Arizona: It Just Got a Lot Worse

from Mother Jones:



Arizona: It Just Got a Lot Worse
— By Adam Weinstein

| Fri Apr. 30, 2010 4:53 PM PDT.


When Arizona Gov. Jan Brewer signed the nation's most draconian immigration law last week, criminalizing illegal immigration (and, many critics say, being a minority), she had a good political reason for doing so: Joe Arpaio.

Joe's the aging sheriff of Maricopa County, Arizona (which includes Phoenix), and his disdain for brown people, civil liberties, federal authority, and Constitutional law are pretty well documented at Mother Jones and elsewhere. A man with a Pravda-esque communications machine that would be the envy of any politician on any level, he lords over Maricopa's swelling prison population with the swagger of an antebellum South Carolina planter driving his slaves. He's made prisoners wear pink panties, stuck them in sweltering tents in the desert, screwed with their food rations, cited fake laws, gone after news reporters, and generally made nativism the reason for his existence on this heavenly sphere.

He made arresting Latinos fashionable and, after many run-ins with the feds over such practices, was likely the main inspiration behind Arizona's new immigration code. In short, Brewer felt she had to sign last week's immigration bill, because she felt Arpaio's breath on her neck. She had to appear as tough on brown people as Arpaio does, lest he decide to challenge her in the GOP primary. ......(more)

The complete piece is at: http://motherjones.com/mojo/2010/04/arizona-it-just-got-lot-worse-sheriff-joe-arpaio-immigration-governor

That can sum up why we don't have single-payer health care, why higher education is unaffordable for many families, why the U.S. is losing jobs, etc.

that's how fools like Joe continue to abuse the minority..silent support of the majority

and I don't even know who the Polk County sheriff is. In Des Moines the sheriff won't bother you if you don't bother him. He doesn't turn himself into a media whore or anything. I personally think that the city proper of Phoenix (which is where most of Arpaio's victims live) should secede from Maricopa County and become their own county. Its not fair that people in Gilbert and Mesa get to vote on how people in Phoenix proper should be treated. Phoenicians should be able to vote on how Phoenicians are treated.

Landslide, here we come!

Let's hope that they do. Your choices this November will either be for the Klan or for reasonable adults: intent on governing.

i am 100% deadly serious about this.

Maricopa County Sheriff Joe Arpaio will continue to share his Christmas music playlist with inmates. 12 hours a day, everyday.

His Christmas music playlist is aimed to spread Christmas cheer to 8,000 inmates inside Arizona county jails.

A federal court has thrown out the sixth lawsuit filed by inmates trying to stop the sheriff from playing holiday music in his jails this winter, the Associated Press reports.

more: http://blogs.findlaw.com/legally_weird/2009/12/sheriff-joe-arpaio-christmas-music-playlist-for-inmates.html




Sheriff Joe Arpaio Reportedly Forced Woman To Give Birth While Shackled (VIDEO)
Joseph Arpaio, the Arizona sheriff known for his brutal tactics to little effect, is at the center of yet another controversy.

Arpaio is under investigation by the Justice Department's Civil Rights Division for alleged illegal profiling in his immigration crackdowns. The federal government recently took away some of his power to enforce immigration laws -- Arpaio cited a non-existent law to claim he could keep arresting illegal immigrants on the street anyway.

more - http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2009/11/25/sheriff-joe-arpaio-report_n_370543.html

*edited for spelling

He's the subject of multiple federal investigations, including a sitting federal grand jury.

the state? I read 5 million someplace, cannot find it now.

and according to an article in the Arizona Republic back during the election campaign, it was lucky to get that. Dan Saban who ran against Arpaio, told me in an interview on my show then on KPHX, that that was indeed true.

....joe's a real piece of work....has anybody from the Justice Department done a full-scale, no-holes-barred investigation on joe and/or other maricopa county officials lately?

....I'm sorry, I forgot, Obama's the system....this would involve systemic-change....and our system doesn't change itself....keep up the good work, joe....

From DUer SargeUNN:

http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=show_mesg&forum=389&topic_id=8251161&mesg_id=8251202

And from a local news station:

"The FBI is looking into accusations that Maricopa County Sheriff Joe Arpaio is using his position to settle political vendettas.

Over the past year, 5 Investigates examined more than two dozen complaints against the sheriff from business owners, government workers, mayors and law-enforcement officials.

They claim they spoke out against Arpaio, and shortly after, deputies paid them unwelcome visits.

We described Arpaio's incredible thuggery late last year in his dealings with the public, especially those who dare criticize him. An anti-Arpaio group called Maricopa Citizens for Safety Accountability, which formed last year in response to investigative reports and studies demonstrating that Arpaio's insane obsession with illegal immigrants was destroying his office's ability to actually deal with real law enforcement work, began showing up at county board meetings and asking to speak. Arpaio actually sent out his deputies in force to patrol these meetings, and they arrested people for merely applauding Arpaio's critics."

http://crooksandliars.com/david-neiwert/crazy-sheriff-joe-arpaio-facing-fbi

I have been told by sources that are close to this investigation that it is looking really bad for Joe and one detail I was told to not disclose at this time, Joe will go down. If he runs for Governor I would not be surprised to see the investigation suddenly turn into more.

I love this scenario: Joe resigns to run for Governor, the well known commodity hits the fan, and Joe is toast. If only the timing would be that he wins the GOP primary first -- although I think Terry could beat either Dean Martin or Jan Brewer.

fairness a lot of this would go away IMO. This should have been fixed years and years ago. Now this ends up falling on Obama's shoulders too.

To me they're just fucking scumbags of the highest caliber. Joe Arapaio is no different from any of them. He might as well join the Klan (if he hasn't already) and get it over with.

express their obvious racism out loud and made it not only personal but proved this country's obvious attempt to once again become segregated has been on some people's minds for some time now...

"I want my country back?"

said so often and so much these days one wonders if they are blind to the reality that is that it never left them, they left it...

If you watch the videos at youtube of 9500 Liberty you will see a guy named Greg spearheading the passage of a law very close to the one passed here. I talked to him, a thread is here in more detail of our discussion, and one thing he mentioned in it was that corporations certainly used illegal immigrations as a resource to have a cheap work force. Also interesting in the conversation is that since I grew up in Jim Crow Mississippi, I am aware of racism very much and when I brought up to him that fact, he quickly tried to separate it from racism, but decided not to continue that debate with me after I said I did indeed similarities. They don't see the racism because it actually sneaks up on some as Robb Pearson states in a youtube video that I saw. I also saw people in the Jim Crow era who considered themselves racially tolerant who fell victim to racism the same way.

the only reason we have not had such reform is that the big corporations who own our representatives in Congress profit from treating illegal immigrants like slaves and underpaying and mistreating them.

That statement seems strange to me.

Including yourself, then levels of criminality can't be far behind

so it's clear, the guy has had issues his entire life....

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Joe_Arpaio