AZ Reps. pitch funding striking teachers by legalizing pot

Arizona Democrat Mark Cardenas (LD 19) and his House of Representatives Republican buddy Todd Glatfelter (LD 10) have joined in a novel bipartisan effort to fund teachers who are demanding a 20 percent pay increase. The teacher’s scheduled strike takes place this Thursday, leaving the students they claim to care about stranded and missing crucial class time.

Sending a terrific message to the impressionable school children, State Reps. Cardenas and Glatfelter are renewing their previous efforts to legalize pot in Arizona. This time the pretext is to help pay for teacher raises.

Read their bill, HCR 2037, titled “marijuana, regulation and taxation,” that includes a provision for 40 percent of the net revenues be directed to a public education grant program that would be administrated by a task force appointed by the State Superintendent of Public Instruction, which would solicit, receive, review and evaluate applications and award grants.

No kidding!

The Governor’s Office of Strategic Planning and Budgeting projects 20 percent teacher raises will cost state taxpayers about $650 million.

In 2016, Arizona voters rejected Prop 205, which would have legalized recreational use of the drug. This was SRAZ’s exposé regarding the facts behind the deceptive legislation.

Keep in mind teachers are represented by far-left unions. The $ millions teachers pay in dues fund liberal politicians and their causes.

Teachers unions have steadily amped up their political involvement: From 2004 to 2016, their donations grew from $4.3 million to more than $32 million — an all-time high. Even more than most labor unions, they have little use for Republicans, giving Democrats at least 94 percent of the funds they contributed to candidates and parties since as far back as 1990 when Center for Responsive Politics initially began collecting data.

Passage of ballot propositions — 301 in 2000 increasing the state sales tax and 123 in 2016 a grab from the state land trust — guaranteed more money for education, which apparently is never enough. Teachers protest and school districts hold budget overrides and bond elections to “get more money into the classroom” —- eduspeak for bolstering teacher’s salaries. A major premise of passing the Arizona Lottery in 1980 was that money from ticket purchases would make its way to schools.

State Reps. Mark Cardenas and Todd Glatfelter are shameless lightweights who both need to be primaried in their respective districts. Not only do their constituents deserve better, but so do the rest of us who would have to function under their deceptive legislation. Arizona’s students have become the undeserving pawns in their reckless escapade.

Read 10 Facts You May Not Know About Education in Arizona. It’s news you need and aren’t getting. Armed with the facts, it’s time for informed parents to march. The only roadblock is they have jobs where their presence is required. And unlike teachers, they don’t have the luxury of frequent half days, lengthy holiday vacations or the entire summer off.

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Utah GOP delegates no fans of Mitt McRomney

Romney, born and raised in Michigan, played down his Republican affiliation, as he supported abortion to be elected governor of liberal Massachusetts. Now the failed presidential candidate is in Utah running to the right for the U.S. Senate seat vacated by Orrin Hatch and is meeting opposition

In an inauspicious attempt to restart his political career, the Salt Lake Tribune reports that after 11 grueling hours of political wrangling Utah GOP convention delegates forced Mitt Romney into a primary election against state Rep. Mike Kennedy in the U.S. Senate race.

In fact, Kennedy — a doctor and lawyer — finished in first place with 51 percent of the vote to Romney’s 49 percent. The former GOP presidential nominee fell far short of the 60 percent needed to clinch the nomination outright. Read the complete, illuminating article here.

Arizona GOP state delegates understand that frustration all too well, after decades of deceptive representation from Republicrat senators John McCain, ,Jeff Flake and previously, Jon Kyl, who all preferred illegal aliens to Arizona’s citizens and repeatedly tried — and failed — to muster support for passage of “Comprehensive Immigration Reform.”

Republican State Delegates in Arizona censured McCain, who retaliated using a well-heeled San Francisco Obama donor to purge Arizona Republican elected precinct committeemen from their unpaid posts. GOP Committeemen are the ones who do the heavy lifting to get Republican candidates elected throughout the state, but that was of no consequence to these single-minded establishment elite.

Romney made several trips to Arizona to bolster support for McCain and Flake, speaking to embarrassingly low attendance gatherings. Here is McCain bungling his introduction for Presidential candidate Romney.

McCain always configured his career-long collusion with liberals as indicative of being a “Maverick.” Fittingly, the Utah Convention was held in Maverik Hall. The spelling is off a notch, but the meaning remains clear.

A simple solution to halt AZ pedestrian deaths

Common sense enforcement needed, not study committees 

Arizona has a problem with pedestrian fatalities. According to data released by the Governors Highway Safety Association (GHSA), which lists by state, we have the highest rate in the entire nation. Hawaii, which is not a border state, has the lowest. Making the numbers even more compelling is the fact that Maricopa County has the unenviable distinction of coming in second in fatalities of all U.S. counties.

The City of Phoenix, under the thumb of leftwing Mayor Greg Stanton —– a self described “progressive,” now running for congress —- jumped into action with the creation of a board to study the crisis. ‘Complete Streets’ has made recommendations after blaming the high fatality rate on our “streetscape.”

What?  You haven’t previously heard that word? That’s because you’re not a liberal urban planner, public health advocate dealing with sustainability, and complete streets, multi-modal/transportation planning and design or health impact assessments. Many of the board members are “quality of life” specialists.

Check out the Complete Streets Advisory Board Roster and their specialties.

An assemblage of nearly a dozen such luminaries is impressive, if you’re into costly social transformation. They addressed the Phoenix City Council demanding council members accelerate the process and adopt the “Complete Streets Guidelines” to make streets safer for pedestrians.

The group blames pedestrian fatalities on economic conditions, demographics, weather, fuel prices, and the amount of time people spend walking. Ergo, if you’re poor, snow drifts are high, you have to walk while texting, you could be an accident waiting to happen.

Among the concepts to alleviate such deficiencies provided for in the guidelines are more sidewalks, reducing the rate of traffic, shade structures and trees, including increased night time lighting.  The slowing of traffic, more lighting and planting of trees clearly conflict with the need to reduce gas, electricity and water consumption previously favored by “sustainability” alarmists. 

There is a simpler and less costly way to address the increase in pedestrian deaths. Begin ticketing people who refuse to use marked crosswalks. This was once known as “jaywalking” and was a ticketable offense. Now officers in patrol cars, concerned about negatively impacting cultural mores, blithely sail past mothers standing on the median with a flock of tykes, waiting for a traffic break to hustle them across the busy street, ignoring the nearby crosswalk and traffic signal.

Crosswalks are routinely disregarded. The attitude is, lines in the street are put there by authority figures and should be avoided regardless of the fact that they save lives. It’s a foolish, often ethnic-based, power struggle that has made Arizona the leader in pedestrian deaths. This is a fact you can be certain the ‘Complete Streets’ committee won’t address.

Yuma, AZ picked romaine lettuce linked to E. coli

Life-threatening complications include kidney failure

The U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) has expanded its warning about an E. coli outbreak connected to romaine lettuce to cover all forms of romaine, including whole heads and hearts of romaine grown in the Yuma, Arizona, growing area. A previous warning was limited to chopped forms of romaine, including salads and salad mixes. 

CDC based the new warning on eight new cases of acute gastroenteritis at a correctional facility in Nome, Alaska, that appear to be connected to the current outbreak affecting 53 people in 16 states. Thirty-one of those have been hospitalized, the CDC said, and although no one has died, five people have developed a type of kidney failure called hemolytic uremic syndrome. This map details the cases by state.

According to the CDC, “E. coli are a diverse family of bacteria that can be found in the intestines of people and animals.”  This information leads us to ask how sanitary are the conditions in the fields where the laborers are picking crops?  Do they have bathroom facilities with soap, running water and antiseptic hand spray or wipes? What do you think? Given the likely circumstances it’s surprising there aren’t more serious disease outbreaks.

From the U.S. Food & Drug Administration:

The symptoms of Shiga toxin-producing (STEC) E. coli infections vary for each person but often include severe stomach cramps and bloody diarrhea. If there is fever, it is usually not very high (less than 101 degrees Fahrenheit /less than 38.5 degrees Celsius). Most people get better within 5–7 days. Some infections are very mild, but others are severe or even life-threatening.

Around 5–10 percent of those who are diagnosed with STEC infection develop a potentially life-threatening complication, known as hemolytic uremic syndrome (HUS).

Symptoms of HUS include fever, abdominal pain, feeling very tired, decreased frequency of urination, small unexplained bruises or bleeding, and pallor. Most people with HUS recover within a few weeks, but some suffer permanent damage or die. People who experience these symptoms should seek emergency medical care immediately. Persons with HUS should be hospitalized because their kidneys may stop working (acute renal failure), but they may also develop other serious problems such as hypertension, chronic kidney disease, and neurologic problems.

Read the complete updated report here.

Unionist teachers vote to strike, ditch students, lose parents

Union goons use children as pawns, demonstrate education is not their priority

Gov. Doug Ducey made an enormous miscalculation when he thought he could placate teachers with a colossal 20% pay increase. With their Thursday night vote to stage a walkout, they have proven that nothing is good enough to satisfy them for the 8½ months a year they work.

Teachers pay dues to left-wing unions. Ducey should never have entered the negotiation mix.  District school boards set wages. He needs to govern the state and let the teachers use their unions which spend $millions on far left candidates and issues. Look at the last column on the final chart* to see where the “underpaid” teachers send their money.

This is an instructive memory jogger: NEA General Counsel Bob Chanin told the truth as he spoke candidly on the occasion of his retirement. This is what the agenda actually is. It is not America’s public school children, as he plainly states. The National Education Association (NEA*) supports liberal candidates and issues to the exclusion of Republicans. Its members are the people who are influencing American students, not only politically but also instructing them in the methods of mob rule.

Now the emboldened National Federation of Teachers (check this out) has announced it is severing its ties with Wells Fargo Bank, no longer recommending the bank as a preferred mortgage lender to its 1.7 million members,  over the bank’s association with the Second Amendment supporting NRA.  Exercise your rights. Join “freedom’s safest place” today.

*H/T Center for Responsive Politics

Dr. Kelli Ward holds decisive lead in GOP senate poll

There’s good news being reported by ABC Channel 15. According to a poll the station jointly conducted with OHPI last week, the Arizona Senate race is shaking out for a conservative win.

After a single term of Republicrat Jeff Flake, who opted out of running for reelection due to an abysmal 18 percent approval rating, Arizona conservatives see a light at the end of the anti-Trump tunnel. Both current senators, McCain and Flake stated that neither they nor their families would support Donald Trump — who emerged victorious over 16 other GOP presidential primary candidates. Flake mounted an ongoing tirade against President Trump on liberal media and denounced him in the senate chamber.

The Republican senatorial field is not lacking candidates, but only one, Kelli Ward, a physician, principled conservative and former two-term state senator, presents a real choice. Martha McSally, known on this site as Sally McCain, is more of the same.

 Former Maricopa County Sheriff Joe Arpaio, has been a conservative star, but will be 86 by Election Day, making his run for a six-year term disconcerting even to his diehard supporters.

Arizonans have endured decades of liberals masquerading as Republicans. deceiving voters as they campaign, only to reveal their true blue personas once elected. This is amnesty supporting John McCain at his lying pinnacle. Jeff Flake also cloaked himself as a conservative when in campaign mode, much to the dismay of the liberal newspaper which needn’t have worried about his campaign related duplicity.  Retired Sen. Jon Kyl pulled the same charade as he ran for his final senate term.

The poll results announced on the news report give Dr. Kelli Ward the decisive edge with 36%. Martha McSally fell far short with 27% and popular Joe Arpaio, now unfortunately taking the role of spoiler, held only 22%.

The winner of the GOP primary will face liberal Democrat Krysten Sinema a one-term CD 9 U.S. House member, who has deceptively softened her foul-mouthed image, but is still the former Green Party candidate who celebrated May Day with personal greetings in the People’s World Weekly Communist newspaper, compared women who stay home raising their families to leeches, defamed the military — which she now esteems — and revels in declaring herself the first openly bisexual, atheistic member of congress. To underscore the point, she refused to take her oath of office on a Bible.

Other good news centers on the polling numbers of President Trump. Rasmussen’s Daily Presidential polling shows him with a 50% approval rating, higher than Barack Obama’s 47% approval on the same date eight years ago –– in the second year of his presidency. Trump is winning with the American people,  despite continual leftwing media assaults.

Students learn the art of mob rule from teachers

Emulating their protesting teachers who staged walkouts, abandoning their students to demand an outrageous 20% pay hike, the kids who have learned little educationally have become adept at demanding.  Not understanding the significance of the Second Amendment, they want gun control, and the brash, under-educated students want it now.

Here in Arizona, they are going to the state capitol — possibly for the first time — to stage a “die in” to protest school shootings by lying on the ground in a mock death pose.  Using mob-like tactics, they also plan to occupy several government buildings to demand Gov. Doug Ducey support stricter gun control laws. The demands and antics are coordinated with students nationwide.

The date was chosen to commemorate the Columbine High School massacre in Littleton, Colorado. In 1999, two maniacal students killed twelve students and a teacher, before killing themselves. The assassins deliberately chose the date to coincide with the birthday of Nazi mass murderer Adolf Hitler.

Organizers are not satisfied with Gov. Ducey’s school safety plan which includes placing officers in Arizona schools.

The National School Walkout has a Walkout Planning Guide and announced this three part goal:

1. Hold elected officials accountable
2. Promote solutions to gun violence
3. Demystify and engage students in the political system

If the students were properly educated, there would be no need to “demystify” our system of government.

A decidedly liberal approach is manifest in this tip to protesters titled, “A Note on Safety and Privilege.” White privilege is the latest crime for which atonement must be made, and these radicals haven’t left that out of the equation:

“Guidance on how to plan your actions to ensure that no one is asked to take on a role that they are not comfortable with, and how to be mindful of the fact that not everyone walking out faces an equal level of risk.”

The Arizona legislature is scheduled to begin debate on the issue later this week. According to the daily newspaper’s report, student marchers have derided the governor’s efforts, calling it “51 pages of utter BS.” They also view any efforts at reform as placating the National Rifle Association.

The demonstrators need to talk to Kim Corban, (brief video) who calls the National Rifle Association, “Freedom’s Safest Place.”

These are the educrat liberals behind the Network for Public Education, the moving force propelling the anti-Second Amendment organization, propagandizing* America‘s easy to manipulate under-educated youth.

* Center for Responsive Politics