It is almost February of 2023, and yet the 2022 gubernatorial election rages on in Arizona. This weekend, Republican Kari Lake hosted a rally for the faithful at which she took a call from Donald Trump on stage. That should help boost her profile, not to mention her fundraising for an endless stream of legal challenges after a narrow loss to now-Governor Katie Hobbs.
The failed candidate’s imaginary government in exile is being propped up by Steve Bannon, who knows a good grift when he sees one. Lake and Pillow Puffer Mike Lindell recently visited the putrefying podcaster to complain that Republican National Committee Chair Ronna Romney McDaniel won’t meet with her.
“You shouldn’t have to reach out to Ronna McDaniel. You’re the frickin’ governor of Arizona. You just won in an incredibly tough race because you stood for policies that MAGA stands for. She should be blowing your phone up every day,” Bannon blustered.
Just look at these bloody idiots marching for their has-been never-was hero.
Buoyed by the Bannon toxic filth firehose, Lake has filed one garbage lawsuit after another in her search for “one judge that loves the Constitution and loves this country.” She even managed to get her lawyers, including Alan Dershowitz, sanctioned by a federal judge for spamming the court with a sack of crap that “no reasonable attorney” would have filed. And she’s not done yet, because, by God, this woman is going to get to the statehouse if she has to burn down the entirety of Arizona’s body politic to do it!
And she’s attracting help — errrr, make that “help” — from some unlikely quarters. Meet Ryan Heath, an anti-vax activist who likens his anti-mask protests to Rosa Parks and the Montgomery bus boycott. Now don’t get too attached because (Spoiler Alert!) we ain’t keeping this mangy puppy longer than it takes to point and laugh in this blog post.
Our Ryan graduated from law school in 2020, so he knew he was just the guy to bring it home for “Governor” Lake. So on January 12, Heath marched into Arizona’s Supreme Court and filed a petition for writ of mandamus on his own behalf against the Honorable Peter A. Thompson. That’s right — he sued the trial judge.
Friends, when I tell you this case is idiotic …
Heath wasn’t a party to Lake’s case, in which she sued then-Secretary of State Katie Hobbs demanding that the judge toss out Maricopa County’s vote results and decertify the November 2022 election. Lake actually got her day in court, during a two-day trial, after which her claims were dismissed. She appealed, but the appeal has not been fast tracked so the case should be decided sometime in the middle of Gov. Hobbs’s first term. Nevertheless, Heath is sure that the loss was only because Lake’s lawyers failed to “live up to the ethical duties of care to research the law and disclose to the tribunal controlling authority.” He’s certain that this case he dug up from 1997 means that the trial court just had to order a new election, and he’s threatening to get the Maricopa County defendants’ lawyers disbarred for saying, “Uh, no, kid, that’s not how any of this goes.”
He’s also written this, the greatest footnote of all time, to explain why it isn’t his fault that he didn’t sue two years ago when the exact same election procedures were used in the 2020 election:
Petitioner is uniquely situated to bring this action — given that Petitioner graduated from law school in 2020 and was not licensed to practice law until November of 2020. Thus, even though Maricopa County apparently employed the same illegal process as described herein during the 2020 election cycle, this election cycle is the first opportunity Petitioner has ever had to challenge this process and, therefore, laches should not bar this Special Action.
I’m not sure how much law school helped this dude, TBQH.
Not for nothing, but the only other election suit this numpty filed got dismissed because he couldn’t figure out how to serve Hobbs. And this case also flamed out on Friday when the Supreme Court dismissed it without a hearing, although they did offer the young whippersnapper a participation trophy of sorts, allowing him to file an amicus brief in Lake’s appeal. The appellate panel consisted of four Republican appointees, including three installed on the bench by Hobbs’s Republican predecessor Doug Ducey — which just goes to show you the depths these Deep State RINOs will go to keep a truth teller like Kari Lake down.
In summary and in conclusion, Arizona, why are you like this? Vote Gallego!
[Heath v. Thompson via Democracy Docket / Lake v. Hobbs, via Democracy Docket]
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