Politico reported that Mike Pence has shifted from defending Trump to complimenting the governors over their handling of the covid-19 crisis. Lindsey Graham is asking for a briefing as to what the President knew about Russia, the Taliban and alleged bounty payments.
One has to wonder, particular in Pense's case, whether Trump's tanking poll numbers are a factor in their apparent slight change of heart. If they are seeing the writing on the wall, they may be calculating that the time has come to abandon Trump's ship of state.
Trump's Titanic administration has plowed through one iceberg after another; but then it hit the tiny corona virus and has begun taking on water. As we approach the November watershed, we may well see more of Trump's GOP enablers and administration cronies stop bailing and start swimming away before they are taken down in the undertow as Trump's Titanic sinks under the weight of its most colossal screw-up yet.
Monday, June 29, 2020
Donny's choice
Covid-19's containment was never adequate, reopening was premature and poorly implemented, and the result has been the second wave; not in November but in July.
Much of the blame can be placed squarely at Trump's door; his early inaction, his continual downplaying of the risks, his premature happy talk, and his push to restart the economy. But most of all, and this is what will haunt him now, his refusal to wear a face mask.
The current reemergence of the virus has narrowed his choices to three. He can pretend covid-19 will disappear if he does nothing. Like a toddler who can't believe bad things should happen to him, if he ignores it someone (his daddy) will make the nasty flu go away. He can impose another lock-down. Or, he can begin wearing a mask (that's the only way he can undo the damage he did by politicizing mask wearing and get his army of deplorables to do the right thing).
All, from his point of view, are terrible alternatives, though the first is the only one that will be good for everyone else. Doing nothing will result either in a huge resurgence of infection and many more deaths; or it will make the governors who assume the mantle of responsibility look good and by contrast make him look ineffectual. A second lock-down would be hugely unpopular; without more safety net money, business will go broke, and people loose their homes, hardship will be intolerable for many. Even with financial mitigation, people are fed up with SIP. So the only choice left him is to model mask wearing. But that would mean admitting publicly that he was wrong. Obviously that's too bitter a pill for someone with his Dunning-Kruger sized ego to swallow.
Friday, June 19, 2020
SCOTUS and DACA
The Supreme Court ruled that the way in which the Trump administration ended the DACA program was illegal in a 5-4 decision on Monday. The ruling is narrow, speaking only to the process by which DACA was ended. As one attorney noted today, SCOTUS has in effect provided a road map for the administration to follow in terminating the program. Moreover, there is lack of clarity from USCIS as to whether it will accept new applications. In one interpretation of the decision, the program has been legally reinstated to its original so it should be accepting new applications; but it is operating under an administration that has made it clear it does not want the program to continue, so unless the agency believes it is on solid legal footing to reopen application it is unlikely to provide guidance on the issue.
Whether restarting the program is legal or not, a question that will almost certainly be the subject of legal challenges from both sides depending on how the USCIS proceeds, its senior officials may be wary upsetting Trump for fear of retaliation (sorry - "dismissal for cause"), particularly in an election year when Trump will doubtless want to make immigration an issue to roust his base to the polls.
So the question is what will the administration do - and when. It seems likely that USCIS will hold of an processing any new applications until the issue is settled in court. And it is also likely that Trump will have Homeland Security go through the process of terminating DACA in a way that satisfies Monday's Supreme Court ruling with all possible speed. With only five months to the election, Trump will be desperate to have at least one win in his pocket and terminating DACA is looking like his only real shot.
Whether restarting the program is legal or not, a question that will almost certainly be the subject of legal challenges from both sides depending on how the USCIS proceeds, its senior officials may be wary upsetting Trump for fear of retaliation (sorry - "dismissal for cause"), particularly in an election year when Trump will doubtless want to make immigration an issue to roust his base to the polls.
So the question is what will the administration do - and when. It seems likely that USCIS will hold of an processing any new applications until the issue is settled in court. And it is also likely that Trump will have Homeland Security go through the process of terminating DACA in a way that satisfies Monday's Supreme Court ruling with all possible speed. With only five months to the election, Trump will be desperate to have at least one win in his pocket and terminating DACA is looking like his only real shot.
Voluntary restructuring
In response to Rayshard Brook's killing, Atlanta's police department fired Garrett Rolfe, the policeman who shot Brooks. Rolfe has now been charged with murder in the killing.
Today, a number of Atlanta's policemen "called in sick". They should be fired.
Remember Reagan's response to the air traffic controllers' strike? He argued that their actions imperiled public safety and he fired them. If ever there was a textbook case of employees with a public safety mandate being derelict in their duty, these striking, sorry, "unewell" policemen are poster children.
What's more it reinforces the point that training and reform aren't going to change the deeply ingrained culture or racism that clearly exists in Atlanta's police department. Restructuring is absolutely essential.
Firing those who have shown they are clearly unwilling to change, who have in effect owned up to being the “bad apples” so many GOP apologists talk about, would be a great start at cleaning house.
Today, a number of Atlanta's policemen "called in sick". They should be fired.
Remember Reagan's response to the air traffic controllers' strike? He argued that their actions imperiled public safety and he fired them. If ever there was a textbook case of employees with a public safety mandate being derelict in their duty, these striking, sorry, "unewell" policemen are poster children.
What's more it reinforces the point that training and reform aren't going to change the deeply ingrained culture or racism that clearly exists in Atlanta's police department. Restructuring is absolutely essential.
Firing those who have shown they are clearly unwilling to change, who have in effect owned up to being the “bad apples” so many GOP apologists talk about, would be a great start at cleaning house.
Tuesday, June 16, 2020
Rayshard Brooks
Rayshard Brooks fell asleep at a Wendy's drive-though and was shot and killed by the police.
Fox blowhards like Dan Bongino have screamed and yelled that Brooks brought this on himself, that the police had no option in that situation. After all Brooks pointed a tazer at them (the one he took from one of the on-scene officers) so what else could they have done? That's of course complete BS.
Of course they had an option; namely to not kill him. First, they were not in grave danger; the tazer Books had taken is non lethal so the use of deadly force seems clearly excessive. Second, what's the downside of simply letting him go? He was drunk, close to home and they could simply have impounded his car and served a ticket for drunk driving if they wanted when he came to collect it. He was not armed. He was not a danger to anyone. He was not driving drunk. So why shoot him in the back? Shooting someone running away is not consistent with the use of force in self defense.
Bongino, like most of his thinkwithhisdick testosterone-fueled, enraged colleagues, is offended that a black man did not obey white a authority figure; and that makes him apoplectic. Law and order, in his mind, is really about power and control, in Secretary Mark Esper's words "dominating the battle space".
And the GOP's response? Crickets. That's where the GOP has been dragged by its white supremacist fringe. That's why they no longer have any moral authority. And that's why they need to be unceremoniously turfed out of office in November.
Fox blowhards like Dan Bongino have screamed and yelled that Brooks brought this on himself, that the police had no option in that situation. After all Brooks pointed a tazer at them (the one he took from one of the on-scene officers) so what else could they have done? That's of course complete BS.
Of course they had an option; namely to not kill him. First, they were not in grave danger; the tazer Books had taken is non lethal so the use of deadly force seems clearly excessive. Second, what's the downside of simply letting him go? He was drunk, close to home and they could simply have impounded his car and served a ticket for drunk driving if they wanted when he came to collect it. He was not armed. He was not a danger to anyone. He was not driving drunk. So why shoot him in the back? Shooting someone running away is not consistent with the use of force in self defense.
Bongino, like most of his thinkwithhisdick testosterone-fueled, enraged colleagues, is offended that a black man did not obey white a authority figure; and that makes him apoplectic. Law and order, in his mind, is really about power and control, in Secretary Mark Esper's words "dominating the battle space".
And the GOP's response? Crickets. That's where the GOP has been dragged by its white supremacist fringe. That's why they no longer have any moral authority. And that's why they need to be unceremoniously turfed out of office in November.
Wednesday, June 10, 2020
Policing in America
African Americans have suffered from racial discrimination for many many years, and the feelings of resentment of oppression which have reached boiling point since George Floyd's killing ten days ago, are a function of a variety of causal factors (white flight, poor inner-city schooling, unequal criminal justice and sentencing); but the the most proximate cause for concern must be policing.
While is also true that it it not just African Americans who feel intimidated scared and belittled by the police, it remains the case that interactions between African Americans and the police are more likely to escalate into a violence than between the police and non-URMs. So a good place to start, given the inflection point we seem to be at, is policing.
Defunding police departments, which has a similar ring to it as "Abolish ICE!" is both simplistic, and ultimately politically counter productive. Police departments arguably have two major problems; first it is widely accepted that they are being asked to do more, in terms of scope, than ever before and with insufficient resources or training. Second, and more importantly, they are often steeped in culture with deep roots in white supremacy. Recruiting more African Americans into their ranks won't solve that second problem, because cultures are perpetuated by a critical mass which will mean African Americans will be in a minority in their ranks and any change will be to their manifest function and beliefs, not to their latent functions and beliefs.
But to take money away from police departments without reducing the scope of their responsibilities will exacerbate rather than solve the problem. And while the majority, silent or not, are white supremacist sympathizers or at least blind-eye-turners, the culture of police departments will not change. Karl Weick noted that "organisation don't have cultures - they are cultures which is why they are so difficult to change".
The only way change will happen is if municipalities completely dismantle their police departments, and then rebuild them from scratch, with:
While is also true that it it not just African Americans who feel intimidated scared and belittled by the police, it remains the case that interactions between African Americans and the police are more likely to escalate into a violence than between the police and non-URMs. So a good place to start, given the inflection point we seem to be at, is policing.
Defunding police departments, which has a similar ring to it as "Abolish ICE!" is both simplistic, and ultimately politically counter productive. Police departments arguably have two major problems; first it is widely accepted that they are being asked to do more, in terms of scope, than ever before and with insufficient resources or training. Second, and more importantly, they are often steeped in culture with deep roots in white supremacy. Recruiting more African Americans into their ranks won't solve that second problem, because cultures are perpetuated by a critical mass which will mean African Americans will be in a minority in their ranks and any change will be to their manifest function and beliefs, not to their latent functions and beliefs.
But to take money away from police departments without reducing the scope of their responsibilities will exacerbate rather than solve the problem. And while the majority, silent or not, are white supremacist sympathizers or at least blind-eye-turners, the culture of police departments will not change. Karl Weick noted that "organisation don't have cultures - they are cultures which is why they are so difficult to change".
The only way change will happen is if municipalities completely dismantle their police departments, and then rebuild them from scratch, with:
- different people with no background in policing,
- new management drawn from more progressive thinkers in the ranks of the police
- different procedures,
- new training,
- new accountability systems and measures,
- and new community oversight.
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