Many people, including me, know that Marciopa County Supervisor Don Stapley is slimy.  He’s so typical of people who get caught sticking it to the taxpayers – blame the accusers, and he’s good at it.  The county needs to cut this guy loose, spray him with bug spray, and hope he doesn’t come back.  This article from the American Post-Gazette tells us all a lot more about Stapley.

A m e r i c a n P o s t – G a z e t t e
Distributed by C O M M O N S E N S E , in Arizona
Saturday, March 3, 2012

We can all breathe a sigh of relief and thank Tea Party and conservative activists for making this happen. Corrupt Maricopa County Supervisor Don Stapley has filed to run for Congress in Arizona’s new 9th district. He saw the writing on the wall. Although Stapley has successfully escaped prosecution so far by pretending that Sheriff Arpaio and prosecutor Andrew Thomas were wrongfully going after him, everyone knows Stapley is guilty as sin. The Arizona Project 2012 Tea Party made it a priority this year to clean up the Supervisors’ office in this year’s elections, sending Stapley a loud message that they would be running a candidate against him. Conservative Steve Chucri has launched an aggressive campaign to run for Stapley’s supervisor seat.

Arpaio and Thomas tried to prosecute Stapley for misreporting on his financial forms and spending $70,000 in campaign funds on luxury personal items for himself and his family. Stapley was running for president of the National Association of Counties and had no opponent. He went around telling people he needed contributions for that campaign, then turned around and spent the money on expensive things you and I could never afford.

Remember the “libertarians” who ran for state legislature a few years ago and got into deep trouble with Clean Elections for spending the money on lavish dinners? They had to repay it all back. Not if you’re Don “the Don” Stapley. He destroys the lives of anyone who tries to prosecute or arrest him instead.

Here is the full list of what he spent the money on.

And here are just a few the things Stapley spent campaign money on that jumped out at us. You decide whether they are campaign related. We couldn’t even begin to start counting the restaurants and department stores listed on there, there were too many. We’re sure they were all campaign related. And what is up with all the women’s clothing?

Luxury vacations for himself and his family to Florida, Hawaii and Utah. $12,042 for the condo in Hawaii alone.
$1300 for hair implants
$5036 in expensive stereo equipment from Bang & Olufsen
psychological counseling
animal groomingeyewear
massages
spas
$99 at Bath & Body Works
home furnishings
lots of groceries
movies
dermatology
ASU event tickets
Bloomingdale’s
Florists
medical bills
vitamins, minerals, herbs
$1480 on Mesa water/trash/sewer
$471 at Donna Karan for women’s clothing
fitness center
Nordstroms
$350 for an art show in Pasadena
Phoenix Zoo
$104 for women’s clothing from Rampage
$630 for Broadway tickets
$420 for concerts at America West Arena
$100 at Ulta for beauty
$428 for the Utah Shakespeare Festival
$775 for women’s clothing at Zara in New York City

You tell us, does this man belong in office, ANY elected office? NOT EVEN DOGCATCHER! We find it despicable that he can skate past the laws the rest of us are held accountable to, and spend lavish amounts of money on himself using the political system while the rest of us are losing our homes and our jobs. He is going to lose this election bigtime.

After watching the press conference video, twice, I couldn’t believe my ears during the questions period following the presentation.  Essentially, they had not one question about the facts, probably because the explanations presented were way over their head.  No, what they demanded to know is whether the Sheriff was accusing the President of presenting a fraudulent birth certificate, and a fraudulent selective service card.  Again and again, the reporters(?) and reporterettes(?) asked the same questions over and over.  If you watched the video, listen to them.  They were a bunch of cackling hens.  This is the media in Arizona.  It was clear from the questions that they were out to destroy facts; they wanted their man, Barack Obama, defended against truth.  “You can’t handle the truth!”

The facts are these.

A group of over 200 Surprise, Arizona residents, signed a petition, and asked for a meeting with the County Sheriff, Joe Arpaio.  At that meeting, they asked the Sheriff to conduct a law enforcement investigation into the eligibility of President Obama to serve in office.

The Sheriff cannot just tell these citizens to go away, and toss their request in the trash.  So, not wanting to spend taxpayer money on such an investigation, he turned the request over to the Cold Case Posse.  This posse is a group of volunteers who work for free.  There are retired law enforcement people, lawyers, and others.  The Cold Case Posse also enlisted the aid of graphics computer specialists, and forensic investigators, none of whom are associated with Sheriff Joe or law enforcement.  The Sheriff’s charter was simple: see where the investigation takes you, and report back.  And off the posse went.  The Sheriff was not part of the investigation.

This posse spent approximately six months conducting an investigation of the “official” birth certificate posted on the White House web site, which President Obama said was his legitimate birth certificate, which then led the group to the President’s selective service card.  It should be noted that the President’s birth certificate was not made available until late last year, despite demands from many, many people to see his birth certificate.  After two and a half years, they finally posted it.  (When I first looked at it, I spotted one fraudulent entry right away.  Barack’s father’s birthplace is listed as Kenya, East Africa, and he was born in 1935.  The President lists his birth month as August of 1961.  Kenya wasn’t a country until 1963, so this document had to have been created in 1963 or later, which makes it fraudulent.)

There were several short videos, each one showing the tests that were conducted, how they were conducted, and comparing them against a known, good sample document.  The results were absolutely clear.  The birth certificate is not a paper document that was scanned.  It is an electronic document, manufactured to look authentic.  It failed every test.

Then they demonstrated through testing and comparisons the fraud committed on Mr. Obama’s selective service card.  It was as clear as it could be that the date stamp on the card was a fraud, and couldn’t be real.

The presenters also stated, at the end, that they have numerous signed affidavits from people who are willing to testify in court should that occur.
The reporters didn’t care about any of the facts.  They were intent on attacking the Sheriff who, as I stated, had nothing to do with the investigation.  He, along with others, presented their evidence and findings, and gave their conclusion.  The reporters didn’t care.

A lot of the questions were about whether Sheriff Joe did this in retaliation to the Department of Justices’s report assailing him for his treatment of citizens.  They didn’t grasp the fact that the Cold Posse Investigation started almost five months before the DOJ’s report.  It didn’t faze them.

The Arizona media proved, once again, that they do not report facts; they do not report unbiased news.  They have an agenda, and that agenda is to bring down Sheriff Joe, and then Governor Jan Brewer.  Completely lost on them were the facts brought to their attention.  They don’t want to be confused with facts.  They don’t want to report the news; they want to attack and villify Sheriff Joe Arpaio.  Even the local TV news was 80% interviews with people opposed to the Sheriff, and not one of them addressed the facts uncovered, not by Sheriff Joe, but by the Cold Case Posse.  They want to attack the messenger, don’t bother them with facts.

To be fair, some in the media, print and on-air, have done a reasonable job of trying to be objective.  For the rest of them, they disgust me.

The Republican Party in Arizona seems intent on self-destruction. At the county level, Maricopa, the county Republican leadership is rudderless, and its chairman, Rob Haney, seems disinterested in doing anything to advance the ball. At the state level, it’s even worse.

The latest debacle took place last Saturday, January 28, at the GOP state convention and election. If ever there was a good example of how NOT to conduct a meeting of this type, state party chairman, Tom Morrissey, excelled. Mr. Morrissey continually ignored procedure. Requests for bylaw changes or additions, well published and on the agenda were put off until the last possible minute, when so many of the state committeemen had left, there wasn’t even a quorum in order to have a vote. The state party’s parliamentarian, Sharon Gese, sat by, silent, while the party chairman ran roughshod over the rules of order. One of our illustrious U.S. House or Representatives members, Trent Franks, took the podium, and used that opportunity to provide a non-endorsement endorsement. Arizona’s primary election isn’t until late February, but Franks decided to tell the state committeemen that candidate Rick Santorum has no chance, and said the same thing about Congressman Ron Paul, statements that drew a loud chorus of boos from the crowd. People don’t recall seeing Franks’ comments on the agenda, or how they related to the matters at hand. Tom Morrissey used the podium to campaign for the candidates running for state party positions that he wanted, dismissing other candidates he didn’t like or want. All of “his” slate of candidates won except one. Morrissey immediately stepped to the podium and said that he’s appoint the loser to a position on his board because he wanted him.

Running for 1^st vice chair of the state party board were two candidates. On December 31^st, the last day for candidates to declare and be on the ballot, Russell Pearce’s name showed up on the ballot for that 1^st vice chair position, and the former candidate’s name was removed. Odd? Someone who spoke to Russell on January 13, 15 days before the election, asked him if he was indeed running for the board position, and he said he hadn’t decided yet. Odd? Considering that it’s pretty common knowledge that Pearce will run for the state Senate again in November, why would he want to run for a state party board position that pays nothing, knowing he would be leaving to run for the state Senate? Odd?

Some votes on various matters seem to have been possibly miscounted so as to defeat them. Many in attendance said it was the worst state convention in memory.

If we go back just a few months, there was the matter of the Russell Pearce recall, and who was involved. It turns out that Tom Morrissey is a friend of the man who admitted that he was the campaign manager for Olivia Cortes (and also the leader of the East Valley Tea Party), the fraudulent candidate who was running in that recall election, yet Tom Morrissey has remained silent. A woman who is an acknowledged supporter of Russell Pearce was found to have been circulating Olivia Cortes petitions. This woman was almost a fixture at the Maricopa county committee meetings, yet that chairman, Rob Haney, has said nothing about his knowledge or involvement in the Olivia Cortes sham candidacy. I was hoping that a full investigation of the whole debacle would be forthcoming, and those who approved the sham candidacy, or participated in it, would have been brought to light and expelled from the party, at minimum. Thus far, nothing.

Then there was and is the matter of the redistricting map that had to be drawn when Arizona picked up another Congressional House seat. The five-person committee ended up being three from the left, and two from the Republican side, and the state party leadership was mute until after the appointments. Then they cried “ouch” and tried to undo it. The Governor even removed the so-called independent chairwoman, but a judge told her no. As a result we may well end up with current House members having to compete in the same district, and Democrats having a leg up in other districcts. Once again, the Republican leadership was inept.

I’ve said for years that the best and brightest among us are not politicians, and Arizona’s GOP leadership keeps proving me right. There are many great conservative Republicans, working hard at the grassroots level, fighting for conservative values, doing all the hard work of getting out the vote for good candidates. Unfortunately, they appear be led by a bunch of egotistical, incompetent, value-challenged mutts.

Why have a state party if the leadership is going to be composed of buddies, pals, connected people, and others with no principles, no convictions, no honesty? We could get that by picking people at random at WalMart. What we have now are unprincipled people who just want power, just want to dictate, just want to believe they’re important. They’re in the wrong party. Morrissey, Gese, Haney, and the rest of them need to be removed, in disgrace, and possibly be removed from the Republican party.

If Arizona goes “blue” this November, we have these people to thank. If Arizona loses Republican seats in the state house and senate, we have Morrissey, Haney, et al to thank. About the only thing they can’t screw up is Sheriff Joe’s reelection. Fortunately, he looks to the voters for support, not this bunch of weak-minded leaders.