As the saying goes, you have to spend money to make money. In Maricopa County’s case, it has to spend money just to make sure Maricopa County Sheriff Joe Arpaio spends taxpayer cash properly.The Maricopa County Board of Supervisors adopted a $2.3 billion budget yesterday, $1.65 million of which isn’t…
When white nationalist websites and racist minutemen with erstwhile ties to child killers are championing your cause, you know you’ve made a serious error. Particularly when you’re a failed presidential candidate still desperate for the world to take you seriously.Such is the case with U.S. Senator from Arizona John McCain,…
Last week United States Immigration and Customs Enforcement honcho John Morton announced a series of “improvements” meant to keep ICE’s focus on deporting aliens with serious criminal records.In spite of these highly touted policy changes, ICE today deported a Phoenix high school cross-country coach who had done a lot of…
The Maricopa County Sheriff’s Office can keep large portions of the Babeu report hidden until Captain Joel Fox’s disciplinary process is complete, a judge told the Arizona Republic and Channel 12 News (KPNX) today.The newspaper and TV station had sued the MCSO to force an immediate and complete disclosure of…
The effort to recall state Senate President Russell Pearce has passed another milestone: This morning, Maricopa County Elections Director Karen Osborne confirmed that the county has validated 10,089 signatures of the 16,949 forwarded to her office by the Arizona Secretary of State.Of the 16,836 signatures examined so far, 6,747 have been…
In the most disgusting, reprehensible, and irresponsible comments of his political career (and that’s saying a lot), Arizona’s senior U.S. Senator John McCain is blaming illegal immigrants for Arizona’s recent plague of wildfires, saying it’s the reason the country needs a “secure border.”As reported by CNN, the former presidential candidate…
Pro-immigrant lawyers and activists are slamming the director of U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement for recently announced policy “changes” that they say will do nothing to improve the way illegal immigrants are being deported.ICE director John Morton is saying he will give the department’s lawyers more decision-making options on what immigration…
Larry Black, Maricopa County Sheriff Joe Arpaio’s former No. 3 man, is no longer listed on the Phoenix International Raceway’s Web site as director of security. We can only speculate that he’s lost the lucrative job he’d had since 1998 in the wake of damning allegations that caused Arpaio…
They say all politicians are by definition liars, but I’m beginning to believe state Senate President Russell Pearce could teach a college course in it.Sand Land’s Professor of Prevarication was on KAET’s Horizon Thursday to discuss the recall effort against him with host Ted Simons. Almost from jump, he began dishing falsehoods and…
A Phoenix man is suing the City of Phoenix, former Phoenix police Chief Jack Harris, and several others over a beating he says he received from two Phoenix police officers who initially mistook him for a drug dealer they’d previously arrested.According to the suit, filed in Maricopa County Superior Court…
I’ve just finished reading the Cambium report on Tucson Unified School District’s much-maligned Mexican American Studies Department. It’s a shocker.Know why? Because the report itself concludes that “no observable evidence was present to suggest that any classroom within Tucson Unified School District is in direct violation of the law [Arizona…
Most of Pearce’s 2010 donations were from outside LD18I plan to ride around town with a dead crow in my car, so the next time I see local hack Howie Fischer, he of the one-man “Capitol Media Services,” I can carve him off a slice for his dinner.See, Fischer, like…
Pro-immigrant activist Sal Reza, leader of the Phoenix human-rights group Puente, announced Tuesday that he’s suing state Senate President Russell Pearce in federal court for falsely arresting him on suspicion of trespassing and denying him access to the Senate building.In addition to Pearce, the complaint names as defendants two Arizona…
Yesterday marked Maricopa County Sheriff Joe Arpaio’s 79th birthday. L’chaim. Yet the aging law dog swears he plans to run for another four-year term as sheriff — laughably, he’s also not ruled out a run for the presidency.As a reader pointed out in the comment section of New Times’ official…
Maricopa County Sheriff Joe Arpaio turns 79 today — which marks the one-year anniversary of his birthday getting “ruined” by blind people.On the sheriff’s 78th birthday, he pouted all day because the National Convention for Guide Dog Users gave Joe the boot as its keynote speaker at a convention in…
As Sheriff Joe Arpaio brags for arresting six immigrants heading for the southeastern United States, a group of United States Senators is releasing a report noting that 70 percent of captured guns used by drug cartels in Mexico originated in the United States. One of these smuggling problems is worse than…
Maricopa County’s corrupt top cop, Joe Arpaio, is boasting about six illegal immigrants his deputies arrested yesterday — he’s so impressed with himself, in fact, he wants a thank you.The immigrant roundup went down in the north Valley. The Sheriff’s Office says the immigrants paid smugglers $2,000 to bring them…
Miguel Aparicio’s story is a prime example of how the U.S. immigration system can take someone from one extreme to another.In 2009, as he was driving down to a friend’s house in Casa Grande to do some electrician work, he was pulled over for a minor traffic stop. In the…
Even though I’m on deadline for this week’s column, I couldn’t miss today’s action by the Russell Pearce-recall group Citizens for a Better Arizona, during which organizer Randy Parraz attempted to deliver to the state Senate President his first ever (to my knowledge) unemployment “check” dated December 5, 2011. That…
The state Legislature recessed indefinitely today from its special session without making a minor change in state law that would allow some 45,000 jobless Arizonans to continue receiving unemployment checks.Around 15,000 out-of-work Sand Landers will receive a check this week, and then no more. The Arizona Department of Economic Security…
Vicente Fernandez, a Mexican ranchero singer, angered some in Arizona’s Latino community when he decided to not only perform in an anti-immigrant state, but also because he is being sponsored by Budweiser.Scores of people showed up at US Airways Center Friday evening to show their disdain for the beloved Mexican…
State Senate President Russell Pearce and the Republican-controlled Legislature couldn’t be bothered today to change one word in state law to extend unemployment benefits to 15,000 out-of-work Arizonans.But Pearce has had the copious free time to compose a lengthy, five page letter to Arizona Attorney General Tom Horne arguing that…
