Who amongst us doesn’t deserve a presidential pardon for committing crimes like these?
The rules of the tent city were strict, arbitrary and brutally enforced. There are no newspapers allowed; Arpaio hated newspapers. The only food allowed for those of us in the work furlough program was the food in the vending machines, which was grossly overpriced.
During the sweltering summer, the temperature could reach 115 or 120 degrees. I was in the tents when we hit 120. It was impossible to stay cool in the oppressive heat. Everyone would strip down to their underwear. There was no cold water, only water from vending machines; and eventually, the machines would run out. People would faint; some had heatstroke. That summer, ambulances came about three times. One man died in his bed.
But the winter was even worse. During the winter, there were no heaters. Most jackets and heavily insulated pants weren’t allowed; they don’t want you to be comfortable.
When the temperatures dropped, we were forced to come up with makeshift ways to keep ourselves warm. The showers were kept scalding hot during both summer and winter. We hated to shower, but we would fill our empty water bottles up with the nearly boiling water and put the bottles between our blankets when it was freezing outside. We also would save the plastic bags we found when we cleaned up the jail yard and wrap our feet with them, tucking hot water bottles inside to keep our feet warm while we slept.
He kept Arizona safe!
I know this is unkind, uncharitable and much worse, but I hope he rots in hell. I suppose his only regret is that he wasn’t alive when he could have worked for the SS or been a hideous guard in a concentration camp.
OH, yeh, he would have taken great pleasure in rounding up Jews and Communists and labor leaders and Gypsys and other such vermin, and shoving them onto the railcars.
“Hell” may be too good for him:
http://digbysblog.blogspot.com/2017/08/uncle-joes-legacy.html
There seems to be dozens of things that he should have been locked up for decades ago.
Last night i was following #hurricaneharvey on twitter when 45 pardoned the shitbag, within seconds it was filled with stuff Arpaio alledgedly done, so i checked the stuff i wasnt aware off, on twitter half of claims are nonsense, but pretty much everything about him was well documented and not in doubt.
Looking from outside the US it seems something you would expect of obscure countries that very few people are bothered with. Not something people choose to have.
Not only is it that, but if it were any other country doing this, American media and politicians would be denouncing it as ‘a democracy in name only’. …including the right wing politicians doing this.
We are unique in our ability to legalize all sorts of crime and corruption and claim to be better than those countries where crime and corruption occur in great quantities but are illegal.
This dirt bag is 85 years old. I wonder how long he could survive I his tent city?
put to the test.
This man is a Nazi.
Will the pardon protect him from a civil suit? Or will the donald be forced to issue another pardon?
The Presidential Pardon is only for Federal Criminal offenses. He can still be sued in civil court.
432 cases of alleged sexual molestation over a 3 year period, mostly in cases where the alleged victim was LatinX. Everything else he has done is horrifying. This? Is the one that will horrify everyone but the most hard core racists.
November 2018, and every organizing day before that.
Trump seems insistent on removing any doubt he’s a white supremacist. Doesn’t seem to give a damn about his approval numbers. Despite Martin’s recent article that was skeptical that Trump is necessarily harming himself electorally, I’d be shocked if he could win another nation-wide election. Democrats will be fired up. Republicans will be split and a significant share will be demoralized. Independents now know who this guy is. I have to believe he’s toast.
Yes, yes . . . he’s defied the odds before. But his win was also a freak event.
I do not believe that Trump is planning on running again. I also do not believe that he is planning on giving up the presidency. He has done so much damage to the U.S. government in only 7 months!!! Longer if you consider the presidential and primary campaigns. Think of how wobbly it will be in a year or two. I believe he means to take over, and although Steve Bannon is no longer publicly in the White House I believe that his beliefs are in Trump’s head.
Bannon believes that we are in the fourth part of the four parts of an historical cycle laid out in the 1997 book “The Fourth Turning.” The parts are “growth, maturation, decay and destruction.”
All the neocentrist natterings about how outrageously stupid Trump is…over and over and over again…usually include how he is extinguishing his chances for re-election. I’ve got news for y’all…he doesn’t care about “re-election;” he means to take over by any means necessary.
Watch.
A ginned-up war, some national emergency…preferably armed fighting in the streets…an equally ginned-up massive tech hack or just some truly stupid political moves in Congress and he will strike. At that point the only possible buffer between him and a possible dictatorship…no matter what he calls it…will be the U.S. military. And here we will be, caught between a Scylla and Charybdis that makes the recent election look like sandbox games.
Remember…history is written by the winners. He’s stupid crazy if he loses, brilliant if he wins.
So far…using the same disruptive tactics on a smaller scale…he has won. He has won rightstraight through the primaries, the election and into the White House, won against two devolved, crooked and weak political parties. He has “only” 30% of the population supporting him now? (A questionable number in its own right due to the inaccuracies…purposeful; or not…of the pollsters.) I ask you…what do you think was the percentage of the German population that “supported” Hitler as he took power?
The Big Game is on.
Watch.
AG
“what do you think was the percentage of the German population that “supported” Hitler as he took power?” According to the 1932 election: 36.8%
Trump’s popularity according Real Clear Politics poll average score: 38.6%
Gallup has it at 35% +/- 3%.
Precisely….if of course the old polls and the new polls are right. I personally believe that to a great degree all polls on similar subjects will be similarly skewed. Many supporters of demagogues like these two so despise the mainstream that they will either not take part in polls or deliberately lie in them.
AG
I would love to see the President subjected to a Parliamentary-style inquiry or hearing when major decisions are made where they can be pressed into explaining why they are doing what they are doing. It would be great to see Trump squirm and try to justify his decisions if people can publicly point out to him the examples Martin did, or to point out that Arpaio blatantly violated the US Constitution that the Tea Party holds so sacredly. I don’t believe it will change most Trump supporters’ opinion of him but it would at least put a much needed check on the Executive branch. Perhaps we can start in 2018 by taking the house/senate back.
Of course, if there’s still a United States of America in 2020, and if that United States of America is still based on democratic principles, then I hope there a few improvements to the election process as a direct result of Trump.
For starters, all candidates must release their financial/tax information for the previous ten years. This will allow voters to understand where they are getting their money, what conflicts they may have, and what may motivate their decisions as a President.
Secondly, the candidates must undergo a rigorous medical exam by the Chief of the Medical Corps for the US Navy, and a psychological exam by chief of the Medical Corps of the US Army. Any illness, prescription medicines, etc… can be revealed but should not be automatic disqualifiers for the candidates. Instead it should help to provide transparency for voters to better understand who they are electing.
Lastly, in addition to the three standard debates (which need to be moderated more strictly and disallow interruptions with mic cut-offs and by awarding more time to the person that was interrupted), the candidates for the major parties should be subjected to a Jeopardy-style trivia challenge to prove that the candidates are actually knowledgeable about the world (US history, World History, Economy, Science, US Constitution, US Government, Religion, etc…).
There must be clear, short, acceptable answers, and not allow for long-winded/vague responses. We don’t need to have graduate level questions here, but a 12th grade understanding of the world should at least be a basic requirement. Better yet would be to base many of the questions on the US Citizenship Exam (w/o multiple choice). Further, the trivia should consist of 3 segments: one for each candidate individually (30 mins each), and then a head-to-head segment (30 mins). This will help voters see if they are electing someone that has a basic understanding of the world, or if they are just spouting of talking points.
Just a thought…
So, all the educated, thinking people will be for us. But that’s not enough — we need a majority!
We had a majority in 2016, unfortunately voter suppression laws in key states, Russian influence, a media obsessed with the horse race, combined with purity tests from the far left that decided voting 3rd party was better for their conscience than trying to ensure a victory for all of us, resulted in the election of a man who is morally corrupted, mentally unstable, and intellectually unqualified.
If we’re going to have “extreme vetting” in this country, let’s start by making sure we don’t have lunatics being serious candidates for president, and since our media doesn’t seem to want that responsibility then perhaps our government can create some safeguards to help protect us in the future. I’m not suggesting these three changes are the end-all/be-all, but it’s a start to try and keep this from every happening again.
American elites and the Republican Party should be embarrassed that they couldn’t put this guy away 2 years ago.
Sure, the Republican rank and file are despicable, vile people. That’s been known since Nixon’s Southern strategy, consolidated by Reagan, and explained by Atwater.
But these nasty people have only won the popular vote for president in one national election since 1992 and yet they control everything including up to 7 Supreme Court seats shortly. Sure our system’s undemocratic flaws are being exposed and that is facilitating these unconscionable results but still the problems of inequality, the complete absence of compassion on a global scale during the Great Recession along with the lack of any serious accountability for it, or the rebound of the Republicans in just 8 years from the most incompetent modern presidential administration before this one is symptomatic of deeper moral corruption in our society.
I’m not generally a subscriber to apocalyptic theology but these trends: massive inequality, absence of compassion, lack of accountability are clearly the result of an insulated elite living in their own bubble of a rigged system.
Like a country that’s protected its economy from foreign competition, it just seems like there will be be a day of reckoning that won’t be pretty.
Ask yourself one simple question:
What did the pardon accomplish, besides providing an opportunity for Trump to bask in the love of his God-Emperor fanboys by pissing off liberals and stirring up the media to new heights of criticism and calls for his impeachment? Arpaio was facing up to 6 months in prison. Not even his own tent city prison either. He’s no longer in charge due to his election beat-down.
Arpaio is now the symbol of the past. The right wing can build statues to him like statues of Robert E. Lee, but it’s still basically a lost cause. Terrorizing immigrant families might thrill the idiot base, and anger everybody else, but it actually accomplishes nothing. Those Latino families it terrorizes and angers will still be able to vote, because they are citizens, and no “illegals” actually voted.
Aside from Trump stirring up anger and division again nothing has changed. If Democrats act united we will sweep them all from office within a short time. If not, then Trumpism will continue for a big time.
Trump did it, I believe, because it continues to solidify his White Supremacist/Nazi base. Plus the MAJORITY of GOP voters, including some who may genuinely decry the Nazi’s in their midst, are still JUST FINE with EVERYTHING that Trump has done so far, up to and including pardoning the execrable nasty Nazi sh*thead Arpaio.
So Trump does these things because, like stone-cold murdering people on 5th Ave, he KNOWS that it just keeps him “popular” with his base and the majority of GOP voters.
Hence, the GOP politicians – even the very very miniscule few who really disagree with Trump (it’s my opinion that MOST GOP pols secretly love and approve of everything Trump does bc, really? why wouldn’t they? They’re ALL like Trump, they just hide their White Supremacy behind dog whistles) – are coralled into standing behind Trump. The GOP needs Trump to get their legislation passed. And Trump knows that. So it’s all: scratch my back, GOP Congress, OR ELSE!
At the end of the day, Trump’s just doing most of what he said he would during the primary.
His fans LOVE him for it. LOVE LOVE LOVE him for it.
The end.
What it accomplishes is that it lets every fascist nazi dirtbag in law enforcement know that it’s open season on minorities- the law be damned, Trump will have your back.