Saturday Feb. 25, 11 to 4 p.m. at Reid Park Band shell (E. 22nd and Country Club)

30th Annual Peace Fair & Music Festival, Arizona’s largest gathering of peace, social justice, labor, and environmental groups:

live music for the entire family
raffle prizes
booths – about 100 expected
food
dance
refreshments
entertainment
children’s activities

Chair of the 2012 Peace Fair is Mary DeCamp, former Mayoral & Ward 3 candidate, assisted by Entertainment Chair Chet Gardiner.

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Six anti-labor bills are winding their way through the Arizona Legislature– four target unions, making collective bargaining illegal and outlawing union dues deductions from paychecks; one would strip civil service protections from 29,000 state employees, allowing the governor to fire civil servants and hire her pals; and the last is a ballot initiative which would [...]

Info from Tucson Forward and other news sources:

The U.S. Air Force is inviting the public’s input on a Draft Environmental Impact Statement for the proposed Pilot Training Center of F-35A aircraft.

The Air Force has not chosen a base yet. Potential locations include:
Boise Air Terminal Airport Air Guard Station, also known as Gowen Field, Idaho;
Holloman Air Force Base, N.M.;
Luke Air Force Base, Ariz.;
and Tucson International Airport Air Guard Station, Ariz.

The purpose of the proposal ...

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Former Pennsylvania U.S. Senator Rick Santorum (served 1995 to 2007) will speak in Tucson at a free Tucson Tea Party event at the Sabbar Shriner’s Temple on Wednesday February 22. Doors open at 10 a.m. at 450 S. Tucson Blvd., south of Broadway. The event is expected to run till 1:30 p.m.

Santorum is on the ballot for the Arizona Republican Presidential Preference Primary set for Feb. 28. Early voting on that primary began on February 2 and reports are that...

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Are the annexation wars about to begin again, now that Tucson has a new mayor? If so, good, sometimes it takes a war to solve a problem. Mayor Jonathan Rothschild, as all Tucson mayors have done for nearly 20 years, mentioned in his state of the city speech this week the importance of getting more [...]

Free showing of full-length feature “Bag It” at the Loft Cinema on Sat. Feb. 18 at 10 a.m. sponsored by Sierra Club – Rincon Group and Coalition for Sonoran Desert Protection. The Loft is at 3233 E. Speedway.

Americans use 60,000 plastic bags every five minutes, disposable bags that they throw away without much thought. But where is “away?” Where do the bags and other plastics end up, and at what cost to the environment, marine life and human health?

Bag It follows “ever...

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Mayor Jonathan Rothschild delivered his first State of the City speech yesterday at the Tucson Convention Center and here it is in its entirety (for those who missed it). Last year I sat at the same luncheon table as Democratic candidate Rothschild, a political newcomer, and we joked that the next year he may not be sitting in the back of the room at “open seating” with the rest of us.

“Making Tucson Work”

Introduction

Good afternoon. Thank you for being here. Thank you...

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press release from AZ Democratic Party on Honoring Arizona’s Tribal Communities:

Over the last few days, we’ve been honoring Arizona’s Democratic heritage, sending along a few profiles each day of noteworthy figures in the history of our Arizona Democratic Party. However, Arizona’s history is much longer than 100 years. While it is important to learn about the men and women who brought Arizona into statehood, we want to especially encourage you to learn about the tribal ...

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ACLU to Co-Sponsor Centennial Discussion on Civil Rights, Liberties in Arizona Over the Past 100 Years (press release)

TUCSON – Former judges, academic historians and elected officials from the City of Tucson will gather on February 12th to engage in an interactive discussion about the expansion of civil rights and liberties in Arizona over the past 100 years.

“When the ACLU was founded in Arizona in 1959, there were laws prohibiting people of different races from marrying and banning the d...

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Republican Sean Collins, a political newcomer has filed to run in the Republican primary against 4 term incumbent Supervisor Ray Carroll. Collins has served in the Air Force and is a small businessman, owner of a Dairy Queen in Vail, AZ. Mari Herreras at the Tucson Weekly had the story today (click here).

According to the Quail Creek Republican Club newsletter, Carroll’s challenger for the District 4 seat is Sean Collins, a U.S. Air Force veteran who owns the Vail Dairy Queen with his wife...

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3 days of weekend fun coming up in celebration of Arizona’s 100th birthday on 2/14/12.

Info from 2ndsaturdaysdowntown.com website. I’ve listed a few of the events below, but go to that website for the full schedule.

Friday, Feb. 10:

4pm: GRAND OPENING, hosted by KOLD Channel 13 and Chuck George. Mayor Jonathan Rothschild will open the festivities to an antique airplane fly-by and the raising of the 1912 American Flag originally flown over the Arizona Capitol. This event will take ...

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The Second Amendment, and the way it has recently been interpreted by the U.S. Supreme Court, makes most bills that attempt to bar or inhibit Americans from possessing guns futile. On the flip side, the resistance of many Americans to surrendering to a totally armed populace has made it difficult to pass new laws that [...]

Labor union members and Jobs with Justice labor supporters will be demonstrating downtown today against the anti-union legislation currently sailing through the Arizona Legislature. The American Legislative Exchange Council (ALEC, a corporatist group that writes business friendly legislation for Republican legislatures like ours) and the right-wing Goldwater Institute schooled Governor Jan Brewer and her minions [...]

PHOENIX – Saying the Pima County administrator needs to be restrained, a House panel voted Thursday to create a special committee to oversee county bond elections.
The party-line vote in the Republican-controlled Committee on Technology and Infrastructure came after a plea from Marana Town Attorney Frank Cassidy, who said the county has created a “culture of intimidation.”
He said part of that is because County Administrator Chuck Huckelberry proposes bond elections with more t...

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http://www.nbc-2.com/story/16662854/2012/02/02/nbc2-investigates-voter-fraud

County supervisors of elections tell me they have no way to verify citizenship. Under the 1992 Motor Voter Law, they’re not required to ask for proof.

“We have no policing authority. We don’t have any way of bouncing that information off any other database that would give us that information,”

Anyone know a place like this?

Since Occupy Tucson was evicted by the Tucson Police from Veinte de Agosto Park in December, Occupiers have been busy– the food drive, multiple marches, regular general assemblies, and occupying the sidewalk. Today, Occupy Tucson announced that they will begin occupying DeAnza Park at Stone and Speedway. From their press release… The tents are coming [...]

When Americans are unhappy in an election year, they often adopt a ‘throw-the-bums-out’ attitude toward incumbent politicians. In 2008, the Democrats seized control of all three branches of government. In 2010, Americans threw dozens of Democratic ‘bums’ out, and many Tea Party-leaning Republicans went to Congress for the first time. In 2012, Congress’ nearly complete [...]

Guest Opinion: Is Jeff Rogers Abusing His Office?

Posted by Rob Ferrier on Fri, Jan 27, 2012 at 4:00 PM

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Arizona House Speaker Tobin

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STATE CAPITOL, PHOENIX -- Here is a staff summary of Arizona House Speaker Andy Tobin's (R) controversial redistricting bills. This is certain to be a big issue in the legislature this week.

HB 2710 - lays out the framework for a special election to be held May 15, 2012; note: NO appr...

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The YWCA of Tucson and the Southern Arizona Hate Crimes Taskforce would like to invite you to join us as we welcome the U.S. Attorney for the District of Arizona to her first Civil Rights Forum for Southern Arizona. Acting U.S. Attorney Ann Birmingham Scheel will hold the public forum at the Tucson YWCA, located at 525 N. Bonita Ave, on the evening of Tuesday, January 31st.

Doors open at 5:30 pm and the forum will begin at 6 p.m. We encourage the public to attend with their questions for feder...

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