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Friday, September 3, 2010
Politics Friday Roundtable: Brewer's Brain Freeze, the AG Race and the City Sales Tax
Posted by Jim Nintzel on Fri, Sep 3, 2010 at 4:51 PM
Arizona Illustrated's Friday Roundtable gang reviews the week.
Politics U.S. Attorney Dennis Burke: SB 1070 Has "Unconstitional Stench"
Posted by Jim Nintzel on Fri, Sep 3, 2010 at 4:45 PM
U.S. Attorney for Arizona Dennis Burke makes his first visit to the Friday Roundtable to talk about the Obama administration's lawsuit against SB 1070, the ongoing efforts to combat illegal immigration and the new lawsuit against Maricopa County Sheriff Joe Arpaio.
Politics CD8: Gov. Brewer Done Has Did Endorsed Jesse Kelly
Posted by Jim Nintzel on Fri, Sep 3, 2010 at 2:43 PM
Gov. Jan Brewer is taking advantage of her week in the national spotlight to endorse Republican Jesse Kelly, who hopes to unseat Democratic Congresswoman Gabrielle Giffords in Congressional District 8.
In a press release, Brewer said: “There is no question that Jesse Kelly is the best candidate—a dynamic leader with business and military experience who will stand up to President Obama and fight for Arizonans in Washington.”
One thing that Kelly is not likely to do: Support any more federal bailouts of the state that have kept Brewer from making deeper cuts to state programs. Here's a look at what stimulus has done for the state, if you're inclined to give it a glance.
Mitt Romney—who first brought you a version of ObamaCare in Massachusetts—also endorsed Kelly this week. Romney's statement: “I am particularly impressed with his practical conservative solutions to get Americans back to work. It is time to send businesspeople with experience in creating private sector jobs and balancing budgets to Washington.”
We should note that most of Don Kelly Construction's private jobs are funded with public dollars.
Politics "How Can We Trust Jan Brewer?"
Posted by Mari Herreras on Fri, Sep 3, 2010 at 2:35 PM
Released today from the Goddard campaign:
Politics Jan Brewer's Defining Moment
Posted by Jim Nintzel on Fri, Sep 3, 2010 at 10:36 AM
The current home page of YouTube.
ETA: Inception Cat is pretty fun to watch, too!
Politics Barbra Seville as Jan Brewer
Posted by Mari Herreras on Fri, Sep 3, 2010 at 10:27 AM
Phoenix performer Richard Stevens, aka Barbra Seville, gives us another take on the governor and the debate. Thank the gods for drag.
Politics Upcoming Legislative Debates
Posted by Hank Stephenson on Fri, Sep 3, 2010 at 10:25 AM
If you liked the bickering you saw in the Clean Elections Governor's debate, you'll love southern Arizona's legislative debates.
We posted the schedule for you after the jump, but first a little bickering of our own...
Senator Al Melvin and Cheryl Cage, his Democratic challenger in LD26, repeatedly promised to attend a Clean Elections debate before the general election. (Liars liars, pants on fires!). Clean Elections doesn't host debates for traditionally funded candidates, which they both are, and we have a sneaking suspicion they know that rule.
We also won't get a Clean Elections debate in that exciting LD26 House race—where Democratic Rep. Nancy Young Wright will fight to keep her seat in a race against GOP candidates Vic Williams and Terri Proud in the Republican-leaning district—but those candidates didn't go out of their way to make us any false promises.
We'll let you know about other events coming up in that hotly contested district, which spans the east side of I-10 through Oro Valley, but in the meantime, watch for these debates coming up in September.
If you don't know your legislative district, look at your voter card or enter your address at the bottom left of this site and find out.
Politics Get Yer Brewer-Goddard Debate
Posted by Hank Stephenson on Fri, Sep 3, 2010 at 10:19 AM
In case you missed it, Gov. Jan Brewer and Democratic challenger Terry Goddard traded punches and talked over the third-party candidates earlier this week in their only debate this election season.
There are a lot of highlights for the politically-inclined, but one of our favorites is the long awkward silence in Brewer's opening statement - you'd think she'd have her stump speech down by now.
Also, God apparently sent Brewer down to save Arizona from financial ruin. Thanks again, Big Guy!
Politics C'mon Jan, What About Those Headless Bodies?
Posted by Mari Herreras on Fri, Sep 3, 2010 at 9:14 AM
Visit msnbc.com for breaking news, world news, and news about the economy
While it seems Rachel Maddow is getting great pleasure torturing the nation and progressive Arizonanas with more clips of Gov. Jan Brewer's opening debate debacle, watch this one till the end. After the debate, Brewer had to answer to a group of reporters assembled outside. Their question: What about those headless bodies Governor?
Thursday, September 2, 2010
Politics CD8: Kelly Flip Flops on Support of 23 Percent National Sales Tax
Posted by Jim Nintzel on Thu, Sep 2, 2010 at 8:11 PM
Politico detects a change in Republican Jesse Kelly's rhetoric as he prepares to face Democratic Congresswoman Gabrielle Giffords in the November general election:
In a Monday e-mail to supporters, his campaign had one message: “Jesse Kelly wants to protect Social Security.”The same message appeared as a note on his Facebook page, and he reiterated it again during an interview with a local radio station Monday morning.
“I will be on 104.1 FM at 8:00 am to correct Giffords’ distortion of my plan to save Social Security. We must make sure your money is there when you retire,” he wrote in a status update on his Facebook page.
In that radio interview, he laughed off a question about whether he wanted to privatize Social Security and Medicare. And a mailer he sent out after he won the primary features a table claiming that Kelly will “protect Medicare.”
His approach represents a marked shift from comments he made earlier on the campaign trail, when the emphasis was on how to eliminate both Social Security and Medicare.
“If you have any ideas on that, I'm all ears. I would love to eliminate the program,” he told the Tucson Weekly in 2009 when asked about his thoughts on eliminating Social Security.
When asked in a separate radio interview whether Social Security should be privatized, he said: “You must! ... Right now, you have to take steps to reform it, to privatize it, to phase it out."
In the Tucson Weekly interview, he also answered “yes” when asked whether he would support eliminating Medicare. “But to say you’re going to do that instantly would be disingenuous and not realistic and not fair to the people who have earned it.”
Nice shout-out to TW's lengthy Q&A with Kelly, which you can read here.
Meanwhile, Team Giffords has put together a new video that shows Kelly contradicting himself when he says he didn't support a proposal to replace the income tax with a 23 percent sales tax.
Here's what Kelly said at a debate at the UA earlier this year:
The top 10 percent of this country pays 70 percent of the taxes. We continue to squeeze the productive in favor of the unproductive. Government has gone from taxing people in order to fund itself to taxing people to redistribute wealth. We already have socialism by the use of taxation, regulation, licensing in this country. It's time to cut back, completely back. Fair tax, flat tax, I support them both. They're both fantastic and a lot better than what we have now, but we cannot to punish success because everybody knows that when you tax something, you get less of it.
Kelly's preferred tax proposal is zero corporate income taxes and a 10 percent flat income tax.
"If 10 percent was good enough for Jesus Christ," Kelly says, "it's good enough for the federal government."
