At a Massachusetts Republican Party St. Patrick’s Day breakfast Sunday, Plymouth County Sheriff Joseph D. McDonald, Jr. (R) “joked” that the nation would be better off if President Obama were assassinated.

Blue Mass Group reports that the Boston Globe noted the stunning comment Sunday:

McDonald offered a joke about Barack Obama being visited in a dream by three past presidents, who offered advice on how to improve the country. Lincoln’s advice: “Go to the theater.”

The alleged joke received “scattered laughter.”

McDonald, who was first elected Sheriff in 2004, notes on his website that he is an “avid sportsman and target shooter” and writes: “Plymouth County deserves the best in public safety, and I intend to continue to deliver.” Given the assassination attempt on Rep. Gabby Giffords in 2011 and the spate of mass shootings across the country, it is stunning that a top public safety officer would find this sort of “joke” appropriate.

A spokesman for McDonald did not immediately respond to a request for comment.

Fifty years ago today, the Supreme Court decided Gideon v. Wainwright, which established the right of criminal defendants to be represented by an attorney in state or federal court. Yet, as Andrew Cohen explains in a must-read piece over at The Atlantic, Gideon‘s promise has become more and more illusory in the wake of budget cuts and conservative Supreme Court decisions making it easier for defendants to receive incompetent counsel.

Cohen also notes a particularly timely incursion on the right to be represented by an attorney if accused of a crime — the Sequester’s impact on federal public defenders:

Let’s start with Jon Sands, the longtime Federal Public Defender for the District of Arizona. Last month, Sands was forced to lay off 10 employees from the defenders’ office. There were more cuts to federal public defenders’ offices earlier this month (the Defender Program budget was slashed 5.17 percent in February and another 5.52 percent last week). “Even with the layoffs, I still must furlough,” Sands told me this weekend via email. He wrote:

We have clients who need mental health experts to examine them, but whom must wait until the next budget allotment comes. We have investigators who can no longer go to the scenes of crimes, but call instead. We watch pennies so we can order transcripts. The impact of sequestration in criminal justice further makes the playing field uneven, with DOJ able to shift resources, while we can’t. We are seeing offices shuttered, and staff sent home for 30, 40 even possibly 90 days.

The specific impact of these cuts will vary from district to district — some public defenders’ offices may lay off more employees, others may impose longer furloughs, and so forth. One thing that appears clear, however, is that public defenders will be hit much harder than federal prosecutors. While Sands warns of public defender staff facing furloughs as long as three months, the United States Attorney in New Jersey said earlier this month that employees in federal prosecutors’ offices only face furloughs “for up to 14 days between the middle of April and the end of September.” A source in the Eastern District of Pennsylvania, the federal court district that includes Philadelphia, tells ThinkProgress that prosecutors face 10 days of furlough — while federal defenders face up to 42 days without work.

There is a likely explanation for this disparity beyond the inference that America simply cares more about locking criminal defendants up than we do about making sure they actually committed a crime first. Federal prosecutors are employed by the Department of Justice, a nearly $27 billion agency under 2012 appropriations. Federal public defenders, by contrast, are employed by the United States Courts, which received only about $6.7 billion before the Sequester’s cuts took effect. As a result, the judiciary has far less flexibility in how it absorbs the effects of budget cuts. And this problem is exacerbated because the federal courts’ most highly compensated employees — federal judges — cannot constitutionally have their salaries reduced.

Whatever the reason for the reduced salaries for public defenders, however, the results will be the same. Heavier caseloads for already overworked attorneys who are potentially the only lifeline for innocent Americans accused of a crime they did not commit.

A New York State legislator was ticketed for marijuana possession Thursday, after officers pulled him over for speeding and found a small bag of marijuana in his car. Assemblyman Steve Katz (R), a veterinarian, voted against a bill last year to legalize medical marijuana in the state,claiming on the Assembly floor that, “as far as the medical marijuana element of this for intractable pain, or what have you, you have an answer for that already and truly you can get it if you need it.” Katz is a member of the state’s Committee on Alcoholism and Drug Abuse. Just this month, he put out a statement decrying his community’s “struggle against illegal drug culture and the abuse of narcotics,” according to the New York Daily News.

Well, that didn’t take long.

This morning, the biggest political story in Washington was a Republican National Committee “autopsy” of the GOP’s 2012 election loss. In it, the RNC proclaimed that “[i]t is imperative that the RNC changes how it engages with Hispanic communities to welcome in new members of our Party” and that “the Republican Party must be committed to building a lasting relationship within the African American community year-round, based on mutual respect and with a spirit of caring.” Within a few hours, three top Republicans already took the first steps to doom this effort.

Earlier today, President Obama nominated Assistant Attorney General Tom Perez to be the next Secretary of Labor. Perez is eminently qualified for this job, having served in a similar role for the state of Maryland before becoming the top civil rights attorney in the Justice Department. As head of DOJ’s Civil Rights Division, Perez restored that office’s historic commitment to protecting voting rights — something that was notably absent during the Bush Administration. In 2012, Perez’s division claims to have brought “the largest number of new [voting] litigation matters in any fiscal year ever” — 43 new voting rights cases — many of them protecting the voting rights of the very same minority groups the GOP claims it wants to form relationships with. Perez also brings a compelling personal story to the Department of Labor. As the President explained in his speech nominating the Secretary-in-waiting, Perez is the son of Dominican immigrants and helped pay for college by working as a garbage collector.

So, of course, several top Republicans are already trying to scuttle his nomination.

Before the President even announced Perez’s nomination, Sen. Jefferson Beauregard Sessions III (R-AL) released a statement attacking him for serving as President of the Board of an organization that advocates on behalf of low-income immigrants and Latinos. The words “illegal immigrant” appear three times in Sessions’ statement, which is barely more than a paragraph long.

Not long thereafter, Sen. David Vitter (R-LA) raised the specter of Perez supposedly sticking up for scary black men. According to Vitter, “Thomas Perez’s record should be met with great suspicion by my colleagues for his spotty work related to the New Black Panther case,” an allegation that does far more to discredit Vitter than Perez. Two separate investigations, one of which was released just last week, concluded that DOJ acted entirely without improper motive when it dismissed this case. And even if DOJ had acted inappropriately, it is hard to see how these actions impugn Perez. The decision to drop most of the allegations against the New Black Panther defendants — the decision that many on the far right now object to — happened on May 18, 2009. Perez did not take over the Civil Rights Division until the next October.

Vitter’s statement, which also criticizes Perez for not doing more to purge voters from voter registrars, indicates that the senator will block Perez’s nomination.
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The Republican National Committee’s investigation into its 2012 electoral defeat, dubbed their “Growth & Opportunity Project,” aims to provide a blueprint for how to “grow the Party and improve Republican campaigns.” Among their top proposals for how the GOP can win: dismantling the nation’s already weak campaign finance laws to allow rich people even more influence over politics and politicians.

Though the report’s minority outreach section notes that the GOP must show that it is “not just the party for those at the top of the economic ladder,” the campaign finance “reforms” embraced by its authors would give the wealthiest Americans even more say in the political system than they already have. And while the report tries to spin these changes in Orwellian terms like “restoring the free speech rights of the political parties and candidates,” it candidly admits that the proposed deregulation would “help the RNC return to its rightful position as the national Party leader” and aid in electing more Republicans.

Among the proposals are a repeal of McCain-Feingold “soft money” ban, an increase in how much each campaign may receive from rich donors, a repeal of the limits on how much rich individuals make in total contributions to candidates in each campaign, the elimination of the public financing system for the presidential campaigns and party conventions, and decimation of state and local campaign finance limits and laws, allowing rich individuals and corporations to exert as much influence on political decision-making as they can afford.

It encourages a nationwide assault of state and local laws by creating “model legislation” to “improve state campaign finance laws.” The report proposes coordinating with the corporate-backed ALEC, the group behind model bills to suppress voting and to encourage people like Trayvon Martin’s killer George Zimmerman to shoot first and ask questions later.

And if the states and local governments reject the corporate assault on their political system, the report suggests, the RNC should just turn to the GOP-controlled federal courts:

Where legislation cannot be adopted, litigation should be considered to lessen the burden on the parties’ ability to support their candidates. Where partisan obstruction or other obstacles stand in the way of common-sense improvements to a state’s campaign finance system, litigation may be necessary, particularly where there are constitutional concerns.

The report further argues the country should “increase contribution limits for federal campaigns,” because “in the age of SuperPACs and other such organizations, the contribution limits to federal candidates must be increased so candidates have more control of the message and voters have a better understanding of the viewpoints of candidates rather than of third-party groups.” But even the Supreme Court’s 5-4 Citizens United ruling noted that unlimited spending by outside groups was different from unlimited contributions to political candidates because “by definition, an independent expenditure is political speech presented to the electorate that is not coordinated with a candidate.” This plan would cut the middle-man and allow rich people to buy even more influence and access directly from candidates and elected officials.

NATIONAL HARBOR, Maryland — An NRA panel at the Conservative Political Action Conference this past weekend mocked a congresswoman whose husband was murdered in a 1993 mass-shooting, claiming she has “no idea what [she's] talking about” when it comes to gun control laws.

Twenty years ago, McCarthy’s husband Dennis was one of the six people who died in a shooting rampage on a Long Island Rail Road commuter train. The shooter, Colin Ferguson, targeted people at random, carrying a handgun and high-capacity magazines. McCarthy’s son Kevin was also shot and severely injured in the spree. The tragedy prompted McCarthy to become an outspoken advocate for stronger gun laws and eventually win a seat in Congress three years later.

Yet McCarthy’s personal experience with the horrors of gun violence did not stop the NRA from disparaging her understanding of the issues surrounding firearms. NRA Organizer Colton Kerrigan played a video of the New York congresswoman and made fun of her for not knowing what a barrel shroud is, using the episode to dismiss her entire push for stronger gun laws. She has “no idea what [she's] writing, never shot a gun before, and yet [she's] going to tell you what you should and should not own to make everybody else safer.”

KERRIGAN: These lawmakers who write these laws have no idea what they’re talking about. They’ve never shot a firearm before, they couldn’t tell you what a barrel shroud is. They couldn’t tell you what a mount is for a bayonet. They probably couldn’t tell you what a flash suppressor is. Yet these are the people who are writing the laws saying we need to ban these certain types of firearms. [...] The underlying theme of all of this is, at the end of the day, the lawmakers have no idea what they’re writing, never shot a gun before, and yet they’re going to tell you what you should and should not own to make everybody else safer, yet they couldn’t tell you the difference between the butt or the barrel of a gun.

Watch it (excuse the technical malfunction at 1:18):

The NRA is mocking McCarthy for her support of a perfectly reasonable law. Barrel shrouds can be used to facilitate faster and more accurate fire into crowds of people — that is, precisely the sort of assault that claimed McCarthy’s husband’s life. Picking out features like barrel shrouds in assault weapon bans is an effective proxy mechanism for defining the most dangerous weapons currently being sold.

Moreover, to say that a woman who personally knows the tragic impact firearms but has “never shot a gun before” can’t have a valid perspective on gun laws is ludicrous. Her experience with gun violence is no less (and arguably much more) relevant to debates about gun laws than that of gun aficionados. Why does the mere fact of growing up going to a shooting range mean that one’s opinion should be given more weight than that of a woman whose husband was gunned down?

Currently, Georgia law prohibits carrying a gun in a bar or “place of worship. A bill that passed the state house late last week, however, would change this, permitting firearms in both locations.

Guns in bars is a particularly volatile combination. Although high profile, premeditated mass killings such as the Sandy Hook massacre draw an unusual amount of attention in public perceptions of gun violence, the reality is that most murders are committed under very different circumstances. According to Washington State Sociology Professor Jennifer Schwartz, “[n]early half of all homicides, committed by men or women, were preceded by some sort of argument or fight, such as a conflict over money or property, anger over one partner cheating on another, severe punishment of a child or abuse of a partner, retaliation for an earlier dispute, or a drunken fight over an insult or other affront.” So keeping guns away from environments where many people are engaged in heavy drinking can ensure that bar brawls and alcohol-induced arguments do not escalate into a homicide. Schwartz estimates that “40% of male offenders were drinking alcohol at the time” that they committed a homicide offense, and that about one in three female offenders were also engaged in drinking.

Although the Supreme Court recognized an individual right to carry firearms in District of Columbia v. Heller, that opinion allows guns to be prohibited in “sensitive places.”

United Nations Development Program Chief Helen Clark lamented the failure of the war on drugs this week, previewing a UNDP Human Development report that calls for  redrawing the battle lines in the drug war to better incorporate the voices of Latin American countries. Clark, who has been prime minister of New Zealand and a Health Minister, said she preferred to treat drugs as a health, rather than a criminal justice problem:

“I’ve been a health minister in my past and there’s no doubt that the health position would be to treat the issue of drugs as primarily a health and social issue rather than a criminalised issue,” Clark told Reuters in an interview. […]

“To deal with drugs as a one-dimensional, law-and-order issue is to miss the point,” Clark said. She stopped short of calling for outright legalisation, but said the focus should be on keeping illegal profits out of criminal hands.

“We have waves of violent crime sustained by drug trade, so we have to take the money out of drugs,” she said.

One of the arguments for legalising drugs is that it would take away a key source of revenue for traffickers.

“The countries in the region that have been ravaged by the armed violence associated with drug cartels are starting to think laterally about a broad range of approaches and they should be encouraged to do that,” said Clark.

“They should act on evidence,” she added.

Clark’s statement comes as the Commission on Narcotic Drugs meets in Vienna this week. During the meeting, International Narcotics Control Board President Raymond Yans reiterated his recent assertion that allowing for the recreational use of cannabis “would be a violation of international law,” although he does not explain what “allowing for” means since marijuana is still federally illegal. He had previously warned that the laws send the wrong message and that the federal government should do whatever necessary to ensure compliance with international drug treaties, including the 1961 Single Convention on Narcotic Drugs. That 50-year-old treaty tasks countries with implementing a system for limiting the use of marijuana and other drugs classified as “Schedule I,” but has no strong mechanisms for enforcement. In December, the United Nations agreed to hold a summit in 2016 devoted to reconsidering global drug policy.