Last month, I thought I had seen it all with the U.S. Senate candidacy of Roy Moore in Alabama.
Despite the multiple accusations of sexual misconduct bordering on pedophilia, the groper-in-chief currently ensconced in the White House endorsed Moore, dismissing the allegations by multiple women with the trite observation that “He denies them.”
Alabama is one of the most thoroughly red states and hadn’t sent a Democrat to the Senate in over four decades.
Nevertheless the stench surrounding Roy Moore’s life story was even too much for the State’s reliable Republican voters, who elected the Democrat, Doug Jones, a thoroughly dedicated former prosecutor who is above reproach.
My last memory of Roy Moore was him riding a horse to the polls on Election Day to cast his vote.
How often do you get to see a horse’s ass sitting on a horse’s ass?
Moore was a creature of the Trump’s former chief strategist, Steve Bannon, who had vowed to recruit candidates to carry the alt-right banner into Republican primaries in 2018, topple incumbent Republican members who were loyal to Senate Majority Leader, Mitch McConnell, and oust him from that position.
Instead, Democrats have a real chance to take control of the Senate as the Republican majority has now dwindled to a two vote margin.
Moore was not Bannon’s only warrior in this inter- Nicene affair.
In Arizona, Senator Jeff Flake, a conventional Republican conservative could no longer stomach serving under Donald Trump and ended his own career in public service.
Having drawn Trump’s ire, Flake had become a target of Bannon, who had recruited a primary opponent for him in the person of Kelli Ward.
Ward, an osteopathic physician and former Arizona State Senator, had unsuccessfully challenged John McCain in a 2016 Republican primary.
When McCain was diagnosed with brain cancer this past year, she publicly called on him to resign from the Senate so that she could be appointed to his seat.
Her rationale for this position was that, as a physician, she was certain that he would die from the brain tumor.
Now, there is a real bed side manner for you.
Ward had been the frontrunner in the upcoming primary against Congresswoman Martha McSalley, a retired U.S. Air Force Colonel and the first woman to fly in combat once the restriction was lifted during the Gulf War.
Ward’s candidacy has now been upended by the entry of a new candidate in the race.
The new candidate is formerly convicted and newly pardoned Joe Arpaio.
Arpaio served multiple terms as Sheriff of Maricopa County surrounding Phoenix from 1993 until 2016 when the voters turned him out.
Like Roy Moore, who was removed from office twice for defying federal court orders, Arpaio has a disdain for the federal courts.
In 2011, Arpaio was enjoined by a federal court judge from engaging in racial profiling, ordered to stop detaining Mexican and other Latino people and unconstitutionally inquiring about their citizenship or immigrant status.
Three years later, after many court appearances and warnings from the Court which Arpaio ignored, he was convicted of criminal contempt by another Federal judge following a trial.
Arpaio’s tenure in office was marked by numerous civil rights suits involving conditions in the Maricopa County Jail.
Arpaio made inmates appear publicly in pink underwear, fed them a starvation diet while requiring them to watch the Food Channel, deprived inmates of essential medical care resulting in a number of deaths and incurred hundreds of thousands of dollars in lawsuits filed against Maricopa County for these practices.
In his spare time, Arpaio became a committed member of the “Birther” movement that questioned President Obama’s birth in this country.
He even sent deputies from his office to Hawaii, at tax payer expense, to prove that the country’s first African-American President was illegitimate.
It was in that endeavor that he bonded with Trump.
Last year, Trump issued his first and only pardon.
He pardoned Arpaio before he was sentenced for the criminal contempt conviction.
In announcing his candidacy for the United States senate, the eighty-five year old candidate said he would like to bring “new Ideas” to Washington and support Trump’s agenda.
This past week, Trump voiced his opinion about Haitians and the nations on the continent of Africa.
We know what he thinks about Mexicans and others from Latin countries.
It will be a disappointment to Arpaio, but someone should tell him that his “new ideas” already reside in the White House.
I sometimes wonder whether Trump and Bannon found these candidates in the bar depicted in the movie “Star Wars.”
Ten I wonder whether they all met in that bar together.