Gun deaths among U.S. children hit a new record high
Data: Pediatrics analysis of CDC data; Chart: Axios Visuals
Firearm deaths among children in the U.S. hit a new record high in 2021, according to a study published Monday in the journal Pediatrics.
Driving the news: The study, based on government data, points to the worsening of an already distressing trend, after guns became the leading cause of death for children for the first time in 2020.
Phoenix councilwoman Laura Pastor drops out of congressional race
One of the leading Democratic names eyed to replace outgoing U.S. Rep. Ruben Gallego has dropped out of the race. Gallego is now vying to replace Sen. Kyrsten Sinema’s seat.
On Friday, Phoenix councilwoman Laura Pastor announced that she withdrew her name from a lengthy list of contenders, citing health reasons.
This story demonstrates two things:
1. There's a dire need for editors. Even the two paragraphs/three sentences that I've quoted are poorly written.
"...[V]ying to replace Sen. Kyrsten Sinema’s seat"? Really?? That made it by someone?
2. It's early. People can still drop out of or enter races.
Pastor's withdrawal leaves Yassamin Ansari, another member of the Phoenix City Council, and Raquel Teran, a former member of the Arizona Legislature and a former chair of the Arizona Democratic Party, as the big "names" currently in the race.
Arizona Investigators ‘Aggressively’ Looking at Top Trump Ally Kelli Ward
Arizona’s criminal probe into the 2020 fake electors plot is heating up and investigators are now asking plenty of questions about a key Donald Trump ally involved in it: former state GOP chair Kelli Ward.
The Arizona probe has been accelerating in the past several weeks, two sources familiar with the matter tell Rolling Stone, with prosecutors gathering evidence and speaking with individuals with knowledge of how the fake electors scheme was carried out in the state. The fake electors plot was a core component of the then-president and his aligned lawyers’ plans to overturn his 2020 election defeat and stop the legitimate transfer of power to his Democratic successor Joe Biden.
Businesses want to make it harder to raise California taxes. Democrats are pushing back
A tussle over tax hikes in California is intensifying. California Democrats have answered a tax-reform push by business groups with their own proposal to undercut it.
The escalating dispute over voters’ roles in approving or rejecting tax increases is a reflection of ballot initiatives’ outsize role in Sacramento and the game of cat and mouse that often plays out between opposing interests.
Now, a newly rewritten constitutional amendment backed by Democratic leaders would give the business coalition a taste of its own medicine. Under CA ACA13, any ballot measure that changes voter thresholds — such as the business group’s initiative — would need to pass by that same margin, which in this case would be a two-thirds vote.
CA's ACA13 is here. "ACA" stands for "Assembly Constitutional Amendment".
The pro-business profits scheme isn't new to AZ - in 2022, voters barely approved Proposition 132, a measure sent to the ballot by the Rs in the legislature here that imposes a 60% approval requirement for ballot measures that create a tax.
The hypocritical measure wouldn't have passed under CA's proposed standard, and shouldn't have.
I believe that the proposed amendment to CA's constitution has to come to AZ.
Only it will be necessary for such a measure to be from a citizen's initiative or to turn the Republican majority in the lege into a Democratic one.
In a previous post, I likened Cheeto to some fictional mob bosses/members.
David Corn of Mother Jones has compared him to the real thing, as Cheeto has been indicted under Georgia's RICO law (RICO = "Racketeer Influenced and Corrupt Organizations").
In yet another historic indictment, Donald Trump was charged by an Atlanta prosecutor with essentially being a mob boss.
With this expansive set of charges that accuses Trump and 18 others of mounting a wide-ranging and illegal conspiracy to overturn the 2020 election—emphasizing actions taken to fraudulently reverse the results in Georgia—Fulton County District Attorney Fani Willis declared Trump the head of a “criminal enterprise.” The first of 41 counts in the indictment alleges Trump and his co-conspirators violated the state’s version of the Racketeer Influenced and Corrupt Organizations Act, a law that has been used by local and federal prosecutors—including defendant Rudy Giuliani, when he was a US attorney in the 1980s—to pursue Mafia chieftains who were often able to insulate themselves from the criminal deeds of their henchmen. Given Trump’s past ties with mobsters—a significant piece of his biography that has often been overlooked—the use of RICO has an especially sharp resonance.
There's an old saying about how all NYC real estate developers are at least a little mobbed up, and I figured that was the extent of Cheeto's ties to the mob.
The 41-count indictment was unsealed Monday and is the fourth criminal case that Trump is facing.
Just a guess here, but Cheeto seems to think of himself as a cross between two fictional movie characters - Vito and Michael Corleone of the Godfather saga, portrayed by Marlon Brando/Robert De Niro and Al Pacino, respectively.
You know, perceptive, smart, and tough.
Instead, he's more like Joe Pesci's Tommy DeVito character from the movie Goodfellas.
You know, ego-driven, insecure, and volatile.
BTW, I heartily recommend viewing Godfather I and II, and Goodfellas. While they're very different movies, all are very good.
Legal experts question judge's order telling Southwest lawyers to get religious-liberty training
A federal judge has set off a debate among legal scholars by ordering lawyers for Southwest Airlines to undergo “religious-liberty training” by a conservative Christian legal group.
Critics say that if the judge believes such training is necessary, he should have found a less polarizing group to conduct it.
U.S. District Judge Brantley Starr made the decision after ruling that Southwest was in contempt of court for defying a previous order he issued in a case involving a flight attendant who said she was fired for expressing her opposition to abortion. She sued Southwest and won.
Starr, nominated to the bench by former President Donald Trump, said Southwest didn't understand federal protections for religious freedom. So this week, he ordered three of the airline's lawyers to undergo religious-liberty training. And he said that the Alliance Defending Freedom, or ADF, “is particularly well-suited" to do the training.
Ummmm......
ADF has been designated as a hate group by the Southern Poverty Law Center
Starr is the nephew of noted, and late, conservative ideologue Ken Starr.
Starr was nominated by Cheeto and confirmed by the US Senate on a party-line vote, supported only by Republicans. Even Sen. Kyrsten Sinema, then a Democrat in Name Only, now a Senator in Name Only, voted against confirming him.
We heard from Monique Worrell's chief of staff, Keisha Mulfort, who says she was fired while on maternity leave.
[snip]
"It is unacceptable. I am on FMLA and y'all are coming here like I'm a criminal. Regardless of what has happened at that office, regardless of what you have with Monique Worrell, I am on FMLA and y'all should have made arrangements," Mulfort said. "That would have been the respectful thing to do."
Yes, they not only fired someone on a maternity leave, they used armed police officers to do so
Welcome to Ronnie's world; just as petty, vindictive, and bigoted as Cheeto but with fewer marriages.
Note: In Florida, county-level state's attorneys are independently elected, so when deposing the state's attorney for those counties, he overturned an election.
There's a new entrant on the Democratic side of race -
Ireland-born Wall Street guyConor O'Callaghan. Long-time Democratic activist Jeanne Lunn will serve as his committee's treasurer.
As of right now, Democrats O'Callaghan, Kurt Kroemer, Marlene Galan-Woods, Andrei Cherny, Amish Shah, and Andrew Horne are running for Schweikert's seat and I expect that they won't be the only entrants in the Democratic primary.
A list of statements of interest filed with the Arizona Secretary of State is here.
Plus, I expect that Schweikert will be challenged in the primary, from his party's right wing.
While, like most R electeds, he has ethics "issues," he doesn't seem to be quite as bigoted as fellow R Paul Gosar.
Caveat1 - This is my district now, but I have *not* decided who to vote for, and I won't make that decision until I have a ballot in hand.
Caveat2 - Forming a committee or filing a statement is no guarantee that someone will be on a ballot, nor is such required before being on a ballot.
Evidently, objecting to being referred to as possible traitors can be the opposite of lucrative.
From KJZZ, by Greg Hahne, Jill Ryan, and Howard Fischer of Capitol Media Services -
Gosar, Finchem, Kern lose appeal, ordered to pay court fees
The state Court of Appeals has ruled that Congressman Paul Gosar and two former GOP state lawmakers will have to pay the legal fees of another representative they sued for defamation.
The appellate decision was unanimous.
The story is a *little* wrong about one thing - Finchem is currently a former legislator, but was a member at the time, but Kern, while a former legislator when the suit was filed, is currently a member of the Arizona legislature.
From the court's pdf of the decision, emphasis added by me -
"Irrelevant", "groundless", and "bad faith"?
Sounds like Gosar, Finchem, and Kern learned something from Cheeto, and their lawyers learned from his.
Scoop: Kari Lake prepares to enter Arizona Senate race
Former Arizona GOP gubernatorial nominee Kari Lake is staffing up for a Senate campaign in anticipation of an October launch, making Arizona ground zero to replay — and relitigate — GOP losses in the last two elections.
Why it matters: A potential three-way battle, with Sen. Kyrsten Sinema running as an independent, will expose deep divisions in both parties on whether to appeal to their bases or independents in a critical 2024 battleground state.
The race will have implications in the presidential campaign and give President Biden an opportunity to run against the "ultra MAGA" mindset that Lake represents, even if former President Trump isn't Biden's opponent in November 2024.
Prosecutors ask judge to issue protective order after Trump post appearing to promise revenge
The Justice Department has asked a federal judge overseeing the criminal case against former President Donald Trump in Washington to step in after he released a post online that appeared to promise revenge on anyone who goes after him.
Prosecutors on Friday requested that U.S. District Court Judge Tanya Chutkan issue a protective order concerning evidence in the case, a day after Trump pleaded not guilty to charges of trying to overturn his 2020 election loss and block the peaceful transition of power. The order, different from a “gag order,” would limit what information Trump and his legal team could share publicly about the case brought by special counsel Jack Smith.
It's not just Cheeto.
From Government Executive, dated 8/3/2023, emphasis added by me -
DeSantis vows to 'start slitting throats' of federal workers on Day One of presidency
It has become a common trope for politicians: provide red meat to constituents by promising to reduce the size of the federal workforce. A top presidential candidate this week echoed that proposal, but used some novel language to describe his potential actions.
Gov. Ron DeSantis, R-Fla., who is in a distant second place in most polling of the 2024 Republican presidential field, told supporters in New Hampshire he would slit the throats of federal bureaucrats on his first day in office. The governor has frequently used fiery rhetoric and has not shied away from high profile fights, but the comments were met with swift pushback.
“We’re going to have all these deep state people,” DeSantis said at a barbecue in Rye, N.H., when speaking about the federal bureaucracy, according to reporting from New Hampshire Public Radio. “We’re going to start slitting throats on day one.”
There's been some pushback, but most of that in civil society-based (and Cheeto and his supporters *hate* civil society), or are money-based (and while Republicans in general *love* money, Republican candidates love votes from their base more).
DeSantis’ conservative populism has left some donors chafing
When Ron DeSantis unveiled his economic platform last week, he presented himself as a conservative populist; a skeptic of corporations inside a party often allied with them.
But DeSantis’ rhetoric hasn’t always matched his record. As governor, he has done his share to support corporations. And as a presidential candidate, he has relied on contributions from titans of the business world.
As the AZlege has adjourned sine die, meaning that won't convene again until January unless Gov. Hobbs calls a special session of the legislature, this will be the last post on this topic, unless there's activity of interest, as there is this week.
While the lege isn't in session, the propaganda-spewing on the taxpayer dime will continue.
On Monday, 8/7
,
A joint meeting of three committees, Senate Natural Resources Energy and Water, House Natural Resources Energy & Water, and House Land, Agriculture & Rural Affairs meets at 5 p.m. at 700 W. Beale Street in Kingman,
Kingman is in Mohave County, a hotbed of election denialism
Biden expected to create Grand Canyon national monument to block new mining, sources say
President Biden is leaning toward designating a vast area near the Grand Canyon as a national monument to safeguard it from uranium mining, according to five people familiar with the plans.
Leaders of local tribes and environmentalists have spent years lobbying to protect areas near the park from potential uranium mining, which they say would threaten aquifers and water supplies.They have asked Washington to double the protected area around the canyon by including 1.1 million acres of public lands in a Baaj Nwaavjo I’tah Kukveni Grand Canyon National Monument.
Between the location and the topic, expect there to be a lot of anti-society/anti-tribal/anti-POTUS propaganda to be spewed.
The Sinema Situation: Gallego's Edge and the Enigma of Sinema's Independent Run
Sinema's Third-Party Run Does Not Guarantee a GOP Victory in Arizona Senate Race
As the 2024 Arizona Senate race looms, recent public opinion polling data fromNoble Predictive Insights’ (NPI) – formerly OH Predictive Insights (OHPI) – latest Arizona Public Opinion Pulse (AZPOP) sheds light on some intriguing dynamics that challenge conventional political wisdom. Contrary to initial assumptions, the potential entry of Senator Kyrsten Sinema as a third-party candidate does not necessarily guarantee a GOP victory. The poll results indicate that Sinema faces challenges within her own party, which might make her path to victory more complex.
This AZPOP, conducted from July 13 – 17, 2023, surveyed 1,000 registered voters in Arizona and had a margin of error of ± 3.1%.
U.S. Senator Rankings: Manchin, Sinema Are Among America’s Least Popular Ahead of Potential Campaigns
How the senators stack up
Sen. John Barrasso of Wyoming boasts a 70% approval rating in his state, making him the most popular senator, according to surveys Morning Consult conducted April 1-June 30 in all 50 states.
On the other side of the coin, Senate Republican leader Mitch McConnell remains America’s most unpopular senator, with roughly 3 in 5 Kentucky voters expressing disapproval of his job performance. His current position is in line with his standing in the first quarter of 2023, driven by his continued poor standing among Republican voters following his 2020 re-election.
[snip]
It's not all bad news for Sinema - she's marginally above water with D voters.
On the other hand, she's doing worse with Independent voters...and they represent a plurality among AZ voters.
My guess is that poll numbers won't mean anything to her.
According to her latest FEC filing (period ending 6/30/2023), she has more than $10.75 million in cash on hand
Prediction 1: The only way she *doesn't* run is if she finds a way to give her committee's cash to herself.
Prediction 2: The only way she wins is if Rep. Ruben Gallego (D) drops out of the race (seems very unlikely as he's outraising her by a wide margin) and the Rs nominate someone as crazy as Rep. Paul Gosar (not exactly out of the realm of possibility).
