Bill to declare Baja Arizona a ‘danger zone’ is killed
Posted by AzBlueMeanie:
Update to State of Maricopa declares Baja Arizona a 'danger zone'. Rep. Peggy Judd (R-Wilcox) sponsored HB 2586, to establish a "danger zone" where warnings about the border will be sounded North of the border, limited to just 62 miles from the border. "Although no specific lines have been identified, 62 miles would appear to take in some portions of the city of Tucson."
This fear mongering on border issues did not sit well with local border communities that rely on tourism and cross-border business traffic with Mexico.
Local leaders from across the border region swarmed the state capitol Monday and helped kill a bill that would have created the border warning system to alert people to dangers associated with the border. Facing mounting backlash, Judd kills border-warning bill – Nogales International:
[B]usiness and community leaders who showed up to opposed the bill at a stakeholder’s meeting Monday at the House of Representatives said it would unnecessarily hurt the region’s reputation and damage its already depressed economy.
Don Bivens ad on Jeff Flake: The War on Women
Posted by AzBlueMeanie:
Democratic candidate for U.S. Senate Don Bivens has release his first TV ad: The War on Women.
This ad is tough, and it’s hard-hitting.
The ad has a singular message: Congressman Jeff Flake and the Republicans in Congress have been waging a war on women.
Over the past weeks, we’ve seen an assault on birth control, disgusting comments from Rush Limbaugh, and a renewed attack on funding for Planned Parenthood and its critical work for women’s health.
It’s clear that Congressman Jeff Flake and Republicans in Washington have made their radical social agenda a top priority.This ad is an aggressive move. We’re hitting the airwaves early to show Arizona voters exactly what Congressman Flake’s priorities really are.
It’s no wonder the Heritage Foundation just released new official rankings that put Rep. Flake as the most conservative member of the House.
P.S. After you’ve watched the ad, please share it on Facebook, and forward this email to your friends and neighbors so they can see exactly what Jeff Flake has been up to back in Washington.
Video below the fold.
LD 29 Dems resolution calls on Rep. Daniel Patterson to resign
Arizona Tea-Publican legislature one step closer to reducing women to second-class citizens
Posted by AzBlueMeanie:
The Arizona Tea-Publican legislature is one step closer to reducing women to second-class citizens who are property of the state by stripping women of their Constitutional rights and liberties in Arizona. Birth-control-exclusion bill goes to AZ Senate:
A Senate panel voted Monday to let employers with religious or moral objections refuse to include contraceptive coverage in their health insurance plans for their workers.
HB 2625 would repeal a decade-old mandate that says companies that provide coverage must also include contraceptives. Rep. Debbie Lesko, R-Glendale, said the move is necessary to protect freedom.
The measure already has been approved by the House, meaning it needs only approval by the full Senate before going to the governor.
"I believe that we live in America. We don't live in the Soviet Union," Lesko said. "And so government shouldn't be telling employers, Catholic organizations or mom-and-pop employers to do something that's against their moral beliefs."
Wow. This Lesko is seriously whack. She has a different definition of "freedom" than everyone else. And the Soviet Union? Please. This is the most authoritarian piece of legislation yet from the Tea-Publicans.
What Lesko is really saying is that Constitutional rights and liberties guaranteed by the Bill of Rights are not shared by all Americans equally, but are ranked according to classes of individuals, including the legal fiction of corporations ("corporations are people too, my friend"), who enjoy a preferential legal status over lower-ranked classes of individuals.
This is the only possible explanation for why employers (including corporations, many of them multi-nationals) and insurance companies should enjoy a preferential legal status to make health care decisions for American women, rather than American women enjoy the individual "freedom" to make health care decisions for themselves in consulation with their physician:
Class 1
Corporations, Partnerships, Nonprofit Organizations, Trusts, Sole Proprietorships
Class 2
Males (preferably White)
Class 3
Fertilized human eggs, zygotes, fetuses
Class 4
Females*
* Constitutional rights and liberties subject to and limited by the preferential status granted by the state of Arizona to higher ranked classes. Voidable upon the occurrence of pregnancy.
Librotraficante Caravan carrying “wetbooks” to Tucson Friday. SES fundraiser tonight.
by David Safier
Houston, Tucson has a problem. Books have been banned from use in TUSD.
Tony Diaz, a literature professor at Houston Community College, wants to help.
A professor and 30 of his supporters began a bus tour Monday from Houston, hauling hundreds of books they will deliver to Tucson in a demonstration against the recent elimination of Tucson Unified School District's Mexican-American studies program.
Tony Diaz, a literature professor at Houston Community College, said he is leading the "librotraficante caravan,"or the book-smuggler caravan, to Tucson.
The bus will stop in San Antonio, El Paso, Albuquerque and Mesilla, N.M., to load more books and supporters bound for Tucson, he said.
Here's a map of the caravan's route:
More information about scheduled events here.
As you await the caravan's arrival in Tucson Friday, you can do something today: Attend a Save Ethnic Studies happy hour fundraiser 5:30 this evening (Tuesday). Margaritas and finger food will be provided.
Learn more about the fundraiser, and watch Tony Diaz's Librotraficante video (worth a watch) below the fold.
Action Alert: Planned Parenthood under assault today
False Equivalency
Posted by Bob Lord
False equivalence bugs me, probably more than it should. It’s a tactic that intellectually dishonest politicians and pundits engage in freely, because they almost never can get in real trouble for it. And the public slurps it up.
I encountered two shining examples of false equivalence in the past few days, both, ironically, involving Sarah Palin. Today, I watched Steve Schmidt on Morning Joe discuss “Game Change,” which premiered over the weekend. For the most part, it was a remarkable mea culpa on Schmidt’s part. No doubt, he truly is regretful for his role in McCain’s selection of Sarah Palin. But then he went on to claim that both parties, blinded by the desire to win, select VP nominees who are unfit to be President and, as the Democratic example, referenced John Edwards. Andrea Mitchell then backed up Schmidt’s absurd comparison. And nobody on the show challenged the phony logic.
