Politics & Government

Pinal County Sheriff Paul “studboi1” Babeu has endorsed Arizona House Speaker Andy Tobin for Congress.Perhaps Babeu’s serious that he’s not considering a run for Congress himself…

Today in Found at the Border: Officers at the border busted the old weed in the tortillas trick yesterday in Nogales.U.S. Customs and Border Protection says a 37-year-old Tucson man had 384 pounds of pot hidden among a shipment of fresh corn tortillas…

Senator John McCain’s not too eager to go away.McCain said on a KFYI show that he’s “seriously thinking about maybe” running for reelection in 2016 — the year he turns 80 years old…

Christine Jones, a GOP candidate for governor in 2014 and former lawyer for Go Daddy, was popped for DUI in 2004, records show. That’s right; the woman who was singing for Sheriff Joe Arpaio at a charity event a few days ago was singing the blues in his jail a…

Please see update below with Tim Casey’s whiny objection to the legal fees caused by the bad behavior of his client. Who better to help me inaugurate a new category in this blog, entitled “Bigotry Is Expensive,” than the man known for sucking all of the air out of the…

Christine Jones, the former Go Daddy executive who’s running for governor, is a big fan of Sheriff Joe Arpaio.3TV has the footage of Jones giving a gushing review of the sheriff in front of a crowd, including Arpaio, at a charity event. 3TV also has the footage of Jones, a…

Republican Congressman Paul Gosar and some of his colleagues have been investigating why federal parks were closed during the federal government shutdown.Perhaps someone should send a calculator to Gosar’s office to help him put two and two together…

Justin Johnson and Laura Pastor, candidates in the Phoenix City Council District 4 race, continued delivering some hefty jabs at each other as early voting got underway on Thursday. Johnson, the son of former Phoenix Mayor Paul Johnson, faces criticism over family properties that are vacant eye sores, for being…

Phoenix officials this week wrapped up the last in a series of four public meetings to gather input on how to fairly eliminate the bank-breaking practice of pension spiking. The City Council Pension Fairness and Spiking Elimination Ad Hoc Subcommittee unanimously recommended preventing employees from using the following streams of…

Democratic Congressman Raul Grijalva was among several people arrested in a civil-disobedience demonstration in Washington, D.C. yesterday.Grijalva later posted on Facebook that he “was proud to be at the immigration reform rally in Washington yesterday and to stand with my colleagues in an act of civil disobedience to keep the…

Christine Jones, the former Go Daddy lawyer running for Arizona governor, claims she doesn’t like the sexy TV ads that made the domain-name company its fortune. But that didn’t stop Jones — a would-be champion of conservative ideals — from starring in one of the ads with pinup girl/racecar driver…

There’s a saying the local Democrats have: You can’t spell “crazy” without “R-AZ.”Why? Because of people like Republican Representative Brenda Barton of Payson, who explained on Facebook Monday that Führer der Nation Barack Obama and those gang-bangers known as park rangers are just ruining this nation…

Arizona House Speaker Andy Tobin announced today that he’s “just sick of Washington, D.C.”The Republican is so sick of Washington that he’s asking people to help him get a job there, with a $174,000-a-year, taxpayer-funded salary.(He’s running for Congress.)…

Stop us if you’ve heard this one before, but Governor Jan Brewer had an incredibly difficult time spitting out words.Brewer was commemorating those famous African-American pilots from World War II yesterday — you know, the Tusakee, Tusks, Tuh-see-gee, Tuskegee, Tuska-skee, Tuske-tuh, TUSKEGEE, Tus-kee-kee, Tus-kuh-kee Airmen…

Although the estimated number of unauthorized immigrants into the United States dropped off after 2007, researchers think that number may be on the rise again.After estimating a peak of 12.2 million unauthorized immigrants in the country in 2007, the Pew Research Center estimated that number dropped to 11.3 million by…

Just in case talk of military action against one country wasn’t enough, Republican Congressman Trent Franks is here with more loose talk of war.Franks announced that he plans to introduce a resolution authorizing the use of military force against Iran…

Kate Widland Gallego’s campaign manager, Lisa Fernandez, tells New Times that the political-attack fliers circulating in the district are “despicable.” The bright yellow fliers blast Widland Gallego, a candidate for the Phoenix City Council District 8 seat, for taking a $100 campaign contribution from Brian Murray, a consultant with Summit…

A couple of campaign fliers circulating around District 8 slam Kate Widland Gallego for her ties to Maricopa Sheriff Joe Arpaio’s political allies — and apparently for not being a minority. One of the bright yellow fliers, tucked on doors of homes throughout the district, call the council candidate a…

Chad Campbell, the state House Minority Leader, has decided that he’s not running for governor in 2014.Unless someone else with the ability to raise some money decides to get in the race, it looks like Fred DuVal is going to be the Democratic nominee in 2014…

Former Phoenix homicide detective Armando Saldate might be the only reason Debra Milke was on death row for more than two decades for killing her son — a conviction that has since been overturned by a federal appeals court.Upon hearing that Saldate was planning to refuse testifying in Milke’s retrial,…

Tea party activists are celebrating as one of their own successfully got a book banned from a southern Arizona school district.Debbie Stoner, a tea party organizer in the small community of Palominas, near Sierra Vista, alleged that her son, a sophomore at Buena High School in Sierra Vista, was told…

The national Marijuana Policy Project, bolstered by federal approval of state pot-freedom laws, plans to put a Colorado-style legalization initiative on Arizona’s ballot for 2016. It’s part of a master plan to pass similar legalization laws in 10 states by 2017. “We’re feeling very good about what we can accomplish,”…