Podcast appearances and mentions of george floyd

In this episode, I'm chatting with Uncle Selwyn who is the co-founder of the Hope929 Foundation and uncle of George Floyd. Joined by Liz Darden, co-founder of the Hope929 Foundation and councilwoman. They are a dynamic duo! They talked about their tireless work to end racism, the Hope 929 Foundation, how George Floyd's tragic passing catapulted them into a deeper mission, and so much more! Thank you for tuning in! ⁣⁣⁣⁣ ⁣⁣⁣⁣ Connect with Uncle Selwyn & Liz Darden:⁣ Website: https://www.hope929.org/?fbclid=PAAaZHysjRwKqf9lpoxEnOzRRRKz7xb9J-PpJ6ekugq3-v9tH1CO2qO9fbfaA_aem_AYOZp_G-G_roP6XUnIkeUlLP4Q2ItCGmdKd3YnYUhOCyC3qc6bFBrJJvVBOVjcZ7lLQ⁣ Instagram: @uncleselwyn929 @settingitstraightselwyn⁣ @elizabethsdarden⁣ ⁣⁣⁣ ⁣⁣⁣⁣ ⁣⁣⁣⁣ ⁣⁣⁣⁣ Keep up with your host, Linnea!⁣⁣⁣⁣⁣⁣⁣⁣⁣⁣⁣⁣⁣⁣⁣⁣⁣⁣⁣⁣⁣⁣⁣⁣⁣⁣⁣⁣ Instagram: unpacking_the_box_podcast ⁣⁣⁣⁣⁣⁣⁣⁣⁣⁣⁣⁣⁣⁣⁣⁣⁣⁣⁣⁣⁣⁣⁣⁣⁣⁣⁣⁣ Twitter: @unpackingthebox ⁣⁣⁣⁣⁣⁣⁣⁣⁣⁣⁣⁣⁣⁣ Threads: @unpacking_the_box_podcast ⁣⁣⁣⁣⁣⁣⁣⁣⁣⁣⁣⁣⁣⁣⁣⁣⁣⁣⁣⁣⁣⁣⁣⁣⁣⁣⁣⁣ Websites: https://beacons.ai/unpackingtheboxpod?fbclid=PAAaZu5DHfv9Iar5bU6fpjwCP5Alx7AC35g6bcyGBjdzdhcr6JFeyBv4LmFhU_aem_ATMXQ0RijpSWLvBrZ79mRYnb --- Support this podcast: https://podcasters.spotify.com/pod/show/linnea-38/support

BLM is a George Soros created Free Masonic psychological operation to radicalize the black populations into a race war that will be a controllable civil war that destroys the culture we call America and George Floyd never died and the police were all free masons together. It's all a hoax. A crisis act. A rich man's trick. X: @topsecrettexan CashApp: $beyondtopsecrettexan business email: beyondtopsecrettexanofficial@gmail.com --- Support this podcast: https://podcasters.spotify.com/pod/show/beyondtopsecrettexan/support

George Floyd's murder sparked increased attention toward Black liberation and by extension, racial discrimination generally. Institutions raced to check boxes for workplace diversity, equity and inclusion, but it's hard to know whether real work has been done. In this episode, two thought leaders around race and belonging, Ruchika Tulshyan and Ijeoma Oluo, discuss the finer points of how to create equity in the workplace. This conversation takes place at Town Hall Seattle and center's Tulshyan's book Inclusion on Purpose: An Intersectional Approach to Creating a Culture of Belonging at Work.  Like this program? Please show us the love. Click here: http://bit.ly/3LYyl0R and support our non-profit journalism. Thanks! Featuring:  Ruchika Tulshyan - Inclusion strategist, speaker and author of the bestseller Inclusion on Purpose: An Intersectional Approach to Creating a Culture of Belonging at Work. Ijeoma Oluo - Speaker and writer, author of the New York Times bestseller, So You Want to Talk About Race  Making Contact Team: Host: Amy Gastelum Producers: Anita Johnson, Salima Hamirani, Amy Gastelum and Lucy Kang Executive Director: Jina Chung Interim Senior Producer: Jessica Partnow Engineer: Jeff Emtman Digital Marketing Manager: Taylor Rapalyea Music: Joyful Ride via Descript stock music Trap Future Base, Royalty Free Music, via Pixabay  Learn More: Town Hall Seattle https://townhallseattle.org/event/ruchika-tulshyan-with-ijeoma-oluo/ Inclusion on Purpose: An Intersectional Approach to Creating a Culture of Belonging at Work https://mitpress.mit.edu/9780262548496/inclusion-on-purpose/  Making Contact is a 29-minute weekly program committed to investigative journalism and in-depth critical analysis that goes beyond the breaking news. On the web at www.radioproject.org.

Minnesotans and Wisconsinites are among the 5,000 workers on strike against automakers General Motors and Stellantis — the parent companies of Chrysler, Jeep and Dodge. Many murals made in reaction to George Floyd's murder are getting a new home. This is an MPR News morning update, hosted by Cathy Wurzer. Music by Gary Meister.

What if the true cost of maintaining law and order was more than you ever imagined? Join us for a gripping conversation on the emotional, physical and psychological toll the profession of law enforcement takes on those who don the uniform. In a career known for its high stakes, we dig deep into the troubling trend of officers leaving the profession prematurely and the escalating rates of burnout. We promise to deliver an unfiltered look at the challenges and trauma associated with the job, while also highlighting the lack of adequate support systems that contribute to these issues.Our guest, Dr. Strand, gives us an intimate perspective on the emotional challenges that come with being a law enforcement officer. We dissect the struggle of managing emotions in the line of duty, the culture within the force that often amplifies this struggle and the immense need for educational initiatives for first responders. Our discussion also brings to light the valuable work of the Warrior Rest Foundation and their efforts in providing mental health resources to those on the frontlines. In addition, we emphasize the need for passionate educators in police academies and underline the importance of recognizing and addressing burnout at its onset.In our final segment, we confront the influence of media bias on law enforcement and the impact it has on officers, particularly following high-profile incidents. We discuss the aftermath of the George Floyd incident and stress on the necessity of accountability within the force. We also provide practical strategies to combat burnout, emphasizing the importance of self-care, recognizing emotional tipping points, and advocating for increased access to mental health professionals. Our conversation is not just an expose on the realities of law enforcement, but a call for change and support in a profession that demands so much from those who serve.Support the showFollow us on Facebook, Instagram, TikTok, and Twitter. Don't forget our website www.code05.co.Disclaimer: Any similarity to actual persons, living or dead, or actual events, is purely coincidental.

An attempt to triangulate politicization, professionalization, and publication by examining several periods in the history of criticism. The episode begins with Joe Locke describing an overt turn towards social justice in his music following police murder of George Floyd, followed by a discussion of the misperception of "Professing Criticism" as a call to depoliticize [7:00]. An epilogue to "The Chicago Fight" [17:00] and humanist criticism [24:00]. Discussion of the implicit politics of the paracademy [51:00], its emergence in response to conglomeration [56:00], and the reemergence of patronage [68:00] precede profile of Las Vegas Review of Books [81:00] and epilogue at University of Puerto Rico [100:30]. Cast (in order of appearance): Matt Seybold, Joe Locke, Bruce Robbins, John Guillory, Eddie Nik-Khah, Tom Lutz, Katie Kadue, John Hay, Jeffrey Herlihy-Mera Soundtrack: Joe Locke's "Makram" For episode bibliography, please visit MarkTwainStudies.com/Paracademy, or subscribe to our newsletter at TheAmericanVandal.SubStack.com, where you will also receive episode transcripts.

In the first part of our show, we discuss some national stories including a Black boy who nearly drowned while his White friends pushed him under and called him ‘George Floyd.' We also talk about the optics surrounding the smash-and-grab shoplifting videos that have been circulating as well as the murder and cover-up of the police shooting of Eddie Irizarry.Support the showwww.civiccipher.comFollow us: @CivicCipher @iamqward @ramsesjaConsideration for today's show was provided by: Major Threads menswear www.MajorThreads.com Hip Hop Weekly Magazine www.hiphopweekly.com The Black Information Network Daily Podcast www.binnews.com

On this week-in-review, Crystal is joined by staff writer at The Stranger covering policing, incarceration and courts, Ashley Nerbovig! Ashley and Crystal discuss (and rant!) about continued and international outrage over Seattle Police Officers Guild (SPOG) leaders caught on body cam laughing about a fellow Seattle Police Department (SPD) officer running over and killing Jaahnavi Kandula - how the SPOG contract makes it near impossible to discipline or fire officers, Mayor Bruce Harrell's responsibility in creating the mess by voting for the contract as a City councilmember and in possibly getting us out of it by delivering a better one from the current negotiations, and how our recruiting problem is a culture problem in a competitive marketplace. The show then covers passage of the War on Drugs 2.0 bill by Seattle City Council, the start of the trial for three Tacoma officers accused of murdering Manny Ellis, and a rally held by Seattle City employees for fair pay. As always, a full text transcript of the show is available below and at officialhacksandwonks.com. Find the host, Crystal Fincher, on Twitter at @finchfrii and find today's co-host, Ashley Nerbovig, at @AshleyNerbovig. Resources “Tanya Woo, Candidate for Seattle City Council District 2” from Hacks & Wonks   “Tammy Morales, Candidate for Seattle City Council District 2” from Hacks & Wonks   “Seattle Police Officer Probably Won't Get Fired for Laughing about Jaahnavi Kandula's Death” by Ashley Nerbovig from The Stranger   “Police response time to Wing Luke Museum 911 calls raises questions about priorities” by Libby Denkmann and Sarah Leibovitz from KUOW   “Seattle Police Officer Hurls Racist Slur at Chinese-American Neighbor” by Ashley Nerbovig from The Stranger   “‘Feel safer yet?' Seattle police union's contempt keeps showing through” by Danny Westneat from The Seattle Times   “Amid SPD controversy, Mayor Harrell leads with empathy” from Seattle Times Editorial Board   “Seattle Launches Drug War 2.0” by Ashley Nerbovig from The Stranger   “Council Passes New Law Empowering City Attorney to Prosecute People Who Use Drugs in Public” by Erica C. Barnett from PubliCola   @daeshikjr on Twitter: “BREAKING: Seattle City Councilmembers revived a recently voted down bill that many community activists are calling War on Drugs 2.0. We spoke with Sara on her campaign trail about her experience with drugs, mushrooms, and what she hoped to accomplish while in office. …”   “Trial begins for Tacoma officers charged with killing Manuel Ellis” by Jared Brown from KNKX   “Trial of 3 Tacoma police officers accused of killing Manuel Ellis in 2020 gets underway” by Peter Talbot from The News Tribune   “Historic trial begins for 3 officers charged in killing of Manny Ellis” by Patrick Malone from The Seattle Times   @tacoma_action on Twitter: “Here's how you can support the family of Manuel Ellis during the trial…”   Trial Information for State v. Burbank, Collins and Rankine | Pierce County Courts & Law    “City Workers Rally Their Asses Off” by Hannah Krieg from The Stranger   Find stories that Crystal is reading here   Listen on your favorite podcast app to all our episodes here   Transcript [00:00:00] Crystal Fincher: Welcome to Hacks & Wonks. I'm Crystal Fincher, and I'm a political consultant and your host. On this show, we talk with policy wonks and political hacks to gather insight into local politics and policy in Washington state through the lens of those doing the work with behind-the-scenes perspectives on what's happening, why it's happening, and what you can do about it. Be sure to subscribe to the podcast to get the full versions of our Tuesday topical show and our Friday week-in-review delivered to your podcast feed. If you like us, the most helpful thing you can do is leave a review wherever you listen to Hacks & Wonks. Full transcripts and resources referenced in the show are always available at officialhacksandwonks.com and in our episode notes. If you missed this week's topical shows, we continued our series of Seattle City Council candidate interviews. All 14 candidates for 7 positions were invited and we had in-depth conversations with many of them. This week, we presented District 2 candidates, Tanya Woo and Tammy Morales. Have a listen to those and stay tuned over the coming weeks - we hope these interviews will help voters better understand who these candidates are and inform their choices for the November 7th general election. Today, we're continuing our Friday week-in-review shows where we review the news of the week with a co-host. Welcome to the program for the first time, today's co-host: staff writer at The Stranger covering policing, incarceration and courts - and rocking that coverage - Ashley Nerbovig. Hello. [00:01:42] Ashley Nerbovig: Hey, Crystal - thanks. Hi. [00:01:43] Crystal Fincher: Glad to have you on the show. We have no shortage of things to talk about and particularly this week where everything public safety was exploding, imploding, just all over the place. I want to start off talking about a story that is now making international headlines - the release of the video of an SPD officer, a SPOG executive, mocking the death of Jaahnavi Kandula, who was killed by another policeman while she was just a pedestrian just walking and run over by a policeman who - it didn't seem like he had his lights and sirens on, going over 70 miles per hour. Just such a tragedy in the first place, and then outrage was the dominant feeling nationally, internationally when that video came out. What is going to happen or what does it look like is going to happen? You wrote a great piece this week about that. [00:02:42] Ashley Nerbovig: Yeah, he's not gonna get fired - for sure - unless something wildly out of the normal process happens. And even if that does, the arbitration process is such that they would look at the SPOG contract and be like - There was nothing in this that he did that's actually fireable. - and it's super frustrating to watch. And in that story, I break down how we've seen these cases before - that cops have said really outrageous stuff, or even done something pretty outrageous, or something that the public looks at as pretty outrageous - and the reaction has been either it's a written reprimand or it's unsustained findings. One of the examples I gave was that there was multiple officers in one car who - one of them said - they accelerate toward protesters, people can be heard to be laughing. And so one of them says - I effing hate these people - or something along those lines. And because they couldn't narrow it in and prove who said it, and none of the cops inside said who said it - it's frustrating, but it also makes sense when you read the SPOG contract - because they have to prove beyond a preponderance of evidence, which is more than 50%, which sounds like a pretty low standard to hop over. But actually, I think they did a review of a bunch of different cops' policies on what they have to prove to require discipline across the country and SPD is in a very small minority - the majority of people have something that's lower or at a preponderance of evidence, and our standard is right above it. You see all of this outrage, and then you see Andrew Lewis and Lisa Herbold and Mayor Harrell and SPOG all say, essentially - We want to watch the OPA process, we're excited to watch that investigation. - as if they don't know that anyone reading the SPOG contract, anyone who's read enough OPA cases knows that this is going to end in the cop continuing to be on the force. And to some extent, you can make the argument that if this was one isolated comment, maybe it wouldn't be a firing that was justified. But when you look at his entire career, and then when you also look at what the actual other punishments are, right? You can get suspended, but you don't have that suspension served consecutively - you can serve it throughout a year. So it means that - the whole point of having a suspension is that they don't get paid, and it hurts their bottom line, and it's something to avoid. If you're just serving out a 15-day suspension over a year, and then you're making it up with tons of overtime, what are the consequences for cops in this city? And the answer is that our police accountability systems do not have actual consequences for our officers right now. [00:05:28] Crystal Fincher: Not at all. And it's infuriating. And this has kicked off a conversation that we've had before - just talking about the SPOG contract and the importance of that - there are a lot of people who are new here who weren't paying attention several years ago. There was an attempt that the City of Seattle - the council in particular - attempted to do this. They passed police accountability legislation that tightened that up. But then the current SPOG contract that's in place - was approved by Mayor Harrell on the council, by the way, who voted for the current contract that is currently handcuffing him and preventing him from being able to do anything about this - that superseded many of the City ordinances that dealt with this. And one thing that a lot of people don't know is that contract can supersede City law. So the things that the City thinks is happening, the process that we have - our democratic, our initiative process, the council process - all falls by the wayside when this is approved. And at the time, this was approved on a narrow vote - this was not, the conversation leading up to the approval of this current contract was not like - Oh, this looks great, it's fine. Lorena González infamously toiled over the vote that she was going to do, and later said that she regretted voting to approving it. But they were warned that this was going to happen. They were warned that moving backwards on accountability was going to produce really unsavory results. And lo and behold, here we are. So once again, we're in a situation where everyone - almost everyone - agrees. Most members of the public, of the national community, international community agree this is egregious. This is unacceptable. And the City's handcuffed because of this current contract. And I just want people to be aware that the next contract is currently being negotiated. The mayor's office - the same mayor who approved this current contract - is currently negotiating this next contract. And is Bruce Harrell going to ensure that something like this can't happen again with no remedy, or recourse, or consequence? That's really going to be up to how this contract is negotiated and structured. I don't know what's going to happen with this officer in this incident - he has a long record himself of issues, complaints - and I don't know what's happening with that is going to go through this process. But the executive's office, the council who will ultimately have to approve this contract does have a say in whether or not something like this can happen again. And I think they owe the residents of the city assurances that this shouldn't happen. We're seeing so many of these examples. This isn't the first example of a death mocked - it's just the first one that we have on video that's public. There was a tombstone before, there's been social media posts before. And also the fact that this was, I believe, VP of the Seattle Police Officers Guild. When you have leaders doing this - similar to the assistant police chief in Kent who displayed literal Nazi memorabilia - that speaks to culture. These are leaders. These are people dictating what we have here. And tangentially, and this is going on while we're having a conversation about police being short-staffed, while we're having a conversation about how hard it is to recruit - after the city has thrown money and recruitment bonuses and retainment bonuses at people. And can we just acknowledge that someone looking at this, now that they have the choice to join any police department, basically, they want to - they're all hiring - why would they join Seattle? This is the recruiting problem here. It's this culture. It's this continued drumbeat of toxic, distasteful stuff. [00:09:06] Ashley Nerbovig: I think you're right about it being a culture problem. But I also think that the strength of our SPOG contract - you could make an argument that these are some of the most protected City employees. And it's across the board that people don't want to be cops. And it makes sense because even if you take away all of the controversies, local governments overall are struggling right now to recruit people for any job. And then on top of it, you're talking about a job that requires a lot of no work from home - we've had a complete culture shift in what we value about work. And I think when you look at what the job of being a cop is, it's you have to live in a certain location, basically, you can live - although Auderer lives in Olympia, I think, so you can live far away - but you have to be able to go to work in-person. And then on top of it, you're tied to all of this really negative associations that we have with cops, and this shift in how we've thought about cops. And you're competing in a really tight job market where there's a lot of really - yes, you get a lot of money being a Seattle police officer, but that requires a lot of overtime. You can make that same money just like having a normal 40-hour workweek if you work something tech, and it can also be more flexible and more remote. I just think that the problem is exactly that being a cop is not appealing, and we can't change that - no one wants these jobs. And so why are we not talking about what people do want to work and starting from that place of - people do want to help people. I think a lot of cops in those positions talk about reshifting budget priorities, and that would mean changing their jobs. But cops were the first people to tell me that they didn't want to be social workers, that they weren't trying to do social work - and that they felt like they didn't have the tools and they weren't the people to be doing mental health intervention, or drug abuse intervention. Or homelessness intervention. You can't help someone unsheltered when you're a cop. The only thing cops can do is jail. I thought something really interesting - I know this is something we're going to talk about in a bit - and I really want to say something that I thought about with the SPOG contract. One of the things that I can't remember if it was Teresa Mosqueda or Morales who said it, but one of them was like - If we aren't funding these treatment options - when they were talking about the drug vote - If we aren't funding these treatment options, and we aren't funding these diversion programs, the only thing cops are going to be able to do if they want to get someone off the street is put them in jail. And I think that people have this idea that cops have other options, but that's their tool. It's not a choice for them. The only solution for cops is to arrest - that is their main job activity. And just this idea that people don't want these jobs, they are not effective for the problems that we have, and yet we have this desperation - and Bruce Harrell has this desperation to cling to tough-on-crime policies. And it's dumb. And you don't see any solutions, but people like to pretend like they saw some improvement - when they just like the feeling of, oh - you don't see anything change when you put a tough-on-crime policy. There's this idea that all of our - anytime we do something that's like violence intervention or like a community-based approach - that we don't see the results very quickly. And it always is so funny to me, because I'm like, you don't see - no one in their day-to-day life, if we tomorrow said you can arrest - other than maybe someone who went downtown and all of the homeless people, we can't even put anyone in the King County Jail. So I don't know what they're talking about right now, but you don't actually see a marked improvement - you just get a shift in media narratives - that's all that changes, really, in my opinion. [00:12:49] Crystal Fincher: This is the same thing that we're doing - and your point is exactly correct - we're only funding one thing. And what you fund, what you put resources to, is what you're going to have. We are so desperately short of other support services, behavioral health support services. And there are entities in the process of addressing that, right? Absolutely frustrating that it's not here now, there is some work being done there. So progress is being made largely at the county level and regionally. But this is not going to work. This is the same old thing. The thing that I find troubling, particularly as a progressive political consultant, is that this makes passing progressive policy harder. Because if you dress something up like progressive policy - Oh, it's really important that we treat root causes. And yeah, we all believe it. - and they all say that until it's time to actually put their money where their mouth is, to actually do the thing, to implement it. And then what we get is this warmed-over piece of legislation that does one of the things - yes, we can arrest - and makes it harder than it was before to do the other things. And it was astronomically hard before. We know what's going to happen with this. So the real question is, so what are they going to blame for the failure of this next? What excuse is coming up next? I talk to a lot of people, lay people, some people - I just like hearing an unfiltered opinion of someone who's not an insidery insider and paying attention to all the policy and stuff. And you would be shocked by how many people who are - they don't consider themselves super leftist, probably general Democrats, but they don't really pay attention to much - who are under the impression that Seattle's progressive city council has run amok. And it's like, when it comes to public safety, they are not passing progressive policy. Unfortunately, the conservative council - that is the policy that we have and that we've continued. And when everybody rushes to put that label on it - we're going to see a lot of political communication coming up soon, where I'm sure everybody is going to call themselves a progressive, probably pragmatic progressive, responsible progressive - but like they cling to that word and they want to present their policy is that. But when it's not, all it does is hurt actual progressive policy. So it's important for people to stand up and be like - No, we see that, and we see that it's not what the community is demanding and asking for. It's just really frustrating. We should probably get back to some of this news a little bit. [00:15:02] Ashley Nerbovig: There's just one last thing I want to say about Danny Westneat - this is going back a couple topics, but it was something that you said about the SPOG contract and that this is the leadership of SPOG. And Danny had a - bless his heart, he tried, probably - I quote tweeted it when I read the first couple of graphs. And then I went back and read his whole column about Auderer - I can't even say his last name - but the SPOG VP's comments. And he said quite a few things that were just absolutely ridiculous, where he talks about how SPOG uses public safety as a bargaining chip and says essentially - Oh, it'd be a shame if something happened to this beautiful city of yours. And then he goes on to give them that bargaining chip and say that Seattle desperately needs more cops. And then he goes to talking about how - he names a city that basically did defund because they also broke up their cop union. And it's just such a wild series of thoughts. And he concludes it on - SPOG needs to clean house. And it's so frustrating - even if you're just thinking of it logically - if you are a member of SPOG, and your vice president has gotten out of this many OPA investigations with little to no punishment - you don't think they know who is leading them? That's who I want as my union vice president - I want someone who's gotten away with a bunch of stuff - that is how you stay safe and stay protected - and who's going to clean house - the leadership? The leadership is the problem. Anyway, I just wanted to fully round that out by giving Danny like a 2 out of 5 stars on that column. [00:16:35] Crystal Fincher: There are a lot of people who are like - Wow, okay, didn't think there was going to be a day where many of them agreed with Danny Westneat. He got some of the way there. I think one of the challenges with that is a tendency to view unions as separate from workers, and the union as separate from the cops. They are elected by their peers in the union - this is representative of the culture, this is the result of them saying these are the people we feel best represent us. And this is what it is. If that's not a red flag, I don't know what is - but here we are. And it's hard for me to separate SPOG versus police because SPOG is police. And it's just time we had a serious conversation about real accountability. And it's a tangible conversation - there is someone responsible for this, there is an intervention that can work here - we can negotiate this. It's up to the mayor, the people on negotiating committee, it's up to the council who's going to approve this. This doesn't just happen - they're permitted to happen by a contract that is in place. And if we're unhappy with it, and if City Hall can't see that the people are unhappy with a contract that enables this, the question is - particularly for Bruce Harrell, who is the boss of the police department - they literally report to him, police chief literally reports to him, direct report, his responsibility. What is he going to do now? Is he going to respond to this and say, I'm going to ensure this doesn't happen again? Because that's a buck-stops-here attitude that is normally expected of an executive. That's the job. What is he going to do to ensure this doesn't happen again? How is he going to live up to his word that he's going to improve the culture and improve public safety? We're waiting. And it seems like they're just permitting this. They're just - Oh, that's too bad. [00:18:20] Ashley Nerbovig: The Seattle editorial board said he's been leading with empathy. If anyone really wants to rage out, read that editorial. I don't know if Bruce called and said he was going to cancel the whole city's subscription to The Seattle Times, but it's just absolute garbage. Kandula was killed while Officer Kevin Dave was responding to a guy who had too much cocaine and wasn't even ODing. Rich, my editor, said this to me earlier this week, where he was like, we were talking about the drug vote, and he was saying - This is just another example of how cops shouldn't be the ones responding to people overdosing. EMTs can go to these things. [00:18:56] Crystal Fincher: And do in most other cities - without police, to be clear. [00:18:59] Ashley Nerbovig: And you mentioned earlier that it was unclear about his lights. And I don't know for sure what was going on there, because I know his in-car video wasn't working. But I've read another OPA case where someone had said that a cop was just turning on his lights and sirens to get through red lights - and the justification for that that they showed was that it was like - oh, he was tactically using his lights and sirens, which means that they only turn them on to get through lights and stuff, even though he's responding to a call. And when they do that, it means that their in-car video doesn't turn on. And that's allowed because - oh, it's a tactic. And super curious to see the end of this OPA report for Kevin Dave. EMTs are not worried about sneaking up on people - they just turn on their lights and go. But yeah, it's going to be really frustrating to watch. [00:19:45] Crystal Fincher: So now can you break down what this legislation does? Because I've seen it characterized in a number of different ways - Oh, it's making drugs illegal. It's like doing different things. What did this legislation actually change? [00:19:56] Ashley Nerbovig: This particular piece of legislation - to do my full roundup of this - everybody knows that in 2021, the Washington Supreme Court struck down our felony drug possession law. The Washington State Legislature scrambled to pass something - and they passed this idea of we're going to do two referrals to treatment before we arrest anyone, and we're only going to arrest on a misdemeanor, and that went across the state for people in possession of drugs. That went on for two years and it was unworkable - they didn't structure it, they didn't create a database for people to be marking referrals - it's called a stopgap measure. It was one of those things where it was a really half thought-out piece of what potentially could be progressive legislation, did more harm than just making it a misdemeanor and then trying to talk about decriminalization a little bit later - I think that might have actually ended up being strategically a better way to go, except you would have seen a bunch of people arrested in that time. The result is that they came back this session and they said - Okay, no. They had that big fight and they said - We're going to make it a gross misdemeanor, your first two offenses you're going to get a maximum sentence of 180 days, any offenses after that you're going to go up to 364 days. And they said - We prefer people defer to treatment, we prefer cops defer. - that was one thing that Herbold and Lewis both kept saying is - their City bill, that it was different from the state bill and that it starts the diversion out of the system process at the cop level before people even have a case started, whereas they kept describing the state bill as getting started. There are multiple places throughout the system that you can get diverted - you can get diverted before you get arrested so there's never anything on your record, you can get diverted after you've been arrested by the cops and now the prosecutors are in charge of your case and they defer any charges or defer any charges from getting actually convicted and then you're able to get it off of your record. So that's deferred prosecution. And then there's, you can get stuff - after you've been sentenced, you can get stuff wiped off your record. The argument that the City was making in how their bill was different from the state bill is they're saying - Oh, we really make it clear that our policy is not to arrest. The state bill does too. They say that it's their preference that people are diverted to treatment rather than be arrested. They also put a bunch of deferred prosecution stuff in there to divert people out of the system once they have charges against them. It's easier to talk about what this bill didn't do. It set a policy that said - This is our preference by the City of Seattle. So the state law was already in place. And now because it's a misdemeanor, state law passes - that starts in August, like everything gets implemented. So technically, cops could find people who were using drugs in public or possessing drugs in public and arrest them on a gross misdemeanor. And I think the using is such an interesting part of this, because there's nothing about possession as a charge that doesn't get at the same thing that public use does. When you make it all about public use and you add public use plus possession to this law, it is such a dog whistle towards people who are just mad at unhoused people. Morales said something really clear in the City Council vote, which was that this bill is not going to curb public use because the people who this bill is targeting have nowhere else to use. And so the state law passes, SPD cops can do this. But if SPD cops right now in Seattle - or right before this, because Harrell signed the bill yesterday - before this bill passed, if they arrested someone, their charges, because Seattle doesn't have its own ordinance, would have gone to Leesa Manion's office, the King County Prosecutor's, which would have made a ton of sense. King County Prosecutor's has a bunch of programs already in place for this - they've already been dealing with felony versions of this for a long time. But her office did a weird thing and got really like - We don't have the misdemeanor staff to handle this and these felony drug courts that we have wouldn't even apply to this. They did a bunch of workarounds - they really quashed the idea of these cases getting referred to them really early on, or at least they asked for money from us that apparently City Council just was unwilling to try to negotiate - or they were unwilling to negotiate trying to work out a contract. I never really understood what her motivations were with that or were slamming it down so hard. And so the City said - We're going to implement this ordinance and we're going to send these cases to our city attorney, Republican Ann Davison. So that's what this law does is that it doesn't - anyone who describes it - all that this law does is say that now Ann Davison can prosecute these cases, and also we would really like it if cops didn't arrest people on these charges. And it says - and I'll give them this - it adds a bunch of paperwork that cops now need to have when they do arrest someone on a drug possession charge. But I think Morales really summed it up really well where she said - This does not expand any diversion, it doesn't expand any treatment. - and this is probably a little bit more opinion-based, but - It doesn't improve public safety in any way. And I think that's so key is that we can ask - even if it's not, even if you aren't someone that believes in the nefarious, like that cops are all like Auderer and don't care about behavioral health and don't really look at people who are addicts on the street as someone that needs public health intervention - let's buy the premise that there are well-meaning cops out there who want to take these people to treatment. We do not have resources. And this idea that - in the City Council staff member, or the City Council Central Staff's memo, they said - Diversion requires social workers. These are actually much longer, much more resource-intensive cases. And cops are going to maybe divert the first or second time that they find someone, but then there's no resources to pick that person up - there's nothing to actually help them, maybe they're not ready to get treatment yet. And at some point, they're just going to arrest them and they're going to go through all of the charges. And maybe they're not going to go to jail because King County won't take them right now, but it's creating the structure for that. And they're still going to have to continue to show up at municipal court until they get something on their record that ends up putting them in jail. And we know how bad jail is - we know that it increases the chances of overdose. I think this bill kills people - I think that's the bottom line of what this bill does - is that it's going to kill a bunch of people, and make a bunch of people poorer, and do nothing to curb drug addiction, and fill our jails, and just continue the cycle of mass incarceration. [00:26:51] Crystal Fincher: The outcomes from this type of policy are clear. We have so much information about what happens when you do just fund, enable sending people to jail without doing anything to address the root causes for why they're there. Also, there are some people rejoicing over this - like it is going to help - I'll be curious to see their evaluation after a period of time, to see what their perception of what results. But it's just frustrating because we could choose to do what has shown to be effective elsewhere. Everybody is frustrated. I don't think anyone is happy. I don't want to be in a space where someone is using publicly, right? And perhaps inhaling secondhand something or whatever. But I also recognize that generally people who do use in public don't have another place to use. And if it is an issue of - addiction isn't logical, right? Addiction isn't reasonable. It's not - Oh, there are consequences for me going to jail now, so I'm just going to stop being addicted. The thing about addiction is that you can't decide to stop being addicted. It's not up to you. And that people fall into addiction for a variety of reasons. And being addicted is a reality that so many people face - to treat it as like they're less than human for struggling with that particular issue is ridiculous. But we do that from a public safety perspective. And as you said, this is going to largely wind up targeting the homeless - that's usually who this applies to - people. We can talk about the drug habits of executives and rich people, and the rates of drug use are not low across the board. I always find it so curious. We drug test minimum wage and low wage workers, but not high wage executives. I'm pretty confident what results we would see if we did that. There's an interesting video with Sara Nelson - yeah, speaking of politicians using drugs, and then voting on drug ordinances - but Sara Nelson has a place to use privately. That's the difference. [00:28:52] Ashley Nerbovig: Because we're going after public use, we're not going after possession. And the casual way she talks about it - you are aware that you are growing drugs, and you're telling people where to find drugs - and I can hear her argument against this, right? But the point of it is that drugs are not inherently dangerous, and it was incredibly frustrating to watch that video. And then think about the fact that when this was in front of the Public Safety Committee, Mosqueda came out and said - I want to make it very clear that lots of public health agencies at this point have said that breathing in secondhand fentanyl smoke is not dangerous to your health. I am someone who opens a window if someone blows vape smoke too close to me - I don't like it, I don't want that smell, I am not totally convinced that the smell will not linger. But it's like that, right - it's a smell, I'm not worried about getting a nicotine contact high. And the way that fentanyl gets demonized as the worst drug that we've ever seen, it's part of how we can dehumanize the people who are using it. And I think it's so interesting, because if you ask someone to class their own drugs, shrooms and weed and cocaine would be the bourgeoisie of drugs - they're allowed, it's fine - alcohol. All of those things are totally fine. And the people who use them are not degenerates or any way bad. Maybe cocaine. But for the most part, we are totally okay with those kinds of drugs, no matter how alcohol is still one of the most harmful substances in our society. Whenever I call the King County Medical Examiner's Board to get the overdose deaths, it's overdose deaths and deaths due to alcoholism. But they're longer term, right? So I'm not saying that - fentanyl is absolutely killing people - it's in everything. And it is a new, very scary problem because we don't have a ton of ways to treat it. But it doesn't change the fundamentals of what we're seeing, which is you had someone like Sara Nelson who struggled with her own story of addiction. But as soon as it becomes a drug that they view as dirty or not fun to scavenge for, you get this attitude of - We need to crack down on this. And that's how it's got to be a punishment-based system - it's not a conversation, it's not help, it's not treatment - we've got to really show these people the errors, the way to be, and improve their life. And it's just so condescending. [00:31:30] Crystal Fincher: This is the crack playbook at play. And again, to be clear, not at all saying that fentanyl is not very troublesome, problematic, and that we don't want people using that. Those are all true. But to say somehow a unique and unsolvable addiction issue as opposed to opioids, as opposed to all of the other things. The one thing that we know is that there are new drugs created all the time for a variety of things. There's going to be something more potent. Fentanyl is not the last, right? It's just the current. There is going to be a next. We've been playing this cat and mouse game with the War on Drugs, with all that we're doing - it's here. But hearing the language around that is the same tactic that happened with crack, right? And the justification to pass a ton of laws, super harsh penalties, mandating mandatory time, adding it as a strike for possessing crack, lower thresholds for dealing and all of that, as opposed to cocaine, which was used by a different demographic largely and fueled there. This is pretty transparent. And unfortunately, you hear a lot of the rhetoric in public meetings. You hear it from people - Oh man, this fentanyl, these people are like zombies, this is something completely new we haven't seen before. Those are all the same things that they said with crack. Those are all the same things that they say with the new drug that they want to use when they're in the mood to crack down and jail people - here is where we're at. Acting like fentanyl is just - oh, if you're addicted, you're lost, you're hopeless, is untrue. It is a dangerous drug. We need to address it. Public health approaches have a better record of doing that than punitive jail-based approaches. But it's a problem that we do need to get our arms around, but we make it harder to do that when we pursue policies to jail - which are very expensive to do in every single way. And then say - Sorry, we just don't have the resources to provide more treatment services, to provide more behavioral health services, to provide more housing, to provide detox for people. Those are all necessary for us to deal with this problem, and we just aren't doing it. I would like to do it. I would like to meaningfully address this - most people would - but this makes it much harder. I do want to talk about this week, a very important - and for our state historic - trial starting, of the three officers accused of murdering Manny Ellis. What is happening here? [00:33:58] Ashley Nerbovig: Yeah. So they're still in jury selection. It's going to be a long, drawn-out process. I think opening statements start October 2nd. And for people who don't know the case, Manny Ellis was an unarmed Black man who was in Tacoma - this was March before George Floyd's death, and there are so many parallels. Everything that is terrible about George Floyd is terrible in this case. Bob Ferguson comes in, says that he's going to investigate this case, does an investigation. Tacoma Police Department does not cooperate with Washington State Patrol. Washington State Patrol and AG Ferguson ends up creating this probable cause statement and now three officers, three men are all on trial this week. Or the trial is starting and jury selection is starting. And there's one guy who - I can't remember his name now - but he's live tweeting all of it. And there's been some really interesting tidbits. One of the jurors - the judge asked if there were any jurors who might have conflicts presiding over a case involving law enforcement, no one raised their hands, and then the judge looks at this guy and says - But didn't you say you have a brother in law enforcement? And there's no other details, but that's where it's starting right now. And it'll be a really interesting case - it's horrible to see these cases get to this point - and you wonder about, I don't know anything about the disciplinary records of these cops. But yeah, that's where it's starting. And that's the background on it. [00:35:14] Crystal Fincher: And certainly - it's a trial. And I generally try not to follow these things or get emotionally invested in these trials - for good reason - they often don't seem to wind up with justice, and even what is justice when your loved one, someone you care about, a human being is killed. And just also lifting up - we hear about all these cases around the country - we have more than enough here locally. There's another police officer from Auburn currently awaiting trial for killing Jesse Sarey in Auburn. It's really troubling. And we also have family and friends of Manny dealing with this and having to once again hear the horrific details of this killing. And they're continuing to call for the firing of the cops who've been on payroll this entire time, who are still on payroll. There's a GoFundMe for the family. And court is something that people can show up to and show support if they want to do that also. It's a tragedy. And I hope the family is able to find peace and healing and that this can assist with that. I have no idea where they stand on this, but certainly, I'm thinking of them as this trial continues to go on. Last thing I want to talk about today is Seattle City employees rallying for fair pay. Why did this rally happen? [00:36:38] Ashley Nerbovig: Shout out to Hannah Krieg - she got all the great quotes for this one. This rally happened because apparently, and I'm quoting directly from her story - Bruce Harrell is funny, he's a funny guy, and if this is true, I believe it - Mayor Harrell told them to rally their asses off. The City started their negotiations for a pay increase of 1% and has settled on a pay increase of 2%. And the City workers are saying that's an insane way to start negotiations in one of the most expensive cities in the country. She puts this really good stat in there - that's a pay cut as the cost of, a 1% cost of living adjustment or even a 2% cost of living adjustment is a pay cut as the cost of living rose 8.7% this year. It's really important to note that the SPOG contract guarantees at minimum like a 1.5%, I think - I did a little tweet about this - it's plus COLA or something. But effectively, regardless of what their contract says, they have never gone a year without at least a 3% increase. Lieutenants and higher up guilds just got like a 4% increase. Sometimes I'll get these emails from the mayor's office that's - I'm really like unhappy with how you've portrayed us as prioritizing police. We really prioritize like other things too. - and it's, you can see it, where their money is going. So the workers are contract, are striking because they're not getting, at minimum, just keeping up with inflation. And the City of Seattle seems to think this is just like across the board, boy to cut is in general services and for the city. And that's - I really encourage people to follow Hannah's coverage on this because she's really on top of it. [00:38:17] Crystal Fincher: Yeah, it's really challenging. We talked about police saying they have a shortage of officers and all of the action that has been taken to fix that including a retention bonus, healthy retention bonuses. And so we're talking about the shortages in the rest of the city, and it just doesn't seem like there is the interest in making sure the City is able to provide essential services and the level of service for everything that is currently happening and that people expect. There have been several council candidates who have said and agreed with - Yeah, we should be giving City workers the same kind of retention bonuses, investing in their retention, doing something tangible to actually address the shortage here. And we're going to be seeing Mayor Harrell's budget come out pretty soon. It's going to be interesting to see how he deals with that and what it is because a budget is a value statement - that's a document of values - where you're spending your money is what you value the most. And other things - you can talk about them and say they're great, but if you aren't funding them, clearly they were lower on the priority list in your estimation. And he may have his reasons to justify that. But it is disingenuous to say - Oh, I completely prioritize that, I value that, and I'm just not going to fund that while I'm going to fund this other thing. So it will be interesting to see. But it seems like the City has a lot of work to do to start to step up. And everyone on the campaign trail talks about their values and making sure people can live where they work, how important that is to our economy - and it absolutely is important - again, what tangibly is going to be done about that? What are we going to see in that budget? And if not, just what is really the tangible impact of that? So we'll continue to follow that. But certainly workers see some definite red flags there and are rallying to make sure people understand that this is a problem that has consequences for the entire city and beyond. And for all the plans that people say they have, they're going to rely on these employees to execute them. So we better make sure that there are people in place to deliver on the policy that we pass as a city. [00:40:34] Ashley Nerbovig: Yeah, I hope we get a strike. I think it would be good for people to feel what happens when they don't - I think that a lot of these services are invisible. And we already see that SPOG is doing all these sick-outs and they're not responding to calls - and a lot of them are blaming it on the staffing shortages. When you hear about sick-outs, you get a little bit curious about those call response times. I hope it turns into a strike because I think people do need to realize how essential these workers are. [00:41:00] Crystal Fincher: Certainly the public - some people definitely see that, some people definitely don't. But a strike will be a failure, right? We're having a rally because an initial offer was pretty insulting. It was not a serious offer. It's a pay cut. If you're starting saying - Okay, how big a pay cut are you going to take to people who are already short-staffed and overworked? Because really, let's talk about it. When we talk about short staffing, that means that the same amount of work is falling on fewer heads. And that's a hard position to be in - and many of these positions aren't like super high-paid positions anyway. People are struggling to just pay their bills and work is getting harder, and now you're going to ask them to take a pay cut. And being disrespectful when that happens - Okay, go rally your ass off. So I hope there is more respect in this process and that lines of communication open and are productive. Because strikes are disruptive, right? They're not fun, they create a lot of drama. It may come to that - and I absolutely support workers' rights to strike and sometime that's necessary to get the job done - but I hope it doesn't come to that. I hope they are able to talk. But it's going to take more respect from the City perspective, realistically - they just aren't starting in a serious place. [00:42:14] Ashley Nerbovig: Yeah, I like what you said there. It would be a failure. My chaotic evil side is - yeah, disrupt it, show people that you exist and stuff. But you're right. It would suck for these workers to have to go on strike because - the no pay and I'm sure they have a fund - you're 100% correct. What I would actually like to see is Mayor Harrell care about these people the way that he has been so consistently able to show care for our police department. [00:42:44] Crystal Fincher: I completely agree. And with that, we thank you for listening to Hacks & Wonks on this Friday, September 22, 2023. The producer of Hacks & Wonks is the incredible Shannon Cheng. Our insightful co-host today was staff writer at The Stranger covering policing, incarceration and the courts, Ashley Nerbovig. You can find Ashley on Twitter at @AshleyNerbovig, A-S-H-L-E-Y N-E-R-B-O-V-I-G. You can follow Hacks & Wonks on Twitter at @HacksWonks. You can find me on just about every platform at @finchfrii, that's F-I-N-C-H F-R-I-I. You can catch Hacks & Wonks - wherever you want to listen to us, you can listen to us - just type "Hacks and Wonks" into the search bar of your favorite pod player. And be sure to subscribe to the podcast to get the full versions of our Friday week-in-review shows and our Tuesday topical show delivered to your podcast feed. If you like us, leave a review wherever you listen - it really helps us out. You can also get a full transcript of this episode and links to the resources referenced in the show at officialhacksandwonks.com and in the podcast episode notes. Thanks for tuning in - talk to you next time.

Warning: This podcast will show and discuss an unedited video of Eddie Irizarry being fatally shot by a Philadelphia Police, Mark Dial. Host Renaldo McKenzie and Co-Host, Donete Nelson will explore this and several other videos involving police brutality. The videos contain graphic language and violence. Viewer discretion is advised. On this powerful and dynamic episode of The Neoliberal Round Podcast, Renaldo and Donte provide insightful commentaries on the constant and sore issue of police brutality and question whether promises of reform were just a means to pacify the BLM. The Police are still not wearing body cams, still killing black men in certain communities and lying about it, while still benefitting from the protection of their unions and politicians even after the protests stemming from the Breonna Taylor, George Floyd, Tyre Nichols, and countless other police killings, and the promises of change and reform. Still, police continue to abuse their power and violently kill black, brown, and Latino men in certain communities then retreat to their unions and the system for protection which applies a slap on the wrist. It is no wonder that Police continue to gun down certain people in diverse communities. The latest killing of Eddie Irizarry was more telling and Mark Dial, the Police Officer who fatally Irizarry, was even more telling of the police's constant brutality and how they are still supported by their unions and the system. He had initially lied that Irizarry had lunged at him with a knife and refused to participate in the investigation. When the body cam video was released showing that Irizarry was in his car when Dial quickly attacked with gun drawn and fired six times killing Irizarry, he turned himself in and was only given a $50, 000.00 bail and his union released a statement that they were still behind Dial. Dial's attorney reported that Dial was legally justified as he was in fear for his life. This is farfetched as there is no evidence of this, except the video showing the opposite of Dial's initial lie that Irizarry had attacked him. The podcast was a discussion of a post in The NeoLiberal Post by Renaldo McKenzie entitled: "When Police Serve and Protect, Becomes Lie and Betray" highlighting in various police killings how they use sly arguments, loopholes, and the system to continue to brutalize or to escape responsibility and accountability in their excesses. https://renaldocmckenzie.com/2023/09/when-police-protect-and-serve-become-lie-and-betray/ The Podcast discussed another police killing in New Castle Delaware where a 28-year-old was killed by police after a deadly chase. The police had a press conference but provided a convoluted & conflicted story & would not take questions from reporters. They conveniently do not have body cam video & demonize the victim by calling him a fugitive as if he is not innocent until proven guilty by a court of law, not by police. The podcast reminded us of the Tyre Nichols beating by Police leading to his death & the constant call for all police to wear body cams that work in the execution of their duties. Further, the podcast explores whether police unions should get involved in police excesses and killings since police officers are charged with serving protecting, and upholding the law and that is in question involving those they are charged to serve and protect, police should have the protection of their unions. Finally, the podcast shows how the legal system and legislature continue to preach reform while accommodating police flagrant adjustment of the reform requirement to wear body cam and the application of $50,00 bail involving police killings. This is a must-see podcast episode with background music, embedded videos, and artistic images interspersed throughout for a dynamic listening and watching experience. Support us at https://anchor.fm/theneoliberal/support. Follow us on Twitter: https://twitter.com/renaldomckenzie and https://twitter.com/theneoliberalco. --- Send in a voice message: https://podcasters.spotify.com/pod/show/theneoliberal/message Support this podcast: https://podcasters.spotify.com/pod/show/theneoliberal/support

Original Air Date: 8/8/2020 Today we take a look at the concept of defunding the police; what it means, what it doesn't and what the goals of the movement are.  Be part of the show! Leave us a message or text at 202-999-3991 or email Jay@BestOfTheLeft.com BestOfTheLeft.com/Support (Members Get Bonus Clips and Shows + No Ads!) Join our Discord community! SHOW NOTES Ch. 1: Race, Police, & The Pandemic - FRONTLINE - Air Date 6-2-20 Jelani Cobb describes how the relationship between black Americans and the police has become a “barometer” for race relations in the country and that explosive tensions are “overwhelmingly” in response to an issue of police use of force. Ch. 2: Panel Discussion on Radical Police Reform - The Daily Show - Air Date 6-10-20 Trevor hosts a panel on movements to radically reimagine policing in the U.S. with Patrisse Cullors, Josie Duffy Rice, Sam Sinyangwe, Mychal Denzel Smith and Alex S. Vitale. Ch. 3: The Racial Justice Uprising in the U.S. is Taking Hold Overseas - The Takeaway - Air Date 6-8-20 Explaining that an overburdened police system that takes on way too much, including much that is outside the realm of their training, is something that no one should want. Ch. 4: The End of Policing with Alex Vitale - The Bastani Factor, Novara Media - Air Date 6-3-20 Aaron Bastani interviews author of ‘The End of Policing', Alex Vitale, to ask just how bad law enforcement is in the United States, and what can be done about it. Ch. 5: Defunding the Police Is Only the Beginning - The Mother Jones Podcast - Air Date 6-17-20 Josie Duffy Rice joins Jamilah King for a discussion about the recent police killing of Rayshard Brookes in Atlanta, the deep racist and classist structural issues with policing in America, and why defunding the police is only step one. Ch. 6: Defund Police What It Means & How It Would Really Work - News Beat - Air Date 6-16-20 In the wake of the police slaying of George Floyd in Minneapolis, protesters have not only flooded the streets, but they're actively pushing reforms that go well beyond traditional solutions. Ch. 7: How to Defund the Police - Boom! Lawyered - Air Date 6-11-20 Racism is baked into the U.S. model of policing. More and more people are starting to believe that no amount of "reform" will help; a full tear-down is required. But what does "defunding the police" actually mean? Ch. 8: Is It Time To Defund the Police? - Deconstructed with Mehdi Hasan - Air Date 6-11-20 Black Lives Matter co-founder Patrisse Cullors joins Mehdi Hasan to discuss the future of policing and community-oriented systems of public safety in the United States. Ch. 9: The Politics of "Defund the Police" - Politics with Amy Walter, The Takeaway - Air Date 6-12-20 Congress is reckoning with how to respond to the protests and calls for police accountability. Two national reporters join to discuss the Justice in Policing Act of 2020. Ch. 10: We Can't Let The Uprising Get Co-opted - The Michael Brooks Show - Air Date 6-10-20 Notes on the uprising and how we move forward without allowing the forces of neoliberalism to co-opt the movement. Ch. 11: Angela Davis: Abolishing police is not just about dismantling. It's also about building up. - Democracy Now - Air Date 6-12-2020 Amid a worldwide uprising against police brutality and racism, we discuss the historic moment with legendary scholar and activist Angela Davis. EDUCATE YOURSELF & SHARE The Movement for Black Lives Introduces the BREATHE Act (Colorlines) What Exactly Does It Mean to Defund the Police? (The Cut, NY Mag,) What Does It Mean to Invest in Black Communities? (The Nation) How to Defund the Police (The New Yorker) How to Make Defunding the Police a Reality (The Nation) Defunding the Police Will Actually Make Us Safer (ACLU) Researched & Written by BOTL Communications Director Amanda Hoffman  MUSIC (Blue Dot Sessions) Produced by Jay! Tomlinson Visit us at BestOfTheLeft.com ​ ​ ​

Queen Drea of St. Paul describes herself as a sound alchemist. She loves the innovative, community-centered performances of Ananya Dance Theatre. The theme for this fall's performance is processionals, which can both celebrate life and disrupt its flow when they take the form of protests. Ananya Dance Theater investigated its theme by performing several processionals in the Twin Cities this summer; Queen Drea had the opportunity to be involved with one during the George Floyd memorial service in May. She looks forward to seeing how that idea has developed into a staged dance show, marked by interruption, innovation and liberation.  Queen Drea appreciates that Ananya Dance Theatre's works involve a confluence of artists alongside the dancers, adding, “Every year, I go, and there's just something unexpected.” “Michhil Amra: We Are the Procession!” plays Friday and Saturday at 7:30 p.m. at The O'Shaughnessy at St. Catherine University in St. Paul.  Zoe Cinel, curator at Rochester Art Center, recently saw a striking exhibit in Winona. “Googled Earth: Through a Looking Glass” is the work of artists Patrick Lichty of Winona State University and Negin Ehtesabian, who lives in Iran. The artists, who are married, have never been able to visit each other's home countries. As they await visas, they use Google Maps and virtual reality to share their homes. This exhibit shares that experience with viewers through a combination of mixed media and virtual reality. One pair of mixed media prints by Ehtesabian, for example, hang facing each other on walls, depicting images and symbols from the U.S. and Iran, respectively. Cinel was particularly intrigued by a series of tapestries created using imagery from the geography where both artists have lived. She says the nontraditional approach to a traditional craft looks like “if glitch art had a baby with a rug.” Overall, Cinel appreciated the personal, colorful show that “speaks about borders and humans at the same time.” “Googled Earth: Through a Looking Glass” is up until Oct. 4 at the Watkins Gallery at Winona State University. David DeBlieck teaches dance in the theater department of the College of St Benedict and St John's University. He loves the work of Sod House Theater, a Twin Cities-based company whose traveling annual productions invite audiences to engage with the space around them. Their current show “Table” integrates dinner — created by local chefs from local ingredients — and a show. Directed by Sarah Agnew, whose traveling food-centered shows have included “Arla Mae's Booyah Wagon,” the show is performed by an all-female cast who also serve as wait staff for the meal. It's an interactive show served up in courses, and DeBlieck looks forward to gathering with friends at the Hallock performance Saturday to enjoy time around a table.  Related Art Hounds: Comedy on the farm and in town “Table” runs through Oct. 1 in various communities across the state, including in Crookston, Minn., Sept. 21 in Waseca, Minn., Sept. 28, and in Rochester, Minn., Oct. 1. Please note that some performances have sold out. 

These are terrible times—an escalating cold war with China, a proxy war in Europe, racialized police violence unchecked, environmental collapse on full display, fragile and often anemic democratic institutions on life support, religious authoritarianism on the rise, women's bodily integrity under sustained assault. On the other hand—26 million people poured into the streets in response to the police murder of George Floyd, women across a wide political spectrum have refused to accept a medieval definition of their rights, and broad forces are on the march worldwide to resist plunder and extraction, and to preserve life on earth. Charles Dickens would recognize the contradiction: the winter of despair and the spring of hope; an age of foolishness and an age of wisdom; Darkness locked in combat with Light. Life is never one thing in isolation from every other thing. Yes, there is oppression, but there is also art—and our imaginations, nourished and unleashed—which has the capacity to “light the slow fuse of possibility.” With Lisa Yun Lee, my comrade and friend for many years and co-host for this episode, I'm in conversation with Claire Dederer about her smart and important new book, Monsters: A Fan's Dilemma.

Stigall confesses to never really listening to Howard Stern, but did see his seminole movie tribute to his fledgling radio career "Private Parts." His change, in Stigall's opinion has been stark. Vladimir Zalensky visits Washington D.C. Attorney General Merrick Garland testifies before the House Judiciary and gets filleted. Former acting AG Matthew Whitaker reacts and shares his latest political observations from his home state and the first primary state to vote - Iowa. Plus Jason Rantz joins Stigall from Seattle to discuss the degradation of the nations largest cities in his new book "What's Killing America." - For more info visit the official website: https://chrisstigall.comInstagram: https://www.instagram.com/chrisstigallshow/Twitter: https://twitter.com/ChrisStigallFacebook: https://www.facebook.com/chris.stigall/Listen on Spotify: https://tinyurl.com/StigallPodListen on Apple Podcasts: https://bit.ly/StigallShowSee omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

Winner of the Pulitzer Prize for non-fiction, “His Name is George Floyd: One Man's Life and Struggle for Social Justice” reveals the systemic racism that shaped Floyd's life, his family history, and his tragic end.

Jurors! In this week's best of episode we're looking back at some of our conversations around defamation this season. Tasha K's comments on Cardi B,George Floyd's family suing Kanye West for taking reckless, and Judge Joe Brown threatening to sue Sheryl Lee Ralph for defamation. Remember, words have consequences. Let's get into it!Bet On Black OUT NOW! Essence Magazine 2023 Must ReadJournalist, attorney, and star of Bravo's The Real Housewives of New York reshapes the cultural landscape of achievement by showing why Black unity is crucial to individual and collective success. Connect with us:Interval PresentsInstagram: @intervalpresentsTwitter: @IntrvlPrsnts Eboni K. Williams Instagram: @ebonikwilliamsTwitter: @ebonikwilliams Dustin Ross Instagram: @lookatdustinTwitter: @lookatdustin Holding Court is an Interval Presents Original Production from Uppity Productions in association with Dossie Media.See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

Another Black female mayor is facing her own massive challenge in the statewide unhoused crisis; embattled San Francisco mayor London Breed, promised to clean up San Francisco, but she does face some progressive challenges. Former socialist district attorney Chesa Boudin was antithetical to Breed's tough on crime rhetoric, so before he could complete his first term in office he was ousted in a recall election allowing Breed's appointee Brooke Jenkins to come in and continue a tough on crime agenda.     Boudin was elected after the rise of Bernie Sanders where social democracy gained much popularity. After the election of Trump, many Americans felt, to fight an imagined fascist in the White House, we simply needed to vote for progressives and everything would be fixed. An overly simplistic technocratic strategy that begins and ends with putting the right people in positions of power. Politics as consumerism, buy progressive, and they alone will fix social ills.     Peak COVID's shelter in place orders, coupled with a 24/7 newscycle, mainstream and independent laser focused on the racism and ineptitude of then president Trump, a barrage of public police killings of unarmed Black citizens and vigilante violence also aimed at people of color and it culminates with the televised police murder of George Floyd and the country erupts.    The solution to the racial reckoning was simple as a line item on a spreadsheet. Just allocate funds for law enforcement elsewhere. The amount of money spent on police was causing all this senseless violence, so move those funds over where they can be better suited and we'll not only put an end to extra judicial police killings, but we'll end poverty, crime, etc. I know many of you listening have heard this before, but we can't even begin to discuss a city like San Francisco without putting into context the feeling of the nation, because it can be that feeling that shapes policy. We need to understand how public opinion can be manipulated and shaped and changed overnight.     In San Francisco, demands were made to defund the police, and maybe the city's biggest ally to actually hold law enforcement accountable, then district attorney Chesa Boudin was ousted. The progressive love affair was over in SF. Property crime was on the rise and people didn't care about aversion programs and high incarceration rates anymore. That's abstract thinking, they wanted solutions NOW! Chesa wasn't the only leftist/socialist in city government, there were others, and London Breed and her new D.A. went on the attack to call them out as a hindrance to law and order in San Francisco as they were idealists who weren't from the city, and didn't have an appreciation for the people of SF. Breed and Jenkins are Black women, it was easy for them to use that and call out the white progressives in office for not understanding the plight of Black and Brown citizens facing rising post peak COVID crime and the daily blight of the large homeless encampments affecting small business owned by many people of color throughout the city.    Just like that, the news went from following any case of police misconduct to showing an endless stream of smash and grab robberies. Some in high end downtown shopping districts. Nordstrom, the long-time staple of the Westfield Mall in downtown SF, left. Their rationale  for leaving for many in SF was simple, it was all the robberies. People were scared to go to SF for fear of having their car broke into, or being robbed leaving a store.   On top of all of this, any attempt at building any sort of solution for housing the homeless population was running into issues with people in the community. As I've said many times on this show, we can all talk crap about “NIMBYs” but who wants to have an encampment next to their child's school? A tiny home community in your community? A shelter in the heart of your neighborhood?    Breed vowed to clean up SF and she, like many mayors in the country facing similar challenges, was going to do large sweeps of the larger encampments that were literally blocking sidewalks. Some of these encampments were massive, and yes, sometimes violent. Open air drug markets and public drug use, and many cases in SF, deaths. In the 80s and 90s crack was the big bad and it had to be eliminated and the people that sold it were compared to demons praying on the innocent in their community. The same can be said for opioids in 2023. To date, there have been 473 deaths from opioids in SF and the year isn't even over. The big bad for Breed is opioids and fentanyl, so the crackdown has begun.    But sweeping the encampments has hit a snag for Breed as homeless people and their advocates have filed suit against the city for not holding to their own laws about how to handle the sweeps. A federal judge has put a halt on the sweeps, because if you're going to sweep an encampment, the city has to provide housing solutions for the people caught up in the sweep. According to the SF Chronicle, of the 165 days SF cleared a site, only about 18% of those days did the city actually have beds for everyone caught up. Advocates and homeless citizens claim law enforcement threw away IDs, important documents and records, you know pertinent documents needed to obtain housing. So now the city and advocates are in a fight. The city feels they can't do what they need to do to reach people in need without clearing an encampment, and the advocates say the sweeps are criminalizing poverty. The one thing both sides seem to mildly agree on is that people shouldn't have to sleep on the streets. Crue, what do you say about what's going on in SF? About TIR Thank you for supporting the show! Remember to like and subscribe on YouTube. Also, consider supporting us on Patreon at https://www.patreon.com/join/BitterLakePresents   Check out our official merch store at https://www.thisisrevolutionpodcast.com/   Also follow us on... https://podcasts.apple.com/.../this-is.../id1524576360 www.youtube.com/thisisrevolutionpodcast www.twitch.tv/thisisrevolutionpodcast www.twitch.tv/leftflankvets https://www.facebook.com/Thisisrevolutionpodcast/ Instagram: @thisisrevolutionoakland   Follow the TIR Crüe on Twitter: @TIRShowOakland @djenebajalan @DrKuba2 @probert06 @StefanBertramL @MarcusHereMeow   Read Jason: https://www.sublationmag.com/writers/jason-myles   Read Pascal: https://www.newsweek.com/black-political-elite-serving...

The Minneapolis City Council is scheduled Tuesday afternoon to discuss where to house the police department's third precinct and what to do with its former site. That building burned in unrest after an officer from the precinct murdered George Floyd three years ago. The council meeting comes after members approved a plan earlier this month and, in a sudden twist, hit pause. On Monday, Mayor Jacob Frey wrote a letter to the council asking them to make a decision or let him do it. MPR News reporter Jon Collins joined MPR News Cathy Wurzer to explain.

Minneapolis mayor Jacob Frey is putting pressure on the city council to make a decision on the future site of a new third precinct building for the police department. The old building off of lake street was destroyed during the riots after George Floyd's death.There's an investigation underway into an incident at a West Duluth bar after a black woman says she was assaulted by two white men.This is an MPR News morning update, hosted by Cathy Wurzer. Music by Gary Meister.

Born in Washington, D.C., and raised in Atlanta, Carlos Simon has become one of classical music's most eloquent and visible chroniclers of the Black American experience. Although it's not just classical music – Carlos draws on jazz, R&B, and especially gospel music, as Simon is the son of a preacher. Music is his pulpit, and he says he uses music as therapy and to make sense of it all. He's toured from the back of a flatbed truck, done street-busking, and played cocktail piano music in bars, with an ever-optimistic outlook of "You never know who's listening”. He's currently Composer-In-Residence at the Kennedy Center, and his 2022 LP called Requiem For The Enslaved was nominated for a Grammy. Now, he's released two recordings in quick succession – first Breadth, an orchestral response to the killing of George Floyd, and just one week later, Together, a collection that features Carlos Simon performing solo piano works and a few small ensemble pieces. He plays some of these solo works at our piano, and a rendition of a well-known hymn, with special guest cellist Seth Parker-Woods. Set list: 1. Amazing Grace with Seth Parker-Woods, cello 2. Memory of Summer 3. Traveling Song

Doug Stokes is a Professor in International Security at the University of Exeter, UK. He is a fellow at the Council on Geostrategy and Senior Advisor at the Legatum Institute. Following the killing of George Floyd in 2020, a moral panic gripped the US and UK. To atone for an alleged history of racism, statues were torn down and symbols of national identity attacked. In this wide ranging conversation today, Doug & I discuss how life has changed in the post-George Floyd era. Some topics discussed include: Is there an attack on the West? Are universities to blame? Is there a fall of objective truth? The recent change in race relations Why 'wokism' gets worse with a right-wing government Modern racism Is Britain a racist country? Are the police discriminatory? Should we have diversity quotas and equity hiring? Much more! His new book, ‘Against Decolonisation' is available here: https://www.amazon.co.uk/Against-Deco... To watch the full episode, click here: https://www.youtube.com/channel/UC8BS31SZ_-lhi9iRZ1vRqIA Links: Connect with us: https://freedompact.co.uk/newsletter​ (Healthy, Wealthy & Wise Newsletter) https://instagram.com/freedompact​ https://tiktok.com/personaldevelopment https://twitter.com/freedompactpod freedompact@gmail.com Connect with Doug: https://x.com/profdws?s=20

John and Wayne continue to talk about key leadership mindsets that ultimately lead to success. In this episode, they focus on the power of health, collaboration, momentum, and determination.Follow us on Instagram for more great leadership content: Pastor John (@johnsiebeling), Pastor Wayne (@waynefrancis), Podcast (@leadershipinblackandwhite). Leave a rating and review to give us your feedback and help the show continue to grow! Leadership in Black and White is powered by World Vision. Learn how World Vision partners with the local church at worldvision.org/blackandwhite

Damo and Tisha are joined by retired ABFC, John Quillin. John was one of Damo's facilitators when he attended his course to be a Command Navy Leader Development Facilitator. John discusses many elements from the Naval Leadership and Ethics command including some of the major exercises and content from the Leader Development courses. Whats the difference between a safe space and a brave space? What's the importance of understanding the difference between leadership training and leader development? Damo reflects on his experience leading the mandatory “extremist” training. The “George Floyd” era in the Navy is discussed through the perspectives of John and Damo. The term “liberal” is defined. Does everyone have “bias”? A lot of terms from the course were put into real world scenarios going on in our military today.  The classic question of “what happens when it gets real” is asked again? John speaks about his blog “Good Enough Dad” and what it means to be good enough. Remember to follow the ‘Permission to Speak Freely' podcast on TikTok, Facebook, Discord, Instagram, Twitter, and subscribe on YouTube.   Keep up with the ‘Permission to Speak Freely' podcast on our social media and Youtube - https://linktr.ee/Ptsfpodcast   Links and more from this Episode:   John's Social Media: LinkedIn - https://www.linkedin.com/in/john-quillin-8911249a/   John's Book Recommendations:   The Project 1619: A New Origin Story (Nicole Hannah-Jones) - https://www.amazon.com/1619-Project-New-Origin-Story/dp/0593230574   Start With Why (Simon Sinek) - https://simonsinek.com/books/start-with-why/   Leaders Eat Last (Simon Sinek) - https://simonsinek.com/books/leaders-eat-last/   Additional Credits: PTSF “Theme Music” - Produced by Lim0

Frank begins the show with Ask Frank Anything as he does every Friday. Then, Frank talks about the police officers in Pennsylvania posing with the escaped conceit after he was caught and he speaks to Selwyn Jones, the Co-Founder of the Hope929 Foundation, the charity focused on promoting civil rights and creating change in honor of his nephew George Floyd about George Floyd's death and the defund the police movement. Frank then talks to  Benyamin Cohen, award winning journalist, who manages the official social media accounts of Albert Einstein and the author of “The Einstein Effect.” He is the News Director of the Forward, America's oldest Jewish newspaper. They discuss what happened to Einstein's brain? Later, Frank is joined by Ron Albanese, Children's Entertainer, Author, School Teacher, & New Jerseyian at Large about his upcoming shows, how to prevent summer brain drain, and his book on KISS.  Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Frank Morano interviews Selwyn Jones, the Co-Founder of the Hope929 Foundation, the charity focused on promoting civil rights and creating change in honor of his nephew George Floyd about George Floyd's death and the defund the police movement. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

This is Garrison Hardie with your CrossPolitic Daily News Brief for Friday, September 15th, 2023. Rowdy Christian Merch Plug: If you’re a fan of CrossPolitic, or the Fight Laugh Feast Network, then surely, you know we have a merch store right? Rowdy Christian Merch is your one-stop-shop for everything CrossPolitc merchandise. We’ve got T-Shirts, hoodies, hats, but we’ve also got specialty items like backpacks, mugs, coffee, even airpod cases! Visit Rowdy Christian Merch at rowdychristian.com, and buy that next gift, or a little something for yourself. Again, that’s rowdychristian.com. https://thepostmillennial.com/breaking-hunter-biden-indicted-on-gun-charges-in-delaware?utm_campaign=64487 Hunter Biden indicted on gun charges in Delaware Hunter Biden has been indicted on felony gun charges in the state of Delaware. This after a plea deal fell through earlier this summer that would have let him off the hook for the charges, so long as he met certain conditions. Biden had been accused of lying on an FBI background check form in order to purchase a firearm, one Colt Cobra 38SPL revolver. He said that he was not a drug user when, in fact, he was. This was revealed in his own memoir Beautiful Things. The indictment reads that Biden violated Chapter 44, Title 18 of the United States Code by falsely asserting that he was not a drug user on ATF Form 4473. That form required that the buyer must state that he is aware that "making any false oral or written statement... is a crime punishable as a felony under Federal law, and may violate State and /or local law." Biden was indicted on three counts. The first is that Biden "knowingly made a false and fictitious written statement, intended and likely to deceive that dealer with respect to a fact material to the lawfulness of the sale of the firearm..." That count further provides that Biden gave a "written statement on Form 4473 certifying that he was not an unlawful user of, and addicted to, any stimulant, narcotic drug, and any other controlled substance, when in fact, as he knew, that statement was false and fictitious." The second count states that he made this false statement knowingly "to be kept" in the records of the company from which he made the purchase. The third count is that Biden then possessed the weapon unlawfully. The indictment, delivered by a grand jury, was signed off on by special counsel David Weiss, who is also the US Attorney for the State of Delaware. Biden was set to plead guilty to tax charges in June, with the expectation that the gun charge would be dismissed. Weiss, who was prosecuting the case for the state of Delaware and the Department of Justice, was anticipated to make a deal for a diversion agreement for the gun charge. Chris Clark, Biden's attorney, said at the time that "A firearm charge, which will be subject to a pretrial diversion agreement and will not be the subject of the plea agreement, will also be filed by the Government." That deal fell apart in July after US District Judge Maryellen Noreika recognized that in the diversion agreement, it appeared that both defense and prosecution had agreed that Biden would also gain immunity for any charges stemming from not having filed as a foreign agent when conducting business deals overseas. The prosecutors explained that this was not their understanding, at which point the defense also did not go along with the plea deal. The maximum prison term for lying on the ATF form is 10 years. Hunter's father, President Joe Biden, is a staunch proponent of gun control legislation. He routinely touts the importance of universal background checks, claiming that this way people who should not have guns will get guns. After mass shooting events during his presidency he has stressed the need for background checks before firearms purchases are permitted to be made. He has also pressed for a "major crackdown" on gun dealers, the very kinds of gun dealers to whom his son submitted falsified records. He has also demanded that more states enact "red flag" laws, which allow family members to have law enforcement take a gun from a gun owner in the event that a family member or concerned person claims that gun owner is not stable enough to own a gun. Biden further said that the right to bear arms, as secured by the Bill of Rights under the Second Amendment, is "not absolute," and that no right "is absolute." Biden said that "the Second Amendment, like all other rights, is not absolute." https://thenationalpulse.com/2023/09/13/eu-parliament-legislates-for-the-sale-of-human-embryos/ EU Parliament Legislates for The Sale of Human Embryos. Members of the European Parliament have voted overwhelmingly in favor of a new “Substances of Human Origin” (SoHO) framework, which permits the sale of human embryos and degrades human life to be the equivalent of any other cells or tissue. The measures are set to regulate the supply and donations of so-called “substances,” such as blood, cells, and tissue, used for medically assisted reproduction as well as other procedures, including transfusions and transplants. They also allow people to receive “compensation or reimbursement for losses or expenses incurred” when making a donation. The measures passed in the parliament by 483 votes to 52 on Tuesday, despite amendments proposed by conservatives to prevent the use of fetuses for financial gain being voted down. Those who voted in favor also ignored the appeals made by the Commission of Bishops’ Conferences of the European Union, which argued: “Human life is not just a ‘substance of human origin’…human life from the beginning, including unborn life ‘possesses its own dignity, right, and independent right of protection.'” Director of the NBIC Ethics think tank, Laetitia Pouliquen, also warned after the vote passed that it would create a “highest-bidder body and fertility market” across the continent. The new framework will be sent to the European Council, with further discussions to start at the beginning of the next year. https://dailycaller.com/2023/09/13/hurricane-lee-margot-new-england-atlantic-develop/ Hurricane Lee Grows So Terrifyingly Huge, It Doesn’t Matter If It Makes Landfall. We’re In Trouble. Hurricane Lee increased to an absolutely enormous storm overnight Tuesday into Wednesday, and is currently estimated to be roughly 1,000 kilometers (621 miles) across. Even if Hurricane Lee doesn’t make landfall, its current trajectory is going to cause coastal flooding and extremely strong winds off the shores of the Northeast and into Atlantic Canada throughout the week, multiple forecasters said Tuesday night and Wednesday morning. While AccuWeather hopes Lee will be downgraded to a Cat. 2 storm by Friday, down to a Cat. 1 or Tropical Storm by Saturday and Sunday, there are multiple landfall scenarios being monitored at this time. New England is already suffering from extensive flooding, which left vehicles stranded and homes damaged, as seen in footage shared online. Things would probably only get worse should Lee’s trajectory shift and sit over the region. At the same time, Hurricane Margot is heading in almost the exact same direction as Lee, but coming at the Northeast and Atlantic Canada from the middle of the Atlantic Ocean at the time of writing. But regardless of where Lee lands, the National Hurricane Center (NHC) said there “will be little to no significance on exactly where the center reaches the coast.” The entire area is under threat of hazards, according to the agency, and all those living within it should prepare immediately. Two additional areas of disorganized storms are currently brewing between North Africa and northern South America, in a similar region to where Lee and Margot first formed. The NHC estimates a 50% chance these areas turn into a single cyclone in the 48 hours from the time of writing. As late summer weather continues to plague the U.S., we are almost certainly on track for a fall defined by hurricanes. https://thenationalpulse.com/2023/09/13/homicides-up-29-in-bowsers-d-c/ Homicides Up 29% in Bowser’s D.C. Homicides in Democrat-dominated Washington D.C. are up by 29 percent compared to this time last year, with annual murders on course to hit their highest total in 20 years. There has been an even sharper 67 percent rise in robberies, and minors are increasingly entangled in the crime wave as both perpetrators and victims. Forty-one youths aged 12 to 15 had been arrested for carjackings and 81 under-18s had been shot as of the end of August – up from 61 over the same time frame in 2022 and 37 in 2021. The Democratic Party dominates D.C. politics, with Mayor Muriel Bowser and the D.C. Council all being Democrats or “Independents” whose previous affiliation was Democrat. Mayor Bowser has claimed she wants to “throw every resource at reducing crime” and she has increased the latest public safety budget – but during the ‘Defund the Police’ mania following the death of George Floyd in 2020 the Counil trimmed $32 million from police funding, as $4.8 million was splurged on the creation of Black Lives Matter Plaza. Bowser’s apologists sometimes complain that the federal government is in charge of prosecutors and some other criminal justice functionaries in D.C., although the federal government is also under Democrat control at present.

This is Garrison Hardie with your CrossPolitic Daily News Brief for Friday, September 15th, 2023. Rowdy Christian Merch Plug: If you’re a fan of CrossPolitic, or the Fight Laugh Feast Network, then surely, you know we have a merch store right? Rowdy Christian Merch is your one-stop-shop for everything CrossPolitc merchandise. We’ve got T-Shirts, hoodies, hats, but we’ve also got specialty items like backpacks, mugs, coffee, even airpod cases! Visit Rowdy Christian Merch at rowdychristian.com, and buy that next gift, or a little something for yourself. Again, that’s rowdychristian.com. https://thepostmillennial.com/breaking-hunter-biden-indicted-on-gun-charges-in-delaware?utm_campaign=64487 Hunter Biden indicted on gun charges in Delaware Hunter Biden has been indicted on felony gun charges in the state of Delaware. This after a plea deal fell through earlier this summer that would have let him off the hook for the charges, so long as he met certain conditions. Biden had been accused of lying on an FBI background check form in order to purchase a firearm, one Colt Cobra 38SPL revolver. He said that he was not a drug user when, in fact, he was. This was revealed in his own memoir Beautiful Things. The indictment reads that Biden violated Chapter 44, Title 18 of the United States Code by falsely asserting that he was not a drug user on ATF Form 4473. That form required that the buyer must state that he is aware that "making any false oral or written statement... is a crime punishable as a felony under Federal law, and may violate State and /or local law." Biden was indicted on three counts. The first is that Biden "knowingly made a false and fictitious written statement, intended and likely to deceive that dealer with respect to a fact material to the lawfulness of the sale of the firearm..." That count further provides that Biden gave a "written statement on Form 4473 certifying that he was not an unlawful user of, and addicted to, any stimulant, narcotic drug, and any other controlled substance, when in fact, as he knew, that statement was false and fictitious." The second count states that he made this false statement knowingly "to be kept" in the records of the company from which he made the purchase. The third count is that Biden then possessed the weapon unlawfully. The indictment, delivered by a grand jury, was signed off on by special counsel David Weiss, who is also the US Attorney for the State of Delaware. Biden was set to plead guilty to tax charges in June, with the expectation that the gun charge would be dismissed. Weiss, who was prosecuting the case for the state of Delaware and the Department of Justice, was anticipated to make a deal for a diversion agreement for the gun charge. Chris Clark, Biden's attorney, said at the time that "A firearm charge, which will be subject to a pretrial diversion agreement and will not be the subject of the plea agreement, will also be filed by the Government." That deal fell apart in July after US District Judge Maryellen Noreika recognized that in the diversion agreement, it appeared that both defense and prosecution had agreed that Biden would also gain immunity for any charges stemming from not having filed as a foreign agent when conducting business deals overseas. The prosecutors explained that this was not their understanding, at which point the defense also did not go along with the plea deal. The maximum prison term for lying on the ATF form is 10 years. Hunter's father, President Joe Biden, is a staunch proponent of gun control legislation. He routinely touts the importance of universal background checks, claiming that this way people who should not have guns will get guns. After mass shooting events during his presidency he has stressed the need for background checks before firearms purchases are permitted to be made. He has also pressed for a "major crackdown" on gun dealers, the very kinds of gun dealers to whom his son submitted falsified records. He has also demanded that more states enact "red flag" laws, which allow family members to have law enforcement take a gun from a gun owner in the event that a family member or concerned person claims that gun owner is not stable enough to own a gun. Biden further said that the right to bear arms, as secured by the Bill of Rights under the Second Amendment, is "not absolute," and that no right "is absolute." Biden said that "the Second Amendment, like all other rights, is not absolute." https://thenationalpulse.com/2023/09/13/eu-parliament-legislates-for-the-sale-of-human-embryos/ EU Parliament Legislates for The Sale of Human Embryos. Members of the European Parliament have voted overwhelmingly in favor of a new “Substances of Human Origin” (SoHO) framework, which permits the sale of human embryos and degrades human life to be the equivalent of any other cells or tissue. The measures are set to regulate the supply and donations of so-called “substances,” such as blood, cells, and tissue, used for medically assisted reproduction as well as other procedures, including transfusions and transplants. They also allow people to receive “compensation or reimbursement for losses or expenses incurred” when making a donation. The measures passed in the parliament by 483 votes to 52 on Tuesday, despite amendments proposed by conservatives to prevent the use of fetuses for financial gain being voted down. Those who voted in favor also ignored the appeals made by the Commission of Bishops’ Conferences of the European Union, which argued: “Human life is not just a ‘substance of human origin’…human life from the beginning, including unborn life ‘possesses its own dignity, right, and independent right of protection.'” Director of the NBIC Ethics think tank, Laetitia Pouliquen, also warned after the vote passed that it would create a “highest-bidder body and fertility market” across the continent. The new framework will be sent to the European Council, with further discussions to start at the beginning of the next year. https://dailycaller.com/2023/09/13/hurricane-lee-margot-new-england-atlantic-develop/ Hurricane Lee Grows So Terrifyingly Huge, It Doesn’t Matter If It Makes Landfall. We’re In Trouble. Hurricane Lee increased to an absolutely enormous storm overnight Tuesday into Wednesday, and is currently estimated to be roughly 1,000 kilometers (621 miles) across. Even if Hurricane Lee doesn’t make landfall, its current trajectory is going to cause coastal flooding and extremely strong winds off the shores of the Northeast and into Atlantic Canada throughout the week, multiple forecasters said Tuesday night and Wednesday morning. While AccuWeather hopes Lee will be downgraded to a Cat. 2 storm by Friday, down to a Cat. 1 or Tropical Storm by Saturday and Sunday, there are multiple landfall scenarios being monitored at this time. New England is already suffering from extensive flooding, which left vehicles stranded and homes damaged, as seen in footage shared online. Things would probably only get worse should Lee’s trajectory shift and sit over the region. At the same time, Hurricane Margot is heading in almost the exact same direction as Lee, but coming at the Northeast and Atlantic Canada from the middle of the Atlantic Ocean at the time of writing. But regardless of where Lee lands, the National Hurricane Center (NHC) said there “will be little to no significance on exactly where the center reaches the coast.” The entire area is under threat of hazards, according to the agency, and all those living within it should prepare immediately. Two additional areas of disorganized storms are currently brewing between North Africa and northern South America, in a similar region to where Lee and Margot first formed. The NHC estimates a 50% chance these areas turn into a single cyclone in the 48 hours from the time of writing. As late summer weather continues to plague the U.S., we are almost certainly on track for a fall defined by hurricanes. https://thenationalpulse.com/2023/09/13/homicides-up-29-in-bowsers-d-c/ Homicides Up 29% in Bowser’s D.C. Homicides in Democrat-dominated Washington D.C. are up by 29 percent compared to this time last year, with annual murders on course to hit their highest total in 20 years. There has been an even sharper 67 percent rise in robberies, and minors are increasingly entangled in the crime wave as both perpetrators and victims. Forty-one youths aged 12 to 15 had been arrested for carjackings and 81 under-18s had been shot as of the end of August – up from 61 over the same time frame in 2022 and 37 in 2021. The Democratic Party dominates D.C. politics, with Mayor Muriel Bowser and the D.C. Council all being Democrats or “Independents” whose previous affiliation was Democrat. Mayor Bowser has claimed she wants to “throw every resource at reducing crime” and she has increased the latest public safety budget – but during the ‘Defund the Police’ mania following the death of George Floyd in 2020 the Counil trimmed $32 million from police funding, as $4.8 million was splurged on the creation of Black Lives Matter Plaza. Bowser’s apologists sometimes complain that the federal government is in charge of prosecutors and some other criminal justice functionaries in D.C., although the federal government is also under Democrat control at present.

On this week-in-review, Crystal is joined by Seattle political reporter and editor of PubliCola, Erica Barnett! The show starts with the infuriating story of Seattle Police Officers Guild (SPOG) leaders joking about a fellow Seattle Police Department (SPD) officer running over and killing Jaahnavi Kandula - how the shocking comments caught on body cam confirm suspicions of a culture in SPD that disregards life, that the SPOG police union is synonymous with the department, and whether a seemingly absent Mayor Bruce Harrell will do anything about a troubled department under his executive purview. Erica and Crystal then discuss Bob Ferguson officially entering the governor's race with Jay Inslee's endorsement, Rebecca Saldaña jumping into a crowded Public Lands Commissioner race, no charges against Jenny Durkan or Carmen Best for their deleted texts during the 2020 George Floyd protests, the latest on Seattle's drug criminalization bill, and flawed interviews for KCRHA's Five-Year Plan for homelessness. As always, a full text transcript of the show is available below and at officialhacksandwonks.com. Find the host, Crystal Fincher, on Twitter at @finchfrii and find today's co-host, Erica Barnett, at @ericacbarnett.   Resources “Rob Saka, Candidate for Seattle City Council District 1” from Hacks & Wonks   “Maren Costa, Candidate for Seattle City Council District 1” from Hacks & Wonks   “"Write a Check for $11,000. She Was 26, She Had Limited Value." SPD Officer Jokes with Police Union Leader About Killing of Pedestrian by Fellow Cop” by Erica C. Barnett from PubliCola   “‘Feel safer yet?' Seattle police union's contempt keeps showing through” by Danny Westneat from The Seattle Times   “Handling of Jaahnavi Kandula's death brings criticism from Seattle leaders” by Sarah Grace Taylor from The Seattle Times   “Political consultant weighs in on growing Washington governor's race” by Brittany Toolis from KIRO 7 News Seattle   “Jay Inslee endorses Bob Ferguson to succeed him as WA governor” by David Gutman and Lauren Girgis from The Seattle Times   “Rebecca Saldaña Jumps into Weirdly Crowded Race for Lands Commissioner” by Rich Smith from The Stranger   “No Charges Against Durkan and Best for Deleted Texts; Investigation Reveals Holes in City Records Retention Policies” by Erica C. Barnett from PubliCola   “After Watering Down Language About Diversion, Committee Moves Drug Criminalization Bill Forward” by Erica C. Barnett from PubliCola   “Harrell's “$27 Million Drug Diversion and Treatment” Plan Would Allow Prosecutions But Add No New Funding” by Erica C. Barnett from PubliCola   “The Five-Year Plan for Homelessness Was Based Largely on 180 Interviews. Experts Say They Were Deeply Flawed.” by Erica C. Barnett from PubliCola   Find stories that Crystal is reading here   Transcript [00:00:00] Crystal Fincher: Welcome to Hacks & Wonks. I'm Crystal Fincher, and I'm a political consultant and your host. On this show, we talk with policy wonks and political hacks to gather insight into local politics and policy in Washington state through the lens of those doing the work with behind-the-scenes perspectives on what's happening, why it's happening, and what you can do about it. Be sure to subscribe to the podcast to get the full versions of our Tuesday topical show and our Friday week-in-review delivered to your podcast feed. If you like us, the most helpful thing you can do is leave a review wherever you listen to Hacks & Wonks. Full transcripts and resources referenced in the show are always available at officialhacksandwonks.com and in our episode notes. If you missed this week's topical shows, we kicked off our series of Seattle City Council candidate interviews. All 14 candidates for 7 positions were invited. And over the last week, we had in-depth conversations with many of them. This week, we presented District 1 candidates, Rob Saka and Maren Costa. Have a listen to those and stay tuned over the coming weeks - we hope these interviews will help voters better understand who these candidates are and inform their choices for the November 7th general election. Today, we're continuing our Friday week-in-review shows where we review the news of the week with a co-host. Welcome back to the program, friend of the show and today's co-host: Seattle political reporter and editor of PubliCola, Erica Barnett. [00:01:37] Erica Barnett: It's great to be here. [00:01:39] Crystal Fincher: Great to have you back. Well, I wanna start off talking about just an infuriating story this week where Seattle police officers - a union leader - joked about killing of a pedestrian by another Seattle police officer - and just really disgusting. What happened here? [00:01:58] Erica Barnett: The Seattle Police Department and the King County Prosecutor's Office actually released this video from the night that Jaahnavi Kandula was killed by Officer Kevin Dave. It is a short clip that shows one-half of a conversation between Daniel Auderer, who is the Seattle Police Officers Guild vice president, and Mike Solan, the president of the police guild - as you said, joking and laughing about the incident that had just happened. And also minimizing the incident - so from what we can hear of Auderer's part of the conversation, he makes some comments implying that the crash wasn't that bad, that Dave was acting within policy, that he was not speeding too much - all of which was not true. He was going 74 miles an hour. The incident was very gruesome and just a horrible tragedy. Then you can hear him saying in a joking manner, "But she is dead." And then he pauses and he says, "No, it's a regular person." in response to something that Solan has said - and there's been a lot of speculation about what that might be. Then he says, "Yeah, just write a check." - after laughing - "Yeah, $11,000. She was 26 anyway, she had limited value." I'm reading the words verbatim, but I really recommend watching the video, which we posted on PubliCola.com, because you can hear the tone and you can hear the sort of cackling laughter - which I think conveys the intent a lot more clearly than just reading a transcript of it. [00:03:23] Crystal Fincher: Yeah, we will link that PubliCola story with the video in our show notes, but it's just infuriating. And just to recap what happened just in the killing of her initially - that was a tragedy and an infuriating event. An officer was responding to a call that arguably police aren't needed at - in other jurisdictions, they don't seem to be needed on those types of calls - but without lights and sirens blaring, going over 70 mph on just a regular City street. And yeah, that's illegal for regular people for a reason - common sense would dictate that would be against policy - we give them lights and sirens for a reason to alert people that they're coming really fast and to clear the way. And it just seemed like Jaahnavi didn't have a chance here. And then the slow leak of information afterwards - just the event itself seemed to devalue their life and the way it was handled - and then to see this as the reaction. If their job is to keep us safe, they seem gleefully opposed to that. [00:04:28] Erica Barnett: Yeah, I think that in the aftermath of the story going national and international, I think that one of the reactions I've heard is - Well, this is how we've always thought - from people who are skeptical of the police, I should say - this is how we've always assumed they talk, but to actually hear it on tape is shocking. And I think what happened in this video, the reason we have it is because Auderer perhaps forgot his body cam was on. 'Cause after he makes his last comment about $11,000, she had limited value, he turns off the camera and we don't hear any more of that conversation. This is a rare look into one such conversation between officers. And I will say too, that there was a - Jason Rantz, a local radio personality, right-wing commentator, tried to pre-spin this by saying that this was just "gallows humor" between two officers, and this is very common in professions where you see a lot of grisly and terrible stuff. And I will just point out, first of all, gallows humor is like making a joke about, I don't know, like a 9/11 joke, you know, 20 years after the fact. It's not on the night that someone was killed, joking about her being essentially worthless and trying to minimize the incident. That's not gallows humor. That's just the way, apparently, the police union VP and president talk amongst each other. It just shows that the culture of the department - we talk a lot about City Hall, which I cover - they talk a lot about recruiting better officers and getting the right kind of police. But the problem is if the culture itself is rotten, there's no fixing that by just putting 5 new officers, 10 new officers at the bottom of the chain. It comes from the top. And that is then - these two officials are at the top of that chain. [00:06:09] Crystal Fincher: It does come from the top. And this also isn't the only time that it seems they have really distastefully discussed deaths at the hands of their officers or other people's deaths. There was a story that made the news not too long ago about them having a tombstone in one of their precincts for someone who was killed. There have been a couple officers who've had complaints for posting social media posts that seem to make fun of protesters who were run over. We have had a protester run over and killed here in the city. This is something that we've talked about that we - as a community - project that is against our values, but we continue to let this police department just mock people's safety in the city. I mean, you know something wild is happening when even Danny Westneat - who I think most people consider to be an extremely moderate, feels in-line with the Seattle Times editorial board, columnist for The Times - even he thinks SPOG has gone too far, and he's notoriously sympathetic to the police department. [00:07:15] Erica Barnett: Yeah, I think that in that article, he almost got there. The article was basically - we desperately need more police, but this darn police union just keeps messing up and saying these terrible things, so we've got to reform this police union - which I just thought was a bizarre note in an otherwise pretty reasonable article because the police union is the top. It is the people that create the culture for the rest of the department in a lot of ways, perhaps more so than the police chief and the command staff. It's made up of cops. The cops vote in the head of the police union, the vice president - they are the ones that are choosing these folks. So if the police union's culture is broken, I think that means that SPD's culture is broken. [00:07:54] Crystal Fincher: Yeah, unions are the culture. I feel like that's a trickle-down effect of anti-labor forces trying to paint unions as separate entities as workers. They are the workers. They're elected and selected by workers. So if anything, they seem to be the distillation of the culture. And there is a problem - I don't think that's controversial to say, I don't think that's even in dispute anymore - widely across this. And there've been, again, lots of people pointing out these problems for years and years. And it feels like this is where we arrive at if we ignore this for so long. As I talked about in the opening, we just got done with a large round of Seattle City Council candidate interviews. And it was really interesting to hear, particularly from a few of them - there's three that I'm thinking of, that people will eventually hear - but who will talk about the need for more cops, who will talk about how important it is to rebuild trust with the community. But over and over again, it seems like they put it completely on the community to be responsible for coddling, and repairing the relationship, and building trust. And it seems like that needs to start on the other side. This is not even something that in polite society would happen, right? These are disgusting comments and disgusting beliefs, no matter who has them or where they come from. And we basically have sanctioned and hand over the power to violate people's civic rights to a department where this happens. And it's just a real challenge. And we have several councilmembers right now who have talked about needing to bring accountability and reform the police department in campaign materials when they were running. And it just seems like that dropped off the face of the earth. This should be a priority. But more than everything else, I wanna talk about the responsibility that the mayor has here - it's like he disappears in these conversations and we talk about the council and we talk about the police department. Bruce Harrell is their boss. Bruce Harrell is the executive in charge here. Chief Adrian Diaz serves at the pleasure of, is appointed by the mayor. This is the executive's responsibility. The buck literally stops with him on this. And he seems to just be largely absent. I think I saw comments that he may have issued an apology this morning, but - Where is he on talking about the culture? Where is his outrage? Where is he in dealing with this? And this is happening amid a backdrop of a SPOG contract negotiation. How is he going to address the issues here in this contract? Or are we gonna paper over it? There's a lot talked about - one of his chief lieutenants, Tim Burgess, a former police officer, and how sympathetic he's been to police - and is that going to create a situation where this is yet another event that goes unaddressed in policy, and we don't put anything in place to prevent this from happening again? [00:10:45] Erica Barnett: Harrell's statement was very much like a "bad apple" statement without completing the thought, which is that a bad apple ruins the bunch - that we're disheartened by the comments of this one officer. As you said, not addressing the culture, not addressing the fact that he can actually do something about this stuff. He is the person with the power. And as you mentioned, he was basically absent - made a statement in response to some questions, but it was pretty terse, and it didn't get at the larger cultural issues that I think this does reflect. [00:11:14] Crystal Fincher: Absolutely. And I know there were comments, I saw comments from a couple of City councilmembers as of last night - calls to hear from more on their opinion on this issue. I have not seen more - we'll see if those trickle in over the coming day or two. But Bruce Harrell has the responsibility and the power to do something about this. Is he going to use it? - that's the question people should be asking, even more than what Chief Adrian Diaz is gonna do. This is unacceptable behavior. This absolutely speaks to the culture, and it's time we have someone who takes that seriously as an executive. Now, I also wanna talk about news that came out this week - that wasn't necessarily surprising, but certainly a benchmark and a milestone in a campaign - and that is current Attorney General Bob Ferguson officially announced his candidacy for governor and came with the endorsement of Jay Inslee. How do you see him as a candidate and his position in this field so far? [00:12:17] Erica Barnett: It's a big deal. I think Ferguson has been waiting patiently - or not - to run for governor for a while. He's had this trajectory - waited for Inslee when he decided to run again last time - this is the reward. I think it puts him very much in the front of the field as Inslee's successor. Obviously we'll see, but I think Inslee is a fairly popular governor. You see this in a lot of races, where you have an anointed person - the King County Council, Teresa Mosqueda is kind of similar - comes in with all the endorsements and I think is well-placed to win. So yeah, I think this puts Ferguson in a really strong position. [00:12:52] Crystal Fincher: He is in a really strong position. As we know - I wish it wasn't the case, but unfortunately it is reality - that money matters a lot in politics right now. It's the only reliable way to communicate with voters en masse. There's earned media, but there's less reporters around the state than there used to be. So paying to put communications in front of voters is something that needs to be done. Paying a staff that can manage a campaign of that scale is something that needs to be done. And Bob Ferguson is head and shoulders above everyone else - he has more than double what all of the other candidates have combined in terms of finances, so that puts him in a great position. Obviously having the endorsement of the most visible Democrat in the state right now is something that every candidate would accept - I'm sure almost every candidate on the Democratic side would accept right now. It's gonna be interesting. But I do think we still have a lot of time left, there's still a lot of conversation left. It is an interesting field from Hilary Franz to Mark Mullet, a moderate or conservative Democrat. And then on the Republican side, Dave Reichert and Semi Bird - one who I think is trading in on his reputation, at least in a lot of media stories as a moderate, but from being pro-life, anti-choice, to a number of other viewpoints - I don't know that realistically he's a moderate, just kind of a standard Republican. And then Semi Bird, who's endorsed by people like Joe Kent and others, who are definitely on the far right-wing side. So this is gonna be an interesting race. There's a lot of time left. And I still think even though Bob Ferguson - I think it's uncontroversial to say he's the front runner - still important to really examine what they believe, to talk to the voters around the state. And it seems like he's taking that seriously and vigorously campaigning. So we'll continue to follow what this race is, but it is going to be an interesting one. [00:14:54] Erica Barnett: I will say really quickly too, that Reichert does not seem to be running a particularly active campaign. He's not, from what I hear, out there doing a lot of on-the-ground campaigning the way that Ferguson has. So while I think you're gonna hear a lot about him on TV news and more right-leaning publications, I think that we're talking about the Democratic side of the field because it's very unlikely that we'll have a Republican governor - even one who has a lot of name recognition like Reichert. [00:15:20] Crystal Fincher: Yeah, absolutely. So we'll continue to follow that. And just as an aside, I thought I would mention that in the race, another statewide race, for Public Lands Commissioner, State Senator Rebecca Saldaña jumped into the race - joining State Senator Mona Das, Makah Tribal member Patrick Finedays DePoe, King County Councilmember Dave Upthegrove, and current State Senator Kevin Van De Wege. As well as on the Republican side - I'm not sure how to pronounce her name - but Sue Kuehl Pederson. It's a crowded race that's going to be an interesting one. And I'm really curious to continue to see what Senator Rebecca Saldaña has to say, as well as the other ones. But that's a crowded race, and that one could be very interesting. [00:16:03] Erica Barnett: Absolutely. Weirdly crowded race. [00:16:05] Crystal Fincher: Yeah, very interesting. [00:16:06] Erica Barnett: Or surprisingly - I don't know about weirdly - but surprisingly crowded. [00:16:09] Crystal Fincher: Yeah, surprisingly. Rich Smith of The Stranger did an article about that this week, which we will link in the show notes. Now, I also want to talk about news we received this week about another long-standing issue tied to both public safety and a former mayor. And that's news that we received that former Seattle Mayor Jenny Durkan and former Seattle Police Chief Carmen Best will not be facing charges for deleting texts. What was the finding here and what does this mean? [00:16:39] Erica Barnett: Yeah, as we all know, they deleted tens of thousands of texts, many of them during the crucial period when 2020 protests were going on, when they were amassing troops - so to speak - and reacting with force to people protesting police violence after George Floyd was killed. And the finding essentially was that the King County Prosecutor's Office could not prove beyond a reasonable doubt that these deletions had been intentional and that they were trying to effectively conceal public records. It's a pretty high standard of proof that they have to meet at the prosecutor's office. I read the entire report from the investigator - what was released to reporters earlier this week - I have to say they put a lot of faith, I think, in or at least trust in public officials' statements that they sort of didn't know anything about the City's retention policy for cell phones, for text messages. The excuse was often - Well, I thought they were being preserved in a server somewhere, so it was fine to delete them. And I asked - because I think we all know when we delete our text messages, they're gone. You can't just get them back. AT&T doesn't have a server for us somewhere where we can get our text messages. So I said - Do they not understand how cell phones work? Was there any training on this? - and the response was - Well, I would dispute that they understand how cell phones work and there was training, but it was mostly about email. There's some stuff in here that kind of strains credulity a little bit, but again, it's a high standard of proof they had to meet, so that was their argument. There's a civil case where a federal judge said that it was unlikely that they didn't know what they were doing, but he had a lower standard of proof. So that's why it's a slightly different conclusion from basically the same facts. [00:18:17] Crystal Fincher: Yeah, I think these are always interesting situation - when it comes to an actual charging decision and what's needed there. I'm sure they're considering - unfortunately in our society today, they can afford significant defenses that are not available to a lot of people - that may have factored into their decision. But overall, it just once again seems like there is a different standard for people with power than those without power. And we're having conversations about people dealing with addiction, about people shoplifting for financial reasons - and even not for financial reasons - people being assaulted and in some instances killed for petty theft, or eviction, or different things. And it seems like we have no problem cracking down and expecting perfect compliance from people without power. But those that do just don't seem to be held to the same standard of accountability. And I think that's damaging and troubling. And I think we need to explore that and make sure we do hold people accountable. And it also just doesn't, once again, escape my notice that these aren't the first controversies that either one of them dealt with that did not have the kind of accountability attached to them. And so yes, it's a slippery slope. And if you keep sliding, you're gonna wind up in a low, dirty place. And once again, this is part of what undermines people's trust in power, and in institutions, and in democracy. And we need to be doing all we can to move in the opposite direction right now - to build trust and to conduct actions with integrity. And it just doesn't seem like that is a priority everywhere - they know they can get away with it - and it's really frustrating and disheartening, and we just need to do better overall. [00:20:05] Erica Barnett: To put a fine point on one of the things that the investigation revealed to me that I was not aware of actually about public disclosure - which is that text messages, according to the City, can be deleted if they are "transitory" in nature. And "transitory" is defined as not relating to policy decisions or things of substance like that, which means that according to Durkan and Best, it was fine to delete anything that was not like - We are going to adopt this policy or propose this policy, or our policy is to tear gas all protesters or something like that. So if it's tactical in the moment, that was not preserved. But I do records requests - I get text messages from officials - and a lot of times they include stuff that Durkan and Best are defining as transitory, like text message - I mean, I'm just making this up - but an official saying this other official is a jerk or somebody. There's all kinds of sort of process related text messages and texts that give some insight to decision-making that would be considered transitory. It is entirely possible that Durkan and Best are deleting all of those kinds of messages, which is not something I think should be deleted, and that I think is in the public interest to know about if people are requesting it. So I found that very disturbing - this notion that you can just destroy records if they aren't related to policy. I think in practice, most officials know better than that - and that's just based on records requests I've done - but apparently that's a big loophole that I think should be closed in the policies at the City, if at all possible. [00:21:33] Crystal Fincher: Absolutely. Now I wanna talk about the return of the drug criminalization bill in the City of Seattle. What's happening with this? [00:21:43] Erica Barnett: The City Council's Public Safety Committee voted this week to basically move it forward to the full council. There's a new version that has a lot of nice language - in the sort of non-binding whereas clauses - about we don't wanna start another drug war and we definitely, for sure for real, prefer diversion. But essentially the impact of the bill is the same as it has always been, which is to empower the city attorney to prosecute and empower police to arrest for people using drugs in public and for simple possession of drugs other than cannabis. There's some language in the bill - and including in the text of the bill itself - that says there will be a policy in the future that says that police should try to put people into diversion programs first. And there's a couple kinds of diversion programs that we fund - inadequately currently - to actually divert the number of people that would be eligible now. So the impact of this bill is, I think, going to actually be pretty limited because - unless the mayor proposes massive investments in diversion programs like LEAD, potentially like some of these pretrial diversion programs that City Attorney's Office wants to fund. But we're facing a huge budget deficit in 2025 and years out, so it feels like a lot of kind of smoke-and-mirrors talk. We really love diversion, but we're not gonna fund it. And maybe I'll be proven wrong in two weeks when the mayor releases his budget, but my bet is that there's not gonna be massive new funding for these programs and that this is gonna end up being mostly talk. [00:23:19] Crystal Fincher: Yeah, mostly talk. And just on that specifically - that the mayor did announce $27 million to help support this effort. Is that $27 million - is it what it sounds like? [00:23:33] Erica Barnett: Yeah, this is like one of the things that I feel like I've been shouting from the rooftops, and all the other local press - I don't know why - keep reporting it as if it is a $27 million check of new money, but it's actually $7 million that's left over in federal CDBG [Community Development Block Grant] grant funding that has to be spent, but the City has failed to spend it so far. So that's a lump sum - some of that's gonna go to an opiate recovery site run by DESC that I wrote about at PubliCola a couple of weeks ago. And then the rest is a slow trickle, over 18 years, of funding from a previously announced opiate settlement. And so that's gonna be on average about $1 million a year. As City Councilmember Teresa Mosqueda was pointing out earlier this week, a lot of that - 20% of that goes to administrative overhead. So you're really looking at more $700,000-$800,000 a year, and it diminishes in out years - that is what they call budget dust - it is not enough to pay for virtually anything. I don't know what they're going to ultimately spend that trickle of funding on, but it's definitely not $27 million. That's what I mean by smoke and mirrors - that's a good example. It looks like a fairly big number, but then you realize it's stretched out into the 2030s and it's not nearly as big looking - actually, sorry, the 2040s, I believe, if I'm doing my math right - it doesn't look nearly as big when you actually look at what it is. So I encourage people to do that, and I've written more about this at PubliCola too. [00:24:58] Crystal Fincher: Yeah, absolutely. We can also link that article. The most frustrating thing to me about Seattle politics, I think - in addition to just the endless process and reconsideration of things instead of making a decision and doing it - is this thing right here where there is a problem and people seem to actually, in public, rhetorically agree with the problem. Arresting people just for drug offenses does not solve that problem - it destabilizes people more, jail is not an effective place for drug treatment. Does that mean no one in the history of ever has ever become clean in jail? - there have been people, but they're few and far between. And experience and research and common sense, when you look at what actually happens there, really shows that is more of a destabilizing experience, that people who are in addiction need treatment, effective treatment, for that addiction and substance use disorder. And for people who may be recreationally using, sending them to jail doesn't help them when it comes to - and in fact, it's very hurtful - when it comes to finding a job, to securing housing, a variety of things. And that often has a more negative effect when it comes to forcing people into needing assistance, into needing help or completely falling through the cracks and becoming homeless - and dealing with the challenges there that we all pay for as a society. And so here we are again, where we actually did not solve the problem that everyone is articulating - and it seems like we just punted on that. But we're funding the thing that we say is not going to solve the problem, that we're confident is not going to solve the problem - and wrapping words around everything else, but that action isn't there. And I think what's frustrating to a lot of people, including me, it's sometimes - people on the left or Democrats are in this larger public safety conversation get painted as not wanting to do anything. And that's just so far from the truth. This is a problem, we need to address it. I just want to do something that has a chance of helping. And it seems like we're throwing good money after bad here and investing in something that we know is not going to be very helpful, meanwhile not funding the things that will be. And so we're going to be a year or two down the line and we'll see what the conversation we continue to have then is, but wondering at which point we stop doing the same thing that keeps getting us these suboptimal results. [00:27:20] Erica Barnett: And this is one place that you can blame the city council. I know the city council gets blamed for everything, but they are out there saying that this is a massively changed bill and it's changed in meaningful ways - in my opinion, it really hasn't been. [00:27:32] Crystal Fincher: I agree with that. I want to conclude by talking about a story that you wrote at PubliCola this week, talking about challenges with the way interviews for the Regional Homeless Authority's Five-Year Plan. What happened here and what were the problems? [00:27:49] Erica Barnett: Yeah, the new Five-Year Plan for homelessness, which was pretty controversial when it first came out because it had a $12 billion price tag, was based largely on 180 interviews that the homelessness authority did with people who are unsheltered in places around the county. And the interviews were basically 31 questions that they were supposed to vaguely stick to, but some that they really needed to get the answers to - for demographic reasons - and didn't always. The interviews were conducted primarily by members of the Lived Experience Coalition with some KCRHA staff doing them too. I've read about 90 of the 180, so about half of the 180 so far - and I would describe them as primarily being very discursive, very non-scientific. And it's not just that they are qualitative interviews 'cause it's fine for a qualitative interview to ramble - I talked to a couple of experts about how this kind of research usually works - and the idea is to make it more like a conversation, and that was the goal here. But in a lot of cases, the interviewers were doing things like suggesting answers, like interrupting, like talking at great length about themselves and their own experience, making suggestions, making assurances or promises that they could help them with services. There are just all kinds of things going on in these interviews that are not best practices for this type of interview. And then the interviews, which generally, people didn't tend to answer the question - there was a question about what has been helpful or harmful to you - and the goal there was to get people to say things that would suggest a shelter type, for example. They almost never said a specific shelter type except for a tiny house village, but the interviews were then coded by researchers to sort of lead to a specific set of shelter types. And without getting into too much technical detail, the idea was if somebody said they wanted X type of service or they had Y type of problem, that would suggest they needed Z type of service. So you're living in your car, you probably need a place to park your car safely. You're living in an RV, you need an RV safe lot. And the problem is, first of all, you're extrapolating from 180 interviews. And second, some of these solutions are pretty determinative. If you live in an RV, do you wanna live in an RV forever? Maybe not. Anyway, it just, it was not a great process to come up with this plan that ultimately is a plan to spend billions of dollars, even if it doesn't have that price tag, on a specific breakdown of types of service. And so I think they're not gonna do it again this way next year, but I think it did really inform this plan in a way that was not always super helpful. [00:30:23] Crystal Fincher: Yeah, and I do know a little something about qualitative and quantitative research. As you said, doing qualitative interviews - in a narrative format, having a conversation - is not in itself a bad thing, but you can't interject your experience. You can't help inform the answers of the people you're talking to and that seemed to happen. And it really did seem like it was - they had an ambitious plan, maybe the training for how to do this was not as comprehensive as it needed to be - that certainly appears to be the case. Initially, they actually did hundreds, multiple hundreds of interviews for this, but a lot of them had to just be discarded - they were so outside of the bounds of what was supposed to happen, they were not able to be included in what they considered their final data set. And that's really unfortunate. It's a lot of time, it's a lot of effort - especially with populations that are harder to consistently contact and follow up with, any chance you have to connect with them is really meaningful. And so if you don't utilize that time correctly, or if you can't do anything with that, that just seems like an extra painful loss. I understand the ambition to get this done, but the execution really suffered. And I hope that there are lessons learned from this. Even in the ones that were done wrong - I say it seems like an issue of training and overambition, 'cause usually there is a lot of training that goes into how to do this. Usually these are people's professions that actually do this. It's not - Oh, hey, today we're gonna do some qualitative interviews and just walk up and have a conversation and check some things off the list. - it doesn't work that way. So that was unfortunate to hear. And the recommendations from this - I don't know if they change or not after review of this whole situation - but certainly when you know that eyes are going to be getting wide looking at the price tag of this, you really do have to make sure that you're executing and implementing well and that was a challenge here. So how do they move on from this? Was it at all addressed? Are they gonna do this again? What's going to happen? [00:32:25] Erica Barnett: I don't think they're gonna do the qualitative interviews, at least in this way again. I think this was something that Marc Dones really emphasized - the former head of the KCRHA - really wanted to do. And it got rolled into also doing the Point-In-Time count based on extrapolations from this group of folks they interviewed. They call these oral histories and really emphasized the need to get this data. I don't think it's gonna happen again based on what KCRHA officials told me, but qualitative data - I mean, I should say, is not as you mentioned a bad thing - it can be very useful. But the training that they received was a one-time training, or perhaps in two parts, by Marc Dones - I don't think they have anybody on staff right now that is trained in the kind of stuff that Dones was training them on. So I think this is probably one of many things that we'll see that happened under - in the first two years of the agency - that's gonna go by the wayside in the future. So doubt we'll see this again. [00:33:22] Crystal Fincher: Yeah, I hope - there usually is really useful information and insight that comes from doing qualitative research. I don't think that we should necessarily throw the baby out with the bathwater here overall, but certainly this was a big challenge. And I hope that informs how they choose to move forward in the future. But with that, we thank you for listening to Hacks & Wonks on this Friday, September 15th, 2023. The producer of Hacks & Wonks is the wonderful Dr. Shannon Cheng. Our insightful co-host today is Seattle political reporter and editor of PubliCola, Erica Barnett. You can find Erica on Twitter @ericacbarnett, or X formerly known as Twitter, as @ericacbarnett and on PubliCola.com. You can follow Hacks & Wonks on Twitter @HacksWonks. You can find me on multiple platforms as @finchfrii, that's F-I-N-C-H-F-R-I-I. You can catch Hacks & Wonks wherever you get your podcasts - just type "Hacks and Wonks" into the search bar. Be sure to subscribe to the podcast to get the full versions of our Friday week-in-review shows and our Tuesday topical show delivered to your podcast feed. If you like us, leave a review wherever you listen. You can also get the full transcript of this episode and links to the resources referenced in the show at officialhacksandwonks.com and in the podcast episode notes. Thanks for tuning in - talk to you next time.

Author Cheryl Head is known for her page turning novels and her newest book, "Time's Undoing," is her most personal yet. She joins Idaho Matters to talk more about how her outrage over the murder of George Floyd in 2020 compelled her to write her latest novel.

Rushion interviews Attorney Ben Crump, also known as Black America's attorney general. A stalwart dedication to justice and service has made Benjamin Crump a nationally recognized civil rights and personal injury attorney. Attorney Crump has helped families who have been wronged to reach historic settlements or verdicts. Crump was awarded a judgment of $411 million for Duane Washington, who was seriously injured in a truck crash. He also helped to reach a $ 641 million settlement for Flint's children. A $27 million settlement was reached for George Floyd, and a $12 million settlement is for Breonna Taylor. There have been over 200 million settlements in cases involving banking while Black.See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

Matt Gutman is ABC News' Chief National Correspondent based in Los Angeles. He reports for all ABC News broadcasts and platforms, including “World News Tonight with David Muir,” “20/20,” “Good Morning America” and “Nightline.” He has reported for ABC from 40 countries across the globe. A multiple award-winning correspondent, Matt has covered the COVID-19 crisis, the protests in American streets following the death of George Floyd, the immigration crisis, and countless foreign and domestic terror attacks. Over the past half-decade, he has been one of the most frequently used correspondents on “20/20.” Matt's tireless reporting helped “20/20” win an Emmy® for its documentary on the 2017 Las Vegas massacre and a Christopher Award for its reporting on the Thai cave rescue. He followed every step of that treacherous mission to save the 12 boys and their soccer coach from a flooded cave in Thailand. Matt subsequently authored “The Boys in the Cave,” which chronicled the heroics of a motley crew of cave diving misfits, the US Airforce, and Thai Navy Seals who spearheaded the rescue.  Previously based in Miami, Matt won awards for his coverage of the Trayvon Martin Shooting and the BP Oil spill. From 2013-2018 he hosted the ABC Television Network's Saturday morning show, “Sea Rescue,” which won the 2016 Emmy for “Outstanding Children's Series.” Before joining ABC News in 2008 where he started at ABC News Radio, Matt was a Jerusalem-based reporter for seven years, covering every major conflict in the Middle East. Matt is married and a father of two. He is a graduate of Williams College in Massachusetts. On this episode, Matt discusses his second book, “No Time to Panic: How I Curbed My Anxiety and Conquered a Lifetime of Panic Attacks”. As an added bonus, Matt shares a new one way ticket – to the room in Tallahassee, Florida during the November 2000 election where the hanging chads were selected.

In the past few weeks, our country has been reminded of the reality of racism. As Christian leaders, how should we as the church respond? And what can we do on an individual basis? While some of us may not be affected by or see racism on a regular basis, the issue was brought to light in a significant way in recent weeks due to the death of George Floyd (among other incidents). As I considered this issue, I knew this was something I wanted to address on this podcast. Yet I knew that I needed to invite someone who has the expertise to speak to this topic. In this episode, I'm talking with my friend Dr. Shannon Polk. Shannon shares her leadership journey and how she ended up as a lawyer, associate pastor, wife, and mother. Despite being encouraged in her leadership gifts for most of her childhood and young adult years, she still faced doubts about her gifts and leadership ability later in adulthood. For the full show notes for this episode, head to estherlittlefield.com/episode103 STAY CONNECTED: Subscribe on your favorite podcast app. Click here to find all the options where you can find the podcast. Join our Purposeful Leadership Facebook group! In the Facebook group, we can chat about what you need as a leader, what your challenges are, as well as celebrate the wins. This is a great community to learn and grow together. We want to get to know YOU. Other Ways to Connect with Esther and the Christian Woman Leadership Podcast: Esther's Instagram Holly's Instagram Holly's Website Facebook Page

 To introduce my guest, I'm going to steal some rather uncomfortable, inconvenient facts from her new book. For hundreds of years, Asians, especially Indians, have believed that if you are fair, light skinned, it means that you are superior. That's right – white supremacy doesn't just exist among white people. Sadly, this is still the case even in modern, ‘liberated' India. Global sales of skin lightening products are expected to cross $8.9 billion by 2024, according to the World Economic Forum. Ever since the Black Lives Matter protests in 2020 following the brutal murder of George Floyd, my guest found herself sharing innumerable stories with her husband and kids about her painful past. Ever wondered what persistent bullying will do to a 6 year old in the long term? Ask a 45 year old. Ask Shweta Aggarwal. Shweta is an anti-colourism activist with a colourful life. A computer science engineer by trade, her passion is dance and writing. Shweta grew up in India and Japan, and has lived in the UK for almost 25 years. We have a lot to unpack with Shweta, and talk about things like how skin-tone bias affects racial equality at work and also, all things career pivots. Learn more about Shweta Aggarwal: https://shwetaaggarwal.com/Follow her on Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/theblackroseway/https://www.instagram.com/theblackroseway/Get The Black Rose and Shweta's other books:https://shwetaaggarwal.com/product/the-black-rose/The semi-final at Britain's Got Talent 2010:https://youtu.be/5CnWXjr68p4?si=dlSl1w-0rpR3A29J------ Liked this episode? A few things:1. Share the podcast with three of your closest friends! And please leave a great review on Apple Podcasts here or Spotify here (tap on the three-dot menu under the cover art of the podcast) , as it would mean a lot to me and hopefully help others discover it. 2. You will love my emails called Charge-Up! I send them every few weeks, they're no fluff no spam, where I share my favourite career insights from movies, TV shows, news and my own personal experiences, that I don't share anywhere else. Make sure you sign up here!  3. Come hang out with me LIVE on LinkedIn and Youtube every Friday at 2 pm CET where I answer your questions and often bring in fab guests:LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/sonalbahl/ Youtube: https://www.youtube.com/SuperChargeYourself4. Share your favourite takeaways and tag me on your Instagram and LinkedIn.