Friday, October 19, 2007

How we know America is not a police state

If America was a police state, cops would arrest newspaper executives for reporting things that the State didn't want reported. That never happens in America. Nosirree, no way!

-- Badtux the Snarky Penguin
PS: We're number 48! Woot! Nicaragua, Ghana, and Slovenia are amongst the countries with more press freedom than the United States. I feel so proud! U S A! U S A! WE'RE NUMBER 48! YAY!

6 comments:

  1. as of this afternoon the execs were released, the county attorney has refused to prosecute, anything, the special prosecutor is now fired.

    joe arpaio is pissed off, he vows there will be beatings in tent city.

    i've met the sherrif a few times in my work with water stations in the desert and riding for search and rescue. he seems to be a decent and compassionate guy, but he does some very nutty stuff. i think it's time for him to go away. the new times has been investigating some pretty shady commercial real estate deals. the sherrif has used confidentiality and other beaurocratic smoke screens to hide both the scope and the source of the money regarding his involvement. the sherrif is a salaried employee who makes $70K a year and is somehow involved in cash real estate deals amounting to millions. it's not a crime to ask him where he got that money.

    he's also way out of his league with these guys. they came out to arizona to found the new times after long careers with "the village voice" they've not only seen corrupt bullying officals, they've seen those motherfuckers in NEW YORK terms. we gots us small potatahs out here.

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  2. Um, okay. But can they stop all the blogging?

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  3. I'm probably not the most dispassionate guy when it comes to Sheriff Joke, though I've never had any personal interactions with the man. He is corrupt and has wasted millions of the county's money as well as killed numerous people in his jail who had been convicted of no crime other than being too poor to make bail. The case of the paraplegic dude convicted of no crime that his deputies beat, strapped into a restraint chair, and turned into a quadraplegic, or the diabetic lady arrested for jaywalking who died of diabetic coma, is a perfect example of the kind of behavior that happens in his jail every day. He is serving as judge, jury, and, in some cases, executioner, and I have no truck with that kind of behavior on the part of any government official, period.

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  4. I thought news outlets were exempt from criminal charges regarding news that "fell into their laps" on the theory that they have the right to publish? Isn't that why the Times and WaPo were never prosecuted for the Pentagon papers???

    Yea, I know, so pre-9/11...

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  5. Thanks, Ministrel...it's nice to see someone has sense there.

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