Republicans: Opposed To Big Government Helping People...

...But Not Opposed To Big Goverment Restricting People...

...Thanks go out to That's My Congress! for pointing this one out...

This may be a shock, but it turns out that not all Republicans are supporters of the ideal of smaller government.

Well, under specific circumstances, anyway.

Senator John Cornyn and Congressman Lamar Smith, both representing Texas, have each introduced identical bills to end and criminalize anonymous use of the internet.

Under the guise of fighting child pornography, Cornyn introduced S.436 and Smith introduced H.R.1076, the "Internet Stopping Adults Facilitating the Exploitation of Today's Youth (SAFETY) Act of 2009."

Most of the Act does, in fact, address child porn and exploitation of minors.

However, both bills have the same overreaching section.

SEC. 5. RETENTION OF RECORDS BY ELECTRONIC COMMUNICATION SERVICE PROVIDERS.

Section 2703 of title 18, United States Code, is amended by adding at the end the following:
`(h) Retention of Certain Records and Information- A provider of an electronic communication service or remote computing service shall retain for a period of at least two years all records or other information pertaining to the identity of a user of a temporarily assigned network address the service assigns to that user.'.

And as Declan McCullagh, chief political correspondent for CNET points out -

The legal definition of electronic communication service is "any service which provides to users thereof the ability to send or receive wire or electronic communications." The U.S. Justice Department's position is that any service "that provides others with means of communicating electronically" qualifies.

That sweeps in not just public Wi-Fi access points, but password-protected ones too, and applies to individuals, small businesses, large corporations, libraries, schools, universities, and even government agencies. Voice over IP services may be covered too.

At a press conference touting the bills, Cornyn said (quoted in the CNET article) -

"While the Internet has generated many positive changes in the way we communicate and do business, its limitless nature offers anonymity that has opened the door to criminals looking to harm innocent children."

Umm...yeah.

If all Cornyn and Smith were interested in was restricting child porn, there would be specific safeguards in the bill's language to limit the availability of records retained under section 5 to child porn investigations.

No such provisions exist in the bills.

This is a rather hypocritical "pro-Big Brother/Big Government" turn from two Republicans who joined all but three D.C. Republicans in voting against the economic stimulus that was passed to try to aid the average American during the worst economic crisis since the Great Depression of the 1930s.

You know, the economic stimulus package that has provisions to help kids with their educations...oh wait...that's "helping," not "restricting."

I understand now.


Another take on this from CrooksandLiars.com here.

Later...

Public Forum On The State Budget At ASU On Monday

From a press release -

THE ARIZONA STATE LEGISLATURE HOUSE AND SENATE DEMOCRATIC CAUCUSES

Invite you to Public Hearings on the State Budget

Members of both the House and Senate Appropriations Committees will be in attendance to hear citizens’ questions and concerns about the state budget shortfall and proposed solutions:

Arizona State University - Main Campus, Tempe
Monday, February 23rd, 2009, 6:30 to 9:00 p.m. at the Memorial Union (MU) building, Ventana Room, Second Floor, Room 241

Paid ($2/hr) Visitor
Parking available in Parking Structure 1
Located at Apache Blvd. and College Ave.

For additional information contact:

Cynthia Aragon, Community and Constituent Liaison, House of Representatives, 602-926-3591 or caragon[at]azleg.gov

...In other LD17/Tempe news, on Tuesday, State Senator Meg Burton Cahill and State Representatives David Schapira and Ed Ableser will appear on Tempe cable channel 11 in this month's edition of Let's Talk Tempe. The program is hosted by Tempe Mayor Hugh Hallman. The program is taped before a live audience at the Pyle Center (SW corner of Southern and Rural in Tempe) from 7:30 a.m. to 8:30 a.m. The public is invited to watch and participate in the discussion.

Wonder if Jan Brewer is a fan of The Rolling Stones...

...because they must have had her and the situation in Arizona in mind when they cut the song "Rock And A Hard Place."

The morphing of the GOP into the "Grand Obstructionist Party" isn't confined to all but three members of the Republican membership in Congress.

Across the country, a number of Republican governors have announced that they are considering not accepting some or all of the federal economic stimulus money.

From AP via MSNBC -

GOP govs consider rejecting stimulus money

Opponents say move puts conservative ideology ahead of constituents

BATON ROUGE, La. - A handful of Republican governors are considering turning down some money from the federal stimulus package, a move opponents say puts conservative ideology ahead of the needs of constituents struggling with record foreclosures and soaring unemployment.

Though none has outright rejected the money available for education, health care and infrastructure, the governors of Texas, Mississippi, Louisiana, Alaska, South Carolina and Idaho have all questioned whether the $787 billion bill signed into law this week will even help the economy.

The article goes on to note that some of those governors have the luxury of proving up on their "True Conservative" Republican bonafides (apparently, screwing over your constituents is a Republican "principle"), because while *they* may not accept federal stimulus money, they can count on their states' Democratic legislatures to do so for them.

Jan Brewer, Arizona's newly-minted governor (coming up on her one-month anniversary - whooo hooo...right Jan?) doesn't have that luxury - not only does her own party have a majority in both chambers of the state lege, it's the radical, anti-everything positive wing of her party that's in charge.

Which places Brewer, the person who is supposed to be in charge of Arizona's government, in a tough position.

If, as the Joint Legislative Budget Committee (JLBC) says, she is the one who decides if federal stimulus money is accepted and how it is spent, then her constituents (you know, the ones who will be voting next year), will expect her to look out for their interests. Sen. Russell Pearce, one of the leaders of the radicals, disagrees, but so far he is being polite about it (read the article linked to "says").

So on one hand, if Brewer plans to run for a full term as governor, refusing stimulus money for especially hard-hit Arizona could alienate economically-ailing voters and cost her a general election win.

On the other hand, accepting the money will almost certainly motivate a primary challenge from Pearce's radical wing of the GOP, and given the wingnuts' defeat of moderate Reps last September, such a challenge could very well generate a high enough turnout of the radicals to unseat Brewer even before the general election.

So she's got problems either way she goes, if she pursues a full term.

If she chooses not to seek a full term, that would free her from factoring electoral considerations into her decisions on stimulus money. However, even if electoral considerations are removed from the decision equation, that would leave the best interests of Arizonans competing with her own partisan ideology.

Arizonans - be afraid, very afraid.

Having never met Governor Brewer or any of her advisers, I don't know if they are smart enough to figure a way out of this for Brewer that leaves her with a political future. The tap dancing should be fun to watch though.

That dance has already started, awkwardly, with her trial balloon of a special election to raise the state's sales tax.

That one seems to have had a unique effect of uniting both caucuses of the lege - the Reps have pledged to only cut programs, not raise revenue, and many Dems (including the non-legislator writing this post :) ) find that raising the most regressive tax in the state (one whose instability as a revenue source is a major factor in the state's budget crisis) is the absolutely worst approach for addressing the state's budget shortfall.

BTW - am I the only one who finds that the Governor's move to put it out to referendum, without even *trying* to get it through the lege, smacks of craven political cowardice? One of the things that a governor has to do is make tough, even unpopular, decisions.

Later!

"Bush league" behavior isn't confined to the minor leagues

...and this post is *not* about George W. Bush...

Perhaps inspired by the commencement of baseball's spring training season (reporting dates here), I've been struck (not for the first time, nor am I the first to make this observation), that politics is has a structure that is very similar to professional baseball.

School committee and city council seats and the like are analogous to A-level minor ball. For many, if not most, of the holders of these offices, these are entry level positions where they spend most of their time learning their professions.

Mayors and state legislators are politics' AA leagues. There are some entry-level participants, and a few are ready to make the jump to the bigs, but most have some experience but still need to hone their craft. Lower level statewide offices tend to fall into this category, too.

Higher-level statewide offices and most seats in the U.S. Congress are the equivalent of AAA. Most of the participants have major-league ready skills, but are in search of an opportunity to move up.

At the major league level are a few Congressfolks (Speakers, Majority and Minority Leaders and Whips, etc.), most U.S. Senators, and, of course, the President of the United States.

The categories are a little flexible, as politics is more about influence wielded than about the office occupied. For example, for the longest time, the most powerful elected official in Massachusetts wasn't the governor or one of the U.S. senators. Instead, the mayor of Boston was often held that distinction. Must have been something about controlling when the State House was plowed out during the winter. :)

Arizonans, Democrats and Republicans alike, should be grateful that Phil Gordon doesn't have the big stick of snow removal available to him. :))

All of which serves as a set up to this - while most political offices and office-holders are "minor league", with the colorful imagery that name can bring to mind, few are "bush league."

"Bush League", courtesy Princeton University - "a league of teams that do not belong to a major league (especially baseball)"

One of the common characteristics in both baseball and politics is that while players are learning the basic skills of their respective professions as they rise through the levels, they also learn the 'soft' skills, the behaviors that lead to long-term success at the next level.

Behaviors that have less to do with knowing how to hit curve balls or how to initiate a quorum call to block a bill, and more with acting like a professional.

The movie Bull Durham has a couple of good scenes about shower shoes and interview cliches that illustrates this phenomenon.


It looks like many Republicans, even putative "major leaguers," have forgotten that as much as anything else, professionalism influences how long someone stays in the big leagues.

Sometimes it's something as trivial as threatening to kill a fellow legislator's bills in a given session of the AZ lege because that legislator (a Dem, of course) dared to publicly and on the record, debunk the Reps' talking points about the state's budget crisis. (Hey guys - it's not Janet Napolitano's fault, no matter how much you want people to ignore the lege's creation of every budget) Still, the AZ lege is definitely a minor league, and that sort of behavior isn't exactly unheard of in the minors.

Some Republicans however, don't have that mitigating circumstance to fall back on.

This week, House Minority Whip Eric Cantor (R-VA) put together a web ad crowing about the solidarity of the House GOP in it's opposition to the economic stimulus package that President Obama signed into law today in Denver.

It was set to the song "Back in the Saddle" by Aerosmith.

For those of you who are unfamiliar with the lyrics of the song, it's about a guy...ummm... "expressing his happiness" at getting back together with a favorite hooker and some of their ensuing activities.

Which, coincidentally, are the same things that the Reps in Congress have been doing to America for years.

It's pretty bush league to crow about screwing your employer.

The video had been posted on YouTube, but was later pulled down due to a copyright complaint from the band's management.

Copyright infringement for political gain is pretty bush league, too.

HuffingtonPost coverage here.

Cantor hasn't been having a good month - just last week, his office sent out an obscenity-laden anti-union (AFSCME to be specific) video (SF Chronicle). He defended it by saying it was a satire, but later apologized for it.

It's pretty bush league to attack your employers (yes, union workers are citizens, taxpayers, and voters) as profane thugs.

I'll be nice and ignore the fact that the employer of the wife of the stridently anti-bailout Cantor received millions of dollars from the bank bailout. (HuffingtonPost)

Piling on would be so bush league. :))

Of course, some of the bush league stuff is closer to home.

Both of Arizona's U.S. Senators, John McCain and Jon Kyl, are ignoring the President's visit to one of the state's areas that is most impacted by the collapse of the housing bubble.

They have "other plans."

Ignoring the needs of your constituents because the President isn't a member of your party is pretty bush league...oh wait. They were doing that even when fellow Rep George W. Bush was in the White House.

Never mind. :)

Anyway, not quite falling into the "bush league" category was former Congressman (and eternal blowhard) JD Hayworth's appearance on MSNBC yesterday on the show "Hardball with Chris Matthews."

It was more in the category of "faded player hanging around the independent leagues [i.e. - talk radio] pathetically trying for one more shot at glory."

He insisted that Republican policies of endless deregulation and tax cuts for the wealthy weren't the problem with the economy, it was Sen. Charles Schumer and George Soros.

I'm not making this up. Watch the video.

Anyway, it's hardly unheard of for players who don't want to fade quietly into retirement to sign on with an independent league to showcase/maintain their skills while seeking another chance at a season in the sun.

Rickey Henderson, one of the all-time great, perhaps the single greatest, leadoff hitters ever played in a number of indy leagues while waiting for one last call from a major league club. That call didn't come, but he was a first ballot electee to the Baseball Hall of Fame this year.

On the other hand, JD was and is no Rickey. About the only thing they have in common is their ability to talk a good game.

However, unlike JD, Henderson could actually *play*.

Of course, Hayworth's appearance may not have been a case of a "pathetic attempt to regain former glory".

It could have been a case of "the Republicans are scraping the bottom of the barrel of people who can spew their anti-average American BS with a straight face."


The take of Tedski at R-Cubed on this, with embedded video, here.

Later!

Events calendar...

Haven't done one of these in a while, but it's been a while since we had a week this event-full :)) ...

Tuesday, February 17 - The Arizona Latino Legislative Caucus is holding a press conference to call on the U.S. Department of Justice and ICE (Immigration and Customs Enforcement) to investigate Maricopa County Sheriff Joe Arpaio for racial profiling and other civil rights-related violations.

Time: 12 p.m.
Location: House Lawn, 1700 W. Washington St., Phoenix, AZ


Tuesday, February 17 - U.S. Reps Gabrielle Giffords (D-CD8) and Harry Mitchell (D-CD5) will be holding a forum on economic recovery, focusing on "science, technology and renewable energy."

Time: 12 noon - 1:30 p.m.
Location: Pima Room, Memorial Union, Tempe campus of Arizona State University


Wednesday, February 18 - President Barack Obama will speak at Mesa's Dobson High School on his plan to address the epidemic of mortgage foreclosures.

Time: 10:15 a.m. - 11:00 a.m.
Location: Dobson High School, 1501 W. Guadalupe Road, Mesa

Presidential survey is out

C-SPAN has released the results of its latest survey of historians, ranking the "42 former occupants of the White House on ten attributes of leadership."

As with C-SPAN's last survey (in 2000), Abraham Lincoln topped the list. In fact there wasn't much movement in the rankings, with a couple of notable exceptions -

Ulysses S. Grant moved up from 33rd to 23rd overall...

Rutherford B. Hayes moved down from 26th to 33rd overall...

And Bill Clinton moved up from 21st to 15th, making him the highest ranked living ex-president. (Gee, ya think that the job his successor did made him look better by comparison???)


As for the most recent ex-occupant of the Oval Office, George W. Bush?


36th.


Worse than Democrats Jimmy Carter (25th), Bill Clinton (15th), Lyndon Johnson (11th), and John F. Kennedy (6th).

The only presidents who were ranked lower than baby Bush were William Henry Harrison (who died one month into office), Millard Fillmore, Franklin Pierce, and James Buchanan (all of whom presided over the run-up to the Civil War. The best thing that can be said about their presidencies is that without them, Abe Lincoln wouldn't have had the opportunity to become the greatest president), Warren Harding (of Teapot Dome fame) and Andrew Johnson (who, ya know, was the first impeached president).

It'll be fun to watch the Rep blogosphere spin this one...

Just a suggestion...

...Wouldn't it be sweet if, when President Obama gives his talk about the mortgage foreclosure crisis on Wednesday, he looks around the gathering at Dobson High, and mentions how useful at tool education will be to help ensure that the American economy regains and retains its strength?

Maybe if DHS's principal or one of the people from the school district (superintendent or school board members) talks for a moment to a White House staffer, they might want to mention some of the things that AZ's legislative Republicans are hacking out of education (you know, things like teachers, books, and schools).

Just a suggestion...

Arizona Democratic Party Chair Election

On Saturday, March 7, the AZ Dems' State Committee will meet (again! :) ) at the Wyndham Hotel in Phoenix to elect a new chair of the state party.

Registration starts at 8:00 a.m.; registration closes and the meeting starts at 10:00 a.m. (Meeting notice here)

Thus far, the only official candidate is former chair Don Bivens; Tedski at Rum, Romanism, Rebellion has Bivens' letter to state committee members here. At the end of the letter is a list of Democratic activists who support Bivens' candidacy.

However, there is a Draft Bob Lord movement afoot. Lord was the Dem candidate in CD3 who pushed incumbent Republican John Shadegg (R-Big Healthcare) into the fight of his political career. DBL has a website here. It's unclear if Lord himself is going to run, but if he does, it could be interesting. A number of Bivens' supporters lent their names to his efforts during a period when it seemed that Lord wasn't going to run. However, he has been positioning himself to make himself eligible to run (according to a comment from Zelph on this R-Cubed post, Lord is now a PC in LD11) so it could be an interesting meeting.

Or it could be a 20-minute rubberstamp/acclamation special, and all of the folks from the state's hinterlands who trek to downtown Phoenix for the 2nd time in six weeks will have a legitimate gripe about wasting another whole day for less than 1/2 of an hour's B.S.

Guess we'll have to wait and see...

Obama to visit Dobson High School on Wednesday

Here are the details, courtesy the East Valley Tribune -

President Barack Obama is coming to Mesa’s Dobson High School on Wednesday morning. An “extremely limited” number of tickets will be distributed on a first-come, first-serve basis at 10 a.m. Monday at the main entrance of Dobson High, 1501 W. Guadalupe Road.

There will be a one-ticket limit per person.

On Wednesday, doors will open for those with tickets at approximately 8:30 a.m.; President Obama is expected to speak from 10:15 a.m. until 11:00 a.m.

More details as they are worked out and publicized...

Arizona's Congressional delegation and the stimulus bill...

On Friday, the U.S. House of Representatives passed a compromise version of H.R. 1, the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act. The final vote was 246-183, with one answering 'present.' All House Republicans voted against the bill, and all but seven Democrats voted for the bill. All of AZ's Democratic representatives voted for it.

Later on Friday over in the Senate, the same compromise version was passed by a 60 - 38 vote. All Democrats present voted for the bill (Ted Kennedy was out, and Al Franken hasn't been seated yet), as well as Republicans Olympia Snow, Susan Collins (both from Maine) and Arlen Specter (PA). Both of AZ's Republican senators, Jon Kyl and John McCain, voted against the economic stimulus package.

AZ's delegation on the stimulus bill, in their own words (from news coverage, press releases, and the Congressional Record) -

Rep. Harry Mitchell (D-CD5), from a press release, courtesy Arizona Congress Watch - “Arizona’s job losses last year were worse than every other state but one. People are facing foreclosure and struggling to make ends meet,” said Mitchell. “The risk of inaction is too great. This bill will create and maintain jobs and we must take this step to get people back to work and get the economy back on track.”

Rep. Raul Grijalva (D-CD7), from a press release - “I voted to support today’s Recovery Act, a bill that is far from perfect, but opens up possibilities for many...The State of Arizona is in a budget crisis that it is translating to cuts in the Department of Economic Security, slashed departments at our public universities and colleges, money taken from our children in elementary, junior high, and high schools, and increases in hunger, poverty, and the ranks of the uninsured. The Recovery Act will help stop this kind of hemorrhaging, which is why I support it."

Rep. John Shadegg (R-CD3), from a press release -

"But one of the bill’s worst provisions has gone almost unnoticed, dangerously lurking below the radar of those exposing the bill’s flaws.

“Comparative Effectiveness Research,” sounds innocuous, but big-government programs always do. The $1.1 billion of the stimulus package earmarked for this project is a significant step toward government-run healthcare

Shadegg from a post in The Hill's CongressBlog, titled "Friday The 13th Horror" - "But of course the greatest horror is not the process – it is the product. At the end of the day we have an economic stimulus without economic stimulus."

Rep. Gabrielle Giffords (D-CD8), as quoted in the Arizona Daily Star - 'The legislation will create or save 3.5 million jobs nationally over the next two years. Approximately 70,000 of those jobs will be in Arizona," she said in a press statement.'

The same article goes on to list a series of informational forums that Giffords will be part of, including one on Tuesday at ASU from noon - 1:30 p.m with CD5's Representative Harry Mitchell. (Pima Room in the Memorial Union)

More info on the forums, courtesy Congresswoman Giffords' website here.

Rep. Jeff Flake (R-CD6), from the Congressional Record - "We know enough about this legislation to know that it is bad legislation. First and foremost, the process is bad, but it’s bad legislation...I doubt that John Maynard Keynes would believe that $50 million for the
National Endowment for the Arts would be stimulative. All that it stimulates is more spending later."

Sen. Jon Kyl (R), from the Congressional Record - ...His speech is too long to find one good quote, so I recommend reading it in its entirety at the link. He opposed the bill for a litany of reasons, including ACORN, Filipino veterans, a maglev rail line from L.A. to Las Vegas, money for small shipyards (and not enough $ for big shipyards), and the Davis-Bacon Act (prevailing wage).

Sen. John McCain (R), was quoted as calling the bill "generational theft" on CNN and elsewhere. (NY Times)

President Obama is expected to sign the bill on Tuesday in Denver, and will be in Phoenix on Wednesday to announce a plan to fight home foreclosures. Details as they become available.

Note: In the future, I expect to leave this sort of post to Stacy at AZ Congress Watch - it took longer just to set up the links than to write the rest of the post.

The more things change, the more they stay the same...

A 'quick hit' post on goings-on in Scottsdale...

For those of you who thought that the ouster of Mary Manross as mayor in favor of Jim Lane would change the way that the City deals with developers (aka - rubber stamp everything), read on...

From the AZ Republic (emphasis mine) -

Scottsdale Planning Commission will meet March 11 to discuss the proposed Palmeraie project that could bring five-story buildings to the southwestern corner of Indian Bend and Scottsdale roads.

Some area residents are worried about incompatible density and preserving views of Camelback Mountain, and they raised their concerns at a Coalition of Greater Scottsdale meeting late this week at which representatives of Five Star Development met with community activists.

{snip}

The rezoning request in Scottsdale has hit technical hurdles that still must be addressed, however.

Current Scottsdale ordinance requires that any parcel seeking zoning as a planned regional center (PRC) be at least 25 acres in size. The lot going before the Planning Commission is only 20 acres.

20 acres is smaller than 25, so 'no go', right?

Not so fast.

Connie Padian, a City Zoning Administrator, has issued a "Zoning Interpretation Record."

It says that since the parcel in question abuts another parcel owned by the same developer in Paradise Valley, and that the combined size totals approximately 120 acres...well, you can see where this is going.

From Sonnie Kirtley, chair of the Coalition of Greater Scottsdale (COGS), via email -

...You need to get your appeals and comments in the city file prior to that date. So far, there are NO public comments (or staff communications) in that file. Case numbers are 17-AB-2008, 13 ZN 2008 and 13 TA 2008. If the staff "interpretation" is legal, then the developer won't be asking for the 13-TA-2008 text amendment to change ALL properties in the city with 20 acres to be permitted the PRC upzoning. They will just ask that their current Resort Zoning (35 ft max height) be improved to the PRC on their parcel.

Apparently, the wave of change that swept over the country last November missed our quaintly pretentious over-botoxed little desert hamlet, because nothing has changed -

The City genuflected before deep-pocketed developers last year, and they are genuflecting before deep-pocketed developers this year.

About the only this that has changed is Jim Lane's brilliant proclamation to promote tourism in Scottsdale - "Western on Wednesday." He has asked Scottsdale residents to wear "boots, jeans, and other Western attire on Wednesdays" to celebrate the Parada del Sol this month.

I suppose it's better than Pink Taco debacles, but it doesn't really seem like the kind of proactive leadership the city needs to navigate its way through these tough economic times.

Later...

Look!! Up in the air! It's a bird! It's a plane! It's...it's..it's...a Trial Balloon???

Trial Balloon (from Merriam-Webster.com) - "a project or scheme tentatively announced in order to test public opinion"

From the AZ Republic (emphasis mine) -

Faced with a sliding economy and deepening state deficit, Gov. Jan Brewer's office is quietly making plans for a spring special election at which voters would be asked to raise taxes and loosen spending mandates on certain state programs, The Arizona Republic has learned.

The proposal remains in its infancy, and details are few. But the Governor's Office is contemplating a temporary increase in taxes that would generate $1 billion annually for the state for a period of two or three years, two sources with knowledge of the discussions told The Republic under condition of anonymity. Additionally, voters would be asked to ease protections that currently block lawmakers from redirecting or cutting funds for voter-approved programs, such as a 2006 initiative that increased tobacco taxes to fund early-childhood education.

{snip}

Brewer spokesman Paul Senseman maintained that "all options are on the table" and said that the governor hasn't signed off on any proposals for a special election.

Translation: "Let's throw this out there and see how loud the screaming is going to be."

You know that the Arizona chapter of the Flat Earth Society (aka - Republicans in the lege) will scream at the thought of doing anything to alleviate the budget crisis, and normal citizens will scream at the thought of weakening or even repealing the Voter Protection Act.

Assuming (for the sake of having something interesting to write about) that the Governor actually brings forth such a proposal (more likely than not, though far from a certainty) and that the lege cooperates in putting the proposal on the ballot (less than likely, though not totally out of the question), here's what I expect to be in any proposal, and expect *won't* be in any proposal...

In: A temporary personal income tax hike

Out: Even a hint of a corporate income tax hike

In: A specific sunset date for any tax increase

Out: A specific sunset date for any weakening of the Voter Protection Act

In: A requirement of a simple majority vote in the lege to go after voter protected funds

Out (and should be in): A requirement of a 3/4 majority vote, both to go after voter-protected funds and to decrease or repeal any tax. It takes a 3/4 vote to raise taxes; it should take a similar vote to go in the opposite direction.

We can't make the Republicans become fiscally responsible, but we can minimize the impact of their fiscal foolishness on the state.

This may also be a signal that Brewer really is interested in running for a full term - if she didn't need to appeal to the moderates and independents she'll need to win a high-profile statewide election, she would just hand the keys to the treasury over to Russell Pearce and John Kavanagh. If she's running however, she is smart enough to know that a Rep isn't going to win a significant statewide election without support from outside of the GOP's Kool-Aid drinking base.

(There have been rumors that she wasn't interested in running, mostly due to health reasons.)

David Safier at Blog for Arizona offers his take on this topic here; State Rep. Daniel Patterson's take here.

Later!

Housekeeping

Regular readers may notice a change to the list of links along the right hand side.

I've deleted the permanent link to the Arizona Guardian.

While it is still an informative and well-written site, it has now gone to a subscription fee model (upwards of $150/month). As such, I cannot link to it nor, in good conscience, can I point people toward the site.

I wish the writers and organizers of the Guardian well with their venture - the AZ Capitol Times needs the competition. However, making a living off of fee-based internet reporting in the age of blogs and in a cratering economy is a steep mountain to climb.

Congressman Steve Austria - the next Republican presidential candidate

This one is popping up all over the internet, but I went to the source.

From the Columbus (OH) Dispatch (emphasis mine) -

U.S. Rep. Steve Austria said he supports a scaled-down federal economic-stimulus proposal, but the Beavercreek Republican told The Dispatch editorial board that the huge influx of money into the economy could have a negative effect.

"When (President Franklin) Roosevelt did this, he put our country into a Great Depression," Austria said. "He tried to borrow and spend, he tried to use the Keynesian approach, and our country ended up in a Great Depression. That's just history."

Most historians date the beginning of the Great Depression at or shortly after the stock-market crash of 1929; Roosevelt took office in 1933.

The only surprising part is that the spewer of revisionist history isn't from AZ. Have faith, however -

It's still early in the election cycle.

Mayors behaving badly...

A post wherein I criticize a couple of Democrats...

First up, we have the case of Oscar Goodman, the Democratic mayor of Las Vegas, Nevada, who's demanding the President Obama should retract and apologize for Obama's remark during a town hall meeting in Indiana that criticized the idea of the corporate recipients of federal bailout money using those funds to pay for junkets to Vegas or the Super Bowl.

President Obama's remark, courtesy an AP story (via AZCentral.com) about the Vegas mayor's indignation -

Obama made the remarks Monday during a town hall meeting in Elkhart, Ind., wherethe president traveled to muster public support for economic stimulus legislation.

"You can't get corporate jets, you can't go take a trip to Las Vegas or go down to the Super Bowl on the taxpayer's dime," Obama said.

Mayor Goodman's response, from the same story -

"That's outrageous, and he owes us an apology," he said. "He owes us a retraction."

Goodman has some credibility problems (he's a former Mob lawyer, wants to "de-thumb" and cane graffiti vandals, and ethics issues to name a few), but at least he's trying to stand up for his city. It's actually part of doing his job. He may have done so badly, but his motivation is somewhat understandable. Something that cannot be said for...

...Phoenix Mayor Phil Gordon.

Yesterday, Mayor Gordon and the Phoenix City Council selected a replacement for former Councilman Greg Stanton, who had resigned in order to take a position with the Arizona Attorney General's office. Stanton is a moderate Democrat who represented Phoenix's District 6.

With Gordon's support of him, they selected former councilman Sal DiCiccio.

He's not a Democrat, nor is he "moderate" by any reading of the definition.

From the Phoenix New Times' Valley Fever piece on yesterday's events -

Before the vote, DiCiccio was questioned by Councilman Michael Nowakowski about an op-ed he wrote for the Arizona Republic two years ago, warning of the dire consequences of allowing Mexican culture to take root in this country.

DiCiccio's column began, "The current debate on immigration reform leaves out the most important issue: the importation of a corrupt culture. South of the border, you have a governmental system that allows and sometimes encourages bribery of local officials. It is no wonder that more heinous crimes follow. It is only a matter of time before a wave of violence will be coming our way. The gun battles with police; the beheadings of journalists, the kidnappings of families -- these are a line in the desert away from our country and state."

Hmmm...I guess Gordon's desire to run for a statewide has waned. There was some speculation last spring that his public tiff with nativist Maricopa County Sheriff Joe Arpaio was motivated by a wish to win over some of the Democratic grassroots base in preparation for a run for AG or Governor in 2010.

Putting the likes of DiCiccio back in office signals that Gordon has no intention of running for statewide office.

Well, not as a Democrat anyway.

Tedski at R-Cubed has his take on events here.

Later...