Maricopa County Superior Court orders ‘Top Two Primary’ back onto ballot
August 31, 2012
Posted by AzBlueMeanie:
The Arizona Capitol Times (subscription required) reports, Court says “Top Two” should be on November ballot:
A Maricopa County Superior Court judge ruled today that an initiative to overhaul the state’s primary system has enough valid signatures to go on the November ballot.
Judge John Rea found that 577 signatures earlier disqualified by the Maricopa County Recorder’s Office were actually valid.
The “Top Two’’ initiative had been disqualified by the Secretary of State’s Office because of a lack of valid signatures.
Proponents of the measure, known officially as the “Open Elections/Open Government Act,” tracked down many of the people who had signed the petitions and demonstrated that their signatures were legitimate.
That changed the invalidity rate in a sample that had been used to reject the initiative. As a result, Rea concluded that the initiative actually exceeded the number of required valid signatures to put the initiative on the ballot by more than 6,000.
* * *
Rea also ordered election officials to include the initiative in the publicity pamphlet for the November ballot, which describes proposals to be decided in the general election.
He said advocates for the “Open Elections/Open Government Act” persuasively demonstrated that the 577 signatures disqualified by the Maricopa County Recorder were valid.
* * *
In his ruling, Rea noted that some signatures were disqualified because of an invalid date: They did not contain month, date and year.
“However, the statute directs the recorder to disqualify a signature if ‘no date of signing is provided’,” Rea said. “From context and other clues, the Plaintiffs showed persuasively that the disqualified signatures were made on the appropriate dates.”
Romney speech ignores our service men and women, veterans, and the war in Afghanistan
August 31, 2012
Posted by AzBlueMeanie:
Here is a transcript of the RNC Convention acceptance speech by Willard "Mittens" Romney. Transcript: Mitt Romney's Acceptance Speech.
Go ahead, word search his speech for "troops," "service," "veterans," "Afghanistan." I'll wait.
In his acceptance speech, Willard "Mittens" Romney never mentioned the war in Afghanistan, never acknowledged the service of men and women serving their country in the U.S. Armed Forces, nor our veterans. Not once. Romney mentioned the "military" only once, but in reference to sequestration budget cuts.
If a Democrat did this, there would have been an instantaneous firestorm of howling criticism from the mighty Wurlitzer of the right-wing noise machine. This slight to our Armed Forces and veterans went largely unnoticed by the media villagers and Beltway bloviators in their post-speech commentary.
As Steve Benen notes today in An invisible war:
I think we know what would happen under such a scenario. McCain,
Kristol, Krauthammer, Limbaugh, Cheney, et al, would reach an
unavoidable conclusion: there's simply no way this Democrat has a
credible claim to be Commander in Chief during a time of war.
* * *
When was the last time there was a major-party nominating convention held during a war in which the presidential candidate decided not to mention the conflict or those fighting on our behalf? Has this ever happened?
For that matter, can anyone say with confidence what Romney's position on the war is? Or how he intends to execute this war if he's president in five months?
Are McCain, Kristol, Krauthammer, Limbaugh, Cheney, et al, on board with this?
[Note: Bloody Bill Kristol was not pleased with Romney's failure to mention the troops, veterans, or Afghanistan.]
* * *
If Romney takes the oath of office in January, he'll have tens of thousands of American troops on the ground in Afghanistan. Does anyone have the foggiest idea what he intends to do with those troops and/or how long he intends to keep them there? Does he?
GOP War on Voting: U.S. District Court Judge restores early voting in Ohio
August 31, 2012
Posted by AzBlueMeanie: In yet another major victory for voting rights advocates this week, a federal judge today sided with President Barack Obama’s re-election campaign in Obama for America v. Husted and ordered Ohio to allow early voting on the three days prior to the Nov. 6 election to all voters. Federal judge orders Ohio … Read more
Fact Checking the mendacity of ‘Mittens’
August 31, 2012
Posted by AzBlueMeanie:
Time once again for Steve Benen's weekly fact check of the shameless shapeshifter and pathological liar, Willard "Mittens" Romney. Chronicling Mitt's Mendacity, Vol. XXXII:
Jon Chait noted
the other day that Mitt Romney "has built his entire campaign on, well,
lies." Jon made the observation in passing, but it struck me as
significant, especially as the Republican National Convention unfolded
— Romney isn't the first national politician to try to deceive the
public, but he's arguably the first to build his entire campaign around
the deceptions.
Kevin Drum was thinking along the same lines responding to Romney's lie on welfare policy, which the candidate has vowed to continue repeating, even after it's been proven false.
In the past, you felt that maybe campaigns were at least a little bit embarrassed about this kind of thing. They'd blame it on someone else. They'd try to produce some lame defense. They'd haul out some fake white paper to give themselves cover. They'd do something. The Romney campaign just doesn't seem to care. If it works, they use it. It's like the campaign is being run by cyborgs.
Thomas Mann, a longtime political scholar at the center-left Brookings Institution and a respected Beltway voice, added, "The Romney campaign has, as is strikingly evident at the Tampa convention, broken new ground in its brazen and cynical disregard for the truth."
Love Romney or hate him, it's an experiment of sorts — we're seeing the first real-world test of a post-truth campaign. Team Romney lies, without shame, because it's certain the line between fact and fiction has been blurred out of existence, and if lies will give Romney vast power, the ends justify the means.
But for those who still like to think reality has some meaning, I hope they'll take some time to consider the 32nd installment of my weekly series, chronicling Mitt's mendacity. (For the record, this week, I'm only including falsehoods from Romney himself. Including every lie told at the convention would have caused a mendacity overdose.)
1. In Romney's acceptance speech last night, he said, "Four years ago, I know that many Americans felt a fresh excitement about the possibilities of a new president. That president was not the choice of our party but Americans always come together after elections."
Actually, congressional Republicans decided early on that they would refuse to come together and work with President Obama, no matter what he offered in terms of policies. This began before Inauguration Day, when GOP leaders decided they simply would not cooperate or compromise with Democrats.
2. Romney added that Obama "took office without the basic qualification that most Americans have and one that was essential to his task. He had almost no experience working in a business."
First, the president has experience working in business. Second, lots of successful presidents didn't come from the private sector (and lots of lousy presidents were businessmen). And third, it's obvious that Romney doesn't believe his own rhetoric, because if he did, he wouldn't have picked Paul Ryan as his running mate — Ryan has far less private-sector experience than Obama.
Team Romney fails at convention management
August 31, 2012
Posted by AzBlueMeanie: Modern day conventions are heavily scripted affairs for TV. Every speech is vetted by the campaign and are rehearsed in advance. Nothing occurs at the convention in front of the cameras that has not been previously approved by the campaign. Nothing. The RNC spent the first three days of the convention keeping … Read more
A good day for women…
August 31, 2012
by Pamela Powers Hannley
Tuesday's Arizona primary was a good day for women.
As we all know, the Arizona Legislature was on the forefront of the War on Women in the spring of 2012. Our legislators passed some of the country's most draconian laws restricting access to contraception, crippling Planned Parenthood, claiming that personhood begins before conception, and forcing women to submit to vaginal ultrasounds against their will.
Primary day was a good day for women because all eleven of the women candidates backed by the pro-choice group Arizona List won their races. The only way we can change Arizona's reactionary ways is to change our government in Phoenix. We're counting on these women to help us do that.
Candidate list after the jump.
Ally Miller doesn’t want to admit she’s a Tea Party member
August 31, 2012
by
by David Safier Ally Miller, who won the Republican primary for Supervisor in Pima County's District 1, is a Tea Partier. I'm not saying that as a slur, like someone accusing a Democrat of being a socialist or a commie. It's a simple statement of fact. Ally Miller is a member of the Tucson chapter … Read more
The GOP’s Flimflam Man goes all in on GOPropaganda lies
August 30, 2012
Posted by AzBlueMeanie:
The GOP's alleged boy genius policy wonk, Ayn Rand fanboy Rep. Paul Ryan (R-WI), gave his vice presidential nominee acceptance speech last night to the GOP convention. I watched his speech. Paul Krugman is correct. Paul Ryan is The Flimflam Man – NYTimes.com.
His speech was substance free, devoid of any clearly defined policies. At best there were some undefined aspirational goals. The only clearly stated policy was "repeal ObamaCare." Apparently, boy genius did not want to disclose what he would "replace" it with (remember "repeal and replace"?)
Ryan did offer a mish-mash of focus group tested attack lines which have previously been fact checked and found to be false by media fact checkers. As I have posted previously, the "Galt – Gekko 2012" campaign has made a deliberate decision to pursue a Big Lie GOPropaganda campaign. They are saying to the media, "We're going to lie. What are you going to do about it?" This presents a test for the media villagers, who are averse to ever pointing out that someone is blatantly lying.
One thing we know for certain after last night's speech: Paul Ryan is willing to be as much of a shameless shapeshifter and pathological liar as his running mate, Willard "Mittens" Romney. America has never before seen a campaign like this, and it is setting a dangerous precedent.
It was so bad that even the GOPropaganda media arm, FAUX News, was shocked and called out Paul Ryan as a shameless liar. Sally Kohn writes, Paul Ryan’s speech in 3 words | Fox News:
On the other hand, to anyone paying the slightest bit of attention to facts, Ryan’s speech was an apparent attempt to set the world record for the greatest number of blatant lies and misrepresentations slipped into a single political speech. On this measure, while it was Romney who ran the Olympics, Ryan earned the gold.
The good news is that the Romney-Ryan campaign has likely created dozens of new jobs among the legions of additional fact checkers that media outlets are rushing to hire to sift through the mountain of cow dung that flowed from Ryan’s mouth. Said fact checkers have already condemned certain arguments that Ryan still irresponsibly repeated.
