Senate The 2016 U.S. Presidential Election has begun

Nope. It's a disqualifier for joining the party, and grounds for expulsion should one be caught.

 

Good good. Who said 'Muricans were stupid?

 

i gotta say obama sounds like an utter loon when he talks about climate change. i don't believe i've heard how the worm talks about it. maybe i can look around a bit on youboots...

 

Official Kasich TV Ad... Vietnam Vet uses famous quote about Hitler and Nazis to describe Trump

 

Trump mocks the physical disability of a journalist
http://www.politico.com/story/2015/...serge-kovaleski-216219?cmpid=sf#ixzz3sXbjEP1C

And there was also the fake statistics on how violent African-Americans are.


So, Trump has insulted... Hispanics, Muslims, Women, the Disabled, Prisoners of War, African-Americans, and a little bit on Asians...
which group will he insult next?
Native Americans? LGBT? Catholics? Atheists? Jews?


Trump increases GOP turnout more than the others:

https://www.washingtonpost.com/poli...436a00-92dd-11e5-8aa0-5d0946560a97_story.html



White Christians are now a minority in the United States (but more are becoming Republican):
http://www.nationaljournal.com/next...inate-gop-shrinking-among-democrats?oref=t.co

 

You left out insulting anyone with common decency

 

The other ads and stories about Trump are reasonable dealing with his wild comments about just about every ethnic group but the Hitler and Nazi analogy is ridiculous. That is also incredibly overused today. That and "facist".

 

Yes, behold Republican "science."





You're welcome.

 

GOP: He blinded me with science!

 

I am certain that by now, you've all heard of the police-led killing in Chicago. As we earlier had a debate about which Democratic candidate was more sincere in their commitment to policy issues affecting African-Americans, I think its relevant to look at the two responses.

As we discussed back then, neither of the candidates have had a particularly impressive record on these issues in recent years. Both got--and, probably, needed--a fair amount of cajoling from BLM and like movements before they began to talk about this at all. However, in the aftermath, one of them seems to have taken those confrontations to heart, and is willing to describe the problem in explicit detail. The other sees even a murder as an opportunity for paeans to police excellence. For those of you that were arguing Sanders doesn't get enough credit, these are the sort of distinctions that we should see more of to help build your case. To Hillary supporters. . .rationalize that statement amongst yourselves, I think.

 

I'm sorry, but you see what you want to see. Hillary's remarks--while more measured and less emotional than Sanders--raise an equally important point: namely, that while this type of violence is a major issue that must be addressed, we shouldn't paint all police officers with the same brush.

Kind of like we shouldn't call all Muslims terrorists, even though Daesh is exclusively made up of Muslims.

Blinded by your hatred of Hillary, you have become . I know you believe strong in radical change. It's nothing to be ashamed of, and I'm not critizing you for it. But at the end of the day, I think Sanders' appeal for a lot of people is that he wants to overturn the apple cart (same as the most radical members of the GOP; oops, I mean all of them). This type of change tends to be the most bold and far-reaching (not to mention the most viscerally satisfying), but also the most difficult to achieve.

I think a lot of the frustration around the "bad cop" issue is that if it were privileged white kids being gunned down, there would be a lot more outrage, which is both true and very, very unfair to every minority in the United States. It's how I feel when the world ignores (or barely pays lip service to) Muslims killing Muslims in the Middle East, but whenever a Jew kills a Muslim, it's time to boycott, divest and sanction. It's maddening, and the promise to confront such problems head-on (along with many other social justice issues) is why Sanders has such broad appeal.

But my challenge to you is this: What is going to accomplish, and how will he do it? In the last debate, he was directly asked how he would get his sweeping agenda through a hostile Congress. His answer was that his election would sweep that Congress aside. He's probably correct in that for him to win with a broad mandate, Congress would have to go deeply Democratic, something which is next to impossible in 2016. So, beyond the itemized list of his agenda, what is he going to do on this specific issue? Yes, he spoke more from the heart than Hillary, but what is his plan?

Peace,

V-03

 

"Putting an end to the killing of African Americans by police officers"? Really?

Shouldn't that read something like "Putting an end to the unjustified killing of African Americans by police officers" or "Putting an end to the unnecessary killing of African Americans by police officers" or "Putting an end to the unlawful killing of African Americans by police officers"?

Or are we saying here that police should never be allowed to kill African Americans for any reason or under any circumstances whatsoever?

Is that the endgame Bernie has in mind?

 

You choose to interpret it that way.

EDIT: And in other Western countries, police killings are relatively rare.

 

Vaderize, you might make that argument well for other issues. But criminal justice reform is already well afoot, supported not only by a wide swath of Democrats, but Republicans as diverse Chuck Grassley and Rand Paul. There is will--bipartisan will--to make movement on this issue. Right now, that's being helped along by a supportive Justice Department, and a President whose willing to endure public criticism to provide political cover for such developments. But this President's time in office is going to run out. Will the next one be as willing to take the flack for being "soft on crime" or rightly point out that there's no evidence of a "Ferguson effect" or that more fundamentally these reforms are an issue of basic fairness?

We're talking about a case where a police officer arrived to a situation already under control, shot someone, emptied an additional 13 rounds into a dead corpse, and then, with the cooperation of the police union, blatantly lied about the encounter while suppressing video evidence that would reveal the truth. It's not "radical" to think that kind of behavior is wrong. It's not asking to "overturn the apple cart" when someone says that this should change. If someone doesn't have the confidence, even in this most extreme case, to make that point, when will they?

And, most importantly, how are they going to make the admittedly more difficult case for the broader reform we're talking about above?

 

That's a really stupid comparison.

 

EDIT: double post

 

And it's stupid for multiple reasons. In the first place, policing is a job, not a core part of a cultural identity in the way that religion can be, and often is. Further, though, there is always huge support of police forces. Police deaths have been attended by a plethora of public officials, up to and including the Vice President. They are the subject of prolonged public hagiography, even when they are actually stories as sordid as corrupt officials committing suicide and attempting to frame African-Americans. Finally, though, even the complaints that have been made about police aren't "painting them all with the same brush." They are statistically verifiable patterns, supported by decades of research from all parts of the spectrum, about actual patterns of police behavior. We talk about a systemic problem because it's a problem seen across the system. Failing to acknowledge this is the sort of denialism that has long allowed the practice to thrive.

 

This is where Sanders's language is important. The issue is not just about police that indiscriminately murder minorities. That is only the most egregious edge of a broad swath of problems with the criminal justice system including sentencing guidelines and disparities, abuses of the asset forfeiture/seizure process, and profiling. Federal legislation can weigh in on a number of these issues, and the work has already begun. As I have already referenced, a bill with bipartisan support is aiming to tackle the sentencing issue. Successfully pushing these and other parts of criminal justice reform through Congress will take someone who is interested in making them happen, willing to educate the public about what they entail, and take the political blow back that might come as a result.

President Obama--or, more precisely, Eric Holder and Loretta Lynch--have been passionate about doing so. They've made the case, and Obama's push back on the "Ferguson effect" idea is evidence of his willingness to do so. I take Bernie Sanders's statement as encouraging in the same way. I simply can't say that about Clinton.

 

Rude.

You're entitled to your opinion, but a lot of people feel that way. Even if you don't.

 

Evan if you don't.

 

It's offensive. A full 1/5th of humanity is Muslim. They come from all walks of life, they can hold almost any profession, and their beliefs vary significantly beyond "there is one God and Muhammad is his prophet."

As wocky said, police officer is a job. A job that has certain requirements and duties, official and unofficial. Most police officers in the United States carry firearms; they are endowed with the legal authority to use lethal force at their discretion and with near-impunity. One unofficial duty is taking care of undesirables. Most police officers probably do not murder people, sure, but they all actively enforce the status quo in a much more active way than the typical person (e.g., breaking peaceful protests, stop and frisk). And you compared two wildly disparate groupings of people-- one of whom is oppressed by the Western world and the other is a tool of the oppressor-- to defend the bull**** that your preferred candidate spouted. The same bull**** "bad apple" defense that has been repeated by many (mostly white) authority figures in order to defend police. While Clinton did at least acknowledge the problem, she muddled her statement with that unnecessary aside.

 

Excuse me? I'm well aware the sentencing guidelines are federal. As I said explicitly said in my previous post, police brutality is only one issue in much a broader package of criminal justice reform. As I noted from my second post on the topic, this is in fact the easiest political effort to make. I'm sort of confused that you took it to mean I had no idea what I was talking about, or that I only have interest in police killings. If you'd like to respond to the points I made, I'd be happy to reply.

 

I don't credit current progress to Sanders, and never have. I credit it to a President and Administration that is willing to be rhetorically engaged enough on the issue to provide necessary political cover. After all, these problems were well-known long before Obama took office, and no one moved on them. Even now, those following the legislation will note that part of the consternation about taking the final steps is the concern about optics. This becomes an issue because, as I noted earlier, there is limited time on a Congressional calendar already jam-packed with must-pass legislation, and likely to freeze for the upcoming Presidential campaign thereafter.

I frankly don't know which one of them is "better" about the issue, though. That's not what I said. My concern was this one specific facet of it: using the bully pulpit to take heat off of those trying to achieve reforms. Even Obama has so far only limited himself to the discussion of egregious cases like police killings. Because in a time where belt-tightening is otherwise demanded, it's very hard to tell people that more should be spent on felons being released from prison. There's no easy way to explain that admitted and convicted criminals ought not to be punished so harshly. I see little reason to believe someone would make these more difficult arguments, if they don't even make the easy ones when the opportunity presents itself.

Really, though, I have made all these arguments more than once already in the last 24 hours. I'm not at all inclined to repeat them another time after this.