Obama’s Campaign Vows To Be On Arizona Ballot Despite Threats

TPM LIVEWIRE

8:40 PM EDT, Friday May 18, 2012

Barack Obama’s campaign vowed late Friday that he would be on Arizona’s ballot in November despite threats from the state’s top election official that the president might be blocked over a conspiracy theory about where he was born.

The campaign was responding to comments made by Arizona Secretary of State Ken Bennett, who said on Thursday he was not convinced that a copy of the president’s birth certificate was sufficiently authentic to prove Obama was born in the United States and therefore eligible for office. Bennett is planning to run for governor in 2014 and is also the co-chair of Republican Mitt Romney’s campaign in Arizona.

In a statement, Mahen Gunaratna, the Arizona spokesperson for Obama’s campaign said this:

From day one, Mitt Romney has pandered to the far-right of his party, and today Arizona Tea Party Republicans are following suit by questioning where the President was born. The President will be on the ballot this November in Arizona alongside Mitt Romney. And Arizonans will have a choice between a President who brought us back from the brink of another Depression so job loss has been reversed to create 4.2 million private sector jobs, manufacturing is resurgent, and GM is the #1 automaker in the world — and a Governor with a familiar and troubling economic scheme: more budget-busting tax cuts for the wealthy; fewer rules for Wall Street — the same formula that benefitted a few, but crashed our economy and punished the middle class.

Gunaratna said the incident gave Romney the opportunity to “denounce the extreme voices in his party.”

Reported by Nick Martin

HERE

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Mitt Romney Wins: Michigan Primary Results 2012

Posted: 02/28/12 10:14 PM ET  |  Updated: 02/28/12 10:46 PM ET

Huff Post

Mitt Romney was projected the winner in the Michigan primary on Tuesday night by NBC.

Going into the contest, former U.S. Sen. Rick Santorum was hoping to pull off an upset win over the former Massachusetts governor. Santorum was projected to finish in second place in Michigan, while Ron Paul was projected to finish third with Newt Gingrich in fourth.

Romeny emerged victorious in the Arizona primary earlier in the night.

HuffPost’s Mark Blumenthal reports:

In Michigan, according the exit polls currently posted by CBS News, Romney runs strongest with Republicans who report incomes of $200,000 or more per year, running 26 percentage points ahead of Rick Santorum (55 percent to 29 percent). He runs ahead but by a much smaller, seven-point margin among those earning $100,000 to $200,000 per year (44 percent to 37 percent) and trails Santorum by four (35 percent to 39 percent) among those earning $100,000 or less.In Arizona, the pattern is similar: Romney is leading Santorum by a whopping 48 points (63 percent to 15 percent) among those earning $200,000 or better and by smaller margins among those in lower income groups. Santorum only comes close in Arizona among voters earning less than $30,000 per year, trailing Romney by just two percentage points (32 percent to 34 percent).

This pattern has been remarkably consistent, as shown in the following table, based on the seven states for which National Election Pool exit polls are available. In each case, Romney’s vote is much higher among voters earning $100,000 or better than among voters earning $50,000 or less

Following the contests in Michigan and Arizona, the race for the Republican presidential nomination will now turn to Super Tuesday.

This is a developing story… More information to come…

(From delegates to Twitter followers, click here for a rundown on who’s ahead in the primary race.)

MORE HERE

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DOJ To Sheriff Joe Arpaio: See You In Court

TPM Muckraker

Ryan J. Reilly February  2, 2012,  5:24 PM

The Justice Department has written a very pointed letter to a lawyer for Maricopa County Sheriff Joe Arpaio, telling him that they’ll sue Maricopa County Sheriffs Office very soon unless they go forward with negotiations to settle issues regarding the office’s alleged pattern of civil rights abuses.

DOJ and MCSO officials are supposed to meet on Feb. 6, but Deputy Assistant Attorney General Roy Austin wrote in a letter to Arpaio’s lawyer on Thursday that if the purpose of the meeting “is solely for you to tell us in person that you do not agree with our findings, there is no reason for us to meet.”

An extensive investigation by the Justice Department’s Civil Rights Division found that Arpaio had “promoted a culture of bias” within MCSO. Arpaio’s team has been disputing their findings and Arpaio has said the probe is all just part of the Obama administration’s re-election bid even though the investigation began during the Bush administration.

DOJ’s letter said they were not willing to debate their findings with Apraio’s office.

“Your letter suggests an unwillingness to resolve this matter though a negotiated settlement — a position which makes litigation inevitable in the very near term,” Austin wrote. DOJ’s letter was in response to a letter Arpaio’s lawyer sent Wednesday which again disputed the conclusions of DOJ’s investigation.

SOURCE

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Jan Brewer Recall Possible As Arizona Collective Bargaining Has Democrats, Unions Planning Protests

Huff Post – First Posted: 02/ 2/2012  1:25 pm Updated: 02/ 2/2012  5:09 pm

By- John Celock

Arizona could become the next Wisconsin as plans for protests, Capitol sit-ins and a potential effort to recall the governor get underway in an effort by progressives to block the passage of sweeping legislation to ban collective bargaining.

State Democrats and union leaders said that plans are in place to launch Wisconsin-style measures in an effort to block the collective bargaining ban measures currently headed to a vote in the Republican-dominated Senate. Among the plans being considered are rallying large groups of public employees around the Capitol complex in Phoenix, lobbying moderate Republican legislators and potentially exploring a recall campaign against Gov. Jan Brewer (R). With Republicans’ large majorities in both legislative chambers, Democrats believe rallies and public pressure may be the only way to block the passage of the bills.

“You may wake the sleeping giant of Arizona, between attacks on the schools, unions and the Latino population,” state House Minority Leader Chad Campbell (D-Phoenix) said.

Republican lawmakers have proposed bills that would prohibit all public employees — including police and fire personnel — from collectively bargaining, ban the automatic deduction of union dues for public employees and prohibit the compensation of public employees for work done with the union. The bills were approved by the Senate’s government relations committee Wednesday.

“These bills are an all-out assault on workers and the middle class,” said Senate Minority Leader David Schapira (D-Tempe).

Arizona AFL-CIO Executive Director Rebekah Friend said the unions are currently planning the rallies, but did not give a timeframe for when the events would actually take place. She said the labor movement was prepared for the payroll deduction bill and Brewer’s previous announcements on collective bargaining, but were surprised by the scope of the current bills, including the addition of public safety workers.

“They over-reached this time,” Friend said of the state’s Republican leadership. “The people who have been their friends are against them.”

VIDEO & MORE HERE

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Brewer Pledged Cash For Immigration Fight, Instead Spent It Buying Copies Of Her Own Book

TPM Muckraker- Nick R. Martin

February  2, 2012, 11:47 AM

Arizona Gov. Jan Brewer (R) launched a special fundraising political action committee in October, pledging to use the money to fight illegal immigration and take on other issues she believes in. But based on financial disclosures filed this week, she has so far used it to do little more than buy copies of her own book.

The governor had raised only about $22,000 for Jan PAC by the end of 2011 and spent nearly a quarter of the cash buying books from Amazon and paying a bill at the luxurious Waldorf Astoria hotel in Orlando, Fla. The rest of the money is still in the bank.

Brewer spent $3,423 on books and shipping from the online retailer, according to the financial reports. On her fundraising website, she offers a signed copy of her book “Scorpions for Breakfast” to every donor who gives $100 or more.

In early December she also spent $624 for a night at the swank Waldorf Astoria in Orlando, which her financial disclosures repeatedly misspell as “Orlanda.” Another $513 went to airfare on Southwest Airlines.

A message left for representatives of Jan PAC was not returned.

In October, the governor launched the PAC with several goals: fighting illegal immigration, defeating the president’s healthcare plan, creating jobs and reducing the size of government.

The financial disclosures represent a time before Brewer’s now famous encounter with President Obama on an airport runway in Phoenix last week. Sales of “Scorpions for Breakfast” spiked on Amazon after the event and the governor used her renewed notoriety to encourage people to donate to Jan PAC.

Among the donors revealed in the financial disclosures were former US Transportation Secretary Mary Peters, who lives in the Phoenix suburb of Peoria and gave $250, and wealthy real estate developer Mike Ingram, who gave $1,000.

Brewer’s final term as governor ends in 2014 and she has not said whether she plans to run for another office after that.

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Brewer Signs Bill Making Colt Arizona State Gun

Jan Brewer Signs Bill Making Colt State Gun

04/28/11 08:32 PM ET  

PHOENIX — Arizona’s governor has signed a bill designating the Colt Single-Action Army revolver as the state’s first official firearm.

Gov. Jan Brewer signed the bill without comment on Thursday. Legislative supporters argued that the designation was appropriate because the revolver was widely used during Arizona’s territorial days.

Opponents say it was inappropriate to give the official designation to an out-of-state company’s commercial product. Colt is based in Connecticut.

Democratic Rep. Albert Hale also says the gun was an instrument of destruction that was used against Native Americans.

SOURCE

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Russell Pearce Gets Belligerent With Reporter Who Wants Him To Produce Fiesta Bowl Invoices- VIDEO

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Russell Pearce gets belligerent with reporter who wants him to produce Fiesta Bowl invoices

Crooks and Liars- By David Neiwert

April 21, 2011 07:00 AM

Our favorite Nazi-coddling nativist politician, Arizona Senate President Russell Pearce, just can’t seem to escape the corruption scandal that’s dogging him daily now — namely, his major role in the distribution of illegal free tickets as part of the Fiesta Bowl’s running malfeasance scandal.

Wendy Halloran of Phoenix’s Channel 12 News, while reporting on this weekend’s ugly Tea Party rally in Phoenix (more about that soon), tried to corner Pearce and ask him about his promised delivery of invoices proving he had paid for his tickets, as he has tried to claim.

What she got was Pearce walking away from her and getting surly:

HALLORAN: Where are your invoices for the Fiesta Bowl?

PEARCE: You know what, you’re not going to come in and ambush me with these kind of games.

HALLORAN: But with all due respect, where are the invoices, and why won’t —

PEARCE: I’m going to go do my job.

HALLORAN: Senator Pearce, with all due respect, it’s my job to hold you accountable. Where are your invoices?

PEARCE: You know, your job is not to harass.

HALLORAN: I’m not trying to harass you, sir. My job is to hold you accountable. Can you just tell me when we’re going to see the invoices, sir?

PEARCE: I don’t have to show you anything.

The best part of this report came in the form of a coda from Kelly Townsend, one of the local Tea Party organizers in Phoenix, who had earlier explained to Halloran the whole purpose of that day’s rally, what it was about:

TOWNSEND: We are going to basically shine a light on our politicians so that there’s no secret — as much as we can possibly do that, and help keep them accountable fiscally, you know, ethically, all those issues, and that’s what this is about today.

You betcha! Mission accomplished!

No wonder the recall campaign against Pearce is gaining steam.

Channel 12 followed up with a report today explaining that, as of today as well, Pearce has produced no documentation that he in fact paid for his pricey sports tickets from Fiesta Bowl lobbyists:

Vodpod videos no longer available.

MORE VIDEOS HERE

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