Arizona's Own Espresso Pundit

Juuust a little Outside...

You will be shocked to learn that the attempt to recall Governor Brewer has fallen short.  Of course, we have to get give the organizers some credit, they are only about 95% SHORT of the valid signatures that they needed.  Still, that's much better than the Kyl recall which managed to turn in exactly ZERO signatures. 

When these "attempts" were announced I asked why they are covered at all.  The recall attempts are not credible and they are often started by the same handful of people who have failed dozens of times in the past.  The real goal of the recall organizers is to generate a big story in the Republic, and the Republic for its part is quick to help them meet this goal.  When will the reporters realize that they are being played for fools?  Why not wait until the group has gathered, say, half of the required signatures before giving them a platform to pummel some hapless elected official?

That would be a responsible thing for a reporter to do.  Maybe they should teach that in J school.  

Don't Ever Question Schweikert on the numbers...

I've known David Schweikert for 20 years and I learned long ago not to question his statistics or his analysis.  It's not just that he's smart--which he obviously is--it's that he has no life and spends his evenings reading budget books and policy briefings. 

So when I saw that the Arizona Republic was questioning one of his statistics and decided to feature the analysis on Az Fact Check, I knew it wasn't going to be pretty--for the Republic that is.   Schweikert appeared on CNN and said that a baby boomer was turning 65 every 8 seconds.  The Republic decided to question the figure.  Big mistake.

In fact, I saw Schweikert throw out that figure at a town hall meeting and someone questioned it.   Schweikert paused for a second and said...let's see 79 million boomers, 95% survival rate....factor in net migration..divided by 19 years is about 4.2 million a year...8760 hours in a year, so that's actually, let's see...one every 7.6 seconds.

So I had a pretty good idea that the Republic was going to find the statistic to be accurate...

Al Gore Call Your Office...

I thought this headline was really funny.

Heavy snows spoil weekend holiday plans in West

Dude, the "holiday" to which they refer is...Memorial Day.  The traditional start of summer vacations.

I'm going to take a couple days off.  Enjoy the holiday.  Be safe.  And stay warm.  

Seeing through the Smoke

Earlier this year, the conventional wisdom was that "medical" marijuana was supposed to be some sort of billion dollar business.  Then on March 22nd, I pointed out that medical marijuana is illegal under federal law and there's no way that it's going to develop into some sort of billion dollar business.

Fast forward to May 2nd when US Attorney Dennis Burke wrote a letter to the Arizona State Health Director informing him that those who grow and distribute marijuana in Arizona could be prosecuted under feeral drug trafficking laws. 

Now, Tom Horne and Governor Brewer are asking a federal judge to clear up the confusion. 

Incredibly, Burke is unhappy that Brewer and Horne are taking the issue to federal court.  After all, he thinks the issue is clear.  Burke then proves Horne and Brewer right by offering this convoluted explanation of federal policy. 

We have no intention of targeting or going after people who are implementing or who are in compliance with state law," Burke said. "But at the same time, they can't be under the impression that they have immunity, amnesty or safe haven."

Dude, that's hilarious.  What does it actually mean?  If you were a state employee, how would you interpret that statement?  Burke apparently means that he's not going to prosecute anyone unless he decides to prosecute someone.  Obviously the state cannot implement the medical marijuana law if the federal prosecutor reserves the right to prosecute state employees.  And if Burke reserves the right to prosecute state employees who are implementing a state law, what does that mean for the growers, distributors, landlords and others in the supply chain?  It obviously means that he can prosecute them at will.

There will be no medical marijuana industry in Arizona.  There won't be one store. There won't be one grower. The issue is over.  Medical marijuana is illegal. 

It would have been nice if Burke had cleared that up, you know, before the election. 

Arizona Number Two in Job Growth.

Here's two myths that you probably believe if you read the local papers.  The first myth is that Arizona's economic growth for the past decade has been a mirage.   Sure our economy grew faster than the rest of the country in the first part of this century, but those were bubble jobs based on an inflated real estate market.  Now that the bubble has burst--yet again--we get to see what our real economy is like, and the view isn't pretty.

The second myth is that Arizona sucks so bad that employers don't want to come here.  If just read the papers, you would think that we are 48th in all the things that make life wonderful etc.  However, it's hard to raise a family if you don't have a job, so here's a statistic that really counts.

The runners-up to Texas in private-sector growth were Arizona and Utah, which added 90,200 and 90,000 jobs respectively, during the decade from 2001 to 2011.

Notice the years?  How many construction jobs to you think are in that statistic?  Not a lot.  Even factoring in the job losses that have resulted from Arizona being at the bottom of the construction cycle, Arizona's job creation is number 2 in the nation. 

Which states had the biggest losses?  The high-tax blue states.  So the next time that someone from the Republic or the Morrison institute claims that we can grow the economy by raising taxes in order to increase school funding, ask them about California, Massachusetts and New York. 

 

An Epic Victory

The US Supreme Court has upheld Arizona's Employer Sanctions law.  Look for the mainstream media to try to downplay the story by claiming that this is somehow a "narrow" victory.  It's an epic victory.  Illegal immigration is an economic issue.  If someone who makes $10 a day south of the border can make $10 an hour north of theborder then it's worth a lot of money and effort to cross that border.  Removing the economic incentive is a much more effective deterrent than the highest wall or deepest moat. 

The media have used three strategies to discredit the Employer Sanctions law.  First they argued that the law was so broad that "mistakes" could lead to businesses losing their licenses.  This is obviously false because the law calls for "knowing" violation.  The media then flipped strategies and argued that the law was too narrow--"knowing" violations are so hard to prove the that law couldn't be enforced. 

The final argument was that the law was unconstitutional.  Now that argument is gone as well. 

The Employer Sanctions law isn't as flashy or controversial as SB 1070, but it's just as effective--perhaps more so.  This is an epic victory. 

A Sinner in the Hands of an Angry God

It looks like former Presidential candidate John Edwards is about to get indicted.  Edwards is an awful person who embodies the characteristics that most of us despise.  His hypocrisy and hubris together with his unbelievably boorish behavior while his wife was dying of cancer are the stuff of Greek tragedy. 

However, Edwards' downfall is also a great example of how the US has so criminalized the political process that the Government can indict anyone who falls out of favor. Once it was clear that Edwards no longer enjoyed any personal political authority, prosecutors combed through his entire political history and found this charge:

Much of the investigation, however, focused on money that eventually went to keep mistress Rielle Hunter in hiding along with former campaign aide Andrew Young, who claimed paternity of Hunter's child in 2007 so that Edwards could continue his White House campaign without the affair tarnishing his reputation. Investigators have been looking at whether those funds should have been considered campaign donations since they arguably aided his presidential bid.

Really?  Someone gave Edwards a bunch of money so that he could hide his mistress...and those funds "arguably aided" his presidential bid? That means that every dime that any candidate has ever received could later be classified as a political contribution because it "arguably aided" his candidacy.

How many millions has Edwards spent defending himself from this charge?  How much time is he going to spend in jail?  How many other candidates--or contributors--can be indicted for falling out of favor?

You may think I'm overreacting, but look at the local Fiesta Bowl investigation.  The political leaders who accepted donations and took trips have fallen out of favor because the Fiesta Bowl --once an pillar of Arizona's political elite community--has tainted its reputation. 

The  Fiesta Bowl's new management and the media are looking to shift the blame for the malfeasance of the Fiesta Bowl to the actual victims of that malfeasance...the politicians who were lured into dealings with the Bowl.  Actually, I should be more specific, the management is shifting the blame to the politcians and the media are focusing that blame on the Republicans*.

Could the candidates who received the tainted contributions have known that Fiesta Bowl management had criminally laundered Fiesta Bowl funds?  Fiesta Bowl officials also invited candidates to football games and claimed that the activity was legal because management had complied with the requirement that all of the members of a single committee were invited.   Could the elected officials have known that Fiesta Bowl Management didn't follow up on this requirement?

The answers to these questions are of course "no."  The candidates and elected officials could not have known that the Fiesta Bowl was violating the law.  Frankly, in the wake of the Citizens United case, it's not entirely clear that contributions by the Fiesta Bowl itself are illegal.  The finance and gift laws are so vague and selectively enforced that it's hard to know which ones were broken and when.

And that's the point.  The laws that govern politicians are so vague, convoluted and arbitrary that anyone who falls out of favor can be indicted--or at least smeared.

Meanwhile, the candidates and elected official who were victimized by the Fiesta Bowl management don't deserve to be mocked and vilified in the media.

*Footnote:  Remember the stories about Congressman Ed Pastor calling the Fiesta Bowl in order to get Super Bowl tickets for his Congressional buddies?  Me neither.  How about Ben Aredondo getting all those tickets?  Paula Aboud?  Linda Lopez?  Robert Meza.  Nope.

Russell Pearce?  Yep, that rings a bell.  Pearce appears to actualy be even less culpable than the other elected officialls.  He paid for most of his tickets; some of the trips attributed to him were actually taken by others and on at least one occasion he attended an event as part of an official function.  Yet, the media have not only focused on Pearce, but they have also mocked his attempts to provide a legal defense for each trip. 

Sot they are targeted by prosecutors and mocked by the media for "violations" of laws that are too vague to be followed...just like what you find in China or Zimbabwe.

Must...Not...Use...Crayon....

Golly, it looks like the Kyl recall effort has fizzled.  I'm shocked.  You probably saw the article about the recall.  It was B1 above the fold.  However, you may have missed this tidbit from buried in a Dan Nowicki column.

An attempt to force a statewide recall election for Kyl fizzled when organizers failed to file any petition signatures with the Arizona Secretary of State's Office by their Wednesday deadline. They needed 427,121 signatures.

They turned in exactly ZERO signatures.  However, they met their goal...after all, as I pointed out here...the real goal was to generate an article in which Kyl's name is used with Evan Mecham's and recall "organizer" Leonard Clark gets a platform to announce all the things he doesn't like about Jon Kyl. 

 Of course a reporter could have looked at the application and concluded that the recall treat wasn't credible. Click here for the original.

Sure, this guy who can't spell "Jon" is going to collect half a million valid signatures.

Why do I bring this up now?  Well, the story about Leonard Clark turning in exactly zero signatures was so buried that I missed it, so this is the first chance to write my follow up post. 

Then there's the fact that I recently read in the Republic that Representative Carl Seel is facing a recall...also by Leonard Clark. If you click here, you can see Mr. Clark's new application.  It looks like he got a sharper crayon and his spelling has improved a bit--"Fascist" is hard to spell anyway.  We'll see if his organizational skills have improved. 

He turned in exactly zero signatures in Kyl recall.  I predict that for the Seel recall, he turns in at least double that amount. 

Meanwhile, we'll see how many times a gullible Republic reporter writes the sentence..."Rep. Carl Seel, a Republican from District 6 who is subject to a recall campaign had eggs for breakfast this morning."

I'll Take another Vente with an Espresso Chaser.

I just finished a short post about the Fiesta Bowl.  Whew, I'm glad I got that done.  I cut down on coffee a couple weeks ago and the decades long accumulation of caffeine build-up has been slowly working its way out of my system.  I feel great.  I can sleep and my teeth have returned to the lovely light brown that they were when I was in high school.

In fact, I feel so good that I'm not ticked off all the time.  I drive slower; I'm nice to my kids and only have to shave once a day. 

I'm also totally incapable of writing espresso pundit. 

After all, liberals have feelings too.  The folks at the Republic work really hard.  Linda Valdez, John Zidich and Robert Leger are probably really nice people who are largely misunderstood. 

Sure, Robert Shelton thinks that Legislators are evil while his buddies Malcolm Hughes and Jonathan Overpeck manipulated their data to "hide the decline," but it's so hard to get grant money these days...there's a lot a pressure and all...

And the 2008 banking crisis isn't really going to work its way up to Greece, Portugal and Ireland.  Germany isn't going to back out of the EU.  The Chinese economy doesn't really look like Japan circa 1989.  I'm sure that Congress will figure out a way to reform entitlements.  Should I really have put my entire  401K in gold?  Sure, I've made 40% in the last 18 months, but it's such a pessimistic vision... 

I can't imagine that the long-form birth certificate on the White House website is really fake.  It's just a joke. After all, it's such a BAD fake that it must have been a joke. 

Napolitano wasn't really corrupt.  She didn't really  agree to exempt the home builders from the TIME initiative, if they contributed $100,000 to her cause.   And she didn't drop the charges against Honeywell if they would donate $1 million to the Western Climate Initiative.  And that whole Squaw Peak thing couldn't have been illegal, it must have been a misunderstanding.  And that time she siphoned $400,000 out of the state's Emergency Medical Fund in order to promote her failed "Copper Card"?  That was actually a very clever April Fools joke on her part.  She'll give that money back someday.  And that time she gave the state's student loan contract to the head of the fire fighter's union?  I'm sure he totally deserved it. 

I've tried to get the passion back with less caffeine.  Last week I moved my copy of "Silent Spring" from by bookshelf to my desk.  After all, Rachel Carson is a hero to the left, but banning DDT has killed upwards of 50 million people.  Surely that will get me motivated? Nope. 

So this morning, I said screw it and had a giant cup of coffee and I'm thoroughly jacked up on caffeine.  Rachel Carson is back on the shelf...Liberal Fascism is on the desk now.  Don't forget that Woodrow Wilson put 175,000 Americans in jail for STATEMENTS they made during WWI.  Don't forget that Roosevelt imprisoned 75,000 Americans of Japanese ancestry...with the full support of his newly reshaped Supreme Court.  Jim Crow laws, White Primaries and Grandfather clauses were DEMOCRATIC Party inventions.

The Chinese economy is a centrally-planned house of cards.  Entitlements are going to overtake the entire budget in a few years.  The 1.4 Trillion dollar deficit isn't sustainable.  Napolitano is bringing the same corrupt practices to the Orwellian sounding department of "Homeland" security that she got away with here.   The only thing worse than Obama Care and "Cash for Clunkers" may have been Bush's prescription drug benefit and steel tariffs.

Whew.  That felt great.  Sure, my hands are shaking and I can't see out of my left eye, but it's totally worth it to have the fire back.   I have so many things to tell you about....

Blame the Victim

Let me get this straight.  The Fiesta Bowl--a group whose very name means "party"--asks its employees to donate to political campaigns.  This is a routine practice, but the Fiesta Bowl management violates the law by reimbursing those employees for the contributions.  Now the newly chaste Fiesta Bowl management want to fix the problem--by asking the elected officials for the money back. 

Give me a break. What part of the transaction was illegal?  Was it the contribution?  Of course not.  It is perfectly legal for John Junker to give money to Carolyn Allen.  It was the REIMBURSEMENT that was illegal.  So if the Fiesta Bowl Management wants to make the transaction right, they need to go after the employees who illegally received a reimbursement. 

So why is the Fiesta Bowl management seeking reimbursement from the politicians instead of the employees?  Because most of the contributors were just mid level Fiesta Bowl employees and the Management realizes it would be a hardship to ask them for money.  So management is going after the elected officials.  The elected officials will have a hard time reimbursing the money as well, and they didn't do anything wrong...but they are an easy target.