Grand Canyon Times

The time-honored adage that “actions speak louder than words” is especially true with U.S. Sen. Mark Kelly (D-Ariz.), who has a history of voicing support for one particular stance only to turn around and take action in the opposite direction.

While on the campaign trail in 2020, Kelly said that, as a senator, he would oppose the more radical open-borders approach on immigration that is favored by most in the Democratic Party.

He even explicitly said that he was against the concept of “sanctuary cities.”

However, since taking office, Kelly has voted in favor of other open-borders measures that have ramifications not only for Arizona, but also the country as a whole.  

In September, Kelly voted for a spending bill that would provide taxpayer-funded benefits to tens of thousands of “refugees” from Afghanistan, following that country’s collapse on President Joe Biden’s watch.

In response to the ongoing energy crisis that has financially devastated millions of Americans, Kelly took a page out of establishment Republicans’ playbook by sending a strongly worded letter to Biden.

Yet he voiced support for Biden’s “Build Back Better” agenda that would increase energy taxes, which Kelly justified as addressing “climate issues,” and initiating a “move toward a more renewable energy economy.”

For a decade, Kelly has used the assassination attempt against his wife, former Congresswoman Gabrielle Giffords, as an excuse to relentlessly target the Second Amendment rights of all gun owners.

He even went so far as to join forces with the disgraced former Gen. David Petraeus to form an anti-gun group targeted specifically at veterans, called the “Veterans Coalition for Common Sense.”

Kelly has proven that one doesn’t need to be a longtime career politician to rack up multiple examples of financial corruption while seeking office or after assuming office.

As a candidate in 2020, Kelly repeatedly dodged his connections to a start-up company that he co-founded, World View Enterprises; the reason for avoiding one of his own creations so vehemently was because the company had twice received investments from a Chinese company called Tencent Holdings Ltd., in 2014 and 2016.

Tencent is one of several Chinese entities that engages in censorship of political dissent, including streaming of NBA games after a league manager had voiced support for the Hong Kong protesters.

Kelly is clearly not deserving of a full term as a U.S. senator from the state of Arizona. In less than one year, he has proven himself to be against many of the key issues that matter the most to Arizonians, a radical who feels himself to be above the law and above criticism.

Arizona may have a history of electing self-styled “mavericks” to the U.S. Senate, from John McCain and Jeff Flake to Kyrsten Sinema, but Kelly stands out in the starkest way possible as being nothing like his colleagues or predecessors. Kelly hid his true intentions and true beliefs so that he could get elected on a cult of personality, hiding behind the bravado of his career as an astronaut and the tragedy of his wife’s near-death experience.

A man who would go to such lengths just to arrive to Washington as a Trojan Horse is not deserving of reelection next year; Arizona deserves much, much better.