"It wasn't me," the police chief / attorney general said!

SATURDAY, JUNE 6, 2020

Who killed Davey Moore?:
We saw two instructive interviews on "cable news" programs last night.

We especially recommend the appearance by Buffalo's mayor, the honorable and very bright Byron Brown, on the Rachel Maddow Show. On some bright non-weekend day, a transcript will likely appear.

During an 11-minute interview, Brown showed an unusual ability to speak to a wide array of competing concerns and interests. We only wished that the multimillionaire with whom he spoke, who he had to challenge on at least one occasion, had been able to display a similar range of awareness.

Two hours later, Detroit police chief James Craig spoke for five minutes with Brian Williams. We'd seen Craig interviewed earlier in the week, perhaps on MTP Daily, though MSNBC stopped producing transcripts for that program in February 2018.

Speaking from Buffalo, Mayor Brown savaged the local police union, saying its leadership had been "on the wrong side of history for a long time." Amazingly, he also asserted the right to due process for individual police officers who have charged with misconduct.

Speaking from Detroit, Chief Craig said that "the vast majority" of Detroit police officers had conducted themselves with great professionalism in the past week. He also said that "the vast majority" of protesters in Detroit had been completely peaceful.

We were glad to hear these two men, along with Williams himself, as they made a basic point. Police officers have been under tremendous stress in the past week or so, all three of these people noted.

Chief Craig noted the fact that some Detroit officers have been attacked with "railroad spikes," and that they've been spat upon. Williams noted the stress which comes with pulling 12-hour shifts, sometimes in the midst of considerable chaos.

In the course of addressing a wide range of concerns, Mayor Brown made a similar point.

We were glad to see that point expressed amid an array of other points. Here's why we say that:

Unlike everyone else on the planet, we've never been a police officer. We've never been placed in the difficult situations such people have been placed in this past week.

We've been surprised to learn, though only by inference, that everyone else has successfully served on such battle lines. Everyone else has made the heroic, split-second decision two rookie officers in Minneapolis egregiously failed to make.

Everyone else has displayed such heroics! We ourselves have not.

We've never arrived at the scene of an alleged crime, only to have an apparently crazy "training officer" arrive on the scene to take control and engage in vicious, insane behavior. Because we were never in such a strange situation, we've never had to do what everyone else has apparently done:

On our fourth or fifth day on the job, we've never forcibly pushed our superior officer off a man he continued to mistreat even after we suggested, several times, that he ought stop. (For Kevin Drum's treatment of this matter, click here.)

Everyone else has done that! Because we ourselves have never been placed in any such situation; and because we've never been a police officer at all; we tend to be slower to judge the conduct of police officers.

We don't know how we would have reacted in a wide array of circumstances this past week. Everyone else pretty much does, or at least so it seems.

Concerning the heinous killing of George Floyd, it doesn't seem especially hard to see who actually did it. That said, the crowd, including the "cable news" crowd, began to shout for three additional heads.

Everyone knew what they would have done as a rookie cop, in their fourth day on the job, in that insane situation. Everyone knows what they would have done.

Here on this campus, we don't.

Should two rookie cops in their fourth day of service be criminally charged with aiding and abetting a murder? Not being legal experts, we can't necessarily answer your question. We evaluate journalists here, not cops on the beat.

That said, as various pundits howled for their heads—we aren't allowed to know how much they're paid to pleasure us in so pleasing a way—our thoughts drifted back, again and again, to a song by the early Bob Dylan.

"Who killed Davey Moore?" the young Dylan once asked. He then rattled off a list of stakeholders and elites who swore that it hadn't been them.

Who the heck was Davey Moore? The leading authority fills us in on the basics:
Davey Moore was an American boxer whose career spanned 1953 to 1963...On March 18, 1959, Moore won the World Featherweight Title from Hogan Bassey. Moore held the title for four years and three days, defending it five times before losing it to Cuban Sugar Ramos on March 21, 1963.

During the fight with Ramos in Dodger Stadium, Moore was knocked down into the ropes during the 10th round. Moore lost by technical knockout
at the end of the 10th round and Ramos took the title. Moore walked back to his dressing room and conducted post-fight interviews, stating his desire to fight Ramos again and regain the title. After reporters left he complained of headaches and fell unconscious. He was taken to White Memorial Hospital where he was diagnosed with inoperable brain damage. Moore never regained consciousness and died as a result of the affliction on March 25, 1963.
In a title bout in Madison Square Garden, reigning welterweight champion Benny "Kid" Paret had died in the ring one year earlier. It was the subsequent death of Moore which produced the Dylan song we've thought about all this week:
"Who Killed Davey Moore" is a topical song written in 1963 by American folk singer/songwriter Bob Dylan. Though the song was not commercially released on Dylan's several studio albums in the 1960s, it was popular in his repertoire for live shows during that era.

[...]

Following Moore's death, the morality of boxing was debated by politicians and religious leaders alike. Folksinger Phil Ochs' song "Davey Moore" offered a harsh criticism of the sport and those affiliated with it. However, Dylan's song delivered a more indirect message and a message that transcended the arena of boxing to include the enveloping society.
In Dylan's song, an array of stakeholders all explain that they weren't the ones who killed Davey Moore. One more time, the basics:
Dylan's song borrows the structure of the children's rhyme Cock Robin. As Dylan takes the perspective of the referee, the crowd, the manager, the gambling man, the boxing writer, and Sugar Ramos, he ends each line in the first person with the refrain:

"It wasn't me
that made him fall.
No, you can't blame me at all."
To hear the song, click here.

As it turns out, no one killed, or helped to kill, Davey Moore. We thought of those stakeholders this past week as a succession of office-holders all said it wasn't them who killed the late George Floyd, and that we should lock others up.

It wasn't me, the police chief said. He said we should lock up the rookies.

It wasn't me, the attorney general said, having arranged to take over the case. He charged the rookies with abetting a murder.

(He even told us that we could easily eliminate the achievement gap! He forgot to say why he was telling us this only now.)

It wasn't me, the governor said. Also, it wasn't the mayor. It wasn't Senator Klobuchar, who was first to leak the crowd-pleasing news that the rookies would get locked up.

We lost all measure of respect for several of these officials. We also lost a lot of respect for the stars of "cable news."

They didn't remember to ask the chief ask why a person like Chauvin was still out there working the streets. (Maybe there'sa food answer!) They didn't remember to ask him if those rookie cops had ever received any training for an incident as crazy as the one they encountered their fourth day on the job.

They didn't ask the governor, the mayor, the chief or the general why the chokehold was still being used in Minneapolis during their tenures. Instead, they did what such people will always do:

They called for the heads of the lessers among us. They howled for the heads of two working-class rookie cops, and they made the police chief a god.

What else did our journalists fail to do? As the crowd howled for blood, they didn't report the basic facts about the two officers' rookie status. They didn't report the fact that one of the rookies had tried to get Chauvin to stop.

The self-impressed heroes of cable news labor all knew what they would have done that day. We aren't allowed to know what they're paid to behave in such crowd-pleasing ways.

In theory, Derek Chauvin will be afforded due process. If he chooses to go to trial, he'll get to make a case.

Does the status of those novice cops create a bit of moral complexity? In our view, yes—it does.

We offer one final perspective:

There has long existed a childish "thought experiment in ethics" known as The Trolley Problem. With other-worldly dimwittedness, "it is generally considered to represent a classic clash between two schools of moral thought, utilitarianism and deontological ethics."

Dearest readers, as if! The childish experiment creates a hypothetical situation in which no good moral choice exists. People are then asked which of two horrible choices they would decide to make. The occasional professor may then pretend that two "schools of thought" are thereby implicated.

Sometimes, no good choice exists; this is a bone-simple fact. William Styron created a real-world version of this tragic fact in his book, Sophie's Choice. The Trolley Problem involves a simple-minded refusal to recognize this obvious fact.

What would the unwatchable Cooper and Lemon have done if they had suddenly been confronted with Chauvin's insane behavior? If they'd been forced to make the rookie cops' choice?

Have they ever bucked their bosses and their guild when life and death issues were at stake? For the record, people are dead all over the world because our journalists have fallen in line with mandated gong-shows over the past thirty years.

No one speaks up less than our "journalists" do! This helps explain how Donald Trump reached the White House.

As we noted in real time, Anderson Cooper kissed his ass on several major occasions during the 2016 campaign. Why didn't Cooper push back then? Why would he hang them high now?

In the current situation, the crowd was crying for the two rookies' heads. In fairness to the crowd, no one had the decency, the courage or the professionalism to report the most basic facts about the two officers' rookie status, or about what they actually did as Chauvin was killing Floyd.

So it went, long ago, when the crowd directed Pilate who to take and who to spare. So it goes, even today, with our horrible "cable news" stars.

In our view, it's obvious who killed the late George Floyd. That said, we'd like to know why that person was still on the job within the Minneapolis police force. We'd like to know why the chokehold was still approved for use on the streets of that self-impressed town.

We'd like to see someone ask the chief. We'd like to see someone ask the heroic Ellison. Sagaciously, though, the chief took a knee, and CNN made him a god, as with Jim Comey before him.

Our press corps died a long time ago! Disconsolate experts keep telling us that this is the way our brains are wired, that this is the best we can do.

191 comments:

  1. "Everyone else has made the heroic, split-second decision two rookie officers in Minneapolis egregiously failed to make."

    Nine minutes doesn't qualify as "split-second".

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    Replies
    1. What were they supposed to do -- pull a gun on him?

      No empathy, anywhere. Or understanding.

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    2. He was already in cuffs, sitting in the police car. Why did they need to do anything else?

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    3. I think Chauvin hauled Floyd out of the car to teach the rookies how you deal with a black man who won't stop running his mouth. You show him what's what and who's in charge. Look how that turned out.

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    4. This is the police equivalent of "Stop crying son or I'll give you something to cry about..." -- standard blue collar parenting. And we wonder why there are abuses of power.

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  2. Who killed Sonny Bono? He died while skiing. He ran into a tree and suffered a concussion and died. So did Liam Neeson's wife, Natasha Richardson, under circumstances similar to Davey Moore's. Yet skiing is still legal! Shouldn't the governor's of states with mountains be taken to task? Isn't this just the same thing as Chauvin with his knee on a black man's head waiting for him to die? (What else was he waiting for?)

    Somerby is ridiculous today. He seems frantic to spread the blame in all directions when it is the police who had the power to take or spare Floyd's life -- not Ellison, not even Pilate. Since they had the power to take life, they are being held accountable for their actions. Somerby couldn't be any more hysterical about his defense of these cops if he were their sainted Irish mother.

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    1. So there's no greater problem here. Yea, uh huh.

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    2. The greater problem has been identified, and it isn't overcharging of police officers.

      Republicans would love to turn this into a problem of Democratic malfeasance but the police force itself, police culture, is largely conservative.

      My question is why Somerby, a supposed liberal, is once again spouting the Republican line and attacking Democratic politicians?

      Remember that Somerby himself said that he doesn't care about police reform. His focus here is on the press (and Bob Dylan?) and why they aren't calling out Democrats such as Keith Ellison and Amy Klobuchar. That's exactly what every liberal is saying this week, right?

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    3. “Shouldn't the governor's of states with mountains be taken to task?”

      You’ve outdone yourself here, It’s breathtaking. Why would anyone think that hitting a tree while skiing might be different from the extremely lucrative and and gambled upon sport with the goal of knocking someone unconscious.

      You have no idea what the powers over Chauvin ignored or didn't ignore and you can’t get beyond “lLock them up!” for people mere days into a new job.

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    4. Anonymous1244pm, do YOU care about police reform or not?

      There’s certainly been a lot of head busting and burning down this week under the auspices of reforming the system.

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    5. For everyone who participates in a televised boxing event for titles or high stakes, there are many more who participate in gyms across the country. It is a sport, just as skiing is a sport, and the goal is not to kill another person or to knock them out (most fights don't end that way). Somerby's comparison is wrong.

      The best way to get to the bottom of what happened and who is responsible is to investigate and conduct a trial. It is more than Floyd got.

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    6. "burning down this week"

      Those buildings were no angels.

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    7. Cecelia, I don't care how the police organize and conduct themselves. I do care that justice is fairly administered and that minorities and white people are treated with dignity and respect, not killed in our out of custody, and that the police conduct themselves as people who protect and serve, not treat all citizens as perps, abusing the authority delegated to them. I do not want the police to act as an arm of authority either, protecting property of the rich, enforcing walks across the street by the president so that he can taunt his constituents and trespass on church property without their permission. We are not a police state and I do not want to see us become one.

      As someone has been noting here, where are all those defenders of American Freedom when a true instance of police oppression has been identified? At home guarding their guns? Trying to provoke a race war by attacking minorities in the streets, like the Boogaloo Bois or the Proud Boys?

      I see police failure to exercise restraint as an extension of Trump's lawless example, and I believe it needs to be addressed by reaffirming the role of police as public service employees, not strong arm goons for a criminal president and his supporters.

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    8. Meh. For as long as American cities remain what they are, the police boot will stay on someone's throat.

      Or else, they will become an equivalent of South-American favelas.

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    9. “Those buildings were no angels.”

      Oh, no, buildings like houses just exist on their own, without the context of business owners, employees, tenants, neighborhood customers, or cultural landmarks.

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    10. Property over people = Republican
      People over property = Democrat

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    11. Anonymous1:10pm, you don’t show a concern for such issues by bashing a man who asks what the people who rank higher than street cops have done to further a police culture you claim to deplore.

      You don’t criticize a man who after watching politicians increase the charges upon the officers then asks their overlords to account as well.

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    12. The politicians didn't increase the charges. They don't have the authority to do that.

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    13. “Property over people = Republican
      People over property = Democrat”

      “Let me get on my phone in my mom’s safe, warm, and intact basement and shrug my shoulders at your burned out business”- Anarchists jerks

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    14. “ The politicians didn't increase the charges. They don't have the authority to do that.”

      Keith Ellison is not a politician?

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    15. Judges and the Sheriff are also elected. Are they politicians or are they part of law enforcement. I think they are law enforcement professionals. Such offices are typically bi-partisan, which is another tipoff that the people holding them are not politicians in the same sense as Amy Klobuchar.

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    16. Somerby intends the word "politician" to evoke negative connotations. So it is easier to endow Ellison with that negative aura if you are not happy with his actions. The best politicians are dedicated public servants who work hard and do a lot of good for our country. But that is not how Somerby intends the word to be received.

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  3. Dear Bob,
    politicians, like Senator Klobuchar, do what politicians do: grandstand, pontificate, and demagogue. That's their job.

    Dembots, like Cooper and Lemon, do dembottery. That is their job.

    And the vacuous moralistics you're bringing into it, dear Bob, have nothing to do with anything.

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    1. C'mon. Real politicians ignore pandemics and cause the deaths of a hundred thousand people due to criminal negligence.
      Morals have nothing to do with it. OTOH, amoral has everything to do with the Right-wing.

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    2. If you're a Right-wing politician, you accuse Democrats of voter fraud, while committing it yourself.
      Probably because, every Right-wing accusation is really a confession.

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  4. These fine lads aren't going to the gallows. They are being charged, their actions will be investigated and there will be a trial. They are being held accountable because they were all four acting in an official capacity when George Floyd died in custody.

    Somerby may never have been a police officer before, but he also hasn't been George Floyd either. His lengthy enumeration of the people he hasn't been is irrelevant to whether we should use our justice system to sort out who should have done what.

    Why is Somerby arguing so strenuously on behalf of these cops? Perhaps this is the time for him to describe the history of Irish American immigrants in the police force in large cities. He may not personally have been a policeman, but I'll bet, coming from Boston, he has friends with cops in their families. It would be statistically improbable if he didn't. He may not even be conscious of where his favorable attitudes toward cops come from. If he can imagine being the target of police suspicion, perhaps he will understand why so many other people's sympathies lie with Floyd, his family and friends. I haven't seen Somerby engage in that act of empathy yet. He is too busy worrying about an officer who may have to change his line of work, to spare any time worrying about what Floyd lost in those 8-9 minutes, not because he was violent or wanted for any violent crime, but because a 17-year old clerk suspected him of passing a fake $20 bill.

    Somerby may not be aware of this, but boxing was reformed. The referee is now charged with monitoring the condition of both fighters and stopping the fight if the health of either is endangered. Today's protest singers are writing different kinds of songs. It is no surprise that Somerby doesn't know the lyrics to those new songs.

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    1. Somerby is of Irish descent and therefore prejudiced toward cops, because we all know if it wasn’t for the Irish we wouldn’t have a police department, and if it wasn’t for the Irish, we wouldn’t need one...ba dum tish...

      Really, liberals? Really?

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    2. I hear he's part Cherokee.

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    3. You weren't around when Somerby accused NBC of running an Irish mafia that met in the Hamptons to decide what the public would be told about Al Gore. We are just asking him to be consistent and apply his ideas about East Coast Irish influence to the rest of the situations where it is relevant.

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    4. Here’s just a sample:

      “As we’ve discussed in the past, the mainstream press corps of the 1990s had a very substantial East Coast Irish Catholic contingent. At NBC News, Jack Welch virtually built an entire news division out of sons and daughters of the old sod.

      We’re going to say that it showed.

      We Irish! No one screeched about Clinton’s sexual conduct more than We Irish did. Beyond that, we’re going to tell you that We Irish had problems with the southern-ness of Clinton and Gore as well.”

      “The latest fact about Maureen Dowd’s clan!

      WEDNESDAY, FEBRUARY 26, 2014

      Yes, this actually matters: Amazingly, this actually matters. “

      http://dailyhowler.blogspot.com/2014/02/the-latest-fact-about-maureen-dowds-clan.html

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    5. “I hear he's part Cherokee.”

      You say that without reservations?

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    6. Ha ha ha ha -- this is all such a big joke!!! Ha ha ha

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    7. “You weren't around when Somerby accused NBC of running an Irish mafia that met in the Hamptons to decide what the public would be told about Al Gore. We are just asking him to be consistent and apply his ideas about East Coast Irish influence to the rest of the situations where it is relevant.”

      From Jack Welsh to a young Nora O’Donnell, MSNBC was replete with journos of Irish dissent. That’s a fact.

      You don’t think he was making a point about a certain cultural and religious heritage that liberals in general might find backward or repressed? I don’t agree with him, but I wonder why you’d find that opinion particularly objectionable as to how the Lewinsky matter was handled on that channel.

      You, on the other hand, just pull a bias on his part toward police officers out of your butt.

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    8. The police's job is to protect and (pre)serve White Supremacy.

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    9. “The police's job is to protect and (pre)serve White Supremacy.”

      Isnt that statement, by nature, a larger indictment than just the men and women on the force?

      To believe that is an indictment of the system and that’s managed by people higher than Chauvin and company.

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    10. Cecelia,
      Congratulations for finally figuring out the protests are against white supremacy.
      You're WAY quicker on the uptake than most Right-wingers.

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    11. Cecelia, If you are trying to argue that big city police are not historically Irish American, you are going to lose that argument.

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    12. Anonymouse1:41, oh, I understood the protesters, the opportunists and thugs, and the anarchistic who wish to tear down society.

      I understand the difference between these people. That’s the issue you have with me.

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    13. Anonymouse1:147pm. I never argued that. I argued that the raising of hat history is a straw man.

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    14. Oh. If you do understand the protesters, maybe you could tell me what it is they're protesting against.

      I can understand an anti-war protest or anti-quarantine protest. But this one, it's a mystery.

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    15. Cecelia,
      Except you think the thugs and rioters are only on one side. The police, in many instances we've seen, are the thugs and rioters.
      That's the issue I have with you.

      https://reason.com/2020/06/01/videos-show-police-aggression-against-protesters-across-the-country-here-are-two-ways-to-help-it-stop/

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    16. Don't sell Cecelia's lack of empathy for George Floyd's family, or black people in general, short.

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    17. "Oh. If you do understand the protesters, maybe you could tell me what it is they're protesting against."

      Mao demonstrates the difference between the white and the black experience with police in a single sentence.

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    18. “Except you think the thugs and rioters are only on one side. The police, in many instances we've seen, are the thugs and rioters.
      That's the issue I have with you.”

      An issue you have with me only in sense that I don’t use that pretext to say “ let ‘er rip!”

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  5. Somerby has once again chosen a song with very little relevance to the situation being discussed. For one thing, Davey Moore chose to get into the ring, knowing the dangers. What did George Floyd choose? For another thing, Chauvin deliberately killed Floyd by refusing to move his knee no matter what happened (begging for breath, silence and immobility, complaints by the other officers). Davey Moore was accidentally killed -- there was no intent to cause his death. Somerby thinks he knows that there was no intent to kill Floyd, but is that true? What motivates abuse of police power, especially against minorities? Can Somerby say? Dylan's song calls for reform of boxing. If Somerby truly believes there must be reform of policing, how can there be such reform without holding police officers accountable for their actions? They have gotten off before, but reform implies they must not be let off again. Dylan wouldn't be singing on behalf of those officers because they are not the victims in this situation. They represent a biased power structure that treats minorities differently than white suspects. Dylan would not be on their side. Yet Somerby recruits his song as part of a plea Dylan would not support (especially at the time that song was performed). That is a misuse of someone else's creative work.

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  6. If you sift through the statements of Ellison and Klobuchar, I'll bet you find nothing that proclaims the police chief a god.

    But here we see Somerby's actual motive for writing today. He doesn't care about Lane and his buddy. He doesn't care about Floyd either. He wants to embarrass Democrats such as Ellison and Klobuchar, pretending they are in favor of choke holds (this wasn't one, by the way, and positional asphyxiation is not the same as choking). Somerby is serving his conservative masters today, and possibly Russian ones as well, depending on where his paycheck comes from. Somerby is no liberal -- he is not even a good, decent person, no matter how much he claims to love pear trees. His callousness betrays him.

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    1. Most of you Somerby critics here are really kind of nuts.

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    2. Most of Somerby's one-line commenters here are really kind of conservative.

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    3. I'm a registered democrat for about 50 years, and never voted for a GOP candidate for president 9or I don't think for any other office.) Trump is abysmal - what as disaster that he was elected. But anon 12:33 is quite right about TDH's critics being "nuts." Areal case in pont is anon 12:26. Pretty much her (?) (Corby?( entire post is crap. Only an idiot would think that TDH's sole purpose is to embarrass Ellison and Klobucher or that he has "no sympathy" for Floyd. (He specifically calls his killing "heinous." The suggestions that he is on the Russian pay roll or that he serves "conservative masters" are ludicrous. She's as bad as the nutso commentators on the Fox website.

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    4. What? You voted for John Silber in 1990, fascist you?

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    5. AC/MA -- if you are so liberal, what are you doing on the Fox website?

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    6. Anon 1:45. I always thought liberals had open minds and looked at both sides of the argument, or at least looked at varying views. Is that no longer permissible? I hope I don't get excommunicated.
      Mao, if I recall correctly (not always the case) Silber wasn't nominated, he lost on the primary - I could be wrong on that. I don't remember who I voted for for governor in 1990.

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    7. I just looked it up. Silber was nominated by the dems in 1990. I still don't recall who I voted for. Possibly for Weld, or for neither.

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    8. 1990, Silber (D) vs Weld (R). I remember it well.

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    9. "Most of Somerby's one-line commenters here are really kind of conservative."

      Nope. Wrong.

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    10. Exactly, they are very very conservative. Today we have drive-by comments from someone advocating violence against cops. Since the left doesn't do that, I think we have an alt-right agitator trying to stir things up and provoke a reaction against the protesters, who have pretty universally been non-violent. Violence is coming from the right-wing gun nuts who seem desperate to shoot someone for something.

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    11. Anonymous on June 6, 2020 at 12:56 PM opines, “Most of Somerby's one-line commenters here are really kind of conservative.”

      Between the ads for spell casters and Indian packers and movers, the trolls (including our Village Troll, Mao) and the clueless (our own professor, Corby and of course, our Village Idiot, David in Cal), I find it hard to discern a definite overall political leaning. And most of the commenters hide behind the Anonymous label, so it’s hard to tell the players since there’s no scorecard.

      For me, the sensibility is tribal. TDH says, “We can spot fault on the other side but not on ours” and we get a chorus of “Somerby isn’t a liberal, he’s paid by the Russians, and anyway, what about the other side?"

      But that’s just me. YMMV.

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    12. Repeating Republican talking points isn't "spotting fault". It is part of the political noise machine.

      You seem to romanticize Somerby. That's a mistake.

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    13. You think "Trump is crazy" is a Republican talking point? You need to brush up on how Republicans actually talk. No, TDH's "fault" is criticizing people you like. I don't "romanticize" TDH, whatever that means. I criticize him when I think he's wrong. I read him to get a contrary point of view. Which I can do without thinking he's in the pay of the Russians.

      But thanks for making my point about the tribal nature of chorus of Anonymi Ignorami.

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    14. "I read him to get a contrary point of view."

      Turn on a TV or pick-up a newspaper. Those outlets are owned by those with contrary points of view.

      Delete
  7. I don't know what's worse in all this, the self-righteousness or the self-pity. But the intolerance level of this so called "liberal" mentality here is really appalling. And scary.

    And I'm an economic left-winger!

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. Sure you are...

      Delete
    2. 12:37,
      2nd Amendment Rights, indeed.

      Delete

    3. "AnonymousJune 6, 2020 at 1:24 PM
      12:37,
      2nd Amendment Rights, indeed."

      What? How'd you get to that one?

      Delete
  8. Somerby is truly an idiot. The trolley problem involves a choice between two situations where someone dies, there is no good choice. Lane's decision involved a choice where no one dies compared to one in which a suspect in custody dies. That isn't a comparable dilemma. The rookie considered possible damage to his standing in the force to be more important than the risk to Floyd's life. He made the wrong choice. Do we want police officers who consider their own advancement ahead of their duty to the public? He was a bad officer.

    This was not Sophie's Choice and it wasn't the Trolley problem. It was an officer who put his own welfare ahead of his duty. That's the essence of police corruption.

    ReplyDelete
  9. Let's take a page from the Right, and put a Micah X. Johnson statue in front of every police station in the country.

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. Micah X. Johnson died for our sins.

      Delete
  10. “only to have an apparently crazy "training officer" arrive on the scene to take control and engage in vicious, insane behavior.”

    Crazy? Insane? Thumb on scales?
    We don’t know why Chauvin pulled Floyd out of the police car and put him on the ground. Maybe Chauvin has some defense he can offer at his trial.

    The behavior itself, labeled “vicious” and “insane” by Somerby, seems to have been standard police practice in Minneapolis. Perhaps Chauvin was merely exercising his judgment as an experienced cop to meet what he felt were the needs of the situation. Somerby is not a police officer, so who is he to judge whether an approved tactic is vicious and/or insane? Police are often required to take steps that seem vicious to the general public.

    (For the literal-minded: I am merely applying Somerby’s “logic”. I do not necessarily agree with what I wrote here.)

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. It is possible that Chauvin was demonstrating how to subdue a suspect, using Floyd as practice, to show the two rookies how it is done. Thus the fact that rookies were present may have led to Floyd's death. Chauvin may have ignored Floyd's difficulties because he didn't want to teach the rookies to give in to their suspects. He was showing them how to hold the line in the face of resistance. Chauvin might actually have shown more compassion had he not been in teaching mode.

      As Somerby says, anything is possible.

      What else might Lane have said? What about "Hey, I think that guy is really in trouble and cannot breathe. He might die. We need to do something to prevent that." or "I get what you are doing, but why can't we let him up now?" or "I don't want to be responsible if you kill that guy, do you?" There are so many other things he might have said that could have changed things for Floyd.

      Delete
    2. Good points. But the reality is that rookies do not question their bosses who have many years of experience more than they do. Obedience is the standard way to impress the boss in ordinary non-stressful jobs. It must be even more so in stress and violence-filled semi-military style jobs like policing. Those rookies will not be convicted useless their lawyers are outright colluding with the prosecution.

      Delete
    3. "It is possible that Chauvin was demonstrating how to subdue a suspect, using Floyd as practice, to show the two rookies how it is done."

      It's also possible that Mr Chauvin is a space alien, feeding on the human emotions of fear and anxiety.

      And it's also possible that all 4 cops were just doing their job, by the book. The fact that they didn't care about their actions being openly recorded by multiple witnesses suggests just that.

      Delete
    4. I'll bet "the book" has cautions about using restraints properly and not killing people with them.

      Delete
    5. ""the book" has cautions"

      Sure, but the perp looked quite healthy.

      And I read somewhere that he was refusing to stay in the police car claiming claustrophobia, which sounds like bs, because a few seconds before that he was sitting inside his own car perfectly fine.

      So, when he starts complaining about difficulty breathing, that, perhaps, may not sound too convincing.

      Something like that. Tsk. As we all know (or should know), shit happens.

      Delete
    6. Nobody agrees with what you wrote.

      That’s why TDH thought it was too easy for the people who set standards and practices or who have long known about them, to distance themselves from these practices by throwing the book at the officers.

      Delete
    7. I can picture the scene. The watch commander is handing out assignments. As he finishes, he admonishes the group of eager officers: "Now go out there and bash some heads, but remember, aim for the black ones. No one will miss them. And don't take any sass from those uppity minorities, you know, they have to be taught their place..."

      If the Chief of Police were behind racist policies that permitted killing black men, that is what the roll call would sound like. Do you seriously believe that is what happened in Minneapolis? Or do you suppose the Attorney General and Police Chief expected their officers to give their best effort, not their worst?

      Somerby is kicking this up the line to (1) attack liberal politicians, (2) disperse responsibility so that the officers themselves could not be appropriately punished, (3) preserve the status quo by making the problem too large to solve, (4) emphasize the hypocrisy of liberal complaints since some of the bureaucracy is itself Democratic in large cities, (5) make the protesters appear foolish because they are targeting the police instead of the masters, (6) make the whole effort appear futile.

      Whatta guy Somerby is! What an asshole.

      Delete
    8. What a right-winger.

      Delete
    9. "Nobody agrees with what you wrote. "

      Ha-ha. I'll have it inscribed on my tombstone.

      "...to distance themselves from these practices"

      Scapegoating is a wildly practiced and time-tested ritual.

      And in the case of the liberal-goebbelsian cult, it's the very first thing they do. Think of the Psycho-Witch&Co. after their flop in 2016.

      Delete
    10. (1) attack liberal politicians

      Criticism is not “attack.” You should probably stop saying it is. And the blogger is a jeremiah. Haven’t you figured that out yet?

      (2) disperse responsibility so that the officers themselves could not be appropriately punished

      You don’t believe that the responsibility goes higher than the officers? There’s plenty of blame to go around.

      (3) preserve the status quo by making the problem too large to solve

      You think a blog nobody reads has the power to size the problem of policing in this country?

      (4) emphasize the hypocrisy of liberal complaints since some of the bureaucracy is itself Democratic in large cities

      Uh, Sparky? That’s a good thing.

      (5) make the protesters appear foolish because they are targeting the police instead of the masters

      Really? That’s an odd read. The protesters are the ones on the receiving end of police violence. The targets of their anger are entirely appropriate and serve to focus public opinion on the problem. The solution will need to go higher, but why would that make the protesters appear foolish?

      (6) make the whole effort appear futile.

      No blog has that power. History says the whole effort actually is futile. There’s a case to be made that we’re not that far from the Edmund Pettus Bridge.

      Delete
    11. @deadrat
      If by “Jeremiah” you mean making up lies and unfair attacks against liberals, then ok. But using that fancy term doesn’t justify what Somerby is doing.

      Delete
    12. By "jeremiah" I mean someone who calls his own side to a higher standard. It isn't a "fancy" term unless you're an illiterate.

      You're better when you're making cogent arguments backed by evidence. "Lies and unfair attacks" is just code for something you don't like.

      Delete
  11. “even after we suggested, several times, that he ought stop.”

    The transcript does not show Lane suggesting he ought to stop. As he was holding Floyd’s feet, he asked “Should we roll him on his side?” Somerby is paraphrasing.

    ReplyDelete
  12. “We don't know how we would have reacted in a wide array of circumstances this past week.”

    True. Most people do not kill other people, but that doesn’t stop most people from demanding that killers be charged and tried, or that aiders and abettors of killers be held accountable. Most people have a sense of right and wrong.

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. Most people do, including the people that you’re suggesting do not.

      Delete
    2. Cecelia, do you understand that people here are suggesting that you fall into that category too, the ones who do not?

      Delete
    3. Of course they do. I’ve been reading this blog for years. They relentlessly think the worst of anyone not in agreement with them.

      Delete
    4. To a dembot, their cult's latest talking points are 'right', and everything else 'wrong'.

      If your rights-wrongs are different, to a dembot you don't have the sense of right and wrong.

      Delete
    5. I wasn’t even remotely thinking about you, Cecelia, but it’s fascinating that you felt called to respond.

      Delete
    6. This comment has been removed by the author.

      Delete
    7. mh, that’s disingenuous. You are implying something pejorative about Somerby and anyone else (me) who is in agreement with his opinion in this matter.

      Delete
    8. I don't know about you, Cecelia, but I am offended when Somerby implies that I have no sense of morality about killing people, simply because I have never had the opportunity off someone.

      I think anyone with a sense of their own moral compass would feel that way about Somerby's ugly attribution that humanity doesn't know killing is wrong. So why do you agree with Somerby and why don't you feel similarly offended by his casual assumption about your morals? You are quick enough to jump on mh and others here. I think you are part of the Somerby defense brigade, ready to support whatever he says, because he occasionally speaks Republican "truth."

      Delete
    9. Anonymouse 4:55pm, you know perfectly well that Somerby is saying that you have never had to make the decisions that police officers make and so a little circumspection is in order.

      Please refrain from acting like you’ve been asked to suspend judgment on Hitler and Stalin upon the basis of that.

      Delete
    10. For all Somerby knows, some of us here are police officers. And yes, there are other professions where people must make similar decisions. Medicine for one.

      But Somerby routinely bemoans the state of humanity and attributes awfulness to all of us collectively, that we do not deserve. He is the one who needs to refrain from maligning everybody willy nilly.

      Clearly Trump cannot tell that Hitler was a bad bad man. He had a book of his speeches as bedside reading, according to his then wife, Ivana Trump. I realize he may not have actually read the book (although it seems likely he did based on his crowd control tactics), but who thinks that is a good thing to be reading? Someone who doesn't know right from wrong. And you support that guy! You clearly don't know right from wrong either. So you don't get to preach to the rest of us about morality.

      Delete
  13. In my little town of 30,000 people, city officials received calls warning of an invasion of looters and antifa thugs. This is apparently part of an organized campaign conducted by the right to mess with the protests. Our city developed a plan for dealing with the invaders and instituted a week long curfew. Business owners went to the "downtown" area and boarded up their businesses in anticipation. Of course there was no invasion and all this preparation was unnecessary, except citizens were confined to their homes during the curfew, turning our town into a mini-police state. The only "violence" was committed by rowdies drinking in a parking lot. The protests were local high schoolers and community college students.

    Antifa rumors could have produced a more serious situation if local police had been more frightened and perhaps shot one of the beer-drinkers or college kids. There is potential danger to innocents from these phoned-in and twitter rumors being deliberately circulated by the alt-right. In a small town, more people know and trust each other. It may be playing out differently elsewhere, but this was my experience this past week.

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. In many places, the police are the rioters. And some, I assume, are good people.

      Delete
  14. "No one speaks up less than our "journalists" do! This helps explain how Donald Trump reached the White House."

    Every newspaper in the country, except Sheldon Adelson's paper in NV, ran an editorial opposing Trump and supporting Hillary Clinton in 2016.

    Major stories exposing Trump's scams and perversions appeared during Trump's campaign, written by journalists. I knew about Russian interference and the Steele dossier because journalists wrote about them during the election. I knew about Wikileaks and the hacking of Podesta's email and the DNC's computers because of journalists. I even knew that Hillary didn't commission the Steele Dossier, that it was rumored that a Republican doing oppo research did that, because of journalists.

    Rachel Maddow did more to prevent Trump's election than Somerby did, with his criticisms of Hillary and his knocks on liberals.

    Even Lemon has done more -- he has been a lightning rod for Trump's bigotry, revealing Trump's racism for what it is. Somerby pretty much agrees with Trump's hostility toward reporters, never defending their right to speak, joining the cackling poo-throwers attacking our free press.

    All because Gore was ridiculed for buttoning his suit coats instead of for trashing rock and roll lyrics, as he should have been. How does Somerby, who just loves to quote those lyrics, justify supporting a man who wanted to censor music?

    Let's get real here. Somerby doesn't care about the press. He doesn't care about the mainstream media. He doesn't even care about Rachel Maddow. he is earning a pittance selling out liberals to the right, trying to generate just enough doubt to swing an occasional independent vote toward Trump. And the right has sent us Cecelia and David and Leroy and AC/MA and a bunch of anonymous one-line writers to help him put Trump back into office for another term. And then Donald Jr. will run to continue the dynasty, and Somerby will welcome him with open arms, because he doesn't support anything Al Gore actually stood for, he just liked his college buddy (perhaps a little too much?).

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. Yes, he’s adopted a cynical nihilistic attitude that now includes lashing out against the human species. He's the ultimate petulant teenager wallowing in his hurt feelings about his friend Gore’s loss. It's all because he doesn't want to target real interests and power. He prefers obsessing over trivia like test scores. He's been to college, but he mostly avoids applying the basic tenants of critical thinking to events, which begins with asking the question: cui bono? He doesn’t want to look at the reality that powerful Neo-con forces within the media preferred Bush in 2000.

      Delete
    2. Thank you for self-labeling, @4:39, we wouldn't have known if you hadn't told us.

      Delete
    3. Bob doesn't like dumbness. That's it.

      Delete
    4. And yet he is so dumb himself.

      Delete
  15. "I even knew that Hillary Clinton didn't commission the Steele Dossier, that it was rumored that a Republican doing oppo research did that, because of journalists."

    You knew wrong.

    https://www.washingtonpost.com/graphics/2018/politics/steele-timeline/

    ReplyDelete
  16. “ I knew about Wikileaks and the hacking of Podesta's email and the DNC's computers because of journalists.”

    You do not know that for sure.

    https://www.itwire.com/security/crowdstrike-chief-admits-no-proof-that-russia-exfiltrated-dnc-emails.html

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. Dixie, see this is the kind of dishonest bullshit we've all come to expect coming from the party of traitors defending the Russian government committing crimes on American citizens which makes you happy cause it helped install a monumental asshole in the WH.

      What did expert testimony of Mr. Henry of Crowdstrike say about their conclusion on who infiltrated the DNC servers?
      Would you say that your article is a honest recapitulation of the sum and substance of the Crowdstrike testimony? Not cherry picking, leaving anything out?

      You're not totally misrepresenting his honest expert non partisan testimony, are you?

      Delete
    2. No, I’m not. That’s what he said. I may be misrepresenting your interpretative dance as to what he said, but this is what he said:

      Henry said that there is circumstantial evidence that that data was exfiltrated off the network. They didn’t have a sensor in place that saw data leave. He said that “the data left based on the circumstantial evidence. That was the conclusion that we made.”

      When directly asked if he could unequivocally say whether the data was or was not exfiltrated out of the DNC, Henry said, “I can’t say that based on that.”

      Henry later commented that the Russians could have accessed DNC information in real time by taking screen shots after having gained access Via hacking staff accounts.





      Delete
    3. I know all about, Dixie. Reading the transcript it's remarkable how the republicans spent the entire time acting as Putin's defense lawyers. And how excited wingnut land is to keep posting the same bullshit article that completely misrepresents Henry's testimony. Who are the Dukes, Dixie? What did he say about that?

      Delete
    4. The Dukes are Russians. That’s what the FBI warned the DNC internet wizard.

      Dmitri Alperovitch of Crowdstrike stated that he had a medium certainity that Fuzy Bear was GRU. I think the certainty on Fancy Bear was more iffy.

      Mueller never got an interacted report from Crowdstrike.

      There’s we don’t know still.as regards how WikiLeaks hot the information.

      Delete
    5. But where's that server, dear Hillary? Eh? Where is it?

      Our only hope is that the Russians will find it, and deliver it to the FBI.

      Eh, but you probably smashed it with a sledgehammer, burned it, and dumped what's left in the middle of an ocean somewhere. Right?

      Delete
    6. Cut the shit, Dixie.

      We know. Do you have any reasonable doubt?

      MR. HENRY: counsel just reminded me that, as it relates to the DNC' we have indicators that data was exfiltrated. we did not have concrete evidence that data was exfiltrated from the DNC, but we have indicators that it was exfiltrated'

      MR. SCHIFF: And the indicators that it was exfiltrated, when does it indicate that would have taken place?

      MR. HENRY: Again, it's in the report. I believe -- I believe it was April of
      2016. I'm confused on the date. I think it was April, but it's in the report'

      MR. SCHIFF: lt provides in the report on 2016, April 22nd, data staged for
      exfiltration by the Fancy Bear actor'

      MR.HENRY: Yes,sir. So that, again,staged for,which,I mean, there's
      not -- the analogy I used with Mr. Stewart earlier was we don't have video of it
      happening, but there are indicators that it happened. There are times when we
      can see data exfiltrated, and we can say conclusively. But in this case, it appears
      it was set up to be exfiltrated, but we just don't have the evidence that says it
      actually left.

      ***

      MR. SCHIFF: ln your report, when you stated the data was staged for exfiltration on April 22nd of last year, that would have been the first time that you found evidence that the data was staged for exfiltration?

      MR. HENRY: I believe that is correct'

      MR. SCHIFF: Did you have a chance to read the information that was filed in conjunction with the George Papadopoulos plea?

      MR. HENRY: I did not.

      MR. SCHIFF: In that information, it states that Mr. Papadopoulos was informed at the end of April that the Russians were in possession of stolen DNC or Clinton emails. If that information is correct, that would be only days after that data was staged for exfiltration?

      MR. HENRY: Yes.
      ***


      When did Dmitri Alperovitch testify to the House Committee?

      It is actually comical watching you traitors become positively giddy with excitement simply because Mr. Henry testified scrupulously honestly. It's like if I wake up and see snow on my driveway, I think I can conclude based on circumstantial evidence that it showed during the night, but since I didn't see it actually fall from the sky, there's still some reasonable doubt. Would you agree with that?

      MR. CoNAWAY: We use the phrase ''the Russians did it.. or ''State actors.,.
      can you be more precise? You said Cozy Bear was -- and I get them mixed up'

      MR. HENRY: GRU.

      MR. CONAWAY. Say that again?

      MR. HENRY: GRU? Russian military intelligence? Fancy Bear.

      MR. CONAWAY. All right. And Cozy Bear is?

      MR, HENRY: was a Russian intelligence service. unclear --

      MR. CONAWAY: As to which one?

      MR.HENRY: Yes, potentially. I mean, there's other intelligence services
      that are Russia SVR and FSB. Not clear.

      Delete
    7. And let me add one more thing, Dixie.
      You forfeit for eternity the right to talk about the Mueller Report in defense of Donald J Chickenshit, Acting President for the following reasons:

      1. Donald J Chickenshit, Acting President, and his idiot sons refused to testify under oath as he very ostentatiously repeatedly promised to do.

      2. Donald J Chickenshit, Acting President, criminally obstructed Mueller's investigation - repeatedly and with impunity.

      3. To this day Billy "the fixer" Barr is fighting the release of the full Mueller report to Congress, unredacted and with all underlying documents provided. It has now reached the SCOTUS who put a stay on releasing the material in conformance the court ruling.

      4. Donald J Chickenshit.

      Delete
    8. So it’s treasonous to suggest that what Crowdstrike frankly states- that they are not 100% sure that the files were extricated. Looks like they were set up to exfiltrated, but they don’t know if it happened. Also, Henry says, the info could have been obtained by screenshots of letters on hacked individual accounts.

      Dmitri Alperovitc tells the Atlantic Council that he has a high level of level of confidence that Cozy Bear and Fancy Bear work for Russian intelligence, but medium for confidence that it’s GRU and no confidence that Cozy works for the FSB.

      Papadopoulos is contacted by the mysterious and currently unavailable Josef Mifsud who tells him Russia has information that will help his boss.

      Mueller never sees an sees the unredacted report from Crowdstrike. Mueller does decide there’s no proof that Trump colluded with Russia.

      But you have 100% confidence that WikiLeaks got its info straight from Putin rather than someone inside the DNC or someone Russian or not Russian unconnected to a government agency. No other way, no how. To be uncertain of that is treasonous.

      Okey-dokey.

      Delete
    9. Yeah, Dixie, since there was no evidence anyone else INFILTRATED the servers other Russian government agencies. Everything the FBI requested was provided by Crowdstrike.

      Yeah, you know what is treasonous? You and your fucking party of traitors trying to defend the Russian government and invent conspiracy theories involving Seth Rich. Okey dokey?

      Delete
    10. Where's the server, dear Hillary?

      Delete
    11. This comment has been removed by the author.

      Delete
    12. mm, I get it, You’re treasonous if you aren’t entirely certain the Russian government gave Wikileaks the stuff, but if you believed with 100% certainly that Trump colluded with Russia, you are not a traitor to your country.

      Rigged...


      Delete
    13. I get it too, Cec. You all don't give a fuck that a foreign government criminally interfered in our election, after all, it was only Hillary who was hurt by it, and Orangeman benefited, so all's good, eh? So you come rushing on here to pick a cherry from Henry's honest forthright expert testimony to argue that "we don't know", when we know the sum and substance of his testimony was the exact opposite.

      I asked you an honest question, do you have a "reasonable doubt" that it was the Russian government who passed their hacked info on to Wikileaks? And if so, what is that based on?

      You're playing diversionary games here and yes, defending the Russian government makes you a traitor in my eyes.

      Delete
    14. I have a reasonable doubt about it. Because there's no proof and Assange has said it wasn't Russia. Of course there's a reasonable doubt. There's a reasonable doubt that they even stole the emails.

      Delete
    15. “You're playing diversionary games here and yes, defending the Russian government makes you a traitor in my eyes.”

      Then don’t engage with me, mm.

      You’re a bore, because you can’t respond to anyone without setting your hair on fire and yelling at everyone to salute.

      Delete
    16. Here's what started this thread, Dixie. You posted a link to an article that begins:

      The controversial American security firm CrowdStrike, which was called in to investigate the alleged Russian hack of DNC servers in 2016, had no proof that any emails from the system had been exfiltrated despite public assertions that this had occurred, according to the transcript of an interview released by the US Government a few days ago.

      Controversial?
      alleged Russian hack
      had no proof

      Why is Crowdstrike "controversial"?
      Alleged?
      No proof? Is that what he really testified to?

      I can't tell you how many times I have seen trump supporters link to this exact same article, giddy with excitement and insinuating that Crowdstrike had somehow retracted their analysis and exonerated Russia.

      Sorry if this made you uncomfortable, Dixie. I will continue to challenge bullshit from the fever swamps you post.

      This isn't an obscure trivial matter. This question was central to the fucking impeachment of your dear leader. (In case you've forgotten, buried in the avalanche of horrors we endure from this clown show you support.)

      Remember the Acting President extorting a foreign nation using taxpayer money?

      The· President: I would like you to do us a favor though because our country has been through a lot and Ukraine knows a
      lot about it. I would like you to find out what happened with this whole situation with Ukraine, they say Crowdstrike... I guess
      you have one of your wealthy people... The server, they say Ukraine has.it There - are a lot. of things that went on, the· whole situation ..I think you are surrounding yourself with some of the same people. I .would like to have the Attorney General
      call you or your people and I would like you to get to the bottom of it. As you say yesterday, that whole nonsense ended with a very poor performance by a man named Robert Mueller, an
      incompetent performance -, _but they. say a lot of it started with Ukraine. Whatever you can do, it's very important that you do it
      if that's possible.


      In no way was my challenge to you a "hair on fire" ad hominin attack.

      "President Putin says it's not Russia. I don't see any reason why it would be"

      Delete
    17. It's not "controversial", dear Hillary. It's outright untrustworthy, because it was hired and paid by the Psycho-Witch... ugh ... sorry, by you, my dear, to 'vindicate' your bullshit conspiracy theories.

      Not to mention that "A Daily Caller News Foundation analysis of the published emails shows that the majority were written between May 5 and May 25 — after cybersecurity firm CrowdStrike was brought in to respond."

      Oh, and come to think of it: where's that server, dear Hillary?

      Delete
    18. Don't worry, Boris, Rudy is working on that. He'll have that "server" for you any day now, if he doesn't die from alcohol poisoning first.

      Delete
    19. Bottom of an ocean it is, then, dear Hillary? Together with the gun that killed Seth Rich, eh?

      Delete
    20. And there you have it, Dixie. Talk to Mao, you and "it" seem to be simpatico.

      It would be so much more beneficial to the discussion if you and he could put together a final logical coherent internally consistent factual narrative of what you think happened, that rebuts every one of our intelligence agencies and investigating congressional and Senate committees concluded.
      Is that even possible?

      Delete
    21. "hat rebuts every one of our intelligence agencies and investigating congressional and Senate committees concluded"

      Horrors, horrors, dear Hillary. Infidels everywhere.

      Delete
    22. ...so, where's that server, again?

      Delete
    23. '...so, where's that server, again?"

      In the White House. Goes by the name Donald J. Trump, Serves the Establishment, morning, noon , and night.

      Delete
  17. Bob
    You and your site that I have read since my towers were destroyed have fallen so low.
    You are a shell of your former self.
    I am truly saddened by what you allow.
    Mao
    Celcilia et al.
    Truly just conservative shit.
    Hillary and the Steele dossier really. Just a disgrace.

    ReplyDelete
  18. As long as we’re busy indicting every city, county, and state official for the actions of reputed sociopath Chauvin, we might as well go all the way to the top, to AG Barr, who has branded “the left” as enemies of America, and Sociopath-In-Chief Trump, who urged cops to get rough with suspects. (As I recall, when he said that, the cops in the audience smiled and applauded.)

    Somerby mentions a police union here, although not the one in Minneapolis. Police unions often have more power than the police chief or the mayor. Not to constantly search for Trump-adjacent scapegoats, but the head of the Minneapolis police union has appeared at Trump rallies.

    It is notable that police unions are the only unions that Republicans don’t seem to mind.

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. You’re late to the party. I’d wager to every utterance of the name Chauvin on all of media news, there’s likely 50 references to Triump in the same context of police brutality.

      We can’t even get you to consider investigating what the standards and practices were in Minnesota and the upper echelon who set them or acceded to them from the distance of plush offices.

      Delete
    2. Wel, since I don’t live in Minnesota and am not in charge of anything, I really have no authority to investigate anyone. Meanwhile, there is an ongoing investigation into that right now as we speak. I’d say that Somerby pretending that no one is asking these questions is disingenuous of him.

      Delete
    3. Meanwhile, no matter your lack of authority, you were busy arguing that no should be asking those questions.

      Who’s pretending?

      Delete
    4. Ceece, I did a quick check and found no references to Triump anywhere except your comment.

      Strange.

      Delete
    5. I mention Trump in saying that the media tslks more of him in the context of the police brutality issue than if Chauvin.

      Here on this blog today “right” in the context of conservative has been referenced seven times and “conservative five times.

      Chauvin was referenced 19 times, three times by me and twice by Mao.

      Neck-and-neck.

      Delete
  19. Concern troll's concern, weeping in italics, is noted.

    Here's something to read until your anguish subsides:

    https://encyclopedia.thefreedictionary.com/Benito+Mussolini

    ReplyDelete
  20. So let’s talk about our side. Sure, Barr is the worst, but don’t we want better?

    (Our Cecelia can take this as a cue for one of her amusing posts, perhaps with a play on the words “Barr none.”)

    Keith Ellison, playing for the good guys, is the DFL Attorney General of Minnesota, who stepped in to add Murder in the 2nd degree to Chauvin’s indictment. For those of you keeping score — and from the response, you’d all have to be lurkers and not commenters — that’s three counts:

    1. Murder in the 2nd (killing with intent but no premeditation)

    2. Murder in the 3rd (killing by “eminently dangerous” act with a depraved mind)

    3. Manslaughter in the 1st (killing while committing a violent offense that a reasonable person could foresee would lead to death)

    Keith Ellison is an attorney and a graduate from the University of Minnesota Law School. Does he seriously believe that a reasonable jury can convict on any of these charges using a standard of beyond a reasonable doubt?

    Doesn’t he know that Murder in the 3rd can’t even survive a motion for summary dismissal? Minnesota’s Supreme Court has ruled that a depraved mind cannot be demonstrated unless the defendant’s actions put multiple people at risk. The standard is a depraved indifference to life in general, not a depraved indifference to a life, and violence directed solely at one person does not meet the depravity element of the crime of Murder in the 3rd Degree.

    Who here believes that Chauvin intended to kill Floyd?

    Who here believes that a procedure approved by the Minneapolis Police Department can constitute an “offense”? NBC news says that the department used neck restraints 237 times in the last five years. In only one of six times did the victim lose consciousness; in only half of those cases was the victim injured.

    The clue to the real problem is that 60% of the time neck restraints were used, they were used against black arrestees. What percentage of white people are arrested for using counterfeit money?

    But our guy won’t discuss that with us. He’ll just pile on the counts, knowing that they’ll never result in just conviction.

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. @deadrat:

      The new charge actually reads:

      Murder 2nd degree without intent while committing a felony

      Maybe get it right before attacking Ellison.

      Delete
    2. I stand corrected. Thank you.

      Let me revise my comment in light of the revised indictment:

      Who here believes that Chauvin intended to cause grievous bodily harm to Floyd?

      Because the crime charged — likely, Assault in the First Degree — still involves intent, but not the intent to kill.

      (Didja get yourself checked out for Corby Syndrome? Because I still urge you to do so if you haven’t. I’m not “attacking” Ellison; I’m criticizing a lawyer and the chief law enforcement officer of a state for allowing to be handed up an indictment that he must know does not comport with the law.)

      Delete
  21. “So let’s talk about our side. Sure, Barr is the worst, but don’t we want better?”

    Rosie O’Donnell?

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. Ha ha ha ha -- this is all so hilarious!!!!! Ha ha ha

      Delete
    2. Knock Knock
      Who's there?
      Dead cops lying in the street, until there is police reform.

      Delete
    3. No one here is advocating violence against cops except you -- and who invited you here?

      Delete
    4. The giveaway that 12:29 is a Right-winger, is that the joke isn't the least bit funny.

      Delete
    5. Lol.

      Soros panics, new talking points get distributed, and soros-dembots swing to action. Classic.

      Delete
    6. Zero Hedge = Business Looters Daily

      Not the business looters Cecelia is conflating with all protesters. The other kind. The ones who loot businesses the white, er, I mean right way.

      Delete
    7. What about your paymaster Mr Soros, dear soros-dembot. Is he a Business Looter?

      Delete
    8. "What about your paymaster Mr Soros, ..."

      Dembot zombie, Mao, has his talking points about Soros down pat.

      Delete
    9. Whoa. Hit a nerve, eh?

      So, is your paymaster Mr Soros a Business Looter? Yes or no, dear soros-dembot?

      Delete
    10. This comment has been removed by the author.

      Delete
    11. Anonymouse 3:17pm. If you were truly secure in the idea that looting and burning was justified by white collar crime or venture capitalism, you wouldn’t be harping on me like this.

      Delete
    12. If you were truly secure in the idea that cops killing an unarmed black man was wrong, you wouldn't be harping on the rioting by the police and blaming it on the protesters.

      Delete
  22. There have been "rookie cops" for the entirety of the police institution, going back to its origin during slavery times. Are they progressing? This basic question Daily Howler hasn't asked.

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. Sure. That’s why he’s questioned why Minnesota sachems are not being held to account for the department that they oversee.

      Delete
    2. "That’s why he’s questioned..."

      No, it isn't. And you are not the Somerby whisperer. You don't know why he's questioned the role of those sachems. It seems far more likely he is attacking them because they are liberal, since that is pretty much all he does in his posts.

      Delete
    3. If you bothered to read his blogs rather than scan them for heresy, you’d be more informed.

      Delete
    4. “Heresy.” See, this is what Somerby thinks about liberals: they all think the same way, no individual thinking allowed. So, when you see criticism of Somerby, you equate that with condemnation of Somerby for being an unorthodox liberal. Instead, the critiques here are because....Somerby is just wrong. Also, no one can be certain Somerby is actually a liberal. That makes a difference, but I continue to hold out the possibility that he is. He never tells us his actual policy views, though.

      Delete
    5. He thinks Trump is nuts. Good enough for me.

      Delete
    6. He doesn't think Trump is a standard-issue Reagan Republican piece if shit. Not good enough for me.

      Delete
  23. @8:30 - Are you not aware that many liberals supported Mussolini? Read "Liberal Fascism".
    https://encyclopedia.thefreedictionary.com/Benito+Mussolini

    ReplyDelete
  24. Heather Mac Donald strikes me as kind of a right wing hack. But you can't actually look at more scholarly studies that show the same thing: there is no evidence of police bias in shooting. One was done by a Black at Harvard University. So basically, people are boiling over for a problem that may not exist. (I understand that racial disparities is still a big problem, though.)

    ReplyDelete
  25. David, the fascist prick, recommends reading "Liberal Fascism" written by noted and world renowned historian, Jonah Goldberg, spawn of right wing ratfucker, spy and criminal Lucianne Goldberg.

    So, you're a liberal David? Who knew.

    ReplyDelete
  26. Who killed George Floyd? If you cannot blame the men standing uselessly by, how do you blame men such as the Attorney General or Police Chief, who weren't even there?

    Race is at the heart of this issue, but so is gender. Men commit violence, rarely women. An entirely female police force might avoid some of the testosterone-fueled mistakes of today's policing. Women are better at conflict resolution, less likely to use force as their first recourse, are not ego-involved with strength, and have nothing to prove by being dominant. They have nothing to lose by talking someone down instead of shooting him down. Reconsider who is appointed as police might change our conception of policing sufficiently to prevent future atrocities, without sacrificing the role of police entirely in our society.

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. Ha! Ever seen girl fights?

      Are most of these anti-Somerby comments here for real?

      Delete
    2. Look at arrest rates for women and the kinds of crimes involved.

      Delete
    3. You are on to something but the issue is feminine values, not females and males.

      Male and female officers alike have to adopt feminine values like gentleness, empathy and humility.

      And not just in the police departments but every level of our entire culture must do this and will. And every man and woman must connect deeply with divine feminine values and the glorious feminine nature busomed within and let these values guide their actions, guide their lives.

      When that happens in earnest, and it will, all of these problems will be over very quickly.

      Feminine values are what originally humanized and civilized our race.

      Femininity has been behind every true moral regeneration in our whole history. Why not reemploy this latent power to build a new Earth and keep the party going?

      Delete
    4. I don't believe in the virtue of "feminine values" or the civilizing power of "femininity," but goddam! could women do any worse? I suppose it's possible , but it's past time and worth the risk to find out.

      Delete
    5. New Democrat Saint George Floyd broke into a pregnant woman's house and jammed his gun into her pregnant belly and beat the shit out of her.

      Delete
    6. Oh, well never mind then. The cops should have just shot him on sight.

      (10 years ago Floyd was convicted for his role in a home invasion. In that incident, no one had the shit beaten out of them.)

      Delete
    7. 11:11,
      There are now reports saying George Floyd was black, so the charges against the police probably won't stick.

      Delete
  27. David is right.
    Better to just shoot a cop when he gets out of line.

    ReplyDelete
  28. deadrat and Somerby say things like “But our guy [Ellison] won’t discuss that with us” or Ellison “stood around staring into space” because he’s just a virtue signaling liberal, I guess. And all because he’s responding to the immediate situation in Minneapolis by charging the police officers.

    OK.

    ‘“In late February, a state-led task force on policing released an extensive set of recommendations for how to prevent law enforcement from using deadly force on civilians and how best to respond when police do kill people.
    It was the result of months of public hearings and closed-door negotiations between police groups, criminal justice advocates, state lawmakers and other Minnesota officials. Attorney General Keith Ellison and Department of Safety Commissioner John Harrington had convened the group to create a plan for change, because, as Harrington said at the time: “The time to discuss deadly-force incidents is not when one occurs.”’

    https://www.minnpost.com/state-government/2020/05/a-minnesota-task-force-on-policing-recommended-28-reforms-for-deadly-force-incidents-after-george-floyd-will-its-report-get-a-serious-look/

    Also:

    The Minnesota Department of Human Rights has launched an investigation into the Minneapolis Police Department:

    ‘In a charge filed this week by Minnesota Department of Human Rights (MDHR), Commissioner Rebecca Lucero says Floyd’s death and others like it require investigation into whether MPD’s “training, policies, procedures, practices, including but not limited to use of force protocols, and any corresponding implementation, amounts to unlawful race-based policing, which deprives people of color, particularly Black community members, of their civil rights.”’

    https://www.minnpost.com/metro/2020/06/the-minnesota-department-of-human-rights-is-investigating-the-minneapolis-police-department-how-much-can-it-do-to-change-the-mpd/

    It’s getting a little tiresome hearing from Somerby and his defenders how liberal slackers like Ellison just sit around doing nothing.

    By the way, Ellison has only been in office a little over a year.

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. "Ellison has only been in office a little over a year."

      Slacker. In just the past 4 months Trump has killed more than 100,000 people through criminal negligence, shepherded the the economy into the ground, and egged on a race war.

      Delete
    2. deadrat say[s] things like “But our guy [Ellison] won’t discuss that with us” or Ellison “stood around staring into space” because he’s just a virtue signaling liberal, I guess. And all because he’s responding to the immediate situation in Minneapolis by charging the police officers.

      Would it hurt you to quote me accurately?

      My complaint about Ellison has nothing to do with his actions prior to Floyd’s killing. In fact, I have a high regard for Ellison, and the fact that his toothless task force produced nothing of much value isn’t his fault. I followed your link, and surprise! meaningful reform would require legislative action and the Republicans for some reason control the Minnesota senate.

      My complaint about Ellison’s response is that he’s reverted to traditional form — using his considerable power as state Attorney General to pile charges on the four officers, when as a lawyer, he must know that those charges don’t make a bit of legal sense.

      Delete
    3. Ellison added a single new charge, which you failed to state correctly above, which is murder 2nd degree without intent while committing a felony.

      The other charges remained from before Ellison took over.

      You do realize the jury is given a range of options and can pick the charge they find most suitable? That is the reason for multiple charges, not simply to “pile on” charges.

      Delete
    4. I've corrected my mistake. This is the second acknowledgement. Just tell me how many more you need.

      The new indictment still requires intent.

      I'm well aware of how juries work, and my complaint isn't that there are multiple charges, but that none of them comports with the law, particularly and egregiously the charge of killing while demonstrating a depraved mind.

      Delete
  29. Latest gun rights slogan:
    "No one stops a bad guy with a gun."

    ReplyDelete
  30. Deadrat still thinks it's about what's legal. Or that there is "law."

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. OK, what do you think the indictment is about?

      Delete
  31. Deadrat: quick correction: the new charge does not include intent. Guess you missed that.

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. Barbs, deadrat doesn't read well for comprehension. He's not super together as you can see.

      Delete
    2. No, the new charge will almost surely include intent since the underlying "offense" will likely be Assault in the 1st Degree, an element of which is intent to cause grievous bodily harm.

      Guess you missed that.

      My error was to assume that the new charge included intent to kill. This is the third acknowledgement on this forum of my mistake. Please let me know how many more you require.

      Delete
    3. deadrat's myriad mistakes and discordant, unreadable prose don't really comport with common sense or basic reason and certainly not with good taste. but he seems like a good guy that smells good. not everyone in this cosmic caravan can write and think well.

      Delete
    4. Ad the Titanic sinks out of sight the scullery maid, Chlamidia and the cess diver, bilge rat bicker over which fork would be appropriate for pickled artichoke.

      Delete
    5. I noticed that too about deadrat's bad writing. You can tell he thinks it's clever. Sad.

      Delete
    6. I feel like deadrat's feeble prose comports though. So it's not all bad. There's a large degree of comportment tabernacled within it. What do you think deadrat? Does it comport?

      Delete
    7. It's more or less comported. That's my feeling.

      Delete
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    The guy who took the call told me the NRA doesn't condone violence.
    Apparently, when NRA members go hunting, they just flash their piece and wait for the deer to give itself up.

    ReplyDelete
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