Sen. Jeff Flake issues a ransom note in the The Arizona Republic(an)

Posted by AzBlueMeanie:

A new New York Times/CBS News poll today finds that:

* Eighty percent of Americans, including 83 percent of independents and 75 percent of Republicans, say threatening a government shutdown is not an acceptable way to negotiate.

* Americans say overwhelmingly that Republicans are not trying to work with Obama by 70-23. By contrast, 51 percent say Obama is trying to work with Republicans.

Which is to say that the Tea-Publican economic terrorism act of taking America hostage to extort concessions from the Democrats to defund "ObamaCare" and to give them a grab bag of their wish list items in exchange for not destroying the American economy is opposed by 80 percent of Americans, who don’t see this as a fundamentally acceptable way of governing.

And yet . . . this morning Sen. Jeff Flake issued a ransom note to the American people in the The Arizona Republic(an). Delay 'Obamacare' to kill it:

[This] is why we have introduced legislation that would delay all
Obamacare provisions and taxes for one year. H.R. 2809 and S. 1490 seek
to postpone all provisions of the Affordable Care Act taking effect on
Jan. 1, 2014 or later by one year from the date of enactment.

Delaying Obamacare is a necessary step in our efforts to get this law
off the books and replace it with real health-care solutions that work
for American families and businesses. It builds on efforts already taken
by the House and Senate to delay both the individual and employer
mandates. In fairness to American taxpayers, the best thing we can do
right now is to implement a one-year delay so we can continue to chip
away at this disastrous law.

Bob Schieffer schools Rep. Matt Salmon on the reality based world

Posted by AzBlueMeanie:

Rep. Matt Salmon is a right-wing ideologue who only knows what he reads from the GOP talking points. Somehow he was a guest on Face the Nation on Sunday, and host Bob Schieffer had to school him on the reality based world. CBS Host Schools GOP Rep. on Defunding Obamacare: 'This Is the Land of What's Real':

CBS host Bob Schieffer on Sunday encouraged Rep. Matt Salmon (R-AZ)
to come back to the "land of what's real" and realize that President
Barack Obama was never going to sign bill that defunded his signature
health care reform law.

"We just had a conservative Democrat and a Republican both say
there's no way, no how that this is going to get done in the Senate,"
Schieffer explained during an interview on Face the Nation, adding that the push to defund Obamacare by forcing a government shutdown was like "a Kamikaze attack, a suicide mission." [Wall Street Journal op-ed The Power of 218.]

"I find it ironic that the president will negotiate with Vladimir
Putin, but he won't negotiate with Republicans in the House of
Representatives," Salmon opined. [John Boehner talking point.] "I heard loudly and clearly during the
August recess, 'We want Obamacare gone.'"

Schieffer reminded Salmon that many business leaders [Business lobby says don't shut down the government!]
— and even elected Republicans — agreed that Obamacare opponents in the House were
"just wasting everybody's time by going down one of these exercises
again to shut down the government."

[The Democratic Policy & Communications Center has compiled a list of 20 Republican senators
who have gone on the record acknowledging that they can’t prevent the
implementation of ObamaCare either legislatively or through a government
shutdown.]

Gosar, Franks, Salmon and Schweikert Gang up to Kick the Poor in the Teeth

By Michael Bryan The Republicans of Arizona's Congressional delegation ganged up with their Tea Party hooligan buddies to kick the poorest and most defenseless among us while we are down last week. The bill slashing SNAP (food stamps) passed on a purely partisan vote, including those of all four of Arizona's Republican Congressional Representatives, cutting … Read more

The anti-gay campaign against Daniel Hernandez

by David Safier

Daniel
Hernandez, who came to Gabby Giffords' aid when she was shot and has
become a national figure in the campaign for sane gun registration laws,
is also a member of the Sunnyside School Board. Right now, battling
school board recalls are going on, and one of them is directed at
Daniel. That's fine. That's politics. What isn't fine is the flier
attacking Daniel, saying, "Put a REAL Man on the Sunnyside Board." It
continues,

"Daniel Hernandez is
LGBT. We need someone who will support Sports and cares about our kids.
We don't need someone who hates our values. RECALL Daniel Hernandez
TODAY."

No one has claimed credit for the flier. You can see it below the fold.

The flier has gained national attention. Daniel was on MSNBC Live this morning
discussing the issue. The Pima County Democratic Party put out a media
release. Now Grijalva, who graduated from the Sunnyside School District,
has joined in.

Grijalva Calls for Joint Investigation of Attacks on Sunnyside School Board Member

Tucson,
Ariz. – Rep. Raúl M. Grijalva will hold a press conference at 12:30PM
Arizona time to discuss the recent aggression directed at Sunnyside
School Board Member, Daniel Hernandez. The event is at The Historic Y
located at 738 N. 5th Avenue in the conference room. In advance of the
event, the Congressman released the following statement.

“As
a proud graduate of Sunnyside School District, I find myself deeply
offended and disgusted by the malicious attacks being directed at Mr.
Hernandez. In public life, we all endure some baseless personal attacks
but the trend to malign political figures based on race, gender, or
sexual orientation is unfortunately becoming a norm of campaigning which
has no place in our democratic process.

You can find Grijalva's entire media release, the Pima County Dem media release and the anti-gay flier below the fold.

Poverty, Hunger, Inequality, Violence: American Women Are Being Screwed

Era58-sm72by Pamela Powers Hannley

It's time for a status update…

93 years after American women won the right to vote,

90 years after the Equal Rights Amendment (ERA) to the US Constitution was proposed,

53 years after The Pill,

50 years after The Feminine Mystique awakened middle-class housewives from the slumber of the 1950s,

47 years after the creation of the National Organization for Women (NOW),

40 years after Roe v Wade legalized abortion in the US,

and 31 years after the ERA died because it fell short of state ratification by 3 state legislatures…

Where are we? Find out after the jump.