Are They Serious?

The (individual) bad cop events in Minneapolis and Atlanta, and the ensuing hoo-raw has prompted badly needed discussion of how we handle bad cops and their events, even overshadowed as the discussion is by the overarching hysteria of demands for cop-free zones and the Left’s larger demand to do away with all police forces everywhere forever.

This has prompted the editors of The Wall Street Journal to wonder:

…suddenly Democrats say public-union labor agreements are frustrating police reform. We’re delighted to hear it—if they’re serious.

Of course, they are not remotely serious. This is an election year, and I’m shocked, shocked to find that vote pandering in this season.

Police unions have many shortcomings, no small per centage of them very serious, but this is just another example of Progressive-Democrats vote pandering, throwing a temporarily inconvenient constituent under the bus, and blaming everyone but themselves for the problem.

Private employers often use arbitration to resolve complaints by and against employees, but cities such as Chicago, Detroit, and Minneapolis allow police unions essentially to select the arbitrator.

It’s those city governments’ carefully deliberated decision to surrender their responsibilities to the counterparty of any negotiation or disciplinary action.

Progressive-Democrat-run city governments. But it’s not their fault; it’s those nefarious cop unions. Watch for the Progressive-Democrat anti-police union opprobrium disappear from 4 November on.

Another VA Failure

…in a too-long string of failures.

A body found in a stairwell at the Bedford Veterans Affairs Medical Center in Massachusetts is a veteran who lived at the facility and disappeared more than a month ago.

He was missing, too, for five days before anyone cared enough to notice and report him missing.

It’s long past time to stop throwing taxpayer money into this hole. Disband the Veterans Administration entirely and use its budget and putative future budgets as vouchers for our veterans so they can get decent health care and shelter at quality facilities of their choice.

Veteranos Administratio delende est.