Paul Simon:
Happy Hour: Margaret Whiting and Johnny Mercer – Baby Its Cold Outside…
R.I.P. Joe Cocker
Joe Cocker, 70. I loved his voice so much.
Panhandle Slim… Art for Folk…
A brief history of violent deaths in the NYPD
Rudy’s at it again
Via Balloon Juice. Hey, it worked the last time!
September 17, 1992 — Thousands of off-duty police officers thronged around City Hall yesterday, swarming through police barricades to rally on the steps of the hall and blocking traffic on the Brooklyn Bridge for nearly an hour in the most unruly and angry police demonstration in recent memory.
The 300 uniformed officers who were supposed to control the crowd did little or nothing to stop the protesters from jumping barricades, tramping on automobiles, mobbing the steps of City Hall or taking over the bridge. In some cases, the on-duty officers encouraged the protesters.
While the Patrolmen’s Benevolent Association had called the rally to protest Mayor David N. Dinkins’s proposal to create an independent civilian agency that would look into police misconduct, the huge turnout — estimated by the Police Department at 10,000 protesters — and the harsh emotional pitch reflected widespread anger among rank-and-file officers toward the Mayor for his handling of riots against the police in Washington Heights last July, his refusal to give them semiautomatic weapons and his appointment of an outside panel to investigate corruption…
Because nothing upsets cops more than trying to hold them accountable!
Mayor Dinkins, who was not at City Hall during the demonstration, denounced the protest as “bordering on hooliganism” and said he held the P.B.A. president, Phil Caruso, responsible for what happened. He accused Mr. Caruso of inciting his members’ passions and suggested the union leader was motivated in part by contract negotiations.
The Mayor also assailed Rudolph W. Giuliani, the probable Republican mayoral candidate, who spoke out against the Mayor at the union rally. Mr. Dinkins said Mr. Giuliani had egged on the protest irresponsibly for political reasons. “He’s clearly, clearly an opportunist,” Mr. Dinkins said. “He’s seizing upon a fragile circumstance in our city for his own political gain.”
The more things change…
9/11 Rudy blames liberals for cop shootings
And Kevin Drum responds:
But I assume this means we can blame Bill O’Reilly for his 28 episodes of invective against “Tiller the Baby Killer” that eventually ended in the murder of Wichita abortion provider George Tiller by anti-abortion activist Scott Roeder. We can blame conservative talk radio for fueling the anti-government hysteria that led Timothy McVeigh to bomb a federal building in Oklahoma City. We can blame the relentless xenophobia of Fox News for the bombing of an Islamic Center in Joplin or the massacre of Sikh worshippers by a white supremacist in Wisconsin. We can blame the NRA for the mass shootings in Newtown and Aurora. We can blame Republicans for stoking the anti-IRS paranoia that prompted Andrew Joseph Stack to crash a private plane into an IRS building in Austin, killing two people. We can blame the Christian Right for the anti-gay paranoia that led the Westboro Baptist Church to picket the funeral of Matthew Snyder, a US Marine killed in Iraq, with signs that carried their signature “God Hates Fags” slogan. We can blame Sean Hannity for his repeated support of Cliven Bundy’s “range war” against the BLM, which eventually motivated Jerad and Amanda Miller to kill five people in Las Vegas after participating in the Bundy standoff and declaring, “If they’re going to come bring violence to us, well, if that’s the language they want to speak, we’ll learn it.” And, of course, we can blame Rudy Giuliani and the entire conservative movement for their virtually unanimous indifference to the state-sanctioned police killings of black suspects over minor offenses in Ferguson and Staten Island, which apparently motivated the murder of the New York police officers on Saturday.
Or wait. Maybe we can’t do any of those things. Maybe lots of people support lots of things, and we can’t twist that generalized support into blame for maniacs who decide to take up arms for their own demented reasons. Maybe that’s a better idea after all.
Politicizing tragedy
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_q1eE5v-Yt4
Every time someone is killed with a gun, we’re told it’s not the right time to politicize it. As opposed to the right wing, which is never too shameless to grab for political points:
Fox News seized on the execution style murder of New York City police officers Wenjian Liu and Rafael Ramos to condemn President Barack Obama and other African American leaders for advocating reforms to the justice system following the deaths of two unarmed black men.
The 28-year-old gunman, identified as Ismaaiyl Brinsley, may have been seeking revenge for the deaths of Michael Brown and Eric Garner, whose killers were not indicted though the grand jury system. Those decisions, seen by many as an injustice, sparked protests across the country and led to massive demonstrations in New York City.
Fox argued that African American leaders inspired these protesters and created an anti-police environment that motivated Brinsley to murder the two officers.The network played video of some agitators in New York City calling for “dead cops.” Host Tucker Carlson lamented that while the killer is ultimately responsible for the massacre, “it’s — almost hard not to point at some of the people who have been whipping up hatred in race over the last few months.” And, the network showed a super cut of Obama, Attorney General Eric Holder, and Rev. Al Sharpton calling for reforms to the justice system, implying that those words led Brinsely to murder.
Hello old friend
Kim Richey:
Breaking us in two
Joe Jackson: