Come for the politics, stay for the snark.

Let’s delete this post and never speak of this again.

Saul Alinsky is my co-pilot.

A last alliance of elves and men. also pet photos.

JFC, are there no editors left at that goddamn rag?

I see no possible difficulties whatsoever with this fool-proof plan.

This fight is for everything.

A snarling mass of vitriolic jackals

If senate republicans had any shame, they’d die of it.

So it was an October Surprise A Day, like an Advent calendar but for crime.

I did not have this on my fuck 2020 bingo card.

Balloon Juice has never been a refuge for the linguistically delicate.

I personally stopped the public option…

The cruelty is the point; the law be damned.

This is a big f—–g deal.

We need fewer warriors in public service and more gardeners.

This blog will pay for itself.

I’d like to think you all would remain faithful to me if I ever tried to have some of you killed.

There will be lawyers.

Reality always lies in wait for … Democrats.

Whoever he was, that guy was nuts.

Historically it was a little unusual for the president to be an incoherent babbling moron.

How does anyone do Gilligan’s Island as trump world and not cast Jared as Gilligan?

Consistently wrong since 2002

Too inconsequential to be sued

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Shitty Cops

Welcome to Judge Arpaio’s Police State

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This is insane:

Freelance journalist Nick Martin has an update on Maricopa County, Arizona Sheriff’s Deputy Adam Stoddard, who last October was caught on video swiping a file in open court from defense attorney defense attorney Joanne Cuccia.

Maricopa County Superior Court Judge Gary Donahoe held a hearing on the matter, and on Tuesday ordered Stoddard to hold a press conference to apologize. It’s a weak and odd way of admonishing Stoddard for such a brazen trespass on attorney-client privilege (not to mention Stoddard’s arguable violation of a number of other laws, rights, and rules of procedure).

You really have to watch the video. The cop just walks up, starts snooping through her notes, calls over another deputy, pulls stuff out of her folder, hands it to another cop, and he walks out with it.

And, he will most likely get away with it. Time to break out the foam USA fingers. You can’t get justice like that in a Banana Republic! Oh, wait.

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More Exposure, Please

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Glad to see this story is getting more exposure:

A Maryland mayor is asking the federal government to investigate why SWAT team members burst into his home without knocking and shot his two dogs to death in an investigation into a drug smuggling scheme.

“This has been a difficult week and a half for us,” Cheye Calvo, mayor of Berwyn Heights, Maryland, said Thursday. “We lost our family dogs. We did it at the hands of sheriff’s deputies who burst through our front door, rifles blazing.”

The raid last week was led by the Prince George’s County Police Department, with the sheriff’s special operations team assisting, after a package of marijuana was sent to Calvo’s home.

Authorities say the package was part of a scheme in which drugs are mailed to unknowing recipients and then intercepted.

It is probably too much to hope that this will change anything. At the very least, some bad cops will get fired or demoted.

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Great Moments in the “New Professionalism”

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Via Crooks and Liars, more appalling police abuses for the law and order tase at will crowd to excuse:

It will be fun reading all of the excuses- “But she gave them her sister’s ID!” and “They have to keep people naked in jail so they cant hurt themselves!” and “They were just following procedures- you don’t know how tough it is to be a cop!”

Things are out of control when people can do things like this and think they are doing “the right thing.” Check their faces- an odd sort of professionalism, going through the motions pinning this defenseless woman to the ground and essentially raping her, and no one stops to think it is inappropriate for men to be in the room (not to mention against clear procedures). No one asks “why are we doing this?” No one asks “Why is this woman here” (she was the one who called for help- I bet she will not make that mistake again). No one asks why she needed to sit for hours naked, humiliated, hysterical, and alone in a cell for anyone to walk by and gawk at her in a completely vulnerable state. No one thought to give her a blanket or talk to her as she was covering herself in toilet paper to keep warm.

What is wrong with our system? What is wrong with the police that it is not a radical belief for me to think “I should probably cross the street, there is a cop walking down this side.”

Things have got to change. The police have a bad rep, and every day, they go out and earn that bad rep.

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Paging Radley Balko- More New Professionalism

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ATTN: Agitator

Of all the tasing stories, this one takes the cake:

Donnell Williams had just gotten out of the bath tub, wearing only a towel around his waist, when he turned the corner to see guns pointing right at him.

“I ain’t never been so scared,” says Williams.

Police forced entry into Williams home while responding to a shooting, but it turned out to be a false call. They had no idea at the time the call wasn’t real and that Williams is hearing impaired. Without his hearing aid he is basically deaf.

“I kept going to my ear yelling that I was scared. I can’t hear! I can’t hear!”

Officers were worried about their own safety because at the time it appeared Williams was refusing to obey their commands to show his hands. That’s when they shot him with a Taser.

Deputy Chief Robert Lee of the Wichita Police Department says, “This one occurred on the worst of calls, that being a shooting. The first few minutes getting control of the scene are very, very important.”

Once the facts were all sorted out, officers repeatedly apologized to Williams. Police wish it never happened, but with the information they had at the time, their choices were limited.

We will pause briefly so you can all make jokes about the ‘loaded weapon’ beneath the towel.

Now, in all seriousness, something has gone very wrong when your “limited choices” as a police officer are:

A.) Shoot the startled naked deaf homeowner shouting “I can’t hear!”

B.) Taser the startled naked deaf homeowner shouting “I can’t hear!”

Granted, I am not a police officer, and I have a growing contempt for police based on what I read in the news and my own personal experiences, so I concede that I am not an expert. But even with my lack of expertise, I recognize that in that situation, THERE HAS TO BE A THIRD FUCKING OPTION.

Jeebus.

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