Friday Fitz Fix

Headlines and one-liners that go over the line

Our Republican legislature

Our grousing do-nothing Republican lawmakers remind me of the beer belching backwoods blowhard who was always rocking on his porch at the end of 27th street and muttering at the sky about “longhairs, fags and comma’nists tearing down our country” loud enough for every kid who walked past to hear.

Today he’d be a right-wing twitter star with 10,000 followers.

Thanks to Governor Katie Hobbs’ veto power our grousing do-nothing Republican lawmakers will do just that with their time in office.

Belch, blow hard and do nothing.

Protecting our school children

Instead of protecting Arizona’s children from homelessness our Republican lawmakers are “itchin’ to save ’em from them woke LGBTQ types with their THC and their AOC”.

Because when it comes to policies to help working families they got zip.

Instead of protecting Arizona’s children from the drug calamity they’re “on a super special sacred mission to rescue ’em from drag queens”.

Because when it comes to policies to help working families they got zero.

Instead of protecting Arizona’s children from prolonged poverty our Republican lawmakers are “itchin’ to save ’em from pronouns”.

Because when it comes to policy to help working families they/them could care less.

Instead of protecting Arizona’s children from lunatics using combat weapons to wage war on our children they’re using vouchers to wage war on our public schools to bankroll their right-wing madrassas.

Because when it comes to educating the children of working families it’s much easier for these nimrods to imagine themselves warriors in a magical crusade against something that isn’t really there than actually working on policies that will benefit the people of Arizona.

Racistzona

When Republican Governor Evan Mecham scuttled King Day and saw nothing wrong with the use of the word “pickaninny” in a text book written by a pal of his, a small town dimwit, I was naive to hope his brand of naked racism would die when his generation of dolts finally turned to dust.

Instead, we’re here in Arizona, 4-decades later, where the Republican Party’s Big Tent is a Big White Hood and I’m just waiting for one of our anti-woke Republican lawmakers from the sticks to tweet it’s a “shame that the term colored ain’t no longer politically correct. What’s with that? Pay no attention to us trying to give away the store to our corporate overlords. Ain’t yew all afraid of what them mezkins, jews, homos and trans kids are doing to ‘Merica? There’s chaos at the urinals!”

Trans

Instead of being horrified at the suicide rate of transgender citizens or the fact that 32% of trans citizens have experienced homelessness our church-going pew-pounders in positions of power have launched an inquisition to torment our fellow citizens who apparently haven’t suffered enough to please Jesus.

Republicans like making the life of trans students miserable. So what if the population is vulnerable, stressed, at risk and too many are suicidal? Such a tiny percentage of the electorate. So few votes. A no-cost scapegoat. What’s a few deaths?

A wadded up sack of Wadsack’s bills

A 29-page law proposed by Tucson Republican Senator, Inquisitor and Predator Hunter, Justine Wadsack will buy you jailtime if you expose a child to a drag show.

I’ll be showing “Mrs.Doubtfire” to a den of scouts tomorrow. Tuesday I’ll be projecting “Some like it Hot” on a mega-church. Come and get me, coppers.

I’m writing a 29-page law making it a crime punishable with jail time if you expose a child to Justine Wadsack unless your students are studying the Spanish Inquisition or the McCarthy era.

Another proposed law would prohibit any government building from hosting a drag show. I’m for it if all lawmakers are required to appear naked when holding hearings to prove they are not in drag. Of course the older male legislators can keep their bras on.

Arizona’s thirst for growth

“We’re Arizona and this is the driest we’ve been in 1,200 years. And we’re just going to get drier. But we’re not going to let that slow us down. Why? Because we’re Arizona, and we are excited about endless growth. Come and see the master planned ghost towns we are building to accommodate that growth! We’re Arizona, where groundwater is finite and consumption is limitless.”

First you’ll thirst for affordable water.

Then you’ll thirst for any water you can get.

Then you’ll thirst for political revenge.

Cochise County

Cochise County, Arizona’s West Virginia with an open pit copper mine, an army post known as “Sorry Vista”, tacky Tombstone and Bisbee, “Arizona’s Brigadoon for the Sixties”, is infested with unhinged MAGA-crazed lunatics.

Like a mule deer with ticks. An Agave teeming with larvae. A prairie dog town with Hantavirus.

Cochise County Recorder, David Stevens, a “Big Lie” gargling gasbag, was just elected by his fellow dupes and suckers to the Office of Elections Director, which means, in addition to being “Trump’s Political Propaganda Minister for all of Petticoat Junction with Tumbleweeds” and Steve Bannon’s “Pet Public Disinformation Officer for the Borderlands”, Stevens will be issuing decress and directives such as requiring that all ballots be hand lettered by monks appointed by Mark “Your Ballots” Finchem on bamboo-free parchment, sealed with the blood of your mother and hand counted by the good sisters of Our Mother of the Hanging Chad in an aluminum foil-lined basement at Mar-a-lago.

Because any fool, any idiot can see voter fraud is as common in Cochise County as Koala Bears in Quartzite.

You’ve been warned. In Cochise County the bullshit is not just in the steer pastures.

I liked Cochise County back in the day when if you heard someone howling at the moon odds were good it was just a coyote and not a County Supervisor.

A Tucson Festival of Books Glossary of all things TFOB

T-robbery: Getting a book at a bargain rate

TFOB-ing: Trekking across the length of the festival

DeFOB-ing: Decompressing, coming down from the high of a book festival.

Bookmark: An author who is an easy target for autograph seekers.

Writer Wrangler: Volunteer

Pulp Hound: Single male festival attendee.

Bodice Ripper: Single female festival attendee

T-Mobster: attendee who is single minded about getting their first edition book signed.

“A real bookcase, that one”: Obsessed book hoarder.

Spine Cracker: Any person who is not properly educated on how to properly handle a book.

Dust jacket: The outer appearance of a festival attendee. One pulp hound, observing an attractive bodice ripper at today’s TFOB, said to his fellow pulp hound, “Get a load of that dust jacket.”

SAY NO TO PANHANDLING SAY YES TO HELPING AGENCIES SERVING THOSE IN NEED LIKE THIS PANHANDLER WHO DOESN’T SEEM TO KNOW THESE AGENCIES EXIST

Pima County’s working to discourage panhandling. How? By not firing people mid-career?

No. By posting signs that read, “SAY NO TO PANHANDLING SAY YES TO HELPING AGENCIES SERVING THOSE IN NEED.”

I propose an edit.

“SAY NO TO PANHANDLING SAY YES TO HELPING AGENCIES WHOSE BUDGETS YOUR LAWMAKERS UP NORTH SLASHED.”

Or this one.

“SAY NO TO EMPTYING MENTAL HEALTH INSTITUTIONS, CHARGING HIGH RENTS, PAYING LOW WAGES AND PERPETUATING A SYSTEM THAT KILLS VETS AND THE POOR.”

How much street poverty are we willing to accept as capitalism’s collateral damage with mental health care for few and no homes for the brave?

NOT WOKE. JUST RIGHT

There’s a Christian church here that advertises itself as “Not woke. Just right.” Because their Jesus wants us to bully and scorn the marginalized. That’s what being an American Christian is all about today and why churches are dying faster than boomers on treadmills.

Dilbert: The strip as dumb as its name

Crappy drawing. Lazy “humor”. Stopped reading it when TV was invented. “Dilbert” is the “Nancy and Sluggo” of office wit. Scott Adams appears to be isolated at his drawing board cocooned in a cyst of right-wing media. Scott’s the Wiley Miller of 2023, soon to be known as “Who?”

Planting season is coming

Next issue I will tell you why you should rip out every water guzzling shrub and plant in your “garden” and why my drought resistant desert garden is the most beautiful Eden any Arizonan can grow

Arizona Attorney General Kris Mayes office revealed some poor bastards in Attorney General Brnovich’s office had to “investigate” the “Cyber Ninja Election Audit Shit Show”. Rotten Tomatoes gave it a score of 3%. Reviewers called it “a poorly produced screwball comedy with less laughs than paper cuts” , “ a celebration of morons” and asked if “this was the long-awaited prequel to ‘Idiocracy’. ”

Later in the week Mayes’ office released released documents proving former Arizona Attorney General Mark Brnovich hid his team’s findings that every single allegation, hint, suggestion or rumor of election fraud was bullshit, bullshit, and surprise, surprise, bullshit. And Brnovich didn’t have the balls to call the bullshit bullshit when it was clearly bullshit and that will be the first sentence in the man’s obituary.

Phoenix Police identified “organic litter” discovered in an arroyo last week as the decomposed remains of Brnovich’s integrity.

Proposed Transporter

Teleportation transporter proposed by progressive Arizonanas

Community groups this past week asked Governor Hobbs to invest in housing, education, daycare and paid leave.

And funding for a teleportation transporter to de-materialize us all and beam us into the next century so we can all be there when it finally happens.

Some sheriffs believe they have the power to override the authority of the federal government, to see the dead, to fly, to see cartoon thought bubbles over liberal’s heads and to nullify laws with a wave of the magic wand given to them by Sheriff Mack. Mack prefers to be addressed as “The Great and All Powerful Constitution Wizard”.

The White Nationalists Anti-Government Sheriff’s Association of Dusty Acres denies any members having ties to the White Nationalist Constitutional Anti-Semitic Sheriffs and Pro-Freedom Peace Officers of Wingnut Junction in Cochise County, Arizona.

“The shipment of contaminated waste continues. “

Could be a standing headline. Good for years. Well beyond the Ohio derailment nightmare. Example:

Kari Lake asks to take her case to the Supreme Court. The shipment of contaminated waste continues.

What’s new at the Legislature today? The shipment of contaminated waste continues.

And this just in from Speaker McCarthy’s House of Horrors and Representatives. The gavel makes it official. The shipment of contaminated waste continues.