Sen. Durbin: Remedial U.S. Constitution study needed

U.S. Sen. Dick Durbin holds the position of Assistant Majority Leader, but don’t confuse his high toned title with brilliance. And although he sits on the Senate Judiciary Committee and is the Chairman of the Judiciary Committee’s Subcommittee on the Constitution, the liberal Illinois senator has little familiarity with the esteemed founding document.

A major promoter of the nightmarish DREAM Act, a backdoor amnesty program for youthful illegal aliens, Durbin used a group who boldly came to the committee hearing as props to push the flawed legislation. Many were introduced by name, without threat of arrest from the nation’s chief immigration law enforcement official, Homeland Security Secretary Janet Napolitano, who sat in the chamber among them.

These were the startling words Sen. Durbin, the one-time Georgetown Law School graduate used to make his point:

“When I look around this room, I see America’s future. Our doctors, our teachers, our nurses, our engineers, our scientists, our soldiers, our Congressman, our Senators and maybe our President.”

It seems Durbin missed his Fundamentals of Constitutional Law classes. Article 2, Section 1, Clause 5 of the U.S. Constitution clearly states: “No Person except a natural born Citizen, or a Citizen of the United States, at the time of the Adoption of this Constitution, shall be eligible to the Office of President….”

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Mayor Philly Gordon: Living high on $80,000 a year

Most Phoenicians would agree that liberal Sanctuary City Mayor Philly Gordon has been a dismal failure. His slim mayoral skills and personal romantic madcap adventures coupled with his global jet setting, support for amnesty policies and imposition of a tax on food for city residents are all more than we deserve. His abysmal record, including sweetheart deals for his relatives and his girlfriend and her business partner, speaks for themselves. Since he is finally on the way out the door, we won’t enumerate his countless line-crossings, quirks and foibles.

But we’ve got to give him credit for his business acumen. He obviously shines in areas of economic growth — his own. Earning a salary of approximately $80,000 a year, he was mysteriously able to increase his wealth in the worst economy since the Great Depression.

The daily reports that Phil Gordon has become the first tenant in the upscale though financially troubled Chateau on Central (take a tour through this video link) town home development. It’s reported that he has signed a two-year lease on what is described as an urban mansion, with an option to buy one of the units on Central Avenue in Phoenix for $1.56 million.

The project was bought out of bankruptcy last year by an out-of-state company.  In December, more than five years after initial construction began, the town homes hit the market for $1.4 million to $2.46 million — about half the original price.

The luxury brick units feature private elevators, multiple terraces — some with spas and their own swimming pools — two car garages and range from 5,100 square feet to 8,200 square feet of living space with four floors and a basement

Once the mayor’s office door swings closed behind him, Philly could be in demand teaching courses on turning a city salary into a fortune.

Prop 13 Arizona is at the starting gate — lend a hand

Arizona’s taxpaying geese tired of laying those golden eggs

Editorial writer Kathleen Ingley’s “Quick Hit” in this morning’s Arizona Republic is titled: Stop treating ”tax” like a dirty word. A classic tax-and-spender she berates attempts to rein in undisciplined spending.

Like the leftist newspaper that employs her and the president whose out-of-control spending policies they support, Ingley believes the American taxpayer, in general — and the Arizona taxpayer, specifically — are a constant and dependable stream of revenue.

Today she opines that limiting property taxes — demonizing them, she claims, is “destructive.”

Unlike the newspaper, Seeing Red AZ supports Prop 13 Arizona. This week, Chairwoman Lynne Weaver filed documents with the Secretary of State’s Office launching the campaign to qualify the proposal for the 2012 election.  The group must submit 256,213 valid voter signatures by July 5, 2012 to qualify. The initiative allows property owners to seize control of their run-away property taxes by imposing a solid constitutional tax limit.

Take time to review the group’s interactive and comprehensive website and read the text of the proposed Constitutional Amendment.  Volunteer to help. Unlike many campaigns we are asked to support, this effort is actually in our own best interests.

It’s about time!

Former McCain manor falls on hard times

We wrote about the McCain’s appearance in Architectural Digest in December 2007 — as the duo posed in their North Central home in its glory days, prior to their move to a 7,000 sq. ft., multimillion dollar high-rise  condo penthouse near the Biltmore. Here is the end of the tale, as the residence — now in the hands of a new owner — faces a foreclosure sale.

These are hard times.  No one and no property is immune.

DREAM Act: Recurring nightmare

State-subsidized lawbreaking gets another shove

The Democrat’s sympathy card has been played. It’s appeal was weak and American heartstrings are less easily strummed. We’re living in tough economic times and trying to push the unpopular DREAM Act which bestows American citizenship on illegals brought here by their parents has met with stiff opposition.

For one thing, the premise is shot full of holes:  Honor students who graduate from high school, plan on going to college, or the military are eligible….for the gift of citizenship. Enforcement is nil.  The iffy word “plan” is the latest sugar-coated carrot to tapped out American taxpayers. Watch for honor students to suddenly become plentiful in the barrios.

Now the latest scheme to pass this flawed policy is the potential economic boon in the making via this legalization of illegals.

Obama’s Education Secretary Arne Duncan, attempting to make good on the president’s pre-election promise to cynical Hispanics, vows he will continue to support DREAM Act passage by explaining how the millions of people who could benefit from this misadventure would contribute to the economy.

“They would be getting better jobs, they’d be paying more taxes, starting businesses and creating jobs, all of which would infuse a much-needed kick-start to the economy and help drive down the national debt,”Duncansaid. “This could be a piece of a solution to a number of the challenges our country faces.”

Don’t be fooled. The DREAM Act, or the Development, Relief and Education for Alien Minors Act, is often referred to as Nightmare legislation, and is supported by La Raza and the slick trickster Jeff Flake. In its simplest form, think of it as state-subsidized lawbreaking.

Texas Congressman Lamar Smith, a Republican who chairs the House Judiciary Committee, says “Americans don’t want a jobs bill for illegal immigrants, they want an opportunity to go back to work.”

Read an in-depth analysis regarding this amnesty plan masquerading as The DREAM Act here.

Passage of the Dream Act also places illegals and their foreign national family members in a prime position at the front of the line, before those who have actually legally applied for U.S.citizenship.

Arizona’s Proposition 300, which specifically bars Arizona universities from giving in-state tuition rates to illegal aliens, passed in 2006 with a stunning majority of 71.4 percent.

Yet the act incorporates children of illegal aliens into American society by providing in-state tuition rates, gifting them a taxpayer-financed education. In contrast, out-of-state American students pay the full cost of their education. This absurd and costly legislation encourages rather than depresses further illegal immigration.

SCOTUS guts “Clean” Elections matching funds

Striking a blow to Arizona’s not-so Clean Election’s statute, the U.S. Supreme Court affirmed a lower court decision declaring unconstitutional the matching funds provisions of the state taxpayer-funded campaign finance scheme. In a 5 to 4 decision, the court stated “Any increase in speech resulting from the Arizona law is of one kind and one kind only: that of publicly financed candidates. The burden imposed on privately financed candidates and independent expenditure groups reduces their speech.”

The Supreme Court added: “The First amendment embodies our choice as a nation that, when it comes to [campaign] speech, the guiding principle is freedom — the ‘unfettered exchange of ideas’ — not whatever the State may view as fair.”

Whether Arizona’s matching funds provision comports with the First Amendment is not simply a question of whether the State can give a subsidy to a candidate to fund that candidate’s election, but whether that subsidy can be triggered by the speech of another candidate or independent group.

The Supreme Court’ s decision in Arizona Free Enterprise Club’s Freedom Club PAC et al. v. Bennett, Secretary of State of Arizona, et al. can be read here in its entirety.

“This decision protects democratic elections and gets government’s heavy thumb off the scale,” correctly concluded Nick Dranias, the Goldwater Institute’s director of Constitutional Studies and the lead attorney in the case. Read more here.

Radical Soros funds judicial appointment process

“The left can’t get their agenda through the legislatures anymore … so they think they can get their agenda through by taking over the courts.”  — Attorney Colleen Pero, author of “Hijacking Justice”

Pero describes the well-funded campaign to unilaterally replace judicial elections with selection by liberal special interests. Pero’s report found that through his Open Society Institute fund, billionaire political radical George Soros has given $45 million over the last decade to “a campaign to reshape the judiciary.”

Detractors of bringing the judiciary to the people it serves deride such attempts as politicizing the process. In Arizona, voting citizens in thirteen of our fifteen counties still elect their judges. A deceptively named system known as Merit Selection, allows a panel of political appointees and lawyers appointed by the state bar — supposedly representing the people — to make these crucial decisions by deciding on a select list of nominees. A partisan governor makes the final selection. Yet it is touted as a method of keeping politics out of the system.

Nevertheless, proponents of merit selection have continued their campaign unabated. Indeed, the campaign now uses the Supreme Court’s recent decision in Citizens United v. Federal Election Commission — a decision allowing corporations and unions to make independent expenditures related to federal races but does not permit corporations or unions to make direct contributions to candidates — as its rallying cry, arguing that the decision will precipitate a “flood of money” into state judicial races.

The Heritage Foundation has Pero’s complete article here.

CBN News provides an insight into the historic “firing” of three Iowa Supreme Court justices by the state voters.

And the coup de grâce?  A rarity among the judiciary is the Honorable Clifford W. Taylor is former Chief Justice of the Michigan Supreme Court.  Justice Taylor acknowledges the problems inherent in the selection process, writing “Whatever else may be said in evaluating these systems, the final measure should be that elections have the virtue — to a greater degree than any other system, and surely more than merit selection does—of allowing the people to rise up and change their courts if they wish to. Such power for our citizens is entirely consistent with this nation’s approach to governance and should not be abandoned precipitously for an alternative system that casually deals them out.”

His commentary “Without Merit: Why “Merit” Selection is the wrong way for states to choose judges,” is a must read

Allegiance with Mexico: Gold Cup fans boo U.S.A.

Mexican “home game” on American soil

Jeering the U.S. team and chanting obscenities at the goalkeeper, the mob of Mexicans — most of whom reside in America — blared air horns and bounced beach balls during the playing of the national anthem at the Gold Cup Final at the Rose Bowl in Pasadena, California.

The U.S. team was roundly booed as a vast majority of attendees supported Mexico in the U.S.-Mexico soccer match Saturday,  which Mexico won 4-2.

The attendance of 93,420 was the largest for a Gold Cup game in the United States. Shamefully, the entire post-match ceremony was conducted in Spanish.

The U.K. Daily Mail’s  incredulous report on the pathetic event can be read here.

Weekend reading guaranteed to make you smarter

The July 4, 2011 edition of the Weekly Standard magazine has an in-depth, three-page article on conservative presidential candidate Michele Bachmann. Congresswoman Bachmann currently represents the 6^th District of Minnesota.

If you thought you liked her before, chances are you’ll be a real fan after reading Queen of the Tea Party — The presidential campaign of Michele Bachmann.

Randy’s Lovely Twofer?

The ACLU is a requisite part of nearly every lawsuit against American citizens who expect foreign nationals to enter our country legally. Now the leftist organization has an inventive new twist to their blather. They are protesting detention centers for illegal aliens as “inhumane.”

Randy Lovely, the editor and VP for News at the daily newspaper is all too happy to lend a hand with ample coverage, since this tale of woe provides an opportunity to propagandize on two favorite subjects: Open Borders and “Alternative” lifestyles. Reporter Daniel Gonzalez does a bang-up job earning his pay, knowing that jobs at the Arizona Republic are being routinely sheared — just this week 30 employees were let go.

The latest enchilada on their joint platter has all the makings of a preposterous network soap opera. In “Fears Rise for Safety of Detained Gay Migrants,” we read that Ramon Catalan, 27, an illegal alien from Mexico, was being held by federal immigration authorities in a Pinal County jail. Ramon, the daily tells us is “a transgender male who lives as a woman, takes female hormone injections, wears his hair in a long femme style, plucks his eyebrows and .prefers to be called Monica.”

He (the newspaper calls him “she”) was in a cell with four other detainees, who insulted him/her in Spanish.

“One guy said he didn’t want to be around a (homosexual),” according to Catalan. He then said he was roughed up by his fellow inmates.

An ACLU report alleges transgender men living as woman are being isolated for their protection. Given Ramon/Monica’s encounter, wouldn’t that be preferable to being housed in an all male lockup where noses get bloodied?

Other claims include denial of adequate medical care, including HIV drugs, discrimination and hormone therapy.