Opinion: Even the Squad is more pro-police than these Republicans

[demmiblue]

...

How, then, to explain the latest “legislative scorecard” from the National Association of Police Officers, a group claiming to represent a quarter-million officers that endorsed President Donald Trump’s reelection?

McCarthy, Stefanik and Banks all scored 57 percent, and some of the back-benchers piling on Tuesday — Reps. Ken Buck (Colo.), Jody Hice (Ga.), Mo Brooks (Ala.) — scored a paltry 43 percent on NAPO’s pro-police scorecard.

And the Squad? Reps. Ilhan Omar (D-Minn.), Rashida Tlaib (D-Mich.) and Ayanna Pressley (D-Mass.) all scored 86 percent. Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez (D-N.Y.) scored 71 percent. Where it really counts, all four members of the Squad are more pro-police than their Republican critics.

The pattern continues when looking at House Speaker Nancy Pelosi of California (80 percent) and Majority Leader Steny Hoyer (86 percent), compared with Minority Whip Steve Scalise of Louisiana (50 percent). Rep. Thomas Massie (Ky.), one of 21 House Republicans to vote against giving medals to the police heroes of Jan. 6, scored 33 percent.

...

The reason is simple. Democrats, at least at the federal level, have been the ones funding the police. The 2019-2021 scorecard is based on votes on health care, pensions, covid-19 relief, bulletproof vests, victim compensation and policing reform. There’s not yet a scorecard of votes in the new Congress, but police groups favored the American Rescue Plan covid-relief legislation, which Republicans uniformly opposed, and President Biden wants to pump $300 million more into the COPS community policing program, which Republicans have long opposed.

...

Democrats ought to be saying, as Biden aide Cedric Richmond did on “Fox News Sunday,” “Republicans are very good at staying on talking points of who says defund the police, but the truth is, they defunded the police.” Unlike GOP leadership, the numbers don’t lie.

https://www.washingtonpost.com/opinions/2021/06/29/even-squad-is-more-pro-police-than-these-republicans/

[Budi]

1. Well, "Defund the Police" wasn't started by the Republicans.

But they sure appreciate the weapon placed in their arsenal!!

🙄

[ck4829]

5. We need to stop policing our words because of how they may react. They can take anything we say and

turn it into an attack.

Case in point: John Podesta, he likes pizza. Indicated as such in emails that were stolen and leaked.

Completely innocuous, those emails.

But Republicans took with that and said "pizza" is obviously a codeword for Satanists kidnapping children and using secret underground tunnels.

And this wasn't some fringe thing; the Flynn clan promoted this, the Trump administration gave winks and nudges to the conspiracy theory, and individuals like Marjorie Taylor Greene ran on it and won. 4 years later, things like "pizzagate" and "qanon" are still in the right-wing lexicon.

We make the mistake of thinking Republicans operate in good faith: Anything you say, you run the risk of becoming a SATANIST SOCIALIST MARXIST COMMUNIST CRITICAL THEORIST according to them.

[uponit7771]

7. THANK YOU !!! I've been making the point that if a dem candidate allows themselves to be defined

... on an issue a world wide issue we're not campaigning right.

[Budi]

10. Wall Street, Establishment, Old & in the Way! you know how it works

Slogans are just slogans right?
Until they are used relentlessly to negatively define the entirety of a political target.

🤮

[uponit7771]

6. It wasn't started by democrats and was not the game changer people thought it was.

[George II]

9. It was, and it was. This has been thoroughly debated here in the past.

[uponit7771]

11. This is absolutely false defund the police was not started by Democrats it was started by

... protesters.

The Democratic party did not have defund the police as part of its platform either

Come on people we should have our shit together on this already

[Elessar Zappa]

12. BLM activists

started the defund the police slogan. Who am I to tell them what to advocate for?

[WhiskeyGrinder]

2. Not a fan of Democrats trying to outfund the cops in an effort to show Republicans they don't

want to defund cops. This isn't a game; people are dying.

[Caliman73]

20. They aren't trying to "outfund" police.

The votes were for protective equipment, benefits, and pensions. Things that police need to be safe, healthy, and compensated for their work.

Republicans love to say, "put more cops on the street" and sound like "law and order" is a conservative thing. However, when it comes to actually caring about police officers, just like when it comes to caring about soldiers and veterans, Republicans show that they do not give a shit about the actual women and men that our out there doing the job.

Republicans care about having a military and a militarized police force to bully other countries and bully our own people domestically. They do not care about the lives of the people who they task to carry out that mission.

Until we can prioritize funding community services, which would likely bring the crime rates down and lessen the need for more police, we need to make sure that the police have training, protective equipment, and that they are healthy and paid for their work.

I don't like memes as they are often very reductive. The purpose of the meme however, was not to point out that Democrats are funding the police, but the blatant hypocrisy of right wingers who sear to love police, but do not support them.

[keithbvadu2]

3. 'Kill him with his own gun'

RW police slogans:::::: Empty slogans

RW slogans::::::
Blue Lives Matter
Police lives matter
Back the Blue

Empty slogans

Link to tweet

----------------------------------
A slogan that Trump's terrorists/tourists believe in:::

'Kill him with his own gun'

[msongs]

4. has there been a biden statement to this effect? promoted heavily? nt

[George II]

8. The big difference is that republicans didn't make a campaign slogan based on "Defund the Police"...

[tonedevil]

13. Who made it a campaign slogan?

[George II]

14. Several. I'm not going to repost them, but they're readily available:

Just google "defund the police candidates" or similar.

[tonedevil]

15. Some candidates may have said it...

campaign slogan is pure hyperbole.

[George II]

16. Whatever.

[tonedevil]

17. Exactly. /nt

[George II]

18. In other words, or in this case word, it happened a number of times. Even in the NYC primary.

[tonedevil]

19. Not as a campaign slogan...

perhaps you should go to Black Lives Matter protests and tell them what phrases to use.

[uponit7771]

22. Facts matter right?!!?!

[George II]

23. They certainly do. Makes one wonder why some are hesitant to accept facts.

[uponit7771]

21. Neither did democrats

[George II]

24. They did. In 2020 and even in the recent NYC Primary campaign.

[uponit7771]

25. You've showed NO PROOF that democrats came up with that slogan