Comments

1

When I saw Jenny Cudd in the title I figured it was either a new staffer or new cow mascot. A future long term inmate is even better.

2

CORRECTION: December 2, 2021 was a Thursday.

3

"The FBI is seeking to identify individuals instigating violence in Washington, D.C. We are accepting tips and digital media depicting rioting or violence in and around the U.S. Capitol on January 6. If you have information, visit http://fbi.gov/USCapitol."

To Whom it May Concern:

Please go to the White House
the Main Miscreant is probably still there

you need to (thoroughly!) check the basement.
and don't forget to look behind the water heater
it's his Safe Space. Not even Rudy can join him there.

Oh, and don't forget to Lock Up
Rudy 'Now let's go bust some Heads!' Giuliani
he'll be almost too Easy to find.

4

Traitor Donnie won't be at the inauguration because he should be in jail. Good god why has he not been arrested yet??

5

oh and then there's Ivanta trumpf who called people who smashed doors and windows and tried to take down the American flag at the U.S. Capitol 'American Patriots' oh and her brother the donald, junior, who . . .

ah, shucks.

to see the whole List, FBI, check out This, at the Guardian:

Incitement: a timeline of Trump's inflammatory rhetoric before the Capitol riot

The president, his family and his allies made no shortage of disturbing remarks in the run-up to Wednesday’s siege.

https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2021/jan/07/trump-incitement-inflammatory-rhetoric-capitol-riot

6

"18 U.S. Code § 2384 - Seditious conspiracy

"If two or more persons in any State or Territory, or in any place subject to the jurisdiction of the United States, conspire to ... oppose by force the authority thereof, or by force to prevent, hinder, or delay the execution of any law of the United States ... they shall each be fined under this title or imprisoned not more than twenty years, or both."

Jenny Cudd, Donald Trump and a cast of hundreds, now starring in his new reality show, "Apprentices to Seditious Conspiracy." Filmed on location at your local federal house of incarceration.

7

@4 because A corrupt DOJ issued a memo saying you can't arrest the president and everyone looked around and shrugged and said "well, they wrote this official letterhead, what can ya do?"

8

Wow, a crowd of white insurrectionists who are widely known for their slavish support of cops by way of all their "Thin Blue Line" and "Back the Blue" bumper stickers and rhetoric have, on top of already injuring dozens of those very same cops they purport to support, now brazenly and very publicly murdered one of those very same cops.

It's been pretty big new in every other media outlet this morning, yet nary a mention from Charles.

I would think that would be the sort of rank hypocrisy and contrast to BLM protests would merit at least an aside. Must get in the way of his main, overall theme somehow.

9

Trying to compare the consequences I faced from the government for drinking 5 beers inside a private residence when I was 20 to what happens when you take a dump on Nancy Pelosis desk.

10

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Q9cSEOKG9Is

11

At the risk of posting an unpopular opinion, I am going to say the emphasis on race as an explanation for the massive difference between police responses and tactics in the BLM protests and the Trump coup attempt is being overstated in the media.

Now look, I understand the origins of the police as an institution. One could cogently argue the police haven’t come that far from the days when their primary function was to chase down runaway slaves. But that’s just an echo of what drives their behavior now, not the central cause.

The true difference in their approaches to BLM and white supremacy is the perception that one group (the Trumpers/Supremacists) have a problem with democracy. Police are sympathetic to that view. Authoritarianism is a natural fit for the typical cop mentality. Of course they feel a kinship with the Trumpers. The BLM folks, on the other hand, are opposed to the very existence of police as they are currently conceived. They value egalitarianism and justice, not boot-driven compliance. That’s what makes them the enemy, not the color of their skin. It’s also, in the end, what makes a massively overfunded and militarized police force so dangerous. If the chips were truly down, if we really did find ourselves in a new civil war, does anyone doubt that a great many cops would side with anti-democratic forces?

Just as the cops will happily attack a peaceful white BLM protestor, they’d just as happily take a selfie with a Black fascist. And I’m sure they would have if they could’ve found any at the Capitol.

12

@11 Well, yeah but what you've just described there is the cultural construction of "race".

13

I don't really see the urgency to this second Trump impeachment.
He has been effectively emasculated now, and will soon be gone.
Those nuclear codes...? I doubt he could get any such orders carried out and I doubt he has any appetite to start a military confrontation.
He had his casus belli (more accurately his casus foederis) last week with the Iranian seizure of the South Korean tanker and passed.
Domestically his administration has been so hollowed out at this point they won't be pushing any new initiatives, and as for the pardons, who cares? Let him try to pardon himself or his family, it will backfire.
The only sanction which has proven effective with this man is suspension of his Twitter privileges.

14

Shorter FBI: "We can't touch any Tr666pnazis--THEY'RE WHIIIIITE. Someone should DO SOMETHING!!!"

15

@ 13,

Impeachment will stop him from pardoning himself and the rest of the Tr666pnazi trash on the way out.

Also, there need to be some kind of consequences for attacking the US Capitol.

16

re the sputtered coup: the story I see is one in which people wanted Trump to show up as a man on horseback. They set it all up but then he flinched at the decisive moment out of timidity and left them standing on the curb with a corsage in their hands.

This is the story they've been weaving for years. They went to the hill but the clouds did not part and the world did not end.

17

/the Onion/

‘This Apology Is Bullshit And I Am Lying To You,’ Says GOP Senator To Widespread Media Praise

WASHINGTON—In a speech addressing the rioters who stormed the U.S. Capitol the previous day, GOP Sen. Lindsey Graham (R-SC) released a statement to widespread media praise Thursday saying “this apology is bullshit and I am lying to you.” “Nothing—and I repeat, nothing—I’m saying about the violent attack on Washington is an accurate representation of how I really feel,” said Graham in a video lauded by anchors across CNN, MSNBC, and Fox News for being “powerful” and “healing,” before adding that the expressions of anger and sadness that his facial expression implied were also entirely false.

At press time, Graham confirmed that his speech had led to him being offered a position in Biden’s cabinet.

https://www.theonion.com/this-apology-is-bullshit-and-i-am-lying-to-you-says-1846012923

18

@11 - MSNBC reporting that the capitol police brass and the DC mayor declined federal offers for backup to avoid having the city appearing militarized like Trump did last summer.

The horrors of overcorrections.

19

Dominion seem to have a pretty strong case for their billions. Even after weeks of lawsuits and the courts deciding those lawsuits are without merit, the fervent Trump supporters STILL don't believe the results because they want to AUDIT the Dominion voting machines! And even if that were to reveal no issues, I'm sure they will find another excuse that the election was "stolen".
This does a lot of damage to Dominion's business of selling and maintaining the machines, if a bunch of morons out there have been told by political figures that the machines are rigged then who will buy them?
All this reminds me of the Chris Farley/David Spade classic "Black Sheep" wherein Spade and Farley stumble-upon voter fraud in Washington state with dead voters on the rolls LOL.

23

13, in additon to the pardons issue that 15 mentioned, not removing him is pretty much giving him (and future presidents) to keep acting in this manner. If this isn't dealt with, eventually we will get a competent fascist.

24

The terrorists on Parler are planning more attacks on the 19th. This shit is not done. The feds need to take action now.

25

perhaps trumpfy was hoping for the Po-po to start shooting his Disciples and in the blood bath that followed Proclaim (with [or without, either way's ok with The Boss] his Revolutionary Guard) his Reichstag Moment and an All New! ten thousand year trumpftopian reich for once and 'for all.'

27

@ 21,

Given that the terrorists stormed the building, could've killed everyone inside and destroyed the US government--after widely proclaiming the day before that they were going to kill everyone inside the Capitol--it painfully shows how our racist kleptocratic system of government is built on the alter of white trash supremacy.

The Capitol Police/FBI/DHS/National Stupidity Apparatus are so oblivious and shamelessly incompetent that they don't even seem to care that the whole world sees them on a street corner with their dicks in the hands.

This is a national humiliation, and they all need to be sacked immediately as threats to national security.

28

Was just reading about the dead cop. Survived combat in Iraq only to be killed by the Blue Lives Matter crowd.

29

@22 -- hmmm
Cleansing house
and starting Afresh Moving
On -- sounds pretty Delicious

but let's
not be hasty
let's at Least
give them a Jury
there's no Hurry
but WE GOTTA
Be JUST.

or, what's the Point?

30

"the upper and deeply undemocratic chamber of the United States Congress..."

So I've been clamoring for the disbanding of the dumbass senate on here for years now, and am beginning to become frustrated at my lack of success in making any headway. What about... Could we even strip it of some of it's powers that provide ifor t's wildly disproportionate influence over our lives and policies? Obviously, I'm speaking primarily of it's role in confirming Supreme Court justices which (obviously) can have disastrous outcomes and consequences. Though there are other responsibilities they possess which they should also be stripped of. The institution itself is just fundamentally fucking backwards and the likelihood of our holding it for any reasonable amount of time is virtually non-existent, given the electoral processes that make it up.

31

@ 30,

One solution is redistricting the Senate so that they represent equal numbers of people rather than states. This would force them to appeal more broadly to the diverse population and prevent single states LIKE KENTUCKY (((COUGH))) from holding the entire nation hostage.

33

@28 - Let's be clear: ... killed by leadership incompetence, [then you can add snarky narratives].

34

I celebrate this posting for so many reasons.

35

@33 "incompetence" That's a weird way to type complicity

36

Capitol riots inspire graffiti in Syria:

https://media1.s-nbcnews.com/j/newscms/2021_01/3440809/210108-syria-reax-capitol-riots-se-148p_d510aee077aa3060a18a69b27e3f8b0a.fit-1120w.jpg

37

@15- totally agree there needs to be serious consequences for the attack on the Capitol.
I'd prefer to see it proceed under the auspices of Merrick Garland than a hurried 'trial' in the House & Senate.
I'm greatly pleased to hear that the FBI, while working shall we say, deliberately, is making arrests -
https://www.politico.com/news/2021/01/08/fbi-arrest-rioter-pelosi-office-456580

38

ok raindrop- that made me laugh!
I assumed the enduring visual motif to emerge from the riot would be viking man but it looks like its gonna be podium man.

39

Trump should certainly be arrested and molested for these egregious transgressions against America. Speaker Pelosi should have the Pentagon shield the nuclear codes from him, lest he lob one into Iran as sort of a final act of insanity.

40

@11: "The true difference in their approaches to BLM and white supremacy is the perception that one group (the Trumpers/Supremacists) have a problem with democracy. Police are sympathetic to that view. Authoritarianism is a natural fit for the typical cop mentality. Of course they feel a kinship with the Trumpers. The BLM folks, on the other hand, are opposed to the very existence of police as they are currently conceived. They value egalitarianism and justice, not boot-driven compliance. That’s what makes them the enemy, not the color of their skin."

Brilliant analysis. Racism is a real thing in American policing, but so is violence and antidemocratic intolerance. They're different problems requiring different solution that are often conflated. Sometimes by the confused, often by the disingenuous who hope to confuse the public to avoid any accountability or reform.

I believe the police are best viewed as a gun. As long as the fascists in the blue lives matter crowd wielded that gun they were supporters. Once the gun was turned on them they hated it. When the FBI and CIA collaborated to lie about WMDs to promote the Iraq war and President Bush with it the Left learned to hate these undemocratic unaccountable organizations. When those same criminal organizations turned on Trump 4 years ago the Left "Learned to Stop Worrying and Love the Bomb."
Authoritarianism runs strong in the American people. We never waste time making cogent arguments for our beliefs when violence will do the trick. I'm sure I'm not the only person entirely unsurprised by the assault on the capital, or what will almost certainly be a backlash of "patriot act" level solutions presented as a way to avoid this in the future that are really just a new round of unconstitutional government powers designed to feed the power hungry. Most agree these people should be punished. That correct feeling will soon be exploited by those in power to create even more power and less accountability.
Mark Zuckerberg has unilaterally banned President Trumps Facebook about. I have not read anything President Trump has posted in 4 years because he's a joke and I would not waste my time reading anything he has to say, but am I the only person who sees a problem with Mark Zuckerberg using his power in this way? I don't mean the first amendment since it's a private platform, I mean the private platform picking and choosing what speech they will allow from a guy who literally could launch a war tomorrow and has access to the Nuclear Codes? In the future, what could possibly go wrong?

@20: Almost everything you said here I agree with and is very good, except:
"but also for clueless center-right idiots cosplaying as anarchists, because they do not understand the risk"
I agree the center right is cos-playing fascist and authoritarians, but there is nothing anarchist about these people. Like the media, I am not an anarchist, but unlike the media that keeps using this term "anarchist" to describe fascists and authoritarians I know what that term means. The seem to be conflating anarchy with anarchist, which are very different things.

41

Bullshit, the non-response to the threat of domestic terrorism by mostly (almost entirely) white male Trump supporters was ALL ABOUT RACE. The FBI and the Pentagon reached out numerous times BEFORE January 6th, acknowledging there was threat and asking Trump and the D.C. police (and the Capitol police who are their own entity) if they could assist. They were refused. Trump and his minions also refused to have the National Guard present PRIOR TO THE EVENT. In comparison, there were flanks and flanks of federal goons armed to the teeth when the Black Lives Matter protesters were in D.C. (all of the UNARMED AND NON-VIOLENT AND NOT STORMING THE CAPITOL BUILDING DESTROYING EVERYTHING IN SIGHT, SHITTING AND SMEARING THEIR FECES AROUND, OR SCREAMING WHERE IS MIKE PENCE?! WITH ZIP TIES AND A GALLOWS THEY BUILT OUTSIDE TO HANG SOME MEMBERS OF CONGRESS).

Any pretense that what happened was not white privilege of the highest order because the white people inside the building never imagined white people outside of the building who are pissed Der Trumptard isn't able to successfully, forcibly remain squatting in the WH is BULLSHIT.

The unbelievable denial of how deeply white supremacist ideology and privilege is the very lifeblood of this country is so fucking sickening it makes me, truly, wish humanity would just fucking die already. It is too sick and too damaged and too stupid to live.

But hey, that's just my unpopular opinion.

42

@41: I always enjoy your posts and I don't disagree with you that racism is a motivating facotr with policing Xina.

I don't consider myself pro-policing, or a person who fails to acknowledge the deeply racist origins of current policing tactics. Our overly black prison population did not select themselves and those who did the selecting (police and prosecutors) are overwhelmingly white, which is no mistake.

But is that the only failure, or motivation for the police? There are an awful lot of marginalized white women and girls who are sexually assaulted and raped by cops and violent policing targets other marginalized groups (transgender, sex workers, the homeless etc) as well.

If those storming the capital had been blue lives matter boot licking authoritarians who were for more police, bigger budgets, less accountability and generally against democracy and the due process that comes with it, how do you think the police would have responded to them storming the capital?

Much of the BLM protestors in Seattle and Portland have been white. Do you feel the police have been going easier on them than say a Ben Carson?

44

@42 Anyone protesting the violence of police against Black people and the murder of Black people by police with no consequences is a threat to the police, no matter their skin color.

And the one thing people seem to fail to grasp is that white supremacist terrorism, ideology, policy, privilege, etc. IS A WHITE PEOPLE'S PROBLEM. White people ARE IN FACT the ones that should be rioting in the streets against the murder of Black people and the violence against Black people and WHITE PEOPLE are the ONLY ones who can dismantle and destroy white supremacist ideology, policy, privilege terrorism, etc. BECAUSE WHITE PEOPLE are the ones that uphold it, enforce it, perpetuate it, and benefit from it.

To speak to your second point, the second sickness in this country (and world) that runs and deep and prevalent as white supremacy is misogyny. So yes, white women and girls do suffer horrific abuse. Not because they are white, though, but because they are female. And the abuse inflicted upon the bodies of Black girls and women from birth to death is far more severe, insidious, and is entwined with white supremacist terrorism.

There are two societies here: one that likes the way things are (actually they like the way things were even better, which is why Trump brought them out of the woodwork, emboldening them, inciting them to commit violence, and stoking their hatred every change he got/gets) and the one that does not like the way things are and wants them to change and is sick and tired of being viciously assaulted (in very sense) whenever any progress is made in a forward motion toward equality and justice.

45

On the one hand I'm delighted at the arrests being made in the Capitol riots -
https://thehill.com/regulation/court-battles/533386-prosecutors-charge-man-in-photographed-in-pelosis-office-wv
But the charges that I have seen so far don't match the severity of the crimes.
'Unlawful Entry' or 'Disorderly Conduct' -?
What about that 10 -year minimum statute, why wouldn't that apply?
If we are all agreed that we need to throw the book at these guys, then let's do it.

46

Dude who was sitting at Pelosi's desk was arrested, no smug smirk in the mugshot.
"Just because you've left the DC region you can still expect a knock on the door if we find out you were part of the criminal activity at the Capitol," said Steven D'Antuono, assistant director in charge of the FBI's Washington field office.
LOL

47

Remember, if you can ID any of the people in the videos, or see any of their social media postings in which they admit their crimes, or are next to people criming, you can turn them in to the FBI Washington Field Office.

We can remove all the people in prisons for not having cash bail, and replace them with these white Terrorists.

48

@42 "The underlying foundation of American authoritarianism IS racism.

This might be where we disagree. I think the fundamental authoritarianism of America runs much deeper and expresses itself through racism. If there were no black people in America tomorrow the police would remain just as lawless and violent. Because many are also deeply racist it's natural it would express itself that way, but non-black trans sex workers and the homeless would be no safer from the police.

I agree with the rest of your post (that the status quo is racist and that laws are passed and enforced in a deeply racist manner), but to address only racism as the solution to all the problems with American policing is a Procrustean bed.

The argument that pseudo-reformers of policing often make is that we should only address racism and use performative reforms like implicit bias training to do it. These people disingenuously focus on things like Carmen Best quitting without acknowledging that she was completely incompetent and had lost control of the SPD. They use a narrow self serving definition of "fighting racism" as a weapon to undermine any real police reform.

Derek Chauvin not only had implicit bias training, but was a team leader with a long history of violence. He was almost certainly a bigot, but addressing racism alone would not solve a problem like that.

@44: Well said Xina. I think you echoed the point I made in my post here:
"To speak to your second point, the second sickness in this country (and world) that runs and deep and prevalent as white supremacy is misogyny. So yes, white women and girls do suffer horrific abuse. Not because they are white, though, but because they are female"

To state again, racism is central to American Policing, but racism alone will not address the problem with policing in America. Current American policing is toxic on many levels and while racism is important, it cannot be conflated with the other problems or we risk not address the fundamental problem.

No questions Black girls and women are harmed by policing, but so are black men and those of any sexual orientation the police do not approve of. I would never tell a victim of gratuitous police violence and sexual assault who is more or less harmed. Everyone loses when police are not held accountable for their crimes.

49

11 - I spent my entire adult life up until 2011 as a cop and cop supervisor, and my observations over that time don't really jibe with yours posted here. There is something to what you're saying, but you're seriously downplaying the role of race in police reactions.

There is a LOT of racism in policing, much more than in the general public. Now, there are a lot of righteous cops who only want to the right thing, too, more than anyone in this forum would imagine. But, their presence doesn't change the fact that there is still a lot of racism in policing, particularly among the rank-and-file.

What's insidious about it is that most of the racist are more like what I describe as Archie Bunker Bigots. They don't use the n-word (openly anyway), they'll help out a POC in danger or in need...but bitch that the only reason they had to do so was due exclusively to the person's race. The insidious part of that is that these guys...and gals...don't see themselves as racist. So, combatting their racism is tough to do. They traffic in a deluge of racist dog-whistles and coded language, but they genuinely don't see themselves as racist. How does one address that?

That's why they cruise minority neighborhoods outfitted like their in Fallujah with exterior their flak jackets, dark shades and permanent scowls. It's why they may search the car of a POC but not a white person in the same circumstances. It's why they're just a wee bit quicker to use force against POC. They're not conscious of their bias, for the most part, but it's there.

Art Acevedo, the Houston Police Chief, is possibly the most respected LE executive in America among the political and LE communities right now, and in a story in WaPo this morning he directly lays the blame for the response at the Capitol to differing expectations of the crowd based primarily on their skin color. I could not agree more.

I can assure you that they don't think of BLM as a threat due to their version of democracy; they see them, almost always subconsciously, as a threat to the established white order in America, not order in general, but the white order. Not all, of course, not most black officers, obviously, but most of the white and even most of the brown officers perceive the threat that way in their guts. It's a visceral thing.

Still, I can't entirely discount your idea about their attraction to authoritarianism. That's becoming more and more true with the advent of Trumpism...but it still pales as a motivating factor to disparate treatment next to race.

In my cop days, I would have said it was more an attraction to order and regimentation. And yeah, a little bit of comfort with an established hierarchy, even a democratically established one. In fact, especially and preferably a democratically established one at that time. Hell, I"m still like that! I like knowing my place and my role in society and everyone else's, too. That's my comfort level. Not having that leads to what happened at the Capitol, to my mind anyway.

I remember when Ross Perot was running for President in 1992, and he floated the idea of giving cops carte-blanche warrantless authority to enter people's homes to search for drugs. I'm sure some cops loved the idea, but every cop I personally knew and that was in my social circle were horrified by it. We idealistically believed in the American criminal justice system as designed...and as it was supposed to work.

I suspect that idea would go over a lot better with cops today, what with their radicalization toward an even more right-wing worldview and with the advent of Trumpism. The Floyd protests have really driven them into a siege mentality against POC and their "enablers," which of course, in turn drives them to favor greater authoritarianism. They love themselves some Trump. Most saw the crowd at the Capitol as their fellow travelers and allies...look at all the "Thin Blue Line" flags! That is until they didn't, and their "allies" turned on them...and killed one of them.

But that tendency toward authoritarianism is still far down the list of motivating factors behind the primary one of race.

And it's getting worse. Police recruitment is wayyy down over the last 10-15 years, up to 70% in a lot of locales even before the Floyd protests. Cops that can leave are leaving in much higher numbers than before. POC don't want to join the cop ranks anymore, even though it is, oddly. one of the better institutions for advancement for POC. Young people with other options don't want to generally. They gotta take what they can get now.

So, what's left is ill-qualified people from the land o' Trump. Young Trumpers love the idea of being a cop still! Municipalities gotta fill their ranks, so they've been having to reach deeper and deeper into that barrel to do so, and that's going to continue. And that in turn will continue the Trumpification of LE.

I don't know the answer to that problem, as it will still exist even with shrinking the ranks of police departments, which itself will never happen to the extent people here would like. So, what? Draft people? Outrageously high salaries or signing bonuses, thus raising taxes? Idaknow...

I gotta confess Mudede isn't my favorite writer, and I take issue with his take for one reason or another quite often, like today, for instance, in my earlier post...but he is 100% right about the role of race in Wednesday's insurrectionist attack; he is bang-on-target.

A BLM insurrectionist attack on the Capitol would have been overwhelmingly crushed with dozens shot and hundreds arrested. And that would be the appropriate response too such an attack. What transpired Wednesday is what is wrong, as those assholes should also have been overwhelmingly crushed. Their whiteness is 80% of the reason they weren't. Their perceived ideological kinship with the ranks of the police is 20% of the reason...if that much.

Yikes, sorry for the length of this somewhat stream-of-consciousness tome!

50

@1 seatackled, @4 Urgutha Forka, @5 kristofarian, @6 tensor, @15, @27, & @31 Original Andrew, @21 blip, @37 kallipugos, @39 pollysexual, @41 & @44 xina, and @47 Will in Seattle: Thank you and bless you all for so aptly and consistently beating me to it! So well said and summarized, all of you. Brilliant! I have nothing more to add.

@28 Brent Gumbo: That is truly sad and beyond tragic. Donald J. Trump, all of his Cabinet members, and very one of the insurrectionists who stormed the Capitol as well as Governor Jay and Trudi Inslee's mansion in Olympia should face a firing squad for their insanely senseless violent state and federal crimes against democracy, justice, and humanity.
May this truly spell the death of the GOP once and for all.

51

@45 - I wish they would spend the next 2 weeks just identifying the treasonous bastards, and wait until after the inauguration to arrest them. I'm afraid that by arresting them before then they're giving Trump the opportunity to pardon them all on the way out the door.

54

Trump has been permanently banned from Twitter - https://www.nytimes.com/2021/01/08/technology/twitter-trump-suspended.html

55

@54,

Ha ha, that's pretty great. A couple years late, but great nonetheless.

56

@51: This article appears to support your point:

"D.C. Cop Speaks Out, Says Cops Were Among Rioters Storming Capitol, Flashed Badges to Get In"
https://thefreethoughtproject.com/cops-among-rioters-capitol-dc-officer/?utm_source=getresponse&utm_medium=email&utm_campaign=rssfeednewsletter&utm_content=The+Free+Thought+Project+Newsletter

@52: I agree. We are having different conversations. I always enjoy your posts.

57

The mob are being banned from airlines, fired from their jobs, and releasing statements about how "embarrassed" they are and lawyering-up because they know they are probably facing federal pound-me-in-the-ass charges. Looooooool

58

@49 Municipal policing is a serious problem in this country for sure. There's a caustic current of contemptuous insubordination in police culture that I don't know what you do about it. Fire them all and start from scratch is the only thing I can think of.

The basic problem is how police departments are insulated from political accountability. That could work if their behavior was thoroughly professional but, uh...

Stopping the war on drugs would help a lot. That way, even if the cops remain jerks, they won't have any reason to be kicking in people's doors any more. Its in those kinds of contacts where all the blood is spilled.

59

Thx for your input today Morty, & it kind of gives me the warm & fuzzies that we have enough of a community here now someone feels it is worthwhile to post a long, thoughtful comment like that.
And part of the reason for that is the Professor being the mean cop and running off the worst of the trolls.

60

@56 - If there were current active off-duty officers in that crowd, they need to be arrested. But we need to be careful about suggesting that was commonly the case.

I saw numerous 3-percenters in the Rotunda in one pic, and 3-percenters consist of former soldiers and former LE. Retired LE are often issued "Retiree Badges." I have one. It's identical to the badge I wore on my shirt, but at the bottom where my rank (Sergeant) would be it says "Retiree." That's literally the only difference. Oh, it's a bit flatter to fit better into its included "badgefold," without the slight vertical curve to it.

Most former cops in the 3-percenters are retirees, so I can easily imagine any present at the Capitol flashing their Retiree badges and officers deferring to them...even though they're no longer active. That may be what was mostly seen. Still, any active officers among the insurrectionists need to be sought out and arrested.

In any case, I hope those accommodating cops and former cops are satisfied. Over 50 of their more righteous fellow officers were hurt and one was even killed. Any cops in that mob have the blood of another cop on their hands now, and that is the ultimate betrayal among cops.

Hopefully, that alone will sway some of the more persuadable Trumpists in the police ranks. I'm not optimistic, but we'll see.

I've seen video of cops inside the Capitol and even some places outside fighting like crazy while others opened gates, waved insurrectionists through, posed for selfies and so on. Fire the latter and reward/promote the former.

61

@58 - They don't all need to be fired; there are righteous cops in the ranks. I assume the 50 hurt and 1 killed Wednesday were. Cop apologists like to say 99% of them are good, but when I left LE I figured it was more like 2/3 were minimally acceptable or better with 10% or so being outstanding. 1/3 needed to go.

With the rise of Trumpism, I'm sure those number are very different now, maybe fully reversed. That still leaves a solid 1/3 around which to rebuild!

Besides, what will we do when restructuring? In Dallas, it takes 68 weeks of academy and field training before a cop can be set loose on his/her own. Who minds the store in the meantime? Trains all the new cops? Where do we get them? Who supervises them? Because they can barely fill ranks from just above normal attrition now, and that with barely marginal applicants. How does that change?

I fully agree about the drug war, but that takes up much less time of an average cop's day than most would imagine. Most of their time is running from call to call to call.

I acknowledge the problem; I'm just at a loss as to how to realistically solve it.

62

RBG's seat could be reclaimed because of why? The link to Twitter isn't working for me, but I don't see how a stupid comment from the wife of the SC's Uncle Tom could have any effect on things, and I don't see any previous comments mentioning it.

Also, "buy our new [overpriced, overmarketed garbage] Beats in-ear headphones, as a way to stand up against institutional racism!" Eeeeesh.

63

Trump, with his weird flight deck-George Jetson-Joker’s wild hairdo and micro-penis (Stormy Daniels said that it looked like a chanterelle mushroom appetizer served with two chickpeas and a shredded carrot garnish) can view the Inauguration from the prison weight room while being finger-diddled by various Proud Boys and white supremacist prison mates—criminals all for imposing murder and vandalism upon our nation’s Capitol.
Has anyone noticed that Jenny Cudd looks like she’s been chewing her cud, and needs to visit the veterinarian after chewing through an electric fence? Needless to say, hillbilly rapper Primus looks like some one was “ducking the fog” out there above the fruited plain, although the funky, funny silhouetted rappers channeled my inner yahoo and made me want to run through the park naked with a quart of Foster’s Lager.
Mr. Krugman is correct in stating that Larry Kudlow was adlibbing his way through a failed economic policy and Sidney Powell’s false accusations of election fraud were preposterous and mere brown-nosing to demonstrate fealty to the big, Orange orangutan, whose entire administration—a monument to Satan— is collapsing as we speak. Kudlow and Powell will soon join the ranks of rats leaving a sinking ship, like Elaine Chao and Betsy DeVos, as the Trump administration collapses on itself like an orangish black hole.

64

@51: Spot on, Morty. I share your concerns.

@63 Agreed and seconded, Polly. Paul Krugman's commentary, like yours, is consistently spot on. As for Jenny Cudd, the aptly named epitome of TTC: Typical Trump Cow, I'm willing to make a college-educated guess that she's also fully equipped with a butt the shape and size of a loaded backpack. When she's backing up there should be flashing red lights going "Beeeeeep.....beeeeeep.....beeeeeep...." I shudder to think what she wears while gun shopping at her local Midland, Texas Wal*Mart when she isn't out chewing pork rinds and smashing windows, fahtin' fer her Free Dumbs.

65

@51: I appreciate you offering a consistently reasonable retired police officer view of policing that I have never actually witnessed or experienced among actual police officers. You are a far cry from the officers we have here is Seattle who routinely abuse the homeless, assault women and show violence towards the marginalized.
Of course, even the worst police officers who commit these heinous crimes would sound reasonable if they consistently offered their own version of events. I guess it's all about who is telling the story. In fact, even if I were a dirt bag like Police Union leader Mike Sloan, I might probably set up a reasonable sounding sock puppet to soft pedal my true feelings. You know, good cop bad cop. Glad that's not you.
Those who attacked the capital should be arrested and charged, but this is missing real action. After the terrorist attacked on 9/11 George Bush passed the Patriot Act that essentially suspended the 3rd, 4th and 5th amendment to the Bill of Rights.
Do you have any idea what Constitutional Rights we will lose in reaction to this fiasco? Everyone wants these people arrested, but as you know that is never the goal of those in power who play the long game. What rights do you think the innocent will asked to surrender to "ensure this never happens again?"

66

@13: In addition to what others have already written: we want impeachment, removal, "and disqualification to hold and enjoy any Office of honor, Trust, or Profit under the United States...."

Article II, Section 3, U.S. Constitution

That's why.

67

@65 - By "crowd," I mean the crowd actually storming and entering the Capitol, because that entailed the commission of actual crimes. Arrest them for those applicable crimes. I don't mean simply arresting someone for the sake of arresting them or for milling around outside taking selfies from the grass. Those people should merely be fired.

Any officer that assisted in this effort, even just as part of the mob pushing along the insurrectionists and cheering them on from outside should be fired. They have the blood of a murdered fellow officer on their hands as well as at least partial blame for the more than a dozen cops still hospitalized...to say nothing of the 50ish with less severe injuries.

Some or all of them may have only been in the cheering crowd outside, but without those outside, those engaged in the actual insurrection inside could not have done what they did.

When I was a cop, it was against our Code of Conduct to even associate with or support in any way any group that advocated the overthrow of the US government. Maybe that's not the case anymore or maybe it never was in various other LE agencies, but any officer in that crowd would be violating that prohibition.

They can go be ditch-diggers or car salesmen or something, but they don't need to be cops...and wouldn't be if their continued employment was up to me.

68

Trump is Captain Queeg. The strawberry ice cream is the missing votes. Mutiny?. Its in the works..


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