THE MESA TRIBUNE | JANUARY 30, 2022
Kelly joined at Biden’s hip in upcoming race BY JD HAYWORTH Tribune Columnist
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here’s no mistaking Mark Kelly for the late comedian Don Knotts—especially since our junior senator bears an uncanny resemblance to Uncle Fester of “The Addams Family”—but similar themes have emerged in the body of work from both the contemporary legislator and the comedian of a bygone era. Knotts, who won multiple Emmy Awards for his portrayal of bumbling Deputy Barney Fife on “The Andy Griffith Show,” parlayed that success on the small screen into a five-picture deal with Universal Studios in the mid-1960’s. Sen. Kelly parlayed his fame from piloting the space shuttle into winning a seat in the Senate. Certainly Kelly’s fund-raising abilities have proven astronomical; his campaign pulled in $9 million in the final three months of last year, giving him an estimated war chest of $22 million as he attempts to win a full six-year term this November. Of course, $22 million—or more—won’t
buy what it used to… not even as recently as the campaign year of 2020. That’s because of January 20, 2021…the day Joe Biden took up residency at 1600 Pennsylvania Avenue. Immediately afterward, the politico-economic condition now known as “Bidenflation” took hold. Ol’ Joe began by revoking authorization for the Keystone XL pipeline in an executive order. In so doing, he killed 10,000 jobs and took $2.2 billion in payroll out of workers’ pockets. One of the newly unemployed, Neal Crabtree of Fouke, Arkansas, told the “Boston Herald” his concerns extended beyond his family to friends, neighbors, and his fellow countrymen. “Now we’re seeing rising energy prices,” said Crabtree, a common-sense kind of guy, who was working as a welding foreman before Joe Biden got a new job…and took away his. Sadly, common-sense is in short supply at the White House and within the Senate Democratic Caucus. Then again, lots of things are in short supply these days.
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A crippled supply line and a predictable decline in domestic energy production prompted a spike in prices. The result? The worst inflation rate our nation has seen in 40 years. As costs increased across the board for food, shelter, clothing, and transportation, prices at the pump were especially troubling: a hike of almost 50 percent by December Adding even more fuel to the inflationary fires was the spending spree of the Biden Bunch. Unilaterally enacted by the Democrats, a $1.9 trillion cash infusion actually paid bonuses to some lucky workers to stay off the job, kept the Bureau of Printing and Engraving churning out greenbacks, and further bloated our money supply. Whether due to economic illiteracy or delusion—perhaps both—Joe Biden then claimed that his horribly misnamed “Build Back Better” initiative would somehow reduce inflation. Left unexplained is the dubious rationale behind the misguided notion that an exponentially more ob-
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OPINION
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scene orgy of spending—$5.5 trillion dollars’ worth—will do anything other than launch inflation to even “greater” heights, and plunge our standard of living to even lower depths. Thankfully, the “Build Back Bummer” has been scrubbed for now…no thanks to Mark Kelly. Instead, Kelly has been a dependable vote for Bidenomics and Bidenflation, but Republicans aren’t exactly biding their time in the effort to scrub Mark Kelly’s political mission. This summer’s primary for the Arizona GOP Senate nomination will be crowded and spirited. The eventual winner will face a cash-infused but performance-imperiled incumbent, joined at the hip to Joe Biden. Mark Kelly’s handlers are doing what they can right now to start a mid-course correction, recently making their man available for an interview with “Yahoo!” which, like most Big Tech media organs, would be more accurately named “Hooray!” when covering Democrat politicians. Despite the kid-glove “Yahoo!” coverage, Kelly cannot shake his Biden connection. He even mimicked Ol Joe’s attempted blame-shifting to big corporations—the same folks financing the freshman senator’s campaign. If Kelly remains reluctant to politically separate from Joe Biden, the exastronaut will have a lot of time on his hands a year from now to watch reruns of “The Andy Griffith Show.” Or “The Addams Family.” ■
LEIBOWITZ from page 24
roster needed to proportionally express the racial composition of the U.S.? Who among the Phoenix Suns’ 14 AfricanAmerican players would the team cut in favor of white ballers of presumably lesser talent? Would the new, perfectly representative squad still sell tickets or perform to NBA Finals levels? Doubtful and doubtful. It’s long past time for a Black woman to sit as a Justice on the U.S. Supreme Court. But speaking about some of our nation’s best and brightest primarily through the prism of skin color and gender – with their hard work, qualifications and successes tossed in as a footnote – demeans the process and the judges in it. ■