Kookocracy Watch

Step right up. Get your nutty statements, your wild bigotry. Guns in bars and faith-based hatred, right here. Get your thuggish behavior and krack-pot "think" tank reports and cries of SOCIALISM!!! Here we track the reactionaries and right-wing thugs in power. For a more global view of Arizona's reality-based challenges check out Arizona's Continuing Crisis.

• NEW: After long being an oasis (albeit a mediocre one) from right-wing ideology, has the Phoenix City Council been infiltrated by the Kookocracy? That's a serious question after reading this story about newly re-elected Councilman Sal DiCiccio. "We don't have a budget problem. We have an expense problem," he said, using a classic Kook talking point to address the city's worst shortfall and services cut in history. One of his proposals was right out of the reactionary playbook: Privatize more services (for the profit of whom?) This is a city that has cut its already paltry transit to the levels of Dayton, Ohio, and faces laying off cops and firefighters. It's cut hours for libraries, which are the only libraries for thousands of schoolkids dealing with shamefully underfunded schools and privatized charters. Phoenix has added huge population and urban problems, yet never had the money to keep up with the growth. Of course that growth produced huge profits for developers such as DiCiccio and his developer backers, yet never an adequate tax/revenue structure (which would have included real estate taxes).
  
• Don't cross the Kooks, even if you're an LDS Republican. Inside the political prosecution of Don Stapley.
  
• Run, Joe, run. A Rasmussen poll finds Sheriff Arpaio leading not only Republicans but presumptive Democratic challenger Terry Goddard commandingly for governor. Arpaio won't say if he'll run. If he did, Arizonans would get the "Full Kook" a majority seems to long for. No adult governor, neither Jane, Janet nor Jan, to restrain the worst tendencies of the reactionary right-wing. 
  
• To paraphrase Roman Hruska, even crazy right-wingers deserve representation. And they get it with John Shadegg. Enhancing Arizona's reputation for good sense, the worthy solon raved that New York Mayor Bloomberg's daughter might be kidnapped by terrorists if KSM et al are tried there. He apologized. Pretty amazing that the nation that took on Nazi Germany and Imperial Japan could be so afraid of a few terrorists. And, gee, Shadegg represents all these gun-toters. What's the big deal?
  
• Watch the Neo-Nazis and Confederate flag at the most recent "tea party" protest in Phoenix. This is The Base.
  
• Phoenix comes in near the bottom of 200 metro areas in high tech in a new study that bolsters many others. Heck of a job, Kookocracy. Yes — the Kooks are as much to blame as the Real Estate Industrial Complex. The Legislature has consistently voted against the investments (especially the Phoenix biomedical campus and Science Foundation Arizona) that would have allowed a leapfrog. It has waged a vendetta to neuter the state commerce department and deprive it of the economic development tools to build a tech economy and attract tech companies. Perhaps most disastrously is its decades-long effort to defund public education and make cuts to the universities that were never restored. So this is what "low taxes and light regulation" get you. The showing is even worse than it looks, because Phoenix is far, far behind the large metros worldwide against which it is competing for talent and capital.
  
• Arizona has some of the largest number of uninsured in the nation, and the Kooks like it that way. Holding the health reform bill, Rep. John Shadegg told Nut Bag protesters, "This bill steals freedom, and those of us that believe in freedom have contempt for those who would steal our freedom and contempt for this bill." The Kookocracy wants you to have the freedom to die early because you don't have health insurance.
  
• Somehow the 'values voters' of the Kookocracy don't value the lives of brown people. The body count keeps piling up in the Arizona desert of immigrants going to prop up the cheap-labor industries of the Anglos. But this 'national disgrace' prompts no outrage. Not even from the Obama White House.
  
• How wrong were the Kooks about light rail? H-u-g-e, as The Donald would say. The success of Metro is drawing national attention. That won't keep the Kookocracy from trying to starve LRT and build roads. Their opposition was never based on reality -- they never rode the overcrowded Central Avenue buses like me -- but on an ideological fetish against mass transit.
  
• Arizona's plan to become the first state in the nation to completely privatize its prisons should set off all sorts of alarms. Considering the rackets and conflicts of interest involving lawmakers and "school choice" and development, this is a major cui bono moment. Kickbacks, anyone? Revolving door? The legislator's brother on the private prison's board? The state budget deficit is already so deep because of Kook policies -- a tax system completely insufficient for the needs of a populous, urbanized state. Now prisoners about whom no one cares -- least of all the Jesus-shouters in their suburban mega-churches -- will be left to the care of the "free market." A Kookocracy classic.
  
• Jon Kyl is not a Kook -- but he uses them to stay in power and holds some of their views. E.g., he quipped that he didn't need "maternity care" prompting a protest to his Phoenix office by dozens of women complaining about that remark and the general sexism of the GOP(LDS). Dozens. This is the size of civic engagement in Arizona that allows the Kookocracy to reign.
  
• The Badged Ego has lost his power to go after brown people with a new ICE directive. Funny how he never went after the rich Anglos employing these people who risk death through the desert just to get a job. I wonder if Janet even took his outraged call? And remember when they were allies? Meanwhile, the BE has enlisted some Beltway Kook activists to help him in the "investigation" of County Supe Don Stapley. It's a good thing Maricopa County doesn't face any crises at the moment.
  
• You can't have a Kookocracy without the plastic grotesquerie that is North Snottsdale, including its Alcor Life Extension Foundation. Yep, the place where Ted Williams' head is frozen awaiting some future scientific resurrection. Now a book alleges that employees used the head for batting practice -- with a monkey wrench. Only in Scottsdale!
  
• Rep. Trent Franks calls Obama "enemy of humanity," and joins the birther cause. I'm sure this will raise his margin of victory in his next election campaign.
  
• With Arizona's economy in a depression and real estate not coming back anytime soon, you'd think there'd be a frantic effort to invest in building a more diverse base. But then, you wouldn't be"thinking" like a Kook. Plans to finally add to the UA medical school at the stymied Phoenix Biomedical Campus are "in limbo" because of the Legislature. Also in limbo: getting more docs to Arizonans other than pricey Snottsdale plastic surgeons; building a bench-to-bedside "meds and eds" campus that would create jobs and find cures. Somehow, no leaders will go after federal stimulus for this project. Oh, but we'll find the money for more freeways.
  
• Where are all the Jesus-luvin, churchey Kooks with the shameful death of Marcia Powell? They are, after all, aggressive in claiming the moral high ground on any issue and remind us of such existential truths that two middle-aged gay guys wanting to marry is part of a socialist plot. Powell, as you recall, was literally roasted to death in an unshaded, outdoor cell at a state prison. Her crime: prostitution. Now grisly new details have emerged: She was repeatedly denied water, requests to go inside, or even to use the restroom. Where are the mega-churchers and the Mormons? Where's the outrage? What would Jesus have done if confronted with this woman's situation? I fear most of the Kooks believe she had it coming, if they pay attention enough at all.
  
• The "Goldwater" Institute is happy with the Arizona Constitution -- and the Information Center reports it like a good little propaganda organ. "Every bell and whistle you could hope for in a state constitution to protect against excessive spending, imbalanced budgets and corporate bailouts is in the Arizona Constitution," said one of the krack-pot "think tank's" spokesmen. Translation: Every tool needed for Arizona to compete in the 21st century will be denied it.
  
• Arpaio is feted in Houston by two nativist extremist groups. He received the "2009 Bull Connor Award" -- an honor among this group. This is the man you have re-elected four times. Meanwhile, news arrives that Arpaio's mismanagement of the jail system -- which is his real job, as opposed to playing policeman -- has cost Maricopa County taxpayers another $1.2 million. Where's the Tea Party outrage over this misspent money?
  
• The Kookocracy goes national. Colbert King examines the rise of this frightening level of national nuttiness. One of the prime examples, of course, is Pastor Steven Anderson of Faithful Word Baptist Church in Tempe, who prays for the president to die. "There's something loose in the land, an ugliness and hatred directed toward Barack Obama, the nation's first African American president, that takes the breath away. The thread of resentment is woven through conservative commentary, right-wing radio and cable TV shows, all the way to Capitol Hill."
• Sandra Day O'Connor lends her name to an effort to reform state government, and much of it would work against the Kooks -- maybe... It would create the office of lieutenant governor and make some elected offices, such as Superintendent of Public Instruction appointed. It would repeal the misused "clean elections" law. So far, so good. But, as the Information Center reports, "Politically, the group's membership spans the spectrum, from the National Rifle Association to the Sierra Club. The Arizona Republic is also is a participant. What's wrong with this picture? The story is so incompletely reported; the comments, of course, are a riot. Probably doesn't stand a chance.
• Kooks' heads explode over president's speech to schoolchildren. Tom Horne, who presides over the continued war on less-fortunate kids through starved funding and the charter-school racket, weighs in. Some EV kooks are afraid their children will be "indoctrinated." Pssst...and the president's black, not a citizen and a secret Muslim. Did I mention that he's black? Would we have seen such drama over W reading My Pet Goat in Chandler while the country was under attack?
  
• Arizona freakshow continues as gun-toter at Obama event says he, like his pastor, wants the president to die.
  
• "How would Jesus be a Kook?" Tempe preacher prays for death of President Obama. The Information Center hides the story in the Tempe community section.
  
• Watch the Kooks boo arch liberal John McCain for saying that President Obama respects the Constitution.
  
• The Kookocracy's motto of "Kill 'em All, Let God Sort 'em Out" continues to pay dividends to the tourism industry. The gun culture may cause Frommer's to boycott the state. Well done.
  
• Tom Horne plays a mean piano. He's also one of those "moderate" Republicans who enables the Kookocracy by not standing up to inadequate funding and the shameful "school choice movement" and charter rackets. He shows the typical shameful GOP neglect of the last and the least. Now we know he also drives like every other 'Zonie maniac, including through school zones. Nor did he pay a couple, an offense that would land a poor person in the hoosegow.
  
• Remember when the Info Center's right-wing sock puppet was trumpeting Arizona's "low" unemployment rate? Now it's hit 9.2 percent with at least 10 percent expected, and for reasons discussed earlier, is likely much higher. The dearest theology of the Kookocracy is that low taxes and "light regulation" alone create prosperity. Arizona was disproving that even during the real-estate "boom." Now more chickens are lined up for landing at Sky Harbor. If the Kooks were really correct, Somalia would be Hong Kong.
  
• 'Goldwater' Institute says it won't hold special session votes against legislators. Presumably this allows the Kooks to vote for a special sales tax -- which would violate their 'no taxes' pledge, but it is still highly regressive, hitting the working poor the hardest. The big lesson: The Kooks in the Leg don't fear the voters -- not in a state where 23 percent turnout in a primary wins an election. They do fear the local Krackpot 'think tank' and its puppet masters in the vast rightwing conspiracy.
  
• NYT does a good job boiling down the Kookocracy Krackup. It could have done more to show how extreme and downright nutty much of the Legislature is. The tax proposal is another "hurt the working poor" sales tax. Where's the hike in property taxes that have been kept artificially low; the hike in taxes on the toffs in north Scottsdale, and, a real-estate transfer tax?
  
• Poor children are short-changed and well-connected legislators win with the shameful tuition tax credit program. Check out the East Valley Tribune's investigation of a prized and profitable Kook program.
  
• Only in the Kookocracy: State may put legislature buildings up for sale. Considering how many of the esteemed solons were bought and sold by the Real Estate Industrial Complex, this only makes sense. Of course, who would want these 50-year-old eyesores, built not to inspire but to save money and maintained with the investment Arizona has made in all its public spaces? Can you say: National Laughing Stock, a little more than two years before the centennial celebrations?
  
• Former Mesa Police Chief George Gascon, one of the best-regarded lawmen in the nation, said he was about to be fired when he took the chief's job in S.F. (Gee, Mesa vs. San Francisco, tough transition). His offense: testifying that immigration enforcement shouldn't be dumped on already strapped local police departments. Of course, the deeper conflict was Gascon's willingness to stand up to Obergruppenkook Joe Arpaio's war on poor people with brown skin, no matter its interference in other jurisdictions or civil liberties. Mesa blows it again. Kudos to EV Trib. This is one the Information Center missed or buried.
  
• I love the icons that commenters on the Republic site choose for themselves. The first three posts on this one are a good examples (check out "Patriot357" -- I thought only liberals carried something as small as a .357?), followed by the kind of erudite, sophisticated comments one would expect. The story itself is a hoot, talking about Census population growth numbers, as if that's what matters in creating a high-quality, competitive metro.
  
• Lethally blonde: New Times' look at how a one-time teen prostitute and beautician morphed into a leader of a Minuteman group -- and an alleged killed. And if the charges are true, she came to good ole nativist, hate-filled Arizona to do the heinous acts.
  
• Big victories as Gov. Brewer signs into law tough new restrictions on abortions and eliminates restrictions on taking guns into bars. It's funny how the Kookocracy's "Culture of Life" works -- once you're born, you're condemned to a third-rate school system, minimal (and shrinking) social safety net, crappy economy and some drunken nut who will kill you over a can of Coors. Guns are an absolute right. A woman's reproductive choices are to be strictly proscribed by an intrusive state government. Elections have consequences -- and send a message to the young, talented people who have a choice over where they live.
  
• 'The Earth is 6,000 years old,' says one of the intellects of the Kookocracy. Obviously home schooled or a product of some charter racket. Worse, she's using the talking point to defend environmental destruction.
  
• Apache Jct. man faces prison term for bringing gun to India.  This story is sweet on several levels. First, he goes to India for hip surgery when, guessing based on his demographics, he probably believes the talk-radio propaganda that America has "the best healthcare system in the world" and is foresquare against single-payer or public option. Second, he packs a piece, assuming the "values" of the Kookocracy apply worldwide. Guns in bars in Bangalore? Nope. Maybe when he heard he could get healthcare from the Indians, he thought he was going to the Rez.
  
• Arizona Senate approves the guns-in-bars law. What could possibly go wrong? Don't you wonder about the powerful interests that yank these lawmakers like cheap puppets?
  
• Just another day in heavily armed Arizona. A man finds a gun, doubts its loaded, points it at his head and, well, you know how it ends. Meanwhile, a five-year-old boy finds a pistol at home and accidentally kills himself. All the Kooks need to make it a trifecta is a pastor like the one in Kentucky who invites church members to bring their shootin' irons to Sunday service. They'll show the guv'ment run by a Negro Muzlum who wasn't even born in this country that they won't take it anymore. The Kooks want an abundance of guns, and they've got it. And Arizona's surplus of stupid people and criminally negligent parents makes a bad combination when mixed with firearms.
  
• Arizona's climate of intolerance, hate and guns pays off. The state attracts "rogue" Minutemen robbers and white supremacists out to do violence.
  
• 'Max Max rules'. Feathered Bastard at New Times offers this take on the gun nuts in charge at the Legislature.
  
• The Kooks took a little comfort in President Obama's support for charter schools. Unfortunately for them, it's not support for the Arizona-style racket. The Education Secretary warns that substandard charters are hurting the overall effort. A chart with the NYT print story shows that Arizona charters are performing worse than public schools in both reading and math. But somebody's making money -- funds that should have gone to public schools.
  
• Extremism begets a brain drain. Latest to go is Mesa Police Chief George Gascon, one of the best leaders the state has attracted in years. He'll become chief in loony, socialist (SOCIALIST!!) San Francisco.
  
• Arpaio's vendetta turns on Mary Rose Wilcox. The county supe who has criticized the sheriff's anti-immigrant policies is now "under investigation." Is he still the most popular politician in the state? I wouldn't doubt it.
• The Kook fire-at-will state addresses joblessness. This report from a source in Az.: "Seasoned executives in Phoenix who’ve been unemployed for extended periods are being forced to attend 'work re-development' workshops run by state unemployment workers and being told to do things such as take training to become prison guards. No, I’m not making this up."
  
• Anti-immigrant group members arrested for murder. They are charged in a Pima County home invasion. So the white supremacist movement finds its homicidal target in hate-filled Arizona. What part of illegal don't they understand?
  
• Kooks propose total defunding of Arizona Historical Society. This would mean shutting down six museums and putting collections into warehouses -- with no money to make sure those facilities could even preserve the archives. How convenient. George Orwell: "He who controls the present, controls the past. He who controls the past, controls the future."
  
• The "Information Center" accidentally makes news. In trying to dumb down the complicated issue of the state's fiscal mess, the editors make the common stupid media mistake -- which plays into the Kooks' hands -- of comparing Arizona's budget to a family's finances. In reality, government must perform functions no family does, and the need for its services increases when families are "tightening their belts." And yet, the story has this jaw-dropper: Arizona's deficit is a mere $600 per resident. Thus it could easily be closed with a modest, progressive tax increase. The deeper problem is that the Kooks want an Ayn Rand low-tax environment which might work in New Hampshire or Nevada (with its gaming revenue), but can't work in a state like Arizona where big population, high urbanization, a major underclass and years of unfunded infrastructure needs require substantial public expenditures.
  
• "Fry em!" say the law-and-order, "culture of life" values voters. They got their wish with Marcia Powell, who was in Perryville Prison on prostitution charges (!!) -- and had a history of mental illness. Prison officials kept her four hours in an unshaded outdoor cage with the air temperature of 107 degrees -- which meant the surface could have hit 140. She died. Now the state is suspending the practice. Too bad the "Information Center" and the grand new world of crowdsourcing, mojos and bloggers don't have a professional journalist covering the powerful -- and compromised by privatization -- Corrections Department. Shame all around.
  
• For once, I agree with the "Goldwater" Institute and Clint Bolick, in their criticisms of that idol of the Kookocracy, "America's toughest sheriff." But wait until you read this piece from New Times, of how the MCSO blew off the alleged rape of a 14-year-old and marked the case cleared. Oh, for the Sheriff's Office of Mapstone and Peralta.
  
• Gov. picks a Realtor to be the top regulator of...Realtors.
  
• Science Foundation Arizona is suing the state after the Kooks cut off millions in promised grants, breaking commitments for research already under way. Call this "How to kill the 21st century economy in Arizona." The Kookocracy has always been hostile to the "meds and eds" biosciences strategy that could have allowed Arizona to leapfrog into a high-pay, high-skill economy. By defunding SFA and other antics, they make it impossible to recruit talented scientists -- the backbone of the enterprise. Those scientists don't care about sunshine and cheap housing in Maricopa -- they want a predictable commitment from the state. Without it, it's impossible for them to set up the years-long research needed. And why would they want the brain damage from dealing with the Kooks?
  
• A rare look into the Kookocracy's inner conflicts of interest and the venality behind the libertarian/theocratic rhetoric comes from this Republic story. A Gilbert state legislator is also part of something called the Arizona Christian School Tuition Organization. The upshot: he has a vested interest in directing taxpayer money away from starved, poor public school districts and to these private schools. Many are run for profit, and one wonders how deeply connected the owners are to the legislators. This is a problem throughout Arizona's largely unregulated, unmonitored "charter schools movement" and the voucher swindle; only rarely does the mask slip, giving us a look inside.
  
• Torture is cool! Seeking a reasoned and nuanced discussion on the illegal waterboarding done in our name as Americans, I turn, of course, to the letters to the editor in the Republic. There, the aptly named Christy Orders writes, "To equate our self-defense techniques to their senseless terrorism is an insult to every American who has ever fought for our country and to every human who has ever endured real torture." Er, Ms. Orders, the bad guys feel exactly the same way with the roles reversed. That's why we as Americans have always sought the high ground and have led the creation of international law to enforce it. And if waterboarding is both harmless yet effective, as Ms. Orders claims, why not use it in American jails? Oh, wait, the Kooks would agree with that -- unless they were caught and hauled in for speeding.
  
• Neo-Nazis love the sheriff. Read New Times' fascinating look at the fringe of the fringe, supporting Joe Arpaio.
• While the lunatic fringe governs, the dead growth machine's tail continues to twitch. Phoenix remains a poster child for the many American places totally unprepared for the discontinuity represented by the Great Disruption. Boosters celebrate "the birth of a whole new freeway" far out in empty desert. The brainos at ADOT can't conceive that the fringe suburban enterprise is hopelessly broken and that this money should be put into improving existing infrastructure, especially transit. Phoenix buses have cut back their operating hours to Lawton, Okla, levels. Phoenix lacks commuter rail to the East Valley or northwest suburbs. Yet the Real Estate Industrial Complex won't let the planners and bureaucrats change course. Only by using the regressive sales tax -- hurting the lowest income residents -- to build new freeways, does this empty land become profitable as massive tracts closer in lie empty. Or it used to work this way. One person in the story says Phoenix is the last major city still building new freeways -- er, there might be a reason for that, Goober.
  
• Arizona GOP director arrested doing 109 mph, driving recklessly. No wonder the Kooks don't want speed cameras, and whip up the talk radio screamers. Too bad the rhetoric also inflames the violent minds of the armed conserva-feebs.
• Make workplace shootings easier! That's one potential result from a bill that would allow firearms in locked cars, no matter what the property owner -- office, mall, etc. -- wanted. This is a window into the Kookocracy. It trumpets property rights as absolute -- until they run up against gun rights and the NRA. My suggestion: somehow use gun rights as a disincentive to sprawl -- the Kooks save Arizona!
• Pinko socialist John McCain will face a primary challenger from the Kook wing of the Kookocracy. New Times performs a valuable service in telling us a little about this, er, citizen.
• The Republicans controlling Arizona government are blocking the state's participation in modest Western efforts to address climate change. The gun is at the state's head and now it's been cocked. Arizona, with its sprawling population in desert cities, will be among the first and worst states hit by climate change. In the Pacific Northwest, studies are already warning of "climate refugees" from the Southwest. Please, move to Oklahoma, where your senator can claim global warming is "a hoax."
• State to apply for 'abstinence education' funds. Study after study has shown that these programs don't work (and the example of Bristol Palin). But they play to The Base. The Kooks have screwed the state on so many levels, wish they had taken the medicine they now prescribe.
• Once again Arizona makes national news and not for sunshine and "gated communities." The New York Times datelines Phoenix for its story about how state spending cuts are hitting the most vulnerable citizens. Those are all freeloaders, right, Kooks?
• Legislature stalls as Kooks can't solve budget mess.
• How Arizona's 'clean elections' law helped put the Kookocracy in power.
• Bad news for the Kooks: The state supreme court throws out the scheme to use taxpayer money to give vouchers for private schools. The Kooks and their "think" tank cast this issue as letting some poor kid in south Phoenix "choose" to go to St. Mary's or Brophy. In fact, this is all about further starving the public schools while giving a tax break for businesspeople, former pols and religious groups running schools of unknown quality or provenance. The common thread is they are part of the "school choice" movement, and connected to the right-wingers in the Legislature. Big East Valley LDS component, too.
• Just when I worry that Jan "the man" Brewer, as local wits are calling her, is going wobbly, getting rational, she'll reconnect with her inner Kook. In a recent speech she wishes that state government was run more like Arizona counties. This is rich. Az. counties are among the most dysfunctional governmental units anywhere. The urban counties have been especially unwilling to address the urban challenges they face, such as healthcare and transportation. But go for it. See how Arizona does being run by the Maricopa County Board of Sups.
• Arpaio attracts more international shame on Phoenix for his thuggish tactics.
• Resistance sprouts? A new Web site has come about to take on Kook talker Darrell Ankarlo: KTARsucks.com.
• Kook Priorities: While Arizona is last in spending on education, it spends the fourth most among the nation on prisons. Of course many of those in Arizona prisons -- including those run for private profit -- wouldn't be there if they had received a good education.
• Woodward and Bernstein need not apply. The "Goldwater" Institute, the local crackpot "think" tank, is advertising for an "investigative reporter" to root out stories about "wasteful spending at all levels of government; expose wrong-doing and public corruption; follow leads on potential lawsuits; research potential clients; share information with mainstream and new media journalists; and produce well-written, timely reports of investigation findings." Gee...no rooting out the Real Estate Industrial Complex's stranglehold on power and policy -- and pols? No doubt, the same independent thought will be encouraged as with everything farted out of this reactionary advocacy mill: Robotic national right-wing talking points first, selective "research" to back them up later. What's sad is how many Phoenix leaders take them seriously -- and of course their hold on the Arizona Republic. The Institute is part of the decades-old nationwide effort by wealthy right-wing patrons to establish such "think" tanks in every state to advocate for the oligarchy status-quo.
  
• Wobbly Watch: Gov. Jan Brewer reportedly wants to use federal stim money to fund child-care subsidies to the working poor -- I mean, welfare queens -- that the Kooks -- I mean patriots -- suspended as part of their heroic battle against SOCIALISM!! Don't go Jane Hull on us, Jan II. Those of us who wish the Kooks total success -- in other words, let Arizona see what "conservatives" will do with unfettered power -- hope the grand wizards in the Legislature will refuse this nonsense. Hey -- let those little freeloaders get jobs, like back in the good old days of child labor, before it was ended by SOCIALISM!!
• The Kooks are moving a bill through the Leg to significantly limit abortion rights.  Now that St. Janet is gone, it may well pass. It's not as if the state faces more pressing needs, such as the housing depression, cratering economy, potential loss of what future diversification exists and yawning needs for government services. What I love is the way the Kooks like to strut as little Goldwaters -- when it suits them. But real Arizona conservatives didn't give a damn about these "social issues." Peggy Goldwater was a founder of Planned Parenthood in Phoenix. Also, where are all these good Christians when it comes to God's children who are already born and struggling in a state with a vicious, mean-spirited state government? Hey, 'Zonies -- you voted for them (especially if you didn't vote).
  
• Retired Mesa cop Bill Richardson hits the target with his send-up of the Joe-and-Peyton tag team. "Organized crime has only prospered under the Tag Team's rule. Instead of fixing what's broken and doing the jobs the public voted them into office to do, our elected law and order watch dogs are continually groveling for free publicity to satisfy their political ambition and insatiable quest for attention."
• Here We Go Again Dept.: The Republic reports that "A high-powered coalition of business, academic and government leaders said Friday that Arizona's aerospace industry - and its $3.8 billion annual payroll - could fade away without serious attention." First, this "high powered group" doesn't represent the real power, The Real Estate Industrial Complex. Second, with competition for a diminishing aerospace sector more fierce than ever, the Kookocracy's resistance to any economic development strategy besides tax cuts won't cut it (e.g., Alabama gave major subsidies and incentives to lure aerospace companies, as well as seeking decades of government help from NASA). Third, Arizona hasn't even fulfilled its "commitment" to build a biotech sector. So this will be one more failed distraction. But ya got yer tax cuts, y'betcha.
  
• Tonto Natural Bridge and two other state parks have been added to the list of potential closures. Go Kooks! Close all state parks. Just think about the name: State parks. It conjures socialism. Why is government in the business of parks anyway? Think about the Wal-Mart that could be built at the Tonto Natural Bridge, or a "master planned community" -- with proper kickbacks and sweetheart deals for Kook lawmakers, of course.
• Republican governors are supporting Obama's stimulus -- but not in Arizona. So here's a modest proposal: Don't take the money. Since the Kookocracy ardently believes government should have no role in the economy (except for its stealth role in subsidizing sprawl), its members should stick to their principles and accept no stimulus money. Just keep cutting state taxes and programs. It's working out so well for them so far.
  
• Not the kind of publicity Sheriff Joe wants, but who knows? Members of Congress want the Badged Ego investigated for racial profiling in his vendetta against immigrants and the poor. This is a huge Kookocracy hypocrisy -- cynically applied to maintain political power. Immigrants, without rights, keep the low-wage Arizona economy going, enriching Kook small-businessmen and making prices low for all -- whatever the cost. But Kook power depends on creating an enemy. It depends on fear -- so play off the poor Anglos against the poor Hispanics (rather like the Jim Crow South). The Kooks have no interest in real immigration reform -- that would mean paying higher wages to citizens. So they do their "sweeps" and beam out their raging thuggish radio shows, no matter the moral, social or economic cost.
• 20,000 children of the working poor will lose what niggardly help Arizona had been giving them -- and that's just for starters as the Kooks make their Kuts. Gee -- I thought tax cuts fixed everything. Oh, yeah, these people don't deserve any help because they're just morally lacking -- or have the wrong color skin.
• In the kooks of a feather department:  The Arizona Capitol Times reports that the Arizona House paid Kenneth Starr $200,000 in 2008 to "defend the Legislature's interest" in the English language learning case going before the Supreme Court. Yes, the Ken Starr who went after Bill Clinton over consensual sex, distracting the nation from critical issues that have come home to roost. Arizona was sued for not adequately funding this program -- breaking a 1974 requirement -- and has now fought it to the high court. The Kookocracy wants its immigrant and working-class labor stuck in construction, without education that might make it a potent anti-kook voting bloc. Your tax dollars at work.
• GOP legislators priority: repeal of tax that aids schools. Reality: Arizona already has one of the lowest tax burdens in the nation, according to the non-partisan Tax Foundation. The state dropped from 17th highest in 1977 to 41st in 2008. Not coincidentally, this paralleled the state's worsening educational outcomes and the rise of a narrow, low-wage economy.
• Yes! Cut all-day K, because my kids are doing fine. Reality: This letter to the editor is another example of the ignorance of many 'Zonies hiding out in their subdivisions. The point of all-day Kindergarten -- which is educational and not child care -- is to help defuse the state's growing underclass, by getting kids of the working poor in school early. It is an important part of developing human capital in a competitive world. The studies clearly show all-day K works. Without it, Arizona only condemns new generations to be drains on society.
• Brewer blames Napolitano -- not real-estate crash -- for state budget deficit. Reality: Arizona is in worse shape than most places because of 1) Over-reliance on real estate; 2) A tax base too small for a populous, urban state, with revenues strangled by repeated tax cuts; 3) Refusal to tax the wealthy Real Estate Industrial Complex; 4) Lack of a diverse economy with well-paid jobs; 5) High public costs from sprawl, large cohort of working poor Anglos and a low-wage immigrant workforce; 6) The worst national downturn since the Great Depression, brought on by policies the Kooks favor, such as deregulation and tax cuts.

Comments

[Rudy Dalpra]

Jon: You are doing yeoman's work, but I fear the task you embrace faces such intrenched partisan thinking that the road ahead is going to try you gravely. But we're all grateful that people like you will volunteer to carry the torch!

[AccidentalExurban]

Anyone catch this gem?

Republican Governor comes to power, saves Arizona Semiconductor Industry

http://www.eastvalleytribune.com/story/135262

Gov. Jan Brewer, who arranged the Tuesday news conference at the state Capitol in Phoenix to make the announcement, said the investment provides much-needed good news for the state. And she sought to take credit for Intel's announcement.

"I don't know if the previous administration was involved in it whatsoever," Brewer said, referring to former Gov. Janet Napolitano.

"I think Intel, being the corporate business that they are, would look at the dynamics of who's driving the state, the Legislature and who is governing," she continued. "And they have chosen to do that."

Walden, however, sidestepped the question of whether Intel made its decision based on Brewer becoming governor on Jan. 20.

"Actually, I think what we're announcing is our continued investment," he said.

[eclecticdog]

In microelectronics -- ST Microelectronics is closing their plant in Phoenix, which was the most productive and highest quality of all their sites.

[M from Central PHX]

I caught your interview on KJZZ this morning - could you perhaps add the Mormon church to your list of kookocracy members? I believe they make up a huge percentage. I am a former state employee who once had a director who kept a big book of Mormon on his desk - and he is also - surprise surprise - a real estate developer.

[Kook]

Be nice to kooks. We're not all bad.