Border ineffectiveness confirms it’s all about political show

Babeu crime suppression? Just comments after the fact

After five people were found dead inside a burned-out vehicle off I-8 in the Vekol Valley of Pinal County, Sheriff Paul Babeu hopped on his trusty stead and rushed to his Facebook page to comment. The area is a well-known smuggling corridor for drugs and illegal aliens headed from Mexico to Phoenix — as well as  U.S. points beyond.

These days, the publicity hound sheriff is keeping his distance from reporters.

The bodies, some hidden in the SUV’s cargo compartment, were so badly incinerated that investigators weren’t immediately able to determine their gender or ethnicity. Babeu said he had notified the Mexican Consulate. “Given all these indicators, you don’t have to be a homicide detective to add up all this information,” Babeu opined.  Fox 10 News has more here, along with a video.

With cameras nearby we’ve been conditioned to expect a Babeu sighting. Not so these days when he studiously avoids the media and any embarrassing questions after ditching his congressional campaign for another run at sheriff.  Besides which, he’s apt to be otherwise occupado.

Myriad questions are raised when border crimes continue unabated.  Sens. John McCain and Jon Kyl, where is the bill you two were drafting that was heralded as the answer to the ongoing criminality?  And Mr. McCain, where is that “dang” fence? After their campaigns are memories, and as Mexican criminals continue infiltrating Arizona, the glaring ineffectiveness and vacuous promises of our so-called elected representatives are shown as nothing more than campaign rhetoric.

Other than being younger and with more years to give us the back of his hand, Jeff Flake will be no different. Think about whether your children and theirs can survive this outrage.

Open borders Dever endorses Jeff McFlake

Dever the Diva seeks border credibility while consistently supporting open-border establishment

Cochise County Sheriff Larry Dever appears desperate to generate some coverage. Apparently the best he can do is rustle up a weak reprise of his foolish Kyl endorsement (watch 30-second ad here) when he claimed the “Comprehensive Immigration Reform” cohort of John McCain was sincere about “securing the border” and Kyl’s opponent “supported amnesty.“ Dever joined a pack of Democrat sheriffs and some easily conned Republicans who claimed Kyl meant business. The business he meant was nothing more than amnesty, which he and McCain attempted to strong-arm through immediately after Kyl won reelection. Dever also backed McCain in the 2010 senate race when he faced an actual conservative, former U.S. Rep. J.D. Hayworth.

Now retiring, Kyl is ginning up endorsers for his hand-picked successor, Jeff Flake. And who’s eager to step up but Dever. “Jeff’s a good man,” declares Dever, who wouldn’t know border security if it bit him on the backside.  In announcing his endorsement of Flake, Dever solemnly professes, “He gets it.”

It’s all too reminiscent of John McCain deflecting conservative critics who knew him as not only weak in dealing with the massive problem of illegal immigration, but soliciting support from the racist group La Raza — among other sordid border misadventures. McCain tried to counter their ire by bringing Pinal County Sheriff Paul Babeu along for this stroll along the border, (watch 30-second ad here) declaring “Senator, you’re one of us.” Now that Babeu’s personal ambitions have crashed and burned in the wake of multiple unsavory revelations, McCain has run from his former pal.

Career politician Jeff Flake did the same to his close congressional buddy Luis Gutierrez when he was in Phoenix on a multi-state campaign promoting amnesty. Flake’s no-show abandonment of Gutierrez shows he learned his lessons well at the knees of Kyl and McCain.

Conservative Wil Cardon is a fresh face to the political scene, but a successful businessman with generational roots in Arizona. Read his issues page here. He’s the man to watch.

Obama longs for liberal rival like McCain

Part of effort to paint Mitt Romney as extreme

Barack Obama is growing nostalgic over his 2008 adversary. He and his re-election advisors are waxing eloquent over John McCain, missing the man they saw as  a “reasonable voice on climate change and immigration,” one who coordinated efforts with liberal Democrats, someone who took on what they see as “extremism” in his own party.

An Obama-lite.

As Obama has to explain away his own excesses, severe economic malaise, surge in joblessness, government overreaches and crisis level debt, he attempts to characterize Mitt Romney as outside mainstream, by casting McCain as a principled Republican.

“John McCain believed in climate change,” Obama told supporters at a $50,000 a plate fundraiser in Minneapolis Friday. “John believed in campaign finance reform. He believed in immigration reform. I mean, there were some areas where you saw some overlap [with democrat liberal policies]. In this election, the Republican Party has moved in a fundamentally different direction.”

Dear God, we hope so!

As far back as 2005, then Sen. Obama was busy complimenting McCain on his skewed views on climate change.

Obama unravels FDR’s lock on religious communities

Democrats scorning socialism, becoming Republicans

PJ Media carries a thought-provoking commentary regarding a voter shift among Jewish and Catholic voters who are now proudly affiliating with the Republican Party.

This excellent piece was written by Abraham H. Miller an emeritus professor of political science and former head of the Intelligence Studies Section of the International Studies Association.

Miller provides first-rate background on the significant 9% shift among Jews. It shows that Barack Obama has achieved the near impossible. He has created a psychological transformation among Jews, who will now increasingly identify — not just vote — as Republicans. Obama is creating a similar phenomenon in the Catholic community.

In this excerpt Miller opines: “Most people come to their politics the way they come to their religion. They’ve been socialized into a political belief system. They learn about politics as accepted behavior. They learn what newspapers and magazines to read, what media to watch, and what clichés they can utter among their friends for which they can receive social affirmation.

The American left might not be a religious people, but they certainly are not a godless people. They worship the god of government in the church of secularism. They believe in anthropocentric global warming, and that government can create jobs, stem inflation, and solve the problems of poverty at home and abroad. They continue to believe that the economy will be transformed by “green jobs,” although precious few have been created despite an inordinate investment of money.”

Read the complete post here.

Harmful effects of Corporation Commission policy

Phil Mason, longtime Republican activist and former Director of Operations for the AZ GOP, will be co-hosting the Voice of Veterans radio show with Vern Bagley at 4:00 pm this afternoon. Programming begins at 3:00. Listen live on the Internet HERE or at NBC 1260 AM on your radio dial. Among the crucial topics to be covered are governmental overreaches.

Richard Miranda’s “mistake”of fraud, tax evasion

Mistake? Swindler Miranda’s real “mistake” was getting caught

In urging leniency for former state Rep. Richard Miranda, fellow Democrat, AZ Congressman Ed Pastor wrote that Miranda “knows he made a grievous mistake” and that Miranda “warrants consideration of leniency because of his extensive community service.”

KPHO TV5 carries the report on letters written on Miranda’s behalf to U.S. District Judge Roslyn Silver. Richard Miranda’s 24-page plea agreement in which he acknowledges his guilt in the felony offenses can be read here.  His admissions of felony wire fraud and attempted tax evasion in conjunction with the massive scam perpetrated against the charity he ran could net him up to 25 years in federal prison according to the U.S. Justice Department.

What an appalling affront that Congressman Pastor and a gang of legislators would call such offensive actions against the needy families Miranda claimed to help, “a mistake.” And to attempt to plead his case based on “extensive community service” would qualify as a joke if not so serious. His “community service” was with the charity he has deceived, cheated and swindled since 2005.

Current and former legislators who wrote letters imploring the court for leniency on Miranda’s behalf are Democrats Rep. Martha Garcia, Sen. Vic Soltero, and Rep. Anna Tovar.  Oddly joining these endorsers of criminality was lone Republican Rep. John Fillmore, who is running for reelection. Tovar, a former teacher, even said Miranda had a passion for educating children, although the charity he looted and left destitute aimed to provide English lessons,computer and GED training for students. Adding to the display of indifference to the students Miranda harmed, Ernest Lara president of Estrella Mountain Community College also begged the court for leniency.

Miranda is on the hook for fines of up to $350,000 besides restitution of over a quarter of a million dollars and unpaid federal taxes. His attorney, Jose Montano told the judge that Miranda, 56, took the plea because “we believe the likelihood of conviction is very high.”

As a state representative, Richard Miranda was entrusted with authority by his constituents and associates. While running a non-profit Hispanic charity intended to aid farmworkers and their families, Richard Miranda sold the building without the knowledge or consent of the board and pocketed the money. The charity Centro Adelante Campesino is now defunct. He betrayed them all.

Congressman Ed Pastor and these enablers should be ashamed of themselves for making excuses for the inexcusable.

We have previously covered this crook’s escapades:

March 15, 2012: Ex-AZ Rep. Richard Miranda: Thief cops a plea.

February 18, 2012: IRS scrutiny hastened Dem Miranda’s swift exodus.

February 16, 2012: Dem Miranda makes hasty exit from AZ House.

What happened to the AZ Guardian?

The Winged One takes flight

The Arizona Guardian, a subscription-only news blog covering state politics, has been looking puny of late.  Days go by without updates and the few recent reports have been anemic, lacking the vigor first exhibited with its kick-off in January 2009.

After the East Valley Tribune essentially bit the dust as a subscription daily newspaper, morphing into a free distribution and an online edition, a small crew of former employees hopped onboard the Guardian. They were led by their liberal doppelganger Bob Grossfeld, a Democrat political strategist who initially underwrote the endeavor and functioned as publisher.

Most of those who coughed up AZ Guardian subscription fees were lobbyists along with a smattering of comped legislators. Disdaining advertisers might have been the fatal flaw as the staff asserted themselves as “real reporters.” Soliciting ads was beneath their serious journalistic pursuits.

But trying to compete with the Arizona Capitol Times’ Yellow Sheet within a limited sphere of suitable subscribers must have proven too much for the Guardian whose rates ran as high as $150 a month. During an interview not long after its inception, Grossfeld said, “Our model is based on the idea that you’ve got to eat, and effectively you eat what you kill. You want to eat this week? Great, you have to get more subscribers.”

Veteran Journalist Paul Giblin bailed within the first year, as did Patti Epler.  Mary K. Reinhart is reporting for the AZ Republic. Dennis Welch began working at 3TV KTVK today.

This terse message greeted those who went to the Arizona Guardian’s site this morning.

Dismal job figures belie Obama’s rosy forecast

Market tumbles on today’s news

Regardless of the happy face campaigner Obama tries to paint on the economy, the raw figures released today by his own Department of Labor tell a much different story.

America’s wary employers have added only 69,000 jobs in May, the fewest in a year, and falling much shorter than the 158,000 analysts had predicted.  This Bureau of Labor statistical report shows the U.S. unemployment rate rose a tenth of percent to 8.2 percent over last month.

And Obama’s bogus happy face grew a deeper frown as the government revised downward the numbers of jobs added in both April and March. That translates to the projected up-ticks Team Obama hyped for a robust year of employment growth have, instead, fallen.

Dow Jones industrial average futures, which were already down 100 points before today’s report, tumbled an additional 100 points within minutes of the release of these gloomy jobs figures.

Compounding the situation are the serious issues of large numbers of underemployed workers who are forced to accept part-time jobs despite desiring full-time work, or employment far below their skills, experience and education levels. The long-term jobless who have given up seeking employment would spike the figures even higher if they continued to be counted. Long-term unemployed has risen .3 million and the number of involuntary part-time workers 8.1 million.

“We’ve added back more than 4.2 million private sector jobs and seen 26 straight months of job growth—but there’s more work to do.”    – Barack Obama, lying

Sure thing. More and more Americans realize the “work to do” is put a pro-business Republican who understands the principles of sound economics in the White House

Fed Appeals Court rules against DOMA

Romance? It’s all about economics, dahling

A three-judge panel of the 1st U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals in Boston has unanimously ruled today that the Defense of Marriage Act (DOMA) — defining marriage as a union of one man and one woman — is unconstitutional. The judges ruled that the 1996 law deprives homosexual couples of the rights and privileges granted to heterosexual couples.

Lending credence to those who have long claimed that the same-sex marriage issue revolves around financial considerations, the ruling addressed the matter of federal benefits to same sex “married” couples including the ability to file joint tax returns. The judges referred to the “burden and restrictions” of DOMA saying it penalized homosexuals by limiting tax and social security survivor’s benefits to opposite-sex couples. “If one party is in federal service, the other cannot take advantage of medical care and other benefits available to opposite-sex partners. Survivor’s social security, spouse-based medical care and tax benefits are major detriments on any reckoning; provision for retirement and medical care are, in practice, the main components of the social safety net for vast numbers of Americans,” they wrote.

Two of the three judges who decided the case were Republican appointees. Michael Boudin (President George H.W. Bush) and Judge Juan Terrell (President Ronald Reagan). Chief Judge Sandra Lynch was appointed by Bill Clinton.

Read the decision here.

The court’s ruling did not address the law’s provision, which declared states without same-sex “marriages” cannot be forced to recognize such unions performed in states where it’s legal. It also wasn’t asked to address whether same-sex couples have a constitutional right to marry.

The Appeals Court said its ruling wouldn’t be enforced until the U.S. Supreme Court decides the case, meaning that same-sex couples will not currently be eligible to receive the economic benefits not recognized by DOMA. That’s because the ruling only applies to states within the circuit, including Massachusetts, Rhode Island, Maine, New Hampshire and Puerto Rico. Only the Supreme Court has the final say in deciding whether a law passed by Congress is unconstitutional.

Although media sources claim there is growing acceptance of the practice, thirty states have constitutionally banned same-sex unions. Marriage is defined as the union of one man and one woman in at least 42 states. Currently, 31 states have added amendments banning same-sex unions to their constitutions.

Ardent Obama backer renounces Dems, joins GOP

Former U.S. Rep. Artur Davis condemns Dem path

Former Democrat Congressman Artur Davis (Ala.) has made it official. He is abandoning his longtime party for the GOP.  Davis confirmed the rumor on his website.

“Wearing a Democratic label no longer matches what I know about my country and its possibilities,” Davis wrote. He intends to switch his party registration to in Virginia, where he now lives.

Once considered a Democrat rising star, Davis has grown critical of the party in recent years. He  was the only black member of the House to vote against the Democrats on Barack Obama’s massive governmental takeover of America’s health care delivery system.

As one of Obama’s earliest supporters Davis served as co-chairman for his 2008 presidential campaign. Davis, who represented Alabama’s 7th Congressional District from 2003 to 2011, was notably the first member of Congress outside of Illinois to endorse then-Sen. Obama’s 2008 presidential bid. And it was Davis who seconded the official nomination of Obama at the 2008 Democratic National Convention.

Now Davis condemns the path he believes the party is taking.

Renouncing the party “is no light decision on my part,” he wrote. “Cutting ties with an Alabama Democratic party that has weakened and lost faith with more and more Alabamians every year is one thing; leaving a national party that has been the home for my political values for two decades is quite another.” But “wearing a Democratic label no longer matches what I know about my country and its possibilities,” he said. Davis’ impressive bio can be read here.

This retreat from the Democrat party by such a longtime stalwart is further evidence of mounting opposition among Democrats to Obama’s radically liberal message and policies that are undermining our Constitutionally-based freedoms.