For those who didn’t catch it, here’s the segment from Anderson Cooper 360 on CNN last night, which featured a face-off between Sheriff Joe and Isabel Garcia, Pima County Legal Defender and Co-Chair of the human rights organization Coalición de Derechos Humanos. The mini-debate followed a report by Soledad O’Brien…
I give the MCSO points for trying. Ever since the sheriff’s office cited a non-existent law and text from a nativist Web site to justify its claim of federal authority after being stripped of 287(g) street power by ICE, the MCSO’s been attempting to walk the conversation backwards and extricate themselves from…
I dialed up the venerable Phoenix costume and party supply store Easley’s Costumes and Fun Shop to see if they had one of the illegal alien outfits currently causing a stir, and if anyone was raising Cain about it. I spoke with one of the owners Carol Easley, and she…
This comedy regarding Joe Arpaio’s supposed legal authority to question people on the street about their immigration status is reaching epic proportions, like some Monty Python sketch gone awry. Our geriatric top gendarme recently told Channel 12 News that he will seek a legal opinion on whether or not he has 287(g) authority without…
Sheriff Joe is sued. Again. Only this time it isn’t on account of abuses of undocumented immigrants; apparently Joe feels like part of his duty as “America’s Toughest Sheriff” is to make it as hard as possible for inmate women to get abortions. Today, inmates will request that a Maricopa County…
Here’s the latest walnut of wisdom from Maricopa County’s tin-pot tyrant of a sheriff, courtesy of CBS 5/KPHO. It pretty much falls in line with many of the dumb as dirt statements Arpaio’s made on Glenn Beck and elsewhere recently regarding how he will magically pinpoint illegal aliens during his…
Embedded video from CNN VideoOn Friday’s Rick Sanchez show on CNN, Immigration and Customs Enforcement head John Morton made it sound like the link between Arpaio and ICE was forever severed — that ICE would no longer have anything to do with Arizona’s corrupt top constable.According to Morton, Arpaio’s sweeps…
Maricopa County Supervisor Don Stapley didn’t order anyone to interfere with his September 21 arrest in a county parking garage — and that’s according to the deputies who arrested him. If you’ll recall, Chief Deputy Dave Hendershott told us a couple of days after the arrest that Stapley had “ordered his…
Federal District Judge David Campbell today denied a motion to dismiss the indictments against white supremacist twin brothers Dennis and Daniel Mahon, who are charged in connection with the 2004 package bombing of Scottsdale’s Office of Diversity and Dialogue Director Don Logan. Lawyers for the Mahons alleged that the pair’s Fifth and Sixth Amendment rights had…
ABC15 is reporting that the MCSO will be conducting its latest Hispanic-hunting sweep in Surprise today. Apparently, Joe will be holding a press conference at 5 p.m. at his command post at the sheriff’s substation at Dysart and Bell Roads. The operation begins at noon, with the usual 200 deputies and posse…
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…
