Jeff Flake IS Goldwater Institute

So, here we are, knee deep in yet another Goldwater Institute (GWI) lawsuit aimed squarely at the heads of the Coyotes and the City of Glendale (CoG). As of today, June 26, 2012, we are waiting for Judge Fink to document a ruling on the lawsuit brought against CoG by GWI on behalf of Joe Cobb and Ken Jones (two Glendale residents lending their standing to GWI to enable the suit). Coyotes fans are well used to the waiting game, this June brings over three years of torture waiting for the Sword of Damocles hung over the head of our hockey team by ANOTHER Goldwater boffin, Jerry Moyes when he craftily put the team into bankruptcy and then had his lawyers supposedly “leak” documents to GWI to mess up the sale of the team to Jerry Reinsdorf. I used the word “supposedly” because my assumption is that GWI had full access to everything that was in Jerry Moyes’ noggin and most of the stuff on and under his desk. But, that’s just supposition.

But, Jerry isn’t the subject of this little missive, Jeff Flake is. Why? Well, because it’s election season! Mr. Flake is running for US Senate in his march up the electoral ladder. We have, in the past, mentioned Mr. Flake’s potential interference in the threats made against the City of Mesa by Carrie Ann Sitren and Clint Bolick of the Goldwater Institute if the city decided to follow through on their stadium build for the Chicago Cubs. Goldwater’s opinion was that the $100M expense constituted a violation of the “gift clause” in the AZ State Constitution, a tool they are currently holding over the head of the City of Glendale. So, why didn’t Goldwater pursue it? Our guess was that Mr. Flake may have wanted a shiny new stadium (and all the visitors it would bring, just like the 666,000 the Coyotes bring to Glendale each year) for his constituents, so maybe he made a call and had the gift clause zeal of Clint and Carrie Ann quashed.

Just Politics As Usual

Why would Mr. Flake have such influence on GWI? Even though the mission statement of Goldwater mentions:

“As a non-profit organization funded solely by individual donations, we stand on principle, not politics.”

Nobody REALLY believes that, do they? I’m not speaking of the donations part, where no more than 5% of their donations may come from one source yet someone apparently donated $1M to the GWI legal beagle “Norton-Scharf” thing and then got a loan BACK from GWI for $1.2M. I’m speaking of the politics part. It should be obvious from the history of Goldwater, the people working for Goldwater, the history of the Goldwater targets and everything else possible about Goldwater that theirs is DEFINITELY a political organization. If it wasn’t, why would they have registered lobbyists on their staff? Isn’t that the definition of being a political animal? Yeah, it is. So, enough with the smug slogans for now, okay?

So, if we accept the argument that GWI is a political, or certainly at least a politically influenced, entity, it doesn’t seem much of a stretch to assume that a Congressman with the family history (Flake’s family were among the pioneers of the great state, yes the GREAT state of Arizona) and juice that Jeff Flake holds could have some real decision making power within the Institute, does it? Okay, maybe you’re not buying that argument, maybe you don’t believe that Flake is very aware of how to work within and take advantage of a political system some declare is simply an old boys network. Maybe he isn’t.

Lobbying for Dollars

If you visit Mr. Flake’s site, he lists as one of his career posts a stint in Namibia:

“As the Executive Director of the Foundation for Democracy, a foundation monitoring Namibia’s independence process, he saw the nation usher in freedom and democracy.”

That is, indeed, the beginning of an exemplary career in the early 90’s. What Jeff does NOT mention on his site, however, is the $7,000 per month stipend he was reciving from Rossing Uranium as a lobbyist (according to Huffington Post). That’s enough to buy hockey tickets! Seriously, though, Rossing Uranium was (and still is if you believe Wikipedia) 15% owned by the government of, wait for it, Iran! Flake denied knowledge of the ownership of the company and I suppose we should believe him. After all, it’s very difficult to discover who owns stakes in companies (I mean they didn’t even have Google back then) and it really wouldn’t be that important to a person with obvious political ambitions to be associated with an essentially declared enemy of the country of your birth and citizenship, right? I mean, it’s not like Iran would have ANY use for uranium that might be considered nefarious, either.

So, it’s no wonder this little job for only $7,000 a month slipped the mind of Mr. Flake.

“The Man” at Goldwater

When Jeff and family returned from Namibia, he went to work for the Goldwater Insitute. In fact, according to words attributed to him by several sites (so yes, I know, the information may be complete FICTION, or not, but I’m going to use a potentially bogus statement without getting confirmation from an unreachable guy who most likely DID say it), he said:

“After returning to Arizona in 1992, I went to work at the Goldwater Institute as its executive director (and sole employee) in borrowed space,” Flake wrote. “Seven years later, when I ran for Congress, the Goldwater Institute had an annual budget of a million dollars, a new $2 million headquarters and nearly a dozen employees.” 

From the above statement, assuming it’s true, Mr. Flake is willing to accept a great deal of credit for the growth and development of the Goldwater Institute. We can only assume that the nature of the relationship between the person that grew Goldwater from a single employee to a dozen employees in a $2M headquarters building remains close.

Goldwater who? Coyotes what?

As of today, according to one of my political mavens who has been speaking regularly with Mr. Flake’s office, Jeff Flake has no official position on Goldwater’s suit of the City of Glendale and their continuing attempts to sabotage every sale of the Coyotes that is presented. They will be “contacting DC” for comment and instructions.

What does that mean to Coyotes fans? I submit that, if you are a Coyotes fan living in Arizona, you very carefully consider voting for the guy who is so deeply connected with the Goldwater Institute that he is, apparently, able to shift their focus from a stadium in HIS district to one OUT of his district. It’s not going to get better just because the size of his territory is larger. I would also suggest, beyond voting for anybody OTHER than Mr. Flake who comes close to your political philosophy, that you speak with all your friends and family and encourage them to do the same. I wouldn’t vote for this guy if he was the last candidate on Earth. Seriously, I’d vote for Henrik Zetterberg before I voted for him.

Keep the faith, Coyotes brothers and sisters, and keep punching until the other guy goes down.