Larry Bodine 
The John C. Scott Political Forum – 1030 KVOI AM https://johncscottshow.com/wp-content/uploads/2018/07/JCS-07-21-18-Hr1.mp3 Radio broadcaster John C. Scott interviewed Blog for Arizona writer Larry Bodine recently about: Candidate Yahya Yuksel staying in the race Negative ads by Ann Kirkpatrick vs. Matt Heinz. Bill Kovacs is a sexy beast. Mary Matiella – will Latinos and seniors vote for … Read more
Candidate Yahya Yuksel persists in a bizarre campaign for the CD2 Congressional seat in Tucson — ignoring repeated calls for him to drop out of the race, disavowment by the Pima County Democratic Party, and cancellations of invitations from Democrats of Greater Tucson and Represent Me AZ.
Read Accused Rapist Yahya Yuksel Must Drop Out Now
Yuksel sent a broadcast email on July 26:
Lynching in America continued from the 1920s up to 1980, according to Pima County Public Defender Joel Feinman.
Arizona incarcerates a higher percentage of the population than South Africa did during apartheid. “We are not the land of free and home of brave as long as that statistic is true,” said Pima County Public Defender Joel Feinman.
He spoke recently at a program on mass incarceration sponsored by the Arizona Ground Game (TAGG), a grass-roots Progressive organization that encourages active citizenship through neighborhood building.
“Mass incarceration is a long and ugly story, a bloody and racist tour of where we’ve been,” he said. “The good news is that mass incarceration is actually one of easiest political problems to solve.”
Plea bargains
Part of the problem is the universal use of plea agreements to end criminal cases. In 2013, 97% of criminal cases in the federal system were resolved by plea bargains.
“The average sentence for federal narcotics defendants with a plea agreement is 5 years,” Feinman said. “For defendants who went to trial, the average sentence was 16 years — more than 3 times the years in prison because they chose to exercise their constitutional right under the 6th amendment to have a trial by jury.”
Plea bargains are an unfair contract, where the prosecutor (the Pima County Attorney) has all the bargaining power and the defendant has none. “The criminal justice system is more interested in moving cases along than dispensing justice,” he said. “As a result, you get the highest incarceration rate and the highest number of people in prison. The judge is not the most powerful person, not the jury, not our state representatives or congress people — it is your local prosecutor. They are by far the most powerful person in the criminal justice system.”
The CD2 Congressional candidate forum on July 19 was a classic Democratic assembly, with at least 450 attendees including hecklers, cheering and booing, and horrendous audio.
The PAC RepresentMeAZ organized the event at Tucson High School and gave out report cards about the candidates. The results will be posted soon on Facebook. At the last event, Bruce Wheeler was the crowd favorite, and I’m guessing this time it may be Billy Kovacs.
Sure enough, Billy Kovacs was the audience favorite at the July 19th candidate forum. Second place went to the winner of our last Forum, Bruce Wheeler. 
Kovacs, Maria Matiella, Bruce Wheeler, Barbara Sherry and Matt Heinz staked out ultra-progressive positions, leaving a beleaguered and defensive Ann Kirkpatrick as the odd person out.
Highlights:
Who can beat the Republican?
According to a new survey by the Arizona List:
The Arizona List is a committee for pro-choice Democratic women in Arizona. The survey of 1,200 likely November 2018 voters in Arizona was conducted by veteran pollster Lisa Grove of Anzalone Liszt Grove research.
The results were shared exclusively with The Blog For Arizona. Subscribe to our blog at https://blogforarizona.net/subscribe-to-blog-for-arizona/
Popular initiatives
Stopping dirty money in politics is overwhelmingly popular with 78% of voters voting “yes.” Outlaw Dirty Money is an initiative that would change the Arizona constitution to say that any non-profit spending more than $10,000 on a political campaign would have to disclose donors who contribute at least $2,500.
Supporters say people should vote yes because it will increase transparency in our elections. It will require any front organization that gets money from the anti-consumer, anti-public school and anti-worker billionaires like the Koch brothers to disclose the original sources of the dark money.
65% of voters are in favor of the Invest In Ed initiative. It increases K-12 funding in the classroom, raises teacher and support staff salaries, and adds full-day kindergarten, by raising income taxes on individuals earning more than $250,000 and households earning more than $500,000.