Bircher Madness!
April 26, 2012
Posted by AzBlueMeanie:
There appears to be some dispute as to who is the craziest John Bircher of all: the Arizona Capitol Times gives credit to Rep. Terri Proud (R-Tucson) for SB 1507, but the Arizona Republic gives credit to Sen. Judy Burges (R-Sun City West) for SB 1507. Regular readers know that both are batshit crazy. Your call.
What is SB 1507? It is the "one world order" conspiracy theory nightmare of all nightmares for John Birchers.
First, the Arizona Capitol Times (subscription required) Bill aimed at stopping United Nations takeover of U.S. advances | Arizona Capitol times:
The Arizona House of Representatives on Wednesday gave initial approval to a bill that some proponents say is aimed at stopping a United Nations conspiracy to take away the rights of American citizens.
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The bill, SB1507, would make it illegal for any government entity in the state to abide by any tenet or principle of the non-binding United Nations Rio Declaration on Environment and Development, adopted by the international group in 1992.
The declaration includes 27 principles, such as promoting sustainable communities, managing natural resources and working toward the eradication of poverty.
Rep. Terri Proud, a Tucson Republican and proponent of the bill, said in a mass email to her supporters that the non-binding declaration “will take away our rights as Americans by allowing the United Nations to mandate laws on our soil.”
“It’s very real and it is happening,” Proud’s email warns.
[Rep.] Jack Harper, a Surprise Republican, said the declaration is connected to the “occult” of sustainability.
To your underground bunkers! Get yer guns! The U.N. blue helmets are a comin'!
Anti-SB1070 rally in Phoenix
April 26, 2012
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by David Safier Below are two of 30 pics on the Republic website from yesterday's anti-SB 1070 rally in Phoenix. You can read the story here. (h/t to AZ Blue Meanie for the link.)
Arizona Women lose the GOP War on Women
April 26, 2012
Posted by AzblueMeanie:
There was a great comedy album called "The Wategate Comedy Hour," with skits written by Jack Burns & Avery Schreiber, plus Ann Elder (1973). My favorite skit was Fannie Flagg playing Martha Mitchell, the wife of Attorney General John Mitchell (who was sentenced to prison in 1977, serving 19 months), drunk dialing a UPI reporter to dish dirt on Richard and Pat Nixon.
In one of these skits, Martha Mitchell is talking about Tricky Dick to the UPI reporter and says, "If he was doing to her (Pat) what he's doing to the rest of the country, she'd be a whole lot happier!"
Perhaps this is the problem with the anti-sex culture warrior Mullah Cathi Herrod of the Christian Taliban aka the Center for Arizona Polcy. Someone seriously needs a booty call. "When I get that feeling, I need Sexual Healing" (by Marvin Gaye). Maybe "she'd be a whole lot happier!" *
I have to give Mullah Cathi Herrod credit. She managed to bully and intimidate the Tea-Publican Arizona legislature into passing perhaps the most restrictive abortion bill in the nation, HB 2036. Thanks to the way a woman's menstrual cycle is calculated under her bill, a woman can be pregnant two weeks before having sex. As Stephen Colbert pointed out in a recent segment of the Colbert Report, this means that all women are pregnant. It's richly ironic that Mullah Cathi Herrod devised a "prophylactic" rule to cover all women. Brewer signs bill banning abortions after 20 weeks | Arizona Capitol Times.
She also succeeded in kicking low-income women to the curb who rely on Planned Parenthood for their healthcare needs on the specious theory that funding Planned Parenthood's healthcare programs indirectly subsidizes the safe, legal abortion services of Planned Parenthood.
The federal Hyde Amendment banning federal funds for abortions has been in place since 1976. Arizona law already bars the state from using any public funds for abortions except when a woman's life is in danger. Public money may also not be used to pay for a health insurance that provides for abortion services. Not one effin' dime of government money goes to elective abortion services.
Planned Parenthood does a painstaking job of bookkeeping to keep funds received for women's healthcare services segregated from the funds it receives from donors to provide safe and legal abortions, which accounts for less than 3 percent of its services. Planned Parenthood does this painstaking bookkeeping in the event of an audit of its books from the likes of Arizona legislators.
Under Mullah Cathi Herrod's bill, HB 2800, Planned Parenthood will no longer receive funds to pay its doctors to provide low-cost cancer screenings, pap smears, STD treatment, contraceptive options and other health-care services to low-income women who are on the state’s AHCCCS program. Bill that would deny money to Planned Parenthood ready for governor | Arizona Capitol Times. Hmmm, that doesn't sound very "Christian" to me. What would Jesus do? Matthew 25:31-46.
Carmona on SB1070 and the Supremes
April 26, 2012
by Pamela Powers Hannley This week's Supreme Court and Senate debates/hearings on Arizona's infamous SB1070 anti-immigrant have been a real eye-opener. If you haven't been paying attention, here are a few stories… Russell Pearce: I 'Absolutely' Believe Romney Called SB 1070 A 'Model' SB 1070: Supreme Court Appears To Favor Arizona On Controversial Immigration Law … Read more
UNIDOS Day of Action: Misinformation or pure propaganda?
April 25, 2012
by Pamela Powers Hannley Regardless of the cause, spreading misinformation to pump up emotions is not right. OK, call me a Pollyanna in a fact-free universe, but I still believe in telling the truth. UNIDOS, the high school/university student group that supports the revival of now-defunct Mexican American Studies Program in Tucson Unified School District … Read more
Can we finally have a rational debate on comprehensive immigration reform?
April 25, 2012
Posted by AzBlueMeanie:
I am always amused by the media villagers and Beltway bloviators who blame President Obama for not having passed a comprehensive immigration reform law (as if he can waive a magic wand and simply make it happen). The media suffers from selective memory loss, often for partisan political reasons.
Comprehensive immigration reform was on the table in 2007 with a bipartisan bill, the "Secure Borders, Economic Opportunity and Immigration Reform Act of 2007," cosponsored by Senators Ted Kennedy and John McCain. It had the support of President George W. Bush who had run for office on a promise of comprehensive immigration reform.
The Kennedy-McCain bill was undermined and eventually defeated by far-right extremists in the Republican Party, most notably by Sen. McCain's own seatmate, Sen. Jon Kyl, and Texas Sen. John Cornyn. On June 28, 2007, the heavily amended bill failed to get the 60 votes necessary to end a GOP filibuster. The final cloture vote lost 46-53. This effectively ended its chances, and President Bush said he was disappointed at Congress's failure to act on the issue.
Since then, the conservative position on immigration reform has only hardened, bordering on nativism. John McCain when he ran for president in 2008 had to disown his own bill for comprehensive immigration reform and adopted extremist rhetoric: "Just build the danged fence!"
Today, comprehensive immigration reform cannot even get a committee hearing in the Tea-Publican controlled House or the "filibuster everything" Senate. Don't blame President Obama for this political environment. Opposition to comprehensive immigration reform comes almost exclusively from the conservative far-right.
For years now the Republican excuse for blocking any and all comprehensive immigration reform has been a single, vapid bumper sticker slogan: "Secure the border first." The border is now more secure than it has been in years. Now That Mexican Border is Secure, Will Republicans Stop Blocking Immigration Reform?
From Pew Hispanic Research, Net Migration from Mexico falls to zero and perhaps less:
The largest wave of immigration in history from a single country to the United States has come to a standstill. After four decades that brought 12 million current immigrants—more than half of whom came illegally—the net migration flow from Mexico to the United States has stopped—and may have reversed, according to a new analysis by the Pew Hispanic Center of multiple government data sets from both countries.
The standstill appears to be the result of many factors, including the weakened U.S. job and housing construction markets, heightened border enforcement, a rise in deportations, the growing dangers associated with illegal border crossings, the long-term decline in Mexico’s birth rates and changing economic conditions in Mexico.
The Fire Next Time: The Euro Financial Crisis – ‘Austerity’ and The Great Unraveling
April 25, 2012
Posted by AzBlueMeanie:
The Tea-Publican Party has been pushing for conservative economic "austerity" measures in Congress and in statehouses across the country. They still believe in Treasury Secretary Andrew Mellon's economic advice to President Herbert Hoover after the Crash of 1929:
"Liquidate labor, liquidate stocks, liquidate the farmers, liquidate real estate. It will purge the rottenness out of the system. High costs of living and high living will come down. People will work harder, live a more moral life. Values will be adjusted, and enterprising people will pick up the wrecks from less competent people."
This policy was an epic failure for Herbert Hoover, and resulted in the misery of the Great Depression.
So conservative economic theory was "updated" under President Ronald Reagan in 1981 into supply-side "trickle down" economics: reduce federal debt and taxes, and this will result in economic growth. The only problem is, there is no empirical evidence in support of this economic theory. (Spare me the Saint Ronnie Reagan mythology. Reagan tripled the national debt while simultaneously raising taxes 11 times during his administration).
When this supply-side economic theory became fundamentalist dogma under George W. Bush, it was an epic failure, and resulted in the misery of the Bush Great Recession. The Bush Years Were a Lost Decade.
Now, Tea-Publicans are looking to the conservative economic "austerity" agenda that's dominating Europe and calling for the United States to follow the continent's lead. But as Steve Benen writes, the European Union provides 'A cautionary tale':
This is especially true of David Cameron's British austerity policies, which have drawn enthusiastic praise from Republicans, who wish President Obama would implement parts of the Prime Minister's plan here in the U.S.
Indeed, it was almost exactly a year ago when Sen. Jeff Sessions (R-Ala.) wrote an op-ed urging U.S. policymakers to follow the lead set by our friends across the pond: "We need a budget with a bold vision — like [the one] unveiled in Britain."
We're getting a very good look at the efficacy of the austerity agenda Republicans are so fond of.
Britain's economy slid into its second recession since the financial crisis after official data unexpectedly showed a fall in output in the first three months of 2012, piling pressure on Prime Minister David Cameron's embattled coalition government.
The Office for National Statistics said Britain's gross domestic product fell 0.2 percent in the first quarter of 2012 after contracting by 0.3 percent at the end of 2011, confounding forecasts for 0.1 percent growth.
The last time Britain suffered a double-dip recession was in 1975.
Remember, this is of critical importance here in the U.S., because Republicans are eager — desperate, really — to impose this same kind of austerity agenda here. In fact, perhaps the most frustrating realization about the news out of the UK is that it won't deter Republicans at all.
At what point is it no longer impolite to suggest the GOP's economic vision is ridiculous?
College students: the latest target for right wing demonization
April 25, 2012
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by David Safier When the right wing wants to fundamentally destroy some part of the government, it launches a campaign of demonization. It's not enough to say there are problems with, say, traditional public school systems or Social Security or Medicare or public workers' unions, because it's possible to take reasonable measures to fix problems. … Read more
