2012: A New Year that matters

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

Then get ready to help change the course of history by sending Barack Obama back to Chicago, as we elect a Republican for president, increase our majority in the state legislature, and make sure we keep the U.S. House in safe GOP hands and retake the senate. Together we can do it!

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Year-end reading guaranteed to make you smarter

Obama has a conservative cousin? Who knew?

Longtime readers of Seeing Red AZ know we have posted exceptional political commentary from time to time under the heading “Weekend reading guaranteed to make you smarter.” Recently, we have fallen behind in that educational endeavor.

This column, by Milton R. Wolf, M.D., published in the Washington Times, has reenergized us in our mission. Just in time for the new year, we offer In Obama he trusts for your enlightenment.

Milton R. Wolf, M.D. is a Washington Times columnist, board-certified diagnostic radiologist and medical director. He is also a free market champion and Barack Obama’s politically conservative second cousin — the Tea Partier within Obama‘s own family. Dr. Wolf is a leading conservative voice in America challenging our nation to re-embrace the free market and reclaim American exceptionalism.

A recap of 2011

Bill Whittle of Afterburner, and PJ Media’s Eject! Eject! Eject! takes a look at the state of this country three years into Obama’s administration, amassing a list of breathtaking failures certain to stun and/or depress champions of smaller government. Solyndra, Fast & Furious, the Keystone Pipeline and the massive and unsustainable deficit are just a handful of the scandals guaranteed to make your blood boil.

Get energized as we welcome 2012.  This is the year to turn it around or risk permanently losing our freedoms.  America cannot endure another term of Barack Obama.  Make but one New Year’s resolution:  Get involved and help elect a Republican president.  The choice was never more clear. Call the AZ GOP at (602) 957-7770. Volunteer. Get onboard a campaign. 

Maricopa County GOP has an easy three step guide to becoming a Precinct Committeeman.  Help get the vote out. 

It matters.

Jobs, not Joe Arpaio, should be focus of black ministers

Soaring black jobless rates directly affected by illegal workers

The clamor for Sheriff Joe Arpaio’s head on a platter is rivaling that of the biblical call for John the Baptist’s by Salome.

The daily newspaper leads the ruthless pursuit, emboldened by the recent recall of Arizona’s Senate President Russell Pearce in his Mesa legislative district. Pearce was the architect of Arizona’s nationally emulated SB 1070, the law addressing the epidemic of illegal aliens entering the United States.  Arpaio has implemented the law with workplace enforcement sweeps.

Yesterday we saw the spectacle of a group of what the newspaper identified as the “Valley’s black leaders” demanding the popular five-term Republican Maricopa County sheriff step down.

As foolishness goes, this display was the pinnacle.  The contingent made its choreographed, calculatingly camera-ready, politically motivated demand on the steps of the U.S. Courthouse in downtown Phoenix. This piling on comes in the wake of trumped up DOJ accusations of racial profiling against the sheriff’s office instigated by the Obama White House, and an absurd ruling by District Judge Murray Snow expanding the scope of a lawsuit against the sheriff’s office to include every Hispanic driver and passenger who has been stopped, detained, questioned or searched by MCSO deputies since January 2007.

Warren Stewart, pastor of the First Institutional Baptist Church, and a man who should know better, began the performance by comparing Arpaio to “Bull” Connor, the public safety commissioner in Birmingham, Alabama, member of the Democrat National Committee, and  a Klansman, whose officers used fire hoses and attack dogs on civil rights activists in the 1960s. Unlike this charade with Arpaio, it was not necessary to fabricate evidence that Connor was a racist. Yet that knowledge didn’t keep Stewart from solemnly intoning. “We have become the Alabama of the 21^st century.”

Connor was active in Democrat Party leadership at the same time Sens. Robert Byrd (D-WV) and Albert Gore, Sr. (D-TN) were leading the opposition to the 1964 Civil Rights Act. Fully 80 percent of the “no” votes on that bill in the U.S. Senate, and 75 percent of the opposition in the House, came from Democrats.

Adding to the shameless spectacle yesterday was Rev. Oscar Tillman, president of the Phoenix NAACP. Tillman, standing among the pack calling for Arpaio to step down,  had previously renounced an out-of-state-financed,  race-baiting ad taken out against Arpaio, and called him “a  friend.” Tillman also agreed to serve on an advisory council Arpaio formed following the release of a trumped up DOJ report accusing the MCSO of discrimination against Hispanics. Maricopa County Attorney Bill Montgomery expressed concerns the DOJ actions against the sheriff could endanger the public.

What the pastors should be gathering for is to commend the sheriff for his efforts. It is no secret that the impact of illegal alien workers on the labor market negatively impacts blacks, particularly black men. A Congressional subcommittee on Immigration Policy and Enforcement held a meeting on this topic in March. Two of the three black witnesses said that the impact of illegals on the wages and unemployment rates of blacks was significant and tough enforcement was needed to prevent it from getting worse.

The government’s casual, wink-and-nod enforcement of employer sanctions indirectly shuts many blacks out of jobs. According to this stunning CBS News report, African American joblessness is at 16.2 percent. For black males, it’s at 17.5 percent; And for black teens, it’s nearly 41 percent.

Why aren’t the black pastors addressing this problem – greatly exacerbated by illegal workers — rather than advocating on their behalf?

Girl Scouts taught to discern truth: Soros-style

Aptly named handbook: “Consider the Source”

The Girl Scouts of America isn’t quite the organization our mothers and sisters remember fondly. The updated group, Girl Scouts USA, “forever green” to the hilt, promotes Energy Star* light bulbs and appliances, and disdains using cars with a pledge to “be part of something bigger than yourself.”

It also teaches young girls how to process and understand media messages — a worthy tool considering today’s bombardment of not always reliable information. But what does the organization use as the guiding light in its book called “MEdia?”

Under the headline, “Consider the Source,” girls are encouraged to go to the George Soros-funded Media Matters for America website to clear up any media misinformation they might encounter. Nowhere is Media Matters identified as a leftwing propaganda spin machine.

“MEdia” reads, “Tired of not seeing your reality in the media around you? This journey is your chance to put some real ME in media. So get ready to shape media — for yourself, your community, the world!”

In view of the fact that young and impressionable girls are being sent to the partisan, leftwing site Media Matters as a truth filter, the cloak of impartiality is off. The book’s entire premise of teaching how to honestly assess information is exposed as more of what our children are force-fed on a daily basis at their public schools from their NEA unionist teachers. The Scouts would be much better served by a link to NewsBusters, a site that supplies facts.

A gift shop featuring pages of products to purchase, is also part of the experience.  Apparently shopping and spending isn’t on the prohibited list.

Click on picture to enlarge and read the portion under “Urban legends and other misinformation.”

What’s that you say Mr. Obama? “Irresponsible, Unpatriotic?”

This was Barack Obama’s rhetoric on debt as he campaigned for president in 2008. Now, he is expected to announce his intention to raise the debt ceiling by another $1.2 trillion on Friday. The boost would bring the ceiling up to nearly $16.4 trillion — far exceeding crisis proportion. America is fast becoming Greece.

Obama, who has already indebted Americans more than all previous presidents combined —  makes the call for increasing the outrageous spending limit between his time on and off the golf course while enjoying his lavish, lengthy annual holiday vacation in Hawaii — unconcerned about further indebting every man, woman and child in America by tens of thousands of dollars.

Spending cuts, even as Americans are hurting, are a foreign notion to Obama, whose wife Michelle, appeared to be tone-deaf as she sported a $2,000 sundress earlier in the week.

The rest of us need a staggering reality check — provided here on the continually ticking national debt clock. The total debt per citizen at this moment stands at $180,342.

This past August, in Ding Dong! A reality check, Seeing Red AZ used this ad as chilling reminder of what the national debt actually means:

Newt liked mandated HealthCare before he didn’t

Speaking of “flip-flops,” here’s a winner from Newt Gingrich, who currently despises federally mandated health care.

Before he opposed Obama’s massive scheme as a presidential candidate, Gingrich voiced enthusiasm for Mitt Romney’s Massachusetts health-care law when it was passed five years ago. This is the same plan he has denounced consistently over the past few months as he campaigns for the 2012 Republican presidential nomination.

In this newsletter under Newt Notes, Gingrich called the state plan “the most interesting effort to solve the uninsured problem in America today.”  He was effusive in praise, saying “Massachusetts leaders are to be commended for this bipartisan proposal to tackle the enormous challenge of finding real solutions for creating a sustainable health system.”

“The health bill that Governor Romney signed into law this month has tremendous potential to effect major change in the American health system,” Gingrich enthused in the April 2006 newsletter published by his own former consulting company, the Center for Health Transformation.

Gingrich is too much the Washington insider to simply concede his earlier support for the plan and honestly explain why his views might have changed. It appears the virtue of dealing in a straightforward manner with voters never crossed his mind.

Here is another example of leaning left. Newt now calls this ad picturing him chummily talking global warming on a shared loveseat with Nancy Pelosi “a mistake.” It was done in conjunction with former Al Gore’s Alliance for Climate Protection – before former Speaker Gingrich decided to set his sights on the White House.

TUSD Mexican anti-American studies violates law

Superintendent of Public Instruction John Huppenthal has scored a major victory with yesterday’s decision by Administrative Law Judge Lewis Kowal affirming the Tucson Unified School District’s (TUSD’s) Mexican American Studies Program was in violation of A.R.S. § 15-112 as per Huppenthal’s ruling on June 15, 2011.

Stating that he was very pleased to receive the judge’s decision, Huppenthal noted that in his role as Superintendent of Public Instruction he “has a legal responsibility to uphold the law and a professional imperative to ensure that every student has access to an excellent education.”

Huppenthal said, “Upon taking office on January 3, 2011, I was faced with the immediate circumstance of the Tucson Unified School District being found in violation of A.R.S. §15-112 by the outgoing Superintendent. Instead of making a snap decision on the matter, the Arizona Department of Education, at my direction, conducted an intensive investigation, spanning many months, of TUSD’s Mexican American Studies Department (MASD) and its program.”

“In the end, I made a decision based on the totality of the information and facts gathered during my investigation –- a decision that I felt was best for all students in the Tucson Unified School District. The judge’s decision confirms that it was the right decision,” he said.

Superintendent Huppenthal indicated he will soon be issuing a final ruling regarding the matter after a thorough review of the judge’s decision.

Arizona’s former Superintendent of Public Instruction Tom Horne had long protested the TUSD’s La Raza endorsed anti-American, Mexican ethnic studies program and was instrumental in the passage of HB 2281 which “prohibits a school district or charter school from including courses or classes that either promote the overthrow of the United States government or promote resentment toward a race or class of people.”

Republican Horne is now the state Attorney General with the responsibility to ensure the effective enforcement of the law.

Chuck Gray withdraws from congressional race, endorses Salmon

In a letter to his supporters, former LD 19 state senator Chuck Gray makes this announcment:

In February of this year, when I announced my run for Congress, the congressional district lines were not drawn and I had no immediate challengers. As the campaign progressed, others entered the race but their physical residences were so far removed from my own that it was generally thought that we would be running in different congressional districts.

The district lines are now drawn and have pitted three good men against each other. And while I was the first to enter the race, I cannot permit the conservative vote in the East Valley to be split in a way that allows a less conservative voice to prevail. Our next Congressman will likely be our voice for many years to come.

It is therefore with the support of my wife, friends and family that I announce my withdrawal from the race for Congress in hopes that the conservative voice that I have represented all these years be united behind a single candidate.

I have, in the course of my race, thoroughly investigated the backgrounds and voting records of my challengers. I have known both of them for many years. There is one candidate that I feel most closely reflects my conservative values and voting record. And while I have not discussed my decision to withdraw, with either of my challengers or their campaigns, I do hope that my endorsement of Matt Salmon to represent the East Valley in Congress will be accepted in the spirit it is given.

Matt has a very conservative voting record and I know he will represent the East Valley in the conservative manner we have come to expect. He has my full support.

I want to thank my supporters. They have worked hard and they have championed the founding principles of liberty at every turn. They are the best. I love them dearly. I encourage my supporters to embrace Matt Salmon as they have embraced me. I must set aside my own desire to serve and put the future of this country first. I hope my supporters will do the same. For the good of the nation, I seek to unite the conservative vote.
Sincerely,
Chuck Gray

Get your belated Christmas gift here

JD Hayworth, Arizona’s former congressman and unparalleled talk show host, will be on the air at KOGO radio in San Diego today.  Listen live HERE. 4 – 7:00 p.m. AZ time/ 3-6, PST

Tune in for a heaping helping of wit, wisdom and reliable information.