Politics: Minorities and Law Enforcement

Based on these two stories, you just have to ask yourself, what the hell is in the water in Ohio?

Hope Steffey is a 47-year-old blonde white woman resident of a town named Salem in Ohio. She weighs 125 lb. It sounds as if she's a member of the rapidly disappearing American middle-class.

Tarika Wilson was a 26-year-old Black American woman resident of a town named Lima in Ohio. We don't know much about her except that she had six children under the age of ten years. It sounds as if she's a member of the working/lower class.

Over a year ago, Hope Steffey was assaulted by one of her (apparently female) cousins, who knocked her unconscious and pulled out a patch of her hair. Another cousin called the police for help. The police who showed up decided to help Ms. Steffey by slamming her up against a police car, breaking one of her teeth. They then threw her on the ground, handcuffed her, arrested her, took her to the slammer, forcibly stripped off, with the assistance of some seven officers male and female, all her clothing, including her underwear, and left her in a cell for six hours, stark naked in the cold without so much as a stitch to preserve what was left of her battered and bruised dignity.

She is now suing the police department in Federal court. The police department is denying any wrongdoing, despite the fact that a videotape of Ms. Steffey in handcuffs with two big fat male cops holding her down and having all her clothes torn off (and screaming, begging, and pleading throughout the procedure) is now making the rounds on YouTube and the blogs. Understandably, Ms. Steffey and her family are scandalized at the treatment meted out to her.

"And you have to ask yourself, what was the purpose of the strip search?" said Steffey's lawyer. "What was the necessity of it? This was a disorderly conduct claim."

The lawsuit says that Steffey remained in the cell for six hours and wrapped herself in toilet paper to stay warm. During that time, she was not allowed to use a phone or seek medical assistance for injuries she accrued that night, including a cracked tooth, bulging disc, and bruises.

It is unconscionable that a woman who has committed no crime, and who is, in fact, the victim of a crime, is treated this way by the very police that her tax dollars are paying to defend her and people like her.

The result of the lawsuit will be taxpayer dollars paid out in damages to Ms. Steffey. She deserves damages, and the purpose of the damages is to force the city and county employers of the police to be more stringent in their standards and the training of their employees. But all the officers who participated in the assault should have to face some penalty. Perhaps losing their jobs would be a suitable penalty. Clearly, if they can bring themselves to treat their fellow citizens this way, they should not have this kind of power over others.

About a year later, police in the city of Lima, Ohio shot and killed Tarika Wilson in her own home while purportedly conducting a drug raid on the house. During the course of the raid, they injured Wilson's year-old son, who was in her arms at the time. The child has since had his finger amputated as a result of the injury. Ms. Wilson's partner, 31-year-old Anthony Terry, was arrested and removed from the premises.

The Cleveland Plain Dealer has the grim details. Lima apparently has a long history of police misbehaviour as concerns the rights of the Black American community, although for a time that changed. All too briefly, apparently:

In the 1990s, life improved when federal money allowed the city to hire 10 police officers to work in the community. Residents and police point to that time, when officers were friendly and welcomed members of the community.

But by the end of the decade, the money was gone, and with it, the community police officers. Drugs, discontent and confrontations with police rose sharply.

Hmmm. Not to shill for Hillary here, but that would be the Clinton years, yes?

Ronald Gailes, pastor of a local church, speaks about the tense situation around Ms. Wilson's death:

"We have a desensitized law enforcement agency that treats black people as suspects."

Failes acknowledged that drugs plague the community, but he noted that unemployment creates desperation.

"When a man has to feed his family, he'll do what he has to do," Failes said.

The two incidents have only one thing in common - law enforcement officers exercising inappropriate levels of force. If the officers who stripped Ms. Steffey had been punished immediately for their behaviour, it is possible that Ms. Wilson might be alive today. If police officers were given better staffing levels, better training, it is possible that Ms. Steffey's ordeal and the orphaning of the Wilson children would never have occurred.

Law enforcement is a very tough job. Imagine yourself in the position of a cop, knowing that at any moment you could lose your life or limb or job because of one incorrect assessment, one second extra in making a decision. Understandably, cops get pretty fucked up after working a job like that day after day for years. The pressure on one's personal life, one's family life, one's relationships, has to be unreal. But that does not excuse the actions of those officers involved in either case. Ultimately, what it points to is an inability by these men and women with guns and badges to understand that people who are not white or male or do not have guns and badges are still people and should be treated humanely. We do not have to follow the precepts of the madman in charge who tells us that torture is OK, and humans have no innate rights. There is a better way. And most of all, law enforcement officers need to learn not to exercise inappropriate levels of force against others just because they can.

A petition requesting the Attorney General to investigate Ms. Steffey's case is already on the internet. As for Ms. Wilson, we fervently hope that her family files a lawsuit and receives damages also. Even if her partner was actively dealing drugs, the police knew there were young children in that house and behaved inappropriately.

If you know of any attempt to seek justice for Ms. Wilson, please leave us a comment, thanks.

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News: Ohio's AG Will Investigate Hope Steffey Case

NBC channel WKYC is reporting that Tim Swanson, the Sheriff of Stark County, Ohio (where 41-year-old Hope Steffey was arrested, strip-searched, and locked in a jail cell stark raving nude) has formally requested that the Ohio AG's office investigate the case.

The AG, Mark Dann, has replied that his office stands ready and willing to conduct the investigation. One wonders why it took so long, but.

The Cuyahoga County Sheriff, Gerald McFaul, spoke to WKYC:

He called the conduct by Stark County sheriff deputies "way out of line." McFaul went on to say that male deputies should never forcibly remove the clothes of a female.

Way out of line is right. Even if she had been the perpetrator, and not the victim of the crime, unless they had reason to believe she had a weapon or drugs on her, there was no need for the law enforcement officials to strip-search her. And above all, there was absolutely no need for two male officers to strip-search a female prisoner.

Let us hope that this case results in swift justice for Tarika Wilson, and marks the first of a long line of cases that turn back the recent abysmal record of human-rights violations that will forever remain the shameful legacy of the Bush administration.

Note: The first report of this incident stated that Ms. Steffey was 47, not 41, years of age.

Details of the case, and of Tarika Wilson's case are here.

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Crime: Mark Dixie Gets Life in Prison

This depraved wretch is Mark Dixie. He has repeatedly been convicted of sexual assault and harrassment of women in two continents at least, that police know of.

Most recently, he stabbed a teenager to death and then had sex with her corpse, or soon-to-be corpse as she lay in a pool of her own blood. This wretch is only 35 years old.

Today, a court sentenced this recidivist piece of walking waste to life in prison.

La Casa de Los Gatos, having blogged some truly horrific stories over the past week, was not interested in diving back into the sewers of human depravity. However, we have been reflecting on an ugly and disturbing trend of violence against the female of the species, of late. We refer you to the case of Alexis Goggins, a child who was shot by her mother's ex-boyfriend. Nailah Franklin, whose only crime was to be an attractive woman who briefly dated, and was murdered by, a jerk with a history of domestic violence. Hope Steffey, whose only crime appears to have been calling the police for assistance after an assault. Angela Gabarino, arrested for driving drunk, videotaped in reasonably good condition shortly after her arrest, then taken to a hospital with horrific injuries that the police claimed occurred when she "fell."

All of these cases are horrific in their own way. However, we want to point out our support of the death penalty in some cases, and not others, and Mark Dixie is a perfect illustration for our argument.

There are many people in the world who are sick, or twisted, or deeply damaged in one way or another. And many of these people hurt, maim, or kill other people. Sometimes they hurt other people because they, like Calvin Tillie who shot little Alexis Goggins, are very flawed and damaged human beings. Sometimes, like ex-police officer Wiley Willis of Shreveport, LA, or the police officers who stripped a screaming distraught Hope Steffey of Stark County, OH, or Reginald Potts of Chicago, Ill. who is on trial for the murder of Nailah Franklin, they are bullies who are used to getting their own way and lack any empathy with others. If they cannot bully their victims into compliance, they kill them.

And then there is Mark Dixie.

For the record, we don't have a whole lot of compassion or understanding for any of the other criminals mentioned above. We feel they all deserve some sort of punishment. However, they are not beyond redemption and rehabilitation.

Mark Dixie, however, is in a different class. Here, in the words of Auntie Beeb:

Police said Dixie enjoyed hearing details of his crimes being re-told in court by his victims.

Det Supt Stuart Cundy said: "Dixie has made his victims re-live horrific ordeals. He made Sally Anne's family sit through horrific evidence."

[...]

It was only after British police made inquiries following Dixie's arrest during a minor scuffle in a pub in Surrey that his DNA was matched to an unsolved attempted murder and rape of a student in Perth.

This man is a repeat sex offender who has attacked many many women and has yet to pay the price for a single one of his crimes. He has exhibited no remorse whatsoever. Worst of all, he seems to have enjoyed the suffering of his many victims. It is the element of enjoyment that causes us to espouse the death penalty for people such as Mr. Dixie.

How any human being can be so lacking in the basic human qualities as to enjoy the suffering of another living creature is beyond us. That is not something that can be fixed with drugs or therapy or anything else. This man is lacking in a quality so basic that he can never be repaired or made whole again. And as long as he lives, he is a danger to all other living creatures, because the source of his enjoyment is another creature's suffering. Because we do not relish any other creature's suffering, we would prefer that he be put out of his misery immediately and by painless means. Barring that, we sincerely hope that until he draws his last breath he is never again in a position to cause pain and suffering to a single other creature, not man or beast.

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Politics: The Police State

Hello, What. The. Fuck? Ohio? What is going on here?

Police in Ohio apparently went to the home of a legally blind diabetic cancer patient in her fifties, looking for her son, a felon. The woman, Denise Harris, was suspicious, for legitimate reasons WHIO TV says they will air tonight in an interview with her.

Police are claiming they knocked on her door and she "became combative" and didn't want to talk to them. So they tased her.

Excuse me? They fucking WHAT? Is somebody putting mind-altering drugs in the water in Ohio? The Hope Steffey case wasn't bad enough? The Tarika Wilson case wasn't bad enough?

Look at me, Ohio, I am talking to you goddammit. What the fuck is this? Tasering a woman in her fifties because she doesn't want to talk to you? Have your fucking idiot police ever heard of the Constitution? Specifically the Fifth Amendment thereto?

Oh, yeah, we forgot, Jor Jee wiped his ass on it so you can't read it any more.

Jesus fucking J.H. Christ on a pogo stick with bells on! What the hell gives that you people actually think it's OK to use a weapon that can kill on a blind, diabetic fucking cancer fucking patient???

Just one point in your favour: you proved that you don't discrimate based on race when you slammed blonde, white Hope Steffey face-first into a police cruiser, stripped her naked, forcibly and physically violated her on the pretext of a full body search, threw her shivering beaten naked ass in a jail cell, and videotaped the whole disgraceful thing.

Of course, you killed Tarika Wilson because her boyfriend was a drug dealer. Shot her to death in front of her children.

People, look at this long and good. The police state, which we've blogged repeatedly before, is upon us. Commenter Sungold points out that a pregnant woman was tasered in Ohio last fall. These cops need to have tasers taken away from them.

The "security bracelet" favoured by the DHS in lieu of a boarding pass is looking more likely by the second.

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Civil Rights: Crapping On The Constitution

Our esteemed Schmuck-in-Chief is reported to have said that the Constitution, the document that forms the basis of the nation of America, is "just a goddamned piece of paper," and his minions throughout the nation's offices, high and low, have followed his example by wiping their rear ends with that document.

Recently, we blogged the case of Hope Steffey, the Ohio resident who was manhandled by police when she called for help after being assaulted. The police response was to assault her some more, breaking one of her teeth, stripping her naked, conducting a cavity search, and then throwing her, stark naked, in a cell to shiver, in full sight of male officers.

An irate troglodyte assured us that the Sheriff of Cuyahoga County, Ohio, who is to be held responsible for the outrageous treatment of Ms. Steffey, is a Democrat.

Our point is not that Republicans are bad and Democrats are good. That is way too Orwellian a stance for us to take. Our point is that when the highest authorities in the land refuse to obey the laws of the land, they set an example for every small-minded sadistic rotten fool in the country and out, that they too can wipe their tush on the Constitution or the Convention on Human Rights.

To put it very simply for the troglodytes: A man (or woman) who is a lying, stealing, abusive piece of shit is likely to raise children who go on to become lying, stealing, abusive pieces of shit. A leader who commits crimes will attract (or encourage) followers who commit crimes. That's the common wisdom behind all those handy little homilies, like "The apple doesn't fall far from the tree," and "As the twig is bent, so grows the tree," and "Monkey see, monkey do," et cetera, ad infinitum ad nauseam.

If the people at the top are corrupt thugs and criminals, every corrupt thug and criminal in the country will feel emboldened to act in a corrupt and thuggish manner. And good honest citizens will sit back and not speak up for fear of the corrupt thugs around them, and the even greater fear, as we've seen for the past seven years, that the corrupt thugs who run the country will not punish the corruption and thuggery but will leave anyone who is not a corrupt thug to the tender mercies of the corrupt, thuggish wolves. And that has repeatedly been the case.

What kind of message is the average citizen supposed to take away from the fact that the same Roger Stone who made threatening phone calls to an elderly man whose only "crime" appears to be having a son that Mr. Stone doesn't like is sought out by AP reporter Nedra Pickler as representative of "conservatives" when she writes a story designed to smear Barack Obama. La Casa de Los Gatos knows many conservatives who would shudder at being linked with Mr. Stone, a creep known for dirty political tactics. People like Mr. Stone and his friend KKKarl Rove typify the worst aspects of partisanship that have dragged the nation's political discourse into the gutter.

Our conservative friends differ politically from us, but believe in honour and fairness and the rule of law. They do not believe those who crap on the Constitution should get away with it.

Thus we find the recent slew of stories about police abuse in this country very very disturbing. Here, for example, is the story of a man named Nick Joseph Molfetto, a disabled person who needs a wheelchair and who also happens to be an inmate of the Hillsborough hoosegow. Yes, Mr. Molfetto is a criminal. Yes, he is probably a pretty nasty person, given that his criminal record runs 22 pages. He is also a person with a spinal injury with staples holding his back together. The man needs a wheelchair.

Yet, Hillsborough deputies refused to use a wheelchair van to transport Mr. Molfetto to his court hearing. Instead they made him lie on the floor of a regular van, despite his protests, and then schlepped him to a hearing THREE HOURS away. Needless to say, the journey injured him so badly, his court hearing had to be postponed. Nice work, deputies. So we have to house and feed and provide medical care to Mr. Molfetto for an extended period of time because you sadists felt that maltreating a disabled person was more important than doing your jobs professionally. Not to mention the fact that, because your wages are paid by taxpayers, you have now made us all complicit in the torture of a disabled person.

If you can't sympathize with Mr. Molfetto because he has a long rap sheet, try schoolteacher Paul King. Mr. King was arrested on a DUI, and there's video evidence of him being brutally maltreated by arresting officers. A hood, a restraint chair, what the hell is this? It's bad enough we do these things in Abu Ghraib and Guantanamo, now we're doing them to our own people? The deputies claim they put the hood on Mr. King because he "spat blood" at them. Deputies, the more pertinent question is, why is someone in your custody spitting blood?

So Paris Hilton gets to serve a few days in a fancy farm, but the Kings and Molfettos, the common people of America, get the crap beat out of them?

And then there's Brian Stern, a quadriplegic who got busted for a traffic offense. Apparently a very minor traffic offense, according to CNN:

[...] the arrest was a complete surprise to Sterner, who had received only a ticket after police stopped him in his hand-pedal-controlled car for failing to yield in October.

At the time, the attorney said, Sterner also submitted to a blood test and no illegal substances were found in his blood.

Mr. Stern had the misfortune to be in the custody of the Hillsborough deputies, who apparently believe that, like Jesus, they can work miracles. The Son of Man saith unto he that was afflicted with the palsy, "Arise, and take up thy bed, and walk." So did these sons of bitches say unto the man with the spinal cord injury, "Get thine ass out of that wheelchair and stand ye and hearken unto us." And when he didn't stand, being as he couldn't, and all that, instead of waiting for an explanation, they Tipped. Him. Out. Of. His. Wheelchair. Breaking his ribs.

And it's all on video. La Casa de Los Gatos is beginning to think that video might be the best thing that ever happened to law enforcement. Well, second to the actual appointment of decent people to run LE departments. To his credit, the Hillsborough County Sheriff apologized to Mr. Sterner and promised to set things right. He also said that his department has procedures for dealing with wheelchair-bound individuals that do not include tossing their heinies on the floor for the amusement of the deputies.

Given that The Lesser Shrub has been manufacturing lots more quadriplegics and paraplegics, we need to ensure that police departments around the country obey the law and the constitution and respect basic human rights.

When, if ever, will we see the Lesser Shrub take responsibility for the brutal acts of his minions at Abu Ghraib and Guantanamo? Oh, that's right. Personal responsibility is for the "little people," as Leona Helmsley, the Queen of Mean, used to call them. Turn in your grave, Leona, there's a bigger Queen of Mean around these days. Georgie wants your crown. Ya better give it to him, too, or he'll exhume you and have your fingernails removed individually. With pliers.

And then there's Angie Garbarino of Shreveport, Louisiana. Ms. Garbarino was arrested on a suspected DUI. She went into custody looking like the picture you see on top here:


And she emerged looking like the picture on the bottom. Officer Wiley Willis, who processed Ms. Gabarino's arrest, claims Ms. Gabarino fell. However, the video recording of the arrest shows the officer, a relatively large, fit, young man, manhandling Ms. Garbarino, a small, skinny, older woman. At some point the officer turns off the video recorder.

When Officer Willis turns the video recorder back on, Ms. Garbarino is seen lying in a pool of blood. She is heard telling medical personnel that the officer beat her. Her nose was broken, a cheekbone fractured, she has two blackeyes and what looks like broken blood vessels in both eyes, a cut on her forehead, swollen lips, and she lost several teeth in the incident. We have seen a lot of drunken people in our time, some good number of them falling-down drunk. We have never seen injuries like Ms. Gabarino's. It's possible she did fall, but the video clearly shows her getting upset and the officer harrassing her. Why was a male officer alone with a woman?

What's most frightening about Angie Gabarino's case is the number of baying idiots who insist that she was drunk and abusive towards the officer. People, she's what, five foot four or six and maybe 120 lb? She's 42 years old. She's handcuffed with her hands behind her back. Real threatening, woo woo.

The officer, ten years younger than her, is some four inches taller and probably 50-70 lb. heavier. If an able-bodied man in his prime, in good physical condition, cannot control a small-built woman without inflicting injuries on her or being intimidated by her, he needs to look into a different line of work.

Also, you better pray to whatever you believe in that you don't end up on the bad side of Officer Kickurasski's nightstick. Because you could end up sitting in jail for three months for absolutely no reason, like Darrell Arthur Williams, who was not even charged with a crime. Mr. Williams has no criminal record. He came to the attention of the law because he was a homeless man urinating in public (like he had a choice). It cost the taxpayers $10,000 to keep Mr. Williams in jail for absolutely no reason, a sum that we contend could have been better spent providing him with health care, or food, or shelter, as needed.

Finally, Raw Story tells us that 60 Minutes, a prime source of irritainment, sent a reporter to get zapped with a new military weapon, a heat gun. The reporter states:

"[...] this gun, which has a range of roughly half a mile - the exact range is classified - can make you stop whatever it is you're doing."

It seems that is the intended benefit of this weapon, which Martin says causes the sensation of being scalded with hot water.

He asks, "How many innocent lives have been lost by someone approaching a check-point and not heeding the warning signs that American soldiers were giving them ...? Now you have this gun. If you shoot that ray gun at someone and they keep coming you can safely assume that they have evil intent and have cleared the way to use more lethal force, which would be their rifle."

We would like to point out that the reporter, David Martin, is clearly an idiot, but since you, our readers, are not idiots, we know we don't need to. If you were driving along minding your own business and suddenly felt intense heat all over your body, would you assume you were being targeted with a weapon? Or would you be too freaked out to think?

What if you, like many of the victims of our foreign wars, had metal prosthetics? Would the effect of this weapon be intensified? What if you were wearing contacts? What if you had never heard of heat guns before in your life? What if you had a weak heart, or diabetes, or epilepsy? Would you connect your physical sensations with the people shouting at you in a foreign language? We would venture to guess a big fat NO.

What kind of weapon is this, exactly, and what long-term studies exist on the damage that it can do? And if its range is half a mile or more, what steps does the government plan to take to minimize damage to innocent bystanders? Are children likely to suffer greater damage, due to their smaller mass and more delicate physical structure? And, most importantly, what kind of sick, perverted people think that it is important to use their intelligence and skill to develop something that will hurt people and can be used for crowd control?

It is only a matter of time before our government or some other government uses this weapon against civilians peacefully assembling to protest its policies, as is their right under any recognized internation human rights instrument. What do YOU plan to do to ensure that your rights, and the rights of your friends, relatives, neighbours, and fellow-citizens for the next generation or two are reasonably safe from this sort of abuse?

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Justice Department Scandal

Yowza! Jon Stewart interviews David Iglesias, former U.S. Attorney who was fired for refusing to prosecute dubious cases of "voter fraud" based on weak evidence. Raw Story has the details.

Obviously, we need to watch all those Star Wars episodes we skipped, because here is Mr. Iglesias' operative quote:

Stewart ended by asking Igleaias, “Is the greatest disappointment for you that you were a guy who believed in what they were doing? … Do you feel betrayed in that sense?”

“I thought I was working with the Jedi Knights and I was working for the Sith Lords,” Iglesias acknowledged, as the audience broke into applause.

Iglesias has written a book that has just hit the stands, titled In Justice, which details the politicization of the Justice Department.

When your own nation's highest legal authorities engage in selective prosecution and use the law to penalize those who speak out against one party, one administration, or one group of politically powerful and wealthy people, how can you ever again criticize fascist or communist dictatorships? Ask Hope Steffey, Angie Garbarino, and the countless other victims of creeping fascism in America about their experiences. These are just the ones who got attention from the media. We have no idea how many more people have stories to tell.

People, we can never relax our vigilance. Think about it. How many people do you know who put their country first, their community first, their neighbours first? We are all inclined to be selfish, and if we know there are no consequences, most of us reach for whatever we can get and ignore everyone else. So if you don't want your rights stolen, if you don't want to live in a dictatorship, then it's your job, our job, every one of us, to scrutinize our leaders carefully, to make sure they don't steal our rights as well as our jobs, health, lives, and money.

We already know our government has no shame about performing medical experiments on us and lying about it.

If there's one good thing to come out of the Justice Department Scandal, it's that we now know, with evidence, that our government can be politicized and used against us. We know that the ensuing investigation might include liability for those higher up the food chain. We know that Alberto Gonezales will have to pay for his crimes. He's already paying: after Shrubya dumped the ineffectual little liar, he shopped his resume around in search of a job. Result? Zilch, nothing, nada, zero, zip, says the NYT (login required, registration free).

Maybe this will inspire the little worm to feel some sympathy for the large numbers of unemployed who lost their jobs thanks to his buddies.

In other truly heartening news, ambulatory wastebucket Bradley Schlozman will probably face prosecution for his role in the Justice Department scandal, the trumped up charges that led to the firings of so many dedicated U.S. Attorneys and the illegal filing of voter fraud charges on slim evidence and timed to influence the elections. The Wah!Poo reports that Schlozman's testimony is under examination by a grand jury.


May we just take this opportunity to add that it couldn't have happened to a more deserving bunch of schmucks.

Bonus question: Why do these guys all look like they just cheated your 90-year-old Aunt Agnes out of her life savings, or seduced your underage daughter?

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Civil Rights: So This Is How Low We've Sunk

Ohio again. Goddammit, Ohio! What the holy perforated fuck is wrong with you? Are you a state full of goons and thugs? Hope Steffey. Tarika Wilson. Just last week, you tasered Denise Harris, a 50-year-old blind diabetic cancer patient after kicking her door in.

And now, this? If it's not already glaringly obvious to everyone on the planet that the war in Iraq has zero, zilch, zip, nada, nothing to do with our rights and freedoms and everything to do with Commander Codpiece's overweening sense of entitlement, it looks like we can certainly count on Ohio to set the record straight, huh?

How the hell did y'all manage to elect a progressive like Dennis Kucinich for your Rep? Ah, what the hell. You owe the rest of the country big time for that viper, Mean Jean Schmidt and that revolting blubberer John "Boner" Boehner.

But really, you gotta cut out these weekly assaults on the citizenry. And what is with your poor choice of victims? Don't you know if you're gonna turn the tasers on people you want to be sure you pick (1) minorities (2) preferably male (3) preferably poor or working class (4) preferably armed (5) preferably with a criminal record?

And stop videotaping this shit. Seriously. It's time to grow some brains and some sense of civic duty and quit kicking the crap out of elderly religious types and blond middle-class housewives that you outweigh by 100 lbs. or more. Or, worse yet, blind diabetic cancer patients.

Today's blot on Ohio's good name is brought to you by security guards at St. Vincent Mercy Medical Center in Toledo. Hey, wait a minute. What the fuck? Security guards? They're not even cops and they get to beat the crap out of the citizenry? Shouldn't we have the crap beat out of us by people that we're paying for the privilege?

Wait. It gets better. The good Reverend Al Poisson had been out shopping with his son and 6-year-old grandson when some unnamed third party was injured under unexplained circumstances. The good Reverend decided to take his duty of Christian charity seriously and visit the injured man in the hospital, taking his kid and grandkid with him. While he was visiting the injured man, the good Reverend teased one of the armed thugs with the question, "Are you happy?" When the guy replied "Yes" in a dour tone, the good Reverend suggested he inform his face, as it didn't appear to reflect his claimed state of mind.

Whereupon five &mdash count them, FIVE &mdash armed security thugs fell upon this 66-year-old gentleman, dragged him out of the hospital (no doubt before the horrified eyes of his son, his grandson, and the unfortunate patient being visited), tasered him, beat him, kicked him while he was down, and generally roughed him up.

Say fucking WHAT? Excuse me, the guy's sixty-six years old and, if you get our drift, he doesn't look like he's even in as good shape as Dick Fucking Cheney. Why does it take five of you to beat his ass? Plus, hello, you're armed with tasers. We've already seen plenty of evidence that tasers are a lethal weapon, they can kill healthy strong young men. You tased the old guy, which is, like, not too smart given that he's a fucking prime fucking candidate for a fucking heart attack, you fucking bozos. And then FIVE of you got together and kicked his ancient ass.

What the fuck is wrong with you? What kind of gangsters, goons, and thugs are Toledo hospitals hiring to provide security? And why are they armed with tasers? Whatever happened to "never hit a man who is down?" Do you people have the slightest fucking shred of decency? Of dignity? Of self-fucking-respect? Jesus fucking J.H. Christ and his black brother Harry.

And in case you, dear readers, were wondering if the good Reverend Al didn't try to kick one of these studly young thugs in the old nuttolas or something, it's all on videotape. The good Reverend would get short of breath trying to lift his leg that high, if you get our drift. Plus, the security goons tried to file charges, and a court has already thrown them out. The good Rev. Al is suing the hospital. Good on ya, Reverend. They kicked your ass, you need to kick theirs in return.

Whatever happened to the goddamned rule of law, is what we want to know? When did it become OK to randomly taser anyone you think is giving you the stinkeye? Haven't these people heard of the Constitution? St. Vincent must be spinning like a corkscrew in his grave. Better rename the hospital. Kikurass Medical Center sounds more appropriate.

CBS news' video clip of the interview with Rev. Al and his lawyer available here.

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Economy: My President Don't Mess Around

What a difference an election makes! Remember back when Hope Steffey was assaulted by the very police that she called for help, and we at this fine blog opined that when our leaders refuse to obey the law of the land, every small-minded fool in the country goes along?

Gee Dumbya and his Bush-league myrmidons felt perfectly justified in crapping on the constitution and wiping their collective tush on it, and that behaviour percolated down through the ranks with every ha'penny-two-penn'orth of crookdom and liarment leaping on the old bandwagon headed straight to hell.

They raided the treasury and shat all over the middle class and the working poor. They took trillions of dollars of our money and disappeared it through various hidey-holes. One memorable example would be the airdrop of some US$12 BILLION in cash over the war zone of Baghdad, back in 2007 before ethnic cleansing rendered the city reasonably "safe" for those who might want to, I don't know, run around with fistfuls of US dollars. You know, like us working people who've been screwed so hard and for so long, we're just walking bags of lube.

We don't even need to mention Halliburton's endless run of no-bid government contracts and obscene profits, or KBR's repeated attempts to electrocute the whole fucking US army in Iraq while billing us taxpayers (yes, that would include those of us unfortunate enough to be serving at the time) in the hundreds of thousands for their "services." There is some hellish level of irony involved in knowing that you and your family and everyone who loves, or even just likes, you is paying through the nose to have you killed, yaknow?

So when those evil motherfuckers raised the whole notion of TARP (the Troubled Assets Relief Program), there was much muttering on the part of residents and friends of La Casa de Los Gatos. I mean, hey, Bush has fucked up EVERYTHING nine ways to Sunday, yaknow? You could give that man a nice cold popsicle and instead of enjoying it, he'd put his eye out with it. Or, more likely, yours. Or even the whole nation's.

Dumbya vs. Pretzel, Pretzel Wins

I mean, have you ever in your life BB (Before Bush) heard of anyone getting beat up by a pretzel? Yet there was the man, our (thankfully very) ex-Preznitwit, showing up with bruises and what-all anaconda he nearly lost a battle with an edible treat. Geesh, Christ fucking Criminy. That's gotta take a little work, yeah?

For the record, I myself was for the bailout. I judged, based on my minimal understanding of economics and the economy, that frozen commercial paper was very very bad indeed, in terms of the collapse of the market. I just didn't want to see the Bushleague vultures administering it. I mean, Hank Paulson? He looks even more like Skeletor than Michael Chertoff. Where do they find these assholes? Every single one of the Bush appointees looked like they had recently escaped the pages of some really bad comic about Evil Men. Evil, and let me quickly add, incompetent men.

My fellow-bloggers, to give them their due, were against the bailout. I put it down to their naivete (though not to their faces, I'm not dumb enough to invite that kind of ass-kicking).

Later on down the line, we find (Surprise! NOT!) that the League of Incompetent EvilMen actually threatened our elected congresscritters with martial law if they didn't approve the bailout of Wall Street and its legions of fat, slobbering, greedy bankers. Pig man, pig man.

They put all that money — a trillion dollars or more — in the paws of that James-Bond-style bald villain, Henry Paulson. Who promptly spread as much of it as he could among his friends on Wall Street. I know. You're simply shocked. Scandalized. Nobody could have foreseen, yada yada yada. See Danny Schechter for details.


It was only by the great good luck of President Obama winning the election that we were spared further assault upon our collective economic anatomy, you know, the kind of butt-reaming we've had for the past eight years.

So, Bush and his minions managed to distribute more than two-thirds of the bailout they requested before President Obama ever even took office, and Paulson was trying to get his greedy mitts on the remainder before the new brooms came in to sweep the People's Houses clean of his and his cronies' corruption. All that money went to Wall Street, mind you.

And what, exactly, did Wall Street do with that vast handout? Did they try to clean up those toxic securities, did they propose any plan to limit the damages for which they were responsible, the toppling of the entire world's economy due to their Credit Default Swaps, instruments so toxic that no one has yet been able to assign to them a value? Huh? Did they?

Fuck, no. Lemme tellya, I put off taking my pain meds today (yes, I AM in screaming agony, however did you guess?) because I wanted to feel the rage, the burning pit of fire in my gut that makes me want to singlehandedly garrote the entire bunch of bloodsuckers. Fortunately, my leg no work, so I couldn't even get within shoe-throwing distance of these motherfuckers, plus, you know, I'm kinda a foodie, and frankly prison food is the shits, and I might not even have access to a computer, and THEN how would I get rid of my frustration? Eh?

Wanna take a guess what they did with that money? Huh? Even as hundreds of thousands of people are getting the rigid digit in terms of getting laid off their jobs or taking pay cuts or having their company plain old fold beneath them, cutting them off from health insurance, an income, and possibly the roof over their heads? Yeah? Take a guess.


Yup, that's right. They handed it out in bonuses. To the same fucking villains who laid off all their workers and "downsized" their employees and "reorged" to secure current profit margins, and — worst of all — who created this whole fucking mess in the first place with their abominable greed. Yes. Wall Street paid out bonuses to the executives who threw us all in the pit wherein is much wailing and gnashing of those teeth as we have left. $18.4 billion dollars in bonuses.

The state comptroller, Thomas P. DiNapoli, said it was unclear if banks had used taxpayer money for the bonuses, a possibility that strikes corporate governance experts, and indeed many ordinary Americans, as outrageous. He urged the Obama administration to examine the issue closely.

To add insult to injury (hey, mere bleeding is never enough for these guys. They have to indulge in a little haruspication or, better yet, anthropomancy) these same mother-and-father-fuckers had the gall — the unmitigated gall! — to take our money, we the working people who support the economy, and attempt to screw us over by defeating bills that might benefit labour. As JerseyJo might say, "If yer gonna screw me, at least kiss me first, or bring the lube, or something."

Three days after receiving $25 billion in federal bailout funds, Bank of America Corp. hosted a conference call with conservative activists and business officials to organize opposition to the U.S. labor community's top legislative priority.

The level of chutzpah demonstrated here is, is, is ... ARGH!! WHAT?!? Not only are they screwing us without lube or protection, they're using our own dick to do it!

Thank TPTB for our new President. Because, lemme tell ya, he's been doing some major buttkicking already, in case you missed it. Oh, yes. You don't have to tell this man a thing. He's been working around the clock since the day after he got elected, bar two very short "vacations," laying the groundwork to keep us from falling any deeper into the pit that Shrub Dumbwit et al have dug for us.


And he does not mess around. A lot of people mistake his calm demeanor for evidence that he's a pushover, that he's soft, and won't stand up to them. I see him more as a guy who likes to get stuff done with minimum fuss and pother. He requested, and received some $820 billion that he has pledged to use to benefit working people, help homeowners stay in their homes, and create jobs.

Thus, when he found out that Citibank was dicking around with consumer funds to buy themselves a brand-new $50 million corporate jet, our President put the kibosh on those mofos so fast, their heads are still spinning.

The jet, the epitome of corporate prestige and privilege, can carry 12 passengers in elegant comfort.

ABC News has learned that on Monday officials of the Obama administration called Citigroup about the company's new $50 million corporate jet and told execs to "fix it."

And then, just because these moronic assholes are so bred-in-the-bone greedy, The Man had to take to the airwaves to kick some more ass publicly, because you just know some dumb motherfucker was going to try something similar a couple of days later.

Shameful, he called it. Irresponsible. Outrageous. Appalling. When was the last time you remember corporate greed being called on the carpet? These assholes would happily wring the last drop of blood out of your dying child so they can spend it on hookers and champagne. Go ahead. Click this link and listen to your new President tell 'em.

Meanwhile, your Congresscritters of the Republican persuasion, who lined up to publicly fellate Gee Dumbya and their corporate masters on Wall Street over the multibillion dollar giveaway of our money, are all knicker-wadded that President Obama is actually going to take some of that money to help working people and homeowners.

After insisting on packing the final bill with various porklike tax cuts for their business buddies, they all ran away screaming with their underwear over their heads. Not a single one of those pathetic weenie bastards voted for the money to create new jobs, the money to keep working people in their homes, the money to give quick relief to the non-billionaires among us. Not fucking one. From teh article:

Complicating matters is a feeling among some conservatives they squandered their reputation for being careful with public finances under President George W. Bush, Obama's predecessor for eight years that ended on January 20.

No shit, people. That finally dawned on you guys, huh? That you had broken the locks on the bank doors and basically run naked through the streets throwing fistfuls of dollars at any friend or relative you could spot?

And, to provide further merriment:

A new Diageo-Hotline Poll finds that 66 percent of Americans, when provided with specific details, support the current proposed stimulus package.

That's gotta hurt, huh, Mitch "Closet Queeniest of teh Queens" McConnell, John "Yes, I'm Named After a Naughty Body Part" Bo(eh)ner.

Finally, to prove that they can't get anything right, the Repugnicans have put out their own "alternative" economy-stimulating bill. That's right. Only problem is, it raises taxes for a whole lotta soon-to-be-very-angry Americans. Yes, sirree, bob. Y'all know that AMT thingamahoochie that had so many hardworking taxpayers' shorts in a big old knot? The "alternative" bill isn't gonna change nothing for those guys 'n gals. Let the shrieking begin!


Jesus fucking J.H. Christ and his black brother Harry, ya dimwits, can't you even get something this simple right? It's not like ya can't pay other people to crunch the numbers for ya, just in case yer all from the "Math is Hard" school of taxpayer-screwing, yaknow.

Something tells me the Rethugs will be a regional party for a long time to come. Not that this means y'all should relax your efforts to ensure an ignominous end for them or anything. We've all seen that they can lie, cheat, and steal their way out of anything. So go right ahead and mash them into obscurity. Let there come a day when nobody remembers the word "Republican," unless it's in one of those Dan-Savage-style definitions, like, yaknow, Saddlebacking. (Google it.)

More good news: Senator Chris Dodd has announced that, as chairman of the Senate Banking Committee, he's going to do what he can to confiscate bonuses paid out on Wall Street. Write the man a nice letter, wouldja? I've always liked him. I know, I know, "some say" he benefited from his position, but I looked at the issue and he really didn't get anything more than any savvy consumer with some knowledge about the banking/mortgage industry would. Really. Plus, you want him to do this, right? So. Give the man a little love.

This is the kind of trickle-down I like to see. The man at the top says, "No, you're not doing that shit on my watch," and the people down the line say, "Hey, yeah, while we're at it, how about that stuff y'all stole last month? Give it back." And like dat. Srsly.

Now, Andrew Cuomo, NY AG, is going after Merrill Lynch and BofA to disgorge those "surprise" bonuses John Thain of Merrill Lynch paid out early to his minions after securing government financing for a takeover by BofA.

“No longer will this country stand for wasteful spending of tax dollars on bonuses for executives whose companies have taken huge losses and required taxpayer bailouts,” Cuomo said today in a statement about bonuses paid at Wall Street firms that received funds from the Troubled Asset Relief Program or TARP.

Well, hallelujah, motherfuckers, welcome to the Greased Pole of Impalement. I wanna hear what you sad sagging sacks of shit have to say about your shenanigans. Stand up in front of the people who are struggling to afford a roof over their children's heads and tell them why you thought it was OK to take $18 billion of their money for your bonuses.

Let's start with John Thain, who earned a salary of $750K and a cash bonus of $15 million in 2007. Satan only knows what the motherfucker earned in 2008, may his nuts fall off and be stolen by a squirrel.

Don't fuck with MY PRESIDENT, boys, he's been to the rodeo! Time for some pain meds followed by meditative drooling now. Feel free to tell me what you think.

Stumble It!