More Black Americans are certain to vote for Harris, Post-Ipsos poll finds: The shift is concentrated among younger Black Americans, especially younger women. - "'She’s a woman, she’s Black, and I like her. I genuinely think that means something for this country,' said Broaden, 24, a beauty adviser and freelance artist from Omaha. 'I’d rather vote for something I strongly believe in rather than voting in spite of someone.'
"So when Broaden was recently filling out her Medicaid renewal form, she checked the box that would also register her to vote — and plans to cast a ballot for Harris in November. [ed. note: lol lol lol]
...
"Lafayette Cates, 42, a software engineer from Philadelphia, said he voted for Trump in 2020 and plans to do so this year, because he feels that Harris doesn’t fully understand the needs of Black Americans who are descendants of enslaved people. Harris’s father was born in Jamaica; her mother was from India.
"'She doesn’t come from a background similar to the majority of Black Americans, so I don’t think she can be an effective leader,' he said. 'She doesn’t face what the majority of African Americans face'”" [ed. note: White supremacy in blackface]
D.C. officer’s murder case stokes debate over U.S. police prosecutions: Sentencing of first D.C. officer convicted of murder for actions on duty highlights U.S. attorney’s push for civil rights prosecutions in the nation’s capital. - "Judges have balked at some prosecutor choices. Foreshadowing the debate in Sutton’s case, U.S. District Judge Carl J. Nichols questioned the severity of offenses by Mark L. Clark, 57, a former veteran D.C. officer convicted of using illegal chokeholds against two young men in separate incidents in July 2018, and sentenced him to six months prison instead of the five years sought by the government.
"'If a … civilian did that to another civilian and did what Mr. Clark did here, they would get no-papered over at D.C. Superior Court,' Nichols said in May, meaning charges would have been dropped in local court because neither victim was permanently injured. 'Because police officers perform critical services for our communities … we do not want officers looking over their shoulders when they are on the streets caring for us,' Nichols said."
Family of man slain by D.C. police decides to release body-cam footage: Relatives of Justin Robinson, 26, hesitated at first, their lawyer said, but ultimately decided to let the public see his final moments. - "D.C. police fatally shot Robinson, 26, shortly after 5:30 a.m. on Sept. 1 after they found him unresponsive in a car that had crashed into a McDonald’s in the 2500 block of Marion Barry Avenue SE, authorities said. D.C. Police Chief Pamela A. Smith said at a news conference that officers found Robinson with a gun on his lap. After officers confronted him, she said, he “began moving inside the vehicle,” picked up his weapon at one point, and 'grabbed' an officer’s gun through his open car window."
Pond Scum: Henry David Thoreau’s moral myopia. - "The real Thoreau was, in the fullest sense of the word, self-obsessed: narcissistic, fanatical about self-control, adamant that he required nothing beyond himself to understand and thrive in the world. From that inward fixation flowed a social and political vision that is deeply unsettling. It is true that Thoreau was an excellent naturalist and an eloquent and prescient voice for the preservation of wild places. But 'Walden' is less a cornerstone work of environmental literature than the original cabin porn: a fantasy about rustic life divorced from the reality of living in the woods, and, especially, a fantasy about escaping the entanglements and responsibilities of living among other people.
...
"Although Thoreau is often regarded as a kind of cross between Emerson, John Muir, and William Lloyd Garrison, the man who emerges in 'Walden' is far closer in spirit to Ayn Rand: suspicious of government, fanatical about individualism, egotistical, élitist, convinced that other people lead pathetic lives yet categorically opposed to helping them. It is not despite but because of these qualities that Thoreau makes such a convenient national hero."
