swimming freestyle

Obama is ready to rumble over the budget

President Obama, in his weekly broadcast, discusses his budget proposals and anticipates a fight from the lobbyists and special interests. 

Sounds pretty confident. I'd bet on him winning this fight.

Seattle sheriff beats the crap out of a 15 year old girl

A Seattle Sheriffs Department holding cell video captured the brutal beating of a 15 year old girl on November 29, 2008.  That videotape is now being released over the objections of the offending officers attorney. 

The girl was picked up with another 15 year old girl, driving at 3:45AM in what had been reported as a stolen car.  It was subsequently determined the car belonged to the girls parents.  Both girls were fingerprinted and transported to holding cells.  After being escorted into the cell, the girl was told to remove her sneakers.  The video begins there:

The officer, Deputy Paul Schene, has pleaded not guilty to a misdemeanor assault charge.  Officer Schene is, reportedly, the third sheriff's deputy since 2006 to face charges on allegations of excessive force. All three are from the Burien precinct.

The officers attorney argued the video will inflame public opinion, impact Schene's ability to receive a fair trial and doesn't paint a complete picture of what occurred. 

In his own report from the incident, Schene wrote that the shoe hit him in the right shin, "causing injury and pain." He wrote that he "placed" her into handcuffs and that she needed medical attention for a "panic attack."

He said a "blood filled pocket" formed on his shin, requiring treatment at Auburn General Hospital, according to his report. The video, however, appears to show his shin strike a metal toilet as he pushes the girl against the wall. (Link)

It's pretty much impossible to imagine how the girls kicking her shoe, even if it did hit 6'2", 195 pound Officer Schene, would justify slamming a 15 year old girl's face into a wall, throwing her down by her hair, slugging her twice while she's subdued and finally lifting her up by her hair. 

Schene could face a year in jail if convicted.  The girl complained she was unable to breath following the assault, but didn't require hospitalization.  As there were no "serious" injuries to the girl, Officer Schene isn't charged with felony assault.

I'm not sure how you characterize that as misdemeanor assault.

Recent posts:

• The oblique path to full rights, gay civil unions
• The urgency of health care reform
• The ping pong equivalent of 'spiking the football'
• Federal government; we actually like it big

Obama Administration loses a state secrets battle

A lawsuit alleging U.S. intelligence services illegally eavesdropped on two American attorneys and an Islamic charity in Oregon will go forward following the Courts rejection of a last minute appeal by the Obama Administration Justice Department.  The Bush Administration alleged the Saudi backed charity supported terrorist activities and froze its assets.

The order, by the 9th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals in San Francisco, means that U.S. District Judge Vaughn Walker can grant the plaintiff's lawyers access to top secret documents under secure conditions and allow them to litigate their case against the administration.

The Justice Department had argued that the lawsuit jeopardized national security, and the ruling puts the Obama administration in the awkward position of defending the Bush administration's secret warrantless surveillance program, which began shortly after the Sept. 11, 2001 terrorist attacks. (Link)

This isn't the first case brought by plaintiffs arguing warrantless surveillance.  Though, in the cases to date, the Bush Administration had used the state secrets privilege, arguing that release of classified documents would jeopardize national security, leaving the plaintiffs without actual proof they had, in fact, been spied upon.

What makes this case unique is that the plaintiffs have that proof the federal authorities conducted surveillance on them without warrants.  In 2004, government lawyers accidentally provided evidence to the plaintiff's attorneys that warrantless surveillance had been conducted on their clients.

Responding to the courts decision, the Justice Department argued the district judge was without the authority to override the Administration's state secrets privilege and argued the judge should review the incriminating documents alone and decide if the case should proceed.  The Administration has also asserted that if the judge decides the allow the evidence of government surveillance, they will have the option of withdrawing the evidence from the court.

(Plaintiff's attorney Joe) Eisenberg called the government lawyers' threat of taking the documents from the court's custody "astounding."

"That would be a shocking violation of the constitutional separation of powers — the sort of thing that just doesn't happen in America," he said. (Link)

It's likely this case will be tied up with appeals for some time.  But it raises a couple disturbing issues.  The first is, following the ridiculously inept Bush Administration's war on terror, the possibility that real terrorists and their enablers cannot be prosecuted because any evidence against them is tainted and inadmissable.  The second is the Obama Administration's continuing of these policies, either out of necessity (the Bush Administration hole is too deep) or choice (they intend to administer this war on terror with similar policies to the Bush Administration).

The long distance human throwing record video

Who would have thought?  What seems a Spanish TV show hosted the Guiness World Record setting "kid toss".

We need that show here.

A picture for the day

Nuanquan, China: A man sprays molten iron against a concrete wall to celebrate the lantern festival  (Photograph: Jason Lee/Reuters)

UPDATE: The wingnut faction of the new Republican Party

The eight years of the George W. Bush Administration and the six years of Republican control of the Congress were just awful.  I think I can speak for many folks when I say this time was characterized by gross incompetence, a maddening sense of entitlement, a complete absence of self-reflection and accountability, and a reckless disregard for the rule of law.  Just terrible. Infuriating.

And during that time, it wasn't uncommon to hear some folks openly complaining about the Administration.  Mr. Bush is dumb.  Or a war criminal even. But I never saw anything like this stuff...

From Joe the Plumber yesterday at the Conservative Political Action Conference, speaking about Congress:

Back in the day, really, when people would talk about our military in a poor way, somebody would shoot ‘em. And there’d be nothing said about that, because they knew it was wrong.

And, via Balloon Juice, from a discussion thread on Sean Hannity's website:

If that's hard to read, the commenters on Mr. Hannity's site are voting on how best to protest the new federal government.  "Which kind of revolution appeals most to you?"   Voters can choose between military coup, armed rebellion or war for secession.  (By the way, the latest results favor armed rebellion with 41% of the vote).

You could argue these are nothing more than a small bunch of wingnut knuckleheads spouting off.  But it's troubling that this seems to be pretty much accepted (or, worse, condoned) by the leaders of the Republican Party.  No rebukes.  No disassociations.  Joe the Plumber inexplicablyrepresents some kind of guru to Republicans and FOX News hero, Sean Hannity, has left the thread up and running on his site.  (One commenter wrote "I'm actually surprised Sean allows threads like this to exist. Talk of sedition and murdering fellow Americans will be the rich fodder of the fringe elements who will demand the fairness doctrine, mark my words.").  While there were some outrageous things said about the Bush Administration, I can imagine the justified outrage from the right had folks on the left been openly debating whether to conduct a military coup against the Bush White House or just start an armed insurrection.

Sean Hannity ought to show some class and get this off his website.

UPDATE:  The discussion thread noted in the post has been removed from the Sean Hannity website. 

The Obama deficit using the Bush Administration accounting gimmicks

Barack Obama last week vowed to eliminate some of the accounting tricks used during the Bush Administration to hide the true value of it's deficit spending.  In my post, I noted John Cole's suggestion that previous Bush Administration budgets should be scrutinized to the new rules, short circuiting the certain Republican claims that the Bush Administration hadn't run big deficits.

Well, Stan Collender approached it from a slightly different direction; looking at the budget just submitted by the Obama Administration and analyzing it's stated deficit:

1.  The $1.75 trillion deficit included $250 billion for additional assistance for financial institutions that the White says it's not requesting in the budget but may need later in the year.  The Bush budget would have excluded this from the budget and simply added it later if and when the funds were needed.  Excluding it from the Obama budget as Bush would have done would have reduced the apparent deficit to $1.5 trillion.
2.  The Obama budget included $75.5 billion for additional funds for activities in Iraq and Afghanistan.  This would also have been excluded from the Bush budget.  Doing that here would have reduced the apparent deficit to about $1.4 trillion.
3.  The Obama budget included about $70 billion in lower revenue from the one-year patch for the Alternative Minimumn Tax that was included in the stimulus bill.  The Bush budget typically assumed that the AMT would not be patched even though everyone knew it would be.  The Bush accounting treatment would have reduced the deficit to about $1.35 trillion.*
4.  The Obama budget included about $20 billion for natural disasters; the Bush budgets always assumed that there would be no floods, earthquakes, droughts, hurricanes, tornadoes, etc.  Using the Bush budget rules, this would have reduced the 2009 deficit to $1.33 trillion.
5.  Finally, the Bush budgets always assumed that the physician reimbursement provisions in Medicare would go into effect as planned even though, just like the AMT patch, it was virtually guaranteed to be scaled back.  This would have reduced the deficit to about $1.3 trillion.

It's still a big number, but given the current economic considerations, an amount we'lll have to bite the bullet and spend.  At least this president had the stones to present a real rather than a bogus deficit number.

Recent posts:

• The oblique path to full rights, gay civil unions
• The urgency of health care reform
• The ping pong equivalent of 'spiking the football'
• Federal government; we actually like it big

"Worst Food Product" award

Yeah, this has gotta be it. 

mmmm, pork brains.  Plus a milk gravy.  Yowza.

How about the cholesterol?  1170% of your daily cholesterol!!  Wow.

(h/t The Consumerist)

Oops, Sen. Gregg had a skeleton in his closet...

Barack Obama's second nominee for heading up the Commerce Department, New Hampshire Senator Judd Gregg, steered taxpayer money to redevelopment of a former Air Force base where Sen. Gregg and his brother had real estate interests.

The Associated Press reports Sen. Gregg invested hundreds of thousands of dollars into the Pease International Tradeport, located at the old Pease Air Force Base, and has made between $240-$650K from the investments.  Sen. Gregg helped arrange nearly $66M in federal aid for redevelopment of the former air base.

"I am absolutely sure that in every way I've complied with the ethics rules of the Senate both literally and in their spirit relative to any investment that I've made anywhere," Gregg told the AP. "These earmarks do not benefit me in any way, shape, manner financially, personally or in any other manner other than the fact that I'm a citizen of New Hampshire."

OK.....

The crayon art of Christian Faur

From an pictorial in the Telegraph: American artist, Christian Faur, has created beautiful art using crayons.  Standing the crayons on end, and creating, essentially, pixelated images, Faur creates art that reminds me of the pointillism popularized by Georges-Pierre Seurat.