Posted by AzBlueMeanie: The Arizona Daily Star, like regular clockwork, will publish stories complaining about political campaign signs every election. I guess they have a problem with the First Amendment for anyone but corporate media, who knows? Advertisement But recently the Star has been obsessed over campaign signs that have not yet been taken down … Read more

Posted by AzBlueMeanie: Oh, I am definitely going to use this report from the Arizona Daily Star the next time I teach a political science class. This is a textbook example of extreme bias in political reporting. As you know, I have been encouraging the Star to send one of its Clueless political reporters to … Read more

Posted by AzBlueMeanie: The "lamestream media" is all atwitter this morning because the White House has released President Barack Obama's "long-form" birth certificate, the "holy grail" to Birther conspiracy theorists fueled by World Nut Daily. The "lamestream media" has given racist demagogue Donald Trump unlimited access to all of its programming in recent weeks to … Read more

By Craig McDermott, cross-posted from Random Musings   From the Arizona Republic – State House Speaker Kirk Adams will leave the chamber's top leadership post, his spokesman said Tuesday, and representatives will pick a new speaker to serve out the rest of Adams' two-year term. Adams did not immediately respond to a request for comment, … Read more

Posted by Michael Bryan Want to see a Daily Show taping in Tucson? Thursday at 5pm at the Shanty on 4th Ave. Daily Show correspondents will be filming an upcoming episode on the movement to separate Southern Arizona from wing-nut dominated Maricopa AZ. Hoist a few for our new state! Maybe get your mug on … Read more

Posted by AzBlueMeanie:

This is an argument I have every two years with organizations that endorse candidates for the legislature on education issues, including the teachers'unions and the author of the study below, the Arizona Education Network. I always hear the same argument that "it's a safe Republican district and we have to work with them, so we will endorse the Republican incumbent." How's that working out for ya?

Every two years GOP candidates will send out glossy campaign fliers telling you how much they support education, and run television and radio ads telling you how much they support education. What they fail to disclose is that they are systematically gutting public education and trying to privatize education to benefit for-profit businesses, like the STO organizations that Sen. Yarbrough profits from.

The Arizona Education Network has its report card out today, and the Tea-Publicans in the Arizona legislature get a failing grade. Arizona Education Network Releases Legislative Voting Report | The Range:

From their press release today:

Of Arizona's 90 legislators, 59 voted against public education funding 100 percent of the time.

"We encourage Arizona voters to look closely at this list," said Jen Darland, an Arizona Education Network researcher who tracks education legislation. "These are the legislators who are voting to close our schools; cram children into super-sized classrooms; fire teachers, librarians and counselors; deny children access to all-day kindergarten; strip schools of basics like paper, books and pencils and make our universities unaffordable for middle-class students."

Legislators say they had no other option but to cut $454 million from our schools, community colleges and universities – bringing the three-year total in cuts to $1.3 billion. However they had other options, including following the Governor's original budget proposal, which had $116 million less in education cuts.

In addition, legislators could work to close the more than $10 billion in tax loopholes that prevent the state from raising more revenue. By just closing the luxury tax loopholes, which exempt users of luxury services, such as spa treatments, from paying taxes and equalizing the state liquor tax, the state could bring in $438 million more a year.

Adding insult to injury, legislators voted for TABOR (HB 2720), locking in the current recession-level cuts to education, preventing our schools, colleges and universities from rebounding as the economy improves. 

For more information on AEN and the Legislative report, visit their website here.

Go to the jump to read the list of state Legislators who voted against education funding 100 percent of the time in 2011.

Posted by AzBlueMeanie: I warned you at the time that the Prop. 113 "secret ballot" referendum that the legislature sneaked onto the ballot in a special session, after the "Save Our Secret Balot" ("SOS") initiative, Prop. 108, was ruled ineligible by the court, was preempted by federal law. This was an anti-union "turn out our … Read more