Looks foreign to me
(Gage Skidmore/
Flickr)
I am keeping you up to date on the dealings of Sheriff Joe Arpaio, it should be noted, only under duress. The reasons I now dislike dealing with anything to do with Sheriff Moron the First is because when trying to do any research as to what the hell he might be talking about, on any given day, it invariably points directly to a mountain of batshit crazy websites saying batshit crazy things, with batshit crazy commenters all nodding their little avatared heads in agreement about how not-at-all-batshit-crazy any of it is before each putting up their own favorite racist or otherwise batshit crazy photoshops of the sitting president being all black or foreign or evil-looking and stuff.
It is times like this when I think to myself, Yes. Yes, that David Brooks fellow may be right after all. Evil lurks inside all of us, because that is the only reason I can think of why I would be contemplating the merits of a dark American future in which we grind all the stupid people up into paste, feed the paste to cattle, and then feed the cattle to large carnivorous dinosaurs that we have genetically reengineered specifically for the task. Oh, and then we use their droppings as biofuel for powering ... something. A new Xbox or something. One with more pixels.
So with my objections so noted, here is the latest installment of Sheriff Dumbass, Pride of Arizona:
Arizona humiliation Sheriff Joe Arpaio has called on the Director of U.S. Selective Service System to have his agency “conduct an investigation into Barack Obama’s Selective Service registration form from 1980.” [...]
Arpaio is asking for a response within 30 days. If no response is given, he will then decide if his office will move forward with its own investigation.
An aforementioned search of the internet reveals that, no, Sheriff Joe is not hot on the heels of some bold new effing discovery about the secret foreign foreignyness of America's first non-lily-white president. The Obama "selective service" conspiracy theory dates back to 2008, when it was being peddled by notable internet dumbasses as Debbie Schlussel, who became the new Ann Coulter after Ann Coulter was deemed no longer truly offensive enough to fulfill the rightwing dream of offending everyone at all times for all reasons. Apparently in addition to his birth certificate and birth announcements (long form, short form, hobo form, whatever) there are also conspiracy theories surrounding Obama's selective service registration (is the overlap between the O and the B in his signature meant to represent a peace sign?) and his Social Security number itself, which quite possibly was actually issued to a space alien named Hans or something, if I'm remembering the story correctly (ed. note—I may not be remembering that story correctly.)
So Arpaio's investigation has now progressed into the hoary realms of, well, exactly where he was before: Gleaning old conspiracy theories off the internet on the say-so of Jerome Corsi and similar cranks, then nodding his head solemnly and promising to, you know, look into that. His actual crimefighting efforts in Arizona seem to be either all finished or things that will get along better without him, so apparently he's just got that much time on his hands.
We will keep you posted as to the ongoing jackassery that is Sheriff Dumbass, Field Marshal of the Desert, Racist Suburban Tea Partier Division, as events warrant. Or until such time as Joe Arpaio lands himself in the loony bin, whichever comes first. Thank you, Arizona voters, for inflicting this oozing boil of right-wing gullibility onto the rest of us under the proud banner of "conservative law enforcement." I can only presume that's been working out for you. Given that the entire state has dedicated itself to investigating the paperwork of ethnic-looking people, who must keep their papers on them at all times if they have the audacity to go out in public while looking ethnic, I guess that's a safe assumption.