The Revenge of the Thin Blue Line 21: Shooting the (Grand) Rapids, death by Cop

Big Toad Barr's Wild Ride

Lester Holt: Can we talk about the big lie?
Bill Barr: Which one is that?
LH: Well you write about the big lie being black live matter...
BB: Yeah [smirks]
LH: What did you mean by that?
BB: Well Black Lives Matter is based on the premise that the main threat to black welfare in the inner city are out of control police force that gratuitously kill African Americans and that's simply not borne out by the facts. - From an interview of the odious toad Bill Barr by Lester Holt, as the Corporate Media again helps to polish despicable conservative turds and allow a flagrant criminal to re-enter polite society while hawking his book about the Trump White House.

I suppose we had gone too long without an extrajudicial killing of a person of color.  Often Officers will tell me, as I express dismay at these incidents, 'Yeah well police kill far more white people than black.' And I'm not sure how to tell them that this is not a good argument other than to reply like Chidi in The Good Place,  

"Okay. But That's Worse. You, You Do Get How That's Worse, Right?"

And watch them brush off such sarcastic retorts. Why? Well, I don't know but, Police in the United States kill far too many people for any claims by such a noxious criminal asshole like Bill Barr to be taken seriously (of course he is taken seriously by the Corporate Media). In fact, violence and death at the hands of the Police is so pervasive Police and the Federal Government routinely undercount the true number. A study found that over 31,000 people died from Police encounters, but only 14,000 were classified as such;

More than half of all police killings since 1980 do not appear in official government data, according to an explosive new study in The Lancet, a top medical journal. The researchers reveal how “systemic misclassification” in the federal database that tracks the causes of death in America has produced, over four decades, an undercount of more than 17,000 deaths at the hands of police. The proportion of undercounted police killings of Black Americans is even more extreme, the research shows, rising to 60 percent.

So, an unidentified Officer in Grand Rapids, Michigan shot and killed Congolese refugee Patrick Lyoya around 8am on April 4th. Predictably, the incident arises from a traffic stop for improper registration and then escalated out of control ending with the unnamed Officer shooting Lyoya in the back of the head while on top of him.

Now, here's where the bad faith actors will get involved. First off, there's going to be the subjective fear for my life defense. It's impossible to disprove the Officer wasn't scared therefore his killing of Lyoya is justified. Secondly, there is going to be the weapons involved defense. Call it the Kyle Rittenhouse Defense; i.e. there's a gun involved therefore I am afraid the "Criminal" will take the gun from me and kill me with my own gun; ergo we are back to subjective fear for your life defense. Third, every white rightwing asshole including those who justify the January 6th violence against Police, will declare with finality Lyoya should just have complied. And lastly, the video evidence is going to be parsed and dissected frame-by-frame for the simple fact that individual still images from the videos can then be presented in a way to present a wholly different picture as opposed to what went down in real time.

Decades ago Police Departments began crafting these Use-of-Force continuums to create justification of violence against people as began to point out police violence is a problem. To justify the extrajudicial killing of Lyoya. It will be something like this:

1. Lyoya get out of the car (escalation).
2. Lyoya ignores "commands" to get back in the car (defiance).
3. Lyoya runs from the scene (presumption of guilt).
4. Lyoya grabs the taser and ignores commands to drop the taser (active "aggressor")
5. Lyoya continues to "fight" the Officer, they go to the ground, the force of Lyoya's fighting is such that it deactivates the Office's body-worn camera (fear for life)

And thus the Arbitrator will be able to reframe the encounter as Lyoya being the aggressor, who is responsible for the escalation of violence and the passive voice of Officer involved shooting will dominate the narrative until voila the official statement is Justified Shooting.

7-10 years ago I would have concluded the Officer would not have faced consequences but, with the increased high profile incidents and despite Bill Barr's mendacious bullshit, I think once the initial investigation is completed charges may be recommended for the still unnamed Officer.

The immovable IG Report meets the irresistible Rightwing propaganda

The shockingly shameful circus on display during the Trump Impeachment Hearings has now confirmed the entire Republican Party is naught but a criminal conspiracy.

Immediately upon release of the almost 500 pages of the Horowitz Inspector General Report, Republicans were running with the same playbook as the Mueller Report; We told you! Total Exoneration! Shocking corruption by the Democrats! No Collusion! We told you! Clinton and Obama and Ukraine and Russia spied on Trump! Coup Attempt! Government overthow!

Conservatives couldn't tell a Coup d'etat from a Coupe DeVille.

This is a morally bankrupt and wholly disingenuous display but sound strategy by the Republicans. A handful of conservatives are going to actually read the report and most of those are bad faith actors who will elide or obfuscate on the true findings to present "bleeding chunks" of the report selectively to the Barbarian horde of #MAGA. From there the army of  Twitter MAGA will flood every avenue of social media to ensure the lies and falsehoods presented by AG Bill Barr, Faux News, Hate Radio, and the rightwing disinformation machine are repeated over and over and over and over and over. 

The truth of the report will be lost in the flood of rightwing propaganda and screams of Fake News!

Every topic of American life is subject to these up-is-down, black-is-white bad faith Republican arguments; from healthcare, to the environment, the 2nd Amendment to Education. This wholesale bad faith by the Republicans is not something the Democratic Party, the apparatus of Government, the foundational documents, the Nation, or We the People can withstand. Especially, since the Republicans have weaponized their bad faith arguments to rile up the Reactionary #MAGAts. And conservatives no longer need to receive Republican propaganda from on high; they've long adopted techniques of self-radicaliztion.

Even this short New Republic article is far too long and far too nuanced for Trumpublicans too read when tweets from Chuck Grassley, Lou Dobbs, or the Chosen One himself declare the Obama FBI and Ukraine tried to steal the 2016 election. This is the Endgame everyone. There is no way back from this. 

The Revenge of the Thin Blue Line 3: Bill Barr's Excellent Adventure

Lost among the Impeachment Brouhaha, has been the strange journeys of Attorney General Bill Barr. Now, no one should be surprised Bill Barr is a brazen corrupt Hatchet Man. It's what he's been trained and brought in for; to undermine Law & Order and excuse rampant Republican Criminality. He did it during Iran-Contra and he's doing it now.

AG Barr has been traveling around the globe attempting to get Foreign Governments to announce Investigations into Democratic Presidential Candidates or The Left in general. It's a shocking display of naked fascism and a dastardly criminal conspiracy and worse... This shit almost worked! Giuliani and his Ukrainian Mobsters were on their way to announce the investigation to Sean Hannity when the arrests were made.

Barr and the Trump Maladministration would have used Sean Hannity's "reporting" to announce a criminal investigation here in the US and Trump would have peppered his ridiculous adderall fueled Nuremberg Adjacent Rallies to declare This Country and That Country are investigating the Radical Left Democrats. It would have quickly be assimilated into the Magat Horde blood stream, relentlessly churned into daily rightwing on-line screeds (buttressed by FSB bot accounts) gotten woven into the #QAnon bread crumbs, been the subject of non-stop Media Coverage, and easily morphed into a call to arrest every Democrat.

Obviously, Republicans believe by having foreign nations cast aspersions they can act as though their hands are clean and allow the Media to run with their propaganda and create But Her Emails and I Love Wikileaks 2.0. Fortunately, the Trump Extortion and Bribery Quid Pro Quo failed and it fueled Trump's Impeachment. But, AG Bill Barr is not one to have his criminal actions undone by anything. So, Barr has given two speeches calling upon Reactionary's to Grid up their Loins and prepare to murder millions of Non-#Maga.

In August, Barr gave a speech to the Grand Lodge of the Fraternal Order of Police, a horrific Fascist Authoritarian Leadership cabal, which has worked for years to turn Police Forces across the Country into Reactionary Paramilitary Organizations enforcing white supremacy and the rightwing agenda of multi-tiered justice and oppression.

But, Barr was just getting started. His latest fascist rant, delivered to the Federalist Society (the groomers of "Justice" Boofer Kavanugh), is chock full of the standard rightwing rhetoric which Mark Levin, Ann Coulter, Racist Limbaugh and other rightwing "luminaries" have been puking forth for decades. But, Barr's latest Blut und Boden speech also incorporates religious language, "progressive holy war", "conservatives do not seek earthly paradise" progressives use "the coercive power of the state to remake man and society". Anytime you read something like that every American should feel a shiver down their spine and grit their teeth. Because once conservatives invoke Gott Mit Uns... Well, all things become reasonable... and necessary...

Conservatives are aching and yearning for Trump and his Maladministration to give them the go ahead to begin rounding-up and killing millions of Americans. And AG Bill Barr just delivered the Fascism wrapped in the Flag and carrying the Cross...

Police Officers are the Standing Army the Founding Fathers warned Us about

Attorney General Bill Barr spoke to the Grand Lodge of the Fraternal Order of Police. The FOP  scumbag organization which hand-in-hand with reactionary judges helps shield criminal cops, through such techniques as "Qualified Immunity"... Now I'm not talking about your local Union rep who is a still a lunch pail union organizer but, the Elite Board who enjoy $1000-a-plate dinners and soirées amongst the 1%.

The 1% believe there are only two valid roles for government; the opening up of foreign markets for exploitation and control, and the quelling of domestic dissent. The creation of municipal Policing in America is born of the massive structural changes to society wrought by the Industrial Revolution; in response to three main stimuli; the end of chattel slavery, the influx of large numbers of working class poor from various Slavic and Eastern European Nations, and the rise of densely populated cities of working poor.

For years conservatives used division and had the power of the Government; Federal, State, Local, to keep the minority segments of society down whilst protecting and providing for White America. And then...

Conservatives loathing of the Federal Government began when the government began to protect and aid minorities in the 1960's. Once the US Government began to fulfill the mission of ensuring life and liberty for all Americans, ever so tepidly and ever so intermittently, conservatives became champions of small government. Bill Barr echoes this in his speech,

We live in an age now when the institutions we have relied on to inculcate values and self-restraint have been under constant assault for over 50 years.  As a result, we see about us increased social pathology.

50 years is the tell. Ending segregation. Ending Redlining. Civil Rights, Social Security, and federal protections for blacks and women? Conservatives became enraged. And later...

Starting in the 1960’s, we had gone through three decades of “reform” that turned our criminal justice system into a laughable revolving door.  Incarceration rates dropped precipitously.

Again when did it start? The 1960's. Miranda rights, protections from unlawful search and seizure, weak safeguards against police brutality? That's when

One reason for this is that law enforcement is fighting a different type of war.  We are fighting an unrelenting, never-ending fight against criminal predators in our society.  While there are battles won and lost each day, there is never a final resolution – a final victory is never in sight.

'We are fighting a different type of war'... War... Never-Ending War... It's because conservatives see Police forces as the Standing Army loyal to White Supremacy and enforcing the Reactionary politics of the Republican Agenda of Intolerance and Adulation of the Rich.