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FBI Monitored Aretha Franklin for Years, File Shows

nytimes.com

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Re: FBI Monitored Aretha Franklin for Years, File Shows

#51

Post by ceejayoz »

adam_arthur wrote: post #20
lupire wrote: post #14

Earlier quoted context omitted.

"Defined the police" usually means "fund social welfare" with a side of "disarm the beat cops so they learn to deescalate". "Abolish the police" is the message of a much smaller group. And any count of crime surge should also include crimes committed by police under color of law.

How many organizations have been improved throughout history via removal of funding? Will better qualified police officers get hired with less funding?

> Will better qualified police officers get hired with less funding?

The idea is that you remove half the police work load, hire half the officers, and use that savings to assign that removed work load to more appropriate people like social workers, unarmed traffic enforcement, etc.

Cost per officer doesn't have to change.

Re: FBI Monitored Aretha Franklin for Years, File Shows

#52

Post by prange »

pjc50 wrote: post #44
prange wrote: post #24

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Quoted post unavailable.

Only once they started investigating him. The problem is that partisanship and racism made it OK to investigate left-wing and black leaders on spurious grounds. However, eventually a right-wing leader managed to ignore the law blatantly and importantly enough to be investigated : and at that point the right turned against the FBI. There's no principle, only partisanship. Kind of a disaster for the rule of law.

[flagged]

Re: FBI Monitored Aretha Franklin for Years, File Shows

#53

Post by wmeredith »

wil421 wrote: post #41
theandrewbailey wrote: post #2

Defund the FBI, CIA, NSA, ATF, and DEA. They've proven themselves to cause more trouble than to solve problems.

I’m afraid if you were to defund some of those, like the DEA and ATF, they would just come after small time, lowest fruit criminals. They have proven they will charge people with dubious crimes. Similar to how people claim the IRS can’t tackle big time cheats and instead focus on auditing everyday people. If you modernize federal drug laws the DEA would lose at lot of its teeth. It’s up to the legislatures to change…

> I’m afraid if you were to defund some of those, like the DEA and ATF, they would just come after small time, lowest fruit criminals.

That's precisely what would happen. Look at what's become of the IRS. It's been systematically defunded, despite the fact that the government sees a huge return on investment when they spend dollars there. The IRS has stated publicly that they only go after middle and lower-class citizen offenders because they can't afford to investigate and prosecute the big corporations and oligarchs which are where the vast majority of tax fraud takes place (note: not avoidance, fraud). This is pretty clearly by design.

Re: FBI Monitored Aretha Franklin for Years, File Shows

#55

Post by wmeredith »

boomboomsubban wrote: post #38
theandrewbailey wrote: post #2

Defund the FBI, CIA, NSA, ATF, and DEA. They've proven themselves to cause more trouble than to solve problems.

Then we'd merely have around 10 national intelligence agencies doing shit like this, in addition to all the more local operations. It's absurd how large the intelligence community is.

It's a jobs program. See also: the US Military.

Re: FBI Monitored Aretha Franklin for Years, File Shows

#57

Post by the_only_law »

prange wrote: post #52
pjc50 wrote: post #44

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Only once they started investigating him. The problem is that partisanship and racism made it OK to investigate left-wing and black leaders on spurious grounds. However, eventually a right-wing leader managed to ignore the law blatantly and importantly enough to be investigated : and at that point the right turned against the FBI. There's no principle, only partisanship. Kind of a disaster for the rule of law.

[flagged]

And when the FBI blatantly ignores the law?

I’d have a lot less of a problem with some of these federal agencies if they’d prosecute the criminals in their own ranks.

Re: FBI Monitored Aretha Franklin for Years, File Shows

#60

Post by prange »

the_only_law wrote: post #57
prange wrote: post #52

Earlier quoted context omitted.

[flagged]

And when the FBI blatantly ignores the law? I’d have a lot less of a problem with some of these federal agencies if they’d prosecute the criminals in their own ranks.

That does seem like Trump’s position - wrongdoing at the FBI means they shouldn’t investigate politicians like him.

https://www.huffpost.com/entry/trump-truth-social-fbi-mar-a-...

[Edit: Added a link for those who don’t follow news about trump.]

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