2011: A New Year comes with opportunities

Seeing Red AZ sends sincere best wishes for a satisfying, productive, safe and healthy new year to our readers.

As we embark upon this New Year, there is no better time to renew our acquaintance with America’s founding documents:  The Declaration of Independence, our U.S. Constitution and the Bill of Rights.

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AZ GOP National Committeeman Bruce Ash endorses Rob Haney for Maricopa County Chairman

All elected precinct committeemen are invited to acquaint themselves with Chairman Rob Haney’s letter HERE, and his impressive bio, detailing the extensive work he has done on behalf of the Maricopa County Republican Party HERE.

Rob Haney is unrivaled for his dedication to the conservative principles outlined in the Republican Party Platform.

 County officers will be elected at the Maricopa County Statutory Organizational Meeting on Saturday, January 8, 2011. Registration begins at 8:00 AM, with the Call to Order beginning promptly at 9:00 AM.  The meeting will be held at the El Zaribah Shrine Auditorium, 552 North 40^th Street, Phoenix, AZ.

Attendance is required. However if you are unable to attend, you can send your proxy with another registered Republican from your precinct.  Non-Precinct Committeemen proxy holders should bring identification and a voter registration card.

Seeing Red AZ’s 2010 Person of the Year: Velma Hart

Velma Hart, the Chief Financial Officer of a veteran’s organization, stepped up at a Town Hall forum and introduced herself to President Barack Obama by saying:  “I’m a mother, a wife, an American veteran and middle class American and I’m exhausted of defending you.”

“I’m one of your middle class Americans. And quite frankly, I’m exhausted. Exhausted of defending you, defending your administration, defending the mantle of change that I voted for. And I’m deeply disappointed with where we are right now.”

“I have been told that I voted for a man who said he was going to change things in a meaningful way for the middle class. I am one of those people and I’m waiting, sir. I’m waiting. I don’t feel it yet. And I thought, while it wouldn’t be in great measure, I would feel it in some small measure. I have two children in private school and the financial recession has taken an enormous toll on my family. My husband and I have joked for years that we thought we were well beyond the hot dogs and beans era of our lives. But, quite frankly, it’s starting to knock on our door and ring true that that might be where we’re headed again, and, quite frankly, Mr. President, I need you to answer this honestly. “

Speaking for Americans across the country, Democrats, Independents and Republicans, Mrs. Hart  then boldly asked the question that we have all asked ourselves in one way or another, “Is this my new reality?”

For her courageous display, Velma Hart is our 2010 Person of the Year winner.

Orwell’s 1984: Alive and well with journalistic word police

The Diversity Committee of the Society of Professional Journalists has called on news reporters nationwide to stop using the term “illegal immigrant” in their news coverage, in an absurd effort to avoid offending Hispanics.  It must be the illegals they are concerned with, since there is no reason for Hispanic American citizens to be offended.

In the latest issue of Quill, the SPJ’s magazine, Diversity Committee member Leo Laurence announced the organization’s new campaign against “illegal immigrant” and “illegal alien,” claiming that individuals living in America without approval should be called ”undocumented workers“ or ”undocumented immigrants.”

The Washington Times editorially addresses this attempt at language control by correctly stating altering words “doesn’t change facts.” The Times contends the term “illegal alien” is highly specific and accurately describes the problem, unlike “undocumented immigrant,” which purposefully removes a stigma that should rightly remain.

Seeing Red AZ will continue to use the term “illegal aliens.”

In June 2008, we exposed SPJ’s efforts at crafting language in an effort to reconfigure attitudes.

And this attempt to recraft our language was also front and center when the Obama administration decided the words “Global War on Terror” should be changed to reflect the “Global Struggle for Security and Progress.” His Department of Homeland Security’s Office for Civil Rights and Civil Liberties issued a nine-page memo called “Terminology to Define Terrorists,” which determined it was too incendiary to use the word “liberty” when describing America’s foreign policy goal, and called for an end to the terms “Islamist” and “jihadist.”

Watch as Fox News‘ Megyn Kelly responds to the word police on America’s growing obsession with political correctness:

The daily’s gaseous toll roads sermonizing

Just days ago, with the threat of $5 a gallon gas looming, the newspaper blithely tossed out the idea of toll roads. It was headlined, Study looks at opening HOV lanes to toll payers. The two-pronged hook was easing congestion on Valley freeways and, of course, raising revenues. Following the departure of the liberal newspaper’s beloved and free-spending Governor Janet Napolitano, Arizona was facing an unprecedented fiscal crisis. To be sure, the debt was exacerbated by the national economic downturn, but Napolitano never saw a spending program she was willing to turn down.

The solution to her hemorrhaging trail of debt? Tax the fools who elected her.  The problem is, others who used some sense at the ballot box find themselves caught in that pricey net.

The sucker punch came a day later via the editorial, titled: To ease traffic, try to think outside the box. The editorialist contemptuously reprimands Arizonans to “keep an open mind” regarding paying tolls, since “we don’t know nearly enough to make a decision.” It’s time, we are told, to “put that knee jerk reaction aside and do a reality check.”

We are being force-fed public transportation as we brace for ever increasing gas prices. But it is the liberal Democrats, so attuned they remind us, to the problems of the American’s working families, who have long advocated higher fuel prices to curtail consumption.

These do-as-we-say, not as-we-do hypocrites and their grandiose ecological sermonizing have an agenda. Never be fooled into thinking American taxpayer consumers are the intended beneficiaries.

Last year we posted Looks like the fix is in for toll roads. This is one curve we didn’t want to be ahead of.

Sh-h don’t tell the folks that death panels aren’t a myth after all

Quietly tucked into Obama’s Fed-Med legislation, outlined in a Medicare regulation, the government will reimburse doctors treating seniors and others with critical medical conditions for advising patients on options for end-of-life care — including advance directives to forgo life-sustaining treatment.

“Advance care planning improves end-of-life care and patient and family satisfaction and reduces stress, anxiety and depression in surviving relatives,” the administration says in the preamble to the Medicare regulation.

And if you’re a doctor counseling your patients against life-prolonging treatment, you get your wallet fattened.

Oregon Democrat U.S. Rep Earl Blumenauer addressed the issue succinctly in an email : “While we are very happy with the result, we won’t be shouting it from the rooftops because we aren’t out of the woods yet. This regulation could be modified or reversed, especially if Republican leaders try to use this small provision to perpetuate the ‘death panel’ myth.”

According to his e-mail he asked that the proposal to be kept under wraps: “We would ask that you not broadcast this accomplishment out to any of your lists, even if they are ‘supporters’ — e-mails can too easily be forwarded.”

His intentional deception continued: “Thus far, it seems that no press or blogs have discovered it, but we will be keeping a close watch and may be calling on you if we need a rapid, targeted response. The longer this goes unnoticed, the better our chances of keeping it.”

Congressman Earl Blumenauer, the author of the original end-of-life proposal, is rated as a far-left Democrat according to GovTrack’s analysis of bill sponsorship.

The New York Times carries the full report here.

Sorry, Mr. Blumenauer, your deception has been discovered.

Illegal Update

Just a few more good people coming to do the work Americans refuse to do

Meet Luis Mejia Ortiz, 33, who faces charges of molesting his girlfriend’s 5-year-old and 9-year-old daughters.

The newspaper calls him a “Phoenix resident.”

He was found in Nogales after admitting to the child sexual abuse crimes and telling his brother he was fleeing to Mexico. We’ll take a major leap on this one, and conclude he’s an illegal.

Ortiz is being held without bond.

The honor of your presence is requested….

The voters of Arizona have spoken, entrusting the major statewide offices to Republicans. We have also regained two U.S. Congressional seats, while the state legislature continues to boast a GOP majority in both chambers.

Come celebrate the victories, first at the January 3, 2011 Inauguration — invitation here.

The Arizona Republican Party will hold its Chairman’s Dinner and Awards Banquet January 21, 2011 — invitation here. Join Chairman Randy Pullen as we celebrate Republican triumphs.

RSVP information is included on the invitations.

The return of McAmnesty: Connect the dots

In an almost-missed article tucked away in the Christmas Day Phoenix Republic tabloid-size weekend newspaper insert was this gem. It seems Mayor Philly Gordon has teamed up with New York City Mayor Michael Bloomberg and other big city mayors to lobby the federal government for a blast from the past: Comprehensive Immigration Reform.  You remember that John McCain/Jon Kyl/ Ted Kennedy monstrosity that so inflamed the wrath of the American public that they shut down phone, fax and internet to congressional offices with a nationally concerted effort, until it was pulled?

Under the umbrella of “Partnership for a New American Economy,” a revised group (names included in this link) is being lead by Bloomberg and includes corporate bigwigs such as CEOs of Hewlett-Packard, Walt Disney Co., and News Corporation, which owns the Wall Street Journal and Fox News. The gimmick this time is obviously to take the onus off of Congress in general and GOP aisle-crossers in specific.

“What we need to do is focus on bringing people together and how to get this comprehensive immigration reform and border security done,” the term-limited Gordon declared. John McCain is known for his line of “We must secure the border first,” although he never clearly articulates “first before what?” The answer is this doozy.

The comprehensive reform term became so incendiary that Kyl and McCain began calling it a “temporary worker program,” which played better to focus groups. With unemployment at record numbers they still haven’t explained the need for these workers. Yuma, AZ, for example has one of the nation’s highest unemployment rates at a staggering 26.7 %.

During last fall’s election, the anxious McCain began talking like a border hawk, even taping commercials in which the salty-tongued former sailor advocated bringing troops and law enforcement together and completing “the danged fence” to keep illegals out of America.

So what do you think Robert Delgado, President and CEO of Hensley Beverage Company, one of the largest Anheuser-Busch beer wholesaler and distributors in the nation, is doing on the Partnership for a New Economy list? That’s Cindy Hensley McCain’s hundreds-of-millions-a-year business. It’s a safe bet Delgado doesn’t operate in a vacuum separate from the McCain’s.

And is it just a coincidence that McCain confidant and political strategist, Wes Gullett is running for Phoenix Mayor, hoping to succeed Gordon? Could the fact that Gullett’s wife served as Gordon’s chief of staff just be happenstance, also?

The (Subscription only) Arizona Guardian reports that Arizona Cardinals President and CEO Michael Bidwill and one of the team’s key players, Larry Fitzgerald, are onboard helping Gullett rake in the big bucks.

Would you be interested in buying a bridge?

The camel’s nose under the toll road tent

The front page of today’s daily reports on a costly feasibility study looking into opening HOV lanes to toll paying drivers. The enticement comes via an optional component which will doubtless vanish as in other cities where tolls have become the only means of accessing freeways. But we are advised these roads are gaining in popularity around the country. 

Wanna bet?

The downturn in the economy and Arizona’s budget deficits have spurred interest in this latest gimmick to separate Arizona drivers from their even more constricted dollars. But when government wants augmented revenues, not even taxing food is off the plate.

Tucson lawyer, John Munger, who withdrew from the governor’s race when unable to gain traction, had toll roads as a focal point of his Imagine Arizona campaign.

The newspaper is clearly onboard as it describes this latest incursion on already strapped taxpayers as a ”Plan [which] could ease congestion on Valley freeways, raise revenue.”

In October 2009, Seeing Red AZ predicted Looks like the fix is in for toll roads. It would be useful to reacquaint yourself with this post.