Come for the politics, stay for the snark.

The line between political reporting and fan fiction continues to blur.

We are builders in a constant struggle with destroyers. keep building.

My right to basic bodily autonomy is not on the table. that’s the new deal.

When you’re a Republican, they let you do it.

Giving in to doom is how authoritarians win.

Following reporting rules is only for the little people, apparently.

Is it irresponsible to speculate? It is irresponsible not to.

If you still can’t see these things even now, maybe politics isn’t your forte and you should stop writing about it.

Peak wingnut was a lie.

DeSantis transforming Florida into 1930s Germany with gators and theme parks.

When I was faster i was always behind.

Bark louder, little dog.

If you tweet it in all caps, that makes it true!

How any woman could possibly vote for this smug smarmy piece of misogynistic crap is beyond understanding.

“When somebody takes the time to draw up a playbook, they’re gonna use it.”

Not so fun when the rabbit gets the gun, is it?

Whatever happens next week, the fight doesn’t end.

New McCarthy, same old McCarthyism.

Let me file that under fuck it.

Since we are repeating ourselves, let me just say fuck that.

Wake up. Grow up. Get in the fight.

Sadly, media malpractice has become standard practice.

You passed on an opportunity to be offended? What are you even doing here?

Polls are now a reliable indicator of what corporate Republicans want us to think.

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Reader Interactions

105Comments

  2. 2.

    Baud

    I can not figure out what to excerpt, it is all so good.

    Anne Laurie never has that problem. ;-)

  3. 3.

    Howard Beale IV

    Balko is good as long as he stays focused on police abuse. But remember that he’s also part of the Reasonoid clique, so a healthy dose of side-eye is very important.

  4. 4.

    Corner Stone

    I hate that stupid Hipster Nature’s Path organic cereal commercial.
    Burn! Burn in a fire!

  6. 6.

    Corner Stone

    Both columns noted polls suggesting that much of a America, especially white America, is fed up,

    HAHAHAHAHA!!
    Good Sweet Christ, White People.

  7. 7.

    Brachiator

    So, what the fvck is wrong with the cops? In Antonio Morgan you have a law abiding citizen. A law abiding citizen that the cops love to fvck with.

    You don’t have the excuse of a person being mistaken for a criminal in a high crime area.

    You don’t have someone running from the cops.

    You don’t have someone in an ambiguous situation.

    What the fvck is wrong with the cops?

    And yes, the conservative fools who think that they have Hillary’s and other Democrats’ numbers don’t seem to be able to recognize or deal with the real world.

  10. 10.

    Roger Moore

    @Howard Beale IV:

    Balko is good as long as he stays focused on police abuse.

    In this case, he’s also being very good about pointing out that the police abuse is the result of a racist system. He goes into some detail about how and why a city government can continue to perpetuate racism even when minorities are in control of the city government. It’s a really excellent read.

  12. 12.

    Infamous Heel-Filcher

    Just got done with that piece. Reasonoids be warned: there’s a full-throated articulation of the structural racism thesis (and concomitant refutation of the “but half the cops who arrested Freddy Gray were black” derailing technique) about halfway through.

    Good on Balko.

  13. 13.

    Baud

    @Howard Beale IV:

    But remember that he’s also part of the Reasonoid clique, so a healthy dose of side-eye is very important.

    The Rand Paul shout out gave that away. But as long as he’s a useful tool…

  15. 15.

    Gex

    It’s a great article, but I will ask the same question I asked about a Conor Friesdorf article. While Randroids can get their analysis of these issues of abusive policing right, what do they expect to do to fix anything? The structural issues that perpetuate these situations are very tightly coupled with the economic policies they prefer. Theft of the value of labor by the ownership class was the underlying factor in slavery and it is the underlying factor in the continued racial divide, and indeed of the profiting off of black people via fines or for-profit prisons and sub-minimum wage prison labor. It’s not going to get better as white workers are continually facing worse futures than their parents faced. Lack of opportunity is the big theme. There’s nothing right wing policy has to offer to fix that.

  17. 17.

    pretzalcoatl

    @Howard Beale IV: but he’s basically the best reporter on What’s Up With The Police in the country, even if you can safely ignore anything else he says (and you should)

  18. 18.

    geg6

    Good on Mr. Balko. Doesn’t change that he’s mostly a Reasonoid hack, but he’s always good on crime and punishment. And his veering into explaining structural racism is a very welcome development. Wonder how his compadres feel about this column. I’ll bet they aren’t enamored.

  19. 19.

    shell

    Why commit journalism when you can just fall back onto cultural cliches?

    They forgot to add about why these protestors can’t be more like MLK.

  20. 20.

    Hal

    But the poorer (which means blacker) towns don’t generate enough income from sales taxes. So they turn to municipal fines to keep themselves from going under. The poorer the town and its residents, the more likely the town relies on fines for a greater percentage of its annual revenue. Which means that the blacker the town, the more likely its residents are getting treated like ATMs for the local government.

    I live in a poorer town that charges 35 bucks for a parking ticket the first three days, then it doubles to 70, then after 15 days you’re up to 140. Imagine getting a ticket on Friday, the day after payday when all your money has been spent on rent and what you have left is for gas, food, to get you to the next check two weeks away. You just resign yourself to pay the 140, if you can afford to, and if not you just hope you don’t get pulled over or get any more tickets.

    There’s also alternate side of the road parking everyday, even though I see a street cleaner maybe once every two months. Given the massive potholes in the streets and the constant run down quality of the place, I have no idea where all that money is going.

  22. 22.

    Mike Furlan

    Stop pretending that facts have anything to do with the way people will vote.

    Had lunch today with a co-worker who thinks that the 2008-2009 crash was cause by “Clinton making the banks give home loans to deadbeats.”

    Related:

    As of 2008, nearly half of Russians view Stalin positively, and many support restoration of his monuments either dismantled by leaders or destroyed by rioting Russians during the 1991 dissolution of the USSR.[32][33]
    http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Neo-Stalinism

  23. 23.

    Ridnik Chrome

    Saw that stupid Cohen column in today’s Daily News (the only NYC paper that actually carries the results of Cubs games the next day, which is the only reason I still look at it). Excellent takedown…

  24. 24.

    Betty Cracker

    Excellent column; I will be sharing it widely.

    @Gex: Great point. And he’s wrong that Rand Paul doesn’t benefit politically; Baby Doc is positioning himself as the GOP candidate who can capture the yoot vote.

  25. 25.

    Corner Stone

    @Hal:

    Given the massive potholes in the streets and the constant run down quality of the place, I have no idea where all that money is going.

    Red light cameras and meter maids!

  26. 26.

    boatboy_srq

    @Corner Stone: That, followed by:

    Both columns… cite one particular poll which found that 96 percent of respondents expect more racial strife this summer.

    As if “more racial strife” were a consequence of “white people being fed up”. Cohen and Green really are Pieces of Work.

    I daresay, though, that people being “fed up” include a decent number that are beginning to realize that what happened to Gray, and what happened to Antonio Morgan, is becoming less a racist thing and increasingly a LEOs-v-citizenry thing – where the cops can do what they did to Gray and Morgan to anyone, and get away with it because they’re cops.

    Balko is spot-on about the oversimplification the wingnuts employ against Dems, too:

    Cohen and Green’s chief criticism of Clinton is that her (superficial) nod to criminal justice reform is bad politics. That’s it. It will make her look like Dukakis. They’re not interested in exploring, say, the now well-documented history of police misconduct and excessive force in Baltimore, the city’s history of rewarding abusive cops, or the 2000s-era campaign of mass arrests for misdemeanor offenses, which saddled a wide swath of the city’s black population with a debilitating arrest record. Never mind all of that. Hillary Clinton talked about reform as riots were happening. Therefore, she’s Dukakis.

  27. 27.

    WereBear

    I’ll excerpt my favorite part:

    And it isn’t just body cameras. Look at mass incarceration, the issue both Cohen and Green scolded Clinton for raising. Polls now show that 60 to 75 percent of the country favors eliminating mandatory minimum sentences for nonviolent offenders. A Pew poll taken last year found that two out of three respondents thought the government should emphasize drug treatment over incarceration. And nearly all polls now show a growing majority in favor of legalizing marijuana. Even in conservative states like Texas, polls show the public consensus swinging toward reforming the criminal justice system to be fairer to the convicted and the accused, not tougher on them. We’re also seeing significant police reform in deep-red states like Utah.

    This isn’t Nixonland. Thank every noodley appendage of the blessed FSM.

  28. 28.

    Phylllis

    @Brachiator: Jeff Gunn’s book about Bonnie and Clyde, Go Down Together talks about this as well. Clyde tried to work, to keep on the right side of the law. He’d get a job, Dallas cops would show up constantly harassing him, he’d get let go. Finally, he couldn’t get a job anywhere in the area.

  29. 29.

    Roger Moore

    @Brachiator:

    So, what the fvck is wrong with the cops?

    In that part of Missouri, the problem is with the job, not with the individuals. The local tax structure is set up in a way that prevents poor cities from being able to raise enough tax revenue to support a municipal government, and the only way they can make up the difference is through fees and fines. The local police department has effectively become a revenue department rather than a public safety department.

    Balko says that the only way of reforming the situation is to dissolve the small cities, but that this would be a bad thing because it would be a setback to blacks controlling their local politics. It seems to me that this is missing the point. Those local governments aren’t really in charge because they lack sufficient policy freedom to benefit their citizens.

  30. 30.

    Elie

    @boatboy_srq:

    This:

    I daresay, though, that people being “fed up” include a decent number that are beginning to realize that what happened to Gray, and what happened to Antonio Morgan, is becoming less a racist thing and increasingly a LEOs-v-citizenry thing – where the cops can do what they did to Gray and Morgan to anyone, and get away with it because they’re cops.

    I think a whole lot of people of all types are knowing not only the violence of the cops, but the other corruption around tickets and other revenue generating scams.

  31. 31.

    Corner Stone

    @boatboy_srq:

    I daresay, though, that people being “fed up” include a decent number that are beginning to realize that what happened to Gray, and what happened to Antonio Morgan, is becoming less a racist thing and increasingly a LEOs-v-citizenry thing

    I would strongly disagree. IMO, it’s many times more likely that the white people are fed up with blacks not taking shit as normal cost of going about life while black.
    I may be skewed due to wingnut heaven all around me, but the repeated FB posting of “hands up, don’t loot” tell me all I need to know about what white people are fed up with.

  32. 32.

    the Conster

    Good for Radley – police state criticism is his best and highest purpose. Finding Morgan, though, concretizes everything he rails against. I just pray (and I don’t pray) that he didn’t make up Morgan’s story or any part of it.

  33. 33.

    Hal

    Do Cohen or Green mention Willie Horton in their Dukakis/Clinton comparison? The Willie Horton ad was as blatantly racist as Helms white hands and was designed to make Dukakis look like a total wimp. I thought that was the reason he ultimately lost, not because he was championing reform.

  35. 35.

    Germy Shoemangler

    @Gex:

    It’s not going to get better as white workers are continually facing worse futures than their parents faced. Lack of opportunity is the big theme. There’s nothing right wing policy has to offer to fix that.

    Reduce taxes on the wealthy. Reduce regulations on corporations. Reduce environmental regulations. Cut “entitlements” and there you have it. That’s their solution to everything.

  37. 37.

    Davis X. Machina

    Betty Cracker:

    Baby Doc is positioning himself as the GOP candidate who can capture the yoot vote.

    Dope. Drones. Domestic surveillance. The rest is just technique. White House here we come!

  39. 39.

    Hal

    @Gex:

    It’s not going to get better as white workers are continually facing worse futures than their parents faced. Lack of opportunity is the big theme. There’s nothing right wing policy has to offer to fix that.

    I have a white conservatives friend who once posted on Facebook how terrible it was the chevron had to pay all those billions in taxes and has called income tax an assault on liberty. The conservative message that making wealthy people wealthier appeals to at least some of their base.

    All these republicans that support privatization, less regulation, flat tax or fair tax; none of them seem to pay for it at the polls.

  40. 40.

    Woodrow/Asim

    @geg6:

    Wonder how his compadres feel about this column. I’ll bet they aren’t enamored.

    I know at least one Libertarian who’s also into Social Justice (I suspect a couple more in my online circles), and based upon my interactions with them will 100% back and celebrate Randy’s post.

    I don’t fight them on the Libertarian part much, but I think they sincerely try to fuse those impulses.

  41. 41.

    Howard Beale IV

    @Baud:

    The Rand Paul shout out gave that away. But as long as he’s a useful tool…

    That’s why I raised the flag. Just like Fat Tony can sometimes be useful, remember that at his core I don’t even want to know what he wears under his robe to satisfy his Opus Dei sacraments.

  43. 43.

    Mandalay

    There is also a great column today in the NYT about how America has had a fucking bellyful of police unions.

    Those vile shitbags reaped what they sowed when they (unintentionally) got Marilyn Mosby elected:

    In 2014, the Fraternal Order of Police declined to endorse Gregg Bernstein, then the state’s attorney for Baltimore, after members of the union’s endorsement committee complained that Mr. Bernstein had been too aggressive in prosecuting police misconduct, according to two people briefed on the discussions.

    Mr. Bernstein, who suffered from diminishing support in districts where the union has long been influential, lost his re-election bid to the current state’s attorney, Marilyn J. Mosby, who has made prosecuting police misconduct a priority.

    Too bad, so sad.

  44. 44.

    jl

    @boatboy_srq:

    ” I daresay, though, that people being “fed up” include a decent number that are beginning to realize that what happened to Gray… is becoming less a racist thing and increasingly a LEOs-v-citizenry thing ”

    No time to find it now, but I saw a national poll that said substantial majority of whites (edit: IIRC, slightly over 60 percent) thought the charges against the police involved in the Gray case were justified. The majorities among Democrats and Independents were almost identical. So that leaves white Republicans only group with majority against charges.

    So, what you suggest may well have already happened, at least in the most egregious cases.

    Also, not to be cold blooded about it (edit: since any wanton violence is bad), but all the race related rioting over last couple of years is nothing compared to what happened in 1960s. I wasn’t old enough to remember all of what happened in 1960s, but that is what I gather from reading about riots before the MLK riots. And I don’t think what has happened recently is much compared to the Rodney King riots either. So, this whole line is sad and vicious wishful thinking on the part of bigots like Cohen and the GOPers.

  45. 45.

    Pogonip

    @Corner Stone: Whites are going to get even angrier as the heavy hand of the oligarchy comes down harder and harder on us too. The question is, will most of us finally get angry at the correct people? Will we finally stop letting politicians divert our anger onto our natural allies?

  47. 47.

    Mike J

    @shell:

    They forgot to add about why these protestors can’t be more like MLK.

    “A riot is the language of the unheard.”

  49. 49.

    kc

    @Howard Beale IV:

    Yeah, he blocked me on Twitter for making fun of some libertardian nonsense he tweeted.

    Props to him for covering police brutality long before it was fashionable to care, though.

  50. 50.

    cckids

    @Corner Stone: Soooo agree. “We did good, he’s eating organic!”

    No, he’s eating like a goddamn pig. You fail as parents, that he’d do that right in front of you.

    Soft bigotry of low expectations.

    Sorry for the rant, I’ve been known to yell when that ad comes on, and my family is tired of my opinion on it.

  51. 51.

    Roger Moore

    @jl:

    And I don’t think what has happened recently is much compared to the Rodney King riots either.

    And bear in mind that the Rodney King riots were such a good thing for the Republican Party that the country went out and elected Bill Clinton later that year.

  52. 52.

    Howard Beale IV

    @Roger Moore:

    It’s a really excellent read.

    As long as he stays in this domain and doesn’t start to drag the libertarian belief system into this I’ll back him. If he starts to wander off his central thesis OTOH….

  53. 53.

    boatboy_srq

    @jl: Not cold-blooded at all. Rodney King was no picnic and way worse than what Ferguson and Baltimore have seen. But of course to wingnuts, there’s nothing as bad as What’s Wrong With This Country Right Now™. FFS folks, these are critters that soil themselves when they see a US Marshal in a standard-issue sedan and demand Protection (from someone else, naturally) when the DoD schedules a training exercise, yet somehow consider themselves Patriots™: if they’d been in the Colonies in the 1770s, they’d have either run for cover or stood with the Loyalists.

  54. 54.

    Botsplainer

    @Hal:

    The conservative message that making wealthy people wealthier appeals to at least some of their base.

    Classic Calvinism/Randism, the ideology that is their idiot son that inherited everything wrong with both systems, yet is the glue that binds the social conservatives to the fiscal conservatives.

    You’re rich because you’re worthy in the eyes of God/The Universe and thus blessed. You’re poor because you’re unworthy in the eyes of God/the Universe, and don’t work hard enough, so you’re cursed.

    Conservatism, QED. No programs or policies necessary save for further slams against the poors, because all they need is more motivation through pain to work harder.

  55. 55.

    Corner Stone

    @cckids:

    No, he’s eating like a goddamn pig. You fail as parents, that he’d do that right in front of you.

    The fact that it’s the mom being all cool with his pigdom and drinking out of the carton just makes me like, whuh?
    “Yeah, ya did.”
    “I must break you.”
    /Drago

  56. 56.

    Another Holocene Human

    @Corner Stone: Ugh, glad I haven’t seen it yet because I go out of my way to buy it (only oatmeal I can stand that’s not Irish and served with Heinz and eggs).

    Though the worst cereal commercial of all time had to be that 1990s strip tease ad. Nobody wants to see their breakfast doing a burlesque.

  57. 57.

    jl

    @boatboy_srq: insane people can say strange things, can’t they?

    Edit: and the grifters that suck their blood can say strange things too.

  59. 59.

    mdblanche

    @Betty Cracker:

    And he’s wrong that Rand Paul doesn’t benefit politically; Baby Doc is positioning himself as the GOP candidate who can capture the yoot vote.

    Um, yeah. That’s only going to work if he’s running for Prime Minister of the land of Make-Believe.

  60. 60.

    Another Holocene Human

    @Pogonip: You know the answer. When US started exploiting the Plains for agriculture and filled then with white families through the Homestead Act, rivalling the Ukrainian corn growing region and leading directly to the Panic of 1872 when an international bumper year caused wheat prices to collapse, did Ukrainian peasants and newly American ‘clay of the West’ point the finger at themselves?

    Hell no, it was greedy Eastern bankers and J000000000000s.

  61. 61.

    Commenting at Balloon Juice since 1937

    The conservative party was routed in a Canadian election in tar sands producing Alberta by the NDP. Interesting times.

  62. 62.

    Another Holocene Human

    @Davis X. Machina: He appeals to dopes, so he’s good there.

    If I were a one issue pro dope voter he would have been off my list months ago. Pro dope and pro Rand = not informed OR wants to vote conservaterian.

  63. 63.

    sharl

    That IS a good post. I hope WaPo doesn’t make life difficult for Balko for publicly calling out their Teflon-coated op-ed idiot boy.

    A couple other items on this same general topic came to my attention today.

    Ta-Nehisi Coates
    ‏@tanehisicoates

    Torture by Chicago police department looks like something straight out of the Algerian War. http://chicagoreporter.com/human-rights-practices-inform-chicago-ordinance-in-police-torture-case/ …

    Yep, it looks real bad.

    And getting more to the actual root – well, one of the roots at least – of this problem came this item from a cop on Reddit (via Vox):

    People, please stop making my job so difficult.

    submitted 1 day ago by sf7

    Ya know, I’m just going to complain and get some stuff off my chest.
    So I’m working last week and get dispatched to a call of ‘Suspicious Activity.’ Ya’ll wanna know what the suspicious activity was? Someone walking around in the dark with a flashlight and crow bar? Nope. Someone walking into a bank with a full face mask on? Nope.
    It was two black males who were jump starting a car at 930 in the morning. That was it. Nothing else. Someone called it in.
    People. People. People. If you’re going to be a racist, stereotypical jerk…keep it to yourself. Don’t call the police and make them get involved into your douchebaggery.
    That’s all. End rant.

  64. 64.

    Germy Shoemangler

    @Another Holocene Human: I keep seeing the almond milk commercial. Little almond guy (almond for a head, leafy body) basically bullies people into trying his product.

    It’s right there at their breakfast table. Why does he need to berate them?

    And during the news, all the pharm commercials. One really subtle art director designed a bi-polar medicine commercial so that the woman is constantly in striped light, even in full sun. I bet he’s waiting for an award for that one.

  65. 65.

    Corner Stone

    @Germy Shoemangler:

    basically bullies people into trying his product.

    Speaking of bullying, the one I find creepy like that is the guy for Match.com.
    The one where he says to the young lady something like, “Ok, then we’re going to try it. We’re going to sign up right now and try it.”
    No, asshole. I’m not going to sign up right now. GFY.

  66. 66.

    mdblanche

    Cohen concludes that Clinton’s bleeding heart means, “We might be heading back to Nixonland.”

    Wait. When did we leave Nixonland?

  67. 67.

    Mandalay

    @Gex:

    While Randroids can get their analysis of these issues of abusive policing right, what do they expect to do to fix anything?

    Well, here are a couple of specific things that Paul has actually done:

    Paul introduced in 2014 the REDEEM act with Booker, a bill that would allow adults convicted of nonviolent offenses to have their records sealed, which would allow for an easier transition from jail back into the working world. He has also introduced a bill to restore the voting rights of felons in federal elections — an estimated 1 in 13 African-Americans aren’t able to vote as a result of laws in various states, including Kentucky.

    Now you can argue that Paul doesn’t really give a shit about African Americans, and that it is merely cynical opportunism by Paul (and I’m in that camp myself a bit). But WTF have Democrats in the Senate ever done about these problems before Booker and Paul turned up? They could have tried addressing these issues long before Paul ever became a Senator, but they didn’t. Talk is cheap.

  68. 68.

    Another Holocene Human

    @sharl: no shit. That’s how Gates gate started, some sweet little old lady who thought a Harvard professor struggling with the front door of his over hundred year old wooden house in the Cambridge summer was a burgler.

  70. 70.

    Germy Shoemangler

    @Corner Stone: When I see actors in commercials I can’t help but think of all the effort the casting director & ad agency put in. It’s a science to them.

    Like the unshaven guy in the trivago commercials. He obviously represents all savvy business travelers everywhere.

  71. 71.

    Another Holocene Human

    @Germy Shoemangler: The ads for mental health meds piss me off even more than the others. Irresponsible to eleven.

    What’s next, tv ads for the chemo you have to be gene tested for? Clinicians must love this shit.

  72. 72.

    Howard Beale IV

    @Mandalay:

    He has also introduced a bill to restore the voting rights of felons in federal elections — an estimated 1 in 13 African-Americans aren’t able to vote as a result of laws in various states, including Kentucky.

    This also applies to a metric shit-ton of Caucasians as well, dude-who make up the bulk of the citizenry of the recidivist South. Which, by their own math, the remaining 12 of the 13 are locked out. Love that signalling, there.

  74. 74.

    Another Holocene Human

    @Mandalay: First year Obama in office, moved to reduce mandatory sentences for crack cocaine. And he has been pardoning people doing life for pot. Started slow because a Bush plant in a non patronage job was holding up all the pardons so they never reached the president. Finally the press published his name and photo…

  75. 75.

    sharl

    @Hal: That old Willie Horton business just came up today:

    On May 14, former Arkansas Governor Mike Huckabee will head to Phoenix to raise money for his 2016 presidential bid. The visit, which was announced by Huckabee’s campaign today, will be co-hosted by political strategist Floyd Brown, the producer of the 1988 “Willie Horton ad” that Republicans have spent decades distancing themselves from.

  76. 76.

    Howard Beale IV

    @Germy Shoemangler: Using aripiprazole as an adjunct for MDD is a dice-roll that any self-respecting shrink would think twice about, given its insane amount of interference with CYP2D6 which aripiprazole uses as substrate, raising its blood plasma rate by 2-3x.

    Now that aripiprazole generics are hitting the market, I suspect we’ll see a flood of ADR’s soon.

  77. 77.

    BillinGlendaleCA

    Hill’s for body cams? Shit, Joe Scar’s for body cams. It’s not exactly a liberal position. Great read.

  79. 79.

    Cacti

    @Mandalay:

    Now you can argue that Paul doesn’t really give a shit about African Americans

    Thanks for the permission.

    I’d say his lack of giving a shit was broadcast loud and clear when he went on the Laura Ingraham show to blame Baltimore on a lack of morals and bad parenting, while giving a shout out to the boys in blue.

  81. 81.

    Germy Shoemangler

    @Howard Beale IV: Scary stuff. The “uncontrollable muscle movement which may become permanent” was enough to scare me away.

    Also notice that all the commercials for testosterone (underarm application, but don’t let your wife touch it!) are being gradually replaced with commercials for class-action lawsuits for the side-effects of testosterone.

    There’s an old doctor (I sometimes see his ads here) who stays young by injecting himself with the stuff daily.

  82. 82.

    Mandalay

    @Howard Beale IV:

    This also applies to a metric shit-ton of Caucasians as well, dude-who make up the bulk of the citizenry of the recidivist South

    So what? If you have served your time you should be able to vote. What’s wrong with that?

  84. 84.

    Corner Stone

    @Betty Cracker:

    The Trivago guy is hot!

    What!?
    That guy has me completely fucking puzzled. Who thought this low key bum was going to sell me on the travel website?
    I look at that guy and I’m like, shouldn’t you be third shift manager of the Peach Pit?

  85. 85.

    Germy Shoemangler

    @Betty Cracker: They must have taken forever to cast him. Just rumpled and unshaven enough, without looking seedy. A seasoned traveler. My wife likes him, too.

    I like the young lady in the dish commercial. “With dish, you get more!”

    I get crushes on ladies in commercials.

  86. 86.

    Mandalay

    @Cacti:

    I’d say his lack of giving a shit was broadcast loud and clear when he went on the Laura Ingraham show to blame Baltimore on a lack of morals and bad parenting, while giving a shout out to the boys in blue.

    No argument from me. But he still created two bills to help those who have been in prison. That’s two more than Senators Biden, Clinton, Reid, Boxer, Schumer etc., who might have said all the right things, but didn’t actually do anything to back up their brave words.

    So Paul maybe doesn’t give a shit but still creates two bills, while most Dems claim they care and actually do nothing. Actions speak louder than words.

  87. 87.

    Mnemosyne (tablet)

    @boatboy_srq:

    Someone probably already pointed this out, but Bill Clinton toured South Central LA after the riots and promised community redevelopment if he was elected president. Which he was.

    STFU, Richard Cohen.

  88. 88.

    Omnes Omnibus

    @Mandalay:

    Actions speak louder than words.

    And the totality of a career means more than a couple of isolated actions.

  90. 90.

    Howard Beale IV

    @Mandalay: You can thank the 14th Amendment for allowing the states to engage in felony disenfranchisement.

  91. 91.

    Mnemosyne (tablet)

    @Omnes Omnibus:

    He may have been mocked, but he was able to get it through. The area around USC is 200 percent improved over where it was 25 years ago. They have two actual grocery stores in the area now, as opposed to the zero that were there when I was in school, and it happened thanks to post-riots community redevelopment.

  93. 93.

    Mandalay

    There was a bizarre cop shooting in Georgia today. Tragically for the brave officer, it seems that the victim will actually live, and be able to give her side of the story:

    An Atlanta-area sheriff was charged with a misdemeanor Wednesday in the shooting of a real estate agent at a model home.

    Clayton County Sheriff Victor Hill is charged with reckless conduct in the shooting, which critically wounded real estate agent Gwenevere McCord, 43, Gwinnett County Sheriff’s spokeswoman Shannon Volkodav said. He was released on a $2,950 bond Wednesday night.

    Authorities have said the two were alone in a model home roughly 50 miles northeast of where Hill’s office is located when the shooting happened Sunday.

    Gwinnett County District Attorney Danny Porter said he has fundamental questions about Hill’s account, which was that he was conducting “police training exercises” inside the home when he accidentally shot McCord. The location of the house is well outside his jurisdiction.

  94. 94.

    catclub

    @Hal:

    But the poorer (which means blacker) towns

    There was some article on the Minnesota Miracle, and a key part of it was state taxes that equalized town incomes, so that poorer towns still had resources. I am not sure what Vermont did about this for their (nearly infinite) number of school districts, but I think it is similar.

  96. 96.

    Zinsky

    Great article – thanks for the link! I love articles that debunk commonly held mistaken beliefs. I have thought about starting a blog called Everything You Know Is Wrong, that would be dedicated to this meme.

  98. 98.

    dubo

    Will the Post just fire Richard Cohen’s racist ass already, jeez louise, what will it take

  99. 99.

    Mandalay

    @Zinsky:

    I love articles that debunk commonly held mistaken beliefs. I have thought about starting a blog called Everything You Know Is Wrong, that would be dedicated to this meme.

    It’s already been done: http://youarenotsosmart.com/podcast/

    You can also buy the book, and even the T-shirt.

    But it looks like everythingyouknowiswrong.com is available if you want to give him some competition.

  100. 100.

    Bobby Thomson

    Christ, eventheliberal Richard Cohen is a racist idiot.

    And that piece made me think of the poor dad in Minneapolis who got tased in front of his kid he was picking up from day care because some piece of shit didn’t like the way he didn’t kiss his ass. It just makes my blood boil.

  101. 101.

    qwerty42

    There were two parts to the article:
    – attacking the Cohen nonsense (which was precise and fun)
    – description of structural racism (which was precise and depressing)
    I appreciate Balko’s focus on these, most especially — for the long term — the latter. I am sure I would have any number of disagreements with Mr Balko on other things (just as I am quite sure I’d have any number of disagreements with Daniel Larison on things other than foreign policy). But it is good to have these issues articulated so well.

  102. 102.

    maurinsky

    The Trivago guy puzzles me. I just wonder what committee was responsible for hiring someone so bland but in a specific kind of way.

  103. 103.

    Paul in KY

    Mr. Morgan has so much more patience & forbearance than I.

    I sure hope this harassment has stopped.

  104. 104.

    Paul in KY

    @sharl: They pretend to be ‘distancing’ themselves, but really they celebrate that odious ad.

  105. 105.

    Mike Furlan

    @qwerty42:

    For you Larison fans. Here is what he is promoting.

    “Last September, Hatewatch revealed that LOS leadership, after years of increasingly violent rhetoric, had taken steps to make its vision for a new southern uprising a reality by forming its own paramilitary organization called the “Indomitables.” LOS president Michael Hill also recently espoused an anti-Semitism worldview in his online writings, posting articles written by disgraced, anti-Semitic professor Kevin MacDonald, claiming the South’s biggest problem is the “Jewry” problem.”

    http://www.splcenter.org/blog/2015/04/22/stars-behind-bars-league-of-the-south-joins-republic-of-florida-militia-for-fsu-protest/

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