Five much-hyped public safety laws that failed.
This is sort of amusing. Salon writer Andrew Leonard concedes the unintended consequences of excessive regulation and bad lawmaking, walks right up to the edge of embracing libertarianism, then shrugs it off with, “And that might be one of the most distressing results of decades of being told that government is the problem — we hear a story like Hayes’, and think despondently, you know, they were right, rather than squaring our shoulders and reapplying ourselves to the wheel.” Yeah. Keep reapplying yourself to that wheel. If we can just get the right people in charge….
Zero tolerance follies: Fairfax, Virginia students faces two-week suspension, possible expulsion for taking doctor-prescribed, parent-approved birth control bill during lunch.
Eleven-year-old girl charged with rape. Bizarre as this sounds, I remember an old episode of the show Webster where Webster’s parents caught him and a little girl naked in the bedroom acting out what Webster had accidentally walked in on his adoptive parents doing a few nights earlier. It was all very embarrassing, everyone laughed, and the two sets of parents talked it out–first to one another, then to the kids. Guess these days, they’d frog-march Webster and his friend out in handcuffs on statutory rape charges.
Stuart Varney says the Obama administration is refusing to allow banks to pay back TARP money so the federal government can maintain control over them. It’s also pretty despicable that the Bush administration would threaten a bank with a public audit unless it accepted TARP money the bank didn’t want.
And while I’m on ragging on Obama, Glenn Greenwald says the DOJ’s latest executive immunity claims far outreach similar powers the Bush administration tried to claim. Good on Greenwald for keeping the pressure on Obama with this stuff.
Ha. “The economy is so bad the Mafia has started laying off judges.”
Red Cross report calls treatment of CIA detainees “inhuman.”
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on Tuesday, April 7th, 2009 at 11:58 am by Radley Balko
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TheAgitator.com
The punishment for being high (actually under the influence of a narcotic) is less than popping a birth control pill on campus. Another demonstration that public schools are failing miserably.
Something went terribly wrong in Congress because I can now only find members of Congress that voted against TARP. I mean…I know all of their constituents told them to vote against it, but how the heck did it actually pass?
from the birth control story-
‘While the student awaits a decision on whether she will be expelled, she said she has learned one major lesson: It’s important “to read the fine print.”‘
one of these days, she might finally realize that there’s no way you can know all the rules and regulations hoisted on us by bureaucrats. I can’t help but wonder if this is a big deal (at least partially) because it clashes with abstinence based sex ed…
You managed to find somebody from Fox News publishing an unsourced article in the Wall Street Journal who doesn’t like Obama? I’m stunned.
If that idiot is going to champion a particular bank’s desire to pay back the money, how about telling us which bank it is so that we might be able to gather more information about what exactly is going on? Because as soon as he says, “I’m going to keep some things in this story fuzzy,” it seems more likely that he’s manipulating the facts to produce results that he wants.
You can find better TARP criticism than this nonsense.
In these day’s of ‘zero tolerance’ the old saying, ignorance of the law is no excuse,has lost it’s value.Ever law is being broadened to include normal ,harmless people going about their lives.Even childhood behavior many of us remember are now crimes,some felonies.
Children playing doctor=RAPE!
Girl taking birth control=DANGEROUS DRUG ABUSER!
People running our country=JERRY SPRINGER SHOW LOSERS!
There is no hope for us. If our society was an organism, it would be deemed to be lacking the necessary survival characteristics for the continuance of the species.
Embarrassing.
My favorite line from the cracked.com article:
And that is why we have Obama.
#7–Well, I wouldn’t call the Bush Administration a large group, per se….
Cracked is blocked at my work. Can anybody briefly say what laws they quoted?
From the 11 year=old charged with rape story:
“Hinkle said she has seen children as young as 10 or 11 having consensual sex.”
Maybe Hinkle is the one who should be charged with something then.
She acts as if this is something new, a disturbing trend, if you will. Which is bullshit. THe same things have been happening since day one. But no one used to call the police if their kid was playing touch-peepee with the neighbor’s kid. Who the fuck thinks that this will lead to the best outcome for an 11 year-old?
Salvo # 8 – Speed limits, Three Strikes, Amber Alert, Megan’s Law and Zero Tolerance School Policies.
It’d be nice if one could be a critic of Obama and not immediately be suspected of supporting Bush. But, Americans have lowered the bar to the delight of the JOINT partnership that is the Democrat/Republican 4-Year Rotational Rape/Pillage Scheme.
“If we can just get the right people in charge….”
Good Tsar. Evil councilor!
Zeb,
I’m right with you man. These kids aren’t even old enough to comprehend sex and the authorities are treating them like rapists as if they even know what that is. This little girl has just learned that consenting sex is a crime.
These laws involving children and sex are beyond insane. I would dare say that they are worse than drug laws since they will do psychological damage to children and the damage will carry over into their adult life. If we really want to protect children, we need to be protected from stupid laws that put them in jail for innocent behavior. People who honetly think they are doing the right thing by charging this little girl with rape are evil as shit. Absolutely evil in every sense of the word.
I was thinking that there were likely no shortage of eager young men willing to keep the birth-control pill popping teen company during her suspension, but then I read this…
… and naturally, by extension, realized that birth-control equals murder. So the Catholic Church was right all along.
There you go spouting off some common sense! It has nothing to do with considering the best outcome FOR THE CHILD. It has everything to do with considering the best outcome FOR THE STATE, which is total domination and destruction of your life in the interest of putting fear of the State into you, and thus hopefully turning one into a pliant slave. It may turn one into a cognizant patriot that has nothing but disdain for the State, but statistically speaking maybe 1/100 would turn out that way.
The link to the laws that don’t work is blocked by my company’s filter as “Tasteless” content. That’s just makes me smile.
Ugh – note to read before posting – “That just makes me smile.”
Judge Dismisses Charges Against Stevens, Orders Contempt Probe
http://www.foxnews.com/politics/2009/04/07/judge-expected-toss-stevens-conviction/
“‘In nearly 25 years on the bench, I’ve never seen anything approaching the mishandling and misconduct that I’ve seen in this case,’ U.S. District Judge Emmet Sullivan said”
I guess he’s either a) lying or b) really hasn’t paid attention to any prosecutors.
Wow, an article from cracked.com makes more sense and has more credibility than most of the stuff published by our major media outlets. So, is anyone going to attack cracked.com for not sticking strictly to comedy?
From the first link on public safety laws:
First he says
“Because, and this surprised the hell out of us, people aren’t completely retarded.”
and then just a few sentances later he says
“Few things are more dangerously retarded than people in large groups.”
I suppose these two statements don’t technically conflict, but that still made me look twice. And I firmly in the second camp myself.
#11 Boyd
Absolutley. This has become a plus/minus, for/against type of society.
if you:
oppose Obama you must be for Bush
favor drug legalization you must be a worthless pothead
favor DUI law reform you must advocate drinking and driving
Not to mention a multitude of things that make you evil because you are not “for the children.”
#10 Thanks.
Yup. Those are all stupid laws.
Did anyone catch that today is the 76th Anniversary of the repeal of Prohibition?
Here’s to more repeals…
RE: the 11 YO charged with rape:
At the bottom of the article we find this:
“Editor’s note: Due to the sensitive nature of this story, we are invoking Rule 7 of Rules of Engagement at http://www.zanesvilletimesrecorder.com/rules and not allowing reader comments.”
Imagine that.
Can’t have anyone pointing out the fuckwittery of the ‘authorities’, now, can we?
I’m all for these guys continuing to apply themselves to the wheel. I’d just like to recommend they increase the speed at which that wheel is spinning, and make it a grinding wheel.
#4
So, if the author works for foxnews that automatically makes him an untrustworthy source for a fact that’s fairly benign, at least in context of the rest of the story? Out of curiousity, do you hold the same view of Radleys work? Would it make it more palatable of a story if it was published on Politico?
http://www.politico.com/news/stories/0409/20871.html
The basic argument for the Varney article was:
I’m just trying to figure out if you don’t believe the story because you don’t buy the argument, or because you just out of hand dismiss a story by a guy who appears on Foxnews.
Stuart Varney is another example of whats wrong with the right wing in this country. The only fact is that the administration doesn’t want the TARP money back, from that he extrapolates the conjecture that the reason they don’t want the money is because they want control. Maybe he is right, but there is no evidence of this, and it is MUCH MORE likely that the reason they won’t take the money back is the stated one: The underlying purpose of TARP is to re-invigorate the credit markets, not save the banks. Taking back the money does nothing to re-invigorate the credit markets – these banks should be lending the money out, not sitting on it.
It does not seem to have entered the mind of anyone in this story that perhaps more children aren’t “committing sex crimes,” but doing what kids will do and have done forever and being charged. I guess this must be the usual mixture of zero-tolerance, puritanical, bad laws, and pure unthinking bureaucracy. Blame the children, now made victims, and don’t bother to speak out and say this is just stupid.
Quality agitation today, Radley. Very agitating.
The Hinkle lady in the 11-year old “rapist” story very fucked in the head but her attitude is common almost the point of uniformity in this country.
FTA: “These kids are watching this stuff on television, they see it on the computers, they are seeing their parent or guardians in relationships where more physical or sexual stuff is being shown then used to be or even should be,” Ritchason said. “Young kids are being exposed to things today through technology and lifestyles that they really shouldn’t be.”
They shouldn’t be? Well, maybe. But what are you going to do about it? The typical position that most people will jump to ranges from mandatory content blockers on TVs for the regular dimwits, G-rated-only entertainment for the super-extra dimwits, and then some not-all-that-dim people might say that it’s up to parents to control what their kids watch/see.
The problem is that nobody is acknowledging REALITY, which is that kids WILL see sexual content on TV. Hinkle said she’s seen an increase in the last 15 years, which if it is true (not taking that for granted) would correspond with the rise of highly sexualized primetime TV.
So basically we’re putting sexual content on TV and “hoping” kids don’t see it. The problem is that we try to act like sex DOESN’T EXIST with children below a certain age. They will find out that it does, more often than not, and they need to be equipped with at least some BASIC information to keep them from fucking up. And if you do try to teach elementary school children even the most basic idea of what sexual contact is and what its purposes are and aren’t, you get bullshit like the “mandatory sex ed for kindergartners” ad McCain ran last year.
Hinkle wishes she could just wave a magic wand and make these “technologies and lifestyles” disappear, and even though she knows it’s impossible to get rid of them, she still chooses the blame the technology rather than the imposition of archaic Puritanical values on a society immersed in said technology.
#29 Mel
If my trivia is correct, the first couple ever shown in bed together on prime time TV were Fred and Wilma Flintstone. I blame them for all of this pervertion today.
I guess I’ll have to retract that brick of righteousness I just threw through Ed O’Neill’s window, then.
@29 — …but what about the banks that were forced to take TARP money? If the purpose of TARP money is to “reinvigorate credit markets” why should banks be forced to take it or even renege on previously accepted funds. If a bank wants to sit out the current market, they should be allowed to. Regardless of the ultimate goals of the Administration, if a bank doesn’t want to be a pawn they shouldn’t be forced to be a pawn.
The fact of the matter is, Geithner (and Obama) has, on multiple occasions, talked a game of authoritarianism when it comes to federally-backed companies (…and perhaps “others”). If a bank doesn’t want to play by those rules, they shouldn’t be forced to.
Whether or not Varney was correct in how far his assertions went is one thing, but the Administration has demonstrated a desire to control these institutions.
I’d be careful here. I thought the same thing initially, and blogged about it at Outside the Beltway. Then I did more research and became less convinced that this is a widespread issue. Maybe in a specific case this happened and for possibly valid reasons. But, at least 5 banks have returned TARP money and several more were awaiting approval.