LOL, what a bunch of fucking wingnuts. Sorry PD, it is a really beautiful state but the nutjobs are takin' over!

Ariz. lawmakers: Candidates must prove citizenship
By JONATHAN J. COOPER, Associated Press Writer Jonathan J. Cooper, Associated Press Writer

PHOENIX – Arizona lawmakers expressing doubt over whether President Barack Obama was born in the United States are pushing a bill through the Legislature that would require the president to show his birth certificate to get on the state's 2012 ballot.

The House passed the measure Wednesday on a 31-29 vote, ignoring protests from opponents who said it's casting Arizona in an ugly light and could give the elected secretary of state broad powers to kick a presidential candidate off the ballot.

"We're becoming a national joke," Rep. Chad Campbell, a Phoenix Democrat who opposes the measure, said Thursday.

The measure's sponsor, Republican Rep. Judy Burges of Skull Valley, said she isn't sure Obama could prove his eligibility for the ballot in Arizona and wants to erase all doubts.

"You have half the population who thinks everything is fine, and you have the other half of the population who has had doubts built up in their mind," Burges said.

So-called "birthers" have contended since the 2008 presidential campaign that Obama is ineligible to be president because, they argue, he was actually born in Kenya, his father's homeland. The Constitution says that a person must be a "natural-born citizen" to be eligible for the presidency.

Hawaii officials have repeatedly confirmed Obama's citizenship, and his Hawaiian birth certificate has been made public, along with birth notices from two Honolulu newspapers published within days of his birth in August 1961.

Courts have rebuffed lawsuits challenging Obama's eligibility, but the issue hasn't gone away. Lawmakers have introduced similar bills in a handful of other states. They include Oklahoma, where a measure passed the House but failed in the Senate, and Missouri, where a bill was withdrawn before any action was taken.

Eleven U.S. House Republicans have signed on to a federal bill, but it hasn't received a hearing in the Democrat-controlled House.

Arizona's measure would require U.S. presidential candidates to submit documents to the secretary of state proving they meet the constitutional requirements to be president. The secretary of state could then decide to keep a candidate off the Arizona ballot if he or she had reasonable cause to believe the candidate was ineligible.

Arizona Secretary of State Ken Bennett opposes the bill, arguing it gives his office too much power, according to his spokesman Matthew Benson. Benson said Bennett, a Republican, has no doubts about Obama's citizenship.

The bill now goes to the Senate, where supporters are trying to pull together enough votes to pass the measure. If they do, it's unclear if Republican Gov. Jan Brewer will give it her support. Her spokesman, Paul Senseman, said the governor won't comment on pending legislation, but he added she doesn't have doubts about Obama's citizenship.

The measure comes amid a string of controversial proposals in Arizona that have garnered national attention, including a sweeping illegal immigration crackdown awaiting action by the governor and a measure allowing people to carry concealed weapons without permits. The governor signed the gun bill last week.

Rep. Tom Chabin, D-Flagstaff, pleaded with his colleagues to oppose the birth certificate measure Wednesday.

"When you undermine the sitting president of the United States, you undermine our nation, and it makes us look very ugly," Chabin said Thursday.

But some supporters insist the bill isn't aimed at Obama, it's just common sense.

"It's our ballot," said state Sen. Jack Harper, R-Surprise, who believes Obama has proven his citizenship. "The parties need to prove that their nominee is eligible to hold the office of president to be on our ballot."

They're not taking over, they've always been here. But with Janet "the Firewall" Napolitano off the DC, and the far right sensing they are losing power to more liberal immigrants (both foreign and domestic), they are flailing with some last gasps. I think the term is "final throes", but I wouldn't want to be as bad a predictor as Herr Cheney.

There's also a lovely "immigration" bill they passed this week that basically allows any cop in the state to stop someone on suspicion of being an illegal immigrant and demand that they show their papers. If they can't produce papers, it's a misdemeanor, whether they're legal or not. There's some financial penalty for cities that prohibit their police from this kind of search as well.

Now, if the Obama administration passed a law that allowed police to ask anyone for their "papers, please", the wingnuts would rightly call it a march towards fascism. But it's OK, because this law only is going to be enforced against brown people, so no REAL Americans' civil rights will be violated.

Yeah, this place sucks. My wife wants out BAD.

yeah, this law is absolutely terrible. sad to hear it exists.

Come on up pal, we got plenty of room!

I just applied for a job in Portland.

Awesome! Good luck!

http://www.tucsonweekly.com/tucson/vote ... erComments




Vote Yes On Prop 100
If you don’t pass this sales tax, we’ll kill this state
by The Weekly Editorial Board


Let us begin by saying we're not crazy about hiking the state's sales tax by a penny per dollar for the next three years.

But we're a lot less crazy about the alternative, so we're urging you to vote yes.

The state of Arizona is facing its most serious economic crisis in modern history. The Republicans running our state have already stripped health-care coverage from more than 300,000 people below the federal poverty line. They have made Arizona the only state without a KidsCare program. They've dumped all-day kindergarten and cut away at our schools. They slashed funding for our universities, forcing tuition increases on college students and their parents. They've eliminated Arizona's GED program. They cut programs for the disabled and the mentally ill. They've taken away hospice care from people who are dying. They have swiped so much money from state parks that several will have to close. They have taken money from funds meant to help victims of crimes. They have sold off the state's capitol building.

And these are just the highlights; lawmakers are engaged in the deepest cuts to state government that we have ever seen.

But those cuts are going to get even deeper if the state does not do something to bring in more money.

We wish lawmakers had the vision to rework our entire tax system to reflect our 21st-century economy, but the clowns now running our state have no imagination—beyond suggesting tax cuts.

And so there's only one choice before us: Increasing the sales tax to bring in an estimated $867 million in the next fiscal year by voting yes on Proposition 100.

There are those who say it doesn't do enough to solve the problem. Sorry, but that's a foolish line of reasoning, suggesting that a better alternative is to do nothing while the state crashes and burns.

If the sales tax does not pass, lawmakers won't look for a more equitable tax. Instead, they'll take it as a mandate that voters want more cuts—and they will proceed accordingly.

We already know what they will cut if the sales tax does not pass. They will cut another $428 million from education. They will cut $107 million from our universities. They will cut about $150 million from health-care funding. They will cut $100 million from the criminal-justice system. And the list goes on.

Those cuts will mean the state will lose another 13,000 jobs, according to economists at the UA Eller College of Management. On top of that, we'll lose more than $442 million in federal matching funds that would bring new dollars into our economy.

That's right: We'll kiss goodbye $442 million—money that would boost our economy. How dumb is that?

Take a look at who backs this tax. Your firefighters are behind it. Your universities are behind it. Your teachers are behind it. Your chambers of commerce are behind it. Your hospitals are behind it. Your business leaders are behind it. Your churches are behind it. Even Gov. Jan Brewer, who brags that she has never before supported a tax increase, is behind it.

And who is against it? Mostly just politicians who are lying when they say the state just needs to tighten its belt a little bit more.

We can think of plenty of better ways to fund state government. We'd rather see the tax base broadened a bit. We'd rather see a slight increase in income taxes on Arizona's highest earners, who got a big tax break just three years ago. We'd rather get lawmakers who recognize that an economy responds to something besides tax cuts.

But we don't have those choices. Instead, we have lawmakers who can't wait to cut even more as soon as you give them an excuse. They're the ones who are telling you to vote against the sales tax so they can get on with the slicing and dicing of everything that Arizona taxpayers have built over the last 100 years.

If the sales tax fails, the people who want to destroy our state win.

Save the state of Arizona. Vote yes on May 18.

Isn't this the kind of hyperbolic, fear-mongering rhetoric you regularly excoriate the Republicans for employing?

No, only racists and stooges of corporate interests use such tactics.

nope, its okay when the "good guys" do it.

filibuster!!!

Good luck, PD.

I just want to say that when I read this story a few days ago I literally laughed out loud. What a world we live in.

"I don't want to abolish government. I simply want to reduce it to the size where I can drag it into the bathroom and drown it in the bathtub."
--Grover Norquist

Considering that this idea has been a guiding principle of conservative politics for the last generation, I don't think that is being particularly hyperbolic, especially when discussing tax policy. I guess it all depends on how you define "destroy the state".

It isn't a leap to you to equate objecting to the merits of much of the above bolded text to wanting "to destroy the state?"

I like how the left is framing the immigration bill, which, mind you, is just a rehash of the federal law that's not being upheld. Since a certain specific group of people are guilty of a certain specific crime that is eroding away the state and syphoning billions in tax payer dollars, it is thus illegal to pursue prevention of that crime simply because a certain race makes up the vast majority of those breaking the law. Excellent.

What race would that be?

infielders

Okay, ethnic group.