AZ News & Blogs 6/9/2010

• U.S. Supreme Court Blocks Release of Campaign Matching Funds 
• In a major victory for free speech, the U.S. Supreme Court this morning blocked the use of taxpayer money as campaign "matching funds." The Court will decide whether to review a ruling from the Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals.
• Cato Institute Reactions 
• When taxpayers underwrite the campaign expenses of candidates for public office, serious questions arise: Not least, why should taxpayers subsidize candidates or ideas they oppose? But when taxpayers subsidize only one side in a campaign, there should be outrage. Perhaps there was at the Supreme Court this morning, when the Court blocked an appalling opinion out of, not surprisingly, the oft-overturned Ninth Circuit.
• Coyote Blog Reactions 
• I find many of the uses politicians make of the money they take from me to be irritating.  But perhaps the worst of them all is to use my money to fund their own election campaigns when they can’t get enough people to voluntarily contribute.  Which is why I am happy to see the Supreme Court put a injunction on Arizona’s politicians take tax money to re-elect themselves law.
• Why We Need Fewer Public School Jobs, Not More 
• The first [of two charts] shows that employment has grown 10 times faster than enrollment over the past 40 years.  The second chart shows how the total cost of sending a single child through the public school system has changed over the years, along with trends in student achievement.

AZ News & Blogs 5/28/2010

• Goldwater Institute appeals matching funds ruling 
• With less than a month to go before Clean Elections candidates start getting matching funds, the Goldwater Institute is falling back on its last line of defense to scrap the public financing system for the 2010 elections. The Goldwater Institute on May 25 filed an emergency motion with U.S. Supreme Court Justice Anthony Kennedy, requesting that ...
• School Vouchers vs. Tax Credits 
• Under a constitutional tax credit program such as Arizona’s, the state has no power to pressure/encourage taxpayers to do anything that the state could not do directly. Taxpayers can choose to give no money to religious charities, or to give all their money to them. The state is unable to affect their decisions in any way.
• Vouchers, Tax Credits, and Social Conflict 
• Yesterday, I contended that education tax credits substantially avoid the compulsion inherent in school voucher programs — that vouchers compel all taxpayers to fund every kind of schooling (including ones they may strongly object to) whereas tax credits do not.
• ‘All Your Income Are Belong to the State’ 
• It would be fine for the Arizona Republic to report that critics refuse to accept the Arizona Supreme Court’s interpretation, and that they are hoping the U.S. Supreme Court will see things their way (FYI: not gonna happen). But it is not okay for the Republic, on its “news” pages, to take sides in a case now before the U.S. Supreme Court by adopting the legal assumptions of the program’s critics.
• Update on the Arizona Immigration Issue 
• First, it seems that I wasn’t working off the latest version of the bill — which I should add is awfully hard to find.
• Well, we at Cato certainly agree that Arizona’s law will not solve a problem that demands a comprehensive federal solution, but that doesn’t mean federal officials can simply decline to perform their duties under the law as it exists.
• My thoughts:  Yes, it is difficult to navigate Arizona's websites to find bills and track them.  It would be nice if they came up with a more transparent system.

AZ News & Blogs 5/25/2010

• A Legal Analysis of the New Arizona Immigration Law 
• None of these provisions, on their face, appear to be unconstitutional, in the sense of Arizona intruding on federal authority over immigration policy...just because the law is constitutional doesn’t necessarily mean it’s good policy...the boycotts of Arizona adopted by city councils around the country...are likely themselves unconstitutional.
• In short, the Arizona immigration law presents a tremendously complex issue, as the Arizona Republic has recognized, that does not lend itself to easy calls or soundbites.  I myself am not certain how I would have voted if I didn’t have the third option (as Arizona doesn’t) of imminent federal reform — to the disconsolation of state legislators around the country who have asked me what they can do to placate a (legitimately) aggrieved public besides enactiong Arizona-style laws.
• My thoughts:  Nice and balanced.  It would be nice if I didn't get so emotional about all of this!
• Supreme Court Will Hear Appeal of School Choice Case 
• The SCOTUS Blog reports this morning that the United States Supreme Court has agreed to hear an appeal of the Ninth Circuit’s ruling in the Arizona k-12 scholarship tax credit case.
• For further reading see:
• Cato’s Amicus Brief Helps School Choice Get to the Court; Congrats, IJ! 
• Thomas Will Defend AZ School Choice Issue Now Before U.S. Supreme Court Horne Opposed 
• High court to hear Arizona school case 
• Death-penalty cases put county public defender’s office $8M over budget 
• A Maricopa County agency that contracts with private attorneys to represent indigent criminal defendants is going to end the fiscal year over budget by more than $8 million, or about 63 percent. County managers attribute the overspending to a glut of death-penalty cases and the high cost of defending them. The Office of Public Defense Services has ...
• My thoughts:  Is it worth the money, or would it be worth just keeping them in prison without even worrying about the death penalty?  Not to mention the moral implications of all the innocents we've putting in jail (listen to The Perfect Evidence).
• I said in the past how it's not necessarily the people that are the problem but the institutions themselves.  Just like the schools. 

AZ News & Blogs 5/20/2010

• The Ninth Circuit as a Denial of Service Attack on American Justice 
• The Supreme Court is expected to decide [today] whether to summarily overturn a Ninth Circuit Court ruling, hear an appeal of that ruling, or let the Ninth Circuit’s decision stand. The case involves Arizona’s k-12 scholarship tax credit program that helps families afford private schooling, which the Ninth Circuit found last year to violate the First Amendment.
• Supreme Court Should Call Out Ninth Circuit in Education Case 
• The case concerns an Arizona school choice program that has been serving low- and middle-income families for 13 years. The state grants a tax credit to individuals who donate to nonprofit entities that award scholarships for children to attend private schools — including religious schools. Yes, here we go again.
• The question — if a question that has been redundantly answered remains a real question — is whether this violates the First Amendment proscription of any measure amounting to government “establishment of religion.” The incorrigible 9th Circuit has declared Arizona’s program unconstitutional, even though there is no government involvement in any parent’s decision to use a scholarship at a religious school.
• Milking the cash cow: Sales tax hike sails through in fear-based campaign 
• Special interest groups including the Arizona Chamber of Commerce, and police, firefighter and teachers unions, spending more than $2 million on fear-inducing advertising, were able to defeat the anti-tax hike crusaders who had a mere $1,200 to wage their campaign.
• My quick takes on AZ Prop 100 sales tax hike 
• TUCSON -- In the State House I voted against referring Prop 100 to ballot, instead preferring a real budget solution, such as what I and House Democrats offered. I stand by that vote.
• Statement from Buz Mills on Passage of Prop 100 see also this video 
• For more than a year, 28-year career politician Jan Brewer called for the largest three-year tax increase in Arizona history - $3 billion. Tonight, Gov. Brewer got her wish. In the process, the governor solidified her legacy as the governor who raised taxes.
• The people were told that this sales tax hike would prevent large budget cuts. I’m afraid it won’t. The state still faces a $3.5 billion deficit. In order to fix that problem, across-the-board spending cuts are required, not tax increases.

AZ News & Blogs 5/18/2010 (Sales Tax Vote is Today)

• If the government tells you to be afraid, then you know you need not be afraid 
• Rejection would trigger $862 million of contingency spending cuts beyond those already included in the budget due to the state’s loss of 30 percent of its revenue.
• Most of the contingency cuts were aimed at education. Those include $428.6 million for K-12 schools, $107.1 million for universities and $15.2 million for community colleges and $4.7 million for other programs.
• Budget and school officials said rejection of the tax increase would produce larger class sizes, reductions in specialized instruction and layoffs and furloughs for teachers and other school workers.
• Elsewhere in government, predicted cutbacks tied to rejection of Proposition 100 included layoffs of Highway Patrol officers, transfers of 3,000 to 5,000 prison inmates to county jails, new reductions of payments to hospitals and other health care providers, and reduced services for developmentally disabled adults and disabled children.
• Proposition 100 opponents argued that the state hadn’t cut spending deep enough and that passage of the measure would keep spending at levels that the state cannot afford. They also said a tax increase would throttle the state’s ailing economy by stifling retail trade.
• My Thoughts:  Notice how the government always uses fear tactics to get what they want?  That's the way it's always been, they use these tactics to take our freedom away and they will continue to use the tactics to take our freedoms away.  Note how they did this with the anti-illegal immigration law that recently passed, they slipped into the law the ability to send all our personal ID information to the federal government and to stop us and ask for papers with no true cause.  Lets stop the anti-freedom politicians and vote no on 100.
• Where's all the money going for schools for the recent rise in taxes? 
• Most schools received a 10% increase in Maintenance and Operating (M&O) funding from higher 2009 primary property taxes.
• In March special elections were held so schools could add an additional 15% override to their M&O funding.  Overrides are part of secondary property taxes and are calculated on Full Cash Value.
• We need to find out where all the money is going before we raise taxes, worsen the recession, and further depress much needed economic growth.
• My Thoughts:  There is no end to the money hungry politicians!
• Lessons From Venezuela’s 21st Century Socialism 
• The accomplishments of Venezuela’s “Socialism of the 21st Century” are looking very much like those of old-fashioned socialism with basic goods shortages, high inflation, negative growth, blackouts, water rationing, the persecution of Hugo Chávez’s critics, plus skyrocketing crime.
• My Thoughts:  Socialism just doesn't work...the public schooling system in the US is socialism and has proven not to work.  It only dumbs down the population and recreates an anti-freedom-loving people.
• Supreme Court Further Reduces Constitutional Limits on Federal Power 
• ”turned an instrumental power, dependent on Congress’s other powers, into an independent power.”
• the Court did further damage to principled constitutional interpretation in citing foreign law as support for its holding that life-without-parole (LWOP) sentences are unconstitutional as applied to juveniles committing non-homicide crimes.  
• My Thoughts:  The government can now hold you forever in prison without due process and after you've served your entire sentence.  Wait, the government could already do that.  Time to wake up I suppose.

National News Monday 5/10/2010

Libertarianism:

• Stossel, What is a libertarian? 
• Stossel on Taxes 
• An Inconvenient Tax 
• The Simpsons & Civil Liberties 
• Ron Paul & Civil Liberties 
• Mother's Day Proclamation by Julia Ward Howe 1870 

National Politics 

• Obama Doesn't Like that People Can Know the Truth see also Comments by Lew Rockwell 
• Thoughts on Elena Kagan the New Nomination to the US Supreme Court see also this article and this article
• National Debt 

This Week in Abuses by the State  

•  Kent State Killings and New Information Released from FBI
  
  • My Thoughts:  Don't trust the government to ever give you enough information to make a reasonable decision on policy and reactions to disasters.
• Joe Lieberman vs.  Citizen Shahzad see also this Times Opinion Piece and Terrorists and Over Blown Fear
• Update: Joe Introduces Bill to Back His Words
• US Military Special Forces May Have Been Involved In Capture 
• My Thoughts:  Ernest  Hancock talks about taking away of your citizenship in context of civil liberties.  It's interesting to see politicians actually talk about it.  It defeats the purpose of having civil liberties if we can arbitrarily take them away at a persons whim.  It's interesting that this already happens with President Obama being able to sentence Americans to death without due process.
• How Many Laws Are Useful?  Consider the consequences. 
• Suspicious Package: TSA Worker Jailed After Junk Joke
• Pulling away from a Federal officer is an assault (Listen to video)
• My Thoughts:  I was question the veracity of things I read and listen to.  Even with main stream media (MSM) I have to question it since I know I've been lied to so much.  But assuming this video is true it makes me ask the question, what are we doing?  This is not congruent to a free society.
• Gregory Girard: Political Prisoner