the steps taken by some cities to defund the police or, at a minimum, cut their budgets substantially, will be a bridge too far for voters, but there's no evidence of that yet.
The past month of chaos fueling racial hatred has been good for Dems, so I expect to see more of the same.
Link: https://twitter.com/Nate_Cohn/status/1269935859303841793
Doesn’t trust him, doesn’t believe him, doesn’t think he’s competent.
Using the green men to clear Lafayette Park for his bible photo op was a huge mistake.
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I think Orange has done way worse. But that seemed to flip something with the military and some of the public who viewed it as an excessive use of military force for political gain.
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Further question: Do you consider the Branch Davidian compound attack to be "the military using tear gas on US citizens on US soil?" They used an engineering tank to puncture the building's outer walls to pump teargas into the building full of children.
Interestingly, the entire botched Waco raid was for a photo op, so maybe this is par for the course in American politics now. That was why the media was along for the initial attack that started it all. I guess they figured (correctly) that it would be much more exciting TV for the Feds to attack the compound than to arrest David Koresh on one of his many regular trips into Waco.
I'm not defending the gov't on that and never will.
Waco was 1993 and King was 1992. In my mind Waco was before, but I was apparently misremembering. So you are right that Waco was the last time the military was involved in domestic issues, and it didn't go well.
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occurred before so numbnuts could hypocritically hold a bible in front of a church. Pretty feckin stupid move, Billy Barr.
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some legitimacy.
I would like them all to be wrong but that's wishful thinking.
that take them still have a land line, that should tell you all you need to know.
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Your dear leader pulled an 80K vote inside straight in three states.
Particularly the Lafayette incident, which is more and more troubling as more info gets out.
probably don't even know where it is.
This is almost all on Chauvin and the response.
If folks like them can convince 5% of traditional republicans that held their nose and voted for Trump b/c Hillary was worse to jump ship then the election is over.
The only response to the riots that you can put on Trump is D.C. The rest of it is nearly 100% on the decades of Democrat leadership in each urban area.
Just to recap, for the first time since the Rodney King riots 25 years ago the US military was used against US citizens. In the Rodney King case, the governor of CA and mayor of LA (elected officials representing the local constituency) requested the military's assistance in dealing with active violence they were unable to quell themselves.
In this case the military was used against a group of peaceful protesters, before curfew, in a public space utilizing their Constitutional right to peaceful assembly. The use of military force was also against the wishes of the mayor and the city council. Further, this use of military force was solely for the purpose of a photo op (not essential presidential business). This is 3rd world dictator stuff. This is the stuff the supposedly libertarian armed militias around the country have been warning us about. No other way to spin it.
It's also disrespectful to the church itself (whose clergy was also forcibly removed) and the bible (which was not prayed from, taken an oath from, etc., but was only used as a prop), but that's another topic.
I saw Trump's church photo op live, and there was no residual gas. They would have had to do this that morning. Do you know when the tear gas was used? Or, are you saying the gas used the night before was for this purpose? That would be a stretch.
Since then, I have been on vacation in a remote area with the family, and I watched zero TV during that time. (I haven't watched TV in a week--very liberating.) But, I got back last night, and saw a report on that, and the guy said no tear gas was used to clear the park for the photo op.
Obviously, that differs from your recap.
Which branch of the military was used? Were therr soldiers in uniform using tear gas? Is there video of this?
I was in favor of protesting Floyd's killing. that is the libertarian in me.
I am not in favor of burning down 200 year old churches and private businesses as a manifestation of that protesting. All libertarians oppose aggressive violence.
IF there were peaceful protesters, and the Army tear gassed them just so the president could walk across the street for a picture, then I agree with you 100%.
That is just not what I have heard, and not what I saw. I'm open to your evidence.
Apparently there are multiple types of teargas. See link. Technically it is my understanding they shot pepper spray balls. Per the CDC, these are commonly referred to as teargas but is a different chemical compound than what the military typically uses abroad (but same effect).
The US Park Police did the clearing (not a branch of the military), but they appeared to be directed (or at least sanctioned) by Joint Chiefs of Staff, Gen. Mark A. Milley (the highest ranking military officer in the country), who walked with Trump, dressed combat fatigues. This was a purely domestic issue. Why was Milley there (and in uniform)? Trump has said he will use the military to put down violent protests if the governors can't handle it. Was he also merely a prop (like the Bible) or was he directing the response? Either way, his involvement is extremely distressing from a civil libertarian standpoint.
Link: https://www.factcheck.org/2020/06/the-semantics-of-tear-gas-versus-pepper-spray/
I definitely don't consider pepper balls to be tear gas (e.g., CS gas), but I'm willing to treat them the same for the purposes of this discussion since they are both riot control agents. Although, I will say that I think the articles describe it as "tear gas" instead of "pepper balls" to make it sound worse than it is.
I definitely think using police is very different from using the military. That is a much more important distinction.
And, this was after the Church had been set on fire, right? So, how peaceful were these protesters?
All accounts were the protests at the time were peaceful until being demanded to clear. Also, if the highest ranking member of the military is involved, the military is involved.
I'm not sure having his chief military advisor walk over with him was smart (and I wouldn't have done it, and I wish he hadn't done it, because it made a stupid photo op look even more idiotic), but I don't know that it means the military was involved in clearing the square.
Having said all that, and setting aside the tear gas and military stuff: For me, it all hinges on whether the protestors were peaceful or not. If they were peaceful, then you and I agree there was a problem.
Then again, the night before, peaceful protest turned into arson of a 200 year old landmark, among other violent and vandalistic acts. I can see why the park police would want those people to obey the curfew, since all indications were that what happened the night before would happen again.
Are you?
Crime in NYC is way, way up. Shootings up over 125%.
We can expect more of this as the police stand down.
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Not sure what the Right's proposal is to help that situation.
and looting are driving people who never thought about a gun, into purchasing them. Gun control is out the window thanks to you
and your ilk. Not gonna happen, no police to enforce them anyway. Btw, do you have a gun?
We could talk about fantasies, like defunding police and disarming citizens (apparently without police). But the realities are that if you criminalize guns, only criminals will have guns, and the situation will be worse. If you defund the police, things will be even worse. The second amendment is the only thing that can protect people from criminals, as these riots have shown.
We have no problem with blacks owning guns where I live. We use things like freedom of opportunity to make a success for yourself on the one hand, and a police force to arrest you if you victimize people on the other hand. Those strategies work very well.
But, in urban areas...I grant you that the Dems have created quite a problem over the past 6 or so decades. You have created a class of people who don't believe in individualism and opportunity, but look for handouts...women who don't get married when they have kids because that diminishes their handouts, so the family unit is destroyed. Before Dem control of cities and welfare, single family births among blacks were at 6%; after Dems took over and started handing things out (like the slave owners, but instead of cotten, you collect votes), single family births rocketed to 75%...that is a truly shocking number. You guys have a problem, and your "solutions" are actually the problem. You don't encourage individual success; you diminish the man in favor of the group...but there is actually no such actual entity as the group--it is a fiction (other than a family unit, and you destroyed that). Blacks don't naturally disdain the family unit. I know that, because they don't do that where I live. They only do it in Dem strongholds.
disbanding. Policing is an essential govtal service.
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We'll get new cops...like the Somali cop that shot the Australian woman through the car door for no reason...
Also, in my experience minority cops are no walk in the park when it comes to use of force. Same bad eggs there as in the white ranks.