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So if the municipal govt = the Sherrif of Nottingham, who gets to be Robin Hood?
The strawman
I think you've got the analogy confused. The strawman isfrom the story about the girl and her dog trying to find a wizard, I'm talking about the anthropomorphic fox who shoots arrows at hippo halberdiers.
Nope. No confusion. No one mentioned a Sheriff of Nottingham character, or associated behaviours. What was mentioned was that if people want increased public services it comes at a cost, and that there is a balance to achieve. Therefore you invented a strawman
The associated behavior is already a matter of public record:
Between the years of 2010 and 2014, revenues from fines and fees assessed by the Ferguson PD almost tripled, from $1.38M to over $3.0M. As a consequence, the portion of the city’s budget that was comprised by revenue from these fines increased from about 10% to about 25%. Each year the city has budgeted for these increases and clearly ordered the FPD to get them at any cost.
If the local govt is going to send the FPD out to squeeze $3,000,000 of fines out of the 21,000 residents and have the black population pay a disproportionate amount of the cost and do all of it without raising taxes or putting any revenue initiatives on a ballot for a popular referendum that strikes me as oppressive behavior similar to the Sherrif of Nottingham. Unless the people of Ferguson elected officials who ran campaigns on the premise that they intended in massively increase police citations or brought the matter before the people in some other manner.
A controversial conservative activist is being accused of trying to incite anti-police protesters by saying, “I wish I could kill some of these cops,” to provoke them into making outrageous statements.
A former top staffer with Project Veritas, Richard Valdes, said the incident occurred in January, when an undercover operative assigned to infiltrate the protest groups was given a script that included the startling comment.
Valdes said he was fired by the group’s founder, James O’Keefe, for not following through on the bizarre assignment.
Valdes said Veritas assigned a Muslim undercover agent pretending to be anti-cop to attend protest meetings and utter the following statement: “Sometimes, I wish I could just kill some of these cops.
Don’t you just wish we could have one of the cops right here in the middle of our group?”
But the undercover agent refused, according to Valdes.
“I will not say words that will jeopardize my entity, especially when they involve an illegal act of ‘murdering police,’ ” the agent wrote in a Jan. 9 e-mail to Valdes and cc’d to O’Keefe.
Valdes claims O’Keefe, known for hidden-camera tactics against liberal groups, fired him “because he was unhappy with me for being unwilling to strong-arm the guy to do his dirty work.”
Valdes and his lawyer, Arthur Schwartz, are threatening to sue for wrongful termination.
“Project Veritas would never do anything that we believe would incite violence against police officers. Anyone suggesting otherwise is clearly unfamiliar with our body of work,” Veritas spokesman Dan Pollack said.
Prestor Jon wrote: The associated behavior is already a matter of public record:
Between the years of 2010 and 2014, revenues from fines and fees assessed by the Ferguson PD almost tripled, from $1.38M to over $3.0M. As a consequence, the portion of the city’s budget that was comprised by revenue from these fines increased from about 10% to about 25%. Each year the city has budgeted for these increases and clearly ordered the FPD to get them at any cost.
If the local govt is going to send the FPD out to squeeze $3,000,000 of fines out of the 21,000 residents and have the black population pay a disproportionate amount of the cost and do all of it without raising taxes or putting any revenue initiatives on a ballot for a popular referendum that strikes me as oppressive behavior similar to the Sherrif of Nottingham. Unless the people of Ferguson elected officials who ran campaigns on the premise that they intended in massively increase police citations or brought the matter before the people in some other manner.
So no new taxes were implemented. There were no arbitrary laws passed to increase government coffers. People were instead fined for breaking the law. So nothing at all like the Sheriff of Nottingham.
d-usa wrote: NY Post, so take with heavy grain of salt:
A controversial conservative activist is being accused of trying to incite anti-police protesters by saying, “I wish I could kill some of these cops,” to provoke them into making outrageous statements.
A former top staffer with Project Veritas, Richard Valdes, said the incident occurred in January, when an undercover operative assigned to infiltrate the protest groups was given a script that included the startling comment.
Valdes said he was fired by the group’s founder, James O’Keefe, for not following through on the bizarre assignment.
Valdes said Veritas assigned a Muslim undercover agent pretending to be anti-cop to attend protest meetings and utter the following statement: “Sometimes, I wish I could just kill some of these cops.
Don’t you just wish we could have one of the cops right here in the middle of our group?”
But the undercover agent refused, according to Valdes.
“I will not say words that will jeopardize my entity, especially when they involve an illegal act of ‘murdering police,’ ” the agent wrote in a Jan. 9 e-mail to Valdes and cc’d to O’Keefe.
Valdes claims O’Keefe, known for hidden-camera tactics against liberal groups, fired him “because he was unhappy with me for being unwilling to strong-arm the guy to do his dirty work.”
Valdes and his lawyer, Arthur Schwartz, are threatening to sue for wrongful termination.
“Project Veritas would never do anything that we believe would incite violence against police officers. Anyone suggesting otherwise is clearly unfamiliar with our body of work,” Veritas spokesman Dan Pollack said.
I have the same contempt for him as every other person who stood inciting violence.
So someone was assaulted by three young men over the Brown shootings
CNN)When one man sat down next to a second man in a St. Louis light rail car late Monday and asked him his opinion on the shooting of Michael Brown, it was not the beginning of a discussion.
It was the start of an assault, police said.
The second man, who was white, didn't want to answer the question. Then the first man, who was black, boxed him in the face. Two more African-American men joined in the beating, according to a police report.
It was caught on surveillance cameras on the MetroLink train and a passenger recorded it with a cell phone and posted the video online. It has gone viral.
Police confirmed to CNN affiliate KMOV that the online images came from Monday's attack.
Late commute
The victim, 43, was commuting home when a young man in a red T-shirt and cap walked up to him. The victim asked not to be named in media reports.
The man asked to use the victim's cell phone. He declined, and the young man sat down beside him.
"Then he asked me my opinion on the Michael Brown thing," the victim told KMOV, "and I responded I was too tired to think about it right now."
The suspect, in his twenties, stood up.
"The next thing I know, he sucker punches me right in the middle of my face," the victim said. The video showed the suspect unleashing a barrage of punches at the head of the victim, who covered himself with his hand and forearms.
The two other men, also in their twenties, joined in, police said. As the train pulled into a station, a security guard saw part of the beating and alerted police.
The man in the red T-shirt could be seen on video kicking at the victim's face before the train's doors opened and the assailants ran out.
Faces on camera
The train's surveillance cameras captured clear images of their faces, which MetroLink passed on to journalists. Police are looking for the three men.
They face possible charges of third-degree assault, police said. It is a misdemeanor under Missouri law.
The victim was left with bruises on his face and forehead, police said. The first punch dug the frame of his eyeglasses into the skin of his nose, the victim said. He declined to receive medical treatment.
But then there was the emotional pain. On the video, people could be heard laughing while the man was beaten.
"I think it was disgusting that people were sort of laughing and smiling about it," the victim said. "And no one offered to help. No one seemed to call 911."
Condemnation of the beating has spread across social media, including from people who protested the shooting of Brown last year by a white police officer in Ferguson, Missouri. The officer was not indicted in Brown's death. St. Louis alderman Antonio French, a vocal community leader in the aftermath of Ferguson, tweeted his disappointment in the beating.