Joe, Jr. – The $5 million dollar man

Posted by AzBlueMeanie:

"Joe, Jr.," Pinal County Sheriff Paul Babeu, claims the effects of cross-border smuggling are "far worse" in his county than in Arizona's border counties, and that's why his county merits $5 million in special border-security funding from the Legislature.

The fact that Joe, Jr. is the darling of the anti-immigrant hate mongers in the Arizona Legislature and may be a kingmaker in the congressional sweepstakes between "King" Russell Pearce and House Speaker Kirk Adams has nothing to do with it, nosiree.

Brady McCombs of the Arizona Daily Star fact checks Joe Jr.'s claim and calls bullshit. The $5M question: Babeu vs. the stats:

[A] county-by-county breakdown of apprehensions and drug seizures carried out by the U.S. Border Patrol in Arizona suggests an entirely different picture.

More than 95 percent of all apprehensions and pounds of marijuana seized in Arizona from Oct. 1, 2007, through March 17, 2011, have occurred in Pima, Santa Cruz and Cochise counties, figures from U.S. Customs and Border Protection show.

Yuma and Pinal counties each account for just 2 percent of all apprehensions and pounds of marijuana seized over this 3 1/2-year span.

(scanned graphic, not online)

The concentration of arrests and seizures in Pima, Santa Cruz and Cochise counties is not surprising considering that the three border counties are in the heart of what has been the busiest drug- and people-smuggling corridor along the U.S.-Mexico border for the last decade.

But it might be surprising to legislators and voters who've heard Babeu's discussion of the droves of illegal immigrants and drug smugglers trekking through his county, located 80 miles from the border.

"It's far worse than Pima County, Cochise County or Santa Cruz County," Babeu said in an interview this month. The Border Patrol, he said, "are the ones who've said that all roads lead to Pinal County."

Yeah, tbese guys who like the attention from the conservative media and believe their own hype tend to be world-class liars. It's all about self-promotion.

The federal statistics suggest Pinal County is quiet compared with Pima, Santa Cruz and Cochise counties.

Since Oct. 1, 2007, there have been 19,457 apprehensions of illegal immigrants in Pinal County. By comparison, there were 303,634 in Cochise County and 301,844 in Pima County in that time span.

In that same period, there were 74,945 pounds of marijuana seized in Pinal County. That was a fraction of the 1.69 million pounds seized in Pima County and the 1.2 million pounds seized in Santa Cruz County.

Broken down per square mile, Pinal County still accounts for far fewer arrests and seizures than the other counties. There were 3.6 apprehensions and 14 pounds of marijuana seized per square mile in Pinal County, which pales in comparison to the three busiest counties.

Yep, a world-class liar. Yet the anti-immigrant hate mongers in the Arizona Legislature just made Joe, Jr. the "$5 million dollar man" because they all have their nose in a snit over Pima County Sheriff Clarence Dupnik pointing a finger at them and stating the obvious truth that "Arizona is a mecca for hate and bigotry" because of our GOP legislature.

The fact that "King" Russel Pearce and House Speaker Kirk Adams are both courting Joe, Jr. for their possible runs for Congress — and trying to convince Joe, Jr. not to run against them in the GOP primary — had nothing to do with it. "Nothing to see here folks, move along."