Month: February 2011

Sleeping Offense

by digby

Last week an Oregon jury found that tasering a sleeping person is an abusive use of force, which is not always the case. Portland columnist Steve Duin was in the court room:

I spent three days last week in the Multnomah County Courthouse listening to a witness — or was it four witnesses? — lie repeatedly under oath.

As I begin to write Friday morning, the jury is still out, but its verdict won’t alter the unkind truth of what happened at the Mall 205 Denny’s 19 months ago, only establish where the story of Jason Elgin and Portland Police Officer Kevin Tully falls between farce and tragedy.

In July 2009, Elgin and Monica Roundtree, a fellow student at Portland Community College, walked into Denny’s at 1:15 a.m., ordered sandwiches and — exhausted from mid-term exams and celebratory drinks — promptly fell asleep. Unable to wake them, the restaurant manager, Zach Fair, called 9-1-1. The diners came in “normal and happy,” Fair told the 9-1-1 operator, but were now dead to the world.

Tully arrived at 1:57 a.m. Although this was a low-priority call, our friendly neighborhood peacekeeper arrived “angry,” according to Cherisse Watts, the waitress, and Danielle Mehner, another witness.

In the next two minutes — most of which is captured on the Denny’s security tape
— Tully did more than roust Elgin and Roundtree. He jerked Elgin off the bench by his feet, twice tazed him, handcuffed him and placed him under arrest on charges of disorderly conduct, resisting arrest, harassment, failure to comply, and trespassing.
After the DA’s office summarily dismissed the five misdemeanors, Elgin filed a $300,000 civil suit against the city, alleging false arrest, battery and malicious prosecution.

The jury found that the officer had a right to arrest the sleeping student but that he was wrong to have tasered him twice while he was on the ground and awarded him 30,000. (Read on for more of this officer’s nasty behavior.)I doubt that this verdict will result in better behavior by the police unfortunately, although it might make this particular officer think twice.

But I think this is correct:

“Nothing will happen to him,” Kafoury assured me. “I’m glad the jury found no force was required (to wake Elgin) because a hell of a lot of force was used. There is nothing more difficult than a police case because people need to believe in the police.”

That belief was sorely tested, yet again, by Tully’s performance at Denny’s and on the seventh floor of the courthouse.

Charged with policing a veritable slumber party, Tully showed up looking for a fight. That farce becomes tragic if the cops who take their peacekeeping mission a lot more seriously are denigrated right along with him.

That’s true. It’s probably a rare cop who would have behaved this way toward a sleeping citizen. But there are plenty who use their tasers inappropriately nonetheless. They have gotten the idea that if it doesn’t leave any marks that it isn’t brutal. And that’s the problem. Until the police agencies take this seriously it’s going to keep happening.

I’ll be curious to see how this one from 2009 comes out:

A federal lawsuit claims the El Reno police “cruelly injured” an elderly and disabled woman with a stun gun, while she lay in her hospital-type bed hooked up to oxygen. The police officers responded to the elderly woman’s home after her grandson called 911, because his grandmother wanted to die, as reported by UPI.

Lonnie D Tinsley, the grandson to 86-year-old Lona M. Varner, was visiting his grandmother when he called 911 on Dec. 22, 2009.

“She says … her life is over. She wants to end it. … She’s taken some medicine. I don’t know what she’s taken,” Tinsley said in the 911 call. “I can’t get her to tell me what she took. … She’s kind of upset and everything else,” says Tinsley.

About 10 El Reno police officers subsequently responded to the emergency call. One of the police officers even stepped on Varner’s oxygen hose, causing her to suffer from oxygen deprivation.

Varner apparently fought back at the help, and pulled a knife from underneath her pillow and threatened officers. One of the officers she threatened subsequently fired a Taser at her, striking her with only one prong.

The lawsuit alleges, “The police then fired a second Taser, striking her to the right and left of the midline of her upper chest and applied high voltage, causing burns to her chest, extreme pain and to pass out. The police then grabbed Ms. Varner by her forearms and jerked hands together, causing her soft flesh to tear and bleed on her bed; they then handcuffed her.”

Both Varner and Tinsley filed a federal lawsuit in Oklahoma City as a result. They claim their civil rights were violated and El Reno failed to adequately train and discipline its officers who were involved in the incident. The suit did not specify what damages were being sought.

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Played

by digby

If anyone doubts that the Hyde Amendment will be codified and expanded, all you have to do is listen to pro-choice Democratic Rep Nita Lowey saying “no federal funding for abortion!” over and over again on Cenk Uyger’s show today and watch her assure the audience that they will do everything they can to block “that portion of the bill” which says that hospitals can allow women to die rather perform an abortion to save their lives. If those are the terms, then Democrats have already lost and what amounts to the Stupak Amendment will likely become law.

No bill should even come to the floor of the Senate. But with staunch pro-choicers like Lowey repeating the wingnut mantra “no federal funding for abortions” like a parrot, I think there’s a fairly good chance that the House will pass a bill that quite a few Democratic Senators will jump to vote for since all the “bad things” have been taken out. All it will say is that “no federal funds will pay for abortion” — effectively ending abortion as an insurable procedure. But hey, why not? Everyone agrees on that apparently. It was just the rape and death provisions that were objectionable and we pro-choice advocates fought for women and made sure they were taken out. Hurrah for us.

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Pretty Good News

by tristero

If Bush travels abroad, he will face the prospect of being prosecuted for torture.

Activists vowed on Monday that former President George W. Bush will face a torture case against him wherever he travels outside the United States.

Human rights groups had planned to lodge a Swiss criminal case against Bush on Monday, before his address to a Jewish charity in Geneva on Feb. 12. Organizers cancelled his speech last weekend, invoking security concerns.

Even better would be for Bush to face torture charges here in the United States. Without doing so, the US is simply being hypocritical in complaining about other countries’ human rights abuses. And other countries know it.

“Bush is a torturer and deserves to be remembered as such,” Gavin Sullivan, counter-terrorism expert at the Berlin-based European Center for Constitutional and Human Rights, said in a statement.

“He bears ultimate responsibility for authorizing the torture of thousands of individuals at places like Guantanamo and secret CIA ‘black sites’ around the world,” he said.

Centrists Intact

by digby

I’m quite sure that this will be misinterpreted as yet another sign that the Democratic party has become a radical Marxist party intent upon destroying everything that is good and right about America. (Just this morning I heard Chris Cilizza opining that the party is very hostile to moderates, what with Jane Harman quitting and all):

The Democratic Leadership Council, the iconic centrist organization of the Clinton years, is out of money and could close its doors as soon as next week, a person familiar with the plans said Monday. The DLC, a network of Democratic elected officials and policy intellectuals, tried — but has failed — to remake itself in the summer of 2009, when its founder, Al From, stepped down as president. Its new leader, former Clinton aide Bruce Reed, sought to remake the group as a think tank, and the DLC split from its associated think tank, the Progressive Policy Institute. But Reed left the DLC last year himself to serve as Vice President Joe Biden’s chief of staff, leaving Ed Gresser, a trade expert, to lead the group in the interim. Since then the board “hasn’t been able to find someone who wanted to come on in a permanent capacity,” a person familiar with the group’s woes said, with the central problem the difficulty of raising money for a Democratic group that isn’t seen as an ally of the White House.

Yes, the Kenyan Communist is such an enemy of centrism.

The truth of the matter is that the DLCs function has been taken over by Third Way. Nobody needs to fear that the centrists aren’t going to be well represented in the Democratic Party. They run the place.

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Sarah’s Running?

by digby

If it weren’t such a challenging time for America’s working people, this would be good news for the Democratic Party:

“Due to an onslaught of personal attacks against Governor Palin and others associated with her appearance, it is with deep sadness and disappointment that, in the best interest of all, we cancel the event for safety concerns,” the Facebook post reads. The announcement also states that no direct threats had been made against anyone, but said that the “increase in negative rhetoric against the former Alaska governor” after the Tucson shooting “raises concern for her safety and the safety of others despite the call for civility in America.” The Post points out that May 2 is also the date of a NBC/Politico 2012 Republican presidential candidates debate, to be held at the Ronald Reagan Presidential Library in California.

I’m sure there will be plenty of security there, aren’t you?

Naturally Palin could not be expected to tell the truth or even come up with an innocuous lie to cover her cancellation. No, she had to play the victim in the silliest way, but I’m sure it will play into her followers’ most precious self-delusion: that the world attacks her unmercifully for no reason at all. After all, she is just a lovely person without a mean-spirited bone in her body.

I hope she’s running. It scrambles the Republican message considerably, especially with her being the Arctic Martyr of the Ages — they will meet with monumental blow back from her rabid Tea Party fans if they attack her. But it will drive the GOP way to the right, which in normal times I would think would make them weaker and less likely to win a general election. But everything is politically unstable right now and I’m not so sure that will happen. Best to hope for economic rebound of epic proportions (10% growth!) so that people will feel that things are going so well that they don’t want to rock the boat. otherwise, I’m afraid anything can happen.

Update: In case you were wondering what you can expect from the Arctic Martyr in a presidential campaign, here’s some gibberish that really does make George W. Bush sound like Churchill:

It’s a difficult situation. This is that 3:00 a.m. White House phone call, and it seems for many of us trying to get that information from our leader in the White House, it seems that that call went right to the answering machine. And nobody yet has explained to the American public what they know, and surely they know more than the rest of us know, who it is who will be taking the place of Mubarak. I’m not real enthused about what it is that is being done on a national level from D.C. in regards to understanding all the situation there in Egypt and in these areas that are so volatile right now, because obviously it’s not just Egypt but the other countries too where we are seeing uprisings. We know that now more than ever, we need strength and sound mind there in the White House. We need to know what it is that America stands for, so we know who it is that America will stand with. And we do not have all that information yet.

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GE and the Rocky Road

by digby

I’m watching Obama talk about Roosevelt calling on big business to help the country when WWII started and describing how they all worked together in the name of patriotism. (Does he know something we don’t?)

He described FDRs previous relationship with business during the Great Depression as “rocky.” Yes it was. But Roosevelt took a different tack when it came to dealing with the economy:

For nearly four years you have had an Administration which instead of twirling its thumbs has rolled up its sleeves. We will keep our sleeves rolled up.

We had to struggle with the old enemies of peace–business and financial monopoly, speculation, reckless banking, class antagonism, sectionalism, war profiteering.

They had begun to consider the Government of the United States as a mere appendage to their own affairs. We know now that Government by organized money is just as dangerous as Government by organized mob.

Never before in all our history have these forces been so united against one candidate as they stand today. They are unanimous in their hate for me–and I welcome their hatred.

This was after Roosevelt’s winning re-election campaign so perhaps he felt more able to speak his mind. Or, alternatively, perhaps he was able to speak the truth because he was reelected by convincing the American public that he was on their side.

Obama does has to worry that these petulant little princes of today’s business and industry will have a temper tantrum and hold their breath until they turn blue, but I honestly don’t think it’s a huge risk. The last I heard, business still wants to make money and the idea that they are sitting on their cash because the president hurts their feelings means that they are so incompetent that business is doomed anyway. (Sadly, I suspect that what’s risky for Obama is that he might not be able to collect campaign money from some of these people.)

He also mentioned the hiring of their good friend Jeff Immelt, which reminded me of this post I wrote about Immelt some time back:

There seems to be something of a misapprehension among Americans about the influence of Big Business in our politics began in the 1980s. It’s true that this gilded age really took off when the Reagan Revolution hit and they instituted their frenzy of deregulation and tax cuts. But it had long been in the works.

This comes from a speech by GE Chief Jeff Immelt at the Ronald Reagan centennial celebration, which GE is helping to sponsor:

Mr. Reagan walked every assembly line at GE. Every single one. He had lunch with employees in the cafeteria. He listened. He wowed managers and impressed our customers. He hit the Rotary, the local Chamber of Commerce, the Kiwanis, and the Elks.

Our CEO at the time, Ralph Cordiner, told Mr. Reagan: “I am not ever going to censor anything you say. You are speaking for yourself. Say what you believe.”

And so he did, writing and delivering the message that would become known as “The Speech,” his testament of faith in the virtues and abilities of free people and the great country they
had built. In 1964, he gave a famous version of that speech before a national audience on behalf of presidential candidate Barry Goldwater, and began one of the most successful American political careers of the 20th century.

GE saw his roving ambassadorship as a way to engage with its workforce. Mr. Reagan saw it as an education.

He had been interested in politics long before that, of course. He was a union leader. But when GE hired him they were grooming him. And he delivered.

Go poke around at that site for a while to get a sense of just how entwined General Electric and Reagan really were. It’s very creepy.

Creepy indeed. Even more creepy is the fact that FoxNews was apparently able to successfully scare Immelt into forcing MSNBC to stop insulting Fox news hosts by telling their nutcase followers to stalk him. Remember this?

Frustrated by the refusal by NBC’s chief executive, Jeffrey Zucker, to halt the attacks on Mr. O’Reilly, Roger Ailes, the chairman of Fox News, personally instructed Mr. O’Reilly’s program to aim at Mr. Immelt, people familiar with the situation said. Peace talks, such as they were, resumed in the spring between G.E. and News Corporation executives. At a lunch in April, Mr. Ailes and Mr. Immelt agreed to tone down the attacks. It was not visible to viewers until after Mr. Immelt and Mr. Murdoch shook hands at an off-the-record conference sponsored by Microsoft in May and word of a cease-fire trickled down to both news divisions.

That didn’t work out as I recall, but Ailes did pull back his stalking instructions. Why don’t i feel good about this guy being a member of Obama’s team?

Update: CNN just showed an interview with Tom Donohue of the Chamber giving Obama his marching orders. He feels confident that Obama will do something about the extreme over regulation and taxation in the American economy, particularly when it comes to capital markets and health care. Poppy Harlow indicates they still have a few details to iron out.

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Rush Hour Libertarians

by digby

I was in rush hour the other observing some self-centered dude blocking four lanes and snarling traffic for blocks to spare himself a minor inconvenience and it occurred to me that the logical result of our recent embrace of vulgar libertarianism is a total breakdown of social order. Even in rush hour traffic where it’s vital to everyone’s survival that we observe certain norms, there always seems to be some entitled, selfish ass in an expensive car making it worse for everyone else these days.

Imagine my surprise when I got home and read this:

A state lawmaker from Marietta is sponsoring a bill that seeks to do away with Georgia driver’s licenses.

State Rep. Bobby Franklin, R-Marietta, has filed House Bill 7, calling it the “Right to Travel Act.”

In his bill, Franklin states, “Free people have a common law and constitutional right to travel on the roads and highways that are provided by their government for that purpose. Licensing of drivers cannot be required of free people, because taking on the restrictions of a license requires the surrender of an inalienable right.”

Franklin told CBS Atlanta News that driver’s licenses are a throw back to oppressive times. “Agents of the state demanding your papers,” he said. “We’re getting that way here.”

CBS Atlanta’s Rebekka Schramm asked Franklin, “How are we going to keep up with who’s who and who’s on the roads and who’s not supposed to be on the roads?”

“That’s a great question,” Franklin said. “And I would have to answer that with a question, ‘Why do you need to know who’s who?’”

“What about 12-14-year-olds who want to drive? What would stop them?” Schramm asked.

“Well, what’s stopping them now anyway?” Franklin answered.

Sure, the guy’s a crank. (He’s also the one who want to make a law that they call rape victims “accusers.”) But really he’s just following crude, anti-government individualism to its logical conclusion. Why should the state have the right to tell a person they must demonstrate that they understand the traffic laws and know how to drive? The only reason is to protect the common good. And that’s just not something a lot of Americans believe in anymore.

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Know Nothing Inquisition

by digby

Charles Krauthamer has become a radical climate change denier. But what’s cute about it is that he switches the traditional role of religion and science in these disputes to do it:

Look, if Godzilla appeared on the Mall this afternoon, Al Gore would say it’s global warming, because the spores in the South Atlantic Ocean, you know, were. Look, everything is, it’s a religion. In a religion, everything is explicable. In science, you can actually deny or falsify a proposition with evidence. You find me a single piece of evidence that Al Gore would ever admit would contradict global warming and I’ll be surprised.

It took the Catholic Church four centuries to renounce what they did to Galileo — the father of modern science. I don’t think we can wait that long on climate change.

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Rising GOP Star

by digby

Apparently, this op-ed is not a joke:

When I was a child, President Ronald Reagan was the nice man who gave us jelly beans when we visited the White House. I didn’t know then, but I know it now: The jelly beans were much more than a sweet treat that he gave out as gifts. They represented the uniqueness and greatness of America — each one different and special in its own way, but collectively they blended in harmony…

Isn’t that sweet?

The scary thing is that this isn’t a memoir of a mildly developmentally handicapped man who lives in a nice group home and works as a grocery bagger:

Rep. Ben Quayle (R-Ariz.) is a member of the Judiciary, Homeland Security and Science, Space and Technology committees.

But then look how high his father went in life.

This, by the way, is the reason why America wasn’t supposed to have an aristocracy.

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Churning

by digby

Stories like this make me nuts and just reinforce how ridiculous it is that we can’t have a single payer system or at least one that has streamlined administrative processes:

February issue of Health Affairs estimated that as many as 28 million U.S. adults might “churn” in and out of health insurance programs during the course of a year, sometimes losing coverage more than once.”It’s a critical issue,” said Cathy Schoen, senior vice president of The Commonwealth Fund, who was not involved with the study. “You could get a raise or lose a week of work or gain a week, and move in and out of coverage.”The problem is a version of the “churning” in and out of Medicaid that has occurred for years, but with some improvements.Under the traditional Medicaid system, people shifted between having coverage or not having coverage depending on how much they were making.Under the Affordable Care Act, Americans can move between two programs: Medicaid, which will now be offered to all those whose income does not exceed 133% of the poverty level, and premium subsidies in state-run insurance exchanges, which will be available to people above that dividing line up to 400% of the federal poverty level.But when their eligibility fluctuates, they’re likely to lose coverage at least for a period of time.

This is just stupid. Why should millions of people have to jump through hoops for insurance coverage? If it weren’t for this ridiculous free market idolatry, we could have simply expanded Medicare and called it day. But no, we had to create some Rube Goldberg contraption that complicates an already impossibly byzantine system even more.

I honestly think this is one of the reasons why people have no faith in government. This sort of “solution,” which blatantly seeks to appease business interests and accommodate ideological blind spots, defies common sense to the average person. Why would they trust an institution that does such a thing?

Update: France does it.