Was Gov. Katie Hobbs executed at GITMO? No, but reality is on its last legs

The reader was annoyed at my recent column on, as she put it, Arizona's “rightfully elected” governor (Kari Lake, that would be) and unhappy with my wholesale refusal to cover “real” news.

Like, for example, Friday’s execution of Arizona Gov. Katie Hobbs.

“I see that you have a strong bias against Kari Lake, who is the rightfully elected AZ Governor from the 2022 elections,” Bonnie wrote, in a email on Tuesday. “It makes you look pathetic when you show prejudiced journalism. The majority of people who live and work in Arizona absolutely detested Katie Hobbs. She is a known corrupt politician who orchestrated the 2020 and 2022 election rigging in Arizona.

“You will be interested to know that a well-known news site: www.realrawnews.com with 4 million viewers per month reported that Katie Hobbs was hanged last Friday. Why don’t you spend your time fact-finding why Katie Hobbs was convicted of Treason, Conspiracy to Commit Murder and Election Fraud?”

Site gleefully reports Hobbs' 'hanging'

Having not heard of Hobbs’ untimely demise, I quickly went to the the website, where I learned that Hobbs has been imprisoned at Guantanamo Bay since Sept. 28. A military tribunal in November supposedly found her guilty of the above crimes and on Christmas Day, the intrepid newshound at realrawnews reported the gruesome result.

“Convicted felon and former Arizona Secretary of State Katie Hobbs received an early Christmas gift Friday morning: She was hanged before a coterie of officers who had arrived at GITMO to witness her final breath.”

This was news to Hobbs’ spokesman, Christian Slater, who sent me a photo of the governor taken two days after her supposed execution and there she was, at the Beatitudes Senior Living Community.

“Believe it or not, she is alive and well,” Slater said.

Already a loser: In Senate v. Hobbs. It's you

We interrupt our story here for a brief chuckle but only a brief one, as really, this is more horrifying than it is amusing.

Some of our fellow Americans are absolutely convinced (and apparently thrilled by the notion) that Arizona’s governor was swinging from a gibbet on Friday, having been convicted of treason et al and sentenced … well, to quote their source for “news”: “to hang by the neck until dead, JAG’s severest corporal punishment reserved for Deep Staters whose lives were spent undermining the U.S. Constitution and perfidiously orchestrating the enslavement of God-fearing American patriots.”

No wonder people believe this 'news'

Suddenly, it’s a lot easier to see why the conspiracy industrial complex is alive and thriving. Why Donald Trump could well be our next president and Kari Lake our next United States senator.

There’s an entire cottage industry of fake “journalists” (and politicians) who apparently are making a living by serving up the Kool-Aid to willing “patriots” who are swilling it down with gusto — presumably responding to the incessant requests for donations so the shyster journos can “continue providing news you need to know” and the shyster politcos can “save America.”

According to Politifact, realrawnews was started three years ago, billing itself as an “independent publisher” that “explores content often avoided by the mainstream media.”

Buried on realrawnews is a disclaimer, notifying readers that the website “contains humor, parody and satire” but that’s clearly not the mission. As its owner and sole ”reporter,” a Texas guy who hides behind a fake name, notes: “We have included this disclaimer for our protection, on the advice on legal counsel.”

He defends his work as factual, noting in his pleas for donations attached to every story, “We spend countless hours vetting, researching, and writing.”

There are places to fact check your 'news'

From this “news” site, I learned that James Comey was guillotined, Hillary Clinton was hanged at GITMO and the military executed Tom Hanks via lethal injection. Also, that Mike Pence was “on the run” after having “taken a bullet to the chest” while trying to escape arrest. (You can look them up. I’m not providing links to this garbage.)

“The formal charges were drafted after Pence helped Deep State operatives legitimize Biden’s presidency at the January 6 Electoral College certification and after Trump had obtained irrefutable evidence linking Pence to a plot to topple him,” the website reported.

More recently, I learned that U.S. Special Forces in California “propitiously interrupted a satanic ritual where Deep State lawmakers had fastened two prepubescent children — a boy and a girl — to sacrificial alters with plans to exsanguinate them for Baphomet — a demon allegedly worshipped by the Knights Templar in the 1300s — hoping the creature would destroy President Trump and his progeny.”

It is all utter nonsense, and there are plenty of ways for discerning readers to know that.

There are fact checking websites and places like NewsGuard, a company that provides credibility ratings to online news and information websites, including realrawnews. (“Proceed with caution,” NewsGuard advised in 2021, “This website severely violates basic journalistic standards.”)

Still, voters believe Hobbs was arrested

Yet realrawnews stories and tweets rack up hundreds of comments and are shared thousands of times by voters like Bonnie, who from our back-and-forth email exchange sounded like a very nice woman — one who remained absolutely unconvinced by my assurances that Hobbs not only won last year’s election but today remains among the living.

“I don’t know anyone who reads Arizona Republic news, and the majority of stories are misinformation and prejudiced … ,” she replied. “I suggest you start looking into clones, body doubles and hyper-realistic masks to understand the extent of the deception we are dealing with in every facet of politics.

“The real Joe Biden is dead. The guy(s) pretending to be Joe Biden are actors, clones and body doubles. Use your logic. The real Joe Biden and the fake Biden look nothing like each other. See attached pictures.

“It is well known that Katie Hobbs has an identical twin sister named Becky, and that Katie Hobbs turned over her governor position to Secretary Treasurer Kimberly Yee on September 28.”

Sept. 28 — the day that Hobbs was arrested and packed off to GITMO and reality was packed off the planet to rest ... somewhere ... in peace.

Doomed, I tell you. We are doomed.

Reach Roberts at laurie.roberts@arizonarepublic.com. Follow her on X, formerly Twitter, at @LaurieRoberts or on Threads at @laurierobertsaz.

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This article originally appeared on Arizona Republic: Gov. Katie Hobbs was executed? No, but some voters (sadly) believe it