Arizona "Birther" Sheriff Will Misuse Taxpayer Money

The infamous sheriff of Maricopa County (Arizona), Joe Arpaio, has never cared much for laws, rules, or saving taxpayer money. He is being investigated by the U.S. Justice Department for using his department to investigate and harass his political opponents, and for systematically violating the rights of Hispanics. And Maricopa County has lost millions of dollars in lawsuits stemming from the sheriff's racist and illegal actions.

Now this legal darling of the teabaggers seems to have completely gone around the bend. He has decided to waste taxpayer money on an issue that not only has been settled for a while now, but is really outside of the authority of his office. He is going to investigate the issue of President Obama's birth certificate -- to see if it is forged. He doesn't seem to care that the state of Hawaii has vouched for the validity of the birth certificate, and the Constitution (through the Full Faith And Credit provision) requires Arizona (and all other states) to accept a birth certificate issued by Hawaii.

The sheriff's office in Maricopa County has a cold case division operated by a volunteer staff "of people with skills and backgrounds that make them qualified to investigate cases". However, that unit has been inactive for several months now due to "budgetary limitations within the Maricopa County Sheriff's office". In spite of the fact that there is no money for this group to investigate real crimes that need to be solved, the crazy sheriff has decided there is enough money for him to send the unit on a political wild goose chase.

Arpaio says, "This investigation does not involve politics." That is an outrageous lie. It involves nothing but politics -- teabagger politics. He said he is investigating because of a complaint filed by the teabagger organization in Surprise, Arizona -- a group that could not be satisfied about the "birther" issue if they each individually received official copies of the birth certificate from Hawaii that were notarized and signed by the governor of that state.

This is clearly a political move and a waste of taxpayer money. It's long past time for the voters in Maricopa to dump this fool.