Berman has just resigned. He did so because the position would be filled by his deputy Audrey Strauss instead of Barr toady Craig Carpenito whom Barr originally tapped to fill the void on Friday evening.
“In light of Attorney General Barr’s decision to respect the normal operation of law and have Deputy U.S. Attorney Audrey Strauss become Acting U.S. Attorney, I will be leaving the U.S. Attorney’s Office for the Southern District of New York, effective immediately," he said in a statement, adding that he believed Strauss and her team "will continue to safeguard the Southern District’s enduring tradition of integrity and independence.”
I give it maybe a month, before Strauss is removed as she doesn't have the 'appointed by the courts' argument.
This is what you tweet out when you know your job as campaign manager is hanging by a thread because of how you hyped the event. I don't think Parscsle is long for Trump's world:
They're now just making shit up. None of this happened. As if the Tulsa police or Trump crowd themselves would have allowed it to happen if it was. I've said it before, the contempt they have for their own voters to feed them these fever dream fantasies is way beyond cynical. However dumb the left think these people are, people like Brad Parscale believe they are 10x that dumb.
The outside shot is more damning. Everyone who came got a seat, it doesn't look at all like anyone was "interfered with".
All the signs point to a Trump defeat. At no point in 2016 did he have as little momentum as this and even the big time conservative influencers have essentially turned. During election time.
I'm watching this and it's just sad, honestly. He's rambling like your senile uncle, the crowd is barely into it anymore.
I'm reminded of when I went to see a line-up of hair bands with my dad in the mid-90s at a casino. For whatever, reason, Quiet Riot was headlining, even though they were barely still relevant in 1985, much less 1995. Crowd had already been there and had a good time for the previous 4 or 5 hours with other bands. By the time Quiet Riot came on, everyone was tired. And the fact was, Quiet Riot is a pretty shit band. Their two songs that were hits were all they had. But, of course, they had to save them for the end of the show. Problem was, they had nothing to fill the 70 minutes before that. Eventually, everyone just started actively calling out for "Metal Health" and "Cum on Feel the Noize". The lead singer eventually turned on the crowd, bitching us out for minutes at a time.
Trump isn't gonna turn on his crowd, but everything else about this reminds me of that Quiet Riot show. These people just wanna chant "lock her up" for 5 minutes and go home satisfied. What he's giving them right now is Quiet Riot's album tracks. No one gives a shit.
Edit: he gave them the lines about the NFL and kneeling. That's apparently also one of the hits. But few and far between.
I'm reading on Twitter that many teenagers across the country were ordering up thousands of tickets all across the country to purposefully artificially inflate the numbers of tickets requested as a joke, so that when the rally actually happened, it would go off like a popcorn fart. The Trump campaign basically got Rick-rolled.
Don't mind me, just stirring the pot a little bit. Rasmussen's right-leaning, but they sample a higher percentage of democrats and they were pretty spot-on back in 2016 and they caught Biden crushing super Tuesday before anyone else, really.
Obviously, no poll is empirical, but this is a far cry from what the MSM is reporting.
The low turnout for the stupid rally makes Trump look like an idiot (which he is), but unfortunately, Biden can't pull that much either, even pre-corona. The spin of "Biden can't fill a cafeteria" is pretty much true, so it makes for good deflection.
Unfortunately I have to agree with @Fandraxx on this. Biden vs Trump is like Grumpy Old Men 3. The weird asshole who insults anybody & everybody against the creepy, touchy-feely old man who rambles on about nothing. This is 2016 all over again except at least Biden isn't Hillary. I'm tired of our country being run by the geriatric ward...
They're now just making shit up. None of this happened. As if the Tulsa police or Trump crowd themselves would have allowed it to happen if it was. I've said it before, the contempt they have for their own voters to feed them these fever dream fantasies is way beyond cynical. However dumb the left think these people are, people like Brad Parscale believe they are 10x that dumb.
They've always been making shit up. That's his whole thing. Lie and then never admit the truth. Make stuff up. Fake it till you make it. Don't give up even when you're obviously a liar.
Anyway, Trump has the luxury to appear with no mask because the people he comes in close contact with are all tested. A great bit waste of tests. Let's say your the the string assistant naval gazer and you going to meet the president. You'd have to get tested. He's creating an illusion that there's no threat and people are willingly buying it. It takes effort to do the right thing. He's putting effort into doing the wrong thing. People are dying. people will die from this rally. People are dying all the time from the coronavirus. This jackass is making it worse.
This quote from New Zealand, where they've done a much better job handling the virus.
Global public health experts are looking on in "alarm and disbelief" as the U.S. economy reopens even as Covid-19 case numbers continue to rise in a number of states, with President Donald Trump signaling he has no intention of calling for more economic shutdowns regardless of the outcome.
As The Washington Post reported Friday, newspapers across Europe have recently published articles and editorials expressing shock at the Trump administration's approach to the pandemic.
"U.S. Increasingly Accepts Rising Covid-19 Numbers," read a headline this week in the Swiss paper Neue Zürcher Zeitung.
"It really does feel like the U.S. has given up," Siouxsie Wiles, a specialist at University of Auckland in New Zealand, told the Post.
After spending 4% of its GDP on coronavirus relief—which covered all wages for New Zealanders who had to leave work to self-isolate, doubled healthcare spending, and provided subsidies to businesses so they could maintain their payrolls—New Zealand announced in late April that it had effectively eliminated the coronavirus. As of Friday, the country had only three confirmed cases of Covid-19 in the past three weeks.
Trump's solution has always been to ignore the problem and also to try and make a buck. THAT'S IT. PEOPLE ARE DYING. This is ridiculous. He's killing people right now. RIGHT NOW. It is heartbreaking. And gross.
Unfortunately I have to agree with @Fandraxx on this. Biden vs Trump is like Grumpy Old Men 3. The weird asshole who insults anybody & everybody against the creepy, touchy-feely old man who rambles on about nothing. This is 2016 all over again except at least Biden isn't Hillary. I'm tired of our country being run by the geriatric ward...
He's trying to sell Biden as a socialist now. This just doesn't jive outside the type of people at this rally. This rally is pathetic. It smells like a man who knows he's beaten. He didn't want to go against Biden, I guess we know why. Someone today said Hillary's mistake was she spent too much time attacking Trump's character. Biden's team has just decided to go dark and let Trump basically attack his own character by continuing to exist. But I'm telling you, this is nothing like his rally energy before the virus. This is the middle of Oklahoma. They've been hyping it for weeks. They couldn't even fill a minor league hockey arena. Trump believes in the power of these rallies. If that's the case, then the power is, at the very least, running on a generator because the power line is down.
It doesn't really matter if Biden doesn't have enthusiasm. Hardly anyone is voting FOR Biden. Nearly everyone is voting AGAINST Trump. And the power of that negative partisanship is what counts right now. Biden can't fill a rally, this is true. But he's not attempting to. That's the difference.
His shtick comes across as totally absurd given what we're living through right now. Whatever America wants right now, this ain't it.
Don't mind me, just stirring the pot a little bit. Rasmussen's right-leaning, but they sample a higher percentage of democrats and they were pretty spot-on back in 2016 and they caught Biden crushing super Tuesday before anyone else, really.
Obviously, no poll is empirical, but this is a far cry from what the MSM is reporting.
The low turnout for the stupid rally makes Trump look like an idiot (which he is), but unfortunately, Biden can't pull that much either, even pre-corona. The spin of "Biden can't fill a cafeteria" is pretty much true, so it makes for good deflection.
Rasnussen was also the pollster that said that Republicans were going to win the popular vote in 2018 midterms in the low single digits. Democrats actually won by like 8.
They've generally got a pretty awful track record, and I dont think they're a good indicator of his current approval rating.
Unfortunately I have to agree with @Fandraxx on this. Biden vs Trump is like Grumpy Old Men 3. The weird asshole who insults anybody & everybody against the creepy, touchy-feely old man who rambles on about nothing. This is 2016 all over again except at least Biden isn't Hillary. I'm tired of our country being run by the geriatric ward...
It doesn't really matter if Biden doesn't have enthusiasm. Hardly anyone is voting FOR Biden. Nearly everyone is voting AGAINST Trump. And the power of that negative partisanship is what counts right now. Biden can't fill a rally, this is true. But he's not attempting to. That's the difference.
I don't think it's a fair assessment to say that enthusiasm doesn't matter. Trump has sixteen and a half million votes in a primary. He's running literally unopposed (Bill Weld got one delegate, sure). Enthusiasm is what gets people to drag themselves to the polls.
Trump peddles enthusiasm. The great entertainers are the ones that get elected. Say what you want, but he clearly strikes a chord with enough of the country to get elected once. Hillary wasn't an entertainer (not in '08 or '16) and Biden certainly isn't. I think the quiet strategy works until the two of them get on a debate stage. That's where I think Trump made his bacon in 2016, to be quite honest.
Don't mind me, just stirring the pot a little bit. Rasmussen's right-leaning, but they sample a higher percentage of democrats and they were pretty spot-on back in 2016 and they caught Biden crushing super Tuesday before anyone else, really.
Rasnussen was also the pollster that said that Republicans were going to win the popular vote in 2018 midterms in the low single digits. Democrats actually won by like 8.
They've generally got a pretty awful track record, and I dont think they're a good indicator of his current approval rating.
Again, like I said, just stirring the pot a little bit. I don't think any poll is an exact indicator of what the real numbers are (outside of the polls on election day, of course). I just found that one interesting cause it is so different from what most other places are reporting. I'd be interested to see if they conduct another one similarly, maybe in another two weeks or something, and see if it returns similar results.
Again, I usually come away from a Trump rally disturbed and repulsed. Tonight, it was just a sad-sack display of self-pity that he couldn't even play in tune. It felt pathetic rather than offensive. He spent a solid amount of time convincing people he could drink a glass of water correctly.
Don't mind me, just stirring the pot a little bit. Rasmussen's right-leaning, but they sample a higher percentage of democrats and they were pretty spot-on back in 2016 and they caught Biden crushing super Tuesday before anyone else, really.
Obviously, no poll is empirical, but this is a far cry from what the MSM is reporting.
It's always better to check poll aggregators than any single poll. Check fivethirtyeight.com or realclearpolitics.com , the latter, by the way, is run by conservatives. But they report a wide range of polling numbers in as straightforward a way as possible.
And these numbers are stark for Trump. No sitting president has polled this badly in the history of scientific polling. RCP.com now has Biden up by an average of 6.2% in Florida! That's a particular number that Clinton never achieved -- she really never was the favorite to win Florida.
Frankly, I think qualitative arguments about enthusiasm, or a particular candidates' characteristics are as good as reading tarot cards. They're especially so when they run contrary to what the best empirical evidence is showing.
I mean, it's also worth pointing out that he basically admitted to drowning our testing capacity on COVID-19 in the bathtub to keep the numbers artificially low in an almost off the cuff remark. Might not even know he did so. No, usually, as much as I hate him, I see a formidable opponent who concerns me. I didn't see that tonight. I saw Brett Favre when the Vikings asked him to run it back one season more than he should have. I mean, they put the health of the Tulsa community at risk for THAT shit?? Trump hates being humiliated, and trust me, he KNOWS he was humiliated tonight. I mean seriously, is this what they're going with, "Trump 2020: I Can Drink Water With One Hand"??:
Christ, maybe someone should make an ad about how he doesn't know how to wipe his ass properly and next week in Arizona he'll take a shit on stage with a couple rolls of Charmin next to him. It's hard to believe this is even real.
Don't mind me, just stirring the pot a little bit. Rasmussen's right-leaning, but they sample a higher percentage of democrats and they were pretty spot-on back in 2016 and they caught Biden crushing super Tuesday before anyone else, really.
Obviously, no poll is empirical, but this is a far cry from what the MSM is reporting.
It's always better to check poll aggregators than any single poll. Check fivethirtyeight.com or realclearpolitics.com , the latter, by the way, is run by conservatives. But they report a wide range of polling numbers in as straightforward a way as possible.
And these numbers are stark for Trump. No sitting president has polled this badly in the history of scientific polling. RCP.com now has Biden up by an average of 6.2% in Florida! That's a particular number that Clinton never achieved -- she really never was the favorite to win Florida.
Frankly, I think qualitative arguments about enthusiasm, or a particular candidates' characteristics are as good as reading tarot cards. They're especially so when they run contrary to what the best empirical evidence is showing.
This is the current analysis of approval polls from fivethirtyeight:
Looking at that the total approval rating from Rasmussen would be an outlier - though only marginally.
I looked at the Rasmussen site to see what questions they actually asked, but they didn't provide that information. Their explanation for differences to other pollsters is essentially around differences in methodology - particularly that Rasmussen use fully automated polling. They did though make the comment that their categories of strongly approve and strongly disapprove match better with other sites total approval ratings that their own total approval rating (which is presumably why Rasmussen use those categories for their approval index rather than total scores - and their approval index at the moment would not be an outlier on the above polling analysis).
Without seeing the questions asked it's difficult to speculate on the impact of those. However, I will make the general point that I'm sure a lot of conservative voters approve of the substance of many changes Trump has carried out (such as the significant re-balancing of the judiciary) and the extent to which this is captured in polls will depend very much on the questions asked. Not all voters that approve of changes made though would approve of Trump personally.
Berman has just resigned. He did so because the position would be filled by his deputy Audrey Strauss instead of Barr toady Craig Carpenito whom Barr originally tapped to fill the void on Friday evening.
“In light of Attorney General Barr’s decision to respect the normal operation of law and have Deputy U.S. Attorney Audrey Strauss become Acting U.S. Attorney, I will be leaving the U.S. Attorney’s Office for the Southern District of New York, effective immediately," he said in a statement, adding that he believed Strauss and her team "will continue to safeguard the Southern District’s enduring tradition of integrity and independence.”
I give it maybe a month, before Strauss is removed as she doesn't have the 'appointed by the courts' argument.
It does look like Berman wanted to preserve the standard line of succession rather than allowing someone to be parachuted in without Senate consent. I agree Trump's plan could well be to get rid of Strauss in the near future, but each time such action is taken without having a permanent successor available, the motivations for change become a little more obvious. Firing her prior to the election might be a bit more costly than Trump would like ...
Two questions.
1. Why don't they just remove trump as a candidate and get someone else from their party to run for presidency?
2. Isn't there some kind of independent or green party as alternative to Biden?
Two questions.
1. Why don't they just remove trump as a candidate and get someone else from their party to run for presidency?
2. Isn't there some kind of independent or green party as alternative to Biden?
1. They are cowards. He's popular with Republicans. Republican politicians have shown they will abandon any principles and kiss his ass and then ask for seconds. Republicans held an impeachment trial with no witnesses just to cover for him. No Republican dares oppose King Trump. It's honestly pathetic.
2. Yes, there are green party or whatever but vote for them is a good way to hand Trump the presidency again.
Two questions.
1. Why don't they just remove trump as a candidate and get someone else from their party to run for presidency?
2. Isn't there some kind of independent or green party as alternative to Biden?
As @smeagolheart suggested, he is very very popular about rank and file Republican Voters. Usually seeing %s over 90 in favorability there. While I think a lot of that support isnt grounded in reality (Those same Republicans have taken surveys suggesting they think Trump is a better president than Reagan o Lincoln) - the GOP seems to think it would be suicide to oppose him.
A more likely scenario is that the GOP does to him what they did to Bob Dole in 96. Accept that he is going to lose, and try to make a cohesive argument that the GOP should remain in control of the senate to act as check on Biden. However, given the prevalence of straight ticket voting, they doesnt seem likely either.
Lastly, to answer your second question: Since the USA is both a 2 party system and uses first past the post voting, there is no prospect of a third party being viable within US electoral politics.
Voting for the Libertarian/Green/Socialist parties are protest votes
He doesn't know how to run against Biden. Running against someone the right had made into an unlikable harpy as it's own cottage industry for 30 years is one thing. His message was simple. She's corrupt, "Crooked Hillary". Easy enough to understand. That's the message.
His attacks on Biden are just totally slapstick. One line last night was "if you elect Biden, Illhan Omar is going to turn America into Somalia". Huh??
As for his nickname game "Sleepy Joe" isn't what he thinks it is. For alot of people, a boring old guy who naps alot and lets experts do their job sounds like a fucking Caribbean vacation compared to Trump's unending, exhausting daily presence.
I'll use another music metaphor. My worst job ever was at a local food distribution warehouse. It was miserable for many reasons, but a not insignificant one was that they kept the local classic rock station, with it's miniscule playlist going 24-7 on the loudspeakers. And if I never hear "Kickstart my Heart" or "Paradise City" again in my life, it will be too soon. People are just tired of this. Worn out. Since COVID-19, it's not a joke anymore. Since George Floyd, it's not a joke anymore. And he's still treating it like a joke. People see that.
Two questions.
1. Why don't they just remove trump as a candidate and get someone else from their party to run for presidency?
2. Isn't there some kind of independent or green party as alternative to Biden?
As @smeagolheart suggested, he is very very popular about rank and file Republican Voters. Usually seeing %s over 90 in favorability there. While I think a lot of that support isnt grounded in reality (Those same Republicans have taken surveys suggesting they think Trump is a better president than Reagan o Lincoln) - the GOP seems to think it would be suicide to oppose him.
A more likely scenario is that the GOP does to him what they did to Bob Dole in 96. Accept that he is going to lose, and try to make a cohesive argument that the GOP should remain in control of the senate to act as check on Biden. However, given the prevalence of straight ticket voting, they doesnt seem likely either.
Lastly, to answer your second question: Since the USA is both a 2 party system and uses first past the post voting, there is no prospect of a third party being viable within US electoral politics.
Voting for the Libertarian/Green/Socialist parties are protest votes
I don't see them accepting that he is going to lose, they've ignored all warning signs. His whole thing is presenting an alternative reality (through lies), that is what conservative media feeds people leading to their beliefs that aren't reality based - like him being better than Lincoln. The Trump in conservative media is not reality Trump, it's fictional superhero Trump. They ignore or whitewash every injustice, every gaffe, every lie. They fearmonger about Democrats who are not even running things for the most part. Fear sells, especially to Conservatives based on scientific studies.
Anyway, no they won't accept reality. Much like Trump himself invented protestors stopping his rally crowd. Didn't happen but that's what he's going with. If he loses and Republicans get wiped out for covering for him they will learn nothing.
It's been a reality show going 24/7 since the day his stepped off that escalator. You can't script your way out of a pandemic. 120,000+ people are dead and regular life has been fundamentally altered. Sooner than later, most Americans are going to know someone who at the very least got very sick from COVID-19. A sizable portion of the electorate gave him a couple weeks to show something (even though he didn't deserve the benefit of the doubt, he WAS given it by alot of the populace) and what did he land on?? Basically (and I'm paraphrasing) that we should test less people and that masks are for pussies. I guess you can sell that to a certain amount of people, but every single one of them was already voting for him. Everyone else (as the 17% of independents number in recently cited poll pointed out) is saying "ok, enough of this. We need an adult in the room."
If the polling stays where it is, the ONLY thing that could save him would be election shenanigans. There are events that could alter the race, but what?? The States like Arizona, Texas, and Florida who opened early are now seeing the results of doing so. We now know given our behavior as a society collectively that COVID-19 is, at a MINIMUM, going to stay how it is, and not get better. The only direction it can go in is worse. The economy can't possibly recover in 4 months (and I'd be seriously concerned about people whose $1200 ran out in regards to July and August rent across the country). They've basically said "everything is fine, go back to normal" when everyone KNOWS that isn't the case.
And Biden?? He just keeps doing what he has been doing. Why would he alter course?? If COVD-19 gets more out of control, there might not even BE any debates. Biden doesn't have to hold any public events of any consequence because of the virus, which leaves out any opportunity for gaffes to take place. There is no "campaign trail" like there has been every year since the 1960s. Where the press basically invents things to talk about that come to define the terms of the race. There is no bullshit like Al Gore saying he "invented the internet" or him sighing too much during a debate. There is no pedantic nonsense about John Kerry getting Swiss instead of Cheez Whiz on his Philly Steak. It's just people being constantly reminded "things aren't good, and this guy is doing nothing, at best".
June and July are when opinions about the economy in regards to the upcoming election are solidified. The only thing usually left in the fall are ephemeral 24-hour news cycle BS like Hillary getting sick for a few days, the Access Hollywood tape, and the email case reopening. Without an army of press following both candidates across the country, none of that shit is even going to be on the table. Trump needs the campaign to be about the kind of tabloid trash that most campaigns boil down to. I don't know how that happens when there really IS no campaign going on because of the virus.
So now that the crowd-size story has sort of played itself out, we are left with the most important thing Trump actually said at the rally, which was that he encouraged testing to slow down to bring down the numbers. Now, OF COURSE, the White House line was that he was joking (because we are never supposed to take what this President says either figuratively or literally until it already happens and we know what the reaction was). First point being, it wasn't a "joke". It didn't have the construction of a joke, and it certainly didn't land like one. But let's assume it WAS a joke. You can get away with joking about Hillary Clinton's looks or Joe Biden losing a step or two. But "joking" about the testing capacity for a virus that is killing people's grandparents is not something people are looking for you to joke about. As an excuse, it's actually just as bad as the normal accusation.
And the regular accusation is true. We've known it for months, but he's just admitting it like he admits everything else. From the beginning, he's wanted testing capacity toned because he believes the numbers make him look bad. We already knew this. While he will likely face no legal repercussions at any time for this, in my mind, it's tantamount to criminal negligence. There are alot of numbers in the polls lately that are bad for him, but one of them is that only about 35% of people think"Donald Trump cares about people like me". I can't imagine why that is.................
"Defunding the police" is also employing the tactic of taking the most extreme position from the start, so when the inevitable compromises come, they are far closer to what you actually wanted. The American left is constantly (as long as I remember) starting their negotiations from a position of already compromising, then they add MORE compromise on top (see the Obamacare struggle) to seal the deal. This time, the starting point is extreme, and the eventual legislation or action, even if pretty radical, will seem prudent in contrast.
The actual Left, not the liberals who are not leftists want to "abolish the police and jails." Democrats are not the left just because they're to the left of Republicans. They're also largely ineffective because they pander so hard to the Republicans when the Republicans simply refuse to compromise.
Also, abolishing the police and jails would be a very good thing to do, and finally close one of the loopholes in the 13th amendment that allows the use of prisoners as slaves. Further, prison does not rehabilitate anyone, and it definitely doesn't prepare people to return to civilian life. Many end up back in prison because they're not even slightly prepared to survive outside. This is in addition to the fact that prisons are largely privately run now and are filled primarily for the purpose to provide more low-cost laborers to the corporations that own them. Or the fact that 46% of prisoners were arrested for nonviolent offenses. The war on drugs has done a lot to imprison people for decades just for having some weed on their person. Or in many cases, drugs planted on them or their belongings by police.
The police do not exist to protect citizens of the US, they exist to protect capital. Courts have ruled that the police have no responsibility to protect anyone, and have informally extended "qualified immunity" in order to let police get away with murder.
The left is not a monolith. Just as I believe you were fundamentally incorrect when you suggested that "true leftists" are only anti-state, I also do not believe "true leftists" must want to completely abolish both the concept of the police as well as prisons.
Some leftists do want that - but it is not dogma, and is not a requirement for one to consider themselves leftist.
Do not mistake this for me defending the institution of the police of the prison system as it currently stands.
Never thought this would happen, but seriously?! Abolish the police? Not to call people out but...
Do any of you have any concept of what one person can do to another? Do you? Really? I do, like in a way I truly hope none of you will ever experience. You talk from a place that has never known pain, never had a parent that would beat you until you couldn’t move, never been raped, never been left for dead. End prisons, end the police? I suppose that people can do whatever it is they wish? I was beaten and left for dead, know what, the police did nothing. Less than nothing, they buried it because I am different. Does anyone here actually believe though that without consequences you would be safe? Like at all? Is there a need for change, oh my god yes! Before you call an end to all of the safeguards, ask yourself, do you trust your neighbor? Do you trust the guy when you are walking to your car that is a little too close, it is a little too isolated? In your neighborhood there is a child being molested, there is domestic violence, in your neighborhood. What would you do with those people? Okay yeah, that was bad. Don’t do it anymore? Fix the system certainly but to abolish it? Madness.
What do you propose we do with those who prey on others? Kum by yah them into being better people?
Sorry, I am not a conservative or a liberal, both are too close to tribalistic for my comfort. But to hear someone say that abolishing the police and prisons would be a good thing turns my blood to ice and makes me very, very afraid. It makes me realize that people have no concept of the vile things people that sit next to them or walk past them every day are capable of. What someone you have walked past every day has done. I know what people are. Amazing, giving and wonderful and... horrible, violent and terrifying beyond what most will ever understand.
Fix it, change it, do whatever it needs to make it better but the human race is not yet evolved enough to let them do whatever they want. It will too often end up with one person violating another, in whatever way you wish to name.
It means when granny calls 911 because she thinks her dead husband is haunting her toaster you send a social worker. You buff up social services and reduce the militarized police. Police respond with violence. When your a hammer everything looks like a nail. Police are overstressed responding to stray dogs and everything else in some places.
Never thought this would happen, but seriously?! Abolish the police? Not to call people out but...
Do any of you have any concept of what one person can do to another? Do you? Really? I do, like in a way I truly hope none of you will ever experience. You talk from a place that has never known pain, never had a parent that would beat you until you couldn’t move, never been raped, never been left for dead. End prisons, end the police? I suppose that people can do whatever it is they wish? I was beaten and left for dead, know what, the police did nothing. Less than nothing, they buried it because I am different. Does anyone here actually believe though that without consequences you would be safe? Like at all? Is there a need for change, oh my god yes! Before you call an end to all of the safeguards, ask yourself, do you trust your neighbor? Do you trust the guy when you are walking to your car that is a little too close, it is a little too isolated? In your neighborhood there is a child being molested, there is domestic violence, in your neighborhood. What would you do with those people? Okay yeah, that was bad. Don’t do it anymore? Fix the system certainly but to abolish it? Madness.
What do you propose we do with those who prey on others? Kum by yah them into being better people?
Sorry, I am not a conservative or a liberal, both are too close to tribalistic for my comfort. But to hear someone say that abolishing the police and prisons would be a good thing turns my blood to ice and makes me very, very afraid. It makes me realize that people have no concept of the vile things people that sit next to them or walk past them every day are capable of. What someone you have walked past every day has done. I know what people are. Amazing, giving and wonderful and... horrible, violent and terrifying beyond what most will ever understand.
Fix it, change it, do whatever it needs to make it better but the human race is not yet evolved enough to let them do whatever they want. It will too often end up with one person violating another, in whatever way you wish to name.
I mean, I think I trust them more than the cops at this point, yes. I don't think they should be abolished, but I do think they should be restarted from scratch. In just the last week I've seen them willfully lie (as an organization) about being "poisoned" at a Shake Shack, and drive cars with sirens blazing on purpose at 3am in a black neighborhood in New York in what amounted to little more than a form of audio torture because they are pissed off about being called to account. This isn't even getting into the half dozen examples in the last few weeks of them falsifying police reports in direct contradiction to what we have on video (edit: add in another hilariously inept example of them lying in the last twelve hours, since a cop in LA has now reported someone at a Starbucks put a tampon in his drink. The picture shown in the news is most decidedly NOT a tampon by any stretch of the imagination, and was clearly just a long piece of cotton put in by the cop himself).
If you were to ask me if I trust the random weirdo walking down the street or the cops, I'd take the random weirdo 7 days a week and twice on Sunday. Of course all the stuff you mentioned is stuff that needs to be prevented, but it isn't police who are preventing that. It's laws. Police only show up, in nearly all cases, AFTER a crime has occurred. Sometimes they care, sometimes they don't. I can tell you that when I was in college, I was at the home I was renting alone when someone kicked down the dead-bolted front door. It turned out they were trying to go to the house NEXT to ours, so they left immediately (I heard them say this). When the cops did arrive, I told them what happened, and they couldn't have been less interested. Talked to me for about 3 or 4 minutes. Don't even recall them writing anything down. Point being, they certainly didn't prevent the door from being kicked in by existing, and they didn't care about it afterwards.
None of the parts of policing that actually matter are being served by what police spent MOST of their day doing, which is harassing minority and poor neighborhoods with charges and fines on petty bullshit, sitting at speed traps for hours at a time with a radar gun and a watchful eye for seat-belt usage, or running random license plates to see if they can funnel more money into the municipality they WORK for (because most often, they don't LIVE there, which makes them little more than mercenaries). This isn't even getting into the horrific physical and mental abuse we have seen them rain down on people the last month.
So if the question is "do I trust the people in my neighborhood or the cops more", the answer is the former, even though I know some of them are no doubt criminals. Because at least when those people commit crimes, they aren't wearing a badge that makes them immune to the consequences of doing so. Even in my limited exposure to both being the victim of crime (the aforementioned door incident, some stuff being stolen from my hallway storage at my apartment, and some change stolen from my car I left unlocked) and cops (the reporting of the door incident, and being harassed on no less than three occasions for having the temerity for being in my own car after midnight), I have more respect for what the criminals were doing. At the very least, I can reasonably imagine they needed money to buy necessities.
It should also be noted that as far as rape and abuse go, there are police officers who are MORE than eager to participate in both. I recall a story a read just last week on Twitter where a girl relayed a story of her being drunk outside a bar and an on-duty cop hit on her (which is totally inappropriate at best). She told him to fuck off (swearing at a cop is still not a crime) and when she did so, he and his partner then arrested her. With the implicit message being "pay attention to me, or we'll haul your ass into jail". When you hear SO many anecdotal stories about cops, you start to wonder about all the ones you DON'T hear about. So I made it a point to start asking nearly everyone I meet about their cop interaction stories years ago. My own personal conclusion is that nothing is below them. I've heard everything from one of my ex-girlfriends being followed and pulled over multiple times a month leaving work (she was a former stripper, so I'm reasonably certain what their intent was) to someone working a temp position at my job relaying how he was once purposefully taken outside the range of cameras in the dark on purpose and beaten because he swore at the cops while being arrested. No one had a good story to tell. Everyone had a horror story.
So to sum up, do we need a force that can carry out the investigation and apprehension phases of the criminal justice system?? Yes. But 75% of modern policing has nothing to do with that. It's about inventing crimes to make money and ego trips. You'll notice you don't see a hell of alot of brutality complaints filed on detectives or FBI agents. Because they are actually doing meaningful work and aren't just muscle conducting shakedowns that are barely discernible from what the mafia does. It's a protection racket that is giving off the illusion that it's necessary in anywhere near it's current size and scope.
The police in Atlanta stopped answering calls recently because they were pissed about one of their own being called to account. My guess is there was absolutely no difference in what happened in any neighborhood in the city on those days. Also, when most people show up to work and refuse to do it, they get fired. But cops make their own rules, while expecting EVERYONE else to follow the ones in place. It's also not uniquely dangerous. It isn't even in the top-10. You are far more likely (statistically) to be killed roofing a house or driving a cab. None of these professions carry with them the added perk of essentially being immune to all consequences of your actions short of incontrovertible video documentation of murder.
What's most concerning the last few weeks besides the brutal behavior on the streets is just how brazenly cops lie about interactions with citizens. They do it so easily and without any thought they will ever get caught (see the 75-year old man in Buffalo for example A) that one can only assume that they do so as a matter of course on a daily basis and give it no more thought than they do breathing. I think a serious case needs to be made that ANY conviction obtained on the basis of police officer testimony needs to be reexamined. It's that bad. They lie about EVERYTHING.
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“In light of Attorney General Barr’s decision to respect the normal operation of law and have Deputy U.S. Attorney Audrey Strauss become Acting U.S. Attorney, I will be leaving the U.S. Attorney’s Office for the Southern District of New York, effective immediately," he said in a statement, adding that he believed Strauss and her team "will continue to safeguard the Southern District’s enduring tradition of integrity and independence.”
I give it maybe a month, before Strauss is removed as she doesn't have the 'appointed by the courts' argument.
They're now just making shit up. None of this happened. As if the Tulsa police or Trump crowd themselves would have allowed it to happen if it was. I've said it before, the contempt they have for their own voters to feed them these fever dream fantasies is way beyond cynical. However dumb the left think these people are, people like Brad Parscale believe they are 10x that dumb.
All the signs point to a Trump defeat. At no point in 2016 did he have as little momentum as this and even the big time conservative influencers have essentially turned. During election time.
I'm reminded of when I went to see a line-up of hair bands with my dad in the mid-90s at a casino. For whatever, reason, Quiet Riot was headlining, even though they were barely still relevant in 1985, much less 1995. Crowd had already been there and had a good time for the previous 4 or 5 hours with other bands. By the time Quiet Riot came on, everyone was tired. And the fact was, Quiet Riot is a pretty shit band. Their two songs that were hits were all they had. But, of course, they had to save them for the end of the show. Problem was, they had nothing to fill the 70 minutes before that. Eventually, everyone just started actively calling out for "Metal Health" and "Cum on Feel the Noize". The lead singer eventually turned on the crowd, bitching us out for minutes at a time.
Trump isn't gonna turn on his crowd, but everything else about this reminds me of that Quiet Riot show. These people just wanna chant "lock her up" for 5 minutes and go home satisfied. What he's giving them right now is Quiet Riot's album tracks. No one gives a shit.
Edit: he gave them the lines about the NFL and kneeling. That's apparently also one of the hits. But few and far between.
I'm reading on Twitter that many teenagers across the country were ordering up thousands of tickets all across the country to purposefully artificially inflate the numbers of tickets requested as a joke, so that when the rally actually happened, it would go off like a popcorn fart. The Trump campaign basically got Rick-rolled.
Obviously, no poll is empirical, but this is a far cry from what the MSM is reporting.
The low turnout for the stupid rally makes Trump look like an idiot (which he is), but unfortunately, Biden can't pull that much either, even pre-corona. The spin of "Biden can't fill a cafeteria" is pretty much true, so it makes for good deflection.
They've always been making shit up. That's his whole thing. Lie and then never admit the truth. Make stuff up. Fake it till you make it. Don't give up even when you're obviously a liar.
Anyway, Trump has the luxury to appear with no mask because the people he comes in close contact with are all tested. A great bit waste of tests. Let's say your the the string assistant naval gazer and you going to meet the president. You'd have to get tested. He's creating an illusion that there's no threat and people are willingly buying it. It takes effort to do the right thing. He's putting effort into doing the wrong thing. People are dying. people will die from this rally. People are dying all the time from the coronavirus. This jackass is making it worse.
This quote from New Zealand, where they've done a much better job handling the virus.
Global public health experts are looking on in "alarm and disbelief" as the U.S. economy reopens even as Covid-19 case numbers continue to rise in a number of states, with President Donald Trump signaling he has no intention of calling for more economic shutdowns regardless of the outcome.
As The Washington Post reported Friday, newspapers across Europe have recently published articles and editorials expressing shock at the Trump administration's approach to the pandemic.
"U.S. Increasingly Accepts Rising Covid-19 Numbers," read a headline this week in the Swiss paper Neue Zürcher Zeitung.
"It really does feel like the U.S. has given up," Siouxsie Wiles, a specialist at University of Auckland in New Zealand, told the Post.
After spending 4% of its GDP on coronavirus relief—which covered all wages for New Zealanders who had to leave work to self-isolate, doubled healthcare spending, and provided subsidies to businesses so they could maintain their payrolls—New Zealand announced in late April that it had effectively eliminated the coronavirus. As of Friday, the country had only three confirmed cases of Covid-19 in the past three weeks.
https://www.commondreams.org/news/2020/06/19/heartbreaking-say-global-experts-alarmed-signs-us-has-given-fight-stop-covid-19[/table]
Trump's solution has always been to ignore the problem and also to try and make a buck. THAT'S IT. PEOPLE ARE DYING. This is ridiculous. He's killing people right now. RIGHT NOW. It is heartbreaking. And gross.
Orange Nero fiddles.
He's trying to sell Biden as a socialist now. This just doesn't jive outside the type of people at this rally. This rally is pathetic. It smells like a man who knows he's beaten. He didn't want to go against Biden, I guess we know why. Someone today said Hillary's mistake was she spent too much time attacking Trump's character. Biden's team has just decided to go dark and let Trump basically attack his own character by continuing to exist. But I'm telling you, this is nothing like his rally energy before the virus. This is the middle of Oklahoma. They've been hyping it for weeks. They couldn't even fill a minor league hockey arena. Trump believes in the power of these rallies. If that's the case, then the power is, at the very least, running on a generator because the power line is down.
It doesn't really matter if Biden doesn't have enthusiasm. Hardly anyone is voting FOR Biden. Nearly everyone is voting AGAINST Trump. And the power of that negative partisanship is what counts right now. Biden can't fill a rally, this is true. But he's not attempting to. That's the difference.
His shtick comes across as totally absurd given what we're living through right now. Whatever America wants right now, this ain't it.
Rasnussen was also the pollster that said that Republicans were going to win the popular vote in 2018 midterms in the low single digits. Democrats actually won by like 8.
They've generally got a pretty awful track record, and I dont think they're a good indicator of his current approval rating.
I don't think it's a fair assessment to say that enthusiasm doesn't matter. Trump has sixteen and a half million votes in a primary. He's running literally unopposed (Bill Weld got one delegate, sure). Enthusiasm is what gets people to drag themselves to the polls.
Trump peddles enthusiasm. The great entertainers are the ones that get elected. Say what you want, but he clearly strikes a chord with enough of the country to get elected once. Hillary wasn't an entertainer (not in '08 or '16) and Biden certainly isn't. I think the quiet strategy works until the two of them get on a debate stage. That's where I think Trump made his bacon in 2016, to be quite honest.
It's always better to check poll aggregators than any single poll. Check fivethirtyeight.com or realclearpolitics.com , the latter, by the way, is run by conservatives. But they report a wide range of polling numbers in as straightforward a way as possible.
And these numbers are stark for Trump. No sitting president has polled this badly in the history of scientific polling. RCP.com now has Biden up by an average of 6.2% in Florida! That's a particular number that Clinton never achieved -- she really never was the favorite to win Florida.
Frankly, I think qualitative arguments about enthusiasm, or a particular candidates' characteristics are as good as reading tarot cards. They're especially so when they run contrary to what the best empirical evidence is showing.
Christ, maybe someone should make an ad about how he doesn't know how to wipe his ass properly and next week in Arizona he'll take a shit on stage with a couple rolls of Charmin next to him. It's hard to believe this is even real.
This is the current analysis of approval polls from fivethirtyeight:
I looked at the Rasmussen site to see what questions they actually asked, but they didn't provide that information. Their explanation for differences to other pollsters is essentially around differences in methodology - particularly that Rasmussen use fully automated polling. They did though make the comment that their categories of strongly approve and strongly disapprove match better with other sites total approval ratings that their own total approval rating (which is presumably why Rasmussen use those categories for their approval index rather than total scores - and their approval index at the moment would not be an outlier on the above polling analysis).
Without seeing the questions asked it's difficult to speculate on the impact of those. However, I will make the general point that I'm sure a lot of conservative voters approve of the substance of many changes Trump has carried out (such as the significant re-balancing of the judiciary) and the extent to which this is captured in polls will depend very much on the questions asked. Not all voters that approve of changes made though would approve of Trump personally.
It does look like Berman wanted to preserve the standard line of succession rather than allowing someone to be parachuted in without Senate consent. I agree Trump's plan could well be to get rid of Strauss in the near future, but each time such action is taken without having a permanent successor available, the motivations for change become a little more obvious. Firing her prior to the election might be a bit more costly than Trump would like ...
1. Why don't they just remove trump as a candidate and get someone else from their party to run for presidency?
2. Isn't there some kind of independent or green party as alternative to Biden?
1. They are cowards. He's popular with Republicans. Republican politicians have shown they will abandon any principles and kiss his ass and then ask for seconds. Republicans held an impeachment trial with no witnesses just to cover for him. No Republican dares oppose King Trump. It's honestly pathetic.
2. Yes, there are green party or whatever but vote for them is a good way to hand Trump the presidency again.
As @smeagolheart suggested, he is very very popular about rank and file Republican Voters. Usually seeing %s over 90 in favorability there. While I think a lot of that support isnt grounded in reality (Those same Republicans have taken surveys suggesting they think Trump is a better president than Reagan o Lincoln) - the GOP seems to think it would be suicide to oppose him.
A more likely scenario is that the GOP does to him what they did to Bob Dole in 96. Accept that he is going to lose, and try to make a cohesive argument that the GOP should remain in control of the senate to act as check on Biden. However, given the prevalence of straight ticket voting, they doesnt seem likely either.
Lastly, to answer your second question: Since the USA is both a 2 party system and uses first past the post voting, there is no prospect of a third party being viable within US electoral politics.
Voting for the Libertarian/Green/Socialist parties are protest votes
Thank you for the clarifications.
He doesn't know how to run against Biden. Running against someone the right had made into an unlikable harpy as it's own cottage industry for 30 years is one thing. His message was simple. She's corrupt, "Crooked Hillary". Easy enough to understand. That's the message.
His attacks on Biden are just totally slapstick. One line last night was "if you elect Biden, Illhan Omar is going to turn America into Somalia". Huh??
As for his nickname game "Sleepy Joe" isn't what he thinks it is. For alot of people, a boring old guy who naps alot and lets experts do their job sounds like a fucking Caribbean vacation compared to Trump's unending, exhausting daily presence.
I'll use another music metaphor. My worst job ever was at a local food distribution warehouse. It was miserable for many reasons, but a not insignificant one was that they kept the local classic rock station, with it's miniscule playlist going 24-7 on the loudspeakers. And if I never hear "Kickstart my Heart" or "Paradise City" again in my life, it will be too soon. People are just tired of this. Worn out. Since COVID-19, it's not a joke anymore. Since George Floyd, it's not a joke anymore. And he's still treating it like a joke. People see that.
I don't see them accepting that he is going to lose, they've ignored all warning signs. His whole thing is presenting an alternative reality (through lies), that is what conservative media feeds people leading to their beliefs that aren't reality based - like him being better than Lincoln. The Trump in conservative media is not reality Trump, it's fictional superhero Trump. They ignore or whitewash every injustice, every gaffe, every lie. They fearmonger about Democrats who are not even running things for the most part. Fear sells, especially to Conservatives based on scientific studies.
Anyway, no they won't accept reality. Much like Trump himself invented protestors stopping his rally crowd. Didn't happen but that's what he's going with. If he loses and Republicans get wiped out for covering for him they will learn nothing.
If the polling stays where it is, the ONLY thing that could save him would be election shenanigans. There are events that could alter the race, but what?? The States like Arizona, Texas, and Florida who opened early are now seeing the results of doing so. We now know given our behavior as a society collectively that COVID-19 is, at a MINIMUM, going to stay how it is, and not get better. The only direction it can go in is worse. The economy can't possibly recover in 4 months (and I'd be seriously concerned about people whose $1200 ran out in regards to July and August rent across the country). They've basically said "everything is fine, go back to normal" when everyone KNOWS that isn't the case.
And Biden?? He just keeps doing what he has been doing. Why would he alter course?? If COVD-19 gets more out of control, there might not even BE any debates. Biden doesn't have to hold any public events of any consequence because of the virus, which leaves out any opportunity for gaffes to take place. There is no "campaign trail" like there has been every year since the 1960s. Where the press basically invents things to talk about that come to define the terms of the race. There is no bullshit like Al Gore saying he "invented the internet" or him sighing too much during a debate. There is no pedantic nonsense about John Kerry getting Swiss instead of Cheez Whiz on his Philly Steak. It's just people being constantly reminded "things aren't good, and this guy is doing nothing, at best".
June and July are when opinions about the economy in regards to the upcoming election are solidified. The only thing usually left in the fall are ephemeral 24-hour news cycle BS like Hillary getting sick for a few days, the Access Hollywood tape, and the email case reopening. Without an army of press following both candidates across the country, none of that shit is even going to be on the table. Trump needs the campaign to be about the kind of tabloid trash that most campaigns boil down to. I don't know how that happens when there really IS no campaign going on because of the virus.
And the regular accusation is true. We've known it for months, but he's just admitting it like he admits everything else. From the beginning, he's wanted testing capacity toned because he believes the numbers make him look bad. We already knew this. While he will likely face no legal repercussions at any time for this, in my mind, it's tantamount to criminal negligence. There are alot of numbers in the polls lately that are bad for him, but one of them is that only about 35% of people think"Donald Trump cares about people like me". I can't imagine why that is.................
The actual Left, not the liberals who are not leftists want to "abolish the police and jails." Democrats are not the left just because they're to the left of Republicans. They're also largely ineffective because they pander so hard to the Republicans when the Republicans simply refuse to compromise.
Also, abolishing the police and jails would be a very good thing to do, and finally close one of the loopholes in the 13th amendment that allows the use of prisoners as slaves. Further, prison does not rehabilitate anyone, and it definitely doesn't prepare people to return to civilian life. Many end up back in prison because they're not even slightly prepared to survive outside. This is in addition to the fact that prisons are largely privately run now and are filled primarily for the purpose to provide more low-cost laborers to the corporations that own them. Or the fact that 46% of prisoners were arrested for nonviolent offenses. The war on drugs has done a lot to imprison people for decades just for having some weed on their person. Or in many cases, drugs planted on them or their belongings by police.
The police do not exist to protect citizens of the US, they exist to protect capital. Courts have ruled that the police have no responsibility to protect anyone, and have informally extended "qualified immunity" in order to let police get away with murder.
Some leftists do want that - but it is not dogma, and is not a requirement for one to consider themselves leftist.
Do not mistake this for me defending the institution of the police of the prison system as it currently stands.
Do any of you have any concept of what one person can do to another? Do you? Really? I do, like in a way I truly hope none of you will ever experience. You talk from a place that has never known pain, never had a parent that would beat you until you couldn’t move, never been raped, never been left for dead. End prisons, end the police? I suppose that people can do whatever it is they wish? I was beaten and left for dead, know what, the police did nothing. Less than nothing, they buried it because I am different. Does anyone here actually believe though that without consequences you would be safe? Like at all? Is there a need for change, oh my god yes! Before you call an end to all of the safeguards, ask yourself, do you trust your neighbor? Do you trust the guy when you are walking to your car that is a little too close, it is a little too isolated? In your neighborhood there is a child being molested, there is domestic violence, in your neighborhood. What would you do with those people? Okay yeah, that was bad. Don’t do it anymore? Fix the system certainly but to abolish it? Madness.
What do you propose we do with those who prey on others? Kum by yah them into being better people?
Sorry, I am not a conservative or a liberal, both are too close to tribalistic for my comfort. But to hear someone say that abolishing the police and prisons would be a good thing turns my blood to ice and makes me very, very afraid. It makes me realize that people have no concept of the vile things people that sit next to them or walk past them every day are capable of. What someone you have walked past every day has done. I know what people are. Amazing, giving and wonderful and... horrible, violent and terrifying beyond what most will ever understand.
Fix it, change it, do whatever it needs to make it better but the human race is not yet evolved enough to let them do whatever they want. It will too often end up with one person violating another, in whatever way you wish to name.
It means when granny calls 911 because she thinks her dead husband is haunting her toaster you send a social worker. You buff up social services and reduce the militarized police. Police respond with violence. When your a hammer everything looks like a nail. Police are overstressed responding to stray dogs and everything else in some places.
I mean, I think I trust them more than the cops at this point, yes. I don't think they should be abolished, but I do think they should be restarted from scratch. In just the last week I've seen them willfully lie (as an organization) about being "poisoned" at a Shake Shack, and drive cars with sirens blazing on purpose at 3am in a black neighborhood in New York in what amounted to little more than a form of audio torture because they are pissed off about being called to account. This isn't even getting into the half dozen examples in the last few weeks of them falsifying police reports in direct contradiction to what we have on video (edit: add in another hilariously inept example of them lying in the last twelve hours, since a cop in LA has now reported someone at a Starbucks put a tampon in his drink. The picture shown in the news is most decidedly NOT a tampon by any stretch of the imagination, and was clearly just a long piece of cotton put in by the cop himself).
If you were to ask me if I trust the random weirdo walking down the street or the cops, I'd take the random weirdo 7 days a week and twice on Sunday. Of course all the stuff you mentioned is stuff that needs to be prevented, but it isn't police who are preventing that. It's laws. Police only show up, in nearly all cases, AFTER a crime has occurred. Sometimes they care, sometimes they don't. I can tell you that when I was in college, I was at the home I was renting alone when someone kicked down the dead-bolted front door. It turned out they were trying to go to the house NEXT to ours, so they left immediately (I heard them say this). When the cops did arrive, I told them what happened, and they couldn't have been less interested. Talked to me for about 3 or 4 minutes. Don't even recall them writing anything down. Point being, they certainly didn't prevent the door from being kicked in by existing, and they didn't care about it afterwards.
None of the parts of policing that actually matter are being served by what police spent MOST of their day doing, which is harassing minority and poor neighborhoods with charges and fines on petty bullshit, sitting at speed traps for hours at a time with a radar gun and a watchful eye for seat-belt usage, or running random license plates to see if they can funnel more money into the municipality they WORK for (because most often, they don't LIVE there, which makes them little more than mercenaries). This isn't even getting into the horrific physical and mental abuse we have seen them rain down on people the last month.
So if the question is "do I trust the people in my neighborhood or the cops more", the answer is the former, even though I know some of them are no doubt criminals. Because at least when those people commit crimes, they aren't wearing a badge that makes them immune to the consequences of doing so. Even in my limited exposure to both being the victim of crime (the aforementioned door incident, some stuff being stolen from my hallway storage at my apartment, and some change stolen from my car I left unlocked) and cops (the reporting of the door incident, and being harassed on no less than three occasions for having the temerity for being in my own car after midnight), I have more respect for what the criminals were doing. At the very least, I can reasonably imagine they needed money to buy necessities.
It should also be noted that as far as rape and abuse go, there are police officers who are MORE than eager to participate in both. I recall a story a read just last week on Twitter where a girl relayed a story of her being drunk outside a bar and an on-duty cop hit on her (which is totally inappropriate at best). She told him to fuck off (swearing at a cop is still not a crime) and when she did so, he and his partner then arrested her. With the implicit message being "pay attention to me, or we'll haul your ass into jail". When you hear SO many anecdotal stories about cops, you start to wonder about all the ones you DON'T hear about. So I made it a point to start asking nearly everyone I meet about their cop interaction stories years ago. My own personal conclusion is that nothing is below them. I've heard everything from one of my ex-girlfriends being followed and pulled over multiple times a month leaving work (she was a former stripper, so I'm reasonably certain what their intent was) to someone working a temp position at my job relaying how he was once purposefully taken outside the range of cameras in the dark on purpose and beaten because he swore at the cops while being arrested. No one had a good story to tell. Everyone had a horror story.
So to sum up, do we need a force that can carry out the investigation and apprehension phases of the criminal justice system?? Yes. But 75% of modern policing has nothing to do with that. It's about inventing crimes to make money and ego trips. You'll notice you don't see a hell of alot of brutality complaints filed on detectives or FBI agents. Because they are actually doing meaningful work and aren't just muscle conducting shakedowns that are barely discernible from what the mafia does. It's a protection racket that is giving off the illusion that it's necessary in anywhere near it's current size and scope.
The police in Atlanta stopped answering calls recently because they were pissed about one of their own being called to account. My guess is there was absolutely no difference in what happened in any neighborhood in the city on those days. Also, when most people show up to work and refuse to do it, they get fired. But cops make their own rules, while expecting EVERYONE else to follow the ones in place. It's also not uniquely dangerous. It isn't even in the top-10. You are far more likely (statistically) to be killed roofing a house or driving a cab. None of these professions carry with them the added perk of essentially being immune to all consequences of your actions short of incontrovertible video documentation of murder.
What's most concerning the last few weeks besides the brutal behavior on the streets is just how brazenly cops lie about interactions with citizens. They do it so easily and without any thought they will ever get caught (see the 75-year old man in Buffalo for example A) that one can only assume that they do so as a matter of course on a daily basis and give it no more thought than they do breathing. I think a serious case needs to be made that ANY conviction obtained on the basis of police officer testimony needs to be reexamined. It's that bad. They lie about EVERYTHING.