It’s getting very foily out there.

TOLEDO, OH — Mayor Carty Finkbeiner on Friday ordered some 200 members of Company A, 1st Battalion, 24th Marines from Grand Rapids, Michigan, out of Toledo just before the unit was supposed to start a weekend of urban warfare training downtown.

The mayor’s spokesperson, Brian Schwartz said, “The mayor asked them to leave because they frighten people. He did not want them practicing and drilling in a highly visible area.”

Link

LIMA, Ohio — The air of Southside is foul-smelling and thick, filled with fumes from an oil refinery and diesel smoke from a train yard, with talk of riot and recrimination, and with angry questions: Why is Tarika Wilson dead? Why did the police shoot her baby?

“This thing just stinks to high heaven, and the police know it,” said Jason Upthegrove, president of the Lima chapter of the N.A.A.C.P. “We’re not asking for answers anymore. We’re demanding them.”

Some facts are known. A SWAT team arrived at Ms. Wilson’s rented house in the Southside neighborhood early in the evening of Jan. 4 to arrest her companion, Anthony Terry, on suspicion of drug dealing, said Greg Garlock, Lima’s police chief. Officers bashed in the front door and entered with guns drawn, said neighbors who saw the raid.

Moments later, the police opened fire, killing Ms. Wilson, 26, and wounding her 14-month-old son, Sincere, Chief Garlock said. One officer involved in the raid, Sgt. Joseph Chavalia, a 31-year veteran, has been placed on paid administrative leave.

Beyond these scant certainties, there is mostly rumor and rage. The police refuse to give any account of the raid, pending an investigation by the Ohio attorney general.

—Police Shooting of Mother and Infant Exposes a City’s Racial Tension  Read more 

I’ve been a little slow to formulate this rebuttal to Manjoo’s response, in Salon, to Robert Kennedy’s article on the Republican theft of Ohio 2004—perhaps because there’s so much detail (and rebuttal (never mind the obfuscation)).

But if you boil it down, it seems to me that what Manjoo is saying is that Kennedy didn’t prove there was fraud, therefore there was no fraud.

But the essence of fraud is concealment; Kennedy can’t produce absolute proof (absent confession, or an investigation by Democrats with subpoena power). So Manjoo’s article sets up a straw man.

But it really seems to be that the burden of proof is on the Republicans and their apologists to prove the election was clean.

Let’s simplify the example, leave out Ohio and votes, and do a little thought experiment.

Let’s say your friend was going to count out some money for you, that both you and your friend agree that you are owed. But you don’t know the exact amount of money you are owed. Can you trust your friend? I’d like to say yes, but let’s see. Here are the conditions:  Read more 

Alert reader Tinfoil Hat Boy directs us to the most excellent Brad Blog:

A damning and detailed feature article, written by Robert F. Kennedy Jr., for Rolling Stone and documenting evidence of the theft of the 2004 Presidential Election is set to hit newstands this Friday, The BRAD BLOG can now confirm. The online version of the article will be posted tomorrow (Thursday) morning.

The article — headlined on the cover as “Did Bush Steal the 2004 Election?: How 350,000 Votes Disappeared in Ohio” — has been several months in development and will contend that a concerted effort was undertaken by high-level Republican officials to steal the Election in Ohio — and thus the country — in 2004!  Read more 

Brad and JFK are buddies:

A damning and detailed feature article, written by Robert F. Kennedy Jr., for Rolling Stone and documenting evidence of the theft of the 2004 Presidential Election is set to hit newstands this Friday, The BRAD BLOG can now confirm. The online version of the article will be posted tomorrow (Thursday) morning.  Read more