Arizona News Platoon

News Platoon is metamorphising

Rachel Alexander — Sat, 18 Jul 2009 18:22:34 +0000

The #dontgo movement has been renamed to the American Liberty Alliance, and the functionality of this website will be changing. Stay tuned.

Board of Supervisors revenge on County Attorney: We’ll fire your attorneys and hire our own shadow county attorney’s office

Sonoran Alliance — Tue, 19 May 2009 17:05:29 +0000

Is this for real? The Board of Supervisors, which can’t stop feuding with other county officials (they’ve fought hard with Arpaio, Thomas, former Treasurer David Schweikert, current Treasurer Hos Hoskins, former county schools superintendent Sandra Dowling, forcing her not to run for reelection, the last county assessor, and there’s probably more), has decided to remove $6 million from the County Attorney’s $10 million budget it uses to pay its civil attorneys, forcing the division to go from 71 attorneys to 28, and hire its own attorneys instead, as a new “shadow county attorney’s office.” Effectively laying off numerous attorneys who have worked for the County Attorney’s Office, some for years! The reason? They are angry that Thomas and Arpaio filed an 118-count indictment against fellow Supervisor Don Stapley for financial misdealings.

The audacity of this power grab is astonishing. They’re now paying a very young inexperienced attorney, Wade Swanson, whose background is education law, $175,000 to run their newly created legal department. Even Andrew Thomas doesn’t make that much money! (He makes $123,678).

Thomas turned over prosecution of Stapley to another office, so if the supervisors claim they need their own legal department because of a conflict of interest, it’s no longer valid.

The County Attorney’s civil division is made up of lawyers who represent the various county agencies. There is no reasonable argument why the Board of Supervisors needs to replace these attorneys who represent the Assessor, the Treasurer, the Sheriff, etc. with their own new attorneys.

The Shadow County Attorney’s Office must go! It looks like the Goldwater Institute is already looking into this power grab, fortunately.

Power grab! County Supervisors gut County Attorney’s Civil Division and set up their own attorneys

Rachel Alexander — Tue, 19 May 2009 16:50:26 +0000

In an astonishing move, the Maricopa County Board of Supervisors has taken $6 million out of the $10 million budget County Attorney Andrew Thomas has for his civil division, effectively gutting the budget. FORTY-THREE employees will be ELIMINATED, reducing the civil division from 71 down to 28 employees. Instead, the Supervisors are directing the $6 million to go to a new division of attorneys they have set up under them. The East Valley Tribune is covering the story, here are some excerpts:

The civil division of the Maricopa County Attorney’s Office was effectively gutted Monday when the Board of Supervisors stripped $6 million from the agency’s budget to set up its own in-house legal shop.

About $4 million will be redirected to a general litigation office that was created by the board in March, the turning point in a protracted power struggle between Thomas and the board over who has the authority to provide civil legal representation to the county

The move is the latest twist in the bitter battle that erupted last December when Thomas announced the indictment of Supervisor Don Stapley, a Mesa Republican accused of failing to report business and land deals on financial disclosure statements he is required to file as an elected official.

Thomas called the board’s latest action “shocking and disappointing” in a written statement issued Monday.

Barnett Lotstein, special assistant county attorney, said more than 40 people in the agency’s civil litigation division will lose their jobs if the board’s action is not overturned, either in a subsequent vote or by a judge. It also would result in a huge shift of power to the board, which would be free to act unchecked by challenges from other elected county officials, he said.

“It removes all checks and balances,” Lotstein said. “It makes them the final arbiter of whether or not you can challenge what the board of supervisors has done.”

Thomas’ lawsuit contends the board does not have the power to take away his duties as the lawyer for the county. He also has branded the board’s actions retaliation for his indictment of Stapley.

Ward Connerly: Lessons from my Uncle James

Rachel Alexander — Tue, 19 May 2009 16:45:28 +0000

Ward Connerly, best known for taking on preferential treatment on the basis of race, gender, and ethnicity beginning in 1996 with California’s Proposition 209, recently came out with a second book. Lessons from My Uncle James: Beyond Skin Color to the Content of Our Character is about the most influential person in his life, his Uncle James who raised him as his own son. It was Uncle James’s parenting that planted the seeds in Ward which ultimately led to his crusade against affirmative action. Uncle James’s no-nonsense, no-complaining allowed upbringing, combining love with hard work, instilled within Ward a highly disciplined work ethic that went counter to the affirmative action mentality of blaming someone else for your situation. The short book is beautifully written in the same elegant and powerful speaking style Ward is known for, pulling the reader in for a quick read that flows more like easy-to-read fiction than nonfiction. There are fascinating parallels to My Grandfather’s Son, by Supreme Court Justice Clarence Thomas, who was raised by his strict grandfather. Although both Ward and Justice Thomas were not raised by their paternal fathers, they were fortunate enough to have a relative step in to provide that important father role sadly missing in many black families today.

Deserted by his father at a young age, Ward lost his mother soon afterwards to a stroke. His Uncle James (the husband of his aunt Bert) took him in, and he spent the rest of his childhood living with Uncle James and Bert or his grandma. Uncle James never saw people in terms of color. Yet some of Ward’s own family members spoke disparagingly of Uncle James behind his back because he was darker-skinned than they were. Observing this unjust cruelty taught Ward very early on that any kind of racial discrimination was wrong.

Uncle James had an uncompromising moral code and work ethic. Even though he worked in manual labor his entire life, due to a third grade education, he never felt the “stress” associated today with strenuous work. He thought that the coffee break was the worst invention since it allowed people employed in government bureaucracies paid by his hard-earned money to “sit on their fat a*** smoking cigarettes.” When he’d see someone sitting on the side of a street with a sign, “will work for food,” he’d mutter, “Well then, just put down the d*** sign and go get yourself a job.”

Uncle James taught Ward that if you didn’t neglect the small things in life, the big things would fall into place. He carried a gun to protect himself, because a “mane has got to defend himself and his family, else he ain’t no mane at all!” (his pronunciation of man) Ward frequently jokes that due to his lack of education Uncle James wouldn’t have known the difference between the Second Amendment and the Third Amendment, he had a grounded inner sense of what was right.

Uncle James was selfless. He never talked about himself and treated everyone as friends, not strangers. He spoke with contempt about acting like a “big shot.”

Uncle James had no use for the term “African-American.” When he heard the phrase, he’d say, “Sh**, I bet he’s never been to Africa and ain’t about to go. Those Africans don’t want nothing to do with him.” Uncle James resented affirmative action, calling it a handout. “If they got up off their butts and worked, they wouldn’t need no affirmative action.” He thought the Black Panthers were con men and gangsters.

Uncle James considered Afrocentrism the equivalent of witchcraft. “I’m a black man and that’s all there is to it. I don’t know a d*** thing about Africa and I don’t want to know. All I know about Africa is it’s where we would still be if our ancestors didn’t get lucky back all those years ago and get brought to America.”

Although Ward grew up very poor, his Uncle James never let him feel sorry for himself, and taught him how important it was to “be a mane” and work. The life of Ward Connerly is a true Horatio Alger story. As a boy growing up, he spent summers with Uncle James working at a sawmill. They would start the day beginning at 5:00 am preparing breakfast, in order to be at the job site by 6:45 am. Then little Ward would pick up strewn soda bottles all day long, return them to the grocery store for refunds, and bring back more sodas for the workers. He says it was this little chore that introduced him to the world of capitalism and private enterprise.

While living with his grandma, some days Ward would go without lunch, and there were weeks where all he would have for dinner was a slice of sweet potato and some collards from the garden. He would stuff cardboard in his shoes when the soles started wearing out. At one point his grandma was forced to go on welfare, and had Ward as a teenager apply for it since she wasn’t quite old enough to qualify. That didn’t suit Ward, who soon told the social worker that was enough, and he went out and “became a mane,” getting a job as a stock boy and waxing floors while in school – making more money than he’d been receiving on welfare.

Church played a big role in Ward’s life. Uncle James made sure Ward attended church every Sunday both morning and evening. Ward became very involved teaching Sunday School.

When Ward went to college, he was elected student body president, the first black student body president of Sacramento State. He writes that he didn’t think of himself as a “trailblazer;” one of the reasons he wanted the job was it paid $35/mth and came with parking privileges. Uncle James agreed that it wasn’t anything monumental, “You don’t have to see your color all the time. If others do, that’s their problem. Best thing is to just get along with life.”

Ward still didn’t have it easy in college, he had to work to put himself through. During the summers, he would work 8 pm – 3 am nights on an assembly line and half-days as a children’s recreational supervisor.

Ward’s beloved Uncle James passed away in 1996, the same year Ward’s Prop. 209 initiative banning preferential action on the basis of race, gender and ethnicity passed in California. Ward reminisces that if Uncle James had lived long enough to hear someone tell him to “celebrate diversity,” he would have shot them a withering look. Ward shudders to think what Uncle James would have thought of Obama’s pastor Jeremiah Wright, who told his congregation “God damn America.”

Having been raised by this impressive colorblind uncle, it is easy to understand why Ward became a champion of treating everyone as individuals, not as members of groups based on their skin color or gender. As Ward perceptively frames the issue in language for today’s era, “It is often said America is ‘a nation of immigrants,’ but I believe this characterization causes us to misplace our focus. America is a nation of individuals.”

Ward Connerly is currently spearheading an initiative in Arizona that would ban affirmative action in government

Mexican Border Gaza Strip Bound?

gaylebesley — Wed, 08 Apr 2009 17:12:45 +0000

by Gayle Plato

Sitting in Phoenix, the Arab-Israeli conflict along the Gaza Strip seems constant and doesn’t even blip on the radar of the average American. Why should it? Because we’ve a chance to see the parallels of our borderland conflicts. We must stop the exponential growth of warring organized crime now becoming a political stronghold at our doorstep.

Whether Phoenix, El Paso, Tucson, or Tijuana, all borderland states’ populated cities are part of the drug cartel super highway bleeding out over the Mexican border. Crystal Meth is liquid gold for Mexico. In fact, there is a growing middle class, community infrastructure, and a war-lord feudal state reaching a political tipping point. We may jabber on about the cheap labor taking over our cities or the funds we spend on social programs for illegal aliens, but we are missing the real issue. Look to Gaza- Hamas, the former PLO, Israeli and American push-me/pull-me politics with the Gaza Strip, and see how a borderland goes ballistic.

One of the most accurate and insightful experts about Gaza and the crisis upon the region is Benjamin Netanyahu, newly sworn in Israeli Prime Minister. He often explains the dire consequences of the 2005 Israeli pull-out of Gaza. He said then that the region will become a puppet entity of Iran, and he was right. Hamas is backed by Iranian extremism, private Saudi funds, and international Jihadist Evil ( thats with a capital E).

Hamas started in February, 1988, in the Gaza strip as a counter movement to Yasser Arafat and the PLO. Their charter states that their focus is to keep Palestine in Muslim hands and to wipe out Israel. They profess daily to keep up the Muslim Jihad . But the layers of Hamas are ignored often by the Western media. They are not a one-dimensional entity. Hamas has a branch that funnels money into the community too, grooming loyalty of the locals. Gaza has been a crowded world of Muslim, Jewish, and Christians. They were cheap labor, and worked fertile soils of organic foods for instance. Gaza went back to Palestinian control and all Hell broke loose. While Hamas promised a peace with Israel, it didn’t happen. See Mr Netanyahu speak on Hannity and Colmes here:

While we are not a small nation like Israel, carved out of a political region just 60 years ago. We can’t deny what our borderland might become. Drugs are a growing business and the beginning of political process:

“Cartels can challenge — and supplant — governments. Between huge amounts of money available to bribe officials, and covert armies better equipped, trained and motivated than national police and military forces, the cartels can become the government — if in fact they didn’t originate in the government. Getting the government to deploy armed forces against the cartel can become a contradiction in terms. In their most extreme form, cartels are the government.” (http://www.stratfor.com/weekly/geopolitics_dope)

Startfor.com defines the future dilemma I see as a critical facet of out REAL border battle. The local politicians and criminal justice operatives of all U.S. Border states need to come together, and push to problem-solve. A prophetic take by political analyst and writer, George Friedman is detailed here:

“The likely course is a multigenerational pattern of instability along the border. More important, there will be a substantial transfer of wealth from the United States to Mexico in return for an intrinsically low-cost consumable product — drugs. This will be one of the sources of capital that will build the Mexican economy, which today is 14th largest in the world. The accumulation of drug money is and will continue finding its way into the Mexican economy, creating a pool of investment capital. The children and grandchildren of the Zetas will be running banks, running for president, building art museums and telling amusing anecdotes about how grandpa made his money running blow into Nuevo Laredo.
It will also destabilize the U.S. Southwest while grandpa makes his pile. As is frequently the case, it is a problem for which there are no good solutions, or for which the solution is one without real support.”
(http://www.stratfor.com/weekly/geopolitics_dope)
netanyahu on Hannity and Colmes about Gaza

AZ GOP uses poll question to defend stance on increasing taxes

Americans for Prosperity AZ — Thu, 02 Apr 2009 14:50:47 +0000

“Cutting my taxes, securing our border. That’s my AZ GOP.”
–Bumpersticker

(Well, one out of two is still half a loaf…)

In a news release today, the Arizona Republican Party used a Kenski/HighGround poll question to suggest that its stance in favor of a (temporary) tax increase is popular with voters:

http://www.azgop.org/news.asp?artid=87&z=2

Sharp readers will notice that the Kenski/HighGround poll question did not break down the amount of the tax increase into per-family or per-household figures.

In our AFP Arizona poll, when we let respondents know that the increase would be over $300 per household, we got very different results. 62 percent of respondents in Phoenix were opposed to the tax, and 64 percent in Glendale. Opposition to tax increases crossed party lines, with 47 percent of self-identified “strong Democrats” in Phoenix opposed, and 52 percent in Glendale.

http://www.americansforprosperity.org/032609-afp-arizona-releases-poll-results-likely-voters-oppose-tax-increases

And then there’s another poll from Rasmussen, showing 65 percent of respondents opposed to a tax hike. Reporter Howie Fisher summarizes the dueling polls here:

http://www.eastvalleytribune.com/story/137363

Near the end, Fisher cites the AZ GOP spokesman:

Brett Mecum, the party’s executive director, admitted that the survey included several other alternatives to making up the $1 billion shortfall. But GOP Mecum refused to make the results of that public, saying the only information the party wants out — at least right now — is that there is support for Brewer’s plan.

Tax Hike to Cause 14,400 Lost Jobs as State’s Economic Output Falls by $1.2 Billion

The Goldwater Institute — Thu, 02 Apr 2009 14:42:48 +0000

To close the state’s budget deficit Governor Jan Brewer has proposed a $1 billion tax increase. New findings announced today show that if the State of Arizona were to implement a $1 billion sales tax increase, 14,400 private jobs would be lost.

These new findings are the result of economic modeling conducted by the Beacon Hill Institute at Suffolk University in Boston, Massachusetts. The Goldwater Institute asked Beacon Hill to examine the impact of a $1 billion sales tax increase on employment, state economic output, and incomes.

Beacon Hill found that a $1 billion sales tax increase would cause the state to lose 14,400 private sector jobs; the state’s real economic output would decline by $1.2 billion; and Arizonans would see their total after-tax income, already hit hard by recession, fall by $760 million, or almost $300 per household on average.

In addition to the $1 billion tax increase proposed by the governor, Arizona property owners face a tax increase in July when the state equalization tax comes back on the books. Lawmakers and the governor could decide to permanently repeal this tax. In the event that lawmakers choose not to repeal it, and even if it becomes the only tax increase to go into effect this year, almost 4,000 private jobs and $385 million in after-tax income will be lost.

“The Beacon Hill Institute has an excellent reputation for modeling the real effects of tax changes,” said economist Dr. Byron Schlomach, Director of the Goldwater Institute’s Center for Economic Prosperity. “These numbers show that these tax increases will hurt our economic recovery by putting more Arizonans out of work.”

Rasmussen poll: 65% oppose Rep. Governor Brewer’s tax hike

Arizona News Platoon News — Wed, 01 Apr 2009 19:10:37 +0000

Do you favor or oppose a temporary tax increase to help stem the state budget shortfall?

22% Favor
65% Oppose
13% Not sure

Read the rest of the poll here. The East Valley Tribune analyzed here why the poll results came out differently than a state GOP poll.

Shadegg to Geithner: Really, Mr. Secretary? Which is it?

Arizona News Platoon News — Fri, 27 Mar 2009 14:33:55 +0000

Shadegg: “Secretary Geithner continued his bizarre and puzzling conduct this week, making flatly contradictory statements about the dollar in a span of only 24 hours. This weakens confidence not only in him, but in the currency he is entrusted to protect.”

WASHINGTON – Congressman John Shadegg (R-AZ) issued the following statement after Treasury Secretary Geithner expressed openness on Wednesday to moving away from the dollar as the world’s reserve currency after categorically rejecting the idea on Tuesday in sworn testimony before the House Financial Services Committee:

“Beginning with his tax difficulties, and continuing through the puzzling narrative of when and what he knew about the AIG bonuses, Treasury Secretary Geithner has done little to inspire the confidence of the American people. Oddly, Secretary Geithner continued his bizarre and puzzling conduct this week, making flatly contradictory statements about the dollar in a span of only 24 hours. This weakens confidence not only in him, but in the currency he is entrusted to protect.

“On Tuesday, Secretary Geithner testified before the House Financial Services Committee that he ‘categorically renounces,’ recent proposals from China and others to shift away from the dollar as the world’s reserve currency [see hearing transcript below]. The next morning in New York , speaking to the Council on Foreign Relations, he was asked about the same proposals and said he is ‘quite open,’ to them [see press report below].”

“Really, Mr. Secretary? Is it too much to ask that your position remain unchanged over a 24 hour period?”

###

Excerpt from Secretary Geithner’s March 24^th testimony before the Financial Services Committee at approximately 11:30am:

http://gop.gov/resources/library/members/az/03/World-Currency-Question-3-24.wmv

Representative Bachmann: We’ve seen both China, Russia, and Kazakhstan, make calls for an international monetary conversion to an international monetary standard as soon as the G20, and I’m wondering would you categorically renounce the United States moving away from the dollar and going to a global currency as suggested this morning by China and also by Russia, Mr. Secretary?

Secretary Geithner: I would, yes.

As reported in the Washington Times:

http://www.washingtontimes.com/news/2009/mar/26/geithner-gaffe-on-dollar-roils-stock-bond-markets/

“An unguarded comment by Treasury Secretary Timothy F. Geithner on Wednesday set off a sudden drop in the dollar and contributed to a chain of market-rocking events that included a setback in the stock market and a sharp uptick in interest rates.

“Mr. Geithner appeared to lend his support to a proposal by China’s central bank governor to replace the dollar as the world’s reserve currency with a basket of currencies that would be managed by the International Monetary Fund. In an appearance before the Council on Foreign Relations in New York on Wednesday morning, Mr. Geithner raised eyebrows by saying that ‘we’re actually quite open to that’…”

April 15th Tea Party Protests Must Demand Geithner Resignation

Rachel Alexander — Tue, 24 Mar 2009 13:57:25 +0000

The April 15^th Tea Party protests are ramping up to send a powerful message to Congress and President Obama about the government’s runaway spending and bailouts. The first Tea Party protests this year caused a ripple throughout the media and Congress, as support for Obama and Democrats simultaneously began to erode. Obama’s approval rating dropped from 64% in February to 59% this month, according to the Pew Research Center. His disapproval rating increased from 17% to 26%. Obama’s approval ratings are barely higher than G.W. Bush or Clinton at this same time in their first terms, with 56% and 53% approval ratings respectively. Ronald Reagan’s approval rating was higher than Obama’s, at 60%.

Obama’s edge among independents has completely disappeared. According to a recent poll conducted by a Democrat polling company and its Republican counterpart, if an election were held now, 42% of likely voters would vote for a Democrat Congressional candidate, and 42% would vote for a Republican candidate. Senator Judd Gregg, who just a month ago was being considered by Obama for Commerce Secretary, warned that Obama’s current budget proposal will send the country on a path leading to a banana republic. A recent Rasmussen poll found that more people oppose his budget than support it, 46% to 41%.

There is a massive movement growing in opposition to the federal government’s bailouts. Treasury Secretary Timothy Geithner represents the worst of the government’s current financial excesses. So far, he refuses to step down amidst calls for his resignation, and Obama is standing by him. The April 15^th Tea Party protests present an ideal opportunity to pressure the administration into forcing Geithner to resign.

There are three reasons why Geithner must go. The first is because the economy is not improving, even as the administration continues to announce new stimulus plans. The public has failed to gain confidence in Geithner. Last year’s bailout of banking’s failed assets didn’t work. So when Geithner announced another proposed bailout of the banking industry, which would put more than $1 trillion into more failed bank assets, Wall Street took a dive.

The second two reasons Geithner must resign involve his lack of ethics. Geithner cheated on his taxes and lied about the AIG bonuses. He barely squeaked by confirmation in the Senate because of a failure to pay $34,000 in self-employment taxes while working at the International Monetary Fund from 2001 to 2004. He blamed the program TurboTax for the incredibly large “mistake,” which most people believe was another lie, earning him the nickname “Turbo Tim.”

The $165 million in retention bonuses were for executives in AIG’s Financial Products Division, the division responsible for AIG’s losses. They were signed into contract last April. Geithner claimed that he didn’t know that Congress had agreed to allow AIG to keep its retention bonuses as part of the bailout. But as head of the Federal Reserve Bank of New York last year, Geithner played a role in crafting the legislation to bail out AIG. His assertion was also contradicted by AIG CEO Edward Liddy, who testified that Geithner knew about the bonuses a week to ten days earlier. The Washington Post claims Geithner knew three months ago.

Someone who cannot manage his own finances without breaking the law is not someone who should be in charge of the country’s finances. The Tea Party tax protests on April 15 are going to be highly influential. If Geithner has not yet resigned, this will be a powerful opportunity to exert tremendous public pressure on Obama to ask him to step down. Geithner’s resignation should be a sub theme of the protests. Geithner’s credibility is so damaged at this point he can no longer be effective. Americans need to take this opportunity to clean out one of the worst members of Obama’s cabinet. Especially considering unlike honest Americans, Geithner didn’t bother to pay his taxes on April 15.