Month: November 2014

Vladimir “Putin is a gift to
caricaturists,”
said Barry Blitt, a New Yorker artist, when he
designed a Sochi Olympic-themed cover earlier this year, featuring
the Russian leader in frilly ice skating attire. The caricature
artists of Russia take a very different approach. On Friday a
gallery titled “No Filters” with the work of about 100
cartoonists opened
in Moscow, and just about all their images show Putin favorably: as
a strongman, a political chess master, and a fighter against
fascists and terrorists. In one conspicuously large work, Putin is
spanking President Barack Obama, who has the body of schoolboy.

“Targeted sanctions,” the caption on that caricature reads – a
jab at America’s economic strategy against Russia’s war of
aggression in Ukraine. Another image shows Putin tugging on Obama’s
ear,
scolding him not to “touch” Ukraine again. A third shows Obama
and Ukraine’s president, both dressed as peasant girls working the
fields, cowering from Putin who sits atop a tank and asks,
“Hey girls, have you seen any fascists here?”

There is some truth to the first image, at least.
Putin has run circles around the U.S. when it comes to the war in
Ukraine. The Obama administration has called for an end to Russian
aggression since Putin invaded Crimea. The U.S. has tried to put
pressure on Russia by initiating first targeted sanctions and then
broad ones. That began in March, and yet Russia’s military
incursion persists to this day, and has grown worse. Obama gave his
own policies credit as being “the
only reason” a ceasefire was agreed upon in September – some of
the bloodiest fighting started shortly thereafter. And, in spite of
strong rhetoric one week, like the U.S. “will not accept Russia’s
occupation and illegal annexation of Crimea or any part of
Ukraine,” Obama allegedly privately
admitted around the same time that Crimea was “gone” for
good.

Obama’s shortcomings aside, Putin is not the savvy strongman his
propagandists present him as. Russia’s currency continues to

hit record lows, and the nation’s economy is at recession
levels. And the annexation of Crimea leaves Russia with a
10,000-square mile welfare money pit.

That Putin is fighting against fascism is laughable.
The “Young Guards,” the youth-wing of his political party, set up
the gallery to display the
work of “patriotically oriented artists” who want to “restore in
the minds of citizens respect and pride in their country.”

A poll last month showed about half of Russia believes Putin has
a
cult of personality. Another poll shows about half of Russia
fears
Soviet-style mass repression will return in their
lifetime. Reason has talked to several Russian
libertarians about Putin’s domestic
crackdown on political
opposition and the press. 

On Friday, I reported on the return of Cold War-type action,
like Russia
flying nuclear-equipped bombers over Europe. 

We’ve noted previously that
Democratic North Carolina Sen. Kay Hagan has a
tough race for re-election against a Republican
challenger and a potential
Libertarian Party spoiler named Sean Haugh. The National
Journal has a
lengthy look at how the race has played out so far.

She also has a bit of a scandal that didn’t appear to be gaining
much national traction, but some very unusual self-censorship by a
top television station and a top newspaper in North Carolina may
change the situation.

To summarize: Kay Hagan’s family—her husband, son, and
son-in-law—is accused of receiving more than $250,000 in stimulus
funds from 2009 to renovate buildings owned by their companies.
This would present a potential conflict of interest and could
potentially be a violation of state and federal law. Carolina
Journal has a
story here stating that North Carolina’s Department of
Environment and Natural Resources has recommended that an auditor
review the grant (solar company subsidies are the source of the
grant, for anybody wondering why that particular agency is
involved). The Carolina Journal has embedded PDFs of the
reports for review.

Over the weekend it appeared the major media outlets were
picking up on the controversy right before the election. Stories
appeared on the websites for the Charlotte Observer and
Charlotte-based  CBS affiliate WBTV. WBTV apparently provided
the story to both outlets. The story was just a reporting of the
contents of the same documents the Carolina Journal got
its hands on. It doesn’t actually accuse Kagan or her family
directly of wrong-doing; rather, the report calls for “further
legal review” out of concern that there may have been
wrong-doing.

But today both stories are gone, scrubbed from the sites, and
some are calling foul. The Observer tweeted this morning that
WBTV had provided the story and asked for it to be yanked and the
Observer complied. WBTV has not tweeted any sort
of explanation as to why it yanked the story as yet. And so the
media in North Carolina is being accused of aiding and abetting
Hagan in a tight race.

Nothing can be deleted from the Internet, so The
Federalist pulled up the cache of the story and has it

posted here. A read-through of it can confirm what I described
a couple of paragraphs ago. The story is simply describing the
contents of a report from the state’s Department of Environment and
Natural Resources. There could potentially be a logical reason for
yanking the story if it turned out the documents themselves were
counterfeit, but that itself would be extremely newsworthy.
Instead, there’s just silence so far.

In the absence of an official explanation, the disappearance of
the stories is itself trending as news. Just doing a
Google news search of Hagan (just her name with no other key
words) brought up a collection of stories from political sites
wondering why the Observer and WBTV deleted the
coverage.

Writing in The New York
Times, on the eve of what many expect to be a punishing
midterm loss for Democrats (the timing is surely coincidental),
public policy professor David Schanzer of Duke University and Jay
Sullivan, a junior at the same school,
argue that America’s midterm elections should be
cancelled. 

Here is the core of their reasoning:

But the two-year cycle isn’t just unnecessary; it’s harmful to
American politics.

The main impact of the midterm election in the modern era has
been to weaken the president, the only government official (other
than the powerless vice president) elected by the entire nation.
Since the end of World War II, the president’s party has on average
lost 25 seats in the House and about 4 in the Senate as a result of
the midterms. This is a bipartisan phenomenon — Democratic
presidents have lost an average of 31 House seats and between 4 to
5 Senate seats in midterms; Republican presidents have lost 20 and
3 seats, respectively.

The realities of the modern election cycle are that we spend
almost two years selecting a president with a well-developed
agenda, but then, less than two years after the inauguration, the
midterm election cripples that same president’s ability to advance
that agenda.

Basically, their complaint is that the midterms reinforce the
notion that the president’s agenda is not the only one that
matters, allow the public a chance to express their opinion about
that agenda by voting at the midpoint of a presidential term, and
that Congress has significant power to shape, slow, or even block
that agenda through the legislative process (and might even respond
with an agenda or agendas of its own).

This strikes me as a better case for the midterms than one
against it. 

If you need something a little stronger than
coffee to perk you up this Monday morning, perhaps disgust and
outrage will do the trick? Because I think I have just the thing
for that. Introducing…
two Austin police officers who not only think mocking rape and
robbery victims is hilarious but were too stupid not to record
themselves during the conversation. 

In the video, the two unseen Austin cops—later revealed as
Officers Michael Castillo and Mark Lytle—start out discussing how
crime better watch out when they’re riding together. “Shit would
get real for the bad guys,” says one of the officers. “The world
would be at peace for a week.”

The other officer counters that peace would probably be likely
“because we’d turn a blind eye towards everything.” It
continues:

Officer 1: I want to report a robbery! You probably deserved
it.
(something unintelligible about finding a rape victim)
Officer 1: Look at that girl over there.
(one of them blows a whistle at her)
Officer 2: Go ahead and call the cops. They can’t unrape you.
(laughter)
Officer 1: Yeah, exactly. … You did turn your camera off,
didn’t you?
Officer 2: They can’t unrape you!

The Austin Police Department
confirmed to local station KXAN that the video is authentic and
said an internal investigation is underway. “The investigation will
include a comprehensive audit of the involved officers’ contacts
with victims of sexual assault to ensure the actions taken during
the contacts meet the expectations of the Department, the public
and most importantly, the victims,” it said in a statement.

Austin lawyer Drew Gibbs, who first posted the video to YouTube,
told KXAN the video was obtained as part of his firm’s
investigation into an auto crash. “The comments on the video struck
me as inappropriate and I chose to allow the court of public
opinion to decide if they agreed,” said Gibbs.

“Arguably even more inappropriate than the rape joke made by the
police officer was the other officer’s initial reaction, which was
to hope that the video camera was not rolling. … I would hope
that when a police officer observes another officer acting
inappropriately, or worse, illegally, that their initial reaction
would be to correct that behavior and prevent its
reoccurrence.”

Watch the whole thing: 

A spokesman for the Austin Police Association said “we all would
be embarrassed if everything we said was made public” and that the
statements the officers made on camera do not “reflect those
officers work ethic”.

Da’von Shaw, a Bedford, Ohio high school student,
brought apples and craisins to school for a “healthy eating”
presentation he was giving to his speech class. He took out a knife
to slice an apple, and I’m sure you can all guess
what happened next:

“When I took out the knife the teacher then told me that I
couldn’t use it, so I didn’t hesitate I just gave it to her,” said
Da’von.

He continued with his other classes, but late in the day was
suspended for five days. The suspension letter charged him with
having a weapon at school. 

His mother Shakila Wilson is angry, saying, “I can take off my
belt and use that as a weapon. Pens and pencils can be used as a
weapon. You can’t take a person with no intentions to harm and put
them as a criminal because that’s what you normally do.” 

She feels the punishment is too much, didn’t take the
circumstances into account and worries about her son missing
classes and assignments.

At least he wasn’t actually executed by the Bedford High School zero
tolerance squad. But he was given a five-day
suspension for bringing a “weapon” to school. Questioned by a
reporter at 19 Action
News, the superintendent suggested that Da’von’s punishment
could actually have been much worse: an entire year’s suspension. I
guess the school was being incredibly lenient when it decided not
to put Da’von’s life on hold for a year over nothing.

A while back, when we first started hearing about these zero tolerance follies,
I might have sputtered something like, “What are we teaching kids
when a school refuses to make any distinction between actual danger
and normal life?” But now I realize: We are teaching kids
precisely what they need to learn in a
hyper-terrified society. They need to understand that society today
refuses to distinguish between an infinitesimal risk and a huge
one. Zero tolerance is perfect training.

Some day, if he
doesn’t do something crazy like bring a nailclipper to school,
Da’von will graduate. Eventually, he will matriculate into American
adulthood, where, if he wants an easy time of it, he will
not roll his eyes when a TSA agent confiscates his
3.5 oz tube of Pepsodent, and not slam the door when a cop
comes to investigate him for letting his son play at the park,
unsupervised.

In other words: To get along as he goes along, Da’Von will be
expected—required!—to accept safety hysteria as a way of life. As a
high school student who sliced an apple without considering the
enormous threat this posed to his fellow students, he failed. But
after five days at home to reflect on what he did, perhaps he will
be ready to become a good, quaking, danger-hallucinating
American.