grantcart
grantcart's JournalAZ 2 Democratic Candidate Forum - Unmitigated Disaster
AZ 2 Resistance group got very well organized a year ago and decided to form a PAC (Represent Me AZ) which is a pretty interesting way to go and its grass roots organization includes a lot of grey haired folks (like I am) who have done a surprisingly good job of getting things organized And by folks I mean women.
One of the things that they have organized is a candidates forum and they have done a very good job doing it but last night was a disaster. As a back story I have a little difficulty getting Mrs. grantcart to engage in these events because even though her English is quite good its still her second language and when the candidates start getting into complicated explanations of policy it can be hard for her to follow.
My 36 years with Mrs grantcart has taught me that in such situations a bribe in the form of a dinner invitation after the meeting works.
We head to Catalina Foothills High School and find only a single car in the parking lot (last day of the strike) and ask if he knows where the forum is and he informs me that its at the OTHER Catalina High school (we moved to Tucson after our kids finished school) and were unaware that there were 2 schools with the name Catalina in it.
We drive 15 minutes to the other high school with the similar name and I begin to see all of the elements of a disaster (I may have to upgrade to a better restaurant). The road to the high school is under construction and as I circle the High School I can see that my detour is going to cost me. Every parking place is filled. If we can't get parked at the High School its going to be a 5 block walk. We find someone going back to his car but are crestfallen when he gets a sweater and goes back in (the auditorium is going to be very cold).
I decide to go back down an alley over to the football field and take the last possible spot. We enter the school and find well organized tables for different Democratic interest groups and for each of the 6 candidates. We enter the huge auditorium and find that there are a few seats left in the back.
Hundreds of folks showing up for a candidates forum in Arizona. This seat is baked. People are angry. The candidates don't differ on any substantial issue but on presentation and explanation of how they are going to pay for it (my key interest). Medicaid for all is supported by all 6 candidates with load cheering by 500 or more who appear to be folks mostly already on Medicare. Two candidates have proposals on how they are going to pay for the 1.3 trillion it takes and my favourite candidate, Dr. Heinz is the strongest.
We had to sit so far away that we could barely recognize the faces of the candidates but the organizers have big screens on stage with closed circuit feeds so the huge crowd could be accommodated.
Republicans avoided parking disaster and crowd accommodation problems
This PAC was formed to defeat Rep. McSally and she gave up and decided to run for Senate in order to save herself the embarrassment of a huge loss. So the Republicans had their own candidate forum. In order to avoid parking problems they kept the location a secret and only invited well known party members to attend.
http://blogforarizona.net/small-crowd-at-secret-tucson-gop-congressional-candidate-forum/
You could smell the fear in the room at the Pima County GOP’s secret CD 2 Congressional Candidate Forum at the gaudy Oyster Club in Tucson. The candidates were asked how they could win in light of recent democratic victories, and how they could govern without dominating all three branches of government.
Lea Marquez-Peterson repeatedly pleaded for donations, noting with alarm that “Nancy Pelosi has already been in Arizona and made a half-million-dollar ad buy!” and that front-runner Ann Kirkpatrick had raised more money than she did.
Only 40 people attended the event, which the Republicans tried desperately to keep secret. The GOP tried to ban reporters, to prohibit photos, and to require all cell phones to be turned off. The forum was so secret that candidate Casey Welch didn’t show up.
. . .
Martin and candidate Danny Morales battled to take the more arch-conservative position. Candidate Marilyn Wiles didn’t really have many positions. Marquez-Peterson appeared to be the only serious candidate.
None of them proposed any idea to actually help people. They were all against things — like “chain migration,” not becoming “part of the establishment,” against the “Dreamers,” against raising taxes, and against the Mueller investigation.
. . .
Asked if it would be an impeachable offense for Trump to fire Special Counsel Robert Mueller, they all said no — and that they would support Trump. “I would give him a high-five,” Morales said. Each said the investigation should be stopped.
The Represent Me AZ is going to have to work a lot harder to avoid similar disasters in the future. They should look to getting much larger venues with much larger parking lots especially if the front runner, Ann Kirkpatrick, who was not even at the event shows up at the next one. Republicans just keep doing what you are doing, you aren't going to have to worry about parking problems.
Alan Dershowitz just lied 4 times on MSNBC, and I can prove it
Dershowitz came on full of outrage at the Cohen wiretap. I was doing my morning walk so have to paraphrase the lies.
He started out stating that he knew that this was an absolute civil rights outrage and when everyone else responded you couldn't know that because Dershowitz had not seen the actual warrant and the facts that led to it he couldn't know "for a fact" that it was an abuse.
He then stated he knew it because in general "it is easy for federal prosecutors to get a warrant", that they frequently "abuse their power and hoodwink judges", target someone, "like they did Trump" and find a crime just like they would have done "if Hillary was President" and that his only interest is " because I am a civil libertarian".
Not only are these lies they are easily disprovable lies.
1) Federal wiretap warrants are NOT easy to get. My business clientele is federal employees. One of my client's full time job is to fill out applications for federal wiretap warrants. Even at relatively low levels they are very difficult to get. The originating office has to have the head attorney sign off of it and then it would go the attorney for the local law enforcement entity (in this case the FBI). Then it would go to the regional supervising office of both the federal prosecutors and FBI and then to the specialized offices at the Department of Justice and the FBI and then it would have to work its way down the chain.
That, however, is not the proof. The proof is the federal prosecution conviction rate nation wide runs around 90%. There are many prosecutors who have 100% conviction rate including many of the prosecutors working for Mueller. You do not get 98% conviction rate if you are hoodwinking judges, breaking the rules on evidence and not following Supreme Court guidelines.
Dershowitz states that he has been in practice 33 years. Show us 3 a year, 100 cases where there has been a case where federal prosecutors did not follow procedure on warrants. I doubt that he could name one a year, that is the proof, the appeal courts and the Supreme Court is not hearing and ruling on a lot of these cases, which they would if there was wide spread abuse.
2) Al Capone. Dershowitz said it was a common practice for federal prosecutors to decide to prosecute someone and then hunt for the infraction, like Al Capone. No that's what the House Republicans tried to do with Secretary of Clinton but it didn't work. They didn't start investigating Donald Trump. Trump hired people and gave them jobs and they were already under investigation. There already an investigation into Carter Page and Paul Manafort before they joined up with Trump. They were investigating Flynn before he was appointed NSC Chair. In fact they warned the President that he was a security risk and Trump fired Acting Director Yates and hired Flynn, so this is a lie.
As for the Al Capone reference. Yes it is true that when Al Capone, who was a mass murderer and was bribing thousands of police and public officials could not be prosecuting by the system he corrupted they eventually went to the IRS. Again this is the fallacy of taking an extreme example and calling it ordinary.
3) AD said that his only concern was because he was a "civil libertarian" and it was shameful that the ACLU was not on this, etc. etc. etc.
Alan Dershowitz is NOT a great civil libertarian. If he was he would be stridently denouncing Trump for his many attacks on civil liberties. He would have denounced the Muslim travel ban, the attack on DACA and the constant attacks on federal employees who are whistle blowing on illegal practices of the Trump Administration.
Or, and this is the issue I feel most strongly about, he would have denounced Trump for advocating for the arrest of the Central Park 5 who have been conclusively proven innocent.
Alan Dershowitz is NOT a civil libertarian. He is a legal gad fly that is drawn to celebrities like a moth to a light. The proof of this is had Alan Dershowitz been a true civil libertarian he would have been on Trump's enemies list, not on his invitation for private dinners at the White House.
4) Dershowitz condescendingly patronized the former federal prosecutor who worked for Giuliani and said that he had never seen any of these practices while he worked at the office. Dershowitz knew it for a fact that it was "common place". If that is true then name the prosecutors and judges who have not been following federal DOJ and Supreme Court guidelines by name. He won't because a) they don't exist and b) he doesn't want to be sued for defamation.
There was one more lie I noted but the walk was too long and by the time I got home I was so angry about these 4 I couldn't remember the other two, lol.
Edited to Add: Now that it has turned out that there was NO wiretap but only a "register of phone calls" who called who it makes Dershowitz's uninformed, over the top, mindless hysteria even more ridiculous.
Re: Giuliani's message to Rosenstein to examine the Cohen wiretap: Why in the hell is Giuliani commenting on a wiretap on Cohen, he doesn't represent him.
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