ASU VP puts the fork in Payson campus

(Gazette Blog Editor's note: The following letter from Arizona State University Senior Vice President and University Planner Richard Stanley speaks for itself.  It was posted on the Facebook page "The Voice of Rim Country."  The Rim Country Gazette Blog has long maintained that the prospect of ASU establishing a campus in Rim Country is pretty much delusional - the product of a mayor who has produced few if any tangible results in his multiple terms, a committee made up mostly of residents of a hoity toity gated community whose decisions and pronouncements confirm that they really do live in their own world, and a once-proud newspaper that rarely exhibits the journalistic excellence that once was its trademark.)

The following is a response to an e-mail sent by (Rim Country resident) Don Evans to ASU requesting information on a University campus in Payson. Please share this and feel free to comment with your ideas and opinions!

Response letter from Richard H. Stanley'
Senior Vice President and University Planner

ARIZONA STATE UNIVERSITY November 5, 2015 

Dear Mr. Evans: I write in response to your November 3 email to President Crow regarding the consideration being given by leaders of the Payson community to the establishment of a university campus in the region.

As has been reflected in the press, Arizona State University has had discussions over a number of years with the Mayor of Payson and other community leaders about their interest in attracting a university partner to Payson, and we tend to agree that increasing opportunities for individuals seeking a post -secondary education would have benefits for the region and for the state of Arizona.

ASU is committed as an institution to expanding access to higher education. We operate five campuses in Metropolitan Phoenix, and we have in -person educational programs in Tucson, Lake Havasu City and Yuma. Establishing a presence in Payson would be in keeping with the university's mission to provide an affordable quality education to as many qualified Arizonans who wish to pursue a college degree.

But while our conversations regarding Payson have included general discussions of the financial and logistical requirements necessary to make operating such a campus successful, WE HAVE MADE NO COMMITMENTS AND NO COMMITMENTS HAVE BEEN MADE TO US AND THE DISCUSSIONS TO DATE HAVE NOT PROGRESSED TO FORMAL NEGOTIATIONS.

If and when it is determined that there is a viable proposal for creating a university campus in the Payson area, we likely will be interested in continuing the discussion to determine if ASU would be the right partner for the project.

In all of our development projects, we take pains to seek input from residents and businesses who have a stake in the project. IF WE WERE TO ENTER INTO FORMAL NEGOTIATIONS ABOUT ESTABLISHING A PRESENCE IN PAYSON, WE WOULD BE COMMITTED TO SEEKING PUBLIC INPUT INTO OUR PLANS and the project would be subject to our own due diligence, as well as all local and state regulations pertaining to such a development.

Sincerely,
Richard H. Stanley
Senior Vice President and University Planner
Office of the President
Fulton Center 410, 300 E. University Drive
P.O. Box 877705 Tempe, AZ 85287-7705 (480) 965-8972 Fax: (480) 965-0865

Tea Party Support Falls to New Low: Republicans Now Oppose Conservative Movement That Influenced 2010 Elections

By Abigail Abrams, International Business Times

27 October 15
readersupportednews.org

 
As the 2016 presidential campaigns move into full swing, a new poll indicates the tea party may be less of a factor in the election than it has been over the past five years. Support for the far-right conservative movement that helped Republicans reclaim control of the House of Representatives in 2010 is at an all-time low, according to the Gallup poll released Monday.

Just 17 percent of Americans polled said they support the tea party, while 24 percent oppose it and a record 54 percent neither support nor oppose the movement. This low represents a significant drop from the peak of 32 percent support the movement enjoyed in November 2010. But opposition has also dropped from its peak of 31 percent, which occurred right before last year’s midterm elections.

The tea party emerged in the early days of the Obama administration from angry voters who were tired of what they saw in the nation’s capitol and wanted to curb government spending by putting fresh faces in office. Since the 2010 midterm elections when many tea party candidates were successfully elected to office, support for the movement has generally eroded. It has not seen support reach 25 percent since August 2012.

Support has even dropped among Republican subgroups that were initially strong backers of the movement, according to Gallup. A majority of Independents who lean Republican initially supported the tea party in 2010 polls, but they have seen a 29-point drop, to 23 percent support, in the two most recent polls, conducted in November 2014 and October 2015. Conservative Republicans’ support of the tea party has also dropped by 21 percentage points from 63 percent initially to 42 percent now.

Despite the decline in support from 2010, Republicans increased their majority in the House in 2014 and gained control of the Senate. Still, some tea party candidates have succeeded in pushing congressional leadership to the right and grown in national recognition since their elections. These include Republican presidential candidates Sen. Marco Rubio of Florida and Sen. Ted Cruz of Texas, who were both swept into office with support from voters outside the Republican establishment. The two Senate freshmen stand at third and fourth place, respectively, in Real Clear Politics’ national polling average of Republican presidential candidates.

Still, the lack of energy for and against the tea party suggests that the movement’s time in the spotlight may be over. Already this election cycle has seen outsiders like Donald Trump, Ben Carson and Carly Fiorina perform strongly without the formal support of a recognizable movement such as the tea party.

The Gallup poll was conducted Oct. 7-11 and included 1,015 adults across the country answering questions via landlines and cell phones. There was a margin of error of plus or minus 4 percentage points. 

Comments 

+29 # RMDC 2015-10-27 18:25

17% is about all the Teaparty ever had, if that much. It was always a fringe group stirred up by organizers funded by the Koch Bros. What made the Teaparty seem powerful was the attention it got from the mass media. The MSM turned toward the Teaparty as a way of turning against Obama. It was able to publish all of the most assinine charges against Obama like his being born in Kenya or being a Muslim. This helped keep Obama in line and keep him from doing anything worthwhile -- if there was even any chance of that.

The Teaparty represents a small segment of ignorant conservatives who as the picture shows think "socialism" is their enemy. In fact, socialism is the only thing about America that works -- social security, medicare, publically funded police, fire, and rescue, public schools, and so on. The "capitalist" part of American society is a total mess and collapsing. It is being looted by people the Teaparty cannot call capitalist criminals. The Teaparty idiotically thinks the nation needs more capitalism and less socialism. they are exactly wrong. Thank god they are only 17%. That amounts to nothing -- other than the blowhards in congress like Rubio and Cruz.

+15 # jsluka 2015-10-28 02:15

So this is from the "International Business Times." I'm not surprised its out of touch with reality, since all business publications seem to be (particularly the realities of our environmental crisis). She states that "The tea party emerged in the early days of the Obama administration from angry voters who were tired of what they saw in the nation’s capitol and wanted to curb government spending by putting fresh faces in office." No, that's completely wrong; the Tea Party emerged because a black man was elected president. And they do not want to "curb government spending" - they want to cut spending that goes to minorities and the poor; they totally support increased spending for "defence."

+9 # ericlipps 2015-10-28 04:55

The "tea party" will disappear once its mission is done and a white Republican is president. (Ben Carson may e doing well right now in GOPolls, but watch what happens when the time comes to actually vote in the primaries.)

 

+12 # guomashi 2015-10-28 07:07

Was the tea party ever anything other than bald racism co-opted by corporate interests?

Even the tea baggers themselves have nothing much really to say outside primal screaming of their unconscious rage. If they had two neurons to pass around among themselves they would notice their activities are being funded by the people who are exploiting them.

+4 # tapelt 2015-10-28 10:05

As Chris Hedges said, the Democratic Party has become what the Republican Party used to be, and the Republican Party has gone insane.

Bernie Sanders Introduces Bill to Protect Native American Place of Worship in Arizona

 
Instead of allowing the transfer of federal land to a corporation planning to build the largest copper mine in North America, Sen. Bernie Sanders and Sen. Tammy Baldwin want to keep it intact because it has significant religious and cultural value.
 

Published: November 8, 2015 | Authors: Andrew Emett | NationofChange | News Report 

Sen. Bernie Sanders and Sen. Tammy Baldwin introduced legislation this week to stop the transfer of federal land to a foreign-owned corporation, which plans to develop the largest copper mine in North America. The land, known as Oak Flat, is located in the Tonto National Forest and has significant religious and cultural value to Apaches, Yavapais, and other Native Americans in the region.

The night before voting to approve the 2015 National Defense Authorization Act (NDAA), Sen. John McCain slipped in a provision referred to as Section 3003 that approved the transfer of public lands, Oak Flat and nearby Tonto National Forest lands, to private corporations Rio Tinto and BHP Billiton. Resolution Copper, a subsidiary of the corporations, intends to use the land to construct a block cave mine, which would destroy the sacred Oak Flat area and create a crater up to two miles long.

“Too many times our Native American brothers and sisters have seen the profits of huge corporations put ahead of their sovereign rights,” Sanders said. “It is wrong that a backroom deal in Washington could lead to the destruction of a sacred area that is so important to so many. We must defend the hundreds of thousands of Americans who are standing in opposition to this giveaway of our natural resources to foreign corporations.”

The Tonto National Forest in southeastern Arizona was established in 1905 from the ancestral homelands of the Tonto Apache and other Native Americans who were forcibly removed at gunpoint from the Oak Flat area by the U.S. Army in the 1880s. The Apaches were held as prisoners of war until the early 1900s.

Because of their religious and cultural value, Oak Flat and the Tonto National Forest are supposed to be protected under the American Indian Religious Freedom Act, the National Historic Preservation Act, and the Native American Graves Protection and Repatriation Act. The Save Oak Flat Act would repeal Section 3003 and prevent the transfer of approximately 2422 acres of Forest Service land to Resolution Copper, which plans to remove at least one cubic mile of ore that sits 7,000ft beneath the Earth’s surface.

Strongly opposed by Native American tribes nationwide, Section 3003 sets a dangerous legal precedent for the lack of protection concerning sacred tribal areas located on federal lands. Besides destroying forever a beautiful place of worship, the mining project will greatly impact the local water supply by draining resources and polluting the underlying aquifer and drinking water.

“The fight to save Oak Flat will succeed,” said Randi Spivak, public lands director at the Center for Biological Diversity. “People from across the country, and even around the world, are outraged by what’s happened with Oak Flat and won’t stand by to see our public lands and American Indian sacred sites be destroyed for profits.”

In exchange for destroying a Native American place of worship and threatening our First Americans’ traditions and ways of life, Rio Tinto P.L.C. and its subsidiary Resolution Copper, will reap tens of billions of dollars in U.S. taxpayer assets from the land grab. To add insult to injury, Resolution Copper stated the copper ore mined will likely be shipped out of the U.S.

Rep. Raúl Grijalva introduced the bill in the House of Representatives earlier this year, and the legislation currently has 36 bipartisan co-sponsors. On Wednesday, the signatures of over a million people were submitted in favor of saving Oak Flat. The signatures were turned in ahead of the House Natural Resources Committee forum on protecting sacred American Indian sites.

“Oak Flat should be protected, not plundered,” asserted Nick Kimbrell, a senior campaigner with Avaaz. “Over a million people in the U.S. and around the world are calling on Congress to stop this act of cultural vandalism and set a precedent for governments everywhere to protect native peoples and their sacred sites.”

Dubya (W) Enjoying New Status as Smarter Bush

Credit Photograph by Ronald Martinez/Getty

DALLAS (The Borowitz Report)—After years of being subjected to unfair ridicule, former President George W. Bush is now enjoying his newfound status as the smarter of the two Bush brothers to have achieved elected office.

Speaking to reporters at his home in Dallas, Bush said he was deriving “quiet satisfaction” from a new poll showing that ninety-one per cent of the American people now consider him the smarter Bush.

“I know that no one’s saying I’m a genius,” he said, modestly. “But I look pretty good when I’m graded on a curve.”

Bush pointed with particular pride to the fact that seventy-four per cent of those polled said that, of the two Bush brothers, he had a “far superior command of the English language.”

“When I was President, I got a lot of grief from people who didn’t think my English was too good,” he said. “I think now they’re realizing it could have been worser.”

The former President said that he hoped the American people’s view of him as the smarter Bush would soon be shared by his parents, George and Barbara Bush.

“At Thanksgiving, Mom and Dad would never let me carve the turkey because they thought I’d screw it up somehow,” he said. “Something tells me I’ll be carving that turkey this year.”

The Rigging of the American Market

Robert Reich. (photo: Perian Flaherty)

By Robert Reich, Robert Reich's Blog

02 November 15
readersupportednews.org

 
uch of the national debate about widening inequality focuses on whether and how much to tax the rich and redistribute their income downward.

But this debate ignores the upward redistributions going on every day, from the rest of us to the rich. These redistributions are hidden inside the market.

The only way to stop them is to prevent big corporations and Wall Street banks from rigging the market.

For example, Americans pay more for pharmaceuticals than do the citizens of any other developed nation.

That’s partly because it’s perfectly legal in the U.S. (but not in most other nations) for the makers of branded drugs to pay the makers of generic drugs to delay introducing cheaper unbranded equivalents, after patents on the brands have expired.

This costs you and me an estimated $3.5 billion a year – a hidden upward redistribution of our incomes to Pfizer, Merck, and other big proprietary drug companies, their executives, and major shareholders.

We also pay more for Internet service than do the inhabitants of any other developed nation.

The average cable bill in the United States rose 5 percent in 2012 (the latest year available), nearly triple the rate of inflation.

Why? Because 80 percent of us have no choice of Internet service provider, which allows them to charge us more.

Internet service here costs 3 and-a-half times more than it does in France, for example, where the typical customer can choose between 7 providers.
 

And U.S. cable companies are intent on keeping their monopoly.

It’s another hidden upward distribution – from us to Comcast, Verizon, or another giant cable company, its executives and major shareholders.

Likewise, the interest we pay on home mortgages or college loans is higher than it would be if the big banks that now dominate the financial industry had to work harder to get our business.

As recently as 2000, America’s five largest banks held 25 percent of all U.S. banking assets. Now they hold 44 percent – which gives them a lock on many such loans.

If we can’t repay, forget using bankruptcy. Donald Trump can go bankrupt four times and walk away from his debts, but the bankruptcy code doesn’t allow homeowners or graduates to reorganize unmanageable debts.

So beleaguered homeowners and graduates don’t have any bargaining leverage with creditors – exactly what the financial industry wants.

The net result: another hidden upward redistribution – this one, from us to the big banks, their executives, and major shareholders.

Some of these upward redistributions seem to defy gravity. Why have average domestic airfares risen 2.5% over the past, and are now at their the highest level since the government began tracking them in 1995 – while fuel prices, the largest single cost for the airlines, have plummeted?

Because America went from nine major carriers ten years ago to just four now. Many airports are now served by one or two.

This makes it easy for airlines to coordinate their fares and keep them high – resulting in another upward redistribution.

Why have food prices been rising faster than inflation, while crop prices are now at a six-year low?

Because the giant corporations that process food have the power to raise prices. Four food companies control 82 percent of beef packing, 85 percent of soybean processing, 63 percent of pork packing, and 53 percent of chicken processing.

Result: A redistribution from average consumers to Big Agriculture.

Finally, why do you suppose health insurance is costing us more, and co-payments and deductibles are rising?

One reason is big insurers are consolidating into giants with the power to raise prices. They say these combinations make their companies more efficient, but they really just give them power to charge more.

Health insurers are hiking rates 20 to 40 percent next year, and their stock values are skyrocketing (the Standard & Poor’s 500 Managed Health Care Index recently hit its highest level in more than twenty years.)

Add it up – the extra money we’re paying for pharmaceuticals, Internet communications, home mortgages, student loans, airline tickets, food, and health insurance – and you get a hefty portion of the average family’s budget.

Democrats and Republicans spend endless time battling over how much to tax the rich and then redistribute the money downward.

But if we didn’t have so much upward redistribution inside the market, we wouldn’t need as much downward redistribution through taxes and transfer payments.

Yet as long as the big corporations, Wall Street banks, their top executives and wealthy shareholders have the political power to do so, they’ll keep redistributing much of the nation’s income upward to themselves.

Which is why the rest of us must gain political power to stop the collusion, bust up the monopolies, and put an end to the rigging of the American market.

Obama: Forget Putin. GOP Candidates 'Can't Handle a Bunch of CNBC Moderators'

President Barack Obama. (photo: Larry Downing/Reuters)

By David Nakamura, The Washington Post

03 November 15
readersupportednews.org

 
resident Obama on Monday gleefully mocked the Republican presidential candidates who have called him weak on the world stage, suggesting the would-be tough guys "can't handle a bunch of CNBC moderators."

"Let me tell you, if you can’t handle those guys then I don’t think the Chinese and the Russians are going to be too worried about it," Obama said during an Democratic fundraiser at the Richard Rodgers Theater in Manhattan, drawing laughter and applause from a crowd of more than 1,300 supporters.

In some of his most barbed comments to date about the 2016 race, Obama appeared to relish poking fun at his rivals over their performance last week during a GOP debate broadcast on the cable network. Several of the candidates complained about the questions posed by the moderators and have demanded that the Republican National Committee and networks abide by a set of changes to debate rules in the future.

Obama arrived at the theater after a performance of the musical "Hamilton," loosely based on the life of former Treasury secretary Alexander Hamilton. Though he bemoaned not being able to see the show again -- noting that he and first lady Michelle Obama love the musical -- Obama delivered a version of his campaign stump speech with a particularly showy flourish.

Talking about GOP skepticism of climate change, Obama noted that a Republican member of Congress -- Sen. Jim Inhofe (Okla.), though the president didn't name him -- brought a snowball into the chamber to prove global warming was a fraud.

"I’m not making that up. That’s what happened. That’s crazy," Obama said. "I was going to quote [rapper] Kanye [West] but this is a family audience. But that's cray" -- meaning crazy.

Republicans, Obama said, just won't believe the facts.

“If you go to 100 doctors and 99 of them tell you you have diabetes … you wouldn’t say ahh, that’s a conspiracy," he said. "All 99 doctors got together with Obama to keep me from having bacon and donuts. You wouldn’t do that."

The audience roared with laughter.

After making the case that Americans are better off by virtually every measure than they were when he took office in 2009, Obama said: "I don’t know if the Republicans running for office know any of these things. Because they occupy a different reality it seems. According to them, everything was really good in 2008 when we were going through the worst economic crisis in our lifetimes, when we were hopelessly addicted to foreign oil, and when Osama [bin Laden] was still running loose."

After a beat he added: "This, apparently, was the golden age I messed up."

The appearance at the theater was the second of two fundraisers for Obama in New York. Earlier, at the home of hedge fund magnate George Soros, Obama rallied supporters to help elect Democrats to Congress next year, warning that maintaining control of the White House will not be enough for the party to build on his administration's accomplishments.

"I will do everything I can to make sure I’ve got a Democratic successor," Obama said at the fundraiser to benefit the Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee, "but that Democratic successor is going to need a Democratic Congress that is going to work with the president to advance the causes we care about."

With House Minority Leader Nancy Pelosi (Calif.) among the dinner guests at the Soros home, the president added that "I need people to feel a sense of urgency about these congressional races. ... Health care would not have passed [in 2010] if Nancy Pelosi was not speaker of the House."

Obama is helping raise money for the 2016 campaign even though he has not yet begun campaigning for individual Democrats, including those running to succeed him. Earlier in the day, the president appeared in Newark to tout his administration's efforts to help ex-offenders assimilate into society after prison.

The president praised Republicans for helping pass a two-year spending bill, which he signed Monday morning before leaving Washington.

"I wish [former House Speaker] John Boehner had not waited until he was leaving until deciding to work with us on this, but I want to give credit where credit is due," Obama said at the Soros home. "Republicans worked with Nancy and [Senate Minority Leader] Harry [Reid] and the White House. That's the way it's supposed to work."

Obama then recalled a skit from comedian Chris Rock.

"Part of his act where he’s talking about guys bragging about things they're supposed to do anyway," Obama said. "They say, 'I take care of my kids.' You’re supposed to take care of your kids. 'I haven’t been to jail.' Well, you’re not supposed to go to jail.

"There is an element of a low bar in passing a budget ... but having said that, I do think it's important."

Seven of Paul Ryan's Worst Ideas

Paul Ryan. (photo: Rick Wilking/Reuters)

By Robert Reich, Robert Reich's Facebook Page

31 October 15
readersupportednews.org

 
ow that Paul Ryan is Speaker of the House, keep a wary eye out for Ryan’s 7 favorite ideas (they’re also cropping up among Republican presidential candidates):

1. Reduce the top income-tax rate to 25 percent from 35 percent (a huge windfall to the rich at a time when the rich take home a larger share of total income that at any time since the 1920s).


2. Cut corporate taxes to 25 percent from 35 percent (a giant sop to corporations, the largest of which are already socking away $1.2 trillion in foreign tax shelters).


3. Make these cuts without adding the budget deficit by slashing spending on domestic programs like food stamps and education for poor districts (now, 18% of the nation's children are in poverty, and these cuts would only make things worse).


4. Also by turning Medicaid and other federal programs for the poor into block grants to the states, and let the states decide how to allocate them (in other words, give Republican state legislatures and governors slush funds to do with as they wish).


5. And turning Medicare into vouchers that don’t keep up with increases in healthcare costs (which would in effect cut Medicare for the elderly).


6. Deal with rising Social Security costs by raising the retirement age for Social Security (making Social Security even more regressive, since the poor don't live nearly as long as the rich).


7. Finally, don’t raise the minimum wage but let it continue to decline as inflation makes it irrelevant; instead, provide poor workers with a larger Earned Income Tax Credit (enlarging the EITC is a good idea, but we need a higher minimum as well).

Bottom line: Beware Paul Ryan.

What do you think?

Comments

+51 # Barbara K 2015-10-31 09:51

I know that he and his supporters will probably try to enact some of that junk. I hope that the Senate can stop him from overtaking us, and that the President has a good Veto Pen in hand.

+39 # Old4Poor 2015-10-31 10:35

Making it even more essential that the next VETO hand is Democratic.

+17 # HowardMH 2015-10-31 12:34

Things are going to get a lot worse before they start to get better with this bunch of clowns in charge.

The American Spring will start when there are thousands of really, really pissed off people at the Capital all at the same time raising some serious hell against the Lunatics, and idiots absolutely nothing is ever, ever going to happen to these totally bought and paid for by the richest 400 families in the world that are becoming more and more powerful with each passing rigged election thanks to the stupid people.

So, scream, yell, chant, stomp your feet, threaten to hold your breath, and beat your drums so the media can show it on the evening news, while all of those who can actually do anything about it are home counting their donation money and laughing all the way to the bank.

Yes there is still hope for the America we used to know, but I agree it is fading fast.