Deep tweets

Me too.

#FixThePolice! pic.twitter.com/P5ys6RYS4X

— Reg Saddler (@zaibatsu) September 8, 2014

Who do you trust?

I have never trusted any government to tell me the whole truth. All my life they've lied to me. Sadly, outside of handful of responsible journalists and bloggers, now that click bait journalism has become the accepted business model, I don't trust the media to tell me the whole truth either.

I do trust Charlie Pierce. I don't always agree with him entirely, but I always listen to what he has to say because he's honest, he's smarter than me and his institutional knowledge is deep. I completely agree with him about the NSA:

...(There is simply no logical reason to take anything the NSA says on this topic in good faith.)

I would like to believe that this is not simply another salvo in the ever-escalating Toobin-Greenwald pissing contest. The issues are simply too important to get buried under a mudslide of personal pique, even though they're half-interred in that already. But, Green Room hooleys aside, Toobin here fundamentally is telling us, again, that they are all honorable men. I don't care what you think of Glenn Greenwald or Edward Snowden. In this democracy, "trust us" is not half good enough any more.

So then the question becomes, what's a concerned citizen to do? Where do we get the facts? Are we seriously supposed to trust a media that rushes to print every wild rumor, (often from an unnamed source), they can dig up in their frenzy for a ten minute exclusive on the internets? The media standard for publication is no longer are we sure this is true, it's now if it's at all plausible -- run with it and maybe make corrections later.

Take the instant matter of Greenwald's spouse and his troubling detention at Heathrow. The Guardian rushes the story to print, inciting instant mass hysteria about innocent spouses of journalists being detained for no reason. But they omitted a couple of pertinent facts. Within hours the NYT tells us Mr. Miranda was acting as a courier for secret documents between Glenn and Lynn Poitras and his trip was financed by The Guardian. Only then did The Guardian amend its story and I'm told they didn't bother to note anywhere it had been amended. So most people who read their story in the hours before that wouldn't be aware of those salient facts. This does not make for an informed public or a reasonable debate.

Meanwhile, Atrios posts today that "the lack of noise about the destruction of the hard drives has been a bit unsettling." He's referring to the Guardian's story about the UK government destroying their hard drives. Well, at least that's what the first story implied. The second story today tells us they actually destroyed the drives themselves, voluntarily, under the watchful eye of a couple of agents, rather than force the government to get a court order. Which doesn't really make sense to me on any level. But the really weird thing is this happened a month ago. Have to wonder why are they just printing it now?

It's not like this is an isolated instance and it's not confined to The Guardian. Every major story in the last few years has played out the same way. The first 48 hours (or longer) are complete chaos with conflicting reports. Anything incendiary enough to drive traffic gets posted immediately. The subsequent mitigating information is downplayed or sometimes ignored. It takes an enormous amount of effort to glean the complete story from numerous news orgs. Frankly, I'm tired of it. In fact, I'm just plain tired of the hysteria, of the in-fighting, of being told what I'm supposed to feel and do. So sorry if it makes me a bad liberal that I just watch and wait from the sidelines instead of immediately jumping into the melee but I just don't the see the point of adding to the noise.

Their own private armies

In Wisconsin, when someone asks -- "Who was that masked man, anyway? -- they aren't talking about the Lone Ranger.

Here’s a fascinating little story. There’s been a battle royale up in Wisconsin over an effort to establish a big iron mining operation near Lake Superior, to be owned and operated by a company called Gogebic Taconite. The Republican legislature approved the mine in March over environmentalists’ objections. Some protests have been staged since the operation got started. But people started to get freaked out over the weekend when the company brought in what the Wisconsin State Journal calls “masked security guards who are toting semi-automatic rifles and wearing camouflaged uniforms.”

This is no one-off fluke. These mask wearing, camo clad, paramilitary "security guards" come from a thriving company created to serve large corporations who want to use third world tactics inside America under the pretense of protecting their property.

Indeed, as the site notes, “BPS has at its disposal the latest cache of specialized equipment for border security operations, not typically found in the private sector. As example, BPS owns heavily armored Joint Light Tactical Vehicles (JLTV’s), Tactical All Terrain Vehicles (T-ATV’s), FLIR (mobile thermal systems), mast equipment (eye in the sky), and many other state-of-the-art assets … The presence of BPS will prevent criminal organizations from posing a threat to your personnel or your mission.”

If your needs are different, Bulletproof can also provide “a QRF (quick reaction force) tactical unit to secure a manufacturing plant during a heated worker strike.”

Seriously. This is the real threat to our way of life. I mean, how different does this sound than say, paramilitary intimidation in Colombia? This is our future under the control of the "free market" multinational mega-corporations.

And as always, our favorite past resident of "Koch Industries' midwest subsidiary formerly known as the state of Wisconsin," Charlie Pierce, has more to say that's worth reading.

Sweet land of liberty

Not every day you see a claim for Third Amendment violations in a police misconduct suit. Well deserved in this case against the City of Henderson, Nevada's finest. You have to read it all to appreciate the full scope of this intentional breach of civil rights but here's some highlights:

The complaint continues: "Defendant Officer David Cawthorn outlined the defendants' plan in his official report: 'It was determined to move to 367 Evening Side and attempt to contact Mitchell. If Mitchell answered the door he would be asked to leave. If he refused to leave he would be arrested for Obstructing a Police Officer. If Mitchell refused to answer the door, force entry would be made and Mitchell would be arrested.'"

At a few minutes before noon, at least five defendant officers "arrayed themselves in front of plaintiff Anthony Mitchell's house and prepared to execute their plan," the complaint states. [...]

"Seconds later, officers, including Officer Rockwell, smashed open plaintiff Anthony Mitchell's front door with a metal ram as plaintiff stood in his living room.

As plaintiff Anthony Mitchell stood in shock, the officers aimed their weapons at Anthony Mitchell and shouted obscenities at him and ordered him to lie down on the floor.

This happened because the Mitchell refused their "request" to use his home a lookout point in response to a domestic violence report about his next door neighbor. These local cops then proceeded to subject Mitchell's elderly parents, who also live nearby to much the same abuse. They also shot his terrified dog, who was cowering in a corner, with pepperballs. Eventually the whole family was arrested on several trumped up charges. And the punch line:

None of the officers were ever subjected to official discipline or even inquiry, the complaint states.

Thanks to the militarization of local law enforcement, this sort of police misconduct is becoming all too common in our country. Good to see people daring to fight back. Wishing the Mitchells every success in their lawsuit. [photo via]

Drones over North Dakota

It started when gun-toting homeowners chased off the local Sheriff who was investigating some missing cows.

Janke knew the gunmen could be anywhere on the 3,000-acre spread in eastern North Dakota. Fearful of an armed standoff, he called in reinforcements from the state Highway Patrol, a regional SWAT team, a bomb squad, ambulances and deputy sheriffs from three other counties.

He also called in a Predator B drone.

As the unmanned aircraft circled 2 miles overhead the next morning, sophisticated sensors under the nose helped pinpoint the three suspects and showed they were unarmed. Police rushed in and made the first known arrests of U.S. citizens with help from a Predator, the spy drone that has helped revolutionize modern warfare.

But that was just the start. Local police say they have used two unarmed Predators based at Grand Forks Air Force Base to fly at least two dozen surveillance flights since June. The FBI and Drug Enforcement Administration have used Predators for other domestic investigations, officials said.

This is apparently the "first known arrests of U.S. citizens involving the spy planes in domestic cases". Emphasis on the known.

The larger question is, did Congress actually authorize this use when they gave U.S. Customs and Border Protection permission to buy unarmed Predators? The idea was they would use them to "search for illegal immigrants and smugglers on the country's northern and southwestern borders." Last I looked, North Dakota was not a entry point for either illegal immigration or drug smuggling.

Disturbingly, "officials in charge of the fleet said they have authority to perform such missions through congressional budget requests that cite 'interior law enforcement support.'" Note the use of the word "fleet." Who knows how many of these drones are already deployed, invisibly spying on US citizens?

This is unlikely to cause nearly enough alarm among ordinary Americans. In the instant case, the perps seem kind of crazy and violent and you know, thank God no one was hurt in their capture. But ordinary Americans would do well to remember the militarization of every local podunk police force in America was justified under fighting the war on drugs. So even when local police arrived in tanks, dressed in SWAT gear and busted down doors to serve warrants on minor drug dealers, no one cared. Hell, they were just drug thugs. But sometimes they busted down the wrong door. And innocent people died. And now those same tactics are being used against unarmed, peaceful protesters, seeking redress of their grievances with the government.

A police state doesn't happen overnight. Big changes happen in just such tiny incremental infringements. If we wait to express our concern until, like the Geneva Conventions, Posse Comitatus is rendered quaint, it will be too late.

You have the right to remain silent

Good old Miranda Rights aren't what they used to be and neither, apparently is this one.

Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof; or abridging the freedom of speech, or of the press; or the right of the people peaceably to assemble, and to petition the government for a redress of grievances.

Granted, despite the current rumors in some circles about federal co-ordination, these explosive responses to the Occupy demonstrations are vested in local ordinances. Nonetheless, this stuff surely feels like a violation of the spirit of our First Amendment.

In Portland, Oregon, a 15 year old kid gets hit in the face with a "riot stick" or as we used to call them back in the day, a billy club.

The Portland cop that struck him was dressed like this.

Seriously. What have we come to when ordinary citizens peacefully protesting on a public street are attacked by LEOs dressed like Darth Vader stormtroopers? The civilian police are supposed to keep order, and prevent violence. When did it become okay for them to instigate violence against orderly crowds?

And is this riot cop without a riot the new norm in New York City?

A black rifle at the ready. Really? I'm told he's far from Zucotti Park. He's armed for an at war, military style shoot out. Granted I haven't been to the big city in the last ten years or so, but I still know a lot of people there. I'm pretty sure there's not Kabul level chaos on the streets of Manhattan. Not at Zucotti Park either.

To protect and serve

More or less says it all. Who they really work for:

Apparently, once you put it in their bank, it's their money and you better not be trying to get in there and take it out. [photo credit]

[More posts daily at the Detroit News.]

Pepper spray blows back on the perps

Sometimes, just saying you're sorry isn't enough. Especially when it's obvious you're mostly feeling sorry for yourself. So when you pepper-spray a few peaceably assembled students practicing passive resistance, this is what happens next:

The twitter machine tells me there was somewhere between 10,000 to 15,000 at the General Assembly. Hard to judge crowds, but this wider angle suggests it was certainly thousands.

Bless the brave protesters who put themselves in harm's way on the front lines. The harder the authorities crack down, the bigger the movement grows. [photo credit, photo credit]

[More posts daily at the Detroit News.]

And the beat goes on

Former poet laureate of the United States, Robert Hass tells the story of his beat down at the hands of California law enforcement:

Earlier that day a colleague had written to say that the campus police had moved in to take down the Occupy tents and that students had been “beaten viciously.” I didn’t believe it. In broad daylight? And without provocation? So when we heard that the police had returned, my wife, Brenda Hillman, and I hurried to the campus. I wanted to see what was going to happen and how the police behaved, and how the students behaved. If there was trouble, we wanted to be there to do what we could to protect the students.

Once the cordon formed, the deputy sheriffs pointed their truncheons toward the crowd. It looked like the oldest of military maneuvers, a phalanx out of the Trojan War, but with billy clubs instead of spears. The students were wearing scarves for the first time that year, their cheeks rosy with the first bite of real cold after the long Californian Indian summer. The billy clubs were about the size of a boy’s Little League baseball bat. My wife was speaking to the young deputies about the importance of nonviolence and explaining why they should be at home reading to their children, when one of the deputies reached out, shoved my wife in the chest and knocked her down.

My wife bounced nimbly to her feet. I tripped and almost fell over her trying to help her up, and at that moment the deputies in the cordon surged forward and, using their clubs as battering rams, began to hammer at the bodies of the line of students. It was stunning to see. They swung hard into their chests and bellies. Particularly shocking to me — it must be a generational reaction — was that they assaulted both the young men and the young women with the same indiscriminate force. If the students turned away, they pounded their ribs. If they turned further away to escape, they hit them on their spines.

NONE of the police officers invited us to disperse or gave any warning. We couldn’t have dispersed if we’d wanted to because the crowd behind us was pushing forward to see what was going on. The descriptor for what I tried to do is “remonstrate.” I screamed at the deputy who had knocked down my wife, “You just knocked down my wife, for Christ’s sake!” A couple of students had pushed forward in the excitement and the deputies grabbed them, pulled them to the ground and cudgeled them, raising the clubs above their heads and swinging. The line surged. I got whacked hard in the ribs twice and once across the forearm.

Those are just excerpts. Chilling story. Read it all at the link. But a charming ending.

On Thursday afternoon when I returned toward sundown to the steps to see how the students had responded, the air was full of balloons, helium balloons to which tents had been attached, and attached to the tents was kite string. And they hovered over the plaza, large and awkward, almost lyrical, occupying the air.

[photo credit]

Who are these Occupy protesters?

The pictures are dramatic:

But the photo doesn't tell the whole story. Meet Elizabeth Nichols, another pepper spray victim of law enforcement run amok.

...Elizabeth Nichols, a 20-year-old originally from Arkansas who moved to the West Coast about six months ago and made her way from Seattle to Portland a month later. Her mother, Annie Nichols, said after the photo was taken, police threw Elizabeth to the ground and arrested her. Annie, who is housebound with multiple sclerosis, said Elizabeth joined Occupy Wall Street because of her parents' dire situation. "I have no medical care. I'm not eligible. My husband's disabled ... We live on one disability check. No, we don't live. We exist. Lizzie knows this. That's why she's doing this." Elizabeth, whose mug shot is posted at left, wasn't always an activist, Annie said. "She never took part in anything like this. Of course, it's Arkansas. There isn't a lot of that here." The Portland Police Bureau website says Elizabeth was charged with second-degree trespassing.

I'm sure we can all agree that such a heinous crime as "second-degree trespassing" justifies a face full of toxic chemicals delivered by the hand of those who swear to "serve and protect" the public.

[More posts daily at the Detroit News.]

Pepper sprayed student speaks out

This is the must read of the day. One of the UC Davis students who was savagely attacked with pepper spray gives an eyewitness account:

So, everyone removed the tents, and they were in the process of arresting more people. A collective decision was made on the fly to just sit in a circle arms linked legs crossed, with police officers and "prisoners" in the middle because we didn't want them arresting only 3 of us. It wasn't fair that 50 of us were there, and only a few arrested who hadn't volunteered to be arrested. There was still one walkway open that the police were going to use to walk the arrestees out. I saw some friends of mine sit down there, and they were my friends, so I joined them. We linked arms, legs crossed.

We were never warned that we were going to be pepper-sprayed.

Lt. Pike walked up to my friend, and I am told that he said, "Move or we're going to shoot you."

Then he went back and talked to a few of his police officer friends. A couple of other officers started to remove people who were sitting there, blocking exit. Pike could have easily removed us, just picked us up and removed us. We were just sitting there, nonviolent civil disobedience.

But Pike turned around and I am told that he said to the other officers, "Don't worry about it, I'm going to spray these kids down."

He lifts the can, spins it around in a circle to show it off to everybody.

Then he sprays us three times.

As if one time of being sprayed at point blank wasn't enough.

I was on the end of the line getting direct spray. When the second pass came, I got up crawling. I crawled away and vomited on a tree. I was yelling. It burned. Within a few minutes I was dry heaving, I couldn't breathe. Then, over the course of the next hour, I was dry heaving and vomiting.

Much more and many new photos at the link. Also useful to know Officer Pike "used military grade pepper spray" at point blank range on these students. "It's supposed to be used at a minimum of 15 feet." [graphic via]

Police attack passive protesters

The media insist on describing every interaction between law enforcement officers and Occupy protesters as confrontations. This was not a confrontation. This was an unprovoked attack by police against passive protesters.

Look at the videos:





It's clear the cop sprayed these kids directly in the face because he told them to move and they decided to engage in the time honored practice of passive resistance. The police were free to simply remove them physically. There was no need to spray them with a toxic substance as if they were nothing more than a swarm of pesky insects.

The police defend this needless attack, citing fear:

UC Davis Police Chief Annette Spicuzza said officers used force out of concern for their own safety after they were surrounded by students.

“If you look at the video you are going to see that there were 200 people in that quad,” said Chief Spicuzza. “Hindsight is 20-20 and based on the situation we were sitting in, ultimately that was the decision that was made.”

By all means, watch the long version video. The police weren't surrounded until after they pepper sprayed defenseless students. The police were armed with high powered guns. The students were not armed with anything but their voices. The students made no menacing moves towards the police. And pay special attention to the pepper spraying cop in these videos. Even as the police are leaving, he's still obviously agitated and brandishing the pepper spray can in a threatening manner. It appears to me, his fellow officers are urging him to back down.

And by the way, this is the "huge encampment" that the university considers such a threat to the learning environment. This necessitated an armed police response? Really? [Many more photos at the link.]

Meanwhile, though I didn't see it on the video, there are reports of students injured by being pepper sprayed directly into the mouth and Joshua Holland of AlterNet reports, "One of those UC Davis students, a brave young woman, was reportedly hospitalized w chemical burns."

Similar incidents are happening all over the country where concerned citizens are exercising their right to peaceably assemble in protest. This is not what democracy looks like. It does however pretty well fit the description of a police state.

Ain't your Grandaddy's America anymore

I suppose it wasn't universal, but I remember a time when this poster, at least in white middle class America, pretty well depicted the police presence in Anytown, USA. Police officers then were more or less in "protect and serve" mode rather than "control and intimidate." Far cry from where we are now, a half century later.

The face of today's law enforcement ever more often looks like this:

And this. And this. And then read Greg Mitchell's OccupyUSA live blog where he has been relentlessly curating links, practically 24/7, since day one.

Of course this didn't start with the Occupy movement. It's the reult of a stealthy and steady encroachment on our civil rights under the cover of the war on some drugs, and the war on some terrorists. Sold to the people as necessary for their protection.

Anybody feeling safer yet? Me neither. [Graphic via. Photo via.]

In the court of public opinion

David Brooks doesn't stand a chance of being exonerated. Especially when Charles P. Pierce is the prosecutor:

I don't think it's too strident to demand at this point that David Brooks be hauled up before a jury consisting of everyone else in America and forced to defend himself against several million counts of being an insufferable twat in a public place. In today's episode of Missing the Point So I Don't Miss a Meal, Our Mr. Brooks informs us that he once again has placed us all under close inspection beneath his monocle and discovered that some of us are very angry, not because some thieves in nice suits pillaged the national economy and then held the scraps for ransom. Oh, no, that isn't it at all, and he's got some wholly arbitrary ad hoc sociological categories to prove it.

You know the drill. Read it all for yourself. And in case anyone is still wondering why I've developed such a mad crush on Mr. Pierce since he migrated over to Esquire, it's because he says what I think, but so much more eloquently. I'm still mulling over Pierce's take on the Oakland occupation:

It’s time for the country to realize that something is dangerously out of control here, and that it’s not a bunch of people in sleeping bags in the public parks. There is a tradition of public protest in this country. Hell, this country is itself an act of public protest. Preserve that, or preserve nothing else, because there’s nothing else worth preserving. Police officers are public servants. They are not soldiers, facing down enemies. This is not a war. This is America

.In case you somehow missed it, he's talking about this:



I don't think overkill is too strong a word to describe it.

A perfect scam

Of course, he says he's doing it "for the taxpayers" but a look at the policy reveals FL Gov. Scott's new drug testing law is a scam designed to enrich his corporate friends in the health care industry.

Under the law, which takes effect on July 1, the Florida Department of Children and Family Services will be required to conduct the drug tests on adults applying to the federal Temporary Assistance for Needy Families program. The aid recipients would be responsible for the cost of the screening, which they would recoup in their assistance if they qualify.

Those who fail the required drug testing may designate another individual to receive the benefits on behalf of their children, and do not receive a refund for the test.

Putting aside the vicious and largely false stereotyping of welfare mothers as drug addicts, this will cause immediate harm to poor children when their parents have to fork over money for the tests that then won't be available for necessities in households that already live hand to mouth. As for saving the taxpayers money, administering the paperwork on the tests and the reimbursements will not only cost more in overhead but will bleed money from the program that could be used for benefits instead.

Much has been made of Scott's connection to walk-in clinics that do drug testing. However, he claims his company won't be doing any of the work and further states he's in the process of selling off his family interest in the corporation altogether.

Well and good, but has anyone ever heard of secret kickbacks? Nearly impossible to prove, but with millions to be made on this scam and Scott's own shady history of being convicted of fraud related to his health care business interests, it's not much of a stretch to imagine such an arrangement exists.

It certainly would explain why he's gone so drug test crazy. You'll recall he recently signed another law requiring random testing of all public employees. Another unneccessary program since one assumes any employee where public safety is an issue, already is drug tested and where safety isn't an issue it will pour tax dollars into a private industry without requiring any reasonable evidence of drug abuse. How does this expense make any sense at a time when vital public employees are already being laid off for lack of funds?

Like every single Republican policy enacted since the sweep of 2010, the long term effect will be to further weaken our already struggling economy. Which has been the GOP's publicly stated game plan from the day Obama was inaugurated.

[More posts daily at the Detroit News.]

The Growing Police State

The only defense ordinary citizens have against police misconduct is videotaping arrests. What kind of society have we become when this is allowed to happen?

The resisting-arrest conviction last week of Felicia Gibson has left a lot of people wondering. Can a person be charged with resisting arrest while observing a traffic stop from his or her own front porch?

Salisbury Police Officer Mark Hunter thought so, and last week District Court Judge Beth Dixon agreed. Because Gibson did not at first comply when the officer told her and others to go inside, the judge found Gibson guilty of resisting, delaying or obstructing an officer.

Gibson was not the only bystander watching the action on the street. She was the only one holding up a cell-phone video camera. But court testimony never indicated that Hunter told her to stop the camera; he just told her to go inside.

The cop never attempted to arrest her as far as I can see. She just didn't jump when he told her to leave her own porch on her own property. Maybe there's more to it than this sketchy account but I don't see any imminent danger to the public in this story either. Seems like the new police motto is bully and intimidate. Sure doesn't look like, protect and serve anymore.

[More posts daily at the Detroit News.]

Big protest in Arizona, media MIA

Any time 3 or more tea party people show up in a public place the media swarms in with wall to wall coverage and ponders on the message sent by these "real" Americans. But I'm told thousands showed up in Arizona today to march in protest of the Arizona's "show me your papers" law and as far as I know, not one cable network showed up to tell the story.

Guess this crowd is too "colorful" to cover. [photo]

[More posts daily at The Detroit News]

Broad brush bigotry

The myth that all Mexicans are lazy illegal immigrants who only come here for the social services and to commit crimes has been around for very long time but since the GOP went all in on winning elections based on drumming up fear of "the other" with wedge issue politics, it's become much worse. You see it in the horrible Arizona "show us your papers" law but this mindset isn't only found in the southern states on the border. This poisonous fruit of conservative Republican race baiting has spread all over the country. Even in Washington State:

A Seattle freelance videographer recently captured a local cop kicking a man in the head while prone on the ground and using ethnic slurs:

The Police Department disclosed Friday that it has launched an internal investigation into the incident, in which the gang detective, Shandy Cobane, can be heard on video telling a man lying on a concrete sidewalk, "I'm going to beat the [expletive] Mexican piss out of you, homey. You feel me?"

The cop would have got away with it except for the videographer that happened to be on the scene. The guy wasn't even guilty, but that shouldn't matter. Even a criminal doesn't deserve that kind of unnecessary violence. Too many cops have become little more than violent thugs who take out their sadistic inclinations on the public. And it's not just because of the race baiting. You can also blame the war on some drugs for over-equipping them via forfeiture money and the issuance of tasers as standard equipment that allowed them to use "non-lethal" force instead of dialogue to defuse tense situations. Further there's no much incentive to behave since they so rarely get held accountable.

It's not that aren't any good and caring cops, but the thugs seems to be growing in their ranks and no one calls them out. Our LEOs have morphed over the years from public servants to becoming almost as much a menace to civil society as the criminals themselves. In the end we're less safe if the general population fears both equally.

[More posts daily at The Detroit News]

Reading the tea leaves

Well the news was so depressing yesterday, I read a couple of hours worth of tweets and couldn't bring myself to read any more politics. Decided to work on moving into this place instead. It's not any less depressing today, but one can't avoid it forever, so Frank Rich's column about Arizona is good place to start. He rightly notes that Arizona is just the first to jump on the crazy train and there's plenty more of this insanity in our future. Ten more states are already contemplating similar legislation and some don't even have a particularly large Hispanic population.

Further, this is clearly a symptom of the GOP's greater problem with reality based politicking. The Arizona law was enacted solely by the Republicans, in fact the entire Republican caucus, and only a few less than the total caucus voted for their birther bill. The birther bill has been mercifully put down in the face of all the national attention but the larger problem remains.

It’s harder and harder to cling to the conventional wisdom that the Tea Party is merely an element in the G.O.P., not the party’s controlling force — the tail that’s wagging the snarling dog. It’s also hard to maintain that the Tea Party’s nuttier elements are merely a fringe of a fringe. The first national Tea Party convention, in Nashville in February, chose as its kickoff speaker the former presidential candidate Tom Tancredo, a notorious nativist who surely was enlisted precisely because he runs around saying things like he has “no idea where Obama was born.” The Times/CBS poll of the Tea Party movement found that only 41 percent of its supporters believe that the president was born in the United States.

In other words, the tea party is the GOP now and like an abused spouse, much as they might privately wish they could run away, they are forced to try to please their abuser for fear of being left in the street with no resources at all.

It's a strategy very likely to backfire as private, independently owned business are already feeling a swift backlash. The Arizona Hotel and Lodging Association say 19 meeting have been cancelled because of Senate Bill 1070. That comes at a cost of about $6 million to the state's coffers. One feels certain this is just the beginning. It seems likely to me that as the adverse economic impact continues to grow because of their tea party pandering, the GOP's rosy visions of 2010 gains will rapidly wilt.

[More posts daily at The Detroit News]

Taser Madness

In a sane world everyone, of every ideology, would be on the streets protesting the ever escalating and unneccessary use of tasers in routine law enforcement encounters. Today's edition, 9th Circuit upholds tasering a pregnant woman for refusing to sign a traffic ticket.

If the Tea Party tantrum throwers were really concerned about losing their freedom, this is what they should be holding up signs about. Their tax dollars pay for this brutalization of the citizenry and anyone could be next. And what the hell happened to the 9th Circuit? They used to be rather reliably on the side of civil liberties. If they've gone over to the authoritarians, they we're lost.

[More posts daily at The Detroit News]