AZ Republic exhibits the myth of an unbiased press in MC Attorney’s race

Duplicity a hallmark of the local newspaper, a reliable arm of the democrat party

We are two days away from Election Day, but civility is still riding in the caboose of the far-left local newspaper. In a multi-page “Opinion Page” featuring “guest columnists, democrat county attorney candidate Julie Gunnigle is given kid glove treatment as she inflames, rather than informs, the alert electorate. Current County Attorney Rachel Mitchell, with years of experience as a prosecutor was denied column space, as two “guest columnists” presented an opposing view to Gunnigle, a proponent of defunding the police. Both Gunnigle’s campaign manager Bruce Franks Jr. and her campaign spokeswoman Dawn Penich-Thacker, hold that view, with Penich-Thacker referring to Arizona police officers a “national embarrassment” and “a menace.”  Despite national deadly school shootings, Gunnigle is opposed to having a police presence on school grounds.

Not only does the bias against exceptionally well qualified Mitchell run deep, the accompanying photos of the two candidates couldn’t have been more telling. Gunnigle, smiling broadly in an oversize full-color photo is placed adjacent to a grainy black and white obviously candid shot of Mitchell intently listening to a speaker. Both photos were credited to Republic photographer Alex Gould.

Gunnigle’s compliant answers to the leftist ACLU when she previously ran (and lost) the 2020 county attorney’s race are worth reading. Her priorities include removing funding from police, doing away with cash bail and putting more criminals on the street to re-offend. She acquiesced to every demand made by the ACLU by agreeing to “pledge” to uphold every issue put to her.

Joe Schoffstall writing for Fox News provides this important report, Arizona Dem prosecutor candidate Julie Gunnigle and her campaign staffers back defunding police, posts reveal.”

The Maricopa County Attorney’s Office is the third largest in the United States. As a border state, crime is rampant. We need a prosecutor not a social worker. That person is Rachel Mitchell, who is currently doing the job as interim based on years of experience. After her predecessor resigned, Mitchell was unanimously appointed by the Maricopa County Board of Supervisors.

Biden, dems, impose fed. power over local zoning laws

Comply or lose gov’t funding…our own money…as voter demographics are altered

Many Americans choose to live in the suburbs and endure the longer drive to the city center where their jobs are often located. It’s a trade-off they opt to make. They want the openness of suburbia, a yard, maybe a pool; a place where their kids can walk safely to a neighborhood school, and a nearby park. Their grandparents, frequently immigrants or a generation or two away, often lived in big cities, dense with low-rent, high-rise apartments and tough neighborhoods.

Their educated and upwardly mobile descendants were able to use their earned resources to relocate. Being Americans gives us the freedom to decide where we live.  Or so we thought.

It turns out democrats have other plans in mind.

When President Donald Trump warned about the democrats’ plan to “abolish” suburbs by infusing low income, high density housing into established neighborhoods during a Phoenix rally, he was falsely accused of “race baiting.” National Review’s Stanley Kurtz wrote “Biden and Dems Are Set to Abolish the Suburbs,” verifying what many attendees remember.

Luke Rosiak writing for The Daily Wire has written an investigative report titled, “Stealth Goal Of Infrastructure Plan Could Be To Abolish The Suburbs By Bribing Towns To Change Zoning Laws,” that is sure to leave you wondering what’s going on.

The answer is power-hungry democrats now dominate Washington, D.C.

These reports are not something you should read. As a freedom loving citizen, they are something you must read. There is a method to what appears to be leftist madness. Infusions of democrats into GOP suburbs will unalterably change voting demographics. That’s plain to see with the democrat courting of illegal aliens.

The Affirmatively Furthering Fair Housing rule, which Kurtz refers to as “radical,” was conceptualized during the Obama administration and carrying an effective date of July 31, 2021, requires local governments that receive federal funding to study racial bias in their housing patterns and develop plans to address it.

It’s a grotesque transmogrification of title VIII of the Civil Rights Act of 1968, 42 U.S.C. 3601-3619.

Get politically involved. Silence is acquiescence. Begin with your city council and state legislators. Time is short.

How good was Calvin Goode? Death doesn’t alter his racism

Former Phoenix City Councilman Calvin Goode has died at age 93. His death is featured as an Arizona Republic front page report with two additional jump pages, extolling him as a “civil rights reformer” possessing a “gentle manner.”

Not a word exposes his own bigotry, exhibited in his letter to the same newspaper’s editor when Kate Gallego, now Phoenix Mayor, was running for the City Council District 8 seat in 2013. Both Goode and Gallego were/are committed democrats though for him their similarity ended there. Goode was not challenging the Harvard and Wharton Business School educated Gallego’s credentials. He vigorously opposed her lack of skin pigment as he gave voice to manipulative race-based council district gerrymandering.

Take time to read, “Calvin Goode: Former councilman proposes racial gerrymandering,” which includes Calvin Goode’s bitterly malevolent letter to the editor of the same Arizona Republic newspaper that has buried Goode’s own vile prejudices with its glowing posthumous tribute.

Bigotry comes in all colors. Calvin Goode was a black anti-white racist. Death doesn’t transform the facts.

Moses Sanchez: New leadership in Phx Mayor’s race

2018 Phoenix Mayoral Debate excerpts

Candidates:

Kate Gallego, Democrat  — former City Council member — resigned to run for mayor. She’s a devout amnesty advocate. She is also expressed support of the outrageous idea of Phoenix raising its water rates to generate an additional $1.5 billion to make updates to the existing system.

You can tell a lot about a candidate by checking out their endorsement list. Gallego’s makes her even more unacceptable. Far leftists, unions, discredited liberals and abortion supporters are front and center. She even showcases the endorsement of her former husband, far left congressman Ruben Gallego, whom she divorced while she was expecting their first child.

Daniel Valenzuela, Democrat — former City Council member — resigned to run for mayor. Oddly, he says he’ll keep his full-time, 40-hour-a-week job as a Glendale firefighter if elected mayor of the nation’s sixth largest city. That’s a trick that rivals Houdini’s best efforts. Those city-funded pensions that are breaking the taxpayer’s backs, are a greater lure than being mayor. Valenzuela needs to make a choice. Though it seems impossible, his endorsements are even more chilling than Kate Gallego‘s.

Nicholas Sarwark, chairman of the Libertarian National Committee, is a former public defender, and runs a pre-owned auto business begun by his grandfather. His campaign “events” page has none listed, and shows him addressing a nearly empty room. Sarwark needs a course on the importance of optics.

Moses Sanchez, the only Republican in the race, scored with the best quote from the Channel 12 televised debate:

 “If you think the last decade of dysfunctional, failed leadership is the best thing we can do, you have other options. I believe we could do better. I believe we can create a city that puts her residents first. I believe it’s going to take an outsider who’s led in the military, in the classroom and in the boardroom. I believe you deserve better than what you’ve been getting,”

An Ahwatukee resident who rated enthusiastic coverage in the Ahwatukee Foothills News, Sanchez — who refreshingly is not a recycled council member — identifies himself as a Navy veteran, immigrant, educator and small business owner. His wife, Dr. Maria Manriquez, is a gynecologist who is the associate dean for clinical curricular affairs at the University of Arizona’s Phoenix medical school.

 Debate excerpts:

Candidate’s opening statements: (Video).

How to fix homeless problem: (Video).

Fixing the Phoenix pension problem: (Video).

The lunacy of celebrating diversity gets even loonier

Phoenix City Council votes for rainbow crosswalks

Since the inception of our nation, America has been enriched by people of various backgrounds coming to our shores to form a bond that celebrated unity. As grade school students, we were given a single dowel and asked to break it. Of course, it snapped easily in our young fingers. Then we were given several dowels corded together and found that the same task was not easily accomplished. This early lesson was intended to clearly illustrate the power of unity, which in the case of populations, needs assimilation to flourish.

But today, the bonds of unity are cast aside for the celebration of diversity — the very thing that separates us.

 Conservative intellectual Thomas Sowell, once wrote, “The next time some academics tell you how important diversity is, ask how many Republicans there are in their sociology department.” His 2013 column, “Words that replace thought,” remains relevant.

We veer off into diversityville today to inform our readers that the liberal majority on the Phoenix City Council including Mayor Greg Stanton — also a self-identified “progressive” congressional candidate — voted unanimously to join what the Arizona Republic newspaper has described as a ”nationwide trend of painting crosswalks with a rainbow design to celebrate the local lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgender community.”

Heterosexuals, who replenish our earth as God commanded in Genesis 9:7, aren’t worthy of celebration.

Until three years ago when Bruce Jenner revealed himself on the cover of Vanity Fair as “Caitlyn.” few had ever heard the word “transgender.”  Now, thanks to the liberal media, which call homosexuality a “culture,” what was previously identified as deviancy, has become so mainstreamed it’s being taught as merely an alternate lifestyle in public elementary schools.

The Seattle Times picked up the crosswalk story, characterizing it as “Phoenix honors gay pride.”

Vastly outnumbered, by leftists, Republican council members Sal DiCiccio and Jim Waring chose to be absent rather than engage in the rainbow crosswalk vote.

Liberal Greg Stanton joins political musical chairs game

Beguiled by Washington, political opportunist Phoenix Mayor Greg Stanton drops bid for Secretary of State

It’s possible to get a severe case of whiplash trying to keep your eye on the political prize Phoenix Mayor Greg Stanton is after.

 The Democrat who is not inclined to being democratic as we’ve pointed out here, here, and here, still has an open campaign for Secretary of State — a sleeper position often the direct route to the governor’s office since it is next in line of ascension if a sitting governor is unable to serve out their term.

But now we see that the ambitious liberal isn’t content waiting for a governor to provide an opening. He’s  announced he’s resigning the top city job and looking directly at D.C., now that Democrat Kyrsten Sinema is bounding from her Congressional District 9 House seat and mounting a challenge to Jeff Flake, John McCain’s doppelganger senate seat-mate. Dr. Kelli Ward is the conservative in the race.

The only discernible activity on Stanton’s Secretary of State page is a payment of $1000 Stanton made to Equality Arizona last November, listed as an expenditure. But there was a method to Stanton’s seemingly madcap donation. EQAZ, as it nicknames itself, lists its mission on its website:

“Each election cycle provides us the important opportunity to help elect candidates who will work to achieve full LGBTQ equality in our state. Helping to elect pro-LGBTQ candidates is one of the most important things we do.”

For an insight into Stanton’s mindset, EQAZ supports “our LGBTQ immigrant population.” which they claim is “too often at high risk for discrimination, isolation, and a lack of access to resources.” The group also opposed the confirmation of Judge Neil Gorsuch to the U.S. Supreme Court.

Liberal Democrat Stanton announced that he was “disappointed” that President Donald Trump plans to rally supporters in mid-August. “’It is my hope that more sound judgment prevails and that he delays his visit,’ Stanton said. In fact, Stanton ludicrously linked the visit and request for the president to “delay his plans” to visit Phoenix “to what he referred to as “the nation still healing from the tragic events in Charlottesville.”

During his campaign for mayor, Greg Stanton was so beholden to then-Firefighters union boss Billy Shields, that when his daughter, Mindy, given a job as Stanton’s treasurer, was charged with embezzling over $77,000 from Stanton’s campaign, lawyer Stanton — who should have known better — tried to have the felony charges dismissed so as not to rile her powerful father. Shields was still angry enough that the crime was reported, to support Stanton’s opponent.

In our January 2013 post, “Phoenix Mayor Stanton: An ambitious liberal to watch,” we detailed his commitment to a keeping a sieve-like border as he told mayors of Mexican border cities meeting in D.C.,  “We should never let border security get in the way of the economy.”

We predicted then that Greg Stanton, who was congratulated on his mayoral win via calls from Barack Obama and Janet Napolitano, has higher aspirations.

In March 2013, Stanton blatantly lied about the imposition of a food tax on Phoenix residents. Imagine if this radical liberal with no conscience gains a congressional seat. It was by design not happenstance that Phoenix City elections have notoriously low voter turnouts, timed for the hottest part of the summer when many residents are vacationing. The only announced mayoral candidate is Daniel Valenzuela, another liberal with union roots.

We need a solid Republican to step up and re-take the reins of the nation’s fifth largest city. We’ve been in the liberal abyss far too long.

Phx PD ties officers’ hands in arrests of illegal aliens

Judicial Watch’s Corruption Chronicles exposes the quietly implemented new Phoenix Police Department policy banning officers from contacting federal agents after arresting an illegal alien and forbidding them from asking about immigration status, in violation of key provisions of a state law upheld by the U.S. Supreme Court.

Judicial Watch obtained a copy of the Phoenix Police Department’s new sanctuary Immigration Procedures, which also replace the term “illegal alien” with “a person unlawfully present.” It appears to be part of a broader scheme to dodge federal immigration laws in Arizona’s most populous county.

Earlier this year Judicial Watch reported that Paul Penzone, the newly elected Maricopa County sheriff, was releasing an average of 400 criminal illegals every 10 days. Many of them were violent offenders, but Penzone released them from Maricopa County Jail facilities, to protect them from deportation. The illegal aliens had state criminal charges ranging from misdemeanors to felonies, driving under the influence and drug offenses. “There’s no telling how many criminals he’s (Sheriff Penzone) putting on the streets,” stated a high-ranking federal law enforcement official stationed in Arizona.

Under a longtime partnership between the county and the feds, the Phoenix field office of Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) was notified when “aliens unlawfully present with additional Arizona charges” were released from the Maricopa County Jail, which is one of the nation’s largest with a population of about 8,000. That ended when Penzone, who refers to illegal immigrants as “guests,” took office this year.

The Phoenix Police Department has about 3,000 officers that were permitted to use “sound judgment” at any time under the agency’s former immigration enforcement policy. That allowed front-line officers to directly contact federal immigration officials involving criminal illegal immigrants. The revised policy, issued just weeks ago, mandates all contact with federal immigration partners to be funneled through a single Violent Crimes Bureau (VCB) desk sergeant who will document all immigration related data and give authority to call ICE.

Read the entire Judicial Watch exposé by clicking this link.

Although Arizona is a red state, with Republican majorities in both chambers of the state legislature, a Republican Governor, Secretary of State, Attorney General, Treasurer and Education Superintendent with five of the nine congressional district seats and the majority of Maricopa County offices held by Republicans, the city of Phoenix is another matter. The Phoenix City Council is now a Democrat majority and Democrat mayors have held the reins of the city far too long, aided by unions and the scheme of moving the already traditionally low turnout city elections to the summer when many concerned voters are vacationing.

Additionally, there was a new dynamic during the 2016 election cycle. Socialist billionaire George Soros, a funder of Hillary Clinton and John McCain, also set his sights on nation-wide law enforcement and prosecutorial races, which is how Penzone reached campaign spending heights. A 2016 Primary Election day snafu that forced voters to stand in lines for hours resulted in the longtime Republican County Recorder losing the post, and the election of leftwing Maricopa County Recorder Adrian Fontes, who now oversees elections. Fontes intends to replace polling places with all mail-in ballots and claims voter ID requirements constitute minority voter suppression.

Seeing Red AZ has previously written about liberal Democrat Sheriff Paul Penzone.

Oct. 24, 2016: Why is open borders fan Soros backing Paul Penzone & Diego Rodriguez?

Feb.18, 2017:  Sheriff Penzone puts ICE detainer for illegals on ice

Oct. 1, 2016:  Paul Penzone: Facts get in his way as he challenges Sheriff Arpaio

Mudslinger in Dist. 3 Council runoff has familiar fingerprint

When it comes to the ability to run dirty, deceptive campaigns, no one does a better job than John McCain, who has honed his contemptible adeptness over decades. When a credible challenger comes within range, there is no trickery too low for him and his surrogates to engage in.

Phoenix residents who live in City Council District 3 (map) —  which encompasses Moon Valley, parts of  North East Phoenix,  Paradise Valley and Sunnyslope — are now getting a taste of those repugnant tactics as a March 14 runoff election approaches.

A bit of background. After seven years on the job, Dist. 3 Councilman Bill Gates resigned May 31 to run for a newly open seat on the Maricopa County Board of Supervisors when Andy Kunasek retired.

The council, which had several candidates to select from for the interim post, chose liberal Democrat Debra Stark to replace Republican and fiscal conservative Bill Gates. Chris DeRose was the only Republican in the mix, but the fallacy of non-partisan city elections persists. Nothing could be further from the truth. When Greg Stanton was elected mayor in 2011, he received a congratulatory call from then-Pres. Barack Obama and Homeland Insecurity Chieftain Janet Napolitano. Stanton has already filed to run for Secretary of State, frequently a dependable path to the governor’s office.

Candidate mailers have been increasing in intensity, filling mailboxes at breakneck speed. Most recently Stark’s campaign flyers have morphed into vicious, defamatory hit pieces, hurling incendiary language. The most recent ones carry the “paid for by” tag of a benign sounding group identified as The Arizona Voter Education Project (AVEP).  A check of the Arizona Corporation Commission records reveals delinquent annual reports including associated filing fees and threats of dissolving the corporation were filed against AVEP in 2014, 2015, and 2016.

And who is the man behind the curtain? None other than Max Fose, the President and CEO of IWS, a one-man show advertising and public affairs agency. And wouldn’t you know?  Fose is a former McCain operative, whose name appeared on the “Republicans for Janet” (Napolitano) website, along with other McCain advisers.

Chris DeRose, whose principled mailers feature his qualifications and positions, is endorsed by Congressman David Schweikert who represents much of City Council Dist. 3, Gov. Doug Ducey, Attorney General Mark Brnovich, and City Councilmen Jim Warning and Sal DiCiccio — all Republicans.

Memo to District 3 residents: If you haven’t mailed in your ballot, mark it for Republican Chris DeRose and get it in the mail ASAP. Republicans should not be in the minority on the Phoenix City Council in “red” Arizona.

AZ newspaper’s new heroine: The Illegal alien

The Periódico de la República de Arizona (Arizona Republic) story had all of the elements that make for a tear-jerker. A mother who worked at a “fun park” deported. Crying teenage children — American citizens born to illegal Mexican national Guadalupe García de Rayos, 35.  An illegal alien husband, who did not want to be identified hovered about, but asserted, “Basically, we are Americans.” They both knew the key words to utter is that they were brought here before age 16. According to the report, she is merely in the country “without authorization.

The sympathetic Page One coverage included an above-the-fold half page head shot photo of Guadalupe, emerging from darkness with crosshatched wire “bars” dramatically superimposed across her face. The editorial team must have worked overtime to come up with this theatric.

The statement issued by ICE, acknowledges “Garcia has a prior felony conviction in Arizona for criminal impersonation, and was the subject of a court-issued removal order that became final in July 2013”  When she was arrested by Maricopa County Sheriff’s Deputies in 2008, she was using stolen documents including a social security number belonging to a Tucson man. She was finally deported this week.

Of course, rapidly mobilized and obviously unemployed protesters arrived on the scene like bees to honey. Illegals are their nectar.

Count on the reliable liberals to call her deportation a “tragedy and bigoted”  Democrat U.S. Rep. Ruben Gallego (AZ CD 7) was quoted as saying, “Donald Trump is cruelly ripping a mother and a breadwinner away from her American citizen children. Instead of focusing on improving our economy or keeping Americans safe from real danger, the Trump administration’s policies are persecuting law-abiding members of the immigrant community.”

Not quite.  She’s a convicted felon. She and her children are reunited in Mexico.

Phoenix Mayor Greg Stanton referred to the detention and deportation of Garcia de Rayos as “a travesty.” He said it shows that Trump’s deportation policies make the country less safe.

Only if you’re here in violation of the law.

“Rather than tracking down violent criminals and drug dealers, ICE is spending its energy deporting a woman with two American children who has lived here for more than two decades and poses a threat to nobody,” Stanton said. Stanton, an announced candidate for Secretary of State, the frequent backdoor route to the governor’s office, is being pushed by extremists to officially designate Phoenix as a “sanctuary city.”

Mexico’s Leftist presidential candidate Andres Manuel Lopez Obrador who previously lost twice to President Enrique Pena Nieto, is now leading in voter polls for next year’s election. He plans to visit Los Angeles on Sunday to talk with illegals about President Donald Trump’s “poisonous” rhetoric. According to Lopez Obrador, Trump has shown a “lack of respect for Mexico.” He added, “This campaign — because it is very poisonous — of xenophobia, of causing hate, must be confronted,” he said. “We Mexicans are being persecuted.”

Persecuted? Not by a long shot. And not if you stay home and stop illegally invading our country, Señor Lopez Obrador.

Phx Councilman DiCiccio voting for Soros funded Penzone

If you’re a Republican or Independent residing in District 6 who still has an unmarked ballot you’re planning  to take to your polling place on Election Day Tuesday Nov. 8, this news is not too late for you.  Unfortunately, many others have been conned by Phoenix City Councilman Sal DiCiccio, who at the eleventh hour has publicly revealed himself as a Paul Penzone voter.

This is the same ‘rough ’er up’ Paul Penzone —  a  Democrat former Phoenix Police Sergeant who was put on administrative leave after a domestic violence incident that included the issuance of an order of protection against him by his then-estranged wife.  Under the order, Penzone was unable to possess firearms — making it difficult to carry out his duties as a police officer. Now he wants to be elected as Maricopa County Sheriff in his second challenge to Sheriff Joe Arpaio.

This is the same Paul Penzone who is now accepting tainted, strings-attached $millions in campaign funds from radically left-wing globalist George Soros.  Multibillionaire Soros, who abhors national borders, is currently focusing on electing lenient prosecutors and law enforcement officials across the U.S. In addition to funding Penzone, Soros is also a longtime political benefactor of Hillary Clinton and John McCain.

Politico reports on America-hating, anti capitalist George Soros’ quiet efforts to overhaul the U.S. justice system. Here in Maricopa County he is also targeting County Attorney Bill Montgomery, looking to replace him with committed leftist Diego Rodriguez.

Although the Phoenix City Council and Mayor deviously run as “non-partisans,” voters who pay attention know their political bents. Sal DiCiccio has even scored points wagging his GOP credentials, which makes his treachery even more abhorrent.

In this recent article in the Ahwatukee Foothills News, DiCiccio — whose district encompasses Ahwatukee — ripped Sheriff Joe Arpaio in an interview, but stopped short of encouraging support for Arpaio’s opponent, Democrat Paul Penzone, since he would then risk being sanctioned by the Republican Party.

“But I can tell you that nobody in my family is voting for Joe, and that’s really, really hard because I like him personally and I like many of his policies,” DiCiccio claimed.

With friends like Sal DiCiccio, who needs enemies?

This is the same Sal DiCiccio who refers to liberal Tempe Mayor and single-term Democrat Congressman Harry Mitchell as his early mentor. DiCiccio cut his political fangs working in John McCain’s office. Yes, the same McCain who also wants our vote, after withdrawing his support from GOP presidential nominee Donald Trump.

Slipperiness abounds. In Jan. 2010 the Arizona Republic reviewing conflict of interest dealings along a proposed freeway route wrote that it “took a closer look at DiCiccio’s possible stake in the planned 22-mile freeway, examining city financial forms and court records, plus letters, e-mails and other documents obtained under a public-records request. The picture that emerged shows that DiCiccio:” full report here

Seeing Red AZ stands with Republican career law enforcement professional, Sheriff Joe Arpaio, who does the job Maricopa County citizens elected him to do over six consecutive terms. He speaks plainly and speaks the truth. It’s not difficult to understand.