Psychopolitik 2.0

So Alvin Greene, the Democratic nominee to challenge Jim DeMint in South Carolina, got indicted:

U.S. Senate nominee Alvin Greene, a political unknown who became the surprise winner of the South Carolina Democratic primary, was indicted Friday by a grand jury on obscenity charges.  Greene was indicted on one felony count of “disseminating, procuring or promoting obscenity,” according to the Richland County clerk of courts.He was also indicted on a misdemeanor count of “communicating an obscene message to another person without consent.” [...]

Greene was charged by police in November with showing pornographic material to a female University of South Carolina student on a computer in the school’s library.  The alleged victim, according to university police, also said Greene asked if he could come to her room.

Chew on this for a moment:

• “Obscenity” actually has a legal standard.  A ridiculously vague one, one that proves the concept itself nonsensical, but a standard nonetheless.  There is a difference, within that standard, between “obscenity” and mere pornography.  This makes any indictment on obscenity charges, including this one, in effect a redrawing of the line.  What exactly Greene is alleged to have showed this woman is HIGHLY relevant in that regard.
• The standard for obscenity defines it as a loophole to 1st Amendment protection.  So, if what Greene accessed is obscene to the point where it is a crime to show it to people, that also means it could be a crime to even make it (this is the kind of question that nearly got John Stagliano sent up the river).
• The allegation is that he showed this material — which hasn’t even been established as anything beyond garden variety porn, at least not in the press — to a college student.  Considering that there’s no mention of her being a child prodigy like this guy, it can safely be assumed that she’s at least 18.  So, no involvement of a minor to point at.
• The mention that he asked to come up to her room is completely irrelevant to the charge.  If he had done something like grope her or grab her arm, then there’d be grounds for assault charges, but he apparently accepted the rejection — which should’ve been the end of it.

So, if the allegation is true, Alvin Greene made a ridiculously crude pass at a grown woman, with the aid of some porn.  Which failed.  This is a felony?  I smell ham…

Since the Too-Many-Mexicans caucus is agitating about yanking the 14th Amendment…

Say hypothetically that amendment were repealed. An immigrant couple comes to the U.S., undocumented. They have a child. Since the rules of one government can’t address what another government chooses to do with regards to citizenship, wouldn’t the kid be, technically, a citizen of nowhere?

Me, 3 months ago:

60-40 confirmation, Scott Brown flips.  NEXT!

What actually happened:

The Senate confirmed U.S. Solicitor General Elena Kagan on Thursday as the 112th justice to the Supreme Court, making her the fourth woman ever to sit on the high court.  On a 63 to 37 vote, Kagan became President Obama’s second lifetime appointment to the court in the past year — the vote was held a year after Sonia Sotomayor won 68 votes for her confirmation as the court’s first Latina justice.

Five Republicans supported Kagan, 50, to succeed retired justice John Paul Stevens. One Democrat, Ben Nelson (Neb.), was opposed.

Brown voted no, btw.

Let’s try another prediction then: Ben Nelson is switching parties after the mid-terms.  He said he wasn’t, but politicians lie anyway, he will.

Story of the day and all…:

In a major victory for gay rights advocates, a federal judge on Wednesday struck down a California ban on same-sex marriage.Chief U.S. District Judge Vaughn Walker ruled that the voter-approved ban, known as Proposition 8, violates due process and equal-protection rights under the U.S. Constitution.

The ruling met immediate criticism from Mormon and Catholic church leaders and cheers from gay-rights advocates.

“Moral disapproval alone is an improper basis on which to deny rights to gay men and lesbians. The evidence shows conclusively that Proposition 8 enacts, without reason, a private moral view that same-sex couples are inferior to opposite-sex couples,” Walker wrote.

The judge added in the conclusion of the 136-page opinion: “Proposition 8 fails to advance any rational basis in singling out gay men and lesbians for denial of a marriage license.”

Majoritarianism doesn’t tend to have exceptions, at least by the folks that endorse it.  If they have 51% & you have 49, they win even if the winning vote is to boil the 49 in oil, strip their bones from the flesh, & make Sammiches with whatever can’t render down into soap.  I could use cheaper lunch meat, but soylent green ain’t my bag, ‘knaw’nsayin’?  In principle, I would much rather in the long run have a series of autonomous societies the likes of which largely ignore these kind of questions as inherently bullshit.  Failing that, the higher up they ask the sole reasonable question: “why the fuck you care???” — the better.  Even if you are the biggest fucking bible thumper on the face of the earth, you have no standing, that isn’t what we — or even YOU, if we wanna get snotty about it — live by.

I completely stand behind my previous hope, of a pro gay rights movement that openly asks “why the hell do you care?!?”  In principle, this should never have been an issue for the courts, as an arm of government.  But pragmatically speaking, the  way of least resistance is the closest to justice.  That is what matters, the rest is thumpery, that’s it.

The job of the courts is to overrule the majority when they shit in the punchbowl marked “individual liberty”.  If they don’t then and only then can they affirm it, within our assumed representative gov’t corporate owned regime.  Once you want to get to REAL control over individual rights, lemme know, because that part is inherently post-state.

I must say, to this day it is fucking hilarious how each side of the “mainstream” will act like the true protectors of liberty, meanwhile they lean on privilege to even get that far, and people are teetering on bankrupt.  That even in a place like California it takes “activist judges!!” to recognize that there’s no reasonable excuse to even give a shit about same sex couples, let alone command them to not marry, says a fuckton.  Your give-a-shit-o-meter is BROKEN, these are consenting adults, no reason whatsoever to be concerned!  Meanwhile, the priest that spew that nonsense are molesting your kids anyway.  Explain THAT shit to me, or stop voting.  I stopped back when I realize no political libertarian would bring up the elephant in the room — imperialism.  Thousands murdered overseas for seemingly nothing, but your ire gets up over those damn gheys.  Have fun being irrelevant.

+48 ounces, 8.1%.  Good night.

-Shorter U.S. Senate: “We don’t like you wild-haired hooligans messing with the reefers anyway, but DON’T YOU DARE cook with it!!”

-As if the “safeguards” on state surveillance aren’t loose enough…

-According to dL, the next thing someone should submit to Wikileaks is a dictionary, with the definition of “treason” conveniently highlighted so anti-transparency zealots can stop butchering it.  Calling for a non-citizen to be charged with treason is like saying a lifelong atheist should be excommunicated by the catholic church.

-Reading this, would you really be all that shocked if a future generation were required to be preemptively handcuffed to board a plane?

Hybrid cars.  At least as far as the U.S. market goes, they’re either still a total ripoff (that is, more of one than the average brand new car is by default), or the technology has been absurdly refitted so as to facilitate boasts of SUVs getting mileage that is merely decent in any other type of vehicle.  I don’t know how car prices or gas mileage are in China, but allegedly a former General Motors employee not only does, but sought to do something about that & make some money in the process:

A former General Motors engineer and her husband conspired to steal trade secrets about hybrid technology and use the information to make private deals with Chinese competitors, according to a federal indictment unsealed Thursday.  Shanshan Du and Yu Qin, both of Troy, were indicted on conspiracy, fraud and other charges. They had been under scrutiny for years and were charged in 2006 with destroying documents sought by investigators, a case that was dropped while a broader probe was pursued. [...]

Du, 51, and Qin, 49, were arrested Thursday and remained mostly silent during a court appearance where they waived a reading of the indictment. Not-guilty pleas were entered for them. The maximum penalty if convicted is 20 years in prison.

“Theft of trade secrets is a threat to national security,” Andrew Arena, head of the FBI in Detroit, said in a statement. (emphasis mine)

Reasonable people tend to read “threat to national security” as referring to potential for an act of war.  Last I checked, GM was out of the weapon manufacturing business, & China has plenty of weapons already.  I call bullshit.

Green is addictive…if you’re referring to money:

Oakland could approve a plan Tuesday to set up four marijuana factory farms, a step that could usher in the era of Big Pot.

The proposal is a testament to just how fast the marijuana counterculture is transforming into a corporate culture. And it has ignited a contentious debate in Oakland that could spread as cities face pressure to regulate marijuana cultivation and find ways to tax it.

“Everybody knows it’s going bigger and big money is moving in,” said Dale Gieringer, an Oakland resident and prominent marijuana activist.

A common explanation for the insane legal status of marijuana, a plant that actually has beneficial qualities, when compared to that of tobacco is that the one that’s legal lends itself better to corporate-model mass production — thus, easier taxation.  Oakland is basically trying to buck this conventional wisdom, and they already have a partner in mind…

If the City Council approves the plan, one Bay Area businessman has already made it clear that he intends to apply for a cultivation permit. Jeff Wilcox, who owned a successful construction firm and has already incorporated as AgraMed, hopes to convert his empty industrial buildings near Interstate 880 into an enormous production facility. He plans to manufacture growing equipment, bake marijuana edibles in a 10,000-square-foot kitchen and use two football fields of space to grow about 58 pounds of marijuana every day, many times the amount now sold in Oakland.

What caught the City Council’s attention was Wilcox’s projection that he could hire 371 employees and pay at least $1.5 million a year in taxes. (emphasis mine)

Sounds to me like in exchange for revenue they’re, in essence, handing over control of virtually the entire medical pot market in the city.  Anyone want to bet on the quality of the product?

Oakland’s proposal, drafted by council members Rebecca Kaplan and Larry Reid, would still allow small unregulated cultivation in homes but is intended to supplant hundreds of larger operations, establishing the four industrial operations “as the only legal model.”  They argue that medium-size operations, often in gutted homes and illicit warehouses, are a hazard, causing electrical fires and drawing violent crime.

Because we all know huge-scale operations are less risky…

Under Oakland’s proposal, the four operations would pay an annual fee of $211,000, which would support a city staff to ensure they are operated safely and securely. But opponents see it as a steep barrier to entry and have proposed a sliding scale based on size.  “The ordinance basically sets up an oligopoly,” said Gieringer, the longtime head of California NORML, which advocates for legalization. “I don’t think we want just four humongous growers, not just Wal-Marts. We’d like to see lots of microbreweries, rather than Budweisers.”

Exactly, though the alternative doesn’t go far enough.  There should be NO special fee for running a medical marijuana operation, the city is already taxing pot anyway.  Try looking at the rest of the budget for once.

Edit: the plan passed today, including the ridiculous fee.

Earlier today, Joe Arpaio (Sheriff of Maricopa County in Arizona, and a well known dick even for a cop) had a Q&A session on the Washington Post’s website, focusing on immigration.

As the discussion was moderated, my pre-submitted question about his thoughts on the author of the Juan Crow law having ties to white supremacists obviously didn’t get through.  Here’s one that did, and his response:

Manassas VA: I live in an area that has a large immigrant community. It’s been a hot button for years. There’s has been a large influx of gang activity and crime in the area. But there are those who are law abiding and here legally.  How would you balance the process of who you check and still be respectful of those who are here legally and just trying to reach the American Dream?

Joseph M. ‘Joe’ Arpaio: We don’t go after people on the street corner if they look like they’re from a foreign country. We pursue illegal immigration during the course of our duties and if during that course it’s revealed that people are in this country illegally, we take action. As far as Maricopa County I’ve been enforcing the federal and state illegal immigration laws for three years, before it became a big, recent political subject. Consequently, many people have left Maricopa County that are here illegally because they’re afraid of being arrested and deported. (emphasis mine)

How exactly does someone “look” like they’re from a foreign country?

Now that I think about it…shit, based on his bio picture, if he were out of uniform & had grown a mustache…

Glenn Greenwald goes at length here about the ongoing saga of Bradley Manning — the alleged provider of the Collateral Murder video — and the U.S. government’s efforts to smash Wikileaks.  Among the peculiarities he notes in the story thus far is quite the bombshell: Adrian Lamo, the ex-hacker who snitched on Manning, appears to have lied about his status (well beyond that generally expected of a government informant, that is) to make Manning think he was speaking to someone legally barred from exposing their conversation.

There’s more, a lot more.  Read the whole thing.

The “Too Many Mexicans” caucus chimes in with another bright idea:

A proposed Arizona law would deny birth certificates to children born in the United States to illegal immigrant parents.  The bill comes on the heels of Arizona passing the nation’s toughest immigration law.John Kavanagh, a Republican state representative from Arizona who supports the proposed law aimed at so-called “anchor babies,” said that the concept does not conflict with the U.S. Constitution.  “If you go back to the original intent of the drafters … it was never intended to bestow citizenship upon (illegal) aliens,” said Kavanagh, who also supported Senate Bill 1070 — the law that gave Arizona authorities expanded immigration enforcement powers.

Under federal law, children born in the United States are automatically granted citizenship, regardless of their parents’ residency status. (emphasis mine)

“All persons born or naturalized in the United States, and subject to the jurisdiction thereof, are citizens of the United States and of the State wherein they reside.”
-14th Amendment, Section one, first clause.

The 14th Amendment was ratified in 1868.  The first federal immigration law — that is, the first law to codify a class of immigrants as “illegal” — passed in 1875*.  Thus, the intent of the 14th Amendment can’t possibly be read as making a distinction that it predated.  You get an F.

(* – That law just so happens to have been blatantly racist.  Coincidence?  I think not…)