NEW: In private, here is how President Biden refers to Donald Trump:
“What a sick fuck”
“What a fucking asshole this guy is”
Behind the scenes with Biden’s pure disgust for his predecessor – and what truly sets him off https://t.co/bS0zYZrEw8
— Jonathan Lemire (@JonLemire) February 1, 2024
Admirable restraint, IMO, Politico — “What Biden *really* says about Trump behind closed doors”:
President JOE BIDEN has a reputation for salty language behind closed doors. But it nearly slipped out in public during his speech at Valley Forge last month to mark the third anniversary of the Jan. 6 insurrection. Animated and angry, he derided DONALD TRUMP and his followers for drawing glee from political violence…
The president has described Trump to longtime friends and close aides as a “sick fuck” who delights in others’ misfortunes, according to three people who have heard the president use the profane description. According to one of the people who has spoke with the president, Biden recently said of Trump: “What a fucking asshole the guy is.”
The White House declined to comment.The epithets may cut against the image Biden often projects as someone eager to take down the level of incivility and acrimony in politics. But they also illustrate a core anger he has developed toward the man he ousted from office and may very well face again.
Biden has long been troubled by what he has perceived as Trump’s encouragement of political violence, which the incumbent believes is a direct threat to the nation’s democracy and deeply un-American, according to the three people familiar with his private conversations, who were all granted anonymity to describe them. His disgust toward Trump has never been a secret but has only grown in recent months as the former president tightens his grip on the GOP nomination…
Biden’s fury has also been triggered, according to the people who spoke to him, by accounts of Trump cheering on the Jan. 6 rioters from the comfort of his private dining room off the Oval Office. In addition, Trump’s declaration that there were fine people on “both sides” of the racist clashes in Charlottesville, Virginia, as well as his warm words toward VLADIMIR PUTIN have been known to set off the president.
Biden grew particularly incensed by reports of Trump refusing to visit a military cemetery in the rain and by stories that he has mocked the sacrifices of fallen American soldiers. Biden believes his son BEAU died of brain cancer that developed after being exposed to burn pits while serving in Iraq. And, as with the case of the Valley Forge speech, his fury on this front has spilled out into public view, including last weekend in South Carolina…
But Tiger Beat on the Potomac knows what its paying subscribers want:
Who gives a fuck? https://t.co/xEUAB2oLSJ
— Schiffy Goon Squad (@TonyMoonbeam) February 1, 2024
I kinda pumped for his campaign soundtrack. The obvious choices are: “I’m Shipping up to Boston” which he used in Ireland, “A Sky Full of Stars” which was Beau’s favorite and used as the 2020 victory party, and lots and lots of Taylor Swift.
— Michael Everett (@silvertongue39) February 1, 2024
— UnderDuress77 (@Under_Duress77) February 1, 2024
War for Ukraine Day 708: Russia Welcomes a New Submarine to Its Fleet
Ruckus
One of the things that makes Joe Biden so good is that he really does understand SFB, who and what he is and even more important, what he isn’t.
JaySinWA
Okay a new open thread.
I saw an amazing thing the other day. I drove behind a large pickup truck flying a black, white and blue line American flag in the back with a large decal on the back saying “Don’t worry, I’ve got your six.”
No, you idiot, I am on your “six”, you got nothing. Words, what do they mean?
ETA I was looking up the expression to see if there was a picture of the decal. Apparently there’s a bunch of tee shirts with some form of this on the back and it’s common on rear window stickers. Ignorance is bliss maybe?
Bruce K in ATH-GR
If I were in Joe Biden’s shoes, I’d be tempted to go beyond what’s cited above and use some really rude words*, of the sort that’d entice eldritch horrors to emerge from the Dungeon Dimensions and nest in the Potomac Basin and eat the Freedom Caucus while the rest of the city ran for high ground.
*Joke stolen from Charles Stross’s The Jennifer Morgue.
Hungry Joe
I was all-in for Elizabeth Warren in the primaries — canvassing, postcards, donations. Biden was near the bottom of my list. I was sure he wouldn’t be as progressive as I’d like. And he hasn’t been.
BUT: I’ve come around to thinking that he’s the best President since FDR. Probably one of the best ever. What he has accomplished, with razor-thin majorities, and now with no majority in the House … jaw-dropping. All my dreams haven’t come true, but for all my long Lefty life I’ve realized — sometimes reluctantly — that workhorses are preferable to purity ponies.
I also feel — again, reluctantly — that he’s done a better job than Warren would have … COULD have. All those years, all that experience has paid off, and continues to pay off. Man, did we ever get lucky.
SiubhanDuinne
@JaySinWA:
I’m probably waaaay off base, like laughingly clueless, but my first thought was the Supreme Court Six — Roberts, Thomas, Alito, Gorsuch, Kavanaugh, and Barrett. Does that make any sense to you in context?
Delk
It’s just locker room talk.
Chetan Murthy
@Hungry Joe: I agree with you all particulars of your comment. All of them.
Dangerman
I’m more a pithy kinda guy, i.e. ““What a sick fucking asshole this guy is”
I know I’ve linked this song from this artist previously, but this recently found version of a Steven Van Zandt classic is perfect:
Jackson Browne, “I am a Patriot”
Jay
@JaySinWA:
“Thin Blue Line” flag. Copaganda and MAGA.
KrackenJack
@Hungry Joe: Same here.
beef
Biden: “fuck em”
JaySinWA
@SiubhanDuinne: Nope. I got your six means i’ve got your back. So being behind someone claiming to be protecting your back is a bit oxymoronical.
JaySinWA
@SiubhanDuinne: Nope. I got your six means i’ve got your back. So being behind someone claiming to be protecting your back is a bit oxymoronical.
JaySinWA
@SiubhanDuinne: Nope. I got your six means i’ve got your back. So being behind someone claiming to be protecting your back is a bit oxymoronical.
JaySinWA
Hit by the duplicate comment bug
ETA 2 am must be the witching hour.
Jay
@SiubhanDuinne:
It’s a clock thing. “I’ve got your six” means I am covering your rear.
“I’m at your nine” means I have your left flank covered.
Jay
Double post
Poe Larity
I just double checked and David Broder, like Generalissimo Francisco Franco, is still dead.
JaySinWA
@Jay: Yes, but the “thin blue line” seemed thicker than the others.
Jay
@Poe Larity:
So is Briebart and Kissenger.
Bruce K in ATH-GR
@Jay: Since this is an open thread, I’ve been mulling a question: does RoboCop count as copaganda?
Jay
@JaySinWA:
That’s the point. America would not exist with out the Slave Patrols, and America as it exists, (y’now, other than Uvalde, etc) would not survive as a society with out the Slave Patrols.
On the other hand, covering a vehicle with Copaganda is a good way to run your Meth shipment.
SiubhanDuinne
@Jay:
Ah, thank you — now it (kind of) makes sense to me. Sounds like military slang, maybe? Was not familiar with those expressions.
Jay
@Bruce K in ATH-GR:
Yes, and no. It’s more anti-Corp. It’s no Serpico, and the sequels were pretty bad.
In an earlier thread, here, one of the Juicers reported driving with her Mom, and the car catching fire. Her Mom stayed calm, stopped the car, and got everybody out safely.
The local Press reported it as the Cops got everybody out safely.
That’s Copaganda.
SiubhanDuinne
@JaySinWA:
Triple, but who’s counting? 😏
Ruckus
@Hungry Joe:
workhorses are preferable to purity ponies
The job isn’t the Rose Parade, it’s running the country for all citizens, and a purity pony not only isn’t going to do that, a purity pony wouldn’t be capable of that.
David 🏈 Mahomes! 🏈 Koch
Jay-Z’s “I’ve got 99 problems and a Trump ain’t one”
Or
LL Cool J’s “Mama Said Knock You Out”
Or
Run-DMC, “Walk this Way”
Jay
@SiubhanDuinne:
Yeah, it’s mostly military short hand, dating back to at least WWII.
The film, “12 O’clock High” was from gunners on a B-17 letting other gunners know where the enemy fighters were. Straight ahead, at altitude above the B-17.
It’s used to tell others where you are, it’s used to tell others where the enemy is. Sniper’s spotters add in eg. “push left”, (compensates for wind), .15 mil, (scope setting), up .25, (range drop)
Geoduck
@Jay: The third Indiana Jones movie has a gag about “O’clock” usage.
Jay
@SiubhanDuinne:
With the advent of SWAT Teams in the 70’s, then body coms, team networks and the militarization of Police Work, it’s now also “Cop Lingo”.
NotMax
Watergate era jackals will remember the days of “expletive deleted.”
piratedan
I think that Biden’s use of the salty vernacular only helps, in front of the cameras, he’s busy honoring all internet traditions, behind them, he’s just like a huge majority of us. Helps humanize him as I believe that the determination that Trump is indeed a “sick fuck” is evident for all to see.
columbusqueen
This is why I’ve always loved Joe; he still talks like a real person even after 50+ years in DC, & he never minces his words. Give that worthless SOB hell, good buddy!
Jay
My take on it, is if somebody swears, other than Jim Richie*, they needed to swear.
*Jim was Glaswegan, where swearing is used as punctuation.
Citizen Alan
@Bruce K in ATH-GR: The opposite, I’d say, since the premise of the film is the dystopian nightmare that would result from privatizing law enforcement and making it a for-profit enterprise.
Ramalama
Joe Manchin of no labels, no swearing, is roiling in his margarita mix over Bidens potty mouth and helpful policies.
m.j.
I think saying Trump is a, “sick fuck,” says you’re holding back.
Betty Cracker
I hope the story gets picked up by every outlet in the country so all potential voters hear it. It’s the most relatable thing Biden has ever said, and everyone not in the Trump cult knows it’s the damn truth! 😂
Joey Maloney
In the same way that the Starship Troopers movie promotes fascism.
Chris T.
@NotMax: I’m reminded of the old joke about The World’s Most Offensive Limerick, in which all the really bad words are “dah-ed” over:
Da-dah da da dah dah dah dah-dah
Da da dah da da da dah-da
Dah-da da da da
Dah-da da da da
Da dah dah dah dah dah fuck.
(Yes, the last line kind of needs one more syllabobble to scan properly, but I think that was part of the joke maybe?)
Brachiator
RE: “What a fucking asshole this guy is”
I might clutch my pearls, if I gave a fuck.
I love that Biden holds back. Looking ahead, Trump will misinterpret this as fear, and Biden will tear him apart.
Commenter Hungry Joe nails it. I voted for Warren in the California primary to try to help keep her campaign going, but had also decided that she was not my preferred candidate.
Biden knows what he is doing, understands Congress and has probably got more done than anyone might have expected. And I have previously noted that I think his cabinet appointments and judicial nominations have been outstanding.
How would you say this using a digital clock for reference?
Baud
@Betty Cracker:
I’d like to see cable news chryons asking the question “Is Donald Trump a sick fuck?”
Jay
@Brachiator:
double o 6?
Pre-Bond?
or is it 6 Double O?
hells littlest angel
I believe “What a fucking asshole,” is what Biden is reported to have said on seeing the top of the line golf simulator Trump had had installed in the WQhite House. What else could one have said?
hells littlest angel
@Baud: “Here to discuss are Alan Dershowitz, Andrew Tate, and, out on a day pass, Ghislaine Maxwell.”
lowtechcyclist
@Jay:
So they’re telling you they’ve got your six when they’re at your 12 – when you are at their 6.
They’re just brilliant, aren’t they?
Gvg
@Ruckus: Purity ponies also make coalitions smaller not bigger. That’s why they never rise above a certain local level and don’t get things done in a democracy. They show up in autocracies, and theocracies.
brantl
@JaySinWA: They’re saying they’ve got America’s back. They haven’t figured out that they are America’s Back End, which means they’re the ass, covering their own ass. Ironic.
Joe should use Queen’s “We Are the Champions”. It would drive doll-hands and the MAGAt horde batshit-nuts.
Jesse
Pretty sure FDR swore, too. Truman as well. LBJ? Of course. Nixon swore a ton *and recorded it all*.
brantl
@Hungry Joe: “workhorses are preferable to purity ponies” ROTATING TAG LINE, AND ACRONYM -NOMINATED! WAPTPP!
p.a.
The discussion of the fuckity fucker for some reason got me thinking of presidential portraits and how there’s been no mention of his & in which broom closet it’s displayed. Pres portrait website has them in chronological order-ish (fuck you Grover), and tRump’s is the first that is a photo, not a painting. Joe’s is too. Just haven’t been painted yet, or (shudder) a new trend?
raven
@Jesse: Fuck LBJ
Balconesfault
The key to Biden is that he really likes people. Not in the abstract like a lot of purity ponies seem to, and not for how he can use them – which is the only way Trump can “like” people, but for who they are and what their individual stories are.
RevRick
@piratedan: Personally, I prefer to call Trump a “God-damned fascist.” And I mean that quite theologically.
Princess
@Hungry Joe: I could have written every word of this post.
Ohio Mom
IIRC, Obama was also reported to cuss in private.
It’s called having a filter, knowing in what circumstances it is appropriate to let it all hang out. Those of us with very eldery people in our lives often witness their lack of a filter (looking at you, Ohio MIL). It’s a cognitive function can fade with advanced years.
Now compare and contrast with Trump.
RevRick
@raven: I know that “Fuck LBJ” is a common sentiment around here, but to me, it seems disproportionate. I know that the Vietnam War was a massive case of stupidity with tragic and devastating consequences. But it was a widely shared stupidity.
After all, Johnson kept on all of Kennedy’s advisors — the best and brightest— and they shared the Washingtonian” conventional wisdom. They knew that the Truman administration had been tainted with the canard of “Who lost China?”
Those advisors shared the blame for the fatal escalation which followed. They, too, were enmeshed in the “sunk costs “ fallacy, because they had been involved in the lesser escalations of the Kennedy years. And Washington was rife with fears about “losing” Southeast Asia.
We’ve all seen how harshly the Savvy have dealt with President Biden over his ending the war in Afghanistan. How would they have reacted to a pullout of Vietnam in the 60s, especially in view of the earlier Bay of Pigs fiasco? And we know LBJ feared the blowback if he didn’t “fight communism,” in Vietnam.
I realize this won’t be a popular opinion here, but I think we need a more revisionist approach to LBJ, besides what in my view is a lazy approach. To center everything on his failure in Vietnam kind of erases all the Civil Rights legislation, Medicare and Medicaid, and the way he set the Democratic Party on the road to where we are today.
Baud
@RevRick:
It’s not common. It’s only raven. But many of us repeat it somewhat tongue in cheek out of respect for Raven.
RevRick
@Baud: Ah, okay.
evodevo
@Jay: I always have to say “And where was that thin blue line in Uvalde?”
Cheryl from Maryland
@p.a.: Are you referring to the National Portrait Gallery images? The Gallery has a long-standing and elaborate procedure — curators create a list of artists, submit it to the President and First Lady, raise money for the paintings, and then the curators, the sitters, and the artist consult for the final work. I would not be surprised if Trump and Melania have not responded to overtures from the NPG, and so the NPG, to keep in Congress’ good graces has used a photograph of Trump.
That being said, official portraits are a dreary subset of contemporary art — many sitters want a portrait in the style of late 19th/early 20th-century art (think John Singer Sergeant). A friend who is the curator for Congress tried to expand the type of portrait to include photographs as modern photographs can be vastly superior to old-style portraits (Yousef Karsh’s portraits of Churchill and Einstein). President and Mrs. Obama’s portraits, I hope, have changed the game.
Ivan X
Ok, what is it with “copaganda?” I mean, I say I like L&O here, and the response is “that’s copaganda!” Are we now at a point, over here in our political camp, where cops are a monolithic enemy? You don’t have to sell me on their violent behavior before and after George Floyd, and the rest of it — obviously many cops are bad, and police organizations need reform, and there is insufficient accountability, and they are excessively militarized, and they unfairly target minority communities. I know. Anyone with eyes can see this. (A friend of mine was just terrorized by the LAPD because his home was wrongly specified during a 911 burglary report…that he, trying to be a good citizen, called in himself!)
But, I like having police. The alternative, as I see it, is for me and my neighbors and everyone to own a gun, and I don’t see that as making for a healthy society. And I recognize that I benefit from the significant privilege that I am not an outwardly visible minority and am in the “right” economic class and I dress the “right” way. Maybe I’d feel differently if I didn’t.
But “copaganda” seems like one of these righteous lefty catchphrases designed to divide people into camps and to paint with the broadest brush. Is it possible to criticize and worry about the abuses of modern policing? Yes. Is it possible to also believe that many cops are well intended civil servants? Yes. Is it possible to believe in the system of civil society, in which police are a necessary alternative to armed citizenry? Yes. Is it helpful to imply that someone is not the right kind of liberal/progressive/Democrat if they don’t hate the cops? Not in my opinion.
And, are we really so surprised that popular entertainment and news coverage (same thing) is pro-police? We shouldn’t, because we live in what is basically an optimistic culture, and so TV and news tends to be pro-system in general. There aren’t TV shows about bad doctors and bad lawyers, either. Popular entertainment and news seeks to be reassuring. So what? If you want to find stories about corruption and abuse, there are news outlets that specialize in it, and there are plenty of movies and books for you, both fiction and non-fiction.
Just to be completely unambiguous, I am as horrified as everyone else by the murders, manslaughters, and violent abuses we know about at the hands of police. I think that needs to be fixed, and stat. But at a personal level, I also believe police do necessary and good work, and individual cops are not a monolith, and dismissing popular entertainment and news coverage for being pro-police with a derisive and smug term is one of those political own goals we’re so good at. It rubs me the wrong way.
Finally, this isn’t directed at any one commenter. “Copaganda” is a term I have seen thrown around a lot here by various parties and I was thinking about it recently, and why it sticks in my craw the wrong way. This is the moment I chose to unpack it.
UncleEbeneezer
@Betty Cracker: One of my fave Black comedy podcasters did a long segment on this awhile back. Even before this news came out, he said that this is one of the reasons Black Voters love Biden. They know he hates Trump as much as they do, and he’s one of the only politicians who truly gives off this vibe (Kamala too). And I agree that this is a big selling point for Biden. Normal people are rightfully disgusted by Trump. Biden can totally lean into that. He already does calling him a “clown” sometimes and I fucking LOVE IT! I think it fires up our side and helps nudge some Independents in the direction of common sense.
JaneE
Biden may be blunt and profane, but he is also dead on about Trump. Trump is sick, and mentally ill and has been for a while. He is also a sadist, specializing in women and children. Assholes are a dime a dozen, and being one is as close to normal as Trump gets. Only my opinion, of course.
bluefoot
This post makes me think I would love to see a K&P skit of Obama as Biden’s anger translator.
It would crack me up if the Biden campaign used some Taylor Swift music. Heads would explode.
Mike in NC
Joe was really pissed the time he was shown all the ridiculously expensive golf simulators that Fat Bastard had installed in the White House. You remember, the guy who claimed he’d be too busy working to even play golf (except on any days ending in “y”).
prostratedragon
There’s always room for some Janelle Monae!
...now I try to be amused
@UncleEbeneezer: I loved it when Biden called Trump “The Former Guy”. It’s an expression of casual contempt.
Paul in KY
@Hungry Joe: Agree!
Paul in KY
@RevRick: LBJ (IMO) escalated Vietnam, cause he was going to run for re-election and thought the GQP was going to tar him as ‘soft on commies’. So, in that way, Fuck LBJ, as we lost so many great young men & women in a that war. Fuck Nixon too for continuing it.
Paul in KY
@Ivan X: Today is the first time I have ever seen/heard/read the term ‘copaganda’.
Cops have a very tough job. Too many of them are in a job they are not mentally equipped to do correctly. These ones (IMO) will not get out of the job, and do things that hurt & kill innocent people. They also poison relations between people and the cops who do a professional job.
Paul in KY
@prostratedragon: Janelle is da shit! Saw her once at Bonnaroo. Wonderful set on What Stage.
dirge
Copaganda explained by Wikipedia
I don’t think I’ve seen the term used here excessively or dismissively, but YMMV. In any case, it’s a fairly common term for a real and concerning phenomenon.
dnfree
@evodevo: In Uvalde the thin blue line was too thick. Thick meaning too many of them (thick on the ground) and not smart enough (thick-headed).
glc
@Jesse: There’s that Truman story, where he told some reporters at his farm he was “shoveling manure” and they asked his wife, couldn’t she get him to talk about something other than manure. She said “Gentleman, it was all I could do to get him to say ‘manure.'”
(Needless to say, no warranty of the truth of the matter, but his stylle was known.)
Paul in KY
@dirge: Thank you for the wiki link.
strange visitor (from another planet)
@Ivan X: you know, for some reason i thought you live in NYC. if you DO, what you’re expressing is a pretty oblivious attitude to have.
NYPD is an unaccountable force of tens of thousands armed with high-grade military weapons and vehicles. they ignore the mayor, the city council, the CCRB. they strut around like they’re caesar christ and are always on the edge of a ‘roid rage when dealing with “civilians”.
they “work” as hard as they like, when they like and they think the mayor serves at their pleasure instead of the other way around.
after the way the cops turned their backs on deblasio at the funeral in 2015, IMO, he should’ve fired EVERY SINGLE ONE of those fascist fucks.
one could argue it’s really not the cops per se that are the problem, the issue is police culture, the us-against-them, no friends-all-foes attitude they’ve adopted since the nineties but that doesn’t help you when you need help.
kay has it right. they swallow MASSIVE resources and don’t SOLVE any fucking crimes. they don’t prevent murders, societal trends do. they don’t prevent rape or find rapists. they can BARELY handle traffic stops.
and yeah. the copaganda is a thing. it’s totally a thing. it’s BEEN a thing since dragnet, the VERY FIRST tv cop show that the LAPD worked alongside the production company to create.
…and i dunno how it was missed, but yeah. robocop is a satire.
Ivan X
@strange visitor (from another planet): I don’t disagree with anything you’re saying about NYC cops. I go out of my way to avoid them. There are big problems to fix with them.
But I don’t see how NYC would run without cops though. Do you? When there’s cops on the subway, there are fewer deranged and dangerous people on the subway. There are still too many of those, so I want more cops on the subway.
There was a fucking riot in Union Square not long ago when some influencer apparently was giving away PlayStations or some shit, or at least that was the rumor that got around on TikTok. So of course a billion cops showed up and used fascist methods to end it. I don’t have a problem with that. I live there. I want to be able to get home.
“They don’t solve crimes” and “They don’t prevent murders, societal trends do” are broad claims I’d want to see backed up. I don’t think this kind of argument helps sway hearts and minds to create change. It’s just anger. Warranted anger, perhaps, but I think that expecting an attitude of “all cops are scum” from ordinary liberal/Democrat bourgeiosie like me just trying to grind our way through the day is a winning way to unite our side.
I agree with you regarding the shocking disrespect they showed DeBlasio. That was a critical moment to correct that went missed.
It’s the all-or-nothing perspective you’re offering (and I hear others offer when they go off about copaganda) that I disagree with. I think it’s bad for us, politically. I think most people want cops.
Also, I never said copaganda wasn’t a thing. I just think that the idea is alienating and confusing to people who don’t hate all cops. If someone likes a cop show, so the fuck what?
cckids
@bluefoot:
Drastically late to the thread, as always, but . . .
Taylor Swift should do a version of Jill Scott’s “Hate on Me”
Then Joe should use that.
“If I could give you the world
On a silver platter
Would even matter?
You’d still be mad at meIf I can find in all this a dozen roses
Which I would give to you, you’d still be miserable
In reality I’m gon’ be who I be
And I don’t feel no faults for all the lies that you bought
You can try as you may bring me down when I say
That it ain’t up to you, go on do what you do
Hate on me hater
Now or later‘
Cause I’m gonna do me
You’ll be made baby(Go head and hate)
Go head and hate on me hater
I’m not afraid of
What I got I paid for
You can hate on me”
strange visitor (from another planet)
@Ivan X: so here’s the thing. i dunno if you’re down with the kevin drum theory on lead, but we’ve had an absurd amount of cops in this city. their numbers fluctuate, appx +/- 40K. they’ve got guns they don’t know how to use, tanks and other armored vehicles they don’t need, and their massive footprint has had nothing to do with the massive drop in crime since the nineties.
stop-and-frisk didn’t reduce crimes (and was found to be largely unconstitutional). putting teams in squad car cruisers didn’t reduce crime. not having a residency requirement didn’t reduce crime. SWAT teams didn’t reduce crime.
society reduced crime. something changed in new york, and it changed ALL over the country. call nyc the experiment in overzealous policing and other parts of the country the control, i dunno. what i DO know is that violent crime dropped through the FOOR across america thirty years ago and NYPD tactics had fuckall to do with it.
again. you wanna say it’s not cops, it’s cop culture, fine. THAT’S what fucking has to change. we are NOT their enemy. they WORK for us.
https://www.motherjones.com/environment/2016/02/lead-exposure-gasoline-crime-increase-children-health/
https://www.nytimes.com/2013/09/16/nyregion/firing-at-man-
in-times-square-police-wound-two-bystanders.html
https://www.wsws.org/en/articles/2012/08/nypd-a27.html
https://www.nytimes.com/1992/09/17/nyregion/officers-rally-and-dinkins-is-their-target.htm
eta- yeah, i suspect we’re largely in agreement. i don’t want nypd running down protesters. i don’t want them fucking with random people. i want them doing their jobs, competently, invisibly. kind of like biden’s cabinet.
strange visitor (from another planet)
@Ivan X: in regards to the copaganda, it’s an unearned mindset that makes the cops think they can get away with lying on the stand (and are usually right). it’s a power they misuse and exploit all the time. it’s what helps them get away with often mindboggling violations of the public trust.
a section of the tower commission report, the one on iran-contra, kicked off with an interesting quote, a famous query: “quis custodiet ipsos custodes?”
it’s gotta be us. there ain’t no one else
eta- there used to be specialized subway cops, the transit division, but they got folded into the aboveground NYPD and for some reason, they lost focus.
RaflW
Late to this (as is often my MO), and yet, I can’t resist this:
“The epithets may cut against the image Biden often projects as someone eager to take down the level of incivility and acrimony in politics.”
I rarely swore at work, but after 5 if I was at a bar with close colleagues, yeah I’d swear. Was I falsely ‘projecting’ an ‘image’?
Of course not. I was correctly observing a very ordinary and typical line that millions of people try to pay attention to. There is no contradiction in Biden’s public and private behavior.
Also, too, I think this strategic leak to the press is great. I’ve seen some crabbing on the intertrons that Biden should say these things with the door open. But I say, nah.
Leak it, make Trump furious, give our side a nice sense that Biden gets it, but there’s no tape for the pearl-clutchers and both-siders to loop endlessly on cable.
Ivan X
@strange visitor (from another planet): Sure. I want that too.