Politics
Shocked by a rational court!
It has been a long time coming, but the courts have finally inserted some rationality into the guidelines regarding how the police use Tasers. For far too long the police have treated Tasers as if they are the mythical Star Trek Phaser set to ’stun’. There have been far too many Taser related deaths to call it a non-lethal weapon. Less-lethal is more honest, and any device that has any potential for a lethal result demands guidelines since the willy-nilly approached used by police so far has been less than successful.
Taser ruling sets standards for police, claims
Bob Egelko, Chronicle Staff Writer
Monday, December 28, 2009Police need reasons to believe a suspect is dangerous before firing a Taser and can't use their stun gun simply because the person is disobeying orders or acting erratically, a federal appeals court in San Francisco ruled Monday.
The decision by the Ninth U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals sets judicial standards for police and for people who claim they were victims of excessive force after police hit them with a Taser dart.
"The objective facts must indicate that the suspect poses an immediate threat to the officer or a member of the public," Judge Kim Wardlaw said in the 3-0 ruling.
I doubt that this will do much in the short term to reduce abuse of Taser technology by police, but the lawsuits this court ruling enables will have an effect on police activity in the long run. Few things have as much impact on police policy as a budget cut caused by a brutality lawsuit.
Misrepresentation of The People
Here is why our government does not, and has not for decades, truly represented ‘the people’:
This isn’t a ‘party’ thing. We have a ‘ruling class’ of the wealthy, in both of our two major parties, who like to pretend they are the everyman. It doesn’t matter which party is in office, or has the majority. The rich will continue to bleed the poor for as long as we allow ‘politician’ to be a career rather than a useful hobby. George Washington was a farmer first, and president second; and it is a damn shame that order of importance was allowed to change.
Transparency and Open Government? Not yet, apparently
The only Change I see is the types of promises that are broken.
As a candidate, President Obama vowed that in devising a healthcare bill he would invite in TV cameras — specifically C-SPAN — so that Americans could have a window into negotiations that normally play out behind closed doors.
Having promised transparency, the administration should be willing to disclose who it is consulting in shaping healthcare policy, said an attorney for the citizens’ group. In its letter requesting the records, Citizens for Responsibility and Ethics asked about visits from Billy Tauzin, president of the Pharmaceutical Research and Manufacturers of America; Karen Ignagni, president of America’s Health Insurance Plans; William Weldon, chairman and CEO of Johnson & Johnson; and J. James Rohack, president of the American Medical Assn., among others.
Given his campaign promise, we should expect this request to be honored quickly and openly, right?
Invoking an argument used by President George W. Bush, the Obama administration has turned down a request from a watchdog group for a list of health industry executives who have visited the White House to discuss the massive healthcare overhaul.