Archive for May, 2009

Obama took his wife on a date to Manhattan for dinner and a show.  No, they weren’t already in NY, he and Michelle, his staff and the press flew three jets to JFK for the evening out.

After dinner in the Village and a Broadway show, they helicoptered back to JFK and flew back to D.C.

It wasn’t that long ago that Obama was urging “shared sacrifice” to get through these tough economic times.  Apparently, that’s for you and me – not him.

All these burger runs that Obama has been doing to look like an average Joe were obviously staged. The real Obama is an elitist who will use the trappings of power for personal ingratiation.  It would have been one thing if he had already been in NY for some reason and decided to have a night out.  But to specifically fly three jets to NY, helicopter into and out of Manhattan and then fly back to D.C. all on the same evening is disgusting. 

I guess he won’t be criticizing any CEO’s for flying their private jets to D.C. for actual work – oops, he already did that.

One word: hypocrite.

The Arizona Guardian is breaking yet another story on a GOP operative in trouble with the law.  This one is a staffer for Senator John McCain, Carlos Sierra, who has a couple DUI’s and speeding violations.

So we’ve had the AZ GOP Executive Director Brett Mecum arrested a couple weeks ago, and now this.  My guess is that McCain will NOT follow Pullen’s example and actually show Sierra the door.

Updated: McCain staffer wanted by Phoenix authorities

Friday, 29 May 2009 18:17 Dennis Welch

 

By Dennis Welch
The Arizona Guardian

Phoenix authorities have issued arrest warrants for a staff assistant to U.S. Sen. John McCain who is accused of skipping two court appearances on separate DUI charges this year.

Carlos Sierra, who works at McCain’s regional office in Tempe, was arrested twice within a five-week period on suspicion of DUI, according to records from Phoenix Municipal Court.

Each time, the court records show, Sierra didn’t show up for his assigned court date.

Sierra, 27, says there must be a mix-up because he thought his attorney took care of the matter. He declined to release the name of his lawyer.

“I haven’t received any notices in the mail,” Sierra said Friday during a phone interview. “My lawyer told me he took care of it and I believe him.”

Officials with the court said it was possible the case was resolved and the paperwork hasn’t been changed. But as of Friday afternoon, they said, the arrest warrants were still live and there are no records indicating Sierra and his attorney fixed the legal problem.

McCain’s office wasn’t waiting to find out.

“The matter is currently under review,” said McCain spokeswoman Brooke Buchanan. “However, he has been suspended immediately.”

Sierra was first arrested about 2 a.m. March 28 on suspicion of DUI after Phoenix police clocked him going 60 mph in a 35 mph zone near Missouri and 14th Street. Sierra, who drives black, 2006 four-door Cadillac, also is accused of running a red light.

Records do not show exactly what his blood alcohol content was at the time of the arrest, only that it was more than .08, which is the legal limit.

Phoenix police arrested Sierra again about 9 p.m. May 2, this time for the more serious accusation of extreme DUI, according to court records. Once again, documents don’t say precisely what his blood alcohol level was at the time, only that it exceeded .20.

In addition to the DUI, Sierra is accused of driving 60 mph in a 40 mph stretch near 24th Street and Camelback Road. Phoenix police also cited him for not having proof of insurance or registration and driving on the sidewalk.

Although Sierra listed on a Phoenix police report that he was employed by the U.S. Senate when he was first arrested, he told authorities he was unemployed when he was arrested the second time.

Officials at McCain’s offices in Phoenix and Tempe on Friday confirmed he still works for the Arizona senator and former presidential contender. When asked about this discrepancy, Sierra declined to comment.

Wow!

The Arizona budget battle is about to go nuclear.   Various news outlets are reporting on a strategy memo prepared by Gov. Brewer confidant Chuck Coughlin at Highground that lays out a $225K campaign to target 18 legislative districts to pressure legislators to support a yet to be released budget from Gov. Brewer.

Team,

Attached is the legislative strategy docs that were handed out and discussed briefly at the meeting. This strategy is based on the launching of a budget next week that the coalition would be able to support. We would like your input on the strategy as well as the targeted legislators who should be part of our outreach efforts. If you have any questions, please let us know.

As we near the end of the fiscal year (June 30) the pressure is ramping up to get a budget done to fix the structural deficit that has become the legacy of former Gov. Janet Napolitano. The rub is that Brewer wants a billion dollar tax hike and the legislature wants to balance the budget without raising taxes.

There are two fascinating points.  One, it’s obvious that Gov. Brewer and her team do not expect a serious primary opponent.  (The only other explanation for her to target fellow Republicans is that she is not running for election in 2010, but that is dismissed by nearly everyone in town).  This may change that dynamic.

Two, look at the folks who are a part of this pro-Brewer, anti-legislator effort.  The name that jumps out the most is Republican Party Chairman Randy Pullen.  It is stunning that Pullen is participating in a campaign that literally goes after incumbent Republican legislators when we are going into an election year that is critical to maintaining Republican majorities in the House and Senate.

How does the party, on one hand, support the effort to criticize and pressure Republican members, while on the other hand claim to be the vehicle for legislators to help them get re-elected?

It makes reason stare.

My guess is that the legislature is not going to take this laying down.  They will fight back, and the irony is that many of the legislators closest to Pullen are on the target list.

Just when you thought it couldn’t get any more strange…

It is graduation season and it seems like you can now graduate from about anything.  My first graduation was my high school graduation.  My kids, however, are graduating from preschool, kindergarten, grade school, and middle school.  The cap and gown industry is going gangbusters!

That said, congratulations to all those graduates out there, whether it be the preschooler or the PhD. Pause and reflect on what you’ve learned and prepare for the next challenge.

Arizonans are smoking less, or rather, fewer Arizonans are smoking.  Regular smokers fell from nearly 20% of the population to just under 16% – which amounts to about a 20% drop in smokers.

That’s good news.  But it’s only one side of the story.

If there has been a 20% drop in smokers, then it would seem to me that there has been about a 20% drop in the revenues collected by those who smoke (or used to).  Guess what?  That is having an impact on our state budget – particularly health care funding.

So, what will the nanny-state do-gooders tax next to make up for lost revenue?  Hope you aren’t addicted to soda!

You knew it would happen.  Despite Obama picking a Latina for the Supreme Court, there are some in the Latino community that just aren’t as happy as they wanted to be.  Why?  She’s the wrong kind of Latina – that is, she’s Puerto Rican, not Mexican.

Many Latinos are elated that Obama has nominated a Hispanic, and they relate to her story of success from humble beginnings.

But some would have preferred to see Obama nominate a Mexican-American considering that they make up 70 percent of the nation’s 47 million Latinos.

“The argument could be made for (a Mexican-American nominee),” said Raul Yzaguirre, former head of the National Council of La Raza, one of the nation’s largest Hispanic civil-rights organization. He is now presidential professor of community development and civil rights at Arizona State University. “I want unity, so I am more inclined to overlook those things and say, ‘Let’s work together.’ “

Though Puerto Ricans and Mexicans share a common language, Puerto Ricans are U.S. citizens and are not considered immigrants like Mexicans, said Louis DeSipio, a political-science and Chicano/Latino studies professor at the University of California-Irvine.

As a result, Sotomayor could be less sensitive to immigration issues she may face as a Supreme Court justice than if she were Mexican-American, DeSipio said.

Luz Sarmina, president and CEO of Valle del Sol, a non-profit community-based Latino organization in Phoenix, said that she was thrilled with the choice of a Hispanic but admits that she would have liked to have seen Obama nominate a Mexican-American.

“I’m thrilled having a Latina, but I also think there are many Mexican-Americans well-qualified for that role. I don’t want to pit one group against the other, but I think I would have been thrilled to see a Mexican-American.”

In the name of unity, Yzaguirre will “overlook” the snub. DeSipio thinks Sotomayor will be “less sensitive to immigration issues” because she isn’t of Mexican descent.

Watch for this issue to get some more legs as Sotomayor’s record starts getting exposed.  What Mexican-Americans will learn is that she really isn’t much like them.

This is horribly tragic.  Please pray for Dean Martin and his newborn son.

Wife of Ariz. treasurer dies after childbirth

State Treasurer Dean Martin’s wife died of complications from childbirth Monday after delivering the couple’s first child.

The child, Austin Michael Martin, is in critical condition.

Kerry Martin, 34, had been married to her husband for 13 years. Austin Martin was born at 7:31 p.m. Monday, weighing 8 pounds and measuring 21.5 inches. Martin spokeswoman Kimberly Yee would not say what complications led to Kerry Martin’s death, or what hospital the death occurred.

House Speaker Kirk Adams read the announcement of Martin’s death Tuesday on the House floor.

“Kerry was a loving wife of 13 years as well as a mother sister, aunt and daughter,” Adams said, his voice breaking.

Funeral arrangements were pending. The family has requested that no cards or flowers be sent.

Condolences can be sent to dean@americanvisuals.com

Talk about a paradigm shift.  You know, the kind where you have certain mindset or belief or opinion, and then something dramatic happens and it changes your viewpoint.

For me, it all started with a simple email.  It came from a person representing Ford Motor Company and they wanted to know if I’d be interested in driving a Ford Escape Hybrid and let them know what I thought. 

My first thought was, “Me, in a hybrid?”  That would raise a few eyebrows – particularly since I give unmitigated grief to a close friend of mine who drives a Prius (of course a Prius is a pretty wimpy car compared to a Ford Escape).

I agreed to do it, thinking that at worst I’d get better gas mileage for a few days.

Oh, but it was so much more than that.

First of all, it looked, felt and drove like a regular SUV.  In fact, I didn’t notice any difference in the acceleration or handling at all.  The only time I knew I was driving a hybrid was when I was looking at the power distribution display or the fuel efficiency meter.  Having been the owner of a Ford Expedition, I wasn’t surprised that the body was solid and it looked good.

Speaking of Ford, as a company, the one thing I can say is that the lack of reading about them in the news is, in fact, good news.  While GM and Chrysler are essentially being taken over by the government, Ford has managed to not have its hand out to Washington – reason enough for me to strongly encourage anyone looking into buying an American-made car to buy a Ford.

If it’s a mid-sized SUV that gets great mileage you are looking for, then the Escape Hybrid is for you.

The one I drove had a 2.5 liter inline 4 cylinder Atkinson Cycle Engine, which I could have sworn was a 6 cylinder with the punch that it has. Mine had an optional Navigation system (which came in very handy a couple times when I was trying to find my way around Tucson and six freeway off-ramps in a row closed) and had an MSRP of $33,035.00.

 I had it for a week, but I put it through a month’s worth of testing – from the forests near Flagstaff to the traffic in Tucson and everything in between, the Ford Escape Hybrid was up to the task every single time I drove it.

Coming soon… Camping, hybrid style…

President Obama officially nominated Sonia Sotomayor to the Supreme Court to fill the vacancy being created by Justice Souter’s retirement this summer.

This was not unexpected.  We knew it was going to be a woman, and the historical appeal of appointing the first Hispanic to the bench was too good to pass up.  And Sotomayor has a VERY compelling personal story – so compelling, it was probably impossible for Obama to NOT tap her.

Sotomayor is not getting a free pass from some on the left.  My guess is that her confirmation process is going to be a little rocky.  She has been a bit of a judicial activist, and that will be a strong line of questioning by Republicans and they will be less interested in her personal story.  One thing for sure, it’s going to be an interesting summer. 

It’s Memorial Day, one of the most sacred of days to remember the sacrifices made for our freedom.  On a day like today, I like to read the words of one of the most inspiring communicators of our time, Ronald Reagan.  When you read his words, you realize that we haven’t had anyone like him since – and probably never will.

What follows are remarks he made at a Memorial Day Ceremony at Arlington National Cemetery on May 26, 1986.

Today is the day we put aside to remember fallen heroes and to pray that no heroes will ever have to die for us again. It’s a day of thanks for the valor of others, a day to remember the splendor of America and those of her children who rest in this cemetery and others. It’s a day to be with the family and remember.

I was thinking this morning that across the country children and their parents will be going to the town parade and the young ones will sit on the sidewalks and wave their flags as the band goes by. Later, maybe, they’ll have a cookout or a day at the beach. And that’s good, because today is a day to be with the family and to remember.

Arlington, this place of so many memories, is a fitting place for some remembering. So many wonderful men and women rest here, men and women who led colorful, vivid, and passionate lives. There are the greats of the military: Bull Halsey and the Admirals Leahy, father and son; Black Jack Pershing; and the GI’s general, Omar Bradley. Great men all, military men. But there are others here known for other things.

Here in Arlington rests a sharecropper’s son who became a hero to a lonely people. Joe Louis came from nowhere, but he knew how to fight. And he galvanized a nation in the days after Pearl Harbor when he put on the uniform of his country and said, “I know we’ll win because we’re on God’s side.” Audie Murphy is here, Audie Murphy of the wild, wild courage. For what else would you call it when a man bounds to the top of a disabled tank, stops an enemy advance, saves lives, and rallies his men, and all of it singlehandedly. When he radioed for artillery support and was asked how close the enemy was to his position, he said, “Wait a minute and I’ll let you speak to them.” [Laughter]

Michael Smith is here, and Dick Scobee, both of the space shuttle Challenger. Their courage wasn’t wild, but thoughtful, the mature and measured courage of career professionals who took prudent risks for great reward — in their case, to advance the sum total of knowledge in the world. They’re only the latest to rest here; they join other great explorers with names like Grissom and Chaffee.

Oliver Wendell Holmes is here, the great jurist and fighter for the right. A poet searching for an image of true majesty could not rest until he seized on “Holmes dissenting in a sordid age.” Young Holmes served in the Civil War. He might have been thinking of the crosses and stars of Arlington when he wrote: “At the grave of a hero we end, not with sorrow at the inevitable loss, but with the contagion of his courage; and with a kind of desperate joy we go back to the fight.”

All of these men were different, but they shared this in common: They loved America very much. There was nothing they wouldn’t do for her. And they loved with the sureness of the young. It’s hard not to think of the young in a place like this, for it’s the young who do the fighting and dying when a peace fails and a war begins. Not far from here is the statue of the three servicemen — the three fighting boys of Vietnam. It, too, has majesty and more. Perhaps you’ve seen it — three rough boys walking together, looking ahead with a steady gaze. There’s something wounded about them, a kind of resigned toughness. But there’s an unexpected tenderness, too. At first you don’t really notice, but then you see it. The three are touching each other, as if they’re supporting each other, helping each other on.

I know that many veterans of Vietnam will gather today, some of them perhaps by the wall. And they’re still helping each other on. They were quite a group, the boys of Vietnam — boys who fought a terrible and vicious war without enough support from home, boys who were dodging bullets while we debated the efficacy of the battle. It was often our poor who fought in that war; it was the unpampered boys of the working class who picked up the rifles and went on the march. They learned not to rely on us; they learned to rely on each other. And they were special in another way: They chose to be faithful. They chose to reject the fashionable skepticism of their time. They chose to believe and answer the call of duty. They had the wild, wild courage of youth. They seized certainty from the heart of an ambivalent age; they stood for something.

And we owe them something, those boys. We owe them first a promise: That just as they did not forget their missing comrades, neither, ever, will we. And there are other promises. We must always remember that peace is a fragile thing that needs constant vigilance. We owe them a promise to look at the world with a steady gaze and, perhaps, a resigned toughness, knowing that we have adversaries in the world and challenges and the only way to meet them and maintain the peace is by staying strong.

That, of course, is the lesson of this century, a lesson learned in the Sudetenland, in Poland, in Hungary, in Czechoslovakia, in Cambodia. If we really care about peace, we must stay strong. If we really care about peace, we must, through our strength, demonstrate our unwillingness to accept an ending of the peace. We must be strong enough to create peace where it does not exist and strong enough to protect it where it does. That’s the lesson of this century and, I think, of this day. And that’s all I wanted to say. The rest of my contribution is to leave this great place to its peace, a peace it has earned.

Thank all of you, and God bless you, and have a day full of memories.