Fitz: The Cyber Ninja Saga Series

Crossposted with permission from David’s excellent Substack to which you should certainly support with a paid subscription.

I’ve been so impressed and engrossed by the recent published expositions on the Arizona Republic’s costly, essential and heroic multi-year fight to open the Cyber Ninja saga to public scrutiny using our public information laws guaranteeing we, the people, access the truth, I feel compelled to write about it. 

Revisiting the sorry sordid saga it feels like a cinematic script, part absurd clown show and part nightmare for our democracy, the screwball comic horror story for our age of nihilists, clowns and chaos. I’m torn between a Stanley Kubrick “Dr. Strangelove” treatment and a Coen Brothers “Raising Arizona” approach to retelling the tale. Would George Clooney’s escaped con and pomade groomed con man character from “O Brother Where Art Thou?” be perfect for Doug Logan? Or is our central character more akin to the dim gym employee portrayed by Brad Pitt, a comic genius, in “Burn after Reading”? 

This story lends itself to my favorite form of satirical treatment, a literary paradox I call “creative non-fiction”. Don’t look for truth in satire save for between the lines. 

The Cyber Ninja Saga Series: Arizona’s Circus Maximus

Prologue

September 2021. “Cyber Ninjas” CEO Doug Logan was excited about being interviewed by the sunny Kris Kubal, hostess of “Intercessors for America”, a Christian webcast based in Purcellville, Virginia, that features parables of persecution and a Christian prayer network. 

It has been a long summer in Phoenix. Bamboo. He’d have a chance to talk about their election 2020 audit’s findings in a safe and welcoming environment.

“With us today is Cyber Ninjas CEO Doug Logan, who was hired by Arizona’s Senate Republican leaders to conduct a non-partisan audit of the 2020 election in Maricopa County. Doug, do you believe you were called by God to conduct this audit?”

No one at “Intercessors for America” had reached out to the Almighty for his or her view on the subject. I suspect God would have been “unavailable for comment”, probably overwhelmed, busy answering prayers for football touchdowns or that new 4 x 4 pickup down at the dealership.

“Yes, I do, Kris, and I urge all your prayer warriors to pray that Arizona Attorney General Mark Brnovich finds the courage to take his investigation to the next step.” 

One does not associate the word “courage” with Brnovich as often as one might associate the word “craven” or “unethical”. The black beard of Barristers, Brnovich, appropriately posseses a name that rhymes with “burn a witch”. Hand the rotund man a robe, a torch and a juicy turkey leg Arizona’s chief law officer could easily could pass for 16th century inquisitor. In our saga Brnovich, plays the role of Arizona’s Bill Barr, a cheap imitation of a law-twisting, truth delaying Trump hack. 

Doug Logan was feeling persecuted. “Because I can tell you that when you step into this, everybody’s out to get you.”

Doug was thinking of the members of the mainstream press, out there in the real world, “out to get him”, with their “gotcha” questions, attempting to smear his “Cyber Ninjas”, the locusts with note pads and cameras who his security teams had to bar constantly and often times physically eject from the Fairgrounds Coliseum in Phoenix. Only numerically-challenged ninjas, clowns riding conspiracy unicycles, righteous rubes and tin-foil adorned loons were allowed onto the floor. No press. No enemies of These People.

“Everybody’s out to make you look bad.” And by “everybody” Doug meant anyone who was sentient.

And in this prayer warrior’s case, Doug was beginning to sense that the truth about the “Cyber Ninjas” audit of Maricopa County’s votes would not set Trump’s America free from the grip of that devil Biden.

“And there’s a lot of you know, there’s a lot of just spiritual warfare stuff that seems to happen in the middle of it. Like, I don’t fully understand why this audit is so pivotal in what’s happening in our country right now. But it is in the spiritual realm. It’s not just in the physical realm. It has a core impact of where our country is going. And I’m truly praying for revival. I don’t know how revival comes out of an audit, but that’s what I’ve been praying for.”

One reasonable citizen might imagine a revival of faith in the law, the role of the press and democracy itself might come out of the great American fable of the audit referred to by many now as “The Fraudit”.

Doug Logan’s unwitting prayers for a revival of nihilism, chaos and rampant corruption aside, the Trump team backing his “non-partisan” carnival of hyper-partisan fools was praying for one result: Sowing toxic doubt about the democratic process in Arizona where the vote had, in fact, been conducted with unassailable integrity. Doug Logan and his “Cyber Ninjas”, invited into Arizona by Arizona’s Republican lawmakers would cost the state $5.5 million dollars, discover no fraud and perpetuate the discredited Big Lie among the base into the 2022 election and beyond.

“Tell us about your Prayer Wall at the audit, Doug.” The hostess, Kris Kubal, was all ears. Yes, Doug. Tell our listeners, Donald Trump’s faithful, about your Prayer Wall.

“We have a Prayer Wall at the Fairgrounds Coliseum and we’ve had at least five people give their life to Christ while at the audit. I am amazed at the high correlation between believers who are seeking truth and who want to be involved in election integrity stuff.”

Me, too, Doug. I am amazed at the high correlation between fools who will believe anything and Donald Trump’s base.

“Jesus Christ, hear my prayer. Save me.”

“And thy name is?”

“Billy Bob, Lord. From Apache Junction.”

“Do you believe that I am the way, the truth and the light, Billy Bob?

“Yes, I do, Lord.”

“And that all Democrats are tools of Satan? And Donald is a man of faith? And Toby Keith rocks?”

“Yes, I do, Lord.”

“You are saved. Now get back to your non-partisan vote audit. And good luck finding those Communists Chinese bamboo fibers.”

At least five gave their lives to Jesus during the vote audit. “Amen to that, Doug. Would you like to say anything to our prayer warriors listening to us today?”

“Yes, I would. Pray for a revival. May our nation remember its roots, its Christian roots.” Surely Doug was not referring to our nation’s Christian roots in slavery and genocide? ”And may they turn away from their wicked ways.”

A few months back Doug Logan did not consider it wicked to illegally taking apart voter machines in Detroit. Or to pulling similar capers in Nevada, Pennsylvania, New Hampshire or Georgia. Doug was researching the Devil’s handiwork. And in Trump Theology 101 the ends justifes shaking hands with Lucifer.

Doug, lacking formal training in voting systems, had been celebrated for those capers as a “voting machine expert” and thus he was chosen by Arizona’s thoughtful Republican lawmakers to move from Sarasota to Phoenix, to do the work of the Lord, to lead his army of cyber sleuths, his “Cyber Ninjas”, to get at the truth behind the devil’s deceptions in hot as Hell Maricopa County. 

It’s remarkable Arizona Republican lawmakers weren’t tipped off to the group’s clown car character by the mere name, “Cyber Ninjas”. One could only envision the cast of “Hee Haw” wearing “Beverly Hills Ninja” black headbands and black robes over their overalls, pro-Confederacy T-shirts and Daisy Mae tops. A tribunal of Trumpist “Teenage Mutant Ninja Vote Tabulators” forced to take off their boots to complete the count every time they lost count after ‘ten”. It would be revenge of the rural Ninjas.

The father of twelve beautiful children, Doug, was a sunny-faced gosh-and-gee all-American goober who wanted each and every one of his children to grow up in a Christian country, the kind of Christian country that Donald Trump promised. The country that had been stolen from him and every good American who believed in him.

And this is their story. 

Next up: 

The Cyber Ninja Saga Series: Arizona’s Circus Maximus

Chapter 1

November 2020. Trump’s voter disinformation cabal gathers before the election with fellow election deniers to map out strategies for election challenges at Tomotely plantation in South Carolina… to be continued!