Sheriff Joe: King of Maricopa County till he croaks? Looks that way.

The roller-coaster campaign to recall Sheriff Joe Arpaio took another dive today. With just two weeks left before the recall's May 30 deadline, the on-again, off-again paid effort to gather signatures is off again.

See also:
-Joe Arpaio Recall: 14 Days Left, a New Dennis Gilman Video
-Joe Arpaio Recall Re-Ignites Paid Petition Effort with 22 Days to Go
-Joe Arpaio Recall Claims 200,359 Valid Signatures with 38 Days and Counting

This afternoon, I was forwarded a text message sent out to paid canvassers by Sign Here Petitions, informing them that the recall Arpaio committee Respect Arizona had "shut off" the paid drive. They were ordered to stop collecting signatures and turn in their petitions Friday.

Recall Arizona campaign manager Lilia Alvarez confirmed that this was the case. She explained that Recall Arizona had been in negotiations for more funds to keep the paid drive alive, but the funds did not materialize.

"These donors had questions about who the candidate [against Arpaio] would potentially be in the future," she told me. "Today, they decided that they weren't going to donate at the last push anymore. It is disappointing."

Alvarez says the sticking point was the lack of a definite candidate to bet on.

"We made sure to explain...that wasn't the way it works," she said. "But different people think differently, and they're conditional thinkers."

Citizens for a Better Arizona president Randy Parraz makes two very important points in this new video from Dennis Gilman.

The first has to do with what is possible.

See also:
-Joe Arpaio Shill Chad Willems' Bogus Pro-Joe "Petition" (w/Update)
-Joe Arpaio's Chad Willems Talks to the Shadow Army about the "Blocking Campaign" and the End of GOP Rule in Maricopa County
-Joe Arpaio Recall Re-Ignites Paid Petition Effort with 22 Days to Go

"I assure you right now," he tells recall supporters during a recent meeting at the Wright House in Mesa. "And we've talked about this before, there are 335,317 people that currently are registered to vote, that live in Maricopa County, that don't support Sheriff Arpaio.

"That is a fact. Our challenge is, are we going to be able to get to them...to make this happen?"

Don "Teacher-Terror" Shooter wants to give crusty ol' Joe $1.5 million of your dough...

Note: Please see update below.

Think Maricopa County Sheriff Joe Arpaio's been doin' a bang-up job lately, and not just on that broken arm of his?

See also:
-Don't Tread On Me, I'm DON SHOOTER!: Senator Allegedly Assaults Teacher

I mean, we hardly see "America's toughest sheriff" these days after his slip and fall earlier this year. Maybe he's holed up in Fountain Hills driving Ava crazy or maybe MCSO flack Lisa Allen is doing some kind of weird Weekend at Bernie's thing with his corpse. (See note below.)

Either way, you reckon he deserves an additional $1.5 million he can do pretty much any dang thing he pleases with?

Well, seems GOP state Senator Don Shooter, the guy known for allegedly bum rushing school receptionists, does.

Today (Wednesday) the Appropriations Chair offered an amendment to a budget reconciliation bill in committee that would hand over $1.5 million in funds from the state's Gang and Immigration Intelligence Team Enforcement Mission "to a county sheriff of a county with a population of more than three million persons."

Um, which would be Arpaio, as Maricopa County is the only one that fits that bill.

FAIR (aka, Federation of A-hole Immigration Restrictionists)

John Philip Sousa IV, leeching off his great-grandpappy's legacy while dissing immigrants and backing the birther crusade

Nativist Nimrod and birther nutbar John Philip Sousa IV slays me with his whole, "Guess who my great-grandpappy was?" song and dance, which he uses to sell his lame book about the original John Philip Sousa, shill for racist organizations like the Federation for American Immigration Reform, and pimp for Maricopa County's High Pooh-Bah of Hard Arteries, our despised Depends-wearin' despot, Sheriff Joe Arpaio.

See also:
-Joe Arpaio Fans Look a Little Desperate With Billboards Urging People Not to Sign Recall
-Joe Arpaio's Wing-Nut Supporter John Philip Sousa IV's Hysterical Appeal for Moolah

Check out a pic ofSousa, and you'll see a massive dork who's spent his entire life pushing paper for the financial industry, a fella with the personality of a tongue-depressor
and all the charm of that weasel Lumbergh from Office Space.

Join the fight to end Joe Arpaio's 20 year reign of error and terror.

A talentless, middle-aged, pear-shaped cipher, JPS IV may be, but he knows how to make a buck while boosting our bumbling, clodhopper sheriff.

What, you didn't think Sousa did all that shuckin' and jivin' for Joe without taking his cut, did ya?

ArizonaRepublic

The little ad in front of the video is so annoying that I've deleted the embed, swapping it out for this still. If you want, check out the obnoxious video on the Rep's website.

The Arizona Republic's editorial board must be patting themselves on the back right now. Why, they scored an editorial on the Gang of Eight's immigration bill from none other than recalled, disgraced two-time loser Russell Pearce, Sand Land's high satrap of hate.

See also:
-Russell Pearce, Ol' Buds with Killer J.T. Ready, Now Wants to Be the Poster Boy for Gun Rights
-Russell Pearce's Massive Whoppers on Horizon
-Russell Pearce Seems Incapable of Telling the Truth, Even About His Own Religion
-Does Russell Pearce Believe in the "Holy Lie"?
-Russell Pearce's Falsehoods, Inaccuracies and Inventions on Channel 12's Sunday Square-Off

Gee, what will the Rep do to top this dumb stunt? Maybe they could get David Duke to comment on race relations, Eliot Spitzer to pen a piece about the scourge of prostitution, or Bernie Madoff to write a column on how to invest your excess cash.

And why not open up the commentaries on immigration reform even further? I'm sure nativist anti-Semite Glenn Spencer would love to horn in on the action.

Not to mention Spencer's ex-bud, minutewoman Shawna Forde, now sitting on Arizona's death row after being sentenced to die for the murders of 9-year-old Brisenia Flores and her father, Raul.

Forde could do an op-ed for the Rep. Then a Rep flunky could interview her via phone, and let her explain why it's okay to off brown people.

My point is, not everyone's opinion is equal or even valid. And if the "paper of record" is going to grant a 1,000-word-plus column and several online video snippets to a hatemonger like Pearce, then it should at least challenge his bogus facts, misinformation, and prevarications.

Arpaio, back when both arms still worked . . .

With 22 days remaining, the effort to boot Sheriff Joe Arpaio from office has re-started the paid petition-gathering campaign it discontinued back on March 18.

See also:
-Joe Arpaio Fans Look a Little Desperate With Billboards Urging People Not to Sign Recall
-Joe Arpaio Recall: Give Joe the Pink Slip and Help Retire Him from Office
-Joe Arpaio Recall Claims 200,359 Valid Signatures with 38 Days and Counting

Lilia Alvarez, the campaign manager for the recall-Joe group Respect Arizona, confirmed this evening that a "joint paid and volunteer" campaign is now in effect, in part due to additional funds having been received by the group.

Join the fight to end Arpaio's tyranny once and for all.

"We're very grateful for the donors that have stepped forward," she told me. "People know, with 22 days left, it's now or never."

She said the decision to end the paid campaign in March was a tough one, but some of contributions pledged to the group had not materialized.

Donate to the Arpaio Recall group Respect Arizona.

"To hold those pledging money and our own volunteers accountable, we had to scale down the paid effort and hammer away at our fundraising," she said.

Monty's head nearly explodes as he's challenged by Carlos Garcia of Puente

Kudos to Carlos Garcia and his fellow activists at Puente for again confronting Maricopa County Attorney Bill Montgomery on his policy of overcharging undocumented workers so as to make them ineligible for bail, coercing a guilty plea that will likely make them deportable.

See also:
-Bill Montgomery's Victims Break: 14 Captured in Sportex Raid Plead Out Under Coercion
-DPS Officer's Pursuit of DREAMer Lands Woman in Stir for Six Months (w/Update)
-Bill Montgomery's Victims Plead Not Guilty En Masse as Their Children Weep
-Bill Montgomery's Smoking Gun: ICE PowerPoint Shows Monty's Minions How to Deport More Immigrants

Garcia tells me that Monty was in Maryvale on Thursday night, along with Phoenix Police Chief Daniel Garcia and Phoenix City Councilman Danny Valenzuela, for a community forum. Essentially, Puente took over, and put Monty on blast for his apartheid-like practices.

In his address to Montgomery seen in the video above, Garcia asks him about the 23 mothers, fathers, grandfathers, aunts and uncles arrested February 8, in Sheriff Joe Arpaio's raid on Sportex Apparel in Tempe.

These ordinary workers were charged with class four felonies for forgery and identity theft, and held without bail. Their undocumented status and the type of felonies they were charged with made them ineligible for bond under Arizona law.

After three months of enduring regular strip-searches, violent conditions, abusive detention officers, and inedible rations, fourteen of the accused signed agreements with the MCAO this week, pleading guilty to class six felony impersonation, a plea that will likely make them removable by U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement.

Horne wins, Monty loses, and Sand Land politics slithers on...

I'm beginning to think Maricopa County Attorney Bill Montgomery should enroll in some remedial law classes.

That's because now a superior court judge has agreed with an administrative law judge that Montgomery's office messed up the campaign finance case against Attorney General Tom Horne and his outreach director Kathleen Winn.

See also:
-Arizona AG Tom Horne's Sex Scandal Scuttles Gubernatorial Bid
-Bill Montgomery Screws Up Tom Horne Complaint, Judge Recommends Dismissal
-Bill Montgomery Believes Law He's Enforcing Against Tom Horne Is Unconstitutional
-Tom Horne's Snakepit, Bill Montgomery's Dirty Money, and the Problem with Carmen Chenal

See, in March, Administrative Law Judge Tammy Eigenheer ruled that Montgomery lacked authority in the case. Due process was not followed, the judge said. And the matter should be dismissed.

On Thursday, Superior Court Judge John Rea agreed with the ALJ, finding that the law backed the argument proffered by lawyers for Horne and Winn that Montgomery lacked jurisdiction in the case.

Essentially, Montgomery should not have been involved, Rea found, and should not have ordered Horne and Winn to pay back some $500,000 contributed to an independent expenditure committee that Winn ran in the 2010 general election.

The allegation is that there was coordination between Winn's IE and Horne, which is a no-no under state law -- a law, which, ironically, Montgomery believes to be unconstitutional.

Bill Montgomery's victims speak...

Maricopa County Attorney Bill Montgomery must feel really proud of himself. After more than three months in Sheriff Joe Arpaio's dirty, dangerous and sometimes deadly jails, 14 of the 23 undocumented workers being prosecuted in the MCSO's February 8 raid of Sportex Apparel cut plea deals with the prosecutor.

See also:
-DPS Officer's Pursuit of DREAMer Lands Woman in Stir for Six Months (w/Update)
-Bill Montgomery: Victimizer of Undocumented Workers, Turns "Victims' Rights" Advocate in DC
-Bill Montgomery's Smoking Gun: ICE PowerPoint Shows Monty's Minions How to Deport More Immigrants
-Bill Montgomery's Victims Rot in Jail, While Arizona Republic Praises His Hypocrisy on Immigration Reform

Charged with class four felonies involving identity theft and forgery, these parents, grandparents, aunts and uncles pleaded to class six criminal impersonation on April 30. The judge gave them all time served and six months of unsupervised probation.

But this does not guarantee their freedom, as they will now be transferred to the custody of U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement. And under the guidelines taught to Montgomery's prosecutors in early January of 2012, deportation is "no problem," for ICE if the subsection of the law is specified.

And in the case of all 14 plea deals, the subsection is specified.

Watch A clip from The Undocumented on PBS. See more from Independent Lens.

Please see update below.

I have very little to go on with the press release below from U.S. Customs and Immigration Enforcement concerning the "apparent suicide" at the Eloy Detention Center by a 24 year-old Guatemalan woman named Elsa Guadalupe-Gonzales.

Getting info out of the feds is like pulling wisdom teeth with a pair of pliers. Sometimes that's because of confidentiality rules. Sometimes it's because, hey, it's the federal government, which can pretty much do whatever the hell it wants.

I received the info from ICE late in the day. Hopefully, I can get more information tomorrow.

Many of you will not be sympathetic. She broke the law, she deserved her fate. That is what many will think, albeit in the abstract.

A lack of empathy is a failure of imagination, a failure to see that there but for the grace of God or just dumb luck goes you or someone you care about.