Arizona: Republican

Posted by AzBlueMeanie:

The New York Times recently reported on Arizona privatizing its prisons, including turning over control of its Death Row to private companies. Arizona May Turn Death Row Over to Private Companies:

It is a dangerous place to patrol, and Arizona spends $4.7 million each year to house inmates like [Dale] Hausner in a super-maximum-security prison. But in a first in the criminal justice world, the state’s death row inmates could become the responsibility of a private company.

State officials will soon seek bids from private companies for 9 of the state’s 10 prison complexes that house roughly 40,000 inmates, including the 127 here on death row.

Posted by AzBlueMeanie:

How do you take the textbook definition of a "safe" Republican district (a Democrat has not represented the region since 1854), a no-brainer that the Republican will win by default against token Democratic opposition, and lose the seat for the first time in 155 years? By caving in to pressure from the far-right extremist fringe Teabagger Taliban and the Mighty Wurlitzer of right-wing conservative "entertainment" personalities.

Blue Dog Democrat Bill Owens, the token opposition, won a stunning victory in the special congressional election in New York's 23rd congressional district only because the GOP Taliban and the conservative "entertainment" personalities declared civil war against GOP moderates and the GOP establishment, demanding ideological purity to conservativism - as they have defined it.

Posted by AzBlueMeanie:

Off-year elections are typically the subject of wild speculation and over interpretation by political observers. The conventional wisdom (CW) of the media villagers and Beltway bloviators is that the governor's races in New Jersey and Virginia are "bellwether elections" that are a "referendum" on newly elected presidents and are predictive of the outcome of mid-term elections.

Sorry to burst your Beltway bubble boys, but as Larry J. Sabato, Professor of Politics at the University of Virginia, has noted What are the national implications of the "mini mid-terms" in Virginia and NJ?

We go through this exercise every four years, just like clockwork.

Posted by azBlueMeanie:

Jon Perr at crooksandliars.com has an exceptional post that I will reproduce here. Republican Malpractice Myths Arizona's Senator Obstruction, Jon Kyl, figures prominently in purveying these myths lies.

In recent days, Republican leaders have scored a series of political victories in their eternal quest for tort reform. Last week, the Congressional Budget Office (CBO) told Senator Orrin Hatch (R-UT) that an onerous package of malpractice curbs he championed could save the government an estimated $54 billion over 10 years. [Sen. Jon Kyl had made up a number, $100-200 billion]. That came on the heels of President Obama's latest offer to support limited tort reform as an olive branch to recalcitrant Republicans balking at his health care proposals, including funding for a $25 million pilot program.