Tea Party Looking to Recall Tucson Sheriff Dupnik
Pima County Sheriff Clarence Dupnik has never lost an election, but that was before his remarks assigning blame for the deadly Tucson, Ariz., shooting to political “vitriol” and calling Arizona “a mecca for prejudice and bigotry.”
Now it’s Sheriff Dupnik who finds himself on the public-opinion hot seat. A group opposed to illegal immigration has begun an effort to recall the sheriff in a special election. Meanwhile, a Pima County tea party group is planning on holding a “Dump Dupnik” rally next week outside his office.
“I haven’t been a fan of Dupnik’s for a long time, but this really was the straw that broke the camel’s back,” said Tom Rompel, co-owner of Black Weapons Armory in Tucson. “He’s law enforcement. We expect ‘the facts, ma’am,’ not his opinion. He leans far left, always has, and frankly, people have had enough.”
Not that the sheriff should worry about turning in his badge just yet. Sheriff Dupnik has won election eight times, and he’s a Democrat in a Democrat-majority county. While some constituents were appalled by his comments, others have applauded his forthright indictment of the state’s political climate.
morzer
What’s the difference between the GOP and a gang of sociopaths?
Yutsano
Well knock me over with a feather and call me Tallulah. Apparently someone is out for another scalp. Watch for which national Teatard leader jumps on this bandwagon, then we’ll see who wants that particular trophy. And I hope if he does get removed his replacement is even more of a leftist than he is.
Little Boots
Damn, thank god somebody’s awake. Hi, Angry Black Lady.
Mark S.
Tom Rompel really sounds like a guy you’d want to have a beer with.
KG
@morzer: a gang of sociopaths will eventually turn on each other?
hilts
@morzer:
Absolutely nothing.
morzer
@KG:
I am really starting to wonder. I honestly can’t see how we are going to get through the next decade without something very nasty happening. These people are refusing anything like a rational, law-abiding society.
Yikes
@morzer: Sometimes sociopaths still have manners?
WarMunchkin
Why do we elect Sheriffs, though? Can’t some town just elect KKK members or something, or do the candidates need police training?
MattR
I am sure this campaign will be free of vitriol, prejudice and bigotry.
General Stuck
Tea Partytards doubling down the hate. Who could have predicted? They can’t admit the overtones of violence they emit, because that is their power of implied consequence to denying them the power they believe is their inviolate birth right. Once they do admit it, then there is a self imposed base line to which their actions can be judged. So they must attack it instead.
It is a strategy based on core primal fear, created in the psyches of voters, usually by various borderline legal displays of weaponry and rhetoric directed as subliminal messages to the primitive brain centers of voters.
I studied all of this in the Advanced Wingnuttery program at Whatsamatta U.
aimai
@WarMunchkin:
Viz: Joe Arpaio.
aimai
Little Boots
@General Stuck:
I don’t think they ever think in those terms. They really think they are saving the country. From What? black people, poor people, depravity? who knows? but they really think theyr’e doing the lord’s work.
KG
@morzer: I mentioned the other day, about all the shit that’s happened in the last 15 years, just in politics (impeachment, 2000 election, Gray Davis recall, black president, woman Speaker, 9/11, two ten year wars) and I really do think all that history happening in such a short time has had a huge impact on our society. And that doesn’t even get into the cultural stuff, or the internet and ipod.
Anyway, I’ve been thinking recently, I keep wondering if we might actually be heading towards a Constitutional Convention. What ever comes out of that Convention, would, I think, spell the end for the US as a nation. I could see some States ratifying and others not, and quite a few States going their own ways. I use to say, “no way, not going to happen” then I think about the last 15 years, and figure… maybe.
I would hope if things got really nasty that someone would propose this, with sort of a “wink wink” mentality, as in, “look, we can write this thing in a way that will allow everyone to walk away not looking like complete fools.” Because the thought of something else happening… I’m not sure we survive something really bad.
morzer
@Little Boots:
I wonder whether the Second Coming will involve Jeebus driving a very short bus for his cultists?
General Stuck
@Little Boots:
Of course they don’t think about it. It comes from pure animal instinct for power and control, and maybe a grade school education.
Cody_k
Clearly this was a reference to the no-nonsense apolitical Sheriff from Maricopa County.
Lysana
@morzer: The sociopaths aren’t as well funded.
KG
@Little Boots: they think they’re saving the Republic from it’s own destruction
morzer
@Lysana:
Or maybe the gang of sociopaths are the ones conducting the interviews?
Little Boots
@General Stuck:
not sure about that. some, yes, definitely, but a lot, have never even thought about power, and have never had it. they just are drawn to people who validate their own stupid bullshit thoughts about the country.
Little Boots
@KG:
Yeah, I agree.
morzer
Well, if the southern kooks do decide to split off and form their own little Krapistan, at least we can always kick Bachmann and Palin across the border to enjoy their brave new world.
Little Boots
And I don’t know what to do about a significant part of the country being too stupid to have the faintest idea what is going on. Do you?
General Stuck
@Little Boots:
This, we can agree on.
morzer
@Little Boots:
All we can do is try and hold things together until the older crazies die off and the Hispanics and young voters come online for us. It’s not a terribly fun prospect.
hilts
@KG:
There’s no way in Hell that’s going to happen. That’s a bridge too far.
Upper WEst
@Little Boots:
why Little Boots, you elitist, don’t you know that the Health Care plan cuts 500B from Medicare, that Obama raised taxes on the middle class and that the deficit tripled under Obama?
I do, because those nice Koch brothers told me so in 10 million commercials in October.
Little Boots
@Upper WEst:
Elitist used to be so much more satisfying. Now it’s just annoying.
Mark S.
I’m to the point that I wish these assholes would just secede.
Xenos
@Upper WEst:
My theory on why Obama is rising in the polls: the election is over and the political advertising has been cut off. Without all that nonsense cluttering up the airwaves a lot of the ill-defined disaffection with Obama is just evaporating.
Little Boots
@Mark S.:
I know. Sort of. I’m a softie. I would miss the South, somehow, but sometimes, I’m like, just go already you stupid bitches!
Hob
On a lighter note, I just burned through a few brain cells reading a comment thread on a SF/fantasy-related blog where a front-pager had, perhaps unwisely, made an offhand crack about the Tea Party. (The post had to do with gay sex, and he said “Tea Party members may prefer to skip this one.”) The next 200,000 comments established once and for all that Tea Party supporters are sick and tired of being demagogued and belittled and labeled as angry hatemongers and they’re not gonna take it any more; that most Americans agree with their views; that they’re totally supportive of gay rights; that they’re not right-wing, they’re just economic libertarians; that America is a Christian nation and they’re just defending traditional values; that liberals control the media; that it’s not even really a political party, so stop labeling us; that the Democrat Party base is black people and they’re the most anti-gay of all; that y’all shouldn’t complain about the threadjacking becuse that guy started it, and why are you censoring me; and that if you think we’re thin-skinned, well really liberals are the ones who are thin-skinned because look at Ricky Gervais. Good times…
Mark S.
It’s kind of silly, but I found Jumbotrongate from this week to be really depressing. How are you supposed to debate people who are that fucking stupid.
Lysana
@morzer: There you go. The difference between the GOP and a group of sociopaths is the side of the microphone.
morzer
@Xenos:
I think it’s partly that Palin has become the public face of the GOP over the past month, and she’s so obviously hateful and negative that Obama gains in contrast.
Yutsano
@Hob: Link? That sounds like pure comedic gold.
morzer
@Hob:
Did they also explain that Bristol Palin was skinny, Sarah was a towering intellect, and that it’s snowing so there can’t be global warming?
Little Boots
@morzer:
but that’s interesting in itself. there was a time when they wanted a Reagan or Goldwater, who for all the crazy, were not actually hateful. but now they want hateful. Now they want a total Bitch. And that is more dangerous.
Mark S.
@Mark S.:
Oh, and that shit about Michelle Obama killing people by encouraging them to walk was pretty stupid as well. And the Battle Hymn of Sarah Palin.
Maybe one of the FPers could do The Week in Stupid, just to remind us all that went down.
morzer
@Little Boots:
Right. Although it is the one hopeful sign in the whole mess, because it is pretty clear that a majority of Americans don’t want hateful and crazy to win out when it comes to the presidency, and yet the teabaggers won’t accept anything else. We might be lucky enough to see them shut themselves out of power for the foreseeable future.
Little Boots
@morzer:
damn, I hope so.
Hob
@Yutsano: If you must, it’s here – the post itself and the few on-topic comments will make no sense at all if you’re not a reader of George R.R. Martin, but the wingnuts are as you’d expect. Probably not really as entertaining as I made it out to be, but I’m not going back to check.
@morzer: Oddly no. But I did learn that Islam is the Left’s favorite religion.
Angry Black Lady
@Mark S.: it’s pretty disheartening. someone told me on the twitterz that people who watch the daily show and are therefore well-informed are marxists (in response to my tweet to him that, demonstrably, people who watch TDS are well-informed and that the fox news teat sucklers are
unimproveduninformed [couldn’t delete that freudian slip].)so i guess information is marxist, y’all.
Kryptik
What’s amazing is the fact that, from what I remember, Dupnik didn’t name names. The Tea Party simply decided that he must be talking guff about them since they know they hate. But they hate the ‘right people’, of course! So obviously Dupnik is against real ‘Mericans like them.
It’s freakin’ ridiculous, and what’s sad is that it’ll probably work, precisely for the reasons Dupnik was talking about.
Angry Black Lady
@Little Boots: hi! i’m pretty much always awake. insomnia is a blessing and a curse.
JasonF
@morzer:
Oh! I know this one! One is a group of amoral scumbags who have no regard for anyone else and will do anything to get what they want, no matter who it hurts and the other is a gang of sociopaths.
Hob
@Kryptik: I wonder if for some of them it’s just that they think they’re the first people ever to be politically active in any way. That’s the attitude I see in a lot of their talk. They’re the only real political movement – everything else is some establishment plot orchestrated from above. So if someone’s complaining about the political climate in Arizona, it’s obviously about them.
Yutsano
@Hob: Actually you may have made me a fan of the series. And methinks the two ladies over there doth protest too much. At what point do you gently point out to them that they’re just another flavor of Republican?
Odie Hugh Manatee
@morzer:
The Mad Hatters and their Tea Party want to get their hate on and nothing is going to stop them from doing it. Nothing. It doesn’t matter who gets hurt or who dies, they are pissed off and they want the world to know it. Everything is the fault of everyone else and only they know what needs to be done to make everything ‘right’.
Sorry to sound so pessimistic but I don’t see things getting better for anyone. Our politicians are busy playing games, refusing to face reality. Our press only cares about false equivalence, ratings and doing what their rich owners want them to do. The public cares more about the latest fad, tech gadget or who is winning on American Idol than they do about why their jobs suck. Nobody is leading or holding our leaders accountable, all that matters is that if the skin is white then they are right and if the skin is brown then they must go down.
Welcome to the downfall of America. We’re living it. The Republican party has been doing what they can to make it happen but that isn’t happening fast enough for the Mad Hatters and their Tea Party. The Democrats are too timid to do a damned thing about this and Obama can’t pull their heads out of their asses by himself. We got the government we voted for so sit back and enjoy the ride. We have nobody to blame but ourselves.
This shit is as depressing as hell but what else can I say? Hope only goes so far and we are out of it. I believe that only a major catastrophe might wake us up to the reality of what is happening around us.
Might, but even then it may not be enough or it will be too late anyway.
morzer
@Odie Hugh Manatee:
I’d say we are living in a period of American decline, yes, but I am not sure yet that it has to be a crash landing. Sure, the teabagger rabble want their hate and pity party like no tomorrow – but I really don’t see the key slice of genuine independents following them off the cliff. If we can hang on long enough, maybe the kids and Hispanics will save us, combined with old white hate-peddler die-off.
Odie Hugh Manatee
@morzer:
If our only chance of ‘winning’ is to hope a portion of our population dies off then we have lost.
I hate to sound so pessimistic but optimism will only get a person so far…lol
piratedan
well they can go through the motions but my guess is that since it is solely Pima County that this will end up being an example of our taxpayer dollars being spent on a cause that has no merit or basis in cause. There’s elections for this and as such, if you don’t like the man, defeat him. I don’t like what Jan Brewer is doing, but enough foxtards voted for her and now we get to reap the proverbial whirlwind of asinine statements and POS legislation after another election cycle. All I can do is hope that she pulls a Fife Symington or Ev Mecham and do something so beyond the pale that we can impeach her (fat chance with the Rethugs in the state house) but otherwise its gonna be a long four years.
Pooh
@Hob:
SOI&F doesn’t strike me as especially wingerish – the closest I could see is Larison-style paleocon. IIRC, in interviews he’s occasionally said some bad things about Palin as well.
morzer
@Odie Hugh Manatee:
Demographically we have fairly solid predictions of an increasing percentage of the population being Hispanic, and the kids seem to be pretty solidly liberal, so there’s some reason for hope. Yes, we have to hang in and do our best under ugly circumstances, but I think we’ll get some help from the increasingly obvious lunacy of the GOP/teabagger rabble.
John - A Motley Moose
This is really ludicrous. Not that I expect them to see that. Their response to what they see as a threat to their 1st Amendment rights is to force the other person to stfu.
Odie Hugh Manatee
IMO I think our only hope is that the Mad Hatters and their Tea Party severely overreach themselves and do so real soon. The slow creep will kill us all, the overreach just might give us the chance we need to save ourselves from them.
I will never give up hope but I will note that hope is not going to save us from them. Hope will not stop hate, hate has to turn on itself for hope to win.
asiangrrlMN
@Odie Hugh Manatee: Sadly, I am with you on this. And, I am much less hopeful than you are. The right has to cannibalize itself (oh no! See, I’m just as bad as they are) before anything positive can happen. In the meantime, a lot of ugly and nasty shit is going to go down, and hoocoddanode?
@Kryptik: Yeah. He did say Rush, though, I think, so that was the big red flag you know. Still. The fact that one side leaped to the defensive so quickly is pretty damning, I say.
@KG: This is an excellent point. Things are changing so quickly these days, it can be a head-spinner even for those of us who are generally in favor of most of the changes. I can imagine how frightening and horrific it must feel to those who don’t like the changes. However, my only beef is that it’s not them who feel most of the negative effects of the results of such fear.
morzer
Here’s the thing though, there are some small signs that the right may be about to split. Moderate GOPers are quitting in Arizona out of fear, you’ve got Bachmann giving a teabagger response to the SOTU address, and there are rumblings of discontent with Boehner and the backroom boys apparently backing away from trying to do much of anything in terms of deficit reduction.
asiangrrlMN
@morzer: Yes. You have a good point. But, is it enough? Will it ever be enough? How will I ever know?
Ahem. I would have thought eight years of W. would have forced the Republicans into exile for much longer than 2 years in the first damn place.
morzer
@asiangrrlMN:
I’d say that the right-wing kooks are steadily making themselves more extreme and less electable, and sooner or later I think they’ll push themselves off the cliff. Yes, some nastiness is to be expected, but I really don’t believe that the majority of people want some sort of theocratic hate state. It will take time, and we shall have to be strong and grimly determined, but I believe we shall come out the other side of this.
asiangrrlMN
@morzer: Thus, you are the optimist. I think the majority of people are just plain apathetic/don’t have time/feel too powerless to really do anything to stop the halt towards a theocratic hate state. YMMV.
Irving
Before we all start wailing about the death and downfall of America, I’ll point out that we’ve been through much worse. 1968 – the year RFK and MLK were assassinated – immediately springs to mind.
Chris
@morzer:
There are some thing sociopaths just won’t do.
Chris
@Hob:
I think Rolling Stone’s article about the Tea Party Movement had an apporpriate long description of this;
After nearly a year of talking with Tea Party members from Nevada to New Jersey, I can count on one hand the key elements I expect to hear in nearly every interview. One: Every single one of them was that exceptional Republican who did protest the spending in the Bush years, and not one of them is the hypocrite who only took to the streets when a black Democratic president launched an emergency stimulus program. (“Not me — I was protesting!” is a common exclamation.) Two: Each and every one of them is the only person in America who has ever read the Constitution or watched Schoolhouse Rock. (Here they have guidance from Armey, who explains that the problem with “people who do not cherish America the way we do” is that “they did not read the Federalist Papers.”) Three: They are all furious at the implication that race is a factor in their political views — despite the fact that they blame the financial crisis on poor black homeowners, spend months on end engrossed by reports about how the New Black Panthers want to kill “cracker babies,” support politicians who think the Civil Rights Act of 1964 was an overreach of government power, tried to enact South African-style immigration laws in Arizona and obsess over Charlie Rangel, ACORN and Barack Obama’s birth certificate. Four: In fact, some of their best friends are black! (Reporters in Kentucky invented a game called “White Male Liberty Patriot Bingo,” checking off a box every time a Tea Partier mentions a black friend.) And five: Everyone who disagrees with them is a radical leftist who hates America.
Chris
@morzer:
That’s assuming that the young people aren’t just going to turn conservative as they grow up. I hope it’s true, just not taking it as a given.
Svensker
@Little Boots:
.
Hit on the nose. My wingnut cousin from Texas hates Dupnik, thinks Arpaio is the shiz — he especially loved Arpaio playing Christmas carols extra loud at night for his prisoners. Thought that showed real Murkin Christianity at work!
Chris
@Odie Hugh Manatee:
See, I thought for sure the combination of the Iraq fuckup and the financial crisis would constitute the right overreaching. And you’d think that when after that, a bunch of crazies take the microphone and start shouting that the only problem was that the hard right wasn’t hard right enough, people would’ve had the sense to see them as the lunatics they are. Yet somehow, that hasn’t happened, which is why right now I’m in “what the hell is it going to take?” mode.
jinxtigr
In order for the right to split we have to make a safe haven for a more liberal policy wing of the Republicans to emerge.
More liberal than what, is the question. More liberal than Rush, more liberal than the Tea Party. It’s a really good phrase, ‘more liberal than’, because it co-opts the plank they’ve been riding into crazy land, and it also gives them an out, a way to be “more liberal than X, but”.
Legitimizing a gray area between wingnut and moonbat will get traction with people. It becomes just about the details but it’s not hard to put across the idea that there are extremists (‘on both sides’, sure, let’s co-opt both sides do it while we’re at it) whose positions aren’t defensible.
A HUGE amount of money and effort has been spent to establish among the ignorant the idea that ‘both sides do it’, that there are ‘extremists’ who are dangerous, and while the intent is to establish ‘right wing extremists are good and normal’, when it breaks down what you’re left with is a massive mistrust and dislike of extremists and radicals.
If the rightwingers over-reach, the specific danger they’re in is that of being perceived AS extremists and not ‘normal’. It’s not as easy as it looks to get typical Americans to believe that rightwingers should murder their political opponents. Snark about it, yes, believe it not so much. Ask “so is that just your non-PC sense of humor?”. Answer should be ‘of course’.
All you gotta do is frame it as “all right, time to be MORE LIBERAL THAN teahadists with M16s and a body count” and it opens a dialogue for a ‘normal’ middle ground which by definition is not the teabagger vision, which by definition is ‘more liberal than’. And those words break the trance…
Jay C
Things I noted from this post:
1. It derives from the Washington (Moonie) Times, and thus should be taken with a
grainkilo of salt.2. It’s telling that (in this excerpt , at least) that the only quoted source owns something called the “Black Weapons Armory”.
3. Whatever Sheriff Clarence Dupnik’s personal political views are, it is a safe bet that they are NOT – by any reasonably objective standard, “far left”: it is obvious that “leftist” is just an all-purpose insult with the Teabagger crowd, and merely shows their ignorance (which is probably deliberate).
KCinDC
How can anyone apply the phrase “far left” to an Arizona sheriff and keep a straight face, let alone avoid being laughed at by anyone who happens to hear them?
Person of Choler
“…others have applauded his forthright indictment of the state’s political climate.”
Then again, some think he would have been in damn big business providing some security for the rally given that local law enforcement had plenty of previous contact with the loony who committed the atrocity.
One could suggest that the job of a sheriff is to prevent crime, not jabber political claptrap after one is committed.
Hob
@Pooh: Oh no, he’s really quite a hippie. Although he insists that certain events in the series involving misrule by an incompetent, paranoid, corrupt regime full of super-wealthy sociopaths, ignoring the woes of the common people and the impending climate catastrophe, and making ill-advised deals with theocratic militias, were not at all meant allegorically…
Arclite
One thing I don’t understand: In the wake of the Giffords shooting, from may quarters came the call to tone down rhetoric. If “both sides do it” why is it only Tea Partiers and Republicans taking offense? Almost no one (and not the sherriff) called them out by name. The statements were very general. Guilty conscience much?
Cacti
@Person of Choler:
And I’m sure you’re equally appalled every time Joe Arpaio or Paul Babeu is a guest on Faux News.
IOKIYAR
Pooh
@Hob: Heh indeedy, though the device of the rotating viewpoint characters could lead one to get an “everyone is special or at least I am” glibertarian vibe from it.
Person of Choler
@Cacti:
Cacti, Who are Joe Arpaio and Paul Babeu? Have there been any mass killings by people known to be extremely unstable in their jurisdictions recently? And if there were, did they try to blame the atrocities on people who manifestly had nothing to do with the outrages?
Cacti
@Person of Choler:
Wow, you are ignorant.
Person of Choler
@Cacti:
I guess it’s because I don’t watch Fox News.
But getting back to my question (given that you’re so well informed) tell me about the mass killings in the jurisdictions of these guys.
Cacti
@Person of Choler:
Well, I do live in Arizona and have family who are life-long residents of Tucson, and I do visit Tucson regularly, and I’ve practiced criminal law in the State, so I’m familiar with who most of the Sheriffs are…
But naw, what do I know?
Person of Choler
@Cacti:
Why then, you’re the perfect person to answer my question about violence in the Fox News sheriffs’ jusisdictions.
Pooh
Back page trolls are awesome.
Cacti
@Person of Choler:
Okay, since you’re too lazy to look it up yourself.
Paul Babeu is the sheriff of Pinal County, shoots campaign commercials with John McCain where he lies about being a “border sheriff” (the southernmost part of Pinal County is 90 miles from the border), and is an 18-time Fox News guest where he frequently goes to criticize the President, and opine about such diverse law enforcement topics as how the country “sprinting towards socialism”.
Joe Arpaio is the sheriff of Maricopa County, where the most dangerous place in its borders is anywhere that’s between him and a television camera. He frequently crisscrosses the country to campaign for various GOP pols, and to make speeches on national policy issues.
Since you’ve never heard of either of them, much less have anything to say about the appropriateness of their numerous overtly political activities, your complaints about Clarence Dupnik seem awfully hollow.
DougW
Tom Rumpel is an ass. Not even a capital case ass (that would be Ass). If he can’t understand the depth of shit that Arizona is now enduring, I hope he drowns in it. Republicans of Arizona are exacerbating (to you on that side of the Thuglicans in AZ, it means to make worse)every problem that could actually be improved by common sense. A state that should be doing well is hamstrung by greedy right-wing ho’s that echo what big business wants, no matter the consequences. I pray that we can see justice done in an economic and sensible way in my state.
I’m not too optimistic. What do you think will happen if things get even worse?