Tonight, as Hurricane Harvey sits off the coast of Texas, threatening to unleash its furry… Trump quietly made good on his promise to pardon racist Arizona sheriff Joe Arpaio, signaling to members of his white supremacist base that he’s solidly on their side, and to members of his administration that he’s willing to reward loyalty with presidential pardons.
But that wasn’t all that happened tonight.
In addition to rewarding Joe Arpaio for his blatant contempt for civil rights law and the U.S. justice system, Trump also just signed a directive banning transgender military recruits from the U.S. armed services, in direct opposition to the wishes of our nation’s military leaders, as a gift to the anti-LGBTQ community… So, with two strokes of the pen, Trump brought the most deplorable members of the Republican base closer to him, indicating, I think, where the battle lines over impeachment will be drawn. I suppose I could be wrong, but I think, by signing the Arpaio pardon and the transgender ban, Trump is demonstrating to the GOP that he doesn’t intend to leave office gracefully, like Nixon did. Quite the contrary, he’s digging trenches and filling them with deplorables. That’s what these recent rallies have been about. And that’s what we’re seeing tonight.
Interestingly, this comes on the same day that news broke that Special Counsel Robert Mueller has begun issuing grand jury subpoenas in his Russia investigation, and just a few days after the Senate Judiciary Committee held a ten-hour closed door meeting with Glenn Simpson, the former journalist who, along with former Mi6 agent Christopher Steele, compiled the now infamous “dossier” outlining Trump’s ties to Russia.
So, yes, I think it’s safe to say that things are coming to a head.
Speaking of which, something else of interest happened tonight. We got word that Trump’s completely unqualified national security advisor, Sebastian Gorka, had resigned from the administration, citing the ascendency of forces within the White House that “do not support the MAGA promise.” While some are arguing that Gorka didn’t resign so much as get thrown out by White House chief of staff General John Kelly, the fact remains that, for whatever reason, Gorka, like Bannon, is now on the outside, attacking Trump for failing to deliver the revolution he’d promised… So, much like we’re seeing off the coast of Texas, a huge storm is gathering in D.C., being fed by numerous environmental factors.
Oh, and then there’s the North Koreans… Despite Trump’s claim earlier this week that they were “starting to respect us” as a result of his baseless threats, they’ve once again ramped up their missile testing, launching three missiles today, and demonstrating that they now have the ability to reach the United States with nuclear warheads.
And, as I’m writing this, it’s just 9:00 fucking o-clock… We still have three hours to go… I know I should stay awake and see how all of this ends, but I think I’d be better off if I just went to sleep right now, before things get any weirder.
Here, before I drift off to sleep, though, is the White House statement on the Arpaio pardon.
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CNN’s Laura Jarrett on the Arpaio pardon: “DOJ had no role in Arpaio pardon per source with knowledge — this did not follow typical Office of Pardon Attorney process.”
I think the Arpaio pardoning means it’s no longer even “dog-whistle” politics anymore; the coin has been tossed, and this is the referee signaling loud enough for the whole stadium to hear that the game has begun.
160 people hung themselves in Joe Arpaio’s jail. The lawsuits over the hangings cost Maricopa County $140 million.
http://www.phoenixnewtimes.com/news/prisoners-hang-themselves-in-sheriff-joe-arpaios-jails-at-a-rate-that-dwarfs-other-county-lockups-7845679
All in all, I would say it was a pretty good day. 2 of the 3 N. Korean misses failed. Sheriff Joe should never have been charged with a crime for enforcing the laws on the books and would never have been convicted by a jury. Who’s Gorky? Who cares? Mueller ought to be issuing subpoenas and investigating – that’s what we are paying him to do. And the ban on transgendered troops strengthens our military. Gender roles are cultural artifacts, but gender is not fluid. There is no surgical procedure that can change a person’s gender and we certainly don’t want to encourage anyone to enlist so that the surgical cost of disfiguring their genitalia is borne by the taxpayers. Be proud of who you are and express your God-given personal characteristics. But don’t expect others to reinforce delusions about your biological identity.
It didn’t happen last night, but you left one out….
http://www.politico.com/story/2017/08/25/quitting-trump-white-house-isnt-easy-242046
Gary Cohn considered quitting after President Donald Trump’s Charlottesville comments and wrote multiple resignation letters, a draft op-ed and answers to reporters’ anticipated questions.
The president’s top economic adviser talked to his family about quitting, and his wife urged him to do so. He went to Bedminster for a last-minute meeting with the president last Friday, according to people familiar with the session. But he didn’t quit, instead choosing to criticize Trump in an interview with the Financial Times while sticking around to see what Trump will do – leaving Cohn in limbo and his White House colleagues and others mystified.
AZCentral: Trump made it clear that he’s not just OK with institutional racism, it’s his goal.
Read more:
http://www.azcentral.com/story/opinion/editorial/2017/08/25/donald-trump-resurrects-joe-arpaio-irrelevance/604067001/
Identifying as a member of a minority ethnic group does not give anyone the right to violate our laws. They don’t get deported because of their ethnicity, but due to their nationality and their illegal entry into this country.
I think the issue is not the deportation of illegal immigrants. It’s more so the detainment and harassment of citizens and legal immigrants based solely on appearance. That’s what the lawsuits that Maricopa County had to pay out were for. Not for enforcement of the law against law breakers, but for violations of the Fourth Amendment. I think we would all agree that until proven to have broken a law, people deserve equal treatment under the law. And the courts have found that this was not the case.
With all due respect, EOS, I don’t think you’re understanding the situation. Arpaio wasn’t following the law. He was detaining people without cause, based solely on the color of their skin. And, after saying that he would stop, he continued. That is why he was held in contempt of court. If he had been property following the law, there would not have been an issue. This, in other words, isn’t an issue of some of us just believing that immigration laws are unfair, cruel, etc.
You and I must have been writing at the same time, Jcp2… Thanks for saying it better.
No Jcp2 and Mark, you are misrepresenting the facts. Judge Joe was convicted of contempt of a state court injunction. A judge had ordered law enforcement in the state to not arrest any illegal alien who had not also violated a state law. Many of those taken into custody were not accused of violating a state crime but only of living in the country illegally. Once they were detained, deputies would turn over the individuals to Immigrations and Customs Enforcement or Border Patrol officials, who would initiate deportation proceedings.
Trump pardoned the 85 year old sheriff so that he would not have the burden and expense of taking his case through the appeals process, a slow process that would have exonerated him only if he survived long enough. A state judge has no standing to block Federal law.
I was mistaken about it being a state judge. It was a federal judge’s order. Still, no judge can block enforcement of existing law.
There are legal scholars who say that accepting a pardon is an admission of guilt. I hope that a silver lining can be found where civil suits against him become easier. I hope enough will get filed that they can bankrupt him and the county who elected him. Let those tax payers pay for his crimes too!
This is the kind of thing I was talking about before the election when I was urging liberals not to vote third party or not to sit the election out. But privileged liberals generally dont care about those with less privilege any more than conservatives. THEY were never in danger from the likes of sadists like Arpaio and still aren’t. They aren’t afraid to evacuate when a hurricane is heading their way out of fear of looking too brown at immigration checkpoints Trump allegedly set up on evacuation routes in Texas. They aren’t the ones being denied the economic opportunities available to those who serve because their gender doesnt match their sex. In this regard, they are as selfish and awful as Trump supporters, imho.
EOS, outside of denying factual evidence from a number of credible sources, your defense of this man is unconscionable. Even if HALF of this stuff is true, this man deserves to rot in prison. Now that the President has pardoned him, it makes the President complicit in the same atrocities. This man willfully violated basic human rights, forget the Constitution. He treated people worse than animals and now he’s a free man taking photo ops with the President. I thought I was at my limit at my disgust for the Orange Menace, but he’s found a way to make me feel even worse.
https://twitter.com/phoenixnewtimes/status/901263384087334914
You might find this of interest, EOS.
CNN: Why Joe Arpaio was found guilty.
Read more:
http://www.cnn.com/2017/08/24/politics/why-joe-arpaio-was-found-guilty/index.html
Charles Kaiser on BllMoyers.com: “Arpaio Pardon May Be Opening Act of a Constitutional Crisis”
Read more:
http://billmoyers.com/story/arpaio-pardon-may-opening-act-constitutional-crisis/
“The more we do to you, the less you seem to believe we are doing it.”
And let’s all remember the role Sheriff Joe played in the racist scheme to put Trump in power.
You all are such hypocrites. Obama pardoned more criminals than any other president in history. The pardoning of Chelsea Manning was far more agregious. Clinton’s pardoning of Mark Rich was far worse. I doubt anyone thinks the Sheriff should have focused on blonde Swedes equally as much as Hispanics as likely violators of immigration laws in Arizona.
Egregious
I can’t think of a single Obama pardon which deprived so many of justice. This man literally tortured people. He deserves to be put in a cell with his victims. You are defending a man who put innocent people on chain gangs, who killed people by denying them medical care, and who profiled people based on their ethnic background. There is no way to defend him and maintain the moral high ground. To say that it was more egregious than the pardon of Chelsea Manning is hugely insulting to Arpaio’s victims but it also is scary. It is scary because it means that so called “good people” will turn a blind eye to the atrocities a guy like that commits and that is a terrible moral failing of the sort that in the past has led to terrible atrocities.
No Lynne,
He wasn’t charged or convicted of any of those offenses. Merely contempt of court for detaining persons who entered the country illegally and turning them over to federal immigration authorities. They were criminals, not victims. The victims are the legal residents of Arizona. On the other hand, Chelsea Manning was a traitor who released confidential information and put innocent people’s lives in danger.
During his eight years in office, Obama granted clemency to 1,927 people.
So?
I never heard a single name of those 1,927 people.
How a person who supports Trump pardoning a man who tortured people can call themselves a Christian is beyond me. It is terribly racist to even hint that what Manning did was more severe than what Arpaio did because Manning merely put people at risk (for which she served several years in prison, btw). I know Arpaio wasn’t convicted for the actual torture but still is a criminal for defying a court order. Doesn’t he deserve the same chain gang treatment he doled out to others? I hope the courts allow his victims to sue him into bankruptcy at least.
I wont even get into the implications about how Trump just sent a message that he might be willing to pardon people who refuse subpoenas related to the investigation into his criminal activity with Russia during the campaign.
The one bright spot though is that apparently Trumps supporters feel that if a person has broken the law and are a criminal, putting them on a chain gang in the hot Arizona sun and denying them medical care if that should prove to be too much for them is an appropriate way to treat them. Therefore, criminals like Trump and his family/associates can be punished in such a way. I am sure that when Trump is impeached they will be the first ones to advocate for that kind of punishment.
Everyone who keeps hoping that Trump be impeached before there isn’t a shred of hard evidence that he committed an impeachable offense is contributing to the destruction of our country. Just because you don’t like his policies is not sufficient. These obstructionist tactics, if allowed to continue, will be used against the next progressive candidate who might be lucky enough to get elected in the future. I realize that you never thought Trump had a chance and the shock left you emotionally vulnerable. But it’s well past the time you got a grip on reality. Sheriff Joe made prisoners wear pink underwear and some were housed in tents, but every one of them was treated better than our soldiers. Manning committed treason and could have been executed for his crimes. It certainly was far worse than detaining criminals and turning them over to ICE.
EOS, you really just seem like a piece of shit. A miserable, sad excuse for a human. Politics has nothing to do with it. Defending Arpaio is just sad. Referring to him as “Sheriff Joe” is just pathetic. You are a joke.
Obama released 160 terrorists from Gitmo, and the Left didn’t said nothing.
The Left said nothing.
That isnt true, EOS. The Left said, “Hey, you promised you were going to close Gitmo”
But I don’t see how releasing people held illegally in the first place is at all similar to Trump pardoning a man like Arpaio who *tortured* people because of the color of their skin. Your defense of this is ugly.
Sheriff Joe did not torture anyone. Claiming he did so and that it was because of the color of their skin is a bald face lie. Please stop making false accusations. You have no apparent understanding of logical argument.
Anybody who supports this type of policing is colluding with the devil.
No EOS, it is true. He housed people in tents in 110 degree heat. He targeted people based on the color of their skin. He starved prisoners. Forced them into slave labor in the form of chain gangs, and has allowed guards to verbally torment mentally ill inmates to the point of suicide. We arent even talking about criminals either. He did this to innocent people waiting for trial too. You are the one lying if you deny how evil he is.
http://www.npr.org/templates/story/story.php?storyId=112296948
http://www.npr.org/templates/story/story.php?storyId=112296948
I understand logic enough to understand that even a local argument based on a false premise will not reach a sound conclusion. Arpaio is a man who tortured people in camps. His actions are not defensible. At best you can do what you are doing and lie about those well documented facts.
Lynne, just remember the 13th. Amendment did not abolish all forms of slavery. We have over a million slaves in our penal institutions. So to be honest, Arpaio did not force them into “slave labor”, our legal system does that. Your other statements I believe are correct.
EOS, for your education the justice department report that outlines his criminality.
https://www.justice.gov/sites/default/files/crt/legacy/2011/12/15/mcso_findletter_12-15-11.pdf
What is particularly interesting is while busy harassing and discriminating against Latinos, he was unable to effectively investigate a large number of sex crimes.
Great guy your Arpaio
I don’t deny that Obama’s Justice Department was out to get Sheriff Joe. However, he was never charged with the crimes listed in your report. Why not? Lynne, you provided an opinion piece that makes a lot of claims but no evidence that any of these accusations resulted in charges. His only offense was violating the court injunction to not detain illegal immigrants. He was re-elected 5 times by the people in Arizona, only losing when the expenses resulting from the witch hunt became too expensive. People who enter our country illegally are criminals.
That he was never charged for torturing inmates is part of the problem but he was found guilty of violating a court order not to profile and target Hispanic people. He is a criminal. Not everyone in the jail was a criminal, some were citizens or here legally. Yes, he was elected five times. All that shows is that their are enough horrible immoral people to vote for him there. It wasnt the expenses of a witch hunt, it was all the civil lawsuits filed by the people he tortured.
It says a lot about you that you think it is ok to *torture* people whose only crime is to be in this country illegally. I guess you are a cruel person. Just like our shitty president.
So they can walk hundreds of miles, sleeping and pooping on open ground, and eating whatever they find along the way, but putting them in tents and feeding them is torture. And if they successfully cross the border, we should provide free medical treatment for whatever ails them. Got it. Hundreds cross the Arizona border daily and 99.9% of those who illegally enter the country through Arizona are Hispanic, but if you are suspicious of any Latino, it’s racism. Right. The people of Arizona are tired of being terrorized on their own property by M13 members and are grateful that Trump will enforce the laws on the books.
EOS, once again, is absolutely right. These people POOP IN THE DESERT!!! What more do we need to know? Of course they deserve torture.
I’m not a fan of chain immigration, and would like the criteria for legal immigrants to be more skills based. Illegal immigrants often are taken advantage of by employers who pay them poorly, treat them poorly, and in doing so, lower prevailing wages for that position for citizens and legal immigrants. However, if “Sheriff” Joe really wanted to make a dent in illegal immigration, he should have gone after the employers who served as the attraction for them. For all the hoopla around rounding up the illegals by his office, no employer of illegal immigrants suffered any legal sanctions in the form of fines or jail time.
Clearly, somebody in addition to the illegal immigrant benefits from illegal immigration. Maybe society in general benefits, as in the long run immigration is more beneficial than no immigration (a debatable point, see Japan). But those benefits are not spread evenly across society, and my sense is that the sum of the benefits accrue to only a few, and the sum of the burden are spread amongst many. Until we have an open discussion about enforcement of employment laws, types of temporary work permits for different type of jobs, in addition to the constant angst over immigration enforcement and building border walls, we’ll have to deal with “Sheriff” Joe and others like him, since the many can out vote the few.
EOS, your ignorance is astounding. Most people who are undocumented overstay a tourist visa and just come over the border in the regular way. But yes, it is sickening that the people in that county in Arizona were OK with people being mistreated because of their unfounded fears And yes, we have an obligation to our fellow human beings to treat their acute medical needs while they are in incarcerated.
I was talking to a guy who is an immigrant. He looks like he could be from Latin America although he isnt. He said that he thinks that a lot of this white supremacy is that white people fear that they will be treated in the same way that they treat brown people once brown people are the majority. I think that is a possibility. You cant treat whole groups of people horribly and not expect some anger. Maybe someday, EOS will get pulled over for the color of her skin and thrown in a hot desert jail because she doesnt happen to have proof of her citizenship on her at the time. You travel with your birth certificate and/or passport, right?
JCP2, but then he would have been torturing mostly white business owners and that would outrage white supremacists like EOS.
Lynne,
Your suppositions are invalid and the name calling is juvenile. Everyone who disagrees with you is not ignorant or a supremacist. What I fear as a result of Obama style open borders is the lowering of our standard of living to equal Mexico. I fear the economic burden that border states experience will limit their ability to provide necessary services for taxpayers. Resident aliens are required to carry their green card with them at all times and visitors must carry their passport. If I get pulled over, I have a drivers license, a social security number, computer records of having paid taxes for years, and various other means of documenting my citizenship.
EOS is substantially correct. All foreign nationals must be registered with the appropriate government agency and have in their possession at all times any certificate of registration or receipt cards issued to them, if such document was issued.
We have the I-94 US arrival/departure form which is a paper form given to most visitors that is issued on entry and surrendered upon departure. Most sea and air arrivals are registered electronically and no paper form is issues. It’s unclear how the regulations are interpreted and enforced, and the letter of the law has not yet caught up to prevailing practices.
We have the I-551 (alien registration card/green card), and we have the I-766 (employment authorization document/work permit).
EOS has once again demonstrated that her Christian compassion extends only so far, that her primary political motivation is fear of others, and her justification for such is a narrative seated in bias and avoidant of any contrary finding.
Her letter of the law argument ignores the failure of the INS to keep up with its own paperwork, unfounded mandated (that need funding) etc etc. I will agree that the mandates of our laws should be funded and enforced, because doing otherwise creates room for selective enforcement. I would be thrilled to revert our treatment of the border back to the much looser standard pre-80’s standards. Crime in Mexico was lower then, not so coincidentally. Border enforcement in North America is silly. It never stoped drugs from coming to America anyway.
JCP2 — I disagree fundamentally with privileging of skills based immigration over immigration seeking economic opportunity and safe haven. America has succeeded in large part because we have not been so selective. The mobility even among ‘low skill’ immigrants has been impressive, especially among those less subject to racial bias. Not to mention we need those workers to fill those jobs that can not be outsourced. Lots of data shows Americans aren;t willing to take them. So, until the pending robot future frees us of labor, people who come here willing to do manual labor, raising kids who attain a higher level of education, contribute in critical ways to our society. Legalization of their immigration or legal worker status would give them more protection. Roping them out will not.
Lots of data supports an economic argument for allowing immigration at all levels, not to mention the humanitarian one.
JPC2: Sounds like Canada is rethinking their immigration policies to value workers beyond ‘the best and the brightest.’ (please note I just threw up in my mouth writing that) because they too need laborers. http://calgaryherald.com/news/national/9999-lang-intro
EOS, I would love to see the Patriot Act laws used against you. I would love to see you picked up within 100 miles of the border, profiled for your white skin (because most of the illegal people crossing the border are white Canadians) and then thrown in jail if you don’t happen to have proof of citizenship on your person at the time and no, a SS card is not sufficient. Then you should be kept in a tent without blankets in the coldest of winters for months because your friends and family are afraid that they will be picked up too if they show up with their white skin to provide you the documentation you would need to get out.
Ugh. I don’t really wish that on you or anyone but I honestly think that is what it would take for you to understand how horrible Arpaio was. Maybe not even then. I have noticed the right has no sense of hypocrisy.
Jean, I think the biggest flaw in NAFTA was that it didn’t allow for the free trade of labor. I think we should have an agreement similar to the Schengen Agreement in Europe where Canadians, Americans, and Mexicans can all live legally in each other’s countries. Aside from that, we *really* need to reform our immigration laws. They are terrible and difficult to navigate even for highly educated people.
My brother’s ex wife is Filipino. She immigrated to Canada and then, when they got married, to the USA. It took her years and thousands of dollars, even married to a US citizen, to get everything sorted out. This, even though my brother used to work for the Catholic Church for an organization specifically set up to help people through the process so he knew the best and most experienced immigration lawyers. This, even though she has two masters degrees. This, even though her family is very well connected with the government in the Philippines (her aunt is married to the Filipino Ambassador to a major European country). The stories she told me about the process made me livid! If someone as privileged as her has trouble, what about those who are less privileged? Among other things though, it made it very clear to me how easy it is for someone to not have the proper documentation and thus be vulnerable to the likes of Arpaio.
Yes
Lynne– I was recently in Juarez and up until recently there was no wall at all there. Free trade of labor happened within 50 miles of the border (where there were simply highways checkpoints, like in Europe). Many people I met had worked in the US in factories pre-Reagan. Even post. This is how Juarez became the huge city it is and how El Paso became the huge city it is. In both cases, the 70’s on famously created growth without prosperity. NAFTA didn’t worsen that. Or make it better. More of the same. Conditions for non-union laborers has always sucked on both sides of the border. In Juarez, they make less than in El Paso, but costs are lower. Effectively both sides offer the same level of prosperity to laborers– not much. But people on the American side are a lot safer. There is zero evidence that the border wall keeps us safe. It simply drives more trade underground and into the hands of criminals and makes Mexicans much less safe.
Interesting, I was not aware of that happening in Juarez/El Paso although I did know that NAFTA has been mostly neutral in that it didn’t create prosperity as much as those who advocated for it thought it would and it didn’t hurt prosperity as much as many currently claim. The issue with workers has a lot to do with unions to be sure but fwiw, if we are talking about manufacturing workers, technology is the culprit there and will continue to be.
I honestly think that is part of the weakening of unions although just a part. The politics of the right is more to blame. I sometimes think of something my Dad said to me once. He said that the great irony of unions is that they improved workers lives so much that they turned into Republicans and started voting to weaken unions. Even now, very few people are able to see that a lot of the economic hardships the working class are facing are related to the economic policies of Ronald Reagan. But to be fair, even if we had adopted different policies, we would still be in the situation where technology has replaced labor to a degree that people are suffering. Some people anyways. People like me who earn a living in a job created by technology are doing ok.
As if all his other crimes weren’t bad enough, somebody figured out that EOS’s beloved “Sheriff Joe” is the same nazi shitbag who setup and busted the great Doug Sahm and his Sir Douglas Quintet on weed charges, back in 1965. Pure bad karma.
Last night in Arizona Vice President Pence referred to convicted felon Joe Arpaio as a “tireless champion” of “the rule of law”.
http://bit.ly/2jrvqjb
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