He admits that the violent anti-police protests seen in the media did little to help Democrats in down ballot contests…
Peaceful protests ARE very different from violent ones…
Indeed very few if any officials around the country are cutting back on police services….
Some have had to make hard budget choices cutting police budgets , while trying to save police jobs…and paying cops overtime for working protests ….
Biden and others have made the point that people will dial 911 when they have problems no matter what…
Reforms and more community outreach is where things should be going…
And diversity in hiring and promotions….
Biden should make sure to put government money where his mouth is on this….
President-elect Joe Biden appeared to blame the “defund the police” movement for contributing to surprising Democratic down-ballot losses last month, telling civil rights leaders this week that they should proceed carefully on criminal justice issues.
“That’s how they beat the living hell out of us across the country, saying that we’re talking about defunding the police. We’re not. We’re talking about holding them accountable,” Biden said Tuesday in a virtual meeting with civil rights leaders, according to audio excerpts posted Thursday in a podcast from The Intercept.
Biden pledged that he would follow through on his promises to address systemic racism, but he warned about getting “too far ahead of ourselves” with critical Senate runoff elections in Georgia on Jan. 5.
“We can go very far. It matters how we do it. I think it matters how we do it,” Biden said…
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Biden said he would be able to do some things by executive order, but — as he often did publicly throughout the campaign — he said, “I am not going to violate the Constitution.”….
Note….
While Biden has worked to have diverse cabinet and admin hiring he MUST NOT coming out looking like he will NOT stand on his own to feet and push back to ‘wants’ that would be used against Democrats by Republicans and others to see him as beholden to certain groups that his IS beholden to…to some degree….
image…The Hill
Black Lives Matter co-founder and principal of the Black Futures Lab Alicia Garza rebuked Democrats’ attacks on the push to “defund the police.” Their dismissal of the slogan, she said, is an insult to activists who helped secure Joe Biden’s victory.
Her comments come in the wake of a reckoning among House Democrats, who insist the movement’s calls to “defund the police” contributed to down-ballot losses that slimmed Democrats’ majority in the House of Representatives. In a Dec. 1 interview, former president Barack Obama criticized the slogan, calling it “snappy,” arguing it could alienate those who take the phrase at face value….
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After a summer of protests that made Black Lives Matter a household name, those atop the movement are making a series of moves to alter its power structure: organizing a political action committee, forming corporate partnerships, adding a third organizing arm and demanding an audience with President-elect Joe Biden.
The moves have triggered mutiny in the ranks. Ten local chapters are severing ties with the Black Lives Matter Global Network, as the national leadership is known. They are furious that Patrisse Cullors, its remaining co-founder, named herself executive director of the group and made these decisions without their input. That’s a move, that, to some, signaled a rebuke of its “leaderful” structure, which gave every member an equal say and kept any one — including a founder — from overreaching….
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