By DEXTER DUGGAN
PHOENIX — Arizona is better off than Florida because you’re able, if necessary, to stomp on many of the things that could kill you here (think scorpions and rattlesnakes), but you can’t in Florida (crocodiles and alligators).
Florida is better off than Arizona because it has Gov. Ron DeSantis.
It’s always tempting to think of moving to a more attractive state if your own gets really out of whack. Even loyally dedicated New Yorker and New York Post columnist Karol Markowicz finally was driven to relocate with her family to the Sunshine State in January 2022 because of the insanely damaging policies of the Empire State’s left-wing politicians, especially victimizing children’s education.
No doubt many thousands of people fleeing to Florida are motivated by the example that conservative Republican DeSantis undergirds for those who want to live with dignity, not under the heel of control-freak leftist Democrats like New York Gov. Kathy Hochul or California Gov. Gavin Newsom.
On the other hand, a person may decide to try to stay to fight against what’s harming their own state. Like the corrupt political elite’s deviltry in Arizona. It’s one poisonous thing here that you can’t just step on to stop.
These two southern-tier states have similarities and differences. Arizona is Florida without the humidity, hurricanes, or ocean. Florida is Arizona without the mountains and saguaros.
I’ve visited Florida only a few times — from the Panhandle to Miami to the Keys’ Islamorada to Naples — but have lived the majority of my life in the Grand Canyon State, from the Canyon itself to Window Rock, from Yuma to Tucson to Nogales, and numerous other spots along the way.
I’m sure Florida has its own political corruption because everywhere does. But Arizona definitely suffers from its insufferability.
Arizona conservative writer and activist Rachel Alexander had a lengthy article posted January 3 at the “UncoverDC” website, “Maricopa County Corruption: Now It’s Your Problem, Too.” It’s worth your attention. She details some of the shocking manipulation by the elite here going back more than a decade, although she could have gone even further.
Noting Republican Kari Lake’s recent alleged narrow loss to Democrat Katie Hobbs in the gubernatorial race, Alexander wrote: “The corruption in Maricopa County was no secret to informed citizens in the county and state. In fact, for years, Maricopa County has been putting to shame the old-school corruption of Cook County, Ill. I now frequently say that Maricopa County has replaced Cook County as the most corrupt county in the country.”
The Conniving Elite
Alexander has her own experience of the power of the conniving elite to dish out punishment. She had her law license suspended and was unable to get it back because of the expense involved.
Meanwhile, DeSantis’ capabilities and resolve seem to have transformed his state politically. He narrowly won his first race for governor just over four years ago, but after he showed what he could do, he romped to victory for re-election last November. He won this second time by really doing what the people wanted.
DeSantis showed voters that he stood up for them and actively opposed the social cancers that the left cultivates and spreads.
In his inspiring January 3 inaugural address to open his second term, DeSantis pointedly said, “Florida must always be a great place to raise a family — we will enact more family friendly policies to make it easier to raise children, and we will defend our children against those who seek to rob them of their innocence. . . .
“We reject this woke ideology,” he added later. “We seek normalcy, not philosophical lunacy!. . . Florida is where woke goes to die!”
The text of DeSantis’ inaugural is worth your time, too. It’s at www.flagov.com, “Governor DeSantis Delivers Inaugural Address, Sets Priorities for Second Term.” It helps to wash off some of the despair and depravity drenching the citizens of dreadful Joe Biden’s politically polluted nation.
DeSantis said, in part, “We face attacks, we take hits, but we weather the storms, we stand our ground, and we do what is right. As the Book of Psalms reminds us, ‘I will not fear though tens of thousands assail me on every side.’ We have refused to use polls and to put our finger in the wind — leaders do not follow, they lead. We have articulated a vision for a free and prosperous state.”
Contrasting Florida’s concern for its citizens with Biden’s depraved agenda, DeSantis said the federal government “has recklessly facilitated open borders: making a mockery of the rule of law, allowing massive amounts of narcotics to infest our states, importing criminal aliens, and greenlighting the flow of millions of illegal aliens into our country, burdening communities and taxpayers throughout the land.”
DeSantis shows this awareness of the border tragedy even though Florida has no land boundary with another nation, while Arizona has the second-longest along the southern frontier. Only Texas shares a longer boundary with Mexico.
Arizona’s recently departed, somewhat moderately conservative GOP governor, Doug Ducey, didn’t seem to have much enthusiasm for defending border security. He eventually began busing illegal immigrants to the Northeast after he was, in effect, put to shame by Texas GOP Gov. Greg Abbott’s example.
And Ducey’s recent effort at filling a border-fencing gap near Yuma with large shipping containers already reportedly was being removed upon his leaving the statehouse.
For decades Arizona has been under political oppressors who have thrown out and shoved in governors for their agenda. Ducey wasn’t the elite’s favorite governor, but he had some protection by being under the wing of the McCain Machine, which survived the passing of the late U.S. Sen. John.
When what was known as “the Phoenix 40” finally generated widespread disgust, these elitists solved the problem, supposedly, by simply renaming themselves “Greater Phoenix Leadership” — whose influence goes well beyond Phoenix.
It’s not a model of transparency, but its website lays down the establishment’s marching orders. Of course it had a statement telling people to get in line and accept the blatant voter suppression in the 2022 midterm election here. Not exactly in those words, natch, but, you know, condemning –
“. . . those who seek to undermine confidence in our electoral process [and] through disinformation and misinformation demean the over 2.5 million Arizonans who exercised their right to cast a ballot in 2022. While the spirited debate of policy is the lifeblood of our democracy, we must not permit disinformation and detractors to further break down public trust in the system.”
“Further break down public trust”? Whose manipulations began to break it down during the passing years?
Not Susan Q. Voter, who most recently stood in line for maybe three hours in Maricopa County in November 2022, only to be told she should go try a different voting center instead, and when she got there, was told her ballot couldn’t be tabulated there, but trust the county to count it somewhere else and maybe lose the chain of custody, and, by the way, maybe it’ll get commingled with already counted ballots.
One might recall that the 2020 election here was so suspiciously done that a publicly demanded audit followed, despite the catcalls and derision of that same ruling establishment with no interest in a result that displeased it. And the results of that audit, which Maricopa County officials threw up roadblocks against, weren’t even able to be conclusive.
In part, a summary of the audit reported at PJ Media in 2021 said, “. . . batches were not always clearly delineated, duplicated ballots were missing the required serial numbers, originals were duplicated more than once, and the auditors were never provided chain of custody documentation for the ballots for the time period prior to the ballot’s movement into the auditors’ care.
“This all increased the complexity and difficulty in properly auditing the results; and added ambiguity into the final conclusions,” the summary said.
In other words, Joe Biden’s supposed narrow presidential victory in Arizona in 2020 wasn’t even verified despite this examination. But the audit did propose improvements to the election process. Which did nothing to prevent the contrived chaos here in 2022.
The establishment may be getting nervous already over how its forced selection of immature leftist Democrat Katie Hobbs for governor is going. Will she be showing off as Arizona’s own version of Kamala Harris?
The December 5 vote-certification ceremony with the reclusive Hobbs at the State Capitol was closed to the public, as was her January 2 swearing-in ceremony. Hobbs was scheduled to deliver her inaugural address on January 5, the day this hardcopy issue of The Wanderer went to press.
This article was written overnight on January 4-5.
Laurie Roberts, a generally liberal columnist for The Arizona Republic, the state’s largest daily, saw bad signs in Hobbs’ preference for avoiding the public.
Noting that at the January 2 swearing-in, “Hobbs assumed power at 10 a.m. . . . and in her first official act, she decided to take the public’s business private,” Roberts wrote, “She refused to allow reporters to witness the event, granting access only to an AP pool photographer. If that’s a sign of what is to come, it’s going to be a long four years.”
Or maybe not so long. Even if every court turns down Lake’s request to have an honest gubernatorial result from 2022, some conservatives noted that a recall can be started against Hobbs after six months of her first term.
One contributor’s item at the unofficial Arizona “Republican Briefs” blog on January 4 already looked forward to moving ahead with that penalty. He, like a number of other conservatives, posted the incredible video of Hobbs actually laughing as she took the oath of office.
In addition, a sample viewer’s sarcastic reaction at YouTube was: “I don’t always laugh while swearing on the Bible, but when I do it’s when I’m Katie Hobbs. Good luck AZ.” Another, alluding to the wide voter suppression in the election, said, “Is she laughing because she can’t believe she got away with it?”
Said a third, among more than 1,000 comments: “She treats it like a joke because that is how she feels about the people from Arizona.”
Not only Arizona Republic columnist Roberts but the official editorial view of the pro-Hobbs Republic itself already was showing some exasperation, headlining, “Katie Hobbs’ job is to set the tone for Arizona government. So far, she has failed.”
The editorial noted Hobbs’ refusal to disclose which special interests are contributing financially to her inaugural festivities, something they’re not doing out of the goodness of their hearts.
A story at the politically attuned Arizona Capitol Times site said Hobbs’ “reticence to share information about the source and use of the funds, at least for now, is a change from the three previous administrations, which were open with the costs of the inauguration and related events — and the fund-raising efforts needed to throw big bashes without spending too much of the taxpayers’ hard-earned cash.”
The Bleeding Border
It’s not as if pro-abortion extremist Hobbs made a reputation for sober thought during the 2022 campaign. She absolutely had refused to debate her Republican gubernatorial opponent, Lake. And in a reporter’s embarrassing video, Hobbs jumped up and departed, knocking over her drink on the table, when he approached her and dared to ask a question as she ate some fast food outdoors.
In a video posted December 27 at the Citizen Free Press aggregator, Lake said Hobbs is more radical than California Gov. Gavin Newsom. Lake said Arizona already is controlled by the foreign drug cartels and will go to hell in a handbasket under Hobbs.
With the border already wide open, there should be little doubt that the drug criminals have more control there than Joe Biden. Should that lead us to conclude they already have more control than the uncontrollably laughing Hobbs?
While the bleeding border didn’t seem to worry Hobbs much, the New York Daily News reported that she had rushed out her first executive order on January 2, the same day she was sworn in — “strengthening anti-discrimination protections for LGBTQ state employees and contractors.”
Like bumbling Biden and Harris being enthroned by the elite, Arizonans can say the same of this pathetic clown.
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