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Rep. Martha McSally announces her bid for the Senate (Updated)

August 27, 2020January 12, 2018 by AZ BlueMeanie

Southern Arizona’s media invention mythical moderate Republican, Rep. Martha McSally, who is really a wingnut hardliner who has embraced our nativist and racist President Donald Trump, voting in support of his agenda 96.7% of the time, announced today that she is running for the Senate seat being vacated by Senator Jeff Flake.

Good riddance from your constituents here in CD 2, Martha, and here’s looking forward to your being unemployed come November (don’t worry, the congresswoman from Raytheon no doubt already has a job waiting for her in the military-industrial-congressional complex).

The Hill reports, McSally announces bid for Arizona Senate seat:

Arizona Rep. Martha McSally (R) has officially announced her bid for Senate, a long-awaited announcement that caps a busy week in the race to replace retiring Sen. Jeff Flake (R).

McSally formally announced her bid Friday morning in a tour across the state, but her campaign tipped its hand by releasing a video hours before.

The spot leans heavily on her experience as the first female combat fighter pilot and portrays her as an ally of President Trump.

Her blunt talk in the video shows a push to connect to Republicans across the spectrum, an important challenge for McSally considering she will be facing off in the GOP primary against two controversial candidates in former Sheriff Joe Arpaio and former state Sen. Kelli Ward.

Racist Trump blows up DACA deal: a ‘bipartisan agreement died yesterday’

January 13, 2018January 12, 2018 by AZ BlueMeanie

Our always insecure egomaniacal man-child Twitter-troll-in-chief made a vague attempt today to deny his racist comments to a group of senators negotiating a DACA deal on Thursday, Trump attacks protections for immigrants from ‘shithole’ countries in Oval Office meeting:

President Trump grew frustrated with lawmakers Thursday in the Oval Office when they floated restoring protections for immigrants from Haiti, El Salvador and African countries as part of a bipartisan immigration deal, according to two people briefed on the meeting.

“Why are we having all these people from shithole countries come here?” Trump said, according to these people, referring to African countries and Haiti. He then suggested that the United States should instead bring more people from countries like Norway [i.e., white Europeans], whose prime minister he met Wednesday.

Our Twitter-troll-in-chief Trump acknowledged ‘tough’ language but appeared to deny ‘shithole’ remark:

President Trump acknowledged Friday that he used “tough” language during a meeting on efforts toward a bipartisan immigration deal but appeared to deny using the term “shithole” to refer to some countries.

“The language used by me at the DACA meeting was tough, but this was not the language used. What was really tough was the outlandish [bipartisan] proposal made — a big setback for DACA!” Trump wrote on Twitter. (More on this below the fold).

Spokespeople for the White House did not immediately respond to a request for clarification Friday. The White House had not denied Thursday that Trump used the vulgarity, first reported by The Washington Post and later confirmed by numerous other news outlets.

Our Twitter-troll-in-chief is also a pathological liar, which is well documented. President Trump has made more than 2,000 false or misleading claims over 355 days. You can add his latest tweet to this list.

Deal, No Deal on DACA

January 11, 2018 by AZ BlueMeanie

There have been conflicting reports on a DACA deal all week, with some news organizations saying that a deal looks imminent, and others saying Congress is divided and we are headed for a government shutdown next Friday over DACA.

Reuters is reporting today that 6 US senators say they have reached immigration deal:

A bipartisan group of six U.S. senators said on Thursday they had reached agreement on immigration reform and are now working to build support for the deal in Congress.

“We have been working for four months and have reached an agreement in principle that addresses border security, the diversity visa lottery, chain migration/family reunification, and the Dream Act – the areas outlined by the president,” the so-called Gang of Six said in a statement.

The Washington Post, however, reports White House: No deal yet on immigration:

White House press secretary Sarah Huckabee Sanders told reporters that there is no deal yet on immigration, “However, we still think we can get there.”

Six senators working on immigration issues “have an agreement in principle. We’re shopping it to our colleagues,” Sen. Jeff Flake (R-Ariz.) told reporters on Thursday afternoon.

Sen. Lindsey O. Graham (R-S.C.), another member of the group, added that “we have answered the call” of Trump, who brought a cross-section of Democrats and Republicans together at the White House this week and called on them to reach a deal he can sign.

Good news, bad news for voting rights

January 4, 2018 by AZ BlueMeanie

While the media fixates on a gossipy insider book on the Trump White House, there is some good news that you may have missed.

The Secretaries of State of numerous states refused to cooperate with Donald Trump’s fraudulent voter fraud commission headed by the GOP’s voter suppression specialist, Kansas Secretary of State Kris Kobach, and several lawsuits were filed, including by members of the commission.

This was all too much for our Dear Leader who gave up and pulled the plug on his fraudulent voter fraud commission. Trump abolishes controversial commission studying alleged voter fraud:

President Trump announced Wednesday that he is disbanding a controversial [and fraudulent] panel studying alleged voter fraud that became mired in multiple federal lawsuits and faced resistance from states that accused it of overreach.

The decision is a major setback for Trump, who created the commission last year in response to his claim, for which he provided no proof, that he lost the popular vote to Democrat Hillary Clinton in 2016 because of millions of illegally cast ballots.

The commission met only twice amid the series of lawsuits seeking to curb its authority and claims by Democrats that it was stacked to recommend voting restrictions favorable to the president’s party.

In a statement, White House press secretary Sarah Huckabee Sanders said there is “substantial evidence of voter fraud” and blamed the ending of the commission on the refusal of many states to provide voter data sought by the panel and the cost of ongoing lawsuits.

This slack-jawed hillbilly from Arkansas is, as always, full of shit. And score one for the Resistance.

DACA runs into a wall again

December 31, 2017 by AZ BlueMeanie

Democratic and Republican congressional leaders will meet on Wednesday with top White House officials as they attempt to hammer out a deal to avert a government shutdown and resolve an impasse on immigration. POLITICO reports, Bipartisan DACA, spending talks set to commence with White House:

The meeting, confirmed by two sources familiar with the planning, was initially expected to include President Donald Trump’s chief of staff, John Kelly, but a White House spokesman said legislative affairs director Marc Short and budget director Mick Mulvaney would represent the president. The meeting comes as President Donald Trump attempts to squeeze Democrats to force action on one of his most iconic, divisive policy proposals: a wall on the southern U.S. border.

Trump has signaled in recent days that he would support a measure to protect undocumented immigrants who arrived in the country as minors in exchange for wall funding and other stiff border security measures that Democrats have ardently opposed.

House Minority Leader Nancy Pelosi and Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer brushed off the president’s tweet.

Democrats have repeatedly said they won’t sign on to a government funding bill without striking a deal to protect Dreamers.