AZ Congressional Delegation

The GOP rigs the game

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Posted by AzBlueMeanie:

A must-read article from Tim Dickenson at Rolling Stone, How Republicans Rig the Game:

Not only did Barack Obama win a second term in an electoral landslide in 2012, but he is also just the fourth president in a century to have won two elections with more than 50 percent of the popular vote. What's more, the party controls 55 seats in the Senate, and Democratic candidates for the House received well over a million more votes than their Republican counterparts in the election last year. And yet, John Boehner still wields the gavel in the House and Republican resistance remains a defining force in the Senate, frustrating Obama's ambitious agenda.

How is this possible? National Republicans have waged an unrelenting campaign to exploit every weakness and anachronism in our electoral system. Through a combination of hyperpartisan redistricting of the House, unprecedented obstructionism in the Senate and racist voter suppression in the states, today's GOP has locked in political power that it could never have secured on a level playing field.

Despite the fact that Republican Congressional candidates received nearly 1.4 million fewer votes than Democratic candidates last November, the Republicans lost only eight seats from their historic 2010 romp, allowing them to preserve a fat 33-seat edge in the House. Unscrupulous Republican gerrymandering following the 2010 census made the difference, according to a statistical analysis conducted by the Princeton Election Consortium. Under historically typical redistricting, House Republicans would now likely be clinging to a reedy five-seat majority. "There's the normal tug of war of American politics," says Sam Wang, founder of the consortium. "Trying to protect one congressman here, or unseat another one there." The Princeton model was built, he says, to detect "whether something got pulled off-kilter on top of that."

David Cay Johnston on seriously flawed reporting on ‘ObamaCare’

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Posted by AzBlueMeanie:

[T]he headline atop the front page of The New York Times Monday morning: “Talk of Penalty is Missing in Ads for Health Care.” I damn near spit out my coffee when I saw that mosleading headline — from a Times reporter no less.

Tax expert David Cay Johnston at the National Memo had the same reaction. Obamacare Penalized By Flawed Reporting In The New York Times:

News flash – there is no penalty for failing to get health insurance under the Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act, aka Obamacare.

Reporter Anemona Hartocollis built an entire piece around a faulty premise, stated clearly in her third sentence.  Times editors embraced her flawed reporting with the gusto of prominent placement, giving unwarranted credibility to what is, to be polite, a pile of misinformation.

Had Hartocollis read the law – or had any of the dozen or so Times editors who review every Page One story done so – they would not have published such nonsense anywhere in the paper.

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Had anyone at the Times read the law, they would know that is bunk. Here is what the law says, with statutory numbering removed:

WAIVER OF CRIMINAL PENALTIES. – In the case of any failure by a taxpayer to timely pay any penalty imposed by the section, such taxpayer shall not be subject to any criminal prosecution or penalties with respect to such failure.

LIMITATIONS ON LIENS AND LEVIES. – The Secretary [read IRS] shall not – file notice of lien with respect to any property of a taxpayer by reason of any failure to pay the penalty imposed by this section, or levy on any such property with respect to such failure.

There is a simple way for the world’s most authoritative newspaper to stop embarrassing itself this way – require reporters to actually read the laws they write about, a policy I suggested when I was a reporter there, obviously to no avail.

Why you cannot appease economic terrorists

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Posted by AzBlueMeanie:

Arizona congress critters Ron Barber and Kyrsten Sinema are targeted by the RNCC in 2014, and this has led them to accept some really bad advice from Democratic pols and consultants on how they need to position themselves on votes in the House.

This led Congressman Ron Barber to twice vote with the Republicans for a delay in the individual mandate of the Affordable Care Act aka "ObamaCare," and to vote for a series of "mini-CR" funding bills for government agencies that the Tea-Publican economic terrorists did as political theater (it was never going to become law). Congressman Barber in his press releases explained that he did this to "keep the government open." Congresswoman Sinema did the same.

If they thought that voting with the Tea-Publican economic terrorists on these political theater bills would somehow insulate them from political attacks or give them political cover, they were naively mistaken. The billionaire bastard Koch brothers were always going to attack them anyway. Tea Party Group Begins Anti-Health Care Law Blitz in Four House Districts:

KochBrothersAmericans for Prosperity, the Tea Party group that has made rolling
back the health care law one of its priorities, is starting a $2 million
campaign of television, radio and Internet advertisements aimed at
lawmakers facing tough re-election battles in four House swing
districts.

The group, backed by the billionaire industrialist brothers Charles
and David Koch, is focusing on two Democrats — Representatives Ron
Barber of Arizona and Scott Peters of California — about the
problem-plagued rollout of the program’s online health insurance
exchanges.

And it is using the ads to thank two vulnerable Republicans —
Representatives Mike Coffman of Colorado and Steve Southerland of
Florida — for ‘’fighting back’’ and voting to repeal the law.

John McCain threatens us, says he may run again

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Posted by AzBlueMeanie:

Senator John McCain is threatening us, saying he may run again. What did Arizonans do to deserve his enmity? McCain
says he is 'seriously thinking' about 6th term in 2016:

McCainTimeSen. John McCain said Tuesday he is “very seriously considering” running for a sixth term in 2016.

McCain, a veteran Arizona Republican and the 2008 GOP presidential
nominee, first made the announcement in an interview on Phoenix radio
station KFYI-AM (550) and later reiterated his comments to reporters
after a constituent event.

McCain, who would turn 80 by Election Day 2016, previously had been
saying he had not decided whether to retire. His Tuesday remarks appear
to reflect an evolution in his thinking about a possible re-election
campaign.

McCain reiterated that he still has a year or so to make a final decision about running again.

“I am very seriously considering it, and I don’t see any reason why I
shouldn’t,” McCain said after an afternoon town-hall-style meeting in
Phoenix.

Hermey, er, Paul Gosar has lost his freakin’ mind

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Posted by AzBlueMeanie:

Hermie Hermey the Misfit Elf Paul Gosar, the dentist who plays a congressman on TV, is a "Debt Denier." He has lost his freakin' mind. He told the Arizona Republic:

Rep. Paul Gosar, R-Ariz., said he was frustrated many Republicans
caved to Democrats by voting for the bipartisan deal to reopen the
government and raise the debt ceiling.

“All we’ve done is taught a spoiled child they’re going to get their way,” he said.

Despite the outcome, it was worth the effort, Gosar said. He vowed
that he and other Republicans will continue to try to block the
3-year-old health-care law for the remainder of Obama’s presidency.

“I don’t know how Republicans lost at all,” he said. “We had a
conversation with the American people on a program that is destined to
fail.”