Vaccines, Infrastructure, and Kids In Cages: US Politics April 2021

that's like the worst possible thing you could say

OH FOR FUCK'S SAKE

the exact Pelosi quote is actually somehow worse than this tweet: "So again, thank you George Floyd for sacrificing your life for justice. For being there to call out to your mom, how heartbreaking was that, call out for your mom, 'I can't breathe.'"

— Addy Baird (@addysbaird) April 20, 2021

no doubt she thought it would be uplifting. instead it was utterly clueless.

But it sets a high bar for any other convictions.

Hopefully a dam-break - precedent setter for other prosecutions and juries.

david guetta was more eloquent

otm

Read my mind sic

wtf pelosi. i really, really wish i hadn't read that

Goddamn can we please normalize politicians leaving early and enjoying a nice long retirement?

she should resign immediately, what an awful fucking thing to say

gotta change the seniority system or they'll all hang on like grim death so they can finally chair a committee of their very own.

Well, she understands how to pick off members of the Squad, so she ain't goin' nowhere.

watching al sharpton speak with jesse jackson in the background.... impossible to imagine how many times they showed up, decade after decade, they've seen so much

fuck, day after day the last year

is jesse unwell? he seems pretty blank

Heres another gross one for u upsidedownface

George Floyd came to Minneapolis to better his life. But ultimately his life will have bettered our city. The jury joined in a shared conviction that has animated Minneapolis for the last 11 months. They refused to look away and affirmed he should still be here today.

— Mayor Jacob Frey (@MayorFrey) April 20, 2021

It shouldn't be that hard to say his life wasn't given for some uplifting cause, it was unjustly and brutally taken from him by an unjust and brutal system.

Seriously, read it again knowing what we know: pic.twitter.com/XqPWCpoxeQ

— Jake Tapper (@jaketapper) April 20, 2021

As AOC wrote today, "this verdict is not a substitute for policy change."

I was just coming here to say a hearty and full-throated “fuck you, Nancy Pelosi”

Floyd's brothers are really amazing, this press conference has been really affecting

The prosecution really did a phenomenal job. I know the evidence was clearly on their side, but with the defendant being a cop they still had to nail every aspect perfectly, and they pretty much did. The defense sucked, and their head lawyer was a career cop-defending slime.

What a relief this is!

I just shudder to think of what would have happened if Mike Freeman would have been allowed to fuck this up

is jesse unwell? he seems pretty blank

― Blues Guitar Solo Heatmap (Free Download) (upper mississippi sh@kedown),

has parkinson's

oh no didn't know that. impressive he still shows up

pic.twitter.com/eeWbMYHK3U

— Las Vegas Raiders (@Raiders) April 20, 2021

Mark Davis must have direct control of the Raiders social media.

Here I was thinking that HLN's commercials for their GAVEL-TO-GAVEL COVERAGE of the Chauvin trial, like they were hyping some UFC pay-per-view special or the season finale of Survivor, was the most offensive thing I'd experienced in a while, but leave it to Aunt Nancy to stumble in and up the fuckin' ante.

Three hard cheers for justice for a goddamn change, here's hoping it manages to perpetuate beyond this moment.

This is thinly sourced and probably too fresh, but def something to watch out for: https://www.axios.com/chauvin-verdict-congress-police-reform-1b0472bf-67c8-4b69-9d82-d9e18d62d3e3.html

The big picture: An acquittal or mistrial involving the former police officer would have unleashed violence and days more of protests — and added bipartisan pressure to act on criminal and police reform.

Senior Democratic and Republican aides — who would never let their bosses say so on the record — privately told Axios the convictions have lessened pressure for change.
They noted the aftermath of mass shootings: time and again, Congress has failed to pass gun control legislation, and the conversation ultimately moves on until another terrible event occurs.

omg milo you weren't joking, what a weirdo

#Raiders owner Mark Davis said the "I Can Breathe" wording came from George Floyd's brother Philonise, who said "Today, we are able to breathe again."

Davis added: "If I offended the family, then I'm deeply, deeply disappointed."

He also said the post won't be deleted.

— Tashan Reed (@tashanreed) April 21, 2021

Woooow. 'If I offended you, I want you to know from the bottom of my heart that I am deeply, deeply disappointed in how easily you're offended.'

I would think that if you want to reflect what Philonise Floyd said, the best thing to do would be to directly quote him with attribution rather than a godawful paraphrase.

I can imagine being swept up in emotion and posting a really bad tweet like that but I can't imagine doing anything the next day in the cold light of reflection but saying yeah I blew that one and deleting it. I don't get the defensiveness. It's not like people are like "Mike Davis you irredeemable racist" they're like "Mike Davis you didn't think this through" which is... a criticism it just shouldn't be that hard to stomach?

leave Mike Davis out of this lol

We need Mike Davis and Matt Gertz to start a podcast

The knee-jerk reaction by politicians, businesspeople, nervous suburbanites and television/twitter pundits to meaninglessly claim ownership of the conviction of a single murderous cop betrays their collective desire to avoid systemic change at all costs

I would temper that statement as it sounds too active in execution compared to what I think is actually happening, which is that people who have succeeded in current society are more likely to look favorably upon it and not grasp or understand the scope of change necessary to bring lasting redress to the issues we're currently grappling with.

well there's a truth bomb

otm

i'd allow that generally applies to nervous suburbanites and television/twitter pundits but i wouldn't extend the owner of the raiders or pelosi the same benefit of the doubt

to that end:

With Chauvin, the officers told me, it was immediately clear that his actions were unjustified. Katie Miller, a former officer with the Metropolitan Police Department in D.C., said she’d witnessed a lot of her old colleagues vocally denouncing Chauvin, which she’d never seen in the wake of previous cases of police violence. “Usually there’s a little hesitation about ‘Let’s wait and see where the investigation goes,’ ” she said. “But when it came to seeing that video, I knew, and my former colleagues knew, that what they were seeing was enough to condemn him morally and obviously that criminal charges would be forthcoming.”

Jacob, a cop in Georgia, said there was simply no way to justify what Chauvin did. “That’s how extreme the situation was with Floyd, between the fact that it was all recorded, to the total lack of humanity of the officers involved, to the eight to nine minutes of watching someone die, where you really can’t say anything in defense,” he said. “And traditionally, as cops, we are defensive. But in this situation, everyone’s like, ‘Yeah, that was jacked up for sure.’ ”

Chauvin’s own colleagues, the officers who might have otherwise erected a “blue wall of silence” around one of their own, were quick to agree. Several police officers from inside the Minneapolis Police Department, including Chief Medaria Arradondo, testified against Chauvin in his trial. What Chauvin did “in no way shape or form is anything that is by policy. It is not part of our training, and it is certainly not part of our ethics or our values,” Arradondo said on the stand. Police Inspector Katie Blackwell, who formerly led the department’s training program, testified that officers are not taught to restrain suspects the way Chauvin did. Other department leaders testified that Chauvin used inappropriate and unnecessarily prolonged force against Floyd, in contravention of department policies.

This explains the reactions I saw on FOX last night while flipping channels:

The same can be said of those rushing to agree that Chauvin committed a gruesome murder while continuing to insist that there’s nothing wrong with U.S. policing at large. Responding to the verdict on Fox News with Pirro on Tuesday, conservative commentator Greg Gutfeld drew the distinction. “Everybody agreed this case was disgusting and ugly and there should be justice,” he said, as if to place himself on the right side of history. It was only activists who created “the perception of division” around the case, Gutfeld said, by claiming that Floyd’s murder “means that cops are all racist” and that “it’s not a bug in the system, it’s the system itself.” Conservatives are already spinning Chauvin’s conviction as a victory for their own ideology, as if they’ve been advocating for the aggressive prosecution of killer cops all along. Sean Hannity, who was critical of Chauvin when the video of the murder was first released, spent his time on the air on Tuesday complaining that the few bad apples get all the attention. This narrative creates space for people who were horrified by Floyd’s murder but feel uncomfortable with “defund the police” rhetoric to move on with the satisfaction that justice was served, case closed.

i'd allow that generally applies to nervous suburbanites and television/twitter pundits but i wouldn't extend the owner of the raiders or pelosi the same benefit of the doubt

I mean, of course it does. ESPECIALLY the owner of the Raiders, who likely never has to think about any of these issues in either his personal or professional life. (Pelosi has a terminal case of "my Black friend said it was okay".)

All of these powerful people are still people and it's not like they spend every waking hour trying to figure out how to best buttress and reinforce their power; they are so used to it that they assume it will always be there, particularly people who are successful in business. You don't need to attribute active malice to something that is already more horrifying because it's unthinking habit.

i would argue that the white, cartel-affiliated head of a squad of predominantly black men who are not-incidentally inflicting brain injury on themselves and others in exchange for huge sums of money from their "owner" is acutely aware that the system is unbalanced and that his best interests are served by keeping it that way

but i get your point.

Define "the system", because the link between over-policing and professional sports exists in the abstract but not the concrete and that is where the cognitive disconnect is happening. I also take issue with "acutely aware" because it implies that this guy worries that one day his team is going to overthrow him and I would bet literally every dollar I have that he doesn't.

Ascribing active animus to passive animus is a mistake IMO because the two (again IMO) require vastly different remedies; for every Jeff Sessions, there are at least 500 Adam Kinzingers and you can't deal with them same way if you want positive results.

Meantime, this fellow.

https://www.thedailybeast.com/new-docs-show-matt-gaetz-campaign-in-full-damage-control-mode

xp by "acutely aware" i mean more than subconsciously aware that he is part of the problem, not the solution.

i agree that active racist animus and passive participation and jingoistic support of racist/classist policy making and policing are different animals that require different sorts of responses, that was the point i was trying to make initially!

trying to own the chauvin verdict on social media as a victory for "good minded people" is (intentionally or otherwise) not-so-much code for "the system works" so maybe better to ask anyone trying to make that statement what they think the system is.

can't everyone just agree to have matt gaetz thrown in a volcano or something?

xp by "acutely aware" i mean more than subconsciously aware that he is part of the problem, not the solution.

He doesn't even know what the problem is. That's my point, not that you're completely wrong but that you aren't starting from the right place.

i would suggest that his reflexive attempt to be part of the solution by means of half-assedly posting misquotes from the family of the deceased suggests that his view of the problem is that

a)it's something he thinks he understands
b)it's something he can contribute to fixing
c)it's something he thinks he and his family might have some culpability for, even if only in the court of public opinion

whether or not he's right about that isn't my concern, it's his (and others) willingness to co-opt the few moments where the courts get it right and hold them up as proof of change or justice in lieu of actually getting behind meaningful action with policy lobbying, financial support, statements that might prove unpopular to his base consumers, i.e. doing the actual work.

I'm not exactly "starting" there, just taking a lot of presumptive points into account while discussing it. What do you think I'm missing here?

reimbursing *employers* for time off for vaccination? yeah that'll get it done.

Fascinating White House effort to boost vaccination drive by providing new incentives to get shots. by @WaPoSean @isaacstanbecker. https://t.co/PD0tPjg5UZ pic.twitter.com/H7cVffhWtd

— Dan Diamond (@ddiamond) April 21, 2021