Arizona: Phoenix

Posted by AzBlueMeanie:

The White House has announced a plan to give seniors and disabled veterans $250 each as part of a mini-economic stimulus plan to compensate them for the fact that there will be no cost of living adjustment (COLA) this year to Social Security benefits because there has been no inflation this past year. White House urges a 2nd $250 payout to seniors, veterans:

The money would go to all Social Security beneficiaries, regardless of their income, as well as disabled veterans, those eligible for railroad retirement payments and people who receive federal and state government pensions instead of Social Security.

Rep.

And the first heavyweight political endorsement of Arizona's 2010 campaign season goes to ... John Munger.
Munger, a Tucson attorney and former chairman of the state Republican Party, is slated to accept the endorsement of former Gov. Fife Symington this evening. Look for Symington to toss his support to Munger during a press conference that begins at 5:30 p.m. at the University Club, in Phoenix.
Symington's endorsement gives an early boost to Munger, who filed papers for his gubernatorial run late last week, and ends speculation that Symington himself may enter the race.
Those ambitions may have been tempered by recent polling ...

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Rep. Farley (LD28) ponders the state of the state, and it ain't great:
Howdy,  Friends O'Farley...

Here we are in October, and our deficit is now $1.5 billion and growing.

Constitutionally, the Legislature is supposed to have delivered a balanced budget on June 30, but no one seems to want to enforce that clause. Perhaps this could finally be a good use for Sheriff Joe?

Dressing the Governor and the Legislative majority in pink stripes and locking them into Tent City could finally force an agreement of some kind. Not that I want to spend too much time thinking of the images that go with that scenario.

by David Safier

Goldwater's Matthew Ladner is up in Phoenix today shepherding around Jeb Bush, who is in town (brought here by G.I.) to sing the praises of the "Florida educational [not really such a] miracle" to members of the House and Senate education committees. So I doubt if I can rain on his parade.

But I want to point out that Ladner had to agree with the substance of my argument that the statistical models he used on two recent "studies" were so woefully inadequate, the results were essentially worthless. OK, he didn't go that far. But pretty close.

Background: I wrote a long-winded post,