A Winner is Jew posted:

While technically true the military was effectively split several years before the CW started since Franklin Pierce appointed Jefferson Davis as his secretary of war and he used his time in office to move as much war material to the south as he could before things got kicked off.

quote:

Texas Republican Gov. Greg Abbott on Tuesday asked the State Guard to monitor a U.S. military training exercise dubbed "Jade Helm 15" amid Internet-fueled suspicions that the war simulation is really a hostile military takeover.

WhiskeyJuvenile posted:

http://talkingpointsmemo.com/news/texas-governor-abbott-orders-national-guard-military-takeover

quote:

Is this statement meant to have citizens let their guard down, or is Gov. Abbott truly concerned about the Army’s mission?

haveblue posted:

The NY MTA has had enough of Pamela Geller winning first-amendment lawsuits and banned political ads entirely from public transit.

quote:

This week's Baltimore riot could not have happened to a nicer city.

Baltimore residents welcome strangers and even call them "hon." They sit on benches painted with the slogan "The Greatest City in America."

quote:

For one thing, the uprising did not bring a black populace into confrontation with an overwhelmingly white police force, as happened in Ferguson, Mo., last year.

Baltimore, a majority black city, has a black mayor and a black police commissioner whose force is about half black.

This reality was plain to Taiwan Parker, who lives in the neighborhood where Gray was arrested. He told us that police-community relations have long been sour. And yet, he said, "It ain't no race thing — it's not a race thing at all."

quote:

Volunteers delivered sack lunches to children. The kids had lost their free lunches when the schools closed due to violence.

There was also food for grownups. In a more prosperous neighborhood, Bob McCulley offered a plate of jalapeno corn muffins and more.

That's Baltimore: the place you get offered a wide selection of snacks in a riot zone.

McCulley is a retired cop. We met him in front of a strip mall. The shops included his wife's looted hardware store.

He said he and his wife arrived at the damaged store on Monday night to find neighbors waiting for them to help clean up the mess.

They were friendly neighbors — who worked alongside friendly looters at the shop next door.

quote:

How does race figure into this? It's a city with a black majority and now a black mayor and black police chief, a substantially black police force.
What did Tom Wolfe write about cops? They all become Irish? That's a line in Bonfire of the Vanities. When Ed and I reported The Corner, it became clear that the most brutal cops in our sector of the Western District were black. The guys who would really kick your rear end without thinking twice were black officers. If I had to guess and put a name on it, I'd say that at some point, the drug war was as much a function of class and social control as it was of racism. I think the two agendas are inextricably linked, and where one picks up and the other ends is hard to say. But when you have African American officers beating the dog-piss out of people they're supposed to be policing, and there isn't a white guy in the equation on a street level, it's pretty remarkable.

Stultus Maximus posted:

NPR's Steve Inskeep would like us to know that unlike Ferguson, Baltimore is a friendly, non-racist city and he just can't figure out what happened

I have no idea what the point of this story was other than to remind me that firing Bob Edwards was the first in a long chain of credibility-busting moves by NPR.

Joementum posted:

Naturally, Alex Jones thinks this is a FALSE FLAG!

JT Jag posted:

I mean seriously, the answer for "how could these things in Baltimore possibly be happening" is literally "watch the Wire, it's a good show and will answer all your questions regarding this matter"

quote:

The drug war began it, certainly, but the stake through the heart of police procedure in Baltimore was [former Mayor and Maryland Governor] Martin O'Malley . He destroyed police work in some real respects. Whatever was left of it when he took over the police department, if there were two bricks together that were the suggestion of an edifice that you could have called meaningful police work, he found a way to pull them apart. Everyone thinks I've got a hard-on for Marty because we battled over The Wire, whether it was bad for the city, whether we'd be filming it in Baltimore. But it's been years, and I mean, that's over. I shook hands with him on the train last year and we buried it. And, hey, if he's the Democratic nominee, I'm going to end up voting for him. It's not personal and I admire some of his other stances on the death penalty and gay rights. But to be honest, what happened under his watch as Baltimore's mayor was that he wanted to be governor. And at a certain point, with the crime rate high and with his promises of a reduced crime rate on the line, he put no faith in real policing.

JT Jag posted:

I mean seriously, the answer for "how could these things in Baltimore possibly be happening" is literally "watch the Wire, it's a good show and will answer all your questions regarding this matter"

Zeitgueist posted:

Corollary being "you are not an expert on Baltimore because you watched the Wire"

Not that the Wire is a bad show, sure it's a good start

Pyroxene Stigma posted:

No one said that.

The Wire is about Baltimore as much as Parks and Recreation is about their fictional town: a lot. The Wire is very realistic in comparison.

Zeitgueist posted:

Corollary being "you are not an expert on Baltimore because you watched the Wire"

Not that the Wire is a bad show, sure it's a good start

Pyroxene Stigma posted:

No one said that.

Brannock posted:

WhiskeyJuvenile posted:

http://talkingpointsmemo.com/news/texas-governor-abbott-orders-national-guard-military-takeover

Joementum posted:

The House is currently voting on a resolution that allows it to pretend that a budget has been passed so that it can bring up appropriations bills.

SirKibbles posted:

The people who think that their AR-15 is going to stop a government overthrow seem to not understand modern combat hint: get anti air guns. It's so dumb if you legit thought that the 2nd amendment was your last line of defense and you already thought the government was tyrannical why spend more on the military.

To be fair their is some truth to it you kinda of do need a gently caress you button but your AR-15 against jets aren't it.

Family Values posted:

As long as we're quoting and discussing David Simon's take on the situation in Baltimore, I'll go ahead and add this to the pile. (I don't think this was already linked in this thread but apologies if I overlooked it)

Stultus Maximus posted:

NPR's Steve Inskeep would like us to know that unlike Ferguson, Baltimore is a friendly, non-racist city and he just can't figure out what happened




I have no idea what the point of this story was other than to remind me that firing Bob Edwards was the first in a long chain of credibility-busting moves by NPR.

SquadronROE posted:

I can't determine whether I'm amused that Texas is going gearing up for an imaginary war, or terrified that Texas has its own private army.

WhiskeyJuvenile posted:

http://talkingpointsmemo.com/news/texas-governor-abbott-orders-national-guard-military-takeover

Good Citizen posted:

gently caress i love dude's sign

Good Citizen posted:

gently caress i love dude's sign

CommieGIR posted:

Baltimore's ports are shutting down for one day to support the protesters. Union mandated.

Zeitgueist posted:

Basically that.

Lots of folks think that watching the wire gives them some deep insight I'm just posting that as a warning not accusing anyone.

quote:

Those cases detail a frightful human toll. Officers have battered dozens of residents who suffered broken bones — jaws, noses, arms, legs, ankles — head trauma, organ failure, and even death, coming during questionable arrests. Some residents were beaten while handcuffed; others were thrown to the pavement.

And in almost every case, prosecutors or judges dismissed the charges against the victims — if charges were filed at all. In an incident that drew headlines recently, charges against a South Baltimore man were dropped after a video showed an officer repeatedly punching him — a beating that led the police commissioner to say he was “shocked.”

Such beatings, in which the victims are most often African-Americans, carry a hefty cost. They can poison relationships between police and the community, limiting cooperation in the fight against crime, the mayor and police officials say. They also divert money in the city budget — the $5.7 million in taxpayer funds paid out since January 2011 would cover the price of a state-of-the-art rec center or renovations at more than 30 playgrounds. And that doesn’t count the $5.8 million spent by the city on legal fees to defend these claims brought against police.

“These officers taint the whole department when they create these kinds of issues for the city,” said City Council President Bernard C. “Jack” Young. “I’m tired of the lawsuits that cost the city millions of dollars by some of these police officers.”

City policies help to shield the scope and impact of beatings from the public, even though Mayor Stephanie Rawlings-Blake acknowledges that police brutality was one of the main issues broached by residents in nine recent forums across Baltimore.

The city’s settlement agreements contain a clause that prohibits injured residents from making any public statement — or talking to the news media — about the incidents. And when settlements are placed on the agenda at public meetings involving the mayor and other top officials, the cases are described using excerpts from police reports, with allegations of brutality routinely omitted. State law also helps to shield the details, by barring city officials from discussing internal disciplinary actions against the officers — even when a court has found them at fault.

joeburz posted:

People actually purchase and wear the "miss me" W clothing? That can't be real

mlmp08 posted:

Did you read the article? Nothing you posted makes sense in the context of what is happening.

karlor posted:

"I don't think I've ever seen an Hispanic panhandler."- Ted Cruz (his longstanding position)

Good Citizen posted:

Also if the military was planning to take over Texas then I doubt attending a town hall holding a sign with 4 different slogans on it is going to make them withdraw. Maybe one extremely poignant slogan