Tick, tock: Here comes 2010

 

Seeing Red AZ sends sincere best wishes for a happy, healthy and safe new year to our readers. We are grateful for the time you spend with us.

As we enter an important election cycle, we encourage you to work for the candidates of your choice and help ensure conservative Republican victories. We need them now more than ever.

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The daily: Winding down and ginning up its pro-illegal beat

For the Arizona Republic, the end-of-the-year is no different from the beginning or middle when it comes to promotion of their favorite topic. Today, the daily unfailingly gives us our dose of open border tonic in the form of an inane editorial which sounds like an assignment from the Cronkite School farm team — conveniently mixing both legal and illegal Mexicans in the stew. The vast difference between the two groups is intentionally given short shrift.

With regard to the border jumping illegals, readers are urged to “embrace and celebrate” them and question ourselves as to our reactions when we hear the “beautiful language” of Spanish spoken in the mall. The editorial poses this foolish question: “Are we welcoming these visitors? Or will Arizona’s attitude toward Mexico make it more attractive for Mexico’s growing middle class to skip Arizona and fly into Las Vegas to shop?”

If this was April 1^st, we could rightfully conclude they were funnin’ us.

Then we are further counseled that “a continuous drumbeat of blame directed at those who cross the border illegally can have a pernicious effect…”

If only.

And finally: “These questions matter because the border represents a potential source of economic development on many levels. Our attitude matters because Arizona owes much of its culture and heritage to Mexico, Mexicans and Mexican-Americans.”

Along with, we might add:  Armenians, Basques, Chinese, Danes, English, French, Germans, Hungarians, Italians, Japanese, Kuwaitis, Lithuanians, Malaysians, Norwegians, Poles, Russians, Spanish, Thais, Uruguayans, Vietnamese, Welsh, Zimbabweans…….

A counter to this tedious blather can be read here.

NY’s famed Tavern on the Green closes after 75 years; falls to Obama “recession”

New York’s celebrated Tavern on the Green, once America’s highest-grossing restaurant, is closing its doors.

The landmark restaurant located at the edge of Central Park, will serve its last meal tonight — New Year’s Eve. Just three years ago, it was plating more than 700,000 meals annually, and brought in receipts of more than $38 million. For 75 years, since it first opened amid the Great Depression, the 27,000 square foot Tavern has attracted clients from around the world, AP reports. 

However, it was unable to survive the Obama “recession,” and has filed for bankruptcy.

Its $8 million debt is to be covered at an auction of Baccarat and Waterford chandeliers, Tiffany stained glass, china, silver, crystal, a mural depicting Central Park and other decor that has bewitched visitors for decades. Even the restaurant’s legendary name is up for grabs.

Check out the wedding page photos for an idea of the grandeur that is coming to an end. Tavern on the Green has been the site of high-profile celebrity weddings and has been featured in Hollywood film weddings. They even shared their often-requested recipes — available here.

This sad economic spectacle is being repeated across the country. Seeing Red AZ has covered some of the closures of longtime establishments in the Valley here, here, here, here.

Proud to be with you?

The Center for Arizona Policy is a reliable and consistently strong pro-life organization that can be counted on to be in the forefront of conservative, pro-family views. That makes the recent email blast from the Chairman of the Board all the more puzzling. It contains this message:

“The Arizona Capitol Times has named CAP President Cathi Herrod one of the Decade’s Ten Most Influential Arizonans! Cathi is being recognized in a distinguished list that includes Senator John McCain, former Governor Janet Napolitano, and ASU President Michael Crow.”(Underlined emphasis was contained in the email)

Would liberals so proudly send out a message saying they were honored to be on a “distinguished list” that includes Ronald Reagan, Rush Limbaugh, Mark Levin, Michelle Malkin or Sean Hannity? 

Doubtful.

Keep Rush in your prayers: Limbaugh in serious condition

Rush Limbaugh, conservative icon and radio talk show host has been admitted to the Queens Medical Center in Honolulu with chest pains.

Paramedics responded to a Wednesday afternoon call from the Kahala Hotel and Resort where Limbaugh is vacationing, KITV-TV reported. The station, citing unnamed sources, said the 58-year-old Limbaugh was taken to The Queens Medical Center in serious condition.

UPDATES here.

McCain suffers another defeat at hands of grassroots Republicans

It’s been reported that the conference call to discuss support operations for the GOP Victory Plan of the 2010 election cycle took place earlier this evening. This is the one detailed in this previous post, and crafted by the McCain/Kyl surrogates and “stakeholders.”

The proposal was to take a vote on the adoption of the draft plan, something that never came to pass, since the general consensus was opposed to even voting on the measure due to concerns about its legality. Voices were raised against the scheme proposed by McCain’s campaign manager Shiree Verdone and former state GOP chair Mike Hellon.

A motion was then offered that a new committee be formed to be headed by Republican State Chairman Randy Pullen and the GOP State Treasurer Timothy Lee, to include representatives who would speak for the state executive committee and actually represent the grassroots, since they were excluded from the original plan.

That motion passed by a unanimous vote.

Victory for whom? McCain-led stakeholders opt to shackle AZ GOP

The McCain/Kyl crew, using “stakeholders” Shiree Verdone (McCain), Jake Logan (Kyl), Lisa James (Shadegg) and Mike Haller (Flake) as whip masters, are hard at work to disenfranchise Arizona Republican party leadership, manipulate the party fundraising apparatus to their own advantage, and hold the electoral process hostage. Their shenanigans masquerade under the name of “Arizona Victory.”

Once again, they have lost sight of the fact that our aim is to defeat the opposition party, not eat our own. But the stakes have elevated with the specter of a J.D. Hayworth senatorial challenge to McCain and the potential of an embarrassing Tom Daschle-like loss. 

The “Victory” plan comes complete with the directive that all federal officeholders — that means McCain, himself — be reelected, and attempts to ensure no primary opposition — carefully avoiding the elephant-in-the-room name of  J. D. Hayworth. The smell of their fear is pungent.

Demands are being made by the McCain/Kyl cabal that the AZ GOP relinquish money that the RNC has allotted for voter registration and in effect, turn it over to them as controlling agents.

This sounds like a “My way or the highway” ultimatum. In other words, the RNC’s $50,000 seed money for Victory 2010 is to be controlled by Arizona’s senators, John McCain and Jon Kyl rather than the state party.

It is doubtful these heavy-handed tactics are integral to the new direction RNC Chairman Michael Steele has charted.

Maricopa County Republican Chairman Rob Haney sent the following letter addressing this issue to all 80 members of the state executive committee:

I have read the many concerns about the Arizona 2010 Victory Plan Draft. I agree with all of them. However, the most egregious part of the plan to me is the third bullet under overview and goals. “Reelecting all current federal office holders” The special deal “earmark” for federal office holders is a prime example of why the American voter rates the Congress, both Republican and Democrats, so poorly. The hubris in the directive that we reelect all current federal office holders is unfathomable and hypocritical. The back-up for it, “popularity of our incumbents” is just down right untruthful.

Have the Stakeholders not read the polls indicating how out-of-touch with the Republican base the Republican voter believes our federal representatives are? In essence, the stakeholders are telling us they have done away with the primary elections for our federal incumbents. They believe the governor should go through a primary but not our special privileged federal office holders. I know Campaign Finance Reform was an incumbent protection act, but I had no idea it would be taken to this length.

The Stakeholders like to proclaim that the Republican Party is a bottom-up organization. This plan proves otherwise. The Stakeholders have become like the Congressional Democrats they complain about who abuse their political power.

Rob Haney

Chairman

Maricopa County Republican Committee

“Clean” Elections trigger provisions: Makes strange bedfellows for a good cause

Arizona elected officials file amicus curiae brief in Connecticut public funding case

The U.S. Court of Appeals, 2nd circuit, will be scheduling oral arguments in Green Party of Connecticut v. Garfield, the case challenging Connecticut’s public funding law.

You know it better as “Clean” Elections — which we contend is anything but.

The Green Party previously won the case in U.S. District Court and the state is appealing.

Yesterday, three Arizona elected officials filed this amicus brief in support of the Green Party‘s position. The 24-page amicus, or friend of the court brief, argues against the “trigger provision” in the Connecticut law.

The Connecticut law requires that if a candidate who doesn’t qualify for public funding still manages to raise private funds exceeding the expenditure limit for an opponent who is receiving public funds, the publicly-financed candidate is permitted to receive substantial additional public funding.

The three Arizona elected officials are Arizona State Treasurer Dean Martin, State Senate President Robert Burns (R-Dist.9), and State Representative Rick Murphy (R-Dist.9). They are also plaintiffs in an Arizona lawsuit challenging the Arizona public funding “trigger provision.”

In August 2008, U.S. District Court (AZ) Judge Roslyn Silver, preliminarily ruled that a similar provision violates the First Amendment, relying on the Supreme Court’s jurisprudence in Davis v. Federal Election Commission. The case is McComish v. Bennett (formerly McComish v. Brewer). The judge declined to stop the program because an election was nearing and the case remains pending.

But it really doesn’t get much clearer than this: “Plaintiffs have established that the Matching Funds provision of the Act violates the First Amendment of the U.S. Constitution.” (Page 7, lines 18, 19)

H/T to Campaign Freedom.

Delusional BHO plans to move Gitmo detainees to Yemen

The radical Muslim attempted plane bomber, Umar Farouk Abdulmutallab, who spent time in Yemen with al-Qaeda and was in that country only days before the failed attack, has told authorities that other militants —  perhaps hundreds of them — are planning similar acts of terrorism. Two recent transfers claim to be the masterminds behind the Christmas Day near-tragedy.

Yet Barack Obama is committed to repatriating Yemenis held at the U.S. military prison at Guantanamo Bay, Cuba. Yemenis account for 46 percent of the 210 inmates remaining at the facility. Three of those Yemenis have been ordered released by federal judges following proceedings in which they challenged their detention under the doctrine of habeas corpus. At least 34 Yemenis have already been cleared for release.

And officials in Yemen, the poorest Arab nation, insist that they need financial assistance from the United States to successfully reintegrate returning detainees. The implied threat is “No money, we can’t hold them.”

Rep. Frank R. Wolf (R-VA), a critic of Obama’s policy, said Yemeni detainees pose a particular risk because of the instability of their home country. “Stop. These men are dangerous,” Wolf said when asked about the transfer. “I believe they will be involved in terrorism that will cost American lives.”  He has sent five letters to Obama urging him to halt the releases.

Bin Laden has close ties to Yemen, where his father was born. In 2000, al-Qaeda bombers attacked the USS Cole in the southern city of Aden, killing 17 American sailors. Since then, militants have carried out a string of attacks on U.S. missionaries, foreign tourists and Yemeni security forces. Last year, heavily armed gunmen targeted the U.S. Embassy with a car bomb and rockets. The attack killed 16, including six assailants, the Washington Post reports.

Most of us know little about the country. Yemen’s government has been enmeshed in a civil war in the north, a secessionist movement in the south and general crises as the impoverished county’s economy crumbles further. In this void, al-Qaeda has steadily grown, using the nation’s vast lawless, rugged terrain as a haven.

And Abdulmutallab? Although he was allowed to board an American airliner to Detroit, despite his father‘s pleas to the U.S. embassy regarding his radicalism and instability, Britain banned him, placing him on a “watch list” this year. Homeland INsecurity chieftain, Janet Napolitano was less concerned.

Sound bites: What a difference a year (and a near calamity) makes

From the Washington Post, November 21, 2008:

President-elect Barack Obama‘s pending selection of Arizona Gov. Janet Napolitano (D) as secretary of homeland security was greeted yesterday as a sign that the new Democratic administration will fundamentally change the tone of the nation’s post-Sept. 11 approach to domestic security.

McCain called to congratulate Napolitano and said in a statement that her government experience “warrants her rapid confirmation by the Senate, and I hope she is quickly confirmed.”

Kyl said “she will bring a wealth of experience to the department” adding that her “distinguished career” had prepared her well for the position.

AP Report December 29, 2009:

Sen. Jon Kyl said he now doesn’t feel “totally safe” with Janet Napolitano as homeland security secretary.

Howard Fischer, Capitol Media Services, December 29, 2009:

Sen. John McCain‘s comments about Napolitano were more muted than his colleague’s.

“I respect the president’s choice and I want to work with her as much as possible,” he said.

McCain said the fact the man was subdued by passengers before being able to set off his bomb does not mean the agency, headed by the former Arizona governor, was doing its job. He said it needs to do more than just check passengers at the airport. “That’s the end of the line,” McCain said.

Wall Street Journal, December 29, 2009:

President Barack Obama on Tuesday said a “potential catastrophic breach” of security led to the Christmas Day attempted bombing on a Detroit-bound airplane.

“A systemic failure has occurred and I consider that totally unacceptable. There was a mix of human and systemic failure that contributed to this potential catastrophic breach of security,” he said.