Trump the Savior

I have been saying for too many years now that the freakazoids are a clear and present danger to this nation and the world.

In the Pumpkin Traitor, they finally have a vessel for their power-mad fantasies.

Nancy LeTourneau at Political Animal:

All of this is cultish and disturbing on many levels—not the least of which is the fact that our foreign policy is being managed by a man who thinks he’s playing out some kind of biblical prophecy. But the most dangerous part is that cults are inherently authoritarian, which takes me back to what Stewart wrote.

I have attended dozens of Christian nationalist conferences and events over the past two years. And while I have heard plenty of comments casting doubt on the more questionable aspects of Mr. Trump’s character, the gist of the proceedings almost always comes down to the belief that he is a miracle sent straight from heaven to bring the nation back to the Lord. I have also learned that resistance to Mr. Trump is tantamount to resistance to God.

This isn’t the religious right we thought we knew. The Christian nationalist movement today is authoritarian, paranoid and patriarchal at its core. They aren’t fighting a culture war. They’re making a direct attack on democracy itself.

They want it all. And in Mr. Trump, they have found a man who does not merely serve their cause, but also satisfies their craving for a certain kind of political leadership.

The fact that Christian nationalists have anointed the most amoral man to ever occupy the White House as their savior tells us that their allegiance to him isn’t grounded in principle, but in authoritarian power that puts them above the law. That’s the kind of political leadership they’ve been looking for.

The 50-Year-Old Reason to Fight

Undercover Blue at Hullabaloo:

If I may, check out this thread from Will Bunch on why we do what we do.

I'm Bunch's age, I watched it too, and I'm here for the same reason.

Where Are We Going and Why Are We In This Handbasket?

Digby:

Addie Stan clarifies the historical moment for us by throwing a glass of ice cold water in our faces and telling us to wake the hell up:

SNIP

She concludes:

We’re in the grips of a shift in national identity, one in which democracy and adherence to human rights as stated national values (however flawed in their actual execution) are giving way to an acceptance of authoritarian rule. And we’re allowing our country to align itself against the democracies of the world at the hands of a president who is looking more and more every day like a traitor. A president who is helping to fuel the rise of the authoritarian right in Europe.

Just days after Trump walked away from the G-7 consensus statement with a slam at the prime minister of Canada, the Department of Homeland Security announced that it was planning to “strengthen the northern border.”

And that announcement, you could say, “barely registered.”

 Don't despair.  Fight.

School "Security" Overkill: "Diverse" Seniors Barred From Own Graduation

This isn't security; this is authoritarian racist assholes finding a new way to fuck over non-whites.

Karla Ward at the Herald:

Tanya Aguon sobbed in a live video on Facebook in which she said that her son was not permitted to walk across the stage at Bryan Station High School's graduation because he was wearing jeans and tennis shoes beneath his gown. 

Other grads, she said, were not allowed in because they were late to the ceremony, which was scheduled to begin at 12:30 p.m. at Rupp Arena.

The video shows several youths in green caps and gowns apparently being turned away by security guards at the door. Uniformed police officers are also shown talking with students outside Rupp.

More than 40 years ago at my high school graduation in our un-air-conditioned gym, most of us wore shorts, tank tops and flip-flops under our gowns.

Half the kids arrived after the speeches but just in time to walk across the stage.

They sky did not fall. 

This Nazi shit at schools has to stop.

Read more here: http://www.kentucky.com/news/local/education/article212394479.html#storylink=cpy

Read more here: http://www.kentucky.com/news/local/education/article212394479.html#storylink=cpy

This Is What You Get When You Agree to Fascist Neighborhood Rules

No, of course the neighborhood association should not ban certain dog breeds.  It also should not ban unmowed meadow yards, clotheslines, vegetable gardens, children's playhouses, compost piles, bright paint jobs and unique mailboxes.

People sign these authoritarian contracts thinking it will keep out people who don't live the way the existing owners prefer.

But first they came for the pit bulls ....

From the Herald

A cluster of huskies, pit bulls and German shepherds were out at Masterson Station Park Friday night, but their owners’ motives for the park visit were more serious than a walk or a game of fetch. 

Dozens of people, several with dogs in tow, gathered at the park to discuss and protest a ban on 11 dog breeds that was detailed in a letter from the developer of McConnell’s Trace neighborhood earlier this month. 

The letter sparked outrage from some in the neighborhood and wider Lexington community, but developer Dennis Anderson told the Herald-Leader earlier this week that the ban has been in place since 2006. Neighborhood residents say they aren’t so sure. 

 Next time, freedom lovers, try buying a place downtown. They like non-conformists there.

Read more here: http://www.kentucky.com/news/local/counties/fayette-county/article208894704.html#storylink=cpy

Conservatives Chaining Democracy

Yes, conservatives have always hated and feared democracy.  Yes, it all goes back to slavery. Yes, they will do anything to establish autocracy.

You already knew that.  But Nancy MacLain proves it.

Colin Gordon in a terrifying review:

Democracy in Chains is a revelation, as politics and as history.

We know a lot about the rise of the Right in postwar America ....

Democracy in Chains assembles all of these fragments into a much more coherent, and much more frightening, whole.

It establishes the Jim Crow roots of the modern right, not just through the GOP’s southern strategy but through shared doubts about the compatibility of property rights and democratic rule. It demonstrates that the lurch right in North Carolina, Wisconsin, Kansas, and Iowa represents not some existential crisis of a forgotten working class but the triumph of a long push to use statehouses as laboratories for autocracy. It understands the post–Citizens United wave of “dark money” as but the most recent chapter in a long history of corporate stealth and influence.

And it reminds us that, however incompetent the current White House and legislative leadership, they are winning handily.

Secrecy: Authoritarianism's Dead Giveaway

This is so fucking cute. Bevin snatches a quarter-million dollars from Medicaid patients losing their health coverage in a secret repug Senate bill to pay for a secret hotline run by political hacks to keep state government corruption - wait for it - secret.

Your ass is showing, motherfucker.

Jack Brammer at the Herald:

Gov. Matt Bevin’s administration is spending nearly $250,000 this year for a new hotline and website that state employees and Kentucky residents can use to report wrongdoing in government.

Attorney General Andy Beshear said he has “serious concerns” about the new hotline, calling it redundant and lacking independent, trained investigators.

“I, like all Kentuckians, want to ensure that reports of unethical or illegal actions are reported to and investigated by a trained, independent and nonpartisan government agency,” Beshear said in an email.

Beshear, a Democrat, noted that state employees may anonymously report any questionable activity to his office through its Department of Criminal Investigation at 866-524-3672. That number is answered by sworn law enforcement officers, who are career merit employees, not at-will employees, he said.

Under Bevin’s hotline, reports “will not go to an independent law enforcement agency, but to his political employees who will then decide which allegations are investigated and which are not,” said the state’s chief law-enforcement official.

“That is putting the fox in charge of the henhouse,” Beshear said.

Praise Dear Leader or Suffer the Consequences

The trumpies are right:  It's not a Muslim ban. It's a loyalty test.  But not to the nation or even the Constitution.

Crooks and Liars:

A Muslim mom gets turned away at the border, for the sin of wearing a hijab and having prayers written in Arabic on her person.

This is how it starts, folks.

Source: CTV News

A Moroccan-Canadian woman says she was turned back from the Vermont border after four hours of interrogation, including questions about her mosque attendance, thoughts on the Quebec City shooting and opinion about U.S. President Donald Trump.

Fadwa Alaoui, who has lived in Canada for more than 20 years and holds a Canadian passport, said she was on a day trip with her children and a cousin on Saturday when she faced the intense questioning.

When grilled about Trump, the Montreal woman said she told the guards “it's not in my interest -- he has the right to do whatever he wants in his country.”

Alaoui said she was forced to hand over her phone and the guards inquired about a prayer on her phone written in Arabic.

She said she was eventually told she could not enter the U.S. due to “videos and concerns.”

Alaoui now wonders if she can ever visit her parents, who live in Chicago. Her situation was also raised in Canadian parliament on Wednesday, with Prime Minister Trudeau and his Minister taking questions on the matter.

In Question Period on Wednesday, Public Security Minister Ralph Goodale said his department was looking into the situation, which he described as "troubling."

"To the best of my knowledge, this was one incident, but it's one incident too many. And I will want to examine it, but I need to get the detail of exactly who and when it happened so that I can follow it up," he said.

"Blue Lives Matter More Than Your Civil Rights" Bill Advances in KY

So, you're driving along at the speed limit when a state trooper pulls you over. You say "I don't think I was speeding" and he drags you out of the car, throws you face down on the hood and cuffs your hands behind your back while screaming "Stop Resisting!  Stop Resisting."

And now you're in jail, facing fines and prison time for the crime of "attacking" a police officer by merely asking why you were stopped.


That's going to be life in Kentucky if this piece of shit passes.

Daniel Desrochers at the Herald:

A bill that would make police officers, firefighters and emergency medical personnel a protected class under Kentucky’s hate crime law passed easily through a House committee Wednesday.

State Rep. Kevin Bratcher, the sponsor of House Bill 14, said the proposal is intended to protect police and give judges more “tools” when sentencing people who attack officers.

“I just want people to know that if you’re going to harm one of our first-responders, that we’re going to give you the maximum that we can,” Bratcher said.

SNIP

Opponents argued that police are different than others protected by the hate crime law because they chose to go into the profession. Including an occupation on the list of protected classes would water down the law by expanding it beyond historically oppressed minorities.

“This is not about making police officers safe,” said Rep. Darryl Owens, D-Louisville. “This is about something else. Bottom line, there is no place for this in hate-crime legislation. Where do you stop?”

You don't.  This bill gives cops carte blanche to arrest, abuse, even torture by taser anyone they want.  All the cop has to do is claim he was attacked, even as his "attacker" lies unconscious and bloody at the feet of the untouched cop.

Or as veteran Stephen Gardiner wrote to his legislators:

It is important to keep the purpose of hate crimes laws in focus. They are not just a way to tack on penalties for motivations considered particularly offensive. From their conception, such laws have been a way to recognize that certain types of violence impact not just individuals, but whole communities. Hate crimes discourage entire groups of people from exercising their rights. The long and ugly history of lynching is only the most blatant example of the impacts hate crimes have by intent. The origins of racist terror groups such as the Ku Klux Klan were in an intent to deter Black people from voting, assembly, speech and other rights guaranteed by the constitution. 

HB 14 is political theater. It ignores the real problems faced by police officers, chronic over-policing in Black and low-income neighborhoods, and worsening police-community relations. It ignores our Commonwealth realities of mass detention. It ignores our extraordinary incarceration rates and already overcrowded jails. 

Police work is difficult, at times dangerous. To be clear, willfully targeting a law enforcement officer because of their occupation is a heinous crime. However, Kentucky law already provides enhanced penalties for assaulting a police officer and treats the murder of an officer as a capital crime, without the burden of proving motivation. HB 14 is an attempt to legislate “respect” for law enforcement even while their benefits dwindle, training is inappropriate or underfunded, and their mission as it exists has led to overflowing jails, the disproportionate and aggressive policing of Black neighborhoods, and mutual mistrust between police and the most vulnerable communities in the state. 

Meanwhile, this bill suggests Kentucky has a kind of trouble Kentucky does not have. According to the highly motivated tracking of the Officer Down Memorial Page, across our entire state, no officers were killed in 2016. Even one would be too many, but HB 14 encourages a misperception that Kentucky and particularly Black neighborhoods in Kentucky are dangerous places for officers to work. The data suggests the opposite is true. 

Charges of resisting arrest and intimidation are extraordinarily discretionary. HB 14 transforms discretionary misdemeanors, for petty offenses or no offense at all, into discretionary felonies. This is an obvious threat and offense against Black neighborhoods and youth who are already too aggressively policed. In the current political climate and according to early showings of how similar bills are enforced elsewhere, these discretionary felonies are all too likely to be realized on the bodies of peaceful protesters as well. In this way, HB 14 fits well among the recent slew of reactionary anti-protest laws nationwide. Poor, homeless and mentally ill people are extraordinarily vulnerable to HB 14, as they may be less able to negotiate tense and frightening encounters with police, and less able to contest unjust charges.

The only purposes HB 14 serves are to allow legislators to make a public show of support for police that is show only, and to further the abuse of Black people and protesters. Kentucky doesn’t need this bill.

It will pass of course and Governor "Trump's dick tastes like caviar" Bevin will sign it.  There are many steps on the road to totalitarianism, and this bill takes a giant one.

Read more here: http://www.kentucky.com/news/politics-government/article131495739.html#storylink=cpy

Religion Loves Autocrats

PZ Myers:

Our current autocrat is supported by Christian evangelicals. Damn few are hanging their heads in shame (although, to be fair, some are).

Let’s face it, though: the success of the Christian religion has partly rested on its eager willingness to aid and abet authority, unlike, for example, Judaism. Mainstream Christianity has been an enabler, not a critic, of secular authority, no matter how oppressive it may be. There have been exceptions — liberation theology, for instance — but then the Church turns to oppose and oppress them.

The Resistance: How the Minority Party Cheats

Political Animal:

This is the kind of thing Zachary Roth was referring to when he wrote:

Today’s conservatives have no such confidence that the people are on their side. In fact, they are beginning to perceive that they’re in the minority – perhaps more glaringly than ever before. And yet this realization has brought with it another more hopeful one: being outnumbered doesn’t have to mean losing.

Roth goes on to describe the various assaults on democracy that are being embraced by Republicans in order to avoid losing, even in the minority. Doug Muder wrote about about how these attacks on our democratic institutions are fueled by igniting a confederate insurgency:

The essence of the Confederate worldview is that the democratic process cannot legitimately change the established social order, and so all forms of legal and illegal resistance are justified when it tries…

The Confederate sees a divinely ordained way things are supposed to be, and defends it at all costs. No process, no matter how orderly or democratic, can justify fundamental change.

Where are the Social Worker Cards? The Safety Inspector Cards? The Mental Health Counselor Cards? The Firefighter Cards?

What they're really teaching children with these cards is to view cops as super-authorities to be obeyed instantaneously and never questioned.

Just exactly what the billionaires and corporations want in their serfs.

Kat Russell at the Paducah Sun:

Get ready to start collecting and trading because the Paducah Police Department has teamed up with Head Start to bring back its once-loved officer baseball cards.

Discontinued about 12 years ago due to budget constraints, the new cards, paid for by Head Start as part its community partnership efforts, will be hitting the streets in the next few weeks.

Each officer will have a card with his or her picture and name on the front. On the back it will give their rank and division, how long they've been on the force and some personal information about the officer, such as where the officer is from, hobbies they enjoy or sports teams they like.

In the past, the baseball cards were used as a way to encourage the community to get to know PPD's officers, said Gretchen Morgan, the department's community resource officer. The cards gave people a reason to approach officers, chat with them and ask them for their cards.

That, said Kristy Lewis, director of Head Start for Paducah Public Schools, is what she hopes to encourage children to do when the new cards come out.

"We want our kids to know that it's OK to go up to an officer and say hello and ask them for their cards," Lewis said. "I think in doing that, kids will see that the officers are here to support them and help them."

Read more here: http://www.kentucky.com/2015/10/10/4080871/police-in-paducah-ready-to-unveil.html?sp=/99/164/#storylink=cpy

The Inhumanity of Being of a Cop

Cops deny the humanity of people who are not cops, and in doing so destroy their own humanity. There is no solution to this, other than dismantling the entire law enforcement system in this country and building something very different from scratch.

At TPM, Aurin Squire talks candidly with cops who are family and friends, and discovers that even the least conservative and aggressive are too conservative and aggressive:

Our chorus of sad and angry laughter echoed through my head as I took notes— disbelieving laughter at how far we still had to go, but hope for how far we have come. (I was sitting in the student lounge at Juilliard, after all). The system was racist, yes, but after hearing officers describe their jobs, I realized the very nature of their profession is one of infuriating contradictions and compromises. Regardless of color, to be an American cop means being both powerful enough to take someone’s life, and powerless to change the societal systems that breed crime and fear.

“You can’t fix anything. You don’t have an answer. You have a mandate,” said Wright. “The ritual of doing the job”—seeing people at their worst, barking orders at them— “makes you disconnect from yourself and the world…It only takes three to five years for your humanity to be gone.”

Which makes it very easy to shoot to death a mentally ill teenaged girl.

Digby:

Yes, there is undoubtedly something else they could have done. This was a mentally disturbed teen-age girl with a knife. They could have retreated, called for some help to try to talk her down or even used a taser if they really felt afraid for their lives. But why should they bother? This is easier. 

Remember, these cops have very tough jobs. We can't second guess their actions even when it might seem obvious to anyone with half a brain and the tiniest common sense that there might be other options besides opening fire on a disturbed teenage girl inside a police station. 

 How did we get here?  Another TPM piece gives a brief history of policing.

And Gaius Publius at Hullabaloo cites another piece on the origins of police and comments:

"The police were created to use violence"

I'll close with what for me is his main point. This is hard to believe, and hard to grasp, but it's the only way to make sense of news that comes at us like a train. Chris Hayes could do "killer cop goes free" stories from now till the rest of his life, never run out, and in our hearts, every one of us knows it. There's an endless supply of "killer cops" and their stories, most hidden from view, never prosecuted unless there's an outcry, and rarely even then.

So why is there seemingly no way ever to curb the violence of the police? The answer's in front of us. Because:

The police were created to use violence to reconcile electoral democracy with industrial capitalism. Today, they are just one part of the “criminal justice” system that plays the same role. Their basic job is to enforce order among those with the most reason to resent the system — in our society today, disproportionately among poor black people.

Every word a true one. Remember your Dickens, then remember that you can't have a world owned and harvested by men like David Koch and Jamie Dimon without an enforcement mechanism.

It continues in yet another example of cop terrorism, cop racism, cop power-tripping, cop attacks for no reason.

Mine-Resistant Vehicles Coming to Get You in Kentucky

Of the military combat equipment infesting local police departments, Kentucky has relatively little compared to some states, but holy fuck did you know that Kenton County in Northern Kentucky has a fucking MINE RESISTANT VEHICLE? 

Jefferson County/Louisville, Henderson County and McCracken County/Paducah have fucking MINE RESISTANT VEHICLEs.

Franklin County, home of the capital city of Frankfort, got 1,401 assault rifles to deal with a population of 50,000 mostly sedentary, overweight and beaten-down state employees. Also four helicopters and two planes. Planes? Fuck, you can drive across the county in 20 minutes.

You know the last time Kenton County had a MINE?  Never, that's the last time Kenton County had a mine.

Never is also the last time there was a MINE in Paducah, Henderson or fuck even Louisville.

Beware, Kenton, Jefferson, Henderson and McCracken Countians.  If they have one, they will use it.

On you.

Here's the map:

State and local police departments obtain some of their military-style equipment through a free Defense Department program created in the early 1990s. While the portion of their gear that comes from the program is relatively small (most of it is paid for by the departments or through federal grants), detailed data from the Pentagon illustrates how ubiquitous such equipment has become. Highlighted counties have received guns, grenade launchers, vehicles, night vision or body armor through the program since 2006.

And here a retired Marine gives quick run-down on the various types of military equipment now being deployed against American citizens by our supposed public servants.  Also points out how deadly, counter-productive, ridiculous and stupid using them in an American city is.

These Are Your Cops, America

From a well-respected member of the profession and acknowledged expert now teaching the subject, asked to write in one of the nation's (formerly) premier newspapers:

if you don’t want to get shot, tased, pepper-sprayed, struck with a baton or thrown to the ground, just do what I tell you. Don’t argue with me, don’t call me names, don’t tell me that I can’t stop you…  

"... just do what I tell you." Does that include orders like that cop favorite "suck my dick, bitch"?

Here's the First, Fourth, Fifth, Sixth, and Eighth Amendments bottom line:
 

Cops cannot under any circumstances whatsoever order you to do anything unless you are under arrest.

Period.  Nobody realizes this any more because cops have gotten away with being motherfucking stormtroopers for two hundred years.

No, I don't want anybody to be another "killed for resisting arrest" statistic because she followed my advice and refused to let another cop get away with this shit.

I want the democratically elected officials of this country to fire every motherfucking special-ops wannabe and hire cops who understand that citizens - even black, poor, obscenity-spouting, jay-walking citizens - are their employers, not the enemy.

Believe Zandar, who knows whereof he speaks:

Believe me when I say that 98% of cops believe the same as Dutta here does.  They are police officers, and you are not.  When they tell you to do something, you do it or else, regardless of what that may be.

So when these guys swing their weight around and go after black men and women and Latino men and women, they expect obedience, respect and fear.  If you are black or brown and the President of the United States, for that matter, and a cop like Dutta pulls you over, it's because he knows he has 100% of the power in the encounter.  It's because he knows he has the power to take your life if he sees fit.  You only continue to draw breath because he allows it.

So yes, black fathers and Latino fathers have "The Talk".  That you assume all cops are Officer Dutta, and you do 100% of what they say, or they will end you.

How difficult is it to cooperate for "that long"?  For a black man, "that long" is his entire lifespan.

Or that lifespan may end.

PZ Myers:

I’m not endorsing calling a policeman a racist pig, but if someone is angry and does, is it really appropriate cause to pull out your gun and shoot them? Officer Dutta seems to think it is. That’s what’s objectionable: that the police have acquired an attitude that justifies excessive force in response to physically weak actions — that calling them a rude name warrants whipping out every tool in their arsenal to kill, maim, or subdue miscreants. When someone is killed for jaywalking (or possibly shoplifting) by a policeman, I think it’s clear that a line has been crossed — that the attitude that the police have complete authority and discretion to use their weapons without being limited by reasonable concerns has led to police who treat crime in a community as an opportunity for a military-style assault.

Popehat gets the last word:

The outrageous thing is not that he says it. The outrageous thing is that we accept it.

Would we accept "if you don't want to get shot, just do what the EPA regulator tells you"? Would we yield to "if you don't want your kid tased, do what the Deputy Superintendent of Education tells you"? Would we accept "if you don't want to get tear gassed, just do what your Congressman tells you?" No. Our culture of individualism and liberty would not permit it. Yet somehow, through generations of law-and-order rhetoric and near-deification of law enforcement, we have convinced ourselves that cops are different, and that it is perfectly acceptable for them to be able to order us about, at their discretion, on pain of violence.

It's not acceptable. It is servile and grotesque.

Only Bad Guys Demand to See Your Papers

It's in all the movies. Nazis, Commies, dictators of all stripes. The defining characteristic of a totalitarian hellhole is the demand that innocent citizens present proof of submission to authority at any time, any place.

And yes, it's us.

Digby:

So we now have "interior checkpoints" in America where they demand your papers? Who knew? Ryan Grim has the story:  

SNIP 

Evidently, the Border Patrol has set up "interior checkpoints all over the Southwest sometimes a hundred miles from the border where they can search anyone without probably cause and demand your papers. And it is obviously at this American airport examining papers and ID --- for people on flights within the country. The Border Patrol. WTH?

Such checkpoints are located throughout the Southwestern U.S. border, comprising of a 100-mile wide, Bill-of-Rights-free strip where authorities have claimed the privilege to do things they would not be permitted to do anywhere else in the country, such as executing a “routine search" without a warrant or probable cause, or asking American citizens for papers.

I had family living in Mexico for many years and went over the California border literally hundreds of times and never faced anything like this. The border was murder and I've had my car thoroughly searched and been heavily questioned many times, but once in the US you're in. I've flown out of airports all over the US and have never encountered border patrol. TSA, yes. But this wasn't TSA.

Just Across the River From Louisville, This Happened

Don't think this can't and doesn't happen where you live, because it can and it does.

Non-male, non-white, non-straight, non-Xian, and/or non-rich take it in the ass every time.

As Digby says, Just Because They Can.

I suppose if you think that the misdemeanor charge being drunk and mouthing off are crimes that deserve humiliation and abuse at the hands of the police then you'll think this sort of thing is a-ok:

On March 30, Indiana State Police troopers were called after the New Albany woman got into a domestic fight with her estranged husband.

The officers brought the mother of four to the jail on charges of disorderly conduct and resisting an officer.

Tabitha Storms Gentry was pepper-sprayed after she shouted and begged for clothes, her lawyer said.

Tabitha Storms Gentry was pepper-sprayed after she shouted and begged for clothes, her lawyer said.

Inside the jail, Gentry was questioned by four officers. Video showed she was compliant but upset, her lawyer said.

Suddenly, the officers grabbed her, restrained her and forced her out of the room, into a padded cell.

The video doesn't have audio, but Landenwich said her client must have said something that made the officers upset.

Then, the officers removed all of her clothing, leaving her completely naked. Both male and female officers removed her pants, shirt and undergarments.

Gentry was given a smock to gover up with, but her lawyer said it was more like a mat than an article of clothing.

Landenwich said the officers did not perform a cavity search — a common reason an arrestee might be stripped of clothing.

"This was not a strip search," Landenwich told the newspaper. "I think it was outright abuse."

The video showed Gentry banging on the cell door. She was apparently yelling, asking officers for something to wear.

Gentry was forced to walk through open areas of the jail while naked, her lawyer claimed.

Landenwich said police threatened to pepper-spray Gentry if she didn't quiet down.
When she kept shouting, a hand reached into the cell from a slot and sprayed the room, video showed.

Almost 50 minutes later, officers let Gentry out of the cell so she could wash the spray off her body and out of her eyes.

But her smock slipped off when officers handcuffed her, so she walked through the common area of the jail totally exposed, her lawyer said.

The video showed returning to the cell a few minutes later, still naked.

"They leave her in that room — still with no clothes, with a mat that is now soaking wet from the water — for five more hours before they finally give her a jumpsuit and let her make a phone call," her lawyer said.

Officers said Gentry was drunk and violent throughout the arrest.

According to a report, Gentry was warned that "since she had resisted, threatened and attempted to kick an officer, she was being placed in a smock and the females (officers) were going to remove her clothes."

In another report, police said they pepper-sprayed Gentry to subdue her for "the safety of this facility" because her shouting "agitated other inmates."

Because stripping a suspect naked for "threatening to kick an officer" and for "the safety" of the facility is perfectly fine.

 I wonder where they got that idea anyway?

Politeness

Digby:

What conservatives call politeness is really deference to authority. What liberals call politeness is sensitivity to the least powerful among us.

Community Policing Done So, So Wrong

To protect, serve and set new standards of counter-productiveness.

Digby, on the firefighter who was almost tazed because he waved at local police officers:

Such "disrespect" can cost you your life on the mean streets of many inner cities. But the police are supposed to be different. Nowadays, a whole lot of them have adopted this gangster ethos of demanding instant "respect" and total compliance. They just use a taser to do it instead of a gun. Homicide requires a whole lot more paperwork.

This isn't confined to police officers either. My husband was in a TSA security line at LAX earlier this week and got into a conversation with a women who told him she'd been harassed at a Canadian airport recently. He said to her that she should always comply with the TSA because they have a lot of power over individual citizens and it makes no sense to fight it. He was yanked out of the line by TSA agents and taken to a secure corner where they quizzed him about what he meant by saying that TSA has "power" over people. They went through every item in his carry on bags and he almost missed his plane. He tried to explain that he was only telling the woman that she should comply with their orders, but they were apparently upset at being characterized as people who might abuse their power. So they abused their power and harassed a citizen for saying something completely obvious.

This is creeping authoritarianism. We've got millions of people in America wearing uniforms and carrying some kind of government authority and we're all going to have to learn that they will not be disrespected, even if they are delusional idiots. No, it's not the end of the world and we're not being rounded up and sent to the gulag. But it's not exactly freedom and liberty either.

And fifty years later it's still the hippies with their organic gardens that really piss them off.

While the Seattle PD is showing remarkable common sense during Hempfest, down in Texas they're sending in paramilitary SWAT teams to put a stop to unauthorized okra:

A small organic farm in Arlington, Texas, was the target of a massive police action last week that included aerial surveillance, a SWAT raid and a 10-hour search.

Members of the local police raiding party had a search warrant for marijuana plants, which they failed to find at the Garden of Eden farm. But farm owners and residents who live on the property told a Dallas-Ft. Worth NBC station that the real reason for the law enforcement exercise appears to have been code enforcement. The police seized "17 blackberry bushes, 15 okra plants, 14 tomatillo plants ... native grasses and sunflowers," after holding residents inside at gunpoint for at least a half-hour, property owner Shellie Smith said in a statement. The raid lasted about 10 hours, she said.

Local authorities had cited the Garden of Eden in recent weeks for code violations, including "grass that was too tall, bushes growing too close to the street, a couch and piano in the yard, chopped wood that was not properly stacked, a piece of siding that was missing from the side of the house, and generally unclean premises," Smith's statement said. She said the police didn't produce a warrant until two hours after the raid began, and officers shielded their name tags so they couldn't be identified. According to ABC affiliate WFAA, resident Quinn Eaker was the only person arrested -- for outstanding traffic violations.

The city of Arlington said in a statement that the code citations were issued to the farm following complaints by neighbors, who were "concerned that the conditions" at the farm "interfere with the useful enjoyment of their properties and are detrimental to property values and community appearance." The police SWAT raid came after "the Arlington Police Department received a number of complaints that the same property owner was cultivating marijuana plants on the premises," the city's statement said. "No cultivated marijuana plants were located on the premises," the statement acknowledged.

Hey, these police agencies all have enough military gear to fight a small war. Do you think they aren't going to find reasons to use it?

This story about an ex marine officer testifying before his town council made the rounds this week and well... it's not exactly wrong:

"What we're doing here, and let's not kid about it, is we're building a domestic army and shrinking the military because the government is afraid of its own citizens ... "

"The last time more than 10 terrorists were in the same place at the same time was September 11th, and all these [armored] vehicles wouldn't have prevented it, nor would they have helped anybody."

"We're building an Army over here and I can't believe people aren't seeing it, is everybody blind?"

But what about the scourge of narco-terrorists growing illegal okra and blackberries, huh? What are we going to do about that?

This is how you do it right: 

See what happens when you legalize? Common sense, community and good humor.

by digby

Check out the bags of Doritos the Seattle Police Department is handing out to the Hempfest revelers:

That's called common sense community policing.

I can't go along with the Dark Side of the Moon thing though. It really must be heard at the highest volume possible.

H/T@GrahamKIRO7

 

Teaching Brainless Obedience

It works. Much more easily and more effectively than you think it does.

Digby:

Fergawdsakes. Just how many squads of armed Robocops running around rousting citizens for no good reason does this land of the free need?:

As hundreds of commuters emerged from Amtrak and commuter trains at Union Station on a recent morning, an armed squad of men and women dressed in bulletproof vests made their way through the crowds.

The squad was not with the Washington police department or Amtrak’s police force, but was one of the Transportation Security Administration’s Visible Intermodal Prevention and Response squads — VIPR teams for short — assigned to perform random security sweeps to prevent terrorist attacks at transportation hubs across the United States.

“The T.S.A., huh,” said Donald Neubauer of Greenville, Ohio, as he walked past the squad. “I thought they were just at the airports.”

With little fanfare, the agency best known for airport screenings has vastly expanded its reach to sporting events, music festivals, rodeos, highway weigh stations and train terminals. Not everyone is happy.

T.S.A. and local law enforcement officials say the teams are a critical component of the nation’s counterterrorism efforts, but some members of Congress, auditors at the Department of Homeland Security and civil liberties groups are sounding alarms. The teams are also raising hackles among passengers who call them unnecessary and intrusive.

SNIP

They even admit that this is mostly Security Theater. And that sounds so sweetly benign, doesn't it? But the effect of this isn't, in the end, to make little old ladies feel safer by confiscating the 8oz bottle of Geritol in their handbags. It's to train citizens to submit to authorities without probable cause. That's exactly what's happened in airports, after all. Americans are so docile about it that people in other countries are astonished to see us taking off our shoes and otherwise disrobing at airport security without even being told. (They don't have to.)

If what you desire is to make the Bill of Rights an anachronism, this is the sort of thing that works over time to make people wonder why they ever cared that they had any privacy or right to demand that authorities have good reason to stop and search them. Arguments against it already have the tone of something from another era:

“The problem with T.S.A. stopping and searching people in public places outside the airport is that there are no real legal standards, or probable cause,” said Khaliah Barnes, administrative law counsel at the Electronic Privacy Information Center in Washington. “It’s something that is easily abused because the reason that they are conducting the stops is shrouded in secrecy.”

T.S.A. officials respond that the random searches are “special needs” or “administrative searches” that are exempt from probable cause because they further the government’s need to prevent terrorist attacks.

That mentality says that the War on Terror means anything goes. Forever. And it's much more convenient than the communist threat ever was because they could actually declare the cold war over at some point. This one will never end. How could it? It's not a war against a state or even against certain people, it's a war against asymmetric war. That's not going anywhere.

And anyway, so far it hasn't really been about terrorism at all. Surprise:

In 2011, the VIPR teams were criticized for screening and patting down people after they got off an Amtrak train in Savannah, Ga. As a result, the Amtrak police chief briefly banned the teams from the railroad’s property, saying the searches were illegal.

In April 2012, during a joint operation with the Houston police and the local transit police, people boarding and leaving city buses complained that T.S.A. officers were stopping them and searching their bags. (Local law enforcement denied that the bags were searched.)

The operation resulted in several arrests by the local transit police, mostly for passengers with warrants for prostitution and minor drug possession. Afterward, dozens of angry residents packed a public meeting with Houston transit officials to object to what they saw as an unnecessary intrusion by the T.S.A.

“It was an incredible waste of taxpayers’ money,” said Robert Fickman, a local defense lawyer who attended the meeting. “Did we need to have T.S.A. in here for a couple of minor busts?”

Smell that freedom people!

Also too: they called it "VIPR" like some cheesy cop show from 1976. Doesn't that say it all?