Month: January 2013

I only really started thinking about community policing strategies after I started watching the HBO program The Wire. That show attempted to show the difficulty of policing a large urban area with lots of gang and drug activity. At one point, a police captain essentially legalized drugs in one area of the city. He said, if you sell or buy drugs here, I won’t bother you. But if you sell or buy them anywhere else, I will crack down hard on you. It seemed to actually work for a while. His precincts showed a significant reduction in violent crime. The problem was that he wasn’t authorized to legalize drugs anywhere in the city and he had to attempt to keep his plan secret. There was no way that could last, and the whole thing fell apart.

If you look at patterns of violence in our cities, you’ll recognize that there are good (safe) neighborhoods and bad (dangerous) neighborhoods, and that these neighborhoods tend to stay the same or evolve very slowly. I haven’t lived in Philadelphia for seven years, but I probably still have an accurate mental map of where I can safely go and where I should avoid.

Because of this, the police can identify bad neighborhoods or “problem corners” and they can focus their attention there. It may seem like this would be totally ineffective because it’s like squeezing a balloon. The violence doesn’t go away, it just moves to an adjacent neighborhood. But this isn’t always the case. Sometimes, the violence just stops. An article in Wired might help to explain why. If you think of violence as a disease like cholera, you can see how it can spread through exposure and it can be stamped out by targeted efforts. Basically, start with the assumption that the number one cause of violence is exposure to violence. It’s not the only cause, but it is very important because of its self-perpetuating nature.

This is why one neighborhood may maintain a violent character over a sustained period of time without spreading to nearby neighborhoods. It’s also why clamping down on violence in a bad neighborhood will not necessarily cause that violence to move elsewhere. It doesn’t have to be a never-ending game of whack-a-mole.

One of the interesting things in the article is the revelation that maps of violent crimes in our cities look just like maps of cholera outbreak in Bangladesh. This suggests that it may be possible to limit violent crime by tracking and mapping its occurrence very closely and treating it like we treat an outbreak of disease. Stop the uptick in violence early and you can contain it enough that it will burn itself out.

It also suggests that you can do your own part to reduce violence by not being violent yourself. Don’t spread the virus.

The last quarter saw a 22% reduction in defense spending, which is the largest quarterly drop since 1972, during the wind-down of the Vietnam War. That, combined with mayhem caused by Superstorm Sandy, caused the economy to contract at a 0.1 annual rate. Basically, the Bush wars have been serving as a form of economic stimulus. Massive government spending on war has kept people employed. This is nothing new. The economies in England and the U.S. contracted when World War Two ended. And then they took off.

Anyone who is complaining about a disappointing fourth quarter should ask themselves if they want to live in a country where economic growth is dependent on a permanent state of war.

I suppose that Lawrence O’Donnell will be disappointed, and I admit that I, too, liked the idea of Barney Frank as a senator. But Massachusetts Governor Deval Patrick chose to appoint his former legal counsel and chief of staff, William ‘Mo’ Cowan to serve as an interim replacement for John Kerry. This is the first I have ever heard of Mr. Cowan. The most newsworthy aspect of the appointment is that Cowan is an African-American, and the Senate will now have two black senators for the first time in its history. The Boston Globe has some good biographical information on Mr. Cowan.

Cowan, 43, was first hired by Patrick as his legal counsel in 2009 and was then promoted to chief of staff in 2010. Last November, Cowan stepped down from the $144,000 a year job.

Cowan is a North Carolina native and Duke University graduate who came to Boston to attend Northeastern University Law School in the early 1990s – and never left the region. One of the city’s leading African-American lawyers, Cowan is a former partner in the politically connected law firm of Mintz Levin…

…Cowan is a native of Yadkinville, N.C., a town of 2,200 about 25 miles west of Winston-Salem, where he grew up on a street full of family. Cowan’s father died when he was 16 years old, leaving his mother to raise him and his two sisters on little more than a minimum wage.

He was the first from his high school, Forbush High School, to attend Duke, one of the nation’s premier colleges.

It certainly is a feel-good story. I wish Mr. Cowan luck. He will serve until Massachusetts elects a permanent replacement in June. On the Democratic side, it looks like there will be a primary between Stephen Lynch and Ed Markey. Scott Brown says he is leaning towards running again, and polls currently give him encouragement. It will be a tremendous shame if anyone other than Markey wins the seat.

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John Cornyn of Texas was one of three senators voting against nomination of John Kerry. His backers heven’t given up hope to block the nomination of Chuck Hagel, all in the interest of friend Israel. [Senate roll-call]

CUFI role in Hagel opposition shows conservatives’ resolve to stop confirmation

(Jewish Journal) – Chuck Hagel has made strides in his bid to secure Senate confirmation as defense secretary, winning the endorsement of leading Jewish Democratic senators and meeting with the leaders of major American Jewish groups.

But conservative pro-Israel opposition remains fierce, bolstered by the pivotal role being played by Christians United For Israel, the Texas-based group founded by Pastor John Hagee. Sen. John Cornyn (R-Texas), the first senator to come out against Hagel’s nomination, did so at Hagee’s behest, both men revealed on Monday.

CUFI’s affiliated Action Fund also has rallied hundreds of Christian pastors and leaders to Washington this week to lobby against the former Nebraska senator’s bid to succeed Leon Panetta.

…
The Vietnam War hero also has the support of liberal Jewish groups, including Americans for Peace Now, the Israel Policy Forum and J Street. On Wednesday, J Street was set to join Sen. Jack Reed (D-R.I.), a veteran and a member of the Armed Services Committee, on a conference call backing Hagel.

Hagel also has met with leaders of centrist pro-Israel groups, several of which had expressed concerns about his candidacy, including the Anti-Defamation League, the American Jewish Committee, the Conference of Presidents of Major American Jewish Organizations and the American Israel Public Affairs Committee. The groups described the meeting as “an important opportunity for a serious and thorough discussion.”

Democrats control 55 of the Senate’s 100 seats and sources close to Hagel have said he is hoping that his longstanding friendships with some Senate Republicans will be enough to get the 60 votes necessary to avoid a filibuster.

Meanwhile, conservative Jewish groups have worked to keep up the pressure.

Last week, the Republican Jewish Coalition posted a web video featuring Democrats and Jewish organizational leaders expressing concern about Hagel. The Emergency Committee for Israel similarly ran a full-page ad in the New York Times on Jan. 15. The Zionist Organization of America is lobbying Senate offices.

Sheldon Adelson, one of the GOP’s most generous donors and an RJC board member, has called senators directly to make the case against Hagel.

“We’ve made a strategic decision to gin up as much support among our leaders to reach out to the folks,” said Matt Brooks, the RJC’s executive director.  

• Retired top generals back Hagel

Clinton: Elections open new avenues for peace

(JPost) – Last week’s parliamentary elections in Israel open new avenues for Middle East peace and the US will pursue potential opportunities, outgoing Secretary of State Hillary Clinton said on Tuesday.

“I actually think that this election opens doors, not nails them shut,” she told an assembly in Washington that was broadcast worldwide. “I know that President [Barack] Obama [and] my successor, soon-to-be secretary of state John Kerry, will pursue this, will look for every possible opening,” said Clinton.

She noted that the result of the January 22 vote had shown that “a significant percentage of the Israeli electorate had expressed the need to take a different path, both on the domestic scene and vis-à-vis the peace process in the Middle East. I know that President Obama (and) my successor, soon-to-be Secretary of State John Kerry, will pursue this, will look for every possible opening,” said Clinton.

During a recent phone call, Obama told Netanyahu he looks forward to working with the new government, and reiterated his commitment to the “deep and enduring bonds” between Israel and the United States. Obama also pledged to the prime minister to “work closely with Israel” on their “shared agenda for peace and security in the Middle East.”

Secretary Clinton’s Interview at Global Town Hall

• Israel’s election leaves slim opportunity for Obama to push two-state solution
• Birth control injections even ‘hasbara’ cannot explain

The Senate Judiciary Committee is having a hearing today on gun violence and what to do about it. Guess who’s coming to the microphone. If you guessed Wayne LaPierre of the NRA and Mark Kelly, former astronaut and husband of Gabby Giffords by golly all I can say is “Correctamundo!”

National Rifle Association CEO Wayne LaPierre and Mark Kelly, the husband of former Rep. Gabrielle Giffords, D-Ariz., who survived a shot to the head two years ago during an assassination attempt that left six people dead, are among those slated to testify in front of the Senate Judiciary Committee. One congressional source tells CBS News that Giffords herself is expected to attend the hearing; she is expected to accompany her husband and there are reports she will address the committee, although she’s not officially scheduled to testify.

Will people heckle Wayne or Mark (or Gabby?) or both? Will this hearing accomplish anything whatsoever to move the debate on reducing gun violence forward or will it be it prove to be merely more political theater for our daytime entertainment programming — er, I mean able cable news shows? I’d like to think we’ll see a thoughtful discussion of gun violence in America, and ways to address that problem, but I’m not that naive.

Still, as the saying goes, there’s no such thing as bad publicity. I’m sure that’s why Wayne is willing to testify. His clients in the gun industry – er I mean Second Amendment supporters – must surely be hoping that proves true. I don’t know Senator Leahy’s motives. Ostensibly, he intends to use the hearing to promote gun control legislation in the Senate, but even if the Senate shows some gonads and actually passes a bill restricting assault weapons or banning high capacity magazines I doubt the GOP dominated House will ever allow a vote on such measures to come to the floor.

I appreciate the efforts by the parents of the children killed at Sandy Hook, and others (Mark and Gabby, the victims of the Aurora shootings, etc.), to continue to push for reasonable measure to lessen the toll that gun violence takes on our society. Unlike the CEO of Goldman Sachs, they really are doing the “Lord’s work” in taking a moral stand against the corrupt influence of the NRA and its relentless promotion of guns.

I suppose I should be happy that a hearing is being held at all, considering last year, after the Aurora massacre, Democrats in the Senate refused to hold any hearings whatsoever, much less campaign on the issue of stricter gun laws. Still, it’s a sad statement about our society that Wayne LaPierre, essentially a lobbyist for gun manufacturers, a man whose solution to the slaughter at Sandy Hook is to arm all teachers with Glocks, gets another platform to spout his absurd, yet dangerous, talking points about the need for more guns in our society, not less.

Update [2013-1-30 8:15:57 by Steven D]: Meanwhile in real America, i.e., Wayne’s World, a gunman shot a school bus driver and is holding a small child hostage.

A gunman shot and killed a school bus driver in Midland City, Ala., Tuesday afternoon and escaped the scene with a 6-year-old passenger, which has prompted a hostage situation that is still going on this morning.

The suspected gunman is identified as Jimmy Lee Dykes, a 60-something military veteran, a police source told ABC News. Dykes and the child are in an underground bunker behind his home.

I’m sure Wayne will testify that the School Bus driver should have been armed.

The last cat I owned was basically an indoor cat who got some supervised time outside. Of course, you couldn’t bring the groceries in from the car without him escaping. And more than once, he managed to kill a bird in the short time it took me to put the groceries on the counter and go back outside to retrieve him. He was like the ultimate predator. When I was a child, we had a cat that killed everything and then brought it home as a present. He was an outdoor cat and he just disappeared one day. It really upset me when I realized that God wasn’t going to answer my prayers and return my cat. Things were never the same between God and me after that. But I was about seven years old, so…

In any case, I’m not surprised to learn that cats kill a lot of stuff, but the estimates are kind of stunning.

In a report that scaled up local surveys and pilot studies to national dimensions, scientists from the Smithsonian Conservation Biology Institute and the Fish and Wildlife Service estimated that domestic cats in the United States — both the pet Fluffies that spend part of the day outdoors and the unnamed strays and ferals that never leave it — kill a median of 2.4 billion birds and 12.3 billion mammals a year, most of them native mammals like shrews, chipmunks and voles rather than introduced pests like the Norway rat.

The article goes on to to scold people who let their cats go outside. I think people should know that their cat will encounter many dangers and probably not live as long if you let them roam around outside. But the fact that they will kill birds and shrews and mice is not a reason to confine your cat. If you choose to keep your cat indoors for its whole life, it should be because you want your cat to have a long life, not because you want to preserve the shrew population in your neighborhood.

For feral cats, it makes sense to have a policy to deal with impact.

Because the Senate Judiciary Committee has the responsibility to vet nominees for federal judgeships, both parties are normally careful to put only the most ideologically reliable members on the panel. When they don’t, as when the pro-choice Arlen Specter assumed the chair of Judiciary, it can cause a lot of heartburn. Arlen was kept in line with constant threats, but who needs that kind of hassle? I don’t think we’ll ever see an anti-choice Democrat on the committee. It’s all part of the politicization of the courts.

Because there are no moderate Republicans on the Judiciary Committee, it makes it harder for the rest of the Republicans to agree to anything. Whether we’re talking about guns or immigration, it’s unlikely that more than a couple of the Republicans who will be marking up the bills in Judiciary hearings will be voting for the legislation once it is done.

Even if we have a pretty good shot at picking up enough Republicans to overcome a filibuster, those senators might get a little frightened if the vote in the Judiciary Committee is (close to) a party-line vote. Two Republican members of the committee (Lindsey Graham and freshman Jeff Flake) are part of the Gang of Eight who are working on an immigration bill. That’s a promising start, but it’s not clear that they will be able to win over any of the other Republicans. After all, we’re talking about people like Utah’s Mike Lee and Orrin Hatch, Texas’ Ted Cruz and John Cornyn, and Alabama’s Jefferson Beauregard Sessions III. The Ranking Member is Chuck Grassley of Iowa, who can sometimes be a reasonable man, but who has increasingly behaved like a typical asshole since the Tea Party started capping his colleagues. If Grassley is on board, the bills will be bipartisan and there will be plenty of cover for other more moderate Republicans to vote ‘yes.’ But if Grassley is a ‘no’ vote in committee, then things could get very dicey.

If I’ve learned anything over the years, it’s not to trust committee chairs like Max Baucus, and that goes double for Ranking Members like Chuck Grassley.

Strange weather has absolutely nothing to do with human activity to heat the planet. Nope, there’s always a better explanation available if you don’t agree with (or are ignorant of) the science of climate change:

Chicago residents also have been whiplashed by recent weather extremes. Workers who suffered through subzero temperatures and brutal wind chills a week ago strolled through downtown without coats Tuesday as temperatures soared into the mid-60s. Women wore skirts over bare legs, and joggers were in shorts and T-Shirts. […]

Carol Krueger, who lives in the Chicago suburb of North Hoffman Estates, noted that just a few days ago she was struggling to drive through blowing snow. All she needed Tuesday was a light jean jacket, although by Thursday temperatures were barely expected to reach 20 degrees.

“It’s bizarre, it’s scary,” Krueger said of the swiftly changing weather. “I don’t know if God has anything to do with this or what.”

Personally, I think God is getting the shaft, big time and from his own supposed worshipers, no less. They’re always trying to make him out to be the bad guy. He gets accused for all sorts of things like being a vindictive gay bashing bigot to forcing deeply disturbed young men to kill children and adults at movie theaters and elementary schools.

Get a clue folks. God isn’t burning all those fossil fuels and burning down the Amazon rainforest. God isn’t pulling the trigger on those Bushmasters and Glocks. Maybe it isn’t the Big Guy in the Sky who’s the problem.

Last time I went to church I heard all about how God gave human beings the gift of “free will.” You know, so we can be responsible for our own actions. So for those of you who believe in a “higher authority,” before passing the buck upwards and pinning the blame for these all these weather disasters, gun massacres and other assorted atrocities on your friendly neighborhood deity, take a good look in the mirror. Just saying …

What’s the best thing that happened today?

You can choose what you want, but for me nothing topped learning that James Carville and Mary Matalin had been shit-canned by CNN.

It’s interesting that Fox News is having the worst month they’ve experienced since August 2001. Perhaps something has finally broken the 9/11 fever. I wonder how many people there are in this country who looked at the results of the presidential election and compared it to what dimwits like Dick Morris and Doug Schoen and Pat Cadell and Karl Rove had been telling them and just had a sudden epiphany that they had been getting bullshitted into a state of totally misinformed denial.

I’d like to think there are a lot of those kind of people. But maybe it is more a matter of people being demoralized and not wanting to watch the news since it is mostly about President Obama. Maybe the reelection of the Kenyan usurper has caused a significant percentage of Wingnut Nation to go dormant awaiting some Rick Santelli moment to rouse them from their political hibernation.

After all, how long can a rageaholic go without their Two Minutes Hate? Eventually, they’ll be back, right?