Florida school district responds to Uvalde shooting by banning...backpacks

Maybe book covers in FL are made of kevlar and by forcing students to carry books in front of them, the students will be able to stop bullets with them.

From the Orlando Weekly, dated 6/6/2022 -

Florida school district bans backpacks following Uvalde shooting

In the confusing aftermath of the school shooting in Uvalde, Texas,  officials have looked everywhere but the blindingly obvious while trying to pin blame for the tragedy.

After a rousing round of "schools should have one door" that probably caused sleepless nights among the nation's fire marshals, officials in one Florida school district have come up with a new solution:  no more backpacks.

Wagering that you can't carry a gun if you can't carry anything, the Broward County Public Schools announced a ban on bookbags for the final days of the school year. In a letter to parents over the weekend, they said the move was taken out of an "overabundance of caution for security reasons." The ban begins tomorrow and all students were encouraged to use Monday to return any items to the school ahead of summer break.

Should we just send Ginni Thomas the bill for the fraudit?

From Yahoo! News -

Ginni Thomas emailed dozens of Arizona lawmakers urging them to overturn Biden's 2020 win: Report

Ginni Thomas, wife of Supreme Court Justice Clarence Thomas, sent emails to more than two dozen members of the Arizona state legislature urging them to overturn Joe Biden’s 2020 election win, according to a new report.

According to an analysis of emails published by the Washington Post Friday, Thomas sent identical messages to more than half of the Republicans serving in the state Senate and Arizona House at the time.

"As state lawmakers, you have the Constitutional power and authority to protect the integrity of our elections — and we need you to exercise that power now!” wrote Thomas. “Never before in our nation's history have our elections been so threatened by fraud and unconstitutional procedures."

From KXNV -

New records show Cyber Ninjas audit had $9 million price tag

The most recent public records release from the Arizona State Senate includes an operating expenditures document for the months-long review of Maricopa’s 2.1 million ballots from the 2020 General Election.

The price tag was almost 9 million dollars.

The top 5 expenses listed were:

• $5,243,593 for Payroll and Labor Costs
• $1,182,971 for Depreciation Expenses
• $627,176 for Professional Services
• $543,871 for Travel Expenses
• $253,327 for Supplies

She wouldn't be on the hook for the whole tab, though - trumpkins picked up nearly $6 million of the it.  From Forbes -

Arizona Audit Cost Trump Supporters Nearly $6 Million—Only To Assert Biden Won By Even More

After more than five months of counting and millions of dollars spent, an election audit of more than 2 million Arizona ballots has delivered disappointing results for former President Donald Trump and his supporters, concluding he lost the state to President Joe Biden by an even bigger margin than the final vote count that the state certified in the 2020 election.

All of which brings to mind a couple of questions -

Would there be a conflict of interest for the judge hearing the case if the spouse of a Supreme Court justice declares bankruptcy?  Has the spouse of a Supreme Court justice declared bankruptcy?  Ever?

Republican candidate in NY violates Godwin's Law

First up, a definition of Godwin's Law.

From Dictionary.com -

Godwin’s law is the proposition that the longer an internet argument goes on, the higher the probability becomes that something or someone will be compared to Adolf Hitler.

From Yahoo! News -

GOP Candidate Carl Paladino Calls Adolf Hitler 'The Kind Of Leader We Need Today'

Republican House candidate Carl Paladino praised Nazi leader Adolf Hitler’s ability to rouse “the crowds” and declared Hitler “the kind of leader we need today” in a February 2021 interview on the radio station WBEN in Buffalo, New York.

Paladino, a businessman and leading GOP figure in New York state who was the party’s gubernatorial nominee in 2010, is running for the Republican nomination to replace the retiring Rep. Chris Jacobs (R-N.Y.).

Rep. Elise Stefanik (R-N.Y.), chair of the House Republican Conference, the third-ranking position in GOP House leadership, swiftly endorsed Paladino after Jacobs announced his retirement. Jacobs became a target of conservative gun rights activists following his endorsement of limited gun control measures.

When presented with Paladino’s statement that Hitler is “the kind of leader we need today,” Stefanik claimed it was taken out of context.

Dear Rep. Scalise: Got two words for you: "Designed intent"

From The Hill -

No. 2 House Republican on guns: We didn’t ban planes after 9/11

House Minority Whip Steve Scalise (R-La.) on Wednesday invoked 9/11 when arguing against gun control measures as a response to recent mass shootings, saying that the U.S. did not ban planes after the terrorist attack.

“Airplanes were used that day, as the weapon to kill thousands of people and to inflict terror on our country. There wasn’t a conversation about banning airplanes,” Scalise said in a press conference on Wednesday. “There was a conversation about connecting the dots. How can we try to figure out if there are signs we can see to stop the next attack from happening?”

Congressman Scalise:

Planes aren't designed to kill lots of people very quickly.  They're designed to move many butts great distances. 

Can they kill lots of people?  Of course they can, especially when they crash.

But they're not intended to do so.

On the other hand, guns can and do kills lots of people, and they're intended to do so.

Another difference between guns and planes?  Planes were grounded after 9/11.

Blake Masters "parroting" Cheeto? More like "pandering" to him.

Pointed at this by Taegan Goddard's Political Wire.

From CNN (emphasis added by me)-

Audio shows Trump-endorsed Arizona Senate candidate questioned whether January 6 attack was set up by FBI

Blake Masters, the Republican Senate candidate from Arizona, met with conservative activists at a Phoenix IHOP this spring and was asked whether he would support investigating US intelligence operations to uncover the federal government's "nefarious activities."

Masters replied, "Absolutely," and then floated the conspiracy theory that the January 6, 2021, attack on the US Capitol actually may have been a false-flag operation set up by the FBI, according to a recording of the March 30 meeting obtained by CNN.

[snip]

Masters is part of a wave of Republicans who have won the coveted endorsement of former President Donald Trump after parroting his false claims that the 2020 election was stolen and downplaying the actions of the pro-Trump mob that attacked the Capitol last year.

Of course, Cheeto may not be the only one that Masters is pandering to.

From Maddowblog on MSNBC -

Trump-backed Senate hopeful pushes racist line on gun violence

At face value, Blake Masters has an odd background for a U.S. Senate candidate. The Arizona Republican has worked as an executive at tech billionaire Peter Thiel’s company; he’s helped lead Thiel’s foundation; he’s helped promote Thiel’s ideas, and he’s been the beneficiary of Thiel’s electoral generosity.

The 35-year-old candidate, with effectively no background in government or policymaking, nevertheless launched a far-right campaign — and picked up an endorsement from Donald Trump, who not only tends to agree with Thiel, but who was also eager to undermine Arizona Attorney General Mark Brnovich for not doing more to advance the Big Lie.

Masters is proving to be quite a candidate. The Daily Beast reported on a newly unearthed quote in which the GOP Senate hopeful reflected on gun violence.

Tech investor and Arizona Republican Senate hopeful Blake Masters acknowledges that the United States has a gun violence problem. But he also has a theory about why there’s a problem—it’s “Black people, frankly.” Masters boiled the issue down in an April 11 interview on the Jeff Oravits Show podcast, telling the host that “we do have a gun violence problem in this country, and it’s gang violence.”

Just a guess: No matter how much he panders to Cheeto (and Cheeto likes panderers), Masters will always be Thiel's pet.

Want to live longer? Live in counties that elect Democrats

From USA Today -

The 'mortality gap' between Republican and Democratic counties is widening, study says. Here's why.

A new study found deaths rates are improving faster in Democratic counties than Republican ones. 

Experts are calling this phenomenon the "mortality gap," and say state policies, individual health decisions and a shift in party demographics may be widening it.

From the study, published in The British Medical Journal -

Interestingly, the population figures are very telling -

As of 2016, there were over 361K people in counties won by Democrats, while there were just over 55K people in counties won by Republicans.

The full study is here.

Dear campaign staffers for Sen. Mark Kelly: publicize this

From Politico -

Garcetti allies tried to put the screws to Mark Kelly. It may have backfired.

Democratic powerbrokers close to Eric Garcetti privately pressured Sen. Mark Kelly to support the Los Angeles mayor’s ambassadorial nomination, according to five people familiar with the outreach.

As part of the push, they left the strong impression that the Arizona Democrat could find himself cut off from donor networks should he refuse to back the beleaguered nominee to be U.S. ambassador to India.

I don't know who is going to win the R primary, but I expect that whoever it is won't compare well to someone who isn't for sale.

Arizona leading the way, but not in a good way

Pointed at this by the Election Law Blog.

From the Brennan Center for Justice -

Arizona Is the Epicenter of the Fight for Voting Rights Today

One of the worst voter suppression laws in the nation, fueled by conspiracy theories, has pushed Arizona to the forefront of the fight for voting rights.

In a brazen repu­di­ation of federal law and recent Supreme Court preced­ent, Arizona recently enacted a law requir­ing docu­ment­ary proof of citizen­ship to vote by mail or in pres­id­en­tial elec­tions. In 2021, Arizona was one of the 17 states nation­wide to enact new restrict­ive voting laws. Now it’s trying to break away from the rest of the voter suppres­sion pack.

After a year and a half of conspir­acy theor­ies, a partisan postelec­tion “audit,” anti­demo­cratic legis­la­tion, elec­tion sabot­age rhet­oric from polit­ical candid­ates, and a Supreme Court ruling further weak­en­ing the Voting Rights Act, Arizona has become a key battle­ground in the fight for voting rights.

[snip]

Further, H.B. 2492 could be an attempt to push the Supreme Court to further erode voting rights. The Court recently held that Arizon­a’s previ­ous attempt to require docu­ment­ary proof of citizen­ship for federal voter regis­tra­tion viol­ated the National Voter Regis­tra­tion Act. This new law seems designed as an invit­a­tion to the Court to recon­sider that ruling. 

Since the 2020 elec­tion, Arizona lawmakers have shown a consist­ent interest in using false claims about voter fraud as the raw mater­ial for justi­fy­ing new restrict­ive voting laws.

HB2492 has been signed into law by Doug Ducey, Arizona's Governor; his letter to Katie Hobbs, Arizona's Secretary of State, is a shining example of self-serving doublespeak.

I'll just leave this here for readers and their own punch lines

From Twitter, yesterday -

I'm guessing that the meds that can help this level of insanity don't exist

From Twitter, taken yesterday -

Legislative schedule - week starting 6/5/2022

On the surface, not much is scheduled to happen at the legislature.

Of course, legislative leadership could hand the membership a package of budget bills at any time.

Of course2, certain members could while away the time watching another movie out of the Riefenstahl oeuvre.

Other than the respective chambers' Rule Committees, only one committee is scheduled to meet this week.

Senate Health and Human Services meets at 9 a.m. on Thursday, 6/9/2022 in SHR1 to consider some executive nominations.

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. 

When a GOPer describes joe Biden as be "not helpful", he means "not joining us in dancing on the graves of the victims of gun violence"

From The Hill -

Toomey says Biden not ‘helpful’ amid negotiations on gun legislation

Sen. Pat Toomey (R-Pa.) said on Sunday that President Biden has not been “helpful” amid congressional negotiations on gun reform in the wake of a string mass shootings in the U.S. 

“I think the president might have been a president who would reach across the aisle try to bring people together,” Toomey told moderator Margaret Brennan on CBS’s “Face the Nation.”

“But he’s chosen not to take that approach,” Toomey added. “Since day one, he has sided with the far left of his party and really not reached out to Republicans.”

Is any place safe from gun nuts?

In recent days, there have been mass shootings in a school, supermarket, strip mall, hospital, church, and even a street.

And while certain people object to anything that even hints of gun control, one place that was safe from guns was the NRA convention when Cheeto was speaking.

Because guns were banned there.

Certain people think that sacrificing innocent lives on the altar of fear and greed is a good thing.

It's not.

Andy Biggs isn't bothered by mass murder, he's just bothered by efforts to deal with it

From Twitter -

Dear Peter Thiel: If you're going to try to buy a seat in the US Senate from AZ, you might want raise (and spend) more than 1.25% of your PAC's money here

Also, if you're going to put "Arizona" in your PAC's name, it may be a good idea to base it here.

From the Saving Arizona PAC's statement of organization filed with the FEC -

Thiel used $10,000,000 of his billions and funded the PAC.

From the PAC's mid-year 2021 filing -

Yet, while the PAC may have "Arizona" in its name, incredibly little of its money has been raised or spent here.

According to its FEC summary page, the PAC has raised a total of $10,558,039.78, yet of that total, $130K was raised here (and of that, $100K came from the same sources -

What?  You say that the Blocks are different from Basis?  The records of the Arizona Corporation Commission might not agree -

Anyway, I digress.

To make a long story short, 1.23% of the PAC's money has been raised here.

Which is actually higher than the percentage of the PAC's money spent here, which is 1.14% out of $6,146,710.68.

Anyway, while Thiel has spent $10M + on the race (the "+" comes from the fact that he given almost $6K directly to Masters' campaign committee), but I have to ask one thing -

How much more did Thiel have to spend to "win" Cheeto's endorsement of Masters?

It's pretty obvious that I am *not* a fan of Mark Brnovich - I think that he's a bigoted and opportunistic hack.

Having said that, at least he's an Arizona bigoted and opportunistic hack and not a carpetbagger looking to buy a nomination.

Thiel/Masters is.

Rich people trying to buy a political office is not a new idea, but in the age of Cheeto, they're not even trying to hide it any longer.

From Politico -

Big-spending billionaires are upending politics. The Los Angeles mayor's race is the latest test.

Even by the cash-flush standards of modern politics, Rick Caruso’s run for mayor of Los Angeles has been a shock-and-awe spending campaign.

The billionaire Republican-turned-Democrat has already dropped $34 million on the race, single-handedly making the June 7 primary one of the most expensive elections in the country. He’s spent $25 million on TV advertising alone this year, more than any other candidate for any office in America, save one prospect running for governor in Illinois, according to the ad-tracking firm AdImpact. And in those TV ads, Caruso hammers away at homelessness, crime and corruption at City Hall, a trio of top issues for Los Angeles voters, while casting himself as an outsider — “not just a talker, a doer,” one TV ad narrator says.