My Recent Comments

• Instead of letting prevailing sentiment and spin guide one to how they vote; I have to say I’ve been pragmatic in my selection for US Senate. It is unfortunate many intelligent people with better occupations or operating their own businesses think the term of US Senator is for four years. No, it is six years. If four years of living with bad consequences of an election seems long and tedious, six years is even worse. Carmona doesn’t have any experience in the legislative sector. Carmona’s service as Surgeon General is part of the executive branch of government. The constituent who lives with the consequences of the member of Congress’ thinking, debate and votes at least have the benefit of Congressional experience in Jeff Flake. No experience is a dubious consequence in a candidate. Better no experience start in the U S House of Representatives than the U S Senate. For that matter I chose to pass the third party candidate as well. The Senate and the House are excessively full of lawyers. We need more economists, accountants, entrepreneurs and educators. (Not education administrators – EDUCATORS) filling the seats of Congress and Senate. Next Carmona’s campaign pulling video footage of his confirmation hearings for Surgeon General in 2002 is a little bit of a misrepresentation. Once again, two different arenas, two different expectations of the individual. Insulting my intelligence doesn’t validate your intelligence, Dr. Carmona. I’m sure other reasonable voters will see the paradox of that. Carmona and his campaign looks like a used car salesman. Yes, it is a fact, but it isn’t reality. Furthermore, John McCain will still be the senior U S Senator from Arizona, like it or not. Dr. Carmona to use a ten year old endorsement of John McCain is complete idiocy. So you’ve wrecked any possibility of harmony with the senior senator for the next four years. Once again four years is a long time let alone six years. Notice I didn’t completely discount the fact and truth of the Carmona campaign ad with Kyl and McCain. There’s a little truth in every rumor. With that in mind the ad featuring a former female supervisor of Dr. Carmona telling of his anger issues has to be considered. Dr. Carmona in the second debate aligned himself with Senator McCain being a Veteran of the Vietnam war with characteristics of former warriors. Two senators with hair trigger tempers won’t bode well for Arizona. Carmona is speaking on acting independently; yet he admits on his campaign web site, in debates and in ads President Obama and Harry Reid both encouraged him to run for the U S Senate. I mentioned lack of experience being a factor to me. Carmona will soon experience in politics the magnitude of U S Senate, you have to dance with who brought you to the dance. Dr. Carmona’s independence will be gone on November 7th. Beyond January 3, 2013 re-election will be the last thing on Carmona’s mind, saving face with his Arizona constituency will be far more important. During this time in U S History the personality and background of Richard Carmona in the U S Senate is dangerous. I don’t completely write off Richard Carmona. I feel he should run for the U S House of Representatives in his Congressional District in 2014. At least he should run for the Arizona Legislature. He isn’t fit for the U S Senate in 2013.
  6 months ago
• By the looks of the brief resume of the author of this OPINION peice, Mr. Ting is yet another parasite living off of an earmark of the Federal Budget. Commissioner of refugees, asylum and parole. (What the *&%^ is that all about?) Immigration and naturalization. . . those of us residing here in Arizona know what they are all about as lawyers. Do they? Weren't we suppose to have immigration reform come about the last four years? What we got was SB1070 and a US President filing suit against us. To sum it up, Jan Ting is another Radical Liberal of hysterical nature. Why is ABC15.com and the East Valley Tribune making an election issue out of a weather disaster? By all indicators the polls in all the states in the path of Hurricane Sandy will be operational by next Tuesday. CBS This Morning, Fox News and ABC News have attributed Emergency Management directors of various states and spokes people for various electrical utilities serving the affected states power will completely restored in four days. So if it takes five days that makes the November 6th deadline. The polls won't be as comfortable as they were two or four years ago, but they'll be functional. Many of the states affected have early voting and several votes have already been cast. People wise up. We don't need a wash out of a lawyer like Jan Ting creating havoc where there need not be any to enjoy his fifteen minutes of fame. I'm disappointed in the East Valley Tribune for insulting the intelligence of it readers by even running this. By all indications he's unhappy teaching law at Temple University so he's trying to drum up some private work by manufacturing law suits regarding elections, A classy way of chasing ambulances. The Constitution gives Congress the power to set election day. Congress has set election day as the first Tuesday after the first Monday of November. It doesn't take a PhD in History to know the early presidential elections in the U S were conducted without the convenience of electricity.
  6 months ago
• Does Dan DeVivo expect some kind of Oscar for special achievement in a documentary? Did Michelle Peirano harbor thoughts of a Pulitzer Prize while putting her thoughts to words and her words on paper? Simply put, "Fat Chance on Both!" Of course Arpaio believes adamantly about enforcing the law and that is what has got him re-elected. No, it doesn't take courage to stand up to Arpaio. If you are in the United States, Arizona thus Maricopa County illegally or if you an infant child of a parent or parents who entered this country illegally it is only foolish to stand up to Arpaio. You see breaking the law is breaking the law. Imagine if you will a person robs a bank or two. In both cases the bank robber does so in plain sight of a survailance camera. The bank robber is arrested and charged based on substantial smoking gun proof of his guilt. Is it courageous for that bank robber to criticize the police officer, sheriffs deputy, whatever and that officers supervisors for doing their job in enforcing the law. Maybe if your a blatant liberal extremist as Michelle Peirano and Dan DeVino obviously are . . . yes such stupidity is courageous. To the rest of the reasonable and intelligent people it is what is what it is. It was nice to read such a comical story in the midst of campaign loaded with mudslinging and character assassination as this year. Don't know about others, I enjoyed a good from the gut laugh.
  7 months ago
• The notion we are already paying the tax is all well and good, BUT how many of us have been paying the additional sales tax to put us over the budget hurdles left us by Janet Nepolitano. Yes, it is one thing making car payments knowing it will be paid for and three to five years the payment amount will be freed up, or the loan can be paid off early. Another example, although many homeowners signed on to a monthly payment for twenty five to thirty years, there are opportunities to increase payments to reduce interest costs or all out refinancing. It is prudent financial management to plan for a last payment on expenditures and be alive after it is made. This is the big missing component of Prop 204. As for the public having power to direct the money raised by the sales tax toward education, What guarantees exist that proceeds from the tax don't go array down the road. Friends and acquaintances residing in Arizona for twenty years and more talk about how the Arizona Lottery proceeds were to be directed entirely to education. Apparently, that well meaning motivation has sizzled and history has a way of repeating itself. Then the idea that businesses will look at moving to Arizona upon passing Prop. 204 because it says we are committed to providing an educated workforce. It sounds good but it is just another sound bite talking point of the Left. Business likes their workforce to be trained and educated, true. Business also likes its work force to be fiscally efficient also and such a permanent sales tax can just as easily scare new business away from Arizona because of the permanent nature of a high sales tax. The governing boards of the state's school districts need to first show financial responsibility with local funding sources; then take initiative to achieve a level of student achievement and competitiveness coupled with fiscal efficiency. Letting employed administrators of the school district and the administrators the districts' schools tell the governing boards what is efficient and all has to stop. Especially when they enjoy high five digit and six digit salaries at the expense of the classroom teacher and classroom costs. It was a breath of fresh air earlier this week to see the Gilbert Unified School district's board did just that by voting down the district's superintendant of schools bonus for lack of meeting position objectives. All school districts should follow suit. Parents of present and former students in the state's schools have sacrificed enough. Classroom teachers have sacrificed enough. School and district administrators have hired consulting companies and public relation firms to promote budget override ballot issues, bond issues, and increased mil levy issues long enough. Nothing is going to get solved by Prop 204. There are better alternatives to be addressed after Prop 204 is voted down and the governing boards of the state's school districts demonstrate more efficiency and prudence.
  7 months ago
• That's a start. Three members of the five member Gilbert School Board know to demand good results from the district's administration. Time and again I read blogs, readers comments and such about how poor education is in Arizona. Time and again there are special elections for school districts to issue additional bonds, override school district budget caps and now Prop 204 and the MED Tec item on the General Election Ballot. Now if school districts governing boards in Phoenix find out what criteria the Gilbert Unified School District is employing and do likewise the children will get the education they deserve. In short, it is high time to quit throwing money at poor to failing school districts just to end up in financing district administration.
  7 months ago
• As I've said before at azcentral.com, if Joe Arpaio is such a poor sheriff why has he been re-elected four times. I'm sure the democratic party doesn't want to throw Dan Saban under the bus and maybe they should. Apparently Arpaio is the best sheriff to come down the pike in Maricopa County obviously for 20 years. So instead of being so shallow as to sit here and post derogatory comments why don't you pick a favorite between Stauffer and Penzone. Go to the campaign coordinator of the candidate of your choice, fork over $20.00 in a campaign contribution and ask for and take a four to six inch stack of the candidates campaign brochures or door hangers. Then you can take the sheriff candidate's literature to a number of residential neighborhoods you choose. There you knock on the door of a single family house, apartment, townhouse or manufactured home. If the occupant answers smile at them, look them in the eye and say, "I am working for --- sheriff candidate (name). Would you please vote for him." and hand them a door hanger and/or brochure. If no answer leave the door hanger and/or brochure and go to the next door and do the same until the whole stack of campaign literature has been distributed. If you're really old enough to be retired, retired03, you should know that is the best way to get 'your candidate' elected; soricobob just a bit of knowledge from the preceeding generation.
  7 months ago
• Jim Lehrer is Jim Lehrer and naturally PBS is for big government to assure their funding. That one is simple. It may take some time to find areas and pet projects that cost One Hundred Million to Say six hundred million dollars a year. Then it is discovered two things can be done with them. . . . First, administration and funding of many of those type of programs benefit a number of people in a few states. So those states benefitted by those programs take full administrative and financing responsibility. Two, programs with a wide base of beneficiaries of a specific demographic will find they can get funding through state agencies or private charities when more spendible income is available through increased earnings and incomes and the broader tax base. I outright laughed how both Obama in Denver and Wisconsin and Al Sharpton on MSNBC Thursday. The only response they, apparently authored by the democrat leadership, was to make light of Romney's metaphoric example using PBS as the prime example. Don't be fooled . Obama is far from having a high IQ; Sharpton is and uppidy blowhard!
  7 months ago
• If Thomas Horne is married, I'm sure his wife got a lotta phone calls yesterday afternoon and last evening. Isn't there a TV series on CBS that follows this story line? Nevertheless I look at the lawyers educated here in Arizona, and come here to Arizona after getting a Juris Doctor in some other state. I work with these lawyers and wonder just how sophmoric is the Arizona Bar Exam. And I also wonder how dilligent is the Arizona Bar Association. One would think it is more of a country club than an professional oversight association.
  7 months ago
• I find Reid's comment a bit perplexing. I also find it interesting how some of those commenting here have a handle on beliefs and practices of the LDS faithful and make personal attacks on Harry Reid. I have a co-worker who is LDS. I asked him today what he felt about Harry Reid's appraisal of Mitt Romney. His response; "Harry Reid is LDS yet a ranking democrat. Mitt Romney is Republican and LDS. The teachings and practices of the LDS Church are such that a good Mormon would be republican rather than democrat. Given how Harry Reid has now and times past stood on his Mormon background to advance his political life will be a problem for him at the time he stands in front of God." The statement re-inforced what I thought while reading this story this morning, but didn't have time to type out and post my comment. I first became acquainted with Harry Reid in 1981. Reid was chairman of the Nevada Gaming Board. A resort on the Las Vegas strip, The Alladin, had been found to have owners deemed "undesirable" by the Gaming Board and under order to sell or lose their gaming license. My employer represented two interested buyers. Other potential buyers included Johnny Carson and Wayne Newton. Wayne Newton was ultimately the successful bidder. My impression of Harry Reid at the time was that he was never really his own man. Whether it be the Alladin or other matters dealing with the state's prime attraction he was nauseatingly patronizing to some and underhanded with others. Harry Reid always seemed to be afraid of making the wrong decision or saying the wrong thing. Reid is not his own man and doesn't act on his own. What is influencing Harry Reid is most likely very dark and sinister. So given my first impression of Harry Reid from 1981. Given he has acted in such a way as to never really overcome that first impression. And, the comment concerning Harry Reid by my co-worker along with the comments here, especially the first one, Mitt Romney will do well in chuckle at Reid's personal evaluation, Reid's on the losing side.
  8 months ago
• [ . . .“transparency” and “public input” have become almost as American as baseball and apple pie.] First of all Diane Brown seemed to take time to tell the Governor's Regulatory Review Council how to do their job in telling the Arizona Deptartment of Insurance how to do their job. Okay, all well and good that Obamacare requires health insurance rate increases undergo similiar public notification and public hearing processes as regulated utilities. But as the first poster points out, what state agency is charged with the proper pricing of potato chips. . . a very relevant comparison. Diane Brown's outlook and organization are every bit as socialistic as the current administration's vision. Conveniently she fails to point out the obvious, there are expenses and costs tied to everything. How are expenses of public input met? The commentary doesn't add up. The nature of Arizona PIRG doesn't add up. Very idealistic but reality is out the window with this guest commentary, the author and the entity that supposedly provides consumer education. Grade F
  8 months ago