Come for the politics, stay for the snark.

Do we throw up our hands or do we roll up our sleeves? (hint, door #2)

If you don’t believe freedom is for everybody, then the thing you love isn’t freedom, it is privilege.

Seems like a complicated subject, have you tried yelling at it?

You cannot shame the shameless.

Let me eat cake. The rest of you could stand to lose some weight, frankly.

I am pretty sure these ‘journalists’ were not always such a bootlicking sycophants.

It’s possible to be a liberal firebrand without crapping on the party.

I swear, each month of 2025 will have its own history degree.

We are builders in a constant struggle with destroyers. keep building.

Well, whatever it is, it’s better than being a Republican.

I’ve spoken to my cat about this, but it doesn’t seem to do any good.

Text STOP to opt out of updates on war plans.

Republicans firmly believe having an abortion is a very personal, very private decision between a woman and J.D. Vance.

Give the craziest people you know everything they want and hope they don’t ask for more? Great plan.

One way or another, he’s a liar.

You don’t get rid of your umbrella while it’s still raining.

She burned that motherfucker down, and I am so here for it. Thank you, Caroline Kennedy.

Only Democrats have agency, apparently.

“When somebody takes the time to draw up a playbook, they’re gonna use it.”

The unpunished coup was a training exercise.

These are not very smart people, and things got out of hand.

There are a lot more evil idiots than evil geniuses.

Putin must be throwing ketchup at the walls.

This blog will pay for itself.

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Today in “No, this is not the Onion” News

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It’s really not funny, I swear:

Chlorine gas sickened several people and forced the evacuation of thousands of guests from a suburban Chicago hotel early Sunday, including many dressed in cartoonish animal costumes for an annual furries convention who were ushered across the street to a convention centre that was hosting a dog show.

Nineteen people who became nauseous or dizzy were treated at local hospitals, and at least 18 were released shortly thereafter.

The source of the gas was apparently chlorine powder left in a 9th-floor stairwell at the Hyatt Regency O’Hare, according to the Rosemont Public Safety Department. Investigators believe the gas was created intentionally and are treating it as a criminal matter.

The hotel is hosting the 2014 Midwest FurFest convention, also called “Anthrocon,” where attendees celebrate animals that are anthropomorphic — meaning they’ve been given human characteristics — through art, literature and performance. Many of the attendees, who refer to themselves as “furries,” wore cartoonish animal outfits.

I have no idea what would motivate someone to do something like that.

I’m talking about releasing the gas.

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Broken Windows, Breaking People

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Matt Taibbi, in Rolling Stone, “The Police in America Are Becoming Illegitimate“:

… Law-enforcement resources are now distributed so unevenly, and justice is being administered with such brazen inconsistency, that people everywhere are going to start questioning the basic political authority of law enforcement. And they’re mostly going to be right to do it, and when they do, it’s going to create problems that will make the post-Ferguson unrest seem minor…

The ostensible goal of Broken Windows is to quickly and efficiently weed out people with guns or outstanding warrants. You flood neighborhoods with police, you stop people for anything and everything and demand to see IDs, and before long you’ve both amassed mountains of intelligence about who hangs with whom, and made it genuinely difficult for fugitives and gunwielders to walk around unmolested…

But the psychic impact of these policies on the massive pool of everyone else in the target neighborhoods is a rising sense of being seriously pissed off. They’re tired of being manhandled and searched once a week or more for riding bikes the wrong way down the sidewalk (about 25,000 summonses a year here in New York), smoking in the wrong spot, selling loosies, or just “obstructing pedestrian traffic,” a.k.a. walking while black.

This is exactly what you hear Eric Garner complaining about in the last moments of his life. “Every time you see me, you want to mess with me,” he says. “It stops today!”…

David Roth, at Deadspin, observing the other side of the battle lines:

… In variously amplified voices, from the first moments after Michael Brown’s killing but with a new peevish unanimity after the Rams’ hands-up entry in Week 13, the declaration has gone out: enough is enough. Not that enough police impunity was enough; or that enough unaccountable shield-thumping aspiring robocops rolling out of armored personnel carriers are enough; or that we’d at last gotten a bellyful of seeing fellow humans killed without reason or repercussion by the state. Decidedly not that.

This is more of a stern, parental Enough Is Enough, an exasperated bark from the barcalounger that the kids need to keep it down, last warning. Of all the scandals that these last weeks have forced upon us—interlaced and dreadful inevitabilities and tear gas; various brutalities written in violence and carefully expressed in press conferences; the procession of aggrieved and supremely sore winners, so salty-sour at the ungraciousness of the defeated—the thing about which both commenters and commentators have decided to be scandalized is the terrible inappropriateness, the inconsiderateness, of the people making all that noise…..

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This Year’s Biggest Asshole

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There is simply no question about this one:

Oh good, Chuck Johnson is on the case.

Johnson, the flamethrowing conservative blogger who’s spent the past six months crash landing into national news stories, published what he believes is the name of “Jackie,” the victim from the Rolling Stone UVA rape story. (Mediaite is not linking to his post.)

Jackie’s accounting of a gang rape by a UVA fraternity has come under increasing scrutiny, leading the magazine to retract it. On Sunday Johnson threatened to reveal more details about “Jackie” unless she admitted she fabricated the story:

This started with Malkin and her acolytes and conservatives cheered her on, was followed up by James O’Keefe and conservaties cheered his outfit on, and now has been taken to its logical conclusion. And that conclusion makes this world a very, very, ugly place.

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Three things to start with

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We talked about how some enterprising political party could put together an economic agenda that could include something more than the Earned Income Tax Credit and that agenda might include a discussion about why so many people who should be entitled to overtime pay don’t get any.

I started thinking about overtime pay because my middle son, who barely talks at all, went into a long, detailed explanation a couple of weeks ago on why he was working additional shifts and hours and EXACTLY what that means in terms of what he will make the next pay period. Overtime he understands. This is also true in my law practice. I can have someone in front of me who answers questions with “yes” or “no” but if we’re looking at their pay record they become very engaged and can tell me at length when and why they picked up the hours with the higher wage. They’re the expert. They are happy to explain it to me.

So overtime would be a good thing to talk about and another good thing to talk about might be why so many people who should be employees are being told that they are independent contractors.

Many workplace experts say a growing number of companies have maneuvered to cut costs by wrongly classifying regular employees as independent contractors, though they often are given desks, phone lines and assignments just like regular employees. Moreover, the experts say, workers have become more reluctant to challenge such practices, given the tough job market.
Companies that pass off employees as independent contractors avoid paying Social Security, Medicare and unemployment insurance taxes for those workers.
One federal study concluded that employers illegally passed off 3.4 million regular workers as contractors, while the Labor Department estimates that up to 30 percent of companies misclassify employees.

This is Richard Cordray in 2010. Cordray was the Ohio AG when this was written but is now the head of the CFPB. Cordray chose to portray this as a fairness issue with one group of employers playing by the rules and another group gaining an unfair advantage by flouting the rules. That’s one way to do it. I’m an employer and I don’t think it’s fair if I follow the rules and other employers don’t. I bet I’m not the only one who would see it that way.

“It’s a very significant problem,” said the attorney general, Richard Cordray. “Misclassification is bad for business, government and labor. Law-abiding businesses are in many ways the biggest fans of increased enforcement. Misclassifying can mean a 20 or 30 percent cost difference per worker.”

From the employee perspective, one might focus on this:

This is an even more striking comparison in 2014. The Social Security wage base is expected to increase from $113,700 for 2013 to $117,000 for 2014. That’s not the only thing to keep in mind, of course, but it does suggest that it can be shortsighted to turn down employee status. Apart from tax law, employee status carries a host of nondiscrimination laws, pension and benefits laws and wage and hour protections that apply to employees but not to independent contractors.

So minimum wage, overtime and real employees rather than misclassified “independent contractors”. Nearly everyone has a stake in that discussion and has some personal experience with it.

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Watching The Watchmen

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Christopher Epps was Mississippi’s corrections commissioner and head administrator for the state’s correctional system until recently.  He is an African-American in a deep red Southern state who achieved immense professional and personal respect from cops, lawyers, and prison officials across the country.  He had achieved prison reforms he advocated fiercely for through results and held the position he had for more than 12 years.

He is also a stark reminder that you can’t have corrupt cops without a corrupt prison system.

To prison reformers, Christopher Epps was a savior. Mississippi’s notorious prison system was overcrowded and inhumane when Epps took over as corrections commissioner in 2002. He reduced sentences for nonviolent offenders, shrunk the prison population, and took hundreds of inmates out of indefinite solitary confinement. Prison reformers called it the “Mississippi Miracle.”

By the time he turned 53, Epps was America’s longest-serving prison commissioner, the first in Mississippi’s history to be appointed by both Democratic and Republican governors. His peers thought so highly of him that he was elected president of two prison administrator professional associations: the American Corrections Association and the Association of State Correctional Administrators.

In short, Chris Epps knew prisons. He’d spent four decades working in the system. Starting as a guard in Mississippi’s oldest prison in 1982, he worked his way to the top of Mississippi’s Department of Corrections in just two decades. Over the next 12 years he became a star.

Prisoner’s rights advocates liked him. Correctional officers liked him. Defense lawyers liked him. Prosecutors liked him. Reporters liked him. Politicians liked him. There might not have been a more universally respected and admired public official in all of Mississippi than Chris Epps.

Then on Nov. 5, he quit his job abruptly, without saying why.

The next day the news broke: allegations of kickbacks for nearly $1 billion worth of private prison contracts. More than $1 million in bribes. A federal investigation, a federal indictment, “a major blow to the systemic and evasive corruption in our state government,” U.S. Attorney Harold Britain said on the steps of the federal courthouse.

Chris Epps knew prisons. Now he faces up to 368 years in one.

Who watches the watchmen, indeed.

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Well, That Would Be Interesting

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Things that make you say hrmmmm:

After facing criticism for his handling of the Ferguson grand jury investigation, St. Louis County Prosecutor Bob McCulloch may have his law license threatened.

A group headed by Dr. Christi Griffin with the Ethics Project will meet tonight to determine whether it will file an ethics complaint against McCulloch with the Office of Chief Disciplinary Counsel, an agency of the Missouri Supreme Court.

Griffin says initial reports from the Ferguson police chief that Darren Wilson did not know that Michael Brown was suspected in an earlier convenience store robbery were changed in testimony before the grand jury, and she believes that represents perjury.

“He is the one that is allowing that perjured testimony to be presented to the grand jury, and that is a direct violation of the Code of Professional Ethics,” she says.

Griffin also contends McCulloch did not give the grand jury proper instructions – another ethics violation.

I have an idea. They could run the ethics meeting just like he ran the Grand Jury. Just throw all the information out there and let them decide. And they could only interview the people who think he has done wrong. I mean, apparently that is how you run these sorts of things.

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