Recently, I addressed the issue of whether or not Republican state Senate hopeful Ralph Heap is a “revenge candidate” for recalled, disgraced former state Senate President Russell Pearce, currently First Vice Chair of the Arizona GOP. Heap is taking on state Senator Bob Worsley, the guy who buried Pearce by…
Arizona Attorney General Tom Horne looked so peaceful during his testimony Wednesday afternoon that if someone told me he’d done a bong hit during lunch, I’d have to consider the possibility. It was a marked change from the rest of the hearing into his, um, alleged campaign finance shenanigans, which…
Day one of an administrative hearing into alleged campaign-finance shenanigans by Arizona Attorney General Tom Horne found Phoenix attorney Buddy Rake’s genteel Texas drawl dipping in and out of the Federal Election Commission’s definition of what constitutes illegal “coordination” by a candidate. That’s what Horne is alleged to have done…
Day one of an administrative hearing into alleged campaign-finance shenanigans by Arizona Attorney General Tom Horne found Phoenix attorney Buddy Rake’s genteel Texas drawl dipping in and out of the Federal Election Commission’s definition of what constitutes illegal “coordination” by a candidate. That’s what Horne is alleged to have done…
Arizona Attorney General Tom Horne’s good buddies, former Arizona Governor Fife Symington and onetime Arizona Republican Party chair Randy Pullen, want Horne’s foe in the GOP primary, Mark Brnovich, to tap out of the fight. In a campaign fundraising e-mail sent to Republican faithful, Symington and Pullen argue that Brnovich…
The only thing missing from Paula Pennypacker’s stump speech before the Democratic state committee meeting in January was the Rocky theme. Charismatic and scrappy, the lifelong GOPer recently painted a “D” on her shield and called out Republican black knight John Kavanagh, current chair of the powerful House Appropriations Committee…
In a blog item last week, I discussed a YouTube video sent out by Arizona Attorney General Tom Horne’s GOP primary rival, former Arizona Gaming Director Mark Brnovich. The video talked about his family life and included some heartfelt comments from his wife, Maricopa County Superior Court Judge Susan Brnovich…
In Legislative District 25, where the Republican primary is what primarily matters, the word on the street has been that orthopedic surgeon Dr. Ralph Heap, GOP primary challenger to state Senator Bob Worsley, is the cat’s paw of Mesa’s Pearce clan. Back in 2012, Worsley bested recalled, disgraced former state…
Sheriff Joe Arpaio cracks the whip, and his neutered poodles in the press jump through the hoops. From female chain gangs and inmate coloring contests to investigating President Obama’s birth certificate and putting inmates on bread and water for defacing American flag stickers, Arpaio’s pre-packaged tales fill news holes in…
Arizona Attorney General Tom Horne’s hopes of settling his campaign finance case have been dashed for now, as Yavapai County Attorney Sheila Polk today filed a notice with the administrative law court, signaling that discussions between the two sides on Thursday did not end in a resolution. “No settlement was…
Just in time for a settlement conference today at the offices of Yavapai County Attorney Sheila Polk, where Arizona Attorney General Tom Horne hopes to put an end to the campaign-finance case against him, Horne’s rival for the GOP nomination, Mark Brnovich, has released this YouTube video, portraying Brnovich as…
I have a terrible confession: I heart Sand Land Republicans. For a sheer boredom-killer, there’s nothing like a congregation of them, such as at the Arizona GOP’s mandatory January meeting, where I’m always entertained. Where else can you watch a pretty conservative five-term U.S. senator be censured by his own…
I have a terrible confession: I heart Sand Land Republicans. For a sheer boredom-killer, there’s nothing like a congregation of them, such as at the Arizona GOP’s mandatory January meeting, where I’m always entertained. Where else can you watch a pretty conservative five-term U.S. senator be censured by his own…
Facing both a primary challenge from former Arizona Gaming Director Mark Brnovich and ongoing attacks from fellow Republicans at the Arizona Public Integrity Alliance, Arizona Attorney General Tom Horne is seeking settlements in two intertwined civil actions involving his alleged wrongdoings in office and on the campaign trail. The first…
On Saturday, January 25, both the Republican and Democratic state parties have their mandatory meetings, where state committee members sometimes get to vote on meaningless and often downright wacky resolutions Sand Land Republicans, of course, can out-wack their Democratic colleagues any day of the week, and they have the scary…
Long gone are the days of Prada socialism, hearting Ralph Nader, and pagan spiraling for Democratic Congresswoman Kyrsten Sinema. As noted in a recent Washington Post report, Sinema’s attempt to reinvent herself as a centrist, which began before she left the state Legislature, is now complete, as she has been…
I can hear you now: “John Kavanagh, for a second week in a row?” Admittedly, in the post-Russell Pearce era, villains ain’t what they used to be, but Kavanagh, a Republican and chair of the state House Appropriations Committee, took exception to some of what I had to say about…
Burning driver’s licenses, defying DPS, and the arrest of Elmo and his radical stuffed animal buddies were the high points of the only game in town at the state Legislature’s opening day on January 13. That game belonged, pigskin and all, to Citizens for a Better Arizona, the group that…
U.S. District Court Judge G. Murray Snow today appointed veteran cop-watcher Robert Warshaw of the North Carolina-based Warshaw and Associates to serve as independent monitor in the ACLU’s big racial-profiling case Melendres v. Arpaio. Warshaw, a former chief of the Rochester (New York) Police Department and onetime associate director of…
A North Carolina fat-boy like me has no business talking about what other people look like, but let’s just say I remember when veteran Valley journo Dennis Welch, formerly of the East Valley Tribune and the Arizona Guardian, stalked the state Capitol with long hair and Howard Hughes-esque fingernails, looking…
Insults, condescension, personal attacks. Hey, it’s all in a days work for Maricopa County Attorney Bill Montgomery, particularly when it comes to the issue of legalized pot-smokin’, which he recently debated on Channel 3’s Sunday Politics Unplugged show with state Representative Ruben Gallego. Gallego, a Democrat, whose wife, Kate, recently…
State Representative John Kavanagh revels in his self-appointed role as the rightwinger Arizona lefties love most to hate. Since recalled, disgraced former state Senate President Russell Pearce (Kavanagh’s pal) was pounded into mainstream political irrelevance in 2011, Kavanagh’s eclipsed his erstwhile mentor to become Sand Land’s Lord Voldemort for liberals,…
