Cactus Alliance

Wednesday, September 23, 2009

Obama Hero Worship Not in Arizona Schools

Tom Horne was the only school chief in the country to take President Obama's Department of Education over their plan to force students to watch the President and write about how he

Tom Horne to Federal Judges – Stop Judicial Activism
On behalf of the taxpayers of Arizona, Tom Horne won a U.S. Supreme Court case stopping federal judges from micromanaging how your tax dollars are spent. (Horne v. Flores)

Tom Horne Pushes Legislation to Prohibit Ethnic Studies
Tom Horne recently authored legislation to stop school districts from teaching Latino students that they live in occupied Mexico.

“I have tried for two years to put a stop to this dysfunctional program. They have refused and that is why I introduced this legislation.” - Tom Horne

Learn More About Republican Tom Horne
Arizona Republican Tom Horne has created an Attorney General Exploratory Committee and invites you to learn more about his experience and leadership by visiting his web site at
www.TomHorneExploratory.com

You can also become a Friend of Tom Horne
by visiting his Facebook Page

Paid for by the Tom Horne AG Exploratory Committee

Tuesday, September 22, 2009

What's wrong with beautiful Mormon temples in your neighborhood?

Photos of the Mormon temple in Mesa

T'he recent article in the Republic about residents opposing a Mormon temple being built in their neighborhood is odd. For one, Mormon temples, like Catholic cathedrals, are beautiful. Secondly, it's not like putting a tattoo parlor or strip club in your neighborhood. The kind of people it is going to attract are probably going to be people you would feel safe around. The arguments against it - that it would stand out, that its lights at night would be too bright - are straw man arguments. Let's hope they're not really a front for religious discrimination.

Monday, September 21, 2009

Breaking news - Supervisor Don Stapley arrested again

We wonder if there is any additional cause, or if this is related to prosecutors bringing the 118 counts against him again that were dropped.
Were hearing there are new counts including 93 felonies! The last time he was arrested, he was charged with about30 less felonies. ABC-15 has the full story.

Who is looking into the paid ACORN protesters outside Sheriff Arpaio's office?

Now that the true depths of ACORN's corruption has come to light, from voter registration to funding child prostitution, has anyone thought to investigate the paid ACORN protesters outside Sheriff Arpaio's office? They get a lot of media attention and cause a lot of irritation for people working in the area, and have accomplished nothing other than wasting taxpayer dollars which are funneled to ACORN. Arpaio is already investigating ACORN. Let's hope he follows the money to see where our tax dollars are going to fund these paid protesters.

Vernon Parker, Paradise Valley mayor and possible gubernatorial candidate, sues feds to clear his name

We're glad to see Vernon Parker has filed a lawsuit against the federal government for making false claims about him. If you've ever met Parker, you know he's a straight-shooter and above board. He is a former attorney for George W. Bush and has been pastor of his church. There are powerful forces at work that realize he has the potential to rise to higher office - even the Presidency - and those unscrupulous kinds of people will stop at nothing to prevent that from happening. Democrats are afraid that Republicans will nominate a charismatic, socially conservative African-American candidate for President.

Here are some excerpts from the Republic article -

Parker's lawyers allege in their claim that Parker was the victim of a politically charged 2008 investigation by the U.S. Small Business Association, which the lawyers assert manufactured false allegations against him.

The claim also asserts that the administration systematically engaged in a course of conduct to undermine Parker's career and standing in the community.

Parker, who heads his private consulting firm, VBP Group LLC, was accused of using his political influence to obtain an SBA contract, the claim states.
The SBA's Office of the Inspector General soon began an investigation into the contract. It later published a report on the agency's Web site that says Parker was a federal employee with the U.S. Department of Agriculture at the time of the contract application, and that federal employees are prohibited by law from competing for government contracts.
Parker also was accused of submitting falsified invoices in support of his contract performance.
"(They) accused my client of inaccurate financial statements and an untruthful application for certification. All of those allegations, save one, have been thrown out," attorney Paul Charlton said. The report remains on the Web site despite requests for its removal, the claim states.

Vernon will be speaking at Politics on the Rocks Sept. 23rd where he is expected to make an announcement about the governor's race.

Friday, September 18, 2009

Supervisors bragging about Court Tower construction beginning

This photo of the court tower construction is being circulated by the County Supervisors. They are gloating over the fact that taxpayers have been unable to stop construction of this mammoth tower during a recession.

Tuesday, September 15, 2009

Tom Horne Launches Exploratory Committee Website

State Superintendent of Education, Tom Horne, has launched his official exploratory committee website for Attorney General.

The site is basically one page and allows individuals to make donations to the campaign. Horne will be running traditional based on his website’s fundraising information.

There are currently four candidates running for Arizona Attorney General including Democrat, David Lujan and Republicans, Sam Crump and Andrew Peyton Thomas.

Sunday, September 13, 2009

UA Alumni magazine full of leftist propaganda

Some clear proof ASU is a better school than UA. We got ahold of a University of Arizona Alumnus magazine from Fall 2009. It was so full of typical left wing articles that it wasn't worth reading - why not just pick up a copy of Mother Jones or The Nation if you want a magazine about left wing causes. Here is what was in the magazine, other than a couple of token sports stories:

--In the Letters to the Editor section, an Editor's Response on the magazine's policy of printing pictures of same-sex couples announcing their marriages. p. 7

--An article on how three UA professors are trying to ban smoking worldwide. p. 9

--An article about Hispanics and college degrees (we don't have a problem with covering Hispanic news, but when it's done to the exclusion of all other races except politically correct races we see some bias and unfairness). p. 10

--An article about budget cuts and how plans to merge the ethnic programs into one program brought out protests from radical Hispanics, so the University president met with them and assured them that the plan wasn't finalized. p. 16

--An article called Sustaining Planet Earth, and Us, Too on promoting environmentalism. One faculty member, Diana Liverman, is featured in an article entitled Speaking of Caps and Trades, where her left wing environmental activism on behalf of the biased United Nations Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change report is praised. There is a special article about the UA's latest two (not just one) environmentalist departments focusing on climate change, the Sechool of Earth and Environmental Sciences, and the School of Sustainable Engineered Systems. p. 19-25

--Finding a Place, an article about Hispanics at the UA. Again, we have no problem with articles about Hispanics, but what about all the other groups at the UA? Christian organizations. Exchange students from other countries. Gifted kids who skip their last year or two of high school and go straight into college. Irish kids who came to the UA from Ireland to attend school here. We'll never see any of them featured. p. 26-28

--A profile of a guy named Lionel Lee Rombach who "lived the green life long before it became trendy." His profile is used to market the UA Foundation. Huh? That kind of an ad will just scare away half the grads who don't buy into the manmade global warming scare. p. 29

--A story about the film Laramie Inside Out, which exposes the God Hates Fags guy Rev. Fred Phelps. While that's nice to expose the guy, who pretty everyone agrees is a jerk, don't expect this magazine to ever run something exposing a fringe left wing radical like the Unabomber. p. 30-35

--Info and pictures of Intuit Art currently on display. Nice, but again, this is more promotion of politically correct ethnicities. I'm sure there are displays of Irish and English art that would never get a mention in this magazine. They may as well not even exist. p. 39

--A Visionary Leader and Consumer Advocate award given to a woman named Helen Niederehe Goetz. She was actively involved in the League of Women Voters, a left wing feminist organization. Don't think if her resume had said "Concerned Women for America" instead that she would have gotten this award. p. 57

If you find this disproportionate coverage of left wing causes offensive, feel free to send them an email at alumninews@al.arizona.edu. Especially if you are a UA alum. And don't give them a dime until they cut out the bias and give alums a fair and balanced magazine.

We paid $2.5 million for this art, as employees were laid off?

Remember the $2.5 million "cactus flower" the City of Phoenix paid $2.5 million of your tax dollars for, as the country was entering a recession? At least 10 employees lost their jobs, and 1000 more were eliminated (probably a good thing to decrease the size of government, but when the economy picks up, the Democrats who run Phoenix will just hire them back, causing undue stress and wasted training). We took a look at it yesterday, and surprise surprise, it looks nothing like the picture on the City of Phoenix website. You be the judge, which picture did we take, and which is the fake amplified version? Seeing how mediocre it turned out, the cost is even less justified. Thanks, big-spender Democrat Mayor Phil Gordon. (click on the real photograph to see it close up - it's really that bad)

Thursday, September 10, 2009

Compiled list of County Supervisors' wasteful spending, power grabs, and criminal investigations

"Maricopa County has become the new Chicago when it comes to corruption in politics"

One of our readers has compiled a list of the wasteful pork spending by the Maricopa County Supervisors, their power grabs with other county officials, and the current criminal investigations into them. We are happy to post it on our site and will update it as we receive new info. They must be held accountable and the public has a right to know what their money is being spent on and the way they are treating other county officials and agencies. When it comes time for elections, this list will be available so voters can make an informed decision as to whether they want these Chicago-style politicians reelected or not.

Look who's in bed together!

Supervisors sue County Attorney to block criminal investigations

Supervisors' shadow County Attorney's Office growing larger than County Attorney's litigation department

Thomas: Put Stapley prosecutor on agenda

Supervisors Wilson, Brock and Wilcox vote to hike speed camera fees

Paper misfired in labeling Arpaio

Supervisors considering increasing photo speed camera fees today

County's latest tussle with Thomas could backfire

Maricopa County Manager David Smith is all Blogged up

Maricopa County Going After Bloggers?

AZ County GOP Pols Squash First Amendment Rights

"Big Tent" Plague: AZ GOP Tool David Smith goes after Bloggers

Conflicts of interest vs. free speech

Clueless Arizona GOP heavies demonizing bloggers?

Even the GOP are getting into the stifling of the First Amendment

GOP run amok in Arizona

David Smith and 1st Amendment Violations in Maricopa County

Maricopa County Board of Supervisors Attack Free Speech

GOP shows true colors in Maricopa County violation of 1st Amendment rights

Maricopa County Manager takes aim at MCAO, conservative bloggers

David Smith's private twilight zone

Critics say County Manager overstepped bounds with letter

County chief riles Thomas in hunt for news leaks

Supervisors seek Thomas officials' blog history

Time to fire Supervisors' attorney Wade Swanson - County Attorney explains Swanson's erroneous legal opinions

County Attorney responds to embarassing reversed legal opinion from Supervisors

Goldwater Institute releases investigative report on Supervisor Wilcox's corrupt airport deal

High-profile lawyer hired to prosecute Stapley

Another county supervisor with ties to NACo-Gate (Stapley's transfer of political funds)

Millions of Wasted Dollars Hidden by Supervisors' Creation of Special Taxing Districts

Maricopa Sheriff investigating Supervisor Wilcox's airport restaurant financing, minority business status

Tuesday, September 8, 2009

Cactus Alliance looking for contributors

Cactus Alliance is grateful for the posts being submitted to us and would like to expand our coverage. If you have anything to contribute, anonymously or otherwise, about other areas of government and politics that are not being covered yet such as City Council, Corporation Commission, candidate races, and ballot initiatives, please email us at cactusallianceATgmail.com.

Supervisors want deputy county attorneys to swear a loyalty oath to unelected DAVID SMITH?

submitted by a reader

This is unbelievable. The County Supervisors continue to spiral out of control, trying to take over the offices of other county officials in power grabs, and are overspending their budgets by millions of dollars while forcing 15% cuts to law enforcement and other county agencies. Now, they are telling deputy county attorneys - who work for and report to the County Attorney, not the Supervisors - to take a loyalty oath to their unelected county manager, David Smith. Smith is currently under investigation by the Sheriff's Office. The loyalty oaths would require the deputy attorneys to consult with Smith instead of their bosses in the County Attorney's Office regarding legal issues! Even our SOLDIERS serving the country aren't required to take a loyalty oath to the president. This is bizarre because the Supervisors and their manager Smith are not the bosses of these employees, they are in a separate county agency, the County Attorney's Office.

County Attorney Andrew Thomas filed an objection in court, saying, "It was an obvious attempt to continue carving up the civil division and to amass power at the expense of the taxpayers," Thomas said. "And so far, they have gotten away with it."

In another recent power grab, the Supervisors set up their own "shadow county attorney's office," slashing the budget of the County Attorney's civil division by 1/3 and hiring away some of their employees. They hired a 35-year old green attorney to run their shadow county attorney office and are paying him around $175,000/yr - a lot more than even the County Attorney makes. It is obvious that the Supervisors are trying to dismantle the County Attorney's Office and put that office underneath them. But that's not the type of government we have. If the voters want a County Attorney that is appointed by the Supervisors, they can change the system of government. But so far they haven't, and they would prefer to elect the County Attorney, Sheriff, etc.

The question is, who do you want advising the county on civil issues? The County Supervisors (most of them are Republicans but they always side with the Democrats when it comes to spending and social issues like promoting diversity) and their manager David Smith, who have proven time and time again that they are spending out of control, or the County Attorney, who was elected to the position by the people and has a proven record of fiscal responsibility?

Thomas Paine - Now is the Right Time, Join a Tea Party

Monday, September 7, 2009

SLAM! The sound of the door shutting on Governor Brewer's political career

submitted by a reader

Or, How the powerful interests failed to bully the legislature into a tax increase

We've been hearing for awhile now that if Republican Governor Brewer didn't get her way - an 18% sales tax increase referendum sent to the ballot by the legislature - then she wouldn't run this next time around in 2010 for governor. Even if she had gotten it rammed through, she would never make it through a Republican primary. Big names like Dean Martin and Vernon Parker have already thrown their names out there, something they never would have done if they didn't have a chance against her. Sources have consistently reported that her campaign consultant, Chuck Coughlin of High Ground, was behind the bizarre GOP insistence on

a tax increase, because the money could then be funneled to construction and transportation infrastructure projects to benefit his clients. His clients include AZ Dept. of Transportation, AZ Housing Ass., Maricopa County, and DMB Inc. (frequently in the general construction business for government). Odd, Association of General Contractors is no longer listed on High Ground's site as a client. Wonder if he took it down to hide it because of this post by Sonoran Alliance? Or this one? Coughlin tried to get a sales tax increase on the ballot with Napolitano's backing last year, the TIME initiative, but failed. According to Sonoran Alliance, the sales tax referendum this year was just a sneaky way to get that same sales tax increase for his clients on the ballot.

Coughlin's employee Paul Bentz, of the satire blog Arizona Report, did a lot of the behind the

scenes work trolling the blogosphere trying to intimidate bloggers. He commented nonstop on Sonoran Alliance as the fake "Roger," attacking any writers there who criticized the tax increase. He started the website "Fix Arizona" which didn't focus on fixing much of anything except the pockets of High Ground's clients. Even after being outed on Sonoran Alliance, he continued to post under "Roger," claiming to be someone in a different industry in the East Valley - Bentz lives in Goodyear. (this picture of him used to be on the High Ground website up until recently, suddenly it was removed).

Now, Brewer has lost and made a lot of enemies on both the right and the left. A sore loser, she called the Democrats who opposed her tax increase "extremists," and also called some of the most principled Republicans in the legislature "extremists." Stalwart Republican legislators like Pam Gorman, Ron Gould, and Sam Crump held out to the end and refused to vote for the sales tax increase. How is that going to look when they run for political office in the future? "Held out against governor's sales tax referral" vs. "voted for governor's sales tax referral." If you think their position is going to hurt them in future elections, I've got a bridge in Brooklyn I'd like to sell you. If anything, it will help them sail through future Republican primaries.

Other Republican legislators caved one by one, strong-armed by the AZ Republican Party, which commissioned a push-poll to support Brewer's tax increase. Coughlin got one of his employees hired at the State GOP, Colin Shipley. The GOP refused to release the full results of the poll, because even the ginned-up poll wasn't that supportive. A Rasmussen poll released around the same time found that 65% of Arizona voters opposed the sales tax.

Republican legislators tried to work with Brewer, saying they would vote for her sales tax increase referendum if she would agree to a package of tax cuts and tax credits. Brewer wouldn't commit to any of them, and without some kind of guarantee that they couldn't just be rescinded in the future, which happens in politics about half the time, there was no incentive to take that gamble.

Now, the blogs and newspapers are attacking the few principled legislators who held out against the tax increase referendum. It's no surprise the liberal Republic is attacking them. But other conservative bloggers? Whose pockets are they in? We should be supporting conservative principles. Unless the tax cuts and credits were guaranteed for at least the next three years, it was a foolish gamble for Republicans to vote for the tax increase referendum.

BIGGEST TAXPAYER HEROES of 2009

Thursday, September 3, 2009

Why are the Supervisors throwing a political party in the county building for the Mexican consulate?

This is a bit disturbing. We have heard from insiders that the County Supervisors are throwing a farewell party tonight at 5:30 pm in the lobby of the county administration building for the open-borders Mexican consul general to Phoenix. Carlos Flores Vizcarra is leaving Phoenix this month to become the consulate general in Raleigh, NC. Officials all over the county have been invited to attend the party.

Vizcarra has been an outspoken opponent against enforcing our nation's immigration laws. Why is the county throwing a party for someone who politically opposes the voters of Arizona?

In an attempt to undermine Arizona law Los Angeles lawyer Peter Schey, at the request of Carlos Flores-Vizcarra, Consul General of Mexico, has filed legal motions intended to thwart the prosecution of a "coyote" and 48 illegal immigrant conspirators arrested by the Maricopa County Sheriff's Office on March 2, 2006.

Vizcarra has also dismissed the Mexican government's comic book that provides directions for potential illegal immigrants to cross the border into the U.S.

He said the guide appeared to be only the latest attempt by the Mexican government to warn migrants about the dangers of crossing the border without proper documentation. The reality, however, is that many migrants will try to do so anyway, he said. "This is nothing new. It's a way to put it in very simple terms so people will understand the risks," Flores Vizcarra said. "The intention is out of concern for human rights. People are doing it anyway. We cannot ignore that there is a very big migration between our two countries, and people who are coming to work need to understand the risks.

How much is being spent on this party, someone has to pay for the refreshments. Are taxpayers footing the bill? Why does this controversial political opponent get a party, and who gets to decide who gets parties and who doesn't? Us taxpayers pay for the county building, can we decide to have a party for someone like J.D. Hayworth funded by taxpayers in the county building?