Legislative schedule - week starting 12/22/2024

It's a holiday week, so nothing is on the schedule right now.

However, that's subject to change.  It's best to keep an eye out for changes

Also, things will change as we get closer to the new session of the legislature.

Tom Horne: Arizona's version of Cheeto

I saw Tom Horne, Arizona's Superintendent of Public Instruction (SPI), on today's episode of Sunday Square Off and Channel 12.attempting to rationalize his attempt to ignore fraud in AZ's ESA (school voucher) program.  He terms it "bulk approval" of reimbursement claims.

What struck me is how much he resembles Cheeto:

1) He never takes responsibility for his own failures.

2) He steals credit for any successes by his office (I'm guessing that he doesn't inspire much loyalty among staff).

3) He blame shifts to Democrats.

4) He really doesn't like women.  He blamed his troubles on AZ AG Kris Mayes and his predecessor as SPI, Kathy Hoffman.  It helps him that both Mayes and Hoffman are Democrats.

5) He habitually cheats on his wife with a future wife.  Though to the best of my knowledge, he hasn't yet boinked a porn star.

If he wants to be more like Cheeto, maybe he should cheat at golf, too.

Legislative schedule - week starting 12/15/2024

 Well, the election is over, so activity at the Capitol is picking up.

Admittedly, there's only three meetings scheduled at this point, and they're all scheduled for Wednesday, but that's three more than are on the schedule for Christmas week.

However, that's subject to change.  It's best to keep an eye out for changes.

On Monday 12/16, Tuesday, 12/17, and Thursday, 12/19 - nada.

On Wednesday, 12/18 -

Joint Legislative Budget Committee (JLBC) meets at 9:30 a.m. in SHR109. On the agenda: 12 items, eight of will be considered en masse as part of consent agenda item.  The four items that they will actually consider: reviews of items involving the AZ SOS and AZ AG.  As both offices are headed by Democrats and the "reviews" will take place in executive session (fewer witnesses that way), I'm guessing that there will be less considering and more "raking over the coals" going on. The other two item will be public and involve DEQ and AHCCCS/DES.  As John Kavanagh chairs this committee, he will probably focus making sure no trans people are helped by these agencies.

Joint Committee on Capital Review (JCCR) meets at 9:45 a.m. or upon adjournment of the JLBC meeting in SHR109.  On the agenda:  six items, five and half of which will be considered en masse as part of consent agenda item.  What will be considered in public are a couple buildings under construction as U of A.  Kavanagh chairs this one too, so trans people will probably be mentioned here, too.

House Committee on International Trade meets at 10:30 a.m. in HHR1.  On the agenda: this looks to be a pro forma meeting.

If it's December, it must be vehicle bill time at the AZ legislature

In lege-speak, a "vehicle bill" that exists basically to serve a shell for a strike-everything amendment ("striker") that's usually far more insidious and detrimental to society than the underlying bill.

Normally, such bills have "technical correction" in the working title, but this year, they've gotten creative.  So far, none have that in the title.

Thus far, 14 actual bills have been introduced; of those, eight look to be vehicles for strikers.

Of the 14, nine were introduced by Ol' Reliable, John Kavanagh (R - CAP's Lapdog) (and he is listed as a co-sponsor of another); seven look to be strikers.

Some of the bills are about things like balloons, fair juries, and eyeglasses; not the sort of things that Republicans are known for giving a damn about.

One prediction: SB1007, working title "public school tax credit; purposes" will be turned into something to expand private school vouchers.

Regarding the murder of a CEO in NYC where the NYPD pulls out all stops to look for the killer

That may be because that CEO was rich and white; if the victim was poor and/or black, they'd call the killing a "public service homicide" and ignore it completely.

Posted on Bluesky (by me):

I don't wish death on anyone. Full stop. However, there is a list of folks who I don't believe should be mourned, and people who value profits more than human lives make that list.

And if certain folks (on both sides of the issue) think that makes me a bad human being, then I can live with that.

Legislative schedule - week starting 12/8/2024

 Well, the election is over, so activity at the Capitol is picking up.

Admittedly, there's only two meetings scheduled at this point, but that's two more than happens during most weeks between legislative sessions.

However, that's subject to change.  It may be best to keep an eye out for changes.

On Monday, 12/9 and Thursday, 12/12 - Nada.

On Tuesday, 12/10 -

Joint Legislative Audit Committee meets at 9 a.m. in HHR1.  On the agenda: Six items, including some about certain audits of certain schools/programs.

On Wednesday, 12/11-

Senate Government meets at 1 p.m. in SHR1.  On the agenda: no bills, but is this was a hockey blog, I'd say the committee chairman Jake Hoffman is dropping his gloves and facing off with AZAG Kris Mayes,  Except that unlike a hockey fight between two participants looking each other in the eye, Hoffman will be launching his haymakers from behind a shield made up of Phoenix firefighters.

The committee will be looking into allegations of discriminatory practices by the Phoenix Fire Department and seeking the blame Mayes.  

One of the presenters: an attorney from the Goldwater Institute, a conservative lobbying group.

 

Is there a post office with a blank wall? Cheeto has a list of names of people who should be on it.

Some have even already been convicted and served some prison time.

From USA Today, via Yahoo! -

Just four months out of prison, Peter Navarro to join Trump White House as trade advisor

Peter Navarro will head back to the White House as a top advisor on trade and manufacturing, President-elect Donald Trump announced Wednesday on Truth Social.

Navarro is an economist who served in Trump's first administration, running a newly created National Trade Council and then the Office of Trade and Manufacturing Policy.

A loyal supporter to the president-elect, Navarro was sentenced to four months in prison after a federal jury convicted him of refusing to comply with a subpoena from the congressional committee investigating the Jan. 6, 2021 attack on the U.S. Capitol. He spoke at the Republican National Convention in August just after being released.

CBS News has a list of Trump nominees/future convicts.

Axios has a list of previous supporters/allies of Cheeto who've done prison time.

Got a new nickname for State Sen. John Kavanagh: Ol' Reliable

Ol' (bile-filled) Reliable, maybe.

Our John really dislikes trans people.

So when it came time to introduce legislation for the upcoming session, he had two choices - get his hate on or change his character and become ardently pro-public education.

Hint: He hasn't changed.

Instead, he has introduced SB1002 and SB1003.

SB1002 would bar people employed by a school system from using a student's preferred pronoun and SB1003 would bar students from using a restroom or "changing facility" (think: locker room) belonging to their preferred gender.

Not exactly schemes to benefit society, but they may make Kavanagh's handler at the Center for Arizona Policy happy - that person may actually hate trans people as much as our John, and public schools, particularly adequate funds for them, aren't as lucrative as school vouchers that siphon money away from public schools.

Frying pan, meet fire

Leave to Cheeto to go from bad to worse.

From Axios -

Trump considers DeSantis to replace Hegseth as Defense Secretary pick

President-elect Trump is considering replacing Pete Hegseth — his current nominee to lead the Defense Department — with Florida Governor Ron DeSantis, multiple outlets reported.

Why it matters: Hegseth's path to confirmation appears in jeopardy. Some Senate Republicans have expressed reservations about the Fox News host after a sexual assault allegation against him resurfaced last month.

• If four Republicans withhold their support, Hegseth's nomination would founder — a prospect that could preempt his withdrawal.

Driving the news: Trump and DeSantis have personally discussed the possibility of DeSantis replacing Hegseth as the Defense Secretary nominee, The Bulwark's Marc Caputo, who is joining Axios in 2025, reported.

It's probably not going to happen, though.  DeSantis seems to fail to meet Cheeto's idea of the primary qualification for *any* position in his administration/coteries of followers. 

From later in the same story -

• Trump has repeatedly attacked DeSantis for being insufficiently loyal. He also gave him the disparaging nickname "Ron DeSanctimonious."

Of course, it *could* happen.  It's not as if I'm on Cheeto's "loyal" list.

Constantly referring to him as "Cheeto" may have contributed to that. :)

This may be the best argument in favor of keeping time changes and Daylight Saving Time

The dumbest man in D.C. hates them.

From The Hill -

Tuberville calls on Musk, Ramaswamy to make daylight saving time permanent

Sen. Tommy Tuberville (R-Ala.) encouraged the new “Department of Government Efficiency” (DOGE) to create a year-round standard time in a Wednesday post on the social platform X.

His goal is to have the department, led by X owner Elon Musk and Vivek Ramaswamy, replace daylight saving time.

[snip]

President-elect Trump has previously been in favor of making daylight saving time permanent, and his nominee for secretary of State, Sen. Marco Rubio (R-Fla.), sponsored a bill in support of the change last year.

Apparently, Elon Musk is already failing at his "government "efficiency" gig

Or perhaps he doesn't believe that it applies to Cheeto.

From ABC News -

Trump picks Florida sheriff Chad Chronister for DEA administrator

President-elect Donald Trump announced he will nominate Hillsborough County Sheriff Chad Chronister to lead the Drug Enforcement Administration.

In a post on Truth Social on Saturday, Trump said that Chronister -- who has served the Tampa, Florida, area for over 32 years -- will work with his attorney general selection, Pam Bondi, to help secure the U.S.-Mexico Border.

From Barron's -

Trump Taps Charles Kushner, Father Of His Son-in-law,

 

As Envoy To France

President-elect Donald Trump on Saturday nominated Charles Kushner, the father of his son-in-law Jared Kushner, as the US ambassador to France, in the latest of several controversial picks.

Kushner "is a tremendous business leader, philanthropist, & dealmaker, who will be a strong advocate representing our Country & its interests," Trump said on his Truth Social website, adding that Jared "worked closely with me in the White House."

Whither Joe Arpaio?

He's a (former) sheriff AND he's been pardoned by Cheeto.

Sounds like an efficient two-fer pick for Cheeto and Joltin' Joe is like Cheeto in a significant way - he has lots of experience both at hating people of Mexican ancestry and ignoring laws.

There's an ancient curse -

May you live in interesting times.

The next few years may not be pleasant (except for crooks and bigots) but they won't be boring.

GOP mantra: constitutional clauses are irrelevant if they don't adhere to cons' ideology

From AP via Yahoo! -

Missouri's GOP attorney general says abortions after viability remain illegal under new amendment

Missouri's Republican attorney general has pledged to enforce some laws restricting abortion despite a new constitutional amendment widely expected to undo the state's near-total ban on the procedure.

In an opinion requested by incoming GOP governor Mike Kehoe, Attorney General Andrew Bailey wrote that his office will continue enforcing a ban on abortion after fetal viability.

Pardon my cynicism, but I believe this is just a state-level manifestation of what we'll see from Cheeto and the coterie of crooks in his orbit.

Any parts of constitutions and laws they don't like will simply be ignored

Threats of violence directed at Trumpkins? "Unhinged". Threats directed at Democrats? Crickets.

Gotta love shameless hypocrisy.

From The Hill, via Yahoo! -

Johnson on threats against Trump nominees: ‘This is dangerous and unhinged’

House Speaker Mike Johnson (R-La.) said Wednesday the threats against President-elect Trump’s nominees and appointees are “dangerous and unhinged” and called on President Biden and other Democratic Party leaders to condemn the incidents.

“This year, there was not just one but TWO assassination attempts on President Trump,” Johnson said in a Wednesday post on social platform X, referring to a shooting during a Pennsylvania rally over the summer when Trump’s ear was grazed with a bullet and another incident at his Florida golf club where agents thwarted an apparent attempt on his life before shots were fired.

“Now some of his Cabinet nominees and their families are facing bomb threats,” he continued. “This is dangerous and unhinged. It is not who we are in America,”

Rep. Hakeem Jeffries, the Democratic leader in the U.S. House, voiced a slightly different attitude.

From Politico -

Jeffries office: Bomb threats made against Dem lawmakers ‘unacceptable’

The office of House Minority Leader Hakeem Jeffries denounced Thanksgiving Day threats made against Democratic members of Congress that ranged from “detailed threats of a pipe bomb placed in mailboxes to swatting.”

Each of the threats was “signed with ‘MAGA’ at the conclusion of the message,” the minority leader’s office said in a statement on Friday.

That makes it sound as if he was as bad a human being as Johnson.  Except he went on.

From the same article -

"Threats of violence against elected officials are unacceptable, unconscionable and have no place in a civilized society,” the statement from Jeffries’ office said. “All perpetrators of political violence directed at any party must be prosecuted to the full extent of the law.”

Leader Jeffries' full statement is here,  Johnson?  Nada.  He seems to find political violence and threats of the same acceptable...if the recipients are Democrats.

Legislative schedule - week starting 12/1/2024

Nada, as in there is nothing scheduled at the legislature at this point.  

However, that's subject to change.  It may be best to keep an eye out for changes.

Reason 234,974 I'm not on social media

And the first 234,973 reasons are "Elon Musk".

From BBC -

Mark Zuckerberg dines with Donald Trump at Mar-a-Lago

Meta boss Mark Zuckerberg has visited Donald Trump at his resort in Mar-a-Lago, further evidence of the apparent thawing in their once frosty relations.

The president-elect already has a close, high-profile relationship with another of the leading figures in tech, X owner Elon Musk.

Just a guess here, but it wouldn't surprise me to find out that the dinner conversation revolved around the best ways to monetize fleecing the suckers.

And the first ones out of the gate are...

The 2025 legislative session has started; sitting legislators are "pre-filing" before the session starts (there are limits on the number of measures that any legislator can introduce *during* the session.  Before the session?  No limits.

Anyway, I digress.

Next year's HB2001 was introduced by Republican Rep. Matt Gress and is about the temporary licensing of college graduates in behavioral health.  I'm not going to take a position on this one (there may be a problematic clause or two in it) but this is the sort of topic our legislators should be discussing.

Om the other hand, next year's SB1001, introduced by Republican Sen J.D. Mesnard is a bunch of proposed restrictions on voters, particularly on early voters.  Its clauses amend 17 pages of AZ law, and most of the clauses are garbage.

IMO, a couple of the sections stand out in terms of  his express of hatred of voters -

From the bill (the blue text indicates Mesnard's proposed changes):

As is, this section would encourage county recorders and/or elections directors to decline to do their jobs and to impose restrictions on others (early voters) if they don't do their jobs.

Maybe this clause would be more palatable if it was amended to include a provision where county recorders and election directors who did such a thing (or, more to the point, *failed* to do such a thing) were deemed to have committed malfeasance in office and were removed from that office and permanently barred from any sort of public employment.

Of course, that wouldn't make another part more palatable.

Also from the bill:

With this language, Mesnard proposes to end both dropping off an early ballot at a voting location other than in the voter's own precinct and that early ballots that were dropped off per Mesnard's language would have to be delivered to the county recorder by 7 p.m. on election day.

As polling place don't close until 7 p.m., that could be a problem.

Well, at least Mesnard has demonstrated his giving spirit, perhaps in commemoration of Thanksgiving.

Of course, he's demonstrating that spirit by delivering a turkey to the people of Arizona.

Can a crime drama be done as a reality TV show?

Or at least a docudrama?

Cheeto seems to have cast one.

From CNN -

Fox hosts, cable news regulars and entertainment pros: Trump is casting a made-for-TV Cabinet

A common thread weaves through many of Donald Trump’s picks for his incoming administration, a quality the president-elect values as highly as loyalty and perhaps even more than conventional qualifications: a flair for television.

He has plucked two Fox News stars from their airwaves – Sean Duffy for Transportation secretary and Pete Hegseth to lead the Pentagon. For the agency overseeing Medicare and Medicaid, Trump has turned to Dr. Mehmet Oz, the celebrity physician known for his health show that aired for 13 seasons. His pick for the Department of Education, meanwhile, is Linda McMahon, who co-founded and built a professional wrestling and entertainment empire alongside her husband.

Trump’s choice for ambassador to Israel, Mike Huckabee, had a six-year run hosting a Fox News show. Tulsi Gabbard, his selection for director of national intelligence, was a contributor on the conservative network after she left Congress and once subbed for its former primetime host Tucker Carlson.

Well, nobody will be surprised when Cheeto installs a casting couch in the Oval Office.

Elon Musk is the embodiment of Cheeto's hatred of "the little people"

From The Verge -

Elon Musk is directing harassment toward individual federal workers

Elon Musk is, in addition to many other things, now the co-lead of the currently nonexistent Department of Government Efficiency (DOGE) advisory group. Now, before it even gets rolling, he has begun singling out individual government employees he says are emblematic of the government’s bloat and posting about them to his hundreds of millions of followers on X.

Earlier this week, as first reported by The Wall Street Journal, the X user “datahazard” shared a screenshot on X highlighting the role of Ashley Thomas, the Director of Climate Diversification at the US International Development Finance Corporation, saying, “I don’t think the US Taxpayer should pay for the employment” of that role. Musk reposted it, adding the comment “so many fake jobs” in a post with more than 33 million views.

Cheeto's picks for his Cabinet/coterie of advisors seem to exhibit two character traits (and neither speaks well of their characters) -

1. Personal, and great, loyalty to Cheeto himself; and 

2. Pettiness.

Musk may have failed with Twitter/X (to be fair, he's been successful with it in one area - he turned it into a hate-filled right-wing echo chamber.  People may be abandoning Twitter/X in droves, but Musk and Trump supporters rule the roost there.)