Okay, people, did I not tell you the other day that being vigilant about reproductive justice is important? Personhood has reared its head in Arizona.

2010 was the year Arizona voters lost their damn minds and sent a bunch of reactionary whackaloons to the Arizona Legislature, essentially to show that Kenyan Usurper in the White House what was what. So we lost people like Rebecca Rios, a veteran Dem legislator and a strong advocate for children and the working poor, who had served her constituents and the state well. Pinal County voters sent Senator Rios packing and replaced her with Steve Smith, a businessman and Teabagger neophyte from the city of Maricopa.

It turns out that Senator Smith, in addition to being a simple-minded reactionary who marches in lockstep with Russell Pearce, is a dudebro with a massive preoccupation with what ladies are doing with their ladybusiness. I know. Shocking.

I really have to commend reporter Howie Fischer for asking Smith direct questions and making him go on record about his intentions with this “personhood” bill rather than let him blather about “the sanctity of life” and how much he cares about us delicate, fragile little ladies. Smith certainly tried to pull that paternalistic horsepuckey but couldn’t avoid making it crystal clear what a nasty piece of misogynist work he truly is.

But Smith said he sees a benefit in the legislation regardless of whether it ultimately leads to abortions once again being illegal in Arizona. He said the current informed consent requirements go only so far.

“But when they see what you’re killing is a human being in front of them, I think that’s hopefully just one more stopgate in their mental processing to say, ‘Oh, it’s not just an amalgamation of cells and globs of this and plasma this and blood this,’” he said.

“Mental processing”? WTF? It’s so unbelievably insulting. And creepy.

Smith’s legislation would apply in both cases of surgical and medical abortions, the latter involving the use of RU-486 which induces a woman to miscarry.

Less clear is how a law defining life as beginning at conception might affect the legal use of the “morning-after pill.”

One theory is that the pill, essentially a large dose of hormones, prevents a woman from ovulating. Smith said he subscribes to an alternate theory that the hormones prevent a fertilized egg from implanting in the uterus

I never cease to be amazed by how indiscriminately anti-choicers spew out uninformed medical opinions. It’s like they think that a lifelong burning obsession with what ladies are doing with their ladybits somehow bestows a license to practice medicine upon them. And the overwhelming consensus of medical science is that emergency contraception works by suppressing ovulation. You can “subscribe to an alternate theory” that it kills tiny little fertilized egg people all you want to but the doctors and scientists are still right and you are still wrong.

The first-term lawmaker said if it were up to him, all abortions would be illegal. That separates him from several “pro-life” politicians, including Gov. Jan Brewer who said she would allow exceptions, including in cases of rape or incest.

“I guess I’m a purist,” he said. “It’s easy for me as a man to say that because I’ll never be in that situation.”

Yeah, I guess.

Smith said his reasons go back more to his religious beliefs.

“God doesn’t make mistakes,” he said. “I believe that God is still on the throne and that’s happening for a reason, whether we get it or not.”

Just so we’re clear: The theology that guides Smith’s public policy views is that of a God who sits on a throne inflicting rape and incest upon his subjects for reasons known only to Him.

SB 1494 would require a specific mention of depression and related psychological distress as well as the risk of infection, hemorrhage, danger to subsequent pregnancies and infertility.

Smith acknowledged nothing in the law requires a woman to be told about the impacts of carrying a child to term, including how that will affect her life or finances. He said that is justified.

“They’re not going to a childbirth clinic, they’re going to an abortion clinic,” he said. “At an abortion clinic, they should be told the risks of having an abortion, not having the risk of having a child.”

He said any woman interested in the latter information should see a family doctor.

An OB GYN would be the best person to talk to about that. Some of them do abortions too, which would probably blow Steve Smith’s mind if he were aware of that.

The bill does require women to be informed of the “medical risks associated with carrying the child to term compared to undergoing an induced abortion” but that is the extent of the language dealing with that. It doesn’t state what risks of childbirth are to be discussed. The provisions dealing with risks of abortion are more specifically delineated.

(i) DEPRESSION AND RELATED PSYCHOLOGICAL DISTRESS.
(ii) THE RISK OF INFECTION, HEMORRHAGE, DANGER TO SUBSEQUENT PREGNANCIES AND INFERTILITY.
(g) A STATEMENT SETTING FORTH AN ACCURATE RATE OF DEATHS IN WHICH THE ABORTION PROCEDURE WAS A SUBSTANTIAL CONTRIBUTING FACTOR.

A comprehensive study published in the journal Obstetrics & Gynecology determined that childbirth poses a risk of death to the woman 14 times higher than abortion. Postpartum depression is a very real and debilitating condition that affects a not insignificant percentage of new mothers. There are undoubtedly women in Arizona who don’t have good access to information about abortion, childbirth, or medical procedures in general. so a law intended to inform them should cover all the risks to the extent possible, not just those cherry-picked and distorted by anti-choicers in the hopes of steering women toward certain decisions. Of course, anti-choicers tend to drop their feigned concern for women’s health the second they are confronted with the fact that abortion is safer than childbirth. “Abortion is safer than childbirth? For whom?”, asked the very first comment to the Reuters article I linked. When their b.s. about harmful effects to women is debunked they shift seamlessly back to the fetus, as if that had been what the discussion was about all along. You are never going to get a straight answer out of a rabid anti-choicer because that would require them to admit their movement is based on misogyny and not a concern for “life”.

The aspect of the bill that’s going to get the most attention is the “personhood at conception” part but the rest of it is pretty damned offensive too and I appreciate that Howie Fischer covered it in his report. As far as the personhood thing goes, Smith told Fischer he wants this bill to be the test case for Roe v Wade. We’ll see how far that goes. So far no other legislators have co-sponsored it. Though it’s not a ballot referendum as has been tried (very unsuccessfully) in other states, a “personhood” bill is a risky move in an election year nonetheless. Smith was careful not to target birth control in the language of the bill but it’s bleedingly obvious from his statements that he’s set his sights on that too. If other legislators join him the Democratic campaign ads will write themselves. And it was Smith who introduced last year’s spate of anti-immigrant bills that didn’t end up passing because the “business community” stopped pretending to be neutral and helpless and intervened to stop them. So it’s hard to tell at this point where this thing is going to go. But this is certainly no time to be complacent

After questioning the attorney general and listening to his responses during the December 8 Judiciary Hearing, I became increasingly frustrated by his refusal to answer straightforward questions or hold individuals within the Justice Department accountable for the Fast and Furious debacle.

Fast and Furious was a deeply flawed program. Since its implementation, U.S. Border Patrol Agent Brian Terry and numerous Mexican citizens have been killed by criminals using weapons obtained through the program. These facts alone signify a lack of leadership and control within the Justice Department that warrant the removal of certain individuals who authorized and failed to supervise the damaging operation.

Republicans here are leaning hard on this Fast and Furious talking point since the Justice Department released its report describing how Joe Arpaio and the Maricopa County Sheriff’s Office engage in racial profiling and brutality toward inmates, especially Latino ones. This came on the heels of the revelation that MCSO botched hundreds of child sex abuse cases. The usual Republican M.O. is distraction and projection and this is what’s going on here: Point the finger at Holder, Obama, and Fast and Furious (distraction) while claiming the Justice Department are the ones distracting with the MCSO report (projection). Repeat ad nauseum.

Let’s be clear, Operation Fast and Furious appears to be a poorly conceived, poorly executed strategy that resulted in multiple tragedies. I can’t think of anything more harebrained and ill-advised than “let’s demonstrate the poor results of no controls on a dangerous activity with a ‘controlled’ experiment where we remove all the controls!” You can’t even call it ironic when things go, um, awry. It’s like unleashing a known invasive species into a known vulnerable habitat and being shocked when it devours everything in sight. So it looks very bad and deserves a thorough investigation. Heads should roll up to and including the highest level of the DOJ, if necessary.

Same goes for MCSO. It’s disgusting and immoral to foster an institutional climate of bigotry and persecution as a law enforcement agency. It’s unconscionable to fail to pursue justice in crimes against children. And while I’m not the slightest bit inclined to help Republicans score political points or win elections, I am a citizen so I’m not going to give a Democratic-led agency a free pass if they’ve screwed up. I want the Maricopa Sheriff AND the ATF to be held accountable for any misdeeds either may have committed. When Republicans use Fast and Furious as a red herring to diminish or supplant the MCSO scandal we all lose.

Arpaio is yesterday’s boy band, though, as the news fanboys and girls have fallen hard for this new heartthrob, Babeu. When Sheriff McDreamboat drops a press release or stages a photo op, they come a-runnin’.

The Pinal County Sheriff got new eye scanners! Squee!!

The scary thing to ponder here is that Babeu is a helluva lot more telegenic than his aged mentor. If we thought the celebrity worship of Arpaio was sickening we might need to brace ourselves for how much worse it might get.

Booooooorrring.

Luckily there’s a snazzier choice in Matt Byers.

It gets funnier every time you read it. Try it in different voices. Matt Byers, you are the single greatest thing to happen to Clean Elections. May you scuba dive your way into the hearts of Pinal County Republican voters with your superbly awesome rhetorical skillz.

From the outset I was inclined to give the guy a pass on the blunder. It’s hard to imagine any legitimate politician thinking to him or herself, “You know, I should get myself interviewed on that Nazi station. That’ll be good for my career.” But the first nagging question is one that should be evident to anyone who has ever called in to a radio show. What happens is that the screener or producer puts you on hold, usually for several minutes. While you’re on hold you are listening to the show in progress, waiting for the host to call you by name and tell you you’re on the air. It’s possible that an aide of Babeu was waiting on the phone during that time, not Babeu himself, but still. Someone had to be listening to what was being said in the segment before the Babeu interview.

Yesterday the AZ Democratic Party sent out a press release describing it.

In the first segment of the radio program, before Babeu came on, the hosts and their invited guests:

* Were permissive about people who use, “horror of horrors, the N-word” [2:22]
* Accused Nelson Mandela of masterminding a terrorist bombing. [15:40]
* Said white Southerners were “invaded” by Freedom Riders during the Civil Rights Movement. [16:12]
* Blamed Jewish people for many of the country’s problems. [4:33, 5:26]

As they waited for Babeu to call in, one co-host said his excitement about having Babeu as a guest was on par with his excitement at meeting the well-known KKK leader David Duke.

You have to listen to the broadcast, if you can stomach it, to appreciate how calm and matter-of-fact people can be while expressing shockingly ugly views about their fellow human beings. That’s important because the constant presentation of hateful bigotry as a Mel Gibson scream-fest or JT Ready marching at the border often leads people to think that bigots can’t be articulate or “reasonable” sounding. Au contraire. These dudes chatting it up on the Political Cesspool sound like they could be on NPR, except for the part where they’re nasty hateful bigots.

As I’ve said here before, an association with a particular person or group does not mean that you are joining them or endorse their views. Out-of-context guilt by association should have died a boozy death along with Joe McCarthy. But there’s plenty of context with which to go after Babeu here. At best, it shows that Babeu and his handlers are sloppy and way too eager for any cheap publicity they can get, which means he’s not focused on the job he was elected to do. At worst, it raises suspicions about what Babeu knew and when he knew it and the possibility of collusion with the hosts (who, don’t forget, are claiming Babeu was aware of their ideology). Media Matters has the full interview with Babeu, in two parts.

Notice that the Cesspool hosts are on their best behavior throughout the interview. They mention how President Obama sent Babeu a “gift” in the form of the ACLU coming to Arizona to sue him. Just the plain old ACLU, not the evil Zionist conspiracy ACLU of the earlier segment. No mentions of superiority of the white race either; just several references to the “invasion” of illegals and drug cartels and violence. Not as clinical and NPR-ish as the first segent, it was more run-of-the-mill conservative talk radio bombast. This would lend some credence to Babeu’s claim that he didn’t know the nature of the show. Then again, Babeu claimed in the interview that the U.S. is “sprinting toward socialism” and repeated blatant falsehoods about Arizona’s crime rate. He’s not exactly awash in credibility.

Then there’s that other interview Sheriff Babeu did with conspiracy crackpot Alex Jones. Where Army National Guard Major Babeu accuses the President of being on the borderline of treason. Another innocent mistake, I’m sure.

`

A little over a week after Pearce introduced S.B. 1070 on the floor of the Arizona Senate, CCA enlisted Highground Consulting, one of the most influential lobbying firms in Phoenix, to represent its interests in the state. Lobby disclosure forms filed with the Arizona Secretary of State indicate that Maricopa County also employed Highground during the time of the bill’s formation. Highground’s owner and principal, Charles “Chuck” Coughlin, is a top advisor and the current campaign manager of Gov. Brewer.

State lobby reports show that Brewer’s current spokesman, Senseman, previously worked as CCA’s chief lobbyist in Arizona as an employee of Policy Development Group, another influential Phoenix consulting firm. His wife, Kathryn Senseman, is still employed by Policy Development Group and still lobbies the legislature on behalf of CCA.

In other words, in 2005 and 2006, as Arizona legislators—many of them ALEC members—were drafting provisions of what would eventually become the “Breathing While Brown” law, Brewer’s director of communications, Senseman, was lobbying them on behalf of CCA.

H/T to my friend Diane for alerting me to this companion to the recent In These Times article I posted. Anticipating the inevitable compassionate response of the nativist horde – So what? They’re illegal! They belong in jail! – I will make note of a couple of things:

1. Assuming SB1070 stands and results in mass arrests and incarcerations of immigrants in these private prisons, who is going to pay for that? I’ll give you one guess. Starts with T and ends in “payers”.

2. You want the undocumented immigrants to leave, right? So let’s think about this for a sec. Here’s an industry (private prisons) that stands to profit from a steady stream of “customers”. That industry has strong ties with the legislator who was the chief architect of SB1070 and the Governor who signed it. Do you honestly believe they have a true incentive to stop illegal immigration now? Where would the profit be in that?

Also from the article:

Brewer’s “chief policy advisor,” Richard Bark—a man Senseman and Pearce both say was directly involved in the drafting of S.B. 1070—remains listed with the Office of the Secretary of State as an active lobbyist for the Arizona Chamber of Commerce and Industry (ACCI). CCA is a “board level” member of the ACCI and is the top employer in Pinal County, located just south of Maricopa County, where it operates five detention facilities for both state prisoners and immigrant detainees.

Would this be the same Arizona Chamber of Commerce and Industry that just endorsed Jan Brewer, along with a host of other pro-SB1070 candidates? Why, I believe it is.

For example, last week, I went to the healthcare forum at Central Arizona College. The main road to the college was littered with repub signs telling people to say no to Ann Kirkpatrick and to vote repub. There were no Democrat signs.

I asked the Pinal County Democrats about it when I got to the forum, and the reply was basically, “They look foolish, and we don’t want to step down to their level.” If only! It’s not the signs that make the republicans look foolish, heck, it’s not even the wackos who yell at their elected representatives (OK, that does make them look a little foolish). It’s us for thinking we’re better and making a stronger statement by not getting our hands dirty. But the truth is, by not having our own signs up, we didn’t make a single statement to the hundreds of people who drove down Overfield Road that day. The repubs had free access for a full day, and it reinforced the repub’s anti-healthcare reform message to the people who actually knew what the signs were for. Furthermore, it made us look disorganized. When I saw all those signs, I wasn’t thinking the republicans looked foolish, I was lamenting the fact that they beat us – again.

Winning isn’t just about who makes the most phone calls, talks to the most people, or knocks on the most doors. It’s about who plays the best game. We’re so worried about not stooping down to their level that we’re only able to win when they pull us down so far there’s nowhere to go but up.

I’d like to close with a rah rah speech about how each of us needs to get more involved because we can make a difference, but if you’re reading this, you’re probably already involved and don’t have time to do more. We’re only part of the solution. The real solution needs to come from ADP HQ as an organized counterattack. We need ADP HQ to give up the funds and manpower to fight back on the repub’s level. Based on what I saw from the healthcare forum I attended, that equates to signs, people to put up the signs, and getting people to those meetings. Additionally, we need to keep up the fight on the ‘net. That means facebook, Twitter, the comments section on newspaper articles, etc.

Now, before the ADP gets all huffy with me, I’d better note that there have been organized sign-making events and healthcare reform rallies. I don’t think that’s enough. We can’t give the repubs anymore freebies like we did at this healthcare forum.

I don’t know about you, but I’m tired of losing.

http://www.eastvalleytribune.com/story/129288

In case you’re too lazy to click, it’s a story about Andre Campos, his shady Clean Elections expenditures, and his unethical funneling of Clean Elections funds through his own company. (Even though he lost the race, he made a bundle through his company and the taxpayers.)

Now if you want to dig back in your DemocraticDiva.com memory, you’ll remember we gave Andre Campos some free press a couple of times in October:

• On Oct. 12, Donna wrote this superb piece about the Campos connection to the Alaskan Bush Company
• Which led to Oct. 14 and this piece about the Unethical Campos Finance Reports

That’s right, we broke a remarkably similar story a couple of weeks before the East Valley Tribune. Perhaps it’s not the kind of press Campos wanted, but I thought it made for some mighty interesting reading. So interesting that one demdiva passed it on to a few peeps, like Reporter Jason Massad from the East Valley Tribune. I was hoping he’d use it in an article; however, I didn’t expect him to let us do all the legwork and not give us any credit. Shame on you, Jason!

As for Mary Desio’s Clean Elections complaint, go Mary! I loved your quote:

The whole idea of Clean Elections is that it’s supposed to create a level playing field. It’s supposed to be about transparency.

Although I wish we’d gotten a teensy bit of credit for this work, I’m just glad it got out. Thanks for covering it, Jason, but keep this in mind for the next time we send you a story:

The blogosphere hath no fury like a DemocraticDiva jilted.

In fact, in LD23, Pinal went to the two republicans running for State Representative, and our incumbent Dem, Barbara McGuire, only retained her seat because she got a majority of votes in Maricopa and Gila counties. And oddly enough, the second Dem running for LD23, Ernest Bustamante, got more votes in Maricopa and Gila counties than any of the other three candidates. As for the repub who won, Frank Pratt of Casa Grande, I hope he’s a true representative to all of LD23 and not just the repubs. Although I wish Bustamante had won, I respect Pratt and have found him to be a decent guy who has some moderate views and seems less likely to partake in some of the repub shenanigans and hatemongering (although, he probably needs to start buying back his past campaign handouts according to the Clean Elections rules and probably should have bought back his past campaign signs earlier than 8.31.08…tsk.).

Pinal currently has three supervisors, but with the 2010 census, we expect to gain two more. Of the three supervisors, we had two Dem victories with Pete Rios, former State Senator and State Representative, and David Snider, the only supervisor running for re-election this term. The third Dem running for supervisor was Mary Shope, a dear friend of mine. She worked tirelessly at a grassroots level to get out the vote, but I fear that fundraising is what did her in. Shope was determined to work for the people and refused to accept contributions from developers. With a better fundraising machine, I believe she would have picked up the few thousand votes that would have put her ahead of the repub. Shope was a great candidate, and I expect to see more from her in the years ahead.

The Sheriff’s race was painful to watch. There was a lot of animosity and hatred, probably coming from both sides, but I saw it the most from the repub side. I saw a complete disregard for common decency by the repub’s supporters and still question the integrity of the repub candidate for ignoring campaign sign laws – and then there was the photo radar ticket he wouldn’t own up to. Our Dem Sheriff, Chris Vasquez, is an individual for which I have a great deal of respect. His intelligence and energy has always inspired me, and I’m disappointed to have lost him as my sheriff. Vasquez is a true leader, and I suspect we haven’t seen the last of him as a candidate.

The once Dem stronghold in Pinal is slowly watching its voter registration turn red. In my opinion, the repubs are insufferable about their registration gains, and I can only imagine how much more insufferable they’ll be now that they’ve won a couple of seats. Well, maybe I’m wrong. Maybe they’ll take their victories with grace, but somehow I doubt it. Time will tell.

As for the Pinal Dems, I’m sure they’re regrouping and gearing up to overcome the onslaught of repubs. They have brilliant leadership in Joe Robison and Carolyn Gordon, and they have stalwart supporters in Mary D., Mary S., Barb N., et al. Their office is still up and running, and I’m certain they’re on a fundraising mission to keep the doors open (donations can be made at pinaldemocrats.org). I have a lot of faith in the Pinal Dems’ ability to continue building their network of volunteers, donors, and candidates.

*Please note that the races I’ve discussed are just the races I was closely following. Pinal County has multiple legislative districts and congressional districts, which I did not discuss here.

That said, here is what I WANT to happen tomorrow:

Decisive Obama win.  The hands-down best poll analyst of the season has decreed it to be so:  http://www.fivethirtyeight.com/  Nate Silver knows what he is doing.  Read his site and you will be edified.

Bob Lord win.  Because John Shadegg is a whiny little crybaby who can’t legitimately defend his record on veteran’s issues in his ads.  Plus he’s a snowbird who really wants to be a Senator. 

Harry Mitchell:  As if David Schweikert could really convince people to vote against their Grandpa, who has a big honkin’ statue in honor of him in Tempe. 

Gabby Giffords and Ann Kirkpatrick:  Obviously.

LD20:  Ted Maish and Rae Waters.   Because it’s my district and they rawwk!

LD12:  Angela Cotera rawwks!  And is a rocket scientist. 

LD23:  Rebecca Rios.  Because she’s a good Legislator and Andre Campos is a creep who hearts Ron Paul and strip clubs. 

Dan Saban:  Because Joe Arpaio is a fascist thug and Dan is a decent guy who will do a good job.

Tim Nelson:  Ditto Andrew Thomas and ditto Tim.

Ed Hermes:  Because panty-obsessed right wing blogs need to brought down a peg or two. 

Steven Sarkis (Arcadia/Biltmore JP):  Because his opponent, Syd Steven Booth, is a violent felon who tried to intimidate me.

Other states (not all inclusive by any means):

Elwyn Tinklenberg for the win:  I hope he opens a can of whupass on McCarthyite Michelle Bachmann. 

Kay Hagen for the win: God doesn’t like you, Elizabeth Dole.

Joe the Plumber: The end to your interminable 15 minutes and the return to Ohio, where you will have to repay your back taxes and child support.

Sarah Palin: Ahh…. You will return to Alaska, where you will finish your one term, while facing more ethics charges. I don’t care what you do. Get Joe’s record deal, get a show on Fox, go on the lecture circuit, I don’t care. Just get out of my face, with your ignorant science-hating religious extremist ass.

The “socialism” and concommitant “redistribution” memes: Die an ignominous death as Americans realize that Trickle Down economics is the biggest fraud ever to be perpetuated upon the American people, and that we need things like bridges that don’t collapse and breast cancer research.

Earmarks: Will be examined for efficiency and effectiveness, under Obama, but will no longer be a convenient bugaboo for conservatives to use to distract Americans from the many ways our gov’t REALLY wastes money, i.e., defense contracts and tax cuts to billionaires who outsource American jobs. Will continue to be used to help states pay for things like ensuring that bridges don’t collapse and toward breast cancer research.

That’s it for now. Will update if I think of anything else. G’night fellow Divas and good luck on Election Day!