What a day. First we heard the sad news from the Phoenix suburb of Gilbert that a murder-suicide had occurred. In 1980, Gilbert had about 5,000 people, a sleepy place of ranchers and farmers, but today it's a quarter-million more, all plopped down 25 miles southeast of downtown Phoenix. Like most of the burbs here, from the air it looks like endless miles of dead worms -- meandering cul de sacs of red-tile roofs, dotted with pools and adobe commercial bunkers at every intersection. It was in such a place that Wednesday's shooting took place.
We still don't know the details, but the news that's dribbled out over the past few hours suggests that well-known White Supremacist J.T. Ready killed his 47-year-old girlfriend Lisa Mederos, her daughter Amber, Amber's boyfriend Jim Hoit, and Amber's 15-month-old daughter Lilly. Then the 39-year-old bigoted media hog turned the weapon on himself. Everything J.T. Ready did, from calling press conferences in the desert to organizing "Report an Illegal Day" on Cinco de Mayo, fed his giant racist ego. It finally got the better of him.
I'm not going to waste a lot of pixels on this Mexican-hating blowhard. But of course he had it in for Blacks and Jews too.
"The truth is that negroids screw monkeys and rape babies in afreaka [sic]. Then stupid white man who licks kosher jew rear lets negroids in. … Stop Negroid immigration and integration now!!! Nature will take care of the rest."
That would probably score high in Kos's hate mail-a-palooza. Except it's J.T. Ready spewing venom at one of those stormfronty websites that I'm not linking to. Before he became the face of the National Socialist Movement in Arizona, Ready was a former precinct committeeman and failed candidate for the Mesa City Council. In that 2006 race he was
endorsed by Senator Russell Pearce, a crazy-uncle lunatic we used to think of as just that, but by 2006 the mean-spirited old fart was consolidating his grip on the gonads of the religious tea party buttholes who now dominate state politics about 2:1.
After losing that council race, Ready marched with swastika-wearing brownshirts at the State Capitol, where he introduced then-Senator Russell Pearce as a "patriot" for sponsoring the bigoted policies that would culminate in SB 1070. And even before the "papers please" law passed in 2010, Ready and his vigilante pals were patrolling the desert, "protecting" the rest of us.
But what does J.T. Ready say he and his pals will do if they see Mexicans trying to cross illegally into Arizona? "We'll Kill Them." Gawker
Ain't it great that Rep. Sylvia Allen (the "Earth is 6,000 years old" Mensa nominee) sponsored
SB 1083 this session, so fools like J.T. Ready could join her volunteer "Special Mission Unit," get a badge and collect a per diem, while they scouted the desert with guns and immunity. What could go wrong?
There's a lot more ugliness to this murdering (a 1-year-old kid!) dickhead, but you get the picture. Senator Russell Pearce was forced to distance himself from Ready and his leathery gang of goose-stepping hatemongers as the Senator's star rose in the Republican Party (he became Senate President). But that doesn't erase the evidence that Pearce and J.T. Ready used to "pal around" with one another, hang on Russ's back porch and tell racist jokes, and exchange Neo-Nazi emails, among other fine buddy things. Pearce not only endorsed Ready for the 2006 Mesa election, he helped him join the Church of Latter-Day Saints, presumably so he could be groomed for a legislative campaign. (When all this happened Wednesday, Ready was running for Pinal County Sheriff. His Facebook page, which features a gung-ho picture of a camouflaged, machine-gun totin' J.T., says a cartel assassinated everyone in Gilbert. Sure. And Kramer is Kierkegaard.)
Although Russell Pearce was running away from reporters last year, saying he didn't really remember J.T. Ready, his very known association with the most visible supremacist in Arizona played a role in the successful recall of the Senator last November. The organizers of the recall, Citizens for a Better Arizona, did not focus on SB 1070 or immigration; instead, they spotlighted Pearce's many character flaws, and it didn't help the old coot that dozens of photos and YouTubes were floating around connecting him and J.T. Ready -- with lots of "Sieg Heils" in the background.
Pearce lost the recall, big time, by more than 12 points in a very conservative Mesa district. The GOP-controlled legislature isn't too keen on citizens removing one of their own, so they're moving on several fronts to squash future attempts.
First, they introduced a bill that will make it more difficult and more costly for citizens to recall legislators. The Dems correctly referred to this POS as the "Russell Pearce Sore Loser Bill." But wait, it gets better.
Pearce is running for a Senate seat again, while he blaths his nativist blather on the Ban Amnesty Now radio program. How is that possible? And it might help old Russ even more to have a few extra coins in his war chest, so yesterday a legislative committee added an amendment to SB 1449, the same bill that creates more recall hurdles, that will allow the disgraced but shameless Senator to collect the $261,000 he spent on his losing recall election. Not that it was his money or anything.
An Arizona legislative committee on Wednesday passed an amendment that sets up a framework for recalled Sen. Russell Pearce to seek repayment for costs incurred during the recall election. If Pearce requests the money, it could lead to the state writing a check for about $261,000 directly to the former Mesa lawmaker. Arizona Republic
Sure, let's reimburse a thug whose campaign illegally ran a
sham candidate to siphon votes from Pearce's Republican challenger (and current Senator) Jerry Lewis. It didn't go down too well last night at the committee hearing. No public comment was permitted by the GOP goons, and Randy Parraz from Citizens for a Better Arizona was removed for trying to enter into the
public record even a syllable or two of the
public's voice. The righties here are not interested in that -- doesn't matter if it's the redistricting commission or medical marijuana. Go the fuck away people, we know better.
There was no public hearing on the amendment, which was written about 90 minutes before the committee met. There was not even a public explanation of the amendment, so that we mere members of the public would know what the darn thing says. It was perhaps the most arrogant display I've seen at the Legislature and that is sayiing something. azcentral.com
Under the amendment's provisions, Pearce will have to ask for the money. Like he won't. The irony was lost on Arizona's tea party: let's use taxpayer funds to bail out a failed campaign. Not schools or people needing life-saving
organ transplants.
But that shit's the norm here, it really is IOKIYAR. Look at the $60 million or so Sheriff Joe Arpaio has cost taxpayers of Maricopa County, to pay for his illegal arrests and jail murders (another recently occurred), at the same time the flaccid peckerhead has the worst record in the state -- the only county to see an increase in violent crime (he's too busy looking into Obama's birth certificate to investigate and prosecute 400 sex crimes, for instance). Arpaio costs us a shitwad of money, he pisses everybody the hell off (I mean, how many other county sheriffs can you name?), and he's not good at his job. Imagine how strong the bigotry is that trumps all that, and keeps electing this criminal buckethead.
And so our Centennial Year rolls on -- kicked off at the Capitol on February 14 when former Arizona native Wayne Newton opened with "Viva Las Vegas." This fucking place is drowning in stupidity.
UPDATE: Less than 24 hours later, it seems some GOP legislators aren't too happy about reimbursing their former Senate President, and the Arizona Republic is reporting that the bill has died:
But with the session-ending sine die vote expected in a matter of hours Thursday afternoon, it appears an effort to allow recalled Sen. Russell Pearce to seek $260,000 in taxpayer reimbursement for recall expenses is dead.
"It is suffering a slow death," said Sen. Steve Smith, R-Maricopa, who was among a handful of Republican lawmakers behind the effort. "It's just unfortunate." Arizona Republic