Carmona for U.S. Senate campaign ad: ‘Life’s Work’
Posted by AzBlueMeanie:
Press release from the Dr. Richard Carmona for U.S. Seante campaign:
Carmona made saving lives "Life's Work," new campaign ad shows
Congressman Flake will end traditional Medicare
The Carmona for Arizona campaign launched a new statewide television ad today. "Life's Work" showcases Dr. Richard Carmona's career history of saving lives and deflecting partisanship — in distinct contrast to career politician and former lobbyist Congressman Jeff Flake.
The combat-decorated Special Forces veteran, Pima County Deputy Sheriff and the 17th Surgeon General of the United States will protect and strenghthen Medicare while six-term Congressman Flake wants to slash Medicare benefits, which will end traditional Medicare.
Video below the fold.
The trouble with ‘E.Orr’
Posted by AzBlueMeanie:
I have told you about The troubling Tyler Mott, the Tea-Publican running for state senate in LD 9, but what about his running mate for the LD 9 House, the equally troubling Tea-Publican Ethan Orr aka "E.Orr," the former Young Democrat?
The Arizona Capitol Times (subscription required) reports House contest in Tucson pits 2 Democrats against a former Democrat:
Republican Ethan Orr spent the first half of his life as a Democrat, volunteering for the party on political campaigns, including Bill Clinton’s first presidential run in 1992 and Eddie Basha’s run for Arizona governor in 1994.
So it’s no surprise that when he’s on the campaign trail for a House seat in north Tucson’s new Legislative District 9, one of the state’s most competitive districts, he can talk the talk that the moderate voters there want to hear.
* * *
Orr says he fashions himself after moderate Tucson Republicans like former Reps. Pete Hershberger and Toni Hellon, and he hopes to work with the southern Arizona Democratic delegation to pass legislation that can help the people and Tucson.
Yeah, not hardly. Hellon and Hershberger were not culture warriors for the far-right social agenda. And aren't they dismissed today as RINOs by the Tea-Publican Party?
Orr’s Democratic opponents, Victoria Steele and Mohur Sidhwa, say Orr’s moderate rhetoric is false advertising.
Orr takes a strong stance on several social issues, including abortion, saying it should be illegal in all cases except when the mother’s life is at risk. He said he doesn’t support making gay marriage legal, but doesn’t support a constitutional amendment against it either.
[Note: Arizona voters already enacted a constitutional amendment defining marriage as between one man and one woman, Prop. 102 in 2008. Someone should ask him in upcoming debates how he voted on Prop. 102.]
Though he said he wouldn’t sponsor social bills himself, he said when it comes time to vote, he would vote with his party and his conscience.
E.Orr's stance on abortion means that he supports requiring forced birth for victims of rape and incest — the life of the mother is his only exception. Someone should ask him in upcoming debates whether he believes in Rep. Todd Akin's (R-MO) "legitimate rape" theory which is prevalent among the anti-choice Christian right.
E.Orr says he will vote with his party on social issues. Well, the 20 week restrictions on abortion, waiting periods and forced ultra-sound, the defunding of Planned Parenthood, and permitting employers religious institutions to opt-out of contraceptive coverage in employer-sponsored health insurance plans — all bills advanced by Cathi Herrod and her Center for Arizona Policy — were passed with near unanimous Tea-Publican support in the past legislature.
The New York Times catches up to Arizona’s own GOP voter suppression specialist, Nathan Sproul
Posted by AzBlueMeanie:
On Thursday, the New York Times finally caught up to Arizona's own GOP voter suppression specialist, Nathan Sproul. File this one under "reporting you will never see in the pages of the Arizona Daily Star." Nathan Sproul, Long Trailed by Voter Fraud Claims:
Republicans are now playing defense over the role of a well-paid operative, Nathan Sproul, in a voter registration scandal that emerged in Florida and has spread to other states.
The Florida Department of Law Enforcement said it was reviewing “numerous” claims involving a company that Mr. Sproul runs to determine if a criminal investigation is warranted. Complaints have surfaced in 10 Florida counties, among them allegations that registrations had similar signatures or false addresses, or were filed under the names of dead people. In other cases, party affiliations appeared to have been changed.
In recent days, similar claims against Mr. Sproul have arisen in Nevada and Colorado.
Mr. Sproul, 40, a former executive director of the Arizona Christian Coalition and the Republican Party in Arizona, is well known in political circles there. Since 2004, Mr. Sproul’s companies — he has operated under several corporate names — have collected more than $17.6 million from Republican committees, candidates and the “super PAC” American Crossroads, mostly for voter registration operations, according to campaign finance records.
The Republican Party, which paid Mr. Sproul about $3 million this year for work in five states, has severed its ties with him, saying it has no tolerance for voter registration fraud.
But questions about Mr. Sproul’s methods first emerged in 2004, when one of his companies, Sproul & Associates, was paid nearly $8 million during the election cycle. The payouts made the company the seventh-biggest recipient of campaign expenditures by the committee, according to an analysis by the Center for Responsive Politics.
* * *
Mike Hellon, a former chairman of the Arizona Republican Party, said that Mr. Sproul had been considered “very controversial” in Arizona Republican circles before the recent allegations, partly because of past voter registration investigations. “There are questions among a lot of people in the party about how he gets these contracts and why he gets contracts,” Mr. Hellon said.
As a political operative in Arizona, Mr. Sproul is known for a no-holds-barred approach. He was criticized for dredging up 28-year-old domestic abuse claims against an incumbent State Senate candidate in 2008.
That same year, he promoted a ballot initiative that would have made it more difficult to impose additional taxes or increase spending in the state. The measure failed, despite considerable financial backing from the liquor industry and from Jim Click, a Tucson car dealer and a large Republican donor who has worked closely with Mr. Sproul on local elections.
‘Don’t make me angry’ Frank Antenori is scaring the villagers again
Posted by AzBlueMeanie:
The realization of his impending defeat is starting to get to Sen. "Don't make angry" Frank Antenori. He has become unhinged and is scaring the villagers again.
The political gossip rag The Yellow Sheet (subscription required) has two items on Frank(enstein) Antenori unhinged.
The first item is "The following item is rated 'R' for language":
Antenori told our reporter today that those in the political chattering class who are declaring his re-election bid DOA don’t know what they’re talking about.
“Who the f**k is Bert Coleman? I’m going to have to track this guy down,” Antenori told our reporter, referring to yesterday’s report in which Coleman accused Antenori of being out of touch with voters for hosting a border town hall in Tucson.
* * *
“I know exactly what the voters of this district want and I’m giving it to them… The guy who is out of touch is Bert Coleman,” Antenori said.
That kinda sounds like "threatening and intimidating," Frank. You may want to reconsider your intemperate words in light of A.R.S. § 13-1202. Just sayin'.
The second item is "At least he didn't call them the 'Chamber of Commies'":
Antenori also told our reporter that Coleman’s proclamations that his campaign isn’t getting any business support are foolish, and reflect only the view of the “establishment” business community in Tucson led by auto dealer Jim Click and developer Don Diamond.
That group expects Southern Arizona legislators to do its bidding, he said, something he isn’t willing to do. “That’s why I have a hard time raising money – because I don’t do tit-for-tat. They know I cannot be bought, and they don’t like that. I’m not their little butt-boy,” he said.
Hmmm, is that gay innuendo, Frank?
NRSC ad buy: ‘Save the Flake’
September Jobs Report: unemployment at four year low
Posted by AzBlueMeanie:
I am sure the Romney campaign will find some little-known blogger to come up with "unscewed" labor department statistics, just like they did for "unscewed" polls which show him (not) losing this election. The right-wing lives in a closed-loop alternate reality in which facts cannot penetrate their insular bubble. I am sure we will be hearing conspiracy theories this morning — that's what the right-wing thrives on for cognitive dissonance.
Steve Benen has the monthly jobs report for September. Job market shows signs of life, unemployment falls to 4-year low:
The new jobs report released this morning was largely in line with expectations, showing a U.S. economy that added 114,000 jobs in September. As is nearly always the case, there was a gap in the public vs. private sectors — American businesses added 104,000 jobs last month, while the government shed another 10,000 jobs. [Thanks to Tea-Publican austerity measures at the state and local government level.]
* * *
[T]he new report is encouraging is the larger context: the unemployment rate dipped to 7.8%, which is nearly a four-year low, and the revisions found 86,000 additional, unreported jobs from the last two years.
And while drops in the unemployment rate are sometimes the result of Americans leaving the workforce, that's not the case in this new report — the employment-to-population ratio went up, not down.
By most measures, this can fairly be described as a strong jobs report, at least relative to where we've been.
For context, I'd note that so far in 2012, the economy has created over 1.3 million jobs over, which isn't even close to being good enough, but the total is already better than five of the eight years of the Bush/Cheney era.
Here is another chart, this one showing monthly job losses/gains in just the private sector since the start of the Great Recession. [31 consecutive months of private sector job growth.]
Big Bird was the big winner of the debate
