Phoenix Mayor Phil Gordon says America’s self-proclaimed “toughest sheriff” has agreed to keep his chain gangs away from the Major League Baseball All-Star Game tomorrow night at Chase Field. Maricopa County Sheriff Joe Arpaio, you may recall, said last month he planned to roll out the chain gang in response…
At 11 a.m. today, Maricopa County Sheriff Joe Arpaio plans to unveil his new line of pink skivvies. But there’s a twist: the traditional “Go Joe” written on the promotional boxers will now be in Spanish, which — according to Arpaio — proves he isn’t a racist.Arpaio will be at the…
More bad news for state Senate President Russell Pearce.One day before the historic announcement by the Arizona Secretary of State’s Office that the Pearce recall will go before the voters of Legislative District 18, Arizona Solicitor General David Cole informed Pearce that recall committees cannot accept corporate or union contributions.Cole…
I’m cooking up some barbecued black bird for all of my colleagues in the local press who pooh-poohed the recall of state Senate President Russell Pearce. First slice goes to lifelong hack Howie Fischer. The rest of the crow flesh is for all of the members of Horizon’s clown table, that circle…
More than a year ago pro-immigrant organizations were demanding that the 2011 Major League Baseball All-Star Game be moved from Phoenix to punish Arizona for passing one of the harshest immigration laws in the nation.Among those organizations was the Phoenix-based immigrant-rights coalition Somos America, but MLB did not heed activists’ demands and the game…
As Sheriff Joe Arpaio plots to humiliate Arizona by deploying a chain gang of illegal immigrants to clean up around Chase Field, where the Major League Baseball All-Star Game is scheduled to take place July 12, there’s ample evidence Arpaio should be in stripes right along with them, cleaning the…
Ever since Governor Jan Brewer signed Senate Bill 1070 into law, pro-immigrant activists and politicians have had different perspectives on how to best show disapproval of the controversial immigration statute. Organizations such as the Phoenix-based human-rights organization Puente have called for a boycott of the state. U.S. Representative…
Ten retired Scottsdale police officers are suing in federal court over tens of thousands in medical-leave pay they claim to have been shorted.The employees include: former Scottsdale police public information officer Sam Bailey; Bill Zeller (who once made the news for arresting a Scottsdale high school student because he disobeyed…
A note to Sand Land’s hillbilly gun-huggers: Beer and firearms don’t mix. And they mix especially poorly with bigotry, latent or otherwise. Case in point is Gary Kelley, the South Phoenix man who gunned down his neighbor Juan Varela on May 6, 2010 after screaming at him in a drunken rage,…
Last year one of Mexico’s most revered soccer teams cancelled its game in Glendale in opposition to Arizona’s immigration law, Senate Bill 1070. Now that the most controversial elements of the law are tangled up in federal court, Club America’s management has decided to come to Arizona and play at…
Maricopa County Sheriff Joe Arpaio says oppressive heat has prompted him to briefly “cool it” on the whole tough-guy thing when handling inmates in his Tent City jail — and, of course, he wants the world to know.With temperatures expected to reach nearly 120 degrees this weekend, Arpaio’s apparently concerned…
Arizona law enforcement cannot be sleeping well tonight, with the keyboard anarchists of “Chinga La Migra” (“Fuck the Border Patrol,” in English) claiming yet another hack with a corresponding data dump of local cops’ personal info.I only say “claiming” because I’m still accessing the torrent. (Hey, I never said I…
The Phoenix-based human-rights organization Puente has called for a national boycott of the Major League Baseball All-Star Game, to be hosted at Chase Field, July 12.Puente’s boycott stems from its opposition to Senate Bill 1070, the group announced at a press conference on Wednesday. Raul Cordero, a member of Puente,…
Maricopa County’s corrupt top cop felt the need yesterday to announce to the world that he’ll be trotting out his female chain gang to clean up garbage in the name of DUI awareness. Alerting the media to a played-out practice of archaic punishment — which he’s been using for nearly…
In his June 22 editorial on the effort to recall state Senate President Russell Pearce, Don Sorchych, publisher and editor of the right-wing Cave Creek pub Sonoran News, erroneously referred to Mesa resident and petition-signer Benita Lantigua as “a Mexican woman,” who is “likely an illegal.”Today, Lantigua showed up to a…
The eyes of the baseball world will soon be on the Valley when the MLB All-Star Game comes to town next month — which, of course, means it’s time for America’s self-proclaimed “toughest sheriff” to smile for the cameras and entertain the out-of-towners with some fruitcake, wild west sheriffin’.Yee-ha!Sheriff Joe…
On Tuesday, the U.S. Senate Judiciary Committee held its first DREAM Act hearing since the legislation was first proposed a decade ago. Illinois Senator Dick Durbin, a Democrat, announced the hearing last week. Durbin was looking to convince Senate Republicans to support the proposed legislation, which would create a pathway to…
The officer at the Arizona Department of Public Safety’s media line sounded pretty hangdog when I called about the latest hacker attack on DPS’s computer system, this time by a LulzSec spin-off calling itself “Hackers Without Borders.”He told me someone will get back to me later once DPS figures out…
If you’re a washed up, ex-celebrity, and you spend even a second with Maricopa County Sheriff Joe Arpaio, expect the media to be there, too. Just ask Steven Seagal.The latest has-been to get some air time compliments of the sheriff: the “Motor City Madman” himself, Ted Nugent.Nugent’s been rolled out…
As of Monday morning, Maricopa County Elections Director Karen Osborne said the county had validated 10,356 signatures from petitions seeking the recall of state Senate President Russell Pearce. That’s 2,600 more than the 7,756 signatures required by statute from Pearce’s Legislative District 18.But if a recall election is now inevitable, so…
They say the marshal always gets his man, but there’s no guaranteeing the condition the fugitive will be in when nabbed.Take infomercial huckster Don Lapre, who made the not-so smooth move of failing to appear for his arraignment in federal court on 41 counts of fraud-related charges. After his no-show on Wednesday,…
On Thursday, New Times filed a challenge to a recent 2-1 decision by the Ninth U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals in Lacey v. Arpaio, the lawsuit seeking damages for the wrongful 2007 arrests of Village Voice Media Executive Editor Michael Lacey and VVM CEO Jim Larkin by Maricopa County sheriff’s…
