by David SafierThe Pew Hispanic Center says one in seven students in Arizona schools are there as the result of illegal immigration. About 100,000 of the students are citizens with one or more parents here illegally. Another 60,000 are themselves not legal residents. The study said the national figure is one in fifteen. These number … Read more
by David Safier Lest we forget, Cutman's alter ego, Rep. Russell Pearce, has been around for awhile. The Southern Poverty Law Center just came out with an Intelligence Report — Hate in the Mainstream: Arizona Reelects Hard-Core Nativist Politician. I'm copying it here in full. I take no responsibility for any exaggerations and inaccuracies that … Read more
By Karl Reiner The U.S. government’s effort to improve security along the Mexican border is delivering results. The combination of towers, physical barriers, better intelligence and an increase in the number of agents has made the crossing more difficult. As a consequence, the number of arrests made by the Border Patrol is down approximately 12%. … Read more
by David Safier In the past few days, the Star has written two strong, important editorials, one criticizing Horne’s wrongheaded ELL policies and another condemning immigrant bashing. Meanwhile, the Citizen went after Jan Brewer for the latest salvo in her unending crusade against election integrity. This kind of advocacy by our local papers deserves notice. … Read more
Mining industry lobbyist and candidate for Congress in CD 1, Sydney Hay put together a very nice introductory video for her campaign. It illustrates very clearly why the GOP won’t manage to hang on to CD 1: they are absolutely bereft of ideas.
Hay’s campaign looks like it was cobbled together out of most extreme rantings and wacky policies of the Right over the past 20 years, the dissicated corpses of Reagan and Goldwater, and the most disingenuous and empty rhetoric the Right has fallen back on in defense of the massive failures of the Bush years, all held together by a ‘values’ appeal that already passé among evangelicals and fundamentalists, let alone the general public.
You can always tell when a social movement is effectively dead by how nostalgic its members become about a claimed Golden Age. In the case of the Conservative Movement, their necromantic rites centering around Reagan and Goldwater are increasingly elaborate, central to their religion, and frankly pitiful.
Sure, we Democrats have our culture heroes—FDR, JRK, RFK, MLK—but we aren’t nearly so strident about hearkening back to their particular strain of liberalism as a lost Golden Age that we must return to, and to which our politicians must pay obsequious obescience.
That’s because Liberalism is alive and kicking and growing. Conservatism is a dead and discredited credo, destroyed by Bush and the Republican Congress of 1994-2006, now seeking a leader who can revivify it with a fresh perspective and newly invigorated values. That leader doesn’t seem to be Sydney Hay—she’s too ideologically rigid to acknowledge any new ideas.
I was really amused by the enthusiastic and detailed endorsement by Arizona Republican Congressman Trent Franks. Since the incumbent is in the dock, Renzi can’t exactly pass the establishment torch, so Trent from next door is pinch-hitting. It should prove amusing to watch the Republican candidates in CD 1 madly scramble to avoid any association with Renzi.
Trent credits Sydney with a number of key accomplishments. He indicates she lead the campaign to require a super-majority for any tax increase in Arizona. The result has been to ratchet down tax rates permanently, destroying the Arizona state government’s ability to fund essential services. Trent tells us that Sydney, a former teacher, also was largely responsible for the failed experiment of charter schools, and for diverting taxes to private and parochial schools.
Polices Sydney claims credit for have over the last two decades been largely responsible for Arizona’s free-fall to nearly the bottom among U.S. states in almost every educational metric. With accomplishments like these in her past, electing her to office is sure to result in policies that will make us even more backward, poor, and uncompetitive.
Let’s take a quick look at some of the ‘ideas’ Sydney wants to take to Congress…