Gangsters in Blue

• Puppycide.
• Why GOP senators were more willing to jump ship on PIPA than Democrats.
• Loma Linda, California: Where there’s no alcohol, no tobacco, and the citizens are made of cardboard.
• Illinois ups the ante in the war on cold medicine: Any pseudoephedrine purchase will now put your name and address in a state police database.
• Like most everything else about the guy, Newt Gingrich’s war on the “media elite” is phony. See also here.
• A petition to investigate Chris Dodd for bribery.
• Police shoot a man dead after a bicycle violation.
• Asset forfeiture creep: How the DOJ is able to seize websites without a conviction.
• Here is a video of some guys rolling a giant tire into a lake.

• Florida Governor Rick Scott has ordered a new investigation into the jailhouse death of Nick Christie.
• Christie’s story was also featured on the Today show last week.
• Mike Riggs finds other police brutality cases in which the prosecutor (now deceased) who looked into Christie’s case cleared other cops of wrongdoing.
• Less important, but somewhat amusing: The many similarities between my article on Christie and this article that appeared two days later in the Daily Mail. Christie’s attorney apparently gave both of us the same quotes, word-for-word.

• Here’s a good SOPA/PIPA protest roundup from Reason.
• Also, the fact that Chris Dodd was recently a powerful politician is a pretty damned good argument against giving politicians more power.
• Maryland photojournalist harassed, arrested for recording police.
• U.S. government is abandoning the Iraqis who helped troops during the war, and who now face threats to their lives.
• The story is light on details, but a Connecticut assistant medical examiner has been charged with perjury.
• Dan Auerbach and Bon Appetit eat Nashville.
• Puppycide.
• Headline of the day.

• New Miss America will take up the cause of children of the incarcerated.
• TSA agents who stole $40,000 from passengers get 5 months in jail.
• Bambi-cide.
• Marine biologist charged with a federal felony for watching whales feed. Sounds like they tacked on a bogus charge of lying to investigators, too.
• Brad DeLong remembers Milton Friedman.
• Dash cam video shows cop lied about his attack on 66-year-old man.

• “Anything dealing with that kind of work, anything dealing with guns and taking down bad guys, I’m there. I love it.”
• Bakery creates TSA-compliant cupcake.
• The second-to-last paragraph of this piece is horrendous. There’s an ethos
• A pretty stunning series of portraits.
• Coddling Joe Arpaio.

• Cribs: The GOP Edition.
• This is the most terrifying thing I’ve read in weeks. And I’m not even a carpenter ant.
• Incredible photos from yesterday’s cruise ship sinking in Italy.
• We may soon have our first picture of a black hole.
• Panic of the day.
• First person account of a bad interaction with the New Orleans Police Department.
• Lawsuit: Family woken, taken outside, handcuffed at gunpoint after neighbor mistakenly reports burglary.
• Responding to a rape call, Louisiana police break down the door, storm the wrong house. Sheriff calls the mistake a “boo-boo.”

• I think I’ll pass.
• David Boaz catches the Heritage Foundation using some blatantly misleading graphs to argue for more defense spending. That the Iraq and Afghanistan wars aren’t included in the graphs makes them all the more dishonest.
• TSA posts its top 10 “catches” of 2011. Bruce Schneier points out that none of them were actually terrorists.
• I don’t like where this is going.
• New Hampshire activists get police officer to concede he was wrong about the state’s wiretapping law.
• CNN, which left Gary Johnson out of debates because he wasn’t polling high enough in their poll that didn’t offer him as an option, will now break its own rules to let Rick Perry participate in an upcoming debate.
• Supreme Court declines to hear challenge to law mandating licensing for interior design.
• Bad news. Also, more bad news.

I have a new article up at HuffPost looking at the death of Nick Christie, the use of pepper spray and restraint chairs, and the general culture of jailhouse abuse.

• New Jersey bar owner files lawsuit alleging a police shakedown operation.
• NYPD horror story of the day. As one Twitter user quipped, it’s almost like the “resisted arrest” box comes pre-checked on police reports.
• Massachusetts cops threaten to arrest a man for recording them while they are in his home.
• “This guys a douche …, let’s (expletive) him up.”
• Georgia state trooper who caused an accident that claimed the life of the wife of Atlanta Braves Trainer Jeff Porter had been involved in 20 accidents since 2002, including five since 2008, and two in two days in 2011.
• Questionable use of force by L.A. Sheriff deputies compounded by threat to arrest, harassment of a man who recorded the incident on his cell phone.

• Two 10-year-0ld boys charged with sexual assault in Houston.
• Fascinating photo essay of  the squatter community in an abandoned Caracas skyscraper.
• Regulatory state story of the day.
• Famous album covers re-imagined with Clip Art and Comic Sans.
• Headline of the day.
• In defense of firing people. (AKA, the stupidest scandal so far in the still-young presidential campaign.)
• Happy Birthday, Gitmo! Nut:  “According to Human Rights Watch, only one of the remaining 171 detainees at Guantanamo faces formal charges.”
• DNA testing points to time-machine killer.
• More great corrections from the NY Times.