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defund/defend the police...

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THE HOUSE OF REPRESENTATIVES on Thursday [May 20 2021] approved an expanded budget for the U.S. Capitol Police in a supplemental piece of legislation that passed by a single vote.

Democratic Reps. Cori Bush of Missouri, Ilhan Omar of Minnesota, and Ayanna Pressley of Massachusetts voted to take the measure down, but Reps. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez and Jamaal Bowman of New York, along with Rep. Rashida Tlaib of Michigan, voted present.

“I am tired of the fact that any time where there is a failure in our system of policing, the first response is for us to give them more money, rather than investigate the failings and hold those responsible accountable,” Omar told The Intercept, explaining her vote. “I’ll continue to fight for structural change that actually centers people’s safety and humanity. That applies to us here in the Capitol, as well as my constituents in Minneapolis.”

The measure, approved by a 213-212 vote, included $1.9 billion for the Capitol Police and Capitol security, requested by the police after they failed to secure the building during the January 6 protest-turned-riot.

 

The supplemental included uncontroversial items such as funding for accrued overtime and mental health counseling, but the broader measure raised fundamental questions about accountability and the permanent creep of security forces that have turned the U.S. Capitol into a fortress. The bill would harden entrances to the Capitol and include funding for rapid response.

In a break from the past, the bill allows funds to be spent providing security for individual members of the House that the sergeant-at-arms deems at particular risk. Currently, only top leaders are afforded such protection.

The bill includes $350 million for “complex emergency response and infrastructure,” which includes $100 million for “security screening vestibules.” It stops short of making the fencing permanent, though it provides funds for “design, installation, landscape architecture and to maintain a retractable security system as part of an interconnected security of the United States Capitol Grounds,” adding that “such funds shall not be used to install permanent above ground fencing around the perimeter, or any portion thereof, of the United States Capitol Grounds.”

In addition, the bill offers up $720 million for the National Guard and Department of Defense, $157.5 million for judicial security, $67 million for the District of Columbia, and $1.8 million for the Bureau of Prisons for salaries and expenses. It also creates a wellness center available to officers and requires them to wear body cameras.

A tie vote in the House fails, meaning that if one of the three members who voted present had voted no, they would have taken it down.

On the Republican side, 209 voted no, while two did not vote.

The measure now moves to the Senate, where its fate is uncertain.

 

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Update: May 20, 2021, 1:53 p.m.

Omar, Pressley, and Bush released a joint statement explaining their no votes:

On January 6th, some Republican Members of Congress and the former President incited an insurrection that they refuse to accept responsibility for and continue to deny to this day. A bill that pours $1.9 billion into increased police surveillance and force without addressing the underlying threats of organized and violent white supremacy, radicalization, and disinformation that led to this attack will not prevent it from happening again. Increasing law enforcement funds does not inherently protect or safeguard the Capitol Hill or surrounding D.C. community. In fact, this bill is being passed before we have any real investigation into the events of January 6th and the failures involved because Republicans have steadfastly obstructed the creation of a January 6th commission. 

The bill also does far too little to address the unspeakable trauma of the countless officers, staff, and support workers who were on site that day – dedicating fifty times more money to the creation of a ‘quick reaction force’ than it does to counseling. We cannot support this increased funding while many of our communities continue to face police brutality while marching in the streets, and while questions about the disparate response between insurrectionists and those protesting in defense of Black lives go unanswered. 

While we appreciate the efforts of our colleagues to put forth a supplemental that provides necessary pay to our essential workers, there must be a comprehensive investigation and response to the attack on our Capitol and our democracy, one that addresses the root cause of the insurrection: white supremacy. This bill prioritizes more money for a broken system that has long upheld and protected the white supremacist violence we saw on display that day.

We look forward to working towards systemic policy solutions that meet the scale and scope of the crises our communities and our nation face.

 

Read more:

https://theintercept.com/2021/05/20/squad-capitol-police-funding-pressley-aoc-omar/

 

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the filibuster trap...

Senate Democrats: Go Ahead, Scrap The Filibuster


Eliminating the filibuster would be the greatest political gift Democrats unintentionally gave Republicans since the nomination of George McGovern.

 

As the eve of last month’s Senate showdown on S.1, affectionately referred to (by Democrats) as the “For the People Act,” approached, preliminary proceedings clearly displayed all the trappings of a carefully curated show: Democrats had spent months absurdly marketing the liberal wish list as a “voting rights bill” in the mold of the 1965 Voting Rights Act. After much arm-twisting from Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer, West Virginia Senator Joe Manchin agreed at the last minute to provide the 50th and final Democratic vote in favor of beginning debate on S.1. And most notably, Vice President Kamala Harris was hauled over in her motorcade to the Senate chamber to preside over the vote.

After all this, the end result was rather anticlimactic: a party line 50-50 vote that left Democrats unable to overcome a Republican filibuster blocking debate on the bill from initiating. But aside from being anticlimactic, the outcome was also completely expected. For months, Republicans had made it clear that they would filibuster the bill. Even if they hadn’t filibustered it, Senator Manchin, who supported beginning debate on the bill but not the bill itself, would have prevented it from attaining a majority in the face of unified Republican opposition.

 

Why, then, did Democrats expend so much time and energy preparing such a spectacle? The answer is simple: to encourage their “progressive” base to pressure Joe Manchin and fellow moderate Democratic Senator Kyrsten Sinema into providing the necessary votes to eliminate the filibuster once and for all. With that done, Democrats would be able to pass any piece of legislation with as little as 50 votes instead of the 60 presently necessary. President Biden has strongly favored this course of action by ahistorically labeling the filibuster a “Jim Crow relic.” Meanwhile, Republicans have stood firm in defense of the filibuster along with the two aforementioned Senate Democrats.

In spite of the Republicans’ best efforts, the filibuster will become increasingly difficult for moderate Democrats to defend as left-wing pressure continues to mount. But is this necessarily a bad thing for the Republicans? Those who believe it would be are mistakenly analyzing the situation as if it were happening in a vacuum as opposed to in the context of electoral politics. The truth is, eliminating the filibuster would have little effect on the Democrats’ ability to enact their ambitious agenda. With the Senate split 50-50, Democrats could not afford to lose a single vote on any bill they wish to pass; and yet Manchin plus a few other Democratic senators have already signaled unwillingness to back swift unilateral action on marquis issues such as election reform and massive deficit spending.

 

It is beneficial for the purpose of analogy to look back to the first two years of the Trump presidency when Republicans encountered a similar quandary to the one Democrats are beset with now. Faced with a slim majority, a president who backed scrapping the filibuster, and overwhelming pressure from the party base, Senate Republicans opted to maintain the status quo. Their calculus was rather simple: key pieces of legislation such as the 2017 Health Care Freedom Act and RAISE Act did not have enough support within the caucus to pass even in the absence of the filibuster and with a larger Republican Senate majority than the Democrats have now. For Republicans at the time, eliminating the filibuster would have been all risk with little reward.

The risks for the Democrats today are plentiful should they tread the course Republicans rejected years ago. Appealing to blanket partisanship is by no means the tactic that allowed their party to wrest back control of both Congress and the presidency in recent years. Out of the sitting Democratic Representatives who flipped red districts blue in 2018, there are approximately twice as many in the nominally bipartisan Problem Solver’s Caucus as there are in the hard-left Congressional Progressive Caucus. President Biden, as we all remember, made bipartisanship the central theme of his campaign while playing down the more radical elements of his platform.

 

If Democrats through one futile maneuver blatantly shatter the myth of their openness to working across the aisle, how will that fare with suburban swing voters? Or with center-right ticket-splitting residents of the seven House districts won by Trump in 2020 that are currently represented by Democratic incumbents? More critically, how will it fare with rural voters in the three states Trump won twice (by landslide margins) hosting Democratic Senators up for reelection in 2024? Senator Manchin knows the answer, and that’s precisely why he’s so stubborn in his insistence on bucking his party for the time being.

In fact, between 2022 and 2024 as many as six Democratic incumbents will face reelection in the Republican-leaning states of Arizona, Georgia, Montana, West Virginia, and Ohio. Democratic senators from these states who vote in favor of eliminating the filibuster would be effectively signing their political death warrants and torpedoing their party’s plan to maintain a Senate majority throughout the remainder of Biden’s term and beyond. Additionally, the move would seriously endanger Democratic Senate incumbents in certain left-leaning states like Maine, New Hampshire, Nevada, Michigan, and Minnesota. Bear in mind that the Democrats’ elimination of the filibuster and subsequent attempts at passing far-reaching left-wing legislation in the Senate would shrewdly and inevitably be weaponized by Republicans through attack ads in these races.

 

Read more:

https://www.theamericanconservative.com/articles/senate-democrats-go-ahead-scrap-the-filibuster/

 

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security...

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covid crimes...

A rash of smash-and-grab thefts in the US by organized looting gangs is being caused at least partly by the Covid-19 pandemic, President Joe Biden’s press secretary has claimed.

“A root cause in a lot of communities is the pandemic,” White House press secretary Jen Psaki told reporters on Thursday when questioned about reasons for a surge in lawlessness, including mass looting incidents.

Psaki didn’t elaborate on the alleged connection between Covid-19 and the shelf-clearing thefts at luxury goods shops in California and other states. The issue was raised amid record shootings of police, rising homicides, and a wave of brazen thefts plaguing retailers in major US cities.

In just one incident last month in Chicago, a team of thieves reportedly stole more than $120,000 in designer handbags and other goods from a Louis Vuitton store. One recent night of smash-and-grab thefts at numerous stores in San Francisco, including a Bloomingdale’s department store, was so severe that Mayor London Breed promised changes, such as limiting vehicle access in some areas, to make such crimes more difficult.

Organized looting marks just the latest in a wide range of troubles that the Biden administration has linked to the Covid-19 pandemic, including the supply chain crisis and a surge in inflation to a 30-year high. But critics have argued that failures to enforce laws in Democrat-run cities have triggered the lawlessness.

In San Francisco, District Attorney Chesa Boudin is facing a recall vote on concern that his “restorative justice” reforms are making the city more dangerous. Drugstore chain Walgreens has reportedly closed 17 stores in the area because rampant thefts have made the business untenable. Rival retailer CVS, meanwhile, has advised its employees not to pursue thieves because too many of its security officers have been assaulted.

Former President Donald Trump waded into the issue on Thursday, saying Democrat policies are blocking police from doing their jobs. “Our country is being destroyed,” he said in a Fox News interview. “It should never be allowed to happen. The police have to be given their power back. They have to stop the crime. They can do it, and they want to do it, but they’re not allowed to do it.”

Psaki said Biden has proposed additional funding – in fact, more than had been offered by the Trump administration – to help cities “keep cops on the beat” and “crack down on crime.” She added that in addition to the pandemic, guns are causing increased crime.

 

Read more:

https://www.rt.com/usa/542041-white-house-pandemic-crime-looting/

 

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