To be absolutely frank, Washington really needs to close down all bars, at least for indoor and outdoor use.

Yes, it's that bad.

I've seen the Yakima numbers, and it's time to get real.

Oh, and it's going to be fun in Texas this year!

Looks like both Weiss and Sullivan are looking to #findsomethingnew...
There is probably a market for an opinion site for right wing commentators that claim to be centrists.

@1
See you at the ICU site!
Unless you get triaged out! Oh well

I love this description of Weiss as a "white grievance grifter who feels entitled to summon Black people and harass them."

This is part of an explanation of Weiss asking an editor to coffee and reporting the editor to her boss when she declined. What an entitled asshole. But that's what attracts her fans.

https://twitter.com/notreallyjcm/status/1268662758515658753

Amazon is making big strides in killing a job that only humans were thought capable of doing. It's a shame for those folks that might need a grocery store clerk/stocker as their first real job experience.

Thanks for the great advice, Ivanka. I'm sure the millions of people out of work due to your daddy's complete ineptitude will really appreciate all those under- and unfunded resources. And I'm SURE you and Daddy will be funding the job retraining costs too, right? Not just putting up a website with condescending platitudes and obvious waving-off to unrelated websites? No? What a shock.

"Officer Shoop is survived by his fiance, his mother, and his two brothers. " Terribly sad. RIP.

GS @ 8
While I generally agree with you, I think your words in this case are harsh and inconsiderate. Regardless of who’s at fault for the outcome, it’s possible the officer was truly believing he actually is fighting crime and violence.
That said, the first casualty in that precinct and also being a rookie may suggest that his conduct could have gone beyond the point of better to disengage for everyone’s safety.

@8, @11- Jerk

Re: Teens scoring booze

Well, who can blame them? We’ve only living through like 5 apocalyptic, once-in-a-century national crises simultaneously.

(apocalypses? apocalypi?)

If anything, they should lower the drinking age to 18 FFS. If you’re old enough to die for your country, you’re old enough to buy a beer, geethus chrithe...

Az bizarre as it is to say, bummer about Sessions. Whoever faces Moore is gonna win in a landslide, and at least he wouldn't have been shoving his entire head up Trump's ass. He surely wouldn't have been Romney defiant, however low a bar that is to clear, but college football coaches are reliably among the most vile asslords our society produces and I've no doubt Tuberville is right up there with the best of them.

Suck.

"Around 9:40 p.m., officers tried to pull over a black sedan along westbound SR 522, but the driver did not stop."

https://www.kiro7.com/news/local/bothell-officer-killed-shooting-after-chase-suspect-arrested/SNY3KNTFLFALJBJWNM2ZE65RTE/

When I say that police should not be involved in traffic stops, this is precisely why. It places everyone in danger. We would be smart and save lives if we moved to a civilian based traffic enforcement system where a traffic stop didn't necessarily lead to a fishing expedition of every driver who failed to use a turn signal. I'm unaware of any members of parking enforcement being shot while writing a parking ticket because the driver had a warrant and refused to come in at all costs.

When people argue that the police should not be involved in traffic enforcement the public largely agrees, but for some reason the police are reluctant to give up this 19th century version of cops and robbers no matter how many lives are lost on both sides.

@9: There as nothing to disengage as the killer was already on a rampage. After a short chase, the fleeing driver struck a man on a scooter and crashed through a center median, and then opened fire on the officers.

Nevertheless, @15 has some valid points.

Being lionized when you are shot dead is one of the perks of the job. That and a hefty salary, generous benefits, qualified immunity, prosecutorial cover for bad actions, intentionally dysfunctional systems of discipline and oversight, and a gee-whiz arsenal of awesome street sweeping weapons and gear. For BOTHELL. Poor guy.

@6 It’s hard to believe just how much of a Luddite tech companies have managed to turn me into.

You all know what this Amazon development is for, right? One big problem with wealthy enclaves is that you still need poorly paid service workers to do your dirty work for you. And those... “people” often have the temerity to demand a place to live or food to eat. Some even want a living wage! Can you even imagine?

Well happily Amazon is hard at work at getting rid of as many of these people as possible. Progress!

@18: No dirtier than preparing your take out order.

@19 I have bookcases full of dead trees and happily make use of libraries when they are open. Based on your comment, I’d guess that I’ve spent more time in libraries in the last year than you have in your life.

Nevertheless, I’m sure even you can recognize that society has changed to the point where such devices are now a necessity, not a luxury. I don’t even regret that that’s the case, although I do think how we’ve implemented that is probably the worst possible way it could have been done.

Do you deny that inequality and wage stagnation at the bottom of the pay scale is a problem? Are you asserting that Amazon isn’t exacerbating it? Are you one of those over educated morons who blithely tells people, “Oh just learn how to code and you’ll be on the road to riches!” Frankly, I’m shocked you didn’t trot out the old one about buggies.

Because that whole line may have sounded great in the 90s but it’s wearing a little threadbare now.

@20 Give them time. There’s only so many people we can put out of work in a day, you know!

@2, 5 (or anyone really), what was the objection to Weiss's work? I'm unfamiliar with her writing.

What does it say about either me or Andrew Sullivan that he only seems to show up on my radar when he gets fired from or quits something?

At least the cop didn't have children (that we're aware of) . . . .

@25: While this police officer should never have been in the business of making traffic stops in the first place, no one deserves to die and no one should celebrate the loss of life. Once a society reaches that point, we will be no better than the police themselves who routinely celebrate the death of other people they kill. Society should expect more from all of us.

@26: Typical garbage.

Civil unrest always leads to a temporary increase in crime and police are always reedy to blame it on budget cuts that haven't taken place or illusory changes to policing where they pretend for a short time they will start following the Constitution. All of the anti-gang unit members are still cops and and will continue to focus on asset forfeiture, executing innocent civilians and planting drugs on innocent people the way that always have. They never decreased crime, they added to it. The fact that the police in NY are rioting against the public certainly doesn't help, but once the police go back to not doing their job crime rates will return to normal.

Sorry, not gonna find something new. Waiting for the coal mining job I was promised.

GermanSausage smells like shit again.

Not surprised about the Andrew Sullivan resignation. I subscribe to New York Magazine, and there was one column of his a few weeks ago that they wouldn't publish. And then you could see some of his recent columns hardly got any play on the home page, even though they ended up being popular reads anyway.

Sullivan's not someone I necessarily agree with. I feel he's vacillated between smart and stupid on the pandemic. But he's written some wonderful columns recently calling out "cancel culture" and the silencing of discussion in favor of a rigid identity politics. That group letter against "cancel culture" in Harper's Magazine signed by all those intellectuals--it's pretty much what Andrew Sullivan's been saying.

@14 Moore? Try Jones. The guy who beat Moore. Moore will likely retain his job.

@1 We hope so.

@I meant Jones will likely retain his job. (note to self never post before coffee)

@28 - Timothy McVeigh was caught on a routine traffic stop, as was Ted Bundy the first time. McVeigh for a registration violation and Bundy for driving without lights. Countless other violent offenders have been, too.

I read a study many years ago that posited the reason so many offenders are caught on traffic stops is because people involved in serious criminality have very little regard for the trivialities of minor traffic laws. I found this to be very true in my own experience, however anecdotal that may be. You would think that given how often that lack of regard leads to their apprehension, they might be a little more cautious, but no.

You can't really compare parking and traffic enforcement. Parking enforcement agents very seldom have contact with the driver of the car they're citing. Traffic enforcement always does. Parking enforcement simply lists the registered owner of the unoccupied car on their citations, regardless of who was actually driving it, and then moves on to the next unoccupied one. I suppose I should say "usually" unoccupied.

Traffic enforcement requires positively identifying the driver face-to-face, and that, even just the fear of that, is what will lead to plenty of unarmed traffic officers getting killed. Identifying the driver is an issue because people involved in criminality as a regular activity almost never drive cars that are registered to them; it's very rare.

In addition to that issue, there's also all the whack-jobs who are enraged to violence simply for being stopped, and there are more of them than you would probably imagine. Extreme libertarians and anti-government types in particular are prone to this.

Oh, and a a quick Google finds that although parking enforcement seldom has to deal with those they cite, a few have been killed when they did have to. That's not to say that traffic enforcement couldn't or shouldn't be reworked in some significant way, but just as in my other post about staff reductions, the devil is yet again in the details.

@36 - If you missed it, I answered your question(s) the other day, but it was very late.

@41 Your Ted Bundy and Timothy McVeigh examples prove why reasoning from anecdote is misleading.

Setting aside for a moment cases where those like Ted Bundy had already been identified after Carol DaRonch escaped and reported him to the police, the cost to the lives to both officers and civilians during traffic stops each year far exceeds the cherry picked anecdotes you share of an arrest leading to the peaceful capture of a dangerous felon. That's not even counting the number of times per year a police officer panics and blows an innocent driver away, often with young children in the car there to see their father executed.

https://www.npr.org/sections/thetwo-way/2016/07/07/485066807/police-stop-ends-in-black-mans-death-aftermath-is-livestreamed-online-video

https://www.theatlantic.com/politics/archive/2016/07/end-needless-interaction-with-cops-during-traffic-stops/490412/

Another advantage of turning over road safety to an unarmed, non-police unit would be to help restore the fourth amendment which has been destroyed by the jurisprudence of traffic stops.

https://law.justia.com/constitution/us/amendment-04/16-vehicular-searches.html

The data is simply not on your side when it comes to traffic stops as a form of policing beyond what you may have picked up from Miami Vice.

1/3 Of People Killed By Police After A Traffic Stop This Year Were Black
https://thecrimereport.org/2015/12/25/2015-12-race-and-fatal-traffic-stops/

https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/fact-checker/wp/2016/07/12/are-most-job-related-deaths-of-police-caused-by-traffic-incidents/

"Of the officers who were feloniously killed during that time, the two main circumstances were during an arrest situation (18.8 percent) and traffic pursuit or stop (18.4 percent). The rest were during disturbance calls, unprovoked attacks or ambush (entrapment or premeditation, similar to the Dallas shootings)."

This is not even counting the thousands of lives of civilians killed in traffic stops the police have worked hard to ensure is not tracked.

For the same reason society generally discourages car chases, it should discourage traffic stops. Less police contact will save innocent lives. Policing tactics should not be based on folklore gleaned from episodes COPS.

We live during a time of mass cameras, mass surveillance and 0 privacy. I think the police can figure out a way to stop dangerous criminals without a 4th amendment fishing expedition through the lives of the 350 million people who live in the US.

"You can't really compare parking and traffic enforcement. Parking enforcement agents very seldom have contact with the driver of the car they're citing. Traffic enforcement always does.
Parking enforcement simply lists the registered owner of the unoccupied car on their citations, regardless of who was actually driving it, and then moves on to the next unoccupied one. I suppose I should say "usually" unoccupied."

This is precisely the problem. The focus of traffic enforcement should be traffic safety, not trolling the general public for potential suspects. In 2020 there are plenty of ways to troll the public for criminals without choosing policing over traffic safety.

"Traffic enforcement requires positively identifying the driver face-to-face, and that, even just the fear of that, is what will lead to plenty of unarmed traffic officers getting killed. Identifying the driver is an issue because people involved in criminality as a regular activity almost never drive cars that are registered to them; it's very rare."

This is exactly the policing midset society needs to change. Rather than seeing the world as a group of criminals, police should be trained to see the world, correctly, as made up of overwhelmingly law abiding citizens trying to get through the day with their civil rights in tact. That "us vs. them" mentality does not just discount, but places in danger all those who may have committed a traffic safety violation, but did not just rob a bank.

"In addition to that issue, there's also all the whack-jobs who are enraged to violence simply for being stopped, and there are more of them than you would probably imagine. Extreme libertarians and anti-government types in particular are prone to this."

So what purpose does it serve to stop these people? There are plenty of unstable non-dangerous people in the world. Why would you send in a cop to push them over the edge?

As it turns out, we don't need to spit ball the idea. England has been making traffic safety about safety for a while and it seems to be working out well.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Highways_England_traffic_officers

Despite this, they still manage to capture dangerous felons without relying on traffic stops. They call it "policing." Berkley is considering doing the same.

https://www.kcra.com/article/berkeley-moves-toward-removing-police-traffic-stops/33324581

and as if no queue:

https://heavy.com/news/2020/07/charles-hewitt/

"On April 20, 2019, a Virginia State Trooper stopped Mr. Thompson’s vehicle. The Trooper alleged Mr. Thompson’s inspection sticker was expired and that she detected an odor of marijuana. She announced her intent to search his vehicle. Mr. Thompson did not consent to the search, and the Trooper returned to her patrol vehicle to call for back-up.

Fearful of police violence and alone in his vehicle, Mr. Thompson, placed his cell phone on his dashboard to film the interaction. Approximately ten minutes later, two additional Virginia State Troopers arrived. Mr. Thompson requested each of the Troopers provide their name, badge number, and identification. One Trooper ignored Mr. Thompson’s request entirely, while another claimed he had forgotten his name and badge number.

As the video shows, Thompson is not resisting in anyway, has both of his hands up, and is simply not willing to get out of the vehicle over an allegation that a cop smelled a plant.

“Sir, my hands are up, and we are on camera,” Thompson says as the Trooper becomes more enraged.

Hewitt then responds by telling Thompson that “you are gonna get your ass whooped in front of f*cking lord and all creation.”

Thompson says again and again that his hands are up and he’s not resisting. However, the enraged Hewitt doesn’t seem to care. He looks to the camera, poses with his soon-to-be victim and says “Watch the show folks” as he attacks Thompson.

Though the camera goes blank, you can still hear Thompson pleading with his attackers to “please get off my neck” as Hewitt continues to beat him.

Instead of listening and getting off of his neck, Hewitt starts shouting, “how do you like that motherf**ker?” as he continues his attack on Thompson

https://blacksportsonline.com/2020/07/video-watch-cop-charles-hewitt-terrorize-threaten-and-assault-derrick-thompson-while-on-camera-says-he-cant-be-racist-because-he-has-white-wife/

https://nitter.net/JoshuaErlich

@41 Jeffrey Dahmer was stopped by cops in a traffic stop with bags of body parts in his car. They let him go. They also returned a naked and bleeding 15 year old boy to him, joking about the boy being his lover. That boy was later murdered by Dahmer.

@36: True enough, except the temporary part. Following the 2015 riots touched off by the death of Freddie Gray, Baltimore's murder rate shot up 63% and has remained there ever since.

Yes, and in LA (1992), Cincinnati 2001) and NY (2014) after the riots crime went down.

Why, if I was cynical, I might suspect you are simply some opportunistic data miner who purposely ignores any data that does not support your pre-analytic beliefs.

Besides, do you really want to hold up Baltimore as an example of effective policing? Right after King County, WA, Baltimore has one of the most corrupt police departments in thee country.

https://www.cnn.com/2019/10/04/us/baltimore-police-corruption-cases/index.html

Besides, the SPD has already told us they will no longer police due to budget cuts. They have never done their job, of course, but even they are admitting it now. Why should we maintain an expensive work program for a bunch of ineffective dead enders who have already admitted they no longer want the job?