Gov. Doug Ducey reprises gimmicky “court packing”

Back in 1937 —  when most of us were but a gleam in our dad’s or granddad’s eye — democrat President Franklin Roosevelt, just coming off a reelection victory, announced his audacious plan to expand the nine-member U.S. Supreme Court. He touted his scheme as making the court more efficient. Critics, including his own Vice President and many congressional democrats who joined with Republicans, charged that Roosevelt was trying to “pack” the court with liberal like-thinkers and  neutralize the impact of Supreme Court justices hostile to his far left “New Deal” — which he feared the court would disassemble.

Here Franklin Roosevelt in one of his radio addresses known as “fireside chats,” makes his case for increasing the number of Supreme Court justices with what he blandly referred to as the “Judicial Procedures Reform Bill of 1937.” It became more widely known as “Roosevelt’s court packing plan.”

Fortunately, Roosevelt’s efforts to persuade failed.

Arizona Gov, Doug Ducey faces no such hostility. Yet he has just enlarged the 5-member Arizona Supreme Court by two members. The move gave him the ability to appoint the first Hispanic Supreme Court justice, which he can point to in future campaign ads. We take no issue with the appointees Andrew Gould, a former superior court and court of appeals judge, or Solicitor General  John Lopez, who lacks any judicial experience — but the process that placed the two Republicans on the high court is suspect.  The new justices are Ducey’s second and third appointments to the Supreme Court. In January he appointed Libertarian leaning, registered Independent Clint Bolick. According to a news account, the unnecessary expansion will “cost an additional $1 million dollars each year, and came despite objections from Chief Justice Scott Bales, who wrote Ducey to veto the legislation.”  The bill HB 2537, signed by Ducey was the brainchild of East Valley state Rep. J.D. Mesnard, an educator.

The State Courts building, dedicated in 1991, was built to eventually accommodate two additional justices, but there is currently no pressing need.

Ducey used the same argument that Roosevelt used saying the expanded bench would allow the court to take on more cases and ensure swift justice. In fact the Supreme Court, known as the court of last resort, is very selective in the cases it chooses to take and most of the research is done by law clerks. It hears all death penalty appeals.

In contrast, the Courts of Appeals — Arizona has two — review all civil and criminal cases properly appealed from Superior Courts.

Whether court packing is done by dems or Republicans, it remains equally suspect.

Religion of Peace update — more terror Nov. 28, 2016

Abdul Razak Ali Artan, an Ohio State University freshman drove his vehicle into a crowd of pedestrians at the school, then jumped out and stabbed numerous people with a butcher knife, before police officer Alan Horujko, rightly hailed as a hero, shot and killed the attacker on Monday. At least 11 victims were transported to hospitals.

PJ Media reports that in a new publication, ISIS has called for random knife attacks in “alleys, forests, beaches, and quiet neighborhoods. ” Also on the hit-list are kids engaged in sports.

Artan, 18, was a Somali refugee. He was a legal U.S. permanent resident. The city of Columbus where the campus attack took place has a large Somali population, the second largest in the United States.

ABC News reveals Artan’s Facebook rant that was posted just minutes before his bloody rampage began.

Ohio Governor John Kasich released a statement that state residents’ “thoughts and prayers go out to the Ohio State community.” The “thoughts a prayers” message is heard so often under these circumstances, the words are beginning to ring hallow.  What  Kasich, and every other governor should do is join together 50 strong to implore the federal government to impose stiffer immigration standards and shut down the influx of unable-to-be-vetted “refugees.” The feds are not doing their job to fulfill these key words in the Preamble to the United States Constitution: “….. establish justice, insure domestic tranquility, provide for the common defense, promote the general welfare, and secure the blessings of liberty to ourselves and our posterity….”

Although the Somali Student Association has a prominent presence on campus, (check out the audience in the opening frames of video link) Artan, now being referred to as a terror suspect, was offended over what he regarded as too few prayer rooms to accommodate Muslim students.

On the White House website we are treated to Barack Obama’s condolences (in both English and Spanish) on the death of Cuba’s brutal Communist dictator Fidel Castro. He also lets us know he has pardoned the national turkey, There is not, however, a single word referencing this latest terrorist attack on American soil.  He didn’t even say that if he had a son, he would look like Abdul — as he did with Trayvon Martin.  He’ll probably get around to it when he returns from the golf course.

Judge vindicates Sheriff Arpaio’s workplace raids, upholds law

The powerful impact of the vindication of Maricopa County Sheriff Joe Arpaio was buried amid the flurry surrounding the Thanksgiving holiday, as football, recipes for turkey stuffing, and which newly released movie is least dreadful took center stage. But make no mistake.  This. Is. Big.

In his recent ruling U.S. District Court Judge David Campbell said the laws used to back Maricopa County Sheriff Joe Arpaio’s workplace raids will remain on the books, capping off a two-year lawsuit filed by  leftwing Hispanic advocacy groups that claimed Arizona’s identity-theft statutes targeted illegal alien workers.

Judge Campbell appears to have reversed his Jan. 5. 2015 issuance of a  preliminary injunction prohibiting Maricopa County Sheriff Joe Arpaio and Maricopa County Attorney Bill Montgomery from enforcing state law that make it a felony for illegal aliens to use stolen identities to obtain work. This is Arizona’s Proposition 200, passed overwhelmingly — 55.6 to 44.4 — by Arizona voters in 2004, and which became law.

In the newspaper account, the illegals are repeatedly referred to as “immigrants” as though they arrived in the U.S. via the legal route to become American citizens. Judge Campbell, however, correctly identified them as “unauthorized aliens.”

“The laws were passed in part for their effect on immigration by unauthorized aliens,” Judge Campbell wrote, “but the legislature was also addressing a pressing criminal problem that adversely affected Arizona residents.”

This good news comes too late for Sheriff Joe Arpaio, who lost his bid for reelection to Paul Penzone, a George Soros backed, spousal abusing Democrat. Penzone received $millions from the multi-billionaire globalist who disdains sovereign national borders and is focused on replacing elected law enforcement professionals across the United States. Sheriff Arpaio has been elected to an unprecedented six 4-year terms.

“I have taken a lot of criticism for going into the businesses, arresting workers that are here illegally,” Arpaio was quoted as saying. “I said from the beginning my main objective was to enforce the ID laws, so I’m very happy that the judge ruled in our favor.”

We recommend you read this News Release, titled “U.S. District Court Rules in Favor of MCAO in Prosecutions Involving Identity Theft Laws,” issued by the Maricopa County Attorney’s Office.

Suspect “leaders” mourn death of communist dictator Fidel Castro

President-elect Donald Trump speaks the truth

Cuba’s Communist dictator Fidel Castro has died at age 90.  In March of this year, Barack Obama used an executive order to normalize relations with the repressive regime after traveling to the struggling island nation 90 miles off Florida’s southern coast.

It’s worth noting that the reliably liberal Washington Post wrote this scathing assessment of Obama’s actions. The editorial stated that Obama’s acquiescence “eliminated U.S. leverage for political reforms.”

To commemorate Castro, Obama issued a statement expressing sympathy, saying in part, “At this time of Fidel Castro’s passing, we extend a hand of friendship to the Cuban people. Today, we offer condolences to Fidel Castro’s family, and our thoughts and prayers are with the Cuban people.’ Obama neglected to mention Castro’s decades-long, tyrannical suppression of human rights, imposition of forced labor and the brutal subjugation, disappearances and nearly 4,000 murder by firing squad of Cuban citizens Castro considered dissenters. Such truths don’t fit Obama’s paradigm.

Cuban Americans, who risked their lives fleeing the Communist regime, greeted the news of Castro’s death by dancing in the streets.

Arizona Republicrat Sen. Jeff Flake, a longtime supporter of opening diplomatic relations and tourist travel with the Communist regime was along as a willing GOP  prop for his basketball playing pal Barack Obama, with whom Flake’s cultivated a fast friendship.

Will there be a state trip to Cuba to pay respects to the evil dictator?  It should be remembered that Obama snubbed the funeral of Great Britain’s  conservative Prime Minister Margaret Thatcher.

The embarrassing Pope Francis, a fellow traveler who met Fidel Castro when he visited Cuba last year, sent a telegram in Spanish to Fidel’s younger brother Raul, who currently rules the island, saying he had received the “sad news” of “the death of your dear brother,” adding, “I express to you my sentiments of grief.”

Not to be outdone, 92-year-old Democrat former president Jimmy Carter also mourned the murderous dictator, saying:  “Rosalynn and I share our sympathies with the Castro family and the Cuban people on the death of Fidel Castro. We remember fondly our visits with him in Cuba and his love of his country. We wish the Cuban citizens peace and prosperity in the years ahead.’ The tyrannical Castro had an odd way of exhibiting his “Love of his country.”

President-elect Donald Trump stood alone as a beacon of freedom as he issued this cogent statement: “The world marks the passing of a brutal dictator who oppressed his own people for nearly six decades; Fidel Castro’s legacy is one of firing squads, theft, unimaginable suffering, poverty and the denial of fundamental human rights.”

In a dramatic repudiation of both the radical status quo, and the unreliable Establishment, America clearly picked a winner on November 8, 2016.

AZ Republic choking on its commitment to liberalism

There comes a point when it could be considered heartless not to have a modicum of pity for the Hillary-endorsing, open borders promoting Periódico de la República de Arizona (Arizona Republic newspaper) despite having brought its calamity on itself. The already dwindling subscriptions dipped even lower when irate subscribers cancelled after the endorsement of the scandal-plagued Hillary.

Even with the market rallying after Donald Trump’s victory, there was nothing to rave about with parent company Gannett’s stock closing price Friday standing at $9.79. At this time last year it was steady at 17.75. Check out the historical chart on the right side of the link to see the calamitous fall coinciding with the election. In 1998 the Central Newspapers, Inc. shares (then not flying under Gannett, Inc.) were trading north of $70.00 a share.

When the Hillary Clinton endorsement was made, it was heralded as “bold move for the conservative newspaper.” Literate Arizonans know all too well the newspaper is anything but “conservative” since the death of publishers Eugene and Nina Pulliam.  Its remaining senior employees are solid lefties who march in lockstep to the radical George Soros drumbeat. The newspaper endorsed all of the recipients of his largesse, from John McCain and Hillary Clinton to Paul Penzone the incoming Maricopa County Sheriff — linked by their open border policy.  Soros also funded the opponent to Maricopa County Attorney Bill Montgomery, who was able to thwart the assault from the left. The globalist multi-billionaire financier has been giving $ millions to oust law enforcement professionals throughout the United States as he attempts to restructure the criminal justice system. This Discover the Networks page provides a guide to the Soros syndicate.

The Phoenix Republic insert often embarrassingly carries the identical articles the increasingly anorexic newspaper runs — and on the same day. While it’s true the demographic for home subscriptions is predominantly senior citizens, they are not all suffering from dementia, and actually notice the repetition, stuck in among the obviously pre-written pages and propped up by Gannett’s mainstay USAToday, the daily distributed free of charge outside hotel room doors. Often referred to as the Repugnant or the Repulsive, a more accurate name for the pathetic excuse for a local newspaper would be The Daily Regurgitation. There have been days when the news content is fewer than 25 pages, tucked in among ads for hearing aids and retirement facilities. In a futile attempt to lure younger readers, it’s focus is now on entertainment and restaurants and the Cronkite student reporters, sorely in need of mentoring cover serious events as if they were writing a whodunit novel.

Whichever the preferred name, the daily fishwrap is shrinking. An example of the skillful writing keeping readers engaged is this recent Page One headline: “Asking schools to protect ‘dreamers.’”  No word of who was asking. The first paragraph reveals the enthusiastic benefactors wanting to provide illegal alien competition for American citizen students to access higher education are professors, faculty and staff at Arizona’s state universities and community colleges. What a surprise.

The Arizona Republic would rather die insulting its few remaining readers than alter it’s left-wing stance.

Obama’s DOJ continues implementing absurdities

Putting the (non-citizen) chickens in charge of guarding the (American) henhouse

It seems like an endless wait, but soon enough the Obama administration will be a thing of the past. We might want to forget that throughout the past eight years Barack Obama never gave up on fulfilling his campaign threat to “fundamentally transform the United States of America.” *

Yet not remembering what this country has been through sets up a repetition of the same. Corruption has been a hallmark of the Obama years.

We must never forget the nadir into which we have been plunged and the preposterous policies implemented — such as this:

Fox News reports that the Denver Sheriff’s Department was fined $10,000 for hiring only U.S. citizens. We couldn’t make this stuff up.

The Department of Justice released this press release titled “Justice Department Settles Immigration-Related Discrimination Claim Against the Denver Sheriff Department.”

From the Fox report:

The Denver Sheriff’s Department set out to hire scores of deputies last year to lessen the burden on its staff and cut millions in overtime.

It advertised for prospects, and included U.S. citizenship as a requirement. By this past spring, it had hired 200 deputies.

The Justice Department did not congratulate the agency ––  instead, it slapped Colorado’s largest sheriff’s department with a $10,000 fine and a host of steps it must take to address what was described as discriminatory hiring.

In a summary of the settlement on its website, the Justice Department said that in insisting on citizenship, the Denver Sheriff’s Department violated an anti-discrimination provision in the Immigration and Nationality Act (INA) that forbids employers from hiring only U.S. citizens except in cases where it is mandated “by law, regulation, executive order or government contract.”

* “We are five days away from fundamentally transforming the United States of America.”

— Barack Obama, October 30, 2008

 “We are going to have to change our conversation; we’re going to have to change our traditions, our history; we’re going to have to move into a different place as a nation.”

— Michelle Obama, May 14, 2008

 

Tucker Carlson eviscerates overindulged, liberal college student

This vacuous punk wants to be an American history teacher. Imagine him propagandizing students with his personal perspective that allows him to view his own parents as being able to afford his pricey education through money they garnered profiteering from slavery. Unless they’re a couple of hundred years old, it’s a difficult argument to follow. They foot the bill for their son’s private Hampshire College tuition to the tune of $62,000 a year. Here’s an example of what’s influencing his judgment.

Thanksgiving wishes 2016

The First Thanksgiving by Jennie Augusta Brownscombe

We take time today to reflect on the many blessings we enjoy as citizens of this great nation, and wish the abundant bounties of this uniquely American holiday to each and every one of our readers.

Having just concluded a grueling political campaign season we are grateful for the election of a Republican president — Donald J. Trump — and his vice president, Mike Pence, along with  GOP majorities in the  House and Senate. The American people have spoken.

Do yourself a favor and read this inspiring Thanksgiving Proclamation by Revolutionary hero and our first President, George Washington, as he humbly asks “Almighty God” to bless this fledgling nation and her people.

Sheriff David Clarke perfectly describes Obama’s actions

Obama opens prison doors, allows more refugees, considers additional amnesty for illegals

Barack Obama has been on a clemency roll as he heads out the door. On Tuesday he commuted the sentences of 79 drug offenders bringing the total number of federal inmates who’ve had their sentences reduced by the soon to be exiting president to 1,023. He has now granted clemency to more inmates than the past 11 presidents combined

Feeling emboldened, Democrat U.S. Reps. Zoe Lofgren, Lucille Roybal-Allard and Jeff Flake’s radical left-wing amnesty buddy, Luis Gutierrez, who has longstanding ties to the American Communist and Socialist parties —  recently sent this letter to Barack Obama imploring him to use his pardon authority to forgive the past and future civil immigration offenses of the estimated 750,000 impossible to verify so-called “DREAMers.” These foreign nationals, many now adults with families of their own, all claim they were brought here as young children in violation of the law by their illegal parents. Obama granted them deportation deferrals under the Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals (DACA) program. They are still illegally in the United States, taking university placements and jobs from American citizens. Rather than being a DREAM, this constitutes a nightmare, as conservative Human Events reveals.

Obama also plans on upping the ante on unable-to-be-vetted Syrian “refugees,” increasing their numbers in the United States by another 10,000.  

Milwaukee Sheriff David Clarke gets it.  He says Obama is “like a tenant who has been evicted and will trash the place on his way out.”

Trump should appoint Kris Kobach as Secretary of Homeland Security

If, like many political observers these days you find yourself on information overload, you might wonder why a report in The Topeka Capital-Journal has any relevancy or readers of Seeing Red AZ.

Let us remind you.

Remember Arizona’s much heralded law known simply as SB 1070? Although the far-left Arizona Republic was/is unable to write about it without the accompanying descriptive “controversial” label.

Liberal federal courts gutted parts of the law which ultimately made its way to the U.S. Supreme Court. The fallout has been ongoing as we noted just days ago reporting on a lawsuit against AZ AG Mark Brnovich launched by Judicial Watch and former state Senate President Russell Pearce.

Copied in numerous states the language of the Arizona bill was refreshing, using the term “Illegal aliens” and not confusing the meanings of immigrant, migrant and undocumented. Immigrants are here legally.  They have not slithered into the United States using trickery and deceit. They want to become English-speaking Americans taking on our values and history as their own, not recreating the barrios they left behind or bypassing our legal system to impose Sharia law in their communities.

Reports on the weekend meeting between President-elect Donald Trump and Kansas Secretary of State Kris Kobach are heartening to border state Arizonans, who live with the results of non-enforcement of our insecure border imposed by Barack Obama. Taxpayers fund the costly benefits and social services, including providing education, medical care and shouldering the burgeoning impact on our criminal justice system.

It was Kobach, an early supporter and adviser who counseled Trump on implementing “extreme vetting” of those seeking refugee status. He advised candidate Mitt Romney on “self deportation.“

Then Senate President Russell Pearce did a masterful job of shepherding SB 1070 through the Arizona legislature. Constitutional lawyer Kris Kobach, was the architect.

 Kobach built a national reputation for advocacy of state voter identification and registration laws intended to thwart illegal voting.  In 1995, he received his Juries Doctorate from Yale Law School and his doctorate in Political Science from Oxford University. Early in his career he worked for the U.S. Department of Justice under Attorney General John Ashcroft serving as the chief adviser on immigration law and border security. After his fellowship year ended, the Attorney General appointed Kobach as his Counsel. Kobach was a constitutional law professor at the University of Missouri before winning election to secretary of state in Kansas in 2010. These are but highlights, His remarkable bio can be read here.

Kris Kobach will serve America well. Donald Trump can make no more qualified appointment to head the Department of Homeland Security.