Society forgives a lot. Don King killed two people — yes, he really did kill one person, then decide this wasn’t enough so he later killed another — before he pulled his life together and entered that most honorable of professions: boxing promotion. (And in fairness, in the first case he was trying to protect one of his illegal gambling houses and in the second the guy owed him money.) Likewise, Mike Tyson served time for rape, but now most people tend to ignore that in favor of the nobler moments from his life, like when he sang along to “In the Air Tonight” in The Hangover or beat the hell out of Don King. Perhaps the only crime you can’t redeem yourself from over time is child abuse. And this may be why there doesn’t seem to be a measured response to it: it is an offense that seems either to get ignored completely or for which everyone connected in any way must be destroyed immediately, disregarding the possibility that they might actually be innocent.

Penn State has pursued both of these methods. It’s well-known that upon the initial accusations against former Penn State defensive coordinator Jerry Sandusky, virtually nothing was done. It’s also now been revealed that Penn State’s Board of Trustees, upon learning about the criminal investigation of Sandusky, sprang into action and…elected to continue the policy of doing nothing, as it had worked so very well up to that point. Indeed, it was only when the media storm hit with Sandusky’s arrest that they did something, firing Joe Paterno immediately. Then, just to show they meant business, they denied JoePa’s 80-something wife access to a Penn State pool. (Really.) Finally, they issued a memorandum to Penn State security guards reading: “Should you come upon Joe Paterno’s dog, kick it in the face. Go, Nittany Lions!”

I made up the last one. But whatever his moral failings, Joe Paterno has not been convicted of a crime. And he will apparently not be convicted of a crime, because he has not been charged with a crime, which is the first step in a conviction. And, for that matter, Jerry Sandusky hasn’t been convicted of a crime himself yet by an actual court, no matter how shifty he seems on camera. (And he does seem amazingly shifty: if a man could be tried purely on body language, Jerry would have started a life sentence weeks ago. Not to mention he gave his autobiography the there-is-surely-no-horrific-double-meaning-hidden-in-this title Touched: The Jerry Sandusky Story — this is a man itching for prison time.)

I’m pretty confident something criminal happened, but I was certain those Duke lacrosse players were guilty of rape. (In case you have a short memory, they were not.) Prosecutors makes mistakes: sometimes honestly, sometimes as a result of deciding a conviction’s a conviction, even if you’re prosecuting someone innocent. (And remember, when you prosecute the innocent, you violate everything America stands for and, as a fun bonus, enable the guilty to get away with it.) Former New Orleans D.A. Harry Connick Sr. is a particular expert at this (read about one case here, in which his office willfully hid a blood sample proving a man’s innocence even as he sat on death row) — next time you listen to Harry Jr. crooning, ask yourself if the song sounds the same knowing his old man is Don King, only minus the hair and the high moral standards.

And in an age when the internet makes it possible for anyone to be part of the media but there’s less and less money for actual reporting so “news coverage” means “Here’s some crap I saw on a blog that I cut and pasted onto my blog”, it’s important to remember that justice can move too fast as well as too slow.

It is possible that we will discover more damning things about Joe Paterno during the trial of Jerry Sandusky. It is possible this scandal will not just taint his legacy, but overshadow it completely. But Joe Paterno, Jerry Sandusky, the Syracuse assistant basketball coach similarly accused of sexual abuse (who, since being fired, has already had one accuser admit he lied about the whole thing), those Duke lacrosse players, and every other person, be they innocent or guilty, deserves due process. Before dispensing justice, Penn State’s Board of Trustees had a brief meeting behind closed doors, one they neglected to inform Paterno about until they phoned to tell him he was fired.

The firing may turn out to be justified — indeed, it very likely will — but based on the fact they knew and didn’t care about Sandusky until the press showed up, it’s hard to think anything other than these were panicky little people trying to overcompensate for their own failings. (I wonder if anyone in the secret meeting said, “Hey gang, we’re firing Paterno for knowing and not doing enough…when we knew and didn’t do anything. Shouldn’t we resign or something?” I bet that guy got a beating.)

Having buried Paterno, Penn State proceeded to pee on his grave. After a drawn-out search, Penn State announced the hiring of a new head coach: Bill O’Brien. It is, to put it mildly, an interesting choice. O’Brien has no head coaching experience. His main qualification is that he’s the offensive coordinator for the New England Patriots. Indeed, he is the third New England offensive coordinator to be snatched up for a head coaching job since 2004. The first two were Charlie Weis and Josh McDaniels.

Despite Weis going into the college ranks with Notre Dame and McDaniels staying in the pros with the Denver Broncos, they turned out to have a similar coaching style, one that might best be described as arrogant off the field, incompetent on it. They burned enough bridges they might have lost their jobs even if they’d managed to win games. Fortunately, they did not: Weis led Notre Dame through the worst stretch in Fightin’ Irish history with a 16-21 record over his final three seasons (all the while bragging about how he’d blow some minds once he installed his “pro-style offense”) and McDaniels went 11-19 before he got the axe midway thru year two after it was revealed he had concealed that his team had been violating league rules by illegally taping opponents’ practices…all the while the New England Patriots continued to score at will, suggesting coaching is easier when you have Tom Brady throwing the ball and Bill Belichick looking over your shoulder.

Understandably, Penn State looked at this rich tradition of Patriot assistants and said, “Wait, there’s a third one of these guys? We’re booking a seat on this gravy train!”

Of course, O’Brien does have one big thing working in his factor: he has no connection to Penn State. (And, by extension, no link to Joe Paterno, since he’d been the head coach there since 1966.) Over the decades there have been hundreds and hundreds of players (and dozens and dozens of assistants) in no way connected with any of the abuse allegations who came to Penn State, won games, and graduated. (This may sound a small achievement, but any fan of college sports can tell you, the athlete who plays at an elite level and still consistently finds time for class is a rare beast.) Many of these alumni are outraged that Penn State now considers them at best irrelevant and at worst toxic when no one, not even Jerry Sandusky (who, it’s worth noting, stopped being an official part of the program in 1999), has yet been convicted.

I don’t blame them.

I should note I have decidedly mixed feelings about Joe Paterno. I think there’s much to admire about the man (how many coaches would use their own money to build their school a library?). On the other hand, he’s buds with Republican presidential candidate (and former U.S. Senator from Pennsylvania) Rick Santorum, which for me is only a few steps above pulling a Rumsfeld and shaking hands with Saddam Hussein. Santorum is a devout Catholic and views his faith as a license to be cruelly judgmental of others, notably homosexuals; Paterno is also Catholic and presumably agrees with this, based on how supportive he’s been of the Santorum clan. (Religious disclosure: I also come from Catholic stock. And yes, I feel about this much the same way I feel about Joe Paterno.) Of course, the irony is that while attacking the wickedness of others, acts of true evil were occurring closer to home, with child abuse rampant within their beloved Catholic Church and, it appears, in the Penn State family as well.

(Side note: During John Paul II’s time as pope, child abuse in the Church was ubiquitous all over the globe. When confronted with these offenses, the Church tended to look the other way or, on a number of occasions, actively protected the priests, sometimes transferring them to other parishes where they could safely continue to molest children. For presiding over all this, John Paul II is — you guessed it — going to be rushed to sainthood in record-shattering time, with Pope Benedict making a point of waiving the five-year waiting period normally required after a candidate’s death. And suddenly being an Episcopalian seems less ridiculous…)

That said, the fact remains that in 1996, a security guard named Richard Jewell was named as the top suspect during the Olympic Park bombing at the 1996 Summer Olympics in Atlanta, as the FBI speculated that he placed the bomb himself so he could play hero. The media jumped on the lead and discovered it made perfect sense: after all, this guy was fat. And didn’t he live with his mom or something? Airtight case! Except it turned out he was not only innocent, but by spotting the suspicious package he had indeed saved dozens and dozens of lives. (Incidentally, Richard Jewell died at 44 of natural causes — sure the three months of constant public humiliation had no impact on this at all.)

And for a long time many people believed Ted Bundy to be innocent because no one so charming and handsome could be a serial killer.

The point is, the justice system works best when it moves steadily. The next time a scandal like this breaks, let’s hope the victims’ accusations are acted upon immediately, but also — no matter how heinous the crime — that everyone takes enough time that someone’s not only punished, but that we get the right person.

In conclusion, I suspect Joe Paterno got what he ultimately will deserve. But he got it much too soon and I think there are a lot of other people — looking at you, Penn State Board of Trustees — who warrant a much harsher fate.

Final musing: By his own account, Mike McQueary discovered Jerry Sandusky in the shower with an underage boy and was convinced there had been sexual contact between them. McQueary was already 27 at the time; he stands 6’4” and weighs over 200 pounds. Sandusky was approaching 60 and considerably smaller than that. McQueary responded to this situation by leaving both Sandusky and the boy, then telling Paterno about it THE NEXT DAY.

This still makes no sense to me.

Maybe we shouldn’t have the end of the year during the holidays. Yes, it is one of the holidays itself but maybe they are too concentrated here on the long tail of the annum. Legislative and other periods link to the end of the calendar year causing deadlines to loom just when offices are empty or emptying. Once phones rang unanswered from Thanksgiving Wednesday to January 2nd. Now they roll over to voice. Which is more cruel? There are a few folks still on the job although they eye the clock nervously and jostle their keys. They are trying to “get things done” and whatever that means it apparently means the same thing two days before Christmas as it means on any other day at the Capitol and the White House.

The tangle is deep and tight. If you know your players and their CVs, the sides seem oddly inverted. President Obama and his Democrats propose an extension of a cut in taxes that is scheduled to expire, or “sunset” come the New Year. This is to benefit the “middle class” through tax relief. The mindless, toothless Republicans running riot in the House are opposed. Only their opposition comes in the form of a yet longer extension of said tax cut. Say what? This is no simple INversion, more like a PERversion of sense and consistency that is opaque to anyone spending less effort to understand it than a crossword might require, which is nearly everyone. This inky maelstrom has been decades in the making.

To begin, the tax is no tax. Except when it is. The Federal Insurance Contribution Act’s deduction from your paycheck is not a tax. It is a compulsory insurance premium, sound familiar? By law these funds are NOT supposed to fund general government operations but whatever is not paid in bennies and overhead is to be kept in a trust; that famous Lock Box. But what is that? It turns out the Lock Box is just another ledger entry invested in secure, long-term instruments of impeccable provenance; Federal Treasury Bills which, do what? Fund general government operations. And these are not ordinary T-bills but special non-convertible bonds that can’t be bought or sold, only redeemed. On their schedule. So there is a largish dollop of The Full Faith and Credit of the United States of America on deposit but you aren’t going to be cashing it in. Whatever Social Security’s convoluted liabilities finally amount to is  tomorrow’s mystery. In the here and now the money taken out of your check under FICA is not a tax when Republicans complain that large portions of the nation pay no taxes (they mean income taxes). It is a tax when Democrats want to give “refundable tax credits”; direct cash payments not otherwise plausible. In this both parties have been on both sides. Ephemera like this is much of what occupies the time of your Legislators and it is relevant only to demonstrate how thin and threadbare the whole controversy is. But if it isn’t a tax, it is certainly a levy, the eccentricities of which we have discussed before.

Let’s go ahead and call it a tax cut. How did our players get on the wrong sides of the stage for this one? While it was incorrect and impolite to say that the $80 per month this would add to the average take-home is trivial to the taxpayer it is trivial as a tax event. This sort of tax cut or a concomitant tax hike that is transitory, tiny or otherwise co-opted was practiced first by Mike Huckabee (later Mitt Romney) to generate a functional answer when he was accused of being profligate as a Governor. “Well, I cut taxes seventeen thousand times!” The “times” are immaterial, it is the total relief that matters economically and mathematically but whatever. The precedent is well set and the media refs have already called this an Obama ball so let them take it. If Boner’s benchwarmers want to get back on the board they need a couple new plays.

It may be infuriatingly mysterious how Boner’s proposal for a 12 month extension of the FICA cut rather than 2 months STILL marks the Right out as the pillager of paychecks but the rejoinder suggests iteself; if 2% is good, why isn’t 4% better? Or 8%? Heck, we can make it a 100% tax cut while only raising it to 12.4%! Certainly there is some leverage available. This would be consistent with that old, sadly improper, stereotype about Republicans never having met a tax cut they didn’t like. Indeed that is the trap Boner has fallen into. The fulcrum that has allowed it to be turned into a figure-four neck break is that reliable Third Rail of politics, Social Security.

Reagan first made his famous rejoinder regarding Medicare but the point applies to all modern entitlements. Mr. Carter denounced Reagan for wanting to de-fund and defenestrate that particular program…. “There you go again,” was the response. Rather, Reagan would “fix” Medicare and also Social Security by making them “solvent”, how? Increased taxes, of course! Although we know they are NOT taxes; and it gets more complicated from there. The once New Dealer, Reagan, indeed seemed to have no animus towards Social Security or Medicare, certainly none based on small-government idealism or Constitutional principles. For him and all his heirs these programs actually WERE what they are not so cunningly disguised as, namely insurance. So their off-book accounting was proper and continues to this day. Social Security and Medicare related liabilities are not considered part of the national debt now over $15t and many other commitments of the government to future payments are likewise obscured in folds of deception.

This was the great aim and result of Social Security; to lay a tax disguised as something else in order to fund a government expansion in all realms and all directions. It is an invisible tax hiding in plain sight. It is chicanery and diversion of this sort that the Republicans should make it their vocation to unearth and denounce but if even Reagan would not do so (not from PR concerns but from affinity for the policies) then who will? No one we’ve seen except perhaps Ron Paul and even he stops short of exorcism as a solution. It might be easier for folks who get elected for a living to speak the simple truth that our entitlements are unjust and unConstitutional when it is more obvious that they are unworkable and unbearable. Any reduction in Social Security funding hastens this day, I am therefore in favor of the payroll tax cut extension. I am for its expansion. But everyone who traffics in greenbacks should fear, even if they do not oppose, its expiration.

Another inversion of our stereotypical positions is this pernicious “sunset clause” tripping us again. Back when the payroll tax cut was passed as part of the stimulus legislation the opposition (though meager) was from the Democrats and from the Left. This was a threat to the Social Security system, clearly. The only way it was palatable was if, like with the insane and devastating income tax cuts of the hellish Bush, the cut was temporary. VERY temporary, as in some point after the recession is clearly over. December 31st ’11 seemed about right. Now all gaze on the New Year with horror absent the extension. Why? Because without ammendment, current law would require every employer in the nation to withhold 6.2% for FICA rather than the 4.2% they have been doing, also they are on the hook for their own half of the Social Security “premium” but we always figure the draw on BOTH as dunning the employee, because it does. So what we are really looking for January 1st (which has now been moved to March 1st) is an immediate tax hike. If you pay only payroll taxes on net (as half of taxpayers do) this will amount to an instant increase in your tax burden of 50%. You are going from an 8.2% rate to 12.2%. Horror, indeed.

But this is a tiny horror compared to the Mother of All Sunsets, which will see the end of the Bush tax rates. Recall, these were to expire at the end of 2010. This would have meant, likewise, a near 50% tax hike for many payers and a 100% increase, if you want to look at it that way, for those many low earners who paid NO income taxes under the Bush rates but some 15% or so under the pre-Bush terms. In any case EVERYONE’S income taxes would go up substantially, materially and irrevocably since the sunset clause is part of current law requiring Congressional approval and a Presidential signature for any alteration. That is now a crisis scheduled for December 31st 2012.

Does that sound familiar? It is to that date that all the bigs claim they want the payroll tax sunset removed. Yes, even for Reid and Obama, the two-month timetable was only a stopgap. They also claim to want the full year but this kind of reverse-flip play is commendable when exercised by Democrats, so we commend them That doesn’t change the fact that now we are scheduled for a double-sunset; come this time next year we will be facing de jur tax increases of a truly mind-boggling size and suddenness; for the hundredaire as much as the millionaire. But surely by that time this recession will be over. Growth will be around 8%. Unemployment with a five-handle and we’ll still have 3% bonds. So, come on 2012!

If only we can get through a couple months. This is in question because, although media types guffawed at Boner’s complaint that the two-month extension is not even practically doable, that was not the Speaker’s contention. Rather he was repeating public statements from experts in the payroll industry. But what do they know? They say that five-odd working days, at the height of the vacation season, is not enough time to re-write and then test the software to keep the withholding from being withheld. A year would have been possible since they could continue on with today’s practice. The haples Eric Cantor’s counter-offer of a 3 month extension was also more pragmatic for the check-writers, since a quarter is at least a timeframe comprehendable to business actions. But no. The President has got what he asked for. And whatever the result we are all going to be back again in 64 days. Happy, merry. Joyous, prosperous.

As we withstand the informational deluge from Penn State, we are faced with the possibility of another case of institutional child abuse, in which a whole group of people, a whole structure, contributed to the horrific abuse of children. It is clear that we are just not getting it.

We need a new lens to view the sexual abuse of children. We collectively profess to know it’s wrong to rape a child. But not only is child abuse common, people in powerful positions protect abusers. Maybe some day we’ll crack the psychiatric pathology of the pervert/pedophile, but understanding those who would protect them? They must only be able to do so because we have come far short of articulating and understanding the gravity and effect of these crimes. Perhaps if the effects were clearer, more broadly conceived, then we can unleash the full wrath of our terrible societal engines against all such transgressors.

We haven’t done this already because, sadly enough, we apparently need more than emotion to govern our laws and policies about sexual abuse of children. Let’s stop looking at abuse just through dewy-eyed sentimentality about children. Instead, look at abuse in terms of the hard, cold logic of practical societal survival: Children we don’t protect grow up. Those ice-cold stares from prisoners were once the hopeful glimpses of little kids. Those kids often never had a chance, yet their experiences affect our world in immeasurable ways.

I would like some researchers to conduct a massive meta-study of all the screwed-up people. All the dictators and molesters and thieves and murderers and wife-beaters. How many of these people were abused as children and never shook that trauma, and in that peculiar, agonizing human tendency, rather than see their experience as the last thing they would ever do, instead perpetuate the same kind of horrors on another? We know intuitively this is long-standing human behavior, but we seem to need more proof.

Victims can and do overcome when they have the supportive structures in place. But when they don’t or can’t move past the terrible theft of their childhood, they create a cascade of expensive woe and destruction. As Philadelphia Inquirer public health blogger Jonathan Purtle writes, people who suffer abuse are prone to many overall health problems, problems that affect nearly every aspect of our culture.

That anyone would mull over the consequences (trying to save their own pathetic skins?) of reporting a molesting priest or rapist coach shows, as Purtle says, how “few people really understand the devastating consequences of sexual abuse.” Your silence is a crime against humanity, only worsened by your effort to hide such abuse and protect any pervert.

If we thought about it like that, maybe people would get out the torches and pitchforks. However much I enjoy Scott Stein’s occasional column about people who should be killed on this site, I have trouble ideologically supporting the death penalty because of the obvious bureaucratic problems with state-administered executions. But if we viewed the scope and effect of abuse more broadly and accurately, we could certainly create better, more severe laws punishing abusers and anyone who sustains them.

We need better laws driven by a clearer mindset about the perpetuation of destruction child abuse breeds, laws that put in action the full force of the U.S. judicial machine and that help inculcate stronger collective values about abuse. I could get behind a political platform about this, framed around the simple idea that sexually abused children grow up. Then what? In Shakespeare’s The Tragedy of Coriolanus, the brutal title character’s son, Young Martius, is raised in the same bloodthirsty way as his father. The child ponders a threat, saying, “A shall not tread on me./I’ll run away till I am bigger, but then I’ll fight.” Children will some day have an effect on the world. Do we want that effect to be revenge?

We share feelings of vengeance about the candy-toting scumbag trolling for child victims. But we need legal clarity about a person in a position of authority and trust with children who uses that position to find victims; that person deserves a codified level of societal wrath akin to nothing else. And if you protect those people, from walking away from a child rape to helping a molester move to a new position, you are an accomplice in creating a potential cascade of societal damage that may resonate for generations. You will be punished.

The monsters who molest children will always be the focus of our disgust. But if we see this as a crime against humanity that has unique resonant effects, maybe then anyone who protects them will receive the same level of disgust — and thus no one will ever hide this awful crime, regardless of the consequences of disclosure.

Remarks by The Speaker:

Americans, there is no doubt that we are in dire economic straits. It is sometimes hard to believe that everyone up here at the Capitol, although yes, we still have OUR jobs, for the moment, we all, everyone who sits in these Chambers, all our hearts go out to the nation. That is Republican and Democrat alike. I assume that both of the TEA Party and the Occupy Wall Street movements and of every citizen in between and outside of these groups that represent a very great fraction of the public. Of course this extends to the President as well. I say this to both Right and Left and Center and whatever politics you can imagine, there is no one up here trying to destroy or harm this country. Not me. Not Barney Frank. Not Senator Reid nor McConnell is trying to harm the economy either from spurious actions or malign neglect and most assuredly, no, neither is the President. What we have are different interpretations, different views of what is possible, what is wise and what is legal. Yes, these are wildly divergent views; these are certainly antagonistic views but what we try to avoid, with mixed success, is being antagonistic with each other and above all, antagonistic to the Constitution.

Now, as the Constitution demands and as the Constitutionalists foresaw, the Legislature and Executive are locked in a stalemate. After two years of having wide majorities in both Houses, the President and his party now have to contend with opposition here in the House and a much thinner majority in the Senate. Believe me, no one up here on Capitol Hill needs to be reminded that this is the result of last year’s elections; The Shellacking, the President described it so eloquently as he is well known to do. But those of us who claim to revere and know the Constitution, and that is all of us, must recall and recognize that the President also won his historic election as did the Democrats who sit in whatever office. Weeks ago, the President sent us a bill, the Jobs Bill as we know it, or the American Jobs Act, the AJA. It is about a half a trillion dollar appropriation. The details are on the White House and House websites for all to see. There is nothing extraordinary in this. What IS extraordinary and a bone of contention for many, many House members, is the President’s public demand that his legislation be passed immediately and without amendment.

This has reminded some members of the previous Speaker’s statement regarding the medical insurance reforms that we would have to “pass it to find out what is in it.” I do not share that view, frankly. This jobs legislation is about a hundred and fifty pages and there are clearly some elements in line with broadly interpreted “conservatism” and we thank the President for that accomodation. We certainly do know what’s in it but here our views diverge with those of the President yet conform to those of our voters at home. It is our view that this bill would be disastrous for the current economy, something we can ill afford. I and a majority in this House today contend that, if passed exactly as the President has drafted it, this legislation will collapse employment, growth and federal revnues while absorbing something like half of the debt limit increase negotiated just a few weeks ago that was supposed to carry us through November of 2012, or at least to the first Tuesday. That is my view, that is the collective view of Republicans with no exceptions that have come to my attention.

The circumstances are however, quite complicated. Yes, we in the House hold a majority. We can and have passed spending and fiscal legislation like the Ryan Bill and others on similar issues. They are uniformly stopped in the Senate. That is fine, Senator Reid and his majority have the right and the duty to stop actions that are, in their view, damaging or wrong or, above all, unConstitutional. Likewise Senator Reid’s invocation of the so-called “nuclear option”, changing the rules on cloture to carve out some power from the minority to the majority, this is looked on with horror, and I am against it, but Senator Reid is acting within the Constitution although well outside of modern precedent. As the President said of himself not long ago, he won. Harry Reid won his re-election, and congratulations to him. His party retained their majority, though barely, and they are free to exercise their powers as they see most fit. In the same regard, the President’s repeated demands that there be immediate passage of his bill, unamended and unexamined through the routine committee process is not unConstitutional in the least. Like any Executive in history or any American citizen, he can demand and cajole and lobby and protest and drum and speak and stamp his feet if he wants to. It is we here in the House who have the Constitutional duty to act, not ignoring any input from any legitimate source. As practical politicians we also have the duty to admit the difference between what is possible and what is not.

Our view in the House majority and just in the conservative half of the nation is that these proposed policies are poisonous, above all to job growth, and the most recent proof of that is in the utter, open, inarguable failure of the various stimulus bills and related spending for which we appropriated some 1.6t dollars. No, the President and his party do not see it that way. The opinion of the nation is basically split. On the Right the opinion is that the President’s jobs bill amounts to an audacious bluff intended to give him a soundbite for next year’s campaign. Again, I diverge from that opinion. The President makes bold positive claims for this bill. The country at large is at best neutral. But there is no doubt that the Democratic Senate and Democratic President can and will prevent anything we would consider helpful; not because they don’t want to be helpful, let me re-stress that, but because they believe the policies, basically known as Reaganite or Supply-side economics, will be damaging; increasing the national debt when we want to cut it and harming growth. I don’t pretend to understand how they justify these claims, the history on this is not inscrutable. Not to me. But they have made their case either to their States at large or to the national electorate who have spoken in no uncertain terms.

And all the while, the nation declines. No one disputes this. Do something! the nation cries out, quite rightly, yet our politics is paralyzed. I propose the following shock treatment: I will guarantee, and the Whip will be giving out numbers as soon as we are done here, on my office as Speaker I will guarantee a number of Republican votes for the President’s bill, unamended, unfettered by committee schedules and such things. That number will depend on the House Democrats. It might be news to the general public that it is not just Republicans slowing the bill’s progress in the House. Democrats likewise wish to propose amendments but that is not part of the current narrative. That may change because what I pledge as Speaker is a number of Republican votes sufficient for a bare majority if the Democrats can deliver ninety percent of their own votes.

This proposal is itself unprecedented as far as we can tell, but it is well within the bounds of the Constitution. As you will hear and understand, this decision is not especially popular within my own party and especially the TEA Party faction in the House. But the House Republicans are MY problem. The House Democrats are the Minority Leader’s problem and also, of course, the Presidents. I urge my friends and colleagues in the Senate, Harry Reid and Mitch McConnell, to come to a similar concordance and we shall, as the President requests at every high school and coffee house in the nation, get this bill back to him to sign. Then the electorate gets one full year to examine these policies in action and decide whether they want more of the same or to reverse course. I and my party, naturally, would like to reverse course now. We would have liked a different course in ’08 and a great many who are newly elected, not myself, would have prefered we changed course from the fiscal policies of the Bush years. But we can’t go back. We can only go forward. The President has offered to lead. We now offer to follow to an extent that not even a President’s own party is often expected to do but we do so once, on this issue, and we attach one simple condition to our offer: it expires on October 31st.

So, Troy Davis is dead.

Strapped to a gurney in Georgia’s death chamber, Troy Davis lifted his head and declared one last time that he did not kill police officer Mark MacPhail. Just a few feet away behind a glass window, MacPhail’s son and brother watched in silence.

And, despite his claim that he is innocent of a crime for which there is said to be no physical evidence, it seems the witnesses were enough to make it stick. The victim’s mother says:

[Davis has] been telling himself [he's innocent] for 22 years. You know how it is, he can talk himself into anything (same source as above).

As anyone who reads my stuff with any regularity knows, I’m not a current events guy, except when current events raise larger philosophical questions about life. I can’t stay away from this one.

I once had a conversation about life and death with an exceedingly intelligent friend of mine. Our discussion over issues of the value of life ended when I said: “Let’s face one thing: killing is fundamentally wrong.” He said, “I don’t necessarily think so.” How do you go on arguing? People will sometimes have irreconcilable differences in opinion. So I won’t go that direction here. 

But, once, my father told me a story about a young man in his neighborhood, in South Philadelphia in the 1950′s. It seems the guy accidentally killed another young man by playing “Russian Roulette” with a .38 revolver. He’d spin the cylinder (one bullet in the gun out of the six chambers), point it at the heads of people around him and pull the trigger. The gun went off and he blew his friend’s mind all over the wallpaper. 

My father attended the trial and the judge told the accidental killer that he was giving him the most stringent penalty possible. The young man begged and pleaded and said he was sorry — that it had been an accident. The judge said. “I would feel more sorry for you if you had done it on purpose. But to end a life with a stupid, irresponsible mistake — with a risk you put on someone else’s life . . . that’s worse than murder.” 

I get that point and I must say, I think I agree. To wield lethal power and then to kill by mistake? That’s horrible. 

Nevertheless, Davis is dead and he maintained that he was innocent. Could he have been lying? Of course. Could he have been deluded? Yes. Is it likely, with all the eyewitnesses saying so, that he did kill MacPhail? Yes. Is it possible he did not? — that the witnesses are wrong? — lying? — deluded? — looking for a book deal after the execution? Yes. 

If there is a .0000000023% chance the jury is wrong, is it worth the risk of absolute finality? 

The problem with the death penalty is its finality. If there in an infinitesimal chance that the jury’s verdict is wrong, in a murder trial, is it worth the risk of killing the accused? If the defendant is imprisoned for life, and new evidence comes to light, he can be let go. But after the needle pumps or the chair buzzes, there’s no revision. 

I’ve often thought that one of the biggest problems in this world is people’s inability to consider that they just might be wrong in their opinions and arguments — that they are so hell-bent on being right, they will risk anything to seem sure. I’ve watched people, for instance, successfully ruin a man’s career because they disagreed with his philosophies and accused him of things that I, personally, don’t believe were true. What if they were wrong? Do they ever think about that? Well — too late. The man will never work in his former profession again. 

When this thinking gets extended to a life, we have problems. This isn’t about whether a murderer deserves to die. It’s a question of the unbelievable arrogance of being so sure as to be willing to kill. 

Well, all I can say is that I hope every person ever killed for a crime at any time in the whole history of the world was really guilty of the act of which he was accused. 

What do you mean that’s ridiculous? 

Oh, right, not all societies had jury systems — crooked kings and warlords and all that. Good point. Let me revise: 

Well, all I can say is that I hope every person ever killed for a crime at any time in the American justice system was really guilty of the act of which he was accused. 

Better? 

No matter how you look at it, though, the question, “What if I’m wrong?” just isn’t asked enough.

If you were not stunned by the verdict in the Casey Anthony case, then you must have a heart of stone, if indeed you have a heart at all. When Casey Anthony was found to be “innocent” of the “crime” of “murdering her own daughter,” I myself was stunned. How could such a terrible crime be allowed to go unpunished?, I thought to myself. The fact that I didn’t do anything about it other than give it a few minutes’ thought and then move on with my life only proves how callous I have become, in the face of injustice and the suffering of others.

But one woman from Oklahoma saw that verdict and actually did something about it, drafting an online petition to encourage “a new federal law created called Caylee’s Law that will make it a federal offense for a parent or guardian to not notify law enforcement of a child going missing in a timely manner.” Here is some of the powerful prose of the proposed law:

I’m writing to propose that a new law be put into effect making it a felony for a parent, legal guardian, or caretaker to not notify law enforcement of the death of their child, accidental or otherwise, within 1 hour of said death being discovered. This way there will be no more cases like Casey Anthony’s in the courts, and no more innocent children will have to go without justice.

Also, make it a felony for a parent, legal guardian, or caretaker to not notify law enforcement of the disappearance of a child within 24 hours, so proper steps can be taken to find that child before it’s too late.

Hearteningly, this petition has garnered more than 300,000 signatures. Those people who “signed” this petition understand the importance of not killing children. Or, of reporting your child being killed in a timely manner. They also understand that every time something happens that confuses or annoys us, a new law must be created to add to all the existing laws, which were clearly insufficient in this case because, otherwise, we would have had a more desirous outcome.

I applaud these people. I, too, dislike it when children die. But I believe that this proposed law does not go nearly far enough. For example, why would this law give the parents or guardians one hour after discovering “said death” of the child to report it? Shouldn’t they have to report it immediately after discovering “said death”? Why give these people one extra hour to cover up their crimes? In fact, “Caylee’s Law” should require people to report the death of a child as it is happening. That way, investigators can get on the scene as the child dies, and begin their investigation into the murderous parent or guardian right away.

Moreover, you will note that the petition makes no mention of how exactly the authorities will determine when the body of the child was discovered. A parent or guardian could always tell investigators, “Well, I found the body at 11:48 PM, which is why I called you at 12:47:53 AM” when really they found the body at 4 o’clock, but decided to attend a party and get a tattoo before reporting the body. Obviously, we know from hard experience that people are capable of doing such things — Casey Anthony did it, after all! — so the law must somehow address this. I would suggest putting cameras in every residence in America, to keep tabs on everyone’s activities all the time. The images captured by these cameras would only be viewable if a parent or guardian reports the death of a child, to check and make sure that said parent or guardian immediately reported the discovery of said death — this should address any so-called “privacy” concerns that people might have.

(The law would also have to include some provision requiring that everyone in America use the same clocks, so that everyone has the same “time.”)

Another problem I have with “Caylee’s Law,” as proposed, is that it allows the criminal parent or guardian 24 hours to report “the disappearance” of a child. Again, I have to wonder why it is that the person who proposed this law is so heartless as to want to allow someone a full 24 hours to try to dispose of the body of the child they have just murdered? A person should have to report their child missing as soon as the child goes missing, even if they have just walked to the corner to play with their friends, or if a relative takes them to a baseball game that goes into extra innings. This is serious — we are talking about the life of a child here.

A better idea would be to require that everyone who has a child or watches a child should be required, every 24 hours, to notify local law enforcement that their child is not missing. That way, if someone doesn’t call in, the police know where to go to check for the dead bodies of children.

Moreover and perhaps most important of all, I believe that any proposed “Caylee’s Law” should include a provision requiring that lawmakers pass new laws within 24 hours of any event that confuses, saddens, or frustrates a majority of sensitive Americans.

I had a little notion for a video project during the primaries. It would be a montage of man-on-the-street questions about McCain with each person invited to call out his name in whatever expressive fashion would strike them. That was with the assumption that mostly, like myself, these Rep primary voters would harbor some desperate exasperation over the contradictions typifying his life, his statements and his long, long career. Think of young military types ruefully but respectfully moaning, “McCain.” Then would there be an agitated old woman in red, white and blue shaking her parasol while croaking, “McCain!” Hardhats would shake their heads in bewilderment, “McCain?” A whole, modest family would cry out plaintively, “McCa-a-a-ain….. ” And of course I would act all these folks out to whomever was willing to listen to my childish fantasy. Because the fact is, if you do ask the man on the street, and he is one of few who recognize the name and is one of the precious few with any inkling of his identity you will almost certainly find that they know him only as a military man of some past accomplishment who ran against Obama for twisted reasons best left obscure. McCain may get the historical berth he has long sought, however. He has proposed a bill that would grant the President the unreviewed power to hold citizens in custody without charge and without trial. Forever. This while he makes a weepy plea not to restore waterboarding, a proposition NO ONE has brought, because squirting market-bombers with the hose is against foundational American principles.

I’ll bet McCain’s name recognition goes up significantly if this shiny bauble gets enacted. Like his previous signature legislation; a series of restrictions on electoral speech, this snide tyranny takes us back, not to the days of our last King but back before the Magna Charta. Look not to Obama or any other elected Lefty to scuttle this scow. McCain’s treason of the day is the hammer. The anvil? Obama’s executive order of last week that claims the power to indefinitely detain whomever, citizen or not, even if they have had their trial and been acquitted! Which approach is more strict is somewhat ambiguous and that seems to be the only contest of any consequence.

McCain is the resident Tough Guy in the Senate and big-time politics overall. This doesn’t rest on his ass-kicking ability which is curtailed by his serious war wounds. McCain’s toughness of today instead rests on his willingness to confront his own party or his own presumed principles. This has made him the Other Guy in many an eruption of bipartisanship. Ted Kennedy was often his partner. Russ Feingold was the other “name” on the Campaign Finance Reform of ’02. Back then they were getting tough on the “big money men” of politics. “Big money men” never focus group well and this was painful to McCain and his troop because, hey, that’s US! The whole advent of CFR, blighted illegality that it is, was to give the actual Big Money Men of politics a chance to denounce and revile “big money men” in the abstract. Of such absurdity is our current dilemma constructed.

Tough. Everyone has to be Tough. Romney has a Toughness Coach who has instructed him to admit only that Romneycare was not successfully or legally scaled up when it was dragooned for national service as Obamacare. No, you can’t say that the whole thing was crapulent and, by the way, violative of your stated principles. See, that would be a climb down; an about-face. That shows weakness. You want to be Tough! Get all agitated when anyone asks you about it. Contradictions? Double-standards? Double-talk? No such thing! The accusation is scurrilous! And if I were not bound by the precepts of my religion (although I am no fanatic) I would take you out to the woodshed! Yes, I would!

Trump lays his claim to Toughness through public profanity. Newt gets tough on the druggies, no one will care, eh? Hillary earned her Toughness under fire and under Bill. Bill earned his by Tomahawking here, clusterbombing there and making the odd maneuver against his presumed base. But everybody, and I mean EVERYBODY had better be Tough.

Of course Tough Guy Numero Uno is that Unborn-again pacifist who argued AGAINST every element of Bush’s Tough regimen of investigation, adjudication and prosecution. The subject on the board at the moment of course is the Enhanced Interrogation Techniques which included mock drownings, yes, and a puny array of deceptions and minor coercions that would not impress your average schoolyard bully. Making these declarations, that too was Tough. In that case it demonstrated Toughness against Bush and his hellions. Tough indeed.

But McCain was also Tough on that measure, and maybe even Tougher. After all, he was going against his OWN base and the sitting President of his own party. Whether his position was one of intellectual and passionate conviction or an exploitation that let him indulge his animosity for W while  distancing himself from same is immaterial. By definition it seems, to act against Bushery in whatever context is Tough.

Now I don’t recall anyone making a Tough call on, say, the bank bailouts. Toughness there would have been a simple saying of Nay to the Paulsons, Geithners and their numberless clones on the business side of the revolving door. Declaring we would all be eating grubs from the dumpsters in 48 hours if that particular raft of billions were not constructed and launched immediately, the fiscal mad scientists had W on their side and NO ONE apposite. The Tough Guy of 911 and Andover could not find the guts to question this for an instant himself. No one applied Toughness to the auto companies or unions regarding their insane business practices and poor market showing. Everyone was on board for a soft-touch for these squanderers of public will, public money and public trust. Even more glaringly, there seems to not be a Tough Guy from horizon to horizon when it comes to stating what we all know; that there is no money left whether for Social Security or an Iraqi election. Borrowing is repaid with printing and printing justified with borrowing. And nothing out there now has any hope of improving that fact.

No Tough Guys present themselves for this irksome chore. Instead, any truth that might be taken amiss by the sour and ignorant public is eschewed and a vigorous display of Toughness is undertaken. While they decline to be Tough in the interrogation rooms of Guantanamo the twin headed beast of McBama promises a thoroughly Tough regimen for American citizens. You didn’t think civilian trials were called for among the Gitmo goatherders? Why, we couldn’t agree more! A trial of any sort is not a “right” but a privilege and so not for unprivileged enemy belligerents. What’s that? We’ll tell you later. Maybe. While posturing as Tough on our borders this same creature prepares featherbeds of entitlements, voting rights and forbearance of criminality to whomever can set a toe over a painted line. No Toughness is called for there. Nope, the Tough Guys are not going to use their gutsy habits in defense of the Constitution, American citizenship or simple freedom; not to fight an invasion from the South or treason in the Senate. They will use them for the clamp down; prisons for the uninsured, hangings for the growers of hemp, confiscation for the earners of money and above all a quarantine of contempt for anyone who will notice these ravages out loud. Tough times are upon us, America, with a bipartisan face. But we have a few Toughies on our side as well, I think. More than a few.

John Yoo was a rather obscure fellow and perhaps he is still. But he is a creature from another age; an academic jurist. This used to be the sort of person who became Attorney General or a judge at some high level. Much like Kenneth Starr, he is a law geek like the armies of math geeks that launch and recover our rockets. Like Kenneth Starr, Mr Yoo found himself with a controversial task. Mr Starr’s commission would harm a sitting Democratic President. Mr Yoo’s would assist a sitting Republican President so neither controversy is surprising.

Yoo is the drafter of a series of memos from the Bush Justice Department that provided legal guidance for interrogating GWOT prisoners. Famously said memos found waterboarding was a-okay as well as a variety of other menacing actions that fell far short of anything from Hellraiser or even Shawshank. The usual quarters complained about this; the alliance of non-disbarred lawyers, media types with dreams of book deals and  ambitious Democrats that always sees America as Snidely Whiplash, and everyone else as a chick tied to a railroad track. Or they do so until there is a Democrat in office.

Now of course there IS a Democrat in office and the one element of his strident campaign attacks on Bush security policies that he has not yet tacitly refutde is his banning of the phonetic brother to the IED: the Enhanced Interrogation Techniques. Our resident expert on torture, John McCain was also on board with this change in course, although as is always the case, his stated stand on principle had yawning and convenient exceptions. But McCain’s loss prevented any test of his abilities, perhaps they would have proven up to the challenge as Obama’s have not but it has been Obama who has attempted and failed to either close Guantanamo or bring its inmates to civilian trials. So he is bearing the brunt.

For the most part, the President’s pseudo-pacifist fans have cooperatively forgotten their objections of yesterday to war generally, Iraq and Afghanistan in particular, along with renditions, so-called “warrantless wiretapping” as well as routine military actions overseas, denounced by Candidate Obama as “just bombing villages and killing civilians” to boistrous applause. Rosie Odonnell, Michael Moore, Cindy Sheehan and Glenn Greenwald, as far as I can tell, comprise the whole platoon of consistent activists from this department and only Sheehan retains the shrill and certain tone of her denunciations. There have been no domestic hangings or burnings of Obama effigies; not even a giant puppet or papier mache head. Columnists who denounced Bush’s every exhalation are too busy rhapsodizing about the attack on Khaddaffi to dust off their anti-war screeds, change the names of the principles and repeat them. This is the sort of loyalty that must be repaid.

As we have learned lately, bloodlust certainly IS present in the breast of the most ardent peacenik. Even the Dalai Lama had no regrets, on principle, to Ossama’s violent last day. Those who were eager for us to look at things from a bin Laden or at least muslim/arab perspective two years ago were dipping their crazy-straws into Ossama’s blood and drinking deeply Monday last. But as much as they find new pleasure in the blood of America’s overseas enemies, even more do they desire a taste at least from America’s TRUE enemies. These are of course Republicans.

It is in Republican blood that Mr Obama plans to pay his debt to the pseudo-pacifists. This is why the investigation into John Yoo was pursued so fully and diligently as it was. The man is an apparatchik. While nominally Republican he is far closer to a civil service shlub than, say, a Karl Rove. But like Ken Starr he has tumbled into the line of sight between a President and the reach of the law. His prominent and distinctive name became a tempting target. The only problem is, the investigation came up snake-eyes. Yes, you will find dire characterizations of the revealed facts but check into them and you will find that Yoo is cleared of any misconduct, either criminal or professional. The remaining complainers make charges against his lawyering in print that they are unwilling to make before a judge. Yoo, out of office, has returned to his lair at Berkely’s Boalt Hall, sips mint tea and scribes textbooks destined to pour lucre on his head. His case is closed.

But that is largely the reason why another case remains conspicuously open. Actually there are several investigations ongoing into the CIA and other gub spooks who did the dirty work of strapping filthy baby-bombers to a sheet of plywood and scrubbing them thoroughly. Nearly everyone not in the pseudo-pacifist demo has called for a halt to these procedings, not least because they were already conducted and closed. Twice. Alright, Mr Holder and his boss did not like that result but the failure to find misconduct in the field is most of the reason why Yoo was ever investigated in the first place. The waterboarders were following instructions. Where did those instructions come from? They produced a memorandum signed by Mr Yoo and so off we went on Yoo’s trail; going UP the chain of command, very reasonably.

But Yoo was cleared and so now you are going to go back DOWN the chain? Nope, sorry. That is not going to work. If Yoo is cleared the downstream is cleared. No matter what you turn up the operatives always have the Yoo Defense and Yoo’s lawyering has proven unassailable. This gambit fails even as a transparent sop to the granolas above described because they certainly will not be satisfied with a couple of nameless GS-15s even if they COULD get them. No, their newly discovered bloodthirst cries out for Republican blood. So for reasons practical, ethical and legal the only way to go is UP.

Team Obama and/or his private practice allies like Holder’s ex-firm, have only one route to take. They must pursue indictments against those superior to Yoo who put him up to this deviltry. They MUST indict, convict and sentence George W Bush, Cheney, Rove… really any and all of yesterday’s menagerie of boogiemen that they can get their hands on, and that is IF we don’t just pull them apart at the Lincoln Memorial. Leftwing talker Mike Malloy expressed this view well, questioning when Seal Team 6 would make a visit to Crawford. A more obscure radio-type happily declares herself a “bloodthirsty liberal” to ovations so the mask is truly off. We are dandy-as-candy with damn near all that stuff we hated yesterday as long as Our Boy is doing them. So-called “torture” is exempted but will it be so tomorrow? Waterboard Bush! was a protest sign favorite not long ago. Would Obama do it? He would have to consider many pitfalls to this action, not least that Bush might get up off the waterboard, shake out his ears and say, “Ya know, not too bad. You should try it with vodka. Man, that really burns!”

But of course the OTHER thing Obama would have to consider is that now, and not just because of Ossama’s unlamented ventilation, Obama is also on Malloy’s hit list if it is to have any consistency. Has the President stopped or seriously cropped the “illegal wars” he screamed about when he wanted attention? Not a bit. His most famous alteration to GWOT ops is his four or five fold expansion of drone attacks across the whole theatre. If Bush is guilty so is O and O does not have the defense of being legitimately mistaken in decisions made under the duress of a massive terror assault. His decisions have been made at length, at leisure and at odds with his publicly declared principles that have not been publicly rescinded. If Bush plausibly deserves the ol’ double-tap in the melon, Barak deserves a single-tap in the crotch. At least.

This is why you won’t see any indictment for Bush or Cheney or any other reknowned warmonger; not now and not ever. But you also will not see any demonstrated mercy for the CIA spooks. Well, not unless and until the benefit of these investigations to Obama with his base is outweighed by its cost with the public at large. On that day, Lefties, you will again be betrayed but you are used to it, aren’t you? I know we should just Give Peace a Chance but Obama has said, through his actions, that War’s turn is not over yet. Just hold on. Maybe next term and in the meantime our investigations continue.

On Sunday, TLC ran two Christmas-themed episodes of the program “Sister Wives,” which follows the polygamist Brown family. The episodes were filmed four months after the Browns “came out,” and were being investigated by the Lehigh County sheriff’s department. It was this investigation that led to the Browns leaving Utah for Nevada, which is presumably less intolerant of polygamy, at least reality television polygamy.

Intercut with a montage of the numerous Brown children dressing their Christmas tree (at a treacherously placed cabin the middle of a forbidding area of snow-covered Utah), father Kody Brown tearfully explains that families convicted of committing the “crime” of polygamy are broken up. Third wife Christine tells us that her grandparents were jailed for polygamy, with the wives separated and children sent off to various foster families, with all contact broken off.

It was about as moving a scene as you can expect from a reality show, but imagine if the Browns lived in Broward County?

Another TLC program, “Police Women of Broward County,” follows a group of tough, semiphotogenic women who work for the police force of Broward County, Florida. Here is how wikipedia describes one of the show’s cast members:

* Andrea Penoyer

Andrea is the total package — a smart and spunky 26-year old with a passion for her job. She’s the only woman on one of South Florida’s most effective anti-crime units. Andrea and her colleagues sweep the streets, work undercover and conduct intensive drug busts. Fast on her feet, she is the runner on the team and pops out of the car to chase the bad guy and take him down. They use whatever tactical methods are necessary to make the streets safer.

During the first season Andrea was a single mother, spending all her time off working out and training with her 8-year-old son, Dominic, who’s typically glued to her hip. She takes him running, boxing, to the gym and even to the gun range. She wants Dominic to be tough and pushes him to be the best — in the same way she pushes herself. Between seasons, she became engaged with a single father with four children.

Andrea is also studying for a B.A. in public administration.

You know, wikipedia, sometimes I wonder about the impartiality of your articles.

Anyway, here is a picture of Andrea “Total Package” Penoyer:

It's not all breaking down doors and Tasering "perps" on "Police Women of Broward County"-- there's also time for lounging on the beach in a bikini.

And here is the “Total Package” offering up her philosophy of law enforcement, in a trailer for the first season of the show:

(via Radley Balko’s great Agitator website.)

There is always a good time to use a Taser, she gloats. The one depicted in a bikini, sunbathing, claims that there is always a good time to use a Taser.

Always a good time to use a Taser:

An 18-year-old Northeast Philadelphia man died Thursday after police Tasered him twice, authorities said.

Family members identified the dead man as Patrick Johnson. He had the mental capacity of a child, family members said.

Always a good time to use a Taser:

A federal appeals court says three Seattle police officers did not employ excessive force when they repeatedly tasered a visibly pregnant woman for refusing to sign a speeding ticket.

Always a good time to use a Taser:

Deputy Chris Bieze stopped Winkfein for speeding. After he completed the paper work — she refused to sign it. That’s when things got ugly. According to the deputy, he shoved Winkfein so she would get away from the side of the highway.

The elderly woman started to tease the officer… “daring” him to use his taser on her. He warned her several times she was in danger of being tasered.

The officer eventually did use the device that delivers a shock. Winkfein wasn’t hurt, but you can hear here moans of agony on the tape right after it happened.

Always a good time to use a Taser:

Police Tasered an 86-year-old disabled grandma in her bed and stepped on her oxygen hose until she couldn’t breathe, after her grandson called 911 seeking medical assistance, the woman and her grandson claim in Oklahoma City Federal Court. Though the grandson said, “Don’t Taze my granny!” an El Reno police officer told another cop to “Taser her!” and wrote in his police report that he did so because the old woman “took a more aggressive posture in her bed,” according to the complaint.

Always a good time to use a Taser:

Police in Mobile, Alabama, used pepper spray and a Taser on a deaf, mentally disabled who they said wouldn’t leave a store’s bathroom.

Always a good time to use a Taser:

Donnell Williams, a Wichita man who is effectively deaf without his hearing aids, was tasered by police in his own bathroom while wearing nothing but a towel around his waist. Why were the cops in the mans bathroom? They had busted into the man’s house chasing down a reported shooting, which turns out to have been a false report.

Always a good time to use a Taser:

The rate of deaths in Taser-related incidents is rising as police forces increasingly adapt the conducted energy weapons, a Raw Story analysis finds.

A 2008 report (PDF) from Amnesty International found 351 Taser-related deaths in the US between June, 2001 and August, 2008, a rate of just slightly above four deaths per month.

A database of Taser-related deaths maintained at the African-American issues blog Electronic Village counts 96 deaths related to the use of Tasers since January, 2009.

Most people think of Tasers as the “safe,” “non-lethal” alternative to guns. Andrea “Total Package” Penoyer is a dangerous, misinformed authoritarian whose sense of entitlement has been amplified by the presence of cameras following and celebrating her every move.

“Police Women of Broward County” isn’t the only reality program that follows corrections officers. It isn’t even the only “Police Women of” series on TLC. Spinoffs include PWO Memphis, Maricopa County, and Dallas. At reason.com, Radley Balko lists at least eight others. In that same article, he distills the problem of law enforcement reality shows:

Cop reality shows glamorize all the wrong aspects of police work. Their trailers depict lots of gun pointing, door-busting, perp-chasing, and handcuffing. Forget the baton-twirling Officer Friendly. To the extent that the shows aid in the recruiting of new police officers, they’re almost certainly pulling people attracted to the wrong parts of the job.

To keep people watching, the footage has to be sensational. Smashing in doors, Tasering, punching, pointing guns. By their very natures, these programs encourage a dangerous attitude among the people they follow.

There is always a good time to use a Taser

Let us not forget the case of seven year old Aiyana Stanley-Jones, who was killed by a SWAT team in Detroit as they attempted to serve a search warrant:

At the little girl’s home to execute a search warrant in a homicide investigation, they threw a flash bang — also known as a stun grenade — through the front window of the crowded apartment … onto the couch where Aiyana was sleeping. Aiyana caught fire. As her grandmother tried to put out the flames, police entered, and a gun went off. Aiyana was shot in the neck and pronounced dead at the hospital.

This SWAT team was trying to create exciting footage for one of those cable network law enforcement reality shows:

The day before, Fieger, who once represented Dr. Jack Kevorkian, claimed he had seen videotape of the incident filmed by a reality-TV crew that had accompanied the police. He alleged that police, moreover, may have raided the wrong side of the duplex, since the 34-year-old suspect was eventually arrested in another part of the building.

(By the way, the show was A&E’s “The First 48.”)

So, as bad as it is that the Browns have to uproot themselves, leave their friends and schools and their entire lives and start over in another state in order to escape prosecution for committing a non-violent and victimless crime, at least they’re on “Sister Wives,” and not on a TLC reality program in which they have to deal with the likes of Andrea “Total Package” Penoyer. The entire family might end up Tasered.