With unprecedented numbers of children entering foster care in Arizona every day, there seems to be unanimous agreement among child-welfare advocates and experts that something in the state’s system is broken. But what exactly that “something” is — and where it stems from — remains a topic of hot debate. In a…
With Valentine’s Day just past, it’s worth noting that Pinal County’s most eligible bachelor, Sheriff Paul Babeu, may finally have found love in a young man 25 years his junior. Babeu’s spokesman, Barrett Marson, who also flacks for the legalize pot initiative Campaign to Regulate Marijuana Like Alcohol, confirmed to…
Whether it’s protesting Islam at a mosque or trying to bar a Satanist religious group from participating in public city council meetings, Phoenix has made national headlines continually in the last year for acts of intolerance, bigotry, and hate. And as Phoenix Rabbi Shmuly Yanklowitz explains in a letter to the editor,…
May 2 will mark the fourth anniversary of the Gilbert murder-suicide in which East Valley neo-Nazi J.T. Ready gunned down 15-month-old Lily Mederos, Lily’s mother, Amber; her grandmother, Lisa; and Amber’s boyfriend, Jim Hiott, before turning his 9 millimeter Beretta on himself. An FBI file on…
The movement demanding the U.S. Federal government “return” all public lands to state ownership may not be anything new in Arizona, but last month’s occupation of a federal building in Oregon has put the issue front and center in the public conscious. The occupation, led by Arizona’s own Ammon Bundy,…
Something’s rotten in Coon Bluff, thanks to Sheriff Joe and the MCSO. That something is the headless carcass of Dotty, one of the famed Salt River wild horses, found on October 1, shot to death and floating in the river near Coon Bluff, a heavily trafficked part of the Tonto National…
In response to New Times’ story detailing the Arizona Department of Child Safety’s plan to close its emergency placement center in Phoenix — and allow children who can’t immediately be placed in foster care to sleep in DCS offices — DCS spokesman Doug Nick wrote the following letter to the…
It must’ve been fate, me first bumping into U.S. Senate candidate Kelli Ward outside the recent meeting of the Maricopa County Republican Committee at a church in Central Phoenix. I recently took the Duke University-educated former state Senator to task for her playing footsie with far-right fanatics, like in 2014…
Is it possible for a successful flack to have a conscience? No offense to the many honest and diligent PR reps, public information officers and spokesmen and -women out there, but some of the best in that profession are real sleazeballs, amoral sociopaths who would justify Kim Jong-un dropping an…
Now that former Phoenix resident Ammon Bundy, son of bigoted clodhopper Cliven Bundy, has up and taken over a wildlife refuge in Oregon with his brother, Ryan, and a bunch of fellow gun-slingin’ wackos, what do Arizona Republicans — like former state Senator Kelli Ward — have to say about…
Don’t let the doorknob hit you on the way out. That’s the message to former Arizona Corporation Commission Chairwoman Susan Bitter Smith from both state Attorney General Mark Brnovich and Governor Doug Ducey. In a letter dated December 21, Ducey accepted Bitter Smith’s resignation, which she had made effective January…
What do you reckon many liberals and Latinos locally think about city government possibly having a master list of all the undocumented in Phoenix, with identifying photos, biometrics, and addresses, to boot? Sounds like recalled former state Senate President Russell Pearce’s wet dream, right? Particularly since law enforcement would have…
Speaking with journalist and author Asra Nomani for my recent cover story on her fellow Muslim reformer, Dr. M. Zuhdi Jasser of Phoenix, I asked why Jasser draws such enormous flak from Muslim organizations in America. Nomani has garnered her share of fire for her ardent advocacy of gender equality…
Journalists are a notoriously cynical bunch. So when a politician up and does the right thing, especially in a one-party state rife with corruption, the knee-jerk reaction is: What are you doing for an encore? Thus it was with Attorney General Mark Brnovich’s post-Thanksgiving press conference, where he carved up…
One of the more insightful passages in former MCSO Executive Chief Brian Sands’ book about his old boss, Sheriff Joe Arpaio, deals with Joe’s long-fostered image as an avuncular Dr. Dolittle with a badge. Whether its ginning up bogus animal-cruelty cases against Maricopa County residents or taking celebrity Pam Anderson…
Imagine the liberal hell to pay if the musical The Book of Mormon had been canceled from its run at Arizona State University’s Gammage Auditorium because it offended members of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints. Lefties would roar their disapproval, and rightly so. Sure, the Tony Award-winning…
Never doubt for one moment — notwithstanding his staged Reagan-esque gaps in memory under oath and his on-the-stand avowals of delegating authority — Sheriff Joe Arpaio’s total control over the MCSO. Take the following example, borrowed from the transcript of MCSO Lieutenant Kim Seagraves’ recent deposition in the ongoing federal…
Coming less than a month after Governor Doug Ducey’s solicitation of ideas for the “rebranding”of Arizona, federal Judge Susan R. Bolton’s recent ruling on Arizona’s 2010 immigrant-bashing law, Senate Bill 1070, reminds denizens of the Grand Canyon State why such a rebranding might be necessary. The law itself was a…
During an August 28 status conference in Sheriff Joe Arpaio’s never-ending contempt proceedings before federal Judge G. Murray Snow, one of Arpaio’s many lawyers, the sly, irrepressible John Masterson let drop two tidbits, each suggestive of revelations to come. Both involved new documents Masterson said he’d just been informed of,…
Despite a recent Gallup poll that shows 87 percent of Americans favor allowing illegal immigrants to become U.S. citizens under certain restrictions, the public dialogue on immigration continues to be driven by a billionaire blowhard and a vicious hate-monger. I mean Republicans Donald Trump and Ann Coulter, whose know-nothing rhetoric…
Detective Brian Mackiewicz was in a cranky mood when I called to speak with him about the events of July 24, when federal Judge G. Murray Snow ordered the U.S. Marshals Service to seize evidence from the MCSO’s property lockers. At issue were 1,500 IDs confiscated from Latinos by the…
How far was Sheriff Joe Arpaio willing to go in ginning up a false conspiracy theory he hoped would disqualify federal Judge G. Murray Snow from the ACLU’s big civil rights case, Melendres v. Arpaio? As far west as Seattle and as far east as Washington, D.C. I’ll get to…
