The Think Tank with Mike O'Neil

Citizen activist Stacey Champion (@ChampPR) and former Attorney General  Terry Goddard (@TerryGoddardAZ) discuss Arizona Public Service, rate cases, and regulation by the Arizona Corporation Commission.

Stacey Champion is a citizen who has, initially single-handedly, taken on APS for years including what she’s seen as unjustified and misleading rate increases, disconnection rules and political spending.

One of her recent cases was taken up by the Attorney General; as a former Attorney General Terry Goddard has perspective on this action.

In our final segment, Arizona Mirror (https://www.azmirror.com/) editor Jim Small (@JimSmall) weighs in on voter suppression legislation and Terry Goddard reacts.

The Think Tank airs from 6-7pm Saturdays and Sundays from 9-10pm on KTAR 92.3 FM. After broadcast, podcasts are available at ktar.com.   Older shows are archived at www.mikeoneil.org which can also be used to reach the host via Facebook, Twitter, or email.

See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

It is legislative season and there is a lot going on.  Our guest is Tony Cani who helped run the Biden campaign in Arizona in 2020 and numerous other political campaigns in the state. Among the things we discuss:

Voter Suppression. Over 250 bills nationally have been introduced to make it more difficult for poorer people and racial minorities to vote.  So many it’s hard to keep track of them.   Arizona has more than its share of these.

Governor Ducey Orange.  Governor wrote an editorial oddly published in Orange County CA touting Arizona’s economy, but urging those who move here to abandon their California ways.  Also, is Governor Ducey’s political career over?  Does he have a path to anything once his term limited tenure in office expires?

Evading the People’s Will.  In November we voted to fund education with a surtax on very high earners (only on income over $500k for couples, 250k for individuals). The legislature is considering a bill that would defund this educational spending bump and allow the impacted very high earner taxpayers to evade the taxes just voted in by the people.  Years ago, Arizona voters passed the Voter Protection Act which would seem to make this illegal. How can they do this? If this passes, it seems headed for court.

The future of the Republican Party.  The Trump faction of the Republican party would seem to be in full control. Moderately conservative suburban voters elected Joe Biden (and, in Arizona, Sen. Mark Kelly). Is  there any way back to the Republican Party for these voters? Would they even be welcome?

The Think Tank airs from 6-7pm Saturdays and Sundays from 9-10pm on KTAR 92.3 FM. After broadcast, podcasts are available at ktar.com.   Older shows are archived at www.mikeoneil.org which can also be used to reach the host via Facebook, Twitter, or email.

See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

This week’s Think Tank takes on two topics this week.

Politically Motivated Prosecutions. ABC 15’s investigative reporter Dave Biscobing has been doing a series of reports on the highly politicized political prosecutions of several Black Lives Matter protestors. Ordinary protestors were charged as gang members on laughably flimsy evidence (wearing black, chanting, and carrying umbrellas to a protest). Once Dave exposed the lack of serious evidence and multiple videos of the protests, most of the charges were dropped. Dave brings up to date on this evolving story.

It’s not hard to see why Dave won 3 national Emmys and a slew of other awards for his work. You can see several of his reports on this subject at this link: www.abc15.com/protest.

Constraining Democracy. The Arizona Legislature is in session and considering a number of highly partisan bills that have a common theme: they will make it harder to vote or diminish the power of the vote. Specifically they would

· Permit the Legislature to award Electoral Votes as they see fit, regardless of the popular vote (yes, really!)

· Require citizen initiatives to get 60% of the vote in order to be enacted.

· Make it harder to stay on the popular Permanent Early Voting List

· Prohibit election officials from mailing you a ballot (in response to a pandemic or other catastrophic event) unless you previously had requested one.

· Prohibit election officials from extending deadlines in response to an emergency.

Julie Erfle (@erfleuncuffed) joins the show to discuss these proposed electoral changes. Julie is a communications consultant at Erfle (erfleuncuffed.com) and a columnist for the Arizona Mirror.

See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

The United States Capitol was breached by a sometimes armed and sometimes violent mob. Five people, including a Capitol policeman, died. President Trump was impeached for inciting this insurrection. Fifty-seven of 100 U.S. Senators voted to convict him for this, which fell short of the two-thirds constitutional requirement for removal from office.

Senate Majority Leader McConnell, in a speech immediately after the failure to convict gave an emotional speech citing Donald Trump’s many legal exposures since he is now out of office.

This week’s Think Tank has two uniquely qualified guests to discuss these exposures:

· Paul Charlton is a former US Attorney for Arizona, appointed by and serving under President George W. Bush.

· Terry Goddard is, among other things, former Arizona Attorney General having served in that capacity from 2003 to 2011.

These legal exposures are both criminal and civil. Some are federal and some are state or local.

Those at risk extend beyond Donald Trump himself to several of his chief aides as well as the hundreds of those who personally breached the Capitol building in an attempt to influence Congress’ certification of the 2020 election.

There are many elements to this legal exposure. This week’s Think Tank will consider several of the most significant.

See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

Several cases of over-zealous prosecution of protestors in Phoenix have been presented in several recent news reports, most notably by Dave Biscobing of ABC 15 TV.

This week’s Think Tank guests:

· Dave Biscobing, is an Emmy-award winning ABC15 TV investigative reporter who has been doing a series of disturbing reports on how protestors have been selectively prosecuted by the Phoenix Police and Maricopa County Attorney’s Office.

· Tom Ryan is a local attorney who has been involved in numerous legal actions involving official misconduct, though none of those specifically reported on by Dave Biscobing

· Darrell Hill is Policy Director for the American Civil Liberties Union of Arizona. He is also a non-practicing attorney.

This week’s Think Tank discusses these cases as well as several proposed pieces of legislation that could have a chilling effect on the right of citizens to peacefully protest police actions in Arizona.

The Think Tank airs on KTAR 92.3 FM on Saturday 3-4pm and Sundays from 9-10pm. Podcasts are available after broadcast at ktar.com

See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

The COVID pandemic has altered all of our lives, no more so than in our schools. What is actually going on in our schools right now? How much is in-person learning, how much is remote? How are teachers and students adapting? To what extent is learning impaired? What are our children missing?

We have two guests, both practicing teachers. Each has also been involved in educational policy issues in other ways.

Beth Lewis, teaches in the Tempe Elementary School District in a school with a high proportion of kids who qualify for free or reduced price lunches. She has been a leader of Save our Schools, which successfully passed a Proposition in November which imposed an income tax surcharge on very high income taxpayers and earmarked the additional revenue for schools.

Christine Marsh teaches in a middle school gifted program in Scottsdale. She was 2016 Arizona Teacher of the Year. In November, she was elected to the Arizona State Senate from a central Phoenix legislative district.

We started out by asking these teachers about the classroom issues listed above. We then moved to policy issues and explored what changes these educational leaders would most like to see.

All Things Education in this week’s Think Tank.

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The Think Tank departs from conventional politics this week as we discuss two serious topics. And in between we take a break by telling a funny story.

Dr. Dwight Moore is retired industrial psychologist who helped pass the California Death with Dignity act in 2015. He has volunteered with Washington's End of Life Options for seven years, and now chairs Arizona's End of Life Options group. A He has helped over 50 patients navigate Washington's medical aid in dying law being at their bedside when they died.

We discuss:

· What is medical aid in dying?"

· Who is eligible?

· How is this different from suicide?

· What kinds of checks and are in place?

· What if a family member doesn't support that choice?

Well, that’s our first two segments. We then segue in our next segment which might be entitled: “A funny thing happened to me when crossing our southern border.” You think you have had a bad day? Try to top this sequence of events. Guest Jany Deng tells how within 5 minutes of being accosted by border guards for “suspicious behavior” he befriended them and got them to pose for pictures with them in front of what he called “Trump’s Wall”.

Finally, we replay Arnold Schwarzenegger’s moving observations he made in the aftermath of the attack on the U.S. Capitol as he retells what it was like growing up in Austria in the immediate aftermath of World War II among soldiers immersed with a combination of denial and guilt about the cause for which they had fought.

Take a break from Politics in this week’s Think Tank. Sort of. The Think Tank airs on KTAR 92.3 FM on Saturday 3-4pm and Sundays from 9-10pm.

Podcasts are available after broadcast at ktar.com

See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

With the inauguration of President Biden the Think Tank takes a look at our foreign relations around the world.

Our guest is foreign policy expert Daniel Rothenberg who is an ASU Professor of Practice in ASU’s School of Politics and Global Studies. He is also Co-Director of the Center on the Future of War.

President Biden’s inaugural address included the following:

“Here’s my message to those beyond our borders: America has been tested, and we’ve come out stronger for it,” “We will repair our alliances and engage with the world once again — not to meet yesterday’s challenges, but today’s and tomorrow’s challenges.”

The message seemed to be: the last four years was a blip, and you can trust us to work with you again.

Will it be seen this way? What are the challenges in our relationships with

· Our European NATO partners?

· Russia?

· China?

· The Middle East?

This week’s Think Tank takes you around the world assessing our relationships around the globe.

The Think Tank airs on KTAR 92.3 FM on Saturday 3-4pm and Sundays from 9-10pm. Podcasts are available after broadcast at ktar.com

See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

We were going to do our Annual Year in Review show, this week. That is a lot of fun.  But too much happened this week to ignore.

There was a violent invasion of the United States Capitol this week by a pro-Trump mob.  What started as a protest against the certification of Joe Biden as President of the United States took an ugly turn as a crowd broke through police lines and entered and vandalized the US Capitol building, causing an evacuation of elected Representatives and Senators. It was the first such violation of the seat of our government since the British burned the White House in 1814.

Any other week, the two Democratic Senate victories would have been the lead story, since this gives the Democrats a 50-50 split which means control of the Senate, since Vice President Kamala Harris will break any ties.  But the victory was quickly overshadowed by events at the United States Capitol.

Barring equally dramatic events, we will have our annual Predictions show next week.

Think Tank regulars Chuck Coughlin, Rick Degraw and Steve Krafft discuss this week’s dramatic events.

The Think Tank airs on KTAR 92.3 FM on Saturday 3-4pm and Sundays from 9-10pm. Podcasts are available after broadcast at ktar.com

See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

Grant Woods is a former Arizona Attorney General and a former McCain staffer.  But, more importantly he is a former Republican and a very thoughtful observer of the current political scene.

It has been four weeks since the election. The election was NOT close (306-232 electoral votes) and a popular vote margin of almost 7 million. This is larger than most of our recent Presidential elections.  Despite all evidence, three-fourths of Republicans think the election was stolen.  And only a handful of elected Republicans have been willing to say publicly that Joe Biden is President-elect.

Republicans used to stand for a muscular foreign policy. They were internationalists who favored foreign trade, because we benefit from it.  Before Reagan, they were against deficits (now they only seem to care about deficits when a Democrat is President).  But Trump loyalists are against all of these things.

Given all of this, what is the future of the Republican party?

And can the country find common ground?

Grant Woods is one of the most thoughtful political observers in Arizona.  Join this week’s Think Tank for a very insightful discussion of the state of our politics.

The Think Tank airs on KTAR 92.3 FM on Saturday 3-4pm and Sundays from 9-10pm. Podcasts are available after broadcast at ktar.com

See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.