Your modern GOP at work:
The Arizona House on Monday voted for a provision that would require President Barack Obama to show his birth certificate if he hopes to be on the state’s ballot when he runs for reelection.
The House voted 31-22 to add the provision to a separate bill. The measure still faces a formal vote.
It would require U.S. presidential candidates who want to appear on the ballot in Arizona to submit documents proving they meet the constitutional requirements to be president.
Phoenix Democratic Rep. Kyrsten Sinema said the bill is one of several measures that are making Arizona “the laughing stock of the nation.”
What if PRESIDENT OF THE UNITED STATES OF AMERICA Obama orders his secret service detail to punch Republican members of the Arizona House in the neck? Will that prove he is American?
WereBear
Well, Arizona. Didn’t they take years to agree to MLF Jr Day?
bob h
I believe that Arthur Frommer has already called for a tourist boycott of Arizona based on the menacing reception given to Obama during the HCR Town Hall visit. Good idea. Arizona has the most beautiful rocks and the ugliest people in the nation.
cleek
bbbbbut… only fringe elements care about the birth certificate! it’s not a mainstream GOP issue!
dmsilev
Assuming that this becomes law, presumably Obama’s campaign will just pull the Hawaii CoLB out of the filing cabinet and fax it to the Arizona Birth Certificate Verifier General. What happens then?
dms
MikeJ
@dmsilev: Presumably some idiot will start screaming “vault copy!” and then perhaps somebody in Arizona will say, “you know, *we* don’t have a big vault under a mountain where we keep paper copies of every birth certificate. Why does anybody think Hawaii should?”
But I wouldn’t count on that convincing anybody.
dmsilev
@MikeJ: How do we know Arizona *doesn’t* have a big vault in the heart of a mountain, protected by five dragons and a river of fire, where only the true of heart may approach, in which John McCain’s (Panamanian) birth certificate is kept?
dms
Randy P
Actually, wouldn’t he have already filed some sort of proof of eligibility to get on the ballot in the primaries and the general election of 2008?
4tehlulz
Does Mexico want Arizona back?
MikeJ
Even in my snark I screwed up. I said “paper copy” to be kept in the vault under the mountain. I forgot, copies won’t do. You must have the original, signed by the white, christian, American doctor in blood. If it is ever lost or destroyed, you don’t really exist.
Admiral_Komack
“What if PRESIDENT OF THE UNITED STATES OF AMERICA Obama orders his secret service detail to punch Republican members of the Arizona House in the neck? Will that prove he is American?”
-NO.
Shooting the racist bastards would.
Carry on.
J.A.F. Rusty Shackleford
Every MLB team that trains in Arizona should announce that they’ll conduct spring training at one of their southern minor league affiliate cities, remove all instructional league teams and announce the Arizona Fall League will be canceled if the state doesn’t cease and desist their march towards intolerance.
Svensker
@WereBear:
They have a MILF day? And people wonder why I have no use whatsoever for Arizona.
Bill E Pilgrim
Well, I suppose if a corporation can be given all the rights of a person, then a state can be given all of the sanity of a birther.
Next I expect the entire country to claim that it’s had a microchip implanted in its rectum. By which, I assume it means Georgia.
debbie
It will be interesting to hear McCain’s reaction to this.
Tim O
save me, I’m afraid to leave my house . . .there are birther zombies everywhere! and posse’s that want to throw me in jail because I have a dark tan! send help!
PaulW
@dmsilev:
The State of Arizona will refuse to accept it, as they have proof that the whole state of Hawaii is involved in the cover-up. Arizona will not accept any fraudulent birth certificate that says Obama was born at all (as Obama was, in fact, grown in a Spartii cylinder by the Sith).
PaulW
Just when I think my home state of Florida has a lock on crazy conservative crap, some other state comes along and give the Sunshine State an undeserved rep for relative sanity. STOP IT PEOPLE! Don’t you know all the nuts roll down to Florida?!
Sigh.
Open letter to the residents of Arizona: are you all SURE you wanna keep up with this racist crazy stuff? You’re starting to make… no wait scratch that, you’ve made TEXAS look reasonable by comparison.
I wonder what the residents of Mississippi can do to top Arizona now…
Bill E Pilgrim
@dmsilev:
I do think that making them put their money where their mouth is and actually be required to have officials like that would be great, once they’ve passed some insanity like this.
Georgia would have to have a Microchip Inspector General, with a whole office of deputies checking the numbers on billboards around town for secret codes that match implanted beepers. It would be like that scene in A Beautiful Mind where he’s got string and thumbtacks all over the walls showing the conspiracy codes in magazine articles.
MattF
I guess Arizona is where people in the surrounding areas (Texas, Utah, Nevada, So. Cal.) go when too many libruls move in.
I should say also, that I’ve been to Tucson, and it’s not a bad place if you’re a desert rat, and I really do mean that in a positive way.
ET
He could show it but they still wouldn’t believe it. Of course then some of the idiots in Arizona would want proof that Hawaii is part of the U.S.
Belafon (formerly anonevent)
But they’ll accept that McCain is enough of an American citizen to run for president, he who was born in Panama? They need to explain how they thread that needle.
brantl
I don’t know if it will prove he’s an American (native-born US citizen) or not, but just on the principles of instant karma being a good thing, I would like to see it happen. It would be more satisfying if I got to do it personally, but still.
Dennis G.
It is as crazy as South Carolina, but drier. I’m sure more folks will notice when Hayworth defeats McCain. I hope the Democrats get a decent candidate or one of Abramoff’s most corrupt co-conspirators is headed to the Senate.
Dennis G.
@Svensker:
Yep
CatStaff
How about we go ahead and set up a glass-enclosed, temperature-and-humidity-controlled stand up in the center of the Arizona desert and put the President’s birth certificate in it. Anyone who wishes to do so is free to visit the enclosure to view the certificate. The only condition is that you must walk to and from the enclosure with only the clothing you’re standing up in, starting from the edges of the desert.
Ya’ll birthers have a nice day.
geg6
Boy, I wouldn’t live in Arizona for anything. Getting as bad there as any state below the Mason Dixon line.
Saw Grijalva on Countdown last night talking about the new racial profiling law and, man, is he pissed. He said that this new law will allow some ass like Arpaio to pull him over and toss him in jail if he doesn’t carry his birth certificate around with him even if the cop is well aware of who he is and what his position is. He will still have to prove his citizenship with actual paperwork. He is calling for a boycott of the state by all businesses and organizations. Based on what today’s GOP is like, I expect them to call for their supporters to flood the state with business and conventions to show their solidarity.
I don’t think we’re gonna see the Pubs getting a single Hispanic vote nationally outside the rapidly dwindling Cuban exile community in Miami for the next decade, at least.
ericblair
I used to live in AZ, but it’s been a while. Tucson didn’t used to be this crazy; is it mainly Phoenix/Maricopa County and To Hell and Gone In the Desert that’s full metal wingnut cuckoo, or is it spreading? Phoenix is ground zero in the housing crash and the economy completely sucks: is this part of the reaction?
AZ’s a very pretty place with some interesting little corners with fascinating people and actually some decent skiing. But Phoenix is a mess.
Linda Featheringill
Well. I have never in my life viewed Arizona as a source of amusement. Who knew they could be so entertaining?
I suppose we will be treated to several months politicians in that state trying to out-Right-Wing each other. In the course of this competition, they will do something truly offensive and make everyone else angry or disgusted. They we can listen to months of whining about the negative reaction and cries of “why is everybody always picking on us?”
Note to self: Add popcorn to grocery list.
Flitterbic
It’s true. But the microchip is also a GPS tracking device that allows our fat-ass, old, white, Baptist leaders to see if one passes by the beer display in the grocery store on Sundays. If so, a shock is administered and a voice emanates from your ass – “This is god. I am resting today. Keep walking.”
JGabriel
ET:
As the last of the lower 48 to be admitted to the union, AZ is really in no position to ask other states for proof of their legitimacy.
.
Remember November
@debbie:
depends on the day, how much Geritol he’s had, and whether he’s had donuts.
mandarama
@PaulW:
Please don’t dare them. I need a break from the back-home embarrassment.
@JGabriel: Zing!
Remember November
Az. – two letters you find in AlZheimers. it’s where racist old white people go to die.
Lisa K.
@Dennis G.:
The thing about democracy is, people get the representation they elect, of their own free will. It is not Hayworth’s fault that the intellectual equivalent of crackheads in AZ is poised to elect a scandel-laden doughboy. He just provides them the opportunity to do what they want anyway.
Fanshawe
I’m not sure that states have the constitutional right to impose additional eligibility requirements on presidential candidates. And despite how it’s phrased in the bill, “prove to the satisfaction of some official in Arizona that you were born in the United States” is certainly an extra requirement.
Fern
Any chance the governor will veto this abomination?
Randy P
I’m about to scream. I sit near the coffee area and I’m hearing a discussion between two co-workers who are supposedly sane, intelligent, nice people but are calmly and rationally throwing out Republican talking points. When I heard “it’s the Democratic attitude, gimme, gimme, gimme” I was just about ready to throw the laptop over the cubical wall at them.
Edit: The coffee conversation continues. Seems the problems California is having is the Democrats fault, too. YEEEEAAAARGH!
JGabriel
Looks like AZ has always had more than a streak of the bigot in it:
.
mai naem
Hey, at least we don’t have people talking about microchips in our vaginal/rectal areas. Also too, we is happy that South Carolina are part of the
UnionConfederacy. Also too Mississippi. We have the tallest dropout high school rate in the country and we is proud of dat.Doc
EricBlair at 27 has it right about Arizona. The crazies are in Mesa and out in the desert above Phoenix. Tucson and Flagstaff are both university towns and are relatively sane.
Arizona is a beautiful place, but it’s full of rich old white folks who hate and fear Mexican-Americans and who are offended by the appearance in their midst of anyone who is not white. They freak out when they see day laborers waiting on corners to get work–never thinking to blame the farmers and contractors who hire them, pay them in cash, and ask no questions.
Please Janet, come back! We need you!
Karen
“What if PRESIDENT OF THE UNITED STATES OF AMERICA Obama orders his secret service detail to punch Republican members of the Arizona House in the neck? Will that prove he is American?”
Sure, but it would also show he’s been reading John Cole for awhile.
Mike in NC
Drove across Arizona when the Navy transferred me from the west coast to the east. Really didn’t see one reason to stop, even for gas.
jon
Arizona is the only state that had its voters institute a Martin Luther King Jr. holiday. All the others did it throught the legislature or by some sort of proclamation. Yes, it is also the only state where it was a huge deal, but it’s still the only one where the voters directly did it. And this was after the NFL, which was open on MLKjr Day at the same time it was not giving Arizona a Super Bowl, and other entities were using Arizona as a whipping boy to prove their political correctness. As I remember, there were some contingents that didn’t want another paid holiday, some that didn’t want to lose Columbus Day, some that wanted to keep each, some that wanted to ditch Columbus Day, and some other compromises that were arranged. It was a racial budget issue for some, an anti-Italian issue for others, and a race issue for most who decided to eventually vote for the holiday.
My state is nuts, but its a very mixed bag of nuts. I’m glad that our Republicans have proven themselves to be on the pulse of what’s important this never-ending legislative year: becoming the only state that gives up almost all federal funding for children’s healthcare, allowing guns in bars that don’t specifically not allow guns, let almost anyone carry a concealed gun, cut school funding, cut state park funding, close many rest stops on freeways, and more. Birther nonsense and the stuff about carrying our papers everywhere really shows the strong projection that has been going on in the conservative psyche for the past many years: it’s Us v. Them taken to new extremes.
parksideq
Meh, it’s not like Arizona’s electoral votes were the ones that caused Obama to win. They’re not voting Democratic anytime soon so I’ll just point and laugh.
jon
Also, my hometown of Tucson was originally rejected as a Territorial capital because it was assumed that there were too many Confederate sympathizers in the area. Up the road from a bit Tucson toward Phoenix is Picacho Peak, site of the Westernmost battle of the Civil War. The Californians won, which has had horrible implications. They weren’t as horrible as the consequences would have been if the Confederates had won, but still: horrible. Imagine living in a place where some Californians fought and died for your way of life.
Luthe
@PaulW:
::sporfle:: I salute you and your geekiness, sir!
Incidentally, I am now glad I chose to Rutgers for grad school over ASU. Being of the brown persuasion, it would really be a pain in the ass to carry my passport around everywhere.
comrade bc in soviet az
Greetings from the right wing fascist state! You know. Comrade McCain was born in Panama, and I haven’t seen the condo community gardeners all week. Also many in my family immigrated to this fine country less than 100 years ago.
parksideq
To add, I do think their birther streak is about six kinds of nuts. But I’ll save my anger at Arizona for the state-sanctioned racial profiling bill.
caune
Only if Janet Napolitano was still our Governor. The Sec. of State who took over when janet left for Washington is as crazy as they come….so no, no chance she will veto it.
LuciaMia
Does Arizona still refuse to switch to Daylight Savings every year? Guess cause it’s not in the constitution…
AngusJackBootedThugOfMeat
As I said to another thread, with link to local story, I think there is a decent chance that Brewer will veto this bill. She is not an idealogue Republican.
Also, Arizona’s opt out of Daylight Savings is long standing, and is due to the fact that in a desert at the Western edge of the Mountain zone, nobody really wants the sun to stay up an hour later in July and August. It’s too fucking hot. Daylight time serves no useful purpose here.
Let me remind you that I am Thymezone, so I know this subject pretty well. Trust me.
jon
I’m still waiting for someone to explain why Daylight Savings Time is necessary to anyone, since I always figured it was a Marti De Bergi/Nigel Tufnel kind of discussion: why not just make ten one later? These are set at eleven.
You want more daylight? Get to work earlier. You want less? Open later. It’s not rocket science or even a Mayan Calendar secret: if you want more sun or less sun, fucking adapt your schedule! Why the rest of the country wants to be a slave to a clock baffles me, and on that note I better get my ass to work.
ThatLeftTurnInABQ
@MattF:
You have no idea what a pain in the ass it is, living on the Texas-Arizona border.
Mnemosyne
I’m not the only one who suspects this is a ploy on the part of Arizona’s Secretary of State to get him/herself a lovely Hawaiian vacation on the taxpayer’s dime, am I?
(Okay, probably not, but it’s a more rational explanation than actually believing the president has a fake birth certificate.)
AngusJackBootedThugOfMeat
@ThatLeftTurnInABQ:
In the little town of Texmexona?
Heh.
EvolutionaryDesign
As a Coloradan, a state with a quarter of its population being brown, I say we rescind AZs leases on Colordo water. They’re stealing all we have as it is (CA too for that matter, but y’all have an ocean – desalinization bitches!), so go dry out for a while.
asiangrrlMN
@parksideq: I second this. I got pissed off at I-Am-Not-A-Maverick McCain for trying to spin it (and badly, I must add). I really hope the governor does not sign it into law.
P.S. Do away with DST completely, says I.
flukebucket
Not surprising really.
ASU decided being the first black President did not qualify him for an honorary degree from their fine university.
I guess he is still working to be worthy.
AngusJackBootedThugOfMeat
@asiangrrlMN:
You mean, the Con Artist Formerly Known as Prince of Mavericks?
He was just fucking with us back then.
sneezy
@LuciaMia:
Re: “Does Arizona still refuse to switch to Daylight Savings every year?”
“Refuse” is pretty strange phrasing. Is anyone asking them to do it?
I lived in Arizona for about a decade. Trust me, in the desert in summer, there’s no need to save daylight: there’s plenty of it as it is.
AngusJackBootedThugOfMeat
@EvolutionaryDesign:
Uh no, water rights go with the land, and history of use, not political borders.
The following is from an article on the subject of the 1922 Colorado River Compact; note the last part of the first paragraph:
—//begin excerpt
By the early 1920s the Colorado Basin states were anxious about their share of the Colorado River. Then, as now, California’s growth was viewed with concern. Burgeoning growth meant increased water demand, and the other Colorado Basin states feared California would establish priority rights to Colorado River water. That California contributed the least amount of runoff to the river added gall to the situation.
(In her conference presentation, Pat Mulroy, general manager of the Southern Nevada Water Authority, commented, “Things have changed, but what remains the same is that California was the problem back then, and California is the problem today.”)
Concern was hardly allayed by a federal report recommending the construction of a dam “at or near Boulder Canyon” which would increase California’s access to the Colorado River. Concern turned to alarm when the U.S. Supreme Court ruled in June 1922 that the law of prior appropriation applied regardless of state lines. A fast growing state, i.e. California, could then establish priority use of Colorado River water to the extreme disadvantage of slower growing states in the upper basin.
Some form of concerted effort seemed called for. Delph Carpenter, a Colorado attorney, rose to the occasion and proposed that the Colorado River states negotiate a compact to determine individual state’s rights to the river water. At the time interstate compacts to resolve water disputes was an untried, untested strategy.
Carpenter’s reasons for advocating an interstate compact strikes a familiar note today. He was very wary some even say paranoid about federal involvement in state affairs and feared if the states did not get their houses in order the federal government would take charge, to the disadvantage of the states. Also, he wanted to head off litigation that would be time-and-resource consuming and believed an interstate compact would accomplish this end.
The compact’s crowning accomplishment was the apportionment of Colorado River water, between Upper and Lower Basin states. The delegates initially intended to apportion river water directly to each state. A seemingly sensible approach, this strategy had the potential to prevent future conflicts among the states.
==// end
Note that Colorado is not the only state whose watershed feeds the river, as implied by the last sentence of the first paragraph. The name of the river does not imply that all the water comes from the state of Colorado. Nobody is stealing “your” water.
Little Dreamer
@LuciaMia:
Why do you insist that switching times around twice a year is the better option?
I have to say, since I became a resident of Arizona, the idea of DST makes far less sense to me. I like it this way better, it’s less confusing and I don’t miss springing forward and falling back at all.
AngusJackBootedThugOfMeat
@Little
Dreamer:
She has a catholic view of the time zones. Heh.
AngusJackBootedThugOfMeat
@WereBear:
My Left Foot day?
Yes, we were concerned about the Open Toed Sandal effect.
Thoughcrime
Too bad Samuel Fuller isn’t around to make “The Morons of Arizona”.
imdb.com/title/tt0042229/
Also time for a sequel to this one:
imdb.com/title/tt0084899/
Update the title to “White GOP”.
SpotWeld
Does this mean AZ can overrule Hawaii’s ability to run it’s own department of health?
I mean Hawaii has verifed the president’s birth. That should do it. Can AZ overrule that?
stannate
@JGabriel:
…which, in hindsight, was an odd statement to make as the Confederate territory of Arizona is not the same as the Union’s Arizona Territory (and later state of Arizona). After the Union captured the CSA Arizona territory in 1862-3, Congress moved to reincorporate the territory, but with different borders so as not to give any recognition to the Confederate’s territorial claims.
BruceFromOhio
So, Arizona doesn’t want to participate in Presidential elections?
Fine by me.
asiangrrlMN
@AngusJackBootedThugOfMeat: No shit. I’m glad I read the Rolling Stone
piecetakedown on him because I don’t expect anything else from him now.Cyrus
@Fanshawe:
I’m not a lawyer, but it seems very possible to me. One state can’t impose a requirement on the rest of the country, of course, but the thing Arizona is considering is just a requirement for getting on its own ballot. As long as it’s party-neutral, why not?
Well, obviously, it’s a waste of time, a gratuitous slap in the face for non-WASPs, and a transparent yet comically feeble attempt to use the state’s fundemental electoral system for political maneuvering. But Arizona is full of conservatives, and apparently conservatives like that stuff.
Chuck
@AngusJackBootedThugOfMeat:
Water rights are most certainly separate from land title. Ask any farmer. They’re not even allowed to install drainage ditches — if everyone did, there would never be a river in the first place.
terry chay
On the plus side, that state (along with Nevada and Florida) is going down the toilet because of the real-estate bubble. Other states with large real-estate bubbles (California, New York, etc) have their share of problems, but if you look at the numbers, the real-estate zones with the hit are cities without no-collar jobs (creative fields, tech, etc.) like suburbs of Phoenix, Las Vegas and exurbs of Los Angeles & the Bay Area. The former has no mitigation, the latter does. For instance, property rates in San Francisco are still growing, same with cities like Portland, parts of Los Angeles, etc.
Methinks their bigotry is paying these people back with the total lack of anyone with a decent high-skill job actually wanting to live there.
Nylund
I think Obama should tell them to eff off, especially if it can actually keep him off the ballot. He wouldn’t win in the state anyway and surely there are enough Democrats in Arizona to raise hell when their candidate is barred.
Plus, it’ll only feed the birthers. They’ll then push every elected Republican to get on board with the birther movement. The circular firing squad and all the loonies pushed to the forefront of the party will make for a great show.
Cheryl from Maryland
And there’s a good chance that the Republican candidate’s birth certificate will look EXACTLY like the President’s. Wouldn’t that be a hoot? I know for myself and my friends born in Virginia during the 1950’s and 1960’s, we received a certificate of live birth form similar to what Hawaii used.
TenguPhule
Does this mean Hawaii picks up Arizona’s electoral votes then? We promise not to beat the lower 48 with them too much!
grumpy realist
States can’t impose further requirements on candidates for Federal offices. See case law. When you’re mucking around with requirements for being on the ballot for the Presidency, this is about as unconstitutional as it gets. I hope someone with a decent legal education explains things to these idiots.
(States also can’t impose extra requirements on candidates for (legislative) state offices if the requirements would be unequally applied, etc. Lot of internal state stuff that has been struck down as being unconstitutional.)
IANAL but am taking Con. Law this term!