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Don't these pigs have any REAL criminals to hunt down???? You know real criminals that hurt people like robbers and rapists. Not some honest, law abiding high school teacher who might have had sex with an 18 year old student!!!! At the Federal level 51 percent of the people in prison are there for victimless drug war crimes. That number is from the Federal Bureau of Prisons. At the state levels two thirds of the people in prisons are there for victimless drug war crimes. That number is from Reason Magazine. When you add in people who are in prison for victimless, consensual sexual crimes I wonder how high those percentages will jump to. http://www.azcentral.com/story/news/local/tempe/2014/10/21/tempe-marcos-de-niza-teacher-accused-misconduct-student/17692481/ Tempe teacher suspected of misconduct with student Amy Edelen and Annie Z. Yu, The Republic | azcentral.com 7 p.m. MST October 21, 2014 A Tempe Marcos de Niza High School math teacher and cheerleading coach is on administrative leave while the Tempe Union High School District investigates allegations of misconduct with a student by the married teacher, the school district said. Brooke Hesson, who has been at Marcos de Niza since 2010, was investigated initially by the Tempe Police Department, on Friday, Oct. 17 on allegations of sexual conduct between a student and teacher. School administrators found out through a student tip, according to Sgt. Mike Pooley of the Tempe Police Department. "Because he's 18 (and) everything was consensual, there's no crime and we're not pursuing any charges," Pooley told The Arizona Republic. "We're still investigating to make sure there was no inappropriate conduct prior to him being 18 and there were no other students involved that were under 18." However, TUHSD, conducting its own investigation, immediately placed Hesson on leave on Oct. 17. Attempts to reach Hesson for comment were unsuccessful. "She was placed on administrative leave and is under investigation of misconduct, but we don't have all the facts yet," said Jill Hanks, spokeswoman for the Tempe Union High School District. "We received allegations Friday afternoon and under protocol sent her home." Hanks said that a letter was sent home Monday to the parents of students who were directly impacted by Hesson's absence in her math classes and cheer squad. According to the Marcos de Niza website, Hesson teaches Algebra 1-2, Algebra 3-4 and Functions of Mathematics after receiving a bachelor's degree with honors from Arizona State University. Hanks declined to say when or if Hesson would return to her duties at Marcos de Niza. Eric Watson of KPNX-TV, Channel 12, contributed to this report.
Hmmm ... So NIDA wants to treat a very, very, very, mild addiction to marijuana (at most) with a highly addictive drug called nicotine??? Nicotine is a highly addictive drug. Some studies even say nicotine as addictive as heroin. I used to be a nicotine or cigarette addict and I can vouch it is a very addictive drug. I used to smoke 3 and 1/2 packs of cigarettes a day and it probably took me 2 months to kick the habit. On the other for past 30 years, until recently I have never heard one word claiming that marijuana was addictive. It's just recently that I have started to hear claims from government agencies that marijuana is addictive just like heroin. Personally I think they are lying and it is just a scare tactic. http://www.hightimes.com/read/nicotine-marijuana-withdrawal Nicotine for Marijuana Withdrawal? By Sirius J · Tue Oct 21, 2014 It seems that the National Institute on Drug Abuse (NIDA) is grasping at strings to develop a drug to treat the fabled “marijuana withdrawal symptoms.” With people dying every day from legal over-the-counter and prescription drugs, investing time and money into marijuana addiction research already seems shocking enough. This is a new low; they want to use a blatantly addictive drug - nicotine - to treat the alleged withdrawal symptoms of a plant they have only recently shown to be addictive. What’s more, researchers’ characterization of marijuana withdrawal and dependence is so vague, reading the morning paper or checking your social media account every day might as well be heroin. Assigning cannabis to the category of addictive drugs has its roots in the recently published fifth version of the Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders (DSM-5), which gives a whole list of exaggerated marijuana withdrawal symptoms, but says only suffering from two off the list means you are withdrawing. While excessive use of cannabis can lead to an unproductive lifestyle, some studies play it out to be as addictive as all other drugs of abuse. According to an article in Esquire, DSM-5 expanded the window of diagnosis for ADHD in children, giving drug companies 20 million extra customers. This doesn’t quite paint a picture of an unbiased organization that really wants to help patients and doesn’t care about profits. This possible bias, added to NIDA’s uneven efforts into researching cannabis’ minute negative side, will slowly give birth to a perfect storm marijuana-bashing pseudo-science that will rain bullshit onto activists’ efforts to legalize pot. We don’t care that weed isn’t completely innocuous; it’s obvious that enjoyment without consequences doesn’t exist. But it’s a fact that it’s not remotely as harmful as alcohol or cigarettes; all we want to do is get high on something that doesn’t give us a hangover, liver damage, emphysema, lung cancer, or get us arrested.
http://azcapitoltimes.com/news/2014/10/21/apple-fiasco-is-the-latest-failed-subsidy-scheme/ Apple supplier fiasco is the latest failed subsidy scheme By: Guest Opinion October 21, 2014 , 3:40 pm GT Advanced TechArizona taxpayers are lucky to have escaped the latest failed corporate subsidy scheme with their wallets intact. Less than a year ago, Arizona politicians were back-slapping themselves for what media described as a “coup” in landing an Apple plant in Mesa that would bring 1,300 construction and 700 high-tech jobs. But it wasn’t exactly Apple itself: The company bought the plant but leased it to GT Advanced Technologies, which would make sapphire glass for Apple products. For prudent investors risking their own funds, the fact that GT lost $45 million in 2013 would have rung alarm bells. But for the Arizona Commerce Authority (ACA) and the City of Mesa, the fact that the company was associated with Apple was enough to open the public coffers. Mesa paved the way with infrastructure bonds and tax breaks, while the ACA pledged a $10 million grant. Even worse, the deal took place under cover of darkness. Mesa signed a non-disclosure agreement, while the ACA would not reveal details until after the deal was made. If taxpayers had concerns, they could not voice them until it was too late. Fast forward to October 2014 when GT goes belly-up. Unless Apple decides to take over the plant itself, the politicians’ grandiose promises will never materialize. Already, 700 workers have received pink slips. Fortunately, the bankruptcy apparently came before the ACA paid the $10 million grant. Had it occurred later, the taxpayers would have to get in line at bankruptcy court to recover pennies on the dollar. Most failed subsidies are far more costly. Ironically, the very building that Apple purchased previously belonged to First Solar, which was promised $50 million in government subsidies to build solar components. No solar components were ever produced before First Solar unloaded the plant to Apple. Now it looks like no sapphire glass will be produced there either. So much for the promised jobs and the boost to the economy. Likewise, the City of Goodyear gave Chinese firm Suntech $500,000 for job training at a facility that opened in 2010 with $3.6 million in state and federal tax breaks. The company shuttered the plant in 2013, with the 43 remaining workers losing their jobs. How many subsidy failures do we need before we conclude that government officials do a terrible job in predicting economic winners and losers? Even when they pick a winner, the effects are negligible. The vast majority of jobs in our economy are created by small businesses, which bear the financial burden of the subsidies given to larger companies. All of which attests to the wisdom of the Arizona Constitution’s framers in forbidding taxpayer subsidies to private individuals, corporations, and associations. But instead of constructing an economic and regulatory climate hospitable to all enterprises, too many Arizona politicians try to evade constitutional constraints any time a big company blows into town looking for a handout. Transparency is the best antidote to taxpayer giveaways, and Arizona law guarantees broad access to most public records. But when the ACA was created, so too was an exception to public records obligations that allows it to dodge disclosure whenever it concludes “the information could potentially harm” the company’s or state’s “competitive position relating to potential business development opportunities and strategies.” This exception to public records access should be abolished. It is bad enough that deals involving taxpayer money are negotiated behind closed doors; it is even worse when the details of those deals can be hidden from public view. In the private sector, those who make bad investments bear the financial consequences. In the public sector, taxpayers do. We cannot afford to have public officials gambling with our tax dollars; and when they feel the need to do so, we should be allowed to watch, very closely. - Clint Bolick is director of the Scharf-Norton Center for Constitutional Litigation at the Goldwater Institute.
http://www.washingtonpost.com/blogs/federal-eye/wp/2014/10/22/paid-leave-for-feds-tops-senators-list-of-silly-unnecessary-government-projects/?tid=hpModule_14fd66a0-9199-11e2-bdea-e32ad90da239&hpid=z16 Paid leave for feds tops senator’s list of ‘silly, unnecessary’ government projects By Lisa Rein October 22 at 7:00 AM The federal government’s frequent use of putting employees on paid leave for months and sometimes years to discipline those accused of breaking the rules has assumed the top spot in a GOP senator’s new survey of “wasteful” government practices. The fifth annual “Waste Book,” released Wednesday by Sen. Tom Coburn (R-Okla.), calls administrative leave a scourge of government at taxpayer expense. “Paid Vacations for Bureaucrats Gone Wild” is the No. 1 entry in the 2014 “Waste Book.” The report describes the kinds of misconduct that often lead thousands of civil servants to land on virtual home detention while their agencies investigate their cases: “Charging booze and personal trips on the office credit card. Passing out on the job after a late night partying. Wasting most of the work day surfing for smut on office computers. Making unwanted sexual advances. Using an office laptop to send explicit images. “Any one of these outrageous behaviors would be reason enough for most to be fired … unless, of course, you are on the federal government’s payroll, in which case you might instead get a paid vacation lasting months or even years.” Administrative leave is one of 100 eye-opening expenditures Coburn derides as frivolous spending in this year’s “Waste Book”, the last of five editions before Coburn retires from the Senate in January. The Government Accountability Office, in the government’s first study of administrative leave, found that during a three-year period that ended last fall, more than 57,000 federal employees were sent home for a month or longer. The tab for taxpayers exceeded $775 million in salary alone. Auditors could only find data for three-fifths of the federal workforce. The extensive use of administrative leave has become common practice at dozens of federal agencies, despite government personnel rules that limit paid leave for employees facing discipline to “rare circumstances” in which the employee is considered a threat. The rules, plus a dozen decisions by the comptroller general since the 1950s, were written in an effort to curb waste and deal quickly with workers accused of misconduct. GAO auditors found that supervisors use wide discretion in putting employees on leave, including for alleged violations of government rules and laws, whistleblowing, doubts about trustworthiness and disputes with colleagues or bosses. Some people remain at home while they challenge demotions and other punishments. Federal employees are generally entitled to more due process than their counterparts at private companies, which explains why the leave is paid. But Coburn said federal agencies owe it to taxpayers to move swiftly when employees get in trouble. “Rather than disciplining employees who are under-performing or even engaging in criminal mischief, federal bureaucrats place troublesome employees on ‘administrative leave,’ where they continue to get paid but are essentially relieved of their duties, including having to report to work or do work,” he wrote. In 2014, 11 federal agencies spent at least $50 million paying the salaries of government employees on administrative leave status, one-third of which was for disciplinary reasons, the “Waste Book” says.
Government mandated claymore mines on the front seat of your automobile??? "The inflator mechanisms ... rupture, causing metal fragments to fly out when the bags are deployed in crashes ... at least four people have died from the problem"Sure air bags could save your life, if they are not the claymore mine types of air bags talked about in this article. Of course YOU the consumer should make the decision on buying an air bag for your car. Not some government nanny in Washington D.C. http://www.azcentral.com/story/money/business/consumer/2014/10/21/air-bags-car-owners-warned-fix/17702187/ US agency warns car owners to get air bags fixed Tom Krisher, Associated Press 9:08 p.m. MST October 21, 2014 DETROIT – The U.S. government has issued an urgent plea to more than 4.7 million people to get the air bags in their cars fixed amid concern that a defect in the devices could kill or injure a driver or passengers. The inflator mechanisms in the air bags can rupture, causing metal fragments to fly out when the bags are deployed in crashes. Safety advocates say that at least four people have died from the problem and that there have been multiple injuries. Multiple automakers have recalled vehicles in the U.S. over the past two years to repair air-bag inflators made by Takata Corp., a Tokyo-based supplier of seat belts, air bags, steering wheels and other auto parts. In a statement Monday, the National Highway Traffic and Safety Administration warned owners of those cars to act right away. The agency has been investigating the problem since June and has cited reports of six inflators rupturing, causing three injuries. Worldwide, automakers have recalled about 12million vehicles because of the problem. The warning covers cars made by Toyota, Honda, Mazda, BMW, Nissan, General Motors and Ford. Passenger or driver air bags or both could have the faulty inflators. Safety advocates say the problem could affect more than 20million vehicles in the U.S. The rare action by federal regulators comes three weeks after a Sept. 29 crash near Orlando that claimed the life of a 46-year-old woman. In that crash, Hien Thi Tran suffered severe neck wounds that could have been caused by metal fragments flying out of the air bag on her 2001 Honda Accord. Her Accord was among the models being recalled. One police agency concluded that the air bags caused her wounds, while another is still investigating. The NHTSA is seeking information in the case. Toyota on Monday issued a recall covering passenger air bags in 247,000 older model vehicles, including the Lexus SC, Corolla, Matrix, Sequoia and Tundra. Like many earlier recalls, Toyota's covers vehicles in South Florida, along the Gulf Coast, in Puerto Rico, Hawaii, the U.S. Virgin Islands, Guam, Saipan and American Samoa — all areas that have high absolute humidity. Toyota said it's working with Takata to pinpoint the cause of the rupture and gauge the influence of high absolute humidity. Toyota could expand the recall to more areas pending further testing, according to spokesman John Hanson. Toyota says it knows of no crashes or injuries in the recalled cars. The non-profit Center for Auto Safety estimated the U.S. alone has 20 million to 25million cars equipped with the faulty air bags. In the Florida case, Tran turned left in front of another vehicle, and the front ends collided. Her air bag inflated. The original report on the death said the seat belt could not have cut the right side of her neck. Also, there was no broken glass and no other cause of the neck wounds. Last week, two U.S. senators questioned why the safety agency was limiting the recall to certain regions. They cited the May 27, 2009, death of 18-year-old Ashley Parham of Oklahoma City as proof that the problem can occur in areas where humidity isn't so prevalent. Parham was driving a 2001 Honda Accord across a parking lot in Midwest City, Okla., when she hit another car. The air bag inflated and sent shards of metal into her neck, causing her death. Takata said it supports Toyota's recall and will continue to support the NHTSA and its customers. Recall details The NHTSA urged people to check if their car has been recalled by going to nhtsa.gov/Vehicle+Safety and typing in their vehicle identification number.
Sinema challenger Gammill: Vets should fend for selvesFrom a Libertarian point of view I suspect that U.S. Rep. Kyrsten Sinema is probably the worst elected official in the history of Arizona. "On virtually every issue, Democratic U.S. Rep. Kyrsten Sinema's positions were diametrically opposed to libertarian opponent Powell Gammill's"The only statement from Powell I would disagree with from a Libertarian point of view is this "Gammill supports open borders and called for states to regain authority over immigration from the federal government"From a Libertarian point of view we support open borders and there is no need for the government to control or even regulate immigration. If a person wants to cross a border, that should be their decision, not some government nannies. Sinema challenger Gammill: Vets should fend for selves Rebekah L. Sanders, The Republic | azcentral.com 12:43 p.m. MST October 21, 2014 The contrasts couldn't have been starker in the only general-election debate of the 9th Congressional District. On virtually every issue, Democratic U.S. Rep. Kyrsten Sinema's positions were diametrically opposed to libertarian opponent Powell Gammill's. Republican challenger Wendy Rogers did not participate in the Monday debate on the public-television show Horizon. Sinema, a freshman, touted "hitting the ground running" during her first two years in Congress and reaching across the aisle, while Gammill urged voters to boycott the "corrupt" political system and avoid the polls. Sinema said, on immigration, border security should be improved and that undocumented immigrants currently in the U.S. should be given a path to citizenship. Gammill supports open borders and called for states to regain authority over immigration from the federal government. Sinema took every opportunity to talk about improving care for veterans. Gammill said veterans don't deserve benefits and should be "tossed out" on their own. He said the federal government should cut all spending and collect no taxes. Veterans Affairs reform is an attractive issue for Sinema. She has two brothers who are veterans. The Phoenix VA hospital, epicenter of the scandal over the bureaucracy's handling of health care for veterans, is located in her swing district. And it earns her crossover appeal from independent and Republican voters. Holding her hand up for the camera, Sinema displayed a black ring on her "trigger" finger that she said is meant to remind her of the 21 veterans on average who kill themselves each day. "This issue is so important to me. We can't let it go," Sinema said. "We're losing our patriots to suicide." Sinema rattled off legislation she introduced or supported to make it easier to expand mental-health care for veterans, fire delinquent VA administrators and reform the larger system. Gammill, in contrast, said veterans should fend for themselves. "I would basically toss 'em on their own," he said. "I don't believe in stealing people's money (through taxes) and spending it on veterans. I don't believe we owe this to them." Gammill said veterans should turn to charitable organizations if they need help. The United States should stop going to war to reduce the number of injured veterans, he said.
Colorado proposes edible pot ban, then retreats If we are going to re-legalize marijuana we have to do it right and put some teeth into the law so the government tyrants can't do this stuff!!!! The law need to make it illegal for our government masters to pass ANY silly laws regulation marijuana. If you ask me this attempted ban on marijuana edibles is just a backdoor attempt to begin making making marijuana illegal again. Sadly the entire "War on Drugs" is just a "jobs program" for cops and a "government welfare program" for police departments. And those b*stards are going to do everything they can to get their "War on Drugs", which pays them big bucks for arresting people for victimless drug war crimes. http://www.azcentral.com/story/news/nation/2014/10/20/colorado-proposes-edible-pot-ban-then-retreats/17639789/ Colorado proposes edible pot ban, then retreats Associated Press 5:14 p.m. MST October 20, 2014 DENVER — Colorado health authorities suggested banning many forms of edible marijuana, including brownies and cookies, then whipsawed away from the suggestion Monday after it went public. The Colorado Department of Public Health and Environment told state pot regulators they should limit edible pot on shelves to hard lozenges and tinctures, which are a form of liquid pot that can be added to foods and drinks. The suggestion sparked marijuana industry outrage and legal concerns from a regulatory workgroup that met Monday to review the agency's suggestion. Colorado's 2012 marijuana-legalization measure says retail pot is legal in all forms. "If the horse wasn't already out of the barn, I think that would be a nice proposal for us to put on the table," said Karin McGowan, the department's deputy executive director. Talking to reporters after the workgroup reviewed the department's proposal, McGowan insisted the edibles ban was just one of several proposals under review by pot regulators. Lawmakers have ordered state pot regulators to require pot-infused food and drink to have a distinct look when they are out of the packaging. The order came after concerns about the proliferation of pot-infused treats that many worry could be accidentally eaten by children. Statewide numbers are not available, but one hospital in the Denver area has reported nine cases of children being admitted after accidentally eating pot. It is not clear whether those kids ate commercially packaged pot products or homemade items such as marijuana brownies. The Health Department's recommendation was one of several made to marijuana regulators. "We need to know what is in our food," said Gina Carbone of the advocacy group Smart Colorado, which says edible pot shouldn't be allowed if it can't be identified out of its packaging. Marijuana industry representatives insisted that marking pot won't prevent accidental ingestions. "There is only so much we can do as manufacturers to prevent a child from putting a product in their mouth," said Bob Eschino of Incredibles, which makes marijuana-infused chocolates. Even health officials worried that an edibles ban would not stop people from making homemade pot treats, with possibly more dangerous results. "Edibles are very, very popular. And I do worry that people are going to make their own. They're not going to know what they're doing," said Dr. Lalit Bajaj of Children's Hospital Colorado. The meeting came a few days after Denver police released a video about the danger of possible Halloween candy mix-ups. "Some marijuana edibles can be literally identical to their name-brand counterparts," the department warned in a statement, urging parents to toss candies they don't recognize. The edible pot workgroup meets again in November before sending a recommendation to Colorado lawmakers next year. The revised edible rule is to be in place by 2016.
http://www.azcentral.com/story/life/2014/10/22/mormons-address-mystery-surrounding-undergarments/17712097/ Mormons address mystery surrounding undergarments AP 7:14 a.m. MST October 22, 2014 SALT LAKE CITY — The Mormon church is addressing the mystery that has long surrounded undergarments worn by its faithful with a new video explaining the practice in-depth while admonishing ridicule from outsiders about what it considers a symbol of Latter-day Saints' devotion to God. The four-minute video on The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints' website compares the white, two-piece cotton "temple garments" to holy vestments worn in other religious faiths such as a Catholic nun's habit or a Muslim skullcap. The footage is part of a recent effort by the Salt Lake City-based religion to explain, expand or clarify on some of the faith's more sensitive beliefs. Articles posted on the church's website in the past two years have addressed the faith's past ban on black men in the lay clergy; its early history of polygamy; and the misconception that members are taught they'll get their own planet in the afterlife. The latest video dispels the notion that Latter-day Saints believe temple garments have special protective powers, a stereotype perpetuated on the Internet and in popular culture by those who refer to the sacred clothing as "magical Mormon underwear." "These words are not only inaccurate but also offensive to members," the video says. "There is nothing magical or mystical about temple garments, and church members ask for the same degree of respect and sensitivity that would be afforded to any other faith by people of goodwill." The video and accompanying article feature more detailed information about the garments than has ever before been released to the public, Mormon scholars say. It was made to fill a void on the Internet, which has little, if any, accurate information about the undergarments, church spokesman Eric Hawkins said in a statement. The video, also available on YouTube, explains that the undergarments are worn daily by devout adult Latter-day Saints as a reminder of their commitment to God to live good, honorable lives. The garments, which resemble a T-shirt and shorts, are shown laid out on a table in what marks a rare public glimpse at clothing that normally is hidden from outsiders. Members are taught not to hang the garments in public places to dry or display them in view of people "who do not understand their significance." The video comes two years after jabs about the undergarments were lobbed at Mitt Romney in 2012 with the intent to damage his candidacy as the first Mormon presidential nominee of a major political party. At one point during the campaign, New York Times columnist Charles Blow tweeted, "I'm a single parent and my kids are amazing! Stick that in your magic underwear," after Romney decried the country's rate of out-of-wedlock births. The video's focus on the offensiveness of flippant remarks about the undergarments shows the church no longer will tolerate them, Armand Mauss, a retired professor of sociology and religious studies at Washington State University. The church has some 15 million members worldwide. Latter-day Saints seem pleased by the refreshing transparency from the church on a topic that has been the source of much curiosity among outsiders, some whom are rude about it, said Jana Riess, who blogs about Mormonism for the Religion News Service. She wrote this week that she hopes the footage will "persuade gawkers that there's nothing to see here, folks." "They now have something official to point to if people ask questions," Riess said in an interview. "I love that they put it on YouTube for the entire world to see. I think that's very brave.
Mesa takes heat over largest bond request in its history Government monopolies always f*ck up things. And gee, this reminds me. It seems like MPP or the Marijuana Policy Project initiative will probably give the current medical marijuana dispensaries a government monopoly on growing and selling recreational marijuana in Arizona, in addition to a government monopoly on growing and selling medical marijuana in Arizona. And if Andrew Myers and the members of his Arizona Dispensary Association get that government monopoly on growing and selling recreational marijuana we will all be screwed, just like the Mesa taxpayers in the article that follows. http://www.azcentral.com/story/news/local/mesa/2014/10/22/mesa-biggest-bond-election-criticism/17704639/ Mesa takes heat over largest bond request in its history Maria Polletta, The Republic | azcentral.com 10:19 p.m. MST October 21, 2014 As the largest city in the country without a primary property tax, Mesa makes up for it by charging its utility customers higher fees to help cover day-to-day expenses. And while Mesa residents have some of the biggest utility bills in the Valley as a result, city leaders say it's not enough. Since the Great Recession, the cash-strapped city has been putting off maintenance and repairs, and it needs to provide new infrastructure in its rapidly growing southeastern region. Officials are now asking voters to approve one of the largest bond issues in Valley history, at more than half a billion dollars. Critics say the hefty request could've been avoided if the city didn't use utility money for non-utility expenses. Though Mesa voters, with few exceptions, have overwhelmingly supported city bond issues, this one may not be a sure thing. Priorities questioned More than a dozen people have filed a ballot argument against the November bond package, saying Mesa needs to change the way it manages its money before asking voters to go another $580 million into debt. "We agree that these infrastructure improvements are important and necessary," the residents write. But they argue the city's spending priorities are "misplaced" and say financial practices should be "closely examined before supporting more bonds." Mesa's decades-long practice of using utility funds — collectively known as an enterprise fund — to help pay for general operations is uncommon in the rest of the Valley. The city this fiscal year expects to use nearly a third of its utility revenue, $95.7 million, for non-utility operations such as police and fire. "I feel that taking these funds from the enterprise fund and using them for various city operations is not proper," Mesa resident Gene Dufoe said at a recent City Council meeting. "I feel that we're not using the profits from the enterprise fund to responsibly maintain the infrastructure required by the enterprise-fund operations." Arizona Tax Research Association President and public-finance expert Kevin McCarthy backed some of the residents' complaints in interviews with The Arizona Republic. If Mesa's utility revenue had been reinvested in water and other utility departments, the city could have saved up for the needed projects detailed in the bond request, according to McCarthy. He said it "should be obvious to anybody" that "over a five-year period of time, the amount that they need for the bonds is in the neighborhood of what they transferred" to cover general operations. While Mesa's longstanding system of using utility funds is perfectly legal, McCarthy said it's less transparent "than a property-tax increase or sales-tax increase, where elected officials know there's going to be opposition." In Glendale, where leaders used utility revenue to cover expenses related to their fight to keep the Arizona Coyotes hockey franchise at the city-owned arena, the city set up a repayment plan. A 'strategic decision' Mesa leaders say the city's bond request is unrelated to how it manages utility revenue. They say Mesa historically has turned to bonds to finance sizable capital projects, many of which were put off during the recession to avoid straining residents' pocketbooks. Now, the city says it can no longer hold off on a new $189million water-treatment plant and $104million wastewater-treatment plant expansion in southeast Mesa, among other projects. The revenue bonds would be repaid by utility users, and City Manager Chris Brady said the city would be "very careful" to not sell individual bonds before they're needed. City officials have been candid about relying on utility revenue to help cover everyday city expenses — a policy that dates back to 1945 — as well as the practice's effect on utility rates. "(That was) a strategic decision, that we were going to finance the city operations through revenues from utilities rather than primary property taxes," Mesa Mayor John Giles said. "So, those who come in and say, 'Wait a minute. Look. You're doing creative financing by moving money out of your utility accounts and your enterprise funds to cover general obligations.' Well, yeah. That's how we do things around here, and this was not done behind closed doors." Candace Cannistraro, Mesa's management and budget director, agreed the policy is "not a secret." "We say, 'Yes, we make money on the utilities. They're paying for your police officers, your firefighters, your court,'" she said. It's probably not surprising, then, that Mesa's average utility bills were priciest when compared to those of Glendale, Phoenix, Tempe, Scottsdale, Gilbert and Chandler in July. While Glendale and Phoenix were only a few dollars behind Mesa's $97.38 average monthly bill, Chandler's and Gilbert's were about $30 cheaper. Still, the same 2014 average-homeowner cost comparison put Mesa on the cheaper end of the spectrum overall, after considering what residents pay in sales taxes, property taxes and utility fees. It was the third-cheapest city, after Gilbert and Chandler. Property tax a non-starter? Mesa leaders say residents are unwilling to scrimp on the city services that utility bills help cover, and the city has to pay for them somehow. Mesa voters rejected a proposed primary property tax in 2006, agreeing to a secondary property tax in 2008 only to cover bond debt. Councilmen Scott Somers and Dennis Kavanaugh have advocated for a primary property tax dedicated to funding public-safety services, though the city manager said he wasn't sure how feasible such a move would be. "We now transfer way more out of (the enterprise fund) than some of our founding fathers back in 1945 ever envisioned," Somers said, adding that sales-tax revenue has become increasingly volatile as well. Both councilmen said the addition of a primary property tax would create a more stable portfolio of revenue sources for the city. "Right now, we get hit first and harder than other communities do," Kavanaugh said. "If people want to be on that roller coaster, fine, but at some point in time, it's going to be like, 'Enough of this amusement ride.'" The mayor said the issue is a non-starter, however. "The voters of Mesa are not going to amend the city charter to impose a primary property tax. We've learned that lesson a few times," Giles said. "(In the meantime), I think everyone realizes the system we've got now is actually a good one." Even Tracy Langston, part of the group of Mesa residents arguing against the November bond package, isn't lobbying for a primary property tax. "We have survived for a long time without (one)," Langston said. "What we're concerned about is a lack of the detailed oversight needed to know that the money (already received by the city) is being used as efficiently as possible." How much does it cost to live in your city? Each year, Mesa tallies how much its residents pay for city services compared with those in other Valley cities. The "Average Homeowner's Annual Cost Comparison" considers what residents pay in sales taxes, property taxes and utility fees. The rankings can change depending on where cities are in their budget-making process, but Mesa has taken pride in being among the cheapest of Valley cities over the years. As of July 15, the breakdown looked like this: Glendale: $2,345. Tempe: $2,011. Phoenix: $1,968. Scottsdale: $1,886. Mesa: $1,847. Chandler: $1,551. Gilbert: $1,496. Detailed chart available at mesaaz.gov/budget.
This ruling seems to conflict with a different ruling which I have also posted. I added the article on the different ruling following this. My understanding is that Prop 203 allows medical marijuana patients to be convicted of DUI if they are stoned and driving. But Prop 203 also says that marijuana metabolites in a persons body can not be used as the only reason to convict them of DUI if they have a medical marijuana card. http://www.dailyjournal.net/view/story/f065f658a1544fe4ad536b9e807d84dd/AZ--Medical-Marijuana-DUI/ Ruling: Arizona medical marijuana law doesn't give immunity under DUI law THE ASSOCIATED PRESS First Posted: October 21, 2014 - 6:28 pm Last Updated: October 21, 2014 - 6:32 pm PHOENIX — Arizona residents who have medical marijuana cards that allow them to legally smoke pot can still be prosecuted for driving under the influence in the state, an appeals court ruled Tuesday. A three-judge Court of Appeals panel's ruling Tuesday addressed the question of whether medical marijuana users should be immune from prosecution under DUI laws. Travis Lance Darrah was arrested in December 2011 on charges that he was driving while impaired and under the influence while having marijuana in his system. He was acquitted of driving while impaired but convicted on a DUI law that prohibits anyone from operating a vehicle while having a prohibited drug or its compound in their system. Darrah filed an appeal, arguing that part of the medical marijuana law was intended to make authorized users immune from prosecution unless they drive while impaired. But the appeals court disagreed, saying the 2010 voter-approved medical marijuana law made no reference to immunity under DUI laws. "If Arizona voters had intended to completely bar the state from prosecuting authorized marijuana users .... they could have easily done so by using specific language to that effect," the court ruled. As medical marijuana laws have been enacted around the country, Legislatures and the courts have struggled with how to enforce DUI laws and how they relate to pot. There is no standard test to determine if a driver is high on THC, the ingredient in marijuana that gets people high. The result has been confusion over how to develop uniform rules for "driving while high." Arizona high court: Pot metabolite doesn't prove DUI http://www.azcentral.com/story/news/arizona/politics/2014/04/22/arizona-high-court-pot-metabolite-prove-dui/8011323/ Arizona high court: Pot metabolite doesn't prove DUI Yvonne Wingett Sanchez, The Republic | azcentral.com 10:20 p.m. MST April 22, 2014 medical marijuana Motorists who have used marijuana cannot be charged with driving under the influence on that basis alone, even if some traces of the drug are detected in their blood, the state's top court ruled Tuesday. Arizona Supreme Court justices disagreed with the Maricopa County Attorney Office, which argued before the court in November, that drivers whose blood tests reveal the presence of an inactive marijuana metabolite known as Carboxy-THC can be prosecuted for driving while impaired. The court was unconvinced the mere presence of the metabolite, which can remain in the bloodstream for 30days, is valid evidence of impairment. The court wrote that marijuana users break the law if they drive while "impaired to the slightest degree" and if they are discovered with metabolites in their system that are known to impair. But, wrote Justice Robert Brutinel, drivers cannot be convicted "based merely on the presence of a non-impairing metabolite that may reflect the prior usage of marijuana." The opinion affects motorists who use marijuana illegally, as well as the estimated 40,000 people who participate in the state's medical-marijuana program. Those cardholders are legally allowed to ingest pot to treat ailments ranging form chronic pain to glaucoma, and many of those cardholders have argued that traces of metabolites do not prove impairment. Maricopa County Attorney Bill Montgomery said in a statement that the court had engaged in "interpretive jujitsu." The court should have asked the state Legislature to clarify whether it contemplated impairment based on the presence of a non-impairing metabolite, Montgomery wrote. "By acting as it has, our State Supreme Court contributes to citizen cynicism particularly when it involves the whys and wherefores of drafting and passing legislation," he wrote. "Why should citizens work through our republican form of government and petition their duly elected legislators for statutory change when they can take a shot at only having to persuade just three Justices?" The ruling stems from the case of Hrach Shilgevorkyan, who was pulled over for speeding and making unsafe lane changes. The driver admitted to smoking "some weed" the night before and volunteered to take a blood test, which revealed the presence of Carboxy-THC. He was charged with driving with an illegal drug or metabolite in his body. A judge threw out the charges. The Arizona Supreme Court concluded in Tuesday's ruling that interpreting the law so that any byproduct of cannabis proves impairment "leads to absurd results." "Most notably, this interpretation would create criminal liability regardless of how long the metabolite remains in the driver's system or whether it has any impairing effect," the Supreme Court's ruling said. "For example, at oral argument the State acknowledged that, under its reading of the statute, if a metabolite could be detected five years after ingesting a proscribed drug, a driver who tested positive for trace elements of a non-impairing substance could be prosecuted." Additionally, the court wrote, "this interpretation would criminalize otherwise legal conduct." Here is a link to the Arizona Supreme Court ruling on this: http://archive.azcentral.com/ic/pdf/arizona-court-marijuana-ruling.pdf
Arizona Supreme Court bars DUI blood tests without warrantArizona Supreme Court bars DUI blood tests without warrant Arizona Supreme Court bars DUI blood tests without warrant May 31, 2013 5:00 am • HOWARD FISCHER Capitol Media Services PHOENIX -- Police cannot use the state's traffic laws to draw blood from suspected drunk drivers without a warrant absent their specific permission at the time of the test, the Arizona Supreme Court ruled Thursday. In a unanimous decision, the justices rejected the contention by the Pima County Attorney's Office that all Arizona motorists give "implied consent" to having blood, breath or urine tests as a condition to be licensed to drive. They said that means, absent a clear -- and voluntary -- consent immediately prior to the blood draw, it is an illegal search without a warrant. In a wide-ranging ruling, the high court also said that the ability of juveniles to give that voluntary consent is not absolute -- and not the same as an adult. Justice Scott Bales, writing for the court, said a trial judge must consider all the factors, including the age of the suspect and the failure to notify parents. But the justices refused to rule that the absence of a juvenile's parents automatically means any consent is not voluntary. Thursday's ruling most immediately means that charges of driving under the influence of drugs will be dropped against the youth, identified in court records only as Tyler B. because he was 16 at the time of the arrest. But he is not out of the legal woods yet. Deputy County Attorney Nicolette Kneut said Tyler, who has since turned 18, still faces charges of possession of marijuana and possession of drug paraphernalia in justice court as an adult. Pima County Attorney Barbara LaWall said Thursday's ruling will complicate the job that police statewide are required to do. She said the high court has provided no guidance. "How is the officer supposed to know whether or not it's been an express consent," she said. "It just makes it really, really tough because there isn't any bright line." LaWall said the ruling means that her office will advise police to get a court-ordered warrant whenever possible before drawing blood, even when a motorist -- and now, especially a juvenile -- gives approval for a blood draw. That, she said, eliminates any possibility of having that consent later ruled involuntary. According to court records, Tyler and two friends arrived late to school. A school monitor smelled marijuana on the boys and also saw drug paraphernalia in Tyler's car. The boys were detained in separate rooms while sheriff's deputies were contacted. A deputy read Tyler his Miranda warnings against self-incrimination and the right to an attorney. But the court files said that Tyler, in the presence of several school officials, admitted he had driven his car to school after smoking marijuana and that he owned some of the paraphernalia in the car. When the deputy placed Tyler under arrested, the youth became agitated and was placed in handcuffs while the deputy retrieved a blood-draw kit from his car. On returning, he saw Tyler had calmed down and he removed the cuffs. He then read Tyler from the law which says that Arizona motorists must consent to blood or other tests and that refusal will result in automatic suspension of driving privileges. Tyler agreed verbally and in writing to the blood draw. But when the case went to court, Tyler argued his consent was not voluntary and that, as a minor, he lacked capacity to consent. When the court commissioner agreed and suppressed the evidence, the Supreme Court agreed to hear the case. Bales said the issue has never been decided in Arizona. Bales rejected arguments by prosecutors that "implied consent" law means there is no need to determine whether a consent at the time of the blood draw is voluntary. "A compelled blood draw, even when administered pursuant to (the implied consent law) is a search subject to the Fourth Amendment's constraints," he wrote for the court. "Such an invasion of bodily integrity implicates an individual's most personal and deep-rooted expectations of privacy." He said the law says only that an officer must ask a suspect to submit to the test -- and that if a person refuses, a warrant is needed and the suspect's licenses is suspended. Bales said a motorist can allow a warrantless search "provided the consent is voluntary." But that, he said has to be decided by a court based on all the circumstances, including the suspect's age -- and even whether a parent is present. In this case, Bales wrote, the court commissioner was correct in ruling that, based on the evidence she had, Tyler's consent was not voluntary. He said Tyler was detained for about two hours in a room in the presence of school officials and a deputy, without his parents. "Tyler initially was shaking and visibly nervous," Bales wrote, and placed in handcuffs until he calmed down. And he said that the law read to him about "implied consent" ended with the statement, "You are, therefore, required to submit to the specified tests." It was only then, Bales said, Tyler consented to the blood draw. Thursday's ruling drew a special comment from Justice John Pelander. He said his own review of the evidence leads him to believe Tyler did voluntarily consent. But Pelander said Arizona law requires he and the other justices not to reweigh the evidence but only to consider whether the court commissioner abused her discretion in suppressing the evidence.
Arizona high court: Pot metabolite doesn't prove DUI
Prop 203, which is Arizona's Medical Marijuana Act specificlly says the
police can NOT charge medical marijuana patients for the crime of DUI because
they have marijuana metabolites in their bodies.
Arizona high court: Pot metabolite doesn't prove DUI
The terrorist police have said f*ck that law. If we obey it we can't get any DUI convictions, and the police have been illegally arresting medical marijuana patients for DUI solely because they have marijuana metabolites in their bodies. This court ruling says that is a bunch of BS and must stop. I beleive this ruling also makes Arizona's law which says it is a crime to drive with any detectable amount of an illegel drug in your body unconstitutional too. I beleive the courts ruling says that for you to be arrested for DUI, you must actually be drunk or stoned. Arizona high court: Pot metabolite doesn't prove DUI Yvonne Wingett Sanchez, The Republic | azcentral.com 10:20 p.m. MST April 22, 2014 medical marijuana Motorists who have used marijuana cannot be charged with driving under the influence on that basis alone, even if some traces of the drug are detected in their blood, the state's top court ruled Tuesday. Arizona Supreme Court justices disagreed with the Maricopa County Attorney Office, which argued before the court in November, that drivers whose blood tests reveal the presence of an inactive marijuana metabolite known as Carboxy-THC can be prosecuted for driving while impaired. The court was unconvinced the mere presence of the metabolite, which can remain in the bloodstream for 30days, is valid evidence of impairment. The court wrote that marijuana users break the law if they drive while "impaired to the slightest degree" and if they are discovered with metabolites in their system that are known to impair. But, wrote Justice Robert Brutinel, drivers cannot be convicted "based merely on the presence of a non-impairing metabolite that may reflect the prior usage of marijuana." The opinion affects motorists who use marijuana illegally, as well as the estimated 40,000 people who participate in the state's medical-marijuana program. Those cardholders are legally allowed to ingest pot to treat ailments ranging form chronic pain to glaucoma, and many of those cardholders have argued that traces of metabolites do not prove impairment. Maricopa County Attorney Bill Montgomery said in a statement that the court had engaged in "interpretive jujitsu." The court should have asked the state Legislature to clarify whether it contemplated impairment based on the presence of a non-impairing metabolite, Montgomery wrote. "By acting as it has, our State Supreme Court contributes to citizen cynicism particularly when it involves the whys and wherefores of drafting and passing legislation," he wrote. "Why should citizens work through our republican form of government and petition their duly elected legislators for statutory change when they can take a shot at only having to persuade just three Justices?" The ruling stems from the case of Hrach Shilgevorkyan, who was pulled over for speeding and making unsafe lane changes. The driver admitted to smoking "some weed" the night before and volunteered to take a blood test, which revealed the presence of Carboxy-THC. He was charged with driving with an illegal drug or metabolite in his body. A judge threw out the charges. The Arizona Supreme Court concluded in Tuesday's ruling that interpreting the law so that any byproduct of cannabis proves impairment "leads to absurd results." "Most notably, this interpretation would create criminal liability regardless of how long the metabolite remains in the driver's system or whether it has any impairing effect," the Supreme Court's ruling said. "For example, at oral argument the State acknowledged that, under its reading of the statute, if a metabolite could be detected five years after ingesting a proscribed drug, a driver who tested positive for trace elements of a non-impairing substance could be prosecuted." Additionally, the court wrote, "this interpretation would criminalize otherwise legal conduct."
Here is a link to the Arizona Supreme Court ruling on this: http://archive.azcentral.com/ic/pdf/arizona-court-marijuana-ruling.pdf
Are People Really Trying to Drug Kids With Marijuana-Laced Halloween Candy? It's just another way for the cops to shovel anti-drug propaganda at us using "the children" card. Yea sure, people are going to spend $300+ an ounce to give kiddies marijuana laced Halloween candy. Maybe Bill Gates and Steve Jobs can afford expensive trick or treat candies like that, but none of my other personal friends can. In this article the folks at Reason Magazine did their job and documented that the police have been giving us this government propaganda for YEARS, but it hasn't happened. Not even ONCE. Let's face it the "War on Drugs" is just a jobs program for cops, and this article shows us the cops are always shoveling us a bunch of BS to justify that "War on Drugs" http://reason.com/archives/2014/10/20/you-got-your-weed-in-my-kids-trick-or-tr?n_play=5445605be4b0d1088a865d01 Are People Really Trying to Drug Kids With Marijuana-Laced Halloween Candy? Jacob Sullum | October 20, 2014 Last week the DPD posted a video in which Patrick Johnson, proprietor of Denver's Urban Dispensary, warns that "there's really no way to tell the difference between candy that's infused and candy that's not infused" once the products have been removed from their original packages. The video illustrates Johnson's point with images of innocuous-looking gummy bears and gumdrops. He advises parents to inspect their kids' Halloween haul and discard anything that looks unfamiliar or seems to have been tampered with. Det. Aaron Kafer of the DPD's Marijuana Unit amplifies that message in an "Ask the Expert" podcast, saying "there's a ton of edible stuff that's out there on the market that's infused with marijuana that could be a big problem for your child." Noting that "all marijuana edibles have to be labeled," Kafer recommends that parents make sure their kids "avoid and not consume anything that is out of the package." CNN turned these warnings into a widely carried story headlined "Tricks, Treats and THC Fears in Colorado." According to CNN, "Colorado parents have a new fear to factor in this Halloween: a very adult treat ending up in their kids' candy bags." Actually, this fear is not so new. For years law enforcement officials have been warning parents to be on the lookout for marijuana edibles in their kids' trick-or-treat sacks. And for years, as far as I can tell, there has not been a single documented case in which someone has tried to get kids high by doling out THC-tainted treats disguised as ordinary candy. Since 1996, the year that California became the first state to legalize marijuana for medical use, the newspapers and wire services covered by the Nexis database have not carried any reports of such trickery, although they have carried more than a few articles in which people worry about the possibility. After the Drug Enforcement Administration (DEA) raided a San Francisco manufacturer of marijuana edibles in September 2007, for instance, the agency claimed it was protecting children, especially the ones who dress up in costumes and go begging for candy on October 31. "Kids and parents need to be careful in case kids get ahold of this candy," said Javier Pena, special agent in charge of the DEA's San Francisco office. "Halloween is coming up." According to the Contra Costa Times, medical marijuana advocates "dismissed Pena's Halloween reference as an 'absurd' attempt at 'pure publicity.'" A similar motive could be discerned three years later, when the Los Angeles County Sheriff's Department "warned parents to be on the lookout for marijuana-laced candy, soda, freezer pops and other edibles that could be handed out on Halloween," as the City News Service put it. "You really can't tell the difference," said Capt. Ralph Ornelas of the department's Narcotics Bureau. "We felt obligated to share this information with the parents and the community." As critics noted, Ornelas felt obligated to share this information just four days before voters decided the fate of Proposition 19, a marijuana legalization initiative opposed by his boss, Sheriff Lee Baca. State officials also have been known to use Halloween as an excuse to remind people that drugs are bad. In 2008 Florida Attorney General Bill McCollum warned that "federal and state law enforcement agencies have reported that flavored drugs, particularly methamphetamines, heroin and marijuana, are circulating throughout the United States and could be ingested by unsuspecting children." He advised parents to "check their children's candy for anything which may resemble one of these new drug forms." McCollum gets extra credit for mentioning candy-flavored meth, an apparently apocryphal threat that the DEA was never able to confirm. Sometimes drug warriors play the Halloween card just because it's there. Last October, after campus police seized 40 pounds of marijuana-infused candy at West Chester State University in Pennsylvania, the Associated Press reported that Chester County Deputy District Attorney Patrick Carmody "says there's no indication students planned to distribute the candy to children for Halloween." Rather, "Authorities believe the candy was meant to be shared and sold among university students." Carmody still could not resist. "With Halloween just around the corner," he said, "the last thing we want to see is drug-laced candy hitting the streets." Reporters do not necessarily need prodding from law enforcement officials to draw this connection, based purely on temporal coincidence. In October 2012, Buffalo police raided a college party and seized 640 pot-infused lollipops that had been shipped from California. Here is how the A.P. story began: "Just in time for Halloween…" A year later, KYTV, the NBC station in Springfield, Missouri, reported that police had intercepted a package of cannabis candy mailed from Colorado to Joplin. "Halloween is just around the corner," KYTV noted, adding that "the sheriff wants everyone to know that candy like these lemon drops are being circulated throughout the area, a safety concern for kids." To ratchet up that fear, the station quoted a random mother of three. "I hope it was never intended to give to kids or to harm children," she said, "but it is scary, especially with Halloween coming up, that they might be in contact with something like that, so it's frightening." The prospect of seemingly friendly folks slipping your kids cannabis candy on Halloween is a bit less frightening when you realize how little evidence there is that anyone wants to do that. With marijuana edibles selling for much more than the regular candy you can get by the bagful at Walmart, it would be a pretty pricey prank. So far it does not seem that anyone has been tempted to play it. Dispensaries have been selling marijuana edibles for years in Colorado, where medical use of cannabis has been legal since 2001. Yet Michael Elliott, executive director of Colorado's Marijuana Industry Group, says he is not aware of any incidents where edibles have been surreptitiously distributed to trick-or-treaters in that state or any of the 22 others that allow medical use. "We don't have any cases of it," confirms Ron Hackett, a spokesman for the Denver Police Department. Nor does he know of any such cases in other jurisdictions. "This is our first year with [recreational] edibles, and we just kind of wanted to put it out there as a reminder," Hackett says. "It's just something that we really wanted to get out there and get ahead of, because kids will eat anything." A blogger at Ladybud, a "women's lifestyle publication with a focus on activism specific to Drug War reform and other socially progressive issues," detects a more sinister agenda. "This is just another way for those who most benefit from marijuana prohibition to try to convince the public that prohibition protects children," she writes. "The real message here is that the average citizen should be wary of cannabis users; they might want to drug your kids and get them 'hooked' too." She has a point, although one should not discount the perennial appeal of urban legends about children in peril, especially the sort of unconfirmed yet scary tales that led many parents to anxiously examine their kids' Halloween treats long before marijuana edibles were openly sold in stores. If you worry that malicious strangers are sticking needles into chocolate bars or dosing caramel apples with poison, you probably will also worry that they are passing off expensive marijuana edibles as dime store candy—just for kicks. There is a cost to such bogeyman stories, and it goes beyond needlessly discarded candy. These rumors portray the world as a darker, more dangerous place than it really is, which is probably not conducive to a happy childhood or a successful adulthood. At the same time, the credence that public officials lend to such fanciful fears makes any reasonably skeptical person doubt other warnings from the same authorities, an unfortunate result when those warnings happen to be accurate and useful. I assume that happens from time to time, although no examples spring to mind. This article originally appeared at Forbes.com. ** Jacob Sullum is a senior editor at Reason magazine and a nationally syndicated columnist. Follow Jacob Sullum on Twitter
We the "People" own these national parks and our government masters are charging us to use them and enter them??? F*ck those crooks!!!!! http://www.mercurynews.com/science/ci_26763984/yosemite-entrance-fee-could-rise-by-50-percent Yosemite entrance fee could rise by 50 percent By Paul Rogers progers@mercurynews.com Posted: 10/20/2014 01:09:43 PM PDT Yosemite National Park is known for its waterfalls, huge granite walls and stunning peaks. The views may be priceless, but the cost of getting in could be going up. On Monday, Yosemite officials announced plans to raise the park entrance fee from $20 to $30 per car, saying they need the money to pay for restoration and maintenance projects in the park. The 50 percent increase, which would take effect Jan. 1, is part of a new Obama administration proposal to raise fees at 130 of America's 401 national parks. Yosemite would join Grand Canyon, Yellowstone, Glacier and six other high-profile parks as the most expensive in the United States. The last time Yosemite's entrance fee was raised was in 1997, when it jumped from $5 per car to $20. Adjusted for inflation, that $20 today is equal to $29.64, Yosemite officials note, adding that each entrance fee is good for seven days. "In a lot of ways, this $30 increase is basically keeping up with inflation and will enable us to pave the roads, maintain the trails and do special projects," said Yosemite spokesman Scott Gediman. Park superintendent Don Neubacher may ask National Park Service Director Jon Jarvis to abandon the fee increase, however, if public outcry is too great. That's what happened in 2007, when the Bush administration proposed raising Yosemite's entrance rate to $25 but backed off after a major pushback from business leaders, some political leaders and members of the public, who worried that increasing the fees makes the park less affordable and drives down visitation rates. U.S. Rep. Tom McClintock, R-Granite Bay, whose district includes the park, called the price hike "a huge mistake." "Raising fees in a stagnant economy makes as much sense as a shopkeeper raising prices in a sales slump," McClintock said Monday. "Contrary to assertions by park managers, tourists don't go where they're not welcomed, and the national parks compete for tourism with a vast array of other destinations." McClintock said Yosemite should raise money instead by increasing recreational opportunities in the park. Meanwhile, tourism officials in counties surrounding the park are watching the issue closely, particularly since the massive Rim Fire last year hurt business. "For the most part, people believe that even at $30 a car, it is a great value," said Nanci Sikes, executive director of the Tuolumne County Visitors Bureau. "But it would be nice if it was phased in, maybe going from $20 to $25, and then in a few more years to $30. That would be preferred. No one wants an increase. There's never a good time for this." The current entrance fees raise about $14 million a year for the park. That would rise by about $5 million with the increase, parks officials estimate. Other California parks also will see fee increases under the proposal, which was first shared by Jarvis with national parks managers in an August memo but has not been highlighted in a significant way by the Obama administration. Among the entrance fee increases: Death Valley would go from $20 to $25. Joshua Tree would go from $15 to $25. Pinnacles would go from $10 to $20. Sequoia/Kings Canyon would go from $20 to $30. Golden Gate National Recreation Area would remain free. In 1996, the year before Yosemite raised its entrance fee, 4.1 million people visited the park. Ten years later, that number had fallen roughly 15 percent to 3.5 million, and in 2013, it was 3.7 million, still below the peak. Gediman said that a number of other factors, including a major flood in 1997, the Sept. 11 terrorist attacks and the 2008 recession all contributed to reducing tourism. "We don't think $30 will affect visitation," he said. "We think that $30 for seven days is still a very good value." Yosemite also is proposing to raise camping fees, from $20 per night for car camping in Yosemite Valley to $24 a night. The park's annual pass would increase from $40 to $60. And the current rate of $10 per walk-in or motorcycle visitor would increase to $15 for an individual and $25 per motorcycle. Interagency passes, which are used at national forests and other federal lands, are not affected by the proposed fee increase and will remain at $80 for the regular pass, $10 for the senior pass and free for the access and military passes. A 30-day public engagement period on the Yosemite fee increase is open through Nov. 20. The public can comment by sending an email to yose_planning@nps.gov or by sending a letter to: Superintendent, Attention Proposed Fee Increase, P.O. Box 577, Yosemite, CA 95389. The public is also invited to an open house from 2 to 4 p.m. Nov. 12 at the Yosemite Valley Auditorium, located behind the Yosemite Valley Visitor Center. Paul Rogers covers resources and environmental issues. Contact him at 408-920-5045. Follow him at Twitter.com/PaulRogersSJMN PARK FEES GOING UP? The National Park Service is proposing raising park entrance fees on Jan. 1.Yosemite National Park would go from $20 to $30 Death Valley would go from $20 to $25 Joshua Tree would go from $15 to $25 Pinnacles would go from $10 to $20 Sequoia/Kings Canyon would go from $20 to $30 Golden Gate National Recreation Area would remain free
http://eastvalleytribune.com/columns/east_valley_voices/article_f4daa76a-565f-11e4-9b20-4fe0f2c9d4cc.html Patterson: Politicians pull wool over our eyes on Phoenix pension, county health propositions East Valley resident Tom Patterson (pattersontomc@cox.net) is a retired physician and former state senator. Posted: Tuesday, October 21, 2014 5:00 am Guest Commentary by Tom Patterson It’s not news when politicians try to get into our wallets. But this year, both the city of Phoenix and Maricopa Integrated Health System (MIHS) have crossed the decency line in their efforts to keep our money flowing their direction. The city of Phoenix pension system is spiraling out of control. Over time, the “negotiations” between the unions and the City Council politicians they helped elect have produced pension benefits for city employees that the average taxpayer could only dream about. There are consequences. The retirement plan cost Phoenix taxpayers $28 million in 2000, $110 million in 2012 and a whopping $253 million in 2013. But even that wasn’t enough. The city’s own report showed that the plan was only 56 percent funded in 2013, down from 73 percent in 2009. The Pension Reform Act on the ballot would help restore fiscal sanity. It would end the illegal practice of “pension spiking,” which permits employees to artificially inflate their salaries before retirement to permanently jack up their benefits. It transitions new employees into a defined contribution plan. It would also eliminate “deferred compensation payments” paid in addition to pension benefits. The unions and their City Hall buddies hate it, of course. The real killer is the defined contribution 401(k) style plan. Sure, most workers don’t want to give up the prospect of retiring early with a $100,000 pension like a librarian recently did, but the real objection is that it takes the unions and the politicians out of the retirement picture. Union lobbyists spend enormous amounts of time negotiating pension benefits and their newsletters to members are full of the latest on how they are “fighting to protect your pension rights.” In the new plan, workers would own hard assets, not unfunded promises to pay, and wouldn’t really care that much about what the union and politicians thought about it. Here’s where it gets despicable. The City Council, legally bound to neutrality, approved a description that will appear on the ballot that is wildly inaccurate. It states that Prop. 487 would “eliminate participation in the current retirement plan” when the fact is that every single current employee would stay in their plan if they want to. Worse, the ballot language states that “City contributions” would be prohibited to “the police officer and firefighter retirement assistance” when the clear language of the proposition specifically excludes public safety officers. That’s not all. The council also claimed that eliminating deferred compensation wouldn’t save money because the unions would just get something else in exchange. Given they would be dealing with their sock puppets on the City Council, it just may be true. But it’s still a deceitful legal analysis of the proposition itself. I guess the best you can say for the City Council (except for Sal DiCiccio and Jim Waring) is that when they get bought, they stay bought. Meanwhile, the folks down at MIHS have determined they need $160 million to replace their hospital with a smaller one and to upgrade their health clinics and medical services. It’s a tough sell and they know it. Their main problem is that a county health system is no longer how indigent health care is provided. For better or worse, Medicaid provides insurance so that the poor are cared for by the same private providers that serve the rest of us. Health care executives recently affirmed that the private sector is well able to care for the entire Medicaid population. That leaves the illegal immigrant population, not an attractive sell, as the main reason why MIHS is asking taxpayers to double their contribution to the system from $65 million to $130 million a year. Although campaigning is not allowed, two weeks after the board authorized the bond proposal, they also decided on a $570,000 ad campaign promoting the medical center and facilities affected by the bond. So taxpayers are paying to persuade themselves this bond makes sense, but that’s OK because there’s really “no connect with what’s happening in the November election,” according to a spokesman. We must look stupid. If you’re tired of the doublespeak and soft corruption, the best answer is to vote yes on Prop. 487 and no on 480.
http://www.azcentral.com/story/opinion/letters/2014/10/20/james-geiger-republic-letter-to-the-editor/17644085/ There's an alternative to 'lesser of 2 evils' James Geiger 7:22 a.m. MST October 21, 2014 I keep reading and hearing about the "two candidates" who are running for governor, that people are frustrated by having to vote for the "lesser of two evils" or settling for the "status quo. People, do your research! There are four candidates running for governor of Arizona. I have done my research and I assure you I won't be voting for the "lesser of two evils." I encourage the people of Arizona to research John Lewis Mealer. He is a breath of fresh air that we all need. My family and friends would agree. So enough is enough! If you're sick and tired of the way things are and the way they will continue to be, have the courage to think and vote outside of the corrupt box. Because if you don't, you have no right to complain and no one to blame but yourselves. Rest assured that the Republicans and Democrats care about two things, and two things only. The first is your vote. Once they have your vote, the only thing that they care about is their own self-interest. —James Geiger, Phoenix
http://www.azcentral.com/story/robertrobb/2014/10/20/legislative-hypocrisy-on-hospital-bond/17635305/ Legislative hypocrisy on hospital bond Robert Robb, columnist | azcentral.com 3:42 p.m. MST October 20, 2014 A group of 27 Republican legislators recently issued a statement opposing Proposition 480, the Maricopa County hospital district bond proposal. The opposition was grounded in the claim that "we are taxed enough already." Now, I've opined that the bond proposal, $1.6 billion including principal and interest, is probably too big an ask. And that's in part because it would roughly double what county taxpayers are paying for the system, from $65 million a year to $130 million. But for legislators to be complaining about the taxes in Prop. 480 is more than a little cheeky. They are entirely responsible for the current $65 million tab. The federal government gives the state a hunk of money to pay for the indigent patients the county system serves who aren't eligible for Medicaid. No one officially uses the term, but it is primarily to help cover the cost of caring for the illegal immigrant population. Rather than give all this money to the county hospital district, the state keeps $57 million of it as general fund revenue. Why? Because it can. The county hospital district also spends about $11 million in medical training programs. By rights, that should also be an obligation of the state's general fund. If the state were passing on all the so-called disproportionate share money and picking up the cost of educating docs, the current county system could be operated without any subsidy from Maricopa County taxpayers at all. In other words, Maricopa County taxpayers aren't really paying $65 million a year to support the hospital district. They are actually paying a special, and highly unfair, property tax to support the state's general fund. If Maricopa County property taxpayers "are already taxed enough already," legislators are a perpetrator, not a victim. Reach Robb at robert.robb@arizonarepublic.com. Follow him on Twitter at @RJRobb.
Texas police officer lies about murdering dog??? http://www.azcentral.com/story/news/nation/2014/10/20/officer-shoots-dog-video-investigation/17614935/ Video of officer shooting dog sparks investigation Lauren Zakalik, WFAA-TV, Dallas 10:02 a.m. MST October 20, 2014 CLEBURNE, Texas — Amanda Henderson and her husband have three dogs. They used to have one more, until he was shot by Cleburne police. "I see a murder," Henderson said. "I see him murdering my puppy, our family ... our dog." It was August when police responded to a report of Henderson's pit bulls aggressively roaming the neighborhood. They had escaped from her fenced-in back yard. One was captured nearly immediately. A police report says when an officer located the other two, they were friendly at first and wagging their tails, until 7-month-old Maximus started growling and coming towards the officer. The officer then shot him. The story didn't make sense to Henderson, because she says Max was so friendly. So she requested the video from the lapel camera worn by the officer. What she saw horrified her. "Never once did Max stop wagging his tail. Never once do you hear a growl, an aggressive anything," Henderson said. Cleburne police are now investigating, but say the short video clip of the dog being shot doesn't tell the whole story. "The city is obviously concerned about the video showing an officer shooting a dog," said police spokeswoman Kelly Summey. A statement Summey provided said the dog was indeed being aggressive before he was shot. But Henderson said no amount of video will make what happened right. "This officer should not have done that, and he knows better," she said. "You didn't give this puppy a chance. He's alive, as much as you are." Summey wouldn't tell News 8 if the officer in question is on leave during the investigation, or how long the investigation will take. Summey also didn't know how many dogs have been fatally shot by police in Cleburne in recent years.
I wouldn't doubt it if the owners and managers of GT Advanced Technologies intentionally accepted millions of dollars in corporate welfare from the government, and that once they got the cold hard cash in their hands intentionally bankrupted the company so they could take the money and run. If that's true, the real criminals are our government rulers in the Federal government and the Arizona government who gave them millions of dollars in government handouts. http://www.azcentral.com/story/news/local/mesa/2014/10/21/mesa-womans-dream-job-apple-factory-lasts-one-day/17648539/ Mesa woman's dream job at Apple factory lasts one day Hundreds of employees will likely be laid off Parker Leavitt, The Republic | azcentral.com 7:03 a.m. MST October 21, 2014 From the upbeat atmosphere to the lucrative salary, Mary Arave was certain she had found her dream job as a cost accountant at an Apple supplier's high-tech factory in Mesa. The people at GT Advanced Technologies were so nice, as was the massive building where the company was to manufacture ultra-hard sapphire glass for Apple products like iPhones. The huge corridors were clean, and the cafeteria looked tasty. Employees seemed genuinely happy. For the 66-year-old working widow, the dream lasted just 8.5 hours. Arave's first day at work for GT on Oct. 6 was also her last day, as the New Hampshire-based company unexpectedly declared bankruptcy and announced plans to shutter the 1.3 million-square-foot factory. The mass layoff is putting hundreds of people out of work, but few employees — if any — had a shorter stint at the GT plant than Arave, who is working to secure a retirement she never saved for. After 30 years as a bookkeeper, the Mesa woman went back to school in 2000 to earn a bachelor's degree in finance, later adding a master's degree in computer information systems. She was working for a small firm in Scottsdale when a "head hunter" came calling earlier this year. Arave interviewed for a contract position with GT in September and eagerly accepted a six-month assignment, hoping to win a permanent job. GT offered to pay her nearly double what she had been earning. "It was a dream job," Arave said. "I can tell when I go into a place whether it's going to be great. I was really excited." Around 10 a.m. Oct. 6, Arave pulled into the parking lot at GT's factory near Signal Butte and Elliot roads in southeast Mesa for her first day as a cost accountant, passing through high security on the way to meet her new boss. Strolling through the front offices, Arave noticed a diverse dress code among her co-workers — ranging from a dress and five-inch spike heels to a t-shirt, jeans and sneakers. She would be sure to dress casually when she came back to work, Arave thought. It was in a conference room that morning when she first heard about the bankruptcy, which GT had revealed publicly about three hours earlier. The news, which had apparently caught GT employees by surprise, had set the place abuzz, Arave said. "I was concerned when she told me, because I thought, 'Well, there goes my job,'" Arave said. Oddly enough, things remained normal through the rest of the new-employee orientation. Arave enthusiastically accepted a GT security badge, laptop and safety equipment to wear during a tour of the sapphire production center the next day. There were plenty of hints at the factory's massive size. A floor layout depicted a sapphire furnace area that appeared to cover three-quarters of the building. Her manager recommended she wear comfortable shoes for the tour. "She told me I was going to get my exercise," Arave said. As an employee explained the process for growing, heating and cutting the sapphire, Arave scribbled the details in a notebook. When the workday neared an end, a controller asked to meet with Arave to discuss her first project, and the two set an appointment to meet again the next day. "When I left, they all said, 'See you tomorrow,'" Arave said. She hopped into her car for what figured to be the first of many evening commutes to her east Mesa home about 15 minutes away. One phone call brought Arave's dream crashing down faster than GT's stock price, which had dropped from $17 a share on Sept. 8 to about $12 a share one week later. The head-hunting company that helped Arave secure the GT job delivered a shocking message: Don't go back to work. "I said I had a meeting with the controller the next day, and she said, 'No, you don't,'" Arave said. GT in an e-mail had said all contract employees were out of a job immediately, Arave said. Officially, GT has said it is laying off 524 production workers, 108 technical positions, 70 management jobs and 25 administrative jobs. It is unclear if that included contract employees, and the company did not respond to a request for comment. After recovering from her initial thought — "Oh, poop." — Arave began reaching out to contacts at employment agencies in search of something new. She has since interviewed for two accounting positions elsewhere and believes she has an offer she'll accept. "I have to have something to pay the bills because I didn't make wise decisions when I was young," Arave said. "And I get stir crazy." Arave still has the hard hat and glasses from her first day at GT, although she never did get the full tour. And she hasn't been back to get the two items she left in what should have been her cubicle: a notebook and a pencil.
I don't like U.S. Rep. Kyrsten Sinema because she 1) tried to flush Prop 203 which is Arizona's Medical Marijuana Act by attempting to slap a 300% tax on medical marijuana. That tax would have been a $900 an ounce tax on medical marijuana which currently costs around $300 an ounce and would have raises the cost of medical marijuana from $300 an ounce to $1,200 an ounce. and 2) While she claims to support the little guy her voting record show she supports the police state and military industrial complex. So I am kind of unhappy that her opponent Wendy Rogers is self destruction mode. Sure Wendy Rogers is a nut job war monger, but she hasn't screwed us yet, like U.S. Rep. Kyrsten Sinema. And for that matter U.S. Rep. Kyrsten Sinema votes like a nut job war monger. So I personally I think Wendy Rogers is the lessor of the two evils and that we should boot U.S. Rep. Kyrsten Sinema out of office. http://www.azcentral.com/story/news/arizona/politics/2014/10/20/sinema-challenger-rogers-dodges-debate/17640481/ Sinema challenger Rogers dodges debate Rebekah L. Sanders, The Republic | azcentral.com 10:51 p.m. MST October 20, 2014 Republican Wendy Rogers, who has attacked U.S. Rep. Kyrsten Sinema for more than a year in appearances before friendly conservative crowds, refused to face her Democratic opponent Monday in the only scheduled debate of the race. Her campaign spokesman said Rogers declined to participate because she didn't consider the event "a real debate." Sinema faced off with long-shot Libertarian Powell Gammill on the public-television news show "Horizon." "Wendy is not afraid," spokesman James Harris said. "This candidate forum is not a debate. Typically, a debate is something hosted by multiple news organizations, with rules discussed in advance with both major-party candidates. That never happened, and we do not feel this would be a real debate. As a result, Wendy has chosen to spend the time talking to actual voters." Most debates are, in fact, hosted by one organization or media outlet. The rules for the debate were the same as this summer's meeting between Rogers and her Republican primary challenger on "Horizon." The Rogers campaign had ample time to ask for changes to the rules, said Mike Sauceda, "Horizon" executive producer. The staff of the show reached out weekly to Rogers' campaign and delayed the debate until the last opportunity in order to secure her participation, he said. Rogers also did not appear last month with Sinema at an endorsement meeting with The Arizona Republic editorial board. Harris said the board was too supportive of Sinema and was not "neutral." The board endorsed Sinema. Rogers' dodge comes as the race has drifted from a toss-up to favoring Sinema. Republicans had hoped to pick up the seat. Sinema, a congressional freshman, is a formidable debater with years of experience in the state Legislature and the advantage of name recognition as an incumbent. She has raised three times as much campaign cash as Rogers and has earned bipartisan support, including from the U.S. Chamber of Commerce. Although the Tempe-based 9th Congressional District is nearly evenly split among Democratic, Republican and independent voters, political observers expect it to trend more liberal than Arizona's two other competitive House districts. As a result, outside groups have shifted money away from the 9th District to the 1st and 2nd districts, where Democratic Reps. Ann Kirkpatrick and Ron Barber appear to be more vulnerable. Rogers has run for office twice unsuccessfully. She retired from the Air Force after 20 years and runs a home-inspection business. Harris, the campaign spokesman, said Rogers is spending time in other ways: talking to voters about national defense and granting interviews to media outlets such as National Public Radio, which went along for a bike ride recently with the candidate to knock on doors. "I've been surprised there's been no formal debate," Harris said. He pointed out that Sinema has missed at least one previous debate. Sinema in 2012 skipped a "Horizon"showdown with two Democratic primary candidates. Harris added that Sinema turned down a debate moderated by Shane Krauser of the American Academy for Constitutional Education. However, that event would not fit Harris' definition of a neutral and media-sponsored debate. Krauser is a Republican "tea party" activist. The Rogers campaign touted the event on Facebook as "our event" and boasted about recruiting volunteers. Megan Cagle, a campaign spokeswoman for Sinema, said the congresswoman believes debates are an important way for voters to learn about candidates' values and priorities. "(Sinema) accepts debate invitations from impartial groups and moderators," Cagle said. "However, as Shane Krauser is a supporter of Ms. Rogers' campaign, we were unable to accept their request."
Brewer fires agency head who exposed wrongdoing I don't know if Brian McNeil is a scum bag criminal who was fired for doing something wrong, or if he was a good guy who was fired for exposing government corruption. Most of the people that work for the governor can be fired for no reason. http://www.azcentral.com/story/news/arizona/politics/2014/10/20/arizona-governor-brewer-fires-official-investigation/17637509/ Brewer fires agency head who exposed wrongdoing Craig Harris and Yvonne Wingett Sanchez, The Republic | azcentral.com 4:57 p.m. MST October 20, 2014 Gov. Jan Brewer has fired Brian McNeil, the straight-shooting military man who led the Arizona Department of Administration and exposed wrongdoing within her administration. The reason for his firing has not been disclosed, and McNeil could not be reached for comment. Andrew Wilder, Brewer's spokesman, on Monday confirmed McNeil's termination, but said there would be no further comment because it was a personnel matter. Kathy Peckardt, Brewer's deputy chief of staff, sent an e-mail marked "high" importance around 10 a.m. Monday to Department of Administration employees explaining that he no longer was with the agency. The e-mail also did not explain McNeil's departure. As a department head, McNeil served at Brewer's pleasure. Peckardt said in her e-mail that Brewer has asked her to serve as interim ADOA chief until the next governor appoints a permanent director. A new governor will be seated in January. Peckardt is a long-time ADOA employee, most recently serving as state human resources director under McNeil. She was integral in implementing Brewer's personnel-reform legislation in 2012. McNeil, who serves in the U.S. Army Reserve, expected state employees to live and work by high standards, but often found himself at odds with Brewer and her chief of staff for investigating and cleaning up messes in Brewer's administration. For example, McNeil's office last year investigated Jesse Hernandez, the ex-chairman and director of the state Board of Executive Clemency. McNeil found nine cases of inappropriate behavior. The offenses included Hernandez promoting an unqualified female employee he was dating and giving her a $21,340 pay raise. Hernandez, a Republican political operative appointed by Brewer, had no experience in corrections or criminal justice. He eventually resigned following McNeil's investigation. McNeil's office earlier this year also investigated Arizona State Parks Director Bryan Martyn after Martyn hired his three sons to work for the agency. Martyn initially was hired by the Parks Board. He had no prior parks experience and was a political friend of Brewer's. He was working at her pleasure when the investigation occurred. The ADOA investigation resulted in Martyn being suspended for two weeks without pay, costing him $5,229.80 in gross earnings. Former ADOA Chief Human Resources Officer DiAnne Baune, who advised the parks department on personnel issues, resigned in the wake of the investigation and later retired. Martyn remains at the agency. This summer, McNeil forced the retirement of Public Safety Personnel Retirement System Administrator Jim Hacking, after The Republic uncovered — and ADOA confirmed — that Hacking gave illegal pay raises to his staff. Brian Tobin, the PSPRS chairman, allowed Hacking to retire and receive a severance of roughly $107,250, and an annual pension of roughly $86,704. Tobin, brother of House Speaker Andy Tobin, and the other six current PSPRS board members are Brewer appointees. According to a state biography, McNeil became ADOA director on Nov. 1, 2012, following a brief stint as a lobbyist with Public Policy Partners. Prior to that, he was Brewer's deputy chief of staff. McNeil was executive director of the Arizona Corporation Commission from 1999 to 2009. He also served as deputy director for the state Department of Health Services and was a policy adviser for Gov. Fife Symington. McNeil served in the U.S. military and remains a member of the U.S. Army Reserve. He has had two deployments to Iraq. McNeil also served on the Board of Investment of the state Treasurer's Office, and the board of the Arizona State Retirement System.
A perfect example of a government welfare program for drug testing companies. "Total Transit, the parent company of Discount Cab, has become Arizona's first and only company to provide an app-based ride-share service that also meets state requirements ... drug and alcohol screenings" I think it was about 2 years ago the state of Arizona passed a law requiring all new cab drivers to take a drug test. Plus existing drivers are required to take random drug tests. I think either way the cab drivers or the company have to pay about $100 for the test. The real kicker is it doesn't matter if the drivers flunk the drug test, they can still work as a cab driver. Bottom like this new law is just a government welfare program for companies that give drug tests. According to a 2nd article I attached there are 13,000 cab drivers in Arizona that will be required to take the test. At about $100 for each test, that should generate $1,300,000 in revenue for drug testing companies. Sounds a lot like the government welfare program that many people suspect Andrew Myers wants to create giving medical marijuana dispensaries a government monopoly on growing and selling medical and recreational marijuana. http://www.azcentral.com/story/news/local/arizona/2014/10/21/uber-lyft-arizona-cab-company-total-transit/17648803/ Uber, Lyft to see competition from Arizona company Total Transit Michelle Ye Hee Lee, The Republic | azcentral.com 12:06 a.m. MST October 21, 2014 There's a new ride-sharing competitor in town, and it's probably not who you expected. This new peer-to-peer transportation service works just like the Uber and Lyft models most Arizona consumers are familiar with. You open the smart-phone app and request the ride. A driver, who likely works part-time while driving a personal vehicle, accepts the request. The driver's name, photo, and vehicle make and model pop up on your screen. You keep up with the driver's route and estimated arrival time through a GPS-based map. After your ride, you're given an invoice through the app. You click a button to pay, using the credit card information you had entered. Then you rate the driver based on your experience. It's the innovative format that ride-sharing companies have touted, the same one they use as a contrast to traditional cab companies. But now, one of Arizona's traditional cab companies has adopted the same technology. The "If you can't beat 'em, join 'em" move could reshape the debate over whether and how to regulate ride-sharing — especially if the new service gains enough traction to compete with the demand for Uber or Lyft. Total Transit, the parent company of Discount Cab, has become Arizona's first and only company to provide an app-based ride-share service that also meets state requirements for background checks, drug and alcohol screenings, and commercial insurance. The new service, simply called "RideShare," was rolled out over the past few weeks and officially announced Monday. There are only a handful of ride-share drivers for now, but the company will hold a recruitment event Thursday for more. The free app is available for Apple and Android smart phones. It's relatively new for cab companies to offer ride-share services that so closely emulate models of companies like Uber and Lyft. Observers of the ride-share debate predicted cab companies would begin to adopt similar technologies to compete. Yellow Cab in Pittsburgh recently developed a similar app, Yellow Z, modeling it after Uber and Lyft. "This is an industry that's traditionally not had a whole lot of technology disruption and innovation," said Josh Komenda, CEO of 2pointb, the transportation technology developer that powers Total Transit's app. "While some may see the competition getting more intense, we think this is the dawn of a new era for new transportation models." Komenda said 2pointb is working with cab companies in other cities, including Dallas, to develop similar ride-sharing technology. "Our big idea is to work with operators that are focused on delivering a safer and more mature, a more responsible version of transportation. We want to participate in exciting models and raise the bar in the technology experience," Komenda said. Taxi industry representatives argue that transportation-network companies offer the same service as they do — transporting a passenger from point A to point B for a fee. Yet Uber and Lyft drivers are not licensed as commercial, for-hire services through the state because the companies argue their business model is unique and does not fit the state's definition of commercial transportation services. That argument could soon be put to the test because a traditional cab company that meets the state's definition is now providing exactly the same ride-sharing service. Taxi companies say it's unfair to give a competitive advantage to Uber and Lyft, which technically are not required to buy commercial insurance and therefore have lower overhead costs. For that reason, a Total Transit's ride-share trip is expected to cost more than Uber or Lyft, though it's cheaper than Discount Cab by 50 cents per mile. On Monday, a 3.6-mile ride with Total Transit cost $13.55 with a 20 percent tip. (With the first-time user discount of 25 percent, the fare was reduced to $10.73. Uber and Lyft also offer first-ride discounts.) The return trip for a 3.75-mile rideover the same time period as the first ride on Uber cost $10.27, which included the Safe Rides Fee of $1. The fee is collected for safety-related costs, including background checks, vehicle safety checks, driver safety education, and more, according to the Uber website. The Uber fare typically includes a 20 percent tip. "Ridesharing is great. Technology is terrific. But darn it, insure your vehicle and protect the public — which is exactly what we're doing — and compete," said Mike Pinckard, Total Transit president. Uber and Lyft have operated in Arizona for over a year. State regulators consider them illegal operations, because they are not licensed as commercial services through the state. Those who want specialized regulations for companies like Uber and Lyft argue their business model is unique and does not fit the definition of commercial services. They also do not pick up street-hails like taxis do. Uber and Lyft conduct their own background checks and offer some insurance coverage for their drivers. Uber spokesman Michael Amodeo said in a written statement: "Innovation is more than just creating an app. This isn't innovation — it's the same old model of hidden fees, long wait times and unreliable service dressed up under the guise of technology. There's a simple reason why thousands of Arizonans continue to turn to Uber for safe, convenient and reliable rides — it works." Lyft representatives could not be reached Monday. State regulators welcomed Total Transit's new service. "We've always been supportive of drivers, livery, whatever you want to call yourself. ... Just be licensed, just be insured," said Shawn Marquez, director of Arizona Department of Weights & Measures, which has fought to apply Arizona's taxi requirements to transportation-network companies. Recruiting event Total Transit is recruiting drivers for its RideShare service. A recruitment event will be held 4 p.m. to 7 p.m. Thursday, Oct. 23, at Embassy Suites, 2630 E. Camelback Road, Phoenix. http://tucson.com/news/local/govt-and-politics/az-cab-limo-drivers-face-drug-testing/article_ea7f2b3e-4b91-53c6-9275-3cbfb52e7f61.html AZ cab, limo drivers face drug testing Random screenings will be required yearly under new state law MIKE CHRISTY / ARIZONA DAILY STAR May 11, 2013 12:00 am • Howard Fischer Capitol Media Services PHOENIX - For the first time, drivers of taxi cabs and limousines in Arizona will soon be subject to random drug testing. Gov. Jan Brewer signed legislation this week that will require those who own or lease out taxis and other vehicles for hire to screen applicants for drugs at the time they are hired or allowed to lease one of the vehicles. That is on top of an existing requirement for a criminal background check. And drivers also will be subject to random tests at least once a year. The measure takes effect later this year. Kevin Tyne, director of the Department of Weights and Measures, stressed this is not a new government program with the state going out and stopping drivers. Instead, he said it's designed to make the owners of the vehicles more responsible. But he said it is up to those owners to decide what to do with the test results: Nothing in the new law prohibits a company from hiring or refusing to fire a driver who tests positive. That mirrors the existing laws on background checks, with no prohibition against hiring certain felons. Still, Tyne said, this is a big step for Arizona. "Nearly every other jurisdiction that regulates and oversees and licenses 'for hire' vehicles like taxis and liveries and limousines has some sort of a basic drug-testing requirement," he said. "Arizona was noticeably absent in that regard." He said many people use taxis and limousines, both local residents and visitors. "Patrons ought to have some basic sense that the driver has at least been drug-tested," Tyne said. The legislation is unrelated to the incident a week ago where five people riding in a limousine south of San Francisco were killed in a fire. BY THE NUMBERS According to the Governor's Office, there are 6,449 "for hire" vehicles in Arizona. But the number of drivers is closer to 13,000.
Usually it's the other way around - the cops are illegally tapping our phones. Of course when police illegally tap or phones and violate our 4th and 5th Amendment rights they rarely get arrested and tried for the crime. And in the rare cases they are, they usually get no more than a slap on the wrist for punishment. Of course that's not true when us serfs do it to the government. Kristin Nyunt will probably get a draconian prison sentence for wiretapping her husband's phone, John Nyunt, who is a police officer with the Pacific Grove Police Department. http://www.mercurynews.com/crime-courts/ci_26762378/san-jose-woman-charged-using-spy-software-tap San Jose: Woman charged with using spy software to tap a police officer's phone Bay City News Service Posted: 10/20/2014 07:29:17 AM PDT1 Comment | SAN JOSE - A woman recently sentenced to state prison for identity theft was charged Friday in U.S. District Court in San Jose in the wiretapping of a police officer's phone and possessing illegal spyware, the U.S. Attorney's Office reported. Kristin Nyunt was charged with two counts of illegal wiretapping and possessing an illegal interception device while living in Monterey County from 2010 to 2012, U.S. Attorney Melinda Haag said. According to federal prosecutors, Nyunt intercepted communications, including sensitive law enforcement information, using "spy software" she allegedly installed on the mobile phone of a police officer. She is also charged with illegally having interception devices, including spy software brands such as Mobistealth, StealthGenie and mSpy, knowing that they were designed for surreptitious interception of wire, oral and electrical communications, prosecutors said. Last month, a judge in Monterey County Superior Court handed down a sentence of eight years and four months on Nyunt for multiple charges of identity theft, forgery and computer network fraud in a plot involving her husband, the Pacific Grove Police Department.John Nyunt, while he was a commander of The couple had created an unlicensed private detective company and customers who hired them later became victims of identity theft, county prosecutors said. In April, John Nyunt was convicted of threatening his wife with violence to prevent her from revealing the scheme and with burglary and other felony charges and sentenced to three years in state prison. On Sept. 29, the U.S. Department of Justice indicted Hammad Akbar, 31, a resident of Pakistan and chief executive of the firm InvoCode Pvt. Ltd., for allegedly creating StealthGenie to make it possible to intercept calls on Apple's iPhone, Google's Android and Blackberry mobile phones. Copyright © 2014 by Bay City News, Inc. ... Republication, re-transmission or reuse without the express written consent of Bay City News, Inc. is prohibited.
Facebook unfriends federal drug agency If you read the newspapers you will find that police officers are habitual liars and will routinely make up lies to help them arrest and convict people. And sadly there are a number of Supreme Court decisions that approve of police officers habitually lying to help the cops convict criminals. The thing that annoys me is if the Supreme Court approves of cops routinely lying when they are on the street trying to arrest criminals, isn't this going to tell the police that the Supreme Court also approves of them committing perjury and lying in court to convict anybody they suspect of being a criminal? Three days ago on Friday, October 17, 2014 at about 7:54 a.m. I was falsely arrested by a Chandler Police Officer. The first thing I told the pig was that I was taking the 5th Amendment and refusing to answer her questions. The crooked cop lied and told me that in this case I don't have any Fifth Amendment rights and that I had to answer her questions. And that happens just about EVERY time I am stopped by the police and take the 5th like I always do. http://www.washingtonpost.com/business/technology/facebook-warns-drug-agency-over-fake-profiles/2014/10/17/dd84fc2e-5640-11e4-b86d-184ac281388d_story.html?tid=hpModule_308f7142-9199-11e2-bdea-e32ad90da239&hpid=z16 Facebook unfriends federal drug agency By Associated Press October 17 WASHINGTON — Facebook wants assurances from the Drug Enforcement Administration that it’s not operating any more fake profile pages as part of ongoing investigations. Facebook’s chief security officer, Joe Sullivan, said in a letter Friday to DEA Administrator Michele Leonhart that law enforcement agencies need to follow the same rules about being truthful on Facebook as civilian users. Those rules include a ban on lying about who you are. Sullivan’s letter was in response to a New York woman’s federal lawsuit claiming that a DEA agent created a fake online persona using her name and photographs stored on her cellphone. In court filings, Sondra Arquiett said her pictures were retrieved from her cellphone after she was arrested in July 2010 on drug charges and her cellphone seized. Arquiett said the fake page was being used by DEA agent Timothy Sinnigen to interact with “dangerous individuals he was investigating.” Arquiett is asking for $250,000 in damages. “Facebook has long made clear that law enforcement authorities are subject to these policies,” Sullivan wrote. “We regard DEA’s conduct to be a knowing and serious breach of Facebook’s terms and policies.” Facebook also wants the DEA to confirm that it has stopped using any other fake profile pages it may have created. “The department has launched a review into the incident at issue in this case,” Justice Department spokesman Brian Fallon said in response to a request for comment. “That review is ongoing, but to our knowledge, this is not a widespread practice among our federal law enforcement agencies.” The Justice Department initially defended the practice, arguing in an August court filing that while Arquiett didn’t directly authorize Sinnigen to create the fake account, she “implicitly consented by granting access to the information stored in her cellphone and by consenting to the use of that information to aid in ... ongoing criminal investigations.” Last week the agency announced it would review whether the Facebook guise went too far. The case was scheduled to go to trial this week, but court records show it has been sent to mediation. ___ Follow Alicia A. Caldwell on Twitter at www.twitter.com/acaldwellap Copyright 2014 The Associated Press. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten or redistributed.
Rabbi accused of voyeurism pored over questions of sex and ethics More of the old "Do as I say, not as I do" from our religious leaders, government masters and police??? http://www.washingtonpost.com/local/rabbi-accused-of-voyeurism-pored-over-questions-of-sex-and-ethics/2014/10/17/4016516c-5623-11e4-892e-602188e70e9c_story.html?hpid=z12 Rabbi accused of voyeurism pored over questions of sex and ethics By Michelle Boorstein October 17 If Barry Freundel secretly violated sexual ethics, in public he pored over them. Allegations that the Georgetown rabbi hid a camera in a ritual bathing area have astonished people from Washington to Israel, in part because Freundel had positioned himself as an ethical beacon. The internationally known Orthodox rabbi served as spiritual guide to the likes of former U.S. senator Joseph I. Lieberman and Supreme Court expert Linda Greenhouse and proffered wisdom on a wide range of moral matters. Freundel’s writings, interviews and sermons, however, reveal that he appeared deeply worried about the dangerous overlap between sex and ethics, especially where it concerns technology. Technology, he told a 1999 congressional bioethics panel, is “value-neutral. You can use it for good, you can use it for bad; the concern is how you use it. Every technology is a tool given to us by God to improve the world, if we use it the right way.” Same with knowledge, he said. Jews “style ourselves the ‘People of the Book’ because we think knowledge is valuable. But are you using it ethically?” “The lack of sexual morality that pervades this society is all over the place, and the Orthodox community, no matter how traditional, is not immune from this,” he told Washington Jewish Week in a story last month about divorce among the Orthodox. “Pornography and its accessibility is wrecking marriages. It’s two keystrokes away. You get on the computer, you hit the button twice and you’re there.” This week, police charged the rabbi of Kesher Israel Congregation with voyeurism, saying he used a hidden camera to videotape women using a neighborhood mikvah. The mikvah is a large bath that observant Jews, mostly women, are required to immerse in at certain ritual times, such as conversion or marriage and after the menstrual cycle. On Thursday, police said they were expanding the investigation after finding additional computers and storage devices, including one with more than 100 deleted files — some labeled with women’s first names. Freundel’s community has been silent — beginning late Wednesday and continuing to sundown Saturday — because of the back-to-back Jewish holidays of Shmini Atzeret and Simchat Torah and then the weekly Sabbath. Orthodox Jews don’t use phones or computers or write on holy days. But much can be gleaned about Freundel’s approach to ethics from his sermons and articles. Approaching the subject like one might a scientific problem, he looked to the Jewish scriptures for references and to clear answers about right and wrong. “For me, the absence of objective, externally-created values would leave me struggling to find a glimmer of light in a world gone mad with darkness and lack of direction,” he wrote in a sermon titled “Why Tradition?” In the Sept. 17 Washington Jewish Week piece, he predicted Orthodoxy’s return. “Unless people really want to continue with the direction of where this world is sort of falling apart, I think the liberalism of the last few years is not working and I think that means that there’ll be a turn back,” he said. “Once there’s a turn back, people are going to look for rules, for structures.” Yet even as he emphasized the powerful, challenging world of ethics, Freundel seemed to keep the topic at emotional arm’s length. Congregants and students describe the beefy 62-year-old as erudite and removed. He never spoke about the topics in a personal way. “He was not warm and fuzzy,” said one woman whose conversion to Judaism Freundel guided and who was for a time a member of Kesher Israel. Congregants who spoke about Freundel did so on the condition of anonymity because they didn’t want to be seen as hurting Freundel’s family. “He’s not interested in the pastoral dimensions of a rabbi’s job. People come with their deepest fears about illness, death. This is a very central part of the job of a rabbi, and he wasn’t very good at it,” said a longtime congregant. “Does the congregation have great affection for him? It has more respect than affection. Now that’s shot to hell, too.” Freundel, who led Kesher Israel from 1989 until he was suspended this week, taught law at Georgetown University and ethics at Towson University, and he advised the National Institutes of Health on ethics. Freundel spoke about a lot more than sex. In sermons and other writings, he worried about the impact of modernity, divisions between Jews over religious pluralism. He has a relatively conservative stance for liberal Washington on issues including gay rights and Israel. On High Holidays, a period when Jews are expected to atone, Freundel questioned sharply how Jews can acknowledge God’s judgment but ask — perhaps unfairly — at the same time for his mercy. “We are asking G-d to do something other than what He expected to do. We are asking G-d to, as it were, disrupt His orderly life. We are asking Him to rearrange the structure of the way He does business,” the text of an undated teaching, titled “To Judge or not to Judge,” reads. In that specific sermon Freundel mentions a community in which he was considered a giant: converts. He describes them as people who have “turned their world upside down for what they believe in.” Judaism, unlike Christianity or Islam, doesn’t evangelize. In fact, Orthodox Judaism says someone who wants to convert is supposed to be dissuaded three times to be sure the person really wants it (and for genuine reasons). Freundel took up the cause of helping converts. It was that commitment combined with his reputation for rigor that boosted him to become an arbiter of sorts from the United States to Israeli rabbinical authorities, who often look askance at Western conversions as not sufficiently thorough. This week, some of the many whom Freundel converted felt violated. Because of concern among Orthodox women in the community, D.C. Police Chief Cathy L. Lanier has scheduled a meeting with them for Sunday night. The meeting was called to answer questions about how images Freundel allegedly took — many of which likely show women naked — may be used by law enforcement. On Thursday night, several dozen congregants filed into the small Georgetown synagogue to mark Simchat Torah, a holiday marking the end of the annual Torah-reading cycle. Freundel had been ordered to stay away from his synagogue. Years earlier, the rabbi praised the congressional bioethics panel for looking — as he does — to religious faith for ethical answers. He appeared with other faith figures. “It’s critically important as technology explodes that morality and ethics go along with the technology. And you ought to be commended that you’ve reached to the faith communities to try and speak to these very sensitive issues.” Michelle Boorstein is the Post’s religion reporter, where she reports on the busy marketplace of American religion.
Here is another article on the dangers of marijuana that you can throw in the draw with the movie "Reefer Madness" and other humorous government propaganda that demonizes marijuana. Usually these bogus science articles are written by mercenary scientists at NIDA or National Institute on Drug Abuse, which has a financial interesting in keeping drugs illegal. This article was written by Dr. Joseph Perrone with the Center for Organizational Research and Education. I don't remember that name, but I suspect the group has a financial interest in keeping marijuana illegal. While he makes lots of claims why marijuana is a very, very dangerous drug he doesn't give any real world evidence to back up his claims. He says marijuana is dangerous to pregnant woman, but he doesn't say if marijuana is causing these pregnant woman to have 3 eyed babies and give names and addresses. http://www.washingtonpost.com/posteverything/wp/2014/10/20/the-junk-science-behind-the-marijuana-legalization-movement/?hpid=z2 The junk ‘science’ behind the marijuana legalization movement Joseph Perrone By Joseph Perrone October 20 at 6:00 AM Dr. Joseph Perrone is the chief science officer at the Center for Accountability in Science, a project of the nonprofit Center for Organizational Research and Education, which is supported by businesses and foundations, including those in the hospitality, agriculture, and energy industries. Already, 23 states allow marijuana to be prescribed for medicinal use, making it easy for proponents for broader legalization, such as the Marijuana Policy Project, to brand the drug as “harmless.” Some go further, calling it “safe” and even “healthy.” The result is that voters in Oregon and Alaska — in addition to D.C. — may soon join Colorado and Washington as the first states to fully legalize recreational pot for adults. The problem is that marijuana is not, in fact, “harmless.” Proponents are spinning the science — casting pot as a threat only if used improperly, much like a car — for the sake of advancing their political agenda. It’s fine for people to believe the government has no business conducting a “war on drugs,” but it’s something else entirely to trivialize or simply deny marijuana’s harmful effects. These dangers are real, according to a recently released comprehensive review of 20 years of scientific literature from Wayne Hall, who advises the World Health Organization on addiction and runs the University of Queensland’s Center for Youth Substance Abuse Research. And the dangers need to be dealt with. [Just what are these dangers??? Do pot smokers turn into blood thirsty ax murders????] The role of government in regulating drugs can’t be separated from what those drugs do to people. On that question, pot-libertarians have taken too many liberties — about both its medical and its recreational effects. Proponents claim marijuana can slow or stop damage caused by glaucoma (by lowering eye pressure), but as Henry D. Jampel, professor of ophthalmology at Johns Hopkins, points out, marijuana could actually worsen the vision loss caused by glaucoma. “Although marijuana does lower the eye pressure, it also lowers blood pressure,” he notes. “Lower blood pressure could result in reduced blood supply to the optic nerve, which in turn might harm the optic nerve.” Beyond the medical applications, legalization proponents argue that marijuana should be available for recreational use because it’s “harmless” and not addictive. But the active ingredient in marijuana, THC, is a powerful psychoactive ingredient that can cause hallucinations or delusions and interfere with the way the brain makes and stores memories. Hall’s study found that marijuana use doubles the risk of developing psychotic disorders, including schizophrenia. He also found that one in 10 adults who regularly smoke the drug become dependent on it, and those who use it are more likely to go on to use harder drugs. [I have seen other studies on this. They quickly admit that marijuana is NOT physically addictive like heroin, tobacco or caffeine, and say that one out of 10 people will get psychologically addictive to marijuana. There definition of that is they have very trivial problems like headaches when they stop using marijuana. No where near the classic additions problems you have with tobacco or heroin, or even mildly addictive caffeine found in coffee and cola drinks] His study also emphasizes the danger that marijuana use poses to teens — one in six teenagers who regularly smoke pot will become dependent. Other research backs up these warnings: A recent review of more than 120 studies found that teen marijuana use is associated with subsequent addiction to other drugs and psychosis, such as schizophrenia. And a recent study from researchers at the University of Wisconsin at Milwaukee linked regular marijuana use by teens to drops in IQ points and to memory problems. While the states that have legalized marijuana completely have done so only for residents 21 and older, peer-reviewed research has linked heavy marijuana use with long-term memory problems and other health effects in adults. Marijuana also poses dangers to pregnant women, with studies linking the drug to lower birth weight, impaired brain development and behavior problems in adolescents. And while proponents of legalization point out that it’s impossible to overdose on cannabis, that doesn’t mean there aren’t any instances of marijuana-related deaths. A handful of deaths in Denver were tied to edible marijuana use this year, not to mention the increased risk of fatal car accidents due to drivers impaired by marijuana. Hall’s study analyzed epidemiological studies and laboratory evidence from a number of researchers and concluded that driving after smoking pot approximately doubles the risk of a car crash. [Come on the last time I checked, for my body weight the fatal dose of marijuana is 44 POUNDS, that pounds or a third of my 120 body weight. Based on that I find it impossible to overdose on one or two pieces of marijuana candy, or for that matter even several boxes of marijuana candy] Because marijuana has been illegal for decades, intensive studies are lacking and there are still many questions surrounding the safety of marijuana. Hall’s report is a meta-analysis of available research on marijuana, but much of the work on marijuana’s effects has focused on heavy, long-term users or vulnerable populations, including teenagers and pregnant women. We need more research on the effect of marijuana on casual users. As more states move to legalize marijuana, polls indicate that Americans are growing much more accepting of marijuana use. But the growing acceptance and availability of pot, along with the misleading advertisements spread by legalization proponents, are spreading the dangerous myth that marijuana is risk-free. There are compelling reasons to change our policy toward marijuana — notably, cutting down on incarceration rates for possession. But simply ignoring the science on the negative effects of chronic (no pun intended) marijuana use does a disservice to the dialogue around marijuana.
Vegas prosecutors used ‘super seal’ to hide fortune seized from gamblers When you read articles like this, our government masters look more like mobsters trying to hide their crimes from the public, then the "public servants" they want us to think they are. http://www.reviewjournal.com/news/vegas-prosecutors-used-super-seal-hide-fortune-seized-gamblers Posted October 18, 2014 - 10:45pm Vegas prosecutors used ‘super seal’ to hide fortune seized from gamblers By JEFF GERMAN LAS VEGAS REVIEW-JOURNAL Calling their conduct “constitutionally abhorrent,” a federal judge recently chided government prosecutors for working in secret to keep millions of dollars in cash and assets seized from a Las Vegas gambler and his family in a decadelong bookmaking investigation. In his 31-page opinion, U.S. Magistrate Judge Cam Ferenbach cast light on the little-known court process that allowed the government to file civil forfeiture actions against Glen Cobb, his 82-year-old parents and his stepdaughter under “super seal” with no notice to anyone — not even the family it targeted. Government documents filed under super seal, a procedure overseen by the federal clerk’s office, are stored in the court’s vault and not loaded into the electronic case management system. The documents remain secret from the public and opposing parties. Ferenbach said prosecutors sought a level of secrecy normally reserved for cases that threaten public safety or national security. “This is unacceptable,” Ferenbach wrote in court papers only recently made public. “Relying on various sealed and super-sealed filings, the government asks the court to rule against private citizens, allow the deprivation of their property and deny them a process to redress possible violations of their constitutional rights through a secret government action that provides no notice or opportunity to be heard. “Saying that this would offend the Constitution is an understatement. It is constitutionally abhorrent.” The vast majority of court records are open under the long-established public right to know what its government is doing and the right of those being accused of wrongdoing to know their accusers. Sometimes individual records are sealed to protect sensitive personal information or an ongoing investigation, but the case itself remains on the public docket. Sealing court records leads to a lack of trust on the part of the public, UNLV law professor Jeff Stempel said. “Excessive use of sealing undermines public confidence in the courts, and I think it creates a danger of bad decision-making when there isn’t enough scrutiny,” he said. Gregg Leslie, legal defense director for the Washington-based Reporters Committee for Freedom of the Press, said public accountability of the courts suffers when things are done in secret. “Accountability really makes the process work,” he said. “We don’t have effective court systems if there isn’t openness.” IRS agents had been investigating the Cobb family since 2002, but the bookmaking investigation first hit the courts after a December raid where agents seized $10.5 million from investment and bank accounts belonging to the Cobbs, along with computers, hard drives, cellphones and other property. U.S. Secret Service agents separately seized $2.7 million from two safes at Glen Cobb’s home . Defense lawyers John Kinchen, of Houston, and Kathleen Bliss, of Las Vegas, both former federal prosecutors, filed civil court papers challenging the searches, which had been authorized by Ferenbach, and seeking the return of the family’s money and property. They also accused the government of overstepping its bounds in taking $7.7 million from an Ameritrade account belonging to Charles and Anna Cobb. Kinchen and Bliss argued the search warrant only authorized agents to take $4 million, a fact prosecutors disputed. Prosecutors responded by filing sealed court papers asking the judge to dismiss the defense motion seeking the return of the combined $13.2 million seized. They argued the matter should not be heard before Ferenbach but rather in the two super-sealed civil forfeiture cases, one for the money the IRS took and the other for the cash confiscated by the Secret Service. Civil forfeiture allows authorities to seize assets they believe were paid for with proceeds from crime, even if no criminal charges are filed. Prosecutors had filed the civil forfeiture papers in the Cobb case in April and Chief U.S. District Judge Gloria Navarro secretly gave them permission to pursue the money. But the process was put on hold while the grand jury heard evidence in the criminal investigation. At the time, prosecutors said they filed the documents under super seal to protect a confidential informant, the best friend of Glen Cobb’s wife, from being harassed by the family during the heightened investigation. They also said they were trying to protect an undercover agent and confidential wiretap information obtained from New York police. And they explained they didn’t want the Cobbs to be able to use the civil legal process to obtain information about the investigation before charges were filed. The New York wiretaps contained information about a massive illegal bookmaking operation on the East Coast that resulted in several arrests. Prosecutors said they included prominent Las Vegas sports betting figures Brandt England and Michael Colbert, who at the time was a top executive with Cantor Gaming. The wiretaps revealed numerous conversations about illegal bookmaking between Cobb and England, who was an agent for Pinnacle Sports, an offshore wagering site, prosecutors alleged. Ferenbach, however, called the attempt to prevent him from deciding the fate of the Cobb family’s money “frivolous, if not absurd.” “It offends common sense and the fundamental tenants of the process for the government to assert that Cobb’s adequate remedy at law is a super-sealed proceeding about which the government has provided no notice and opportunity to be heard,” the judge wrote. “In fact, the government had put in place mechanisms to prevent Cobb from accessing information about the civil forfeiture actions.” indictment halts asset hearing The Cobbs declined comment, referring all questions to their attorneys. Kinchen hailed the magistrate’s decision, saying he doesn’t understand why the government chose to file documents under super seal. “It’s very rare, and this just isn’t anywhere close to the situation where that is warranted,” Kinchen said. But the government wasn’t ready to give up. Prosecutors went to U.S. District Judge Jennifer Dorsey and filed a challenge to Ferenbach’s recommendations, which included scheduling a June 4 hearing on whether to force the government to give back the seized money and property. The government trumped the magistrate altogether just one day before that hearing when, on June 3, it obtained a criminal indictment against Cobb, his parents and stepdaughter Monica Namnard. They were charged with running an illegal bookmaking operation and hiding more than $2.6 million from the IRS. Dorsey quickly granted the government’s motion to cancel the asset forfeiture hearing. Prosecutors later returned the family’s computer equipment, but not the money. Defense lawyers are now trying to get it back as part of the ongoing criminal proceedings before U.S. District Judge Andrew Gordon. The battle over the Cobbs’ assets became public earlier this month when Ferenbach unsealed his May 15 decision and other documents. Hundreds of pages of more documents, including the civil forfeiture papers, were unsealed last week in two batches, one as late as Friday, after the Review-Journal began making inquiries. In court papers, Assistant U.S. Attorney Daniel Hollingsworth, who handles forfeiture proceedings, said a court clerk told him years ago to file civil papers under super seal to avoid compromising a related criminal investigation. Federal Court Clerk Lance Wilson and his top assistant, Cindy Jensen, acknowledged super-sealed documents aren’t entered into the court’s case management system and that only a couple of supervisors in their office can access them at all. Documents filed this way often include affidavits from prosecutors seeking permission to conduct wiretaps in criminal investigations, they said. Wilson said he did not know how many cases have been handled under super seal in his 20-year tenure at the helm of the clerk’s office, but the procedure has always been available to prosecutors. Navarro did not return a call for comment. U.S. Attorney Daniel Bogden said in a statement that his office “recognizes and respects the vital public interest in open judicial proceedings” and “strongly enforces” Justice Department policy in that regard. But, he added: “There are instances, such as before persons have been charged with a crime or before assets have been identified and seized, that court papers must be filed in a manner to prevent immediate public disclosure to protect the integrity of an ongoing investigation, prevent defendants from fleeing or hiding evidence and assets, protect witnesses or other persons from potential harm, and to safeguard the right of persons to a fair trial.” In this instance, the Cobbs were not indicted until six months after their money was seized. “It’s distressing to find out that the government is doing this sort of stuff,” said UNLV’s Stempel, who is an expert in civil litigation. “There doesn’t seem to be any justification for it.” Leslie, of the Reporters Committee, said his watchdog organization first noticed super sealing in federal courts around the country about a decade ago, but thought it was cleaned up in 2009, when the Judicial Conference of the United States, the policy arm of the courts, clarified rules for sealing cases. “We thought the worst offenses were taken care of,” Leslie said. “It seems to be right on the edge of presenting a false docket of your court work to the people. If they’re saying, ‘Here’s everything we’re working on,’ and it turns out they’re hiding things, then that’s a serious problem. If you’re going to make something sealed, there has to be a compelling state interest at stake, and the solution has to be narrowly tailored to serve that interest.” Contact Jeff German at jgerman@reviewjournal.com or 702-380-8135. Find him on Twitter: @JGermanRJ.
In this article we get the reactions of homophobic Arizona Governor Jan Brewer and homophobic Cathi Herrod, who runs the Center for Arizona Policy to legalized gay marriage in Arizona. http://www.azcentral.com/story/news/arizona/politics/2014/10/18/reactions-sex-marriage-arizona/17489955/ Reactions to same-sex marriage in Arizona Yvonne Wingett Sanchez and Rebekah L. Sanders, The Republic | azcentral.com 10:17 p.m. MST October 17, 2014 Arizona's political and religious leaders reacted to Friday's ruling legalizing gay marriage in the state with a flurry of press releases, comments and tweets. A sampling: Republican Gov. Jan Brewer: "The federal courts have again thwarted the will of the people and further eroded the authority of states to regulate and uphold our laws." Doug Ducey, Republican candidate for governor: "Attorney General (Tom) Horne made the right decision regarding an appeal. I accept the determination of the courts and will honor their decision." Fred DuVal, Democratic candidate for governor: "As Americans, our civil rights must never be denied. As Arizonans, we believe that liberty is a cause worth fighting for. This ruling sends an emphatic message that no one should be treated differently under the law because of who they are or who they love." U.S. Rep. Raúl Grijalva, D-Ariz.: "History shows how freedoms and rights that are not extended to everyone are not secure for anyone. The push for marriage equality across America is an acknowledgment of that fact, and I am glad that Arizona is on the right side of history on this issue." Cathi Herrod, president of the Center for Arizona Policy and a traditional-marriage advocate: "Today, we grieve. We grieve for the children who now have no chance of growing up with a mom and a dad. We mourn the loss of a culture and its ethical foundation. We mourn a culture that continues to turn its back on timeless principles." Democratic state Sen. Steve Gallardo, who announced earlier this year that he is gay: "Today's historic decision is a victory for equality and for love in Arizona ... but there is much more to be done before we attain true equality under Arizona law." Democratic state Rep. Demion Clinco, the only openly gay member of the Arizona House: "This is an amazing day for Arizona and for love. It's a moment to embrace equality and an opportunity to celebrate our uniqueness." Arizona's political and religious leaders reacted to Friday's ruling legalizing gay marriage in the state with a flurry of press releases, comments and tweets. A sampling: Terry Goddard, Democratic candidate for secretary of state: "Today is a recognition that basic fairness trumps short-term political interests and crass attempts to divide our state." State Sen. Michele Reagan, Republican candidate for secretary of state: "I applaud Attorney General (Tom) Horne's decision not to appeal the 9th Circuit's ruling. Doing so would be a waste of time, energy and taxpayer money." Mark Brnovich, Republican candidate for attorney general: "State and local officials now have an obligation to put aside politics and personal feelings and uphold the law, in accordance with the court's decision." Felecia Rotellini, Democratic candidate for attorney general: "I have friends who are down at the clerk of court right now, waiting for the doors to open so they can issue those licenses. (Horne) made the right decision for the people of Arizona." U.S. Sen. John McCain, R-Ariz.: "I think it's a recognition of reality, and I regret it, because I believe that Arizonans should decide on these issues themselves. But I understand the reality." U.S. Rep. Kyrsten Sinema, D-Ariz., the first openly bisexual member of Congress: "I see a lot of wedding invitations in my future. #LoveIsLove."
Death Penalty - It's all about politics Sadly this article shows that the death penalty is more about politics then protecting the public from dangerous criminals. I suspect some prosecutors love to use the death penalty to carve notches in their guns to prove they are tough and help them get reelected. I am against the death penalty because mistakes will be made and innocent people will be executed. That's even thought I know there are a few *ssholes out there who deserve the death penalty. Currently DNA testing has proved that 300+ people were framed by the police for major crimes. Many of these people framed were framed for murder and sentenced to death. Ray Krone is the poster boy of DNA testing. He was the 100th person freed when DNA testing proved he was framed by the Phoenix Police for a murder he didn't commit. Ray Krone was sentenced to death, but escaped being murdered for a crime he didn't commit when DNA testing freed him. http://www.azcentral.com/story/news/local/mesa/2014/10/19/jodi-arias-arizona-death-penalty-prosecutors/17543593/ How prosecutors identify the worst of the worst murders Michael Kiefer, The Republic | azcentral.com 12:20 a.m. MST October 19, 2014 Jodi Arias faces the death penalty in her retrial; other heinous murders are pleaded down Jodi Arias shot her lover, Travis Alexander, in the head, stabbed him nearly 30 times and slit his throat. A Maricopa County Superior Court jury found her guilty of first-degree murder on May 8, 2013, and then, at the prosecutor's suggestion, found she had committed the murder in an especially cruel manner, which qualified her for the death penalty. On the same day Arias was convicted, Crisantos Moroyoqui-Yocupicio pleaded guilty to second-degree murder, and a Maricopa County Superior Court judge sentenced him to 14 years in prison. In 2010, Moroyoqui-Yocupicio, a reputed member of a Mexican drug cartel, murdered an associate who had stolen from him, and then cut his head off. A month later, Douglas Ray George beat and stabbed his girlfriend to death and left her naked body in the street in Tempe. He also was allowed to plead guilty to second-degree murder and was sentenced to 16 years in prison. Prosecutors said it was uncertain whether the crime was premeditated. There was no plea offer for Arias; she went to trial and was convicted of first-degree murder. The jury, however, was unable to reach a unanimous decision on a life or death sentence, so a new trial begins this week with a new jury to decide that question. The death penalty is supposed to be reserved as punishment for the worst of the worst murders, and the Arias murder was certainly horrible. But so were the murders committed by Moroyoqui-Yocupicio and George. Who decides which murders are the worst of the worst? Prosecutors. But it is almost impossible to draw a bright line between murders that should be punished by death and those that should not. So the U.S. Supreme Court, in 1976, approved a "narrowing" system using statutory "aggravating factors" to distinguish the extraordinary murders from those that are merely ordinary. Those factors include killing children or police officers, committing multiple murders or killing for pecuniary, that is, monetary, gain. But since the 1976 ruling, the number of aggravators has risen from six to 14, leaving defense attorneys to complain that every murder qualifies for death. Prosecutors decide which to pursue. "The only narrowing function is prosecutorial discretion," defense attorney Eric Crocker said. "You're at the whim of the prosecutor's office to determine which cases are capital and which are not." Maricopa County Attorney Bill Montgomery feels that prosecutor discretion is necessary because each murder case is different. "You can't have a formula if you look at each one on its merit," he said. Instead, prosecutors weigh their chances of getting a conviction and analyze the aggravating factors that make the defendant eligible for the death sentence. Through that kind of analysis, the Maricopa County Attorney's Office — during the tenures of three different county attorneys — decided it had a greater chance of winning a death sentence against Arias than against George or Moroyoqui-Yocupicio. That is different from saying that the Arias case is more horrific than the other two. "The death penalty should be reserved for the most extraordinary of cases," former Maricopa County Attorney Rick Romley said. The definition of most extraordinary, however, is slippery at best, subjective at least. The extremes may be obvious: the sadistic act vs. the moment of poor judgment. The cases in between are harder to call. "In the middle is where prosecutors and defense attorneys are expected to do their work," Montgomery said. Different approaches Different prosecutors exercise their discretion in different ways. In July 1991, Randy Brazeal and Richard Stokley took two 13-year-old girls from a southern Arizona small-town fair to an abandoned mine, raped them repeatedly, crushed their chests, poked out their eyes and threw them, still alive, down a well. It was a horrible crime, a worst of the worst. Brazeal had arranged to bring the girls to the desert and raped both of them. But he was allowed to plead guilty to second-degree murder and spent 20 years in prison. He was released before Stokley was executed for the same crimes in December 2012. Brazeal's attorneys were able to negotiate a plea agreement based on Brazeal's account of events — before DNA results came back. Stokley's did not. At the other end of the spectrum, in July 1987, Thomas West was burglarizing a trailer near Tucson when he was interrupted by the trailer's owner. West knocked the man down, tied him up and put him in a closet. The man died. Though it does not come near the horror of Stokley's murders, West was convicted of first-degree murder, and in July 2011, he, too, was executed. West was prosecuted by Deputy Pima County Attorney Ken Peasley, a virtual death-penalty machine, who was subsequently disbarred for unethical tactics and has since died. But he practiced at a time when Pima County prosecutors led the state in death-penalty cases. That title passed to Maricopa County in the mid-2000s under the tenure of Andrew Thomas, who filed death notices on murders, including the Arias case, more than 120 times in his first four years in office. Recently there has been a surge in Pinal County, which filed only three to five death cases per year until Lando Voyles became Pinal County attorney in January 2013. Voyles filed 10 death- penalty cases in his first year in office and 17 more so far this year. Montgomery has never tried a death-penalty case but attended several while he was a victims' rights attorney. He said that since he took office in 2011, he has reviewed 383 first-degree murder cases and asked for death in 64. None has come to trial yet. But Montgomery has to exercise his discretion before filing those cases, measuring the evidence of guilt and the aggravating factors against the mitigating evidence. Even if the crime is horrible, if there is little likelihood of convincing a jury, there is little point in seeking death. He makes the decision to go forward, as prosecutors have always done. In 1971, the U.S. Supreme Court considered four different death-penalty cases, some for murder, others for rape, in an opinion known as Furman vs. Georgia. The justices wanted to know what the difference was between those few cases that resulted in death penalties and the majority that did not. The decision that came out in 1972 said death could be imposed only if there were a system to narrow which cases were eligible from those that weren't. The moratorium on the death penalty lasted until 1976 and a decision called Gregg vs. Georgia. That's when the Supreme Court approved a system of aggravators to narrow the death- penalty-eligible cases. By then, Arizona had written its own statute, which had six aggravators that prosecutors could allege. Since then, the Arizona Legislature has increased the number of aggravators to 14, including whether the murder was gang-related or involved a stun gun. The result, says defense attorney Susan Corey, is that the current aggravators cover nearly all murder scenarios. "The statute as a whole basically makes every case a death case," she said. And that would move Arizona back to the pre-Furman-opinion era. Case facts Prosecutors say there is no point in comparing cases and charging decisions because each one has a unique set of circumstances. It's hard not to compare them when death is on the table, especially when the facts of cases like these seem so similar: • On Nov. 15, 2011, William Null bludgeoned his aunt to death in a days-long argument over $50 worth of cigarettes. Several aggravators were alleged, including that the murder was excessively heinous, cruel or depraved, and that he caused serious physical injury. But the Maricopa County Attorney's Office pleaded Null to second-degree murder and burglary, even though he had six prior felony convictions. Montgomery said that the facts of the case were hazy and that Null's mental health was questionable. • Jacob Torres stopped a man on a bike in south Phoenix on Nov. 21, 2011, took his cellphone and shot him to death. The prosecutors alleged pecuniary gain; that the crime was excessively heinous, cruel or depraved; and that it was cold and calculating. The Maricopa County prosecutor filed a death notice, and Torres is awaiting capital trial. Montgomery said it appeared to be a thrill killing. • Robbie Brown thought his girlfriend was seeing another man, so on June 8, 2011, he hit the man in the head with a hatchet and then chopped him up with a machete. Maricopa County prosecutors alleged the crime was heinous, cruel or depraved; that Brown got pecuniary gain; and they noted his prior felonies as aggravators. Nevertheless, they let him plead to second-degree murder. Montgomery said it was unclear whether Brown or his brother actually committed the murder. • On Sept. 26, 2011, Ryan Foote kicked in the apartment door of a man dating his ex-girlfriend and shot him to death. Prosecutors found four aggravators, and they will go to trial seeking death. Montgomery said there was no question as to the killer's identity. The cases are similar at first glance. The results are not. Montgomery's discretion seems sound, but the fact remains that the cases are decided not on their seriousness, but on what the prosecutor can prove to a jury. Corey and her colleague, defense attorney Garrett Simpson, subpoenaed records of every murder case in Arizona for the last 10 years, hundreds of cases, to prove a point: Under the 14-aggravator system, every single murder could qualify as a death-penalty case. Given those findings, they and several other defense attorneys filed motions to dismiss death notices based on an argument that the statute is unconstitutional. Maricopa County Superior Court Judge Joseph Kreamer said that Corey's motion had "a unique argument that ... needs to be taken on from a policy perspective," but he denied the motions. Kreamer may reconsider later this month or in early November when Corey, Simpson, Crocker and defense attorney Gary Bevilacqua argue a new set of first-degree murder cases. But in the meantime, there was a recognition of the debate from an unexpected place: the Governor's Office. In April, Gov. Jan Brewer vetoed a bill that would have created a new aggravating factor for "a substantial likelihood that the defendant would commit criminal acts of violence that constitute a continuing threat to society." Brewer called the aggravator "overly broad and vague." Furthermore, she wrote, "The proposed additional language in the legislation broadens the scope of those eligible for the death penalty to the point where the constitutionality of Arizona's death penalty statute likely would be challenged and potentially declared to be unconstitutional." Mitigating factors In the Jodi Arias case, the jury that convicted her of murder also found that she killed Travis Alexander in an especially cruel manner. The current jury will decide only if there are mitigators that outweigh the cruelty. The aggravator is called F(6) in the statutes, "especially heinous, cruel or depraved." In Arias' case, the trial judge would only allow for cruelty. All murder could be deemed cruel, but "excessive cruelty" is supposed to refer to great physical suffering and mental anguish before death. But prosecutors often rely on the common meaning of the word "cruel" to get juries to believe that the murder they are judging is among the cruelest. For example, Marissa DeVault killed her husband by caving in his head with a hammer. Maricopa County prosecutors alleged pecuniary gain and cruelty as aggravating factors. In April 2014, a prosecutor proved that DeVault killed her husband to collect insurance money, but the jury did not find the pecuniary-gain aggravator. Instead it found cruelty, even though DeVault tried to kill her husband in his sleep. She did not get the death sentence. In 1992, the U.S. Supreme Court opined that Arizona's F(6) aggravator was overly vague. But it ruled that it was not a problem because trial judges who had seen a lot of cases and knew the difference made the determination. In fact, during the penalty stage of a capital murder trial, the court would have hearings in which lawyers would argue the proportionality of the crime and circumstances, comparing the punishment meted out in several similar cases before imposing life or death. But after 2004, when the U.S. Supreme Court ruled in another Arizona case that juries and not judges had to determine aggravating factors in murder trials, proportionality disappeared. Because of its vagueness, death sentences based on the F(6) aggravator get overturned. Aaron Gunches was sentenced to death in 2007 because he shot a man to death in the desert near Mesa. The Arizona Supreme Court sent the case back for retrial, saying Gunches was not acting heinously when he put four bullets in the man's head, he was "merely escalating his attacks until he succeeded in killing." Gary Snelling was sentenced to death in 2008 for strangling a woman in Phoenix. The Arizona Supreme Court overturned his sentence in 2010, saying that the murder was carried out too efficiently for mental anguish to be considered. Martin Soto-Fong was one of three men sentenced to death for murders at a Tucson market in 1992. All three death sentences were eventually set aside for different reasons. The Arizona Supreme Court threw out the cruelty aggravator against Soto-Fong, saying that "where shots, stabbings, or blows are inflicted in quick succession, one of them leading rapidly to unconsciousness, a finding of cruelty, without any additional supporting evidence, is not appropriate." A jury found cruelty as the sole aggravator in the Jodi Arias case. But according to the time stamps on photographs taken before and after the attack that killed Travis Alexander, he was unconscious within one minute. And the medical examiner testified in the first trial that slitting a throat results in unconsciousness within seconds. Prosecutor Juan Martinez alleged cruelty, and the first jury agreed with him. Those verdicts stand. The new jury that will be impaneled Tuesday will decide whether to sentence Arias to death or to life in prison. Then it will be up to an appellate court to determine whether the prosecutor erred in his discretion. On the beat Michael Kiefer is a senior reporter who has covered courts, justice and Maricopa County government issues for The Arizona Republic since 2003. He will tweet live from the penalty retrial of Jodi Arias, which begins Tuesday, and record video updates throughout the proceedings. How to reach him michael.kiefer@arizonarepublic.com Phone: 602-444-8994 Twitter: @michaelbkiefer http://www.azcentral.com/story/news/arizona/2014/10/19/arizona-death-penalty-aggravating-factors/17542463/ [As the prior article said these 14 factors probably make any crime that was committed eligible for the death penalty] Arizona's 14 aggravating factors used to determine death-penalty cases 10:18 p.m. MST October 18, 2014 Arizona's 14 aggravating factors Arizona has 14 aggravating factors that can be used to determine death-penalty cases. They are: 1. The defendant was convicted of another offense that merited a life or death sentence. 2. The defendant has been or was previously convicted of a serious offense, even if it was part of the same set of criminal actions. 3. The defendant knowingly created a grave risk of death to another person or persons in addition to the person murdered. This is commonly referred to as "zone of danger." 4. The defendant committed the murder for pecuniary gain, meaning for money or some other benefit. 5. The defendant committed the murder for payment. 6. The defendant committed the offense in an especially heinous, cruel or depraved manner. 7. The defendant committed the offense while in custody or during an escape from custody, or while on probation. 8. The defendant committed multiple murders. 9. The defendant was an adult who killed a child, an unborn child, or an elderly person. 10. The murdered person was an on-duty law-enforcement officer. 11. The defendant committed the murder in connection with a street gang. 12. The defendant committed the offense to prevent cooperation with a law-enforcement investigation or killed a witness. 13. The offense was committed in a cold, calculated manner. 14. The defendant used a remote stun gun or an authorized remote stun gun in the commission of the offense. — Michael Kiefer |
If you don't consent to the DUI test, you will be automaticlly convicted of DUI and lose your license for a year.
In this article the Arizona Supreme Court said that is a bunch of BS and that the "implied consent" DUI law is unconstitutional.