Noah Smith Feldman is a typical Bloomberg View both-sides-do-it wanker so seeing this from him….
If President Donald Trump pardons Joe Arpaio, as he broadly hinted at during a rally Tuesday in Arizona, it would not be an ordinary exercise of the power — it would be an impeachable offense. Arpaio, the former sheriff of Arizona’s Maricopa County, was convicted of criminal contempt of court for ignoring the federal judge’s order that he follow the U.S. Constitution in doing his job. For Trump to pardon him would be an assault on the federal judiciary, the Constitution and the rule of law itself.
To see why pardoning Arpaio would be so exceptional — and so bad — you have to start with the sheriff’s crime. Arpaio wasn’t convicted by a jury after a trial for violating some specific federal statute. Rather, he was convicted by a federal judge on the rather unusual charge of criminal contempt of court.
I await Jonathan Turley’s and Alan Dershowtiz’s thoughtful retorts.
Suzanne
Pendejos. Both of them.
This has the potential to cause major rioting in this city.
Baud
Fingers crossed that Roberts is offended, but not hopeful.
Omnes Omnibus
@Baud: The federal judiciary is going to take this personally. Co-equal branch and all that.
efgoldman
You can just ask the hammers in your toolbox. They are both tools.
efgoldman
@Baud:
Whether he is or not, there’s nothing he can do.
Baud
Trump just it much easier for me to pardon all of you guys.
Baud
@efgoldman: Travel ban. There will be other cases before the court too.
The Dangerman
OK, Dodgers haven’t started and the steak is little better than tartare. Politics for a little while.
My only wonder is why Trump did this on a Friday night of a Hurricane weekend; that’s pretty gutless. Trump WANTS to show how big a dick he is; hell, if he could get away with it, he’d go out on the Portico and wear a white, pointy sheet.
His poll numbers must suck; today, we had the transgender thing and the pardon thing. His debased base must be unhappy.
? ?? Goku (aka The Hope of the Universe) ? ?
@Omnes Omnibus:
I hope so. This goes far and beyond normal partisan politics. This is the stuff dictatorships are made from.
Doug!
@The Dangerman:
My take too. This isn’t his style.
? ?? Goku (aka The Hope of the Universe) ? ?
Reposting for max visibility:
I mentioned writing ideas here before. I have terrible track record of actually putting pen to paper. I get bogged down in details often. A new idea I have is perhaps writing a sort of homage to Lovecraft’s comic horror stories, only this time set in rural Ohio, a place I have some familiarity with ?. I wanted to orginally set my short story in the Outer Cape of Massachusetts, but it wouldn’t have worked for what I wanted.
Do you think rural Ohio has horror potential?
I do. Plenty of old, decaying barns, large dark woods, and rolling hills.
The Dangerman
@Doug!:
No, not even close. It makes me wonder if he isn’t well or there was an outside influence (Ivanka: “Oooh, Daddy, it would make me so hot if you pardoned Arpaio tonight”).
JMG
Trump is fundamentally yellow (much like his supporters). Look how he folded in the debates. This is totally his style. This should be the line of attack. Trump is a gutless loser, and if you support him, well….
Ksmiami
@? ?? Goku (aka The Hope of the Universe) ? ?: or rural Maryland and Pennsylvania
Baud
@JMG: I agree. He is a coward.
Omnes Omnibus
@JMG: I agree with you.
SiubhanDuinne
@? ?? Goku (aka The Hope of the Universe) ? ?:
Yes, yes I do.
Hal
Terminal, crazy and mean. Trump’s America.
Iowa Old Lady
@? ?? Goku (aka The Hope of the Universe) ? ?: I think rural anywhere has plenty of horror potential.
Omnes Omnibus
@? ?? Goku (aka The Hope of the Universe) ? ?: I answered in the thread below.
SiubhanDuinne
@The Dangerman:
Aaaarrghh!!!!
Mnemosyne
I think you guys are misunderestimating exactly how cold this is: he’s doing this specifically so that if people complain or protest, he can self-righteously proclaim that they’re clearly bad people because they’re not even thinking about the disaster victims in Texas.
And if you think that no one is that craven and manipulative, you’ve never had to deal with a narcissist before.
cynthia ackerman
@The Dangerman:
Nah.
He only cares about dominance.
Pissing on evryyone is dominance, plain and simple
Baud
Dem congressman MSNBC says that prior polling on pardon had it at 20% in Arizona.
Ohio Mom
@? ?? Goku (aka The Hope of the Universe) ? ?: Yes, rural Ohio is a horror. Not just because large parts of it are decrepit, mainly because of the people who live there.
Baud
@Ohio Mom: Doesn’t Kay live in rural Ohio? ?
japa21
@Baud: I think this may do to the GOP in Arizona what prop 187 did to the GOP in California. And it might well spread into TX.
Baud
@japa21: I hope so. I was hoping they would be activated based on what Trump was saying on the campaign trail and what the GOP did under Obama.
ET
So Arpaio gets his pardon but Gorka is now out. There is an interesting story there.
Frankensteinbeck
Okay. I have thought about it. This isn’t strategic, it’s not to shore up his base, and Trump has not in the past and never will consider the implications. He’s too stupid for that.
This is because he’s royally fucking pissed that he’s getting shit because he doesn’t want to denounce Nazis. He either considers himself one, or is so sympathetic to their racist message that he hates lying and claiming he isn’t. It’s clear in how he has handled the whole Charlottesville thing, isn’t it?
I thought the whole ‘kept a copy of Mein Kampf handy’ thing was just a sign of him being an asshole who liked dictators. No, it’s looking like he’s just that incredibly racist and actually cares about defending Nazis.
Ohio Mom
@Baud: Yes, Kay is a rural Buckeye. In a lot of her stories, she comes off like the characters Bob Newhart played in his sitcoms: the only grounded and reasonable person besides his spouse for as far as the eye can see.
I’m thinking particularly of the tough love tears she’s been on about the people she sees who need Medicaid but support Trump.
planetjanet
@SiubhanDuinne: ROFL Thanks.
frosty
@Ksmiami: Rural Maryland has been done — Blair Witch.
frosty
@? ?? Goku (aka The Hope of the Universe) ? ?: Yes, see my comment to your question earlier.
Another Scott
@japa21: It’s pretty hard for any community touched by Arpaio (and those all over the US who turned him into a “hero”) not to see what a horrible turn of events this pardon is. It should be a tremendously motivating factor in upcoming elections.
But we can’t count on it.
This isn’t normal and we can’t accept that it is some new normal. We still have to fight them every single day.
Cheers,
Scott.
?BillinGlendaleCA
@Baud: There’s a whole lot of folk out there that think the “Face Eating Leopard Party” won’t actually eat their faces until it actually starts eating faces.
Mnemosyne
@Frankensteinbeck:
Also, this. That’s also what makes me think it’s a classic narcissist passive-aggressive move — he does something assholish and then will declare that no one gets to say he’s an asshole because more important things are going on.
Watch and see.
Tracy Ratcliff
@? ?? Goku (aka The Hope of the Universe) ? ?: replied in the thread downstairs, but yes.
Baud
@?BillinGlendaleCA:
Los leopardos han terminado de comer sus caras y están disfrutando de un sorbete agradable.
Olivia
One more impeachable offense. Great. Only if someone will impeach him.
Frankensteinbeck
@Mnemosyne:
I don’t think he’s going to use that. Not that he wouldn’t. It is totally a classic narcissist passive-aggressive move. I think he’s too stupid and senile to be that cunning anymore.
?BillinGlendaleCA
@Olivia:
There’s the rub.
Steve in the ATL
@? ?? Goku (aka The Hope of the Universe) ? ?:
The reddest part of a red state? That’s so scary it might as well be populated entirely by clowns.
?BillinGlendaleCA
@Baud: No speaka de Spanish.
japa21
@Another Scott:
I agree. This is not some magic pill. But it is a weapon Trump has given us to use against not just him, but also the GOP in general. Unfortunately, in the past the Dems have not used those weapons wisely, which is partially why we are in the mess we are today. Let’s hope this turns out differently.
lamh36
This Joy Ann Reid twitter thread about what this pardon means in the overall Chump “strategy” is how I have been feeling in the back of my cynical mind about why Mueller’s investigation, will ultimately come to not much…
Baud
@?BillinGlendaleCA: I’m teaching myself Spanish but that was Google assisted.
? ?? Goku (aka The Hope of the Universe) ? ?
@Ksmiami:
Never been there. Originally considered Massachusetts Cape Cod area but wouldn’t work for my purposes.
My experience:
On my 30 minute drive to uni, I remember a year back a car parked just off the 2 lane road to these woods. I would pass it for several months while it sat there, never moving. Eventually it disappeared. I figured somebody either vanished or killed themselves in those woods.
Redshift
@Frankensteinbeck: I go back and forth between believing that he’s sincerely white supremacist and believing he has no core beliefs, but stands with white supremacists because he can always get a cheering crowd by spouting racist bullshit.
Steve in the ATL
@Mnemosyne:
We don’t all live in NYC or LA!
?BillinGlendaleCA
@Baud: I took German in high school.
Ridnik Chrome
I can’t believe he pardoned that fucker. I mean, I can believe him wanting to do it, but I can’t believe it actually happening. Arpaio is a disgrace to everything the justice system is supposed to stand for. He’s a sadist and proud of it. What the fuck is happening to this country?
lamh36
FUQ YOU MARKOS!
Don’t put this shit on communities of color…fuq’er
Mnemosyne
@Frankensteinbeck:
Oh, it’s going to be said. It’s just a matter of who says it first, Huckabee-Sanders or Conway. Possibly Pence, with that constipated stick up his ass look on his face.
But someone in the administration is going to say it before Monday.
Baud
@?BillinGlendaleCA: That might come in handy the way things are going.
Steve in the ATL
@?BillinGlendaleCA:
Nazi bastard.
Frankensteinbeck
@Redshift:
He is sincerely racist. There is no question of that. He was doing and saying blatantly racist shit long before it had any political advantage. The question was how racist, and I keep having to revise that upwards. It ultimately doesn’t make much of a political difference, but damn, it’s really looking like he’s a Nazi.
Steve in the ATL
@lamh36: I don’t think that’s a shot across your bow–it’s aimed more at the Latinx population
Redshift
@lamh36:
Nothing, other than that they’d have to be idiots to trust him to follow through.
Mnemosyne
@Steve in the ATL:
The toxic narcissist I know was born in Kentucky and currently lives in Florida, so don’t go blaming blue states, son. ?
Omnes Omnibus
@?BillinGlendaleCA: French in high school and college. Picked up some German in the army. Probably should start picking up some Spanish.
ETA: And Dutch. Just to be polite in exile.
?BillinGlendaleCA
@Baud: I also took a quarter of Russian, a year of Chinese, and a year and change of Korean.
?BillinGlendaleCA
@Steve in the ATL:
No…but I’ve met some.
ETA: My German teacher grew up in Nazi Germany. Remember, I’m old.
Another Scott
@Mnemosyne: I don’t think that they plan that far ahead, myself.
Remember, Donnie’s house leaks like a colander.
I think there were people thinking about what to do about Arpaio as soon as he was convicted (around July 31). Donnie was burned on his first travel ban, so his minions knew that they had to get the right language, think about the implications, etc., before announcing a pardon. That takes time.
Once Donnie went to Arizona it was basically done, so they let him send up the trial balloon to see how the crowd reacted. Once that went “well”, then it was a go and it was put on the list for the Friday dump.
They weren’t trying to bury it in the hurricane, they were trying to put it in the Friday dump so that the hated “Fake News” press wouldn’t be able to scoop their Twitter bots and so forth.
Similarly with the DOD/DHS trans ban. That took so long because Donnie lied when he said that he’d talked it over with “his generals” and they agreed. They didn’t know anything about it, so the minions had to scramble to come up with something that wouldn’t cause mass resignations and be immediately thrown out of court.
If these things were done last week, they would have been released last week, to show his loving cult members that he’s getting so much done and “winning so much that [they’ll] get sick of it”.
Trump’s administration isn’t competent. They have no great schemes that are outsmarting everyone else.
They’re completely transparent about what they’re trying to do. They’re (fortunately) incompetent at it. But lots of lives are being ruined in the process.
:-(
I expect that the courts will continue to throw up obstacles in Donnie’s way, and wouldn’t be surprised if Arpaio faces lots of state and civil suits if he does accept this pardon.
My $0.02.
Cheers,
Scott.
Baud
@?BillinGlendaleCA: Aren’t you the Renaissance Man?
Millard Filmore
@?BillinGlendaleCA:
Hey Baud! Just say it louder.
Amir Khalid
@Baud:
Let’s see if I can understand this without resorting to Google Translate:
“The leopards have finished eating our faces and are now having some nice sorbet for dessert.”
Steve in the ATL
@Omnes Omnibus: good plan to learn Spanish. Since you’ve probably been called “Pepe pequeño” many times, you can learn what it means!
Frankensteinbeck
@Redshift:
This is actually a good point. Bear in mind, Trump didn’t pardon someone useful to him. He pardoned a flaming racist with no connection to him whatsoever. Trump does not do loyalty. He does spite.
lamh36
@Steve in the ATL: Bullshit…Markos is not some dumb idiots… If he wanted to say “Latinos” he would have said Latinos
he said “communities of color”… and it’s bullshit…fuq a “you took it the wrong way, what I meant was” excuse.
And if he had said “Latinos”… saying non-voting Latinos are the reason for Trump being elected…in states where the Lation population isn’t gonna change anything, and Trump STILL won!!
It’s bullshit…
Baud
@Amir Khalid: “your faces”. But otherwise, very good.
SiubhanDuinne
@?BillinGlendaleCA:
At this point, I am 1000% on the side of the leopards.
Gimme an L!
Gimme an E!
Gimme an O!
Gimme a P!
Gimme an A!
Gimme an R!
Gimme a D!
Gimme an S!
GO LEOPARDS!! YAAAAAY!!!
Leopards, leopards,
Run those bases,
Leopards, leopards,
Win those races,
Leopards, leopards,
Eat those faces,
YAY! LEOPARDS!!!
?BillinGlendaleCA
@Baud:
Not really, I got tired of madame’s family pointing at me, saying stuff in Korean and laughing.
Baud
@?BillinGlendaleCA: nice. Now you’ll know why they are laughing.
?BillinGlendaleCA
@lamh36: He could have also meant Asians.
?BillinGlendaleCA
@Baud: Heh, sometimes.
Steve in the ATL
@?BillinGlendaleCA:
At least “Seinfeld” did an episode about you. That’s pretty cool.
Ridnik Chrome
@Omnes Omnibus: Here in NYC there’s a travel bookstore that regularly offers classes in Spanish, Italian, French and German. I took three of the Spanish classes before I went to Spain, and it was a big help. Of course, living in a city with a large Latino population (like New York or Chicago or LA) means you’ve already absorbed a lot of Spanish just by osmosis.
Kay
@Ridnik Chrome:
He’s one of Trump’s corrupt cronies so he’s above the law. Arpaoi will be out grifting in a month. He probably already has a Fox slot lined up.
These people are just disgusting. Just to put a cherry on top the cowards did it in the middle of a hurricane.
?BillinGlendaleCA
@Steve in the ATL: I never watched Seinfeld.
BBA
The one heartening thing about this pardon is that, on a more ideologically diverse forum I frequent, even some of the alt-right people are aghast. There’s even a line that they won’t cross.
Now if only I could cure my Likudnik mom, who has defended his every move because at least he won’t sell Netanyahu out like Hillary would.
tobie
@lamh36: This sounds like it could open a whole new can of worms. You can pardon someone for conspiracy with a foreign government and/or you can pardon individuals for perjury but can you pardon them for both when their perjury pertains to their work conspiring with a foreign government?
The disturbing thing about tonight’s pardon is that it sends a signal to Manafort and Flynn and others that they don’t have to cooperate with Mueller, no matter how much pressure he brings to bear on them, since Trump will pardon them anyway. Usually a prosecutor needs to break a witness or suspect at some point to put together a case. It looks like Mueller will have to find direct evidence of collusion, since there’s very little with which he can threaten Manafort and Flynn. Tonight’s pardon was a signal to them that they don’t have to worry about legal consequences.
lamh36
NoraLenderbee
@Frankensteinbeck: I thought he was racist the way a lot of New Yorkers and East Coasters are–blacks should have rights and not be lynched, they just need to stay out of the neighborhood and of course they’re mentally inferior, so keep em all in special ed. (I grew up there.)
The white supreme stuff makes me think it’s more than that.
Anne Laurie
@? ?? Goku (aka The Hope of the Universe) ? ?: Check my reply to your original request!
schrodingers_cat
@?BillinGlendaleCA: I took one semester of German in college. I can speak, read and write Marathi and Hindi. It takes me about a week in India to become fluent, because if you don’t speak or actively use a language it becomes rusty.
lamh36
frosty
@Ridnik Chrome: Or anywhere there’s a Home Depot or Lowe’s.
SiubhanDuinne
@?BillinGlendaleCA:
Come sit by me. I’ve never seen a single episode. Maybe one or two short clips here and there.
NoraLenderbee
@lamh36: +100. Stop blaming people who stood in line for hours and STILL couldn’t vote.
I’m worried that a lot of new voters will give up, after seeing that (a) they were denied their right or (b) they voted, they were the majority, and we lost anyway
Tilda Swintons Bald Cap
No one involved with Russia will spend a single day in jail. Bookmark it Libs !
Anne Laurie
@Ridnik Chrome:
Well, there’s always the chance his minions didn’t do the paperwork properly. Possibly on purpose, even.
Be a very Trump-like coda if Arpaio gets led off in handcuffs during his VICTORY IS OURS! press conference, because it turns out Trump (saying he would be) signing a piece of paper wasn’t the only thing required.
SiubhanDuinne
@lamh36:
I’ve studied Latin, French, Italian, German, and Hebrew, but never Spanish. I thought pendejo meant “stupid,” but am beginning to think it may have other meanings. Enlightenment, por favor?
SgrAstar
@lamh36: I think Joy-Ann Reid fails to grasp the niceties of prosecution. Mueller’s team won’t just bring people before the grad juries; his prosecutors will already know what happened. They won’t be sitting ducks for liars and deceivers- that behavior is old hat for experienced litigators, and they will have run down the facts before the lying liars ever get the chance to try our their mendacity. Pro tip for them: it won’t work.
BBA
@Anne Laurie: There is no paperwork for a pardon. The President’s word is effective by itself.
I often see right-wingers trolling, “Oh, now you don’t like unlimited executive power?” The problem is there’s never been any limits on the most dangerous executive powers – the military, foreign relations, the pardon. Maybe the Constitution needs a redo.
O. Felix Culpa
@? ?? Goku (aka The Hope of the Universe) ? ?:
My fundamentalist, bible-bashing in-laws live in rural Ohio, so yes.
Steve in the ATL
@SiubhanDuinne: asshole.
Next week’s lesson: Cabron
M. Bouffant
Every day carry bucket to the well,
One day the bucket bottom must drop out.
Suzanne
@SiubhanDuinne: Pendejo is approximately “asshole”.
Vhh
@tobie: Life in prison is a pretty big threat.
lamh36
@SiubhanDuinne:
My understanding, literally ‘pubic hair in Spanish…as slang, “In Mexico´s slang it is used as an insult like idiot or fool…”
Suzanne
@Steve in the ATL: Don’t forget puta and chingar.
I’m on construction sites a lot.
Steve in the ATL
@Suzanne: ¡ay no es bueno!
Ruckus
@Ridnik Chrome:
In CA that’s called spanglish, because it’s not one or the other. And yes I was told that by the woman who owned the taqueria next door. Great food by the way, if you are ever in northern Marin county.
efgoldman
@lamh36:
If he did, and I wouldn’t put it past a spiteful four year old, it would probably make Schneiderman’s NY state investigation more serious. I expect Mueller would turn copies of everything he has over to Schneiderman. No “president” can issue pardons for state crimes.
lamh36
I know many here likely knows alot about Arapaio, but just in case this twitter thread from Phoenix New Times is even more enlightening!
tobie
@Vhh: The threat of prison is meaningless, if Manafort and Flynn know in advance that they’ll be pardoned and won’t have to do time. That’s what makes this situation so horrible. We’re slowly coming to realize that the Constitution gives far too much power to the President. If I ever hear anyone talk sanctimoniously about the founders “in their infinite wisdom,” I will scream.
Millard Filmore
@efgoldman:
Can you confirm that there are no ethical or legal impediments to that, prior to a command from on high to pulp all Mueller’s work?
JanieM
@? ?? Goku (aka The Hope of the Universe) ? ?: I haven’t read the whole thread so maybe this has been mentioned. But this was partly filmed in Kingsville, Ohio, a few miles from where I grew up, even though the story is set in New England. I’ve seen the house they used for the fliming.
IOW, yes, there’s a ton of potential. It has been mined before, but I’m sure they didn’t exhaust the vein. ;-)
tobie
@efgoldman: Thanks for this:
“I expect Mueller would turn copies of everything he has over to Schneiderman. No “president” can issue pardons for state crimes.”
It gives me some hope.
efgoldman
@Another Scott:
Nazi Joe is what, 88 years old? With any luck he won’t live long enough to enjoy his freedom.
Of course, I have no idea what his family genes look like. For all we know, he’s like Anna Nicole Smith’s husband. She waited years and years for him to die, so she could claim a substantial inheritance, but he stubbornly refused.
Suzanne
@lamh36: I am hoping he dies soon so we can finally be rid of him. He’s a monster, and one of the very few bright spots in the 2016 election is that we finally voted that fucker out of office.
Percysowner
@Redshift: He didn’t discriminate against minorities all those years ago for the cheers. He’s a racist, white supremacist through and through.
Sab
@? ?? Goku (aka The Hope of the Universe) ? ?: Of course Ohio has potential for horror. Western Reserve isn’t much different from New England, and lots of horror fiction from there. Also you’re in Appalachia. And there is a Southern element to much of Ohio. And creepy religious cults.
ETA and our abandoned factories, and also the abandoned breweries. Plus my neighborhood is suddenly overrun by foxes.
chris
Statement from Gorka.
efgoldman
@Ruckus:
We didn’t call it that, but when i was a kid, my grandparents and all the other people they knew born in the old country, spoke Yidlish.
Steve in the ATL
@Sab: whenever I’m in a hotel tool in Ohio, I always stunned by the number of bible thumper tv channels there are there. We don’t have nearly that many down here in the south.
lamh36
Reason #1,999,999,999,999,999.9 why I consider anti-trump Republicans…FULL OF SHIT!
https://twitter.com/resisterhood/status/901275696613527553
efgoldman
@Millard Filmore:
I can’t, but neither Mueller nor his team are naive or dummies. I’m sure there are multiple duplicates of everything they find, stashed in many places.
Omnes Omnibus
@tobie: The legislature has vast powers if it chooses to exercise them.
Sab
@Steve in the ATL: Not many ways to make a living up here except exploiting the downtrodden. All our industry moved South a generation ago. Trump has us riled about Mexico and China, but it mostly went to the sunbelt.
The remaining industry is mostly a handful of people watching robots work.
Felonius Monk
@Steve in the ATL:
But we will skip the lesson on Chinga tu Madre.
lamh36
tobie
@Omnes Omnibus: That’s the rub…they won’t exercise this power.
I just got a taste of how awful Arizona politics are. I looked up the twitter account of the Maricopa County Attorney Bill Montgomery (a Republican going on Neanderthal), who actually re-tweeted some crap today from Dinesh D’Souza about how George Soros stole property from Holocaust victims. Huh? The right’s found their bogey-man and they’re sticking with him. (I’m not quoting the tweet verbatim because it’s vile.)
Sab
@Steve in the ATL: Autocorrect gotcha. What did you mean by a “hotel tool”? We don’t have that phrase up here, and I’m guessing you don’t in Atlanta either.
Guessing tool =room?
Omnes Omnibus
@tobie: I don’t think we can blame the Founders for the fact that modern Republicans were willing to let a adversary nation have control rather than have a fair election. Many of them (the Founders) may have been assholes, but none were 100% a dick.
Cheryl Rofer
Harvey has only just made landfall.
Steve in the ATL
@Sab: yes, hotel room, you stupid phone!
Sab
@Steve in the ATL: I bet your phone is brighter than mine, which is no competition because my phone is absolutely illiterate.
Sab
Prayers for folks in Texas. I have family in Louisiana I worry about.
jl
He saved the best sentence for the last. There is such a thing as really real original intent that provides useful guidance for today. And this is nice example.
“James Madison noted at the Virginia ratifying convention that abuse of the pardon power could be grounds for impeachment. He was correct then — and it’s still true now.”
Cheryl Rofer
Suzanne
@tobie:
This place is a shithole, and that fact that the national parties consider it even remotely competitive is a sign of how hard the liberals and the human rights groups have been working for a very long time.
Cheryl Rofer
Another Scott
Of course, it’s even worse than I remembered…
Jon E Hecht:
(via LOLGOP on Twitter)
:-(
We have to fight them every single day.
Cheers,
Scott.
ExpatDanBKK
@? ?? Goku (aka The Hope of the Universe) ? ?: Of course. This from a guy originally from Detroit, where we all know that Ohio is horrible. It always has been.
This is without mentioning the whole spaghetti in chili thing LOL! ??
Another Scott
@Cheryl Rofer: Thanks.
I think the pardon being for more than the Contempt conviction is significant. Of course, I don’t know enough to know what it means for other attempted prosecutions or civil suits…
The ACLU has a page about the Melendres v Arpaio case if the lawyer folks are willing to opine.
Cheers,
Scott.
efgoldman
@Cheryl Rofer:
That language is very specific as to the case and statute for which the pardon is issued. An enterprising prosecutor might find a way to charge him for a different offense, under a different statute. Probably not, since the US Attorney is now a RWNJ appointee, right? But who knows….
@Another Scott:
IANAL, but I don’t think civil actions can be pardoned.
?BillinGlendaleCA
@Another Scott: IANAL, but the pardon would just apply to criminal matters, he could still be sued in civil court.
Olivia
Pendejo, at it’s worst, is a púbic hair that has a dingleberry attached. I hosted 3 Mexican and 3 Spanish students in my home many years ago when I was studying Spanish and I received an extensive education in teenage colloquialisms. One described to me the beating he got from his mother when he absentmindedly called her “pendeja’ during an argument.
smintheus
@Redshift: Asking people to lie on his behalf would make Trump himself a criminal conspirator. And if he did then pardon someone, that person would not be able to refuse to testify about whether Trump asked them to lie. Trump cannot go that route without sticking his foot in a bear trap.
The pardon of Arpaio is Trump’s ask. It’s a train whistle so loud it can be heard by anybody who might be deciding whether to lie to the FBI investigation to save Trump’s bacon. Everyone knows what it means, but it’s hard to convince a court of that.
Another Scott
@?BillinGlendaleCA: and @EFG: Yeah, I wasn’t clear again.
OJ was not convicted in criminal court for the murders, but did lose the civil suits over their deaths.
Presumably the same things holds even with a US pardon. State suits could go forward. And even US criminal suits over different charges in things outside the pardoned items.
When I wrote that I was thinking about what happened with Ollie North – immunized testimony to Congress affected his subsequent prosecutions and allowed him to get off. I’m sure Arpaio’s lawyers will try to make the pardon cover every possible thing in the universe – I’m just curious if the various other monstrous things that Arpaio and his department did were covered to such an extent that it would be very difficult to even get an indictment from a grand jury (… ham sandwich …). Of course, civil suits can always go forward (but might be thrown out for other reasons).
The law is amazing and important and lawyers can (and do) argue about everything even if it’s “obvious”.
We’ll see what happens; with luck this is a minor setback in the road to Arpaio, and the people he hurt and even killed, getting sensible justice.
Cheers,
Scott.
Aleta
Be it known that this day I am a thieving crook who would be emperor, and that I have no clothes.
efgoldman
@Another Scott:
That’s why I’m surprised about how very specific the language of the pardon is. I don’t know if anyone will try, but there really does seem to be some wiggle room there for an ambitious and vengeful prosecutor.
Meanwhile I hope the civil actions cost old Joe what’s left (after paying for a very expensive criminal defense) of his money. When he’s done, I don’t want him to have a sparrow, a coat hanger, or a cardboard box.
workworkwork
@Frankensteinbeck: You had me right up until “he hates lying”.
?BillinGlendaleCA
@Another Scott: Again IANAL, but it looks like the pardon is pretty specific. The first part is the “Get Out of Jail Free” card and the second part is that the judge can’t reissue his contempt citation(Chapter 21, Title 18 is contempt). Anything else would be open season on that asshole.
?BillinGlendaleCA
@efgoldman: … and pink underwear.
efgoldman
@?BillinGlendaleCA:
In shreds
efgoldman
@Aleta:
Pictures or it didn’t happen.
?BillinGlendaleCA
@efgoldman:
@efgoldman:
There seems to be a pattern here efg, I’m concerned about you.
Mnemosyne
@Omnes Omnibus:
Except Monroe. Fuck that guy.
?BillinGlendaleCA
@Mnemosyne: …and then there was that Hamilton dude, what an ass.
Another Scott
@?BillinGlendaleCA: Thanks.
Cheers,
Scott.
Mnemosyne
@?BillinGlendaleCA:
Yes, you correctly sensed that there was a Hamilton connection there, but wrong half of the couple.
Sister Golden Bear
@SiubhanDuinne: Literally, a pubic hair. Means “asshole” in Mexican Spanish, although with definite overtones of being a dumbass as well. As in: ¿Viste el pinche pendejo ese que no sabe ni estacionar su carro? Did you see that fucking asshole who can’t even park his car?
OTOH, it can also be used affectionately as well, kind of like using “mucker” as a term of endearment. E.g. yeah, he’s a dumbass, but he’s my kind of dumbass.
Ruckus
Something John retweeted:
Gorka resigning in the middle of so much horrible news is like finding a $20 bill on the street
beforeand getting hit by a bus, while picking it up.Fixed it for him.
Spaniel
How does the pardon work when it comes to getting future job(s)? Can he hold a law-enforcement job with the conviction and subsequent pardon?
TerryC
@? ?? Goku (aka The Hope of the Universe) ? ?: what evil was uncovered by the digging of the Erie canal?
Barney
The article is by Noah Feldman, law prof and clerk to David Souter, not Noah Smith, opinionist.
https://www.bloomberg.com/view/contributors/AFZ_b1F72Xw/noah-feldman
https://www.bloomberg.com/view/contributors/AR3OYuAmvcU/noah-smith
Doug!
@Barney:
Thanks, I corrected. Feldman is pretty milquetoast too tho as columnist in general.
fuckwit
@Ridnik Chrome: it has been taken over by sadists.