Do Svidanya, Joe

This ornery owl just copped his copy of the file, and it's an eye-popper. As recently cribbed by ink-slingers over at the Arizona Republic, it details this fantasy conspiracy to whack our dearly beloved, doddering law-dog Sheriff Joe. In it, an unnamed confidential informant takes MCSO Chief Larry Black, Arpaio's head of special ops, and the rest of his department on a snipe hunt that targets the Minutemen, the Meraz drug cartel and immigrants-rights activist Elias Bermudez. All are supposedly allies in a fictional assassination scheme.

The first sign that the MCSO was gnawing on some seriously funky green baloney should've been talk of Bermudez and the Minutemen goin' steady. Yet there were a buttload of other "tells" left out of the Republic article, which makes you wonder to what degree the Rep was compromised by its "exclusive."

For example, the Republic piece mentions two polygraph exams that the MCSO's snitch took and states that in the second, "two of [the informant's] responses about the murder plot registered as deceptive."

What the Rep doesn't tell you is that one of those Qs was a real humdinger. Check it:

Q: Have you told the truth about the plan to kill Sheriff Arpaio?

A [from the CI]: Yes.

Polygraph examiner Willis Deatherage noted in his analysis of the wire-up that the stool pigeon "show[ed] deception" over this question, as well as another about a contact in the paramilitary outfit hired to blast Joe. Deatherage stated: "In reference to the question regarding telling the truth about the plan to kill the sheriff, CI states that he has been truthful, but admits that he has filled in some information that was not given to him specifically."

So not only was the truth machine telling MCSO's Deputy Dawgs that the CI was lying, the CI was telling them he was lying. Hey, at least when he was telling them he was lying, he was really telling them the truth, right?

The CI, who had come to the MCSO through the Yuma PD, was being paid by the MCSO for his info: $60 here; $110 there. There's no total listed, though this talon-bearer counts at least $330 from the payouts mentioned. They also give him a cell phone at one point.

A payout like $330 is a pittance in comparison to the $500,000 the MCSO reportedly spent on the investigation. But that only adds insult to injury: MCSO bigwigs fell for a penny-ante grifter's verbal three-card Monte, and they're still falling for it. Chief Black, head of Arpaio's special ops, told the Rep, "We're still investigating. We still don't believe it's over . . . We still continue to believe the threat is out there."

To parrot the Geico caveman, "What!?" In the MCSO report, the CI says, at one point, that he was offered $10K by the drug smugglers for his role as a translator, but refused the payment. Then he turns right around and asks his MCSO handlers for $100. Didn't this make anyone suspicious? The CI doesn't want to get paid $10K, but he needs a C-note for expenses? Puh-lease!

Whenever the MCSO tracked down a tip the CI handed 'em, it turned up snake eyes. He gave investigators a strip of paper with an e-mail address. They traced it to some teen in Simsbury, Connecticut, who has about as much to do with the Mexican mafia as Hannah Montana. The gullible gumshoes did 24-hour surveillance on Tolleson's Boschma-Gerben Dairy, riding around it, talking to everybody who works there, all on a tip from the informant who told them a member of the hit squad hired to kill Joe — a butch military, John Lennon-glasses-wearin' chica named "Sgt. Rose" with a heart tattoo on her ankle — might be hiding out with the cows. Once again, deputies came up empty.

Know how the MCSO researched the Los Zetas hit squad supposedly hired by the Meraz crime org to do the deed? On Wikipedia. Now that's sad, people. Some of their other info on Los Zetas came from the über-right moonbat site WorldNetDaily, and wacko wing-nut Alex Jones' PrisonPlanet.com. That's right, you can rest easy at night knowing that the MCSO obtains intelligence from a bird-brain like Jones who believes 9/11 was an inside job and that world leaders worship Satan up in Bohemian Grove.

As with most of the Sheriff's Office's smooth moves, this one's a belly-tickler 'til you recall that part about the $500K in taxpayer money it squandered. Or that unlike Barney Fife with his one bullet, these deputies are running around fully locked and loaded, commanded by an upper echelon that's deeply paranoid and delusional. Um, so how much for those tickets to Russia?

MIFFED MILF

Being that this naughty nightingale's both pro-inebriation and pro-illegal aliens (the more the merrier, people), The Bird might normally feel conflicted over a catfight between MADD (Mothers Against Drunk Driving) and MAIA (Mothers Against Illegal Aliens). But once this nut-eater learned of the kerfuffle MADD's kickin' up over MAIA's name, it decided to side with MAIA founder and MILF-y Valley rez Michelle Dallacroce.