This stuff would be funny...any place else.

But since this is all here, it's more scary than funny...

You know, in this down economy (an outright depression in AZ), I am grateful to have a job.

Because of my work schedule though, it's sometimes difficult to write during the second half of the week.

This was one week when I *really* wished I had a schedule that allowed for some serious blogging time after Tuesday.

Let's see. This week saw...

...AZ Senator John McCain facing an ethics complaint over his use of campaign funds to protect the interests of his Big Insurance clients conduct Senate business when he created a series of robo-calls urging recipients to call their own Senators in support of McCain's effort to gut the Senate health care reform measure...

- Brett Mecum, Executive Director of the AZGOP, in trouble for using voter registration records to stalk a woman (thanks to Blog for Arizona for the heads-up on this)...

- Senate President Bob Burns (R-AZ9) purging fellow Republicans Ron Gould, Pam Gorman, and Jay Tibshraeny from leadership positions by stripping them of their committee chairmanships (in Gould's case, he dissolved the entire committee.) Gould's and Gorman's ousters weren't surprising - they've made a spectacle of their "more conservative than thou" jihads against anything resembling good governance...or, as is the case in what has come out of this legislature and governor, anything resembling governmance that is only moderately horrific.

They've embarassed Burns, and payback is as much a part of politics as elections.

I'm not sure what is going on with Tibshraeny. He's had his differences with Burns, but has been civil and professional about it (two terms that are not necessarily applicable to the words and actions of the other two). He's as conservative as they come in the Senate, but will occasionally oppose some of the more draconian measures that come before the Senate. He's a former mayor (Chandler), so maybe he understands that the wingers' games have real world impacts that stretch far beyond the ideological cat box on West Washington.

Or maybe he just has a conscience.

Either way, the fact that he is on Burns' bad side doesn't bode well for Arizona - all expectations are that the coming session's budget battles will be even uglier than last session's.

- However, none of that begins to hold a candle to the fireworks taking place between the various politicos at Maricopa County.

Just this past week, we saw...

...a federal lawsuit alleging a vast conspiracy among judges, attorneys, and county officials to interfere with investigations...

...indictments of Don Stapley and Mary Rose Wilcox. two county supervisors; indictments that probably won't hold up under scrutiny, but they get plenty of press coverage for Arpaio and Thomas...

...an Appeals Court quashing, at least temporarily, any MCSO search warrants of a judge's home and/or computer.

...A judge facing charges from County Attorney Andrew Thomas. It probably isn't a coincidence that the judge is the one who ordered an MCSO officer jailed for contempt for stealing papers from an attorney's briefcase in open court ...or that Thomas and Arpaio released the judge's home address...

...a fishing expedition raid at a public advocacy agency...one that just happens to be focused on the needs of Arpaio's pet "boogeymen" - Mexicans...


I don't know if Arpaio, Thomas, et. al. have violated any federal laws, but given their total control of Maricopa County's law enforcement apparatus and their pre-empting of a state investigation by their own investigations of the state Attorney General, Terry Goddard (there's no substance to those, but an investigation by the AG might be seen as "retaliatory" and a conflict of interest), sooner or later, federal intervention will be necessary in order to clean up Maricopa County government.

In case anyone from the U.S. Attorney's office is reading this:

Sooner would be better than later.

Later...