Jonathan ‘Payday’ Paton opposed to Tribal sovereignty on gaming
August 25, 2012
Posted by AzBlueMeanie:
So what happens if you hold a press conference and Arizona's "lamestream" political reporters ignore it because it is just Tribal government leaders talking about gaming? Luckily the Arizona Democratic Party and DCCC were there to catch the press conference, in this press release.
PATON’S PLEDGE: UNDERMINE TRIBAL SOVEREIGNTY IN AZ-01
Arizona has 22 Indian tribes, distinct in their rights and sovereignty. Arizona’s First Congressional District is home to 12 of these tribes, and they require a representative who understands tribes as distinctive nations and who respects their health and well-being, environment and economy.
The First District requires someone who will fight to protect the permanent reauthorization of Indian Health Service funding that was included in the Affordable Care Act and someone who will fight to stop the relentless push for uranium mining at the Grand Canyon.
Yet in a stunning display of disconnect, Jonathan Paton has pledged to undermine tribal sovereignty by supporting “further restrictions” on Tribal Nations’ gaming operations. It is because of tribal sovereignty that gaming came about. In 1988, Congress enacted the Indian Gaming Regulatory Act so states that already have wagering (lotteries, etc.) as part of their public policy could negotiate with tribes to regulate gaming on a government-to-government basis.
Will the Open Primaries initiative be on the Nov 2012 ballot or not? (video)
August 24, 2012
by Pamela Powers Hannley
Backers of the Open Primaries initiative knew from the beginning that changing Arizona's two-party primary system to an open, "top two" primary system wouldn't be easy. They expected challenges from Democrats and Republicans, and that's what they got.
Earlier in the summer, Governor Jan Brewer and the Arizona Legislature tinkered around with ideas to change or stop it. Secretary of State Ken Bennett tried to stop it by saying that it was unconsitutionally broad, but the courts squashed his attack.
As of mid-August, Open Primaries was back on the ballot, until this week, when Maricopa County said that there were an extraordinary number of bad signatures.
The latest news is that the Open Primaries/Open Government folks have filed a suit to get the initiative back on the ballot. Supporters claim that Maricopa County erroneously rejected.
Stay tuned for the next volley in this ping pong game.
For more background on the Open Primaries initiative– just in case you actually get to vote on it– check out the video debate between former State Rep. Dr. Ted Downing (pro) and former Mayor Tom Volgy (con). The event was sponsored by Progressive Democrats of American Tucson Chapter.
Videos after the jump.
Tampa welcomes the Republican National Convention
August 24, 2012
Posted by AzBlueMeanie: Too funny. Ruth's List Florida, a pro-choice group that seeks to elect Democratic women to office, says it has paid for this billboard to greet attendees of the Republican National Convention in Tampa. Billboard greets RNC guests: Welcome to Tampa, a city run by Democrats: The billboard is at the intersection of … Read more
Fact Checking the mendacity of ‘Mittens’
August 24, 2012
Posted by AzBlueMeanie: Time once again for Steve Benen's weekly fact check of the shameless shapeshifter and pathological liar, Willard "Mittens" Romney, setting a new record – 37 - number of entries. Chronicling Mitt's Mendacity, Vol. XXXI: At a campaign event on Monday, a Republican voter asked Mitt Romney about falsehoods pushed by "leftists" and what … Read more
Romney blows the ‘Birther’ dog whistle
August 24, 2012
Posted by AzBlueMeanie:
When his best buddy and campaign surrogate is the "Birther King," Donald Trump, this should not come as any surprise to anyone. Today in Michigan, Willard "Mittens" Romney blew the "Birther" dog whistle. Romney in Michigan: 'No one has ever asked to see my birth certificate' – First Read:
In a riff on Friday about being back in the state where he was born and raised, presumptive GOP presidential nominee made a joke alluding to the "birther" controversies that have dogged President Obama.
Expanding on his Michigander bonafides, he pointed out that he was born in nearby Harper hospital, adding:
"No one has ever asked to see my birth certificate," Romney said. "They know that this is the place that we were born and raised."
Romney did not mention President Obama or controversy over his place of birth, but many in the crowd of thousands here laughed knowingly at the line.
* * *
An Obama spokesman, Ben LaBolt, shot back: "Throughout this campaign, Governor Romney has embraced the most strident voices in his party instead of standing up to them. It’s one thing to give the stage in Tampa to Donald Trump, Sheriff Arpaio, and Kris Kobach. But Governor Romney’s decision to directly enlist himself in the birther movement should give pause to any rational voter across America.”
Video below the fold.
A look inside Willard ‘Mittens’ Romney’s tax avoidance schemes
August 24, 2012
Posted by AzBlueMeanie:
On Thursday, Gawker published The Bain Files: Inside Mitt Romney's Tax-Dodging Cayman Schemes:
Mitt Romney's $250 million fortune is largely a black hole: Aside from the meager and vague disclosures he has filed under federal and Massachusetts laws, and the two years of partial tax returns (one filed and another provisional) he has released, there is almost no data on precisely what his vast holdings consist of, or what vehicles he has used to escape taxes on his income.
Gawker has obtained a massive cache of confidential financial documents that shed a great deal of light on those finances, and on the tax-dodging tricks available to the hyper-rich that he has used to keep his effective tax rate at roughly 13% over the last decade.
Today, we are publishing more than 950 pages of internal audits, financial statements, and private investor letters for 21 cryptically named entities in which Romney had invested—at minimum—more than $10 million as of 2011 (that number is based on the low end of ranges he has disclosed—the true number is almost certainly significantly higher).
Almost all of them are affiliated with Bain Capital, the secretive private equity firm Romney co-founded in 1984 and ran until his departure in 1999 (or 2002, depending on whom you ask). Many of them are offshore funds based in the Cayman Islands. Together, they reveal the mind-numbing, maze-like, and deeply opaque complexity with which Romney has handled his wealth, the exotic tax-avoidance schemes available only to the preposterously wealthy that benefit him, the unlikely (for a right-wing religious Mormon) places that his money has ended up, and the deeply hypocritical distance between his own criticisms of Obama's fiscal approach and his money managers' embrace of those same policies. They also show that some of the investments that Romney has always described as part of his retirement package at Bain weren't made until years after he left the company.
Obama campaign ad: ‘Republican Women for Obama’
August 24, 2012
Posted by AzBlueMeanie:
The Obama campaign has released a new ad, "Republican Women for Obama." Republican women share their history with the Republican Party and how the party's views are no longer aligned with their own. They don't support Mitt Romney and Paul Ryan and share how Romney and Ryan are wrong for women.
As they share:
"If you truly believe in a small government. That government shouldn't be deciding what I can and cannot do with my own body."
"There is no way on God's green earth that I would consider voting Republican."
"I don't even want to think about them having control—as a woman I don't."
"If you're a conservative woman, and you believe in small government, then Barack Obama is your candidate because he's keeping the government out of the decisions that should remain between you and God, and you and your own conscience."
Video below the fold.
3 good reports on Paul Ryan’s ‘Kill Medicare’ Plan
August 24, 2012
Posted by AzBlueMeanie:
There are 3 good reports this week on the Paul Ryan "Kill Medicare" Plan, none of which seem to get reported in the "lamestream" Arizona newspapers. Arizona's newspapers are failing miserably to inform their readers.
The first report comes from the New York Times, Costs Seen in Romney’s Medicare Savings Plan: Patients Would Pay More if Romney Restores Medicare Savings, Analysts Say:
Mitt Romney’s promise to restore $716 billion that he says President Obama “robbed” from Medicare has some health care experts puzzled, and not just because his running mate, Representative Paul D. Ryan, included the same savings in his House budgets.
The 2010 health care law cut Medicare reimbursements to hospitals and insurers, not benefits for older Americans, by that amount over the coming decade. But repealing the savings, policy analysts say, would hasten the insolvency of Medicare by eight years — to 2016, the final year of the next presidential term, from 2024.
While Republicans have raised legitimate questions about the long-term feasibility of the reimbursement cuts, analysts say, to restore them in the short term would immediately add hundreds of dollars a year to out-of-pocket Medicare expenses for beneficiaries. That would violate Mr. Romney’s vow that neither current beneficiaries nor Americans within 10 years of eligibility would be affected by his proposal to shift Medicare to a voucherlike system in which recipients are given a lump sum to buy coverage from competing insurers.
For those reasons, Henry J. Aaron, an economist and a longtime health policy analyst at the Brookings Institution and the Institute of Medicine, called Mr. Romney’s vow to repeal the savings “both puzzling and bogus at the same time.”
Marilyn Moon, vice president and director of the health program at the American Institutes for Research, calculated that restoring the $716 billion in Medicare savings would increase premiums and co-payments for beneficiaries by $342 a year on average over the next decade; in 2022, the average increase would be $577.
Beneficiaries, through their premiums and co-payments, share the cost of Medicare with the government. If Medicare’s costs increase — for instance, by raising payments to health care providers — so, too, do beneficiaries’ contributions.
