Friday evening, I received the letter below signed by Janet Murguria of the National Council of La Raza, essentially declaring that the boycott of Arizona over Senate Bill 1070 is finito.Granted, the letter does point out that the boycott that developed in response to state Senate President Russell Pearce’s nativist…
Like you needed more proof that Olivia Cortes’ candidacy in the November 8 recall election in Legislative District 18 is all about “diluting” the vote and helping state Senate Russell Pearce beat challenger Jerry Lewis, East Valley Tea Party Chairman Greg Western submitted 1,177 signatures on behalf of Cortes today,…
I’ve written extensively about the Phoenix Police Department’s elite Career Criminal Squad and the vital work they do targeting criminal street gangs, such as various neo-Nazi skinhead groups, as well as working murder-for-hire cases. But other than the squad’s creator, former PPD Lieutenant Heston Silbert, now an Assistant Chief with the…
Stealth recall candidate Olivia Cortes may not want to answer her phone or come to her door, but on Thursday there were paid petition circulators soliciting signatures for her at the main branch of the Mesa public library. These individuals are informing skeptical pro-Russell Pearce signers that getting Cortes in the…
A trailer for the Postville documentary which you can see free tonight at ASUThe infamous 2008 raid in a on a kosher meatpacking plant in Postville, Iowa, carried out by U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement, is of symbolic and historic significance along the lines of the 1917 Bisbee deportation and the…
It’s a wacky world, to say the least, and occasionally I end up writing about people I know and even like, despite the fact that what I have to tell you about them may not be flattering. This time, it involves a fellow whom many in Phoenix legal circles and…
He’s swiped $100 million from taxpayer-protected funds to use for his own pet programs, engaged in high-profile shenanigans with former fellow Sith Lord and ex-County Attorney Andrew Thomas — monkeyshines rivaling Watergate in corruption, and still can’t do his job and serve tens of thousands of outstanding warrants.But he can…
Following my column this week regarding the Associated Press’ flubbed piece on the sentences received by 13 anti-SB 1070 protesters arrested outside the Fourth Avenue Jail on July 29, 2010, attorney Antonio Bustamante, one of the lawyers for the defendants, wrote the AP asking for a correction or retraction of…
With the November 8 recall election advancing on him like an out-of-control semi, state Senate President Russell Pearce is attempting to morph himself into an honorable man, a practical politician and rehabilitator of Arizona’s economic fortunes, all in a lame attempt to spare himself from the wrath of the voters.This…
I know, no one voted me the local press corps cop, but periodically, I feel the need to step into the breach and whack my fellow Fourth Estaters upside the head. Particularly when their errors mar a story I care deeply about. Such is the case with an Associated Press…
The Arizona Supreme Court has granted a review of the legal challenge filed by attorney Lisa Hauser to the recall of state Senate President Russell Pearce, aka, Ross v. Bennett.Both sides in the case had petitioned for the Supremes to rule on the matter. Today the court issued the following…
First off, I wish to commend Shane Wikfors of the Sonoran Alliance blog for removing an article by the Sonoran News’ Linda Bentley claiming “massive voter registration fraud” in the petitions recalling state Senate President Russell Pearce.I raised the issue with Wikfors during a back and forth in the comments…
Though I try to avoid watching the PBS Horizon clown table for fear that I’ll pull an Elvis on my TV set, folks tip me off whenever smarmy local hack Howie Fischer says something dumb, which is nearly every week. So, sometimes I am forced to watch it online. (Sigh.)What kills me…
It’s always amusing when wingnuts try to grow a conscience. Like a beard on an alligator, you know it’s fake from jump.That’s why I cracked a smile today while perusing far-right wing blog Sonoran Alliance, where moral relativist-in-charge Shane Wikfors is demanding an apology from Carolyn Cooper, a supporter of…
Olivia Cortes, who has filed to run as a candidate in the Legislative District 18 recall election apparently has campaign signs up in Mesa, possibly in violation of state law.This report comes in via Robert McDonald, Jr., a former contender for the LD 18 Senate seat, now held by state…
Arizona has earned itself the moniker of “the most racist state in the nation” for a reason. Not a day goes by that its public officials fail to concoct some new, bigoted outrage as manna for Sand Land’s wingnut masses.The outrage du jour? Arizona Attorney General Tom Horne is suing…
Amazing. According to Christine Zielonka, the Mesa official in charge of code compliance, the pro-Pearce group Citizens Who Oppose the Pearce Recall, is refusing to remove the illegal signs posted all over Mesa, despite a city order and the threat that city workers will collect them after Monday if they…
When it comes to the war on the poor in Sand Land, I have little faith that the cruelty toward the less fortunate evidenced by our ruling Republican junta ever will be avenged. Governor Jan Brewer, state Senate President Russell Pearce, their puppet-maestro, Chuck Coughlin of HighGround Public Affairs, and…
Stupid is as stupid does. Not only has Matt Tolman, the real-estate rocket scientist behind the scurrilous pro-Pearce signs all over Mesa (signs the city has ordered him to remove because they are unlawful), been dumb enough to post a photo of his daughter’s rear-end on his public Facebook page, now…
Though I figured Matt Tolman’s dirty tricks eventually would backfire on the Pearce camp, I had no idea the blowback would come so quickly or from such an official source.Tolman is the chairman of Citizens Who Oppose the Pearce Recall, which recently posted signs in Legislative District 18 bearing false…
In the interest of lambasting a dead horse till it’s tender enough to feed to a pigeon, I present the following e-mail string, unedited by me, save to put the electronic missives in order from first to last. As you’ll see, reader Michael Wells engaged in some participatory journalism by corresponding with wacky…
So far, the Sonoran News’ editor/publisher Don Sorchych and his flunky scribe Linda “Wrong Way” Bentley continue to stonewall on correcting, retracting or apologizing for their misreporting and sinister insinuations concerning Mesa resident and American citizen Benita Lantigua.This would be simple to do, and it would be the right thing…
