Sunday, June 14th open thread: ‘Bombtrack’
“This is the day which the Lord hath made; we will rejoice and be glad in it.” (Psalm 118:24 KJV)
Here is this week’s open thread. Please feel free to post links to interesting articles and to discuss whatever issues arise during the course of the day. Nothing is off-topic here.
You can subscribe to America’s Watchtower to receive email updates and you can also follow America’s Watchtower on Facebook and Twitter by clicking the links on the right.
Here is Rage Against the Machine performing “Bombtrack” live in 1999:
There has been a growing movement on the left which has reached the halls of the Congress. Knowing how radical the idea sounds the leftists are playing the semantics game, the way they always do, saying they do not want to defund the police but want to reallocate the monies used to fund the police.
Now the movement has actually taken another step forward in Minneapolis, the city council had taken the first step to defund the police and now they are moving to replace the police department. Here is more:
The Minneapolis City Council on Friday unanimously passed a resolution to pursue a community-led public safety system to replace the police department following the death of George Floyd at the hands of the city’s police.
The move comes days after a veto-proof majority of the council voted to disband the police department after the country erupted in protest over the killing of Floyd
“The murder of George Floyd on May 25, 2020, by Minneapolis police officers is a tragedy that shows that no amount of reforms will prevent lethal violence and abuse by some members of the Police Department against members of our community, especially Black people and people of color,” five council members wrote in the resolution.
According to the above-linked article this movement started before the George Floyd murder but has gained momentum after the killing and now we have reached this point. This is just the beginning step, the article states this sets up a year-long review because nobody knows what is actually going to replace the police department.
I have to believe that in a year from now tensions would have died down and clearer heads will have prevailed, but the Democrats do have this penchant for taking things too far and this could be another example. I believe taking this to this extreme is going to backfire on them but this is just the beginning so strap yourselves in and prepare for a long and bumpy ride.
malo periculosam libertatem quam quietum servitium
In what seems like a lifetime ago at this point, during the Democratic debates there was talk of adding justices to the Supreme Court in order to undo the conservative majority. Of course all the candidates supported this idea in one degree or another.
Since that point COVID-19 and George Floyd have overtaken the news cycle, however the issue of packing the Supreme Court has not gone away and could rear its head if we do indeed have an election at the end of this year.
Here is more:
The movement on the left to pack the Supreme Court is gaining momentum.
A group of progressive organizations is for the first time supporting the proposal to add justices to the court in hopes of weakening the conservative majority, according to a memo provided to POLITICO.
The Progressive Change Institute, Be a Hero, Friends of the Earth, Presente and 350 are among those groups that are newly joining the call, according to organizers. Take Back the Court, Demand Justice and the Sunrise Movement, which previously backed the idea, also signed onto the open letter.
“Trump and the Republicans in Congress have used aggressive tactics, including eliminating the filibuster, to pack the courts with conservative ideologues and prevent the will of the people from being heard,” said Erich Pica, president of the environmental group Friends of the Earth.
Of course these groups fail to mention that the “aggressive tactics” of ending the filibuster for some judicial nominations was started by Harry Reid when the Democrats were in power before the Republicans expanded it to Supreme Court nominees, but that is an ugly little fact the Democrats would rather ignore.
Here is more:
“From the fight for racial justice to efforts to stop climate change and protect our clean air and water, the current configuration of the court has consistently stood in the way of progress. We simply do not have a generation’s worth of time to replace judges.”
In the memo, the progressive organizations accused Republicans of themselves “manipulating the size of the court by refusing to consider President Obama’s nominee for an open seat (and indicating that they would leave the seat open if Hillary Clinton won the 2016 election), then promptly changing Senate rules to fill the seat with a bare majority, rather than the previously-required 60 votes, when Trump took office.”
This, of course, is not a new idea and it has been tried before but these are different times and there is no doubt in my mind the Democrats will not fail this time around if they are in power. On the off chance that Donald Trump somehow does manage to win reelection what do you think the Democrats would say if he tried to do the same in order to secure a conservative majority? Somehow I believe the calls of dictator would ring out all across the halls of the Congress…
malo periculosam libertatem quam quietum servitium
Joe Biden does not support defunding the police
We have seen a growing movement within the Democratic party which started with #BlackLivesMatter and has reached the halls of the Congress to defund the police. While the movement is growing the standard-bearer of the party and presumptive Democratic Presidential nominee, Joe Biden, does not support the movement. Here is more:
The Joe Biden campaign has announced its opposition to defunding police departments in the wake of widespread George Floyd demonstrations, advocating for reform measures and even additional funding instead.
“As his criminal justice proposal made clear months ago, Vice President Biden does not believe that police should be defunded,” Biden spokesman Andrew Bates said in a statement. “Biden supports the urgent need for reform–including funding for public schools, summer programs, and mental health and substance abuse treatment separate from funding for policing–so that officers can focus on the job of policing.”
Apparently Joe Biden prefers police reforms such as teaching police to shoot people in the legs instead of any real reform and he has a history of bragging about his role in passing crime legislation over the years which has disproportionately led to the incarceration of black youths:
“The truth is,” Mr. Biden had boasted a year earlier in a speech on the Senate floor, “every major crime bill since 1976 that’s come out of this Congress, every minor crime bill, has had the name of the Democratic senator from the State of Delaware: Joe Biden.”
Now, more than 25 years later, as Mr. Biden makes his third run for the White House in a crowded field of Democrats — many calling for ambitious criminal justice reform — he must answer for his role in legislation that criminal justice experts and his critics say helped lay the groundwork for the mass incarceration that has devastated America’s black communities. That he worked with segregationists to write the bills — an issue that recently dominated the political news and seems likely to resurface in Mr. Biden’s first debate on Thursday — has only added to his challenge.
This crime record that Joe Biden is so proud of is what Charlamagne tha god was referring to when he said Joe Biden’s record in the Senate was “very racist” and one has to wonder how long it will be before the former Vice-President has to go on an apology tour.
malo periculosam libertatem quam quietum servitium
Democrats prepare police reform legislation
As the calls within the Democratic party for disbanding the police grow, the party leaders are drafting police reform legislation. Here is more:
A sweeping new police reform bill being drafted by House and Senate Democrats would ban chokeholds, limit “qualified immunity” for police officers, create a national misconduct registry, end the use of no-knock warrants in drug cases and make lynching a federal crime among other dramatic changes, according to an outline being circulated on Capitol Hill.
The Justice in Policing Act of 2020 is sponsored on the House side by Rep. Karen Bass (D-Calif.), chairwoman of the Congressional Black Caucus, and Judiciary Chairman Jerry Nadler (D-N.Y.), and Sens. Cory Booker (D-N.J.) and Kamala Harris (D-Calif.) on the Senate side. Harris is among the frontrunners to become the Democratic vice presidential nominee this year.
The new Democratic proposal, which will be unveiled early next week, is the most dramatic effort to rewrite federal laws on policing in decades. Yet the bill’s backers say the changes are desperately needed to address the decades-old mistreatment of black and minority communities at the hands of police.
Whenever I hear the term “national registry” chills go down the back of my spine. It seems as if simple background checks would suffice to keep a repeat offender off of the police force with no need for any type of national registry.
But other than that most of the other reforms we are reading about do not seem to be too bad. However, Democrats have a penchant for going too far and we are seeing it in this case with the calls for disbanding the police force. When your starting point is disbanding the police force will you settle for any reforms which fall short of that? And how far will the Democratic leaders go in order to appease those calling for disbandment? I am sure we will get the answers to those questions as this bill is finalized.
malo periculosam libertatem quam quietum servitium
“This is the day which the Lord hath made; we will rejoice and be glad in it.” (Psalm 118:24 KJV)
Here is this week’s open thread. Please feel free to post links to interesting articles and to discuss whatever issues arise during the course of the day. Nothing is off-topic here.
You can subscribe to America’s Watchtower to receive email updates and you can also follow America’s Watchtower on Facebook and Twitter by clicking the links on the right.
Here is Against Me! performing “Baby, I’m an Anarchist” live:
MSNBC hires Lisa Page as legal analyst
Lisa Page–who is most famous for being fired from Robert Mueller’s Russia investigation for political bias and for working with her lover and Andrew McCabe on an “insurance policy” to make sure Donald Trump never became President–has a new gig. She has been hired by MSNBC as their new legal analyst.
Here is more:
Lisa Page, the former FBI lawyer who worked on former special counsel Robert Mueller’s Russia investigation, has joined MSNBC as a legal analyst, the network announced Friday.
Page was thrust into the national spotlight after she and FBI counterintelligence agent Andrew Strzok were fired from Mueller’s team after text messages between them were leaked in which they criticized President Trump.
She swiftly emerged as a chief GOP boogeyman, with Republicans saying her texts with Strzok were evidence that elements of the Justice Department were trying to impede Trump’s presidency.
How ironic is it that the woman who once coordinated a “media leak strategy” with her boyfriend Peter Strzok to get Russia investigation information out into the public is now part of the media?
malo periculosam libertatem quam quietum servitium
During an interview last week with Charlamagne tha god Joe Biden informed the host that if he, and presumable any black person, did not vote for him “you ain’t black.” To me thinking that all people of color must think, feel, and act the same is enforcing stereotypes and quite frankly I found the comment to be racist.
While the mainstream media is mostly ignoring the story, Joe Biden has taken quite a hit on social media over the last several days and Charlamagne tha god, who was taken aback by the comment, still is not giving Joe Biden a break. Today he claimed Joe Biden’s legislative record in the Senate is racist, here is more:
“To me, it’s like this; if Barack Obama was JFK, then Joe Biden needs to be Lyndon B. Johnson. You know, he has the opportunity to be as progressive as Lyndon B. Johnson. Lyndon B. Johnson may have been labeled a racist, but his record doesn’t reflect that. LBJ’s record showed that he had, like, the most effective progressive record on race and class of any Democratic president of the past 80 years. I think, you know, Biden’s record in the Senate actually reflects very racist legislation, but he has a chance to correct that by doing right by black people.”
Okay, so Charlamagne tha god is cutting Joe Biden a bit of a break by giving him a chance to correct a “very racist” legislative record when in any other case there would be calls for Joe Biden to step down. How can anybody look at Joe Biden’s record, conclude it is very racist, and then decide to vote for him anyway hoping that it will be different this time around? That is a huge benefit of the doubt which is not afforded too many people in politics…
malo periculosam libertatem quam quietum servitium
Andrew Cuomo unhappy with Bill de Blasio’s handling of riots, threatens to remove him from office
According to this story New York Governor Andrew Cuomo is none too happy with the performance of New York City Mayor Bill de Blasio in handling the riots the other night in the city. The Governor, who probably relished the idea of a distraction from his disastrous nursing home directive, had some harsh words for the Mayor–going so far as to threaten to remove him as Mayor and replacing him with military rule. Here is more:
In his daily press briefing, Cuomo issued stinging criticism of De Blasio and the New York Police Department, saying Monday evening’s failed attempt to quell violence unrest was “inexcusable.”
“The NYPD and New York City mayor did not do their job last night,” Cuomo said. “I think the mayor underestimates the scope of the problem and the duration of the problem. What happened in NYC was inexcusable.”
The governor explained that he offered cities around the state, including the Big Apple, help from the National Guard to stop looting, but De Blasio rejected the offer.
“My option is to displace the mayor of New York City and bring in the National Guard as the governor in an emergency and basically you would have to take over the mayor’s job,” Cuomo then explained.
Andrew Cuomo quickly backtracked and said it would not make any sense to make that move, but make no mistake about it, this was a harsh rebuke intended to be a threat to shame Bill de Blasio into action.
The problem for all these politicians is they are afraid to say or to do anything which might upset the people who are destroying cities all across the United States, and Antifa–which came out of the woodwork after two months of not fighting the 35 fascist Governors in the country who put millions of Americans on house arrest and out of work, showing us what their true agenda is–knows this is the case and are taking full advantage of it.
malo periculosam libertatem quam quietum servitium
Joe Biden says cops should shoot people in the legs
The last time we heard from Joe Biden on guns it was 2013 and he was advising his wife and others to break the law by firing a shotgun recklessly into the air without aiming in order to ward off home intruders. Here is what he said:
I said, Jill, if there’s ever a problem just walk out on the balcony here or walk out, put that double-barreled shotgun and fire two blasts outside the house,” Biden said. “I promise you who ever is coming in is not go — you don’t need an AR-15
As you can read if you follow the link a man actually tried to use the “Biden Defense” in court when he took the former Vice-President’s advice. It did not work, he was convicted.
Well, good ole Uncle Joe is at it again, this time he wants police officers to shoot people in the legs. Here is more:
Former Vice President and presumptive 2020 Democratic candidate Joe Biden recommended that police should be trained to shoot knife-wielding suspects in the leg — not the heart — in order to avoid fatal incidents like the death of George Floyd.
Timeout. George Floyd was not shot, I am not sure if Joe Biden made this inference or if this is article conflating George Floyd’s death with Joe Biden’s speech on the police. Okay, back to the story:
As Biden spoke from a church on Monday, he said that his administration would set up a police oversight board in the first 100 days, which would be used in part to re-evaluate how officers are trained to deal with people. “There are a lot of different things that can change” about police training, Biden said as he came up with a hypothetical about what cops should do while arresting a man.
“Instead of standing there and teaching a cop when there’s an unarmed person coming at ’em with a knife or something to shoot ’em in the leg instead of the heart is a very different thing,” he said.
First of all, if a person is charging at a police officer with “a knife or something” that man is not unarmed. And what is this “something” Joe Biden is referring to? Most of us realize how silly this comment is on its face. Life is not an old movie where a person shoots the guns out of the bad guy’s hands, in a real life or death situation a person must fire at center mass if they want to neutralize the threat. If Joe Biden wants to make the argument that police need better training at identifying a potentially deadly situation that is a debate we can have, but once the situation has been identified all bets are off and it is survival mode.
And of course there is a major artery that travels through the leg so a non-lethal shot is not a guarantee and neither is a shot in the chest. You have to go with the highest probability if your life is in danger, plus the chances are greater of hitting an innocent bystander if you start shooting at a perpetrator’s feet.
Every time Joe Biden speaks on firearms–remember he wanted to ban magazines that hold more than one bullet–he shows us his ignorance on this subject.
malo periculosam libertatem quam quietum servitium
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