Whew, Ada County Idaho Didn't Hire The Nazi To Be Sheriff
Ada County, Idaho — the state's most populous county, and home to Boise — has selected a new sheriff, and we're happy to report that it's not the Nazi-sounding loonybag who was among the three finalists for the job. Sheriff Matt Clifford, the new guy, will serve out the remaining term of former Sheriff Steve Bartlett, who was just reelected to a second term in November but suddenly retired at the end of May and nobody knows why. Because Bartlett was a Republican, it was up to the county's Republican Party to pick a slate of three nominees, from which the county's board of supervisors would select one. This may not be the best way to choose top law enforcement officers.
Naturally enough, this being Idaho in the Age of Trump (Or Anyone Else, Let's Get Real), one of the three nominees chosen by the Ada County Republican Central Committee, Doug Traubel, turned out to be kind of a Nazi, complete with conspiracy theories about how Jews invented communism and that the Black Lives Matter movement was also a communist front. Hey, Ada County supervisors, bullet dodged!
The Idaho Statesman's coverage of the supervisors' interviews with the three candidates is really something, and yet another reminder to support local journalism. The supervisors, understandably, had a lot of questions for Traubel, based on his statements on social media and his self-published book-shaped object, Red Badge: A veteran peace officer's commentary on the Marxist subversion of American Law Enforcement & Culture, in which he argues that Marxists have in fact subverted not only our precious bodily fluids, but also law enforcement, because isn't it true that when you think "bunch of commies," you think of your local police department?
Don't You Dare Call Him Racist Just For Saying Racist Shit
Supervisor Kendra Kenyon, a Democrat, had a few problems with Traubel's everything, such as
posts he has written about the number of Black men who rape white women; his support for the "constitutional" sheriff movement; and comments that he wears a mask with "hoax" written on it when traveling on airplanes, that "Islam is the culture of death" and that single mothers are "not an economically viable unit."
"As a single mom raising two kids, I personally take offense to all of these," Kenyon said.
She asked Traubel where he'd gotten his book's confident assertion that "at least 50%" of rape allegations are false; he said he couldn't recall it off the top of his head, but when Kenyon cut him off and accused him of "just making it up as you go," he offered the very credible explanation that "In that instance, certainly it's not cited, but my book is very well researched." No doubt that's the same assiduous research (also with no citation) behind Traubel's bullshit assertion in 2016 that annually, "black males rape 37,000 white women (100/day)" while "there are ZERO black women raped by white men year after year." It's on the internet, written by him, so it must be true. In that same rant, he asserted that Barack Obama just LOVES seeing cops killed: "Dead cops please our dear leader. Dead white cops please him more."
In the same essay, Traubel explained,
It is 2016! There is no longer black oppression in the United States. Police are good. Criminals are bad. It is not white versus black. It is police versus criminal. It is good versus evil. It is principles versus relativism. It is truth versus deception.
So when you see cops who appear to be acting racist, you probably just need to fix your own crazy brain and realize the cops are always right.
We aren't about to buy Traubel's awful book, but we did find it quoted approvingly at a far-Right blog, which included a lovely cartoon of a big-nosed rabbi spray-painting a swastika on his own temple to prove there's no such thing as hate crimes. The blogger really grooved on Traubel's assertion that the very terms "racist" and "racism" are "a Marxist construct" aimed at covering up the "reality" of inherent Black criminality:
The terrorist chant, "No Justice, No Peace!" is born of fiction not virtue. Offender-victim demographics over fifty years prove the Dirty War is the reality. White Americans have long suffered from black predatory tribalism. Nevertheless, speaking truth on race and crime necessarily brands one a racist.
Gosh, how very unfair to call him a racist. Somehow, it appears that line didn't even make it into the job interview, possibly because there was so much else.
Besides, He Has Thoughts On The Jews, Too
Under questioning from Supervisor Rod Beck, a Republican, Traubel also happily expounded on his theories about WWII, such as his belief the US lost the war by not immediately going to war with the USSR after defeating Nazi Germany, and his insistence that Jews actually created the USSR. But don't worry, he has a real nuanced view of the period, explaining that in the Holocaust, Jews were victims of the Nazis, but that in Soviet Russia, Jews Holocaust You.
In a comment straight out of Nazi propaganda, Traubel asserted that Jews "led the Bolshevik revolution," which actually means "they were the villain class in the Soviet Union."
"What we don't often hear … is how many hundreds of thousands of people were killed (in the Soviet Union) and what group actually started that," Traubel added.
Oh, what group was that? The Rotary Club, we bet.
Weirdo Conspiracy Theories? Check.
Compared to the racism and anti-Semitism (which, remember, aren't real, but simply tools made up to advance communism), it's almost a side note that Traubel also belongs to the far-Right "Constitutional Sheriffs and Peace Officers Association" (CSPOA) which pushes the fringe conspiracy theory that county sheriffs are really the highest constitutional authorities in US America. The group's founder, Richard Mack, was a prominent presence at both of the Bundy standoffs. He's the guy who suggested during the 2014 Bundy Ranch standoff they send the women out to the front line to get shot by federal law enforcement, to prove the feds were monsters.
Asked about his inaccurate beliefs on the authority of sheriffs, which is definitely limited by state and federal law no matter what some idiots think, Traubel explained that if he were Ada County Sheriff, well then he might have to put his foot down:
Traubel stated that if a "social justice mentality is pulling the reins on the police" in Boise during a protest, "if I get wind of that, I'm going in." He added that he would "call (Boise police) officers under my command."
"It kind of sounds like you'd be willing to take up arms against the Boise police," Rod Beck, commissioner for District 2, said in response.
Strangely, the Statesman doesn't mention Traubel's response, even if it was, as we suspect, no more than an eager leer.
And The Rest ...
The third candidate, Mike Chilton, was employed by the sheriff's office over a decade ago but figured he'd be a good sheriff because his job since then, as an investment advisor, would help him handle the budget. Chilton tried to parlay his lack of experience into a qualification for the job, because it would represent a change from "the cabal that has controlled Ada County for three and a half decades." Happily, he just meant the county power structure, not Jews, so good on him.
Also happily, the awful guy won't get the job; instead, Kenyon and Beck voted to hire Clifford, who as chief of the nearby Eagle Police Department was the only one of the three nominees currently working in law enforcement. Bizarrely, Clifford's own take on the authority of his office was what impressed Beck, who was glad to hear Clifford say that if the federal government banned semiautomatic assault rifles like the AR-15, he'd refuse to enforce it.
As for the other supervisor, Republican Ryan Davidson, he voted against Clifford, saying he wanted an "outsider" for the job, and that he'd been super-impressed by Traubel, but that he recognized that the "far leftwing media in Ada County" would misrepresent Traubel's very thoughtful writings as somehow being controversial.
We're starting to think maybe Ada County needs to change its selection process for replacing a sheriff. As we mentioned, the three candidates were chosen by the county GOP, and how's this Boise State Public Radio report for scary?
Ada County GOP party leaders narrowed a list of six names to three nominees for County Commissioners to choose from. Traubel got more votes from party leaders than any other potential nominee, according to several letters of support party leaders sent commissioners.
Gosh. That explains a lot.
[Idaho Statesman / Boise State Public Radio / Boise Dev]
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Doktor Zoom's real name is Marty Kelley, and he lives in the wilds of Boise, Idaho. He is not a medical doctor, but does have a real PhD in Rhetoric. You should definitely donate some money to this little mommyblog where he has finally found acceptance and cat pictures. He is on maternity leave until 2033. Here is his Twitter, also. His quest to avoid prolixity is not going so great.
