Ok, boys and girls, a bit of criminal law 101, because apparently you all are not getting the fact that Comey yesterday basically trashed Clinton in the worst way possible. A word about discernment: try it out, you might like it. First, much has been made about the Bill Clinton/Lynch meeting. You do understand of course that Clinton appointed Lynch back in '99 and she is a lifelong Democrat. The reason for that meeting? To get Lynch off the hook. 'But wait, VI, you're crazy!' Maybe so, but follow my line of thought: It is NOT the FBI's job to determine whether or not to prosecute a case. They are cops, plain and simple. It is the Justice Department's job to either prosecute or not prosecute. Let's be clear about that. So let's assume the FBI does its investigation and turns it over to the Justice Department. Lynch doesn't prosecute (and this hangs over the entire election). Republicans cry foul, 'she's your husband's appointee - the fix is in.' Fine, she recuses herself, and another subordinate doesn't prosecute, the Republicans cry foul saying 'of course they're not prosecuting, the ADA is an employee of Lynch, a Clinton appointee.' So to avoid that mess, the meeting happens, the Republicans get to raise a stink and Lynch says she'll follow the recommendation of Comey, head of the FBI, and, wait for it, a Bush appointee and a lifelong Republican. Yes, you read that right, he's a Republican. So Comey, playing to the party, trashes Clinton's practices but seemingly throws her a bone by recommending not prosecuting. Why would he do such a thing? Politics, plain and simple. Comey gets up there, gets to trash Clinton, and she doesn't get a chance to respond. However, he had to come to the conclusion because of the statute - and he's a former prosecutor and knows how to read. I'll let you all sing along, here's the statute in its entirety: I have bolded the key portion: unlike Patreus, Clinton did not send any email to an unauthorized person. Everyone she sent it to had clearance, so portion one fails. The only portion of the law that theoretically was violated (because she used a private server) is the 'uses in a manner prejudical to the safety of...' Based solely on using a private server. And the 'intent' that many are screaming about is 'knowingly' - in other words, she had to 'know' that using a private server was prejudicial per se. You are also all aware that the State Department was hacked (you catch that part of Comey's report?) and that there was no evidence that the private server was actually hacked. So if she had used the 'proper' server, she would have been hacked. You are also aware that this all came out of the Benghazi Investigation. Anyone else remember an investigation of diplomats being killed to go after a Cabinet head? Yeah, me neither. Comey has totally ruined his credibility because he did a hatchet job that couldn't be done otherwise. Do I like Hillary? Not really. Will I vote for her? Probably not, I'll do a write in. But everyone needs to actually understand what is going on here. The Benghazi investigation was a purely politically motivated investigation and the only thing the Republicans could come up with is this flimsy email bullshit. So in one regard, Comey was right, no reasonable prosecutor would go forward. BIAS ALERT: I was a lifelong Republican, switched to Democrat for the primary (to vote for Sanders) and will be switching to 'Independent' before the next election. I still consider myself a conservative, but not a neoconservative. So take the foregoing with that in mind. As a final note, I would tell you to look up how much stuff gets the 'top secret' designation compared to 20 years ago. The increase is startling.
Definitely true about Benghazi, and I think it's fair to say that the Republicans are going to use the wiped servers to drive up wild speculation as to what was actually on there. In that way, the narrative works much more to their advantage if she doesn't get prosecuted. Rather than nailing her over sharing classified information that mostly amounts to something trivial, her getting away with it lets imaginations run wild. It's as bad you want to say it is. Winning an election these days is about fear and outrage, and since Clinton is already one of the least popular candidates ever the Republicans don't actually benefit from a conviction. Besides, who would have predicted at this time last year that if the Republican nominee had to run against a fill in the election would almost certainly be decided against their favor? I can't really get enthusiastic about a potential commander in chief who's buffoonish enough to approve drone strikes on her cell phone, but people don't really get how the classification system works. If the Republicans pushed too hard on prosecution over every little 'leak' there actually is potential that this would just roll off of her once the initial shock died down.
Actually, she couldn't have done the same thing. There needed to be outrage so it looked like she was 'giving in' to the Republican's guy, Comey. If she just recused herself, and had a subordinate handle it, the taint of favoritism if there was no prosecution would still have been there. And a word about Bill. He, along with George HW Bush, Jimmy Carter, and FDR were probably among the smartest men to hold office in the 20th Century. Hillary is probably smarter than Bill, and frankly, had society not been the way it was in the 70's, Hillary would have been governor, not Bill. She is incredibly intelligent and talented. But I do love the idea of Bill wandering the halls of the White House at night looking for an intern. I agree, the Republicans get far more mileage out of this outcome than if there was a prosecution. Now all the allegations hang out there instead of having to actually be proven.
Right now I'm voting for Hillary for three reasons: 1. She's not Trump 2. My hopes of what could happen for women's health/rights under her presidency 3. I'd really like a shot at being the next busty brunette Jewess Bill sticks a cigar into in the White House
A new video shows that this man never had a gun out, it was in his pocket. But LA. is open carry, yes? It's also now said the cops weren't actually there for Sterling and instigated him. The cop who killed him has a father who's one of the highest ranking cops in town, and his mom is an ex-police captain. But the DOJ and FBI have prevented the local cops from investigating themselves this time and took over for once. That would be reassuring if the DOJ and FBI didn't suck so much ass lately.
I go back to...if the police tell you to get down, fucking get down. Especially in the States where anyone is capable of shooting anybody and police departments are known for overreacting.
Open carry does not mean it's all good to put a gun in your pocket, it means the pistol has to be out in the open plainly visible to anyone. Regardless he didn't deserve to be shot over it, hopefully the cop who pulled the trigger gets some form of punishment. Body cams and cell phone footage are helping hold police more accountable, not as fast as some would like.
This. I am white as white can be and this is what i was taught about dealing with the police. Jusy do what they say or they can fuck your shit up.
Oh look. Another black guy shot to death by cops at a traffic stop. http://minnesota.cbslocal.com/2016/07/06/police-officer-involved-shooting-in-falcon-heights/
Just comply with the police and nothing bad will happen. Just don't reach for your divers license, that's a death sentence. People shouldn't have to fear for their lives for no reason, yet they do because police can simply kill you if they want to. America has a serious fucking problem if they think this is how life should be, that just because somebody wears a badge they have any and all excuses to kill someone.
Sure. And obviously we are seeing the aftermath in the most recent video for Philando Castille but the officers don't seem to be disagreeing with the woman filming about her version of the events while they're there. And preliminary story sounds like he was told to get his license and then shot for reaching into his pockets, after telling the cops he was carrying and had a license too. I wonder why all the NRA folks aren't up in arms screaming right now.. And secondly, it's all well and good to say listen to what they tell you, but not listening to a cops every word when you're pulled over and subjected to stop and frisk shouldn't be a death sentence.
No one should die during a routine traffic stop. He did exactly what people who concealed carry are advised to do when pulled over by the cops. Inform them you have a permit and are carrying. And he died anyway. You can hear in the cop's voice that he knew he fucked up.
The second shooting, the fellow in Minnesota, is to me a clear case of police brutality and as such should be punishable by a charge of murder. You pull someone over, you ask for their license and registration, they announce that they are legally armed and go to reach for their wallet - boom. Completely inappropriate reaction by the cop. Unless there's more to the story, and so far it looks like there isn't. I'm not suggesting that there isn't police misconduct and rampant racism afoot, particularly in America. Just that every time a black man gets shot by police doesn't necessarily mean that the cops decided to unilaterally execute someone. These deaths reiterate two things for me: 1. Guns don't make you safe. If you think that walking around carrying a gun brings you more safety than the potential harm it causes, I believe you're wrong. The odds of successfully using a gun to thwart an attacker vs. the odds that the gun gets stolen, discharges accidentally, is used in a suicide or draws unwanted reactions from the police are so badly skewed. 2. On the whole I don't think the police are trained well enough to be given the proper tools to function within the community. It's partially the selection bias of the type of person who becomes a cop; the over-militarizing of departments with old war equipment and the lack of interpersonal and hand-to-hand combat training that leads to these insane escalations. I hope the cops in Minnesota are charged. I don't think the cops in Baton Rouge were too out there, though. Both situations were handled badly and I agree that neither should have EVER resulted in a police shooting.
The training methods being used by police forces are seriously flawed. That video made me sad. That child had to see that, live with that the rest of her life. A few weeks ago, my friend's grandmother passed away. Within minutes, friends and family started showing up at her house to grieve. Her driveway filled, people started parking just off the road, but out of the right of way, in my friend's field. A county deputy stopped to see what had happened. My friend told him his grandma just died after a battle with cancer, family were gathering, there are no problems, please leave. A few minutes later he was on the ground with a gun pointed at him, and eventually cuffed and put in the car. The deputy was less than 90 days in to his career in law enforcement in a small city that averages less than 2 violent crimes a month, not a recorded murder according to neighborhood scout. My friend got a call from the sheriff, an apology and assured the deputy would not be on patrol for a very long time. My friend's foster kid did what everyone seems to be doing these days, he got it on video.
Not sure if they meant tail light, turn signal, or break light, and not sure how accurate this tweet is (from a guy running for state rep), but here is *allegedly* Castille's tail lights at the scene. They appear to be fine: https://twitter.com/RashadsRepublic/status/750900353529368576 So now we might have the possibility that he was pulled over for nothing. Here is a list of all 600 police shootings this year: http://www.killedbypolice.net/ With related news articles. That's a large number, "good" shooting or not. That's like 4 a day.
I really hope the investigation moves quickly and am curious to see what info the authorities will release. This is awful. I think the fact that this pisses me off a lot more than other shootings is how it hits closer to home- I could have been pulled over by that cop and it sounds like Castile was doing as he should being in legal possession of a gun. I already don't like how cops are trained with their own guns and this is why.
I'm not seeing a whole lot of information on police tasings, like one finds for gun violence. Amnesty International says 500 people have been killed since 2001 by police as a result of tasing. It'd be interesting to see if guns are drawn as often as the taser, or the inverse. When cops started getting issued with these things it was precisely because they wanted to reduce the use of lethal force. What I am finding are a lot of articles about the elderly getting zapped by cops. Da fuck.
If anyone is interested in possible solutions to this problem I suggest reading this article. http://www.theatlantic.com/politics/archive/2015/05/cincinnati-police-reform/393797/. I'm from Cincinnati and I'm very proud of the changes this city has made when it comes to policing. We had a big problem in the late 90's early 00's with police shootings to the point of major riots. There's still more to do, but it's come a long way and it shows that if you're actually interested in making changes it can be done. Big system are always opposed to changes, but I think America is getting to the point with this issue that we can push to get nationwide changes to how police operate and interact with communities.