Sad and Predictable

The era of shameless politics.

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Join Sarah, Jonah, and Kevin as they welcome David Drucker in his debut DisPod appearance. The crew looks into the Tyre Nichols tragedy and the root causes of bad policing. They give a nod to the dog and pony show of House committee assignments and conclude with a fiery debate about Nikki Haley’s presidential dreams and whether Trump admin veterans deserve the mark of Cain. Finally, Sarah highlights a few mysteries overtaking the Dallas Zoo in a Worth Your Time segment.

Show Notes:

Will Hurd:  “One thing I’d love this Black History Month…”

The Dispatch: The Race to Racism

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Comments (76)
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  1. Perkins.Melissa

    As you discussed the recent depressingly all too common incident with the death of Trye Nichols. I would love for you all to talk with Patrick Skinner from Savannah, GA. He is a former CIA operative who came home to live and serve his community as a police officer. Mr. Skinner is walking the walk every day and has some unique suggestions on how to make policing better.

    You can find him at @SkinnerPm on Twitter. Also, here are a couple of articles about Patrick.
    https://www.newyorker.com/magazine/2018/05/07/the-spy-who-came-home
    https://www.washingtonpost.com/outlook/2020/06/03/beat-cop-militarized-policing-cia/
    https://ctc.westpoint.edu/view-ct-foxhole-patrick-skinner-police-officer-savannah-georgia-former-cia-case-officer-afghanistan-iraq/

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  2. SZ

    I would suggest the flip side of Sarah’s point, that perhaps systemic problems in policing and higher education are both grossly exaggerated. In both cases, outrage by either side seems driven more by egregious anecdote than dispassionate analysis of the statistics. This hits close to home because I am involved in both worlds as an academic criminologist. My read on policing is that there really isn’t a “systemic” problem—at least not with use of lethal force, maybe more so for non lethal force or being rude to citizens (important for legitimacy)—and the progress has been incredible over past 50 years. My read on higher education is that it’s very left-wing, and getting more so, but it’s also not a woke hellscape. This is especially true in large public universities like mine. Elite private universities may be worse, based on some truly embarrassing incidents.

    Of course, I’m inclined to think there is a disanalogy in that policing seems to be getting much better (as Jonah pointed out) while higher education seems to be going in the other direction.

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  3. Mary Stine

    Re removing Sarah from practicing politics: NO. We have very few people in politics with a great sense of humor, so we can't afford to lose them.

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  4. Echack

    McCarthy made the point about Schiff's removal that it wasn't just that he lied about the Trump/Russia connection, but that he made use of his position on the Intel committee to say he had info to support the lie.

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    Clay

    42:39 for those looking for the hilarious back and forth between Kevin and Sarah.

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  6. Rph3co

    I just have a stylistic comment. Sort Podcast / public speaking 101. If you’ve got speakers who are somewhat monotone, I would encourage them to slow down in their delivery, improve their pacing and dynamics, and work on being more concise in making their points. Kevin, I think, suffers a bit from this and he has a tendency to digress or meander in his responses, which in a quicker monotome voice makes it both hard to follow and somniferous.

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  7. Melissa King

    I think more police training would have the added benefit of weeding out some officers who aren’t great with delayed gratification. In California, you need more hours of training to be a hair stylist than a police officer. My husband had to have 7 years of higher education to argue about the law, but in 6 months you can enforce the law with a gun. That’s wild! If it took 2 years to be a police officer, you might get rid of at least some officers who are quick to the trigger.

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    Denise Cote

    On the police thing - problem number one is temperament. Don't hire people who will do this horrific stuff. If we get rid of qualified immunity, there will be incentives to hire better people, train them well, and hold them accountable.

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    The Bell Tower

    How can I put this respectfully?

    These idiots in congress should be policing their own damned caucus. Pelosi should never have tolerated the likes of Omar and don’t get me started on that fraud McCarthy and his contemptible deals with the devil.

    This brinksmanship baloney causes all kinds of degradation of norms. Either the sensible people in both parties (are there any?) start building a coalition of the sane or we will be consigned to leadership by which monkey throws the biggest handful of poop.

    I’ve said this before but if you want to see what a contest of factions taking turns kicking each other in beans looks like, check out the French Revolution.

    The way Americans are in this moment, it will be less a Reign of Terror and more a Reign of Tantrums but that’s still a big problem should a serious person of ill will arrive on the public stage. Let’s hope the sane people figure out how to wrest control from this cavalcade of jokers before it turn into a real problem.

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  10. Andrewchida

    Great episode. Really appreciate the different view points and the new addition.

    Also, re: the last of us, we have dozens of anti fungal medications. I would be fine if they said none of our meds work and/or it’s spreading alarmingly fast, as many anti fungal treatments can require several weeks to complete, but the show suggests medications for fungal infections aren’t a thing (though some newer studies are showing increasing resistance to common anti fungal medications.)

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