AZ Congressman Matt Salmon: “The president is our nation’s elected leader and has the privilege and responsibility to set the tone for our nation. Unfortunately, this cannot happen with a president who remains tone-deaf and unwilling to listen to the American people. We learned last week that President Obama believes he can lead our nation with only a pen and a phone. But Americans don’t care about pens and phones; they care about jobs and paychecks. This requires a president who will work with Congress to pass bills that grow the economy, not the size of the government. If the president is serious about working with Congress he should start by asking Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid to take up the 40 jobs bills the House has sent to the Senate, finally approve the Keystone Pipeline and remove job-killing regulations through legislation such as the REINS Act. I firmly believe that job creation and higher-wages are a product of economic growth, not mandates from Washington. Americans have a strong spirit of ingenuity and will. We can and should support policies that foster these values, not hinder them.”
AZ Congressman David Schweikert: “For those who watched the president’s speech and the Republican response, the difference could not be more stark. The Republican message of optimism and opportunity contrasts with the president’s speech of recycled proposals from his previous years in office. If the president is ready to accept responsibility for his policies that have led to stagnant economic growth over his 6 years in office, he needs to follow through this time and address the issue with more than just talk of job creation. I am hopeful 2014 can be a productive year, but it will require President Obama to do something he has refused to do until now. And that is, reach out and work with Congress in good faith.”
Gubernatorial Candidate Frank Riggs: “President Obama’s SOTU speech is more of the same: big government proposals that shift more power to DC, and dominion and control over our lives, despite the fact that the federal gov’t can’t stop deficit spending or secure our state and national border with Mexico. We need to put our fiscal house in order, revive our economy and create jobs, and promote more competition and choice in education and health care to build a better future for all Arizonans! The common sense conservative solutions we need are in Arizona, not Washington, DC.”
It should tell you everything you need to know about liberal U.S. Senator John McCain when Democrats are praising him and Republicans are censuring him.
If you hadn’t heard by now, the Maricopa County Republican Party recently censured McCain for his leftward lean. Various groups in McCain’s own Republican Party in Arizona have been censuring and expressing displeasure with McCain since 2005. It’s nothing new. But look what the Democrats’ candidate for governor, Fred DuVal is saying about McCain:
“Moments ago, John McCain was censured by the elected leaders of Arizona’s Republican Party. What an outrageous response to the good work Senator McCain did crafting a reasonable solution to fix our broken immigration system.
The displeasure with McCain has noticeably risen. Last year, the Rocky Mountain Poll reported …
67 percent of Arizonans now opine that Arizona needs to elect someone to the U.S. Senate with new ideas and interests. Only 21 percent now believe that John McCain deserves another six year term. This view is shared across the state in that the proportion saying they would prefer a new U.S. Senator reaches 72 percent in Maricopa county, 67 percent in Pima county and 58 percent in the rural counties. Further, 61 percent of those are registered Republicans and 67 percent call themselves politically conservative hold the same view.
In recent days, Republican committee members of Santa Cruz County, Maricopa County, Apache County, Cochise County, Gila County, and Mohave County all passed censure resolutions against “Lefty” McCain. That’s a stinging indictment and reflective of mounting grassroots disenchantment with McCain over the past several years. It’s no wonder McCain and his shadow, Sen. Jeff Flake once again dissed the GOP by boycotting the recent state party convention.
We endorse any solid conservative who runs against McCain in his next bid for re-election. During that campaign, he needs to be held accountable for his unsupportable efforts on behalf of the homosexual agenda and the gun control leftists.
John Semmens: Semi-News — A Satirical Look at Recent News
New York City Police Commissioner Bill Bratton defended the bludgeoning of 84 year old Kang Wong by City police officers as “fully justified.” The incident occurred as part of the City’s new “get tough on jaywalking” campaign. Wong, who does not speak English was roughed up by several cops when he failed to obey the first officer’s command to stay put as he wrote Wong a ticket for jaywalking. After the beat down Wong was taken to the hospital where surgical staples had to be applied to close a scalp wound.
Bratton insisted that the scalp wound “must’ve happened when Mr. Wong fell,” and discounted the possibility that one of the many blows to the head he received from the officers’ batons could have been responsible. “In our view, the intervention of the City Police may have saved Mr. Wong’s life,” Bratton speculated. “The street on which he was jaywalking was the site of a pedestrian fatality earlier that very same day.”
The Commissioner brushed aside critics’ contentions that excessive force was used. “Crossing the street mid-block is against the law,” Bratton pointed out. “Law breakers like Mr. Wong expose themselves to harm by breaking this law and have only themselves to blame if they suffer damage for lack of expeditious compliance with the commands of a duly authorized member of the Police Force.”
Fudged Bio Defended as “True in Spirit”
Recent revelations that the campaign biography touting the gubernatorial candidacy of Texas State Senator Wendy Davis (D-Fort Worth) contains multiple inaccuracies were declared a “smear” by Davis.
“Whether any specific item is precisely factual is not as important as whether the essential message is true,” the Senator said. “Unlike my opponent, I am a working mother who has overcome significant handicaps to rise as a spokesperson for women’s rights. If we allow this essential truth to be submerged in a cacophony of nick-picking, fact-checking ‘gotchas’ we allow the good old boy network to win.”
Unlike most working mothers, Davis ceded custody of her two children (including one fathered by another man in a previous marriage) to her most recent former husband, whom she divorced after he finished paying off the costs of her Harvard Law School education.
Similarly, Davis’ contention that she has suffered hardships “unknown” to her opponent also raised a discordant note. Her opponent, Texas Attorney General Greg Abbott (R), age 56, has been confined to a wheel chair since age 26 when his spine was broken by a falling tree. “Well, Mr. Abbott may be paralyzed, but he has never known the pains of child birth,” Davis asserted. “So, I’d have to say that he is unable to identify with the half of the population that has to face this affliction solely because of their sex.”
Davis’ campaign remains confident that “our ‘stand with Wendy’ slogan’s imagery absolutely trumps anything Abbott can do. He’s in a wheelchair. How can anyone stand with him?’
AG Says US Still a “Nation of Cowards” on Race
US Attorney General Eric Holder doubled down on his 2009 claim that American whites are cowards when it comes to race. In a Q & A session after a speech at the University of Virginia, Holder professed himself “more convinced than ever of the ingrained cowardice of white racists.”
“Consider this, the majority of the members of Congress are whites,” Holder observed. “Many of them contend that I have violated the law by allowing guns to be shipped to Mexican gangsters. Others find fault with my disinclination to look into IRS abuses of the President’s political opponents. Our Constitution and laws prescribe tools for them to use against me for these alleged offenses. Yet, they do nothing. If that isn’t cowardice then what is it?”
“Are they squeamish because I know what’s in their FBI files?” Holder jibed. “From their posturing you’d think that the Constitution was the most important thing in the world. But apparently, the cringe-worthy details of their personal lives scare them off from the fulfillment of their Constitutional duty. Is this not a demonstration of cowardice? These types of racists were very ‘brave’ when they had the whips and the Black men were in chains. So, I’d have to say that based on the evidence, the charge of cowardice is sustained.”
In related news, Senator Charles Schumer (D-NY) urged the IRS to “come down heavy on the Tea Party types in the run-up to the 2014 elections. The enemies of progressive policies must not be allowed free rein to slander the government while we have the means to stifle their lies and propaganda. For us not to use the power of the IRS would be like leaving our artillery idle when we could use it to decimate repel their attacks.”
NY Dems Say Conservatives Don’t Belong
First, Governor Andrew Cuomo declared that conservatives who are pro-life, pro-gun, and anti-gay marriage “have no place in the state of New York, because that’s not who New Yorkers are.”
These sentiments were seconded by New York City Mayor Bill de Blasio who averred, “I stand by that 100%. Governing is hard when not everyone is marching to the same beat. People wander off into divergent, idiosyncratic directions. The cohesiveness of everyone pulling in the same direction is undermined.”
De Blasio worried that “just expelling these dissident elements isn’t necessarily the best solution. We need to make sure that if they leave they don’t abscond with the wealth that properly belongs to the collective whole. Take right-wing radio personality Sean Hannity, for example. He’s been saying that he’d like to escape with his swag and join Rush Limbaugh in Florida. I say. Let him go with the clothes on his back, one suit case of personal belongings, and a one-way bus ticket.”
Cuomo admitted to finding de Blasio’s eviction proposal “a bit harsh. I would hope that some method of reeducation could reclaim these people to an extent that might permit their continued residence in the state. It’s not these people, per se, that’s the problem. It’s their warped and despicable views that we must eradicate.”
President Hails 41st Anniversary of Roe vs. Wade
President Obama took the occasion of the 41st anniversary of the Supreme Court’s decision proclaiming a woman’s right to an abortion to urge Americans to “recommit ourselves to the decision’s guiding principle: that every woman should be able to kill her own baby as long as she does so before it is born.”
The president also reaffirmed his “steadfast commitment to ensure that this right not be abridged by lack of funding. No baby should be forced to be born just because her mother cannot afford to pay for an abortion. Preventing this unwanted life is a social responsibility that all must participate in financing.”
“When we look back on the four decades since the Supreme Court’s historic decision we can be proud that over 50 million unwanted children have been spared degradation and heartache as a result of this courageous act on the part of the Court.”
So successful has the progressive abortion regime in New York been that for every 1,000 Black babies born, over 1,200 “have been spared degradation and heartache.”
President May Revoke Redskins Trademark
Among the Executive Orders under consideration by the Obama Administration is one that would revoke the “Redskins” football team trademark.
“Every right-thinking person agrees that using the name ‘Redskins’ for a football team is offensive,” Press Secretary Jay Carney maintained. “We have tried every manner of persuasion to try to get the team owners to willingly drop the use of this name. Rather than let the travesty linger on, the President is using his executive authority to unilaterally revoke the team’s trademark rights to the name.”
“What this means is that anyone would be enabled to produce Redskin-themed merchandise without having to pay royalties to the team,” Carney explained. “If they won’t do the right thing for the right reason, maybe once they lose their revenue stream from jerseys, mugs, and the like it will inspire them to do so.”
While the revocation of trademarks doesn’t seem to be one of the enumerated powers of the president, Carney insisted that the Constitution’s “insure domestic tranquility” clause was sufficient to authorize the proposed executive action. “It is only a matter of time before groups offended by the name create domestic disturbances,” Carney predicted. “To forestall this outbreak the President is within his authority to remove the provocation.”
Marijuana Legalization Called “Reckless”
James Capra, chief of operations at the Drug Enforcement Administration decried the growing trend of state governments legalizing marijuana as “reckless and irresponsible.”
“There are times when the only way we can get ‘bad apples’ off the streets is to hit them with a drug possession charge,” Capra lamented. “We know they’re guilty of some pretty bad stuff, but we can’t get the evidence we need. Having the ability to level a drug charge gives us a fall back option.”
“Baggies of drugs are light weight and easily concealed,” Capra elaborated. “Each of our agents can carry a handy piece of incriminating evidence that can be dropped near or found on the person we want to arrest. Faced with such evidence a perp with priors or a parole violation might be willing to rat out confederates to escape going to jail. Keeping drugs illegal is vital to this procedure. Without it more suspects may have to be shot resisting arrest. So, in a way, legalization endangers their safety.”
A Satirical Look at Recent News
John Semmens is a retired economist who has written a weekly political satire column for The Arizona Conservative since 2005. He says working on his satires is one of the ways he tries to honor the liberties that our nation’s Founding Fathers tried to protect.
Please do us a favor. If you use material created by The Arizona Conservative, give us credit, and DO NOT change the context. Thank you.
Nearly 57 million Americans have died in abortion mills. This is equal to the entire populations of several states.
26 percent of all U.S. pregnancies since 1973 have ended tragically — in abortions.
A majority of Americans oppose abortion.
A majority of women who have abortions believe they are violating their own moral conscience.
Many women and girls are forced or coerced into abortions by a husband, a boyfriend, or their family.
Many women have died from LEGAL abortion. Many more have suffered complications and had to be rushed to emergency rooms after botched abortions. The idea of so-called “safe and legal abortion” is a myth.
Abortion significantly heightens a woman’s risk of breast cancer, cervical cancer, and scores of additional physical problems, including infertility. Nearly one in 30 women will suffer a perforated uterus during abortion.
Abortion substantially increases a woman’s risk of emotional problems, including depression, anxiety and substance abuse. Post-abortive women are more likely to be admitted to a psychiatric hospital.
Embryology textbooks state that life begins at conception. The baby’s heartbeat can be heard at 21 days.
Planned Parenthood requires abortion quotas of its affiliates to profit off the death of innocent preborn boys and girls.
Planned Parenthood and other abortionists have a history of refusing to obey the law and report statutory rape of minors seeking abortions.
The relationship between a woman and an abortionist is not a private matter between a woman and her doctor. A doctor is a care provider for patients. An abortionist shows up in a room to kill the preborn child of a woman he has never met before and will not likely meet again.
Abortion employees lie about the human nature of the preborn child in order to sell abortion to women.
Post-abortive women suffer significantly higher rates of accidents, deaths, suicides, and homicides.
Nearly 8 of 10 post-abortive women experienced a preoccupation with their aborted child.
Many people have left the abortion business and become ardent spokesmen for the value of human life, including the late Dr. Bernard Nathanson, who was responsible for one of the largest abortion factories in America. He had also co-founded the National Abortion Rights Action League and admitted that he and others made up phony statistics and polls to generate public support for abortion.
Abortion increases the rates of child battering.
There is never a reason for abortion. Adoption is the best option for someone who does not want to raise her child.
Supreme Court Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg, a leftist and former ACLU lawyer, called the Roe v. Wade decision “heavy-handed judicial intervention” that was “hard to justify.”
Pregnancy by rape is statistically rare. Police and doctors reported that rapists are often sexual deviants incapable of impregnating their victims. Some women do carry their rape child to term because they believe the child has committed no crime.
Abortion mills are often located in minority communities, and minorities are the victims of a disproportionate number of abortions.
Between 20 and 30 weeks, a preborn child has more pain receptors per square inch than at any time before or after birth, with only a thin layer of skin.
The size, location, and level of development make the preborn child no less human.
No nation will prosper by killing millions upon millions of preborn children.
America desperately needs to restore a culture of respect for human life from natural birth to natural death.
John Semmens: Semi-News — A Satirical Look at Recent News
The Judge pooh-poohed contentions that IDs may be needed to prevent fraudulent voting. “The attempt to segregate voters into valid vs. fraudulent categories strikes at the very heart of our democratic values,” McGinley asserted. “Every human being is entitled to vote for those who rule over him. To exclude some on grounds that they fail to meet some geographic criterion or bureaucratic regulation is undemocratic.”
“The rule for voting should be simple: everyone who requests a ballot must be given one,” McGinley argued. “The fear that some individuals mat vote multiple times is exaggerated. Even if it were true, all it signifies is an above average concern for the outcome of an election. Aren’t such committed voters more in tune with the spirit of democracy? Shouldn’t we want such commitment to carry greater weight than the lesser exertions of others who limit themselves to voting only once?”
McGinley pointed out that “major league sports and American Idol have demonstrated successful adaptation of the ‘no-questions-asked’ distribution of ballots to all who request them. They accept votes from all over the world without quibbling over citizenship or place of residence. Since the scope of government is even broader than these entertainment enterprises shouldn’t its election processes be at least as inclusive?”
Communism Best for Fighting Global Warming
United Nations climate chief Christiana Figueres opined that communist governments would be better suited to combat global warming than governments trying to operate under democratic principles.
“The problem with democracy is that the ignorant masses have too much say in government policies,” Figueres complained. “Take the last 15 years in which there has been no increase in global temperature or the recent arctic type weather in the United States. This has caused many voters to discount the risk of global warming. Under communism, the will of the masses can easily be bypassed so policy can be determined by experts.”
The fact that China suffers from horrendous air pollution only bolstered Figueres enthusiasm for the communist system. “The particulate smog that chokes many of China’s urban areas serves to deflect sunlight that otherwise would warm the planet,” she pointed out. “This trade-off of greater respiratory distress for cooler temperatures would likely not be attainable in a democratic political environment. The difficulty breathing is a palpable phenomenon that distorts the average person’s judgment. Only a government that is independent of this distorted judgment can keep its focus on the longer term problem of global warming.”
Another positive cited by Figueres was the huge death toll attributed to communist regimes. “Just consider the added contribution the 90 million people killed by communist massacres, purges, and slave labor camps would have made to global warming had they lived,” Figueres observed. “Only communist governments can be counted on to make these kinds of sacrifices for the greater good of the planet.”
Poll Indicates that Government Is Top Problem
A recent Gallup poll revealed that the number one problem facing America, according to those polled, is “the government.” Twenty-one percent listed this as the worst problem facing the nation. Rounding out the top five problems were the economy (18%), unemployment (16%), healthcare (16%), and government debt (8%).
These poll results were dramatically out-of-sync with President Obama’s declaration that “income inequality” is this nation’s chief problem. Only 4% of the poll respondents agreed with his assessment.
As one poll respondent explained, “my work hours have been cut and my health insurance canceled. My wife has been unemployed for three years. We voted for Obama hoping he’d get us out of the Bush recession. As he promised, the government is doing more than ever, but things have just gotten worse.”
President Obama, though, denied government is to blame. “The vast majority of economic activity—manufacturing, distribution, jobs—is the responsibility of the private sector,” Obama said. “People pretty much get to do what they want. If they expect government to solve problems they’ve got to be willing to go where the government tells them and do as they’re told. Without this type of cooperation it isn’t fair that we are held accountable for people’s dissatisfaction with their lives.”
In related news, for the first time since the index of economic freedom has been kept by Heritage Foundation, the United States dropped out of the top ten. The US now ranks 12th, behind an array of countries that includes Chile, Mauritius, and the formerly Soviet Socialist Republic of Estonia.
Federal Government Wastes $100 Billion per Year on Erroneous Payments
The Office of Management and Budget reported that in fiscal 2012 the federal government improperly spent over $100 billion. Without delving into the issue of whether given programs are wise or warranted, the fact remains that the government is cutting checks to individuals and organizations that are not entitled to the money even under the dubious provisions of poorly crafted legislation and idiotic regulations.
Spending by the Department of Health and Human Services accounted for nearly $60 billion of the improper payments. This included welfare payments to those not entitled to receive them and disbursements for medical treatments not performed.
Secretary Kathleen Sebelius insisted that “the attention being paid to this issue is disproportionate to its actual importance. In the context of a $3.5 trillion budget, the $60 billion we lost is less than 2%. On top of this, who is to say that a person not legally entitled to welfare benefits doesn’t really deserve these payments? Maybe our criteria are too strict. Maybe these ‘improper payments’ are saving people from destitution.”
“When you’re running an operation as big as the federal government you’ve got to expect some money to fall through the cracks,” Sebelius said. “I take encouragement from the fact that 98% of the money is going to where it is legally intended.”
A Satirical Look at Recent News
John Semmens is a retired economist who has written a weekly political satire column for The Arizona Conservative since 2005. He says working on his satires is one of the ways he tries to honor the liberties that our nation’s Founding Fathers tried to protect.
Please do us a favor. If you use material created by
The Arizona Conservative, give us credit, and DO NOT change the context. Thank you.
America the Beautiful . . . Rediscovering What Made this Nation Great
An Evening with Dr. Benjamin Carson: Tuesday, January 28, 6 p.m., Arizona Biltmore in Phoenix
VIP Reception, VIP Book Signing and Dinner
Based on his 2012 book, Dr. Ben Carson explores the critical historical characteristics of America that led to her rise to the pinnacle of nations almost overnight. Although some mistakes were made, Dr. Carson explores how we learn from them and questions if we are ready to discard our unique, but uplifting attributes for the sake of political correctness? The values and principles that produced outstanding characteristics like, honesty, compassion, hard work, innovation and decency are at least as important today as they were when our nation was born. There are many great things about America that should be celebrated and Dr. Carson shows us all how to use our God-given talents to improve our lives, our communities, our nation, and our world. He believes that America’s best days are still ahead, but to get there, as a nation we must address tough issues facing our country.
Cost and Tickets
Dinner tickets begin at $300
ThunderbirdAcademy.org
Benjamin S. Carson, Sr., M.D., had a childhood dream of becoming a physician. Growing up in a single parent home and being challenged by dire poverty, poor grades, a horrible temper and low self-esteem appeared to preclude the realization of that dream, until his mother, with only a third-grade education, challenged her sons to strive for excellence. Young Ben persevered and today is an emeritus professor of neurosurgery, oncology, plastic surgery and pediatrics at the Johns Hopkins School of Medicine, where he directed pediatric neurosurgery at the Johns Hopkins Children’s Center for 39 years.
Some career highlights include the first and only successful separation of craniopagus (Siamese) twins joined at the back of the head in 1987, the first completely successful separation of type-2 vertical craniopagus twins in 1997 in South Africa and the first successful placement of an intrauterine shunt for a hydrocephalic twin.
Dr. Benjamin Carson will speak holds more than 60 honorary doctorate degrees and has received literally hundreds of awards and citations. He is a member of the Alpha Omega Alpha Honor Medical Society, the Institute of Medicine/National Academy of Science, the Horatio Alger Society of Distinguished Americans and many other prestigious organizations. He was appointed in 2004 by President George W. Bush to serve on the President’s Council on Bioethics. He is a highly regarded motivational speaker who has addressed various audiences from school systems and civic groups to corporations and has spoken twice during the President’s National Prayer Breakfast.
In 2001, Dr. Carson was named by CNN and TIME magazine as one of the nation’s 20 foremost physicians and scientists. That same year, he was selected by the Library of Congress as one of 89 “Living Legends” on the occasion of its 200th anniversary. In June, 2008, he was awarded the Presidential Medal of Freedom by the President, which is the highest civilian honor in the land. Dr. Carson was recognized in November, 2008 by U.S. News & World Report and Harvard’s Center for Public Leadership, as one of “America’s Best Leaders.” On February 7, 2009, the award-winning movie entitled Gifted Hands: The Ben Carson Story, starring Cuban Gooding, Jr. as Dr. Carson, premiered on TNT and is based on his memoir.
His four books, Gifted Hands, THINK BIG, The Big Picture and Take the Risk: Learning to Identify, Choose and Live with Acceptable Risk (January, 2008), provide inspiration and insight for leading a successful life; a fifth book, America The Beautiful: Rediscovering What Made This Nation Great, (2012) was a New York Times bestseller.
In addition writing a weekly opinion column for The Washington Times, Dr. Carson is FOX News contributor.
He has been married for over 38 years to his wife, Candy, and is the father of three sons.
Our state is now ranked the fourth most pro-life state in the nation, behind only Louisiana, Oklahoma, and Arkansas. According to AUL, the Life List “ranks states by their overall actions on life issues.”
Personally, this announcement was a welcomed pick-me-up after the disappointment of the United States Supreme Court declining to hear arguments over Arizona’s Mother’s Health and Safety Act. The Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals struck down the portion of this law that prohibited most abortions after 20 weeks.
As I said in my statement after the Supreme Court’s decision, it is absolutely terrible that this important law will not be in effect. Arizona legislators passed and Gov. Brewer signed this law to protect women and preborn children from the dangerous and deadly practice of performing abortions after 20 weeks of a pregnancy.
Yet despite this sad outcome, the Life List announcement reminds me that we are winning.
All you have to do is look back at a few years to see how far we’ve come. In 2009, Arizona was ranked 29 – in the bottom half of states for protecting preborn children and their mothers.
Now for the second year in a row, we’re in the top 5. Our state was also named one of AUL’s Women’s Protection Project All Stars. This is so meaningful to me because when I look at the devastating impact of abortion, I don’t only see the tragic loss of preborn life, but I also see a hurting woman. It is an honor for our state to be recognized for standing up against the abortion industry’s lies to women.
It’s important to point something out when we look at these rankings too.
Something very critical happened in 2009 that changed the pro-life trajectory of our state. Arizonans elected a pro-life legislature and Governor Jan Brewer became Governor.
It’s been under Governor Jan Brewer’s leadership that Arizona has shot up the charts – jumping 25 spots.
Governor Brewer has done more than just sign the bills too. She’s gone out of her way to passionately defend life. I was incredibly encouraged to hear that our Governor addressed Arizona’s pro-life progress in her State of the State address Monday:
“And, as thrilled as I am with everything we’ve accomplished on behalf of Arizona businesses, I’m equally proud of the work we’ve done on behalf of Arizona families.
From school choice policies that give parents the power to decide their children’s education … To life-affirming legislation protecting the unborn … Together, we have pursued and protected the values most important to Arizona’s families – and Arizona’s future.”
We should never take for granted a governor who stands for life. It was because Arizona had an executive that opposed the rights of women and preborn children that our state was initially ranked in the bottom half of the nation.
