President Trump: The NEW one and only politics thread

To me, the modern extension of this is that local police departments have far too much control and authority in our culture.

 

This is more elegantly stated than what you said earlier, but equally meaningless.

In fact, it may even reflect the opposite of what you originally said. Instead of city liberals taking guns away from rural conservatives because "fuck 'em," it sounds like rural conservatives are clinging to their guns, not because of rights or personal liberty, but because "fuck 'em."

 

He's quoting Obama.

 

The militarization of local police is a real problem, I agree. The shit that got rolled out in Ferguson was eye opening. But I'm not sure it should be even with what civilians can carry. I seem to recall instances where police have been outgunned in fire fights, and that seems... less than ideal.

This event comes to mind:

20 years ago, a dramatic North Hollywood shootout changed the course of the LAPD and policing at large

Of course, that same event gave police departments the seeming free rein to buy fucking tanks.

 

I'm sure that was painful for him.

Regardless, it has nothing to do with children being gunned down in their schools.

 

He thinks he's proving that liberals want to enact stricter gun regulations because they hate middle America's "way of life." Obama is, in fact, expressing empathy for middle Americans (though in a condescending manner), not antipathy.

YF's argument is idiotic and a complete red herring. Advocates for stronger gun regulations want to enact stronger gun regulations because they think stronger gun regulations will prevent some amount of gun violence, as compared to a country without stronger gun regulations. And if that isn't the reason, who really gives a shit anyway? This isn't a battle over who is purest of motive. It's a policy debate and a Constitutional law debate.

 

All the talk about not taking guns away from law-abiding owners I understand - until you also realize that most mass-shooters bought their guns legally because until they fired that first shot at someone, they too were considered law-abiding citizens.

An interesting idea - add violent and "judgement-related" offenses from someone's juvenile record to the gun data base. DUIs etc. And keep them in the record for five years.

 

Still just can’t figure out why this administration is so impotent when it comes
to stopping Russian cyber attacks. It’s really a big mystery, isn’t it? It’s like they don’t want to fight this war.

Hopefully Dems will turn out in overwhelming numbers in November to overcome any fuckery.

 

I'd prefer a state actor vulnerable to a private citizen rather than the reverse. Helps build the legitimacy of the state.

What has happened in America - can't speak to your home country - is an extraordinary loss of place, community, shared identity. Minorities have shared identity...as minorities. Women have it...as women. But as communities where people share a space? It's less and less true with each passing month. The Internet is part of that, but people, in general, just feel completely powerless. If you put up for a vote, for example, "should police departments have tanks and AR-15s" I'm guessing some communities would say "hell yeah" and some would say "hell no." But people lack that kind of voice. Somewhere, the social contract that we theoretically sign just became assumed.

Americans view their elected leaders as untouchable by reason, beyond their reach, bought and sold by someone somewhere else. The majority of America wants AR-15s gone, and yet that can't happen. Why? Because a handful of people say so. And so it goes down the line into communities. You can't put a couch on your porch in many cities. States have imposed fine structures so stringent they create debtor's prisons. Why? Because the state or the city needs money. Communities that don't desire to be sanctuary cities are anyway. So on and so on and so on.

One of the reasons I want cops to be stripped of guns in most circumstances - and a good chunk of their arrest powers - is because we lost any sense of cops being there for our benefit. They're not the good guys. They're the violence and enforcement arm of an increasingly uncaring, unforgiving state.

 

Kushner and others have security clearance downgraded. Not that Kushner should have any clearance at all.

Kushner loses access to top-secret intelligence

 

Beat me to it. Bold strategy by Kelly, we'll see how it works.