I just finished watching Randy Murray’s documentary, The Joe Show, on the Investigation Discovery cable channel. This edited version contained most of the “birther thing” clip, plus two clips from Arpaio’s birther news conferences and one from a Tea Party meeting. We get to see Mike Zullo twice (unnamed). Arpaio’s campaign manager says the birther investigation brought in millions.
What I found most compelling in the entire piece was the deaths in the jail and the cruelty there. The section on the false arrest of political enemies was, in my opinion, bungled because it never said that the County had paid out millions to settle those lawsuits. That weakness may be the result of editing for television.
Many things that Arpaio and his people said seemed bizarre to me and I hope they will seem bizarre to the folks in Maricopa County.
If you missed the broadcast and still want to see it, The Joe Show is expected to be available through iTunes on December 16.
Dr. C,
“What I found most compelling in the entire piece was the deaths in the jail and the cruelty there.”
I agree.
The people of Maricopa County need to wake up. But then again, the people of Maricopa County probably support torture. What a crazy place!
I found the most disgusting person in the movie to be Lisa Allen. To call her a whore would be kind.
Think of the voters of Maricopa County as a bunch of frogs in a pot of water that started cold 20 years ago but has only been boiling for the last five or six years.
It isn’t until you see something like this that condenses those 20 years into an hour that you realize the pot should have been boiling years ago.
The foundation of it all is Arpaio’s arrogance which he has instilled in his staff, from top to bottom, and it results in jailers who kill inmates, deputies who abuse people on the street, detectives who ignore real cases while arresting journalists and a public information officer who thinks she can lie with impunity.
I predict this will be the sheriff’s last term in office.
That is even more evident in the longer version of The Joe Show were we see Allen describing Joe as looking like a clown for his birther investigation, only to strongly defend that same investigation in a latter scene.
That’s what made him a folk hero to some people.
Many, if not most people think life in jail is too comfortable. It’s supposed to be unpleasant and if you don’t like it, don’t break the law.
The people in county jails, of course, are either awaiting trial and presumed innocent or convicted of petty offenses.
CarlOrcas:
“The foundation of it all is Arpaio’s arrogance which he has instilled in his staff, from top to bottom, and it results in jailers who kill inmates, deputies who abuse people on the street, detectives who ignore real cases while arresting journalists and a public information officer who thinks she can lie with impunity.”
And let’s not forget volunteer posse members who take money from one of their reported sources. Shameless, simply shameless.
Throw this all into the pot. Mix it up with all the rest of the swill, add a little salt and pepper and it produces a concoction that will get Joe voted out of office. Not even Joe’s nasty Tea Party lemmings will be able to win his re-election in 2016.
Steve,
“It’s supposed to be unpleasant and if you don’t like it, don’t break the law.”
But, according to Arpaio, jail supposed to be a place of punishment. Hopefully Arpaio will get a taste of his own medicine when Judge Snow throws him in the slammer for contempt. With the expanding investigation by Judge Snow, maybe a certain posse member will be next? How fitting.
I can’t imagine Joe running for office knowing the chances are great he will lose.
It will be interesting to watch and see what kind of excuse he comes up with when he bows out.
What you need to understand about Arpaio is that he does whatever it takes to get publicity and suck in voters. If treating prisoners well accomplished that he would have them in silk underwear, eating steak every night and snoozing on Sleep Number beds.
Reality Check December 14, 2014 at 8:05 pm I found the most disgusting person in the movie to be Lisa Allen. To call her a whore would be kind.
I was thinking as I listened to her. Was she a county employee, a member of the Sheriffs dept. Just who the hell paid her salary and how much was it?
And finally, when this absurd rigamarole is referenced in a footnote of some future history book, the author will note that birtherism was about two things really . . . a loutish group of deluded, hate-filled suckers, and the cynical, lying bastards who saw an opportunity to make an easy buck.
Yes, Allen is a county employee. She’s been with the sheriff almost since the beginning. I would guess she is making something in the neighborhood of $125k.
She is a former TV journalist in Phoenix.
it’ll be ill health, and also be used as the reason for him not to go to jail
i believe we’ll see a rerun of pinochet – have some kind of alleged health crisis and wheeled into court in a wheelchair, but after being given a slap on the wrist out of sympathy he’ll be seen strutting around with no problems
“Yes, Allen is a county employee. She’s been with the sheriff almost since the beginning. I would guess she is making something in the neighborhood of $125k.”
Lisa Allen is Arpaio’s Communication Director and, as such, is a County employee. Most large County Sheriff’s Offices have professional public relations staff.
In most cases, PR staff are used appropriately to help keep the public informed about ongoing matters of public safety and community concern. In Sheriff Joe’s case, Ms. Allen is effectively a paid political propagandist.
Word has it she lords over the MCSO like an evil queen, while at the same time panders to Arpaio’s fanciful cult of personality.
I watched it. It was on MSNBC – The Liberal Hit Piece. I agree, Jail is not a fun place to be. If you don’t like what is happening in our jails, then don’t break the law. Although you are supposed to presumed innocent until proven guilty, for most part that is really not true. In Florida, most Sex offenders are presumed guilty so it really doesn’t matter what happens to these punks in jail. Don’t fall into an unfortunate circumstance and you will be OK. Don’t break the law and you will be OK. But if you break the law or challenge the cops, be prepared to pay the consquences.
I think they should take the beds out of all the jails and prisons. You sleep on concrete with no pillow and a little thin blanket. I do remember Terry Lakin reporting on his first night experience in jail. It was not an experience Terry would care to repeat. (Although, he did report it wasn’t that bad at Levenworth) That’s the way it’s suppose to be.
Are you speaking from experience? Wouldn’t surprise me one little bit if you are. There seems to be no shortage of birthers who have had some trouble with the law.
That would violate the Eighth Amendment, which prohibits cruel and unusual punishment. The way you birthers treat the Constitution, reminds me of how fundamental Christians treat the Holy Bible. “I’ll misinterpret this bit, misrepresent this bit, then ignore this bit over here entirely, as it completely debunks the spin I’m putting on this other bit…”
Yes, it probably would violate the 8th although I don’t think it’s cruel. Very uncomfortable yes, but cruel, no. And yes, I support the torture of captured Terrorists including waterboarding. If we can’t torture them, then how are you suppose to get information out them. Yes, I do support torture that doesn’t kill but torture that does kill or with intent to kill I might have a problem with.
I am all for the idea that instead of confinement, the guilty can choose to pay with pain instead confinement. (Essentially Corporal Punishment for Adults) So instead of 30 days in jail, they can instead receive 6 lashes with a Bull Whip or a Cane instead. In would reduce the numbers in our jails and save the state lots of money. of course, system like this would never pass.
extracting information from someone using torture is a VERY unreliable way of obtaining information
if you were put into my hands, under torture i’d be able to get confessions out of you for the JFK assasination, 9/11, and the murder of bambi, guaranteed!
hell, after 24 hours you’d make ruth nancy owens sound like she’d lawyered up!
the spanish inquisition proved that point really well
Except that’s not necessarily the case. Take for instance this case in New Jersey
http://www.nydailynews.com/news/crime/police-dash-cam-video-exonerates-nj-man-implicates-cops-article-1.1701763
The man was pulled over. The cops pulled their guns on him, rammed his car, broke through the glass on his window and started beating him up. Meanwhile you can hear the cop yelling “don’t grab my gun” despite his hands being in the air and not moving. If it wasn’t for the 2nd police car camera footage appearing this man would have been in jail. The cops were cleared by internal affairs before this 2nd video was released.
and just make sure you’re not looking like a latino in maricopa county
tell me, did the film `midnight express’ give you an erection?
i’m afraid with each post you make, you remove another veil covering the dispicable, twisted person you are
Of course you do. The problem is that many of those tortured were completely innocent. Take for instance Abu Ghraib we had no idea who half the people were, why they were even there or how they got there since record keeping wasn’t done. Many warlords turned in people for free money whether they were terrorists or not. The US is supposed to be a beacon for the world. We’re supposed to be better than the terrorists. If we live in fear and stoop to their level who are we as a civilized society?
VATICAN CITY (AP) — Pope Francis is urging Christians to work together to abolish every form of torture, condemning the practice as a grave sin.
Francis told the public in St. Peter’s Square Sunday he wanted to reiterate his “firm condemnation of every kind of torture.” He sought united efforts to work for torture’s end and to support victims and their families.
Francis said it was a “mortal sin, a very grave sin, to torture people” and noted that Thursday marks the United Nation’s day for torture victims.
http://www.theblaze.com/stories/2014/06/22/pope-francis-torture-is-a-mortal-sin/
Pope Benedict XVI talked about this in September 2007, when he addressed an international congress of Catholic prison ministers. . . . Means of punishment or correction that either undermine or debase the human dignity of prisoners must be eschewed by public authorities, he said. Immediately he added the following statement, which incorporates a quote taken from the Compendium of the Social Doctrine of the Church: “The prohibition against torture cannot be contravened under any circumstances” (No. 404).
http://www.usccb.org/issues-and-action/human-life-and-dignity/torture/the-problem-with-torture.cfm
I have friends who worked with her in TV news who say she’s also not the brightest bulb in Maricopa County.
So….why do you stay in a sissified country like America? Last I checked there were more than a few nations where flogging is the norm where you would be right at home.
Really?
Take a look at this list from the Innocence Project, john.
http://www.innocenceproject.org/know/Browse-Profiles.php
How do you explain what happened to all these people?
funnily enough, a lot of them are run by those nasty moooslims that john and his ilk so dispise.
Birther Report appears down.
John, most innocuous of his ilk, still reveals the ignorance found in every birther: ignorance of the law (torture is illegal), ignorance of the Constitution (Supreme Court decisions regarding torture vis a vis the Eighth Amendment), ignorance of the facts (torture is ineffective for gathering actionable intelligence).
John also displays another quality common to birthers: an attraction, some would say erotic fascination, with violence and punishment. Men like john have worked happily in gulags, concentration camps, and our own Guantanamo Bay, serving their sadistic pleasure behind a mask of patriotism.
And just like that john’s true colors as a “patriot” are revealed.
What a cussword so-and-so. When Japan, Germany, North Korea and North Vietnam were faced with the most dangerous and deadly adversary a modern state has ever known– the United States– were they justified in their use of torture?
Even frogs are smart enough to jump out long before the water gets very hot.
Isn’t that the tale? Drop a frog in boiling water and he jumps right out. Put him in cold water and slowly turn up the heat until its boiling and he won’t move…..and you’ll have frog legs for dinner.
Never tried it…..frog legs or boiling them…..but I did live in Maricopa County for most of Arpaio’s time in office and that was the phenomenon I noticed as his popularly waned and his victory margins dropped to barely single digits.
For John’s edification:
Army Field Manual 34-52 Chapter 1 says:
“Experience indicates that the use of force is not necessary to gain the cooperation of sources for interrogation. Therefore, the use of force is a poor technique, as it yields unreliable results, may damage subsequent collection efforts, and can induce the source to say whatever he thinks the interrogator wants to hear.”
“No one has yet offered any validated evidence that torture produces reliable intelligence. While torture apologists frequently make the claim that torture saves lives, that assertion is directly contradicted by many Army, FBI, and CIA professionals who have actually interrogated al Qaeda captives. Exhibit A is the torture-extracted confession of Ibn al-Shaykh al-Libi, an al Qaeda captive who told the CIA in 2001, having been “rendered” to the tender mercies of Egypt, that Saddam Hussein had trained al Qaeda to use WMD. It appears that this confession was the only information upon which, in late 2002, the president, the vice president, and the secretary of state repeatedly claimed that “credible evidence” supported that claim, even though a now-declassified Defense Intelligence Agency report from February 2002 questioned the reliability of the confession because it was likely obtained under torture. In January 2004, al-Libi recanted his “confession,” and a month later, the CIA recalled all intelligence reports based on his statements.” – Brigadier General David R. Irvine, a retired Army Reserve strategic intelligence officer who taught prisoner interrogation and military law for 18 years with the Sixth Army Intelligence School.
“Fundamentally, those kinds of techniques are ineffective,” said John Hutson, a retired Navy rear admiral and former judge advocate general. “If the goal is to gain actionable intelligence, and it is, and if that’s important, and it is, then we have to use the techniques that are most effective. Torture is the technique of choice of the lazy, stupid and pseudo-tough.”
Yes, just say the magic word of PLEASE and the terrorist will GLADLY tell us everything there is to know about the world.
Now you’re just being childish, on top of your ignorance.
How do you feel about what the Pope has to say about torture?
Typical birther reaction to objective evidence.
Just because nobody will talk to you john, doesn’t mean an experienced negotiator wouldn’t be able to get needed intel.
First the BENGAAAAAAAAAAAAAHZI committee found no conspiracy or cover ups, and then the torture report comes out, and paints the doings of your right wing “heroes” in a particularly ugly light. I’m thinking john is one bit of bad news away from snapping. God, that’s a meltdown I’d pay to see.
I don’t know . . . I get the impression that john and his fellow travelers melted down a long time, and they are now, what’s the word? Dross.
Yeah, but watching reprehensible human garbage, like birthers who are already reeling from six years of constant losses, somehow fall ever farther still, is a special kind of Schadenfreude. Its the bacon-wrapped grilled cheese of idiots gnashing their teeth and wailing.
But torture him and he will tell you he personally killed Julius Caesar, nailed Jesus to the cross and remote controlled the 9/11 planes with a device he macgyvered from a hairpin, an old Playboy magazine and a piece of gum.
He will also tell you Ted Cruz is an al-Quaeda sleeper agent and the names of his fellow conspirators are Mohammed, Mohammed and Mohammed.
There simply is no point in torture if you cannot verify if the guy is telling the truth. And when you’ve verified and found out he lied, what you’re gonna do? Torture him more as mere punishment?
And what if you torture two people and one says A and the other says B? Then you torture both until both flip their story to C and D? Again, nothing gained.
The *only* thing torture was ever “good” for was to “confirm” a preconceived result (we need a culprit for the bombing so we torture the guy until he admits he did it) for propaganda reasons, IOW something only a dictatorial regime would do.
Remember that war criminal Cheney cannot point to a single instance where torture saved a single (Murican) life.
As usual when talking about trampling on our civil rights, governments only say “we cannot tell you what was prevented, but trust us”.
How many Americans grasp the fact that this sociopathic, narcissistic “debate”about torture on the US airwaves only hurt your country even more in the eyes of the world?
I remember in the early 1970s when General Massu, one of the French military leaders in charge if squashing the Algerian independence movement., was on national TV and with disarming candor said something like “of course we tortured people.”
There was universal condemnation from every corner of the political spectrum (some, rather hypocritical considering the source), and then we moved on. There was no “debate” or attempts at self-justification.
The point is, we, like you, did something really bad, There are no ifs and buts about it. Admit it, do penance if you can, and move on. But don’t argue about it.
It is heart-breaking to see the US media & personalities fail this most elementary test and wallow in this narcissistic debate.
I’m not terribly surprised that john-the-birther turns out to be a torture advocate. This is after all a major tool of oppression for every fascist regime, and the birthers are nothing if not “black shirts” in spirit.
Actually, john’s rather simple-minded not to say naive views almost make me regret the frank and sadistic views of a “honest” fascist.
Not enough, unfortunately.
So torture turns someone into Nancy Owens. That explains a lot, actually.
Many have shot down the Bengahzi Committee Report even though it was completed by Republicans. Like the Birther issue, there are scared politicians out there who don’t want to face contraversial issues because of Media Attack, Racism, and other factors. They will go along with the powers that be to keep their jobs. We have a very cowardly Congress.
The mental disorder known as American Exceptionalism means never having to say you’re sorry and never having to admit you’re wrong.
John,
“Like the Birther issue, there are scared politicians out there who don’t want to face contraversial issues because of Media Attack, Racism, and other factors. They will go along with the powers that be to keep their jobs. We have a very cowardly Congress.”
Assuming for a moment what you have written is true, then there really is no point going forward to Congress with more “Sheriff’s Skits,” birther investigation nonsense and the like. The good ship “ShurfJoke” is in the doldrums going nowhere. His call for Congress to take up the matter when he himself has never personally gone to Congress with his evydunce developed by his sidekick “The Boy Blunder” is a sure sign that this is just a ruse to to keep the low Information voters, such as yourself, in line and on script. Way to go John!
Wake up John. Shake out the cobwebs in your brain and get a clue.
Basically torture is like trying to crack one time pad encryption – you can get any desired result as “decrypted text” if you construct a key accordingly. How do you know if the proper key was the one that yielded “attack the embassy at 9” or “attack the harbour at 8”? Impossible. And you will only know if the key the suspect gave you was the correct one if you wait for the attack at the embassy at 9.
The only thing you can get is saying “I want the result to be ‘attack the harbour at 8’ so I want the key to be ‘…’, so I’m torturing the guy until he admits that is the correct key”.
“What I found most compelling in the entire piece was the deaths in the jail and the cruelty there. The section on the false arrest of political enemies was, in my opinion, bungled because it never said that the County had paid out millions to settle those lawsuits. That weakness may be the result of editing for television.”
I just watched “The Joe Shoe” on iTunes due to your article. Surprisingly, I had to actually do a search for it because it didn’t show up in the recently added for popular or documentaries.
The Discovery Channel must have cut out portions of the show because they did cover the millions that were paid out for the Shurf’s witch hunts.
After watching this show, I have to wonder just exactly what is wrong with the people that elect that asswipe. I can only hope one day he has to answer for the crimes committed in his jail – and yes, John – the birther commenting here that would love to lick Joe’s ball sack – the people that work under Joe Arpaio have committed numerous crimes and it is due to the Shurf’s oversight.
I guess I am amazed more and more that Birthers like John admit that they really think it is okay for the Bill of Rights to be ignored.
Nothing could be more unamerican than presuming that someone is guilty because they are arrested, and that whatever happens to them in jail is therefore okay.
——
Seems there is an underlying theme here. Torture, birtherism, and Benghaziism are all aimed at “confirming” a preconceived result–in support of propaganda, to further a far-right-wing dictatorial agenda.
And indeed, just look at John’s defense of abusive and unconstitutional arrest/jail practices. He promotes the notion that people are presumed guilty. (How’s that for a preconceived result!) He argues that it doesn’t matter what happens to jailed people because they are mostly sex-offending punks who deserve abusive treatment. (How’s that for propaganda!) He recommends whippings and inhumane conditions as the appropriate consequence of falling into “unfortunate circumstances” with the police (How’s that for dictatorship!)
and once more john reverts to full birfoon
there have been 7 investigations now, and all have cleared your president of wrongdoing.
likewise all the cases, hearings and appeals challenging you president have been lost
we hear all the usual excuses like scared, afraid the blacks will riot, the ebil meeedya, fear of derision, paid off, threatened EVERY TIME.
are you fools incapable of realising you are wrong?
how many times have you hit your thumb with a hammer before working out it hurts?
It is a striking coincidence that this torture report comes out while I was on a trip to Argentina and Chile, where I heard a great deal about torture and murder by the right-wing dictatorships in those two countries. This monument in the Atacama region of Chile is dedicated to just a few of the disappeared persons who were tortured and killed just because of what company they worked for.
Caravan of Death
About 30,000 were killed in each country. In Argentina left-wing guerrillas were responsible for additional killings.
Yes, the TV version was cut from 104 to 90 minutes.
Short answer: yes, they are incapable.
Long answer . . . have you got a copy of the latest DSM handy?
—-
I suppose it is amazing that they now baldly admit it, though this has always been their clear position. For years they have insisted that President Obama and his family must be presumed guilty of something, anything, everything. And insisted that uncooperative “Obots”, Courts, and Congressmen must be presumed to be bribed/scared conspiratorial traitors. In support, they have offered countless contortions of the facts, Constititution, statutes, common law, and due process rules of procedure and evidence. They demand “confessions” and fantasize about public humiliations, arrests, and executions. It’s what they are about.
Yet, they go on how Lakin, Walt and others were wrongly sent to prison. I wonder what is difference between them and those John thinks are “criminals.”
You mean, like having a paranoid schizophrenic make false accusations against you? Or being mistaken by police for a wanted sex offender (which, under your lack of standards, would mean that they could pretty much be killed with impunity)?
In the all-too-likely event that you achieve nothing else in life, you can take some sort of perverse pride in the fact that you were one of the people who inspired the Founders to create the Bill of Rights, and our system of justice.
The needed to squeeze in those incessant commercials. Thankfully, I recorded it first and then was able to fast forward through the ads
I’m still waiting for you to respond to what Pope Francis has said.
“Torturing people is a mortal sin. It’s a very serious sin. I invite all Christians to engage and collaborate in abolishing torture and to support victims and their families.”
Well obviously, that means the Pope has been a Muslim Communist this entire time! 😉
Here’s a link:
https://itunes.apple.com/us/movie/the-joe-show/id941048179
What an exquisite comment on the endless systemic anarchistic theme of Birtherism! Driven by hatred, they pretend reverence for the Constitution and the rule of law, while ignoring Obama’s Constitutional rights and endlessly trying to usurp the judiciary’s power to interpret the Constitution. They disrespect the courts’ opinions on this issue, outlandishly brand people and government officials who disagree with them, “criminals” or “cowards”, and turn every forum of discourse they can gain access to, into a sewer of disinformation.
The fact that Birthers, including John, shrug off the embarrassment of openly being such hypocrites, suggests that they never intend to be constrained to resolve important issues by factually based logical argument. They probably see those of us who truly subscribe to the rule of law as foolishly being unduly restrained thereby.
Regrettably, more Americans generally agree with john’s views on torture and not the pope’s.
“[A] new poll from ABC News and the Washington Post, finds a large and supportive majority for torture. Not only do 59 percent of Americans say the torture of suspected terrorists was justified, but 58 percent say torture is often or sometimes justified, as a general matter.
“We get a similar picture from the Pew Research Center, which published a torture poll on Monday. According to Pew, 51 percent say the CIA’s ‘interrogation’ methods were justified, with a sharp partisan divide between Republicans who overwhelmingly agree the CIA was justified (76 percent), and Democrats who are less sure (37 percent).
“Finally, there’s a CBS News poll that finds wide agreement on the nature of torture and only slight disagreement on whether it’s justified. Large majorities of Americans believe CIA techniques were torture: 73 percent for sexual threats, 70 percent for forced sleeplessness, 69 percent for waterboarding, and 57 percent for ice water baths. Nonetheless, a near-majority—49 percent—say the torture was justified to obtain information and prevent terrorist attacks. (That torture failed to yield valuable secrets from the enemy wasn’t mentioned.)
“The bottom line is that—13 years after the attacks on Sept. 11, 2001—most Americans think torture is a reasonable tool for fighting terrorism. Part of this is partisanship—most Republicans support torture and believe it’s justified—part of it is pop culture—which, with few exceptions, treats torture as a powerful tool for catching ‘bad guys’—and part of it is just who we are.”
http://www.slate.com/articles/news_and_politics/politics/2014/12/why_americans_support_torture_we_accept_the_abuse_and_cruel_punishment_of.html
John’s Facebook page shows that he was confirmed as a Catholic in 2010, so I am interested in learning how he rationalizes his support of torture in the face of Pope Francis’ proclamation that torture is a grievous sin.
However, John doesn’t seen to want to respond to my question.
The pop culture issue goes back at least to 1971, when Dirty Harry was released. In the film Clint Eastwood’s character, a police inspector named Harry Callahan, captures a serial killer who kidnapped a teenage girl and buried her alive. Harry tortures the serial killer until he confesses about where the girl is buried.
Since then many TV shows and movies have shown torture as an effective means of gathering intelligence, and the film Zero Dark Thirty suggests that torture helped in the search for Osama bin Laden. The director of Zero Dark Thirty, Kathryn Bigelow, was on The Daily Show last week and she dodged Jon Stewart’s question when he asked about the fact that the Senate report says that torture played no role in the capture.
I kinda wonder why he’s given free reign to post here, to be honest, but I’m sure Doc has his reasons.
If you think innocent people aren’t arrested, you’re delusional.
Oh, wait. You’re a birther. Never mind.
In Germany, there was a famous case where a detective threatened a suspect with torture (among others, rape by a bunch of black guys) after he had already confessed to have kidnapped a child but to have locked it up in a place where oxygen would run out in a few hours.
The detective was fined (but not fired) and the kidnapper was awarded damages (though he still had to go to jail for murder because the child was found dead).
=> http://de.wikipedia.org/wiki/Daschner-Prozess
It was actually the textbook case of the conditions under which many people would approve of torture: the suspect admitted to the crime, there was imminent lethal danger for the victim and the suspect wasn’t willing to give any information that would allow to save it.
Which Pope?
The fake one riding around in the bubble-mobile. Or, the one left in a puddle of blood in South Florida in the early 80’s while Bush, Jr was building up Pablo Escobar’s cocaine fields? Hmm…what’s got the Catholic Church so rattled these days?
The man known as the “Bikini Killer” was not Chinese. He was Cuban.
Which means we have no Congress at all since by it’s purpose is one that is expected to combat opposing armies.
To call them Congressmen and women is to mislabel mere street people as elevated entities who are wise, brave, and capable of controlling our lives. Since when do we forgive cowards?
We don’t even do that at the lowest street level. But, we allow it in our “Congressmen?”
How many times, right when we expect him to deliver, does Shurf Arpaio suddenly get a boo-boo rendering him impotent once again and begging for more money for “the cause?”
I’m inclined to think that, ideally, that’s the way it ought to be: if you believe you’re in one of those extremely rare circumstances where torture might be justified, you put your own self at risk of being fined, or even imprisoned (perhaps for a long time), if the courts say it wasn’t. Take away prosecutorial discretion, so you know you’ll have to justify your actions.
Unfortunately, I also think that, in practice, the system hasn’t done a very good job of enforcing standards like that, and verdicts are too likely to be based on whether the tortured was part of some group (like “terrorist” or “sex offender”) that many/most don’t mind seeing victimized. Then we’d wind up with the same sort of “debate” we’re decrying now.
The least bad solution for the real world is probably to avoid the slippery slope, and just say “Never. Period.”, even though the results are sometimes tragic.
It’s probably best to always tackle the false notion that there can and has to be some kind of “perfect safety” first.
E.g. in the context of surveillance, 24/7 surveillance of every private room would prevent almost every crime, yet it would be a terribly wrong solution.
Abolishing cars/trains/planes so traffic deaths are reduced to zero is also a dumb option.
The second line of reasoning would then be that even if someone were to accept these extreme consequences, the measure would still not guarantee what it seems to promise.
I understand that the notion that torture “may” help uncover a plot to detonate a large nuclear device in a major city, killing millions, is quite compelling to approve of torture, but so far this is about as reasonable as claiming we need to X-ray everyone to make sure they’re not reptilians from Lw’rraxx III.
I might add, since they want people to believe he is still alive, that he is dead and has been since the early 80’s. They have kept certain members of the Medellin cartel fraudulently “alive” in order to continue in their criminal activities without exposure.
Take your medication nancy.
Today being the anniversary of the day when the ashes of notorious French resistant Jean Moulin were transferred from the Pere Lachaise cemetery in Paris to the Pantheon, it seems appropriate to note that the Nazis labelled the Resistants “terrorists” and that Moulin was tortured by the Gestapo (under Klaus Barbie, the Butcher of Lyon) but reportedly died without spilling his secrets.
There was a fairly recent NOVA program which showed the brain being controlled by placing a specially designed magnet at particular places on the head. I would expect this to be a fruitful area of research (if not already in use) for particular recalcitrants.
This was just posted by Mighty Dawg at the Fogbow. Very well done.
“Is the MCSO’s semi-official Cold Case Posse “investigation” of Barack Obama’s long form birth certificate closed? Is there even a Cold Case Posse anymore?
The Posse’s official website has been offline now for almost two weeks. Links from the MCSO Posse Roster to the CCP website are dead. And there hasn’t been a contribution on the MCSO CCP’s Facebook page since April, 2014. The last time the MCSO officially referred to the “investigation” was in July, 2012. Sheriff Joe didn’t even attend Zullo’s laughing stock presentation at the June, 2013 Constitutional Sheriffs and Peace Officers Association annual conference
Since, Sheriff Joe’s last official 2012 “press conference” on the subject, the CCP has been a persistent source of unpleasant news for the MCSO ranging from questions about the inappropriate use of public funds, uninsured vehicles, the Brian Reilly disclosures, Brian Sands’ ebook inside account, The “Joe Show” campaign strategy video, a failure to certify the CCP non-profit with the State, a delinquent filing with the IRS, an uncomfortable link with a retaliatory “investigation” of a federal judge, and the disclosure that Mike Zullo, the CCP’s chief “investigator” took a $10,000 bribe from a well-known birther.
Now that the good Sheriff is deep in the middle of defending himself against rather serious contempt of court allegations, perhaps he’s finally realizing the huge liability he’s created for himself by supporting and endorsing this fool’s errand.
About the only time you hear Sheriff Joe now talk about the CCP “investigation” is when he’s asked a question, either by a member of an audience he’s speaking to or by a talk radio show host. When asked such questions he falls back on well-worn talking points about responding to a request of his constituents, that he can’t get anybody to look at the “evidence,” and that the “investigation” is ongoing even though he is unable to say where it is going to.
In his recent radio interview exchange with Alan Colmes, Sheriff Joe sounded surprised and uncomfortable at the questions asked of him. When finally asked if there was any new evidence developing in the case all he could say was “I hope so.” That’s a far cry from the “gut wrenching and universe shattering” disclosures predicted by Mike Zullo a year ago. Joe is lucky Mr. Colmes didn’t ask anything about Zullo’s bribe.
My theory is this – that the “case” is “closed” and that the MCSO and Sheriff Joe are now wishing for the thing to just evaporate into the sunset.”
http://thefogbow.com/forum/topic/7537-cold-case-posse-investigation-closed/#entry604141
The words “pre-employment magnet screen” just popped into my head.