We reported earlier today on The Range that we'd been hearing that state lawmaker Victoria Steele was among those considering a challenge to Congresswoman Martha McSally later this year.

The Tucson Democrat announced on Facebook earlier today that she's now exploring a congressional run:

I have been surprised and deeply humbled by the large number of people who have asked me to consider running for Congress. The folks I have met believe their voices have been silenced by dark money that put millions into this last election. They are discouraged and disgusted with what is happening and they are running out of hope. When I look into their eyes and I hear their stories I know one thing – it is time to stand up and fight.

With this exploratory committee for CD2, it provides the opportunity to see if there is enough support for a campaign. I appreciate your continued prayers, good thoughts and sage advice as I fully consider this pathway. 

Other potential Democrats include former state lawmaker Matt Heinz, Steele's House seatmate Randy Friese and Nan Walden, a former D.C. attorney and current Sahuarita pecan farmer/Rosemont mine opponent. State lawmaker Bruce Wheeler told the Weekly yesterday that he was getting out of the race because an eye injury.

Whoever gets into the race had better be ready to dial for dollars: Spending on the 2014 CD2 race in which McSally unseated Democratic incumbent Ron Barber was in the neighborhood of $14 million, with McSally and Barber both raising more than $4 million each.

Here's Steele's full statement:

The latest news in the for-profit college scandals is, the U.S. government is planning to forgive federal loans owed by tens of thousands of students who used the money to pay for a nonexistent education at Corinthian Colleges. Secretary of Education Arne Duncan said the college's approach had "the ethics of payday lending." Remember the payday lending comparison for later.

This scam run by for-profit colleges to steal, generally from low income students who want to better themselves, isn't new news. It's old news. And if the problems were dealt with earlier and more diligently, and solutions weren't opposed so vigorously by the industry's lobbyists and their right wing enablers, the U.S. government might not be on the hook for debt relief that could be as high as $3.5 billion, and fewer ex-students would be on the hook for student loans they paid to waste their time with substandard, often worthless, education.

I started covering this issue in 2009 with a post titled, For profit colleges need oversight as well. I'm not bragging about how prescient I was. My post cited two articles which opened my eyes to the problem, one in Pro Publica about the University of Phoenix, and the other in the Washington Monthly about the for-profit college industry in general, titled, The Subprime Student Loan Racket. Remember the subprime loan comparison for later.

This is from the opening of the Washington Monthly article. Remember, this was in 2009.

Asian Fred, the new musical project from singer-songwriter-guitarist Fred Huang, is releasing a video for the band’s first single, "Jonestown Shuffle," today as they prepare for a July residency at R Bar.

Huang most recently led Of the Painted Choir, a Phoenix band that played regularly in Tucson. Influenced by ‘60s pop, R&B and Motown, Asian Fred moves away from the folkier sounds that inspired Of the Painted Choir.

“With Asian Fred, I feel like I have a better grasp of what I want to do musically and what I want to express. I hope the new stuff shows some maturity in my songwriting ability,” Huang said via email.

After moving back to Tucson, he recruited drummer Steven Yanez Romo (Electric Blankets, Ghostal), lead guitarist Noah Horton (Holy Rolling Empire, Texas Justice) and Kyle Gutierrez (The Swim, The Mean Reds) on bass and vocals.

“The band kind of fell into place and just worked out,” Huang said. “Romo asked if he could join the band on a Facebook post after I posted a demo. At that time, Kyle had just moved back to Tucson from Brooklyn and didn't have a project. One night out, he asked if he could play bass and I was happy to have him on board. Noah was the only member that I recruited. I originally assumed he wouldn't have time and wouldn't be interested in joining another project, but we were hanging out and Noah expressed that he missed playing lead guitar and singing backup.”

Who doesn’t love a celebration? Every year there are holidays promising us holiday pay at work, an excuse for bad behavior, free booze, food and family time, of course. We know the staples. Each store gives us at least two months’ notice of Thanksgiving, Valentine’s Day and Christmas.

You know what you never see holiday displays in Target for? Worldwide Knit and Crotchet in Public Day. Oh, you didn’t know June 13 was set aside to make scarfs for the whole world to see? Thanks to an internet black hole, which cruelly tossed me from Tweet, to video, to Reddit comments, I learned I have missed out on some seriously amazing holidays my whole life.

There are at least three unofficial holidays a day. They are sometimes sweet, mostly strange and often defy logic. Don’t lose out on experiencing these special days. Here are my picks for the best holidays in this wacky and wonderful week.

June 7-13: National Body Piercing Week
This is by far one of the more normal sounding things being celebrated this week. From June 7 to 13, give your body piercings some love, because it is all about the jewelry we like to put in our faces and belly buttons. This celebration of studs and hoops comes from a really legitimate source, the Internet. Who named this week? Why is this week significant in the world of piercings? Who started this thing? Apparently no one knows. So, there are no National Body Piercing Week sales or parades I can think of but hey, somebody is getting pierced somewhere right? Go ahead and treat yourselves.

Honorable mentions:
End Mountain Top Removal Week
Bed Bug Awareness Week

June 8: Upsy Daisy Day
What a shame we didn’t know about Upsy Daisy Day just a little bit sooner. This holiday is dedicated to waking up with a smile on your face. Creator Stephanie West Allen declared this an unofficial holiday in 2003 with the hope to remind us all to laugh, smile, be happy and be positive. It’s all pretty sweet and as far as missing out on this one, I’m really just more focused on declaring my own holiday right now. If Allen can make a happy day, I’m sure I can make a Free Pen Day.

We wish state Rep. Bruce Wheeler (D-Tucson) a continued recovery from recent surgery he had to repair a torn retina. Wheeler told us earlier yesterday that he's well enough to take a quick trip across the border to Rocky Point, so the prognosis is good.

The medical incident, however, has forced Wheeler to reconsider his 2016 bid for the congressional seat now held by Republican Martha McSally. He says he’s out of the hunt, although he will stay in the House of Representatives to finish his term next year and "then I'm done."

Wheeler was the only Democrat to have filed FEC paperwork indicating that he was exploring a campaign in CD2. Former state lawmaker Matt Heinz has told The Skinny that he’s interested; we’ve also heard insiders drop the names of current state lawmakers Victoria Steele and Randy Friese, as well as pecan-farm owner and former DC insider Nan Walden.

Potential candidates still don’t know whether they’ll be running in the current CD2 or in a district drawn by state lawmakers. The U.S. Supreme Court is expected to rule in a lawsuit challenging the current system by the end of the month.

Democrat Courtney Frogge has launched a campaign for Wheeler's House in midtown Legislative District 10.

Local businesses and residents have until June 30 to fill out a survey on what they think about the U.S. Postal Service's plans to shut down mail processing at Tucson's Cherrybell center. 

In May, Tucson Mayor Jonathan Rothschild and Vice Mayor Richard Fimbres released two public, bilingual surveys to collect people's experiences with things such as delayed mail after the Postal Service completed phase one of its consolidation plans. The second phase was scheduled for July but the Postal Service announced it would not happen until some time in 2016, a press release from the city of Tucson said. 

In the meantime, the city has collected more than 1,000 comments to try to keep Cherrybell as is. The surveys' timeline was extended because of the overload of responses, the city said. Many local chambers of commerce, such as the Tucson, Hispanic and Black chambers, have encouraged its members to voice their concerns. 

“The results have been overwhelming," Rothschild said in a statement. “This is a perfect example of the importance of public participation in a city matter. The residents and businesses of Tucson voiced their opinions, and those opinions were heard in Washington, D.C.”

Fimbres plans to deliver the results to the Postal Service's postmaster general and congressional officers that have a say on the Postal Service's nationwide consolidation and money-saving efforts. 

Question: What do these two statements have in common?

"Research shows that a quality early childhood education experience can yield significant long-term benefits on overall development of a child."

“JTEDs and technical training is critical to the future of our state, and it will continue to be critical to the future of our state."

Answers: (1) Doug Ducey made both statements; (2) Doug Ducey doesn't want to fund preschools or JTED adequately, because: (3) Doug Ducey says we can't afford it.

The statement about preschools is from an article in April with the cutest picture of Ducey crouching down in a preschool you ever did see—teacher holding a baby care book and smiling at a child in the foreground, young, bearded guitar player looking like he's singing soothing children's songs in the background, Ducey, caring and fatherly, looking adoringly at one of the children. In the same article, we learn that Arizona has far fewer children in federally funded preschool programs than the national average and that only special education students get any state preschool funding. And we learn why Ducey is against funding early education, even though he admits its importance.

"We know that there's a good return on investment,'' he said. But Ducey said people need to recognize the state's financial condition.

The statement about JTED—Arizona's Joint Technological Education Districts—is from a Sunday article in the Star's business section. Business leaders all over the state praise the JTED programs for generating trained, motivated workers in a number of technical fields, saying they're essential to growing Arizona's economy. Yet we learn that the legislature's most recent education budgeting fiasco will have the effect of cutting JTED funding so drastically that the programs will be gutted, and many will simply die. And we learn why Ducey allowed the cuts to happen.

“We had to do what had to be done in this budget session." 

To recap. Our governor agrees that preschool and JTED are valuable programs for individual students and for the state. Yet he agreed not to fund them. And the reason he gave is that we can't afford the programs.

Saying we can't afford to fund preschool and JTED at the needed levels is pure, unadulterated bullshit, as is Ducey's position that we can't afford to fund public education at needed levels.

Attention movie/Blythe Danner/Sam Elliott fans: We've got a few passes to see "I'll See You in my Dreams" and you should take 'em. 

Each pass admits two people, and the passes can be used at any of the Century Theatres showings in town between today (Monday!) and Thursday, June 11. 

We'll give the tickets away today and tomorrow. You have to be able to pick the tickets up at our office on the Northwest side. We close at 5 p.m. every day.

The movie currently has a pretty solid rating on Rotten Tomatoes. Here's some details on the film, from Rotten Tomatoes as well:

MOVIE INFO
In this vibrant, funny, and heartfelt film, a widow and former songstress discovers that life can begin anew at any age. With the support of three loyal girlfriends (June Squibb, Rhea Perlman, and Mary Kay Place), Carol (Blythe Danner) decides to embrace the world, embarking on an unlikely friendship with her pool maintenance man (Martin Starr), pursuing a new love interest (Sam Elliott), and reconnecting with her daughter (Malin Akerman). C) Bleecker Street

Rating: PG-13 (for sexual material, drug use and brief strong language)
Genre: Drama, Comedy
Directed By: Brett Haley
Written By: Brett Haley, Marc Basch
In Theaters: May 15, 2015 Limited
Box Office: $1.9M
Runtime: 1 hr. 35 min.
Bleecker Street

Zona Politics Eps.32 from Zona Politics with Jim Nintzel on Vimeo.

If you missed yesterday's broadcast of Zona Politics with Jim Nintzel, here's your chance to watch it online. Pima County Democratic Party chair Cheryl Cage and Pima County Republican Party chair Bill Beard size up Democratic Congresswoman Ann Kirkpatrick's chances as she launches a run for Republican Sen. John McCain's seat; discuss whether anyone else will get into the Senate race; share some names of potential candidates for the congressional seat Kirkpatrick is leaving behind; talk about whether the congressional districts will be the same for the 2016 election; break down why Tucson Mayor Jonathan Rothschild doesn't have a Republican opponent this year; argue about bus fares; and more.

The Pima County Public Library got a $70,000 grant to create more youth media programs for teens. 

Thanks to the gift from the Arizona State Library, Archives and Public Records, the library can start offering classes and workshops related to robotics, graphic design, and virtual reality technology, on top of the other free STEAM—science, technology, engineering, arts and math—programs it already hosts daily. 

"Libraries are known for connecting people with information that will help them be successful," says Kendra Davey, the Young Adult Services manager and project director for the 101 Space, a media and all-things STEAM center for youth at the Joel D. Valdez Main Library. "This funding allows us to get the programs in place now that will help young people get jobs in the future."

More on the 101 Space, from a Pima County library press release:

The library had provided innovative digital media programs for middle school and high school students for many years before receiving a $100,000 planning grant in 2012 from the Institute of Museum and Library Services and the John D. and Catherine T. MacArthur Foundation to design a new youth media space. A Youth Design Team of high school and college students led the 18-month-long research and planning process, and a dedicated media center for teens and young adults called the 101 Space opened in 2014 on the second floor of the Joel D. Valdez Main Library.

This year, the Arizona State Library got about $3.17 million under the Library Services and Technology Act, administered by the Institute of Museum and Library Services. More than $500,000 was awarded to libraries around the state. The rest of the money will go toward supporting statewide services, such as family literacy and other reading programs, among other initiatives.