Friday

Fun with tilt shift...

Totally off topic, but just found a cool site which will employ the principles of tilt-shift photography to your own photos. You can find it here

Here's an old photo of mine of Christo and Jeanne-Claude's installation here in NY.

Wednesday

Jail and Jobs - Look at these numbers...

--Incarceration reduces former inmates’ earnings by 40 percent when compared to demographically similar counterparts who have not been imprisoned.



--Young black men who dropped out of high school are more likely to be incarcerated than employed.

--There are twice as many minor children with incarcerated parents as there are incarcerated parents.


Check out the shocking charts here...

Tuesday

The news...

From Huff-Po's front page...

It is an article of faith among the right wing punditocracy that the Democrats are bad for business, bad for the markets, and bad for the economy. The numbers, though, tell a completely different story. And yet, we Democrats seem powerless to counter this right-wing narrative. Rather than tout our accomplishments we seem to prefer to empathize with those still suffering.

Let's take, just for fun, one of the most widely regarded metrics -- the Dow Jones Industrial Average. If we look at how the markets have performed in the first 21 months of various administrations, it turns out, the markets love Democrats generally, and that in fact, in the first half of his term, Obama has presided over the biggest market rally of any newly elected president in more than 45 years. But do we tout this huge improvement? Oddly no.



Here's the breakdown with the actual DJIA historical data...


UNDER RONALD REGAN:

DOW BEGAN: 970.99
DOW ENDED: 824.01
For a LOSS of 17.8 PERCENT



UNDER GEORGE H.W. BUSH

DOW BEGAN 2,239.11
DOW ENDED 2,427.48
For a moderate GAIN of 7.8 PERCENT





BILL CLINTON:

DOW BEGAN: 3,241.95
DOW ENDED 3,878.18
For a GAIN of 16.8 PERCENT





GEORGE W. BUSH

DOW BEGAN 10,581.90
DOW ENDED 7,698.81
For a whopping LOSS of 37.4%



And finally...

OBAMA

DOW BEGAN 7,949.17
DOW ENDED: 10,819.31
For a GAIN of 26.5%




Ok, so let's all agree to just trust the actual numbers which make clear that Democratic presidents have been great for the market, and that that Obama in particular has been wildly effective in shepherding in a massive recovery So from now on, instead of whining about how much better we need to do, let's try, just for once crowing about the biggest market rally in the first half of a new president's term in more than 45 years.

Monday

Just run the freaking numbers...

The right wing pundits constantly yammer about their faith in the markets. So in light of all the criticism of Obama and economic policy, I thought I'd take a look at how the markets actually performed in the first 21 months various presidencies.

Check it out!

UNDER RONALD REGAN:

DOW BEGAN: 970.99
DOW ENDED: 824.01
For a LOSS of 17.8 PERCENT





UNDER GEORGE H.W. BUSH

DOW BEGAN 2,239.11
DOW ENDED 2,427.48
For a small GAIN of 7.8 PERCENT





BILL CLINTON:

DOW BEGAN: 3,241.95
DOW ENDED 3,878.18
For a GAIN of 16.8 PERCENT





GEORGE W. BUSH

DOW BEGAN 10,581.90
DOW ENDED 7,698.81
For a whopping LOSS of 37.4%



And finally...

OBAMA

DOW BEGAN 7,949.17
DOW ENDED: 10,819.31
For a GAIN of 26.5%





Ok, so can we please cut out all this crap now? Let's all be good little republicans and trust the actual numbers which make clear that democratic presidents have been great for the market. The market LOVES democrats, and that what the numbers actually make clear is that Obama has been astonishing at rallying the market, and wildly effective in shepherding in a massive recovery. Indeed, as the numbers make clear, Obama can legitimately claim to have presided over the biggest first 1/2 term market rally in more than 40 years.

Friday

INDEFENSIBLE for Kindle...

Yes indeed, after some fiddling around, INDEFENSIBLE is now available for the kindle. If you want to order--
just click here!



And yes...the Ipad version should be coming soon.

Thursday

Prison Rape by Guards Rampant in NY...

A new report indicates that "Facilities run by the New York State Department of Correctional Services have the highest rates of staff sexual abuse for both men's and women's prisons."



The study, conducted by the Department of Justice's Bureau of Justice Statistics estimates that 88,500 adults held in U.S. prisons and jails are sexually abused annually, either by staff or fellow inmates. The survey paints a grim picture of a system of mass incarceration where all too many prisoners, stripped of their autonomy or ability to defend themselves, spend their sentences terrorized by sexual predators.

Defying some of the pop-cultural stereotypes, however, it turns out most of that predation is carried out by guards, rather than inmates.

You can read the study HERE. But one thing to keep in mind. This suggests that almost as many people are sexually assaulted in our prisons as outside (excluding date/acquaintance rape which accounts for the majority of sexual assault/abuse complaints).

Friday

Watch as NYPD Officers Assault Iraq War Vet...

I find particularly creepy how they insure that no one is around before proceeding with the brutalization...


Sunday

What a Scam! Don't give to the Kids Wish Network

I got a call one weekend morning not long ago. Some woman asked me if I wanted to donate to the Kids Wish Network. "No" I said, "and please don't call me in the morning, or at home, or...ever." Then I mentioned that I was on the do not call list. This provoked a small tirade about how they were exempt, being a charity and all, and she couldn't believe I wouldn't want to support granting wishes to dying kids.

Hmmm.

Well, it turns out, I don't. And neither (hardly) does the Kid's wish network. With a little digging and some help from Charity Navigator and the Kids Wish Network 2008 IRS form 990, here's what you get:

The Comeon:

They use this kid to con you into lining their pockets!

Here's the reality:

Total expenditures $16,895,430
Fund raising costs $12,490,985
Program expenses for children $2,294,167
Other expenses $2,110,278

The three top people are all related: a husband named Mark Breiner earns nearly $160,00) just in salary plus big benefits. His wife Shelley earns nearly $115,000 a year plus benefits, and it appears (though I can't confirm) that his mother in law (or another relative) draws almost $90,000.00.

In other words, this "charity" gives about 10 cents on the dollar to "charity" while using the bulk of their 15 million dollars to enrich a single family, and keep the scam going though aggressive fundraising.

So, if you are thinking about giving to the "Kids Wish Network" Don't. Just pass out a few bucks to homeless guys on the street. At least you know who the direct beneficiary of that charity is.

Say this and this guy will sue you...


This is Steve Theriot

If you say that he is "just another Jefferson Parish politician thug mobster trained by his mentor John Alario, dressed up in a facade of respectability by a corrupt Louisiana Legislature.”

He will try to sue you.

Really.

Wednesday

Hell hath no fury like a judge embarrassed


Judge Michael Gary

Ever wondered how judges manipulate the system to impose their own sort of justice? Here's a great example. According to that sage source the post, " A red-faced Brooklyn jurist -- smarting from an oversight that forced him to let a subway vandal go free last week -- yesterday seized on the man's inability to show up in court to hit him with 11 months behind bars. Justice Michael Gary said the failure of the subway vandal-artist known as Poster Boy to appear in court last Thursday (he came on Friday--a day late) meant his carefully negotiated no-jail plea was now worthless. "I owe you nothing," Gary told Henry Matyjewicz, 28.

So what did Judge Gary gave him for being a day late? 11 months in jail rather than the non-jail 210 hours of community service he'd been promised. And why? The post speculates that the judge might have "been steaming over the coverage he got in The Post over his first, failed attempt to jail Matyjewicz."

So here we have an absolutely perfect example of how the system really works:

1. A judge makes a perfectly reasonable (and legal) decision.
2. The post criticizes the judge for being soft on crime.
3. The Judge, bowing to political pressure, finds an excuse to seem like a bad-ass after all and sends a guy to jail for almost a year because he was a day late for court.

Now, it's not like Gary is above doing this sort of thing. Nor even that he's a decent sentencer. In fact, In 2003, an appeals court reversed him for imposing a 15-year maximum sentence in a robbery case where the defendant had beaten a murder charge. The appeals court said Gary was punishing the defendant, Jared Errington, for the murder, rather than the robbery, and sent the case back for sentencing by a different judge. And that, by the way, explains the 11 months rather than the maximum year-long sentence he could have imposed: It's insurance against an appeal--an effort to look considered rather than vindictive.

So to all ye who wonder how it really goes down. Look no further...

Great defense...

A wheelchair-bound lawyer who suffers from cerebral palsy and cannot control the movement of his arms and legs astonishingly faces charges he sexually assaulted a judge while they were alone in a Queens office, authorities said. Hippocrates "Chicho" Mertsaris, 35, is accused of slapping a 40-year-old administrative judge for the Taxi and Limousine Commission on the rear end in October as she walked near him in a small room in the commission's Long Island City office, according to court documents.
An attorney for Mertsaris, a TLC lawyer, says his client has "no voluntary control of his arms or legs." "We are not saying he didn't touch her, but he didn't grab her or feel her up. Nothing like that," said attorney Wyatt Gibbons. "It was nothing sexual." But the judge, whose name has been withheld because she is considered a sex-crime victim, decided to press charges, and Mertsaris was charged.

Wednesday

The Face of Prosecutorial Abuse...


Virginia's Tea Party AG--Ken Cuccinelli

So here's a perfect example of why prosecutors with a political agenda are so damn scary. The Attorney General of Virginia is on freakish crusade to enforce a set of norms the Tea Party and Taliban both love. He's used the power of the state to try to rescind anti-discrimination policies for gays and lesbians, approved a new policy allowing sectarian prayer by state police chaplains at public events, and even tried to cover up the bare-breast of the Roman Goddess who has graced the state seal since 1776. Now he's been turned back on several of these efforts, but he seems undeterred. His most recent target of intimidation? A climate scientist.

As Dahlia LIthwick ably reports in Slate, the AG has filed " A civil investigative demand (or CID, which is basically a subpoena) with the University of Virginia on April 23, giving the school 30 days to produce more than 10 years' worth of documents related to the state-funded research of a former faculty member, Michael Mann. Operating under the Virginia Fraud Against Taxpayers Act, the CID seeks from the university, among other things, "any correspondence, messages or emails" to or from Mann and 40 named climate scientists; any documents sent to or from Mann that reference any of those 40 scientists; and any "documents, things or data" submitted in support of any of five different grant applications that amounted, in total, to almost $500,000. The university is also expected to turn over "any and all emails or pieces of correspondence from or to Dr. Michael Mann since he left the University of Virginia."

And why? Because while he'd like to further the science deniers who persist in thinking that global warming is a hoax, Cuccinelli understands that issuing CID's and targeting academics will have a chilling effect--making scientists and academics fear that research with politically sensitive implications will bring down the heavy hand of the tea-party taliban upon them.

And that, is a scary world indeed.

Monday

The DVD of season two...


So turns out the complete second season of RTB will be released on DVD on May 11th.

Sunday

Who should replace Justice John Paul Stevens?

I've just written up (for Slate) my pick for who should replace Justice John Paul Stevens...and the winner is...


Jeffrey Fisher

Here's the piece...

In the spirit of an off-beat list, my vote goes to 40-year-old Jeffrey Fisher, co-director of Stanford Law School's Supreme Court litigation clinic. He has the temperament, track record, consensus-building skills, and life expectancy to make him a formidable nominee. Wildly accomplished for his years, Fisher is already considered one of the most influential lawyers in the country. Charmingly, he also served as a clerk for Justice Stevens. As a litigator, Fisher has compiled an astonishing string of high court victories, in part because of his impressive ability to persuade Justice Scalia to side with criminal defendants. That skill alone would make him a formidable presence on the court. Moreover, having never been a judge, (before joining the Stanford faculty, Fisher worked at the well-regarded law firm of Davis-Wright Tremaine), his paper trail is mostly academic. The big strike against him is age. Then again, in 1811, James Madison swore in Associate Justice Joseph Story. His age at the time: 32.

Thursday

Judge Gleeson tells it like it is...

Thanks to my old colleague Frank for passing this to me:

Some Excerpts from United States v. Vasquez, No. 09-CR-259 (JG), 2010 WL 1257359 (E.D.N.Y. March 30, 2010)

When people think about miscarriages of justice, they generally think big, especially in this era of DNA exonerations, in which wholly innocent people have been released from jail in significant numbers after long periods in prison. As disturbing as those case are, the truth is that most of the time miscarriages of justice occur in small doses, in cases involving guilty defendants. This makes them easier to overlook. But when they are multiplied by the thousands of cases in which they occur, they have a greater impact on our criminal justice system than the cases you read about in the newspapers or hear about on 60 minutes. This case is a good example.
...

When the case was first called for sentencing in December, I pointed out the obvious: the five-year mandatory sentence in this case would be unjust. The prosecutor agreed, and welcomed my direction that she go back to the United States Attorney with a request from the Court that he withdraw the aspect of the charge that required the imposition of the five-year minimum. She asked for a couple of months to make the case that the sentence enhancement should be abandoned.

On March 5, 2010, the prosecutor appeared again, shadowed by a supervisor. She reported that the United States Attorney would not relent. She offered two reasons. The first was that I might have failed to focus on the fact that Vasquez had "received a bump down," meaning he was allowed to plead to the five-year mandatory minimum rather than to the ten-year mandatory minimum that he, his brother, and three other co-defendants were originally charged with. I think this means that Vasquez should be grateful the government did not insist on a ten-year minimum sentence based on additional quantities of cocaine it concedes he knew nothing about and could not be held responsible for under the guidelines, presumably on the theory that other members of the same conspiracy dealt those quantities. I suppose there is some consolation in the fact that the government did not pursue that absurd course, which would have produced an even more egregious injustice if Vasquez had been convicted. But that hardly explains, let alone justifies, the government's insistence on the injustice at hand
...
I recognize that the United States Attorney is not required to explain to judges the reasons for decisions like this one, and for that reason I did not ask for them. But the ones that were volunteered do not withstand the slightest scrutiny.

As a result of the decision to insist on the five-year mandatory minimum, there was no judging going on at Vasquez's sentencing. Though in theory I could have considered a sentence of greater than 60 months, even the prosecutor recognized how ludicrous that would be, and asked for a 60-month sentence. But the prosecutor's refusal to permit consideration of a lesser sentence ended the matter, rendering irrelevant all the other factors that should have been considered to arrive at a just sentence.

The defendant's difficult childhood and lifelong struggle with mental illness were out of bounds, as were the circumstances giving rise to his minor role in his brother's drug business (i.e., it was to support an addiction, not to become a narcotics entrepreneur with a proprietary stake in the drugs), the fact that he tried to cooperate but was not involved enough in the drug trade to be of assistance, the effect of his incarceration on his three-year-old daughter and the eight-year-old child of Caraballo he is raising as his own, the fact that he has been a good father to them for nearly five years, the fact that his prior convictions all arose out of his ex-wife's refusal to permit him to see their three children.

Sentencing is not a science, and I don't pretend to be better than anyone else at assimilating these and the numerous other factors, both aggravating and mitigating, that legitimately bear on an appropriate sentence. But I try my best to do just that, and by doing so to do justice for the individual before me and for our community. In this case, those efforts would have resulted in a prison term of 24 months, followed by a five-year period of supervision with conditions including both other forms of punishment (home detention and community service) and efforts to assist Vasquez with the mental health, substance abuse, and anger management problems that have plagued him, in some respects for his entire life. If he had failed to avail himself of those efforts, or if, for example, he intentionally had contact with Melendez without the prior authorization of his supervising probation officer, he would have gone back to jail on this case.

The mandatory minimum sentence in this case supplanted any effort to do justice, leaving in its place the heavy wooden club that was explicitly meant only for mid-level managers of drug operations. The absence of fit between the crude method of punishment and the particular set of circumstances before me was conspicuous; when I imposed sentence on the weak and sobbing Vasquez on March 5, everyone present, including the prosecutor, could feel the injustice.

In sum, though I am obligated by law to provide a statement of "reasons" for each sentence I impose, in this case there was but one: I was forced by a law that should not have been invoked to impose a five-year prison term.

Monday

How the Republicans would spend your money...R.N.C. Spends Thousands on Jets, Limos and Clubs - NYTimes.com



The Republican National Committee spent about $30,000 in the month of February on private airplanes and limousines, not to mention the $1,946.25 charge at Voyeur West Hollywood, which was described by The Los Angeles Times last year as a “high-end nightclub” with an interior “reminiscent of the masked orgy scene” from the movie “Closer."

Wednesday

Scary New GOP Poll...

Harris Poll Findings...

57 percent of Republicans (32 percent overall) believe that Obama is a Muslim
45 percent of Republicans (25 percent overall) agree with the Birthers in their belief that Obama was 'not born in the United States and so is not eligible to be president'
38 percent of Republicans (20 percent overall) say that Obama is 'doing many of the things that Hitler did'
Scariest of all, 24 percent of Republicans (14 percent overall) say that Obama 'may be the Antichrist.'

So is there hope for America or are we toast?

Thursday

Texas Wants to put the Moral Majority in Textbooks...

The Texas school board is holding hearings on changes to its social studies curriculum that would portray conservatives in a more positive light, emphasizing the role of Christianity in American history and include Republican political philosophies in textbooks.


Phyllis Schlafly in our Kid's Textbooks?

One guideline requires publishers to include a section on “the conservative resurgence of the 1980s and 1990s, including Phyllis Schlafly, the Contract with America, the Heritage Foundation, the Moral Majority and the National Rifle Association." Another states that the Civil Rights movement created “unrealistic expectations of equal outcomes” among minorities.

I don't even know what to do with this one.

Wednesday

Monday

My President's Day Message--An Open Letter to Obama

Dear Mr. President,

Thank you for all your e-mails over the past few years. Energized by the spirit of tolerance and the promise of change, I have enjoyed signing petitions, opening my heart and my home to your events, and even sending in the occasional donation or two.

But I'm afraid you've lost me.

I have watched in horror as the sweeping mandate you so skillfully won has been squandered. You have failed at every turn to practice the politics necessary to change the course of this country, sacrificing health care reform, regulation of the financial system and greater freedom and equality for all Americans on the altar of a personal crusade for civility in a long-since broken institution. Your commitment to bipartisanship and compromise has resulted in neither. Your opponents have derailed every initiative and gutted every innovation, while you have continued to reach out, coaxing and pleading for a better day that simply will never come. Your opponents have won. Their obstructionism has prevailed. I understand that you expect me to blame them for their conduct. I do not. I blame you. Your desire to shift the glaciated culture of Washington elevates discourse over policy, and civility over action. That is not the change I voted for.

To imagine that we could not undo with 60 seats what George Bush accomplished with 53, is a profound statement about the utter ineffectiveness of your high road rhetoric. I have devoted my life to trying to make this country better, and I had pinned my hopes on our ability to do that. I no longer believe that either you or the democratic party will ever be up to that task.

My heart is broken, my wallet is closed. I am done.

E-mail me no more.

With deepest regrets,

David Feige.

Thursday

Brilliant

Hat tip to the contrarian for this one.


Supreme Court Rules Death Penalty Is 'Totally Badass'

Wednesday

Sotomayor sees inexcusable lawyering as a "strategic choice"

I've been saying since the start that Sotomayor is going to be a terrible disappointment, and that we've squandered the chance to bring on a powerful voice for the disenfranchised.

So right here, in the wake of a Coakley loss, is the proof of concept:

The Supreme Court on Wednesday upheld the death sentence of a mentally impaired Alabama man who killed his former lover despite the fact that his lawyer, ( who lacked criminal law experience) failed to tell jurors that he had an IQ of less than 70 and had been classified as mentally retarded.

''Even if it is debatable, it is not unreasonable to conclude that ... counsel made a strategic decision not inquire further into the information contained in the report about Wood's mental deficiencies and not present to the jury such information,'' Justice Sonia Sotomayor said."

Really? Shame on you.

Sunday