Fitzer's Index

The numbers that count for a lot.

Number of times my dad, the Master Sergeant, back in the age of Sputnik and black and white TV would call the Republican National Convention on the Magnavox a clown show: 17,676 times

Number of times J. D. Vance said “Trump is a Hitler”: 1

Number of times J. D. Vance said “I am happy to serve as Hitler’s Vice-President”: 0

Amount Kamala Harris' campaign raised day after Biden announced he would not be running: $100 million

Chances Peter Thiel and Elon Musk will use Trump for good: 0

Number of times I’ve called “Project 2025” the Christian Right’s “Mein Kampf”: 2,025 times

Percentage of Arizona’s labor force that are immigrants: 16%

The Daily Agenda: Fact-checking border soundbites

Amount of income immigrants spend in Arizona: $28 billion

Amount of income immigrants pay in taxes: $9 billion

Number of years Trump paid no taxes: Many

The following numbers are from the reporting of Capitol Media Services’ Howard Fischer, a truly great journalist:

Amount Gallego’s Senate campaign has hauled in for his race so far: $30.6 million

Amount Kari Lake’s Senate deluded narcissist campaign scammed rubes out of: $10 million

Amount Gallego’s campaign collected in last quarter: $9.4 million

Amount looney tunes hauled in last quarter: $4.4 million

Amount according to AdImpact that will be spent on political advertising in Arizona: $821 million

In bribes and kickbacks: TBD

Number of times I’ve seen stats like that in “Harper’s Index”: 0 times

The number of early ballots returned in Pima County as of Monday: 55,870

Polling points by which Arizona Sen. Mark Kelly outperformed President Joe Biden in a Presidential race in battleground states: 5 polling points

Number of years employees of the largest housing provider for unaccompanied migrant children in the U.S. repeatedly sexually abused and harassed children in their care: At least eight

Deaths in Maricopa County attributed to heat in 2023: 645.

Bob Newhart’s age when died: 94

Joe Biden’s actual age: 312

Temperature Arizonans like to keep their AC: 78°

Number of degrees offered by Trump University: 78 degrees

Day the Republican Party died: January 6th, 2020

Number singing “bye, bye, Miss American pie”: 0

Percentage of Arizona that has no regulations over the pumping of groundwater: 80 %

Number of years under state law, all new developments need to have the water department certify that it has enough water: 100 years

Percentage of voters believed the state is running out of water: 60%

Number of times I say to hell with it and take a long shower and soak my desert garden: 6 out of 10

Number of times I have vowed to give up caffeine and failed: 211

Number of times I have vowed to give up caffeine and failed today: 211

Amount of grant dollars Tucson Unified School District received from the Arizona Department of Economic Security to aid students in the district who are Afghan refugees: $600,000

Years Tucson street car has been in service: 10-years

Years I have never farted while riding on Tucson street car: 10-years

Mayor Bob Walkup kickstarted it decades ago. He died recently and his wife Beth Walkup followed him this past month into the eternal light rail ride. I came to know and love them both the day after Bob left office. Within days he had us to dinner and showed us his cool rebuilt VW surfer van and we laughed and over Beth’s amazing feast handed me my own copper letter signed by him. Couldn’t do it while in office. One of the very last acts. Beth came from a family of mid-western Mayors. They both led remarkable lives devoid of conflict. Good people. Number of times observed to be a couple in love: Always

China is building an insane amount of wind and solar. Every week the Chinese build enough wind and solar to equal the output of five nuclear power stations. Five. 5. F-i-v-e.

Number of Chinese who believe climate change is real: 1,400,000,000

Arizona’s budget shortfall thanks to the cash sucking Black Hole known as the Empowerment Scholarship Account, ESA, or the universal vouchers scam : $1.4 billion

The year the university adopted the name “UArizona” for its public postings: 2019

The number of minutes after the UA announced it would begin using ‘UArizona’ that an entry to the Tucson Sentinel's internal stylebook was added, calling it a "hellish abomination of a marketing abbreviation that was emphatically scoffed at within 17 seconds in this newsroom”: 14 minutes

The year Senator Mark Kelly, the dashing astronaut who resembles Charlie Brown, was born: 1964

Original official estimate by Republicans of the cost of their universal vouchers proposal: $65 million

Actual cost: $332 million.

Additional cost this year: $429 million

Number of people In Maricopa County, who died last year as a result of methamphetamine use and heat exposure: 330

Number of years it took for the number of deaths attributed to meth and heat to triple: 3

The amount of taxpayer dollars spent on non-educational spending approved without any academic justification: $100 million

Number undocumented immigrants in the country in 2022: 11 million

Number of immigration agents required to roundup the millions of people Trump promises to deport : 100,000

Percentage who have been in the country for more than a decade: 80%

Amount of insufficient funds Congress provided to detain an average of 41,500 human beings every day in 2024: $3.4 billion.

Three other politicians performed the strongest alongside Mark Kelly:

1. Maryland Gov. Wes Moore

2. Pennsylvania Gov. Josh Shapiro

3. Michigan Gov. Gretchen Whitmer

Number of people struck by lightning in Arizona every year : 16 to 30.

According to the Arizona-Sonora Desert Museum, Rank of the Marana area among “lightning capitals of the world.”: Number 1

By 2050 average number of days per year people in Phoenix are projected to experience temperature over 110.0ºF: 47

According to 538 Trump wins the 2024 presidential election in simulations 51 times out of 100. Biden wins 48 times out of 100.

There is a less than 1-in-100 chance of no Electoral College winner.

Number of Sandhill cranes estimated to be visiting southeastern Arizona for the fourth year in a row: 42,200

Number of times I’ve called Kari Lake a “Christian Nationalist unhinged Big lie believing-Trump-worshipping-Phoenix-Fox-News-nitwit-in-drag”: 0

Vice president who set a new record for the most tie-breaking votes cast by a vice president in American history: Vice President Kamala Harris

Settlement won for students and veterans taken advantage of by a for-profit education company by California Attorney General Harris. $1.1 billion

Number of votes Republican consultant Barrett Marson noted Kari Lake won over with her RNC speech: 0

Number of atheists like myself praying for Steven Benson: 2,341,657,001. Hang in there, best cartoonist ever. You are the best at finding the exploding duck, every day.

Number of times I’ve watched the touching video of Wildlife officials relocating beautiful stressed mountain lion caught at Tucson Medical Center: 27662

Number of times I’ve mistakenly watched videos featuring cougars on cams from Sun City: 27

Number of times she believed me when I said it was a mistake: 0