Today's Rachel

Rachel Maddow - 08-21-2023

BTW, to all my acquaintances, friends or bosom buddies - or anybody else who flies the MAGA freak flag, and who may be one of the dipwads, or who're in sympathy with the dipwads who like to threaten us all with some kinda terrorizing violence if we don't go along with their fucked up ideas:

Here I am, assholes - Come and get me.

Ya buncha whiny-butt pussies

I Gotcher Conspiracy Right here

Hey, "conservatives", do you really wanna do that conspiracy thing? Here's one.

What if you make a political move that takes cops off the streets, and do it thru the unions, which kinda short-circuits the lefties' pushback?

Put this together with - oh, I dunno - that horseshit going on down there in Texas where they've legalized Vigilantism, and whaddya got?

The Guardian:

Police departments face a shortage as unions enable officers to refuse vaccines

Representatives say the mandates violate the officers’ rights while city leaders are trying to keep the public safe

Sgt Randy Huserik and all other officers with the Seattle police department who have been vaccinated against Covid-19 are prepared to report at 7am Tuesday morning to any of the city’s five precincts rather than their usual assignments. Some detectives could even be responding to 911 calls instead of following up on their case load, he said.

That’s because the city is implementing a vaccine mandate for officers on 18 October and preparing to fire hundreds of officers who refuse to get the vaccine, which could leave the department significantly understaffed.

“We will have additional bodies available to handle 911 calls but obviously there is going to be a backlash on that for all the officers assigned as detectives who then won’t be working on their caseload, which will then back up as additional cases come in,” said Huserik, who has been with the department for 28 years and works in public affairs.

The standoff between the city and officers is just one conflict among many across the United States, with city leaders stating that they are trying to keep the public safe and some officers and their union representatives saying that the mandates violate their rights. In Chicago, the issue has even led to the mayor and the local police union trading legal actions.

While the penalties for officers who decline to get the vaccine differ from city to city, there is a common resistance among police unions to various restrictions.

And policing experts warn that even if officers’ resistance to the vaccination is misguided, issuing mandates could further deplete departments that are already understaffed and thus hurt public safety.

“I think you should encourage them, but I don’t think you can make anybody do anything and think that relationship is going to be amicable and trustworthy down the line,” said David Thomas, a professor of forensic studies at Florida Gulf Coast University.

The resistance to the vaccines comes despite the fact Covid-19 has caused 473 deaths among law enforcement officers in the United States, making it the largest cause of death for the group in 2020 and 2021, according to Officer Down Memorial Page, which tracks the deaths.

“You would think that is enough to encourage everybody to get vaccinated,” said Chuck Wexler, the executive director of the Police Executive Research Forum, which advises police departments across the country. “It’s just mind-boggling to think that the creation of [police] unions was to protect officers’ rights and what could be more significant than the right to live a good life?”

Brian Higgins, a former police chief and adjunct professor at John Jay College of Criminal Justice, attributes the resistance in part to the fact that police “are a little more skeptical” and “are not used to being told what to do”, he said.

And there it is - the cops "are not used to being told what to do."

Well then, you need to get used to it, fellas.

You are not the law.

You are not above the law.

You will comply with the fucking law.

It's The Terrorism, Stupid

From CNN:

A former police captain who was part of a private citizens group investigating still unsubstantiated 2020 election fraud claims was charged Tuesday with running a man off the road and pointing a gun to his head two weeks before the election, the Harris County district attorney said in a statement.

Prosecutors say former Houston Police captain Mark Anthony Aguirre said he believed the man was transporting fraudulent ballots.

"I believe it's a political prosecution," Terry Yates, Aguirre's attorney, told CNN affiliate KTRK.

Prosecutors say Aguirre was paid over a quarter million dollars by a private group called "Liberty Center for God and Country" to investigate alleged ballot schemes in the Houston area.

Jared Woodfill, the center's president, told CNN the group and Republican activist Steve Hotze hired a private firm that included "Aguirre, a former FBI investigator and about 20 investigators that investigated reports of voter fraud," reports that were sent to Hotze. The Republican activist was also one of the plaintiffs who filed a petition prior to Election Day seeking to invalidate 127,000 ballots cast in drive-thru early voting. A federal judge rejected that request.

CNN has reached out to Hotze for comment.

According to the district attorney's news release, Aguirre, 63, told authorities he had conducted surveillance for four days on an unidentified man driving a truck that he suspected had 750,000 fraudulent ballots inside. The release said Aguirre believed the man was "the mastermind of a giant (voter) fraud."

Instead, prosecutors say the victim was an "innocent and ordinary" air-conditioner repairman.

"Aguirre ran his SUV into the back of the truck to get the technician to stop and get out," the news release said, describing the October 19 incident. "When the technician got out of the truck, Aguirre, pointed a handgun at the technician, forced him to the ground and put his knee on the man's back -- an image captured on the body-worn camera of a police officer."

Responding authorities found no ballots inside the vehicle, only air conditioner parts and tools, prosecutors said.

After an investigation, Houston police said they found the allegations of election fraud "unfounded" and referred the case to the district attorney's office.

And also too - follow the money.

Aguirre had been paid more than $260,000 by the "Liberty Center" group, prosecutors alleged, and received about $211,400 the day following the incident.

He was arrested Tuesday and is charged with aggravated assault with a deadly weapon, a second-degree felony punishable by up to 20 years in prison, prosecutors said. He is currently at a Harris County jail facility with bond set at $30,000.

We can call this "dirty tricks" or "good ol' boys gone wild" or "vigilante numb-skullery" or whatever else, but it's Terrorism For Hire. and the DOJ needs to be approaching it as such. They took a huge bite out of the KKK by helping The SLPC sue some the Klan chapters into oblivion back in the 80s and 90s. And the Feds take the same kind of action against known terror groups outside the US by freezing their financial assets here, and getting other countries to do the same abroad.

We can't fuck around with this and let it go without real consequences.

It'll continue. It'll get worse. And it's going to get Americans killed.

"He crossed the line from dirty politics to commission of a violent crime and we are lucky no one was killed," Harris County District Attorney Kim Ogg said in a statement. "His alleged investigation was backward from the start -- first alleging a crime had occurred and then trying to prove it happened."

Yates, Aguirre's attorney, told CNN affiliate KTRK, "He was working and investigating voter fraud, there was an accident. ... A member of the car got out and rushed toward him and that's where the confrontation took place. It's very different than what you're citing in the affidavit."

The statement from prosecutors about Aguirre's arrest came one day after the Electoral College voted to affirm Joe Biden as the 46th President of the United States.

Despite the announcement of election results by media outlets and government officials, outgoing President Donald Trump has continued to claim that widespread voter fraud occurred during the 2020 election, and has raised hundreds of millions of dollars for a purported legal defense fund, despite official certifications that former Vice President Joe Biden won the presidential election.

I can see this as prelude to some pretty awful shit coming our way as Qult45 settles in after the inauguration and Trump continues to pimp his shadow government, We-Was-Robbed bullshit.

The Guardian

Today's Ammosexual

The Death Of Irony, part ∞

When the law-n-order crowd is one of the main causes of this totally fucked up anarchical libertarian mess.

Denver Post:

The Loveland man who allegedly held two roofing salesmen at gunpoint because he thought they were members of antifa reportedly kneeled on the neck of one of the victims, who is African-American, and pointed a gun at his back, according to an arrest affidavit.

Scott Gudmundsen, 65, is facing charges of felony menacing and false imprisonment in connection with the alleged incident that took place June 11 in the 600 block of Edinburgh Drive in Loveland.

According to his arrest affidavit, the salesmen told the police they had been in the neighborhood the day before, on Wednesday, selling roof inspections. They contacted Gudmundsen at his home, and he asked them to leave.

While they were talking to another resident, Gudmundsen approached them and demanded to see their identification, the affidavit said. They showed him their IDs, and Gudmundsen reportedly apologized and left.

While they were canvassing a different area of the same neighborhood Thursday, Gudmundsen approached them again with what looked like a small assault rifle, the affidavit said. He started yelling at them to get on the ground and calling them terrorists, the affidavit said, saying that they were with antifa and that he would shoot them.

The two victims are not being named to protect their privacy. One of them is a football player for Colorado State University.

According to the affidavit, one of the victims told police he did not want to die so he lay on the ground as Gudmundsen ordered.

The other victim, who is African-American, told police that Gudmundsen kneeled on his neck and jammed a gun into his back.

“He asked Gudmundsen not to kill him,” the affidavit said. “Gudmundsen told him he was not going to kill him; the police would.”

Gudmundsen called police to tell them that he was holding antifa members hostage. Several witnesses also called the police to report that a man was pointing a gun at people.

Loveland Police Department officer Matt Sychla responded to a 911 call and arrived at the scene to see Gudmundsen standing over the victim pointing a pistol at his back, the affidavit said. Gudmundsen was armed with two loaded pistols and had more ammunition in a tactical vest he was wearing.

Officer Geoff Reeves responded to a 911 phone call from Gudmundsen on Thursday in which he told dispatchers that he was confronting antifa members in his neighborhood.

“Gudmundsen reported he was wearing tactical gear, was armed and was a former police officer,” the affidavit said. “He told dispatchers when we arrived he would drop to the ground to show he was not a threat.”

Dispatchers received additional calls about a standoff, and when Reeves arrived at the scene at 6:02 p.m. Sychla was holding Gudmundsen and the two victims on the ground at gunpoint, the affidavit said. The officers took Gudmundsen into custody at 6:14 p.m.

Gudmundsen was released from Larimer County Jail on a $500 bond and is scheduled to have his first appearance in court Thursday.

Gudmundsen has no prior criminal history in Colorado, according to court records.