406W30th

All of this. The first woman is obviously mentally ill and it's hard to watch without feeling really bad for her, regardless of her despicable behavior. The second woman's mental illness is almost certainly her brain being poisoned by Facebook and Fox News. At least the first woman didn't run to the police and endanger their lives.

It's ironic, because the suburbs have essentially the policing model that cities want. Two white kids get in a fight on a basketball court in the exurbs – do the cops book either of them for assault? Hell no. A cop (who probably lives in the suburbs) sees that happen in the inner city? You better believe those kids are gonna end up in handcuffs and likely something on their record. The suburbs don't spend the bulk of their budget on policing. They properly fund things like schools, parks, their libraries, etc. They bend over backwards to make sure "good kids" don't get in trouble with the law and the cops treat them like actual human beings. That is how cities would ideally be policed. Infrequent contact with an actual cop and allocating money toward actual public health & safety measures like safe housing, addiction recovery, social services, parks, etc. Also – this isn't a national issue at all. The suburbs have no fucking right to tell cities how they should or shouldn't keep their community safe.

Lots of school districts around the country – Minneapolis, Seattle, Portland, Denver, Oakland, Milwaukee, and probably lots more that I'm missing – are removing cops, ripping up their contract w/ the police department, or at least pushing for the removal of police from their campuses, out of safety concerns for their students. New York City has stated that they will divert funds from police resources in schools to more proactive solutions like social workers or specially-trained guidance counselors. This is a great move and it was the first shoe to drop in Minneapolis in terms of disbanding their terrible police department. Still a long way to go, and it's taken years of work to get here, but it's nice to see a model for communities to follow in terms of divesting/investing. NY Times – Schools Move to Eliminate Campus Police Officers

Definitely got my mom onboard this week and I'm about *this* close from convincing my dad (a former Scott Walker donor and son of an FBI agent) that the police need a complete overhaul from the ground up. All it took was a spreadsheet of 500+ episodes of police brutality against protestors and a few Twitter threads. He's getting a bundle of Ta-Nehisi Coates and Ibram X. Kendi books for Father's Day.

Great vid/panel

No one is saying "defund public safety", we're saying defund the POLICE, as in the armed, insufficiently-trained, and ill-equipped-to-handle-most-situations-that-they-get-called-to police force. I am 100% in favor of funding public safety.

I'm sending this out to all the Boomers in my family and a few dumb HS friends I'm reluctantly still friends with. A nice explainer on "Defund the Police". Unrolled (or for those not on Twitter): I think for many people the talk about defunding is (completely understandably) overwhelming and hard to imagine. I really do get that. And what I also get is that many people know and/or have interacted with "good apples" and this answer seems extreme. So let's talk about that. For me, I am deeply deeply uninterested in categorizing police (or people more generally) into good and bad. It's not a useful binary for me, and it allows people to escape accountability. That's just a personal practice of mine. People are complicated. Police included. I also don't think most people who do heinous things are "just wired" to commit harm. Often, who someone becomes in these roles is very, very different than what they imagined. Some of these people came into this job swearing they would never do things they've done. None of this is to absolve bad behavior, or focus excessively on the internal motivations of police, who ultimately have a responsibility to act with integrity, especially as armed state actors. But it is to make an important point, which is that policing today hurts everyone. We have encouraged and perpetuated a system that allows, and even incentivizes, police to be their absolute worst selves. Their least empathetic. Their least dignified. Their most brutal. Extremely unwilling to speak up against the powers that be. Policing also incentivizes failure. Right now, as I and many others have pointed out over the past few days, we solve approximately 40% of murders in many major cities in america. 40%. And that's more than the percentage of rapes and other serious crimes we solve. The bottom line is this: policing doesn't work for people, but it also largely does not work for police. We are asking police to do too much. We are asking them to be mental health professionals. We are asking them to be addiction experts. We are asking them to address issues rooted in poverty, we are asking them to be trauma experts. And, unsurprisingly, it isn't working. Even if you take brutality and killing people out of the picture entirely - even if the cops were not explicitly harming people every day - we would still have to reckon with the fact that police don't even solve crimes! So who is this system good for? If the police in this country drew up a public safety system from scratch, is this what they would draw? Why can't we create better systems that incentivize the people involved to access their humanity? So yes, defunding the police is a necessary response to years of brutality and harm caused by policing in America. But the end goal is not to punish the police. The end goal is healthier systems, healthier communities, and healthier people - both civilians and cops. Public safety does not have to look like a war. Do we have the courage to imagine something different?

Seriously – who the hell likes talking to or even seeing a cop?

If you need any proof that "reform the police" is code for something entirely inadequate: Cops regularly turn off their body cams with impunity. They regularly cover up their badge. Nothing happens. And you're correct – the police will always exist in some capacity, and that's fine. We need some law enforcement but it must be wholly reimagined. I agree that "Defund the Police" is a bad, easily attacked way of saying what most of us really want, but it's about moving the Overton window at this point in order to get meaningful reform. You can't start by saying we need "reform", especially when dipshits like Scott fucking Walker are claiming to be proponents of "reform".

I don't disagree that it's a trap, especially for someone like Biden who can't help but trip over his own dick, but I also think it's pretty easy to say that this is a local issue that should be decided locally. Aren't conservatives supposed to be all in favor of local control? The other way to answer it: "Look Jack, cops are given an impossible job to do. It's not their fault that they're burdened with the job of social worker, mental health professional, and enforcer of the law enforcer. The system has failed them and it's our responsibility to unburden them so that they can perform their job better, and more safely."

This is kiiiiiiinda huge.

I would love to know what percentage of Americans have participated in some sort of protest/march in the past week. And what would that number be if not for COVID-19?

Fuck Paul Ryan forever. No way that spineless drip isn't voting for Trump.

I have some sympathy for him in this situation, but I also love to see a politician get his feet held to the fire.

lol yeah the answer is definitely private police forces to perform the absolutely essential duty of driving around and fucking with people w/ impunity. How does this theoretical private police pull in revenue, exactly?

Our police state needs a complete overhaul – not just incremental reforms here and there. There's been lots of traction on social media about the idea of defunding the police and while it sounds a bit crazy at first ("WhAt AbOuT mUrDeReRs??!"), it's actually a very practical solution to a horrific problem. Obviously this isn't something you do overnight, but the idea is that you divest the resources that are currently militarizing our police and you invest in solutions that actually work – mental health care, social services, etc. Our police budgets are extremely bloated, and even if people weren't getting murdered and/or brutalized by overzealous cops, it would make a lot more sense to spend money on preventative measures like safe housing, help for the homeless, child care for working families, etc. Why should an armed police officer show up when a homeless man takes a piss on the sidewalk? Why shouldn't that man get some actual help instead of getting tossed in the clink? Why should I get pulled over by two cops with guns when I have a taillight that burns out? Some police should be trained to respond to violent offenders, but we should absolutely have more community-based solutions and employ people who are capable of providing empathetic, practical solutions to non-violent problems. I have had very few issues where I have had to call the cops, thank goodness, but in those rare cases where I actually felt like I needed help from the police, not once has that call resulted in anything but disrespect and fear from the responding officers. I'm a white dude and I'm extremely loathe to call the police; I can't imagine what women or people of color think of asking the police for help.

Chris Cilizza lmao

So when is the fixtures list going to be announced? The only thing I'm seeing is the two games on the 17th and then a full slate of matches on the 20th, but nothing after that. I heard on a podcast that there are going to be games literally every day starting on the 20th but I can't find any verification of that.

I would be genuinely excited about voting for Biden/Warren.

That doesn't really make any sense – Biden brought a different approach + foreign policy experience to Obama's ticket, wouldn't Biden then want someone who brought something different? He brings foreign policy experience so he doesn't need a VP who has that. FWIW, I'm not sure any of the leading VP candidates really have much foreign policy experience. Certainly not Harris or Abrams, and tbh it feels like Warren's weakest area as well. Shit, Klobuchar couldn't even name the Mexican president.

I've come around completely on Warren as veep, in part because it seems like that dipshit Kennedy can just take her spot and not primary Markey. Honestly that's almost reason enough – Markey kicks ass – but also Warren as the one actually steering the ship in the White House would be a dream come true. And the more I think about it, the more I think Warren is a wash vis a vis Kamala and Black support. Kamala didn't exactly fire up the Black vote and Black women seem to really like Warren. As good as Kamala is/would be as an attack dog, Warren would be even better.

On the one hand, I feel like Warren would be wasted as VP. On the other hand, George W. Bush spent eight years as "president" while Dick Cheney ran the country. Also, send Bush and Cheney to The Hague.

I'm not sure one is more valuable than others in terms of advancing the progressive agenda. Certainly you need to flip more places blue if you have any hope of getting meaningful legislation passed, but the loudest voices on the left are responsible for the fact that we're even talking about things like M4A. Four years ago it was an absolute non-starter and now it's a popular idea, thanks to Bernie. Bit of a chicken-egg, I think.

Sweeping Federal Lawsuit Seeks Election Changes in Wisconsin