Last month, the Supreme Court essentially approved tactics that Joe Arpaio made infamous. Now, Arpaio is riding high.
In 2013, a federal judge found that the Maricopa County Sheriff’s Office had racially profiled Latino residents as part of ex-Sheriff Joe Arpaio’s brutal campaign to crack down on unauthorized immigration. Now, after a September Supreme Court ruling that essentially greenlit that same racial profiling, the 93-year-old Arpaio is feeling righteous.
In an interview with Slate that was published Wednesday, Arpaio said he was “vindicated by the Supreme Court” for engaging in racial profiling while he was sheriff.
“I was using race as the reason to determine whether somebody was here legally or illegally,” Arpaio told the outlet, saying the quiet part out loud. That’s OK now, though, because “the Supreme Court ruled in my favor last month.”
It’s not quite true that the high court ruled in Arpaio’s favor, but it did basically approve the same tactics that landed Arpaio in federal court and that have saddled the sheriff’s office with independent oversight for more than a decade.
In 1993 Joe Arpaio, America’s ‘toughest sheriff’, opened a temporary outdoor jail in Phoenix. After more than two decades, the notorious pro
I heard about this guy listening to old knowledge war episode this guy is a monster and he got away with it bc trump pardoned him. He was a sheriff in Arizona for decades.
I’m at work and can’t do much research but a brief search NO ONE was charged with crimes for keeping people outside in tents at 145 F WEATHER IN FUCKING ARIZONA.
If all that wasn’t bad enough! He ran for mayor! He shouldn’t be running for mayor he should have his back to the wall!!!!
From 1/4/2024 he got enough signatures to run for mayor
No one should have the power to pardon themself, not even the President of the United States. That sounds like a dictatorship in the making.
Yeah, the very idea that this could be a power the President has is kind of ridiculous.
Honestly, the pardon itself is such a dangerous power for politicians, and opens the door for all sort of abuses. I'm not necessarily against the pardon existing given the number of times it's been used to help people who need it, but it's actually terrifying to think how this could be abused and how it already was by Trump.
So much happened in Trump's presidency, I wonder how many people even remember his pardoning of Joe Arpaio, a sheriff who was held in contempt of court and sentenced to six months due to racial discrimination.
Arpaio also ran a massive outdoor jail in the Arizona desert that was overwhelmingly filled with latino people, called Tent City, which Joe Arpaio referred to as a "concentration camp."
The fact that the pardon, in the wrong hands, can be used to set people like this loose is terrifying.
In Trump's first term, he reportedly praised Hitler's generals according to his own top generals, and used his pardon power to free a man who bragged about running a concentration camp who was jailed for racial discrimination. The message this sends is that he can pardon any crimes committed by those loyal to him, giving them a free pass for any unlawful action. Especially those taken against marginalized communities.
Stressing again how incredibly important it is to get out and vote!
do you ever think about the time steven seagal drove a tank into a house - as a part of an armed police operation - to bust a suspected cock-fighting ring which led to like, all the roosters dying and also the death of a puppy?
because i think about it at least once a day because what the fuck? i have so many questions and many of them can be narrowed down to: why a tank? also who approached who here? did seagal approach joe arpaio or did arpaio approach him?
oh, and yeah. joe arpaio was the one running the operation and i guess is friends with steven seagal. that parts not particularly surprising considering seagal is also friends with putin, somehow.
i really hate how often i think about steven seagal, but the man has a deeply weird life and the ego of the glass slipper cinderella didnt leave behind.
Ex-president in Arizona warns appeal courts to ‘step up and straighten things out’ and insists he committed no crimes
Rachel Leingang at The Guardian:
In his first campaign rally after being convicted of 34 felonies, former president Donald Trump recalled how he just went through a “rigged” trial with a “highly conflicted” judge despite there being “no crime”.
The court cases Trump faces have become a mainstay of his campaigning throughout the last year, where he frequently tells his followers that the charges are a form of election interference and designed to tamp down the Maga movement.
“Those appellate courts have to step up and straighten things out, or we’re not going to have a country any longer,” he said.
Trump spoke at a Turning Point Action event in sweltering Phoenix, at Dream City church, a megachurch where he and Turning Point have held rallies in the past. The extreme heat led to some waiting outside for the venue to open to need medical attention for heatstroke.
Trump held a rally at the same church in 2020, during the height of the pandemic, when church leaders claimed to have an air-purification system that killed 99% of the Covid-19 virus. Turning Point Action is the campaign arm of Turning Point, the conservative youth group founded by Charlie Kirk, a figure in the Maga movement.
The former president also took aim at Joe Biden’s recent executive order limiting asylum seekers, which Trump called “bullshit” and said he would rescind on his first day in office, should he win. He condemned Biden on immigration and ran down Trump administration border policies, saying his Democratic rival could solve immigration problems by reinstating all of his old policies.
“Arizona is being turned into a dumping ground for the dungeons of the third world,” Trump said.
While immigration is a top issue for voters nationwide, it is especially acute in a border state like Arizona, which Trump hit on in his speech. He wistfully recalled the days of former Maricopa county sheriff Joe Arpaio, infamous for his strict immigration policies that led to frequent lawsuits and financial settlements, and brought Arpaio on stage for impromptu remarks.
Trump kissed Arpaio on the cheek, then said: “I don’t kiss men, but I kissed him. We had a real border with this guy.” Arpaio called Trump his hero.
[...]
For the Trump faithful, the convictions have become a point of ire against the other side and something akin to pride. Shirts and signs at the Phoenix rally said “I’m voting for the convicted felon”.
Trump repeated claims of a stolen election, saying the Democrats “used Covid to cheat” in 2020. He welcomed Kari Lake, the losing gubernatorial candidate in 2022 who is now running for Senate, and Abe Hamadeh, the losing attorney general candidate now running for Congress, claiming that they won their races but their elections were rigged.
In his first post-felony conviction rally, Convicted Felon Donald Trump went on his whinefest about the verdict that served him 34 felony convictions, attacked President Joe Biden’s MAGA-lite executive order on asylum, and continued his lies about the “stolen” election of 2020.
See Also:
Daily Kos: Convicted felon Donald Trump gives big kiss to disgraced former sheriff Joe Arpaio, who he pardoned
I think the internet is doing a kind of damage to our brains that the present state of neuroscience isn't well suited towards analyzing, but we will eventually come to understand the scope and in a pretty profound way.
-Robert Evans, Behind the Bastards episode Joe Arpaio: America's Favorite Concentration Camp Operator (part two)
hahaha watch your brains, y'all. Watch your brains.
