Wonder if Kamala Harris’ approach to the mortgage mess will be affected by this:

Stockton Tops In Nation For Foreclosures
Five Other California Cities In Nation’s Top 10

More here.

Two from the environmental front:

Feds ignore Gulf of Mexico oil spill in study of risks associated with oil exploration LINK.

Fossil Fuel Subsidies Six Times More Than Renewable Energy LINK.

Annie Lowrey A1 on the NYT? Yglesias to Slate?

So much for meritocracy. It’s hire the Harvard alum week in the progressive media.

Harrummph.

Lindsay Graham is back off his meds:

“You have to neuter this [Iranian] regime, destroy the air force, sink their navy, go after the Revolutionary Guard and try to get people in the country to overthrow the regime.”

“If they get a nuclear weapon,” he added, “the world is going to go into darkness.”

From the same NYT post, the Super Committee seems like they’re going to punt the job back to Congress:

the bipartisan committee would set broad targets for new revenue to be raised and then essentially leave it to the tax-writing committees of Congress to fill in the details sometime in 2012.

“Just a few days after the epic fail of SB 5, Koch-aligned operatives are trying to get another anti-union measure on the Ohio ballot. Will they ever learn?”

They are filthy rich. They don’t have to learn: they can just throw money at it until something sticks.

How many of us think that Sandusky “only” assaulted 8-9 kids over all those years? Yeah, me neither.

Let’s see how far the coverup extends. I look for more families to come forward. Of course, if some wealthy Penn State supporters can get to them first with cash in hand, and get an agreement for them to disappear: that is, no pressers; no coming forward, etc., then the families might decide to take the deal and avoid the public acknowledgement of it, as well as a lengthy trial.

Either way, it aint over ’til it’s over…and it aint over.

must-read on Libya in the LRB. Here’s one bite, but people should read the whole thing, and D-Day I hope you blog it.

Gaddafi dealt with many revolts over the years. He invariably quashed them by force and usually executed the ringleaders. The NTC and other rebel leaders had good reason to fear that once Benghazi had fallen to government troops they would be rounded up and made to pay the price. So it was natural that they should try to convince the ‘international community’ that it was not only their lives that were at stake, but those of thousands of ordinary civilians. But in retaking the towns that the uprising had briefly wrested from the government’s control, Gaddafi’s forces had committed no massacres at all; the fighting had been bitter and bloody, but there had been nothing remotely resembling the slaughter at Srebrenica, let alone in Rwanda. The only known massacre carried out during Gaddafi’s rule was the killing of some 1200 Islamist prisoners at Abu Salim prison in 1996. This was a very dark affair, and whether or not Gaddafi ordered it, it is fair to hold him responsible for it. It was therefore reasonable to be concerned about what the regime might do and how its forces would behave in Benghazi once they had retaken it, and to deter Gaddafi from ordering or allowing any excesses. But that is not what was decided. What was decided was to declare Gaddafi guilty in advance of a massacre of defenceless civilians and instigate the process of destroying his regime and him (and his family) by way of punishment of a crime he was yet to commit, and actually unlikely to commit, and to persist with this process despite his repeated offers to suspend military action.

http://www.lrb.co.uk/v33/n22/hugh-roberts/who-said-gaddafi-had-to-go

Pennsylvania governer, Tom Corbett is talking about it:

http://gma.yahoo.com/penn-state-scandal-victim-begins-civil-case-investigation-103722558.html

Of course, Corbett may be one of the officials who knew about this for two years and did nothing. I’m not sure of the timeline, and the “investigation”…such as it was…was reportedly going on for 18 months. During which time, of course, Sandusky could continue his alledged preying on young boys.

This is not going away any time soon. The entire football coaching staff, including Bradley, may have to go if it turns out that Sandusky’s alledged actions were common if-well-kept knowledge, as it’s beginning to sound.

On the police shutting down the occupy movement. The first amendment trumps local ordinances etc, so why are we not able to stop these illegal shut downs?

From washington’s blog

The Constitution supersedes local ordinances that are being used to OBSTRUCT 1st Amendment Rights. The camping ITSELF is in order to MAKE A STATEMENT – a First Amendment Right. Protesters are not camping because it is fun to expose yourself to the elements and hardship and you want to roast wienies and marshmallows and drink beer while swapping ghost stories.

It is every citizen’s duty to resist false arrest

There is no such crime as “resisting arrest.” This is a fictitious crime dreamed up by law enforcement to accuse a citizen of a crime when they refuse to surrender to the illegal demands of the police.

The U.S. Supreme Court has ruled on numerous occasions that resisting a false arrest is not merely a citizen’s right, but his duty! In fact, the Supreme Court has gone so far as to rule that if a law enforcement officer is killed as a result of actions stemming from a citizen’s attempts to defend themselves against a false arrest, it is the fault of the officer, not the citizen.

Here’s a short collection of relevant court rulings on false arrest and resisting arrest:

“When a person, being without fault, is in a place where he has a right to be, is violently assaulted, he may, without retreating, repel by force, and if, in the reasonable exercise of his right of self defense, his assailant is killed, he is justified.” Runyan v. State, 57 Ind. 80; Miller v. State, 74 Ind. 1.

“These principles apply as well to an officer attempting to make an arrest, who abuses his authority and transcends the bounds thereof by the use of unnecessary force and violence, as they do to a private individual who unlawfully uses such force and violence.” Jones v. State, 26 Tex. App. I; Beaverts v. State, 4 Tex. App. 1 75; Skidmore v. State, 43 Tex. 93, 903.

“An illegal arrest is an assault and battery. The person so attempted to be restrained of his liberty has the same right to use force in defending himself as he would in repelling any other assault and battery.” (State v. Robinson, 145 ME. 77, 72 ATL. 260).

“Each person has the right to resist an unlawful arrest. In such a case, the person attempting the arrest stands in the position of a wrongdoer and may be resisted by the use of force, as in self- defense.” (State v. Mobley, 240 N.C. 476, 83 S.E. 2d 100).

Do individuals have the right to come to the aid of another citizens being falsely arrested? You bet they do. As another court case ruled:

“One may come to the aid of another being unlawfully arrested, just as he may where one is being assaulted, molested, raped or kidnapped. Thus it is not an offense to liberate one from the unlawful custody of an officer, even though he may have submitted to such custody, without resistance.” (Adams v. State, 121 Ga. 16, 48 S.E. 910).

And on the issue of actually killing an arresting officer in self defense:

“Citizens may resist unlawful arrest to the point of taking an arresting officer’s life if necessary.” Plummer v. State, 136 Ind. 306. This premise was upheld by the Supreme Court of the United States in the case: John Bad Elk v. U.S., 177 U.S. 529.

Also, the judge who granted Sandusky bail for $100,000 (certainly low, for the scope of the allegations) has connections to “The Second Mile” foundation.

Just read the piece at the link on Sandusky.

Speechless.

I never realized how many sports coaches are total cowards. A wrestling coach at a school saw it and said nothing, too?

The judge was a “volunteer” for Sandusky’s foundation, and the $100,000 bail was unsecured, which means that Sandusky doesn’t have to pay ANY money unless he fails to show up for court appearances.

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2011/11/14/penn-state-scandal-judge-sandusky-volunteer-second-mile_n_1091461.html

DDay, on your worst day, you are still superhuman. Thanks for all you do.

Likewise, rc! BZ to DDay!

I can’t say enough about DDay’s prolific output. I always look fwd to the recap, it’s a daily “Must Read”.

I don’t see the value in the former Second Miler’s WaPo testimonial. Seems to me that adults belonging to every generation, including his own, failed those kids and he’d be better to address class warfare than foment generational warfare. A janitor, crying and shaking with distress, but too scared of losing his job to go to the police? That’s more about a failed social system than a failed generation. As for the dearth of revered leaders – well, veneration of the likes of Jack Welch and contempt for the likes of Bernie Sanders didn’t come from an entire generation, it came from places like the Washington Post. We didn’t go looking for a Culture of Greed, it came looking for us.

In any case, I’m a little worried by the kind of leader the writer will be looking for and I’d like to know what he means by this:

Our parents’ generation has balked at the tough decisions required to preserve our country’s sacred entitlements, leaving us to clean up the mess.