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[Disposable Ninja]

Republicans in the same district as Gabby Giffords raffle off a handgun. Same kind of handgun used to put a bullet in Giffords' head and killed a little girl who would've turned 10 in a couple of days.

[Brentai]

A specific couple of days.

That is some pretty hardcore trolling.

[Royal☭]

While I think it's stupid that a political organization is giving away a gun, I consider this a tempest in a teacup. Glocks are extremely popular handguns, and in another article I read it said that while they're the same make, they're not the same model. Loughner used a Glock 9, they're auctioning a Glock .45 from last year. So the really creepy part is just them giving away a gun in the first place, but the right-wing is a culture of violence, brutality and death, so it's not surprising.

[Mongrel]

Yeah, the article itself mentions that they do gun raffles now and again and that this was an unclaimed prize from an earlier raffle ("Can't let this perfectly good popgun go to waste, amirite?").

That's said, the "optics" are terrible. An exchange from two fellows I know about sums it up:

Grak: It seems like it wasn't done with the intention of being a dick. I am willing to give them the benefit of the doubt.
Dantes: Oh, I agree. It's just that you'd hope someone would stop and think for a minute.
Grak: If people would stop and think for a minute they wouldn't be in the GOP

[Thad]

So what's the latest out of Arizona?

Well, Arpaio's old sidekick, former County Attorney Andy Thomas, is being investigated by the State Bar.  Give a read to azcentral article Judge says bribery case was bogus -- and then picture a story like that coming out EVERY DAY, for WEEKS.  We've had one public official after another -- judges, county supervisors -- come forward and say that Thomas destroyed their careers with frivolous RICO suits.

I don't see this ending any way but disbarment, and it can't come soon enough.

Arpaio is still, inexplicably, popular, but his cronies have started dropping like flies this past year.  Again, it's not happening fast enough for my tastes, but at least it's finally happening.

MEANWHILE, SB1070 architect Russell Pearce is facing a recall election next month.  He's got one major challenger, a guy named Jerry Lewis, and there's also a lady on the ballot named Olivia Cortes.  Nobody's ever really heard of Cortes before, and she hasn't made any public appearances or done any campaigning to speak of.

The cynical among you may guess that Pearce's supporters just found some lady with a Hispanic name and convinced her to run in the recall to take votes away from Lewis.

The cynical among you would be right.

An elections lawyer has sued Cortes as a sham candidate, and gotten petition gatherers to admit, under oath, that yes, they're actually Pearce supporters and just wanted to split the recall vote.  The judge in the case has, as yet, chosen not to have Cortes removed from the ballot, though there's another hearing scheduled for tomorrow -- but the important part is that now the public, at least, knows that she's a sham candidate, and she's not likely to siphon off too many votes from Lewis at this point.

Unfortunately, Mesa being Mesa, I still lay pretty good odds of Pearce beating the recall -- though if tomorrow's hearing shows hard evidence that he was complicit in propping up Cortes, that may change.

[Brentai]

What are the chances of making it public enough to swing all of Lewis' votes to Cortes?

[Thad]

Well, given that she's either guilty of fraud or a complete blithering idiot, I'm thinking she'd be better off running for governor.

[Brentai]

I was thinking more that she's clearly easy to manipulate, and more likely to capitulate to the entire Latino community than a sheriff in the process of getting his ass kicked.

..so yeah, Governor it is.

[Thad]

Sure, and even if Lewis won we'd be exchanging one Mormon Mesa Republican (which is pretty much a tautology) for another.

BUT, he appears to be relatively sane on immigration, so he's an improvement.

[Thad]

And Cortes drops out

She says it's due to harassment, and honestly that's totally plausible.  But still and all, I can't help wondering who they were planning to call tomorrow, and what their testimony would have been.

[Thad]

Saw something on the news last night to the effect that Pearce had made a comment to the effect that the Mormon community had pushed for SB1070 -- and some prominent members of that community are saying hey, not so fast.

The church hasn't taken an official political stance, but in general it appears to favor a more compassionate approach than Pearce's.

I'd love to see the church come out more forcefully in favor of treating immigrants like human beings, but I don't really think that's likely.  Certainly the Mormons in Pearce's district seem to share his views on immigration, and I still think he's likely to survive the recall.

[Thad]

Latest to fall in the various Arpaio scandals is Captain Joel Fox, which is surprising only inasmuch as I thought he'd already been kicked out along with Hendershott and the rest of his cronies.

Locally, the Tempe mayoral race is shaping up to be interesting.  We've got Harry Mitchell's son Mark, owner of a local flooring business, running.  There's CPA Linda Spears, who I don't know much about but who discusses maintaining city parks and repairing city water mains, which are good ideas.

The guy who's getting most press at the moment, and who's gotten the current mayor's endorsement, is Michael Monti, owner of Monti's in downtown Tempe.  And I'm going to take a minute to talk about why that's important.

Downtown Tempe is historic.  It's got the old Hayden Flour Mill (our main street is called Mill Avenue) and other buildings that go back generations.  Monti's is across the street, in a building originally constructed by town founder Hayden in 1871.

The 1990's saw Downtown Tempe largely transformed into corporate cookie-cutter bullshit.  Out went Changing Hands and Long Wong's, in came Borders and Hooters.  Mill lost its character, and started looking like any other corporate-run shopping area in America.  (I remember, walking in downtown Jersey City in 2005, first thinking "This place is a dump," and then doing a sort of double-take as I realized there wasn't a chain in sight; every single business was local.  At that point I decided, dump or no, I preferred it to Mill.)

The trend continued until the real estate market collapsed.  Gentle Strength Co-Op got torn down and the damn lot is still empty; a couple blocks away we've got two ugly-ass towers that were built and then abandoned when the developer killed himself; at least somebody's finally bought the damn things and is going to do something with them.

On the plus side, Mill's slowly and steadily being overtaken by local businesses again.

What Monti has to do with all this is that he's managed to keep his business, which is an institution and part of the character of this city, through all this mess.  There was talk of tearing it down at one point, and then some ridiculous nonsense about keeping it but building a high rise over it.  Monti managed to hang in there.

And so when he centers his campaign around reviving Mill with vibrant local businesses, I don't doubt for a second that he means it or that he knows what the hell he's talking about.

At any rate, I don't know much about any of these three candidates.  But at first blush, they all look like pretty good options.  Maybe I'm wrong and I'll find out horrible things about them.  But so far I like the way this is going.

[Thad]

Meanwhile, in Pearce news, Stephen Lemons writes, Yellow Sheet Admits Senate President Is On the Ropes.

Now, Lemons wears his bias on his sleeve.  His job is to go after Arpaio and Pearce.  And he loves his job.  So "on the ropes" is a bit of an exaggeration, but the larger point is a fair one: even conservative papers are expressing concern that Pearce could lose this one.

I'm not optimistic, but it's not out of the question.  Lemons says he's seen internal polling data that puts Lewis within 1% of Pearce, with Cortes still polling at 5% -- and if Lewis DOES end up losing by fewer votes than Cortes gets, then there's bound to be a lawsuit.

And even if none of that happens, I think Lemons is right on his overall point: the fact that there's a recall at all is tremendously damaging to Pearce, and even if he keeps his seat he's not going to be as powerful as he was.

[Thad]

Oh and hey, apropos of Mill Avenue, azcentral just posted this: Signs of life on Tempe's Mill Avenue.  Apparently one of those damn towers is finally open!

There's a place called Fuzzy's Taco Shop.  Jesus, what is it with local restauranteurs and taco puns?

And Barney's Boathouse is closed, but that's not exactly surprising.

See, here's the thing: there's this building right across the street from campus.  It's also across the street from a church.  Which creates a zoning issue: you can't have a bar that close to a church.

The difference between a bar and a restaurant is, of course, the relative amounts of alcohol and food served at a given establishment.

People keep opening "restaurants" in this building, but they inevitably wind up serving way the hell more alcohol than beer.  Because the building is directly across the street from campus.  And next to the Chuckbox, another one of those old downtown Tempe institutions I was talking about earlier and the best burger place around.  (I don't eat burgers but quite enjoy their chicken.)  So if somebody wants to walk across the street and grab a bite to eat, they're going to Chuckbox.  Hence, the place nextdoor inevitably becomes a bar.

And it's changed hands a truly ridiculous number of times over the past decade or so.  Off the top of my head it's been Dos Gringos, Flip-Flops, and Daisy Duke's.  All have closed up.  (Dos Gringos was popular enough to move to a new location; AFAIK the others were not.)

Don't think I ever went there after it became Barney's.  (I only ever went there when I was working at the computer store with Brad and he'd stop off for a quick beer there after we knocked off for the day.  That was 2005, which I believe was still the Daisy Dukes period.)

[Brentai]

Every single name you've mentioned sounds extremely unappetizing.

[Thad]

Oh come on, Chuckbox is awesome.

[Norondor]

it's like a chuck wagon without wheels! what do you mean chuck wagon isn't any more appealing!? get out of here, you seditionist! you ninnyhammer!

[McDohl]

Fuzzy's isn't local.

[Royal☭]

It is for us.

[Thad]

Good to know.  There's a perfectly good Mexican joint one block over anyway.