Maybe Ron DeSantis thinks that being hooked up to a ventilator is a "presidential" look

From CNN -

Ron DeSantis just yelled at high school students for wearing masks

Ron DeSantis is apparently not above scolding high school students to make his, uh, point about Covid-19.

The Florida Republican governor approached a group of students wearing masks who were standing behind a podium at the University of South Florida, where he was scheduled for a news conference Wednesday.

"You do not have to wear those masks. I mean please take them off," DeSantis said to, at first, polite laughter. But he wasn't kidding around.

"Honestly, it's not doing anything. We've gotta stop with this Covid theater. So if you want to wear it, fine. But this is ridiculous," he continued.

From Johns Hopkins University -

1. Wear a damn mask.

2. Get vaccinated. 

I'd call killing an unarmed civilian doing "something wrong"

From AP (emphasis added by me) -

Fired cop says he did nothing wrong in Breonna Taylor raid

Former Louisville detective Brett Hankison testified in his own defense Wednesday

 

about his actions during the police raid that left Breonna Taylor dead, saying the

 

gunfire began with a muzzle flash that illuminated a shadowy silhouette, and he

 

thought it was someone firing an automatic rifle at his fellow officers.

Hankison is not on trial for the 26-year-old Black woman’s death but for

 

firing bullets 

that went into an adjacent apartment, endangering a pregnant neighbor, her

 

young child and her boyfriend.

Asked if he did anything wrong during the raid, Hankison replied, “absolutely not,”

 

even though he acknowledged firing into the window and patio door. As for

 

Taylor, he said, “She didn’t need to die that night.” Breonna Taylor’s mother,

 

Tamika Palmer, then stormed out of the courtroom.

Hankison said that as a police battering ram broke open Taylor’s door, the

 

blast of a gun lit up the apartment’s hallway and his fellow officer fell wounded

 

in the doorway. He said he thought the muzzle flash matched that of a long rifle,

 

but no rifle was found in the apartment.

No remorse?

More innocent people will die.

Just a guess: The Republicans aren't learning the right lessons from Gosar's, Greene's, and Rogers' ties to a white nationalist group

There are two lessons here:

1. Don't be a white supremacist.

2. Don't be SEEN as being a white supremacist.

Guess which one the Rs are taking to heart?

First, from NBC (emphasis added by me) -

GOP leaders denounce Greene, Gosar for speaking at white nationalist event

GOP leaders in the House and the Senate on Monday denounced a pair of far-right Trump allies — Reps. Marjorie Taylor Greene, R-Ga., and Paul Gosar, R-Ariz. — for speaking at a gathering of white nationalists in Florida over the weekend.

“There’s no place in the Republican Party for white supremacists or anti-Semitism,” Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell, R-Ky., said in a terse statement.

House Minority Leader Kevin McCarthy, R-Calif., told reporters for CNN and Punchbowl News that it was “appalling and wrong” for the two lawmakers to attend the meeting in Florida and that he plans to discuss the matter with them.

Second, from Jeremy Duda at the AZ Mirror -

Senate votes to censure Wendy Rogers for threatening her colleagues

Her ties to white nationalists and antisemitic statements were removed from the censure

In the wake of her speech to a white nationalist conference and a string of offensive and inflammatory social media posts, the Arizona Senate voted to censure Republican Sen. Wendy Rogers. 

The Senate voted 24-3 in a rare censure of one of its own, with 11 of the chamber’s 16 Republicans siding with the chamber’s 13 Democratic members who were in attendance. Rogers voted no, as did GOP Sens. Nancy Barto and Warren Petersen.

The censure, which has no practical effect, was for comments calling for people she perceived as enemies to be hanged from gallows, and for social media postings Rogers made threatening to “personally destroy” fellow Republicans who sought to punish her. The censure resolution was silent on her embrace of white nationalists and a string of antisemitic and racist things she had posted online in recent days. 

The vote on the censure motion -

The motion passed overwhelmingly, with 24 members voting for it, 3 voting against it (Rogers herself {of course} Warren Petersen {not really a surprise}, and Nancy Barto {a bit of a surprise}) and 3 not voting (Gowan, Steele, and Townsend).

Another guess: Rogers will do it again.  Not only is she not penitent about this, she believes she's a victim. (pics of tweets taken today) -

I had to look hard but I DO agree with Rogers on one thing -

Though I expect that we have very different reason for arriving at this conclusion. :)

Cheeto wins CPAC straw poll/name recognition contest

From CNN -

Trump wins CPAC straw poll

Former President Donald Trump easily won an informal straw poll of conservatives Sunday, when asked who they would support in a GOP primary for president in 2024.

Among attendees as the Conservative Political Action Conference, 59% said they would vote for Trump if the 2024 Republican primary were held today.

Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis came in second with 28% of the vote in the poll. Former Secretary of State Mike Pompeo came in a distant third with 2% of the vote.

This would be significant...until one remembers that Ted "Cancun" Cruz won the same straw poll in 2016.

From Politico, dated 3/5/2016 -

Cruz wins CPAC straw poll

Texas Sen. Ted Cruz won the straw poll at the Conservative Political Action Conference on Saturday.

Cruz was named the winner with 40 percent of the attendees' support, while Florida Sen. Marco Rubio came in second place with 30 percent. Donald Trump, who was scheduled to speak at CPAC on Saturday morning before pulling out, came in third place with 15 percent, and Ohio Gov. John Kasich had 8 percent.

And who do the people want for veep? South Carolina Gov. Nikki Haley has 12 percent, Haley has endorsed Rubio, and traveled with him on the trail. Kasich may not have placed high for the Oval Office but he’s tied for first for vice president. Carly Fiorina – who dropped out of the race earlier this month – is a close second with 11 percent of the vote. Kentucky Sen. Rand Paul and Rubio are tied for third place with 9 percent a piece.

Of course, to be fair, for a poll two years out from the election, we should look at the results from 2014.

Also from Politico, this one dated 3/8/2014 -

Paul wins big in CPAC straw poll

Rand Paul handily won the presidential straw poll at the Conservative Political Action Conference Saturday, one gauge of the Republican base’s mood less than two years before the 2016 primary season kicks off.

The Kentucky senator received 31 percent, far ahead of second place Sen. Ted Cruz (R-Texas), who received 11 percent. Neurosurgeon Ben Carson finished third with 9 percent, ahead of New Jersey Gov. Chris Christie, who received 8 percent.

Doug Ducey of Arizona and Greg Abbott of Texas should be heartened by the 2022 result.  Both have presidential ambitions, but weren't even mentioned in the 2022 poll.  

However, the eventual winner of the 2016 Republican primary wasn't even an afterthought in the 2014 poll

I've never said anything positive about Mitt Romney, but I'll give credit where it is due. When he's right (which isn't often), he's right.

Pointed to this by Taegan Goddard's Political Wire.

And this applies to US Rep. Liz Cheney too.  I may never agree with her politically, and I consider the Cheney family to be almost purely evil, but right is right.

For both, I attribute it to "stopped clock syndrome" :) .

Romney gave an interview to CNN today.

From the transcript of that interview (emphasis added by me) -

[snip]

BASH: You talked several times during this interview about the world seeing the difference between good and evil.

I want to bring that closer to home and talk about something that Congresswoman Liz Cheney tweeted yesterday about sitting Republican House members appearing at a white nationalist gathering.

She said -- quote -- "As Representative Marjorie Taylor Greene and Paul Gosar speak at this white supremacist, anti-Semitic, pro-Putin event, silence by Republican Party leaders is deafening and enabling. All Americans should renounce this garbage and reject the Putin wing of the GOP now."

Do you agree?

ROMNEY: Absolutely. Liz Cheney was right with that statement. And she's been right for a long time.

And I also saw that Ronna McDaniel came out with a statement as well talking about how repugnant these white nationalists are.

Look, there's no place in either political party for this white nationalism or racism. It's simply wrong. It's -- it's -- as you have indicated, speaking of evil, it's evil as well.

And Marjorie Taylor Greene and Paul Gosar, I don't know them, but I'm reminded of that old line from the "Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid" movie, where one character says: "Morons. I have got morons on my team."

And I have to think anybody that would sit down with white nationalists and speak at their conference was certainly missing a few I.Q. points.

Public figures calling Paul Gosar a "moron" get some respect in my book; of course, morons everywhere are like "Really?  That was low."

US Sen. Kyrsten Sinema may be the most accomplished rationalizer in the state of Arizona

Watching her interview on Phoenix Channel 3's Politics Unplugged (video not posted as of this writing), that's the conclusion that I've reached.

And given that we live in AZ, home of unabashed rationalizers like Doug Ducey, referring to her as the "most accomplished" one is saying something.

State Sen. Wendy Rogers brings moral equivalency to a new low

Pic taken of Twitter on 2/27/2022

Maybe her post made more sense in its original Russian.

Cheeto's habit of using demeaning nicknames comes to Arizona

And while it was hardly a good look for him, his habit has been enthusiastically embraced and continued by...wait for it...the gift that keeps on giving...state Sen. Wendy Rogers.

Pic taken on Twitter, 2/26/2022

I'll say this about her - Rogers appears to be an accomplished multitasker.  Not only did she spout nicknames for Jeremy Duda of the AZ Mirror and Brahm Resnik of channel 12, she threw in a conspiracy theory about George Soros (as an aside, where do I sign up for a paycheck? :) )

Of course, she loses points for vocabulary usage - unless "sweet" is her term for "nutty", and "gaslighting" is her term for "telling the truth".

Legislative schedule - week starting 2/27/2022

Note: HHR refers to a hearing room in the House building; SHR refers to one in the Senate building.

Note2: Generally, I'll only specify bills that look to propagate propaganda.  Other bills may be more conventionally bad (think: corrupt or other misuses of public monies and/or authority.  My recommendation is that if an agenda covers an area of interest to you, read the entire agenda.

Note3: Each chamber's respective Rules Committee meets on Monday, the House's in HHR4 at 1 p.m. and the Senate's in Senate Caucus Room 1, also at 1 p.m.  Both committees serve as rubber stamps for bills leadership wants to be advanced and gatekeepers for measures that leadership wants stopped.

Note4: Meeting start times may be listed, but are flexible.  Before journeying to the Capitol or viewing the meeting online, verify the start time.

Note5: Watch for strikers, or strike everything amendments.  Those involve inserting language into the entirety of a bill.  Those can be introduced at any time and can make a previously harmless bill into a very bad one. 

No strikers this week (not as of this writing, anyway) as committees start considering measures that made it out of the opposite chamber.

On Monday, 2/28 -

House Health & Human Services meets at 2 p.m. in HHR4.  10 bills on the agenda.

House Land, Agriculture & Rural Affairs meets at 2 p.m. in HHR3.  2 bills on the agenda.

House Military Affairs & Public Safety meets at 2 p.m. in HHR1.  5 bills on the agenda, including SB1048, barring municipalities and counties from ordering businesses to close during a health emergency.

Senate Government meets at 2 p.m. in SHR1.  2 bills on the agenda, including HB2453, barring governmental entities from requiring masks on their premises.  Interestingly, the bill would also repeal a section of law barring vaccine passports.

Senate Transportation and Technology meets at 2 p.m. in SHR109.  3 bills on the agenda.

On Tuesday, 3/1 -

House Commerce meets at 2 p.m. in HHR3.  3 bills on the agenda.

House Education meets at 2 p.m. in HHR4.  8 bills on the agenda.

House Natural Resources, Energy &Water meets at 2 p.m. in HHR1.  1 bill on the agenda.

Senate Education meets at 2 p.m. in SHR1.  3 bills on the agenda, including HB2025, requiring school districts to establish parental visitation policies for classrooms, HB2439, requiring school districts to allow parents to "review" all books in a school's library and books purchased for inclusion in that library.

On Wednesday, 3/2 -

House Government & Elections meets at 9 a.m. in HHR1.  8 bills on the agenda, including SB1009, limiting the governor's ability to declare states of emergency and gathering greater power unto the legislature itself; SB1013, requiring the Arizona Secretary of State to request that the federal government in the state's citizenship requirement on its federal voter registration form; and SB1094, invalidating the signatures of people who sign petitions for ballot initiatives or referenda if the person passing the petition doesn't read the description on the petition to each signer/

House Judiciary meets at 9 a.m. in HHR4.  6 bills on the agenda, including SB1092, limiting the circumstances under which the seller of a product is subject to a product liability action.

House Ways & Means meets at 9 a.m.in HHR3.  6 bills on the agenda, including SCR1011, asking the voters to expand property tax exemptions.  According to the bill's fiscal note, this measure would cost the state's general fund $2.1 million. while it would cost other taxing jurisdictions, like school districts, an indeterminate amount of revenue.

Senate Health and Human Services meets at 9 a.m. in SHR1.  9 bills on the agenda.

Senate Finance meets at 10 a.m. in SHR109.  3 bills on the agenda, including HCM2004, a love letter to Congress urging them to oppose stricter financial reporting requirements.

House Transportation meets at 2 p.m. in HHR3.  No bills on the agenda.

Senate Commerce meets at 2 p.m. in SHR1.  9 bills on the agenda, including HB2107, barring municipalities and counties from ordering businesses to close during a health emergency.

Senate Natural Resources, Energy and Water meets at 2 p.m. in SHR109.  5 bills on the agenda.

On Thursday, 3/3 -

Senate Judiciary meets at 9 a.m. in SHR1.  15 bills on the agenda, at least 6 of them bad.

Federal Committee update

From the website of the Federal Election Commission -

Independent Gilsdorf is running in CD9.

Big Oil: "We'll be good. We pinkie promise, so you can trust us."

Of course, their other hand was behind their back, and the fingers in it were crossed.

From CNN, dated 2/24 -

Big Oil CEO responds to Biden: We would never 'take advantage of' war in Ukraine

American Petroleum Institute CEO Mike Sommers insisted on Thursday that US oil companies would not seek to capitalize on Russia's invasion of Ukraine.

"Our companies would never take advantage of this kind of situation," Sommers, who leads the most powerful US energy trade group, told CNN in a phone interview.

Earlier on Thursday, Biden delivered a warning to the oil industry amid soaring prices.

"American oil and gas companies should not -- should not exploit this moment to hike their prices to raise profits," Biden said in prepared remarks.

Sommers argued that US oil companies want to do what's best for consumers around the world.

"My member companies are patriots," he said. "This is not a time to target one particular industry that has a proven record."

From the US Energy Information Administration -

He said that the oil industry has a "proven record".  In and of itself, that statement is true, and perhaps the most truthful thing that he said.

Of course, it isn't a *positive* proven record.

Personal aside:

A long time ago, I worked for a relatively small convenience store chain (~170 locations, all in the northeastern US) and we had a company picnic/outing at a campground.

It was during Operation Desert Shield, and our gas prices went up at least daily, sometimes more than once a day.

At the outing, I was seated at a table that was next to a table filled with company execs who, after imbibing some alcoholic drinks, and still imbibing, were laughing about how they hoped that the press didn't find out how much profit they were making off of the conflict in the Middle East.

I learned two things that day:

1. Fully grown men shouldn't cackle.  Actually, no one should - it's not a good look for anyone.

2. Some folks *really* should stay away from booze.  Especially folks who believe who place profits ahead of human lives.

Ducey goes full-throated in his embrace of his inner partisan hack

Not that his "inner partisan hack" was buried too deeply.

From Jeremy Duda at the AZ Mirror -

Ducey: A GOP senator with white nationalist ties is ‘still better than’ a Democrat

Gov. Doug Ducey said he has no regrets about spending $500,000 to elect a Republican state senator with open ties to the white nationalist movement because it’s still better than having a Democrat in her seat.

“I’m proud of what we’ve been able to accomplish. And she’s still better than her opponent, Felicia French,” he said Thursday.

Ducey’s political action committee, Arizonans for Strong Leadership, spent millions in 2020 to help the GOP maintain control of the legislature, including nearly $500,000 to help Republican Wendy Rogers win the race for the District 6 Senate seat in northern Arizona. Rogers won nearly 55% of the vote against Democrat Felicia French, a victory that kept the Senate in GOP hands by a single vote.

Rogers in action, also from the AZ Mirror.

From one of the reports filed by Ducey's PAC -

Ducey supports a bigoted white nationalist like Rogers over her 2020 opponent, Felicia French, a nurse and veteran.

Really?

In Texas, Gov. Greg Abbott is a lot like Cheeto - he wants to pardon criminals for political purposes

From The Texas Tribune -

Gov. Greg Abbott floats pardons for Austin police officers charged with excessive force in 2020 protests

Gov. Greg Abbott on Wednesday blasted the indictment of 19 Austin police officers on assault charges stemming from the May 2020 racial justice protests — and dangled the possibility of potential pardons for them.

“Those officers should be praised for their efforts, not prosecuted,” Abbott said in a statement. “Time will tell whether the accusations against the courageous Austin police officers is a political sham. Time will also tell whether I, as Governor, must take action to exonerate any police officer unjustly prosecuted."

[snip]

The indictments accuse the 19 officers — including Texas House candidate Justin Berry — of using deadly weapons to injure nearly a dozen demonstrators and threatening them with serious bodily harm during the May 2020 protests against police brutality that followed the deaths of George Floyd in Minneapolis and Michael Ramos in Austin.

Normally, Arizona politicos are the most craven in the U.S. (Arizona legislature notwithstanding), but Texas looks to be taking that title away from us.

We have Paul Petersen, Paul Gosar, Andy Biggs, and Mark Finchem (and more!) but they have Abbott, Dan Goeb Patrick, Ken Paxton, Ted Cruz, Rick Perry, and, of course, Louie Gohmert (and more!)

Still, Cheeto may be the best example of using pardons for political/criminal gain - Joe Arpaio, Scooter Libby, Dinesh D'Souza, Michael Milken, Bernie Kerik, Michael Flynn, George Papadopoulos, Duncan Hunter, Paul Manafort, Charles Kushner, Steve Bannon, Rick Renzi, Roger Stone, and more - all criminals and all pardoned by Cheeto.

And Cheeto's example is the one that Abbott is following.

Arizona Poll Day: Governor's race

Pointed to this by fivethirtyeight.com.

From Data Orbital -

Breaking: Kari Lake besting other Republican challengers in race against Democrat Katie Hobbs

Data Orbital is pleased to announce the results of its latest statewide, live-caller survey of likely general election voters. The survey was conducted from February 11th to February 13th. 

With little data publicly available, the survey focused on the upcoming, hotly contested race for Governor in Arizona. The survey tested all four Republican candidates against likely Democrat nominee Katie Hobbs.

[snip]

From Data Orbital's toplines document -

This is interesting, but that's all.

There are two problems with the poll:

1. They ignored the candidates' respective primaries.  While Hobbs and Lake are the favorites in their primaries, there's no guarantee that they'll win.  Some primary polling would be nice.

2. They oversampled Republican voters and to a lesser extent, Democratic ones, too, and undersampled Independent/Unaffiliated ones.

From the most recent AZ voter registration report -

Creative accounting: is it taught to legislators or do they already know about it when they get to the Capitol?

First, from the Arizona Capitol Times, written by Nathan Brown, dated September 1, 2021 (behind a paywall) -

Cobb quits treasurer race to lead dental group

Rep. Regina Cobb is bowing out of the race for state treasurer to take a job as executive director of the Arizona Dental Association.

That was 9/1.

On 9/13, she gave herself a LOT of money, and termed it as a "reimbursement"

Hmmm....