On Twitter, Justin Amash announces:
This week, I am introducing the Ending Qualified Immunity Act to eliminate qualified immunity and restore Americans’ ability to obtain relief when police officers violate their constitutionally secured rights. pic.twitter.com/PiNYP8cX8i
— Justin Amash (@justinamash) June 1, 2020
(Featured image is Justin Amash speaking at the 2012 Liberty Political Action Conference, taken from Wikipedia.)
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This one is probably equally as important: https://twitter.com/brianschatz/status/1267187603737964544?s=20Report
That’s a nice one too.
(But if I only had to pick one, it’d be Amash’s. Schatz’s will be turned into “they don’t want us to be able to wear body armor” and it’ll die in committee.)Report
A noble idea but I suspect one that is dead in the water in the Senate.Report
Fair enough. Let’s make them kill it in committee.
Hey, you live in San Fran, right? Are you in Pelosi’s district? Call her office and ask her to support this bill and bring it to national prominence.
You can go here and put in your zip code and get her number directly but my googling tells me that her phone number is (202) 225-4965.
You’re a constituent of hers. Please call her and ask her to support this bill and force the Republicans to kill it in the Senate.Report
probably. As is the proposal banning military surplus sales to LE agencies.Report
This is a bugaboo of mine. When you train and equip your LEO’s as if they’re soldiers, it should be no surprise when the focus becomes “force protection” and not “Safeguarding our community as our family” (as is scripted on the side of all CSPD cruisers).Report
The irony here is that soldiers are often much better at handling massive unrest than police.Report
They’re also better at “pacifying” unrest than the police.Report
Are they? The British once used machine guns in India. I guess it was effective, at least on the short term.
Anyway, do you have an example of soldiers doing effective crowd control?Report
I think my brother was dealing specifically in the American context.Report
We’ve militarized our cops without militarizing our rules of engagement.Report
On the contrary–we’ve given our cops military rules of engagement and instructed them to identify threats and eliminate them using lethal force before first discerning whether that person or persons are actually threats. Law enforcement officers safeguard their communities by taking threats upon themselves which would otherwise fall on the civilian population. “Force protection” identifies every individual not in the correct uniform as a potential threat and dictates they be eliminated if they are perceived as a threat before they can cause harm. In a combat zone this makes perfect sense. Among a civilian population it does not.Report
I thought that it was a lot more difficult for an E-3 to fire a gun when on deployment than for a cop in Chicago. Is this not the case?Report
“on deployment”
I’ve been deployed to England (twice), Italy, and Bosnia. In three of those deployments, I wasn’t even issued a weapon before deploying. In Bosnia, I was authorized to use my weapon to defend myself if I perceived that I or my fellow airmen were in danger.
So it isn’t an easy answer. Is the E-3 deployed in a combat zone or is he a REMF supporting overflights from an airbase thousands of miles away?
A cop, however, is always surrounded by civilians and cannot choose “force protection” over “safeguarding the community” every time he senses danger.Report
I guess I’ve seen too many stories like this one.Report
But even in a combat zone, the ROE require a clear and present threat, or a person failing to follow orders multiple times, etc.
If you have a checkpoint guard who calls out, “Stop, or I’ll shoot” and then starts shooting so quick that the bullets hit the target before that final ‘t’ sound does, they’d be facing a court martial.Report
Or perhaps police do have such an ROE, officially, but the departments lack any meaningful mechanism by which to enforce it.Report
I’m fine with modifying or ending QI.
But when we talk about these political and legal issues its important to remember how laws and structures are just vehicles to achieve an outcome and are highly flexible.
Even the most objectively written law gets interpreted however the courts and elected officials want it to mean.
Ending QI could mean firing racist cops. Or it could mean firing cops for not being racist enough.
So, sure, Amash can fight on his front of the police brutality war, and we will fight on ours.Report
So you’re not opposed to modifying or ending QI, you’re just not going to help support modifying or ending it?
Fair enough.Report
So, sure, Amash can fight on his front of the police brutality war, and we will fight on ours.
From your point of view, what is “our side” of this fight? What’s the goal? What are the means to achieve the goal such that limiting or ending QI isn’t part of it?Report
Our side is to keep pointing out the injustice of racism and hierarchy which justifies and perpetuates police brutality.
Electing more and better Democrats is a good companion piece to ending QI.
“Firing Bad Cops” is the equal to “Arrest The Looters”. They are both after-the-fact responses; Necessary, but not sufficient.Report
Ahh. So your fight is to elect more Democrats. This is where I remind you that most of the racist abuse which spins you up occurs in Democratic controlled cities. Seems like Democrats may be part of the problem, no?Report
More, and better Democrats.Report
How is this different from the folks who argue for more/better police officers?Report
Do we need to change the structure, or the people who are in it?
Yes.Report
We’ve had elections for my entire life. You know who was elected to Senate in the year I was born?
Joe Biden.
Could we try changing the system for once?Report
I’d Love To Change The World
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jzrUqAtUcpU
Tax the rich, feed the poor
Till there are no rich no more
World pollution, there’s no solution
Institution, electrocution
Just black and white, rich or poor
Them and us, stop the war
Id love to change the world
But I don’t know what to do
So I’ll leave it up to you Report
How’s this? Justin Amash is introducing the Ending Qualified Immunity Act to eliminate qualified immunity and restore Americans’ ability to obtain relief when police officers violate their constitutionally secured rights.
Please give your representative a call.
Here is a link that will help you look up who your representative is.
When I looked up my representative using that page, it included links to his contact information.
Let me know if your representative’s contact information is not on your representative’s page and then tell me who your representative is and I will google your representative’s contact info for you.Report
How about we change the structure one piece at a time. Like, say, ending a horrible legal doctrine that enables structural racism to continue?Report
There are two big blocs that challenge reform. One is the reactionary, reflexively pro-law enforcement bloc with a million tons of inertia on its side due to decades of law and policy all going in one direction.
The other is a reform side bloc led by people who use the issue as a platform to evangelize all of their bizarre, esoteric race theories but when push comes to shove don’t seem to be interested in making headway with the tools we have.Report
The tools we have are just so slow! I’d be all for burning it all down and starting fresh except for A) all the violence and death that usually follows such burning, and B) such violence and death is rarely, if ever, applied to the PEOPLE who are the actual problem.Report
The tools are slow but they are there for the taking. People are always waiting for some watershed SCOTUS case or for the feds to pull their heads out of their asses. It’s never going to happen that way. The model needs to be something more like the slow liberalization of marijuana laws at state and local levels.
It’s really a death by a thousand cuts approach with a focus on good government. We’re never just going to wake up one day to everyone being on the exact same page on the more meta issues, especially the ones that have been divisive for generations.Report
Which is a better Democrat, one who supports repealing QI and advocates major reform of police unions or one who repeats slogans about how racist inner city police practices are but takes no action?Report
Yeah, I don’t want to change the *PEOPLE*. I want to change the *SYSTEM*.Report
The problem isn’t that the Democrats are ‘bad’, the problem is that a huge amount of white Democrats are actually quite racist, and have no real problem with a police force who acts like this.
Oh, sure, they’ll complain, and pass photos of the protests around when some sort of imaginary boundary gots crossed and some clearly innocent black person gets killed, but the idea that the police needs to be basically dismantled and rebuilt is simply never going to enter their mind.
This is the actual reason that the right immediately tries to figure out some fault with anyone who’s been killed. It’s not to convince their own people…those people already are fine with it. It’s to convince the white liberals who are saying ‘This is wrong, how could this happen.’ to quietly go away.
This isn’t going to get fixed until the response to that isn’t ‘Oh, he was an actual criminal, I guess he deserved it’, and is instead ‘The police are not allowed to kill actual criminals’ and ‘It sure it racist how only black criminals are killed by the police’.Report
Jenny Durkan, the mayor of very liberal Seattle, said that SPD had their body cams all turned off during the protests and riots because they police wanted to protect protesters from the police surveillance state.Report
You’ll get a kick outa this. the civil rights concerns that underpinned Mayor Durkhan’s somewhat bizarre explanation of Seattle cops’ somewhat bizarre body cam protocols may have originated with the Seattle police union:
lolReport
I know, the SPD Union is shameless in wanting to avoid accountability. They whine and bleat constantly under the federal consent decree.
And city hall almost never stands up to them.Report
If not for the union cops couldn’t hold politicians hostage.Report
No. Cops will always have some power with pols as long as they have staunch “law and order” people behind them. Get rid/neuter cop unions and there will be a growth of Police Benevolent Citizen Associations. Sort of like the NRA and i’ll bet they could get Dana whatsername to do hateful ads for them. Any group with money and votes and especially loud voters behind them will have influence.
Cops unions are surely part of the problem but doing something about them is only one piece of the puzzle.Report
Get rid/neuter cop unions and there will be a growth of Police Benevolent Citizen Associations.
The PBCA wouldn’t have standing to sue the mayor’s office for violations of the CBA.Report
But they would still have the power that loud , likely rich PAC’s with a strong contingent of voters do. How much does the NRA get done in DC? I’m not saying cop unions aren’t a problem. They are made of cops, of course they are problem.
The underlying reason cops have been able to get away with so much is they have a lot of regular citizens who want they they are giving.Report
Cops *SHOULD* have power with politicians. They are stakeholders in the process of Law and Order.
What they should not have is veto power over whether or not a bad cop gets fired.
Cops unions are surely part of the problem but doing something about them is only one piece of the puzzle.
If I could find you evidence that a bill to neuter QI was coming up, would you call your Congressperson and urge them to support it?Report
My congressman is Don Young who is about 121 years old loves to rail against “commie dems” and is a classic alaska good ol boy. He was joking about the funny funny beer flu a couple months ago. He’s a trumper.If he was ever on the right side of any issue (imho) it would be a first and i’d be more then happy to nag him about it.Report
There’s the “get me a rock” game.
“Get me a rock.”
“Here’s a rock.”
“…I wanted a smaller rock.”
“Here’s a smaller rock.”
“…I wanted a red rock.”
“Here’s a smaller, redder rock.”
“…The texture isn’t good.”Report
My congressman very loudly doesn’t really care what section of his constituents want. He has been there forever. He’s been the rep since i was in grade school in NJ. I have contacted Murkowski at times since her lane involves actually listening to a broad spectrum of alaskans and she is , by the low standards of R senators, a good one. My other senator is a trumper.Report
Well, if getting rid of QI isn’t the piece of the puzzle you’re looking for, and neutering Police Unions isn’t the piece of the puzzle you’re looking for, I hope you find the piece of the puzzle that you’re looking for.Report
What the heck are you going on about now? Do you bother to read anything before harangue mode? Is this the old YEC mode of argument. Good hook to start but unable to go beyond the shallow start.
Here is a start for you.
https://www.joincampaignzero.org/#actionReport
I just checked Alaska. They’ve passed a bill requiring more police training.
Good. I guess.Report
It is good. No guesses.Report
The police deserve a Union as much as any public employee does (and I’m not sold on the idea that public unions are a good thing, BTW, but if they exist, the police should have one).
But as I said, their actual, statutory power should be limited tightly to issues related to the workplace. They should have zero ability to put language in employment contracts that impacts how officers are treated or investigated for potential criminal acts.
Like, even if a city agrees to the language, courts would toss it out.
Along the same vein, we should absolutely abolish any and all “Police Bill of Rights”. They get the same rights as every other citizen*, no more, no less.
*Because they are, in fact, citizens, a fact they forget too often.Report
The design of the system should assume human fallibility. Bad people make for a bad government but better people don’t necessarily make for a better one. The better people principle ultimately leads to tyranny because when you create a government that assumes better people will always be in charge, what happens when they’re not?Report
Democracy is people. You can’t get around that. That is why the Big D is hard, it is inherently based on the quality of people and who they elect.Report
That’s ignoring the fact that cities tend to lean more Democrat overall compared to more rural areas, and the issue in these situation tends to be less about the city’s administration and more about the sheriff and police unions. I’ve yet to see a single response from a police union to any obviously questionable incident that wasn’t basically just “our guy was totally justified in everything he did, this person was resisting arrest and btw did you know he was convicted of shoplifting 15 years ago?”Report
“Firing Bad Cops” is the equal to “Arrest The Looters”. They are both after-the-fact responses; Necessary, but not sufficient.
For what it’s worth, I see removing the official policy that says that cops get retrained instead of disciplined, each and every time, as a before-the-fact presponse. If we want to prevent a thing in the future? Get rid of the awful policy that allows these things *NOW*.Report
So, just to be clear, in cities such as Balitmore they have had black political leadership for over 30 years (mayor, police commisioner, DA) and then the death of Freddy Gray. Minneapolise, and Minnesota in general have had Democrats (your side) in charge for over thity years, and we have what happened last week. Chicago has been in Dem hands for 90 years, Atlanta for 150, with black mayors since 1974. New York, LA, Seattle, the list of cities and states under Dem control goes on.
And, just as we saw in Baltimore, black officers are also part of the problem.
What do you want to do now?Report
Someone of a conservative disposition might exhort us to become a more righteous society that values human life and dignity.Report
Righteous values need to be operationalised or they are just pretty talk. That means a lot of things, one of which is defanging QI in a meaningful way. That also means, hopefully, crushing the R’s in nov. But without specific bills that create the detailed rules for cops and methods to correct them it will be nothing.
This a good start to the specific things we need to do to correct our cops along with aiming to the higher values you mention.
https://www.joincampaignzero.org/#visionReport
Someone of a conservative disposition might exhort us to become a more righteous society that values human life and dignity.
So, looking at the current tragectory, stop voting for D’s?Report
Someone of a conservative disposition would argue against changing the status quo.Report
Status quo, but with more righteousness!Report
Or, stop pretending that police unions are simply honest folk negotiating for better wages and working conditions. And then implement laws that relegate them back to being honest folk negotiating for better wages and working conditions.
Unions, of any kind, should not be allowed to negotiate for contract terms that make criminal acts a matter of internal discipline. We would not allow the UAW to prevent the police from investigating an auto plant worker of sabotaging the brakes of cars leaving the line, but we let police unions do just that.Report
Agreed, that taking discipline out of the hands of the police entirely and putting it into a civilian review board would be an improvement, as would ending QI, as would making racist opinions and attitudes unacceptable in policing.
A big problem has a lot of moving parts.Report
Yes, and how do you tackle big problems with lots of moving parts?
One
Piece
At
A
Time
If you can muster enough resources to tackle more than one, great! But historically, you are lucky to get enough to tackle one.Report
Or sometimes opening a second front in the war:
In Wilmington, Biden says he will create police oversight board in first 100 days of presidency
https://www.delawareonline.com/story/news/2020/06/01/delaware-biden-says-he-create-police-oversight-board-president/5307634002/Report
I truly hope he can. I doubt it will happen. He’d be better off tackling the things the feds do to contribute to the problem, like drug laws and military hardware/training.
Oversight boards have to be local.Report
Obviously this stuff has to be local, but there is a role for the federal government. To me the most obvious is the role the FBI plays in investigating rogue departments. In turn, for the FBI to do that role effectively, the FBI leadership needs to be onboard with that mission. It needs to be prioritized. Moreover, agents need to know their superiors have the correct values. The reason is simple: agents need to know that busting rogue departments will help their career advancement rather than hinder it.
More than that, however, there is the notion of moral leadership. This is hard to quantify, because it isn’t official in any way. It’s something that happens in the minds of people. That said, having a fascist president changes the whole context of how people think. Having a president who encourages police brutality will inspire brutality, and thus our situation now. By contrast, having a rational, humanitarian president would inspire people to find their better angels.Report
Agree with all of that.
Now, I gotta ask, do we trust Joe Biden to deconstruct the legacy of ‘Tough on Crime’ laws and policies that he helped to construct over the course of decades?Report
On Biden, I voted for Warren — at least I think I did. It might have been Sanders. I honestly don’t remember. It was one of those two.
(BTW, it is in fact weird that I don’t remember. I just now realized that I don’t remember, and I’m like, “What the fuck. How can I not remember!?” I’m not sure if that says more about me or more about the fucking choices we had.)
Anyway, Biden is — well — what do you want me to say?
He isn’t Trump. Trump is literally a fascist in the full measure. Biden is — well fuckit — he is whatever he is. He’s kind of a ninny, to be honest. I’ll still vote for him. I hope others do as well, for obvious reasons.
All the same, I very much wish we had an option with more to recommend themselves besides “not Trump,” but “not Trump” is still enough.
Anyway, I’m not going to make a prediction about what Biden might do. I’m sure it will fall short in so many ways.
This is all assuming we actually hold an election. If Trump thinks he is losing, he will try to stop it. If he does, the ensuing conversation will sound exactly like this current conversation does, with all the same people adopting all the same roles.
I like to imagine the military would remain committed to democracy. I like to imagine that principled people would stand firm and stop him. However, to date, it seems many people who pontificate about “liberty” actually wanna lick boots.Report
I’ll pull for Biden regardless, but I won’t be holding out hope that he’ll do anything constructive to address this issue.
As for Trump, my understanding of the law is that election or no election, Trump’s term is up in January. He doesn’t get to keep sitting in the white house just because the election didn’t happen. He’s out, as is (IIRC) Pence, which means the order of succession kicks in and we get to welcome President Pelosi.Report
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Reichstag_fire
I don’t know if he can pull it off, but I’m not convinced he couldn’t. I think he’ll try — or more specifically, he will keep pushing boundaries until someone stops him, and words alone are unlikely to stop him. At some point, this will involve direct force.
I’m not sure what that will look like. It might be a private meeting with the cabinet and the joint chiefs, along with armed secret service, informing Trump that, no, he can’t do that. They won’t let him.
How would he respond?
It might, by contrast, be very public, very widespread, and very loud.
When I allow my “worser angels” free rein, I sometimes imagine how fascism ended in Italy. Something like that could plausibly happen here. I wonder how many others would die to get there?
Anyhow, America elected a man who is both fascistic and narcissistic. The results were never going to be good.Report
Apparently the Supremes have a QI case in front of them and could be announcing what they will do as soon as today. Which would be overly convenient writing in a drama series ,but whatever. So hopefully something good comes of that.
It’s insane reading how multiple courts have taken QI in such an over the top direction.Report
It’s insane reading how multiple courts have taken QI in such an over the top direction.
Word.
Reason has an article on some of the more recent QI “excesses”.
Here’s the opening paragraph:
If your inclination is to say “Well, that’s Reason magazine. They’re biased.”, here is a link to the 9th Court’s ruling itself. Check it out for yourself and see if Reason’s description of events is overstated.
I am somewhat sympathetic to the argument that police have to have room to make mistakes.
I mean, *I* make mistakes all the time. I printed out the wrong document the other day. I think it would have been inappropriate to fire me for that.
But we’re not talking about printing the wrong document when we’re talking about cops stealing $225,000 worth of stuff in the course of a bust… AND THE EXPECTATION IS THAT THEY WOULDN’T KNOW THAT THIS WAS INAPPROPRIATE TO THE POINT WHERE THEY WOULD BE LIABLE FOR HAVING DONE IT AND THEREFORE THEY SHOULD NOT BE LIABLE.
I mean, I read stuff like this and say “this has got to be overstated… this can’t be what happened…”Report
I saw some other reason piece yesterday. Good stuff. Couldn’t find out exactly what the supremes are going to be ruling on though. The “need to find an exactly the same kind of case” to be able to sue cops is weird and for it to continue is even weirder.Report
Here’s how I understand the spaghetti reasoning of judges in these types of cases: *given that* QI accords cops so many protections which run counter to both commonsense and normal (non-cop) laws, the officers who
stoleconfiscated the money were *uncertain* whether their immunity protections covered this type oftheftacquisition. Therefore, they’re covered by QI!ReportIf the decision is coming out today, it was probably finalized well before the current protests began.Report
The court also turned down 3 other cases in May that dealt with QI, FWIW.Report
Turned down 3 but took up one? So we’re looking at a *very* narrow ruling today, whichever way they go.Report
Yeah. But just sort of timely for a TV show denouement.Report
Something I said a million years ago, in 2013:
Report
In ways that add fuel to the fire and show him at his most weak and most fascist at the same time, Trump rants at governors that they need to clampdown and dominate the protestors. Hopefully these are just the ravings of a lunatic who happens to be the last man in a bunker: https://www.cbsnews.com/news/trump-weak-governors-dominate-civil-unrest-george-floyd-death-protest/Report
Has anyone overlaid his audio with the Downfall video yet?Report
I assume someone is hard at work on that as we speak.Report
I had the same thought.Report
Trump:
These are the words of a weak, frightened man. He’s so petty and small.
Honestly, he’s the social misfit kid who brings a gun to school. Same mentality.Report
He apparently played with switchblades as a young kid. This is what got him sent to military school. I found that out recently.
The whole thing sounds unhinged. People on the call described it as unhinged and he is hiding in a damned bunker because he thinks one of the protestors is going to be like Nightcrawler in X-Men 2. Nancy Pelosi said she basically ignores Trump, I am not sure why other Democratic governors do not do the sameReport
Trump seems determined to fuck this up more and use the Insurrection Act: https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/live/2020/jun/01/george-floyd-protests-donald-trump-white-house-washington-police-brutality-minneapolis-latest-news-updates?fbclid=IwAR2FQ9d3_KxCia70dB_vg5kr5YIdmDnSX307IMdyAjChAouiAwUo68zxpGEReport
Trump: “If a city or state refuses to take the actions that are necessary to defend the life and property of their residents, then I will deploy the United States military and quickly solve the problem for them.”
Should we take this seriously or literally?Report
That is the 6 trillion dollar question. This is something where you really hope cooler heads prevail or Trump is too cowardly to do something. From a legal prospective, he cannot use the Insurrection Act but when has that ever stopped him before?
One thing that does amaze me is that the press is coming strong out against the police this time. CNN’s headline is “Peaceful protestors near White House gassed, shot with rubber bullets as Trump leaves for church photo-op.”
Shit is gonna get bad over the next few days.Report
What’s legal is irrelevant.
What those in power will do to stop him is the only question.Report
The question is who is in power to stop him? Governors? Mayors? The House of Representatives? The Senate? The Courts? The Military?
The courts have already enabled Trump to ignore the opposition. He also appointed enough conservative firebrand reactionaries to the bench who have his back. What if the cops go rogue?
I am sympathetic to what Democratic mayors are supposed to do because of bad acting rioters and looters but the fact that they were willing to impose a curfew does not fill me with confidence that said people can control the police.Report
May I suggest repealing a handful of gun control laws?Report
“We have a mob of angry people looting and rioting. What might help?”
“Hmm..may I suggest a bunch of guns?”Report
Lemme know when things get bad enough that the status quo needs to change.Report
Chip’s attitude makes a lot more sense when you realize that he doesn’t go to church and, therefore, has no way to commit the ritual cleansing of sin that is so important to some people.
You keep asking “what’s your solution” and he keeps needling you in reply because for him, stuff burning down and everything dissolving into civil war is the solution. Society is sick and sinful, and there must be a scourging purge so that we can all learn again to be Righteous.Report
Evil.Report
You know what would be great?
If we had a group of soldiers who would, maybe take an Oath to refuse to fire upon their fellow citizens, and maybe they could be Keepers of the Oath!
Oh, if only.Report
Knowing our history, the soldiers would not only shoot but they will do so with happy abandon.Report
They take an oath to support and defend the Constitution of the United States against all enemies, foreign and domestic. If they couldn’t fire on their fellow citizens then a random motorcycle gang could just take over.Report
One group who the law protects but does not bind, and another group who the law binds but does not protect.Report
Can you say that in English in a way that doesn’t end up with an Aryan Nation’s motorcycle gang running the country because nobody could stop them?Report
Has anyone seen an actual bill? What does it say?Report
As far as I can tell, the bill will be introduced on Thursday.
What a mess of a paragraph. Anyway, I haven’t seen the bill and googling it gets me stories about how he’s *GOING* to introduce it.
So, come Thursday, we will probably be able to look the text of the bill up here, on the Congress’s “Bills This Week” webpage.Report
Checked the webpage again today to see what’s up and noticed this part:
The following are links to the text of legislation scheduled for consideration during the week of May 25, 2020. For the complete schedule, please visit the Majority Leader’s site.
So I clicked on the link and it took me here where, under the “Latest from the House Floor” section, it said:
Report
Well, it’s Thursday.
I went to the website again and it hasn’t updated since the 28th (the tweet was on the 31st). So I went to the Majority Leader’s site and it looks like the first voting day is scheduled for June 30th. If you scroll to the bottom of the page, you’ll see a handful of press releases from June 1st.
None of them mention this act.Report
Amash has tweeted the bill!
Report
If you want a little more info on Police Unions and how they’re not limited to better pay, more vacation, and more sick time, check this out:
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One thing that comes up again and again and again with the discussion of any given public union is the weird assumption of what the point of any given publicly unionized job actually is.
Like, what’s the point of police?
It’s not to provide middle-class jobs.
Same for when we discuss public education? What is the point of a public school teacher?
It’s not to provide middle-class jobs.
It’s like pointing out that there are schools where the point is less to provide an education than it is to provide day care. When it’s *YOUR* kids, you know that the point of high school is to provide college prep. When it’s *YOUR* kids, you know that a bad teacher ought to be shipped off to one of those day care high schools.
Policing seems to be the same way. You want the good customer service cops in your neighborhood. The bad ones? Well, they can go to the “policing provides employment” part of town.Report
It would be so much more meaningful if he’d had an honest change of heart and not just joined the “racists who like weed” party after the republicans decided they couldn’t handle someone of muslim descent being in their ranks, despite him sharing all their other bigotries.Report
I’m not looking for meaning.
I’m looking for the end of QI.
Are you on board? Will you support this bill?Report
Ayanna Pressley is now a co-sponsor of the bill. Markey in the senate has announced a similar bill.Report
I hadn’t seen that! This is good. I hope that Ayanna Pressley is enough to get Truth on board with the bill instead of being upset that it originated from something Justin Amash did.
(Why is Markey announcing Bills in the Senate? If he wanted to announce bills, he should have stayed in the House. He should be announcing that he’s going to sponsor the hell out of the House bill and force all of the other Senators to stampede to mics of their own.)Report
Brian Schatz and Chris Murphy and Elizabeth Warren all apparently think the constitution says bills shall originate in the Senate.
Even worse, Warren tweeted out that Bill Barr should be impeached without ccing Nancy Pelosi.Report
More reform legislation. Lots of good stuff, some that doesn’t go quite far enough and some things aren’t there.
https://www.politico.com/states/new-york/city-hall/story/2020/06/06/draft-democratic-proposal-seeks-big-changes-to-policing-1291620Report