With all the fear-mongering that politicians engage in during election years, backed by many in law enforcement, particularly those of the broken windows school who think the key lies in busting and getting petty offenders off the street, it's refreshing to report on a place where a different mindset prevails , resulting in both a low crime rate and a near empty jail.

The place: Aspen, Colorado. The Sheriff: Bob Braudis. Others going along with the program of not making it a policy to lock up low-level offenders: the judges, the prosecutors and the Jail Administrator.

On Thursday there were just three full-time inmates and five people on work release in a facility that can hold as many as 30....Jail administrator Don Bird, however, chalks up the low numbers to what he called an “enlightened system of justice” in the upper valley. From law enforcement on the street, to the district attorney, courts and the jail, there is communication and a common goal of rehabilitation, not just human warehousing and punishment, he said.

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I'm back to thinking Sen. Barack Obama will pick Virginia Governor Tim Kaine as his running mate.

Drudge quotes a New York Times reporter as saying the announcement could come tomorrow morning, but is more likely to occur Weds. morning. A Washington Post reporter thinks Friday is more likely.

Obama will be in Virginia on Wednesday. Also significant is this WaPo article about Obama's emphasis on Virginia. While some say the Dems wouldn't have given Mark Warner the convention keynote speaker slot if the VP also was from Virginia, I think they might, given how much effort Obama is putting into registering new voters in Virginia in hopes of turning the state blue. [More...]

I've been getting some e-mails that are upset that my support for Barack Obama for President is not blind. Nothing new there, but I was struck by a particular pitch I got from one Obama fan:

I find it disheartening that you contantly choose to bash [Obama] on www.talkleft.com. It is as if he hurt you personally. . . . I have phone banked and attended voter registration. People are a lot more informed of the issues than you think. It is about voter registration to make up for the 10% Clintonites who won't vote for him and getting them out to vote which is what unfortunately what Bush did in 2000. After watching the media bash Clinton and distort her I am seeing them do the same to Obama. He stays consistant, registering more voters, and on message. I know it was hard for me to see Clinton lose but I have met some wonderful and active Obama supporters who will come out and guarantee a win. Please don't believe the media hype. You know what they did to Clinton and what they will constantly do. We don't have any wedge issues to drive out the GOP so we can win it. He is not John Kerry. I have never seen supporters like he has.

(Emphasis supplied.) The e-mailer claimed to have been a Clinton supporter in the primaries and I have no reason to disbelieve that but I was struck by the idea that instead of trying to appeal to other Clinton supporters, this Obama supporter is confident that Obama can ignore them because of his great ground game. I just do not get that - why is there this insistence among certain Obama supporters - I call them "anti-PUMAs", to not try and win former Clinton supporters to Obama. It is an interesting phenomenon.

By Big Tent Democrat, speaking for me only

The Denver Police Department has issued its final flyer (pdf) with advice for protesters at the Democratic National Convention. Here's a sample:

What should you do if an unlawful assembly is declared and a dispersal order given?

Listen carefully to any police order to disperse. Even if you are not engaged in unlawful activity, you are subject to citation and/or arrest if you do not leave the area defined by the police in their lawful order to disperse. For example, in a situation where some individuals are blocking a street and some individuals are walking on the sidewalk, the police may order everyone to leave the area.

Sally Quinn would like to live in a simple, binary world where the choices between good and evil or right and wrong are easy to make. That's John McCain's world. Unfortunately, she lives in the real world, where nuance matters. That's also Barack Obama's world.

That kind of nuance is hard to understand sometimes -- it's unclear, complicated. Obama's world can be scarier. It's multicultural. It's realistic (yes, there is evil on the streets of this country as well as in other places, and a lot of evil has been perpetrated in the name of good). It's honest.

McCain's message is easier to convey. Binary messages always are. Is there a lesson in that for Obama? [more ...]

Raw Story collects a number of recent incidents of misused tasers, including an appalling account of police who tasered a 16 year old 19 times after he fell from a highway overpass. The boy had a broken back, which might explain why he refused to obey police commands and why he was making incoherent statements that officers apparently regarded as threatening.

The headline story in the Raw Story article concerns a San Marcos, Texas officer who stopped a man for speeding. The driver tried to explain that his dog was choking to death and he was rushing the dog to a vet. The officer's compassionate response:

"It's a dog, it's OK. You can get another one. Relax."

The dog died during the 15 minutes it took Officer Michael Gonzalez to write a citation. Moral of the story: if your dog (or other family member) needs immediate medical attention, don't stop for the police. No jury will convict you of eluding under those circumstances, and your family member is more likely to survive if you don't stop.

It's not just the Republicans and radical right who will bring their anti-choice message to Denver. It's Democrats too. Democrats for Life have three events are scheduled, including a Hall of Fame Dinner at the Hotel Monaco, 17th & Champa Sts.

This year's award recipient is Congressman Lincoln Davis (D-TN). Congressman Davis has been a consistently strong pro-life leader in Congress and he introduced the Pregnant Women Support Act in 2006. In addition, DFLA will organize a Town Hall rally to promote the Pregnant Women Support act in conjunction with the Hall of Fame event.

The Group has a plan:

The 95-10 Initiative is a comprehensive package of federal legislation and policy proposals that will reduce the number of abortions by 95% in the next 10 years.

With friends like Leon Panetta, Barack Obama is not going to need many enemies:

"There is a sense of entitlement that almost seems to be inbred. They are convinced Hillary is the one who should be assuming the mantle and it's tough to crack that."

Everyone knows I think PUMA's are um, wrongheaded, to put it nicely, but then again I am not a high profile Democrat. Here's the thing, Panetta seems to think Obama is entitled to the support of these folks. The sense of entitlement seems to be his. That is the attitude Obama must absolutely avoid now.

By Big Tent Democrat, speaking for me only

Digby writes about the Fallows article on the debates I covered the other day. It is a good post. But some of you may be struck by this passage:

Fallows didn't see the debates in real time (he was in China) so he was only able to get the full flavor of what was so wrong with them after the fact, seeing them all at once. Very few people wrote about this while it was happening, even in the blogosphere, until Gibson and Stephanopoulos went over the top on Barack and his online supporters lurched into gear. I consider that our failure too (me included --- I didn't make it the kind of focus of my blogging that I should have) and I hope we've learned our lesson.

(Emphasis supplied.) Digby pulls her punch here. She KNOWS why it was not covered by most of the Left bogs until the ABC debate - for the same reason the Media's bias, sexism and misogyny was not covered by the blogs - because they loved it when it was against Hillary Clinton. The Left blogs failed in the primaries and it is time they owned up to it and why - when it was smears, sexism and silliness against Clinton, all was well. Look at Keith Olbermann for crissakes. Their complaints about McCain favoritism in the Media, to the extent it exists, now rings hollow. Their credibility had been shot long ago. See Corrente's series on the subject.

Speaking for me only

Robert Chambers, convicted of the infamous New York "Preppy Murder" of Jennifer Levin, was released from prison in 2003 after serving his full 15 year sentence.

In 1986, Robert Chambers, a young and handsome guy who had dropped out of college, met Jennifer Levin, a student at an elite private high school in Manhattan, at a trendy bar on the Upper East Side. They then went to Central Park, had sex, and she ended up strangled to death. Chambers said it was an accident, they had been having consensual rough sex.

In 2005, Chambers made the news again when he was busted for cocaine residue on a straw and an empty tin foil packet found during a traffic stop.

Now, they are sending Chambers to jail for 19 years for a small time drug deal. As Anthony Papas argues, this is not a sentence for drugs, it's a second sentence for the Jennifer Levin murder. [More...]

After the Obama campaign tossed General Wes Clark under the bus for stating the obvious, that getting shot down in an airplane is not command experience, they better get used to this

[McCain spokeperson] Nicolle Wallace: ""The insinuation from the Obama campaign that John McCain, a former prisoner of war, cheated is outrageous."

Sure it's stupid, but stupid works when you don't push back.

By Big Tent Democrat, speaking for me only

In response to my post on PPP's Ohio poll, I was sent an e-mail telling me to relax:

I am an Obama fellow here in Ohio and am close to the campaign director for the state. They are about 4 points ahead in Ohio and expect Ohio to be close. . . . Their ground game here is phenomenal and unlike John Kerry and Al Gore, we are all over the southern part of Ohio which is where Obama has to not get swamped to win in the state. . . . Relax.

Ok. Tell it to Paul Krugman:

Why isn’t the Obama campaign getting more traction on economic issues? . . . [T]he problem isn’t lack of specifics — it’s lack of passion. When it comes to the economy, Mr. Obama’s campaign seems oddly lethargic.

[Obama] seemed to go out of his way to avoid scoring political points. “Back in the 1990s,” he declared, “your incomes grew by $6,000, and over the last several years, they’ve actually fallen by nearly $1,000.” Um, not quite: real median household income didn’t rise $6,000 during “the 1990s,” it did so during the Clinton years, after falling under the first Bush administration. Income hasn’t fallen $1,000 in “recent years,” it’s fallen under George Bush, with all of the decline taking place before 2005.

Krugman then does the unpardonable, he touts Bill Clinton's political approach on economic matters: