Specter gets points

By Creature

TPM:

Speaking moments ago to a large and animated crowd of union organizers and health reform advocates in a brewing house just North of the Capitol, Sen. Arlen Specter (D-PA) said he supports a public insurance option.

"Schumer has it right about having a public component," Specter said.

Specter's is the ultimate political opportunist, but the public option needs all the senatorial help it can get, so good for Arlen. Now let's see how he actually votes.

Clownfish of the Week: Gov. Mark Sanford

By (O)CT(O)PUS


Photoshop credit: AZrainman

He disappeared from plain sight. When asked of his whereabouts, his cohorts refused to answer. Security, they said. His wife knew nothing. Reporters spotted his car at the airport. Rumors swirled. Something about taking a hike in the Appalachians. Finally, an admission, a clandestine trip … Yeee Haah … to Argentina!

Can’t you hear me, baby, rappin’ on your door?

Can’t you hear me, baby, rappin’ on your door?

Now you hear me tappin’, tappin’ across your floor.

For seven days and seven nights days, Governor Mark Sanford of South Caroline was missing. This is the same Governor Mark Sanford who refused to accept federal economic stimulus funds ... for the State of South Carolina that has among the worst unemployment stats in the nation … and failing grades in education.

Feel like a broke-down engine, ain’t got no drive at all,

Feel like a broke-down engine, ain’t got no drive at all.

This is the same Governor Sanford whose own legislature voted to accept the stimulus money and override his veto, whose own State Supreme Court upheld the state legislature that demanded the governor take the stimulus money; the same Governor Sanford from the same great state of South Carolina, rumors say, who wants to run for president of these even greater United States of Aye!

Lordy, Lord, Lordy, Lord, Lordy, Lord.

After seven days and seven nights, we discover Governor Mark Sanford had secretly flown to Argentina to visit a woman with whom he had been having … an affair! "I've let down a lot of people," said the governor at a news conference where he choked up as he ruminated on God's law, moral absolutes, and following one's heart. His family did not attend.

Feel like a broke-down engine,

ain’t got no whistle or bell,

If you’re a real hot momma,

drive away Daddy’s weeping spell.

At The Swash Zone today, the temperature is 87 degrees and sunny. Visibility is 10 miles, and the surf is calm. All resident clownfish have left our shores … bound for South Carolina.

(Cross-posted at The Swash Zone.)

Zero tolerance for zero tolerance

By Capt. Fogg

The right of the people to be secure in their persons, houses, papers, and effects, against unreasonable searches and seizures, shall not be violated, and no warrants shall issue, but upon probable cause, supported by oath or affirmation, and particularly describing the place to be searched, and the persons or things to be seized.

-US Constitution, Amendment IV-

But not if you're in school, not if it's about a commonly used non aspirin anti-inflammatory, not if there's a zero tolerance policy and not if the accusation comes from some other 8th grader who doesn't like your looks.

Did a school principal act illegally by having an 8th grade girl stripped to her underwear while she was searched for "drugs?" (Safford Unified v. Redding, 08-479) Clarence Thomas appears to be the only one on the US Supreme Court who thinks so, who thinks probable cause, a legitimate warrant, a reading of one's rights, and due process is a nuisance and a hindrance to dealing with the "scourge of drugs" by school administrators. He was the one dissenting voice today asserting that equal protection under the law is not equally available and that teachers should have powers the police don't have and far less responsibility and accountability to boot.

“The content of the suspicion failed to match the degree of intrusion,”

wrote Justice Souter for the majority and what an understatement it is. Should some schoolteacher be able to subject his charges to his own version of a totalitarian state; subject small children to sexual humiliation ad libidum; should some dodgy accusation be justification for warrantless intrusion and violation of our civil rights? We would be a sorry excuse for a free country, now wouldn't we? Would warrantless wiretapping and the end of Habeas Corpus and secret enemies lists and secret prisons be far behind? And of course we'd still have drugs anyway.

I'm glad Thomas is here to please the conservatives who loathe judicial activism, because this case points out just how necessary that "activism" can be to preserve justice in the face of the inumanity of some Americans.