Action Alert: Tell Governor Brewer to veto HB 2826
May 1, 2012
Posted by AzBlueMeanie: In early April, the Arizona Supreme Court unanimously rejected 'Paton's Law', an attempt by the state legislature to dictate to the Charter City of Tucson how it must conduct its elections. The Arizona Supreme Court held that charter cities have rights under the Arizona Constitution upon which the state legislature cannot tread … Read more
Federal Court enjoins Texas from defunding Planned Parenthood
May 1, 2012
Posted by AzBlueMeanie: This is what lies in store for Arizona if Jan Brewer signs HB 2800, the Christian Taliban aka Center for Arizona Policy bill that attempts to defund Planned Parenthood. Judge halts Texas from removing Planned Parenthood from program: A federal judge on Monday stopped Texas from banning Planned Parenthood clinics from a … Read more
Buckmaster Blogger Beat topic: the Barber-Kelly race
May 1, 2012
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by David Safier I'm doing my second Blogger Beat segment with Bill Buckmaster on his Tuesday (today's) show at 12:45pm. You can hear the show on KVOI AM 1030. Buckmaster says our main topic of discussion will be the Barber-Kelly race. Expect to hear the term "false equivalence" more than once.
Independence of Arizona judiciary under assault in Tea-Publican budget – contact your legislators
May 1, 2012
Posted by AzBlueMeanie:
The Arizona Democratic Party issued this press release on the Tea-Publican budget to be voted on Today:
Statement on the Proposed Republican Budget Deal
Behind closed doors, career politicians have decided to betray our children
NEWS RELEASE
Apr. 30, 2012
PHOENIX, AZ–Luis Heredia, Executive Director of the Arizona Democratic Party, issued the following statement on the proposed Republican Budget Deal:
“Behind closed doors, Republican legislators and Gov. Jan Brewer have reached a budget deal that further erodes our commitment to Arizona's children. True to form, the Republicans have decided to pay off their cronies by giving millions of dollars to the private prison industry while once again refusing to fund KidsCare, failing to add funding for books in our classrooms, and continuing to turn away qualified, working families from child care assistance. To make matters worse, the Republicans have orchestrated this by stealing $50 million from settlement funds intended for foreclosed homeowners, and by taking $6 million from the judiciary in an act of Andrew Thomas-style retribution to punish our judges for having the audacity to uphold independent redistricting."
“This short-sighted budget is a perfect reflection of the Republican vision of government: better to reward your lobbyist buddies today than invest in the children who are Arizona's future. Arizona families of all parties should remember who matters under the Republican Majority when making their decisions in November.”
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The Arizona Daily Star this morning has more on the fund sweeps from the mortgage-fraud fund, AZ plans to divert mortgage- fraud cash.
But the media has not reported on the fund sweeps from the judiciary in retribution for the Arizona Supreme Court decision against Governor Jan Brewer for her abuse of power in attempting to remove AIRC Chair Colleen Mathis, and for striking down the Legislature's previous attempts at fund sweeps, their public employee retirement system reforms, and other "agenda" measures like Paton's Law as unconstitutional. The courts have been a check on Tea-Publican tyranny.
I have received numerous e-mails from the legal community over the past 24 hours about the fund sweeps from the judiciary that are very similar to these e-mails below (I have modified paragraphs):
Late Friday afternoon, the Chief Justice conducted an emergency meeting of the presiding judges, superior court clerks, and court administrators. The meeting dealt with the Legislature's impending sweeping of $Six Million in funds for court automation.
DCCC ad: ‘Is Jesse Kelly listening to you?’
May 1, 2012
Posted by AzBlueMeanie:
One of the things I find most amazing about Tea-Publican candidates is that they seem to be completely unaware of "newfangled" inventions like audio recordings and video recordings. It's like they never heard of Thomas Edison. Tea-Publicans say one thing to an audience one day, and the complete opposite thing to another audience the next day, and then act genuinely surprised when the media confronts them about their previous statements the day before.
"I never said that!" To which the media responds, "Well, yes you did; we have it right here on video (or audio), or the text of your comments right here." This is a problem for Tea-Publican candidates from the top of the ticket with the shameless shapeshifer and pathological liar Willard "Mittens" Romney down to the bottom of the ticket in local elections.
And so it goes with the Jesse Kelly campaign in the CD 8 special election for Congress. "Jesse Kelly 2.0" would have voters believe that he is not the same wild-eyed teabagger who ran for Congress in 2010. "I never said that!" To which the media responds, "Well, yes you did; we have it right here on video (or audio)."
The National Democratic Campaign Committee has released an ad hitting Kelly for saying that he'd "love to eliminate" Social Security and supports phasing out Medicare. As the Tucson Weekly points out in CD8: The Surrogates Battle in Race To Finish Giffords' Term:
The DCCC references statements that Kelly made to the Tucson Weekly in a lengthy interview regarding Social Security and Medicare, in which he expressed a desire to do away with both programs over time.
We have no first-hand experience with the third claim in the DCCC ad, which is that Kelly would cut taxes for millionaires in half. But Kelly has expressed support for the elimination of corporate taxes and a 10 percent flat tax for all Americans, which would indeed be a major tax cut for most of America's wealthiest citizens, given that individuals who now earn more than roughly $194,000 in adjusted gross income are in a 35 percent tax bracket.
Video below the fold.
ALEC continuing to lose support, even in AZ
April 30, 2012
By Craig McDermott, cross-posted from Random Musings Turns out that pushing legislation that racks up a body count isn't considered good PR by many of ALEC's corporate supporters… Late last week, Russell Smoldon, lobbyist for SRP and one of ALEC's lead fixers in AZ and Debbie Lesko, AZ state representative AZ chair for ALEC, … Read more
Fact Check: The NRCC’s ‘pants on fire’ – the $500 billion lie that will not die
April 30, 2012
Posted by AzBlueMeanie:
The National Republican Campaign Committee believes voters are just plain stupid. They continue to repeat the $500 billion lie that will not die even after it has beem debunked repeatedly by every media fact checker since 2010.
Voters should be offended by the NRCC insulting your intelligence with such lazy repetition of lies.
The Tucson Weekly correctly points out in CD8: The Surrogates Battle in Race To Finish Giffords' Term that:
The NRCC ad makes two claims that have been declared "false" by Politifact.
The first is the question of whether Obamacare cuts Medicare by $500 billion. This is a frequent GOP attack line that Politifact has repeatedly rated as false:
There’s a small bit of truth here. The Affordable Care Act does reduce Medicare spending by $500 billion over the next 10 years. But here’s the catch: Those dollars aren’t taken out of the current budget, they are not actual cuts, and nowhere does the bill actually eliminate any current benefits.
The $500 billion is all in future spending reductions and come through the law’s attempts to slow projected growth, not cut spending.
PolitiFact National has highlighted the biggest bits of savings: About $220 billion comes from reducing annual increases in Medicare payments to health care providers. Another $36 billion comes from increasing premiums for higher-income beneficiaries. Administrative changes land another $12 billion in savings. A new national board is set to come up with $15.5 billion in savings — but can’t get those savings from a reduction in benefits. The last big chunk of $136 billion comes in changes to the Medicare Advantage program, which has become more expensive than initially anticipated.
Still, given all these changes, Medicare spending is expected to increase — something we pointed out in our fact check on Bruun a year ago. The nonpartisan Congressional Budget Office projects Medicare spending will reach $929 billion in 2020, up from $499 billion in actual spending in 2009.
The claim that Democrats voted to cut $500 billion from Medicare is especially amusing when you consider that the Ryan budget that GOP members in the House overwhelmingly supported earlier this year includes those same reductions in spending growth. (Kelly, who is far more cautious about what he says to the press in this year's campaign, declined to say whether he'd support the Ryan budget when we asked him about it during the GOP primary.)
FWIW, Barber said last week that he would not support cuts to Medicare benefits.
The second claim is that Obamacare "puts a board of unelected bureaucrats in charge." That's a reference to the Patient Advisory Board, which has been a frequent target of attack by Republicans. Politifact has rated those attacks "False".
Video below the fold.
Follow up on the Ted Nugent concert
April 30, 2012
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by David Safier I received an email from someone who knows someone who saw Nugent at the Pima County Fair (That's the closest I could get). Here's the report. Nugent told the crowd to thank Jan Brewer and Joe Aripaio because they were doing the right thing for Arizona. Nugent mentioned the kidnapping of the … Read more
