Arizona is a blasted hellscape

[Thad]

Why are Saudi Arabian cows still eating Arizona's water?

A friend of mine says, "I'll happily ration my water usage but kick these thieves out first!" I concur. Them and the fucking golf courses. And frankly our domestic farming operations need another look too.

Every election I talk about the importance of offices nobody pays attention to. The water conservation district is an example of an office that's massively fucking important but that doesn't get any attention.

Our population is exploding, and we're in the middle of a fucking desert. Even without the specter of climate change, that would still be something that should worry everybody.

[Thad]

Not The Onion: Kyrsten Sinema Got Mocked For Posting A Picture Of Her Brunching While Wearing A Ring That Reads ‘Fuck Off’

[Friday]

Why are Saudi Arabian cows still eating Arizona's water?

A friend of mine says, "I'll happily ration my water usage but kick these thieves out first!" I concur. Them and the fucking golf courses. And frankly our domestic farming operations need another look too.

Every election I talk about the importance of offices nobody pays attention to. The water conservation district is an example of an office that's massively fucking important but that doesn't get any attention.

Our population is exploding, and we're in the middle of a fucking desert. Even without the specter of climate change, that would still be something that should worry everybody.

wait, are you saying that water is actually really important and without it crops don't grow which leads to starvation and unrest which leads to war in places that are food insecure which leads to mass refugees which leads to increased fascism and xenophobia in superpower countries which leads to superpowers going to war with each other which leads to ww3 which leads to extinction of the human race or at the least the end of our civilization with only small pockets of humanity surviving?

weird, news to me

[Thad]

...are the boards stripping links out of quotes?

[Friday]

Nah, I just quoted it in a dumb slow way by highlighting the whole text of your posting, ctrl+c, then hit reply, then ctrl+v, then using the "quote" thing at the top. Hitting the actual quote button retains the links.

[Thad]

Cyber Ninjas, hired by Arizona Senate to recount Maricopa County's ballots, asks court to keep its procedures secret

[Thad]

Nation finds justice in Chauvin verdict, but Phoenix has its own police violence crisis. Here’s what's being done

Subheadings:
Phoenix implements '8 Can't Wait' strategy
Civilian review board falls through, but hope is not lost
Phoenix hires external firm to investigate last year’s protest response
Council increases police salaries — adds some accountability measures
Calls to defund the police fall on deaf ears
Community organizers push for more reform

It's...better than I expected. Not great, but frankly I'm surprised there's any movement toward reform on the part of the city government at all.

I'm nextdoor in Tempe. Our mayor's at least given lip service to police reform, but I haven't heard much in the way of actual concrete progress since the previous chief resigned. As of three weeks ago they're still tweeting photos of fascist symbols so, y'know, that's a good sign.

[Thad]

Yes, a guy from the insurrection is handling your ballot. Thank the Arizona GOP for that

[Thad]

'It makes us look like idiots': Arizona Republican admits he was wrong to support 'ridiculous' vote audit

This could have just as easily gone under "GOP will shit itself", but it's a good fit for this thread because I think it's another good example of how Kelli Ward is running the AZGOP into the ground.

Boyer, it should go without saying, is not one of the good guys. He supports voter disenfranchisement. But this exercise in voter disenfranchisement is too embarrassing even for somebody who wants to regularly purge the voter rolls.

[Mongrel]

"look like"

[Bal]

Yeah, let's just hire some fuckin' guys to count everyone's votes in a big room like we're looking for the golden ticket. Fucking asshole morons.

[Friday]

The audit has drawn widespread ridicule, even from many Republicans, after it was revealed that auditors are searching for traces of bamboo in the ballots, which they claim would be evidence of Chinese tampering in the 2020 election.

I

I --

I can't --

I can't even make a joke

[Büge]

"Sir, we've analyzed the crumbs in the ballot boxes!"
"And?"
"Just as we feared, sir: enriched wheat flour, water, sugar, coconut oil, salt, artificial flavour, lecithin, canola oil, artificial colour, and... and..."
"Well? Spit it out, man!"
"S-sodium benzoate."
[snatches paper] "Fortune cookies..."

[Brantly B.]

Worse, I hear Ninjas had access to them too.

[Thad]

'Our own survival is at stake': Arizona is using up its groundwater, researchers warn

[Thad]

I saw people asking the other day who could beat Sinema in a Democratic primary but still win a general election in Arizona, and someone came up with Grant Woods. I think he's probably the best answer.

It's not that he's that much more liberal than she is -- he was a Republican until about two years ago -- but I don't think he's driven by ego the way she is. He cares more about good governance than about holding office -- which is why his major contribution to Arizona politics for the past 20 years has been regularly contributing extremely thoughtful and informative "for" and "against" arguments to the packets we get that explain ballot propositions.

I think if he were senator, he wouldn't always vote the way I want, but he'd at least show the fuck up. And I'm like 99% sure we wouldn't be hearing anything about his Instagram.

2024's still a long way away and for now this is just cloud talk. But if somebody wants to start a Draft Woods movement, I'm down.

[Thad]

Matt Salmon jumps back into Arizona politics: He's running for governor for 2nd time

Salmon joins a growing list of candidates for the Republican primary.

State Treasurer Kimberly Yee is running after having run a previous statewide campaign. Karrin Taylor Robson, a member of the Arizona Board of Regents, is running, too. And former Fox 10 news anchor Kari Lake also jumped into the race.

Meanwhile, Secretary of State Katie Hobbs is seeking the Democratic nomination for governor. Her bid got national attention as she has gained prominence defending Arizona’s election system amid the Senate’s ongoing audit of Maricopa County ballots and a push to throw out the presidential vote.

Former Nogales mayor and Obama administration customs official Marco Lopez is seeking the nomination, too.

Short version on Salmon: he was a Trumpist before they were Trumpists, and was pretty remarkable for being the first Republican to lose an Arizona gubernatorial election since 1982. (And still one of only two, the other being Len Munsil, four years later. Munsil ran against Democrat Janet Napolitano when she was an incumbent; Salmon ran against her when she wasn't.) He served two terms in the US House after that, but he's never won a statewide election.

He was already too far right to win Arizona 20 years ago, and the state's bluer now than it was then. I won't go so far as to say this is *good* news for Katie Hobbs, because I know better than to assume a fringe lunatic can't win an election, but if the race were between the two of them, I'd like her odds.

Just at a wild guess, though, I'd keep an eye on Lake as a likely Republican nominee. She was on the teevee.

[Thad]

State Senate to seek more election material from Maricopa County; door-to-door questioning recommended

IOW, the grifters conducting the "recount" haven't even been able to fake any remotely convincing evidence that Biden's win was illegitimate, so they're asking for more opportunities to bias their results.

[KingRoyal]

Y'all are being forced to pay for this farce, right? Or it federally funded?

[Thad]

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.