For Cowardly Dems Who Have Considered Betrayal

It's too late for traitors like Ben Chandler who have already voted against the most important legislation of the 21st century; they've already lost re-election in 2010.

But for Senate Blue Dogs like Blanche Lincoln, there's still a chance to save themselves. Not by running away from health care reform, but by embracing it.
Steve Benen explains the obvious: Blue Dogs are going to lose next year unless they campaign as economic radicals.

So, what's Lincoln to do? The polls look discouraging for her, and Arkansas has moved sharply to the right in recent years. This is not a situation in which a senator can take a tough vote with assurances from the White House that the president and vice president will come campaign for her next year.

Matt Yglesias raises a good point: "A lot of members of congress spent 1993 and '94 spiking the Clinton legislative agenda and then went down to defeat in November 1994 anyway. Wouldn't it make more sense to turn the 111th Congress into a substantive success, hope you can persuade the voters that these are good ideas, and if you fail at least manage to have gone down fighting accomplishing something important?"

If I were a campaign strategist for Blanche Lincoln, I'd go a little further -- I'd encourage her to become the biggest champion of bold, progressive health care reform in the Senate. I'd urge Lincoln to show some major leadership, get out way in front, and position herself as a Kennedy-like guardian of those suffering under the status quo.

Look, Lincoln isn't going to out-conservative the Republican candidates in Arkansas. No matter how she votes on reform, the entire Attack Machine is going after her as some kind of radical leftist. It doesn't matter if it doesn't make sense, and it certainly doesn't matter if she votes with Republicans on the big issues of the day for the next year.

So why not go big? Why not announce that too many Arkansas families are being screwed right now by a dysfunctional health care system and Blanche Lincoln has decided to do something about it? Why not run ads saying, "I don't care what the insurance companies and their candidates say: I'm fighting for the families who can't afford their premiums, the workers who can't get coverage, the Arkansans with pre-existing conditions, the small businesses that can't afford insurance for the employees...."?

In other words, show some confidence. Voters can recognize fear, so stop being defensive. Arkansas has a high percentage of low-income families, struggling to get by, who are terrified of their health care situation. They're not going to vote Democratic on cultural and/or social issues, but they're open to the Democratic message on economic policy -- looking out for working families' interests. A candidate who positions herself as a populist people's champion has a better shot than an apologetic Democrat who hopes Republicans won't mind her party affiliation.

When Republicans accuse her of supporting an overhaul of a broken system, Lincoln might want to try saying, "You're damn right I do. Why don't you?"

Hunger and Homelessness Awareness Week

It hasn't been this bad in Kentucky in a long, long time. We're all tightening our belts, but most of us are far better off than the worst off among us.

People who never imagined they'd ever need a food bank or a soup kitchen now face the choice of swallow your pride or swallow nothing at all.

So good on Kentucky's First Lady for calling attention and encouraging contributions.

First Lady Jane Beshear, joined by homeless advocates and other state officials, today announced November 15-21, 2009 as Hunger and Homelessness Awareness Week in Kentucky.

“We encourage all Kentuckians to donate food or volunteer their time to a shelter or food bank,” said First Lady Jane Beshear. “With the struggling economy and the winter season just around the corner, there are many families who need help.”

According to the Kentucky Office of Employment and Training, unemployment rates rose in all 120 Kentucky counties between September 2008 and September 2009. Kentucky’s unemployment rate in September was 10.9 percent, almost a full point higher than the national unemployment rate.

“There is a stigma that the homeless do not want to work or that they choose to live on the streets or in a shelter,” said Gerry Roll, Kentucky Interagency Council on Homelessness Vice Chair. “What people do not understand is many homeless individuals do work but they do not make enough to cover their living expenses or they want to work but there simply isn’t any work available.”

Every year, Kentucky Housing Corporation (KHC) coordinates the Point-In-Time Count of homeless individuals across the Commonwealth (the 2010 count will take place on Thursday, January 28, 2010). Kentucky’s 2009 Point-In-Time Homeless Count found over half of the homeless individuals who were identified said they did not have housing because they could not afford it. The count also found that almost 6,800 individuals, outside of Jefferson and Fayette Counties, were precariously housed, meaning they were doubled- or tripled-up with family or friends, living in substandard housing conditions, or expecting eviction within seven days. This number, which was a 29 percent increase from the previous year, is concerning because homeless individuals are usually precariously housed before they become homeless.

Kentucky Housing Corporation Chief Executive Officer Richard L. McQuady explained, “Kentucky is unique in that, because much of the state is rural, homeless persons are not as visible as in urban areas where many service providers are located. Because the rural homeless aren’t as noticeable, people think homelessness is not a problem in their communities.”

After the proclamation signing, Mrs. Beshear volunteered at Access Soup Kitchen of Frankfort. The majority of the produce raised in the Governor’s Garden was donated to Access Soup Kitchen.

Campaign Contributions from Baby Killers: Chandler, Guthrie, Davis, Rogers, Whitfield

Digby, Aimai and Zandar all catch Aravosis' brilliant point about the fungibility argument on health insurers and abortion:

The House passed the anti-choice Stupak amendment last night. Basically, the amendment stops any government money from funding insurance plans that cover abortions. The twisted logic being that any money connected to any insurance company covering abortions is "abortion money," i.e., profits earned from "killing babies." We can't have the government touching that.

So I sure hope that no pro-life members of Congress are accepting political donations from any insurance companies that cover abortions. Because if they are accepting such donations, they're accepting profits that came from "killing little babies."

Hmmm. I wonder if any of Kentucky's oh-so-moral anti-choice misogynists who voted for the Stupak amendment could possibly have accepted contributions from the baby-killer insurance companies - cash probably still dripping blood from aborted fetuses.

The Center for Responsive Politics has the answer:

From health insurers only (not including other health-related sectors) as of June 2009, since 1989:

Ben Chandler (Blue Dog Traitor, KY-6) - $30,500

Brett Guthrie (R, KY-2) : $19,500

Ed Whitfield (R, KY-1) - $106,614

Geoff Davis (R, KY-4) - $115,718

Hal Rogers (R, KY-5) - $9,600

I trust these five sterling examples of Kentucky manhood have already returned that evil abortion money to the baby-killing insurance companies from whence it came.

As Digby says:

By their own logic, if the jackasses of both parties who voted for Stupak have ever taken one single penny from insurance companies that offer coverage for abortions --- and that's all of them --- they are complicit in baby killing. So, by the way, is anyone who invests in insurance companies or accepts money from them in advertising. Fungible means fungible.

Insurance companies want to provide coverage for birth control and abortion because it saves them money. Pregnancy is expensive and far more risky. It would seem that childbirth is the one risk these people want to require the insurance companies to take.

Fun Theory: Piano Staircase

A great stimulus project for every city:

Losing the Battle Before It's Fought

At No More Mister Nice Blog, Aimai explains just how stupid, unnecessary and self-destructive the Stupak amendment was:

But it should never, ever, have come to any Democrats voting for the Stupak amendment once it was submitted to the floor. And, frankly, I don't think it should ever have come to allowing Stupak to forward the amendment in the first place. Pelosi and the Democratic Majority should never have allowed women's health issues to be severed from family health issues in the first place. They should have insisted, publicly, that the whole point of the legislation was to "get government and insurance companies out of the business of telling you what you need and what you don't need." No amendments referring to specific procedures should have been permitted and the grounds for that refusal should have been made generic, not specific to women's health care. The rallying cry should have been "Democrats stand for freedom of consumer choice. Your health care money will be spent as you choose--not as we choose."

It gets much, much better, including the best plan I've ever read for dealing with the self-righteous fuckers in the Catholic hierarchy. Read the whole thing.

Survey Proves What Killed Deeds in Virginia was Playing Repug

It's been obvious for months that Creigh Deeds doomed his campaign for Virginia governor by trying to out-repug a repug, but now we have scientific data to back it up.

From Down with Tyranny:

Early yesterday, just as the debate was beginning, the PCCC released a poll of Virginia Democrats and Independents who voted for Obama in 2008 but didn't turn out for Creigh Deeds in 2009. Here's what they found:

• A huge majority of these voters thought Deeds "wasn't progressive enough."

• Many of these voters will decide whether to vote in 2010 based on whether or not Democrats pass a public option

• Many said they were less excited to vote for Deeds after he said he would "opt out" Virginia from the public option.

Stephanie Taylor fleshed out some of the specific findings of the poll over at Daily Kos:

• Creigh Deeds seen as "not progressive enough" by huge margin. 64% of Democratic Obama voters and 58% of Independent Obama voters said Deeds was "not progressive enough" compared with only 8% of Democrats and 16% of Independent Obama voters who said he was "too far to the left." (Overall, 5 to 1.)
  
• Obama's voters want the public option. 88% of Democratic Obama voters and 80% of Independent Obama voters favor a public health insurance option to compete with private insurance plans. 93% of those polled said health care is "very" or "somewhat" important when they vote.
  
• Creigh Deeds hurt by opposition to public option. When asked, "Before the election for Governor, Democratic candidate Creigh Deeds said he would side with conservatives and push for Virginia to 'opt out' of the public insurance plan. Did this make you more excited or less excited to vote in this year's election, or did it have no impact?" 41% of those polled said it made them less excited, only 6% said it made them more excited (7 to 1).
  
• Without a public option, Obama voters will continue to drop off in 2010. 43% of Democratic and Independent Obama voters said they are less likely to vote at all in the 2010 general election if Congress does not pass a public option as part of health care reform, compared to only 8% who are more likely to vote. If they do vote, by 46% to 6%, they will be less likely to vote for a Democratic candidate if Democrats do not pass a public option.

If you believed the bullshit about the Blue Dogs just being "fiscal conservatives," you saw the truth last night as almost the entire caucus crossed the aisle to vote with the Republicans against women's health. Please consider a contribution to the Blue America Bad Dog page. We'll bring down as many of them as we can next year.

The Blue Dogs are going to lose next year. They will probably lose to real republicans, but if we get our act together now, we can make sure the Blue Dogs lose in primaries to Real Democrats, who will then have a fighting chance to beat the real republicans.

We can also get rid of more than a few incumbent repugs if we find Real Democrats to run against them. If the incumbent repugs are themselves challenged or beaten in primaries by crazier-than-shithouse-rats freakazoids like Doug Hoffman, then Real Democrats can triumph.

2010 is a huge opportunity to get rid of the Blue Dog/DINOs who are the real obstacle to genuine progressive legislation. Don't let it pass us by.

It's Your House; You Don't Have to Leave

Back in January, Ohio representatives Marcy Kaptur stood on the floor of the House and told people to fight foreclosure by squatting in their homes and refusing to leave.

We've since discovered that many of the criminal mortgage companies who jacked up interest rates to force people out of their homes could not even prove they held the mortgage in the first place.

Stay in your homes, advocates for working families advised. Force the fuckers to prove it in court.

At the same time, local officials started to realize that having a bunch of foreclosed homes blighting the city and becoming havens for criminals was just making things worse.

Now one of the biggest mortgage holders in the country has thrown in the towel and joined the stay-in-your-house crowd.

Digby explains:

Dean Baker has been recommending this since the beginning of the housing crisis. How do you deal with all these people who are losing their homes while at the same time dealing with the plummeting property values in places where there are many obvious foreclosures? And how do you deal with the moral hazard of major debt forgiveness? (That question should have been put to the banksters first and foremost, but well ... they are so talented and productive that moral hazards don't apply to such as them.)

Anyway, it looks like Fannie Mae is going to give a shot to letting people stay in their homes as renters rather than forcing eviction. People obviously lose their investment, but they don't lose the roof over their heads. And the banks have people living in their foreclosed homes.

The devil is in the details, of course, but if it works it's a much better outcome for everyone.

Don't Be Fooled: "Abortion" Amendment Really Protects Giant Insurers

Five of Kentucky's six House Representatives voted in favor of the Stupak amendment, which was sold as a ban on the use of ANY money, public or private, to purchase insurance policies that cover abortion on the new public exchange.

But Chandler, Guthrie, Davis, Whitfield and Rogers didn't just vote to restore the golden era of back-alley wire-hanger abortions; they voted to give giant insurance companies a way to avoid covering working families at all.

Jon Walker at Firedoglake explains:

The Stupak amendment would prevent any private health insurance plan from covering elective abortion, if even one of its customer used even one dollar of affordability tax credits. The problem is that the Stupak amendment will conflict directly with other parts of the bill. The bill would require “guaranteed issue.” This means that any insurer offering coverage to individuals on the health insurance exchange must accept all customers.

If the insurance companies offering plans on the exchange are not allowed to turn down any customers, it means no basic insurance plan on the exchange could cover abortion. There would be no way to prevent that at least one of the plan’s customer would be using affordability tax credits to help purchase the plan. So the effect is no plan sold on the exchange could offer abortion coverage as part of its basic package.

The contradiction could be solved in a different manner. The decision could be that insurance companies who offer plans covering abortion on the exchange would be allowed to turn down customers using affordability tax credits. This would create a dangerous loophole for the new guaranteed issue rule. This could lead to the ghettoizing of the health insurance exchange. Insurers would know that offering plans that cover abortion would prevent low income Americans from being able to sign up. Low income Americans tend to have higher medical costs and are less profitable, less desirable customers. Offering abortion coverage would be a simple way for an insurance company to keep them out of their risk pool. Since the exchange has dangerously weak risk adjustment mechanisms, this Stupak Amendment could become a profitable tool used by insurers to discriminate against low income Americans.

It seems the Stupak Amendment would either effectively ban any basic health insurance plan sold on the exchange (the individual and small business market) from covering abortion or would create a way to discriminate against low income Americans. Either way the Amendment will have far reaching ramifications for our health care system.

Because when it comes to repugs and Blue Dogs, it's always about the money.

Brett Guthrie, Geoff Davis vote to protect thieving credit card companies

Next year, when Brett Guthrie and Geoff Davis tell voters in the Second and the Fourth what courageous protectors of Kentucky's working families they are, remember that when they had the chance to really protect those families, Guthrie and Davis stood with the financial industry predators who bribed them.

Down with Tyranny has the score:

Yesterday (Wednesday) the House overwhelmingly passed-- though not without some tough fights-- Carolyn Maloney's H.R. 3639, a much needed amendment to the Credit Card Accountability Responsibility and Disclosure Act of 2009. The idea was to establish an earlier effective date for the consumer protections inherent in the original bill. The credit card companies were none too keen to see that pass; let me come back to that in a moment.

SNIP

... the final passage was 331-92, almost half the Republicans finally abandoning their corrupt, bankster-lovin' leadership to join every Democrat but Herseth Sandlin in passing a stinging rebuke to the bad-faith credit card companies who have been ripping off American consumers at an increased pace. Leading the charge against consumers were a dozen Republicans who have taken some of the biggest and most outrageously blatant thinly veiled bribes from the banking sector:

SNIP

Geoff Davis (R-KY- $1,724,689)

SNIP

The credit card companies, (Rep. Barney Frank) railed on the House floor, "have retained the right unilaterally and retroactively to raise the interest rate on what you already owe them. It is the single unfairest economic transaction I can think of that doesn't involve a pistol. The fact is, they decide that they can make more money that way. And we are told they have to deal with risk management. What's the risk management on debt already incurred on the part of someone who has always made the payments? This isn't risk management, it is hostage taking."

SNIP

The provisions below are what paid-off shills like Eric Cantor, Mike Castle, Judy Biggert and Paul Ryan tried to prevent from taking immediate effect today:

• Prohibits arbitrary interest rate increases and universal default on existing balances;

• Prohibits issuers from charging over-limit fees unless the cardholder elects to allow the issuer to complete over-limit transactions, and also limits over-limit fees on electing cardholders;

• Requires payments in excess of the minimum to be applied first to the credit card balance with the highest rate of interest;

• Prohibits issuers from setting early morning deadlines for credit card payments;

• Prohibits interest charges on debt paid on time (double-cycle billing ban);

• Requires issuers extending credit to young consumers under the age of 21 to obtain an application that contains: the signature of a parent, guardian, or other individual 21 years or older who will take responsibility for the debt; or proof that the applicant has an independent means of repaying any credit extended;

• Requires penalty fees to be reasonable and proportional to the omission or violation;

• Requires that creditors periodically review all interest rate increases since January 2009 and reduce rates when a review indicates that a reduction is warranted.

Kentucky representatives Yarmuth, Whitfield and Rogers voted in favor of the bill to shut down credit card company abuses. Chandler did not vote.

Ben Chandler to Kentuckians: Die Quicker

Wingnut freakazoid Benny Boy gave us the Full Monty last night, revealing for all the world to see his desire for wire-hanger, bank-alley abortions and for Kentuckians without health insurance to shut up and die faster.

Zandar has the bottom line:

Here's who I'm particularly mad at: the Democrats who voted for the Stupak Amendment, but who voted against the final bill anyway. Those are the Dems who are going to be in trouble come 2010. They are:

SNIP

Ben Chandler (KY)

SNIP

That's 21 Dems (all male, natch) who are going to lose in 2010. You 21 Democrats, do you think your Republican opponents will applaud your voting record? Do you think they won't attack you as a liberal fascist traitor to America and the universe? Do you think Democratic voters are going to turn out en masse for the guy who voted against health care reform?

Most of all, do you know you're on the wrong side of history?

Some of them may change their minds in the final vote. I don't know. But for now? I don't know how they can sleep tonight.

Oh, Benny Boy sleeps just fine on the mattress stuffed with the millions in campaign cash he took from the health insurance giants.

The other comfortable sleeper in the Sixth is Benny's repug challenger, who knows he's getting every repug vote in the District next year, while the Central Kentucky dems sit home in disgust.

Is there a Real Democrat in the Sixth who will step forward to fight for the Sixth's working families?

Repugs Hate Veterans

Don't you ever dare say one fucking word to me about repug patriotism and love for veterans.

Thirteen major military and veterans groups have joined forces to try to force one senator — Republican Tom Coburn of Oklahoma — to release a hold that he has placed on a major veterans benefits bill.

Coburn has been identified by Senate aides as the lawmaker preventing consideration of S 1963, the Veterans’ Caregiver and Omnibus Health Benefits Act of 2009, by using an informal but legal practice of putting a hold on a bill.

Coburn’s staff did not respond to questions, but Senate aides said the first-term senator has expressed concern about creating new and unfunded benefits and wants the opportunity to amend the measure.

SNIP

Earlier this fall, Coburn placed holds on S 252, the Veterans Health Care Authorization Act of 2009, and S 728, the Veterans’ Insurance and Benefits Enhancement Act of 2009, which led to the introduction of S 1963, which combines key provisions of the two earlier bills in an effort to get around Coburn’s opposition.

In a letter sent Monday night to the Senate majority leader, Sen. Harry Reid, D-Nev., the 13 military and veterans groups ask the Senate to get on with it.

“It is essential that Congress act on this comprehensive measure without further delay,” the letter reads. “Thousands of disabled veterans with serious medical conditions and the family members who care for them are counting on this additional support.”

The letter says passing the bill by Veterans Day would be a “fitting way” to honor veterans.

Those signing the letter include the nation’s major veterans groups — The American Legion, Veterans of Foreign Wars, Disabled American Veterans, AmVets, Paralyzed Veterans of America, Blinded Veterans Association, Military Order of the Purple Heart, Vietnam Veterans of America, Iraq and Afghanistan Veterans of America and Jewish War Veterans, plus the Military Officers Association of America, National Military Family Association and Wounded Warrior Project.

Steve Robertson, legislative director for The American Legion, said delaying the bill hurts families caring for severely wounded combat veterans who would benefit from the stipends, health care, counseling and respite care that would be provided to caregivers in the bill.

“For a lot of family caregivers, delay is costing them their jobs and their savings. It’s having a big impact,” he said.

Robertson said he has spoken to Coburn’s staff about the earlier holds on S 252 and S. 728, but the conversation was fairly one-sided, with Coburn’s aides trying to get Robertson to dissuade veterans from flooding the senator’s office with calls.

“They made it clear that Sen. Coburn sees this as using his rights as a senator to place a hold on a bill, and that he was not doing anything illegal or wrong,” Robertson said. “I agree with that, but that doesn’t mean it makes sense to hold up a bill that would do a lot of good things for veterans that has cleared a committee and is ready for a vote.”

Sen. Richard Durbin, D-Ill., the Senate assistant majority leader, mentioned Coburn’s hold in a Tuesday floor speech without citing Coburn by name, saying that the bill was being held up by one senator over cost.

“How much is a veteran’s life worth?” Durbin asked, adding that he hopes the hold is lifted.

This is nothing new. Since Ronald Reagan, who was never a soldier but played one in the movies and never understood the difference, repugs have time after time after time fucked over the military and veterans to cut taxes for the rich and hand trillions in national treasure to contractors like KBR who murder U.S. military members with impunity.

And yet repugs get away with portraying themselves as the patriotic, pro-military party. This is yet another example of Democratic failure to call the motherfucking liars out for lying about fucking their mothers.

Yarmuth Demands Exit Strategy in Afghanistan

As President Obama prepares to repeat Smirky/Darth's disgusting tactic of demanding off-budget "war supplementals" from Congress, some courageous House members want an end to the bullshit.

UPDATE: 100 Co-sponsors Demanding Exit Strategy For Afghanistan

James McGovern (D-MA) introduced H.R. 2404 on May 14. If passed it would require the Secretary of Defense to submit a report to Congress outlining the U.S. exit strategy for our military forces in Afghanistan.

John Yarmuth, D-KY3, is one of McGovern's co-sponsors. Blue Dog Coward Ben Chandler is not.

This is the easy bill to support. It isn't calling for an immediate pull out of U.S. troops or cutting off funding for escalation. It's a first step though and there's no reason for not signing on to it... other than being a warmonger.

Read the whole thing.

Remember the Women

As Congressional Democrats prepare to reinstate the reign of back-alley wire-hanger abortions, Ann Jones in The Nation reminds us how difficult it is to overcome lethal misogyny, whether here or in Afghanistan.

At this critical moment, as Obama tries to weigh options against our national security interests, his advisers can't be bothered with--as one US military officer put it to me--"the trivial fate of women." As for some hypothetical moral duty to protect the women of Afghanistan--that's off the table. Yet it is precisely that dismissive attitude, shared by Afghan and many American men alike, that may have put America's whole Afghan enterprise wrong in the first place. Early on, Kofi Annan, then United Nations secretary general, noted that the condition of Afghan women was "an affront to all standards of dignity, equality and humanity."

Annan took the position, set forth in 2000 in the landmark UN Security Council Resolution 1325, that real conflict resolution, reconstruction and lasting peace cannot be achieved without the full participation of women every step of the way. Karzai gave lip service to the idea, saying in 2002, "We are determined to work to improve the lot of women after all their suffering under the narrow-minded and oppressive rule of the Taliban." But he has done no such thing. And the die had already been cast: of the twenty-three Afghan notables invited to take part in the Bonn Conference in December 2001, only two were women. Among ministers appointed to the new Karzai government, there were only two; one, the minister for women's affairs, was warned not to do "too much."

SNIP

The UNAMA report attributes women's worsening position in Afghan society to the violence the war engenders on two domestic fronts: the public stage and the home. The report is dedicated to the memory of Sitara Achakzai, a member of the Kandahar Provincial Council and outspoken advocate of women's rights, who was shot to death on April 12, soon after being interviewed by the UNAMA researchers. She "knew her life was in danger," they report. "But like many other Afghan women such as Malalai Kakar, the highest-ranking female police officer in Kandahar killed in September 2008, Sitara Achakzai had consciously decided to keep fighting to end the abuse of Afghan women." Malalai Kakar, 40, mother of six, had headed a team of ten policewomen handling cases of domestic violence.

In 2005 Kim Sengupta, a reporter with the London Independent, interviewed five Afghan women activists; by October 2008 three of them had been murdered. A fourth, Zarghuna Kakar (no relation to Malalai), a member of the Kandahar Provincial Council, had left the country after she and her family were attacked and her husband was killed. She said she had pleaded with Ahmed Wali Karzai, head of the Kandahar Provincial Council, for protection; but he told her she "should have thought about what may happen" before she stood for election. Kakar told the reporter, "It was his brother [President Karzai], the Americans, and the British who told us that we women should get involved in political life. Of course, now I wish I hadn't."

SNIP

Threats against women in public life are intended to make them go home--to "unliberate" themselves through voluntary house arrest. But if public life is dangerous, so is life at home. Most Afghan women--87 percent, according to Unifem--are beaten on a regular basis. The UNAMA researchers looked into the unmentionable subject of rape and found it to be "an everyday occurrence in all parts of the country" and "a human rights problem of profound proportions." Outside marriage, the rapists are often members or friends of the family. Young girls forced to marry old men are raped by the old man's brothers and sons. Women and children--young boys are also targets--are raped by people who have charge of them: police, prison guards, soldiers, orphanage or hospital staff members. The female victims of rape are mostly between the ages of 7 and 30; many are between 10 and 20, but some are as young as 3; and most women are dead by 42.

SNIP

So there's no point talking about how women and girls might be affected by the strategic military options remaining on Obama's plate. None of them bode well for women. To send more troops is to send more violence. To withdraw is to invite the Taliban. To stay the same is not possible, now that Karzai has stolen the election in plain sight and made a mockery of American pretensions to an interest in anything but our own skin and our own pocketbook. But while men plan the onslaught of more men, it's worth remembering what "normal life" once looked like in Afghanistan, well before the soldiers came. In the 1960s and '70s, before the Soviet invasion--when half the country's doctors, more than half the civil servants and three-quarters of the teachers were women--a peaceful Afghanistan advanced slowly into the modern world through the efforts of all its people. What changed all that was not only the violence of war but the accession to power of the most backward men in the country: first the Taliban, now the mullahs and mujahedeen of the fraudulent, corrupt, Western-designed government that stands in opposition to "normal life" as it is lived in the developed world and was once lived in their own country. What happens to women is not merely a "women's issue"; it is the central issue of stability, development and durable peace. No nation can advance without women, and no enterprise that takes women off the table can come to much good.

It's a long, hard slog changing a culture that views half the population as subhuman and dispensable, but the least we can expect is that long-standing, hard-won victories won't be cast aside because of political cowardice.

Overthrowing the Taliban didn't improve the lot of Afghan women and girls, and Congressional Blue Dogs would rather destroy the last chance for decent health care in this country than support a 35-year-old Supreme Court decision that saves women's lives.

I don't see a whole fucking lot of difference.

Go See This Movie Right Now

Just got back from seeing Capitalism: A Love Story. I hadn't planned on seeing it, mostly because I'm not a huge Michael Moore fan. I liked Fahrenheit 9-11 but thought it probably didn't persuade anyone, and never bothered to see Sicko because I've been screaming for single-payer since before Moore knew what it was.

But a friend wanted to see Capitalism: A Love Story, so I went along.

Go. See. It. Right. Now.

Moore is a fucking genius, and a genuine National Treasure. It's What The Fuck Happened, What It Means and Who's to Blame in two hours and seven minutes that will keep you glued to your seat while you gasp and laugh and cry and burst into applause.

Click here to find where it's showing near you.

And keep repeating: Wall Street delenda est.

Naked Hysteria

As Kentucky Attorney General and U.S. Senate candidate Jack Conway seeks U.S. Supreme Court approval for the state continuing to violate state law, Alexander Cockburn in The Nation brings us a story that is directly on point:

Just how funny was that story of the man in Fairfax County, Virginia, who got up early on the morning of October 19 and walked naked into his own kitchen to make himself a cup of coffee? The next significant thing that happened to 29-year-old Eric Williamson was the local cops arriving to charge him with indecent exposure. It turns out that while he was brewing the coffee, a mother who was taking her 7-year-old son along a path beside Williamson's house espied the naked Williamson and called the local precinct, or more likely her husband, who happens to be a cop.

"Yes, I wasn't wearing any clothes," Williamson said later, "but I was alone, in my own home and just got out of bed. It was dark and I had no idea anyone was outside looking in at me."

The story ended up on TV, starting with Fox, and in the opening rounds the newscasters and network blogs had merciless sport with the Fairfax police for their absurd behavior. Hasn't a man the right to walk around his own home (or, in this case, rented accommodations) dressed according to his fancy? Answer, obvious to anyone familiar with relevant case law: absolutely not.

Peeved by public ridicule, the Fairfax cops turned up the heat. The cop's wife started to maintain that first she saw Williamson by a glass kitchen door, then through the kitchen window. Mary Ann Jennings, a Fairfax County Police spokeswoman, stirred the pot of innuendo: "We've heard there may have been other people who had a similar incident." The cops are asking anyone who may have seen an unclothed Williamson through his windows to come forward, even if it was at a different time.

They've also been papering the neighborhood with fliers, asking for reports on any other questionable activities by anyone resembling Williamson--a white guy who's a commercial diver and who has a 5-year-old daughter, not living with him.

I'd say that if the cops keep it up, and some prosecutor scents opportunity, Williamson will be pretty lucky if they don't throw some cobbled-up indictment at him. Toss in a jailhouse snitch making his own plea deal, a faked police lineup, maybe an artist's impression of the Fairfax Flasher, and Williamson could end up losing his visitation rights and, worse comes to worst, getting ten years plus being posted for life on some sex-offender site. You think we're living in the twenty-first century, in the clinical fantasy world of CSI? Wrong. So far as forensic evidence is concerned, we remain planted in the seventeenth century with trial by ordeal, such as when they killed women as witches if they floated when thrown into a pond.

Read the whole thing.

Then do some remembering. Ever indulged in a little outdoor secluded-spot fornication? Peed behind a bush? Had entirely private sex as an 18-year-old with a 16-year-old? Think you deserve 10 years on the sex-offender registry for that? And the humiliation is the least of it. Sex offenders can't get jobs, aren't allowed to live within shouting distance of other human beings.

Yes, the vast majority of sex offenders committed and were convicted of actual sex crimes that caused genuine damage far beyond offending the sensibilities of a prudish hausfrau.

But the next time you're tempted to join the mob in demanding that all sex offenders be marooned on the moon without oxygen, consider the following facts about Kentucky's Sex Offender Registry:

The website of Covington Attorney Paul J. Dickman explains:

A broad range of lower-level felony and misdemeanor offenses are included in the categories of sexual abuse and misconduct. These offenses include unwanted touching, indecent exposure, non-consensual kissing, statutory rape, and public indecency.

But the registry itself does not distinguish between offenses. You can search by last name, email address, city, county, zip code and age of victim, but doesn't explain the circumstance. Was the man who committed 3rd-degree sexual abuse against a 14-year-old a child molester, or a guy wanking off in his car when he thought no one was looking? You can't tell. The best part is the registry's disclaimer:

"THE KENTUCKY STATE POLICE DOES NOT AND CANNOT GUARANTEE THE ACCURACY OF THE INFORMATION PROVIDED ON THIS WEBSITE."

Knee-jerk, unthinking sexual hysteria is distorting our society so ludicrously that the Commonwealth's number one law enforcement officer, a man who wants to be the next U.S. Senator from Kentucky, is refusing to enforce a State Supreme Court ruling. The Herald-Leader rightly slapped him down for it.

When did it become right for the criminal justice system to ignore Kentucky Supreme Court rulings simply because officials don't want to follow them?

And how can any citizen in Kentucky feel safe with law enforcers acting with impunity?

The court ruled recently that a law restricting where registered sex offenders could live could not constitutionally be imposed on those who had already served their time before the law passed in 2006.

That makes sense. If not, any new law could exact additional punishments on former offenders of any crime — violent or nonviolent.

Of course few people would come to the defense of sex offenders, which apparently makes it easy for the state Department of Corrections to tell probation and parole officers to continue enforcing a law ruled unconstitutional.

SNIP

As the state's top law enforcement official, Conway should make that clear, in no uncertain terms, to law enforcement personnel across the state. Not doing so would raise questions about whether he, as a U.S. Senate candidate, is using this emotional issue for political grandstanding.

Every moment of time wasted on pandering to the hysterics who want the death penalty for willy-wavers is time lost to investigating real sex crimes, and arresting, convicting and incarcerating the perpetrators.

"Sorry about your five-year-old, Mrs. Smith, but we were too busy harrassing public urinators to keep an eye on that suspected serial killer."

Because It All Depends on the Jobs

"One in 10 Americans is unemployed." That's a headline we haven't seen in 26-1/2 years. But it's one we'll look back on with nostalgia a year from now if the Obama administration doesn't face reality and force Congress to pass a massive, all-jobs economic stimulus.

And if that stimulus doesn't pass before spring, it won't be Democrats' problem any more - repugs will take over Congress next November.

Paul Krugman and John Nichols make the case. First, Krugman:

Remember those Republican boasts that they would turn health care into President Obama’s Waterloo? Well, exit polls suggest that to the extent that health care was an issue in Tuesday’s elections, it worked in Democrats’ favor. But while health care won’t be Mr. Obama’s Waterloo, economic policy is starting to look like his Anzio.

SNIP

The World War II battle of Anzio was a classic example of the perils of being too cautious. Allied forces landed far behind enemy lines, catching their opponents by surprise. Instead of following up on this advantage, however, the American commander hunkered down in his beachhead — and soon found himself penned in by German forces on the surrounding hills, suffering heavy casualties.

The parallel with current economic policy runs as follows: early this year, President Obama came into office with a strong mandate and proclaimed the need to take bold action on the economy. His actual actions, however, were cautious rather than bold. They were enough to pull the economy back from the brink, but not enough to bring unemployment down.

SNIP

Conventional wisdom in Washington seems to have congealed around the view that budget deficits preclude any further fiscal stimulus — a view that’s all wrong on the economics, but that doesn’t seem to matter. Meanwhile, the Democratic base, so energized last year, has lost much of its passion, at least partly because the administration’s soft-touch approach to Wall Street has seemed to many like a betrayal of their ideals.

The president, then, having failed to exploit his early opportunities, is pinned down in his too-small beachhead.

If the Democrats lose badly in the midterms, the talking heads will say that Mr. Obama tried to do too much, this is a center-right nation, and so on. But the truth is that Mr. Obama put his agenda at risk by doing too little. The fateful decision, early this year, to go for economic half-measures may haunt Democrats for years to come.

And John Nichols in the Nation.

That's bad political news for President Barack Obama and the Democrats in Congress, who continue to make the mistake of treating unemployment as an afterthought rather than the most serious issue facing the nation.

Now that the United States has an official double-digit unemployment rate, the Obama administration and Democratic leaders in the House and Senate need to adjust approaches in order to make job creation their primary focus.

SNIP

The reality of the 2010 congressional elections that will define the second half of Barack Obama's first term has yet to be determined.

But one thing is certain: If unemployment continues to rise, it will be the only issue in key congressional districts and states across the country next year.

Nothing else that the president or his congressional allies talk about will matter.

For economic, social and politic reasons, Democrats need to remake themselves as the party of jobs. If this requires a new stimulus plan with more money for job-creating infrastructure and development programs, Democrats cannot afford to be cautious. If this requires a radical alteration in trade policies and the abandonment of the absurd strategy for bailing out GM and Chrysler -- which calls for shuttering more than two dozen plants across the United States – Democrats cannot afford to hesitate.

... if Obama, Nancy Pelosi, Harry Reid and their compatriots listen to the counsel of the cautious as unemployment hits 12, 13 or 14 percent, they will fail the American people doubly.

The first failure will be a social one. If unemployment is allowed to rise into the mid-teens, families and communities across this country will experience a human crisis of daunting proportions.

The second failure will be a political one. High unemployment will remake the electoral landscape into an "Alice-in-Wonderland" fantasyland. Republicans who (assisted by some notable Democratic allies) laid the foundations of the current crisis -- with misguided tax breaks for the rich, warped spending priorities and fundamentally-flaws trade policies -- will be able to position themselves as pro-jobs populists. And Democrats will be stuck defending an indefensible status quo.

That's a guaranteed loser for Obama and his congressional allies, who will see their House and Senate majorities slashed if not obliterated by an understandably angry electorate.

"Letter from Fort Hood"

Kevin Drum brings us this eyewitness account:

A former reader emails today to pass along a firsthand account of the shooting at Fort Hood on Thursday. It's unedited except for paragraph breaks:

I was walking into the medical SRP building when he started firing (he never made it to the main SRP building....the media accounts are understandably pretty off right now). He was calmly and methodically shooting everyone. Like every non-deployed military post, no one was armed. For the first time in my life I really wish I had a weapon. I don't know how to explain what it feels like to have someone shoot at you while you're unarmed. He missed me but didn't miss a lot of others. Just pure random luck. It's a very compressed area, thus the numbers.

I saw a lot of heroism. So many more would have died if this wasn't an Army post. We're almost all CLS trained and it made a huge difference. Cause the EMTs didn't get there for almost an hour (they thought there was a second shooter). I just can't believe one of our own shot us. When I saw his ID card I couldn't believe it. After he shot the female police officer he was fumbling his reload and I saw the other police officer around the corner and yelled at him to come shoot the shooter. He did. Then I used my belt as a tourniquet on the female officer.

I hate to tell you this but in the course of the day it became clear that it was another Akbar incident.1 (Once they convinced them the blood drenching my clothes wasn't mine I spent the day being interviewed by the alphabet.) Akbar again. God help us. He was very planned. I counted three full mags around him (I secured his weapon for a while). Found out later that his car was filled with more ammo.

This was premeditated. This wasn't VBC again. That guy snapped, not this one. He was so damn calm when he was shooting. Methodical. And he was moving tactically.

The Army really is diverse and we really do love all our own. We signed up to be shot at but not at home. Not unarmed. No one should ever see what the inside of that medical SRP building looked like. I suppose that's what VA Tech looked like. Except they didn't have soldiers coming from everywhere to tourniquet and compress and talk to the wounded while rounds are still coming out.

No one touched him...the shooter that is...other than to treat him. Though I told the medic (and I'm not proud of this) that was giving him plasma that there better not be anyone else who needed it because he should be the last one to be treated.

But I had just finished holding a soldier who was critical (I counted three entry wounds) and talking to him about his children.... If the shooter had a grievance he should have taken it out on those responsible; he wasn't shooting people he knew (media reports to the contrary). He was just shooting anybody who happened to be present for SRP medical processing, mainly lower enlisted.

But please, no one use this politically! The Army is not "broken", PTSD doesn't turn people into killers, most Muslims aren't evil, and whether we should stay or go in Afghanistan has nothing to do with this. I'm babbling...sorry.

1Hasan Akbar was an Army sergeant who killed two soldiers and wounded 14 others in a grenade attack in Kuwait in 2003. He's currently under a sentence of death.

There have been several media reports that the Fort Hood shooter yelled "Allahu Akbar!" during his rampage, but my correspondent says, "He was silent in my presence."

Mob Rule

Zandar wrote this in the context of the civil rights vote in Maine Tuesday, but it also applies to the idiocy on Capital Hill yesterday, and the anti-Muslim hysteria that's likely to explode today in the wake of the Fort Hood shootings:

The teabaggers have beaten it into everyone's head that democracy in America means mob rule, not an enlightened Republic of statesmen or crafted judicial precedent. The tyranny of the majority is all that matters, and should the majority decide to vote for Barack Obama, well then they just beat the populace harder until they comply.

The underinformed, misinformed, or prejudicial voter has one vote, the exact same amount as the informed, open-minded or activist voter. And the rubes are a lot easier to manipulate en masse.

There's a reason bigotry is 31-0 in America. It's a matter of time? Not if those who vote for prejudice also raise children who are taught that bigoted behavior is the accepted norm. History loves a scapegoat.

Civil rights in this country will continue to lose until one state decides to put it all on the line by actually playing the tenth amendment card and daring the Feds to stop them. And that's the battle they know they have to win. It will be all or nothing for us then.

I do not believe America will last very long should tolerance and justice lose on that day. But that day is coming, and it is coming soon.

No Words

If you think you've got some, you don't.

Cut the Congressional Knot

There's a point at which procedural delays become too obstructive to untie and must be simply sliced through. We've reached that point on the health care reform bills in the Senate.

Steve Benen explains:

What's the trouble? It's a combination of factors, including waiting on the CBO, dealing with center-right Democrats who aren't on board with the plan, and scheduling time on an unfriendly calendar.

SNIP

There are obviously a lot of hurdles to clear, but serious lawmakers, working through a deliberate process, should be able to pass reform by Christmas. The longer the delays, the harder it gets to pass the bill, and the worse the legislation is likely to become.

As for the House, Speaker Pelosi approved some minor changes to the reform bill through a so-called "manager's amendment," and while there are still some wrinkles to be ironed out, the chamber appears to be on track to approve the legislation before Veterans Day (Nov. 11), if not this week.

Fine. Fuck the Senate. Give 'em the House bill on Monday, dare' em to filibuster or vote against it, then spend the next 12 months calling out every single Senate repug and dem who wouldn't cooperate.

Meanwhile, shove single-payer up their worthless asses.

That goes for the ditherer in the White House, too.

Let the Cowards Die

This tempts me to give the fucking DINO cowards what they want just because it would absolutely guarantee that every single one of them loses next year.

Steven Benen:

We should probably keep our "Profile in Courage" Award nominations on hold for Congress' center-right Democrats.

Vulnerable House and Senate Democrats want their leaders to skip the party's controversial legislative agenda for next year to help save their seats in Congress.

In the run-up to the 2010 midterm elections, they don't want to be forced to vote on climate change, immigration reform and gays in the military, which they say should be set aside so Congress can focus on jobs and the economy.

Don't make them vote, in other words, on anything that voters might find remotely controversial. Maybe, if they govern from a defensive crouch, and just skip over party priorities, Republicans won't be mean to them and the public will respect their gumption.

Please.

The electorate handed Democrats huge majorities in the House and Senate a year ago. For these vulnerable incumbents, why do they think voters did that? To not tackle tough issues?

For that matter, a year from now when they're seeking re-election, what to do these vulnerable incumbents intend to tell their constituents about their accomplishments? "Vote for me; I encouraged congressional leaders to put off important issues for some other time."

That ought to get lawmakers' supporters feeling motivated about turning out on Election Day.

What part of "Both Democratic congressional candidates who supported the public option WON yesterday" do these worthless pieces of shit not understand?

Oh, yeah - they're deaf to anything but the orders of the insurance industry CEOs they're fellating.

Health Care Reform Bills Crib Sheet

TPM's Brian Beutler has done what no MSMer dare: explain simply and concisely what the proposed health care reform bills will actually do. It's short, simple, invaluable - print this out, carry it around with you.

Right now, it's impossible to compare what the Senate is trying to do with what the House is trying to do because Reid hasn't unveiled his bill yet. But though there will surely be some major differences, both proposals will contain some of the same underlying architecture.

The basic theme of health care reform is that insurance would be mandatory, subsidized and regulated. As is the case today, for the first many years after enactment, most people in the country would be insured by their employers--in fact, large and medium-sized businesses would be required to provide insurance for their employees. Uninsured people would either be roped into existing entitlement programs like Medicaid, or required to buy regulated insurance--typically through an "exchange," which, comprised of hundreds of thousands, or even millions, of customers, would theoretically have the bargaining power needed to keep premiums down.

For being handed a captive market, insurers would be faced with a new playing field: they'd be required to sell insurance to all comers, without using prior health conditions or gender as the basis for price discrimination. Though premiums would still vary based on things like age and geography, no two people of the same age in the same area would face the same serious price differentials they often see today. And both the House and the Senate would end the practice of "rescission"--canceling peoples' policies or denying payment once they get sick.

Of course, poor and middle class people would still be on the hook for thousands of dollars a year worth of premiums, so the government would offer tax credits to people below a certain income to help them buy insurance--the lower your income, the greater your subsidy.

Though we can't say for certain how the House and Senate plans will be at odds with one another, some of the key differences are likely to be a). the generosity of the subsidies, b). the way the subsidies and entitlement expansions are paid for, c). the stringency of the mandates, and d). the degree to which private insurers are regulated.

Read the whole thing.

What Happened in Virginia - and How to Prevent The Same Disaster in Kentucky

At Firedoglake, Ben Tribbett offers details to back up what I posted yesterday about the Lessons of Virginia.

For those of you following the 2009 elections, I don’t have to tell you that Virginia–one year after voting Democratic for President for the first time since 1964–is about to sweep our most conservative Republican ticket in history to victory today. What you might find useful though is why–and how you can prevent something similar from happening in your state in 2010.

SNIP

The strongest groups for Democrats in 2008 were voters under the age of 30 and minority voters. Also known as the two groups whose participation historically falls in midterm elections. In Virginia this year, one poll showed the percentage of the likely electorate under the age of 30 falling 70% from 2008–and the African American share of the vote falling 39% from 2008! That’s why virtually every poll has shown today’s likely electorate as having voted for John McCain by double digits over Barack Obama in Virginia last year–despite Virginia having voted almost exactly the reverse.

Unfortunately for us, the Deeds campaign freaked out and read these polls wrong over the summer. Instead of attempting to energize more young and minority voters to the polls to make the electorate more representative of Virginia–they began running a campaign targeted to the people already planning to vote. Creigh began bashing federal Democratic priorities like “Cap and Trade” and health care reform to appeal to the conservatives that were headed to the polls.

And every time he did it, polls indicated turnout shriveled even further among Democrats and progressive voters–making the electorate even older, whiter, and more conservative. To which Creigh responded to by bashing federal Democrats more–which resulted in even more progressives becoming disengaged. Over and over, the cycle continued. Over the last six weeks, PPP polls indicated the share of the electorate that identified as Democrats declined from 38% to 31%. In other words almost one out of every five self-identified Democrats planning to vote on Labor Day has since then looked at Creigh Deeds and his conservative message, and decided they weren’t voting. Ouch!

SNIP

The lesson for candidates in 2010 is clear: do not depress your base when our electorate is already far less likely to vote than Republicans to begin with.

Successful candidates in 2010 will find a way to engage young voters and minority voters so they come back to the polls–and AFTER they do that, work on winning over enough Independents to win.

If this election serves as a reminder that pandering to right wingers is not a successful electoral strategy, then Creigh Deeds will have done even more good for Democrats than if he had won the Governorship today.

Read the whole thing.

Are you listening, Ben Chandler?

Every step to the right loses you Democratic votes.

Every rejection of liberal values loses you Democratic votes.

Every slap at President Obama loses you Democratic votes.

And in the face of a credible republican opponent raising money fast, nothing you can do or say will gain you a single republican vote.

You run as a Real Democrat, or you lose. Your choice.

Demand the Rest of the Stimulus

Way back in February, the always-right Paul Krugman warned that not only was the compromise $750 billion stimulus too small, but so was the original $1 trillion plan. There was a $2 trillion hole in economic demand, and only $2 trillion in spending would fill it.

Nine months later, here we are, with exactly the weak, jobless recovery he predicted.

NOW can we take Krugman's advice?

The good news is that the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act, a k a the Obama stimulus plan, is working just about the way textbook macroeconomics said it would. But that’s also the bad news — because the same textbook analysis says that the stimulus was far too small given the scale of our economic problems. Unless something changes drastically, we’re looking at many years of high unemployment.

And the really bad news is that “centrists” in Congress aren’t able or willing to draw the obvious conclusion, which is that we need a lot more federal spending on job creation.

SNIP

So the government needs to do much more. Unfortunately, the political prospects for further action aren’t good.

What I keep hearing from Washington is one of two arguments: either (1) the stimulus has failed, unemployment is still rising, so we shouldn’t do any more, or (2) the stimulus has succeeded, G.D.P. is growing, so we don’t need to do any more. The truth, which is that the stimulus was too little of a good thing — that it helped, but it wasn’t big enough — seems to be too complicated for an era of sound-bite politics.

But can we afford to do more? We can’t afford not to.

High unemployment doesn’t just punish the economy today; it punishes the future, too. In the face of a depressed economy, businesses have slashed investment spending — both spending on plant and equipment and “intangible” investments in such things as product development and worker training. This will hurt the economy’s potential for years to come.

Deficit hawks like to complain that today’s young people will end up having to pay higher taxes to service the debt we’re running up right now. But anyone who really cared about the prospects of young Americans would be pushing for much more job creation, since the burden of high unemployment falls disproportionately on young workers — and those who enter the work force in years of high unemployment suffer permanent career damage, never catching up with those who graduated in better times.

Even the claim that we’ll have to pay for stimulus spending now with higher taxes later is mostly wrong. Spending more on recovery will lead to a stronger economy, both now and in the future — and a stronger economy means more government revenue. Stimulus spending probably doesn’t pay for itself, but its true cost, even in a narrow fiscal sense, is only a fraction of the headline number.

O.K., I know I’m being impractical: major economic programs can’t pass Congress without the support of relatively conservative Democrats, and these Democrats have been telling reporters that they have lost their appetite for stimulus.

But I hope their stomachs start rumbling soon. We now know that stimulus works, but we aren’t doing nearly enough of it. For the sake of today’s unemployed, and for the sake of the nation’s future, we need to do much more.

Read the whole thing.

Now Being Drunk is a Capitol Offense, Too

Digby brings us more evidence that taser-instigated murder is the rule, not the exception:

A drunk man tries to get away from the tasering and so they shot him dead:

“We’re really concerned about a guy leaving the parking lot of Chuckwagon [Inn] on Evergreen Way — in a white Corvette, he’s extremely intoxicated,” Tribble told the dispatcher.

Several officers from the Everett Police Department soon arrived; among them were Troy Meade, an 11-year-veteran, and Officer Steven Klocker. Meade arrived at about 11:39 PM; Klocker reached the scene a little less than five minutes later.

At the time Officer Meade arrived, Meservey was hedged in by cars on either side of his Corvette, and cut off by a parking lot fence in front of him. Meade pulled up behind Meservey’s car, effectively boxing him in.

Joanne Hancock, who was smoking outside the Chuckwagon Inn when the police arrived, went inside to tell others concerned about Meservey that “They’ve got him!” The news prompted a small group of people to go outside to watch the arrest.

By the time Klocker arrived to provide “backup,” Meade had spent perhaps five minutes trying to convince Meservey to get out of the car. Klocker would later report that Meade’s tone and attitude toward the intoxicated man were “belligerent,” and that he “used language which made him [Klocker] uncomfortable because of the nearby civilians.”

“I don’t know why the f**k I am trying to save your dumb ass,” Meade snarled at Meservey, according to Klocker’s account.

Both Meade and Klocker withdrew their portable electro-shock torture devices (more commonly called Tasers). Meade, who was closest to the driver, shot Meservey with his Taser through the open driver’s side window, inflicting two separate strikes — one five seconds long, the other six seconds’ duration.

“Why in the f**k did you do that?” muttered the drunken man, who — predictably enough — didn’t want to stick around for any more abuse. He reached for his keys and started the car, but he had nowhere to go: It lurched over a concrete curb and ran into an unyielding chain-link fence.

Bear in mind, once again, that Meservey was entirely boxed in. It was possible, albeit with some difficulty, for Officer Meade to reach through the window and seize the car keys, rather than escalating the situation by using potentially deadly force.

But Meade’s pointless escalation didn’t stop with the two Taser strikes.

After Meservey’s brief attempt to drive away, Meade — according to the official police account — took up a position near the left rear wheel of the Corvette, and pulled his gun.

“Time to end this,” bellowed Meade, according to Klocker. “Enough is enough.” From a distance of six to seven feet, Meade fired eight shots into the car, murdering Meservey.

Read the whole thing. It's quite a story.

As the excerpt points out, they could have reached in and tried to get the keys out of the ignition. But they tasered him twice while he was sitting behind the wheel and his human instinct was to get away. He was, after all drunk. And when he reacted, the officer killed him.

There are still laws against shooting someone dead with a bullet even if shooting them dead with a taser is often considered the victim's own fault. But it's clear that using the taser in that circumstance was a factor that led to the the man's death.

Police officers are routinely resorting to the taser against mentally ill and drunk citizens with catastrophic results. I guess we all have to understand that in America not being in your right mind is a capital crime for which we aren't necessarily allowed due process. Good to know.

I'll just add that while tasers make it easier for unbalanced, unprofessional cops to get away with torture and murder, the widespread promotion of tasers as "non-violent" alternatives to guns also victimizes good cops who don't appreciate the lethal danger.