And so are we, Sheriff, but probably not for the same reason.
That quote of course is from Maricopa County Sheriff Joe Arpaio, at a press conference today in Phoenix (video link) where he blustered defiantly (does he know any other way?) in response to the U.S. Department of Justice lawsuit that showed up in his morning mail.
The federal government filed a lawsuit against the Maricopa County Sheriff's Office Thursday morning alleging that sheriff's deputies discriminate against Latino residents during patrol operations and in the county's jails and that the Sheriff's Office retaliates against critics of Sheriff Joe Arpaio. Arizona Republic
If Arpaio is "happy" about lawsuits, he must be about the most jolly guy in Arizona. The old fart has had his flaccid butt hauled into court
way more than any elected official in the nation. Shiny happy smiley faces all around!
... there have been 1,828 lawsuits against the sheriff's office, according to a national lawsuit database. To put that into perspective, the ABC15 Investigators also searched Harris County in Texas which includes Houston. Harris County is almost the same size in population to Maricopa County. There are only 283 lawsuits listed under the Harris County Sheriff's Office for the same 17 year period. Maricopa County has about six times more. ABC15.com
Some of these lawsuits stem from the Sheriff's deputies illegally arresting someone, usually a brown someone, who happens to be a U.S. citizen. Maybe they're of the Mexicanish brownish hue and mow lawns, you know, work their fucking
asses off for others in weather a lot of us can't stand the walk from the mall to our car, so it's okay to arrest and hold them for a day, like for no fucking reason.
Well, no, it's not. And if that's not unconstitutional, I don't know
what the squat the Bill of Rights even means anymore. Oh, it gets better/worse here in Marikafka County. Sometimes his jailhouse goons rough up an inmate, a whole lot more than any place except for maybe like China -- maybe someone just
awaiting trial, not convicted of anything, just hauled off the street, who ended up very hurt or extremely dead.
These are unethical, toxic, and expensive fuck-ups. First and foremostest, the buttheaded chickenhawk is a divisive SOB. I mean, how many other county sheriffs in the USA do most of us know and probably have a strong opinion about? You could threaten me with a massively hurtful head slap and without the google I couldn't tell you the sheriffs of the counties that include L.A., Chicago, or Philadelphia, but I'd bet many of their residents know our badged and beige asshole. Arpaio's a polarizing and giantly ineffective law officer -- sheriff of the only county in the state to see an increase in violent crime.
The Arpaio-Pearce-[now-mass-murderer-and-dead]-Ready venom picks at the scab of some real ugliness. From the front page of last Sunday's Arizona Republic:
The state has long had a homegrown fringe right-wing element, but its more recent status as ground zero in the heated national debate over illegal immigration has made Arizona a beacon to out-of-state White supremacists, neo-Nazis, skinheads and militia types... Seventeen hate groups, including Ready's armed search-and-rescue squad, had a presence in Arizona as of 2011, according to the Montgomery, Ala.-based Southern Poverty Law Center, which tracks extremism across the country. Others include the National Socialist Movement, which has an authorized Phoenix unit that Ready once led; the National Knights of the Ku Klux Klan; and the Vinlanders Social Club.
Smart phones, low-flush toilets, and Lean Cuisine dinners don't hide the fact that some of the goobers here (Timothy McVeigh, Jared Loughner, J.T. Ready -- I rest my case) are not too many generations removed from the crowds who burned women in Salem because their boobs floated. Attend an anti-immigration rally, and make sure you wear a raincoat to ward off the raging spittle. Here's a booth full of christians, where I wish I could do that Woody Allen-Marshall McLuhan-Annie Hall-sock of horse manure bit, except substitute a kick-ass Jesus, who might also have a word or two for the people of North Carolina (and a whole lotta other states). Hey, it's only a minute, and "if life were only like this":
So, GOP, let me introduce you to this guy you're always talking about, and then you go vote for a hatemonger like Joe Arpaio. 'Splain please, in 100 words or less.
In addition to the illegal and immoral shit spewing from the Sheriff's orifices (sorry for that image), just look at all the dumbfuck Keystone Cops stupid-ass stuff. Yeah, let's take a tank and a washed-up movie star to break up a cock fight:
Actor Steven Seagal and the Maricopa County Sheriff’s Office are facing a lawsuit for allegedly conducting an "improper" raid on a man’s home and driving a tank through his front gate, while filming an episode of the reality show Steven Seagal: Lawman. TPM
Beyond his theater-of-the-sick-and-absurd entertainment factor, Sheriff Joe Arpaio has cost taxpayers of Maricopa County more than
$50 million in settlements and court costs. When
Scott Norberg was murdered by deputies early in the Sheriff's tenure, the payout was $8.25 million, and that was just the beginning. Arpaio actually defeated Sheriff Tom Agnos by belly-aching about the incumbent's $4 million in lawsuits. Shit, Agnos was a 4th-grade piker compared to Arpaio. And we can expect another largish settlement: on the day the Justice Department filed its racial profiling complaint against Arpaio, last December 15, his deputies Tased a Gulf War veteran so horribly that
he died 5 days later. And that $50 mill figure doesn't even
include the nearly
$100 million he pilfered for his boy toys, or the dog shit boondoggle pile of millions we'll be billed for to defend Arpaio's former County Attorney Andrew Thomas, whose corrupt ass was
disbarred because he helped Arpaio establish a culture of retaliation against critics.
Maricopa County Supervisor Don Stapley accused former County Attorney Andrew Thomas and Sheriff Joe Arpaio of ruining his family and his life, calling their investigation of him "outrageous" in testimony at a Tuesday ethics hearing. Arizona Republic
And here we thought Republicans were the party of fiscal responsibility, or so they said. That shows how strong their prejudice is, when they'll elect this dunderhead at the expense of their own wallet. Heck, just
preparing to defend Arpaio against the current Department of Justice investigation has cost us more than $1 million; after today's developments, we can look forward to years of litigation and millions more bucks. Oh, goodie. And there's still a
grand jury investigation pending, which could result in criminal charges. According to the 2010
"Munnell Memo," written by a former Arpaio Chief Deputy, all kinds of nasty shit went down in the Sheriff's office, which has already led to the dismissal of Arpaio's
key aides. Ka-
ching!
But Joe is "happy." How nice for him.
Arpaio has questioned the timing of the government's legal action, stating that the investigation is a politically motivated ploy from President Barack Obama's administration to entice Hispanic voters to vote for Obama in the November election. Arizona Republic
Oh, bullshit. Like Obama needs another reason for Hispanics to vote for him. DREAM Act-fraidypants Mitt Romney and his network of fence-building peckerheads have given Latinos a bucketful of reasons. If anything, it'll be
Arpaio who'll piss on and mold the DOJ lawsuit into political points as he prepares for this year's election. The octogenarian big-gut/no-ass excuse for Fleet will do what he always does when attacked: he'll use the helicopters full of black-booted federal thugs to stir up the crazy base:
"A black president, probably illegitimate according to my investigation, is trying to remove a duly-elected sheriff! Send your dollars now, before the Mexicans overrun us!!"
