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Rep. Vicky Hartzler (r): Have you talked to Mitch McConnell (r) lately?

19 Friday Jul 2019

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So, does Representative Ilhan Omar (D) “hate America”? Should she be sent back where she came from?

Representative Vicky Hartzler (r) [2018 file photo].

From Representative Vicky Hartzler (r):

Hartzler Statement on House Resolution Condemning President
July 16, 2019 Press Release
WASHINGTON, D.C. – Congresswoman Vicky Hartzler (MO-04) made the following statement regarding House consideration of H.R. 489, the Democrat House resolution condemning President Trump:

“With four weeks of congressional session remaining before our government faces yet another government shutdown, the House of Representatives should focus on the job it was elected to do, not political theater.

“Instead of wasting time passing resolutions condemning the President, House Democrats should focus on the basic fundamental responsibilities of governing, like passing a budget and keeping the government functioning as well as addressing the challenges of illegal immigration, the flow of illegal drugs over our border, and the need for affordable health care. These are the issues I am working on and the American people are pleading with Congress to deal with – not efforts to impeach the President as called for by a growing number of Democrats in the House.

“There is little doubt that we have a loss of political civility on both sides of the aisle, and we are better than this. However, the political theatrics behind this resolution fail to address the urgent problems that the American people are passionately asking us to solve.”

-30-

Gaslighting? Check. In May 2019:

Democrats in Congress are getting things done. Trump and Republicans are just ignoring them.
[….]
Here’s a list of bills and resolutions the House has passed so far.

Health care
HR 259 — Medicaid Extenders Act of 2019
House Resolution 271 — Condemning the Trump Administration’s Legal Campaign to Take Away Americans’ Health Care
HR 986 — Protecting Americans with Preexisting Conditions Act of 2019
HR 987 — Strengthening Health Care and Lowering Prescription Drug Costs Act
HR 1520, the Purple Book Continuity Act (bill aimed at lowering the cost of prescription drugs)
HR 1503, the Orange Book Transparency Act of 2019 (bill aimed at lowering the cost of prescription drugs)

Civil rights
HR 1 — For the People Act of 2019
HR 5 — Equality Act
HR 7 — Paycheck Fairness Act
HR 124 — Expressing opposition to banning service in the Armed Forces by openly transgender individuals

Gun control
HR 8 — Bipartisan Background Checks Act of 2019
HR 1112 — Enhanced Background Checks Act of 2019

Environment
HR 9 — Climate Action Now Act
HR 1331 — Local Water Protection Act
S 47 — National Resources Management Act
HR 2578 — National Flood Insurance Program Extension Act of 2019
Military/foreign affairs
HR 840 — Veterans’ Access to Child Care Act
HJ Res. 37 — Directing the removal of United States Armed Forces from hostilities in the Republic of Yemen that have not been authorized by Congress
SJ Res. 7 — To direct the removal of United States Armed Forces from hostilities in the Republic of Yemen that have not been authorized by Congress
HR 31 — Caesar Syria Civilian Protection Act of 2019
HJ Res. 30 — Disapproving the President’s proposal to take an action relating to the application of certain sanctions with respect to the Russian Federation

Mueller report
H.Con.Res. 24 — Expressing the sense of Congress that the report of Special Counsel Mueller should be made available to the public and to Congress.

Other legislation
HR 1585 — Violence Against Women Reauthorization Act of 2019
HR 1500 — Consumers First Act
HR 1994 — SECURE Act
HR 1644 — Save the Internet Act of 2019
HR 2157 — Supplemental Appropriations Act, 2019
HR 269 — Pandemic and All-Hazards Preparedness and Advancing Innovation Act of 2019
HR 251 — Chemical Facility Anti-Terrorism Standards Program Extension Act
S 24 — Government Employee Fair Treatment Act of 2019
HR 430 — TANF Extension Act of 2019
Concurring in the Senate Amendments to HR 251 — Chemical Facility Anti-Terrorism Standard Program Extension Act
HR 790 — Federal Civilian Workforce Pay Raise Fairness Act of 2019
HJ Res. 46 — Relating to a national emergency declared by the President on February 15, 2019
H Res. 183 — Condemning anti-Semitism as hateful expressions of intolerance that are contradictory to the values and aspirations that define the people of the United States and condemning anti-Muslim discrimination and bigotry against minorities as hateful expressions of intolerance that are contrary to the values and aspirations of the United States, as amended
H Res. 194 — Rule Providing for Consideration of H.R. 1644 and H.R. 2021
HR 2480 — Child Abuse Prevention and Treatment Act
HR 375 — To amend the Indian Reorganization Act of 1934 to reaffirm the authority of the Secretary of the Interior to take land into trust for Indian Tribes (also known as the “Carcieri Fix”)

Votes to end the government shutdown
HR 21 — Making appropriations for the fiscal year ending September 30, 2019, and for other purposes
HJ Res. 1 — Making further continuing appropriations for the Department of Homeland Security for fiscal year 2019, and for other purposes
HR 265 — Agriculture, Rural Development, Food and Drug Administration, and Related Agencies Appropriations Act, 2019
HR 267 — Transportation, Housing and Urban Development, and Related Agencies Appropriations Act, 2019
HR 266 — Department of the Interior, Environment, and Related Agencies Appropriations Act, 2019
HR 268 — Disaster Supplemental Appropriations Act, 2019 (Disaster Supplemental and short-term continuing resolution through Feb. 8)
HR 264 — Financial Services and General Government Appropriations Act
HJ Res. 28 — Further Additional Continuing Appropriations Act, 2019 (Short-term continuing resolution through Feb. 28)
HR 648 — Consolidated Appropriations Act, 2019 (Six conferenced bills minibus)
HJ Res. 31 — Making further continuing appropriations for the Department of Homeland Security for fiscal year 2019 (Short-term homeland continuing resolution through Feb. 28)
Conference Report to Accompany HJ Res 31 – Making consolidated appropriations for the fiscal year ending September 30, 2019, and for other purposes

“…House Democrats should focus on the basic fundamental responsibilities of governing, like passing a budget and keeping the government functioning as well as addressing the challenges of illegal immigration, the flow of illegal drugs over our border, and the need for affordable health care…”

Ask Mitch McConnell (r), the Majority Leader in the Senate who won’t allow legislation to come to a vote.

Both siderism? Check.

“…There is little doubt that we have a loss of political civility on both sides of the aisle…”

Representative Hartzler (r) thinks her constituents are stupid. That’s reason enough to vote for someone else in 2020.

Previously:

Rep. Vicky Hartzler (r): owning it (July 16, 2017)

I did Nazi that coming…

18 Thursday Jul 2019

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Donald Trump (r), after yesterday’s Nuremberg rally where he incited the crowd:

Donald J. Trump @realDonaldTrump
Just returned to the White House from the Great State of North Carolina. What a crowd, and what great people. The enthusiasm blows away our rivals on the Radical Left. #2020 will be a big year for the Republican Party!
10:51 PM · Jul 17, 2019

Actually, we did see it coming. Which side are you on?

#resist

Rep. Vicky Hartzler (r): owning it

16 Tuesday Jul 2019

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Rep. Vicky Hartzler (r) [2016 file photo].

All in with Donald Trump (r):

FINAL VOTE RESULTS FOR ROLL CALL 482
H RES 489 RECORDED VOTE 16-Jul-2019 6:49 PM
QUESTION: On Agreeing to the Resolution
BILL TITLE: Condemning President Trump’s racist comments directed at Members of Congress
—- AYES 240 —
Clay
Cleaver
—- NOES 187 —
Graves (MO)
Hartzler
Long
Luetkemeyer
Smith (MO)
Wagner
—- NOT VOTING 6 —

[emphasis added]

Rep. Emanuel Cleaver (D) on Donald Trump’s (r) Racism

16 Tuesday Jul 2019

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“Always take sides. Neutrality helps the oppressor, never the victim. Silence encourages the tormentor, never the tormented.” – Elie Wiesel

Representative Emanuel Cleaver (D) [2018 file photo].

Yesterday afternoon on Facebook, from Representative Emanuel Cleaver II (D):

Emanuel Cleaver II
After reading President Trump’s remarkably racist tweets about four of my colleagues, my most agonizing pain results from the seamy silence and notorious neutrality of those whom I believe to be principled people. When the President of the United States says something so racially vulgar, carte blanche, and then doubles down on such rhetoric, then great and widespread is their sin. Although I have a public and political record of not calling individuals racist, even when they are, right now I am being tested like never before.

Some of the responses:

Congressman, respectfully, it’s time. He needs to be called exactly what he is… Liar, racist, etc.

This is one of those times history is going to remember.

After the Holocaust, it was “Never Again…” except “Never Again” is right now and we can NOT let racism and hatred win. We can not let a man like this, and his followers, destroy the fabric of this country.

Emanuel Cleaver II, the majority of us need you to start calling it like it is, here. Your voice is louder since it’s ours collectively. Trump has crossed line after line. ENOUGH! Call him out!

Always take sides. Neutrality helps the oppressor, never the victim. Silence encourages the tormentor, never the tormented. – Elie Wiesel

Perhaps you are being “tested,” but not to remain silent, but to remain vigilant to the cause of justice. Perhaps you are to “test” the “seamy silence” that called your name so loudly. Perhaps it is your voice, Mr. Cleaver in a coalition with others needed to “test” Trump!

Please speak out. Our country needs to hear the voice of reason.

The silence is deafening. Thank you for speaking up. I’m so disappointed in those who say nothing!

Please go ahead and say it.

Scream it from the roof tops. It is the truth.

Could not agree more. How I’m the name of decency can they remain silent?

Dr King said, “Society’s punishments are small compared to the wounds we inflict on our souls when we look the other way.” The racist-in-chief needs to be chastised loudly and long for the hateful rhetoric he spews which gives courage to the very worst in our society.

The “Silent Majority” of Americans which believes that diversity is what makes our country strong need to be shouting it from the rooftops! Please, be my voice in Washington, Rev. Cleaver!!

time to say it. way past time.

I’m so sorry. I’ll say it for you. They’re racists.

Congressman Cleaver, it is the Declaration of Independence which places the urgency in your soul. Whomsoever wantonly attacks the equality of citizens does not respect the ideal of our United States. We beseech you to not let the gravity of this attack go unanswered.

If this is not a sterile form of lynching then I don’t know what is.
I urge you to take a page out of the playbook of our beloved friends Daniel and Plillip Berrigan and made your voice indelibly heard.
We elected you to speak for us.
Feel our prayers and support as you go forth.

I can carry that load for you brother. Donald J Trump is a racist.

Who’s the phoney, Farm Bureau? Hawley or McCaskill – or is it just plain old racism?

12 Sunday Aug 2018

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I was surprised by the decision of the Missouri Farm Bureau to endorse our lackadaisical Attorney General Josh Hawley in his run for the U.S. Senate. You might be surprised by my attitude since the Farm Bureau has for some time been reliably Republican, a position practically dictated by the perceived competition between out-state (GOP) and urban (Democratic) interests. But it’s true.

Remember when our Attorney General and GOP senatorial contender Hawley first tried out a little lame trash talk trash about Democratic Senator Claire McCaskill? He called the down-to-earth Missouri Democrat, one of the few Missouri pols to hold town halls – even during the height of the raucous Tea Party anti-Obamacare frenzy – a phony who was out of touch with Missouri voters. Rich B.S. indeed, as we have shown in an earlier post, coming from an elite Washington lawyer who, according to emails to colleagues, only returned to Missouri in 2011 to enter politics.

But more important to the question at hand, are farmers likely to get anything out of Hawley that’s good for them? Consider the question of Trump’s mindlessly escalating trade war which has triggered massive agricultural tariffs: Not good for Missouri Farmers, especially in the long run since Trump doesn’t seem to know how to find a way out now that he’s escalated the hostilities.

McCaskill has the backbone to call Trump out on an an impulsive and sloppy approach to the issue. Hawley, on the other hand, resolutely sticks to vague GOP talking-around-the-issue-points. Despite the looming potential for disaster for many Missouri farmers – if not this year, next – Hawley will just “trust” that the attention-addled reality TV-star and failed construction mogul Trump knows what he’s doing when it comes to economic theory and all will work out before there are too many bankruptcies in that out-state Missouri that loves to hear GOPers tell it like (they think) it is.

Nor do these highly flexible folks, such as our prim little Josh Hawley seem to want to stand up for the principles that they espoused so fervently during the Obama years: you know, that stuff about bailouts – bailouts that, incidentally saved our auto industry and which were repaid. But hey, a $12 billion in one-year farm bailouts to be  handed out right after a budget-busting, deficit-building tax cut for the wealthy – no big deal to folks like Hawley – who doesn’t seem to care about much more than fighting the far-right religious wars and pushing conservative evangelical orthodoxy down the throats of the rest of us. How’s that for phony?

So why has the Farm Bureau decided to go with Republican comfort food? even though it could end up killing them? Don’t despair. I think I may understand just what the real appeal of GOP – and Josh Hawley – right or wrong, weak or strong, might be.

In an article in the St. Louis Post Dispatch today on why so many Trump supporters voted against the anti-union Proposition A,  a union man – after praising the ways his union gave  him a good life – and apparently unaware of Trump’s bad history with unions –  justified his support for Trump and, presumably, anti-union Trump supporters like Hawley, by appealing to the demographic fears that the “good old days” of white privilege will disappear if too many of those brown folks make it over the southern border:

“I like what Trump is doing for the country, though I don’t agree on all of his policies,” [ Scott] Long said. “If you want to be a citizen, you shouldn’t just walk across the Southern California border. … I like how Trump wants to close the border down.”

And, even more explicitly:

Dennis Brinkler, a union electrician who voted against the legislation, also cited immigration as a reason he’s supporting Trump and state Attorney General Josh Hawley, an anti-union Republican who is challenging Sen. Claire McCaskill, a Democrat, in November.

If you doubt that there’s an underlying racist theme there, the same article cited some union leaders who attributed union support for Republicans like Trump and Hawley explicitly to “protests of police shootings of unarmed black men” and fear of black protest against a repressive status quo:

“Some of the guys I represent in their 50s, it’s hard for them to grasp shutting down a highway because of an incident that may have happened with the police, and often that’s people on our side of the party,” White said, referring to protests in Ferguson after Michael Brown was killed by a police officer four years ago. “That’s hard for a lot of the old white guys to grasp.”

There you  have it. Trump’s calling card: playing on white resentment and the old folks’ racial fears.

And you can bet that the oh-so-educated and refined  Hawley is going along with it, helping to demagogue the thinly disguised racism of Trump’s immigration policies. As the St. Louis American put it after Hawley defended Trump’s cruel and ill-considered immigration policies, particularly the forcible separation of children from parents seeking asylum in the U.S., an undeniable human rights violation carried out so incompetently that many of the children cannot be reunited with the parents:

[…] Hawley backed and defended Trump’s political play of using the forcible separation of children from their families to force Democrats to support the construction of his absurd border wall and pursuit of more punitive immigration policies. Hawley should return to whatever rock he crawled out from under and leave it to actual human beings with blood in their veins to enact public policy. Hawley is a representation of a new generation of Republicans willing to accede the party and its values to the disaster of the Trump administration.

I expect Hawley’s – probably more timid – dog whistles will increase over the next couple of months as Big Daddy Trump gets even more explicit about  his overt racism. Sadly, it looks like lots of Missourians are inclined to be responsive

* 1st word in title changed from “whose” to “who’s” (8/18, 4:35). Thanks to comment noting the original error.

Police state flag waves over West St. Louis County

14 Monday May 2018

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512px-Blue_Lives_Matter_flag.svg.png

You may have seen the flag above as you are out and about. If you live in West St. Louis County, you may have seen it waving proudly on a row of light posts fronting the BMW of West County showroom on Manchester Blvd., alternating with the traditional American flag. A few folks in St. Louis County display them in front of their houses. Most of these displays, at least those that I’ve seen, also have signs declaring their support of the police which are far more common.

The flag is known as a “Thin Blue Line” flag or, as it  has been controversially labeled more recently, utilizing the phrase most often employed in opposition to “Black Lives Matter,” a Blue Lives Matter flag.  The thin blue line stands for the idea, according to Wikipedia, “that law enforcement is a Thin Blue Line that stands between chaos and order or between criminals and the potential victims of crime, and it is primarily used to show solidarity with police.”

Where’s the controversy, you ask? We all support the police. If government is to be effective it must have a well-funded enforcement arm. It’s that well funded part that should ensure that it’s also well-directed and in possession of sufficient funds to hire the very best candidates and guarantee that they serve all the people in an accountable and transparent fashion.

But for some, the fact that a policeman did it, whatever it is – and as long as it’s not done to them – means it’s okay. That attitude certainly means that we can hire our police lots cheaper, and since plenty of fools think keeping taxes hyper-low is the name of the game, no matter how it may endanger civic well-being, one can see the appeal. There is also the tendency to, in the words of conservative Federalist contributor Rachael Lu, “virtue-cloak” a profession that we respect, insisting, against any emergent evidence to the contrary,  that all members of the profession are what “we know they should be.”

In this regard, I am reminded of many of the policemen I’ve encountered in my life – some of them family members and their friends. Most have been conscientious, kind people who just want to do a difficult job well. But I have to admit that some – including some of those family members – lacked the mental frame of reference necessary to facilitate that desire. This is America: there’s always the question of overt or unconscious bias. There’s also the fact that there are lots of sad losers who are attracted to occupations that let them throw their weight around. It’s gratifying to little men to play at being the big man. Serious educational requirements, solid, ongoing training and rigorous psychological screening could easily address such problems.

But you get what you pay for. Support good policing standards with cold cash and you might get better policing.

The situation is also complicated by the fact that for many citizens the chaos and criminal behavior from which police have to hold that thin blue line  has a black face. And they want their armed representatives to employ whatever force necessary to keep that black face where it belongs – out of their line of vision. These are, by and large, the people who have tried to distract us from Black Lives Matter concerns by elevating the police to, in the words of  Lu, “quasi-sacerdotal” status.

Evidence? Remember when you saw your first Blue Lives Matter sign or flag? I don’t know about you, but I never saw any of these devices until just about the time black folks took to the streets to demand accountability from a police force they experience as out-of control instruments of white repression. When black people began to use cell phones to document police behavior, the Blue Lives Matter train seems to have well and truly pushed out of the station, tooting it’s big old dog whistle loud and clear.

Blue lives do matter. But the fact that they are ever at risk is simply a given of the job policemen have chosen to perform – and another argument for better pay and benefits along with the outsize power over people lives that we now grant them. But hey, black lives still matter just as much as they did before elderly white folks in my neighborhood started to tie blue ribbons around the trees in their yards. And the fact that black lives are at risk, not because of their freely-chosen but risky jobs, but because they are demanding that the police serve them too rather than catering to the the prejudices of a shrinking segment of the population ought to help put those Blue Lives emblems in the proper perspective.

What really scares me about all this furor over whose lives matter? We’ve got a president sending out authoritarian feelers while encouraging police brutality, an Attorney General who makes no bones that he shares the belief that the worst criminals on the other side of the thin blue line are African-Americans, while supposedly solid, salt-of-the-earth Middle Americans find that the American flag, the one that stands for all citizens, regardless of religion or race, just won’t do the job any more. Instead they hoist flags arguably meant to encourage a special, protected police status in the face of blue line rampage. And don’t let them fool you. They understand what they’re saying when those flags go up.

By the way – maybe someone ought to give the proprietors of BMW of West County an earful. It’s their right to display whatever flag they choose, but it’s our free-speech right to let them know if we’re offended.

Missouri GOP House members go into hiding when Trump shows his true colors – about skin color – while GOP Senator Roy Blunt soft peddles the story

20 Saturday Jan 2018

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It’s been a couple of weeks since President Racist Moron sent us spiraling down toward a government shutdown by expressing his goal of importing prosperous, wealthy white Norwegians – who have little reason to come to the U.S. – instead of brown folks from S**thole countries – who actually need the haven that the United States has traditionally offered the oppressed, poverty stricken folks who flocked to these shores and helped build a strong, wealthy country where the middle class grew and prospered as never before. During this time, I’ve been monitoring the newspapers and congressional press releases to find out how our representatives in Congress have responded to Trump’s racist babblings – and I’ve found out just about nothing to let me know how our GOP profiles in political cowardice stand on the issue. However, today, Salon has posted an article that tells us what each member of Congress has had to say about this destructive and ugly piece of “telling it like it is,” as some of the more racist “deplorable” Trump supporters would have it:

  • Blunt, Roy (R–Sen.): Condemn
  • *McCaskill, Claire (D–Sen.): Condemn
  • Clay Jr., William “Lacy” (D–HR): Condemn
  • Cleaver, Emanuel (D–HR): Condemn
  • Graves, Sam (R–HR): No response
  • Hartzler, Vicky (R–HR): No response
  • Long, Billy (R–HR): No response
  • Luetkemeyer, Blaine (R–HR): No response
  • Smith, Jason (R–HR): No response
  • Wagner, Ann (R–HR): No response

Although GOP Senator Roy Blunt, as befits a junior member of the Senate Leadership, did make a statement, you might be struck, as I was, that it focused on the pragmatic aspects of Trumps words – addressing his competence in securing GOP goals, rather than his bankrupt moral world view:

Senator Roy Blunt, Republican of Missouri, suggested the president’s inability to refrain from incendiary statements was detracting from his agenda.

“It’s an unacceptable view of the world, and it’s an unacceptable thing to say,” Mr. Blunt told KMBZ, a radio station in the Kansas City area. “You would expect the president to lead in determining how you filter your thoughts, rather than to continue to say things that take a lot away from what’s actually getting done.”

Compare the measured words of Blunt – who carefully avoided any overt reference to Trump’s racism, to the unequivocal tweet Democratic Claire McCaskill issued,:

It is unacceptable, repugnant, and morally bankrupt for a President of this great nation to call the countries of Africa “shitholes”.   9:32 AM – 12 Jan 2018

 I understand the need for political pragmatism, going along with a bad deal to avoid a worse deal – and I appreciate Blunt’s willingness to sorta, maybe imply that Trump isn’t really a great “dealmaker,” but for many of us racism, arguably the original sin that lies at the heart of American democracy, is the line that may not be crossed. Which means that I also understand the reticence of our Missouri House members to speak out – Republicans in general, not just in Missouri, have been calling out to more or less covert racism via code words and dogwhistles for years.What can these already compromised politicians do or say to credibly face down the beast they have enabled and continue to enable in order to benefit their wealthy patrons.
Of course that last sentence doesn’t even address the possibility that many of our elected Missouri representative may actually endorse Trump’s nasty racial sentiments.

 

 

Ann Wagner, you can’t honor MLK with the same lips that praise Donald Trump

15 Monday Jan 2018

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Gotta hand it to Rep. Ann Wagner (R-2). She’s making a serious effort at cultivating the two-faced look (and, no, I’m not talking about her Afghan-hound hairstyle). Today is Martin Luther King Day. On this day many Americans honor one of the leaders who helped crush the American apartheid that prevailed for almost a hundred years after the end of slavery – and who gave his life for it. King, one of the most profound of American thinkers and orators, would now be 89 years old had the remaining years of his life not been stolen from him at the age of 39 by racist America.

Wagner is making it clear that she wants in on the MLK party – which is to say, she doesn’t want to be tarred with the brush of GOP racism. Her official Website refers us to Facebook and Twitter posts encouraging us to read some of MLK’s “writings” available on the King Center Website, a seemingly reverent nod in the right direction. Enough to let us know that she’ll put in an appearance at the party without staying long enough to overmuch alarm the basest part of the GOP base.

But if Wagner wants in on this party, she’s failed to pay the price of admission. On those same Twitter and Facebook accounts there’s not a word about the most recent obscene, racist ramblings of the president she has enthusiastically supported. In fact, she has described the experience of working with him as “amazing,” and has emphasized her close relationship and identification with him:

Wagner was quick to speak to the commonalities between her and the President, and she also complimented him on what she sees as the president’s best attributes in office. “I’ve seen the strength and the leadership that he brings to the table and a negotiation skill that really puts him in the center of things.” Wagner said. “He wants to be an agent for change, he is a disrupter… We’ve really gotten along well, he and his entire team”

Nevertheless, Wagner has tried to keep her feet out of Trump’s overtly racist mud – and, in so doing, has put herself into a bad spot. As she herself proclaimed after Trump’s infamous Charlottesville equivocation, “leaders must call out Neo-Nazis, white supremacists and fascists by name.”

So, Annie, we’re waiting for you to call out this particular white supremacist – and arguably, fascist – by name.” And we know you know his name. Unless, that is you and he have more “commonalities” than you want us to know about. Which is is?

The Stockley verdict: How we “converse” about race in St. Louis

17 Sunday Sep 2017

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Protests are roiling the streets of St. Louis. Again. A second act to the psychodrama that began to play out after Ferguson.

The story in a nutshell for those of you who have been asleep: After a car chase, a white cop named Jason Stockley, shot a black man he believed to have been involved in a drug transaction. This event took place in 2011. Evidence suggested the possibility that a member of our black underclass – individuals whose deaths rarely rate much attention – was shot in unprovoked, cold blood. Stockley was not held accountable until 2016 when he was finally charged with murder; he opted for a bench trial and was acquitted yesterday (9/15). While “all hell” did not break loose, protestors did make their response known with varying degrees of forcefulness during the rest of Friday – and will probably continue to stir of the pot of white St. Louis complacency in the weeks ahead.

Our elected officials have responded pretty well on the whole. Governor Eric Greitens, Democratic Senator Claire McCaskill and Republican Senator Roy Blunt have all issued sympathetic statements (see here, here and here) that implicitly acknowledge that there is a reason for the distress so many are feeling after the verdict. They properly urge the protests, the legal legitimacy of which they do not dispute, to remain peaceful. Greitens stops there. Blunt and McCaskill, though, add a little fairy dust to the mix.

Blunt declares that ” if this verdict is met with violence and destruction, it will do nothing but reignite the fear and anger that law enforcement and community leaders have worked tirelessly to address since Ferguson.” McCaskill strikes the same chord, asserting that “The events in Ferguson shook our region to its core and forced us to face some tough realities. But since then, our law enforcement and the families and businesses they serve have begun talking and hearing each other. We can’t let today’s decision send us back to our respective corners.”

Both of these leaders express confidence that Ferguson represented a turning point, and that St. Louisians are in the process of addressing the endemic racism that seems to permeate so many aspects of the local culture. Protestors must be careful, they say in so many words, not to upset this kumbaya applecart.

So why, then, are hundreds of anguished folks parading in the St. Louis streets? Could it have something to do with the fact that they’ve been waiting to see just how much things have really changed and right now, given the same ol’, same ol’ that the Stockley verdict seems to represent, they’re not too impressed?

I’m not second-guessing the verdict. I understand the issue of “reasonable doubt.” Furthermore, I know that I only know what I read in the papers, hence my judgement is less trustworthy than that of the judge who has poured over all the evidence – even a judge who perhaps inadvertently seasoned his decision with a dollop of smug bias against those often unattractive folks who inhabit the underclass, declaring that questionable claims that the victim was armed are viable because, “an urban heroin dealer not in possession of a firearm would be an anomaly.”

But the verdict is still more than a little pungent. And I wonder if that stench doesn’t have lots to do with the fact that all that palaver our leaders think has taken place between law enforcement, business and local officials, all the people who they think matter, hasn’t had much to do with the facts on the ground for black folks in St. Louis.

Remember the Ferguson Commission Report? Remember all the recommendations? Can anyone tell me if two years later the region any closer to implementing even the 47 “signature priority” items? I sincerely don’t know.

An article published in the Huffington Post finds the much-vaunted changes in the corrupt municipal court system, a significant vector of local abuse that was singled out in the Report, to be “minor,” often little more than “whitewashing.” A local citizen is quoted as saying that people are “still wanting to see a conversation” – even though Senators McCaskill and Blunt assure us that that conversation has been ongoing.

The HuffPo article refers to the story of Fred Watson, a young man who was improperly arrested, lost his high paying job as a cybersecurity officer, and the middle class lifestyle he once had due to the expense of fighting the bogus claims leveled against him by Ferguson officialdom. Last week, five years after his arrest, two years after the Ferguson Report, and after a load of bad publicity for Ferguson, all charges against him were finally dropped. The implication is clear that this is still the way justice works for everyday black people in the St. Louis area – and few of them have the resources that Watson expended defending himself.

The evidence that the conversation that our Senators believe we are having is more one-sided than they think is everywhere in the St. Louis region. All one has to do is look around.

Ever since Ferguson and “black lives matter,” for example, numerous trees and postboxes up and down my street in a lily-white second ring suburb have been decorated with big blue bows and occasional signs letting us know that “blue lives matter” and “we support our police.” And off course “blue lives” do matter. But it’s still clear that my neighbors are intent on more than police boosterism; they are staking out their positions in a symbolic war, pointing out the opposition they believe exists between “blue lives” and “black lives.”

I never saw those ribbons until African-Americans had the temerity to proclaim that their black lives needed to be handled as carefully by those folks in blue as those of the white suburbanites now piously wrapping their trees and mailboxes in blue. What do you think it means about a place when the inhabitants are willing to tie a big blue bow around police brutality?

We all “support” our police – we just don’t believe that they have carte blanche when it comes to black people – pun intended. Many of us, including plenty of those folks out protesting I’m willing to bet, think that with the special authority that police enjoy comes the requirement that they be held accountable for its exercise. When that’s not the case, don’t you think maybe there might be some among us who are inspired to take to the streets?

With this in mind – along with the pronouncements of a President who urges police to “rough up” suspects, and a Justice Department that is withdrawing from Obama era efforts to reform police-community relationships – maybe it’s easier to understand why some folks think that the “conversation” won’t ever take place if they don’t become well and truly the loudest voice in the room – or in the streets.