It is time for another Arizona politics bedtime story! Undercover FBI agents running a fake real estate company bought former Tempe City Councilman and current state Representative Ben Arredondo a few thousand dollars’ worth of tickets to baseball and football games. He loved this gesture so very much that in return, “Arredondo brokered meetings between the undercover agents and other public officials, divulged information regarding the city of Tempe’s bidding process, and attempted to persuade other city officials to approve the purported development project,” allegedly, according to the indictment. If it’s this cheap to buy off corrupt Arizona politicians, shouldn’t the local underfunded public school science clubs hold a few dozen bake sales and take the proceeds over to the nearest elected official and get, say, a particle collider to put behind the gymnasium?
Because, come on:
This started in 2009, according to the indictment, when Arredondo had the agents buy tables at charity events a couple of times, and then Arredondo would choose who got to sit at those tables.
Then Arredondo hit up an Arizona Cardinals game, courtesy of the “company”/FBI, followed by four tickets to see the New York Yankees in a playoff game in Los Angeles, then 18 Arizona Diamondbacks tickets, and finally, two tickets to a college basketball game between Duke and Michigan State, the indictment says.
The grand total of the charity tables and the tickets: Around $6,000.
Meanwhile, Arredondo was working with city officials to make the deal happen, at one point saying the company would have “continued support” when he transitioned from the council to the House.
“You guys will ask, you guys will have,” Arredondo’s quoted as saying. “I don’t know how else to say it. We’ll be just fine because not only [are we] covered at the city, we’re covered now at the state.”
Clever! And now Arredondo, a Republican turned Democrat, may end up paying a $1 million fine with some prison time, for his sports tickets. [Phoenix New Times]
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I wonder if he will be the pitcher or the catcher in prison?
Tight end.
In the valley of the tight end?
Not for long.
He'll be a switch hitter. As a Republican turned Democrat he's been working both sides of the plate for awhile.
And WTF, a Dem in Tempe? I thought they were all in Tucson.
Is there a college in Tempe, too? University of Phoenix or something?
Can't tell if you're joking, but it is the home of the gigantic ASU.
Wait til after the 7th inning stretch. God bless America, indeed.
He'll be helping a lot of inmates get to 3rd base, that's for sure.
Hahaha! Prison rape jokes are just the funniest thing EVER, especially since it's only bad people being raped! Rape is hilarious when it happens to bad people!
Oh come on, look me in the eye and tell me that if you somehow wandered into an alternate universe where Bush and Cheney had been impeached in 2007 by a Democratic Congress and turned over to Den Haag and ended up being convicted of war crimes that you wouldn't crack a bit of smile when they were thrown into a cell with a bunch of horny, and not very particular, Serb militiamen.
You might be surprised to learn that prisons in Northern Europe aren't run by the inmates like those in America.
Except for a couple of wings of the Maze for a few decades.
While the Europeans don't have the same attitude that prisons should (a) be a profit source for private corporations and (b) be made as ghastly as possible and therefore no attempt may be made to prevent inmates from suffering dehumanizing brutality on a daily basis, there's nowhere on earth where it's a safe place to be.
For example: "All Inmates of a prison for prisoners awaiting trial (Bordeaux, France) were eligible for this cross-sectional study. 375 inmates have been face-to-face interviewed by an experienced psychologist … Of them, 24% were victim of physical violence at least once a month and 10% perpetrated physical violence at least once a month."
What sport does Arpaio enjoy?
I don't think driving Mexicans out to a remote part of the desert and shooting them in the back of the head is considered a sport…even in AZ.
Bullfighting. But the Mexican bullfighter has to be wearing pink jailhouse garb and doesn't get a sword. And there are five bulls.
It's not nice, and apparently illegal, to obviously do politics in the way it's actually done. Duke Cunningham taught us this. You have to have PACs and chiefs-of-staff and campaign committees. If you just take the lucre yourself, it doesn't look that good.
The reason every NFL and MLB and NBA city is golden-showering taxpayer money on team owners to buy facilities for their teams is that politicians lust after luxury box tickets like junkies after crack cocaine. Wouldn't have thought the moral pollution extended all the way to Tempé.
One of the many things which makes me proud of my adopted city is that the SF Gigantes' AT&T park didn't use public money.
Man, AT&T must have got us cheep and paid SF the big bucks; here the city just renamed the subway station at the stadiums to AT&T station.
In random London history, Tottenham football club still hate Arsenal for getting a tube station renamed back in 1932.
Hey Fukui! What's up with the super cool name, lol.
I'm gonna still hate Chelsea if they beat München on Saturday.
Nah, they just got the land for next to nothing and a massive tax abatement. So it just used public assets, not money.
Heck, Eddie DeBartolo would have built the Niners a new stadium with no dedicated long term public funds – he just wanted a tax free shopping mall on sight and a low interest loan in the form of bonds to hold him over. Of course that was before he got popped trying to buy off people in Louisiana (and how out there do you have to be to get popped for corruption there?)
Oh, I knew the advantageous terms they got the land on, but let's be fair and say that the regeneration of the area around AT&T was probably a decent deal.
The new 49ers thing is a boondoggle, and as for the new Warriors and A's crap … well. Business as usual, it seems.
I was talking about the old 49ers thing (the whole moving to Santa Clara unless we get a new home is a boondoggle I agree). Back in 97-98, the voters actually approved a bond that would have supported a stadium at no direct public funding (since it would have all theoretically been raised from buyers on the market and eventually repaid) but Eddie got in trouble before he could get all the other pieces in place. Then Steve Young and Jerry Rice went down in rapid succession, the team went in the crapper and the Yorks didn't want to spend any money.
At least the other issues the Niners bond helped (mainly a bond for the Zoo) went ahead as planned.
How nice…
…meanwhile, I am praying that my adopted city does not give us a double whammy of using public tax funds (and I am counting tax credits as public funds–money has to be made up somewhere, and don't tell me the stadium will be a money maker) AND placing it in downtown Los Angeles (just what the area needs–yet more congestion)…
Um, is $6000 considered a lot of money in Arizona?
I thought they used bullets for currency in Arizona.
Have you seen their houses?
How do the giant bug aliens fit in those shacks?
Arizona, District 9, has favelas now. Didn't you hear?
EDIT: Which reminds me of one of my favorite Nick Cave songs
Am I the only one who found that Dad bug alien who was trying to fix the spaceship totally sympathetic and relatable? That movie made me so weepy.
Well, that's exactly 24153.15 Ameros.
Yes. Yes, it is. We eat dirt and cactus thorns here at least twice a week for dinner. Six grand (grande?) buys a lot of tacos (from the drive thru shack that we all know employs undocumented workers, but the food is just too damn good to call ICE on them).
It's not the money. It's the thought (corruption) that counts. This fucker is toast. Way to go FBI!
Just a few dinners and ball games? He could've gotten way more if he'd just played it a little more coy before he let the feds fuck him.
Sports tickets? Without any gay hookers, wet suits or Truck Nutz abuse I give this scandal a D-. Ben, you are a disappointment in so many ways.
He scored tickets to Michigan State-Duke? Cool.
Risk going to jail over Michigan State-Duke?? That seems enough to justify an insanity plea.
Oh, God, why couldn't this have been Jan Brewer or Trent Franks or (Fill in the Blank)? A former Tempe city councilman is like an ex-deputy Maricopa County clerk. Hell, it could have at least been a Mesa city councilperson.
That's great, because it makes it easier to weed out the shameless grifters.
You mean Trent "Wood Eye" Franks?
Yeah, Congressman Weak-eyed Hair Lips.
Weird. I mean, he doesn't LOOK unbelievably stupid at all.
Oh! This is all "according to the indictment"!!!!
That's so Lamestream Media. Reporting based on indictments instead of something you maybe saw on the Internet.
Fox News: Obama accused of hiding gay kiddie porn dungeon in Lincoln Bedroom [according to some lunatic in Florida]
You don't start your chain with Fox. First, get one of the smaller sources (newspaper, radio, television – does not matter) to raise the issue first. Then, Fox News can say "media reports are surfacing of Obama blah blah blah".
Because we all know that if there's something that Phoenix needs then it's more shitty overpriced housing.
Enjoy jail, man with lower-case eyes.
"And now Arredondo, a Republican turned Democrat…"
Do Republitards offer a return policy?
He became a Democrat on Fox after the indictment was handed down.
Isn't one of the Palin offspring an Arizona resident now? Someone should set them up together.
I think she moved back home and to try abstaining from sex.
for amerikkka
"New York Yankees in a playoff game in Los Angeles, then 18 Arizona Diamondbacks tickets, and finally, two tickets to a college basketball game between Duke and Michigan State, the indictment says."
Um, why did the shitty college sports that nobody cares about seal the deal, after the tickets to real games that people actually want to go to apparently weren't good enough?
You obviously don't know about college sports. A Duke-MSU game is a Big Fucking Deal, let me tell you, especially if you want to compare them to any pro team out of Arizona. The Yankees? Yeah, you might have a point.
but why oh why does some Arizona douchebagel want Duke-MSU tickets?
If it was the 2011 game, it was at MSG in New York in a pre-season tourney. It was also coach K's win that put him past Bob Knight. So for any douche who considers themselves a basketball fan it might be a big deal. Sorta like Morimoto taking on Batali in Battle Fat Bastard.
Now you're making a metaphor I can understand.
Well, that and any game between two teams of such high national caliber is a good game, regardless. But, I'm a Spartan fan, so I'm a little biased. That said, I think some folks forget just how unpopular pro-sports are in areas of the country with major college sports dynasties. I mean, the Pistons wish they still had a following like MSU or even UofM.
Now, now.
Play nice.
(It's not like he went to a Red Sox game.)
Really? The Cardinals? What a crappy football team to go to jail over.
Usually, attending a Cardinals game is the result of a plea bargain. You're doing it WRONG!
The idiot should have been ejected from the park after this moronic incident. I am just as disappointed in the security at the park as well. The fan SHOULD have been ejected rather than allowed to return to his seat to possibly try it again and perhaps harm or kill someone else. Security SHOULD have bard him for re-entering the park for the All-Star game if he had tickets, and for the rest of the season at least. Shame on the fan, and shame on the security officers for a total lack of judgement on both parts.
OK, I'll bite. What the fuck are you talking about?
Maybe he's Roy S. from Phoenix? (Scroll to comments.)
I think this might be an example of why helmets should be mandatory for people who insist on playing full body contact croquet, other than that… WTF???
Security SHOULD have bard him
When Salas strives some ball’s vast weight to throw,
The line, too, hitters and the words move slow.
Not so when swift Sandoval scours the plain,
Flies o’er th’unbending field, and skims along the main.
Wtf are you talking about, anyway?
Do there see I what you.
Took me until the second reading to get it though. Damn you brainautocorrect.
Iambic pentameter ftw.
My brain read what the OC meant, not what they wrote, so I kinda missed your inspiration.
Dude I thumbed you up for being a passionate moron.
There was nothing else to do. It's incoherent insanity, but it's passionate incoherent insanty.
Wow,this comment is SO "from left field" (maybe right field??). Why, it's almost Meta…but what, oh what is the Meta FOR?
I'm pretty outraged or something!
Rabble rabble!
Rubarb rubarb!
I am thinking he is a plant by the republicans trying to make democrats look worse than they already do to most of the dried up old prunes who retired from the Midwest in Arizona. He gets a slap on the wrist and some generous donor puts a few bucks in the Caymans for him.
He's takin' one for the team. He'll do his time quietly and they'll set him up after he gets out. He's Mr Blonde, fer fuck's sake.
"Take me out to the ball game,
Take me out to the (private) box.
Score me some hookers and cracker jack,
I don't care what you get back,
Let me root, root, root for the home team,
You get what you want that's the game.
For it's one, two, three wire taps you're caught,
At the old ball game."
Well, I almost had a Pithy Comment all ready to go, but then I suddenly realized that I really don't give a rat's ass about any of this. So, I'll just post this age old question in musical form.
There was an interview with Wes Anderson, where he was talking about Seu Jorge's version of "Rock 'n Roll Suicide". He said "which one of those words was 'cigarette', exactly?"
Really good point. I don't even remotely understand Portuguese, but I love Seu Jorge's Bowie versions and when I'm listening to them I couldn't give a fuck about the lyrics. Go figure.
Here's another
I like to imagine that his voice is an alto clarinet, just cold blendin' in with the nylon string guitar. It's magical.
That's as fine a description as I've heard. I don't have anything close to him anywhere in in my collection.
I hear "cigarro" fairly clearly.
They crack me up.
cant find the tabs any where :(
How 'bout just the chords?
Thanks!
I've had "Quicksand" stuck in my head all day, as a result of that "Golden Dawn" thread from last night. I listened to it about 6 times today at work, BUT IT'S STILL FUCKIN THERE. Maybe if I bang it out on the guitar…
Thumbs up for Seu Jorge. Glad to see other fans.
Yes, my deleted comment was deleted.
If those kids have brownies with the pecans stuck on top I'll get a dozen, I need some damn chocolate, I am so depressed.
How about some nice chewy brownies with walnuts throughout and some rich chocolate frosting on top with a nice tall glass of ice cold milk? Good grief, now I'm jonesing. Good thing there's leftover M-day candy.
It took three years and $6,000 worth of tickets to get one one ex-councilman from Tempe. They must hate to have to work–thinking of the easy days in Illinois with Rod Blagojevich trying to sell everything he could think of
What a cheap slut.
Reminds me of Dean Zimmerman, a Minneapolis councilman from the Green Party. Guy got a two-year prison sentence in 2006 after accepting like $7,200 in cash from a local developer who turned out to have been working with the FBI all along (Dean claims he was going to use the money to build a retaining wall on some property in his district, and thought he was being given a charitable contribution). I knew both him and his wife pretty well – a good guy but a little too trusting and I suspect a little bit of a Robin Hood complex.
You couldn't bribe a Seattle pol like that. The Mariners suck.
Maybe our non-existent NHL/NBA team won't?
This was a part-time job for the FBI. They certainly weren't working on this full-time with a bunch of agents. The idea was to keep certain guys busy and slap one asshole real hard so as to serve as a warning for the rest of the politicos whom they know are easily tempted. They can't catch them all or the system would collapse! So, they set up a few to keep the others careful.
Finally, good old American know-how has created a truly affordable politician that nearly anyone can own. FTW!
Every time I read one of these petty corruption stories I recall the late great Speaker of the California Assembly, Jess Unruh. "If you can't eat their food, drink their booze, screw their women and then vote against them, you have no business being up here."
This is good news for that old mexican-hating fuck Arpaio.
He looks like he's thinking about the time he sniffed a girl's (boy's?) underwear.
Those lowered lids say, "Ah, what a bouquet!"
Why are these people so fucking disgusting? They can't even be good whores.
Baseball isn't a very good sport anyway.
"Show me on the iPad where the bad man touch.wonkette.com/wonkette/-ed you."
It's true, no one touches my junk like Wonkette does.
For other uses, see Rat (disambiguation).
I just hope those weren't Mets tickets he was after, because then he really sold himself short.
Hey now, Mets tickets may be easy to get, but at least they're not Cleveland.
think I'll forward this my friends on our council. I do believe they are honest or at least would not be bought out for less than a million
I add- a local politician just said that a married couple making $150,000 isn't rich(she is against raising taxes). Well, maybe not in the big scheme of rich people but if my husband and I had ever made $150,000(and we live in the same area)- I would have thought we were doing pretty darn well. Wonder if she got any baseball tickets or lots of cash from the rich(or not rich)
Proving once and for all that stupid and crooked crosses all Party lines.
Wait a minute, the FBI was involved? How come this guy didn't end up buying a Stinger missile and a bunch of fake C-4 explosives from them, so he could blow up the Hoover Dam Bypass Bridge or something?
Standards at the FBI have really fallen. This clearly Obama's fault.
" And now Arredondo, a Republican turned Democrat, may end up paying a $1 million fine with some prison time, for his sports tickets."
Good grief, give him back to the Republicans.
Kirsten:
That would make a great movie! A poor community with terrible schools can't get government help so it pretends to be a crime organization to bribe politicians to improve itself.
We can call it The Mouse That Whimpered.
Anyone who so lusts after watching grown men hit a ball around with a stick probably shouldn't be making important decisions anyway.
Can of corn!
I dunno…you seem to hold things up pretty securely.
1 corrupt politician down… only… umm… I lost count… left to go…. anybody?
It's a good thing most Arizona politicians are dumb, otherwise they might get offended if they thought about why the Tempe City Government building is an upside down pyramid!
I don't know why, Barb, but I am now envisioning you as being VERY close to all those athletes …
Tribute to your daughters and our friend Radio is all.
Hope everything is good.
Everything was great until 2 minutes ago when Jeff told me that there will be a total solar eclipse here on Sunday, LOL! That kinda shit freaks me out.
That's very sweet of you, thank you. I am very much honored.
When are the rest of you guys going to change your names too?
Not sure how good TrampnBarbdown would sound.
I'm open to changing my name but not sure what would look good:
HistoriBarb
RadioBarbcat
Historadiobarb
They just don't sing!
It won't be total. Annular. About 85 to 90 percent coverage. Depending on where you are you will see a big black thing in front of the sun from an angle or a brilliant ring with the moon in the middle. Be sure to be safe and don't look directly at it. Even the ring is enough to cause damage. Poke a hole in a piece of card stock and then project the Sun's image through that hole onto a white surface.
Considering my name literally translates to "Do the Fox," I'm not so sure how Barb would sound wedged in there.
I kinda like it. : )
I think we had a commenter here named "Tinfoil Hat."
He could change that to "Tinfoil Barb," but that would be kinda fishy.
I can't be Barb, I jinx everybody whose name I steal. Just look wut happened to poor Christine O'Dummy.
So, how'd that game go for MSU?
I'm pretty sure we've found the next Grantland Rice, here.
Moar Sports Reporting, Fukui-etc.
Damn. I can't find that absolutely hilarious monologue from Don DeLillo's The Day Room which describes how best to safely view a solar eclipse. My Bing-fu is weak.
Thanks, Steverino!
You are horrible. lol
I usually make up filthy lyrics to help me deal with Earworms. They don't go away, but they become more fun.
Guess I don't have to google that score.
Historibarb sounds good.
Do the Barb. Duh
Bing gives weak fu.
They'll do 'em like the sausage-munchers they are.
(I hope)
Think anybody has taken a swing at Ratko yet?
I doubt it.
And, come to think of it, Bordeaux is only marginally Northern European.
Given Bayern's recent play, I wouln't bet against you.
No, because the detention unit for the ICTY is run with considerably more focus on inmate safety than the rest of the Dutch prison system. Yes, I acknowledge that's quite relevant to this thread, but it does mean it's inappropriate to generalize from there to all of Northern Europe.
Well, true, but given the choice I'd much rather be imprisoned in Bordeaux than Warsaw.
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