person of interest of the year

of course soon-to-be-impeached-president donald trump deserves to be awarded time magazine's coveted "person of the year" cover!

however.

the editors at time dared think better and gave its feature to 16-year-old swedish climate activist greta thunberg:

never to be outdone by any female anywhere, particularly a minor, trump took back what belongs only to him (via twitter, of course) in the only manner befitting the leader of the free world:

[time magazine] is asking that a framed cover image of trump be taken down from the walls of several golf clubs.

that's because the cover hanging in several trump organization clubs is a phony, a time spokesperson confirmed to nbc news.

washington post reporter david fahrenthold, who broke the story, said he had tallied seven locations where the cover was spotted as of wednesday morning, and was continuing to look for additional sightings.

club fed: not what it used to be

don't rat. don't cut in line. don't ask. don't touch. pay your debts. flush often. don't whine. — david novak, downtime: a guide to federal incarceration

while basking in the communal schadenfreude that's descended on the internet in the wake of the convictions of enron's ken lay and jeffrey skilling, i've noticed a lot of commenters tempering their glee with the expectations that lay and skilling, however much they deserve it, won't exactly be breaking rocks at leavenworth, but instead sinking putts in a minimum-security "country-club" federal prison.

so what kind of a vacation experience are kenny-boy and jeff looking at? i ran a short search on federal prisons and quickly discovered an archived thread on prisontalk.com that addresses the concerns of those looking for advice on the way in.

the thread is particularly noteworthy since it reproduces in full an august 11, 2002 new york times article about federal prisons, "white-collar criminal? pack lightly for prison", published in the wake of the indictment of sam waksal, former ceo of imclone systems, whose stock got his pal martha stewart in so much trouble:

assume you are a major corporate executive accused of a securities fraud that has caused hundreds of millions of dollars in investor losses. maybe you'll be acquitted. but what if you're convicted? how long will your sentence last? where will you serve the time? and will there be tennis?

although the article doesn't closely examine the stories of country-club living in federal prisons in the past, prisons conditions and sentencing since 1987 have become significantly harsher for everyone, and especially for white-collar criminals:

... nonviolent criminals convicted of financial felonies can face years or even decades in prison, especially since november 2001, when the u.s. sentencing commission drastically increased sentences for white-collar crime, with special emphasis on frauds involving many millions of dollars. under old sentencing guidelines, a first-time, nonviolent offender who committed a fraud that caused 50 or more people to lose $100 million or more faced a prison sentence of five to 6½ years in a federal institution. now, under the formula used by the sentencing commission in the 2001 guidelines, the same individual faces a minimum of 19½ years and a maximum of 24½ years. ... ten years is a critical threshold; convicts sentenced to more than 10 years are placed in a prison behind fences and razor wire. less than 10, and you've got a good chance of residing at a prison camp, often fenceless, for inmates with low risk for escape or violence.

prison for convicts of all stripes has become a more sterile experience:

almost no personal property is allowed, not even contact lenses. inmates are allowed only one religious text, one pair of eyeglasses, dentures and dental bridge, one solid wedding ring with no stones, $20 in change for vending machines, and cash or money orders for an inmate account. an inmate can put unlimited funds in the account but is allowed to spend only $175 a month. inmates can buy from a small selection of shoes, toiletries and snacks in the commissary, but most money is consumed on telephone calls, which are monitored. all prisoners are required to work in jobs that pay 11 cents an hour — tax free. living conditions are tight. at most camps, bunk beds are crammed into small cubicles that hold two to six inmates. think of the office cubicles occupied by the minions at your company, and imagine sharing one as living quarters with another person you might or might not like for the next several years. ... those serving time for white-collar crimes number only about 1,000 of the federal system's 160,000 inmates. so you'll likely find yourself surrounded by drug dealers, robbers and check kiters.

oh dear, not exactly the polo set.

meanwhile, options for whiling away the time have become fewer and fewer, though if you're lucky, there just may be tennis after all:

the most productive way to serve your time, former inmates say, is self-improvement. several camps at former military bases do have tennis courts, now called multiuse surfaces, that accommodate volleyball and basketball. many inmates end up in better physical shape than their office careers ever allowed. education in the federal prison system is widely considered a joke by inmates, but most camps have a library and there is plenty of time for reading and writing. inmates can receive books by mail, although storage space is limited. they can subscribe to magazines, except those deemed pornographic.

but, as related by commenters in the thread, the weightpiles made classic by many a prison drama are being allowed to die of decrepitude:

greyghost: just for the record — on the weight lifting equipment — that was not what the bop [bureau of prisons] wanted. that is what congress wanted. the bop liked the idea that inmates had the opportunity to excerise, work out, release their stress and frustrations out lifting weights. congress just thought that the bop, by allowing weight lifting, was doing nothing more than helpding [sic] to churn out bigger and stronger predators out on the street. wileycoyote: ... as for the weights, you are correct. they don't have to remove the old ones unless they become damaged or broken and they will not be replaced. the problem lies with the fact that there really are very few of the older prisons that still do have weights and every time a new warden or new captain comes on the yard the first thing they usually say is "if there is even one fight on the weightpile, those weights are out of here." eventually there will be a fight. even if no weights are used in the fight, if it happens within shouting distance of the weightpile they are gone. i've seen this happen at least 3 times.

and of course internet access is understandably verboten:

fed-x: no computers hooked to the internet what-so-ever, unfortunately.. the bop is afraid of computers.. you will be lucky to get access to them at all.. some institutions have small computer classes but not all of them.. they are definitely on a physically isolated network with no outside connections.

ultimately it seems that the worst punishment awaiting lay and skilling is the enormity of time they now have to do absolutely nothing but contemplate their reversals of fortune. i would imagine, at least in the minds of these two high-fliers, having lived in the lap of every luxury imaginable, with every possible entertainment available to them at their beck and call, that to be reduced to staring for years at a steel toilet and grey walls, must be the cruelest punishment of all.

pkduc: from my experience in federal prison, the biggest obstacle i faced was boredom. i was at pekin (female camp) in il. there was absolutely nothing to do. there were no programs except for drug offenders and the library contained nothing but outdated law books and old paperback romance novels. the boredom was mind numbing.

shortly before the new york times piece, new york magazine covered "club fed" in a 5-page feature, "you've got jail". its focus on the personal experiences of several inmates makes it a pretty entertaining read:

when charles surrendered four years ago, he had, remarkably, even less luck than freddy. convicted of defrauding the government, he was supposed to serve his sixteen-month sentence at allenwood camp. but when he arrived, he was told, without explanation, that he'd been reassigned to allenwood's low-security facility up the road. only two weeks after his arrival, one of the guards found a hypodermic needle and steroids under the mattress of one of his two roommates. the three men were immediately strip-searched and inspected for needle marks. then they were thrown in separate holes. the lights were off when charles arrived. men in the neighboring cells were howling and pounding their fists against the walls, which they would continue to do all night. thinking it was a light switch, charles hit a small plastic button next to a mirror. "don't touch that!" charles whipped around. "that's the panic button, you son of a bitch!" tyrone had been sitting in the hole for four months, because he refused to work. when charles first saw him, he had all the thoughts that a soft, pasty white guy would be expected to have when confronted with a hulking black cellmate: "this is a cliché." it didn't take long, though, before he discovered that clichés were useless in prison life. "tyrone," says charles, "was one of the most interesting people at allenwood." to pass the time and calm his nerves, charles asked lots of questions. too many. three days later, when the warden came by, tyrone gave her a very different response when she asked if he was ready to work. "yeah, i'm ready," he barked. "this fuckin' white guy won't stop talking."

the only thing we have to fear

(cross-posted at daily kos)

less than 200 days before judgment, the state teeters on ruin. the masses, having reiterated their anemic approval — a glum 32% — begin to gather their pitchforks and torches. brass-plated generals, once dutifully mute, parade forth in open mutiny. on the hill and in the provinces, caesar's retinue draws fewer invitations. meanwhile his beleaguered aides, having retreated to their washington stronghold, resign themselves to a carefully stacked round of russian roulette.

yet the left, despite their opponent's pathetic flailing and reeling, insists on keeping a cautious distance, seemingly unable to cast off a debilitating malaise, born of fear of a regime cornered like an wounded animal. wary of a rove free of distracting policy tasks, the left waits transfixed in dread of what sorcery might spew from the white house belfry.

e. j. dionne: here's the real meaning of the white house shake-up and the redefinition of karl rove's role in the bush presidency: the administration's one and only domestic priority in 2006 is hanging on to control of congress. josh marshall: the key is subpoena power. little of what's happened in the last five years would have been possible were it not for the fact that there was no political institution with subpoena power in washington not under the control of the white house. ... the white house and the entire dc gop for that matter is just sitting on too many secrets and bad acts. the bogus investigations of the pre-war intel is just one example, if one of the most resonant and glaring. keeping control of the house and the senate is less a matter of conventional ideological and partisan politics as it is a simple matter of survival. they have too much to cover up. they could not survive sunlight.

yes, the left has ample real reasons to harbor such dread, having impotently and angrily watched it crystallize during the last five years. bush's judicial coronation, his reichstag legislations and congress' potemkin investigations have all sparked in the loyal opposition a host of stifling fears.

fear that the bush regime in its desperation will stop at nothing to abort its impending emasculation. fear that it will steal or suspend elections. fear that it will revoke the constitution in part or in whole. fear that it will exile dissenters to fema prison camps. fear that it will stage deadly terrorist attacks, unleash virulent plagues and launch global nuclear armageddon — all in the name of retaining its slipping grasp on power.

but the left should not let even legitimate reasons cloud its ability to follow its irrational fears to their logical conclusions. while any attempt by the bush regime to realize those fears of course cannot be completely discounted, the successful fulfillment of any one of these strategeries does not resound with any ring of plausibility:

the "october surprise"

as the reasoning goes, a message from bin laden or a terror alert or attack will rally the country back into the comforting arms of big brother. but more likely, it will blow away any dangling shreds of his mantle as the "great protector", especially if an attack is both destructive enough and dramatic enough to influence the voting of millions of people. bush will not have the benefit of doubt afforded him after 9-11 as a relatively new and untested leader; worse, he'll be forced to again defend a proven record of failure. fortunately, bin laden's april message gives us (and the white house?) an opportunity to test this theory. it could even inoculate the electorate against the impact of an october message. however, pulling bin laden himself out of a hat could have a beneficial effect on his slide, similar to the effect of saddam's capture. but if all the public gets out of it is osama, with no accompanying relief from the violence, then the slide will inevitably resume.

martial law

as the reasoning goes, suspending elections and/or revoking the 22nd amendment, especially in the wake of an attack or an outbreak of disease, will legally lock the regime's stranglehold on the body politic into the forseeable future. but more likely, further attempts to subvert the law will only further inflame the masses, who have grown tired of the rationalizations, which have now become either too convoluted ("i'm not the leaker 'cause it's not a leak 'cause already i declassified what i leaked.") or too childish ("i'm the decider!").

in the face of ever-restrictive inventions of law dispensed by the justice department, progressives have missed no opportunity to equate the regime with genuinely militant fascist dictatorships [guilty as charged!] and have made no secret of their dismay at the apparent passivity of the man on the street. but are we to believe that a nation of 300 million will meekly accept the yoke of an overt dictatorship? not bloody likely. the active-duty forces would finally have a justifiable reason to openly defy the regime and a citizenry indoctrinated from the cradle in the worship of the very concept of freedom will not greet such a naked theft of birthright without the kind of resistance many will argue is obligated under the declaration of independence, the 2nd amendment and the star spangled banner. rockets red glare indeed!

however, i forsee no kent states, especially if the regime loses the military; once directly challenged on its lawlessness — a situation that has not yet been permitted by bush's congress — the regime will sensibly retreat.

election fraud

as the reasoning goes, the republicans could steal the elections the old-fashioned way, and more efficiently than ever with their new-fangled machines. but more likely, any instances of significant fraud will be quickly unmasked. irregularities in each of the elections since 2000 have been followed by claims of fraud, but all kinds of fraud has dogged elections since the birth of the republic. however, dismissing such claims becomes much harder as the gap between the projected and actual results widens. election tampering that might survive a challenge over a 2% margin between candidates, as in 2004, would be impossible to explain over today's 10% margin. and a washington post - abc news poll puts the margin at 15% — reporting that 55% plan to vote democratic and only 40% republican — representing more than 18 million votes if the turnout matches 2004. moving this many ballots would require chicanery of truly herculean proportions.

imagine the scandal: systematic nationwide election tampering and vote supression favoring republicans in all instances. now imagine the reaction: not quiet acquiescence but seething outrage and chaos dwarfing that following the 2000 races. "republican culture of corruption" would emerge as the central recount (revote?) meme and republicans would lose even more the second time around.

war with iran

as the reasoning goes, military action against iran will serve to invigorate bush's grumbling base, which has been steadily suckled on the same twin teats of propaganda and hate that nourished them for the iraq invasion. but more likely, conventional action will only provide a reenactment of the deathtrap in iraq and the vastly more dire repercussions of nuclear action will quickly rebound out of anyone's control. in both cases, the longed-for instant telegenic panacea of righteous blitzkrieg will turn into the bitter wormwood of yet one more unholy quagmire. without a draft, for which no meaningful support exists, ground operations remain the stuff of chickenhawk wetdreams. convention air operations are at best a blunt club. nuclear weapons do not carry any guarantee of success but do carry the price of worldwide opprobrium; america would be branded an international criminal and any lingering vestige of moral authority would be swept offstage by a tall bright column of ash. even if the regime exhibits no interest in courting the admiration of the international community, the majority of the nation does care about its image in the world mirror.

and unlike iraq, iran boasts the capability of striking back at its attacker, both with and without warning. its long shadow across the straits of hormuz and its purported international network of sleeper cells have been thoroughly dissected in other publications, so suffice it here to say that most americans would prefer that iran's boasts remain untested.

---

it is already apparent to any member of the "reality-based" community that none of these gambits has any chance of success. but many still fear an attempt to implement them, convinced that the injured animal under the brush is both pained and crazed enough to risk a suicide bid. as loathsome as i find this regime, i remain unconvinced that they are possessed by some evangelical messianism or are otherwise insane. none of their actions cannot be explained by basic greed and cynicism and sheer venality. besides, in the end, as they walk out the door, to continue their larcenies in the private sector, they can simply sue to grant themselves pardons.

but it is far too late for this regime to save 2006 and 2008. bush's ratings have already dropped into the range of the worst presidents and the poisonous drip-drip-drip of scandal betrays no sign of abating. as long as the white house insists on treating its problems as a matter of perception, they will continue their pointless pantomine of leadership and never adopt the substantive remedies that might regain the public's trust. thus the drip-drip-drip will torment them to the bitter end.

josh bolten's new five-point "recovery plan" for the white house: deploy guns and badges: harass illegals make wall street happy: more tax cuts! brag more: more speeches! reclaim security credibility: harass iran court the press: rehire armstrong williams

what has wounded the regime the most is the exposure of its fundamental ineptitude. the king is naked and his reign is littered with tattered policies, discarded initiatives and, most odious of all, wasted sacrifices. if bush could do just one thing right he might win back some support, but that's the catch when it comes to incompetency. even if any of the desperate strategeries discussed had more than a snowball's chance of success, chances are more than certain this regime would blow it and blow it big. but today there aren't enough kool-aid drinkers left standing and the rest of the electorate is wary and suspicious but most of all very pissed.

unfortunately that anger extends to the other side of the aisle; progressives have grown weary of their leadership's aversion to confronting a political risk that diminishes with each day. against demonstrably corrupt opponents there is no danger in taking the high ground. while the pols have exhibited some ability to push back from behind the scenes, clearly the necessary tonic for the anxieties of their constituents is some grandstanding and good old-fashioned theater, at least until they regain some subpoena power. no one ever believes you have a spine when you refuse to exhibit it. the republicans know this too well.

booman tribune: if only we could trust the democrats to know how to take of advantage of the gop's obvious disarray. after all, we saw similar concerns back in the spring of 2004 with the torture scandal, yet come november somehow the evil empire pulled out another elctoral victory by hook or by crook. i'd like to believe this time will be different.

distrust of the democratic leadership only compounds the fear that the regime will escape unpunished for its sins. more medals than paddles have been dished out to its cronies. fatigued at seeing one unpunished crime follow another, the disenchanted become easily seduced by the fear that the theft of november is not beyond the republicans' reach. admittedly, to resist the fear and the fatigue, one must indulge in a little hope that the agents of justice will eventually catch up with the regime. i believe that the mechanisms of our legal system, the brazenness and incompetence of the criminals and the growing revulsion of the masses do warrant it. the only thing we really have to fear is that we stop trying.