Jan Brewer's big brain freeze on Hardball
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7:18 PM
Arizona is on the front page of the NYT again...
… and again the news is not good:
PHOENIX — During the great housing boom, homeowners nationwide borrowed a trillion dollars from banks, using the soaring value of their houses as security. Now the money has been spent and struggling borrowers are unable or unwilling to pay it back.
The story uses Arizona as the poster kid for folks who overleveraged themselves and are now skipping out on the money they owe.
Here’s one local case study:
[T]he borrowers argue that they are simply rebuilding their ravaged lives. Many also say that the banks were predatory, or at least indiscriminate, in making loans, and nevertheless were bailed out by the federal government. Finally, they point to their trump card: they say will declare bankruptcy if a settlement is not on favorable terms.
“I am not going to be a slave to the bank,” said Shawn Schlegel, a real estate agent who is in default on a $94,873 home equity loan. His lender obtained a court order garnishing his wages, but that was 18 months ago. Mr. Schlegel, 38, has not heard from the lender since. “The case is sitting stagnant,” he said. “Maybe it will just go away.”
Mr. Schlegel’s tale is similar to many others who got caught up in the boom: He came to Arizona in 2003 and quickly accumulated three houses and some land. Each deal financed the next. “I was taught in real estate that you use your leverage to grow. I never dreamed the properties would go from $265,000 to $65,000.”
Apparently neither did one of his lenders, the Desert Schools Federal Credit Union, which gave him a home equity loan secured by, the contract states, the “security interest in your dwelling or other real property.”
Desert Schools, the largest credit union in Arizona, increased its allowance for loan losses of all types by 926 percent in the last two years. It declined to comment.
9:15 AM
In which we discover that the Exotic East isn't much different from the unexotic East Valley
When you read the hedline on this EVT story out of Mesa (“Parents sue to stop suspension for drinking on China band trip”), you probably think the same thing we do:
Jesus, aren’t these conservative Mesa types all about personal responsibility and strict rules?
Their high schoolers get caught drinking on a fields trip—to China, no less—get a lenient three days os suspension… and they sue the district to protect their little ones from having to take responsibility?
Read the story and … it’s true: These grimy parental units are suing the district after their kids got a measly three-day suspension for drinking on a band trip, to China no less.
But there’s a twist: The parents do have a case on a different aspect of what turns out to be an story with a twist or two.
The kids were drinking in China, according to the suit, but the circumstances were a little … rococo:
A Chinese tour guide provided beer while spending hours in a hotel room with the teens. The suit says the tour guide took his shirt off because he was hot, then watched the students play drinking games until they were wearing nothing but boxers.
Now that’s something the kids could have experienced back home in the good old U.S. of A., and in church, to boot.
The district’s side:
The district contends the parents threatened to generate bad publicity if administrators kept the suspensions in place. The parents' suit includes other allegations of sexual conduct and a Chinese sex worker groping a boy in the hotel.
“In any event, Plantiffs' arguments are baseless and meant to do nothing more than embarrass and discredit the school and its staff in an effort to win a tactical advantage,” the suit states.
7:55 AM
Ben Quayle likes young girls! And once adopted a dog in Wickenberg
You might look at the photo above and think, Oh, no—not another generation of Quayles.
The photo is from a campaign mailer in Ben Quayle’s bid for the GOP nomination for John Shadegg’s congressional seat—one of two his campaign has sent out that shows him with the young girls.
Turns out that Quayle, the son of former vice president Dan Quayle, doesn’t have kids.
That despite the fact that he’s certainly acting like their father, the hedline blares “A NEW GENERATION,” and the copy below includes the line, “[Wife] Tiffany and I live in this district and are going to raise our family here.”
A Quayle spokesperson told the Arizona Capitol Times, “They’re just terribly cute kids.”
The ACT didn’t follow up and ask whether Quayle, who is 33, couldn’t find some kids his own age to play with.
An Arizona Republic story says that the Quayle website doesn’t mention any children, though it does contain the information that “Ben and Tiffany have a puppy named Louie they rescued from the Wickenburg Humane Society.”
In the ACT story, the campaign spokesperson, Damon Moley, gets a little defiant:
“We are presenting Ben as a pro-family candidate because he is a pro-family candidate,” Moley said. “We are presenting him as a traditional-values candidate because he is a traditional values candidate.”
He’s pro-family—but doesn’t happen to have one. And he’s into traditional values: Like misrepresentation and pandering.
A Politico story on the mailer says that Quayle has raised more than $1 million thus far.
6:41 AM
"Arizona is sui generis"
Jon Talton reflects on Ken Silverstein’s Harpers story examining Arizona’s curious polity:
Silverstein writes, “Arizonans are generally moderate…And yet Arizona politics are disproportionately controlled by ultraconservatives.” This is one of many ways where Arizona is close to being sui generis. “Arizonans” now comprise a large number of retirees and other outsiders with little interest in the state except as a sunny place to use up for their personal convenience. Apathy is widespread, as are those working multiple low-wage jobs just to survive. In most cases, those who don’t vote “no,” simply don’t vote — and that extends to Hispanic citizens. Those who vote now are mostly not moderate. […] I can think of few states with such a self-destructive electorate — Kansas doesn’t even come close.
Talton concludes:
Similarly, the influence of the Mormon church, which Silverstein mentions, is very different in Arizona than in even Utah. The anti-immigrant Jim Crow SB 1070 runs counter to LDS teaching and I have had several Mormon acquaintances privately denounce it. But privately. The East Valley LDS operates by its own cruel rules, very different from Utah and not appetizing to America upon even passing examination.
PHXated’s take on the Harpers story is here.
8:08 AM
When it comes to wasting taxpayer dollars on sports teams . . .
… Arizona is the winner.
That’s the verdict of a fact-laden analysis and history of the phenomenon by the business of sports expert Evan Weiner on the site NewJerseyNewsroom.com.
After a lengthy history of the practice, Wiener writes:
You can go virtually to every state in the union, including Alaska and Hawaii and find public dollars invested in sports. But who are the dumbest politicians in the country when it comes to sports spending? That is an easy question to answer.
Arizona.
Had the Phoenix city council been smart, which they were not, they would have approved a multi-purpose arena back in the late 1980s that would have accommodated the NBA’s Phoenix Suns and an NHL team. Instead lawmakers approved a $90 million expenditure that was designed to appease Suns owner Jerry Colangelo.
The arena was built in such a way that the building was only good for basketball and not hockey or Arena Football or indoor soccer and that severely limited the potential revenues that could be generated in the place.
Making sure they further satisfied Colangelo, the terms of the lease between the city and the NBA team required that the franchise pay the bulk of lease payments in years 36-40 of the 40-year lease agreement.
The real rent is supposed to kick in around 2028 but given the lifespan of facilities (the Miami Arena was viable for about 11 years, the Charlotte Coliseum for about 13), it is doubtful that the team will even be playing in the arena in 2028 or 2029.
He then does a case studies on all the other Valley sports facilities.
It’s not a pretty tale.
7:25 AM
Speed cameras depart, a few more Arizona brain cells disappear
Speed cameras are a brilliant tool.
They keep the roads safer. They allow cops to spend time pursuing violent criminals. And they raise money for the government.
They aren’t taxes. No one’s forcing you to speed! And if you find the yoke of speed-camera oppression on a particular route onerous, why then you can roar up or down another street!
The argument against speed cameras make no sense.
“I want to drive recklessly and don’t want the state to use technological means to catch me.”
So the opponents created a new one: “The state is using the cameras to raise money.”
This became a rallying cry, and actually found traction in this surprisingly dumb state.
That’s a good aspect of the cameras. Dopes who drive fast—they have to pay!
It’s a disincentive to control dangerous behavior. What’s wrong with that?
Nothing. All that’s really happened is that the state is a little less safe. And a little poorer.
Anyway, the cameras the state has placed around Arizona go dark at midnight tonight.
Of the stories in the local press about the occasion, the EVT’s is by far the best.
It notes that the cameras will remain in Tempe, Mesa and Chandler. Those cities will continue to reap their budget benefits.
And the safer streets:
During the first year, there were nearly 5,000 fewer collisions along the state’s highways than the previous year, according to Shoba Vaitheeswaran, a Redflex spokeswoman
7:14 AM
Arizona to the poor: Screw You
From a story in yesterday’s Republic:
Arizona grocery prices inched up in the second quarter for the second straight quarter, following more than a year of declines.
The Arizona Farm Bureau Federation’s non-scientific Market Basket Survey found that Arizona consumers paid $2.88, or 6 percent, more for a hypothetical basket of groceries in the second quarter of this year than they did in the first.
The increase in Arizona was more than the $1.66, or 4 percent, increase seen nationwide.
What did the state legislature do, with a big assist from Jan Brewer and the voters themselves?
Increase the state sales tax by one percentage point.
… bringing the total hit for a working poor family to seven percent.
Since working people spend just about all their money—and these, days, in fact, are going into debt—that translates to seven percent less food for their kids….or seven percent more debt.
Update: Dylan Smith of the Tucson Sentinel writes in to say that Arizona doesn’t charge sales tax on food. I was confused at first—I specifically recalled discussions on food sales taxes.
Turns out I was remembering articles about the city of Phoenix, which recently instituted a two percent food sales tax. I was wrong about Arizona, and shouldn’t have used food as an example.
The large point stands, however: Since working folks spend most of their earnings, they will be buying their kids six percent less food—and, thanks to Brewer & Co., seven one percent less clothes, toys and entertainment.
10:14 AM
The Daily Show visits Phoenix—again
The show’s newest correspondent, Olivia Munn, asks doltish state Rep. Carl Seel why speed cameras are unconstitutional but SB 1070 isn’t.
| Arizona's Photo Radar | ||
8:04 AM
Arizona men are fat, deluded and mentally disturbed. But you knew that already!
Just noticed this study from the Center for Disease Control about the health of Arizonans
According to the CDC, 73 percent of men in Arizona are overweight or obese, and compared to the U.S. average, 12 percent more men in Arizona have high cholesterol. Almost half of Arizona men skip regular exercise and three out of four don‟t eat enough fruits and vegetables.
More than one in five men in Arizona report that their activities are limited because of physical, mental, or emotional problems, and men in Arizona rank worse than the national average in stroke, overweight and obesity, high blood pressure, heavy drinking, and getting the recommended levels of exercise.
Now, that’s not even the hedline.
The hedline is this, according to a survey from the center:
Eighty-six percent of Arizona‟s men say their general health is good, very good or excellent, according to the 2009 Behavioral Risk Factor Survey
7:37 AM
The Arizona Republic breaks the towing scams in the Valley wide open!
Towing companies, the story says, confiscate cars they shouldn’t, won’t let people get personal items out of the cars once they are towed, demand fees of $150 or more in cash to reclaim cars … and even arrange kickbacks with property owners.
(That last, for example, creates an incentive for the lot owners not to label the tow zones clearly.)
But wait! you say. The legislature passed a bill outlawing a lot of these practices earlier this year!
What happened?
The push for reform at the state level has gained support from some tow-truck company owners, who blame the abuses on a few bad actors giving their industry a bad name. Still, towing legislation in 2008 and 2009 could not gain approval in the state Senate.
This year, as more cash-strapped motorists complained about being fleeced, the Legislature passed the strongest towing-reform bill in Arizona history.
But Gov. Jan Brewer vetoed it, saying it would cost too much to enforce.
Thanks, Jan!
This was her rationale for vetoing the bill:
“[Law enforcement agencies] would need to reassign officers away from law enforcement duties to private towing oversight functions.”
But that’s an argument against any piece of legislation. It’s a prime argument against SB 1070, in fact, not to mention most drug laws.
It’s even a great argument against laws against murder!
“Why, if we make murder illegal, then cops will be pulled away from other law-enforcement duties!”
What’s the difference? The people facing the brunt of the enforcement of SB 1070 are harmless and poor immigrants.
For the towing bill, it was scumbag local towing companies.
Brewer’s concerns extended only to the businesses.
Now, PHXated doesn’t feel that sorry for the people getting their cars towed. Too many drivers are thoughtless at best and radiate a sense of I’ll-park-my-SUV-wherever-I-want arrogance at worst.
They deserve to be towed.
But if there are towing abuses, there’s a right way to correct them: Charge local towing companies fees that would pay for someone in government to handle complaints and enforcement for their industry.
But that would be a tax on small business!
The result: Another example of Republican political philosophy that, conveniently, protects corporate crooks … and fucks over the populace.
The Republic story on the matter, which ledes the paper today, is long and seemingly in-depth.
But read it closely and you can see there’s very little in the story beside people asserting that there’s a towing problem in town. The two case studies the story offers are entirely one-sided. In both cases the towing company involved isn’t named, much less offered a chance to respond.
10:13 AM
Everything that's wrong with Arizona, encapsulated in a quote from one Barbara McGovern
From a front-page feature in the Republic this a.m.:
Five times a week, Barbara McGovern leaves her east Phoenix home to make the 15-minute drive to Piestewa Peak, the mountain she has loved climbing for a decade.
But, in the coming weeks, as she pulls into a parking space, it will be with a bit of resentment. Because starting Aug. 1, it’s going to cost McGovern and anyone else who parks at one of the Phoenix mountain parks or preserves up to $5 a day.
“I’m kind of flabbergasted,” McGovern said Friday, upon hearing about the new fee system Phoenix Parks and Recreation board members approved Thursday. “It seems like we’re getting taxed right and left. They shouldn’t be charging for this. It’s going to be a financial burden for some people.”
It’s possible McGovern isn’t what she seems to be: a classic Arizona Republican, one of those who’ve been electing, year after year, the destructive and clownish folks in the state legislature and then stand around whining when reality intrudes.
If she isn’t, well, then, she’s that other species of local resident, the Arizonicus boobicus—someone not entirely clear on the concept.
Parks cost money. Either you get taxed for them … or you pay directly for them.
I’m pretty sure that, between the short-sighted local statehouse and the nutty Bush tax cuts, “east Phoenix residents” like her have been treated very solicitously by the IRS over the last decade.
It’s intellectually coherent to say, “Why should we be taxed for parks? Let the people who use them pay for them.”
Or to say, “Parks are a public trust that should be paid out of public funds for the benefits of rich and poor alike.”
But neither? Does McGovern think money for parks grows on trees?
p.s.: Indeed—does the Republic? A nonsensical person like McGovern should not have been quoted that high up in the story. It gives it an imprimatur of coherence it obviously doesn’t deserve.
8:42 AM
2Jan Brewer doubles down on lying
The governor said last week that the majority of illegal immigrants were smuggling drugs.
In the face of the predictable outcry—even John McCain distanced himself from the statement over the weekend—Brewer could have acknowledged an overstatement and moved on.
Instead, she’s doubling down on the lie, getting shriller and making even less sense.
Her original quote:
“The majority of them, in my opinion and I think in the opinion of law enforcement, is that they’re not coming here to work. They’re coming here and they’re bringing drugs, and they’re doing drop houses, and they’re extorting people, and they’re terrorizing the families.”
Asked in an interview whether he agrees that most illegal immigrants are “drug mules,” the Republican senator said: “No.”
With the media continuing to press her on the statement, Brewer’s office released a slightly unhinged followup. From the PBJ:
“There has been some media attention in the last several hours regarding statements I made this morning regarding the level of drug and crime activity being perpetrated by illegal immigrants coming into and residing in Arizona,“ Brewer’s said in the statement. "The simple truth is that the majority of human smuggling in our state is under the direction of the drug cartels, which are by definition smuggling drugs.”
Notice how she’s blurring the issue from “illegal immigrants are smuggling drugs” to “they are being smuggled by drug cartels.”
The story continues:
“It is common knowledge that Mexican drug cartels have merged human smuggling with drug trafficking. For example, the Los Angeles Times on March 23, 2009, reported, ‘The business of smuggling humans across the Mexican border has been brisk, with many thousands coming across every year. But smugglers affiliated with the drug cartels have taken the enterprise to a new level — and made it more violent — by commandeering much of the operation from independent coyotes, according to these officials and recent congressional testimonies.’ This article and many federal government reports have drawn the same conclusions.
“The human rights violations that have taken place victimizing immigrants and their families are abhorrent. Border crossers are used by drug cartels as commodities. Mexican drug cartels have merged human smugglers who use their expertise in gathering intelligence on border patrols, logistics and communication devices to get around even tighter controls. U.S. border officials have stated that traffickers are gaining control of much of the illegal passage of immigrants from Mexico to the United States.”
As with so many debates in this state, the real issue here isn’t what it seems.
Of course Brewer is lying. She knows it’s not true that a majority of illegal immigrants are smuggling drugs. We know from numerous government reports that a big chunk of them are just people who’ve overstayed their visa, and we know that most of the rest are doing menial labor, a lot of it outside in incredible heat, just from simple observation.
The real issue is the state of politics in this state. Brewer’s campaign strategy is now apparent. She’s just going to repeat her mantra:
“Illegal immigration, illegal immigration, drugs, violence, illegal immigration, drugs, violence, illegal immigration, drugs, violence, illegal immigration, drugs, violence, child porn, tax cuts blah blah blah.”
And the question for the future of the state is whether Terry Goddard can come up with an effective enough campaign to combat it.
7:16 AM
Harper's scorches Arizona
A 5000-word feature in the new issue ($) by political writer Ken Silverstein starts out with a quick portrait of the comical and bumbling architectural and construction history of the state capitol.
That’s just a setup for the very long piece’s thesis statement:
The general unsightliness of the capitol makes it a fitting home for today’s Arizona legislature, which is composed almost entirely of dimwits, racists, and cranks. Collectively they have bankrupted the state through a combination of ideological fanaticism on the Republican right and acquiescence and timidity on the part of G.O.P. moderates and Democrats.
The article alternates between depressing accounts of the state’s financial mess …
… and ever more depressing accounts of the bozos in charge of fixing it:
In January, Senator Jack Harper, an immaculately combed zealot who speaks in the patter of an
infomercial voiceover, submitted a bill that would allow faculty members to carry guns on university campuses, saying it was “one very small step in trying to eliminate gun-free zones, where there’s absolutely no one who could defend themselves if a terrorist incident happened.” The house passed a measure that would force President Barack Obama to show his birth certificate to state officials if he runs for re-election, as well as a bill that bars Arizona from entering into any program to regulate greenhouse gases without approval from the legislature. “There are only two ways to vote on this,” said Representative Ray Barnes of the latter initiative. “Yes, or face the east in the morning and worship the EPA because they own you.”
The upshot: Arizona has been lowering taxes for decades, partly from a clumsy and unworking political philosophy and partly from the usual political corruption (tax breaks for big business with lobbyists), using the former as cover.
This has plainly not worked. Indeed, it’s destroyed the state’s economy.
And yet the political forces that put us here remain in power.
The full article is available only to subscribers, but the beginning of it is here.
6:11 AM
Duke Tully R.I.P.: The comments!
From the post earlier today noting the passing of Duke Tully, the publisher of the Arizona Republic who resigned in disgrace after admitting he’d faked a lifetime of war exploits:
Francine Hardaway:
I was one of Duke Tully’s charmees in the 80s when I had my PR company. He would take me to lunch at Avanti, where he would have two martinis and tell me war stories. I knew nothing about the Air Force, so I had no way to judge truth. I was on a ski vacation with my daughters when the fraud story broke, and we still laugh about it.
Anon:
Perhaps, Francine, you would like to consider that one mistake does not define a person. That one fabrication that was difficult to let go of made him any less honourable, kind, or loving. In between your bouts of laughter, maybe you should reflect on just what gives you the right to judge someone so harshly. I’m sure you’ve never made a regrettable decision in your entire, small-minded life. I hope there are none who hold you in such low regard for a transgression of your own.
APC:
Duke was more than this one event. He was a good man, and came clean before the pressure from political enemies. He’d been dropping hints for some time, since he was wracked with guilt. Even though he was advised to quietly stop telling war stories and distance himself from it, he refused to stay quiet. THAT is the mark of an honorable man. Admitting his mistake and acknowledging fault.
And did he get any help from John McCain, after helping McCain so much? Not so much as a word of sympathy. McCain had gotten what he wanted, and washed his hands with no compassion.
Duke will be missed.
PHXated observes:
We have known Ms. Hardaway for only a short time, but are sure that her transgressions are equally entertaining but less hypocritical.
What the Republic obit didn’t mention was that Tully presided over the Republic when it was fat and self-satisfied—and a far-right defender of the status quo. (Pulliam newspapers were famously rigid and atavistic.)
The lives of all minority groups were attenuated at that time—gays and women, blacks and Hispanics. In the meantime, the small-mindedness of the city fathers (they were all of course men) laid the groundwork for the state today: A backward minor republic with a crappy, undeveloped economy; small-minded citizens; a ruefully mediocre educational system; and a bunch of social metrics identical to those of the Deep South.
We delighteded in his downfall because it was a small but enjoyable payback for those decades of intolerance and neglect.
And it’s also a reminder that our poltroons of the moment—that’s you, Russell Pearce, and you, Joe Arpaio!—may yet have their comeuppance!
1:30 PM
Duke Tully dies
The former publisher of the Arizona Republic died yesterday in Florida.
No worries that the paper would soft-pedal the scandal that drove him out of town; the obit goes into delightful detail:
Darrow “Duke” Tully, the former Arizona Republic and Phoenix Gazette publisher who faked an elaborate military career and resigned in disgrace, has died of complications from a stroke in Tampa. He was 78.
Tully was publisher of The Republic and Gazette until December 1985, when he resigned after learning that his political enemies were investigating his war record.
Tom Collins, Maricopa County attorney at the time, planned to have a news conference to expose Tully, who claimed to have been an Air Force combat pilot in the Korean and Vietnam wars.
[…]
Longtime friend and employee Bill Shover said Tully’s dual existence was driven by his need to win his father’s approval.
“He was rejected by the Air Force because he had bad vision and flat feet,” said Shover, former director of public affairs for Phoenix Newspapers Inc., which owned The Republic and The Gazette during Tully’s tenure.
Tully’s brother was killed in World War II during a training mission and his father criticized him for not becoming a war hero, Shover recalled.
That’s when Tully turned his sights on newspapers and was told he could curry favor with a small Indiana paper if he pretended to be a veteran.
From there, Tully’s stories about his military exploits escalated.
6:44 AM
4PHXations—Friday, June 18, 2010
The AP is reporting that White House staffers will meet with Governor Brewer in Arizona on June 28th
The White House set a June 28 date for staffers to meet with Arizona Gov. Jan Brewer on her turf and provide more detail on sending National Guard troops to the U.S.-Mexico border.
When Brewer met with Obama at the White House two weeks ago, promises were made for the follow-up meeting. The White House announced Friday it was keeping its promised date. Obama is not planning to attend.
CBS News confirms that the federal government will challenge SB 1070:
It was unclear yesterday whether Clinton’s comments were simply a prediction or mistake or whether instead she was getting ahead of a planned announcement by the administration.
Now a senior administration official tells CBS News that the federal government will indeed formally challenge the law when Justice Department lawyers are finished building the case. The official said Justice is still working on building the case.
Whodathunkit? GOP hiding facts about immigration law
It’s typical of Brewer and her Republican friends who consistently have failed to crack down on the violent and criminal acts that accompany illegal immigration. Their patchwork policies do nothing to solve the real problem that Arizonans experience every day.
They failed to point out that the new law will do nothing to stop the coyotes, human traffickers and dangerous drug and arms dealers who cross our border every day.
They don’t mention that the new law is an unfunded mandate and gives police no resources or money to implement the new law. Brewer and Republicans took police officers off the streets when they massively cut public-safety funding this year.
Read the whole thing at Arizona Capitol Times
While Arizona’s politicians have spent time persecuting gays and Mexicans and letting the state’s finances go into the toilet, more industrious folks in town have been working to put us on the map in an important national ranking, the Republic reports:
Arizona now ranks fourth for mortgage fraud nationally. It’s the first time the state has cracked the top five for the problem, according to data released this week from the Mortgage Asset Research Institute.
Florida, New York and California (in that order) rank ahead of Arizona in 2009 mortgage-fraud cases. The most prevalent type of home-loan fraud is application misrepresentation, which includes borrowers lying about income. Overall, U.S. mortgage fraud climbed 7 percent last year.
Officials on the state and federal level are (finally) going after mortgage fraud, the paper says in a related story:
A federal and state law-enforcement task force has accelerated arrests and prosecutions of Arizona residents accused of participating in mortgage-fraud schemes involving kickbacks, inflated property appraisals, phony buyers and other tactics.
There have been 51 Arizona indictments and 13 convictions since the task force was assembled March 1, all of them involving allegations of fraud against lenders, a spokesman for the U.S. Attorney’s Office said.
2:23 PM
Huppenthal's video Waterloo makes the front of AZ Central
The full video, as Yuri noted in his update below, shows that the original You Tube posting was unfair to Huppenthal.
That said, he was still totally unable to answer a simplequestion from a high-schooler.
9:57 PM
New York Times to Jan Brewer: Why won't you free William Macumber?
The Times today has a story about a legal case from Arizona.
There’s a guy in prison the state’s clemency board says is there because of a “miscarriage of justice.” Jan Brewer could accept the board’s recommendation but hasn’t—and according to the Times, won’t say why.
… Ms. Brewer rejected the board’s recommendation without explanation in November. It is possible that politics played a role in her decision; Ms. Brewer, a Republican who became governor last year, is running for a full term in November.
“She denied the application right after she announced that she was running for governor,” said Katherine Puzauskas, a lawyer with the Arizona Justice Project at the Sandra Day O’Connor College of Law at Arizona State University. […]
There is little political upside to granting clemency, but there is a substantial risk, as Mike Huckabee learned when a man whose sentence he commuted as governor of Arkansas in 2000 killed four police officers last year.
P. S. Ruckman Jr., a political science professor at Rock Valley College in Rockford, Ill., has been fuming about Ms. Brewer’s handling of the Macumber case. “I have been following state clemency for 30 years,” Mr. Ruckman said, “and this is easily, easily, the most disturbing. It’s borderline despicable.”
Emphases added.
The case is a doozy—the man’s son says his mother framed the father. She testified originally he had said he’d killed two people in the desert outside Scottsdale in 1962. Macumber was sentenced to life without parole.
In the story, the Times talks to the wife:
In the course of a half-hour conversation, Ms. Kempfert accused Mr. Macumber of terrible and disturbing crimes beyond the killings in the desert. Asked if he deserved clemency, she said, “Absolutely not.”
7:13 AM
Jon Talton on SB 1070
Talton articulates something that’s been bubbling under the discussion biut hasn’t been laid out so clearly:
The measure was always a crafty weapon to maintain power, keep the base hysterical and intensely involved, sow fear and defeatism among Mexican-Americans and put Dems on the spot. As I’ve written, the bill was never intended to shut down illegal immigration — the state economy and not a few of the businesses that support the white-right would collapse. It is a brilliant tactic, like guns, God, gays and abortion — a faux existential threat that must never be really solved because it is so politically profitable.
Emphasis added.
12:26 PM
Everything you wanted to know about Arizona's budget problems ...
… except who was responsible.
From the Republic:
Debt has been a quick but uneasy solution to budget pressures.
As state tax collections lagged and demand for state services grew, lawmakers and Gov. Jan Brewer scrambled for ways to balance the budget. They drained the state’s “rainy-day fund,” cut spending and delayed big-dollar payments to schools. It wasn’t enough.
They anguished for more than a year before sending Brewer’s temporary 1-cent-per-dollar sales-tax increase to the ballot, where voters last month passed it.
Meanwhile, lawmakers borrowed to patch over the holes in the budget….
Arizona’s legislature is of course dominated by the GOP and has been; aside from one elliptical reference to the legislature’s being “conservative,” the story doesn’t dwell on that fact at all.
7:24 AM
The mural controversy in Prescott gets nastier
One of the artists now says he’s been hearing racial slurs from motorists going by.
He says exactly what slurs he’s talking about in this News 12 clip, which contains Scott Light nearly having a heart attack warning people the naughty language is coming:
At the beginning of the clip, incidentally, you can see Light and his co-anchor, Tram Mai, misidentified on the screen.
8:37 AM
About all that immigrant-fueled crime ...
Latest FBI figures, 2008 and 2009 crime:
Bottom line: Overall violent crime in Phoenix dropped more than 15 percent—and that’s 15 percent lower than the already low rates prevailing last year.
For example, in 2003 Phoenix had 247 murders. Two years ago, it had 167, and last year had 122.
And note that those are hard numbers, not murder rates, meaning that the numbers are going down even in the face of steady population growth, not to mention all those crime-crazed immigrants.
(Fortunately, however, the bureau’s stats don’t includes kidnappings …)
9:31 AM
Another cancelled convention due to SB 1070
The Republic reports that another group has cancelled an upcoming convention in the city:
A minority suppliers group that would have brought 7,000 convention attendees to Phoenix this fall has moved the meeting to Florida because of Arizona’s new immigration law.
The National Minority Suppliers Development Council, Inc. released a statement, which Phoenix officials received today.
The story doesn’t explicitly say so, but the group was apparently set for the convention center.
The story notes that convention center cancellations hit the city twice; first because of the last money that would otherwise have been spent in the city, and then second because the city operates the convention center and owns the nearby Sheraton Hotel.
The Republic has a list of cancelled conventions and announced boycots here. The list is confusing and not particularly well put together—the National Urban League is listed twice, doing two different and contradictory things, for example.
Read carefully, however, and it looks as if the minority suppliers is only the fifth officially pulled convention.
6:20 PM
NYT looks at Arizona again
The angle this time, detailed in a front-page story: Political fault lines in the GOP SB 1070 is causing.
Republican lawmakers and candidates are increasingly divided over illegal immigration — torn between the need to attract Latino support, especially at the ballot box, and rallying party members who support tougher action.
Arizona’s new measure, which requires that the police check the documents of anyone they stop or detain whom they suspect of being in the country illegally, has forced politicians far and wide to take a stance. But unlike in Washington, where a consensus exists among establishment Republicans, the fault lines in the states — where the issue is even more visceral and immediate — are not predictable.
11:28 AM
The NYT goes after Arizona again
An editorial today, entitled “Los Suns,” approvingly cites the basketball team’s position on SB 1070 and goes on from there to scold the state every which way:
Before this goes any further, Arizona should check the scars of the early ’90s when the state arrogantly rejected Martin Luther King’s Birthday as a holiday and prompted cancellations of more than 100 lucrative conventions and events, including the Super Bowl. It’s pathetic that Arizona’s politicians would put the state through that once again. Arizona should repeal this law immediately.
2:59 PM
Arizona doesn't just have bigots and crazy folks ...
… we got randy seniors as well.
The New York Times has a front-page profile today of the cast of Sunset Daze, a heretofore obscure show on the WE network that focuses on the antics of a bunch of older people living in a Sun City offshoot in Surprise:
SURPRISE, Ariz. — “Pedal to the metal, baby!” shouted Joanne Hauncher, 63, as she swerved wildly through traffic on a busy street in this Phoenix suburb. A truck driver slammed on his brakes and stared — she was driving a golf cart, after all — as Ms. Hauncher completed an illegal U-turn
“Rules are made to be broken,” she muttered, arching a painted-on eyebrow. “I’m too old to be spanked. Wait. Scratch that!”
Ms. Hauncher, along with eight other retirees who live here, star in a new reality show on the WE tv network called “Sunset Daze.” How did the producers find her? “I was out with the Ho’s” — her term for her female posse — “and I guess we looked like fun,” she said. Her only stipulation for signing on? “I didn’t want to come off as a lunatic senior.”
“Sunset Daze,” which makes its debut on Wednesday night, pushes just that button as it tries to hold its own in the boozy, oversexed reality TV genre. The first episode has commentary on vibrators and going “commando,” slang for not wearing underpants. WE positions the series as “The Golden Girls” meets “Jersey Shore,” the ribald MTV series that spawned Snooki.
11:55 AM
Jon Stewart and Stephen Colbert on Arizona's immigration law
The Daily Show on Arizona, “the meth lab of democracy”:
| The Daily Show With Jon Stewart | Mon - Thurs 11p / 10c | |
| Law & Border | ||
The Colbert Report:
| The Colbert Report | Mon - Thurs 11:30pm / 10:30c | |
| The Word - Docu-Drama | ||
9:11 AM
About that Rasmussen poll on support for SB 1070 ...
The poll found, shockingly, 60 percent support for the new Arizona immigration bill.
But Nate Silver at 538.com analyzes the polling questions and find that the pollster both misrepresented the law and didn’t fully describe it, particularly the civil liberty issues it provokes.
He concludes:
[T]this poll seems to be emblematic of a commercial polling industry that gravitates toward surveys that are about a mile wide and an inch deep. That approach might be perfectly fine for horse-race (election) polling, where many of the “non-traditional” pollsters (including Rasmussen) do just fine. Polling on policy issues, however — particularly policy issues like a new state law on which the public is liable to have limited familiarity — ought to inspire more thought and more finesse.
8:28 AM
One of the more dispiriting things about the immigration bill...
…comes from this Laurie Roberts blog post yesterday:
A new Rasmussen Poll reports that 70 percent of likely voters in Arizona approve of the illegal immigration bill now on Gov. Jan Brewer’s desk.
Contrary to the national uproar, just 23 percent of likely Arizona voters oppose Senate Bill 1070, with six percent unsure. The poll of 500 people was conducted last week and has a margin of error of 4.5 percentage points.
7:17 AM
PHXations--Thursday, April 22, 2010
Now US Airways says it has broken off those talks with United about merging. A couple of weeks ago the WSJ and NYT scooped the Republic on the talks, which made front-page news across the country.
No word still on whether Brewer will sign the immigration bill. Meantime, former Mesa police chief Gascon is continuing his opposition to the bill. Today in the Republic, various business leaders whack it:
Tourism executives say the bill doesn’t help their cause in luring business and leisure travelers, and their dollars, to the state.
“I don’t see anything good for tourism in this,” said Bruce Lange, managing director of the Westin Kierland Resort and Spa and former chairman of the Valley Hotel & Resort Association.
“It’s just one of those issues that makes people uncomfortable. When people get uncomfortable, it’s a lot easier to say, ‘I don’t want to go there,’ ” he added.
Diane Enos, president of the Salt River Pima-Maricopa Indian Community, which last week opened the 400-room Talking Stick Resort and casino east of Scottsdale, said the bill is not good for Arizona.
“It does not put our best face forward to visitors, particularly to international travelers,” she said in a statement.
Well duh. The story also notes this:
Several key organizations, including the Arizona Office of Tourism and the Greater Phoenix Economic Council, have so far remained silent, at least publicly, on the political hot potato.
7:06 AM
NYT: Arizona's looming new immigration bill is an "outrage"
The yahoos in Arizona don’t care what the New York Times thinks. Other people do, from business leaders who might open up offices here to convention planners who might be pondering over where to direct a 10,000-member organization.
Here’s what they read this a.m.:
The Arizona Legislature has just stepped off the deep end of the immigration debate, passing a harsh and mean-spirited bill that would do little to stop illegal immigration. What it would do is lead to more racial profiling, hobble local law enforcement, and open government agencies to frivolous, politically driven lawsuits.
The bill is a grab bag of measures to enlist law enforcement and government at every level to expose and expel the undocumented. Opponents say it verges on a police state, which sounds overblown until you read it.
Emphasis added. The editorial goes on to demolish the bill’s provisions.
The bill goes back to the state senate tomorrow. AZ Republic story on the logistics here.
The governor hasn’t said whether she will sign it; Stephen Lemons of New Times, who’s been covering the bill’s hateful supporters better than anyone, says it’s likely she will — or will let it go into law without her signature.
6:39 PM
Q. How does Arizona teach sex education?
A. Badly.
From the Republic:
Arizona ranks third highest in teen-pregnancy rates, behind Nevada and New Mexico, for girls ages 15 to 19, according to 2005 statistics compiled by the National Campaign Pregnancy Report.
In 2008, 28,084 girls ages 19 and younger were pregnant, according to the Arizona Department of Health Services.
The context is a survey story about how sex ed is taught in the state.
The figure above is unsurprising, because, unsurprisingly, the state is incredibly backward when it comes to the subject.
Sex ed is held off until high school and then it’s straitjacketed by a parental permission “opt-in” policy, which effectively effectively allows lazy and timid parents to increase their kids’ chances of a ruined life by doing nothing.
States with right-wing governance like to act superior to the heathens in California or New York. So why are we near the top when it comes to teen boffing?
2:00 PM
All you need to know about the upcoming AZ tax debates, in one picture
It’s from the legislature, and it’s the state’s projected revenues-v.expenditures chart, three years out:
The upcoming sale tax vote will raise in the neighborhood of $900 million a year.
It’s an evil and stupid way of raising money. A sales tax is regressive and unfair. It makes the life of the poor and working people worse, and doesn’t affect middle class and rich folks at all.
But it says something about the current political climate in Arizona that it’s not even the worst menace on the horizon.
The real menace is moves by the radical anti-tax right in the legislature actually to cut taxes further, making the deficit even worse.
They say this will help the economy in the long term by creating jobs.
Coincidentally, this proposal will cut taxes for business and rich folks.
The following is from a budget analysis by Dave Wells, who teaches public policy at ASU and writes columns for the Republic occasionally. I found it through the Democratic Diva blog. HB2250 is the tax-cutting bill’s number:
HB2250 has an associated annual cost of over $900 billion when fully phased in during FY 2017 according to the Joint Legislative Budget Committee. While it is purported to be a jobs bill, it largely follows a plan of tax reductions aimed at corporations while also expanding income tax cuts to individuals. Corporate property tax assessments are slashed 25 percent and the corporate income tax rate drops nearly 30 percent, while expanding lenient sales factor rules for determining multistate corporate taxes moves to 100 percent among other changes.
Emphasis added.
In other words, even as a tax increase is on the ballot, the legislature is trying to nullify it via new tax reductions.
… with a side effect of making the state’s tax system even more regressive, by shifting the burden of the taxes away from people who have money to people who don’t.
… and icing of doing nothing to close the state’s gynormous deficit, which will soon work to futher lower the state’s credit rating (agencies don’t like institutions that aren’t doing anything to solve their problems), which will make the financial picture even more difficult.
There’s a committee hearing on the bill Monday. More details here.
7:43 AM
Those nutty Colorado City polygamists...
Two guys overseeing a fire district in Colorado City were arrested yesterday for allegedly using department funds for their own use, “the Republic says”:http://www.azcentral.com/news/articles/2010/04/08/20100408polygamy-colorado-city.html:
warrants [were] executed Tuesday against Town Manager David W. Darger and Fire Chief Jacob “Jake” Barlow. In an affidavit filed with Mohave County Superior Court, investigators accuse the two of looting money for personal use from the local Fire Department.Based on information submitted to the court, prosecutors received permission to search the suspects’ homes, offices and computers for evidence of fraudulent schemes.
Darger and Barlow have not been charged with any offense. They did not respond to phone messages.
The town and its sister city HIlldale, in Utah, is known as the home of the Fundamentalist Church of Jesus Christ of Latter Day Saints, a polygamist sect that despite its name isn’t formally associated with the Mormon Church.
The paper includes this litany of trouble the town’s gotten itself into:
• The imprisonment of FLDS leader Warren Jeffs, known as the “prophet,” for rape as an accomplice in connection with the marriage of an underage girl to an adult. Jeffs, already convicted in Utah, is awaiting trial on similar charges in Arizona and Texas.
• The conviction of about a dozen other men on charges involving sex with child brides.
• The seizure, via civil litigation, of United Effort Plan, an FLDS trust that controlled most of the property in Colorado City/Hildale, once valued at more than $100 million.
• The takeover of Colorado City’s school district, replacing FLDS board members who controlled it.
• The removal and decertification of about a half-dozen Colorado City peace officers.
6:49 AM
Why are Phoenicians so fat?
The new issue of Phoenix magazine says we’re “one of the fattest cities in the nation,” in a story that isn’t online. It’s a feature article with a lot of information about weight problems and how to overcome them, but the basis for its thesis is limited to a year-old Men’s Fitness survey.
There’s still a lot of grim info:
One in four Phoenicians is uninsured, according to the U.S. Census. Even for the insured, many policies have seemingly backward approaches toward obesity prevention. Insurance policies usually cover treatments for heart attacks, strokes or diabetes that may have been caused by obesity, but pockets clamp shut when paying for preventive servies such as nutritional counseling and education.
[…]
Almost 75 percent of Arizona high school students do not have a physical education class, and almost 60 percent do not receive physical education at all, according to Arizona’s Youth Risk Behavior Study.
The story touches on, but doesn’t explore, racial issues:
One reason for the city’s high rate of obesity is its cultural diversity. Due to a variety of factors such as genetics, cultural norms, lifestyle and socioeconomic conditions, certain ethnic and minority groups—especially the Hispanic, African American, and American INdian populations—tend to be the msot affected. That being said, obesity is happy to claim victims of an ehtnicty and age. The tragic increase of childhoo obesity is a case in point.
7:40 PM
Rachel Maddow kicks J.D. Hayworth's ass
The MSNBC host had Hayworth on yesterday evening. PHXated, who is rooting for Hayworth to knock that chucklehead John McCain out in August, was disappointed in his stalking horse’s performance.
Full video is below.
The conversation had two main parts. In the first, Maddow asked Hayworth about his well-established ties to the crook Jack Abramoff.
Hayworth let the conversation descend into a debate as to whether he was the first-, third- or ninth-largest recipient of Abramoff money.
In the second part, she asks him about his contention that the highest court in Massachusetts had “defined marriage as, simply, quote, the establishment of intimacy.”
Hayworth used this assertion to make the argument that legalizing gay marriage could allow people to marry horses.
Maddow read from the decision, demonstrating plainly that the court, “simply,” had done no such thing. Hayworth,looking like a not-very-bright tree sloth caught in a pair of car headlights, could say only, “You and I have a disagreement.”
More after the video:
Visit msnbc.com for breaking news, world news, and news about the economy
The only solace Hayworth fans can take is that Hayworth is being crazy like a fox. He is, after all, running in the Arizona republican primary, looking for votes from a group of people for whom factual accuracy, logic, common decency, tolerance, and intellectual coherence are of relative and fungible interest. We’re hoping that Hayworth may yet demonstrate he is their man.
4:51 PM
Is Gilbert really banning Bible study in private homes? No.
A number of right-wing blogs are all excited about the city of Gilbert’s supposedly having told a small church group it wasn’t allowed to meet in private homes. Sonoran Alliance posting here, World News Daily posting here.
Says WND:
The city of Gilbert, Ariz., has ordered a group of seven adults to stop gathering for Bible studies in a private home because such meetings are forbidden by the city’s zoning codes.
The issue was brought to a head when city officials wrote a letter to a pastor and his wife informing them they had 10 days to quit having the meetings in their private home.
The issue hasn’t hit the Republic or the EVT yet. It’s going to be interesting to watch how the papers handle what could become a case study in how knuckle-headed stuff like this is handled by the press.
Read this ABC-15 news story on the issue, for example, and you see the story is really about something different:
The Oasis of Truth Church was holding services at a home near Riggs and Chandler Heights roads up until November.
A city code enforcement officer noticed signs in the neighborhood directing people to the services. He sent them a letter saying the church was in violation of the Land Development Code.
In other words, the people weren’t “gathering for Bible studies in a private home.” It was a church advertising, and holding, church services in a private home.
There’re obvious reasons why that’s not allowed.
7:01 PM
Dumb Arizonan of the week!
Honors go to state Rep. Debbie Lesko, who just had a bill get out of the key state committee. The bill would essentially evaporate the state’s Corporation Commission’s renewable energy goals by the simple expedient of classifying nuclear and hydroelecric power as renewable.
Besides being dumb, bad policy, bad for the environment, and bad for the country’s future, the idea is .. bad for the state’s economy:
A legislative proposal that passed a House committee on Tuesday could quash a solar panel manufacturer’s plans to open a plant in Goodyear.
Officials with Suntech Power Holdings said passage of House Bill 2701 would force the company to reconsider the plant, which is set to open with about 75 employees in September.
“Passage of this bill will force us to reconsider our decision to put a factory in Arizona, moving those jobs and the accompanying tax base to another state,” said Steve Chadima, vice president of external affairs for Suntech.
9:33 PM
J.D. Hayworth still talking about Obama's birth certificate
Here he is getting grilled by Campbell Brown last night. The stuff about the birth certificate starts at 5:50.
Hayworth first says that the media are the only people bringing the matter up—and then turns around and says he’s getting emails from constituents about it.
Under Brown’s increasingly incredulous questioning, he then starts talking about … identity theft. And then starts babbling about “a so-called stimulus that led to incredible unemployment.”
And refuses, several times, to answer her direct question as to whether he thinks Obama is an American citizen.
2:31 PM
Speed camera nuttiness in the Republic
Many parts of the Arizona Republic are competently written and edited. Other times… you feel like a bunch of drunk lemurs are randomly throwing paragraphs together and putting them into the paper.
Today’s story on speed cameras begins:
New DPS chief criticizes speed cameras
The Department of Public Safety’s newly appointed director this week joined a growing chorus of powerful voices speaking out against the state’s photo-enforcement system.
In interviews this week, Robert Halliday said that the system should be restructured if it’s not scrapped.
You could be forgiven for reading that and thinking … Halliday is opposed to speed cameras.
He doesn’t seem to be.
Halliday’s actual quotes are sort of nonsensical at first, but a few grafs down it’s clear he’s trying to tip-toe through the overheated politicization of the cameras. (The yahoo vote in Arizona think it’s their right to barrel down the 51 in their SUVs at whatever speed they want.)
The "restructuring?
To Halliday, who had a 35-year career with DPS before retiring in 2008, restructuring would include reassessing where units are placed and installing some penalty to keep drivers from ignoring photo-enforcement notices when they arrive in the mail.
“This program costs a lot of money to put into place. You have a lot of revenue that is not being captured,” he said.
That doesn’t sound like a guy who is joining a growing chorus against the cameras.
The story then veers into an anti-camera talking point—that Janet Napolitano claimed they would bring in $90 milllion a year. In fact, they bring in $27 million, but it’s still $27 million in free money, right? That’s not an argument against the cameras in any case.
And as Halliday was explaining, the real issue is that the soft-on-crime anti-camera brigade in the legislature drew up the law in a way to make it easy for scofflaws to outmanuever the cameras.
The story today says that only 30 percent of the fines are being paid. Hmmm … what is 30 percent of $90 million?
Finally, the story buries the lede:
A vote could turn out to be photo enforcement’s saving grace, Halliday said, something that came as a surprise to the new DPS director as he made rounds at the Legislature this week. Halliday thought the public had lost confidence in the program, a notion some lawmakers tried to dispel.
“People are telling me that a good portion of the population believes in photo enforcement and wants to have it,” he said. “I’m being told . . . it’s kind of a 50-50 thing.”
That’s an impression you don’t get from the rabid anti-camera coverage.
To complete the story’s clumsy handing of the issue, it ends with Halliday trying to appease the anti-camera nuts:
On his return [from a trip to California], Halliday said, he saw three California troopers between his fishing spot and the Arizona border. Between the Arizona border and the Valley he saw five fixed and mobile photo-enforcement units, and no DPS officers.
“My preference is to have more patrolmen on the ground,” he said. “I would much rather have people stopping and talking to people.”
But that of course is the point: Arizona is out of money and can’t afford more patrolmen. The speed cameras control speeds and generate money for the state. And even if the state had more money, the patrolmen who are out should be spending their time doing more than passing out speeding tickets.
And in any case the entire discussion is moot because the state is in such dire financial straits that in just about any other urisdiction outside of the deep south it would be inthinkable for legislators even to conpemplate removing a 427 million-a-year income stream when they are facing bankruptcy.
2:29 PM
PHXations—Wednesday, February 3
The Tucson Weekly is looking for a writer to contribute to its film coverage. They need someone to write a full-length review every other week, and contribute film-capsule reviews as well. “Ideally, the reviewer would be in Tucson, and as for pay, that depends on the experience of the reviewer.” says Editor Jimmy Boegel.
Apply through mailbag@tucsonweekly.com.
Students at the Cronkite School have formed a Hispanics journalists club, a chapter of the NAHJ. Details on a new blog here.
Sarah Palin’s coming back to Arizona a couple of times in the next few months. In March to do a fundraiser for John McCain, and then in May for a group called Center for Arizona Policy, which is led by creepy anti-sex crusader Cathi Herrod, who’s obsessed with abortion and gays fucking.
The Espresso Pundit, who is a good barometer of the far right’s wishfulness, if not reality per se, says:
Frankly this takes some of the wind out of McCain’s sails. There are plenty people who want to see Palin but don’t want to write a check to McCain…and a CAP check is deductible. It will be interesting to compare the turnout at the two events.
Neither he nor the PBJ story on Palin answers an obvious question about Palin’s CAP appearance: Whether she’s getting her typical $100,000 speaker’s fee.
5:44 PM
Chandler state senator introduces bill to put the Ten Commandments on the State capitol
Sen. Russell Pearce of Mesa introduced Senate Bill 1213 that would require a copy of the religious document to be placed on the front entrance of the original 1898 state Capitol building by Jan. 1, 2011. Three other lawmakers have signed onto the bill, which was referred to the Senate Government Institutions Committee. No hearing has been set.
1:38 PM
It's terrible how we've taken religion out of our public lives!
The Arizona Republic, front page this a.m.:
Kurt Warner took a victory lap and a shower. Then he grabbed his Bible and tried to make sense of it all.
“Whew,” the Cardinals quarterback said. “Anybody else tired?”
Arizona Republic, sports section, front page this a.m.:
Cardinals cornerback Michael Adams, scorched and penalized all day, waited until the final play to, well, finally make a play.
[…]
“God came through,” said Adams, who drew four penalties. “He may not come when I want Him, but He was right on time.”
Emphases added.
7:00 AM
Which page of the Arizona Republic do you read?
Today, you could read page one, which contains the start of an in-depth Associated Press debunking on so-called Climategate. The story begins:
LONDON – E-mails stolen from climate scientists show they stonewalled skeptics and discussed hiding data – but the messages don’t support claims that the science of global warming was faked, according to an exhaustive review by the Associated Press.
The 1,073 e-mails examined by the AP show that scientists harbored private doubts, however slight and fleeting, even as they told the world they were certain about climate change. However, the exchanges don’t undercut the vast body of evidence showing the world is warming because of man-made greenhouse-gas emissions.
Emphasis added. AP says five reporters read all 1000-plus emails, totaling about one million words.
Anyway, that was on the front page. (Satisfied, Expresso Pundit?)
Now, since the Republic is a full-service operation, you could also read Robert Robb, on the paper’s ed page, who has been enraged about the Climategate emails for weeks. For example:
[L]eading climate scientists conspired to hide uncertainty in the data, prevent others from checking their work and suppress conflicting judgments.
Even before these revelations, there were reasons to be circumspect about what was known about the effect of industrialization on global climate. There is, first of all, the hubris of believing that human beings can concoct a series of mathematical equations in a computer model that fully duplicate the interactions within the earth’s atmosphere.
All three sentences are problematic.
(The last is the current denier talking point: “It’s all too complex to know for sure.” It’s also rhetorical gibberish: “The hubris of believing that human beings can concoct a series of mechanical devices that could fly a human being across long distances.”)
Anyway, today, Robb is back on the case again, this time muttering ominously about how the emails are a nail in the coffin of academic peer review.
There’s no reference to the AP story, just as in the past he’s never acknowledged similar assertions by most knowledgeable observers.
All of this is to get back to one of PHXated’s little hobby horses, namely the poor editing at the Arizona Republic. In a state like Arizona, of course there’s going to be an energetic little right-wing columnist who nibbles on the national blogs and regurgitates them for the less sophisticated folks on the home front. That’s Robert Robb.
That’s fine. But why doesn’t an editor push Robb a little? This sort of thing doesn’t seem to happen at the Republic much, so here’s a few sentences any busy op-ed editor at the Republic is welcome to cut and paste into an email to Robb:
Hey, Rob: Did you see the AP story we ran Sunday? 1800 words, pretty in-depth. You been banging on the emails as “deeply disturbing.” AP says not so much. Since you’ve been out front on this you need to address it one way or the other so readers don’t think you’re dodging it.
7:00 AM
Hate graffiti found at Anthem high school
From the Republic:
When Boulder Creek High School staff went to work last week, they found the sides of the school buildings, sidewalks and windows covered with graffiti. The high school is at 40404 N. Gavilan Peak Parkway in Anthem.
The campus property had been vandalized with hate speech, terms and symbols, said Lauren Sheahan, Boulder Creek High School principal. The principal declined to elaborate on the hate messages. “Students were sent to different parts of the campus because we didn’t want them to walk past the messages,” Sheahan said.
It’s bogus for the principal not to say what sort of hate messages there were, and worse for the paper not to have found out on its own. If you’re black, Latino, gay or whatever and living in Anthem, you’d like to know whether you’re being targeted or not.
7:00 AM
Did Joe Biden meet with Arpaio today?
The Republic says he did:
Vice President Joe Biden offered a strong endorsement of the federal stimulus in Phoenix on Monday and introduced some of the Arizonans personally touched by it.
He also met privately with Maricopa County Sheriff Joe Arpaio, although details of that meeting weren’t immediately available.
Sheriff Joe tweets the same:
Just got done meeting with the Vice President of the United States.
The PBJ, however, throws water on that scenario:
Vice President Joe Biden’s office has a different take on what Maricopa County Sheriff Joe Arpaio termed a “short meeting” Monday in Phoenix.
[…]
Arpaio said he had discussed the need for more deputies with Biden.
But Biden’s office said Arpaio was not invited to the event and did not have a meeting with the vice president. He simply shook hands with the vice president as Biden was exiting the building, according to Biden spokeswoman Annie Tomasini.
12:00 AM
County audit slams Arpaio
You remember the sheriff’s half-million-dollar bus. The county instituted a purchasing freeze last year, but the sheriff’s office, taking money out of its jail fund, bought it anyway.
It’s one of the many infantile points of contention between Arpaio and the county. Supervisors have kept the bus in a garage since they found out about the purchase in May.
Now an audit (which probably cost the county money to perform) shows the obvious: That Arpaio violated county guidellines when he bought it.
“There is no evidence that the bus was acquired for the best price, or that procurement controls meant to protect and account for public funds were followed,” the audit states.
Republic story here.
On a related note, PHXated was talking to some courts people recently and heard some anecdotal but plausible stories about the effects of Arpaio’s deliberate slowdown of his office’s work in transferring prisoners to the court system.
Arapio has a certain genius in smelling what ways he can essentially not do his job that don’t elicit public outrage or opposition.
According to the people I spoke to, the sheriff’s office brings prisoners to the court only two days a week, which makes scheduling difficult. Even with those limitations, prisoners frequently aren’t where they are supposed to be, creating cascading waves of delays. (The process also costs defendants, or the state, money, as lawyers sit around on the clock doing nothing.)
In fact, this happened at the case I was watching.
One lawyer said he’d seen judges deliberately let people out on bond who otherwise would not be when the likelihood of a non-appearance by a defendant could have hampered progress on a particular case or hearing.
12:00 AM
Can Phoenix make a "Creative Class" appeal?
Two local activists co-wrote an op-ed piece in the Republic on Sunday about one aspect of what Phoenix needs to do to move into the 21st century. That aspect is generally referred to as the Creative Class theory, though the authors don’t use the term.
A Canadian professor named Richard Florida in a series of books on the subject analyzes the relationship between economic development (particularly in high technology) and socioeconomic factors like education levels, social tolerance (particularly toward gays), and cultural accouterments.
The idea has been percolating around for nearly a decade and is a staple of discussions about modern city planning. (PHXated was on a panel at Phoenix Design Week recently that discussed how it related to Phoenix.)
In their essay, for example, Myra H. Millinger and Steve Betts cite this statistic:
In a Forbes survey of approximately 1,000 corporate executives, a strong and vibrant creative community was among the top-five determinants of location decisions for 74 percent of respondents. Only 24 percent ranked metro Phoenix as having that cultural vibrancy.
Even if the executives might have been overstating the issue’s importance, the fact that they felt compelled to do so is an indication of the analysis’s influence these days. The pair’s punch line, emphasized by me, is correspondingly devastating for the fifth-largest city in the country.
And remember that, in Creative Class terms, we’re not concerned about all corporate execs; we’re talking about a highly specialized (and desirable) slice of them: The ones at modern technology- and knowledge-related companies cities like Phoenix are now competing to attract. And you can bet the numbers for that slice would be much worse for Phoenix.
Anyway, most sane people will agree with what the pair say. I found two interesting things in their piece.
The first is they felt compelled to mince their words, and that’s not going to help anyone going forward. Here’s what they have to say about Arizona’s reputation:
This is of concern to every sector here competing for talent and industry. Add to this the recent unflattering images of Arizona transmitted virally across the globe, the misperceptions of who we are, and a lack of awareness of what makes us unique, and our world positioning will continue to falter.
Phoenix’s trouble is not about “misperceptions.” It’s about correct perceptions. This is the home of Sheriff Joe Arpaio, a national poster boy for hostility to immigrants and arguably the most potent symbol of brutal police power in the U.S. since the Civil Rights Era. The Mormon church, one of the most powerful organizations in the state, has put itself in the forefront of the anti-gay marriage campaigns here and nationally, notably in California’s bitter Prop. 8 battle last year—right under the noses of the nation’s high-tech industries.
In other words, on a good day by most Creative Class measures, Arizona would come in right above the Deep South; those two additional issues put the state near the bottom nationally for such an appeal.
So let’s be honest. Arizona doesn’t have to overcome misperceptions; it has to overcome reality.
Now, the second interesting thing about the essay is that the writers tacitly understand these problems. In response, their idea is to stress what they call an oasis:
This effort, under the umbrella of the Metro Phoenix DNA Initiative, has identified a compelling focus and distinctive themes that define this region’s strengths as the “Opportunity Oasis”—a place where meritocracy reigns and where open-space thinking, urban pioneering and a lush desert oasis present to the world a profile that is at once distinctive and of enormous appeal.
That’s a good description of what downtown might be like in a few years; intellectually, however, the small but vibrant Creative Class Phoenix does boast now will have to reconcile an oasis like that with the tragedy and intolerance around it.
It’s not impossible; Atlanta, for example, has managed to position itself as the capital of the south and correspondingly created an oasis for enlightened whites, blacks, gays and creative people. Even so, it’s not really a Creative Class mecca nor a particular high-tech destination.
I haven’t thought this out, but I’m intrigued by a variant of this, which I call the Enclave Gambit.
Can Phoenix create a city-within-a-city—corporeally set downtown, but with symbolic residents throughout the area—that tries to live, and create, and interact amongst themselves, set apart from a lot of the hate talk, intolerance, xenophobia, anti-intellectualism and backwardness that otherwise characterizes most of the state?
Now, it’s a tough sell in Creative Class terms: “Trent Frank, John Kyl and John Shadegg hardly ever go downtown” isn’t something to base an economic development plan on.
But: One thing Phoenix doesn’t have as yet is a focused community dedicated to change—and for now, the Enclave Gambit might be the best way to form one.
p.s.: You can download the Metro Phoenix DNA Initiative here.
12:00 AM
Mayor Gordon floats the idea of a temporary sales tax
So reports the Republic. The mayor calls it a “emergency economic surcharge.”
The city is facing another huge budget gap—approaching $100 million, after the council already cut more than $250 million this year.
A good part of the story is given over to Republican officials nattering on against the idea of raising taxes.
No one says the what to me is the most salient aspect of the plan—that sales taxes are the most regressive type of levy, one that places a disproportionate burden on the poor and working class.
The coverage was similarly incomplete when the governor proposed her sales-tax plan during the state’s budget crisis this summer.
This is why sales taxes are unfair:
The poor and working class spend most of their income each year. Rent comes first, of course, and then after that, by definition, the vast majority of their money is spent on necessities—food, clothes for the kids, etc.
I say “by definition” because if you’re not spending what money you have on necessities, then you have discretionary income. Which means you’re probably middle class. Even if you exempt some necessities, the fact remains that poorer people spend all their money each year.
Every percentage increase in the sales tax creates a corresponding percentage decrease in the living standards of a poor or working-class family.
A one-percent tax on food is one percent less food for your family. And with an 8 percent sales tax already in effect in Phoenix, that’s a huge piece of a working family’s income.
Again, by definition, your higher-income families spend money on a lot of other things, things you wouldn’t call necessities. They save and invest relatively large percentages as well.
And let’s remember that the state’s fat cats have been doing swell the last few years, surfing a wave of real estate money and parading around in their tubby SUVs. (They also got an enormous slate of tax cuts from the Bush administration earlier this decade, a gift that keeps on giving, year after year*.)
Now, you don’t have to agree with this contention, though it is based on facts, is a widely accepted analysis of taxation, and contains a strong moral component.
But shouldn’t it be part of the debate? Couldn’t the Republic at least have mentioned it?
- From the NYT:
Those cuts will have saved individuals, and cost the government, $2.34 trillion, according to calculations the Tax Policy Center, a nonpartisan research institute, made for The New York Times. The Bush and Obama administrations have called the center’s past calculations reliable. Interest on the money borrowed to finance those tax cuts equals a month worth of income taxes paid to the government by individuals.
Emphasis added. In other words, almost a tenth of the money you pay the U.S. government each year goes to pay off merely the interest of the Bush tax cuts to rich folks.
12:00 AM
Chandler firefighters refuse H1N1 shots
About three-quarters of Chandler firefighters eligible to receive doses from an early batch of the H1N1 flu vaccine have refused it, according to fire department officials.
[…]
Only about 50 Chandler firefighters volunteered Wednesday and Thursday to receive a nasal mist containing a weakened form of the virus, said Donna Pierce, a Chandler Fire Department captain who traveled around to several city fire stations to administer the vaccine.
Many of those who volunteered for the vaccine said it was because they have young children to whom they didn’t want to spread a possible infection.
“The other two-thirds are like, ’Nope, we don’t want it,’” Pierce said.
Those who declined the vaccination generally said it was because the vaccine was new and untested, she said.
Emphases added. What’s going on here seems obvious: A virus as pungent as the H1N1 has already swept though Chandler firehouses—a Glenn Beck-fueled ignorance virus. I’m as supportive of our local protective-service departments as the next guy, but it does not increase one’s confidence in the mental acuity prevailing in those precincts to hear that this sort of know-nothingism is in the air.
Well, it’s not like the firefighters are living and working in close proximity that could turn a typical station into a petri dish if the virus did get loose, ending up costing the city a lot of money and leaving its residents less safe.
Oh, wait …
12:00 AM
John Kyl's female trouble
Jennifer Johnson, a former Republic staffer who now works for the state Democratic party, goes after John Kyl in the paper’s op-ed page today, focusing on a few recent comments and votes that aren’t going to endear him to his female constituents.
Again, Johnson’s working for the Democratic party, but it’s hard to argue with her points:
First, he landed in the hot seat by dismissing Michigan Sen. Debbie Stabenow’s call for basic maternity care to be included in insurance plans. “I don’t need maternity care,” he stated during Senate debate.
An editorial in Tuesday’s Republic defended Kyl. He was “debating in the public’s interest” to keep costs down, the editorial stated. But Kyl, and The Republic, missed the point: Women are angry, not just because of Kyl’s remark, but because their senator claims he is fighting to keep costs down.
Down for whom? Maternity care costs women dearly. And women can be denied coverage because of so-called “pre-existing conditions” such as a C-section or a previous pregnancy.
And then there’s Al Franken’s mischievous Halliburton rape amendment:
Last week, Kyl voted “no” on an amendment that would block defense contracts with companies that prevent employees from suing over sexual assault. In other words, Kyl voted to protect the interests of corporations over the rights of sexual-assault victims.
The amendment had been proposed to prevent situations like that of Jamie Leigh Jones, a former contractor for Halliburton/KBR in Iraq who said she was drugged and brutally raped by a group of fellow contractors. Despite solid medical evidence, Jones was blocked from pressing charges in court because her defense contract prevented it.
Johnson, politely, doesn’t mention that the woman was also was held captive in a crate when she tried to report the gang rape.
Kyl voted on the side of the military contractor.
The Halliburton case, incidentally, caught the attention of the Daily Show last night:
| The Daily Show With Jon Stewart | Mon – Thurs 11p / 10c | |||
| Rape-Nuts | ||||
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12:00 AM
Mormon leader says the LDS is being persecuted as blacks in the Civil Rights Era were
… according to this AP story on AZCentral.com:
The anti-Mormon backlash after California voters overturned gay marriage last fall is similar to the intimidation of Southern Blacks during the civil-rights movement, a high-ranking Mormon said Tuesday.
Elder Dallin H. Oaks referred to gay marriage as an “alleged civil right” in an address at Brigham Young University-Idaho that church officials described as a significant commentary on current threats to religious freedom.
Oaks suggested that atheists and others are seeking to intimidate people of faith and silence their voices
I think there’s a flaw in his argument, but I can’t think of what it is …
… Oh, I just figured it out. The difference is that, in the 1960s, the blacks were the one being persecuted, and Bull Connor and his ilk were the ones doing the persecuting.
Today, gays are the ones being persecuted, and the Mormons are actively working to repress them, specifically by funding attacks on gay marriage across the country.
12:00 AM
Arizona has the nation's 16th highest poverty rate ...
… Legislators respond by allowing guns to be taken into bars, and trying to restrict the ability of women to have abortions. From the PBJ:
In Arizona, the poverty rate was 14.1 percent, the 16th highest level in the U.S.
[…]
Mississippi, Louisiana, New Mexico, Arkansas and Kentucky led the nation in poverty levels, ranging from 20.7 percent to 17.2 percent. New Hampshire, Connecticut, Maryland, Hawaii and New Jersey experienced the lowest levels, ranging from 7.3 percent to 8.5 percent.
Add this to the number of societal indicators that see Arizona have more in common with the Deep South than with states that actually drive the country’s economy and social progress.
While the new gun laws, aside from the danger of more shootings, are political sops to gun fetishists, the abortion restrictions can create real harm: They are designed to terrorize young girls in need and beyond that further deplete the state’s finances as the inevitable court battles ensue.
But in both cases, we see legislators continuing the debilitating scab-scratching of the culture wars rather than working on issues to make life better for their most vulnerable charges. The most sobering statistic in the Biz Journal story: 20 percent of the state’s kids are living in poverty.
6:00 AM
Dept. of Dumb Arizonans: Rep. Ray Barnes
PHXated is just getting to this, a speech delivered by Ray Barnes, a state representative from Phoenix, during a debate on school funding at the capitol. Video below.
The best part comes 30 seconds in, when Barnes, running down a litany of what he feels are excessive bureaucratic positions in the schools, ends with this laugh line:
“And unless we have a bisexual teacher somewhere, there’s probably a principal of the girls’ restrooms and a principal of the boys’ restrooms!”
The synaptic misfire that produces the conflation of sexual orientation, gender and, uh, public bathrooms is probably something Barnes should seek professional help with.
Kyrsten Sinema is the only person in the chamber with the presence of mind to call him on it.
I don’t like to comment on folks’ public appearance, but Barnes might seek some fashion advice as well. Is that how elected representatives dress here—like they’re on their way to the early-bird special at Olive Garden?
11:51 PM
Don't let Marcia Powell die in vain
Perhaps the worst aspect of the controversy surrounding the death of Marcia Powell, the state prison inmate who died after being left out in 107-degree heat, is that it impedes an important Arizona Department of Corrections investigation into exactly how long people can survive in the outdoor holding cells.
According to the Republic this a.m., the state will now limit use of the cells to two hours. But, after months of Sturm und Drang about Powell’s death from rabble-rousers at the New Times and elsewhere—and with only a few more weeks of 100-degree-plus heat in front of us—one can worry whether department officials will be cowed into abandoning this crucial work until next spring.
Powell was left in a chain-link outdoor cell without a roof and apparently without water. She was mortally injured in less than four hours! The state now knows the life-expectancy of a mentally disturbed middle-aged prostitute in the cells.
We also have some immensely valuable data about the process. Powell’s skin blistered, and her internal body temperature reached 108 degrees. The value of this research is uniformly left unmentioned in the coverage of Powell’s death.
Now, on paper at least, the department can still house inmates in the cells for two hours, and with 103 on the forecast for this weekend, it might get some valuable data. If the prisoners survive, with luck the department may be able to squeeze in some testing in the three-hour range, assuming temperatures hold a bit more before the definitive arrival of fall.
Chances of further tests in the 3.5-hour area seem remote at this point. Hopes that the department could do comprehensive testing of the survivability rates of non-mentally disturbed people, the obese, diabetics, the elderly, and juvenile offenders now seem a pipe dream.
But even one or two more rounds of testing seem a best-case scenario. Right now, prisoner’s rights advocates are clamoring; officials are playing the blame game and disciplining corrections officers; and some radicals are even calling for criminal punishment.
In this climate, there’s a good chance that dedicated workers, fearing a witch hunt, will abandon their research.
PHXated hopes the department will focus on its mission, and continue to make use of the holding cells. Otherwise, Marcia Powell can truly be said to have died in vain.
6:00 AM
Another legal salvo from Andrew Thomas against county supervisors
The Arizona Republic says he’s indicting Don Stapley and Mary Rose Wilcox on separate charges:
A grand jury indicted Wilcox on allegations that include perjury, forgery and conflict of interest related to votes she made as a supervisor to fund the Hispanic non-profit group Chicanos Por La Causa, Thomas said.Stapley’s counts include fraud, theft, perjury and forgery largely related to the use of funds Stapley received in his effort to become president of the National Association of Counties. Stapley also obtained mortgage loans under false pretenses, Thomas said.
[…]
Thomas said the counts were based on Wilcox obtaining five different loans through Prestamos, the lending arm of Chicanos Por La Causa, and continuing to approve funds for the organization in her role as supervisor without filing any type of conflict notice.
Farther down, the paper notes:
The indictments from a Maricopa County grand jury are the latest allegations Thomas and Sheriff Joe Arpaio have leveled against county elected officials and administrators, many of which have been dismissed. Despite the history of Thomas and Arpaio’s allegations against other county officials petering out as they work through the justice system, the sheriff maintained confidence in his investigations.“Let’s wait to see what the criminal justice system does before you start criticizing my investigations,” Arpaio said.
5:02 AM
When a gunman is "one of the family"
Imagine you’re a black or a Hispanic guy and you’d pinned your girlfriend down inside a car outside your house by pointing a gun at her.
After the SWAT boys came and evacauated the neighborhood, do you think you’d hear one of the officers on the scene say he cared about your welfare, that you were all part of the family?
I don’t think so.
But when a Phoenix firefighter did that yesterday, this is what he got:
Fire Capt. Hugh Chase said the situation was a somber moment for everyone because they were dealing with a well respected fire fighter with more than 20 years of service.
“We’re a tight-knit family … and we care about his welfare,” Chase said.
A somber moment! It wasn’t “somber for everyone.” It was terrifying for one person: The woman he was pointing the gun at.
Oh, yeah: And also for the neighbors who had to be evacuated, and also for the members of the SWAT team who were possibly putting themselves in range of a nut with a rifle.
Neither the Republic nor the local Fox station vouchsafed the creep’s name, which strikes me as odd. I don’t care if you are a firefighter; you sacrifice a little personal privacy when you stick a gun out the window and your girlfriend thinks you’re going to shoot her.
Speaking of which, here’s the most ominous note of all in the Republic story:
Sgt. Andy Hill, police spokesman, said the man and woman are boyfriend and girlfriend, and they are approaching the situation as a domestic issue.
This may just be a slip-up on the reporter’s part, but it’s not a domestic issue; it’s a domestic violence issue. Now the woman and her boyfriend know that, in a future situation in which she fears getting shot, the people coming to help her may consider her assailant “one of the family.”
p.s. Note this, from a KPHO report:
The suspect is a Phoenix firefighter who has been with the department for 20 years. Coworkers say he’s a well respected member of their firefighter family. But friends of his girlfriend’s sons said he has a history of drug use and abuse.
If true, it’s a welcome bit of information, but if it’s not, the assertion strikes me as possibly libelous. A “friend of the girlfriend’s sons” may or may not have first-hand knowledge, and there’s no indication in the story the reporter tried to corroborate it.
6:00 AM
Temples of bigotry
PHXated is lucky enough to own a house in northeast Phoenix. As homeowners know, there’s a lot of worries and anxieties that go along, and an owner can be forgiven for a neurosis or two. (Or three.)
But: What if I said it really bothered me that … Mormons owned houses. That Mormons’ owning houses affects my ownership of my house?
What if I said that Mormons shouldn’t be allowed to own houses?
Well, you’d say I was batshit crazy.
That whether a Mormon owned a house didn’t affect my homeownership a bit.
That I was being intolerant, a little bit crazy, and, frankly, something of a bigot.
We were thinking along these lines while reading some recent local news stories about how the Mormon Church wants some zoning variances to build two new temples in the area, one in Gilbert and one waaay up at 51st Avenue and Pinnacle Peak Road.
The Mormons were in the news last year because of the enormous financial support the church gave to two state ballot measures involving gay marriage. The church was on the anti side, both here in Arizona and in California. It’s been reported that the church spent literally millions of dollars to make sure the anti-gay marriage side won.
The church was successful in both cases, fairly narrowly in California. You could make the argument the church’s money tipped the balance.
We don’t have to point out to you the analogy we were making above. Just as it would be intolerant for us to try to deny a Mormon the right to buy a house, it’s intolerant for Mormons to try to stop gay people from marrying.
Whether a Mormon owns a house doesn’t affect me one whit, just as a couple of gays or lesbians getting hitched doesn’t affect Mormon couples one whit. That’s why it’s crazy, in both cases, to get one’s panties in a knot about it.
And finally, to go on a political campaign to deny other folks the right to buy a house—why, that’s bigoted.
And so is spending millions to dollars to make life more difficult for people who want to love and care for each other under the protection of the law.
A lot of the coverage of this issue, it seems to us, is just a little too polite.
Right now, the Mormons aren’t just building a couple of new temples, which is their right to do. They want the city in both cases to give them zoning variances. In Gilbert, they want to build to a height twice as high as is currently allowed.
In both cases, the cities should not give the Mormons any special rights to build that the current zoning doesn’t allow.
Let them built what they wish, under the laws in effect—but nothing more.
Why should the intolerant get special treatment from government?
Now, here’s the final point I want to make. What if I did get a movement going to deny Mormons the right to own houses. What if I played on people’s prejudices—and got a ban passed?
Then let’s let 100 years go by. A more tolerant age might dawn, and a movement might rise to ease those awful rules against Mormon house ownership.
Some however, would resist the change. They would demonize Mormon house ownership. It’s always been that way, they’d say. Mormons just can’t own houses.
Just because … that’s the way we’ve always done it.
How would Mormons feel? Probably a lot like the way gays and lesbians who want to get married today do.
They’d feel, in a phrase, like victims of a pointless and cruelly destructive prejudice that has no basis in reason or morality.
6:00 AM
One thing Arizona is good at: Teen pregnancy!
The new issue of the journal Reproductive Health has a study of the relationship between religious activity and teen pregnancy, according to this story on Live Science.com.
I found the story through this NT blog, which I think presents the issue slightly wrong. The journal is studying states that have the most conservative religious beliefs and those with the highest teen pregnancy rates. Arizona isn’t in the top ten in the former, but ranks no less than fifth in the latter.
I guess it means that, while Arizona is one of the more moderate of the crazily religious states, it makes up for it by going the extra mile and having a much higher teen pregnancy rate than you’d expect.
The study made this damning conclusion:
[T]he results showed more abortions among teenagers in the less religious states, which would skew the findings since fewer teens in these states would have births. But even after accounting for the abortions, the study team still found a state’s level of religiosity could predict their teen birth rate. The higher the religiosity, the higher was the teen birth rate on average.
p.s. This just in! Also from James King at New Times: Arizona leads the nation in student loan defaults.
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6:00 AM
'The Daily Show' visits Phoenix
Jason Jones explores the economics of selling off the Capitol building:
| The Daily Show With Jon Stewart | Mon – Thurs 11p / 10c | |||
| Arizona State Capitol Building For Sale | ||||
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6:00 AM
The mystery of David Ramirez
Phoenix’s top PR guy, David Ramirez, who’d been with the city for ten years after a prior life as an Arizona Republic reporter, is suddenly out, at least temporarily, according to this Scott Wong blog post on AZCentral.com:
The city of Phoenix’s chief spokesman, David J. Ramirez, has been removed from his role as acting public information director and placed on administrative leave, city officials confirmed today.
PHX 11 Station Manager Deborah Sedillo Dugan became the new interim director of the Public Information Office effective 5 p.m. Friday, according to an e-mail from Deputy City Manager David Krietor to department employees and the City Council.
Sedillo Dugan declined to explain why Ramirez was placed on paid leave, nor did she know how long he would be gone.
Whatever happens to Ramirez will work itself out in time, but PHXated would like to point out that at least two people aren’t doing him any favors.
The first is city manager Frank Fairbanks, who is quoted by Wong referring to unnamed “allegations” against Ramirez. This isn’t fair. If the city is going to allege that someone did something, it should say what it is.
If it isn’t, which is of course the correct thing to do, it should shut up.
But the second person not doing Ramirez any favors is … Ramirez himself, who said this:
“In my career, I have never touched anyone inappropriately. I don’t have any blemish on my evaluations in 13 years. I’ve never had a formal or informal complaint given to me about my professional conduct,” Ramirez said. “My exemplary record working for the city speaks for itself.”
Now we know what the allegations are—right?
Well maybe not. According to this post on the New Times site, Ramirez says “his quote shouldn’t be understood to imply that he’s touched someone inappropriately”:
He simply meant to tell Wong that he’s not being accused of touching, striking or doing anything like that to someone, he says.
“I just said I couldn’t talk about any aspect of the investigation,” he says. “I wanted to convey to him that I’ve always been professional.”
With all respect to the difficulties Ramirez is going through, his grasp of how to handle a potential personal scandal is, given his professional position, more than somewhat ironically under-developed.
p.s. The NT story also says this:
Ramirez says he let Wong know the quote was sort of out of context. He says Wong revised the azcentral.com blog post, but we saw no difference.
If what Ramirez says is true, the site is doing him a disservice by leaving the original blog post up. If it isn’t, Wong should explain the original context of the quote. Finally, there doesn’t seem to be an “official” story on the site yet.
6:00 AM
Local twitterer says he wants to shoot President Obama
The Feathered Bastard has the story:
Lemons says the guy’s real name seem to be Eric L. Arteaga. who he says is a Scottsdale musician.
6:00 AM
The speeder in the monkey mask
The AP picks up on the story and goes into it in relative depth; it’s on the NYT site, though I didn’t see it in the paper.
The Republic says the guy with the mask, Dave VonTesmar, drives 30 miles to Sky Harbor Airport for work. Here’s a guy who wants his big north Phoenix house (which means he’s on the road an hour or more spewing car exhaust into the air, creating a problem the government has to deal with) and wants to drive on the roads the state builds for him to do so, but doesn’t want to follow the posted rules. And he calls it “a peaceful act of resistance.”
It’s actually “a douchey act of hypocrisy.”
If he doesn’t like the rules on the 51, he can take surface streets.
VanTesmar also calls the radar essentially a tax on speeders, which I think is a mot rather than an argument. (What is jail but a “tax on murderers”?) Why do so many Arizonans throw around all those defiant American tropes, but don’t follow basic rules in their own lives?
And calls the act “resistance,” to boot. Really, Dave? “Resistance”? Like, against apartheid?
Finally, what the state should be doing is cracking down on the other douchey folks who have their license plates covered with plastic to make the numbers hard to read. It’s in everybody’s interest to have cars readily identifiable.
By the way, the AP story called the guy VonTesmar; the Republic’s been calling him “Vontesmar.” I’m going with the AP.
6:00 AM
The anti-Semitic demonstration in Tempe no one's talking about
Update:
The Jewish News reports on the small but mean anti-Semitic demonstration organized by Kansas’ Westboro Baptist Church outside Tempe’s Temple Emanuel last Friday:
In the end, reported [Rabbi Andrew] Straus, there were three protesters, each of whom carried four signs. They stood across the street from the temple, on the west side of Rural Road. Emanuel is located at 5801 S. Rural Road.“There were about five cops out there,” Straus added. “And we had a full house.”
The paper has an editorial, too:
In the end, the WBC “attack” only served to strengthen the Temple Emanuel community, which responded admirably – which is to say hardly at all – to the demonstrators’ spiteful provocation. The final score for the Sept. 4 encounter: Civil discourse 1, Westboro Baptist Church 0.
Original post:
PHXated spoke today with an elderly congregant of Temple Emanuel in Tempe about a protest she saw at the synagogue last Friday. This is what she said:
When I got there there was a lot of police and maybe six or seven fellows with signs. The signs said “Kill the Jews,” “Jews Eat Children,” that sort of thing.The police assured everyone they’d be gone in a half an hour, that they didn’t intend violence—They just wanted to to make their views known.
The rabbi knew this was going to occur. I didn’t get it because I don’t use the computer, but he emailed many members saying that they should please come to temple because we don’t want to look like we are intimidated.
It was a Friday night service and it was packed! They had to bring in extra chairs, because people responded to this rabbi’s request that there be no intimidating scare tactics.
The woman continued, speaking haltingly:
When I saw the signs, I wanted to go home right away. I have to walk with a walker; there’s no way I can run.But I spoke with the rabbi and his wife and I said I would come and it wouldn’t look nice to disappear. I couldn’t bring myself to go when so many others had the strength to stay.
After the service, the police and the signs were gone.
She said the incident has cast a shadow over Rosh Hashanah, much on her mind this year; after a difficult year, healthwise, she had been invited by the temple to open the ark on the pulpit the day of the holiday later this month.
It’s when people promise to forgive our enemies, we promise to be helpful and turn their lives around. If you’re an artist, you teach other artists, you share and communicate.It worries me a bit because there is a pastor in Tempe, spouting that he wants Obama dead. He doesn’t want to kill him, he just wants him to die of brain cancer or something like that. I’m sure the security people know all about that.
What they also have to know is that it foments other violence, it mushrooms.
Here again her voice grew halting.
I can’t imagine protesters carrying signs that say “Kill the Jews,” “Jews Kill Children,” who aren’t violent people.And that’s the story.
The Tempe pastor she spoke about is Stephen Anderson, of Faithful Word Baptist Church; one of his congregants is Christopher Broughton, the guy now infamous for toting around an AK-47 near President Obama’s recent VFW speech in Phoenix. Details on him here.
I couldn’t find any mention in the press about the incident. PHXated is getting in touch with the temple’s rabbi and the Tempe police for comment.
Update: The protesters weren’t locals. The temple’s rabbi, Andrew Straus, said that the temple was warned of the coming protest last Wednesday by the ADL, which had been following the activities of a fringe religioso outfit calling itself the Westboro Baptist Church, in Topeka, Kansas.
Here’s something on the group from the ADL’s web site:
While WBC members have protested at Jewish institutions over the years, such institutions were not a major focus for the group until April 2009. Since then, WBC has targeted dozens of Jewish institutions around the country, from Israeli consulates to synagogues to Jewish community centers, distributing anti-Semitic fliers to announce planned protests at these sites. WBC has also been sending volumes (in some cases dozens over the course of a week) of faxes and emails with anti-Semitic and anti-gay messages to various Jewish institutions and individuals.
A Tempe police spokesperson said personnel were on the scene just to make sure nothing untoward happened. “We wanted to have some officers available if anything should arise and fortunately nothing did,” he said.
I asked Rabbi Straus if the protest worried him. “The Westboro Church per se doesn’t worry me.” he said. “What worries me is a rising tide of intolerance. We can’t even have a civil discourse any more.”
He, too, mentioned Stephen Anderson. “There’s a rising tide of hate in our community,” he went on. "I spoke about this in service a couple of weeks ago. The language around the health-care debate has become filled with hate. There’s a subtext of encouraging violence.
“You think it’s only words. But ask Yitzhak Rabin. It’s was only words his oppenents were using.”
The incident wasn’t the only recent hate incident in town recent. A black Fountain Hills couple had Nazi and KKK imagery painted on their cars last week. Details here.
6:00 AM
More on the hate crime in Fountain Hills
Turns out the ugly racial incident in Fountain Hills—in which some black residents had their cars vandalized with racial and sexual insults—is part of a series.
The Arizona Republic story on the issue is a bit unclear about what exactly has happened in the town. The resident, Michele Jabar, is quoted saying there have been “several” racial incidents. We then read:
Jaber was referring to a prior incident in Fountain Hills in which vandals sprayed more than a dozen cars with swastikas and graffiti of male genitalia.
Note the word “incident.” But then comes this news, a graf or two later, emphasis added:
Maricopa County sheriff’s deputies are investigating several cases as possible hate crimes, including an incident in which someone wrote the word “Jew” on another car in Fountain Hills, law-enforcement officials said.
The town is having a meeting to support the Jabars, but she, for one, is saying she might leave town:
Jaber plans to attend tonight’s service. She hopes residents will rally together to champion more racial and cultural tolerance in the community.
“I just wanted people to know that you can wash off the cars, but you can’t wash off the hate,” Jaber said. “Hate starts at home.”
The story doesn’t mention another anti-Semitic incident that occurred in Tempe on Friday night—a demonstration outside a synagogue. (“The anti-Semitic demonstration in Tempe no one’s talking about.”) The protesters, who according to an eyewitness held signs saying “Kill the Jews,” however, were from out of town.
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Hate crime in Fountain Hills
Three years ago, Michele Jaber left Burbank, Calif., for Fountain Hills with a better future for her children in mind.
On Sunday, as Jaber, who is Black, and her husband, Mike, hoped for a quiet barbecue with friends from California, they instead found a swastika, “KKK” and sexual images painted on the windows of two vehicles.
“I was completely shocked and saddened for my friends to come all this way and see this,” Jaber said.
The vandals wrote on the passenger’s side window of the Jabers’ Ford Bronco. A Cadillac Escalade rented by Classietta Foreman, who traveled with others from California, also was tagged as it sat near the curb.
It’s the second local incident of the sort, the story said. Jaber is quoted in the story saying that sheriff deputies said the vandals might have been “children in the area with too much time on their hands.”
AZFamily.com has video here.
Update: Abc15.com’s Tim Vetscher has this bigger-picture story:
PHOENIX — Experts who track hate crimes say the number of instances nationally and here in Arizona is on the rise.
According to the Southern Poverty Law Center’s website, 19 hate groups currently call Arizona home, including 12 right here in the Valley.
One of the most high profile hate crimes here in the Valley happened on February 26th, 2004.
On that day, investigators say two alleged white supremacists from Illinois sent a letter bomb to Don Logan, then Director of Scottsdale’s Office of Diversity.
[…]
According to the SPLC, the Aryan Nation and the KKK are just two of the hate groups, currently calling Arizona home.
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