During her five-plus years as Maricopa County’s communications director, Cari Gerchick demonstrated a backbone of titanium, going where most public information officers fear to tread. Whether it was calling out Sheriff Joe Arpaio on his agency’s misspending more than $100 million in voter-protected jail funds, or, literally, standing in the…

Am I wrong to feel weirdly optimistic, here at the start of 2015? First, there’s the prospect that federal Judge G. Murray Snow finally will find Sheriff Joe Arpaio in contempt of court in the ACLU’s big racial-profiling case Melendres v. Arpaio. Granted, waiting for Arpaio to get his just…

In yet another blow to Arizona’s state-imposed system of terror targeting the undocumented, U.S. District Court Judge David Campbell on Monday enjoined both Maricopa County Attorney Bill Montgomery and Sheriff Joe Arpaio from enforcing two identity theft statutes that underpinned Arpaio’s infamous worksite raids. Campbell, a conservative judge nominated to…

I’ve known ex-radio host and recently-elected state Representative Jay Lawrence for a while now, and I’ve always liked him. He’s a genial guy, who can wow you with tales of how he used to show the Beatles a thing or two back in the day, when they first came to…

Former Phoenix Police Chief Danny Garcia fought the law, and the law won. And too often, the law in this town is spelled P-L-E-A, the acronym for the Phoenix Law Enforcement Association, the union that “represents” around 2,600 rank-and-file Phoenix cops. I write “represents” in quotation marks because, though PLEA…

The older I get, the more I appreciate that line by Elvis Costello: “Oh, I used to be disgusted/ Now I try to be amused…” But you’ll forgive me if Sheriff Joe Arpaio’s latest stunt nevertheless leaves me nauseated. According to an MCSO press release, he will be hosting five…

Like you needed additional evidence that we live in a sick society, we now have “Mickey cam,” a 24-7 camera fixed on a vicious pit bull that mauled the face of a little boy, leaving him with permanent, painful injuries. Who’s responsible for this obscenity? Who else? Sheriff Joe Arpaio,…

What would I do without Republicans in this state? Their Jerry Springer-esque antics are a hoot, and would make for an excellent reality show, which I propose calling, with a hat tip to Snoop Dogg, “Deez Nutz.” Thursday night, the Maricopa County Republicans’ Executive Guidance Committee — under the leadership…

I’m concerned about hate-filled attacks on all minority populations, regardless of what group is on the receiving end. Yet I’m puzzled at the disparate reactions to two targets of wacko Tempe Pastor Steven Anderson’s hate-filled sermons: Jews and gays. Recently, the Anti-Defamation League of Arizona alerted folks that Anderson had…

Dennis Wilenchik, attorney for the son and daughter-in-law of U.S. Senator Jeff Flake, has a message for the lynch mob in the Green Acre Dog Boarding case: cut down the ropes. Late Tuesday, Wilenchik, aided by his son and fellow lawyer Jack, hit the court with three motions rebutting the…

White boys battle anarchists in the streets of Old Town Note: Please see update(s) at the end of this post. On Saturday, about 50 assorted anarchists and others took their anti-cop message right to the heart of conspicuous consumption in the Valley: Old Town Scottsdale. Organized online by the group…

During an online chat, Pastor Anderson proudly describes how he got four rabbis to participate in his upcoming, anti-Semitic documentary Remember Steven Anderson? You know, the lunatic pastor of Tempe’s Faithful Word Baptist Church, infamous for praying for President Barack Obama’s death, as well as for calling for the execution…

President Barack Obama’s pre-Thanksgiving executive action granting a temporary reprieve from deportation for up to 5 million undocumented individuals was a brilliant example of asymmetric warfare. Just two weeks after a major Republican midterm victory, with GOPers gaining control of the U.S. Senate, increasing their numbers in the U.S. House, and…

If you do the math, you will understand why the mood at the Arizona Capitol in downtown Phoenix last night, where activists gathered to watch President Barack Obama’s historic immigration speech, was one of resignation, and for some, sadness. The White House estimates that Obama’s much-anticipated executive action will cover…

If the White House was betting that Republicans would overreact to President Obama’s impending announcement tonight on immigration, where he’s expected to outline a plan that will extend deferred removal to some 5 million undocumented immigrants, boy, were they right. For instance, Arizona Congressman Matt Salmon, proud representative of Sand…

I rarely look to politicians for common sense, but I thought Maricopa County Attorney Bill Montgomery had stumbled onto some at a press conference in September, when he addressed the situation at the Green Acre Dog Boarding facility in Gilbert. Montgomery explained that he’d just received the voluminous results of…

During a November 4 settlement conference before Judge Joseph Welty, presiding criminal judge of the Maricopa County Superior Court, Welty described in stark terms the situation faced by former minuteman leader Chris Simcox. Charged with multiple counts of child molestation involving two little girls, one his own daughter, he can…

Talk about a small world: In this 2006 C-SPAN clip, Kyl heralds the indictment of Doug Ducey’s money-laundering uncle, William “Billy” Scott Governor-elect Doug Ducey’s recent announcement that former U.S. Senator Jon Kyl will chair his transition committee offers a delicious mix of irony and hypocrisy. See, while he was…

PACH and videographer Dennis Gilman join forces to help save Maria’s arm. With Republicans in command of both houses of U.S. Congress determined to repeal the Affordable Care Act, and with the U.S. Supreme Court’s recently taking a case that could send “participating insurers into an actuarial death-spiral,” according to…

So why did Maricopa County Republicans need six reserve sheriff’s deputies/posse members, a patrol car, and two plainclothes officers in an unmarked vehicle to guard a recent Thursday night meeting of mostly alter kocker conservatives? According to the attendees I chatted with that evening, Maricopa County GOP Chair A.J. LaFaro…