Tuesday, June 28, 2011

AFP issues scorecards of City of Phoenix candidates: Sal DiCiccio and Bill Gates have best scores


Listed below are scores for candidates running in the 2011 Phoenix municipal elections, as found on AFP-Arizona Legislative Scorecards and AFPF-Arizona Local Government Scorecards released in previous years.
A printable pdf version of this list is available here:
http://static.taxcutsforall.com//files/2011afpphxrecords.pdf
For full statewide Local Government Scorecards, click on the years below:
2010
2009
2008
2007

For recent Legislative Scorecards, see the list of links at www.aztaxpayers.org

2011 Phoenix Candidates with Voting Records

Candidate: Sal DiCiccio
Office Held: Phoenix City Council
Year / Score / Designation:
2010 / +6 / Hero of the Taxpayer
2009 / +1 / Not Bad
Candidate: Bill Gates
Office Held: Phoenix City Council
Year / Score / Designation:
2010 / +5 / Champion of the Taxpayer
Candidate: Claude Mattox
Office Held: Phoenix City Council
Year/Score/Designation:
2010 / +2 / Ally of the Taxpayer
2009 / +1 / Not Bad
2008 / -6 / Friend of Big Government
2008 / -5 / Champion of Big Government
Candidate: Peggy Neely
Office Held: Phoenix City Council
Year/Score/Designation:
2010 / +5 / Champion of the Taxpayer
2009 / +1 / Not Bad
2008 / -6 / Friend of Big Government
2008 / -5 / Champion of Big Government
Candidate: Michael Nowakowski
Office Held: Phoenix City Council
Year/Score/Designation:
2010 / +2 / Ally of the Taxpayer
2009 / +1 / Not Bad
2008 / -6 / Friend of Big Government
Candidate: Greg Stanton
Office Held: Phoenix City Council
Year/Score/Designation:
2008 / -6 / Hero of Big Government
2007 / -5 / Champion of Big Government
Candidate: Jim Waring
Office Held: State Senator
Year/Score/Designation:
2009 / 86% / Champion of the Taxpayer
2008 / 81% / Champion of the Taxpayer
2007 / 60% / Not Bad
2006 / 66% / Not Bad
2005 / 76% / Friend of the Taxpayer
Candidate: Thelda Williams
Office Held: Phoenix City Council
Year/Score/Designation:
2010 / +2 / Ally of the Taxpayer
2009 / +1 / Not Bad
2008 / -4 / Friend of Big Government


Read more: http://www.americansforprosperity.org/062911-afp-arizona-records-2011-phoenix-city-candidates#ixzz1QdYXCBp2

AZGOP: GIVE A MAN A FISH… THE DEMOCRATS ANSWER TO OUR NATIONS PROBLEMS.


Phoenix, AZ – To paraphrase President Regan’s rebuke to “Fritz” Mondale, “Andrei, Andrei, Andrei, there you go again.” Last Monday,Andrei Cherny attacked Arizona Republican legislators for upholding Arizona unemployment laws. The Chairman of the Arizona Democrat party may feel obligated to advocate that economic and employment concerns can best be solved by ever larger government subsidization but history clearly shows he is wrong.
Arizona Republican legislators look to abide by statutes which have been in place for the past three decades. Democrats should be ashamed for trying to exploit loopholes which would only increase our nation’s debt and not address the real problem, which is President Obama’s lack of focus on a declining job market.
Cherny dares to advocate that the responsible decisions made by our republican leadership only aim to punish struggling families and rob our state’s economy. Much like a child with a new credit card, Cherny fails to grasp the concept of borrowed money and doesn’t seem to understand that an increase in unemployment benefits from a year and a half to two years will only increase the fourteen trillion dollar debt already owed by America’s taxpayers.
Unemployment benefits were designed to provide stopgap financial assistance while an individual was between jobs; Unemployment was never intended to serve as income for a prolonged period of time.  Intrusive big government solutions instituted by President Obama have served only to extend and deepen America’s financial crisis.
“Band-Aids serve their purpose,” said Arizona Republican Chair Tom Morrissey, “but Band-Aids will never mend a severed limb.  Instead of lengthening unemployment benefits, democrats need to support policies that will create jobs.”
While Democrats in Arizona and Washington scheme to come up with new ways that exacerbate our rising unemployment problems, Republicans look to loosen regulations, lower costs and bring back many of the jobs that have been lost overseas.
Chairman Morrissey continued, “You can only ignore a problem for so long, eventually you have to address that problem and do something about it. I believe that by passing a jobs bill the Republican legislature has acknowledged the problem and taken the right path that will solve our state and our nation’s economic problems.”

Supreme Court Strikes Down Arizona’s System of Taxpayer-Funded Campaigns

For Immediate Release                                                                  Contact: Greg Brooks
June 27, 2011                                                                                            (602) 633-8969
 Supreme Court Declares Arizona’s Matching Funds System Unconstitutional
PHOENIX — Today, in a 5 to 4 decision, the U.S. Supreme Court affirmed a lower court decision striking down the matching funds provisions of Arizona’s taxpayer-funded campaign finance system known as Clean Elections.
Mirroring arguments from the Goldwater Institute that prompted the Supreme Court to block Arizona’s matching funds system on June 8, 2010, the Court declared, “Any increase in speech resulting from the Arizona law is of one kind and one kind only: that of publicly financed candidates. The burden imposed on privately financed candidates and independent expenditure groups reduces their speech.”
The Supreme Court added: “The First amendment embodies our choice as a Nation that, when it comes to [campaign] speech, the guiding principle is freedom---the ‘unfettered exchange of ideas’---not whatever the State may view as fair."

The Supreme Court confirmed that Arizona’s system of providing government campaign funding to candidates cannot be squared with its earlier decision in Davis v. F.E.C. In Davis, the Court struck down a regulatory scheme whereby “the vigorous exercise of the right to use personal funds to finance campaign speech produces fundraising advantages for opponents in the competitive context of electoral politics.” Arizona’s matching funds provisions similarly disadvantage citizen-funded candidates for exercising their First Amendment rights by causing their campaign contributions and expenditures to trigger taxpayer subsidies to opposing government-funded candidates.
“This decision protects democratic elections and gets government’s heavy thumb off the scale,” said Nick Dranias, the Goldwater Institute’s director of constitutional studies and the lead attorney in the case.

Although labeled differently, similar matching funds provisions exist in Florida, Maine, New Jersey, New Mexico, North Carolina, Rhode Island, and Wisconsin. Additionally, Connecticut and Massachusetts previously had public-financing provisions, but repealed them.
The Court’s decision puts an end to these unconstitutional experiments.
The Goldwater Institute Scharf-Norton Center for Constitutional Litigation represented John McComish, Nancy McLain, and Tony Bouie, candidates for the Arizona Legislature whose campaigns were funded by donations from citizens, not the government. Previously, the Institute secured three rulings from U.S. District Court Judge Roslyn O. Silver that Arizona’s matching funds provision violated the First Amendment. Those rulings were overturned by the Ninth Circuit on May 21, 2010.
But on June 8, 2010, responding to an emergency request from the Goldwater Institute, the U.S. Supreme Court blocked the Ninth Circuit’s decision from taking effect and suspended Arizona’s use of matching funds for its 2010 election cycle. Subsequent decisions arising from the Second and Eleventh Circuit Courts of Appeal followed suit, striking down equivalent matching funds provisions in Connecticut and Florida. The Supreme Court formally agreed to consider the Goldwater Institute’s challenge on Nov. 29, 2010, along with a separate case that had been filed by the Institute of Justice.
Read more about this and other Goldwater cases to protect individual rights and uphold the constitution at www.goldwaterinstitute.org/litigation.

The Goldwater Institute is an independent government watchdog supported by people committed to expanding free enterprise and liberty.
ADDITONAL MEDIA RESOURCES:
• Summary, case documents and timeline: http://goldwaterinstitute.org/case/68
• Print-resolution headshot -- Nick Dranias: http://www.goldwaterinstitute.org/sites/default/files/images/NickDranias.jpg
• Print-resolution and video-resolution graphics showing the other states affected by the ruling: http://www.goldwaterinstitute.org/sites/default/files/images/McComishMap.zip
To reach John McComish, Nancy McLain, and Tony Bouie, the original plaintiffs in the case, contact Greg Brooks at (602) 633-8969.
For an online version of this news release, click here.

Monday, June 27, 2011

Pearce recall petitions indicate massive voter registration fraud

Great article by Linda Bentley of Sonoran News. Looks like the effort to recall Senator Pearce is full of corruption.

"Searching by address revealed three active voter registrations, one of which is on the permanent early voting list, for a woman with the first name Benita and a birth date in March 1968, under three different last names at the same single family residence."

Read the full article

Friday, June 24, 2011

Alexander & Symes show now on video at ustream.tv; discussing HOAs this Saturday

We are now live every Saturday on ustream.tv video! We have also officially renamed our show to the Alexander and Symes Show, since Brian Symes was already acting as co-host. This Saturday night from 6-7pm on the Alexander & Symes Show we will talk about abusive Homeowners' Associations. 90% of new homes in Maricopa County are located within an HOA. HOAs are unfairly cracking down on homeowners in order to make up for losing monthly HOA fees due to the high number of foreclosures and short sales. Read my expose on HOAs here

Last week's show reporting live from the RightOnline convention in Minneapolis with Shane Wikfors from Sonoran Alliance is archived here.

Watch the ustream live at http://www.ustream.tv/channel/alexander-and-symes-show. Login and chat us live during the show. Click here to get weekly email updates on our upcoming shows. 

Thursday, June 23, 2011

Charlie Ellis Interview with Van the Radio Man


Charlie Ellis is another conservative candidate seeking the office of City Councilman in Phoenix’s 5th District.
On Wednesday, Van the Radio Man conducted a lengthy interview of Charlie Ellis on his show. Listen as Ellis presents his philosophy and vision for the City of Phoenix.
Charlie Ellis expects to have his website up very soon but in the meantime, you may contact him via Facebook.
Thanks to Van the Radio Man for another candidate interview as the City of Phoenix moves closer to Election Day!

COMMUNITY ORGANIZER & DEMOCRATS BEHIND SENATOR RUSSELL PEARCE RECALL

Press release from Arizona State GOP

Phoenix, AZ – The Arizona Republican Party stands firmly behind Senator Russell Pearce in opposition to the coordinated attack on legitimate Arizona voters by the Democrat Party in collusion with their Acorn and LaRaza like community organizers. Maricopa County election officials, verifying the recall effort’s signatures, found approximately half of the signatures collected in this scheme were not valid. In one case, the recall effort submitted three signatures from one woman under the same home address. County election officials later invalidated these signatures. However, the message is clear: the recall effort, which used paid canvassers to gather signatures, is no more than democrat activists attempting to circumvent November’s election results and has only resulted in diluting the voting rights of Arizonans.

Randy Parraz, the democrat leading the effort to recall Senator Pearce, began his career as a community organizer, just like President Obama. He was also a union organizer working as the Arizona State Director for the National AFL-CIO and as a political organizer for the Laborers’ International Union of North America.

“The voice of the voters was heard loud and clear less than a year ago when Senator Pearce was elected with nearly 60 percent of the vote,” said Arizona Republican Party Chairman Tom Morrissey. “The attempt to recall Senator Pearce is an obvious political stunt the democrats are using to vilify a strong conservative advocate and distract voters from the real issues like border security. I am proud to add my support to the overwhelming majority of Arizonans who support Senator Pearce and the Rule of Law.”

Wednesday, June 22, 2011

Homeowners’ Associations Becoming Unavoidable and Quasi-Governmental

Homeowners’ Associations (“HOAs”) are losing money due to the high numbers of foreclosures and are scrambling to make up for it by assessing additional fees on the remaining homeowners. Banks are taking longer to foreclose on homes, leaving homes in limbo for months on end with no monthly fees coming in to the HOAs. 13 percent of homes nationwide are vacant, and in some states the vacancy rate is as high as 22 percent. To compensate, HOAs are acting like private investigators, even peering into homeowners’ yards daily until one weed pops its head up, then nailing homeowners with fines. Some HOAs are backdating letters, then dishonestly mailing them out later telling homeowners they have only a couple of days to respond to the backdate when the law actually says the time runs from the date the homeowner received the letter (this recently happened to me). Most homeowners do not have enough time nor knowledge to figure out how to respond adequately within a couple of days, so they end up paying extra fines. Another ploy of HOAs to generate money is to send letters to homeowners telling them the paint on their home must be redone, when the paint looks fine (this also happened to me).
Meanwhile, HOA rules, known as Covenants, Conditions and Restrictions (‘CC&Rs”) are being selectively enforced. In many cases, the homeowners who sit on the HOA boards have much more egregious violationsof the HOA CC&Rs that are overlooked. At least once a week there is a car illegally parked in front of my home, but the HOA does nothing about it, probably because it is not an easy revenue generator.
The recent level of aggressive policing by HOAs is grossly unfair to the remaining homeowners who have regularly complied and paid their bills and mortgages on time. Their home values have massively decreased due to the homes foreclosing around them, and around 30 percent are underwater. Many are hurting economically, so it is a callous blow to get hit hard with excessive and unfair fines and fees due to no action of their own.
Some free market conservatives and libertarians defend HOAs because they are ostensibly “private;” homeowners voluntarily choose to buy homes within the jurisdiction of an HOA. However, an HOA lobbyist testified to the Arizona legislature this year that approximately 90 percent of the new homes in Maricopa County are located within an HOA (HB2140). Local governments have made so many deals with housing developers it is becoming increasingly difficult to buy a new home outside of an HOA. Since HOAs own vast developments in prime communities, it is virtually impossible to buy a home in a good neighborhood close to schools and other necessities that is not part of an HOA. 20 percent of homeowners reside within an HOA, an estimated 50 million Americans. In 1970 there were only 10,000 HOAs. Now there are around 300,000, with 9,000 to 11,000 new HOAs forming every year.
Living in an HOA development is like being under a very socialist form of government. HOAs create regulations most people would think violate property rights, such as restricting political signs, pets, or home businesses, but since homeowners have agreed to join the HOA, they have no recourse. About the only areas HOAs cannot interfere with are state and federal fair housing laws regarding age (except for senior living facilities), race and handicapped access. By joining an HOA, homeowners are essentially signing away their constitutional rights and many other legal rights. CC&Rs carry more weight than the U.S. Constitution. The HOA has powers beyond that of local, state and federal government. This becomes even more unfair when the HOA makes new regulations or interprets existing ones that homeowners never agreed to when the home was purchased. HOAs make up rules as they go. Many are arbitrary, petty or personal.

Sunday, June 19, 2011

RightOnline ahead of Netroots when it comes to video


One interesting thing I learned at the RightOnline convention in Minneapolis this past weekend is that the right is ahead of the left with investigative videos. The left may have been generally ahead in technology the last few years, but we've now surpassed them on the video side of it. This is mainly due to the efforts of Andrew Breitbart and videographer James O'Keefe, known for their investigative live videos exposing ACORN, Planned Parenthood, and NPR. I found this out talking to an independent reporter who was attending both conventions. I asked her what she thought were the main differences between the two and she mentioned the lack of equivalent investigative videos on the left. Breitbart advised RightOnline attendees to always film anything you see that may remotely end up being relevant. Pull out your cell phone and tape that dorky confrontation between a leftist and someone else.

However the reporter did say that Netroots offered fewer technology training courses at their convention than RightOnline, reflective of their superior overall technological knowledge. Considering one elderly man at the conference asked me to stop using my laptop because it was "bothering" him, I worry there is a grain of truth in what she said (I just went and sat somewhere else).

The other coolest thing I learned at RightOnline from Facebook representative Katie Harbath is that Facebook is now allowing you to have more than 5000 friends, fixing a limitation that has greatly hampered those of us political activists who use it for a tool. It does this by letting you convert your personal account to a (business) "page," where your friends will be converted to "likes" and future friends will need to "like" your page. You will lose all of the content you've posted up until now, and you will no longer be able to add friends the previous way, but otherwise it will still operate like a personal account. Click here for the FAQ.

Saturday, June 18, 2011

Watch RightOnline live today with Malkin, Bachmann and Pawlenty

Highlights from first day of RightOnline 2011

RightOnline Executive Director Erik Telford
The RightOnline annual conference is being held in Minneapolis at the same time and in the same city again as the liberal Netroots Nation conference, in fact they are even sharing some of the same hotels. Probably the only thing they both have in common is unhappiness with Obama. Over 1500 are in attendance at RightOnline. Reportedly 2500 are attending Netroots, but the difference is likely due to various special interest groups paying the way of most of the Netroots attendees (sort of how they pay protesters).

Andrew Breitbart has been the hit of the conference so far, getting into heated confrontations with the Netroots bloggers.

Not all interactions between the two factions have been so heated. There was a left meets right, right meets left happy hour last night and no one appears to be feuding in the video.

The Mayor of Minneapolis, Democrat R.T. Rybak, dared to show up and speak a few words, telling us we could be conservative but to "spend liberally" in Minneapolis. He had guts considering he'd told Netroots earlier that he welcomed Netroots to Minneapolis but only "tolerated" RightOnline. And he expects us to reward his city now with our money? #Fail

Melissa Tweets--er I mean Melissa Clouthier, one of the most prominent Twitterers/bloggers on the right, surprised everyone by presenting her own award to RightOnline's executive director Erik Telford. This was pretty cool for those of us who have been involved heavily in social media on the right over the past few years, especially those like myself who got involved in it due to RightOnline/AFP.

Melissa Clouthier aka Melissa Tweets
So far Ann McElhinney from the movie "Not Evil Just Wrong" has been a big surprise as the best speaker. She began her speech, "I am a recovering European." She pointed out the immense hypocrisies of the left, such as accusing conservatives of invading people's privacy in the bedroom, while they invade our privacy in every room in our house, from our bathrooms to our lightbulbs. She had some choice words for feminists, including, "The pill didn't liberate women, the washing machine liberated women." She went off on how women are worse off in Africa because a few feminists at Harvard would rather make sure they have the pill instead of washing machines.

The breakout session on influencing the court of opinion, taught by Bob Ewing from the Institute for Justice, had some great tips on how to get the media to pay attention to your viewpoint and how to get the general public interested. Ask a reporter two things, 1) are you on deadline, and 2) do you have 30 seconds to listen to my pitch on something you might be really interested in? Ewing said that the right needs to do a better job at personalizing our arguments - showcase someone who is being hurt by government regulations.

The panel on public employee pension corruption and scandal was outstanding. Bob Williams from State Budget Solutions and Frank Keegan from the Franklin Center told us that even leftist Willie Brown is complaining that public employee pensions are bankrupting California. There are great websites that expose the cost of employee pensions and local spending like sunshinereview.org and buckeyeinstitute.org.

Andrew Breitbart with Jon Fleischman from FlashReport (left).
Breitbart is  viewing some photos of myself that I tweeted him.
I'm learning all kinds of interesting things. I met one of the writers for my website for the first time, who informed me that the Mormon Church told him that his article shows up as the ninth result for "Mormon" in a google image search. It's all about the SEO and if you don't know what I'm talking about, you need to attend RightOnline.

Friday, June 17, 2011

Politics on the Rocks featured in the New York Times

You've come a LONG way, Charles! And fiancee Amy!

The night was called Politics on the Rocks, a monthly social gathering for Arizona Republicans that is part town meeting and part night on the town.

In one booth of the NoRTH restaurant, which overlooks the mountains in northern Tucson, Charles Jensen, who organizes the happy hours, sat with his fiancée, Amy Averbach, whom he had met at an earlier event. And there was Paul Easton Lycos, a corporate lawyer who does a mean George W. Bush imitation and who also met his fiancée at Politics on the Rocks.

Read the full article

Wednesday, June 15, 2011

Saturday on the Alexander & Goldman Show: Live report from RightOnline, Shane Wikfors & James Allen

Saturday night from 6-7pm on the Alexander & Goldman Show we will call in live from the RightOnline conference in Minneapolis as it winds down. The Right has now surpassed the Left online. The new documentary on Sarah Palin will debut there, and major speakers include Tim Pawlenty, Michelle Bachmann, Herman Cain, Michelle Malkin and Andrew Breitbart. Check out the schedule of seminars. Should be a wild weekend, the Left's Netroots Nation conference will be taking place in Minneapolis at the same time. You can follow what's happening at RightOnline on the Twitter channel #ro11 (and even more fun, follow the Netroots Nation conference at #nn11). I crashed the Moveon.org party two years ago.

For the second half of the show, Shane Wikfors from SonoranAlliance.com and James Allen from the JamesAllenShow.com radio program will take over. 

Last week's show with bankruptcy attorneys  Dennis Riccio and Bill Ponath talking about bankruptcies, foreclosures and mortgages is available to watch on ustream here.

Please call in at 602.508.0960 and let us know your thoughts. Tune in locally to KKNT 960 AM or listen live online at KKNT960.com, which you can access by clicking here. Watch the ustream live at http://www.ustream.tv/channel/alexander-and-goldman-show. Click here to get weekly email updates on our upcoming shows. 

Be sure to stay tuned in to the show afterwards from 7-8pm for the Arizona Latino Republican Association's ALRA Airwaves. Prior to our show check out the Tim Horn show from 5-6pm for more conservative talk.

Obama Bombs Bombing Libya

Obama has bungled hawkish military action in Libya so badly that even Republicans now appear to be opposing military engagement. While many people have doubts about intervening in the “Arab spring” uprisings sweeping the Middle East, there are a couple of despotic tyrants that most Americans agree must be removed. Libyan leader Muammar al-Qaddafi is one of them. It would not have been difficult for Obama to have obtained the support of Congress to take military action complying with the War Powers resolution of 1973, because Republicans usually vote hawkish on military action and the Democrat-controlled Senate would likely support him as a Democrat president, but instead he chose to go it alone and inform Congress afterwards.
Now, Republicans worried about the way Obama is handling the intervention have aligned with far left Democrats to challenge Obama on continued U.S. military engagement in Libya. Both the House and the Senate passed resolutions this month demanding that Obama provide Congress with the rationale behind the intervention. On Monday, the House voted to prohibit funding for U.S. military operations in Libya. House Speaker John Boehner issued a statement expressing concern that Obama had not defined what the U.S. role in Libya would be.
There is a legitimate fear by Republicans that the left-leaning Obama, whose record in politics has generally been averse to military action, is over his head when it comes to initiating armed combat. John Bolton, former U.S. ambassador to the United Nations, expressed this concern, “I am feeling sick to my stomach that we are into something where the president does not know what he is doing.” Bolton is troubled that Obama’s mission does not specifically focus on removing Qaddafi.

Thursday, June 9, 2011

Concerns Over Illegal Immigration Becoming Mainstream

Once upon a time opposition to illegal immigration was championed by a few special interest groups and outspoken leaders like Tom Tancredo and Sheriff Joe Arpaio. Not so anymore. Regular sheriffs like Arizona’s Paul Babeu of Pinal County and Larry Dever of Cochise County are speaking up loudly about their frustrations dealing with it.
The Obama administration gets credit for mainstreaming the issue. Obama moved the country backwards on fixing the problem by suing Arizona over SB 1070 and decreasing funding for enforcement. One federal prosecutor in Texas refuses to prosecute illegal immigrants until they have been arrested seven times. He will not prosecute them with a felony until they have been caught 14 times. Even more egregiously, he does not prosecute coyotes smuggling fewer than six illegal immigrants. These policies are in place throughout Texas.
All the progress Arizona has made the past few years reducing illegal immigration and associated crime due to the efforts of Sheriff Arpaio, Senator Russell Pearce and former Maricopa County Attorney Andrew Thomas is now being eroded. The Border Patrol reports that 219,300 illegal immigrants were apprehended coming through the Tucson Sector last year. But as many as 350,000 to 400,000 were not caught, with many heading north through Sheriff Babeu’s Pinal County. It is a bad time to be decreasing enforcement efforts. According to Sheriff Dever, illegal immigration is getting worse. "The bottom line is the people we’re battling are much more sinister and much more aggressive, much more determined than they have ever been,” Dever said on NPR. “When they used to run away, now they want to fight." The Yuma Sector is the only sector along the border that has “operational control” over its 126-mile section of the more than 3,000-mile border with Mexico.

Saturday on the Alexander & Goldman Show: Bankruptcy attorneys discuss bankruptcies, mortgages and foreclosures

Saturday night from 6-7pm on the Alexander & Goldman Show we will talk to bankruptcy attorneys Dennis Riccio and Bill Ponath about bankruptcies, mortgages and foreclosures. There is no longer much of a stigma associated with bankruptcy, the Obama administration has destroyed the middle class to such an extent that average Americans are filing for bankruptcy in droves. There are so many people filing for bankruptcy I have opened up my own Alexander Bankruptcy Law Firm. Should you short sell? What should you do about your mortgage if you can no longer afford your home and everyone on your street is foreclosing? When should you file for bankruptcy?  What are the pros and cons to filing bankruptcy? 

Last week's show with the North Phoenix Tea Party leader Wes Harris discussing wasteful spending at the City of Phoenix is archived here

Please call in at 602.508.0960 and let us know your thoughts. Tune in locally to KKNT 960 AM or listen live online at KKNT960.com, which you can access by clicking here. Watch the ustream live at http://www.ustream.tv/channel/alexander-and-goldman-show. Click here to get weekly email updates on our upcoming shows. 

Be sure to stay tuned in to the show afterwards from 7-8pm for the Arizona Latino Republican Association's ALRA Airwaves. They have a terrific show lined up with Phoenix City Councilman Sal DiCiccio discussing the Phoenix food tax and Senator Sylvia Tenney Allen talking about the Wallow fire. Is an environmentalist wacko to blame?
Prior to our show check out the Tim Horn show from 5-6pm for more conservative talk.


Live video by Ustream

Sunday, June 5, 2011

Sheriff Babeu: Obama bombs Libya, yet ignores drug cartels next door

Pinal County Sheriff Paul Babeu has an excellent editorial exposing Obama's lack of effort and hypocrisy when it comes to controlling our border. "President Obama led us to believe he would end the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan. We're no closer to leaving than when he made these false promises. He bombs Libya for humanitarian reasons and yet ignores the outcry of neighboring Mexico in their war against the drug cartels, which have claimed over 35,000 lives and nearly toppled their government."

Read the full editorial

Illegal immigrants can cross border seven times before being charged with a misdemeanor

Cochise County Sheriff Larry Dever testified to Congress last month about one federal prosecutor in Texas who refuses to charge illegal immigrants caught crossing the border with a misdemeanor until they've been arrested seven times. He won't charge them with a felony until they've been arrested 14 times. Come on, this is ridiculous, we need to have some consistency in enforcing our laws! That's like saying it's ok to shoplift 7 times in part of Texas until you finally get prosecuted. Most egregiously, he refuses to charge coyotes smuggling fewer than six illegal immigrants.

Sheriff Dever: Abandoned on the Border

Cochise County Sheriff Larry Dever of Border Sheriffs has an excellent op-ed in the New York Times on the increasing frustration he has dealing with illegal immigration. Some excerpts -

At best, illegal aliens and smugglers trespass, damage ranchers’ land, steal water and food and start fires. At worst, people who have come here hoping for freedom and opportunity are raped or abandoned by smugglers and left to die in the desert.

Nor are the migrants the only victims. Just over a year ago, while officials at the Department of Homeland Security were declaring they had secured “operational control” of most of the southern Arizona border, my friend Robert N. Krentz Jr., a local rancher, was murdered, most likely by drug smugglers.

The people of Cochise County support the state’s immigration law because we want this violence to end. Understandably, we get frustrated and disheartened when the White House, which has failed to secure the border for generations, sues us for trying to fill the legal vacuum.

The administration’s suit makes several claims. For one, it argues that only the federal government has jurisdiction over immigration. But that’s a strange argument, given that federal agencies regularly work with state and local governments on cross-border crimes.

I’ve had more than one person ask me, sneeringly, “What do illegal immigrants look like?” In response, I tell them it’s not really what they look like as much as what they do that concerns me. Among other things, they generally run off into the desert when they see our officers approach. Citizens and legal residents don’t normally do that.

What’s more, such critics have a strange impression of what law enforcement officers along the border actually do. In Cochise County, my deputies and I often have to travel many miles to respond to a resident’s call for assistance. The last thing we have time to do is harass law-abiding people.

Indeed, these days we have even less time, as the law has opened up a wave of suits against my office and other sheriff’s offices along the border from immigrant advocacy groups — so many that other sheriffs and I formed a legal defense fund, the Border Sheriffs Association, to help our departments counter them.

Read the entire article

Saturday, June 4, 2011

Tonight on the Alexander & Goldman Show: Wes Harris talks about City of Phoenix spending problems

Tonight from 6-7pm on the Alexander & Goldman Show we will talk to North Phoenix Tea Party leader Wes Harris about the current fiscal crisis facing the City of Phoenix. Phoenix City Councilman Sal DiCiccio discovered that the City of Phoenix claimed to have cut jobs, when in reality it just shuffled employees over into the Water Department and hiked our water rates in order to pay for the employees.   Water rates have already gone up 40% over the past five years, including another seven percent this year.  

Public employee pay and pensions are bankrupting the city, at the expense of the taxpayers, but the unions are fighting back hard to maintain the status quo, including starting a recall against DeCiccio. We will hear Wes's perspective on these problems and what can be done. Can the City of Phoenix be stopped, or has it built up these "enterprises" in such a manner that there is no way to take away funding from the bonds that have been set up to pay for them? 

We will also briefly discuss my new law firm, the Alexander Bankruptcy Law Firm. Bankruptcies shot sky high last year and remain high in certain parts of the country due to the government's Bailouts for Big Business, Bankruptcies for the Middle Class.  Fortunately there are Congressmen like David Schweikert who are fighting back against the government's snubbing of the middle class. He has set up an office to assist homeowners who are getting the runaround from banks on refinancing their mortgages through the Homeowners Assistance Mortgage Program. 

Last week's show with the Arizona Latino Republican Association (ALRA) and Charlie Ellis for Phoenix City Council is archived here

Please call in at 602.508.0960 and let us know your thoughts. Tune in locally to KKNT 960 AM or listen live online at KKNT960.com, which you can access by clicking here. Click here to get weekly email updates on our upcoming shows. 

Be sure to stay tuned in to the show afterwards from 6-7pm for the ALRA Airwaves. They will be talking to Senator Russell Pearce and Representative Steve Montenegro about several issues including the Tequila Tea Party and the Pearce recall effort.

ALRA MEETINGS AND ALRA ON THE AIRWAVES!

Arizona Latino Republican Association
 
ARIZONA LATINO REPUBLICAN ASSOCIATION
Tuesday, May 31, 2011

ALRA REGULAR MEETING WEDNESDAY
There will be a regular ALRA meeting on June 1st at 7PM - Fiesta Inn Resort Milagros restaurant in the Raintree room (corner of Broadway/Priest).  

$10.70 MEANS MAS: Become an official member of ALRA by joining the most conservative Latino voice in Arizona politics.  Join online: http://www.latinogop.org/Join_Us.html

RADIO ALRA THIS SATURDAY
ALRA will be broadcasting on KKNT 960 AM right after the Alexander & Goldman show at 7PM...stay tuned for details. 

RAY & REY: ALRA Spanish Language Media Rep/Board member Rey Torres & Haydee Dawson  were interviewed recently by C-Span Espanol.

ALRA Elections in June
Elections will be held on Friday, June 24th, 7PM - at the Fiesta Inn Resort Milagros restaurant in the Raintree room. If you are an official ALRA member and interested in running for the board please contact Alice Lara at
alicelara@hotmail.com or 602-276-3959. 
 
FOLLOW ALRA ON FACEBOOK

Friday, June 3, 2011

Bailouts for Big Business, Bankruptcies for the Middle Class

The Obama administration is bailing out irresponsible banks and big business, while offering nothing but the failed Home Affordable Modification Program to average Americans, leaving many with no other options but to file bankruptcy. This is backwards, and the reckless banks should be held to the same standard as the rest of us. Blue collar workers and Tea Party activists can agree here and should champion this issue.

Read the rest of my article at Townhall

The Alexander Bankruptcy Law Firm provides low low cost Chapter 7 and 13 personal bankruptcies. $995 Chapter 7 or $2500 Chapter 13 bankruptcies plus court filing fee. Free consultation with a compassionate attorney who will handle your case personally. Call 24/7, available to meet with you around your schedule. 602-326-9116. Conveniently located in Central Phoenix along the Camelback corridor. AlexanderBankruptcyLawFirm.com

Reminder: Fundraiser for Charlie Ellis for Phoenix City Council tonight at my house

PLEASE JOIN THE HOST COMMITTEE

AMY AUERBACH
ELLIS BAXTER
LISA BENSON

DIANE BURNETT
SUZANNE CAV
ROYCE & ANN FLORA
WES HARRIS
CHARLES JENSEN
CHAD & CANDIDA KIRKPATRICK

ANNETTE MCHUGH
RICHELLE PACE

DIANE ORTIZ-PARSONS
RUDY PENA
JOE & JINNY PERRON
BILL & JOAN PONATH

DENNIS RICCIO
ROLAND & LEAH SINATRA
STEPHEN SOTO

BRIAN SYMES
THAYER VERSCHOOR
SHANE WIKFORS


FOR AN EVENING WITH

CANDIDATE FOR PHOENIX CITY COUNCIL DISTRICT 5

CHARLIE ELLIS

THE ONLY CONSERVATIVE CANDIDATE

FRIDAY, JUNE 3, 2011

6:00 – 8:00 P.M.
APPETIZERS AND BEVERAGES WILL BE PROVIDED

WE HOPE YOU’LL JOIN US FOR THIS SPECIAL EVENING

PLEASE RSVP ON FACEBOOK HERE



PAID FOR BY CHARLIE ELLIS DISTRICT 5

Thursday, June 2, 2011

Rachel Alexander launches Alexander Bankruptcy Law Firm

I have just launched my own bankruptcy law firm, Alexander Bankruptcy Law Firm, PLLC. I will be handling Chapter 7 (fresh start) and Chapter 13 (reorganization) personal bankruptcies in Arizona for the low low fees of $995 for Chapter 7 (fresh start) & court filing fee, and $2500 for Chapter 13 (reorganization) & court filing fee. Free consultation.

Wednesday, June 1, 2011

Committee Formed to Oppose Pearce Recall


FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASEContact: Ed Phillips 480-648-5599
May 31, 2011ed@edphillipsgroup.comor
 Matt Tolman 602-616-3749

Committee Formed to Oppose Pearce Recall;

protectanamericanpatriot.com Website Launched

The “Citizens Who Oppose the Pearce Recall RC-04-2011” committee has been formed to actively fight the possible recall of Arizona Senate President Russell Pearce (R-District 18).  Organizational papers were filed Friday at the Arizona Secretary of State’s Office.
The anti-recall Committee also launched a website today (www.protectanamericanpatriot.com) to help battle the recall effort and to collect donations.
Matt Tolman, Chairman of the “Citizens Who Oppose the Pearce Recall RC-04-2011” Committee said: “We will not sit back and let out-of-state and out-of-district special interests attempt to use recall to harass and intimidate Arizona’s constitutionally elected officials. We will oppose this recall so that President Pearce and other officials can do the job for which they were elected.”
Senator Russell Pearce first served in the legislature in 2000.  He has enjoyed strong, continual support from his constituents in District 18 having been elected in all 16 of his primary and general elections. He was elected President of the Arizona State Senate in 2011. The recall is the latest in a series of attacks for his strong stands on border security and his work on balancing the state’s budget in the most difficult economic situation Arizona has faced since the Great Depression.
When told of the recall opposition effort, Pearce said: “I am so grateful that some of my friends have stepped forward to oppose this recall and defend the truth.  The personal, hurtful attacks by people who don’t even live in Arizona must stop. Working together we can bring Arizonans together and move our State forward.”
Tolman continued: “Our committee will raise all the funds needed to fight this misguided recall effort.  Outside special interests do not run Arizona government.  This is about defending the sanctity of our constitutional electoral system.  The people of District 18 support Russell Pearce and his strong defense of liberty and the constitution.”
Within the next few days, this Committee will file a complaint against the recall committee with the Secretary of State’s Office for non-disclosure of financial expenditures.
Donations to the “Citizens Who Oppose the Pearce Recall RC-04-2011 Committee will be accepted from private individuals and corporations. Donations can be made through the website www.protectanamericanpatriot.com
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(NOTE:  Matt Tolman is available to schedule Spanish-speaking interviews.)
Paid for by Citizens Who Oppose the Pearce Recall RC-04-2011