Rum, Romanism and Rebellion

The Citizen ran an editorial yesterday lauding Jonathan Paton’s planned hearings on Child Protective Services. For once, I see both the media and elected officials recognize that the directive to CPS to intervene when children may be in danger is in conflict with the policy of the Department of Health Services to keep families together.
Although Paton […]

The Mine Safety and Health Administration has told families of six trapped Utah miners that the United Mine Workers can’t represent their interests in the upcoming safety investigation.
The reason: the workers themselves have to sign the paperwork. Maybe they haven’t noticed, but it’s a little dark there and hard to see where to sign.
I’m sure […]

I was thinking about Larry Craig’s rationale: that a guilty plea is not an admission of guilt. Somehow he was intimidated or nervous and felt he had to plead guilty.
You know, he might have a point there. He and his colleagues have spent so much of the past few years evicerating the rights of criminal […]

There are moments when I wonder if there is some element of the Republican party that wants to make sure that Jon Stewart has enough material. “Wide stance“? At least he didn’t blame a black guy.
Maybe it is more nefarious than that. Some of these guys are so wedded to the notion that gays are […]

This Wednesday, our local Democrats will be throwing a retirement party for Karl Rove. No word on whether or not he is going to be there.
The event will be Wednesday at Hotel Congress, and runs from 7-10 PM. The cost is $20 at the door, $10 with a student ID. There is a raffle for […]

Everytime there is one of these big busts of some corporate titan for malfeasance, there is something that I never get tired of seeing. It seems that when one of these guys gets busted, they claim that they didn’t know anything, that they were victims of some nefarious doings of the underlings. This is something […]

The talk in the Dee of Cee is that Alberto Gonzales, our favorite cabinet official, will be announcing his resignation today.
The sick bastard partisan inside of me kind of wanted him to stick around so he could bring the whole crew down. Of course, how much further down can they go?

The Yellowsheet is reporting that Russell Pearce will be forming an exploratory committee to take on Jeff Flake. According to Pearce, Flake is “treasonous” and a “hypocrite.” The Yellowsheet also quotes Pearce as saying Flake is “bad for America:”
I think Jeff Flake is bad for America. His policies are destructive to this nation. You can’t […]

Rodney Glassman is having a campaign party tonight at the Maverick (King of Clubs!) at 6622 E Tanque Verde. The party goes from 5:00 to 7:30, and everyone is welcome to attend. It is hosted by Sheriff Clarence Dupnik.
The event is free, because Glassman has already raised all of the money he can raise. He […]

There was an interesting bit in Daniel Scarpinato’s article on Tim Bee, published in this Wednesday’s Star:
After initially sidestepping a question about the Iraq war, Bee said, “I believe that this war has been poorly executed, and there have been many mistakes made along the way, but at the same time, it’s going to be […]

As has been noted by a thousand other bloggers earlier today, Rick Renzi made his expected announcement that he will not run for re-election next year. At least he didn’t claim he did it to spend more time with his family.
The official R-Cubbed Betting Shop and Horchata Bar will be taking bets on which “mentioned” Republican […]

Y’all may remember a while back when the Star ran a story decrying the lack of neighborhood reinvestment money being spent in Ray Carroll’s and Ann Day’s districts. As I pointed out at the time, a big part of the reason for this was the lack of neighborhoods in those areas that needed the money. […]

I got a note from Dave Croteau last week asking if he can be listed in the Election Aught Seven section. I get requests like this once in a while. Since many of them are for people that I know little about and are in some far flung part of the state, most of the time I issue a […]

As expected, the Arizona’s Presidential Preference Election (why they can’t just call it a darned primary is beyond me, another thing I blame on Jan Brewer) will be set to February 5th rather than later in the month. Despite the handwringing of a few about this being too early, this is actually about the same […]

Bruce Ash has been scribbling furiously on here. You may remember a few months back when he was installed as national committeeman for the Republicans, and folks thought that this guy was going to be a calm, reasonable voice for the party in contrast to the divisive Randy Pullen. This was a view shared only […]

My brother was in Boston for the National Conference of State Legislatures meeting. Yes, the name of the group has the word “Legislatures” and not “Legislators.” Shortly after he got back, he flew to Denver for a meeting related to his “civilian” work. So, it is only just now that I got his rundown of […]

Over at Sonoran Alliance, they are celebrating because of the dismissal of state charges against Sandra Dowling. They may want to keep the crowing to a minimum for a bit.
The case was transfered to the US Attorney’s office because of Joe Arpaio’s still active investigation of trumped up bribe charges (details on Arpaio’s novel legal theory […]

A while back, in an effort to avoid having to deal with the City of Tucson’s cable regulations, Cox cable sent out e-mails to customers asking for them to contact the state legislature to allow the poor, beset, put upon pobres at Cox to lower cable rates so that Tucson families would no longer have to decide […]

I spotted Steve Owens at the State Committee meeting last week. He was one of four possible candidates for Congressional District 1 that was there, or at least had some sort of presence.
Owens is still seriously considering a go at the race. He thinks that he still has time to make a decision and is […]

Rumors are swirling that Ray Carroll has been looking for a candidate to run against Sharon Bronson. Bronson won an oddball three way race in 1996 after incumbent Ed Moore had left the Republican party and ran as an independent. 2000 was another close contest, but 2004 turned into a snoozer when Republican Barney Brenner […]