Good op-ed in the Economist:
These allegations—of culpable silence or a “war on police”—would be grave if they were not demonstrably false. The president has not been silent about police killings. In a statement issued after he telephoned Mr Goforth’s widow to offer his condolences, Mr Obama called the targeted killing of police “completely unacceptable” and “an affront to civilised society”. While the Department of Justice did issue a damning report on racial bias within the Ferguson police department, it also probed the police shooting in August 2014 that sparked protests in that Missouri town. To the dismay of some locals, its 86-page report found no grounds to prosecute the officer who fired the fatal shots. Nor are killings of officers soaring, though murder rates have jumped in some cities this summer (arguably because police are being more cautious). To date this year 26 have been shot dead—a grim tally but fewer than over the same period in 2014. Overall, police deaths have declined steadily since the 1970s.
What, then, explains the fury of Mr Obama’s critics? Prejudice is too sweeping an answer, and lazy besides: though a subset of Americans do find an odd satisfaction in calling the president an anti-white racist. Reverend Jeffrey Brown of the Twelfth Baptist Church, one of Boston’s oldest black congregations, has worked with police to reduce gang violence for decades, and gave evidence to a White House task force on policing set up after the Ferguson riots. Asked why he thinks the president upsets some in the police, Mr Brown notes that Mr Obama is asking officers to change how they interact with mistrustful communities. And “change is always difficult for institutions,” he says simply.
That is persuasive. One of Mr Obama’s great strengths when talking about race in America is his focus on national self-improvement. Defying those who want him to take sides, either declaring America damnably racist or ready to embrace colour-blind comity, he calls the country an imperfect work in progress. Yes, it takes special courage to serve in the police, the president said in May, at a ceremony to honour fallen officers. But America can “work harder” to heal rifts between police and the public they risk their lives to protect.
Mr Obama frustrates both those who favour instinctive deference to the police, and radicals in such movements as Black Lives Matter who see policing as repression, and so want less of it. Nobody needs good policing more than poor, high-crime neighbourhoods, Mr Obama said last year. Yes, he is asking a lot of the police, who do a dangerous job under ever-increasing scrutiny. But the president’s demands are also reasonable. His police critics need to calm down.
I’ve just come to the conclusion that every police institution is so highly politicized into a right wing us v. them mentality over the past few decades that anything a Democrat does is considered suspect. That, and authoritarian leaning right-wingers trend towards law enforcement jobs.
Trentrunner
The way police union leaders have behaved in the last 18 months has shown me all I need to about how rancid the corruption is and how hard it will be to remove it.
Baud
It ain’t just the police.
Another Holocene Human
“nobody needs more policing” indeed, but what kind of policing, there’s the rub
Homicide plagued communities need more police detectives and more police service technicians/crime scene investigators, and bigger budgets to do the work.
If we compared suburban case expenditures to the spending in the cities with the highest homicide rates (which are not big cities but mid sized cities), I guarantee your jaw would drop.
If you compared the number of days detectives work each case, ditto.
Bodies pile up, cases don’t get completed, evidence goes untested … perps walk free, perps commit more murders
Another Holocene Human
@Trentrunner: Philly cops were lying to the media that people who shoot other people have their personal information kept confidential, so it’s reasonable to do it for cops.
Uh, NO.
Big ole hound
How come a cop who is shot on the job makes the national news and 3000 others from all over the nation at his funeral but the death of a commercial fisherman or a roofer barely gets mentioned. Both are rated as more dangerous jobs than being a cop and they are not armed.
joel hanes
We know part of the answer to fixing the police — the experiments have been done.
Google “community policing”.
Cops hate it, as it requires them to get out of their beloved, isolating black-and-white cruisers and actually spend their work hours interacting with the people they’re sworn to protect.
Right-wingers despise it, because it doesn’t rely on cracking heads.
But a strong city government can do it.
lowercase steve
” though murder rates have jumped in some cities this summer (arguably because police are being more cautious).”
Or you know, a zillion other possibilities including simple statistical noise. Let’s not start reading into a one year fluctuation just yet….too early to even establish a trend let alone start trying to explain one that might not be there.
raven
@Big ole hound: That’s just dumb.
Thoughtful Today
Erm…
Republicans have been condemning Public Employees for generations.
Republicans condemn Union Employees even more viciously.
Guess who are Public Union Employees?
You could even use right-wing framing: Socialist Welfare Union Employees….
Suzanne
Police hate it because the culture self-selects toward people with brawn rather than brains who want to use deadly weapons and get paid for it. Though certainly there are many cops who do not fit that description, there are enough that do that they drive the subculture.
Honestly, I don’t know why anyone would doubt this. If you wanted to serve the public, there are myriad other ways to do so. But those ways don’t get the same level of collective knob-slobbing, or they’re harder and more intellectually demanding, or they’re just not as much fun.
OCD
Black lives matter activists don’t want “less policing”. What they want is less violence and less profiling. Saying they want less policing feeds right into the bullshit meme that murder rates and the crime rate in general are up because of their activism. It doesn’t surprise me that that’s how The Economist sees it, but it’s it’s still bullshit.
kuvasz
“authoritarian leaning right-wingers trend towards law enforcement jobs.”
Know why? Most cannot get other jobs.
Ruckus
@Big ole hound:
Well for one thing roofers and fisherman aren’t armed (normally) and aren’t faced with being shot. Yes more people die on those jobs but fish and roofs aren’t assholes or trying to kill them. (OK maybe the sharks, but even then that’s not what’s killing the fishermen). These are lives lost because the work is dangerous in of itself and because many employers cut corners while the people doing the work need the job, usually badly need it and won’t/don’t complain for fear of losing said job.
All that said you are round about making a good point, there are dangerous jobs out there and many employers do little to nothing to mitigate that danger. Being a cop can be a dangerous job but I believe that yes, currently that danger is being oversold and the reliance on abdication of citizens rights is as well. Cops can do much better, like community policing, being for gun control, etc, as who needs it more, the people who supposedly put themselves in harms way every day or the rest of the 300+ million of us who stand a minuscule chance of being killed by gun shot?
kdaug
Too racist for the military, but still need to let your authoritarian freak flag fly?
JPL
@Trentrunner: The union who represents Officer James Frascatore, already said he used proper force. James Blake needs to sue the officer and let the union pay.
Ruckus
@Suzanne:
And there have been reports of people being told that they are too smart to be hired as cops. At least that’s their side. Also if you only hire people who are the kind of people that a lot think all cops are, who is going to rise in the organization? At some point there are many fewer to control/teach better methods/be actual decent role models. Sort of like the current repub party. The fish stinks from all points, not just the head.
joel hanes
@Suzanne:
Sunnyvale CA has broken that cycle.
All police in that community are also firefighters and EMTs — the job title is “Public Safety Officer”, I think.
Having to rush into burning buildings and having to care for people in medical emergencies tends to diminish the attraction of the job for authoritarian dimwits.
They’re pretty damned wonderful people, and the women on that force (and there are many) are truly awesome.
srv
Just statistical noise.
Mnemosyne (tablet)
@Ruckus:
A better comparison would probably be convenience store clerks and taxi drivers, both of whom are murdered on the job at higher rates than cops are.
JPL
Why did the chief of police in NYC release a photo of a suspect they were looking for that resembled James Blake? The photo came from gobutler and was of a person who was not a suspect. Did the police union take the commissioner as a fool, or is Bratton a fool? NYC might have a couple of lawsuits now.
@Baud: The AMA protects their own.
SFAW
Probably more accurate, although Baud!2016 made a similar comment.
Ruckus
@Mnemosyne (tablet):
True. Wasn’t trying to be restrictive, just answering the first comment. There are many, many jobs that are inherently dangerous, that people do every day. Electricians, foundry workers, taxi drivers, convenience store workers, commercial fishermen, roofers…… Now some of these are not getting shot or dying at the same rate (some as you note are and at a higher rate!) but the job is dangerous. How about military? I know of at least one who died and he wasn’t even in combat. He was too stupid to know the difference between the front and the rear of a fighter plane though. Blown off the deck of a carrier, that’s approx 75 feet off the water. All that was found was his helmet and life jacket.
raven
@Ruckus: Like I said. . .
Mnemosyne (tablet)
@Ruckus:
And IIRC about half of the deaths on the job reported for cops are fatal accidents, but some people act like if a cop died, it must have been because someone killed him/her on purpose.
I have several cops in my extended family, so I don’t have the knee-jerk hatred that some people here have, but I do feel strongly that our current methods of hiring and training cops to be Darryl Gates-like cowboys is a huge contribution to the problem.
a hip hop artist from Idaho (fka Bella Q)
@Baud: Are there any positions still unfilled with Baud!2016? I’ve recently been doing a good deal of policy work in the mental health arena, including the intersection with criminal justice. And of course there’s the criminal law background.
JPL
@Mnemosyne (tablet): In a lot of communities, they just don’t pay enough for qualified officers. I thought that Joel’s comment at seventeen was excellent but they still need to be paid.
Doug R
@joel hanes: I kinda like the idea of firefighters with guns, better than cops anyway.
Mike G
@joel hanes:
Right-wingers despise it because it requires intelligence, relationship building and flexibility over thuggish authoritarianism, none of which are their strengths. Too many people become cops because they’re bullies itching to unleash violence with impunity. They aggravate and escalate situations that don’t require it, by acting like assholes instead of professionals.
The LAPD has a unit doing some good work in community policing in South LA, but their methods are being fiercely resisted by the rest of the organization.
SiubhanDuinne
@a hip hop artist from Idaho (fka Bella Q):
Just don’t try to tell him what to say. That job’s taken.
@Baud:
Chris
@OCD:
Yeah. This is why the incessant “but what about black on black crime?” meme is such bullshit. The BLM types are perfectly aware of black on black crime. Their problem with cops isn’t that they’re white, their problem is that they’re busy profiling, beating the shit out of, and killing random blacks instead of investigating and preventing actual crime. “Black on black crime” is part of what they’re objecting to in the first place.
rikyrah
good for them
New Reality TV Show Celebrates Urban Kids Who Love STEM
Published by Helena Joseph at September 10, 2015
Fifteen teenagers living together in a large house for eight weeks may sound like the makings of an all-too-familiar reality television show. But these youngsters weren’t chosen for outrageous antics: they were handpicked for their academic prowess in STEM disciplines.
The family audience reality show, aptly entitled Hood Smart: The Urban STEMulus Project, features STEM scholars from black communities across the U.S. who are competing in science, technology, engineering, and math related challenges for the ultimate prize, a full-ride college scholarship.
– See more at: http://urbangeekz.com/2015/09/new-reality-tv-show-celebrates-urban-kids-who-love-stem/#sthash.J6I4DUSD.dpuf
Kyle
@joel hanes:
Sunnyvale CA has broken that cycle.
All police in that community are also firefighters and EMTs — the job title is “Public Safety Officer”, I think. Having to rush into burning buildings and having to care for people in medical emergencies tends to diminish the attraction of the job for authoritarian dimwits.
That sounds like a good idea. Not being in adversarial situations with the public all of the time might change the bunker mentality.
rikyrah
Video of the James Blake attack. Blake was just standing there, Existing While Black, when the cop comes out of NOWHERE.
DOES NOT IDENTIFY HIMSELF
And proceeds , with a gang of his buddies, to attack Blake.
for what is a non-violent crime – identity theft.
https://twitter.com/CBSNews/status/642473061996994560?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw
Baud
@a hip hop artist from Idaho (fka Bella Q):
So this is a “nontraditional” campaign that will focus less on “issues” and “policies” and more on clever memes and whining about other people. But I’m a big believer in patronage, so if you can encapsulate your policy work in a meme of some sort, preferably one with cats, then I’m sure we can find a place for you.
rikyrah
The Brutal Treatment and Heartless Murder of #NatashaMcKenna
SAY HER NAME!!!
Shaun King @ShaunKing Sep 10
If you want to know WHAT happened to #NatashaMcKenna WITHOUT watching the awful video, read my latest piece here.
http://www.dailykos.com/story/2015/09/09/1419796/-The-devastating-decision-to-not-prosecute-in-the-brutal-in-custody-death-of-Natasha-McKenna …
Baud
@SiubhanDuinne:
On the other hand, Bella Q may be willing to take IOUs.
BruceFromOhio
I used to read The Economist. The anonymity got to be a chore.
Shakezula
And those radicals are made of straw.
I’ve yet to come across anyone saying there should be less policing, unless you call objecting to things like stop n’
violate your rightsfrisk as a call for less policing.And if you do that, you don’t really care about fixing what ails policing.
rikyrah
Driving While Black is REAL
theGrio.comVerified account
@theGrio
Woman sent to psych ward because police didn’t believe BMW was hers breaks silence http://on.thegrio.com/1K3iAM8
https://twitter.com/theGrio/status/642718420463521792?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw
Baud
@rikyrah:
A capital offense.
rikyrah
Thaddeus Russell @ThaddeusRussell
“You promised you wouldn’t kill me,” said #NatashaMcKenna before she was shackled to a chair and tasered to death. http://www.nbcwashington.com/news/local/Police-Release-Video-of-Moment-326383421.html …
4:26 PM – 10 Sep 2015
SiubhanDuinne
@Baud:
Wait, you mean it’s a competition? We have to apply?
Baud
@Shakezula:
That’s exactly what they call it.
Baud
@SiubhanDuinne:
No, you just have to work for free.
Consider it an internship.
srv
@joel hanes: Interesting
http://agency.governmentjobs.com/sunnyvale/job_bulletin.cfm?JobID=430028
JPL
@Baud: Gov Christie two days before the police officer threw James Blake to the ground, said that the NYPD was prevented from stop and frisk by the mayor. He thought that was wrong.
Ruckus
@Baud:
Work for free?
I realize that my time isn’t worth, well let’s face it, shit, but it’s worth more than nothing. Could I work for a candy bar to be named later?
Omnes Omnibus
@efgoldman: You need to make your bones on Baud! 2016 and then cash in.
Baud
@efgoldman:
I spent your nickel on hookers and blow. I ain’t got no money for your consultant fee.
How about this? If I win, you get Rhode Island.
@Ruckus:
I’ll put your face on the trillion dollar platinum coin I’ll probably have to mint.
Geeno
@a hip hop artist from Idaho (fka Bella Q): Are you applying to be some kind of Congressional liaison?
Ruckus
Want to see what people dying at the hands of the police looks like?
Try the Guardian website page The Counted
It is an eye opener, especially if you compare to countries like the UK or Germany.
Anoniminous
@Baud:
What about Ambassadorships?
I’ve always wanted to
laze around someplace talking shit and generally doing nothing while collecting a fat government salary and taking bribes from US corporations to promote their worthless productsserve my country.Ruckus
@Baud:
That would make it worthless.
You’ll have to do better.
Baud
@Geeno:
Ha!
redshirt
Maybe there should be term limits for police, at least in respect to the jobs they do. Two years on the street, two years at a desk, etc.
I concede that it seems easy to not only become desensitized to violence, but since you’ve got the badge and the military behind you, too easy to start the slide down into it.
Steeplejack (tablet)
@a hip hop artist from Idaho (fka Bella Q):
Clearly you are way overqualified.
Gin & Tonic
@Baud: How about this? If I win, you get Rhode Island.
Hey! WTF?
redshirt
@joel hanes:
I really like this idea. Cross train everyone and have them do all the public safety jobs.
Baud
@Anoniminous:
One reform I’d like to make is to end the practice of having only one ambassador per country. With multiple ambassadors in each country, it becomes easier to
raise more moneyengage in more diplomacy.JPL
@Baud: I’ve been researching Baud 2016 and have already started writing a book. It’s going to be a yoooge expose on Baud 2016. I might title it Game Change II.
redshirt
@BruceFromOhio:
Same. I read The Econo for over a decade when I finally realized they were too conservative, and frankly I could no longer keep up. At the end I just stopped reading their US sections and instead read the other, still good sections covering the rest of the world.
Baud
@Gin & Tonic:
You can have Providence Plantation.
Ruckus
@Ruckus:
Looked at CA for the entire year so far and out of 137 total (highest total in the nation, 12th per capita) only 5 women. So it’s true, men really are bigger assholes.
Neldob
I think police are generally right wing by profession, like professors often tend left. But police have way more power, and have been found to be sometimes corrupt and lying. Protecting each others lies, and terrible and illegal behavior. Corruption in the police force is entirely unacceptable and borders on fascism or some weird police state. It’s a threat to our democracy and shouldn’t be tolerated.
Baud
@JPL:
You could make up every word and it would still be more accurate than the New York Times.
Gin & Tonic
@Baud: Oh, OK then. But it’s plural, you know. Providence Plantations.
rikyrah
Keith Boykin
@keithboykin
And this is how police killed Tamir Rice and John Crawford. They attack first and ask questions later. #JamesBlake
Baud
@Gin & Tonic:
You’re only getting one of them. I’ve got other staffers to pay.
Ruckus
@efgoldman:
OK you guys talked me into it.
Ruckus! 2016
And I will pay you. Something. Not much of something for sure but something. As long as it’s eatable and I can buy it in bulk at Costco and carry it out in one shopping bag. And, if, and this is a big if and I mean big, as in bigger than T Rumps ego, we win, patronage jobs for everyone.
Baud
@Ruckus:
I was kind of hoping for a coronation.
Matt McIrvin
538 on crime rates:
http://fivethirtyeight.com/features/scare-headlines-exaggerated-the-u-s-crime-wave/
Homicide in large cities is up about 16 percent, but the media stories are extremely cherry-picked. Cities in which homicide rates are stable or dropping are not uncommon (it’s down in Boston).
I suspect that some of the rise really does come from the protests over police brutality–not because brutality and arbitrary killings are necessary for policing, but because the police in these cities don’t know how to do it any other way, and the alternative to oppressing black citizens is not doing much at all. Also, they may be deliberately pulling back so they can point to the rising murder rate and blame it on BLM.
Ruckus
@Baud:
Maybe, maybe not.
And you wouldn’t ask for that if you knew my ancestry. An Italian island if you must know. And besides competition is fun and I have trophies to prove it.
Cervantes
@redshirt:
What logical explanation did you have for their “rest of the world” section being objectively better than their US section?
Another Holocene Human
@OCD: Unless their name is poor little rich girl Marissa Janae Johnson who posted:
She has now baleeted it off the intert00bs but forgot about InternetArchive.
Patrisse Cullors may think that everything is hunky dory and Marissa’s loose cannon off message spew is no big deal. I disagree.
To be clear: BLM as a collective has never advocated anarchy. But one of its founders gave her blessing to someone who has done so vigorously.
JPL
@efgoldman: I can envision the bumper stickers now. Baud 2016 with a tiara on top. Make our country sparkle again.
Baud
@efgoldman:
I read that as BJ crown, and thought “why would this blog have a crown.”
@Ruckus:
Am I going to see a horse’s head in my bed tomorrow morning?
raven
And the Vols bite the big one!
Cervantes
@JPL:
a hip hop artist from Idaho (fka Bella Q)
@Geeno: Christ no, but my qualifications for such a role are tremendous, if I do say so myself.
@Steeplejack (tablet): But I’m great at meme – building. And I take IOUs – like a sweet patronage gig as Chief Deputy AG in charge of canine civil disobedience.
Cervantes
@Baud:
I think the country’s ready for it.
Another Holocene Human
@Chris:
People in impoverished communities, communities of color, immigrant communities, bear the burden of uninvestigated, unsolved crimes, including unsolved homicides. There are plenty of factors in violent crime rates among the underprivileged but one that is so easily solvable–yet so frequently ignored–is the tendency to fail to put sufficient police resources-$$$$-into investigating major crimes. More officers banging on doors when it happens. More technicians working the scene. More detective hours investigating. More money for lab work.
They won’t spend on thin dime. Not one red cent. Instead they blame the ‘hood for not “cooperating”. Yeah, that’s another thing they won’t spend any resources on, protecting the lives of witnesses. But this notion of lack of community cooperation is a canard. The difference in spending between high crime areas and wealthy burbs is ENORMOUS. Ironically, those urban detectives are probably better at their jobs, more seasoned, but they’re denied time and resources.
It’s all good, though, NYC has like fifty layers of management above detectives. Crime: solved.
I am being flip. Most of these cities are smaller and need more money, period. The feds giving them free narcotics officers is not making any appreciable difference that I can see.
mclaren
Shorter John Cole:
Policing attracts bullies the way manure attracts flies.
Ruckus
@Baud:
Dead fish. They rot faster. And smell worse.
Surely you wouldn’t expect me to warn you of exactly when now would you?
And yes I called you Surely.
Baud
@a hip hop artist from Idaho (fka Bella Q):
Who can abridge their rights when they look at you with those puppy dog eyes?
redshirt
@Cervantes:
I’m mostly unfamiliar with the internal politics of say, Angola, so it reads more like a straight news piece when I read about elections in Angola, for example.
mclaren
@Ruckus:
Yes, but bear in mind that the the entire police force of Germany fired 88 bullets last year.
Eighty.
Eight.
Bullets.
Total.
raven
@Ruckus: There was a guy I knew that was a real jerk. He moved to Florida from Illinois and, somehow, when he left town some fish got taped inside his hubcaps. There’s a lesson in there somewhere!
Baud
@Ruckus:
I didn’t even know fish had a sense of smell.
raven
@Baud: You never heard of stink bait??? Cats have olfactory sensors all over their bodies.
http://smokeysdeerlure.com/wp-content/uploads/2014/07/Catfish-Bait_1573.jpg
Another Holocene Human
@redshirt: Ha. I think sleep deprivation is a factor. Whacks your hormones and makes you stupider.
They could have police pick shifts and pay a shift differential for the overnight shift. But municipalities don’t want to pay shift differential so they’ve gone to the “fair” system of rotating shifts every 6 weeks for everyone.
Except, funny story, turns out rotating shifts through the clock every 6 weeks is murder on the human body. Ever wondered why cops are so fat? Raises cancer risk too, although they don’t have a particularly higher mortality rate than other professions, must be lower exposure to other risk factors–pesticides, diesel fumes, coal dust. Dunno.
Everything about municipal policies around cops just seems tweaked for the worst possible outcome. Research shows higher IQ cops do less beatin’ and killin’, so some munis refuse to hire as cops people over a certain cutoff IQ.
Is it any wonder our cops refuse to adopt national and international best practices? Why bother, Scalia will just make it legal to do just about anything. No worries.
Another Holocene Human
@mclaren: They’re supposed to weed them out, though. Not make bullying their model.
redshirt
@mclaren:
Wow. Got a source? I’d like to read more.
Ruckus
@raven:
There’s a lesson in there somewhere!
Do you think he learned it?
Baud
@raven:
Both are news to me. I learn a lot from this blog.
Ruckus
@Baud:
They do but everything smells like water.
raven
@Baud: Used to make my own. You take chicken livers or old cheese, let em get ripe and make little balls stuffed in pieces of nylon stockings. Thread em on a treble hook at cast them suckers on the bottom! The when you catch a big one you nail to to a tree and peel it with pliers.
raven
THIS WAS TRUNCATED!!!!
redshirt
@Another Holocene Human: Probably. But the job itself must be incredibly hard. You’re dealing with the worst humanity has to offer, every day. Must grind you down, even if you started off well-intentioned.
Baud
@raven:
And it’s the smell that attracts the fish?
raven
@Baud: Heck yes There is a school of thought that says you have to be careful what kind of soap, aftershave and other stuff you might have on you hands when you handle bait.
Ruckus
@Baud:
I was kind of hoping for a coronation.
You know it’s possible that working together we could do better. Or worse, it all depends. I refuse to be queen though, that’s all on you.
Baud
@raven:
Holy catfish!
Omnes Omnibus
@raven:
I once knew a guy whose dad had that happen to his arm. The old man was an Austrian serving as a Wehrmacht officer on the Russian front. He made the mistake of getting captured. The kid was a captain in a British hussar regiment.
redshirt
@raven: Do you believe the cycles of the moon affect your fishing success?
raven
@Baud: Do Fish Scents Make Sense?
Baud
@Omnes Omnibus:
Well this thread just got much darker.
Baud
@raven:
I…I…believe you, Raven.
raven
@redshirt: Yea, and water temp and the color of lures. I used to salmon fish in lake Michigan with big shiny spoons with colored fluorescent strips on them. There were times when they’d only hit on one color. When I deep sea fish there are different rigs and baits for different species.
Omnes Omnibus
@Baud: Just doing my part. BTW I want a cushy gig at the NSC.
Ruckus
@Baud:
Think of the worst thing you can to do to someone. That’s already been done in wartime.
raven
@Omnes Omnibus: I’d generally kill the fish before I skint it.
raven
@Baud: Sorry, I like fishing as much as I do football.
Baud
@Omnes Omnibus:
You got it. The National Safety Council is all yours.
Geeno
@JPL: No – Baud Rate 2016
Omnes Omnibus
@Baud: Woohoo! I can use the three letters to impress people down at the pub, but when I screw up it’s less likely to make headlines.
Omnes Omnibus
@Ruckus: Given German behavior in the USSR, what happened isn’t all that surprising.
@raven: The old man lived. Otherwise the kid wouldn’t have existed.
Baud
@efgoldman:
I’m still auditioning speech writers. SiubhanDuinne had that funny Nickelback joke in the last thread but she charges an arm and a leg. Bella Q will work for free now in exchange for being put in charge of the dogs and/or Congress later. Tough choice.
Omnes Omnibus
@Baud: Could one do domestic policy speeches and the other do foreign policy?
JimGod
@Another Holocene Human: This whole decentralized shtick and the Hillary Clinton meeting where the activists had absolutely no policy demands is why the Black Lives Matter movement is already finished. The Campaign Zero thing that Deeray Mackeson (I think thats his name) set up actually has policy demands and proposals to combat police abuse. I hope that group gets more exposure and steers the debate going forward.
Ruckus
@Omnes Omnibus:
Given warfare, nothing surprises me.
mclaren
@redshirt:
Sorry, the German police force fired 85 bullets total. Not 88. And it was in 2011, which I think is the most recent year we’ve got stats for.
Source here:
German police officers fired a total of 85 bullets in 2011, 49 of which were warning shots, the German publication Der Spiegel reported. Officers fired 36 times at people, killing six and injuring 15. This is a slight decline from 2010, when seven people were killed and 17 injured. Ninety-six shots were fired in 2010. — NBC World News.
People in America just don’t realize how incredibly ultraviolent our police are.
Baud
@Omnes Omnibus:
That’s a better compromise than my original idea, which was to give them alternating words in each speech.
Omnes Omnibus
@Baud: I’ve already proved my value. I now want to be one of the ambassadors to France.
redshirt
@raven:
I never knew about this, but I just picked up a Farmers Almanac and they have charts showing the best times to fish for every day of the year, based primarily on the Moon (but also astrology….).
Baud
@efgoldman:
Excellent idea. I knew I did the right thing giving you Rhode Island.
I’ve got a long day of campaigning tomorrow, so good night everyone.
redshirt
@mclaren: It’s funny (sad; terrifying) that in your source it points out American cops fired more bullets, total, at ONE person than all the German cops did for the year. WOW!
a hip hop artist from Idaho (fka Bella Q)
@Baud: Hence the (correctly oriented) Chief Deputy AG to make certain no one abridges their rights.
@raven: Oh absolutely on the scent. Fisherman’s soap is usually made with anise essential oil, which sort of deodorizes fisherman (human) scent. The hand scent will transfer to lures and warn the clever fish away, hence the anise oil to disguise your scent.
mclaren
A few statistics on police that might prove interesting:
Norwegian police fired their weapons 2 times last year.
British police fired their weapons 3 times last year.
German police went way overboard and fired their weapons 85 times (2011).
Canada recorded an average of 12 fatal police shootings a year between 1999 and 2009.
British police fired their weapons on just 51 occasions between 2003 and 2013.
In Japan, the last time a suspect was shot by a police officer was in 2012.
Meanwhile, in America, U.S. cops use more ammo per man than the entire German police force did in 2011.
In just one incident, Cleveland car chase ends with two dead, 137 shots fired and six police charged.”
Tenar Darell
In my endless quest to distract from the silly news season of August, I borrowed Strert Kings from my local library regional service. Without giving away too much, the main character is a corrupt cop in the LA Police Department. A 2008 movie. There was a line that was chilling, to the effect that if Firemen or Teachers could, they’d be corrupt too. Which brings the Atlanta testing cheating case to mind, but then the teachers are actually being punished, cops generally not so much. (Of course, there’s always been department wide corruption– Serpico, the Rampart scandal, Adrian Schoolcraft etc.—punishment there was rare to non-existent).
redshirt
See, people? McLaren is not a troll in the vein of “A guy” or “srv” the rest of those losers.
I think sometimes you just can’t handle the truths she dispenses.
raven
@redshirt: Tides
Geeno
Can I be an Ambassador somewhere? Just good food – I love ethnic foods. Mediterranean, Asian, Caribbean, really most countries have delicious food if you’re willing to try it.
Just somewhere not very important.
Omnes Omnibus
@efgoldman: And a Packer-Bears game.
raven
@redshirt: Fuck her and the horse she road in on.
a hip hop artist from Idaho (fka Bella Q)
@raven:
Hence the moon (as you know; and now you know I know as well…)
@raven: And it’s not the horse’s fault, okay?
Shakezula
@JimGod: Deray McKesson is one of the founders of Black Lives Matter.
Omnes Omnibus
@redshirt: mclaren is an asshole and frequently a liar. The fact that s/he may occasionally say something that happens to have value is more a function of blind squirrel than anything else.
Tenar Darell
@redshirt: Yes. So, why isn’t that part of the psych evaluation and training of the job? With a backstop of, oh, off the top of my head, officers who cannot handle it get a discharge and a truncated pension after like 5 years or something? (Like soldiers get honorable discharges at different stages). If you cannot go out every day and interact well with the public you’re supposed to be protecting, you really should not have a badge or gun. No shame attaches to not being able to take that kind of stress day in and day out, there should be exit ramps where you can resign or be discharged without losing everything.
redshirt
@raven:
Do tides have an effect on lake fishing? Seems unlikely to me, but I know nothing on this subject.
redshirt
@Omnes Omnibus:
Yes, people with different opinions then the norm are often labeled assholes. I don’t know anything about being a liar.
She’s sincere, though, and so not a troll.
mclaren
@Omnes Omnibus:
Fact-free insult.
Sources?
Citations?
Evidence?
mclaren
@raven:
You mean “rode.”
If you want to spew vacuous verbal venom, at least learn the English language first.
divF
@Geeno: Dibs on the Duchy of Grand Fenwick!
redshirt
@mclaren: lol
mclaren
Meanwhile, in really important news, Antonio Banderas is going to fashion school in order to bring back capes for menswear.
This is what we need: capes.
Capes will make America great again!
JimGod
@Shakezula: And yet the very foot soldiers of the movement have attacked him for trying to meet with Bernie Sanders after the Netroots disaster. The whole decentralized nature of the movement has been its destruction. McKesson has apparently moved on with this new group. Policy demands are very important to see any action on these matters. BLM has failed on that matter. Hopefully going forward their can be more action on this matter then just performance art and street theater.
redshirt
@JimGod: I’ve read that the decentralized nature of BLM is one of their strengths, as no one individual can be targeted in retribution.
Ruckus
@redshirt:
Not a troll.
You are being rather generous this evening. I believe it’s quite possible that you haven’t been paying attention.
redshirt
@Ruckus:
Not a troll. She’s sincere. And eloquent and obviously very intelligent. You might not like what she says, but remember our Overton Window and that mclaren is to the Left.
Omnes Omnibus
@redshirt: Dude, you are entitled to your opinion, and I didn’t say that s/he was a troll. As far as lying goes, mclaren has stated that I support the TPP and that I have stated that if the president does it, it is not illegal. Both of those statements cannot be supported by any statement I have made. As far as being an asshole, I reserve the right to call someone that if the person suggests that I masturbate to Holocaust porn. YMMV.
redshirt
@Omnes Omnibus: Oh, you mean personal attacks. I wasn’t considering that, just comments on issues and events.
I’m sure she’s an asshole, at least online. Big deal.
She’s never insulted me. Yet! I’m also an asshole, FYI. At least online.
Ruckus
@redshirt:
It really depends on your point of view. Without centralized control, many organizations wither because no one knows what to attempt to accomplish. But with BLM that really isn’t true, people know what is needed and a less structured control may just break though the bullshit to have impact and as you say not one person to blame. But many in this country (and probably others) always think that everything has one person at the top. A CEO, chairman of the board….. Republicans seem to think that it’s an invisible deity or republican president who can act the part (but I’m being redundant) who is responsible and micromanages everything.
mclaren
Decentralization proves popular for populist movements nowadays, like Occupy and Black Lives Matter, but there’s a big drawback to decentralization: lack of leadership.
A lot of people have argued that people like Eugene Debs and Martin Luther King and Walter Reuther had such great success was they exerted strong leadership and drilled the rank and file members in exactly how to behave when attacked by police or strikebreaking goons armed with pickaxe handles, and so on. Centralized leadership also produced a specific list of demands for labor and voting rights activitsts in the 1930s through the 1960s. This gave coherence and solidarity to the members of the organizations, and gave the public a clear understanding of what the strikes or voter rights activists were seeking.
Occupy didn’t have a unified response to police violence against them (contrast with the extremely successful and disciplined response of the students at Berekely who shamed and disgraced Lt. James Pike and his entire goon squad, as well as the chancellor of the university) and the general public also didn’t have a clear idea of why Occupy was demonstrating.
Discipline and strong leadership seem to me like the keys to any successful popular movement, and BLM and Occupy seem to be lacking those assets. I think this explains why BLM and Occupy have made so little headway today compared to the AFL/CIO or MLK’s leadership council decades ago.
Omnes Omnibus
@redshirt: Well, since my comment was that s/he was an asshole and a liar…
Steeplejack (tablet)
@Omnes Omnibus:
C’mon, you don’t even know how big France is!
Although, come to think of it, that has never been a barrier to ambassadorship. Carry on, then.
redshirt
@Omnes Omnibus:
Fair enough. I like what she brings to this blog, like the post above. It’s well written and has a lot of information. Compare that to real trolls and you’ll see there is no comparison.
Omnes Omnibus
@Steeplejack (tablet): I knew how big France is. What I didn’t know was how big Wisconsin is.
@redshirt: Others’ mileage varies.
Ruckus
@redshirt:
Pay closer attention, s/he is trolling, maybe not in your definition, but when mc doesn’t get his way or a response that he desires, s/he is worthless and worse. S/he may be sincere but so is C. Manson. Not that I’m comparing the two in substance, or degree of assholyness, only sincerity. Sincerity is not the mark of truth in any event. I know someone who is sincere that GWB is a good man, a good friend and the greatest president ever.
redshirt
@mclaren:
I suppose it’s the difference between that strong leadership being shared among many people, or in the hands of one charismatic individual and his hand selected group of fellow leaders.
redshirt
@Ruckus:
I doubt GWB was sincere in many things. His lack of sincerity oozed off of him, for me. But obviously not for others.
This is a centrist-left blog, yes? Ideally more Left than we maybe achieve? If so, then strident and sincere appeals from the Left are not trolling, but rather challenging. Asking you in direct terms what is it you believe, and what are you willing to do to obtain that?
Right to Rise is a troll. srv is a troll. They don’t believe or care what they’re talking about, and the ONLY reason they type what they do is get you, the Leftist audience of Balloon Juice, outraged and responding to them.
I get the sense mcclaren sincerely believes everything she types and I, for one, welcome a challenge from the Left.
Was Socrates a troll?
mclaren
I have a comment debunking Omnes Omnibus’ claims in detail. Naturally, it’s trapped in moderation.
Isn’t it interesting that my detailed fact-rich comments get shunted into moderation, while fact-free insults by Omnes Omnibus like “mclaren is an asshole and a liar” show up instantly?
redshirt
@efgoldman: I was just using a comparison and not actually equating.
Most everyone in Athens seemed to hate the heck out of Socrates, apparently.
redshirt
@efgoldman: It was coyote poop, the consensus goes.
It seems too big for coyotes, to me. But I’m no expert. I’m secretly hoping it’s wolf scat.
Omnes Omnibus
@mclaren: How many links did you put in, dipshit? More than three, including a reply link, puts one in moderation. The asshole comment is my opinion. And unless you can find posts showing my support for the TPP or a blanket statement by that, if the president does it, it is not illegal, well, you are a liar.
srv
Less than 24 hours after being called out by Trump:
ok, maybe Surgeon General or H&HS
I know how that feels.
Doug R
@Anoniminous: Not to mention getting two sets of paid stat holidays.
BruceFromOhio
@raven: So what you are saying is that fish can smell.
chris9059
@Big ole hound: Because roofers and fisherman aren’t the hired legbreakers of the 0.1%.
srv
Even in the liberal bastion of Ames Iowa:
joel hanes
@raven:
Used to make my own.
Grampa used your recipe, but added slightly-aged offal from cleaning panfish.
His catfish cleaning table had a big homemade wooden clamp for the tail.
Steeplejack (tablet)
@Omnes Omnibus:
Touché.
Amir Khalid
@srv:
Trump is enjoying his big-dog status, isn’t he? But this quote from him
suggests to me that there’s a yooooge Dunning-Kruger field emanating from the Donald.
redshirt
@Omnes Omnibus: lol. It’s on now.
mclaren
@Omnes Omnibus:
:Let’s turn that around. You’re very good at demanding all kinds of evidence from others — but how about first providing evidence that I claimed you supported the TPP and providing hard evidence that I claimed you said “If the president does it, it’s legal.”
Not vague assertions. Show me the actual post where I said that. Then it will be worth my time to go back and find the specific posts in which you supported key provisions of the TPP and the specific posts in which you applauded Obama’s grossly illegal murder of U.S. citizens without indicting them or even accusing them of committing a crime.
Amir Khalid
@mclaren:
It’s not personal. FYWP hates everybody.
mclaren
@Amir Khalid:
The peculiar fact about Trump is that while he sounds like an incompetent ignorant fool, he is — on paper anyway — a billionaire.
It’s kind of hard to hurl accusations of the Dunning-Kruger Effect at a businessman when he’s made a billion dollars.
Omnes Omnibus
@redshirt: I’ve done this before. mclaren is never able to put up. We have some history.
Ruckus
@redshirt:
As I implied sincerity is not a useful tool to determine if someone is truthful or in any way useful. There are quite likely several dozen people in history who are major assholes, much more so than mc, that most any one here could name that have sincerity. But trolling is not limited to people getting paid nor who believe their bullshit. Yes mc occasionally makes good points, as Omnes said a blind squirrel can find an acorn. Being a part of the conversation and what one hopes to accomplish makes a commenter. A troll tries to steal the conversation and when that fails they don’t understand why and/or they get angry an then just double down and become bigger assholes. And that describes mc.
Ruckus
@chris9059:
That’s a much better answer than mine. Both are true, yours gets right to the point.
joel hanes
@srv:
I can’t tell if you’re being ironic or sincere.
the liberal bastion of Ames Iowa
The University of Iowa, in the old territorial capitol Iowa City, is the one the Republican regents have set out to destroy, the bastion of liberal thought and liberal arts in Iowa. Home of the famous Iowa Writers Workshop, some good science, some credible fine-arts programs.
ISU in Ames is the land-grant college, the ag school, the heart of fraternity/sorority culture, good engineering and materials science and veterinary schools. The Atanasoff-Berry computer was built there. The National Animal Disease Labs are in Ames.
When I went there, the Dean of Engineering was a creationist, and Campus Crusade for Christ was the biggest student organization.
And although Ames is a college town and therefore more liberal than most of the surrounding rural area, it was, after all, the home of the Iowa Republican Straw Poll.
Omnes Omnibus
@mclaren: Read this thread. Some of your comments were so over the line that they were deleted. But do find my support for the TPP there.
mclaren
@Omnes Omnibus:
Translation: “I distort what mclraen said, never provide an exact quote, then demand that he research posts years old, and when he refuses, I call mclaren a liar.”
Not a clever scam. If you want to accuse me of being a liar, be specific. Cite the detailed exact post.
You can’t, because you’re running a scam. It’s the old Ann Coulter scam — accuse others of what you yourself are doing. Stalin used this technique during the Holodomor when he starved millions of peasants in the Crimea, then accused them of trying to starve the Soviet people.
Produce the specific posts in which I said what you claim I said, or stand revealed as a character assassin and a liar.
redshirt
@Ruckus:
Oh yes, then, quite. We have different definitions of troll. Semantics, I suppose.
A troll, in my definition, is someone who’s entire identity is constructed around the premise of saying or doing anything contrarian enough in order to get a reaction from the majority of the audience. Could be left, could be right, it’s not political at all, really, but personal.
Remember that internet identities are different then real identities, as they can be constructed entirely, and one can have multiples of them. Thus, a troll is a deliberate creation designed to get an outraged response.
An individual expressing their strident beliefs within an ostensibly positive audience? Not a troll.
Ruckus
@efgoldman:
I used to know someone who ran marathons at 72. But he had slowed way down from when he was 68. Which is of course way faster than I was at 50 and there was no way I was running one then, even though I was running (sort of) 15-20 miles a week. Also knew someone in his late 40s who ran them that could do 26 miles at a pace faster than I could sprint, after swimming and ridding a bike a bit. Lots faster.
Omnes Omnibus
@mclaren: W’evs.
Doug R
TPP has labor provisions. Just sayin’ is all. I hear Bernie supports the drone program as well.
Amir Khalid
@mclaren:
One, it’s been calculated that the Donald would be just as rich as he is now if he’d just socked his money away. So it’s hard to say that his business savvy was what led to his wealth.
Two, as a politician he’s full of shit. He’s been wildly wrong about quite a few things. He ducks questions of substance and relies on personal attacks on other candidates. That might be winning him the polls right now, but a president who did what he wants to do would be an unmitigated disaster for America and the world. He doesn’t seem to be admitting any of this. It could all be a big act, the biggest act of political trolling ever, but to me it’s at least as likely that he really thinks he can succeed as president on pure bluster. That qualifies him for the Dunning-Kruger label.
Omnes Omnibus
@redshirt: Okay, fine. I shouldn’t take offense to this level of discourse?
mclaren
Incidentally, here’s the thread in which I allegedly accused Omnes Omnibus of supporting the TPP — my comment:
“So when Obama shrieks that Warren’s claims were “absolutely wrong,” and Elizabeth Warren points out that
“Seriously, Zandar, you need to just come clean and proclaim your allegiance to Karl Rove and his buddies. Secret treaties and secret corporate courts aren’t the way the law works here in America.”
Nice try, Omnes Omnibus. Notice that the text of the TPP is still classified. So you’re depending for your claim that I’m a liar on the text of a treaty which cannot legally be disclosed.
What I really said is that Obama’s support for a treaty whose fast-track process bypasses the U.S. legislature and U.S. voters is wholly unconstitutional, and that your support for Obama’s position is tantamount to support for the illegal unconstitutional TPP.
In any case, this is all minutia. The substantive point here is that, like all far-right astroturfers, you always come down on the side of the giant corporations and the Dick Cheney-style national security goons.
BTW, that thread you cited is also one in wihch you state (and I quote directly):
Here’s the exact link:
https://balloon-juice.com/2015/05/12/open-thread-big-props-to-kays-senator-sherrod-brown/#comment-5339045
Seriously…you’re accusing me of being a liar because I posted a comment in a long-ago thread with which you agreed?
Come on. You’re getting lazy. Even the laziest astroturfing Swift-boater can’t make a smear that sloppy work…
redshirt
@Ruckus:
I ran some marathons very well and the training program I followed was a big part of it, I think. I’ll call it “Don’t run too much!”
Basically, people get injured training for marathons by running too much.
Instead, mix in other cardiovascular exercises. Swimming. Aerobics. Bicycle. Elliptical. Karate.
So, run 2-3 times a week (5-8 miles a day), and then do something else your other cardio days.
As you get closer to the marathon in question (within 2 months), prepare for longer distance by doing a longer run every other weekend. Go from 10 to 14 to 18. If you can do 18 comfortably, you can do 26.2.
Always stretch! Like all day, every day. Always be stretching.
Ruckus
@redshirt:
Wasn’t it you that was giving Tommy a hard time because of his style of commenting not all that long ago? Because Tommy is never being anything less than sincere and always on topic. (OK a couple of times when he had been drinking but he was still sincere) I recall that you didn’t think he was a troll and defended him so there is that.
mc rises no where near the level of commenter that Tommy is, while of course being much more verbose and gets nasty/assholyish when not given enough deference. You don’t have to look far or hard to see this. Don’t even have to leave this thread.
mclaren
@Amir Khalid:
Oh, I agree wholeheartedly with you on both counts. Trump got born with a silver spoon in his mouth and if he’d just put his inheritance in the NASDAQ index fund, he’d probably be even richer than he is today.
And as a politician, Trump is a joke. I’m not even sure Trump isn’t consciously joking — there’s a large element of tongue-in-cheek in Trump’s outrageous boradsides. For example: “When I become president, America will win so much you may get bored with winning.”
That’s so empty and so evidence-free that it’s hard to regard it as anything but yanking the other Republicans’ chains.
redshirt
@Omnes Omnibus: It is extreme and certainly not appropriate.
Omnes Omnibus
@mclaren: Jesus fuck. Dude, where in that thread do I support the TPP? You are wildly off base.
What you cited does not support your point.
redshirt
mclaren,
I’d like to ask you to be nicer to folks around here.
They might take your well made points more seriously if you didn’t insult them.
Thanks in advance,
Your friend.
redshirt
mclaren
@Ruckus:
Once again:
Evidence?
Specific citations?
One of the typical type of vermin who infest the comments sections here is the shit-and-run specialist, the person who makes a broad vague accusation ("nasty…assholish" and "verbose") but when asked for actual specifics, direct detailed quotes, runs away and is never heard from again.
AFAICT most of these kind of shit-and-run specialists are more than likely paid astroturfers hired by right-wing online boiler rooms. The motto of the British government's JTRIG online disinformation campaign was "Deny, Degrade, Disrupt, Deceive," and that's what we're seeing here with empty comments like yours.
Meanwhile, I provide logic and hard evidence to back up my claims. Omnes Omnibus claims to be a lawyer, yet he eagerly supported Obama's drone murder of Anwar Al-Awlaki without even arraigning Al-Awlaki or accusing him of a crime. Al-Awlaki is a U.S. citizen, and that's unconstitutional. No ifs, ands or buts about it. It's plainly flatly against the laws of the United States.
Amendment 5 of the constitution:
Amendment 6 of the constitution:
Amendment 14 of the constitution:
There’s no gray area here. The constitution doesn’t say “…unless the president finds it inconvenient” or “…unless the American people are really scared and get crazy-stupid.”
Due process. Rule of law. Trial by jury. That’s the law of the land.
This is what Omnes Omnibus is fractically trying to wriggle out of. He claims to be a lawyer, yet flagrantly ignores and shits all over the constitution of the united states. This is why ruckus is hurling empty insults at me — because he just can’t stand to face the hard cold evidence that his beloved Obama is grossly violating the constitution and committing war crimes.
You don’t think that’s what Obama is doing?
You are wrong. Read the New York Times article Secret `Kill List’ Tests Obama’s Principles and Will,” New York Times, 19 May 2012.
Contrary to ruckus’ and omnes omnibus’ vacuous insults, I have provided plenty of detailed facts and lots of logic to back up my claims.
What have they provided?
Nothing but vague name-calling.
srv
mclaren has a lot of energy. This blog has too many low energy people,
mclaren
@srv:
Uh-oh.
Did srv just compliment me?
Have I inadvertently said some horribly stupid and evil thing…?
Ruckus
@redshirt:
I owned a triathlon shop. I worked with a couple of top coaches. I know how to train. What I don’t have is two healthy knees and only one hip and that happened long before I ran regular. If I’d gotten my really bad knee replaced when it was first damaged, I’d be on course for my third one in in another 3 to 5 yrs. I’m now like someone I used to know 25 yrs ago, said he only ran when chased. I asked him if he thought he’d be able to run if he was chased. That stumped him.
redshirt
@Ruckus: Knees seem to be the weak spot of human anatomy.
Ruckus
@redshirt:
At this time the least of my worries.
redshirt
@Ruckus: In general. It’s what usually derails an athlete’s career. That or poverty.
Also, in fighting, besides the genitals, the knees are the best attack points against Giants, if you ever have to fight against a Giant.
Ruckus
@redshirt:
Any joint you can get to bend perpendicular to it’s normal axis is a weak area. The two that are easiest to do this to is first the elbow and second the knee. But you have to do this in a split second while the other person is first not expecting it and is off balance. Some think the knee is easiest because you can use their weight against them but the elbow is a weaker joint. The issue is that as you get older your joints and muscles are also weaker and moving as fast as necessary and in just the right way can be problematic. Get it right though and it stops most cold no matter the joint. Oh and I almost forgot as you get older more and more people seem gigantic, so if you are going to be doing this it will be against a giant. Also most people that assault someone are not like the doufus who attacked the code pink lady, who just had to stand there and watch him fall on his ass.
Plantsmantx
@mclaren:
Yet King’s SLC, the NAACP, CORE, SNCC, the Urban League, etc.received the exact same criticisms.
In the case of the BLM movement, we’re talking about roughly two years in existence- sort of like MLK in 1957 or so.
A guy
Obama ran his mouth when he did know the facts cause he didn’t care what they were. That should frustrate any reasonably person.
JimGod
There seems to be some confusion here. My criticism of the decentralization stems from the inability of this group to articulate policy demands and proposals. If those are lacking in any interest group, and they certainly are here, then that group is not long for this world. A subgroup led by Deray McKeeson has attempted to put policy demands together and that is what I’m applauding. AFL, CIO, SCLC, NAACP always had policy demands to take to the office holders. BLM meet with Hilary Rodham and couldn’t articulate one damn thing they wanted her to actually do. It was surreal. The 2 interruptions of Bernie Sanders were exactly the same thing. If you just show up to just show up, you’re not gonna get anywhere in achieving what you want to achieve.
polyorchnid octopunch
@mclaren: Those of us outside the US are fully aware of it though.
john fremont
@Kyle: I wonder how much that costs the city to cross train people into those specialties.? As the other commenters said, I do like the idea of having paramedics and firefighters having guns and the authority to arrest people.