iNow

You need me to cut your meat and tie your shoelaces for you, too?

Your understanding isn’t accurate. You should fix that. Please, quantify this. For “too many?” How many? I’ll accept and order if magnitude estimate. Becomes “too often?” How often? One in five? In ten? A hundred? A million? Knowing you won’t be able answer my entirely reasonable request in an even remotely satisfactory way, perhaps we can simply agree there is a problem affecting Americans of specific ethnicities in an asymmetric way and that we should be allies in making things better, even if better often falls short of perfect.

Gish gallop much?

If you go to the doctor with a broken arm, and the doctor says, “but all bones matter,” you’d say, “yeah doc, of course that’s true, but this is the one that’s broken right now and it’s the whole reason I’m here, so perhaps we can please attempt to mend this one now?” Your own source clearly states those whites were mostly armed and in violent opposition to the police, but that: Also, it was only the first 5 months of the year, and the year was 5 years ago. One really has to engage in some serious mental gymnastics and tortured logic to think your point is remotely valid. You’re either ignorant or lying or both, and none is helpful.

https://www.theatlantic.com/politics/archive/2020/06/james-mattis-denounces-trump-protests-militarization/612640/

Between 2013 and 2019, in 99% of police killings no charges were ever brought against the officers involved. I’d say this is about more than just this one slap in the face with 3rd degree murder charges. Decades (centuries) of no accountability coupled with decades of systemic differences in treatment in policing, in schooling, in housing, in opportunity... coupled with months of asymmetric deaths among blacks due to covid and months of disproportionate job losses... That poor camel has been carrying a whole lot of straw for far too long

I’m sure there’s validity in this point, but the issue has become so toxic that our guns aren’t going away any time soon. As soon as we decided that deaths of kindergartners was okay at Sandy Hook elementary school, we basically ceded the conversation. I’d say a bigger problem than guns is the culture within police departments themselves. It’s more like a gang. When one cops speaks up about bad behavior or overly aggressive acts of a colleague, they’re attacked and put at risk as punishment. Their calls for backup and help go unanswered bc they didn’t remain quiet or protect their “brother.” They’re a rat. It’s clearly worse in some places more than others, but in addition to our abundance of guns in the US, the police focus on and strategy of always dominating any situation (Trump mentioned the word “dominate” in his call with governors today for a reason... he knows it’s catnip for his base and for a sizable percentage of the police force), the culture of “no snitches allowed” in police depts is a major part of the reason that the same people protesting about this exact same problem of cops killing blacks 60 years ago find themselves once again out protesting today. Edit: Forgot to mention the clauses police unions have put into their contracts which make it nearly impossible to fire them or take them off the beat

Sadly, I’m much safer than so many of my family, friends, and neighbors. https://www.vox.com/2020/5/31/21276004/4-charts-anger-police-killing-george-floyd-protests

It’s amazing how quickly their position switched from “recommending that people wear masks when they’re out in public is tyranny!” instead to “the government can shoot dead anyone who is out on the street at night and they can do so for any reason.”

And yet for a consistent 40-45% of the US voting populace, that's a feature, not a bug.

Thankfully, we have a president willing to step in between the anger and angst and de-escalate tensions. Oh, wait...

Police in Louisville, Kentucky opened fired on peaceful protesters last night and killed a demonstrator. On Saturday, Louisville police violently escalated protests and shot a teenage girl in the face with a rubber bullet, captured in a photo that went viral. The Louisville PD is also responsible for the murder of Breonna Taylor, a young nurse who was a beloved member of the community. Louisville PD raided her house in the middle of the night and executed her in a hail of gunfire. Not a single officer has been arrested.

What about religiosity?

A pretty interesting PhD thesis in the years ahead would be to compare infection and death rates by party affiliation and/or news source

Sadly, yes

https://abcn.ws/3go1xMy

We're all mad here...

Before the 2016 election... before we fell into this bizarro world parallel universe when everyone thought Hillary Clinton would win the election... all of the "informed" commentators said Trump would be building his own network to present material farther to the right than Fox News. That was his plan... get attention and notoriety in the election campaign, then use that to refocus attention on to their new propaganda network and drive ratings. Throughout his presidency, small media outlets have been building up to compete with Fox and he regularly interacts with them to bolster their visibility and reach. My guess is he will still proceed this way and create the network when his presidency is over, whenever that may be, and that what he's doing now is laying the ground work to by badmouthing Fox so they can enter the market as a legitimate competitor and steal their viewers.

I think he’s trying to move press attention away from his failed response to the pandemic. From the link above:

Whether he actually is or he’s actually lying, neither possibility strikes me as a good message to be sent out to the world from the POTUS https://www.vox.com/policy-and-politics/2020/5/18/21262889/trump-taking-hydroxychloroquine-coronavirus Every day, for about a week and a half now, he says he’s been taking it. I mean... What harm could come from hallucinations in the man controlling the nuclear stockpile and who can move markets with a tweet or errant comment? This brief 15 minute CBS podcast called Debriefing the Briefing lays it out fairly clearly

Agreed. My 5 month ago self thanks you

Just so we’re clear: I wasn’t setting up a strawman of your position to easily knock down, but was instead referencing your consistent focus on mental health and suicide during hard economic times to set the context for the comment I chose to share.

And his base support won’t shake or recede one bit. His floor is 40-45% support among the voting populace. For them, his grift and lies and corruption is a feature, not a bug.

https://www.nytimes.com/2020/05/05/us/politics/rick-bright-coronavirus-whistleblower.html