Congratulations Winslow; Condolences, Tucson.

Winslow Officials Advised That CCA Will Look To Tucson As Prison Site

February 26th, 2010
AZjournal.com
By Sam Conner

  The Winslow City Council met on Tuesday to hear reports from City Manager Jim Ferguson and Finance Director Regina Reffner. Ferguson reported that the Corrections Corporation of America had informed him that although they remain interested in Winslow as a possible site for a private prison, they foresee bidding to put the entire 5,000-bed facility near a larger metropolitan area, namely Tucson, when the state issues its call for requests for proposals.

Perps on the CCA Payroll: More at Otter Creek.

Kentucky: Another CCA rape victim

 

Former inmate alleges rape at private prison

By Stephenie Steitzer • ssteitzer@courier-journal.com • February 25, 2010

A former inmate at the beleaguered private women’s prison in Eastern Kentucky has filed a lawsuit alleging that she was repeatedly raped by a prison employee in 2007.

The suit, filed in U.S. District Court in Pikeville, alleges that the employee at the Otter Creek Correctional Center forced her to engage in non-consensual sexual acts between March and October 2007 and threatened to block her parole if she reported him to authorities.

The alleged victim also names Nashville-based Corrections Corporation of America, which operates the prison under contract with the state, and the Department of Corrections as defendants. It alleges that they failed to properly screen, train and supervise the employee.

CCA spokesman Steve Owen said in an e-mail Thursday that the employee was terminated last March.

Owen said CCA has not yet received a copy of the lawsuit, which was filed Wednesday, and could not comment further at this time.

Department of Corrections Commission LaDonna Thompson said Thursday that she had not yet seen the suit and could not comment.

It could not be determined whether the employee is facing criminal charges relating to the allegations.

A Kentucky State Police spokesman familiar with cases against former Otter Creek workers could not be reached for comment Thursday.

At least six workers at Otter Creek have been charged with sex-related crimes involving inmates at the facility.

Gov. Steve Beshear announced last month that the state will move more than 400 women prisoners out of Otter Creek given the allegations of sexual misconduct by male workers there.

The women prisoners will be transferred to the state-run Western Kentucky Correctional Complex in Fredonia this summer, and the nearly 700 male inmates now there will be moved to Otter Creek, which has more than 650 beds, and other prisons in the state.

CCA has been under fire since last summer after multiple inmates at Otter Creek made allegations that they were sexually assaulted by corrections officers and other workers there.

A Department of Corrections investigation found that prison authorities failed to investigate seven alleged incidents of sexual contact between workers and inmates since 2007. In four of those cases, the workers involved were fired.

But investigations required under the federal Prison Rape Elimination Act were not conducted.

The suit filed this week states that the alleged victim originally denied that she had been raped because “she was so afraid of (the employee’s) threats regarding her parole.”

It says she told investigators last July that the incidents had occurred.

The suit says that the alleged victim was released on parole in September 2008 under the condition that she remain free of any parole violations for six years.

She seeks damages, including punitive damages, in an amount to be determined by a jury, according to the lawsuit.

Her attorney, William Butler Jr. of Louisville, did not return a call seeking comment Thursday.

Reporter Stephenie Steitzer can be reached at (502) 875-5136.

Mountains That Take Wing...

AZ Premiere of the film Mountains That Take Wing: 

Angela Davis & Yuri Kochiyama -

A Conversation on Life, Struggles, & Liberation.

TONIGHT - Friday, February 26th from 5:30-9PM (refreshments at 5:30 & video at 6. Q&A follows)

ASU Tempe Campus – Neeb Hall (http://www.asu.edu/tour/tempe/neeb.html)

Sponsored by Local to Global Justice (www.localtoglobal.org) and The School of Social Transformation (at ASU)

We will be collecting donations at the event for survivors of the Haiti Earthquake.

-----------------

ABOUT THE MOVIE:

Features conversations that span 13 years between two formidable women whose lives and political work remain at the epicenter of the most important civil rights struggles in the US. Through the intimacy and depth of conversations, we learn about Davis, an internationally renowned scholar-activist and 88-year-old Kochiyama, a revered grassroots community activist and 2005 Nobel Peace Prize nominee's shared experiences as political prisoners and their profound passion for justice. On subjects ranging from the vital but largely erased role of women in social movements of the 20th century, community empowerment, to the prison industrial complex, war and the cultural arts, Davis' and Kochiyama's comments offer critical lessons for understanding our nation's most important social movements and tremendous hope for its youth and the future.

---------

ABOUT THE FILM MAKERS:

H. L. T. Quan (Ph.D. University of California-Santa Barbara) is an Assistant Professor and an Affiliate Faculty in African/African American Studies, Asian Pacific American Studies and Women's and Gender Studies a ASU. Her research centers on race, gender and economic and political thought. She is currently writing a book about savage developmentalism and its tendentious propensity to secure order and capitalist expansion. This study investigates foreign policy conducts by Japan in military Brazil, the United States in occupied Iraq, and China in Sudan amidst humanitarian disasters. She is also working on a collaborative project on the historical and political development of Black capitalism in the United States, a 17-city comparison.

Professor Quan is also a co-founder and member of QUAD Productions, a not for profit production company that produces media for progressive community organizations and activists. She and C. A. Griffith (Associate Professor, School of Theatre & Film) are co-directors and co-producers of the "Mountains That Take Wing: Angela Davis & Yuri Kochiyama - A Conversation on Life, Struggles & Liberation" and "América's Home" (working title).

-----------

C.A. (Crystal) Griffith
Associate Professor, School of Theater and Film, ASU.
Professor Griffith was raised in Washington, D.C., and graduated from Stanford University (B.A.) and University of California, Santa Barbara (M.F.A). Ms. Griffith's credits include Juice (1992), award-winning PBS and BBC documentaries such as A Litany For Survival: The Life & Work of Audre Lorde (cinematographer), Branford Marsalis: The Music Tells You (camera operator), Depeche Mode 101, Eyes on the Prize I & II , and music videos including Tracy Chapman, Public Enemy, and The Rolling Stones. She was awarded a 2004 Illinois Arts Council Fellowship in Media Arts, the Panavision/Kodak University Outreach Program Grant and the Vision in Color Award of the New England Film/Video Festival.

Ms. Griffith also received a grant from Digital Media's Avid Feature Film Camp for her film, Del Otro Lado (The Other Side). Shot on location in Mexico City and screened extensively at U.S. and international film festivals, Griffith directed, co-edited and co-produced this Spanish language, independent feature in 1999.

With H.L.T. Quan, she is co-directing "Mountains That Take Wing: Angela Davis & Yuri Kochiyama - A Conversation on Life, Struggles & Liberation", a documentary on women of color cultural workers. C.A. Griffith's publications appear in Filming Difference (forthcoming), Black Feminist Cultural Criticism: Classic Readings, Black Women Film and Video Artists , Herotica 4, The Wild Good, the journals Meridians, Signs and Calyx. Ms. Griffith joins Arizona State University 's new Film Program from Columbia College Chicago (2000-06), Smith College and the University of Massachusetts Amherst (1997-00).

----------------

 Department of Justice: Investigate Mumia's conviction.

www.freemumia.com

Prosecuting Innocence: Resistance is Futile...

Borrowed this post from our friends at Idaho Prison Watch...

The sentencing committee meeting was canceled again today, by the way - I have no idea when it's rescheduled for. I hung out at the Capitol awhile anyway, handing out copies of Tenacious to the women legislators I could find, since it was "Women's Day at the Legislature" today, and I didn't think they'd made any arrangements for state prisoners to participate or talk to their legislators. I also left one for Governor Brewer, with an article done by a woman who had cancer while at Perryville a few years back. She's now with an organization that helps women in prison. I'll post her story here when I get permission.


I hope those legislators I gave the zines to actually bother to read them. I don't know when or how they're going to hear a woman prisoner's voice address their conditions otherwise. Maybe we should try to get them to hold hearings out at the prisons themselves. Given the Arizona Republic and Lumley Vampire reports on the physical condition of the facilities alone, they should have organized an emergency oversight committee to check it out in person. The legislature is responsible, after all, for compromising the safety of state prisoners and corrections employees in the first place. They've now been duly warned that they'll be held liable for failing to follow up on it.

Anyway, the following article is very pertinent to the work of the House Sentencing Committee - and most of the issues I have with Andrew Thomas' office. In fact, this is a very good reason why we don't want that man to be Attorney General. He'll be putting ten times as many innocent people away, while letting the really guilty ones walk by making questionable deals - like the one that put the Scott Sisters away. The innocent don't have anything to fear, they think, nor do they have anything to trade. The guilty, on the other hand -  the "triggermen" - can trade them. 

There's nothing guaranteed to get you a more severe punishment in America than insisting that you're innocent and losing to the prosecutor at trial - and they make sure you know that when they make their offer. Their job is to prove guilt, not to find truth - don't make any mistakes about that. They're out to get convictions, by and large - not to protect the innocent. Victims are just useful tools to win their cases with, and to use to promote their own tough-on-crime image.

There are a few remarkable exceptions to that rule, of course. Some DA's have been very committed to investigating reports of wrongful prosecutions/convictions. I hope that's the beginning of a trend towards more ethical, responsible prosecutorial conduct. I have yet to see evidence of that happening in Arizona, though.

-------------

What is Wrong with the Plea Bargain System in our Courts Today?

Frontline Interview with
John H. Langbein

John Langbein is a professor of law and legal history at Yale Law School. In this interview, he describes how the plea bargain system pressures people to buckle and accept a plea-even if they are innocent-and how prosecutors, judges and defense attorneys have a role, a stake even, in seeing that this happens. He also talks about the Supreme Court's indifference to the pressures on a defendant in the plea process, and why he believes the rampant growth of pleas is rooted in the trial system's failures.

(I have condensed this interview for the sake of this forum. You can view the entire interview on the link I provided below)

Q: "What is wrong with the plea bargain system in our courts today?"

Plea bargaining is a system that is best described as one of condemnation without adjudication. It is a system that replaces trial, which is what our constitution intended, with deals.

Second, those deals are coerced. The prosecutor is basically forcing people to waive their rights to jury trial by threatening them with ever greater sanctions if they refuse to plead and instead demand the right to jury trial.

But every defendant has a right to go to trial; it's a choice they make to plead guilty.

The problem with choice arguments is that they neglect the main dynamic of plea bargan which is the pressure that the prosecutor puts on you to do it his way.

Plea bargain works by threat. What the prosecutor says to a criminal defendant in plea bargaining is, "Surrender your right to jury trial, or if you go to trial and are convicted of an offense, we will see to it that you are punished twice. Once for the offense, and once for having had the temerity to exercise your right to jury trial." THAT is a coercive system.

And the prosecutor has many devices which increase the level of coercion: multiplying the counts, threatening to recommend the most severe end of the sentence range, keeping you locked up in pretrial detention if you're poor - most people who are in the criminal justice system are poor - prosecuting your wife as well as yourself, and things of this sort. The prosecutor can pile it on if you don't play it his way. It is therefore a deeply coercive system. Yes, you have a choice, but your choice is constrained by coercion.

Q: What is the role of the defense lawyer?

Sometimes defense counsel does a very good job for people in the plea bargaining process, and gets you a good deal. But there are many other outcomes.

In the public defender system the defense counsel is representing a hundred other people; the defense counsel can not take every case to trial....

Defense counsel in some circumstances is not very competent and is delighted simply to take his money and run, so to speak."

"So there's no particular reason to think that defense counsel is any serious answer to the intrinsically coercive nature of plea bargaining."

Q: Whom does the system benefit?

The main winner in the plea bargaining process is the prosecutor. I describe plea bargaining as a system of prosecutorial tyranny..."

What has happened is that a single officer, the prosecutor, now is in charge of investigating, charging--that is, bringing formal charges--deciding whether to prosecute, evaluating that evidence, deciding whether or not in his or her judgment you're guilty or not, and then basically sentencing you.
"....what we have now is a system in which one officer, and indeed a somewhat dangerous officer, the prosecutor, has complete power over the fate of the criminal accused."

Q: You let the defense attorney off lightly.

I think defense counsel is to some extent at the mercy of a bad system. There's not a lot you can do when the other guy has all the chips. And the prosecutor has an awesome pile of chips in our plea bargaining system, because the prosecutor can threaten ever larger sanctions if you don't do what he wants.

So I believe that by far the worst failure in the plea bargaining system is the prosecutor, and I think that's in part because the prosecutor is not always as noble as he would like you to believe he is."

"It's a lot easier to coerce somebody into waiving all his defenses than to actually investigate the case thoroughly..."

But, again, the trial is there for anyone who chooses that option.

It is true that one always has the right to go to trial, but the prosecutor can make that right so costly that only a fool will exercise the right..."
Part of the reason why we in this country have criminal sentences that are so much more severe than in the rest of the civilized world, is the need that prosecutors have to threaten people with these huge sentences in order to get them to waive the right to jury trial...."

".... most people (in the system) are too poor to afford bail, and these people are particularly likely to yield to the demand that they confess whatever it is they're being charged with rather than wait for some kind of trial, because they'll be sitting in jail for months and months and months, and therefore there is a very evil interaction of prosecutorial power with poverty, with indigence."

It is very sad that the Supreme Court, which has been so anxious to protect various rights of persons who go to trial, has been so cowardly about seeing the evils of the plea bargaining process."

"...the Supreme Court has been indifferent to the pressures on accused in the plea bargaining process, as exemplified by the famous Alford case, where the fellow actually stood up and said, "I'm innocent, but I'm pleading because the disparity of outcome that they're threatening me with is too great". It's terribly sad."

"...the prosecutor is allowed to coerce people out of trial."

"...what happens is that prosecutors don't have to prove their cases; they're simply allowed to coerce people into waiving their rights. Judges are spared the difficulty of conducting trials and the danger of being found to have erred; they (plea bargains) can't be appealed from .."
"...what actually happens is you're coerced into confessing yourself guilty, whether you are or not."

"The saddest things about plea bargaining is that it is not widely understood. Most people have the television model of Perry Mason or somebody similar contesting for a verdict of a jury."

"Plea bargaining is sometimes justified on the ground that we are giving a lighter sentence to someone who is showing contrition or remorse for the offense. But that's a pack of lies. What is in fact happening is that the accused is being told by the prosecutor, "You accept guilt and confess and bear false witness against yourself and we will then see to it that it gets characterized as contrition or remorse."

The point is that the coercion, which eliminates trial, eliminates our ability to know you were in fact beyond reasonable doubt, guilty or not. And therefore it makes the remorse talk just window dressing by apologists who want to keep this existing system which is convenient for them."

Q: Do you have a solution?

I think the solution is very complex. I think it requires facing the underlying failure of this adversary criminal justice system. The idea that having one pack of lawyers and investigators saying, "You did it," and another pack saying, "We didn't," and nobody actually looking for what actually happened, nobody having an interest in investigating the truth, is a bit mistake."

"No knowledgeable student of comparative criminal justice is likely to fall victim to the notion that our is an admirable system.

It is an appalling system.

We have ten times as large a percent of our population locked up in jail by comparison with the European countries. We have sentences which are draconian. We've just had a 12 year old put in jail for life in Florida. Things of this sort are unheard of in the rest of the world.

There are many causes, but the failure of our adversary system is central, and the political nature of our prosecutorial system is also central"

http://www.pbs.org/wgbh/pages/frontline/shows/plea/interviews/langbein.html

PUENTE Detention Protest Thursday,Noon-1pm.

Local Activists Demand “Dignity not Detention” and Call for an End to Human Rights Abuses in Arizona

Submitted by sshah on February 24, 2010 - 17:27

PHOENIX – Local activists and community members will participate in a solidarity action in front of the Immigration and Customs Enforcement office in central Phoenix where they will deliver a letter calling on the federal government to end all immigration enforcement agreements with the Maricopa County Sheriff’s Office(MCSO). The action will take place from 12:00pm to 1:00pm ending with a press conference at 1:00pm. 

Despite DHS announcements made last fall regarding plans to reform the immigrant detention system, there is little evidence of change. In addition to detaining 3,000 immigrants in Arizona daily, and over 33,000 nationally, the Department of Homeland Security continues to work with MCSO through a 287(g) agreement in the county jails.

Who: Puente, American Civil Liberties Union-AZ

What: Action in front of ICE Office in Phoenix, Delivery of Letter calling on the federal government to end all immigration enforcement agreements with the Maricopa Country Sheriff's Office. 

When: 12:00pm-1:00pm Thursday February 25th, 2010

Where: 2035 N. Central Avenue Phoenix, AZ 

For more information about Puente please contact Carlos Garcia at carlos@puenteaz.org or call 602-314-5870

The Catholic Resistance to Detention, CCA.

I love Catholic social justice activists - they must have a liberation theology, or a real working faith. It's not just the people of the cloth, either - from poor farmers under threat of death squads, to youth who chain themselves to the gates at Fort Benning, with great dignity and righteousness they defy the power that defiles their land and people. They spill their blood on nuclear missle silos, chastise the federal judges who sentence them, and after spending months or years in jail or prison, they come out and act up again.  Some are incorrigible.

You'll never know most of their names as political prisoners of the times; it's never about them, anyway. It's about justice. They seem to prefer the new and improved edition of God's Word on such things; they don't see justice as retribution to be delivered; they see justice as fairness, a condition we must actively create and nurture in the world, in our lives, every day. They fueled the Sanctuary Movement of the 80's, when we were slaughtering the poor throughout Latin America, challenging all sorts of state and federal laws, often colluding with others and engaging entire cities in open rebellion. 

That's who Russ Pearce is trying to bury with his legislation criminalizing "alien" sympathizers and outlawing "Sanctuary Cities". Between his attacks on government employees who fail to report even suspected "illegals" now, and his plan to tag and shadow undocumented school children (and their families, of course) until such a date as we decide what to do with them - which will apparently depend on how much of an economic drain we think they are - Pearce and his people are really showing their true colors. I just hope the rest of this state isn't under as much racist control as they would have us think it is.

-------------------

Protest planned in front of detention center

Network calling for immigration reform

By Stephen Gurr

sgurr@gainesvilletimes.com

POSTED  Feb. 24, 2010 11:24 p.m.

A group of protesters plans to hold a prayer vigil today in front of the North Georgia Detention Center on Main Street as part of a nationwide campaign calling attention to federal immigration detention policies.

The group, made up mostly of members of St. Michael’s Catholic Church, has obtained a permit from Gainesville police to demonstrate at about noon on the sidewalk outside the building, site of the old Hall County jail and now being leased by Hall County to the private Corrections Corporation of America.

The vigil is part of a national campaign launched today by the Detention Watch Network called, "Dignity, Not Detention: Preserving Human Rights and Restoring Justice."

"Nationally, the campaign is directed toward President Obama, asking that the expansion of immigration detention be stopped," said Azadeh Shahshahani, immigrants’ rights project director for the American Civil Liberties Union of Georgia. "Locally, we are asking Immigration and Customs Enforcement to put in place binding standards for treatment of detainees, to rely on more humane and community-based alternatives to detention and to put a stop to the transfer of detainees from facility to facility, away from their families and communities."

The North Georgia Detention Center can hold as many as 500 detainees, who are people identified as being in the country illegally and awaiting deportation by ICE. Most of the detainees at the center are not from the Hall County area. A large number are brought to the center from the Charlotte, N.C., area.

Most detainees spend between 30 and 90 days at the facility before moving on. Hall County entered into an agreement with ICE to hold the detainees, with CCA acting as a subcontractor. The company leases the facility from Hall County for $2 million a year.

The Gainesville protest is one of several planned today across the country and may be the smallest. The other protests will be staged in Phoenix, San Antonio, New York, Chicago and Los Angeles.

Alan Shope, the chairman of St. Michael Catholic Church’s social justice committee and a local organizer of what he said will be a prayer vigil, said the purpose is to call for immigration reform.

"We do think a nation has to secure its borders, but at the same time we think it should be done in a way that doesn’t hurt families," Shope said.

Shope said the church was trying to "walk the line" of protesting the system while respecting the employees of Corrections Corporation of America. Shope said the church has a good relationship with the North Georgia Detention Center’s warden, Stacey Stone. The church’s priest is allowed in to celebrate Mass with the detainees, Shope said.

"We have not seen any of the abuse or neglect here that you hear about at some other detention centers," Shope said. "Our problem is not with any specific instances in this facility; it’s with the overall system it’s a part of."

Corrections Corporation of America spokesman Steve Owen said in a statement that CCA "provides services for immigration detention, but, as a company, does not take a position with respect to the broader immigration policy. 

(I have to just pause here and call this BS what it is. You know that every private prison company in the world is pumping money into politicians and "research" which support prolonged immigrant detention - they've planned to fill detention facilities for decades out. When they run out of immigrants and refugees and aliens to put there, they'll either go broke or have to justify incarcerating citizens. Rest assured, CCA and their kin are not neutral on the issue of criminal justice and immigrant detention policy - they are loaded with lobbyists and experts to lend to the cause. Continued criminalization of marginal populations and a perpetual cycle of crime, victimization, and retribution through incarceration is where the future profit of their industry lies.)

"However, CCA strives to humanely operate a safe, secure facility that upholds the dignity of all detainees entrusted in our care," Owen said.

Owen said ICE has staff on-site at the detention center and that CCA is contractually required to meet the federal agency’s detention standards.

Ivan Ortiz-Delgado, a spokesman for ICE, said in a statement that the agency "respects the fundamental right of individuals to advocate for reform of our nation’s immigration laws.

"Moreover, last fall, ICE announced a major overhaul of the immigration detention system to prioritize health, safety and uniformity among our facilities while ensuring security, efficiency and fiscal responsibility," Ortiz-Delgado said. "These reforms include aggressive steps to increase oversight and fundamentally change the immigration detention system. ICE has taken important initial steps to change this system and is committed to finishing the job."

Arrest to be made in CCA Eloy prisoner murder

Arrest expected in prison slaying

26-year-old Hawaii inmate was stabbed in Arizona cell

By Mary Vorsino

Honolulu Advertiser Staff Writer

Posted on: Thursday, February 25, 2010

Arizona police say they are close to making an arrest in the killing of a 26-year-old Hawai'i inmate at Saguaro Correctional Center, a private prison in Arizona where nearly 1,900 Hawai'i inmates are housed.

The prison remains in lockdown following the death Feb. 18.

Arizona police said Bronson Nunuha, who was incarcerated for three counts of second-degree burglary, died from multiple stab wounds. He was assaulted in his cell sometime before 9:30 a.m. Feb. 18, when prison staff found him. He was pronounced dead about 9:57 a.m.

Local police in Eloy, Ariz., where the prison is located, said yesterday they expect to make an arrest soon in connection with the killing, but did not release further details, citing the ongoing investigation.

A Hawai'i team from the Department of Public Safety is also investigating the death.

Clayton Frank, Public Safety Department director, said the team arrived Saturday and will likely remain in Arizona through the week. "There's still a lot of things that need to be untangled," Frank said.

He declined to say what the team had found so far.

The team could make security recommendations for the 1,897-bed prison, which is owned by Corrections Corporation of America. Some 1,871 male Hawai'i inmates are at Saguaro, and about 50 more are at a separate CCA prison in Arizona. The state spends about $61 million a year to house inmates on the Mainland because there's not enough space for them in Hawai'i facilities.

Nunuha had been behind bars for about four years.

He was scheduled to return to the Islands in a few months to prepare for his release Oct. 31.

Nunuha is the first Hawai'i inmate killed in a private prison on the Mainland since the state began shipping its inmates out of state 15 years ago. Officials have said his killing may have been gang-related.

Reach Mary Vorsino at mvorsino@honoluluadvertiser.com.

Fascist Architecture of the AZ Legislature.

This is what I was talking about: fascism. I bet a lot of Arizona's legislation is crafted in part by folks from ALEC, isn't it? Big private/public partnership that has absolutely no one's interests at heart except their own, going around the country posing as experts and tweaking laws to make our lives harder, and their privilege more easily excused. They have no idea what bad fallout has been hitting the rest of us in the real world as the result of their policies...

Or maybe this is exactly what they intended. After all, they have their own investments in seeing the private prison business take over for government, and making sure they keep us all under control. This is one more mechanism of asserting their control over our ability to resist - threatening us like this. I can't believe state employees would let them get away with it.

-----

Bill would restrict political activity of government employees

By Jim Small - jim.small@azcapitoltimes.com

Published: February 23, 2010 at 7:50 pm

Teachers who gathered at the Arizona Capitol last year to protest budget cuts wouldn’t be able to do so again unless they took a vacation day under a bill approved by a House committee Feb. 23.

The House Public Employees, Retirement and Entitlement Reform Committee approved a measure Feb. 23 that would prevent government employees from lobbying lawmakers, participating in protests and rallies and conducting political activity during work hours. The bill would apply to all levels of government in Arizona, including school districts.

The bill, H2344, mirrors a similar federal law known as the Hatch Act, said its sponsor, Rep. Frank Antenori.

“It does not prohibit free speech,” the Tucson Republican said. “What I’m talking about is someone who comes up here (to the Capitol) on government time for their own, personal political purposes.”

However, David Mendoza, a lobbyist for the American Federation of State, County and Municipal Employees union, said the law isn’t needed. State government employees are already prohibited from engaging in political activity while on the clock, he said.

Plus, Mendoza said, the measure would silence government employees who want to have their voice heard, while government lobbyists would be exempted.

“If the intent is to save taxpayer dollars…then why should we have lobbyists representing agencies on the taxpayer dime? Make it even,” he said.

Antenori said legislative staff was unable to find a similar provision already in law, though they didn’t examine rules adopted by the Arizona Department of Administration.

Rep. Phil Lopes, a Tucson Democrat, said he didn’t think the new law was needed. Employees who are conducting political activity while being paid by the government need to be reported and disciplined, he said, but this proposed law aimed to solve a problem he isn’t sure exists.

“I don’t think we need this kind of hammer to kill an ant,” he said.

The bill approved the bill by a 6-3 vote, with the panel’s three Democrats opposing it. It now heads to the House floor via the Rules Committee.

Antifa Party Tonight!

Life   Liberty   Freedom

Special Guests:

US Senate Candidate
JD Hayworth,
Senator Russell Pearce,
County Attorney Andy Thomas
&
Don Goldwater
Charmian of the Pachyderm Coalition

February 24th 6:30 PM
Held at Heidi's Event & Catering
2095 W. 15th Street
Tempe, Arizona 85281

 

Dress is Business/Professional

Please note that ticket purchases are being handled by Sir Barratt Enterprise's, Inc on behalf of Life Liberty Freedom. If you prefer, you can purchase your tickets by phone at 480-892-5154

Pearce alert! Fascists and Cowards for SB1097!

Well, I was expecting a House Committee on Sentencing meeting at 2pm Weds, but haven't been able to pin it down on the House website. At least the day has other things happening: it looks like there's just as much potential for fun and excitement with Russ Pearce in the Senate Building (their security is real uptight over there about chalking the sidewalks, though). Didn't I just say something about how the legislature hasn't even BEGUN to stick it to the teachers yet? This is the beginning of the beginning. The teachers, you see - en masse - betrayed both their race and class when they defied Russ Pearce. They have a whole lot more coming. School employees are being further criminalized with this bill - doesn't everyone get it?

Maybe it will still have to get a whole lot worse here before it gets better.

You know they're trying to do away with their term limits, too? They aren't going to cede power without a fight - not even if we're white (I believe our sympathies just makes us white trash - or some kind of terrorist - so we might as well throw in with everyone else they're screwing over at the state house these days.)

Get how he gives us the down low on supporting this fascist legislation, then signs off in the name of Freedom. How is it that chasing little children out of one of the few safe places they may have in our communities makes anyone more free? Little kids, now. That's who he's targeting.

There's something seriously wrong with this man's thinking. That's just mean - he's doing that to prove he can screw the schools all he wants, not because there's any real public safety need for this legislation. Now they're going to sneak in this REQUIREMENT that public schools extract tuition from families if they aren't considered Arizona residents?

My understanding of civics is that this is the country that I get to help create, too - it's not all up to people like you - no matter how much money or power you may have.

My grandfather was a Republican: he'd never treat people the way Pearce does - what makes him a Republican, anyway, other than the fact the the real Republicans are too scared of him to throw him out? Look at this guy: he is not of substance. He goes after children. Only cowards go after children and their teachers like that. Fascists and cowards running scared, holding school children hostage, do not get re-elected to high office. They eventually get exposed for what they are and run out on a rail...

Some image for an American legislator. Not unexpected when one hears it comes from Arizona, but sooner or later Arizonans are going to stop bragging about that and realize it means the rest of the world thinks that we're bigots and idiots because we repeatedly elect people like Sheriff Joe and Russ Pearce to represent us. I frankly don't know what other explanation there could be, than that the majority of the public here really is so ignorant or disturbed that we'd want those guys parading themselves around the country even one more day in our name...

This is too much like South Park Hell.

----------------------pearcealert@russellpearce.com-------------------- 

Hi ,

SB 1097 (Student Data Collection):

Arizona Legislators will meet during a committee meeting this week to vote on bills mandating that all school districts gather information on the citizenship status of students, including the number of students who cannot prove lawful status. This information will then be given to the Department of Education. Any school district that fails to comply may have their state funding withheld.

SB 1097 will be heard at 1:30 p.m. Wednesday, February 24, 2010 in Education Committee (SHR1), it will be amended to include a requirement to require a tuition for all students that are not legal residence of Arizona. 

To see the bill either click on the link below or cut and paste it in to your browser
http://www.azleg.gov/FormatDocument.asp?inDoc=/legtext/49leg/2r/bills/sb1097p.htm
If you are member of www.lifelibertyfreedom.com  just select the Senate Education Committee to send your email in support of this Bill.


For Freedom.

Russel

CCA: No prison in Camp Verde.

Congratulations, folks! Wonder who this means it's going to be. Someone was talking about building up to 26,000 prison beds in the Wickenburgh/Forepaugh area at one point - I believe that would make for the largest prison complex in the world.

---------------

*What prison? Talks end abruptly
Camp Verde Bugle 
By Steve Ayers, Staff Reporter
2/18/2010 3:53:00 PM

CAMP VERDE - It was just last week that representatives from the Corrections Corporation of America met with Camp Verde officials to discuss building a prison in the town.

Now it is reported that the discussions are done.... (read the rest here)

NO: Pearce and Constitutional Carry in COW

More of Russ Pearce sneaking his legislation in under the radar, then getting people to use this special software of his at "Life, Liberty, Freedom"(isn't that a bit redundant?) to hammer their legislators into thinking that thousands of folks really want them to do what this guy says, when it's really just a noisy handful, bullying and BSing their way through our halls of government. This showed up in my email at about 1:40am, from russellpearce.com. 

This is what I mean about him being so anti-democratic. He's not trying to fight fair here. He's not out for The People to win; he's out to win for his people, that's it. And soon they'll all be carrying concealed weapons wherever they want without even having a permit. 

Are we nuts or something? God I hope no one really votes for this.

If they do, I'll swear that Pearce just has dirt on everyone - like Hoover did. I just don't believe that many Republicans are so blind or corrupted...but the past thirty years have really corroded their collective soul. Even my grandmother got out once Bush began demolishing the world and our economy - she became a democrat at the age of 92...

This means folks need to call their legislators first thing to head them off, because Pearce's folks will be up at dawn with their orange juice dialing their Republican legislators the moment the phones come on.

------------------------pearcealert!--------------------------

Hi ,

My Bill, SB 1102, is the Senate version of Constitutional Carry that eliminates the prohibition and penalties for law-abiding adults who carry a concealed weapon without a permit.

A short while ago, the Senate placed SB 1102 on their Committee of the Whole (COW) agenda on Thursday, February 18, 2010.  It is critical that you immediately contact the Senate members and urge them to support SB 1102 during the COW debate. Life Liberty Freedom members, you know what to do.

Also in the Senate COW on Thursday is SB 1153, which establishes that state law preempts local rules and ordinances concerning the regulation of knives and knife making components.  I need your help in letting the Senate know that you support both of these bills.

I know many of you have become members of Life Liberty Freedom, and the guys at Life Liberty Freedom have told me that many of you are using the FREE tool they provide to contact the legislators at the capitol.

For those of you who have not registered to be a member at Life Liberty Freedom, I urge you to do so now at www.lifelibertyfreedom.com

 

You’re Voice for Families, Freedom, Constitutional and Limited Government and a Consistent Conservative Voice:  God... Family ... Country

Russell

Prescott Valley Private Prison Resistance.

This via Ken at Private Corrections Institute. I guess someone offered private land for CCA to build a prison on, but CCA still doesn't want Prescott Valley.  They must not be prison-friendly now. Maybe there are too many humanitarians there for anyone to get away with a prison...or else they just came up with a better vision for their kids' future, and CCA knows they can't compete.

Good job, Prescott Valley Resistance.

------------
 

Prison proposal: CCA won't resume interest in Fain property

 By Ken Hedler

The Daily Courier 

2/16/2010 12:04:00 AM

(hit the link to read...)

Racist SB 1070 Clears Senate.

From Matt at the Phoenix Immigrants List Serve. 

So much for small town sovereignty.

Thank you, Carolyn Allen. Senator Allen is one of the few independent Republicans left in the Senate, I think. Pearce must not have enough dirt on her to twist her arm the way he does to everyone else.

-----------------

Now the house has to pass their version, if that passes then both sides have to come to agreements (if there are any differences), then Brewer would have to sign it into law.  I think all of this is gonna happen within the next week or so. - Matt

Ariz. Senate approves sweeping immigration bill
by The Associated Press
Posted on February 16, 2010 at 6:48 AM
Updated today at 7:42 AM
******

PHOENIX -- The Arizona Senate has approved a sweeping bill to strengthen immigration enforcement laws.

The measure passed the Senate 17-13. Scottsdale Republican Carolyn Allen joined Democrats in opposing the measure sponsored by Mesa Republican Sen. Russell Pearce. It now goes to the House.

Pearce's bill would ban police departments from adopting policies that prevent officers from asking people about their immigration status.

The bill also would make it a state crime to be in Arizona illegally or to transport or conceal an illegal immigrant. And it seeks to curb day-labor employment by making it a crime for an illegal immigrant to solicit work in a public place or for anyone to hire someone from a vehicle.

Archaic System for Detention: AZ CCA

VIA Ken at the Private Corrections Working Group . The ACLU National Prison Project
has done a lot of good work on detention issues. You can find a few resources there on prisoner rights, women in prison, etc.

---------------

Lost and Ignored

Mired in uncertainty, immigrants go through a system that critics call archaic

Tucson Weekly 

February 11,2010

by Tim Vanderpool

The detention complex in Eloy is a small city unto itself, a locked-down desert fortress with Phoenix shimmering to the northwest, and low-slung mountains rising to the east.

Approximately 1,500 foreign detainees are held there, awaiting deportation for immigration violations that range from petty crimes to overstayed visas. Another 1,200 are housed in the massive prison complex at Florence. The Eloy Detention Center is operated by the Corrections Corporation of America, a private company under contract with U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement, which is part of the Department of Homeland Security. Corrections Corporation also runs one of the Florence prisons...

Populations at these detention centers and others nationwide have exploded since Sept. 11, from less than 9,000 in 1996 to more than to 300,000 in recent years. With that growth has come a rising chorus of concern over accountability and transparency. Critics charge that relatives are often unable to locate their loved ones within the sprawling system, as detainees are shuffled from jail to jail. Even more disconcerting are the deaths within these centers, and apparent government attempts to keep them hidden.

It took a lawsuit from the American Civil Liberties Union to pry much of this information from the DHS.

The highest number of those deaths—nine in total—occurred at the Eloy Detention Center, and the leading cause, according to the ACLU, was inadequate or delayed medical care.

ICE officials seemingly spent more time trying to cover up these cases than preventing more from occurring. Time after time, public affairs officers provided misleading data and attempted to divert reporters.

"There's a deep problem with a lack of transparency and accountability about detention conditions generally, and specifically with regards to death in immigration detention," says David Shapiro, staff attorney with the ACLU National Prison Project in Washington, D.C.

"We made this (Freedom of Information Act) request in 2007.We've been litigating the case since 2008, and the government has really fought tooth and nail to prevent us from obtaining a number of these documents. This is critical information about what went wrong—what led to deaths in immigration detention."

In August, the DHS revealed that 11 previously undisclosed deaths had occurred in detention facilities since 2004.They added to the total of 104 deaths since 2003.

Behind those numbers, of course, are real people. They include Chinese computer engineer Hiu Lui Ng, who suffered from cancer and spinal injuries. Security cameras recorded security guards laughing at Ng as they dragged him from his cell in a Rhode Island facility. He died a week later. Another prisoner, this time in New Jersey, suffered a skull fracture that went untreated for 13 hours. The man, a tailor from Guinea, was dying even as officials discussed quickly deporting him so his death wouldn't make headlines. In yet another case, jail workers lied on a medication log to make it seem that a Salvordan man with a broken leg had been given medication for his extreme pain, when actually he had not. The man ultimately killed himself.

At Eloy, a diabetic, 62-year-old barber died of a heart ailment as he awaited deportation to his native Ghana. He had lived legally in the United States for 33 years, and was being deported because of shoplifting and misdemeanor battery convictions in 1979.

"ICE just somehow lost track of these deaths," says Shapiro. "But (Homeland Security) seemed less concerned with what went wrong—and what could be done to prevent tragedies like that from happening in the future—than they were with looking at it from a public-relations standpoint, at how they could minimize the fallout."

In the case of the skull-fracture victim, "there was even talk of trying to prevent the family from coming to the U.S. for the funeral, because they were worried that the press would cover it," he says.

In October, DHS Secretary Janet Napolitano announced extensive reforms for the detention system, with changes ranging from separating criminal aliens from mere asylum seekers, to releasing others with electronic ankle bracelets.

The department also plans to bring all contracts with private prisons—now totaling more than 300—under centralized supervision at ICE headquarters. And the agency pledges to more than double the number of federal employees providing oversight at large detention facilities.

"These new initiatives will improve accountability and safety in our detention facilities," said Napolitano, "as we continue to engage in smart and effective enforcement of our nation's immigration laws."

Vincent Picard, an ICE spokesman in Phoenix, says those changes are just beginning to take root. "While we're looking at reforms nationally, they have not yet been implemented in Arizona. But we anticipate hiring some additional federal employees to provide government oversight of the detention facilities in Arizona."

ICE also plans to assign case managers "to keep tabs on detainees with significant medical problems," he says. Other steps may include ensuring that seriously ill detainees are housed in areas with hospitals. Picard says the agency will also develop an online registry, allowing relatives to trace their family members in detention.

But such reforms may not be enough to satisfy frustrated immigrant-rights activists, who point to continuing abuses. "We get letters from detainees, and the No. 1 complaint is denial of medical attention and abuse," says Kat Rodriguez of the Tucson group Derechos Humanos. "The other really big problem is lack of accountability. For example, many times, we've gotten calls about someone who's in detention, and nobody can find them in the system."

She says Derechos Humanos was contacted by one woman looking for her son. The young man had been deported after illegally crossing into the United States. Then he was caught again and placed in detention in Tucson. Officials told his mother he was being sent to a California jail.

"But when we talked to the jail, they said they had sent him back to (the Tucson) detention center," Rodriguez says. "And that detention center said they'd never received him. The only record they had of him was from when he was originally deported. So nobody could say where he was.

"It's almost like people are being disappeared," she says.

Mail Art 4 Mumia Campaign!

From "etta and the mailart4mumia working group". Sounds like an awesome idea. Great links at the bottom.

--------------------

 

please translate – please forward – Please respond electronically to Mailart4mumia@gmail.com

 

Flood the White House – Mail Art 4 Mumia

www.mailart4mumia.org

 

Mumia Abu-Jamal – The world’s most well-known political prisoner may be re-sentenced to death.

Demand a new fair trial! Mail your solidarity!

Send your own Mail 4 Mumia to the White House anytime during the week of April 24^th 2010

Although if you miss the deadline – the white house never closes –aka never too late to send art to the white house for Justice

Barak Obama – The Whitehouse 1600 Pennsylvania Ave. Washington, D.C. –20500 usa

Create Paintings, Prints, Drawings, Collages, Sculpture, Extremely, Beautiful Letters, Anything Mailable.

 Anything Non Liquid, Non Perishable, Non Hazardous.

Why send art to the White House?

Art is a form of expression that needs no translation. By sending your own creative petition to the White House it demonstrates worldwide support and draws attention to Mumia’s unjust imprisonment. Tell the U.S. government that we stand with Mumia and will not allow him to be EXECUTED!

Please send a photo, copy or some sort of documentation for Local Art Show. Mumia lives in Solitary Confinement one hour from Pittsburgh.  All contributions will be responded to.

Mailart 4 Mumia – 3807 Melwood Ave –Pittsburgh, PA 15213  usa– mailart4mumia@gmail.com

 

 

Here's a short list of websites with history on Mumia's case, legal background, audio interviews, movies, youtube clips, and Mumia's radio essays. Follow these for updates and background on the case:

Journalists for Abu-Jamal (great site, lots of links to others, audio and video on the right hand column: http://abu-jamal-news.com/

 

Free Mumia Coalition, NYC: http://www.freemumia.com/

 

Free Mumia, San Francisco: http://www.freemumia.org/

 

Educators for Mumia: http://www.emajonline.com/

 

The MOVE Organization: http://onamove.com/

 

Mumia's Radio Commentaries, updated weekly: http://prisonradio.org/mumia.htm

 

Movies Online

Framing an Execution: Mumia Abu-Jamal and the Media (narrated by Danny Glover): http://video.google.com/videoplay?docid=2537462601888502694#

A Case of Reasonable Doubt, HBO Documentary: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uT3ubcPE1aU

 

Video Interviews with Mumia:

From Death Row: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KRGFZ1eLJO4

 

Mumia on Political Parties: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=v_hLAmMM_aE

 

Mumia on the Economy: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kQjmHQU0VE4

 

Mumia on Prisons: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=37u3sPHjrro

 

Mumia Fighting for his life: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OD130EKCOsE

 

Brewer should Veto Tax Cuts: $940 Million Revenue Loss.

This is a good article explaining effects of the HB 2250 Tax Cuts for businesses/wealthy. The full effect of this bill is to occur in 2017. Imagine how much more in the way of services we'll have to cut, then, because we have another budget "deficit". This may have actually passed all the way up to the Governor by now. Urge her to veto (which she won’t, since it has her sales tax in it, but we should put into writing for her and our legislators our objections and warnings about how devastating this will be to the working class and the poor).

Check out the "comments" from my post on JD for a contrary opinion regarding taxes, by the way. At least the author sounds more articulate than JD or Pearce. I still think we need to tax the rich more. I guess it's okay with some folks, though, to extract taxes from hard-working poor people in order to pay for munitions with depleted uranium to drop on Afghan villages - it's just not okay to take tax money for medical or dental care for our own children. I don't see the logic, there. 

Would the author support the government allowing us to designate how our tax dollars are spent, so that those of us who are resisting the war don't get prosecuted, and those who want to resist health care for fellow Americans can do so as well? I don't know how feasible that would be - people would insist that "their" money not fund sex education, the United Nations, Martin Luther King Day festivities, etc.  

I'm not happy with where a lot of my tax dollars are going, either, and would like more choice about it. But I think for the common good it's necessary to raise taxes through progressive policies to fund schools, fire departments, Medicaid, and other institutions we need right now to function - cut everything to the working poor (while at the same time raising our sales tax), and we'll be sure to be spending that money we "save" in exponential amounts at the AZ Department of Corrections not far down the road.  

CCA has already invested a lot of money in this state, and GEO is making serious inquiries(those are the corporate giants in the prison industry). That means they're buds with some of our legislators and local officials. Their lobby here is big and growing – pretty soon they’ll be writing our laws and minimum mandatories. We can guess who will be investing stock in Arizona's private prisons; the same people would also have a vested interest in gutting schools and pushing poor people into low-wage jobs in order to keep a certain segment of the population trapped in the least desirable jobs in the service sector. If they have to work two jobs to keep their family afloat, then at least they won’t have time to make trouble for the power elite.  

Their banker buddies will foreclose on our houses, while their relatives rush in and snatch them up to turn them into rentals, which increasing numbers of us will need, as we're too poor to buy a home, even at these prices. Their kids will be protected in the higher tax brackets because they are entitled "property owners", and will jam us low-lifes for high rent even though they won't have to pay any property taxes.  

Making higher education accessible to poor and middle class youth just makes it more likely that you'll be graduating students who will not vote conservatively, and may actively resist the direction of politics in this state. So there's a certain amount of sense in jacking up the cost of school for everything from tuition to the parking meters (now at $50 for an expired one - and if you stay for a 3-hour class and don't hit the meter in time, you can get two tickets - $100 for a little over 2 hours at a meter. That's criminal.). Squeeze the malcontents out, and those who could really challenge the power structure in ASU and society. Find out a way to make it seem as if it's their own fault for not working hard enough to support themselves through school, or something.  

But the legislature and governor's kids/grandkids won't have to worry about any of this belt-tightening at all - their folks passing these budget cuts can still afford their education, and raising college tuition will cut down on the competition they might have if too many poor people were allowed to smarten up (some of them are already pretty smart, you know?).

Don't believe for a minute that Medicaid, Food Stamps, and energy assistance for low-income households are the cause of our financial woes. The legacy in this state of massive tax cuts and budget cuts has a lot to do with where we are now - because Arizona likes to do it's human services on the cheap, which is costing us a fortune by shifting the poor from DES lines to prison. War's taking a much bigger chunk of our income as well.  

If these tax cuts go into effect, we're really going to be screwed.  

That gives us just five years to turn the entire legislature over and seize the governor's office, then strip the state laws of all the damage done by these people over the past ten (or thirty) years. I'll say it again: I really don't want more self-absorbed, self-interested, rich people moving here who are willing to just brutalize the rest of us, and who do it with pride while waving the Red, White, and Blue. That's sick, it's un-American, and those are the kind of people who should be criminalized.  

So, I disagree strongly with the individual who commented on the previous article about JD, but I do appreciate that they commented. I'd like to hear more voices here. I'm pretty hot about how it's okay to bury us in sales taxes and all sorts of fees to do anything in this state - including going to jail - because they want us to pay for their cops to put us in their prisons which are built and funded by our tax dollars  - but they don't want to share any of their wealth to assure that everyone in Arizona can access medical care, has quality k-12 education, and to make sure that the tuition at the state universities is as affordable as possible. So once again, it's the little people who get hit by the legislature's tax cuts, and big money is being invited to just stroll in and feast at our table while our children go hungry.



This legislature should be ashamed of itself. As should the Governor.

They're so selfish and pathetic that they even raised the medical co-pay for prisoners by $2 (and may do so again), many of who earn only ten cents an hour, if they're lucky. The state knows that just discourages people who need medical care from seeking it out until there's an expensive medical crisis, which doesn't seem like it would save money - unless you just let the person die during that crisis. By saving two bucks here and there - money taken out of the poorest of the poor's health care - they're going to end up spending a fortune in caring for late-stage chronic illnesses - much money and additional human suffering that could have been avoided. I still say that's not consistent with conservative values. It's just plain too foolish. 

Same with selling off our properties then leasing them back - paying an extraordinary amount of interest rates that will go into the accounts of profiteers, not come back to our communities in any meaningful way. 

Wealth, by the way, in large part comes from the few exploiting the rest of us, and our laws regarding wealth in America continue to favor the old Anglo-European families and exclude the poor (and in so doing, severely limit opportunities for upward mobility among people of color). An excellent book on this is "The Color of Wealth." (New Press: 2006). A current, on-going source of critical analysis of state and federal budgets is the Center on Budget and Policy Priorities. Another excellent resource on economic policy alternatives is the Economic Policy Institute.

----------------

Arizona House OKs series of tax cuts

By Howard Fischer
Capitol Media Services/East Valley Tribune

February 12, 2010

A House-passed package of tax cuts will cut state revenues by more than $940 million a year by the time it is fully implemented seven years from now, a new report shows.

The study by the staff of the nonpartisan Joint Legislative Budget Committee says the biggest hit would come from a 10 percent across-the-board cut in individual income taxes. That has a price tag of $360.8 million.

Eliminating the state property tax would take away another $301.9 million. And a 28 percent cut in corporate income taxes reduces collections close to another $200 million.

But House Speaker Kirk Adams, R-Mesa, who pushed HB 2250 through his chamber, said the study is, in some ways, misleading.

Most notably, he said, it does not consider how much new business the changes in tax policy will generate in the state. And Adams said something major like this clearly needs to be done to deal with the fact that the number of people now working in Arizona is 276,000 less than the peak just three years ago.

The report, though, will just add fuel to claims by Democrats that the Republican-controlled Legislature is busy shifting the tax burden from businesses to residents. They point out that the sales tax proposal that voters will decide on May 18, if approved, would raise about $1 billion a year.

Adams, however, said the two issues are unrelated.

He said the tax hike, which would last for three years, is designed to get the state through the current fiscal crisis. Adams said the package of tax cuts — along with other measures in HB 2250 designed to promote economic development — will help Arizona better weather the next recession by diversifying the economy.

That leaves the question of whether the legislation makes economic sense to lawmakers.

Adams said that $940 million figure is inflated, as it represents losses in 2017 dollars when the overall state budget will be much larger and when inflation will make it worth less in current dollars.

He acknowledged, though, if his legislation becomes law it will cut tax collections by some figure.

But what is also missing, Adams said, is a “dynamic” analysis of the effect of HB 2250 in 2017.

In his report, budget analyst Hans Olofsson acknowledged that the figures are based on a “static” model. That takes current conditions, makes a few assumptions about population growth and computes the effects of the measure based on that.

So figuring out how much the state would forfeit by cutting corporate income taxes amounts to applying that 28 percent rate cut to anticipated corporate earnings in the 2017 fiscal year.

Adams said a “dynamic” analysis would consider the economic growth that will occur with lower taxes. He said that would show a net gain, though he acknowledged the figure is “incalculable” at this time.

“But we know that states that have these policies in place do much better than we do,” he said.

Rep. Kyrsten Sinema, D-Phoenix, the No. 2 Democrat in the House, said that’s pure speculation.

She said there is evidence that targeted tax breaks, like special incentives given by lawmakers last year to lure companies that manufacture solar equipment to the state, do convince firms to locate and expand here.

“But just randomly cutting some things across the board, there’s no evidence whatsoever at the state or the national level that shows that you bring in more jobs or more revenue streams to the state,” she said.

The report does not consider the impact to local governments and schools caused that would be caused by another provision in the measure which reduces the way business property is assessed for tax purposes. But the analysis says there won’t be any actual lost dollars if these local governments simply shift the burden to owners of residential property.

Sinema also took a swipe at Adams who earlier in the session promised that the House would not vote on the legislation until legislative budget staffers analyzed the fiscal impact of the measure. While that report came out Friday, Adams pushed it through the House on Jan. 28.

For the moment, though, the legislation is stalled. Senate President Bob Burns, R-Peoria, said he will not bring it up for a vote in his chamber until lawmakers fix not only the deficit in this year’s budget but also adopt a balanced spending plan for the coming fiscal year.

JD Hayworth: Tried and True.

Tried and true...

This seems like a good one to follow that bit on Arpaio. Hopefully Pearce's endorsement will be the nail in JD's coffin. He was tried, alright, and got off on those charges. He had a good attorney when he was being prosecuted - more than most people in prison can say.  The local Republicans just had a big fundraiser to pay off the remaining $100,000 of his legal fees, in fact, lamenting how he ended up being persecuted and penalized even though he was "innocent".

Meanwhile, there aren't even enough pillows to go around for prisoners (what do they do for beds?) - much less money for their legal fees, and most of them got screwed by their state-funded attorneys the first time around, anyway. I have a friend whose daughter needs dental care desperately, and it's not covered by anyone, including AHCCCS. In fact, they just changed their eligibility criteria to cut off even more poor people from their remaining resources - she and her family are among them.

Don't tell me "this is going to hurt a little", John Kavanagh from Fountain Hills - even your neighbors out there are struggling, but you aren't about to be hurt by what you people are doing - you made sure that you and your kids are taken care of for years to come – at our expense..

Those tea-partiers who claim it's an All-American thing to hoard health care resources - that their “right” to "freedom from government interference" supercedes the rights of their neighbor to access lifesaving resources – are full of double-speak. They finance and support the same people (Pearce, JD et al) who keep tweaking all these laws and sentencing mandates, imposing even more governmental controls on the rest of us. If they pass SB 1070 contravening local sovereignty over law enforcement priorities, I'm going to go out of my way to aid and abet "illegal immigrants" however I can - I'll be doing more than leaving water for them in the desert. Take that for my statement of criminal intent.

These guys aren't trying to protect anyone but themselves and their kind from "government interference" (eg, the People holding them responsible to the community and laborers they've been sucking their profits out of all along). Just about all this legislature has done has been to manipulate government into interfering with our lives on their behalf. So many middle-class people fall for it,  and the rest of us are just too hungry and weary to fight back effectively.

But we aren’t taking much more of this.

Here's Russ gushing about JD and imploring us for more money. Where does he think real people are going to pull money out of for this guy's campaign? People are still losing their jobs, homes, and families, and he seems pretty clueless to that. He plans to defeat his political challengers by outspending them before they even make it to the primaries, though - that's his explicit campaign financing strategy. Big defender of Democracy, Pearce is.

I'm sure JD has the same thing in mind, and they want us to foot the bill for their power trips and egos. They are hardly champions of liberation; they are the few who lust for dominance over the many, by whose interests our legal precedents are set. Enough people with money will be supporting these guys that they’ll fill their accounts just fine, I’m sure.  Their big-money financiers tell you whose interests they really represent...and it’s not the white blue-collar guy in Chandler or Mesa. 

JD’s tried and true, alright...Just not in the People's Hall of Justice. 

I realize that anarchists don’t believe in the American version of “democracy” – I have my doubts, too. It’s never been all that democratic, and the anarchists frankly have a much more humane and just model of living together than we do. It’s more democratic, in terms of creating egalitarian structures. 

 

Nevertheless, I’m still working from within the power structure we’ve got (I know it doesn’t make me a very good abolitionist - certainly not very “radical”) - so let's bury these men in this election. If we don’t, then maybe I’ll consider other strategies to alter the balance of power – I just refuse to believe that the majority of Americans are really like these guys, and in any event I don’t think we should condone their behavior. They claim to represent us, which means we have an obligation to object vociferously – and resist - when they don’t. Many forms of resistance will be necessary for true democracy to win.

All the following typos are Pearce’s alone, not mine.

                                       

---------------Pearce Alert! (www.russellpearce.com )------------------

Greetings ,

I am hoping and praying for a "change" in Washington D.C. and I am hoping it is a change that is good for America and for freedom loving Americans, and I hope and pray we are in time. What is going on in our Capitol should concern every America.  The candle of liberty has always been kept burning by the vigilance of a few.  In 1776 it all started with a smal band of rag tag Patriots who had all they could stand on government that did not listen to the people and did not respect our natural (God given) liberties.

I am sure that I’m not telling you anything you don’t already know, but just in case, here is some great news for all of us here in Arizona and across the country.

The political revolution that started in Virginia and New Jersey, and continued into Massachusetts, has finally made its way to Arizona.  We are about to have the chance to elect a conservative who will change politics all across this country.

I'm writing to you about a very special friend of all of ours, who on Monday will be announcing his candidacy for the United States Senate.  His name is J.D. Hayworth!

If you don’t know, J.D. is a tried and true patriot who believes in securing the border, reducing the size of government, restricting its intrusion into our economic and personal lives and protecting America against those who would try to destroy her.  He believes in the rule of law, the sanctity of Life, and the rights guaranteed by our Constitution.  He has an amazing lifetime rating of 98 from the American Conservative Union.

J.D. helped write the tax cuts that John McCain voted against.  J.D. opposed the big government bailouts that John McCain voted for.  And don’t even get me started on Amnesty, the Gang of 14, or McCain-Feingold.

Many of us have been asking J.D. to run this race and he has accepted our challenge.  Now we must do our part to elect J.D. Hayworth to the United States Senate.

How do we send a message to Washington that the people of Arizona don't support amnesty, government subsidies for illegal's and won't tolerate the guns, drugs and gangs flowing over the border into our state any longer?

       ...by joining me today and making an online contribution to JD!

How do we make sure Washington hears our voices loud and clear that we want smaller government, a balanced budget, and tax relief for families and seniors?

       ...by joining me today and making an online contribution to JD!

Conservatives across Arizona and America are joining this fight.  Together we can win this battle.  We need your support today, whether you can contribute $20, $50 or even $500.  Every contribution helps send a signal that we're behind J.D. Hayworth for U.S. Senate 100%.

Please join me and donate TODAY!.  And when the campaign is in your area, please join J.D. at a campaign event.  Visit his website at www.JDforSenate.com to learn more, and thank you, in advance, for supporting J.D. Hayworth for Senate.

God bless you and God bless America.


Russell

If the links in this email are broken, please visit: http://www.JDforSenate.com