Just in time for Halloween: The Arizona Chamber of Commerce and Industry has announced that it’s changing its name to the Arizona Chamber of Economic Incompetence. Okay, not really, but it might as well. With its endorsement of Republican Doug Ducey for governor, the chamber is siding with the failed…

Like a visual version of an earworm — you know, those songs that get caught in your head and you can’t get out — I’ve been thinking a lot lately about a famous 18th-century etching by the Spanish artist Francisco Goya called The Sleep of Reason Produces Monsters. It features…

Keeping Kav on his toes: Pennypacker’s cable TV spot… In spite of a more than two-to-one registration advantage for tuskers in Legislative District 23, Republican-turned-Democrat Paula Pennypacker’s been all over GOPer John Kavanagh like white on rice in the general election contest for the district’s open state Senate seat. Pennypacker…

Are Muslims the new Mexicans? Turn on the TV, check out Twitter or make the mistake of listening to AM radio, and you’re almost guaranteed to get a red hot blast of Islamophobia. Even folks as enlightened as HBO’s Bill Maher are suggesting that there is something intrinsically wrong with…

Republican gubernatorial candidate Doug Ducey’s spokeswoman, Melissa DeLaney, declined to comment Tuesday when I contacted her regarding this week’s cover story on Ducey’s hailing from an infamous Toledo organized crime family. But Wednesday, she gave a statement to the Arizona Republic’s Laurie Roberts, and I’m glad she did, because she…

Does Sheriff Joe Arpaio want people to see Phoenix filmmaker Randy Murray’s critically-acclaimed film The Joe Show, which begins a week-long run today at Harkins Valley Art in Tempe and Harkins Arrowhead in Peoria? Certainly, Arpaio helped pimp the flick in Hollywood when it played there earlier this year, clowning…

Anything to do with the billionaire Koch bothers gets the liberals riled, just as anything to do with Benghazi, gun control or lefty billionaire George Soros sets Teabaggers aflame. Don’t get me wrong. Charles and David Koch’s influence over the electoral process is a legit issue, but there’s only so…

A lot of Latinos are ticked by President Barack Obama’s decision to delay any further executive orders on immigration until after the election. But let’s be honest, with the U.S. Senate up for grabs in a handful of close races around the country, to have done otherwise would’ve been foolhardy…

As I mentioned in my column this week, Maricopa County Attorney Bill Montgomery’s Islamaphobic “expert,” disgraced ex-FBI agent John Guandolo, recently accused Channel 12’s Brahm Resnik and Fox 10’s Mia Garcia of being “media collaborators,” who “defend stealth jihadis.” This, because of their coverage of Guandolo’s coming to town on…

One rule of McCarthyism is that anyone critical of scurrilous activity by its practitioners instantly is suspect. In the 1950s, communists and communist sympathizers were the bugbears of infamous Wisconsin U.S. Senator Joe McCarthy, whose name has become synonymous with the unscrupulous ruining of reputations. For Maricopa County Attorney Bill…

Recalled state Senate President Russell Pearce is one of those guys who can lie and then believe his lie, almost immediately after he’s said it. Problem is, he’s a really bad liar. In fact, his lies remind me of that quote from the Old Testament, “Be sure your sin will…

Please see the updates at the end of this post, which include comments from John Guandolo, the Phoenix Police Department, and the MCSO. The backlash is building against Maricopa County Attorney Bill Montgomery’s upcoming anti-Muslim training session, featuring Islamaphobic ex-FBI agent John Guandolo, who believes that CIA Director John Brennan…

The recent forced resignation of recalled ex-state Senate President Russell Pearce from his position as first vice chair of the Arizona GOP shows the power that public humiliation can have, if the circumstances are right. When I first reported Pearce’s outrageous statements calling for the sterilization of female Medicaid recipients,…

Maricopa County Treasurer Charles “Hos” Hoskins has issued a response over the controversy surrounding his continued employment of recalled former state Senate President President Russell Pearce, who recently resigned his post as First Vice Chair of the Arizona Republican Party, following his controversial remarks on the forced sterilization of female…

As he already has demonstrated through his vile comments on the forced sterilization of female Medicaid recipients, recalled ex-state Senator Russell Pearce has complete contempt for the poor. The outrage over these remarks, made by Pearce on his weekly radio show, recently forced Pearce’s resignation as first vice chair of…

Recalled ex-state Senate President Russell Pearce resigned Sunday night from his position as first vice chair of the Arizona Republican Party, following a bruising weekend during which congressional and statewide GOP candidates, among others, condemned remarks Pearce made September 9 on his weekly talk radio show. In a press release…

It was DC London’s Sean Noble that got the ball rolling on Saturday, calling on fellow Republican Russell Pearce to “resign or be removed” from his position as first vice chair of the state GOP. This, in the wake of Pearce’s hateful comments on the forced sterilization of female Medicaid…

Please see update on Doug Ducey and others joining the chorus of condemnation below. Republican candidate for Arizona Attorney General Mark Brnovich issued a statement on Sunday condemning remarks made by the Arizona GOP’s first vice chair Russell Pearce, in which Pearce proposed the coerced sterilization of female Medicaid recipients…

Influential GOP strategist Sean Noble of the consulting firm DC London is calling on recalled, former state Senate President Russell Pearce to “resign or be removed” from his position as the Arizona GOP’s first vice chair because of Pearce’s remarks advocating the coerced sterilization of female Medicaid recipients. “There’s nothing…