Worms in the brain

A refresher on crazy … Tariffs are in the eye of the beholder … And never show your phone on the big screen.

You’ve probably heard about Robert F. Kennedy Jr.

But have you ever really checked out all the crazy crap he’s done?

Arizona lawmakers today will hear from the highest-profile vaccine skeptic in the country — and he’s the secretary of the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services. Meanwhile, a measles outbreak took the life of a second unvaccinated child in Texas last week and local health authorities are kind of freaking out that it could happen in Arizona.

Kennedy is a longtime vaccine skeptic who has promoted misinformation about vaccines for decades, starting with an explosive article he wrote for Salon and Rolling Stone in 2005 that claimed there’s a link between vaccines and autism. That article was amended with several corrections before Salon eventually decided to take it down altogether.

Now he’s bringing his misinformation train to the Arizona Capitol, speaking to a friendly crowd of conspiracy-minded lawmakers.

Our art intern, ChatGPT, no longer has qualms about depicting weird politicians in weird settings, which is fun.

Since taking on the role (and in the face of a measles outbreak in Texas that has killed two unvaccinated children and an unvaccinated adult), Kennedy has softened his tone somewhat on vaccines.

After declaring the Texas outbreak no big deal, and suggesting people take vitamins to counter it, he later said he is “deeply concerned” about the outbreak, which he acknowledged “escalated rapidly.”

By then, the damage had been done. Kids were already showing up in emergency rooms with overdoses of his cure to measles: Vitamin A.

Kennedy is coming to town as part of his “Make America Healthy Again” tour and is expected to focus on less-controversial ideas — like banning processed ingredients in school lunches and barring people from using SNAP benefits on soda.

But it’s worth remembering that some of Kennedy’s exploits are far weirder than anything said by the kooks that came to the Capitol for anti-vaccine hearings in the past two years.

A few of our favorite examples include:

• The time he staged a dead bear cub in New York City’s Central Park to make it look like a bicyclist had killed it because he thought it would be “amusing” to whoever found it. (He later said that he might have gotten his “brain worm” by putting his fingers in the dead bear’s mouth.)

  • As the Wall Street Journal reported: “(H)e picked up a bear cub hit by another vehicle in Goshen, N.Y., because he wanted to skin it and keep the meat in his fridge. He put the bear in his van, he said, but after a dinner at Peter Luger, a famous New York City steakhouse, he realized he needed to go to the airport and couldn’t keep the bear in his vehicle.”

• The time he cut a dead whale’s head off with a chainsaw, bungee-corded it to the roof of the family's minivan and drove about 250 miles, per his daughter, who recalled that "every time we accelerated on the highway, whale juice would pour into the windows of the car, and it was the rankest thing on the planet.”

• The time he pledged to “stop this crime” of chemtrails — a conspiracy theory claiming governments and other entities are spraying the air to manipulate the weather or control the population. (And no, we’re not talking about cloud seeding.)

• And we have to note his insistence that the CIA was involved in the assassination of his uncle, John F. Kennedy.

So, yeah, Kennedy is a strange and complicated character.

He’s a longtime environmental lawyer who has been praised by the left over the decades. He ran for president as a Democrat before turning independent, dropping out and joining Donald Trump’s cabinet.

His politics don’t neatly align with either party — he appeals to fringe elements on both sides of the aisle.

And tomorrow’s hearing will not be the first time lawmakers have heard from fringe vaccine deniers.

In 2023 and 2024, lawmakers invited anti-vaccine activists to the Capitol for an ongoing gabfest which immediately devolved into QAnon conspiracies — like that the pandemic was planned, the virus was created by the U.S. Department of Defense, vaccines do not provide protection from Covid, masks don’t work and that the virus and vaccine can be “detoxed” out of body with the right drugs.

But back then, the folks who testified were generally regarded as kooks, and lawmakers took no official action based on their testimony. Saner heads had guided us through the pandemic, and the state of public health offices was probably at its strongest.

These days, the kooks are running the government, mocking vaccines and actively demolishing preventative public health programs.

And the formerly “eliminated” measles virus is on the rise.

Yesterday, we wrote that AZGOP chair Gina Swoboda endorsed state lawmaker Alexander Kolodin in the 2026 secretary of state race — even though Swoboda was rumored to want the gig herself.

That was wrong.

But it wasn’t exactly our error.

The video announcing Kolodin’s bid starts off with two clips of Swoboda saying she “would love to support him” and “would be very proud to endorse (him)” along with a big, bold proclamation that he is “ENDORSED BY GINA SWOBODA.”

But Swoboda says Kolodin is “full of crap.”

Both knew the other was interested in running, and they had an agreement that they would tell each other if they were going to make it official, she said. Then Kolodin announced — complete with a big splashy message that she had endorsed him — and stopped answering her calls.

“I pinged him in Signal, ironically, and said is this real? And he didn’t answer me and he hasn’t spoken to me since,” Swoboda told us. “And this is the guy who called me three or four times per day about every bill.”

Swoboda is still strongly considering a run, she said. Not to mention, the AZGOP has rules against officers endorsing candidates in a primary.¹

Swoboda is a former elections official who worked for Katie Hobbs in the Secretary of State’s Office. She’s also a former Democrat and Hillary Clinton supporter turned Donald Trump loyalist — an odd background, for sure.

Kolodin is a bullshitter. And true to form, he was attempting to bullshit his way into an uncontested race.

Anyway, here’s a pretty fascinating interview Swoboda did with KJZZ’s Lauren Gilger.²

Trusting Trump: If you thought the tariffs might make supporters of President Donald Trump reconsider their vote, think again. Retirees in the Valley are watching Trump’s tariffs hit their retirement accounts. But whether they think tariffs are good or bad depends on which political party they identify with, the Washington Post’s Yvonne Wingett Sanchez reports.

“I have a good financial adviser, so I don’t have to worry about it – I’m fine,” Republican Posy Hale said matter-of-factly. “And tariffs? I’m 82 – what do I need? And for other people – you don’t need to buy all that stuff. Be happy with what you have.”

Not getting it: Down in Tubac, some produce importers had a different take on the tariffs, the Wall Street Journal reported. An executive at a company that imports grapes and blueberries from Mexico said Trump administration officials are underestimating the impact of the tariffs on the price of fruit.

“You can’t put an extra 10 or 20 or 30% in a cost and it just get absorbed,” John Pandol said. “No, there’s not that kind of fat in the system.”

Strings attached: The long-running battle between GOP lawmakers and Democratic Gov. Katie Hobbs over funding a program that serves people with disabilities isn’t quite over yet, but they might be close to a resolution, KJZZ’s Wayne Schutsky reports. Republicans have a proposal to pay the $122 million that the program is short, but with a whole lot of strings attached. Democrats still want a “clean” bill to fund the program.

Past is prologue: Under a bill up for a vote this week in the Arizona House, professors at Arizona universities could still talk about the history of slavery in the United States — but if they tie it to current societal issues, their university could lose out on millions of dollars in state funding, Capitol scribe Howie Fischer reports.

Still going up: The number of international students at Arizona State University who have had their visas revoked in recent weeks climbed to more than 50, the Arizona Luminaria’s John Washington reports. At least three of them were held at immigration detention centers. Most of them have no idea why their visas were revoked and “still seem to think someone made a mistake,” their lawyer said.

Way more than eight seconds: Remember the hullabaloo two years ago when the state budget set aside money for the Prescott Rodeo Grounds? Well, it’s still locked up in litigation, per Capitol Media Services’ Bob Christie reports.

Supporting local news gives you the same “Yeehaw!” feeling that lawmakers get when they illegally throw $15 million at renovating their local rodeo grounds.
Don’t you want that feeling?

Scottsdale vibes: Leaving a can of Diet Coke on a remote island in India could land a Scottsdale man in prison for five years, the Associated Press reported. YouTuber Mykhailo Viktorovych Polyakov wanted to make contact with the Sentinelese tribe, who famously do not want any contact with outsiders and are protected by Indian law. After he landed on the island, he blew a whistle to attract members of the tribe. When they didn’t appear, he left a Diet Coke and a coconut as an offering. Local fisherman spotted him and turned him over to Indian authorities.

Trippy as a Sonoran toad: If you still haven’t gotten a new Arizona “Real ID” (which the federal government has been threatening to make you get to fly for like a decade now), there are two good reasons you should. First, the federal government is again threatening to require it to fly within the U.S. — the new alleged deadline is May 7. But perhaps more importantly, they “look downright badass under a black light,” as the New Times’ TJ L’Heureux writes. Black lights illuminate a hidden design on the card — the front shows a coyote howling and the back shows a scorpion under a starry sky.³

Our sister ‘sletter, the Tucson Agenda, has been keeping an eye on the drama surrounding the special election to fill Raúl Grijalva’s seat in Congress and the local fallout as politicians scramble. Plus, did you know there’s a Shakespearian actress in the race?

Also, don’t forget to sign up for the Education Agenda, which comes out every Wednesday!

And get yourself some A.I. Agenda, which comes out on Thursdays.

And of course, you must need a weekly water newsletter. Sign up for the Water Agenda, which comes out every Friday.

Christian Lamar, a twice-failed GOP candidate for the state House, made the brave move of casting his phone to a large screen to show people how to use Twitter during a recent "MAGA Mind Podcast" episode.

But when demonstrating why Twitter is the best way to get out conservative messaging, Lamar accidentally opened his Safari browser to show, well … not exactly social media analytics.

You can draw your own conclusions about what Lamar’s latest browsing activity included at 19:50 in the video.

He accidentally pulled up that page several times after, and joked, “just for you to know, I’m a single man, and I like women.”

He was engaged back in 2015, but was convicted of assaulting his then-fiancée and served a day in jail, 11 months of probation and was ordered to undergo counseling, per the Republic archives.

1. Fun backstory on that rule: The party added it to the bylaws after former AZGOP chair Kelli Ward went on an endorsement spree of her favorite MAGA candidates — which we covered in this edition.

2. Fun backstory on that interview: In one part, Swoboda talks about how she was devastated while reading an article about how trans people are afraid for their safety in this political climate. That was a story we co-wrote with LOOKOUT, Arizona’s best LGBTQ+ news organization. We know that because Gilger texted to say she cut Swoboda’s shout-out to the Agenda for space.

3. Fun backstory on those Real IDs: Arizona refused to adopt a federally compliant “Real ID” thanks to a strange alliance between former Arizona Senate President (and SB1070 author) Russell Pearce and former Democratic state lawmaker (turned former independent U.S. senator) Kyrsten Sinema. Both ends of the political spectrum were freaked out about the federal government, and the two teamed up on a 2008 bill to essentially tell the feds to shove their Real IDs and that Arizona would not comply.