Networks’ disgraceful allegations against Christian legal group

ABC, NBC and CNN  dishonestly call Alliance Defending Freedom a “hate group”

The Valley of the Sun is fortunate to have Scottsdale-based Alliance Defending Freedom (ADF) in our midst. ADF is the nation’s largest religious freedom legal advocacy organization, winning  seven cases before the U.S. Supreme Court in the past seven years.

Earlier this week, U.S. Attorney General Jeff Sessions addressed the group on the topic of religious freedom.  ABC, NBC and CNN networks headlined the event describing ADF as an “anti-LGBT hate group,” using information gleaned from an actual hate group, the radical, violence inciting Southern Poverty Law Center  (SPLC)— which NBC deceptively referred to as a  “prominent civil rights watchdog.”

Count on the shameless Democrats to join the dishonest tirade. DNC spokesman Joel Kasnetz was quoted as declaring, “Sessions’ appearance at this event, as the top law enforcement official in the country, brings into question whether the attorney general intends to protect all Americans.”

Some Phoenix residents are familiar with the New Times, a giveaway, left-wing tabloid, featuring soft porn ads along with its sensationalized articles blatantly targeting conservative officials. Until recently, Stephen Lemons, whose rancorous column titled, ‘The Feathered Bastard,’ was a mainstay of the tabloid, was a local resident. His final column which we addressed in, “A vile goodbye from a sour Stephen Lemons,” was written in April as he prepared to move to a new gig with the disreputable SPLC in Montgomery, Alabama, befitting his extremist bent.

Kristen Waggoner was interviewed by Fox News’ Tucker Carlson Friday evening. She does an excellent job of describing the skewed news reporting of Attorney General Sessions’ speech, the mission of ADF and its many successes in the courts. She is ADF’s senior vice president of US legal advocacy and general counsel, with an impressive bio.

The Federalist provides this copy of Attorney General Sessions inspirational speech. You’ll be glad you took a few minutes to read it.

AZ blazes educational trail with ESA vouchers

Empowerment Scholarship Accounts open educational choice to all students

The daily newspaper, which adamantly opposes parental choice in education, provided an editorial platform for Sen. Debbie Lesko to inform the public of the passage of her bill authorizing Empowerment Scholarship Accounts.

Does anyone smell a rat?

The newspaper titles Sen. Lesko’s  AZ I See It op-ed Lawmaker: Stop spreading fear about vouchers. But the machinations don’t stop there.  A video accompanies the online version of Sen. Lesko’s commentary. Straddling the back of an orange settee, reporter Joanna Allhands, looking like she’s about to take her vehicle to a do-it-yourself car wash, engages in a cheesy display to make the point that she and the newspaper she works for, oppose the accounts.

As the AZ Senate President Pro Tempore, Lesko didn’t just fall off the political turnip truck. She’s a savvy leader who has been an active member of the community and has served in the state legislature since 2009. She’s also a parent of three children and a grandparent, which gives her more than passing familiarity with public schools and their inability to serve every child effectively.

A Republican representing Legislative District 21, Lesko was the sponsor of Senate Bill 1431, legislation expanding Empowerment Scholarship Accounts, which gives all parents the ability to make educational choices in the best interests of their own children.

Under the provisions of Sen. Lesko’s legislation, signed into law by Gov. Doug Ducey, all students will be eligible for this educational opportunity. It was originally available only for students with special needs.

Republicrat Kate Brophy McGee shamefully joined with unified Democrats  — tied at the hip with the educrat unions, as disclosed by Center for Responsive Politics —  to vote against the measure. It passed, despite her efforts to undermine parental choice.

Center for Arizona Policy carries an excellent overview of the ESA program, including information regarding the unsuccessful lawsuits filed by the education establishment attempting to halt the opportunity for Arizona children to achieve academic success.

SCOTUS: 6 Cases amid rumors of Kennedy retirement

The SCOTUS blog provides a rundown of the final cases of the Supreme Court ‘s current session, though interest is also swirling about the rumored retirement announcement of Justice Anthony Kennedy.  

The Left is already in full rage mode over  Barack Obama’s lame duck nominee Merrick Garland ,falling off the face of the legal earth as President Donald Trump appointed  Tenth Circuit Appellate Judge Neil Gorsuch to the high court after the unexpected death of iconic justice Antonin Scalia. 

Democrats will go apoplectic if Trump gets another bite at the Supreme Court apple. Expect resistance, distortions and fireworks from the left.

But nothing is certain with justices. Justice Kennedy, who turns 81 in July, was a Reagan nominee who relished his position as the ‘swing vote,’ often siding with the court’s liberals — as did Sandra Day O’Connor, who also skunked Reagan.

The other two older justices, Ruth Bader Ginsburg, 84, and Stephen Breyer, 78, were both nominated by Bill Clinton.  Democrats are not known to veer from their liberalism. Chief Justice John Roberts, nominated by George W. Bush, stunned Republicans when he upheld the health care overreach known as Obamacare by inveigling  the costs as “a tax.“ Roberts also voted with the liberals to gut most of Arizona’s well crafted SB 1070, which addressed the flood of illegal aliens entering our state.

For background on Chief Justice Roberts legal switcheroos, we recommend you read Jeff Crouere’s analysis  Et Tu, John Roberts? posted at the time on Townhall.

AZ Republic: Ain’t nuth’n ‘t see here, move along

The post titled, “We read the AZ Republic so you don’t have to,” (Apr. 2) referenced the failing newspaper’s lack of content and journalists replaced by ASU Cronkite students, following multiple layoffs and buyouts of longtime employees. The students, often filing reports that sound like whodunit short stories, filled with colloquialisms and shaky grammar, have become the unseasoned glue that holds the disheveled mess together

The newspaper has shrunken in size and content and plays mainly to an aging demographic, which explains full-page ads for hearing aids and others touting the benefits of living in retirement homes, where “you’ll make new friends.”

The front page often runs a box urging readers to “Go Deeper With Digital,” since the costs of printing and distributing a daily dings the already savaged bottom line.

Leave it to the Daily Regurgitation — so nicknamed for its propensity of running the same report and photos just pages apart — in the same edition — to make liars of us in our claim that we’d read the newspaper so the rest of you don’t have to.

It turns out there is actually nothing to read. Here’s the Monday edition’s  rundown:

National (purchased AP feed) and local news: 5 pages

Sports: 3 pages:

Best Life: (entertainment, movie listings, comics): 3 pages

USA Today insert (Gannett cousin)  serves as a paper plumper: 3 pages

This edition of the  lack-of-news newspaper came gift wrapped in a plastic bag printed with the words, “Contracted Carriers Wanted….Routes available NOW!”

Recruiting senior citizen readers as pre-dawn delivery workers is a novel business model. So is increasing the price as content continues to diminish. Most egregious of all is insulting the few remaining readers with daily doses of scurrilous attacks on President Trump. Prior to his victory,  the petulance was preceded by a Hillary for President endorsement that the newspaper — followed by a sappy editorial, in which it actually characterized itself as conservative and a victim — admitted its stance caused subscribers to cancel.

 

 

Pedestrian deaths soar; AZ nation’s 3rd worst

“Distracted drivers” or pedestrians’ own risky behavior to blame?

According to this report released by the Governors (no apostrophe) Highway Safety Association, pedestrian deaths are soaring and Arizona ranked number three in the nation on the 2016 list of fatalities. (Table 6, Page 14 of the report.)   Colorful infographics are even included.

The blame, it says, lies with distracted drivers. “Enforcement is crucial to changing driver behavior,“ the report declares. It was authored by transportation consultant Richard Retting who works for Sam Schwartz Transportation Consultants .The east coast duo have found their niche.

It’s a good bet that most drivers in the Valley and Phoenix metro area would take exception to that misguided characterization blaming them for increased fatalities. Start paying attention to marked crosswalks. Keen observers are well aware that crosswalks are routinely avoided by pedestrians. With children in tow, parents will run across one lane of traffic and then stand in the median waiting for a break in oncoming cars to charge across the opposite lane. This dangerous behavior is customary, by no means an occasional anomaly.

Others will saunter across the street a dozen or more feet outside the crosswalk as if the marked lines providing pedestrian safety were for someone else. Lines are not for the cool. They are for obedient dolts.

Socioeconomic factors also play a role. When Phoenix area summertime temperatures are routinely in the triple digits, people are not walking for pleasure. They are walking because they have no choice. Could it be resentment of their circumstances makes the idea of staying within the crosswalks less appealing?

According to the Arizona Department of Transportation, from 2004 to 2014, there were an average of 22 confirmed wrong-way crashes on freeways each year, and eight fatalities on average each year from such calamities. How many of those drivers are unable to read the signs?

Bicyclists have their own lanes in most cities these days. Life should be good for the greenies. But they no longer walk their bikes across busy streets and frequently switch into auto lanes using driver‘s arm signals to show they are not pedaling lesser modes of transportation. Helmets provide minimal protection. When they are in the driver’s blind spot, tragedy can result.

Motorcyclists, repeatedly changing lanes while speeding through traffic are another risky group, posing hazards to pedestrians and other vehicles on the roadways.

The report did concede that 82% of deaths occurred outside of intersections. That fact alone confirms that “distracted drivers” are not the culprits to pedestrians who thumb their noses at the painted lines in the street, put there to ensure their safety.

Look for the Governors Highway Safety Association to keep churning out these half-baked reports — between attending conferences in Seattle, Washington; Nashville, Tennessee; and Grand Rapids, Michigan. The 2017 conference is slated for Louisville, Kentucky. They might think of using that confab to put the onus for pedestrian deaths where it most frequently belongs — with the pedestrians.

AG Sessions visits AZ, announces new border security measures

U.S.A.G. Jeff Sessions gives the speech we’ve been waiting years to hear

 U.S. Attorney General Jeff Sessions visited Arizona on Tuesday and outlined President Trump’s bold new plan to secure our southern border.  Unequivocally stating, “This is the Trump era,” the attorney general announced new crackdowns on illegal immigration.

Read the full text of Attorney General Sessions’s speech as he addressed the uniformed men and women who serve in Customs and Border Protection  — providing the front line of border security.

Sessions stated that federal prosecutors are now required to consider for prosecution a broadened list of offenses, which he clearly outlines with bullet points in the text.

For those who didn’t get a chance to hear his long-awaited message, enjoy it here.

NAU educrat docks student’s grade for use of “Mankind”

Propagandizing alive and well at Northern Arizona University

Today is April Fools’ Day, so it’s fitting that we draw attention to Dr. Anne Scott, a Northern Arizona University professor.  Scott, 59, is so caught up in leftist political correctness that she finds the word “mankind” unacceptable. So unacceptable, in fact, that she docked an English major NAU student a grade point for using it.

Student Cailin Jeffers is giving the irrational action the exposure it deserves, saying “In one of these examples she stated that we could not use the word ‘mankind.’ Instead, we should use ‘humankind.’ I thought this was absurd, and I wasn’t sure if she was serious.”

To parents contemplating sending your kids to this bastion of higher learning, check out the 2016 – 2017 undergrad tuition and fee schedule. Can you possibly think you’re getting the best bang for your buck here, when their intent is to propagandize rather than educate?

Last year, Princeton University sent out this memo informing faculty and staff that they must stop using the word “man” and “other male-leaning language.’ Instead they are to substitute preferable, gender-neutral terminology that must now be used in official school documents.

As reported in Campus Reform, “Multiple professors at Washington State University have explicitly told students their grades will suffer if they use terms such as ‘illegal alien,’ ‘male,’ and ‘female,’ or if they fail to ‘defer’ to non-white students” who don’t have the benefit of ‘white privilege.’

Fortunately, Seeing Red AZ bows to no such constraints, since we believe accuracy matters. Illegal aliens are not immigrants, They are also not undocumented, since they often carry plenty of documentation, counterfeit, stolen or belonging to children.

The punishment for repeatedly using the banned words, a Washington State instructor warns, includes “but [is] not limited to removal from the class without attendance or participation points, failure of the assignment, and— in extreme cases— failure for the semester.”

Brainwashing reaches soaring new heights when it becomes a threat tied to dire consequences.

Watch as Tucker Carlson interviews NAU student Cailin Jeffers: