Don't know how we missed this one, but they apparently won a ruling saying they could legally lie to people all they goddamn want
Didn't miss it; as Transportation notes, it's years-old news. Story was written in '03; I first heard about it in a documentary called
The Corporation around that time.
I saw that last night, and it made my father-in-law laugh out loud.
Barney brings up a good point, asking what planet she's from.
We need more Democrats like him, who just respond to absurd questions and statements by pointing out that they are in fact absurd.
Maybe this just belongs in the religion thread.
Pastor Steven Anderson inciting violence against Obama.
(Death threats up 400%? Wonder how high they were to begin with.)
Eeeeyeah, he's been local news 'round these parts for awhile now.
I hear there have been some nice peaceful protests around his church recently.
xenophobe at 3:10 touting English-only schools that can't spell "diapers" right
/pffflol
JESUS CHRIST WHAT IS WRONG WITH YOU PEOPLE
Oh, yeah, I've been noting my entire life that the people who shout "SPEAK ENGLISH!" the loudest are the ones with the poorest grasp of it.
I will fucking come unglued if you start some kind of false equivalence bullshit in here. leave that to retards like R^2, please.
I see Brent's comment less as "they're exactly the same" than "Let's not get carried away here and act like they're not bad too."
And if you're going to start giving people shit for indulging in hyperbole, well, Jesus Christ. BTW, fewer posts where you just see how many ad hominems you can fit into a single sentece, please.
I remember driving by Arpaio's little prison camps when I still lived in Arizona. He seemed to always be in the local news and it is wild to see him making headlines outside of Arizona these days. He is definitely one of those guys with a few good ideas but mostly really ass backwards and borderline cruel ideas. The whole making the prisoners dress in pink so they don't steal uniforms, supposidely, was amusing but the hard labor and feeding them almost expired food thing was a little off. He always used to strike me as one of those cops with his hand always on his cudgel just eyeballing and praying that you try to fuck around and give him a reason to go American History X on you.
Tip of the iceberg. His latest wrist-slap was for putting a woman in solitary, outdoors, in the summer, in Phoenix. She was not the first prisoner to die in the care of the Sheriff's Department, and she will not be the last.
Pretty sure Arpaio is actually quite a bit darker than even your summary mentions. Isn't he the guy where if you're arrested and handicapped, they might just strap you down and let you choke to death, ignoring your condition entirely?
If you're referring to the incident at the airport a couple years back, that was actually City of Phoenix PD, not Maricopa County Sheriff's Department. But yeah, same basic idea.
And yet, he's still in office.
...
Of the few things on God's green earth I am thankful for, one of those is that we do not elect our Sherrifs or Judges.
EDIT: That second line is not really a corollary to the first. They are separate points.
Hm?
Arpaio is indeed elected. The fact that he keeps getting reelected pretty much terrifies me.
...I was a little unsettled looking up this information. Not just because of the list of human rights violations, but that it had been removed from the Wiki article.
You kidding? He had the publishers of our local independent paper ARRESTED a couple years back. It's a convoluted story which I've told before, but basically:
They've been on his ass for years.
They posted a story about his shady real estate dealings which included his home address.
There is a law on the books stating you can't post law enforcement officials' addresses online. (There is no law saying you can't publish them in print.)
They were subjected to a grand jury investigation for publishing his address online, despite the fact that it is on the Maricopa County website.
When they reported on the grand jury investigation, they were arrested, because it's illegal to report on grand jury investigations. (This is a complete inversion of the protection, of course; the reason it's illegal to report on grand jury investigations is to protect the DEFENDANTS. Punishing the defendants for reporting on it THEMSELVES is completely contrary to the spirit of the law.)
It was briefly national news; the County backed down, the prosecutor was fired and made an example of, everybody forgot about it and both Sheriff Joe and County Attorney Thomas were reelected in landslides.
Connecticut Republicans violate Twitter TOS, commit fraud, complain about free speech violations when caught.
This logic never ceases to bug me.
Even aside from the libel point, free speech doesn't mean you can say whatever you want WHEREVER you want. I remember there was some kvetching back during the "nappy-headed ho's" kerfluffle that Imus's free speech was being impeded, but there's no fucking Constitutionally-provided right to have your own fucking radio show, or if there is, I would like mine now, please.
What's funny is I guaran-damn-tee these are people who will argue at length about how the government shouldn't interfere with private business and should let the market regulate itself...up until a private business says "Yeah, hey, no First Amendment here, sorry."