Whatever else Jan Brewer is, no one can say she isn't hard-nosed and calculating. When she decided the Medicaid expansion under the Affordable Care Act was good for Arizona, she also decided to steamroll the Tea Party, forging a strong bipartisan coalition while sending the extremists to a dark, dusty corner.

First, she threatened a veto of every single bill sent to her by the legislature until they approved the Medicaid expansion. They thought she was joking, so they sent up five bills, and Brewer returned five vetoes.

Then things got very interesting.

Brewer’s surprise move came after House Speaker Andy Tobin, R-Paulden, adjourned the lower chamber until Thursday, stalling efforts by a bipartisan House coalition to pass Brewer’s 2014 budget and Medicaid expansion.

Many legislators were on their way home when Brewer called key lawmakers to a meeting in her offices, where the special-session plans were hatched. They agreed to unseat the speaker and Senate president, if necessary, to get Medicaid expansion and the budget passed.

Brewer issued a special-session proclamation at 5 p.m., and by then, Democrats and the expansion-friendly Republicans were already gathering on the House floor.

This is the first time in memory that a governor has called a special session with the intention of going around her own party’s leadership and without notifying them.

Brewer was playing for high stakes, too:

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Many of you may recall that back in 2010, we predicted that the backlash created by the politics of anti-Latino bigotry practiced by Sharron Angle and her fellow Republicans was going to create a tsunami of Latino voters who would sweep Sen. Harry Reid to re-election in Nevada. And then it happened exactly that way.

Now, according to Latino Decisions, a similar scenario is cropping up in Arizona, where the nativist politics of Jan "Headless Corpses in the Desert" Brewer, Russell "SB1070" Pearce, and Crazy Joe "Who? Me? Racially Profile?" Arpaio have turned the state into a political cesspool of bigotry. The backlash, it appears, is coming this fall:

In 2010, the average of 16 polls of likely voters in Nevada suggested Sharon Angle had a firm 3 point lead, and 538′s Nate Silver gave her an 83.4% chance of winning. On election night, the results showed Harry Reid with a 5 point win — an 8 point difference from the poll averages. Why the error? Almost every statewide poll in Nevada badly missed the Latino vote. In the final analysis, Reid won close to 90% of the Latino vote, and Latino turnout was much higher than anticipated.

New polling data out of Arizona released by America’s Voice and Latino Decisions suggests Arizona may be much closer than the polling averages indicate. A full 80% of Latinos say they plan to vote for Obama, compared to just 14% for Romney, and Latino enthusiasm is much, much higher in Arizona than the national average. In Latino Decisions national tracking poll 34% of Latinos say they are more excited about voting in 2012 while 36% say they were more excited back in 2008. In Arizona 60% are more enthusiastic in 2012 compared to just 16% who were more enthused in 2008. In October and November 2010 Latino Decisions polling in Nevada was picking up similar trends in Nevada, leading then Washington Post columnist Edward Schumacher-Matos to note on Election Day before the polls closed: “As the Western returns come in tonight, look out for the possibility of a Latino surprise. For the Democrats, a high Latino turnout could possibly save Harry Reid in Nevada.”

If Latino turnout is high in Arizona this year, it will be the Nevada of 2012 that takes the mainstream media by surprise.

David Pinar at Tucson Citizen notes that the problem may well lie in the techniques used by polling companies:

Matt Barreto of Latino Decisions suggested to Nate Silver of the FiveThirtyEight blog at the NY Times how the polls all missed the impact of the Latino vote in Nevada in 2010: All the major polling firms conduct their polls in English only, while Latino Decisions conducts their polls in both English and Spanish, with the respondent selecting the language in which they prefer the poll to be conducted. The major polling firms missed the Latino voters who prefer to speak Spanish. About 40 percent of Latino voters in California meet this description, with likely similar numbers in Nevada and Arizona. Mr. Silver compiled results from the eight states with the largest share of Latinos in their population: these are Arizona, California, Colorado, Florida, Nevada, New Mexico, New York and Texas. He found that in 10 of the 15 races, the polling average underestimated the Democrat’s margin by at least 2.5 points. He concluded that there was the beginnings of a pattern — and considering how rapidly the Latino population is growing, it’s one that pollsters are going to need to address. That was right after the November 2010 election. And less than a month away from the 2012 election, the major polling firms still haven’t addressed that, still conduct their polls in English only, and are likely under representing Latino voters in places like Arizona, Nevada, New Mexico, Colorado and elsewhere.

There may be an even simpler dynamic at work: Many polling firms still do not call people's cell phones (though some firms, notably Gallup, are changing that), and Latinos (especially young ones) are more prone than other ethnic groups to use only cell phones, not land lines. (See Mark Blumenthal for more on this.)

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Nothing says leadership more than bravely standing up against a concern that’s not actually a problem. We’ve had a one-sided battle with Sharia Law in the U.S. No one is fighting for replacing U.S. law with an Islamic moral code, but nonetheless Republicans are heroically fighting against it. Same with aborted fetuses in commercial food stuffs: Not something that’s ever happened but earlier this year Republican freshman Oklahoma state senator Ralph Shortey had the temerity to introduce a bill to outlaw it.

Republicans love what they call “simple solutions” but it’s really just the easiest possible answer to a trumped up crisis. In short: busy work. America needs to streamline for the challenges of the future so we can remain competitive (blah blah blah). Yet Republican offers are akin to organizing all the paperclips in the office by color and size.

Republicans and bureaucracy are, after all, frenemies. Sure they tell the media they despise bureaucracy but secretly love it when it makes them appear to be doing something. Even better if it keeps them from doing anything difficult.

For example: We’re in the middle of an obesity epidemic. It’s the number two leading cause of preventable death in this country. The Center for Disease Control estimates 112,000 American deaths a year due to obesity, this is down from their previous estimate of 365,000 deaths from poor nutrition and physical inactivity. The CDC reports in 2008 Americans forked over $147 billion in medical costs on obesity. We’re dying and going broke from being too fat.

But what are Republicans trying to warn us against? Terrorism. China. Russia. Obamacare. ACORN. The New Black Panthers. The Fed. All of which cumulatively killed no Americans last year.

It’s (ironically) lazy to try to and scare Americans about some elusive menace in order to avoid the reality that we’ve become the proverbial elephants in our own living rooms.

Illegal immigration? Republicans say to secure the border—build a fence—arrest anyone who even looks illegal. Mitt Romney said Arizona’s infamous SB 1070 should be a model for the nation. Which would be something if Mexicans were still coming into the U.S. They’re not. Immigration from Mexico is now net zero. That is actually a way bigger problem than undocumented workers (whom we love in boom times for a way to circumvent the minimum wage and exploit a non-litigious underclass). It’s the fact we are no longer an attractive enough country to motivate Mexicans to come here.

But as we saw last week with the Supreme Court ruling on Arizona’s law, governor Jan Brewer’s just doubled down on a non-problem, “We cannot forget that we are here today because the federal government has failed the American people regarding immigration policy, has failed to protect its citizens, has failed to preserve the rule of law and has failed to secure our borders.”

For a party that likes to peddle free market and common sense they sure get a lot of traction ginning up irrational fears.

Our energy plan is stuck firmly in the last century, but that’s not the point the presumptive Republican nominee decided to make. In March Mitt Romney told Fox News President Obama "has done everything in his power to make it harder for us to get oil and natural gas in this country, driving up the price of those commodities in the case of gasoline." Gas prices were the thing Republicans were going to fix by paying attention to them! With little fanfare, gas prices are down now by the way. Production has increased overall under the Obama administration. Republicans managed to sound the alarm and assign blame for a symptom while steadfastly avoiding the cause entirely.

Think I’m way off here? Remember this is the party that in the wake of September 11th—an attack by citizens of Saudi Arabia, organized in Afghanistan by a leader hanging out in Lebanon—decided to invade (wait for it) Iraq.

Because things indirectly involved with real problems hate us for our freedoms.

Cross posted at TinaDupuy.com

Well, who didn't see this coming? Our favorite woman-hating female governor has actually signed the Arizona birth control bill into law. In what can only be described as an intellectually dishonest, Orwellian argument for needing such a bill, Brewer said this:

"Let's not forget why we're having this discussion: It's ObamaCare that created this issue by forcing church-affiliated employers and non-profits to offer services in violation of their religious faith," said Brewer. "With this common sense bill, we can ensure that Arizona women have access to the health services they need and religious institutions have their faith and freedom protected."

Shorter Jan Brewer: Corporations are people too, my friends, and they have religious principles which must not be violated. Individuals? Not so much. You knaves who think you have rights are simply tools of your corporate overlords. There's some right-wing individual liberty-speak for you.

Also, the law expands the definition of an employer covered under this particular exception:

According to the press release from Brewer's office, HB 2625 moderately expands the definition of a "religiously-affiliated employer" to include any organization whose articles of incorporation explicitly state a religiously-motivated purpose, and whose religious beliefs play a fundamental role in its function. It is anticipated that there are few employers who will qualify for this exemption under the bill.

Arizona is among 20 states that allow certain employers to cite a religious-exemption in refusing to offer contraception coverage.

And if you believe that, I've got a pyramid in Scottsdale you can pick up cheap. Every schmucky right-wing man-led corporation is probably rushing to their lawyer's office right now to figure which tenet of Scientology they can adopt in their articles of incorporation to keep women from being slut-whores and daring to use contraception, which by the way, is legal in this country with a doctor's prescription.

In case you'd forgotten about the specifics of this abomination amidst all of the right wing lunacy that's been flying around the country lately, the bill would allow employers to interrogate women about the purpose for which they are using birth control pills. If the fruit of that interrogation revealed the horrible fact that the employee was using birth control pills for—heaven forbid—birth control, she could be fired summarily. For anyone who thinks this is ridiculous and couldn't actually happen, please go re-read Susie Madrak's post about it. I'll clip just a little of it as a refresher:

My immediate supervisor was a young woman named Janice. One morning, while Janice was in the restroom, the department head went rummaging in her purse and found her birth control pills. Instead of talking to her, she called all the editorial clerks and assistants into her department and announced that we were no longer permitted to socialize with the editors, and that we were nothing more than "Jezebels, sluts and whores of Babylon".

In a weak effort to acknowledge the possibility the law could be challenged on privacy violations, the final version includes a provision barring employers from access to HIPAA information, which means absolutely nothing.

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The Arizona legislature, in conjunction with Gov. Jan Brewer and groups like the American Legislative Exchange Council and the Goldwater Institute, is going on a full-out assault on unions, teachers and the state's education system, which already ranks as last in the nation in per-pupil spending. Workers and unions are standing up to the right-wing assault on working families and students in the state. More than 100 rallied at the capitol last week, including State Sen. Steve Gallardo:

It’s time for us to say enough! Let’s not let these bills see the light of day. Let’s focus on the real priorities of the state of Arizona—jobs, the economy, health care, education. Those are the priorities of Arizona, not the type of legislation that is pushed by the Goldwater Institute.

In addition to assaults on unions and workers' rights, the legislature is going after teachers:

“Some believe that many anti-education legislators see this session as their last chance to force their legislation through because new, more competitive legislative district boundaries will take effect for the 2012 election,” said spokesman Doug Kilmore in an e-mail to members of Arizona Education Association, the state’s largest teacher’s union.

"Extremist groups are marshaling their forces in the legislature to attack public schools, public institutions, and public workers before they risk losing their super-majority."

The harsh bills Kilgore refers to include arbitrary performance pay measures, expansions to voucher programs, and takeover schemes where “failing” public schools can be closed and turned into charter schools. Bills targeting colleges and universities would increase tuition dramatically, allow concealed weapons to be carried on campuses (seriously) and protect conservative instructors from (mostly imaginary) persecution.

Most of the aforementioned legislation is boilerplate ALEC anti-public ed stuff. But there’s one very strange bill, S.B. 1467, the provenance of which is puzzling. It would require all public school instructors, from K-12 to university level, to comply with FCC regulations in their conduct. Penalties would range from suspension for the first outburst of “obscenity, indecency, or profanity” to termination for repeated violations.

The American Federation of State, County and Municipal Employees launched a new campaign last week taking on Arizona Governor Jan Brewer, who is pushing a new assault on the working families of her state in an attempt to take away the collective bargaining rights of state workers. Brewer is following the pattern inspired by the American Legislative Exchange Council (ALEC) and pursued by governors like Wisconsin's Scott Walker and Ohio's John Kasich:

Arizona Gov. Jan Brewer is about to wipe out collective bargaining rights for public service workers in Arizona with a slate of new anti-worker bills. It’s the latest orchestrated attack from extreme right-wing lawmakers, think tanks, and their corporate cronies who are hell-bent on wiping out what’s left of the middle class.

They couldn’t be more wrong. Attacking teachers, fire fighters and police and other public service workers will do nothing to create jobs or help Arizona’s budget.

AFSCME launched a petition in opposition to Brewer's assault on union rights:

To the lawmakers, governors, policy-wonks, and corporate backers who are dead set on destroying unions in America:

Your latest attempt to dismantle workers' rights in Arizona will not go unnoticed.

Firefighters, police officers, nurses, school bus drivers, home health care workers, public servants and workers of all kinds will not stand by while you scapegoat us – the people who play by the rules and do our fair share – and take away our rights by abusing your power and forcing through your extreme anti-worker laws.

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So many ways to spin the contrived Brewer confrontation; so little time. Never underestimate what two racist men can say about it to turn a picture of a bemused President looking at an overreacting governor with a bemused look into something far more sinister. Newt should get some credit for being only slightly more obvious in his racist outlook than he's been during the debates, but not much.

Here's the racist take on Ms. Governor Fake-Outrage Brewer, beginning with Hannity's lead-in:

HANNITY: Now according to the press pool, the two got into a heated conversation over a passage in the Governor's book. Apparently Obama took issue with how Governor Brewer described their meeting at the White House about the Arizona immigration law back in 2010.

Keep it classy, Hannity. Calling the President "Obama" while according Brewer the courtesy of her title? Not even subtle, is it?

Moving on...

HANNITY: Now the Governor was clearly shaken up by the exchange, told pool reporters that he walked away before she could finish her sentence, and said "I said to him, you know, I have always respected the office of the president and that the book is what the book is...I said that I was sorry that he felt that way. Anyway, we're glad he's here, and we'll regroup."

Clearly shaken up by the exchange? Oh hell, no. But it does play right into what comes next, for sure. Now we come to Newt, post-introduction:

HANNITY: You know, I'm thinking, you know, if you just look at The Drudge Report, and just one day's worth of attacks and criticisms leveled by many of your critics in one day, and this one thing has gotten to the President, what does that say about him?

GINGRICH: Well, you know the thing that's fascinating when I read the story, you know that Governor Brewer is telling the truth because he acted as arrogantly and as rudely to her on the tarmac as she suggested he had in the Oval Office.

That wasn't the behavior of a man who said "Gosh, I'm sorry you felt that way." She described him as lecturing her in the Oval Office and what do we see at the foot of Air Force One? He's lecturing her. So you know that her version's right and it tells you how thin-skinned and I think how utterly unable to relate to other people that President Obama is. He's terrific in front of a crowd but at least with Republicans he seems to have almost no ability to receive incoming information or to listen to the other side.

Wow, here we get a two-fer. According to Newt he's arrogant (code word for 'uppity) and he's stupid or handicapped or something. Well, here's the raw video straight from the Associated Press of this little incident. Perhaps it will yield some clues about whether this was contrived or a real confrontation. At the time I wrote this, there was a video that had all of the footage out of sequence posted on the Associated Press account at YouTube. There was a short clip of the President greeting officials, and the two still photos spliced into the center, and then more footage of him greeting the crowd. They pulled that down sometime in the last eight hours.

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One of the most important and least talked-about stories this year concerns how Congressional districts are being remapped. Depending on the state, it's either a horribly political and gerrymandered process, or it's being done by an independent board. In California, for example, redistricting was done by an independent board and yielded what appears to be pretty objective districts for this decade.

Arizona also has an independent board, but not as independent as it should be, since the governor can allow members to be impeached by the State Senate. Yesterday, Jan Brewer axed the head of that "independent" commission by allowing the Senate to impeach her for arguably trumped-up reasons.

Via AZCentral:

On a 21-6 party line vote, the Senate gave the Republican governor the two-thirds majority vote she needed to oust Colleen Coyle Mathis, citing "gross misconduct" in her role at the helm of the independent panel.

[...]

The Arizona Constitution gives the independent panel the authority to do political redistricting, but provides a role for the governor to seek removal of any commissioner whom she finds guilty of "gross misconduct." It also calls for the Senate to ratify the governor's action.

But Democrats said Republicans fueled the effort because they don't like the draft maps the commission has produced, especially the proposed new congressional map.

"What we have here is a witch hunt," said Senate Minority Leader David Schapira, D-Tempe. "It is a disgrace. We get it: You don't like the maps. I don't like the maps, either."

The draft maps particularly agitated Arizona's GOP congressmen, who don't like the fact that districts currently seen as "safe" Republican seats would become more competitive, and who feel lines were manipulated to favor incumbent Democrats. They pressured Brewer to also remove the panel's two Democratic commissioners. However, the Senate could not muster the votes.

Governor Brewer's definition of "gross misconduct?"

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On Sunday, House Budget Committee chairman Paul Ryan (R-WI) previewed his party's 2012 budget proposal due out Tuesday. Needless to say, its target of $4 trillion in deficit reduction over the next decade won't be met by simply letting the Bush tax cuts expire. Instead, Ryan as widely expected will propose the "voucherization" and inevitable rationing of Medicare. But in a less discussed development, Republicans also hope to slash Medicaid funding by $1 trillion over 10 years while sending the remaining dollars as block grants to the states. As it turns out, that gambit would not only gut the 2010 Affordable Care Act law, but guarantee than millions of low income Americans are deprived of health care.

The Medicaid program for the poor serves roughly 60 million Americans and costs taxpayers about $300 billion a year. While the elderly and the disabled combined account for only 25% of its recipients, the costs of their care constitutes two-thirds of its spending on benefits. But as McClatchy recently explained, the expansion of Medicaid is central pillar of the health care reform law designed to bring health insurance to millions more Americans:

The 2010 law requires that state Medicaid programs in 2014 begin covering all non-elderly people who earn up to 133 percent of the federal poverty level, which would comprise people with incomes of up to $29,400 for a family of four this year.

By 2019, that expansion is expected to add 16 million people to Medicaid, which now provides health coverage for about 60 million low-income Americans. Childless adults and parents who previously earned too much to qualify for the program will make up the bulk of the new enrollees.

Currently, the federal government pays about 57 percent of Medicaid costs on average, while states pay the rest. Under the new law, the federal government will pay the entire cost of the new enrollees for the first three years, after which it will scale down gradually to 90 percent in 2020 and thereafter.

The future implications of the rumored Republican bloodletting are clear. While the Congressional Budget Office estimated the expanded Medicaid program under the ACA would provide coverage for more than 15 million Americans, a Commonwealth Fund analysis projected that almost half of the 52 million people who went without insurance in 2010 could gain it under the new Medicaid provisions in the Affordable Care Act.

But you don't need a crystal ball to see what leaving Medicaid entirely to the states will produce. In states like Mississippi, Texas, Arizona and Florida, that dismal future is now.

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Yesterday on CNN's Reliable Sources, Howard Kurtz briefly mentioned something that deserves some greater scrutiny:

KURTZ: I also want to get to Sarah Palin. You know, there was that incident where she referred to a couple of journalists on the Anchorage television station who were overheard, a phone call, either joking around or looking for dirt on Republican nominee Joe Miller, in that Senate race, as corrupt bastards. They later lost their jobs.

And here's more of what the former governor had to say.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

SARAH PALIN (R), FMR. ALASKA GOVERNOR: First, let me make it clear that nobody has constrained me being here as a contributor to Fox. I still talk to whomever I want to. I will not talk to reporters who have an obvious bias or a vendetta, or are going to turn my words into something that they are not meant to be and take things out of context.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

KURTZ: Shepard Smith had asked her if she wasn't kind of protected within the Fox family and if this would change this.

(CROSSTALK)

SESNO: -- Katie Couric.

KURTZ: But, excuse me, what reporters, as Palin talked about, outside the Fox bubble? I'm not aware of this.

SESNO: I don't think she has in a meaningful way. And the question whether she should. And the answer is, of course she should.

Of course, none of them had any real answers. After the obligatory hand-wringing, they moved on to other subject.

But it's worth pointing out that it's not just Palin: a number of candidates followed her advice not to speak to any reporters who aren't from Fox News Channel, with varying degrees of success:

Alaska's Joe Miller, who even went so far to avoid local reporters he had some militia thugs handcuff one, and shove several others around.

Arizona Gov. Jan Brewer, who most notably fled to exclusively appearing on Fox after being asked to explain her 'headless bodies' claims.

Christine O'Donnell, who pretty closely hewed to Palin's advice.

Sharron Angle, who actually ran away from local reporters but was always happy to get airtime on Fox.

Rand Paul, who not only stiffed Meet the Press after his disastrous Rachel Maddow interview, but also pulled an Angle, actually running away from local reporters after making an appearance on Fox News.

You'll notice, of course, that most of these politicians were also unsuccessful -- but not all. Both Paul and Brewer won going away.

No doubt, in the future, Republican candidates will be modeling themselves after these two and adopting this strategy -- especially as Fox News becomes more openly active in promoting Republican candidates exclusively. More and more candidates are going to avoid answering questions from the press, both national and local, content in the knowledge they can "get their message out" through the friendly auspices of the Fox Propaganda Channel.

This kind of political behavior is anti-democratic, because it means candidates can run entire campaigns in which they can avoid any kind of public accountability whatsoever.

And that's a serious problem for our democracy -- one that ultimately lies at the feet of the nation's media, whose traditional role as the Fourth Estate underpinning our democracy is being destroyed by the Fox News phenomenon.

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