On STRIKE!

If the HTML code works properly, this blog will be blacked out from 8 a.m. to 8 p.m. today, Wednesday, Jan. 18.

The purpose of the Internet-wide strike, led by no less an Internet Essential than Wikipedia itself, is to show the world what the Internet will look like if the fascist censorship bills - PIPA in the Senate and SOPA in the House - pass into law.

While SOPA has been temporarily derailed, the even-worse PIPA is still alive in the Senate.

While the disappearance of Blue in the Bluegrass would not cause even the tiniest ripple in the space-time continuum, PIPA and SOPA would eliminate vast swaths of the Internet. Look for your favorite sites today, see which is showing solidarity by striking, and ponder life without any of them.

Songs to Fight the Plutocracy By: "Where the Fraser River Flows"

One of Joe Hill's earliest songs, about an IWW railroad workers strike in British Columbia in 1912.

Uploaded by Idonegotold:



Lyrics here.

Songs to Fight the Plutocracy By: "Union Thru and Thru"

Uploaded by CMEUNION:

A gutsy, rousing union song!!!! 'Union Thru and Thru' by the Eureka's- Rob Mitchell and Ken Walther (c) Walther Music- downloads available in the links section at www.cfmeuwa.com or email rmitchell@cfmeuwa.com

Songs to Fight the Plutocracy By: "1913 Massacre"

Uploaded by an3yt.

"The Italian Hall disaster (sometimes referred to as the 1913 massacre) is a tragedy which occurred on December 24, 1913 in Calumet, Michigan. Seventy-three men, women, and children, mostly striking mine workers and their families, were crushed to death when someone falsely yelled "fire" at a crowded Christmas party."

When You Let the Freakazoids Control the Conversation

Even non-repug companies think it's OK to let women die. American military women serving overseas.

Tina Dupuy at Crooks and Liars:

For those of you not familiar Women on Waves, it's an international organization based in the Netherlands that helps women in countries where abortion is criminalized. They literally have a ship and dock in countries like Chile where women get unsafe abortions and die on a regular basis.

I first interviewed them about a story I was working on last year. They said they have tons of calls from the U.S. for help - notably many from servicewomen serving overseas who cannot access abortion services at military hospitals. And not at all if they're serving in a country where it's illegal. Yes, under the law we will let women take a bullet - arm them - but won't allow them to control their own reproduction while overseas ... even if they're raped.

The other issue I learned from talking to these women's health advocates is that when you Google "RU486" or "abortion pill" you will not get the actual medication. You will pay for fake pills. Sometimes more than $80 or more for pills that are not as advertized. Women on Waves counters this by providing the real information on how to safely end a pregnancy with medication that is widely available for other medical reasons. This is the image (posted above) that was taken down by Facebook.

Women on Waves sent out a press release:

Date: 30-12-2011
For Immediate release:
Facebook censors safe abortion information

Today, Facebook removed the profile picture of Rebecca Gomperts, which was text with information about how women can do abortions safely by themselves. Dr Gomperts is a well-known abortion rights activist and the Director of Women on Waves. Women on Waves is a charitable organization focused on women's health and human rights. Its mission is to protect maternal health by preventing unsafe abortions. Women on Waves sails a ship to countries where abortion is illegal. On board the ship the medical staff provides sexual education and healthcare services. With the ship, early medical abortions (up to 6 1/2 weeks of pregnancy) can be provided safely, professionally and legally. Applicability of national penal legislation, and thus also of abortion law, extends only to territorial waters; outside that 12-mile radius it is thus Dutch law that applies on board a ship under the Dutch flag, which means that all our activities are legal. Women on Waves' efforts serve to draw much-needed public attention to the consequences of unwanted pregnancy and unsafe, illegal abortion. To date, the ship has sailed to Ireland, Poland, Portugal and Spain. Women on Waves also supported the launch of safe abortion hotlines in South America, Africa, Asia and the Middle East. (for more information see www.womenonwaves.org). In 2005 it founded Women on Web, a telemedicine abortion service that provides medical abortions to women in countries where there is no access to safe abortion (www.womenonweb.org)

By removing the profile picture, Facebook is in gross violation of Article 19 of the Universal declaration of Human rights. Facebook has a social responsibility to guarantee human rights Dr. Gomperts reposted the screenshot of the Facebook censorship message with the picture. She calls upon all Facebook users that support abortion rights to repost the message on their page.

We contacted Facebook for a response. Andrew Noyes Manager, Public Policy Communications at Facebook got back to us: "You can note that, according to a spokesman, Facebook reached out to Dr. Gomperts to explain that the photo that was removed from the profile was not in violation of our Statement of Rights and Responsibilities, and appears to have been removed in error. We apologize for the removal of this content and the subsequent warning that Dr. Gomperts received."

I emailed with Dr. Gomperts Monday morning. I asked her if the page was back up. She responded, "Yes, after being blocked for two days, I could access my account again today and i received a email from Facebook with their apologies but I believe this is because of the inquiry of journalists and reposting of the image by others during the past days. Thank you very much for your inquiry."

In either case - the press release worked.

Every day, in neighborhoods all over this country, women die because pro-choice, pro-woman, pro-abortion voices are silenced and smothered and ignored.

Stand Up and Speak Out for Choice. Stand Up and Speak Out for Women. Stand Up and Speak Out for Abortion.

Safe. Free. Easy. Accessible. Abortion. Everywhere.

How to Kill Medicare Even Faster Than Repugs Would

Raise the eligibility age, that's how.

Health insurance economics is simple: If you want to make or save money, you want more young, healthy people in your group of customers than old, sick people.

The young, healthy people pay lower premiums, but you still make/save money on them because they use so little medical care and therefore cost much less than they pay in premiums.

The old, sick people pay higher premiums, but they use so much medical care that they cost more than they pay in premiums, and you will lose money on them unless you have enough paying young people to make up the difference.

So, here you have Medicare, which is 100 percent old people and about 90 percent sick people, and as you might guess it's not saving as much money as it should if it had a bunch of young, healthy people in it.

How do you get younger, healthier people into Medicare? Lower the age of eligibility from 65 to, say, 60. Or maybe even 50. Then you get people who aren't as young and healthy as 30-year-olds, but they're younger and healthier than 80-year-olds, and their premium-to-cost ratio is still in Medicare's favor.

Simple, right?

Not if you're blinded by Austerity Hysteria.

Digby:

Just keep working old man

Brad DeLong writes about this dangerous CBO report that indicates that raising the Medicare eligibility age would save money and wouldn't be a big problem for 65 year olds because they could just stay employed or buy their own insurance:

[T]he major problem is with how CBO presents its estimates. It writes:

Director's Blog: Raising the Ages of Eligibility for Medicare and Social Security: If the eligibility age was raised above 65, fewer people would be eligible for Medicare, and outlays for the program would decline relative to those projected under current law. CBO expects that most people affected by the change would obtain health insurance from other sources, primarily employers or other government programs, although some would have no health insurance. Federal spending on those other programs would increase, partially offsetting the Medicare savings. Many of the people who would otherwise have enrolled in Medicare would face higher premiums for health insurance, higher out-of-pocket costs for health care, or both.

CBO estimates that raising the MEA [to 67] would reduce Medicare outlays, net of premiums and other offsetting receipts, by $148 billion from 2012 through 2021…

What is should have written, IMHO:

CBO estimates that raising the MEA [to 67] would reduce net Medicare outlays by $148 billion from 2012 through 2021. It would also reduce tax revenue collections over that time frame by $80 billion as corporations upped their tax-shielded spending on employee health benefits. 65 and 66-year olds and the businesses that employ them would spend an extra $220 billion purchasing Medicare-level health insurance. And 1/4 of 65 and 66-year olds would find themselves uninsured.

Raising the MEA: a really bad idea.

I have a sinking feeling that this one's going to happen. It's backed by all the Republicans and the centrist Democrats and the White house has been eager to sign on. It doesn't have the dedicated funding stream that Social Security has and Democrats won't fight it because the ACA will supposedly make up the difference. Except, of course, it won't, not really. For people over a certain age, the ACA helps mitigate the highest insurances costs, but it's still going to be very, very expensive for people of average to below average means. I have a suspicion that a very large number of the people who fail to buy insurance under the ACA will be in this older age group, and they are among the sickest. Paying the penalty will be far less than their insurance would cost and they'll just try to hang on for two more years until they can get into Medicare --- as they do now. Except they'll be two years older. And sicker.

Here's more from the Incidental Economist on why this is such a destructive, poor idea:

Why it costs two times more to raise the Medicare age from 65 to 67
Why it is bad for health, regressive, and requires the ACA to be fully in effect
Why the liberal case for it is weak
What it means for certain, large unions
Why the federal savings are actually very small
A podcast on this topic

Medicare's overhead is already just one-fifteenth that of private health insurance - 2 percent compared to 30 percent. The dirty-cheap, highly-efficient "government bureaucracy" of this single-payer program is a feature, not a bug. All it needs is a youthening tweak to the group demographics and it's solid forever.

QOTD

Kevin Drum, re the assassinations of Iranian nuclear scientists:

But it's hardly farfetched to think that the U.S. is involved, one way or another. And if we are, it means we're in the business of deliberately targeting Iranian civilians for death, with the goal of frightening their scientists and thus slowing down Iran's nuclear program. There is, needless to say, a word that describes the act of killing civilians as a way of spreading fear and alarm. We all know what it is, don't we?

How Drug War Hysteria May Save the Affordable Care Act

I just love this. Scalia's freakout over pot may come back to bite him in the ass over the healthcare mandate.

Unfortunately, Scalia is smart enough, corrupt enough and hypocritical enough to pretend his own precedent doesn't exist. Never forget that in Bush v. Gore, he ignored his own claimed federalism, 200-plus years of precedent, and the original, plain-language Constitution to annoint Smirky Dear Leader.

Talking Points Memo:

On first blush, it seems like a no-brainer that Antonin Scalia will vote to overturn the health care reform law’s requirement that Americans buy insurance: the Reagan-appointed justice is a staunch conservative who’s beloved by Republicans; for what possible reason could he deliver such a devastating blow to his own side and boost President Obama?

The answer: judicial precedent. His own. And the Obama administration has noticed.

In its amicus brief filed with the Supreme Court Friday, the Justice Department cited no fewer than 10 times the 2005 Gonzalez v. Raich case, in which Scalia (and Justice Anthony Kennedy) broke with the court’s conservative wing to hand down what scholars viewed as one of the broadest declarations of federal power under the Commerce Clause: a 6-3 ruling decreeing that Congress may ban a medical-marijuana patient from growing cannabis for personal use in California where it’s legal.

Raich was bound to come up either way as it’s seen as the most relevant precedent to the Affordable Care Act case, but the Obama administration is deploying it to box in Scalia specifically and conservatives broadly. Five separate times in the brief, the DOJ noted Scalia’s concurrence in the case.

But like the congressional repugs, the conservatives on the Supreme Court are there not to serve the people, the nation or the constitution; they are there to serve the Koch Brothers, the Reich Wing Freakazoids, and the anti-Obama fanatics.

Songs to Fight the Plutocracy By: "Better World A' Comin'"

Uploaded by MOTARDkamikaze. That's Woody, of course.

Insourcing American Jobs

President Obama pulls another one out of the Executive Actions to Get Around Congressional Repugs drawer.



Full transcript here.

Foreclosing on the Dream - Literally

I swear, banks have no public relations sense at all.

From Rebuild the Dream:

We’ve seen banks make some pretty audacious moves, but this one takes the cake.

Just days away from the MLK holiday, BB&T bank is attempting to foreclose on one of the oldest churches in Dr. King’s old neighborhood -- Vine City in Atlanta, Georgia.

The church, Higher Ground Empowerment Center, has been a cornerstone of one of Atlanta’s most historic and under-resourced communities for the past 108 years. After a tornado ripped through the property in 2008, the church was forced to take out a loan to cover the repairs. It has managed to pick itself up, rebuild, and continue servicing the community.
But now BB&T wants to foreclose, ignoring the church's attempts to work with the bank to modify the loan.

This church needs your help, so we've started an emergency petition.

Sign the petition and tell BB&T's CEO Kelly King to stop foreclosure on this historic pillar of the community.

BB&T took $3.1 billion in bailout money from the American people in 2008 and used it to eat up hundreds of smaller banks, acquiring another $26 billion in assets the following year.

Higher Ground Empowerment Center is not asking for a bailout. For four years, they’ve simply been asking BB&T to modify their loan to something more reasonable, based on the property's fair value. But the bank has refused.

Sadly, their situation is just like millions of other homes and properties with underwater mortgages -- banks just seem to lack all manners and decency, and often won't even return phone calls.

In this case, the reason is simple -- the church is sitting on a valuable piece of land and the bank stands to make a huge profit.

Since 2004, Vine City has been undergoing “urban renewal” efforts. Through this process, banks have foreclosed on business owners and residents in the short term, while profiting off of inflated property values in the long run.

If this church is foreclosed, it will have a domino effect on the rest of the community.

Occupy Atlanta has jumped in to support the Higher Ground Empowerment Center and the Vine City community. They've brought valuable attention to this situation, and the bank is showing that they're paying attention. Now is a critical moment to add momentum and show the bank that people across the country are watching. BB&T should be helping, not exploiting, the church and the Vine City community.

Click here to sign the petition and tell BB&T CEO Kelly King to negotiate fairly with the church.

Thank you for taking a stand,

Van, Natalie, Billy, Jim, Ian, Somer and the rest of the Rebuild the Dream team

After you sign, wash the taste of BB&T's abomination out of your mouth with the Top Ten Civil Rights Songs from The Nation.

(Note prominent omissions cited in comments, including We Shall Overcome.)

QOTD

Steve M. recommending

BooMan on Ron Paul, Glenn Greenwald, and Matt Stoller. A brief excerpt:

If you look at Ron Paul's political philosophy in toto, you'll realize that Paul basically opposes every progressive accomplishment since about 1913. I've never heard him oppose female suffrage, but he'd like to roll back just about every other thing the federal government has done since the creation of the Federal Reserve. The only way a progressive can reach the point where their beliefs converge with Ron Paul's is if they've basically given up on this country and on progressivism.

Amen.

Ditto.

Songs to Fight the Plutocracy By: All You Fascists Bound to Lose

Uploaded by UnAmericanBandstand:

A short song from one of Woody's radio broadcasts. (1940's?)

Featured in this performance are:

*Woody of course-guitar and voc.
*the great SONNY TERRY on harmonica, "whooops" and voc.

other musicians most likely featured in this performance:
*Pete Seeger - banjo
*Cisco Houston - guitar voc.
(pictured with Woody at :25)

Take a Critical Stand in Indiana

Hard as it is for a Kentuckian to admit that hoosiers do anything worthwhile, what's happening right now in the Indiana legislature is huge - even bigger than what happened in Wisconsin last February.

Erik Loomis at Lawyers, Guns and Money:

Maybe we should shift our attention to the Hoosier State, where Governor Mitch Daniels and the Republican legislature is trying to eviscerate Indiana’s unions by passing a right to work for poverty wages law.

To be precise, what a “right to work” law does is makes it legal for individuals in unionized workplaces to choose to opt out of the union, not paying any dues. But the union is still legally required to provide these non-members full representation. It’s a leech law, allowing workers to suck the blood of union members. It also weakens unions by forcing them to provide services without the resources of union dues.

The minority Democrats are doing everything they can to stop this atrocious law from passing. Both sides are using the example of Oklahoma, the last state to pass a right to work law, in 2001. Oklahoma business has talked up how much the law has helped them, but the Oklahoma economy has not exactly boomed. What it has done is undermine unions, which is pretty much all the plutocrats care about here. What about workers? Didn’t making Oklahoma “business-friendly” bring in the jobs?

“There is no doubt that the law has resulted in job loss and lower wages,” said Jesse Isbell, who worked for 36 years at the Bridgestone-Firestone tire plant in Oklahoma City.

That plant closed in 2006, and he and 1,400 others lost their jobs, he said, even though proponents had said the legislation was what was needed to keep jobs from leaving the state.

“Those jobs went to Mexico and they’re not coming back.”

He blamed that in part on the “right to work” law, saying it led to hard feelings and bad morale.

“The instance of free-loaders using union resources to fight discharge and company discipline created a hostile work environment,” Isbell said. “It affected productivity, profitability and the quality of the operations at our plant.”

He and Kitti Asberry, another United Auto Workers member who lost her General Motors job when the Oklahoma plant closed there in 2005, said jobs coming in have not replaced those lost, and that the wages and benefits are lower.

Ah.

Will Democrats succeed in beating back this law? I tend to doubt it, though there is significant pressure on some Republicans in this reasonably strong union state to vote against it. Moreover, the lack of national pressure suggests the long-time Republican strategy of waiting out short-term Democratic protests, as in Wisconsin, will work in Indiana. By this I mean that liberals protest every now and again but don’t have the day-to-day organizing structure to fight these fires wherever they flare up. Let liberals focus on Wisconsin and conservatives will shift to Indiana and New Hampshire, leaving Wisconsin for a later date.

For whatever reason, even Democracy Now is coming up short on this issue. Instead of being a strong advocate for Indiana labor, it hosted a debate on the issue, allowing a Republican representative to give the 1% side of the story. Can you imagine a union newspaper of the 1930s giving a capitalist equal play? A civil rights newspaper of the 60s allowing a racist equal time? I mean, I know it’s hard for capitalists to get their message out in 2011 and all…..

Indiana should be the next Wisconsin, yet it has received almost no attention. I know our political expectations are lower in Indiana than Wisconsin, but this is war on the working-class that needs to be fought on every front. Instead, we have another 2 million tweets about whatever Rick Santorum said in some meaningless primary debate.

Later, he adds this:

By chance, I came across this article in the October 22, 1958 edition of the International Woodworker:

The following item is for the attention of those who claim that organized labor is wrong when it says that so-called “right to work” laws are aimed at weakening unions and destroying labor standards.

It concerns a letter from a housewife to the editor of the Indianapolis Star in the “right-to-work” state of Indiana. The letter was written by Mrs. Patricia Bolen of Nashville, Ind., wife of a carpenter. Mrs. Bolen wrote:

“I pooh-poohed when the right-to-work was first called a mankiiller. But it is. The man I love is being killed by it. He is a carpenter, strong, capable, hard-working, able to do three men’s work, which he does. Thereby, he keeps his job, luckier than most carpenters these days.

“He retains his job by doing man-killing work, but the rest of the crew is fired each Friday. A fresh group is brought in on Monday. There is no longer a union steward whose job it used to be to see that the company provided fresh drinking water, toilet facilities, a place to change and keep dry clothes, safety precautions, etc.

“My man comes home each day thirsty, soaking wet and heartsick because eager, hard-working family men on the job are being laid off when they can’t double or triple their output. This is not an isolated case.

“I am a school teacher. I address this to other teachers, office workers, business people, and others who know first hand what the “Handley law” really is–a right-to-work-a-man-to-death law. I plead for its repeal.”

By Handley, Mrs. Bolen referred to Republican Governor Harold Handley, who, after telling labor leaders he would veto a so-called “right-to-work” law if passed, flipflopped and let it become a law.

Today, Indiana workers are again facing a right-to-work-a-man-to-death law. It’s time we paid more attention to this attack upon working people.

Zucotti Re-Occupied! But No Sitting.

Kevin Gosztola at Firedoglake:

The barricades around Zuccotti Park were finally taken down after NYCLU took issue with how the presence of the barricades were in violation of Brookfield Properties’ zoning permit and wrote a letter. The removal led many Occupy Wall Street protesters to return to the park to “reclaim” it. They ordered free pizza to distribute. They brought the People’s Library back out (which bothered the Brookfield guards on duty immensely). They also sat and lied down on benches in the park and anyone who refused to get off the benches was arrested.

Here is a video that shows occupier Joey Boots being approached in the park. (h/t Gothamist ):

Following the arrest, We Are Change’s Luke Rudkowski shot this interview with Boots, who says he heard on the livestream that a cop said if you sit down in the park you’re going to be arrested. So, he got his ass in a cab and went down to Zuccotti to sit in the park.

He has a bad leg from a torn ACL. Like many Americans, he needs to be able to relax and the Brookfield guards did not want to allow that. And that is the political point here, too. This is something all Americans should be able to do and why are guards and officers empowered to keep a private and public space “secure” wasting energy and resources on people sitting or lying down on park benches?

Below is another video of the re-occupation. This one shows people getting arrested for sitting and lying down too. But, the best part comes at the end when you get to hear what a police officer really think of citizen journalists who carry cameras.

Get the fuck out of our way with that piece of shit you’ve got in your hand. You’re a regular fucking pain in the ass.

Regular Fucking Pains in the Ass Unite!

Click here to see the videos.

Guantanamo Bay By the Numbers

Eli Clifton at Think Progress:

The 10-year anniversary of the arrival of the first detainees at the military prison at Guantánamo Bay, Cuba, offers few opportunities for celebration. The prison has been described as “arguably the most expensive prison on earth” and human rights activists have voiced concerns about detainees’ lack of access to the U.S. court system and a steady stream of reports of abuse and torture. The 10-year history of the Guantánamo Bay detention camp can best be evaluated through the human and economic costs imposed on both the U.S. taxpayers and detainees. Here are some relevant numbers:

10 years since the first 20 detainees arrived at Guantánamo Bay’s Camp X-Ray

1 year, 11 months, 21 days since President Barack Obama’s deadline to close Gitmo

779 detainees incarcerated at Guantánamo Bay since 2002

600 detainees have been released

242 detainees at Gitmo when Obama took office

171 detainees still held at Guantánamo Bay

89 detainees still held after being cleared for release

92 percent of prisoners were never al Qaeda fighters according to the U.S. government

86 percent of detainees were turned over after payment of a bounty

13 years old, the age of the youngest detainee

89 years old, the age of the oldest detainee

8 detainee deaths since 2002

6 detainee deaths by suicide

3 alleged detainee homicides from “dry boarding”

$139 million per year to keep the Guantánamo Bay prison open

$800,000 per year to house each detainee

6 detainees convicted by military commissions

6 detainees currently charged by military commission prosecutor

0 detainees released in the past year

Click here for links to the numbers.

Songs to Fight the Plutocracy By: "Solidarity Forever"

Uploaded by Red Celtic:

Solidarity Forever sung by Pete Seeger & The Weavers, with old photographs of the labor movement in US History.This is a tribute to all the workers who sacrificed to make a better world for their children and grand children.

Sixteen Tons

The really great thing about Mitt Romney is that despite all of his constant, desperate, obvious lying about President Obama, the Democratic Party, the economic crisis, the nature of capitalism, his own history and what he had for breakfast, he just can't hide the truth. The reality of who he is and what he stands for keeps leaking out around the lies.

David Atkins "thereisnospoon" at Hullabaloo:

The key part of what's off-putting about the gaffe isn't the first part about liking to fire people, so much as the second part about "who provide services to me." Liking to fire people is bad enough, but this is the real kicker.

When it comes to basic services like healthcare, almost no one in America sees the relationship that way. Most of us wouldn't speak of "firing" our health insurance company. No matter how much we might detest our insurance company, we probably wouldn't describe the experience of removing ourselves from their rolls an enjoyable one.

But most of all, we don't see the health insurance company as providing us a service. We see ourselves, rather, as indentured supplicants forced to pay exorbitant monthly rates for a basic need that responsible people with means can't get out of paying for if we can help it. We don't see ourselves as in control of the relationship with them. They are in control of us--and no more so than when we get sick and need the insurance most. If the company decides to restrict our coverage or tell us we have a pre-existing condition after all, we're in the position of begging a capricious and heartless corporation to cover costs we assumed we were entitled to based on a contractual obligation. It's precisely when we need insurance most that we're least able to "fire" the insurance company.

The same goes for the rent/mortgage, for the utilities, for the car, for the cell phone bill, for nearly everything. Most of these things are necessary commodities for most Americans. Many are socially expected, even if not technically necessary. They all have (usually far overpriced) unavoidable monthly charges and premiums that fall on overworked and underpaid Americans every month like a load of bricks. We see many of them increase by at least 5-20% year over year even as our wages stay flat. All we can do is struggle to keep up, trying to find the least bad service for the lowest price we can afford, but knowing we're getting gouged every step of the way.

Romney talks about paying for health insurance as if it were the same as getting a pedicure, hiring an escort or getting the fancy wax at a car wash. It's a luxury service being provided to him, and he doesn't like it, he can take his business elsewhere. Romney's is the language of a man who has never wanted for anything, never worried about where his next paycheck would come from, never worried about going bankrupt if he got sick.

It is the language of an entitled empowerment utterly alien to the experience of most Americans, who feel victimized and bled dry without recourse by these rentier corporations. Romney sees himself as in charge of the relationship between himself and these entities. Most Americans don't. That's why the statement rankles and feels so off-putting to us. The mention of enjoying the act of "firing" them is just icing on the cake.

Uploaded by BIRDIE29. This is the original, nine years before Tennessee Ernie Ford made it famous.

Still Tasing, After All These Deaths

Every county in Kentucky will elect a sheriff this year. Do you know what your local sheriff's policy on tasing is? Your local police department's? How they train their officers and deputies to deal with people who are not suspected of any crime, are not being violent, but just piss the cop off? With people who are mentally ill or have a physical disability that prevents them from obeying orders instantly? What the are rules for using a taser?

Now is the time to ask, when they are running for election.

Digby:

Just another New year's Day in America:

The traffic stop began peacefully three hours into New Year's Day 2010, with the woman driving the SUV telling the officer that she hadn't been drinking and her husband merrily exclaiming he was the source of the alcohol smell.

But the situation soured when Steven Kotlinski, 55, stepped out to watch his wife's sobriety test, provoking the Mundelein officers to order him into the SUV. He reluctantly obeyed, but one officer said Kotlinski had obstructed his efforts. He ordered him back out, then tried to pull him out.

Next came the electric crackle of a Taser, a sound heard far more often in Chicago and many suburbs than it was just a few years ago.

A Tribune analysis shows Taser use has jumped fivefold in the city since 2008 and suburban agencies that were surveyed were on pace to double their use, as departments equipped more officers with the devices. Chicago police were deploying Tasers at a rate of more than twice a day in 2011.

And oversight has not kept pace with the explosion in use. Departments are on their own in developing policies on when and how electroshock devices should be deployed, with no state regulation.

In Kotlinski's case, the engineer at Abbott Laboratories was removed from his SUV and pinned in the snow. He lost control of his body as an "intense burning sensation" accompanied the surreal feeling that he was floating over the ground, he said. He roared about his heart condition, then begged in a faint wheeze for someone to call 911.

"Pain. I've never felt that way in my life," Kotlinski said.

Sadly, most people that sort of thing happens to assume it's just the way things are --- that in America it's perfectly normal for police to shoot you with electricity if they feel you aren't cooperating regardless of whether you are suspected of a crime or posing a danger. That's just the way it is.

And it's becoming more and more common:

Like almost all states, Illinois does not track the weapons' use by local police, and departments have been left to monitor and govern electroshock devices with a patchwork of policies. In Chicago, the leap in the number of police carrying Tasers coincided with the scaling back of post-shock investigations by the Independent Police Review Authority.

In 2009, officers logged 197 incidents. A year later, after hundreds more weapons were passed out, Chicago police reported 871 incidents. As of fall, the department was on pace for 857 uses in 2011, which works out to 2.3 per day.

The growth in the weapons' use should not come as a surprise, given their rise in popularity.

Several companies make electroshock weapons, which override the target's central nervous system by firing wire-tethered probes that deliver electrical jolts. Arizona-based Taser International makes the most popular models. About 576,000 of the devices are used by more than 16,500 law enforcement and military organizations, nearly all in the United States, said spokesman Steve Tuttle. Only 500 or so agencies used the weapons in 2000, he said.

In Illinois, a little fewer than half of the municipal police agencies that responded to a 2007 survey reported they were using electroshock weapons, according to the Illinois Law Enforcement Training and Standards Board, and more departments have since bought the weapons. Several suburban agencies contacted by the Tribune appear to have started using them in 2008 or 2009.

Taser International and police departments have faced lawsuits over safety. And though many fatalities following electroshock weapon use have been attributed to other causes, human rights group Amnesty International has counted 490 deaths after electroshock device use in the U.S. since 1990, said Debra Erenberg, Midwest regional director for the group. In some 50 cases between 2001 and 2008, coroners listed the weapons as a cause or contributing factor in a death.

You got a problem with that?

More to the point, does your local sheriff have a problem with it?

Songs to Fight the Plutocracy By: "Take 'em Down"

Uploaded by ericzum:

This is a short video created by myself using footage I found online of the protests in Madison, Wisconsin. The band Dropkick Murphys dedicated this song to the protesters.