Majikthise

The first thing we do, let's kill all the rapists

As far as I know, Barack Obama doesn't generally support the death penalty for rape. So, why does he support capital punishment for child rapists, specifically?

Democrat Barack Obama says he disagrees with the Supreme Court's decision outlawing executions of people convicted of raping a child.

Obama told reporters Wednesday that he thinks the rape of a child, ages six or eight, is a heinous crime. He said if a state makes a decision, then the death penalty is potentially applicable. [AP News]

Rape is a heinous crime. The United Nations recently acknowledged rape as a weapon of war.

If we're going to have a death penalty, and if the death penalty is reserved for the most heinous crimes, then rape should be punishable by death.

Does Obama think that the rapists who sodomized prisoners at Abu Ghraib with chemical lights should be put to death? Given his views on child rape, I should hope so. Consistency requires him to call for the executions of the American soldiers who committed these crimes. If he's not serious about putting all rapists to death, he is trivializing rape by calling for the death penalty only for those who rape children.

If you're going to support the death penalty for child rape alone, you need to explain why child rapes are so morally special compared to the rapes of adult human beings.

The only morally consistent "law and order" position for Obama would be to assert that rape should be punishable by death, across the  board.

Wouldn't that make the wingnuts' heads explode? If violent rape were punishable by death, then date rape without lethal force should be at least comparable to bank robbery.

Why is child rape morally special compared to woman rape, or man rape?

If he thinks its the rape of the defenseless that deserves special punishment, Obama should call for the death penalty for the American soldiers and contractors who participated in the rapes of Abu Ghraib detainees, because those men were as helpless as free seven-year-old children.

Let's have Democrats ask John McCain whether he favors the death penalty for all violent rapists. You can bet the Republicans will choke before the Democrats on this one.

Now, I'm a death penalty abolitionist across the board, but I figure if we're going to have the death penalty at all, violent rapists are as deserving as murderers. Why let Republicans off the hook on this one?

[HT: Digby.]

Origami Iron Man

How cool is this? Origami genius Brian Chan's summer blockbuster, Origami Iron Man, via Gizmodo. [HT: Loren]

Hearing doesn't explain how 22-year-old got $300 million defense contract

Yesterday the House Oversight Committee held a hearing on the Diveroli Debacle. Somehow, a 22-year-old arms dealer and his unknown company AEY got a $300 million contract to supply ammunition to the Afghan Security Forces.

It turned out that AEY was buying up old Chinese-made ammunition which the Albanians had already offered to donate for free, and selling it back to the US government at a massive profit.

Witnesses testified that AEY was selected to supply ammo despite a poor track record on previous contracts. We also know that the contract was awarded while Diveroli and some of his key associates were a on a State Department watch list of suspected illegal arms traffickers.

Basically, the hearing concentrated on information that the Committee could easily obtain--testimony from officials and internal documents. This is a huge service. Now that information is in the pubic record for journalists and other interested parties to move the story forward.

The hearing established unequivocally that there was startling misconduct on the part of procurement officials.

The State Department has also opened a probe into the U.S. Ambassador to Albania, whom the committee suspects of acting improperly.

Perhaps the hearing didn't delve into the details of how AEY became an international arms trafficking powerhouse in the first place because Diveroli and his crew were indicted on federal charges and arrested. Congressional investigators may be hoping that the prosecution will do the heavy spadework on the Diveroli crew.

Update: Thomas Frank has a good op/ed on the Diveroli Debacle in today's Wall Street Journal.

Premiere: TechGrrl Tips with Deanna Zandt

The fabulous Deanna Zandt kicks off her new series, TechGrrl Tips on GRITtv.

In this installment, Deanna catches up with Democratic tech consultant Tracy Russo at the Personal Democracy Forum in New York City.

Speaking on a panel, Tracy got into a testy exchange with one of John McCain's campaign staffers who tried to argue that McCain didn't need to know how to use a computer in order to govern an increasingly computer-dependent nation.

Groups to warn panel about economic effect of seizing laptops

A disturbing item from Government Executive.com:

U.S. Customs and Border Patrol's practice of seizing laptop computers and other electronic devices from American travelers returning to the United States without notifying them of what will happen to the data could negatively affect the U.S. economy, according to travel and privacy analysts who are scheduled to testify before a Senate panel on Wednesday.

The hearing before a Senate Judiciary subcommittee comes two months after the 9th Circuit Court of Appeals ruled that CBP officials do not need reasonable suspicion to search laptops, BlackBerrys, cell phones and other personal electronic storage devices at U.S. borders. The seizures can include downloading personal information and data from the devices. The Electronic Frontier Foundation and the Association of Corporate Travel Executives filed amicus briefs earlier this month asking the court to reverse the decision.

CBP's practice places undue burdens on travelers and could have a harmful impact on the economy, said Susan Gurley, executive director of the Association of Corporate Travel Executives, who plans to testify at the hearing. "Our argument is that essentially in today's world you carry your office with you on electronic devices such as a cell phone, laptop or BlackBerry," Gurley said. "In the old days, if you were physically sitting in your office, you need a warrant to search it. Now basically one does not need a warrant." [Continued...]

The Fourth Amendment was pretty sweet while it lasted.

Liberals "deselected" for plum jobs at DOJ, report finds

The DOJ excluded prospective hires for being liberal, according to a joint report released today by two oversight agencies within the Justice Department.

Background on Cindy McCain's drug addiction

Harold Pollack argues that Democrats should refrain from trashing Cindy McCain for her history of drug addiction.

There's no shame in being a recovering addict--or an active user for that matter, provided your habit isn't hurting other people.  However, Cindy McCain chose to feed her addiction in particularly loathsome ways.

When you're as rich and well-connected as she is, there are ways to feed a prescription drug habit that don't involve pressuring your underlings to commit crimes on your behalf.

Cindy McCain stole drugs from a medical charity. It doesn't get much lower than that. Worse still, she used her employees' names to obtain drugs, and even enlisted some her her staff to pick up those prescriptions on her behalf. She also used the DEA numbers of multiple physicians who worked for the American Voluntary Medical Team to obtain drugs, often without the doctors' knowledge. (Cf. Laura Silverman's excellent reporting on the McCain drug scandal.)

Doctors can be bankrupted and even prosecuted for irregular prescribing patterns. So, McCain was risking the futures of multiple families when she ordered hundreds of pain pills on the sly. One of the doctors who worked with McCain at AVMT lost his license to practice medicine over the diversion scandal.

Cindy McCain's self-indulgence ruined lives. She has publicly apologized for taking the drugs without permission, but I'm not aware of any apologies for pressuring her employees to risk their futures to feed her addiction.

Ironically, part of her diversion from criminal prosecution involved joining Narcotics Anonymous--which stipulates that an addict must make amends to those she has harmed. That's not a step Cindy appears to have taken to heart in her dealings with her former emplyee, Tom Gosinski, the main whistleblower in this case.

Gosinski alleges that Cindy fired him from AVMT for knowing too much about her drug habit.  Gosinski also tipped off the DEA to McCain after he left the charity. He came forward in part because he was afraid that Cindy had filed prescriptions in his name, a suspicion that turned out to be justified.

When he sued Cindy for wrongful dismissal, she levied spurious accusations of blackmail against him.

Cindy McCain let Gosinski go in January 1993, ostensibly because AVMT couldn't afford to pay him. Gosinski alleges that she fired him because he knew too much about her drug addiction and her penchant for pilfering pills from the charity. Gosinski filed a wrongful dismissal suit against McCain in January 1994, just ahead of the 1-year statute of limitations.

The entire basis of the extortion complaint was a letter from Goskinski's lawyers asking for a $250,000 settlement. McCain and her spokesman lied to the press when they claimed that Gosinski threatened to take the case to the DEA if he didn't get the settlement. In fact, he went to the DEA months before he filed the lawsuit.

Frankly, the character of a First Spouse is rock-bottom on my list of desiderata for a presidential candidate.

As Harold says, we should abide by the norms of our moral universe, if we decide to bring up Cindy McCain's history of addiction. I would argue that our morality requires us to call out double standards where we see them. The mere possibility that Michelle Obama uttered the word "whitey" was enough to send the whole country into a tizzy for several days. Yet, nobody seems to care about the fact that Cindy McCain enlisted her employees to help her steal Vicodin from her own charity.

This whole episode underscores the rock bottom Republican truth: There are two sets of rules. One for the rich and powerful and one for everyone else. 

 

Pentagon employees glued to single-malt cam for national security reasons

The Defense Threat Reduction Agency has taken a keen interest in the webcam of a Scottish distillery, allegedly because the single-malt distillation is a lot like chemical weapons production, Sharon Weinberger reports:

Weapons inspectors may not have found any weapons of mass destruction in Iraq, but they are closely watching operations at a Scottish distillery. 

Bruichladdich Distillery Company, which makes single-malt whiskey and allows Internet users to monitor its distillery via webcam, has found that a Pentagon agency has taken an out-sized interest in its operations. It turns out the Defense Threat Reduction Agency was closely watching its operations. "The distillery discovered the additional interest after the DTRA emailed to complain that the distillery’s webcam was out of action," Computing, a U.K. publication reports. "When Bruichladdich asked why the agency was interested in a distillery in a remote Scottish location, the agency said that the process of manufacturing chemical weapons and distilling whiskey were very similar so it was using the Bruichladdich web site to train its operatives." [Danger Room]

Sure, sure.

Support bill to regulate "troubled teen industry"

Journalist and activist Maia Szalavitz explains why you should support H.R. 5876, a bill to combat human rights abuses in the so-called "troubled teen" industry.

McCain accuses Obama of cowboy diplomacy

Cowboy diplomacy? For wanting to renegotiate NAFTA:

John McCain has accused Barack Obama of “cowboy diplomacy” over free trade that threatened to undermine relations with Canada and reverse the benefits of the North American Free Trade Agreement.

The Republican presidential candidate made the attack before heading to Ottawa on Friday for a speech championing the virtues of free trade. [FT]

Isn't surrealism elitist? 

If renegotiating NAFTA is cowboy, let's mosey on down to the negotiating table. Yippie kai ay yay!