McCain has a primary challenger

Breaking across the AZ blogosphere is the news that Republican Senator John McCain has a challenger in next year's primary.

Chris Simcox, head of the anti-immigrant group The Minuteman Civil Defense Corps, will be announcing his candidacy for the Republican nomination for McCain's Senate seat, which is on next year's ballot.

As might be expected, he will be running at McCain from the right, not that McCain is a liberal. However, supporting Bush's torture regime isn't conservative enough for folks like Simcox. One must support torturing immigrants* to be conservative enough to suit Simcox and his fellow travelers.

* - Before Thane or another commenter goes off on that statement, let me be clear - that's just partisan hyperbole utilized to make a point. To the best of my knowledge, Simcox has never advocated torturing immigrants, just throwing them into jail or out of the country (or both.)

Simcox was featured prominently in the film "Crossing Arizona" for those looking for some unvarnished insights into him (note: while I wasn't particularly impressed by him, the film really is "unvarnished." It's not a hatchet job at all.

Anyway, Tedski at R-Cubed has more info here, including the tidbit that one Eric Johnson is working for Simcox' campaign. As he points out in his post, this Eric Johnson is not the great guitarist from Austin, Texas, nor is he the Erik Johnson who was a 2nd baseman for the SF Giants and thePhoenix Firebirds in the 1990s.

Nope, the Eric Johnson has been working the nativist candidate campaign circuit. Among others, he has helped Don Goldwater not win the AZ Governor's slot in 2006 and helped Russell Pearce with his abortive challenge to Jeff Flake in CD6 last year. Flake, like McCain, is only "not conservative" by the standards of the nativists.

By real world standards though, he and McCain are so conservative that they couldn't find "moderate" with written directions, a compass, and a GPS unit.

Honestly, I don't think that Simcox has a snowball's chance in Phoenix (in July!) of beating McCain in a primary.

And Simcox probably knows that. As far as I can find, he's never held or even run for elected office before, and while he has a little notoriety, most first-time candidates need some serious name rec if they plan to start at the U.S. Senate level (think: Al Franken or Hillary Clinton.)

While a Simcox candidacy could garner some support from certain extremes of the GOP, he's going to have a hard-time convincing the mainstream of the AZGOP that he is a better candidate in the general election than McCain.

However, what he can do is gauge support for a hardcore nativist candidate in a race against McCain, to see if it's worth a shot by a more well-known hardcore nativist such as JD Hayworth.

Of course, McCain could totally mess up everything by announcing his retirement.

If that happens, look for GOPers who are a lot more mainstream than Simcox or Hayworth to go for the seat.

A cattle call primary would actually give a full-blown winger a shot at the Republican nomination.

Which would give a Democratic candidate a shot in the general election.

Hmmm.... :))


- Speaking of cattle call primaries, in other campaign news, Republican Mary Lou Taylor has filed paperwork to form an exploratory committee for a run at State Superintendent of Public Instruction. She is currently the President of the Tempe Union High School District Governing Board (term expiring next year).

She joins Margaret Dugan (Deputy Superintendent at the AZ Department of Ed) and John Huppenthal (current state senator) as people who have formed committees of one type or another for the race, with current State Rep. Rich Crandall expected to join them in the race shortly after the start of January (when he won't have to "resign to run.")

Apparently, the Reps consider Scottsdale to be home turf...

..Of course, given their registration advantage in the city right now (63,767 - 36,117 according to the Maricopa County Recorder's Office), it might be hard to argue with their confidence. Still, it's trending Bluer...but I digress.

For the 2nd consecutive week, Republicans will be holding a forum on the state budget, and for the 2nd consecutive week, it will be in Scottsdale.

This one will have a very different cast of characters, however.

From the Governor's weekly schedule -

East Valley Mayors to Host State Budget Forum with Governor Brewer
7:00 p.m. – Governor to Provide Remarks
Granite Reef Senior Center
1700 North Granite Reef Road, Scottsdale

A number of EV mayors, (Republicans all) including Scottsdale's Jim Lane and Tempe's Hugh Hallman, are scheduled to attend.

It probably won't be as colorful as last week's legislative forum in the Scottsdale Library, but it could still be fun.

It might be for very different reasons, but Governor Jan Brewer and most mayors in AZ aren't any happier with the lege and its screwing around on the budget than are the citizens of AZ.

100 days and counting, and the Reps are still keeping their budget proposal a secret.

Anyway, tomorrow's meeting should be fun, at least in a "Hey! It's cheaper than a movie." sort of way. :))

2nd reminder - You are invited to the political, social, and culinary event of the year...

CHILI FOR CHANGE COOK-OFF

With Special Guests:

Congressman Harry Mitchell and Attorney General Terry Goddard

*Who will make the best chili?*

State Senator Meg Burton Cahill?

State Representative Ed Ableser?

State Representative David Schapira?

Or a mysterious vegetarian with a killer carnivore recipe?

*Enter your own chili in the contest!*

Saturday, May 2nd, 4-7pm

At the home of David and Kathy Schwarz in Scottsdale (need directions? Contact LD17 chair Lauren Kuby - email below)

Winner announced at 5:30!

*Ticket Prices:*

$25
$15 for YDs
$10 for Kids

For Tickets: email laurenkuby[at]gmail.com; or buy online at http://www.d17dems.org/donate.asp

Proceeds to benefit the Maricopa County Democratic Party and LD17 Democrats...

OK, so it's the "event of the year" if you are a Democrat and like chili... :)

Well, that prediction was easy...

In Sunday's post on the scheduled activities of some political bodies for the coming week, I made a prediction of sorts -

...As yet, the Maricopa County Board of Supervisors has no meetings scheduled for this week. However, given the amount of litigation that the supes are involved with, the emphasis is definitely on the "as yet." :)

It's almost as if someone at the County reads this blog. (Note: I know from checking my site traffic that there are at least two regular visitors to this blog using County computers to do so.) :)

Now the supes have a special executive session meeting scheduled for tomorrow at 10:00 a.m.

I don't know what the topic of the meeting will be (that info doesn't seem to be posted anywhere on the County's website...hmmmm...), but a "short notice executive session meeting" usually means "litigation update."

Later...

Cause and effect - headline edition

The headlines of two articles in the AZ Rep sum up the budgetary state of affairs in AZ.

Cause: GOP leaders: No tax hike needed for '09-10 budget

Effect: School districts hand out 5,500 layoff notices

Any other questions?

Class dismissed. Mostly because there won't be anybody available to teach it.


Kool-Aid - The official beverage of the Republican caucus of the Arizona State Legislature.

Ten years ago today...

Ten years ago today, two heavily armed students walked into Columbine High School in Littleton, Colorado, and proceeded to kill 12 fellow students and 1 teacher, as well as wounding 23 others. They later killed themselves.

The victims were (courtesy the Baltimore Sun) -

Cassie Bernall
Steven Curnow
Corey DePooter
Kelly Fleming
Matthew Kechter
Dan Rohrbough
William Sanders
Rachel Scott
Isaiah Shoels
John Tomlin
Lauren Townsend
Kyle Valeasquez
Daniel Mauser

Being the tenth anniversary, there have been a number of memorial activities to commemorate the victims -

A sunset vigil at the Columbine Memorial in Littleton...

A "lie down" pro-gun control rally at the Capitol in Colorado...

In AZ, many Republican legislators (and even a couple of Democrats) spent the afternoon of the 10th anniversary at the Ben Avery Shooting Range in north Phoenix, participating in its own commemorative activity, the deceptively named the "First Annual Legislative Sportsman Shoot."

What a classy crass bunch.


More on the massacre and the anniversary here, here, and here. This is just a very small sample; there are thousands of pieces out there today.

Photo radar worker murdered

From AZCentral.com -

Doug Georgianni, 51, was parked inside the DPS-owned Ford Escape, used as a photo enforcement vehicle, on the eastbound State Route 101 near 7th Avenue when the vehicle was attacked, according to DPS spokesman Harold Sanders.

DPS and police officers responded to the scene just before 9 p.m., where they found both the vehicle and Georgianni shot several times, Sanders said. Georgianni was taken to an area hospital, where he later died.

The Phoenix PD has a suspect in custody, and will give details at an afternoon press conference.

My deepest sympathy goes out to Mr. Georgianni's family and friends on their loss.

Generally, I don't find myself in agreement with any of the writers at Exurban League or Sonoran Alliance, but even they, in the persons of Kevin at Exurban League and Carnelian Saloon at Sonoran Alliance, came out and publicly stated that no matter how uncomfortable one might be with photo radar, shooting the people operating the vans is wrong.

I'm not a huge fan of photo enforcement either (the cameras aren't primarily a safety measure, they're a revenue generator), but the ballot box is the way to go here. If someone disagrees with the use of photo enforcement traffic cameras, he can talk to his legislator or vote for the ballot measure banning them.

This may be a bit of a surprise coming from someone who has such a demonstrably low opinion of AZ's political extremists, but it wouldn't be shocking if the real motive for the murder was either something more personal than "Ugh. Photo radar guy. Must shoot. Ugh." or was the act of someone stupid enough to think that no one was in the van when he decided to shoot at it.

Of course, given the fact that Mr. Georgianni was shot multiple times, that second possibility seems less likely.


Again, my deepest condolences go out to the victim's family and friends.


Laurie Roberts of the AZ Rep has her thoughts here.

The coming week...

As usual, all information culled from the websites of the relevant body/agency, and is subject to change without notice.

...For the first time in three weeks, the U.S. Congress will be in session.

- In Senate news, the Senate Homeland Security and Governmental Affairs Committee will be in Phoenix to hold a hearing on the wave of violence breaking across Mexico and occasionally (thus far) into the U.S.. The hearing will be held in the chambers of the Phoenix City Council, 200 W. Jefferson St., Phoenix at 9:00 a.m. The public is invited to attend on a first-come, first-served basis, but will not be allowed to ask questions or comment.

Maricopa County Sheriff Joe Arpaio has chosen to skip the hearing in favor of an appearance on The Colbert Report.

Hey, I love The Colbert Report as much as the next wiseass with more than three working braincells, but I've got to wonder where Arpaio's head is - not only is the hearing right up his professional alley, if he went, he'd get to bash immigrants on national T.V.

- Over in the House, while it will be in session, it still looks to be a quiet week. Most of its planned agenda is filled with post office namings and housekeeping measures and the like. The most controversial bill looks to be H.R. 1145, the National Water Research and Development Initiative Act of 2009. Anything that involves scientific research will be opposed by many Republicans for that fact alone, and anything that involves money will be opposed by the rest. The bill will be the subject of a House Rules Committee hearing on Wednesday; expect to see Jeff Flake to offer up one of his anti-earmark amendments.


...In the AZ lege, there are signs that the budget battle, heretofore mostly conducted behind closed doors, is going public.

- Most of the Senate's committee agendas are still filled with presentations and executive appointments (when the committees are meeting at all). However, the agenda for Thursday's meeting of Senate Appropriations (9:30 a.m., SHR109) has a number of items on it - 10 bills with possible strikers to serve as the main budget bill as well as the budget reconciliation bills (BRBs exist because the lege cannot change laws in the actual budget bill, so any statute changes needed in order to make a budget work are put into a BRB.)

It's still early, so don't expect these moves to be the end of the budget battle, or even the beginning of the end, but they may be the beginning of the beginning, signalling that the lege is finally going to get down to some real work.

On the other hand, Senate Approps is chaired by Russell Pearce (R-National Alliance) and he is behind all of the budget strikers, so this week could just be an exercise in posturing for the wingers. If it happens at all - the text of the strikers has yet to be posted anywhere on the lege's website (as of this writing, anyway) and the underlying vehicle bills have yet to be referred to Appropriations by the Senate President.

- Over in the AZ House, most committees other than Rules are not meeting, and those that do are just meeting to hear presentations, not bills. None of the bills on the Rules agenda (so far) looks controversial.

In House floor action (actually COW, or Committee of the Whole), the most controversial bill on the agenda is HB2357. The sponsor, would-be State Superintendent of Public Instruction Rich Crandall (R-Mesa) title the measure "The Students' Religious Liberties Act" but it would be more aptly named "The Sponsor Wants To Appease The Religious Right Wing Before Running A Statewide Campaign Act."

The bill would place all sorts of restrictions on schools on their ability to deal with students who use religious dogma to complete academic assignments as well as those who wear clothing with anti-gay (or anti-whatever group they're getting their hate on for that week) messages to harass other students.


...As yet, the Maricopa County Board of Supervisors has no meetings scheduled for this week. However, given the amount of litigation that the supes are involved with, the emphasis is definitely on the "as yet." :)


...The Arizona Corporation Commission has a number of utilities hearings scheduled for the week, but no meetings of the Commission itself. The hearing matter that could affect the most people is for docket number E-01345A-08-0172, a rate hike request by APS. Tuesday, 10:00 a.m., Phoenix.


...The Board of Directors of the Maricopa Integrated Health System (MIHS) will be meeting on Wednesday, April 22, 2009 at 1:00 p.m. at Maricopa Medical Center, Auditoriums 1 and 2, Administration Building, 2601 E. Roosevelt Street in Phoenix. The highlight of that agenda seems to be item 7 (Financial Report).

It looks bad, in that according to the income statement, the system experienced an operating loss of over $3.3 million in March. However, because of the nature of the Maricopa Medical Center, an operating loss was budgeted-for, a loss of over $2.8 million. Total income for March, including non-operating revenues, was $1.76 million.

...The Central Arizona Project has a couple of committee meetings scheduled, but none for the whole governing board.

...The Governing Board of the Maricopa County Community College District isn't scheduled to meet this week.

...The Scottsdale City Council will hold a regular meeting on Tuesday at 5:00 p.m. in the City Hall Kiva. The agenda looks pretty mundane at this point, though fireworks could start bursting out in unexpected places. The most likely candidate for that is Mayor Lane's proposal to establish a Citizen Charter Review Task Force. The wording of the proposal would have that each member of the City Council appoint one member of the task force, with the mayor appointing the task force's chair.

...The Tempe City Council will be meeting on Thursday in the Harry E. Mitchell Government Center. That agenda includes a request to give Redflex $3 million more to administer Tempe's photo enforcement program. Apparently the money has already been budgeted and this matter is just a formality, but given the (lack of) popular support for photo radar, it wouldn't be shocking for some members of the public to argue against this one.

Karen Johnson for Governor and other campaign committees

...In a story that's been percolating through the AZ blogosphere, both lefty and righty, former State Senator Karen Johnson (R - formerly Mesa, now Snowflake) has formed a committee to run for governor next year.

If Johnson turns out to be Governor Jan Brewer's main competition in next year's Rep primary (she won't be, but this far out, it's all about the "if"), it could actually help Brewer. Johnson is far enough right to make the very ideological Brewer look moderate by comparison. In addition, while Johnson is so far out on the fringe (her name was on bills like "guns in schools", "guns in bars," and "secede from the United States if the feds mess with our guns," even Democrats in the lege that I've spoken to have said that she was among the warmest and most civil legislators while she was in the Senate.

Even if she stays in the primary all the way to the vote, Johnson probably won't get nasty enough to cause Brewer to spend a lot of money for the primary.

R-Cubed coverage here; Blog for Arizona coverage here.

...In LD8, someone named Ted King has filed paperwork to run for state senate. No party affiliation is listed, and the committee is one of the $500 threshold variety.

His name is utterly lousy for an internet search, but with that committee type, his candidacy isn't a serious one, regardless of his party affiliation. He's not going to upend incumbent Carolyn Allen or either of the putative front-runners for her seat when she steps aside, current state reps. Michelle Reagan and John Kavanagh on $500.

...For State Treasuer, Democrat Andrei Cherny has announced his candidacy (he'd been "exploring" a run before this) for state treasuer. He's a best-selling author and former Clinton-era White House speechwriter.

More impressions from Thursday's Republican "town hall" on the budget

...From the beginning of theThe Reps liked to talk about the state's "structural deficit" - the state doesn't take in enough in revenue every year to cover its basic annual fiscal commitments. Every budget is balanced by an array of loans, federal money, and accounting gimmicks (and more!) just so the lege can say that it didn't raise taxes.

The funny thing is that most of the "non-tax revenue enhancements" that they talked about using to address the state's budget deficit - selling state assets like parks, prisons, and the like or securitizing future lottery revenues (basically a loan using lottery revenue as collateral) are have one-time only benefits. Their ideas would do *nothing* to address that very stuctural deficit that they discussed.

In fact, but reducing the state's assets and committing future revenues to debt service instead of public services would only worsen the state's structural deficit.

In short, the Reps don't want to *solve* the state's budget problems, they want to *aggravate* them.

That way even if there is a change in the lege next year, the structural damage to the state's public service infrastructure that they are inflicting will continue to have devastating effects long after they are consigned to electoral irrelevance.

...One thing actually made me a little proud - in spite of all of the anger in the audience on Thursday, people were civil and respectful.

There was a group of ASU students who called out from the audience for a statement on the $1200 fee that Michael Crow wants to impose on students to offset the lege's cuts and a home school mom who stormed out of the hall in protest of all of the public school teachers there arguing against cuts to public ed, yet neither of them stepped out of line. They just added a little color to the proceedings. :))

...The Reps, especially Kavanagh, liked to call the expectations that education faces cuts of upwards of $900 million misinformation and a "doomsday scenario." He said that number was thrown around by Democrats to scare people.

The only problem with that position? That "$900 million" number was the Reps' own number.

I'm not sure if the Reps' disavowal of the "$900 million" number is because of the outrage of the citizenry, even some Republicans, or if the plan all along was to frighten folks with *massive* cuts before settling on cuts that are merely *huge*, and then patting themselves on the back and saying "Hey - it could have been worse. We really went to the mat for education."

Later...

Went to a "town hall" on Thursday night, and an ideological indoctrination session broke out...

Forgive the posting style tonight. I was taking notes on my laptop and trying to write the post while listening to the meeting.

That method didn't work too well. :)

Anyway, on to the post...

On Thursday evening, more than 150 interested voters (and a few of their babies :)) ) attended a Republican propaganda session budget town hall at the Scottsdale Library.

The mouthpieces for the session were Sens. Russell Pearce, Chuck Gray, and Thayer Verschoor and Rep. John Kavanagh. Other than a couple of Rep county party functionaries, no other Rep officials showed up.

Perhaps 40 members of the audience were Kool Aid drinkers - Libertarians, at least one home school mom, and assorted nativists from Pearce's posse - and all were seated front row center, BTW. The rest were teachers, members of the disabled community, and citizens concerned about the state of the state.

Eric Kurland of the Scottsdale Education Association organized a group of more than 100 educators at the front entrance of the library (SPD sent 4 cops on bikes!! We're raucous rebels!! Whoo hooo!!! :) )

The crowd in the auditorium.

The Republican spiel was predictable - taxes bad, government bad, stimulus money bad because of strings attached, the causes of our problems are named "Napolitano" and "Obama", etc. They also pounded on the point that all government bureaucracy is "wasteful." While they were (usually) careful to say that they don't want to cut services to needy Arizonans, they made it clear they want to gut the administrative infrastructure that delivers such services.

They made some noises about protecting "the most vulnerable in our society," but protecting the GOP's touchstones, big business and the wealthy, was clearly a higher priority. As in for every mention of the disabled or education, there were 10 mentions of "no taxes."

Literally.

They also tried to shift the blame for the state's revenue problems on the Voter Protection Act and on Prop 301, funding for transportation and education.

Pandering to the large number of teachers present, Chuck Gray strongly hinted that if voters opened up the VPA and its protections, Clean Elections' funding would go to education. He called Clean Elections "welfare for politicians."

Gray also decried the VPA and the motivation behind it, the lege's override of the voters' passage of the legalization of medical marijuana.

Oh, and in a shout out to the wingers, Gray called the property tax "extortion."

Russell Pearce, as is his wont, blamed undocumented immigrants for all that ails the state and country. That rant went on for more than 10 minutes, though he slipped in related jibes at other times.

Pearce also demonized the medical marijuana initiative from the 1990s...and he proclaimed, yet again, that "we have been very generous to education."

Laughter of the derisive variety ensued. :)

John Kavanagh opined that "the wealthy already pay their fair share."

More laughter.

Kavanagh spoke of "logical fallacies," saying that there were other possible courses beside program cuts and raising taxes. He wants to sell off state assets (parks? prisons?) and securitizing future lottery revenues. To be fair, even he admitted the lottery revenue scheme is just another word for "borrowing."

That was about the only sensible thing (lottery securitization is borrowing) that any of them said all evening.

Pearce, when he wasn't harping on undocumented immigrants, was excoriating the federal government for not letting private industry operate unfettered by regulation.

Of course, what he didn't mention (and perhaps didn't know because the library isn't part of his district) was to warn people about the tap water - the library is located in the northern reaches of the North Indian Bend Wash Superfund Site. A designation necessitated by private industry dumping toxic chemicals into the groundwater there.

Something they did until they were stopped by some of those pesky regulations.

Of course2, the library is part of his nativist saddle partner's (Kavanagh) district. Maybe Kavanagh should have mentioned it to him.

Kavanagh spouted about misinformation circulating about cuts to education, saying that reports of devasting cuts were misleading. He said that reports of pending cuts in the vicinity of $900 million were overstated by double, projecting cuts for FY2010 at less than $450 million. He reserved a special comment for ASU President Crow, calling his actions and words on the topic of university cuts "despicable."

In the end, the Reps tightly controlled the forum. For the vast majority of the forum, they either gave statements or answered pre-selected questions.

At the end, they *did* open the floor up to a few questions/comments, but with only a few minutes left in the forum. The time for the forum ran out with more than half of the people interested in addressing the panel still standing in line, waiting their turns at the mic.

In way of comparison, consider the format for Democratic budget hearings - 10 minutes of presentation on the state of the budget, and two hours listening to Arizonans talk about the effects of the draconian cuts have had on their lives.

In short, where the Democratic caucus of the lege listened to the concerns of voters, the Republicans lectured at the voters.

Hopefully, enough voters will see and understand the difference, and vote to make some changes come November 2010.

More pics tomorrow or Saturday....

Red meat day in the AZ Republic

Wednesday's edition of the AZ Republic featured a number of articles that were sure to tweak the radars of AZ's Republicans (the Nativist, anti-all taxes, and the white supremacist branches, anyway).

- There was an article concerning AZ's income tax rates, and how they are among the lowest in the country.

From the article -

Today is not usually a day for which taxpayers are grateful.

But, for Arizonans, there is some comfort to take on April 15, the deadline for filing income-tax returns: Among the 41 states and the District of Columbia that assess individual income taxes, Arizona charges less than all but a handful.

The Arizona Republic used income-tax rates collected by the non-profit Tax Foundation to see how Arizona stacked up with other states at three taxable-income levels: $50,000, $150,000 and $1 million. At each level, Arizona had lower tax bills than all but three to six states.

- Next up in the hit parade was an article about how the percentage of blacks as part of America's prison population in custody for drug offenses has fallen while the percentage of white drug offenders making up the prison population has risen.

From the article -

For the first time since crack cocaine sparked a war on drugs 20 years ago, the number of Black Americans in state prisons for drug offenses has fallen sharply, while the number of White prisoners convicted for drug crimes has increased, according to a report released Tuesday.

The Washington-based Sentencing Project reported that the number of Black inmates in state prisons for drug offenses had fallen from 145,000 in 1999 to 113,500 in 2005, a 22 percent decline. Over the same period, the number of White drug offenders rose, from 50,000 to more than 72,000, a 42 percent increase. The number of Latino drug offenders was unchanged at about 51,000.

- Then there was the piece de resistance - a piece on a study showing that 73% of the children of undocumented immigrants have been born in the U.S., meaning that the children are citizens.

From the article -

Nearly three out of four children of illegal immigrants are U.S.-born citizens, a growing trend that could complicate the national political debate over how to deal with millions of undocumented migrants now in the country, a comprehensive new report suggests.

An estimated 4 million children of illegal immigrants, or 73 percent, are U.S.-born, according to the nonpartisan Pew Hispanic Center.

Now, each of the articles mentioned above generated dozens of comments from AZCentral.com visitors, but the one that generated the most furor, and a blog post (from the ever-reliably nativist Seeing Red AZ - not linking to it; use Google if you really want to read it), was, of course, the last one concerning undocumented immigrants and their children.

Seeing Red AZ's post (and the comments on it) could be summed up thusly - "immigrants bad, immigrants' babies worse, 14th Amendment worst. Real Americans would get rid of all three."

Of course, as loud and prolific as the responses to these articles were, it could have been worse.

All the really extreme GOPers were out protesting President Obama's tax cuts for better than 95% of Americans at grassroots-based astroturf-based "tea parties" around the country.

...One comment on the drug/prison article - guess what could inspire real reform of our country's overly harsh and woefully unfair drug laws?

More white people facing prison because of those laws.

Later...

Democratic budget hearing to be rescheduled

Showing a little courtesy toward their Republican colleagues, perhaps because the Reps are so new to the whole "reach out to the public" thing regarding the state's budget crisis, the Democratic caucus in the state lege will reschedule one of their planned public budget hearings. Instead, they are graciously encouraging the public to attend the Republicans' first-ever public budget-related "town hall."

The Democratic hearing was scheduled for Thursday, April 16 at Mesa Community College; details of the rescheduled hearing will be announced shortly.

The Republican "town hall" will be held on Thursday in the auditorium of the Civic Center Branch of the Scottsdale Public Library (3839 N. Drinkwater Blvd., Scottsdale, 85251) at 5:45 p.m. The Maricopa County Republican Party is requesting $5 donations to the party at the door. More info here.

Minnesota closer to having a full allotment of U.S. Senators

From AP via Yahoo! News -

A Minnesota court confirmed Monday that Democrat Al Franken won the most votes in his 2008 Senate race against Republican Norm Coleman, who had already announced plans to appeal the decision.

For more than 3 months, Minnesota has been deprived of full representation in D.C. by Coleman's and the GOP's dilatory tactics.

The thing is Coleman has known since January his candidacy was over - he took a lobbyist job.

Still, petty obstructionism is the only arrow left in the national Republicans' quiver these days, so they are working it for all that it's worth.

It's been five months since the election. Yes it was close enough to warrant a recount, but every recount since the election, including those supervised by Republican officials, has favored Al Franken.

Coleman needs to give it up. If he still wants to be a U.S. Senator, he can set up a committee to run for Amy Klobuchar's seat in 2012.


Once I read the article I wanted to title the post "Franken keeps winning; Coleman keeps stamping his feet and screaming 'Wahhhhh!!!' "...but that was too long, even for me.

Wonder how the nativists rationalize this?

From AP via Yahoo! News -

Pedro Guzman has been an American citizen all his life. Yet in 2007, the 31-year-old Los Angeles native — in jail for a misdemeanor, mentally ill and never able to read or write — signed a waiver agreeing to leave the country without a hearing and was deported to Mexico as an illegal immigrant.

{snip}

In a drive to crack down on illegal immigrants, the United States has locked up or thrown out dozens, probably many more, of its own citizens over the past eight years. A monthslong AP investigation has documented 55 such cases, on the basis of interviews, lawsuits and documents obtained under the Freedom of Information Act. These citizens are detained for anything from a day to five years. Immigration lawyers say there are actually hundreds of such cases.

While nativists such as Russell Pearce (R-National Alliance) always take great pains to emphasize that they only have a problem with undocumented immigrants, not with legal immigrants or with U.S. citizens of Mexican descent, the targets of their ire seem to always have one thing in common - brown skin.

I fully expect to hear something about "acceptable collateral damage" or something similar from from the nativist side of this issue.

And I'll start believing that they believe their own BS when they volunteer to go to prison for crimes they haven't committed.

Anybody want to volunteer to hold their breath until *that* happens?

Anyone????