October 5, 2011 by mike.

Some folks appear to have a lot of time on their hands.  I give the guy credit for thoroughly exploring the art of the pancake.

Thanks to Blue Gal for bringing this to my attention by posting it up at Crooks & Liars.

My day is off to a weird start.

Hump day, go get’m, y’all.

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October 3, 2011 by mike.

I know that there are folks who think Obama has done a lot of good, I am just not one of them. I believe that ACA is a sellout to industry that I think will be gutted by the SCOTUS or repealed by a reactionary Congress, it was not the revolution to Medicare for Everyone that is needed. DADT is gone at long last, Obama’s justice department is no longer defending DOMA (is that audacious?).  Baby steps in the right direction. 

But, those baby steps are dwarfed by Obama’s increased use of drone attacks outside of war zones, his embrace of the War on Terror which knows no boundaries or limits, and now, the assassination of an American citizen by drone attack. Make no mistake, this is an impeachable offense, a high crime. A crime that Obama is unlikely to held accountable for, but it is a high crime, an awful precedent, a betrayal of our 5th Amendment right to due process. I am no fan of the Osama bin Laden assassination. I see nothing to celebrate in assassinations. In a human sense, a moral sense, there is no difference between the presidential assassination of bin Laden and the presidential assassination of al-Awlaki, but there are some constitutional differences that scholars may parse if they are so inclined.

We are now holding a handful of meaningless constitutional rights. Read’em and weep.

Happy Monday to all.

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September 21, 2011 by mike.

I don’t know what to say.  This is the state of our justice system. 

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September 12, 2011 by mike.

So, there is lots of discussion about how scary it is downtown.  It’s not just dirty, with houseless people urinating on the sidewalks, it’s just downright scary!!

It has been pretty clear for generations (and especially in the past decade) that the First Amendment right to assemble and petition for redress of grievance and to exercise free speech is just too inconvenient to remain on the books.  Just look at the pedestrian interference  ordinance.  If the right to assemble for any reason interferes with the ability of a suburban shopper to come downtown and empty their wallet at a place like the Alpine Experience (just an example) instead of enjoying the homogenous shopping experience at Cabela’s or Walmart, then the first amendment is dispensable.  

The first amendment is archaic.  The updated, if unofficial primary civil right appears to be the absolute right to shop in a safe and sterile environment.  So, Amendment One - get out of the way.

So, aside from the fear that accrues from running into a strange looking person downtown, why don’t we make the downtown really safe by scuttling Amendment Two as well?

Wouldn’t we all feel safer if we knew when we head out to go shopping downtown that we are not going to be sharing the sidewalk with folks packing heat?   Why is the Olympia City Council so timid.  Dump the second amendment and let’s get the fourth out of the way as well.

Come on, let’s make the downtown really safe.  Let’s outlaw any firearms in the downtown core and give the police blanket authority to conduct patdowns for weapons.

I want pants on dogs that are over twenty pounds as well.  Some of these animals are just indecent.  What’s up with that?

These guys also should not be allowed downtown unless they promise to turn the volume down and act in a civilized manner.

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July 11, 2011 by mike.

I think this guy has it figured it out.

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May 30, 2011 by mike.

June 10th update.  I understand that Jackie continues to be weak and is being released to return to Washington State for medical care.

June 5 Update:  Jackie was evaluated at the hospital and is well enough to remain at the prison at this time.  Thank you to all who called or emailed on Jackie’s behalf.
One consequence of the prison state is throwaway people.  A related consequence is institutional medical neglect.  A system that devalues people is not disposed to providing basic health care.
The US is a failed state with regard to its systems and policies of incarceration.

Best to all,

Mike
Still no medical care for Sister Jackie Hudson as far as we can determine. Read message below from Leonard at Ground Zero Center.

Important Note:  In between my emails please check in at the Disarm Now Plowshares Blog as I am posted brief updates there as I receive any new information to share.

Friends,

This has been, and continues to be, a difficult time for all of us who know and love Sr. Jackie Hudson.  First - Please know that there is an extraordinary convergence of people, including lawyers and physicians who are working virtually 24/7 on Jackie’s behalf.  As of this moment none of us has had direct contact with Jackie, and so we cannot confirm her present health status.  That having been said, here is what we know.

Since Sr. Carol Gilbert, who is also at Irwin County Detention Center, informed us (on May 29th) of Jackie’s severe chest pain and that nothing was being done for her medical condition, Joe Power-Drutis immediately set a process in motion to secure her transportation to a hospital to reserve proper medical care.  He contacted everyone possible, and engaged 2 physicians and 3 attorneys to engage directly with the prison staff.  The prison has been completely uncooperative, only saying that Jackie “was being taken care of.”  She is evidently in the prison medical facility (God only knows what that is like!!!).

At one point there was an indication that Jackie may have been transported to the local hospital and then returned to the jail.  However, a followup conversation with staff at the local hospital confirmed that Jackie has not been admitted there, and he staff indicated that theirs is the only hospital in the area.  There is absolutely no evidence that Jackie has been sent anywhere for proper medical evaluation.

The prison medical facility, as far as I know, is ill equipped to evaluate or treat Jackie’s possible medical condition and experts (MDs) agree that based on her presentation to prison medical staff, she should have been immediately transported to a hospital emergency facility for a thorough cardiac work-up.

Based on all the information we have received it appears that her treatment since her chest pain began, even beyond her basic medical needs, has been substandard and inhumane.

The legal team working on Jackie’s behalf includes Bill Quigley, Legal Director of the Center for Constitutional Rights; Anabel Dwyer, lawyer and international human rights expert; and Blake Kramer, Tacoma-based attorney who has been deeply involved in defending the Disarm Now Plowshares.  I understand that the legal team is currently working every possible angle, and one involves getting the Judge for the Y-12 trial, which was the reason for Jackie’s current imprisonment, to order her release/transport to the hospital.

Another major concern and an egregious disregard for the rule of law is prison’s refusal to allow Jackie’s right to legal counsel.  Jackie’s court-appointed attorney, Brad Henry, found out at the jail that the Warden told all the staff at the jail that no information was to be given out about Jackie, including her appointed council. The prison is stonewalling every step of the way.

Beyond the obvious moral and ethical implications of the prison’s treatment of Jackie Hudson, it is evident that she is being deprived of her Constitutional rights as well as essential human rights.  This on top of Jackie’s very real status as a Prisoner of Conscience, quite literally a political prisoner in a nation that flouts both national law and international humanitarian law and then imprisons those who follow their conscience and the law to speak and act out to call on our nation to uphold these laws.

This maltreatment must not stand.  The people operating Irwin County Detention Center, a private, for profit prison, must be held accountable for their actions.  If this is how they treat Jackie, someone with a broad base of support,  I can only imagine the mistreatment of a vast number of prisoners who have no one to advocate on their behalf.  What of the forgotten???

Besides the work being done by this dedicated group to whom I’ve referred, many of you out there are working on Jackie’s behalf, and for this I thank you all!  We evidently flooded the prison phone line with calls, and I have no doubt that this has had an impact.  They know we are watching!  I have contacted the ACLU of Georgia, asking them to act on Jackie’s behalf.  We are working on alerting media locally(Georgia), regionally and nationally to Jackie’s plight, and will also be contacting members of Congress to act on her behalf.

What can you do to help Jackie?  For one thing, we can continue to call, fax and/or email the prison to let them know we are watching and demand that they send Jackie to the hospital.  The phone number is 229-468-4121. You may get a recorded message during some hours. There is also an email listed: info@irwincdc.com.   Fax is 229-468-4186  Additional phone numbers: Warden Barbara Walrath – warden of Irwin County Detention Center, 229-468-4120, Dr. Howard C. McMahan – Medical Director of Irwin County Detention Center, 229-468-5177.  If you get into a message system, LEAVE A MESSAGE! 

Here are some suggested talking points:

Sr. Jackie Hudson, who is in your care and for whom you are responsible, has had intense heart pain, which began Saturday afternoon.  She is being obstinately denied proper medical care.  Her symptoms suggest that she may have one or more occluded coronary arteries.  If this is the case, her heart, as a muscle, will progressively worsen in the hours and days to come.

Jackie must be taken to an emergency room immediately.  The Emergency Department at the Irwin County Hospital verifies that Sr. Jackie has not been taken to their hospital, and that there is no other local hospital to which she might have been taken.  They Emergency Department has been in contact with the ICDC to no avail.

Such treatment constitutes cruel and unusual punishment, and  if Sister Jackie is not moved to an emergency room immediately and suffers any negative medical consequences as a result I will hold Michael Croft Enterprises, operator of ICDC and in particular Warden Barbara Walrath and Medical Director Howard C. McMahon personally responsible.Those supporting Jackie Hudson must have direct access to her and her physicians so they know her whereabouts, her condition and her treatment.  These people include: Sue Ablao, Sr. Jackie’s housemate at Ground Zero Center for Nonviolent Action, Poulsbo, WA; Frank Hudson, Sr. Jackie’s brother; Sister Nathalie Meyer O.P., provincial of the Dominican Sisters of Grand Rapids, Sr. Jackie’s religious order; and Brad Henry, Jackie’s attorney.

Send an email to (or call) any news media contacts you have, or even if you don’t have any you email the newsroom (look them up in the contacts section of that newspaper’s Website).

I understand that the Koinonia Partners community in Americus, Georgia, is planning a vigil at the prison tomorrow.

As I stay focused on dear Jackie’s immediate needs I find myself also focusing on a much broader issue.  Here is a person with so much support from so many wonderful people.  And yet, there is a huge percentage of the U.S. prison population (with the largest incarceration rate in the world) for whom there is no support.  What becomes of these forgotten prisoners when they become ill???  We will take up that issue once we get Jackie taken care of!!!

One last thing before I close; an excerpt from something by Liz McAllister and Chrissy Nesbitt of the Jonah House community that I find quite pertinent today:

Thanks to all who have offered to help in so many ways.  As bad as this all is, Jackie is surrounded by such a wonderful, loving community, and I can imagine that this knowledge is deeply embedded in Jackie’s heart and mind, and that it is a great comfort to her.

Peace,

Leonard  

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May 10, 2011 by mike.

“It is as useless to argue with those
who have renounced the use and authority of reason
as to administer medication to the dead.”
– Thomas Jefferson

M and I are pretty busy preparing for the Friday the 13th Zombie Monster Mash Event in Olympia. Hope you can join us at Sylvester Park or at other locations where we will living it up, undead style on Friday.  To follow the planning come to the  site.   The question is whether the legislators have renounced the use and authority of reason.  The Undead Want to Know.

I. F. Stone- “The only kinds of fights worth fighting are those you are going to lose, because somebody has to fight them and lose and lose and lose until someday, somebody who believes as you do wins. In order for somebody to win an important major fight 100 years hence, a lot of other people have got to be willing—for the sheer fun and joy of it—to go right ahead and fight, knowing you’re going to lose. You mustn’t feel like a martyr. You’ve got to enjoy it.”

There are folks who think it is not a great idea to mix zombies in this serious legislative lobbying battle.  I get that.  The struggle over the budget is dead serious.  But we have to spread the word and mobilize young folks.  So here we go, Facebook, Zombies, Twitter etc.  This is serious to students, college, high school, middle school and below because the push is on to gut the education budget, to dump teacher unions, to privatize education with profit as the first priority.  Plus, as Izzy notes above, we mustn’t feel like martyrs even if we lose, we have to keep rising like the undead.  We will not go away.

Hope to have some zombie lobbying footage up on Saturday, May 14th or maybe Sunday.  The video editing takes a long time.  See you there?

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May 1, 2011 by mike.

I was wrong about the rightness of military action in Libya.  Military action simply can’t remain defensive. Gaddafi’s son and three grandchildren were killed by a Nato strike.  We are killing children.  I get that Gaddafi has to be persuaded to release his powerful hold on Libya’s politics.  The military approach only knows one way.  Common Dreams has coverage.

When the only tool you own is a hammer, everything looks like a nail.  Well, there were children in this house that was targeted and struck by Nato bombs.  I am reminded again that the pacifists are right.   The May issue of Harpers has an interesting article by Nicholson Baker about pacifism and World War II (the good war example) and it is pretty persuasive.

Meanwhile - the mainstream media is turning on the radical right.  Bob Schieffer called Trump a racist.  Hm..   was that a hard call?

Common Dreams ran this cartoon that I think captures the situation.

NPR has spent the past decade trying to move to the right to appease the right winger ascendance, but you know, first they came for the blacks, and I said nothing because I wasn’t black, then they came for the gays, and I said nothing because I wasn’t gay, but now that the right-wingers are on the verge of cutting all funding to NPR and PBS, the systems have found their voice again.  Boy, it’s a little late.  You tossed folks like Bill Moyers off your network.  Voices of dissent, voices of reason and compassion.  No room for them.  Like the Libyan attack story, some folks at the top of organizations simply can’t understand the complexity and nuance of the mission, they are simply bureaucrats who understanding programming, but can’t keep the values front and center.

So, the right-wingers have moved on from Barack’s birth certificate to his grades.  Barack is no revolutionary.  He is no socialist.  He’s just a black guy in the white house.  Some folks can’t stand the thought. I grew up in the segregated South.  I have not forgotten what racism looks like.

McCain was born in Panama.  Was that a problem when he ran for President?

George Romney, Mitt’s father, was born in Mexico. Was that a problem when he ran for President?

So, what is different about Barack Hussein Obama?  Yes, that does not sound like an American name.  The muslim-sounding middle name probably raises some racist thoughts, but I think it’s mainly skin color.  We would like to think that we live in post-racial America.  I don’t think that such a place exists.

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November 1, 2010 by mike.

in this election. At least for me.

I disagree with Mary Shaw at OpEdNews that Ms. Valle was a defenseless female. I am not going to buy into the sexism of aggression and defense. Also, I looked at the video at RedState.com and it’s clear on that video (if it is authentic and I think it is) that Ms. Valle shoved her sign in the window at Rand Paul as his vehicle arrived. I applaud Red State for being unequivocal about the head stomp being wrong, but the fact remains that the right wing crazies have been willing, if not anxious to escalate from 1st amendments rights to gather and engage in free speech to physical confrontations with the left. An unwanted touch is an assault/battery under the law. It’s one thing to be jostled in a large, tight crowd, it is another thing to be tackled, held to the ground and be struck or stomped in the maneuver.

I hope we will see local police and prosecutors bring the full force of the law to bear on thugs who engage in assault and battery under the adrenalin rush of their political fears and excitement.

clipped from www.opednews.com The Party of Thugs On October 25, a defenseless female MoveOn.org volunteer was assaulted outside the site of a Kentucky Senatorial debate. While engaged in street theater trying to get Rand Paul’s attention, Lauren Valle was pushed to the ground by some of Paul’s supporters, and then one of them stomped on her head. She ended up with a concussion. A month earlier, on September 23, a male Sharron Angle supporter pushed a female Harry Reid supporter and then punched her female friend in the face at a Nevada Senatorial debate. I do not see these as two isolated incidents. I see them as two very disturbing symptoms of a new culture of hatred and violence on the far right. We saw it brewing last March, when Tea Partiers greeted members of the Congressional Black Caucus by hurling the N-word at them. Rep. Emanuel Cleaver was spat on in the incident. Then they shouted “faggot” at openly gay Rep. Barney Frank.

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August 24, 2010 by mike.

I don’t usually side with the corporations, but there is something about this story that suggest criminality and culpability. But the 9th Circuit is well-known for its interesting decisions.  David Kravetz at Wired has the story.

You send letters threatening a massacre at the Super Bowl.  You actually get in your vehicle with an assault weapon and ammunition and head to the Super Bowl, then you change your mind and head home.  The 9th following the letter of the law disagrees with the Citizens United Supreme Court decision and turns this guy loose because the organizations receiving the letters were not persons.

I think this decision may be more about Citizens United than it is about the 2008 Super Bowl.

clipped from www.wired.com Court: Death Threats Addressed to Corporations Aren’t Illegal The case concerned Kurt William Havelock, who drove to the Super Bowl in Glendale, Arizona, with a newly purchased assault rifle and dozens of rounds of ammunition with the intent to kill. “It will be swift and bloody,” he wrote media outlets in packages mailed a half hour before he got cold feet and abandoned his plan. “I will sacrifice your children upon the altar of your excess.” An Arizona man who plotted a massacre outside the 2008 Super Bowl had his conviction overturned Monday by a federal appeals court because his snailmailed death threats went to no specific targets.

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