We should always be skeptical of seemingly easy technical solutions to problems that are deeply embedded in our society. But this videotape of a totally innocent, totally non-threatening black motorist shot multiple times by a (at best) jumpy and panicked state trooper tells us that dash-cams should become standard for law enforcement around the country.
The most compelling figure in our story on armed contractors patrolling private lands in northern California for illegal marijuana farms is the beleaguered county sheriff: “Honestly, what could possibly go wrong here? A lot more things are going to go wrong than are going to go right.” Read it.
This video will blow your mind.
On the plus side, the officer in question was fired from the South Carolina Highway Patrol and has now been charged with aggravated assault. But here’s the story (with video). White Highway Patrol officer stops a black man for a seat belt violation outside Columbia, SC. The state trooper Sean Groubert, 31, asks the driver for his license. The driver, Levar Jones, reaches into the car to retrieve his license – at which point Groubert screams “get out of the car” and proceeds to unload four or five rounds from his pistol into Jones at close to point blank range.
Dashcam video after the jump …
Back in what we might call the glory days of the ‘War on Terror’ – by which I mean that handful of years in which various armchair warriors and big-thinkers tried to manufacture an ideology out of America’s post-9/11 trauma – there was this frequent refrain that the ‘problem’ with the Muslim world was that, unlike Europe, Islam had never had a Reformation. And with the recent resurgence of terrorism punditry, I’m hearing the same idea bandied about again.
The latest conservative media freakout over Obama rivals the one over his “bow” to King Abdullah. It’s so good, ya’ll.
Voter fraud hucksters will want to jump all over this GOP candidate who voted in two different states during the same election years.
Which big companies have dropped ALEC, the legislative advocacy group which seeds odious legislation in states around the country? Turns out quite a few. Here’s the list.
The fact pattern in that case striking down Louisiana’s gay marriage ban reads like a law school exam question: lesbian conceives child via artificial insemination, legally marries lesbian partner in California, moves to Louisiana, where same-sex marriage is outlawed and where partner tries to legally adopt the child.
So it’s an adoption case, with same-sex marriage implications. In the same way, the landmark Windsor ruling was a tax case with same sex marriage implications.
Beyond the intricate legal questions, there are obviously very personal and poignant matters at stake. I don’t mean to minimize that. We explored some of those dilemmas last year as it became clear that, for a while at least, the country would have a patchwork of marriage laws, some allowing same sex marriage and some not, with gay partners forced to make very difficult life decisions.