It was one year ago today that “Crazy/Stupid Republican of the Day” presented its first profile of former Arizona State Senator Kelli Ward , who in 2016 was the latest in a long line of nut-jobs we’ve profiled who decided to challenge Senator John McCain for his seat to represent Arizona in the U.S. Senate. For starters, Ward was running a osteopathic clinic in Lake Havasu City back in 2009, and not particularly well from a financial standpoint. She then sold her practice to a company named NorthCountry, clinic, employees and all, and her buyout was paid for with… half a million dollars in Obama Stimulus Funds that came from the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act of 2009. In 2012, she even gave an interview to an osteopathic magazine to discuss the matter. As a state legislator in Arizona, Kelli Ward hosted a town hall meeting with her constituents to discuss the threat of… CHEMTRAILS. You know, the idea that all those streams coming out from planes are actually just a sinister plot from someone, for some reason, looking to poison the masses, as if there was no difference between a 747 passenger jet and a crop duster. (If you’re not familiar with that paranoid conspiracy theory, we’ll reference Rationwiki for a moment so you can start laughing at her, properly.)
That’s only the tip of the proverbial iceberg, though, as Ward has the nasty habit of supporting OTHER conspiracies, and appearing on the radio talk shows of every right-wing paranoid conspiracy theorist lunatic who will host her. Back in 2013, she co-sponsored Arizona’s attempts to reject the United Nations’ Agenda 21 Treaty, and spoke on the floor of the Arizona legislature about how she believes it’s not about better environmental standards, but tricking rural Americans into moving back into metropolitan centers and cities. Mother Jones Magazine also has reportied about how Ward has appeared on the radio show of a local Arizona conspiracy nut named Luca Zanna, where Ward chatted about mysterious helicopters that had been spotted in Arizona, finding agreement how Common Core standards were turning children into “slaves”, as well as the prospect of martial law, or the possibility of a foreign power sending troops to subdue American citizens.
Mother Jones was also good enough to note how Kelli Ward made a trip up to the Cliven Bundy Ranch to hang out with him and the Oathkeepers in 2014, and she described the armed standoff where domestic terrorists had assault rifles pointed at federal agents from the Bureau of Land Management as a “family friendly” event. Just… yikes. After Cliven Bundy made his comments “about the negro”, Ward tried downplaying her visit to see the would-be hero turned racist domestic terrorist, but noting Bundy had a “1st Amendment right” to his remarks. She also actually did an interview in 2014 with self-described conspiracy theorist and fellow Bundy supporter Pete Santilli, who called John McCain “a domestic enemy”, and brought up both Chemtrails and 9/11 Trutherism during their talk.
Funny side story thought? Remember when Donald Sterling still owned the Los Angeles Clippers, and after decades of racist remarks and lawsuits over racial discrimination against Sterling, he was caught on tape making racist remarks by his girlfriend about the company she was keeping with African Americans being something he didn’t approve of. The NBA voted to force Sterling to sell the Clippers, and most people felt it was because the league didn’t need anyone that racist as part of their day-to-day operations. Well, Kelli Ward, for whatever reason, came running to Donald Sterling’s defense, saying that forcing him to lose his team in such a manner created a “slippery slope”, and promised the public that she would “fight for free speech”. You hear that Arizona racists? KELLI WARD HAS YOUR BACK.
And that’s clearly the case, considering Kelli Ward received a 2016 endorsement from Nohl Rosen. If that name doesn’t ring a bell with you, you may have heard over the course of the past few years about a group of racist protesters who are pro-police, taunting Black Lives Matter protesters with Confederate flags or the time he participated an armed protest with assault rifles of a Phoenix mosque (where they talked about the possibility of having a “Draw Muhammed” contest). While most assumed Ward would distance herself from a bigoted crank like Rosen… she re-Tweeted his post. Then you do a little bit of checking and find out… Ward has spoken at some of Rosen’s “Back the Badge” rallies that defend police violence (especially the times it occurs against minorities).
And that sort of mentality jibes with Mother Jones’ reporting, that when asked about her position on birthright citizenship at a local GOP gathering in September 2014, she responded by making a thumbs-down gesture and blowing a raspberry, stating that it had been “misinterpreted for years” and that immigrants shouldn’t be able to stay just because they “create a child.” (Which isn’t how birthright citizenship works.) In radio interviews, Ward has fear-mongered in the worst possible ways, warning that “polio-like illnesses” are spreading “throughout the country as the federal government shipped all of these illegal immigrants all across the country without properly treating them for health and wellness, and they’re exposing our kids, our families, to things that we should never have to be exposed to.” (Remember, now, we’re talking about a woman with medical training…)
Establishing that Ward is off her rocker seems like an open and shut at this point, but we’ll note she also was a co-sponsor of extremist Arizona Republicans attempts to make gold and silver legal tender as one of her first priorities as a legislator, as well as voted for both an attempt to nullify federal firearm laws, and voted for Arizona’s attempt at passing a “religious freedom” law to prevent same sex marriage back in 2013.
So to sum up, she frequents the company of bigots, is supported by leaders of hate rallies, says unfounded things about immigrants, tries making conspiracy theories into actual policy, and only seems to mention the importance of the First Amendment when someone says something really racist. Perhaps then, it should come as little surprise that she has spoken at Trump events and praised Orange Julius Caesar himself, Donald Trump.
Now, quite predictably, Kelli Ward lost to John McCain in that 2016 GOP Primary, but surprisingly, she still pulled down 40% of the vote for Republicans in that primary, despite being quite deranged. We weren’t even through the 2016 elections completely when Ward announced that she would be a 2018 challenger to Arizona’s other U.S. Senator, Jeff Flake.
And that… could get messy. Jeff Flake has been one of the more vocal critics of Donald Trump. (He’s gone off on Trump’s Muslim ban, his frequent golf trips, and called on him to apologize for lying and claiming President Obama wire-tapped” him. Of course, he still approved every member of Trump’s Cabinet of Horrors, and his Supreme Court pick), and Trump himself has bad-mouthed Flake on Twitter in response (of course he has), and in a tense meeting back in July of 2016, threatened Flake with seeing that he would lose his re-election bid. Flake responded, at the time, that he wasn’t even up for re-election in 2016… but he is in 2018. And Donald Trump will ALWAYS hold a grudge.
The fact that he has sycophants like Kelli Ward who previously have spoken fondly of him at Trump rallies in Arizona might be all that it takes to get the mad king Donald to throw a monkey wrench into the 2018 GOP Primary seat, and help a conspiracy theorist loon like Ward get to Washington, D.C.
So stay tuned… we might not have heard the last of Chemtrail Kelli.
One Year Ago, July 3rd, 2016: Kelli Ward (AZ)… Original Profile
Two Years Ago, July 3rd, 2015: Dale K. Mensing (CA)