About that "Cold Case Posse" that "investigated" the president's birth certificate...

[Sparkly]

What a surprise. They're just unskilled volunteers.

The Maricopa County Sheriff’s Office holds recruiting meetings for the volunteer Posse program once a month. These volunteer, non-compensated positions are made up of people from all walks of who that want to do law enforcement work(sic) as a way to give back to their community.

In order to join the Posse program, a person must be at least 18 years old, a US citizen, have a valid Arizona driver's license and be in good health. A person cannot have been convicted of any felonies or have any misdemeanor (sic) convictions in the last 12 months or record of improper personal conduct – which will be discovered during the background check – that may affect their suitability for law enforcement work.
http://www.mcso.org/About/Posse.aspx

Well, it's not like he's calling them actual investigators or anything. Oh wait...

"My investigators believe that the long-form birth certificate was manufactured electronically and that it did not originate in a paper format as claimed by the White House," Arpaio said.

Okay, but that's not to say there's any agenda here. Oh wait...

Arpaio said he decided to undertake the investigation last August after members of the Tea Party asked him to do so.

But of course, any upstanding Sherriff like Joe Arpaio would want to make sure the letter of the law is being followed, up through the highest office in the land. Oh wait...

Arpaio faces a federal grand jury investigation on criminal abuse-of-power allegations; the Justice Department has accused him of racial profiling Latinos. And there has been an accusation that hundreds of sex-crime cases were inadequately investigtated by his department.
http://news.yahoo.com/obama-birth-certificate-maybe-forged-sheriff-joe-arpaio-160607568--abc-news.html

I'm sure this can all be explained...

[FSogol]

1. Excellent post. K & R. n/t

[earthside]

2. Jerome Corsi was at Arpaio's 'event'.

One of the speakers at Arpaio's press conference was Jerome Corsi, yup, the Swift boat author and 'Where's the Birth Certificate?' author.

Corsi is often an 'analyst' on the popular nighttime radio program 'Coast to Coast AM'.

Send the host and producer of that show a message telling them that you will boycott if Corsi is ever invited on that program again.

'Birther bigots' like Corsi shouldn't be able to have a national platform and come off as some sort of benign 'investigator'.

I used to love listening to C2C when Art Bell was the host. Sure, it was fill of crazy UFO and ghost stories, but Bell was pretty fair and a good interviewer. The new host, Noory, is clearly conservative, leaning the show towards the religious right, and, well, he is a lousy interviewer. But the show is on hundreds and hundreds of stations at night and listened to by millions -- it should feel a little heat for putting bigots like Corsi on air.

George Noory, Host
[email protected]

Lisa Lyon, Producer
[email protected]

[dmr]

3. Who pays for those background checks?

I know he's way to honorable to pass this on to the taxpayer.

[obxhead]

4. K&R

[oldhippydude]

5. in addition to Jerome Corsi

i have been put off by George's plugs for Alex Jones...like others i liked Art Bell..

[yardwork]

6. Posse Comitatus is a white supremacist separatist group. The name of Arpaio's group is very similar.

Cold Case Posse sounds like Posse Comitatus.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Posse_Comitatus_(organization)

[oldhippydude]

7. im bettting teh only "cold case " that these folks deal with

comes from the liquor store

[yardwork]

8. snort.

[Sparkly]

10. Ha!!

[pinboy3niner]

9. The volunteer posse and this 'cold case posse' are two different things

Not to defend Arpaio's BS 'investigation' (which is nothing but a partisan hit job full of lies that birther and swift boat liar Jerome Corsi helped to craft), but the 'cold case posse' was a specific group of individuals that included two lawyers and 4 former law enforcement officers, iirc from watching the presser.

This was not the same as Joe's 'volunteer posse,' and he can easily shoot down the claim that his 'investigators' were 'just unskilled volunteers.'

There's plenty of ammo with which to shoot down 'Sheriff Joe's' bogus 'investigation,' but he wasn't dumb enough to hang his 'expose' on the work of unqualified volunteers.

[Sparkly]

11. No, they're volunteers.

The "Cold Case Posse" is one of the categories listed on the "Posse" page I cited, with the description of requirements.

Supposedly some of these volunteers have "law enforcement background," but they are among his "posse" people.

[pinboy3niner]

12. The point: 'investigators' were not "people from all walks of who want to do law enforcement work

He's not dumb enough to use unqualified people to promote this BS. There is a difference between the two. It's still BS, but he's using people with actual qualifications to give the appearance of legitimacy and authority.

It's possible that these six were also members of the volunteer 'posse.' I doubt it, but it's possible.

All that is really beside the point. The issue is the substance of his claims--which, I suspect, easily will be refuted by legitimate experts.

[Sparkly]

13. I think some may be retired cops or lawyers, which doesn't make them qualified

to determine whether a birth certificate is a forgery or not. Many people are "skilled," but it doesn't mean they're qualified experts.

They're volunteers with no legitimacy to be making such determinations at all.

[pinboy3niner]

28. Oh, BS

You assert that these are only "people from all walks of who that want to do law enforcement work." When informed that they're lawyers and former cops, you move the goalposts to they're "not qualified."

Your heart's in the right place, but it's not the investigators who are questionable--it's their results and conclusions that are bogus.

[Sparkly]

29. Huh?

I didn't assert anything -- I quoted the sheriff's "Posse" website.

If these people were qualified to do forensic science, somebody needs to take away those qualifications. Turns out their discovery was the same one debunked last year: PDF files have layers.

Of COURSE the results are bogus.

[pinboy3niner]

31. You conflated his 'cold case posse' with something diferent you got from his website

Our only disagreement is that I am pointing out that they are two different things. Arpaio's 'cold case posse' was not composed of any old yahoos who wanted to sign up for his volunteer posse; they were actual lawyers and ex-law enforcement.

Picking up crap off his website and asserting that "people from all walks of who that want to do law enforcement work" were those he used for this project is false.

It's just not true, period.

[Sparkly]

32. Okay, one more time and that's it.

All the information I quoted is from his website. The "Cold Case Posse" was listed beneath that description. I didn't conflate anything.

That is all.

[yardwork]

14. Qualified to do what?

[pinboy3niner]

15. That's not the question

Conflation of the 'cold case posse' with the 'volunteer posse' is a dead-end. The 'cold case posse' didn't use "people "from all walks of life who that want to do law enforcement work." Joe was smart enough to use people with actual investigative and legal qualifications to promote his BS.

[yardwork]

17. What kind of investigative and legal qualifications? Being a former cop?

[pinboy3niner]

18. Yeah...but that's missing the point

The fact that he used supposedly 'qualified' people doesn't obviate the fact that this is a partisan hit job supportd by the notorious swiftliar Jerome Corsi.

Sheriff Joe operates in a fact-free zone.

[Sparkly]

23. "Cold Case Posse" is a "Volunteer Posse"

Look at the links I included. This news story includes a link for the words "Cold Case Posse."
http://news.yahoo.com/obama-birth-certificate-maybe-forged-sheriff-joe-arpaio-160607568--abc-news.html

Follow that link, you come to the other page I cited -- the sheriff's own.
http://www.mcso.org/About/Posse.aspx

Scroll down, and you'll see under "Mission Specific" the "Cold Case Posse" heads the list.

[pinboy3niner]

26. Again, that's missing the point

The people Arpaio used for this were not just "people from all walks of who that want to do law enforcement work."

The real issue is the substance of the allegations, not WHO Joe used to work on his ill-begotten project. Of course he wouldn't use any Tom, Dick or Mary "from all walks of who that want to do law enforcement work."

Of course he'd use people with actual experience and credentials. The issue is not them--it's the ludicrous results they came up with.

[Sparkly]

27. They have no experience or credentials in identifying forged documents.

If they did, they wouldn't have made the same dumb mistake that was cleared up last year -- discovering the PDF has layers!

So it's both the people AND their bogus conclusions. Ballerinas have experience and credentials too, but you might not go to them for tax preparation. Similarly, according to the guy's very website (and all reports), these people are VOLUNTEERS. They are not professional investigators who know how to do forensic science with documents.

And, it's a good bet they all have political agendas, to boot -- as does the sheriff, and the Teabaggers who urged him to undertake this effort.

So of COURSE the results are ludicrous.

[Canuckistanian]

16. Low budget brownshirts

That's what this sounds like.

[Erose999]

19. Pictured: Sherrif Joe's "posee"

This is the "Fuckin' Magnets How Do They Work?" unit.

[frylock]

20. i would have to place juggaloes several spots up the food chain from these dumbnuts

[Horse with no Name]

21. LOL. I really can't help but laugh because I would bet a dime to a dollar

that the majority of these were the "minutemen" that patrolled the border. Undoubtedly this brings those freepers out of Mommy's basement to "do their duty". LOL.

Lest we forget about the caliber of the kind of people who volunteer for this shit:

http://newamericamedia.org/2011/02/death-sentence-for-arizona-minuteman-who-killed-girl-and-dad.php

[pinboy3niner]

24. Here's a photo of them...

This was a neo-nazi group that "volunteered" to patrol the border, lol!

[Horse with no Name]

25. Military and Law Enforcement rejects

yeah...giving them a gun couldn't end badly...

[pinboy3niner]

30. Yeah...some of us here at DU actually served

Some of us actually fought. And some of us actually bled.

You don't even want to know what we think of those paintball commandos.

[mr.banana.hammock]

22. They should get Stephen Segal

and a tank to bust the white house.made for tv, baby.