A so-called ‘fully non-partisan community event’ was presented yesterday to discuss ‘Values in Education” in Tucson. It flopped as the Pima County GOP trotted out its own officers and hangers-on to complain about trans kids, masks, and vaccines.
One speaker even claimed that forced euthanasia of grade school students was coming to America.
Only about 45 people showed up at the Catalina Foothills Church on Orange Grove Road for the “Southern Arizona Values in Education Conference.” About half of them were Democrats.
Here’s the kicker: halfway through the show, the air conditioning failed just as the outside temp was 108 degrees. Attendees were sweating, fanning themselves and falling asleep in their seats.
The Republicans’ “Back to the 1950s” platform explains why the GOP is nearly broke in Arizona and why donors are fleeing the MAGA GOP. The Republican Party of Arizona total-to-date income is $132,980, compared with the Democrats’ $1.25 million. While the state is going bankrupt from school vouchers, the MAGAs insist on talking about masks, vaccines and school shutdowns. And wasn’t it Republican Governor Doug Ducey who shut down Arizona schools on March 15, 2020?
Republicans on parade
The forum was organized by wannabe youth pastor, Dan Grossenbach — sporting a t-shirt, suit jacket with the sleeves pushed up, and jeans. Grossenbach refers to himself as a mysterious “federal agent.” When asked, Secret Agent Man Grossenbach refused to say which federal agency he worked for, but it turns out he’s just a postal inspector. He founded the ‘Save CFSD” (Center for Excellence in Public Education) PAC.
The PAC falsely insists without evidence that “CFSD Allows 18-Year-Old BOYS to Undress and Shower with 14-Year-Old GIRLS.”
The GOP farce was exposed as the speakers took the stage:
• Dave Smith, Chairman of the Pima GOP. He said, “I’m the blowhard of the GOP” and bored the audience with quotes from the founding fathers. Meanwhile, on Facebook and Twitter, Smith organizes disruptions at the Pima Supervisors and school board, says President Biden is a “dictator,” and that “The trans manifesto calls for the murder of Christian Children.”
After the event, Smith crept up to fellow blogger Michael Bryan, got within inches of his face, and yelled, “You’re an asshole!” Mike laughed it off. In June, Smith yelled an obscenity at Supervisor Matt Heinz at a public meeting and had to be calmed down by Sheriff’s deputies.
• Anastasia Tsatsakis, 2nd Vice Chairman, GOP Fundraising, of the Pima GOP. She was part of the infamous “Revolt of Vail” where 200 people disrupted the April 30, 2021, school board meeting. She is a failed candidate for Vail School Board.
• Raul Rodriguez, 3rd Vice Chairman, GOP Voter Registration, a member of the Sahuarita School Board. He kept forgetting what he was going to say. He did remember that he went to bat for a student who hit his teacher in the face. He identified as a ‘Christian conservative.’
• Tom Carlson, a registered Republican who is a Marana School Board member. Carlson is a Bible-quoting, conservative anti-masker and Covid denier. During the height of the Covid pandemic, he said in YouTube recordings (Dec. 27, 2020, and August 20, 2021) that nobody was dying from Covid, and that ICUs were not filling up with Covid patients.
• Conspiracy theorist Bernadette Gruber, director of Protect Arizona Children Coalition. She claimed that a forced euthanasia movement to kill grade school students in Europe was coming to the U.S. (She was publicly called out at the forum for lying.) In a YouTube video she contended that public schools teach how to masturbate, Planned Parenthood will put abortion clinics in schools, and public schools teach children to consent to sex.
Interestingly, it was apparent that every speaker had been carefully coached and trained to artificially speak softly in soothing tones, show no reaction to comments and questions, and smile and change the subject to questions and comments.
Watch this 4-minute video of Gruber, who is then confronted by Blog For Arizona founder Michael Bryan:
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I attended the ‘conference’ also. These folks spent a lot of time whining about being persecuted: parental rights are “under attack”, “evil forces are attacking families”. They are still upset about school closings, mask mandates and vaccines. Isn’t it time to move on from pandemic-related complaints? They are obsessed about sex education curriculum, what bathrooms are being used and what books need to be banned in school libraries. So much for the party of small government. And here’s another evil force: the 1990’s Convention on the Rights of the Child (CRC) ratified by 190 countries. So they are anti-UNICEF, too?
And no GOP event is complete without Bible quotes (Genesis) and a couple of slippery slope fallacies: this time they cited misinformation about parental rights and LGBTQ issues in Belgium, Finland, Sweden, The Netherlands and the U.K. Oh, and they hate the expression “safe space”. I did not know that. Yikes.
One positive note: Marana School District wanted to improve their literacy scores and they were able to purchase a new much-needed up-dated reading curriculum. Yay. It was paid for with “virus money”.
Mary Ganapol, SecularAZ.org
I’ve never actually met the guy, but those online photos of Dan Grossenbach are giving off some serious “Mark Harmon NCIS” vibes. It’s like he’s embracing his inner crime-solving hero or something.
Believe it or not, a quick online search suggests Dan is connected to the U.S. Postal Inspection Service, you know, a legit law enforcement agency and all that jazz. But I do find it funny that he can’t resist mentioning it in, like it’s a real street cred booster.
But let’s get real for a sec. Maybe his day job isn’t all action-packed like James Bond. So, he’s found solace in those wild K-12 education conspiracies. Gotta spice things up somehow, right?
Seems to me that you may have gone to the wrong location for the Conference. Did most of the attendants wear white coats?
The world is full of kooks. So glad that the kooks never get to the White House and Congress. Oh, wait this is 2023, they already did for 4 years 2017-2020 and my goodness the Congress is still full of them. And now these folks want another 4 years?
We will find out in Nov. of 2024 whether the kooks are successful again.
We need to force the parties to have presidential debates in each party’s presidential primary, followed by presidential nominees debated run by some group hopefully the League of Women Voters, with questions that they choose from solicited from non-partisan organizations, with rules for debate that include microphone cut off buttons for candidates who can not control their mouths, and time outs like in kindergarten or hockey as penalties for unrulily candidates, etc.
All TV stations need to be required to provide full coverage of all the debates as a requirement for their continued licenses.
Only with questions related to the existential threats with we face in the nation and world, presented in a firm debate manner, can the public see which of these old men and women can still think well, same goes for the thinking skills of younger men and women.
Existential threats are 1. Global warming/disaster, 2. Possible nuclear war/fire storms/nuclear winter/starvation, etc. and need to abolish nuclear weapons, and 3. Loss of democracy in the USA and other parts of the world.
Citizens who wish to continue to live in this world and have others do likewise need to become active to prevent the above existential threats from becoming a reality and ending the world as we know it.
Peace!
Buzz Davis, Veterans for Peace in Tucson