Michael Bryan

Michael founded BlogForArizona.net as the Howard Dean presidential campaign blog for Arizona in 2003, and has been blogging ever since. The Blog is now coming up on 20 years of continuous publication, a major achievement for any political blog, which usually have the life-spans of mayflies. Michael is an attorney living in Tucson with his wife Lauren. In 2008, Michael remade BlogForArizona into a collaborative project. Michael is now but one of the contributors to the blog and provides editorial and publishing direction in consultation with the Board of Directors and the other authors. If you want to keep up with the latest Arizona and National political news in an entertaining quick hit of news and opinion, check out the BlogForArizona twitter feed, which Mike largely curates and writes. Michael is also an AAPC member who occassionally consults on political campaigns, strategy and communications.

The Gay Advantage

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By Michael Bryan In America, we mostly talk about the civil rights of LGBT persons in moral or ethical terms – and it certainly is that. Equity and justice war with the moral precepts and prejudice of religionists. But there is more to it. It's also an economic issue. And we need to talk about … Read more

How To Do The Q in QandA Correctly

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By Michael Bryan As a frequent host and participant in public Q and A sessions, I frequently see egregious examples of how NOT to ask questions in a public forum. It is frequently painful to go through the open question period after a public discussion. Too few people keep in mind the real goals of such a … Read more

Amazing Book: The Republican Brain

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Book review, posted by John Denker         The Republican Brain        The Science of Why They Deny Science … and Reality        by Chris Mooney This is an awesome book.  While reading it, I was repeatedly tempted to say to myself:   "I knew it! I knew it! Well, not 'knew it' in the sense of having … Read more

The Manifesto of J.T. Ready, Domestic Terrorist and Spree Killer

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by Michael Bryan

Ready_pearceThe spree-murder/suicide of racist GOP activist J.T. Ready in Gilbert Arizona has once-again turned national attention upon the poisonous stew of Arizona's racist right-wing politics, and how deeply immured in that muck was former Arizona Senate President and current Arizona Senate candidate Russell Pearce.

It now seems that the Ready was being investigated by the FBI as a potential domestic terrorist. He was suspected of having a role in several shooting incidents in the desert along the border in which camouflaged men shot and killed Mexican nationals, among other as-yet undisclosed criminal charges.

TPM Muckraker (contributor Nick Martin was until recently an Arizona-based blogger) recently posted excepts from an email sent the website by Ready shortly before his spree, and has been following the case for Muckraker. It can be looked upon as a sort of appoligia and manifesto of an American monster. 

I present the text of that email in it's entirety (h/t to Robert Haasch on Open Salon for digging it out of the digital trash), after the click. Please keep in mind that lying was as natural as breathing to J.T. Ready, so don't accept anything he writes as fact – this is presented as merely a glimpse inside an extremely disturbed mind. Also note that some of the links Ready provided are dead, as those who associated with him pull their heads into their shells and try to disassociate themselves…