Gruppenführer Arpaio Says, “You Vill NOT Ask Questions!”
Is this Straight Outta 1930s Berlin, or isn’t it?
Look at what happens to anyone who dares to question anything America’s Gruppenführer might do. In Arpaio’s Reich, there will be no questions, lest you find yourself in one of Der Gruppenführer’s Concentration camps! They haff vays of shutting you up!
Why on Earth is this asshole being tolerated in the United States of America? Has everyone forgotten that we lost hundreds of thousands of people trying to put an end to this kind of shit?
The day after the federal government told Maricopa County Sheriff Joe Arpaio that he could no longer use his deputies to round up suspected illegal immigrants on the street, the combative Arizona sheriff did just that.
He launched one of his notorious “sweeps,” in which his officers descend on heavily Latino neighborhoods, arrest hundreds of people for violations as minor as a busted headlight and ask them whether they are in the country legally.
“I wanted to show everybody it didn’t make a difference,” Arpaio said of the Obama administration’s order.
Arpaio calls himself “America’s toughest sheriff” and remains widely popular across the state. For two decades, he has basked in publicity over his colorful tactics, such as dressing jail inmates in pink underwear and housing them in outdoor tents during the brutal Phoenix summers.
But he has escalated his tactics in recent months, not only defying the federal government but launching repeated investigations of those who criticize him. He recently filed a racketeering lawsuit against the entire Maricopa County power structure. On Thursday night, the Arizona Court of Appeals issued an emergency order forbidding the Maricopa County Sheriff’s Office from searching the home or chambers of a Superior Court judge who was named in the racketeering case.
Last year, when Phoenix Mayor Phil Gordon called for a federal investigation of Arpaio’s immigration enforcement, the Sheriff’s Office demanded to see Gordon’s e-mails, phone logs and appointment calendars.
When the police chief in one suburb complained about the sweeps, Arpaio’s deputies raided that town’s City Hall.
A local television station, KPHO, in a 10-minute-long segment last month, documented two dozen instances of the sheriff launching investigations of critics, none of which led to convictions.
The most notorious case involves county Supervisor Don Stapley, a Republican who has sometimes disagreed with Arpaio’s immigration tactics. Last December, deputies arrested Stapley on charges of failing to disclose business interests properly on his statement of economic interest.
Stapley’s alarmed supervisor colleagues had their offices swept for listening devices. Arpaio contended the search was illegal and sent investigators to the homes of dozens of county staffers to grill them about the sweep.
A judge in September dismissed several of the allegations against Stapley, and prosecutors dropped the case. Three days later, Arpaio’s deputies arrested Stapley again after he parked his car in a downtown parking structure near his office.
No charges were filed until County Atty. Andrew Thomas — Arpaio’s ally in his fights with the supervisor — charged Stapley this week with misusing money he raised to run for president of the National Assn. of Counties.
“It’s just extraordinary, the kind of thing that takes place in Third World dictatorships,” said Paul Charlton, a former U.S. attorney who is representing Stapley. He predicted the latest charges would also be dismissed. “So many people are of one mind on a single issue — illegal immigration — that they are willing to ignore these misdeeds.”
These are precisely the tactics the Nazis used to harass their opponents after Hitler’s ascension (and before the Enabling Act.) It doesn’t really matter if they can make the charges stick if they can render you unable to get anything done because of constant arrests and searches. That Arpaio would be using these tactics should surprise no one; his ties to Nazis in Arizona are well known.
I’m flat-out saying it right here; you cannot believe in the American Constitution and also support this piece of shit. Swastikas of a feather HEIL together.
December 12th, 2009 at 6:40 pm
So much hate there,I still don’t understand it.Logically,this is NDN land.We’ve always been here,Mexicans are the Indians (as well as everyone indigenous from Calif to Tierra Del Fuego)who slowly migrated south.It wasn’t like they were sprinting,just slowly moving over hundreds and hundreds of years.So to call Mexicans illegal,especially if you’re European is stupid and hypocritical.
To see so much hatred directed at people who come here to work,to do the crappy jobs Americans don’t want and let’s not forget if NAFTA hadn’t destroyed the family farms throughout northern Mexico that generally employed 10-15 people,if the resulting factory jobs hadn’t then been moved to China,most of the Mexicans wouldn’t be here. They don’t WANT to be ridiculed and harassed, they didn’t CHOOSE this, our leaders did.
December 12th, 2009 at 6:46 pm
You know it, Oso. We who are of indigenous origins have more of a claim on the land than the interlopers from overseas. Let THEM go back where THEY came from, if anything.
December 12th, 2009 at 8:37 pm
Wow, Isn’t it illegal to wear those swastikas you show in the pic above? Shouldn’t they be arrested and thrown in the clinker, at least for being extra obnoxious looking?
December 12th, 2009 at 8:44 pm
Welllllll, J. Roger, I certainly think you have a case here where this is a case of a vigilante (if you pardon the expression) hiding behind a badge. Personally, I don’t think I like swastikas photo-shopped around nor words like Gruppenführer slung hither and thither, nor blaming Berlin. Arizona and Arizonans bear responsibility.
December 12th, 2009 at 10:18 pm
The guys a TRUE *sswipe, and the people of Maricopa County are no better than he is, for allowing him to keep his job. If he and the people of his county think he’s so great, what say we send all the Gitmo prisoners to him.
December 12th, 2009 at 11:31 pm
If the swastika fits, then I will use it, Vig. One swastika saves me a thousand words.
December 12th, 2009 at 11:33 pm
RayGun, one might call the insignias a bit of poetic license
But I encourage you to click the second link inn this post, where you will learn that Arpaio ACTUALLY DOES consort with American Nazis. That part I’m not taking any license with.
December 13th, 2009 at 3:17 pm
This guy is truly a sick fuck. Vigilante – you don’t like the nazi symbolism? Let’s not forget it was sick fucks like this guy who made the nazis so f-ing powerful for so long.
December 13th, 2009 at 4:23 pm
And Bee, we cannot overlook that Arpaio pals around with ACTUAL Nazis. I think it’s important to the overall conversation.