Origin of Kelli Ward’s Progressive Tax Plan

In 2016, Ward signed the Taxpayer Protection Pledge in her primary challenge to Senator John McCain, making a written commitment to Arizonans that she would oppose all tax increases. She lost that election but was elected as Party Chairwoman two years later in 2018. Her supporters have long claimed she would remove the RINO-establishment influences from the party. 

“Kelli Ward promised the people of Arizona in writing that she would oppose any and all tax increases. She just called for a sales tax hike that would damage every citizen of Arizona,”

– Grover Norquist, President of Americans for Tax Reform.

Ward suddenly announced her support behind Senate Concurrent Resolution 1001 and House Concurrent Resolution 2024. If approved by the legislature, would raise $1.1 billion  dollars to education through a new sales tax. A move which has shocked her closest supporters into open rebellion.

The AZGOP is bankrupt. The Jonathan Lines and McCain donors have withheld their funds and are acting independently since she took office. Ward has had great deal of difficulty in finding replacements for the upcoming elections. Rumors have been circulating that she was convinced to support this bill to gain favor with the remnants of the RINO establishment. Rodney Glassman is a former Democrat who ran against John McCain in 2010 for the Senate. After it was discovered that Glassman forged ballot signatures, plagiarized his Ph.D. dissertation, and ruined his reputation in the Democratic Party, he switched to the GOP and was embraced by Jeff Flake cronies like Bill Montgomery. Glassman, who is a trust-fund millionaire, pushed for a double digit tax increase for the last two years. 

According to State Senator Vince Leach of District 11, Glassman organized a fundraiser with Ben Carson, Leo Beus, and Paul Gilbert in exchange for Ward’s support of the tax increase. 

(Update 5/21: According to FEC Reports, Glassman donated $2,000 YTD to the AZGOP, most recently on April 18th just a week before the Ben Carson Fundraiser)  

During the 2016 Corporation Commission race, Glassman raised twice the amount of any other candidate totaling $767k. $200k of which was donated by himself. Glassman is reported to have used Union and Planned Parenthood money from his 2010 campaign, money that was suppose to have been returned.  

Glassman is associated with several organizations like Lucha AZ, an open borders advocacy group. As well as a family PAC called the Arizona Stronger Universities (ASU) that was seed funded by his wife with $26k. She is still a registered Democrat. It’s not a stretch of the imagination that the PAC takes money from unions and then applies it to his campaign.

Why would Ward do this? All sorts of ridiculous explanations have been thrown around. “To expose the left’s agenda, and put people on record for supporting a tax increase while giving into the demands of the education unions.” As some form of 4th Dimensional Chess. The Ward sycophants need to wake up and start holding her accountable. This isn’t gaining any favors with the left, Joe Thomas, the head of the Arizona Education Association teacher’ union, called Ward’s tax increase “Too little. Too late.” No amount of money will make up for the base abandoning her leadership. You are not going to gain supporters by trying to outspend Democrats either. 

Ward has a terrible record when it comes to criticism by unfriending and blocking Republicans on social media.  Perhaps its time for Republicans to rebuke her and start looking for a replacement.

Former state legislator Frank Antenori provided an impassioned history lesson about Arizona politics

ASU College Republican Breakup – State Press Response

Recently an article was published by the State Press discussing the breakup of the College Republicans.   This will serve as our official response to the State Press article.

Context

We previously wrote an extensive post about our history with the College Republicans. If you want the full version check here. When Judah Waxelbaum joined the CRs in the fall of 2017, the club had just gone through a major election and was under new leadership.  The newly elected Secretary left to Washington  and there was a vacancy in the executive board.

Judah was to be anointed with fan fare designed by the leadership. The President however failed to follow the bylaws of the CRs, either through incompetence or corruption, and a candidate ran against Judah with overwhelming support.  When Jennifer realized she didn’t have the votes to secure Judah’s win, she cancelled the election and began a long process fighting against members who would later go on to start College Republicans United.

Judah was quickly made aware of the violations to the bylaws. He was a Freshman, literally his first meeting of the year, he was not qualified to vote or allowed to run. Any sensible person would take a step back, but Judah insisted he was entitled to it. Maybe he grew up with a silver-spoon, maybe he was propped up throughout his time with the Teenage Republicans in High School and believed college would be similar, it’s not clear. Over the next few months Judah definitely grew to resent the founders of College Republicans United and made it his mission to sabotage our club which has gone on to eclipse the CRs.

Judah Waxelbaum

“But if they’re attacking other republicans, it’s just going to hurt republicans as a whole.” – Judah

  • Judah at the Paradise Valley Women’s Club told one of our members in attendance, not knowing he was a member of ours, that College Republicans United was an alt-right organization. – Mark Grigoriev

     

  • Judah upon learning that College Republicans United was invited to speak on Chips N Salsa Radio, wrote to the host Alice, asking to drop CRU because we are racist, misogynistic, etc. – Alice Lara

     

  • During Passport at ASU, we had multiple students asking if we were alt-right after speaking with Judah. – Kevin Decuyper & Josh Bernard

     

  • Eric Sloan, candidate for Corporate Commission informed our group that Jen and Judah reached out to him urging not to attend any further meetings because we “we’re not a conservative club”. – Eric Sloan

Fortunately, Kimberly Yee was the only speaker to back out from meeting with our club after speaking with Jennifer and Judah. Since our founding, our club has tried to avoid any and all associations with the CRs. We believe the CRs are a failed group by backing elements within the GOP that are hostile to the Trump agenda. Which leads us to our next point. 

Paul Carrese – SCETL

It’s interesting that Paul Carrese (Director of the School of Civic of Economic Thought and Leadership), speaks about republican division and polarization, yet his programs has supported people such as Bill Kristol and George Will. Who are very open about their Never-Trump views, and have demanded a challenger to combat President Trump’s influence within the GOP.

Mr Carrese points out that this climate has made it difficult for never Trumpers such as Senator Jeff Flake (who is also hostile to Trump) to gain ground in this turbulent Era. Yet, Mr Carrese and Judah Waxelbaum have the gall to criticize CRU for not supporting their brand of what constitutes a “Republican”. It further proves CRU’s point, that the CRs are hypocrites who seem to be disregarding their own advice.

After all, it’s interesting to see the director of the SCETL chastise CRU for not supporting and following so called “Traditional Conservatives”  who by and large tend to fall into the Neocon camp of so called conservative thought.

 

Bill Kristol
war on Trump

Washington Times

 

Never-Trump
war on the right

Washington Post

In conclusion

Judah talks about division within the Republican party, but his new supposed “Club adviser”, backs him in his hit piece article in the State Press. Both have a history of backing division and strife within the GOP. CRs association with the SCETL should raise warning flags about their dedication to the GOP, and their ‘supposed’ support for President Trump. After all it seems his own backers have made clear where their stances lie at, which doesn’t seem to align with proven support for the President or even the GOP.  

The 2018 midterms will be one of the most critical elections in for the GOP, and its results will be felt for the foreseeable future. As it will be a defining moment not only for the MAGA agenda, but for the GOP’s future as well. A agenda which was essential to bringing in new voters in the Rust Belt region, as well as disenfranchised members of the democratic party, and libertarian party, as well as people who were looking for real shake up of the status quo

The State Press wants to portray a party in disarray with crazy Trump supporters on one side, and temperate sane folks on the other. To affirm this take, they quoted Carrese who contrasted the wild eye crazies who think short term with those who understand compromise.

Calling out Judah Waxelbaum and the College Republicans

College Republicans have a history of RINO activities

If you want to get an idea of the general membership and their poor leadership decisions, it wasn’t that long ago when the College Republicans set up a chapter in Flagstaff with Bernie Sanders supporters.  They found a small group of people who asked to setup a club, and without doing any sort of vetting, gave them the authority to start a College Republican chapter. They were personal friends with the CRs in Tucson and that was good enough for them. You can imagine the problems of a “Republican club supporting a Democratic Socialist” – Kevin Decyper can elaborate that story better.

How College Republicans United started

That might as well be ancient history, so let’s talk about something a bit more recent. In the fall of 2017 there was an opening in the Executive Board for Secretary at ASU.  Judah at the time was a Freshman and attended his first ever meeting at ASU. The CR President, Jennifer Custis, unilaterally decided to encourage him to run for this position due to his father’s influence within Jeff Flake’s social circle. Although in violation of the club bylaws, the CR President did everything within her power to prop up Judah. When his opposing candidate secured the majority support of members, the election was outright cancelled.

Judah approached us with tears in his eyes, he didn’t understand why so many opposed him. We responded that it was nothing personal but that he was not qualified according to the rules. Over the next few weeks members were harassed by Jennifer and her clique for opposing Judah and two individuals were banned from the club for their conviction.

Rick’s take on the ban – (1) az young conservatives _ libertarians
Jennifer’s response – (2) az young conservatives _ libertarians

Judah was appointed without a vote to fill the role as Secretary and CR members became rightfully enraged.  When the faculty adviser, Donald Critchlow, tried to intervene with reasonable compromises, he was later called a ‘mother fucker’ by the CR President Jennifer Custis .

You need to understand the mindset of Jennifer and Judah. On multiple occasions she stated that this was ‘her club’. The club bylaws were obstructive to her goals so she ultimately ignored them. Judah belongs to the establishment RINO clique that has a stranglehold on AZ politics. He was a huge supporter of Jeff Flake up until he dropped out of the race, and then switched his support to Martha McSally. So it was not a shock to the rest of the members when Kelli Ward was banned from speaking at CRs.

Needless to say these events started a chain reaction that eventually led to the creation of College Republicans United.  When The CR President was forced to actually have an election, she brought in her sorority ADPI sisters and attempted to stack the vote. Ultimately College Republicans imploded and most left to join College Republicans United the following semester. Austin, Ariff, and Kirkland can expand on how Jennifer labeled them as racists when they ran at the end of Spring in 2018.

Jen says to Judah “I’ve given/gotten you literally two appointed positions what do you have to say for yourself? Literally House Of Cards”

Judah says to Jen “They hate me”

Jen says to Judah “I want them all gone,” (them referring to our side) and that she should “Vote ALL of them out.”

Harassment of CRU members continue

You would think Jennifer and Judah would have been happy to remove the entire Trump, Ward, MAGA members from their RINO club. Unfortunately that’s still not good enough.  CR membership during the spring semester was reduced to only 8 active individuals. Judah has held a grudge toward College Republicans United ever since, and has done everything within his power to discredit our club and its members for challenging his entitlement.

  • Judah & Jennifer got Kimberly Yee to cancel her meeting with us this past spring due to accusations of misogyny and anti-Semitism.
  • Judah is on record slandering CRU students as ‘alt-right and anti-Semitic’ at the Paradise Valley Women’s Conservative Club. –  Mark Grigoriev can vouch for this.
  • Judah wrote to Alice with Chips N Salsa Radio that CRU was a neonazi club or at best alt-right in attempt to cancel our interview at their radio station.
Judah is a known liar, unethical, and without morals.

Judah lied on Chips and Salsa that ASU was discriminating towards College Republicans for recruiting as an excuse for their poor membership turnout in 2018.  When in reality their President for the first half of 2018 never even applied to table and then failed to pay off a $30 fee for a previous trash violation. We have the document proving this. When College Republicans United applied to table, ASU mistook our organization for theirs. Otherwise ASU has never given a problem to College Republicans United, Young Americans for Liberty, Turning Point, or any other conservative club. Judah is known to play the victim when it suits his narrative.

College Republicans invoice Nov 2017 MU16551 & late fee

The current CR President, Alexander Phillips claims he wants to be on good terms with College Republicans United.  He’s on record to saying he holds no ill will towards us. We agree the right should not be fighting our own when we may agree 70% of the time on any given issue. Our true enemy should be towards those who advocate on behalf of ANTIFA.  Yet unknown elements within College Republicans have previously associated with ANTIFA to harass members of CRU. Fake twitter accounts by the name of Kelli Astron & Stacy Jarvis knew some intricate details about the schism and have tagged AZ ANTIFA to identify who removed ANTIFA literature from ASU.

stacy jarvis on twitter & kelli-astrón-on-twitter

We have no solid evidence linking those accounts to Judah, but it’s interesting that all three of these accounts including Judah’s twitter were deleted on the same day.  It’s also interesting looking at the password recovery – Judah, Stacy, and Kelli have the same phone digit numbers associated to the account. Maybe it’s just pure coincidence, that is not for me to decide.

I would like College Republicans United to focus on our own club. We had the opportunity in taking the old CR club room when registering with ASU for the fall, but decided not to do it.  We had the opportunity to write to their speakers last semester but figured it would be too petty.  We would love to take Alexander Phillips on his offer of civility between our two clubs, but when hostile elements are trying to sabotage our club under his leadership, it’s difficult to achieve his goals. Alex needs to step up or he’s complicit in Judah’s behavior.

Katie Ward’s thoughts on Judah