Quote Of The Day

From an editorial in today's New York Times on the back-turning and heckling of New York Mayor de Blasio by some of New York City's finest:

Mr. de Blasio isn’t going to say it, but somebody has to: With these acts of passive-aggressive contempt and self-pity, many New York police officers, led by their union, are squandering the department’s credibility, defacing its reputation, shredding its hard-earned respect. They have taken the most grave and solemn of civic moments — a funeral of a fallen colleague — and hijacked it for their own petty look-at-us gesture. In doing so, they also turned their backs on Mr. Ramos’s widow and her two young sons, and others in that grief-struck family. 

These are disgraceful acts, which will be compounded if anyone repeats the stunt at Officer Liu’s funeral on Sunday.

Amen.

The entire editorial is excellent, so please read it.

Monday Reading

Some good reads to start off the week:

Paul Krugman on "The Obama Recovery."

Joan Walsh on the NYPD and a New Yorker's history of white backlash.

Joan McCarter looks back on "The Year in Obamacare."

Steve Benen on John Ellis ("J.E.B.") Bush cutting his Obamacare ties.

Happy reading!

This Is Not How You Heal -- Or Serve

(AP photo - John Minchillo)

This photo was taken yesterday outside the funeral of slain NYPD officer Rafael Ramos, with hundreds of officers turning their backs as New York City Mayor Bill de Blasio spoke, as some had done earlier when de Blasio went to the hospital where the police officers were taken.  Incendiary remarks by Patrick Lynch, meathead leader of the Patrolmen's Benevolent Association, and others =cough= noun, verb, 9/11 Giuliani =cough= have succeeded in convincing some in the NYPD that de Blasio's cautioning his biracial son about interactions with the police after the chokehold death of Eric Garner was an insult to the police force.  Enough has been said about the lameness of that argument that we needn't discuss it further.  The fact that city hall's in the midst of tough labor negotiations with the NYPD is also adding to the posturing and bitterness.

But the larger issue that has been raised by these outward shows of disrespect for civil authority by some in the NYPD can be boiled down to:  "Who do you serve?"  Here's Charles P. Pierce:

... In response, and at the encouragement of television hucksters like Joe Scarborough, police union blowhards like Patrick Lynch, political zombies like George Pataki, and comical fascists like Rudolph Giuliani, the NYPD is acting in open rebellion against Mayor Bill de Blasio of New York, and the civil power he represents over them. This is an incredibly perilous time for democracy at the most basic levels.  [snip] 

... If the NYPD runs a slow-motion coup against the freely elected mayor of New York, then it is running a slow-motion coup against all the people of New York. There is no exemption from this fundamental truth about the way this country and its system is supposed to work.

Ta-Nehisi Coates extrapolates this show of insubordination into a most unpleasant future scenario:

When the elected mayor of my city arrived at the hospital, the police officers who presumably serve at the public's leisure turned away in a display that should chill the blood of any interested citizen. The police are not the only embodiment of democratic society. And one does not have to work hard to imagine a future when the agents of our will, the agents whom we created, are in fact our masters. On that day one can expect that the tactics intended for the ghettos will enjoy wider usage. 

There's an "us vs. them" mentality that unfortunately is in danger of becoming the norm in minority community/ police relations, if it hasn't already.  As Gene notes here and here, the same confrontational attitude by the Patrick Lynch's of the world -- not to mention right-wing pols and media --  doesn't seem to arise when the cop killers are white, "sovereign citizen," right-wing militia types.

Police have the toughest job in the world and that fact needs to be respected. But they do themselves and their communities no favors when they lose sight of who they're protecting and serving.

Here Come The Demagogues, Cont.

Major newspaper editorial boards are reacting to the politicization of the killing of two New York City Police officers, with particular attention to the destructive roles of right-wing leech Rudy "Noun, Verb, 9/11" Giuliani and Police Benevolent Association president Patrick Lynch.

The once great Washington Post Bezos Bugle:

The officers are being mourned and celebrated in New York and across the country, as they should be. But their deaths also have been improperly used in a political debate. Republican politicians, such as former New York mayor Rudolph W. Giuliani, and police union leaders in Baltimore and New York have blamed the killings on people protesting police tactics after civilians were killed by officers in Ferguson, Mo., Staten Island and elsewhere.

The Los Angeles Times:

... New York police union chief Patrick Lynch, for example, lashed out at “those who incited violence on the street in the guise of protest.” 

But it is utterly unreasonable to suggest that people who have been protesting the use of excessive force by police are somehow responsible for provoking the actions of a cop-killer. To follow Lynch's argument to its logical conclusion, communities that have felt the brunt of abusive police tactics must not object, lest their demonstrations incite criminals or the deranged to attack police. That's a non-starter. There is a conversation taking place on race and policing, and it necessarily will include protests against injustice, real or perceived.

The Denver Post:

The head of the Patrolmen's Benevolent Association in New York was the most vehement. "There's blood on many hands tonight," Patrick Lynch declared in the wake of the shootings. "Those that incited violence on the street under the guise of protests, that tried to tear down what New York City police officers did every day. ... That blood on the hands starts on the steps of City Hall — in the office of the mayor."

And Lynch is by no means the only such critic. The Wall Street Journal, for example, concluded an editorial by saying, "The progressive campaign against police must stop before it has even uglier consequences." This was in the same editorial, ironically, that stipulated that "no one other than the alleged shooter, Ismaaiyl Brinsley, is responsible for pulling the trigger."

The New York Times:

... Anything that even briefly silences the police union leader Patrick Lynch, whose response to the killings has been to slander Mr. de Blasio as a bloody-handed accomplice to murder, is worth supporting. [snip]

... Irresponsible voices are poisoning this debate: George Pataki, a former New York governor, said that “divisive anti-cop rhetoric” from Attorney General Eric Holder Jr. and Mr. de Blasio inspired the killing of the two officers; Rudolph Giuliani, a former mayor of New York City, spread the falsehood that Mr. de Blasio had let the protests get out of control (they have been amazingly peaceful); Raymond Kelly, a former New York police commissioner, falsely accused Mr. de Blasio of running on an “anti-police” platform. 

The transparent political agenda of has-been right-wing pols, the Rupert Murdoch media, and meatheads like Patrick Lynch is getting the backlash it deserves.  Those who inflame the situation and attempt to link the murder of two policemen to peaceful protests as these sociopaths have done, are working against the best interests of the law enforcement community.  It's not helping to defuse already hostile police/ community relations by calling communities  "war zones" and attempting to stifle accountability.  It's not helping to say there's a "progressive campaign against police," when even commentators on the right expressed concerns about violence against unarmed civilians.  It's not helping the families of the two slain policemen to see this irresponsible, cynical, dishonest campaign being waged as they and many others mourn the deaths of their loved ones.

(Image:  Slain New York City Police Officers Rafael Ramos and Wenjian Liu.)

Here Come The Demagogues

Yesterday's horrific murder of two New York City policemen by a gang member purporting to take revenge for the killings of Michael Brown in Herderson, MO, and Eric Garner on Staten Island, NY, earlier this year, has brought out some of the most loathsome, partisan demagoguery we've seen in a long time.  Rather than repeat some of the slander here, Nancy LeTourneau at Washington Monthly has captured some of the more egregious comments being made by people who barely missed a beat before they started blaming someone other than the shooter for the tragedy (one addition to Nancy's list of shame would be frozen food heir "Mother" Tucker Carlson, whose crocodile tear ducts went into overload.)  Naturally, Fox "News" has been providing a rage platform for many of those demagogues.

You'll note beyond the predictable slimers like Rudy "Noun, Verb, 9/11" Giuliani (yes him, again) are several current or former police officials.  It's particularly sad and unfortunate that they're using the deaths of two of their own to push their agenda, that being to silence critics of police militarization and the growing rift between police and the communities they're sworn to serve.  If their interest was truly to help their brothers and sisters in blue by defusing a dangerous police/community environment, they wouldn't be trying to further inflame people just to score political points.  Keep that in mind as you watch this story unfold.