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Oh, Good God No

August 14, 2017, 12:18 pm

Trump considering pardon of Joe Arpaio

Tags:
Category: Arizona, Police and Prosecutorial Abuse

37 Comments

  1. GoneWithTheWind:

    The prosecution of Mr Arpaio is political. The judge is related to the lawyers who opposed Arpaio on this particular issue and should have recused himself. Qualified jurists have already said that the law as written could likely not be used to find Mr. Arpaio guilty of a crime. This is a high tech lynching by a kangaroo court. Sheriff Arpaio was a great law officer and exactly what we need more of.

    August 14, 2017, 1:50 pm

  2. NeoWayland:

    Pardon, but Arpaio was not a good officer.

    August 14, 2017, 3:12 pm

  3. NeoWayland:

    grumbles - Disqus loading problems.

    Pardon, but Arpaio was not a good officer.

    August 14, 2017, 3:18 pm

  4. Stan Jackson:

    If what you say is correct, Mr. Arpaio needs to appeal the decision. In court, just like anyone else would have to do.

    August 14, 2017, 4:05 pm

  5. GoneWithTheWind:

    Absolutely correct. But of course that will cost him tens of thousands, perhaps hundreds of thousands of dollars and take months if not years and he is quite old. If you believe as I do that this is a trumped up charge to punish him then regardless of what the appeals court decided the political lynching of this good man will have succeeded. They will rob him of his assets and the few years remaining to him. The intent is to send a message to anyone who might consider enforcing immigration laws that they can destroy your life. For that reason I think a pardon is a good idea.

    August 14, 2017, 4:54 pm

  6. herdgadfly:

    He is 85, Warren, and no longer the Sheriff. Time for a little sympathy. Arpaio was and is popular with those of us who credited him as having dealt with illegals when liberal law enforcement would not make arrests. If he did something awful, it took a long time and a suspect judge to rule him a miscreant.

    August 14, 2017, 5:44 pm

  7. marque2:

    He had some issues, but it does seem that the conviction in this case is political. His initial instinct that illegals are causing problems in the US and immigration laws should be enforced is correct. The fact that Warren has an illegal maid, who doesn't seem to be causing him any trouble, inside his lovely gated community is irrelevant.

    August 14, 2017, 6:48 pm

  8. Thane_Eichenauer:

    Joe Arpaio is 85 and if my fellow voters here in Maricopa county hadn't sent him packing Joe Arpaio would still be Sheriff. I don't see any angle by which Arpaio has earned sympathy. Either he broke the law or he didn't. I kept an eye on him since he was elected in 1993. Arpaio wasn't prosecuted for a one time mistake or six months of lax oversight. His actions were ongoing and with intent. He had a special master colocated in the MCSO offices to ensure that he obeyed the law. He flouted the orders of a federal judge. For good or bad it did take a long time for Arpaio to be brought to trial. Brought to trial he was, due process he was given and guilty he was found. I feel far more like applying the label suspect to Arpaio then I do the judge that convicted him.
    The Phoenix New Times has plenty of articles on him. Don't bother calling their articles suspect though, they are all fact based even though clearly they institutionally are pro "undocumented worker".
    http://www.phoenixnewtimes.com/news/arpaio-cops-to-investigating-federal-judge-judges-wife-confirming-new-times-story-7287534

    If you need more evidence of Arpaio's lack of competence you might want to ask the former Chief of Police of El Mirage, AZ. He wrote a book about it.
    http://iftherewereanyvictims.com/

    August 14, 2017, 7:28 pm

  9. Thane_Eichenauer:

    In my evaluation if Arpaio is pardoned it will be bad for Donald Trump. First it says that Joe Arpaio was guilty and second it says that Donald Trump is lawless.

    August 14, 2017, 7:32 pm

  10. Thane_Eichenauer:

    Some issues eh? Care to list them for us just in case I missed any?

    As for laws if the US government is lawless enough that it can engage in political persecution perhaps Arizona should secede then the DC swamp will need to petition for extradition.

    As for Warren's maid, why do you care? So long as the maid is happy with the arrangement any illegality is a political prosecution in my book.

    August 14, 2017, 7:37 pm

  11. Thane_Eichenauer:

    Got a URL to document your high falutin claims?

    August 14, 2017, 7:37 pm

  12. GoneWithTheWind:

    The information is out there and I'm sure any smart open minded person could find it. Somehow I doubt that you will find it.

    August 14, 2017, 7:48 pm

  13. Thane_Eichenauer:

    I don't swallow that line when Cenk Uygur uses it and I don't swallow it when you use it. Your claim is sheer assertion with all the nutritive documentation value of cotton candy.
    If the internet didn't have a zillion pages I wouldn't need to ask for a specific reference. If you were smarter you would have AT LEAST ONE COTTON PICKIN' EXAMPLE to offer Mr. The Information Is Out There.

    Put up or shut up.

    August 14, 2017, 7:54 pm

  14. MJ:

    Quo warranto?

    August 14, 2017, 8:01 pm

  15. mx:

    I think the intent is to send a message that people should obey orders from federal judges.

    August 14, 2017, 9:45 pm

  16. Bistro:

    Oh yes! The completely insane left will go barking mad and start biting themselves and giving each other rabies! Do it! Pardon Arpaio just to watch the fa go crazy and give us all a really good reason to shoot them.

    August 14, 2017, 11:05 pm

  17. Bistro:

    No.The Trump base will support a pardon because they all see the problem with the same jaundiced eye. Illegals are illegals and the various efforts undertaken by a lot of people to blur the line have simply made enforcement fall a little more heavily on those who look like illegals. It's on par with police enforcement in black neighborhoods with the stop and frisk. The progs don't like it because it does single out those most likely to be unlawfully carrying guns but this is the price society pays to keep as many blacks unshot by their fellow blacks as is humanly possible in the hellholes created by 60 years of continuous uninterrupted democratic leadership in the major urban centers of America.

    August 14, 2017, 11:09 pm

  18. Bistro:

    I agree with you completely. His deputies stole materials from defense attorneys right in front the judge who then failed to call them on it. He should have been turfed out long ago but what has happened is a vindictive political witchhunt that should have been turned with equal fury on Hillary.

    August 14, 2017, 11:10 pm

  19. Thane_Eichenauer:

    Even if the 47% of America that is (hypothetically) on the Trump Train approves that leaves 53% that will disapprove. Thank you for your comment. I see the truth in it. Time for the Western US to secede from the Eastern US/DC swamp.
    https://www.google.com/search?q=can+arizona+secede+from+the+union

    August 15, 2017, 2:10 am

  20. NeoWayland:

    I don't live in Maricopa county, but even in Northern Arizona we heard the jokes about being arrested for driving while brown. And those were the clean jokes.

    August 15, 2017, 4:43 am

  21. NeoWayland:

    Pardon, but more than some issues. The man had his fingers in all sorts of political pies. He demanded his tribute just as any crooked political boss does.

    August 15, 2017, 4:46 am

  22. marque2:

    I don't care about Warren's made - it is that he takes an elitist attitude many times. My maid seems to cause no trouble for me in my mansion therefore all you regular folks complaining about crimes and job losses, and welfare fraud related to illegal aliens are full of it.

    Don't get me wrong. I like the blog but I.frequently see a POV that only an upper middle class to rich person who has never been in the trenches can hold.

    August 15, 2017, 6:41 am

  23. Mercury:

    Isn't the real elephant in the room the issue of how much latitude the executive branch of the federal government should have or not have regarding the enforcement or non-enforcement of laws passed by the peoples' elected representatives?

    And, similarly, if the feds decide to NOT enforce certain laws, do authorities of individual states have any legal or ethical standing to enforce them or proxies for them themselves?

    Isn't the attitude of "We're the Good Guys, we can do whatever we want" a bad precedent to start in a country/culture based around the Rule of Law?

    August 15, 2017, 6:48 am

  24. Zachriel:

    herdgadfly: Time for a little sympathy.

    Arpaio is a miscreant, and must face the appropriate punishment. Justice would say he should receive the same sort of treatment as he meted out. However, sympathy due to his age might mean a reduced sentence of some sort, which would be appropriate in this case.

    August 15, 2017, 8:40 am

  25. jdgalt:

    Bah. I can't wait to see how proud he still is of his prison tent-camp and its inmates' pink underwear when he becomes one of them.

    August 15, 2017, 10:30 am

  26. jdgalt:

    And third, it will play straight into the hands of "Black Lives Matter" by proving to the whole country that the only defense against rogue, runaway law enforcers is to fight them ourselves. I do not expect BLM to win such fights, but I don't expect them to be good for the country no matter which side wins them.

    August 15, 2017, 10:36 am

  27. mesaeconoguy:

    Exactly.

    While Arpaio did become problematic, the charge of disobeying a court order in this case is empty.

    What Arpaio was doing was enforcing extant federal law, which the federal government had refused (illegally) to do.

    Oblunder’s federal government had figured out that they could illegally and illegitimately ignore federal law and stop enforcing immigration statutes, while at the same time prohibiting local law enforcement from doing the same.

    That is an unprecedented constitutional warping which resulted directly in the death of private US citizens on US territory –

    http://www.foxnews.com/us/2010/03/30/illegal-immigrant-suspected-murder-arizona-rancher.html

    August 15, 2017, 11:08 am

  28. Thane_Eichenauer:

    Should Joe Arpaio be sentenced to a period of incarceration it won't be in a tent-camp because that is 80% discontinued by the replacement as sheriff Paul Penzone.
    http://www.phoenixnewtimes.com/news/joe-arpaios-concentration-camp-is-kaput-as-paul-penzone-orders-tent-city-shuttered-9219777

    August 15, 2017, 11:56 pm

  29. John O.:

    In other words, you forfeit your claim by invoking a fallacy of argument by shifting the burden of proof onto those who disagree with you?

    This is not how you can influence opinions and maybe win an argument, but this is a way to make me completely disinterested in anything you have to say.

    August 16, 2017, 12:37 am

  30. Rick C:

    That's a fascinating point of view, that a President executing a power explicitly granted him in the country's highest law is a lawless action.

    (For the purpose of this comment, no opinion exists on whether Trump _should_ pardon Arpaio.)

    August 16, 2017, 12:37 pm

  32. JimR:

    how many criminals did obama pardon?

    August 17, 2017, 11:05 am

  34. Bistro:

    Nope. Remember, some huge percent voted for our version of Hugo Chavez. Socialists are always the bane of civilization.

    August 17, 2017, 8:13 pm

  35. Bistro:

    I kind of wonder why more of them aren't shot. God knows, they deserve it.

    August 17, 2017, 8:14 pm

  36. Bistro:

    while i enjoyed neil young's 'a man needs a maid", I never had one. admittedly, I'm 56 and could use a maid. I suspect my wife would object.

    August 17, 2017, 8:16 pm

  37. stevewfromford:

    He was charged by the left for years, of improperly or illegally imprisoning suspected illegal immigrants. The charge was out there and well publicized and yet the people kept returning him to office. It appears Arpaio was doing the people's will if not the judges.

    August 19, 2017, 3:42 pm