That didn’t take long.
Arizona could ignore executive actions like the gun-control plan President Barack Obama announced Tuesday if the state Legislature passes a bill introduced by Republican lawmakers.
House Bill 2024 would prohibit Arizona and its local governments from using staff or financial resources to enforce or support any presidential executive order, federal agency policy or U.S. Supreme Court opinion that “is not in pursuance of the Constitution” and has not been passed by Congress and signed into law.
In other words, if a Black Democrat uses his pen to issue an executive order, which Obama has done fewer times than his Republican predecessor (227 vs. 291), then the goobers in Arizona don’t have to abide by it. QED.
The bill was introduced today by Rep. Mark Finchem of Oro Valley, just north of Tucson. To no one’s surprise, Finchem is a pro-business, anti-environment, anti-woman tea party pinhead with a high rating from the NRA. Explaining his bill, Finchem said:
"House Bill 2024 was simply written to get us back to three branches of government at the federal level that are working together instead of in spite of each other." He said it’s time for the states to start wielding their sovereign authority.
Right, the “three branches of government”—one being the Executive, which is granted “executive power” under Article II of the Constitution. Especially when Congress will not do what 90 percent of Americans want them to do: strengthen background checks. Funny, the Arizona GOP wasn’t keen on ignoring George Bush’s executive orders, but then he didn’t mess with our state religion: guns.
Finchem’s “sovereign authority” bullshit parrots the toadies occupying the Oregon bird refuge (the head dingleberry, Ammon Bundy, is a pal of Sheriff Arpaio’s. Natch). Arizona’s legislature is full of these Sagebrush Rebellion nincompoops, who essentially want to turn over our vast federal lands to corporate agriculture, ranching, mining and timber. It’s not about “giving the land back to the people,” who never owned it in the first place, it’s about eliminating federal oversight and protection so land devourers can chew up nature at will.
Sen. Kelli Ward of Lake Havasu City, who is taking on Sen. McCain in the GOP primary, is a rockstar among these gunheads and chemtrail conspiracists. She traveled to Cliven Bundy’s compound in 2014 to support the old geezer in his war against the United States government, and I half expect her to show up soon in Oregon, with a pistol strapped to her hip. Because Arizona.