You may be surprised to read someone who blogs under the name “Baja Democrats” freely admit that he once was an enthusiastic supporter of Ronald Reagan and voted for him twice, but it is true. You see, I haven’t changed my moderate, middle of the road views much over the past 32 years – it is the Republican Party that has veered off the middle of the road far right, right into a ditch.

I began life as a moderate Independent, the son of a moderate Pennsylvanian Republican father and a West Virginian Roosevelt Democrat mother. The first time I was old enough to vote I voted for Jimmy Carter over Gerald Ford. I still believe Jimmy Carter was one of the most honest and well intentioned men to occupy the White House. He was just terribly inept. The miserable failure of the Iranian hostage rescue attempt just seemed to highlight the many failures of the Carter Administration, and by June 1980 I’d changed my voter registration to Republican to vote for Reagan in the California Republican primary, and I celebrated well into the night when Reagan decisively defeated Carter. Reagan’s policies were a resounding success – inflation declined from 12.2% to 4.4%, unemployment declined from a post-Depression high of 10.8% to under 6%, with over 16 million new jobs created and GDP growth reaching 3.85%. In 1984 I was living and working overseas but went to the trouble of going to a U.S. Embassy to request an absentee ballot so I could vote for Reagan again. I remember writing my sister, a diehard Democrat, that I was disappointed in the election outcome – I really thought Reagan would carry Minnesota and win all 50 states, she was mad at me for years! In 1988 I happily voted for George H.W. Bush over that idiot Dukakis. 1992 is the only election in which I didn’t vote, I was living & working on the island of Bonaire in the Dutch Caribbean and there was no embassy from which to request an absentee ballot. But I would have voted for Bush in a heartbeat. When the first allegations of womanizing came up in the primary campaign and Slick Willy did his smarmy denials I decided he was one lying, dishonest sonnabitch, and I wasn’t impressed with Hillary’s ‘stand by her man’ routine. I’ve since changed my opinion of Hillary and have a great deal of respect for her. Bill Clinton married very well, Hillary not so well.

But as much as I disliked Slick Willy 1994 brought someone to national prominence that I still loath to this day – Newt Gingrich. What a pompous, self serving, dishonest asshole. His orchestrated federal government shutdown in 1995 finally drove me out of the Republican Party and back to being an Independent. In 1996 I voted for Ralph Nader for President, as my own little way of saying ‘None of the Above’ to Slick Willy and Bob Dull. (misspelling intentional). Finally, the one thing I truly am embarrassed to admit: I voted for George W. Bush in 2000. I literally made up my mind in the voting booth, and as I recall I held my nose when I filled in the oval next to Bush’s name. I didn’t trust Bush’s swagger, but I really disliked Al Bore (another intentional misspelling) and still do. It’s the one vote in my life I would love to go back in time and vote the other way. It took the worst Presidency since Herbert Hoover to finally push me into the arms of the Democrats – I registered as a Democrat for the first time in my life when I moved to Arizona in 2005, and have never looked back.

All we heard from Republicans during the Clinton Administration was “cut spending, reduce the deficit, Balanced Budget Amendment!” Sound familiar? Republicans seem to be concerned about spending and deficits only when a Democrat occupies the White House. Well, back in the 90s it actually made sense – the economy was enjoying one of the strongest and longest peacetime expansions. When times are good you don’t spend like a drunken sailor, you pay down debt and put some cash away for a rainy day. Back then Republicans and Democrats could meet each other halfway and bipartisan majorities in Congress passed spending reduction bills, and G.W. Bush inherited a federal government that was paying down its debt. But it didn’t take long for drunken sailors to come back into vogue. With a Republican in the White House and in charge of Congress they passed and signed the biggest giveaway in U.S. History, the ‘Bush’ Tax Cuts. Senator John McCain, back in the days when he really was a Maverick’ said that the tax cuts “devotes too much of it to the wealthiest Americans“, and that we should be “focused on paying down our debt“. In looking back on the Bush Presidency in a 2007 interview, John McCain noted “I saw no restraint in spending. We presided over the greatest increase in the size of government since the Great Society. Spending went completely out of control“. Indeed, tax cuts nobody needed and few were asking for, coupled with massive spending increases, hundreds of billions of dollars for “regime change” halfway around the world all led to a doubling of the national debt under Bush. And is was completely unnecessary. Except for the minor 2001-2002 recession the economy was growing and didn’t need the massive stimulus from the military and domestic spending. In fact, that much stimulus arguably led to the housing bubble and the near collapse of the financial markets.

Is it short term memory loss that leads today’s Republican Party to scream “Out of control spending!” and “They’re mortgaging our grand-children’s future” and lay it at the feet of President Obama and Democrats, like they’re the ones who invented it? Or is it a double standard? It’s one thing to inject the economy with massive spending when you’re trying to bring the economy back from the brink of the worst recession since the Great Depression, and it’s another thing to do it when the economy is doing just fine. Let’s revisit the policies of that conservative icon, Ronald Reagan. President Reagan, fondly remembered as an anti-tax hero actually raised taxes eleven times over the course of his presidency, all in the name of fiscal responsibility. He muscled through Congress the Economic Recovery Tax Act of 1981 which lowered the top marginal tax bracket from 70% to 50% and the lowest bracket from 14% to 11%. However, as the economy began to emerge from recession he signed the 1982 Tax Equity and Fiscal Responsibility Act, which was the largest peacetime tax increase in American history, a much larger tax increase than Clinton’s 1993 tax increase. During the Reagan Administration, federal receipts grew at an average rate of 8.2%. And it all produced a strong, growing economy that put people back to work. Today’s Republican party not only considers letting the Bush tax cuts for the wealthy expire – as it was written into law when they were passed – a “tax increase”, they even consider closing tax loopholes to be a “tax increase”. Reagan also signed into law the requirement that even privately owned, for profit hospitals cannot refuse to treat emergency room patients because of their inability to pay. And he also signed into law a bill that granted unconditional amnesty to millions of illegal immigrants. Today’s Republican Party would denounce someone with Ronald Reagan policies as a “tax & spend librul”, a “socialist” determined to take over free enterprise and Healthcare, and an “open borders” anti-American. Oh wait, they already have.

I highly recommend reading the article in today’s Washington Post by Thomas E. Mann and Norman J. Ornstein: Let’s just say it: The Republicans are the problem. I also highly recommend sending Richard Carmona to the U.S. Senate and Ron Barber to the House, to bring some common sense back to Congress.

I’ll admit upfront that I’m not a huge fan of The National Journal. But their investigative reporting is very good, and their article on Arizona’s U.S. Senate candidate Jeff Flake reveals the “Mr. Takes on Washington” actually began his career in Washington as a Lobbyist and registered Foreign Agent for a mine in Namibia with ties to Apartheid, Iran, and Resolution Copper. Resolution Copper – the foreign owned company which conned the GOP House into voting for a land swap to trade federally owned land near Superior, AZ with one of the world’s largest copper reserves for commercially worthless land out in the desert 100 miles northwest of Tucson. A land swap Jeff Flake spoke in favor twice on the House floor and which he voted for. A land swap promoted by his old employer.

It all began when Flake served his Mormon missionary work in Namibia in the early 1980s. Namibia back then was governed and controlled by the Apartheid South African regime and Apartheid was fully enforced. Having witnessed  the suppression and exploitation of Namibia’s native population first hand, did Flake return to speak out against this inhumanity and advocate for Namibia’s freedom from South Africa and Apartheid?   No.  He came back to set up shop in Washington, becoming a registered foreign agent for Rossing Uranium, a company which operates a uranium mine in Namibia. It is one of the world’s largest suppliers of the nuclear fuel. Rossing Uranium paid Flake $5,000 and $7,000 per month to “promote it’s image” and open doors. This is what the National Journal has to say about Rossing:

Rossing had a controversial history. The company had operated the Namibian mine since the 1970s. Anti-apartheid and antinuclear protesters had long criticized its operations. And a 1982 report from the United Nations Council for Namibia described “brutal and unsafe conditions” for workers there, and said that whites and blacks were treated differently. “Rossing can guarantee its mine a plentiful supply of cheap labor because it takes advantage of the apartheid system,” the report said.

Gabrielle Hecht, a professor of history at the University of Michigan and the author of the book Being Nuclear: Africans and the Global Uranium Trade, said that the Rossing mine “had a mixed record in 1991,” when Flake worked for the company. “Its occupational health record was being very furiously challenged at that time on an international scale—and he would have known that.”

Rossing Uranium also has some interesting ownership. It is 69% owned by UK based international mining conglomerate Rio Tinto, parent company of Resolution Copper. But Rossing is also 15% owned by a little company called Iranian Foreign Investment Co.. The U.S. Treasury Department lists it as a wholly owned subsidiary of the Tehran regime. From the National Journal:

Jonathan Schanzer, vice president of research for the Foundation for Defense of Democracies, a conservative think tank, noted that in the 1990s the Iranian regime “was not a friend of the United States; it was an enemy.” He added, “It’s a question of judgment when you represent a company that is owned in part by Iran.”

Flake claims he “didn’t know” about the Iranian ownership and has no comment. Actually, his 1990 federal filing falsely stated that Rossing was not “owned, financed, controlled, or subsidized in part or whole by a foreign government”. The truth was that in addition to the Iranian government’s stake in Rossing, the Namibian government also owned a stake. Is Mr. Flake in a habit of making statements under oath without bothering to check if they are in fact the truth?

Rossing Uranium’s Iranian connection came up last year when Resolution Copper, a subsidiary of Rio Tinto, majority owner of Rossing, pushed for the land swap near Superior. Resolution & Rio Tinto has a simple goal: trading  land far out in the desert in the San Pedro River valley loved by birds but commercially worthless for federally owned land with one of the world’s largest known copper reserves would enable them to mine the copper without paying a penny to to its rightful owners, American citizens and taxpayers. Democrats objected to the swap, pointing out the connection between Rossing, Iran, Rio Tinto and Resolution. Congressman Flake spoke in favor of the swap twice and voted for it, calling it a “great deal”. Actually, it was a sweet deal,  just not for American taxpayers.

Mr. Flake thinks he deserves a raise and promotion to the U.S. Senate. We think he deserves to be fired.

My esteemed colleague Don of Ft. Buckley seems to think that a member of Congress who is not of the party of the majority has little or no chance to get meaningful things done. Well, in this Do Nothing Congress no one of either party has got anything meaningful done. While the special election for the remainder of Gabby Giffords’ elected term is only through the end of this year, it will actually be a very important term. Simply put, the extremes on the right and on the left of this Do Nothing Congress will have to stop playing games, meet in the middle, and get things done.  A compromise on keeping the middle class tax cuts of the Bush tax cuts needs to be reached or they will ALL expire at the end of the year. A budget has to be passed. Last year, to avoid a government shutdown an increase in the deficit limit and outline for a budget was agreed to and passed by a large bipartisan majority. It laid out very clear guidelines for spending levels and the levels of funding for the different governmental agencies and departments. While it passed with a large bipartisan majority, you know who didn’t vote for it? The far right Tea Party Republican freshmen members of Congress, as well as a few members on the far left. This year those same far right Republicans have successfully pressured the GOP leadership to renege on the promises they made last year and pass the Ryan Budget which doubles down on more tax cuts for the wealthy, gut social programs, give more money to Defense than the Pentagon even wants, and does almost nothing about the deficit. Have Republicans in Congress lost their grip on reality???? It ain’t going to happen!

We need for Congress to quit playing games, stop the political brinkmanship, roll up their sleeves and get to work. Voters of southern Arizona have a unique opportunity to send a message to Congress, by sending a moderate to join them in June, a moderate who is ready and willing to work with reasonable, responsible members across the aisle and get things done. That man is Ron Barber, and the difference in approach and attitude between Ron Barber and his opponent Jesse Kelly couldn’t be more stark.

Jesse Kelly has called Social Security a “Ponzi scheme” and that he would love to “eliminate it”.  Jesse Kelly thinks all government workers are “leeches”. When asked if he could work with Democrats in Congress Jesse Kelly said “I hope there’s no Democrats left in Congress when I get there.” Sorry Jesse, a totalitarian government isn’t in the cards, and your type of “my way or the highway” is what got us into this gridlock. After spending a trillion dollars and thousands of lives  “rebuilding” Iraq & Afghanistan we need to stop playing policeman for the world and bring those troops and dollars back home and rebuild America. What are Jesse Kelly’s foreign policy views? ” We’ve got to kill all members of radical Islam.”

Southern Arizonans also deserve a person who knows them, and knows the challenges they face. Jesse Kelly grew up in Montana and moved here to work for his father’s construction business. After losing the last election he moved to Texas to work again for his father and returned just after Giffords’ resignation to run for office again. Ron Barber has and owned and operated a family business in Tucson for 22 years with his wife Nancy. His children and grandchildren live here. Ron has pledged to protect the middle class at a time when families have seen their standards of living decline. Barber has made specific pledges to protect Medicare, Social Security and veterans’ benefits, and promised to support members of the military and their families. But here, let him tell you in his own words:

State Senator Frank Antenori, running for the GOP nomination for the CD8 special election and new CD2 general election, has announced he has fired his campaign treasurer Jeffrey Hill, himself former state senator. Antenori spokesman Brett Mecum. says Hill “completely burned them”. Antenori’s campaign missed the April 5 deadline to file a report detailing the campaign’s finances with the Federal Election Commission (FEC), as required by law. All three other GOP candidates met the filing deadline. When Antenori finally filed the report four days late, for good measure he filed twice – one set of records apparently used the wrong form. Then, just to be on the safe side, he filed a third, amended version a day later. Just one little problem:  All three versions have different totals for contributions, expenses and cash on hand!

An article on TheHill.com raises several other discrepancies and possible campaign violations:

A further review of the documents by The Hill showed that Antenori reported no expenditures for rent for his campaign headquarters. County property records show that the shopping center housing his Tucson, Ariz., headquarters is managed by Paul Ash Management Company, but there are no payments to the company. There are also no in-kind contributions for rent, which the campaign would have to report if it were being given free use of office space.

Antenori’s pre-primary filing also appeared to show his campaign in violation of federal campaign law that says that a candidate who is “testing the waters” with an exploratory committee cannot raise or spend more than $5,000. Once they do, they legally become a candidate and are subject to different reporting requirements.

Antenori’s filings show he started off the year with about $9,000 in his campaign account. He didn’t convert his exploratory committee to a full committee until early February.

This is the second major staff shake-up in three months for Antenori. In February, Treasurer and Campaign manager Kenneth Moyes, stepped down.  The only problem is nobody bothered to inform the FEC. Moyes continued to receive inquiries from the FEC requesting details of the campaign’s finances and had to take it upon himself to send the FEC a letter informing them he had nothing to do with the Antenori campaign since February 9.

Frank Antenori is the only Republican with any experience in holding an elective office in the race to replace Gabby Giffords. If he can’t manage a campaign any better than this, manage to use simple math to file accurate reports after three tries, you have to wonder what any of the other three running on the GOP side would do.

Ron Barber – the right choice for southern Arizonans to send to the U.S. Congress.