J.D. zings McCain!

Finally, a little life in the candidacy of the man PHXated has its hopes on to knock John McCain out of the senate and then be a vulnerable GOP nominee in the general so the state has at least a chance to be represented from someone in the reality based community.

It’s an ad labeling John McCain a nominee for “Best Conservative Actor.”

Because, see, he only acts like a conservative. Get it?

McCain’s response, according to Dan Nowicki’s blog:

“Ex-Congressman J.D. Hayworth should immediately apologize and and take down his latest online ad, which is an outrageous offense to John McCain’s lifetime of honorable service to our state and nation, and insulting to Native Americans here in Arizona and across America," said Shiree Verdone, McCain’s campaign manager. "Mr. Hayworth is welcome to debate the challenges facing our state and nation, but this kind of character assassination has no place in the Republican Party, and Mr. Hayworth should ashamed of his campaign for running it.”

Now, if anything the ad would be insulting only to Pandorans, right? For McCain, though, the association would doubly sting, because Pandorans are the ultimate tree-huggers.

Anway, the ad also exposes how difficult it is to support the bozo-er of two bozos, running for the nominee of a group of backward as the Arizona Republican Party.

McCain’s problem isn’t that he’s a fake conservative. He’s a fake maverick, a fake moderate and a fake compromiser. The only reason he started departing from the GOP line was after he got caught in the Keating Five scandal, which is to say, after he got exposed as being a typical moralizing-on-the-outside, corrupt-on-the-inside Republican.

He went “mavericky” to distract attention from his crookedness.

New ad idea for J.D.: “For John Mccain, integrity is the real unobtanium!”

Nowicki also says that the Hayworth camp has fiddled with the ad to make it more Avataresque, here.

John McCain, goofball

Here is Mr. Maverick questioned by David Gregory on Meet the Press this a.m.:

MR. GREGORY: And, and that’s called budget reconciliation where they could pass it with a simple majority. How would you react if, indeed, that’s what will happen?

SEN. McCAIN: Throughout history, recent history anyway, the majority has always been frustrated by the 40-vote or the 60-vote threshold in the United States Senate. And when Republicans are in the majority, they’re frustrated by the Democrats and vice versa. I did object strongly when, during the Bush administration, when we couldn’t get any judges confirmed that there was the advocacy of the “nuclear option.” I objected to that because I believed, as Robert Byrd does, that, that we should not be addressing these issues through 51 votes.

MR. GREGORY: But, Senator, you have voted for bills through reconciliation nine times since 1989.

SEN. McCAIN: Yes. Yes, I have voted for them, but I objected strenuously […]

Emphasis added; video below.

A few weeks ago, McCain blustered at the chairman of the Joint Chiefs, Mike Mullen,for having the temerity to tell Congress “don’t ask don’t tell” could be repealed. Four years ago, he’d said, “The day that the leadership of the military comes to me and says, ‘Senator, we ought to change the policy,’ then I think we ought to consider seriously changing it.” Details here.

McCain’s intellectual contortions are getting goofier by the week.

Visit msnbc.com for breaking news, world news, and news about the economy

Dumb Arizonan of the week!

Honors go to state Rep. Debbie Lesko, who just had a bill get out of the key state committee. The bill would essentially evaporate the state’s Corporation Commission’s renewable energy goals by the simple expedient of classifying nuclear and hydroelecric power as renewable.

Besides being dumb, bad policy, bad for the environment, and bad for the country’s future, the idea is .. bad for the state’s economy:

A legislative proposal that passed a House committee on Tuesday could quash a solar panel manufacturer’s plans to open a plant in Goodyear.

Officials with Suntech Power Holdings said passage of House Bill 2701 would force the company to reconsider the plant, which is set to open with about 75 employees in September.

“Passage of this bill will force us to reconsider our decision to put a factory in Arizona, moving those jobs and the accompanying tax base to another state,” said Steve Chadima, vice president of external affairs for Suntech.

McCain: The big money boys snookered me!

Dan Nowicki in the Republic, reporting on an editorial board meeting at the paper with Senator John McCain:

Under growing pressure from conservatives and “tea party” activists, Sen. John McCain of Arizona is having to defend his record of supporting the government’s massive bailout of the financial system.

In response to criticism from opponents seeking to defeat him in the Aug. 24 Republican primary, the four-term senator says he was misled by then-Treasury Secretary Henry Paulson and Federal Reserve Chairman Ben Bernanke. McCain said the pair assured him that the $700 billion Troubled Asset Relief Program would focus on what was seen as the cause of the financial crisis, the housing meltdown.

“Obviously, that didn’t happen,” McCain said in a meeting Thursday with The Republic’s Editorial Board, recounting his decision-making during the critical initial days of the fiscal crisis. “They decided to stabilize the Wall Street institutions, bail out (insurance giant) AIG, bail out Chrysler, bail out General Motors. . . . What they figured was that if they stabilized Wall Street—I guess it was trickle-down economics—that therefore Main Street would be fine.”

Today, meanwhile, McCain voted against the $15 billion jobs bill that passed the senate today. Five Republicans supported it, including Scott Brown, the recently elected Massachusetts senator.

A new grocery store downtown, presumably an AJ's

UPDATE: PHXated was 100 percent wrong about the grocery store downtown; it’s not an AJ’s, but rather an outpost of a Northern California operation called Oakville Grocery.

Release below:

For Immediate Release:
February 22, 2010

CITYSCAPE GROCERY STORE BACK ON TRACK

Oakville Grocery Co. to become city’s signature downtown grocery

PHOENIX – The long awaited grocery store for downtown Phoenix is back on track. CityScape project developer, RED Development, announced today that the operator of the Oakville Grocery in Scottsdale has signed a lease and will move into space at the corner of Jefferson and Central Avenue in September of 2010. Oakville replaces AJ’s Fine Foods, whose plans to be at the project were derailed by bankruptcy court proceeding involving Bashas’ Supermarkets Inc.

“Having a grocery store component in CityScape has always been a top priority,” said Mike Ebert, managing partner for RED Development. “Oakville is a first-rate grocery store that provides the city with an exciting new resource that fills a fundamental need for people who live and work downtown. Oakville is a strong addition to our project and we are very happy to have them. It’s time for a downtown grocery and we think people are going to be just as excited as we are when they see what Oakville is all about.”

Oakville, which originated in California’s Napa Valley, will occupy space CityScape on the western-most block of the project as a part of the 750,000 square feet being developed in Phase I. The store will open this September.

“We are pretty selective about where we go” said Janell Freeman of Oakville. “CityScape is bringing new life to downtown Phoenix and we are thrilled to be a part of it. The project has world-class design and amenities and it is located at the center of downtown in the nation’s fifth-largest city. It’s the kind of place we want to be and we will do our part to make CityScape a destination for downtown and the center of the neighborhood for people who live and work in downtown Phoenix.”

Phoenix Mayor Phil Gordon complimented CityScape’s team for its “patient tenacity” in securing an urban grocery.

“It’s no secret that a 24/7 lifestyle in downtown Phoenix requires basic amenities like a grocery store,” said Mayor Gordon. “This is a tremendous accomplishment and what makes it even more exciting is the high quality product that Oakville will bring to the city. Everyone who lives, works, or visits downtown will benefit.”

CityScape is a 1.8 million square foot mixed use urban project located at the very center of Downtown Phoenix, between Washington and Jefferson from 2nd Street to 1st Avenue. In its first phase, opening on two blocks this Spring. CityScape will include more than 620,000 square feet of Class A office, approximately 180,000 square feet of retail and restaurant space and nearly 2,700 below-grade parking spaces.

1. # #

About RED Development, LLC

RED Development, formed in 1995, develops, leases, manages and owns real estate developments in rapidly growing communities throughout the Midwestand Southwest. RED has 30 centers open, in development, or under construction, totaling nearly 19 million square feet. Within the industry, RED has earned a reputation for delivering as promised and creating strong relationships with its tenants, communities and business partners. RED has nearly 200 employees and is co-headquartered in Scottsdale, Ariz., and Kansas City, Mo.To learn more, visit www.reddevelpment.com.

About Oakville
For over 120 years the original Oakville Grocery has been the “little country store” in the heart of Napa Valley, attracting visitors from near and far with its special charm. The Phoenix store will feature wonderful, handmade local products from our neighbors in Arizona as well as in Napa and Sonoma. Along with delicious made-to-order sandwiches, gourmet cheeses and charcuterie, we offer a wide array of prepared foods for your party or picnic needs. You will also find our shelves lined with specialty items which include local olive oils and vinegars, unique mustards, marinades and handmade preserves. To learn more, visit us at: http://www.oakvillegroceryarizona.com

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Mayor Gordon is going to be at a noon press conference today to announce a grocery store in the big CityScape development at Central and Washington. I assume its a*n AJ’s:

MEDIA ADVISORY

[…]

WHAT: News conference to announce opening of new grocery store at CityScape

Representatives from CityScape and RED Development will join Mayor Phil Gordon to announce a new and much anticipated tenant that will become the city’s signature downtown grocery. It will move into the space at the southeast corner of Patriot’s Square block.

WHO: Mayor Phil Gordon
Mike Ebert, Managing Partner, RED Development

WHEN: 12 p.m. Monday, Feb. 22

WHERE: CityScape – Office Tower, third floor, Central Avenue and Washington Street

30

About RED Development, LLC

RED Development, formed in 1995, develops leases, manages and owns real estate developments in rapidly growing communities throughout the Midwest and Southwest. RED has 30 centers open, in development, or under construction, totaling nearly 19 million square feet. Within the industry, RED has earned a reputation for delivering as promised and creating strong relationships with its tenants, communities and business partners. RED has nearly 200 employees and is co-headquartered in Scottsdale, Ariz., and Kansas City, Mo. To learn more, visit www.reddevelpment.com. [sic: it’s actually www.reddevelopment.com]

J.D. Hayworth still talking about Obama's birth certificate

Here he is getting grilled by Campbell Brown last night. The stuff about the birth certificate starts at 5:50.

Hayworth first says that the media are the only people bringing the matter up—and then turns around and says he’s getting emails from constituents about it.

Under Brown’s increasingly incredulous questioning, he then starts talking about … identity theft. And then starts babbling about “a so-called stimulus that led to incredible unemployment.”

And refuses, several times, to answer her direct question as to whether he thinks Obama is an American citizen.

Movies in AZ generate $38 million in 2009

The PBJ reports that Arizona made $38 million from in-state moviemaking last year, per the state’s film office:

Overall in 2009, the film industry in Phoenix employed 4,795 technicians and actors who worked on 362 projects accounting for 1,290 shooting days and 2,080 hotel nights, the film office reported.

“Maneater,” which aired last May, employed hundreds of local crew members and actors during its three-month shooting schedule. Although the story was set in Los Angeles, producers selected Phoenix because of the visual similarities LA and the Motion Picture Tax Incentive Program administered by the Arizona Department of Commerce, according to the Phoenix Film Office.

Maneater was a Lifetime movie. It sounds like quite a tale:

Beautiful, fashionable and fun, Clarissa Alpert (Sarah Chalke) is a shallow socialite whose speed dial is a veritable Rolodex of Hollywood power players. Staring her 32nd birthday directly in the eyes — though she will admit only to being 28 — the spoiled daddy’s girl is in a panic because she is still single. Clarissa, though, always gets what she wants — even if he’s Aaron Mason (Philip Winchester), the hottest new producer in town. With the help of her family and friends, Clarissa sets into motion an elaborate plan to lasso the dashing filmmaker.

Other prestige projects included “Supernanny,” “America’s Most Wanted,” and “Wife Swap.”

Hayworth announcing candidacy today

The former U.S. representative and quondam McCain-bashing radio host will formally start his campaign today, the Republic says:

Former Arizona Congressman J.D. Hayworth will announce his Republican Senate candidacy today, but his record as a fiscal conservative has been under assault by incumbent GOP Sen. John McCain for weeks.

In anticipation of Hayworth’s primary challenge from the right, McCain has been portraying Hayworth as one of the big-spending Republicans who, during President George W. Bush’s two terms, largely squandered the party’s reputation for fiscal discipline.

The Republic doesn’t bother to tell people when or where Hayworth is making the announcement. For that, you have to go to Hayworth’s web site, which says he’ll be officially starting the race five times across the state today and five more tomorrow.

Google ultrahighspeed internets! Something Phoenix should be bidding on

Breaking news, from the Wall Street Journal:

Google Inc. plans to build and test broadband networks than could deliver speeds more than 100 times faster than what most Americans use.
[…]
The Internet giant, which plans to offer the service to at least 50,000 customers and potentially up to 500,000, said it aims to foster the development of new “killer apps” as well as experiment with new ways to deploy fiber networks.

Key graf:

The company is collecting responses from interested communities until March 26 and will reveal the ones it has selected later this year.

J.D. Hayworth in the NYT

The anticipated challenger to John McCain’s Republican senatorial renomination this year gets a front-page profile ‘n’ pic in the paper of record today:

PHOENIX — J. D. Hayworth is a large man, and to compensate for his indulgences, he hits the elliptical trainer every morning at 4, zipping along to an incongruous soundtrack of Elvis Costello, Frank Sinatra and old advertising jingles.

The story, while noting McCain has support in the state, sums up his recently philosophical somersaults thusly:

Mr. McCain now finds himself jammed, moving starkly — and often awkwardly — to the right, apparently in an effort to gain favor among the same voters whom Mr. Hayworth, a consistent voice for the far right, could pull toward him like taffy come summer.

Mr. McCain now sharply criticizes the bailout bill he voted for, pivoted from his earlier position that the Guantánamo Bay detention facility should be closed, offered only a muted response to the Supreme Court’s decision undoing campaign finance laws and backed down from statements that gays in the military would be O.K. by him if the military brass were on board.

The story also notes that Hayworth himself is no prize:

Mr. Hayworth, a former sportscaster who rode the 1994 wave of conservatism into Congress, where he then served six terms, has political baggage. He was a very large recipient of both money and largess — like sports skyboxes — from the disgraced lobbyist Jack Abramoff. His loss to Harry E. Mitchell, a Democrat, in his 2006 re-election bid was humiliating, and underscored voter distaste for some of his more boisterous ways.

In interviews with roughly 20 Republican voters in Scottsdale and the conservative city of Gilbert, not a Hayworth supporter could be found.

An odd land deal in Glendale

Another great story by the Republic’s Robert Anglen:

A controversial real-estate investor sold Glendale a piece of land for $6.6 million on the same day he bought it for about $5.5 million.

The land, which the city previously leased for a youth-sports complex and overflow parking near the University of Phoenix Stadium, was bought by the California investor and his wife from a Valley family on Dec. 21 and then sold to Glendale on the same day, according to interviews and property records obtained by The Arizona Republic.

The guy had a sketchy history:

Court records show that while serving as an elected member of the San Diego Board of Port Commissioners, [David Malcolm] was convicted of a felony charge of violating conflict-of-interest laws. He was working as a $20,000-a-month consultant to Duke Energy while helping the company win a contract from the San Diego board. He was sentenced to three years of probation and 120 days of work furlough, ordered to pay $260,000 in restitution and barred from holding elected office.
[…]
Malcolm was also investigated by the San Diego County District Attorney’s Office after he was heard on a tape recording urging someone to blow up a house and collect $1.3 million in insurance money. He said he was play-acting during the discussion.

What really happened the day John McCain suspended his campaign

Henry Paulson, George Bush’s treasury secretary, has a new book out, describing his role in the government’s attempt to control the financial meltdown last year. The Wall Street Journal today prints an excerpt.

It’s about the day John McCain, Underdog-like, brought his presidential campaign to a halt and returned to Washington to save the day.

McCain himself has said economics isn’t his strong suit; the tale as Paulson tells is correspondingly comedic. He first describes his worry that the abrupt arrival of McCain would unravel the work the administration had done to get both sides to agree on the steps he felt the country needed to make to avert a complete disaster.

It reminds us again that Bush, his advisers and congress were already working to cope with the mess; they didn’t exactly need a political peacock with no economics background to help.

And remember that Paulson is a Republican.

Anyway, here’s his account of what happened at the summit McCain called for:

Obama and the Democrats were skillfully setting up the story line that McCain’s intervention had polarized the situation and that Republicans were walking away from an agreement. It was brilliant political theater that was about to degenerate into farce. Skipping protocol, the president turned to McCain to offer him a chance to respond: “I think it’s fair that I give you the chance to speak next.”

But McCain demurred. “I’ll wait my turn,” he said. It was an incredible moment, in every sense. This was supposed to be McCain’s meeting—he’d called it, not the president, who had simply accommodated the Republican candidate’s wishes. Now it looked as if McCain had no plan at all — his idea had been to suspend his campaign and summon us all to this meeting. It was not a strategy, it was a political gambit, and the Democrats had matched it with one of their own.

[…]

Decorum started to evaporate as the meeting broke into multiple side conversations with people talking over each other. […]

Finally, raising his voice over the din, Obama said loudly, “I’d like to hear what Senator McCain has to say, since we haven’t heard from him yet.”

The room went silent and all eyes shifted to McCain, who sat quietly in his chair, holding a single note card. He glanced at it quickly and proceeded to make a few general points. He said that many members had legitimate concerns and that I had begun to head in the right direction on executive pay and oversight. He mentioned that Boehner was trying to move his caucus the best he could and that we ought to give him the space to do that. He added he had confidence the consensus could be reached quickly.

As he spoke, I could see Obama chuckling. McCain’s comments were anticlimactic, to say the least. His return to Washington was impulsive and risky, and I don’t think he had a plan in mind.

John McCain hits a new low

Facing a likely re-election challenge from J.D. Hayworth, John McCain — bad pilot, bad husband, bad senator, bad presidential candidate, and noted maverick-when-convenient — continues to struggle to regain some of his right-wing bona-fides.

WSJ story today on McCain’s problems here.

He’s already come out opposing the current push to end “don’t ask don’t tell” in the military. John Stewart last night dug up a clip that shows the strenuousness of the contortions the moves are putting McCain through.

Video clip at the end of this post. The clip from four years ago shows McCain deflecting an inquiry about his position on the matter then by saying, “The day that the leadership of the military comes to me and says, ‘Senator, we ought to change the policy,’ then I think we ought to consider seriously changing it.”

Of course, at the historic hearing the other day, the leadership of the military came to the senate to tell them they should consider changing it.

McCain yesterday: “I’m extremely disappointed in your statement…. At this moment of immense hardship for our armed services, we should not be seeking to overturn the ’don’t ask don’t tell’ policy. I’m happy to say we still have a Congress of the United States that would still have to pass a law to repeal ’don’t ask don’t tell.’”

(By the way, as we move toward the 2010 elections, I think it’s interesting how the Obama administration is deliberately highlighting issues like this. So even though there is evidence of an anti-Democratic momentum in the air, however knuckle-headed it might be, the media spent the last two days talking about historic moves by the Dems to right what most rational people think is a long-overdue wrong — and re-running clips of drawling good old boys opposing it for the usual laughable reasons. It looked to me like evidence the administration was going to be using some of these wedge issues against the right in the coming months.)

The Daily Show:

www.thedailyshow.com

PHXations—Wednesday, February 3

The Tucson Weekly is looking for a writer to contribute to its film coverage. They need someone to write a full-length review every other week, and contribute film-capsule reviews as well. “Ideally, the reviewer would be in Tucson, and as for pay, that depends on the experience of the reviewer.” says Editor Jimmy Boegel.

Apply through mailbag@tucsonweekly.com.

---

Students at the Cronkite School have formed a Hispanics journalists club, a chapter of the NAHJ. Details on a new blog here.

---

Sarah Palin’s coming back to Arizona a couple of times in the next few months. In March to do a fundraiser for John McCain, and then in May for a group called Center for Arizona Policy, which is led by creepy anti-sex crusader Cathi Herrod, who’s obsessed with abortion and gays fucking.

The Espresso Pundit, who is a good barometer of the far right’s wishfulness, if not reality per se, says:

Frankly this takes some of the wind out of McCain’s sails. There are plenty people who want to see Palin but don’t want to write a check to McCain…and a CAP check is deductible. It will be interesting to compare the turnout at the two events.

Neither he nor the PBJ story on Palin answers an obvious question about Palin’s CAP appearance: Whether she’s getting her typical $100,000 speaker’s fee.

The Giffords race

The Republic analyzes:

“Giffords will have to use all of her considerable campaign-trail talents to defend her votes for the stimulus package and the health-care and energy bills in a district that has a track record supporting ‘middle of the road’ candidates,” wrote analyst David Wasserman for the “Cook Political Report.”
Giffords, whose 8th Congressional District encompasses parts of Tucson and communities in Arizona’s southeastern corner, voted with the president 90 percent of the time last year, according to an analysis by the nonpartisan publication Congressional Quarterly.
Although Democratic Reps. Harry Mitchell and Ann Kirkpatrick also are considered vulnerable, they are less closely identified with Obama at a time when his priorities have been losing support in public-opinion polls and at the ballot box.

The paper notes at the end of the story that she has $1.6 million on hand.

Phoenix is in the running for the 2010 GOP convention

The PBJ:

The Republican National Committee said Monday that its short list for the 2012 convention includes Phoenix, Tampa and Salt Lake City.
Phoenix-area political and tourism leaders have been trying to attract either the GOP or Democratic national conventions downtown that summer. They are promoting the Metro light rail system as well as the region’s hotels and resorts and downtown venues including US Airways Center and the Phoenix Convention Center. Arizona is the home state of U.S. Sen. John McCain, who lost his 2008 presidential bid but won the state.

The potential fits in well with PHXated’s contention that the Democrats view Arizona as a key swing state in 2010. McCain did win the state in 2008, but with but 54 percent of the vote, a somewhat anemic showing for a favorite son and a moderate.

A Critical Mass video from Friday

Critical Mass Phoenix from Downtown Devil on Vimeo.

Where the jobs aren't

A front-page story in the Republic today takes one paragraph from a depressing account of the state’s jobs prospects from yesterday and turns it into an even-more-depressing account.

A very long piece in yesterday’s Republic detailed why Arizona’s economy is so anemic. A long part of the article explored how North Carolina built its Durham-Raleigh-Chapel Hill research triangle:

Once nothing more than an idea envisioned for empty acreage in one of the poorest areas of the Southeast, the “science park” is now an economic-development engine. It has churned out innovations such as Astroturf, bar-code technology and 3-D ultrasounds and employs tens of thousands of workers.
This month the park turns 51.

In other words, that state began to lay a foundation for its future a half-decade ago. Arizona?

A current flash point is the state Department of Commerce. The department’s mission is to recruit businesses and jobs and to link the state, businesses and the economic-development community around the state.
But experts who work with the department say it has not had strong legislative support, is understaffed, is too political and lacks sufficient business advisers. It has had seven directors in the past decade. Its current budget is about $1.86 million. By comparison, the current budget of North Carolina’s Department of Commerce is $45 million.

The story today goes into more depth on the collapse of the department. Quote from a Yuma development director:

“That’s why the state has only done well in economic growth periods,” she said. “We don’t attract industries that have that base, longevity, long-stay. You can’t build an economy on construction, and that’s pretty much what our legislators backed us into because there’s never been any support for economic development.”

How bad is Arizona's financial situation?

Here’re some details from the Tucson Weekly, which is crunching state budget numbers:

• The total tax take for the month was $681 million, which was more than $90 million below forecast.
• In the first six months of the fiscal year, tax collections have shrunk 16.7 percent compared to the previous year.
• Sales taxes were off by 10 percent in December. Merchants can be happy that the retail sector was only off by 3 percent, but construction workers lost out as contracting taxes dropped by more than 36 percent. Sales tax collections, by the way, have been shrinking for 23 months.

:

Go Daddy's banned Super Bowl ad

CBS is refusing to show the local internet company’s 2010 Super Bowl ad, the Phoenix Business Journal reports. Here it is:

The ad is offensive, but since when are mincing homosexuals not allowed on network TV? The real issue, I think, is that it shows a former footfall player in that role—and one mustn’t disturb the fragile sexuality of the current players.

McCain still supports "Don't ask, don't tell"

Barack Obama in his State of the Union address last night said he would “work toward” ending the military’s “don’t ask don’t tell” policy. John McCain immediately said "he still supported it":http://www.cnn.com/2010/POLITICS/01/28/obama.dadt.react/?hpt=Sbin:

“This successful policy has been in effect for over 15 years, and it is well understood and predominantly supported by our military at all levels,” said Sen. John McCain, R-Arizona, in a news release. “At a time when our Armed Forces are fighting and sacrificing on the battlefield, now is not the time to abandon the policy.”

McCain didn’t mention the thousands of gays, both men and women, in the military “fighting and sacrificing on the battlefield” the policy threatens every day. McCain’s wife, Cindy, recently appeared in magazine ads decrying the recent California anti-gay marriage constitutional amendment.

PHXations, Thursday, January 28

Overheard in Borders. Our cast is a man and a woman, both fiftyish:

Man: Hon?
Woman: Mmmm?
Man: They got a book here about the iPod. [O’Reilly’s The Missing Manual
Woman: Really?
Man: Let’s get it and read it and then we can decide if we’ll get one.
Woman: Okay

[ Exeunt, pursued by a bear. ]

---

The Democratic Diva writes about a recent talk by ASU prez Michael Crow. One passage:

He clicked on a graph of state funding of ASU per student since 1990. Back then the state contributed roughly $11K per student. Today it’s around $5K.

Sounds like it’s time to introduce a bill to put the Ten Commandments on the state capitol.

---

The Arizona Cardinals’ Kurt Warner holds a press conference conference tomorrow. Most papers quote his agent saying that Warner will announce “whether” he will retire; this Chicago Tribune report says he will.

The Republic:

Warner, 38, is expected to retire after 12 seasons, including the past five with the Cardinals. A friend who talked with Warner after the Cardinals lost to the New Orleans Saints in the playoffs said “it sounded like he was done.”

Chandler state senator introduces bill to put the Ten Commandments on the State capitol

Per the Arizona Republic:

Sen. Russell Pearce of Mesa introduced Senate Bill 1213 that would require a copy of the religious document to be placed on the front entrance of the original 1898 state Capitol building by Jan. 1, 2011. Three other lawmakers have signed onto the bill, which was referred to the Senate Government Institutions Committee. No hearing has been set.

J.D. Hayworth on 'Hardball'

Hayworth comes off like a genial lunatic under Matthews’ grilling, among other things still trying to make hay about Barack Obama’s birth certificate.

He says he’s he’s “99 and 44 one-hundredths percent certain” he’ll be on the ballot in the August Republican primary. In answer to Matthews’ direct question whether he’s running, Hayworth says, “Oh, yes, we’re moving forward.” Making a reference to Arizona’s awkward election law, he dissembles and then says, “Let me say we’re in the process of filing the documents.”

Joe Arpaio's popularity takes a dive

From an unbylined Republic political blog:

The new Rocky Mountain Poll from Behavior Research Center showed support from Arpaio has dropped to 39 percent of those polled who thought the sheriff was doing an “excellent/good” job from a high rating of 64 in March 2007.
The pollsters noted that Arpaio’s job approval was dropping most precipitously among Independent voters and has “softened” among Republicans while remaining low among Democrats.

An editorial in tomorrow’s paper rubs it in:

It isn’t just Arpaio who should worry about these stunning poll numbers. The political fortunes of County Attorney Andrew Thomas and as-yet-unannounced Senate candidate J.D. Hayworth, both Republicans, ride largely on the sheriff’s coattails. Without a popular Arpaio preening as America’s Toughest Sheriff by their sides, their prospects may diminish.
It has been a while since Arpaio has been viewed purely as a nails-tough lawman. For two years, he has been a politician first. And this is the price politicians pay.

J.D. Hayworth to be on 'Hardball' today

The conservative talk-show host has quit his show but not formally announced a challenge against John McCain. MSNBC’s Chris Matthews has been promoting his appearance this afternoon, but it seems a stretch to think Hayworth would use the liberal network as an announcement platform.

Here’s Matthews’ segment on McCain from yesterday:

Cindy McCain—gay marriage supporter

The wife of John McCain appears in ads opposing Proposition 8, the California initiative passed last year outlawing gay marriage. (This came out a couple of days ago, but PHXated is just getting to it after a couple of days working on a redesign of the site.)

The views of the senator are exactly the opposite — he even supported the ludicrous Arizona constitutional amendment last year.

McCain’s views are presumably those of the Mormons and Catholics who support anti-gay marriage measures — that gay marriage is somehow a threat to the sanctity of traditional marriage.

McCain’s respect for that sanctity is well known, including a decade or so of neglect of (and sleeping around on) his first wife after she had a disabling car accident.

Here’s some more recent evidence of his idea of what traditional marriage is, from the new book Game Change, on the 2008 presidential campaign:

“FUCK YOU! FUCK, FUCK, fuck, fuck, fuck, fuck, fuck, fuck, fuck, fuck!!”

McCain let out the stream of sharp epithets, both middle fingers raised and extended, barking in his wife’s face. He was angry; she had interrupted him. Cindy burst into tears, but, really, she should have been used to it by now.

John Shadegg retiring

Dan Nowicki reports in the AZ Republic:

“While representing the people of Arizona in the House was one of my goals in life, it is not the only one,” Shadegg said in a written statement. “After 16 years it is time for me to take my life in a new direction and to pursue my commitment to fight for freedom in a different venue.”

Shadegg and national Republicans immediately signaled that they believe they can continue to hold Shadegg’s 3rd Congressional District, which leans toward the GOP. Sen. John McCain, R-Ariz., carried the Phoenix-based district over President Barack Obama in the 2008 presidential race.

McCain did carry it, by about 56.5 percent, about two and a half points better than Shadegg. The spread would seem to represent McCain’s Favorite Son vote. Shadegg’s opponent, Bob Lord, had some national Democratic money support, particularly late in the race, but he was palpably inexperienced and something less than a known quantity.

Assuming the Democrats can find a serious candidate, that and the ineluctable bluing of the state would seem to put at least another five percentage points into play, making the seat at the very least competitive. Arguing against it is the national mood, which bears some signs of trending against the Democrats, particularly since the last jobs figures weren’t an improvement.

Nowicki:

So far one Democrat, Jon Hulburd, had announced his intention to challenge Shadegg. A Democratic source tells AZ/DC that Hulburd raised $315,000 in the fourth quarter of 2009. News that Shadegg is not running no doubt will launch a feeding frenzy among possible Republican candidates.

Shadegg’s father, the late Stephen Shadegg, was a former Arizona Republican Party chairman and a longtime confidant and campaign strategist of the late Sen. Barry Goldwater, R-Ariz.

Hulburd’s web site is here. Not much about him. The Swing State Project calls him a “lawyer, businessman, would-be-novelist, and former Gary Hart staffer.”

Joe Arpaio being investigated by a grand jury—a federal grand jury

The papers are all atwitter with confirmation that the U.S. attorney is finally going ahead with an investigation into the crackpot sherrif’s office being run by Joe Arpaio. Seems like Channel 5 broke the story:

Maricopa County Manager David Smith and County Budget Director Sandi Wilson both said they had been subpoenaed to appear before a grand jury next week to testify about their interactions with the Sheriff’s Office.

As PHXated has noted before, this (inevitable) development and its probable denouement (Arpaio’s indictment on a slew of offenses) will make a lot of the timid coverage of Arpaio’s actions, particularly in the national media, seem a little embarrassing.

An interesting question will be whether the process, which could take months, will at all cow Arpaio’s behavior. ON the one hand you can bet not: his success has been built thus far on blustery denials and bullheaded actions.

Still, his professional life will be made much more difficult as his henchmen lawyer up and start to realize how legally vulnerable their crackpot leader has made them.

The Channel 5 report says specifically that the jury is targeting Arpaio’s use of his police power to retaliate against his political critics.

A wrenching sign of how strained things are at the EVT: The Tribune’s story on this key development … is an AP story.

Janet Napolitano's image is taking hits

So says Politico. Leaving aside the Republican carping after the foiled Christmas Day terrorist attack, others are questioning her oversight:

who closely watch policy developments at DHS say they’re still waiting for real action from the new leader.

“The agency seems to be on autopilot, pretty much following the ideas of the previous team (to the extent they had any). Even simple steps, like getting rid of the idiotic color code or ending DHS’s silly double clearance for new hires have eluded the new secretary,” said James Lewis, senior fellow at the Center for Strategic and International Studies, who said he dismisses the partisan attacks on Napolitano.

“It’s no secret that DHS has problems. There needs to be visible progress towards fixing them, and we haven’t seen any,” he said. “The lack of fresh thinking worries me. She needs to reset the agency, not just accept the inheritance and make it work smoothly.”

As for the Republicans, the lowest hit of all came from John Kyl and John McCain:

Republican critics, who already had Napolitano in their sights, spared no words in criticizing her — and show no inclination to stop.

One of them was her home-state senator, Republican Jon Kyl, who told reporters in Arizona that he no longer feels “totally safe” with his former governor at the helm of the Department of Homeland Security. Kyl was flanked at the Phoenix news conference by fellow Arizona Republican Sen. John McCain.

On the other hand she gets a sympathetic portrait from Maureen Dowd in the NYT this a.m.:

Janet Napolitano and I hadn’t planned to spend New Year’s Eve together.

But there we were on this soggy Thursday, sitting in her office on the outskirts of the city, beside a big, black leather saddle that was a gift from the governor of Sonora, Mexico, when Napolitano was governor of Arizona.

I was working on the last night of the decennium horribile dictu, so I had tried to think of who else might also be burning the midnight oil instead of clinking the midnight bubbly.

The answer was obvious.

The McCain push poll

A push poll is essentially a survey conducted by a pollster trying to get a fore-ordained conclusion. You do it by including disparaging information about one candidate in the questions. The process works for you in two ways: You can good poll numbers to crow about, and you’ve spread negative information about your opponent.

Last month, you’ll recall, a poll from Rasmussen, an established pollster, had John McCain and J.D. Hayworth running within a few points of each other in a potential matchup for the Republican senatorial primary next year.

The McCain organization, horrified at those numbers hanging over him, no doubt commissioned a more friendly poll, from a right-wing group called Tarrance, to combat it.

In the Republic the other day, Dan Nowicki did a story about it. Unsurprisingly, it showed McCain with a 20-point lede over a potential Hayworth challenge.

While Nowicki made it clear at the top it was a Republican poll, the hedline didn’t (in the print edition), and you had to read to the end of the article before you found out that the poll did smear Heyworth in the questions.

The pollster’s line is that McCain was winning before the questioners started disparaging Hayworth.

Still, I think the story should have led with the fact that it was a push poll. And Nowicki should have asked the pollster who specifically paid for it.

That said, he also didn’t report what to me was a big difference between the two polls. The Rasmussen one was a “robo poll” that questioned about 600 Arizonans via automated calling. The Tarrance one asked the same number by a live person over the phone. The latter is the superior process.

World Net Daily attacks McCain

A column on the popular right-wing site by Craig R. Smith, a gold broker, is an example of why McCain has been so shrill of late as he shores up his right flank. Says Smith:

I’m done supporting candidates from either party who are more concerned about being liked and accepted by the opposing party and the media than they are about representing my interests in D.C. It made me sick to my stomach to watch McCain ignore the American people on issues like immigration and TARP.

In the essay, Smith calls Harry Reid and Barbara Boxer racists. It’s unclear what exactly he’s referring to.

Smith says right-thinking Americans have somewhere to turn in McCain’s re-election race next year:

McCain is in a battle for his political life as he faces re-election in November 2010. His anticipated competition, a former congressman turned radio talk-show host, J.D. Hayworth, is a mere two points behind McCain in a head-to-head Rasmussen poll for the upcoming primary. It is a statistical dead heat.

Another legal salvo from Andrew Thomas against the county supervisors

The Arizona Republic says he’s indicting Don Stapley and Mary Rose Wilcox on separate charges:

A grand jury indicted Wilcox on allegations that include perjury, forgery and conflict of interest related to votes she made as a supervisor to fund the Hispanic non-profit group Chicanos Por La Causa, Thomas said.

Stapley’s counts include fraud, theft, perjury and forgery largely related to the use of funds Stapley received in his effort to become president of the National Association of Counties. Stapley also obtained mortgage loans under false pretenses, Thomas said.
[…]
Thomas said the counts were based on Wilcox obtaining five different loans through Prestamos, the lending arm of Chicanos Por La Causa, and continuing to approve funds for the organization in her role as supervisor without filing any type of conflict notice.

Farther down, the paper notes:

The indictments from a Maricopa County grand jury are the latest allegations Thomas and Sheriff Joe Arpaio have leveled against county elected officials and administrators, many of which have been dismissed. Despite the history of Thomas and Arpaio’s allegations against other county officials petering out as they work through the justice system, the sheriff maintained confidence in his investigations.

“Let’s wait to see what the criminal justice system does before you start criticizing my investigations,” Arpaio said.

Dumb things John Shadegg says

This is from a few days ago:

Speaking on the House floor Monday night, Republican Rep. John Shadegg wondered whether bringing the professed mastermind of the 2001 attacks to face trial in Manhattan would endanger everyone from the mayor’s daughter to the “judge’s wife.”

“Well mayor, how are you going to feel when it is your daughter that is kidnapped at school by a terrorist?” Shadegg said.

The next day, Shadegg was reported to have proffered this non-apology apology:

Shadegg told The Associated Press on Tuesday that he was sorry.

“I apologize for the insensitivity of my remarks with respect to the mayor or his family, however I think it is important to note that this decision involves potential risk to innocent people,” Shadegg said.

I was watching Team America: World Police again the other night, and it reminded me now much of the recent dialog about the KSM trial in Manhattan was reminiscent of the talk in the film; Matt Stone and Trey Parker capture perfectly the bland way politicians invoked the words “terrorist” or “weapon of mass destruction” in the years after 9/11.

It all seems a little dated, now, but of course guys like Shadegg like living in that particular past. They get off talking like a backwoods preacher scaring kids with stories of a bogeyman in the forest.

I just don’t know why he felt he had to apologize to the mayor of New York; the offense of his comments wasn’t to Michael Bloomberg but rather to anyone with a brain.

Shadegg’s not a creep because of his political views; he’s a creep because he thinks his constituents are stupid.

Did Joe Biden meet with Arpaio today?

The Republic says he did:

Who voted how in the House on health care and the unemployment extension

Arizona’s congressional delegation voted on party lines on the big health-care bill in the House; less noticed was another important vote over the weekend, this one on extending unemployment benefits.

Dan Nowicki in the Republic noticed it:

Three Arizona Republicans on Thursday made up 25 percent of the House opposition to the bill to extend unemployment benefits to jobless Americans.

The House voted 403-12 to pass the legislation, which on Wednesday had won 98-0 Senate approval. Reps. Jeff Flake, Trent Franks and John Shadegg were among the 12 “no” votes.

The measure, signed Friday by President Barack Obama, would extend jobless benefits for 14 weeks across the nation and provide an additional six weeks of benefits on top of that for job-seekers in states where the unemployment rate is 8.5 percent or greater.

Emphasis added. Nowicki notes that the Democratic Party blasted Shadegg immediately after the vote—a sign that the party is targeting him next year.

As PHXated has argued before, how the Democrats view Arizona is going to be the most far-reaching political story in the state for the next three years.

If the economy takes another nose dive or even if it just remains stagnant, the Democrats will of course take a hit. But as Obama’s regular appearances here in the state testify, Arizona is on the party’s radar as a swing state in 2012. Even as a favorite son, McCain got only a bit above 53 percent of the vote last year, and the demographic shifts do not favor Republicans. The state could have eleven or twelve electoral votes after the 2010 census; a swing from red to blue would represent a big 22- or 24-vote swing for the Democrats.

Back to the unemployment vote: Note how by Republican logic, tax cuts help the economy by putting money back into the hands of people, but for some reason extending extending unemployment benefits—i.e., putting money into the hands of people—doesn’t.

A rebounding economy would take an arrow out of the GOP’s quiver; it could also make our local right-wing congresspeople vulnerable for not having helped the recovery along—and in this specific case, delivering a big “Screw you” as well to the people made most vulnerable by the downturn.

Mormon leader says the LDS is being persecuted as blacks in the Civil Rights Era were

… according to this AP story on AZCentral.com:

The anti-Mormon backlash after California voters overturned gay marriage last fall is similar to the intimidation of Southern Blacks during the civil-rights movement, a high-ranking Mormon said Tuesday.

Elder Dallin H. Oaks referred to gay marriage as an “alleged civil right” in an address at Brigham Young University-Idaho that church officials described as a significant commentary on current threats to religious freedom.

Oaks suggested that atheists and others are seeking to intimidate people of faith and silence their voices

I think there’s a flaw in his argument, but I can’t think of what it is …

… Oh, I just figured it out. The difference is that, in the 1960s, the blacks were the one being persecuted, and Bull Connor and his ilk were the ones doing the persecuting.

Today, gays are the ones being persecuted, and the Mormons are actively working to repress them, specifically by funding attacks on gay marriage across the country.

538.com on John McCain's 2010 senate race

Nate Silver’s clear-thinking analysis of the possibility of party flips in next year’s senate races sees things as pretty balanced right now: Eight Republicans and seven Dems in the fifteen races most likely to see a party switch.

The possible re-election of Arizona’s senior senator comes far down on his list, number 23 out of 38 races. (There’s more than 33 or 34 because of vacancies.) Here’s what Silver says about the race; the down red arrow means the chance of a party flip has decreased in the past month:

23. Arizona (R-McCain) — Finally some polling numbers out; PPP shows him with somewhat tepid approval numbers, but doesn’t show any of the potential Democratic candidates coming particularly close — certainly not close enough to get anyone like Gabby Giffords interested in a kamikaze mission. Still, McCain has been very quiet, and it might be wise to hedge some against the possibility of a last-minute retirement.

Politico profiles the New John McCain

It’s about how he’s evolved from being a soi-disant straight-shooter to leading the charge against Barack Obama on both domestic and foreign-policy fronts:

For years, McCain relished being an outsider and a maverick, a style that often led to battles with his own party’s leadership. Today, for reasons that friends and McCain observers say could range from unresolved anger to concern for his right flank as he seeks re-election to genuine dismay about Obama’s agenda, he is helping lead a fiery crusade of GOP loyalists against Democratic priorities—and irked some of his Democratic colleagues in the process.

Now, of the reason’s cited, “concern for his right flank” is the telling one. McCain’s sanctimony has always been a device to further his ambition; and his much bruited-about acts of supposedly nonpartisanship concealed his dreary right-wing positions on many issues.

This New John McCain is just the most recent example of how those pretenses evaporate when it’s not politically convenient for him; his positions now—not supporting Sonia Sotomayor, attacking the AARP when it tries to help with health-case reform, sniping at the president’s decision-making process about what do to with the unholy mess the Republicans left him with in Afghanistan—are just more indications of his grimy and unattractive partisanship and self-interest.

For an in-depth and pretty unforgettable look at how this move isn’t much out of keeping with the real John McCain, see Tim Dickinson’s brutal look back at his personal history in Rolling Stone. The piece is funny, too:

In its broad strokes, McCain’s life story is oddly similar to that of the current occupant of the White House. John Sidney McCain III and George Walker Bush both represent the third generation of American dynasties. Both were born into positions of privilege against which they rebelled into mediocrity. Both developed an uncanny social intelligence that allowed them to skate by with a minimum of mental exertion. Both struggled with booze and loutish behavior. At each step, with the aid of their fathers’ powerful friends, both failed upward. And both shed their skins as Episcopalian members of the Washington elite to build political careers as self-styled, ranch-inhabiting Westerners who pray to Jesus in their wives’ evangelical churches.

In one vital respect, however, the comparison is deeply unfair to the current president: George W. Bush was a much better pilot.

Dept. of Dumb Arizonans: Rep. Ray Barnes

PHXated is just getting to this, a speech delivered by Ray Barnes, a state representative from Phoenix, during a debate on school funding at the capitol. Video below.

The best part comes 30 seconds in, when Barnes, running down a litany of what he feels are excessive bureaucratic positions in the schools, ends with this laugh line:

“And unless we have a bisexual teacher somewhere, there’s probably a principal of the girls’ restrooms and a principal of the boys’ restrooms!”

The synaptic misfire that produces the conflation of sexual orientation, gender and, uh, public bathrooms is probably something Barnes should seek professional help with.

Kyrsten Sinema is the only person in the chamber with the presence of mind to call him on it.

I don’t like to comment on folks’ public appearance, but Barnes might seek some fashion advice as well. Is that how elected representatives dress here—like they’re on their way to the early-bird special at Olive Garden?

Did the Dimmer Twins (accidentally) hit pay dirt with Wilcox?

Reading the two Republic stories on the matter today—here and here—one feels that the charges filed against Maricopa County Supervisor Mary Anne Wilcox aren’t entirely spurious.

That isn’t often the feeling one gets when reading about most of Joe Arpaio and Andrew Thomas’s brutal use of their police powers.

Wilcox hasn’t as yet given her side of the story, and there are I’m sure all sorts of ways the acts could be benign. But here’s a precis from the paper:

Elected county officials must file the financial-disclosure forms with the clerk’s office by Jan. 31 each year, said Fran McCarroll, clerk of the board. The forms are required by law to help avoid a conflict of interest or the appearance of one.

A Republic review showed that Wilcox did not disclose the loans from Chicanos Por La Causa. A spokeswoman with the non-profit said Wilcox and her husband, Earl, received a $7,500 loan in November 2000, a $50,000 loan in July 2005 and $120,000 in October 2008.

According to Thomas—and the paper—she didn’t file conflict-of-interest disclosures either.

Biden holds fundraiser for Gabrielle Giffords

At the event, in Delaware, Biden raises worries of a GOP re-takeover of the House of Representatives. This story, in Roll Call, details the supposed vulnerability of three Arizona Dems:

Democratic members of Congress hold 49 districts that McCain won in 2008, including three in Arizona. Giffords’ district and that of Rep. Harry Mitchell (D-Ariz.) gave McCain 52 percent of the vote; Rep. Anne Kirkpatrick (D-Ariz.) won despite McCain taking 54 percent of the vote in her largely rural First District.
[…]
The fundraiser, held in Greenville, Del., will benefit Giffords’ bid for a third term. Giffords beat state Sen. Tim Bee® by a 55 percent to 43 percent margin in 2008, as both parties spent heavily on behalf of both candidates.

It doesn’t pay to argue with Roll Call on political matters, But I don’t think the argument applies quite so strongly to the Arizona delegation. McCain’s results here were outsized because of his favorite son status. And in the event, of the three only Mitchell got less than 55 percent of the vote.

Right now it’s entirely to the Democratic’s advantage to have hyperbolic worries like this come into play. It’s best to be in trouble—or look like you’re in trouble—14 months out. The party has an entire year for the impact of the presumed health care reform sink in and the economy to be on firmer ground.

The ruling party is always supposed to suffer in the first mid-year elections; the Democrats could take hits in the off-year New Jersey and Virginia governor races in November; and of course new troubles, like Afghanistan, may come to the fore and strain the administration’s ability to lay the blame on the mess on the previous administration. (Where it of course belongs.)

But given the ebb and flow of political difficulties I think the Democrats can only be happy what seems like a major ebb is happening this far out from the next round of elections.

Don Stapley arrested again

From the Republic:

Maricopa County Sheriff’s deputies arrested County Supervisor Don Stapley Monday morning at a county building, three days after a prosecutor moved to dismiss charges against Stapley in a forgery and fraud case.

A sheriff’s official said Stapley was arrested on a “different case” but could not elaborate on the nature of the new charges.

Mayor Phil and his GF get into trouble

Turns out Mayor Phil Gordon has been dating one of his political consultants. The trouble comes because he’s been paying her for political work and has in the past nominated her to city boards.

Sarah Fenske in New Times has an in-depth story here.

Phoenix Mayor Phil Gordon hasn’t needed to raise money since he waltzed to reelection in the fall of 2007, leaving a war chest stocked with $370,000.

Yet in the last two years, Gordon has paid his chief fundraiser big bucks all the same. Records show that Gordon paid fundraiser Elissa Mullany and her business partner, Cate Wunder, a total of $39,000 since January 2008. That’s a period in which the campaign hasn’t shown a dime of revenue.

Gordon says he’s been daing Mullany since his breakup with his wife; their divorce is not yet final. (Mullany’s married but separated too, Fenske says.)

It looks like the mayor had to put out a press release about the relationship after Fenske started nosing around. Here’s how the Arizona Republic plays it:

Phoenix Mayor Phil Gordon on Tuesday asked the city attorney and a former Arizona Supreme Court chief justice to review his political ties to consultant Elissa Mullany, the woman he is now dating.

The request came after The Arizona Republic and another media outlet inquired about the relationship and whether Mullany was benefitting from any taxpayer dollars.

Note the lack of grace with which the Republic acknowledges its competition. My issue with this isn’t so much not naming the New Times as with the clumsiness. Good journalism should handle various issues consistently, and it shouldn’t leave obvious questions in readers’ minds.

A lot of stories are pursued by different news outlets at the same time. It’s appropriate to say, in those cases, “The mayor released the information after news organizations started querying the office about it.” But if they are going to note that one other outlet in paticular is doing the asking, the paper should name it.

Why did it not name New Times? Maybe it’s because Fenske had a lot more information.

The Republic trumpets its “review” of the matter … and shares it with readers in three paragraphs.

Fenske’s piece is 1500 words long, and more than forty paragraphs. And it has a lot of evidence of the positively continental attitudes of some of the major players in the story:

Mullany, who was then known as Elissa Peters, was divorced from her first husband, Aldon Terpstra, in December 1998. She married James Mullany five years later, in October 2003. She has two young sons.

A former City Council staffer, James Mullany now works for former Phoenix Mayor Paul Johnson at his development company, Old World Communities/ Berkana Townhomes. Thanks to an appointment from Gordon, he’s also on the city’s Deferred Compensation Board.

Temples of bigotry

PHXated is lucky enough to own a house in northeast Phoenix. As homeowners know, there’s a lot of worries and anxieties that go along, and an owner can be forgiven for a neurosis or two. (Or three.)

But: What if I said it really bothered me that … Mormons owned houses. That Mormons’ owning houses affects my ownership of my house?

What if I said that Mormons shouldn’t be allowed to own houses?

Well, you’d say I was batshit crazy.

That whether a Mormon owned a house didn’t affect my homeownership a bit.

That I was being intolerant, a little bit crazy, and, frankly, something of a bigot.

We were thinking along these lines while reading some recent local news stories about how the Mormon Church wants some zoning variances to build two new temples in the area, one in Gilbert and one waaay up at 51st Avenue and Pinnacle Peak Road.

The Mormons were in the news last year because of the enormous financial support the church gave to two state ballot measures involving gay marriage. The church was on the anti side, both here in Arizona and in California. It’s been reported that the church spent literally millions of dollars to make sure the anti-gay marriage side won.

The church was successful in both cases, fairly narrowly in California. You could make the argument the church’s money tipped the balance.

We don’t have to point out to you the analogy we were making above. Just as it would be intolerant for us to try to deny a Mormon the right to buy a house, it’s intolerant for Mormons to try to stop gay people from marrying.

Whether a Mormon owns a house doesn’t affect me one whit, just as a couple of gays or lesbians getting hitched doesn’t affect Mormon couples one whit. That’s why it’s crazy, in both cases, to get one’s panties in a knot about it.

And finally, to go on a political campaign to deny other folks the right to buy a house—why, that’s bigoted.

And so is spending millions to dollars to make life more difficult for people who want to love and care for each other under the protection of the law.

A lot of the coverage of this issue, it seems to us, is just a little too polite.

Right now, the Mormons aren’t just building a couple of new temples, which is their right to do. They want the city in both cases to give them zoning variances. In Gilbert, they want to build to a height twice as high as is currently allowed.

In both cases, the cities should not give the Mormons any special rights to build that the current zoning doesn’t allow.

Let them built what they wish, under the laws in effect—but nothing more.

Why should the intolerant get special treatment from government?

Now, here’s the final point I want to make. What if I did get a movement going to deny Mormons the right to own houses. What if I played on people’s prejudices—and got a ban passed?

Then let’s let 100 years go by. A more tolerant age might dawn, and a movement might rise to ease those awful rules against Mormon house ownership.

Some however, would resist the change. They would demonize Mormon house ownership. It’s always been that way, they’d say. Mormons just can’t own houses.

Just because … that’s the way we’ve always done it.

How would Mormons feel? Probably a lot like the way gays and lesbians who want to get married today do.

They’d feel, in a phrase, like victims of a pointless and cruelly destructive prejudice that has no basis in reason or morality.

'The Daily Show' visits Phoenix

Jason Jones explores the economics of selling off the Capitol building:

The Daily Show With Jon Stewart	Mon – Thurs 11p / 10c
Arizona State Capitol Building For Sale
www.thedailyshow.com
Daily Show Full Episodes Political Humor Healthcare Protests

Live, from the Cronkite School!
Live-blogging as Joe Arpaio meets the press.

* PHXated is live-blogging the event as it happens. Refresh for updates *

Thus endeth the live-blogging.

---

In the end, a little anti-climactic. The professors did a good job, but Arpaio just blandly deflected the inquiries.

---

The students who disrupted the event are still milling around upstairs. Seems odd that the school had no way to shut them up or hustle them out. It’s a bad precedent that ten or twenty people—I’m guessing—can disrupt the desires of hundreds of others.

---

They seem to be ending it.

This is wrong. The event is over. Callahan is trying to lecture the disruptive students. He points out they’ve lost twelve minutes of questioning. And that they’ve effectively left Arpaio to have his views unfiltered in other media venues.

Wide applause from those left here.

---

A disruption. Protesters are singing a parody song to the tune of Bohemian Rhapsody. Arpaio puts a funny hat on, but then took it off.

Callahan is trying to quiet the crowd.

This is embarrassing for the school. It’s wrong to disrupt an event in a venue called a “First Amendment Forum.”

Callahan can’t be heard from the dais. Some students are yelling “Shut up” to the idiotic protesters.

---

RR is asking him about racial profiling and targeting political opponents. Are you above the law?

Why have there been so many officials saying they were targeted?

A: Implies he got his question from someone else. RR: My words came from me.

A: I don’t know about police chiefs who don’t like me. I don’t know about mayors. RR: Phil Gordon. A: Well him.

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He’s getting pressed on making records available—another thing he’s been getting dinged on. He says they are getting better.

SG presses him on releases video of a certain inmate. “I’m not too familiar with that one. I”m sure they got the information."

What do you consider a reasonable amount of time? There’s been an unwritten law of ten days, but when they ask for thousands of pieces of information it takes time.

---

Steve Elliott: Presses him on his home address being publicized. I found your address in public document in five minutes.

A: There might be some slipperage but it’s still a violation. I have a lot of threats on me.

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A: What’s the saying? “The buck stops here? There?” I feel comfortable when I go home at night. Blustering: “I will continue to deal with the media!”

A: “I have nothing to hide. I want to thank you students. You are the future of journalism. I love this Cronkite.”

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SG: Have you rethought that? A: No, there are times you might re-evaluate.

SG: Do you stand by what was done? A: I’m saying it was a learning process.

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“Everyone’s afraid to drink with me. The media is not my enemy.” He’s getting a little unhinged.

Would a normal politician agree to this? Green: Absolutely.

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A: “I kinda like the media!”

---

Green bring up his subpoena of all New Times’ information from its web site, including IP addresses of visitors for three years.

A: Not going to go into all the reasons things were done.

He pleads litigation again. But concedes he’s “learning.”

---

No one’s laid a glove on him yet.

---

RR brings up New Times. They do hard-hitting reporting. They published your home address. In Oct. 2007, you arrested the editor and publisher of the paper i the middle of the night, on a misdemeanor. I was an executive editor of a paper. We often reported on grand jury testimony. I was never threatened with arrest. Were the arrests appropriate? Was it a mistake?

A: They increased my popularity.“By the way, it’s a free weekly paper.” (Groans from the crowd. A deputy, he said, made the decision to arrest the pair. Most arrests are for misdemeanor. Can’t talk more—litigation.

RR: Is publishing grand jury testimony automatically grounds for arrest in AZ now?

A: It all depends.

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Steve Elliott asks him about not sending press releases to the EVT. The scrape wound up in court and the paper won. The judge said you were petty. Did you act properly?

A: Two issues. The judge never ruled against us. “You have to improve,” he said. They had a way to get press releases. They could drive downtown. (!) He said the problems were fixed. We did improve. The releases are now on the web.

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Susan Green asks what about those not allowed to a press conference?

A: I average 200 interviews a month with media.

SG: People have shown up and been denied access to press conference.

A: One or two out of thousands. Security reasons. They use the press conference to sandbag me, or disrupt it.

She presses him: They are doing the stories that aren’t so favorable. Are you using access as a weapon?

A: I’m not afraid to face the media. They ask questions that are off the subject of a press conference.

This is a specious point. He has a crazy idea of what a press conference is. She should be pressing him on the fact that he doesn’t allow himself to be questioned on hard topics.

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Rick Rodriquez starts off the questioning. “It’s going to be a learning experience for students.”

Q: Media relationships—he got great press coverage for being tough. Your son in law works for Republic. Other side: Journos who do critical stories get frozen, even arrested. Deputies have threatened to arrest a report. Is media a tool or the enemy?

There’s protest noise from outside

A: I have to get to people I serve. I have an open door policy. You can come to the tents. I don’t have to have handlers. [I’m paraphrasing] Sometimes there are problems with media. I’m human. I’m still going to deal with the media.

I’m still here, will continue to do my job. I report to the people directly. I have nothing to hide and I do my job.

RR presses him. What about threatening to arrest a reporter asking for public records? A says he’ll arrest anyone who breaks the law.

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Callahan asks for “respect” from the audience and says he’ll stay after and answer questions. His mike is going in and out.

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Callahan is explaining the format—he notes there’s been some "misunderstanding"about the “Meet the Press”-style format. He’s referring to the rabble-rousing by Stephen Lemons and some student activists. He’s making the case that it’s appropriate to have profs question Arpaio without letting the audience at him. It’s sad he has to do it, but whatever.

Then he amps it up to “misreporting.” He’s not paying Arpaio. It’s not “a speech, an interview or a debate.” It’s journalists asking questions of a political leader.

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See below for background on the three interviewers.

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About to begin. The session will last one hour, Dean Callahan just said. Arpaio just walked in, to smatterings of applause.

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Some early photos from the event.

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The live internet stream of tonight’s event will be here, the school says.

The event will also be shown on video on the pedestrian mall just south of the school. It’s on Central Avenue between Fillmore and Van Buren.

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One of the benefits of the event tonight is that I will be able to indulge my fondness for the word interlocutor. Our interlocutors this evening, as described on the school’s website:

The interviewers are three Cronkite professors and veteran journalists: Steve Elliott, digital news director of Cronkite News Service and former Associated Press Phoenix bureau chief; Sue Green, broadcast news director of Cronkite News Service and former managing editor of ABC15; and Rick Rodriguez, the school’s Carnegie Professor of Journalism and former executive editor of the Sacramento Bee.

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Meanwhile, Nick Martin, at Heat City, is tracking one of the many ongoing Arpaio legal sideshows:

An all-out showdown could be in the works today over whether one of Sheriff Joe Arpaio’s officers will apologize for taking an attorney’s confidential files. It all goes back to an Oct. 19 incident in which Maricopa County detention officer Adam Stoddard was caught on a courtroom security video swiping a document from the files of a defense attorney while her back was turned. Superior Court Judget Gary Donahoe has since ordered the detention officer to hold a news conference to apologize for taking the document. If he refuses to do so by the deadline – set for today – Donahoe said he would throw the officer in jail for contempt of court.

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Stephen Lemons, at New Times, continues to be skeptical that the Cronkite School profs will be hard-hitting enough tonight:

Arpaio and his PR staff are practiced media manipulators. I wouldn’t be surprised at all to see Arpaio play the profs like a flute tonight. Though out of pride, if nothing else, you would hope these J-school teachers would not wish to be bested like that.

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The site tonight is the Walter Cronkite School of Journalism and Mass Communication. It’s a key part of ASU’s move into downtown Phoenix; the school sits in a distinctive orange building on Central Avenue, just across the street from the new Civic Space Park and a massive piece of public sculpture, Janet Echelman’s “Her Name Is Patience.”

The school’s Monday evening events are held in its second-story atrium, which allows room for several hundred students to sit in front of the stage and on steps and balconies above it.

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Arpaio’s relationship with the press can be said to be dismal. The East Valley Tribune won a Pulitzer Prize this year for its investigation into his various managerial and legal deficiencies.

The series, “Reasonable Doubt,” can be read here.

The Phoenix New Times has spent untold resources over the last few years investigating Arpaio’s practices as well. There’s a fairly complete rundown of its work here.

During the course of one of these series, County Attorney Andrew Thomas and Arpaio actually sent deputies to arrest the editor and publisher of the New Times chain, Michael Lacey and Jim Larkin, in the middle of the night.

While the arrests drew national attention (New York Times story here?) the reaction against Arpaio in Arizona was something less than wholesale outrage, suggesting either that the image of the press is much worse than one might expect … or that Arizonans, being Arizonans, haven’t thought too hard about the implications of mass arrests of journalists.

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For the convenience of readers, I’m inserting my previous coverage of this event below.

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Live, from the Cronkite School: Joe Arpaio meets the press.

If you’re just coming to the story of Joe Arpaio’s appearance at the ASU journalism school tonight, here’s a precis of developments thus far:

Many months ago the school got Arpaio to agree to a “Meet the Press”-style grilling at the school. The interlocutors will be three professors: Rick Rodriguez, Susan Green and Steve Elliott. The event is at 7 p.m. Monday, that’s tonight, in the second floor atrium of the Cronkite School, which is the east side of Central Avenue downtown, between Van Buren and Fillmore.

(The session itself is open only to students; the school’s going to show the event on video on the mall just south of the building, and will stream it live here.)

Arpaio’s talks a lot—blusters, really—in public, of course, but he’s a slippery figure; who wouldn’t want to see him in an enclosed space questioned closely by three journalists?

Besides the obvious—the extraordinary number of inmate deaths in Arpaio’s jails, the myriad documented cases of mismanagement, his excessive use of his police powers against rival elected officials, and any number of other abuses of power—it will be interesting, given the setting, to hear Arpaio talk about the decision-making processes that lead to the 2007 early-morning-hours arrests of the editor and publisher of the Phoenix New Times alternative newspaper.

Well, this is Arizona, and things don’t always make sense. Some students, misapprehending the nature of the event, have said they will protest, saying they were “outraged” that there won’t be questions from the audience.

PHXated went to Berkeley and is, uh, not unsympathetic to the idea of student protest. In this case, it’s dumb. It’s a rare chance to see a public figure as brittle and indefensible as Arpaio in a controlled situation. Why not see how it plays out?

As PHXated has written before: It’s uncool to say it in this Age of Everyone’s a Journalist, but this serves the public a lot better than having a bunch of Arpaio’s opponents declaiming at him from a microphone. The students should shut up and come watch the session. If it turns out to be filled with lobbed softballs, then they can protest.

And speaking of dumb, now the local tea party folks are riding to Arpaio’s defense. Again, this being Arizona, they’ve managed to trump even the misguided students. Here’s a press release I got the other day:

American Citizens United is organizing a rally in front of the Walter Cronkite School of Journalism. There is a great push from the Hispanic students of Journalism (some of them children of illegals and others illegals themselves). They have been encouraged by “La Raza” and other local pro-amnesty organizations to go into journalism so they can have an influence on public opinion. And you can guess what opinion they want to change to get amnesty.

Again, it’s tonight at 7 p.m. MST. Let the zoo begin!

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Arpaio at the Cronkite School: The zoo approacheth

The Arizona Republic and KPHO have both posted stories about Monday’s live “Meet the Press”-style interview of Joe Arpaio at ASU’s Cronkite School of journalism.

Arpaio’s going to be questioned by three profs from the school at 7 p.m.

Both stories are pretty incompetent. The Republic story says that interest in the event will surely swamp the smallish school atrium where the interview will be held, so the school’s going to show it on a large video screen and stream it over the internet.

The paper doesn’t bother to tell readers where the screen will be, or what the web address for the stream is.

For the record, the video will be shown in the public mall just south of the Cronkite building, which is on the east side of Central Avenue between Polk and Fillmore.

The video stream will be here, according to the school.

The KPHO story is equally unhelpful; worse, it lets the sheriff natter on about how good he is with the press:

“There have been blips about some weekly newspaper — we didn’t give an answer to a request — but that’s been straightened out. But I think it’s great. If there’s anyone who has an open door policy, I think it’s the sheriff,” said Arpaio.

There are three inaccuracies in merely the first sentence alone. The KPHO reporter doesn’t bother to ask him about them.

The Republic story doesn’t mention that some students plan to protest the event; the KPHO story does, but neither note that local Tea Party activists are showing up as well.

PHXated’s background on the event is here and here.

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Is the Cronkite School’s “Meet the Press” night with Joe Arpaio going to be a zoo?

As you might know, Sheriff Joe Arpaio is going to be interviewed by three journalism professors onstage at the Cronkite School on Central at 7 p.m. Monday. The event is looking more and more like it’s going to be a spectacle.

First, a bunch of misinformed ASU students have decided that, since audience members don’t get to question Arpaio at the panel, the school is somehow giving him a platform to spread his views unchallenged.

The students are planning a protest outside the event.

But as the title of the session—”Meet the Press”—makes clear, the point is to have the sheriff questioned closely by some informed professionals.

It’s uncool to say it in this Age of Everyone’s a Journalist, but this serves the public a lot better than having a bunch of Arpaio’s opponents declaiming at him from a microphone. The students should shut up and come watch the session. If it turns out to be filled with lobbed softballs, then they can protest.

(By the way—Stephen Lemons notes here that CBS 5 has a new investigative report on Arpaio scheduled to run tonight at 10 p.m.)

Now the Sheriff Joe contingent is getting into the act, too. Below is a press release I just got from the Phoenix Area Tea Partyers. (Note the slur on the students half-way down.)

Looks like Monday is going to be quite a scene:
SUPPORT SHERIFF JOE
Time: November 30, 2009 from 7pm to 7pm
Location: First Amendment Room-Second Floor
Organized By: American Citizens United

Event Description:
This is an event I saw posted on Resistnet and thought our group may be interested.American Citizens United is organizing a rally in front of the Walter Cronkite School of Journalism.

There is a great push from the Hispanic students of Journalism (some of them children of illegals and others illegals themselves).
They have been encouraged by “La Raza” and other local pro-amnesty organizations to go into journalism so they can have an influence on public opinion. And you can guess what opinion they want to change to get amnesty.

Please keep it orderly, no yelling or name calling. Resist the anger we all feel when our country and those who protect it get attacked. We must remain civilized to be credible.

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Will Joe Arpaio really “meet the press” at the Cronkite School?

It’s been an unobtrusive line at the bottom of the this semester’s ASU j-school event calendar:

Meet the Press: Sheriff Joe Arpaio

The title at once says it all and nothing; but the idea, if it works, will be an unusual opportunity for a few serious journalists to question Arpaio about his record and methods live on a stage.

Those scheduled to be asking the questions are three profs from the school: Rick Rodriguez, Susan Green and Steve Elliott. The event will be held at 7 p.m. Monday in the second floor atrium of the Cronkite School, which is on the corner of Taylor and Central downtown, just two blocks north of Van Buren.

Already, the event has been misinterpreted; Stephen Lemons of New Times is, unusually for him, off the mark on this issue today in his blog:

As mind-numbingly impossible as it is to imagine, Sheriff Joe, avowed enemy of a free press and brown people everywhere, will be the guest speaker at the ASU Cronkite School of Journalism’s “First Amendment Forum” this Monday, November 30. Talk about eating turkey after Thanksgiving. Arpaio lecturing at a First Amendment Forum? Too bad Idi Amin’s not around anymore. ASU could have him come chat about human rights.

From the start, the idea was exactly the opposite; Arpaio will not be lecturing, he will be being questioned by three journalists.

That’s why the student activist Lemons cites, who says she’ll be protesting the event because the audience won’t be allowed to question the sheriff, is off the mark as well.

Sure, it’s an old media model—but in this case, it could be revelatory. Arpaio’s a slippery figure, and it will be interesting to see if the three interlocutors, if they’re prepared, can pin him down on the facts he’s so casual with.

And let me just say this about that dull old Old Media format: There’s no substitute from questioning by smart and prepared people; the idea to sacrifice that so that a bunch of political opponents of Arpaio declaim at him from a mike on the floor is not a smart one.

Arpaio could as yet back out, the questioning could turn out to be pallid—but it’s wrong to criticize the school for giving Arpaio free rein to speak when that’s not the idea at all.