Sustainability -- AZ Republic can't see the Forest because of Burning Garbage

Since converting over to its paywall system of access for its online news and editorial proclamations, our state's largest newspaper seemed to be finding its voice on an issue or two. However, in its lead editorial for Sunday, September 30, the Arizona Republic has suddenly caught a case of laryngitis.

In overanalyzing (nitpicking and finding fault where they want to find fault and ignoring the KOOKY elephants in the room regarding) individual candidates for the Arizona Corporation Commission (ACC), the editorial board (bored?) becomes selectively oblivious to the ramifications of its recommendations.

How quaint the zingers, no doubt devised by the Republic's chief KOOK (and ALEC bottle washer) Doug MacEachern, aimed at Democratic incumbent commissioner Paul Newman.

Newman, meanwhile, is a fierce and provocative partisan. It is difficult to fathom work getting done at the commission with a microphone anywhere within Newman's reach.

Here, the editorial board's own fierce partisan(s) project their counterproductive nature onto Newman. The incumbent has been a fierce and provocative ADVOCATE for developing our state's most abundant renewable energy source (SOLAR) into usable electricity and for protecting the precious air, water and other key resources for the quality of life of Arizonans.

ACC chairman Gary Pierce and incumbent Brenda Burns are NOT up for re-election this year. But if voters succeed in re-electing Bob Stump and putting another former state senate president (Bob Burns) on the commission, that will mean FOUR current or former ALEC members.

Newman is not the only Democratic incumbent unreasonably targeted by this incredibly narrow-sighted action by the Republic. They give Sandra Kennedy a backhanded compliment saying her negotiating skills seem better suited to the state legislature than to the ACC.

The Republic's assessment of Democratic candidate Marcia Busching is legitimate and very much on the mark.

Busching would bring a strong reputation for thorough, studious preparation earned on the Clean Elections commission, another complex public service. She already is almost as versed in Corporation Commission issues as the incumbents.

However, NOWHERE in the editorial does the newspaper address what will actually happen if, in January 2013, the ACC is comprised of Gary Pierce, Brenda and Bob Burns, Bob Stump and Marcia Busching. NOWHERE. And like a lot of what has taken place in Arizona politics over the last few years, the ramifications of an ACC with this membership ARE foreseeable.

In the lead up to the paywall conversion, Republic Media executive vice-president Randy Lovely touted the Republic's role as "your primary source for government accountability and investigations." A welcome development, IF it IN FACT becomes what it wants us to believe it is.

Yet, in THIS editorial, when endorsing Bobs Burns and Stump (there has to be a meme in there somewhere), the Republic BLINDLY claims that Stump is "widely considered the most cerebral current commissioner." If the Republic's ACC beat reporter believes that, he has NOT been paying attention to the action. While Stump boasts a Harvard education on his resume, he is generally the least engaged of the current five commissioners.

When the Arizona Eagletarian reported, earlier this month, on CRONY CAPITALISM that runs rampant at the state capitol, the story included video footage of Bob Stump boasting about the greatness of burning garbage in west Phoenix. Trash Burner Bob Stump's "cerebral" nature thinks it is perfectly acceptable to subject us to breathing smoke generated by burning plastic and other toxic materials into prevailing winds that would carry it over all or most of the Greater Phoenix area and into Eastern Arizona.

For the Republic to report that Jan Brewer has appointed more partisan judges than the previous several governors is nice to know. But what can we do with that information? This year, NOT MUCH. The front page story about Sheriff Arpaio's failure to protect child victims of sex crimes IS something we can use this year. Hopefully, it will help Maricopa County voters recognize the need to replace him.

But for the state's largest newspaper, whose columnists have been decrying the KOOKOCRACY for years (dating back to when Jon Talton still wrote for the Republic), to endorse Trash Burner Bob Stump and Bob Burns (who Brewer also appointed to the Appellate Court Commission on Appointments, which screens applicants for judgeships) is nothing short of journalistic malpractice.