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

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

well, my dad's company -- the one he sold and for which he now works as CEO -- offered a similar incentive: we'll pay you to get jabbed and time off afterward. The owner, who'd left Dad handle the masking and sanitizing requirements, finally freaked out when six employees got COVID within a week. Then his partner took ill.

that's not similar? this is a proposal to give money (by tax credit!!!! not even money!) to employers. your dad's company paid employees cash to get vaccinated.

xp My understanding is that employer bribes to get employees vaccinated are generally preferable to mandates, both from a legal and efficacy standpoint.

I am assuming the payment is by tax credit to avoid R opposition.

Well, it's not so much as "paying cash to get vaccinated" as it is not making you lose a sick or vacation day for the time required to get one.

that's not similar? this is a proposal to give money (by tax credit!!!! not even money!) to employers. your dad's company paid employees cash to get vaccinated.

― 𝔠𝔞𝔢𝔨 (caek), Wednesday, April 21, 2021

I meant the day off part. The rest is just context.

the federal govt is granting admin leave of up to 4 hours for vaccinations

they can write stimulus/vaccine bribe checks without a single republican vote.

i don't know if there are legal problems with them being de facto mandates but i've seen a few elected democrats suggest this, so possibly not.

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?

c is the leap. I would bet every dollar I own that he does not think that he and his family are part of the problem. In fact, I would assume that he believes his position in society uniquely allows him to be the solution, and his idea to contributing to the solution is "I'm a powerful person so if I say this is a good thing, others will believe me and then more good things will happen*". That's why he's resistant to taking the tweet down; now that he's explained what it ACTUALLY means, surely everyone can now agree that it's magnifying this good thing that we want more of and therefore racism is over.

* because of magical thinking

yeah, maybe! I could be ascribing more perspective to this guy as a strawman than he deserves; i don't really know him like that.

i would argue that white america in general is aware on a level that they don't really want to acknowledge that violence in policing and institutional racism is an us and not a them problem economically, socially, culturally, ethically, morally but that really confronting what that means requires giving up power. people don't give up power so there's a lot of deluded dudes.

rather than a godawful paraphrase.

That happens to be an exact quote from the shirts worn by pro-cop demonstrators after Eric Garner's murder.

We need Mike Davis and Matt Gertz to start a podcast

Naomi Klein as first guest.

Rep. Ted Lieu just asked the U.S. Special Envoy for Yemen, Tim Lenderking, whether the U.S. is currently supporting any Saudi operations in Yemen. Lenderking says he's "not totally in that information loop."

— Alex Emmons (@AlexEmmons) April 21, 2021

Remember when we were going to stop supporting genocide in Yemen?

What loops are ya in, buddy?

Maybe the special envoy to Yemen needs a special envoy to Yemen.

A propos of nothing, one of our crackpot neighbors told me today he's very invested in the recount ("recount") in Arizona, which I had to google to even find out existed. He thinks it's going to be "verrry interesting" to see what the repercussions of said recount will be.

I suppose you can keep this kind of thing up forever. "When the papers from the Trump administration are declassified in 2032, it's going to be verrrrrrry interesting ..."

Yellen says "private capital will need to fill most of that gap" to tackle the "existential threat" of climate change

So far, the Biden admin has not put a price on the govt's commitment

In a speech, Yellen indicates heavy reliance on private capital

— Saleha Mohsin (@SalehaMohsin) April 21, 2021

Who better to fix what’s broken than the people who broke it to start with?

"Arizona Recount" reminds me of the semi-mythical Durham Report that they pinned their hopes on for so long, and went absolutely nowhere

Arizona Recount was Dennis Hastert's favorite wrestling hold iirc.

The law enforcement arm of the U.S. Postal Service has been quietly running a program that tracks and collects Americans’ social media posts, including those about planned protests, according to a document obtained by Yahoo News.

The details of the surveillance effort, known as iCOP, or Internet Covert Operations Program, have not previously been made public. The work involves having analysts trawl through social media sites to look for what the document describes as “inflammatory” postings and then sharing that information across government agencies.

known as iCOP