Free Republic

The sheriff for metropolitan Phoenix says he won't enter the Arizona governor's race. The announcement Thursday by Maricopa County Sheriff Joe Arpaio marks the fifth time since 1998 that he has flirted with -- and ultimately decided against -- seeking Arizona's highest elected office.

Former liberal activist/turned tea party conservative Brandon Darby and Sheriff Joe Arpaio were featured speakers at the Choose Liberty 2012 event sponsored by the Eastern Orlando Tea Party. As Sheriff Arpaio took the podium, Darby called security over to point out Occupy Orlando activists were in the audience of the private event preparing to cause a disruption. When the activists tried to interfere with Arpaio's right to speak and the tea party's right to peaceably assemble, Darby and Chad Biddinger of Libertylink.com escorted the trespassers out in an emphatic way. Video at link.

Phoenix mayor Phil Gordon used the occasion of a fatal shooting at the Holocaust Museum in Washington, DC – allegedly by a white supremacist – to accuse Sheriff Joe Arpaio of being sympathetic to Nazis and neo-Nazis. At a news conference called to discuss Phoenix's light rail system, Gordon led off expressing his sympathies to the family of the victim in the DC shooting. He then called white supremacists "despicable" and wondered aloud why community and law enforcement leaders across the Valley have repeatedly denounced white Supremacists, except for Arpaio. According to Gordon, the sheriff has had numerous occasions to...