Arizona Has Charged a Bunch of Trump-Allied Buffoons in the State's Fake-Elector Scheme

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(Permanent Musical Accompaniment to This Post.)

Being our (belated) semi-regular survey of what's goin' down in the several states, where, as we know, the real work of governmentin' gets done, and where the sun comes shining on that little Minnesota town.

We begin with the good news from Arizona, where they apparently have indicted everybody in Arizona except the roster of the Phoenix Coyotes in the fake-electors scam. From NBC News:

Trump is described as "Unindicted Coconspirator 1" in the indictment, which includes charges of conspiracy, fraud and forgery. The document also describes people who have been charged in the case but have not yet been served and whose names are redacted: Meadows, Trump's former White House chief of staff; Giuliani, the former New York City mayor and Trump attorney; Epshteyn, a Trump campaign official and attorney; former Trump campaign and White House official Mike Roman; former Trump attorney Jenna Ellis; former Trump attorney Christina Bobb; and John Eastman, another attorney and Trump legal adviser in the aftermath of the 2020 election.

Whoo, doggies, that's a whole troop of buffoons right there. For example, you will note that among them is Mike Roman, the guy who tried to derail Fani Willis's prosecution in Georgia over a distraction about her love life. Three other Arizona indictees are also indicted in that prosecution, not that it was a national conspiracy or anything. Also, the grand jury reaped a rich harvest among Arizona Republicans.

Also among those charged in Arizona is Kelli Ward, who served as chair of the Arizona GOP during the 2020 election and the immediate aftermath. She tweeted on Jan. 6, 2021, after the attack on the U.S. Capitol: "Congress is adjourned. Send the elector choice back to the legislatures." Ward was a Trump elector and a consistent propagator of false claims that Arizona's election results were rigged. Others charged along with Ward as "fake electors" were: state legislators Anthony Kern and Jake Hoffman; Michael Ward, Kelli Ward's husband; Tyler Bowyer, the Republican National Committee's Arizona committeeman and the chief operating officer of the Trump-aligned Turning Point USA; Greg Safsten, the former Arizona GOP executive director; former U.S. Senate candidate Jim Lamon; Robert Montgomery, the former head of the Cochise County GOP; and Republican Party activists Samuel Moorhead, Nancy Cottle and Loraine Pellegrino.

Oh, Kelli Ward. You should have stuck to keeping us safe from chemtrails.

We move east to west Texas, where we find a place where democracy has passed away from neglect. From the Texas Tribune:

There is no living memory of the last contested election in Kennard. And the Texas Secretary of State, which oversees most elections, does not keep records on municipal races. As many Texans head to the polls for city council and school board elections May 4, most voters in Houston County—where Kennard is located—will not have a chance to vote. Their local elections have been canceled due to a lack of contested races.

A dearth of competitive elections can point to a struggling democracy, said University of Texas at Austin political scientist Sean Theriault. However, that's not the only way to look at what is happening in Kennard. Uncontested elections also can signify that "you have really experienced people that know how to balance the books and make a city run and function," Theriault said. Although Lamb has heard grumblings from some community members, and there may be an occasional disgruntled social media post, nobody has taken enough issue with the city to challenge a sitting council member.

Not quite 400 people live in Kennard. It has no police department of its own, and it has a volunteer fire department. Its annual budget is $57,000. Maybe they're all happy with the situation. Or maybe not.

Kennard was founded in the early 1900s around a lumber mill and a railroad. It was officially incorporated as a city in 1969. Downtown was bustling with small businesses and it was easy to find employment in town. Curry's Grocery used to sit in the heart of the city and boasted a drive-in theater. The roads Kennard was founded on have withered and shrunk as the forest reclaims the land. Today, there are few local businesses, making gainful employment difficult to find inside city limits. Residents not involved in agriculture or lumber must seek work in the surrounding communities. They find it in Crockett, which is about 15 minutes to the west, or in Lufkin, about half an hour east. The lumber mill burned down in August. It is the role of the city to encourage growth, but there also has to be interest in opening businesses in Kennard, Lamb said. He loves his role on City Council but worries he won't see his community return to its glory before it's his time to go.

Lamb used to worry about who he could approach to take his seat when the time comes. That sunny day 18 years ago occasionally flashes in his mind when he thinks about Westbrook. But the more he thinks about who will come after him, the less he wants to know. "Don't answer that for me, Lord," Lamb said. "Because I know I might be gone tomorrow."

And so say we all. These days, anyway.

There's an entirely different event unfolding in Idaho, where the state's Democrats found someone to run against a state representative who once sponsored a bill prohibiting cannibalism and who removed the fire alarm in her office because she thought someone was watching her through it. Let's hear it for Rep. Heather Scott, who is amazingly weird even for an Idaho Republican. And let's hear it for Loree Peery, the Democratic candidate who is trying to replace Scott in an election in which, for the first time in 30 years, Democrats are contesting every seat in the legislature.

Democrats feel emboldened by the GOP supermajority's obsession with culture war issues like enacting a strict abortion ban, attacking LGBTQ+ rights and proposing jailing librarians over violating book bans. They also see bitter infighting between the conservative and moderate flanks of the GOP as an opportunity to present voters with a different vision for the future of the state. Idaho was thrust into the national culture war debate again this week when the Supreme Court allowed state officials to temporarily enforce a ban on gender-affirming care, reinvigorating opposition to the law that was passed last year.

It is not likely that the Democrats will be able to develop any real power in the legislature in the short term, or even in the medium term. But finding people to run is often the very first step in regaining a semblance of balance of political power. Politics, like life, is 90 percent showing up.

One of the more promising developments in a season when they are passing rare is happening in the South, where the United Auto Workers scored a huge victory in Tennessee. They now have moved on to Alabama and North Carolina, where, if they can win either vote, it will be the longest winning streak for organized labor below the Mason-Dixon since god was a boy. From The New York Times:

North Carolina has never been hospitable to organized labor, and the midnight strike at the North American subsidiary of the German industrial giant Daimler Truck has been greeted with trepidation by the state's Democratic establishment, which has long tried to project a moderate, pro-business bent. But Shawn Fain, the U.A.W.'s brash new president, doesn't much care."We don't expect politicians to save the day, but at the end of the day, politicians have an obligation to the people that elect them," he said in an interview on Thursday, adding: "It's our generation-defining moment. This is a time where politicians need to pick a side." ... To the U.A.W., a successful strike in the state with the second-lowest percentage of union workers in the country is vital. The six-week work stoppage at the three largest U.S. automakers last fall secured the largest pay raises in decades.

That helped propel U.A.W. organizers into the nonunionized South, where workers at a Volkswagen plant in Tennessee voted overwhelmingly last week to join the union, a breakthrough that created a beachhead for union organizers. Daimler Truck North America is unionized, but U.A.W. officials want to win record wage gains at Daimler's plants in Mount Holly, Cleveland, High Point and Gastonia, N.C., and parts distribution centers in Atlanta and Memphis ahead of an organizing vote next month at Mercedes-Benz in Alabama.

It's pretty obvious by now that Shawn Fain don't play. He got the president onto a picket line last September, and he seems indomitable in the pursuit of his goals. Local North Carolina Democrats have to do what they have to do. Fain is outside the party political system, but using it to his own purposes. Note to desk editors: "brash" is about 93rd on the list of what he is.

And we conclude, as is our custom, in the great state of Oklahoma, whence Blog Official Dread Pirate Buckaroo Friedman of the Plains brings us the further adventures of Ryan Walters, the strangest human in American politics. Public Radio Tulsa went spelunking through Walters's cyberpast, and what treasures they found there.

The now deleted Tweets published on X are from the controversial official's years as a history teacher at McAlester High School. The bulk now archived online were posted between 2019 and 2020. According to the posts, Walters encouraged discussion about HBO's "Game of Thrones," a show known for its sexual content. Common Sense Media, a nonprofit that rates shows based on whether or not they're suitable for children, describes "Game of Thrones" as an epic series that "frequently depicts gory, brutal battles and graphic acts of violence (including against children and women), as well as lots of nudity and sexual acts, including incest, orgies, and sexual violence against multiple female characters."

This would sound fairly benign, if Walters hadn't made a public crusade against books about gay penguins and gay people in the state's school libraries.

Fassino participated in the predictions and wrote on her paper that Tyrion Lannister, a character in the show, was the "god of tits and wine."

Is our children learning?

This is your democracy, America. Cherish it.

Charles P. Pierce

Charles P Pierce is the author of four books, most recently Idiot America, and has been a working journalist since 1976. He lives near Boston and has three children.