“The next six months is going to be intense. We’re going to strap on our seatbelt. We’re going to put on our helmet — or your Kari Lake ball cap. We are going to put on the armor of God. And maybe strap on a Glock on the side of us just in case.” —Kari Lake at a campaign event
“Let’s just say I think there would be a lot of very wet criminals that would have been tossed overboard — not by law enforcement, but by the people whose road they are blocking. If they glued their hands to their car or pavement, it’d probably be pretty painful to have their skin ripped off.” —Sen. Tom Cotton, R-Ark
1.
I read The Devil’s Highway by Luis Alberto Urrea in 2007 where he relates a brutal trek in 2001 by 26 men on foot through the Barry Goldwater Bombing Range between Tucson and Yuma. Only 12 men made it. ”Five men stumbled out of the mountain pass so sunstruck they didn’t know their own names, couldn’t remember where they’d come from, had forgotten how long they’d been lost. One of them wandered back up a peak. One of them was barefoot. They were burned nearly black, their lips huge and cracking, what paltry drool still available to them spuming from their mouths in a salty foam as they walked. Their eyes were cloudy with dust, almost too dry to blink up a tear. Their hair was hard and stiffened by old sweat, standing in crowns from their scalps, old because their bodies were no longer sweating. They were drunk from having their brains baked in the pan, they were seeing God and Devils, and they were dizzy from drinking their own urine, the poisons clogging their systems.”
In the ongoing border saga, my friend Kirk Astroth wrote recently of his experiences delivering much needed water (for Humane Borders) to stations set up in the Sonoran Desert south and west of Tucson. Some people make it but many do not. Most who start the journey have little idea of the harsh terrain they have ahead of them…they are told by unscrupulous “coyotes” that they will only have to walk a short distance to an airport where they will be flown to see their loved ones. They are often abandoned, raped, or robbed and then left to fend for themselves. In truth, finding water is just a small yet important part of the struggle to survive.
2.
In a different scenario involving water in the desert, Cibola, Arizona, a small town just south of Blythe on the Colorado River, got suckered into selling off their water rights nearly a decade ago to Greenstone Resource Partners LLC, a private company backed by global investors. They bought almost 500 acres of agricultural land in Cibola and, in a first-of-its-kind deal, the company recently sold the water rights tied to the land to the town of Queen Creek, a suburb of Phoenix, for a $14m gross profit. More than 2,000 acre-feet of water from the Colorado River that was once used to irrigate farmland is now flowing, through a canal system, to the taps of homes more than 200 miles away.
Greenstone isn’t the only company coveting such water rights. Across the US west, private investors have been scouring rural communities in search of high-priority water rights. In Arizona, Greenstone and firms like it have acquired thousands of acres of irrigable land and their corresponding water rights. People are moving to Arizona in record numbers and seemingly want to ‘live’ in communities that have lawns, swimming pools, golf courses…trying to make it as green as a Michigan lawn.
3.
I haven’t driven back to Kansas since pre-pandemic times, but MANY times have I stared straight ahead on highway 54 from Tucumcari, NM to Liberal, Kansas. The little corner where Kansas, Oklahoma, and Texas are butted together makes for a bit of the zone-o-twilight. This is “God’s Misfits” country, another in a series of deranged anti-government cults. In a convoluted scheme Tifany M. Adams, 54; her boyfriend, Tad B. Cullum, 43; Cora G. Twombly, 44; and her husband, Cole E. Twombly, 50 apparently killed Veronica Butler, 27 and Jilian Kelley, 39 (of Hugoton, KS) over a custody dispute. Tifany (just ONE f, mind you!) Adams is a grandmother who used to be a Republican county chairman. How surprising! The best part: A teenage witness told authorities that Cora Twombly said that at one point, “the plan was to throw an anvil through Butler’s windshield while driving, making it look like an accident because anvils regularly fall off of work vehicles.”
I’m sure a mini-series is now in the works starring Nick Nolte.
4.
Speaking of Kansas, Clay Wirestone of the Kansas Reflector has some words of warning for Arizona voters concerning the abortion brouhaha. “You might think that Democrats would jump on such a clear and appealing message with the alacrity of a starving man encountering an all-you-can-eat buffet. Instead, a political party notoriously bad at politics continued to treat reproductive rights as a hot stove that would scar their candidates with the slightest touch. Kansans opposed the amendment by nearly 20 percentage points in August. Yet voters didn’t show up in overwhelming numbers for Democrats in November. Anti-choice Republicans instead kept their supermajorities in our House and Senate. Cue the sad trombone noise for advocates who expected otherwise.”
Cameron Stevenson reported in the Copper Courier that US Rep. Juan Ciscomani, R-Tucson who, even though he said “As my record shows, I’m a strong supporter of empowering women to make their one healthcare choices and I oppose a national abortion ban,” voted to repeal a national law that allows abortion medication to be delivered by mail, restricting women’s healthcare options. Ciscomani will most likely win his primary in July and looks to be up against Democrat Kirsten Engel, who lost the previous race by only a few thousand votes. Think it’s stupid to vote? Your vote doesn’t count? Having Engel in the seat is a vote for the rights of women.
5.
While we’re on the subject of women’s rights, worth a read is Rebecca Solnit’s piece in the Guardian from early April titled The Republican party has become a full-fledged anti-sex movement. Too many people thought that Roe v Wade wouldn’t really be overturned just like they thought Trump wouldn’t really be elected. The assumption that norms will persist is these days a dangerous obtuseness, whether it’s about climate, domestic policy, society or the international order. While the backlash to Roe’s June 2022 overturning has been spectacular, with Democratic election victories and blue-state legislation strengthening reproductive rights, that doesn’t spare women in red states from the horrific consequences of the decision. The Heritage Foundation, the think tank that serves as a pipeline of hate to Fuckleroy, dedicating significant energy to extremist policy recommendations to deny access to abortion and birth control and to harm LGBTQ people, declared on social media, “Conservatives have to lead the way in restoring sex to its true purpose, & ending recreational sex & senseless use of birth control pills.” They are instrumental in driving toward this goal by striving to take away birth control and abortion to make sex punitively risky for anyone who might get pregnant. Taking away women’s reproductive freedom takes away other freedoms, social, economic and educational, and rebuilds a society of gender inequality, which is clearly the goal. The right has also made noise about ending no-fault divorce and marriage equality, and introduced hundreds of anti-trans bills this year and last.
6.
A piece of ‘space’ debris tore through the roof of a house in Naples, Florida last month, leaving a hole in the floor as well. Officials were scratching their heads and wondering, “Why Florida?”
Which leads to Sen. Rick Scott (R-Fla.), who portrays himself as a fierce opponent of China, declaring, “Since being elected to the U.S. Senate, Senator Scott has introduced dozens of bills to punish Communist China for its increased military aggression, continued cyberattacks on both private companies and U.S. government agencies, unfair trade practices and stealing of data and intellectual property from American citizens and businesses. Stop investing in China. You don’t do business with your enemies.” Bold words, especially coming from a guy who has made MILLIONS from supporting Chinese investment in the United States and personally making money off Chinese commerce.
Maybe that’s “Why Florida?”
And now…