After more than a year and a-half of investigation, requests for documents and access, and threats and deadlines, the U.S. Department of Justice has at last, reluctantly, taken some action and sued Sheriff Joe Arpaio in federal court to force him to cooperate with its civil rights probe of his…

Last night’s report from KPHO’s Morgan Loew on the ties between private prison behemoth Corrections Corporation of America and Governor Jan Brewer has drawn some serious plasma from Brewer’s camp. Specifically, the hemorrhage is from Brewer’s top political advisor Chuck Coughlin, president of HighGround Public Affairs, which also represents CCA. Seems Coughlin’s squealing like a skewered…

The Maricopa County Attorney’s Office has chosen not to prosecute Arizona Department of Corrections staff in the death of inmate Marcia Powell. Powell, 48, died May 20, 2009, after being kept in a human cage in Goodyear’s Perryville Prison for at least four hours in the blazing Arizona sun. This, despite a…

Today is a red letter day in former County Attorney Andrew Thomas’ life. From here on out, barring a bolt of lightning, he’ll have oodles of free time to pursue other interests. So here are some suggestions for “Candy.” Feel free to add your own. I did leave out him…

Just to keep you updated, as of 5:54 p.m. Monday, state Schools Superintendent Tom Horne had a comfortable 887 vote lead over ex-Maricopa County Attorney Andrew Thomas in the GOP primary for state Attorney General. According to spokesman Matt Benson at the Arizona Secretary of State’s Office, there are only 900 provisional ballots…

Almost immediately after interim Maricopa County Attorney Rick Romley’s devastating loss in the GOP primary to Sheriff Joe Arpaio’s pick for the position, Bill Montgomery, Democrats and disaffected Republicans alike began to whisper about Romley running as a write-in in the general election. The theory, albeit farfetched, went like this: Sure,…

Governor Jan Brewer’s political operatives are by no means as dumb as their candidate. Evidence the PR stunt they let drop Friday, berating the U.S. State Department for daring to mention Arizona’s breathing while brown law, SB 1070, in America’s first ever report as part of its “Universal Periodic Review”…

State Schools Superintendent Tom Horne declared victory Saturday night over former Maricopa County Attorney Andrew Thomas, his rival in the GOP primary for state Attorney General. This, after today’s count left Horne 853 votes in front, with only around 4,500 votes left to tabulate across Arizona, according to the Secretary…

Here’s a little news for those Sand Land haters out there who’ve dissed Shaun Attwood, author of Hard Time: A Brit in America’s Toughest Jail, the subject of my most recent Bird column. Sheriff Joe Arpaio, the guy Attwood takes to task for the squalid, dangerous conditions in his vast incarceration complex, is…

(Alert: Please see 8/28 update below.)As of 6:36 p.m. today, the Arizona Secretary of State’s office was reporting that state Schools Superintendent Tom Horne leads his rival, former County Attorney Andrew Thomas, by 485 votes in the GOP primary for state Attorney General. SOS spokesman Matthew Benson told me that there…

The end is apparently at hand for former County Attorney Andrew Thomas. Sources within the campaign of state Schools Superintendent Tom Horne, Thomas’ rival in the GOP primary for state Attorney General, have told me that they expect Thomas to concede today. As if to confirm this, Thomas’ PR flack…

It’s not looking good for former Maricopa County Attorney Andrew Thomas. As of the end of today’s count of the remaining ballots, state Schools Superintendent Tom Horne had expanded his lead of about 400 votes from yesterday to 1,073. This, in the GOP nod for state Attorney General. According to the…

The U.S. Department of Justice has given Sheriff Joe Arpaio yet another deadline in its ongoing civil rights investigation of his office: August 27.In a lengthy letter from DOJ attorney Judy Preston to Arpaio’s D.C. mouthpiece Robert Driscoll, Preston details what the DOJ told Driscoll it wants from the MCSO…

Delay, delay, delay. Thow up legal obstacles. Thumb your nose. Hold out till what seems like the last minute. Appear to compromise. Start all over again, and never give anything up unless you absolutely have to. Even then, you can always keep the worst stuff back. This is the shell game Sheriff…

Can we finally say sayonara to Sith Lord and former Maricopa County Attorney Andrew Thomas?Thomas’s unctuous campaign flack, spin-pimp Jason Rose thinks so. Last night, with Thomas’s early lead over state Schools Superintendent Tom Horne in the GOP primary for Attorney General evaporating, Rose tweeted this ice-pick to Thomas’s kidneys:”The jaguar roars:…

Standard practice by the Tucson PD, as captured by Three Sonorans Although activists are normally up in arms about Maricopa County Sheriff Joe Arpaio separating mothers from their children and otherwise breaking up families during his anti-immigration sweeps, this video by Tucson’s Three Sonorans blog reveals that things may be even worse…

Budweiser, which in 2008 was bought out by a Belgian beer giant to form Anheuser-Busch InBev, has spent millions on advertising to the Latino market. According to a 2009 article in Hispanic Market Weekly, the company spent more than $21 million in the first half of 2008 alone on Spanish…

Dougherty’s campaign spot, running this weekendI like both Randy Parraz and John Dougherty in the Dems’ primary for U.S. Senate. I wish I could vote for both of them, to be honest. Both are very different kinds of candidates. And neither one is a traditional politician. Not by a long…

Staffers for Democratic U.S. Senate hopeful Rodney Glassman’s campaign are jumping ship so fast it might as well be a reenactment of James Cameron’s Titanic.Since July, three top staffers have bailed on Glassman: Political Director Junelle Cavero left last month; Field Director Kristin Gwinn resigned a couple of weeks ago; Communications Director…

The Romley campaign’s latest YouTube video dissing MontgomeryU.S. Senator John McCain took some time off from horsewhippin’ GOP primary rival J.D. Hayworth to endorse Rick Romley for Maricopa County Attorney over Sheriff Joe Arpaio’s boy in that primary race, Bill Montgomery.To call McCain’s endorsement of Romley “glowing” would be an…