Meet Rick Perry's new Arizona campaign chairman, Sheriff Joe Arpaio.
Gov. Rick Perry has named embattled Maricopa County Sheriff Joe Arpaio his Arizona campaign chairman, despite a recent Obama administration report condemning alleged discriminatory practices in Arpaio's office. [...]
Arpaio, the tough-on-immigration sheriff who gave his long-sought endorsement to Perry last month, has come under scrutiny from the U.S. Justice Department over allegations of racial profiling in his county's efforts to enforce immigration laws. Arpaio has called the move a politically motivated "sneak attack."
"The Justice Department went after me and took away my authority," he said in late December while on the campaign trail with Perry in Iowa. "However, we still have state laws, and I know the governor agrees with state laws, so we need him in Washington, please."
Racial profiling is the reason the Department of Justice has America's biggest asshole toughest sheriff under investigation, but Sheriff Joe has also been accused of an extensive list of other things which he has either boasted of or admitted to. A list which includes, among other things, failing to investigate over 400 claims of sexual abuse and assault.
But before you judge Arpaio too harshly, try to put yourself in his shoes. I think you’d be pretty pooped if you were as busy as him. Arpaio has organized posses dedicated to hunting “illegals”; forced undocumented women to give birth in shackles; kept prisoners in a “tent city” or “concentration camp” where 2000 prisoners live in tents outside in over 100 degree weather; instituted the world’s first all-juvenile volunteer chain gang; run a website where he brags about serving the cheapest meals in the U.S., feeding prisoners only twice a day, and spending more on canines’ food; made prisoners wear pink underwear and uses pink handcuffs because of the color’s “calming psychological effects.” And Arpaio maintains a website pinkunderwear.com, where he sells pink underwear handcuffs, both of which bear his signature.
The conservative group responsible for the successful recall of Arizona Republican State Senate President Russell Pearce, the first such recall in state history, is currently collecting signatures to recall Sheriff Joe from office. That is if he doesn't go to prison first.
Arpaio is not exactly a model campaign chair. Or a model anything for that matter.