Wednesday, July 22, 2020

Land of the Sick, Home of the Insane


This happened, oh, 40 years ago now.  I pulled into the parking lot of a convenience store, hopped out, went in.  The Lovely Wife stayed in the car, and watched as a car pulled into the space next to us, and clipped our car.  Immediately recognizing the accident, the driver pulled out of the space, out of the parking lot, and down the road.  Not before The Lovely Wife got a license plate number, however.

We called the police (in the days before cell phones!  How did we manage?), told him our story, gave him the license plate number.  Turned out the car was down the street, in another apartment complex (we were living in one on that street at the time).  But it was dark, and The Lovely Wife couldn't identify the driver.  Without that, nothing could be done.  And nothing was done.

Flash forward to Portland, and the DA of Philadelphia.  There's a reason these officers are not wearing name badges or even agency insignias, and it's not (as Acting Director Wolf claimed) to protect them from reprisals.  It's to protect them from the courts.  All due respect to the Philly DA, but unless a police officer sees a gang of uniformed thugs jump out of an unmarked van, hustle someone on the street into said van, and stops and arrests everyone in that van, no one is ever going to know who the guys in the masks are.  And given the noise being made by Police Union reps in praise of this kind of totalitarian operation (which they love dearly.  What, you think Daley had to coerce his police force into a riot in '68?), I kinda doubt a cop who did see that scenario would do anything, anyway.  They know how the judicial system works.  They're more likely to look the other way than not.  Or the guys in the van are more likely to operate when they know no cop is looking.

Let's be honest:  on the one hand, these tactics have generated a lot of negative publicity at a time when the country is alread predisposed to question the tactics of police law enforcement.  And now they've stopped harassing black men (in the headlines, anyway) and started gassing Moms in t-shirts. All in the name of a political campaign.  They really are our guys on their side.  There's also the fact that, not setting aside the illegality and unconstitutional nature of these actions (which should not be set aside), they've accomplished bupkis.  Not one arrest referred to the appropriate U.S. Attorney for criminal action.  Not one person detained and charged with a federal crime (they can't charge state crimes, they don't have the authority).  Nothing, in other words, accomplished:  except to ruin the reputation of law enforcement even further (who had this on their hellscape bingo card after George Floyd's untimely death?), make Trump look even more odious and Il Duce than he alread did; and to gas and harm a number of people who should, but don't, have any legal recourse thanks to the toads Trump has working for him.

This is your nation on Trump.  And this is his idea of how to win re-election.  Look on his accomplishments, ye mighty, and despair!

I appreciate the sentiment of the Mayor. like what Kasner is saying. But do either of them really think their respective police forces are going to en masse arrest federal agents? Arresting these people would get some attention, but don't hold your breath waiting for it.  The best cure right now will be some injunctions; and why those are taking so long is still a mystery to me.  Whether or not that ever happens, throwing Trump out on his ass in November is looking more and more like an easy ask.
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