Ranxerox

TikTok Teens and K-Pop Stans Say They Sank Trump Rally
 
If you read the article, you will discover that it really comes down to a 51 year old black woman living in Fort Dodge, Iowa.  Through her suggestion to the internet, she probably prevented numerous Covid-19 deaths.  Way to go Mary Jo, you are my new hero.

I for one do not welcome our kangaroo overlords. Their courts are terrible.

The link provided by Scottish Fox showed the claim that she was fired due to her own actions and that she created a hostile work environment, but it gave no specifics. Do you have citation for your claim that she is strongly racist?

I don't like to be cynical, but I can't help but think that Robert's just gave Trump the biggest gift that he could give him. The nation watching thousands and thousands of telegenic, articulate and often accentless young people get deported right before the election wasn't going to do anything positive for Trump's reelection chances.
 
 
Don't get me wrong. I would not have had the decision go the other direction just to bolster the chances of Trump losing, even though if reelected he may deport the kids latter. I am elated that they are getting to stay in the US for now, and if Trump loses they won't have to worry about it latter. I am just questioning Robert's motives, that is all.
 

Massey, I do thank you for your input on this subject. It's enormously helpful to hear first-hand experience of how the system functions, and the practical issues you've seen that influence the outcomes we've all been concerned about. I think a number of your suggestions sound very reasonable and helpful, and I will remember what you brought up for any future discussions of the subject I get into.
 
However, I would like to underline another factor I believe is fueling the intensity of these protests, one that it's hard to relate to unless you have some personal experience of it -- the effect of manifestations of systemic bias in the police, and in the broader white society, toward black people. The automatic suspicion with which black people are treated by white police, the driving pullovers, the questioning, the demands for identification, from no other apparent cause than being black. The stigmatization, the offensive manner with which they're approached, the many ways a double standard is demonstrated. Black people of every socio-economic class relate stories of being treated that way, time after time, all their lives.
 
As I've mentioned elsewhere on these forums, I grew up in a time and place where I, even as a white male, experienced a small taste of what that's like, so I think I respond to remarks like those with more sympathy (as distinct from empathy) than most of my ethnicity. I grasp the effect of constantly being told or shown, in some big but many more subtle ways, that you're different, what you are makes you less, you deserve however you're treated, you're never going to be accepted no matter what you do. It's like the Chinese water torture, constantly drip, drip, dripping on your head, wearing you down, undercutting your self-esteem, filling you with anger and resentment and frustration, making it hard to hope for something better, provoking fear whenever you have to deal with authority. It makes you want to either give up, or explode. In the current situation the effects of that attitude are like piled-up dry kindling that were just waiting for a spark.

I'm not going to try to get into an argument on this.  I'm just going to state things as I see them.  It will be kinda long.  I am a defense attorney and was a public defender for nearly a decade.  Some of this will probably offend some people here.  So be it.  I believe everyone here has the same general good goals and none of us are trying to be irrational or hateful.
 
 
 
This is, at the same time, both a massive problem within our justice system and also a fairly minor one.  In a country of 1/3 of a billion people, about 1000 people a year are shot and killed by the police.  Of those, about 10% are reported to be unarmed.  Some percentage of the unarmed people are either fleeing or attempting to commit suicide by cop (however I was unable to find those numbers).. A large number of them are also mentally ill (so they do unexpected things).  Approximately 40% of the unarmed people who are killed by police are black (mostly young males).  About 13% of the US population is black, but they make up a disproportionate share of all inmates in US prisons (accurate numbers are difficult to find quickly on this topic -- I've seen statistics anywhere from 1/3 to more than half, these numbers also appear to be going down).  For raw population numbers, unarmed black people are killed at a rate 3 times what we would expect.  But compared to how likely they are to be arrested by police, the numbers are much closer (this of course, makes us ask whether black people are unfairly targeted by police in the first place).  However this does mean that police do not appear to be more likely to shoot black people in any given encounter (i.e., per contact).
 
Any stance of "even one person being wrongfully killed is unacceptable" doesn't work for me.  Mistakes happen.  Accidents happen.  Outright murders happen.  We want to minimize these of course, but as TrickstaPriest said above with the person who set a cop on fire in Mexico, "that one person is an asshole and an instigator".  Police departments in the United States are local.  They vary from massive organizations like the NYPD and LAPD, down to small towns with two part time cops.  You cannot have such a dispersed system and also guarantee against one person being "an asshole and an instigator".  You cannot say that the entire justice system failed just because Officer Hardass decided to put a bullet in somebody.  Single digit incidents across a country of 330 million people are not a sign of a manifestly unjust system.
 
It's also possible for rational people to disagree on individual police shootings.  I have not seen the video of the guy who got shot in the back after he stole the cop's taser, but I've talked to several people who have.  Everybody seemed to have their own opinion on it.  I've seen police shooting videos where I thought the officer should be prosecuted immediately, and other people say "nah, it's fine".  And I've seen others where I thought it was perfectly justified (or at least understandable) and the cop gets arrested.  People are going to see things differently.
 
However, all that said, there are serious problems within our justice system.  We need to change these things.  Some of these are going to be extremely difficult to fix, and right now nobody is talking about many of them.  Some of them would be easy to fix, but nobody is lifting a finger to do what is necessary.
 
--Police unions have far too much power and influence.  In my state, when an officer shoots a suspect he is not questioned about it until days later when he's had a chance to consult with his union rep and an attorney.  That's part of their contract (source: a buddy of mine who is an ex-cop).  Bad cops get rehired or are never fired in the first place because of union contracts.  Even when something is "makes national news" bad, the unions are reluctant to go against their officers.
 
--There is a political problem within the Democratic Party right now.  African Americans vote Democrat about 90% of the time, but police unions are also major contributors to Democratic politicians.  Taking on the unions is a career killer for local Democrat politicians.  Republican politicians have no real incentive to take action (though they try to combat public sector unions on general principle, it's not Republicans who are getting shot), and Democratic politicians are paralyzed.  Two of their largest voting blocks are in opposition to each other here.
 
--Cops aren't tested for steroids.  This is a major problem, it's obvious, and no one has ever mentioned it.  I've seen these guys in the courtroom.  Everybody knows who they are.  They're clearly juicing and everyone knows it.  Yet cops aren't drug tested, and they certainly aren't tested for steroids.  I'd say at least 10% of cops are juicing.  Now don't get me wrong -- I was once in a room with a client who was one big mean son of a bitch, he got mad at me and jumped out of his chair at me.  I was very happy to see Officer Zangief (clearly taking some "Vitamin S") come in and smash that sucker into the wall.  Cops deal with dangerous people, that's why so many of them take steroids.  But we need to start doing something about it.
 
--No one is keeping track of bad cops.  Social media companies, instead of doing something useless like saying "we support BLM", could actually do something helpful.  It would be trivially easy for Facebook or Google or another company that already mines our data to create an algorithm that scans news reports for instances of police violence and assembles a database.  When somebody tweets out "my cousin Ricky got shot by the police", people should be collecting that.  When a cop gets fired for illegal use of force, that should follow him.  As it is, it's too easy for him to go to a different department and get hired there.  But if a report was widely available, and you could see this guy had already shot 3 people and had 15 complaints against him?  A lot less bad cops would get rehired.
 
--Police are not trained enough in de-escalation.  They're not trained enough, period.  But they're especially not trained in de-escalation.  Every cop who goes through the academy should know how to approach a suspect who is not actively resisting and talk to him in such a way that they don't start actively resisting.  Too many cops go to violent confrontation too quickly.  This is a problem that can be fixed, but it doesn't get fixed by spending less money.
 
--Local prosecutors have very close relationships with the police.  Prosecutors are friends with cops.  They marry cops.  They work with cops every day.  It's hard to file charges against a guy who came to your cookout a month ago.  Last week you were asking him how his wife and new baby are doing, this week you're trying to decide if it was okay for him to shoot a guy who had been to prison three times.  In most circumstances, the cop gets the benefit of the doubt.  Federal prosecutors need to take a much more active role in reviewing state police shootings.  This is something the President can order at any time (yes, Trump could have already done it, but so could have Obama).  Again, it's politically costly.  In some states, apparently DAs have to present charges against officers to a grand jury.  This is a total cop-out, when they say "the grand jury cleared the officer", because grand juries only see the evidence the DA presents.  It's easy to softball it and intentionally fail to present enough evidence.  Federal prosecutors and state AGs should review every single shooting that is even remotely questionable.
 
--There are, in fact, some racist policies in use when it comes to law enforcement.  I once had a case where a dozen police officers pulled up to a run down apartment building and jumped out, guns drawn.  They rushed forward like they were conducting a raid.  They didn't have any specific information about a crime being committed, they were simply flushing out anybody who ran.  Of course my client and several others saw the cops coming and bolted.  Fleeing from the police gives them probable cause to stop you, so 10 seconds later my client gets tackled and of course he's got a bunch of drugs on him and a gun.  The problem is that my client was a total scumbag who had been to prison multiple times, so the judge was not interested in my argument that the police department's actions were unfair.  Of course they don't do this in neighborhoods where dentists and accountants live.  They only do it in high crime (i.e., black) neighborhoods.  To put a stop to this, you're going to need groups like the ACLU or other well funded organizations to actually look at every arrest in a given city, look for disparate policing policies, and then sue them in federal court.  But that's a lot of work, and nobody wants to do it.
 
 
 
All that said, there are problems in the black community as well.
 
--Young black men have a skewed perception of how likely they are to get shot.  The actual chances of getting shot are incredibly low, but I've seen tons of videos of black men talking about how afraid they are when they are pulled over.  I understand why they are (the same reason I don't want to swim in the ocean -- JAWS will get me).  But this perception is not accurate.  It also makes them more likely to panic and resist arrest.  And that makes cops more nervous and more likely to use force.  I've read several articles and facebook posts written by black people talking about how they had done nothing wrong, but they were so worried that they almost ran anyway.  We've got to publicize that it's actually exceedingly rare for an unarmed person of any race to get shot.
 
--While there are issues with a disparity in justice (black men prosecuted more harshly than white men), there's also a real problem in that a small number of young black men commit a very large percentage of the crime.  I once represented a client who said you weren't considered "a man" in his family until you did a 20 year prison sentence.  That's heartbreaking but it's true.  It isn't racially discriminatory policing that is locking many of these guys up (that guy did a home invasion robbery on Christmas and pointed a gun with a laser sight at a baby).  Many times an innocent person is stopped because he "matched a description of a suspect".  But I don't think the cops are always lying when they say that.  Frequently they are investigating a real crime, and the only description they have is "black male, average height, wearing a dark jacket".
 
--There's also a fairly high tolerance for "victimless crimes" in poor African American communities.  Driving without insurance?  Driving while a tail light is burned out?  Not using your turn signal?  Not wearing your seat belt?  "That's not even really a crime, man."  I actually had a client say that.  Combine that with a tendency to not pay tickets and you get suspended driver's licenses and arrest warrants.  A huge percentage of my public defender clients got pulled over for some dumb traffic violation, the officer finds out they have a warrant because they didn't show up for court on the previous dumb traffic ticket, he goes to arrest them and then they would do something stupid (like run).  And of course then there's something illegal in the car.  I would suspect the cop of being a lying racist jerk, and I'd ask my client about it and he'd say "aww, hell no man I never use my turn signal..."  Well, shit.
 
 
 
Nobody is going to listen to any of my suggestions on how to fix any of this, and my post has gone on too long anyway.  In real life I've remained quiet on this, it's too radioactive to touch, especially since I know a lot of cops and judges and prosecutors (many of whom are black).  But I figured I'd try to offer my perspective on these problems.

maybe just a bust then

To be frank, your repeated assertion of Biden's mental incompetence as a certainty rather than a possibility, based on the few things you've mentioned as having seen and heard, is starting to sound rather dogmatic.
 
There will be no centralized anything left in Donald Trump's wake. He deliberately provokes chaos. He acts on whim, often changing his mind and contradicting his own officials. His White House is divided into frequently-feuding factions, with no clear chain of command beyond the President himself. He's gutted nearly all departments of the civil service of qualified functionaries. The Republican Party has become Trump's rubber-stamp yes-men whose whole focus is supporting whatever foolishness he says or does, with no independent agenda or policies to steer them after he's gone. Any creative, independent Republican thinkers realize they aren't welcome any more, and have resigned or aren't running again.

I did my civic duty and completed my primary ballot today.
 
I may not be able to do anything about the presidency, since I live in one of the reddest of the red States. But I can certainly help figure out who my County Council and State School Board reps are going to be.

Police Killings Against Native Americans Are Off the Charts and Off the Radar

2012 Republican presidential nominee and current United States Senator Willard Mitt Romney(R-UT), marching with protesters in DC and saying the words "black lives matter" may not seem like a big deal, but it's a hell of a signal as to where the country has moved.  It's not all bad news folks.  Minneapolis is heading towards disbanding their municipal police department and replacing it with a new model.  If that works out, police unions around the country are going to have some tough decisions ahead of them.  I'd recommend that they change their policies in order to let the "bad apples" all go.  But that's just me.  

Sure, the murderer got caught ... by the cell phone carrying public.  This cop had been 18 prior complaints filed against him with internal affairs, and yet he was still working for the  Minneapolis Police Department.  It took him killing a man in broad daylight in front a score of witnesses taking cell phone videos of the whole thing for the Minneapolis PD to do anything.  Yes, by all means, lets give the Minneapolis police department a big round applause for a job well done.  I wonder if they catch robbers or if they just wait for civilians to tackle them and then collect the robbers and take the credit.
 
Sarcasm aside, people are right to protest.  We need lasting structural reform of our police departments in order to counteract systematic racism, and officers with multiple complaints against them like Derek Chauvin shouldn't still be working in law enforcement.  These changes will not happen if people settle for charges being brought against Chauvin and call it a day.  They also won't happen from a some sternly worded letters to the editor, or peaceful speeches that the local newspaper might mention on page eight if even there.  No, for change to come, people are going to have to be loud and forceful.  They are going to sometimes have to refuse to disperse just because law enforcement told them to.      
 
 

New York police take seconds to restore reputation for brutality

The world goes through cycles of bad and good. I've had the great fortune to live most of my life in a time and place of unprecedented peace, prosperity, and opportunities. If it's now my turn to fight and suffer so those who come after me can experience some of what I have, so be it.

Sure, the murderer got caught ... by the cell phone carrying public.  This cop had been 18 prior complaints filed against him with internal affairs, and yet he was still working for the  Minneapolis Police Department.  It took him killing a man in broad daylight in front a score of witnesses taking cell phone videos of the whole thing for the Minneapolis PD to do anything.  Yes, by all means, lets give the Minneapolis police department a big round applause for a job well done.  I wonder if they catch robbers or if they just wait for civilians to tackle them and then collect the robbers and take the credit.
 
Sarcasm aside, people are right to protest.  We need lasting structural reform of our police departments in order to counteract systematic racism, and officers with multiple complaints against them like Derek Chauvin shouldn't still be working in law enforcement.  These changes will not happen if people settle for charges being brought against Chauvin and call it a day.  They also won't happen from a some sternly worded letters to the editor, or peaceful speeches that the local newspaper might mention on page eight if even there.  No, for change to come, people are going to have to be loud and forceful.  They are going to sometimes have to refuse to disperse just because law enforcement told them to.      
 
 

From the pictures that I have seen the spray painting seems to be limited to concrete structures near what we generally think of as the actual monument and not on the marble structures.

The article cited by Yahoo is here:
https://elemental.medium.com/coronavirus-may-be-a-blood-vessel-disease-which-explains-everything-2c4032481ab2
 
Somewhat more technical but still, overall, approachable.  And very, very scary...but also opens the door for some interesting treatment options, and therapeutic regimens that work against the general kind of damage they're suggesting.  That is potentially very good news.

From the pictures that I have seen the spray painting seems to be limited to concrete structures near what we generally think of as the actual monument and not on the marble structures.

Sure, the murderer got caught ... by the cell phone carrying public.  This cop had been 18 prior complaints filed against him with internal affairs, and yet he was still working for the  Minneapolis Police Department.  It took him killing a man in broad daylight in front a score of witnesses taking cell phone videos of the whole thing for the Minneapolis PD to do anything.  Yes, by all means, lets give the Minneapolis police department a big round applause for a job well done.  I wonder if they catch robbers or if they just wait for civilians to tackle them and then collect the robbers and take the credit.
 
Sarcasm aside, people are right to protest.  We need lasting structural reform of our police departments in order to counteract systematic racism, and officers with multiple complaints against them like Derek Chauvin shouldn't still be working in law enforcement.  These changes will not happen if people settle for charges being brought against Chauvin and call it a day.  They also won't happen from a some sternly worded letters to the editor, or peaceful speeches that the local newspaper might mention on page eight if even there.  No, for change to come, people are going to have to be loud and forceful.  They are going to sometimes have to refuse to disperse just because law enforcement told them to.      
 
 

Sure, the murderer got caught ... by the cell phone carrying public.  This cop had been 18 prior complaints filed against him with internal affairs, and yet he was still working for the  Minneapolis Police Department.  It took him killing a man in broad daylight in front a score of witnesses taking cell phone videos of the whole thing for the Minneapolis PD to do anything.  Yes, by all means, lets give the Minneapolis police department a big round applause for a job well done.  I wonder if they catch robbers or if they just wait for civilians to tackle them and then collect the robbers and take the credit.
 
Sarcasm aside, people are right to protest.  We need lasting structural reform of our police departments in order to counteract systematic racism, and officers with multiple complaints against them like Derek Chauvin shouldn't still be working in law enforcement.  These changes will not happen if people settle for charges being brought against Chauvin and call it a day.  They also won't happen from a some sternly worded letters to the editor, or peaceful speeches that the local newspaper might mention on page eight if even there.  No, for change to come, people are going to have to be loud and forceful.  They are going to sometimes have to refuse to disperse just because law enforcement told them to.      
 
 

Sure, the murderer got caught ... by the cell phone carrying public.  This cop had been 18 prior complaints filed against him with internal affairs, and yet he was still working for the  Minneapolis Police Department.  It took him killing a man in broad daylight in front a score of witnesses taking cell phone videos of the whole thing for the Minneapolis PD to do anything.  Yes, by all means, lets give the Minneapolis police department a big round applause for a job well done.  I wonder if they catch robbers or if they just wait for civilians to tackle them and then collect the robbers and take the credit.
 
Sarcasm aside, people are right to protest.  We need lasting structural reform of our police departments in order to counteract systematic racism, and officers with multiple complaints against them like Derek Chauvin shouldn't still be working in law enforcement.  These changes will not happen if people settle for charges being brought against Chauvin and call it a day.  They also won't happen from a some sternly worded letters to the editor, or peaceful speeches that the local newspaper might mention on page eight if even there.  No, for change to come, people are going to have to be loud and forceful.  They are going to sometimes have to refuse to disperse just because law enforcement told them to.      
 
 

During the primary prior to Sander's dropping out of the race, Biden received 10.81 million popular votes to Sander's 8.20 million votes.  That is to say Biden received 32% more popular votes than Sanders.  That is nothing less than a complete drubbing.  So unless you believe that party delegates can and should ignore the wishes of the voters, I do not see why you keep focusing on the delegates.  It is the voters that have chose Biden over Sanders.

Some people are COUNTING on finding excuses to not remember, to sideline the catalyst and the injustice it revealed. If they can turn the focus on jackasses looting a store while a peaceful protest is going a block away, or some vandals hurling rocks at windows under the cover of it... they can avoid that cutting introspection that has so many of us forced to deal with the fact our apathy and inaction allows this to continue.
 
It is the shallow man's absolution.
 
 

You make a good point, I should have chosen better words. This was an exercise by the entire Democratic Party. The party leadership and aligned media did maintain a constant anti-Sanders message during the primaries, and I don't think we should underestimate the effect that had on perception among Democrats; but Biden has attained the presumptive nomination by lawful process.
 
However, the party isn't the country. AFAICT Biden's main selling point has been that he'll offend the fewest voters. I've seen many political candidates picked for their perceived "electability." Their record of success doesn't fill me with confidence.