Well, shit. Obama's handpicked go-to girl for his trademark vapid Bush-lite Blue Dog Democrat stance on everything from the environment to labor laws just eeked out another shot at the job as Senator from Wal-Mart Arkansas. Bully for her. She did so by defeating a much more palatable (to, you know, real people with real issues like the economy, the environment, etc.) candidate, who received huge backing from the local unions. Their guy lost. Obama's girl won. That's politics. But. 

This may be a good time to recall that the President is supposed to sit out primaries -- that's supposed to be a local operation. However, in this particular case, the White House was quick to flip the AFL-CIO the bird and tell them to suck on it, arguing that labor "flushed $10 million down the toilet." It's also worth remembering that the DNC (Obama's wing of the Democratic Party) rewarded Ben Nelson (D-clueless) with half a million dollars worth of TV ads shortly after he managed to foot-drag and fuck-up the health care reform process to oblivion, even though he wasnt' even up for re-election, while there were hard-fought seats (like, oh, the replacement for senator Kennedy in MA) that could've used a real boost with some support from the DNC. How's that for flushing millions down the toilet? Nelson, meanwhile, proceeds to continue fucking up on the job, most recently sabotaging finance reform as a paid lackey of Wall Street. How's the return on that half million working for you, Obama?

And, finally, it may be worth remembering that Obama's BFF and consigliere, Rahm Emanuel, in his day as head of the DCCC, personally fucked around with key primaries waaay back in 2004, when a good friend of mine ran against a Blue Dog Democrat for a house seat in upstate NY. Rather than stay neutral, Rahm decided to throw gobs of $$$ at the Blue Dog already in the primary, effectively killing the chances of a progressive getting the seat. The Blue Dog went on to win.

All of this simply to say that when the Obama faithful trot out the tired argument that "oh, you kniow, Obama really wants to do well, but, gosh darn, he can't do any of the visionary things he'd like to do because he has to work with the current crop of congressmen" -- that's simply bullshit. What they try to label his "pragmatism" apparently is nothing more than a heartfelt desire to maintain the status quo. And as long as Obama and his crack squad of advisors keeps working so hard to re-elect the very worst of the Senators and Congressmen, then we can only assume that, in spite of all the fancy posters, he really doesn't want any change at all.

Corrupt & impotent as they are, I do appreciate the AFL-CIO pointing out to the White House that they are not an extension of the Democratic Party, and I appreciate their courage in supporting a candidate running against a D incumbent. Now, if only the moribund average D voters would wake up and seize the opportunity to flush the dead weight there'd be some hope for change. But as it is, the change clearly isn't coming from the White House.

Update: of course, digby always does this better.

This was awesome. It's really the wake-up call to end them all -- right up there with the epic Ben & Jerry's bumper sticker: "If It's Not Fun, Why Do It?" that has been on my car for years.

Of course, when I look at this flow chart for finding happiness, I realize that I'm not actually in the box where I'd like to be, so...

(from typcut.com via joequint.com).

From the department of well, duh:

prosecutions are a form of social control to discourage criticism of the police or simple dissent.

Gizmodo has a great piece that highlights a fun new trend in law & order: the courts and some legislative bodies are beginning to cave to pressure from bullies in law enforcement to outlaw citizens filming the police in action. This comes, of course, after several examples of outrageous police behavior being documented either by the victim or by 3rd parties, which helped exonerate an innocent victim and/or made it necessary for law enforcement to own up to the fact that one of their own broke the law.

That's all so very, very inconvenient. And so, rather than try to deal constructively with the fact that cops like NYPD heavy Patrick Pogan are totally out of control, the cops have instead decided that the pesky witnesses who might spill the dirt on the cops' dirty behavior must Shut. The. Fuck. Up. So, they're aggressively prosecuting anyone who film the cops as they taser people with epilepsy, shoot unarmed people on trains etc. etc. That's not to say that all cops do that, of course, but if their knee-jerk reaction when more and more of their illegal behavior is exposed is to seek to quell the exposure rather than address the behavior... well, it makes you question whose best interest the police are really looking out for here.

The Gizmodo article mentions a couple of recent examples, but I couldn't help but think of perhaps the most seminal moment in excessive police violence: the beating of Rodney King -- that video from waaay back in 1991, which triggered race riots across Los Angeles. I'm sure the LAPD -- whose track record on these matters is notorious, just like that of the cops in New Orleans -- would love nothing more than to arrest anyone who happened to film their approach to law enforcement. Or take Barry Cooper, ex cop who decided to make a concerted and highly successful effort at busting the profoundly, painfully bent cops in Texas -- and of course promptly made himself a target of their spiteful vengeance.

Yes, this is a real case of watching the watchmen -- they cannot be allowed to act with impunity precisely because they're hired by us to watch us. And if they feel compelled to protect themselves from supervision and scrutiny by using their powers against those who catch them in the act of behaving abdly, then there should be greater cause for concern than ever about their conduct and perception of being above the law. One first step towards totalitarianism is elevating the system itself and its henchmen above reproach, criminalizing and persecuting those who question authority merely for their act of asking questions or having proof that the system and its operatives is far from perfect.

This is not much different than what the Obama administration is doing with regards to whistleblowers. True to his newfound form, rather than deliver on his promise to protect and encourage whistleblowers, Obama is instead pushing the DOJ to persecute anyone caught tattling, and so, instead of dealing with pressing issues like corruption and criminal negligence within the government (viz. the complete flunkies who apparently ran -- and still run -- the MMS under corrupt flunkie supreme, Ken Salazar) Obama has instead decided to actively work to shut down those pesky noisemakers who try to raise the alarm. That is not Change we can Believe In, it's the emperor refusing to acknowledge that he's naked, and sending a lynch mob after the little boy. 

Oh, but there are so many cameras around, surely everything will be documented anyway... ah, but remember who has first dibs on most security camera footage: law enforcement, or at least private security agencies who have every reason to suck up to the cops. I'm sure they'd be more than willing to make a problematic piece of footage disappear, while handing over anything incriminating when asked by an officer who realizes that he screwed up when he kicked around some kid for no good reason.

One word for all of this: wikileaks. Or, in this case, Copwatch. The more you realize where we're headed the more important becomes the services of something like wikileaks -- and, as a corollary -- the internet itself. Which is why, of course, the Powers That Be would very much like to reign back control, eliminating net neutrality and "police" the web. But Big Brother wouldn't just be weeding out Russian kiddie prOn, no, he'd also take out the occasional site that, well, just isn't right for us. For our own good, of course. Sure, there are some total flakes out there, anarchists who see police brutality everywhere. Ignore them, dismiss them as litle more than misguided lefties with a penchant for "sticking it to the man." But if the police have nothing to hide, then why are they so actively trying to remove any witnesses from their actions?

Update: Well, looky looky -- now someone with a cell phone managed to snag footage of the US border patrol protecting the homeland executing a 14-year-old and completely discrediting the FBIs lame lies. I'm guessing we'll have legislation on a federal level banning cameras within the week.

God knows it must be hard to be a Catholic Bishop these days. So much hypocrisy, so little integrity, why, it's enough to make a grown man grope a little boy... Striking, isn't it, how differently the cult can react in different circumstances:

In the case of pedophile priests the norm has been foot dragging, denial, cover-ups and generally *not* dealing with the matter at hand, even though by any moral and legal standard it'd be pretty obvious that something needed to be done, and fast. But for decades, it was a case of less-is-more: the less we do about these priests, the better.

Pope Panzerfaust himself appears to have been procrastinator-supreme in cases where bishops actively begged for the Vatican to take decisive action and kick out priests with a nasty predeliction for little boys. But he left even those clearcut cases lingering for years in his in-box, no doubt fiddling his rosaries in the hope that no-one would ever find out.

But then you have the case of Sister Margaret McBride from St. Joseph's Hospital in Phoenix. She was faced with the difficult choice to authorize an abortion for a 27-year old woman, 11 weeks pregnant but suffering with a case of pulmonary hypertension that was likely to kill both her and the baby. McBride was promptly excommunicated by Phoenix Bishop Thomas J. Olmsted, prompting a WTF? moment of rather epic scale. Here's a nun who chose to do the right thing under difficult circumstances, and she's kicked out faster than you can say "Boys 'R' Us" without so much as a second guess, and yet when it comes to countless priests who have abused thousands of boys, there's been nary a peep out of those in charge.

Indeed, had Sister McBride been a man and sexually assaulted some poor kid, the action -- if any -- from Bishop Olmsted would no doubt have been some foot dragging followed by some hemming and hawing, and then, perhaps, a one-way ticket to Africa to continue fondling the flock far from the limelight.

Nice cult. Can we at least take away their tax-exempt status so we're not indirectly funding their shennanigans?

(image by Adam Zyglis found here)