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Shadegg Shovels the Manure

April 17, 2009 By 23 Comments

Recently Mr Shadegg, once the darling of the Conservative image of an Arizonan, expressed some thoughts about the state of his own political party.  Lets walk through some of his remarks as reported by GOPUSA (shown in quotes).

According to John Shadegg, the problems Republicans have is due to their failure to live up to what they promised with the Contract with America. He said that once Republicans took control of Congress, many were corrupted by their power as members of the majority.

Self disclosure is a good thing Mr. Shadegg, shows your emoting with your audience.  How about stepping down and honoring your part of the Contract with America?

Mr Shadegg continues to opine …

Unfortunately, they [himself] were vastly outnumbered by other Republicans in Congress who had been in Congress previously.   Many of those people did not have any strong ideological commitment to any political belief since, as members of the minority, they never had to seriously think of any principles relating to the proper role of government.

Could Mr Shadegg be speaking of Senator’s Kyl and McCain?  It certainly sounds like he’s speaking of those honorable Senators who place reelection as the highest of life’s callings.

However, as the representatives with the most seniority, they took many leadership positions.

What positions could those have been?  Is this john saying that the other two johns might need cleaning?  Lets continue reading …

He [Shadegg] said that getting involved in the Arizona State Republican Party or the Maricopa County Republican Party was a bad idea because they were being poorly led and were at the lowest level since Ev Mecham was governor of Arizona.

Looks like Shadegg fired a broadside on the orders of Admiral’s McCain and Kyl against a state party that no longer bows to their dictates.

You see, its the Delegation’s position that the AzGOP represents them.  They expect the state party to represent them when gathering signatures, fund raising, and turning out the voters.

What they don’t seem understand anymore is that they were elected to represent us.

For example; when Minister Napolitano’s Homeland Security Department reported that Vets returning from Iraq, Pro-Life folks, and Americans concerned about Borders & Immigration might be persons capable of domestic terrorism, Mr Shadegg, Mr Kyl and Mr McCain remained silent.  That silence was deafening.

Seems Mr. Shadegg is working to soften up the immigration and borders issue to clear the beach for the Obama Administration’s attempt to breech the Amnesty and Open Borders Issue – and with the full support of Arizona Senior Senate Delegation.

How can this be determined?  Timing.  In politics just as in business, its all about timing.  Didn’t the Commander-in-Cheat recently put Immigration at the top of his pile on his trip to Mexico?

Now carefully watch the slight of hand:  Shadegg begins his remarks by telling us that Republicans in leadership, ‘” … did not have any strong ideological commitment to any political belief”. Now observe where his logic takes us …

He [Shadegg] said that the Arizona and Maricopa County Republican leaders used the illegal immigration issue to create conflicts in the Republican Party. Instead, he said the Republican Party leaders should focus on having a big tent to welcome many people into the Republican Party.

Whatever happened to any strong ideological commitment to any political belief?  Is Mr Shadegg suggesting that the Party’s platform on Immigration and Borders be a circus under the Big Top?  Or is he talking about inclusiveness like Meghan McCain at the Log Cabin Republican fete?

Our borders and immigration laws mean nothing to these three johns.  Mr. Shadegg has become one of those men he criticized in his opening remarks.

In his desire to ascend to the lofty heights of Jon Kyl’s shoes in 2012, he has chosen to add yet one more Porta-John to the list of Arizona’s outhouses that need cleaning.

Yes, something stinks in Arizona … and its coming from Washington DC.  Its time to flush the johns.

I am thankful to Howard Levine of GOPUSA News for the generous use of his quotes.

Filed Under: Border, Illegal Immigration

Log Cabin Republicans and John McCain

April 17, 2009 By 16 Comments

Cindy and Meghan McCain — the Arizona senator’s wife and daughter — will attend a Log Cabin reception at the home of former Republican representative Jim Kolbe tonight, while Meghan McCain is scheduled to attend the convention’s national dinner Saturday night [4/18/2009]

Although John McCain opposed California’s Prop. 8, it seems his close advisor Steve Schmidt as well as his self-described Progressive Republican daughter Meghan have other ideas.

In fact, according to Steve Schmidt,  “There is a sound conservative argument to be made for same-sex marriage,” this from a speech Schmidt gave today during the Log Cabin Republicans convention today.

Is Meghan McCain the new voice of John Shadegg’s Republican Big Tent?

Filed Under: Uncategorized

AZRTL: Homeland Security Secretary Napolitano Slams Pro-Lifers in Official Document

April 17, 2009 By 4 Comments

Arizona Right to Life has issued a response to Napolitano’s DHS report. Napolitano warned law enforcement agencies that certain types of people could be engaging in domestic terrorism. The report painted a broad brush, likening them to white supremacist groups, Timothy McVeigh and the Oklahoma City bombing. The types of people Napolitano listed in the report were one-issue organizations such as prolife groups and groups opposing illegal immigration, returning war veterans, and people that prefer local & state control over federal government control (I think this latter category would include virtually every Republican in the country?). We’ve heard that one Congressman has already called for an investigation of bias within Homeland Security over the report, and a lawsuit has been filed by the Thomas More Society on behalf of Michael Savage and others on free speech grounds. Why is DHS issuing reports like this, when they should be going after real terrorists like al Qaeda?

Dear Friends,

Arizona Right to Life is saddened and deeply disappointed by a recent report made public by Department of Homeland Security Secretary and former Arizona Governor Janet Napolitano regarding many organizations throughout the nation, including pro-life groups and our nation’s military.

Arizona Right to Life PAC cannot understand the mental acuity behind recent comments made by Secretary Napolitano. In a Homeland Security report sent to police and sheriff’s departments, titled “Rightwing Extremism: Current Economic and Political Climate Fueling Resurgence in Radicalization and Recruitment,” Napolitano warned about groups like Arizona Right to Life,

“Rightwing extremism in the United States…[includes groups] rejecting federal authority in favor of state or local authority….[and] may include groups and individuals that are dedicated to a single issue, such as opposition to abortion or immigration.”
The report asserts that “right wing extremists” made up domestic terrorist groups that were responsible for an increase in violent attacks in the 1990′s, including the 1995 Oklahoma City bombing, and hints that with Barack Obama as the first African-American president, there will be a rise in white supremacist militias.

This characterization of many worthy organizations, such as Arizona Right to Life, as hate groups or terrorist groups is extremely offensive and lacks any basis in truth. Organizations such as Arizona Right to Life are composed of peaceful citizens from all walks of life and all political parties. These organizations work to restore, in law, all protection of all innocent human beings, including unborn children, as was the case prior to the U.S. Supreme Court’s edict in Roe v. Wade in 1973. This work does not reflect the action or attitude of a hate group or terrorist group. Quite the contrary, the whole goal of these organizations is to end violence against all human beings.

Secretary Napolitano, and the Obama Administration, feign a lack of understanding and “concern” over the mission of pro-life organizations as a thinly veiled maneuver to forward an agenda based on extremist disregard for human life. As citizens of a nation founded on the tenets of justice and freedom, no one should be willing to tolerate such blatant manipulation and disregard for truth.

The answer that all Americans should be demanding of this administration is “Why is the Department of Homeland Security spending our time and resources singling out groups like pro-life supporters instead of focusing on identifying and apprehending the real terrorists – like al-Qaeda – groups that have vowed to destroy America?”. If Secretary Napolitano is unwilling or unable to address the true threats to this country, it is imperative that she be immediately replaced by someone who can and will.

Secretary Napolitano has issued a weak apology to the United State Military for the outrageous and erroneous statements made in this report. This is not enough. We urge our grassroots supporters to contact Homeland Security Secretary Janet Napolitano and demand that she formally apologize, recant the statements made against the many organizations that have been libeled by this report and begin to fulfill her obligation to address the many real threats against our country. Contact information can be found at www.dhs.gov/xutil/contactus.shtm.

Filed Under: Crime and Punishment, Freedom of Speech, Sanctity of Life

Resilient America in the Tea Party Spirit: Contracting American Individualism

April 17, 2009 By 7 Comments

by Gayle Plato

Reflecting on the Tax Day Tea Party, there is a sense of what next? This is a slice of the pie regarding the day, the movement, a back story, and one perspective of a little get-together with a few thousand friends:

“As Republican Members of the House of Representatives and as citizens seeking to join that body we propose not just to change its policies, but even more important, to restore the bonds of trust between the people and their elected representatives.

That is why, in this era of official evasion and posturing, we offer instead a detailed agenda for national renewal, a written commitment with no fine print.

This year’s election offers the chance, after four decades of one-party control, to bring to the House a new majority that will transform the way Congress works. That historic change would be the end of government that is too big, too intrusive, and too easy with the public’s money. It can be the beginning of a Congress that respects the values and shares the faith of the American family

Like Lincoln, our first Republican president, we intend to act ‘with firmness in the right, as God gives us to see the right.’ To restore accountability to Congress. To end its cycle of scandal and disgrace. To make us all proud again of the way free people govern themselves.”- The Contract With America, 1994, Republican Congressional Promise to the Voters. 

On Wednesday, I spoke for three small minutes, freezing from an odd Arizona cold front, confronted with protesters yelling in front of me.  My moment not stellar, a bit nervous, and lost in the shuffle of being the inadvertant opening act to Representative John Shadegg.  As I stood there next to him, seeing JD Hayworth a few yards away on the radio, I felt odd.  What a difference 15 years makes.
 
In late 1994, I was making a presentation at a workshop for educators about ‘Resiliency’. It’s basically the opposite of at-risk programming, with a focus on implementing protective factors, creating an environment of respect and mentorship with people, and a deep desire to achieve personal best.  At-risk is about victimization of the soul, and funneling money at crisis intervention of victims.  Victims are real and need help, but in order to stop building victims we need to foster social success. We need intrinsic, inalienable understanding of self-worth.
 
At the presentation, I was asked to offer a document or professional article that exhibited resilient language and fostering of personal accountability.  Most went to educational jargonese; I went to current events.  To a group of liberal educators, in a nice hotel ballroom in sight of the Space Needle, with roasty aroma of brewing espresso wafting in, I handed out a copy of the Contract With America.  
 
You’d have thought I asked the folks to drink my Grandma’s luke warm Sanka decaf. I was literally a lead balloon bottoming out in front of my peers. I heard a colleague I felt a friend, leaning in to another saying, “She’s from Arizona so well, y’know…”
 
All I could do is move forward.  I was younger than today and a bit better on my game, in front of an audience. Though a bit arrogant, I can honestly say, I was good.  They were speechless by the time I finished, and could not deny that resiliency is apparent when expertly written in a Contract With America. 
 
The Contract With America is the quintessential document of resiliency and I knew it.  Fostering respect, limitations, concise defined parameters, and focus on the positive qualities of the citizen being courted, ‘The Contract’ is a brilliant piece of work.
 
On Wednesday, April 15th, I stood there next to two men who had come in to Washington D.C., under the Contract I valued, now here in Arizona at this ‘Tea Party’ with me, an older mom, very distant from that eye I once had of the Needle.  What happened to the Contract?
 
It seems to me, that we now have leaders who worry about themselves, their power, ongoing growth of government, and an oppressive angst about families, average Joes or Gayles, just one pay check from being at-risk; all angry about disenfranchisement.  We are smart enough to know when we had something and now see what we are losing. But the day was closing and sun setting on the Party. I got up there and said, “It seems to me that these fifteen years later, our leaders are taking a contract out on America and I am not okay with that.”
 
But like I say, I am always looking up.  I just did, and on the TV, I see Captain Phillips from the Somali pirate nightmare, climbing off the airplane, hugging his normal kids and wife. He’s an accidental hero and a real man given the gift of relevance.  Life gets crystal clear when all you care about is love and family. THAT is resiliency. 
 
I am feeling hopeful.  The world is so heavy; our wallets light.  Family still matters but fractures under the crack of lightening speed change.  We all have Post Traumatic Stress Disorder from the economic home invasion; our houses are in disorder.  Yet, it is in the rubble of the fallen, when walls come down. Average people become role models of Good.  They become mentors and examples, they give us resilience. 
 
All of us are citizen legislators with roles of new models. We are community organizers preserving individual freedoms and long-tried standards.  Our children damand of us the role as leader and parent.  We cannot give in and just be friends.  We are the the stoppers of the buck, and in our eyes, reflect their dignity.  Stand up and help.
 
Shift the paradigm, and get back to normal.  Maybe a triumph of the nerds meets Mac ‘n Cheese politics. Top Chefs on the Road to Serfdom are not sure at all what we are bringing to the table. But as we each say Bon Appetit’ to the yuppie cuppers of crisis spin management, there is a crude truth they each see coming. We are choosing to leave their table, doggie bag in hand, asking for the check.
 
Filed Under: Family, Special Event, Spending

Your Health Care: Property of the State

April 17, 2009 By 6 Comments

Proponents say electronic health records are superior in many ways. … Also, worries about patients’ privacy persist. – Arizona Republic

The bill’s health rules will affect “every individual in the United States”.  Your medical treatments will be tracked electronically by a federal system.  …  the bill goes further.  One new bureaucracy, the National Coordinator of Health Information Technology, will monitor treatments to make sure your doctor is doing what the federal government deems appropriate and cost effective. …  Tom Daschle proposed an appointed body with vast powers to make the “tough” decisions elected politicians won’t make. The stimulus bill does that, and calls it the Federal Coordinating Council for Comparative Effectiveness…” [Bloomberg Reports]

A tale of two views, Big Brother making your health care decisions.  The Arizona Republic is careful to avoid telling you why the medical industry in Arizona is moving so quickly to digital and database; simple, those medical providers not in compliance will not become approved providers on your healthcare insurance unless they comply.

Of course, you don’t have to comply.  But then again, the costs of maintaining your medical services with a doctor not in compliance will be astronomical.  The debt of the Obama stimulus program is being used to force your medical and healthcare decisions into the hands of a federal bureaucracy.

Here’s where the dog hunts:  My 71 year old aunt has lived in Great Britain for going on 25 or more years now and is a legal property owning tax-paying  resident.  She had her first heart attack when she was 66.  Although diagnosed as needing a bypass procedure, she was not “approved” by the government health ministry for the procedure until 2 more heart attacks and 3 years had passed.  The reason?  Simple, she was judged too old to be given medical priority (that and she was a Yank not a Brit).

The system had decided her priority for medical treatment.  She is a used bookstore manager and co-owner, but her expected future productivity was deemed insufficient against other medical users of more value to the state.

http://www.azcentral.com/arizonarepublic/news/articles/2009/04/17/20090417stim-biz-medical0417.html

http://www.bloomberg.com/apps/news?pid=newsarchive&sid=aLzfDxfbwhzs#

Of course silly me, that’s only in Great Britain.  It could never happen here.

Then again, maybe it could.  Read Tom Daschle’s book, “Critical: What We Can Do About the Health-Care Crisis.” If you are over 50, be concerned. As for the buffoons at the Arizona Republic?  They’ll print anything if they think it makes the Administration’s programs look good.

File this under, O’bam-it!

Filed Under: Family, Health Care, Human Condition, Privacy

Americans for Prosperity identifies Republican legislators who may vote for Brewer’s tax increase referral

April 17, 2009 By 17 Comments

Americans for Prosperity is urging constituents who live in these legislators’ districts to put pressure on them not to vote for Brewer’s tax increase referendum.

Will they become collectively known as “The Squishy 9,” or will some of them stick to their core Republican values of lower taxation? (comments added by us, not AFP)

Sen. Carolyn Allen – aka “Janet Napolitano, Jr.”
Sen. Rich Crandall – he may as well write off winning a Republican primary for Superintendent of Schools if he votes for this
Rep. Adam Driggs – very sad to see him on this list, he’s generally a solid Republican
Rep. Russ Jones
Rep. Bill Konopnicki – will also ruin any future political aspirations like running for Congress if he votes for this
Rep. Lucy Mason
Rep. Michele Reagan – Ronald Reagan will be rolling over in his grave if she votes for it
Sen. Jay Tibshraeny – would be another real disappointment, he’s been a solid Republican
Rep. Vic Williams

We’ve heard rumors that Brewer may not run for another term as governor. Which would explain why she’s committed Republican career suicide advocating for a tax increase. But some of these legislators have higher aspirations and seek reelection. Is it worth their careers voting as Republicans for a tax increase? It may score them a few invites to establishment parties, but the vote will never stop following them around. Republicans already disagree on many sublevel issues, like abortion, gun rights, and tax credits. If we can’t agree on reducing taxes, then what’s left holding us together and distinguishing us from Democrats?

Filed Under: Spending, State Budget, State Government, Taxation

Open borders advocate Jason LeVecke throwing fundraiser for McCain

April 17, 2009 By Leave a Comment

Jason LeVeckeOpen borders advocate and Carl’s Junior owner Jason LeVecke, co-chair of McCain’s reelection finance committee, is throwing a fundraiser for McCain in Houston on May 4. McCain should distance himself from radicals like LeVecke. McCain’s liberal position on illegal immigration didn’t help him in the election, Hispanics still went for Obama. In fact, McCain got 5% fewer votes from Hispanics than Bush did in 2004. Hispanics shifted away from McCain at the same rate the general population did. If McCain wants to survive another term, he should distance himself from the open borders crowd like LeVecke, who don’t represent the majority of Arizonons. Otherwise, he is susceptible to a primary challenge on the right, maybe by J.D. Hayworth, and as we saw in the general election, it won’t help him.

Filed Under: Border, Campaigns & Elections, Illegal Aliens, Illegal Immigration, Special Event

What Member of the MSM do you Most Dislike?

April 17, 2009 By 8 Comments

Here’s my pick.  CNNs Ms. Amanpour.  One of the most biased journalists I’ve ever listened to.

And tell me if you recognize this mug shot of my second most loathed MSN personality.

“… charged with Grand Larceny … a Miami radio station once printed bumper stickers that said, “Honk if **** ****  Owes You Money.”

Ok, its over to you good readers.  Let us know who your most disliked MSM personality is.  And there are no rules; right or left of the line is ok.

Filed Under: Media

Blood In The Water

April 17, 2009 By 6 Comments

Whenever an elected Republican in Arizona comes close to even suggesting raising taxes, its akin to self-afflicting a wound in shark-infested water. That’s exactly what happened when Governor Jan Brewer mentioned it in her address to the legislature weeks ago.

A recent visit to the Secretary of State’s election website reveals a growing list of candidates exploring and seeking to thwart any effort by Governor Brewer to seek reelection.

In fact, as recent as yesterday, former State Senator, Karen Johnson, formed an exploratory committee to weigh her options. Tim Willis, a conservative Republican from Wickenburg, was the earliest candidate to announce on November 6th, 2008. John Paul Mitchell, an Independent, has actually formed a full-blown committee and has been blogging on his campaign for months.

In total, there are six candidates of which half are Republicans, one Independent and two unidentified third party candidates.

Will there be more candidates? Count on it, especially as public dissent at the federal level spills over to the local level. Wednesday’s multiple taxpayer protests shot a warning shot across the bow of Brewer’s Administration. If the Governor continues to push her tax-hike-last-resort option, you can bet other high profile Republicans will enter the Primary. Names include John Munger who has been extremely active pushing an organization called Imagine Arizona.

Political insiders are also speculating Congressman Jeff Flake will be compelled to enter the race given his fiscally conservative, Goldwater-ties and local roots.

Don’t be surprised to see a Draft JD Hayworth movement rise up from those who demand fiscal responsibility and border security.

Just remember, a lot can change between now and September 2010 and although its still early in the next election cycle, expect more announcements as we move into the fall.

Finally, the biggest shock may come should the current Governor decide to make next year’s race an open primary.

 

Filed Under: Campaigns & Elections, State Budget, Taxation