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Arizona Ditches Common Core Testing Consortium

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Photo Credit: REUTERS / Joshua LottArizona Gov. Jan Brewer announced Friday that her state is pulling out of a multi-state consortium that is designing a national test that applies new Common Core education standards.

Arizona was an early governing member of the Partnership for Assessment of Readiness for College and Careers, or PARCC, bu Brewer’s office announced that effective June 8 the state would be disassociating itself.

PARCC is one of two major constortia that is trying to create a common test for states that have adopted Common Core national education standards. With Arizona’s withdrawal, 15 states and the District of Columbia are members, though only nine are firmly committed to using PARCC’s tests.

The decision to pull out does not affect Arizona’s current adherence to Common Core, whose implementation will continue as planned. In addition, the decision doesn’t necessarily mean Arizona will not ultimately use PARCC to supply its standardized test, as PARCC will be allowed to submit its tests for possible use.

The government’s statement says the state has no problems with PARCC, but rather must disassociate itself to avoid any conflict of interest as it evaluates different bids to provide standardized tests to more than 1 million Arizona students.

Read more from this story HERE.

Judge Allows Arizona Law Restricting Non-Surgical Abortions to Take Effect

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Photo Credit: Getty Images

Photo Credit: Getty Images

America’s most stringent restrictions on the use of abortion drugs were allowed to take effect Tuesday by a federal judge’s ruling in the latest in a series of court fights over Arizona abortion laws.

US district judge David C Bury on Monday refused to stop the new rules just hours before they were to take effect. Opponents of the rules said they would continue to challenge the restrictions in court.

Bury made his ruling in response to a lawsuit by Planned Parenthood Arizona and the private abortion clinic Tucson Women’s Center, who say the rules severely infringe on a woman’s ability to have an abortion. He was asked to grant an injunction that would have blocked the rules from taking effect.

The rules were released in January by the Arizona department of health services. They ban women from taking the most common abortion-inducing drug – RU-486 – after the seventh week of pregnancy. Existing rules allow women to take the abortion pill through nine weeks of pregnancy.

Planned Parenthood estimates that 800 women would have had to get surgical abortions in 2012 if the rules were in effect then. An attorney for the organization also told the judge last week that the new rules could force its Flagstaff, Arizona, abortion clinic to suspend operations.

Read more from this story HERE.

Federal ‘Motor Voter’ Forms In KS, AZ Must Include Proof of Citizenship (+video)

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Photo Credit: APA federal judge ordered the U.S. Election Assistance Commission (EAC) to immediately add state-specific instructions requiring documented proof of citizenship to mail-in federal “Motor Voter” registration forms used in Kansas and Arizona.

Both states have laws requiring applicants to prove they are U.S. citizens before they are registered to vote. The federal form only requires them to swear under penalty of perjury that they are U.S. citizens.

“Because the Constitution gives the states exclusive authority to set voter qualifications under the Qualification Clause, and because no clear congressional enactment attempts to preempt this authority, the Court finds that the states’ determination that a mere oath is not sufficient is all the states are required to establish,” U.S. District Court Judge Eric Melgren said in his March 19th ruling in Wichita. (See EAC – 2014-03-19 US Dist Ct Decision Kobach v EAC.pdf)

“This is victory not only for Kansas and Arizona, but for all 50 states,” Kansas Secretary of State Kobach told CNSNews.com. “Any one of those 50 states may now choose to follow our example and require proofs of citizenship when people register to vote. There are two other states that are doing it already, Alabama and Georgia, for a total of four states.

“And I would encourage more states to do so because anytime an alien votes, it effectively cancels out the vote of a U.S. citizen.

Read more from this story HERE.

In Arizona, GOP Shows How Easily It Will Cave On Religious Liberty

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Photo Credit: The Federalist Arizona is populated largely by warty, crooked-fingered Christians who were waiting excitedly to eject LGBT people from their restaurants, flower shops, and laundromats until Gov. Jan Brewer vetoed SB 1062.

This is the only conclusion one can draw from the hysterical claims peddled by LGBT activists, business leaders, and several prominent Republicans about the infamous religious liberty bill. If the bill were to have been signed into law, we were led to believe that Arizona’s economic competitiveness and international reputation would have been disastrously diminished.

All of the explicit and implicit claims about the negative consequences of SB 1062 were founded in ignorance—in most cases willful, blameworthy ignorance.

Here’s what you need to know about religious liberty and LGBT rights in Arizona.

In 1990, the Supreme Court’s decision in Employment Division v. Smith established that a “neutral law of general applicability” could impinge on religious practice without violating the First Amendment. Alarmed at this erosion of traditional religious liberty protections, Congress responded by passing nearly unanimously the Religious Freedom Restoration Act (RFRA), which applies the highest level of judicial scrutiny to laws which restrict religious practice.

Read more this story HERE.

Arizona GOP Censures Sen. John McCain for Supporting Issues ‘Associated with Liberal Democrats’

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Photo Credit: AP/Massoud Hossaini

Photo Credit: AP/Massoud Hossaini

The Arizona Republican Party formally censured Sen. John McCain on Saturday, citing a voting record they say is insufficiently conservative.

The resolution to censure McCain was approved by a voice-vote during a meeting of state committee members in Tempe, state party spokesman Tim Sifert said. It needed signatures from at least 20 percent of state committee members to reach the floor for debate.

Sifert said no further action was expected.

McCain spokesman Brian Rogers declined to comment on the censure.

Read more from this story HERE.

Arizona Sheriffs Say Border Not Secure as Immigration Reform Looms

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Photo Credit: Getty Images

Photo Credit: Getty Images

As Congress prepares to take up immigration reform, two high-profile Arizona sheriffs tell Newsmax the federal government’s effort to secure the border has been a dismal failure.

Pinal County Sheriff Paul Babeu said bluntly: “The border is not secure.”

“I’m telling you that as somebody on the ground, as someone who experiences it every day. This is a lie that is being peddled by those who must convince the American people that it is secure and everything is just fine,” Babeu told Newsmax.

“We have the most active drug and smuggling corridor in the country,” he added, saying that the intersection of major interstates, as well as rural and side roads and vast terrain, make it the perfect area for illegal immigrants coming to this country.

Maricopa County Sheriff Joe Arpaio echoes that view: “Drugs are still coming, illegal aliens are still coming into the U.S.,” he told Newsmax.

Read more from this story HERE.

Group of Arizona Republicans to Censure John McCain for Siding with ‘Liberal Democrats’

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Photo Credit: Reuters

Photo Credit: Reuters

A contingent of Arizona Republicans is set to vote this weekend on whether to censure GOP Sen. John McCain over his “long and terrible record of drafting, co-sponsoring and voting for legislation best associated with liberal Democrats.”…

Here’s the full text of the proposed censure, posted on icarizona.com:

Senator John McCain Censured by Arizona’s Republican Leadership

As leaders in the Republican Party, we are obligated to fully support our Party, platform, and its candidates. Only in times of great crisis or betrayal is it necessary to publicly censure our leaders. Today we are faced with both. For too long we have waited, hoping Senator McCain would return to our Party’s values on his own. That has not happened. So with sadness and humility we rise and declare;

Whereas Senator McCain has amassed a long and terrible record of drafting, co-sponsoring and voting for legislation best associated with liberal Democrats, such as Amnesty, funding for ObamaCare, the debt ceiling, assaults on the Constitution and 2nd amendment, and has continued to support liberal nominees…

Read more from this story HERE.

Neighbor Gunned Down Family of Four and their Dogs Because he was Furious Over Loud Barking

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Photo Credit: KNXV-TV An Arizona man has murdered his four neighbors and killed their two dogs because the canines wouldn’t stop barking loudly, police have revealed.

Michael Dante Guzzo, 56, became enraged over the noise from the pets at a neighboring townhouse in a Phoenix apartment complex on Saturday, detectives say.

They believe he used a pump-action shotgun to shoot dead Bruce Moore, 66; his daughter, Renee Moore, 36; her husband Michael Moore, 42; and their son, Shannon Moore, 17. He also slaughtered their dogs.

Guzzo then fired several rounds into the door of another neighbor.

He returned home and killed himself.

Read more from this story HERE.

Judge Orders Monitor to be Appointed to Oversee Arizona Sheriff Arpaio

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Photo Credit: AP

Photo Credit: AP

A federal judge on Wednesday ordered the appointment of an independent monitor and a community advisory board to ensure that an Arizona sheriff is complying with constitutional requirements after finding his office engages in racial profiling.

U.S. District Judge Murray Snow found in May that the Maricopa County Sheriff’s Office singled out Latinos and deputies unreasonably prolonged detentions.

It was the first finding by a court that the agency covering Arizona’s most populous county engages in racial profiling after a small group of Latinos sued the Arpaio for violating their constitutional rights, saying they were being detained simply because of their race.

Snow had delayed ordering remedies in the case to allow time for both parties to reach agreements, but disputes over key issues prevented consensus.

In his ruling Wednesday, Snow ordered that a monitor be appointed to oversee the agency’s re-training of deputies and ensure the Sheriff’s Office is complying with constitutional requirements. Snow also ordered the creation of a community advisory board aimed at helping restore the public’s confidence, among other remedies.

Read more from this story HERE.

Arizona Magazine Pulled after Accidentally Advising Readers to Eat Psychedelic Mushrooms

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Photo Credit: Erhard Nerger

Photo Credit: Erhard Nerger

An Arizona travel magazine told readers to eat psychedelic mushrooms.

The October issue of Arizona Highways shows a picture of a hallucinogenic mushroom identified as edible. Realizing their gaffe, the magazine’s publishers pulled all issues from shelves and notified subscribers.

The magazine’s ‘nature factoid’ of the month showed the fly agaric mushroom on page 13 of this month’s issue.

Read more from this story HERE.