“Excessive Police Violence Must End”: Out of Control, Some Things Haven’t Changed Very Much
A Rip Van Winkle who fell asleep in 1968, awakening now, would see TV news footage that was achingly familiar: An American city under siege as mostly white police officers, firing tear gas, face off against mostly black civilian protesters, some violent but most just angry. The two elections of a black president notwithstanding, some things haven’t changed very much.
Among those areas where little progress has been made is the criminal justice system, which still reeks of institutional racism and a plethora of human prejudices. Black men, especially, are viewed as dangerous, predatory, criminally inclined. They are not usually given the benefit of the doubt — not viewed as innocent until proven guilty — by white police officers, prosecutors or jurors.
That helps explain the anger that has exploded in Ferguson, Missouri, where black residents make up 67 percent of the population but black drivers accounted for more than 86 percent of the traffic stops last year, according to a report by the Missouri attorney general. Police in Ferguson, a St. Louis suburb, searched 12.1 percent of black drivers they stopped, compared to 6.9 percent for whites.
Are black drivers more likely to carry illegal substances? No. Contraband was found 22 percent of the time when the driver was black and 34 percent when the driver was white. The police department, by the way, has three blacks among its 53 officers, according to The Washington Post.
The troubling racial disparities do not absolve the looters, the rioters, the thugs who have attacked police and damaged property since protests began. There is no excuse for criminal conduct; moreover, it detracts from legitimate gripes with the police. Those who use the protests as cover to steal or toss Molotov cocktails should be arrested and prosecuted aggressively.
However, it’s also true that police officers, sworn to protect the public, have a duty to act without causing more harm. Let’s remember how the troubles began: An unarmed black man, 18-year-old Michael Brown, was shot dead by a police officer. What brought this young man to the cop’s attention? Was he breaking into a car or assaulting a passerby? Nope. He was walking in the street.
The police officer who shot Brown after ordering him to the sidewalk claims he was attacked and a struggle for his gun ensued. However, one of Brown’s friends, a witness to the episode, relates a very different version of events. President Obama, while calling for calm, said he had ordered the FBI and the Justice Department to investigate.
That’s a step in the right direction, but it’s not nearly enough. If demands for justice come mostly from black voters, if a thorough investigation is seen as a predictable political response from a black U.S. attorney general, if outrage is voiced only by the talking heads at the liberal outpost of MSNBC, then there will be many more Fergusons to come. The overuse of force by heavily militarized police ought to concern every American, not just those most likely to be on the butt ends of police rifles.
It’s clear, no matter the details of Brown’s death, that local police have handled the aftermath poorly, inflaming tensions with excessive force. Heavily armed officers in desert camouflage have pointed large-caliber weapons at peaceful protestors. A couple of reporters were arrested last week because, apparently, they failed to move along quickly enough.
If there is any good news here, it’s this: The sense of outrage seems to have finally broken out of the usual bounds of race and partisanship. In an essay published in Time, Senator Rand Paul (R-KY) wrote: “The outrage in Ferguson is understandable — though there is never an excuse for rioting or looting. There is a legitimate role for the police to keep the peace, but there should be a difference between a police response and a military response.”
Demilitarizing police departments won’t rid the criminal justice system of endemic racism, but it may help to curb the unnecessary, violent confrontations by officers who have forgotten their oaths to “protect and serve.” And that could keep a few more young black men alive.
By: Cynthia Tucker, The National Memo, August 16, 2014
“Color-Blind Or Blinded By Race?”: Steve King Speaks Volumes About Conservative Claims Of Being “Color-Blind”
As events continue to unfold in Ferguson, some very telling reactions are emerging. One of particular importance (via Kyle Mantyla of Right Wing Watch) is from the uninhibited Rep. Steve King of Iowa, which speaks volumes about conservative claims of being “color-blind:”
Rep. Steve King appeared on Newsmax TV yesterday, where host J.D. Hayworth asked him about the rising tensions in Ferguson, Missouri and the call by members of the Congressional Black Caucus for the Department of Justice to conduct an independent investigation because of concerns about a history of racial profiling by the local police department.
King, of course, saw no need for such an investigation, claiming that these members of the CBC are basically “saying don’t enforce the law,” linking the issue to the sporadic looting and vandalism that has taken place by asserting that there is no need to racially profile those responsible for those actions because they are all black.
“This idea of no racial profiling,” King said, “I’ve seen the video. It looks to me like you don’t need to bother with that particular factor because they all appear to be of a single origin, I should say, a continental origin might be the way to phrase that.”
And here’s the inevitable kicker:
“I just reject race-based politics, identity politics” King concluded. “I think we’re all God’s children. We all should be held to the same standards and the same level of behavior.”
So if certain of “God’s children” happen to be prone to behaviors that annoy people like King, then they’re getting what’s coming to them, right? Race has nothing to do with it.
Before anyone objects to me singling out Steve King as an isolated crank, let’s remember this man is vastly influential in the U.S. House of Representatives and the nationally powerful Iowa Republican Party. Would-be presidents regularly and eagerly seek him out and figuratively kiss his ring. I’d love to hear Rand Paul–you know, the Republican leader engaged in all that wonderful African-American “outreach”–asked about King’s comments on Ferguson.
By: Ed Kilgore, Contributing Writer, Washington Monthly Political Animal, August 14, 2014
“Is Corruption A Constitutional Right?”: Public Pension Contracts Would Be For Sale To The Highest Bidder
Wall Street is one of the biggest sources of funding for presidential campaigns, and many of the Republican Party’s potential 2016 contenders are governors, from Chris Christie of New Jersey and Rick Perry of Texas to Bobby Jindal of Louisiana and Scott Walker of Wisconsin. And so, last week, the GOP filed a federal lawsuit aimed at overturning the pay-to-play law that bars those governors from raising campaign money from Wall Street executives who manage their states’ pension funds.
In the case, New York and Tennessee’s Republican parties are represented by two former Bush administration officials, one of whose firms just won the Supreme Court case invalidating campaign contribution limits on large donors. In their complaint, the parties argue that people managing state pension money have a First Amendment right to make large donations to state officials who award those lucrative money management contracts.
With the $3 trillion public pension system controlled by elected officials now generating billions of dollars worth of annual management fees for Wall Street, Securities and Exchange Commission regulators originally passed the rule to make sure retirees’ money wasn’t being handed out based on politicians’ desire to pay back their campaign donors.
“Elected officials who allow political contributions to play a role in the management of these assets and who use these assets to reward contributors violate the public trust,” says the preamble of the rule, which restricts not only campaign donations directly to state officials, but also contributions to political parties.
In the complaint aiming to overturn that rule, the GOP plaintiffs argue that the SEC does not have the campaign finance expertise to properly enforce the rule. The complaint further argues that the rule itself creates an “impermissible choice” between “exercising a First Amendment right and retaining the ability to engage in professional activities.” The existing rule could limit governors’ ability to raise money from Wall Street in any presidential race.
In an interview with Bloomberg Businessweek, a spokesman for one of the Republican plaintiffs suggested that in order to compete for campaign resources, his party’s elected officials need to be able to raise money from the Wall Street managers who receive contracts from those officials.
“We see [the current SEC rule] as something that has been a great detriment to our ability to help out candidates,” said Jason Weingarten of the Republican Party of New York — the state whose pay-to-play pension scandal in 2010 originally prompted the SEC rule.
The suit comes only a few weeks after the SEC issued its first fines under the rule — against a firm whose executives made campaign donations to Pennsylvania governor Tom Corbett, a Republican, and Philadelphia mayor Michael Nutter, a Democrat. The company in question was managing Pennsylvania and Philadelphia pension money. In a statement on that case, the SEC promised more enforcement of the pay-to-play rule in the future.
“We will use all available enforcement tools to ensure that public pension funds are protected from any potential corrupting influences,” said Andrew Ceresney, director of the SEC Enforcement Division. “As we have done with broker-dealers, we will hold investment advisers strictly liable for pay-to-play violations.”
The GOP lawsuit aims to stop that promise from becoming a reality. In predicating that suit on a First Amendment argument, those Republicans are forwarding a disturbing legal theory: Essentially, they are arguing that Wall Street has a constitutional right to influence politicians and the investment decisions those politicians make on behalf of pensioners.
If that theory is upheld by the courts, it will no doubt help Republican presidential candidates raise lots of financial-industry cash — but it could also mean that public pension contracts will now be for sale to the highest bidder.
By: David Sirota, Staff Writer at PandoDaily; The National Memo, August 15, 2014
“Habitual Cruelty To Others”: Ranting On Robin Williams, Limbaugh Exposed A Hole In His Own Soul
Having infuriated millions of Robin Williams fans with insensitive remarks on the late actor’s suicide, Rush Limbaugh now blames the “liberal media” and “despicable leftists” for distorting his innocent message.
This is an old dodge for Limbaugh. Yet however he parses his language, there can be no doubt that he sought to exploit a tragic event for what he likes to call “political education.” His attempt to brand Williams’ suicide with “the leftist worldview” was perfectly plain. And as usual, his alibi is plainly false.
In his original commentary on Williams, Limbaugh quoted Fox News – hardly a “liberal media” source even by his elastic definition – about the great comic’s possible motivations for taking his own life:
I mean, right here there’s a story on the Fox News website. Do you know, it says right here, that the real reasons that Robin Williams killed himself are he was embarrassed at having to take television roles after a sterling movie career….He’d had some divorces that ripped up his net worth, and he had a big ranch in Napa that he couldn’t afford any longer and had to put up for sale, and a house in Tiburon that he couldn’t afford anymore. This is all what’s in the Fox News story.
He had it all, but he had nothing. He made everybody else laugh but was miserable inside. I mean, it fits a certain picture, or a certain image that the left has.
Pursuing this tendentious theme, Limbaugh went on to mention the “survivor’s guilt” that Williams reportedly suffered over the early deaths of three close show-business friends, Christopher Reeve, John Belushi, and Andy Kaufman. “He could never get over the guilt that they died and he didn’t. Well, that is a constant measurement that is made by political leftists in judging the country,” he harrumphed, concluding with a few incomprehensible sentences about “outcome-based education.” (Even more oddly, Limbaugh promoted a wonderful appreciation of Williams in the Guardian by Russell Brand — an actor with very strong left-wing opinions.)
Still, his point was unmistakable: If you’re concerned about life’s unfairness – as Robin Williams, a dedicated lifelong liberal, certainly was – then you probably suffer from a dark and pessimistic worldview that may very well lead you to kill yourself.
Insofar as Limbaugh pretends to be educating the public, let’s school him by turning around his exploitative blather and putting him in the place of his rhetorical victim. A decade ago, when the radio talker’s addictive dependency on prescription painkillers was first exposed, it would have been easy enough to lampoon his behavior as an expression of his right-wing worldview.
Popping mouthfuls of oxycontin? He thought he could get away with it because of his wealth and status, like so many other millionaire crooks. Violating the narcotics code? He hates government and thinks he can ignore laws that inconvenience him, just like the Bundy Ranch gang. Publicly urging criminal prosecution of drug addicts while indulging the same weakness? He is just another moral hypocrite, like so many of his cronies on the right, from William Bennett to Newt Gingrich to… Rush Limbaugh.
As America watched Limbaugh struggle with his own personal issues, nobody tried to claim that he became a junkie because of his political attitudes. Indeed, most liberal commentators wished him a full recovery, even while noting his frequent failures of empathy. A few even suggested that he seize the opportunity to contemplate his habitual cruelty to others — and try to change.
Sadly, that never happened. If it had, then Limbaugh might have come to understand depression and substance abuse, which evidently killed Robin Williams, as illnesses rather than political or moral failing – exactly like the addiction that harmed Rush’s hearing and could have claimed his life. He might even have experienced an emotion so often mocked as “liberal” and too often absent from conservative moralizing:
Compassion.
By: Joe Conason, Editor in Chief, The National Memo, August 15, 2014
“An Opportunity For Change”: Could The Ferguson Conflict Produce Actual Reform On The Limits Of Policing?
Every once in a while, a dramatic news story can actually produce real reform. More often the momentum peters out once the story disappears from the news (remember how Sandy Hook meant we were going to get real gun control?), but it can happen. And now, after the aftermath of the killing of Michael Brown in Ferguson, Missiouri, turned to a chaotic nightmare of police oppression, we may have an opportunity to examine, and hopefully reverse, a troubling policy trend of recent years.
The focus has now largely turned from an old familiar story (cops kill unarmed black kid) to a relatively unfamiliar one, about the militarization of the police. The images of officers dressed up like RoboCop, driving around in armored assault vehicles, positioning snipers to aim rifles at protesters, and firing tear gas and rubber bullets at Americans standing with their hands up saying “Don’t shoot!” has lots of Americans asking how things got this way. This issue offers the rarest of all things, an opportunity for bipartisan cooperation.
One member of Congress, Rep. Hank Johnson, has already said he’ll be introducing a bill to cut back on the 1033 program, under which the Department of Defense unloads surplus (and often brand-new) military equipment to local police departments at little or no cost. So for instance, a town might be able to acquire a Mine Resistant Ambush Protected vehicle (MRAP), designed to protect soldiers against roadside bombs and worth hundreds of thousands of dollars, for two or three grand. Radley Balko found towns with as few as 3,900 residents that had acquired an MRAP.
In the past, all that firepower has usually been directed at individuals—the person suspected of selling drugs who’s sitting at his kitchen table when a SWAT team made up of local cops, fancying itself Seal Team Six taking down Osama bin Laden, comes barrelling through the wall. But in Ferguson, a militarized police force was unleashed on an entire community.
On Thursday, Rand Paul wrote an excellent op-ed in Time magazine on both the militarization of law enforcement and the unequal treatment of black Americans by the police. As I’ve suggested elsewhere, this would be a great opportunity for a liberal who, like Paul, has something of a national constituency—let’s say Elizabeth Warren—to join with him and push for a bill, whether it’s the Senate version of what Hank Johnson is proposing or a different way to accomplish a similar set of goals.
So could they actually come together? This is unlike Sandy Hook for one big reason: in that case, there were powerful interests standing in the way of change. It wasn’t just the power of the NRA that stopped any gun reform from happening, it was the fact that almost no elected official in the Republican party wanted it either. That’s not the case here—as much as cops might like these shiny toys that make them feel like warriors, there isn’t a core interest of the GOP at work.
On the other hand, there are limits to what the federal government can do. The militarization of the country’s police forces is something that has been growing for a couple of decades, fueled first by the War on Drugs and then by the insane idea that the police in every hamlet in every corner of the country needed to be able to wage battles against Al Qaeda strike teams. Congress could turn off the spigot that pours this equipment into these communities, but unless the federal government starts repossessing the equipment it already distributed (highly unlikely, to say the least), police departments all over the country will still be awash in military gear.
And that’s the biggest challenge: the problems the Ferguson case highlights are widely distributed, through thousands of police departments and millions of interaction between cops and citizens. The federal government can respond in a limited way to what we’ve all seen, but its actions will go only so far.
But I can’t imagine there’s a police chief anywhere in America who hasn’t looked at this situation and concluded that the Ferguson police completely bollixed it up. They also can’t help but notice what happened when the Ferguson police were told to stand down in favor of the Missouri state troopers, who didn’t bother with the riot gear or armored personnel carriers, but just went out and listened to people, and the result was so different. So maybe some of those police chiefs will examine their own policies, when it comes to both using that equipment and dealing with crowds of protesters. Ferguson surely won’t change everything. But it might be a start.
By: Paul Waldman, Contributing Editor, The American Prospect, August 15, 2014
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