Lester Bower is dead. The state of Texas killed him last night. He had been on death row for 31 years. It’s not clear whether or not he was guilty of the crimes he was convicted of. At this point, there was certainly reasonable doubt — not to mention a shadow of a doubt. But once you are convicted of something — regardless of how bad the trial or your representation — it is really hard to get your conviction overturned. For roughly three decades, Bower had been trying to get the judicial system to consider the new evidence that almost certainly would have exonerated him had he been given a fresh trial.

People I talk to — death penalty advocates most especially — have a really screwy idea about how “justice” works in this country. They think that every person put to death has been found guilty three, four, or more times. This is literally never the case. Appeals only deal with whether the original trial was fair. So even when there is new information, it tends to be discounted unless it can be shown that it was improperly withheld in the original trial. As Radley Balko noted in The Washington Post yesterday, “‘Beyond a reasonable doubt’ is the alleged standard at trial. But once you’ve been convicted, you’re essentially tasked with proving your innocence.”

So the system is started and everyone involved in it just watches it proceed. It’s like a car with its cruise control set running down innocent people. And all anyone cares about is that the system works. It was it set at 65 mph; is that the speed with which it ran people over? Then it’s fine. It’s amazing to think about. And it reminds me of the 2012 Republican presidential debate when Rick Perry was asked if he ever lost any sleep over the thought that anyone had been wrongly put to death in his state. He said no, because appeals blah blah blah. Of course, he isn’t like most people; he has to know how limited and flawed the appeals process is. He just doesn’t care. Because he’s evil.

Of course, there was nothing special about Lester Bower. He’s one of many people who at bare minimum the state hadn’t proved guilty but nonetheless executed. Imagine if we had a large supply of small trash cans face down on a conveyor belt being fed into a machine that then crushed them. And there were people running around and lifting up the cans before they were fed into the machine, showing that there were kittens underneath many of them. Would any reasonable person say, “It’s good we saved those kittens, but obviously none of the cans that get crushed have kittens under them.” That would be madness. But of course, that’s what death penalty advocates say. Every time someone on death row is exonerated, they proclaim that it shows that the system works, and call for more executions.

I really don’t get it. In the video above, the audience twice breaks out in cheers — In less than a minute! — about the fact that Texas executes so many people. These are not people who are considering whether these people are guilty or innocent. They simply don’t care. They have no sense of empathy. They think the people being executed are “those” people — never people like themselves. Rick Perry’s argument is that the death penalty is justice — completely side stepping the question, which asks how we can know that.

Last night Texas killed another most likely innocent person. But his innocence hardly matters. His death serves a symbolic purpose. It allows death penalty advocates — big and small — to say to the world, “We’re tough!” In a sense, the fact that Bower is innocent makes it all the better. It says they are willing to even kill the innocent in the name of protecting the innocent. It’s a sad day in American, but then, almost every day is. Forgive us Lester Bower.

Martin Longman has a few choice words for beltway insiders, Wanker of the Day: Bill Press. Press wrote an apologia for Dennis Hastert. Defying all laws of nature except apparently what happens in Washington, Press thinks, “Hastert was charged with federal crimes only because he’s a high-profile politician.” Outside the upper class Washington bubble, everyone knows that it is exactly the rich and powerful who do not get charged with crimes. But in the mind of Bill Press, it’s the people who get invited to Sally Quinn’s parties who are the real oppressed of this country.

But I think that Longman is largely wrong in his critique of Bill Press. His main message is that because the federal government couldn’t prosecute Hastert for his real crimes, they were right to prosecute him for trumped up procedural crimes. I have little sympathy for Hastert, but it is almost never men like him who are treated to this kind of thing. In this case, it certainly seems that some small amount of justice is being done. But in most cases, an injustice is done. And I don’t think that we can argue in favor of such official behavior just because in some cases it is laudatory. In the long run, cases like Hastert’s will be used as a justification for the continued use of such tactics.

There is a little delicious irony in Dennis Hastert getting caught in a web of his own creation. It seems to be something that conservatives are especially prone to. They love harsh and unjust laws for the “evildoers” — laws that can trap the conservatives themselves because their previous lack of imagination and empathy. But certainly the response to this is not, “I’m glad we had this unjust law so that we could bring down Dennis Hastert!” It should be that the law itself is bad and that it needs fixing. If it requires an injustice to Hastert for people like Bill Press to realize that, fine.

Sadly, that does not seem to be the takeaway for Press. It wouldn’t have taken much to change his article to call foul on what’s happening to Hastert in the context of a criminal justice system that is all about power and none about justice. We really do have a sick system. The best advice to politicians who misbehave is to simply come clean. If you have enough money, you can win almost any case in our courts. That’s the way the system is set up! It’s rare that anyone in Washington is convicted of a real crime. Instead, it is obstruction of justice and lying to authorities. The only reason our system works at all is because the vast majority of people do not have the money to fight — especially when you can’t get a jaywalking ticket without a dozen other “crimes” added on.

It’s sad that Bill Press doesn’t seem to understand this. In fact, he compared Hastert favorably to Wall Street executives. I wonder if Bill Press would make the same case for some junkie-dealer who gets a decade in prison — a common occurrence. But there is a real issue here that Martin Longman doesn’t engage with at all. I really don’t care about justice for Dennis Hastert. I care for the millions of others who get caught in our justice system who are abused with these kinds of laws.

In the Saturday Night Live finale, Louis CK did an opening monologue that started a lot of tongues wagging. Of course, I didn’t see it at the time because, you know, it was on Saturday Night Live. So I watched it. The truly shocking thing about it is that the opening monologue is funny. Who thought such a thing even possible? Actual comedy on Saturday Night Live. I had seriously considered pitching a show to Animal Planet, “Finding Humor on SNL.” But there was a big problem with it: there is so much more evidence for Bigfoot than there is for comedy on the venerable late night show. It doubtless helps when they book an actual comedian. But people weren’t talking about that. They were talking about the pedophiles.

Louis CK’s monologue was actually entirely typical of his work. He started by talking about about his “mild racism.” And then he goes on to joke about the racist urges that exist in all of us. They bubble up into consciousness the same same way sexual urges do. And if you are like Louis CK, you recognize them for the irrational impulses that they are, and bat them away. It’s like a guy who sees a really pretty woman — he doesn’t start humping her leg. Well, most of the time he doesn’t. Louis CK didn’t talk about that directly; his routine was about unwanted thoughts, and that’s how he got to pedophiles.

There is something deeply disturbing about the bit he does on the town child molester. He presents it more or less the way we once did the town drunk. Also, I have a problem with the child molester he presents. For one thing, he’s kind of incompetent, thus indicating not really a threat. But most of all: it is man who is attracted teenage boys. Yes: that is wrong, but it is understandable in a society that fetishizes youth. Much harder to understand are those who are attacked to pre-pubescent children.

But the line where Louis CK got into trouble was something I quite agree with, although with caveats as I will explain in a moment. He said:

I’ve discussed this issue before, Free Will. It really comes down to this: I’m not morally superior to a pedophile because I don’t rape children. I’m not attracted to children so it simply isn’t a problem I face. I suspect that there actually are a lot more pedophiles than we are aware of who are simply able to make the calculation that sex with a child is not worth the price — to themselves or the child. So what we are left with are people’s whose urges are so great that they cannot contain them. These are tragic figures.

About a year ago, I started thinking seriously about a question that probably doesn’t occur to many people, “Why do people have sex?” I’ve done an informal poll, and everyone seems to agree that in a pure orgasm sense, masturbation is better than sex because you are completely in charge. So other than all the kissing and hugging that is very important, why sex? It speaks very much of my own distorted vision of the world that it took me the whole year to figure out that people find having sex more erotic than masturbation.

It must be the same thing with pedophiles. It must be that these pedophiles are just out of control. The thought or the actuality of the act is just too much for them. And like Manson’s family, they doubtless work their way up to it. I had an experience when I was eight or nine. I was at The Emporium — a department store very much like Macy’s. In those days, they had little record stores in them and I was alone in one of them. This older man came up to me with a record album, saying, “Look at this, kid.” The album was pressed up against his pants and his not quite erect penis was propped up on it. On seeing this, I immediately turned and walked away, saying, “That’s gross, man.”

I don’t know if he was a pedophile or not. I certainly didn’t see it that way at the time. It seemed instead more like a prank to disgust me. But I’ve long thought that the incident was part of a progression. Whether this guy went on to rape children, expose himself on street corners, or head the Santa Rosa Police Department, I cannot say. But I can say that of all the notable problems in my life, I feel very lucky to have never felt compelled toward anything outside one sigma of the sexual behavior mean. (In English, that means: I’m incredibly boring in terms of sexual interests.)

It is really great that Louis CK is talking about this kind of stuff — even if he does misrepresent and minimize it. As a society, we could do more for pedophiles — And the society at large! — than wait until they start preying on children.

Timothy B Lee wrote a great reminder, Rand Paul Is Getting Way Too Much Credit for Killing 3 Patriot Act Powers. It’s great to see because I’ve always assumed that Lee was a little sweet on Paul. But he sees that what Rand Paul is doing is grandstanding. He’s making a lot of noise and making it all about him: Rand Paul Protector of Liberty. But ten hour filibusters are not about governing. As Lee noted, it was really successful at getting Paul a bunch of media attention, “But it ultimately had little effect on the outcome of the legislative fight.”

Mitch McConnell’s play was to get the House’s USA Freedom Act filibustered and then present the straight Patriot Act as the only alternative. The only problem was that 54 Senators — almost all of them in the Democratic caucus (44) — voted the Patriot Act down. Rand Paul was one of ten Republicans to help out in that cause. But clearly, this whole thing was something that the primarily the Democrats did. All that Paul did was showboat the issue and take credit for it. There are Republicans to be given credit, but they are mostly in the House of Representatives — they’re the ones who got the USA Freedom Act passed in the first place (although they couldn’t have done it without some support from the Democrats, and they got a lot).

But even after that vote, the coalition for the USA Freedom Act needed to hang together, which it did through the weekend. Eventually, Mitch McConnell gave up and allowed a cloture vote on the bill and it was passed 77-17. Of course, Rand Paul was one of the people who voted against the bill. He was joined by other loons like Tom Cotton and Joni Ernst. But I understand: the USA Freedom Act is hardly perfect. But it is a great improvement. The fact that Rand Paul voted against it says a lot about what kind of a non-leader he is. And also perhaps that he doesn’t really care about privacy issues except in so much as they can bring him attention.

Lee pointed out something that is really interesting here. In the first vote on the USA Freedom act — the one that failed — Rand Paul voted against cloture. This whole thing could have been over a lot sooner if Paul were inclined to be a statesman, “Paul’s decision to break with the overwhelming majority of pro-privacy senators and oppose the USA Freedom Act delayed the legislation’s passage and created a risk that McConnell would be able to stampede the Senate into renewing the Patriot Act.” That’s a bit chilling, and highlights Confucius’ aphorism, “Better a diamond with a flaw than a pebble without.”

Rand Paul, of course, has gotten a lot of good press for all this. Lee countered this, “But a larger share of the credit should go to other senators… Ron Wyden (D-OR), Patrick Leahy (D-VT), and Mike Lee (R-UT)… three examples of senators who did the hard work of building a consensus for the USA Freedom Act in the Senate.” He also highlighted Representative James Sensenbrenner as the mastermind behind the original bill in the House. Without a clear alternative, Congress would have felt that it needed to pass something. So ultimately, this rare victory for privacy is due to the very existence of the USA Freedom Act. A lot of credit should go out to Congress for how it dealt with this issue.

Afterword

In general, I don’t think that the professional centrists will be applauding too loudly over this one. When it comes to bipartisanship, they are mostly only interested in things that will hurt the poor like cuts to Social Security. In the two issues where there is a lot of bipartisanship — surveillance and prison reform — the professional centrists don’t much care.

Matt Yglesias has made a decision, It’s Time for the Media to Admit That Hillary Clinton Is Popular. He laid the case out clearly. Hillary Clinton is popular — and not just with Democrats. She’s generally popular — more so than any Republican presidential candidate. But she is most definitely not popular among journalists. And this leaks into their coverage where they seem to find it impossible to report on polls without lacing them with criticisms that they think ought to make people dislike her. For example, when The New York Times reported on her popularity, it noted, “Hillary Rodham Clinton appears to have initially weathered a barrage of news about” about the scandals so loved by reporters.

The whole thing highlights the absurdity of the notion of an objective press. Reporters clearly have their little axes to grind. And it usually isn’t ideological. It is usually just a matter of laziness. It is easier to take an existing narrative and run with it than to honestly grapple with the truth, which is never as simple and compelling. To me, the best example of this is Al Gore’s 2000 campaign. Most of the reporters who pushed the totally deceptive “exaggeration” narrative about Gore were people who would eventually vote for him. But what’s more interesting: Al Gore inventing the internet or his economic policy ideas? Am I right?!

Yglesias pointed out something that is really interesting. Hillary Clinton doesn’t like the press, but she is joined in that with the public “which does not think journalists are credible or contribute to society’s well-being.” I think the reason for this is because of the tendency of the press to sensationalize coverage and create these false narratives. Of course, ultimately it is the public’s fault. We love us some scandals. The press were never inclined to give us anything other than that. But if the people cared about serious coverage, it would have become clear by now on the internet. Instead, it has become clear that we don’t want that.

But there is something strange. In general, when the press beat the drum for a scandal and the people don’t care, the press drops the issue. But in Clinton’s case, the drumming continues. Things have settled down a bit, but I’m sure the email scandal will come back in a big way. And Benghazi! will come back. I won’t be at all surprised if Gennifer Flowers comes back! The the main thing is that the narrative of Hillary Clinton as a scandal magnet will continue. And that’s especially bad because we know what the press will say in its defense, “The idea was out there.”

What’s really bad about all this is not its effect on Hillary Clinton. She’ll do just fine with a press corps that can’t manage to do its job. As long as the primary is clogged with “narrative reporting,” there will be little room for reporting on issues or anything else. Why ask Clinton about her position of the Trans-Pacific Partnership (TPP) when you can ask her about that email server?! And that hurts the whole Democratic primary. If the reporters really wanted to sabotage Clinton’s campaign, they would be better off talking about issues, because there is a big Democratic apatite for the sort of things that Sanders and others on the left are saying, many of which Clinton is loath to say.

I love this cartoon because it is so typical of the lies that Republicans tell themselves. I really do think there is something fundamentally wrong with modern conservatism. It has nothing to do with ideas of liberty and is rather all about tribal alliances and authoritarianism. But I don’t doubt that Republicans are actual people. Day to day, I manage to interact with Democrats and Republicans. And I absolutely can’t tell which party someone belongs to based upon their morality. But I can usually guess based upon the fact that one is ostentatious about her morality. This is true of both Republicans and Democrats, but it is far more common among the Republicans.

For 90% of people’s moral sense, Democrats and Republicans are identical. For the remaining 10%, the morality is simply different. For example, conservatives value acceptance of social norms more; liberals value acceptance differences more. These are stereotypes, but they are absolutely accurate. So even if you don’t accept one kind of moral value, who paints the other side as one-tenth as moral as she is? It just doesn’t make sense. But I have a pretty good idea what our cartoonist friend is thinking.

I can’t make out the name of the artist, but the year is pretty clear: 2007. Now what is it that happened regarding morality in 2007? Here’s a clue: wide stance. That’s right. On 11 June 2007, culture warrior Larry Craig was arrested in a bathroom at the Minneapolis-St Paul International Airport for lewd conduct — specifically coming on to an undercover police officer of the male variety. Craig would later claim, “I’m not gay, and I don’t cruise, and I don’t hit on men…” There were at least eight gay men who begged to differ. But there is no doubt that being seen as gay would have been bad for Craig; in December 2006, the Human Rights Campaign gave him a 0% rating “indicating an anti-gay-rights stance.” You might even say a wide anti-gay-rights stance.

But there are those who do not think of morality in a principled way. They don’t conceptualize simple things like “walking down the road and not beating up other people” as morality. To them, morality is what it says in that holy book. So being a decent human being isn’t morality, but being a straight human being is. And so in this cartoon, I guess we are supposed to give Larry Craig credit for trying to get over that bar of not being gay. Sure he failed, but unlike those liberal homos, at least he tried!

The problem here is pretty obvious. I don’t have the desire for sexual encounters with other men. So it says nothing of my morality that I don’t try to play footsie with other men in airport bathrooms. The fact that Craig had such a desire was not a matter of morality. It is just part of who he is. But the fact that he couldn’t admit to who he is and that he worked so hard to oppress others with similar inclinations? That’s hypocrisy. The fact that Larry Craig would have needed a supreme act of will power to overcome his urges doesn’t have anything to do with morality.

This is how Republicans think they hold themselves to a higher level of morality. There are only two things they care about: homosexuality and abortion. When it comes to things Jesus actually had an opinion on — like feeding the hungry — they have no greater sense of morality than liberals. It doesn’t speak well of them that they don’t see caring for the weak and avoiding wars as important to morality. Regardless, no one should buy into such a warped sense of morality, nor flatter the Republicans’ delusions of themselves.