Month: July 2010

Old Parasites

by digby

Dave Johnson has written an interesting post about some of those lazy folks who allegedly refuse to take work at minimum wage as they should:

Here is a fact: There. Are. No. Jobs. I’m in Silicon Valley where the official unemployment rate dipped in May to 11.2%. This dip was, of course, because of so many people just giving up trying to get a job, certainly not because of some wave of hiring. The underemployed figure, known as “U-6,” is 21.7% in California, 16.7% nationally.

You have to know someone to get a humiliating job standing on a corner waving a sign. And if you are over 40, things are even worse than that. Don’t give me any conservative Rush Limbaugh-Ayn Rand dehumanizing nonsense about parasitic lazy people who won’t look—there are no jobs. I know so many people here who are over 40, were laid off in the 2000-era dot com crash, still haven’t found a regular job and aren’t going to. They have had occasional “contract” positions—which means no benefits, no security, a 15% “self-employment” tax and no unemployment check when the job ends. And now, 10 years later they’re a lot over 40 and are not going to find a job because so many employers here won’t hire people over 40. And now there are so many more who lost their jobs in the mass layoffs of 2008-2009 and can’t find a job. So many of them are also over 40. In fact, many were laid off in obvious purges of over-40 workers, offered a small severance that they could only receive if they promised to take no age-discrimination action against the employer. (I don’t say “company” because some of these worked at nonprofits.) Most of these people will not find another job, but are too young for Medicare and Social Security.[…]

Age discrimination is a thing with me because it is so blatant here. It’s the culture here, some even say that for programmers it is “35 and out.” At various times looking for work I’ve been told I “seemed tired” and things like that. I was even told once that I wouldn’t be able to market some software because I “wouldn’t be able to get my mind around” how it worked—when I had designed and written part of it in a previous life. One company here is said to have only 200 over-40 employees out of 20,000.

What are people supposed to do? You can’t get Medicare until you are 65, and Social Security until 67. But it’s near-impossible to get a job or health insurance if you are over 50.

They are supposed to do all those jobs that are currently being done by undocumented immigrants — like picking strawberries or working as dishwashers. At least that’s the plan according to Republicans who insist that the unemployed are either too lazy to work or too high falutin’ to take work they think is beneath them. Rand Paul calls it “tough love.”

And when they raise the retirement age, folks who lose their jobs at 65 or 66 can pull a chair up on the median of the highway and sell oranges. See? Not a problem at all.

*Oh and health insurance is available to people over 50 if they’re healthy and unemployed — and rich. Also not a problem. Unless you are an old parasite.

Update: This post is by digby — I had to use Dennis Hartley’s account for technical reasons.

Saturday Night At The Movies

Muy caliente! Movies that make you sweat

By Dennis Hartley

London’s burning: The Day the Earth Caught Fire

With the mercury soaring into the triple digits in many parts of the country this week, I thought it would be fun to cobble together a list of really “hot” movies. Hot-as in sweaty, steamy, dripping, sticky, sudoriferous cinema (get your mind out of the gutter). If you’re like me (and isn’t everyone?) there’s nothing more satisfying than gathering up an armload of DVDs (along with a 12-pack of Diet Dr. Pepper) and just happily pissing away the hot days ensconced in my dark, cozy media room (actually, there is no “media room” per se in my studio apartment-but I can always dream, can’t I?). So here (alphabetically) are my Top 10 “summer perspiration films”…“The SPF 10”, if you will.

Body Heat– A bucket of ice cubes in the bath is just not enough to cool down this steamy noir. Writer-director Lawrence Kasdan’s 1981 homage to Double Indemnity blows the mercury right out the top of the thermometer. Kathleen Turner is the sultry femme fatale who plays William Hurt’s hapless pushover like a Stradivarius (“You aren’t too smart. I like that in a man.”) The combination of the Florida heat with Turner and Hurt’s sexual chemistry will light your socks on fire. Outstanding support from Richard Crenna, Ted Danson, J.A. Preston and an up-and-coming character actor named Mickey Rourke.

Dog Day Afternoon-As far as oppressively humid hostage dramas go, this 1975 “true crime” classic from director Sidney Lumet easily out-sops the competition. The air conditioning may be off, but Al Pacino is definitely “on” in his absolutely brilliant portrayal of John Wojtowicz (“Sonny Wortzik” in the film), whose botched attempt to rob a Brooklyn bank turned into a dangerous hostage crisis and a twisted media circus (the desperate Wojtowicz was trying to finance his lover’s sex-change operation). Even though he had already done the first two Godfather films, this was the performance that put Pacino on the map. John Cazale is both scary and heartbreaking in his role as Sonny’s dim-witted “muscle”. Keep an eye out for Chris Sarandon’s memorable cameo. Frank Pierson’s whip-smart screenplay was based on articles by P.F. Kluge and Thomas Moore.

Cool Hand Luke-Paul Newman shines (and sweats buckets) in his iconic role as the title character of this 1967 film, a ne’er do well from a southern burg who ends up on a chain gang. He’s busted for cutting the heads off of parking meters while on a drunken spree, but by the end of this sly allegory, astute viewers will glean that his real crime is: Being a Non-conformist. Stuart Rosenberg’s directs; sharp script by Donn Pearce and Frank Pierson (there he is again!) Highlights include Strother Martin’s “failure to communicate” speech, Harry Dean Stanton singing “The Midnight Special”, the (ahem) car wash scene and George Kennedy’s Best Supporting Actor turn. Also with Ralph Waite, Dennis Hopper, Wayne Rogers, Anthony Zerbe (Dog Boy!), and Joy Harmon as the (er, seriously-is it hot in here?) car wash girl. Oh…did I mention the car wash scene?

The Day the Earth Caught Fire– Written and directed by Val Guest (Quatermass Xperiment), this cerebral mix of conspiracy a-go-go and sci-fi drama from the Cold War era is a sort of precursor to the X-Files. Nuclear testing by the U.S. and Soviets triggers a mysterious and alarming shift in the Earth’s climate. As London’s weather turns more weirdly tropical by the hour, a Daily Express reporter (Peter Stenning) begins to suspect that the British government is not being 100% forthcoming on the possible fate of the world. Along the way, Stenning enjoys some steamy scenes with his love interest (sexy Janet Munro). The film is more noteworthy for its smart, snappy patter than its run-of-the-mill f/x, but still makes for a compelling story. Co-starring the great Leo McKern!

Do The Right Thing-Director Spike Lee wastes no time turning up the heat in this provocative allegorical dramedy about race relations in America, filtered through a day in the life of Brooklyn’s multi-ethnic Bed-Stuy neighborhood. From the opening credits, which literally explode onto the screen with a muy caliente Rosie Perez busting some serious moves to the strains of Public Enemy’s “Fight the Power”, to the jaw-dropping climax, this is one of those rare films that manages to engage mind, body and soul all at once. One of the few films on the subject that is not afraid to admit to and confront the fact that bigotry comes in all colors. I think it remains his finest work to date. The cast includes Ossie Davis, Ruby Dee, Danny Aiello, John Turturro and Giancarlo Esposito.

In the Heat of the Night – “They call me MISTER Tibbs!” In this classic (which won 1967’s Best Picture Oscar) Sidney Poitier plays a cosmopolitan police detective from Philly who gets waylaid in a torpid Mississippi backwater, where he is reluctantly recruited into helping the bigoted sheriff (Rod Steiger) solve a local murder. Poitier absolutely nails his role; you feel Virgil Tibb’s pain as he tries to maintain his professional cool amidst a brace of surly rednecks, who throw up roadblocks at every turn. While Steiger is outstanding here as well, I always found it ironic that he was the one who won “Best Actor in a leading role”, when in reality Poitier was the star (it seems Hollywood didn’t get the film’s message). Sterling Silliphant’s brilliant screenplay (another Oscar) works as a crime thriller and a “fish out of water” story. Director Norman Jewison was nominated, but didn’t score a win. Future director Hal Ashby won for Best Editing. Quincy Jones composed the soundtrack, and Ray Charles sings the sultry theme.

The Night of the Iguana-I couldn’t assemble a list like this without at least one film fueled by the perennially hot and bothered Tennessee Williams. Director John Huston and co-writer Anthony Veiller adapted this sordid, blackly comic soaper from Williams’ twisty stage play about a defrocked, self-loathing minister (Richard Burton) who has expatriated himself to Mexico, where he has become a part-time tour guide and a full-time alcoholic. One day he really goes off the deep end, and shanghais a busload of Baptist college teachers to an isolated, rundown hotel run by an “old friend” (Ava Gardner). Throw in a sexually precocious teenager (Sue Lyon, recycling her Lolita persona) and an itinerant female grifter with a deceptively prim and proper exterior (Deborah Kerr), and stir. Most of the Williams archetypes are present and accounted for: dipsomaniacs, nymphets, repressed lesbians and neurotics of every stripe. The bloodletting is mostly verbal, but mortally wounding all the same. Burton and Kerr are fantastic, as always. I think this is my favorite Ava Gardner performance; she’s earthy, sexy, heartbreaking, intimidating, and endearingly girlish-all at once (“I wanna COKE!”).

They Shoot Horses, Don’t They? -“Yowsa, yowsa, yowsa!” This richly decadent allegory about the human condition has to be one of the grimmest and most cynical films ever made (and one of the sweatiest). The late great director Sydney Pollack assembled a crack ensemble for this depiction of a Depression-era dance marathon from Hell: Jane Fonda, Gig Young (who snagged a Best Supporting Actor Oscar), Susannah York, Bruce Dern and Red Buttons are all outstanding; Pollack even coaxed the famously wooden Michael Sarrazin (the Hayden Christensen of his day) into displaying some real emotion. James Poe and Robert E. Thompson adapted the screenplay from Horace McCoy’s novel.

The Wages of Fear -The primeval jungles of South America have served as a backdrop for a plethora of sweat-streaked tales (Werner Herzog’s Fitzcarraldo and Aguirre: The Wrath of God come to mind), but this 1953 existential adventure film from director Henri-Georges Clouzot sits atop that list. Four societal outcasts, who for one reason or another find themselves figuratively and literally at the “end of the road”, hire themselves out for an apparently suicidal job transporting two truckloads of touchy nitro over several hundred miles of bumpy jungle terrain for delivery to a distant oilfield. It does take a little time for the “action” to really get going; once it does, you won’t let out your breath until the final frame. Yves Montand leads the fine international cast. Clouzot co-scripted with Jerome Geronimi, adapting from the original Georges Anaud novel. The 1977 William Friedkin remake Sorcerer has its detractors, but I recommend a peek.

The Year of Living Dangerously– An irresistible mix of tense political thriller and sizzling love story, set in an exotic locale. Director Peter Weir transports us back to a very dangerous year in Indonesia (1965), when the government of President Sukarno was cracking at the seams. Mel Gibson and Sigourney Weaver portray an Australian radio journalist and a British attaché, respectively, who get caught up in the brewing conflict (and each other). Linda Hunt steals the show (and snagged a Best Supporting Actress Oscar) in an astounding gender-bending turn as local photographer “Billy Kwan”. Kwan is a fascinatingly complex character who vacillates between playing the matchmaker and the puppeteer, for his own enigmatic reasons. Weir’s sense of place and atmosphere is beautifully realized, ably assisted by DP Russell Boyd’s Oscar-winning cinematography.


.

What’s The Matter With Florida?

by digby

One of my favorite Jon Stewart bits was after the 2000 election when he did a rundown on all the news from Florida that year. It really had seemed as if it had been the center of the universe for months. The punch line was, “and perhaps the biggest story of the year was the tale of one tired, confused little boy.” They flashed this picture on the screen.

Anyway, ever since California became so dysfunctional that it doesn’t even really have politics anymore at all, Florida has become the working microcosm of the nation and it just gets weirder and weirder all the time. And this story, which Howie Klein broke last week (and which has a unique distinction of being picked up in both the Florida progressive blogosphere and Florida GOP Facebook pages) is just one of them. Excerpt:

On the other hand, a little good news: although local Republicans feared Rivera might try to beat up the woman running against him, Marili Cancio at last night’s Miami-Dade Republican Party meeting, he contented himself on merely calling the police and having them escort the other opponent, Paul Crespo, out of the meeting. Both had demanded their swaggering and corrupt rival resign as county party chairman. As of this writing, he hadn’t physically attacked Cancio. On the other hand, late last night the Miami Herald reported that Rivera, widely viewed as one of South Florida’s most egregiously corrupt politicians, seemed to be trying to extort money out of the employees of Florida International University.

You have to read the whole thing to believe it.

Now this fellow Rivera isn’t just any old Republican crank. he’s the chairman of the Dade County Republicans Party and Tea Party candidate Marco Rubio’s ex-roommate and partner in a home foreclosure scandal.

Florida is the most interesting political state in the union, hands down.

.

Laffer Riot

by digby

From our “who says the right doesn’t have any ideas” files here’s supply side guru Arthur Laffer with a bold new economic plan:

While many conservatives have called for tax cuts aimed at benefiting corporations and multimillionaires, economist Arthur Laffer — a former member of President Reagan’s Economic Policy Advisory Board — went a step further today. Writing in the Wall Street Journal, Laffer argued that the best way to stimulate the economy is to have “no federal taxes at all.” Here is what Laffer proposed to eliminate:

No income tax, no corporate profits tax, no capital gains tax, no estate tax, no payroll tax (FICA) either employee or employer, no Medicare or Medicaid taxes, no federal excise taxes, no tariffs, no federal taxes at all, which would have reduced federal revenues by $2.4 trillion annually. Can you imagine where employment would be today? How does a 2.5% unemployment rate sound?

I’m guessing that all the resultant funerals probably would create a lot of new jobs, at least temporarily, so there’s something to what he says.

.

Dinner At The Castle

by digby

Oh Dear …

Welcome to our 6th Annual Speakers Dinner for the Aspen Ideas Festival.

Each year, Stewart and I host the speakers to our great joy, and to paraphrase Greg Mortenson, our “Three Cups of Tea” runneth over.

I rejoiced when Greg related how he convinced the mullahs in a remote Pakistani village to allow him to build a school for girls by reminding the elder that the dowry of a bride with no education is worth just one goat, but a bride who had completed high school could be worth as much as 40 goats. And Stewart lovingly whispered to me that I was worth at least 50 goats. I’m sure I will be worth many more after this year’s Ideas Festival.

Each year, I marvel at the changes in our world, and the many ideas discussed to solve each new challenge. I so longed for the way we were that I invited our friend Barbra Streisand to attend this year’s Festival.

As the oil in the Gulf threatens to spreads its dreadful tentacles to the far reaches of the eastern seaboard, the national debt threatens to absorb 20% of the taxes we pay, Arianna Huffington tells us that the middle class is an endangered species, our largely ineffective stimulus limps along, galloping unemployment and a nearly broken education system prevail – now, I ask you all, why so glum?

It was in 2005 that my friend Reverend Rick Warren warned that those of us who do not accept Jesus as our savior are going to hell. It seems that most of the speakers at our festival this year are finally united in a common thought: We’re all going to hell. So there will be plenty of fine company.

And speaking of hell, it is so nice to witness the harmony among political parties at this conclave — even if it is the demise of civilization as we know it that has caused it. Now that 40% of our citizens call themselves independent, do you think political parties may go the way of Glenn Beck’s sanity?

That Narcissus of negativity, Niall Ferguson, likened our collapse to the fall of the Roman Empire, warning that it will be much quicker. Everyone better learn how to eat with chopsticks — and fast.

Tom Friedman said that in 2008 and 2009, when Mother Nature and markets hit the wall, it was our warning heart attack. Take a baby aspirin and call him in the morning.

But it wasn’t all that grim… The “marriage” of Ted Olsen and David Boies is downright heartwarming as they work hand-in-hand to defeat those opposed to gay marriage.

[…]

But it was my hero, David Brooks — who, by the way, makes me cry every time I hear him speak — who gave me the most inspiration for our future. David related a story about a young Mexican-Chinese girl who grew up in a very troubled household, yet managed to create a great life for herself because of her innate mental disposition. It is all about resiliency, isn’t it? And above all, America is a resilient country. After all, most of us survived a whole season of Jersey Shore.

“The true challenge of our times is to stoke the creative genius within each and every one of us,” said Richard Florida, and Sir Ken Robinson explained that finding our true passion in life is the key to success. And Stewart and I are passionate about having you all here this evening.

David Brooks also told us that we eat less when we’re alone and more when we’re in a crowd — that is why we made so much food for you tonight. So eat up, and have a good time. Thank you all for being here.

We agree on one thing — David Brooks makes me cry every time I hear him speak too.

h/t to DG

Speaking of Sarah

by digby

I realize that it is condescending and rude to criticize Palin, so I won’t. But I do think that if she is considered a spokesperson for the Tea Party, it’s not too awfully impolite to inquire about her views on certain issues. But just to make sure that she’s not being unfairly portrayed, it’s probably a good idea to only allow her colleagues at Fox News to do the questioning so that we can be certain she gets the respect she deserves.

So here’s Sarah Palin on immigration offered without any derisive left wing commentary at all:

h/t to bill

Poor Sarah

by digby

So according to Forbes, Sarah Palin’s income is not only far more paltry than assumed. Frankly, I’m embarrassed for the poor girl. I’m guessing that First Dude’s going to have to go back to work on the North Slope just to make ends meet:

[A]n investigation by Forbes of Palin’s income since she left office last July (done as part of our research for the annual Celebrity 100 list, out last week), plus a review of her finances from a source with access to her business records, suggests Palin made a far smaller advance and that her earnings over the past 12 months were at best $10 million.

Worse than that, they figure this is probably going to be her best year ever, which means she might as well be destitute.

It’s getting harder and harder to stretch ten million these days, but maybe they can clip some coupons and lay in a bigger supply of moose meat next year. And little Willow must be getting old enough to start pitching in with a paper route. They’re just your average American family struggling to get by in these tough times but I’m sure they’ll all pull together and make it through.

h/t to AK

.

Blue America Chat With Congressional Candidate Dr. Fred Johnson

by digby

Howie introduced Dr. Fred Johnson at DWT this morning:

One of the sharpest candidates running for the House this year is Dr. Fred Johnson in western Michigan, for a seat being abandoned by the ever-ambitious twitterer Pete Hoekstra. In April Fred did a great guest post at DWT on education and societal priorities— well worth reading. Today, Blue America’s latest endorsed candidate, he’s joining us for a live blogging session at Crooks and Liars, 2pm in Michigan, 11am, PT. Before we get into the reasons we’ve endorsed Fred for the seat, I want to mention that he gave us an autographed copy of a book he wrote with Tayannah Lee McQuillar, Tupac Shakur: The Life And Times Of An American Icon which we will be giving away to a randomly selected donor today. To qualify for the drawing, please give any amount– there is no minimum– at the Blue America PAC page. You might be interested in knowing that all the money donated through this page this weekend will be put towards campaign advertising on Michigan *-blogs.

A former marine and a genuine progressive, Fred is well positioned to take advantage of the rapidly changing demographics and political identifications in the district. 2008 saw a huge jump in the Democratic vote throughout the district. This was delivered primarily through the top-notch voter registration and GOTV efforts of the Campaign for Change. The district now has a whopping 45,000 first time voters, who can deliver this seat to Fred in November. Despite the fact that conventional wisdom calls this a safe Republican district, it is very much worth noting that Senator Levin won here with 53% of the vote, and President Obama fell just short, at 48.5%. This district is turning purple rapidly, and 2010 can complete the process.

To give you a sense of Fred’s priorities, here’s a statement he gave me soon after I first met him this spring:

There are two interrelated issues that command the attention of any freshman progressive Representative: financial reform and campaign finance reform. The hard fact is that the two are so intertwined as to be inseperable.

The mavens of Wall Street have proven both their incompetence, and their venality. Only the strongest possible financial reform package will stop another catastrophe from hitting our economy. As a historian, I strongly reject the revisionism currently in vogue on the right, and feel that the reimposition of Glass-Steagall, and a whole host of strong reform measures is now demanded of Congress by the American people. This is one area where I diverge from the President. I believe we need stronger financial reform. Too big to fail is just plain too big.

But, how do we get there when the lobbyists and PACs of Wall Street have so much influence? My number one priority upon taking office will be the Fair Elections Now Act. This bill is a great first step in leveling the playing field at election time. But we need to do more. I strongly support the package of legislation being drafted by Rep. Frank and his colleagues in the Banking Committee. We need to take every avenue available to us to undo the destruction of the last vestiges of fairness in our campaign system wrought by the Citizens United decision. Whether it be through statutory restrictions on the political activities of corporations or, at minimum, much greater influence on the part of shareholders, we must strongly address campaign finance in order to have any chance at real reforms in other areas.

There are virtually no problems our country faces that can be solved without first solving the way the ruling elites can buy and sell our politicians and manipulate our system for their own benefit. One that Fred would very much like to address– as would the people living along Lake Michigan’s eastern shore has to do with protecting the environment, something very much treasured for its natural beauty and recreational opportunities by most of the people living there. I say “most” because, believe it or not, there are Big Oil corporate types and the Republicans who they finance and who serve their interests who actually want to drill for oil in the Great Lakes! I’m not kidding. Just last week Pat Toomey, an ex-congressman running for the Pennsylvania Senate seat was yelling about drilling in the Great Lakes again, despite the fact that they contain some 20% of all the world’s surface fresh water and that even a smaller spill than the BP Gulf disaster could contaminate every drop of drinking water for 40 million people and destroy hundreds of thousands of jobs. What is wrong with these people?

“The level of debate regarding energy policy,” Fred told me a few days ago, “just amazes me. Here you have a disaster of unprecedented scope, and yet there is very little of what I would call ‘jumping up and down’ in Washington. I mean, good grief, if this doesn’t wake people up on energy policy, what will it take? What we’ve actually seen is a calcification of the partisan positions that are out there– which I don’t mind on our side because I know we’re on the right track. But there hasn’t been one single Republican who has moved in the direction of strong changes to our energy policy — not one!

“I also wonder what the endpoint is of this process. When you have elected officials responding to this disaster by proposing greater deregulation of the oil and gas industry, where does that lead us? Do we end up with oil drilling in the Great Lakes? That’s the kind of thing that gets voters in my district just going crazy. But we have to see this as all interconnected. If you don’t want drilling in the Great Lakes, then you have to send folks to Washington who get the picture on energy policy. And I’m doing my best to lead on this locally– I talk about it with voters all the time. That’s why I’ve been very supportive of wind power here– against some of the usual NIMBYism. We just gotta do this stuff.”

Dr Johnson sounds like someone who can work with stalwart progressives like Alan Grayson and Donna Edwards.

.

The Day In Taser Madness

by digby

Earlier I wondered if Clarence Thomas might have his consciousness raised by the cruel tasering of his mentally ill nephew. I’m reminded by a commenter just what an epic epiphany that would have to be:

One of these years, before he dies, Thomas might explain to us why prisoners disgust him to the point of approving the very human rights violations we lecture China, Iraq, and other nations about. We have no explanation because Thomas has never conducted a major interview since being appointed to the court by the first President Bush.

Back in 1992, just after joining the court, Thomas dissented in the 7-2 decision that upheld a $800 award for damages for a Louisiana inmate who, from behind his locked cell, argued with a prison guard. Three guards took the inmate out of his cell, put him in handcuffs and shackles, and dragged him to a hallway where they beat him so badly that he suffered a cracked dental plate.

The lower court ruled that the beating had nothing to do with acceptable prison discipline. But Thomas all but laughed off the beating, saying the injuries were ”minor.” Thomas said the ”use of force that causes only insignificant harm to a prisoner may be immoral, it may be tortious, it may be criminal, and it may even be remediable under other provisions of the Federal Constitution, but it is not `cruel and unusual punishment.”’

Last year Thomas was one of three dissenters, with Rehnquist and Scalia, in the 6-3 decision that found that executing the mentally retarded was ”cruel and unusual punishment.” Also last year, Thomas dissented from a 6-3 decision to ban the practice in Alabama of chaining prisoners to outdoor ”hitching posts” and abandoning them for hours without food, water, or a chance to use the bathroom. While the majority also called that ”cruel and unusual,” Thomas said the hitching post served ”a legitimate penological purpose,” encouraging a prisoner’s ”compliance with prison rules while out on work duty.”

Maybe he can find some way to reconcile all this with his nephew’s plight, but it will take some serious mental gymnastics. He’s pretty much the last person on the planet one could count on to have any sympathy for anyone. But you never know …

And in more taser news, here’s a truly lovely story:

Phyllis Owens apparently didn’t know day from night when she died at 87, an hour after sheriff’s deputies closed in on her as she reached for a handgun, an officer said Friday.

“We had to respond,” said Detective Jim Strovink of the Clackamas County sheriff’s office.

An officer hiding in the shrubbery around her rural home jolted the frail woman with a stun gun Thursday afternoon, and she collapsed unconscious. She died soon after in the hospital. The autopsy report said her heart disease was the cause of death.

Two Clackamas sheriff’s deputies had gone to her wooded housing development near Boring after a man using a backhoe to replace her water line reported that she had threatened him with a handgun, Strovink said. It was about 2:30 p.m.

“She came out waving the gun and had him up against the backhoe,” Strovink said. “She yelled at him, ‘What are you doing here at this time of night?'”

The worker called for help, and deputies arrived to find the woman on her porch, Strovink said. Approaching her, they talked her into putting down the weapon, he said, but she quickly picked it up again.

The probes of the officer’s Taser hit her left arm and hip, said Dr. Larry Lewman of the state medical examiner’s office.

Owens had a history of heart disease and that was the cause of death, Lewman said Friday. He said he would do more research to determine what effect the electrical shock had on her pacemaker.

“A healthy person would not have died this way,” Lewman said.

And who could have predicted that an 87 year old woman might not be healthy?

Obviously, they had no choice. For instance they couldn’t possibly have backed off and called a mental health professional. And anyway, back before tasers they would have just shot her dead with with a bullet between the eyes, so at least they tried to spare her with non-lethal force.

This stuff is happening over and over and over again all over the county.

Finally — this:

In reality, when you think you’re seeing everything, you’re really seeing nothing. But if you peel away some layers, all of a sudden you’re looking at the gun; peel back another layer and all of a sudden you can see the expression of horror on Mehserle’s face; or Oscar Grant’s desperate pleading. In the following video, I sought to add depth to the original interpretation of this tragic event, in order to reveal more of the story. If you remember the first grainy footage following the shooting, dispel the ingrained “YouTube truth” you may be harboring, so that you can look for what’s new, what wasn’t there before. This video is best (indeed, should only) be watched on Full Screen mode with good speakers or headphones.

.

“We Can’t Let Them Win This One”

by digby

Crooks and Liars featured an important post earlier today by Congressman Raul Grijalva. I don’t think John Amato will mind if I repost the whole thing here:

I’m sincerely grateful for President Obama’s national address last week on the need for comprehensive immigration reform. Like the president, I want to work with my colleagues in the House and Senate to finalize legislation that fixes our broken immigration system. If the Republican Party doesn’t want to cooperate on a reform bill, Democrats should move forward regardless. The American people want action, and they want results. If all the opposition intends to do is chant “amnesty” over and over in an attempt to scare us out of passing a bill, they may as well just get out of the way. We’re ready to move on immigration reform, and I call on everyone who cares about border safety, the rule of law, and the economy to join us. I hope you’ll join us too. Please click here to sign my petition in support of comprehensive reform. We need a bill that ensures safe borders, holds undocumented immigrants accountable, and creates a rigorous process for acquiring earned legal status, as HR 4321 currently does. I’m happy to hear the president talk so clearly about why we can’t kick this can any further down the road. We can’t leave millions of people in permanent limbo. A rigorous process for bringing them into the legal system, the employment system and the tax system will benefit not only these people individually but the nation as a whole. We need a serious approach to this issue. Deporting 11 million people is unrealistic and would destroy the fabric of this country. Anyone who says otherwise is not living in the real world. Demagogues in the Republican Party, and their Democratic allies, will say this is about amnesty and open borders. No matter how many times they repeat it, it won’t be true. No one who understands the issue believes we can just dig trenches, point guns at the border and live in fear the rest of our lives. We need legal, social, economic and political reforms to truly make immigration work in this country, and we need them now. Please sign my petition in support of comprehensive immigration reform. Let’s make our voices heard as Washington turns its attention to this crucial issue. The president made clear in his speech last week that immigration reform is a matter of political courage. He’s absolutely right about that. As Congress and the White House craft a legislative proposal that sets up meaningful steps individuals need to take to get right with the law, in addition to addressing important border safety questions, it will become clear to the American people who’s trying to fix this problem and who’s obstructing progress for short-term political gain. We can’t let them win this one.

I have no idea if the Democrats will follow the just and smart course and push for this. If they do it will be against public opinion which is moving the wrong direction under the influence of right wing demagoguery and cynical GOP strategy. Supporters should mobilize and provide cover for them to do it. This is one small way to start.

.