"480 Minutes" - No Justice No Peace
This week the police officers who murdered Breonna Taylor while sleeping in her bed did not get charged with murder. Their incident report listed the dead, innocent victim's injuries as "none." That brazen lie alone should be cause for immediate dismissal and banishment from law enforcement for life. The fact that no one is going to be held accountable for Breonna Taylor's death is further proof that institutional racism is baked into U.S. law enforcement and legal systems. As more and more people, regardless of skin color, are disgusted and enraged by videos like those of George Floyd or Tamir Rice or Philando Castile or Jacob Blake and come to understand that fundamental fact, a reckoning will come, and that Thin Blue Line that good cops think is protecting them will be their undoing.
Of course, the "no justice no peace" attitude plays right into President Paramilitary's hands -- he wants images of chaos and violence in the streets because that's what his base thinks he will protect them from. Meanwhile the inJustice Department and campaign are floating the idea of defunding NYC, Portland, and Seattle, places they are designating as "anarchist jurisdictions." Besides the obvious total insanity of that nonsense on every level...since when do anarchists recognize "jurisdictions?"
Also this week the Debaser In Chief again refused to answer repeated questions about the peaceful transfer of power if he loses. That same authoritarian wanna be is being backed by just about every Republican in the Senate to nominate a third Justice to the Supreme Court just 4 years after they stole a Supreme Court nomination from the previous president. Listening to and reading the myriad examples of these deceitful hypocrites saying the exact opposite of what they are saying now, and trying to project their dishonorable behavior onto Democrats has been another low point in the continuing disintegration of The United States of America.
When the Democrats retake the Senate and White House I don't want them to cheat, but the ledger needs some serious balancing after decades of Republican chicanery, and it's not like Mitch McConnell is going to apologize and make make amends. The stolen Court seat, the extreme gerrymandering like in Wisconsin where 46% voted for Republicans but Republicans took 64% of the State Assembly anyway, and of course the gutting of the departments of State, Justice, Education, Energy, and health agencies -- all these things and more must be addressed immediately and unwaveringly.
Republicans cheated in 2016 by not allowing a hearing on Obama's nominee to replace Antonin Scalia. By reversing themselves on their own terms now they are admitting to not only cheating then, they are admitting that they are cheating now. Somehow claiming to have not heard what #CoronavirusAffectsAlmostNobody said or did is being used as cover for enabling him to continue to burn to the ground our institutions, common bonds, and global standing. The executive branch admittedly sabotaging the U.S. Postal Service to prevent mail-in voting, recruiting an "army" to intimidate voters on election day, and now suggesting we should get rid of ballots and pushing the narrative that the Supreme Court will have to decide the election...any one of these dangerous, anti-American aberrations should be more than enough to cause those same Republican members of congress who called him "utterly amoral," "a pathological liar," and a "race-baiting xenophobic religious bigot" (amongst other devastating observations) to oppose him. Taking all of that together, throw in the continued lies about COVID-19, and you'd think it would be a slam dunk. Apparently congressional Republicans are, like the head of their party, objectively pro-COVID, to borrow a phrase from Chris Hayes.
I'm still of the mind that kompromat has many of them compromised. A devastating dossier is the only logical explanation for Lindsey Graham pulling a complete reversal in one day from Trump critic to Trump sycophant, but for others it could be practical calculation. They are already the minority party and have been for some time (they have won the popular vote for president, aka the actual vote, once in the last 7 general elections), they know the country is growing less old, less white, and less Christian, so the only way they can hold on to power is to cheat. Sad. And disgusting.
Today's show is live-hosted from 9am-5pm Eastern U.S. Time and features new music by The Asteroid No.4 (San Francisco CA via Philadelphia, PA @TheAsteroid4), The Flaming Lips (Oklahoma City, OK, @theflaminglips), Mint Field (Mexico City, Mexico, @mintfieldband), Bob Mould (San Francisco, CA, @BobMouldMusic), and Wax Chattels (Auckland, NZ, @waxchattels).
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