NAZI garden gnome and all around evil prick Jeff Sessions has put out some truly awful guidance today:
Attorney General Jeff Sessions overturned the sweeping criminal charging policy of former attorney general Eric H. Holder Jr. and directed his federal prosecutors Thursday to charge defendants with the most serious, provable crimes carrying the most severe penalties.
In a speech Friday, Sessions said the move was meant to ensure that prosecutors would be “un-handcuffed and not micromanaged from Washington” as they worked to bring the most significant cases possible.
“We are returning to the enforcement of the laws as passed by Congress, plain and simple,” Sessions said. “If you are a drug trafficker, we will not look the other way, we will not be willfully blind to your misconduct.”
The Holder memo, issued in August 2013, instructed his prosecutors to avoid charging certain defendants with drug offenses that would trigger long mandatory minimum sentences. Defendants who met a set of criteria such as not belonging to a large-scale drug trafficking organization, gang or cartel, qualified for lesser charges — and in turn less prison time — under Holder’s policy.
The reason for this is quite simple. He’s racist as fuck. Don’t confuse evil and racist with stupid, there is a reason he is doing this:
Harsh drug laws are clearly an important factor in the persistent racial and ethnic disparities observed in state prisons. For drug crimes disparities are especially severe, due largely to the fact that blacks are nearly four times as likely as whites to be arrested for drug offenses and 2.5 times as likely to be arrested for drug possession.29) This is despite the evidence that whites and blacks use drugs at roughly the same rate. From 1995 to 2005, African Americans comprised approximately 13 percent of drug users but 36% of drug arrests and 46% of those convicted for drug offenses.30)
Disparities are evident at the initial point of contact with police, especially through policies that target specific areas and/or people. A popular example of this is “stop, question, and frisk.” Broad discretion allowed to law enforcement can aggravate disparities. Though police stops alone are unlikely to result in a conviction that would lead to a prison sentence, the presence of a criminal record is associated with the decision to incarcerate for subsequent offenses, a sequence of events that disadvantages African Americans. Jeffrey Fagan’s work in this area found that police officers’ selection of who to stop in New York City’s high-profile policing program was dictated more by racial composition of the neighborhood than by actual crime in the area.31) The process of stopping, questioning and frisking individuals based on little more than suspicion (or on nebulous terms such as “furtive behavior,” which were the justification for many stops) has led to unnecessary criminal records for thousands. New York’s policy was ruled unconstitutional in 2013 with a court ruling in Floyd v. City of New York.
You can’t as easily get away with lynching anymore, so this is the next best thing for this stain on humanity. It’s that simple.
SFAW
I am SO hoping that there’s some sort of smoking gun re: Russia and him.
Elizabelle
Kay’s had some choice comments on what a problem drug sentences have been on the WWC, so that’s gotta be tenfold on African Americans.
Sessions is a moron. I kinda think he’ll be gone sooner rather than later too. Let the whirliwind take them all away.
We need a war on stupid.
schrodingers_cat
@Elizabelle: We have some in the last thread predicting internment camps.
rikyrah
Nothing you write here is a lie, Cole.
Not.one.damn.thing.???
NR
Fuck the War on Drugs.
We need to start looking at drugs the way European countries do – as a public health problem, not a criminal problem.
There’s so much human misery involved in doing it our way. It needs to stop. It should have stopped a long time ago.
randy khan
To be clear, while he *is* evil and racist, it appears he’s also stupid. If he had any brains, he wouldn’t have left his fingerprints all over the Comey firing.
SFAW
@schrodingers_cat:
Haven’t read that thread. Are the camps for blacks, Muslims, foreigners, liberals, or “all of ’em, Katie.” [Not that I think it’s likely, but the ability of Shitgibbon’s minions to get away with the most fucked-up stuff is something I would have thought unlikely as well, and I was obviously wrong.]
the Conster, la Citoyenne
I do think the seine net is being gathered up around all of these campaign transition people, and they’ll all be hauled into court under oath. Rumors on twitter say all the action for warrants and indictments is in the Eastern District of Virginia, and Schneiderman’s got his own thing happening. They’re evil and racist, but also stupid and incompetent as racist pricks tend to be. Because they’re beneficiaries of the white supremacist system that has supported their mediocre white asses for so long, their fervor for racism blinds them, makes them careless, lazy, complacent and ultimately vulnerable. We see them and what they’re doing. There is no way to unsee it and there will be consequences.
SFAW
@randy khan:
He may think he’s a “made man,” and thus not worried. Which does not really contradict your comment, I guess.
Frankensteinbeck
While also declaring that he’s going to roll back federal oversight of the police. Exactly like the ICE situation, the policy is to let every government agent down the line know they can be as racist as they want, and the administration will turn a blind eye. It was one of the major messages I heard from Trump in his election, and all signs are that his base loves him for it. This is what they asked for, and if he fucks them over economically, he’s the first president in modern times to deliver what they care about most.
Hunter Gathers
Drugs are bad.
Expensive liquor is Godly.
Gelfling 545
Off topic but I know there are some avid gardeners here who might want to adorn their shrubbery thus…or maybe not.
https://flic.kr/p/UxHGwi
MomSense
Didn’t this evil confederate elf lie under oath about meetings with the Russians?
Felonius Monk
The Nazi Garden Gnome has previously lied about his contact with the Russians. We can only hope that he is also being investigated by the FBI.
sharl
This turn of events likely surprises no one, whether they oppose or support Sessions. For the latter group, being a racist creep is a feature, not a bug.
On The Media recently had a good rundown of our history with the failed War on Drugs, and one of its segments was about the founder of that now-institutionalized effort, Harry J. Anslinger. That Wikipedia entry does address some of his sins, but the OTM segment is much more hard-hitting on just what a racist fuck he truly was, and how that racism permeated his anti-drug initiatives, and was ultimate carried forward to this day. Quite a horrible tradition we have here…
trollhattan
Am beginning to really not like people.
trollhattan
@Gelfling 545:
Lord that’s brilliant!
El Caganer
Private-prison operators must be counting their windfall already.
Adam L Silverman
@Gelfling 545: Sent it to AL this morning for Sunday’s garden post.
Mike J
@trollhattan: A female wolf sired pups?
Adam L Silverman
@Felonius Monk: What got lost in the shuffle from Clapper’s testimony earlier in the week was his answer to the question if he had asked for unmasking of individuals who, when their identities were unmasked, were formally involved in the President’s campaign or members of Congress. Clapper answered “both”. There was only one member of Congress who was formally involved with the President’s campaign: Jefferson Beauregard Sessions III.
Adam L Silverman
@Mike J: Don’t judge!
ThresherK
@SFAW: At this point can we see the battlefield for the musket smoke?
Redshift
Don’t forget the effect on voting, either, both directly through incarceration and also through felony disenfranchisement in many states. Poll taxes and “literacy tests” are technically illegal now, but this remnant remains, and I don’t think for a minute that Sessions isn’t fully cognizant of that aspect.
SFAW
@ThresherK:
Fake news.
Brendan in NC
@NR: I agree. But as long as there are racists in charge, this is how it will be. The more of “them” they can lock up on felonies that strip them of their right to vote, the better they see the program as working.
Gelfling 545
Beginning to think Sessions thinks his span of power is limited and wants to do as much damage as he can as quickly as possible. Question to legal types: how binding is this on local prosecutors?
SFAW
@Redshift:
It also helped W in FLA in 2000, some multi-thousands of legit voters kicked off the rolls.
Ten Bears
Gotta’ fill those private prisons.
Chet Murthy
@Mike J: Oh, -very- nice. Yeah, you’re right, should be “whelped”, eh?
ChaunceyBaker
John, the reason he’s evil and racist is because he’s stupid. His new orders are stupid. They’re not based in fact and reason. Fact and reason tell us we’re living in an oligarchical Police State. Fact and reason tells us that being punitive leads to recidivism. Fact and reason tell us that addiction is merely a symptom. Don’t confuse malice with intelligence. I know he is stupid, empirically, because he does the exact opposite of what fact and reason tell him to do to make this country a better, safer, place to live.
Don’t any of you confuse malice and entrenchment as intelligence. Let me just say this, Jeff Sessions is not innovating hate. He’s regressing to old hate, what he knows. Going backwards, like all dumb fucks. It’s unfortunate for all of us it will effect in the short-term, but this Fuck has no future in our USofA.
He knows it. The Congress where he came from knows it. And it seems like everyone (yes, everyone) in the WH knows this. All of their handlers seem to know this, as well.
Americas Chicken’s are Comin’ Home to Roost, so to speak. Let’s make sure they receive safe landing. We’re all going to have a lot of cleaning up to do when this is over.
msdc
Maybe Sessions figures that if he fills every prison cell in America with drug offenders, there won’t be any room left for him and his boss.
Mnemosyne
@Frankensteinbeck:
Exactly. If Black and brown people are sufficiently punished, then Trump’s WWC voters don’t care about anything else, including health insurance. They will die of preventable causes with happy smiles on their faces.
Mnemosyne
@Adam L Silverman:
On my really cynical days, I wonder which DOJ prosecutor is going to dare to indict his boss. I’m guessing not many of them.
SiubhanDuinne
@randy khan:
Somehow, I am not soothed by that observation.
terben
@trollhattan: ‘whelping’ might be better. That said, your meaning was clear.
mike in dc
Mass deportations and a border wall–anti-Latino agenda. Check.
Muslim Travel ban, refusal of refugees–islamophobia agenda. Check.
“Law and Order”–increased sentencing and hands off police departments and a “voter fraud commission”–anti-black agenda. Check.
Throw in the anti-LGBT “religious freedom” stuff and you get a sense of the degree to which the administration is addressing the “economic anxiety” of Trump voters.
Brendan in NC
@SFAW: “made man” my foot. If he is, he’s a lot closer to Fredo, than Michael
Baud
Solving economic anxiety. One step at a time.
Gin & Tonic
@Hunter Gathers: While I do not profess anything about its theological value, I will admit to being an aficionado of expensive liquor.
Baud
Via Reddit, funny
https://i.imgur.com/uiNXlZ1.png
Gin & Tonic
The “drug problem” in the 2010’s is a children-of-Trump-voters problem, though. I recently saw a comment by an inner-city high school principal (may have been Harlem or the Bronx) who, when asked about Narcan, said “we don’t need it.”
Baud
@Baud: Damn you, @mike in dc.
Booger
@NR: that’s their only goal.
Archon
Thinking about Jeff Sessions is why the people I’m maddest with in this unfolding political tragedy are the holier then thou leftists. The people who did enough clouding of the issue to get a critical mass of voters to believe there wasn’t really a fundamental difference between Trump and Clinton. As if “neoliberal” Hillary Clinton would appoint an actual white supremacist, a guy whose personal beliefs wouldn’t be out of place in 1917, head of the nation’s law enforcement department.
In 2018 and 2020 Democrats need to take off the kid gloves when dealing with the Berniebros, the Greens, and anyone else who isn’t absolutely committed to defeating and destroying Trump and the fascists in the Republican Party.
laura
In our new Police State, I expect that AG Cracker will also do asset forfeiture on the all cash marijuana industry.
lurker dean
@Adam L Silverman: i missed that. makes me hopeful this racist little fuck goes down.
SFAW
@Brendan in NC:
I was merely hypothesizing that it’s what he thinks. Which means, as randy khan said, he’s stupid.
Ksmiami
@Mnemosyne: at least they will die- so there’s that
NR
@Brendan in NC: It’s sad. Addicts need our help and our compassion, not to be sent to prison.
rikyrah
Naw, muthaphuckas…you took 50 damn votes on REPEAL, Boo.
ON THE RECORD, DEAR.
You’re not walking away from that.
Uh uh
Raw StoryVerified account @RawStory
GOP lawmakers told to stop talking up ‘full repeal’ of Obamacare because it’s killing the party: report
NR
@Archon:
It wasn’t “holier than thou leftists” who were in charge of the dismal Clinton campaign. That was the Democratic establishment and the political consulting firms they spent hundreds of millions of dollars on.
Your anger is sadly misplaced.
japa21
One of Sessions first act was to reverse action on another Holder policy, reducing use of private prisons. He stated that we would need the capacity the private prisons can provide. What hasn’t been made public is that the prosecutors are to find out if the defendant is a Republican or Democrat. Only Democrats are to be prosecuted under this policy.
rikyrah
Chris Rock recapping the last party in the White House with 44.
zhena gogolia
Don’t take the bait, friends.
Mnemosyne
@Archon:
I like you. Come sit with me.
efgoldman
@MomSense:
Yes, he apparently perjured himself in his confirmation hearings.
The thing I don’t know is, does congress/the senate actually have to file a recommendation/referral in order for him to be charged formally? And with whom? If the answers are “yes” and “DOJ”, he won’t have to answer those charges.
However, obstruction was enough for most of the Tricksie Dicksie Nixie crowd; it would be fine with these kkklowns, too.
Haberdasher, orange jump suits all around! You can even issue Shitgibbon-branded ones.
dexwood
Ok, way late, and can’t stay, but damn, Nazi garden gnome. Fucking great.
?BillinGlendaleCA
@zhena gogolia:
Sure, that’ll work.
?BillinGlendaleCA
WP says they’re interviewing McCabe and Cornyn for FBI director.
debbie
@Baud:
Why do those two at the bottom look like an ad for a late night telephone dating line?
debbie
@?BillinGlendaleCA:
Some were talking about Merrick Garland too.
SFBayAreaGal
@NR: No the anger is not misplaced.
You just can’t help yourself. You couldn’t let it go. You have to keep playing the same track on that Hilary is at Fault album. That needle is so stuck in that one track mind of yours.
Catherine D.
@Gin & Tonic:
That could be more head in the sand behavior than reality. Our local HS folks said they don’t need Narcan in the schools. Local cops and EMTs beg to differ.
NR
@zhena gogolia: Yeah, I probably shouldn’t have taken that bait. Oh well.
Ladyraxterinok
Watched a youtube 1999 discussion by Edward Ball of his award winning book Slaves in the Family. His hopes for the possibility of a new era of race relations was so depressing from today’s world of the Trump people.
Mnemosyne
So, in less depressing news about race, Romance Writers of America are giving Beverly Jenkins their lifetime achievement award this year. If you don’t know her name, she writes historical romance with African-American leads and proved to the skeptics that there was an audience for it. She’s been a bestselling author for well over 20 years (maybe closer to 30), hence the lifetime achievement award.
ETA: There doesn’t seem to be a full story about her getting the award, just a press release, so that’s a link to a 2015 story about her.
NickM
Hope this rule applies to treason too.
SFBayAreaGal
@Archon: You can sit by me also.
efgoldman
@debbie:
Some combination of trolling and stupid.
Sure, take the Democratic chief judge off the second most important federal court. put him in a position where Apricot Asswipe can both fire him within a couple off weeks of confirmation and appoint his replacement. What they call in this part of the world, a “twofer”. Brilliant.
Betty Cracker
I’m stealing “Nazi garden gnome.” That’s perfect.
@debbie: I hope that talk goes nowhere. A person with true integrity wouldn’t accept a job with the Trump scumbags. And Garland sits on a very important court. Why on earth let the shitgibbon replace him with a wingnut jackhole?
NR
@SFBayAreaGal: I’ve said repeatedly that the failure was not just Hillary’s, the whole leadership of the Democratic party was to blame.
But it’s funny that you’re accusing me of having a one-track mind when it’s common for people here to blame liberals for everything wrong under the sun despite the fact thay liberals have had no political power in America for decades. How did the saying go? Something about a mote in someone’s eye?
ruemara
@zhena gogolia: He needs a punch in his fucking mouth. It most certainly was holier than thou purists and I’m pretty sick of them. I don’t expect better of Republicans but the goddamn voter suppression that cost us this election deserved the attention they slathered over Wilmer. Just half of that fervour directed to helping brown folks vote would have helped.
When Doug J did that post about now thinking we really had a potential despot in the WH, I resisted my urge to respond with “I forgot you were a white male”. The entire Trump platform, transition team and potential picks were a nightmare union of white supremacy, dominionism and base cruelty. And I really don’t expect the outpouring of labor required for fighting voter suppression for 2018. It feels like no one is learning anything.
tobie
@debbie: @?BillinGlendaleCA: I liked the suggestion put forth this morning by Republican strategist Mike Myers–Leon Panetta. He’s been involved in the legislative and executive branches of gov’t, he was once a Republican, and he last headed the CIA so he’s familiar with the intelligence services. Cornyn would be a nightmare, so that’s who Trump will likely pick.
Chet Murthy
A penny dropped for me yesterday. Why did Smallgloves insist that KKKeebler Elf sign on to the Comey firing? For the same reason that part of initiation into a criminal gang involves murdering someone: to cement the co-conspirator’s allegiance, by forcing him to burn his bridges. And doing this repeatedly just makes it more and more difficult for the co-conspirator to turn state’s evidence.
Millard Filmore
@NR: I think I agree with you on one thing. A serious study needs to be done on the effectiveness of helicopter money.
When candidate A spends 5x more on ads than candidate B, but does not get 5x the votes … then there are other factors a play. A sweet spot needs to be found.
Josie
@the Conster, la Citoyenne:
From your lips (or keyboard) to FSM’s ears.
efgoldman
@tobie:
As with Evil Leprechaun, a RWNJ senator would have no trouble being confirmed, and chances are greater than 99% that he’d be replaced by another RWNJ – somebody like Abbot, f’rinstace.
Not that I give Mango Malignancy credit for figuring that out, but maybe somebody on the WH staff (or more likely, someone in the senate) stuck a little birdie in his ear.
West of the Rockies (been a while)
Man, I hope that sunset leak/dump Adam anticipated this morning comes true!!!
Mnemosyne
@ruemara:
I’m funneling some money to VoteRiders and Let America Vote (Jason Kander’s PAC) but, yeah, when people who are purportedly on the left refuse to even look at the evidence, we’re pretty screwed.
NR
@ruemara:
Gee, if only the Democratic establishment had spent some of that consultant money on voter turnout instead! But sadly, they didn’t.
But it’s much easier to blame “holier than thou purists” than it is to take a hard look at the leadership of the Democratic party and think about whether they made some poor decisions. Like for example maybe, just maybe, it was a bad idea to spend hundreds of millions of dollars on political consulting firms with a horrible track record of winning elections?
Nah, couldn’t be. It must be the purists’ fault.
Mnemosyne
@Millard Filmore:
From what I’ve seen, in big races there are limits to how much it can do, but it can make a HUGE difference in local and state-level races when the Democrat has $50K to spend and the Kochs give $1 million to the Republican.
We need to talk about how to redirect some of our money, because we are being VASTLY outspent on the local and state level and it’s really hurting us.
Felanius Kootea
The cleanup effort will be long and hard but we’ll get it done. I’m struck time and again about how archaic #45’s people are, stuck in some sort of time warp that they want to return the rest of us to. It really hit me when I watched the video of Macron asking US climate scientists and alternative energy researchers to move to France, because he believes in climate change and our president doesn’t and he values innovation (the implication being that our president doesn’t). These Trump guys are the past, a ghastly collection of failed ideas, greed, corruption and blatant cruelty brought to the fore by white resentment. I know it’s hard to remember that they are not the majority and that the majority of the voting population (and I’m talking Hillary voters plus libertarians plus greens) voted against them.
Sessions can enrich his private prison friends for a little while but his views are not favored by a majority of Americans. Why it must always fall to Democrats to do clean-up I don’t know, but this time around they better explain every minute how we got to where we are and why people should avoid electing Republicans (or anyone else who claims that they don’t believe in government) because their dire predictions about government failings are always self-engineered.
debbie
@efgoldman:
@Betty Cracker:
I must admit I did a double take when his picture popped up on the late night news.
JanieM
@MomSense: OT, but how’s your dad?
Mnemosyne
@NR:
Oh, right, now I remember: you’re the voter suppression didn’t make a difference in the election guy.
Because God forbid you look at the actual problem we’re facing rather than grab yet another opportunity to whine about how evil the Democratic Party is.
Putz.
Betty Cracker
@debbie: Dave Weigel at WaPo wrote a piece today about what a dumb idea it is. He’s right!
Mnemosyne
@efgoldman:
I have a feeling that Garland’s reaction was what I asked my husband when the crappy job he’d been laid off from asked him to come back and do the same job for a lower title and less pay: “Did you tell them ‘no,’ ‘hell, no,’ or ‘go fuck yourselves’?”
NR
@Mnemosyne: Evil? No. Incompetent? Yes.
In any case, unlike some people here, I am capable of holding multiple thoughts in my head at the same time. In this case,
a) Voter suppression is bad and should be fought against
and
b) There is no evidence that it swung the results of the election.
Anyway, it’s pointless arguing with you, so I’ll go back to what I was saying before, which is that the War on Drugs is a stain on this nation’s moral character and should have been ended decades ago.
TenguPhule
@Gelfling 545:
As someone familiar with the bureaucracy and rules, procedures and general inertia of government, I can assure you that any sufficiently clever prosecutor can get around his orders by careful rules lawyering.
TenguPhule
@Chet Murthy:
Sessions only agreed to burn his once Trump managed to get a black man tied to the bridge.
TenguPhule
@ThresherK:
At this point Trump needs to get an EPA coal plant permit for air pollution.
Mnemosyne
@NR:
Yep, no evidence except all of the evidence I’ve already provided you. But you’ve already said that unless at least 23,000 African-American voters from Wisconsin including come to your doorstep to tell you in person that they were prevented from voting, it didn’t really happen, so I realize your mind is completely closed.
TenguPhule
@Mnemosyne: I’m sure 200,000 voters denied their right to vote in a critical swing state had absolutely nothing to do with a slim margin of 20,000 votes going towards the worst candidate on the ballot. After all, “But her emails!”
Mnemosyne
@TenguPhule:
In Milwaukee County alone, the county clerk said that over 40,000 people were thrown off the voter rolls by WI’s voter ID law.
But I’m sure it was just another coincidence that just happened to work in the Republicans’ favor.
randy khan
@SiubhanDuinne:
I’m not either.
Jake the antisoshul soshulist
I can’t decide which Sessions reminds me more of, a malevolent Leprechaun or Henry Gibson in Blues Brothers.
Uncle Ebeneezer
@MomSense: Silly wabbit. Only SOME laws (and SOME lawbreakers) warrant prosecution. I can’t figure out what the difference might be…
Sab
@NR: Some of this voter suppression stuff is blatant, but a lot of it is subtle. When I first moved back to Ohio in1999, in my town the polling places were all within walking distance. My dad could walk to his polling place on the next block. I drove to my polling place a quarter mile away and then drove off to work. In 2016 my polling place was 4 miles away in an area I am totally unfamiliar with , with complicated traffic patterns. My dad’s place was 3 miles away. My dad’s STNA (nurse aide) wanted to vote but would have had to take a bus to his polling place (that he used to be able to walk to) and then another bus to work. I did cut him slack so he could vote and get to work late without penalty, but other employers aren’t so understanding.
I do agree with you that the Clinton campaign in my area was more concerned with winning over soccer moms than getting car-less people rides to the polls.
Brendan in NC
@SFAW: oh, I agree wholeheartedly
rikyrah
@Mnemosyne:
I LOVE BEVERLY JENKINS!!
I love her historical fiction. It’s so good to read stories involving Black people that aren’t centered around slavery. We had lives even during the darkest times of this country, and she gives voice to that.
I love her Blessings series . It’s a series about a rich Black divorcee who wants to find a new purpose for her life after her 20+ year marriage goes up in smoke. She’s surfing the net and sees that a Historically Black town in Kansas has put itself up for sale on Ebay. She buys the town, and proceeds to begin rebuilding it, bringing in new blood in the shape of 5 Foster Children and Matching them up with parents. It’s such a good series.
Mnemosyne
@rikyrah:
The RWA is really focusing on trying to be more inclusive and getting more authors of color in their ranks. When I was at the LA Times Festival of Books, I got to hear Reese Ryan on a panel. She’s one of the cornerstone authors that Silhouette is using to create a new line called Silhouette Kimani, which is specifically aimed at the African-American market. Took ’em long enough!
I’m embarrassed to say I haven’t read Jenkins, but I’m getting caught back up after being away from romance reading for 15 years, so I need to work her books in. Someone was telling me that Indigo is really good.
Keep an eye out for when I (finally) finish the first draft of my book. My hero in it has a half-brother who’s mixed-race that I want to make the hero of the next book, and I am going to need beta readers to make sure I don’t screw it up. ?
Gwangung
@TenguPhule: when there’s an order if magnitude involved, it takes a lot of balls (or stupidity) to say there’s no evidence. It’s strong, though not presumptive….
Seth Owen
@NR: I literally begged people to understand the stakes involved. I pleaded with people not to let there be even a CHANCE of President Trump. I predicted disaster. I said that Hillary could not possibly be as bad as Trump.
And here we are, with President Trump.
For the sake of the country I’m trying to forget, and get past the Judea People’s Front vs People’s Front of Judea BS, but some of you are making it hard.
Seth Owen
@TenguPhule: If it didn’t matter, the Republicans wouldn’t be going through all this trouble to suppress votes. Seriously, this should be all the evidence one should need.
NR
@Mnemosyne:
You haven’t provided me any such evidence, but I’m not surprised that you think you have. You and reality are not, shall we say, exactly on speaking terms.
NR
@Sab: Personally I think election day should be a national holiday. But I’m just a crazy liberal so what do I know?
Mnemosyne
@NR:
Well, you keep on not bothering your beautiful mind with what the clerk of Milwaukee County says happened in November. I’m sure a pseudonymous commenter on the internet like yourself understands Wisconsin elections better than Wisconsin’s elections officials do.
dianne
Evwry time I see Sessions, I think of Henry Gibson from the old Laugh In show. The only thing missing is the bouquet of flowers.
Ramalama
I think this is where we white people have to step up.
There are a shit ton of great cops everywhere. But there are also some who are a few french fries short of a happy meal, with guns and badges. And benefits of the doubtsss.
We’re going to have to take a page from this black professor’s blog and bear witness any time we see a police officer question or detain or arrest a person of color.
He was stopped because he fit the description, despite not really matching the description other than being a black man. His official IDs didn’t help either, so police basically held him until a witness could see him on the street (and do we know how well eye witness identifications work?).
But then….
And, no, it’s not just Boston. I’ve witnessed and heard all sorts of racist BS first-hand, as a white lady, in Oklahoma, Texas, Illinois, Wisconsin, Indiana, Colorado, Florida, Pennsylvania, Massachusetts, Belgium, Austria, the Netherlands, and Canada.
Kate
@sharl: Thanks for this information! Great information.