U.S. Senate

BREAKING: McSally Locked, Loaded and Ready For 2020 Run – Well, Definitely Loaded

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Outgoing Rep. Martha McSally is locked, loaded and ready for another run at a U.S. Senate seat from Arizona. Or, at a minimum, she is loaded. The former fighter pilot, who narrowly lost an expensive campaign to replace retiring Sen. Jeff Flake, keeps more than $1M in the McSally For Senate bank account.

Considering  she spent more than $19.7M on the race against fellow Rep. Kyrsten Sinema, keeping approximately 5% in the tank may not seem like much. But, given that there is already pressure on Governor Doug Ducey to appoint her to take Sen. Jon Kyl’s place serving out the term for the late Sen. John McCain, having a significant head start has already increased speculation that she will soon join Sinema in the Senate.

The ongoing war-chest numbers come from the campaign’s latest FEC filing,

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Special Election To Replace AZ Sen. Jon Kyl Next Summer, AZ Law Unconstitutional –New Lawsuit

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The constitutionality of Arizona’s law giving Governor Doug Ducey the right to control the U.S. Senate seat vacated by the passing of John McCain has been challenged in federal court.

A group of plaintiffs led by William Tedards filed the action against Ducey and Senator Jon Kyl yesterday and asks that the Governor be required to call for a special election within six months. Their contention is that the 17th Amendment of the U.S. Constitution (text below) which requires that U.S. Senators be elected invalidates the Arizona law (also below) that the special election for a Senate vacancy can only be held at a biennial general election.

17th Amendment, U.S. Constitution

McCain passed away in August, too late for Governor Ducey to add a primary and general election to be held by November 6, 2018. Instead, he appointed former Kyl to the seat, even as Kyl indicated that he might very well only stay in the position through the end of 2018. That would permit the Governor to make a new appointment for another two years, for a total of 28 months.

When asked by Arizona’s Politics about the timing of this action, nearly three months after the Kyl appointment, lead attorney Mike Persoon stated there was

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AZ General Election 2018 results – updated

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Lots of Arizona statewide races to report on, so the simplest way now is to just check the Arizona Sec. of State’s website for the latest results/updates:

www.azsos.gov

Leading – all Republicans for these Arizona statewide races:

Governor, Sec. of State, Attorney General, Treasurer, Superintendent of Public Instruction, Corporation Commission (2 seats), State Mine Inspector. (Incumbents in these races: Governor, AG, one Corporation Commissioner, Mine Inspector.)  Voter turnout was 46.8%

One to watch is Superintendent of Public Instruction (too close to call):

Kathy Hoffman (D)   830,676

Frank Riggs (R)   837,396

U.S. Senate seat (Jeff Flake stepping down)

Martha McSally (R)  850,043

Krysten Sinema (D)  834,135

CD 1:

Tom O’Halleran (D incumbent)   111,854

Wendy Rogers (R) 97,929

CD 2:

Ann Kirkpatrick (D)  125,349

Lea Marquez Peterson  (R)  109,759

CD 3:

Raul Grijalva (D incumbent)  78,308

Nick Pierson (R)  49,331

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Martha McSally and the Vulture Capitalist: not a bedtime story

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Vulture capitalist Paul Singer
Vulture capitalist Paul Singer made huge profits attacking miners dying of asbestos exposure. He donated heavily to Martha McSally’s campaign.

“Follow the Money” a phrase popularized after Watergate, has never been more true than today.  Some are blatant about it, as Trump on Saudi Arabia: “They spend $40 million, $50 million….Am I supposed to dislike them?”

Martha McSally would probably prefer to keep her big money connections quiet. When she first ran for Congress in 2016, she received over $100,000 from an innocent-sounding PAC called Winning Women.  This was over one-third of her entire budget during that critical quarter.  As reported on this blog, Winning Women is funded largely by vulture capitalist Paul Singer.

What does it mean to be a Vulture Capitalist?  In the case of Paul Singer, it meant that he made huge profits attacking miners dying of asbestos exposure and seizing money meant to address a cholera epidemic in the Congo.  You can’t make this stuff up.  Investigative journalist Greg Palast, author of Vulture’s Picnic, has researched this deeply.  He explains:

Singer’s modus operandi is to find some forgotten tiny debt owed by a very poor nation (Peru and Congo were on his menu). He waits for the United States and European taxpayers to forgive the poor nations’ debts, then waits at bit longer for offers of food aid, medicine and investment loans. Then Singer pounces, legally grabbing at every resource and all the money going to the desperate country. Trade stops, funds freeze and an entire economy is effectively held hostage.

Singer then demands aid-giving nations pay monstrous ransoms to let trade resume. At BBC TV’s Newsnight, we learned that Singer demanded $400 million dollars from the Congo for a debt he picked up for less than $10 million. If he doesn’t get his 4,000 percent profit, he can effectively starve the nation. I don’t mean that figuratively – I mean starve as in no food. In Congo-Brazzaville last year, one-fourth of all deaths of children under five were caused by malnutrition. (as of Oct 2011)

Recently, former United Nations envoy Winston Tubman suggested I ask Singer or his business associates, “Do you know you’re causing babies to die?”

 

The key is, that Singer depends on finding a jurisdiction that will allow his legal maneuvers to put his claims before those of the population, so having lawmakers on his side is important to his business model.

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AZ Daily Star endorses Democrat Congresswoman Krysten Sinema for U.S. Senate

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The Arizona Daily Star editorial board endorsed Democrat CD 9 Congresswoman Krysten Sinema for the open seat in the Arizona U.S. Senate, over Republican CD 2 Congresswoman Martha McSally. The article appeared today in the Star, page A 10, and here’s the online version: https://tucson.com/opinion/local/star-opinion-kyrsten-sinema-for-the-u-s-senate/article_0cbc550b-d24e-5f06-a57f-89bd794f929b.html Sinema is a 3 term Congresswoman.  This U.S. Senate seat … Read more