During a hearing in federal court in Phoenix on Friday, Judge G. Murray Snow said more than once that Sheriff Joe Arpaio would have to have “skin in the game” as part of any settlement agreement in contempt allegations against Arpaio and four current and former high-ranking MCSO deputies. Snow…
So what do you do if you’ve just undercut more than two decades of selling yourself to the public as “America’s Toughest Sheriff” with a groveling admission to a federal judge that you’re guilty of civil contempt and are ready to bend over for punishment? If you’re Sheriff Joe Arpaio,…
Deputy Sean Pearce’s speeding case went into overtime last week after a Glendale city judge said he discovered only recently that a death was involved. Pearce, a veteran Maricopa County Sheriff’s Office detective and the son of recalled State Senator Russell Pearce, was on duty when he plowed into a…
Some hot, Republican-on-Republican action broke out Wednesday in a state Senate Government Committee hearing, as Senator John Kavanagh offered a “strike all” amendment to House Bill 2420 that creates a state Inspector General’s Office, with wide police powers, beholden only to the governor. As I recently reported, the Ducey administration…
Without abortion and gay sex, Cathi Herrod would cease to exist, melting like the Wicked Witch of the West hit with a torrential downpour. Why, the more sodomy, scissoring, and pregnancy terminations there are, the better off Herrod, president of the Center for Arizona Policy, is. See, her six-figure salary…
Those allegedly small-gub’mint Republicans are at it again in the state legislature, proposing a brand spankin’ new law enforcement agency, beholden only to the governor, and apparently exempt from state public records law. The proffered legislation comes in the form of a “strike everything” amendment from state Senator John Kavanaugh…
In a bombshell filing in federal court Tuesday, Sheriff Joe Arpaio and his Chief Deputy Jerry Sheridan admitted that they are guilty of civil contempt, in a blatant attempt to avoid an upcoming civil trial before U.S. District Court Judge G. Murray Snow. Since earlier this year, when Snow ordered…
Were it not for the Arizona Citizens Clean Elections Act, Diane Douglas would not be Arizona’s Superintendent of Public Instruction. The crazy cat lady now in charge of the Arizona Department of Education would still be a wall-eyed instructor at Glendale’s Stained Glass Shop if she hadn’t scored $97,620 of…
The Maricopa County Attorney’s Office has filed a request in superior court seeking to bar alleged child molester and former Minuteman Chris Simcox from personally cross-examining child victims during his upcoming trial in Phoenix, scheduled to begin March 16. In the 14-page pleading, dated March 6, deputy county attorney Yigael…
This is actually two videos of the same stop taken by Anderson Jean-Louis, with a pause between the two. To judge from a recent video of an encounter with a black motorist, it looks like some Tempe cops could use a refresher course in the First Amendment. The video was…
Sadly, I missed all the fun Tuesday at Arizona State University’s Tempe campus, where demonstrators assembled to support two ASU instructors singled out by neo-Nazi groups: ASU English Professor Lee Bebout and Ph.D. candidate Robert Poe. The ASU State Press reports that on March 3, demonstrators “protested outside ASU’s Fulton…
A National Youth Front member, identifying himself as “John Hess,” has admitted to fliering Arizona State University’s Tempe campus with images of ASU English Professor Lee Bebout, labeling the teacher “Anti-White.” During a conversation we had via Facebook, Hess said he is the hooded individual seen in a video on…
How much power do Republicans in Arizona need, for cryin’ out loud? They own every statewide office in Arizona, including the governor’s, and they have majorities in both chambers of the legislature, squirting out crazy bills with astonishing regularity. The Rs currently boast a 5-4 advantage in U.S. House members…
A Maricopa County Superior Court Judge will allow former Minuteman leader Chris Simcox to represent himself during his upcoming trial on allegations that he molested two young girls, one his own daughter, in 2013. During a pretrial hearing Monday morning in Phoenix, Judge Jose Padilla summarily granted Simcox’s request, which…
My, how the canine crazies will howl. Actually, they’re howling already, because on Thursday, Austin and Logan Flake, the son and daughter-in-law of U.S. Senator Jeff Flake, submitted a notice of claim to Maricopa County and Sheriff Joe Arpaio, demanding $8 million for their wrongful indictment in last year’s Green…
Chris Simcox, former minuteman leader and alleged child molester, is looking to test that old saw about how any defendant who acts as his own attorney “has a fool for a client.” According to a February 12 filing in Maricopa County Superior Court, Simcox wants to fire his public defenders…
An Arizona State University professor and his family are being targeted by white supremacists and neo-Nazis over a controversial class he’s teaching called U.S. Race Theory and the Problem of Whiteness. Lee Bebout, an associate professor of English at ASU, has faced fierce criticism after Fox News anchor Elizabeth Hasselbeck…
Talk about a missed opportunity. On Wednesday, Phoenix city leaders gathered for a press conference at City Hall to announce that February is “Graffiti Free Awareness Month,” and to pat themselves on the backs for all the great work Phoenix does in combating graffiti. The media event included City Council…
Like a bad case of shingles, dealing with Rim Country crackpot and state Senator Sylvia Allen is both painful and seemingly without cure. In 2012, in the wake of redistricting, Allen chickened out of a run in a newly-drawn Legislative District 6, following a poll’s showing her with a 22…
Roxana Bacon really should know better. A former president of the State Bar of Arizona, she recently penned an op-ed for the Arizona Republic wherein she blasted state Attorney General Mark Brnovich for a blame-the-victim “you asked for it” opinion of rape. “In Brnovich’s view,” she wrote, “prisons are places…
Cross Super Bowl XLIX madness with the insanity of the Green Acre dog fanatics, and you’ve got yourself one hothouse loony bin. The canine crazies are online crying for revenge again, riled up this time by the news that New England Patriots’ defensive tackle Alan Branch lost four dogs at…
What’s former Attorney General Tom Horne doing these days? Apparently, he’s joined up with his former law partner, Scottsdale attorney Sandra Slaton. His mug is on Slaton’s website and the State Bar of Arizona now cites Slaton’s office as his professional address. Slaton, you’ll recall, briefly represented Horne in an…
