Texas progressives call out Texas wingnuts for 8:46

8:46? If you don't know the reference, Google it, then come back and dig in.

In the meantime, let's look at a weekly roundup of reaction to police thuggery, police racism, and more, and how to possibly fix it. I've got so much here that I split the non-COVID part of this week's roundup in two itself.


Politics and police — Texas

Gov. Strangeabbott called on Bexar and Nueces County GOP leaders to resign after they got caught posting George Floyd false-flag conspiracy theories on Fuckbook. Besides the story itself, note that this shows racism in major urban counties is just as problematic as in the boonies. Strangebbott, beyond any degree to which he is truly disgusted, is of course worried about losing suburban swing voters in the general election. However, he did not call for Comal County's chair-elect to step down over a George Soros conspiracy theory. Nor has he called for Harris' chair-elect to not step up over more blatant racism. (Pee Bush, to his credit, wants all four to move along.) Update: It eventually became a dozen, and other folks like nutbar Ag Commish Sid Miller, who has either had way too many or not nearly enough Jesus shots. Keith Nielsen, co-chair elect in Harris County, got the message and won't step up. Other than Nielsen, nobody is stepping aside or down, and state elected officials haven't had further comment. And, once again, why post to "public" on Facebook?

Police

The problem, in a nutshell, from a long read:

State leaders have been much more adept in calling up the National Guard and coördinating police actions to confront marchers than they were in any of their efforts to curtail the virus. Can't put it any better than that. 

Well, I can. This is the New Yorker, NOT, say, Counterpunch. Most New Yorker readers have had their heads buried since Abner Louima was sodomized by some of Gotham's finest, or Amadou Diallo was shot full of holes. Maybe Upper East Side habitués are worried about a brown tide.

More and more white folks don't trust cops, and the dropoff is rapid, post-killing of George Floyd. For "pergressuve" or beyond folks, all races, David Bruce Collins describes just what we want in police reform.

I mean, even nationally known former Sundown Town Vidor, Texas, had a George Floyd support event. Christopher Hooks covered the Black Lives Matter rally in Vidor. Other than not mentioning Michael Cooper's Green Party political past, it was good.

ButtFeet's Anne Helen Peterson talks about how small-town protests in general matter. That said, she buried the secondary lede. Not until halfway through the piece does she talk about how Indians have a higher per-capita death by cop rate than even blacks do. That's WHY they're active in many of these Western small-town protests.

Lack of trust can extend to black police chiefs. U. Renee Hall is losing it in Dallas. From the Dallas Observer, hall continues to defend her cops, while the issue is splitting the Dallas City Council, and the council vs city manager Broadnax, who, up to this point has been the best one there in more than a decade, or even longer. The Snooze now reports that a majority of the council is at least interested in "defunding." Hall's apparently deliberate footdragging on providing information is a good way to shoot herself in the foot while hoping white North Dallas will bail her out. Surprisingly, Jim Schutze hasn't weighed in with a column on the issue yet, given his history of criticism of Hall.

On the Hispanic cop side, Art Acevado is trying to spin in Houston. Texas Monthly isn't buying. Houston Mayor Sly Turner has announced a task force to look at HPD reform. Kuff says it's a good thing but needs more; I say it's not a good thing because ConservaDem and political infighter Turner is surely already using the task force idea to bury more meaningful change.

DosCentavos writes about where the conversation on police reform needs to begin based on the #8CantWait campaign.

Grits tells Texas Monthly:

The police unions’ political power is a big part of it. Prosecutors are allied with police, so it doesn’t matter if you’re a Democrat or a Republican: if you have that job, you’re not gonna prosecute cops because you have to work with them every day.

But will still attack me for voting outside the duopoly for president, even when he knows the truth about qualified immunity and Democratic Supreme Court justices? No, Scott Henson, if Democrats want my vote at the state and national level, they have to earn it (back).

Bill Barr's uniformed thugs on the streets in DC represent but a sliver of the U.S. government's total of 132,000, give or take, law enforcement officers. Read the details.

Despite the visibility of George Floyd, per capita, police are killing fewer civilians in central cities. HOWEVER, they're killing more than before in both suburbs and rural areas. Side note: Without quoting anybody, in my small town media area, there's white folks who I have heard say, "Yeah, George Floyd was killed," as in ... that was deliberate. As for the why? The link notes that death by cop in some big cities has led to police reforms that appear to be sticking. "Minnesota nice" Minneapolis, librulizm and all, is NOT one of those cities.

The military looks askance at Trump again. BUT, if he explicitly tries to violate the Posse Comitatus Act, or invokes the Insurrection Act without warrant, will it explicitly resist?

Killer cop Derek Chauvin is also allegedly fraudulent voter Derek Chauvin. BUT BUT BUT we're all "told" that it's only people with darker skins who are librulz who commit vote fraud amirite?

Sometimes, papers ARE not trustworthy. Like the Pittsburgh Post-Gazette, which has slouched toward Trumpian Gomorrah since his election, censoring its own reporters.

Ryan Cooper says Nordic countries can teach us something about better policing, better sentencing and better incarceration — the whole criminal justice system. He's largely right. BUT ... he's wrong in bits, namely on crime clearance rates. Although there are some VERY likely suspects, from Sweden's strong right wing (and it IS strong), Swedish police have, likely deliberately, let the trail of the murder of Olaf Palme grow cold, and prosecutors, likely deliberately again, surely support that. (And I've let Cooper know that on Facebook.)

Going beyond Cooper's kinder, gentler policing? Aside from ending the War on Drugs, what if we stop having cops do so much policing? (That said, per the "killing more" link above, contra the author, in many cities, police haven't come close to exhausting internal improvements, and the interviewed book author should know better.)

Drew Brees, and even more his wife, have recognized they have white privilege combined with classism. And, while I don't believe issues of race can almost always be reduced to class, class is often part of the mix, and America is NOT anywhere close to being a classless society.

Jake Tapper asked Ben Carson just how much of an Uncle Tom for Trump he was was going to continue to be, and the brain surgeon did a Stepin Fetchit tap dance around the question.

The Texas Signal reports on the Travis County DA primary runoff and how it relates to the wider criminal justice reform debate.

Via Out in SA, Equality Texas vows to do better at every level of their organization to help dismantle systems of oppression against Black Americans.

Here's the backstory on how NFL players got Commish Goodell to speak.

Finally? The Dunning-Kruger effect applies in spades to people's self-analysis of their racism, or lack thereof.