Yes, it’s back. By popular demand. And by “popular,” I mean two people asked if I’d be doing it this year. I don’t think I’m going to have time to write as much as I did last year. But I’ll at least put up an open thread for the Idolites to discuss, and for the haters to bitch about how Idol is proof that American culture has gone down the crapper.

That out of the way, let’s get to opening night. Awful, wasn’t it? I thought the first three performers were surprisingly decent. Then it all went to hell.

Danny Gokey saved the night with a capper that blew everyone away, as anyone who watched the early rounds might have expected. I wish he hadn’t sung Mariah Carey. If there’s one thing I hate worse than post 90s R&B, it’s adult contemporary. Carey bring the worst of both. Still, Gokey’s a good six lengths ahead of everyone else who sang tonight. The guy’s also really likable, and brings a compelling story. Let’s put him among the five or so favorites right now, along with Adam Lambert, Jasmine Murray, Matt Giraud, and Scott MacIntyre.

The three who should advance from tonight’s 12? I’d say Gokey, Alexis Grace, and Ricky Braddy. I also liked Jackie Tohn’s take on Elvis, though her mannerisms can grate at times. Grace was something of a surprise, too, wasn’t she? White girl’s got some soul. Anyone other than those four would be a crime. The rest ranged from passable to horrifyingly bad.

Jamar Rogers was robbed!

Surprise! Those grand promises politicians and team owners made to taxpayers in their pitches for publicly-funded sports stadiums? They aren’t panning out.

In Indianapolis, city and state officials are considering tax increases because brand-new Lucas Oil Field, home of the Colts (who got a sweetheart deal), is $25 million in the red, and projected to hit $45 million in coming years. Meanwhile, the Pacers are expected to exercise an option to renegotiate the terms of their lease on 10-year-old Conseco Fieldhouse. The team says their current business model “isn’t viable.” They pay one dollar per year to the city to rent the facility.

In D.C., the promised economic renaissance in the city’s Southeast corridor that would be spurred by the $693 million-dollar, publicly-funded Nationals Stadium hasn’t materialized either, even in a city largely immune to broader economic downturns. Office space around the park remains largely vacant.

But even if state governments eventually wise up to these ripoffs, there’s always the feds. Just as things were looking gloomy for New Jersey Nets owner Bruce Ratner’s plan to build a $4.2 billion, Frank Gehry-designed, mixed-use facility and basketball stadium in Brooklyn, Ratner found new hope: He has hired former Sen. Al D’Amato’s lobbying firm to procure a cut of the stimulus package President Obama signed into law today.

I received this email months ago, but for various reasons hadn’t had the time to follow up. Yesterday, I was finally able to confirm the details of at least the specific raid described below. I haven’t yet been able to find the other examples in Carrol County, Maryland mentioned in the email, but if anyone out there knows of other cases, please let me know. This is outrageous. It ought to put the fear of God into the parents of teenagers. It used to be that if your kid got picked up for possessing pot, they called you down to the police station, and you drug your kid home by the collar. Now, they send the SWAT team to tear down the door and terrorize the entire family at gunpoint.

For now, I’m omitting the family’s name and other identifying information. I haven’t been able to get back in touch with the woman who sent the email, but I was able to confirm the details of her case in a conversation with the family’s attorney.

I am a 45 year old mother of 3 boys ages 12, 18 and 22. I reside inn Carroll County, MD. I have been a federal employee for 17 years. My husband has been employed…with a local firm for over 27 years. Although my husband had some very minor law infractions back in the early 1980′s (traffic violations), since that time he has never been arrested for any criminal violation. I myself have never had any type of criminal violation and have had one traffic violation (driving 10 miles over) in over 20 years of driving.

On October 3, 2006 my oldest son was involved in a traffic stop and arrested on a misdemeanor marijuana charge. Just about a year later on September 30, 2007 my son was again stopped and arrested for a misdemeanor marijuana violation. I was present in court on January 4, 2008 when he plead guilty and paid a $350 fine. At about 3:30 a.m.on January 10, 2008 approximately 16 Swat Team Members of the Maryland State Police entered our home with force with M-16s at the ready. Please note that we are the only county in Maryland that does not have a county police department. While the M-16s were drawn they handcuffed four of us (my oldest son has been living with his girlfriend for sometime now) this includes my 12 year old son. After reviewing the search warrant I was horrified to realize these “hut-hut”men came in with M-16s in the middle of the night because my son had been arrested for a misdemeanor marijuana charge. The affidavit filed for the search warrant stated that” it had been the officer’s experience that persons who are arrested with illegal drugs continued to use, abuse and/or distribute illegal drugs”. This was the probable cause. The affidavit also indicated that other than my oldest son, no person living in our home had any prior criminal history.

I would like to provide you with more details but the bottom line is that they did find small amount of marijuana in our downstairs basement and confiscated a shotgun that my husband had since he was 18 years old. The gun has never even been fired. The two of us, my husband and myself, were taken to the local barracks and held for over 8 hours without being read our rights or being granted a phone call.

We have since learned that over 100 of these warrants have been issued by the judges here in Carroll County during the past year. Apparently if your son or daughter is arrested with even a trace of marijuana in Carroll County, they will follow up and issue a warrant based on one officer’s belief that the person will abuse the drug again. We have now heard horror stories of other families just like ours that have also been traumatized in much the same way….

The state’s attorney has contacted our attorney….and indicated they will be dropping all charges against me and they would be willing to drop all charges against my husband if he agreed to an out patient type drug program. Please understand that acting as a father first my husband told the cops that anything they found in our home was his regardless of where it was found. We have decided not to agree to this because we believe this is no longer about us. This is about the next family that is terrorized in this way. This is about an innocent person that could be killed the next time for a misdemeanor pot charge. We go over and over what could have happened. We feel blessed that it didn’t. But we feel a duty to make sure our feelings are known.

I hope you look into what is going on here in Carroll County. I’m beginning to believe that we live in a police state.

The attorney who represented the family told me yesterday that the husband eventually plead guilty to possession of marijuana, though the marijuana was a trace amount, and likely belonged to the son who had moved out. He was given what’s called a “probation before judgment,” which means the charge will be cleared from his record if he stays clean for three years. The state also dropped the ridiculous gun charge.

I cringe when I hear the phrase “police state,” because it’s so often overused. But to be honest, I’m not sure how I’d argue to this woman that she doesn’t live in one. Two misdemeanor pot charges against a kid who no longer lives at home, and they send the paramilitary squad barreling into his parents’ house in the middle of the night.

Pinellas County, Florida:

A Pinellas County sheriff’s deputy knocked on Lee Ann Hutts’ door Tuesday night and her dog, Smoke, started barking incessantly.

Within moments, the deputy pulled out a gun and shot Smoke in the head.

That’s about all Hutts and the deputy agree on.

The deputy says Smoke attacked him, and he shot in self-defense.

Hutts said Smoke was barking, but never attacked the deputy. An eyewitness backs Hutts’ account.

[...]

Hutts, 32, and her neighbor Tina Morrow said deputies came to their mobile home park on 28th Street N investigating a burglary report. Unable to find the right home, a deputy went to Hutts’ door.

Hutts, who takes care of a disabled sister-in-law and lives with her fiance and roommate in her mobile home, said her 9-year-old chow-pit bull mix was barking when she opened the door but stopped when she told him to be quiet. She tried to put him in another room but he followed her out. Smoke kept barking but never left her side, she said.

The deputy was agitated, she said, and kicked her dog. Then he shot him.

“I damn near passed out,” Hutts said. “I had blood all over me, I was screaming.”

The deputy left, she said.

Pinellas sheriff’s spokeswoman Marianne Pasha offered a different account based on an incident report from Sgt. Robert McGuire and a supplemental report from a backup deputy.

McGuire, a 24-year veteran, wrote that when he knocked on Hutts’ door he could hear a dog barking. When Hutts answered, he asked her to secure the dog. The dog appeared to charge him, so he shooed the dog with his foot.

“He believed the dog was going to bite him,” Pasha said, so he shot him in the head.

The deputy was unaware that Smoke died. Pasha asked a reporter how the dog was doing and was told he had died.

The cop wasn’t even bitten. He shot the thing in the head because “he believed the dog was going to bite him.” That’s apparently all it takes. The cop’s belief that he’s going to be beaten. Even in the presence of another witness who tells a different story. Even in your own home, on your own property, when you’ve done nothing wrong. They can come into your home, kill your dog, and leave. And there’s not a damned thing you can do about it.

Another week, another wrong-door raid lawsuit.

The suit, filed by attorney Mike Raulston, says on Feb. 13, 2008, the Bradys were at home when the officers suddenly came in, though they did not have any kind of warrant. The suit does not say where the house is located.

It says Officer Tinney forced Tarran Brady to the floor while holding a loaded gun to her head and threatening her.

The suit says Officer Fuller pointed his loaded gun at Randy Brady and ordered him to also get down. But Mr. Brady refused to do so and asked if they had a warrant.

It says the couple was held at gunpoint while the home was searched, placing them, their children, their spouses, nephews, nieces and grandchildren “in mortal fear.”

The suit says, the officers left “after realizing they had made a mistake.”

This story is looking more and more suspicious.

Also, be sure to set your DVR for March 13, when John Stossel will do a special for ABC News called “Bullshit in America.” The special will be based on six videos from Reason.tv.

So we were told that the state of the economy is so dire that members of Congress could only have 11 hours to read the stimulus bill before voting on it.

Now that it passed, Obama’s going to take a long weekend before signing it into law.

We had a great time in Philly last weekend. Thanks for all of your suggestions.

As I already mentioned, the Kimmel Center is an amazing venue. We had cheesesteak at Tony Luke’s, hung out (and got my shoes shined) at the Reading Terminal, and somehow managed to get free tickets to the auto show while we were there. Best dinner we had in Philly was at a little Italian-ish BYOB bistro called Mercato. We spent some time in Old City, too. We didn’t get to the art museum or to the Italian Market. I also wanted to take a tour of the city’s murals, but they only offer those in warm weather. Next time. Best part of the trip was the tour of Eastern State Penitentiary, a beautiful, gothic monstrosity of urban decay that’s an amateur photography buff’s dream. I have a second set of photos just from there that I’ll put up later.

In the meantime, click the photo below for more shots of Philadelphia.

Right here.

From a New York Times article on the Neanderthal genome:

Possessing the Neanderthal genome raises the possibility of bringing Neanderthals back to life. Dr. George Church, a leading genome researcher at the Harvard Medical School, said Thursday that a Neanderthal could be brought to life with present technology for about $30 million.

I don’t mean to get all Leon Kass here, but this feels creepy. I’d be the first to sign up for, say, a woolly mammoth rides. But while it would certainly be interesting to see and interact with one, bringing back a Neanderthal raises some ethical questions.

I think there’s a variation of the uncanny valley at play, here. Neanderthals are awfully close to humans. Keeping one in a cage or lab for our amusement or understanding just doesn’t sound right.

What rights would Neanderthal Man have? Certainly more than a woolly mammoth, right? Would he simply become the property of the lab that cloned him? Would they be free to perform whatever tests on him they pleased? How human would a clone of an extinct member of the hominina tribe need to be to have the same rights as the rest of us?

Even assuming he would have the same rights as anyone else, is it ethical to bring him back if he’ll be the only member of his species alive? Seems like a pretty horrible existence. Would he be allowed to mate with human beings (I’m just assuming he’d have groupies). Would we let him end his life if he wanted to? What if he had no interest in allowing himself to be used to better our understanding of Neanderthals?

Most importantly, would they let him go to law school?

Just wanted to say thanks to those who rattled the tip jar over the last couple of weeks.

It’s much appreciated. And needed!

As for the tease:  If all goes to plan, I’ll have a big story hitting next week. It involves another case starring two of our favorite forensics charlatans. But this time, I’ve found smoking-gun evidence of their fraud.

The online version should go up in the next week. A longer version will be the cover story for the April issue of reason.

I’ve received several apologies from various office holders of the Republican Liberty Caucus over last week’s debacle. That’s much appreciated, though to be honest, I think it’s probably better for them that they apologized than for me. I wasn’t offended.  I found the whole thing hilarious. But it’s good to know that the RLC does still retain some love for the “L” part of the organization’s name.

As it turns out, “Puma” is a wingnut named Gene Koprowski (not to be confused with the tech journalist by the same name). His RLC posting privileges have been suspended. If you’re up for it, you can browse his barely intelligible posts over at Free Republic, where he goes by the strange handle, “obamaisandrogynous.” Here’s the only article I could find that mentions him, from Human Events.

The text of the apologies I’ve received over the last few days:

Radley,

I had refrained from sending my regrets for the postings at the RLCIL.org blog. Now that the matter is resolved and the offender has been restrained, I can assure you that we will take all the steps necessary to ensure that these kind of derogatory and inflammatory posts will be prevented in the future.

The RLC has always tried to maintain a warm and respectful relationship with every element of the libertarian movement. We have no ill will toward anyone pursuing liberty, even if our strategic approaches differ.

Best wishes to you and thank you for your patience. I guess … Happy Valentine’s Day ! ;o)

Bill Westmiller
RLC National Chairman

Dear Mr. Balko,

I am National Secretary of the Republican Liberty Caucus.  Let me first say that I must apologize to you on behalf of Gene Koprowski, who was the individual posting about you under a pseudonym at the RLCIL.org blog.  Nothing said by Mr. Koprowski is representative of the Republican Liberty Caucus.

Please know that nothing he wrote was sanctioned by the Republican Liberty Caucus.  In fact, the Republican Liberty Caucus of Illinois is not a chartered affiliate of our national organization. Late last year, I was contacted by Gene Koprowski, who expressed interest in working toward the process of getting our Illinois affiliate active.  At his request — and with hopes that he would be a leader for libertarian Republicans in Illinois (which, unfortunately, has proven not to be the case) – we gave him the ability to post at the RLCIL.org blog.

His posting privileges have recently been suspended as a result of what he wrote about you and others in the blog.

Sincerely,
Aaron Biterman
Secretary, RLC

Mr. Balko,

On behalf of RLC-IL let me offer my apologies for the former postings on our website, they have been removed.

Unfortunately I was immersed in local activities during the November election and again for our upcoming April elections and was asked to turn over administration of the site to someone I didn’t know.  Once I was alerted to what was going on I removed the material.

Again, I apologize for any remarks made, they WERE NOT representative of RLC Illinois, just the person who made the posting.

Best regards,
W. Guy Finley
Co-Coordinator
Republican Liberty Caucus – Ilinois

As Chairman of the Republican Liberty Caucus of Georgia and a fan of your site, I want to apologize for those nut-jobs in Illinois.

There is no official chartered chapter of the RLC in Illinois, just one rogue individual spewing stupidity in a desperate plea for attention. The loser doesn’t even have the guts to use his real name. I’m told we’d  shut them down if the national organization had control of the domain.

Keep up the good work.

Chris Farris

Again, all much-appreciated. And it’s good to know that Koprowski’s nuttery isn’t representative of the RLC.

Earlier this week, Jacob Sullum noted that the Richland County, South Carolina Sheriff’s Department went out and arrested eight people on marijuana charges allegedly associated with the now-famous bong photo of Olympic swimmer Michael Phelps.

Attorneys for two of those eight are now speaking out about how they were arrested.

“He’s sitting there on Saturday, and 12 cops kick in the door with guns drawn, search the house, and find 5, maybe 6 grams of pot,” Harpootlian said about his client, who was arrested in the first raid at the Wells Point Drive home near Ballentine.

“They never asked him, ‘Who sold you the pot?’” Harpootlian continued. “They were asking, ‘Were you at the party with Michael Phelps? Did you see him using marijuana?’ It was all about Michael Phelps.”

The charges resulted from Saturday’s raids and are not connected to the November party that Phelps attended.

Harpootlian, the former top prosecutor for Richland and Kershaw counties, and McCulloch contend Richland County Sheriff Leon Lott is conducting an overzealous investigation of their clients to try to get evidence against Phelps.

“The sheriff’s department is deploying resources they are normally reserving for major drug dealers and major criminals,” said McCulloch, also a former prosecutor…

Harpootlian said his client, whom he noted is on leave from USC, is “scared” because of the enormous publicity surrounding Phelps.

“He’s being treated more harshly than any kid anywhere in the country,” Harpootlian said. “The only reefer madness is being done at the sheriff’s department.”

According to Harpootlian and McCulloch, police seized four laptop computers, a desktop computer, a computer storage drive and a cell phone, mostly to search for incriminating photos of Phelps.

I guess they can at least be thankful Sheriff Leon Lott didn’t send his tank.

Another glorious moment in America’s drug war.

Rep. Jeff Flake (R-Ariz.), posting on Twitter:

“11 hours to review a 1000+ page spending bill that spends nearly a trillion dollars? This is not Congress’ finest hour.”

Looks like Obama will also again be breaking his pledge to post every bill on the web for the public to review for five days before signing it. And this on the biggest and (by his measure) most important bill he’s likely to sign in his presidency.

The Wall Street Journal reports that three politically conservative former heads of state in Latin America have declared the U.S.-led drug war on that continent a failure that is “putting the region’s fragile democratic institutions at risk and corrupting ‘judicial systems, governments, the political system and especially the police forces.’”

But it’s U.S. officials’ reaction that’s mind-blowing.

[Former U.S. Drug Czar John] Walters said increased violence in border areas of Mexico was partly a result of criminal organizations compensating for reduced income from the supply of drugs by turning to other activities, such as people-smuggling, and continuing to fight over turf.

U.S. law-enforcement officials — as well as some of their counterparts in Mexico — say the explosion in violence indicates progress in the war on drugs as organizations under pressure are clashing.

“If the drug effort were failing there would be no violence,” a senior U.S. official said Wednesday. There is violence “because these guys are flailing. We’re taking these guys out. The worst thing you could do is stop now.”

Awfully big of Walters to so boldly sacrifice Mexican lives in order make it marginally more difficult for Americans to get high.

Question: The fact that this skit was included in Dmitri Martin’s new sketch series on Comedy Central indicates…

(a) wrong-door raids have become so ubiquitous that the concept has entered the popular culture, or…

(b) Martin and his producers have no idea how often this sort of thing happens, and therefore found the idea so absurd that it’s funny.

(Via Rogier Van Bakel)

Nate Silver writes on the stimulus:

I’m sorry, but somewhere between 99.9% and 99.999999% of us are severely underqualified to be making policy recommendations on this particular issue. And I’m certainly in the majority on this one. My anecdotal experience for the past several months has been that the more someone knows about the economy, the more they know (or at least are willing to admit to) what they don’t know. Anyone who is professing with certainty that this or that will work — nationalizing the banks, for instance — is an idiot.

He’s right. But then he adds:

What I’m asking you to do is to clear the playing field. This is neither the time nor the place for mass movements — this is the time for expert opinion. Once the experts (and I’m not one of them) have reached some kind of a consensus about what the best course of action is (and they haven’t yet), then figure out who is impeding that action for political or other disingenuous reasons and tackle them — do whatever you can to remove them from the playing field. But we’re not at that stage yet.

What exactly is “expert opinion,” and who gets to pick the experts? Tim Geithner? Paul Krugman? How about the 200+ economists, including three Nobel Prize winners, Cato rounded up who oppose the stimulus?

Silver is right to humbly acknowledge that he doesn’t have the answers. He’s wrong to assume anyone else does. It’s the height of arrogance to assume, as this administration and the one before it have, that you can manage a dynamic, infinitely complicated $13 trillion economy by plucking a trillion from some sectors, handing them over to others, because you’re smart enough to pull all the right levers. And it seems rather naive to assume that even if there were enormous-brained “experts” capable of pulling that off, that those experts would just happen to be the same people who also have the political acumen to ascend to the few political positions in the country powerful enough to make it happen.  And it’s even more naive to assume that even if that could happen, the correct remedy to our economic woes could survive the legislative process—and all the comporomise, corruption, and special interest lobbying that comes with it—intact.

One other thing.  Silver writes:

At the end of the day, a great deal of the debate between liberals and conservatives is about how to apportion wealth.

Sadly, he’s spot-on here. It’s too bad the debate has long ceased being about whether the government should apportion wealth.

Longtime reader Bronwyn Ramey told me months about the Consumer Product Safety Improvement Act, a honking bit of reactionary, poorly-thought out regulation that threatens to put all but the large toy and children’s clothing makers out of business. I’ve meant to do something on it since, but because it’s not part of my regular beat, I haven’t had the time to bone up on the issue as much as I’d need to in order to write about it intelligently.

Unfortunately, with just a few exceptions, no one else has been writing about it, either.  Which means too few people knew about the law before it took effect yesterday (it passed the House almost unanimously—only Ron Paul voted against it).  One exception is legal blogger Walter Olson, who has owned this story for weeks. Check out his Forbes piece for a good overview, then browse his website to see just how sweeping and far-reaching the legislation really is.

The gist is that the new regs impose debilitating new testing requirements on anyone who makes, markets, or sells toys to to children. The bill is a hysteria-filled reaction to last year’s China lead scare, and its reach is really pretty incredible. Thrift stores, libraries, independent toymakers, people who hand-make toys and clothes to sell online, and on down the line are all going to be affected. It’s going to put thousands of people out of business.  Just what the economy needs.

As is the case with most new regulations, the one group that won’t have any problem complying will be the giant toy companies—the very companies responsible for the lead scare that inspired the legislation in the first place. In fact, as the D.C. Examiner’s Tim Carney points out, the toy industry giants bulked up their presence in Washington in order to support the new regulations:

Mattel—whose leaded toys kicked off this whole scare—beefed up its lobbying effort when the legislation appeared. The company’s lobbying budget, which had been steady at $120,000 per year from 2002 through 2006 ballooned to $540,000 in 2007 and $650,000 in 2008—a 442% increase from two years earlier.

In late August 2007, Mattel, the largest toymaker in the world, hired a new lobbying firm, Johnson, Madigan, Peck, Boland & Stewart, to lobby on the bill. One of their lobbyists on this issue was Sheila Murphy, recently the legislative director for Sen. Amy Klobuchar, a Democratic member of the Commerce Committee’s Consumer Affairs subcommittee. Klobuchar became a cosponsor of the bill in late September 2007.

Hasbro, the world’s No. 2 toymaker, had never had a Washington lobbyist, according to federal lobbying filings, before October 2007, when the company hired the Duberstein Group, headed by Ken Dubertstein, the former White House Chief of Staff under Ronald Reagan. Since then, Hasbro has spent $500,000 on lobbying.

But these industry giants weren’t resisting regulation—they were embracing it. Carter Keithley, president of the Toy Industry Association—of whom Mattel is the biggest member—told this columnist “we were early proponents of adopting mandatory laws to require toy testing.”

Supporters of a massive regulatory state are often the same people who lament the ubiquity of big corporate chains—what you might call the Gap-ification of America. I’ve written a bit about this before, but what they don’t seem to realize is that not only are big corporations more likely than smaller businesses to be able to afford to comply with new regulations, they’re well aware of this fact, and so they’re often the ones pushing the regulations behind the scenes.