Here’s one place you can be certain not to run into Sheriff Joe Arpaio this Thursday night: At a forum on his multifarious abuses of power, sponsored by Citizens for a Better Arizona, the group responsible for making the recall of disgraced, ex-state Senate President Russell Pearce a reality. The…
I’ll give Sheriff Joe Arpaio one thing, the guy is a class-A schmoozer. The almost-octogenarian knows how to butter up his adversaries for public consumption, all while he’s plotting to have them arrested, investigated, tailed, or worse. Though Arpaio is nominally in law enforcement, this is a classic la cosa nostra…
No doubt you’ve heard of driving while brown, particularly regarding Arizona’s infamous ethnic cleansing law Senate Bill 1070. Well, if you’re Hispanic and plan to continue living in this state, get ready for running-out-of-gas-while-brown, walking-to-the-7-Eleven-while-brown, picking-up-your-kids-from-school-while-brown, going-to-work-while-brown, and while you’re at it, add in witnessing- or being-a-victim-of-a-crime-while-brown.Not that blatant racial…
NB: Please see my update at the end of this blog item, with links to the full autopsy and toxicology reports.The Maricopa County Medical Examiner’s Office has issued a determination as to the cause of death for Marty Atencio, the Army vet brutally beaten and Tased in Sheriff Joe Arpaio’s…
Shut down Sheriff Joe Arpaio’s notorious outdoors-deathtrap Tent City? Sounds like a solid idea to me, and one the Phoenix human rights organization Puente will be pushing Saturday, June 23 during a rally and vigil outside Joe’s al fresco gulag.I had to look twice at the announcement for this action…
According to one Gilbert neighbor, neo-Nazi baby-killer and anti-immigrant vigilante J.T. Ready boasted of hunting “two-legged varmints” just days before a massacre in which Gilbert police believe he murdered four, including a 16-month-old girl, and then committed suicide. In a police report released Tuesday by the Gilbert Police Department, Budd…
Many would like to believe that even the most guileful and nefarious of individuals are capable of compassion, particularly toward the weakest among us.Sadly, human behavior argues otherwise. To rationalize away the sufferings of others is a fairly easy mental trick, and when the payoff for doing so is political power, pangs…
It appears that Pinal County released a mountain of public records to Sheriff’s Deputy Andrew Goode — about a years’ worth of e-mails between Paul Babeu and several members of his command staff on a CD — without typical redaction. And now, an attorney representing the county wants to know what Goode…
Wearing flip-flops, grass skirts and Hawaiian leis, with surfboards in tow and the pungent odor of sunscreen trailing behind them, around 15-to-20 members of Citizens for a Better Arizona stormed the 19th Floor of Phoenix’s Wells Fargo Building this afternoon, briefly taking over the entranceway to Sheriff Joe Arpaio’s tony…
If a large segment of a society believes in hocus pocus, then the irrational inevitably affects reality.Wars have been fought in the name of religion, i.e., the worship of supernatural beings that do not exist. People in some parts of the world still wear talismans to ward off “the evil eye.” Not…
Remember the Tennessee weirdo who said Satan “ordered” him to kill “birthers” to spark a war between political parties in order to decrease the population in America?Maricopa County Sheriff Joe Arpaio issued a cry for attention press release saying that guy might be Arizona-bound.Arpaio has claimed Adam Eugene Cox is…
In case you missed it, it’s you, John Q. Taxpayer, who’s currently funding a trip for one of Maricopa County Sheriff Joe Arpaio’s deputies to go on a trip to Hawaii for more “birther” bullshit.Indeed, the investigation once billed as being at “no cost to taxpayers” happens to have some…
UPDATE: MCSO weighs in after the jump.A few things have come to light after the Maricopa County Sheriff’s Office announced the arrest of two-time sexual-assault suspect and self-described “sex pig” Lee Lubonne.First, it was all the things Lubonne allegedly did and the genuinely creepy stuff found in his house, then,…
Dear Maricopa County taxpayers, you’re currently funding a trip to Hawaii for one of Sheriff Joe Arpaio’s deputies so he can help hunt for President Obama’s birth certificate or something.Yes, the investigation that was billed as being at “no cost to taxpayers” happens to have some cost to taxpayers.According to…
Adding to the list of illogical things surrounding the aura of Maricopa County Sheriff Joe Arpaio, a Kansas cop is accused of stealing a framed poster of the sheriff from an office belonging to a former lawyer convicted on meth charges.Really, the only thing better about this than the fact…
Arizona Secretary of State Ken Bennett, a relatively moderate Republican, wants to be Governor. But to have any kind of shot at the 9th floor, he figures he must placate the activist base of Sand Land’s GOP, which is deeply, rabidly insane. Hence, the predicament he finds himself in, having to…
On Wednesday, we told you about U.S. Senator Patrick Leahy asking Attorney General Eric Holder asking if Maricopa County could be on the hook for repaying up to $25 million in federal taxpayer coin, thanks to the Justice Department’s civil-rights case against Sheriff Joe Arpaio.Turns out, alleged civil-rights violations by…
It can only be described as a massive violation of human rights, what this country has done to deny a future to an entire generation of individuals, who for all intents and purposes are Americans.I’m talking about the hundreds of thousands of bright, undocumented youth who would qualify for a…
Three fundraisers are planned this week to help the families of J.T. Ready’s victims. On May 2, Ready shot and killed his girlfriend Lisa Mederos, 47; her daughter Amber Mederos, 23; Amber’s fiance Jim Hiott, 24; and Amber’s one year-old baby girl Lilly, in a murder spree that ended when Ready…
Click-clack/Where your papers at?/We under attack/Fight back/It’s warOne of the best songs to put Senate Bill 1070 and the whole police state mentality that reigns in Arizona on blast is “Papers,” by the Phoenix hip hop duo Shining Soul.With the U.S. Supreme Court scheduled to rule on SB 1070 by…
May be apples and oranges on some level, but yesterday’s bust of State Representative Ben Arredondo after a fairly elaborate FBI sting, got us to thinking about Sheriff Joe Arpaio and his onetime henchman (i.e. chief deputy) Dave Hendershott. The federal indictment against the veteran Tempe pol claims that he…
The campaign of Legislative District 25 state Senate hopeful Bob Worsley today announced a major endorsement, that of Mesa Mayor Scott Smith, a GOPer many consider a future contender for Governor of Sand Land.”I have known Bob Worsley for over 30 years,” Smith states in the press release, which you can…
