Alan Grayson Wrote Legislation To Demilitarize The Police In 2014... Pelosi, Hoyer, Clyburn And Their Allies Made Sure It Failed

They were ready to roll the tanks if she got too frisky

Every Member of Congress loves-- or, until this month, used to love-- photo ops of them "delivering" goodies to their local police departments. They never consider that those goodies might one day be used against their own constituents. In August, 2014, garden variety policy brutality and murder brought on the "Ferguson unrest." Two months earlier, Alan Grayson introduced H.R. 4870, an amendment to an appropriations bill that attempted to demilitarize the police. Alan told me at the time that he bent over backwards to make it clear it was not about guns and ammunition. His amendment would have prevented the military-- under Clinton era's disastrous 1033 Program-- from sending local police departments "aircraft (including unmanned aerial vehicles), armored vehicles, grenade launchers, silencers, toxicological agents (including chemical agents, biological agents, and associated equipment), launch vehicles, guided missiles, ballistic missiles, rockets, torpedoes, bombs, mines, or nuclear weapons." So... all the guns they needed but... no tanks, guided missiles or nukes (to use against American civilians). Although Grayson managed to round up 62 supporters, there were 355 no votes, including, I might add, Lacy Clay, who supposedly represents Ferguson, Missouri.

Today Grayson told me that "After it was voted down, two months later, Ferguson happened.  We all saw tanks and militarized police there, on city streets. Two different Members of Congress came over to me and asked me, 'how did you know that was going to happen?'  I was too polite to give them my real answer. My real answer was: 'how did you not know that was going to happen?'... I introduced the Grayson amendment to keep [heavily military weapons] out of the hands of police because I have eyes, and I can see. What I see is endemic and pervasive racism, certainly not only in law enforcement, but in every corner of society, from umbilical cord to tombstone. When you put armored vehicles and drones into the hands of people who already have a monopoly on the legitimate use of force, isn’t it obvious in which neighborhoods they will be used? And if that’s not obvious, in which neighborhoods do you actually SEE them used? Neighborhoods of lefthanded people? Neighborhoods of redheads? Neighborhoods of people who prefer paper over plastic? No; you see them used in African-American neighborhoods, treating human beings in ways that we don’t even treat cattle."

After Ferguson, then-President Obama enacted Grayson's amendment by executive order and it was in place... until 2017, when Trump reversed the order and gave the Pentagon the green light to start selling "excess" military equipment to local police forces again. The other day, AOC was wondering aloud on Twitter why the Pentagon has so much "excess." Meanwhile, Trump's tiny pecker gets hard just thinking about scenes like this:

Since 2014, the program has facilitated the transfer of over $5 billion in "excess" military equipment to the police. Many people who are talking about "defunding" the police are specifically talking about that money.

One of the members who happily strutted up to the House well to vote against Grayson's amendment was was Albio Sires, reactionary New Dem of New Jersey. I asked his progressive opponent this cycle, Hector Oseguera, how he and Sires differ on the police problem. "You might wonder why some of these elected officials call themselves Democrats at all," he told me this morning. "My primary opponent was actually a registered Republican until the mid-90's, he regularly votes for Trump's war budgets, and recently voted to let the NSA read your browser history, so it's no surprise he's a fan of militarized policing. I stand as the polar opposite, and recently released a Social Justice platform that includes ending Qualified Immunity, and demilitarizing our local police forces, all things my opponent refuses to fight for. There is no legitimate reason to have a police force armed with chemical weapons, and ballistic missiles, but that's exactly what my primary opponent sought to allow. In a democracy, we should not accept the mixing of our police and military forces. Unfortunately, that's what Democrats like my primary opponent, constantly seek to do."

As long as we're discussing Grayson, I might as well bring up that he endorsed Mike Siegel (TX-10) for Congress. "Mike cares about the right things, which means that he can make a difference. Talk to any number of Democratic Members of Congress or candidates for any length of time, and you’ll realize that there are startling differences in what they say are important to them. Many Democrats neuter themselves, before they even get elected, because they can’t even articulate anything real, realistic and meaningful that they would like to achieve in office. Know what matters matters-- you can’t possibly accomplish anything useful if you don’t even know what you want to do. If you listen to Mike Siegel, you realize quickly that his head’s on straight, he’s got the right attitude, and that gives him a real chance to get good things done."

Pelosi is suddenly leading efforts to reform the way the police do their jobs, but in 2014 she made sure Grayson's amendment failed. I asked her progressive opponent, Shahid Buttar, how he and Pelosi differ on the police problem. "The biggest difference between me and Nancy Pelosi," he told me today, "is that she settles for acts of theater to advance her career dedicated to her corporate donors, whereas I am concerned about our communities-- and have dedicated my career to defending them, not only through legal activism, but with my body in the streets, as well. I’ve been an active participant in the movement for black lives since before the Ferguson  uprising, and announced in 2018 a policy platform including support for demilitarizing police, ending qualified immunity, and creating a national registry of violent police. We’re glad that-- as she has on so many other issues, from labor rights and congressional war powers to executive accountability and election security-- Speaker Pelosi has adopted some of our positions despite her earlier intransigence. Despite her recent shifts, however, she remains well behind the movement’s demands to defund police departments and end the disturbing phenomenon of private prisons, which we have also supported. Our communities need voices in Congress for whom solidarity is not a political stratagem, but rather a reflection of our longstanding commitments." That's why DownWithTyranny's only endorsed candidate so far this cycle is Shahid. You can help support his campaign at this link.

How Police Use Military Technology to Secretly & Persistently Track You

Persistent Surveillance Systems, used for "pre-event forensics, tracking targets in real time, and post-event forensics." Pre-event forensics? This isn't just about parades and demonstrations. It means constantly taping large areas of a city just in case an unplanned event (explosion, a murder) should occur.

by Gaius Publius

We could make some grand statement about the nature of surveillance in 21st Century America — there's certainly a grand and frightening statement to be made — but that would obscure the detail. (Do note, though, when you watch the videos, how much the American need for extreme Public Safety — "Daddy, keep us safe" — is invoked in justifying these intrusions.)

That said, from a recent Rolling Stone report on surveillance in Baltimore, here is just the detail, how Americans are being watched by cops of all stripes.

▪ Large urban areas are constantly photographed from 10,000 feet. Using multiple cameras in a plane flying at 10,000 feet and computer-driven "image stitching" software, police can photograph all open traffic and human interactions in five-mile square urban area for hours — and archive everything for later use.

This creates a storable, searchable, time-lapse wide-area "movie" of all street movement. Watch the video above to see it in action. Note that only at the end of the video are privacy issues even mentioned. Note also that the "events" discussed aren't just planned events, like parades and demonstration, but also events not announced ahead of time, like murders. "Pre-event forensics" assumes constant "just in case" surveillance.

This kind of surveillance is happening now in at least one American city, Baltimore. Benjamin Powers, writing at Rolling Stone (emphasis mine):

Eyes Over Baltimore: How Police Use Military Technology to Secretly Track You

"They view people as enemy combatants," says activist, as cops adopt surveillance, tracking, facial recognition programs designed for war zones

When protesters took to the street after police shot and killed Michael Brown in Ferguson, Missouri, they were greeted by law enforcement in full body armor, flanked by armored vehicles. In the two and a half years and countless shootings since, militarized police have become an all too familiar sight. In response, citizens have overwhelmingly begun to film these interactions on their smartphones, making the technology the eyes of our nation. But as we watch the police, they also watch us – only they don't use an iPhone. Often, they use military grade surveillance equipment that gives them a much broader view than simple cell phone cameras ever could.

The city of Baltimore has, in many ways, become ground zero for the military surveillance technology that is slowly making its way from the battlefields into the hands of police departments across the country. From January to October of last year, police monitored Baltimore's citizens using a Cessna airplane outfitted with military grade surveillance technologies multiple times, without their knowledge, that were developed for overseas war zones. The Baltimore Police Department has used surveillance technology such as large-scale aerial surveillance, advanced cell phone tracking and facial recognition technology on Baltimore's citizens, yet these technologies have had little to no oversight from city government, and most have a disproportionate impact on communities of color. Examined together, these surveillance technologies demonstrate an extended record of secret surveillance by the Baltimore Police Department. In August of 2016, the Department of Justice reported that the BPD needed greater oversight and transparency.

Yet police using military surveillance technology is increasingly common.

There's much more about these cameras, and who is financing their use, in the article. But cameras are just the start.

▪ Hardware and software tracks faces and captures cell phone communication. Hardware that mimics cell phone towers and facial recognition software have also been used to "oversee" Baltimore:

While PSS is the most recent example, Baltimore's citizens have also faced police armed with military technology to track cellphones and identify faces that was implemented and honed overseas. Both of these create very real problems for everyday people.

Since 2010, and potentially prior, Baltimore has been subjected to a technology developed for overseas battlefields called Stingray, otherwise know as a cell site simulator. The technology mimics a cellphone tower, causing nearby phones to connect to it. In the pinging back and forth once connected, a Stingray knows not only what cell phones are in the area, but also where they are, the calls they've made, and, importantly, the conversations themselves.

This data capture isn't just limited to the individual that police might be looking to track, but also all the other phones on the network.

About facial recognition surveillance, consider this, from the four-year-old NY Times report by Charlie Savage linked above:

Facial Scanning Is Making Gains in Surveillance

The federal government is making progress on developing a surveillance system that would pair computers with video cameras to scan crowds and automatically identify people by their faces, according to newly disclosed documents and interviews with researchers working on the project.

The Department of Homeland Security tested a crowd-scanning project called the Biometric Optical Surveillance System — or BOSS — last fall after two years of government-financed development. Although the system is not ready for use, researchers say they are making significant advances. That alarms privacy advocates, who say that now is the time for the government to establish oversight rules and limits on how it will someday be used. ...

The automated matching of close-up photographs has improved greatly in recent years, and companies like Facebook have experimented with it using still pictures.

...[R]esearchers on the project say they made progress, and independent specialists say it is virtually inevitable that someone will make the broader concept work as camera and computer power continue to improve.

“I would say we’re at least five years off, but it all depends on what kind of goals they have in mind” for such a system, said Anil Jain, a specialist in computer vision and biometrics engineering at Michigan State University who was not involved in the BOSS project.

"Five years off" from 2013 is 2018, and who knows how good they've gotten already? Is it deployed yet. The RS article suggests it's already deployed in Baltimore.

▪ Location-based social media monitoring and tracking has grown frighteningly sophisticated. This one is even scarier. To get a full sense of this system's power, watch the short marketing video below:

Amazingly powerful as a monitoring and tracking tool. But you knew this had to be possible, right? It just needed someone wealthy enough and authoritarian enough to get it implemented (looking at you, Deep State).

Note the stated goal, announced in the first sentence of the video: "To uncover actionable social media content." Again, this is a marketing video, selling its features to potential customers.

As the video shows, any content can be tracked using sophisticated filters. And who defines what "actionable" means? The FBI? Militarized urban cops? Attorney General J. Beauregard Sessions? Donald Trump during one of his night-sweat sessions?

And who defines what "actions" might follow such tracking? Obviously, the user, depending on their goal. Which opens wide the field of possibilities. Anyone with access to this system can use it for any purpose they wish. This includes hired, or rogue, mercenary forces like Blackwater (or whatever they're calling themselves these days). This includes anyone who can buy it. I imagine the range of who could do what to who with this stuff is endless.

But don't let your mind wander too far into that field of possibilities; you'll scare yourself.

Archived live performance; music credits at the link. Original recorded version here.

And you wouldn't want to do that. The world has already grown scary enough as it is, all on its own.

GP
 

Donald Trump: "My 100-Day Action Plan"

Watch the first 2:45 of this clip to see a primary reason Establishment Democrats lost to Donald Trump. Remember as you read on — it didn't have to be this way.

by Gaius Publius

What we're about to get from the incoming Trump administration is revealed in this two-page PDF released by the campaign in October before the election. I've pasted images of the document below. I recommend reading it through in full. Just brief comments here; I'll say more about some of its points in days to come.

Click to open each page in a separate window at full size. Here's page one:

Of the "Six measures to clean up the corruption and special interest collusion in Washington, DC," all are a farce, including and especially the so-called "ban" on lobbyists.

Of the "Seven actions to protect American workers," the second is moot (we hope), the first and third would be greatly welcomed, including by Bernie Sanders, the fourth is too vague to be meaningful, and the rest would guarantee a radical reshaping of human life on earth — at a faster rate than the Clinton-Obama weak-tea proposals would have done. It's death-by-climate under either party's proposals, but a faster one under Trump.

The "Five actions to restore security and the constitutional rule of law," if he did them, would increase the likelihood of a real, fighting, urban civil war in this country. The U.S. would become increasingly ungovernable.

Here's page 2:

This page lists ten bills Trump will try to enact with his Republican Congress, again in the first 100 days of his administration. These include:

• A Bush-style tax relief bill that promises 4% GDP growth. The bill will likely happen; the 4% growth is pie-in-the-sky bait-and-betrayal ("You'll get pie in the sky when you die," and not before). Zero-to-anemic GDP growth is the permanent normal, and will never change until the massive burden of private debt is written down, something no money-financed politician — including Trump, almost all Republicans, and the entire Clinton wing of the Democratic Party — will allow.

• A "Trojan Horse" Infrastructure Act that finances, not infrastructure, but tax breaks to infrastructure investors. Trump's "infrastructure act" offers (a) no guarantee that unprofitable needed projects, like Flint Michigan water system renovation, will ever be undertaken, and (b) no guarantee that one new worker will be hired. It's a trap, and no Democrat, not one, should sign onto it.
  
  In fact, if you want an easy list of Democrats who should be retired to K Street in 2018, watch who jumps at the chance to be all-bipartisan about this bill.

• A School Choice Act that further privatizes education. This accelerates work started under Bush II and continued under Obama, the transfer of public education to wealthy investors as a profit opportunity. 

• A "Repeal and Replace Obamacare" Act that is unlikely to be implemented in full, but which you should read to see what he and the Republicans are aiming for. Notice the fast-tracking for drug approvals. That could be good for citizens (if competing drugs are no longer held off the market by deliberately slow FDA approval) or terrible (if largely untested or industry-only-tested drugs are sped onto the market way too soon. Expect the latter only.

• "Community Safety" and "National Security" acts that will certainly increase the arrogance and militarization of police — read, "increase the likelihood of a real, fighting, urban civil war in this country" — and put military and domestic spy spending into overdrive. And just wait until Trump discovers the how NSA-gathered information can be used for blackmail. (Did Cheney make that discovery? Was that why Comey said No at Ashcroft's hospital bedside? At least one person on this planet, yours truly, has asked that question.)

In short, there's absolutely nothing good in these bills, and much that will throw the country into chaos. The federal budget will balloon (not a bad thing if properly spent, since most of the nation has yet to see a recovery), but Trump will give all new money to the wealthy and the Establishment-connected, the very people Trump voters wanted to toss out.

Even his proposals for veterans and the VA are meaningless. How do I know? This country never pays debts to veterans these days, despite all the hoopla around military pre-sales events at halftime shows. Veterans have already given all they can give to the country and can't be induced to give more, so there's no reason not to save money by welshing on promises that got them to join. Veterans, who are finished with fighting, have no leverage in that negotiation, nothing to withhold, and therefore no power against the government.

It's sad to say it that way, but it's true. The deficit never matters when it comes to war, but as soon as someone talks about VA funding, someone else mentions "the deficit," which suddenly does matter, and the discussion ends. Both political parties play this game.

Trump especially will never increase VA funding, except cosmetically, since as a contractor, he always tries to welsh on a deal after the product has been delivered. Again, sad to put it that way, but that's how Trump thinks and acts. Like a predator.

A Pre-Revolutionary State

Keep in mind, America is in a pre-revolutionary state. If it weren't for the DNC, its manipulation of the process, and the many closed (to independents) primaries it ran, Sanders would have won. Ask yourself, perhaps as you watch the first three minutes of the clip above, how someone who can fill football stadiums was beaten by someone who can't fill a high-school gymnasium.

Answer: He wasn't. His defeat was engineered by everyone in position to affect it. A thousand thumbs were on that scale.

America was in a pre-revolutionary state before the primary, in fact was in that state ever since the crisis of 2007-2008 and its follow-on "[False] Hope and [Neoliberals Don't] Change" election, which seated neoliberal Barack Obama as neoliberal Bill Clinton's successor. The Sanders and Trump ascendancies both demonstrate how strongly people want that change to occur.

No matter who won the general election in 2016, Establishment Clinton or faux–Change Agent Trump, it wouldn't have taken much under either administration to tip the balance toward revolt, since under either the suffering were going to keep suffering beneath the boot of the bankers and CEO class. Only a Sanders presidency would have lowered those odds significantly. It certainly won't take much to tip the balance toward revolution, with Donald Trump grinding people's gears.

Our job: Make sure when Trump voters' gears are being ground, we offer highly popular Sanders Wing policies to them, and nothing else.

I think Establishment Democrats have at most six months from now to surrender to the Sanders faction (which, as the big losers of 2016, they should do). If they don't surrender, they will make themselves an irrelevant minority party for the rest of this generation. Or until full-blown climate chaos hits and no one on the globe talks elections. Or both.

You heard it here first. Six months max for the Party to reform itself. Sinon ça, le déluge.

GP
  

The War On Drugs And The Deterioration Of Police-Community Relations

My old friend and sometime neighbor, film-maker (Super High Me) and marijuana legalization activist Alex Campbell, was very much there for me when I was undergoing the ravages of chemotherapy. He talked me into trying marijuana to help alleviate the devastating and life-threatening side-effects of chemo. It worked. Today I asked Alex to explain the connection between the War of Drugs and the accelerated friction between police and the communities they're supposed to be serving.

An American Police State
-by Alex Campbell

If you live in the United States of America, you live in a police state. You may say, no this is not possible, not in my town. Not my neighborhood.

Unfortunately, it is now an undeniable truth of our society in the U.S. We have all the hallmarks of a police state-- our electronic communications are the subject of surveillance and our movements on the roadways are monitored by license plate readers. Asset seizure without legal due process has become the norm. Political speech is met with force-- see Ferguson and Occupy Oakland.

The police state began with the rise of the military industrial complex, it became institutionalized with the Nixon administration and was sent well on its way with the Reagan era "war on drugs." And then 9/11 happened. Which brought the Patriot Act and accelerated the militarization of the police and the erosion of the rights of the citizens of America in the name of protecting us.

The truth is, we need to be protected from the police now. The police forces in this country have adopted an "us against them" mentality. If you are a person of color in America, you are more likely to be killed by the police then you are by a terrorist. If you are traveling on the interstate roadways and you are carrying more than a thousand dollars in cash and you are pulled over and the police find the money, they are going to seize it and claim that it is proceeds from drug crimes. Because no one carries cash anymore except drug dealers. There is no due process, no trial. The money is taken and in most cases, people don't fight the charges because it costs more money in legal fees than the sums that are taken. This process is called "for-profit policing" and in many localities the police use the proceeds to buy more "toys" aka specialized weapons and tank-like vehicles.

The police in this country used to be viewed as friendly fixtures in the neighborhood. The local beat cop lived in his beat, knew the people who lived there, and cared about his neighborhood. Now the local beat cop commutes to his job and views his position as an occupying force to maintain law and order over the underclass. The LAPD's motto is "To Protect and Serve." The real slogan should be "To Oppress and Control."

Recent technological advances have exposed the lies of the modern police state, namely dashboard and body cameras that police are required to wear, as well as citizens who record police interactions with their smart phones. FBI Director James Comey spoke out against what he called the "Ferguson effect" of viral videos and said that the recent uptick in violent crimes could be due to police being afraid to do their jobs because they are concerned they will end up in a video. Public comments such as this are no doubt a precursor to legislative attempts to make filming the police an illegal act. And in North Carolina, legislation was recently passed that requires a court order to release dashboard and body camera footage, further hiding what the police are doing. The governor of North Carolina said that the new law would bring "transparency"-- a truly Orwellian turn of phrase.

With the recent spate of violence against police officers, you can be sure there will be renewed calls for new laws protecting the police. And hidden within these new laws will be more ways for the police state to dodge accountability and hide their activities-- all in the name of protecting the citizenry but in truth protecting the illegal and unconstitutional activities of the police state.

Our judicial system has become corrupted by the lies police tell in order to make "righteous busts." The prosecutors and the judges are complicit in these lies. I saw this corruption firsthand as a medical marijuana activist over the past ten years in California. In case after case that I have attended, I have seen narcotics officers outright lie on the stand to support warrantless entries or to support weak cases. And watched as the judge and the prosecutor all played along with the kabuki theater, all in the name of stopping the war on drugs.

All police lie to support their illegal actions. There is even a word they use privately to describe this behavior-- "testilying." Our policing systems in America are broken and we will not survive as a republic if the police state is allowed to expand unchecked. It has turned into "us against them"-- the very institution that is supposed to protect and serve the American people now views the American people as the enemy. And many Americans, especially those of color, view the police as an enemy.

I believe that if we can end the war on drugs, we can help change the way policing is done in America. The war on drugs has given the police cover to commit egregious acts and allowed the police to become a quasi-military force where they make the rules. Ending the drug war will give less reasons for the police to oppress the citizens--there will be no more stop and frisk policies such as existed in New York City. Nor more unlawful asset seizure without due process No more no knock warrants. And the police can turn their attention back to their original purpose--protecting and serving the community. A huge level of fear of the police will disappear overnight if the drug war ends. And that alone should help shift police and civilian relations.

This post was inspired by a recent letter to the editor in the Arizona Republic:

Ending The Drug War Would Help Bridge Police-Citizens Divide

After all the police shootings, only the Libertarian Party provided a viable solution:

"If we truly want to reduce situations in which police are pitted against the people they are sworn to protect, we would end the war on drugs. The constant escalation of prohibitionist policies have increasingly pitted police and citizens against each other for decades and are largely responsible for the militarization of police forces across America.

"Ending the violence means ending the policies that lead to black and gray markets, the highest incarceration rate in the world, and reduced economic opportunities in the formal labor market for huge swaths of Americans. Ending the violence means ending the war on drugs.

"Ending the drug war will do more to heal the divide between police and citizens than any other measure. It is the best way to save lives: both those of innocent police officers and innocent citizens."

- Dr. Richard W. Morris, Phoenix

While making Super High Me, Campbell become radicalized after being repeatedly threatened by DEA and California law enforcement officers over his filming of their raids of medical marijuana dispensaries and cultivators. He moved to Oakland and started working with Richard Lee in Oaksterdam. Campbell delivered the cannabis plants to the first set of classes held at Oaksterdam University, which at the time were in a small storefront in downtown Oakland. In 2008, Campbell opened Oaksterdam Nursery, Los Angeles and was the first medical marijuana cultivator to provide a trusted source of genetics to multiple dispensaries around the state of California, everywhere from Sacramento south to Orange County. Oaksterdan Nursery is widely recognized for releasing the first legitimate cutting of the fabled OG Kush strain, the availability of which reduced wholesale prices of cannabis by 25%.

Campbell was the second largest donor to the Prop 19 campaign in 2010 throughout much of the campaign and was involved in the day to day operations of the campaign. His financial political activities were curtailed when DEA and LAPD agents raided his legal cultivation facility in Los Angeles during the middle of the Prop 19 campaign, a precursor to the larger raid of Oaksterdam in 2012 that was widely viewed as payback for putting Prop 19 on the ballot.

Campell is currently in post-production on two documentaries. The first, titled Super High Me Redux, is a comedic sequel to Super High detailing the difficulties the filmmakers had in making the original film. The second film is titled Oaksterdam Now and is the story of the Prop 19 campaign and the subsequent large scale police raids that resulted in no indictments.

The Forces Of Racism Are Stoking Divisiveness... And Trumpism

I was listed as the Executive Producer of the record from which the video above was made. I'm very proud to have played a small part in getting these ideas out in 1992. I would have wished the police would have learned something from the song and the ensuing controversy-- and, truth be told, many have. But not enough to stop the attitude that keeps the police murder of young black men at epidemic levels in America. I believe in peace and love and non-violence... and I understand why black men don't want to be victims and need to defend themselves from the real life (and death) manifestation of this attitude.

In Baton Rouge, where police murder citizens with impunity (and, apparently, immunity), #BlackLivesMatter activist DeRay McKesson fell into their hands late Saturday night while protesting the unprovoked murder of Alton Sterling. Approximately 100 protesters were arrested. Unable to show up for his scheduled Face the Nation appearance yesterday, Deray tweeted: "The protestors weren't blocking traffic or doing anything else. The police simply wanted to show and use force."

Demonstrations protesting the police murders of Alton Sterling and Philando Castile, respectively in Baton Rouge and St. Paul, continued into Sunday all around the country, while the forces of racism, bigotry and Trumpism took to the mass media to stoke the hatred.

It’s all the fault of Black Lives Matter. This uncivil war that has broken out. This slaughtering of blacks and whites, cops and civilians, civilians and cops around the country.

Instead of laying off their ugly rhetoric while too many families were trying to heal from last week’s horrific violence and death, has-been and should-be has-been right-wing politicians took to social media and TV to spew their hate and point their trigger fingers at those trying to heal the hate.

Take Texas Lt. Gov. Dan Patrick. This heartless creep, in the aftermath of the horror that took the lives of five police officers, declared on Fox that the protesters who ran from the sniper fire were hypocrites “with big mouths” who are “creating situations like we saw last night.” Perhaps he would have preferred that they didn’t protect their children in the peaceful protest but pulled out guns and shot? “I do blame former Black Lives Matter protests,” he added.

So much for the right to assembly and free speech.

Then there was Corey Stewart, Donald Trump’s Virginia campaign chair.

“Liberal politicians who label police as racists-- specifically Hillary Clinton and Virginia Lt. Governor Ralph Northam-- are to blame for essentially encouraging the murder of these police officers,” he said.

Can you repeat that in the original German, Herr Stewart?

Tea Party racist hate-baiting former Congressman Joe Walsh actually went one worse, calling for war against the President.

“3 Dallas Cops killed, 7 wounded. This is now war,” he tweeted. “Watch out Obama. Watch out black lives matter punks. Real America is coming after you.”

And, before he had the facts, he declared the shooting was done by “2 uneducated black thugs.”

In any other country, calling for an attack on the President would be an act of treason. Here, it’s a one-day twitter rant.

Amping up the racism was Congressman Steve King, who tweeted, “The Dallas Police officer shooting has roots in first of anti-white/cop events illuminated by Obama…”

But we New Yorkers bear a special shame today after the hatred spewed by our loathsome former mayor, Rudy Giuliani, who blamed black children. “Let’s teach everyone including the children of the black community that most of those police officers are the reason you’re alive,” he said on MSNBC. “Because the real danger to you is that black kid who is going to shoot you on the street.”

Then, he shamelessly added, “My father taught me that, when a police officer tells you something, do what he says.”

Dad must have learned this after he went to Sing Sing for armed robbery. (Rudy! An Investigative Biography of Rudolph W. Giuliani, by Wayne Barrett).

Not one of these jerks brought up the fact that thanks to the NRA and the pols they buy, there are more guns than humans in this country and the gap is increasing daily. The right to bear arms has overtaken the right to free assembly in the USA of the NRA. We are becoming our own terrorists.

Gunfire hit the police headquarters in San Antonio. And Saturday night protests in St .Paul shut down the I-94 and resulted in police using tear gas against demonstrators and, eventually, in dozens of arrests. Stones were thrown at some of the policemen.

At least the Black Caucus took time out of it's crusade for re-enabling Wall Street predators to demand that Congress over-ride Ryan and the NRA and take action on gun violence. Not reassuring enough for the government of the Bahamas, which issued a travel alert Friday for it's citizens thinking of going to the U.S.

The Ministry of Foreign Affairs and Immigration has taken a note of the recent tensions in some American cities over shootings of young black males by police officers.

At the commencement of the Independence holiday weekend, many Bahamians will no doubt use the opportunity to travel, in particular to destinations in the United States.

We wish to advise all Bahamians traveling to the US but especially to the affected cities to exercise appropriate caution generally. In particular young males are asked to exercise extreme caution in affected cities in their interactions with the police. Do not be confrontational and cooperate.

If there is any issue please allow consular offices for The Bahamas to deal with the issues. Do not get involved in political or other demonstrations under any circumstances and avoid crowds.

If Only Congress Had Listened To Alan Grayson And Donna Edwards Last June

Patrick Murphy has called himself a Democrat for around 4 years now

Chris Van Hollen, the Establishment Dem running against Donna Edwards for the Democratic Senate nomination in Maryland, is not a Blue Dog or a New Dem. Nor is he a progressive. He's just sort of in the middle. When Donna was fighting to expand Social Security and Medicare benefits for retirees, Van Hollen was backing Simpson-Bowles and talking about "compromising" away seniors' benefits.

And last year when Alan Grayson introduced a bill to stop the militarization of local police, Donna voted for the amendment, while Van Hollen voted with the GOP against it. The conservative New Dem, Patrick Murphy, whom Grayson is opposing in the race for the Florida Senate seat also voted against the amendment-- as did Blue Dog Dan Lipinski and Republicans Dave Reichert and Fred Upton. What Grayson and Edwards were trying to accomplish was a prohibition on use of funds to transfer "aircraft (including unmanned aerial vehicles), armored vehicles, grenade launchers, silencers, toxicological agents, launch vehicles, guided missiles, ballistic missiles, rockets, torpedoes, bombs, mines, or nuclear weapons through the DOD Excess Personal Property Program established pursuant to the National Defense Authorization Act for Fiscal Year 1997."

It's very similar to yesterday's executive order banning military equipment transfers to police. Obama's order includes armored vehicles, weaponized aircraft and vehicles, bayonets, grenade launchers, and large-caliber firearms. Yesterday both Grayson and Edwards expressed their gratitude that President Obama acted where Congress refused. "I’m pleased," Grayson told us, "that the President wants just as much as I do to avoid the militarization of our streets and neighborhoods, and that he recognizes that the Grayson Amendment is the solution to that problem." That's very different from what Grayson said on the House floor last June when his amendment was being debated-- and killed by elites like Patrick Murphy, Dan Lipinski and Chris Van Hollen.

"I think this is appalling," Grayson said at the time. "That is why my amendment would prohibit the Department of Defense from gifting excess equipment, such as aircraft-- including drones-- armored vehicles, grenade launchers, silencers, and bombs to local police departments. Those weapons have no place in our streets, regardless of who may be deploying them... I don’t think this is the way I want my America to be. I think we should help our police act like public servants, not like warriors at war. I think we should facilitate a view of America where the streets are safe and they don’t resemble a war zone, no matter who is deploying that equipment. We don’t want America to look like an occupied territory."

Yesterday, Donna reminded Maryland voters she was ahead of the curve that blindsided Van Hollen last June. She told Maryland voters: "As a co-sponsor of the Stop Militarizing Law Enforcement Act, I applaud the President for taking the appropriate steps to enhance accountability, increase transparency, and ultimately create better, innovative ways to serve the needs of law enforcement and our communities. We must strike the appropriate balance between protecting those officers who put their lives on the line and ensuring those communities trust them. Last June, I was only one of 62 House members (43 Democrats) to support an amendment that would have prevented the Department of Defense from distributing heavy weapons and vehicles to local police forces. While I applaud the efforts and courage our police departments continue to show each and every day, I feel that militarizing them will not solve the unrest that continues among our communities. I thank the President for leading on this ongoing issue of building strong relationships between law enforcement officers and those who they serve and protect."

Helping Donna and Alan win their Senate races-- against two congressmen who voted to continue the military buildup of local police-- is an act to substantively improve the functioning of American society. And Blue America has a page for Senate candidates, all of whom oppose police over-militarization.

Real Americans like "Pop-Off Petey" King are singing and dancing over the Staten Island grand jury's no-indictment verdict

Natalie Wood as Maria mimes (while Marni Nixon sings) "I Feel Pretty," from the film version of West Side Story. It will be interesting to see whether Rep. "Pop-Off Petey" King (R-NY) emerges from the little experiment I have in mind for him singing "I Feel Pretty."

by Ken

I'm sure you've heard about "Pop-Off Petey" King's deeply felt response to the grand jury decision not to indict Staten Island's killer cop, which is hooray for the grand jury, and it's victim Eric Garner's own damn fault for being fat and asthmatic. After all, when you're planning to be choked by a cop, it's important to be physically fit.

Once upon a time Pop-Off Petey expended a lot of energy pretending to be a "moderate." These days, not so much. Maybe it's the "mainstreaming" over the last decade or more of views that would once have shocked and nauseated decent folks, maybe it's advancing age, but in recent years the Long Island Representative King has gotten harder to distinguish from "the other white meat" Representative King, Iowa's certifiably loony, tin-foil-hatted Steve K.


Check out Sam Levine's HuffPost report on Petey's performance.

Pop-Off Petey's latest antics got me to thinking that possibly hey would be open to a little scientific experiment. Let's say we put him in a position -- it shouldn't be difficult to work out the particulars -- where he is obliged to say, truthfully, "I can't breathe. I can't breathe. I can't breathe. I can't breathe. I can't breathe. I can't breathe. I can't breathe. I can't breathe." For the sake of this experiment, we will assume that at this point whatever condition caused the Popsterman to voice these thoughts would be relieved, as was not the case in, you know, that other case. How do we think Poppy would come out of it?

My guess is that he would come out of it very much the same way as the fellow in that other case, the fat, asthmatic guy, Eric Garner did. But guesses are beside the point. This is science, so we need to perform the experiment.

We still wouldn't be replicating the conditions of that other case, and I don't mean the subject's weight or asthma condition. I'm not prepared to rule out the possibility that our Petey would burst into "I Feel Pretty." Okay, I admit I've got this malicious craving to hear the Popsterman warble one of my favorite lines ever set to music, "It's alarming how charming I feel." Could have been written to describe our boy, dontcha think?

So whaddaya say, Petey? Ready to stick your neck out?


BUT SERIOUSLY, FOLKS --

I haven't had occasion to comment on either the Ferguson or the Staten Island case. But a response like Pop-Off Petey's, or like that of the fine Americans in Missouri who greeted the "Journey for Justice" marchers (as the Daily Kos headline put it) "with fried chicken, Confederate flags, and gunshots," thereby underscoring the disastrously legitimizing effect when our law-enforcement and criminal-justice systems fail to do their job.

Unless you take the view that there was no breakdown, at least in the minds of the people manning those systems -- that, as Ian Walsh puts it in a post today, "In Light of Eric Garner": "Understand this, if you understand nothing else: the system is working as intended."

The prosecutor in the Staten Island case, Ian says, "made the decision that the system wants: police are almost never prosecuted for assault or murder and on those rare occasions that they are, they almost always get off. Donovan did what the legal system wanted him to do. As for the police in question, well, they did what the legal system wants them to do, as well."

This isn't a new theme for Ian. "American oligarchical society rests on people not effectively resisting," he says here. And "any part of the population which is inclined to resist, must be taught that it cannot resist." The crucial points here are that there is a system at work here and that system is working just the way it's designed to.

The system will not change until those who want it to change have the raw power to force it to change, because it does serve the interests of its masters by destroying or marginalizing anyone who is actually a danger to oligarchical control of the system.

Ian goes into the particulars of this system in detail in the piece, which you should really read. Meanwhile I plan to talk about this subject some more with reference as well to a Daily Kos piece you should also read, Bob Johnson's "Conservative demonization of Obama allowed racists to crawl out from under their rocks," and with reference to more than just the race card as played by the oligarchs as tools for establishing and maintaining control -- perhaps tomorrow night.

#

Symbolic Gestures Are Nice-- Voting Records Are More Important-- Meet Hakeem Jeffries

Tuesday evening Chris Hayes had Hakeem Jeffries on his show. Jeffries is one of three Members of Congress who represents the Brooklyn neighborhood I grew up in, along with Yvette Clarke and Michael "Mikey Suits" Grimm. Jeffries, a well-spoken former corporate lawyer for Viacom. He drove corrupt conservative incumbent, Ed Towns into retirement by announcing a primary largely backed by progressives who couldn't wait to see the last of Towns. But instead the primary was Jeffries versus a candidate considerably to the left of him, Charles Barron, who the Democratic Establishment abhors. Jeffries, who has been heavily backed by Wall Street banksters and by the charter school interests he supports, decisively beat Barron in 2012 and then the random Republican in the general. This cycle, the GOP didn't bother running anyone against him. He's as good as they're likely to get in a bizarrely gerrymandered district that includes Bedford-Stuyvesant, East New York, Coney Island, Sheepshead Bay, Manhattan Beach, Mill Basin, Canarsie, Fort Greene, Flatlands, Ozone Park, Lindenwood, and Downtown Brooklyn.

Chis had him on because he was one of four African-American congressmen who raised their hands-- "Hands Up, Don't Sheet"-- in solidarity with Ferguson protesters. The other three were Yvette Clarke, also from Brooklyn, plus two Texans Sheila Jackson Lee (downtown Houston) and Al Green (south Houston). Hayes caught Jeffries unawares when he asked him if he regretted voting against Alan Grayson's amendment last summer that would have demilitarized the local police. Watch the video above. Jeffries was stunned to be caught out-- and lied about it: "I believe that the amendment actually was designed to repeal the program and I believe that I supported that amendment." He didn't. And I blasted out this tweet immediately:

Hayes was one of the may people who retweeted it. I might add that the three other "Hands Up" sympathizers also voted against Grayson's amendment. Four for four. Here's the list of the only Members of Congress who actually did vote for it:

• John Barrow (Blue Dog-GA)

• Earl Blumenauer (OR)

• Bruce Braley (IA)

• Tony Cárdenas (CA)

• Matt Cartwright (PA)

• Kathy Castor (FL)

• Judy Chu (CA)

• John Conyers (MI)

• Donna Edwards (MD)

• Keith Ellison (MN)

• Alan Grayson (FL)

• Raul Grijalva (AZ)

• Rush Holt (NJ)

• Mike Honda (CA)

• Hank Johnson (GA)

• Barbara Lee (CA)

• John Lewis (GA)

• Dan Maffei (NY)

• Jim Matheson (Blue Dog-UT)

• Doris Matsui (CA)

• Jim McDermott (WA)

• Jim McGovern (CA)

• Jerry McNerney (CA)

• George Miller (CA)

• Jerry Nadler (NY)

• Gloria Negrete McLeod (CA)

• Beto O'Rourke (TX)
• Frank Pallone (NJ)

• Ed Perlmutter(CO)

• Mark Pocan (WI)

• Loretta Sanchez (Blue Dog-CA)

• John Sarbanes (MD)

• Jan Schakowsky (IL)

• Bobby Scott (VA)

• Jose Serrano (NY)

• Louise Slaughter (NY)

• Adam Smith (WA)

• Jackie Speier (CA)

• Mark Takano (CA)

• John Tierney (MA)

• Paul Tonko (NY)

• Nydia Velázquez (NY)

• Maxine Waters (CA)

When someone like Hakeem Jeffries sees a vote building with Members like Barbara Lee, Donna Edwards, Jose Serrano, Alan Grayson, Jan Schakowsky, Mark Pocan, Matt Cartwright, Judy Chu, Raul Grijalva, Keith Ellison, Jerry Nadler, Jon Conyers, John Lewis and Mike Honda all lining up on one side, maybe voting with Republicans and Democratic corporate whores is a position worth reexamining.

It's All About The Money-- It's Not About The Thanksgiving

Last summer we looked at legislation Alan Grayson proposed to end the over-militarization of local police departments, long before "Ferguson" became synonymous with overly militarized local police departments. Grayson's amendment failed-- by a lot-- 62-355, only 19 Republicans and 43 Democrats having the foresight and wisdom to back it. One of the 43 Democrats who did vote correctly was Hank Johnson, who represents the suburbs west of Atlanta all the sway out past Covington. He's using the issue to try to raise money. His e-mail sounds creepy:

Dear justice seeker,

We are gaining some serious momentum, and I’m confident this won’t be our last chance for victory-- as long as we keep spreading the word through DontMilitarizeMainStreet.com and putting pressure on Republicans. The Justice Fund will keep pushing police militarization as a major national priority, but we can’t do it without your support.

Will you become a Justice Fund 2016 monthly sustainer TODAY for $10 a month?

I will never stop pushing this legislation, but we don’t know what the next legislative session-- with Republican majorities in both chambers-- will bring. Likely, two more years of gridlock. We have to take advantage of the next two weeks, and we need to be prepared to fight hard next year.

That’s why we need you to step up by midnight tonight. Give $25 for the most impact.

For one thing, OK, Hank, you voted right. Good. In a gerrymandered majority minority district with a PVI of D+21 that Obama won with 74% that isn't exactly a profile in courage. And there's something unseemly about pushing to the front of the parade and trying to solicit contributions from people based on it. It's also misleading to insinuate that the problem was "Republicans." Are Nancy Pelosi, Steny Hoyer, Jim Clyburn, Steve Israel, Ben Ray Luján, Debbie Wasserman Schultz, Joe Crowley, Xavier Becerra and Rosa DeLauro Republicans? Every single member of the House Democratic Party leadership team, except Donna Edwards, voted against Grayson's amendment. So it isn't just a Democrat vs Republican problem. It's an out-of-touch political elite problem.

Today Rep. Johnson should step back from his crusade for a moment and think about doing something substantive for Walmart workers who are being treated unfairly over this holiday. It's another issue he can take a cue from Grayson on. This was-- at least in part-- Grayson's Thanksgiving message yesterday:

Thanksgiving was once a holiday reserved for spending time with our loved ones-- families across America gathered around the table to enjoy a meal with their families and give thanks.

But Thanksgiving’s importance has faded in recent years. The holiday is now merely a precursor to Black Friday-- the day in which stores like Walmart slash prices in an attempt to generate larger profits for themselves, at the expense of their employees. For Walmart’s corporate owners, Thanksgiving has become “Black Friday Eve”-- a day to pry families apart and work employees to the bone for next-to-nothing in wages.

Already, Walmart’s workers are severely underpaid and incredibly overworked. They’re often fired for reasons ranging from the inane to the unbelievable. They are unable to earn benefits. They have no stability in their schedules and no guarantee that they will have a job tomorrow. And at no time of the year is Walmart’s abhorrent treatment of its employees better demonstrated than on Thanksgiving.

Walmart is the country’s largest employer, which means that Walmart’s employment practices generally set the standard for businesses all over the U.S. When Walmart refuses to give its workers a few measly hours off to celebrate Thanksgiving with their families, other businesses must do the same. Instead of forcing hardworking Americans to pay the price for Walmart CEO’s corporate gain, Walmart should be setting an example for all retailers: give hardworking families a well-deserved break. Give them a few hours to spend with their families on Thanksgiving. Treat them with the dignity and respect that they deserve.

  I support the planned Black Friday protests because I believe that workers should be treated like human beings.

Rep. Johnson, I know you're seeking justice. Why not contribute some of the bucks that come in by midnight from your Justice Fund to the Walmart workers who wind up getting fired over this holiday?

The CBC Could Do A LOT Better Than Marcia Fudge-- And Should

Proving that she can’t read through an amendment that consists of one single sentence, Congressional Black Caucus chair, Marcia Fudge, declared at the annual CBC Legislative Conference last week that she and her lamer members had voted with the House leadership and the money-grubbing shills of the Military Industrial Complex against Grayson’s amendment to curtail the militarization of the local police “because it was a dumb amendment.” No wonder Bruce Dixon’s cutting Edge Black Agenda Report is so down on the inherent conservativism and corruptionism of the CBC!

It wasn’t a dumb amendment; she’s a dumb congresswoman— and a pawn for shady Big Money interests. No doubt she was offended at Grayson’s politically incorrect, plain-spoken tweet after the vote that “pigs feeding at the military-industrial trough killed" this amendment, a view that is widely accepted Inside-the-Beltway, albeit only in whispers.

Senior CBC members, John Conyers (D-MI), Bobby Scott (D-VA) and Hank Johnson (D-GA), who were among the 8 CBC members who broke with Fudge and the Military Industrial Complex bribe-takers to support the amendment are demanding Congress take up the issue again— an issue cowards like Fudge are now too frightened to oppose. The other CBC members who voted with Grayson and stood up for their constituents instead of their crooked donors were Keith Ellison (D-MN), Donna Edwards (D-MD), Barbara Lee (D-CA), John Lewis (D-GA), and Maxine Waters (D-CA).

The amendment Fudge couldn’t understand and called “dumb” instead: “An amendment to prohibit use of funds to transfer aircraft (including unmanned aerial vehicles), armored vehicles, grenade launchers, silencers, toxicological agents, launch vehicles, guided missiles, ballistic missiles, rockets, torpedoes, bombs, mines, or nuclear weapons through the DOD Excess Personal Property Program established pursuant to the National Defense Authorization Act for Fiscal Year 1997.”

Fudge, who has a decent progressive voting record, is, basically, a hack Democratic politician devoid of leadership talent. She was working for Congresswoman Stephanie Tubbs Jones when Jones suddenly died from a cerebral aneurysm in 2008 and was selected after calling all the members of the district’s Democratic Executive Committee. In a horrifyingly gerrymandered D+30 district (designed specifically to concentrate as many African-American voters as possible into one electoral ghetto in order to make OH-14 and OH-16 safe for racist white Republicans, respectively David Joyce and Jim Renacci), the Democratic Party nomination is tantamount to election. The district has a 54.2% African-American population and Obama won it with 82% against McCain and 83% against Romney. Fudge had no opponent in the special election and won “reelection” in the next general with 85%. Republicans didn’t bother to put up a candidate against her in 2012. This year the GOP candidate is Mark Zetzer, a graphic artist, who, as of June 30, had raised less than the $5,000 that would trigger an FEC fundraising report. Fudge has raised $670,846, a full 80% of it from PACs.

Aside from calling Grayson’s amendment dumb, she also implied African-American voters are dumb: “The black caucus fights for you every day. Even when you won’t fight for yourself. We fight for you. Whether it’s immigration or education, whether it’s food stamps, whether it’s housing, we fight for you every day. So my message to you is to contain your complaining. Contain your complaining.” Grayson’s amendment to prohibit the militarization of the police is what fighting for her constituents means, not her vote with the Republicans and the other corrupt Democrats against it. That’s exactly why the most admired African American legislators— from Barbara Lee and John Conyers to John Lewis and Keith Ellison— backed it. Fudge is a disgrace and she should step aside as CBC chair and let someone who would have fought to prevent tragedies like Ferguson happen take up the chair going forward. Oh, yeah, if she isn’t just plain dumb… she’s a liar and misrepresented the amendment she says she’s glad she opposed. She claims the CBC opposed the amendment (see video above), even though the 8 most prominent members of the CBC all voted for it.

Fudge, not fighting for Cleveland residents

We Still Have Police Brutality? In America?

Over the weekend, Jonathan Martin, writing for the NY Times postulated that because control of the Senate will be largely determined by the ability of Democrats to hold or win 4 southern states that were won by Romney with substantial margins-- Arkansas, North Carolina, Louisiana and Georgia-- there is a major effort to mobilize African-American votersbased, in part, on the police brutality and racism in Ferguson, Missouri.

In black churches and on black talk radio, African-American civic leaders have begun invoking the death of Michael Brown in Ferguson, along with conservative calls to impeach Mr. Obama, as they urge black voters to channel their anger by voting Democratic in the midterm elections, in which minority turnout is typically lower.

“Ferguson has made it crystal clear to the African-American community and others that we’ve got to go to the polls,” said Representative John Lewis, Democrat of Georgia and a civil-rights leader. “You participate and vote, and you can have some control over what happens to your child and your country.”

The push is an attempt to counter Republicans’ many advantages in this year’s races, including polls that show Republican voters are much more engaged in the elections at this point-- an important predictor of turnout.

…And the terrain is tricky: Many of the states where the black vote could be most crucial are also those where Mr. Obama is deeply unpopular among many white voters. So Democratic senators in places like Arkansas, Louisiana and North Carolina must distance themselves from the nation’s first African-American president while trying to motivate the black voters who are his most loyal constituents.

Last week was the 20th anniversary of passage of the Violent Crime Control and Law Enforcement Act by the House (HR 3355). It passed 235-194, 46 mainstream Republicans joining 188 Democrats to pass it. 64 mostly conservative Democrats crossed the aisle in the other direction to vote with 131 reactionary, racist Republicans. And last week, Bruce Dixon's Black Agenda Report delved into the unpleasant realty of how the Department of Justice Department instill ignores the law requiring it to gather national police brutality statistics.

20 years down the road no such stats exist, because the Justice Departments of the Clinton, the Bush and the Obama administrations have all simply ignored the law and refuse even to try to gather the information. Let me say this again: the Clinton Justice Department defied the law and refused to gather national stats on police misconduct. The Bush Justice Department thumbed its nose at the law and also refused to gather national stats on police misconduct, and now the first black attorney general, who sometimes even utters the phrase “mass incarceration,” which he recently discovered, selected by the first black president who says if he had a son, his son could be Trayvon Martin-- Eric Holder and Barack Obama have likewise shown no interest whatsoever in fulfilling their legal duty when it comes to assembling a national database of police misconduct.

This should not surprise the president's apologists, who will surely counsel us that he has to be president of all the people, including the police. Everybody knows black and brown people are the disproportionate targets of police violence, so enforcing laws which particularly benefit black and brown communities are something we must not expect. Perhaps after the president leaves office, they'll tell us, he'll speak out more forcefully on this. Maybe the “My Brothers Keeper” initiative can get some charitable dollars to organizations like , or PUSH or the Urban League to help more of our young boys to pull their pants up so they won't get beat down.

Let's get real. The Republicans haven't stopped Obama and Holder from doing this, they stopped themselves. Like every cop on the beat, the Obama administration chooses which laws to enforce, which ones to bend and in what direction, and which ones to ignore. Obama's DOJ has resurrected the century old Espionage Act, not to prosecute spies, but to threaten and to imprison whistleblowers who tell the truth to reporters, and to journalists themselves if they do not reveal their sources with decades in prison, like Chelsea Manning, and on so-called “secret evidence.” So when you think about it, it's entirely logical that a president and attorney general who place such a high priority on protecting their torturers, their bankster friends, and the official wrongdoers of past and future administrations should want to protect the police from scrutiny as well.

It's time to shed some illusions, not just about this president but about the whole political class that claims he or any president can be “held accountable.” Barack Obama and his Justice Department are no more interested in justice than the administrations of ten presidents before him, and uncritical black and brown support has made this president less accountable to black and brown people than any in living memory.

This morning Alan Grayson sent his supporters an e-mail, "Acknowledging the Reality of Police Brutality." He began by reminding his readers that "a police officer in Ferguson, Missouri killed an unarmed African-American teenager. The police officer shot him somewhere between six and eleven times. According to some eyewitnesses, the victim, Michael Brown, was shot in the back. Then Brown turned around, with his hands up, and shouted 'I don’t have a gun-- stop shooting!' At which point the officer shot him shot several more times, and killed him." Grayson sees it as part of a pattern of behavior he's observed his whole life. You'd have to be either completely clueless or delusional not to have.

Since I grew up in the Bronx, I have some general familiarity with that scenario. In 1978, a Bronx police officer was convicted of beating a Puerto Rican to death-- while he was in custody.



In 1994, a young man in the Bronx was arrested for accidentally hitting a police car with his football. His brother expressed dismay to the officer about that arrest, crossing his arms across his chest. The officer then arrested the brother, for “disorderly conduct,” and literally choked the life out of him; the coroner listed the cause of death as “compression of his neck and chest.”



In 1996, a Bronx police officer frisked an African-American male, Nathaniel Gaines, on the “D” Train, and found that he was unarmed. One stop later, at 167th Street, overlooking the Grand Concourse on the southbound platform, one stop before Yankee Stadium, the officer ordered Gaines to disembark. The officer then shot at Gaines five times, including four times in the back, and killed him. Gaines was a veteran of the Persian Gulf War, he had no criminal record, and he had never been arrested.



In 1999, four Bronx police officers approached an unarmed Guinean immigrant named Amadou Diallo and ordered him to “show his hands.” Misunderstanding them, presumably because his native language was Fulfulde and not English, Diallo reached into his pocket and took out his wallet. The officers shot him 41 times, and killed him.



And in the meantime, in 1997, New York City police arrested Abner Louima, a Haitian-American, and then sodomized him with a broomstick. But that was in Brooklyn. My parents used to warn me about Brooklyn.



I could go on. Sadly, I could go on and on and on. But what is the point? Police brutality is a reality. And you can’t miss it, unless you literally close your eyes to it-- which all-too-many people seem willing to do.



Let’s start with Fox News. When I listen to Fox News, I feel torn. I just can’t decide: Are they idiots, or are they fools? Are they nitwits, or are they imbeciles? Are they morons, or are they jerks? Are they blockheads, or are they boneheads? They report, and we decide.



Remember how you used to hear the phrase “clever like a fox”? Since Fox News, you don’t hear that anymore.



The primary Fox “talking point” regarding the killing of Michael Brown is that Brown may or may not have been in a convenience store earlier in the day, and that he may or may not have stolen some cigars from that store. Fox has been playing the convenience store video footage in an infinite loop. But there is little or no evidence that the officer knew of the store incident, or that he connected it to Brown.

And if he did, then so what? Even under sharia law, if you steal a few cigars, the worst that can happen is that you get your hand cut off. Not eleven shots from a high-caliber weapon.



The U.S. Supreme Court has held that our Constitution permits the death penalty only in cases of first-degree murder, and treason. Not cigar theft. If 11 bullet holes for stealing some cigars is not “cruel and unusual punishment,” then I don’t know what is. It’s definitely cruel, and I certainly hope that it remains unusual.



The other major Fox talking point is “why aren’t we talking about all of the black-on-black violence, and the black-on-white violence?” OK, let’s talk about that. I can give you dozens, if not hundreds, of examples of white police officers killing unarmed black men. I just gave you several from my younger days in the Bronx, alone. The Bronx represents well under one percent of the population of the United States, and my “younger days” were, sadly, quite a while ago.



Now, Fox News, give me an equal number of examples of black police officers killing unarmed black men. Also, give me a list of black police officers killing unarmed white men.



I’m waiting . . .



Anyone who thought that electing our first American-American President would end racism in America must be sorely disappointed this week.



If you ask a sociologist for a definition of “the government,” he or she will not mention Social Security, or the fire department, or the public school system, or our national parks. The sociological definition of the “government” is the entity that has a monopoly on the legal use of force. In every nation on Planet Earth, only the military and the police have the legal right to exercise force, up to and including deadly force. And that makes it tragic when that force is used indiscriminately or-- even worse-- discriminately.



In 1969, the American psychologist Elisabeth Kubler-Ross published a book about how people facing death deal with death. She said that there are five stages: denial, anger, bargaining, depression and acceptance.



When it comes to the reality of brutality by our peace officers, too many of us are still in that first stage: denial.

Anyone think Ted Cruz, Chris Christie, Jeb Bush or Mike Huckabee is going to deal with this and make it better? How about Hillary Clinton? By the way, do you remember which people in your high school class became policemen? Fox News fans?