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PaperclipPerfector  6mo ago (text post)   24828 thread views

Culture War Roundup for the week of May 6, 2024

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I agree that using the photo as such is editorial narrative-peddling of the basest sort.

It’s like…you’ve seen those photos of heroin bricks and gold-plated guns from drug busts. They’re pure propaganda, right? The police want to look strong and successful, so they have incentives both to create such photos and to spread them around. Departments will tend towards policies that let them do it, like stacking all the product in one spot. But does that make the drug bust illegitimate?

I guess I’d expect a magically apolitical FBI to generate very similar photos. Maybe department policy includes a stack of cover sheets. (In my experience, the government loves those things, even in unclassified situations like training.) Or maybe they made the decision in the moment, either to make their sort easier, or to get that snappy photo.

If that’s true, then we’re back to priors. I believe the FBI is somewhat politically aware, and I assume some of its leadership holds a grudge against the FPOTUS. I don’t believe that was the driving factor. Then again, I wasn’t expecting them to pull the trigger at all.

Departments will tend towards policies that let them do it, like stacking all the product in one spot. But does that make the drug bust illegitimate?

If the gold-plated guns were actually props (not recovered in the bust), it at least risks poisoning the jury pool. And that photo wasn't actually just a publicity photo -- it was included in a court filing by the Justice Department, so it also IMO constitutes an attempt to prejudice the court.

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