My solid gold, 2003 Maine quarter
May 11, 2012
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by David Safier I got a gold quarter in change yesterday. Curious, I went on eBay. Complete sets of 33 gold Commemorative Quarters are selling for $239.95 — or at least that's the asking price. A quick google search tells me these Franklin Mint-type gold plated quarters are absolutely genuine and worth about 25 cents … Read more
Congressional races shake up
May 11, 2012
Posted by AzBlueMeanie: David Crowe, the Republican-cum-Democrat who first ran for the U.S. Senate and then decided to challenge Congressman Raúl Grijalva in the new CD 3 Democratic primary, has decided to drop out of the race and endorse conservadem former state Sen. Amanda Aguirre. Raul Grijalva challenger David Crowe Robles drops out. As I've … Read more
Extreme Makeover: ‘E Coli Conservatism’ and Jesse Kelly: the pro-salmonella candidate
May 11, 2012
Posted by AzBlueMeanie:
As I posted yesterday in Extreme Makeover: Jesse Kelly 2.0, "Blog for Arizona is going to go back through our posts from 2010 and repost some of them to demonstrate the "extreme makeover" the RNCC is doing to make Jesse Kelly 2.0 appear more palatable to voters in 2012."
Here is one of my favorites from 2010 (repost). "E Coli Conservatism" and Jesse Kelly: the pro-salmonella candidate:
Steve Benen at The Washington Monthly takes a look at Republican Jesse Kelly in Arizona's Congressional District 8:
Over the summer, there was a major egg recall, following at least 1,300 salmonella-related illnesses spanning 22 states over the summer. The Washington Post reported in August that the outbreak highlights the need to fix "the holes in the country's food safety net."
That truth was hard to deny, and even harder to ignore. As we learned more about the story, we saw that the salmonella problems stemmed from an uninspected producer in Iowa, with a record of health, safety, labor, and other violations that go back 20 years. The need for better regulations and enforcement has been obvious for decades, but conservative, anti-regulatory lawmakers have consistently put industry profits above public safety.
With this in mind, [Think Progress has a story] that's so astounding, it's almost hard to believe.
Although there are a diverse set of political beliefs in the United States, there are currently two major political philosophies clashing for control of the American body politic. One, the progressive view, believes in a society where a democratically elected government plays an active role in helping all people achieve the American Dream, no matter who they are. The other, the conservative vision, believes in the on-your-own-society that favors the wealthy, big corporations, and other privileged sectors of society.
GOP House candidate Jesse Kelly, who is running in Arizona's 8th congressional district, championed this second vision a week ago at a campaign rally hosted by the Pima County Tea Party Patriots. During a question-and-answer period, a voter asked Kelly about the recent salmonella outbreak, which led to recall of more than half a billion eggs.
Is J.P.Morgan Chase & Co. the next Lehman Brothers financial crisis?
May 11, 2012
Posted by AzBlueMeanie:
For all those Tea-Publican politicians who assert that we need to repeal even the most modest of regulations on financial services institutions like Dodd-Frank and the Volcker Rule, this is why they are insanely irresponsible and represent a risk that we cannot afford to this country's economy and financial system. JPMorgan Falls 9% After Reporting $2 Billion Trading Loss – Bloomberg:
JPMorgan Chase & Co. fell the most in nine months after Chief Executive Officer Jamie Dimon said the firm suffered a $2 billion trading loss he attributed to “egregious” failures in a unit managing risks.
JPMorgan dropped 7.7 percent to $37.59 at 10:20 a.m. in New York, the biggest decline since Aug. 8.
The bank’s chief investment office, run by Ina Drew, 55, took flawed positions on synthetic credit securities that remain volatile and may cost the lender an additional $1 billion this quarter or next, Dimon, 56, said yesterday in a conference call with analysts. The loss originated out of the firm’s London CIO unit, an executive at the bank said.
“There were many errors, sloppiness and bad judgment,” Dimon said. “These were egregious mistakes, they were self-inflicted.”
The chief investment office was thrust into the debate over U.S. efforts to ban proprietary trading when Bloomberg News reported last month that the unit had taken bets so big that JPMorgan, the largest and most profitable U.S. bank, probably couldn’t unwind them without losing money or roiling financial markets. Dimon, 56, had transformed the unit in recent years to make bigger and riskier speculative trades with the bank’s money, five former employees said.
The U.K.’s Financial Services Authority, which regulates banks, is examining the role London employees played in the loss, according to two people familiar with the talks. The agency hasn’t opened a formal investigation and there was no evidence of criminal activity, these people said.
Culture of Corruption: Boss Tweed and our Shadow Governor engage in political cronyism
May 11, 2012
Posted by AzBlueMeanie:
Last month we learned that Tom 'banned for life by the SEC' Horne under investigation by the FBI:
The chief law enforcement officer of the state of Arizona, our Attorney General Tom "banned for life by the SEC" Horne, is under investigation by the FBI for campaign finance law violations. Attorney General Tom Horne under investigation:
The FBI is investigating whether Arizona Attorney General Tom Horne illegally worked with an independent expenditure committee that raised and spent more than $500,000 in 2010 to run negative ads against his Democratic challenger.
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The complaint alleges that Horne coordinated with Business Leaders for Arizona, which raised thousands of dollars from Horne's brother-in-law Richard Newman.
The complaint also alleges that Horne and his campaign were actively engaged with the independent expenditure committee and once elected, that he rewarded its director, Kathleen Winn, by naming her director of community outreach for the Tucson office. Winn earns $98,134 a year.
A remarkably similar scandal has been bubbling up in reporting over the past few weeks involving Pinal County Supervisor Bryan Martyn, a Sheriff Paul Babeu acolyte. I encountered him at hearings of the AIRC last year arguing in favor of a prison-gerrymandered district in Pinal County from which he could run for Congress, according to those with whom I spoke at these hearings. That didn't work out for him.
So Bryan Martyn turned to the GOP political patronage machine run by our Shadow Governor, Chuck Coughlin of HighGround, Inc. and his friend Governor Jan Brewer Boss Tweed. Martyn applied for the job of Arizona Parks Director, a job for which he lacked the necessary experience and qualifications. New Arizona parks chief is short on credentials:
Former Pinal County Supervisor Bryan Martyn, an ally of Gov. Jan Brewer's in the battle for a planned Florence copper mine, was named state parks director last month despite being one of the least qualified candidates for the job, records obtained by The Arizona Republic show.
Martyn beat out 201 other applicants even though he had neither experience in state-parks management nor the preferred college degree for the $129,500-a-year position. A state Department of Administration official screening the applicants questioned whether Martyn met three other major requirements. Records indicate he definitively met only two of the seven qualifications for parks director.
Wait, it gets worse:
Culture of Corruption: ‘America’s most corrupt sheriff’ sued by the DOJ
May 11, 2012
Posted by AzBlueMeanie:
Maricopa County Sheriff "Crazy Uncle Joe" Arpaio has been under several federal investigations and an ongoing grand jury investigation for years, and he has cost Maricopa County millions of dollars in legal fees and settlements over the years as a result of his unlawful actions.
"Crazy Uncle Joe" Arpaio was most recently implicated as the ringleader of a reign of terror in Maricopa County for an abuse of power resulting in the disbarment of former Maricopa County Attorney Andrew Thomas and his deputy Lisa Aubuchon. Andrew Thomas and Lisa Aubuchon Disbarred — Read Panel's Opinion Here – Phoenix New Times:
The disciplinary panel dismissed a few charges, but it found "clear and convincing evidence" that Thomas and Aubuchon abused their prosecutorial powers while trying to prosecute county Supervisors Mary Rose Wilcox and Don Stapley, Superior Court Judge Gary Donahoe, and others. The panel found that Thomas and Aubuchon launched unethical attacks on their political enemies.
Thomas and Aubuchon's attempted prosecutions were not in the interests of justice; often they were only aimed at embarrassing or burdening their enemies, the panel found.
Click here to read the disbarment document for Andrew Thomas and Lisa Aubuchon.
The federal investigation of "Crazy Uncle Joe" Arpaio that has received the most media attention is the Department of Justice investigation into racial profiling by the MCSO in conducting immigration sweeps and the treatment of prisoners. For months the DOJ has been trying to obtain the MCSO cooperation with a remedial program and Arpaio and his lawyers have stonewalled and resisted cooperation every step of the way.
We have been treated to months of speculation about a lawsuit and insipid editorial taunts from the Arizona Republic that if the DOJ has anything on Arpaio they should just sue him already. On Thursday, the DOJ sued "Crazy Uncle Joe" Arpaio. To the editors of the Arizona Republic: Happy now? Now STFU.
After a few rounds of threats, the Justice Department announced finally its lawsuit against the Maricopa County Sheriff's Office and Sheriff Joe Arpaio this morning.
The lawsuit addresses that "culture of bias" the Justice Department's been alleging since it released its findings in December, claiming that Arpaio's office conducts the worst racial-profiling practices it's seen.
The Gay Advantage
May 10, 2012
By Michael Bryan In America, we mostly talk about the civil rights of LGBT persons in moral or ethical terms – and it certainly is that. Equity and justice war with the moral precepts and prejudice of religionists. But there is more to it. It's also an economic issue. And we need to talk about … Read more
Jesse Kelly in his own words
May 10, 2012
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by David Safier Democrats think it's important for Jesse Kelly to have a chance to speak for himself. Since he hasn't been doing much of that lately — he stopped taking questions from reporters at a recent press conference and prefers sound bites to more detailed answers — Dems have put together an ad, "Too … Read more
