Maricopa County Supervisor Bill Gates now claims to suffer from post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD), which reportedly flared up recently after a Trump supporter came to do work on his home.
Gates revealed the diagnosis to the Washington Post in an article published over the weekend. After documenting at length Gates’ mental decline from 2020 onward, beginning with stress over the pushback against his decision to enact a mask mandate, the outlet concluded with Gates being triggered by the sight of a supporter of former President Donald Trump.
The offending individual was a worker wearing Trump’s trademark “Make America Great Again” red hat, who’d come over to fix a leaky pipe at Gates’ residence. Gates told the Washington Post that he’d felt “anger swelling in his chest,” and had to leave the room where the worker was to take some “deep breaths” to control his anger.
“It was a trigger to see that hat in my house,” stated Gates.
The Washington Post documented Gates ranting at the funeral last May for former Maricopa County Attorney Allister Adel. Gates recounted how an unnamed “prominent” Republican shared that he found election denialism “all very boring,” to which Gates said he “saw red” and thought, “F**k you.”
Gates reportedly began “wildly waving his arms” while ranting, described as “out of control” and disruptive. According to those around him witnessing the behavior, Gates was on “the brink.”
The outburst reportedly caused his wife to confront him. Gates’ wife insisted that he go to therapy, and he said he did.
Gates described Election Day last year as a “war zone,” in reference to the flocks of officials and law enforcement at voting centers following the mass voting machine failures that may have disenfranchised thousands of voters.
Gates told the outlet that, despite feeling relief at giving up his chairmanship in January, he still struggled with the same negative feelings.
This was the second profile piece of Gates in as many months. The Atlantic profiled him in March, though Gates made no mention of his PTSD diagnosis at the time. Gates offered a slightly different version of himself: calmer, less stressed. The words peppered throughout this more recent profile piece — “anxiety,” “anger,” “stress,” “insecurity,” “resentment” — were absent from the one released just several months ago. In that piece, he expressed hopefulness throughout, even in response to uncertain situations he’d faced throughout COVID-19 and the last two elections. The article characterized him as a “leading defender” of elections.
When asked by the outlet whether he felt “threatened” by the demands of former Arizona Republican Party Chair Kelli Ward, Gates demurred, saying that “threat” was “too strong a word.”
“I felt pressure. I felt like if I didn’t do what she wanted to do, that there would be political ramifications, certainly,” said Gates.
Gates expressed belief that although he considered himself “politically dead,” he felt he could run for office again at some point beyond 2024.
Near the conclusion of his piece in The Atlantic, Gates said that he believed the current political climate is second only in severity to the Civil War.
Corinne Murdock is a reporter for AZ Free News. Follow her latest on Twitter, or email tips to corinne@azfreenews.com.
A recent announcement from the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) to briefly lower costs at American gas pumps may hamstring Arizona’s largest county’s efforts to reduce its ozone footprint.
Last Friday, the EPA issued “an emergency fuel waiver to allow E15 gasoline – gasoline blended with 15% ethanol – to be sold during the summer driving season.” According to the EPA, “the waiver will help protect Americans from fuel supply crises by reducing our reliance on imported fossil fuels, building U.S. energy independence, and supporting American agriculture and manufacturing.” This action was made possible by The Clean Air Act, which “allows the EPA Administrator, in consultation with the Department of Energy, to temporarily waive certain fuel requirements to address shortages.”
The Biden Administration’s action on this front is not the first time they have attempted to reduce the cost of energy during the summer months. On April 29, 2022, the EPA also issued the waiver for E15 sales. The EPA’s most recent press release assured Americans the agency “does not expect any impact on air quality from this limited action (due to its own research),” and “consumers can continue to use E15 without concern that its use in the summer will impact air quality.”
This exploit from the federal government in 2022, however, sparked concerns about an increase in pollution for communities and states. In an interview with The Hill, Dan Becker director of the Safe Climate Transport Campaign at the Center for Biological Diversity, argued against the action because it “defeats everything that we’re trying to do to prevent more fuel from evaporating and getting into the air.” Margo Oge, the former Director of the EPA’s Office of Transportation and Air Quality, said (of the waiver), “The administration shouldn’t have done this, and they know they shouldn’t have done this, because this program to reduce evaporative emissions and keep the more volatile gasoline mixtures away from the summer months, has been in operation for decades.”
Becker also addressed the narrative of lower or neutral ozone impact from the waiver, referring to such rhetoric as a “long history of creative truth,” adding, “the amount of evaporation is not linear. In other words, E15 does not evaporate one and a half times as much as E10.”
Despite the EPA’s waiver that could lead to more ozone being released into the atmosphere, the agency continues to force local governments into extreme ozone-cutting measures. As AZ Free Newsreported last month, the Maricopa Association of Governments (MAG) recently contracted with a California-based consulting firm to “identify and evaluate new and available ozone precursor control measures that could be implemented within the nonattainment area” – which is an “eight-hour ozone boundary for the 2015 ozone standard (2015 National Ambient Air Quality Standard),” following a little-discussed published rule from the EPA in fall 2022, which moved “the region up the severity ladder for ozone pollution, reclassifying the region from ‘marginal’ to ‘moderate’ nonattainment for the ozone pollution standard.”
The consultant’s Final Report this spring suggested “approximately 50% reduction in nonattainment area anthropogenic NOx and VOC emissions” in order to bring the region into compliance with the EPA’s standard by an August 3, 2024, deadline.
To meet this deadline, suggested measures were included to reduce ozone in the Maricopa Nonattainment Area to meet Clean Air Act requirements related to the 2015 ozone standard. Some of the suggested measures include adopting standards similar to California like banning the internal combustion engine, banning gas appliances, and a host of regulations on various business activities.
The Republican-led Arizona Legislature has already moved to counter these potential measures, launching the Joint Legislative Ad Hoc Committee on Air Quality and Energy to “gather information from experts and the public about local recommendations on rulemaking determinations by the EPA on ozone nonattainment.” Representative Gail Griffin, the co-chair of the Committee, weighed in on the EPA’s announcement, telling AZ Free News, “E15 gasoline is known to increase ground-level smog, The EPA’s decision to allow E15 gasoline to be sold in Arizona is going to increase ozone levels in our state; then the EPA will turn around and penalize Arizona for the ozone. It’s counterproductive. Any increase in air pollution that results from the EPA’s decision shouldn’t count against us in our compliance with federal air quality requirements. It’s unfortunate to have a federal government that is constantly working against us.”
Senator Frank Carroll, a member of the Committee, told AZ Free News, “So, what exactly is the end game for the Biden EPA? Science indicates that this approach is not in the best interest of clean air, fuel economy, and bees. We can certainly hope to expect a reduction in the price at the pump. Keep in mind that it was Biden’s energy policy and his foreign policy that got us to the higher prices. With 2024 election campaigns off and running, the waiver of E15 sales by the EPA is a political calculation that assumes people have short term memories about why we’re at high gas prices and high grocery prices. I think it is time to end bad policies by voting out the bad policymakers.”
Carroll also shared his insights on the impact the E15 waiver would have on Arizonans:
The EPA estimates that E15 is on average 25 cents a gallon cheaper than E10. Considering the economic times we are living in, will 25 cents a gallon stay in your pocket or evaporate at the grocery store? The price of tortillas and tamales increase when demand for ethanol increases.
Ethanol fuel will damage engines. The design characteristics of internal combustion engines usually favor gasoline fuel or favor ethanol fuel. Ethanol shortens the shelf life of fuel, reacts with moisture causing particles and corrosion in fuel systems and engines, especially pre-2002.
Even in engines that can operate on ethanol blends, there is a problem, energy density – a gallon of ethanol has only 2/3 the energy density of pure gasoline. You will notice a reduction in fuel economy.
Some areas in Arizona are subject to Clean Air Act emission offset requirements. Adding ozone to the air only makes meeting the requirements less likely. (Check out April 24, 2023, Joint Legislature Ad Hoc Committee on Air Quality and Energy).
Another Republican member of the Committee, Representative Austin Smith, also opined on the Biden Administration’s desperate efforts to reduce gas prices, saying, “Addressing energy affordability and the rising cost of living in our country is paramount. But this is the wrong way to do it. We need to increase domestic energy production and lift federal regulations across all sectors, not just the areas that serve special interests. The Biden Administration is not paying attention to the needs of Arizonans.”
Daniel Stefanski is a reporter for AZ Free News. You can send him news tips using this link.
The former secretary of state of Ohio has come to the defense of embattled GOP candidate Abe Hamadeh, claiming that not all legal ballots were counted in the 2022 election.
Hamadeh shared the remarks from the former Ohio official: Ken Blackwell, who currently serves as Center For Election Integrity chair for the America First Policy Institute (AFPI). Blackwell disputed Maricopa County’s claim in their recent report that all legal ballots were counted. Blackwell further called out Gov. Katie Hobbs for her work as secretary of state, claiming that she purposefully overlooked significant discrepancies revealed by the recount.
“There is testimonial evidence of people who did not have their votes counted,” stated Blackwell. “And in a legal case brought by Arizona Attorney General candidate Abe Hamadeh, evidence shows that then-Secretary of State Katie Hobbs knew the recount showed discrepancies and failed to disclose those relevant facts to the court in a timely manner before the court made its ruling. This failure to do so is either gross incompetence or a cover-up.”
Blackwell also criticized Maricopa County for not troubleshooting their printers well enough prior to Election Day.
“Common sense and basic competence would dictate election officials assess the capability of the printers BEFORE Election Day. They didn’t,” said Blackwell.
The Maricopa County report characterized the problematic printers as “old printers.” However, age wasn’t the issue, but the original intended functionality of those printers. By the county’s own admission, a certain model of printers were retrofitted to be ballot-on-demand (BOD) printers. These retrofitted printers, the “Oki” model, had a heat setting that printed the ballot markings either too lightly or in a speckled manner.
. @MaricopaVote : the faulty printer setting causing widespread tabulator issues occurred in one of two types of printers: the one retrofitted to be a ballot-on-demand printer, "Oki." County expressed confusion with its failure since stress testing went well. 71 sites impacted. pic.twitter.com/jZEmQiZXQn
The outsourced county report recommended replacement of the Oki printers, as well as reverting to shorter and lighter-weigh ballot paper.
Maricopa County launched the investigation into the printer errors in January. Poll workers testified in November, following the Election Day fiasco, that election machines were having issues prior to Election Day. These testimonies conflicted with the county’s reporting that their stress testing prior to Election Day didn’t reveal either tabulator or printer issues.
In several weeks, Hamadeh will present oral arguments in the Mohave County Superior Court to challenge the validity of the 2022 election results. Hamadeh has challenged the exclusion of thousands of provisional votes from the final tally, hundreds of which he has said he can definitively say should have been counted. Last month, Hamadeh stated that he had over 250 affidavits from allegedly disenfranchised voters.
This Maricopa County voter was told repeatedly her driver’s license was registered to “multiple voters”
An official stepped, swiped an access card, a voter record for a dead Utah resident appeared
He also claimed his team found 750 high-propensity voters whose registrations were canceled. Of those 750, only 176 reportedly showed up to vote last November.
There were also a majority of 269 voters who told Hamadeh that they checked in on Election Day with mail-in ballots, but their votes weren’t counted. 149 were Republicans, 53 were Democrats, and 67 were “other” voters.
Those claims, combined with an analysis of the uncounted provisional ballots, make a compelling case that Hamadeh overcame the 280 vote gap between him and Mayes. It’s possible more legal votes exist, considering the original vote gap between Hamadeh and Mayes was nearly halved following December’s recount.
Corinne Murdock is a reporter for AZ Free News. Follow her latest on Twitter, or email tips to corinne@azfreenews.com.
Maricopa County agreed to pay a $175,000 settlement for denying press credentials to a reporter during last year’s election.
Approval of the settlement passed during the county board of supervisors’ meeting on Wednesday without discussion.
The county’s denial meant that the reporter, from the Gateway Pundit, couldn’t attend their press conferences. The county denied the press pass on the grounds that they didn’t believe the reporter was objective and apolitical enough for their tastes. In response, the outlet sued the county in TGP Communications v. Sellers.
In December, the Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals ordered the county to issue the outlet a press pass while the litigation continued in December. The court further asserted that the county likely violated the First Amendment and discriminated against the outlet based on the reporter’s political views.
“Permitting ‘truth’ to be determined by the county violates our foundational notions of a free press,” stated the order.
When Maricopa County rolled out its press passes last September, Recorder Stephen Richer tweeted what appeared to be an agreement — and even celebration — of a statement that the county was going to prevent The Gateway Pundit from attending county press conferences and other events.
Later, around the time of the lawsuit’s filing, Richer deleted the tweet. Richer told AZ Free News that he didn’t have a specific reason for deleting the tweet, just that he occasionally deletes posts that he dislikes or deems to be unproductive in hindsight.
The county’s press pass application page remained active until around January 2023. It required the journalist’s contact information, address, dates of planned coverage, work samples, and a pledge that they didn’t have a conflict of interest or association involvement that would compromise their journalistic integrity.
It also required journalists to promise they didn’t receive compensation or special treatment from advertisers or political organizations that would influence their coverage, and that they weren’t a lobbyist, advertiser, paid advocate, or influencer for any individual, political party, corporation, or organization.
A month after initiating the press passes system, the county launched a disinformation center. They further declared a limit to press access on county property.
Corinne Murdock is a reporter for AZ Free News. Follow her latest on Twitter, or email tips to corinne@azfreenews.com.
If you enjoy losing your freedom for a goal that is impossible to achieve, the Maricopa Association of Governments (MAG) has you covered.
MAG recently released its proposed measures to bring Maricopa County into compliance with ozone standards set by the United States Environmental Protection Agency (EPA), and it’s a total disaster. Along with a whole host of regulations on various business activities, the proposed restrictions include banning the internal combustion engine and gas appliances. That’s right, just like in California, they are coming for your cars and your gas stoves. But that’s not all. This proposal would also put limits on things like lawn and garden equipment, motorized boating, and water heaters…
