More Repulsive Tripe from Caitlin Flanagan

In this Op-Ed Caitlin Flanagan (voted one of MSN's 13 Women who make us cringe) is once again cringe-worthy with this absurd argument about Sarah Jane Olsen. As usual she gets it back-asswards cloaking her argument for forcing SJO to serve her parole in California in the rhetoric of racial equality.

But that's probably why this self-styled housewife should stick to writing about domestic issues rather than legal or political ones. If she'd managed to talk to anyone involved in the criminal justice system, including even the one person she quotes in the piece, she'd realize that the problem isn't allowing SJO out of prison nor is the issue that she gets to go home to Minnesota, the problem is others don't get those benefits. And the solution? Not to burn precious space on the TImes Op-Ed page whining about Olsen's crime, but rather to advocate for more liberal parole rules everywhere.

How about a little note about how overcrowded California prisons are already stuffed full of parole violators sent back only on "technical specs"?

How about a nice piece about the dangers of mass incarceration or the absurd sentences meted out to those self same folks who have committed lesser crimes? Flanigan has made a career out of shaming working women and glorifying home-makers.



Time to make some donuts.

RTB en Italia...

I came across a listing for "Avvocati a New York" And what it is? Yep, RTB.

Here's the awesome auto translation of the description...

"The series tells the stories of private and professional group of young lawyers of the Big Apple, the court rivals, but friends in private life. Every day have another case to solve that sees them in opposing the classroom, but their relationship of mutual friendship that has lasted since the university is stronger than any rivalry.
Among them is Jerry Kellerman (Mark-Paul Gosselaar, the popular protagonist of Bayside School), a public defender and courageous idealist who is always committed to the maximum for his client. His head is Rosalind Whitman (Gloria Reuben), including but tough, that spurs the most of his team. Together with them, work Woolsley Patrick Richard (Teddy Sears,) and Roberta "Bobbi" Gilar (Natalia Cigliano). In the department of public prosecution, however, there are Ernhardt Michelle (Melissa Sagemiller), Nick Balco (Currie Graham) and Marcus McGrath (J. August Richards), really relentless in putting criminals behind bars. The group is also the Judge Trudy Kessler (Jane Kaczmarek), a former public defender who presides over the court with an iron fist, and his mysterious assistant Charlie Sagansky (Jonathan Scarfi).

Most Immigrants In Detention Do Not Have Criminal Records

"The data show that 18,690 immigrants had no criminal conviction, not even for illegal entry or low-level crimes like trespassing. More than 400 of those with no criminal record had been incarcerated for at least a year. A dozen had been held for three years or more; one man from China had been locked up for more than five years."

Outrageous.

Barbie Party...

Fun. But over by 10.

Top Judge in Texas Closes Early to Insure Execution...

Evil judge Keller

And what kind of Judge is she? In 1998, she wrote the opinion rejecting a new trial for Roy Criner, a mentally retarded man convicted of rape and murder, even though DNA tests after his trial showed that it was not his semen in the victim. “We can’t give new trials to everyone who establishes, after conviction, that they might be innocent,” she later told the television news program “Frontline.”

Her campaign slogan? "Pro-Prosecution"

Shame on Texas. Conduct like this, she should be off the bench.