To no one’s surprise, Arizona Sen. Kelli Ward (R-Crazyland) resigned her legislative seat this week to “focus her energy” on whipping John McCain in the 2016 GOP primary.
"I look forward to bringing it to Senator McCain, because he has never faced a well-spoken, well-educated, down-to-earth, Constitution-loving woman, and that's what we're going to bring to him," Ward said.
I’m not sure who this well-spoken, down-to-earth person is, but Kelli Ward is a Constitution-loving woman—especially that Second Amendment part. A physician, Ward represents Lake Havasu City and other small towns in the western part of the state near the Colorado River. Some old friends live there, and they wouldn’t mind me saying there’s some Looney Tune shit going on in Kelli Ward’s district.
Drive to Vegas and you pass through Tim McVeigh-Michael Fortier land—old trailers outside Kingman surrounded by chain-linked fences draped in camouflage tarps, where you don’t even want to know what’s going on in there. Havasu itself—you know, where they plunked down the London Bridge in the desert—is so friggin’ odd it deserves its own diary. But it’s mostly white and conservative.
Welcome to Sen. Kelli Ward’s district—ranches, retirement nests, crumbling towns, and shitty sprawl, with random little bunkers of delusion and bigotry full of freedom-loving, government-hating gunheads who’d love to see a Sagebrush Rebellion led by their hero Cliven Bundy. So when the real Cliven declared war on the U.S., who was one of the first people to visit? You guess it, good old Sen. Kelli Ward, who carpooled to the criminal’s compound with a gaggle of other Arizona nitwits so they could point guns, question Obama’s birthplace, and talk freedumb.
Upon her return from Bundyville, Ward posted photos of the old fart on her website—that is until he told us “one more thing I know about the Negro,” then the pictures vanished. What hasn’t faded is Ward’s enthusiasm for the conspiracy-minded, extremist wing of the Arizona Republican Party. She didn’t push back on the Chemtrails and Jade Helm bullshit, and she attends lotsa gun and “freedom” rallies, all the while doing her best as a legislator to undermine education, destroy Obamacare (which she compares to slavery), steal federal lands to exploit them, demonize Latinos, restrict women’s rights, and gut the limited social services Arizona offers.
For these and other mean-spirited reasons, Kelli Ward’s name has been floated more than any other by the fringies who call their fight with Sen. McCain “one of the bloodiest political civil wars.” Those fightin' “war” words were first shat from the pie hole of A.J. LaFaro, who until recently was chair of the Maricopa County GOP. Now a disaffected Republican uninvited to the party, LaFaro and his band of wackjobs absolutely hate the establishment’s man, John McCain. With supportive coverage in websites like Sonoran News locally and Breitbart more widely, they’ve been a driving force behind Ward’s senate candidacy.
LaFaro would probably be more well known if he didn't compete for the local crackpot award with our chief county clown: Sheriff Joe Arpaio. They're BFFs and super keen on one another, which tells you a lot about A.J. LaFaro. Scratch the scab of any misguided tea bagger cause in the state, whether it's birther nonsense, immigrant bashing, or gay venom, and you'll likely find Lafaro. He can claim, said Stephen Lemons, "an impressive record of moon-howlin' antics and reactionary statements stretching back more than a decade."
LaFaro's LGBT hate hijinks are well-documented, like serving as head of "Citizens to Recall Neil Giuliano," a miserably failed attempt in the '90s to oust Tempe's openly gay mayor. LaFaro sued another Tempe official, City Councilman Dennis Cahill, for calling him "a bigot, fascist, homophobe, and Nazi." Since the councilman didn't say anything that wasn't true, the lawsuit went nowhere.
And he has a long and pissy history with Sen. John McCain. When LaFaro talks about the senator, the word “traitor” shows up a lot. Previously, LaFaro orchestrated the successful drive to remove McCain's name from the GOP’s county headquarters. LaFaro also tossed a log on the "civil war" fire last year, when, while exiting his GOP post, he appointed more than a hundred precinct committee persons hostile to McCain.
The crazy gets crazier over the bump, and now Sen. Ward has resigned in order to join A.J. LaFaro’s “bloody” war. And he’s got a buddy to help.
When A.J. LaFaro led the Maricopa County Republican Party, he was chummy with former Senate President Russell Pearce, author of Arizona’s "papers please" law. Although Pearce was recalled in 2011, and rejected by the same Mesa voters in a comeback bid the next year, he remained Vice Chair of the Arizona Republican Party until 2014! Pearce has spewed a lot of vile shit over the years, but he finally went too far (which is saying a lot considering it's Arizona's GOP), when he blathered on his radio show of hate:
"You put me in charge of Medicaid, the first thing I’d do is get Norplant, birth-control implants, or tubal ligations... Then we’ll test recipients for drugs and alcohol, and if you want to [reproduce] or use drugs or alcohol, then get a job."
A.J. LaFaro and forced sterilizer Russell Pearce are two large cogs in the crackpot machinery of Arizona’s GOP that thinks John Friggin' Five-Term McCain is too liberal, mostly because, as a member of the Gang of Eight, he supports "amnesty,” or so they say. But they think he’s caved on everything, from healthcare to the debt, guns, and judges.
If nothing else, the LaFaro-Arpaio-Pearce wing has forced McCain farther to the right every six years. When they primaried the senior senator in 2012 with former congressman and Foghorn Leghorn impersonator J.D. Hayworth, McCain responded with his “build the dang fence” ad, featuring a sheriff who’s territory is nowhere near the border. Now, with the very far-right Ward in the race, the senator says he’ll vote to end Obamacare, even though Arizona was one of the few red states that accepted the Medicaid expansion, with more than 350,000 now enrolled.
But even that’s not enough for the wingers. No, LaFaro and his boobs are quite sure Republicans should goose step even farther to the fringiest fringe of Neverland, so they're teaming up with an even more outlandish crop of blithering backwaters to take down McCain. They settled on Kelli Ward.
Early this year this braintrust met at a local bar to recruit and strategize. Leading off was Oath Keeper and nutter extraordinaire Stewart Rhodes, who said Sen. McCain has committed treason and wants to lock up "real" Republicans in a North Carolina FEMA camp. For this the senator should be "hung [sic] by the neck until dead." Yeah, he said that.
Now, in case you think this was just a gaggle of extremist morans (and how could you not?), the crowd also included Arizona Senate President Andy Biggs and Sen. Kelli Ward. Neither Biggs nor Ward said a word when Rhodes spittled his "hung by the neck" threat, a line that drew applause. And here I thought “bloodiest” civil war was just metaphoric.
So, again The Ted Nugent Brigade is marshaling forces to challenge Sen. McCain in 2016, when he'll be 80. They begin by threatening to execute the old guy, with their future nominee present. Neither Ward nor Biggs has said boo about Rhodes’s vile outburst since. After all, Sen. Ward can’t alienate the extremist vote by condemning this viciousness. It’s her base, it’s what got her here.