Civil rights leader warns Tom Vilsack nomination could depress voter turnout in Georgia

"The very short and highly selective memory of the Trump supporter"

A piece I just posted at DailyKos: "The very short and highly selective memory of the Trump supporter."

If you haven't read Judge Brann's Memorandum Opinion dismissing Trump's Pennsylvania lawsuit ...

... it's a real treat! Here is the Introduction from it, and below the introduction, I will provide a link to the 37-page opinion. And bear in mind that this particular judge is a Republican, and a member of the Federalist Society!

Senate Democrats should boycott any confirmation proceedings,and even the final vote

If McConnell insists on going forward with confirmation hearings and a vote on Trump's nominee, Democrats on the Judiciary Committee should boycott the proceedings, and all Senate Democrats should boycott the final vote. It won't actually accomplish anything (neither would their presence), and their presence would only serve to lend to the whole business an air of legitimacy it doesn't deserve. And it would nonetheless make an important historical statement.

Actually, this is what they SHOULD have done with the Gorsuch nomination!

Democrats should not be willing participants in their own de legitimization.

Has anyone else noticed the glaring contradition . . .

. . . of Trump and Republicans claiming, on the one hand, that Democrats are "big government interventionists," and simultaneously claiming, on the other, that Democrats support anarchists? I mean, I get that Republicans long ago left by the wayside any pretense of making logicallh consistent arguments, but really!

No, conservatives, there has not been a "media blackout" about the Cannon Hinnant story!

I've seen this story shared by number of conservatives in the last few days, claiming there had been a coverage "blackout" by the national news media of the story.

My first thought was, "And why would the national media cover this story?" And when I Googled it a couple of days ago, when I firs saw this narrative posted, it was true that there was little coverage in national media outlets. But there was plenty of local coverage. Look, it's a horrific story, and my heart certainly goes out to the boy's family. But national media generally focuses on stories of national significance. I see nothing about this story that would render it of national significance. Horrific crimes, some involving children, do happen from time to time, but unless they connect to a larger national story, the national media generally doesn't cover them.

After a little research, it became clear that this claim of a "blackout" was being peddled as a way of suggesting that the national media was focusing on covering BLM/George Floyd protests at the expense of stories like this. But the BLM stories ARE of national significance. Whatever was behind the murder of this little boy -- police said it was not random, and that the killer was the boy's next-door neighbor -- I don't see that it connects in any way to a larger national story.

Then I stumbled upon another article, which showed a photo of both the boy and the suspect:



and suddenly it became immediately clear what this whole "blackout" narrative was really all about. So what those perpetuating this narrative are attempting to say is that an isolated case of a black man murdering a white child somewhere should be treated as being of the same national significance as police killings of unarmed African Americans, which has occurred in city after city across the country. Sorry, anybody who falls for that is a fool!

This is insidious in so many ways. It conspiracy mongering at its worst, and it feeds into irrational fears by whites of black-on-white crime, which is really quite rare.

God, this country has become such an ugly place!

ABC News Exclusive: Mary Trump Interview with Stephanopoulos ABC News

Extraordinary, hour-long interview with Trump's niece! She is, unlike her uncle and cousins, very well-spoken and articulate, and what she says rings very true.

I particularly appreciated her reference to her family's embrace of the "toxic positivity" of the Rev. Norman Vincent Peale!

No, I do not think we need to "reform" the police . . .

No, I do not think we need to "reform" the police. Allow me to explain.

To speak of policing reform is to suggest that we can address the problem of systemic racism in American policing through a combination of efforts to address the individual racism of some officers, to change certain police methods or tactics, and requiring a few more racial sensitivity workshops. But these efforts have all been tried repeatedly over the years, and none of them have resulted in any significant or lasting changes.

That is because, I believe, the focus of those efforts fails to address the real locus of the problem. The problem lies not with the racism and bigotry of individual officers, although that certainly exists and should be addressed wherever it is found; the real source of the problem is to be found in the history of American policing and the real purpose behind the existence of domestic police forces, both then and now.

Domestic police forces were not founded as part of some effort to fight crime in general, nor were they founded to keep the American public safe from from violent criminals. They were founded, in both the North and the South, as a means of protecting the financial interests of the wealthy from the discontent of those whose labor the wealthy exploited in order to create and maintain their wealth. In the South, police forces originated with slave patrols -- forces that rounded up fugitive slaves and returned them to their owners (to face whatever consequences their owners decided to mete out). In the North police were founded primarily as publicly-financed strike-breaking forces intended for the purpose of quelling labor unrest. Whether they were capturing and returning fugitive slaves or breaking the strikes of workers protesting the conditions in which they were forced to work, police were effectively engaged in the same activity, which was to protect the investments of the very wealthy, be they slave owners or industrialists. And although the role of police has expanded over the years, I submit that its original purpose remains thoroughly intact, and is as operative today as t was n the late 19th C. It is no accident of circumstance that at a time when all other public-sector unions are under assault from the right and have been weakened to the point of ineffectiveness, the police unions have remained as strong and influential as ever.

Once you understand the history of policing in America, you begin to realize that the actions by police that so many have been horrified by in recent weeks are not aberrations, but are, in fact, examples of police doing exactly what they were created to do. And that's the problem.

So, no, I do not think we need to "reform" the police. I think we need to completely rethink the role police play in our society, and then dismantle and rebuild it from the ground up, with an eye towards making policing a service that protects the interests of ALL Americans.

For the love of God, can't we come up with better framing than "Defund the Police?"

I am very supportive of the aims of the "Defund the Police" movement. But calling itself by that slogan is a political loser if ever I've seen one.

And it isn't even an accurate description of what is actually being proposed. No one is suggesting that funding for policing services should be eliminated. What they are calling for is the reallocation of some of the vast sums of money that we have been directing towards policing in recent years to social and community services that are needed to address the underlying problems of inequality. The slogan, "Defund the Police" is clearly designed to appeal to the emotions of certain parts of the left, but unfortunately, it is also guaranteed to evoke an instantaneous rejection by at least some folks in the center and on the right, who might be persuaded if it were framed a little better.

"Defund the Police" is a poorly chosen slogan, and ultimately, a self-defeating one.

A protest chant that is pure New York!

"We are peaceful; what the fuck are you?!" (The link below will take you to the video on Instagram.)

https://www.instagram.com/tv/CBCI6b8Jucr/?utm_source=ig_web_copy_link