Thursday, January 29, 2015

TODAY IN BULLSHIT.

At National Review, Heather Mac Donald tells the story of de Blasio and the cops. It's full of grafs like the following, about de Blasio's famous comment that his black-skinned son had to watch himself around the police:
At the time, those remarks — based in thorough ignorance of the facts about policing and crime — were a body blow to the rank and file. But after the Ramos and Liu assassinations, carried out in the name of Eric Garner and Ferguson teen Michael Brown, they became a source of visceral rage, as they fed the atmosphere of escalating cop hatred that led to the killings.
So de Blasio's remarks were like a time bomb, or rather a time-traveling bomb -- after officers Ramos and Liu were killed, the remarks "fed the atmosphere of escalating cop hatred that led to the killings." That's propaganda, baby -- by which I mean, the author is so committed to bamboozling you that she's willing to embarrass herself with incoherent prose to do it.

Mac Donald portrays de Blasio as an out-of-touch elitist social justice warrior -- "[New York's] long term public safety remains at risk from an activist mayor who sees his base as the anti-police Left" -- but does not mention even once the polls that show most New Yorkers siding with de Blasio  against the NYPD. Mac Donald does seem aware of them, though, because instead of larding in anonymous quotes from humble citizens begging for Giuliani to come back, her anonymous quotes are all from alleged cops who agree with her ("'Liu and Ramos would have turned their backs as well,' asserts an official at One Police Plaza").

Mac Donald also defends the force's work slowdown as justified because they felt like it:
Ideally, and usually, cops perform their duty regardless of their attitudes toward the civilian authority under which they operate. That this tradition of neutrality cracked in this instance shows how deeply de Blasio violated their trust.
The next time a public service union feels itself disrespected and goes on strike, I wonder if we'll see Mac Donald at the barricades.

Boy, that libertarian moment seems like a long time ago, huh?

UPDATE. There has been some misunderstanding about my first complaint, which is not that de Blasio's comments came after the cops were shot -- they came before -- but that Mac Donald wrote about it as if time itself were fluid, and the Mayor's remarks had been weaponized by the shooting, then sent back through time to do their lethal work. Regarding the notion that de Blasio's expression of concern for his black son had anything to do with the nut who shot Liu and Ramos, commenter Ellis_Weiner laments that "MacDonald has never recovered from the trauma of discovering that the Beatles killed Sharon Tate."

109 comments:

  1. coozledad10:21 AM

    they fed the atmosphere of escalating cop hatred

    Like this, Heather?

    https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=09Vwt3vZ9do&feature=youtu.be



    Words don't mean shit to these people. They're just aping them.

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  2. Wingnuts: Black people being disproportionately killed by the police is NOT RACIST! It's just that all those blacks are THUGS who REFUSE to be law-abiding and cooperate with the police! GRRR!

    De Blasio: I told my black son he should always be super-careful around the police.

    Wingnuts: ARGH WHY DOES DE BLASIO WANT ALL COPS TO BE INDISCRIMINATELY GUNNED DOWN BY WILD AFRICAN SAV IAGES?!?!?!

    ...yup, I think that about covers it.

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  3. DN Nation10:27 AM

    "But after the Ramos and Liu assassinations, carried out in the name of Eric Garner and Ferguson teen Michael Brown"

    STILL no mention of the woman he also attacked, who thankfully lived.

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  4. petesh10:29 AM

    A-a-and in Even the Liberal San Francisco, a cop arrests a Public Defender in the Courthouse for objecting to his taking photos of her client without explanation. Same cop has some history: last year he busted an off-duty cop, who is suing the city.

    http://www.sfgate.com/bayarea/article/S-F-public-defender-detained-outside-court-6046088.php

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  5. Translation: Blackity black black black, miscegenation, black something, blargle, police.

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  6. Halloween_Jack10:36 AM

    I'm focusing on her use of the word "assassinations". Is she suggesting that we literally live in a police state, or a wish for the same, or is it her way of saying that killing a cop is inherently worse than killing a civilian, or all of the above?

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  7. they fed the atmosphere of escalating cop hatredI agree with Heather that right-wing survivalist whackaloons have had a disturbing tendency to shoot at cops lately, and I share her concern that it's fed by things like the Cliven Bundy posse's violent threats against federal agents, new senator Joni Ernst's past advocacy for defying any officers trying to enforce federal laws she doesn't like, the deranged posturing of teabagger sherrifs advocating armed resistance, etc., etc.., etc. But Heather needs to realize that all this doesn't let federal law enforcement completely off the hook, either.

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  8. Ted the slacker10:43 AM

    Shorter every wingnut hot-take on the NYPD's hurt feelings:
    Blame Teh Blah-CEO.

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  9. If I had to guess, I'd pick the disturbingly widespread notion that there is nothing more precious than the life of a cop. It's expressed stupidly, though, for obvious reasons.

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  10. [New York's] long term public safety remains at riskYeah, when the police openly declare their unaccountability to democratically-elected officials, and glory in their right to murder people with impunity, that does tend to pose a risk to actual public safety, among other things.
    from an activist mayorOh, sorry, I temporarily forgot you're a reactionary authoritarian fuckwit, Heather.
    who sees his base as the anti-police Left... Okay, here's actually the germ of a legitimate observation. If we define "Left" in the sense that authoritarian fuckwits like Heather do, it means "anyone less conservative than Jody Hice." With the line so defined, Hizzoner probably does consider "the anti-police Left" to be his base, and a large one it is, given the public reaction to elements of the NYPD acting like spoiled child monsters who enjoy strangling unarmed people to death on video and getting away with it.

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  11. dstatton11:26 AM

    "...based in thorough ignorance of the facts about policing and crime..."



    Congratulations, Heather, that took my breath away.

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  12. dstatton11:27 AM

    Wasn't an NR writer who told us abut giving his children The Talk about black neighborhoods?

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  13. Helmut Monotreme11:28 AM

    So De Blasio shouldn't emulate Ronald Reagan and fire the police officers for threatening labor actions? Maybe if the air traffic controllers of PATCO had been shooting and strangling unarmed black men, Reagan would have been more supportive?

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  14. DN Nation11:28 AM

    Derbyshire, who said much, much more than that. (My favorite: If you're in a water park and there's more blacks than whites, hit the exits!)

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  15. I would like to have a sultry dinner with this comment after a long, sweaty day of (totes het) volleyball.

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  16. hamsterdam11:38 AM

    The ticking bomb was Brinsley, period. I'll never understand the need to twist any and every event into proof of ideology.

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  17. ...by which I mean, the author is so committed to bamboozling you that
    she's willing to embarrass herself with incoherent prose to do it.
    -------------
    Given prior evidence that this will in no way hinder the flow of wingnut welfare checks...
    ~

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  18. susanoftexas12:02 PM

    ... and probably will ensure them.

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  19. Jeremy Noble12:05 PM

    My googling suggests the the The Talk comments were on or about December 7th and the police officers were killed on December 20th.

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  20. coozledad12:26 PM

    It didn't even hurt Reagan when a major air disaster took place the next year on the Potomac.

    It was just another chance to shed some crocodile tears and beat off to the flag:

    http://www.ginandtacos.com/2015/01/22/npf-lovely-men-with-ugly-names/

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  21. Only the events that could be used make the uppity blahs and hippies who don't think police should kill people without clear reason look bad. Aside from pointing out that the Millers were kicked out of Camp Bundy, there has been a ringing silence about the murders of officers Solodo, Beck and Dickson.

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  22. You're never going to get checks from the National Review, either.
    ~

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  23. edroso12:27 PM

    Yeah. But "after the Ramos and Liu assassinations... they became a source of visceral rage, as they fed the atmosphere of escalating cop hatred that led to the killings." This suggests the remarks were weaponized by the killings, then sent back in time to promote them.


    The more generous reading is that Mac Donald meant to use the past perfect tense in that last phrase, and "as" is meant as "because" -- which would still be nuts, as it would suggest de Blasio's perfectly anodyne statement about young black men and police promoted "cop hatred."

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  24. Mac Donald suggests the comments occurred both before and after Liu and Ramos were killed. Maybe de Blasio's comments are like the voice of God saying "Let there be light." The words are always there, if you listen closely enough.

    But then she also suggests Brinsley killed them as revenge for Garner and Brown's deaths, so maybe she's just full of shit.

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  25. Steve-O12:45 PM

    I imagine NR writers all marched to a room every Monday morning, taking turns fishing random topics Jonah has written on scraps of paper out of a large bowl, then being forced to write about whatever they got stuck with. And don't forget to hit that word count, people! I mean, is there a better explanation for how they so consistently churn out such nonsense?

    Oh, right. Occam's Razor: it's mind-blowing incompetence.

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  26. Oatler's Passion12:53 PM

    When the US becomes a third world country, maybe we'll see a third world reaction to police brutality (assassinations etc.) But as long as we have our Iphones we'll make excuses for them.

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  27. Jay B.12:55 PM

    I swear that they used to whitesplain to blacks that if they were just submissive and respectful to authority, there'd be no problem. Which is just the more patronizing version of the deBlasio speech.

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  28. Bill De Blasio considers the life of his son more important than the feelings of the cops. In his position, I'd do the same, as would any human being.

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  29. My thought exactly, And while I initially thought that it would be fun to watch from the other dimension, I realized I would have so much more time to enjoy happy pursuits without having to constantly pay attention to those fucking lunatics.

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  30. Bitter Scribe1:27 PM

    I admire Heather MacDonald. She's managed to take that enormous bug up her butt she has about black people and make a living from it.

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  31. Third graf or thereabouts she re-states that the thug that assassinated the cops was from Brooklyn, and not Baltimore, which leads me to believe that she had this one roasting for at least the last month or two.

    I gave up when I realized there were 3 more pages, which without Roy and only the companionship of the two internal nutjobs fighting a battle to the death in my brain, would likely have put me in a....I really don't want to contemplate where.

    Hate to say it but Goldberg is vastly more readable than that bag of mixed greens and a dictionary she put through the salad shooter to compose what little I read...I actually feel stupider for reading her.

    I wonder what will happen to movement conservatives if we let them have the place and departed through a dimension into another universe to let them have their "Conservatarian Utopia".

    Really, No more Blacks, Browns, Uppity Women, Messicans, Muslims, LGBTs and who else is getting the two minute hate treatment today. I would love to see the result.

    Would they be able to rejoice in the authoritarian paradise freed from fear of the other, where everyone knew their place?

    [edited: last question rhetorical
    ...

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  32. BigHank531:27 PM

    Silly Roy! It's only a real libertarian moment if the right side wins!

    I can understand the appeal of being an authoritarian baton-fondling racist, I guess, even thought it sure doesn't turn my crank. What I don't understand is the whiny-ass petulant outrage Mac Donald works herself into over that. It's still a free* country, honey, the last time I checked. Go find yourself another one with more jackboots if you're not happy here.

    *Offer not available for all genders, races, sexual persuasions, and economic classes. Though it is getting better, however slowly.

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  33. Ellis_Weiner1:31 PM

    "At the time, those remarks — based in thorough ignorance of the facts
    about policing and crime — were a body blow to the rank and file."


    And who can but feel sorry for them? The Mayor tells his son to careful around police--it's a miracle any of them managed to show up for work the next day. Or ever!

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  34. Those people use support for police benevolent associations to pretend they're not reflexively antilabor, but they are reflexively antilabor, and PBAs are not part of the labor movement.

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  35. Ellis_Weiner1:37 PM

    "But after the Ramos and Liu assassinations, carried out in the name of Eric Garner and Ferguson teen Michael Brown"


    Also this, the intellectual dishonesty of which can only be measured in megatons. "Carried out in the name of," yes, by a psychotic maniac (and that's the worst kind). But then, MacDonald has never recovered from the trauma of discovering that the Beatles killed Sharon Tate.

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  36. Apparently, the conservative position is:
    A. "Suspects should just obey orders of police. Do what they say, be docile and there will be no problems."
    B. "HOW DARE PARENTS TELL THEIR BLACK KIDS TO JUST OBEY ORDERS OF POLICE. DO WHAT THEY SAY, BE DOCILE AND THERE WILL BE NO PROBLEMS!!"

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  37. Ellis_Weiner1:41 PM

    Can't it be both? Happy pursuits, AND watch them kill each other over "values."

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  38. I think we all need to understand that libertarianism doesn't technically mean liberty for totally everybody, just those who are morally and intellectually equipped to handle it. And we need a powerful and immune-to-criticism police force to protect them against the fearsome mobs of those who should not be free, who mostly happen for some inexplicable reason to be not white.

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  39. BigHank531:56 PM

    I've long held that Libertarianism is just Calvinism with all the religious crap ripped out of it. The Elect (those with enough money) go to heaven while those without go straight to hell. All, of course, without the inconvenience of having to die first.

    That this is, in large part, already the system that we all live in, it's really hard to see what transitioning to a more libertarian system would do other than give more jollies to sadists. Fuck 'em. They can buy their misery on the open market that they love so much--no need for the rest of us to serve it up for free.

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  40. I would think that anything that reduced the amount of contact between Jim NYPD and Joe Citizen would be a good thing.

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  41. some things are so stupid and disingenuous as to be snark proof; this would be one of those things.

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  42. I also have to note that the police work slowdown was a good thing for the city- things didn't fall apart because no jaywalking tickets were issued.

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  43. JennOfArk2:41 PM

    I wuz gonna say...it's like the time Robert deNiro almost got Saint Reagan assassinated.

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  44. It wouldn't be enjoyable, those creeps are the ones who yearn for an eternity of looking down to see "sinners" suffering in hell... why be like them?

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  45. I think you missed the part where I would be having to much fun not having to watch them...And therefore the liklihood....

    Nice to see you buddy.
    ...

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  46. I can see that, but the latter would get old, rather have a ticker on a building like the debt ticker in NYC and glance up from time to time mumble heh, waiting for the numbers to dropto a point at which it might get entertaining as end games always are.

    And to be honest living in a world without them I might be occasioned by boredom from time to time.

    ...

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  47. Geo X3:31 PM

    I mean, I have to give the wingnuts credit: by all rights, we should LONG have reached the point where nothing they say or do is able to shock me in any way, but damned if they don't somehow manage to KEEP DOING IT. Guess that's why their mouthpieces get paid the big bucks.
    So previously, the line had been "black people should obey the cops and show utmost respect at all times, or else they deserve to die." But now, apparently, "black kids should obey the cops and show utmost respect at all times" is tantamount to calling for COP GENOCIDE. Okay, fine, so if that's inoperative, then what do you suggest that black people DO, exactly, to avoid getting shot? Seriously, tell me, I want to know. I mean, yes, I know the answer, which is "we don't give a shit; we're just rage addicts who think that if we do our best to play on people's absolute worst instincts non-stop at all times we might JUST manage to squeak by with that crucial 50.00001% of the vote," but SOMEHOW, I just can't help looking at their rhetoric as if it had substantive content. I suppose all we can do at this point is sit back and wait for a prominent black wingnut to claim that he had The Talk with HIS children; then it'll all be A-Okay again--not, of course, that De Blasio will therefore cease to be worse than Hitler, but at least it'll be vaguely amusing to see their contortions whenever anyone tries to force them to explain the contradiction. These days, I find, vague amusement is about all one can hope to get out of American politics. It's better than having a nervous breakdown, I suppose.

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  48. smut clyde3:38 PM

    Didn't it turn out that Jodie Foster was the real instigator?

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  49. smut clyde3:42 PM

    Googling "Heather MacDonald" + "facts" shows that tongue-cleaning police footwear has been her preferred metier for a while.

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  50. GreenEagle3:45 PM

    Every liberal on earth is, of course, personally responsible for the acts of a career criminal with no apparent political history at all, but no Conservative bears the slightest responsibility for the endless violence perpetrated by Christian Identity adherents, Sovereign Citizens, abortion clinic bombers and other right wingers who have been egged on for years to attack anyone who thinks differently than them.

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  51. bekabot4:07 PM

    "MacDonald has never recovered from the trauma of discovering that the Beatles killed Sharon Tate."

    You mean it wasn't the Beach Boys? Say it ain't so.

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  52. That's not spice.

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  53. Okay, fine, so if that's inoperative, then what do you suggest that black people DO, exactly, to avoid getting shot?Get choked to death instead?

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  54. JennOfArk4:54 PM

    No, no, no...he wanted her attention, so he emulated deNiro's character.


    I'm flashing back to that sick joke from years ago, about Reagan writing a letter of forgiveness to John Hinckley, which concluded with "by the way, Fritz Mondale has been fucking the shit out of Jodie Foster."

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  55. StringOnAStick5:27 PM

    This is the discussion I often have with my husband, who is of the "my life is better when I pay no attention to those idiots/politics", though he's a solid liberal. I have to take vacays from monitoring the crazies and DC once in awhile, but I'm of the opinion that if we don't keep the heat on them by calling them on their bullshit and opposing crap policies, they'll turn a flamethrower on us.

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  56. tigrismus5:27 PM

    They also took and ate up all of my corn!

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  57. mortimer20005:27 PM

    Names you will never see in a column by Heather Mac Donald (or really, any of them) about "the current frenzy of cop hatred" that leads to the assassination of police officers:
    Igor Soldo
    Alyn Beck
    Jerad Miller
    Amanda Miller
    Cliven Bundy
    Joe Scarborough
    Sean Hannity
    [Etc.]

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  58. JennOfArk5:27 PM

    I'm also never gonna blow unwashed hobos, but I doubt I'll regret either when I'm laying on my deathbed.

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  59. mcjeff5:34 PM

    we also shouldn't forget that at the time of the Tate murders, it was down to 3 original Beatles, and the Paul impostor, who haunts us to this day. If real Paul had been alive, things would have been different. Very different.

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  60. I'm glad somebody else is noticing this strange double standard.

    After the gruesome massacre committed by Anders Breivik, there wasn't any kind of international demonstration or march or pundit outrage like there was after the Charlie Hebdo killings.

    There should have been some sort of public recognition that Rightwing media creates extremist thought. Breivik's actions were a clear example of this.

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  61. "Libertarianism is just Calvinism with all the religious crap ripped out of it."

    That is a perfect description. Thanks for that.

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  62. StringOnAStick6:10 PM

    My oldest sister, the fundy winger, was a very early Limbaugh adopter. At the time, I heard some of it from her and him, and I recall thinking "only fundy nuts and idiots will fall for this fringe crap". Uh, hmmm.

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  63. Absolutely. They CANNOT be ignored.

    Back in the days when the liberal blogosphere was in its infancy, I would sometimes talk about something Limbaugh said on the air, and Blue State liberals would say to me dismissively: "Oh, him? Nobody listens to him. Why even talk about it?"

    So I stopped talking about it, to them anyway. Meanwhile, the Rightwingers here in my red state got worse and worse, stewing in their own juices (so to speak,) and after awhile, they could not be ignored.

    Bad ideas are like infections. It's always a mistake to ignore them.

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  64. Pete Best, history's unsung hero?

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  65. I'm afraid they'd starve or freeze to death fairly quickly in Galt's Gulch, since their idea of work is creating jobs, not doing them.

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  66. cleter7:27 PM

    "Becomes"? We had a coup in 2000 where a former defense minister installed a puppet president who proceeded to loot the treasury. We've been there for a while.

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  67. DocAmazing9:09 PM

    No, but the unwashed hobos will.

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  68. DocAmazing9:27 PM

    Notice that you never see Stu Sutcliffe and Charles Manson on the same photo?

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  69. ken_lov9:46 PM

    Back in 2004, MacDonald wrote ""For the past decade, the press has been on a crusade to portray cops as brutal and racist". She did not present any evidence to support such a remarkable claim, and that has proved to be true of her work in general. No idea how she got on the conservative welfare roll - maybe she has family connections or something.

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  70. Meanie-meanie, tickle a person10:26 PM

    I dunno. I do know I somehow had more time for reading--books and such--before I discovered the political blogosphere, and wingnuts...

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  71. Meanie-meanie, tickle a person10:27 PM

    those remarks — based in thorough ignorance of the facts about policing and crime

    ...is an absolutely perfect description of her comments today.

    the author is so committed to bamboozling you that she's willing to embarrass herself

    Not often I'll disagree with you, Ed, but I think this falls under the First Rule of Wingnuts: "They really do believe that shit". She doesn't feel she's bamboozling anyone. Oh, it's propaganda all right, but there's a Rule for that, too: "Our propaganda is true, theirs is all lies"...

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  72. redoubtagain10:27 PM

    Pretty Much Shorter Heather Mac Whitesplain: "The only good n**** is a dead n*****."


    (Brought to you by the same people who despise government unless it's blue-uniformed and armed with assault weapons.)

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  73. major7th10:40 PM

    Creedence Clearwater Revival did TOO suck. Discuss.

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  74. AGoodQuestion11:06 PM

    New York City mayor Bill de Blasio is “comfortable” with himself. So the city learned during the biggest crisis to hit a New York mayoralty in recent memory. “I’m comfortable with the fact that I’ve always tried to tell the truth and stay true to my values,” de Blasio said in mid January, as police officers across New York City continued a work slowdown that had brought discretionary police activity to a virtual standstill. De Blasio’s breezy self-assurance was revealing but unfortunate, since it was his belief in his own mission as social-justice truth-teller that had pushed the police into revolt in the first place.
    That first paragraph says so very much. MacDonald's beef with de Blasio is that while the police are protesting him, dragging their feet, and at least in a political sense, threatening him, he's... keeping his head. Being consistent. Not knuckling under.


    Hey kids, do you remember the nineties? Do you remember how whenever Rudy told off civil rights leaders he was praised for his resolve? Not just in the right wing media but yeah, definitely there too. Well apparently being steadfast in the face of organized police opposition is way different from remaining steadfast in the face of organized black opposition. This is because:
    A) Snappy dressers!
    B) Conservatives love nothing more than public sector unions
    C) Some other reason.

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  75. AGoodQuestion11:20 PM

    I gave up when I realized there were 3 more pages, which without Roy and only the companionship of the two internal nutjobs fighting a battle to the death in my brain, would likely have put me in a....I really don't want to contemplate where.
    Yeah, when I saw that there were three more pages of that glop, I decided that life was too short. I could be a Time Lord on his first body and it would still be too short.

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  76. AGoodQuestion11:27 PM

    Well yeah, otherwise he'd deserve to lose both his office and custody of his kids. But the thing about approaching politics as total war is that it encourages you not to see the human side of your adversaries.

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  77. AGoodQuestion11:27 PM

    Just ran that search. Yep.

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  78. AGoodQuestion11:34 PM

    Slinging unsupported bullshit is a valuable job skill around those parts.

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  79. Penniless Moocher1:27 AM

    We like to kid, but only because we know that no matter how much we exaggerate the conservative position, it's still not an exaggeration.

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  80. montag27:27 AM

    In this context, I find it noteworthy that, just yesterday, NYPD Chief Bratton announced that the city's police would deploy a newly-formed "anti-terror" unit equipped with military long weapons, machine guns and the latest heavy-duty armor, and he specifically mentioned "protests" as one of the targets that the unit would be used against.

    Just speaking of risks to actual public safety here, of course.

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  81. montag28:24 AM

    The laziest propagandists are always the worst, I suppose. In this case, Mac Donald's topic sentence could be reduced to "authoritarianism = good" without any loss of meaning.

    When the police behave, even if under color of law, as if they're a street gang, hmm, maybe they've become just another street gang. If one effectively says, as Mac Donald seems to, that nothing the police do can warrant anything but unwavering fealty, even if they are, in fact, public servants and are subject to the reasoned opinion of the public because they are funded by public taxes, w'all, shit, isn't that pretty much saying that the police own us, rather than the other way around?

    I would guess that Mac Donald's okay with that, as long as she believes that minorities aren't real citizens and don't have any say in the matter. Recent history, however, strongly suggests that the police view everyone as the enemy, and eventually, that means everyone is a suspect.

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  82. Bufflars8:27 AM

    "Jonah has written...out of a large bowl"

    I see what you did there.

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  83. tinheart8:27 AM

    Oh well, when these same cops agitate for better health care, or if some argument comes up over pensions paid out to police, in Mac Donald's world the NYPD will go back in her universe to shiftless moochers again. (Particularly if there's a conservative mayor.)

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  84. Emily688:47 AM

    Even in liberal Seattle, the cops are getting sued for pepper spraying a teacher while he was walking on the sidewalk, talking on his phone.

    http://horsesass.org/seattle-teacher-to-sue-police-for-unprovoked-pepper-spraying/

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  85. BadExampleMan8:58 AM

    I would like to have a leisurely picnic with this comment, in a lemon grove overlooking the bombardment of Vera Cruz by the USS Prairie.

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  86. Halloween_Jack9:41 AM

    Actually, it was Sharon Tate who killed Paul, and replacement-Paul and the other Beatles weaponized the White Album in revenge. Thus began a cycle of revenge proxy wars that saw John Lennon murdered and Roman Polanski exiled. WAR NEVER ENDS.

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  87. Well, to be fair, Rudy could hardly be consistently steadfast in the face of organized police opposition after taking part in that fascist shitstew of a police riot against the Dinkins administration. What was it about Dinkins, anyway?

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  88. The worst part to me? It's no longer even under color of law, really. I mean, yeah, "cop acquitted of all charges stemming from the unprovoked murder of an unarmed person," it's a miscarriage of justice, but at least it's gotten to that point. "Cop not even required to face an actual trial because prosecutors and grand juries don't give a fuck about even the pretense of the law"? That's a whole additional layer on the shit cake. "Prosecutor, fresh off of seeing to it that cop who choked a man to death for talking back received not so much as a wrist slap, gets elected to Congress"? That's the shit flowers on top.

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  89. Or if they bother some American Patriots™ like Cliven Bundy and pals.

    https://duanegraham.files.wordpress.com/2014/04/bundy-ranch-sniper.png

    Note that Eric Parker was not gunned downed by police, or even ever arrested.

    Further note: that is not a BB gun. And Parker is aiming it at BLM personnel, not shopping at Walmart.

    http://thinkprogress.org/justice/2014/09/24/3571699/grand-jury-wont-charge-cops-in-wal-mart-killing-even-as-video-reveals-victim-never-pointed-his-gun/
    ~

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  90. What Parker did pales in comparison to your other examples all which have much darker implications.

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  91. LittlePig5:48 PM

    He was too 'hands-off'. I based that conclusion on a tune I heard on one of the exactly two times I've listened to Howard Stern.

    There's a holdup in the Bronx,
    Brooklyn's broken out in fights,
    There's a traffic jam in Harlem
    That's back up to Jackson Heights,
    There's a scout troop short a child,
    Kruschev's due at Idlewillllld...

    Mayor David Dinkins where are you?

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  92. Socialist Cubone10:41 PM

    Is Mac Donald the one who said 5-year-old black kids deserved to be punished more after that study came out, because they were probably committing most of the kindergarten crimes or whatever?

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  93. I always found him scary. And even scarier when I'd see a guy in MA wearing a "dittohead" tee shirt.

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  94. If it were only the past decade who should we indict? The cops--because they've been brutal and racist for a lot longer. Or the press for refusing to cover the facts until as recently as the last decade?

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  95. ken_lov11:41 PM

    Way to miss the point.

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  96. sorry, should have put my snark tags on. I was agreeing with you.

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  97. I heard Woodrow Wilson's guns . . .

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  98. Kruschev at Idlewild? Sure that song wasn't about Mayor Lindsey?

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  99. montag212:38 PM

    I've always defined a banana republic as one controlled by authoritarian kleptocrats and deeply in debt to the banks, obsessed with internal security and external threats and "order." (Order meaning, of course, the prevention of any chance of loss of power and wealth accruing to the kleptocrats).

    Taken broadly, including the flexible, elected elite and the more rigid unelected shadow government, the U.S. is pretty much there.

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  100. DocAmazing5:26 PM

    Studio 54 Where Are You?

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  101. "Hey, All You Hippies!"

    Hey, All You Hippies!
    And I ain't yet fit to come down
    A rose is a rose, a balloon a balloon
    You got to go right now
    Go get a job and don't work for your father
    For he ain't no salt of the earth
    Your soft little palms beneath the Hollywood palms
    Might just do well by some work

    Hey all you hippies, you got a bad name
    Ever since you let your guard down
    Here comes Ronald Reagan o'er the Hollywood Hills
    It don't look like he's fooling around

    You know how they feel, you're hip to the steel
    Strutting so bold and aloof
    You pray to God for luck while the reconnasissance truck
    Is watching your every move
    You wanted to fish and to live off the grid
    You said, "Life should be easy and free"
    But just one bad actor and his benefactor
    Can bring the old girl to her knees

    Hey all you hippies, you got a bad name
    Ever since you let your guard down
    Here comes Ronald Reagan o'er the Hollywood Hills
    It don't look like he's fooling around

    Do these fireworks arrays and low flying planes
    Stir your patriot voice to sing
    To each flickering flag on the Arlington lawn
    For each pawn who has fell for his king

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  102. PersonaAuGratin12:51 AM

    Maybe so, but they had style!

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  103. DocAmazing1:25 PM

    http://www.thedailybeast.com/articles/2014/11/25/sovereign-citizens-are-america-s-top-cop-killers.html

    Note that the cop whose son was killed by sovereign citizens bends over backwards to be fair to the sovereign citizen movement. Certain kinds of solidarity are strong indeed.

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  104. redoubtagain9:37 PM

    Rush also used to use that tune when he introduced a segment about Dinkins. Rush was being the Emperor Of Assholistan, even then.

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  105. AngryWarthogBreath11:26 PM

    If I'm trying to give crazy people the absolute most benefit of the doubt I can - which is physically harmful to my brainmeats, but it can be helpful - it's that acknowledging that the cops might kill you is... siding against the cops. Because they won't kill you. Unless you're any less than perfectly innocent, respectful, and white. In which case they have to kill you. But if you have to be told to be any less than perfectly innocent, respectful, and white, then you're their enemy, and they have to kill you.

    So:
    - perfectly innocent, respectful, and white
    - be so completely naturally and by accident; do not ever mention that there is intent involved, and
    - smile! or the cops will kill you and they'll be right to do so

    I mean, there's no way to be right. If someone does do all these things, and the cops kill them anyway, they'll move the goalposts again. But if I squint, using binoculars on the end of my fancy new glasses, I think that's where the goalposts are for now.

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