I saw this on the MSNBC's last night

[90-percent]

Would have thought it would have become an extremely popular subject on DU and other progressive medias. Comey is remarkably candid about the wrongs American Law enforcement has inflicted on black people over history. And, profoundly, recent history by name - Michael Brown, Eric Garner, "the ongoing protests throughout the country" and the assassination of two NYC police officers.

He makes a point most police see more crime in black neighborhoods, so they think all blacks are criminals. But I think he corrected that point to consider it may be the officers racial bias affecting blacks disproportionally? (Which we DU'ers know it is. whites and blacks consume recreational drugs in about the same proportion, but there's three blacks in jail for every one white for drug crimes.)

I find it profound that a leading member of "the authorities" would simply admit; "Hey, we've really been messing up and committing serious misjudgments and discriminatory violations of peoples civil rights and that's maybe not a good thing".

As as liberal progressive, I declare this speech a profound and historical tipping point that may reverse the course of our current authoritarian fascist police state Oligarchy and point it back in the direction of a bona fide democratic Republic like what America was in my baby boomer youth.

Or, I could be cynical an consider it may be some Rovian "public relations mind-fuck" to give even more to the 1% directly out of the pockets and Constitutional Rights of the bottom 99%? It will be interesting to see if "the liberal Main Stream Media" gives any exposure to this story? Let's watch and see, shall we?

Also - Chris Hayes was I think where I first learned of this. The NY Times was the first sufficient piece of media google gave me. Chris' recent DU vid about sweating out a security search potential pot bust while entering the 2000? republican Convention in DC ties into to the above story nicely and I hope Chris racial breakdown of drug incarcerations matches mine!


http://www.nytimes.com/2015/02/13/us/politics/fbi-director-comey-speaks-frankly-about-police-view-of-blacks.html?_r=0


90% Jimmy

PS - thanks for the hearts. You love me. YOU REALLY LOVE ME!

[yallerdawg]

1. FBI Director Comey is something different.

This kind of talk won't make the bosses happy:

“At many points in American history, law enforcement enforced the status quo, a status quo that was often brutally unfair to disfavored groups.”

He also touches on sub-conscious racial bias, which is basically our innate preference for people like us, that look like us, that act like us. Of course, we already suspected this. We called it affirmative action and racial quotas.

We need to keep our eye on Director Comey. He might be one of us.

[brush]

2. Comey was the one who twarted Bush's flunkie Alberto Gonzales . . .

in 2004 when Gonzales, then White House counsel, and Andrew Card tried to get a weakened Attorney General John Ashcroft to sign an illegal wiretap authorization on his hospital bed.

Comey got wind of it and, as acting Attorney General, rushed to the hospital to sucessfully stop the attempt.

This speech is not a surprise to me. In the early 2000s I was a staffer for the New York Law Journal (a hundred-year-old niche legal newspaper that is subscribed to by all the attorneys, judges and legal community in New York City and state), Comey, then a US Attorney, was invited to speak to us and he came off as a very sincere, fair and principled man.

This speech and the above mentioned incident shows that clearly. I don't what his politics are now but if he's still a Republican, that party needs to look to people like him instead of the clown car of potential candidates that they are now touting.

It would be nice if Comey switched parties.

[90-percent]

3. Thanks for your commentary

I respect your background and respect the tremendous credibility to your points. (beats copying private citizen blog rants!) I remember the Gonzalez-Ashcroft "are these Bush people really this venal to force the Attorney General to make important decisions from a hospital bed about to undergo a serious operation?" Well, yes, and I do remember there was one honorable person that stopped the whole treasonous and creepy besides episode. Forgot his name, but Comey's permanently on my radar now fer sure!

He's now number two on my extremely short list of current honorable republican's. Col. Wilkerson is the first. Any Republican that so consistently vilifies Cheney and calls him a war criminal deserves a statue on the White House Lawn.

I remember in my youth itt seemed like most public figures were honorable and generally did what was in the best interest of the majority, especially the largest part of the population, the middle class. Today an honorable politician regardless of party is the extreme exception to the rule. That the vast majority of Americans are getting totalitarian fascist police state Oligarchy screwed by the PTB's shows just how close we are to completely transforming into such a state in the present. So it's time to re-engage the average citizen back into our Democracy and a guy in Comey's position saying what he did two days ago may unleash a citizenry more engaged in how things are currently being run and that they have a voice in changing it. It's happened in our history before. The Teddy Roosevelt turn of the Century bust-the-trusts- progressive movement and FDR's reforms of the Depression show us how it's done.

And history, like civics, is something our educational system seems to be absent on. And those subjects, in addition to so many others, are cornerstones in preserving a healthy fully functional Democracy, like what I got to enjoy as a boomer. And what my fellow boomer's, who run everything now, have taken away from subsequent generations, which is a pretty rotten thing to do!

-jim again.

-90% Jimmy

[mother earth]

4. But you know it is TRULY nice when we see a republican acting in an unexpectedly sensible &honorable

way. Here's to Comey and integrity, may it catch on!

TY for the background on him too, it's nice when the bigger picture is seen.