TIN-POT DICTATORS Joe and Andy have no scruples: What Joe Arpaio and Andrew Thomas did to that poor judge is truly criminal. With the other county officials — supervisors Don Stapley and Mary Rose Wilcox — I didn’t feel so bad. Because they both had skeletons in their closets. But…
I worked a summer job during college in southern Arizona during the late 1960s, when most of my co-workers were Mexicans from the state of Sonora. Their favorite expression when something was broken was no vale verga, literally “Not worth dick,” but actually meaning “totally fucked up.” What happened with…
Diane Wickberg had never really been political. The 55-year-old Flagstaff grandmother was a registered Independent — and not just in name only. “I just voted for the person who would fit my moral beliefs,” she tells me. “If they were Republican, Democrat, Libertarian, or Independent, I didn’t care — as…
PUBLIC RECORDS PAYDAY It’s a unique day in the annals of New Times-MCSO relations when Sheriff Joe Arpaio cuts this paper a check. But that’s what our geriatric top gendarme just did, to the tune of $40,000. The check was actually for legal fees expended by New Times in the…
Sue Krentz answered the phone about 6 p.m. It was March 27, a Saturday, and she was in Phoenix, tending to her aged parents as a sister attended a conference. Sue usually doesn’t stray from her family’s venerable cattle ranch in Cochise County for too long at a stretch. But…
In the 24-hour news cycle, it can be difficult to keep up. We have the solution. Check back on Valley Fever every evening for highlights from each of New Times’ blogs. Today’s entries:…
Catherine Figueroa, one of Arpaio’s many victims, is slated to testify at a Congressional hearing Thursday Arizona Congressman Raul Grijalva’s office has released a schedule of witnesses for the hearing he’s holding Thursday afternoon in D.C., and it includes several Phoenix residents, some of whom have been victims of Sheriff…
Yesterday, we posted a story about a Phoenix man who shot and killed his wife on Friday, failed to die after shooting himself in the head, and then lived in his house — with his wife dead on the floor — for four days before he called police.Today, the suspect has…
A Payson man, born the same year the United States entered World War I, has been arrested for allegedly molesting several children in a Payson trailer park, Payson Police Chief Donald Engler tells New Times.Dale Warren Graham, 94, (his booking photo’s priceless — check it out after the jump) was arrested last…
Just about everyone we know who routinely plays around on the Net — which is just about everyone — has gotten a Nigerian scam letter. You gotta know the deal: Someone has $30 million awaiting them in a Swiss bank, or something, but only if you fork over $3,000…
The Chicago City Council passed a resolution today urging city departments not to sign any new contracts with Arizona companies because of SB1070. The resolution, which passed on a 46-2 vote, doesn’t have any real teeth or affect current contracts. An existing contract with Redflex that brought in $48 million…
Amar’e Stoudemire is talking again, and all we can do is laugh. Stoudemire, speaking at his youth basketball camp in Gilbert, says there’s no way he is picking up his $17.7 million player option and staying with the Phoenix Suns next season. This leaves two options for Los Suns: sign…
With the latest leg of the John McCain/J.D. Hayworth saga focusing on which of the two is more of a lobbyist, it seems only fitting that one of the most scandalous lobbyists in history just got released from prison.Jack Abramoff, the disgraced Washington D.C. lobbyist who many credit with Hayworth’s failed re-election…
It’s official: Joe Arpaio’s endorsement is worth squat beyond the confines of Sand Land, particularly when we’re talking about California.All of the politicians Arpaio plugged, campaigned for, raised money for, or just had a kind word for went down in flames in California primary and local elections yesterday.Republican gubernatorial candidate…
Mesa police arrested a man who they believe beat his 4-year-old daughter with a power cord so severely that investigators say it was “the worst case of child abuse [they’ve] seen where the child survives.”Mesa police Sergeant Ed Wessing tells New Times that on Sunday morning the suspect’s girlfriend went to…
Arizona has made the cover of the Summer 2010 issue of the Southern Poverty Law Center’s Intelligence Report magazine, but for all the wrong reasons, as you might expect.The issue is devoted to the resurgent “patriot” movement, a conspiratorial grab-bag of nutjobs, Obama-loathers, extremist gun rights proponents, and tax resisters.The…
We checked in yesterday with Tom Horne, the state Superintendent of Schools running in the Republican primary for Arizona Attorney General against former Maricopa County Andrew Thomas.As we pointed out in this blog post, Horne is surely one of the big winners in yesterday’s U.S. Supreme Court decision to block Clean…
As the Arizona State University baseball team keeps rolling along with all eyes on the prize in Omaha, 10 Sun Devils now have a future in the sport after college. As expected, junior Seth Blair, the 2010 Pac-10 Pitcher of the Year, was the first ASU player taken off the board, as…
The Glendale City Council last night approved a deal to give Ice Edge Holdings, a Canadian and American investors’ group, exclusive negotiating rights in an attempt to buy the Phoenix Coyotes. Under the agreement, Ice Edge — the only known, remaining, potential buyer that would keep the team in the Valley…
After looking terrible in the first month and a half of the season, Edwin Jackson had put together four of five strong starts. That all came to a crashing halt Tuesday night as Jackson reverted to his old ways against the Atlanta Braves in the Arizona Diamondbacks’ 7-5 loss at…
Yesterday, gubernatorial candidate and state Treasurer Dean Martin unveiled his plan to combat illegal immigration and called for — among other things — a statewide “Tent City” for illegal immigrants arrested in Arizona. In his announcement, Martin was sure to point out that his plan got a wink and a…
Tucson ABC TV news station KGUN 9 is reporting that Arizona Congressman Raul Grijalva will be holding hearings on Sheriff Joe Arpaio’s anti-immigration sweeps this Thursday, and, um, no, it doesn’t sound like Sheriff Joe was invited. Apparently, one reason for the hearing is to show what SB 1070 will look like…
