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Oh boy, Bob Robb is explaining race relations again

September 8, 2014 by AZ BlueMeanie

Crossposted at DemocraticDiva.com

This is not an actual picture of AZ Republic columnist Bob Robb but I found it when I was searching his name and it’s hilarious.

I meant to weight in on AZ Republic’s Bob Robb’s vomit-inducing column from last Wednesday but I see that Cynthia Zwick has responded beautifully to Robb’s outrageously offensive claim that poor black people shouldn’t be politically active and should instead quietly get jobs and stop having so many welfare babies and abusing drugs and alcohol.

Robb’s conclusion is truly disturbing. “Obviously children living in poverty aren’t there because they failed to check the right boxes,” he wrote. “But what serves their interests best: Telling them that poverty is a political issue to be addressed through activism? Or that poverty is a condition that can be escaped or avoided through education, hard work and not engaging in destructive behavior?”

Those questions are subtle directives towards those who are poor and, by association, those who are of color. His message is: go to school, work hard, and keep your head down and don’t bother wasting your time protesting and engaging in politics, protests and activism.

In truth, the exact opposite is needed.

Poor communities and communities of color must engage in activism. They must vote, hold their leaders accountable and demand systemic change through peaceful protest.

9th Circuit Court of Appeals to hear same-sex marriage appeals on Monday

September 7, 2014 by AZ BlueMeanie

Media advisory from the Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals:

Live Video Streaming of Oral Arguments in Gay Marriage Cases

On September 8, 2014, the United States Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit will hear oral arguments in the Hawaii, Idaho and Nevada gay marriage cases. The arguments will begin at 1 p.m. in Courtroom One of the James R. Browning U.S. Courthouse, 95 7th St., San Francisco.

The court strongly encourages interested persons to use the Internet to watch the oral arguments via live video streaming from the courtroom. To access the stream, visit the court website – www.ca9.uscourts.gov – and click on the link under the beige-colored bar labeled “Live Oral Arguments.” Streaming will commence a few minutes prior to the start of the proceedings.

Public seating in Courtroom One will be extremely limited and likely to be quickly filled. Those unable to get a courtroom seat will be able to watch live video in viewing areas elsewhere in the building. This will be the same video streamed to Internet viewers.

Thank you.

The Immigration Debate – Part 1

September 8, 2014September 7, 2014 by AZ BlueMeanie

Things you never see reported in the Arizona media because it does not fit their GOP-friendly media narrative. [Update: See the “editorial opinion” of The Arizona Republic obviously written by Doug MacEachern, Executive order a bad idea – now or later in which he asserts “a legally dubious executive order” that will lead to “a full-blown constitutional crisis” and “prod Republicans into impeachment overreach.” All GOP talking points, all the time.]

Greg Sargent of the Washington Post reported last week, Lawyers agree: Obama has broad authority to act on deportations:

With Obama administration officials debating how aggressively to use unilateral action to shield people from deportations, more than 100 immigration law professors have signed a letter to the President (.pdf) arguing that he has expansive legal authority to act to temporarily protect additional groups from removal — and that this authority is rooted in statute, court opinion, regulations, and precedent.

The letter (.pdf), which was shared with this blog before its release, is designed to make the case to media and opinion-makers that Obama has maximum legal room to maneuver — which could shape how much political space the administration thinks it has on this difficult and explosive decision.

The letter — which was distributed by the American Immigration Council and the National Immigration Law Center — was signed by over 130 professors, attorneys and experts, some from the major Ivy League law schools, and others from border and red states that are relevant to the politics of this decision.

The Trouble with E.Orr: Taking credit where it is not due

September 5, 2014 by AZ BlueMeanie

The Citizens Clean Elections Debate for the LD 9 House between incumbent Rep. Ethan Orr (R-Tucson) aka “E.Orr,” and Dr. Randall Friese (D-Tucson) was actually quite interesting. LD9 General Election Debate Video Replay. E.Orr’s seat mate Rep. Victoria Steele (D-Tucson) was unable to attend.

It seems that E.Orr thinks quite highly of himself as the lone Republican in the Arizona legislature from Baja Arizona not from Cochise County. He continuously implied and suggested that without him, the blue island of Tucson and Pima County would get nothing from our Tea-Publican colonial overlords in the state of Maricopa. We have heard this line from Tea-Publicans before. The last set of Tea-Publican legislators from Pima County routinely sought to punish the blue island of Tucson and Pima County out of partisan ill will as you will recall.

It’s too bad that Victoria Steele was not able to attend because I would love to have seen her reaction to E.Orr taking sole credit for the Mental Health First Aid bill, HB 2570 (2013) which was co-sponsored by Reps. Steele and Orr. That bill failed (it was held in the Senate). Rep. Steele sponsored the bill again in 2014, HB 2490 (Orr was not a sponsor to this bill). Steele introduces Youth Mental Health First Aid Bill. This bill also failed (held in the Senate). The $250,000 was eventually appropriated in the budget.

Federal judge enjoins GOP voter suppression in Ohio

September 4, 2014 by AZ BlueMeanie

Ari Berman of The Nation reports on today’s decision in Ohio. Ohio Early Voting Cuts Violate the Voting Rights Act:

Ohio keeps trying to cut early voting and the federal courts keep striking the cuts down.

Last year, Ohio’s Republican-controlled legislature cut a week of early voting and eliminated the “Golden Week” when voters can register and vote on the same day during the early voting period. GOP Secretary of State Jon Husted also issued a directive prohibiting early voting on the two days before the election, and on weekends and nights in the preceding weeks—the times when it’s most convenient to vote.

Today a federal court in Ohio issued a preliminary injunction against the early voting cuts, which it said violated the Equal Protection Clause of the Fourteenth Amendment and Section 2 of the Voting Rights Act, ordering Ohio to restore early voting opportunities before the midterms. “African Americans in Ohio are more likely than other groups to utilize [early] voting in general and to rely on evening and Sunday voting hours,” wrote District Court Judge Peter Economus, a Clinton appointee. As a consequence, the early voting cuts “result in fewer voting opportunities for African Americans.”