I'm just waiting for the old coot to hook up with Geraldo Rivera to go look for Al Capone's vault again. Criminy!
I thought the Arpaio news today would be that three of his former top deputies filed suit against the Sheriff for defamation of character. In 2010, the infamous "Munnell Memo," written by a former chief deputy, revealed all kinds of nasty shit at the Sheriff's Office -- a lot of it unethical, much of it sloppy, some of it downright illegal. Rather than own up to the mistakes and crimes that occurred on his own watch, Arpaio pulled a Sgt. Schultz and claimed he knew nothing. He fired the three bozos to save his own flaccid hide, but they've done what it seems like half the state has done: sue Joe Arpaio. They'll have to get in a long line, behind the US Department of Justice, which has sued him for racial profiling.
But all we had to do was wait a few hours, and a new and improved Sheriff Arpaio story emerged. He's been in the national spotlight lately, of course, because of the birther nonsense he's been "investigating" for at least a half year. Even after Arizona Secretary of State Ken Bennett walked back his threat to keep President Obama off the ballot if Hawaii didn't produce documents that satisfied his office, Arpaio continues to plow full steam ahead into crazyville.
The Sheriff understands Hawaii's verification might be good enough for the secretary of state and to get Barack Obama's name on the ballot but he said, "I'm a law enforcement official [and] this has nothing to do with politics." azfamily.com
No, nothing to do with politics at all. So, for "no political reason" he's running all over the hemisphere "trying to determine if any fraud occurred and who's responsible," even though there's
real crime taking place in his own friggin' county (the
only county in the state that's seen an increase in violent crime).
After news broke earlier this week that Arpaio had sent a deputy to Hawaii to look into Obama's birth certificate, a couple dozen critics showed up at his office Thursday, decked out in beach wear and hauling surf boards, to ask why they can't go to Hawaii on the taxpayer's dime. Heck, they can do nothing there too!
"Sheriff Arpaio should be focused on public safety... That whole birther thing, that's not in his jurisdiction. If he was pursuing a child molester [to Hawaii], right on. If he was pursuing a [murderer], right on. If he was pursuing smugglers, right on. But this is not the case." New Times
No, he's not pursuing child molesters in Hawaii. Shit, he couldn't even be bother to investigate more than
400 sex crimes, many committed against children, in his own backyard. But he
does have time and money to pursue this racist birther crapola.
And now it seems he's got a new tinfoil hat to wear: climate change denier. That's right, the same group of white geriatric tea party loonies who convinced Sheriff Arpaio to investigate the President's birth certificate are hosting one of the world's leading climate doofuses, with the proceeds benefitting the Sheriff's posse:
The Surprise Tea Party Patriots, which won national exposure this month by continuing to question President Barack Obama's birth certificate, will host a speech by British global-warming skeptic Lord Christopher Monckton on Monday. The talk will be at Sun City West Foundation Plaza ... and donations will go to Sheriff Joe Arpaio's cold-case posse. Arizona Republic
Maybe the old farts will convince Sheriff Arpaio to investigate the hundreds of universities and scientific organizations which agree climate change
is occurring and humans are a major cause. Heck, it makes about as much sense for a county sheriff in Arizona to look into that as it does for him to investigate the President's birth certificate.
Next up: Arpaio sends deputies to Nepal to search for Yeti.
