You can already see this brutality playing out with DeSantis. He's pushing to both expand the death penalty to other crimes, and to make it so death penalty cases no longer require a unanimous jury verdict.
If we don't reverse this trend asap, we're going to end up in a very dark place.
Trump's the sort of guy who loves violence so long as he's far removed from it. Like all weak men, he punches down and kisses up. The same can be said for his coke-addled failson and the likes of Charlie Kirk. Unfortunately, there's no mechanism for accountability for bad acts in the public square.
My shorthand definition test for fascists is simply this: If you celebrate Trump as a "real man" while clapping for his denigration of John McCain, an actual war hero, then you are a fascist, because it means you are drawn to a phony pose of "strength", not the actual thing.
The ONLY union police/sheriff's deputies should have is the same union which represents municipal and county employees.
They should be treated exactly the same way as all other municipal and county employees... because they ARE municipal and county employees... not a special branch of the military.
Part of the reason Trump can say that he wants to shoot drug dealers, looters, and liberals is that his own experiences have shown him that he lives in a country in which laws are not enforced. Lies, fraud, and cruelty have been a successful strategy throughout his life.
Before, during, and after his time as president he has broken dozens of laws, defrauded thousands of people, and has been responsible for the suffering and death of millions of people. Yet, there has still been no consequences for him beyond paying a few fines.
So, why not take it all a step further. He feels confident that the Republican Party will follow him down that path. He knows he has control over the Speaker of the House.
McKay Coppins had a worthwhile piece in The Atlantic today about something everyone here is already quite familiar with, the Republican strategy of dealing with their Trump problem by hoping someone or something else takes care of it. I have to share the finale of the piece, though, in which Coppins gets comment from clearly delusional former Ohio Senator Rob Portman, whose retirement probably had something to do with the political environment created by Trumpism:
'Meanwhile, the most enduring of GOP delusions—that Trump will transform into an entirely different person—somehow persists.
'When I asked Rob Portman about his party’s Trump problem, the recently retired Ohio senator confidently predicted that it would all sort itself out soon. The former president, he believed, would study the polling data, realize that other Republicans had a better shot at winning, and graciously bow out of 2024 contention.
'“I think at the end of the day,” Portman told me, “he’s unlikely to want to put himself in that position when he could be more of a Republican senior statesman who talks about the policies that were enacted in his administration.”
'I let out an involuntary laugh.
'“Maybe that’s wishful thinking on my part,” Portman conceded.'
Why is a special unit called Scorpions even pulling anyone over for a "broken" tail light? This has to stop. When Black Americans have to talk to their children AND adult children about how to behave if pulled over, to keep from being hurt or killed, then it's on ALL of us to demand a change.
It isn't just Memphis - it's all across the country. I'm tired of hearing about "a few bad apples" - it goes beyond that. It's a culture, and unfortunately, it's an even more radicalized culture thanks to trump and today's GOP.
I want someone to start looking into how many police, and even active/retired military have been radicalized. If these agencies can't or won't address it, then it's incumbent upon our government to do so on a large and widespread scale. DOJ can file charges, and hopefully juries will do the right thing to convict, but this is so pervasive a problem that it needs to be addressed in a much more fulsome manner.
The attack on Mr. Pelosi was bad enough but what the right did in their "assault" on him was in many ways worse. There will be no apologies from those so low and so crass as to verbally attack an old man. Instead these disgusting statements will live on and be repeated by many as absolute "fact", just as so many of t****, Carlson's, Bannon's lies are already. As I probably too often do, just imagine for one minute that had been Kevin McCarthy's wife instead of Paul Pelosi.
RE Police Unions, qualified immunity has enabled criminal impunity. So what about allowing the families of police violence victims to sue the local police union?
In almost every case, the union has defended the accused officer from being fired in prior abuse investigations, while also representing the officers who recruited, trained and supervised him.
If doable, this idea can have several positive outcomes:
1) Shift responsibility for victim payouts from taxpayers to police unions;
2) Incentivize union bosses to crack down on abuse to save their cash reserves;
3) Incentivize union insurers to punish chapters that cost them more;
4) Incentivize police department recruitment, training and oversight practices to reduce risk.
I’m thinking this approach can be kicked off by the Nichols family — much as the Sandy Hook families took on the legally-immunized gun manufacturer and won a major lawsuit.
Could not help but notice that big media could once again not help but give Trump center stage. That is exactly what will pave the way to him winning the nomination, as it did in 2016.
I have always found the saying "Everyone wants to go to Heaven, but no one wants to die" to be a very powerful description of Americans. We want professional police but we don't want to pay for it. We don't even pay starting police $20 an hour in many places. If you want good policing, increase pay and make it a profession, with credentialing (like a year of training!)
" Trump remains the most likely 2024 Republican presidential nominee…." As the compliant media still works to give him all the oxygen in the room. This is a different t**** a harder one. His purpose to being elected this time is pure vengeance. He plans to wreak this vengeance on everything and everyone he perceives to have "wronged" him, not the least of which is the American people. For 4 years he led the country down a path of destruction because of his incompetence and pettiness. A next time will be with deliberate intent.
While I have no direct experience with fascism, I do have have experience with the power and control that is the basis for domestic/family violence. I was the director of an agency that worked with women who had experienced it. The basis of the need that abuser have for power and control is actually the lack of it. They feel intrinsically powerless, they have little control over their own lives. In order to feel powerful they exert cruelty on others. It is actually a sign of great weakness. I think Trump's fascination with cruelty is, in fact, because of his own sense of powerlessness. The "crisis of masculinity" is pushing many men in this direction and I suspect his supporters also suffer from lack of a sense of a competent Self.
You can already see this brutality playing out with DeSantis. He's pushing to both expand the death penalty to other crimes, and to make it so death penalty cases no longer require a unanimous jury verdict.
If we don't reverse this trend asap, we're going to end up in a very dark place.
Trump's the sort of guy who loves violence so long as he's far removed from it. Like all weak men, he punches down and kisses up. The same can be said for his coke-addled failson and the likes of Charlie Kirk. Unfortunately, there's no mechanism for accountability for bad acts in the public square.
My shorthand definition test for fascists is simply this: If you celebrate Trump as a "real man" while clapping for his denigration of John McCain, an actual war hero, then you are a fascist, because it means you are drawn to a phony pose of "strength", not the actual thing.
The ONLY union police/sheriff's deputies should have is the same union which represents municipal and county employees.
They should be treated exactly the same way as all other municipal and county employees... because they ARE municipal and county employees... not a special branch of the military.
Part of the reason Trump can say that he wants to shoot drug dealers, looters, and liberals is that his own experiences have shown him that he lives in a country in which laws are not enforced. Lies, fraud, and cruelty have been a successful strategy throughout his life.
Before, during, and after his time as president he has broken dozens of laws, defrauded thousands of people, and has been responsible for the suffering and death of millions of people. Yet, there has still been no consequences for him beyond paying a few fines.
So, why not take it all a step further. He feels confident that the Republican Party will follow him down that path. He knows he has control over the Speaker of the House.
McKay Coppins had a worthwhile piece in The Atlantic today about something everyone here is already quite familiar with, the Republican strategy of dealing with their Trump problem by hoping someone or something else takes care of it. I have to share the finale of the piece, though, in which Coppins gets comment from clearly delusional former Ohio Senator Rob Portman, whose retirement probably had something to do with the political environment created by Trumpism:
'Meanwhile, the most enduring of GOP delusions—that Trump will transform into an entirely different person—somehow persists.
'When I asked Rob Portman about his party’s Trump problem, the recently retired Ohio senator confidently predicted that it would all sort itself out soon. The former president, he believed, would study the polling data, realize that other Republicans had a better shot at winning, and graciously bow out of 2024 contention.
'“I think at the end of the day,” Portman told me, “he’s unlikely to want to put himself in that position when he could be more of a Republican senior statesman who talks about the policies that were enacted in his administration.”
'I let out an involuntary laugh.
'“Maybe that’s wishful thinking on my part,” Portman conceded.'
It's amazing how blinding partisanship can be.
Why is a special unit called Scorpions even pulling anyone over for a "broken" tail light? This has to stop. When Black Americans have to talk to their children AND adult children about how to behave if pulled over, to keep from being hurt or killed, then it's on ALL of us to demand a change.
It isn't just Memphis - it's all across the country. I'm tired of hearing about "a few bad apples" - it goes beyond that. It's a culture, and unfortunately, it's an even more radicalized culture thanks to trump and today's GOP.
I want someone to start looking into how many police, and even active/retired military have been radicalized. If these agencies can't or won't address it, then it's incumbent upon our government to do so on a large and widespread scale. DOJ can file charges, and hopefully juries will do the right thing to convict, but this is so pervasive a problem that it needs to be addressed in a much more fulsome manner.
Charlie, please don't let Ryan get away with whataboutism and off-point answers to your questions. It's time to nail these suckers with the facts.
The attack on Mr. Pelosi was bad enough but what the right did in their "assault" on him was in many ways worse. There will be no apologies from those so low and so crass as to verbally attack an old man. Instead these disgusting statements will live on and be repeated by many as absolute "fact", just as so many of t****, Carlson's, Bannon's lies are already. As I probably too often do, just imagine for one minute that had been Kevin McCarthy's wife instead of Paul Pelosi.
RE Police Unions, qualified immunity has enabled criminal impunity. So what about allowing the families of police violence victims to sue the local police union?
In almost every case, the union has defended the accused officer from being fired in prior abuse investigations, while also representing the officers who recruited, trained and supervised him.
If doable, this idea can have several positive outcomes:
1) Shift responsibility for victim payouts from taxpayers to police unions;
2) Incentivize union bosses to crack down on abuse to save their cash reserves;
3) Incentivize union insurers to punish chapters that cost them more;
4) Incentivize police department recruitment, training and oversight practices to reduce risk.
I’m thinking this approach can be kicked off by the Nichols family — much as the Sandy Hook families took on the legally-immunized gun manufacturer and won a major lawsuit.
Could not help but notice that big media could once again not help but give Trump center stage. That is exactly what will pave the way to him winning the nomination, as it did in 2016.
I have always found the saying "Everyone wants to go to Heaven, but no one wants to die" to be a very powerful description of Americans. We want professional police but we don't want to pay for it. We don't even pay starting police $20 an hour in many places. If you want good policing, increase pay and make it a profession, with credentialing (like a year of training!)
" Trump remains the most likely 2024 Republican presidential nominee…." As the compliant media still works to give him all the oxygen in the room. This is a different t**** a harder one. His purpose to being elected this time is pure vengeance. He plans to wreak this vengeance on everything and everyone he perceives to have "wronged" him, not the least of which is the American people. For 4 years he led the country down a path of destruction because of his incompetence and pettiness. A next time will be with deliberate intent.
Is Paul Pelosi a public figure? Could he sue for defamation?
While I have no direct experience with fascism, I do have have experience with the power and control that is the basis for domestic/family violence. I was the director of an agency that worked with women who had experienced it. The basis of the need that abuser have for power and control is actually the lack of it. They feel intrinsically powerless, they have little control over their own lives. In order to feel powerful they exert cruelty on others. It is actually a sign of great weakness. I think Trump's fascination with cruelty is, in fact, because of his own sense of powerlessness. The "crisis of masculinity" is pushing many men in this direction and I suspect his supporters also suffer from lack of a sense of a competent Self.
I went to the Trump New Hampshire event on Saturday to gauge the Ultra MAGA fever.
The fever has broken: https://democracythroughthelookingglass.substack.com/p/trumps-grassroots-whimper-in-new