New ICE training

By Bill Bramhall

Armed goons

 From Cathy Wilcox

Sending off, Trump style

 Jonesy cartoon from Private Eye

The torch of freedom

Mike Luckovich 

Domestic terrorist

By Rick McKee 

Hypocrisy

 By Cathy Wilcox

She called me a Nazi

By Pat Bagley 

Gestapo

By David Horsey 

Bad Hombres

By David Horsey 

Somewhere right now

 By Jesse Duquette

Register Muslims

 I don't know who drew this cartoon.  If you know, tell me in the comments

2 years for throwing soup

 From Just Stop Oil

Two Just Stop Oil supporters who threw tomato soup over Van Gogh’s Sunflowers have been sentenced to prison terms of up to 2 years by Judge Christopher Hehir at Southwark Crown Court today. 

Phoebe Plummer was jailed for 2 years for the soup throwing plus 3 months for a S7 offence, while Anna Holland received a prison sentence of 20 months. They are also subject to 3 year Criminal Behaviour Orders and are expected to serve at least half of their sentences in custody.

In July, Phoebe and Anna were found guilty of causing criminal damage exceeding £5,000 after they threw tins of tomato soup over Vincent van Gogh’s “Sunflowers” painting at the National Gallery in October 2022, although the painting was protected by glass and was unharmed. Judge Hehir preemptively dismissed all legal defences—including the defence of ‘proportionality’ and their Article 10 rights under the Human Rights Act 1998—without hearing any evidence from either side. 

In his sentencing remarks, Judge Hehir said:  “Your culpability is at level A. You did reconnaissance and planning and talked to a journalist. Your harm is at category 1, which means extreme harm to society.”

He indicated that conscience was not a mitigating factor and that “The action you took was extreme, disproportionate and criminally idiotic given the risks involved”. He continued  “There is nothing peaceful or nonviolent about throwing soup. Throwing soup in someone’s face is violent.” 

Addressing Phoebe he said “You think your beliefs entitle you to do anything. I was treated to a lengthy exposition to your political views. The suggestion that you and others like you in a democracy are political prisoners is ludicrous, offensive and idiotic. You have no remorse and you are proud.”

Addressing Anna he said “What you have done has had a substantial impact on your family, you’re a good student. I’ve anxiously considered all of this.”

Speaking before the sentencing Anna Holland said: 

“We do not expect justice from a broken system that has been corrupted by its dependence on fossil fuels. Prison sentences, no matter how long, will not deter us. We will not stop calling for an end to all extraction and burning of fossil fuels; if Keir Starmer wants to prove that he is a better Prime Minister than the last six Tory Prime Ministers, he will hear these calls and act upon them.”

Remarkable.  "Throwing soup in someone's face is violent".   But they didn't.   "Extreme harm to society".  What?????  Meanwhile, oil companies get a free pass, as they fund denialist stink tanks, right-wing politicians, and are sanitised by greenwashing publicists.  

 Despite all the talk by politicians and chief executives, despite their proud net-zero commitments, they do not in fact want to take any effective action to stop carbon/methane emissions.  Instead, they want to criminalise opposition to fossil fuels.  Pipeline protests, "slow marching", even just unfurling a banner---these are now criminal activities.  Just like China, eh?

US policing is about controlling the poor

From The Guardian

"Lower-class culture is pathological.” So claimed American political scientist Edward Banfield in his 1970 book The Unheavenly City. For Banfield, unlike the middle class, “the lower-class person lives from moment to moment… unable or unwilling to take account of the future or control his impulses”. Poverty was the product of people “not troubled by dirt and dilapidation” or by “the inadequacy of public facilities such as schools, parks, hospitals and libraries”.

In many ways, Banfield was a voice from the past, echoing the arguments of early 20th-century eugenicists and racial scientists. But he became influential in shaping conservative thinking about law and order, particularly in the attempt to present social problems as the fruit of individual pathology rather than a failure of policy. Last year, on the 50th anniversary of The Unheavenly City, conservative social theorist Thomas Sowell celebrated it as a “demolition derby of fallacies that continue to dominate thoughts and actions in our own time”.

As we ponder policing in America after the guilty verdict on Derek Chauvin for the killing of George Floyd – and why during the course of that trial at least 64 people died at the hands of law enforcement – Banfield is a good place to start. Rather than waste money on social policies, he believed, the government should be “creating an armed force… independent of the town population and able to repress its excesses”. That is precisely what has been created.

Banfield’s student James Quinn Wilson became the godfather of the “broken windows” approach. The smallest infraction – loitering, drinking, jaywalking – should, he insisted, be aggressively restrained. The police must target not just criminals but also “disreputable or obstreperous or unpredictable people”. This became the heart of the “zero tolerance” policy of police chiefs such as New York’s William Bratton. Meanwhile, presidents from Ronald Reagan to Bill Clinton and beyond sought to turn social issues into matters of law and order. It was less a case of combating crime than of managing the disruptive effects of the social inequalities.

Three major features have marked this process. The first is the militarisation of the police. Most of the extraordinary arsenal American police possesses, from grenade launchers to armoured vehicles, comes from the Pentagon through the “1033” programme, under which surplus military equipment is handed over at no cost. Since 1997, the police have received $7.4bn (£5.3bn) of hardware this way. Unsurprisingly, the more tooled-up the police are, the more likely they are to kill civilians – and even pets.

Second, there has been the extension of militarised policing into new areas, such as schools. In 1975, police were stationed in 1% of US schools; by 2018, that figure was 58%. These are not friendly neighbourhood cops. In her book Lockdown High, Annette Fuentes describes a talk by a trainer to school police: “You should be walking around in school every day in complete tactical equipment, with semi-automatic weapons… You must think of yourself as soldiers at war.” Social and medical issues, from mental illness to homelessness, are also seen as issues for “warrior cops”, often with tragic consequences. If you’re poor or black, it is likely that much of your life is lived in the shadow of the police.

Then there is mass incarceration, a product primarily of Clinton-era policies. In 1970, there were 200,000 people in US prisons. Today, that figure is 2.3 million. Of a population of 328m, 77m have a criminal record.

Inevitably, in a nation in which fault lines of race run so deep, the policing of the “lower orders” has become racialised. African Americans form 13% of the population and 39% of prisoners. Apologists for the system suggest that this is the result of black people committing more crime. But look at the issue of drugs. Study after study shows similar rates of illicit drug use among black and white people. The former, however, are far more likely to be arrested, charged and convicted. The justice system itself creates the racial disproportionalities in drug crime.

While racial biases are clear, studies suggest poverty and class best correlate with police killings and mass incarceration. African Americans, more likely to be working class and poor, are also more likely to be imprisoned and killed. It is, however, an issue confronting all “lower-class” people.

Many policing reforms are urgently required, from demilitarisation to greater community oversight. But until the police stop seeing themselves, and being seen, as “an armed force to repress” the poor, until they stop being used as a means of managing inequality, and that inequality is challenged at its roots, little is likely to change.

US police vehicles outside the Capitol building, in Washington DC. Photograph: Dmitry Kirsanov/TASS

Action on climate change

A cartoon by Cathy Wilcox.  The man driving the steamroller is our esteemed PM, Scroto, leader of the badly misnamed Liberal Party.  They want to subsidise new coal power stations.  They have to subsidise them because they are completely uncompetitive with renewables.  They also want to take away all welfare benefits from climate protesters and to fine anyone who protests $20,000. 

I bet you can't guess who makes very large "contributions" to the Liberal and National party coffers and to the IPA, the neo-con "thinktank" that supports them.