.
Above, a picture of Koda, enjoying her new home; below, Lucy on the beach, with her temporary foster. Good things happen, too.
I’m with Mr. Charles P. Pierce, and not just because he quotes my favorite Founding Father:
… The comfort of the ordinary. The comfort of the mundane. Let’s just have a trial. Let’s just have an open and honest trial, with all the evidence right there in the open, and not whispered piecemeal and half-baked out of Spookworld to Richard Engel or Barbara Starr. Let’s have an open and honest trial with no showboating from an embattled U.S. Attorney, and all the evidence laid out there in good, honest cop-speak — “The suspect said…” “The suspect did…” We can do that here…
… [W]hen a colonial court sought to convict British soldiers for their conduct in what was called The Boston Massacre, it was a Boston lawyer named John Adams who acted, essentially, as their public defender, arguing,
“I had no hesitation in answering that Council ought to be the very last thing that an accused Person should want in a free Country. That the Bar ought in my opinion to be independent and impartial at all Times And in every Circumstance. And that Persons whose Lives were at Stake ought to have the Council they preferred: But he must be sensible this would be as important a Cause as ever was tried in any Court or Country of the World: and that every Lawyer must hold himself responsible not only to his Country, but to the highest and most infallible of all Trybunals for the Part he should Act. He must therefore expect from me no Art nor Address, No Sophistry or Prevarication in such a Cause nor any thing more than Fact, Evidence and Law would justify.”
These were British soldiers in the streets of Boston, firing on crowds. John Adams did not recognize a “public safety exception” to their right to counsel. We stood up to an empire here for the right to judge our own people for their own crimes by our own laws. We can do this thing here. Hell, we invented this thing here. Seeing Dzhokhar Tsarnaev walk into an ordinary courtroom in an ordinary courthouse on as ordinary as day as possible would be worth a hundred healing services, and a thousand well-sung National Anthems, and a million waving flags in terms of restating who and what we are.
.
.
Hal
You can always count on Lindsay Graham and John McCain to insert themselves into every foreign policy issue the arises.
Also, it’s been mentioned in other threads, but I think Maureen Dowd has written her absolute worst column ever. Which is saying something for Modo.
raven
Look at them pupsters!
WereBear
My heart is warming at the pics of happy dogs.
I was thinking the other day that the wingers are well-known for their denial of right wing terrorism, and their distorted view of the non-domestic kind. I believe they need a boogeyman, and even in the midst of death and carnage, that weird movie in their heads takes precedence.
Ironically, we can handle Evil far better than they, even though we think about it a fraction of the time…
raven
Great comment on the Stone piece:
Linda Featheringill
Lovely pups. Have a good rest of your life. [raises coffee mug]
The younger Mr. Tsarnaev truly NEEDS a lawyer. I hope one manages to insert himself/herself into the picture.
And yes, let’s have a trial. We have possession of him. He’s not going anywhere. He’ll probably spend the rest of his long life in prison, anyway. Let’s do it right.
raven
@Linda Featheringill: BOSTON — Federal public defenders have agreed to represent the suspect in the Boston Marathon bombings.
Miriam Conrad, the federal defender for Massachusetts, says her office expects to represent Dzhokhar Tsarnaev (joh-KHAR’ tsahr-NEYE’-ehv) after he is charged.
Valdivia
@Hal:
that was the most ridiculous column. She blamed everything on Obama and absolved the Senators of their awful vote. If only he was only like Michael Douglas!
Linda Featheringill
@raven:
Federal public defenders: Good.
Schlemizel
@raven:
Nice quote!
One thing we can do to show that we are not terrorized is to treat this suspect as we would any other crazy who tried to kill a bunch of people.
I’m not afraid to hear the evidence, to have him get a fair trial with a real defense. I believe the strength of America is that we can do this, can remain true to our ideals and not surrender to the terrorists or to the pants wetters who would allow the rule of man to have control over the rule of law
BillinGlendaleCA
@raven: I’ve been watching Morning Joe, I’ve learned a great deal this morning. Joe Scar has informed me that what happened in Boston was not the fault of society, they were just evil. Evil, I tell you. HOWEVER, last week the same Joe Scar told me that the folk that shoot 20 1st graders, shoot up a movie theater, or mow a bunch of folk down in front of a Safeway; well that’s because of video games. I’m so thankful that I’ve learned this morning; I can now sleep in peace.
BTW: Hope your bride is recovering well from her surgery.
WereBear
@Schlemizel: Hey, Schlemizel, how’s that Chromebook working for you?
JPL
It’s so nice to start the week with puppy updates! Thanks, Anne.
dr. bloor
@BillinGlendaleCA: Where did Joe say dead interns come from this morning?
Mary G
Charlie Pierce was bringing it this weekend, all week in fact, even more than his usual excellent writing.
Face
This whole Boston thing is becoming very political very fast. I suspect this will all become a very ugly shit-fest in the next few days. Enemy Combatant, Lindsey? For an American citizen?
Suffern ACE
@Face: I think just a few years ago they were debating stripping people if their citizenship if they were SUSPECTED of terrorism. I’m not certain if its an improvement in this situation that they no longer feel the need to debate that.
amk
@raven: It’s all in how you call it – james holmes or dzhokhar tsarnaev.
Schlemizel
@WereBear:
It has a couple of annoying traits.
There is no right-click for instance. To perform a right-click you have to hit both sides of the touch pad at once, a two-finger click that does not work every time.
I have not yet figured out bookmarks. When I try to import my old ones using the instructions google gives I only get the first handful not all of them. I have not figured out where other than the manager the bookmarks are found so thats annoying but I have been lazy and not researched that issue. Also I need to find popup blockers for chrome.
As a PC its sort of clunky, I am not a big fan of google docs I guess. I also understand that I have given up any right to privacy & that google now owns me online to sell as they see fit.
But as a cheap, lightweight, portable web browser I like it at least as well as my old laptop. Its faster and did not suffer from the software bloat that is common with PCs
stratplayer
I would so like to see liberal Boston demonstrate to the rest of the country how justice is properly done, but I worry as much as Pierce does about the dreaded Carmen Ortiz effect on the proceedings. Watching her at the various press gatherings I could see the desperation in her eyes. She is a menace.
Baud
@Face:
Good. You can’t win if you don’t fight.
Anya
@stratplayer: Carmen Ortiz needs to be removed from this case. The only way to do that is if the State brings charges against him, just like any other mass murderer.
Elizabelle
@Hal:
Yeah, the Maureen Dowd column was atrocious. Her readers comments schooled her as fervently as readers write in after most or all David Brooks’ columns.
Write Ms. Dowd a snail mail letter or note, and let her know how badly she erred and how fallacious her premise.
I plan to do so myself.
Valdivia
I have a question for those who know, since it’s pretty clear that this case is under Federal jurisdiction. Does the DoJ have the ability to name anyone it wants to lead the prosecution or is it bound to have the head of that district do it (this Ortiz that so many people see as tainted?) I imagine the defense will file for a change of venue and in that case Ortiz may be out any way, but just wondering if the DoJ has the discretion to put anyone it wants in charge or if its hands are tied to this particular person because of jurisdictional issues (ie that it can’t just willy nilly put whoever they want in charge since there are rules about that, and since we all want all the rules obeyed, even the ones we don’t like). I was wondering about that.
Anya
@Elizabelle: More frustrating is how Talking Point Memo “NYT Columnist Maureen Dowd Rips Obama On Background Checks” legitimized her stupid column. They are worse than HuffPo. No critical analysis of why her argument is stupid, but it’s just “oh look who says Obama is a big loser.”
Schlemizel
Serious question: I have no real knowledge of Ortiz. Other than the one rather spectacular blunder what is the case against her? Facts preferred I get that emotionally some peole hate her
Elizabelle
@Anya:
Hadn’t seen that TPM item, and it is a loser.
Igor Bobic excerpts Dowd, in her full idiocy:
However, the first online comments slam the guy for putting Dowd’s stuff up without context.
MomSense
Look at those puppies! Hooray!
lojasmo
@Schlemizel:
Just the one episode, as far as I can tell. That, and she works for Holder, so obvs Obummer is worse than Bush.
Marc
There are pretty obvious problems with removing a DA because you don’t like them. The proper recourse if you think she’s not competent is to fire her, not selectively take her off various cases. If we fired prosecutors for over-zealous pursuit of cases we’d probably not have any left in office.
I’m wondering whether the Obama equals Bush crowd is noticing which party is calling for torture and no trial and which one is following, you know, the law.
Brother Machine Gun of Desirable Mindfulness (fka AWS)
@Elizabelle: I actually went to see the comment section on MoDo’s column just for an antidote to her Weapon of Mass Stupidity. I can only hope, somehow, that she reads some of those comments. I’m pretty sure most of the other idiots who occupy the Times’ op-ed space don’t.
amk
@Anya: It wasn’t josh, it’s some igor idjit.
Baud
@Brother Machine Gun of Desirable Mindfulness (fka AWS):
All they care about are page clicks, so they’ve already succeeded. They have no integrity. They are trolls.
Walker
@Elizabelle:
Why does anyone read TPM? They have no commentary worth a damn, they are slow to break news, and they cannot even aggregate worthy damn.
Schlemizel
@Brother Machine Gun of Desirable Mindfulness (fka AWS):
AS if these mental masters, these experts on everything, these thought leaders of great perfection would ever lower themselves to listening to what the great unwashed, those who approach on bended knee to receive the intellectual out put of their towering intellect, have to say about their “thoughts”. WOuld Eisenstein listen to you about Nuclear physics? Would Van Gogh listen to you about painting? HA!
Brother Machine Gun of Desirable Mindfulness (fka AWS)
@Schlemizel: One thing that puzzles me: Is MoDo such a horrid person in real life? Or is that just her schtick?
WereBear
I didn’t even know that! I use the alt-click.
Suffern ACE
@Elizabelle: yep. Here he is trying to keep ofa going this time when what he really should be doing is spreading that money around Washington.
Cassidy
I don’ think this is an America that exists anymore. We are ruled by fear fed from the trough of RW propaganda and self-loathing that’s been paid for by advertisments and consumerism.
Higgs Boson's Mate
How influential are op-ed writers these days? They’re part of a slowly dying segment of mass media and, other than acting as click bait, they’re in place because newspapers still want to think that they’re important. The talking heads would seem to have a far larger audience than the MoDos and Bobos so why the excitement when one of them predictably goes more stupid than usual?
Cassidy
@Higgs Boson’s Mate:
They’re not. The only people who know their names are junkies like us. The entertainment section of CNN gets more traffic than these narcissists combined.
Fort Geek
@raven: I think the commenter answered his own question. Why isn’t James Holmes a terrorist, but the Boston Marathon kid is? “James Holmes.” White guy name. To American–and especially conservative–ears, he’s “one of ours.” Therefore, not a terrorist, just an asshole criminal.
That other guy with the furrin name–Dzhokhar Tsarnaev! How do you even pronounce that, hoss?–is doesn’t sound like “us.” Almost looks like one a them ay-rabs. Got a Russkie-soundin’ last name, and a Dracula-soundin’ first name. AND he’s a Mooozlim! If we hadn’t caught him he’d be spreadin’ soshullist nazi vampire moozlim Sharia stuff all over the country and hidin’ under our beds to take our wimminz!
Plenty of convenient “differences” for the hand-waving rationalizers who want to torture the kid, send him to Gitmo and give him a show trial.
El Cid
Free and fair trials & standards of evidence aren’t ‘gifts’ that weak people give to the accused, they are standards that the civilized demand themselves live up to.
Suffern ACE
@Fort Geek: you know, there are terrorists, don’t you? Just checking, because I’m not sure what your complaint is.
gene108
Do these guys realize Bush & Co. let the “American Taliban” guy (can’t think of his name), who was captured fighting with the Taliban stand trial as an American.
I wish someone would mention this guy, when people talk about the Boston bomber being treated as an enemy combatant.
Schlemizel
@(fka AWS):
My guess is that, at parties, she is pleasant to her peers, obsequies to her “better” and a miserable lout to the help, the average person and anyone she deems ‘lesser’.
She is the mean girl club from Jr. High
Schlemizel
@WereBear:
I have never heard of alt-click. Yet another thing I’ll have to learn about
piratedan
RIP Chrissy Amphett of the Divinyls
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=epOwbSqZhj0
RobertDSC-iPhone 4
@gene108:
John Walker Lindh.
Fort Geek
@Suffern ACE: Not complaining, just explaining :)
Yes, the bombers are terrorists. But I consider the guy who shot up an elementary school, the one who killed people in a movie theater, and the dirtbags who’ve bombed clinics, shot doctors, and stalked clinic staff and patients to be terrorists, as well. Those people get a “free pass” in the press and from politicians because they’ve got white-guy names and religions or because there’s a vested interest in protecting the gun lobby from criticism, etc.
geg6
@lojasmo:
And, IMHO, the “one incident” has been blown out of proportion. All the cheering for Aaron Schwartz’s theft and blaming her for his choice to kill himself doesn’t change the fact that she offered him a pretty terrific deal, which he turned his nose up at, and then, in a snit, offed himself. I don’t see him as some sort of hero or martyr. I see him as a selfish, self-involved brat who didn’t get his way and thought “I’ll show them! I’ll kill myself and they’ll all be sorry!” And that worked out the same way it always does, some delusional kid kills himself because he can’t seem to understand that it’s permanent, not a brave statement in a delusional scenario in which he’ll be able to cackle over how he won against the baddies. Dead means dead. But that opinion, for some reason, makes me history’s greatest monster.
As for Ortiz, she may be a nightmare. But I haven’t heard of anyone referencing her in any other context other than the Aaron Schwartz case, which you can see that I think the criticism of her is ridiculous. If she’s done other stuff that makes her a bad person to try this case, I haven’t heard of it.
Brother Machine Gun of Desirable Mindfulness (fka AWS)
@piratedan: Damn. MS and breast cancer.
gogol's wife
@geg6:
I really haven’t followed this story but your take seems intuitively right to me. Now I’m probably history’s greatest monster too.
Koda is beautiful!
askew
@Walker:
Got a better suggestion for a news aggregator?
Belafon (formerly anonevent)
@Fort Geek:
I keep thinking of the name John Carter had when he became the champion of the tribe/clan on Mars.
different-church-lady
…the… FUCK?!? The word “comfort” should never be allowed within 100 yards of that little shit as long as his miserable life continues.
I mean, god damn you process masturbators. Give him his normal trial and his Miranda Warning. But don’t go writing poetry about it just because you feel you need to counter trolls like Lindsey Graham and John McCain having Jack Bauer fantasies. It is NOT worth the same as the kind of healing we need to do. It is not even CLOSE to it. It’s merely the right thing, and we’ll do it. We’ll do it because we have to, not because it will help us heal or because we’ll find “comfort” in the idea of doing the right thing.
Yutsano
PUPPEHS!!
It’s Monday morning of a week guaranteed to suck. I don’t have the energy to debate this much. Just try the bastard in court with full due process and move on.
Sister Rail Gun of Warm Humanitarianism
@Belafon (formerly anonevent): Dotar Sojat. I’ve been thinking the same thing. And thinking it would be too obscure a reference to mention.
Sister Rail Gun of Warm Humanitarianism
@different-church-lady:
It’s a start at healing a different wound.
MazeDancer
Just splendid to see happy pups.
Helps make up for how hard it seems to be to find homes for kitties.
Two sets of gorgeous, proven-to-be-wonderful kitties have needed homes because their owners are in very difficult situations and are doing the right thing by their pets and trying to find them homes.
Plenty of BJ money for transport to anywhere in the country is always available. Homes are not.
Often, it seems owners have lost their homes/jobs/pet safe environments. And/or their people children have developed impossible allergies. So ongoing pet care stipends to the owners is not necessarily going to solve the pet problem. New homes needed.
Here are the latest beauties.
Two tabby girls
Two sweeties
Anyone ever thinking of getting a cat could snap up these babies and have instant, great family.
May our collective smart minds figure out a way to help more kitties find more homes.
(And continued thanks to Anne Laurie for all her pet rescue efforts)
Kristine
During my Sunday morning walk with the Gabster, I ran into a young man carrying a 5-gallon bucket. He had just rescued 3 kittens that someone had dumped by the side of the road. This was in a state park that had exeperienced some flooding after last week’s rains, so traffic was light and there was little chance that anyone would find the kittens before the coyotes did. But this young man spends his Sunday mornings volunteering at the park, and he saved them. He also fosters, as do friends of his. So, three kittens were saved.
They were incredibly lovely little creatures. One black, one Siamese-ish, and one orange (tabby?), all with ice blue eyes. So small. The orange one snarled at me, but the other two just huddled, so scared.
For every bastard who dumps kittens by the roadside, there are 2-3 or more who save and foster.
Those puppy pics made my Monday.
Denali
The Boston attacks were terrorism; they were aimed at anyone – not mitiary – that’s why they are so terrifying and not comparable to deaths caused by natural disasters or negligence. One death caused by terrorism equals 1,000 deaths caused by other reasons – even mass murders – because somehow we cannot help assigning mental causes – power, revenge, etc to the killers in mass murders. When there is a politcal motive, it is too difficult to comprehend, because our loyalties, tribalism, etc gets in the way.
PJ
Is Lucy’s foster married? Because that picture is adorable.
Another Halocene Human
FWIW, I agree with Charlie Pierce, but I’ve resigned myself to the likelihood that it’s totally out of our hands and the feds are gonna do what they wanna do. And that is really too bad because death’s too good for the little shit/knucklehead/terror brother.
80-some years in state prison, knowing he’s going to die there, watching rapist and murderers do their time and get paroled, watching people with half his IQ get rehabilitated and sent to the halfway house, watching all of his college friends graduate, marry, be successful, raise their own kids, and forget all about him, knowing his cousins are on the outside, having their own lives, his sisters raising his nieces and nephews he’ll never see because they won’t want them to have contact with him in case the madness is catching, watching DA’s and governors come and go and knowing that he’ll never get a hour of clemency, forming a prayer group with native born Americans whose notions of Islam differ from his, who ended up where they were due to hard circumstances and impulsive, dumb choices, who can’t understand why he had everything and threw it all away. Never hearing his native language spoken until he almost forgets what it sounds like. Getting called “Russian” by the yard bullies every single day of his life and knowing that absolutely nobody there gives a shit about the nuances of his ethnic heritage, especially after he and his brother declared war on his city. Being respected as a cop killer while being reviled as a punk. Being trapped for the rest of his life in a pen with the worst sickos ever born, people who’ve raped and murdered little children, sadists who’ve killed and mutilated their victim’s bodies, unpredictably violent hardcases who lack the mental capacity to make a rational decision not to lash out this time.
That’s what he deserves.
Another Halocene Human
You can always count on Lindsay Graham and John McCain to insert themselves into every foreign policy issue the arises.
Remember in the Sound and the Fury where Faulkner condemns Bostonians for being prejudiced against Italian immigrants whereas his suicidal Southern gentleman hero identifies with a lost little girl because as a Southerner in the North he’s “furrin” too? (In a moment of humor, the little girl’s outraged father doesn’t see it that way.)
I wonder if he were alive today if he would swallow any of his words when the Bostonians (actually Cantabridgians, in the book, too) are saying “he’s our classmate–our friend–the last person you’d think who would do this” and the Hon. Southern Gentleman Senator from S.C. talks like he thinks the kid is a foreign combatant.
Another Halocene Human
@Fort Geek: And there was the guy who suicide bombed an IRS warehouse with his light plane.
Just a bit of fun, anyone could understand, blah blah.
That guy who shot up the Sikh temple was engaged in terrorism by any definition but much of the press tried to hem and haw that nobody could know what his motivation was.
jefft452
“a return to normalcy”
Warren G Harding won a 60/40 landslide over Wilson’s hand picked successor without even leaving his house to campaign
Wilson used WWI as an excuse to crack down on anybody he didn’t like
Wobblies trying to organize loggers into a union – Enemy agents!
The fledgling NAACP – They’re helping the Kaiser!
Suffragettes – Hurting the War Effort!
During the height of wartime hysteria, he got away with it, even renaming Sauerkraut to “Freedom Fries” oh, sorry, I meant “Liberty Cabbage”. But after the Armistice, he tried to continue ruling by emergency powers like some South American Junta
You will never get John Q Public to admit that he acted like a fool a few years ago, but OTOH, he gets tired of acting like a fool, and will turn on anyone who insists that he keep acting like a fool
“America’s present need is not heroics, but healing; not nostrums, but normalcy; not revolution, but restoration; not agitation, but adjustment; not surgery, but serenity; not the dramatic, but the dispassionate; not experiment, but equipoise” – Warren Harding
Tehanu
@Valdivia:
I hope Michael Douglas’ portrayal of Liberace makes her head essplode.
scuffletuffle
I love Lucy!
TR
George Carlin – “What do dogs do on their day off?; Can’t lie around – that’s their job!”
Jebediah
@PJ:
I’m not 100% certain, but I think she is (or at least has a significant other.)
ETA: But Lucy is single and looking!