Sheriff Joe Arpaio now using taxpayer funds for his 'birther' investigation

Still the sheriff, though nobody knows why.
(Gage Skidmore/Flickr)
  Well, that took slightly longer than I thought it would:

Not to be outdone by the Arizona secretary of state's recent flirtation with birtherism, Sheriff Joe Arpaio escalated his probe into President Obama's birth certificate this week by dispatching a deputy from his 'threats unit' to Hawaii.

Both the Arizona Republic and the Honolulu Star-Advertiser reported deputy Brian Mackiewcz traveled with Arpaio's volunteer posse member Michael Zullo on Monday to try to get an official confirmation that Hawaii has the president's birth certificate on file.

The "threats unit" in question is Arpaio's Threats Management Unit. In theory, they investigate threats to judges and other government officials, but under Sheriff Joe they seem to also be in the business of "investigating threats to Sheriff Joe's career," which is only surprising if you were still under the impression that Arpaio had a non-crooked bone left in his body. So in this case, the "threat" is that people are laughing at Arpaio and his outsourcing of a "birther" investigation to the small set of loons and crackpots that have the most to gain, financially, from propping those fantasies up. So off goes a deputy sheriff to Hawaii, to ask the folks there if they're super-duper really certain that the birth certificate they have repeatedly confirmed having is, once again, really there.

But wait, you say: Why is Arpaio spending taxpayer money to send a deputy to Hawaii, when he previously said he wouldn't do that? Oh, that would be because Sheriff Joe does not have a non-crooked bone in his body. I think I may have mentioned that. And given that the other person on this Hawaii junket is Michael Zullo, who's currently selling an e-book on the vast, damning pile of whatever he and Jerome Corsi found and put under the Sheriff Dumbass letterhead, you would think that maybe some of the proceeds of that book could go to bringing along a guy with a badge (I don't know that they've earned actual plane fare money, but I'm just saying) instead of having the people of his county pick up the tab, but nope. Not bloody likely.

Oh, Sheriff Joe. How can we miss you when you won't go away? Stay tuned for the results of this latest twist in the investigation, which will either be "Hawaii didn't let us see the birth certificate, so they're mean and that proves Obama is from Kenya," or perhaps "Hawaii did let us see the birth certificate, but, um, pixels and stuff," or more likely still "Hawaii let us see the birth certificate, but then Michael Zullo tore it out of their hands and ate it, so now it's not there anymore. Isn't that suspicious?"

My money's on number three. Oh, and that Sheriff Joe drags his little "investigation" out for the entirety of the election season. Not because he's pissed at the feds for suing his department, and not because he's a famously narcissistic dumbass with a god complex, but for the people.