Sheriff Joe Arpaio has long maintained that he’s accountable to the people — but the people’s accountants are a different story. After 15 years in the job, Arpaio has yet to endure a comprehensive audit of his office’s finances. Limited audits examining Arpaio’s payroll, his travel policies and the county’s…
Daniela’s world is very small. Though she was born in Mexico and traveled thousands of miles to Phoenix, she might never leave her neighborhood again. As an undocumented immigrant in Maricopa County, it’s just too risky. Her eldest child longs for the family to take a trip to California and…
Though Arizona is considered ground zero for the current debate surrounding illegal immigration, this is not a new fight. What is new is a national push, led by Arizona, toward states taking the issue into their own hands. According to Brian Gratton, a professor at Arizona State University and an…
Sports fans see the Super Bowl as a battle of skill and determination, a fight for the right to be called world champion. Others just watch for the commercials. And then there are those who view the big game, and the days surrounding it, as the biggest party of the…
Citizen Klahr, still fightin’ the good fight, in a pic from a 2002 New Times profile of Klahr. Whatever you may think of the oft-controversial and always colorful Gary Peter Klahr, civil libertarian and former Phoenix City Councilman, the lawsuit he recently filed against our Mayor Goober makes a superb…
By hosting Super Bowl XLII, Phoenix will become the center of the universe for football fans in the days leading up to the big game. To continue the space metaphor, we like to think of the Super Bowl as the sun with lots of related events orbiting around it. And…
Everyone from casual fan to high roller with ticket in-hand wants the perfect match-up for Super Bowl 42. But what would perfection be, exactly? Consensus among those setting football lines in Vegas has the AFC Patriots making an appearance in Glendale on Feb. 3. How cool would it be if…
Jeez, what fell in my eye? Did that come from The Bird!? Ah, the Christmas season, so full of joy and goodwill towards one’s fellow man. But not at the PHX Pruitt’s protests, boyo, where the Prince of Peace would certainly not be welcome by the nativists if his eyes…
With all the high rollers in town for the big game, townies and tourists alike will have to step up their personal presentation to compete for attention. Especially, you $30K millionaires. Since there’s absolutely zero chance of you hooking a top-shelf honey in a regular rental car, consider borrowing a…
Amateur Mel Tillis impersonator and furniture-peddler Roger Sensing, acting like a pinche cabron, as usual, as he talks to Salvador Reza. (Photo courtesy of Eduardo Barraza of Barriozona.com.) The more I read and learn about Roger Sensing, the more I realize the guy is one class-A S.O.B., even though he…
Tired ol’ lefty Linda Valdez of the Repugly disappoints today in her “quick hit” against Salvador Reza and the protests at Pruitt’s. I guess she got the top-down memo telling all of the Repugly’s writers that they have to tow the line on the Pruitt’s matter. Does Pruitt’s advertise with…
U.S.A. citizens are sick and tired that for more than 40 years, Latin American elites have lived like monarchs because they pimp their poor to American businesses for cheap labor that American taxpayers have been forced to subsidize with health care, food, housing, education, and so forth, costing taxpayers trillions…
GOOBERVILLE Get off your butts: Sanctuary city? Yeah, Phoenix is a sanctuary city — for bigots and carpetbaggers (“Hen Party,” The Bird, Stephen Lemons, December 13; also see “Goober Caves” on the Feathered Bastard blog. Phil Gordon is a tool. Why does the mayor have to do anything about immigration?…
The lawyer behind the arrests of New Times executives Michael Lacey and Jim Larkin is central in a seminal lawsuit alleging that the Maricopa County Sheriff’s Office violates the constitutional rights of inmates in its charge. Hundreds of inmates involved in a class-action suit against the Sheriff’s Office have waited…
Maricopa County law enforcement officials are increasingly turning to the Internet to target private individuals they consider a “threat.” Who qualifies as a threat in their minds? Anyone who disagrees with them, from political opponents to average newspaper readers. In October, the Arizona Republic, CNN, the New York Times, and…
Jornaleros rise early. At the crack of dawn on a cold Sunday morning, there are about 30 or so day laborers milling about at the Macehualli Work Center near 25th Street and Bell Road, drinking coffee and waiting for jobs. And while I wait with them, immigrants-rights activist Salvador Reza…
Maricopa County law enforcement violated the constitutional rights of this newspaper’s readers in October. Using secret grand jury subpoenas, County Attorney Andrew Thomas sought records that would reveal the identity of anyone who’d looked at New Times online in the past four years. When the paper’s leaders revealed the grand…
• On March 26, 1996, Jose Rodriquez, 39, died in a pool of his own vomit on a jail floor. His cries for help went ignored by Arpaio’s jail employees. Rodriquez’s dehydration, fever and twitching ultimately led to his death, even while inmates shouted for help. • On June 1,…
Salvador Reza at this Saturday’s protest on Thomas. Is the Republic’s City Hall suckup, lil’ Casey Newton, gunning for a job on Goober’s staff? He might as well be, the way he’s turned into a mouthpiece for Flipflop Phil, penning shorts like Saturday’s “Pruitt’s top foe refuses meeting,” which reads…
The Mayor’s panel, getting an earful while Hizzoner hides out… Is Mayor Phil Gordon afraid of Hispanics? You’ve gotta wonder, especially when a mostly Hispanic crowd of about 1,000 persons shows up to the auditorium at South Mountain High School to express their frustration over Da Mayor’s capitulation on the…
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I’m sad that there aren’t more Mexicans here in the Detroit area. We’re one of the few areas in the country that is predominately Catholic. We’ve welcomed wave after wave of Catholic immigrants for well over a hundred years, and they’ve intermingled and blended into our local society and culture…
