Phoenix

AEA Education town halls with Gubernatorial Candidates

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Nov. 1 – Flagstaff Nov. 8 – Yuma Nov. 29 – Phoenix Nov. 30 Tucson Specific location information for each is on our Blog for Arizona calendar for each of these dates: https://blogforarizona.net/calendar-2/. Two Democratic candidates running for Governor:  LD 9 State Senator Steve Farley and Dr. David Garcia, education professor at ASU, who ran … Read more

How anti-choicers play the media

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lynn and duffyThey sure seem like a couple of reasonable people

I’ve been so wrapped up in the Presidential primary that I missed this. From the local Phoenix edition of the AZ Republic:

An anti-abortion group held a prayer vigil Saturday night outside a Phoenix hospital where they believe staff members are caring for a baby who survived an abortion.

More than 45 people crowded a candle-lined sidewalk across the street from Banner-University Medical Center Phoenix. Some held signs, others rosaries while they were led in group prayer. After the demonstration, a hospital spokeswoman denied there was a baby fitting that description under the hospital’s care.

Rumors began circulating Friday in the anti-abortion community that a 21-week-old fetus had been discovered breathing during an abortion procedure that afternoon at a private clinic near the hospital.

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It’s nice in the privileged bubble

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Crossposted from DemocraticDiva.com

Governor Ducey (or someone on his staff), in a manner consistent with the forced sunnily optimistic tone of his administration, praised this story in the Weekly Standard about a couple from the East Coast, author and neoconservative think tank associate Cita Stelzer and her husband, economist Irwin Stelzer, who are now snowbirds and having an idyllic time with the evangelical Christians in the outer suburbs of Phoenix.

We never thought we would find ourselves stocking a pantry in Arizona. But now that Phoenix is our winter base, there we were, on line at the deli counter of a supermarket located in one of the ubiquitous strip malls that we love because they are home to thrusting small businesses as well as huge anchor tenants like the store we were in. After waiting awhile, we realized we were in a take-a-number queue. We remedied the oversight and got number 61. We both remember it because of what followed. When a customer who’d arrived after us, but taken a number promptly, was called, she nodded toward us and told the clerk, “These people were here before me. They just forgot to take a number. So serve them first.”

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Planned Parenthood was rallied for and protested in Phoenix!

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Crossposted from DemocraticDiva.com

anti choice phoenixIdiots

On Saturday morning I went to the rally for Planned Parenthood at its new location in midtown Phoenix, which was held in response to an anti-choice protest planned to be held outside. Abortion opponents were there as part of a nationwide protest of Planned Parenthood locations (several of which don’t actually perform abortions, as pro-choice advocates noted on social media). I showed up at the Phoenix event fully prepared with water and sunscreen for what was to be a brutally hot August morning. I was pleasantly surprised to find that our rally was to be held in the parking garage where we’d be warm but at least out of the sun. And those of us who showed up in support of Planned Parenthood were treated to donuts and rousing speeches and music, which was blasted on to the anti-choice crowd outside.

The anti-choicers weren’t so lucky but it was their decision to hold their protest outside the Planned Parenthood building so they could block Pierson Street, which was ridiculous because the building was still easily accessible from 15th Street and Pierson is not even remotely a major thoroughfare. I hear that a few protesters collapsed from the heat (not surprising). It was rage-inducing to see how several of the antis brought their youngsters with them to roast in that hot sun, including one Father of the Year strutting around showing off his toddler and baby, both of whom were uncovered and the baby wasn’t even wearing a hat. If grown idiots want to make themselves martyrs to the cause of anger over women having unpunished sex, that’s one thing, but endangering non-consenting children like that is simply criminal.

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Does Bernie Sanders Have ‘White People Problems’? (video)

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11,000 Sanders supporters filled the Phoenix Convention Center on Saturday, July 18,2015. (Photo by Dennis Gilman)
11,000 Sanders supporters filled the Phoenix Convention Center on Saturday, July 18,2015. (Photo by Dennis Gilman)

Saturday was a day of highs and lows for Senator Bernie Sanders.

In the morning at Netroots Nation, Sanders became visibly annoyed by Black Lives Matter protesters who wanted to hear more than stump speeches from Democratic presidential candidates Sanders and former Governor Martin O’Malley. They wanted to know what President Sanders or President O’Malley would do to end systemic racism in the US. They didn’t get an answer from either candidate.

In the evening– again at the Phoenix Convention Center– Sanders was greeted enthusiastically by a mostly white crowd of 11,000 progressives cheering his economic inequality stump speech. According to news accounts, this was Sanders’ largest crowd to date.

The whiteness of Sanders’ supporters has come up before, but Netroots Nation (NN15) really brought the issue home for me.

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