(Cross-posted from Rum, Romanism and Rebellion) Dr. Henry “Hank” Oyama passed away on Tuesday. The last time I saw Hank Oyama was about 2 years ago. I ran into him at an event Downtown and he asked me to walk him back to his car. It quickly became obvious that he really needed no particular … Read more
Posted by AzBlueMeanie:
Rachel Maddow did a segment on Tuesday night about the GOP's new $10 million outreach to minority voters, in particular, to Hispanic voters.
The village idiot Aqua Buddha, Sen. Rand Paul (R-KY), addressed the Hispanic Chamber of Commerce in Washington D.C. on Tuesday, "and on his way there he apparently stopped off at the Hispanic voter stereotype shop."
Clip:
Republicans have been losing both respect and votes of a group of people who already identify with many of our beliefs in family, and faith, and conservative values. Hispanics should be a natural and sizeable part of the Republican base. Defense of the unborn, defense of traditional marriage, are Republican issues that should resonate with Latinos.
As Maddow commented, "Should they? Why do you think that? You know if you actually look at the data, more than half of all Hispanics think that gay people should be allowed to marry. On abortion about two-thirds of Latinos think abortion should be legal. So your stereotypes about what Latino voters think, hey, turns out they're wrong. Also, they're stereotypes."
Posted by AzBlueMeanie:
Rep. John Kavanagh (R-Fountain Hills) is a corrupt politician who uses his position to advance his own personal, often bizarre agenda, rather than to represent the best interests of his constitutuents and Arizonans.
There was this tidbit in the Arizona Republic this morning, Brewer wants Legislature to take up her priorities:
TPT is the state transaction privilege tax. A bill to streamline the tax, which effectively is the sales tax, is set for a hearing before the Senate Finance Committee this afternoon.
The bill had stalled in the House, where Speaker Andy Tobin, R-Paulden, had worried that the bill’s overhaul of the construction sales tax could hurt local governments and where Appropriations Chairman John Kavanagh, R-Fountain Hills, had not scheduled it for a hearing. Kavanagh’s wife, Linda, is Fountain Hills’ mayor.
The House Approriations Committee is not his personal fiefdom to keep his wifey happy. This tax reform bill is important to the state of Arizona and for future economic development. This is an abuse of power.
Posted by AzBlueMeanie:
The Arizona Republic editorialized in an opinion today that Arizona's voter ID law should be overturned. Voting law isn’t useful:
The Arizona voting-rights case now before the U.S. Supreme Court is more about states’ rights vs. federal control of elections than about the particulars of the case itself.
Yes, that sounds like a familiar, Arizona-centric issue.
From efforts to nullify federal laws to this current question of whether Arizona can pack additional requirements onto a federal voting-rights law, our state is highly prone to challenging federal dominion.
Posted by AzBlueMeanie:
The New York Times editorialized in an opinion today that Arizona's voter ID law should be overturned. Arizona’s Barrier to the Right to Vote:
Arizona’s Proposition 200, passed in 2004, prohibits local officials from registering any would-be voter who does not provide “satisfactory evidence of United States citizenship.” That requirement conflicts with the National Voter Registration Act of 1993, also known as the Motor Voter Act, which set up a national registration system for federal elections.
On Monday, the Supreme Court heard arguments (.pdf) about whether states have the power under the federal law to add restrictions to voter registration. They clearly do not. The justices should reject Arizona’s law as invalid and avoid recreating the problem that the federal law was intended to fix.