Friday, May 21, 2010

Skip Gates controversy

OBAMA WAS RIGHT: This cop was stupid. How do you get to be a sergeant and you can't tell the difference between a homeowner and a burglar? Even after he presents a picture ID?


Second, what kind of policing is it to arrest someone simply because he wants to be left alone in his own home -- whether or not he says something rude to you? Being annoying or rude is not against any law. You can't use "disorderly conduct" as a catchall to arrest people simply because somebody looked at you crosseyed. After ID was produced, this officer had no case. He shoulda shut up, turned around and locomoted himself in the opposite direction. However, by then it seemed it became a cop ego thing and he had to show the man who was boss. (Actually sarge, Professor Gates, as a taxpayer, is your boss.) This is where it turned from cop-investigating-possible-crime to asshole-with-badge-harrassing-citizen.


Even in the radio call, which has been released, the cop acknowledged he'd seen ID from Gates but requested dispatch to "keep the cars coming" because Gates was "uncooperative." In other words, Gates didn't lie down and give the officer a shoe-shine with his tongue?

Again: Cops don't have the right to respond to hurt feelings with force and arrest.


Even if Gates did verbally overreact, it is a citizen's right. For a cop to return a verbal insult is unprofessional. But when a cop in addition uses force and arrest to respond to a mere verbal insult he has moved from unprofessional to oppressive and illegal.


Yes, policing is a tough job. But if you're the type to cry and stamp your feet because someone yelled at you, you belong in a nursery school, not on a police force.






A flashback to bash hacks

SINCE IT'S ABOUT TIME for another Bilderberg meeting, I thought I'd include this oldie that I wrote back in late 2008, but was too busy to actually post on a blog.


YEAH -- citizen journalism unnerves the establishment.

I'm watching a New York University panel discussion about the future of the media. Sitting on the panel are luminaries such as New York Times managing editor Jill Abramson and former "CBS Evening News" anchor Dan Rather, as well as journalism professor Jay Rosen.

In the Q&A session, a young college-age guy comes up and asks Rather about an on-air remark he made on September 11, 2001, that the collapsing World Trade Center 7 looked like it had been deliberately destroyed by well-placed dynamite."

"Do you still hold the belief ... that there were bombs in the building ... [that they were]  in your words, taken down by 'well-placed dynamite'?" the guy asked.

Let's trap the libertarian with an irrelevant question about Civil Rights-era legislation.

WHY DIDN'T NPR ALSO ask Rand Paul, "so when did you stop beating your wife?" just to show where they were really coming from?

For the sake of argument, let’s imagine that this issue really were relevant in the year 2010. Let's imagine the Civil Rights Act were actually up for debate. Let’s imagine the Congress somehow were to repeal it. Who actually believes that in the year 2010, we would revert to Jim Crow? Who actually believes (especially in these hard times) that white businesses would voluntarily drive away customers--both blacks and whites--by reinstating segregation?

I don't, because I'm not a paranoid.

Thursday, May 13, 2010

"Frame" is the name of the game




Note: the links in the article are old; find most of the links in updated form at the end. 













A FEDERAL JUDGE last week ordered nine members of the Hutaree militia released on bond until their trial, on the grounds that they were neither a danger to the community nor a flight risk.

This, despite the highly publicized April arrest and indictment in which the government claimed the Hutaree were fomenting a dire plot to assassinate cops and judges and bring down the government with weapons of mass destruction.

Evidently U.S. District Judge Victoria Roberts did not share the fears of the FBI and federal prosecutors who brought the case. Is the judge crazy? Suicidal? (Remember, these Hutarees allegedly were going to kill judges.) Or is it simply that the prosecution had no actual evidence for their lurid charges?

As Bu$hbama is exposed,
what's its next move?

THE DAYS OF the global kleptocrats fostering totalitarian oligarchy through using Democrats for a few years, then switching to Republicans for a few years, and then back again, are over. People are onto that game.