Go ahead and throw Louisiana, Texas, Florida and Georgia on the pile while you’re at it, for a wide variety of reasons.

.....Now I’m extra horrified that sheets and pillow cases are apparently considered privileges. Sure, take those away to prevent them from harming themselves with it, but I was thinking things like books and the like.

I hear you and agree, though I would argue that Al .com comments are worse for many reasons.

The comments sections of newspaper websites, even for papers in big, progressive cities, are pretty much universally vile. Editorial staff don’t even bother to read them anymore. The SF Chronicle moved its comment section link so far down the page of its articles that it’s pretty much impossible to click into it by…

Every time Alabama makes the news, I am both enraged and embarrassed. Please stop being so awful, Alabama. I can’t afford to move.

The maximin principle (of which John Rawls was the leading proponent) implies that the measure of any society should be how well it treats its worst-off members. It’s hard to argue that anyone is worse off than the severely mentally ill, but especially those that don’t come from affluent backgrounds.

They do it when they put you on ‘suicide watch’ -- they take away all your things so you can’t self-harm; including your sheets and pillow cases and in some instances all your clothes so you’re naked with nothing but a drain in the center of the padded room.

‘Technically’ it’s not a punishment but done ‘for your own…

This is an absolutely tragic story. If I wasn’t doing immigration law, I’d do prison reform, because both make my blood boil at the abuses that law enforcement and jailers mete out on a daily basis.

It seems like you’re suggesting that prisoners want to kill themselves due to some internal cause but aren’t allowed to do it. I suspect it has to do with context, in this case that prison environments in general are notoriously inhumane on top of being punitively-focused and as such, it’s pretty reasonable to assume…

No one should kid themselves into thinking that the people who run and work these places care if the inmates get better.

I have to assume it’s due to the mostly religious view of suicide as a sin and moral failing, rather than the symptom of a serious mental illness in need of treatment.

Er, what possible benefit is there to stripping someone of their privileges for attempting suicide or self-harm? They’re already at rock bottom, wouldn’t removing what few comforts they have left just make things worse?

Given the location, I am not at all surprised that they knew a klan song. I’m betting they’ve got more than a few in their repertoire.

In what world does this guy live in where sodomizing someone is not forcible penetration?!

All of this. And the fact that the assistant attorney general has the nerve to say that it wasn’t sexual assault because the victim wasn’t held down is bullshit. Maybe the victim was worried it would be worse if he fought back, maybe he was afraid because of the kkk songs his teammates sang.

Sounds like the lawyer is also concerned that if his client is convicted of raping another man, the community will see his client (the rapist) as gay.

Also don’t forget the tinge here of shudder homosexuality. Can’t have none of that in FOOTBAW

Seriously. I mean, if I’m ever sexually assaulted again, I’m just getting a gun and blowing the guy away. I’ll go to jail, but I’ve made my peace with that.

I had the same thought about the song. Where do you hear or learn shit like that? The obvious answers are either family (gross) or that they went looking for it on the internet (somehow even more disturbing).

Um. This was rape. Nothing any lawyer says can make that not true, it is clear cut. Secondly, of course it was racially motivated, because who the fuck knows what a “Ku Klux Klan” song is? Third, yes, he was targeted for being “vulnerable” and that vulnerability is intersectional: he is both black and disabled. Black…