Do not adjust your set, welcome to the Arizona zone (has a ring to it), so we’re gonna scoop out some brain cells, just for a few minutes, to make room for news about two people in rural Cochise County holding the entire friggin’ state hostage by refusing to certify their county’s vote. You don’t want this contaminating the good stuff.
The obstructionist supervisors are not upset about their county’s 2022 election; no, they think something hinky went on in Maricopa County, even though the supervisors there, a Republican majority, voted unanimously to certify the election. So WTF do a couple MAGA nitwits over 200 miles away know about Maricopa County’s election that the officials in Phoenix don’t? Oh, that’s right, they saw a Kari Lake tweet. She and others have turned their denialism into a giant grift, telling goobers they’ll re-do the election if you just send them money. No wonder they call Lake the female trump. Also like trump, she’s urging the supervisors to take a stand for her and vote no, never mind that doing so will upend their lives.
The two figures in Cochise County, named Tom Crosby and Peggy Judd, didn’t question their successful election in 2020, but since then they’ve become professional deniers. Unfortunately, they are also public servants with a vote, and it's not only their election denial that’s hurt the community. The two supervisors probably helped people get sick or die when they rejected a federal grant of almost $2 million for Covid relief, to the dismay of healthcare officials, resulting in a higher infection rate than most counties. Judd has promoted dangerous anti-vax BS online, saying the vaccine turns into the virus. No, that doesn’t happen. She didn’t vax, I’m guessing wasn’t a mask champion, and got Covid.
Judd attended Jan. 6, driving across country with her family, and later said the violence was Antifa-caused. Or she defended the insurrection and created a lot of online pushback. Few readers will be surprised to learn that this one woman who could deny citizens their political voice dabbles in QAnon. Judd says she doesn’t “believe” in it, but she admits she knows “a little bit” about it, and doesn’t see anything wrong with some of its tenets. Meet your County Supervisor!
Ya know, there’s more that could be said about Republican Supervisor Tom Crosby, but I’m sick of writing about criminal assholes, so here’s the mini-bio: 1) Border Patrol agent, 2) signed fake electoral certificate, 3) with Judd required a hand recount until a judge told them that’s illegal, 4) rejected Covid relief, 5) compared the vaccine to Agent Orange (this AO dumpee who still takes meds sez eat shit), 6) is in deep legal doo-doo.
That #6 is because the two supervisors are facing two lawsuits—one from election champion Marc Elias and another from Katie Hobbs, Secretary of State. There’s a hearing this week but Crosby and Judd do not have a lawyer. Cochise County’s staff attorney said, No way, he won’t defend lawbreaking—just to make an admitted “political statement” that will not change the results, except further obstruction could flip a couple GOP victories to Democrats.
I wrote yesterday that Cochise County had interviewed and hired the lawyer who also represented Cyber Ninjas, but today that person said he is not the two supervisors’ lawyer. Wow, the attorney who represented the scammers behind the corrupt, inexperienced, costly, and surreal Maricopa County “audit” (and not doing a good job as their attorney, Ninjas was fined millions, is no more)—that guy won’t work for Cochise County! That’s saying something, none of it good. [Ed: The two supervisors found and hired a lawyer hours before today’s hearing.]
If we ever wondered what it would look like for the people at trump rallies to run a government—the deniers, racists, Q-boobs, militias, antisemites, religious bigots—we’re looking at it in southeastern Arizona. Prosecutions to come.
End this bullshit.