Marana Chamber of Commerce, where he is more comfortable showing his true colors, even though he knows that he is being filmed by Democrats (as he acknowledges at the end of the video). He just can't help himself. He's a true believer, a simple (some might say simplistic) man, and a straight talker. Those can be admirable qualities, but in a Member of Congress, convictions as radical and unrealistic as Mr. Kelly's are just downright dangerous to the public welfare.
On minimum wage:
When asked for his position, he scoffs, and uses an absurd scenario to denigrate the minimum wage. He hypothesizes that we could set it at $150 a hour, and that would just result in increased prices. Apparently, he is unable to discriminate between a small measure of fairness, and an absurdity.
Clearly, he thinks the minimum wage should not exist, and that free market forces alone should set all wages. He does not understand that the purpose of the minimum wage is not a naive attempt to vote ourselves wealth, it is to ensure that a person who works for a living does not have to live in abject poverty, and that even unskilled workers have enough money to afford the neccessities of life and a measure of dignity.
We accept as a society a slight increase in labor price imputs in order to achieve that meagre measure of economic equity. Americans overwhelmingly support the minimum wage, and even want to see it higher. But Kelly just can't understand that at all.
Energy resources:
"We are sitting on top of a mountain of money in this country."
Kelly continues to claim that the solution for our economic recovery is energy exploitation. He still ignores the fact that Arizona doesn't have any significant oil, natural gas, or coal resources and won't benefit from Kelly's dream of a Russian-style natural resource led boom. As in Russia, the primary beneficiaries of Kelly's dream are the oligarchs who have the wealth and political clout to exploit those resources, not the broad American public.
Kelly asserts he's a strong supporter of the Keystone XL Pipeline and he just can't imagine any reason to delay it. He says, "it's anti-the-American-people to stand against the pipeline…" He doesn't express any concern about the fact that we have no idea the environmental impact of a spill, nor any idea of how to clean up such a spill.
And, of course, his support for the pipline won't do a damned thing for Arizona: there are no direct economic benefits or jobs created in Arizona by this boondoggle. Kelly cites the price of gas as a reason to approve the pipeline, but TransCanada's own application, and indpendent analysis both indicate that the effect of the pipeline will be to strengthen price leverage for Canadian crude, increasing prices for refined products in the U.S. That result may seem counter-intuitive, but the pipeline moves gas production using tar sands oil to a deepwater port for world export, thus reducing local oversupply of gasoline products in the U.S and thus raising the local price. You know, supply and demand? That central idea of market economies seems beyond the intellectual scope of Mr. Kelly. Just who is Kelly really seeking to represent in supporting the pipeline: the people of Arizona, or the energy lobby and Canadian oil?
Oh, and the fact that his family business is a pipeline contractor wouldn't have anything to do with his position, would it? Surely, Mr. Kelly wouldn't be so crass as to support a dangerous environmental boondoggle that would raise gas prices just because it might profit his daddy's company in some way?
Job creation:
Kelly claims that Arizona is a number one location nationally for computer chip fabricators because of the dry air and geological stability. We do have those features. But Jesse then claims that the reason those jobs aren't in Tucson is "We told them they're not welcome. We told them we don't want them in Pima County, we don't want them in Cochise County. And that's just flat wrong." Yes, what you just said is just flat wrong, Jesse. Intel has long ties to Chandler, and Tucson was never seriously considered by Intel.
Kelly exclaims, "We should be booming down here. We should be Scottdale. We could be Scottsdale." I don't know about you, but I don't want to live in Scottdale, Jesse. If you like Scottsdale so much, move up there and run for office there. BTW, Jesse, Intel's plants are in Chandler, not Scottsdale. Disturbing that he doesn't even know that.
Environmental protection:
"I will be attempting to defund the EPA and to strip them of their regulatory power."
Enough said. It's clear that Kelly has no concern whatever about protecting the health of citizens and the quality of our environment. Kelly is stuck in the mode of framing every protection of our environment as anti-business.
Kelly blames the EPA's regulation of coal plants' carbon emissions for there being no new coal energy plants being built in the U.S. He does not seem to grasp that plummeting natural gas prices due to domestic fracking has made them largely price non-competitive, in any case.
It goes without saying, perhaps, that Kelly is an anthropogenic climate change denier. So, to him, the idea of regulating carbon emssions to avoid catastrophic costs of climate change just doesn't make any sense.
It's very telling of Kelly's view of economic development that he would like us to be more like China, where the environment is not protected from pollution, and the people are suffering terribly as a result.
Kelly claimed:
"Everthing is made in China because we chased all that industry out. Sadly, in many ways, right now… communist China is more elightened in business than the free United States of America."
We chased business out of America and into China? If you mean incentivized companies to move labor costs to low-wage Chinese factories with our tax code, your party did that thing and is blocking President Obama from undoing it, Mr. Kelly.
Multi-national companies have no loyalty; they go where they can maximize profit and externalize as many costs as possible. Part of that process of externalizing costs is not having to pay to prevent or remedy environmental pollution. Kelly's comments seem to indicate that he wants to kill the EPA to make it easier for companies to pollute America's environment like they do China's. That is insane and radical.
Tax Rates:
Mr. Kelly also claimed:
"We have the highest corporate tax rate in the world."
Problem is, that's just not true. The marginal combined effective corporate income tax rate (what a company actually pays doing business in a country, combining all taxes at the national and sub-national levels and taking into consideration deductions and credits) in America is about average for OECD countries, and significantly lower than many other advanced industrial nations.
Of course, such nuance is really beyond an ideologue like Kelly. He thinks the proper corporate income tax rate is zero, so, of course, he thinks it's too high, regardless of what it actually might be.
Of course, Mr. Kelly thinks that real people should pay taxes, even if corporations should not. He thinks that every person should pay the same rate, regardless of income. He says with almost unseemly enthusiasm:
"I love the flat tax… Every American should pay same small percentage of income to the federal government."
Really, even if they make very little? Yep. Even if they make billions? Yep. Kelly has completely abandoned the idea of progressivity in taxes: from those who benefit the most from our societies' services, more is required. He considers that "demonizing wealth".
Kelly's philosophy is "Keep what you earned, you earned it, and pass it on to the next generation." Never mind that nobody earns a fortune alone; the society around a capitalist allows and enables that accumulation of wealth through services to the individual and creation of the business environment.
Kelly's comment about passing it to the next generation would indicate that he doesn't favor an estate tax, either. No surprise that Kelly is in favor of such unearned wealth, that's how he makes his living after all.
Kelly reminds me of a teenage boy who is frantically trying to deny his dependence on his parents while worshipping at an altar dedicated to Ayn Rand, even as he lives in his parents' basement. Kelly works for his dad's constuction company, which gets up to 90% of it's business from government contracts. I'm sure that his position at the company was earned solely on merit, and has nothing to do with his position as scion of the family…
Let's get real: Kelly has never been exposed to the "free market" he worships so assiduously. His whole poltical persona is a smirking, swaggering, cock-sure denial of any collective responsibility or accountablity. He's all about getting the "nanny state" out of our lives, even as he nurses at that nanny's tit like an overgrown man-child. A recent article by Sara Robinson, "How the Ayn Rand-Loving Right Is Like a Bunch of Teen Boys Gone Crazy", perfectly embodies the childish political phenomenon that is the modern GOP right wing and, especially, the person of Jesse Kelly.
Watch the video after the click (Hat tip to AZ08RawFootage)…
Arizona Daily Star/Tucson Jewish Community Center CD 8 Debate on Wednesday
May 21, 2012
Posted by AzBlueMeanie: The Arizona Daily Star has provided more information about the CD 8 Debate it is cosponsoring on Wednesday, May 23 at 7:00 p.m. at the Tucson Jewish Community Center (JCC), 3800 E. River Road. The JCC seats in excess of 500 people. Seating is first come, first served. People who want to … Read more
The banksters of Wall Street own Willard ‘Mittens’ Romney
May 21, 2012
Posted by AzBlueMeanie:
One would expect an amoral vulture capitalist who is all about making money regardless of the cost in human lives and communities destroyed to be the choice of the amoral banksters of Wall Street. Willard "Mittens" Romney is one of them, and he promises to return these banksters to the unregulated casino capitalism that nearly destroyed our financial system and the world's economy just a few years ago. Good times.
Steve Benen writes, Getting by with a little help from their friends:
With fundraising totals reaching extraordinary heights, there's no doubt that both President Obama, Mitt Romney, and their assorted allies will have plenty of resources between now and Election Day.
But it's worth noting that while neither side will suffer from empty coffers, there's a clear qualitative difference in the kind of donors that separate one campaign from the other. The Boston Globe had an interesting report on this the other day.
When the head of JPMorgan Chase met with shareholders to answer for a trading loss of more than $2 billion Tuesday, it was against an evolving political backdrop: Donors from big banks are betting on Mitt Romney to defeat President Obama and repeal new restraints on risky, large-scale investments.
"There's no doubt that there's been a big diminution of support for the president,'' said William M. Daley, Obama's former chief of staff and a former top JPMorgan Chase executive. "People in the financial services sector are saying, 'The president has been too tough on us, both in policy and on rhetoric.' ''
The top five donor groups in Romney's campaign are individuals and political action committees associated with large financial institutions, led by Wall Street giants Goldman Sachs and JPMorgan Chase, according to information compiled by the Center for Responsive Politics, a nonpartisan research group that tracks campaign donations.
