A few days ago we and other news outlets reported on the ‘Wisconsin Poll Watcher Militia’, a seeming harmonic convergence of two great TPM obsessions, voter harassment and militia. Caitlin MacNeal dives a little deeper to find out just what this group is about. A threat? A Prank? “One or two morons who apparently have access to the Internet”? By the end the distinction between the three options seem less and less distinct.
The horrifying South Carolina police shooting video reminds me of this new course the St Louis Police Academy is offering on how win the media controversy after you shoot a civilian.
Cato Institute yanks blog post comparing Eric Holder to George Wallace.
A group styling itself the “Wisconsin Poll Watcher Militia” makes crazy claims on Facebook about sending armed members to polling places to intimidate Democratic voters. Local media pick up on it, election officials begin to look into it, rival Facebook pages pop up to “watch the watchers.” But then the “group” says it was just trolling all along. Caitlin MacNeal reports on the wackiness in Wisconsin.
Sometimes the race hustlers at Fox News really outdo themselves. Watch.
Seeing repeated cable news commentary on how Eric Holder was a particular target of vilification from Capitol Hill as a proxy for animus toward President Obama. Why Holder? Something missing from this commentary?
We should always be skeptical of seemingly easy technical solutions to problems that are deeply embedded in our society. But this videotape of a totally innocent, totally non-threatening black motorist shot multiple times by a (at best) jumpy and panicked state trooper tells us that dash-cams should become standard for law enforcement around the country.
The most compelling figure in our story on armed contractors patrolling private lands in northern California for illegal marijuana farms is the beleaguered county sheriff: “Honestly, what could possibly go wrong here? A lot more things are going to go wrong than are going to go right.” Read it.