As if the relentless barrage of hit pieces from Sen. John McCain wasn't bad enough for Republican J.D. Hayworth: Now Citizens for Responsibility and Ethics in Washington has put the would-be U.S. senator on the list of Crooked Candidates 2010. Here's what CREW says about him:

Mr. Hayworth served in the U.S. House of Representatives for twelve years before losing his 2006 bid for reelection in part due to his ethics issues. While in Congress, Rep. Hayworth drew intense criticism for his extensive ties to Jack Abramoff and for employing his wife to run his political action committee (PAC). Rep. Hayworth’s ethical issues were documented in CREW’s 2006 report on the most corrupt members of Congress. After losing his seat, Rep. Hayworth hosted a conservative talk-radio show, but he left that job earlier this year to run for Senate.

While in Congress, Rep. Hayworth accepted donations to his campaign and leadership PAC from convicted lobbyist Jack Abramoff’s clients. Rep. Hayworth also used Mr. Abramoff’s skyboxes five times without reporting the costs in his Federal Election Commission (FEC) filings. Rep. Hayworth’s failure to report the skyboxes as campaign contributions violated federal election law, and Rep. Hayworth was later forced to repay the skybox owners. Rep. Hayworth was later cleared of any additional wrongdoing in the Abramoff scandal.

Rep. Hayworth’s ties to Abramoff also enriched his family. Between 1999 and 2007, Rep. Hayworth’s wife, Mary, worked as the sole paid employee of TEAM PAC, his leadership PAC. During that time, Ms. Hayworth was paid over $140,000. Additionally, $83,000 of the PAC donations came from Abramoff-related interests. Given that the PAC’s bookkeeping was farmed out to an accounting firm, Ms. Hayworth’s role in the PAC was unclear. Rep. Hayworth terminated the PAC in 2008.

Gov. Jan Brewer has a new Facebook page: Jan Brewer Facts.

Hat tip: Robert Mayer

Former state lawmaker Jonathan Paton, one of four Republican candidates seeking to oust Democratic Congresswoman Gabrielle Giffords, has been endorsed by Arizona Right to Life.

"I'm honored that Arizona Right to Life has chosen me as the person they trust most to stand up in Congress for the values we hold so dear," Paton said in a released statement. "All human life is valuable, and I will work hard to protect all Americans from beginning of life to the end."

Arizona Right to Life cited Paton's service in Iraq as one of the reasons for supporting him, citing his record of "defending life in a most concrete way."

In the Arizona Legislature, Paton supported parental-notification laws for minors who seek abortions and opposed late-pregnancy abortions, public funding for abortion, and public funding for human cloning.

Paton campaign spokesman Daniel Scarpinato says that Paton believes abortion should be illegal unless the life of the mother is at risk or in cases of rape and incest. Paton also opposes embryonic stem-cell research.

Paton faces Jesse Kelly, Brian Miller and Jay Quick in the Aug. 24 GOP primary.

U.S. Sen. John McCain and Republican challenger J.D. Hayworth spent a second night tearing each other apart, while Jim Deakin laughed at both of them and promised to dismantle everything from Medicare to the Environmental Protection Agency.

• NASA/JPL/University of Arizona

A new batch of photos from the UA's HiRISE camera aboard the Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter are available here.

HiRISE team member Kelly Kolb tells us about the above shot:

A northern mid-latitude scene consisting of craters, intercrater plains, and mantled material is visible in this HiRISE image.

The mantled material seen here covers much of the middle latitudes in both hemispheres of Mars; it has been visibly removed in some locations. It's called "mantled" because it looks as if

A Chicago Fox News affiliate recently delivered a particularly stupid story questioning whether libraries were a big waste of tax dollars:

They eat up millions of your hard earned tax dollars. It's money that could be used to keep your child's school running. So with the internet and e-books, do we really need millions for libraries?

Libraries are quiet havens for the community. They take us to other worlds. They even make us laugh. But should these institutions — that date back to 1900 B.C. — be on the way out?

And reporter Anna Davlantes actually used a hidden camera to report the piece.

We're a long way from Chicago (and library officials there are defending their library system without us.) But let us say that we find the Pima County Public Library to be a great community resource. We check out a lot of books, DVDs and CDs. We browse magazines and take advantage of Consumer Reports when we're considering a major purchase. We search the catalog online, place our order with a few clicks and get an e-mail when our latest request is waiting for us on the holdshelf. In short, we love the local library.

And, to the point of this piece, we'd like to congratulate them on a newly redesigned and nifty website.

The five Democrats seeking a House seat in midtown Tucson's Legislative District 28 debated last week.

Frequent commenter J.T. Waldron has this to say about the poll tapes from the RTA election:

The Tucson Weekly has afforded me this opportunity to post on The Range about the missing RTA poll tapes. What are poll tapes and why do they matter? Poll tapes are receipts that are printed in each precinct at the end of the election night. They contain the vote totals that indicate the results for that particular precinct. Once printed, election workers verify the authenticity of the poll tape and its totals by signing the bottom of each poll tape. For this reason, poll tapes could serve an important auditing function, especially in conjunction with examining the ballots.

Earlier posts and national media news sources report that a number of poll tapes from the 2006 RTA election are missing. Here are the actual numbers:

Out of 368 memory cards representing 409 precincts, there are 112 poll tapes missing, which represent 122 precincts. This is approximately 30 percent of the precincts counted.

102 additional supporting documents (yellow sheets) are missing.

50 of the polltapes that were found do not match the final canvas.

Why is this significant? Because it utterly discredits Attorney General Terry Goddard's investigation, it renders the RTA investigation incomplete and it underscores the lack of confidence in Pima County's elections.

Attorney General Terry Goddard contradicted himself numerous times over activities involving the RTA poll tapes.

The Tucson Weekly won three awards in the Association of Alternative Newsweeklies' 2010 Altweekly Awards. The results were announced Friday, July 16, at the AAN annual convention.

Weekly art director Adam Kurtz nabbed top honors in the editorial layout category (less than 50,000 circulation) for his print layout of "The Strange Saga of Geronimo's Skull" (June 11, 2009)

Renee Downing nabbed second place honors for political column. She won for "Unfortunately, Arizonans Are Getting What We're Paying For" (Dec. 10, 2009), "Price Tags: The Elephant in the Room in Health Care" (Nov. 12, 2009) and "If You May One Day Need to Go to an ER, You Should Support Health-Care Reform" (Sept. 17, 2009).

Tim Vanderpool won his third Altweekly Award in the last three years, this time earning honorable mention in the short-form news category, for his coverage of Tucson Greyhound Park: "Kennel No. 1" (April 23, 2009), "Ordinance Ignored" (Oct. 15, 2009) and "Greyhound Runaround" (Dec. 3, 2009).

In other news, Tucson Weekly editor Jimmy Boegle was elected to the AAN Board of Directors as the chair of the Diversity Committee.

Spiritual Confirmation with Eddie Gallego
By Blair Kurland

This final piece of video gives proof, if you choose to believe it, to the existence of the unearthly visitors.