Monday Open Thread [7.11.2016]
So-called progressives will pat themselves on the back for their wins on the platform (wins I pretty much endorse, BTW), and I am waiting to remind them that they’ve counted their chickens too early.
Five Thirty Eight takes a look at how 3rd Parties are currently influencing the Presidential polls.
Clinton loses 1 percentage point overall when 3rd parties (Gary Johnson, really,since Stein is included in even fewer polls) are included to the polling. It’s not much, and it is counerintuitive to me — I would think that Johnson/Weld would be getting a good look-over by the Dump Trump crowd. But still.
Well this is interesting: Cops can ignore Black Lives Matter protesters. They can’t ignore their insurers.
Civil rights activists have often claimed that police departments are unaccountable — a complaint that intensified after the shooting of Michael Brown in Ferguson, Mo., and the birth of the Black Lives Matter movement. But if police leaders sometimes avoid political accountability, they still answer to their underwriters, which therefore have significant leverage over them.
If politicians wanted to, my research suggests, they could use that leverage to effect change. State insurance commissioners and regulators could lead the charge. How?
Small municipalities, such as Ferguson, are abundant in our country but pose a challenge for insurers’ loss-prevention programs. Because the premiums these municipalities pay are relatively small, it is often infeasible for insurers to discount rates enough to compensate for the expense of loss prevention. (This is why a property insurer that covers a skyscraper will send inspectors to the premises but my homeowner’s insurer will not.) It’s not economical for insurers to tailor their loss-prevention efforts or pay close enough attention to make small-town premiums accurately reflect their risk.
It is worth engaging with the entire argument here, but looking to insurance as a way to provide incentives for reform or better performance is an interesting idea. If that’s feasible, then I wonder if it isn’t feasible to start tying police raises to the department’s overall risk profile. That might be one way to provide an incentive for officers to be more proactive in addressing poor behavior by their colleagues.
Lots of Republicans are planning to stay home when their convention starts next week:
The decision underscores the dilemma confronting Republicans in being tied too closely to the top of the ticket — particularly incumbents from swing states worried that Trump’s divisive candidacy and Ted Cruz’s rigid brand of conservatism will doom their chances at keeping power in both chambers of Congress.
Quietly, some officials in the highest rungs of Republican leadership are advising their rank-and-file members to stay away from Cleveland. One top GOP party leader, who asked not to be named so they could discuss internal thinking, told CNN privately that he has advised his colleagues to hold campaign rallies and town halls in their home states during the time of the July convention. A senior Senate GOP leadership aide echoed that sentiment.
HAHAHAHAHAHA! Schadenfraude.
And I am including this fake news story on the speaker list for the RNC convention as a way to bookmark the image that comes with it. We should use the top part next week when writing about the convention. If we are writing about the convention.
This is the story of an architect that was ripped off of his fees for designing a clubhouse for one of his courses. This is developer behavior — get your margins out of not paying the people who did their work on your job. This is certainly not good business and certainly not about protecting the “little guy”.
Here’s a piece about how the Police Bill of Rights, written into the law in many states (Delaware included), works against the notion of police accountability:
http://thinkprogress.org/justice/2016/07/11/3796694/police-contracts-bill-of-rights-alton-sterline-philando-castile/
There’s something wrong with a state or country that demands accountability of its unionized teachers but not its unionized police.
Paul Ryan, reading from a Reagan-era hymnal, tries to left-smear Hillary and ends up failing miserably:
That is a fine endorsement.
“Quietly, some officials in the highest rungs of Republican leadership are advising their rank-and-file members to stay away from Cleveland.”
Charlie is going to be there proudly waving the DEGOP flag. I wonder who else he has talked into going?
And on this Monday morning, I finally found myself nodding along to something that came out of Paul Ryan smarmy mouth…
A helluva fine endorsement… From his lips to the Flying Spahetti Monster’s ears that the Democratic Party is now following the policies and platform of Bernie, Warren, and HRC!!!
A local gun felon– Matt Opaliski — gets a slap on the wrist:
What do you think this story would have been if this guy had been a black Democratic Party official living in West Center City?
I think it would be:
“Police defended the killing of a heavily armed West Center City man, pointing to the 63 guns they found in his home, and are investigating whether he had ties to any Islamic radical groups. The Caesar Rodney institute demanded to know how the convicted felon came into possession of the weapons, which he is legally banned from owning, and called for more rigorous prosecution of existing gun laws.”
But how were his swim times?
Here’s the Minnesota cop’s lawyer:
http://talkingpointsmemo.com/news/lawyer-castile-shot-robbery-suspect
He thought he was a robbery suspect, he saw the gun…if guns are going to be legal, this isn’t good enough. Were this “suspect” white and right-wing, the outrage would be through the roof.
That’s some hacked together after the fact ass covering bullshit.
If he were white and right wing, the talk radio crowd would be spinning their heads spewing bile like rapid dogs
The only Kevin Tinsley in the voter file is a 51 year old Republican ( unless he changed Party ) in the Camden-Wyoming area.
“So-called progressives will pat themselves on the back for their wins on the platform (wins I pretty much endorse, BTW), and I am waiting to remind them that they’ve counted their chickens too early.”
Ah, “so-called progressives.” When you get that kind of description, you know the contempt the writer has for progressives and, when the truth is told, doesn’t really count himself among them.
That’s the most candid writing I’ve seen from you in a while. Congratulations.