Arizona’s primary is Tuesday, so just about everyone who’s left is in town this week: Ted Cruz (along with Carly Fiorina, Rick Perry and Glenn Beck), Trump, Sanders and both Clintons—most of them making more than one campaign stop.
Regardless of which candidate Democrats choose next week, I hope we can all support what Bernie Sanders said last night in Flagstaff. First up, he blasted Maricopa County Sheriff Joe Arpaio for “crashing” his wife Jane’s visit to Arpaio’s infamous Tent City, which more than one federal judge has said violates inmates’ constitutional rights.
Last Monday Jane Sanders went to see the conditions at the jail and talk to the inmates, but of course Arpaio showed up to “escort” her through the “concentration camp” (his words). He fed her a load of malarkey and made damn sure she didn’t talk much to prisoners, who might tell her what it’s really like to live in the hell hole: shitty food, crappy (if any) medical care, where it can reach 140+ degrees. Last night in Flagstaff,
[Sanders] started by defending his wife, Jane, who toured Tent City this week with the Maricopa County lawman. Sanders says his wife was never supposed to meet up with Arpaio.
"My wife visited Tent City and he crashed that," Sanders said. "He came and ambushed her."
Of course, Jane Sanders’ visit also provided Arpaio another excuse to get his mug in front of the TV cameras and keep the focus on him, an opportunity he never neglects.
Sheriff Arpaio, who has already been convicted of racial profiling by a federal judge, now awaits the findings of a contempt of court hearing. Sen. Sanders obviously believes Arizona and the feds waited too long:
Sanders then criticized the Department of Justice, saying they should have done more to crack down on Arpaio's controversial policing practices.
"Looking at this Tent City and what my wife told me about what she saw ... This is not what what should be going on in the United States of America."
Then Sen. Sanders took on the other half of Arizona’s police state force: Gov. Doug Ducey, the former ice cream flim-flam artist who was installed by the Koch boys to manage Arizona for their benefit. And he’s done their bidding: dismantled K-12 and the university system, ruined the state’s healthcare network, passed budget-busting tax cuts for corporations, installed private-prison lobbyists in key positions, eliminated almost all women’s rural health clinics, attacked LGBT and immigrant rights, squashed voters' rights, and put a “For Sale” sign out on Arizona’s majestic public lands.
Gov. Ducey is trying real hard to keep up with Brownback in Kansas.
With a record like that, Il Duce and his stooges in the legislature know they must keep young, poor, female, Hispanic and African American voters from the polls—or negate their voices somehow. Sanders blasted Ducey for the GOP’s recent attempts to do just that:
"If you don't have the guts to participate in in free and fair elections ... you should really get another job and get out of politics," Sanders said.
Sanders was referring to GOP governors whom he claims are trying to suppress low income and minority voters across the country.
Ducey recently signed a bill making it a felony to collect early ballots and deliver them to the polls for voters.
That’s right, civic groups and political parties can no longer go door-to-door to make sure people who requested early ballots have mailed them in—and then collect and return the ballots if the voters still have them. There has never been a verified incident of voter fraud associated with this “harvesting” of ballots, which Democrats here are much better at than Republicans.
Which is the only reason the practice in now a felony.