US Politics Mega-thread - Page 1812

On April 05 2015 01:24 Gorsameth wrote:

Right, because everyone has the money to pay tickets. Or you the punishing monthly payments from debt collections if they cant..

There is very much such a thing as trying to pay tickets, Yoda or not.

On April 05 2015 03:58 JonnyBNoHo wrote:

I don't know how a court is going to give you an A for effort. If you're required to pay the ticket, and you don't, I'm not sure how you expect the system to react.

On April 05 2015 03:58 JonnyBNoHo wrote:

I don't know how a court is going to give you an A for effort. If you're required to pay the ticket, and you don't, I'm not sure how you expect the system to react.

On April 05 2015 04:48 Gorsameth wrote:

What I expect would be that if someone doesn't have the money to pay they can get a sensible payment plan that lets them slowly pay the fine without being bled dry/imprisoned.

On April 05 2015 06:31 IgnE wrote:
John Oliver did a segment on this in a recent show jonny. Stealthblue might have even posted it. Did you see it?

On April 05 2015 05:34 GreenHorizons wrote:


Maybe the system could notice the ridiculous and criminal nature of the police's/judges actions? You know without having to have protests and riots to draw attention to something that's been happening for years?

Or you could just defend a corrupt, criminal, enterprise, strong arming citizens and disregarding the constitution AKA FPD.

WASHINGTON -- The indictment of Sen. Bob Menendez (D-N.J.) on public corruption charges is the first bribery case involving the use of corporate political spending to support a candidate since the Supreme Court’s 2010 Citizens United decision allowed corporations to do just that.

Justice Anthony Kennedy declared in the 5-4 majority opinion that corporations should be free to spend unlimited sums on independent political activities since “independent expenditures, including those made by corporations, do not give rise to corruption or the appearance of corruption.” Those making independent expenditures “may have influence over or access to elected officials,” but that “does not mean those officials are corrupt,” Kennedy wrote.

The Department of Justice begs to differ. Menendez’s indictment on Wednesday specifically ties two $300,000 contributions from Dr. Salomon Melgen’s Vitreo-Retinal Consultants to an officially independent super PAC -- donations that were earmarked for Menendez’s 2012 re-election effort -- to actions that the senator took on behalf of Melgen’s business interests.

This is exactly the kind of behavior that Kennedy could not fathom happening.

The reality, as many warned after the Supreme Court’s ruling, is that most of the political spending unleashed by Citizens United is not independent. It abides by the narrow guidelines set out by the Federal Election Commission, but as the Menendez indictment and many other examples show, these actually allow much dependence.

Senate Majority PAC, the super PAC at the center of this scandal, is a prime example. The group was set up by top former aides to Sen. Harry Reid (D-Nev.), then the Senate majority leader, to help maintain a Democratic Senate majority, and Reid has attended dozens of donor events and fundraisers for the group. It is, in essence, an extension of his obligation as a political leader to protect or expand his party’s power.

The former aides who decamped to the super PAC or are otherwise tied to it remain in contact with Reid without violating the relatively loose rules on independence. Campaign donors and lobbyists operate as if contributing to Senate Majority PAC is just another piece of the influence-peddling puzzle. The Huffington Post has documented multiple super PACs run by close allies of congressional leaders that are fueled by contributions raised by lobbyists from clients seeking legislative action.

The San Francisco police chief wants eight of his officers fired in the wake of a scandal involving racist and homophobic text messages.

Chief Greg Suhr held a news conference Friday afternoon for about an hour. He announced in light of the scandal he’ll be randomly selecting officers to check to see if they’ve missed any red flags in their background checks.

“It just makes me sick to even talk about it,” Suhr said.

Suhr told reporters that the eight officers, including a captain, who were caught exchanging the inappropriate texts do not belong in his department.

“I have suspended them and they have been referred to the police commission with the recommendation of only termination,” he said.

In all, 14 officers were reprimanded for their actions.

Suhr said two other officers engaged in the text messages, but to a lesser degree and their messages were deemed less inflammatory. These two officers have been reassigned to non-public contact positions. Their cases will go before the Police Commission, which can discipline them up to termination.

The remaining four officers violated public policy and face discipline by the chief, which could involve being suspend for up to 10 days.

The texts came to light last month during a federal bail hearing for another officer looking to appeal his public corruption conviction.

Suhr wouldn’t directly answer whether these texts were indicative of a culture of racism in the department.

On April 05 2015 13:59 coverpunch wrote:
San Francisco doesn't need a months-long DOJ investigation to make a run at Ferguson:


Unfortunately, CBS doesn't publish any samples of the kinds of things these cops were saying to each other and it is notable that these were texts that might have been on their personal phones (and thus in a private capacity), as opposed to Ferguson where people were using their official work e-mails to send racist jokes.

I imagine most cops talk to each other like on the Wire, where they do make casual and flippant jokes about race and homosexuality, but I wouldn't say those cops are racists and homophobes. The article makes it seem like it goes deeper than that but it's impossible to know without samples.

EDIT: I should note that this comes as SFPD is defending itself from allegations of public corruption and mishandled evidence, which might also run quite deep, and this might have been a pretense to throw out some of the more abusive cops before the DOJ comes in.

On April 05 2015 06:51 JonnyBNoHo wrote:

No, and I'm not particularly interested in news entertainment on the subject.