Danehy

Prop 123 is a good deal for the crooks who delivered it, and Tom wonders if indentured servitude is next

Since I'm only around these parts every other week, stuff just piles up in my head and then gushes forth.

Former Speaker of the U.S. House of Representatives Tip O'Neill said that all politics are local. I believe that, even more than that, politics are personal. How can I not take it personally when I see that the state I love is being ruled (not governed!) by a cabal of kid-hating, self-serving corporate butt-kissers who have power, but lack the compassion and vision with which to use that power wisely?

Until last week, Doug Douche-y chose not to include in the Arizona budget an item that would have provided FREE health care to 30,000 Arizona kids who live at or below the poverty line. The federal government would have picked up the entire cost; it would cost Arizona ZERO DOLLARS and ZERO CENTS. Instead, Douche-y seemed content to let the state he's supposed to care about and look after remain the only one in the entire country without a health care system for poor kids. Even the fiscal blast crater that used to be Kansas takes advantage of the program. Douche-y may be the worst Catholic since Bishop Hudal. (He's that Vatican guy who helped all the former Nazis escape to South America after World War II.)

However, Douche-y didn't do it by himself. Despite the fact that a lot of Republicans and virtually all of the Democrats in the state Legislature supported the program, it never got a look because one slimy individual—Senate President Andy Biggs—refused to let it come up for a vote in the Senate, knowing that it would pass over his objection and Douche-y's indifference. (It finally passed, exactly that way, late last week.)

Biggs claimed to be acting on some vague principle, but the only principle he follows is to screw over people who don't look and think like he does.

I can't stand Andy Biggs. He wins the lottery and then takes that to mean that God thinks he's special. While writing this, I was daydreaming that Biggs would get boils all over his smug face, boils that churn and bubble most of the time, but when he's lying (as when he's giving a speech), they burst forth, spraying pus and particles all over the first three rows of the audience.

Biggs is six feet of feces in an ill-fitting suit.

As Robert Wuhl once said, "Not much gray area there."

Having said that, I would now like to state that I'd consider it a personal favor if you would vote No on Prop 123. Yeah, I know ... but Tom, your wife is a teacher! She also has self-respect, which is part of the reason that I'm voting against it.

My wife, with all those advanced degrees, years of dedication to her profession, and induction into multiple Halls of Fame, is making less money now than she did 10 years ago when the clods in Phoenix began their crusade to dick education in the name of corporate charity. She certainly deserves a pay raise, but I'm pretty sure she doesn't want one as the result of extortion (which is what Prop 123 is).

(And I have this to say to the guy who is constantly claiming that I am forcing my wife to remain a teacher just so I can live off her. My wife is a teacher because she enjoys being a teacher. She has always said that if the day ever came that she didn't enjoy being in the classroom, then she would go do something else. Or nothing. There's no way I can force my wife to work ... or not work. Whoa! I just got a shudder thinking about even trying to tell my wife what to do.)

Anyway, I hear the impassioned pleas of "The schools and the teachers desperately need the money."

Well, they needed the money back in 2008 when the scoundrels came to the teachers, hat in hand, asking for a one-time pass on upholding their constitutional obligations. And they needed it in 2009 when the crooks in the Legislature figured, "Heck, we got away with it last year. Let's do it again."

The schools needed it in 2010 and 2011, when the back-stabbers didn't even give a thought to doing their damn jobs. They needed it in 2012 and 2013, when the courts started landing on the Legislature. And they've needed it ever since, while the legislative thieves and scalawags lost in court and then decided to ignore the Constitution and the separation of powers.

Proposition 123 is a good deal only for the vile crooks who wrote it. In personal terms, it's as though they owed me $20, then took $10 out of my left pocket, skimmed off $3 to give to their rich buddies, then gave me $7 to put in my right pocket. That's not compromise; that's theft. Put simply, I don't trust Douche-y, Biggs, et al to act in the best interest of Arizona's kids, EVER! If Prop 123 passes, I don't believe the money will end up where it's supposed to. They'll figure out a way to steal it and give it to their buddies.

Most disgustingly, we're told by Douche-y and the others that 123 is "a first step." If that's the case, what comes next? Indentured servitude?