If you need an explanation as to why birtherism is alive and well in Arizona, just spend a little time with the alter kocker kooks who regularly attend meetings of Mesa’s Red Mountain Tea Party, the epicenter of far-right extremism in the Valley of the Sun. Each week in the…
If a large segment of a society believes in hocus pocus, then the irrational inevitably affects reality.Wars have been fought in the name of religion, i.e., the worship of supernatural beings that do not exist. People in some parts of the world still wear talismans to ward off “the evil eye.” Not…
Arizona Secretary of State Ken Bennett, a relatively moderate Republican, wants to be Governor. But to have any kind of shot at the 9th floor, he figures he must placate the activist base of Sand Land’s GOP, which is deeply, rabidly insane. Hence, the predicament he finds himself in, having to…
It can only be described as a massive violation of human rights, what this country has done to deny a future to an entire generation of individuals, who for all intents and purposes are Americans.I’m talking about the hundreds of thousands of bright, undocumented youth who would qualify for a…
Three fundraisers are planned this week to help the families of J.T. Ready’s victims. On May 2, Ready shot and killed his girlfriend Lisa Mederos, 47; her daughter Amber Mederos, 23; Amber’s fiance Jim Hiott, 24; and Amber’s one year-old baby girl Lilly, in a murder spree that ended when Ready…
Click-clack/Where your papers at?/We under attack/Fight back/It’s warOne of the best songs to put Senate Bill 1070 and the whole police state mentality that reigns in Arizona on blast is “Papers,” by the Phoenix hip hop duo Shining Soul.With the U.S. Supreme Court scheduled to rule on SB 1070 by…
The campaign of Legislative District 25 state Senate hopeful Bob Worsley today announced a major endorsement, that of Mesa Mayor Scott Smith, a GOPer many consider a future contender for Governor of Sand Land.”I have known Bob Worsley for over 30 years,” Smith states in the press release, which you can…
The Worsley camp’s latest, and how true it is…At the Red Mountain Tea Party Monday night, recalled, disgraced ex-state Senate President Russell Pearce did not bow out of the GOP primary in Legislative District 25 for state Senate, as some in the blogosphere had anticipated.Instead, according to those in attendance,…
There’s not much that would get me out on a hot Arizona afternoon to watch a high-school soccer match, but Sal Reza as “coach” is one of them.Reza, the bane of Sheriff Joe Arpaio and former state Senate President Russell Pearce, the guy who’s led thousands in marches protesting both…
I know as much about Chilean hip-hop as I do Bolivian death metal or Finnish free jazz. That said, you don’t need a translator to be able to see or hear that French-Chilean MC Ana Tijoux is talented. Just sample any of her music videos online and you’re sure to be…
Think Pearce will laugh? Yeah, probably notMy good friend Dennis Gilman was kind enough to upload this delicious new parody for me of the much-spoofed “raving fuhrer” scene from the 2004 German film Downfall, starring Bruno Ganz as Adolf Hitler.Long have I dreamed of having one of these Downfall spoofs…
Soft and cuddly this Mesa muttonhead will never beI sure hope recalled ex-state Senate President Russell Pearce doesn’t bow out of the GOP state Senate primary in Legislative District 25, as some have been speculatin’ in the blogosphere.Why? Well, because that would rob me of the immense pleasure of watching…
Tom Perez blasts Sheriff Joe in Phoenix yesterday Hey, did you hear that the U.S. Department of Justice is suing Sheriff Joe Arpaio?Well, in case you were hibernating beneath a saguaro on Thursday, Assistant U.S. Attorney General Tom Perez was in town to blast everyone’s least-favorite sheriff for his racial-profiling,…
I’ve often said that in Arizona you don’t have to be a swastika-carrying neo-Nazi to have the same or similar beliefs. Which is why the presence of neo-Nazis and other right-wing wackjobs in the midst of the immigration donnybrook here in Sand Land has caused little or no outrage. And yet,…
If Jason Todd Ready had been a run-of-the-mill, delusional, Holocaust-denying racist neo-Nazi who liked to play with guns, I suppose we could could spare an ounce of surprise that, according to the Gilbert police, he killed himself and four others — including a baby girl, her mom, and her grandmother…
I knew Gilbert massacre shooter J.T. Ready was from Polk County, Florida, and I had contacted some relatives of his over the weekend seeking comment. (No luck, alas.) But until today, I could find no mention of him in his hometown newspaper, The Ledger, located in Lakeland, Florida.Thankfully, Ledger reporter…
Neo-Nazi J.T. Ready could be quite lucid and genial. Sometimes, he came off as an autodidact, widely read if not highly educated. That impression would last only so long, however. Inevitably, he would make some anti-Semitic or racist comment, or go off on some related tangent involving eugenics or the supposed superiority…
Why is it that some lies are so difficult to rebut? One reason: eviscerating untruths is made infinitely harder when the media is complicit in perpetuating them.For many years, I’ve written about the ties between ex-state Senate President Russell Pearce (who believes it’s the Legislature’s “duty” to “reimburse” him $260,000…
Listening to the oral arguments before the U.S. Supreme Court on Arizona’s breathing-while-brown law, Senate Bill 1070, prompted a daydream. Justices Sonia Sotomayor and Antonin Scalia are in a battered pickup truck with garden tools visible in the back. Set in the midst of Sheriff Joe Arpaio country — as…
J.T. Ready, Arizona’s most prominent neo-Nazi and the one-time political protege of recalled state Senate President Russell Pearce, reportedly is dead by his own hand in what’s described as a multiple murder-suicide in Gilbert that left four others slain, including a 2-year- old. A one-time member of the neo-Nazi National Socialist Movement,…
Multiple sources at the state Legislature are informing me that former state Senate President Russell Pearce’s $260,000 “reimbursement” will be added as an amendment to Senate Bill 1449, which I’m told will be in Conference Committee today at 4 p.m. in the State Senate Building.The bill could go to both…
The Capitol Times’ Luigi del Puerto is reporting that the plot to cut a $260,000 check to recalled, disgraced former state Senate President Russell Pearce remains alive at the state Legislature.I’ve heard the votes are not there in the Senate, but, hell, ya never know. Also, it’s not in the budget,…
