In the Senate races in Iowa and elsewhere, where Democrats must have high African-American turnout if they want to retain control of that chamber, the candidate silence on Ferguson is deafening....Meanwhile, news of the Michael Brown autopsy leaks:
Only once, an electronic search shows, has a question about Ferguson come up in Senate debates in the four tossup states where African-Americans make up a large percentage of eligible voters: Georgia and Louisiana (more than 30 percent of voters in each state are black), North Carolina (22 percent), and Arkansas (15 percent). The black vote is essential to Democratic victories in all those states, though to a lesser extent in Arkansas, according to political analysts.
Ferguson Police Officer Darren Wilson's account of the confrontation in which Michael Brown was fatally shot has reportedly been leaked, with an independent medical examiner's report backing up his version of events.So, one reason Democratic candidates might not want to talk about it is that once you make it an issue, you have to field complicated questions, and new information, like this autopsy, can undercut your message. Other reasons: 1. Whatever message they rely on to reach out to black voters will be heard by other voters too, and there is no one message that will work better than saying nothing at all, and 2. The Democrats assume they own the black vote, so they don't think they have to offer anything, and yet they puzzle — or purport to puzzle — over the lack of turnout.
Brown had marijuana in his system and was shot at close range in the hand, backing up claims by a police officer that that there was a violent struggle between the Ferguson, Mo. teen and the cop, an independent medical examiner told the St. Louis Post-Dispatch.
ADDED: As I said a week ago: "Abstaining from voting is a kind of vote.... It's notable that the nonvoters are generally presumed to represent votes that would be cast for the Democratic Party's candidate, but that presumption shows how the abstention means something. The nonvoter doesn't want to give affirmation to the Democratic Party's candidate... I say all the votes — cast and uncast — count and have meaning."
Posts
46 comments:
I think race is involved.
Not so mellow.
Yeah, there's nothing like starting a race war when the facts the revolutionaries want to motivate its soldiers contradict the truth...and piss off the majority voters by trying to make a victim out of a drugged bully and a white cop defending himself a villain.
The race card has negative effects. Who knew?
What are they going to say?
Shortly after committing a robbery, an enormous black man attacked a police officer, seriously injuring him, and the officer shot the man in self defense?
How does that help them?
Yes, with all the facts so far pointing to a good shoot all the Democrats would do is paint themselves as rabble rousers.
Politically incorrect analysis:
The whole problem was caused by daily marijuana smoking that had transformed Brown into a thug who bullied everyone to get more Marijuana supplies. It only became racial issue because Brown was not a white marijuana fiend out bullying store owners and uniformed Police Officers. A white man doing what Brown did would not be called a gentle giant peacefully walking down the street. He would be called insane.
Whatever message they rely on to reach out to black voters will be heard by other voters too, and there is no one message that will work better than saying nothing at all
Obama and candidates need to wait till the Sunday before the election to rabble rouse turnout from the pulpits
WRT the Brown shooting. It's hard to explain his blood inside the police car and on the cops gun.
It's important for debate moderators to not ask Democrats questions they can't answer. Better to stick to asking questions about evolution and whether birth control should be banned.
The Democrats assume they own the black vote
Seems like an unfortunate use of the word "own".
"The whole problem was caused by daily marijuana smoking that had transformed Brown into a thug who bullied everyone to get more Marijuana supplies."
Sarcasm right?
The government story conflicts with the popular story on the street. Do you really want to message that the government is lying to you?
It's much easier to say...."Hey, buddy, here's an EBT card."
The news that the officer will not be indicted will be released the week before the election, maybe the weekend before, so it will enrage the black voters without time for those embarrassing questions.
'If you should decide to not indict this police officer, the rioting we witnessed this past week will seem like a picnic compared to the havoc that will likely occur, because the black community will never accept that there was an impartial investigation from your office,' added the democratic senator, of St. Louis.
More about the plan for the weekend before the election.
The Rev. Al Sharpton says he plans to return to Ferguson to continue to pressure St. Louis County prosecutor Bob McCulloch to file criminal charges in Michael Brown’s police shooting death.
Sharpton’s National Action Network announced his planned visit Saturday at a New York rally.
What a coincidence !
They aren't talking about it because they want to actually win.
I do think it's a shame the wrong stories keep grabbing the most attention. I do think there is a case to be made - and Obama could do this- for reform in police training and tactics around the country. Also a rethink of the criminal justice system.
I'm a hard on crime person, but we've really entered this realm that's very different than it was even 20 years ago. I think MADD kind of started the shift.
@Paul...Yes that was sarcasm done as politically incorrect thoughts held by the temperance league down at Southern Baptist Church.
But they are correct that benders on either alcohol or marijuana affects differently persons differently.Some do turn into "Mean Drunks" determined to bully the people around them until they get someone to fight them and to hurt them.
Besides the race hustlers and grifters who wants to be seen as championing for a dead thug?
The Drill Sgt: "WRT the Brown shooting. It's hard to explain his blood inside the police car and on the cops gun."
It's not hard at all for the lefty conspiracy theorists (including our own resident Robert Cook and ARM) to come up with some insane conspiracy theory which the left in general will swallow whole.
They don't even have to try that hard.
The side that believes fire can't melt steel is not likely to disregard any theory that "proves" evil right wing culpability.
While a release of an exculpatory decision from the grand jury or from the DoJ's Civil Rights division will certainly inflame the activist mobs, from the viewpoint of those activists it'll also reflect badly on Obama/Holder's DoJ, and the governor of Missouri, who is a Democrat. I'm not sure that the DoJ/Governor letting the cop off is going to get the blacks to vote Democratic when they figure out it's Dems who were behind the decision.
However, you want whites to show up to the polls in droves to vote against "lawlessness" (read Republican)? Put black rioters on the nightly news. The '68 riots sure as hell didn't help Humphrey, did they?
They used to have a phrase for the British Empire in Egypt "The veiled protectorate". That's what Democratic candidates are like now - the veiled supporters of Obama's despotism". The Burkha Bubba's, the hijab helots.
Ferguson=Gaza
All anyone should have asked for in this case was an investigation--and now that the investigation is apparently backing Officer Wilson's story, all those who had already convicted him in their minds are looking pretty bad. Why would any Democrat in a close race want to associate with that?
Besides, the black vote is only sizable in a few of the close states--LA, GA, and Arkansas--and in each of those cases, the Democrat has to appeal more to right leaning white voters (hence Landrieu criticizing Obama for his energy policy, and Nunn going on about how independent she is). A cheap racial appeal will turn off more voters than they'll motivate.
Hopefully blacks at least will start to see that hitching along with Sharpton is a fool's errand. Many are probably too young to remember his most infamous episodes.
"the minimal level of goodwill required to make a society function" was the part of this article that really caught my attention. I think it's the big picture idea in #Ferguson.
I honestly wonder if the people who are most directly affected by the parts of society that are broken actually want to fix it.
I'm also cynical and think that the people elected to represent them are empowered by the "state of broken-ness" are consequently incentivized to ensure it remains broken.
Article Excerpt:
"When the Ferguson story broke, I thought about the minimal level of goodwill required to make a society function. “Goodwill” doesn’t necessarily mean unity, cheerful fellowship, or even agreement; it’s the level of basic trust obviously missing when people snarl that they have no patience for the legal system, dismiss evidence out of hand, and declare that “justice” can only be done if the system delivers the verdict they’ve already reached in their heads. Even more than in the case of Michael Brown, the people turning Vonderrit Myers, Jr. into a social cause are doggedly ignoring the facts, or even accusing those facts of being somehow conspiratorial against the cause of cosmic justice, which they say the police and courts cannot possibly render… even though the case is only a week old.
Some people ask why these protesters keep voting, decade after decade, for the same people who created the system they now consider wholly invalid. That’s easy: because it’s hard work to question your long-standing political loyalties, turn your back on organizers, and challenge your ideology. Street theater is loads easier, and more fun. The explosive release of anger is exhilarating. Professional organizers are very good at directing it. Raw passion cannot be thwarted by rational challenge; such challenges only strengthen it, since anyone who asks picky questions is clearly not sufficiently devoted to the cause. The tides of narrative roll on, lifting Causes and alleged Higher Truths into the gathering storm clouds above an angry sea, while the details of what actually occurred on the dates memorialized by activists vanish over the horizon."
They already have the Crack vote. . .
What are they going to do - burn down Ferguson? How will that throw the election to the Democrats?
Video of Dem voters chimpin' out, doesn't help Dems.
Isn't that about it?
Because they know it's bullshit? Not that that would stop a Democrat.
"The Democrats assume they own the black vote
Seems like an unfortunate use of the word "own"."
Seems like an accurate use of the word "own".
White Democrats, they never change.
The Democrat party in Georgia has launched vile ads exploiting Ferguson. The ad depicts a man on his knees with his hands up with a riot in progress in the background. VOTE is the heading. It segues to some black children holding signs suggesting they are the next targets of evil white cops. The insinuation, of course is that Republicans want cops to shoot unarmed black children down in the streets. This is wrong on so many levels but one could begin at the moral if that word had any remaining meaning.
This is a tricky situation because there are people across the country eager to riot when the grand jury fails to indict the cop. That is why they are trying to leak out the news, to diffuse these elements slowly. It is not going to work. The Democrats have to hope that the grand jury does not report until after the election and I suspect that there is a great deal of pressure from on high to do just that: allow the situation to be exploited before the election and then let it rip after it is over.
We are in for a very bad time. It is going to be ugly.
You will not be able to abstain from the vote anymore.
Because if you don't vote, and they find your ballot, well, it's not like it's stealing, right?
++
One thing jumps out when you start browsing: the number of justifiable homicides by law enforcement officers (hereinafter JHBLEOs) has been surprisingly steady over the years, fluctuating between 300 and 462.
Another striking phenomenon is the massive drop in the percentage of black people among those killed by cops. From 1976 to 1980, exactly half of JHBLEO victims (967 of 1,934) were black. The trend since then has been down. For the most recent five years available, 2008-2012, it’s about 30 percent. I've posted charts showing the racial breakdown over time in numbers and in percentages.
Since you asked, the number of Asian- and Native Americans killed is low, usually in the single digits per year. Hispanic JHBLEOs show up in the SHRs only from 2003 on, and fluctuate in the range of 15 to 19 percent. The Hispanic fraction of the U.S. population is 17 percent.
++
100% voting is usually the sign of a corrupt system (see totalitarian societies that have "votes"), either nationally or even at a precinct level.
Not voting indicates the voter is fine with the outcome no matter which way it turns out, an is generally viewed as the mark of a society where the people are happy.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6mEzgc_ne60#t=65
This case, as well as the other 18-year-old black guy who was killed in return fire after he fired three shots at a cop with his 9mm "sandwich," show that the problem they have is picking the wrong poster children. They're trying to get black folks to think, "Oh my God, the evil white cops are shooting law-abiding black folks like me!" when in fact, the people getting shot don't fall into that category at all.
Official autopsy report is out today plus article in NYT (Evidence supports officer’s account of shooting in Ferguson). And, we saw some of Officer Wilson's story this last weekend.
What is pretty clear from the evidence so far is that "Big Mike" Brown (he had this nickname tattooed on him) attacked Officer Wilson in Wilson's police vehicle, likely grabbed for Wilson's firearm, was shot while his arm was in the vehicle, then retreated, turned around (likely as a result of Wilson telling him to "freeze"), and then started approaching Wilson again, at which point, he was shot multiple times, with several of the shots probably being fatal. The autopsy report is inconsistent with Brown having his arms up to surrender at the time he was shot, and, instead, they were down by his side, and consistent with Wilson's story.
Even if Wilson had not positively identified Brown as one of the two suspects in the strong armed robbery of the convenience store (class B felony), Brown appears to have committed one or two other Class B felonies in the presence of Officer Wilson (when he physically assaulted Wilson, and when he apparently tried to grab the gun), probably justifying the use of deadly force for Brown's apprehension. Which means that Wilson may not need to get to self-defense to legally justify the use of deadly force against Brown. (The penalty for Class B felonies in MO is apparently 5-15 years).
the problem they have is picking the wrong poster children
When we really should have a 'conversation' about how the police and the public interact, it's not necessarily a racial one.
All of these cases lately, they rush to make it racial before facts even come out, so whatever point they might want to make sort of gets regarded as bullshit because couldn't you come up with a better example? If not, maybe there isn't one. At least, that's what a lot of people are probably thinking.
And then any actual issues get lost in the shuffle.
When the officer, the autopsy, the crime scene analysis, and (per the Washington Post) seven black witnesses all agree on what happened, what sensible politician wants to take the other side?
That's all information gathered shortly after the shooting, and presumably available long ago to local politicians (like Governor Jay Nixon) through either official or unofficial channels. Which is to say, long enough ago they could advise allied politicians, "Don't make it an issue; the facts are on the cop's side."
I think that this sort of shooting, and the Black responses to them are quite divisive racially. Trayvon Martin was a juvenile delinquent gangsta wannabe. He bragged on social media about beating up strangers, his MMA skills, and showed off an illegal firearm that he supposedly owned with another youth. Big Mike Brown had just, most likely, committed a Class B felony (5-15 years) in the strong arm robbery right before his fatal interaction with Officer Wilson. And, Vonderrit Deondre Myers apparently actually shot at a police officer (attempted murder - surprisingly though only a Class B felony, like Brown's strong armed robbery).
I think that the problem is that all three of these young men were just asking to be gunned down. And, were. They violated societal norms against the use of violence, and paid the ultimate price. And, yet, the Black community (as well as a number of well meaning progressives) want their deaths to mean something in terms of Black/Blue violence. There are innocent Blacks killed by the police (or non-Blacks in the case of George Zimmerman) - but these most likely aren't some of them.
I think that the big problem is that so many Black youths these days grow up in horrible environments, and making things worse, many grow up without a strong father figure in their lives. Boys need to have limits set for them, and mothers rarely can provide that. Which ultimately leaves society, often in the form of the police.
The basic problem is mostly not that the police use too much violence (some of it fatal) against Black youths, but rather that those Black youths are doing things that society does not condone, such as trying to kill people. It isn't police militarization (though that is a problem), but that all three of these young Black men tried to kill people, or come close to it.
cause they don't want to be associated with rioters?
Cause the White House prepped them that Wilson's story checked out?
Journolist 2.0 knows that "the lovable giant running away" story wasn't true?
Interesting that this post has been up since before 10 AM and ten hours later not a single one of the usual progressive democrats who had been calling for the cop to be prosecuted, who had been calling it a murder by cop, who had been demanding justice and announcing their solidarity with #MikeBrown and the legion of looters, has made an appearance to defend their rhetoric and opinions. Not a single one. God forbid they should admit that they were wrong. Typical worthless crooked democrat party progressives without a shred of principles. Pond Scum Punk Emcees, every one of them.
I believe the family of Trayvon Martin won a few million dollars from that township in Florida. Sure they had to split a lot of the money with the lawyers and Sharpton, but they still came out ahead. A similar payment to Brown's family and Sharpton's organization will do much to ease racial strife in Ferguson.
It's important for debate moderators to not ask Democrats questions they can't answer.
One step at a time. This time around I'll be happy if the debate moderators don't answer questions for Democrats when they start to flounder.
God forbid they should admit that they were wrong.
They can't be wrong. Either blacks are the victims of white people or blacks have no agency because their great, great, great grandfathers were slaves.
There have been times when I signed in, entered the booth and wrote in none of the above.
I wanted it understood that I wasn't too lazy to vote, but that I felt none of the choices were worthy of my vote. I believe there is a specific diffrence
Even when one abstains from voting in Colorado, Chicago, and other locales controlled by Democrats, one can be pretty damn sure one's vote still counts. Sometimes more than once.
The St.Louis American is leading with the Fannie Lou Hamer club of North County endorsing a Republican.
Post a Comment