Pima County Republicans Cheer Kelli Ward, who Jeers McSally

This is part one of a two-part article on what the Republicans say behind closed doors. Part two is  GOP Legislative Candidate Marilyn Wiles has an Anti-Tucson Agenda

GOP Senate Candidate Kelli Ward
GOP Senate Candidate Kelli Ward

Republicans at this month’s Pima County GOP meeting gave rousing rounds of applause to tea party darling Kelli Ward, a primary candidate for US Senate, who gloated over her lead in recent polls, fawned over Ted Cruz and ripped into fellow Republicans Martha McSally and John McCain.

Republicans packed the meeting last Tuesday at the Murphy-Wilmot Library in Tucson, with a crowd of 75 to 100 people. Ward was repeated greeting with loud applause.

Asked how she differentiates herself from her rival, Congressman Martha McSally, Ward said:

“You all live in Martha’s district. You all know how she’s been as a congresswoman. In language that she can understand: she’s failed the check ride [a pilot’s exam — because McSally was a pilot].  We certainly don’t promote the people who failed the check ride, we promote people who get the job done. I have a 98 rating with the American Conservative Union, tied with Mike Pence.”

“Passion Points”

She called her platform “passion points” including the following:

  • Ejecting the UN from the United States. “I don’t think that they should be on United States soil. I don’t we should be investing so much money in the UN,” she said.

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Clinton, Trump, and Stein in early leads in Arizona PPE

Unofficial results from the Arizona Presidential Preference Election (PPE) from Secretary of State Michele Reagan’s website: http://apps.azsos.gov/election/2016/PPE/Results/PPE2016Results.htm. Only top two vote getters are being reported. Democratic Party:         Hillary Clinton  58%      Bernie Sanders  40% Republican Party:   Donald Trump  47%    Ted Cruz  25% Green Party:   Jill Stein  81%      Kent Mesplay  19% … Read more

It’s a dry denial

Crossposted from DemocraticDiva.com

I had to interrupt my holiday blogging hiatus to bring you the “Journalist Year in Review” segment from Channel 8 Horizon.

[youtube http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9uwqP2mKrG0&w=640&h=390]Link in case the video doesn’t work

Arizona Republic columnist Laurie Roberts, AZ Capitol Media Service’s Howie Fischer, and KJZZ host Steve Goldstein were asked for their prognostications for 2016, with the winning scores being tallied at the end of next year. The first questions were about the Presidency: who would win their respective party nominations and then the general elections. The three panelists differed on who would win the GOP nod, with Roberts picking Rubio, Fischer Cruz, and Goldstein going with Jeb Bush. All three believe the GOP nominee will prevail narrowly in the electoral college, though Roberts suggested that a third party run by Trump could derail that.

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The anti-choice movement is not about “life”. Never has been.

Crossposted from DemocraticDiva.com

Monica Potter quote
“Pro-life” leader in a moment of honesty of what this is all about.

Since last Friday when a deranged man murdered three people at a Planned Parenthood clinic and injured several more, even some veteran pro-choice people have been stunned at the response by anti-choice people to it, which has been equal parts callous and defensive.

“After all these years and millions of babies that have gone to their death, violence is to be anticipated,” said Judie Brown, president of American Life League, in a phone interview with MSNBC. “Because it’s acceptable to violently kill a baby, so why isn’t it acceptable to violently kill other people?”

“We never approve of violence against anybody, whether it’s the unborn babies or the clients of Planned Parenthood or anybody else,” Ann Scheidler, vice president of the Pro-Life Action League, told MSNBC. But, she added, “it’s not the fault of the pro-life movement that someone found out that Planned Parenthood is doing these things. It’s the fault of Planned Parenthood for selling the baby parts.”

Planned Parenthood is a villain,” she said. “They undermine the integrity of families and the morality of young teen girls and kill babies on a regular basis, day after day. We’re not going to say, ‘Oh, poor Planned Parenthood, we should never say anything negative about what they call ‘services.’ Because they are a blight on our culture.”

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GOP Debate: Kasich & Rubio Were Moderate, Others… Yikes!

Tucson Progressive on FacebookThe Republican debate on October 28 was a political circus.  It was the wildest and most uncontrolled “debate” I have ever witnessed.

I realize that the Republican candidates are being hammered by the media for whining about how bad the CNBC moderators and their questions were, but I agree with them. The CNBC moderators were so bad that they made Anderson Cooper’s moderation of the Democratic Party debate look even-handed and skillful. They rudely shouted over the candidates, asked multiple gotcha questions that were designed to start arguements, and never once said, “Excuse me, Mr/Ms _______, but you didn’t answer the question.” They didn’t lose control; they never had it.

“The questions asked in this debate illustrate why the American people don’t trust the media. This is not a cage match,” Senator Ted Cruz complained at Wednesday’s Republican debate. He proceeded to (quite impressively) list one stupid question that was asked each candidate. I agree with him. These people are auditioning for the most powerful job in the world; they should be respected and asked meaningful political questions– at least most of the time– instead of being asked absurd questions that are designed to sell soap. It was appalling.

The post-debate banter by the mainstream media has been surprisingly homogeneous: Jeb! lost and Rubio won. Really? The post-debate banter after the recent Democratic Party event was all over the map. Bernie won! Hillary won! Anderson Cooper won! The Democratic Party won!

I think there were several surprises in the debate that no one is reporting…

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