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President Trump Signs a Memorandum on Addressing China

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Telling the people of Texas and Louisiana “Good luck” as Hurricane Harvey rears its ugly head, y’all president would rather focus on promoting bigotry and discrimination.

On Friday, keeping a promise he made earlier this week, Trump pardoned convicted Arizona Sheriff Joe Arpaio, who was found guilty of criminal contempt in July for illegally targeting Latinos in his state. 

According to The Daily Beast, Arpaio — who has been dubbed the “toughest sheriff” in America — was convicted of criminal contempt for violating a 2011 order that barred him from detaining individuals based on suspicion of their legal status. And what he did was actually quite barbaric.

The 85-year-old overpopulated his “hellish” jail with undocumented people of color and “deprived the inmates of basic necessities and reduced the meals to two per day while cutting the cost of each meal to 30 cents… Under such conditions, inmates are always hungry and have suffered drastic physical repercussions; one teenager reported losing 50 pounds since he was incarcerated,” NPR wrote.

Arpaio was pardoned almost a month and a half before he was scheduled to be sentenced on Oct. 5. He was facing a maximum of six months in prison.

Clearly this move has angered civil rights and legal activists around the country.

“With his pardon of Arpaio, Trump has chosen lawlessness over justice, division over unity, hurt over healing,” ACLU Deputy Legal Director Cecillia Wang said in a statement.

“Once again, the president has acted in support of illegal, failed immigration enforcement practices that target people of color and have been struck down by the courts. His pardon of Arpaio is a presidential endorsement of racism.”

People also took to Twitter to express their disdain for the president–once again.

Sadly, #45 wasn’t done trying to exert his power. He also signed an executive order banning transgender individuals from serving in the U. S.  military a month after he first proposed the plan via Twitter. 

According to CNN, this order bans transgender individuals from being recruited into the armed force and bans the Department of Defense from using its resources to provide medical treatment regimens for transgender individuals currently serving in the military.

In addition, Trump also directed the departments of Defense and Homeland Security “to determine how to address transgender individuals currently serving based on military effectiveness and lethality, unitary cohesion, budgetary constraints, applicable law, and all factors that may be relevant,” the White House official said.

But what WH officials failed to clarify was whether or not this means the military would be kicking out the thousands of trans folks who currently serve.

Sen. Tammy Duckworth (D-Ill.), who served in the Iraq War and lost both legs as a result of her helicopter crashing, Tweeted this the day before Trump signed the order.

“When I was bleeding to death in my Black Hawk helicopter after I was shot down, I didn’t care if the American troops risking their lives to help save me were gay, straight, transgender, black, white or brown.”

Last month Trump said that after he spoke with several military leaders–which may or may not be true–he decided that trans soldiers were “distractions” and paying for their health care and gender affirming surgeries was too expensive. However as CNN pointed out, a 2016 Rand Corp.study found that the cost of that care would range between $2.4 million and $8.4 million a year, an amount that would represent an “exceedingly small proportion” of total health care expenditures.

Think: That’s less than all #45 unnecessary trips to Mar A Logo that us taxpayers pay for.

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Trump Pardons Racist Arizona Sheriff And Finalizes Trans Military Ban As Hurricane Harvey Pummels Texas  was originally published on hellobeautiful.com