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Joseph Mangano's avatar

I would like to provide sophisticated and cogent analysis on this morning, but the best I can offer is that Tom Cotton is a slimy weasel (apologies to actual weasels).

Robert Honeyman's avatar

Seems sufficiently sophisticated and cogent to me. 😏

Linda Lutz's avatar

The property damage photos in Tom Cotton's article didn't include the riotous insurrection looting that occurred Jan 6. How to Lie with Statistics...of all kinds.

Ian Mark Sirota's avatar

There is a quote that is often attributed to Mark Twain: There are three kinds of lies: Lies, Damned lies, and statistics.

Very appropriate here, I think.

Professor Grandma's avatar

Thank you for this excellent analysis of crime in the US. By cherry picking the data, Tom Cotton willfully distorts the picture. But his goal is not truth,-- he aims to fire up the base. Anger and fear are his primary tools to keep the voters engaged.

Katy Bolger's avatar

Judd, Did you search for the images in Cotton's fear ad? It would be interesting to see where and when these photos were taken.

Miles's avatar

Excellent and timely summary, Judd and Rebecca. Thank you for putting this together.

Tony Biebuyck's avatar

Excellent analysis of right wing fake news, in Trump speak, alternative facts. Crime is a product of complex social factors, of which police is just one and post hoc reactive, not causation. On a positive note, alternative facts may suggest succession and a disunited States. Leave the Republicans to the conspiracy freedoms they covet with the Littoral Urban states relatively free and sane. New York could of course extradite Giulani.

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Oct 6, 2021
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Shannon W's avatar

Oh you're spot on about that. SF is full of people who love to talk about how liberal they are right up until it's something that might inconvenience them or cost them a red cent, then they turn into reactionaries. There's one bone I have to pick though: most cities tend to be liberal for a reason, people are packed in together and most cities are fairly cosmopolitan, because big cities tend to be port cities. Same reason as people with college educations tend to be somewhat more politically and socially liberal, they are exposed to new ideas, new cultures and new people. Doesn't stop them from being selfish uncompassionate snobs though.

TLH's avatar

I believe the correct term should be "Reimagine Public Safety".

Deborah Ruf's avatar

This is great! That you for pulling all this together so clearly.

Tony Biebuyck's avatar

Well said. Please forgive ignorance from a U.K. resident. And worse, I’m denigrating the views of people on the right who feel the threat of a changing world.

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Oct 6, 2021
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Ian Mark Sirota's avatar

This is a point I have often made. At the risk of being crude, I think that every Republican has an orgasm when those slogans are uttered/written.

Shannon W's avatar

Me too, and when you actually try to pin people down on what they mean by "defund the police" and "abolish prisons" and "open borders," they walk it back and say they don't --really-- mean that literally. I say, try saying what you mean then. Problem is that many on the far left actually DO mean it literally, and that's a problem. We can't just let dangerous people go free, we can't not enforce laws, and we can't just open the floodgates to everyone without any controls at all. It's foolish slogans uttered by foolish people who mean it and foolish other people who don't recognize how they're being manipulated.