Another socialist blog

By now you know that Sarah Palin is an anti-science, anti-abortion Buchananite. She denies that humans cause global warming, which makes her even more ignorant than George W. Bush. None of that should be surprising.  John McCain’s choice for Vice President is supposed to be red meat for the Religious Right, and Sarah Palin will serve that purpose nicely.

I don’t understand the feminists who are insulted by this choice.  Of course McCain thinks Clinton supporters are stupid enough to vote for him because he’s got a woman on the ticket.  Republicans think we’re all stupid enough to let a Republican administration start two illegal wars, fund them forever, and give away our constitutional rights, because we did.  And Hilary Clinton, who actively helped the Republicans do all that, not only didn’t get repudiated by most feminists, she damn near got elected President.  Apparently McCain’s strategists know how to keep their eyes open better than a lot of Democrats.

And while we’re on the subject, how does Nancy “Impeachment Is Off the Table” Pelosi get to keep identifying herself as a feminist, without being roundly denounced by actual feminists?  Were the last two years of Bush/Cheney not injurious to women?

If you’re a feminist, as I am, then the Republican Party is your enemy, and so are all the Bush collaborators inside the Democratic Party.  Maybe anti-woman woman Sarah Palin will make that suddenly clear for some people.

Homeland Security Secretary Michael Chertoff, who famously was unaware of that New Orleans was flooding during hurricane Katrina, has gone to Louisiana to meet with Louisiana Governor Bobby Jindal, as soon-to-be-hurricane Gustav considers where it will make landfall.  If you buy into the notion that God metes out hurricanes as punishment, you will probably want to stay away from anyone in the Bush Administration for the rest of the season.

I wondered how to title this entry. “Man tortured to death by DHS” seemed like one obvious choice. “Legal resident of the U.S. dies in Kafkaesque nightmare” would have been accurate too. You can decide for yourself.

A Hong Kong computer programmer who had legally resided in the US for 15 years (since he was 17) and fathered two American children went for his final green card interview and was locked up, detained until he was nearly dead of cancer that the DHS refused to treat him for. He had overstayed a visa (the DHS sent a key notice to the wrong address), and this prompted the DHS to lock him away and demand that he waive all right to immigration appeal and be immediately deported.

Oh, but there’s more. They refused to allow his wife and children to visit him as he lay dying. He got no pain medication. Apparently his jailers (private contractors, unsurprisingly) decided he was faking. Finally a court ordered him released, and he died five days later.

Does this make you feel any safer?

An Omaha police officer and his wife, charged with felony child abuse, have admitted in court to repeatedly handcuffing his son, for as long as 27 hours at a time.  Fredric James, 39, a police detective, and his wife, Susan R. James, faced up to five years in prison if convicted on each of four counts.  Today James admitted in court that he did it.

Now you might think that when a perp admits his crime, the result of that admission is that he is convicted and sentenced.  You might think that would be especially true if the perp happens to be a cop, who used police equipment in committing a felony.  Yeah, well, you’re obviously not from around here.  In Omaha it’s the victims of child abuse who are considered the criminal.  Because James admitted he committed the crime, charges were dropped.

Another in what will become a continuing series of posts about police who don’t make me feel safe or secure.

The first is hilarious:  a traffic enforcement camera snaps a picture of an allegedly speeding car, and after a careful review of the evidence a summons is issued.  If you look carefully you can see that the speeding car was being towed.

The second is not at all funny:  someone mailed some pot to the mayor of DC suburb Berwyn Heights.  So a SWAT team broke down his door, shot the family’s two dogs, and interrogated his family as the dogs bled to death.  The unopened package of marijuana was still outside, waiting perhaps for its real recipient.  The cops didn’t have a no-knock warrant.  Had they knocked, the dogs would be alive.  [Update 9/11/2008:  he was innocent.]

George Bush has condemned Russia’s invasion of Georgia.  Bush, who tramples on the sovereignty of three countries before breakfast, said “Russia has invaded a sovereign neighbouring state and threatens a democratic government elected by its people. Such an action is unacceptable in the 21st century.”  Unacceptable indeed.

Bush further criticized Russia’s actions as “disproportionate.”  If he was aware that last week marked the 63rd anniversary of the one-sided nuclear first strike against Japan, he didn’t give any sign of it.

It sure could be.

Let me get this straight.  If Obama mentions that he is opposed by racists, that is “playing the race card” and out of bounds?  Doubletalk.  Obama is opposed by racists, and John McCain himself is a racist.  That doesn’t make Obama the perfect candidate, even among those of us who think racism needs to be a major issue in the campaign, but it does need saying and it needs to be said often and with heads held high.  Let the racists scurry for cover when the subject comes up; they will be running on their records.

I never really bought in to the police-are-heroes myth that flourished after September 11th. Here are a couple of cops that apparently didn’t sign on either. A New York cop, Patrick Pogan, attacked a bicyclist in the street, knocking him to the ground, and then arrested the victim. He claimed the bicyclist attacked him, but video of the incident proved he was lying.

Meanwhile, Ozark, MO police tasered a 16-year-old boy who had fallen from a bridge and was lying on the ground with a broken back. Their mommas must be proud.