The liberal blogosphere has been almost delusional about Nancy Pelosi losing badly in her attempt to get Murtha as House majority chair, trying to paint it as some kind of moral victory. But it was quite the opposite of that.

Hey, Pelosi stormed in, demanding House Democrats bend to her will, announced she was in charge and they better deal with it - and got her head handed to her on a platter instead. Good. House Democrats showed admirable independence and a refusal to be bullied instead.

Pelosi stumbles out of the blocks

Nancy Pelosi’s decision to pick a public fight with her second in command, Maryland Rep. Steny Hoyer, is so incomprehensible, so politically stupid that it has raised eyebrows among political journalists and insiders of all type.

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Wood at The JohnHeronProject in Wales posted about the UCLA tasering, accidentally identifying the officers involved as LAPD not UCLA police. He then got email from someone at LAPD saying Hey it wasn’t us…

Hmmm, I wonder, did LAPD use Google blog search or Technorati to find the post? While Wood hopes they don’t come beat him up, I figure, hey, LAPD has enough videos of them thumping someone circulating, so why take the rap for one they didn’t do.

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His lawyer is Stephen Yagman, who is known and feared by local police agencies for the ferocity of his lawsuits. He will file a federal civil rights lawsuit claiming “‘brutal excessive force,’ as well as false arrest” and racial profiling.

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The police officers who tasered a handcuffed UCLA student threatened to taser other students who asked for their badge numbers.

But, it’s illegal for a police officer to do that.

Such a threat of the use of force by a law enforcement officer in response to a request for a badge number is an “illegal assault,” Eliasberg said.

“It is absolutely illegal to threaten anyone who asks for a badge, that’s assault” he said.

Islamic leaders call for probe of student tasering

Council of Islamic-American Relations Executive Director in southern California Hussam Ayloush said:

“It is hard to see the justification for repeatedly using pain-inducing weapons on a person who was apparently not a threat to any officer or student. We call on state and national authorities, including the FBI, to launch an independent investigation of this disturbing incident. Given the circumstances involved, only an outside, independent probe will ensure that the civil rights aspects of this case are being taken seriously and will be addressed in an impartial manner.”

UCLA has a bland statement from the acting chancellor promising a full investigation. You can link to it from the top of their home page, which indicates they see a shit storm coming.

In the comments to our previous post on this, Mike said “In my day there, the campus would have been shut down.” To take that thought one step further, the fact that a campus would be shut down during the 60’s-70’s if something like happened unquestionably kept it from happening, at least some of the time.

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A $74-million program to encourage democracy in Cuba was beset with questionable spending that included purchases of computer gaming equipment, Godiva chocolates and cashmere sweaters.

Plus, 95% of the grants were awarded noncompetitively. Given such capitalist greed and incompetence, Cuba is in no imminent danger…

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Jeff Monson

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