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What a shock! Birther Joe Arpaio claims Obama birth certificate a forgery
March 1, 2012
Posted by AzBlueMeanie:
Just as I predicted.
Caution: This is from World Net Daily, wingnut conspiracy central, Sheriff Joe’s posse: ‘Probable cause’ Obama certificate a fraud:
An investigative “Cold Case Posse” launched six months ago by “America’s toughest sheriff” – Joe Arpaio of Arizona’s Maricopa County – has concluded there is probable cause that the document released by the White House last year as President Obama’s birth certificate is a computer-generated forgery.
Arpaio, at a news conference in Phoenix live-streamed by WND TV that began at 3 p.m. Eastern time, has elevated the investigation to a criminal probe that will make the resources of his Maricopa County Sheriff’s Office available to his volunteer posse.
The posse says it has identified at least one person of interest in the alleged forgery of Obama’s birth certificate.
* * *
Mike Zullo, Arpaio’s lead investigator, said his team believes the Hawaii Department of Health has engaged in a systematic effort to hide from public inspection any original 1961 birth records it may have in its possession.
“Officers of the Hawaii Department of Health and various elected Hawaiian public officials may have intentionally obscured 1961 birth records and procedures to avoid having to release to public inspection and to the examination of court-authorized forensic examiners any original Obama 1961 birth records the Hawaii Department of Health may or may not have,” Zullo said.
The investigators say the evidence contained in the computer-generated PDF file released by the White House as well as important deficiencies in the Hawaii process of certifying the long-form birth certificate establish probable cause that a forgery has been committed.
* * *
Arpaio believes a congressional investigation might be warranted and has asked that any information relevant to the investigation held by other law enforcement agencies be forwarded to his office.
The Cold Case Posse advised Arpaio that they believe forgers committed two crimes. First, they say it appears the White House fraudulently created a forgery that it characterized as an officially produced governmental birth record. Second, the White House fraudulently presented to the residents of Maricopa County and to the American public at large a forgery represented as “proof positive” of President Obama’s authentic 1961 Hawaii long-form birth certificate.
“A continuing investigation is needed to identify the identity of the person or persons involved in creating the alleged birth certificate forgery and to determine who, if anyone, in the White House or the state of Hawaii may have authorized the forgery,” Arpaio said.
There's a lot of more of this nonsense at WND.
SWAG for 2012
March 1, 2012
Posted by AzBlueMeanie:
It's time to update the "Silly Wild Ass Guess" (SWAG) list of who is running for office in 2012. The new district maps have not been finally approved by DOJ, yet alone litigated in court, but there are a number of campaign committees for 2012 based upon the current legislative districts AND proposed new legislative districts. State law permits candidates to collect signatures in the current districts as well as in the proposed new districts.
As you might expect, this list is going to be subject to change when new districts are finally established. It is current as of time of posting.
I am told the Secretary of State will not provide a conversion table for new districts until those districts are finalized. As a result, the Secretary of State campaign committee page is a confusing mess. The FEC web site is even more of a mess. I am going to focus on just Southern Arizona races where I at least know who is running where until the Secretary of State gets his act together.
I will periodically update the list. You can try to follow along at home at the Arizona Secretary of State's web site Campaign Finance Search – Candidates.
Federal Election Commission filings (AZ) House and Senate Campaign Finance:
CD 8 Special Election (to complete the term of Rep. Gabrielle Giffords) April 17 Primary
Ron Barber (D) – filed
Frank Antenori (R) – filed
Jesse Kelly (R) – filed
Martha McSally (R) – filed
Dave Sitton (R) – filed
John Lervold (R) – failed to file
Mark Koskiniemi (R) – failed to file
A Response by Leonard Clark to Criticism of the Effort to Recall Governor Brewer
March 1, 2012
By Tom, on Behalf of Leonard Clark of RecallBrewer.com
A Response to Bob Lord's post "Anatomy of a Doomed to Fail Recall — Blind Passion, or Blind Egotism?"
In the interests of full disclosure, I am proud to call myself one of Leonard Clark's recall volunteers and his friend as well. I wanted to reply sooner, but we have been busy with the petitions and events, as the interest is incredible. Regardless, please allow me to respond now.
As is evident above, Leonard is an active, determined and politically passionate individual. While we would all prefer to avoid personal attacks between our colleagues, I never fail to be amazed at how quickly we Dems eat our own when someone decides to just go out and "do it". Too often in this Party the nail that sticks up gets hammered down. Instead of finding the good in a proposal or looking for some way it COULD work or how we COULD help, we instead find the flaws and pick it apart because it's 'not invented here' or "wasn't planned well".
Planning? cough, cough, Planning? In The Democratic Party? The brilliant strategic "planning" of the leadership of our Party can be seen most clearly in one stellar hometown example: The selection of, acceptance by, and departure of, our former Governor Janet Napolitano from Arizona to head The Department of Homeland Security. REALLY? Was no one else in the 50 States qualified?
This one act turned the entire State of Arizona over to Republican Control, brought us a new "Scorpion Queen" heroine for the excitable masses, ushered in the era of SB1070, and beget some of the most regressive anti-family, anti-immigrant, anti-union, anti-education legislation seen in this country in the last fifty years.
Lest anyone think this is 20/20 Hindsight, I, along the aforementioned Mr. Clark and several other liberals and progressives called KPHX and other radio and online shows while the offer and acceptance “dance” was occurring between the Governor and President. Many of us were questioning the move and predicting a coming catastrophe for our State. I am saddened to say we were right.Yet, some folks tell us we rank and file jest ain't as smart as our leaders and their "strategery".
So please don't preach about 'laying the groundwork', lining up the ducks, etc. The Democratic Party (which I would love to love) is chock full of ready-shoot-aim moments like the Napolitano Departure. These failures to gauge voter sentiments and exercise common sense create workloads for us running on for days, weeks and even years spent extracting ourselves from all-too-preventable mistakes.
The downside of a "reckless" recall effort at this time is extremely small in comparison:
The results of doing nothing? Further attacks on the families and workers of Arizona.
The results of success? An admirable milestone in Arizona history.
The results of failure? A little embarrassment that does not rule out any later effort.
Those are decent odds. In point of fact, considering all the regressive legislation coming our way, this Heinous Governor should be facing recall every minute she is 'serving' the business interests and donors that elected her.
Even the commentary pointed out "we’ve reached a point where disruptive politics are valuable for the disruption alone". Point taken.
[Editor – Please click through for the entire post…]
Reminder: Day of Action to Protect Workers Rights – Today!
March 1, 2012
Posted by AzBlueMeanie: Announcement from the Arizona AFL-CIO:
Imposing One’s Beliefs On Others Is Not A Religious Freedom
February 29, 2012
By Michael Bryan
The recent concern over "religious conscience" brought into focus by the controversy over mandating contraceptive care by self-insuring religious institutions to their employees, and exacerbated by a pending amendment in the Senate which would allow any healthcare insurer to deny any care that offends a moral sentiment, mistakes religious freedom for religious tyranny.
When relgious practices impose on the choices of others, the government has a legitimate role in ensuring that unequal power relationships do not result in imposition of religious beliefs on others in our society. Obama's contraceptive coverage mandate respects freedom of religious conscience by ensuring that employers cannot impose their religious beliefs about reproduction on their employees. When that employer is a religious institution, obviously the temptation of the employer to impose their views is manifest.
Of course, many in the GOP don't see it that way.
They think that religious freedom only includes the right of religious institutions to impose their views on others, using whatever means of coersion is at hand, including employment, ecomonic power, and contracts. Any move by the government to prohibit such impositions on others is viewed as a "war on religious belief", or some such nonsense…
Here in Arizona, Steve Yarborough and number of primary co-sponsors, including CD4 GOP Congressional Candidate Ron Gould, are bringing this pernicious conceit to Arizona with SB 1365, which would prohibits the government from denying, revoking or suspending a professional or occupational license based on any action deriving from a person’s religious convictions.
When the people we elect despise the voters who elected them – Part 2
February 29, 2012
Posted by AzBlueMeanie:
I posted about this yesterday. When the people we elect despise the voters who elected them:
Our Tea-Publican legislators appear not to believe that they were elected, but were divinely selected for office, which imbues them with power and priviliges far beyond the "citizen legislator" they are supposed to be.
Under the Arizona Constitution the citizens are a "super legislature," whose acts through citizens initiatives and referendums take supremacy over simple legislative acts. And our Tea-Publican legislators hate this because they believe that they have a divine right to lord over us, even though we elected them — they despise the voters who elected them.
It turns out that the Tea-Publican tyranny was busy voting for several more bills they hope to send to the ballot in November in an attempt to reverse the will of the people. The Tea-Publicans really hate the AIRC and Citizens Clean Elections that the citizens of Arizona enacted through citizen initiatives.
Arizona Clean Elections bill advances: Legislators have tried for a decade to repeal the program 51 percent of voters narrowly passed in 1998. On Tuesday, a bill to ask voters this November to defund the program, SCR 1021 passed the Senate. Such bills to take matters to the voters do not require the governor's approval — so Gov. Brewer cannot veto it.
It is also another another attempt by our colonial overlords from the state of Maricopa to dictate to the citizens of Tucson how they must conduct their local elections (you just know that Jonathan "Payday" Paton had a hand in this):
SCR 1021 changes the state Constitution to prohibit the state or any local government from giving any public funds to candidates running for public office or giving a tax credit to individuals who donate to programs that fund candidates. It would apply to both the state's Clean Elections program and Tucson's public campaign-finance program, which is funded with city money.
The bill's title is purposefully deceptive: "No Taxpayer Subsidies for Political Campaigns Act." The bill makes no mention of the program's Citizens Clean Elections title. This is otherwise known as "fraud."
Then there is the Arizona Independent Redistricting Commission. Arizona redrawn legislative maps sent to Justice:
The submission came as the state Senate gave preliminary approval to a ballot measure that would repeal the independent commission and return redistricting duties to the Legislature.
"There is no accountability by the IRC," said Sen. Andy Biggs, R-Gilbert, sponsor of SCR 1035.
If the measure passes the Legislature, it will be on the November ballot.
Other bills working their way through the legislature would revise the AIRC, rather than kill it altogether. Does anyone trust the legislature to redistrict after the spectacle they and our Red Queen, Jan Brewer, made of themselves last year in an effort to impose a permanent Tea-Publican majority by executive fiat?
OMG! Steve Yarbrough wants Sharia Law in Arizona!
February 29, 2012
by David Safier If Steve Yarbrough's SB1365 passes, any devout Muslim professional can deny service to Arizonans simply by saying, "Sorry, that violates Sharia Law." Unless, of course, Yarbrough adds a line saying, "Does not apply to adherents of Islam." While he's at it, he'd better take Mormons who condone polygamy out of the mix
AIRC Update: Legislative District maps submitted to DOJ for preclearance
February 29, 2012
Posted by AzBlueMeanie: The Arizona Independent Redistricting Commission (AIRC) submitted the new legislative district maps to the U.S. Department of Justice on February 28 , 2012. The Notice of Submission (.pdf) says that a duplicate copy of the submission will be available for public inspection and copying beginning on Wednesday, February 29, from 8:00 a.m.-5:00 p.m.
