[Saturday update] "12News" tweeted "Arpaio says crime sweep leads to 22 arrests." My first reaction: Why are journalists, even television journalists, still taking dictation from this publicity-mad sheriff who has cost county taxpayers tens of millions in settlements over inmates injured or who died in his abysmal jails and is now under a federal court order over racial profiling, among other abuses and blunders during his time in office? Response times on real crimes suffered during his anti-immigrant stunts. No police officer respects "Nickel Bag Joe." But the white-right blue hairs have made him High Sheriff for Life.
Upon reflection: What is the context? I suspect one Phoenix PD precinct makes this many arrests in one quiet shift. Will "12News" follow up to tell us how serious the charges involved (22 parking violators? 22 murderers?) and how many result in convictions? Of course not. This is press-release "journalism." Plus, "12News" is part of "Republic Media," as in Gannett owning the state's largest newspaper, biggest news Web site and one of its major TV stations. That was illegal until the deregulation after 2000. An uninformed citizenry won't ask questions. Doing so might land you in a "crime sweep."
• Stay put, young man. "Americans used to be exceptional for how often they moved. But that once-powerful source of both efficiency and upward mobility is now in steep decline." From Washington Monthly.
• Bleak house. "We have forgotten what this country once understood, that a society based on nothing but selfishness and greed is not a society at all, but a state of war of the strong against the weak." From the New York Review of Books.
• Yes, trains again, because they matter. Even Orlando gets commuter rail. Florida cities are also served by several long-distance Amtrak trains. Miami and environs have commuter service. High-speed rail is under consideration. And this is a red state full of old people. Meanwhile, Phoenix's far-flung suburbs have no commuter rail. And Phoenix has no Amtrak service (as late as the 1960s, we had eight trains a day). The ADOT plans to Tucson are moronic.
• Saving the best for last: The indispensable John Dougherty (we worked together on the Keating Five scandal) has another must-read on the mistakes ignored by the Yarnell fire investigation.
The open thread is yours....
Re my call for prosecution reference the shut down I offer:
"The petition argues that "the House GOP leadership's use of the Hastert Rule and H. Res 368 to shut down the government and threaten the US economy with default is an attempt to extort the United States government into altering or abolishing the Affordable Care Act, and thus, is self-evidently a seditious conspiracy." (The U.S. Code defines "seditious conspiracy" in part as any conspiracy "to oppose by force the authority [of the U.S. government], or by force to prevent, hinder, or delay the execution of any law of the United States.")"
Posted by: cal Lash | October 18, 2013 at 12:25 AM
Jon, I intentionally took out a Amtrak Master card that allows me to accumulate points to ride Amtrak. I buy books with it. Ah, I ride the sleeper car with dreams of Ayn Rand as my bunk companion.
Posted by: cal Lash | October 18, 2013 at 01:03 AM
cal,
Dagny Tagggart would have you hanging out the window of a sleeper car crying for mercy. (with a smile on your face)
Posted by: Reb | October 18, 2013 at 07:13 AM
But Reb, the secret is out cal lash is the clark kent of John Galt.
Red wine is to me like Kryptonite to Superman.
I am a legend in my on mind.
Posted by: cal Lash | October 18, 2013 at 10:27 AM
Florida rail: $1.2 billion of state money for a low-ridership commuter line. While the federally financed high-speed line was rejected.
http://systemicfailure.wordpress.com/2011/07/12/whats-lex-luther-up-to/
But hey! Free double tracking and upgrades for CSX. Florida, the swamp where crazy ideas go to thrive.
http://www.salon.com/2013/10/13/ted_talks_are_lying_to_you/
Posted by: AWinter | October 19, 2013 at 07:57 AM
Sustainability?
http://www.dailykos.com/story/2013/10/18/1248523/-You-won-t-see-Hillary-Clinton-in-the-same-light-ever-again?detail=email#
Posted by: cal Lash | October 19, 2013 at 12:09 PM
OOPPS. Hillary is not sustainable.
Here U go.
http://rendezvous.blogs.nytimes.com/2013/02/25/there-is-no-sustainable-business/?_r=0
Posted by: cal Lash | October 19, 2013 at 12:17 PM
And Doug Tompkins and sustainability:
Here is a partial quote from him in the new issue of Adbusters:
"The computer is a mechanism for acceleration, it accelerates economic activity and this is eating up the world...that's what the computer's real work does.
Posted by: cal Lash | October 19, 2013 at 12:19 PM
Cal Lash wrote:
"The petition argues that "the House GOP leadership's use of the Hastert Rule and H. Res 368 to shut down the government and threaten the US economy with default is an attempt to extort the United States government into altering or abolishing the Affordable Care Act, and thus, is self-evidently a seditious conspiracy."
There's no such thing as the "Hastert Rule":
http://www.washingtonpost.com/blogs/post-politics-live/liveblog/live-updates-the-shutdown-showdown/?id=61993257-bb05-484d-9a58-1be81100f225
Note also that "the House passed a compromise to reopen the government and raise the debt ceiling with just 87 Republican votes, well short of a majority of the majority" (supposedly a requirement of the fictitious Hastert Rule).
http://www.washingtonpost.com/blogs/the-fix/wp/2013/10/18/the-hastert-rule-rip/
H.R. 368 applied only to one bill, Joint Resolution 59. It didn't prevent a clean continuing resolution (C.R.) from being brought to a floor vote to reopen government at any time during the shutdown; House Speaker Boehner is the one who was in a position to enforce or end the shutdown; he chose to enforce it for the duration in order to play to the conservative base and its donors.
There is something fundamentally nonsensical about this House rules change controversy.
First of all, it has NEVER been the prerogative of general members of the House to call a floor vote. That has always been the privilege of the Speaker of the House or his designee. Can you imagine the chaos that would ensue if any member could force the entire body of the House to a floor vote at will?
Even the unmodified version of the House rule in question (Rule XXII, Clause 4) says that its use "shall be privileged". So there was NEVER any possibility that the unmodified rule could be invoked by a general member of the House. H.R. 368 simply confers that privilege on House majority leader Eric Cantor, and only with respect to invocations of the rule with respect to J.R. 59, a single piece of legislation.
Furthermore, the modified rule in question governs the removal or modification by the House of a Senate amendment to a joint bill. It does NOT relate to the process of a straight-up vote on a joint bill as received from the Senate. Additionally, House Rule XXII, Clause 4 is not the only parliamentary procedure by which a move to bring a bill to the floor for a vote may be filed.
In ALL cases the final authority to call the whole body of the House to a floor vote rests with the Speaker of the House, in this case John Boehner.
If the rule had NEVER been modified by H.R. 368 and no mention of the supposed "Hastert Rule" had ever been made, the ONLY ordinary way for J.R. 59 or any other bill to reopen the government to make it to a floor vote is for the House Speaker to approve it for a floor vote. So, all along, Boehner was in charge.
As for extraordinary means, if the Speaker refuses to allow a floor vote, there are then two ways to force the legislation to be released for a floor vote: (1) If a simple majority of House members signs a discharge petition; (2) If the Speaker is removed from his position by a special action of the House, and the new Speaker calls a floor vote.
Posted by: Emil Pulsifer | October 19, 2013 at 03:32 PM
P.S. It's quite common in both federal and state legislatures for a bill which the majority party dislikes to be withheld from reaching a floor vote, particularly if it would pass a floor vote primarily through the votes of the minority opposition party along with a few votes by defecting majority members. In the House, the Speaker just refuses to schedule it for a floor vote..
It's uncommon for a faction of the majority party to join with the minority party to co-sign a discharge petition (a simple majority of the total House) to force a floor vote. It's truly rare for a Speaker to be deposed in order to force a floor vote.
Posted by: Emil Pulsifer | October 19, 2013 at 03:40 PM
Press release journalism -- Exactly. But this is only the beginning. It will get worse. Sheriff Joe drove me nuts when I lived in AZ, and it's horrific such a racist, sadistic creep still reigns. Is the problem the Maricopa electorate? Afraid so. That's one thing I don't miss.
Posted by: Greg Smith | October 19, 2013 at 06:27 PM
Earlier this week, Scott Light took offense at my calling him out for asking an insipid "Who do you think is to blame" question during the government shutdown. Earlier this year Mark Curtis managed to dumb down the Bradley/Chelsea Manning story to a debate over whether the government should pay for a sexual reassignment surgery. I'm convinced that we need to call out lousy "journalism" as often as we do lousy politicians.
Posted by: Diane D'Angelo | October 19, 2013 at 06:37 PM
There's an additional issue here that never gets talked about: how incestuous the PR flack/journalist worlds are. It's a helluva lot harder to play hardball as journalist when you're sleeping with/married to/besties with the person you're interviewing. Saw it all the time when I worked at ADOT.
Posted by: Diane D'Angelo | October 19, 2013 at 06:38 PM
It's the Friday Saloon, so I'll speak of my Friday commute homewards. A lot happened, and I'm just recounting one thread. I'm sure that will be appreciated.
Had to take the 70E bus all the way down to Baseline after disembarking the WBIYB. There's a particularly surly and insulting bus driver who pops up now and again, and here she was again. I'm grateful that her eye has not cast in my direction, and that I've only witnessed the humiliation she can heap... but I digress.
Her character comes into play because she was piloting the return route - the 70W - as well, and when a slightly rough-around-the-edges but quite amiable fellow with whom I'd been chatting at the stop apparently had a "moment" with the driver. I watched this moment with idle curiosity, but...
The following is speculation informed largely by hindsight - see below. I was seated, and the driver was doing her customary exasperated condescension act ("Striped side down! C'mon, swipe it, move on... striped side DOWN!") and it seems my friend, who was behind the woman being abused, muttered something unintelligible to me. The bus driver said something hostile-sounding to him (expectedly,) and he sat down.
Two stops down, at Southern, two policemen boarded our bus, walked directly towards our protagonist, point and say, "You."
"Me?"
"Yea, you. Off the bus. Now."
Off the bus they went.
I didn't have quite the same reaction as a gentleman in the back of the bus, who patted his heart and proclaimed just a little too loudly, "Oh fuck, I thought they was comin' fo' me!," but a shot of fear ran through me, nonetheless, and left me feeling cowardly and dirty.
Bus driver. Police. Authority.
I had been just a moment away, myself, from telling Ms. Sunshine that she was quite the ray of, well, sunshine.
Posted by: Petro | October 19, 2013 at 06:58 PM
It behooves me to point out that nearly every Metro driver I've encountered has been very professional in the PR sense of being pleasant and engaging. The woman I describe above stands out in her exceptionalism.
Posted by: Petro | October 19, 2013 at 07:06 PM
I did not write, I quoted. I was aware of the fictitious Hastert rule. My point was that Cruz seemed to be comitting extortion at the monetary expense of the American citizen.
Posted by: cal Lash | October 19, 2013 at 07:51 PM
Petro is your bus experience keeping you from a new subject on your blog?
Posted by: cal Lash | October 19, 2013 at 08:00 PM
Maybe a complaint to the bus company would get the ball rolling over the exception to the rule.
Don't be too hard on Mark Curtis. He used to be the sportscaster and probably got moved up cause he wasn't as pretty as the owner's son's wife.
Posted by: eclecticdog | October 19, 2013 at 08:24 PM
cal, I'm going through a "gestational period." Yea, that's it...
Plus, I chopped a nice chunk off the tip of my left index finger while I was only supposed to be chopping lettuce for some tacos last Wednesday.
That's the "e" finger on the keyboard, and it's hard to stay on "home" as well. It's a flimsy excuse, but I'll go with anything for now...
Posted by: Petro | October 19, 2013 at 08:27 PM
Cruz:
And for personal gain
sounds like a crime to me.
Posted by: cal lash | October 20, 2013 at 09:03 AM
Reb, just for U since I heard you are moving to, John Birch City in Idaho
February 2013: Idaho state Sen. John Goedde (R) introduced legislation that would require every high school student in Idaho to read Ayn Rand's Atlas Shrugged -- a novel associated with conservatism and the tea party movement.
Posted by: cal lash | October 20, 2013 at 09:39 AM
Jon, The High Sheriff now has ex Go Daddy VP, Christine Jones singing lullaby's to Joe in return for his support for her attempt to be Arizona's next Kook Governor.
Posted by: cal lash | October 20, 2013 at 09:47 AM