Joe Arpaio is the wingnut sheriff of Maricopa County,Arizona, an office nominally designated as an agency for upholding the law,rather than what Arpaio personally thinksshouldbe the law (no, he does not seem to be aware of the difference). Or as Balkoaptly described him:“a power-mad, office-abusing sheriff who has misspent millions in taxpayerfunds, and who once let a celebrity drive a damned tank into a man’s home (onsuspicion of cockfighting, no less).” Fortune, however, placed Arpaio on theother side of the bar, to the dismay and horror of anyone even minimallycivilized.

For instance, Arpaio has taken a very hard line againstillegal immigration. Indeed, he declines to hand illegal immigrants over tofederal authorities for deportation (instead jailing them), and the office hasbeen so busy hunting illegal immigrants thatnothing else has really received much attention (including over 400 sexual assault cases, most of which involve children,whichhe didn’t bother to look into – indeed, the sheriff’s officereadily admitted that they didn’t care).In the end (May 2012), the Justice Departmentfiled a civil suit against Arpaio in Federal court due to multiple civil rights violationsprimarily aimed at the Latino population of Maricopa County (a brief summary of his civil rights violations ishere);and yes, the conclusion was, unsurprisingly,that Arpaio has engaged in systematic discrimination against Latino residents of hiscounty (and he did, eventually,receive a mild slap on his wrist).But then again, Arpaio doesn’t really believe in civil rights,at least not free speech,and at least not when it is used to criticize him (which hedoes think constitutes violation ofhiscivil rights). And yes, he is stilla racist –and still a hero of the Western conservatives – those things are, frankly, not unrelated.

Arpaio also uses the sheriff's office, including itsofficial communication organs, as self-promotion tools, including thepublication of his political differences with the federal government and of hisopinions on Arizona political happenings; he also sells prison equipment(especially those indicative of his own dubious civil rights track record) assouvenirs through an outfit called the Posse Foundation, once again withfunding from the sheriff’s office.

But Arpaio is by far most famous for his birther activism –indeed, he may probably be said to be the leading birther activist in the USafter assuming the mantle fromOrly Taitz following the latter’s repeated crashes and burns (not that any of them hasstopped her), and making theWND all giddy in the process. In particular, Arpaio argues, partially on thegrounds of info – incoherent rants –he obtained from Taitz,that President Obama’s birth certificate and selective service (draft)registration card are fakes. His volunteer “Cold Case Posse” conducted an“investigation” together withJerome Corsi – Arpaio wasbaffled and angry that no one but the WND seemed to pay muchattention – and then held an impressively long press conference to announcetheir findings: the documents are fraudulent and Obama was probably born abroad andis not eligible to be President (who would have expectedthat outcomefrom their fair and unbiased investigations). Their evidence was heavilydependent on the idea that the birth certificate’s electronic form, as releasedonline by the White House, differed from a “control” sample certificate thatthey scanned themselves. Suffice to say thatfew people not already committed to the birther cause were impressed.On the other hand, Tea Party intellectual strategistJudson Phillips actuallyseemed to believe that Arpaio’s “findings” would lead to criminal chargesagainst Obama.More interestingly, the man in charge of running Arizona’s elections, Secretaryof State Ken Bennett, claimed he became unsure whether Barack Obama was reallyborn in the United States after Arpaio’s revelations,and threatened to keepthe president off the ballot for the 2012 election.No Ken: no one actually believes that you came to those conclusions based onArpaio’s research.

It is worth mentioning that the day before Arpaio’s “ColdCase Posse” released the report, the lead investigator, Michael Zullo,published a book on the topic, co-authored with Jerome Corsi.It is also worth mentioning that Arpaioconducted his birther investigations using taxpayer money.

But Arpaio wasn’t done, and with Zullo he made anotherridiculous attempt in July 2012, adding the claim that super-secret codes werehidden in the birth certificate and that some very old person (not present atthe press conference) was the only one who could figure out what those codesactually meant. They alsoasserted that Hawaiian police were following Zullo around to harass him during his “investigation” (meanwhile the above-mentioned civillawsuit against Arpaio was going on, but that was of coursecompletely unrelated).Zullo, on his side, has continued to present his “evidence” at various venues,includingthe Constitutional Sheriffs and Peace Officers Association convention,where Rep.Steve Stockman (R-Texas), attended and was, according to Zullo, “deeply concerned about it andhe really does want to have a lengthy, lengthy discussion about this.” InDecember 2013, the WNDonce again promised a “universe-shattering” birtherrevelation in the near future – Zullo was “unable to reveal details at the moment,” but it would be “beyond the pale of anything you could imagine”. Let us predict itwill be the same nebulous tripe as every time before, shall we? (We haven’theard much new since that article, at least.) Arpaio, on his side, wasapparently too busy making “progress” on the investgations to run for the office of governor ofArizona – he has eventeamed up with Larry Klayman.The Obama administration, being afraid of his investigation, was at the sametime intentionally sending minors from Central America to his home county as apersonal “affront” to his notorious anti-immigrant activism. “The White Houseis incompetent and the dumping of illegals is intentional,” he said.

In early 2013, after the Sandy Hook shootings, Arpaioannounced he would form an all volunteer posse of “well trained”, gun-carryingpatrols to drive around town and protect the schools. In early February 2013 itwas predictably discovered that his posse includedat least one convicted child molester,and several men convicted of domestic abuse. The training was given by criminaljustice expertSteven Seagal,whose qualifications include “hundreds of thousands if not millions of hoursinto my weapons training.”

Arpaio isdue to face a contempt hearing in April 2015 over his repeated failure to comply with previous court orders in the ongoingcourt case involving his blatant violation of the civil rights of suspects andprisoners. We are looking forward to it.