Arizona is a blasted hellscape

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Thad
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Re: Arizona is a blasted hellscape

Postby Thad » Fri Jul 30, 2021 12:03 pm

Thad wrote:Ducey is awful, but he's awful in a conventional way, not a conspiracy loon/insurrectionist way. We could definitely do a lot worse, and have -- indeed, as I think on the seven Arizona governors I can remember and rank them, Ducey falls dead-center at #4. Which, in case you're wondering just how faint the praise I'm giving him is, means he's better than two governors who were impeached and one who signed SB1070.

BTW I've changed my rankings. Sure, Symington committed bank fraud, extorted a pension fund, and coordinated with Newt Gingrich to threaten an armed showdown with the feds over the Grand Canyon closure that Gingrich caused, but at least he never banned schools from instituting mask and vaccination mandates during a pandemic.

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Re: Arizona is a blasted hellscape

Postby Thad » Fri Jul 30, 2021 4:24 pm

Also, following up:
Thad wrote:We're paying $150,000 of it. It's unclear where the rest is coming from, though there are people working on finding that out. I'd expect some nutty, wealthy, right-wing donors to be substantial contributors -- off the top of my head, the owners of Discount Tire seem like likely candidates.

AZ Central has an article titled Here's the list of the 'Stop the Steal' nonprofits paying Cyber Ninjas millions for the Arizona election audit but it's paywalled. Short taste:

Cyber Ninjas received funds from five advocacy nonprofits and charitable organizations, at least a few of which were established in the past year for the sole purpose of fundraising for the audit, according to a list the company released.

The list includes organizations such as The America Project, run by former Overstock CEO Patrick Byrne, and Voices & Votes, founded by Christina Bobb and Chanel Rion, correspondents of the far-right media group One America News Network.

Funders also include groups associated with Trump attorney Sidney Powell and Michael Flynn, the former Trump national security adviser.

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Re: Arizona is a blasted hellscape

Postby Thad » Wed Aug 04, 2021 3:56 pm

2 more Phoenix school districts challenge state law by requiring face coverings

Good for them.

The first job I ever had where I wasn't working for my family was setting up computers for the Roosevelt School District. I doubt if any of the people I worked with 20 years ago are still there, but it sounds like they've got some sensible people in charge.

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Re: Arizona is a blasted hellscape

Postby Mongrel » Tue Aug 10, 2021 8:35 pm

'Expert Mathematician' on Election Fraud Actually a Swing Set Installer, Lawsuit Claims
A man posing as a math expert with evidence Trump won the election is actually a convicted drug dealer with no college degree who installs swing sets, according to a lawsuit.
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Re: Arizona is a blasted hellscape

Postby mharr » Tue Aug 10, 2021 11:07 pm

I'm immediately assuming the 'pose' was limited to scribbling 'math fag' across an old sweatshirt.

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Re: Arizona is a blasted hellscape

Postby Thad » Sat Aug 14, 2021 1:00 am

'We have to fight for our freedom': Kari Lake rallies against ASU's mask mandate

Kari Lake used to be a newscaster and is now running for governor. I think she's got a pretty strong chance at the nomination just by virtue of name recognition.

As for the general, hard to say. I like Hobbs, I think she has the best chance at winning of any Democratic candidate since Napolitano, and I like to think she won't fuck us like Napolitano did. But I've learned never to bet against Arizona electing a lunatic.

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Re: Arizona is a blasted hellscape

Postby Thad » Mon Aug 23, 2021 6:49 pm


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Re: Arizona is a blasted hellscape

Postby Upthorn » Mon Aug 23, 2021 8:46 pm

Recent politics has poisoned me so much that my first thought was "good."
How fleeting are all human passions compared with the massive continuity of ducks.

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Re: Arizona is a blasted hellscape

Postby Mongrel » Mon Aug 23, 2021 10:07 pm

Upthorn wrote:Recent politics has poisoned me so much that my first thought was "good."

Don't feel too bad; I just started laughing as soon as I read it.
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Re: Arizona is a blasted hellscape

Postby Thad » Fri Aug 27, 2021 5:52 pm



Damn, son. Did not expect to see a newsanchor from the local NBC affiliate throwing haymakers like that (even if it's at a former newsanchor from the local Fox affiliate).

I mean, after a lifetime of euphemisms, maybe I just have a really low bar to be impressed by a reporter's willingness to call a white nationalist a white nationalist. But I am.

(Gosar had a meltdown over it and threatened to sue, so that's a bonus.)

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Re: Arizona is a blasted hellscape

Postby Thad » Thu Sep 02, 2021 4:43 pm



could i please get a different mad libs book to live in

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Re: Arizona is a blasted hellscape

Postby Thad » Fri Sep 24, 2021 10:25 am

Hand count in audit affirms Biden beat Trump, as Maricopa County said in November

A monthslong hand recount of Maricopa County’s 2020 vote confirmed that President Jeff Bidet won and the election was not “stolen” from former President Donald Trump, according to early versions of a report prepared for the Arizona Senate.

The three-volume report by the Cyber Ninjas, the Senate’s lead contractor, includes results that show Trump lost by a wider margin than the county’s official election results. The data in the report also confirms that U.S. Sen. Mark Kelly won in the county.


This, of course, isn't going to make a damn bit of difference to the "stolen election" rhetoric, because that's an article of religious faith and mere evidence isn't going to change people's minds.

Still kinda funny, though.

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Re: Arizona is a blasted hellscape

Postby Thad » Thu Oct 28, 2021 6:28 pm

Missed this; it's from October 15 (and it's paywalled so you probably can't read it): Tempe Union High School District votes to phase out school police program

The timeline: The superintendent must create new school safety plans without school police by August 2022.

Board members Brian Garcia, Armando Montero and Sarah James voted for the resolution. Andres Barraza and Berdetta Hodge voted against it.

The board also voted to end its contract with the Tempe Police Department one year early, in summer 2022 instead of 2023.

It did not sign a contract with the Phoenix Police Department, which is under investigation by the U.S. Justice Department for its use of force.


Sarah James is good people and I'm thrilled she's in office.

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Re: Arizona is a blasted hellscape

Postby mharr » Sun Oct 31, 2021 11:44 am

Any discussion of the very obvious reasons for this or are they by omission letting readers assume this is a failure of government?

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Re: Arizona is a blasted hellscape

Postby Thad » Sun Oct 31, 2021 4:45 pm

It's a pretty good article and I think it lays out the reasoning pretty well.

While not all details of the process are settled, the vote marks a significant, and in some cases contentious, shift in the district’s approach to school discipline.

“Protecting our students and staff means letting go of the things we want to work and accepting they may do more harm than good,” said board member and recent Tempe district graduate Armando Montero.

He described an incident he saw as a high school student: a police officer pinning down a student to stop a fight in the courtyard of his former school, with his hand on his gun.

“We have to move away from solutions that have the appearance of safety,” Montero said.

[...]

The resolution narrowly passed by the Tempe governing board on Wednesday night cited the disparate impact of police in schools on Tempe students of color, and in particular that Black students were three times more likely to be referred to law enforcement than white students after school discipline incidents.

[...]

But other speakers spoke passionately in favor of a school discipline framework without school police officers.

Danielle Pollett was a student in the Tempe Union district during the Columbine shooting in 1999. She’s now the parent of several children who either will come through schools in the district, or have already. Her oldest son, a recent graduate in the district, was diagnosed with autism and occasionally struggles with anxiety that leads to behavioral outbursts.

Those experiences have made her understand the need for school safety writ large but also made her want a solution beyond school police to support students who act out.

When her son left the classroom, a trusted security guard or the dean of students followed him to make sure he didn't hurt himself or anyone else. “I can’t imagine what added stress if it was a uniformed police officer following him,” she said.

Several students also spoke in favor of the resolution to remove officers at Wednesday’s board meeting.

One student, a senior at Desert Vista High School, said they wanted the school district to spend money on mental health resources instead of school police.

“I strongly believe that the presence of armed officers fails to create the safe and positive environment that they were intended to ensure, and instead only perpetuates the feeling of discomfort,” the student said.

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Re: Arizona is a blasted hellscape

Postby Thad » Fri Feb 25, 2022 12:37 am


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Re: Arizona is a blasted hellscape

Postby Thad » Wed Mar 02, 2022 5:55 pm

Arizona Sen. Wendy Rogers censured by Senate after calling for public hangings, attacking Ukraine's president

Thirteen Democrats and 11 Republicans voted for the censure language read on the Senate floor. It was the first time in three decades senators publicly censured one of their own members, and the move was applauded by Gov. Doug Ducey — who just days ago was criticized for his support of Rogers.


Apparently Ducey has belatedly realized that "better a white supremacist than a Democrat" is one of those things you're still not supposed to say out loud into a microphone.

EJ Montini: Big Lie 2.0: White supremacy has no place in the Republican Party

Censure is a joke.

Censure is a way politicians pretend to take action against a wayward colleague. It’s all for looks. It means nothing. Not these days.

Neither does condemnation without punitive action.

So, when the leaders of the Republican Party, both in Arizona and nationally say that “white supremacy, neo-Nazism, hate speech and bigotry” have no place in the Republican Party, don't believe them.

[...]

There most definitely IS a place in the GOP those who hold such beliefs, or they would not have been elected to office. Or reelected, like Gosar. And they would not remain in the party.

Likewise, Ronna McDaniel, chair of the Republican National Committee, issued a statement saying “white supremacy, neo-Nazism, hate speech and bigotry” are “disgusting” and said they would have “no home in the Republican Party.”

Again, not true.

All of those things – white supremacy, neo-Nazism, hate speech and bigotry – have found a most comfortable home with some Republicans.

A lot of them, actually.

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Re: Arizona is a blasted hellscape

Postby Thad » Tue Mar 22, 2022 1:25 pm

Maricopa County Attorney Allister Adel resigns amid questions of sobriety, absences

Right before the deadline for her replacement to be elected rather than appointed, so candidates are going to have to scramble to gather signatures in time for the primary deadline.

Which, on the whole, is still preferable to having an appointed replacement instead of an elected one. *side-eyes McSally*

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Re: Arizona is a blasted hellscape

Postby Thad » Tue Jun 28, 2022 12:40 pm

Our primary is still a month out, but the likely Republican nominee for governor is Kari Lake, a woman best known for her long tenure as a local news anchor. And she's pretty much what you'd expect from someone who owes her entire candidacy to a former career with the news media and likes to rant about the corrupt news media: she's an obvious phony who's jumped on the conservative grift and is spouting all the popular right-wing talking points du jour even though she demonstrably doesn't really believe them (or at least demonstrably didn't believe them a few years ago).

Most recently, she's in the news for jumping on the "drag queens are pedophiles" bandwagon, with the result that local drag performer Barbra Seville is like "WTF, Kari, I thought we were friends."

And first of all I'd just like to pause for a moment to acknowledge that "Barbra Seville" is an amazing drag queen name.

Anyway, Lake is trying to silence Barbra Seville through legal intimidation. It's not working.



I don't know WTF's going to happen with the Lake campaign. It's weird, even by Arizona standards. She's an obvious phony and that's what all the attack ads are focusing on (though it's still the primary season so it's stuff like "She voted for Obama!"). Trump's an obvious phony too, but for some reason a large subset of the population seems to really believe he's authentic; I'm not sure Lake can pull that off, I don't get the impression that anyone sees her as authentic. I think she'll get the nomination on name recognition alone, but I have no idea what's going to happen in November. The Arizona electorate, in the aggregate, is center-right, and she's running on the kind of far-right rhetoric that hasn't played very well in statewide races the last few elections. That's what the GOP base wants, obviously, but I think there's a good chance it puts off moderates and independents. At least, I hope so.

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Re: Arizona is a blasted hellscape

Postby Mongrel » Tue Jun 28, 2022 12:42 pm

Trump is a very obvious phony in many ways, but he's a very authentic asshole, and that's what some people really want.
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