First they try to frame you, then they don’t want to give your property back. So it goes in the Kafkaesque saga of Leslie Merritt Jr., the guy the Arizona Department of Public Safety tried to paint as “the I-10 shooter” after he was arrested last September 18 for four…
For years, I and other critics of Joe Arpaio have borne witness to the Maricopa County Sheriff’s trashing of people’s constitutional rights, his violations of the law, his general megalomania. And we all want one thing: justice. That has been difficult to obtain, even as Arpaio’s support has eroded, as…
One of the many bouts of culture shock I endured during the years I lived in New York City was watching two grown men get into a fist fight over a dime lying on the sidewalk near the building where I worked. They both reached for it about the same…
Here’s a piece of advice to local newshounds: Whenever Tim Casey is kvetching about “abuse of power,” then your bullshit detector should be flashing fire-engine red. Casey, you’ll recall, has made defending various abuses of power by the satraps of Maricopa County into his personal gravy train. He’s best known…
During a recent hearing at the Arizona House over Maricopa County’s elections fiasco, chaired by state Representative Michelle Ugenti-Rita, there was more podium-pounding and fist-pumping than at a pro-Bernie Sanders pajama party. People rightly were pissed that they had to stand in long lines to vote in the recent presidential…
Arizona Senator Martin Quezada was one of the first Latino leaders in the country to endorse Vermont U.S. Senator Bernie Sanders, and with tomorrow’s presidential preference vote in Arizona, Quezada explains that it’s time to set the record straight on former Secretary of State Hillary Clinton’s immigration record. To the…
When the big dog’s ticks, fat with blood, decide it’s time to detach themselves from their aging host, it’s safe to say that pooch is on his last hunt. So it would seem with Sheriff Joe Arpaio’s parasitic biographer and longtime lackey, Len Sherman, who for two decades has dedicated…
With Arizona’s presidential primary only a few weeks away, many readers have written in to tell us why they support one candidate over another. Here are two local voices — one from a supporter of former Secretary of State Hillary Clinton and one from a supporter of Vermont Senator Bernie…
When it comes to the left’s nearsighted infatuation with Vermont U.S. Senato Bernie Sanders and his pie-in-the-sky socialism, color me un-amused. Sorry all you BernBots and hashtag progressives who want me to “Feel the Bern,” because the only burn I’m feelin’ at the prospect of Bernie becoming the Democratic nominee…
What do you call a politician who texts a “dick pic” to a man he’s never met, but has merely corresponded with, after making contact through an explicit gay hookup site riddled with porn? In Arizona’s First Congressional District, they may end up calling him “Congressman Babeu.” Ahead in fundraising,…
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…
