Mohammed Bello Abubakar leaves behind his 203 CHILDREN (and some of his wives are still pregnant)
By Fionn Hargreaves
Daily Mail
January 30, 2017
A Muslim cleric, 93, who wed 130 wives died on Saturday, leaving behind more than 200 children.
Mohammed Bello Abubakar died from an unknown illness in Niger State and large crowds turned out for his funeral on Sunday.
It is believed that some of his wives are pregnant.
According to the serial polygamist's personal assistant, the cleric had a premonition of death before he passed.
In 2008 he faced criticism from other Muslim preachers who demanded that he must divorce 82 of his 86 wives within 48 hours.
But Mr Bello said that it was his 'divine' mission to keep marrying.
He tied the knot 130 times, although 10 of his marriages ended in divorce.
He told the BBC in 2008 that he had a god-given ability to control his many wives.
He said: "A man with 10 wives would collapse and die, but my own power is given by Allah. That is why I have been able to control 86 of them.'
Many of his wives said they first came to him to be healed.
One of his wives said she could not reject his proposal because it was a command from God, according to the BBC.
At the time of his arrest, he was described by his family as a good husband and father.
But he urged others not to follow in his footsteps, as he is only able to cope with having nearly 100 wives because of the divine mission he has been given.
EDITOR’S NOTE: Unlike many men his age, Bello’s plumbing apparently worked very well till the end. He must have croaked with a great bug smile on his aged face.
God said, “Be fruitful, and multiply.” 203 children and counting! By God, old Bello must have hauled around a ton of fruit.
Tuesday, January 31, 2017
CALIFORNIA TO SUSPEND ALL TRAFFIC LAWS
by Bob Walsh
OK, I grant you, that is a slight exaggeration, but only slight. SB405, by Bob Herzberg, Democrat-Socialist from VanNuys, would prohibit the suspension of a drivers license merely due to the fact that the driver declined to pay fines related to traffic offenses for which they had been found guilty.
The (alleged) problem is that poor people can't, or won't, pay traffic fines. It is therefore "unfair" to suspend their drivers licenses merely because they are too poor (or need to spend their money on diapers, or crack, or whatever) on other things rather than paying their traffic fines.
However, this law would only apply to "nonviolent" traffic offenses. As far as I know no traffic offenses are designated as violent by the legislature of the formerly great state of California so, if it is signed in to law, this would essentially wipe out the penalty for violation of any traffic law in California that does not otherwise warrant incarceration.
Damn, doesn't that notion just make you feel all warm and fuzzy?
OK, I grant you, that is a slight exaggeration, but only slight. SB405, by Bob Herzberg, Democrat-Socialist from VanNuys, would prohibit the suspension of a drivers license merely due to the fact that the driver declined to pay fines related to traffic offenses for which they had been found guilty.
The (alleged) problem is that poor people can't, or won't, pay traffic fines. It is therefore "unfair" to suspend their drivers licenses merely because they are too poor (or need to spend their money on diapers, or crack, or whatever) on other things rather than paying their traffic fines.
However, this law would only apply to "nonviolent" traffic offenses. As far as I know no traffic offenses are designated as violent by the legislature of the formerly great state of California so, if it is signed in to law, this would essentially wipe out the penalty for violation of any traffic law in California that does not otherwise warrant incarceration.
Damn, doesn't that notion just make you feel all warm and fuzzy?
EMBOLDENED BY TRUMP, SOME POLICE UNIONS SEEK TO OVERHAUL OBAMA’S REFORMS
By Julia Harte and Timothy Mclaughlin
Reuters
January 30, 2017
WASHINGTON/CHICAGO -- Steve Loomis, president of the Cleveland Police Patrolmen’s Association, had a blunt message for Donald Trump during a meeting in September: court-ordered reforms aimed at curbing police abuses in the midwestern city are not working.
Loomis and two other attendees said Trump seemed receptive to Loomis's concerns that federally monitored police reforms introduced during the Obama administration in some cities in response to complaints of police bias and abuse are ineffective and impose an onerous burden on police forces.
Trump, Loomis said, was “taken aback by the waste of money” when the union chief told him that federal monitors overseeing his city’s police department earned $250 an hour - a standard salary for the position.
"I think he’s going to have a more sensible approach to rising crime rates," Loomis said of now President Trump. "What I got from the meeting was that Donald Trump is going be a very strong supporter of law and order."
Emboldened by Trump's election, some of the country’s biggest police groups want to renegotiate "consent decrees" agreed to under President Barack Obama, the police labor groups said in interviews.
Consent decrees are agreements between a police force and the Justice Department that can prescribe changes to use of force, recruiting, training and discipline. They are enforced by a federal court with the oversight of court-appointed monitors. Currently 14 police departments, including Seattle and Miami, are operating under the decrees.
The police groups want to discuss the decrees with Jeff Sessions, Trump's designee for attorney general who has voiced criticism of them, although any renegotiation would be legally complicated because all parties as well as a federal judge must approve any changes.
“There are certainly decrees that are inartfully applied that we’d like to see revisited,” said Jim Pasco, the head of the Fraternal Order of Police, the nation’s largest police union with 330,000 members. It endorsed Trump in September and has worked with Sessions, a Republican senator from Alabama, for years while lobbying Congress for pro-police policies.
“We’ve always found him a man who’s willing to listen to alternatives to a previously charted course,” Pasco said of Sessions.
Civil rights groups are alarmed at the possibility that the decrees could be unraveled, saying they have been an important tool for the government to try to address issues like excessive use of force by police in Baltimore and an officer shooting in Ferguson, Missouri that led to nationwide protests.
Trump officials did not respond to multiple requests for comment on the meeting with Loomis.
While Trump has not publicly commented on consent decrees, he has expressed strong support for police departments and unions, and on Jan. 20 the White House said he wants to end the "dangerous anti-police atmosphere in America."
CURBING ABUSE
There have been questions by police and conservative politicians over the effectiveness of the consent decrees, which give the Justice Department power to obtain court orders imposing reforms on police forces that routinely violate civil rights through practices such as unlawful stops and seizures, racial discrimination, and illegal uses of force.
The federal program was authorized by Congress in 1994 in the aftermath of riots in Los Angeles sparked by the police beating of Rodney King.
Some police unions complain the decrees stigmatize police and impose overly restrictive limits on use of force. They also chafe at what they see as misguided federal prescriptions to local problems and have fought the reforms in court.
A reform agreement that the Justice Department negotiated with the New Orleans police department in 2013, for instance, has been “extraordinarily expensive” to implement, said Donovan Livaccari, the lawyer for the Louisiana Fraternal Order of Police. The city of New Orleans is footing the bill.
The Obama administration negotiated 24 reform agreements with law enforcement agencies during Obama's eight years in office after finding patterns of excessive force, racial bias, poor supervision and other issues, more than double the 11 agreements reached under the previous Bush administration.
Vanita Gupta, the last Obama-appointed head of the Justice Department's civil rights division, which investigates and recommends reforms for police departments, defended the use of consent decrees in an interview, saying they are apolitical ways of improving public safety and making policing more effective.
Bill Johnson, head of the National Association of Police Organizations, which represents about 241,000 officers, said he expects local police associations to examine existing consent decrees to see whether the Justice Department under Obama overstepped in imposing any measures.
Some police union officials say they have been encouraged by comments by Sessions, who has said that federal inquiries “smear” police departments and “undermine respect for officers.”
“Under Attorney General Sessions, it’ll be more, ‘Okay, there’s a problem, let’s craft an agreement as best we can and cure it, and then move onto the next thing’,” Johnson said.
Union officials said they expect the Trump administration to initiate and reach fewer binding reform agreements with police departments, and they hope Sessions will work with them to try to re-negotiate some of those existing agreements.
Sessions said in his confirmation hearing on Jan. 10 that he “wouldn’t commit that there wouldn’t be any changes” to existing consent decrees when he becomes attorney general if police departments show improvement before they have fully complied with the terms of the decree.
A Trump transition official said Sessions would not comment on his testimony until after the Senate votes on his appointment. That vote is not expected until February.
DECREES HAVE MIXED RESULTS
Not all union leaders agree that the decrees’ costs outweigh the benefits.
Sean Smoot, who directs the Police Benevolent & Protective Association of Illinois and serves as a monitor for the Cleveland police reform agreement, said the federal inquiries prompt cities to hire more cops and invest in better equipment.
The decrees have had mixed results. Reforms in some cities, such as Los Angeles, have resulted in higher public satisfaction with police and declines in reports of police use of force. In other places, such as Ferguson, the city has missed multiple deadlines for implementing reforms required by its decree.
Civil rights advocates in Chicago say that given Trump's law and order platform they fear his administration will neglect the Justice Department’s findings from a 13-month-long investigation into the police force.
Issued in the last days of the Obama administration, the Justice Department’s Jan. 13 report found that Chicago police routinely used excessive force and violated the constitutional rights of residents, particularly minorities. City officials signed an agreement to negotiate a consent decree.
But with Trump in the White House, “it’s not clear where the leverage is going to come from for the reforms,” said Jamie Kalven, founder of the Invisible Institute, a nonprofit group which advocates for police transparency.
The White House did not respond to a request for comment about Kalven's concerns.
Jonathan Smith, the Obama-appointed former chief of special litigation in the Justice Department’s Civil Rights Division, said he is confident that most agreements reached during the Obama era will remain intact because they are overseen by judges who are “committed to their implementation.”
In Cleveland, for instance, the judge who oversees the reform agreement that Loomis’s union is objecting to recently rejected any efforts to renegotiate it.
Reuters
January 30, 2017
WASHINGTON/CHICAGO -- Steve Loomis, president of the Cleveland Police Patrolmen’s Association, had a blunt message for Donald Trump during a meeting in September: court-ordered reforms aimed at curbing police abuses in the midwestern city are not working.
Loomis and two other attendees said Trump seemed receptive to Loomis's concerns that federally monitored police reforms introduced during the Obama administration in some cities in response to complaints of police bias and abuse are ineffective and impose an onerous burden on police forces.
Trump, Loomis said, was “taken aback by the waste of money” when the union chief told him that federal monitors overseeing his city’s police department earned $250 an hour - a standard salary for the position.
"I think he’s going to have a more sensible approach to rising crime rates," Loomis said of now President Trump. "What I got from the meeting was that Donald Trump is going be a very strong supporter of law and order."
Emboldened by Trump's election, some of the country’s biggest police groups want to renegotiate "consent decrees" agreed to under President Barack Obama, the police labor groups said in interviews.
Consent decrees are agreements between a police force and the Justice Department that can prescribe changes to use of force, recruiting, training and discipline. They are enforced by a federal court with the oversight of court-appointed monitors. Currently 14 police departments, including Seattle and Miami, are operating under the decrees.
The police groups want to discuss the decrees with Jeff Sessions, Trump's designee for attorney general who has voiced criticism of them, although any renegotiation would be legally complicated because all parties as well as a federal judge must approve any changes.
“There are certainly decrees that are inartfully applied that we’d like to see revisited,” said Jim Pasco, the head of the Fraternal Order of Police, the nation’s largest police union with 330,000 members. It endorsed Trump in September and has worked with Sessions, a Republican senator from Alabama, for years while lobbying Congress for pro-police policies.
“We’ve always found him a man who’s willing to listen to alternatives to a previously charted course,” Pasco said of Sessions.
Civil rights groups are alarmed at the possibility that the decrees could be unraveled, saying they have been an important tool for the government to try to address issues like excessive use of force by police in Baltimore and an officer shooting in Ferguson, Missouri that led to nationwide protests.
Trump officials did not respond to multiple requests for comment on the meeting with Loomis.
While Trump has not publicly commented on consent decrees, he has expressed strong support for police departments and unions, and on Jan. 20 the White House said he wants to end the "dangerous anti-police atmosphere in America."
CURBING ABUSE
There have been questions by police and conservative politicians over the effectiveness of the consent decrees, which give the Justice Department power to obtain court orders imposing reforms on police forces that routinely violate civil rights through practices such as unlawful stops and seizures, racial discrimination, and illegal uses of force.
The federal program was authorized by Congress in 1994 in the aftermath of riots in Los Angeles sparked by the police beating of Rodney King.
Some police unions complain the decrees stigmatize police and impose overly restrictive limits on use of force. They also chafe at what they see as misguided federal prescriptions to local problems and have fought the reforms in court.
A reform agreement that the Justice Department negotiated with the New Orleans police department in 2013, for instance, has been “extraordinarily expensive” to implement, said Donovan Livaccari, the lawyer for the Louisiana Fraternal Order of Police. The city of New Orleans is footing the bill.
The Obama administration negotiated 24 reform agreements with law enforcement agencies during Obama's eight years in office after finding patterns of excessive force, racial bias, poor supervision and other issues, more than double the 11 agreements reached under the previous Bush administration.
Vanita Gupta, the last Obama-appointed head of the Justice Department's civil rights division, which investigates and recommends reforms for police departments, defended the use of consent decrees in an interview, saying they are apolitical ways of improving public safety and making policing more effective.
Bill Johnson, head of the National Association of Police Organizations, which represents about 241,000 officers, said he expects local police associations to examine existing consent decrees to see whether the Justice Department under Obama overstepped in imposing any measures.
Some police union officials say they have been encouraged by comments by Sessions, who has said that federal inquiries “smear” police departments and “undermine respect for officers.”
“Under Attorney General Sessions, it’ll be more, ‘Okay, there’s a problem, let’s craft an agreement as best we can and cure it, and then move onto the next thing’,” Johnson said.
Union officials said they expect the Trump administration to initiate and reach fewer binding reform agreements with police departments, and they hope Sessions will work with them to try to re-negotiate some of those existing agreements.
Sessions said in his confirmation hearing on Jan. 10 that he “wouldn’t commit that there wouldn’t be any changes” to existing consent decrees when he becomes attorney general if police departments show improvement before they have fully complied with the terms of the decree.
A Trump transition official said Sessions would not comment on his testimony until after the Senate votes on his appointment. That vote is not expected until February.
DECREES HAVE MIXED RESULTS
Not all union leaders agree that the decrees’ costs outweigh the benefits.
Sean Smoot, who directs the Police Benevolent & Protective Association of Illinois and serves as a monitor for the Cleveland police reform agreement, said the federal inquiries prompt cities to hire more cops and invest in better equipment.
The decrees have had mixed results. Reforms in some cities, such as Los Angeles, have resulted in higher public satisfaction with police and declines in reports of police use of force. In other places, such as Ferguson, the city has missed multiple deadlines for implementing reforms required by its decree.
Civil rights advocates in Chicago say that given Trump's law and order platform they fear his administration will neglect the Justice Department’s findings from a 13-month-long investigation into the police force.
Issued in the last days of the Obama administration, the Justice Department’s Jan. 13 report found that Chicago police routinely used excessive force and violated the constitutional rights of residents, particularly minorities. City officials signed an agreement to negotiate a consent decree.
But with Trump in the White House, “it’s not clear where the leverage is going to come from for the reforms,” said Jamie Kalven, founder of the Invisible Institute, a nonprofit group which advocates for police transparency.
The White House did not respond to a request for comment about Kalven's concerns.
Jonathan Smith, the Obama-appointed former chief of special litigation in the Justice Department’s Civil Rights Division, said he is confident that most agreements reached during the Obama era will remain intact because they are overseen by judges who are “committed to their implementation.”
In Cleveland, for instance, the judge who oversees the reform agreement that Loomis’s union is objecting to recently rejected any efforts to renegotiate it.
HOW TERROR ATTACKS IN EUROPE ARE CONNECTED TO THE SEVEN COUNTRIES TRUMP BANNED FROM THE U.S.
From home-grown killers to camps where fanatics were trained to slaughter
Daily Mail
January 30, 2017
Several countries around the world are protesting at the executive order signed by President Donald Trump which suspends the entry into the US of all nationals from seven countries, all of which are overwhelmingly Muslim.
Trump has denied it is a ban on Muslims and had insisted the nations on the list – Iran, Iraq, Libya, Somalia Sudan, Syria and Yemen – 'are the same countries previously identified by the Obama administration as sources of terror'.
But how are these countries linked to terror attacks in Europe?
Mail Online has analysed all the terrorist attacks in Europe, including Turkey, since 9/11.
No individuals from five of the countries on the list - Iran, Libya, Somalia, Sudan and Yemen - had been linked to any terrorist attacks in Europe in the last 15 years, although some could be linked to Islamist bases and training camps in Libya, Somalia and Yemen.
Raffaello Pantucci, a counter-terrorism expert at the Royal United Services Institute in London, told Mail Online: 'Most terrorist attacks in America are carried out by Americans.
'This list contains countries like Iran and Sudan, which have long been accused by the US of state sponsorship of terrorism, but have not been involved as individuals. And why are Pakistan and Saudi Arabia not on this list?
'There is not a lot of logic behind this but it's a lot of politicking.
'He signs a shiny executive order, which makes life difficult for a few people, and makes the international community upset, but at the end of the day he doesn't get elected by the international community.'
So how many individuals from each nation have been involved in terror attacks in Europe since 9/11?
Syria - 3 (possibly 4)
In 2007 Loa'i Mohammad Haj Bakr al-Saqa, a Syrian, was convicted of masterminding the November 2003 truck bombing of two synagogues in Istanbul, which killed 57 people. Several other Turkish men, with links to al-Qaeda, were also convicted.
One of the men who carried out the Paris attacks in November 2015 was believed to be Syrian. Ahmad al-Mohammad, 25, blew himself up at the Stade de France stadium. A Syrian passport was found near his body, although the authorities said they believed it was fake. The Paris prosecutor's office said later his fingerprints matched those of a man who arrived on the Greek island of Leros in October, purporting to be a Syrian refugee.
Another of the Stade France suicide bombers was identified as M al-Mahmod, who had also arrived in Leros among refugees. He may have come from Syria although his identity and nationality were never conclusively proved.
In July 2016 Mohammad Daleel, 27, blew himself up outside a wine bar in Ansbach, Germany. Fifteen people were injured. Daleel was a refugee from Syria who had arrived in Germany in 2014 seeking asylum.
Iran - 0
But in 2012 a suicide bomber killed six Israeli tourists as they got off a coach in Burgas, Bulgaria. Earlier this year Australian citizen Meliad Farah, 32, and 25-year-old Canadian citizen Hassan el-Hajj Hassan were named as the bomber's accomplices. They are believed to have been agents of Hezbollah, the Lebanese Shia group with close ties to Iran.
Libya - 0
But earlier this month US jets bombed an ISIS training camp near Sirte, Libya - the former home town of the late dictator Colonel Gaddafi - after intelligence linked it to Anis Amri, the Tunisian refugee who killed a lorry driver and 11 people at a Christmas market in Berlin last month.
Iraq - 2
In December 2010 Taimour Abdulwahab al-Abdaly, an Iraqi-born Swedish national, blew himself up in a botched suicide bombing in the centre of Stockholm. Witnesses said al-Abdaly, who had come to Sweden as a child and later lived in Luton, England, 'shouted something in Arabic' before detonating the bomb. Several other bombs failed to go off and he was the only fatality in the attack.
On September 17, 2015 Rafik Yousef, a 41-year-old Iraqi national, was shot and killed when he tried to stab a policeman in Berlin. Astonishingly he had been released from prison after plotting to kill the Iraqi prime minister during a visit to Germany in 2004.
Somalia – 0
But on 5 December 2015 a Somalia-born man, Muhaydin Mire, stabbed three people during a high-profile attack on the London Underground at Leytonstone after shouting: 'This is for Syria, my Muslim brothers'. Mire and his family had arrived in London from Somalia when Mire was 12. He was jailed for
life in August last year.
Sudan - 0
But in November last year an ISIS commander, known as Abu Nassim, was arrested in Sudan. Abu Nassim, who was born Moez Fezzani, was deported from Italy in 2012 but was later convicted and jailed for five years and eight months in jail for recruiting terrorists in Milan. Abu Nassim is also wanted for his role in the massacre of 21 tourists at a museum in Tunis in 2015.
Yemen - 0
But the Daily Telegraph reported in 2015 that Saïd Kouachi, one of two brothers who killed 12 people during an attack on the satirical magazine Charlie Hebdo in Paris, had been to the Yemen in 2011 and may have met Anwar al-Awlaki, an American-born preacher who specialised in radicalising Muslims in the West. Al-Awlaki was killed by an American drone strike a few months later.
The vast majority of the terror attacks in Europe have come from home-grown terrorists, especially from France and Belgium.
Terrorist attacks in Russia - of which there have been many - usually emanated from Chechnya or other rebellious and overwhelmingly Muslim parts of the North Caucasus.
While in Turkey, which has seen an upsurge in attacks recently, the bombers have been mainly Turkish nationals, often from the Kurdish minority.
Britain's two major terrorist attacks - the 7 July 2005 bomb attacks on buses and Tube trains in London and the horrific beheading of off-duty soldier Lee Rigby in May 2013 - were carried out by British-born extremists. In the case of Corporal Rigby, the killers were brought up as Christians and converted to Islam as adults.
Daily Mail
January 30, 2017
Several countries around the world are protesting at the executive order signed by President Donald Trump which suspends the entry into the US of all nationals from seven countries, all of which are overwhelmingly Muslim.
Trump has denied it is a ban on Muslims and had insisted the nations on the list – Iran, Iraq, Libya, Somalia Sudan, Syria and Yemen – 'are the same countries previously identified by the Obama administration as sources of terror'.
But how are these countries linked to terror attacks in Europe?
Mail Online has analysed all the terrorist attacks in Europe, including Turkey, since 9/11.
No individuals from five of the countries on the list - Iran, Libya, Somalia, Sudan and Yemen - had been linked to any terrorist attacks in Europe in the last 15 years, although some could be linked to Islamist bases and training camps in Libya, Somalia and Yemen.
Raffaello Pantucci, a counter-terrorism expert at the Royal United Services Institute in London, told Mail Online: 'Most terrorist attacks in America are carried out by Americans.
'This list contains countries like Iran and Sudan, which have long been accused by the US of state sponsorship of terrorism, but have not been involved as individuals. And why are Pakistan and Saudi Arabia not on this list?
'There is not a lot of logic behind this but it's a lot of politicking.
'He signs a shiny executive order, which makes life difficult for a few people, and makes the international community upset, but at the end of the day he doesn't get elected by the international community.'
So how many individuals from each nation have been involved in terror attacks in Europe since 9/11?
Syria - 3 (possibly 4)
In 2007 Loa'i Mohammad Haj Bakr al-Saqa, a Syrian, was convicted of masterminding the November 2003 truck bombing of two synagogues in Istanbul, which killed 57 people. Several other Turkish men, with links to al-Qaeda, were also convicted.
One of the men who carried out the Paris attacks in November 2015 was believed to be Syrian. Ahmad al-Mohammad, 25, blew himself up at the Stade de France stadium. A Syrian passport was found near his body, although the authorities said they believed it was fake. The Paris prosecutor's office said later his fingerprints matched those of a man who arrived on the Greek island of Leros in October, purporting to be a Syrian refugee.
Another of the Stade France suicide bombers was identified as M al-Mahmod, who had also arrived in Leros among refugees. He may have come from Syria although his identity and nationality were never conclusively proved.
In July 2016 Mohammad Daleel, 27, blew himself up outside a wine bar in Ansbach, Germany. Fifteen people were injured. Daleel was a refugee from Syria who had arrived in Germany in 2014 seeking asylum.
Iran - 0
But in 2012 a suicide bomber killed six Israeli tourists as they got off a coach in Burgas, Bulgaria. Earlier this year Australian citizen Meliad Farah, 32, and 25-year-old Canadian citizen Hassan el-Hajj Hassan were named as the bomber's accomplices. They are believed to have been agents of Hezbollah, the Lebanese Shia group with close ties to Iran.
Libya - 0
But earlier this month US jets bombed an ISIS training camp near Sirte, Libya - the former home town of the late dictator Colonel Gaddafi - after intelligence linked it to Anis Amri, the Tunisian refugee who killed a lorry driver and 11 people at a Christmas market in Berlin last month.
Iraq - 2
In December 2010 Taimour Abdulwahab al-Abdaly, an Iraqi-born Swedish national, blew himself up in a botched suicide bombing in the centre of Stockholm. Witnesses said al-Abdaly, who had come to Sweden as a child and later lived in Luton, England, 'shouted something in Arabic' before detonating the bomb. Several other bombs failed to go off and he was the only fatality in the attack.
On September 17, 2015 Rafik Yousef, a 41-year-old Iraqi national, was shot and killed when he tried to stab a policeman in Berlin. Astonishingly he had been released from prison after plotting to kill the Iraqi prime minister during a visit to Germany in 2004.
Somalia – 0
But on 5 December 2015 a Somalia-born man, Muhaydin Mire, stabbed three people during a high-profile attack on the London Underground at Leytonstone after shouting: 'This is for Syria, my Muslim brothers'. Mire and his family had arrived in London from Somalia when Mire was 12. He was jailed for
life in August last year.
Sudan - 0
But in November last year an ISIS commander, known as Abu Nassim, was arrested in Sudan. Abu Nassim, who was born Moez Fezzani, was deported from Italy in 2012 but was later convicted and jailed for five years and eight months in jail for recruiting terrorists in Milan. Abu Nassim is also wanted for his role in the massacre of 21 tourists at a museum in Tunis in 2015.
Yemen - 0
But the Daily Telegraph reported in 2015 that Saïd Kouachi, one of two brothers who killed 12 people during an attack on the satirical magazine Charlie Hebdo in Paris, had been to the Yemen in 2011 and may have met Anwar al-Awlaki, an American-born preacher who specialised in radicalising Muslims in the West. Al-Awlaki was killed by an American drone strike a few months later.
The vast majority of the terror attacks in Europe have come from home-grown terrorists, especially from France and Belgium.
Terrorist attacks in Russia - of which there have been many - usually emanated from Chechnya or other rebellious and overwhelmingly Muslim parts of the North Caucasus.
While in Turkey, which has seen an upsurge in attacks recently, the bombers have been mainly Turkish nationals, often from the Kurdish minority.
Britain's two major terrorist attacks - the 7 July 2005 bomb attacks on buses and Tube trains in London and the horrific beheading of off-duty soldier Lee Rigby in May 2013 - were carried out by British-born extremists. In the case of Corporal Rigby, the killers were brought up as Christians and converted to Islam as adults.
A RECAP OF ALL THE LAWSUITS SINCE THE DEATHS OF ANNA NICOLE SMITH AND HER HUSBAND
Houston Press
January 29, 2017
This week, the probate judge overseeing the decade-long civil case between feuding in-laws begged to be taken off the case, and ultimately recused himself. (He told them, "I don't want to deal with you people anymore.")
Since oil magnate J. Howard Marshall died a year after he married Smith, the Houston-born model and former Playboy playmate six decades his junior, his billion-dollar estate has been fought over. Here are the some of the stories we have written over the years about the litigious Marshalls and even the family of Smith.
Judge Begs Family of Anna Nicole Smith's Husband to Let Him Quit Case
Anna Nicole Smith, the big blond with the enormous breasts, has been dead for a decade. Her 90-year-old oil billionaire husband of 14 months, J. Howard Marshall II, has been ashes for more than 20 years. (She never picked up the urn.) But the fight over Marshall's estate is still going strong.
In fact, it's been dragging out for so long that it finally caused Probate Judge Mike Wood, a man who has overseen family quarrels severe enough to turn litigious for decades, to say he's done
Anna Nicole Smith: The U.S. Supreme Court Decides To Get Involved
The Anna Nicole Smith litigation, which seemingly has gone on as long as her career did, is not over yet. The U.S. Supreme Court, of all people, has decided to wade into the case and rule on whether a Houston jury made the right decision when it kept Smith from getting her hands on J. Howard Marshall's money.
The sometimes sad, sometimes heroically comic tale of the Mexia funtime gal goes on.
Flirting with Disaster
Chicken-shack waitress. Single mom. Playboy centerfold. Heiress. Walking coma. These are just a few of the terms people have used to describe the enigma that is Anna Nicole Smith. Once a curvy throwback to the days of Monroe, Mansfield and Ekberg, she's now a bloated, slurred, frighteningly gaudy emblem of dubiousness. It's a story that is nothing short of pathetic, and therefore it's funny. So who better to have her own reality show?
Larger Than Life
Until about five years ago, there lived in this town at least one grasping old man with an enormous appetite for pretty young women. His name was J. Howard Marshall II, and for many years, he lived respectably, doing something dull with oil. At last, he diversified his interests. He is chiefly remembered today as a most astounding old lecher.
Anna Nicole Smith’s Mom Files Suit Against Howard K. Stern, CBS Studios and KPRC Houston
It’s been quite a while since Anna Nicole Smith’s name was last mentioned in the news, but once again, the former Playboy centerfold and reality TV show star is front and center, thanks to a lawsuit filed by her mother in Harris County.
EDITOR’S NOTE: Here are some more details on the lawsuit filed by Anna Nicole’s mother.
ANNA NICOLE SMITH’S MOM FILES SUIT AGAINST HOWARD K. STERN, CBS STUDIOS AND KPRC HOUSTON
By Chris Vogel
Houston Press
October 11, 2007
It’s been quite a while since Anna Nicole Smith’s name was last mentioned in the news, but once again, the former Playboy centerfold and reality TV show star is front and center, thanks to a lawsuit filed by her mother in Harris County.
On Tuesday, Virgie Arthur, a retired police officer living in Montgomery County, sued Howard K. Stern, Smith’s longtime attorney and companion, CBS Studios Inc. and KPRC Houston for defamation and conspiracy to defame.
According to the lawsuit, Arthur alleges that in the months preceding Smith’s death Stern isolated Smith, whose real name is Vickie Lynn Marshall, from her family and controlled Smith by “providing her with prescription drugs, with some prescriptions obtained illegally in the name of defendant Stern and other persons, but intended for Ms. Marshall.”
After Smith’s son, Daniel Smith, died a drug-related death in September 2006, Arthur became greatly concerned about the safety of her daughter, but Stern prevented Arthur from “communicating with Ms. Marshall through normal channels,” it states in the lawsuit. So, Arthur reached out to her daughter through the media to warn her to be cautious about the people surrounding her.
In retaliation, it states in the lawsuit, Stern arranged for the TV program Entertainment Tonight, produced and distributed by CBS Studios, to interview Smith. Arthur alleges that Stern conspired with Smith and CBS to defame Arthur during the interview, in which Arthur was accused of being “complicit in alleged physical and sexual abuse” of Smith as a child.
Arthur claims that CBS aired portions of the interview in November 2006 and that KPRC then aired additional portions of the interview three months later. Arthur alleges that the “production to the public had a distinctly defamatory tenor.”
Arthur denies the allegations aired in the interview and in the lawsuit claims that, “the truth is that (Arthur) loved and cared about Ms. Marshall and never harmed Ms. Marshall or knowingly allowed harm to come to Ms. Marshall.”
January 29, 2017
This week, the probate judge overseeing the decade-long civil case between feuding in-laws begged to be taken off the case, and ultimately recused himself. (He told them, "I don't want to deal with you people anymore.")
Since oil magnate J. Howard Marshall died a year after he married Smith, the Houston-born model and former Playboy playmate six decades his junior, his billion-dollar estate has been fought over. Here are the some of the stories we have written over the years about the litigious Marshalls and even the family of Smith.
Judge Begs Family of Anna Nicole Smith's Husband to Let Him Quit Case
Anna Nicole Smith, the big blond with the enormous breasts, has been dead for a decade. Her 90-year-old oil billionaire husband of 14 months, J. Howard Marshall II, has been ashes for more than 20 years. (She never picked up the urn.) But the fight over Marshall's estate is still going strong.
In fact, it's been dragging out for so long that it finally caused Probate Judge Mike Wood, a man who has overseen family quarrels severe enough to turn litigious for decades, to say he's done
Anna Nicole Smith: The U.S. Supreme Court Decides To Get Involved
The Anna Nicole Smith litigation, which seemingly has gone on as long as her career did, is not over yet. The U.S. Supreme Court, of all people, has decided to wade into the case and rule on whether a Houston jury made the right decision when it kept Smith from getting her hands on J. Howard Marshall's money.
The sometimes sad, sometimes heroically comic tale of the Mexia funtime gal goes on.
Flirting with Disaster
Chicken-shack waitress. Single mom. Playboy centerfold. Heiress. Walking coma. These are just a few of the terms people have used to describe the enigma that is Anna Nicole Smith. Once a curvy throwback to the days of Monroe, Mansfield and Ekberg, she's now a bloated, slurred, frighteningly gaudy emblem of dubiousness. It's a story that is nothing short of pathetic, and therefore it's funny. So who better to have her own reality show?
Larger Than Life
Until about five years ago, there lived in this town at least one grasping old man with an enormous appetite for pretty young women. His name was J. Howard Marshall II, and for many years, he lived respectably, doing something dull with oil. At last, he diversified his interests. He is chiefly remembered today as a most astounding old lecher.
Anna Nicole Smith’s Mom Files Suit Against Howard K. Stern, CBS Studios and KPRC Houston
It’s been quite a while since Anna Nicole Smith’s name was last mentioned in the news, but once again, the former Playboy centerfold and reality TV show star is front and center, thanks to a lawsuit filed by her mother in Harris County.
EDITOR’S NOTE: Here are some more details on the lawsuit filed by Anna Nicole’s mother.
ANNA NICOLE SMITH’S MOM FILES SUIT AGAINST HOWARD K. STERN, CBS STUDIOS AND KPRC HOUSTON
By Chris Vogel
Houston Press
October 11, 2007
It’s been quite a while since Anna Nicole Smith’s name was last mentioned in the news, but once again, the former Playboy centerfold and reality TV show star is front and center, thanks to a lawsuit filed by her mother in Harris County.
On Tuesday, Virgie Arthur, a retired police officer living in Montgomery County, sued Howard K. Stern, Smith’s longtime attorney and companion, CBS Studios Inc. and KPRC Houston for defamation and conspiracy to defame.
According to the lawsuit, Arthur alleges that in the months preceding Smith’s death Stern isolated Smith, whose real name is Vickie Lynn Marshall, from her family and controlled Smith by “providing her with prescription drugs, with some prescriptions obtained illegally in the name of defendant Stern and other persons, but intended for Ms. Marshall.”
After Smith’s son, Daniel Smith, died a drug-related death in September 2006, Arthur became greatly concerned about the safety of her daughter, but Stern prevented Arthur from “communicating with Ms. Marshall through normal channels,” it states in the lawsuit. So, Arthur reached out to her daughter through the media to warn her to be cautious about the people surrounding her.
In retaliation, it states in the lawsuit, Stern arranged for the TV program Entertainment Tonight, produced and distributed by CBS Studios, to interview Smith. Arthur alleges that Stern conspired with Smith and CBS to defame Arthur during the interview, in which Arthur was accused of being “complicit in alleged physical and sexual abuse” of Smith as a child.
Arthur claims that CBS aired portions of the interview in November 2006 and that KPRC then aired additional portions of the interview three months later. Arthur alleges that the “production to the public had a distinctly defamatory tenor.”
Arthur denies the allegations aired in the interview and in the lawsuit claims that, “the truth is that (Arthur) loved and cared about Ms. Marshall and never harmed Ms. Marshall or knowingly allowed harm to come to Ms. Marshall.”
Monday, January 30, 2017
UNINTENDED CONSEQUENCES (MAYBE-PROBABLY)
by Bob Walsh
Something interesting happened over the last couple of days regarding Trump's exclusion order on some primarily Islamic shit-hole terrorist breeding grounds. It may (or may not) be a demonstration of unintended consequences.
It seems that there were a number of people in route from Trump's named shit-hole countries when the order was issued. They had valid visas at the time they took off. They didn't (maybe) when they landed. One of these was the mother of a son serving in the U.S. military.
The perpetually indignant crowd, looking for something to jump on and probably paid by George Soros, began an immediate and fairly large demonstration at JFK airport.
In any event a federal judge issued an order stating that the U.S. can not detain or deport these people. The total number is less than 20 and I don't think that Trump is going to have a hissy fit over it.
The order covers anyone with a valid refugee status application or who had a valid visa when they left whatever shit-hole they left from. IMHO the judge's decision was reasonable and appropriate. I dislike changing the rules in the middle of the game. Changing the rules while a person is actually in flight coming here fits that definition.
This order may, or may not effect people who have not actually got to the U.S. There are allegedly about 173 people with visas who have not yet left their shit-hole of origin and another 100 or so that are at an intermediate stop but have yet to hit the U.S.
EDITOR’S NOTE: One of the consequences concerns green card holders who are legally entitled to be in the U.S., but have been detained or refused reentry into this country.
Something interesting happened over the last couple of days regarding Trump's exclusion order on some primarily Islamic shit-hole terrorist breeding grounds. It may (or may not) be a demonstration of unintended consequences.
It seems that there were a number of people in route from Trump's named shit-hole countries when the order was issued. They had valid visas at the time they took off. They didn't (maybe) when they landed. One of these was the mother of a son serving in the U.S. military.
The perpetually indignant crowd, looking for something to jump on and probably paid by George Soros, began an immediate and fairly large demonstration at JFK airport.
In any event a federal judge issued an order stating that the U.S. can not detain or deport these people. The total number is less than 20 and I don't think that Trump is going to have a hissy fit over it.
The order covers anyone with a valid refugee status application or who had a valid visa when they left whatever shit-hole they left from. IMHO the judge's decision was reasonable and appropriate. I dislike changing the rules in the middle of the game. Changing the rules while a person is actually in flight coming here fits that definition.
This order may, or may not effect people who have not actually got to the U.S. There are allegedly about 173 people with visas who have not yet left their shit-hole of origin and another 100 or so that are at an intermediate stop but have yet to hit the U.S.
EDITOR’S NOTE: One of the consequences concerns green card holders who are legally entitled to be in the U.S., but have been detained or refused reentry into this country.
TRUMP WAMTS TO ENLIST LOCAL POLICE IN IMMIGRATION CRACKDOWN
A 1996 federal law opened up the possibility for local agencies to participate in immigration enforcement on the streets and do citizenship checks of people in local jails
By Jacques Billeaud and Amy Taxin
Associated Press
January 29, 2017
PHOENIX -- To build his highly touted deportation force, President Donald Trump is reviving a long-standing program that deputizes local officers to enforce federal immigration law.
The program received scant attention during a week in which Trump announced plans to build a border wall, hire thousands more federal agents and impose restrictions on refugees from Middle Eastern countries.
But the program could end up having a significant impact on immigration enforcement around the country, despite falling out of favor in recent years amid complaints that it promotes racial profiling.
More than 60 police and sheriff's agencies had the special authority as of 2009, applying for it as the nation's immigration debate was heating up. Since then, the number has been halved and the effort scaled back as federal agents ramped up other enforcement programs and amid complaints officers weren't focusing on the goal of catching violent offenders and instead arrested immigrants for minor violations, like driving with broken tail lights.
Sheriff Joe Arpaio used the program most aggressively in metro Phoenix, and he became arguably the nation's best-known immigration enforcer at the local level in large part because of the special authority. In a strange twist, he was thrown out of office in the same election that vaulted Trump to the presidency, mostly because of mounting frustration over legal issues and costs stemming from the patrols.
In his executive order this week, Trump said he wants to empower local law enforcement to act as immigration officers and help with the "investigation, apprehension, or detention" of immigrants in the country illegally.
The move comes at a time when the country is sharply divided over the treatment of immigrants. Cities such as Chicago and San Francisco have opposed police involvement in immigration while some counties in Massachusetts and Texas are now seeking to jump in.
Proponents say police departments can help bolster immigration enforcement and prevent criminals from being released back into their neighborhoods, while critics argue that deputizing local officers will lead to racial profiling and erode community trust in police.
Cecillia Wang, an American Civil Liberties Union attorney, said police bosses who want to get into immigration enforcement should consider what happened when 100 of Arpaio's deputies were given the federal arrest power.
The longtime sheriff used the authority to carry out traffic patrols that targeted immigrants. The patrols were later discredited in a lawsuit in which a federal judge concluded Arpaio's officers had racially profiled Latinos. The lawsuit so far cost county taxpayers $50 million.
"There are people like Joe Arpaio who have a certain political agenda who want to jump on the Trump bandwagon," Wang said, adding later that the Arizona sheriff was "most vocal and shameless offender" in the program.
When asked to comment on Trump's effort to revitalize the program, a Department of Homeland Security spokeswoman said the executive orders would speak for themselves.
Traditionally, police stayed out of immigration enforcement and left those duties to federal authorities. But a 1996 federal law opened up the possibility for local agencies to participate in immigration enforcement on the streets and do citizenship checks of people in local jails.
Immigration and Customs Enforcement trained and certified roughly 1,600 officers to carry out these checks from 2006 to 2015.
The Obama administration phased out all the arrest power agreements in 2013, but still let agencies check whether people jailed in their jurisdiction were citizens. If they find that an inmate is in the country illegally, they typically notify federal authorities or hand them over to immigration officers. Today, more than 30 local agencies participate in the jail program.
Alonzo Pena, a retired deputy director of U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement who once oversaw such agreements with police agencies, said some officers were using the authority in ways that didn't match the agency's enforcement priorities.
He said federal officials need to closely monitor participants to ensure their actions don't veer away from the goal of catching violent offenders and confronting national security threats. "It's hard to regulate to make sure it's followed," Pena said.
In California, three counties nixed the program after state legislation and a federal court ruling in nearby Oregon limited police collaboration with immigration enforcement. Orange County still makes the immigration checks inside its jail and flags inmates for deportation officers, but won't hold anyone on behalf of federal authorities out of legal concerns.
"The window has narrowed to a large extent," said Orange County sheriff's Lt. Mike McHenry.
With Trump in office, the program has new life.
Even before the change in administration, two Republican county sheriffs in Massachusetts said they were starting programs. In Texas, Jackson County sheriff A. J. "Andy" Louderback said two officers will get trained to run immigration jail checks this spring and nearby counties want to follow suit.
Louderback said teaming up with federal agents will cost his agency roughly $3,000 — a small price to pay to cover for officers while they're on a four-week training course, especially in an area struggling with human smuggling. Once the program is underway, he said immigration agents will send a daily van to pick up anyone flagged for deportation from jail.
"It just seems like good law enforcement to partner with federal law enforcement in this area," he said. "It takes all of us to do this job."
Experts said Trump's outreach to local law enforcement will create an even bigger split between sanctuary cities that keep police out of immigration enforcement and those eager to help the new president bolster deportations.
"There is no question that in order to do the type of mass deportation that he promised, it will require him conscripting local law enforcement agencies," said Chris Newman, legal director of the National Day Laborer Organizing Network. "It is going to balkanize things ... and we're going to see more of the extremes."
By Jacques Billeaud and Amy Taxin
Associated Press
January 29, 2017
PHOENIX -- To build his highly touted deportation force, President Donald Trump is reviving a long-standing program that deputizes local officers to enforce federal immigration law.
The program received scant attention during a week in which Trump announced plans to build a border wall, hire thousands more federal agents and impose restrictions on refugees from Middle Eastern countries.
But the program could end up having a significant impact on immigration enforcement around the country, despite falling out of favor in recent years amid complaints that it promotes racial profiling.
More than 60 police and sheriff's agencies had the special authority as of 2009, applying for it as the nation's immigration debate was heating up. Since then, the number has been halved and the effort scaled back as federal agents ramped up other enforcement programs and amid complaints officers weren't focusing on the goal of catching violent offenders and instead arrested immigrants for minor violations, like driving with broken tail lights.
Sheriff Joe Arpaio used the program most aggressively in metro Phoenix, and he became arguably the nation's best-known immigration enforcer at the local level in large part because of the special authority. In a strange twist, he was thrown out of office in the same election that vaulted Trump to the presidency, mostly because of mounting frustration over legal issues and costs stemming from the patrols.
In his executive order this week, Trump said he wants to empower local law enforcement to act as immigration officers and help with the "investigation, apprehension, or detention" of immigrants in the country illegally.
The move comes at a time when the country is sharply divided over the treatment of immigrants. Cities such as Chicago and San Francisco have opposed police involvement in immigration while some counties in Massachusetts and Texas are now seeking to jump in.
Proponents say police departments can help bolster immigration enforcement and prevent criminals from being released back into their neighborhoods, while critics argue that deputizing local officers will lead to racial profiling and erode community trust in police.
Cecillia Wang, an American Civil Liberties Union attorney, said police bosses who want to get into immigration enforcement should consider what happened when 100 of Arpaio's deputies were given the federal arrest power.
The longtime sheriff used the authority to carry out traffic patrols that targeted immigrants. The patrols were later discredited in a lawsuit in which a federal judge concluded Arpaio's officers had racially profiled Latinos. The lawsuit so far cost county taxpayers $50 million.
"There are people like Joe Arpaio who have a certain political agenda who want to jump on the Trump bandwagon," Wang said, adding later that the Arizona sheriff was "most vocal and shameless offender" in the program.
When asked to comment on Trump's effort to revitalize the program, a Department of Homeland Security spokeswoman said the executive orders would speak for themselves.
Traditionally, police stayed out of immigration enforcement and left those duties to federal authorities. But a 1996 federal law opened up the possibility for local agencies to participate in immigration enforcement on the streets and do citizenship checks of people in local jails.
Immigration and Customs Enforcement trained and certified roughly 1,600 officers to carry out these checks from 2006 to 2015.
The Obama administration phased out all the arrest power agreements in 2013, but still let agencies check whether people jailed in their jurisdiction were citizens. If they find that an inmate is in the country illegally, they typically notify federal authorities or hand them over to immigration officers. Today, more than 30 local agencies participate in the jail program.
Alonzo Pena, a retired deputy director of U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement who once oversaw such agreements with police agencies, said some officers were using the authority in ways that didn't match the agency's enforcement priorities.
He said federal officials need to closely monitor participants to ensure their actions don't veer away from the goal of catching violent offenders and confronting national security threats. "It's hard to regulate to make sure it's followed," Pena said.
In California, three counties nixed the program after state legislation and a federal court ruling in nearby Oregon limited police collaboration with immigration enforcement. Orange County still makes the immigration checks inside its jail and flags inmates for deportation officers, but won't hold anyone on behalf of federal authorities out of legal concerns.
"The window has narrowed to a large extent," said Orange County sheriff's Lt. Mike McHenry.
With Trump in office, the program has new life.
Even before the change in administration, two Republican county sheriffs in Massachusetts said they were starting programs. In Texas, Jackson County sheriff A. J. "Andy" Louderback said two officers will get trained to run immigration jail checks this spring and nearby counties want to follow suit.
Louderback said teaming up with federal agents will cost his agency roughly $3,000 — a small price to pay to cover for officers while they're on a four-week training course, especially in an area struggling with human smuggling. Once the program is underway, he said immigration agents will send a daily van to pick up anyone flagged for deportation from jail.
"It just seems like good law enforcement to partner with federal law enforcement in this area," he said. "It takes all of us to do this job."
Experts said Trump's outreach to local law enforcement will create an even bigger split between sanctuary cities that keep police out of immigration enforcement and those eager to help the new president bolster deportations.
"There is no question that in order to do the type of mass deportation that he promised, it will require him conscripting local law enforcement agencies," said Chris Newman, legal director of the National Day Laborer Organizing Network. "It is going to balkanize things ... and we're going to see more of the extremes."
THE SECRETS OF NEW YORK CITY’S POLICING SUCCESS
The Big Apple’s new top cop on how to protect citizens from both street crime and terrorism
By William McGurn
The Wall Street Journal
January 27, 2017
When James O’Neill first put on the blue uniform and gold badge of law enforcement, it was
1983, and he was a rookie with the New York City Transit Police, riding the subways from 8
p.m. until 4 a.m. Those were the bad old days of buildings encrusted in grime and graffiti, parks
and public places overrun by the homeless, and a murder rate rising relentlessly.
“In the 1980s and 1990s,” Mr. O’Neill recalls, “the police were just holding on.
New York is different today. In 1983 there were 1,622 murders in the city—and the peak was still years away. In 2016 the city reported only 335 murders, and Mr. O’Neill says total shootings
were below 1,000 for the first time in the city’s modern history.
As the journal City & State noted, New York now has “one-fifth the crime of 1990 with a million more people.” It’s not the only thing that’s changed. That rookie transit officer is now Gotham’s top cop.
On its own, the success of New York’s Finest in bringing down murder and other violent crime is a remarkable achievement. What makes it more extraordinary is how hard it seems to be for
other big cities to replicate. A month ago The Wall Street Journal released a survey that found 16
of the nation’s 20 largest police departments reported more murders in 2016 than the year before.
The city grabbing the most attention is Chicago. Other, smaller towns (Detroit, New Orleans, St.
Louis) have even higher levels of murder relative to population, but there’s good reason to focus
on the Windy City. The liberal Brennan Center for Justice reports that Chicago’s skyrocketing
murder count—762 in 2016, up from 480 in 2015—accounts for nearly half the homicide
increase in the nation’s 30 largest cities. This week President Trump focused attention on
Chicago when he threatened on Twitter to “send in the Feds” if local officials fail to address the
“horrible ‘carnage.’ ”
In a meeting Tuesday with Wall Street Journal editors, Commissioner O’Neill declined to
comment on the Chicago police. But the Windy City’s troubles go beyond the cops. For example, while in New York someone convicted of carrying a loaded firearm faces a mandatory minimum prison sentence of 3½ years, in Chicago the law gives judges more discretion, which they use to give gun offenders lighter sentences.
In 2011 Mayor Rahm Emanuel brought in an NYPD vet, Garry McCarthy, as police
superintendent. For 2014 Chicago police reported the lowest number of homicides in almost 50
years, though the total remained over 400 throughout Mr. McCarthy’s tenure and in 2012 had
swelled to more than 500. In any case, Mr. McCarthy was sacked in 2015 after a horrendous
video emerged showing a Chicago police officer firing 16 shots into a man who did not appear a
threat.
The video set off a perfect storm that has contributed to the current mayhem. The officer faces
charges of first-degree murder. On its way out the door, President Obama’s Justice Department
dropped a report accusing Chicago cops of a “pattern or practice” of unconstitutional force.
In response, Chicago cops have shied away from enforcing the law, because they fear becoming
the next face on the evening news. Mr. Emanuel said in 2015 that they had gone “fetal.” Carnage
is exactly the right word for the result. Not a month into the new year, theChicago
Tribune reports there have already been 45 homicides.
Mr. Trump is probably wrong to believe the feds have the answer. But his tweet does point to a
big question: What is the secret sauce in the NYPD’s recipe?
One big part of New York’s success is the acknowledgment that most violent crimes occur in
poor and minority areas. That means people living in those neighborhoods will have more
interactions with police, whether it’s a stop-and-frisk or an early morning raid on a neighbor’s
apartment. It also means, because of demographics, that the stops, searches and arrests will
disproportionately affect black and Latino men.
The answer is not to deny this reality, but to make extra efforts to enlist the law-abiding on the
side of the police. That’s why Ray Kelly, the NYPD commissioner under MayorMike
Bloomberg, spent almost all his Sundays in the city’s black churches.
Mr. O’Neill is building on that outreach in his own way. “After we do a takedown”—an arrest
—“we go in the next day and have a briefing with the community,” he says. “We let them know
exactly what transpired—why we came in there at 4:30 in the morning, why we took out 30
people, and what they were up to.”
It comes under the larger heading of what he calls “neighborhood policing.” For the
commissioner, it’s the next logical stage in the revolution in strategy and tactics the NYPD
kicked off in the 1990s: helping cops get better at identifying who the bad guys are, where they
live, and how to stop them before they can commit more violence. “A very small percentage of
the population,” Mr. O’Neill says, is committing most of the violent crime. Which means the key
to keeping cities safe is to figure out who they are, and focus cops and resources on them.
Bill Bratton took the first big step toward smarter policing during his first stint as New York’s
police commissioner from 1994 to 1996. Mr. Bratton introduced CompStat, a computerized
system that tracks even the smallest crimes. Over the years it has been refined with more data.
Officers constantly analyze and debate what it reveals about crime trends and how the police
should respond.
“If you talk to any of the precinct commanders,” says Mr. O’Neill, “they now know down to the
block and the house who is causing the problems and the last time they had contact with the
police.” Recent statistics, he adds, show that shootings and arrests are trending down while gun
seizures are up—suggesting that the NYPD is focusing its efforts on the right people.
In the past, the commissioner says, a new officer would graduate from the academy and be
dropped in a tough location without connections or knowledge. Though the presence of uniforms
helped drive crime down in the short term, in the long term it reduced cops to little more than
“wooden soldiers.”
Today about one-fifth of the city’s uniformed officers serve as “steady-sector cops,” meaning
they are assigned to a particular locale and expected to interact with the community. “The beauty
of neighborhood policing is that you have the same cops in the same places every day,” says Mr.
O’Neill. “So they know whether the kids coming down the street are coming home from high
school or about to sell weed or narcotics.”
Because of their roots in the neighborhood, Mr. O’Neill says, these cops “are the ones who take
it most personally” when they see, say, graffiti on the side of a school or gang markings on street
signs.
The other part of smart policing is recognizing when the facts on the ground have changed. Take
gangs. “In 2015 we found the No. 1 shooting motive was gangs,” the commissioner says. “First
time that ever happened. So we had to figure out what we were going to do about it.” The police
say gangs have also shifted their emphasis from selling drugs to stealing credit cards and other
forms of identity theft.
But it turns out the gangbangers have a weakness. “These gang members, that’s their whole life,”
says the commissioner. “They have nothing else.” Often that means bragging about their exploits
on social media, especially Facebook—which makes it easier for cops monitoring those sites to
know which bad guy is doing what.
Along with ordinary street crime, the NYPD faces a special challenge from terrorism. Whatever
else has changed since Sept. 11, 2001, New York’s attraction as a target for radical Islamists has
not diminished. Four months ago a bombing in Manhattan’s Chelsea neighborhood wounded 31
people. In 2010 a car bomb in Times Square might have killed hundreds but failed to go off.
Since 9/11, the commissioner says, 21 terror plots on New York have been recorded—with all
but these two thwarted before anything could happen.
Terrorists themselves have changed too. The kind of attack executed on 9/11—by operatives sent
in from abroad—has yielded to homegrown terrorists who are either enabled (e.g., instructed on
techniques) or simply inspired by Islamist groups.
Again, the key to good policing is more-precise knowledge of who’s likely to act. Visitors to
radical websites may leave clues. Police say the homegrown terrorist is generally someone who
hasn’t succeeded in his career, in romance or in some other life goal.
Take Tamerlan Tsarnaev, the elder Boston bomber brother, who wanted to box for the U.S.
Olympic team—but could not because he was a permanent resident, not a U.S. citizen. In a
similar way, the Orlando shooter wanted to be a policeman. Young men, angry when their
dreams are thwarted, go searching for an alternative path to valor, says John Miller, the NYPD’s
deputy commissioner for intelligence and counterterrorism: “The scientific term for it is ‘loser.’ ”
But as the NYPD gets smarter, so are the Islamists. Al Qaeda has Inspire, an online, English-
language magazine that publishes instructions on bomb-making and other terror skills. Islamic
State has a similar periodical, Rumiyah.
“After the Chelsea bombing, Inspire came out with an after-action report,” Mr. Miller recalls. He
sums up its take on the bombing as “good to do in New York, good to do during U.N. General
Assembly, and good to do in Chelsea, a hot, up-and-coming neighborhood.” But the attacker was
criticized for placing the bomb in a dumpster, “because people don’t hang out by garbage cans.”
Mr. Miller is understandably troubled by such sophistication. “When you see this level of
inspiration, instruction and critique,” he says, “that’s way more useful info than we’d like to see
out there.”
Then again, nobody ever said policing a big city would be easy. The department often faces
lawsuits from groups like the New York Civil Liberties Union. Mayor Bill de Blasiocampaigned
in 2013 on an anticop line, and in December 2014, when two officers were assassinated after
days of antipolice protests, some cops turned their backs on the mayor at the hospital. Things
have since calmed down, and Mr. O’Neill says the mayor has given police the resources they’ve
asked for.
In the decades since Officer O’Neill first donned the uniform, cops have gone from tapping their
nightsticks to communicate to using smartphones for the latest crime intel in real time.
Commissioner O’Neill promises more is coming. “It’s not going to happen overnight—big ships
turn slowly—but if we stop evolving, we won’t be able to do our jobs.”
By William McGurn
The Wall Street Journal
January 27, 2017
When James O’Neill first put on the blue uniform and gold badge of law enforcement, it was
1983, and he was a rookie with the New York City Transit Police, riding the subways from 8
p.m. until 4 a.m. Those were the bad old days of buildings encrusted in grime and graffiti, parks
and public places overrun by the homeless, and a murder rate rising relentlessly.
“In the 1980s and 1990s,” Mr. O’Neill recalls, “the police were just holding on.
New York is different today. In 1983 there were 1,622 murders in the city—and the peak was still years away. In 2016 the city reported only 335 murders, and Mr. O’Neill says total shootings
were below 1,000 for the first time in the city’s modern history.
As the journal City & State noted, New York now has “one-fifth the crime of 1990 with a million more people.” It’s not the only thing that’s changed. That rookie transit officer is now Gotham’s top cop.
On its own, the success of New York’s Finest in bringing down murder and other violent crime is a remarkable achievement. What makes it more extraordinary is how hard it seems to be for
other big cities to replicate. A month ago The Wall Street Journal released a survey that found 16
of the nation’s 20 largest police departments reported more murders in 2016 than the year before.
The city grabbing the most attention is Chicago. Other, smaller towns (Detroit, New Orleans, St.
Louis) have even higher levels of murder relative to population, but there’s good reason to focus
on the Windy City. The liberal Brennan Center for Justice reports that Chicago’s skyrocketing
murder count—762 in 2016, up from 480 in 2015—accounts for nearly half the homicide
increase in the nation’s 30 largest cities. This week President Trump focused attention on
Chicago when he threatened on Twitter to “send in the Feds” if local officials fail to address the
“horrible ‘carnage.’ ”
In a meeting Tuesday with Wall Street Journal editors, Commissioner O’Neill declined to
comment on the Chicago police. But the Windy City’s troubles go beyond the cops. For example, while in New York someone convicted of carrying a loaded firearm faces a mandatory minimum prison sentence of 3½ years, in Chicago the law gives judges more discretion, which they use to give gun offenders lighter sentences.
In 2011 Mayor Rahm Emanuel brought in an NYPD vet, Garry McCarthy, as police
superintendent. For 2014 Chicago police reported the lowest number of homicides in almost 50
years, though the total remained over 400 throughout Mr. McCarthy’s tenure and in 2012 had
swelled to more than 500. In any case, Mr. McCarthy was sacked in 2015 after a horrendous
video emerged showing a Chicago police officer firing 16 shots into a man who did not appear a
threat.
The video set off a perfect storm that has contributed to the current mayhem. The officer faces
charges of first-degree murder. On its way out the door, President Obama’s Justice Department
dropped a report accusing Chicago cops of a “pattern or practice” of unconstitutional force.
In response, Chicago cops have shied away from enforcing the law, because they fear becoming
the next face on the evening news. Mr. Emanuel said in 2015 that they had gone “fetal.” Carnage
is exactly the right word for the result. Not a month into the new year, theChicago
Tribune reports there have already been 45 homicides.
Mr. Trump is probably wrong to believe the feds have the answer. But his tweet does point to a
big question: What is the secret sauce in the NYPD’s recipe?
One big part of New York’s success is the acknowledgment that most violent crimes occur in
poor and minority areas. That means people living in those neighborhoods will have more
interactions with police, whether it’s a stop-and-frisk or an early morning raid on a neighbor’s
apartment. It also means, because of demographics, that the stops, searches and arrests will
disproportionately affect black and Latino men.
The answer is not to deny this reality, but to make extra efforts to enlist the law-abiding on the
side of the police. That’s why Ray Kelly, the NYPD commissioner under MayorMike
Bloomberg, spent almost all his Sundays in the city’s black churches.
Mr. O’Neill is building on that outreach in his own way. “After we do a takedown”—an arrest
—“we go in the next day and have a briefing with the community,” he says. “We let them know
exactly what transpired—why we came in there at 4:30 in the morning, why we took out 30
people, and what they were up to.”
It comes under the larger heading of what he calls “neighborhood policing.” For the
commissioner, it’s the next logical stage in the revolution in strategy and tactics the NYPD
kicked off in the 1990s: helping cops get better at identifying who the bad guys are, where they
live, and how to stop them before they can commit more violence. “A very small percentage of
the population,” Mr. O’Neill says, is committing most of the violent crime. Which means the key
to keeping cities safe is to figure out who they are, and focus cops and resources on them.
Bill Bratton took the first big step toward smarter policing during his first stint as New York’s
police commissioner from 1994 to 1996. Mr. Bratton introduced CompStat, a computerized
system that tracks even the smallest crimes. Over the years it has been refined with more data.
Officers constantly analyze and debate what it reveals about crime trends and how the police
should respond.
“If you talk to any of the precinct commanders,” says Mr. O’Neill, “they now know down to the
block and the house who is causing the problems and the last time they had contact with the
police.” Recent statistics, he adds, show that shootings and arrests are trending down while gun
seizures are up—suggesting that the NYPD is focusing its efforts on the right people.
In the past, the commissioner says, a new officer would graduate from the academy and be
dropped in a tough location without connections or knowledge. Though the presence of uniforms
helped drive crime down in the short term, in the long term it reduced cops to little more than
“wooden soldiers.”
Today about one-fifth of the city’s uniformed officers serve as “steady-sector cops,” meaning
they are assigned to a particular locale and expected to interact with the community. “The beauty
of neighborhood policing is that you have the same cops in the same places every day,” says Mr.
O’Neill. “So they know whether the kids coming down the street are coming home from high
school or about to sell weed or narcotics.”
Because of their roots in the neighborhood, Mr. O’Neill says, these cops “are the ones who take
it most personally” when they see, say, graffiti on the side of a school or gang markings on street
signs.
The other part of smart policing is recognizing when the facts on the ground have changed. Take
gangs. “In 2015 we found the No. 1 shooting motive was gangs,” the commissioner says. “First
time that ever happened. So we had to figure out what we were going to do about it.” The police
say gangs have also shifted their emphasis from selling drugs to stealing credit cards and other
forms of identity theft.
But it turns out the gangbangers have a weakness. “These gang members, that’s their whole life,”
says the commissioner. “They have nothing else.” Often that means bragging about their exploits
on social media, especially Facebook—which makes it easier for cops monitoring those sites to
know which bad guy is doing what.
Along with ordinary street crime, the NYPD faces a special challenge from terrorism. Whatever
else has changed since Sept. 11, 2001, New York’s attraction as a target for radical Islamists has
not diminished. Four months ago a bombing in Manhattan’s Chelsea neighborhood wounded 31
people. In 2010 a car bomb in Times Square might have killed hundreds but failed to go off.
Since 9/11, the commissioner says, 21 terror plots on New York have been recorded—with all
but these two thwarted before anything could happen.
Terrorists themselves have changed too. The kind of attack executed on 9/11—by operatives sent
in from abroad—has yielded to homegrown terrorists who are either enabled (e.g., instructed on
techniques) or simply inspired by Islamist groups.
Again, the key to good policing is more-precise knowledge of who’s likely to act. Visitors to
radical websites may leave clues. Police say the homegrown terrorist is generally someone who
hasn’t succeeded in his career, in romance or in some other life goal.
Take Tamerlan Tsarnaev, the elder Boston bomber brother, who wanted to box for the U.S.
Olympic team—but could not because he was a permanent resident, not a U.S. citizen. In a
similar way, the Orlando shooter wanted to be a policeman. Young men, angry when their
dreams are thwarted, go searching for an alternative path to valor, says John Miller, the NYPD’s
deputy commissioner for intelligence and counterterrorism: “The scientific term for it is ‘loser.’ ”
But as the NYPD gets smarter, so are the Islamists. Al Qaeda has Inspire, an online, English-
language magazine that publishes instructions on bomb-making and other terror skills. Islamic
State has a similar periodical, Rumiyah.
“After the Chelsea bombing, Inspire came out with an after-action report,” Mr. Miller recalls. He
sums up its take on the bombing as “good to do in New York, good to do during U.N. General
Assembly, and good to do in Chelsea, a hot, up-and-coming neighborhood.” But the attacker was
criticized for placing the bomb in a dumpster, “because people don’t hang out by garbage cans.”
Mr. Miller is understandably troubled by such sophistication. “When you see this level of
inspiration, instruction and critique,” he says, “that’s way more useful info than we’d like to see
out there.”
Then again, nobody ever said policing a big city would be easy. The department often faces
lawsuits from groups like the New York Civil Liberties Union. Mayor Bill de Blasiocampaigned
in 2013 on an anticop line, and in December 2014, when two officers were assassinated after
days of antipolice protests, some cops turned their backs on the mayor at the hospital. Things
have since calmed down, and Mr. O’Neill says the mayor has given police the resources they’ve
asked for.
In the decades since Officer O’Neill first donned the uniform, cops have gone from tapping their
nightsticks to communicate to using smartphones for the latest crime intel in real time.
Commissioner O’Neill promises more is coming. “It’s not going to happen overnight—big ships
turn slowly—but if we stop evolving, we won’t be able to do our jobs.”
A BETTER APPROACH TO VIOLENT CRIME
If we’re going to end mass incarceration in the U.S., it will mean figuring out better ways to prevent violent crimes and to deal with those who commit them
By John Pfaff
The Wall Street Journal
January 27, 2017
In our politically fractured age, the problem of mass incarceration is one of the very few issues that brings liberals and conservatives together. The shocking facts of our criminal justice system are surely one reason for this. The U.S. is home to 5% of the world’s population but 25% of its prisoners. Our incarceration rate is 19% higher than Turkmenistan’s, 36% higher than Cuba’s and 57% higher than Russia’s—all repressive regimes. No other liberal democracy has an incarceration rate anything like ours, which is more than 370% higher than the U.K.’s and almost 800% higher than Germany’s.
In recent years, a bipartisan coalition of politicians, think tank scholars and reformers has sought to rein in and reform the worst excesses of our system. Liberals often approach mass incarceration as a problem of injustice and structural racism, while conservatives frequently see it as one of government overreach and overspending. These reformers have focused most of their efforts on changing state laws, since almost 90% of all prisoners are incarcerated by the states.
Their accomplishments so far have been commendable but slight. After rising by more than 425% between 1978 and 2009, the prison population in the U.S. fell by about 5% between 2010 and 2015, according to data from the federal Bureau of Justice Statistics. It’s a decline, to be sure, but a small one—and almost half that drop occurred in California alone. By comparison, violent and property crime rates have been cut by more than half since peaking in 1991. The U.S. crime rate is about the same as it was in 1970, but our incarceration rate is nearly five times higher.
Declines in the prison population have been small primarily because most reforms focus on the wrong causes. Those on both the left and the right have bought into a conventional wisdom that emphasizes drug offenses over violent crimes. The left—citing the work of writers such as Michelle Alexander, author of “The New Jim Crow: Mass Incarceration in the Age of Colorblindness”—tends to overstate the impact that the war on drugs has had on incarceration, while the right resists reforming severe sanctions for violent crimes.
The result is that almost all recent reforms aim to reduce sanctions for people convicted of nonviolent crimes, drug offenses in particular. Unfortunately, reducing sanctions for drug offenses and other nonviolent crimes won’t lead to the dramatic declines in prison populations that many hope for.
Most Americans believe that a majority of those in prison are serving time for drug offenses, but the reality is that only about 200,000 of the 1.3 million people in state prisons—under 16%—fall under that heading. (The proportion is only slightly higher if we also include the much smaller federal prison system.) By contrast, more than half of all inmates in state prisons—over 700,000 people—have been convicted of violent crimes.
For all the attention that the media has paid to people given drastic sentences for drug crimes, almost everyone in prison serving long terms has been convicted of a violent act, often a serious violent crime. Even if we released every single person convicted of a drug crime from state and federal prisons, the U.S. would still have over 1.25 million people locked up—a rate of incarceration more than four times higher than in 1970.
If we are serious about ending mass incarceration in the U.S., we will have to figure out how to lock up fewer people who have committed violent acts and to incarcerate those we do imprison for less time.
There is an obvious rejoinder, of course: Don’t we need to keep people convicted of violence locked up for long periods? Isn’t this how we’ve kept the crime rate down for so long?
The answer to both of those questions is, “No, not likely.” Simply put, long prison sentences provide neither the deterrence nor the incapacitation effects that their proponents suggest. (There may be moral arguments for long sentences, but that is a separate issue from public safety.)
Consider deterrence. It seems logical that long sentences would scare people away from committing crimes. But a long line of studies makes it clear that longer sentences don’t really deter would-be criminals. Those contemplating crime often don’t know how long sentences are, or even that sentences have gotten longer.
More important, those who are most likely to engage in violence and antisocial behavior tend to be very present-minded. They don’t think a lot about tomorrow. What really deters them, if anything does, is the risk of getting caught in the first place: policing and arrests, not prison sentences.
But our policies generally get this backward, emphasizing punishment over police work. Even as states have passed tougher and tougher sentencing laws, the rates for solving crimes have remained low, even for serious offenses. In 2015, around 60% of murders resulted in an arrest (down from over 80% in 1970). Police made arrests in only half of all serious assaults that year, and in about a third of all robberies and forcible rapes.
Even if longer sentences don’t deter, however, perhaps they are effective at incapacitating people who pose serious risks? At one level, this is inarguably true: As long as someone is in prison, he cannot hurt someone else (at least no one outside of prison).
But if incapacitation is the goal, our policies should detain someone only as long as necessary but no longer. The U.S. spends about $200 billion a year on criminal justice, and about $80 billion just on corrections. There are real costs to keeping people locked up too long and admitting too many people to prison in the first place.
“Violent offender” is a common term in the criminal-justice debate, but it points to a deep problem in how we approach incapacitation. Calling someone convicted of a violent crime a “violent offender” suggests that this identity is who he is: He is a violent person. But, with very few exceptions, this is incorrect.
Violence is a phase, not a state. People age into violent behavior and age out of it: A 24-year-old is more violent than a 7-year-old or a 60-year-old. It’s true that some people are more prone to violence than their peers, but almost everyone exhibits some sort of bell-curved trajectory of violence over their lives. Young men are simply more prone to violence than any other demographic group.
It is almost impossible, however, to predict how violent a young person will be in the future. Imposing harsh sanctions for a first violent act needlessly detains many people who are not serious future risks. In addition—and somewhat counterintuitively—by the time a person in his 30s has generated a long criminal history suggesting that he poses a continuing risk, he is likely to have started “aging out” of crime, violent behavior in particular.
A prominent study of hundreds of at-risk men that tracked their behavior from ages 7 to 70, for example, found that most started to engage in crime in their late teens and began to stop in their mid to late 20s. Only about 10% continued to offend consistently into their 30s, and only about 3% did so at high rates.
California has tested this proposition. Since 2012, the state has granted early release to over 2,000 people convicted under its harsh three-strikes law, and their recidivism rate has been about a 10th of the state average (4.7% vs. 45%)—due in no small part to the fact that those released early are often in their 40s and 50s and thus no longer likely to offend.
Whether aimed at younger or older defendants, lengthy incapacitation often imposes substantial, avoidable costs—not just on prison budgets but on society at large, which loses many people who might otherwise be productive citizens. A long prison sentence also undermines someone’s ability to find the stabilizing influence of a job or a spouse, thus increasing the long-run risk that he will reoffend.
The good news is that a growing number of proven tactics can keep violent crime low, and perhaps reduce it even further, without relying as much on prison. If governments lock up fewer people for violent crimes, they can use some of the savings to help fund these alternatives.
One widely adopted approach is what experts call “focused deterrence,” which was first tried, with great success, in Boston in the mid-1990s. Aimed at reducing the violence associated with gang membership, the program brings gang members together with the police, social-service providers and respected members of the local community. They are told that if violence continues, the police will crack down quickly and severely. Those who agree to put violence behind them, however, are offered help with housing, education, drug and alcohol treatment and other services, and community leaders make a moral plea to them.
Such programs have had a significant effect on street violence in many places. Nine of the 10 high-quality studies that have been done on focused deterrence report strong impacts—a 63% decline in youth homicides in Boston, a 35% decline in murders among “criminally active group members” in Cincinnati and so on.
A related but less conventional approach called “Cure Violence” has been tried in New York City and Chicago (and even as far afield as Rio de Janeiro and Basra, Iraq). This program treats gun violence as a public-health problem: If left “untreated,” a shooting will be transmitted to another victim, thanks to retaliation. The idea is to interrupt that cycle, relying on people like former gang members (as opposed to the police) to help shooting victims and their friends and family find other, nonviolent ways to resolve the conflict.
Like focused deterrence, this approach also seeks to provide at-risk youth with access to resources, ranging from housing to entertainment. In New York City, a study conducted between 2010 and 2012 found that areas where Cure Violence operated had experienced 20% fewer shootings as compared with similar areas. Conversely, shootings in Chicago began to rise sharply shortly after a stalemate over the state budget resulted in a drastic cut in funding for Cure Violence in March 2015. The biggest increases in lethal violence occurred in those neighborhoods where the program had been used most widely.
Another key tactic is “hot-spot policing.” Crime is generally concentrated in particular neighborhoods. Some studies have found that half of all urban crimes take place in under 10% of all city blocks. In Chicago, nearly 45% of the increase in murders between 2015 and 2016 occurred in only five neighborhoods, home to just 9% of the city’s population. Hot-spot policing identifies these high-crime blocks and significantly increases patrols and community involvement there.
It has produced significant results, even in nearby neighborhoods not subject to increased enforcement, which suggests that people are not simply changing where they commit crimes. The Philadelphia Foot Patrol Experiment, for example, identified 120 blocks that had high levels of violent crime and then assigned additional patrol officers to 60 randomly selected blocks for three months. Hot spots with extra patrols experienced a 23% drop in violent crime relative to those that didn’t. A comprehensive review of the hot-spot literature found that 20 out of 25 tests reported “noteworthy crime control gains.”
Finally, various forms of cognitive behavioral therapy, or CBT, often combined with mentoring programs, have also shown promise with young offenders. Much violent crime, especially physical violence like murder, is more the result of spontaneous outbursts of anger than of calculated planning. CBT tries to teach young people how to better regulate their emotions, so that an initial spark of conflict doesn’t flare up into something more dangerous.
A review of 58 evaluations of the impact of such therapy on crime (most conducted in the U.S. but some in Canada, New Zealand and the U.K.) found that it reduced the risk of reoffending by about 25% on average—and by as much as 50% when conducted according to best practices. The results appeared to be strong even for those at high risk of reoffending.
Prison, in short, is by no means the only effective way to respond to violent behavior. In fact, compared with these programs, prison is likely one of the least efficient approaches that we have.
The declines in incarceration over the past six years are worth celebrating. But they are modest, in no small part because politicians are understandably afraid to confront a fundamental source of prison growth: our shortsighted policies on violent crime.
If we really hope to scale back our sprawling prison system, we must send fewer people to prison for violent crimes and keep those we do lock up for less time. Fortunately, we can preserve the tremendous reductions of violence we have experienced over the past 25 years with smarter, safer and more humane approaches.
By John Pfaff
The Wall Street Journal
January 27, 2017
In our politically fractured age, the problem of mass incarceration is one of the very few issues that brings liberals and conservatives together. The shocking facts of our criminal justice system are surely one reason for this. The U.S. is home to 5% of the world’s population but 25% of its prisoners. Our incarceration rate is 19% higher than Turkmenistan’s, 36% higher than Cuba’s and 57% higher than Russia’s—all repressive regimes. No other liberal democracy has an incarceration rate anything like ours, which is more than 370% higher than the U.K.’s and almost 800% higher than Germany’s.
In recent years, a bipartisan coalition of politicians, think tank scholars and reformers has sought to rein in and reform the worst excesses of our system. Liberals often approach mass incarceration as a problem of injustice and structural racism, while conservatives frequently see it as one of government overreach and overspending. These reformers have focused most of their efforts on changing state laws, since almost 90% of all prisoners are incarcerated by the states.
Their accomplishments so far have been commendable but slight. After rising by more than 425% between 1978 and 2009, the prison population in the U.S. fell by about 5% between 2010 and 2015, according to data from the federal Bureau of Justice Statistics. It’s a decline, to be sure, but a small one—and almost half that drop occurred in California alone. By comparison, violent and property crime rates have been cut by more than half since peaking in 1991. The U.S. crime rate is about the same as it was in 1970, but our incarceration rate is nearly five times higher.
Declines in the prison population have been small primarily because most reforms focus on the wrong causes. Those on both the left and the right have bought into a conventional wisdom that emphasizes drug offenses over violent crimes. The left—citing the work of writers such as Michelle Alexander, author of “The New Jim Crow: Mass Incarceration in the Age of Colorblindness”—tends to overstate the impact that the war on drugs has had on incarceration, while the right resists reforming severe sanctions for violent crimes.
The result is that almost all recent reforms aim to reduce sanctions for people convicted of nonviolent crimes, drug offenses in particular. Unfortunately, reducing sanctions for drug offenses and other nonviolent crimes won’t lead to the dramatic declines in prison populations that many hope for.
Most Americans believe that a majority of those in prison are serving time for drug offenses, but the reality is that only about 200,000 of the 1.3 million people in state prisons—under 16%—fall under that heading. (The proportion is only slightly higher if we also include the much smaller federal prison system.) By contrast, more than half of all inmates in state prisons—over 700,000 people—have been convicted of violent crimes.
For all the attention that the media has paid to people given drastic sentences for drug crimes, almost everyone in prison serving long terms has been convicted of a violent act, often a serious violent crime. Even if we released every single person convicted of a drug crime from state and federal prisons, the U.S. would still have over 1.25 million people locked up—a rate of incarceration more than four times higher than in 1970.
If we are serious about ending mass incarceration in the U.S., we will have to figure out how to lock up fewer people who have committed violent acts and to incarcerate those we do imprison for less time.
There is an obvious rejoinder, of course: Don’t we need to keep people convicted of violence locked up for long periods? Isn’t this how we’ve kept the crime rate down for so long?
The answer to both of those questions is, “No, not likely.” Simply put, long prison sentences provide neither the deterrence nor the incapacitation effects that their proponents suggest. (There may be moral arguments for long sentences, but that is a separate issue from public safety.)
Consider deterrence. It seems logical that long sentences would scare people away from committing crimes. But a long line of studies makes it clear that longer sentences don’t really deter would-be criminals. Those contemplating crime often don’t know how long sentences are, or even that sentences have gotten longer.
More important, those who are most likely to engage in violence and antisocial behavior tend to be very present-minded. They don’t think a lot about tomorrow. What really deters them, if anything does, is the risk of getting caught in the first place: policing and arrests, not prison sentences.
But our policies generally get this backward, emphasizing punishment over police work. Even as states have passed tougher and tougher sentencing laws, the rates for solving crimes have remained low, even for serious offenses. In 2015, around 60% of murders resulted in an arrest (down from over 80% in 1970). Police made arrests in only half of all serious assaults that year, and in about a third of all robberies and forcible rapes.
Even if longer sentences don’t deter, however, perhaps they are effective at incapacitating people who pose serious risks? At one level, this is inarguably true: As long as someone is in prison, he cannot hurt someone else (at least no one outside of prison).
But if incapacitation is the goal, our policies should detain someone only as long as necessary but no longer. The U.S. spends about $200 billion a year on criminal justice, and about $80 billion just on corrections. There are real costs to keeping people locked up too long and admitting too many people to prison in the first place.
“Violent offender” is a common term in the criminal-justice debate, but it points to a deep problem in how we approach incapacitation. Calling someone convicted of a violent crime a “violent offender” suggests that this identity is who he is: He is a violent person. But, with very few exceptions, this is incorrect.
Violence is a phase, not a state. People age into violent behavior and age out of it: A 24-year-old is more violent than a 7-year-old or a 60-year-old. It’s true that some people are more prone to violence than their peers, but almost everyone exhibits some sort of bell-curved trajectory of violence over their lives. Young men are simply more prone to violence than any other demographic group.
It is almost impossible, however, to predict how violent a young person will be in the future. Imposing harsh sanctions for a first violent act needlessly detains many people who are not serious future risks. In addition—and somewhat counterintuitively—by the time a person in his 30s has generated a long criminal history suggesting that he poses a continuing risk, he is likely to have started “aging out” of crime, violent behavior in particular.
A prominent study of hundreds of at-risk men that tracked their behavior from ages 7 to 70, for example, found that most started to engage in crime in their late teens and began to stop in their mid to late 20s. Only about 10% continued to offend consistently into their 30s, and only about 3% did so at high rates.
California has tested this proposition. Since 2012, the state has granted early release to over 2,000 people convicted under its harsh three-strikes law, and their recidivism rate has been about a 10th of the state average (4.7% vs. 45%)—due in no small part to the fact that those released early are often in their 40s and 50s and thus no longer likely to offend.
Whether aimed at younger or older defendants, lengthy incapacitation often imposes substantial, avoidable costs—not just on prison budgets but on society at large, which loses many people who might otherwise be productive citizens. A long prison sentence also undermines someone’s ability to find the stabilizing influence of a job or a spouse, thus increasing the long-run risk that he will reoffend.
The good news is that a growing number of proven tactics can keep violent crime low, and perhaps reduce it even further, without relying as much on prison. If governments lock up fewer people for violent crimes, they can use some of the savings to help fund these alternatives.
One widely adopted approach is what experts call “focused deterrence,” which was first tried, with great success, in Boston in the mid-1990s. Aimed at reducing the violence associated with gang membership, the program brings gang members together with the police, social-service providers and respected members of the local community. They are told that if violence continues, the police will crack down quickly and severely. Those who agree to put violence behind them, however, are offered help with housing, education, drug and alcohol treatment and other services, and community leaders make a moral plea to them.
Such programs have had a significant effect on street violence in many places. Nine of the 10 high-quality studies that have been done on focused deterrence report strong impacts—a 63% decline in youth homicides in Boston, a 35% decline in murders among “criminally active group members” in Cincinnati and so on.
A related but less conventional approach called “Cure Violence” has been tried in New York City and Chicago (and even as far afield as Rio de Janeiro and Basra, Iraq). This program treats gun violence as a public-health problem: If left “untreated,” a shooting will be transmitted to another victim, thanks to retaliation. The idea is to interrupt that cycle, relying on people like former gang members (as opposed to the police) to help shooting victims and their friends and family find other, nonviolent ways to resolve the conflict.
Like focused deterrence, this approach also seeks to provide at-risk youth with access to resources, ranging from housing to entertainment. In New York City, a study conducted between 2010 and 2012 found that areas where Cure Violence operated had experienced 20% fewer shootings as compared with similar areas. Conversely, shootings in Chicago began to rise sharply shortly after a stalemate over the state budget resulted in a drastic cut in funding for Cure Violence in March 2015. The biggest increases in lethal violence occurred in those neighborhoods where the program had been used most widely.
Another key tactic is “hot-spot policing.” Crime is generally concentrated in particular neighborhoods. Some studies have found that half of all urban crimes take place in under 10% of all city blocks. In Chicago, nearly 45% of the increase in murders between 2015 and 2016 occurred in only five neighborhoods, home to just 9% of the city’s population. Hot-spot policing identifies these high-crime blocks and significantly increases patrols and community involvement there.
It has produced significant results, even in nearby neighborhoods not subject to increased enforcement, which suggests that people are not simply changing where they commit crimes. The Philadelphia Foot Patrol Experiment, for example, identified 120 blocks that had high levels of violent crime and then assigned additional patrol officers to 60 randomly selected blocks for three months. Hot spots with extra patrols experienced a 23% drop in violent crime relative to those that didn’t. A comprehensive review of the hot-spot literature found that 20 out of 25 tests reported “noteworthy crime control gains.”
Finally, various forms of cognitive behavioral therapy, or CBT, often combined with mentoring programs, have also shown promise with young offenders. Much violent crime, especially physical violence like murder, is more the result of spontaneous outbursts of anger than of calculated planning. CBT tries to teach young people how to better regulate their emotions, so that an initial spark of conflict doesn’t flare up into something more dangerous.
A review of 58 evaluations of the impact of such therapy on crime (most conducted in the U.S. but some in Canada, New Zealand and the U.K.) found that it reduced the risk of reoffending by about 25% on average—and by as much as 50% when conducted according to best practices. The results appeared to be strong even for those at high risk of reoffending.
Prison, in short, is by no means the only effective way to respond to violent behavior. In fact, compared with these programs, prison is likely one of the least efficient approaches that we have.
The declines in incarceration over the past six years are worth celebrating. But they are modest, in no small part because politicians are understandably afraid to confront a fundamental source of prison growth: our shortsighted policies on violent crime.
If we really hope to scale back our sprawling prison system, we must send fewer people to prison for violent crimes and keep those we do lock up for less time. Fortunately, we can preserve the tremendous reductions of violence we have experienced over the past 25 years with smarter, safer and more humane approaches.
Sunday, January 29, 2017
COLLEGE FOOTBALL PLAYERS GETTING FUCKED FOR EXERCISING FUCKING ENTITLEMENT
There’s no reason to believe that what happened at Baylor isn’t going on at most universities. Pampered college athletes think they are entitled to fuck any coed, whether she wants to get laid or not. In most instances, coeds practically throw themselves at the athletes, so it is not surprising that the few holdouts get raped.
Baylor is a Baptist institution which prohibited dancing for 151 years until the ban was lifted in 1996. Until 2015, homosexual acts were considered “misuses of God’s gift” along with incest, sexual assault, and adultery. So when a Baylor football player rapes a coed, he is misusing God’s gift. God bless them holier than though Baptists.
NEW BAYLOR LAWSUIT ALLEGES 52 RAPES BY FOOTBALL PLAYERS IN 4 YEARS, ‘SHOW ’EM A GOOD TIME’ CULTURE
By Sarah Mervosh
The Dallas Morning News
January 27, 2017
A Baylor University graduate who says she was raped by football players in 2013 sued the university Friday. Her lawsuit includes an allegation that 31 Baylor football players committed at least 52 acts of rape, including five gang rapes, between 2011 and 2014 — an estimate that far exceeds the number previously provided by school officials.
Those figures could not be independently verified Friday, and Baylor officials declined to comment on their accuracy.
The woman, identified in the suit by the pseudonym Elizabeth Doe, reports being gang raped by then-Baylor football players Tre'Von Armstead and Shamycheal Chatman after a party on April 18, 2013.
Those football players were previously named as suspects in a sexual assault police report related to that date but were not charged. They could not be immediately reached for comment Friday.
The woman, a 2014 graduate of Baylor, is now suing the university for Title IX violations and negligence.
"Our hearts go out to any victims of sexual assault," interim university president David E. Garland said in a statement late Friday. "Any assault involving members of our campus community is reprehensible and inexcusable. Baylor University has taken unprecedented actions that have been well-documented in response to the issue of past and alleged sexual assaults involving our campus community."
John Clune, the Colorado attorney who represents the woman, said he appreciated what Baylor has done to try to fix its sexual assault problem, but "this is one that needed to be filed."
"As hard as the events at Baylor have been for people to hear, what went on there was much worse than has been reported," he said in a statement.
One of the woman's alleged attackers — Chatman — was accused of rape once before, the suit says, but the university failed to intervene. In that case, the suit says, a student athletic trainer reported that Chatman raped her at his off-campus apartment, so the university moved the trainer to a female sports team and agreed to pay for her education in exchange for a non-disclosure agreement.
'Show 'em a good time'
The lawsuit describes a culture of sexual violence under former Baylor football coach Art Briles in which the school implemented a "show 'em a good time" policy that "used sex to sell" the football program to recruits. That included escorting underage recruits to strip clubs and arranging women to have sex with prospective players, the suit alleges.
Former assistant coach Kendal Briles — the son of the head coach — once told a Dallas-area student athlete, "Do you like white women? Because we have a lot of them at Baylor and they love football players," according to the suit.
Investigation by lawyers identified at least 52 "acts of rape," including five gang rapes, by 31 football players in a four-year period. At least two of the gang rapes were committed by 10 or more players at one time, the suit states.
This contrasts with figures Baylor officials have provided based on an investigation by Pennsylvania-based law firm Pepper Hamilton, which looked into how Baylor handled sexual assault on campus. Regents told The Wall Street Journal in October that they were aware of 17 women who reported sexual or domestic assaults involving 19 players, including four alleged gang rapes, since 2011.
Tonya Lewis, a Baylor spokeswoman, declined to answer specific questions about Baylor's knowledge of the prior alleged sexual assault by Chatman or the alleged non-disclosure agreement. She also declined to comment on the scope of the Pepper Hamilton investigation or whether the university stands by the numbers it originally provided.
Clune, who has represented four Baylor survivors, including two who received settlements with the university, defended the thoroughness of his investigation.
"We have no idea how the regents came up with their numbers, but they do not represent the total number of assaults," he said. "I'm not sure that was Pepper's assignment either."
Art Briles' response
Art Briles, the former head football coach who was fired in May in response to the scandal, had no knowledge of the 52 sexual assaults cited in the lawsuit, or of any payoff to a victim to keep quiet, his lawyer Ernest Cannon said.
"Lawyers can say whatever they want to in pleadings," Cannon said. "I haven't seen any facts."
He added that the quote in the lawsuit attributed to his client's son, Kendal Briles, did not "sound like the Kendal that I know." Florida Atlantic University, which recently hired Kendal Briles to be its offensive coordinator, did not respond for a request for comment.
The allegations also were met with push back by a former recruiting chair for the Baylor Bruins, a "hostess" group for prospective athletes visiting campus. Katie Norman tweeted that no one in the Baylor Bruins instructed women to sleep with recruits, and that she was only asked to hang out with them at games.
Lawsuit's allegations
The lawsuit says that Doe originally applied to Baylor, the world's largest Baptist university, because of its Christian-centered approach to education. She enrolled in 2010, with the intention to pursue a degree in medicine and in 2012 joined the Baylor Bruins.
On April 18, 2013, according to the lawsuit, Doe attended a party at the home of former Baylor defensive end Shawn Oakman, who has since been charged with sexual assault in an unrelated incident.
Doe became intoxicated at the party and apparently returned home with Armstead and Chatman. When her roommate's boyfriend arrived later that night, the suit says, he heard "what sounded like wrestling and a fist hitting someone," a loud bang and a woman saying "no."
When the boyfriend asked if everything was OK, one of the men inside yelled that Doe "was fine." Armstead and Chatman then emerged from the room, and the boyfriend saw Doe partially unclothed on the floor. The woman had a bruise on her cheek and a bite mark on her neck, according to the suit.
Doe initially told police she had not been sexually assaulted but later decided to file a report because she woke up with bruises and a feeling in her vaginal area that indicated she had had sex, even though she did not remember.
One of the woman's teammates on the Baylor Bruin group to host prospective athletes instructed Doe to tell police she had "consensual sex with one white male" to protect the athletes, the lawsuit alleges. It cites a Title IX investigation into the incident, which later showed that Chatman had called the Bruin and given her the "assignment."
Doe made a complaint to the Waco Police Department but declined to press charges, records show.
No Baylor investigation
Baylor did not investigate — as required by Title IX, the federal law that instructs universities to proactively protect students from sexual violence and hostility — for more than two years, according to the lawsuit and a report by ESPN.
Meanwhile, Chatman transferred to Sam Houston State, but Armstead remained on campus. The lawsuit states that Doe "walked onto campus in daily fear of running into her rapist and in fact did just that on repeat occasions."
In the fall of 2015, Baylor's newly created Title IX office investigated the woman's complaint. Armstead was dismissed around the same time for a "team rules violation." He was eventually found responsible for the rape and expelled last spring, the lawsuit says.
Armstead has maintained that he did not have sex with the woman, ESPN's Outside The Lines reported in April. The show also reported that Chatman told Baylor officials that the men did have sex with her.
Lewis, the university spokeswoman, confirmed that Armstead and Chatman are no longer enrolled at the university.
Baylor is a Baptist institution which prohibited dancing for 151 years until the ban was lifted in 1996. Until 2015, homosexual acts were considered “misuses of God’s gift” along with incest, sexual assault, and adultery. So when a Baylor football player rapes a coed, he is misusing God’s gift. God bless them holier than though Baptists.
NEW BAYLOR LAWSUIT ALLEGES 52 RAPES BY FOOTBALL PLAYERS IN 4 YEARS, ‘SHOW ’EM A GOOD TIME’ CULTURE
By Sarah Mervosh
The Dallas Morning News
January 27, 2017
A Baylor University graduate who says she was raped by football players in 2013 sued the university Friday. Her lawsuit includes an allegation that 31 Baylor football players committed at least 52 acts of rape, including five gang rapes, between 2011 and 2014 — an estimate that far exceeds the number previously provided by school officials.
Those figures could not be independently verified Friday, and Baylor officials declined to comment on their accuracy.
The woman, identified in the suit by the pseudonym Elizabeth Doe, reports being gang raped by then-Baylor football players Tre'Von Armstead and Shamycheal Chatman after a party on April 18, 2013.
Those football players were previously named as suspects in a sexual assault police report related to that date but were not charged. They could not be immediately reached for comment Friday.
The woman, a 2014 graduate of Baylor, is now suing the university for Title IX violations and negligence.
"Our hearts go out to any victims of sexual assault," interim university president David E. Garland said in a statement late Friday. "Any assault involving members of our campus community is reprehensible and inexcusable. Baylor University has taken unprecedented actions that have been well-documented in response to the issue of past and alleged sexual assaults involving our campus community."
John Clune, the Colorado attorney who represents the woman, said he appreciated what Baylor has done to try to fix its sexual assault problem, but "this is one that needed to be filed."
"As hard as the events at Baylor have been for people to hear, what went on there was much worse than has been reported," he said in a statement.
One of the woman's alleged attackers — Chatman — was accused of rape once before, the suit says, but the university failed to intervene. In that case, the suit says, a student athletic trainer reported that Chatman raped her at his off-campus apartment, so the university moved the trainer to a female sports team and agreed to pay for her education in exchange for a non-disclosure agreement.
'Show 'em a good time'
The lawsuit describes a culture of sexual violence under former Baylor football coach Art Briles in which the school implemented a "show 'em a good time" policy that "used sex to sell" the football program to recruits. That included escorting underage recruits to strip clubs and arranging women to have sex with prospective players, the suit alleges.
Former assistant coach Kendal Briles — the son of the head coach — once told a Dallas-area student athlete, "Do you like white women? Because we have a lot of them at Baylor and they love football players," according to the suit.
Investigation by lawyers identified at least 52 "acts of rape," including five gang rapes, by 31 football players in a four-year period. At least two of the gang rapes were committed by 10 or more players at one time, the suit states.
This contrasts with figures Baylor officials have provided based on an investigation by Pennsylvania-based law firm Pepper Hamilton, which looked into how Baylor handled sexual assault on campus. Regents told The Wall Street Journal in October that they were aware of 17 women who reported sexual or domestic assaults involving 19 players, including four alleged gang rapes, since 2011.
Tonya Lewis, a Baylor spokeswoman, declined to answer specific questions about Baylor's knowledge of the prior alleged sexual assault by Chatman or the alleged non-disclosure agreement. She also declined to comment on the scope of the Pepper Hamilton investigation or whether the university stands by the numbers it originally provided.
Clune, who has represented four Baylor survivors, including two who received settlements with the university, defended the thoroughness of his investigation.
"We have no idea how the regents came up with their numbers, but they do not represent the total number of assaults," he said. "I'm not sure that was Pepper's assignment either."
Art Briles' response
Art Briles, the former head football coach who was fired in May in response to the scandal, had no knowledge of the 52 sexual assaults cited in the lawsuit, or of any payoff to a victim to keep quiet, his lawyer Ernest Cannon said.
"Lawyers can say whatever they want to in pleadings," Cannon said. "I haven't seen any facts."
He added that the quote in the lawsuit attributed to his client's son, Kendal Briles, did not "sound like the Kendal that I know." Florida Atlantic University, which recently hired Kendal Briles to be its offensive coordinator, did not respond for a request for comment.
The allegations also were met with push back by a former recruiting chair for the Baylor Bruins, a "hostess" group for prospective athletes visiting campus. Katie Norman tweeted that no one in the Baylor Bruins instructed women to sleep with recruits, and that she was only asked to hang out with them at games.
Lawsuit's allegations
The lawsuit says that Doe originally applied to Baylor, the world's largest Baptist university, because of its Christian-centered approach to education. She enrolled in 2010, with the intention to pursue a degree in medicine and in 2012 joined the Baylor Bruins.
On April 18, 2013, according to the lawsuit, Doe attended a party at the home of former Baylor defensive end Shawn Oakman, who has since been charged with sexual assault in an unrelated incident.
Doe became intoxicated at the party and apparently returned home with Armstead and Chatman. When her roommate's boyfriend arrived later that night, the suit says, he heard "what sounded like wrestling and a fist hitting someone," a loud bang and a woman saying "no."
When the boyfriend asked if everything was OK, one of the men inside yelled that Doe "was fine." Armstead and Chatman then emerged from the room, and the boyfriend saw Doe partially unclothed on the floor. The woman had a bruise on her cheek and a bite mark on her neck, according to the suit.
Doe initially told police she had not been sexually assaulted but later decided to file a report because she woke up with bruises and a feeling in her vaginal area that indicated she had had sex, even though she did not remember.
One of the woman's teammates on the Baylor Bruin group to host prospective athletes instructed Doe to tell police she had "consensual sex with one white male" to protect the athletes, the lawsuit alleges. It cites a Title IX investigation into the incident, which later showed that Chatman had called the Bruin and given her the "assignment."
Doe made a complaint to the Waco Police Department but declined to press charges, records show.
No Baylor investigation
Baylor did not investigate — as required by Title IX, the federal law that instructs universities to proactively protect students from sexual violence and hostility — for more than two years, according to the lawsuit and a report by ESPN.
Meanwhile, Chatman transferred to Sam Houston State, but Armstead remained on campus. The lawsuit states that Doe "walked onto campus in daily fear of running into her rapist and in fact did just that on repeat occasions."
In the fall of 2015, Baylor's newly created Title IX office investigated the woman's complaint. Armstead was dismissed around the same time for a "team rules violation." He was eventually found responsible for the rape and expelled last spring, the lawsuit says.
Armstead has maintained that he did not have sex with the woman, ESPN's Outside The Lines reported in April. The show also reported that Chatman told Baylor officials that the men did have sex with her.
Lewis, the university spokeswoman, confirmed that Armstead and Chatman are no longer enrolled at the university.
PREPARING FOR THE TRUMPOCALYPSE!
Texas bunker manufacturer sees demand surge for its shelters since new President took office
By Forrest Hanson
Daily Mail
January 28, 2017
People on all sides of the political spectrum are gearing up for an impending apocalypse, if a Texas bunker manufacturer is to be believed.
Following the election of Donald Trump, the Doomsday Clock reached two-and-a-half minutes to midnight - the closest to an apocalypse since 1953.
And Rising S Company in Murchison, 75 miles southeast of Dallas, is offering willing and able patrons livable underground bunkers.
The company offers shelters from a 96-square-foot abode for two to the aptly named 'Aristocrat' which can sleep 44 people and includes 10 individual master bedrooms.
The homes are designed to last forever, and are able to hold a year's worth of food per resident.
Employee Gary Lynch said that new orders come in daily for the bunkers, whose costs start at $39,500 and go as high as $8,350,000 for the Aristocrat - though that number can grow even higher as customers can add-on unlimited features.
The most basic one comes complete with a toilet, shower, bunk bed and basic kitchen - while the Aristocrat offers features including a sauna, swimming pool, game room with billiards and a media room.
While much of the shelter is outfitted in steel, furnishings have rounded edges to decrease the chance of self-injury - due to delayed access to emergency care.
Lynch said: 'People are asking for comfort, anything that makes them feel like they are inside a home instead of a bunker.
'They typically want features like more cabinet space, secure doors, hidden rooms, exercise rooms.'
And in the event that the shelter itself is compromised, an escape tunnel can be added for $16,000.
Lynch told the Star-Telegram: 'These are definitely not Cold War-era shelters.'
He added to the newspaper: 'It's picked up a little, you know, as Donald Trump has emerged as president.
'You know, there's some people that maybe even voted for Donald Trump that maybe worry that some of the riots are going to get out of hand and there's going to be social or civil unrest.
'You've got people that didn't vote for him that are thinking the same thing that, because he's president, maybe he's going to start a war.'
The old adage that it's better to be safe than sorry seems to be what's driving the company's customers.
Lynch said: 'Everyone is a prepper in one form or fashion.
'You prepare for auto accidents with full coverage insurance instead of just liability, homeowner's policies cover contents and personal injury protection, health insurance before it was mandated, savings accounts, et cetera.
'This is just another form of insurance. It is insurance that you would have a safe place to be in the event
that there was a social or economic collapse, or a war.'
__________
WHAT IS THE DOOMSDAY CLOCK?
The Doomsday Clock is a symbolic clock face, representing a countdown to possible global catastrophe.
The decision to move, or leave the clock alone, is made by the Bulletin of the Atomic Scientists, in consultation with the bulletin's Board of Sponsors, which includes 16 Nobel laureates.
The clock has become a universally recognized indicator of the world's vulnerability to catastrophe from nuclear weapons, climate change, and emerging technologies in life sciences.
By Forrest Hanson
Daily Mail
January 28, 2017
People on all sides of the political spectrum are gearing up for an impending apocalypse, if a Texas bunker manufacturer is to be believed.
Following the election of Donald Trump, the Doomsday Clock reached two-and-a-half minutes to midnight - the closest to an apocalypse since 1953.
And Rising S Company in Murchison, 75 miles southeast of Dallas, is offering willing and able patrons livable underground bunkers.
The company offers shelters from a 96-square-foot abode for two to the aptly named 'Aristocrat' which can sleep 44 people and includes 10 individual master bedrooms.
The homes are designed to last forever, and are able to hold a year's worth of food per resident.
Employee Gary Lynch said that new orders come in daily for the bunkers, whose costs start at $39,500 and go as high as $8,350,000 for the Aristocrat - though that number can grow even higher as customers can add-on unlimited features.
The most basic one comes complete with a toilet, shower, bunk bed and basic kitchen - while the Aristocrat offers features including a sauna, swimming pool, game room with billiards and a media room.
While much of the shelter is outfitted in steel, furnishings have rounded edges to decrease the chance of self-injury - due to delayed access to emergency care.
Lynch said: 'People are asking for comfort, anything that makes them feel like they are inside a home instead of a bunker.
'They typically want features like more cabinet space, secure doors, hidden rooms, exercise rooms.'
And in the event that the shelter itself is compromised, an escape tunnel can be added for $16,000.
Lynch told the Star-Telegram: 'These are definitely not Cold War-era shelters.'
He added to the newspaper: 'It's picked up a little, you know, as Donald Trump has emerged as president.
'You know, there's some people that maybe even voted for Donald Trump that maybe worry that some of the riots are going to get out of hand and there's going to be social or civil unrest.
'You've got people that didn't vote for him that are thinking the same thing that, because he's president, maybe he's going to start a war.'
The old adage that it's better to be safe than sorry seems to be what's driving the company's customers.
Lynch said: 'Everyone is a prepper in one form or fashion.
'You prepare for auto accidents with full coverage insurance instead of just liability, homeowner's policies cover contents and personal injury protection, health insurance before it was mandated, savings accounts, et cetera.
'This is just another form of insurance. It is insurance that you would have a safe place to be in the event
that there was a social or economic collapse, or a war.'
__________
WHAT IS THE DOOMSDAY CLOCK?
The Doomsday Clock is a symbolic clock face, representing a countdown to possible global catastrophe.
The decision to move, or leave the clock alone, is made by the Bulletin of the Atomic Scientists, in consultation with the bulletin's Board of Sponsors, which includes 16 Nobel laureates.
The clock has become a universally recognized indicator of the world's vulnerability to catastrophe from nuclear weapons, climate change, and emerging technologies in life sciences.
‘GO AHEAD AND DO IT’
Michigan prison inmate who committed suicide was egged on by guards
By John Hogan
Detroit Free Press
January 27, 2017
GRAND RAPIDS, Mich. — The family of an Alma man who hanged himself after prison guards allegedly egged him on with ‘go ahead and do it,’ has filed a federal lawsuit against the Michigan Department of Corrections and several employees.
The family of Jeremy Alan Garza says he told corrections officers at Marquette Branch Prison in Michigan’s Upper Peninsula that he was going to kill himself. Staff started to laugh and told Garza “go ahead and do it,’’ according to the lawsuit filed this week in U.S. District Court in Grand Rapids.
Garza was found late the morning of April 10, 2014 hanging in his cell. He was pronounced dead 40 minutes later. The hanging occurred about a half-hour after he told prison guards of his suicidal intent, according to the lawsuit.
It accuses the state of “deliberate indifference’’ and failing to adequately train and supervise prison employees.
It also accuses state officials of not providing mental health treatment for inmates at Marquette Branch Prison. Staff routinely ignored “suicidal ideation statements’’ similar to those made by Garza, the lawsuit contends.
The lawsuit seeks more than $75,000 in damages. Officials with the state Department of Corrections were not immediately available for comment on Thursday.
A Gratiot County judge in Nov. 2012 sentenced Garza to between 2½ and 20 years in prison for breaking and entering. He was arrested that spring after police found him stuck in the ductwork of a Family Fare grocery store in Alma. He was on parole at the time for another break-in.
Suicidal inmates such as Garza are not supervised “when it was obvious that such a prisoner needed constant supervision,’’ attorney S. Jay Ahmad wrote in the 14-page complaint.
On the morning of his death, Garza, 32, was visited by his mother, who stayed for two hours, according to the lawsuit. When he returned to his cell about 10:30 a.m., Garza saw five prison employees “removing personal items from his cell for no apparent reason.’’
He asked the corrections officers to leave his stuff alone, “but they refused and gave no explanation as to why they were removing his belongings,’’ the complaint states.
That is when Garza told corrections officers he was going to kill himself. Garza at the time suffered from a psychiatric condition prison staff “failed to treat properly,’’ the lawsuit claims.
By John Hogan
Detroit Free Press
January 27, 2017
GRAND RAPIDS, Mich. — The family of an Alma man who hanged himself after prison guards allegedly egged him on with ‘go ahead and do it,’ has filed a federal lawsuit against the Michigan Department of Corrections and several employees.
The family of Jeremy Alan Garza says he told corrections officers at Marquette Branch Prison in Michigan’s Upper Peninsula that he was going to kill himself. Staff started to laugh and told Garza “go ahead and do it,’’ according to the lawsuit filed this week in U.S. District Court in Grand Rapids.
Garza was found late the morning of April 10, 2014 hanging in his cell. He was pronounced dead 40 minutes later. The hanging occurred about a half-hour after he told prison guards of his suicidal intent, according to the lawsuit.
It accuses the state of “deliberate indifference’’ and failing to adequately train and supervise prison employees.
It also accuses state officials of not providing mental health treatment for inmates at Marquette Branch Prison. Staff routinely ignored “suicidal ideation statements’’ similar to those made by Garza, the lawsuit contends.
The lawsuit seeks more than $75,000 in damages. Officials with the state Department of Corrections were not immediately available for comment on Thursday.
A Gratiot County judge in Nov. 2012 sentenced Garza to between 2½ and 20 years in prison for breaking and entering. He was arrested that spring after police found him stuck in the ductwork of a Family Fare grocery store in Alma. He was on parole at the time for another break-in.
Suicidal inmates such as Garza are not supervised “when it was obvious that such a prisoner needed constant supervision,’’ attorney S. Jay Ahmad wrote in the 14-page complaint.
On the morning of his death, Garza, 32, was visited by his mother, who stayed for two hours, according to the lawsuit. When he returned to his cell about 10:30 a.m., Garza saw five prison employees “removing personal items from his cell for no apparent reason.’’
He asked the corrections officers to leave his stuff alone, “but they refused and gave no explanation as to why they were removing his belongings,’’ the complaint states.
That is when Garza told corrections officers he was going to kill himself. Garza at the time suffered from a psychiatric condition prison staff “failed to treat properly,’’ the lawsuit claims.
Saturday, January 28, 2017
TEXANS ARE KNOWN FOR THEIR TALL TALES AND THIS ONE COULD TURN OUT TO BE A DOUBLE WHOPPER
Anyone who believes what this guy says must still believe in the tooth fairy. The Houston Chronicle did an expose on Greg Phillips several years ago which revealed that he used his state positions in Mississippi and Texas to set up some shady business deals. So, when all is said and done, his election fraud claims will probably turn out to have been a double whopper.
True the Vote, a Houston-based group with close ties to the Tea Party, has in the past charged that elections in Wisconsin, Ohio and Florida were beset with considerable voter fraud, but investigations failed to back up those charges. The group has been accused of intimidating African-American voters. True the Vote, which makes no secret that it focuses on voter fraud by Democrats, says it has been harassed by Obama’s IRS.
TRUMP SAYS TEXAN IS SOURCE FOR UNSUPPORTED VOTER FRAUD CLAIM
By Alex Samuels
The Texas Tribune
January 27, 2017
President Donald Trump said in a tweet Friday that the source behind his voter fraud claim is Gregg Phillips, a former Texas official with the Health and Human Services Commission.
“Look forward to seeing final results of VoteStand,” Trump tweeted Friday morning. “Gregg Phillips and crew say at least 3,000,000 votes were illegal. We must do better!”
Weeks after his November win, Trump tweeted that “millions” of people had voted illegally, which he said cost him the popular vote. Phillips, who appeared to have been the initial source of Trump’s claim, said that his Texas-based watchdog organization, True the Vote, had verified more than 3 million “non-citizens” who voted in the presidential race and was planning legal action. VoteStand is True the Vote's election fraud reporting app.
Phillips responded to Trump on Twitter on Friday: "Thank you Mr. President."
"Catherine Engelbrecht and .@TrueTheVote will lead the analysis and reporting effort from here. .@realDonaldTrump," Phillips added, referring to the president of True the Vote.
An hour before Trump’s tweet, Phillips had a combative interview on CNN, during which he claimed to have proof that 3 million people voted illegally in the November election, but refused to provide it. Phillips has repeatedly declined to show evidence of his claim to the media.
"We're talking about accusing 3 million people of multiple felonies," Phillips said to CNN host Chris Cuomo. "If we jumped out there with just our initial analysis, rather than refining it and quality checking it, we'd be out there potentially accusing some people who really aren't committing felonies of felonies."
During the interview, Phillips said he and his team use a database of voting records, and that it would take "another few months" to get everything done.
“We’ve augmented that database with everything from geocoding, to all sorts of identifying information,” Phillips added. “We’ve developed algorithms that first allow us to verify identity, we can verify residency, we can verify citizenship, felon status, and all of the other factors that go into making a legal, registered voter.”
On Thursday, True the Vote sent out a fundraising email saying it had “already initiated a comprehensive forensic audit of the 2016 Presidential election.”
Its focus, according to the email, “will include, but not be limited to, non-citizen voting, falsification of identity, double voting, mail-in ballot fraud, votes cast in the name of dead voters, and federal registration flaws.”
Following the election, the group issued a statement saying it “absolutely supports President-elect Trump's recent comment about the impact of illegal voting, as reflected in the national popular vote."
After assuming the presidency, Trump said that he intended to issue an executive order initiating an investigation into the alleged voter fraud claim. White House officials said Thursday that Trump would issue the order Friday or Saturday.
"I will be asking for a major investigation into VOTER FRAUD, including those registered to vote in two states, those who are illegal and ... even, those registered to vote who are dead (and many for a long time). Depending on results, we will strengthen up voting procedures!" Trump wrote in two consecutive tweets Wednesday morning.
True the Vote, a Houston-based group with close ties to the Tea Party, has in the past charged that elections in Wisconsin, Ohio and Florida were beset with considerable voter fraud, but investigations failed to back up those charges. The group has been accused of intimidating African-American voters. True the Vote, which makes no secret that it focuses on voter fraud by Democrats, says it has been harassed by Obama’s IRS.
TRUMP SAYS TEXAN IS SOURCE FOR UNSUPPORTED VOTER FRAUD CLAIM
By Alex Samuels
The Texas Tribune
January 27, 2017
President Donald Trump said in a tweet Friday that the source behind his voter fraud claim is Gregg Phillips, a former Texas official with the Health and Human Services Commission.
“Look forward to seeing final results of VoteStand,” Trump tweeted Friday morning. “Gregg Phillips and crew say at least 3,000,000 votes were illegal. We must do better!”
Weeks after his November win, Trump tweeted that “millions” of people had voted illegally, which he said cost him the popular vote. Phillips, who appeared to have been the initial source of Trump’s claim, said that his Texas-based watchdog organization, True the Vote, had verified more than 3 million “non-citizens” who voted in the presidential race and was planning legal action. VoteStand is True the Vote's election fraud reporting app.
Phillips responded to Trump on Twitter on Friday: "Thank you Mr. President."
"Catherine Engelbrecht and .@TrueTheVote will lead the analysis and reporting effort from here. .@realDonaldTrump," Phillips added, referring to the president of True the Vote.
An hour before Trump’s tweet, Phillips had a combative interview on CNN, during which he claimed to have proof that 3 million people voted illegally in the November election, but refused to provide it. Phillips has repeatedly declined to show evidence of his claim to the media.
"We're talking about accusing 3 million people of multiple felonies," Phillips said to CNN host Chris Cuomo. "If we jumped out there with just our initial analysis, rather than refining it and quality checking it, we'd be out there potentially accusing some people who really aren't committing felonies of felonies."
During the interview, Phillips said he and his team use a database of voting records, and that it would take "another few months" to get everything done.
“We’ve augmented that database with everything from geocoding, to all sorts of identifying information,” Phillips added. “We’ve developed algorithms that first allow us to verify identity, we can verify residency, we can verify citizenship, felon status, and all of the other factors that go into making a legal, registered voter.”
On Thursday, True the Vote sent out a fundraising email saying it had “already initiated a comprehensive forensic audit of the 2016 Presidential election.”
Its focus, according to the email, “will include, but not be limited to, non-citizen voting, falsification of identity, double voting, mail-in ballot fraud, votes cast in the name of dead voters, and federal registration flaws.”
Following the election, the group issued a statement saying it “absolutely supports President-elect Trump's recent comment about the impact of illegal voting, as reflected in the national popular vote."
After assuming the presidency, Trump said that he intended to issue an executive order initiating an investigation into the alleged voter fraud claim. White House officials said Thursday that Trump would issue the order Friday or Saturday.
"I will be asking for a major investigation into VOTER FRAUD, including those registered to vote in two states, those who are illegal and ... even, those registered to vote who are dead (and many for a long time). Depending on results, we will strengthen up voting procedures!" Trump wrote in two consecutive tweets Wednesday morning.
FELONY STUPID OR ONLY MISDEMEANOR STUPID?
by Bob Walsh
Payal Modi is a teacher at the W. H. Adamson High School in the Dallas school system. There is an interesting eight-second video that she posted on the internet. It shows her shooting a water pistol at an image of Donald Trump projected on a white board in a classroom. She was yelling "DIE, DIE, DIE" while she was doing that. You could hear laughing in the background.
Ms. Modi, an art teacher, is currently on administrative leave pending further investigation. The school district has declined further comment.
I can't help but think that if this was a year ago and the target had been an image of Obama she would be in federal custody right now getting a cavity search.
I wonder if she will still be employed in a month? What do you think Howie?
EDITOR'S NOTE: Will sh still be employed in a month? Probably. After all, she is a member of the EIU - the Educated Idiots Union.
Payal Modi is a teacher at the W. H. Adamson High School in the Dallas school system. There is an interesting eight-second video that she posted on the internet. It shows her shooting a water pistol at an image of Donald Trump projected on a white board in a classroom. She was yelling "DIE, DIE, DIE" while she was doing that. You could hear laughing in the background.
Ms. Modi, an art teacher, is currently on administrative leave pending further investigation. The school district has declined further comment.
I can't help but think that if this was a year ago and the target had been an image of Obama she would be in federal custody right now getting a cavity search.
I wonder if she will still be employed in a month? What do you think Howie?
EDITOR'S NOTE: Will sh still be employed in a month? Probably. After all, she is a member of the EIU - the Educated Idiots Union.
A VIOLENT CRIME EVERYWHERE EXCEPT IN CALIFORNIA
What is a 'violent crime'? For California's new parole law, the definition is murky— and it matters
By Jazmine Ulloa
Los Angeles Times
January 27, 2017
SACRAMENTO -- Andrew Luster, the great grandson of cosmetics magnate Max Factor, drew global attention in the early 2000s when, after being accused of rape, he jumped his $1-million bail and was later captured in Mexico by a bounty hunter on TV.
Ventura County prosecutors said he drugged three women and videotaped the assaults, and a jury convicted him of 86 counts of poisoning, sexual battery and rape of an unconscious or intoxicated person. But with none of his offenses listed among the 23 crimes that California considers “violent” felonies in its penal code, does the state consider him a violent felon?
As California undergoes the largest overhaul of prison parole in a generation, determining which criminals are violent in the eyes of the state has taken on a new urgency among some lawmakers and law enforcement officials who argue it’s time to revisit how “violent crime” is legally defined.
Gov. Jerry Brown’s Proposition 57, which voters overwhelmingly approved in November, continues a statewide effort to increase rehabilitation services and decrease the prison population. Among its provisions, the initiative will give new power to the state parole board to consider the early release of prisoners who have served the full term of their primary sentences, and whose crimes are not designated as “violent” under the California penal code.
But since the early days of the ballot measure campaign, debate has brewed over just who the law will benefit, with prosecutors arguing the state’s short and porous violent felony list could allow dangerous inmates like Luster to walk free. Now the debate has moved to the state Capitol, as some lawmakers hope to expand the number of the crimes outlined in the penal code.
State Sen. Patricia Bates (R-Laguna Niguel), who filed a bill to reclassify more than 20 offenses as violent felonies, said there must be a public discussion about the criminal charges she is proposing to add to the list, such as inflicting injury on a child or assaulting an officer with a deadly weapon.
“There are many of them that really need a second thought,” she said. “If you put yourself in the position of a victim in any one of those crimes, you will say, ‘That was violent because that affected me physically and emotionally.’”
Corrections officials have until October to develop the most controversial details of Proposition 57: a set of regulations to expand prison programs that offer incentives for good behavior and participation in rehabilitation, and that govern who is eligible for early parole and when.
In a budget proposal unveiled this month, Brown excluded all sex offenders from early parole consideration, whether their crimes were designated as “violent” or not. Law enforcement officials called it an appropriate response to concerns over cases such as Luster’s.
But lawmakers and prosecutors remain intent on expanding the violent felony list, saying sex offender exemptions from early parole eligibility can be challenged in court, while the violent felony penal code will still be used to determine — and limit — how much credit offenders receive for following the rules and attending counseling behind bars.
The violent felony penal code dates to 1976 and has been expanded over the years through piecemeal legislation and voter initiatives. It includes obvious violent crimes like murder and sexual abuse of a child. But it excludes others, such as some rape crimes and domestic violence.
Debate over the offenses on the list has occurred since its inception. Lawmakers “didn’t want to add everything conceivable,” said San Mateo Dist. Atty. Steve Wagstaffe, who helped negotiate the penal code 40 years ago. “There was lot of give and take in Sacramento.”
The latest major changes came in 2000, when a juvenile punishment ballot measure backed by district attorneys revised the list of crimes and made them count as “strikes” under the state’s three strikes law, subjecting defendants with previous violent or serious offenses to longer prison sentences.
That ballot measure, Proposition 21, also made it harder to change the violent felony penal code by requiring any bill seeking to do so to receive a two-thirds majority vote in each house.
But in recent years, bills seeking to add more crimes to the code have died at the Capitol, as California has grappled with prison overcrowding and with finding a permanent solution to a federal court-ordered cap on its inmate population.
That might change this legislative session, as the list “has taken on a whole new meaning under Prop. 57,” said Wagstaffe, president of the California District Attorneys Assn.
“It has a whole new purpose,” he said. “Now it will help determine whether you are eligible for early release, and that’s what is causing this new discussion.”
The most heated discussion has been over sex offenders. In August, Brown called out a Fresno County sheriff over what he termed a “malicious” campaign mailer for Proposition 57, which featured Luster’s case and claimed he would be eligible for early release.
Meanwhile, the case of former Stanford swimmer Brock Turner stirred worldwide rage over the loopholes in punishment for rape and sexual assault. At least three bills filed this session seek to expand the list of sex crimes in the violent felony penal code.
A bipartisan proposal filed by Assemblywomen Melissa Melendez (R-Lake Elsinore) and Lorena Gonzalez (D-San Diego) would add to the list all forms of rape, spousal rape, sodomy, oral copulation and sexual penetration committed against a victim incapable of consent, including those victims who are intoxicated or mentally ill.
Bates’ bill also would revise the list to include certain rape crimes and human trafficking involving minors, but also seeks to reclassify crimes including vehicular manslaughter, assault with a deadly weapon and solicitation of murder. Assemblyman Kevin Kiley (R-Roseville) would add child abduction for prostitution to the list in addition to crimes against the elderly and cruelty to animals.
“I think it is particularly important to do this now,” Kiley said. “The initiative passed, and its language suggested that it applies to only nonviolent offenders. But the people who have been convicted of the type of crimes in my bill would be considered nonviolent, even though common sense shows they are acting out violence against their victims.”
But not everyone is in support of expanding the list. Even when debate over the Turner case was at its peak last year, some groups abstained from taking sides on sexual assault legislation, saying tougher sentencing laws have historically taken a toll on communities of color.
Among those organizations remaining neutral on changing the penal code is the California Partnership to End Domestic Violence, which says it wants to hold offenders accountable, but has been taking a closer look at other forms of intervention and rehabilitation.
“We keep hearing from survivors that criminal legal sanctions are not necessarily what they want,” said Jacquie Marroquin, the organization’s director of programs. “They tell us: ‘We don’t want to break apart our families. We want the abuse to stop.’”
EDITOR’S NOTE: Rape, a violent crime? NYPD has classified rape as “Illegal Entry,” a non-violent misdemeanor.
By Jazmine Ulloa
Los Angeles Times
January 27, 2017
SACRAMENTO -- Andrew Luster, the great grandson of cosmetics magnate Max Factor, drew global attention in the early 2000s when, after being accused of rape, he jumped his $1-million bail and was later captured in Mexico by a bounty hunter on TV.
Ventura County prosecutors said he drugged three women and videotaped the assaults, and a jury convicted him of 86 counts of poisoning, sexual battery and rape of an unconscious or intoxicated person. But with none of his offenses listed among the 23 crimes that California considers “violent” felonies in its penal code, does the state consider him a violent felon?
As California undergoes the largest overhaul of prison parole in a generation, determining which criminals are violent in the eyes of the state has taken on a new urgency among some lawmakers and law enforcement officials who argue it’s time to revisit how “violent crime” is legally defined.
Gov. Jerry Brown’s Proposition 57, which voters overwhelmingly approved in November, continues a statewide effort to increase rehabilitation services and decrease the prison population. Among its provisions, the initiative will give new power to the state parole board to consider the early release of prisoners who have served the full term of their primary sentences, and whose crimes are not designated as “violent” under the California penal code.
But since the early days of the ballot measure campaign, debate has brewed over just who the law will benefit, with prosecutors arguing the state’s short and porous violent felony list could allow dangerous inmates like Luster to walk free. Now the debate has moved to the state Capitol, as some lawmakers hope to expand the number of the crimes outlined in the penal code.
State Sen. Patricia Bates (R-Laguna Niguel), who filed a bill to reclassify more than 20 offenses as violent felonies, said there must be a public discussion about the criminal charges she is proposing to add to the list, such as inflicting injury on a child or assaulting an officer with a deadly weapon.
“There are many of them that really need a second thought,” she said. “If you put yourself in the position of a victim in any one of those crimes, you will say, ‘That was violent because that affected me physically and emotionally.’”
Corrections officials have until October to develop the most controversial details of Proposition 57: a set of regulations to expand prison programs that offer incentives for good behavior and participation in rehabilitation, and that govern who is eligible for early parole and when.
In a budget proposal unveiled this month, Brown excluded all sex offenders from early parole consideration, whether their crimes were designated as “violent” or not. Law enforcement officials called it an appropriate response to concerns over cases such as Luster’s.
But lawmakers and prosecutors remain intent on expanding the violent felony list, saying sex offender exemptions from early parole eligibility can be challenged in court, while the violent felony penal code will still be used to determine — and limit — how much credit offenders receive for following the rules and attending counseling behind bars.
The violent felony penal code dates to 1976 and has been expanded over the years through piecemeal legislation and voter initiatives. It includes obvious violent crimes like murder and sexual abuse of a child. But it excludes others, such as some rape crimes and domestic violence.
Debate over the offenses on the list has occurred since its inception. Lawmakers “didn’t want to add everything conceivable,” said San Mateo Dist. Atty. Steve Wagstaffe, who helped negotiate the penal code 40 years ago. “There was lot of give and take in Sacramento.”
The latest major changes came in 2000, when a juvenile punishment ballot measure backed by district attorneys revised the list of crimes and made them count as “strikes” under the state’s three strikes law, subjecting defendants with previous violent or serious offenses to longer prison sentences.
That ballot measure, Proposition 21, also made it harder to change the violent felony penal code by requiring any bill seeking to do so to receive a two-thirds majority vote in each house.
But in recent years, bills seeking to add more crimes to the code have died at the Capitol, as California has grappled with prison overcrowding and with finding a permanent solution to a federal court-ordered cap on its inmate population.
That might change this legislative session, as the list “has taken on a whole new meaning under Prop. 57,” said Wagstaffe, president of the California District Attorneys Assn.
“It has a whole new purpose,” he said. “Now it will help determine whether you are eligible for early release, and that’s what is causing this new discussion.”
The most heated discussion has been over sex offenders. In August, Brown called out a Fresno County sheriff over what he termed a “malicious” campaign mailer for Proposition 57, which featured Luster’s case and claimed he would be eligible for early release.
Meanwhile, the case of former Stanford swimmer Brock Turner stirred worldwide rage over the loopholes in punishment for rape and sexual assault. At least three bills filed this session seek to expand the list of sex crimes in the violent felony penal code.
A bipartisan proposal filed by Assemblywomen Melissa Melendez (R-Lake Elsinore) and Lorena Gonzalez (D-San Diego) would add to the list all forms of rape, spousal rape, sodomy, oral copulation and sexual penetration committed against a victim incapable of consent, including those victims who are intoxicated or mentally ill.
Bates’ bill also would revise the list to include certain rape crimes and human trafficking involving minors, but also seeks to reclassify crimes including vehicular manslaughter, assault with a deadly weapon and solicitation of murder. Assemblyman Kevin Kiley (R-Roseville) would add child abduction for prostitution to the list in addition to crimes against the elderly and cruelty to animals.
“I think it is particularly important to do this now,” Kiley said. “The initiative passed, and its language suggested that it applies to only nonviolent offenders. But the people who have been convicted of the type of crimes in my bill would be considered nonviolent, even though common sense shows they are acting out violence against their victims.”
But not everyone is in support of expanding the list. Even when debate over the Turner case was at its peak last year, some groups abstained from taking sides on sexual assault legislation, saying tougher sentencing laws have historically taken a toll on communities of color.
Among those organizations remaining neutral on changing the penal code is the California Partnership to End Domestic Violence, which says it wants to hold offenders accountable, but has been taking a closer look at other forms of intervention and rehabilitation.
“We keep hearing from survivors that criminal legal sanctions are not necessarily what they want,” said Jacquie Marroquin, the organization’s director of programs. “They tell us: ‘We don’t want to break apart our families. We want the abuse to stop.’”
EDITOR’S NOTE: Rape, a violent crime? NYPD has classified rape as “Illegal Entry,” a non-violent misdemeanor.
FEDERAL JUDGE BLOCKS OHIO’S LETHAL INJECTION PROTOCOL
U.S. Magistrate Judge Michael Merz ruled that until the state can get access to a supply of pentobarbital, Ohio cannot guarantee death-row inmates a painless death
By Lorraine Bailey
Courthouse News
January 26, 2017
Ohio must halt its plans to execute three death-row inmates because its current three-drug injection protocol violates the Eighth Amendment, a federal judge ruled Thursday.
Until the state can get access to a supply of pentobarbital, a sedative proven to work in executions as the first drug in the three-drug protocol, Ohio cannot guarantee death-row inmates a painless death, U.S. Magistrate Judge Michael Merz ruled Thursday.
Ohio’s lethal injection procedure came under national scrutiny following the botched execution of Dennis McGuire in January 2014.
As U.S. Supreme Court Justice Samuel Alito noted in the 2015 decision in Glossip v. Gross upholding Oklahoma’s execution method, anti-death-penalty lobbying efforts have been widely successful in pressuring drug companies to stop selling the drugs used in the lethal injection process to states for execution purposes.
As a result, the drug cocktail injected into McGuire’s veins had never been used before.
Ohio ran out of pentobarbital, and instead used a mixture of midazolam and hydromorphone to sedate McGuire, before administering the next two execution drugs.
However, McGuire was not rendered unconscious by the midazolam, and the protocol left him choking and gasping for air for 25 minutes before he died.
Ohio has not carried out an execution since killing McGuire.
In an effort to improve its access to execution drugs, state lawmakers passed HB 663 in December 2014, making the identity of individuals and companies who participate in the lethal injection of death-row inmates confidential. The Sixth Circuit upheld the law in November, but the state still has not acquired a supply of pentobarbital.
Alabama’s execution of Ronald Smith last month also used midazolam, with similar results. Observers said that Smith was coughing, clenching and unclenching his fists, and trying to mouth words long after being injected with the drug, raising doubts as to whether he was conscious when injected with the paralytic drug and potassium chloride.
Nevertheless, Ohio announced in October 2016 that it intends to proceed with the executions of Ronald Phillips, Raymond Tibbetts and Gary Otte in the first quarter of this year.
The three men filed for a stay of execution in federal court, claiming Ohio’s planned lethal drug cocktail is likely to condemn them to an unnecessarily painful death, in violation of the Eighth Amendment’s prohibition on cruel and unusual punishment.
Their expert, Dr. Craig Stevens, testified that patients who were administered a paralytic while not fully sedated have reported severe pain and compared it to a slow suffocation, like being buried alive.
In a 119-page opinion that exhaustively details experts’ opinions on the effects of midazolam, Judge Merz concluded that “the use of midazolam as the first drug in Ohio’s present three-drug protocol will create a ‘substantial risk of serious harm’” to the prisoners.
This harm is significant enough to warrant an injunction because the inmates have identified a known and available alternative method of execution that entails a lower risk of pain, Merz said.
Ohio may obtain the active pharmaceutical ingredient of pentobarbital and have it made into an injectable form by a pharmacy, according to the judgment. In fact, the state has already applied for an import license from the Drug Enforcement Administration to do just that, and the application remains pending.
“The Supreme Court reminds us in Glossip that because capital punishment is not unconstitutional, there must be a constitutional way to accomplish it,” Merz said. “But that does not imply that an identified alternative to a problematic method must be available immediately.”
Since all parties agree that compounded pentobarbital would resolve the plaintiffs’ constitutional complaints about the state’s execution method, the judge said that postponing the executions to ensure an inmate is not executed unconstitutionally is in the best interest of justice.
ESITOR’S NOTE: Sob, sob, oh my God, those coldblooded murderers might suffer some pain, sob,sob. Never mind that their victims were shown no mercy and suffered excruciating pain.
By Lorraine Bailey
Courthouse News
January 26, 2017
Ohio must halt its plans to execute three death-row inmates because its current three-drug injection protocol violates the Eighth Amendment, a federal judge ruled Thursday.
Until the state can get access to a supply of pentobarbital, a sedative proven to work in executions as the first drug in the three-drug protocol, Ohio cannot guarantee death-row inmates a painless death, U.S. Magistrate Judge Michael Merz ruled Thursday.
Ohio’s lethal injection procedure came under national scrutiny following the botched execution of Dennis McGuire in January 2014.
As U.S. Supreme Court Justice Samuel Alito noted in the 2015 decision in Glossip v. Gross upholding Oklahoma’s execution method, anti-death-penalty lobbying efforts have been widely successful in pressuring drug companies to stop selling the drugs used in the lethal injection process to states for execution purposes.
As a result, the drug cocktail injected into McGuire’s veins had never been used before.
Ohio ran out of pentobarbital, and instead used a mixture of midazolam and hydromorphone to sedate McGuire, before administering the next two execution drugs.
However, McGuire was not rendered unconscious by the midazolam, and the protocol left him choking and gasping for air for 25 minutes before he died.
Ohio has not carried out an execution since killing McGuire.
In an effort to improve its access to execution drugs, state lawmakers passed HB 663 in December 2014, making the identity of individuals and companies who participate in the lethal injection of death-row inmates confidential. The Sixth Circuit upheld the law in November, but the state still has not acquired a supply of pentobarbital.
Alabama’s execution of Ronald Smith last month also used midazolam, with similar results. Observers said that Smith was coughing, clenching and unclenching his fists, and trying to mouth words long after being injected with the drug, raising doubts as to whether he was conscious when injected with the paralytic drug and potassium chloride.
Nevertheless, Ohio announced in October 2016 that it intends to proceed with the executions of Ronald Phillips, Raymond Tibbetts and Gary Otte in the first quarter of this year.
The three men filed for a stay of execution in federal court, claiming Ohio’s planned lethal drug cocktail is likely to condemn them to an unnecessarily painful death, in violation of the Eighth Amendment’s prohibition on cruel and unusual punishment.
Their expert, Dr. Craig Stevens, testified that patients who were administered a paralytic while not fully sedated have reported severe pain and compared it to a slow suffocation, like being buried alive.
In a 119-page opinion that exhaustively details experts’ opinions on the effects of midazolam, Judge Merz concluded that “the use of midazolam as the first drug in Ohio’s present three-drug protocol will create a ‘substantial risk of serious harm’” to the prisoners.
This harm is significant enough to warrant an injunction because the inmates have identified a known and available alternative method of execution that entails a lower risk of pain, Merz said.
Ohio may obtain the active pharmaceutical ingredient of pentobarbital and have it made into an injectable form by a pharmacy, according to the judgment. In fact, the state has already applied for an import license from the Drug Enforcement Administration to do just that, and the application remains pending.
“The Supreme Court reminds us in Glossip that because capital punishment is not unconstitutional, there must be a constitutional way to accomplish it,” Merz said. “But that does not imply that an identified alternative to a problematic method must be available immediately.”
Since all parties agree that compounded pentobarbital would resolve the plaintiffs’ constitutional complaints about the state’s execution method, the judge said that postponing the executions to ensure an inmate is not executed unconstitutionally is in the best interest of justice.
ESITOR’S NOTE: Sob, sob, oh my God, those coldblooded murderers might suffer some pain, sob,sob. Never mind that their victims were shown no mercy and suffered excruciating pain.
IN CHICAGO ‘THE FEDS’ ARE PART OF THE PROBLEM
Trump doesn’t need to send troops or officers but can help by pulling back the Justice Department
by Heather Mac Donald
The Wall Street Journal
January 25, 2017
President Trump repeated his vow Tuesday to “send in the Feds” if the authorities in Chicago are
unable to quell the violence there. His sense of urgency about what he rightly labels the
“carnage” in Chicago is welcome. By contrast, President Obama last year dismissed the rising
homicides nationwide as a mere “uptick in murders and violent crime in some cities.”
Some uptick. Fifty-four people were shot in Chicago last weekend alone, six fatally. That brings
the homicide total so far this year to 42, up from 34 during the same time last year, according to
the Chicago Tribune. Comparing 2016 with 2015, homicides were up 58% and shootings were
up 47%. Last year’s shooting victims included two dozen children 12 or under, including a 3-
year-old boy now paralyzed for life.
Mr. Trump is right to draw attention to the growing toll, but he is wrong about what the federal
government can do to fix it. His call to “send in the Feds” is ambiguous, but the phrase seems to
suggest mobilizing the National Guard. Doing so would require the declaration of a national or
state emergency. However gruesome the bloodshed, there is little precedent for mobilizing the
National Guard to quell criminal gang violence.
Civil order has not broken down in the Windy City; local authorities continue to deliver basic
services in the gang-infested South and West sides. The homicide rate, relative to population, is
higher in Detroit, New Orleans and St. Louis. If Mr. Trump or his defense secretary, James Mattis, is going to declare Chicago a national emergency, those other cities deserve the same.
And although Mayor Rahm Emanuel has asked Mr. Trump for money, it’s unlikely he’d welcome troops.
If Mr. Trump’s reference to “the Feds” means federal law-enforcement officers, they’re already
there. Local police in Chicago work on joint task forces with agents from the FBI, Drug
Enforcement Administration and Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives. The
Trump administration could—and should—direct the U.S. attorney in Chicago to rigorously
prosecute federal gun crimes, a focus that withered under President Obama’s denunciations of
“mass incarceration” for minorities. But such a reorientation is a longer-term matter.
Policing is overwhelmingly a local function. As much as Mr. Trump, to his credit, wants to
ensure that children living in inner cities enjoy the same freedom from fear and bloodshed as
those in more stable neighborhoods, Washington has few law-enforcement levers to achieve that
goal directly.
What Mr. Trump can do is end the federal government’s unjustified intrusions into local crime-
fighting. He can start by announcing that his Justice Department will suspend negotiations with
Chicago over a federal consent decree for the city’s police department.
A week before Inauguration Day, President Obama’s Justice Department released a shoddy
report declaring the Chicago police guilty of a pattern of unlawful force. That report lacked the
most basic statistical integrity and transparency; it failed to disclose any data that justified its
conclusion. The feds recycled fabricated calumnies about the department, such as the outrageous
claim that officers in Chicago do not care about solving black-on-black crime. It found police
racism through the usual trick of ignoring crime rates.
Yet Mayor Emanuel has said, based on that ungrounded report, that he intends to sign a federal
consent decree to put the Chicago police under a Justice Department monitor. Doing so would
redirect scores of officers from fighting crime to writing reports. Federal monitors have an
insatiable appetite for paperwork. Chicago taxpayers would likely face hundreds of millions of dollars in compliance costs, money that could be better spent hiring more cops and drilling them
on tactics and communication skills.
Mr. Trump and his prospective attorney general, Jeff Sessions, should tear up the Chicago report
and declare that the federal government stands behind proactive policing. The right message: The
Justice Department will be vigilant in monitoring police abuses, but it understands that officers
respond to the community’s demands for safety and order. Those demands come most fervently
from high-crime areas, whose law-abiding residents beseech the police for freedom from drug
dealers and unruly youth gangs. Messrs. Trump and Sessions should make clear that police
officers need no longer fear that stopping and questioning people engaged in suspicious behavior
will draw the condemnation of the federal government.
Thanks to the constant charge from the media and the previous administration that proactive
policing is racist, 72% of law enforcement officers in a nationwide Pew poll last year said they
had become less willing to question people engaged in suspicious conduct. In Chicago,
pedestrian stops fell more than 80% in 2016, while narcotics arrests, a good measure of proactive
policing, dropped 43%. The result of that reluctance in 2015 was the largest national homicide
increase in nearly 50 years. Once the data are fully analyzed, a similar increase for 2016 seems
likely.
Candidate Trump denounced the false narrative that policing was lethally racist. The best thing
for now that President Trump can do for violent cities is to halt negotiations for a consent decree
with Chicago and thereby show that the federal government rejects the false narrative
by Heather Mac Donald
The Wall Street Journal
January 25, 2017
President Trump repeated his vow Tuesday to “send in the Feds” if the authorities in Chicago are
unable to quell the violence there. His sense of urgency about what he rightly labels the
“carnage” in Chicago is welcome. By contrast, President Obama last year dismissed the rising
homicides nationwide as a mere “uptick in murders and violent crime in some cities.”
Some uptick. Fifty-four people were shot in Chicago last weekend alone, six fatally. That brings
the homicide total so far this year to 42, up from 34 during the same time last year, according to
the Chicago Tribune. Comparing 2016 with 2015, homicides were up 58% and shootings were
up 47%. Last year’s shooting victims included two dozen children 12 or under, including a 3-
year-old boy now paralyzed for life.
Mr. Trump is right to draw attention to the growing toll, but he is wrong about what the federal
government can do to fix it. His call to “send in the Feds” is ambiguous, but the phrase seems to
suggest mobilizing the National Guard. Doing so would require the declaration of a national or
state emergency. However gruesome the bloodshed, there is little precedent for mobilizing the
National Guard to quell criminal gang violence.
Civil order has not broken down in the Windy City; local authorities continue to deliver basic
services in the gang-infested South and West sides. The homicide rate, relative to population, is
higher in Detroit, New Orleans and St. Louis. If Mr. Trump or his defense secretary, James Mattis, is going to declare Chicago a national emergency, those other cities deserve the same.
And although Mayor Rahm Emanuel has asked Mr. Trump for money, it’s unlikely he’d welcome troops.
If Mr. Trump’s reference to “the Feds” means federal law-enforcement officers, they’re already
there. Local police in Chicago work on joint task forces with agents from the FBI, Drug
Enforcement Administration and Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives. The
Trump administration could—and should—direct the U.S. attorney in Chicago to rigorously
prosecute federal gun crimes, a focus that withered under President Obama’s denunciations of
“mass incarceration” for minorities. But such a reorientation is a longer-term matter.
Policing is overwhelmingly a local function. As much as Mr. Trump, to his credit, wants to
ensure that children living in inner cities enjoy the same freedom from fear and bloodshed as
those in more stable neighborhoods, Washington has few law-enforcement levers to achieve that
goal directly.
What Mr. Trump can do is end the federal government’s unjustified intrusions into local crime-
fighting. He can start by announcing that his Justice Department will suspend negotiations with
Chicago over a federal consent decree for the city’s police department.
A week before Inauguration Day, President Obama’s Justice Department released a shoddy
report declaring the Chicago police guilty of a pattern of unlawful force. That report lacked the
most basic statistical integrity and transparency; it failed to disclose any data that justified its
conclusion. The feds recycled fabricated calumnies about the department, such as the outrageous
claim that officers in Chicago do not care about solving black-on-black crime. It found police
racism through the usual trick of ignoring crime rates.
Yet Mayor Emanuel has said, based on that ungrounded report, that he intends to sign a federal
consent decree to put the Chicago police under a Justice Department monitor. Doing so would
redirect scores of officers from fighting crime to writing reports. Federal monitors have an
insatiable appetite for paperwork. Chicago taxpayers would likely face hundreds of millions of dollars in compliance costs, money that could be better spent hiring more cops and drilling them
on tactics and communication skills.
Mr. Trump and his prospective attorney general, Jeff Sessions, should tear up the Chicago report
and declare that the federal government stands behind proactive policing. The right message: The
Justice Department will be vigilant in monitoring police abuses, but it understands that officers
respond to the community’s demands for safety and order. Those demands come most fervently
from high-crime areas, whose law-abiding residents beseech the police for freedom from drug
dealers and unruly youth gangs. Messrs. Trump and Sessions should make clear that police
officers need no longer fear that stopping and questioning people engaged in suspicious behavior
will draw the condemnation of the federal government.
Thanks to the constant charge from the media and the previous administration that proactive
policing is racist, 72% of law enforcement officers in a nationwide Pew poll last year said they
had become less willing to question people engaged in suspicious conduct. In Chicago,
pedestrian stops fell more than 80% in 2016, while narcotics arrests, a good measure of proactive
policing, dropped 43%. The result of that reluctance in 2015 was the largest national homicide
increase in nearly 50 years. Once the data are fully analyzed, a similar increase for 2016 seems
likely.
Candidate Trump denounced the false narrative that policing was lethally racist. The best thing
for now that President Trump can do for violent cities is to halt negotiations for a consent decree
with Chicago and thereby show that the federal government rejects the false narrative
Friday, January 27, 2017
RECURRING DIARRHEA OF THE MOUTH
Trump’s claim that 3-5 million illegal votes were cast for Hillary - thus costing him the popular vote - is a load of shit
"You have people that are registered, who are dead, who are illegals who are in two states. You have people registered in two states. They're registered in a New York and a New Jersey. They vote twice. There are millions of votes, in my opinion."
That’s what Donald Trump told ABC’s David Muir when questioned about the claim he made to a bipartisan group of congressional leaders that he lost the popular vote because 3-5 million illegal ballots were cast for Hillary.
Trump is damaging his credibility. His past tweets and this outlandish voter fraud claim show that he is suffering from recurring diarrhea of the mouth. Trump’s claim that 3-5 million illegal votes were cast for Hillary - thus costing him the popular vote - is a load of shit.
Of course there is some voter fraud in almost every election. I’m sure there were the usual dead people voting for Hillary in Chicago and the Rio Grande Valley of Texas. And I’m sure some people cast multiple votes. And I’m also sure that some illegal immigrants cast their votes for Clinton. But 3-5 million illegal votes, that is absolutely ridiculous.
As for the illegal voting by illegal immigrants, their numbers will be miniscule. While Latinos did vote in record numbers, you usually have to drag them kicking and screaming to the polls - and those are U.S. citizens. So, what makes anyone but a lunatic think that a significant number of illegals went to the polls?
I like what Trump has done since he assumed the Office of President. He is funding the wall he promised to build along our border with Mexico. He has ordered the hiring of an additional 5,000 Border Patrol agents. He will withhold government funding for sanctuary cities. He has taken steps to dismantle Obamacare. He has restored construction of the Dakota Access Pipeline and the Keystone XL Pipeline. He has ordered a government hiring freeze with the exception of the military. He has withdrawn the United States from the Trans-Pacific Partnership. And, of course, I like it that Trump is halting Obama’s last minute transfer of $221 million to the Palestinian Authority.
Now Trump wants an investigation into his proclaimed massive voter fraud. That investigation will uncover some voter fraud. Yes, a number of dead people voted and a number of people voted more than once. And even if a substantial number of illegals voted, the total number of fraudulent ballots cast will only number in the thousands, not in the millions. Thus the investigation will turn out to be a waste of taxpayer money.
If there were only some medication Trump could take to stop his recurring diarrhea of the mouth.
Oh by the way, there is proof that some people are registered to vote in two states. Trump’s daughter Tiffany was registered in both Pennsylvania and New York. And White House strategist Steve Bannon was registered in both Florida and New York. Neither voted twice - Tiffany and Bannon cast their ballots in New York. Then there is his Senior Adviser and son-in-law Jared Kushner who is registered in both New Jersey and New York. And Steven Mnuchin, Trump’s nominee for Treasury Secretary, is registered to vote in both California and New York.
"You have people that are registered, who are dead, who are illegals who are in two states. You have people registered in two states. They're registered in a New York and a New Jersey. They vote twice. There are millions of votes, in my opinion."
That’s what Donald Trump told ABC’s David Muir when questioned about the claim he made to a bipartisan group of congressional leaders that he lost the popular vote because 3-5 million illegal ballots were cast for Hillary.
Trump is damaging his credibility. His past tweets and this outlandish voter fraud claim show that he is suffering from recurring diarrhea of the mouth. Trump’s claim that 3-5 million illegal votes were cast for Hillary - thus costing him the popular vote - is a load of shit.
Of course there is some voter fraud in almost every election. I’m sure there were the usual dead people voting for Hillary in Chicago and the Rio Grande Valley of Texas. And I’m sure some people cast multiple votes. And I’m also sure that some illegal immigrants cast their votes for Clinton. But 3-5 million illegal votes, that is absolutely ridiculous.
As for the illegal voting by illegal immigrants, their numbers will be miniscule. While Latinos did vote in record numbers, you usually have to drag them kicking and screaming to the polls - and those are U.S. citizens. So, what makes anyone but a lunatic think that a significant number of illegals went to the polls?
I like what Trump has done since he assumed the Office of President. He is funding the wall he promised to build along our border with Mexico. He has ordered the hiring of an additional 5,000 Border Patrol agents. He will withhold government funding for sanctuary cities. He has taken steps to dismantle Obamacare. He has restored construction of the Dakota Access Pipeline and the Keystone XL Pipeline. He has ordered a government hiring freeze with the exception of the military. He has withdrawn the United States from the Trans-Pacific Partnership. And, of course, I like it that Trump is halting Obama’s last minute transfer of $221 million to the Palestinian Authority.
Now Trump wants an investigation into his proclaimed massive voter fraud. That investigation will uncover some voter fraud. Yes, a number of dead people voted and a number of people voted more than once. And even if a substantial number of illegals voted, the total number of fraudulent ballots cast will only number in the thousands, not in the millions. Thus the investigation will turn out to be a waste of taxpayer money.
If there were only some medication Trump could take to stop his recurring diarrhea of the mouth.
Oh by the way, there is proof that some people are registered to vote in two states. Trump’s daughter Tiffany was registered in both Pennsylvania and New York. And White House strategist Steve Bannon was registered in both Florida and New York. Neither voted twice - Tiffany and Bannon cast their ballots in New York. Then there is his Senior Adviser and son-in-law Jared Kushner who is registered in both New Jersey and New York. And Steven Mnuchin, Trump’s nominee for Treasury Secretary, is registered to vote in both California and New York.
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