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.
Hillary Clinton at the Women in The World Summit
Posted by AzBlueMeanie:
Secretary of State Hillary Clinton spoke at the Women in The World Summit over the weekend. This short video clip below the fold is well worth viewing.
"Why extremists always focus on women remains a mystery to me. But they all seem to. It doesn't matter what country they're in or what religion they claim, they all want to control women. They want to control how we dress, they want to control how we act, they even want to control the decisions we make about our own health and our our own bodies. Yes, it is hard to believe but even here at home, we have to stand up for women's rights and reject efforts to marginalize any one us because America needs to set an example for the entire world."
CD 8 Special Election Update: It’s not easy being Green (Part 2)
Posted by AzBlueMeanie:
Last week I posted that Democratic Party activist Luke Knipe had filed a challenge to the petitions of Green Party candidate Charlie Mankolis for the reason that Mr. Mankolis is a registered Democrat and not even a member of the Green Party. Doh! CD 8 Special Election Update: It's not easy being Green.
Well folks, remember the Green Scheme Siphon Scandal the GOP pulled with "sham" Green Party candidates in 2010? Republican voter fraud "Green" scheme. An alumnus from this group of sham Green Party candidates, Richard Grayson from Apache Junction in Pinal County, has filed to run as a write-in candidate again, this time in the CD 8 Special Election. See the Arizona Secretary of State web site "Full Listing 2012 Special Primary Election – CD 8."
You may recall that the Arizona Green Party sued to keep these sham Green Party candidates off the ballot in 2010, Green Party sues to remove 11 "sham" candidates from the ballot, but a federal judge allowed them to remain on the ballot under Arizona's quirky law pertaining to newly recognized political parties, as the Arizona Green Party was in 2010. Update: Federal judge allows GOP-recruited "sham" Green Party candidates to remain on the ballot.
The number of write-in votes needed for Democrats, Libertarians and Republicans is based on the number of signatures they would have needed to qualify for the ballot in the first place. But newly recognized parties – which the Green Party was in 2010 – needed only a plurality of votes, meaning an unopposed write-in candidate could win the nomination with a single vote. A.R.S. Sec. 16-645(D).
From the Arizona Green Party Complaint in Arizona Green Party v. Sham Candidates (.docstoc):
43. Defendant Richard Grayson is a write-in candidate purporting to be affiliated with the Arizona Green Party (AGP). Grayson is a write-in candidate for the U.S. House of Representatives in District 6. Upon information and belief, he switched his political party registration from Republican to Green sometime in late 2009. Grayson filed as a write-in candidate on May 28, 2010. His filing papers are attached hereto as Ex. 3.
* * *
60. (b). Grayson secured the AGP nomination and will advance to the general election as the Green candidate for the U.S. House of Representatives in District 6 with only 3 votes. [See Ex. 33]. A Republican write-in candidate would have had to obtain 1,055 votes, a Democratic write-in candidate would have had to obtain 610 votes, and a Libertarian write-in candidate would have had to obtain 17 votes. If the AGP was subject to the same statutory requirement for write-in candidates as the other parties, Grayson would have had to obtain 154 votes. [See Ex. 34].
The Arizona Green Party is no longer a newly recognized political party as it was in 2010, so it will be subject to the same statutory requirement as the other political parties in 2012. Even so, the qualifying number of write-in signatures for Libertarian and Green Party candidates is ridiculously low. I do not know what the "magic number" is in this CD 8 Special Election Primary for Mr. Grayson — but I am sure he will find out and post it in the comments.
Rep. Patterson stripped of committee posts
