They Got What They Wanted

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Coolzone Media.

On February 11th, 2025, the city council in Scottsdale, Arizona wrote an epilogue to an episode of this show that I thought was already over.

On February 26, 2004, a bomb went off in Scottsdale.

A pipe bomb concealed in an inconspicuous-looking brown box exploded in the hands of the man the package was addressed to, Don Logan.

Inside the box was a note, one he didn't get a chance to read that day.

The bomber demanded that Logan, the director of the city's Office of Diversity and Dialogue, cease and desist his corrupt activities.

But he didn't.

Don Logan carried on the work of trying to make the city of Scottsdale a safe and welcoming place for people of all races, genders, and sexual orientations.

And after he retired in 2007, the office continued that work under a new director.

A poster printed last year for their Scottsdale for All campaign shows Scottsdale residents of all backgrounds smiling under the hot desert sun.

A Sikh in his turban, a woman in her hijab, a man in a wheelchair, black and Hispanic residents, visibly queer and gender non-conforming people,

all working together to make their home a more inclusive place.

With a shoestring budget of a fraction of a percent of the city's overall operating expenses, the office put on community programming, did outreach to underserved communities, and provided trainings to city employees.

Until last week.

Just two weeks shy of the 21st anniversary of the bombing that nearly killed Don Logan, The Scottsdale City Council voted 5-2 to finish the job, closing the diversity office and ending all city funding for programming and training related to diversity, equity, and inclusion.

The weird little guys of decades past may be in federal prison for their crimes, but their ideas are alive and well.

And you don't need to don a pointy white hood or a swastika armband to force hateful ideas on a city.

A smart pantsuit will do just fine.

I'm Molly Conger,

and this is Weird Little Guys.

This episode is not about a new weird blue guy.

We are, unfortunately, revisiting the aftermath of the actions of a guy we've already spent a few episodes discussing.

Back in October, when the show was still pretty new, there was a week where I didn't quite get it together to have a full episode ready to go in time.

I was in court for a trial for a couple of days.

I had a death in the family.

I had to travel out of state for a wedding, and the 60-plus hours it takes to put an episode together just weren't there.

So, one of the episodes that month was a sort of cobbled-together collection of personal reflections on the work so far and patted out with some odds and ends, things that hadn't made it into past episodes that I thought were interesting, and updates on some stories that had come to light after they aired, things like that.

And the episode actually came out pretty good, I think.

And I decided that the format could be useful for future emergencies.

You know, every couple of months I could revisit past episodes and tie together loose ends.

Maybe there were new developments and old cases.

It would be a good release valve for me, and I think it's something you all would still enjoy.

I keep a document where I add those odds and ends as they occur to me, but I haven't needed to use it.

I don't actually need it this week.

I find myself writing an update to an old episode, not because I had to fall back on my emergency plan for a filler episode, but because we all find ourselves in something of an emergency.

I prefer to write stories about the past, stories that are over.

They don't always have happy endings, in fact, they rarely do.

The good guys don't always win.

More often than not, there aren't really any good guys at all.

Even when the story ends with some federal prosecutor putting a violent white supremacist in prison, there are usually uncomfortable questions about why it took so long, why certain co-conspirators weren't charged, how much information law enforcement ignored, or how complicit their informants and undercover agents were in the harm that was done.

But at least at the end of the episode, the story is over.

A case is solved, someone was held accountable, and maybe we all learned a little bit of history.

Lately, though, I've grown increasingly uncomfortable with just how contemporary my stories of the past are starting to feel.

Storylines are recurring.

Fringe ideas, ones that I had to dig for hours through decades-old forum posts to find, are now coming out of the mouths of elected officials on the evening news.

Every day, it feels like, I'm reading executive orders that sound like they were written by a stormfront poster who graduated last in his class at law school.

I don't like it.

I'm much more comfortable digging through the archives than I am talking about current events.

There's another show in the CoolZone Media family that does incredible work compiling a weekly roundup of the terrible news coming out of the White House.

It Could Happen Here puts that ongoing series out every Friday.

But I've been hiding from the calendar invite our producer sends for that.

I don't want to talk about the president.

Unfortunately, I think I have a responsibility to explicitly connect these stories from the past to their present-day consequences.

So this episode is a sort of coda to a series of six episodes that ran in December and January.

Beginning with the episode called Ku Klux Cable Access TV, that originally ran on December 4th, all the way through the five-part series on Dennis Mahan, ending in mid-January.

I know it's a big ask to expect you to be familiar with the storylines running through nearly six hours of old episodes, so I'll try to jog your memory as we go without repeating myself too much.

Last month, Costco shareholders rejected a proposal from the National Center for Public Policy Research, a right-wing think tank, that attacked the company's diversity, equity, and inclusion policies.

What goes on in corporate boardrooms isn't really my wheelhouse.

But I know this kind of shareholder activism isn't exactly novel.

And it certainly wasn't the National Center for Public Policy Research's first foray into shareholder activism.

Far from it.

The think tank founded something called the Free Enterprise Project in 2007, a nonprofit whose whole mission is filing right-wing shareholder resolutions.

On their website, they claim that 90%

of all right-of-center shareholder resolutions are brought by their organization.

And they've spent nearly 20 years attacking sustainability efforts and diversity initiatives at companies like Apple, Microsoft, Target, Progressive, UPS, IBM, Ford, Coca-Cola, Bank of America, Best Buy, the list goes on.

But this particular shareholder proposal felt nauseatingly familiar.

The National Center for Public Policy Research was trying to do in 2025

exactly what the neo-Nazi group National Alliance had done in 1988.

And that's a strange side story I covered in the episode called Ku Klux Cable Access TV back in December.

To refresh your memory a bit on that side plot,

After a Nazi terrorist cell stole $4 million from a Brinks truck in California in 1984,

some of that money made its way into the hands of National Alliance leader William Luther Pierce.

And with that stolen money, Pierce bought a large tract of undeveloped land in the mountains of West Virginia where he would establish his Nazi compound.

But he also bought 100 shares of stock in AT ⁇ T.

And in 1988, the group made their first of three attempts to force the company to end their affirmative action program.

At that meeting in 1988, 1988, chairman of the board Robert Allen denounced the proposal, saying,

As a shareholder of a sufficient number of AT ⁇ T shares, this organization has a right to offer a shareholder proposal.

But we find the intent and wording of this proposal highly objectionable.

Especially objectionable is the argument that some of our employees, because of their race, are less qualified than others.

This proposal is completely contrary to the policies, the culture, and the character of AT ⁇ T.

It is in the proxy only because we could not convince the Securities and Exchange Commission to allow us to drop it.

And their proposal was voted down by the company's shareholders in 1988, 1989, and again in 1990.

In a later interview about that 1990 shareholders meeting, National Alliance member and convicted pedophile Kevin Alfred Strom

claims that he got a standing ovation after his presentation of the proposal.

And he says he gave a rousing speech about the rank injustice and insane business practice of discriminating against whites.

Strom complained that despite broad support from a very large portion of the shareholders, the proposal only failed because a handful of establishment hacks who hold the majority of shares voted against it.

And much like the AT ⁇ T board chairman's denunciation of the Nazi proposal in 1988, Costco's board of directors were clear in their rejection of the 2025 version of the same idea.

Writing,

We welcome members from all walks of life and backgrounds.

As our membership diversifies, we believe that serving it with a diverse group of employees enhances satisfaction.

The board devotes a portion of their statement to discussing the ways in which diverse hiring practices are beneficial to the bottom line.

Having employees from diverse backgrounds informs their purchasing choices, allowing them to offer products that appeal to all kinds of customers.

And customers, quote, like to see themselves reflected in the people in our warehouses with whom they interact.

But the board's statement doesn't just hide behind shareholder value.

It isn't just about the bottom line.

They firmly believe it makes good business sense, of course.

But it's also a moral imperative.

The board writes,

this is our code of ethics.

Our focus on diversity, equity, and inclusion is not, however, only for the sake of improved financial performance, but to enhance our culture and the well-being of the people whose lives we influence.

Look, am I a die-hard Costco fan?

Yes.

Am I wearing my favorite sweatpants as I type this?

Yes, I write every episode of this show in my Kirkland signature brand sweats with the Costco logo embroidered on them.

Would I be thrilled if Costco offered to sponsor the show?

Buddy, I'd be over the moon.

But I don't want to get carried away praising any corporation, especially one that doesn't actually have a great track record when it comes to union organizing.

I'm not so naive as to think very many truly moral stands have ever been taken in corporate boardrooms.

But this statement is a bold one, and it's one I think they can really be proud of.

They take aim at the authors of the proposal, calling out their feigned concern for shareholder value that they've couched this policy position in, writing, quote, the proponent's broader agenda is not reducing risk for the company, but abolition of diversity initiatives.

And they make it clear that they are very aware.

that this think tank has published a document called Balancing the Boardroom, which describes its shareholder shareholder activism as fighting back against the evils of woke politicized capital and companies.

And just like the eerily similar proposal put forward by literal neo-Nazis 37 years ago, this one failed too.

Except no one's laughing this time.

In 1988, The press covered National Alliance's efforts as a sideshow.

Those Nazi freaks from a compound in the mountains didn't belong in a boardroom.

Today, that same idea is taken very seriously.

Not long after Costco's shareholders voted down the proposal, the attorneys general in 19 states penned a letter to Costco's CEO, warning him that he had 30 days to end the company's DEI policies.

There is a heavily implied threat that those state attorneys general would do

something to the company if they failed to comply.

But there's no clear explanation of what, if anything, the company has actually done that would allow any legal action to be taken.

The president's avalanche of executive orders attacking civil rights don't have the force of law behind them that would actually outlaw a private company's HR policy.

It's not clear yet how this is going to play out.

But I'm willing willing to bet it involves some questionably legal state-level enforcement actions and a lot of lawsuits.

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The thing that's so you, you've basically become known for it.

And if you don't have yours yet, you'll find it on eBay.

Putting you on here, fashionistas.

eBay is where you'll find those one-of-a-kind, can't stop researching, stay-up dreaming about pieces.

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eBay is the place for pre-loved and vintage fashion.

eBay, things people love.

High key.

Listen to High Key, a bold, joyful, and unfiltered culture podcast coming at you every Friday.

You better listen.

What I'm really high-key obsessed with is Sinners.

I just saw it.

It's so good.

It's so good.

It is one of the best horror movies in a good minute.

And I like it because it was allowing me to get into arguments with strangers on the street being like, oh, so you didn't like this, but you like the substance.

And then you made a friend.

Exactly.

And I made a friend who blocked me.

I'm actually a person that avoids horror in the way that I was the loudest in my theater.

And I don't even think that was like all the way as scary as it could have been.

Someone came over to my house and they like asked to come in.

I said, What do you mean?

Excuse me?

Yeah, don't play with that.

And it was a white person.

Well, I've got minced garlic in my fridge right now if you really want to play.

Don't chew it on that garlic.

Listen to High Key on the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcast, or wherever you get your podcast.

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The story I sat down to write, though, is about Scottsdale, Arizona.

When I finished that five-part series of episodes about Dennis Nahon, I was ready to be done with him.

I never expected his story to spin out in so many directions, but once I started writing it, there was no way to condense his life into anything less.

For more than a month on this show, we followed Dennis Mahon all over the country, the world even.

From his childhood on a farm in Illinois, to his rise to prominence as a regional Klan leader, and his years as Tom Metzger's right-hand man in the White Aryan Resistance.

He won a lawsuit against Kansas City for his right to broadcast a racist public access TV show.

And he lost a lawsuit to Fred Rogers.

He was deported from Canada, banned from Germany and the United Kingdom.

He was investigated as a suspect in a mail bombing that killed a federal judge and accused by a federal informant of helping plan the Oklahoma City bombing.

After a lifetime as a self-professed serial bomber, he was finally caught in 2009, and he'll spend the rest of his life in prison for the 2004 bombing of the Scottsdale, Arizona Office of Diversity and Dialogue.

Through the lens of Dennis's life, I learned some history that I would never have otherwise encountered.

In the third episode in that series, I talked about a lawsuit his twin brother Daniel filed against American Airlines after he was fired for creating a hostile work environment.

Daniel had been involved in the company's Caucasian Employee Resource Group, an employee affinity group for white people.

The issue wasn't that employees were organizing around whiteness.

The company actually had no problem with that.

The problem didn't arise until Daniel wore a Nazi t-shirt to a meeting with management about the Klan-inspired pamphlets he made for the Employee Diversity Fair.

In my research for that episode, I explored the kind of surprising history of employee resource groups.

It sounds like corporate HR hot air, but they originated in 1970 with the National Black Employee Caucus at Xerox.

After the Rochester riots in 1964, the president of Xerox invested years and millions of dollars in diversifying his workforce, eventually leading to the creation of the first corporate employee resource group.

I didn't set out to learn about a photocopier company's radical investment in black community development in the 60s, but it's a history I'm grateful to know now, as the modern employee resource group is on the chopping block.

Like corporate diversity initiatives, ERGs are under attack after Trump's executive orders on diversity, equity, and inclusion programs.

Just last week, the Seattle Times reported that the employee resource groups at the shipyard in Bremerton, Washington had been suspended in response to those executive orders.

Mark Layton, the president of the Bremerton Metal Trades Council, said that those orders were demeaning and a little derogatory.

And he told the paper,

We don't have any token people here.

You can either turn a wrench or weld a joint, do the work required, or you don't work here.

At an event last year, Shipyard Commander Captain J.D.

Krinklaw praised the employee resource groups, saying,

These groups allow us to build better teams and increase our ability to contribute.

They are critical to who we are as an organization.

And Mark Layton emphasized to the Seattle Times that those affinity groups don't give their members any special workplace privileges or advantages.

They only exist as a way for employees to network and support each other.

A recent article published by the Society for Human Resources Management, a professional association association for people working in HR,

indicates that there is a growing anxiety in corporate America about how to comply with these confusing, questionably legal missives coming out of the White House.

Their advice is that ERGs that are open to all employees likely do not violate these new White House policies.

But some private companies are choosing to end these programs out of fear and confusion.

For federal employees, those groups are gone.

Not just the ones centered around race,

all of them.

ERGs may have started with the Black Employee Caucus, but in the decades since, the idea has grown to encompass a wide variety of shared characteristics and interests.

A lot of them are still centered around protected class identities like race, gender, disability, and sexuality.

But most most companies with ERGs also have groups for working parents, groups for veterans, groups for new hires, people with particular hobbies, or things like people who want to get together after work and clean up litter.

I hope these affinity groups will continue their work, continue supporting and advocating for one another.

even if they aren't allowed to be listed on the company website anymore.

And I guess I can't talk around it anymore.

I've been avoiding getting to the thing I sat down to write.

The story I spent all those weeks writing, all 40 some odd thousand words of it.

It all led up to one thing.

The bomb.

A lifelong racist, a man who claimed to have bombed abortion clinics and synagogues, A man who ran hotlines and newsletters dedicated to spreading the word of white supremacy, took drastic, drastic, violent measures to end the work of diversity, equity, and inclusion in Scottsdale, Arizona in 2004.

He failed.

The bomb went off, yes.

Don Logan and two other employees in his office were injured.

Logan's injuries required multiple surgeries and skin grafts.

Renita Linyard would later testify that doctors had been unable to remove a piece of shrapnel that had entered through her eye and lodged itself in her brain.

But the people Dennis Mahon tried to intimidate with that bomb said no.

They didn't back down.

They wouldn't let a Klansman's bomb dictate city policy.

They won.

Dennis Mahon went to prison and Scottsdale, Arizona maintained its commitment to being a more inclusive city.

Like I said, most of these stories don't really have happy endings, but that part at least was as close to one as I'm likely to get.

So it hit doubly hard when that turned out not to be the end at all.

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We all have that piece.

You know the one.

The thing that's so you, you've basically become known for it.

And if you don't have yours yet, you'll find it on eBay.

Putting you on here, fashionistas.

eBay is where you'll find those one-of-a-kind, can't stop researching, stay-up dreaming about pieces.

Again and again.

I'm talking that Mew Mew off the runway red leather bomber, the Custo Barcelona top with the cowboy on it, or that Patagonia fleece in the 2017 colorway.

All these finds are on eBay, and they even offer millions of main character pieces backed by authenticity guarantee.

eBay is the place for pre-loved and vintage fashion.

eBay, things people love.

High key.

Listen to High Key, a bold, joyful, and unfiltered culture podcast coming at you every Friday.

You better listen.

What I'm really high key obsessed with is Sinners.

I just saw it.

It's so good.

It's so good.

It is one of the best horror movies in a good minute.

And I like it because it was allowing me to get into arguments with strangers on the street being like, oh, so you didn't like this, but you like the substance?

And then you made a friend.

Exactly.

And I made a friend who blocked me.

I'm actually a person that avoids horror in the way that I was the loudest in my theater.

And I don't even think that was like all the way as scary as it could have been.

Someone came over to my house and they like asked to come in.

I said, What do you mean?

Excuse me?

Yeah, don't play with that.

And it was a white person.

Well, I got minced garlic in my fridge right now.

If you really want to play with me,

I'm chewing on that garlic.

Listen to High Key on the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcast, or wherever you get your podcast.

Skin knows what it craves.

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Transformed into potent active skin can use for visible results.

It's sensorial pleasure you feel instantly and vitality that lasts.

Freshest's latest innovation starts with Mauritius black tea.

This isn't just any tea.

It's a plant that has grown on the island of Mauritius for more than 130 years, adapting to the island's tropical marine climate, volcanic soil, and low altitude.

These unfavorable conditions produce a uniquely resilient plant, rich with powerful bioenergizing molecules.

Fresh saw an opportunity to harness that power.

Through a patented process, they capture and concentrate the tea's adaptive phyto compounds, creating an extract that's proven to deliver retinal-like results while remaining gentle on skin.

You'll find this breakthrough ingredient in Black Tea Renewal Serum, a milky, quick-absorbing formula that works with your skin to visibly firm, smooth wrinkles, and even skin tone in just eight weeks.

Discover the future of skincare at fresh.com and use code iHeart20 for 20% off plus free shipping for orders over $50.

Last week, I was scrolling idly past the daily parade of horrors on my social media feed when I saw a post from a friend of mine.

I wasn't trying to see the news.

I was trying to avoid the news.

I just wanted to see silly little posts from my friends.

A futile endeavor, really, because a lot of my friends are people like me.

Journalists, researchers, collectors of terrible facts about terrible men.

And the post that caught my eye was from Nick Martin.

a journalist who has spent years researching and writing about right-wing extremism.

He also happened to work at the East Valley Tribune back in the early 2000s.

So at the time of the bombing, he was covering news in the Phoenix metro area.

And by the time Jennis Mahon was brought to trial, Nick was covering the story for Talking Points memo.

And it was from Nick that I first got this news.

His post read,

in 2004, White supremacists bombed the city diversity office in Scottsdale, Arizona in an attempt to destroy it.

Last night, as part of the new anti-diversity panic, the Republican-led city council finished the job.

I saw that post on Wednesday night, which is coincidentally usually the part of each week when I realize I do need to figure out what next week's episode is going to be about.

So I really had no choice.

21 years after that bomb went off, the Scottsdale City Council did exactly what that bomb was meant to do.

In a 5-2 vote, they passed an ordinance stripping all city funding for diversity, equity, and inclusion, ending the work that Don Logan nearly died for.

So I watched the meeting, and I read every email sent by Scottsdale residents to their city council about that agenda item.

51 people spoke at the meeting.

Only two were in favor of ending the diversity program.

223 emails were sent about the ordinance.

Only 27 were from people in favor of the proposal.

Two of those emails were actually identical messages sent a day apart by one man who also spoke at the meeting.

I listened to every one of those comments.

I read every one of those emails.

And I wept.

People from all walks of life showed up to speak out against the ordinance.

The CEO of the Arizona Hispanic Chamber of Commerce made an economic argument.

Former city councilor Betty Janik said the ordinance was unnecessary and mean-spirited.

The city code already requires merit-based hiring.

This wouldn't change anything.

A rabbi reminded the counselors that loving your neighbors is a mitzvah.

The city's LGBTQ liaison, an army veteran, practicing attorney, and transgender woman, seemed to almost dare them to tell her to her face that she's a DEI hire.

And then, a dozen or so comments in,

someone mentioned the bomb.

Neil Shearer had been the city's human resources manager back in 2004.

This was personal for him.

Almost 21 years ago today, a man affiliated with the white Aryan Resistance sent a pipe bomb through the mail addressed to my friend and colleague Don Logan, the first director of the Office of Diversity and Dialogue.

Don was seriously injured when he opened the package, as were two of his co-workers.

It strikes me beyond ironic that a convicted felon, white supremacist, through hate-filled and violent means, could not succeed in silencing the diversity office, yet the city council could accomplish the same end by shutting down the office through a simple majority vote of the council in your first 30 days in office.

And then a few minutes later, I realized Don Logan was there.

He was in the room.

He first appeared on camera standing behind Jan Dolan, who'd been the city manager at the time of the bombing.

He placed a hand reassuringly on her shoulder as she approached the microphone to speak.

Don Logan,

who was the diversity director when I was the city manager, who they tried to kill,

I ask you,

do not try to kill diversity and its efforts.

Logan flashed a bright smile when she said his name, but it vanished a millisecond later.

as Dolan reminded counsel that he'd nearly died for the office they were killing.

Speaker after speaker urged council to rethink this course of action.

There had been no study done to evaluate the claims they were making about the negative consequences of the city's diversity program.

A pastor who had in her prior career worked as a corporate employment lawyer asked where their evidence was that the city had ever hired a substandard employee simply because of their background.

A member of the city's environmental advisory board said that he had called the diversity office himself to ask if any member of City Council had even bothered to speak with them about their work.

And the only one who had was Marianne McAllen, who voted against the ordinance.

Many of the commenters who identified themselves as Jewish had words specifically for Councilman Adam Quasman.

Quasman is Scottsdale's first Orthodox Jewish counselor.

Last month, he tweeted a photo of the front desk at City Hall, and in the photo, he circled the Scottsdale for All pamphlets that are available to visitors.

His post read, You can't walk into Scottsdale City Hall without being bombarded with DEI.

This poison will be rooted out of our beautiful city.

One speaker gently reminded Kwasman that the Torah commands them to treat strangers with kindness.

Others asked him if he would be sitting up there wearing his kippah, if not for the work that had been done to make the city a more inclusive place.

Another sharply asked Quasman if he recalled a certain man in Germany who'd used the word poison to describe their people.

And then Don Logan himself spoke.

Speakers were only given a minute each, cut down by the mayor from the usual three,

so he didn't have a chance to give the comment he'd prepared.

But his message was clear.

This is personal for me.

People have moved moved on from the bombing of February 26, 2004, but every day I'm reminded of what happened that day and why it happened.

And it happened because of how I'm packaged.

An anti-diversity extremist who I never talked to, never knew,

that attacked me and my colleagues because of what we represent.

Now, I read this packet here.

There's nothing in this packet that suggests to me that diversity, equity, and inclusion is a threat.

For over an hour, the people of Scottsdale pleaded with their city council.

Don't do this.

There's no reason to do this.

The proper steps haven't been taken to adopt an ordinance like this.

Council hasn't thought through what will happen next.

Who will manage the city's compliance with the Americans with Disabilities Act?

And what about the serious potential economic side effects that a decision like this might have?

Several commenters warned that the city would take a massive hit if Major League Baseball were to take this as a sign that they should move spring training to a more progressive city.

Councilwoman Solange Whitehead gave a passionate speech laying out the facts.

This ordinance was brought before council without going through the typical process, avoiding any input from the public or city staff before it came came up for a vote.

If it had gone through the usual steps, it probably would have been clear that this is a solution in search of a problem.

The city code already requires merit-based hiring, and the city already complies with laws prohibiting hiring quotas.

Council members Marianne McAllen and Solange Whitehead fought to defer the ordinance to a work study session to do the work that should have been done before the ordinance came before council.

But they were outvoted.

Well,

let me speak to that.

Do you all want to do this over again and do a work study?

I don't see the point of that.

You've all been here.

I think that would not be a good worth

use of your time or the city's resources.

Mayor Lisa Borowski dismissed the booze and jeers, saying it wouldn't be a good use of city resources to follow that standard procedure, which would have included a work study.

And then, with very little discussion, they adopted the ordinance over the dissenting votes of Councillors McAllen and Whitehead.

Councillors Barry Graham, Kathy Littlefield, and Jan Duboskis said very little during the meeting.

But something about the way Mayor Lisa Borowski and Councilman Adam Cosman spoke made me a little curious about their backgrounds.

And wouldn't you know it, Adam Quasman is no stranger to making loud and wrong assumptions when it comes to being kind to our neighbors.

In 2014, when he was serving as an Arizona state legislator and running for Congress, he attended an anti-emigration protest in Oracle, Arizona.

The Pinal County Sheriff had whipped up a social media frenzy, claiming claiming that he had obtained leaked information from the federal government that illegal migrant children were going to be bussed into their small town.

Quasman was eager to make a scene, to exploit the suffering of these children, to make a political point.

But it turned out those children were actually just fine.

Adam Quasman was making a speech.

The reason why Lady Justice holds a blindfold over 50.

But then the Republican congressional candidate suddenly stopped.

He got word a bus was heading down the road and took off for it.

Anything else, thank you.

It's what Quassman and the Oracle protesters were waiting for.

A confrontation with a bus full of migrant children.

Quassman tweeted from the scene, Bus coming in.

This is not compassion.

This is the abrogation of the rule of law.

He included a photo of a yellow school bus.

I was able to actually see some of the children in the buses and the fear

on their faces.

This is not compassion.

That fear on the faces of migrant children, Quassman told me he saw in Oracle.

There's just one problem.

Those weren't migrant children on the yellow school bus.

They were YMCA campers from the Murana School District.

Do you know that was a bus with YMCA kids?

They were sad too.

Reporters at the scene saw the children laughing and taking pictures on their iPhones.

As for newly newly elected Mayor Lisa Borowski,

she's actually served on council once before, from 2008 to 2012.

And her interest in local politics began shortly before her first run for council.

She was inspired by the experience of helping her brother Todd wage a successful effort to overturn a city ordinance.

The ordinance in question, a ban on lap dances, would have destroyed Todd's business, a chain of strip clubs in the Scottsdale area.

During her most recent campaign for office, Borowski assured voters that she had no business relationship with her brother.

The question was asked not because voters might take issue with the nature of Todd's business, but because her brother, Todd Borowski, is under investigation after a lawsuit was filed by multiple men.

who claim they were drugged in the club's VIP lounges, and they woke up to find that tens of thousands of dollars for champagne and lap dances had been charged to their credit cards.

The Marest Brother seems like a real character.

This has nothing to do with anything, but as I was poking around, I did find that Todd Borowski attempted to trademark a logo reading Tompa Bay Buccaneers.

Yes, Tompa, T-O-M-P-A, not Tampa.

I assume he had some kind of plan to sell slightly misspelled Tampa Bay Buccaneers jerseys, but it must not have worked out because the trademark is dead.

And despite her protestations that she has no involvement in her brother's business dealings, she did fail to mention during the campaign that she was employed by the same law firm that represents her brother in a lot of lawsuits.

This position doesn't appear on her LinkedIn page, and the firm quietly removed her from the website sometime in June of 2024.

But in 2022, Lisa Borowski was hired by Dennis Wilenchik to work in his firm's new Scottsdale office.

And her name still appeared in filings for one of the firm's clients at least as late as August of 2024.

Though I can't find any filings that indicate she actively worked on any of her brother's cases.

Just last month, Dennis Wilenchik helped Todd Borowski settle a class action lawsuit brought by dancers at his clubs, alleging a variety of labor law violations.

And local news reports quote Dennis Wilenchik as Borowski's lawyer in that suit filed by the men who claimed they were drugged and robbed.

The only client at Wilenchik and Bartness whose case I did find Lisa Borowski's name on is Ron Gould,

a county official in Arizona who claims he was threatened over his refusal to certify the results of the 2020 presidential election.

But the firm's ties to 2020 election hijinks run pretty deep.

They also represented Alan Dershowitz in his efforts to evade sanctions ordered by a federal judge after he was involved in a failed lawsuit brought by Kerry Lake.

And before Dennis Walenchik's son Jack passed away last year, he was heavily involved in the plan to send fake electors to DC to derail the certification of the 2020 election.

In December of 2020, Jack Walenchik sent this email to the Trump campaign team.

Quote,

we would just be sending in fake electoral votes to pence so that someone in Congress can make an objection when they start counting votes.

and start arguing that the fake votes should be counted.

In a follow-up email, he clarified that alternative votes is probably a better term than fake votes.

And then he put a little smiley face emoji.

Jack Walenchik also represented the Cyber Ninjas, the private company hired by Arizona Republicans to audit the 2020 election.

They hired Walenchik in their battle to withhold company records from a congressional investigation.

And the firm represented Sheriff Joe Arpaio for many years.

When Trump pardoned Arpaio in 2017, it was Jack Walenchik who accepted the pardon documents on Arpaio's behalf.

Like I said, Lisa Borowski's name only appears on filings in the Ron Gould case, at least as far as I was able to find.

But it is worth connecting the dots, I think.

Because when Trump fired off a half-baked executive order banning diversity programs, one of the first mayors to jump at the chance to performatively comply had a history with a law firm that was deeply connected to the effort to prevent the certification of the 2020 election.

After the city council meeting last week, Don Logan spoke with reporters.

He was disappointed, but not surprised at the outcome.

Telling one reporter that after he found out the city had refused to conduct a study session, he knew how the vote was going to go.

I gave my blood for the work that we did here, and my message to them is shame on them.

I won't claim to know very much about the inner workings in Scottsdale City Hall in the present day.

I did look over some city budget documents and the city web pages related to the work done by the diversity office, but I couldn't tell you exactly what the Scottsdale City Council might have learned from a study session about the current state of affairs of their diversity office.

But I suspect they may not actually know why Scottsdale was one of the first cities in the country to establish a full-time position of this kind.

It wasn't because of wokeness.

This is one of the things that ended up on the cutting room floor in those five episodes about Dennis Mahon.

But I did spend some time during my research back in December learning a little bit about the political climate in Scottsdale in the late 90s, the years leading up to the establishment of the Office of Diversity and Dialogue in 1998.

It wasn't great.

In 1997, the city settled a lawsuit filed by former Scottsdale police officer Jesus Torres.

Torres claimed he'd been fired for refusing to stay silent about racism within the department.

In 1995, Torres said he witnessed white officers use excessive force against three Hispanic men.

One of the men had a visible boot print on his back, which he claimed was from an officer kicking him.

Torres didn't witness the incident, but he refused to cover for his fellow officers, telling them, I won't lie for you.

I won't cover up for you.

I don't believe in the Rodney King mentality.

And after that night, His performance reviews suddenly turned negative.

And within a few months, he was fired.

In his lawsuit, Torres claimed that it was standard practice within the department to refer to upscale parts of town as the NNZ,

which stands for the no N-word zone.

A fact that another officer confirmed under oath.

During the trial, a female officer broke down in tears on the stand, sobbing as she admitted that the department had a racism problem.

The comments made both to the press and in court by city employees were kind of shocking.

A sergeant testified that it was Torres who was racist, that he had a chip on his shoulder and he was overly sensitive about race.

The city's own attorney smeared him as quick to cry discrimination and soft on Hispanics, saying his actions drove a wedge between himself and the, quote, Anglo-police officers, because he was an advocate for Hispanics first and police second.

And just weeks after the city settled that suit with Torres,

they were back in hot water again

after a black woman was paraded through her apartment complex in nothing but handcuffs and her underwear after police were called to respond to a domestic dispute.

When she filed suit against the city, the police department's own spokesman told the paper that she was, quote, taking advantage of recent allegations of racism in the department to gain financial advantage.

In public statements justifying their decision to force this woman to walk outside barefoot with her breasts exposed and menstrual blood running down her legs, the department claimed it was a matter of officer safety.

This 100-pound, nearly naked woman was so frightening to them that it wouldn't have been safe to allow her to put a shirt on.

The department does not appear to have commented on the decision to dispatch an officer with his own documented history of domestic violence on a call for a domestic disturbance.

And then in December of 1997, So not long after Torres settled his lawsuit with the city and this new lawsuit was filed, Reverend Oscar Tillman, president of the Arizona NAACP,

was promising to disrupt the Phoenix Open, the third stop on the PGA tour and a massive tourist draw that pumped millions of dollars into the local economy.

And Tillman said that he wanted proof.

The city wasn't just paying Jesus Torres that $100,000 to make this problem go away.

He wanted them to promise an independent investigation into the allegations of widespread racism within the department.

Just before Christmas, Tillman had a closed-door meeting with the mayor.

Immediately afterwards, he called off his planned protest without explanation.

And as the calendar rolled over to 1998, Don Logan, an assistant city manager at the time, announced that the city staff had put together a report recommending that the city council establish an office of diversity to conduct community outreach to minority residents and handle internal investigation and mediation of complaints of discrimination.

The city manager insisted that the report's timing and its recommendations had nothing to do with the demands made by the NAACP.

But the timing kind of speaks for itself.

And when the city settled later that year with the woman that cops had perp walked in her underpants, it was their new diversity officer who spoke to the press, not that foul-mouthed cop who couldn't help but double down on maligning the victim.

Don Logan told the Arizona Republic that the city's internal investigation had determined that the officers acted improperly,

though not because of her race.

And during Don Logan's first year as the director of diversity and dialogue, the Scottsdale Police Department was facing the possibility of not just more scandal, but federal indictments.

In 1999, the city of Scottsdale spent at least a quarter of a million dollars on a high-priced defense attorney to guide their police officers through the grand jury process as the Department of Justice investigated allegations that officers were engaged in tax evasion and civil rights violations in relation to their off-duty shifts, working security for a nightclub frequented by black patrons.

In the late 90s, Club Tribeca was the only club in the Scottsdale area that had a hip-hop night, which made it the only club in the area with a majority non-white crowd.

And for several years, the club was locked in a legal battle with the city of Scottsdale.

Club owner George Delk went public in 1997, not long after the Jesus Torres suit was settled, with allegations that the off-duty cops were demanding to be paid in cash and that they refused to fill out tax forms.

Delk also claimed that the officers routinely threatened, intimidated, and maced the club's Black and Hispanic patrons, and that one officer he spoke to told him outright that the department considers any gathering of more than 10 black people to be a riot and quote, we don't hesitate to use chemicals on them.

The department changed their policy on moonlighting after these allegations were made public.

But the city was determined to force the club out of business, unsuccessfully going after their live music permit and their liquor license.

In the city's effort to shut the club down, they cited police department claims that the club's activities were generating a disproportionate number of calls for police service.

A legal battle ensued, and when the club's lawyer finally got the city to produce these actual police records that the claims were based on,

he says the numbers were wildly inflated and that they'd padded the figures with a wide variety of unrelated nearby incidents like traffic stops and citations that were issued in the neighborhood during the daytime when the club wasn't even open.

In the end, After an 18-month grand jury investigation,

no one was charged.

But the allegations alone underscored the need for the kind of public relations boost their new diversity office could provide.

The city of Scottsdale was one of the first cities in the country to establish a full-time diversity director.

Because they needed one.

Their police department couldn't go a month without not only violating someone's civil rights, but running their mouth about it in the paper.

What may have started off as a necessary compromise to prevent prevent protesters from upsetting golf fans and put a friendlier face on the city's constant press releases about settling civil rights lawsuits really does seem to have evolved into something meaningful.

And for just $250,000 a year, which is, even before you adjust for 25 years of inflation, less than the price tag for the lawyer they had to hire to dig their cops out of a DOJ investigation.

The Office of Diversity oversaw the city's federally mandated ADA transition plan, addressed complaints about violations of the Americans with Disabilities Act, oversaw the city's compliance with federal civil rights laws, investigated and mediated complaints of discrimination, provided staff support to the city's Human Relations Commission, oversaw the city's employee resource group, provided voluntary trainings for city departments on topics like inclusion and civility, organized community outreach and cultural celebrations, provided professional development for city staff, and secured the grant funding for a scholarship program for students with disabilities.

They put on Hispanic Heritage Month celebrations and programming during Black History Month.

They didn't hire and fire.

They didn't force white men to sit through mandatory white guilt seminars like a Clockwork Orange Nightmare or whatever imaginary horrors the Republican Council members pretend go on in DEI workshops.

By all accounts, it seems as though the city councilors who voted to abolish the office never actually bothered to find out what it does.

And now city staff will be in a bind trying to reassign staff and ensure the federally mandated elements of the office's work are still getting done.

Because for now, at least, someone still has to file Title VI compliance reports.

Someone still has to manage the city's ADA transition plan.

The Scottsdale City Council jumped on the Trump train, and they made a big symbolic gesture.

Those executive orders taking aim at diversity programs in federal workplaces didn't require the city to roll back their own diversity programs.

They didn't just comply in advance.

They performed.

This was a show.

Councilman Cosman tweeted last month, You can't walk into Scottsdale City Hall without being bombarded with DEI.

This poison will be rooted out of our beautiful city.

The poison they're trying to root out isn't DEI.

Diversity, equity, and inclusion is today's branding, but they can call it whatever they want.

Affirmative action, wokeness, reverse racism, anti-white discrimination, whatever.

What they mean is civil rights.

And what they want is segregation.

When every woman, black person, or trans person they see is a potential DEI hire,

what they're really asking for is a return to a world without the Civil Rights Act.

Call it whatever you want, but I'm begging you to see it for what it is.

An attempt to eradicate whole swaths of the population from public life.

to make boardrooms and classrooms and legislatures the exclusive domain of white Christian men.

Dennis Mahon didn't build that bomb because of some carefully considered ideas about municipal hiring practices.

He did it because he saw a flyer for Hispanic Heritage Month.

Just like Councilman Coasman walking into City Hall and getting worked up about seeing the Scottsdale for All pamphlets.

Six months before the bombing, Dennis Mahon called the diversity office.

He'd seen an advertisement for upcoming events celebrating Hispanic Heritage Month, and he couldn't stand it.

He left a voicemail mocking the office for putting on the events, and he used racial slurs, and he laughed at the very idea of celebrating Hispanic culture.

And the message ended with a warning:

We've got lots of support.

The white Aryan resistance is growing in Scottsdale.

There's a few white people who are standing up.

Dennis Mahon's idea of standing up for the white man in the face of the poison of diversity was building a bomb.

And today,

21 years later, five members of the Scottsdale City Council finished what he started.

They didn't do it with racial slurs and pipe bombs this time around.

Sitting on the dais in City Hall, Gavel in hand, Scottsdale Mayor Lisa Borowski presided over a meeting that used city ordinance to do what Dennis Mahon failed to do with explosive ordinance.

He tried to kill Don Logan,

but they killed the city's diversity office.

Weird Little Guys is a production of CoolZone Media and iHeartRadio.

It's researched, written, and recorded by me, Molly Conger.

Our executive producers are Sophie Lichterman and Robert Evans.

The show is edited by the wildly talented Rory Gagan.

The theme music was composed by Brad Dickert.

You can email me at WeirdLittleGuyspodcast at gmail.com.

I will definitely read it, but I probably will not answer it.

It's nothing personal.

You can exchange conspiracy theories about the show with other listeners on the Weird Little Guys subreddit.

Just don't post anything that's going to make you one of my Weird Little Guys.

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