Category: reason

I blogged back in July on anarcho-libertarian media figure and
activist Adam Kokesh
being arrested and held without bond on crummy charges of
carrying a shotgun in D.C.’s Freedom Plaza, an act he videoed as
deliberate political provocation theater.

After rotting in jail for months, Kokesh finally pleaded guilty
this week and got out pending sentencing,
the Washington Post reports:

Wednesday, standing next to his new [court-appointed] attorney,
Kokesh pleaded guilty to carrying a rifle or shotgun, possession of
an unregistered firearm and unlawful possession of ammunition. In a
separate case, Kokesh pleaded guilty to marijuana possession.

Court papers show that prosecutors offered the plea deal in a
Monday letter sent to Kokesh’s attorney. In the letter, Assistant
U.S. Attorney Natalia Medina said prosecutors believed that Kokesh
tried to sneak a cellphone into the jail Oct. 22. Medina wrote that
if Kokesh accepted the plea, he would not face additional charges
regarding the phone.

Kokesh’s attorney, Larry Copeland, said it was the second plea
deal presented to his client. Copeland said he and Kokesh “weren’t
concerned” about the cellphone allegation but weighed the
offer.

“We evaluated the case against him and the likely outcome and
made a judgment that this was the best thing to do,” Copeland
said.

Pending a Jan. 17 sentencing hearing, Broderick ordered Kokesh
to stay out of the District and said he must report with
supervising authorities weekly. The judge also ordered that Kokesh
not possess any firearms. Kokesh faces a maximum of more than six
years in prison on the combined charges.

It was a bad charge, though I’m not going to question a man’s
decisions to get himself out of a cage he’s been unjustly locked
into. May any eventual sentencing be light, though I wouldn’t count
on it.

Kokesh wrote on his Facebook page, as
reported by Opposing Views.com:

“I’m incredibly grateful for everyone who supported me during my
recent challenges by volunteering, donating, and writing letters to
me in jail, and to the judge and the prosecutors,” Kokesh posted on
his Facebook. “We will continue using this as a teachable moment to
illuminate the nature of government and spread the message of
liberty, self-ownership and civil rights.”

Reason
on Kokesh.

I’m still seeing conservatives and
Republicans
bitching and moaning that the Libertarian Party candidate in
the Virginia governor’s race, Robert Sarvis, somehow threw the
election to the awful Democratic candidate, Terry McAuliffe. Fact
is that exit polls from both
CNN and
ABC News confirm that Sarvis took votes from McAuliffe and put
the race within reach of the Republican candidate Ken
Cuccinelli.

But more to the point, trying to fix blame on minor parties when
major-party candidates lose is a category error. Dems and Reps
don’t “own” votes that are somehow stolen by third-party types. And
as I wrote earlier this week at Time.com there’s this:

Americans have come to expect if not demand a wide range of
increasingly diverse and personalized choices in every part of our
lives, from coffee shops to clothing stores to bookstores. And yet
in something as important as politics, we allow the two major
parties to systematically rig the system to exclude a range of
opinions extending beyond two parties that were founded before the
Civil War. Is it any wonder that a
record number of Americans now call themselves political
independents?

Reflexively blaming
third-party candidates when a Republican or Democratic candidate
loses only adds insult to that injury. Despite having every
advantage going in, Al Gore ended up losing in 2000 because, among
other things, he wore bizarre orange
makeup to one of the presidential debates and came across
as an environmental zealot fundamentally
at odds with modern industrial technology. Ken Cuccinelli
lost because, among other things, he failed to assuage fears that
he would bring back sodomy laws, alienated single women, and he had
no connection with
young voters.

The major parties already enjoy vast advantages in terms of
money, brand recognition, ballot access, and get-out-the-vote
operations. When their candidates lose elections, especially tight
ones, they would do better to look at what they did wrong rather
than off-loading responsibility or blame on third parties who give
voters more options to express themselves.

Whole thing.

I’m still seeing conservatives and
Republicans
bitching and moaning that the Libertarian Party candidate in
the Virginia governor’s race, Robert Sarvis, somehow threw the
election to the awful Democratic candidate, Terry McAuliffe. Fact
is that exit polls from both
CNN and
ABC News confirm that Sarvis took votes from McAuliffe and put
the race within reach of the Republican candidate Ken
Cuccinelli.

But more to the point, trying to fix blame on minor parties when
major-party candidates lose is a category error. Dems and Reps
don’t “own” votes that are somehow stolen by third-party types. And
as I wrote earlier this week at Time.com there’s this:

Americans have come to expect if not demand a wide range of
increasingly diverse and personalized choices in every part of our
lives, from coffee shops to clothing stores to bookstores. And yet
in something as important as politics, we allow the two major
parties to systematically rig the system to exclude a range of
opinions extending beyond two parties that were founded before the
Civil War. Is it any wonder that a
record number of Americans now call themselves political
independents?

Reflexively blaming
third-party candidates when a Republican or Democratic candidate
loses only adds insult to that injury. Despite having every
advantage going in, Al Gore ended up losing in 2000 because, among
other things, he wore bizarre orange
makeup to one of the presidential debates and came across
as an environmental zealot fundamentally
at odds with modern industrial technology. Ken Cuccinelli
lost because, among other things, he failed to assuage fears that
he would bring back sodomy laws, alienated single women, and he had
no connection with
young voters.

The major parties already enjoy vast advantages in terms of
money, brand recognition, ballot access, and get-out-the-vote
operations. When their candidates lose elections, especially tight
ones, they would do better to look at what they did wrong rather
than off-loading responsibility or blame on third parties who give
voters more options to express themselves.

Whole thing.

• Reports of sexual assault in the US
  military are up 46 percent this year,
  according to the Pentagon, which says the rise is a credit to
  “victim confidence in our response system”.
• A security officer who worked at the US mission in Benghazi
   and was featured in a CBS “60 Minutes” segment
  appears to have given the FBI a different account of events the
  night of the 9/11 attack in the city than he did in his book or to
  CBS. The officer insists he did not write the FBI statement and
  hadn’t even seen it. CBS says it will correct the story if it finds
  its reporters were misled.
• Edward Snowden may have
  used the log-in credentials of up to 25 coworkers at the NSA
  base in Hawaii to access the classified information he’s disclosed
  to the media. He may have told the employees he needed their
  passwords for his work as a systems administrator.
• In an effort to thwart the NSA’s surveillance, Google is
  beginning to
  encrypt traffic between its data centers.
• The Florida Supreme Court
  ordered a new trial for death row inmate Roy Swafford just two
  hours before his scheduled execution.
• A Tampa Bay teacher who was suspended for trying to force a
  child to recite the pledge of allegiance is now
  back at work.
• A thirteen-year-old boy in Kansas says he was
  suspended from school for carrying a purse.
• John Kerry will be
  joining negotiations between Iran and Western powers over that
  country’s nuclear program. The talks had seemed to be going
  well.
• The strongest typhoon of the season
  slammed the Philippines, killing at least four people as well
  as knocking out power and telephone lines and causing several
  landslides.

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It is odd that the ancient
Norse bad guys in Thor: The Dark World comes equipped
with assault rifles and hand grenades. But since this is a movie
about a hunky thunder god with a magical hammer, subsidiary
quibbles are probably beside the point, says Kurt
Loder. By contrast, he writes, About Time has a smooth,
easy charm, and a romantic glow that’s hard to deny.

View this article.

In Wales, the Swansea
University student union has banned a pole-dancing
fitness class. Union officials say police dancing is linked to
the “sex industry” and it “upholds and bolsters sexist attitudes
and behaviors.”

I’ll be on with Tom Brown on
WEZS in New Hampshire in a few minutes to talk about the
news of the day, including
Chris Christie and
drug dogs. You can follow all the news at Reason 24/7.

You can listen here.

A pair of lawsuits by black female officers with
the NYPD’s Internal Affairs Bureau allege that the division
arbitrarily spies on cops, discriminates against minorities, and
that they are subject to sexual harassment including the trading of
sexual favors for promotions.
Via the New York Post:

“Plaintiff alleges that African-American Female
Officers’ in particular, are expected to engage in the
stereotypical behaviors of being primarily subservient to primarily
Caucasian Male police supervisors by acting as their “personal
secretaries, paramours, or sex partners,” the suits allege.

Black female staffers in the IAB who don’t play the game are
routinely denied promotions and preferred assignments, according to
the suits.

Calling the IAB a “Good Ole Boys” club, the women allege that
agency brass routinely tap random officers home and cellular phones
and look into their private financial records as part of dubious
investigations, the suits state.

Black and Hispanic officers who file discrimination claims against
the department mysteriously become targets of IAB “fishing”
missions, the suits claim.

The lawsuits also claim minority officers are punished more
harshly by the bureau than their white counterparts.  Earlier
this year, a detective who served as an aide to the Internal
Affairs Bureau’s chief likened the division to “the mob” and
endorsed the idea of an inspector as she prepared to file her own
lawsuit.

Between 1992 and 2008, an average of 119 cops were arrested a
year,
according to Internal Affairs Bureau reports. A 2010

Village Voice exposé  of the NYPD’s internal affairs
division revealed that internal affairs cases are processed at a
“snail’s pace” no matter their size or significance, that it’s
often impossible to find out what happened with a complaint, and
that cops who complain to the bureau about their colleagues are
often retaliated against by their supervisors.

The NYPD is currently
facing a series of lawsuits alleging retaliation against
whistleblowers; the department argues, backed by case law, that the
whistleblowers
shouldn’t be protected because reporting on internal misconduct
is part of their job.

A mother has finally obtained video
footage proving that her 22-year-old son died when guards in
a Snohomish County, Washington jail ignored his desperate
pleas for help. The victim, Michael Saffioti, was serving time
after missing a court date for a misdemeanor marijuana possession
charge. To make the awful story even worse, Saffioti’s mother
alleges that her son was killed by a severe allergic reaction
to oatmeal that prison officials erroneously told him was safe to
eat and then later covered up. She has spent the past year fighting
with the jail to obtain footage that might help explain his death.
 

The incident began in July of last year. Saffioti
turned himself in to the authorities in order to be “held
accountable for his legal issues” and was promptly thrown
behind bars. He died less than 24 hours later.

As described by
KIRO TV:

Around 5:46, a group of inmates arrived to serve breakfast and
men began lining up. While others sat to eat, the camera first
captured Saffioti at the guard’s desk, holding his tray. Saffioti
suffered from extreme dairy allergies and took regular pains to
protect himself.

…

The video shows Saffioti apparently discussing his food [and
whether it contained dairy] with the guard, servers and fellow
inmates. Eventually, he took a few bites. Within a few minutes,
Saffioti was back at the guard desk, using his inhaler. According
to the legal claim, he asked to see a nurse. Instead, he was sent
to his cell.

Over the next half hour, the video shows other inmates looking
in Saffioti’s cell as he jumped up and down. The legal claim says
he pressed his call button and was ignored.

A fellow inmate who witnessed the incident claimed that a
corrections officer took Saffioti’s inhaler away and accused
him of “faking” his sickness. 

KIRO TV continued:

About 35 minutes after he ate, a guard found Saffioti
unconscious in his cell. The guard called for help and
Saffioti was dragged him out.

Nurses arrived and performed CPR. Everett firefighters took over
and rushed Saffioti to the hospital where he was pronounced dead a
half hour later.

Rose Saffioti, Michael’s mother, has insisted that the jail was
negligent in caring for her son’s health needs. According to Rose
and Cheryl Snow, the attorney representing his case, Michael was
always vigilant about checking his food and would have told the
guards about his allergies. Additionally, the prison had his
medical condition on file and was supposed to place him in a
separate medical unit.

“Our theory is that they absolutely knew about Michael’s medical
needs,” Cheryl Snow
told KIRO TV.

However, when Saffioti’s mother stated her belief that the
guards’ negligence caused her son’s death last year, the jail
retorted that it had not. In a report compiled by the Snohomish
County Sheriff’s Office Major Crimes Unit, they claimed
that Michael died from bronchial asthma rather than an allergic
reaction. Consequently, county prosecutors decided not to
press criminal charges against any guards.

Once Michael’s mother filed a request for video footage of her
son’s death though, jail officials
engaged in an intentional cover-up. First, officials denied the
existence of any footage. When his mother discovered that this
wasn’t true, officials edited out incriminating portions of the
video.

The
full video, which confirms much of what inmate
witnesses told investigators in interviews last year, is
finally available.  

Saffioti’s mother, who has filed suit against the county for $10
million, is unfortunately not alone. Over the past three years,
eight inmates have died in Snohomish County Jail.

Just four months after Michael’s death, Washington state
legalized recreational marijuana.