Pablo Valenzuela deserves to be charged with battery for pepper spraying a West Palm Beach police officer on May 26. But the officers who punched and kicked him after his hands were cuffed behind his back are equally deserving of criminal charges. One officer has resigned and two have been placed on administrative leave, but none of them are immune from prosecution. With clear video evidence of their misconduct, why haven't they been arrested?

This comment is even more puzzling:

West Palm Beach Police Chief Delsa Bush says "there was a thin line basically between giving officers a commendation and then ending up having to discipline them."

Bush said "having the video I chose to substantiate the charge of the use of excessive force." So without the video she would have given commendations to officers who beat up a handcuffed suspect?

Matt Yglesias writes about where you can hold the Olympics without feeling like a moral hypocrite:

With Russia beating up on Georgia at the very same time as the Olympics are underway in Beijing, it’s perhaps inevitable that the conversation has now turned to the propriety of Russia hosting the 2014 winter games while under the rule of a “bad actor” regime. This, combined with the boomlet earlier this year for the idea of boycotting the Beijing games, makes me wonder if it wouldn’t be better to adopt a policy of trying to award the Olympics only to unimportant countries.

Well, that sounds nice and all, but of course it will not work, because at bottom, the Olympics are a big commercial enterprise. Whoever ponies up the money, gets the games. And yes, lots of times out and out bribery of IOC officials is involved. I was struck by this part of Matt's piece though:

Declaring in no uncertain terms that it was calling it own tune - that it was providing the world with its Tom Friedman "suck on this" moment, Russia today announced a halt to military operations in its conflict with Georgia:

President Dmitri A. Medvedev of Russia announced Tuesday that he had ordered a halt to his country’s military operation in Georgia, although he did not say that troops were pulling out and he insisted that Russian forces were still authorized to fire on enemies in South Ossetia. The president said Russia had achieved its military goals during five days of intense fighting . . .

(Emphasis supplied.) Achieved its goals indeed. Russia rendered a lesson to the world this week. It will play by its rules, not anyone else's. And in a sign of the inability of the American Media to grasp what is obvious, a NYTimes editorial states:

The United States and its European allies must tell Mr. Putin in the clearest possible terms that such aggression will not be tolerated.

Oh really? And how do you propose to do that NYTimes? They talk of this:

The Atlantic has released a series of internal memos from the Hillary Clinton campaign. The memos are here.

Hillary Clinton’s campaign was undone by a clash of personalities more toxic than anyone imagined. E-mails and memos—published here for the first time—reveal the backstabbing and conflicting strategies that produced an epic meltdown.

....What is clear from the internal documents is that Clinton’s loss derived not from any specific decision she made but rather from the preponderance of the many she did not make. Her hesitancy and habit of avoiding hard choices exacted a price that eventually sank her chances at the presidency.

Greg Sargent at Talking Points Memo and the Caucus at the New York Times provide some analysis. Jake Tapper at ABC News suggests the memos "appealed to prejudice" and in this later post, refers to a memo written after Iowa in which Mark Penn talked about "releasing the tapes" to counter Obama. Tapper asks, "What tapes?"

The New York Times examines the pros and cons of Indiana Senator Evan Bayh as Sen. Barack Obama's vice presidential candidate.

Shorter version: The cons are that his early pro-war position stands in stark contrast to Obama's repeated emphasis on his own early opposition to the war in Iraq and Bayh is bland and unlikely to excite voters.

The pros are he has economic experience and his youthful appearance bolsters Obama's message of "generational change."

If not Bayh, then who? Sebelius or Kaine or someone the media has overlooked or counted out?

Sen. Barack Obama has relased his first plan I'm on board with: no income tax for seniors making less than $60,000 a year.

Critics say the seniors would be getting too much of a break because of Medicare and Social Security.

Seniors can't live on Social Security and Medicare alone. And if they have to go into a nursing home, Social Security doesn't pay for that. A typical nursing home in Colorado is $6,500 a month just for room and board. Medicare picks up some therapy and medication, but that room and board is a huge amount of money to pay. The only break is if you end up in the nursing home after a medical injury and need rehabilitation, which runs about $10,000 a month, Medicare pays for 120 days. Then, you are on your own.

Medicaid only helps if the people are poor, in which case they likely won't owe income tax anyway.[More...]

Most of you are no doubt watching the Olympics. I'm watching IFC, which is showing one of my favorite films, "O Brother Where Art Thou," which came up in somewhat controversial fashion the other day in one of my threads.

"O brothers, let's go down, down in the river to pray!"

This is an Open Thread.

Wes Clark is promising to not go away:

A little over a month ago, following my appearance on Face the Nation, the right wing freak machine took me out of context, attacked me, and just wanted me to "hit the road."

Well, I'm here to tell you: I'm not going away.

Contribute to WesPAC's "Hit The Road Fund!" Help us raise $25,000 by this Friday. . . . Contirbute to Wes.

You think the former Suprene Allied Commander of NATO who won the Kosovo Conflict might be an effective Democratic surrogate just about now? Think he can speak to the issues in an authoritative way? You think he would be a strong voice for discussing the Democratic position on the Russia-Georgia conflict? You think Dems NEED him? I do.

By Big Tent Democrat, speaking for me only

GG: One of the things that's a little difficult to understand is this idea that Georgia miscalculated what would be Russia's response. . . . It is really a surprise that Russia reacted the way that it did?

CK: Well, it's not a terrible surprise, but I think you also have to look at things from the Georgian perspective. Over the last several years, Georgia has become increasingly convinced that it's a real partner of the United States, that the US would defend Georgia - practically regardless of what Georgia did - that Georgia was simply reasserting control over bits of territory that are still internationally recognized as Georgia's own. And so I think the Georgians' political elite, particularly the president and the people very close to him, probably convinced themselves of two things. One, that they could do this quickly and successfully, that is, re-take South Ossetia, and secondly, that if there were a Russian response . . . that the United States would somehow step in to defend them, and in fact both of those calculations have turned out to be wrong.

(Emphasis supplied.) Read the whole thing.

I have avoided like the plague the discussion of John Edwards' private life. But I am interested in the argument about the effect of John Edwards' campaign in Iowa. Howard Wolfson argued that if Edwards had not been in the race, Hillary would have won Iowa. Chris Bowers and Clinton hater Poblano say it would not have made a difference. I have no idea what would have happened the night of January 3, 2008 if Edwards had not been in the race, but to ignore the fact that John Edwards served as Obama's attack dog in Iowa, as Bowers and the Clinton hating Poblano do, when discussing his effect on the race, is absurd.

I always argued that the most important night of the campaign came on October 30, 2007, when Jack Welch's NBC boys Tim Russert and Brian Williams teed it up against Hillary Clinton. To wonder what would have happened in the campaign if Edwards had been out is like wondering what would have happened if Russert had not been at the October 30, 2007 debate. They both were there. Silly to pretend that we would have known what would have happened otherwise. But we are nothing if not silly sometimes.

By Big Tent Democrat, speaking for me only

The latest manifestation of the fascination with the private lives of public figures got me to thinking how bizarre it really is that people seem to think they know or have some type of relationship with public figures, particularly politicians. It is the strangest of conceits among political commentaters and voters because it is, to me at least, so utterly ridiculous.

Ed Kilgore wrote a good piece about this about a week ago, before the latest brouhaha broke out:

The Drug Enforcemnt Administration releases statistics every year on drug seizures. In past years, as I wrote here, up to 98% of the marijuana plants they seized was unusable, non psychotropic "ditchweed."

What's "ditchweed?"

[It's] a term the agency uses to define "wild, scattered marijuana plants [with] no evidence of planting, fertilizing, or tending." Unlike cultivated marijuana, feral hemp contains virtually no detectable levels of THC, the psychoactive component in cannabis, and does not contribute to the black market marijuana trade.

NORML senior policy analyst Paul Armentano has an article today questioning why the DEA, this year, is no longer publishing "ditchweed" stats.

Good question.