Trump pardons Joe Arpaio

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Trump pardons Joe Arpaio

Postby Tesseracts » Sat Aug 26, 2017 5:47 am

For his first pardon, Trump has chosen to forgive a cop who got in trouble for racial profiling. He is also a huge Trump supporter.

Many people still hope Trump will change but his behavior is actually very consistent. This recent decision fits well with his comments about Mexicans, his encouragement of white supremacists, and his promise to change police brutality laws.
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Re: Trump pardons Joe Arpaio

Postby cmsellers » Sat Aug 26, 2017 6:43 am

Like I said on the other thread, I think The Atlantic said it best here.
Insincere as well as stubborn, cunning as well as unreasonable, vain as well as ill-tempered, greedy of popularity as well as arbitrary in disposition, veering in his mind as well as fixed in his will, he unites in his character the seemingly opposite qualities of demagogue and autocrat, and converts the Presidential chair into a stump or a throne, according as the impulse seizes him to cajole or to command. Doubtless much of the evil developed in him is due to his misfortune in having been lifted by events to a position which he lacked the elevation and breadth of intelligence adequately to fill. He was cursed with the possession of a power and authority which no man of narrow mind, bitter prejudices, and inordinate self-estimation can exercise without depraving himself as well as injuring the nation. Egotistic to the point of mental disease, he resented the direct and manly opposition of statesmen to his opinions and moods as a personal affront, and descended to the last degree of littleness in a political leader, — that of betraying his party, in order to gratify his spite.


Oops, sorry, that's an article about a different unqualified president with mercy for the wrong people. I mean I think The Atlantic said it best here.

The pardon is Trump’s first since taking office, breaking a barrier relatively early in his tenure. Almost two years passed before Barack Obama issued nine pardons to people convicted of relatively minor offenses; George W. Bush waited only a few days longer into his first term to erase convictions for selling moonshine and stealing $11. But Trump eschewed his predecessors’ modest lead, instead wiping clean a guilty verdict for criminal contempt of court for one of his staunchest political supporters after only eight months in office.


That said, Andrew Johnson did pardon people worse than Arpaio, and Bill Clinton did pardon campaign supporters. However Johnson was almost impeached for doing this, and Clinton had the sense to pardon Marc Rich on his last day in office. In this, as in many things, this seems to be about Trump violating norms and daring Congress to do something about it. (And here, short of passing a Constitutional Amendment or impeaching him, there is nothing they can do about it.)

I find it intensely hypocritical the way that it's always the most vocal "law and order" types—those of Arpaio's ilk—who are among the most lawless public officials in our country. They're rarely held to account and even Arapaio was not punished for his decades of civil rights violations but for contempt of court. I really cannot get inside the mind of someone like Arpaio who seems to genuinely believe that he's upholding the law by breaking it, but this sends a message to others like him: do this, and I'll pardon you. And remember how Trump said he'd pardon any cop convicted of police brutality? I think that this shows that it's not a bluff.

And yet the direct consequences here are fairly minor. Arpaio was already kicked to the curb last election, so it's not like he can continue to engage in wanton lawbreaking with a badge to protect him. (Why is sheriff an elected office anyways? It's almost as stupid as electing judges, which most states also do.) Like his nondemnation of Nazis after Charlottesville, the problem this poses is one of the continuing weakening of our norms while this cancer on the body politic remains in office.
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Re: Trump pardons Joe Arpaio

Postby SandTea » Sat Aug 26, 2017 7:33 am

To parrot a couple of people whose names I can't remember.

It's time that all those unwritten rules of being the president are written. Show us your tax returns. Divest from your businesses. Don't wink at racists. Don't claim the free press is evil. Stop the nepotism. etc

If you want to see a persons character, give them power. His character is seen. He is not a good person, let alone a president.
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Re: Trump pardons Joe Arpaio

Postby Absentia » Sat Aug 26, 2017 7:48 am

If it makes anybody feel better Arpaio wasn't likely to face much in the way of punishment anyway. The maximum sentence would have been six months in prison, and since he's 85 years old I would not have been surprised to see a considerably more lenient sentence than that. Not that he deserves leniency, but judges aren't typically eager to sentence octogenarians to hard time.

So this is really just a symbolic move. Like a Nazi salute, or burning a cross.
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Re: Trump pardons Joe Arpaio

Postby tinyrick » Sat Aug 26, 2017 11:28 am

Absentia wrote:So this is really just a symbolic move. Like a Nazi salute, or burning a cross.


A little off topic, but can someone explain to me why burning a cross is deemed acceptable by the same group of people who'd probably beat the shit out of me if I burned an American flag in front of them? I always thought the idea of burning a cross was a bit sacrilegious. It's like, "Oh burning the flag is disrespecting all those men and women who died for your right to burn the flag in the first place." Well, if burning a symbol is disrespecting it, then burning the cross means you're disrespecting Jesus right? Didn't he die for your sins or something? Isn't God supposed to be the only thing more important to you than your country? These people never even wave the right flag in the first place, so why would they even care?
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Re: Trump pardons Joe Arpaio

Postby ghijkmnop » Sat Aug 26, 2017 4:29 pm

Redacted
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Last edited by ghijkmnop on Thu Mar 14, 2019 5:53 pm, edited 1 time in total.
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Re: Trump pardons Joe Arpaio

Postby cmsellers » Sat Aug 26, 2017 6:40 pm

Congrats Jeff, you're the Trump whisperer. Can you please make him stop hiring Russian hookers to pee on the rug?
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Re: Trump pardons Joe Arpaio

Postby Absentia » Sat Aug 26, 2017 6:50 pm

tinyrick wrote:
Absentia wrote:So this is really just a symbolic move. Like a Nazi salute, or burning a cross.


A little off topic, but can someone explain to me why burning a cross is deemed acceptable by the same group of people who'd probably beat the shit out of me if I burned an American flag in front of them? I always thought the idea of burning a cross was a bit sacrilegious. It's like, "Oh burning the flag is disrespecting all those men and women who died for your right to burn the flag in the first place." Well, if burning a symbol is disrespecting it, then burning the cross means you're disrespecting Jesus right? Didn't he die for your sins or something? Isn't God supposed to be the only thing more important to you than your country? These people never even wave the right flag in the first place, so why would they even care?


Wikipedia to the rescue.

In ye olde days, Scottish clans used a burning cross as a high visibility signal that shit was going down and it was time to rally together and fight. The KKK is, uh, loosely based on the Scottish clan system (mostly via the 1905 novel The Clansman), so they adopted the symbolism. Only instead of fighting English invaders or something, they were fighting racial equality.
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Re: Trump pardons Joe Arpaio

Postby blehblah » Sat Aug 26, 2017 7:38 pm

ghijkmnop wrote:
Please acknowledge me...


There's a thumbs-up for ya!


Sheriff Joe. What a guy.

Look Latino? You're fired incarcerated!

Raped? We'll get to ya... at some point... eventually...

Lawsuits? Yup!

Tens of millions in settlements? Sure thing!

Pull it off after 6 PM on a Friday before a hurricane hits while also firing/accepting the resignation of Gorka? Check that box!


As has been mentioned, this is largely symbolic. At 85 years of age, Arpaio was unlikely to spend time in tent camp prison working on a chain gang reflecting on his wrongs.

Here's a nice listicle of his fuckery:

https://www.aclu.org/blog/immigrants-ri ... ial-pardon

There have surely been controversial pardons before.

Yet, this isn't Ford pardoning Nixon. This isn't Clinton wading through muddy waters. This isn't even Obama setting a record for commuted sentences.

This is something else, because it is symbolic.

First, why Arpaio? I would guess it's because he was strong on birther-shit, even after Trump bowed to pressure and muttered an acquiescence of Obama's birthplace. Of course, there's also the whole brown-from-down angle. Forget that Arpaio was - finally - booted from office. Forget that crime rates went up under his watch. Forget it all... he is all about supporting Trump's narrative.

"Just doing his job". This is Trump retroactively giving himself a pardon for his version of just doing his job. Forget dog whistle - people can't hear those things.

Police, everywhere, go ahead and rough-up people, flaunt court orders, hang-em high, because I've got your back. I don't need to consult the Justice Department, because I am the boss, and I know these are Mexican rapists and drug dealers, and you should try my son's wine, it's amazing. This guy, Duterte, erm, Sherrif Joe, is just doing his job, amiright?

You know, subtle-like.
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Re: Trump pardons Joe Arpaio

Postby cmsellers » Sat Aug 26, 2017 7:53 pm

So reading the defense of Arpaio by right-wing commentators, I'm seeing two main lines of defense.

One is that the court order was confusingly worded and there's no way he could have known to follow it. Which, since he ignored two court orders, strikes me as rather implausible. (Plus he seems like the sort of person who would happily say "ignorance of the law is no excuse" as he locks you in a 109-degree cell.)

The other is that Arpaio requested and was denied a jury trial, since jury trials are only required if the maximum sentence exceeds six months. Now, it's clear that the reason he wanted a jury trial is for the same reason lynch mobs liked jury trials in the old South, but he's not constitutionally entitled to one. The real question is whether that would have been normal if he'd not been such a high-profile and controversial figure. I suspect not. I feel like contempt-of-court is intended as a slap on the wrist that can be administered by judges, for—y'know—not doing what the judge says.
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Re: Trump pardons Joe Arpaio

Postby Aquila89 » Sat Aug 26, 2017 8:07 pm

blehblah wrote:
Sheriff Joe. What a guy.

Look Latino? You're fired incarcerated!

Raped? We'll get to ya... at some point... eventually...


He needs time for the really important stuff, like investigating Obama's birth certificate.
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Re: Trump pardons Joe Arpaio

Postby cmsellers » Sun Aug 27, 2017 3:00 am

So with avi's help I've been trying to figure out what the deal with the jury trial claims is, and it now seems very clear to me that Arpaio was not entitled to a jury trial. It's a red herring raised by the right-wing media, and an annoying one because it sounds good. Who wants to be against jury trials, after all?

I've also run into a third line of defense: Joe Arpaio was doing what he was legally required to do under state law, while federal law preserved his right to do it; the court orders he defied were therefore unconstitutional. The thing is, I don't have to know whether they're right about that (and I suspect they're wrong about federal law) to comment on that: the collateral bar rule prohibits people from defying a court order while it's in effect.

The collateral bar rule limits the grounds on which a person who has disobeyed a court order can challenge that order to avoid being punished for criminal contempt. At its core, the rule generally prevents such a person from challenging the merits of the order, even if the order infringed on constitutional rights. In addition, the rule generally prevents such a person from challenging the court's jurisdiction to have issued the order. The rule thus forces people to obey erroneous and invalid court orders and to challenge them directly (if at all), unless they are willing to incur the cost of punishment.

Now is this rule worrying? I find it a bit worrying to have it enforced when it comes to individual liberty, but I think it's a good thing where government power is concerned. I suspect Arpaio's defenders would feel the opposite if they thought about this at all: it's fine to have court orders which violate people's individual rights, but not to stop the government from doing its job, dammit! But still, it's a rule which Arpaio, as the top law-enforcement officer for a county with more people with more people than 24 US states, should have been familiar with. It's not a fucking defense.

Also, while we're on the subject of civil liberties: Joe Arpaio used a fake grand jury to subpoena documents on two newspaper reporters who covered his shady real-estate listings, then when they wrote about this had the arrested; the first case of journalists being arrested for something they published in the history of the US as an independent country.

And even for people who feel like civil liberties aren't important, this should bother "blue lives matter" types who claim to care about police officers: he misappropriated $80 million mostly meant for police officer salaries to go after illegal immigrants and start corruption probes against his critics. He also spent some of that money on personal vacations to Honduras, Puerto Rico, and Disneyworld.
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Re: Trump pardons Joe Arpaio

Postby Crimson847 » Sun Aug 27, 2017 6:07 am

cmsellers wrote:So reading the defense of Arpaio by right-wing commentators


Links?
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Re: Trump pardons Joe Arpaio

Postby cmsellers » Sun Aug 27, 2017 6:42 am

Since the only conservative sources I read are #nevertrump Republicans, I get my understanding of what Trump supporters think from the comments of articles on the sources I do read, which is useful because it also tells me what arguments are actually resonating with them. In this case it was Atlantic and FiveThirtyEight articles. I believe you already read both of those but I'm not sure if you read the comments.

https://fivethirtyeight.com/features/will-the-arpaio-pardon-make-trump-more-unpopular/
https://www.theatlantic.com/politics/archive/2017/08/a-flagrant-assault-on-latino-civil-rights/538119/#article-comments
https://www.theatlantic.com/politics/archive/2017/08/trump-pardon-arpaio/537729/#article-comments
https://www.theatlantic.com/politics/archive/2017/08/no-he-wont-back-down/538125/#article-comments

The third argument I mentioned in a subsequent post was also made in those comment sections, but generally in the form of "he was just doing his job!" or something along those lines, so I initially dismissed it with the same facility I dismissed the "he's an 85-yeard-old man" arguments. Then I came across this article by someone who claims not to support Arpaio. It's got a large number of issues with the reasoning, but at least he lays out the "he was just doing his job" argument coherently.
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Re: Trump pardons Joe Arpaio

Postby Doodle Dee. Snickers » Sun Aug 27, 2017 3:10 pm

The only explicitly conservative sources I read are The National Review and The Wall Street Journal, myself. I know NTR are NeverTrumpers(hell, one of their editors goes to Morning Joe sometimes) but I can't recall about WSJ.

Anyways, this is just more of Trump loving those who are loyal to him and loving those who piss of liberals. A twofer, for him.

On the whole, again, I think it's shit like this that could sink him, barring a 9/11 kind of event shooting him into the 80s or him moving to a wider appeal. Not that I think it'll drop his approval (though it certainly won't improve it), mind you, just that it's one more thing that feeds into the idea that Trump has a very particular set of politics that has little to do with economics. Given that a lot of the voters in the places left behind by the recovery (although I would separate out 2008 and the long running gutting of the middle class/inequality that's been going on since at least Clinton, arguably HW) voted for Trump in hopes of an economic answer, this isn't what a noticeable chunk of his voters want.

This doesn't help address income inequality, it doesn't help those people out of a job or in a shitty job and on opioids, it doesn't help those coal miners in West Virginia. It's certainly not winning new people to his side, is just hardening those who hate him, and is certainly a pretty tone-deaf move so soon after the Charlottesville fiasco. It seems that as much as Trump's cast himself as an economic president, most of what he does is just basically address vacuous cultural conservative grievances, like if we had Sean Hannity or Tomi Lahren become president (Side Note: I literally cannot figure out which of those two would be worse. Hannity's a smug hypocritical idiot of epic proportions, but the moment I had to hear Tomi Lahren say "But like really, liberals? LOL. Like, c'mon, am I right?" I would be down for an unjustified impeachment and damn the long term consequences).

I'm trying to figure out what percentage that is. 25 percent? 30 percent? I'm particularly fond of the Sykes article in NYT: "If Liberals Hate him, he Must be Doing Something Right", which I suspect gives the best estimation of what Trump's base is and how hollow it is. You can't govern with a sole philosophy of "Let's just troll liberals".

So I wonder if we'll see a day he drills down to just that 25-30%
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