Rum, Romanism and Rebellion

I was suprised enough this weekend when I heard that Jim Weiers was going to attempt to present his own budget apart from his Senate counterpart and fellow Republican Tim Bee, but I was even more suprised when I heard rumblings that some Democrats were going to go along.
Well, it seems to have happened. Today, […]

More details later, but it appears that members of the renegade Heptarchy have voted with Speaker Jim Weiers and his retrograde budget proposals. Thanks for being pals, guys!

I read on Saturday that Raúl Grijalva will be doing a “Know Your District” segment on The Colbert Report. My first reaction was, hey, you give that to the Star and not to me? What’s up with that? Where is the love?
Anyhow, Grijalva will be taping the segment in a couple of weeks for a […]

I attended the State Democratic Party meeting yesterday. I heard from more than a few folks that I haven’t listed the possible Democratic candidates in CD 1. Yeah, because I haven’t written enough about CD1. I don’t even live in CD 1.
I have two reasons why I haven’t done a post on the candidates in […]

Now, my always reliable sources are giving a new reason for Rick Renzi deciding to stick around a bit longer. Of course, some of these people also told me that he’d be gone on Friday…
Often in these sorts of situations, an office holder will use the resignation as a bargaining chip in plea negotiations. If […]

After the last election, you’d often hear near cackling from Republicans about how Harry Mitchell was some one-term fluke, destined to join the ranks of Sam Coppersmith, Karan English and Jim McNulty as Democratic one-term wonders. (The wonders don’t care, we don’t give a damn…) We heard how a Republican, any Republican, would run over […]

So, as it turns out Rick Renzi didn’t resign yesterday. He instead issued a short statement:
For several weeks, I have been the subject of leaked stories, conjecture, and false attacks about a land exchange. None of them bear any resemblance to the truth, including the rumor that I am planning on resigning.
The talk that was […]

One poster put up some details of a John Edwards fundraiser in Tucson, but as it turns out there will also be a “community meeting” with Edwards Thursday afternoon.
The event will be at 4:30 next Thursday at the Plumbers and Steamfitters Hall at 2475 E Water Street (get it, it’s on Water Street!). The hall […]

One of my pet peeves with political journalism is the way that wealthy liberals are attacked as ”hypocritical” for caring about poor folks, but genuine patrician conservatives are labeled “ordinary guys” when they pretend to like pork rinds and NASCAR and throw a “y’all” in here and there.
I give you as example number one Mitt Romney. The first time […]

Saturday, the District 28 legislative delegation, Sen. Paula Aboud, Rep. Dave Bradley and Rep. Steve Farley, will be holding a “Town Hall” meeting at Martha Cooper Library, 1377 N Catalina. Catalina is one block East of Columbus, and the library is two blocks North of Speedway. The, um, fun gets underway at 10:30 and should […]

In the run up to the November election, this site would get more than 900 hits a day. After the election, that fell to six or seven hundred, with an exceptional day being around 800.
Yesterday? 1,174.
Maybe I should convince Renzi to stay a while, keep my count up.

Former Lyndon Johnson aide Jack Valenti has died. He had been one of the most powerful lobbyists in Washington as well as the guy that came up with the movie rating system. Before that though, he owned a Texas public relations agency. He was in charge of publicity for the John F. Kennedy’s ill-fated visit […]

Someone who would actually know such things tells me that John Edwards may be in Tucson next Thursday. As soon as I hear more details, I’ll give them to y’all.
This comes on the heels of a poll out of NAU that shows that Edwards would be the strongest candidate against the three leading Republican contenders […]

The Boston Globe noted that there were only 250 people at John McCain’s announcement in Portsmouth, New Hampshire. It even went on to say that there was parking available.
I’m not one to pile on the guy for the size of the crowd. Heck, it could have been the weather for all I know. But, it […]

The zeitgeist both in Phoenix and Washington is that Rick Renzi will be submitting his resignation from the House of Representatives by Friday.
Cool…I got that one out there before Josh Marshall.
A further bit of mitote has it that Ann Kirkpatrick will resign her seat in the legislature early next week and announce her campaign to replace Renzi.

Gawd, three of you have sent me copies of today’s Wall Street Journal article about Rick Renzi. Unfortunately, I can’t link it because the plutocrats at the Journal only allow you to read it by subscription only. That is reason number one that those guys are first against the wall after I lead my revolution.
I’ll […]

I heard another rumor about a possible candidate in CD1. As you know, there has already been noise from Ann Kirpatrick, an experienced legislator from Flagstaff. Now, another name has surfaced, Mary Kim Titla.
Yes, I know what you are saying: two women runing against each other in a Democratic primary, one is a legislator and one is […]

TucsonMark posted yesterday that Rick Renzi has taken himself out of a program called ROMP. So, my first question was, what the heck is ROMP?
ROMP is the “Regain Our Majority Program.” It was one of the money raising schemes put together by Tom DeLay. Under DeLay, it was actually called “Retain Our Majority Program,” but, […]

Rick Renzi has dropped his membership from his two remaining committees, Financial Services and Natural Resources. This leaves him with, well, no committee assignments.
Any congressional history geeks that can tell me when the last time a member had no committee assignments?
Of course, he did this because of the tremendous pressure exerted by this blog. It […]

I hardly ever read The Fix, but Chris Cillizza himself wrote me to ask if I wanted to subscribe to his e-mail list. I was so touched, I just had to oblige.
This morning, Cillizza sent out one of his latest postings regarding John McCain:

Carla Eudy, a longtime fundraising consultant for McCain, has been moved out […]