by Pamela Powers Hannley

"Amid a discussion of the Bible and the Promised Land, the state House voted Tuesday to let Arizonans vote next year on whether they want to be able to challenge the federal government," reported the Capitol Media Services in the Arizona Daily Star.

Both Craig McDermott and the AZ Blue Meanie have written about the SCR1016 vote which would insert a strict constructionist passage to the Arizona Constitution thus setting up the Legislature for future court battles with th...

Posted by AzBlueMeanie:

In 2004, a handful of Republican senators joined with Democratic senators to wrest control of the Arizona Senate chamber from an obstructionist Senate President. It hasn't happened since -- until today.

A bipartisan Senate coalition, led by the Republican majority leader John McComish no less, gave tentative approval Thursday to Gov. Jan Brewer’s proposal to restore and expand Medicaid (AHCCCS). Ariz. moves closer to Medicaid expansion:

[The coalition beat back more tha...

by Pamela Powers Hannley

Progressive Democrats of America (PDA) members visited roughly 200 Congressional offices nationwide on May 15 with an urgent message for their representatives: "Austerity is not an option." In addition, 2,000 PDA members called their Congressional representatives yesterday, and Robin Hood Tax supporters held demonstrations in San Francisco and Fresno. Over the past year, PDA's monthly letter drop campaign has mushroomed from a handful of offices visited to nearly half o...

Posted by AzBlueMeanie:

On Sunday, the Arizona Republic for some reason felt compelled to publish a guest opinion (and video) by the disgraced and recalled former Senate President, Russell Pearce, writing on behalf of his anti-immigrant nativist hate group, BanAmnestyNow.com.

Pearce discloses a continuing working relationship with the anti-immigrant nativist hate group,  Federation of American Immigration Reform (FAIR), whose lawyer Kris Kobach wrote SB 1070 for Pearce.

Pearce also cites the...

by David Safier

[JUST-MAKING-SURE NOTE: You understand this is satire, right?]

From Andy Borowitz at the New Yorker:

Fox: New Evidence Hillary Killed Lincoln
By Andy Borowitz, The New Yorker
13 May 13

In what may be the most serious allegation ever made against the former Secretary of State, Fox News Channel reported today that Hillary Clinton was involved in the conspiracy to murder President Abraham Lincoln.

The latest charge against Mrs. Clinton was reported by Fox host Sean Hannity, who sai...

by David Safier

The IRS absolutely should not have targeted groups with "Tea Party" in their names for special scrutiny. As Ezra Klein points out, the IRS should have used a far broader brush, going after the progressive Organizing for America as well as conservative groups like Crossroads GPS, Priorities USA and Heritage Action Fund. The problem wasn't the Tea Party. It wasn't right or left. The problem was misuse of a nonprofit category by both sides. And it may be, though we don't have the de...

Posted by AzBlueMeanie:

The TanMan, Weeper of the House John Boehner, the "Worst. Speaker. Ever.", has scheduled a vote in Congress this week to repeal "ObamaCare," not that the 39th time will be the charm, but because freshman Tea Party ideologues who have not had their chance to vote to repeal "ObamaCare" want their opportunity to vote against "ObamaCare," because it makes 'em feel good.

The Hill reported, ObamaCare repeal vote next week in House:

In a nod to the right, House Republican leade...

Posted by AzBlueMeanie:

Ed Kilgore at the Political Animal blog has a good summary of political scientist and high priest of Beltway centrism Norm Ornstein's column in the National Journal, The Myth of Presidential Leadership, blasting the Beltway media for their Green Lantern Theory of the Presidency in this post, Busting the Green Lantern Myth Once and For All:

If there was any doubt left that the spasm of punditry about Obama’s inability to “work his will” on Congress like his predeces...

Posted by AzBlueMeanie:

Maybe the Arizona legislature would like to jump on the bandwagon? Oh right, they do the bidding of the Goldwater Institute, a charter member of the "Kochtopus," and a big supporter of its dark money organizations and Citizens United v. FEC, and also gutting Arizona's Citizens Clean Elections. "Power to the Plutocrats!"

John Nichols at The Nation reports that Maine, a pioneer of publicly financed campaigns, has become the thirteenth state to pass a resolution calling for ...

Posted by AzBlueMeanie:

Back in 2007 we were treated to the spectacle of Senator David Vitter (R-LA) at a hastily called news conference to announce that he had been unfaithful to his wife by having sex with prostitutes in New Orleans and Washington, D.C. in the "D.C. Madam Scandal." Even worse, this guy made his wife stand next to him at his press conference and offer her support to her husband. Playing on the fundamentalist Christian base of the GOP, Vitter pulled a Jimmy Swaggert with "I have...

Posted by AzBlueMeanie:

Tea Party darlin', former Senator Jim DeMint (R-SC), now pulling down big bucks for his conservative demagoguery at the Heritage Foundation, has an op-ed in the Washington Post (where else) this afternoon, What amnesty for illegal immigrants will cost America (note the code language to the nativist base) claiming that:

An exhaustive study by the Heritage Foundation has found that after amnesty, current unlawful immigrants would receive $9.4 trillion in government benefits...

Posted by AzBlueMeanie:

Ed Kilgore at the Political Animal blog has some important posts about the growing use of eliminationist rhetoric by the far-right, and their threatening armed insurrection and sedition, None Dare Call It Treason, if they do not get their way in the democratic political process (see this Fairleigh Dickinson University poll in which 44% of Republicans, think “in the next few years, an armed revolution may be necessary to protect our liberties”):

As Steve Benen notes t...

Posted by AzBlueMeanie:

Last week, Senator Pat Toomey (R-PA) confirmed President Obama's analysis of GOP obstructionsm. Pat Toomey confirms it: Obama is right about GOP:

President Obama is getting widely mocked by commentators and Republicans for using the phrase “permission structure” at his presser yesterday in the course of claiming that Republican officials are constrained from cooperating with him because their base would see it as a “betrayal.”

* * *

Here’s the bit that has all ...

Posted by AzBlueMeanie:

Things you never see reported in the Arizona political media. I can't imagine why (sarcasm).

The New York Times reported earlier this week, Koch Brothers Plan More Political Involvement for Their Conservative Network:

As the country’s leading conservative donors finished off plates of roast lamb and spaetzle in a Palm Springs, Calif., hotel ballroom on Monday, Charles G. Koch delivered a pep talk.

The November elections had been a major setback for the cause of liber...

Posted by AzBlueMeanie:

The Tea-Publican Party, the "post-policy party" that has no ideas and no policies other than more tax cuts for the über-rich elite of the corporatocracy for whom they do their bidding, and to reflexively oppose anything proposed by President Obama and the Democrats because of Obama Derangement Syndrome, are out with a new ad celebrating their economic terrorism obstruction of the democratic process and the will of the American people as if this is something for which Tea...

Posted by AzBlueMeanie:

So how's that "De-Kook the Capitol" thing working out for ya, Laurie Roberts? Gov. Jan Brewer, engaged in a civil war in the Tea-Publican Party over her Medicaid (AHCCCS) restoration plan, appeased her GOP crazy base by signing several bills on Monday.

HB 2455 clarifies that local law-enforcement agencies must sell guns they acquire in situations such as gun-buyback programs -- even when the gun owner desires that their weapon be destroyed, in violation of their private ...

Posted by AzBlueMeanie:

I posted last week about the fabulous "Kochtopus" Confab in Coachella (Palm Springs) going on right now. 'Kochtopus' spring retreat April 28-29 in Palm Springs. Mother Jones intercepted an email invite to the "billionaires caucus" retreat and wrote about it.

I am hoping that Mother Jones will score another insider audio-visual exclusive story like they did with Willard "Mittens" Romney. These cockroaches like to operate in the dark. The double super-secret "no media" r...

Posted by AzBlueMeanie:

"Tony: It's no use, the man is a complete idiot.

Village Idiot: If only. Now my father, he was a complete idiot. I'm still a half-wit."

- TV Mini-Series "The 10th Kingdom" (2000)

This is the only memorable line I ever remember from this TV show, but I am reminded of it every time I hear that village idiot Aqua Buddha, Sen. Rand Paul (R-KY) open his mouth and speak.

As for the "complete idiot," it appears now that Ron Paul has retired from Congress (thank God!) and has...

Posted by AzBlueMeanie:

The Birthers-Birchers-Secessionists of the Tea Party, i.e., the GOP insane clown posse, held a rally yesterday in opposition to Governor Jan Brewer's Medicaid (AHCCCS) restoration plan. "Fringe" describes the unhinged from reality circus clowns who came up with this "genius" (sic) plan. AHCCCS might drop coverage for childless adults:

Thousands of Arizonans receiving health care through Medicaid could be thrown out of that program under one alternative offered by opponent...

Posted by AzBlueMeanie:

The matriarch of the "Bush dynasty" bluntly tells the truth on NBC's Today show. Barbara Bush on Jeb run: 'We've had enough Bushes':

Amid the celebration surrounding the opening of son George W. Bush's presidential library Thursday, former first lady Barbara Bush brushed aside talk of a Jeb Bush run for the White House in 2016.

Appearing in an interview from Dallas on NBC's "Today" show, Mrs. Bush was asked if she thought that Jeb, the former governor of Florida, should ...