Wednesday, July 22, 2020

Posted By on Wed, Jul 22, 2020 at 1:17 PM

Opponents to the effort to legalize recreational marijuana in Arizona filed a legal challenge in Maricopa County Superior Court Tuesday in an attempt to stop the initiative from making the state's November ballot.

But rather than challenge the validity of the signatures, Arizonans for Health and Public Safety is taking issue with what they call misleading language in Smart and Safe Arizona's 100-word summary. Among other complaints, they say the group redefines marijuana because the initiative includes cannabis extracts along with marijuana flower. The opposition group believes marijuana extracts should be defined differently since they contain more THC than typical marijuana buds.

"Cannabis THC is highly concentrated," said Arizonans for Health and Public Safety chair Lisa James. "For example, five grams of marijuana concentrate that they allow is approximately 2,800 doses of pure THC for one person."

The group's lawsuit also challenges the Smart and Safe Arizona proposition essentially eliminates restrictions on weed-impaired drivers by not relying on marijuana metabolites tests to check if a person is impaired while driving.

"(Smart and Safe) eliminates all current marijuana DUI violations based on the percentage of marijuana impairing metabolites in the driver's system," James said. "That's no longer enough to convict for a DUI."

Critics of marijuana metabolite testing cite the test's unreliability to determine when the last time a person used marijuana since those metabolites can stay in a person's system for weeks or months.

Posted By on Wed, Jul 22, 2020 at 1:00 PM

click to enlarge Critics: Trump order to exclude undocumented migrants in Census will fail
Miranda Faulkner / Cronkite News
PHOENIX – President Donald Trump said Tuesday he will exclude undocumented immigrants in the 2020 Census when it comes to allocating seats in Congress, a move critics called unconstitutional and unenforceable.

Opponents immediately vowed to sue over Trump’s memorandum, which comes a little more than a year after the Supreme Court rejected the administration’s attempt to include a citizenship question on the 2020 Census.

“Today’s memorandum from Donald Trump to Lyin’ (Commerce Secretary) Wilbur Ross epitomizes the lawlessness of this administration,” said a statement from Thomas Saenz, president of the Mexican American Legal Defense and Educational Fund. “As the Supreme Court has long held, persons are persons under our Constitution, regardless of immigration status.”

MALDEF and the American Civil Liberties Union both said they would sue if the administration carries through on the order.

Posted By on Wed, Jul 22, 2020 at 11:00 AM

click to enlarge Legal challenges to border wall continue – and so does construction
Photo by Mindy Riesenberg | Cronkite News
PHOENIX – Conservationists expressed anger and frustration over the U.S. Supreme Court’s recent decision not to hear an appeal to stop construction of the southern border wall. But they’re moving ahead on other legal fronts while monitoring construction as it chews through land marked by towering saguaros and home to the endangered jaguar.

“It’s upsetting that they’re not willing to consider the (Trump) administration’s obvious abuse of the law to fast-track border wall construction,” said Laiken Jordahl, borderlands campaigner at the Center for Biological Diversity in Tucson.

The appeal had sought to block 145 miles of steel-bollard barrier construction in Arizona, California, Texas and New Mexico, arguing that dozens of environmental, health and safety laws were illegally waived to speed wall construction.

In Arizona, construction on sections of the U.S.-Mexico border wall continues across the San Pedro River, which begins in Mexico and flows north into Arizona near Hereford. Activists contend this barrier will halt the natural cross-border migration of wildlife and make flooding worse.

Posted By on Wed, Jul 22, 2020 at 9:30 AM

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Tuesday, July 21, 2020

Posted By on Tue, Jul 21, 2020 at 6:54 PM


The Pima County Democratic Party has withdrawn its support for Kevin Kubitskey, one of two Democrats competing for the party's nomination in the Aug. 4 primary.

Earlier this week, Kubitskey's estranged daughter, Makyla Cleary, said on Facebook that she had been mentally, physically and sexually abused by him. Her post:

To all my friends and family on Facebook Kevin is my biological father and he is currently running for sheriff of Tucson Arizona. Kevin physically, sexually and mentally abused me from the age of 6 until I was 12 and finally had enough courage to tell someone about the horrendous things he was doing to me. An order of protection was placed on me and my mother and a court process started we went to court for a couple of years and when we were gathering people to testify on my behalf Kevin decided to give his rights up to me so that he would not face the backlash of the truth coming to the public. Kevin is a man who has severe anger issues and uses the badge as a shield of protection. I’m asking that everyone please take the time to go vote against him as it is not safe to have an abuser and predator as our sheriff.
Kubitskey, who is divorced from Cleary's mother, denied the allegations on Facebook, saying he "would not do anything to my daughter to cause her harm" and that she had "mental health issues." He acknowledged a ] blamed his primary opponent, sheriff Chris Nanos, of orchestrating the post and dragging his daughter into the campaign. Nanos was a longtime Sheriff's Department officer who was appointed to the seat in 2015 but lost his bid to win it at the ballot box, losing to Republican Mark Napier. Napier is seeking reelection this year.

In a statement, the Pima County Democratic Party Executive Committee said it was withdrawing its support based on Kubitsky's response.

"Our decision to withdraw support is based on the manner by which his campaign responded to those allegations," the committee wrote in a prepared statement. "His response included the unauthorized disclosure of sensitive medical information about a family member and an accusation that a political opponent orchestrated the release of the allegations. Running as a Democrat is a privilege, and we hold all our candidates to the highest ethical standards."

The statement continued: "We condemn any candidate who exploits this decision, or the allegations that gave rise to it, for political gain. We support work to ensure women’s physical, economic and personal safety."

Kubitskey's full Facebook post:


Posted By on Tue, Jul 21, 2020 at 4:00 PM

click to enlarge Homeland Secrets: An Investigation
(Photo courtesy of Nick Dalton)
Federal law enforcement shootings have escaped the kind of scrutiny that gave rise to the local policing reforms of the Black Lives Matter movement.

Experts say that’s no accident: federal agencies are not transparent, making public oversight difficult.

One such agency is ICE’s Homeland Security Investigations, whose agents have been involved in shootings nationwide. Most of the victims have been black, Hispanic or Native American, according to the Howard Center for Investigative Journalism.

Posted By on Tue, Jul 21, 2020 at 2:00 PM

click to enlarge At This Trump-Favored Charity, Financial Reporting Is Questionable and Insiders Are Cashing In
Courtesy of BigStock
ProPublica is a nonprofit newsroom that investigates abuses of power. Click here to read their biggest stories as soon as they’re published.

This election, one of President Donald Trump’s most influential advocates is 26-year-old Charlie Kirk, who has developed a unique bond with the first family. The conservative star dines with the president at Mar-a-Lago and rang in the new year there. During each of the last two winters, he used the club to hold a formal fundraiser for his nonprofit, Turning Point USA, that featured Donald Trump Jr.

At a Turning Point event in June, the president, addressing the crowd, said, “Let us also show our appreciation to my good friend, Charlie. I’ll tell you, Charlie is some piece of work who is mobilizing a new generation of pro-American student activists.” On a Turning Point webpage soliciting donations, Trump Jr., a close friend of Kirk’s, is quoted as saying, “I’m convinced that the work by Turning Point USA and Charlie Kirk will win back the future of America.”

The tax-exempt charity says its mission is to educate “students about the importance of fiscal responsibility, free markets, and capitalism.” As its profile has risen, its revenue has ballooned, reaching $28 million, a sevenfold increase in four years.

Posted By on Tue, Jul 21, 2020 at 1:00 PM

click to enlarge Arizonans recall John Lewis, heap tributes on late civil rights leader
Democratic Reps. John Lewis of Georgia, Raul Grijalva of Tucson and Keith Ellison of Minnesota link arms prior to being arrested outside the Capitol in 2013 as part of a rally in support of comprehensive immigration reform. Grijalva said Lewis, arrested scores of times in civil rights protests, later jokingly asked him, “First time, kid?” (File photo by Nela Lichtscheidl/Cronkite News)
Arizona lawmakers and advocates were unsparing Monday in their praise of the late Rep. John Lewis, using words like hero, giant and legend for the man one described as “living, breathing history.”

The Georgia Democrat, who played a leading role in the civil rights movement from the 1960s until now, died Friday of pancreatic cancer, according to a statement from House Speaker Nancy Pelosi, who said Lewis was “revered and beloved” in Congress.

Tributes poured in from across the country and from Arizona, where some officials recalling crossing paths with Lewis and others said they were inspired by his example.

“What do you say when somebody who is living, breathing history leaves? My first thought was who’s going to carry on the legacy?” asked Flagstaff Mayor Coral Evans. She said that even though this “freedom rider” has died, someone needs to pick up the torch from Lewis.

Some lawmakers couldn’t say anything: After tweeting Friday that he was “heartbroken,” Rep. Ruben Gallego, D-Phoenix, said there would be “no official quote coming from me or my office right now about the passing about John Lewis. This just hurts too much.”

Heartbroken was a common refrain among Arizona lawmakers, almost all of whom had something to say about Lewis, 80.

Lewis was born Feb. 21, 1940, in Alabama, the son of sharecroppers, according to his congressional bio. While finishing his last year at Fisk University in 1961, he volunteered to be a Freedom Rider, Blacks and whites who rode through the South to protest segregation by crossing the color line in whites-only facilities.

From 1963 to 1966, he was chairman of the Student Nonviolent Coordinating Committee. He led the 1965 voting rights march from Selma to Montgomery, Alabama, that became known as the “Bloody Sunday” march after police attacked the marchers, fracturing Lewis’ skull in the process.

He was elected to Congress in 1986 and continued serving, even after announcing in December that he was being treated for stage 4 pancreatic cancer.

Posted By on Tue, Jul 21, 2020 at 11:30 AM

click to enlarge USCIS balks on taking new DACA applications, despite court order
Courtesy Photo
PHOENIX – The federal government is currently not accepting new applications for protection under the Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals program, despite a federal court’s order Friday that it resume doing so.

A U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services spokesperson said Monday that “Department of Homeland Security and the Department of Justice are reviewing the court decision, and USCIS has no further comment at this time.”

The order Friday by U.S. District Court Judge Paul Grimm in Maryland came almost a month after the Supreme Court overturned the Trump administration’s plan to eliminate DACA. The Obama-era program deferred deportation for undocumented immigrants who were brought to this country as children, and granted them work, driving and other privileges.

Posted By on Tue, Jul 21, 2020 at 9:00 AM

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