The Goat Pen

I find it fascinating that the left appears to be celebrating the election of a Trumpian nutjob in an Alabama senate primary over a mainstream republican like it was actually some kind of victory against Trump. This country is fucking stupid

A sidenote to that story is Bob Corker, apparently one of the people who convinced Trump to support Strange, and then we find out Corker has a $3m sweetheart tax rebate deal in Mobile , AL. After the election, Corker announces he is done with politics.

You're right though, I was surprised to see Trump support Strange when Moore was a template for being a Trump die hard supporter.

Moore is more of a wild cannon.Strange is a good soldier. Early on, Moore was saying "you don't need a wall to keep the damned messicans out".

aTm wrote:I find it fascinating that the left appears to be celebrating the election of a Trumpian nutjob in an Alabama senate primary over a mainstream republican like it was actually some kind of victory against Trump.

Correct. The left is succored by the election of a former state supreme court justice who ordered the state of Alabama to ignore SCOTUS rulings twice: once to take down a stone statue of the 10 Commandments from the state judicial building, and again to make same sex marriages legal in Alabama. That's an odd resume for the left to cheer for.

As a two-time former resident of Alabama, I can say their state politics never fail to entertain.

You lived there twice? You should not say that in public.

There is a possibility I might live there a third time. I might get sent back there. Having "Alabama" in my work history is hard to live down, much like a prison record.

Actually, outside Tuscaloosa and the nicer neighborhoods in the larger cities, I'd think you fit in quite well almost anywhere in Alabama. They're your kind of people...

There's a lot to like about Alabama. Mostly very good people. They just get a little crazy sometimes. Tide fans and Republican politicians, especially. When they get crazy, they get really, really crazy.

Professor Tiger wrote:There's a lot to like about Alabama. Mostly very good people. They just get a little crazy sometimes. Tide fans and Republican politicians, especially. When they get crazy, they get really, really crazy.

I spend more time there than I want. But its close to New Orleans so that counts for something.

If you're ever in New Orleans after a Bama game, don't pass out in the downtown Krystal's.

A new study confirms that black men and women are treated differently in the hands of law enforcement. They are more likely to be touched, handcuffed, pushed to the ground or pepper-sprayed by a police officer, even after accounting for how, where and when they encounter the police.

But when it comes to the most lethal form of force — police shootings — the study finds no racial bias.

“It is the most surprising result of my career,” said Roland G. Fryer Jr., the author of the study and a professor of economics at Harvard. The study examined more than 1,000 shootings in 10 major police departments, in Texas, Florida and California.

The result contradicts the image of police shootings that many Americans hold after the killings (some captured on video) of Michael Brown in Ferguson, Mo.; Tamir Rice in Cleveland; Walter Scott in South Carolina; Alton Sterling in Baton Rouge, La.; and Philando Castile in Minnesota.

The study did not say whether the most egregious examples — those at the heart of the nation’s debate on police shootings — are free of racial bias. Instead, it examined a larger pool of shootings, including nonfatal ones.

The counterintuitive results provoked debate after the study was posted on Monday, mostly about the volume of police encounters and the scope of the data. Mr. Fryer emphasizes that the work is not the definitive analysis of police shootings, and that more data would be needed to understand the country as a whole. This work focused only on what happens once the police have stopped civilians, not on the risk of being stopped at all. Other research has shown that blacks are more likely to be stopped by the police.

In shootings in these 10 cities involving officers, officers were more likely to fire their weapons without having first been attacked when the suspects were white. Black and white civilians involved in police shootings were equally likely to have been carrying a weapon. Both results undercut the idea of racial bias in police use of lethal force.

But police shootings are only part of the picture. What about situations in which an officer might be expected to fire, but doesn’t?

To answer this, Mr. Fryer focused on one city, Houston. The Police Department there let the researchers look at reports not only for shootings but also for arrests when lethal force might have been justified. Mr. Fryer defined this group to include encounters with suspects the police subsequently charged with serious offenses like attempting to murder an officer, or evading or resisting arrest. He also considered suspects shocked with Tasers.

Mr. Fryer found that in such situations, officers in Houston were about 20 percent less likely to shoot if the suspects were black. This estimate was not precise, and firmer conclusions would require more data. But in various models controlling for different factors and using different definitions of tense situations, Mr. Fryer found that blacks were either less likely to be shot or there was no difference between blacks and whites.

"A new study confirms that black men and women are treated differently in the hands of law enforcement. They are more likely to be touched, handcuffed, pushed to the ground or pepper-sprayed by a police officer, even after accounting for how, where and when they encounter the police.

But when it comes to the most lethal form of force — police shootings — the study finds no racial bias."

So they're getting pepper sprayed and handcuffed more than whites, but they're not being killed more than whites. Well goddamn, what the hell are they complaining about??? They should be grateful!

No, it means that the official liberal/Democrat/media narrative that there is an epidemic of white cops killing black people for no good reason is completely false.

The ongoing hysteria isn't about pepper spraying or handcuffs. Then it would have some validity. It's about the idea - which has become Gospel in liberal circles - that lots of white cops are running around randomly shooting black people like it was hunting season. That is simply not true, and not even close to being true.

I posted this elsewhere but it applies here:

Hard Data, Hollow Protests
FBI crime figures paint a very different picture of crime and policing than this weekend’s demonstrations suggest.

The FBI released its official crime tally for 2016 today, and the data flies in the face of the rhetoric that professional athletes rehearsed in revived Black Lives Matter protests over the weekend.

In 2016, the police fatally shot 233 blacks, the vast majority armed and dangerous, according to the Washington Post. The Post categorized only 16 black male victims of police shootings as “unarmed.” That classification masks assaults against officers and violent resistance to arrest. Contrary to the Black Lives Matter narrative, the police have much more to fear from black males than black males have to fear from the police. In 2015, a police officer was 18.5 times more likely to be killed by a black male than an unarmed black male was to be killed by a police officer. Black males have made up 42 percent of all cop-killers over the last decade, though they are only 6 percent of the population. That 18.5 ratio undoubtedly worsened in 2016, in light of the 53 percent increase in gun murders of officers—committed vastly and disproportionately by black males.

https://www.city-journal.org/html/hard- ... 15458.html

Just because someone only shit in your car twice in the 3,000 days you lived where you do doesn't mean that those two turd piles weren't worth you completely freaking out over.

Professor Tiger wrote:No, it means that the official liberal/Democrat/media narrative that there is an epidemic of white cops killing black people for no good reason is completely false.

Mostly the narrative is how cops get away with killing unarmed blacks time after time. Think how outraged you were over the O.J. verdict... then consider how there have been a few hundred similar outcomes since then that favor killer cops. Or don't, as is your want.

https://www.nbcnews.com/news/us-news/ja ... ng-n801626

Just an example, but this one features the time-honored "throw-down weapon." Something else to consider when looking at historical armed vs unarmed numbers.

Only when cops killing unarmed citizens reaches epidemic proportions does Prof notice or care. Well, I guess I shouldn't have said "care". But 15 or 16 a year? No problem!

when those outraged burn down a city and loot because of this injustice, and it turns out their "victim" wasn't a victim at all, then all that rage rings hollow.

Hands up Don't Shoot - a lie
He had a book, not a gun - a lie


if you have to lie, then your cause can't be just

The government nor the police ever lie...

Fine, go build a shack, change your name to Ted, and kindly GFY.