The U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement agency finally made its official announcement today regarding signatories to its controversial 287(g) program, and there were no surprises. Of the 55 new agreements approved by ICE, the Maricopa County Sheriff’s office is one. As expected, the MCSO scored a new jails agreement. Its street authority…
Stung by criticism from yours truly this past Sunday when I pointed out that Sheriff Arpaio had cited a nonexistent law as the legal justification for his anti-immigrant, down-on-the-brown sweeps, the MCSO has just sent out an e-mail admitting their fumble, and attempting to right it. Problem is, they end…
For the Coast to Coast AM set, British conspiracy theorist David Icke is the equivalent of an international rock star. A former soccer player and sportscaster who in 1991 announced on a British TV talk show that he was the Son of God and that disasters would soon beset the Earth, the…
You’d best not mess with the posse, partner!Maricopa County leaders learned that Wild-West lesson this week when they were forced to rescind a demand to the Sheriff’s Office that posse vehicles could no longer sport official markings.In what appears to be another exchange of fire in the feud between county…
Just in time for Friday’s sweep, Dennis Gilman’s video, “Arpaio’s Reign of Terror” Today, ICE spokeswoman Virginia Kice told me that an announcement may come as soon as Thursday on whether or not Sheriff Joe Arpaio will get to keep 287(g) authority in his jails. (See below for update.) I tend to…
The Phoenix Progressive Democrats of America, along with other members of a group calling itself the Arizona Coalition for a State and National Healthcare Plan will be protesting the offices of the insurance company United Healthcare at Camelback and 24th Street with a “die-in” tomorrow, Thursday, October 15. And there may be some…
Joe goes ballistic on two journos from NYC He hates us, he really does hate us! Yes, the mere mention of New Times (or the East Valley Tribune) causes Grampa Joe to fly out of his chair and run looking for his top PR flack Lisa Allen during this vid…
Cool video in favor of the “Basta Dobbs” campaign, even though I can’t support it As much as I’d personally like to see CNN’s Lou Dobbs put out to pasture, I can’t totally get behind this new effort by Latino groups asking CNN to boot him. True, he is an embarrassment…
In case you haven’t noticed, Maricopa County will be coming to a boil this Friday. Not only is it the day of Arpaio’s announced anti-immigrant sweep — his first without 287(g) field authority, but the Rev. Al Sharpton will be back in town for a civil rights forum in downtown Phoenix. And the world…
Say what you will about our Yankee brethren, the editorial writers at the New York Times have consistently seen the immigration situation in Maricopa County through an unfiltered lens. This is because the Times’ unsigned, editorial writer of all opinion pieces having to do with immigration and Arizona has visited…
In Joe Arpaio’s press conference last week, and since then on several news shows, the sheriff has insisted there is a law in the federal code that allows him to continue his anti-immigrant sweeps without his 287(g) field authority. This is the power stripped from him recently by Immigrations and Customs Enforcement,…
Glenn Beck has some fun at Arpaio’s expense on Beck’s Fox TV show I normally loathe Glenn Beck and his smarmy posturings, but I may have to reconsider that attitude after watching Beck mercilessly mess with our geriatric top gendarme on his Friday show. At points, Beck openly makes fun…
GQ magazine just published a damning portrait of Sheriff Joe by writer Alexander Provan titled “The Vigilante,” and it couldn’t come at better time. I know from experience that way too many reporters who come through town get snowed by our irascible, bulbous-nosed sheriff. They find him colorful and often…
Embedded video from CNN VideoSheriff Joe’s just announced the when, if not the where, of his next anti-Hispanic dragnet in Maricopa County, despite the limitations of his new Memorandum of Agreement with the feds. You know, the one he’s already in violation of. The one that’s so far signed only…
The Maricopa County Board of Supervisors passed the buck back to the feds on Sheriff Joe’s new 287(g) jails agreement this morning, authorizing Supes Chair Max Wilson to sign the document once Immigration and Customs Enforcement honcho John Morton autographs it. Currently, only Arpaio and a deputy County Attorney have signed the…
Looks like the journos at today’s Joe Arpaio presser practically had to jump out of the way of the spittle flying forth from the sheriff’s kisser. As I suspected it would be, the whole show was an excuse for a tirade on the part of our spoiled lawman, a fit thrown by a…
Ramping up the pressure on ICE, the Obama administration and Sheriff Joe Arpaio, the American Civil Liberties Union has just issued a press release demanding that Arpaio be stripped of all of his 287(g) authority, including that in the jails. In some ways, this is no surprise, as the ACLU is…
By kvetching to the Arizona Republic and KTAR 92.3 FM’s Jay Lawrence over the weekend about his brand-spanking new, 287(g) jails contract with ICE, has Arpaio thereby violated his agreements with ICE, both old and new? In Section XVIII, paragraph two of the freshly minted Memorandum of Agreement, the recently released document, signed by Arpaio…
If any pro-immigrant activists or lawyers out there labor under the illusion that ICE’s denial of street 287(g) authority to Sheriff Joe Arpaio will put a crimp in his office’s persecution of the undocumented in Maricopa County, they should’ve been listening to KTAR 92.3 FM’s Jay Lawrence show this Sunday evening. For about 20…
Sources are telling me tonight that Joe Arpaio will soon announce that he has signed a new jails agreement with Immigration and Customs Enforcement, one that will continue to allow ICE to partner with the Maricopa County Sheriff’s Office in identifying and removing so-called criminal aliens from MCSO custody. The agreement — supposedly under…
Sheriff Joe Arpaio’s political stock isn’t exactly at an all-time high here in Maricopa County, what with ongoing probes by the U.S. Department of Justice — and reportedly the F.B.I. as well –into his department, a big racial profiling lawsuit being pursued against him in federal court, and the backlash from local political…
Woody Harrelson’s character Charlie Frost from the Roland Emmerich flick 2012 explains the basics of the Mayan prophecy One thing I learned recently by chatting with Dennis McClung, creator of the 2012 survivalist Web site 2012supplies.com and sponsor of the upcoming 2012 Survival Conference in Scottsdale on October 17: The apocalypse can be good…
