Longtime reader, spawner of a new generation of Agitator fans, and regular commenter Bronwyn Hartung writes:

The short: I’ve set up a collection for donations to help my mom and dad pay for the stem cell transplant she’ll be going through next month.

The long: My parents moved in with me and my husband shortly before my first son, Samuel, was born in 2007. They have since been the primary caregivers of my children while I and my husband work. Dixon joined us in October of 2008. In December of 2008, mom was diagnosed with Acute Myelogenous Leukemia, a very aggressive form of the disease. She was admitted to the hospital on December 11 for chemotherapy, and didn’t come home until mid-January of 2009. Since then, she’s gone through two additional rounds of chemotherapy, lost her hair and grown it back, suffered several bouts of shingles and colds and pneumonia because, although she is in remission (and has been for a year now), her system was so beaten down by the chemotherapy that she remains weakened. She is more than a shadow of her former self, but she is struggling nonetheless. She has been told that her cancer is all but guaranteed to relapse, and that her only chance is a preemptive strike via stem stem cell transplant.

Through the beauty that is the Bone Marrow Donor registry, a perfect match was found, and the donor is ready and willing to donate.

Here’s the problem. My parents have been unemployed for years now, and have private, individual insurance, which costs them approximately two arms, a leg and a few toes each year, and comes with a high deductible and upsettingly low maximum benefits. The cancer has eaten away at their savings and, with no income, they have no way to replenish.

This transplant is coming in the new year of course, which means mom has to start paying all over again, to the tune of at least $7000.

My own family is fighting a losing financial struggle, the details of which are dirty and not worth listing, but suffice to say that we cannot help. We can’t even afford outside childcare for my kids to give my dad a break from triple-caregiver duty.

Here enters my fundraising effort. I wouldn’t be doing a good job of it if I didn’t press into every nook and cranny of my network, and I consider TheAgitator to be a significant part of my online world.

The fund is completely separate from my personal accounts, and is not even linked to my mom’s accounts. PayPal insists on taking their cut, but I have pledged to make up the difference so that everyone’s donation is transferred, in full, to my mom. On the 15th of every month, I will transfer money from PayPal to an ING savings account, and will disburse funds to mom as her bills come in. She wants to provide a full accounting of where the donations go.

I ask if you would be willing to post my donation button on your blog, or share it via e-mail. We both know the power of the internet, and how even the smallest donations can add up to something substantial in a very short time, once that power is tapped.

(Note: The button above doesn’t seem to be working for some people. You can send directly to: bmt.fund@gmail.com)

This isn’t something I’ll be making a habit of, here. With 15-20K readers, we could be doing fundraisers every day. But Brownwyn has been a loyal reader for years, and I’m sure many of you are comment pals with her. She also sent me a separate email instead of posting this in the comments, which I appreciate. Use the button above if you’d like to help her out. I’ll be doing exactly that. If you have questions about how the account will operate, I’m sure she’d be happy to answer them in the comments. Please be civil.

Just for liability purposes, I should add here that I have no role the administration of the account whatsoever other than posting the message above, which I’m doing as a favor to a reader of whom I’ve become fond after exchanging email with her over the years.

“People will never know what’s in that bill until we pass it.”

–Obama Advisor David Axelrod, discussing health care over the weekend.

Harbor seal. Seward, Alaska.

Gene Weingarten—for my money the best writer in journalism—was recently called for jury duty. He served on a case in which a D.C. man was charged with selling $10 worth of heroin to an undercover police officer. Weingarten was sure the man was guilty. He was also sure the cops were lying. In the Washington Post, Weingarten explains that, consequently, he was prepared to exercise his right to jury nullification.

As a juror, I was skeptical. As a citizen, I was angry. For one thing, I was mad about the whole case — the bewildering amount of police time and taxpayer money spent on prosecuting one guy for selling $10 worth of narcotics. But as a juror, I felt it was not my business to object to that. I would have been willing to convict a defendant despite those misgivings.

The police testimony was another matter. As witnesses, the officers had been supremely self-assured, even cocky; clearly, they’d been through this hundreds of times. As they passed the jury before and after testimony, they greeted us winningly. One of them winked at us, almost imperceptibly. Their testimony was clear, concise, professional and, in my view, dishonest.

I believe they feel themselves to be warriors fighting the good fight against bad people who have the system stacked in their favor. I believe they knew they had the right guy and were willing to cheat a little to assure a conviction.

I believe they had the right guy, too. But the willingness to cheat, I think, is a poisonous corruption of a system designed to protect the innocent at the risk of occasionally letting the guilty walk free. It’s a good system, fundamental to freedom. I think a police officer willing to cheat is more dangerous than a two-bit drug peddler.

In his charge to the jury, the judge made it clear that if we found the defendant guilty beyond a reasonable doubt — which I had — it was our duty to convict. I was prepared to defy these instructions and acquit, in the interest of a greater good. There is actually a term for this: “jury nullification.” I was going to nullify.

Good for him. As it turns out, Weingarten was selected as an alternate. But it appears a good number of his fellow jurors felt the same way. The jury hung, with 10 in favor of acquittal, two in favor of conviction.

D.C. jurors also appear to have engaged in nullification in a gun case early last year.

This one gets filed with my favorite reader emails of all time:

I would just like to tell you that you should feel regretful about spreading the meme-virus of “the game” by means of your blog several years ago.  If by some miracle you have forgotten about this by now, let me remind you: the game is, when you think of the game, you lose.  The “losing” part of this turns out not to be conventional, like losing at a real game.  Rather, the losing is the distraction and annoyance you experience when this useless, stupid thought intrudes itself upon your consciousness.  For me, this happens every few months, for a few days or weeks at a time popping up every few hours.  During really bad times, the very thought of recall becomes infected by the game, and whenever I think about remembering anything I remember the game.  I don’t think I will ever permanently forget.

One of the worst parts of the game for me is my knowledge that I can never tell anybody about it unless I want to spite them.  Because I do not want to subject them to this virus of thought.  Why did you not have the same thought before you recklessly posted this on your blog?  I hope that you feel at least some pangs of conscience over this act.  You have done some really wonderful things through your journalism, and in many ways I admire you, but–and, please understand, this e-mail is NOT in jest–I wonder how you could have done such an ugly, inconsiderate thing.

Undoubtedly, writing this e-mail will make me think more often of the game for a little while.  That is unfortunate, but I have thought about writing this note many times.

Let Haitians come here. Here’s Michael A. Clemens in the Washington Post:

After the earthquake, the Obama administration quickly suspended the deportation of Haitians already residing illegally in the United States (a population estimated at 100,000 to 200,000) for 18 months. That’s a wise and welcome step, but an insufficient one. The United States has deported only around 1,000 Haitians per year recently, so a brief halt will make a limited difference in who lives where. Secretary of State Hillary Clinton emphasized Thursday that the new policy will not apply to Haitians seeking to come here now. “Our ordinary and regular immigration laws will apply going forward, which means that we are not going to be accepting into the United States Haitians who are attempting to make it to our shores. They will be interdicted. They will be repatriated.”

Yet Haitians willing to emigrate today would typically experience vast and immediate increases in their standard of living and security — a goal the administration no doubt supports. That is why so many have been willing to leave Haiti, braving ocean blockades and other risks, even before the quake. Between 1982 and 2009, the U.S. Coast Guard stopped 114,716 Haitians on their way to the United States, forcing them to go back, and such unsuccessful attempts must certainly have deterred an even larger number from even trying to leave. Last March, 51 percent of Haitians polled told Gallup that, given the opportunity, they would leave their country permanently…

Haiti already gets close to $2 billion per year — about a third of its income — in cash remittances from its citizens living abroad. That’s nearly 100 times as much as generous Americans have donated to Haiti via their cellphones. And unlike foreign aid, remittances go directly to families.

The earthquake in Haiti has laid bare the consequences of our restrictive immigration policies, particularly their effects on desperately poor people overseas. Countless Americans have been moved by the images and stories from Haiti, and have showed their solidarity and generosity with their wallets. A golden door visa to America, whether temporary or permanent, would have a larger and ultimately more lasting impact on the lives of the world’s poorest, in Haiti and beyond.

I’ve criticized John Stewart and The Daily Show for being fairly timid in the age of Obama. But this roasting of Keith Olbermann is pretty righteous. Easy, but righteous.

This is a six-month-old story, but I’m not sure why it didn’t make more noise when it happened. Last June, Democrats in the Oregon legislature attempted a nutty little bit of political chicanery. After some anti-tax groups and Oregon Republicans began agitating to put recently passed tax increases to a popular vote, Democrats tried to sneak the following language into the bill:

“A measure referred to the people by referendum petition may not be adopted unless it receives an affirmative majority of the total votes cast on the measure rejecting the measure. For purposes of this subsection, a measure is considered adopted if it is rejected by the people.”

Emphasis mine. Yep. You read that right. They attempted to pass a law defining yes as no, and no as yes. They pulled the language after local media got wind of the cunning plan.

(Via Walter Olson.)

The Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee put out a hilarious press release slagging a GOP congressional candidate for his ties to the “right wing extremist group,” the “CATO” [sic] Institute.

Hmm. By my reckoning, Cato’s to the left of Obama on the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan, all issues related to the drug war, indefinite detention, state secrets, government transparency, extraordinary rendition, “enhanced interrogation,” and government surveillance. Cato has also filed pro-defense amicus briefs on the opposite side of the Obama administration on cases ranging from the civil commitment of would-be sex offenders, to suing prosecutors who frame innocent people, to compensating attorneys who win civil rights lawsuits against the government, to ensuring property owners who lose their property in forfeiture cases get their day in court in a timely fashion. Cato was also a hell of a lot more active about holding the prior administration’s feet to the fire for its abuse of the Constitution than the spineless Democrats were.

If Cato is extreme right wing, where does that put Obama and the Democratic leadership?

I’m not even sure the issue the DCCC is complaining about here–free trade–has an easily demarcated left-right breakdown. I’m also not sure how it’s “right-wing” to advocate unilaterally bringing down trade barriers to allow mutual exchange of labor and goods with the people of other countries. You could (incorrectly) argue that it’s unwise, but there’s nothing necessarily right-wing about it. Even if the DCCC is claiming Cato is right-wing corporatist (as opposed to right-wing populist), that doesn’t really hold water either, given that the organization comes down on the opposite side of Obama and most congressional Democrats on corporate farm subsidies, R&D boondoggles, and the bailouts. Hell, Cato wants to eliminate the Department of Commerce! That’s extreme (and correct, IMHO), but it’s hardly right-wing.

But what do I know? In lefty land, I’m just a Republican who does drugs.

(Disclosure: I should have added when I put up this post that I worked for Cato for five years, and now have an unpaid Media Fellow position with the organization.)

(Migraine) + (Daisy pup up most of the night throwing up parts of the rubber tire toy she partially ate) + (deadlines) = minimal blogging.

Have lots to post, though. ‘Til then, consider this an open thread.

My crime column this week looks at Maricopa County, Arizona’s nutty chief prosecutor.

Richmond Times-Dispatch columnist Barton Hinkle gets this exactly right:

Scott Brown, the Massachusetts Republican who hopes to win Ted Kennedy’s old Senate seat in today’s special election, has said Abdulmutallab should be interrogated at Guantanamo, though he has not specifically stipulated that the underwear bomber should be waterboarded. But Brown, a military lawyer, has said something he knows, or should know, is not true — that waterboarding is not torture.

This is not a position gracefully held by the conservative end of the political spectrum — which remains, in domestic matters, highly skeptical about the government’s ability to do things right. For the past several months conservatives have been asking: Do we really want medical care handed over to the same people who brought you the IRS, the DMV, and the Post Office? Given the TSA’s recent confiscation of 3-year-old Josh Pitney’s Play-Doh and the fact that Mikey Hicks, an 8-year-old Cub Scout, is stuck on the no-fly list, perhaps a little cynicism about national security and black ops would be in order, too.

I’ve made this point about on criminal justice issues as well. Conservatives seem to understand public choice theory pretty well when they complain about out-of-control bureaucrats and heavy-handed regulators. But give a kid fresh out of high school a badge, a gun, a government paycheck, and an incredible amount of power, and suddenly we’re supposed unfailingly defer to his judgment.

All I know is what’s in the video. I’m sure we’ll be hearing more about this.

Old 20/20 episode. Via Walter Olson.

Commenting on Martha Coakley’s role in the Gerald Amirault case, M. LeBlanc at Bitch, Ph.D. writes:

So, what’s the moral status of advocating that someone who is likely innocent remain in prison? It’s a tough question. As far as I known, it’s something that’s routinely done by prosecutors everywhere…

I don’t have a major problem with prosecutors who lobby for people to serve more time in prison, whether it’s at the indictment, sentencing, or parole stage. My main concern is with systems that are overly deferential to prosecutors, that disadvantage defendants, and that make it extremely difficult for convicts to make the case for their own parole. I do think the criminal justice world would be a lot more just if more prosecutors declined to prosecute more often. Particularly in high-profile or embattled cases, where it seems that all evidence points to innocence, but the prosecutors insist on, for example, re-trying a case after a trial has been thrown out years after the fact by a judge. You see this all the time: prosecutors’ stubborn insistence that they’ve got the right guy in the face of overwhelming evidence.

Nevertheless, being a prosecutor who is stalwart when presented with evidence of innocence or prosecutorial misconduct is so common as to be banal. Which is why I think her lobbying for Amirault’s continued incarceration isn’t, in itself, enough to make her a morally suspect choice for senator…

A lot of the criticism of Coakley’s involvement in the Amirault case seems to center on the fact that she was clearly stepping up the pressure on the governor for her own political gain. Being seen as a law-and-order sort is almost uniformly a political advantage, no matter where you hold office. Hardly anyone ever fails to be elected because they were too hard on criminals. Take, for example, Joe Arpaio (extremely popular!) vs. Michael Dukakis (Willie Horton!). But it’s not really enough to blame politicians for exploiting this tendency of Americans to thirst for more and more justice-blood. And I’m not particularly moved by allegations that people are behaving in politicized ways. Justice is political, and the more we recognize and appreciate that, the better we can be honest with ourselves as a society and government about how we want to proceed.

I’m floored by this reaction. A leftist could make a respectable argument that even though Coakley was grievously out of bounds in the Amirault case the need for her vote on health care reform, filibuster prevention, and other issues is more important than the troubling decisions she made as a prosecutor. A leftist could also plausibly argue that when it comes to actually making criminal justice policy as a senator, Coakley isn’t likely to be any worse than her opponent, and therefore she deserves support because she’s more progressive on everything else.

But LeBlanc isn’t arguing either of those positions. She’s arguing something far more repugnant: She’s conceding that the Amirault case was a travesty of justice, and that Coakley was wrong for her extraordinary efforts to keep Gerald Amiralut in prison. But she’s then arguing that Coakley deserves a pass specifically for her actions in the Amirault case, anyway, because all prosecutors do it, and because it’s what Coakley had to do to accumulate political power and move on to higher office.

That is one hellaciously disturbing statement of values. LeBlanc is either arguing that she believes the accumulation of power and advancement of one’s career is more important than justice—more important than ensuring that innocent people don’t rot behind bars—or that she’s willing to give a pass to politicians who do.

Actually, not just a pass, but a promotion.

I’m also not convinced LeBlanc’s assumptions about the political pressures Coakley faced in the Amirault case are accurate. The parole board voted 5-0 to free Gerald Amirault in 1999. That came three years after Dorothy Rabinowtiz won her Pulitzer Prize for commentary for her columns exposing the case against the Amiraults and other sex abuse injustices. Recovered memory therapy; the leading, repeated, and persistent questioning of children; and the various other tactics prosecutors used in the sex abuse hysteria cases of the 1980s and early 1990s had been exposed and debunked. Coakley had plenty of political cover to do the right thing in this case.

LeBlanc is right that generally speaking, prosecutors fight like hell to protect convictions, even when there’s overwhelming evidence of innocence. But not all of them do. There are plenty of cases where prosecutors have dropped charges and freed the wrongly convicted. Dallas County District Attorney Craig Watkins is actively seeking out innocence cases, and he’s doing it in a jurisdiction that’s a hell of a lot more conservative than Middlesex, Massachusetts. Perhaps it’s too much to expect Coakley to have Watkins’ moral courage. But then, she isn’t being criticized for not going as far as someone like Watkins. She’s being criticized for going well above and beyond the call of duty the other way, including fighting outside the courtroom by orchestrating a PR campaign to persuade then-Gov. Jane Swift to keep Amirault in prison. Coakley wasn’t bowing to political pressure, she was creating it.

Broadly speaking, LeBlanc’s also right that “hardly anyone ever fails to be elected becasue they were too hard on criminals.” But I don’t know of a single incident in which a prosecutor suffered bad publicity or was attacked politically for failing to fight the release of an innocent person. “Tough on crime” positions on parole, sentencing, the death penalty, and so on are policy positions on which reasonable people can disagree. Obstinacy in the face of overwhelming evidence of someone’s innocence is a moral failing, regardless of motivation.

Moreover, Coakley’s also being criticized for failing to bring charges against a man who sexually assaulted his young niece with a curling iron. Coakley’s successor put him away for two life terms. Why would Coakley—so aware of the political pressure to be tough on crime, so protective of her own ambition for higher office, and who carefully cultivated an image for herself as a defender of children—not throw the book at a man accused of raping a toddler with a curling iron? I’m just guessing here, but it may have something to do with the fact that Keith Winfield was also a police officer. That suggests a blind allegiance to law enforcement that we should find troubling in a U.S. Senator who will be making and voting on criminal justice policy.

There’s a broader point here, too. Even the left—even the far left—seems to find it difficult to hold bad prosecutors accountable, at least when they happen to be Democrats. So long as prosecutors are rewarded for aggressiveness and never punished when they overstep, we’ll continue to see the very sort of behavior LeBlanc claims to find troubling.

It’s worth noting that the person who actually convicted the Amiraults was Coakley’s predecessor in the Middlesex County DA’s office, Scott Harshbarger. How was Harshbarger punished for his mistakes? For starters, like Coakley, he went on to become Massachusetts Attorney General. In 1998, well after the injustice in the Amirault case was well known both in and out of Massachusetts, he was the Democratic nominee for governor. He was later hired to head up the liberal interest group Common Cause. Of course, there’s also Janet Reno, who went on to become U.S. attorney general, despite her own history of dubious sex abuse convictions.

I’m glad LeBlanc believes “the criminal justice world would be a lot more just if more prosecutors declined to prosecute more often,” and that she’s troubled by “prosecutors’ stubborn insistence that they’ve got the right guy in the face of overwhelming evidence.” But frankly, she’s part of the problem. If even a leftist blogger like LeBlanc is unwilling to hold overly aggressive prosecutors accountable, is willing to overlook a grave injustices so long as they’re committed out of political ambition, and can later support the same bad actors’ election to higher office, how does she expect the criminal justice system’s flawed incentive structure to change?

Jack Shafer:

Why the goddamn hell is Barack Obama writing the cover story for next week’s Newsweek? He doesn’t know anything about Haiti outside of what his aides may have told him. He won’t even write it! If the piece is worth publishing, Newsweek should give the byline to its true author.