Today's GOP AZLeg Dog and Pony Show on the Presidential Primary Election debacle

The discontent was more than palpable today at the GOP-controlled Arizona Legislature's hearing on last week's Presidential Preference Election debacle.

People from all over the country and perhaps all over the world watched Michelle Ugenti-Rita's Dog and Pony show. See for yourself.




A friend in New York City watched the hearing and said Ugenti sounded tough. It's ALL an act. And the stooge calling the names of the next people to testify was J.D. Mesnard.

For perspective, I give you this tweet,

For those watching hearing on voting in AZ, hear this: Ugenti has never met a voter suppression bill she didn't vote for. Beware.

— Laura Copple (@MCDPLaura) March 28, 2016

My friend Laura disappoints me grievously because she won't listen to sound reasoning about the Democratic Presidential candidates. But she's on the mark with this tweet.

At 13 minutes into the video (you can FF if you want), Democratic state Rep. Jonathan Larkin, responding to comments by Air Force veteran Dean Palmer's testimony, calls attention to recent legislation, already signed into law (HB2023, sponsored ONLY by the person chairing this hearing). It's a bill for which this committee chair is responsible, which makes it a felony to assist a voter in turning in early ballots. A voting law and procedure change that would not have been possible before SCOTUS nullified Voting Rights Act preclearance.

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Arizona Republic editorial columnist Elvia Diaz wrote today about the well-orchestrated plan to keep Arizona Latinos from voting.

To some, forcing voters to wait five hours to cast a ballot in last Tuesday’s Arizona presidential primary was merely the result of a colossal bureaucratic mistake [ed. I would consider the term clusterfuck (aka "Charlie Foxtrot") to be a more fair characterization] by incompetent Maricopa County election officials led by Helen Purcell.

But many others view it as part of a well-orchestrated plan by Republicans to keep minorities out of the election process. It’s a plan that has been slowly and powerfully moving through the political and court system, and which led to the dismantling in 2013 of the Voting Rights Act of 1965.

Specifically, a provision of that act required Arizona and eight other states to get federal approval before changing election laws. Without that legal hurdle, Purcell, the county’s top election official, easily cut the number of polling places from 200 in 2008 to only 60.

Everyone casting a ballot Tuesday was affected by the long lines. But those in the poor and predominantly minority areas were particularly hit hard. How the 60 polling sites were allocated is at the heart of the outcry from Latinos and others who see this as a deliberate move to suppress their vote.

“You can conclude that Helen (Purcell) and everyone in her office suddenly grew massive invasive stupid cells in their brains. Conspiracy of the suddenly very stupid?” wrote former state legislator turned activist Alfredo Gutierrez.

A more legitimate question is: Was this part of the larger Republican national strategy to suppress the vote? I believe that is more likely than the "stupid Helen theory.” [...]

An analysis by The Arizona Republic shows that polling sites were sparse in poorer areas of west Phoenix, Glendale and the southwest Valley. 

The Justice Department should investigate, and most importantly, find ways to keep a watchful eye on Arizona.

It will require an act of Congress to revive a version of the Voting Rights Act, but given that Republicans are in control, that’s unlikely to happen.

Even so, advocates must keep on pressing Uncle Sam to get involved and they need to rally support from moderate Republicans in Arizona to put the brakes on the deliberate campaign against the 1.9 million Hispanics in Arizona and the nearly 300,000 Native Americans. [...]

Advocates and academics have documented concrete examples of discrimination against minority voters since statehood to the March 22 Republican and Democratic presidential preference elections. Those in power have adeptly used cultural and language barriers as a weapon. For instance, in the early 1900s, Arizona enacted its first English literacy test.

“The literacy test was enacted to limit ‘the ignorant Mexican vote’ … As recently as the 1960s, registrars applied the test to reduce the ability of Blacks, Indians and Hispanics to register to vote,” according to historian David R. Berman.

If you think about it, little has changed throughout Arizona’s history. Conservatives have incessantly targeted minorities and typically intensify their efforts during economic recessions or political turmoil.

During the past decade, Arizona lawmakers have gone after Latinos in various ways, including approving anti-immigrant bills that affected not only those living here illegally but their American-citizen relatives who can vote. 

They’ve approved laws designed to make it harder for Latinos and Native Americans to vote by requiring ID at the polls. Many Native Americans, for instance, don’t have a house or street address, which makes it difficult to register or show at the polls with a form of ID

It will take all Latinos voters to cast a ballot to change Arizona’s discriminatory attitudes, and that is what make conservatives most afraid.

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Digressing to the headline for this post, the upside is that this story is going national and viral. The downside is that the GOP-controlled legislature will do everything it can think of to tamp down the consternation without making any substantive changes in funding or administration of elections.

You know, the way the Clinton campaign gives lip service to standing up for the rights of working class Americans, while maintaining her allegiance to her corporate special interest owners.

The bottom line is that if we keep the pressure up, the GOP in Arizona will ultimately cave.

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And as far as corporate media pushing -- including by explicitly calling for Bernie to drop out of the race and acting as if Hillary has already won --  the likelihood is rapidly increasing that history will repeat itself.

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Guess which Helen Purcell and Karen Osborne were in charge of Maricopa County Elections in 2004 when John Dougherty wrote this investigative story?

Gravy Train or Freedom Train: Which Side are YOU On?

Peddlers of mediocre influence in Arizona are still peddlers of influence.

On Tuesday, Arizona voters, at least in Maricopa and Pima Counties, had a hard time getting their votes cast. And there's plenty of blame to go around. Both at the state and county levels. Both the ruling GOP junta and -- even though they exercise near zero influence on public policy and lawmaking in our state, certain elected Democrats.

In the Democratic Presidential Preference Election, the beneficiary of suppressed voter turnout is, by definition, Hillary. She's the one who has the mega donors and Super PACs. She's the one who can get corporate media to bend to her will because corporate media is deathly afraid of a President Bernie Sanders.

This I deduce based on CBS president Les Moonves' declarations about Super PACs and the overt suppression of Bernie's campaign message and refusal to cover legitimately newsworthy Sanders events.

Dr. Cornel West, has drawn the contrast between the Gravy Train and the Freedom Train. I submit that the analogy is NOT limited to Black Americans/politicians.

Speaking to Anderson Cooper ... Professor Cornel West spoke out in support of Bernie Sanders and characterized Hillary Clinton‘s enduring popularity with African-Americans as an issue of “a neo-political, black political class that confuses the gravy train with the freedom train.”

West explained that Sanders’ social progressivism should have made him a much more attractive candidate than Clinton, whom he blasted for her ties to Wall Street, her husband’s policies that led to mass incarceration of African-Americans, her connections to lobbyists for private prisons, and remarks she made in 1996, in which she referred to urban youth as “super-predators” with “no conscience and no empathy.”

Nearly a year ago, Peter Schweizer, president of the Government Accountability Institute published Clinton Cash: The Untold Story of How and Why Foreign Governments and Businesses Helped Make Bill and Hillary Rich. The book begins,

Ask Team Clinton about the flow of tens of millions of dollars to the Clinton Foundation (the formal name is the Bill, Hillary, and Chelsea Clinton Foundation, originally called the William J. Clinton Foundation) from foreign governments, corporations and financiers and you typically get an interesting explanation: it's a sign of love. "As president, he was beloved around the world, so it should come as no surprise that there has been an outpouring of financial support from around the world to sustain his post-presidential work."

Ask Bill about the tens of millions of dollars he has made in speaking fees around the world, paid for by the same cast of characters, and you will get an equally charitable explanation: it's evidence of his desire to help people. By giving these highly paid speeches, Clinton says, " I try to help people think about what's going on and organize their lives accordingly." 

Millions of dollars as a sign of pure affection, millions more for helping people think about their lives. By this logic, politicians who raise millions of dollars a year must be the most beloved people in America -- and the most charitable.

The reality is that most of what happens in American politics is transactional. People look for ways to influence those in power by throwing money in their direction. Politicians are all too happy to vacuum up contributions from supporters and people who want access or something in return. After politicians leave office, they often trade on their relationships and previous positions to enrich themselves and their families.

Clinton Cash ends,

Hillary's apparent involvement in these transactions is even more troubling. While Bill was a private citizen, Hillary was still a government official. Her tenures as a senator and as secretary of state are marked by an alarming pattern of large money flows: the sources of the funds, the amounts, and the timing were frequently suspect. Many payments occurred as Hillary was grappling with vital national security questions involving everything from uranium to the Keystone XL pipeline.

In fact, the money flow did not slow down when Hillary became America's chief diplomat. On the contrary, it accelerated, especially the funds from overseas. And the funds came from a collection of troubling sources: foreign governments, third world oligarchs, and foreign corporations. The biggest paydays came not from countries like Great Britain or Germany, but from countries and industries with cultures where bribery and corruption are common and occur on a massive scale. [...]

The Clintons are perhaps the most politically sophisticated public figures of their generation. They know how things work in the corridors of power and around the world; they know that foreign governments are trying to influence American foreign policy; and they know that bribery is rampant around the world. They have numerous avenues for making money. Some of those avenues might not be as lucrative as giving a $700,000 speech in Nigeria, but they would be much cleaner. 

Even if nothing illegal occurred, one has to wonder about the political judgment involved. Surely the mere appearance of selling American power and influence to foreign interests should be enough to cause a former US president -- and a possible future one -- to steer well clear of such potentially embarrassing entanglements. "Bribery interferes with trade, investment, and development," Hillary Clinton said at the OECD's fiftieth-anniversary forum in 2011. "It undermines good governance and encourages greater corruption. And of course, it is morally wrong -- and far too common."

On that we can all agree.

The Washington Post declared about Clinton Cash,

When Schweizer's book hits stores Tuesday, heads in Washington are going to explode.

Despite the prophecy, it appears the book didn't cause near the scandal Bill and Hillary deserve. The fact of the matter is they are both masters of enchantment. And they've got key Arizona Democratic leaders under their spell.

If it weren't so, those people would be more interested in strategizing to gain influence over the GOP at the state capital rather than cheering on Hillary Clinton for mesmerizing unsuspecting voters.

Who controls what Americans believe?

Fictional allegories can sometimes explain aspects of our lives. Corporate media, no matter how much we push back against it these days, exerts astounding influence. If you want to understand it, this clip might help.



A couple of years ago, CBS honcho Les Moonves infamously declared,

"Super-PACs May Be Bad for America, But They're Very Good for CBS" [...]

...something Les Moonves, the CEO of CBS Corporation, said at an entertainment law conference last year. Moonves was understandably over the moon about the rise of super-PACs: In 2012, he explained, the network's profits were expected to soar by $180 million thanks to political ads.

And it's not just CBS that's riding high thanks to political ad spending. TV stations in battleground states are magnets for ad spending, and they're driving a new wave of consolidation in the broadcast industry, leaving a handful of big media companies well-positioned to reap hundreds of millions during the 2014 midterm elections and, especially, the 2016 presidential race.

Let's set aside the frustration Progressives are facing today. Many Americans who might want to be Progressives seem to be locked in on Plutocracy's most powerful couple in our country -- Hillary and Bill Clinton.

Corporate media -- a capitalistic mechanism/institution -- controls the information most Americans are spoon fed about society, about government, about the world in general. It has engulfed us.

Consider the 2014 book, Dollarocracy: How the Money and Media Election Complex is Destroying America.

Blending vivid reporting from the 2012 campaign trail and deep perspective from decades covering American and international media and politics, political journalist John Nichols and media critic Robert W. McChesney explain how US elections are becoming controlled, predictable enterprises that are managed by a new class of consultants who wield millions of dollars and define our politics as never before. As the money gets bigger—especially after the Citizens United ruling—and journalism, a core check and balance on the government, declines, American citizens are in danger of becoming less informed and more open to manipulation.

In the 1980s, heavily influenced by a fundamentalist Christian sect (which, in turn, was heavily influenced by the John Birch Society), I voted Republican. Ronald Reagan and the first George Bush got my votes for president in that decade.

Someday perhaps I'll write the story of my political conversion, but for now suffice it to say I changed in the 1990s. By February 1992 (before he took the lead in the Democratic primary), I predicted based on a strong hunch, that Bill Clinton would be our next president. It wasn't until 2008 that I had a similar hunch, equally strong, just as early in the cycle, telling friends I believed Obama would be elected.

My hunches didn't come out of the blue. I recognized indicators, including how those two candidates interacted with voters.

I've been following Bernie Sanders for years because of his take on representing the real interests of American voters. In the fall of 2011 I raised several thousand dollars for the Arizona Advocacy Network because Bernie would be speaking at its February 2012 fundraising dinner.

The United States needs President Bernie Sanders.

Corporate media, however, is deathly afraid of Sanders.

The hunch I had in 1992 and 2008 returned in 2015. But something far bigger has reared its ugly head in opposition to his candidacy. Far bigger than the incumbent President Bush I. Bigger than Hillary Clinton, John McCain and Sarah Palin in 2008. Corporate media has removed all pretense of democracy from the American political system.

Corporate media has a love/hate relationship with Donald Drumpf. It's addicted to him on one hand. On the other, it knows that regardless of how serious (or not) he might be with his fascist schtick, Drumpf's violent rhetoric is dangerous.

So, that leaves Hillary as the only candidate the plutocracy deems acceptable. And it has been doing everything possible to promote her, despite the specter of indictment hanging over her. Well, really it's been doing everything possible to suppress Sanders' ability to reach the American people with his message.

If Clinton's elected, she will control the Department of Justice and won't allow it to prosecute her for crimes despite the fact that the FBI has been engaged in an intense investigation of her communications security breaches for several months. Few people believe the GOP-controlled Congress will impeach her, despite their overwhelming animosity toward her.

The Democratic establishment seems to be willfully blind to the very high likelihood that Clinton's negative favorability ratings will suppress voter turnout. Some formerly awake Arizona Democrats acknowledge that voter turnout is the key to chances for any wins in the November election. But they've called me delusional for spelling out my belief that a Hillary Clinton nomination will suppress turnout in November.

As if all they have to do is get enough people to canvass door-to-door and make those annoying phone calls to voters and all will be well.

People, Republicans know they've got Democrats over a barrel. They've already won. All the wheel spinning activity in the world won't convince enough voters to change the course of history.

Democrats rationalize this naïveté by telling themselves that the negative reporting about her is just the GOP throwing mud. Therefore, it can't be true. Really? It's can't be true? And you're trusting this lame notion?

They're in shocking levels of denial about the degree to which corporate special interests will control her decisions that will impact their lives. The truth is plain as the nose on any of your faces. It's out there. If you want to know it, you can find it. Not in corporate media, but it's available on the internet and social media.

I have to fucking give up. But that can be a good thing.

Letting go, I know if it's going to happen, it will happen.

But if corporate media wins, we have to regroup and refocus. But don't expect me to get on board for Hillary. That ship has sailed. If my understanding of her being owned by Wall Street is delusional, then me getting on board to support her campaign won't change a damn thing.

If you want a chance to change America, there's only one candidate willing to stand against the plutocracy/oligarchy. Or are you the frog put in a pot of gradually heating water?

Trevor Noah: "This should have been easy for Hillary"

In 2016, even though there are massive problems in our country that should have been easily fixable based on the Constitution and Bill of Rights, we actually ARE seeing the glass ceiling for women running for president being shattered. For that, I'm thankful.

Corporate media has continued to repeat the mantra that Hillary Clinton will be crowned the Democratic nominee for President. And the Democratic National Committee, led by Florida Congresswoman Debbie Wasserman-Schultz has done its best to rig the campaign in Hillary's favor. That's a widely accepted observation based on the last 8 or 9 months. But for all of that, Hillary seems hell bent on losing.

Repeatedly making unforced errors, now Trevor Noah, successor to Jon Stewart on the Daily Show, demonstrates the problem.

The Daily Show with Trevor Noah
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Bernie's not giving up. Bernie's supporters are not giving up. The MATH and the MAP indicate Hillary's best days, in this campaign, may already be behind her.

Some people seem to think Hillary's just an average politician. I read that on Facebook yesterday. But does the average politician, with her "average politician" husband amass a personal fortune of $125 Million as a result of a lifetime of public service?

Where'd that fortune come from? Representing YOUR interests?

Yeah, I'm glad the glass ceiling of a smart, driven woman politician running for the most powerful elected office in the world has been shattered.

Perhaps in an election cycle in the not too distant future, a smart woman politician driven to passionately represent Main Street Americans will run.

Until then, we have the next best thing -- Bernie Sanders.