The Friday Night Trumpster Fire

Fridays at 5:00 has turned into the Infodump Hour in American politics. Government agencies or officials would just throw out there some scandalous tidbit or perform a questionable act before rushing off to hide until Monday. Let's be honest, most people just shut their brains down for the weekend and when they have to go back to work they'll get distracted by something else.

This particular Friday August 25th was noteworthy because that day the Texas coastline was getting slammed by Hurricane Harvey, a Cat 4 storm that promised to linger over the eastern half of the state for the entire weekend, which anyone with any experience with storms will tell you was going to cause massive floods, serious damage, and loss of life.

So what does Loser of the Popular Vote trump do before he heads out for yet another golf holiday?

he drops the mother of all Infodumps, with the knowledge that most of America is going to be focused on the Texan catastrophe.

• trump issued an executive ban on transgender troops in the military, causing untold havoc. he's intentionally kicking out those who would WILLINGLY SERVE THIS NATION WITH HONOR all to placate the religious wingnuts who can't handle gender identities. This also underscores how trump - who begged out of the Vietnam War and got a deferment for bone spurs no one has ever verified - is a goddamn gutless coward not fit to lick a transperson's marching boots.
• Just after that, trump pardoned convicted ex-sheriff Joe Apraio, who was facing six months for ignoring federal court orders trying to stop him from violating Hispanic Americans' rights.

The transgender ban will likely get delayed: organizations like the ACLU are already heading to courts to stop it. The most shameful and horrifying act was the pardoning of Arpaio, for two key reasons. First, referring to guest columnist Charles Kaiser at the Moderate Voice:

Here is the most logical way to view his pardon of Sheriff Arpaio: It is the latest and gravest step he has taken in his continuing efforts to undermine the rule of law. Obviously Trump delighted in fueling the racism of Arpaio’s supporters by pardoning this convicted criminal — he made that clear earlier this week during his repellent speech in Phoenix. But I am certain that is not the main reason for this heinous act.

For many weeks, Washington has been swirling with rumors that Mueller already has secured the cooperation of Michael Flynn and Paul Manafort in his investigation of the president. And Trump undoubtedly is more vulnerable to the testimony of these two men than he is to that of any other players in this fearful drama. Therefore, Trump must feel compelled to send this message through Arpaio’s pardon: The president is eager and willing to do the same thing for anyone who might be pressured into testifying against him...

Second point: Arpaio is one of the worst persons in American history in terms of his racist and criminal misdeeds as a county sheriff in Arizona. How bad was he?

The Phoenix New Times ran a list. It's horrifying:

• He ran his prisons like concentration camps... and bragged how he did so.
• He left prisoners out in the Arizona heat, or stuffed into cells without air conditioning.
• He would publicly humiliate prisoners beyond anything the Eighth Amendment allowed.
• An alarming number of hanging deaths - suicides? staged? - happened in his jail cells.
• Female prisoners are denied access to medical care, to the point where pregnant prisoners lost their babies.
• He obsessed over arresting Latinos to where even bystanders at crime scenes would get rounded up.
• His department routinely under-investigated other crimes such as rape while he posed on the national stage over his anti-immigrant acts.
• He oversaw a department of like-minded sadists. How else to describe what the hell they did to a poor dog?! JESUS...

THIS was the piece of shit trump pardoned. This is a guy who gives John Chivington a run for Worst American Ever. And trump pardons him to appease the hater base.

Because as a like-minded bully, trump didn't see anything Arpaio did as wrong. Because trump wants to do exactly those things to everyone of his own critics and targets.

So that was what happened Friday night.

As for the weekend?

Everyone's pissed about Arpaio. Everyone's horrified by the mass flooding that's wiping out Houston. trump is busy bragging about a book getting published by one of his sadistic buddies.

We are so royally fucked, America.