Redistricting -- What's the opposite of thankfulness?

My facebook status today: "I'm just plain thankful."

Of course, I have some specific things for which (and people for whom) I'm thankful.

I'm thankful for a daughter of whom I can be proud, a son-in-law who is a genuine good guy and a wonderful granddaughter. I'm thankful for my health and my life, all the rocks and potholes in the road notwithstanding.

I'm just plain thankful.  But that doesn't keep me from being aware of either things in my own life or things around me which warrant change and improvement. Unless this is the first time you've read my blog, you know about some of those things already.

So, I went to thesaurus.com to get a little bit of insight on thankfulness. Under antonyms, the words "criticism" and "ingratitude" are listed.

Then I thought about how thankful I am that Jeremy Duda described the criticism and ingratitude some of Arizona's GOP senators this week. They criticized and apparently are not thankful for how our governor, Janice Brewer, broke a promise in exchange for their votes to decapitate the IRC.

Of course, my first thought was that Frank Antenori was just looking for someone to blame for him not keeping HIS word to scuttle the vote to remove Colleen Mathis in the first place. That may be a significant, untold aspect of Duda's story. But there is SOOOOOOO much more.

But GOVERNOR, we HAD A DEAL! We scratch your back, you scratch ours, right? After all, Antenori was very emphatic in the days before the vote that if a ballot measure to repeal Prop 106 wasn't on the call for special session, he had the votes to block removal of Mathis.

So, apparently Brewer -- at minimum -- intimated that she would honor Antenori's terms by calling a second special session to allow lawmakers to put a measure on the ballot in the February Presidential Preference Primary to repeal INDEPENDENT redistricting.

This friend of mine wondered aloud about the unseemliness of the blatant logrolling -- quid pro quo -- between the governor and senate Republicans.

From a blog on logrolling in the realm of World Cup Soccer:

...the increased stakes of hosting the tournament have opened the door for functionaries from poorer countries to auction off their votes to a wealthy bidder. I have written about corruption in earlier posts, and this is not something that should surprise anyone. Two, the expanded choice set, coupled with the joint awarding of two World Cups has opened the door to what political scientists call "logrolling".

Pretty unseemly, isn't it? You can get more of the context here.

Importantly, strictly speaking, logrolling is not corruption so long as representatives of national soccer federations do not enrich themselves personally, and it should not be confused with corrupt activity. It may be unseemly or undesirable, but it is not illegal.

Thanks to UNfair Trust and its as yet undisclosed propaganda arm (we've seen the output, or product of that activity, even though they still refuse to disclose the fundraising and expenditure detail), Brewer has been made the ultimate patsy. For months, that clandestine lobbying/political operation had targeted Colleen Mathis with a horrendous barrage of vitriol, mainly from surrogates. Those surrogates consisted mostly of GOP legislative district activists and easily manipulated tea partiers.

The ultimate irony in this situation, of course, is that the main allegation against Mathis had been of bid rigging and vote trading. Which is what Frank Antenori, in all of his brash glory, has said he engaged in with Brewer. Well, the vote trading anyway.