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The big spin today is on how "shell-shocked" the Romney campaign was when the numbers started to turn on them, how incredibly amazed they were when voters started "crawling out of the woodwork" in places they never expected, and how it all just took them by utter surprise.

CBS News quoted one campaign spokesman as saying "There's nothing worse than when you think you're going to win, and you don't...It was like a sucker punch."

Sucker punches happen when people are stupid, when they listen to each other instead of the facts or their instincts. Still, I have to say honestly that I'm not buying into the theme as an overarching excuse for why the Romney campaign failed on such a huge scale. I'm not willing to buy excuses like this, via Huffington Post:

The GOP was blindsided Tuesday, but also revealed. The Democrats' ground organization was beyond anything they'd imagined, pulling in new voters with stunning effectiveness. It exposed a major weakness in the Republican approach to winning elections, practically and intellectually.

"I don't think anyone on our side understood or comprehended how good their turnout was going to be," said Henry Barbour, a Republican committee man from Mississippi. "The Democrats do voter registration like a factory, like a business, and Republicans tend to leave it to the blue hairs."

This, from a representative of the party that hired Nathan Sproul to register only Republicans in swing states.

The truth is more stark and revealing than anyone seems willing to admit.

Fact: This race should never have even been close. If Barack Obama were a white dude with a normal name who had just served a first term that was as effective as his first one was, it would have been a landslide with absolutely no prospect for any Republican candidate. No one seems to want to talk about racism and the role it played in this election even being "faux close", and I'm not sure why.

The only weapon in the Republicans' arsenal was race, and they played it on a near-daily basis for four years. The backup weapon was gender, and they played that one for the past two years in order to marshall the evangelical conservatives behind an otherwise unelectable candidate.

Think about it. They nominated the guy who actually represented the larger group that drove this economy into the gutter. Imagine Dupont running against FDR in 1936. How do you suppose that would have worked out? Would there have been any doubt about who would have been re-elected?

Would it have felt like a "sucker punch" when FDR won that second term? Not even close.

So now we come to 2012, and a bid by Barack Obama for re-election after four years of daily demonization and "othering" by conservatives in the mainstream and on the fringes. In the process of marginalizing him, conservatives have also taken aim at women, particularly younger single women, and Hispanics. For four years they have honked their horns about jobs and the economy while working to stall all growth whatsoever until they could get someone more favorable to the billionaire's tax goals, at the expense of working people everywhere.

They demonized unions and tried to take voting rights away from anyone they could. This is what they did for four years, and they thought people would simply sit idly by and watch them do it?

I don't think they're stupid. I think they're spinning, because they have a real problem. They cannot reconcile the purity trolls in their party with the pragmatic thinkers, for starters. They've let the John Birchers take over the party's core, which is a near-promise of irrelevance in the short-term.

They were 'surprised' because they relied on racial division to carry them over the finish line. This is why the despicable John Sununu and Donald Trump were permitted to carry the race card and play it at will. They thought they had the numbers because they believe there are enough racist haters in the world to actually win.

Shocking, isn't it?

And here you have Karl Rove spinning madly (see video above) because he's got to have something to tell his billionaires, and they're a little peeved about spending all that money only to lose ground rather than gain any.

In Rove's world, Barack Obama lost voters because people "couldn't stand the guy and couldn't stand voting for him" so he demonized the other guy. There's that personal thing again. Never mind that both parties lost voters and Romney lost more than Obama overall. What could that reason be for people not being able to "stand the guy" personally? Could it be.....scary race-baiting?

Seriously, Republicans. You're not stupid. Not all of you are racist. But racists are also Republicans. Time to step up and start dealing with it.

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As a lot of people have been noticing recently, it's past time we had an honest conversation about race in this country. The problem is what happens to the conversation as soon as conservatives get involved.

Of course, the real problem with race in America originates with conservatives, so perhaps that's not surprising. This is a historic problem. After all, it is conservatives who resisted the end of slavery. It is conservatives who instituted, and then protected with a fifty-year campaign of terrorism known as lynching, Jim Crow laws and segregation in the South. It is conservatives who resisted the Civil Rights Movement with every ounce of their energy. And it is conservatives today who resist any kind of advancement in civil rights for minorities.

As we've explained previously, their favorite rhetorical technique in pursuing this anti-rational course is what we call "the bloody shirt gambit": Converting perpetrators into victims and victims into perpetrators by claiming that the very discussion of the atrocities committed by violent right-wingers is an act of demagoguery and thus more vile than the original act in question itself. They scream, "You're waving the bloody shirt!" any time someone talks about the realities of their racial bigotry -- or, in more recent vintage, "You're playing the race card!" -- and suddenly the very discussion of the matter is placed off-limits.

A good example of this happened recently, when Time's Joe Klein appeared on Chris Matthews' Sunday news show on NBC, and the discussion of how President Obama was discussed by the panel, including Klein and Helene Cooper. At one point, the discussion ran like this:

Cooper: Four years of covering Barack Obama, he does not play the race card. Not in a negative way. He does not do that.

Klein: He hates it. He hates it. He probably should, though -- he probably should address it because the bitterness out there is really becoming marked.

Immediately, the headlines on Drudge followed those that appeared at Dan Riehl's wingnutofastic joint, to wit, that Klein was urging Obama to "play the race card" -- even though what Klein clearly said was that what Obama needs to do is address the rising tide of racial animus that's being whipped up out there by the right-wingers playing the race card.

Such nuance, of course, was well over the heads of the folks at Fox News, who followed the Drudge lead and featured a segment on The Five discussing Klein's alleged faux pas as having urged Obama "play the race card". They all agreed that it would be a bad idea for Obama to "play the race card" by discussing racial tensions.

So Klein posted this response:

According to Mr. Drudge and Real Clear Politics, I’ve advised the President to play the race card on the Chris Matthews Sunday show. I didn’t, of course. The question to the panel was whether the President was going to have to address what appears to be a growing racial bitterness in the country. My response was that he should. That’s different from “playing the race card,” which is a term I’ve never used–it’s a cliche and a bad one, implying a political gambit or stunt. Political stunts that involve race are obnoxious. But race and ethnicity are issues that the President has addressed with intelligence in the past and, if the current Republican dog-whistling continues, may be something he might want to address in the future.

I don't normally defend Joe Klein -- the classic Beltway Villager -- but this was a sterling response that addressed the core issue: namely, the Republican campaign to clearly stir up racial resentment against Obama among working-class white voters, which even the most "centrist" observers can see is occurring.

Nonetheless, it naturally drew the ire of the natterers at The Five the next day:

Continue reading »

Update: U.S. Rep. Thaddeus McCotter (R-MI) has resigned. Politico reports:

From his statement:

Today I have resigned from the office of United States Representative for Michigan's 11th Congressional District.

After nearly 26 years in elected office, this past nightmarish month and a half have, for the first time, severed the necessary harmony between the needs of my constituency and of my family. As this harmony is required to serve, its absence requires I leave.

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Does the Republican party just let anyone run for president? After U.S. Rep. Thad McCotter's brief foray as a Republican candidate for president ended last year, but before he ended his efforts last month to win back his Michigan seat as a write-in candidate after fraud allegations, it seems he decided to try his hand at "writing" for television.

[Via]

"Bumper Sticker: Made On Motown" starred McCotter hosting a crude variety show cast with characters bearing the nicknames of his congressional staffers, his brother and a drunk, perverted "Black Santa." They take pot shots about McCotter's ill-fated bid for the White House while spewing banter about drinking, sex, race, flatulence, puking and women's anatomy. It features a cartoon intro and closing snippet with an Oldsmobile careening through Detroit and knocking over the city's landmarks. The double-finned car has a Michigan license plate reading: "Made on MoTown."

The News obtained a copy of the script from a former staffer who offered it as evidence of what the five-term congressman was pitching while in elected office and the tawdry humor unbecoming of a public official who had become disinterested in serving the 11th Congressional District.

But wait, there's so much more:

Some congressional staffers included in his 42-minute pilot episode dated Oct. 17, 2011, were the same longtime employees who handled the collection of petition signatures that botched his chances of getting on the Aug. 7 primary ballot. The character named "Wardo," the nickname others acknowledge is used for District Director Paul Seewald, dresses in a matador costume, gets drunk on a whisky-laced Slurpee and runs off stage after puking.

"Chowsers," the nickname for Deputy District Director Don Yowchuang, leers at women's body parts and snaps cell phone pictures of them, goes "cougar hunting" and repeats the line "I'm Thai."

Seewald and Yowchuang received substantial pay increases in the first quarter of this year—19 percent and 32 percent, respectively, compared with previous quarters, according to records from Legistorm.

And yikes!

In "Bumper Sticker," conservative commentator S.E. Cupp is cast as guest on the pilot. Cupp, a regular guest on cable political shows, also has appeared on "Red Eye" and co-hosts MSNBC's "The Cycle."

McCotter tries to ask serious questions of the columnist, while his sidekicks chime in by asking how she "keeps that great stripper bod?" and whether "D-Cupp" is dating anyone. In the script, Cupp is disgusted by the "train wreck" of the show.

It's unclear whether Cupp knew of her role in the pilot. Reached by e-mail, she didn't want to talk about McCotter.

McCotter said that the variety show is his outlet to deal with the "destructive" environment in Washington. What, by contributing to it?

An aside to my fellow Michiganders, if you see any of your Republican congress critters drinking Slurpees this Summer, you might want to remind them not to drink and drive. Please!

A viral video advertising a fake game, Slavery: The Game, has been the talk of video game sites and other parts of the web in the last week. As seen in the trailer above, the game would've allowed players to become slave traders and buy and sell slaves in order to become the master slave trader.

In a lengthy explanation the creators of the video explain that it is not a real game and that the video was created to "raise awareness" of a new television program appearing on Dutch public television. The idea was to increase viewership for the show about slavery. The explanation falls flat, though, because the ad encourages players to "make a tremendous fortune," "buy slaves," "discipline them," and "exploit them," while also showing you a variety of weapons you can use to discipline your slaves, including a whip, a scourge, a rifle, and a spiked club. It's hard to imagine how the creators of the video thought such things would be an appropriate way to raise awareness for the video. Their explanation does, however, prove to be educational and it looks like the programs that will air on Dutch public television will help raise awareness of the Dutch role in the American slave trade.

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Andrew Breitbart isn't the only right-winger out there creating false narratives about his targets through selective editing -- indeed, this is a common practice at Fox News, too. But the real champion of selective editing -- in quite a different fashion -- is Matt Drudge.

Instead of chopping up video, Drudge selectively edits tidbits of information from around the country to create narratives on his widely read Drudge Report website -- narratives that, in fact, are often right-wing lies pandering to right-wing audiences.

Recently, the narrative at Drudge has been this: Criminal young black men, freed to wanton abandon by the Black Panther-coddling Obama administration, are embarking on a retributive crime wave against white people.

Alex Pareene at Salon calls him out:

Since Obama actually took office, though, Drudge has seriously stepped up his "scary black people" coverage. There was, in September of 2009, the story he heavily publicized of a kid on a bus in Illinois getting beaten up. A kid on a bus in Illinois getting beaten up is not really national news -- until Drudge makes it so. The fact that the beater was black and the victim white is why Drudge made it national news. Rush Limbaugh made the subtext explicit: "In Obama's America, the white kids now get beat up with the black kids cheering."

This is the narrative that Drudge is trying to create, especially on slow news weekends when there's nothing real to aggregate and post: The blacks are rising up and attacking the whites. If that sounds a bit crazy, in a Charles Manson way, then you're obviously not paying attention. Black people are angry and they're taking over! When Barack Obama was campaigning to win Chicago the Olympic games, Matt Drudge led with a terrifying photo of (black) gang violence and the breathless, all-caps headline, "OLYMPIC SPIRIT."

The violent death of a young man is definitely news ... in Chicago, where it happened. It had very little to do with whether Chicago is a suitable venue for the Olympics. Violent murders happen in big cities and small towns across the nation every day. But only some of them can be used to stoke paranoia about emboldened, angry black people rising up.

John at Gawker observes that this past weekend, there were 10 Drudge headlines supporting this narrative:

Then be sure to check in with the Drudge Report, which has conveniently rounded up a slew of run-of-the-mill summer crime stories that happen to involve black people and suggestively weaved them into a nationwide race riot.

...

The race-baiting is a bit more transparent—"urban," "rib fest"—than we've come to expect from Drudge, who is usually more elegant in his efforts to stoke white rage. All of Drudge's readers in the media business, the cable news producers and Politico reporters who regard him as "America's assignment editor," know exactly what his intent is with those headlines. But instead of being dismissed as a racist weather-obsessed recluse he continues to be regarded as a power player in right-wing politics.

Unsurprisingly, some of the wingnutosphere's duller tools in the shed promptly leapt to Drudge's defense by trotting out the classic right-wing stereotypes about blacks and crime -- thereby clinching the case that what Drudge was doing was stirring up these resentments. F'r instance, Confederate Yankee:

Pareene is a far left liberal that would like to embrace the childish fiction that all races and cultures are essentially the same. It's a wonderful view to have when you're ten.

While individuals within these cultures can be anyone and achieve anything, it is a statistical fact that African-Americans are disproportionately responsible for crimes in this nation compared to any other ethnic group. They are also more likely to commit some of the more sensational crimes, such as the near riots and wildings that are the prime headline fodder that are Drudge's bread and butter.

If Pareene really wanted to make an impact, he'd spend his time and resources trying to find the reason for the statistical discrepancy that shows African-Americans are more prone to be criminals and victims of violent crime.

Of course, he already knows the reason. It started with LBJ's "Great Society," and continued with the rise of Planned Parenthood and the destruction of the African-American family unit due to "progressive" social reforms.

Oy. The stooooooopid, it burns. And then these same conservatives look hurt and amazed when people point out that their attitudes are deeply racist.

Right-wingers like Bob Owens never seem to understand that the correlation of crime with race is not a causal relationship -- rather, the causal relationship is between poverty and crime. And black people are more likely to be impoverished in America than other races for a broad variety of reasons, many of them historical in nature, but including a number of ongoing factors: demographic segregation, job discrimination, and impoverishment of urban schools.

There are many theories about race and crime in America -- some of them promoted by white supremacists such as Jared Taylor and David Duke.

As Amanda Marcotte at Pandagon observes:

Drudge's choice of what stories to highlight is about creating a narrative, and the insinuation is now that we have a black President, all hell is breaking loose. One of the weirdest, most long-standing conservative myths is that black people are aching to "rise up" and take the nation by force. The argument is then that they have to, more in sorrow than in glee, argue against equal rights for black people. They'd want to share, but you know, violence! The notion that black America is revenge-minded is something that is surprisingly powerful for wingnuts. That's why there's non-stop chatter on right wing radio about slavery reparations, even though the subject has no traction in real world discourse, and even if it did, said reparations would look much different than right wingers imagine it would like. (They're picturing jack-booted thugs stealing your grandmother's pearls and giving it to some family you don't know to pawn, but it would more likely be a check that resembles a Social Security check or a tax refund.) And that's why Andrew Breitbart thinks that some court settlement to black farmers who were systemically discriminated against for decades is the biggest problem our nation faces.

Indeed, Drudge's editorial choices tell us far more about him -- and his many fans -- than anything else.

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Washington Post writer Jonathan Capehart has taken after Cornel West's remarks in an interview at Truthdig.com with strident disagreement.

From the interview:

No one grasps this tragic descent better than West, who did 65 campaign events for Obama, believed in the potential for change and was encouraged by the populist rhetoric of the Obama campaign. He now nurses, like many others who placed their faith in Obama, the anguish of the deceived, manipulated and betrayed. He bitterly describes Obama as “a black mascot of Wall Street oligarchs and a black puppet of corporate plutocrats. And now he has become head of the American killing machine and is proud of it.”

Capehart responds:

What West said is no less offensive, harmful and wrong than what Dinesh D’Souza said — with an assist from Newt Gingrich and Mike Huckabee — about a presumable anti-colonial and un-American mind-set possessed by Obama. Whereas these folks tried to deny the president his citizenship, West is trying to deny him his inherent blackness. By indulging in the “Obama-as-other” narrative, West is no better than a birther. By making petty complaints in that Truthdig interview about the lack of returned phone calls and not getting Inauguration tickets, West is no different than Gingrich in 1995 , when his displeasure over his seat on Air Force One led to a government shutdown.

Melissa Harris-Perry and Adam Serwer weighed in, too with similar reactions.

I don't understand what the goal is when it comes to Cornel West's opinion. He says in that same interview that if the only backstop against fascism is Barack Obama, he'll go with that. If the goings-on in Republican states and the United States Congress doesn't convince you of that, then look to the Supreme Court's future to understand what's at stake. So why come out and call President Obama a tool of the oligarchs? It makes no sense, and is suppressive in nature and intent.

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I realize that the school choice folks are all for private schools and charter schools and the like. I also support school choice, but not in the same way. In my school choice realm, homeless moms who are looking for a way to have their kid get a decent education in a safer neighborhood would actually be able to make that choice. So when you hear the term "school choice" from me, consider my definition.

I'm not sure why this is becoming something fashionable to do, but it seems like a complete waste of taxpayers' money to charge a homeless mom of a six-year old boy with grand theft. What's the point, exactly? If she can't pay for a home, how will she be able to pay back $16,000? Nevertheless, that is what just happened in Norwalk, Connecticut.

Not only is she charged with grand larceny, but the babysitter who was in fact a babysitter (that at least is undisputed) whose address she used was evicted from the public housing development where she lived for allowing the child's mother to use her address to get the boy into school.

The police investigation into the residency began in January after Norwalk Housing Authority attorney Donna Lattarulo filed a complaint alleging McDowell registered her son at Brookside, but actually lived in an apartment on Priscilla Street in Bridgeport.

As part of the evidence presented in the complaint, police received an affidavit of residency signed by McDowell and dated last September attesting that she lived in the Roodner Court public housing complex on Ely Ave.

When she was interviewed by police in the case, McDowell admitted to living in Bridgeport at the time she registered her son in Norwalk schools.

She said she knew a man who owned a home on Priscilla Street and he allowed her to sleep at the home at night, but she had to leave the home during the day until he returned from work.
She also acknowledged that she stays from time to time at the Norwalk Emergency Shelter when she has nowhere else to stay.

McDowell also admitted that Marques was her son's babysitter from 3 p.m. to 6 p.m. after the boy got out of school.

Read more.

Continue reading »

Benton Harbor, Michigan's city government was shut down yesterday by the state Emergency Financial Manager. Elected officials in that city are now limited to calling a meeting, adjourning a meeting, and approving minutes of a meeting. Beyond that, they can do nothing.

Eclectablog:

This is a complete disenfranchisement of an entire community, an entire large city in my state. The voters are now denied the ability to be governed by the people they elected in a democratic election.

This is nothing short of an abridgment of democracy in raw form.

I will have more as this develops. I can only assume a lawsuit will be forthcoming. The news is so fresh it has not yet hit the major news outlets.

[...]

Interesting statistic: Benton Harbor is 92.4% African American with an annual median household income of $17,471 with 42.6% of the population below the poverty line. St. Joseph, the next city south of Benton Harbor on the shores of Lake Michigan and just on the other side of the Paw Paw River is 90.3% white with an annual median household income of $37,032.

All of Detroit's public school teachers were told they would receive layoff notices yesterday, along with the 250 school administrators.

Detroit Free Press:

"I fully intend to use the authority that was granted," Bobb said, referring to a new law that gives emergency managers the authority to modify -- or terminate -- collective bargaining agreements. It was the first time Bobb had publicly indicated he intends to use the expanded authority.

Robert Bobb is the Detroit EFM. His latest action sparked a protest calling for his ouster.

Detroit's demographics: 82% African-American, 12% white, median household income $26,098 in 2009, down from $29,506 in 2000.

In February, Bobb converted 41 of the district's schools into charter schools, after ordering half of all the district's schools shut down. Class sizes in Detroit are now 60 students in some schools.

In Wisconsin, Scott Walker is working to break unions by stripping their right to bargain. In Michigan, Rick Snyder is working to break unions by staging a coup of city governments in the name of fiscal "crisis", and then breaking the union contracts. But strangely, Michigan's efforts thus far appear to be focused on cities with high percentages of poor and minority populations. Other cities in Michigan are struggling with budget problems too, and yet only Detroit and Benton Harbor are the targets of Emergency Fiscal Managers?

Michigan's population overall has declined over the last 10 years at a steep rate. Without jobs, people are leaving the state to look elsewhere. Those declines affect school districts across the state, not only in Benton Harbor and Detroit. Yet these are the two cities that are the first targets for totalitarian state control.

Detroit in particular has been targeted as a school voucher program city, largely due to the unrelenting efforts of the Michigan-based DeVos family. Breaking the unions opens the door for private, for-profit Charter Management Organizations (CMOs) to enter the district and take over schools. This is, I believe, Snyder's ultimate goal.

First take over the city because of a "crisis". Break the contracts. Bring in outside for-profit organizations to run charter schools. Then call yourself an "innovator".

David E’s Fablog: Race Riot, sponsored by corporate lobbyists

Glenn Greenwald: There's nothing new about right wing insanity...or stupidity

distributorcap NY: All American Children Left Behind

Scott Horton: Two Marine Generals take Cheney to the woodshed

$Blind In Texas$: I'm a Ninther

AMERICAblog News: One year after the fall of Lehman, few changes

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The Henry Louis Gates situation is mainly a distraction, where the media has decided to document a sideshow instead of the hundreds of millions of people struggling every day with substandard health care coverage.

But there's also a serious policy component. Policemen should not be allowed to arrest someone for being an asshole in their own home. If that was the case, right-wing bloggers would all be doing 10-20. It appears clear, and I guess there may be audio tape to this effect, that the cop came to Gates' house, figured out that he was not a burglar, words were exchanged, and then the cop arrested him for disorderly conduct. That's really over the line of what cops should be allowed to do, regardless of the motivations, racial or otherwise.

The crime of disorderly conduct, beloved by cops who get into arguments with citizens, requires that the public be involved. Here's the relevant law from the Massachusetts Appeals Court, with citations and quotations omitted:

The statute authorizing prosecutions for disorderly conduct, G.L. c. 272, § 53, has been saved from constitutional infirmity by incorporating the definition of "disorderly" contained in § 250.2(1)(a) and (c) of the Model Penal Code. The resulting definition of "disorderly" includes only those individuals who, "with purpose to cause public inconvenience, annoyance or alarm, or recklessly creating a risk thereof ... (a) engage in fighting or threatening, or in violent or tumultuous behavior; or ... (c) create a hazardous or physically offensive condition by any act which serves no legitimate purpose of the actor.' "Public" is defined as affecting or likely to affect persons in a place to which the public or a substantial group has access.

The lesson most cops understand (apart from the importance of using the word "tumultuous," which features prominently in Crowley's report) is that a person cannot violate 272/53 by yelling in his own home.

Read Crowley's report and stop on page two when he admits seeing Gates's Harvard photo ID. I don't care what Gates had said to him up until then, Crowley was obligated to leave. He had identified Gates. Any further investigation of Gates' right to be present in the house could have been done elsewhere. His decision to call HUPD seems disproportionate, but we could give him points for thoroughness if he had made that call from his car while keeping an eye on the house. Had a citizen refused to leave Gates' home after being told to, the cops could have made an arrest for trespass.

But for the sake of education, let's watch while Crowley makes it worse. Read on. He's staying put in Gates' home, having been asked to leave, and Gates is demanding his identification. What does Crowley do? He suggests that if Gates wants his name and badge number, he'll have to come outside to get it. What? Crowley may be forgiven for the initial approach and questioning, but surely he should understand that a citizen will be miffed at being questioned about his right to be in his own home. Perhaps Crowley could commit the following sentences to memory: "I'm sorry for disturbing you," and "I'm glad you're all right."

Spoiling for a fight, Crowley refuses to repeat his name and badge number. Most of us would hand over a business card or write the information on a scrap of paper. No, Crowley is upset and he's mad at Gates. He's been accused of racism. Nobody likes that, but if a cop can't take an insult without retaliating, he's in the wrong job. When a person is given a gun and a badge, we better make sure he's got a firm grasp on his temper. If Crowley had called Gates a name, I'd be disappointed in him, but Crowley did something much worse. He set Gates up for a criminal charge to punish Gates for his own embarrassment.

By telling Gates to come outside, Crowley establishes that he has lost all semblance of professionalism. It has now become personal and he wants to create a violation of 272/53. He gets Gates out onto the porch because a crowd has gathered providing onlookers who could experience alarm. Note his careful recitation (tumultuous behavior outside the residence in view of the public). And please do not overlook Crowley's final act of provocation. He tells an angry citizen to calm down while producing handcuffs. The only plausible question for the chief to ask about that little detail is: "Are you stupid, or do you think I'm stupid?" Crowley produced those handcuffs to provoke Gates and then arrested him. The decision to arrest is telling. If Crowley believed the charge was valid, he could have issued a summons. An arrest under these circumstances shows his true intent: to humiliate Gates.

The cop baited the guy into leaving the house so he could arrest him for making a cop feel bad.

I appreciate the work of law enforcement. But regardless of race, too many cops have the belief that if they get insulted, they have the right to turn that into an arresting offense. That's not the law whatsoever, nor should it be. It creates a chilling effect among the public not to call out bad behavior in law enforcement or raise your voice in any way. I know we're all supposed to believe that cops are saintly, but I live in LA. Police misconduct happens all the time, and we should be vigilant when it does.

Instead, the media takes the soccer ball and chases it into the corner, without any semblance of factual records or perspective. It becomes an emotional argument instead of a factual record of misconduct. We pay cops with tax money. We should not risk arrest when arguing with them.