Newsmax is almost as fraudulent as fox news. What a joke of an article.
I didn't listen/watch any of the trial, so I have no idea if the jury was correct. I do know this - you'd have to be damn brave to say not guilty.
Releasing a statement was the correct thing to do.
I'm assuming Chauvin is guilty. He had a trial and the jurors spoke. So be it.
My point is that it is Keenum's responsibility to run Mississippi State University. Keenum doesn't live in Minnesota, he doesn't run the police force in Minnesota, he wasn't on the jury in Minnesota. So he really doesn't have a dog in the hunt. But in the time he dealt with the press release, he could have instead answered several emails I sent him directly concerning something about Mississippi State University.
If a Boeing 747 crashes, I would assume Boeing would issue a statement, and I assume the airline would issue a statement, and I assume the National Transportation and Safety Board would issue as statement. But I don't know why the local Co-Op in Waynesboro, Mississippi would issue a statement about a Boeing 747 crashing.
You must not know who Alan Dershowitz is. He is an actual liberal (as in believes in due process, free speech, minority rights, etc.). I don't know anything about Newsmax, but that's not surprising that Dershowitz would make those statements.
Incidentally, he's absolutely correct. Based on the video, it looks likely that Chauvin was guilty of at least manslaughter (just because somebody is likely or even surely dying from something else, doesn't mean you're off the hook for contributing or accelerating it), but this was a show trial. Venue should have been changed to begin with. I don't really believe in sequestering jurors, but by normal standards, they should have been sequestered. IN a better society, Maxine Waters would be disqualified from public office, but that's not anything new.
No, they didn't, just from PR perspective. It's not MSU's job to jump in on every controversy they're not a part of. Has Keenum made a statement about the forced labor and potential genocide of Uighurs? I can't find it, which makes me think Keenum doesn't care about mistreatment of them because they are Muslim? Mississippi State has as much to do with Uighurs in China as George Floyd in Minnesota. We have a lot of Asian students at Mississippi State. Has Keenum made a statement about them being discriminated against in college admissions? That's at least relevant to MSU (although MSU likely doesn't have much influence over admission standards at top flight universities). Does Keenum support discrimination against Asians? Seems like he must. Unless we just have shitty, shitty, PR advisors.
Like the kind that would advise you to reignite a non-controversy by issuing a statement after it has already died down.
I am the son of a law enforcement officer of over 30 years in MS and former WWII(1942-1945) armored infantry & Korean Conflict. He fought hand to hand across Africa, Italy, southern France, Belgium, into Alps and crossed Rhine river with Patton. He was the first man to open the gates of Dachau concentration camp and a nearby internment camp for POW's. I am as patriotic as it comes and bleed red, white and blue and I say:
George Floyd's murderer was found guilty and the University made a statement. I think it's good because it needs to be made clear that we have a problem.
I believe that if there had been no video evidence, not one thing would have been done. Even after the video, we have people defending this murderer, which I find sickening.
We cannot begin to figure out a solution until enough of us acknowledge that we have a real problem.
I say, this is a problem that cannot be solved as long we remain divided along Conservative and Liberal lines.
He is speaking to the student body more than anyone. A student body that made it pretty clear this was an issue that was important to them. It was a responsible "we listen to our students concerns" moment and releasing a statement is the right thing to do. Us agreeing or disagreeing with it is immaterial.
"After dealing with Ole Miss for over a year," he said, "I've learned to expect their leadership to do and say things that the leadership at other Division I schools would never consider doing and to justify their actions by reminding themselves that "We're Ole Miss.""
- Tom Mars, Esq. 4.9.18
What Sharpton and Waters did was give Chauvin some pretty solid footing for an appeal, when he had none otherwise. They are idiots.
Then the statement should have been about the problem represented by this case-excessive force by police resulting in murder. That was the problem addressed by the jury in its verdict. Instead, the statement was about the "difficult issue" of racism, when keenum (or us) has no idea if racism motivated chauvin. It could have, but there was no evidence presented of that.
Don't forget about the "journalist" caught taking pictures in the courtroom. Add all of the other public figures and officials including our president making suggestive statements and there's an outside shot at this being reversed. Also I'm sure BLM posturing and threatening to burn the city down didn't help either.
ETA: actually responded to something you didn't say, but will leave it here b/c I'm too lazy to delete and move it.
ETA II: You are correct that treating it as a conservative/liberal issue makes it difficult to approach reasonably (and doesn't even make sense; if it were going to be conservative/liberal, conservatives should be arguing for police accountability and liberals for more state power); but I think treating it as a race issue rather than a police accountability (particularly dealing with lower socioeconomic status and therefore politically powerless people) helps ensure nothing productive can be done because people rightly recognize it's not really a race issue
We can't figure out a solution while people are misidentifying a problem. We have a problem with holding police accountable. It is actually a difficult problem to draw the line between acknowledging that police officers cannot be perfect in making split second decisions and should not be held criminally liable for every mistake but also ensuring that they are held to a high standard. But we do an awful job of it in general ("we", meaning lots of different jurisdictions around the United States, which makes it harder to fix because you really need to fix it at best state by state, but also really LEO agency by LEO agency).
But you seem to just be assuming that race is what drives it. Explain to me how race allowed this police officer to walk away with a pension after shooting an unarmed person begging for his life and following their commands? https://www.nytimes.com/2017/12/09/u...o-arizona.html
Then explain how you know racism is what drove the treatment of George Floyd, as opposed to just unfortunately typical relationships and power dynamics between LEOs and drug addicts, homeless, and just lower socioeconomic status persons.
Last edited by Johnson85; 04-21-2021 at 09:11 AM.
Uh, Dershowitz is one of the best, if not the best, legal minds in this country. Just for shits and giggles, he's also a huge liberal. You don't watch much news do you?
"The QB and the receiver weren't on the same page there, but hey its only week eleven". (Jack Cristil)
IMO Chauvin murdered Floyd. But what in the hell did race have to do with it?