Month: April 2010

Training Torturers

by digby

Here you have a 10 year old with obvious emotional problems. So they torture him into submission. Heckuva job:

The Morgan County sheriff’s department will investigate the actions of two Martinsville police officers who used a stun gun and slapped a 10-year-old boy at a day care center.

Capt. William Jennings and Officer Darren Johnson were suspended with pay following the incident at Tender Teddies day care at 5:10 p.m. Tuesday.

Morgan County Sheriff Robert Garner said the Martinsville police asked his office to investigate on Wednesday. Garner assigned Detective Sgt. Brent Worth to lead the probe to determine if any criminal charges should be filed.

“If he finds criminal wrongdoing it will be referred to the county prosecutor’s office,” Garner said.

Martinsville Police Chief Jon Davis told reporters that the two officers could have restrained the 94-pound boy after being called to the home to help control him.

Jennings and Johnson said in reports they filed that the boy was screaming and kicking and was generally “out of control” when they arrive at Tender Teddies.

Jennings said he had been called to the day care within the last week because the boy had been acting unruly.

They said when they arrived the boy was kicking and yelling at his female guardian, who was lying on the porch, trying to get him under control. The boy also allegedly spat on and kicked another adult woman. Johnson said the boy kicked him the left leg.

“I had my department issued X26 Taser out and displayed the arc for the juvenile to see,” Johnson said in his report. “I advised the juvenile that if he didn’t stop then he would be tased.”

Johnson said the boy swore at an adult and Jennings told him to apologize. When the boy shook his head, Jennings “smacked the juvenile in the mouth causing the juvenile to hit the back of his head on the house,” according to Johnson’s report.

The boy allegedly got further enraged and lunged toward the woman again, hitting her. Johnson and Jennings tried to control him and Johnson shot the stun gun at the boy’s left shoulder for one or two seconds, according to Johnson’s report.

The boy calmed down and when the officer asked him if there “were going to be any more problems today he shook his head no,” according to Johnson’s report.

Oh and by the way:

Jennings’ report does not mention the use of the stun gun or the child being slapped.

The 9th circuit rules that you can taser a pregnant woman for refusing to immediately comply with an officers order, so this seems like a no-brainer. the only question is when they’re going to issue them to teachers and day care workers so they can save the cops a trip.

After all, it only hurts for a little while. No biggie.

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Sigh

by tristero

Most of the people I see regularly don’t follow politics that closely, especially these days now that we no longer have a sociopath and a drooling maniac in the two top posts in the executive branch (Which was which is your choice. Or combine the two). My friends think Obama is doing a good to excellent job. Sure they don’t like this decision, or that cave-in, but on the whole, they think highly of him.

And so, I often remind them of my particular pet peeve, that the torturers and murderers of the Bush/Cheney regime simply must be brought to justice, hauled into a court or – at the absolute very least – forced to reveal all to a truth and reconciliation commission. And that to his everlasting discredit, Obama shows negative inclination to do so.

From there, the conversation takes its usual course, with my friends excusing Obama and leaping to his defense, and me piling up the things he has done inexcusably wrong – Afghanistan, giving away the store at the start of healthcare reform, the waste of time and resources seeking grains of sanity in the GOP, the inattention and arrogance that led to the Scott Brown debacle, etc.

Which made it all the more startling to me when I found myself on the opposite side the other day. A smart, highly knowledgeable, highly accomplished friend lit into Obama and pulled no punches. Obama’s corrupt economic appointees, the consequent lack of any serious financial reform, the failure to take advantage of an historic moment to change the country. Obama was an incredible disappointment.

I couldn’t help but disagree but I don’t understand exactly why. Maybe it was simple ornery contrarianism, or maybe, having missed the first part of the discussion where he said that he was glad that the health bill passed, I felt that the very real, very obvious distinctions between Obama and Bush* were being minimized.

So I mentioned the fact that the Obama attitude towards science in general is very different than Bush’s and in the right direction, We agreed. I brought up the recent recess appointments, and I wrote my friend a note saying, in part, that I believed the historic opportunity everyone else thinks Obama had to implement deep changes in American governance right after his inauguration was an illusion. In fact, I said, the most plausible historic opportunity available on Election Day was the potential for an immediate, and heavily- armed/funded, rightwing revolt. (Obama seems to have delayed the full onset of that, thank whatever gods or avatars you care to invoke, but it’s arguable whether The Big Crazy can be avoided for much longer; certain loud voices on the right have made it abundantly clear that there will be blood, the sooner the better. Whether cooler heads exist anymore within the GOP to rein in these thugs is more the shadow of a wish than much of a hope ). I said I was glad that Obama refused to exploit his charisma back then, that it showed strength of character on his part, not a failure to lead. Charisma is not an unalloyed virtue; after all, highly charismatic leaders share at least one thing: they get people killed. Lots of them.

Off went my email and good, oh! it felt good. On a roll, I then found this article in Rolling Stone on the positive developments at the EPA. I started a new letter so I could send him the link. See, see? This is really good, yes? Sure, the article says she could be doing even a better job, but this is really serious change and Obama’s responsible! Obama’s doing a damn good job sometimes. Maybe it’s wrong to be so disappointed in the guy!

Then, just as I was just about press send, that’s when I heard the news about the offshore drilling turnaround.

Sigh.

Note to self: Next time you feel like enthusiastically defending someone who’s more moderate than liberal, go thou instead and consume mass quantities of the finest chocolate you can find within three miles of home. The urge will pass.

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*Note to commenters: By all means, feel free to argue that there is no essential difference between Bush’s and Obama’s administration and politics. Just don’t ask me to discuss it with you. Not because I agree but because it would be at best as futile as explaining the sonic differences between the “grand piano” patch on a cheap Casio keyboard and a perfectly-tuned Bosendorfer to someone who was born without hearing.

Put another way, to argue that there is no essential difference between Obama and Bush is as ludicrous as arguing that there was no difference between Gore and Bush. And we all know how very astute and informed and clever an observation that was.

They’re Good

by digby

Most Americans think that the Democrats not only did something illegitimate by passing health care reform on a party line vote, it was so illegitimate that they were asking for violence and vandalism by doing it. Good to know.

A new USA Today/Gallup poll out this morning shows that more Americans blame the Democrats more than any other group when it comes to the inciting the violence and vandalism that have spread across the country in the week since health care reform became law. Fifty percent said passing the bill was a “bad thing,” while 47% said it was a good thing.*

When asked about the violence, 49% of the 1,009 adults surveyed over the weekend said the “Democratic tactics” are a “major reason” for the violent incidents. Forty-six percent said conservative media was responsible, and 43% blamed the attacks on the rhetoric of Republican political leaders.

If that’s the case, then our democratic system of government is effectively dead. Any minority party can simply block all legislation, make up a bunch of bullshit about “tactics,” threaten them with violence and the people will back them. (Unless they are Democrats, of course, in which case they will be told the “elections have consequences” and be called obstructionists who refuse to allow the governing party the room they need to govern.)

If passing a party line vote in the US Congress is asking for violence and threats we have big, big problems.

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