Hillary could not have affirmed a greater disregard for lawfulness and justice: All such arguments are now vacated.

Trump voters did this to America.

Not Democrats, not liberals. Trump voters.

So there's this movie out there, a documentary produced by one of the NGO's that responded to the Ebola crisis in Liberia a few years ago. It ain't a great movie, but they paid for the TV news footage to move it along...

...And every time you see Obama or a government official, you find yourself wondering how the Trump administration would respond in such a time.

This speculation is not comfortable.




Is this the kind of team leadership that Trump voters can be proud of?

The Arpaio pardon is a weird one. Arpaio was convicted of disobeying a court order, not a law; a court order that Arpaio maintains was vague and gave no instructions for compliance.

Since we want the courts to oversee the police and law enforcement arms of our government, it seems reasonable, nay desirable, that police agencies obey court orders and that officers who disobey court orders be punished.

The court order Arpaio disobeyed said his office was using racial profiling to single out Hispanics and detain indefinitely those without proper identification. It ordered him to stop using traffic stops to identify potential illegal immigrants. Now, we don't want our police to be able to detain citizens indefinitely, but in an area with a high number of Hispanic illegal immigrants (another law being broken), Arpaio saw his actions as enforcing the law, albeit in a heavy-handed way.

Arpaio argues that the court did not provide him a means of enforcing immigration law - that the court order was a politically-motivated ploy to get him to stop enforcing immigration law. That Democrats opposed his actions because illegal immigration provides the Democratic Party in Arizona with more Hispanic voters. That the judge who issued the original order was appointed by Bill Clinton is proof of the political nature of the original order ... in Arpaio's mind.

That even Republicans are hostile to the Arpaio pardon seems to vindicate the rage against Trump's actions. However, it's not that simple. Arpaio has been involved in several political dust-ups with the Arizona powers that be, including a case involving Senator Jeff Flake's son over the death of two dogs he was watching for his in-laws. That Flake is hostile to Arpaio now fits into a realm of politics, not justice.

Presidents have long used pardons as political tools. Obama's pardon of Chelsea/Bradley Manning earned him the support of the transgendered community. Bush's commutation of Scooter Libby's sentence earned him the support of the political bloc that favored the war in Iraq. Bush showed a great deal more political savvy in commuting the sentence instead of issuing a pardon than either Obama or Trump showed in their use of presidential pardon power.

By pardoning Arpaio, Trump solidified the support of his anti- illegal immigration base. Arpaio had many vocal supporters outside of Arizona. However, in doing this, Trump also involved himself in internal Arizona politics, earning the enmity of both Arizona senators and creating a mess from which he may not be able to easily extract himself.

Arpaio himself is hardly a sympathetic defendant. He is a political grandstander and opportunist. The tidal wave of lawsuits filed against his office and the expense of defending them cost him his job in 2017 as voters tired of his antics. While calling himself "America's Toughest Sheriff," he gave little indication that he understood the concept of "justice tempered with mercy" or the concept of justice at all. Certainly his understanding of the Constitution appeared to be limited with his violations of the Fourth Amendment's restrictions on state police powers almost legendary.

And what does the pardon mean going forward? A police agency violated a court order and the head of that agency was pardoned by the president. Trump should be reinforcing the power of the judiciary to oversee police agencies, not undermining it.

Bush's commutation of Libby's sentence did not abrogate the court's conviction of Libby, nor undercut the power of the courts to convict. It also left open for argument that Libby's conviction was a political witch hunt.

Trump should have waited until the court passed sentence. Had the court been lenient on Arpaio, Trump could have praised the leniency and even continued to argue that Arpaio's conviction was a political witch hunt. Instead, both he and Arpaio have acknowledged Arpaio's guilt with the pardon.

Trump may not be a "bratty 8-year-old," but his understanding of the subtleties of political intrigue needs some work.

Trying to recall the concern about Janet Reno, Butcher of Waco.
The IRS weaponizing tax law.
The EPA getting away with the Animas River catastrophe.

The feds made Arpaio's offense a misdemeanor so as to avoid a jury trial.

Lot of reason to think this concern is due to the fact that it's Trump who did it, instead of, say, Cruz had he been POTUS.

"The court order Arpaio disobeyed said his office was using racial profiling to single out Hispanics and detain indefinitely those without proper identification. It ordered him to stop using traffic stops to identify potential illegal immigrants. Now, we don't want our police to be able to detain citizens indefinitely, but in an area with a high number of Hispanic illegal immigrants (another law being broken), Arpaio saw his actions as enforcing the law, albeit in a heavy-handed way.

Arpaio argues that the court did not provide him a means of enforcing immigration law - that the court order was a politically-motivated ploy to get him to stop enforcing immigration law."

So, Amy, what's the solution to this?

I'm sure people enamored of fantasies think that someone illegally entering from Mexico would NOT be Hispanic. Maybe they support TSA methods, pretending that Granny and the nun need to be strip-searched to pretend we aren't looking for Yusef...

Or are you busy being horrified, to the exclusion of all else?

If you oppose the premise of the court order - that you cannot look for Hispanics crossing the border from a majority-Hispanic country - say so. It is exactly the absurdity someone campaigning on stopping illegal immigration would address.

> Or are you busy being
> horrified

Well, you sophisticated little bunnymuffin, it's like that time all those fuzzy-nippled sheeple shit their panty-thongs over whether or not the president has the authority to declare war without consulting Congress.

Sure looks preposterous in retrospect, right?

Or perhaps you, and your fellow eighth-graders-in-the-voting-booth, are incapable of shame. Or even humility.

Much would be explained.

> Or perhaps you, and your fellow eighth-graders-in-
> the-voting-booth, are incapable of shame

Shame is for losers. One reason people like Trump so much is his lack of shame. The main weapon the media wields against politicians is shame, and Trump's refusal to be shamed by them explains much of his success.

Why give power to other people over how you feel?

Honestly Conan, McCain and Flake already hate Trump. This was prominently displayed when McCain rushed back to Washington all to screw with his own party over Obamacare. There isn't much Trump can do to further sour the relationship. So I kinda see this pardon as Trump getting back at them.

Amused just now to see that Amy subtitled this post: "I would say he's more like 5."

"Trump voters did this to America."

God bless 'em, they did keep Hillary out of the White House, and they'll keep Chelsea out as well.

A self avowed rascist has nothing but contempt for the idea of shame. What a shocker.

The part I find funny is he claims shame is for losers. I guess only other losers?

" The main weapon the media wields against *politicians* is shame"

Don't you mean Republicans?

The game has always been to force them to apologize over and over again for having different views from the SJW's and then lableing them as racists anyway....

Trump didn't fall for it.

A self avowed rascist has nothing but contempt for the idea of shame. ~ Abersouth at August 27, 2017 11:12 AM

Except Trump is not a self-avowed racist. He denies being racist at all.

Amused just now to see that Amy subtitled this post: "I would say he's more like 5."

Blogging -- it's a work in progress. Especially at 10:30 pm.

Conan, I wasn't talking about Trump in my post at 11.12am. I was talking about his fluffer Snoopy.

Conan, I wasn't talking about Trump in my post at 11.12am. I was talking about his fluffer Snoopy. ~ Abersouth at August 27, 2017 11:42 AM

Got it, my bad. Carry on.

Thanks, Amy. It is good to know these things, even if I do respect Arpaio. Airing out all sides is always good.

However, I think Trump's pardon of Arpaio will pass political muster, since so many judges issue politically-driven decisions nowadays, of which the court order against Arpaio may be one. It's like these judges put their thumbs to their ears and stick their tongues out, going neener-neener-neeeeener to we the people. Talk about overgrown 5-year-olds!

I don't see much defense here for Arpaio's actual jail practices, as enumerated by Amy.

Livestreaming women on the toilet? What possible justification?

Livestreaming women on the toilet? What possible justification? ~ Kevin at August 27, 2017 12:40 PM

He wasn't convicted of that. Or even ordered by the court to stop doing that.

He may be a reprehensible human being, but his conviction (and subsequent pardon) was for a misdemeanor contempt of court for not stopping the traffic stops and racial profiling when ordered to do so.

Even at a five-year-old level Trump is still a couple of sigmas above the average for politicians. You need to drop your estimate to less than three to get it in the lower fifty percent.

> He wasn't convicted of that.
> Or even ordered by the court
> to stop doing that.

Oh.

Well.

Do you guys ever, ever, ever find the air getting a little thin? Ever?

Crid. You may well condemn that which you find condemnable.
That doesn't mean the criminal justice system is supposed to go along if you can't find a law broken or a court finding that a law was broken.

Do you guys ever, ever, ever find the air getting a little thin? Ever? ~ Crid at August 27, 2017 1:18 PM

Not really. I prefer the government not be able to arrest or jail people for being douchebags; that its power to jail be limited to actual crimes.

Joe Arpaio's only jailable offense here is disobeying the court order, a misdemeanor offense.

> if you can't find a law broken
> or a court finding that a law
> was broken.

> I prefer the government not
> be able to arrest or jail
> people for being douchebags

You guys are totally talking about the Clintons, right? You totally are: Protected from the consequences of their perfidy in authority by abject corruption.

What exactly is the virtue in your perspective?

Chelsea at 128°F.

Hillary's $140,000,000.00 blunder.

As someone who thinks Arpio should be executed by the state for the river of corpses that flowed out of his jail the fact remains that the court order ordered him to stop enforcing the law

It was a political machination, that most people didnt care about given how often Arpio had doe the same to others

But Trump really fucked up, no one in AZ aside from the out of state blue hairs he hired as a posse to "investigate" (see fuck) a bunch of hookers liked the guy

He might have solidified his anti immigration base outside of AZ, but he just kicked out a major support of his base inside AZ

I lived in Arizona for 17 years. In Phoenix for 10 and a small town for 7 years. In the small town, we had a circle K right down the street from a middle school. The kids used to come in and overload the store and steal stuff. The clerks had to profile the kids and limit them to two at a time forcing them to leave their backpacks outside. Everybody else could come and go as the pleased. If China was south of us we would expect chinese looking illegal immigrants, it just so happens that they are Hispanic. Arpaio felt as an elected sheriff he had the duty to enforce federal law. If you think that these judges didn't convict Arpaio for political purposes I have some AZ beach front property for sale.

> A self avowed rascist has
> nothing but contempt for
> the idea of shame

That last part was especially darling:

> Why give power to other people
> over how you feel?

Readers of a certain age, and everyone of a certain clarity, will recognize that idiotic cliche as a trite classic from late-20th self-help, when "spirituality" was pursued in masturbatory solitude by a consumer culture disinclined to rigor, to involvement in the lives of fellows, and to challenging text. At the zenith of this New Age, Oprah Winfrey listened to milquetoast Windham Hill records within a circle of scented candles under a Dream Catcher, and reported that other people shouldn't be permitted to harsh one's mellow (, Man).

Your squeaky "power" sentiment again calls to mind the brilliant Williamson piece of two weeks ago:

A great many of these young men have an interest in evolutionary psychology and evolutionary sociology — they like to think of themselves as “alpha males,” as though they were living in a chimpanzee troop — but it never occurs to them to consider their own status as rejects and failed men in that context… If we credit their own sociobiological model, they are the superfluous males who would have been discarded, along with their genetic material, by the pitiless state of nature. The fantasy of proving that they are something else is why they dream of violence and confrontation.* They are the products of the soft liberal-democratic society they hold in contempt — and upon which they depend, utterly.

* Sometimes appearing in comments here
  as chatter about "civil war".

> racist

As opposed to being an "islamorealist"?

As opposed to "evolving to be tribal to some degree"?

At least I call it like it is and don't virtue signal.

> they are the superfluous males who would have been
> discarded, along with their genetic material, by
> the pitiless state of nature

Kind of like the genetic material of all the childless commenters here?

> within a circle of scented candles

Kinda like Tiki torches?

You can choose to worry about what others think of you, or you can choose not too. No need for Oprah, lame music, and the like.

"Livestreaming women on the toilet? What possible justification?" ~ Kevin at August 27, 2017 12:40 PM

I'm just guessing here but if a prisoner know the toilet is the one place guaranteed not being observed in prison, then that is where most the illegal activity in the prison will occur. If live-streamed to female guards, that could eliminate some of the privacy/modesty issues.

> brilliant Williamson piece of two weeks ago

"Look what a good boy I am" conservatism...

Tiki Torches At Twilight

The inimitable David Lindley. Let's all get normal at the luau!

"Or perhaps you, and your fellow eighth-graders-in-the-voting-booth, are incapable of shame. Or even humility."

Yep. Everything you say and do makes you better than anyone else. Who's the snowflake now?

I wonder who got your lunch money back when. She must have been terrifying.

Be sure to support TSA search methods, which is what the court apparently wanted Arpaio to do rather than actually find somebody. From now on I'll call you on that.

Twat, he tortured people.

"Bush's commutation of Libby's sentence did not abrogate the court's conviction of Libby, nor undercut the power of the courts to convict. "

The unfortunate and ironic thing about that is, Libby is provably innocent of the charges he was convicted on. Richard Armitage has admitted being the source of the Valerie Plame information, and two reporters who talked to Armitage have corrobrated that. It was a politically motivated miscarriage of justice. This was a case where the court's power should have been abrogated.

He might have solidified his anti immigration base outside of AZ, but he just kicked out a major support of his base inside AZ

I suspect Trump knows this perfectly well, and decided it was worth it. There are a lot more people outside AZ than inside. The casual observer outside Arizona knows Arpaio was tough on illegals, but is dimly (if at all) aware of what went on in his jails.

Federal prosecutors have better than a 90% rate of getting convictions and/or pleas.
So they have something on you--even if they have to make it up--and will get you for it unless you testify to this nice testimony they have figured out for you.
See Silverglate, "Three Felonies a Day".
Anybody know what the big shooters at Enron actually did?
So Trump told people who will be investigated by Mueller that they don't have to fear being jailed for something they didn't do--see Libby--or framed--see Richard Jewell--or have exculpatory evidence withheld--see Ted Stevens--if they refuse to say what the fibbies tell them to say.

The Examiner.

Eh, the sheriff's indictment was probably political, as usual, by Cloretta Clynch; maybe so he would not be re-elected.

"I suspect Trump knows this perfectly well, and decided it was worth it. "

Yeah, Trump is making a big political bet here. I think he's betting that Jeff Flake will be primaried, and McCain won't run for reelection when his term ends, and the result will be two Arizona senators who will be more sympathetic to Trump's agenda. I don't know if that's a smart bet. I suspect that Phoenix probably doesn't provide Trump a lot of support, and Tuscon will break heavily for pretty much any Democrat who runs against Trump. Stuff like this will have to make him absolutely solid in the working-class suburbs and rural areas in order to elect the Senators he wants.

It's become apparent that Trump's voters were completely unconcerned with the personal predations and unprosecuted criminality of the Clintons, and untroubled by the increasingly ludicrous manipulations of the Democratic machine that supported them.

The Trump voters merely wanted that abject criminality deployed to flatter their own petty & uninformed prejudices.

Well, kids, you got it.

"He wasn't convicted of that!!

Antifa are all Hillary fans, if that helps anyone consider the alternative.

He wasn't convicted of that. Or even ordered by the court to stop doing that. ~ Conan the Grammarian at August 27, 2017 12:51 PM

It's become apparent that Trump's voters were completely unconcerned with the personal predations and unprosecuted criminality of the Clintons, and untroubled by the increasingly ludicrous manipulations of the Democratic machine that supported them. / Well, kids, you got it. / "He wasn't convicted of that!! ~ Crid at August 28, 2017 1:40 PM

Crid, I will not apologize for arguing that the government should not be able to lock up citizens, even as reprehensible a citizen as Joe Arpaio, without a conviction in a court of law or a subject-to-appeal order from a judge. I did not advocate the locking up of either of the Clintons without a trial and conviction in a court of law and do not now advocate such an action.

Nor will I apologize for reluctantly favoring the chaotic unpredictability of Trump over the "unprosecuted criminality" of Clinton. Besides, the destructive empowerment of the groups that would have been empowered by a Clinton victory (BLM, Occupy, Antifa, etc.) was too much.

I will admit, I did not foresee the empowering of the KKK, David Duke, Richard Spencer, and other white nationalists that we've seen of late. It was difficult to image a situation in the modern US in which groups like those would ever be anything but easily-ignored fringe groups.

However, even now, those groups do not have any serious advocacy within the party in power, whereas the groups mentioned earlier would have had powerful and well-placed advocates with a Clinton victory; and, even without her victory, have prominent apologists within the media and the Democratic Party.

Conan: "I will admit, I did not foresee the empowering of the KKK, David Duke, Richard Spencer, and other white nationalists that we've seen of late."

And, just who is empowering them? The MSM! that's who. It isn't that they suddenly came into being with Trump's election.

Just like unemployment, homeless, and other such problems. The KKK and other hate groups were ignored by the media until a Republican (and Trump at that) was elected. Now "suddenly" they are everywhere. But, only because the news media decided they are a problem.

Since they haven't been able to pin other "issues" (e.g. Russia) on Trump; why not blame him for hate groups?!

Has there been an increase in KKK marches? Far as I can tell there has only been an increase in reporting on them. The KKK has been marching my entire life. And none of them march in their home towns. They travel far away where no one knows who they are. This doesn't appear to have changed with Trump's election.

Just like unemployment, homeless, and other such problems. The KKK and other hate groups were ignored by the media until a Republican (and Trump at that) was elected. Now "suddenly" they are everywhere. But, only because the news media decided they are a problem. ~ charles at August 28, 2017 5:42 PM

The media are certainly giving them publicity and exposure in an effort to tie them to Trump. Because racism, homelessness, and joblessness only happen when a Republican is in charge.

However, it's not all on the media. These groups decided that their opposition to Hillary and her subsequent defeat mean they can crawl out from under their rocks and pretend America owes them for its salvation and is looking to them for leadership. They think they got Trump elected. Trump's tone deafness to political subtleties and his misguided appointment of Bannon further encouraged them.

The media subsequently discounted Trump's admittedly lackluster denunciations of these groups while tying them to him philosophically with the thinnest of threads. His fumbling from crisis to crisis is not helping his credibility.

These groups decided that their opposition to Hillary and her subsequent defeat mean they can crawl out from under their rocks and pretend America owes them for its salvation and is looking to them for leadership.
These groups decided that their opposition to Hillary and her subsequent defeat mean they can crawl out from under their rocks and pretend America owes them for its salvation and is looking to them for leadership.

✓ Affirmed

🌟

Presidential pardon power, working as intended. Nothing to see here, folks. Move along.

> I will not apologize for
> arguing that the government
> should not be able to lock
> up citizens

Oh FFS, don't be pompous, and DON'T BE EVASIVE.

The points you won't take are that [A.] Arpaio's predations are no less despicable than Hillary's (and had you been victim to one of them, the entirely personal and often violent nature of their dislocation would no doubt strike you as much worse than a little ol' uranium deal or measly unsecured email server); and [B.] that the political support of psychological borderlines in voting booths and elsewhere is what keeps these figures in power, when prison (or a scorching, unceasing Hell) is what they deserve.

'I will NOT apologize!'

...Unless you meant to regard Hillary as fully rightous, as she's not been convicted of anything either.

Some of you are old enough to recall the homeless when Reagan was president.
Three million was the CW.
Then, once Reagan was out of office, they all got homed.
Funny how that works.
So Bannon is a bad guy. I know he's been designated the designated bad guy; fact, if any and if anybody cared, to follow, or not.
What, exactly, did Bannon do?

Unless you meant to regard Hillary as fully rightous, as she's not been convicted of anything either. ~ Crid at August 29, 2017 2:14 AM

Not convicted does not mean righteous. At least not until OJ finds the real killer.

All I see from that Conan is you wish Trump was better at manipulating the media. Given the current nature of the print and TV media I don't know that that is an achievable goal for anyone.

Even if Trump gets run off and Pence takes over we will just suddenly find that Pence is a racist and a whole bunch of other ists. We already know he is sexists. Nothing much will have changed.

> Not convicted does not mean...

The proper application of principle diminishes the need for quibbling.

The proper application of principle diminishes the need for quibbling. ~ Crid at August 29, 2017 9:48 AM

Oh, fer cryin' out loud.

The points you won't take are that [A.] Arpaio's predations are no less despicable than Hillary's (and had you been victim to one of them, the entirely personal and often violent nature of their dislocation would no doubt strike you as much worse than a little ol' uranium deal or measly unsecured email server); and [B.] that the political support of psychological borderlines in voting booths and elsewhere is what keeps these figures in power, when prison (or a scorching, unceasing Hell) is what they deserve. ~ Crid at August 29, 2017 2:13 AM

Dude, I never argued that Arpaio's predations were more or less despicable than Hillary's. I never compared them.

In fact, it doesn't matter if his predations are lesser or greater than Hillary's. Or even if they're comparable. I don't care; both should probably face a jury for their actions, but neither probably ever will.

My only argument was that Arpaio was convicted of violating a court order regarding his traffic-stop "racial profiling" and that using his other untried offenses as the basis on which to condemn him to jail or withhold a pardon is wrong; that condemning a person to jail on an offense without a conviction in a court of law is way beyond the authority we've given (or even want to give) our government.

Arpaio, as I've said many times, is a reprehensible human being. And he likely deserves worse than a pardoned misdemeanor conviction. But the government doesn't get to arbitrarily decide that someone is a reprehensible human being and deserves jail time without a conviction for a crime in a court of law. As it should be.

And Arpaio was never convicted of a crime for the tent city, pink underwear, striped convict uniforms, prisoner work crews, or any of his other offenses against good sense and decency. In fact, he was rewarded for them by the Phoenix and Maricopa County voters with reelection to office several times.

I would agree that some of those who repeatedly, or even once, voted for Arpaio are "psychological borderlines." Mobilizing the sane and rational to vote in this country seems unreasonably difficult. Conducting a reasoned political discussion seems also unreasonably difficult. One probably feeds the other. After all, who needs a cult when you can use the Internet to get the masses to brainwash themselves?

I didn't take a position on Arpaio's pardon except to venture that it was an amateurish and politically tone deaf move by Trump. And it was. Unfortunately, the president's pardon power is unlimited and subject only to the president's discretion (of which, Trump has shown very little).

Arpaio may have started with a good point, that the federal government was putting the financial and physical burdens of enforcing federal law on a handful of affected states. Unrestrained by courts, voters, and a sense of decency, however, he eventually went too far. As Edwin Hoyt points out in his book, America's Wars and Military Adventures, "Occupying forces have a dreadful similarity." And Arpaio's MSD became an occupying force.

Somehow hate groups got looped into the discussion. ICYMI, I'm against them.

...and had you been victim to one of them, the entirely personal and often violent nature of their dislocation would no doubt strike you as much worse than a little ol' uranium deal or measly unsecured email server.... ~ Crid at August 29, 2017 2:13 AM

I've been a victim of the uneven and arbitrary application of the heavy hand of our legal system and I stand by my earlier point. In fact, that experience helped to reinforce that point with me.

That Arpaio was the perpetrator of such an egregious miscarriage of justice does not, and should not, abrogate his rights.