A little good news today
April 11, 2012
Posted by AzBlueMeanie: The most regressive and radical Arizona legislature in our state's 100 year history hopes to adjourn sine die on April 17, give or take a few days. Katy bar the doors and windows and don't let them back in to do any more harm to this state. “No man's life, liberty, or property are … Read more
Sean Arce’s contract not renewed
April 11, 2012
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by David Safier Not much to say. Another domino has fallen. After listening to hours of impassioned, sometimes eloquent testimonies to the value of the MAS program and Sean Arce, the Board voted not to renew Arce's contract. It was 3-2, with Adelita Grijalva and Alex Sugiyama voting for renewal (I don't know the back … Read more
Former Maricopa County Attorney and GOP Arizona Attorney General Candidate Andy Thomas Has Been Disbarred
April 10, 2012
By Michael Bryan
Shame. That's what disbarment amounts to. It is the ultimate sanction of an attorney for acts that are inconsistent with the professional ethical standards for practicing law: frankly, that's sometimes not a terribly high bar to clear. But Andy Thomas missed it by a mile. Thomas was disbarred today by a three member disciplinary panel of the Arizona Supreme Court. (coverage in the NYT, Arizona Republic, and AP Wire)
Thomas joins such notable disbarred attorneys as Alger Hiss, Spiro Agnew, Richard Nixon, Mike Nifong (of the Duke lacross case), and local ne'er-do-wells such as Lourdes Lopez (of the Bradley Schwartz murder) and Ken Peasley (knowingly eliciting false testimony in a capital murder case).
Of the 31 ethical violations alleged against Thomas, clear and convincing evidence was found that he actually committed 27 of them. These included the very serious allegations that he used his office to file charges solely to burden or embarrass his political enemies, engaged in fraud and deceit, and even committed perjury in pursuit of his political vendettas.
I can only imagine the impact Thomas' corruption would be having on the already sullied image of Arizona should he actually have been nominated and become Arizona's Attorney General. Given the margin between Horne and Thomas was about 1/5th of one percent, it was quite a narrow miss. That would have been a historic disbarment, indeed.
Of course, now Tom Horne is facing his own problems with the FBI… The AZGOP, folks, the gift that keeps on giving.
Republican Maricopa County Supervisor Don Stapley, one victim of Thomas' witch-hunts, had this to say:
"I listened to Judge O'Neil's public statement from the bench this morning. I was flooded with feelings. The strongest among them came when Judge O'Neil found, ". . . by clear and convincing evidence, that Mr. Thomas and Ms. Aubuchon acted with no substantial purpose other than to embarrass and burden Don Stapley."
"Three years ago, I was indicted for all the wrong reasons. The burden imposed on me, on my sweet wife Kathy and on our children is almost impossible to describe. I listened with mixed feelings when O'Neil said "Andrew Thomas is hereby disbarred for his conduct."
"Part of our burden is lifted with the disbarment order. Sadly, the burden will never be fully assuaged."
"I have had personally confirmed that "a prosecutor's power is a dangerous power." The new County Court Tower has a significant phrase engraved on its face. It says "The First Order of Society is Justice." The court today has served justice."
Thomas made the following statement upon learning of the Panel's findings:
"Today corruption has won and justice has lost. I brought corruption cases in good faith involving powerful people, and the political and legal establishment blatantly covered up and retaliated by targeting my law license. Arizona has some of the worst corruption in America, according to a recent national survey. The political witch hunt that's just ended makes things worse by sending a chilling message to prosecutors: Those who take on the powerful will lose their livelihood."
"I will be holding a news conference tomorrow, not today, and have no further statement to make today on the travesty we have just witnessed. I will have further details on the time and location later today or tomorrow morning."
I certainly agree with Thomas that Arizona has some of the worst corruption in America; we just disagree where the corruption lies. Today's findings make it clear and convincing exactly who is corrupt: Andy Thomas, his supporters and conspirators in the AZGOP machine.
Thomas resorts here to the all-too-common GOP tactic of calling the kettle black: allege that your political opponents are doing the exact thing you are accused of in the hopes that it makes your opponent's very well-founded and reasonable claim seem implausible by your baseless and misleading use of the same terms. Accused – and found responsible for – political witch-hunting and corruption? Claim your accusers are engaging in a "political witch-hunt" and "corruption", so that people will tune out the newly meaningless "he said, he said" noise that ensues.
It should be very interesting to see what Thomas will say at his planned press conference. I suspect that it will involve an elaboration on how his oppenents are conspiring against him, and I expect to hear the words "political witch-hunt" and "corruption" ad nauseum.
Thomas' disbarment brings a new, and surely unwelcome, focus on his partnership with Sheriff Arpaio. Arpaio's involvement in the very investigations and cases for which Thomas has been disbarred was so uncomfortably deep and compromising that Arpaio had to sacrifice his own chief deputy, Dave Henderschott, in order to claim his hands were clean. Perhaps the DOJ may finally come to realize that expecting Arpaio to cooperate with their years-long investigation of discrimination and civil rights abuses under Arpaio's leadership of MSCO is a fool's errand.
BTW, You can sign Steve Muratore's (of the excellent blog Arizona Eagletarian) petition to encourage the DOJ to stop negotiations and just take Arpaio to court already.
I just hope that the come-uppance of Thomas, and the coming lawsuit against Arpaio, will teach the people of Arizona a lasting lesson about the damage that hyper-partisan, vindictive, self-agrandizing, scapegoating, race-baiting, and ideologically-motivated politicians like Arpaio and Thomas can do when placed in law enforcement roles with nearly unfettered discretionary powers. I guy can hope, can't he?
See video of the Panel's findings and and local coverage of the findings after the click…
Lord help me, I ate one of their burritos!
April 10, 2012
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by David Safier I went to the Burrito Tardeada in front of the TUSD Admin building this evening. I came a little late. A good crowd had already gathered. Curtis Acosta was giving one of his fiery speeches with the TV News cameras trained on him. I nodded, smiled and applauded as he spoke, appreciating … Read more
The GOP’s ‘new math’ on ‘Obamacare’
April 10, 2012
Posted by AzBlueMeanie:
I happened to catch this AP report in the Arizona Republic Study: Obama's health-care law would raise deficit
[A] leading conservative economist estimates in a study to be released Tuesday that the overhaul will add at least $340 billion to the deficit, not reduce it.
Charles Blahous, who serves as public trustee overseeing Medicare and Social Security finances, also suggested that federal accounting practices have obscured the true fiscal impact of the controversial legislation, the fate of which is now in the hands of the Supreme Court.
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Blahous, in his 52-page analysis released by George Mason University's Mercatus Center, said, "Taken as a whole, the enactment of the (health-care law) has substantially worsened a dire federal fiscal outlook.
The AP disclosed that "Blahous served in the George W. Bush White House from 2001-2009, rising to deputy director of the National Economic Council. He currently is a senior research fellow at the Mercatus Center."
The Mercatus Center just happens to be one of the billionaire bastard Koch brother's think tanks. Koch-Funded GOP Economist Uses New Math To Find That Health Reform Increases The Deficit | ThinkProgress:
George W. Bush’s Social Security privatization guru Charles Blahous — who now works for the Koch-funded Mercatus Center — is out with a new report alleging that the Affordable Care Act adds $340 billion to the deficit. The new math relies on the old “double counting” meme — an argument advanced by Republicans in Congress in the final days of the health care reform debate alleging that the Congressional Budget Office (CBO) appropriated the same revenue for extending the solvency of the Medicare trust fund as it did for paying out benefits.
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What Blahous calls “double counting” is actually the “unified budget process,” an accounting method that considers the spending and revenues of the entire federal budget over a 10 year period and the way Congress keeps track of its dollars. It’s the same math that the Congressional Budget Office (CBO) relied on to conclude in 2010 that the law “would produce a net reduction in federal deficits of $143 billion over the 2010–2019 period as result of changes in direct spending and revenues.” Earlier this week, the CBO updated its estimate, reporting that the Affordable Care Act is expected to cost $50 billion less than they anticipated and Medicare actuaries reported that as a result of the savings in the law, the life of Medicare’s Hospital Insurance (HI) Fund is extended to 2024, instead of in 2016.
Santorum surrenders at Gettysburg, path to GOP nomination clear for Romney
April 10, 2012
Posted by AzBlueMeanie:
I have predicted from the very beginning that Willard "Mittens" Romney will never be the Tea-Publican Party nominee for president in September. For more than a year Tea-Publicans have been in search of the "Not-the-Romney" candidate to fall in love with, and there have been many infatuations and flirtations along the way with possible suitors.
Morevoer, Mittens' negatives are higher than his positives in poll after poll among Tea-Publican voters. As I have said before, for Tea-Publicans this is like being told that they have to go to their prom with their creepy cousin. There is no way that the GOP is going to nominate someone so universally disliked by Tea-Publican voters to be their nominee. That's insane, isn't it?
Well, I am willing to concede that my prediction could possibly be wrong — it's still a long road to Tampa in September, and anything can happen — but the possibility that the GOP will do something so insane as to nominate someone universally disliked by Tea-Publican voters to be their nominee became more of a likelihood today.
The last "Not-the-Romney" candidate standing, Rick "man on dog" Santorum, suspended his campaign today, clearing the path to the GOP nomination for Willard "Mittens" Romney. The lack of any sense of excitement and enthusiasm among Tea-Publicans about this prospect speaks volumes.
Dana Milbank of the Washington Post has the best write-up of Santorum's withdrawal today. A surrender in Gettysburg:
Three weeks ago, Rick Santorum chose this Civil War town to give a defiant speech about his need to stay in the presidential race, linking his struggle against Mitt Romney to “the things that the people of this battlefield just down the road fought for.”
Recalling the blood shed at Gettysburg, he exhorted more than 1,000 supporters: “That’s why we must go out and fight this fight.”
But if Santorum thought he was George Meade rallying the Union forces, he turned out to be leading Pickett’s charge — the disastrous Confederate offensive here at which Gen. George Pickett lost half of his division and the war turned against the South.
Charters spend more on administration, less in the classroom
April 10, 2012
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by David Safier This study confirms what I have found in my own research. Charters tend to spend more on administration than school districts, leaving less for the classroom. So much for the so-called "efficiency" of charter schools or the "bureaucratic nightmare" of school districts. This study comes out of the Teachers College at Columbia … Read more
The GOP war on women returns
April 10, 2012
Posted by AzBlueMeanie:
The GOP war on women returns today in the Arizona Tea-Publican legislature.
First, the bad news. The Arizona Capitol Times (subscription required) reports Bill banning abortions after 20 weeks sent to Brewer – Arizona Capitol Times. It is actually less than 20 weeks, based on how the bill calculates time from the menstruation cycle, making Arizona one of the most restrictive states for a safe, legal abortion.
The House’s vote of 37-22 on Tuesday sends the bill to Gov. Jan Brewer, a Republican who has signed previous anti-abortion legislation.
Besides the 20-week ban, the bill’s other requirements include mandating the state establish a web site with images of fetuses at various stages of development for women to view.
The 20-week abortion ban would affect only a tiny percentage of abortions performed in Arizona.
The state would join six other states that have similar bans.
Now the good news, at least for today. It appears bill sponsors cannot convince two Tea-Publicans to switch their votes following the defeat of the "baby Blunt" bill last week that would allow any employer to object to a health insurance plan providing coverage for female contraception based on religious or moral objections.
