Arizona: Obama

Posted by AzBlueMeanie:

Earlier this year, the Accidental Governor and several Republican state legislators toyed with the idea of rejecting federal stimulus aid to the state. It was purely ideological grandstanding. Wiser heads prevailed and Arizona accepted the federal stimulus aid. The current budget deficit would have been far worse without the federal stimulus aid.

A new study says that a second round of federal stimulus aid is going to be required to rescue state governments from budget deficits for several years to come, and to prevent a "double-dip" recession. Obama warns of a 'double dip' recession (Obama said it's important to recognize that if the nation keeps adding to deficit spending through tax cuts or more stimulus spending, at some point people could lose confidence in the U.

Posted by AzBlueMeanie:

Conservatives would have you believe that they are the defenders of the Constitution. For many, this is bullshit.

In the days immediately following 9/11, many conservatives were quick to unquestioningly accept Dick Cheney's dark vision of the imperial presidency and the "unitary executive" theory under which neither coequal branch of the government had the power to check the executive branch during times of war. A cowardly Congress quickly abdicated its constitutional prerogatives and duties over war and spending to the president. Article III federal courts suddenly became deferential to overly broad presidential claims of national security and state secrets (with a few notable exceptions for which these judges were savaged by the conservative media).

Posted by AzBlueMeanie:

"I am not a member of any organized party — I am a Democrat." -- Will Rogers

Democrats have been at this now since the days of Thomas Jefferson and Andrew Jackson. It takes a lot of practice to be able to fight with one another and to hold the party together.

You can't just throw together a bunch of angry people and expect to make a political movement or a political party out of them overnight. This isn't a job for the inexperienced or political novice. And that is what the upstart Tea Party conservatives are finding out.

Zachary Roth reports at TPM Muckraker

Gubernatorial aspirants Dean Martin, currently Arizona State Treasurer, and Vernon Parker, currently mayor of Paradise Valley, showed up to speak at a teabagger rally today  at the state Capitol this afternoon.  So did Tom Horne who is currently Arizona Superintendent of Public Instruction and is planning to run for State Attorney General.  State Rep. Debbie Lesko (LD-9) also spoke.  It's not clear what Lil Debbie is running for, but she's trollin' for teabaggers, so she must be up to something.

The crowd was pretty sparse, not more than 150 people at the most and that includes at least four of us who were just there to see just how far Republican candidates would go to pander to the teabagger crowd.