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     Please see the latest installment of J'ACCUSE - PART IX, the story of my case.

 

 

1/27/12            When Tyrants Agree

                What do Ray Kelly and Bashar al-Assad have in common?  More than you'd think. 

I was reading a story in today's Wall Street Journal on Syria and the view held by some Syrians that Bashar Assad, for all his faults - and even his defenders there now admit he has some - is the only man who can hold the country together.  Moreover, they feel he should be excused his current 'excesses' due to his family's long service to the nation.  In essence, he is the indispensable man.  I quickly turned to the NY Daily News and found those same misguided rationalizations being applied to Police Commissioner Ray Kelly in an editorial titled "Thanks, Ray."  It was shocking.  Here's an excerpt excusing the unprecedented and conspiratorial lying that's come from Kelly and his PR deputy: "Apology offered for a single public relations slip after a decade of flawless management.  Let's move on.  But no."  Where to begin?

First, that last sentence cannot be read without seeing John Belushi ranting on Weekend Update.  Although there it would have read, But NOOOOOOOOOO!  Seriously though, the word 'flawless' means without flaw or imperfection.  The millions of Stop & Frisk victims (10 years X @ 550,000 a year = millions) might take issue with his tenure being described as "without flaw." 

His "flawless management" now boasts a police force who rape, pimp, routinely perjure themselves, plant evidence on innocent defendants as a matter of course, fix tickets, bludgeon protesters and journalists, tamper with crime statistics, stymie FOIL requests, etc.  What sane person - even a Kelly defender - could look at the Kelly record and claim his management of the NYPD is without flaw?  Clearly only two: Mike Bloomberg and Mort Zuckerman; two out of touch billionaires. 

They both hold the same view as those Assad loyalists: that Ray Kelly is the indispensable man and only he can hold back the flood of criminal minority youths and omnipresent Al-Qaeda terror cells who rampage our streets.  It is a scary and highly paranoid view of our city.  Even scarier when you realize it's held by the mayor, the police commissioner and the owner of the city's largest newspaper. 

But even more frightening than the fact that men of such power hold such warped views and are possessed of such anti-democratic leanings, is this question: With a record like Ray Kelly's, what excess exactly will they not forgive him for?  The answer appears to be none and from the standpoint of the average New Yorker, that's pretty fucked up.

 

1/26/12           City Hall Officially Loses Its Mind

            Not content with regulating all aspects of our nicotine, soda and food consumption, Mike Bloomberg now proposes his most Orwellian policy yet: he will control the thoughts and opinions of New York City's bravest, our firefighters. 

An FDNY order issued last month states, "material presenting opinions or viewpoints is not permitted anywhere in quarters."  The FDNY does not deny that this order prohibits the display of the U.S. flag, photographs of fellow firefighters who died on 9/11 or any reading material which expresses an opinion.  Clearly this runs the gamut from The Nation to The Weekly Standard to the New York Times.  Has Bloomberg gone mad?  Does his toadying fire commissioner have no honor or self respect to issue such an outlandishly offensive order to NY's firefighters?  

The argument the bureacracts at the FDNY give for justifying this policy is that a firehouse is a government workspace and the same rules apply there as they would at a cubicle in the Department of Environmental Protection.  Of course this is absurd.  A firehouse is a totally unique animal.  They don't have beds at the Department of Finance or cook full meals at the Parks Department for their employees.  Everyone has always recognized that firehouses are not only a workspace, but a second home for these men.  It's one thing to want an orderly and tidy workspace.  But to even want to attempt to control the content of the reading material these men view is not only chilling, it's pretty twisted and sick.  When will this Bloomberg nightmare ever end??

NYT: FDNY Order # 89

 

1/26/12          City Hall Deflects and Crosses Its Fingers

                It is of no consequence to me - and I would guess most New Yorkers - that Ray Kelly participated in, and used for training purposes, a documentary film on the dangers Muslims pose to the security of our city and nation.  That has now become besides the point in this scandal.  What we are all focused on is the cover-up. 

Mike Bloomberg is desperately hoping to end this by having Ray Kelly sincerely apologize for the use of this film to train officers and his participation in it.  That's clever.  Apologize for the minor outrage and hope the major one gets lost.  Of course the serious offense here is not Kelly's lack of political correctness.  Rather it is the lying.  He lied to the press, he lied to the City Council, he lied to the public and presumably he lied to his boss, the mayor.  Plus, he either condoned or instructed his spokesman - a Deputy Police Commissioner - to lie on his behalf. 

So far Ray Kelly has not apologized for any of that, either on his own behalf or for his Deputy, Paul Browne.  Lying so routine and pervasive as we have seen at all levels of the Bloomberg Administration over the last ten years can only lead to this sort of end.  This was inevitable. People who lie as a matter of course and policy lose all perspective.  They rationalize the daily lies to themselves and others as a means to advance an agenda or push through programs.  That will always morphs into mere covering your ass and preventing bad press.  And they never see when that line has been crossed because their values have been so far corrupted at that point. 

This has been the pernicious corrupting influence of Mike Bloomberg over otherwise decent people.  I don't think Ray Kelly is a bad guy.  I think a once honorable man has allowed himself to be corrupted by his boss.  Ray Kelly's questionable use of the mayor's fleet of aircraft, brutal response to OWS, unexplained expense account charges, coupled with his department's routine denial of simple FOIL requests has reshaped his image from good guy cop to corrupt, lying insider. 

It's clear by Bloomberg's tactic to have Kelly ignore the lying charge and instead focus on the political correctness aspect, that he hopes to upend the normal consequences of a commissioner lying so blatantly, not to mention repeatedly, to the New York Times.  Do the old rules still apply?  Does the press's hero worship of the Police Commissioner trump their otherwise instinctive reaction to bay for blood when lied to like this? 

My guess, from today's coverage so far, is that it does.  Kelly cops to the "lesser charge" of being 'insensitive' and takes the hit for Browne.  The media agrees to pretend that's what this is about and gives him a pass because he's "kept us safe."  Mike Bloomberg told us during the last campaign that Ray Kelly was the indispensable man.  He now intends to show us that he meant it.

Addendum:  It goes without saying that the Muslim community in NYC is playing right into Bloomberg's hands.  He wants the focus of this to be on ethnic insensitivity because Kelly and Browne can survive that, rather than the outrageous lying which they may not.  So the Muslim protests today are all centered on the film's contents and NYPD insensitivity - which no one is sympathetic to - as opposed to viewing this through the prism of all New Yorkers and the the larger issue of lying, which deeply offends everyone regardless of ethnicity and could garner wider support for some action. 

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1/25/12            City Hall Commits the Mortal Sin

                How many times have I written here that the level of lying that emanates from the Bloomberg Administration is unparalleled.  And it starts from the top down.  I have also told you that while Mike Bloomberg is not the most corrupt mayor this city has ever had, he is hands-down the most corrupting mayor who has occupied the office.  I have told you that of the many things that make him such an odious figure, the most offensive is his propensity to lie instinctively as his first reaction in the face of a difficult problem or question.  And so it has gone that this pattern of corruption, deception and lying has spread right through his staff and commissioners.

The latest, and perhaps most blatant, example comes from the Police Department.   It's become so blatant that it is now actually insulting.  There was a seemingly stupid story a year ago that the PD was showing some type of terrorism training video to new cops that was anti-Muslim in tone.  I glanced at the stories and the minor contretemps that ensued but wasn't too put out since I in fact do believe that most Muslims support violent Jihad against the West.  It was a dust-up along political correctness lines, not based on any factual objections of material contained within the film. 

At the time, the PD said the film was shown a hand full of times and PD spokesman and Deputy Commissioner Paul Browne - a former news reporter himself - attempted to minimize the whole matter by describing the film as "wacky."  Although Police Commissioner Ray Kelly is in the film, it was said by Browne that his interviews were taken from other sources and edited into the film. There it might have ended.

So this week the New York Times asks DC Browne if Ray Kelly had been interviewed by the film's producers specifically for this film.  Browne asserted unequivocally that Kelly had never spoken to the makers of this film.  Next, the Times calls Browne back and says we have the dates and times, plus the raw footage of his 90 minute interview with them.  Seeing that this pointless lying was drowning him, Browne told the Times, “He’s right,” Mr. Browne said Tuesday of the producer. “In fact, I recommended in February 2007 that Commissioner Kelly be interviewed.”

So not only had Browne known all along that Kelly had sat for the interview and that the film's Kelly footage was original, he had advocated to Kelly that he grant the interview and put it on his schedule.  All the while claiming to the NYT that the footage was from old non-orignal interviews and that the Commissioner had never spoken to anyone associated with the film.  But Browne wasn't done prevaricating.  The handful of times that the film was shown to only a few officers which Browne has previously claimed?   That turned out to be 1,400 officers and the film was shown continuously to training classes for over a year.  And Browne knew all of this.  Not to mention that Ray Kelly knew a year ago that Browne was lying on his behalf when he denied all of this.  Unless Ray Kelly has become senile, surely he knew he sat for the 90 minute interview all the while that Browne was denying it.

Here's what I know from having done public relations in the private sector and at the highest levels of city government: there is one cardinal sin, you don't lie to the press.  There is one mortal sin that ensures you are terminated immediately and ruins your career for life: you lie to the New York Times.  That act is career ending.  You are finished, find another line of work.  End of story.  And if the transgressor is not banished immediately the Times will punish City Hall unceasingly.

Of course Mike Bloomberg is acting very upset (in a Capt. Renault kind of way to discover that lying is going on in his administration) because this is another in a series of supposedly anti-Muslim acts by the PD.  Bloomberg likes to portray himself publicly as this very inclusive and tolerant leader.  The Police Department keeps contradicting this image and he keeps defending them.  And so routine has lying become in this administration that the Police Commissioner and his deputy feel free to lie with impunity to their boss.  Unprecedented!

Here's what I know: the New York Times could have video of Ray Kelly raping nuns and Mike Bloomberg wouldn't fire him.  So the calls that have started for Ray Kelly's head will go unsatisfied.  Paul Browne is an open question.  Under the normal, routine lying that takes place daily in this administration Paul Browne's transgressions would be swatted away by the Mayor's press office.  But this steps on too many norms of behavior to go unanswered.

At what point does this daily lying become too much for the NYC press corps to tolerate.  My guess is we're getting pretty close.

 

1/25/12        When is Your Hard Drive Not Your Hard Drive?

                In the same week the Supreme Court struck a welcome, albeit surprising, blow for 4th Amendment protections, a federal judge in Colorado had a somewhat different interpretation of how those liberties apply.

The U.S. Attorney there charges a woman with bank fraud, wire fraud and money laundering in some sort of mortgage scam.  To her credit, she encrypted all the files on her computer's hard drive and the government can't crack it (how worrisome is that in so many ways).  The feds argued that if she is not forced to provide them with the key then the implications are ponderous for national security, terrorism, drug trafficking and - wait for it - child porn.  Her attorneys - and a whole bunch of civil liberties organizations - argue that this is a classic 4th Amendment violation.

The government doesn't know the computer contains any evidence of a crime, they'd just like to look around and, they argue, she's preventing them from doing so.  I don't quite get how this isn't a very clear abuse of one's right not to self incriminate: I have to help you obtain evidence that you wish to use against me??  Naturally, this federal judge, like most federal judges, will deny federal prosecutors nothing.  So he turned down her objection and ordered her to turn over the key.  Good luck with that.  No appeals court will back-up this Constitution-hating Colorado judge.  I hope - and expect - that Ramona Fricosu will tell U.S. District Court Judge Robert Blackburn to go fuck himself.  In the most proper legal language, of course.

Full story:  MSNBC Hard Drive

 

1/25/12      Small Ideas, No Vision and A Lot of Chutzpah

                Had this been 1997 and we were enjoying peace at home and abroad, record low unemployment, a balanced budget and a robust economy, last night's Clintonesque State of the Union would have been well received and appropriate.  Instead, we were all left wondering if Barack Obama knew what year this was. 

The man who spoke in broad terms of hope and change during his election reeled off a list of minor programs and 'fixes' to what ails us.  Based on the paucity and smallness of new ideas one would think very little ails us.  In fact much ails us and he demonstrated yet again he not only doesn't get that, he is fresh out of ideas to lead us to the better tomorrow of last year's State of the Union.

Democrats in the chamber seemed revved up by him and his message.  I think this reaction has less to do with content then with the reality of an election year.  They all now know what every president's party knows in an election year: you leave with thems who brought you.  He's at the top of the ticket and they are all below him on the ballot.  Their fate is tied to his so they'd better start getting behind this man.  No better example could be found than the reaction of Maxine Waters.  Just a few short months ago she said, candidly and correctly, that he was not doing anything to improve the lives of her constituents.  Absolutely nothing has changed substantively  yet she could not have been more ebullient in her praise for Obama yesterday.

How many times - certainly in each of his previous State of the Unions - has he said he was all for reforming the tax code, eliminating needless regulations and rooting out government waste.  And yet he never sends any legislation to congress.  I have no idea - other than spilt milk - what these 500 regulations are that he claims he's rescinded.  I can surely guarantee that no businessman could tell you either.  Business in America is being strangled by federal regulations that are costing them money and by extension jobs.  No company in this country today feels any more liberated from federal bureaucracy then a year ago.  Quite the opposite.   He proclaimed last night that if companies opened new facilities here instead of overseas, the federal government would do everything in its power to help them.  Companies are locating here in spite of the federal government, not because of it.  They open factories here because our dollar is so weak and their home currencies so strong that it's cheaper to make their products here and repatriate the profits rather than ship them over.  No business entity believes for one second they have a friend in any of his cabinet secretaries when it comes to understanding their needs. 

The manner in which he lourdes federal power and money over states on the subject of education makes me physically ill.  He used words like 'allow' & 'permit.'  Romney and Gingrich fail in not telling the American people why they want to eliminate the Department of Education and that no child has been any better educated because of it and will not be any less educated after it has gone.  It's an explanation that needs to be had because the Democrats and the NEA have convinced the American people their child's education is tied somehow to Arnie Duncans department's continued existence.  When in fact all empirical evidence suggests that since the DoE was created, standards and scores have all gone down.  That correlation is not aberrational.

The chutzpah award of the night - does he really think we don't have the Internet to check this stuff - goes to his instruction to Eric Holder to form a task force of "senior prosecutors and leading state attorneys general" to find the culprits of the 2008 economic collapse.  He told Steve Kroft but a few months ago when asked why no one has been indicted for that crash, that it would be 'improper' for him to give direction to the attorney general on this matter.  But in an election year all that goes out the window.  Three years - almost four - after the crash and DOJ has indicted no one.  Sure, they've spent millions investigating, wiretapping and prosecuting some nobodys who traded stock tips and caused nothing to crash.  But this administration, that should have had Lloyd Blankfein in handcuffs back in week one of '09,' is never going to arrest anyone who actually caused this.  Tim Geithner, the Secretary of Goldman Sachs, would never permit it.  If we lived in China, both Blankfein and Geithner would have been put in front of a wall and shot by now.       

Overall I found his speech dissembling and filled with disinformation and misdirection.  I look forward to tomorrow night's debate and Newt's deconstruction of the president's proposals.  Ezra Klein of the Washington Post said this morning that the funny thing about the speech was that many of the proposals would have been embraced by past Republican nominees (immigration, education, carbon offsets, etc.)  He's absolutely right and moreover helps explain this wacky primary season in which Republican primary voters don't want another nominee who fits that mold.  It's up to Romney and Gingrich to explain to America why Obama is wrong and how they're different.  They cannot do it as convincingly, plainly and succinctly as Gov. Daniels.  But they had better at least try.

 

1/23/12     Wow, the 4th Amendment Still Exists

                The Supreme Court today unanimously upheld a lower court's decision requiring law enforcement to obtain a search warrant in order to attach GPS devices on automobiles for tracking purposes. What that means is that Justice Alito actually voted to uphold some notion of personal privacy in a law enforcement case - unheard of.   For all my liberal friends who think Barack Obama is the anti-Cheney, I would remind you that Obama & Holder urged the justices very strongly to overturn the lower court.  They argued that police can place tracking devices on anyone's property (including Supreme Court justices) at anytime and for any duration without a warrant.  

This follows a long string of anti-civil liberties positions from this administration.  Unfortunately, I am not able to argue that Romney, Gingrich or Santorum would be better than Bush on civil liberties issues.  But I can make an iron-clad case that neither has Obama.  That's something to remember when you tally up the list of his "accomplishments" and kept promises in November.

 

1/20/12            SOPA No More

                There is so little justice left to be found emanating from Washington that when right actually prevails it gives one some glimmer of hope in the future of our very tired democracy.  The online piracy legislation known as SOPA & PIPA were shelved today by Harry Reid in the Senate and Rep. Lamar Smith in the House.  New media has trumped old Hollywood for the first time in a heavyweight head to head match-up.  Somewhere Lew Wasserman and Jack Valenti are spinning.  This defeat - albeit perhaps temporary - by Hollywood marks a generational and economic shift. This is the triumph of the Internet and digital age over celluloid.

From a democracy perspective you might argue - perhaps correctly - that this was merely new media strategy and money trumping Hollywood money; no great win, in fact, in our long libertarain struggle.  There's some truth to that.  How we achieve our goals has equal merit to the goals themselves.  But in this instance truth won out and I don't believe money played nearly as big a role in this legislative victory on so important an issue as it would have on another equally weighty topic. 

It cannot be a coincidence that on the same day the Justice Department announces the overseas arrest, confiscation, and forfeiture of supposedly the world's largest internet piracy site that House and Senate leaders head to the exits on SOPA & PIPA.  What was this desperately needed legislation for when its supporter's entire argument was undermined by Justice.  SOPA supporters inside Hollywood and on Capitol Hill said this legislation was needed because Justice did not have the authority to do precisely what they did yesterday in New Zealand.  Justice could not have thrown Lamar Smith and Patrick Lehey under the bus more if they had been making Speed III.  It will be left to SOPA diehards like Sens. Schumer and Gillibrand to explain why what just happened in New Zealand actually couldn't have.  Good luck with that.  On that score, expect Sen. Gillibrand to pay a very heavy price electorally for being Schumer's ever vigilant poodle.  There's more money and votes in NY from new media and civil libertarians, on both the left and the right, then she seems to realize.

 

1/19/12                Richard Sheirer  1946-2012

                For better or worse - mostly better - Rudy Giuliani appointed commissioners to the major agencies who were assertive leaders.  Back then New Yorkers knew the name of the Fire Commissioner, the Police Commissioner and the Commissioners of DOT and HRA.  Contrary to those who think Bill Bratton was ridden out of town for his accomplishments, he lost his job because he forgot he had a boss.  I sat in hundreds of meetings with Rudy Giuliani and his commissioners and he respected, admired and most of all, appreciated strong commissioners. These days almost no New Yorker could tell you the name of the Fire or HRA Commissioner.  And for their mediocre performance, who would want to.  Even a quality commissioner like John Doherty, prominent back then, is nearly invisible now. 

One great exception in the 90's was Richie Sheirer - an extremely competent, yet low-key commissioner.  First at the FDNY and then as Deputy Police Commissioner, Richie was the guy I called when something needed doing.  I never knew him to be ruffled by anything.  Always calm and action oriented, he focused on solutions not office politics which distracted many of us. 

When Rudy was finally rid of the pompous Jerry Hauer, I couldn't imagine a better man to head NYC's Office of Emergency Management than Richie Sheirer.  The quiet competence he exuded brought the perfect skill set to a job that required you to keep your head in a crisis.  Like Doherty, he was a quintessential Staten Islander; down to earth, earnest and relatable.

Days after 9/11 at 1 AM when I visited the smoking pit that remained of the Twin Towers, there was Richie Scheirer inside his trailer at the site. We chatted briefly and while I was overcome by what lay before me, I was struck that he had the perfect emotional blend at that moment of solemnity and focus.  It was a nearly impossible job to have gotten that space organized and transformed into the work site it had become in such a ridiculously brief time.  Bearing in mind that all this was done while his offices lay in ruins next to the Twin Towers.  But he did it without the fanfare and credit that another man would have justifiably and deservedly sought.  At the time Rudy Giuiani received the credit for this efficient transformation - rightfully so - but it was Richie who made it happen on the ground.

Richie died suddenly today of a heart attack on his way to work.  He will be remembered by all of us who knew him as the best of New York, the best of City government, and the very best of Rudy Giuliani's administration.  My deepest condolences to his friends and family.

 

1/19/12         The Mary Baker Eddy Recovery   

                The House and Senate approved President Obama's temporary economic relief measures for 60 days (FICA tax relief and extended unemployment).  Contingent upon their further renewal - we've assumed - was White House approval for the Keystone Pipeline Project.  Not surprisingly, as Obama cares little for the nation's economic health save for his re-election and then his legacy, he rejected Keystone. I won't bore you with the litany of reasons why this pipeline is needed and necessary.  I also won't take up your time to expose the lie that underpins the environmentalist's objections.  Put simply they actually believe that by stopping this here, they will curtail the tar sands drilling in Canada.  Pure craziness.  It was reported this morning that the timing of his decision was based on calls to the White House this week from environmental groups threatening to stop giving money to his campaign.  So much for State Department concerns about Nebraskan aquifers.

What now?  As for the pipeline, it's either dead and Canada will commence a western pipeline towards the Pacific as opposed to a Southern one towards Texas or everyone knows this is pure politics and whether Obama or Romney is sworn in, it will be approved next year.  In which case, Keystone and PM Harper will just wait this out.  And what about the tax extensions set to expire in a few weeks?  That's where this could be interesting if Republicans have the nerve.  

Boehner and McConnell need to coordinate a unified message with the four remaining candidates along these lines:

1. No more band-aid approaches to fixing this economy. Temporary extensions of temporary solutions are over.  

2. What ails the economy is a lack of jobs and confidence by business in White House resolve to fix our economic and regulatory mess.  Obama's economic plan amounts to crossing his fingers and praying.  That's no plan and congressional Republicans should stop permitting him to pretend that it is.  It's time for them to say enough and stop dragging this out.  I said six weeks ago that this was a smart course - tie Keystone to these tax renewals.  If Obama rejected Keystone then it was crystal clear he places a far higher premium on politics than job creation and we can all stop pretending otherwise.  Republicans took this course and Obama predictably followed suit.

3. It's now time for the House and Senate to level with the American people.  It is one thing to go deeper into debt providing economic relief to the unemployed waiting for a president's economic plan to kick-in.  It is a boondoggle to pump good money after bad allowing these temporary measures to substitute for an economic recovery plan.  Obama has no plan, he never has.  All his measures have been aimed at social re-engineering, not economic stimulus.  Republicans should stop paying for the balm that keeps people from fully realizing this.  If we stop funding unemployment for 99 weeks -  99 WEEKS!!!! - and revert the FICA tax back to a point where we stop bankrupting Social Security, then maybe the legions of unemployed and underemployed in this country will finally rise up and say WHERE'S OUR RECOVERY????

All Republicans are doing is helping Obama buy these people off until the hoped for 'natural' turn of the economic cycle which Democrats believe has to happen any day now.  In fact they believe that's what we are witnessing currently.  So why has the economy turned at all if, as I say, Obama has had no plan?

I am calling the small turn we are currently witnessing in hiring and economic spending the Mary Baker Eddy effect.  There exists no measurable data that accounts for why hiring has increased or why spending is up.  The economic fundamentals of our economy, coupled with the disaster in Europe, supports no positive outlook.  Instead, I believe that after enduring the longest post-war recession - and the deepest - people are simply tired of it, so they're spending.  We do know that savings are going down and credit card use is back on the rise after a sharp drop over the last three years. 

What we witnessed on Black Friday weekend was not people spending money due to huge bonuses or new-found jobs.  They were spending their savings and racking up credit card bills because they are tired of feeling deprived.  I think people are honestly just trying to will us out of this; something that has never been attempted with any lasting effect.  Like Christian Science's belief in prayer as the most effective weapon against disease - and eschewing all modern treatments - the American people left to themselves have, out of necessity, tried this faith approach to economic recovery.  It won't work because it can't, but in the absence of any presidential leadership this is all people have left.

Congressional Republicans need to help the American people by calling the president's bluff and bringing this to a denouement.  It's doubtful they will heed my advice because they feel Obama won the last time.  They're partially correct only because of the mixed signals that emerged from the House and Senate.  Just as children can't process mixed messages from their parents, so too the American people can't support the Republican party's firm line in the sand if it's constantly moving.  As it says in Job,  'You may come only this far and no more."  It's time to abandon our faith in the Mary Baker Eddy recovery and give the American people some hope in strong, unified Republican leadership on the economy since after three years none is forthcoming from the White House.

 

1/18/12     Won't Somebody Make G.W. Bush Go Away?

                Have you ever had the ironic exchange with someone in which they will taste something, proclaim it awful and then ask if you want to try it?  That's one of those Seinfeld/DeGeneres observations about everyday life.  Well in the realm of conservative politics let me ask this, "you want to read something that will make you go ballistic?"  

In last week's Time, George W. Bush is interviewed on the 10th anniversary of No Child Left Behind (NCLB); his self proclaimed landmark domestic achievement.  In the interview he is asked about the criticism from both the right and the left.  Especially from the Republican presidential candidates.  If anyone still needed proof that George Bush isn't and never was a conservative, they need only read his justification for NCLB.   He says, "Well, No Child Left Behind basically says, If you’re going to fund [schools], like we’ve been doing for years, we in the federal government ought to demand accountability, which seems to me a very conservative principle."

And he's right - if you're a liberal who believes the federal government has a role to play in K-12 education.  An actual conservative would have said: let's get rid of the Department of Education, thereby bypassing the need for federal standards and any accountability of how federal dollars are spent and return control to the states where it belongs. 

Not only did he not once in 8 years propose that, he increased DoE funding dramatically.  This is the burden that all Republicans in 2008, 2010 and 2012 suffer(ed) under: the mushy, misguided, ill-conceived Bush brand of conservatism.  He really should do all Republicans a favor and stick to clearing brush on his ranch.  For every time he opens his mouth, Jeb Bush's 2016 hopes die a little more. 

Here's the whole hapless interview :   Time-Bush-NCLB

 

1/17/12            Me & Ali

                    Today is Muhammad Ali's 70th birthday.  While I don't subscribe to the belief that he was the 20th Century's greatest athlete, I do think he was a remarkable one and for those of us of a certain age and generation he was a larger than life figure in sports for a few decades.  On this day I thought I would quickly share my two encounters with Ali.  Interestingly they happened almost 30 years apart.  The first was in the early 1970's. 

Each year my family would go to the Concord Hotel & Resort in the Catskills for a long weekend.  My father was in the NYS National Guard and they held some sort of annual conference or convention there.  The best part of that hotel - true of most Catskills hotels - was the food.  Not the quality but the quantity.  Food was included in the price of the room.  For breakfast you could order pancakes, french toast, scrambled eggs, poached eggs, blintzes, homes fries, toast, a bagel, a chocolate milkshake and tomato juice.  Or whatever you liked and as much as you liked.  The waiters would bring out all this food and place it in front of you.  Once you were done you could keep ordering.  For a fat kid this was heaven.

I spent a lot of time at the game arcade which in those days consisted mainly of pinball machines and those cool miniature bowling games.  This was in the pre-video era.  I was there with some kid I had befriended and surrounding us one day were two or three large black men in track suits playing pinball.  The Concord wasn't exactly a destination hotel for the minority crowd so these large black men definitely stood out.  Also, unlike now, people didn't go out socially in track suits.  Mobster chic hadn't yet taken hold. 

Somehow we started chatting with these guys and it turned out they were trainers for Ali, who had taken over part of the hotel as a training site for an upcoming fight.  I don't remember whether it was a Frazier or Norton fight. Back then I was a big boxing fan, we all were.  In the pre-cable era, boxing was a huge TV draw and all of America tuned in to see Cosell ringside hosting those media extravaganzas.  Maybe hard for the current generation to understand how boxing crossed all age, race, economic and gender lines back then.  

Anyway, at the end of the day they asked me and my new friend if we wanted to meet Ali.  They took us up to his suite and he could not have been nicer.  Nothing like the cocky, taunting caricature that we saw on TV and in the papers.  He chatted with us for a few minutes and then took some pictures (I gave one of his trainers my home address for the pics, but they never came).  As we were leaving I put out my hand to say goodbye and he faked a right jab to my chin with a wry smile before putting out his hand.  I remember that very well because at that age no one had ever hit me feint or otherwise.  I was startled and then amused at how amused he was.  It would be thirty years before he faked another right to my chin.

In 1997 I was Executive Vice President - Corporate Communications for the NYC Economic Development Corporation.  As such I was responsible for public relations for EDC projects.  That spring, Pratt Industries opened the first new manufacturing facility in New York City in generations.  It was a $250 million paper recycling plant on Staten Island.  It was a major Giuliani accomplishment.  EDC and the Industrial Development Agency had provided $28 million in benefits to Pratt.  I, along with my staff, went to the ribbon-cutting.  

I've always thought it incredibly stupid when companies trot out celebrities at events who have no nexus whatever to the company or product.  Yes, I totally get the value of inviting Eli Manning to the opening of a Sports Authority.  But I would not understand inviting Stephen Hawking to the opening of a new Wendy's.  So it was, that I really didn't understand what Muhammad Ali had to do with paper pulp reprocessing.  But he was going to be the big attraction at this small ceremony. 

Pratt had erected a tent and placed small banquet tables inside for the ceremony. As they announced Ali we all turned to the back of the room, stood and applauded.  Ali began making his way down the middle of the tables toward the podium.  I was halfheartedly clapping no doubt registering a very non-plussed, dismissive look.  I had no idea, however, that I was oozing NY indifference all over my face. 

Ali is walking through the tables on a path to pass right in front of me.  As he approaches me I continue to half clap, he nears me and stops.  Bear in mind that at this point his Parkinsons has basically robbed him of most coherent speech.  But he stopped right in front me, stared me right in the eyes and gave me a look that spoke sentences.  He then faked a right to my chin, winked at me and proceeded to walk to the stage.  

I knew exactly by looking into his eyes that he was saying, "Oh yea, you're gonna be unfazed when I walk into a room?"  I was really kind of speechless as he passed.  Not just because he had noticed how nonchalant I was being, but that you really could converse with someone without speech.  He knew I was being a NY asshole, unfazed by celebrity and I knew he was calling me on it.  My staff at the table thought this was just the coolest moment.  They had seen the whole thing and saw the same look in his eyes that I did.  I think they also loved that Muhammad Ali had called out their boss for being an asshole.  I learned a valuable lesson about humility from him in those few seconds and with that second feint right thirty years after the first.

 

1/17/12    Romney Makes it So Hard to Support Him

                Contrary to the belief of many, I take no pleasure in being proven right.  Last night Mitt Romney definitely affirmed a post here of a few weeks ago.  I said then that what worried me about Mitt Romney was not the consensus concern - he's a flip-flopper and can't be trusted to follow through on his campaign promises.  Rather my worry was that because he was a flip-flopper he held no core convictions and would be happy to adopt - and stridently so - any popular position.  That was on ample display last night.

Mitt Romney is making it very hard to support him.  The more the debates go on, the more he morphs into some version of Bush & Cheney.  Abortion?  This one time defender of choice is now the most pro-life candidate.  Immigration?  While I don't know that this was ever a campaign issue in Massachusetts, I can say with some certainty that had it been he would have taken a very McCain/Bush approach.  Now, he makes Tom Tancredo look Mexican.  Civil liberties?  Chuck American citizens into a black hole with no access to the courts forever.  No problem.  Deny felons any hope of regaining voting rights.  On-board with that.  Expand the size of the military until we collapse under the financial weight of paying for it.  Sign him up.  Open communications with the Taliban so we can get out of that God awful country?  No way.  We're there forever. 

The only area many of us would like to see him take out-sized positions is on taxes and the size of government.  There he hedges and waffles.  Tax rates?  Ehhh, about 25%, maybe.  Eliminate departments or agencies?  He'd "look at it."

And unlike many of my conservative and libertarian brethren, I don't think he'll change these positions.  He doesn't much care what his positions are on most things so he's happy to adopt and stick with whatever he thinks is a winning stance.  The constant refrain of flip-flopping is so troubling, not because of his past but because of what it portends.  Romney knows he can never veer far from anything he has said in the campaign once in office.  The flip-flopper charge plus Bush 41's No New Taxes pledge serve as a spectre over all decision making in a Romney White House.  I'm far less worried he'll change his mind then I am that he will stick with many of these positions until death.  With the exception of immigration, I find it harder to support the things he says as each debate passes.  He speaks of liberty and freedom, but for whom?  

Where is the unpopular stance that he takes out of conviction?  Gingrich says lots of things that aren't particularly popular either within the party or the country as a whole - social security privatization scares the hell out of a lot of people.  But I applaud his stance.  Rick Santorum sticking up for felons?  Wow, that blew me away and will surely not win votes in the primary.  But he's right.  Rick Perry wanting to go back to Iraq - crazy, dangerous and not popular but he seems to believe it.  Ron Paul was roundly booed last night for much of his foreign policy beliefs.  But other than Mitt Romney's past business practices, where is the principled Romney stand that he takes out of long-held conviction that might cost him votes?  Can't think of any.  

He is moving farther and farther away from the Ron Paul crowd, not closer as he should.  That is wrong and misguided for so many reasons.  Mitt Romney continuing to double down on another Bush term coupled with Gary Johnson on the ballot in all 50 states attracting Ron Paul voters and a few disaffected lefty democrats can only translate into a comfortable plurality win for Barack Obama within the framework of what appears to be a slowly improving economy.

 

1/12/12         A Defense of Pardons - Even Bad Ones

                A major problem with our current criminal justice system is the extraordinarily high bar that exists to ameliorate either wrongful convictions or unduly harsh sentences.  This bar is routinely endorsed by the U.S. Supreme Court (Justice Thomas this week once again expressed his belief that there should be no meaningful review in cases involving convicted defendants where exculpatory evidence existed at trial that was knowingly withheld by prosecutors - it brings to mind yet again the Souter remark that "you simply can't treat people this way").  The problem in this country is not that too many inmates have their sentences commuted or convictions pardoned, the shock is how few do. 

When I was growing up, it was routine at Christmas for both the president and the governor to release their long lists of pardons and commutations, much like the Queen's Honors List.  Nearly every state has some provision for executive clemency.  The U.S. Constitution grants the president an absolute right with no review.  It defies common sense to believe that in the year 2012 with the prison population in this country at a record high - and with ever increasing awareness of severe miscarriages of justice - that pardons shouldn't be handed out annually in the thousands. 

And yet George W. Bush never handed out more than a few each year and only to people who had already served their time.  Barack Obama is shockingly worse.  Governors Spitzer and Patterson were niggardly with their grants of clemency.  So what is shocking about Haley Barbour's midnight pardons was not the number - he should have done 200 a year for his eight years - the shock was that these were granted without any rationale. And for men who are seemingly undeserving.  Since Barbour offers no explanation for each, there is no way of knowing.

If you read these pages regularly you know I rant and rave routinely about the cruelty and capriciousness of today's criminal justice system.  But I hold no brief for cold blooded murderers and rapists.  I was in prison with men who committed those acts and many are truly evil.  So I am not here to defend Gov. Barbour's choices - they seem arbitrary on their face, although I believe that like the midnight pardons of Bill Clinton, more will be revealed behind his reasons on many of these.   

I am here to suggest that we not overreact much as the temptation existed 11 years ago.  Bill Clinton's last minute pardons were certainly corrupt.  And there were calls in Congress and in the media to amend the Constitution to check the president's power.  I was opposed then and remain so.  Just as I would suggest the people of Mississippi resist the urge to reform their governor's near absolute prerogative. 

Sadly, the result of the Clinton scandal was that George W. Bush - a self-described compassionate conservative - pardoned virtually no one out of fear of a public backlash.  Obama has been even more timid.  If you're going to pardon criminals then you have to accept that there will be criticism.  But it's a necessary check and the Framers included it because they believed it was essential that it be used.  The difference in Mississippi is that there appears to be no reason for these particular pardons.  It may well be justified to pardon a murderer who has spent real time in prison either because the facts of the case warrant it or he has shown some remorse and reform - taught lepers or found Jesus.  I have no issue with that.  These Mississippi cases don't appear to qualify. 

They also expose this glaring schism we have in America regarding guns.  The Supreme Court affirms the sanctity of the Second Amendment and yet loss of that privilege is automatic for crimes that have no connection whatever to firearms.  What possible justification can there be for someone convicted of a stock swindle to lose his right to possess a firearm but retain the absolute right - in all 50 states - to have a drivers license, something never mentioned in the Constitution.  What connection can there be between insider trading and firearms?  And yet it is the only right you lose that cannot be restored (federally) short of a pardon. 

The shocking thing to me is not that Gov. Barbour pardoned so many people, it's that he pardoned men who murdered with firearms on the grounds they needed to resume hunting.  He could have commuted their sentences which would have freed them, but instead he chose to wash away their crimes and let them own firearms once again.  That is the aspect to me that is inexplicable.  Yes the news media is always going to criticize pardons.  There's always a crying member of a victim's family somewhere who will go on camera.  The news media will show them over and over.  But that fear and the media's attempt to manufacture fear for ratings is a bad justification for not exercising the right to clemency. 

What the Barbour episode teaches us is that you need to do it more often and wisely so that it doesn't come as such a shock.  We have become a vengeful and uncharitable nation.  What's needed is for presidents and governors to explain their reasons - the public is surely owed that.  The cowardly behavior of Clinton and Barbour to do this and then scurry off in the night, that's what's appalling.  Christmas lists of pardons and commutations need to be a regular event in large numbers with explanations for each.  That is one small step that can be taken towards educating the public and normalizing this out of control criminal justice system.

 

1/12/12        Is This the Inevitable Rudy Pivot?

                Two weeks ago Rudy Giuliani appears on Morning Joe to blast Mitt Romney as a flip flopper and basically endorses Newt Gingrich.  I, along with most viewers, were surprised at the way in which Rudy launched into Romney.  But OK, he has lots of lingering hostility towards him from 08.  Their campaigns famously hated each other.  Fair enough, he chose to throw in with Gingrich.  Albeit maybe a little opportunistically at the crest of the Gingrich surge.

Now today on Fox & Friends he launches an attack on Gingrich and Perry and defends Romney over Bain Capital.  It was cringe inducing to hear this highly intelligent man and former leader refer to a boob like Rick Perry as my "very close friend."  But his law firm is based in Texas and as the most corrupt state in the nation, tribute must be paid to the governor (this is what Rudy has been reduced to: New Year's Eve with nonagenarian billionaires in Palm Beach and Rick Perry as his very close friend - just sad).

Is Rudy just calling them as he sees them or is there more here?  Well if you've been reading these pages since 2008, you know that at the end of the day Rudy needs desperately to be in good standing with whichever Republican sits in the White House.  Not so much for invites to state dinners - although I am sure there's a Judith Nathan tiara waiting for just such a showing - but for business reasons.  A Republican White House, openly hostile to RWG, is very bad for Giuliani Partners.  So at some point in the campaign, when it became clear we had a nominee, Rudy would quickly and visibly pivot to champion the nominee.  The problem with Rudy is the lack of finesse.  This results in a less than credible reversal.  Hard to see the Rudy of Morning Joe endorsing Mitt Romney.  But endorse he will and glowingly.  Be interesting to see how Rudy makes his entreaties to Romney given that in 89 he fired Romney strategist Russ Schriefer as his campaign manager.  It's all very murky and as I say, Rudy lacks the finesse to pull this off elegantly.  But it will be fun to watch the Pax de deux nonetheless.

 

 

1/11/12        The Only Meaningful Endorsement This Year 

                So what have I learned after Iowa and New Hampshire?  A few minor things and one very major one.  I learned that Rick Santorum had no bump out of Iowa and that he probably is no threat to Romney from here on out.  I learned that because of his anti-capitalist attacks on Romney, Newt Gingrich is finished in the Republican Party notwithstanding that he might make a showing in some upcoming states.  I learned to like Sean Hannity a little after watching him confront Rick Perry last night about his Vulture Capital comments.  I also learned that Texas must be the most arid political wasteland in America that Rick Perry - the pandering boob that he is - keeps winning and winning down there.  Texans must actually be as ignorant as the rest of America thinks they are.

Those are the minor lessons.  The real groundbreaking news is Ron Paul and the nature of the turnout thus far.  Republican turnout has been down and turnout by independents is up sharply.  Yes we've been focused on Romney and Huntsman and Santorum but the big news here is Paul.  Relegated to fringe status in 08 and expected to have a slightly greater vote this year, no one payed much mind to Dr. Paul and more importantly, no one focused on the Paul voter.  

Garnering 20-25% in the caucus and primary is real and significant.  That kind of showing ain't nothing.  But Dr. Paul's lower percentage in Iowa was more important than Santorum's almost winning numbers.  It doesn't impress me to get right wing evangelical christians to vote for you in a Republican primary or caucus.  In both Iowa and New Hampshire independents could participate.   What we have seen is that Ron Paul attracts independent voters and lots of them.  But more importantly, these aren't your usual swing voters who say they're open to both parties but actually vote for one party 100% of the time.  These are Obama supporters who would cross over to vote Paul.  Look at TV interviews over the last few weeks and see how many Paul voters say there is no second choice, they'll vote Obama.  It's especially noticeable among young voters.  The really fascinating thing to me is how little Paul has in common with Obama and yet these voters will go straight back to Obama if Paul isn't the nominee.

What this tells me is that there is a huge opportunity here for the Republican Party.  Paul's message isn't some mushy Obama-like hope speech and certainly these voters are not attracted by Ron Paul's charisma.  They're enthralled and excited by his issues and ideas - which are substantive.  These are middle road voters and young voters, something every party needs if it intends to remain vital.  What we called the Reagan Democrats back in the 80's, these people are the Paul Republicans.  With a proper and consistent appeal, you could transform these people into lifelong GOP voters. 

Not in my memory do I recall an endorsement with more potential significance to an election than a Paul endorsement would be for the eventual GOP nominee.  Imagine if Ron Paul campaigned with the same zeal for Mitt Romney that he does for himself.  Impossible you say?  Perhaps.  Mitt Romney has allowed himself - God knows why - to become a captive of both the Bush economic team and the Bush defense and national security teams.  There is no daylight between him and them on any issue.  Everything that was wrong with the Bush era is encapsulated by the team Romney has surrounding him.  So naturally Ron Paul wouldn't support him. 

But imagine if Romney realized the vast potential not only in winning, but in changing the fundamental makeup of the party for decades to come by adopting a few key Paul ideas: A bold plan to cut the federal budget; a bold plan to cut the size of government; a bold plan to revamp the federal criminal code and shrink federal law enforcement; and a very bold tax reform plan like Huntsman's.  Romney could never adopt a Paul foreign policy, however.  No one can because he's just wrong and too extreme.  If Obama leaves office Iran is going to be attacked, no escaping that.  But with the exception of the Bush team, most Republicans agree that we should reduce our overseas bases, military presence and troop commitments.  That would go a good way towards meeting the Paul folks on some foreign policy concerns.

Since the Great Depression the GOP has had the Taft wing predominate, the Eisenhower wing predominate, the Reagan wing predominate, and the George W. Bush wing (whatever that is) predominate.  With the exception briefly of one failed election, we have never had the Goldwater wing predominate.  I became a Republican partly because of Ronald Reagan, but mainly because of Barry Goldwater.  People today forget what a staunchly small government, personal freedoms (he was pro choice), Constitution loving man he was.  While pro defense, he was wise and limited in his defense objectives.  Like me, he was a staunch anti-communist and that shaped his views on national security matters during the decades-long struggle of the Cold War.  But he was not by nature a militarist.  For those who believe otherwise, it's only because, again like me, Goldwater never expected communism to disappear in his lifetime.  It's time the Republican Party let the Goldwater wing, represented in modern form by Ron Paul, emerge as its driving force ideologically. 

I do not believe Ron Paul can be elected president.  Moreover, because I believe him to be an anti-semite, I don't want him to be president (I am absolutely convinced that somewhere on Ron Paul's home bookshelf is a copy of the Protocols of the Elders of Zion).  But like Moses who could go to the Jordan but no further, Sen. Rand Paul may be the Joshua who leads the libertarian movement to victory.  The Republican Party needs to view this as a great opportunity, not a burden.  The GOP establishment would be wise to start preparing for that day now by making real overtures to Ron Paul and his supporters with some serious policy concessions in this election and at the Tampa convention.  That is how you keep all those energized and excited independents and young people from reverting back to form in November.  That is how you win with Mitt Romney as your nominee.

 

1/8/12         Groans Last Night at Harvard Law School

                I think the national ranking of law schools will have to be adjusted after last night's debate.  Clearly the legal education that you receive at Harvard Law School is severely wanting.

Mitt Romney is a Harvard Law graduate and somehow graduated without ever learning about one of the landmark Supreme Court decisions not only of his era, but historically.  The 1965 decision in Griswold v. Connecticut is arguably one of the 10 most important decisions the court has ever handed down.  It struck down Connecticut's ban on contraception and opened a new line of legal theory on an individual right to privacy.  How you could graduate law school in the 1970's (or any time since 1965) without knowing Griswold is pretty bizarre - and troubling.

It was clear last night that when Romney was asked about Santorum's belief that Griswold was wrongly decided and state's should have the right to ban contraception, he had no idea of the decision or its legal importance. Most troubling, he was completely clueless that only 46 years ago contraception was in fact illegal in parts of this country.  It's not ancient history, it occured during his lifetime.

His mocking dismissal of George Stephanopoulos's question only helped him with the equally ignorant audience in the hall.  To the rest of us he looked foolish.  Stephanopoulos asked a reasonable and important question and Romney responded as though he had been asked whether state's should have the right to ban spatulas and do we need a constitutional amendment to protect spatulas.  If Stephanopoulos had asked him about Plessy would he have reponded mockingly, "George, I'm not aware that any state has ever wanted to segregate trains."

Furthermore, it's deeply unsettling that Romney has no sense of the import of advocating a Griswold reversal.  I would remind you of its significance back in 1987 during Robert Bork's confirmation hearings.  I would also remind you of an early post on this site where I recounted to you a conversation I had with my new boss, Sen. Alfonse D'Amato during the Bork confirmation.  The senator asked me whether Bork should be confirmed and I responded that I couldn't support anyone's confirmation who advocated reversing Griswold - as Bork did - and found no right to personal privacy in the Constitution.  Those who remember that period recall that Bork's position on Griswold is what launched the liberal attack against him.  It was not mocked back then it was shocking.  Somehow as we as a nation become dumber and less aware of our history we increasingly mock those who do.  That to me was is the most significant outcome last night's debate. 

But to the non legal scholars out there who are political junkies, the news of last night and the last few weeks remains what I wrote after Iowa - the Tea Party appears to have disappeared and 1980's extreme social conservatives are ascendant once again.  That alone is pretty significant. 

 

1/5/12         The "Individuals" of Coalinga State Hospital

                A reader forwarded me a series of reports from a local California radio station about that state's post prison sex offender incarceration center, Coalinga State Hospital.  It's a three-part series that's worth having a listen to better understand how this extremely extraconstitutional system operates.  Nearly every state and the federal government has an equivalent to Coalinga. 

The main defect - and it is surely due to the reporter's inexperience - is the omission of why this is called a hospital, why the inmates are referred to as 'individuals' and why the prison is structured like a mall.  To the uninformed listener, it will surely sound like a pretty cushy set-up for criminals.  What the reporter fails to mention is that all this is designed to skirt - or comply - with the Supreme Court ruling that prohibits jailing sex offenders, even under civil commitment, after they have served their time for the crime for which they were convicted.  Rather, they can be sent for indefinite "treatment" under civil commitment even if, as exists in most states, there is no defined path to freedom.  It's all a horrible sham exercise to make voters feel better at the expense of these inmates' constitutional rights. 

Every day in this country prisons release murderers who by all indications leave just as hardened as when they arrived.  Surely prison psychiatrists know these murderers most likely will kill again or at the very least, the conditions that caused them to murder haven't been addressed.  And yet there is no mechanism recognized by any court that would permit a state to hold an inmate once he's done his time.  Except for so-called Sex Offenses.  Predicting criminal behavior and using those guesses as justification for incarceration is the very premise of Minority Report.  Something most of us who love the U.S. Constitution find chilling. 

But don't trust my word.  The statistics from Coalinga tell the whole story.  Over the last 13 years only 20 'individuals' have been released out of 850.  And those 20 were subject not only to the state's residency laws that forced them to live in the worst areas, they were conditionally released, which means they must undergo constant monitoring, supervision and treatment.  100 more 'individuals' were released by the courts over the objections of the doctors at Coalinga. The worst part of this charade is the fig leaf of wanting to provide "treatment."  If the California legislature or the public were really interested in treatment and not merely extraconstitutional incarceration, they would offer treatment while these men were doing their time.  But they offer none until the inmate is nearing release and they are then assessed to be too dangerous to be released into society.  At that point they are sent to Coalinga for indefinite treatment.  For most of these men the time they have spent so far at Coalinga far exceeds their prison time.

As you listen to the series, notice the deference the reporter gives to the pronouncments of these doctors at Coalinga.  She treats these people as you would a trained clinician.  Having met many, many doctors like this I can tell you they practice vodoo and witchcraft, not science.  This is a multi-billion dollar industry premised on fear with virtually no medical science behind it.  This is all about money.  It stopped having anything to do with public safety or treatment, as we commonly understand that term, a long time ago.

Half the 'individuals' at Coalinga refuse their treatment program.  And who can blame them?  I witnessed a similar program in the federal system called SOTP (Sex Offender Treatment Program).  Unlike the California system which will only provide "treatment" once the inmate has served his prison time, SOTP offers "treatment" while still in custody.  But it's an evil program.  It has one goal and that is to recommend as many inmates as possible for civil confinement.  Like the California program, you are routinely polygraphed and must confess all your crimes, even those for which you weren't charged and the government is unaware.  The government can then take those confessions and indict you anew.  All of this has been found to be perfectly OK by the federal courts. Both system make use of the plethysmograph, also called the penis lie detector.  This involves placing a rubber band like device around a man's penis and showing him stimuli.  The premise is that the plethysmograph will measure arousal.  It's a medieval practice that has been shown to fail as often as it works.  And yet it is widely used as a condition of release, supervision and treatment. 

While in prison I knew a number of inmates who were doing time for non-contact related 'sex crimes' who made no additional confessions and were still ordered to be civilly confined because the doctors 'sensed' or 'felt' that they posed a danger.  Many of us shook our heads in disbelief that these inmates would volunteer for a program designed solely to further incarcerate them. 

The California system is alot like one of those Super Mario games.  There are five levels you have to complete before they will even consider recommending release.  No one, however, tells the inmates what is required or how one can satisfy each level.  It is all designed to be intentionally vague so that the doctor's recommendation cannot be challenged. 

I realize given the society we find ourselves in that stories involving men who have committed sexual acts against children garners little interest and even less support.  But if we can permit the confinement of individuals for acts they haven't yet committed, then where does this end?  Does anyone really believe that Muslim terrorists serving time in our prisons are going to be released less radicalized upon their release?  Of course not.  But no court in this country would condone holding them after their sentence has been served.  This is a frighteningly slippery slope and I ask all of you who read this to ponder its implications in the years ahead if it's allowed to continue.  (click here to hear the whole radio series from KALW:

WEB.SexOffender.FINAL_

1/4/12                Feds and Ex-Cops Running Amok

                    There is much evidence from years of study that the practice by many police departments of allowing (often requiring) off-duty police officers to carry their weapons actually reduces crime.  Even without the studies, the logic is there.  I am unaware, however, of any study that documents how allowing retired law enforcement officers to carry concealed weapons results in lower crime.  In fact, I would be shocked if that were true since there are so many common sense reasons to indicate why that's an awful idea.  Well here in New York we don't need a study.  This week we have a dead federal agent and a dead robbery suspect all as a result of this clearly idiotic policy.   Here are the facts:

Guy walks into a pharmacy, takes out what appears to be a gun and demands money and pills.  Pharmacist hands them over.  The robber heads for the door.  Let me pause here for a second.  At this point what should have happened is that the robber should have been allowed to leave and local Nassau County police called-in to handle this.  While not the NYPD, Nassau County cops would still have had this guy in custody within 12 hours with no shots fired.

But that's not what happened.  In the pharmacy was an ATF agent, completely untrained in local law enforcement.  ATF agents smash in pot smokers' doors with battering rams and perform commando raids on purveyors of untaxed cigarettes with military grade weapons.  They are wholly ill-equipped and untrained to handle situations like this.   

So rather than taking down the guy's license plate number or maybe even tailing him in his car until the police caught up, this ATF agent shoots the robber, he later dies.  While this is happening, a bystander goes to the deli next door to call for help.  The deli is owned by a former cop and one of his customers is also a former cop, both packing heat.  They both rush next door, weapons drawn.  Having absolutely no jurisdiction or any legal right to behave this way, one of the retired cops assesses the scene - a man standing over another man who has been shot - and shots the shooter.  ATF agent dead at the hands of retired Nassau County cop.  End of story.  Ohh and did I mention that the gun the robber brandished wasn't even a real gun?  Yea, ATF agent shot him for no reason apparently.  This is what happens to pampered federal law enforcement when they start thinking they're actually real cops.

At first, the news media is focused on the brave ATF agent and his grieving family.  But within a day the facts as initially presented don't make sense.  As of this writing there appears to be some sort of cover-up in order to shield the ex cop from criminal charges.  Witnesses claim the ATF agent identified himself and said "I'm the Good Guy, Don't Shoot."  Then it became unclear which of the retired cops fired the shots.  Then the big lie emerged from the ex-cop that he was shot at by someone before he fired.  No witness heard or saw a shot from the ATF agent or the robber once he was down.   Putting aside the murky nature of this and how there is clearly an effort underway in Nassau County to cover this up, what in the world were these two retired cops doing with carry permits and why did they involve themselves beyond calling the police?  What possible rationale can there be for not seeking criminal charges against whichever of these guys killed the ATF agent?  How is this not the very definition of negligent homicide?

On what basis do we think that fat, flabby retired cops - years or decades past retirement - have the training or physical reflexes necessary to act in this manner?  There's a reason police departments send officers to the range for routine gun practice and to class for on-going training.  There are no such requirements for ex-cops.  

As part of the Bush Administration's goal of turning America into a police state - deputizing everyone as terrorist hunters - and with the acquiescence of Congress, we got the Law Enforcement Officers Safety Act of 2004 which allows exactly this, retired cops with no further training to carry concealed weapons.  I won't get into the technicals of it.  But even if this law made sense in some fashion, by what authority do ex cops run around shooting people in the middle of an on-going crime scene?

I have no sympathy for any one of the characters involved in this idiocy with the exception of the dead men's families.  The ATF agent should have hung back and gotten info for the Nassau County PD.  The two rambo ex-cops should have telephoned the police.  Result?  All four people would be alive and the robber would have been caught by trained Nassau County police within a few hours or less.  Instead, two men are dead and a third or fourth is guilty of some level of homicide.  All because these cops, outside their jurisdiction or retired, needed to play hero with their guns.  The one thing this country is not lacking at the moment is law enforcement, we don't need retirees pitching in to help. The lesson here?  Leave the policing to the police and no one gets hurt.

 

1/4/12                Round 1 - Iowa

                    Somewhere in Indiana Mitch Daniels is shaking his head in disgust.  The Indiana Governor chose not to fun for president based partly on family considerations but mainly, I suspect, on the realization that the Republican Party was not serious about winning this year. 

Gov. Daniels sought to get some sort of consensus from the base of the party that for this election year they would focus on winning (i.e. Tea Party issues of jobs, deficits, role of government, etc.) and put to the side the social conservative issues that divide the party and the nation.  He received a resounding Fuggetaboutit.  

So what emerged last night from Iowa?  Mitch Daniels' worst fear: the most socially conservative candidate; a candidate who could easily be the heir to the Moral Majority mantle from the 1980's.  Rick Santorum based his candidacy not just on attracting social conservatives - although he surely did - but on their bedrock issues.  He is the most vocal anti-abortion, anti-gay, pro prayer in schools, "pro family" candidate of the bunch.  These were fine issues in 1980, 84 or 88.  In 2012 they are losers.  Especially coming from someone with his record of fiscal irresponsibility in Congress.  Just to show you how out of touch these voters are, 58% of Santorum voters yesterday said their number one issue is abortion.  In this election year, with this president and this economy, their greatest issue in choosing their nominee is abortion.  Somewhere Mitch Daniels weeps.

Here are a few clear results from last night:

1. Mitt Romney was both the big winner and the big loser.  A win is a win is a win.  And he won - by 8 votes.  However, he garnered not a single additional vote over 2008.  He had 25% and 30,000 votes then.  He received 25% and 30,000 votes now.  In fact he did worse because the overall number of caucus-goers was up slightly over 2008.  Moreover, in 2008 he was battling much more serious contenders - McCain, Thompson, Huckabbe.  This year he should have trampled Bachmann, Gingrich, Perry and Santorum.  The broad spectrum of the Republican Party simply does not want this guy as their nominee.  That may not be terribly troubling as far as the long game of winning the nomination.  It is certain death in terms of beating Barack Obama.

2. Whither the Tea Party.  Iowa is Tea Party country and the overall caucus vote should have been 15-20,000 greater than it was in 2008.  Tea Party energy and dynamism as witnessed in 2010 should have been on display last night.  Apparently they stayed home.  There was no Tea Party in 2008 and we had almost the same total this year.  The increase was attributable almost entirely to kids and independents coming out for Ron Paul.  And while that might otherwise show Tea Party strength, his votes came from the other candidates, not tens of thousands of new caucus-goers.  The total in 2008 was 118,500.  Last night it was 122,000.  No one is exciting these enrollees and without that excitement, we will lose.

 3. Good riddance to Rick Perry.  I think the whole nation - which already has a pretty dim view of Texans - has gained new contempt for the citizens of the Lone Star State.  We all know that Texas now rivals Rhode Island and Louisiana as the most corrupt state in the country, but we had no idea they were this simpleminded down there.  This guy - Rick Perry - is the giant killer we were all warned would enter this race and mow down the other candidates.  Perry the crafty, Perry the cunning.  This guy??? 

He's not only an embarrassment to his state, he should make all Texans embarrassed for having elected and re-elected him over and over again.  He took a terrifically simple winning message - I will make the federal government as inconsequential in your lives as possible - and ended up becoming an insincere Rick Santorum (abortion, family values, God, defense of marriage, etc.).  The Bush family are all high-fiving each other this morning.  Justifiably so.

4. Don't dismiss the Paul vote so fast.  Ron Paul got a very healthy 21% of the vote.  Not what he and the pundits had predicted, but one fifth is a nice showing for someone most people believe to be a fringe candidate.  Those young people, independents and a goodly number of active duty military who voted for him cannot be ignored and dismissed, as happened in 2008.  With the exception of the nutty foreign policy that would preclude me from supporting him, I agree with him on most everything else.  There's lots more like me in the Republican Party and the state parties and the nominee are going to have to craft a message to entice them.  Mitt Romney's tax plan and proposals for reducing the size of government, not to mention his wholesale adoption of the Bush foreign policy - and team - make him seem staid, status quo, timid and wavering when many of us want boldness.  There has to be something in the candidate's message to attract and excite the Paul voter.

5. There's still time.  No, there is not time for a new candidate to enter this race.  There is time, however, to position Romney as the candidate we need and want to win this election.  I say that out of no love for the man.  There is no Romney mystique or magic to get caught up in.  But if we give up on his candidacy what are we left with?  Red State's Erick Erickson is this morning attacking Romney, Santorum and Gingrich as big government conservatives and mourning the results from last night.  True, but to what end?  What's the alternative? 

Rick Santorum for all the blue collar family back story cannot win with his pro-family values.  Those are 1980's talking points that won't play in this millennium.  We've moved-on, evolved, progressed - pick your word.  Gingrich, Paul, Bachman?  Not happening.  Huntmann might have and we will see next Tuesday, but I don't believe he will catch fire now.  Romney needs to adopt Huntsman's tax plan and something like Perry and Paul's proposals for shrinking government.  He appears, thus far, completely unwilling to think or act boldly.

What I have said for nearly a year is that we need an acceptably conservative nominee and a rabidly Tea Party House & Senate.  Mitt Romney is conservative enough if you have greater numbers of Tea Party congressmen and senators to push back at the slightest compromise of values.  That's assuming the House and Senate don't degenerate into Tom Delay World and run amok fiscally.  That's again where the Tea Party energy comes in.  There are a few members of the House who were elected with Tea Party support in 2010 who need to be primaried to show that 'going native' has a price.  That's how you keep the troops in line. 

Overall, it was not an encouraging night if you are a Republican and want an end to Obamaism.  If the way forward is not to mold and shape Mitt Romney, or if he's unwilling, then at this moment I see no path to presidential victory in November barring an economic collapse.

 

 

12/28/11            A Tragic Teachable Moment

                You will take note that I try very hard not to comment on the trivial and inane.  You won't see many posts on here about celebrity marriages or reality TV.  In fact, I consider most of what cable news covers, beyond government and politics, to be pretty pointless and generally only aired for prurient interests.  I include in this category the never-ending stream of missing baby and toddler stories. 

In the old days - with the exception of the occasional little girl down the well story (as captured brilliantly in Woody Allen's Radio Days) - the whole nation wasn't focused laser-like each and every time a child went missing.  The utility of an Amber Alert system that flashes a notice on the NYS Thruway that a little girl has gone missing in Oregon has always baffled me.  But beyond the relevance issue, the reason I object so strongly to this coverage is the damage it causes.  The John Walshs and "child advocates" of this country believe it to be a very positive thing that we are bombarded morning, noon and night with an endless repetition of stories of missing children thousands of miles from where we live.  It doesn't matter that the instances of this type of crime has dropped dramatically - as has all crime - over the last three decades.  The damage this coverage produces is to convey the opposite reality.  Ask any suburban mother whether she thinks this type of crime is on the rise and the answer you will get is her firm belief that it's rampant. 

Nancy Grace and the rest of cable news is to blame for that.  It is beyond sick to me that there now exists a whole industry of kiddie kidnapping commentators and former prosecutors ready to appear on any news show that will have them and pontificate for hours about a crime that has yet to be solved.  Worse, there is a popular TV show devoted to nothing but perpetuating the idea that these crimes are increasing exponentially (Law & Order SVU).

With all that said, let me make some observations about the latest case in Indiana.  I do so not because it's topical but because it's a teachable moment.  First, it is beyond horrific what happened to this girl and I grieve for her mother and sisters. 

The facts are these:  mother and three daughters move to a trailer park to care for her ailing father.  Because of Indiana's awful Sex Offender laws, this trailer park had become home to many sex offenders (it met the strict criteria - no schools, bus stops, churches, etc.).  In fact, 3/4 of the homes' tenants were sex offenders, as was the ailing father.  Mother meets and befriends one of the residents and asks him routinely to watch her kids while she works.  He moves away and she asks him to return to continue helping her (imagine the guilt now this mother is enduring).  As usual, she leaves the kids with him and when she returns she discovers that her 9yo has gone missing. 

For a few days that's all we knew and the news was filled with speculation and anger regarding this nest of sex offenders and how something needs to be done since children shouldn't have been living there.  Low and behold the culprit, the family friend/babysitter, was one of the few non-sex offenders living in this trailer park.  This didn't surprise me at all.  This case matched all the statistical facts with the reality of this particular crime.  Fact # 1 - sex offender laws are meaningless since over 95% of these crimes are committed by a friend or family member - no registry can help you there.  Study after study has confirmed this fact.   Fact #2 - crimes associated with so called 'sex offenders' have the lowest recidivism rate of any major class of crime - the lowest!! 

And yet I can guarantee you with 100% certainty that some yahoo Indiana legislator is going to introduce legislation (named after the dead child, of course) to crack down on sex offenders - even though no registered sex offender committed this crime.  The optics of this crime, if not looked at very closely, lend themselves perfectly to demagoguery.

I would much prefer to live in a nation where these types of stories were isolated to the local community in which they occurred.  It's not only not in any way useful to know these things, it's very harmful.  It's not callous to say this.  No normal human brain could function if exposed to the particulars of every major crime that occurs in the United States each day.  You'd be an emotional basketcase in less than a week.  So why these stories?  Because they get ratings and air time for elected officials. 

The Wall Street Journal has an excellent Op-Ed piece today on how we are becoming a nation of neurotics; overreacting to the slighest and most isolated of screw-ups.  And how the media capitalizes on this for ratings.  Butchering children isn't a screw-up.  It's a horrific crime. But it is an extremely isolated and rare thing in this nation of 330 million people.  It happens far, far less than people think and have been lead to believe.  And worse, for a whole class of registered ex-cons (the writer included) the public has been made to believe that it is more important for people to know in every way possible that the guy next door publicly urinated or looked at bad pictures on the internet than it is that your neighbor is a murderer or terrorist - neither crime requiring registration. 

This fear defies any ratonal logic.  But of course this isn't about logic.  From the TV network's perspective it's about ratings.  From the politician's perspective it's about votes.  What is has nothing to do with is reducing crime or creating a safer society.  Hopefully out of this girl's death will come this teachable moment.  Not the one, that I am sure the Nancy Graces will want us to take away from this tragedy, however.

 

12/21/11      Armed to the Teeth 

                I've written on these pages for years how the federal government, not content to abuse its citizens with an ever-growing array of government law enforcement agencies and powers (see last week's Wall Street Journal), has since 9/11 been determined to turn every local, sleepy police department into the NYPD, whether any justifiable security basis exists for doing so or not.  The Department of Homeland Security has sent hundreds of billions of dollars to states and localities for weaponry so sophisticated that soldiers in Iraq would have been drooling for this stuff.   Today the Daily Beast writes a very fine story on how this is turning local police departments into small armies. 

And while the writer doesn't say this, the philosophical and attitudinal change that goes along with the shift from Protect and Serve to armored personal carriers and howitzers on Main Street, USA.  The states are addicted now like crack to this money and all the obscene and useless hardware it's purchased.  Who suffers?  Taxpayers all across America who send dollars to D.C. which recycles them to send to these hamlets for grenade resistant uniforms.  But forget the dollars for a moment.  The real losers are all the citizens in these towns who are increasingly abused by their police departments who have completely twisted their mission from local policing to fighting terror.  Every criminal suspect in these small towns is now treated like a member of Al Qaeda.  They have to be, the cops figure. Why else would the police need this level of weaponry?

Daily Beast: Cops Ready for War

 

 

12/21/11                Just Say No

                There is a great Op-Ed piece in today's New York Times about jury nullification.  I know a little something about this having served on a federal jury and acquitted an obviously guilty defendant.

Today's NYT piece is written by one of the legions of ex federal prosecutors who spend their formative years abusing defendant's rights and basically conducting themselves like organized crime goons, only to reverse themselves and write pieces such as appeared today once out of the U.S. Attorney's Office.  How much nicer would it be if these ruthless prosecutors would respect people's rights and civil liberties while at Justice and not just after they've left.

But I digress.  Paul Butler, a law professor at George Washington University, laments the fact that more jurors don't simply say No to convicting defendants for crimes - that for a variety of reasons - shouldn't be.  In my own case, I did just that.  Shortly after becoming President of HDC I received a summons to federal jury duty.  During voir dire the prosecutor elicited that I was a former staffer for Sen. Al D'Amato and Mayor Giuliani.  He was confident he knew where I'd stand.  After all the info I felt sure that the attorney for the defense would move to strike me.  But he did not. 

The case was pretty simple: a woman works for some type of diamond company in New Jersey.  She smuggles diamonds out over a period of years which are then fenced by a friend in Brooklyn.  The Brooklyn man was the one on trial.  The woman was the lead prosecution witness. There was really no question as to his guilt.  She was more guilty, but this wasn't her trial. 

I lead the charge in the jury room to acquit.  Like in Twelve Angry Men, the vote was lopsided for conviction initially.  But I worked at it over a period of two days and obtained a unanimous not guilty verdict.  Even at the end, not a single juror questioned his guilt.  I will always remember the look on the young Assistant U.S. Attorney's face when the foreman read the not guilty verdict to what was surely a slam dunk conviction.  I think he saw his career in that office disappearing as those words were read.  I had done the same thing five years earlier in a check kiting case while serving on a jury in Bronx County State Supreme Court.  In that case as well, the defendant was without question guilty although it only took me a day to convince the other jurors to acquit.

What our reasons were for nullifying in those cases I will leave to the sanctity of the jury room.  The important lesson is the sacrosanct role that the juror holds in our judicial system.  You can have terrific reasons for acquittal or none at all.  Your verdict is, in almost every case, final.  What Prof. Butler bemoans is that more jurors don't exercise that right - or don't know they have that option available to them.  True, no judge will tell you this, but every American should know their right to reject outrageous or anachronistic laws.  If Georgia still had on its books laws that criminalized gay sex, would anyone who is not a member of the Christian right object to a jury acquitting someone brought up on those charges?  Of course not. 

I would, however, make a broader 10th Amendment argument than does Prof. Butler.  Were I a juror today sitting in a federal courtroom, I would acquit in almost every case as nearly all federal prosecutions these days have no constitutional basis.  They may have a sound rationale for a state prosecution, but rarely does a federal indictment pass the 10th Amendment smell test.  My guess would be probably less than 1 in 10.  I would urge jurors to routinely acquit defendants in federal court.  Were that to happen, you would rapidly see the number and scope of federal cases diminish.  Who but the Justice Department would argue that this would be anything but a positive outcome?

NYT: Jury Nullification

 

 

12/19/11            A Hole in the System

                Over the weekend, ABC's  World News Tonight had a piece on the growing number of abuse allegations against local law enforcement (police, sheriff's deputies, state troopers, etc.) by defendants in custody or citizens stopped routinely.  As part of the story they interviewed the head of the Justice Department's Civil Rights Division, Thomas Perez.  Mr. Perez sadly commented how he wished his phone weren't ringing with so many complaints.  Clearly one of those complaints got sent to his voicemail.

I have told you on numerous occasions that there exists a serious defect in our justice system as to how complaints of brutality against divisions of the U.S. Department of Justice go un-investigated and therefore un-prosecuted.  You cannot have the police policing themselves.  So while the DOJ happily brings actions against Seattle, Chicago, Maricopa County, AZ and dozens of other cities and localities for excessive use of force by police and prisons, who follows-up on complaints against the U.S. Bureau of Prisons?  I was waiting for the ABC News reporter to ask Mr. Perez how many of his prosecutions were against the BOP, but that question never came. 

This morning the Wall Street Journal details the brutal treatment of prisoners at USP Lewisburg.  Inmates who fear for their safety at the cell assignments made by the prison are routinely tied to their beds for weeks on-end.  They call this 'four pointing' as all four limbs are tied down.  Inmates report serious scarring and nerve damage from this treatment.  This is done as a response to an inmate's refusal to change his cell.  A BOP spokeswoman minimizes the horrific nature of this punishment and others used at Lewisbrug.  One inmate has sued and his lawyer is seeking class action status for the hundreds of others who have been similarly subjected to this punishment.  The WSJ details how at Lewisburg Muslim inmates in particular are afraid for their safety, apparently with good reason.

But I ask again, who will investigate this?  Lewisburg is in Pennsylvania.  But no matter how grisly the treatment of inmates at that prison might become, state officials are barred from either investigating or prosecuting anyone because it's a federal prison.  And as I have said, the BOP is a division of Justice and Justice never investigates or prosecutes wrongful behavior at BOP facilities.  Occasionally they will investigate a contract facility like those that house some immigration detainees.  But never actual BOP institutions.  There is clearly a hole in this system and Congress needs to fix it.  There exists no one to investigate the Attorney General when he goes to a Congressional committee and perjures himself.  If the Secretary of Commerce did that, Justice would investigate based on a Congressional referral.  Similarly, there is no one and no sanctioned entity to investigate wrongdoing by the agencies of the U.S. Department of Justice other than the DOJ itself. 

This is especially frightening when one of those agencies, the BOP, holds hundreds and hundreds of thousands of incarcerated individuals without any recourse for them except the courts.  I can assure you from first-hand knowledge that some of the worst, most dangerous prisons in the nation are run by the BOP - far worse than many state facilities.  Their corrections officers know what I know: namely, that they have no fear from any investigative oversight and their behavior reflects that.  This is why you never hear of BOP horror stories; because the agency that would ordinarily tell you of abuse and misconduct - at least on the local level - is the DOJ. 

It shouldn't require a civil class action lawsuit, opposed by the DOJ, to restore some sanity at Lewsiburg.  But until Congress removes the oversight function from DOJ's mandate of itself, these federal institutions will continue to run amok with impunity.  Maybe instead of merely waiting for his phone to ring, Mr. Perez should call the Lewisburg attorney and see how he can help.  I wouldn't hold my breath however waiting for that to happen.

You can read the full WSJ article here: WSJ: Prison Mistreatment

 

 

12/17/11            The Man From Reading

                Can anyone under 70 years old remember a Speaker of the House this clever, wily and successful?  True, he foils with a weak and inept president, but boy is this guy shrewd.  Just two weeks ago the entire news media, left and right, was declaring that Obama had boxed in the Republicans with the payroll tax and unemployment insurance expirations occurring simultaneously and at Christmas. 

Everyone said "the president is winning" and had finally found his footing.  But then, I suspect, the House Republicans noticed what I did, which was that all the time he was 'winning' his poll numbers were dropping.  All this talk of 'fairness' was having the opposite political effect. 

All us Randians know full well that 'fairness' is code for radical, mindless, economy crushing, government command and control and income redistribution.  Read Atlas Shrugged and you'll be shocked by how Obama is quoting nearly directly from its pages.  Sadly, he's reciting the wrong parts. 

Two weeks ago it appeared John Boehner was screwed.  Was he really going to "raise taxes" (even Grover Norquist doesn't believe that reversing this theft from the  Social Security Trust Fund would constitute a tax increase) and end unemployment insurance for millions?  And at Christmas???  Even most Republicans conceded that no, he couldn't. 

And then someone thought of Keystone.  An oil pipeline from a friendly neighboring country that not only provides thousands of good-paying construction jobs, but lessens our dependence on the whims of hostile, foreign, despotic regimes.  Not to mention strengthening the Gulf states refining industry.  Plus the cancelation of which would strenghten an economic adversary, China.

Sen. Reid said No Way.  President Obama said Forget About It.  Although Jay Carney was careful not to explicitly issue a veto threat - since this president never makes good on his threats and his staff has come to that realization the hard way - the intent was there.

But here's the really brilliant part as to how this all worked out.  Although the final agreement was supposedly made without Speaker Boehner's input, it couldn't have worked better for him or damaged the president more. 

Had the Republicans agreed to a year-long extension of unemployment insurance and the payroll tax cut, even with a Keystone provision, Obama could and would have made the declaration called for in the legislation - namely that Keystone was not in the national interest - and the pipeline would be dead and he would have his year-long mini stimulus.  Moreover, he would have given his far left base a sense of victory on both counts.  As for damage, he would have had the Winter, Summer and Fall to recover and blame the Republicans for creating the terrible process that resulted in his only option. All the while having his mini stimulus and 'fairness' issue intact.

As it stands, he has his mini stimulus for two months and must decide Keystone in that time frame.  If he cancels it, he will have lost all the previously mentioned benefits and insured that both pieces of the mini stimulus will die 60-90 days from now (the House will surely not extend this again if he openly kills Keystone).  He will have no extended unemployment insurance, no payroll tax cut and will have killed 10,000 - 20,000 union jobs.  All this in March of an election year in a terrible economy.   Plus it will expose his ridiculess claim that he's focused laser-like on job creation.  Even if he accepts Keystone in the next 90 days he will receive no credit politically for doing so. 

One again the genius Harvard grad and professor tangles with the barkeeper's son and loses badly.  John Boehner, with a hostile Majority Leader and Tea Party caucus breathing down his neck, has managed a juggling act not seen since LBJ had to wrangle segregationist and progressive wings of a majority Democratic Senate.  I think the time has come to stop underestimating the man from Reading, Ohio.

 

12/12/11            The Rise of Newt 

                Every few years in American political life some commentators will pronounce this year different.  For whatever the set of reasons, they'll say that year's political climate will upend all the rules we've come to know about how the game is played.  Almost invariably the American voter swats those notions aside and that year looks pretty much like every other election year.  Just as a successful candidacy by Harold Stassen, Lyndon LaRouche, Jesse Jackson, George Wallace or Ron Paul is always dismissed, so too this year was any thought of a serious run by Newt Gingrich: this was a vanity candidacy, no doubt designed to boost his profile for speaking fees and book sales.  Every milestone thus far in this election cycle confirmed that - his Ryan gaffe, Tiffany's, Greek yachting, etc.  Moreover, he fit into a pattern of quick to rise, quick to flame-out anti-Romneys.  Well here we are.  Three weeks away from the Iowa Caucuses and the front-runner is Newt Gingrich.  But not a front-runner in any Herman Cain mode.  No, Newt's ascension to the top of the polls is the real deal and this may actually be the year when the usual rules no longer apply.

I said a number of weeks ago that I was joining with many in the conservative movement and getting behind a Romney nomination.  I believed we needed to stop screwing around with the joke candidates (Perry, Cain, Trump, etc.) and come to terms with what was left in an all too lacking field of candidates.  The key is Barack Obama's defeat and we needed to stop dreaming of Daniels, Christie, Barbour, etc. and deal with who we actually had.  The Republican primary electorate clearly has other ideas.

You can't put lipstick on a pig and you can't make primary voters believe Mitt Romney is a movement conservative - that's what we've all come to discover.  These primary debates have had an effect like nothing I have ever seen.  TV and newspaper pundits will often say condescendingly that the American voter is shrewd.  But week in and week out while the media was focused on some new debate star, there was Newt Gingirch acting thoughtful, restrained, measured, pleasant and coherent (at least to the GOP).  Voters at home were paying attention and waiting for the circus to end.  When it did - with Cain's withdrawal - they were ready to commit and coalesce around their anti-Romney.  This is real, albeit not unconditional.  Newt can always blow this up with one intemperate quip or a too public policy musing.  With that said, there is no reason to believe that the Gingrich we've seen over the last three months cannot maintain that restraint for another 90 days. 

But here is why this is really fascinating.  Everyone is in agreement that Newt Gingrich cannot beat Obama just as they were that he could not be the nominee.  But let me test that theory.  Watch Gingrich's performance from Iowa on Saturday night under constant barrage from his opponents and contrast that with Obama's performance on 60 Minutes.  Gingrich not only withstood the attacks, he won the debate.  Steve Kroft's sickeningly lightweight interview with it's lack of tough follow-ups exposed a president who is confused, confounded and confined. 

Go back to the summer of 2000 and ask anyone who would win a televised debate between Al Gore and George W. Bush.  Not even the Bush team wouldn have said Bush.  And yet he won all three.  It doesn't matter that he won them mainly through Gore's sighing or threatening body language.  He won.  It is hard to imagine the Barack Obama of that 60 Minutes interview - droning on incoherently about ships crashing on shore for a good 2 minutes to describe the economy and his blamelessness in its current state - winning a debate with Professor Gingrich. 

Obama is so out of touch with how he is perceived due to the tight bubble that  surrounds him.  However vast the advantages incumbents have, this is the advantage challengers have: they are not cloistered; they have to endure the rigors of daily campaign life; mix it up with average Joes and suffer the indignities of the road.  Clinton was an exception to this because unlike Obama, he actually wanted to know what his friends and advisors thought.  Hence, the famous and ubitquitious 2 am phone calls to the FOB far and wide.  Obama doesn't talk to members of congress, labor leaders, governors or even many friends.  He has a few Chicago sycophants who tell him in this state of affairs he's blameless.  You saw that in the interview.  It was as easy an interview as he will ever receive from a network reporter and he muffed it horribly.  It's still early in this process and we have a few months to go, but can you imagine Obama at the hands of the Newt Gingirch we witnessed Saturday night?  If so, then President Gingrich stops seeming so far fetched.

12/10/11            Beginnings

                I was going through old posts this weekend, sorting out ones I started, never finished and choosing which ones to discard.  I had forgotten that 18 months ago I had written a post in response to numerous requests from readers about my childhood and early life.  So I wrote a piece that I planned to post.  This was in early April 2009.  As I was deciding which day to post, I picked up the paper at the train station one morning to discover that my father had been arrested. 

Along with the very kind e-mails about my writings, I have also received a few very nasty comments that I am cruel, an opportunist and a horrible son.  That's fine.  This site is all about open discourse.  I decided to hold off on posting the piece.  Although had I posted the timing would have been completely coincidental, not only would no one have believed that, I had no desire to inflict the same type of PR harm to Ray Harding that he did to me during my worst times.  So I shelved the piece and forgot about it.  So there it sat and I can either delete it or post it.   I've decided to post it.  It's not a flattering picture of my parents or home life.  But it is completely accurate and truthful.  If you have an interest in politcs and government and that's why you come to this site, then skip this post.  If you've followed my story and have some on-going interest, then please see  Beginnings

 

11/23/11            Bush Deux Deux

                In Iowa recently, a coalition of social conservatives were gathering to strategize how to stop the seemingly inevitable Romney nomination.  Someone should tell them that they needn't bother. 

For anyone who watched last night's debate it was abundantly clear that Mitt Romney has become a captive of the Bush neocons.  Granted, they never spent a tremendous amount of time actually affecting the religious right's agenda, but they did enough.  When asked by Ed Meese (good God, Ed Meese?) their views on making the temporary provisions of the Patriot Act permanent, Mitt Romney couldn't say Amen fast enough.  When it comes to cutting the Defense budget he repeats his previous statement that far from cutting, he wants it drastically increased; a position no other candidates takes.  Iran?  Bomb them.  Leave Afghanistan?  Not until some general tells him it's OK.  Don't Ask Don't Tell?  Don't get me started, he wants it reversed. Pro Life?  From the second the guy shoots, even if he's by himself.  Short of converting, what more do these evangelicals want in a candidate?

His campaign advisors are drawn almost exclusively from the Bush/Cheney Administration.  National Security: Michael Chertoff; Michael Hayden; Cofer Black; Eliot Cohen; Robert Joseph; Eric Edleman; Dan Senor, plus a dozen more.  Energy: Jim Connaughton; Andy Karsner; Jerry Holmstead and Edward Krenink.  The list goes on and one in every policy area.

It was OK by me that Romney was going to be a middle of the road conservative, at least by today's standards, so long as we had a very Tea Party friendly House and Senate.  But no one should be OK with a third George Bush term on foreign policy.

The thing about Romney has always been that although he has never come across as genuine, he seemed comfortable in his disingenuousness.  But now he's not only a conservative - which was a stretch - but a card carrying neocon?  Even he can't pull that off.  Add to all this that based on all the campaign filings we have seen to date he's aiming to be the President from Goldman Sachs.  He's their man. Does anyone really want, in this election year, to be known as the Goldman Sachs candidate?

The funny thing to me is that I share the concern Christian evangelical conservatives have about Mitt Romney's authenticity.  But for the opposite reason.  They worry - that because he blows with the breeze - he will promise something now and revert later.  What worries me is that because he seemingly has no core convictions or philosophical base from which to form his views, he will adopt whatever is convenient and stick to it.  They worry that his non-credible positions on immigration, taxes, abortion, gay rights, and national security are ephemeral.  I worry that he'll choose a position out of political convenience and because he has no core, stick with it - why not, it doesn't offend any principled, bone-deep, decades-long held belief.

Like Ann Coulter and Mike Huckabee I was willing to throw in the towel and get on the Mitt train for the sake of the party and the country.  But I absolutely do not want a third or fourth Bush/Cheney term.  Has the GOP learned nothing in the last three years?  This is such a bizarre election season.  But at this moment in time, I would much prefer Gingrich 1 than Bush 2 - Part 3.

 

11/22/11        Here's Why People Want Term Limits

                You want to know what's wrong with our political system?  Just look at this clip from a hearing at the House Natural Resources Committee.  Why does Congress have a 9% approval rating?  Because the public senses that its members are imperious and are openly contemptuous of the American people.  I happen to agree with Don Young's position on oil drilling, which is what the hearing is about, but watch his face, not just his words, when presidential historian Prof. Douglas Brinkley dares to correct and interrupt him.  Don Young has been in Congress since 1973.  This is what happens to people when their own sense of self importance outweighs their sense of humility and public service.  Watch: C-SPAN

 

11/22/11        Apropos of Nothing

                Sometimes I like to share things with you that I come across that I just think are interesting or funny and apropos of nothing.  This is one of those.  So I'm bored the other day and receive an e-mail from a local car dealer offering Thanksgiving specials.  I google the dealership and first see the link for google reviews of this business.  Remember, I'm bored.  So I start reading the reviews.  That's it.  The reviews are the worst you will find anywhere for any car dealer.  These happen to be for White Plains Honda (owned by Paragon Honda). 

But here's the thing that had me laughing: after each horrible review is a response from WP Honda's General Manager expressing Captain Renault-like shock at how awfully this customer was treated.  After the first one or two you think it commendable that he responds and offers to help.  But after the 7th, 8th, 9th, etc., it just becomes really funny how shocked this guy is that he's running this very shady business.   Add to that the lone wildly effusive review that is suspiciously from someone in Kentucky.  Anyway, if you're bored and need a laugh follow this link:

WP Honda Reviews

 

11/22/11        Not a Whitewash, But Also No Justice

                You may recall that last year I wrote about the scandal surrounding Senator Ted Stevens' prosecution, specifically how the federal prosecutors in that case were suspected of  committing numerous acts of misconduct yet none of them were fired or disciplined by the Department of Justice.  Perhaps DOJ wanted to be eminently fair to these lawyers and wait for the Special Master's investigation to conclude.  Well it's done and at the moment under seal.  The outraged judge who ordered the investigation, Judge Emmett Sullivan, is giving DOJ an opportunity to read and digest the report before he unseals it, we hope. 

But a few excerpts from the report were announced by Judge Sullivan yesterday.  Henry Schuelke III, Judge Sullivan's special investigator, found that the prosecution was "permeated by the systematic concealment of significant exculpatory evidence."  Further, he said that the evidence of misconduct was "willful and intentional."  Bizarrely, to my mind, he recommended no charges be brought against these DOJ lawyers because in committing their misconduct - that could easily have sent Stevens to prison for years and did cost him his senate seat - the DOJ lawyers had not disobeyed " a clear and unequivocal order" by the judge.  Huh? 

All that talk that you hear from lawyers about their duty to be truthful and upstanding as "officers of the court," what does that mean exactly?  Unless the judge tells them at the start of a trial explicitly not to frame the defandant with false evidence and perjured witnesses, then it's OK?  It used to be that government lawyers had a much higher obligation to truth and forthrightness because of the immense power they wield.  Now we're told that unlike children who are usually scolded for saying "you only told me I couldn't hit my sister, you never told me I couldn't have Tommy do it," these prosecutors are apparently being given a pass by the court because it forgot to tell the Department of Justice not to frame Senator Stevens.  Yup, that's where we are in 21st Century federal criminal law - you actually have to tell the federal government explicitly not to behave criminally.

But put that aside.  Of the six lawyers in this matter none have been fired or disciplined by DOJ.  Now we have a report that not only says they did great wrong, it says that due to the investigation there was new evidence of gross misconduct that "almost certainly would never have been revealed - at least to the court and to the public," but for the independent probe.  So what does DOJ do now to these prosecutors armed with this Special Master's findings?  Well, we all know the answer to that.  Under normal circumstances we could be pretty sure that nothing would happen to these lawyers.  Under Eric Holder's leadership we know with absolute certainty that they will be protected.  He is after all the man who shielded a U.S. Attorney caught with child pornography from facing any prosecution or even public notice of his crime/predilection. 

I've said it a dozen times on these pages: who will punish the Justice Department and its agencies for crimes and misconduct when they are the ones legally charged with doing so?  There needs to be a new system in place for this, Justice simply will not do it.  I know from having worked in the Senate that Sen. Stevens was not exactly what you would call beloved by his colleagues, but it should nonetheless infuriate them that one of their own had his career ruined through prosecutorial misconduct with no repercussions.  They need to fix this problem now.

 

11/21/11            Sequestration Cometh

                I am among the many who are cheering the apparent deadlock in talks in the Supercommittee.  First, no deal is better than a bad deal and any increase in taxes (including loophole closing without overall tax reform) constitutes, to my mind, a bad deal.  Second, I do not fear sequestration.  The Defense Department not only can absorb a $60 billion dollar annual cut, it's a terrific idea that it be forced upon them since there is no chance they will do it willingly.  The Iron Triangle of DoD, Congressional defense committees and the defense industries will never re-prioritize this nation's global defense strategy and committments  without compulsion.  Not since Goldwater-Nichols has the Defense Department been reorganized - it never happened after the collapse of the Soviet Union.  The time has come to reassess and prioritize. 

If, as expected, Congress in a lame duck session next December scuttles these cuts, well then let the chips fall with the American voter.  But somehow I doubt we will go through this current election cycle without a Norquist-like pledge by all Republican candidates to permit sequestration to occur.  No tears from this observer that the process worked and there will be automatic cuts and no tax increases.  I would call this a pretty good outcome.

 

11/21/11            PBS - Woody Allen

For those of you out there who are Woody Allen fans, I would urge you to watch Part II of tonight's American Masters documentary on the comedian/director.  I am a huge Woody Allen fan and was anxious to see this documentary.  I had no idea, however, that it would be so enjoyable and informative.  He is as relaxed, candid and self-reflective as you will ever see him.  If you missed Part I try and watch it on PBS.org or obtain the DVD.  For even the casual fan, it's a must see.  

 

11/21/11            From UC Davis to Babi Yar

                For almost 70 years historians, sociologists and psychiatrists have tried to explain how the land of Goethe, Bach, Nietzsche, Mozart, Beethoven and Schopenhauer not only became a killing factory but more importantly how average everyday citizens so easily participated in its crimes.  How it is possible that doctors, lawyers and accountants could go from one day studying at Heidelberg to supervising killing squads in Russia the next. Or worse, doing it themselves.  What Hannah Arednt defined so succinctly as the Banality of Evil never really explained the why so much as it did the who.  These were professional men from all walks of life who voluntarily joined the SS to perform this work.  But why?  No one has ever offered a good explanation.

Why do I bring this up today?  In what many of you will find a gross stretch, I thought of these questions while watching the news footage this weekend of that UC Davis police officer pepper spraying those kids.  This was not Kent State or Attica.  Those were planned operations that arguably worked on paper but were executed poorly with deadly results.  I have no doubt - not the slightest question - that if that police officer's commander had told him to un-holster his weapon, walk down the line of protesters and shoot each one of those kids in the head, that he would have gladly done it.  Not even a question in my mind.  Only the sickest, most depraved individual could use Defense Department grade pepper spray as though he were watering flowers on those non-violent kids.  This was not a riot situation, far from it.  Check out the expression on that police officer's face as he's hosing those kids down.  That, as prosecutors so often like to say, is the face of evil.

Pepper spray of that lethality and concentration must be used from a minimum distance of six feet.  Not to do so risks lethal consequences for the victims.  Seeing him do that reminded me immediately of pictures and films of German troops casually walking up and down the line shooting Jews in the back of the head over an open pit.  If you think there is a long road from that officer's actions at Davis to Babi Yar you are kidding yourself.  But even more frightening to me than his soulless behavior was the reaction to it.  That action should have resulted immediately in that officer's arrest and indictment as well as those of his superiors who either ordered his action or condoned it.  But what happened?  He was placed on administrative leave WITH PAY.  Man's depravity to his fellow man always starts small.  And in this case, this wasn't small.  The Chancellor of UC Davis wants a "probe" - first a 90-day probe and now a 30-day probe.  What exactly are they going to probe?  To determine how many other soulless, reprobates work for the UC Davis Police Department?  I doubt it. 

If the point is to determine whether his actions were warranted, what information currently exists that requires added analysis? The police chief astonishingly claimed that the police were surrounded by the demonstrators in defending this action before she realized the whole thing had been captured on dozens of videos and cell phones.  This woman should be fired not for lying, but for just being that stupid and tech unsaavy in 2011 America.

How is it we are producing people like that officer and why the timid response?  There's a ton of villains who help to explain this.  It starts with Richard Nixon's crime legislation, skips over to Clinton, Bush and Obama.  It's a result of 9/11 and our having elevated anyone in law enforcement from merely deserving our respect to revered and worshipped regardless of the tangential nature of their job to anything resembling anti-terrorism work.  Then you have the Supreme Court's decades of rulings that slowly excused all bad police work.  All cops are heroes, goes the current school of thought.  Their work requires our unswerving and blind support - the Fox News view of law enforcement.  That view is generated - and generates - from the fear that if we try and restrain cops even a little we will end up with the 1970's again or worse, 9/11.  None of it is based in any reality.  Rather, it's fear, ignorance and a lack of respect for our traditions and Constitution.

What happened at US Davis has absolutely nothing to do with OWS.  Whether you support their goals or think they're a bunch or whining, smelly kids this was a level of brutality that is hard to comprehend.  Personally I see no difference between Lt. John Pike and Gerald Loughner.  They're both deranged men.  One uses a gun as his instrument of death.  The other uses a hose with poison to torture.  Both find pure justification in their action with no regret. The result isn't the test.  The test is the intent and the pleasure derived from their actions.  I say again, look at Lt. Pike as he does this and tell me that man is sane.

I so very much wish that at tomorrow night's debate all the candidates would condemn this in the harshest terms without qualification.  I know that won't happen.  Even Obama can't bring himself to roundly condemn this for fear - in his mind - of a repeat of Henry Louis Gates.  The Department of Education that was so quick to investigate Penn State has said not a word about this.  Given how completely vestigial DoE is, that's not surprising but at least you'd hope they'd be consistent.   

The road from UC Davis to Babi Yar is a much shorter one than you think.  It was MLK, Jr. who talked about evil flourishing not from the bad people who perpetrate it, but from the good people who acquiesce through their silence.  Who we are and where we're headed morally will be decided in large part by what happens at UC Davis and our national reaction to it.

 

11/21/11        Was This Justice?  You Decide.

                I was going to write today - and will in a little while - about the pepper spray incident at UC Davis and some other things.  But first, I feel in the interest of full disclosure and since I bore you with all aspects of my legal travails, I need to inform you that I have come to the end of the line legally in my fight against NYS judging me to be the worst class of individual residing in the state, a Level 3 Sex Offender.  My lawyer informed me this morning that the NYS Court of Appeals denied my Leave to Appeal the lower appellate court's ruling affirming the trial court judge's designation of me as a Level 3 Sex Offender. 

Here are the aspects of this that just have me numb: 1) This crime is the possession of 11 images - no contact with any minor, no allegation of any contact and no attempt to contact any minor; 2) the chats used as evidence to inflame the judge and court were part of the fabricated series originally used by the US Attorney in my case; 3) my upward departure from a Level 2 to a Level 3 was based explicitly and solely on the financial charges at HDC - nowhere in the SORA Law is there ever envisioned grounds for an upward departure based on such unrelated evidence; 4) the Appellate Division affirmed the trial court judge's decision without any opinion - they felt the case and facts had no merit and were unworthy of their time; 5) the same Appellate Division only months after refusing my appeal, changed dramatically the determination that lower courts must use to determine upward and downward departures in SORA hearings - that change would have guaranteed that I be at least a Level 2.  That decision, months later, basically reversed their own ruling in my case; and 6) the NYS Court of Appeals (NYS's highest court) did not even find the facts and arguments in my case worthy of a written decision - this even after they agreed to permit us to enter as an exhibit the lower court's dramatic reversal.

What do I make of all this?  I don't know. It's easy to say there is no justice because apparently there isn't.  I would love to be able to fall back on the fact that I had a court appointed attorney represent me in the appeal and as such he was some incompetent hack.  Sadly, he was phenomenal at every stage.  I would love to fault his poor representation of me but that would be impossible.  I've had a lot of really lousy attorneys with equally bad outcomes.  This was not the case here.  No paid attorney at any price could have been more supportive or done a better job (his name is Jason Bernheimer and I cannot recommend him more highly). 

The two remaining options are 1. That I am and always was wrong; the facts in this case merited my designation as the most dangerous and predatory class of criminal in our state or 2. Each court, past the trial court, realizes this a gross injustice and would, if reversed, result in this case being precedent setting for future courts and appelants.  No appelate court in the state is willing, in this climate, to render a decision that says: this whole SORA system is out of control and unconstitutional.  The backlash from talk radio, cable television, pandering elected officials and special interest groups would be torrential and the courts in NY don't have the stomach for it on this issue. 

To be frank I don't mind losing as much I resent the fact that each appelate court would not even state the reasons for their refusal in a written decision.  I would very much like a court to tell me why I'm wrong.  I can cope with a cogent rebuttal of my argument.  Even if it were merely on some procedural grounds, as is often the case.  But in each instance the court refuses to tell me.  They just keep upholding Judge Jeffrey Cohen's unprecedented and completely incoherent decision without comment. 

You can take your pick from the above menu.  You know enough about my case - it's not complicated - to make your choice.  This ruling means I now have a lifetime of registration, frequent reporting to the police and heightened public awareness of my whereabouts and personal information.  All this for a possession charge of 11 images.  Were I an Al Qaeda terrorist and served my sentence, I wouldn't have to do any of this.  I suppose given the fact that the Florida man was sentenced to life without parole for his possession charge means that I should be grateful.  But somehow today gratitude is not the emotion I'm feeling.

 

11/18/11            Here We Go Again

                What is it about this country that we seem incapable of learning from our mistakes and excesses?  First, in 1983, came the McMartin Preschool case.  In that case 65 complaining witnesses came forward to swear that they had been sexually abused by the family that comprised the staff of the school.  That case turned out to be the greatest government sanctioned conspiracy against criminal defendants.  What seemed to be, at the time, an open and shut case - 65 witnesses!! - turned out to be a cruel and sick hoax on the McMartin family, their employees and the children involved. All perpetrated by the State of California.

However, out of that hoax came a national call - based on nothing - for sex offender divisions in every police department and district attorneys office.  These were usually headed - and still are for the most part - by deranged, hysterical women who felt a moral and maternal obligation to defend children everywhere against this perceived sea of sexual predators.  Having learned nothing in McMartin, laws were changed to make it easier for children to have their testimony manipulated and manufactured.   No proof?  Any accusation or recovered memory was sufficient.

Then came 2002 and the Catholic priests scandal.  In that instance, based on real evidence and crimes.  Not content with catching the legitimate culprits, out of the woodwork came complaints against nearly every priest and even more bogus suspicions against any adult male who worked with children.  This was the match that lead to today's multi-billion dollar sex offender industry.

So now we have the Sandusky matter.  Does he appear guilty of what we already know and probably a lot more?  I'd agree to that.  But the news media is already loosening what little ethical standards they have to go full-on in this matter.  They've reported on whispers that Sandusky ran a call boy ring to pimp out kids to Penn State boosters.  Credible?  I highly doubt it.  But it's now part of the public record and most people already believe it to be true. 

But again, not content with focusing on the Sandusky case, the media now intends to find other instances of university coaches abusing children in order to make this appear an epidemic - ratings - and sleazy politicians exploit this to call for more general laws to address an isolated matter - votes.  Where does this lead?   Apparently to the Orangemen of Syracuse University.

In 2003, ESPN and the local Syracuse newspaper investigated accusations that longtime Assistant Basketball Coach Bernie Fine had molested the team's ball boys.  They both, independently, chose not to run the story for lack of any corroboration.  In 2005, an adult male filed a complaint with the University claiming he had been molested for years by Fine.  The University conducted a four month investigation and found the charges baseless.  Moreover, the complainant's story was full of holes. So now, in light of Penn State, another adult male surfaces and the University puts Fine on administrative leave. 

It's one thing - and usually half the time they're false - for victims to come forward after someone has been charged to claim "Yes, he did this to me too."  But I take with a grain of salt these types of cases where "the climate" has caused "victims" to surface decades later in totally unrelated cases.  I would need very serious evidentiary proof from these witnesses before I would believe charges against someone with the record of Bernie Fine.  Especially when there is absolutely no reason to believe - and no one has suggested - that Syracuse didn't investigate this matter seriously back in 2005.  

This is not Penn State.  In that case the university and its culture actively covered up and protected someone they had every reason to suspect was sexually assaulting kids.  Syracuse was confronted by adults regarding actions that had happened decades earlier and found, after a lengthy process, that the charges were meritless.  How can anyone fault that?  But some low life, seeking to cash in on Penn State, makes what I believe will turn out to be completely phony charges against Fine.  And what will happen to that accuser should it turn out to be a hoax?  What's going to happen to Justin Bieber's accuser after she manufactured a story about him fathering her child?  Sadly, in both instances nothing.

As in DSK, with Bieber and Fine the legal communities' view is that we should tolerate these types of slanderous accusations and not prosecute these people because otherwise it might chill the legitimate "victims" out there from coming forward.  This is a gross perversion of our justice system and is fostered by both the right and the left in this country.  Under the law there is no fear or favor, as long as you tell the truth.  But if you don't, you should be punished.  It's always been that way.  It's what makes the system able to function.  Absolving perjurers and reducing or manipulating the evidence needed to discredit or incarcerate someone is no "legal reform."  It's the beginning of the end for what little remains of what we call justice.

 

11/12/11            Penn State and a Nation of Twisted Values

                Joe Paterno, with full knowledge for over a decade that one of his closest friends and employees is a serial child rapist, is forced out as Head Coach at Penn State and students riot in protest.  Assistant Coach Mike McQueary witnesses a 10 year old boy being raped in his locker room, casually informs one of his bosses, the rapes go on and he continues in his job with no possibility of criminal charges. 

Meanwhile, a man in Florida, Guevara Vilca, is sentenced to life in prison without the possibility of parole for possessing a few hundred child porn pictures.  He didn't take them or request they be taken.  He had no direct involvement in any child being abused and he is put away for life.  Bear in mind, he had never committed any crime previously and no charge was made that he had ever attempted to harm any child. (Also, remember that an Assistant U.S. Attorney working at Justice in D.C. with similar pictures was allowed to resign quietly with no charges brought).

If Jerry Sandusky had not been involved at Penn State but rather just some guy somewhere who had these charges brought against him his sentence would surely, surely be less than life.  As it stands now he will be crucified in court and by a jury, not for his actions against the kids, but because he brought down Joe Paterno. How is that not a perversion far greater than any pictures Guevara Vilca possessed?

A commentator this weekend reminded us of Jennifer Granholm's comment that automakers had become health providers who also produce cars.  He went on to suggest that many colleges in this country are now sports programs that also educate kids.  The focus on sports teams at universities is now officially out of control that these kids' rapes took a back seat to protecting the team and its coach.  More troubling is that this sickness has filtered down to the high school level.  PBS Frontline recently had a program called Football High that showed how southern towns and teams now look like college towns and teams. Worse, high school kids are now raised like cattle or mutated chickens to be bigger, stronger and tougher.  A coach said 15 years ago no player on a high school football team weighed over 200 pounds.  Now all do and many weigh over 300 pounds.  One kid in Texas was practiced last year in 114 degree heat and wound up in a coma and almost died.  A few months later his mom gave the OK for him to play again and with no change in Texas law relating to practice and heat, might very well end up in a similar coma.  How sick is that? 

In the Frontline program the coach of that boy's team is asked would he stop practicing in that kind of heat in the future.  He answers no.  His team's gotta practice, he says. Who is endangering kids more, the man who pays a 15yo to pose for nude pictures or that coach?  The judicial system would sentence that photographer to 20 years in prison.  The coach?  Well if his team wins, he'll get a raise, a new car, and hero worship from his town.  And if some kids die or suffer life threatening head injuries while playing for his team?  Oh well, as long as his winning average is greater.  And our nation cheers and reveres that coach.

I will not unspeak anything I have said on these pages previously regarding bail when it was Bernie Madoff.  But how is it conceivable that Bernie Madoff, a man who raped no one, was vilified for being out on bail prior to his trial.  His bail was in the millions complete with full time security - paid for by him - and ankle bracelet monitoring.  DSK was denied bail and then only granted it on the most punitive conditions.  His crime was maybe forcing a grown woman to give him a blowjob.  And yet, Jerry Sandosky is out on $100,000 bail with no security and was spotted at the local mall yesterday shopping.  I'm a New Yorker not a Pennsylvanian so it's for the local judge in College State to make these calls.  But where is the national outrage that accompanied the Madoff or DSK bail application compared to the total complete silence on Sandusky's?  If the rationale for bail is that a defandant will return to court and not commit any more crimes while out on bail, how could anyone grant that to Sandusky?

The drug war has gone on for over 40 years, failed miserably, cost hundred and hundreds of billions of dollars and killed countless American civilians and law enforcement.  And yet the flow of drugs into this country is probably greater than ever.  In order to bring one gram of cocaine into this country it needs to be grown in fields in latin america, picked, processed in plants, packaged, transported by land, sea or air into the United States, then through a distribution network where money need be paid for the product.  That extraordinarily complicated process has not been ebbed in the slightest.  Now contrast that with child porn. 

To produce 1,000 pictures of child porn a guy in Khazakhstan or Poland needs a digital camera, a computer, an internet connection and his son or daughter.  All this equipment sits in your own home right now. Within seconds, with no physical effort, he can distribute those pictures to thousands or millions of people in the United States for no fee.  If you cannot stop that gram of cocaine, with all those links in the chain that have to be active, how on earth could you possibly stop child porn?  But more than that, as crazy as it is to suggest that the guy smoking a joint in New York City is causing the border war violence and death in Mexico, it's equally crazy to sentence possessors of child porn as or more harshly than the men or women taking the pictures or performing the sexual acts.  The drug fighting theory that so harshly sentencing users will result in drying up supply has been applied to child porn with equally dismal effect.  Except your destroying even more lives and creating this phony billion dollar sex offender industry.

I realize I am all over the place in this post but the level of hypocrisy in this country on these converging issues just has my head spinning.  A mother sends her child out to perform an activity that nearly resulted in his death and may very well again.  The state provides no rules for football practice in dangerous weather because local communities will be upset if these muscular cash machines can't play effectively.  And yet, if a female teacher in that high school shows one of those 16yos a good time, off to prison she goes for 10 years.   I just can't get my head around that craziness when it's resulting in sending people to prison for sentences we used to reserve only for multiple acts of murder.

This is all part of the sick schism we have about kids in this country.  They're having sex at younger and younger ages.  The federal government wants to vaccinate for HPV at 12 because they're having sex.  They're sexting at younger and younger ages.  Girls are starting puberty in cases as young as 8 according to recent studies.  And yet, we're obsessed with infantilizing anyone under the age of 21.

All I can say in conclusion is that it's too bad Guevara Vilca wasn't a Penn State Head or Assistant Coach (or Justice Department employee).  Then maybe he would only have gotten some bad press and hate mail instead of life without parole.

 

11/8/11                     In the News 

 

The Int'l He-Man Israel Haters Club

                That a French president makes anti-Semitic remarks is as old as the First Republic and before.  That we have an American president who forms an anti-Israel - and I am being charitable with that - Amen corner to the worldwide chorus is something new.

President Sarkozy is caught on an open mic telling Obama how much he hates Prime Minister Netanyahu because "he's such a liar."  Obama says the equivalent of "tell me about it."  His exact quote was, "You've had enough of him.  I have to deal with him every day."   This open Israel hating by a White House is something new.  George H.W. Bush and James Baker were by no definition friends of the Jewish state, but they were well bred men and mature enough not to say such things out loud.  Obama simply doesn't care; he hates Israel and he doesn't much care who knows it.  Except maybe for the next 12 months. 

I've told you previously the genesis of Obama's hatred of Israel.  It's not personal towards Netanyahu - he hates Israel, regardless of its Prime Minister.  We know from recent polling that American attitudes towards Jews are reverting to their traditional mythic stereotypes (i.e. they control the media, they're unethical, they're cheap, they cheat in business, etc.).  This is not surprising and supports a centuries old pattern we've seen in tough economic times.  But usually we have in the modern era a U.S. president who pushes back against this.  Instead, today we have an American president who basically says, "yes, I've always found them rude and pushy myself." 

It wasn't bad enough that Obama went to France and embarrassed his country by once again childishly covering another world leaders face with his hand in front of photographers (are devil horns next?).  No, not content with that he had to further demonstrate his boorishness by telling the media in front of his host how physically unattractive he found him to be.  Now he compliments all that with his "I can't help myself" anti-Israel screeds.  It's instructive for all of us to know we have a president who behind closed doors bad mouths Israel and its leaders.  Come on, don't we all deserve better then this?

 

Outrage of the Day

Let's pretend you are witnessed pulling a gun and murdering someone - this after stalking them.  You think your employer, whomever that might be, is going to pay your salary while you're in jail or out on bail?  Not likely.  But we live in royal times.  What is normal and customary behavior for the masses does not apply to the governing class.

Saturday night in Hawaii, a Special Agent with the State Department's Bureau of Diplomatic Security gets into some kind of an altercation with a patron at a club.  This Special Agent, Christopher Deedy, follows the man after he leaves the club (stalking) to a nearby McDonalds where he guns him down.  It is believed that Special Agent Deedy, armed as he was, was drunk.  Somehow, Hawaiian authorities are only charging him with second degree murder and somehow, released him on a mere $250,000 bail.  But I am not second-guessing the state's criminal justice system.  I am a New Yorker and that's for Hawaiians to decide. 

But I am an American and have every right to ask why in the world is Special Agent Deedy on paid administrative leave?  He's not suspected of maybe, possibly doing this.  He was witnessed and caught on film in front of a McDonalds of stalking a man and murdering him after essentially a bar dispute.  Why are we continuing to pay his salary? 

It's bad enough that in these economic times the State Department is so wasteful as to send a bunch of armed kids on a junket to Hawaii for a pointless Asian economic summit.  It's worse when you realize that this is the level of professional who works there.  Some 27yo kid, supposed to be on assignment, but rather spending his time at a club, armed and drinking.  Then like some total Jersey Shore tool he gets into a bar fight which he carries outside and beyond.  Because he's armed, unstable, intoxicated and immature he murders the guy.  I'm surprised the TSA didn't snap this kid up.  He sounds just their caliber.  Once again, one set of rules for us and another for vaunted federal law enforcement.  That we are, as I write this, paying this cop wannabe jerk is surely the outrage of the day.

 

Hero of the Day

                Who's my hero of the day?  No, not some sports figure or reality TV star.  It's U.S. District Court Judge Richard Leon.  Whenever a jurist actually applies true constitutional principles to a matter, he's my hero. 

Congress authorized the crazies at the FDA to take pretty much any measure they wanted to stop smoking in this country (short of outlawing the product since it brings in so much tax revenue for the states and the feds).  FDA came up with a series of sickening ads that tobacco companies would be forced to cover their packages with and smokers would be forced to carry around (the return of the cigarette case).  The same disgusting ads Mike Bloomberg attempted - unsuccessfully - to force stores to plaster all over their front registers. 

Judge Leon determined that the plaintiffs - the tobacco companies - stood a likely chance of winning their case and enjoined the FDA from proceeding.  In my world view, the evil, greedy, and lying culprits in this fight are the so-called "health advocates" who have made second and third hand smoke actual medical terms where no evidence has ever existed to link them to illness (common sense would tell you that 1/2 of America would have had lung cancer in the 70's and 80's from having grown up in smoking homes and sealed cars in the 40's, 50's and 60's were any of this even medically sound). 

These exceptions to basic constitutional principles for things we passingly don't care for are what lead great nations asunder.  Cigarettes are a legally manufactured and sold product.  No government has a right to force a company selling a legal product to put itself out of business.  Ban the product?  Let's have that debate.  But until we do, these little caveats to fundamental constitutional liberties are deeply disturbing and destructive; true whether in commerce or in criminal matters.  People either have constitutional rights across the board or they don't.  Judge Leon's decision is a nice refreshing pause on our steady, self-created downward decline.

 

Whither the 4th Amendment?

                The U.S. Supreme Court today is hearing a case regarding the technological boundaries of the Fourth Amendment.  Ordinarily I would find the debate an interesting one; there has to be an on-going dialogue as to the limits of Constitutional protections.  But this appeal by the Government is another, and prime, example of how the U.S. Justice Department may be the most duplicitously malevolent entity in the United States. 

The Government's position to the Court is that they don't need a search warrant to monitor electronically someone's car as it traverses streets and highways.  That may well be a legitimate position for law enforcement to argue.  But in this particular case, the FBI obtained a search warrant for this express purpose.  It was only due to their usual bungling which caused the warrant to be invalid that they must now make this argument rather than concede they messed up and the defendant's rights were violated.  Douglas Ginsburg (yes, that Douglas Ginsburg) wrote the decision for the Court of Appeals that found against the Government in this case.  He eloquently warned of the frightening implications should the Government be allowed to monitor its citizens unchecked.

The facts of the case are these: the FBI obtained a warrant to install a GPS and track a drug suspect; they installed the GPS and commenced tracking after the warrant had expired; and further, the warrant (at their request or the Court's) confined the monitoring to D.C. - the suspect was monitored throughout Maryland.  So the government in this very case sought the warrant they now claim they didn't need merely to wipe away the stain of another bungled FBI surveilance effort.  Rather than admit this, they've decided to roll the dice and hope for a sweeping new power and a dramtic diminution of Fourth Amendment protections.  All those MSNBC, Obama-loving, liberals should keep a tally of these types of arguments from his Justice Department.  Even Ed Meese recently said that this Justice Department goes too far in denying citizen's their basic rights to Government information.  

It will be interesting, if sad, to see how many different ways Justice Alito finds that individuals have no right to privacy anywhere, at anytime, engaged in any activity.  He is a walking perversion of the label 'conservative' and everything it stands for.  This whole case is another reminder of the damage done to this country by our drug policies.  Can you imagine how much better the Supreme Court would have been for the last 25 years had Douglas Ginsburg's libertarian leanings been expressed in court opinions rather than Anthony Kennedy's mushy, middle conservatism (the successful nominee for that seat)?

Be very clear that if the Court decides for the Government in this case there will exist a limitless power for them to monitor anyone's movements for any reason without cause.  In this case the Government acknowledged the validity of the defendant's Fourth Amendment rights when they sought the warrant.  The Court should affirm the lower court and leave it at that.

Postscript: Now that arguments at the Court have occured, it's astonishing to note that the Obama Administration's position - vis-a-vis placement of GPS tracking devices on cars - was so extreme, so absolute, so inviolate that even Justice Alito had to rear back and ponder the implications of so sweeping a power.  Let's see if MSNBC gives this the same outrage, justifiably, as they would if Bush's Solicitor General had made the same arguments.

 

Talk to the Hand

                Two interesting political developments this week that may go unnoticed by the casual political observer.  First, Sen. Jim DeMint - the self-appointed godfather of the Tea Party movement - let it leak that he will be making no endorsement this year in the presidential primary.  He prefers to focus his time on electing more Republican senators of the Marco Rubio variety.  His endorsement was sought eagerly by all the candidates not least for what it would do in crucial South Carolina.  But why the refusal from the Senator?  Either he think this campaign is a lost cause for Republicans or he wants to help the next Republican president by having as filibuster proof a Senate as possible.

The second development happened today on RedState.  Erik Erickson excoriated Mitt Romney and laid out the strongest case to date as to why he cannot be the nominee.  Calling him not the George Bush of 2012, but rather the Harriet Miers of 2012 (a very clever line), he catalogs all of Romney's conservative apostasy and expresses new-found admiration for Jon Huntsmann whom he previously ridiculed.

I take no issue with Erickson's denunciation of Mitt Romney's flips or flops, or even the semi-moderate stances even now (bad tax reform proposal).  Essentially Erickson is calling this election over.  He says Romney will be the nominee, he will lose and then establishment Republicans will blame the conservative movement for Barack Obama's re-election.  

I take fault with Erickson's argument and humbly suggest that Messrs Erickson and DeMint should chat.  They each have a piece of a winning strategy and the means to get conservatives to the polls this year.

Before I get to that, however, the problem for me is that we all don't mean the same thing by conservative.  Sen DeMint's conservatism has nothing in common with Tea Party thinking, although he's their darling.  He is an out and out Jesse Helms nanny state conservative.  He loathes the libertarian views best expressed in the Senate by Rand Paul.  He is no more a representative of Tea Party values than is Rachel Maddow.  Erik Erickson, on the other hand, is much closer to Paul than DeMint.

I wrote on these pages a few months ago that the ideal election night victory for me would be a right of center Republican president and a House and Senate overwhelmingly dominated by frothing, rabid Tea Partiers.  This is not inconsistent with where DeMint and Erickson are headed in their thinking.  Nominate Mitt Romney and galvanize the base with all those American Crossroads type conservative PACs on his behalf.  We will have a Republican House and a Republican Senate with ever more Tea Party backed victors.  It doesn't matter how moderate Romney actually intends to govern.  The House or Senate in 2013 is not going to bend over for a Republican president after the Bush/Delay years.  Simply not going to happen. 

The House and Senate will pass sweeping reform legalisation to rewrite the tax code and shrink government spending, perhaps even the government itself.  No President Romney is going to veto any of that if he hopes for a second term and no challenger from the right.  I fail to see how this is a bad outcome from a conservative's point of view.  Don't try and view Mitt Romney as Goldwater or Reagan.  View him as a signing machine, because that's all you want or need him to do - sign legislation passed by an increasingly libertarian congress. 

Jim DeMint is correct to focus his energies on electing more Tea Partiers.  Even if they are more his stripe than mine.  I want a new Congress in 2013 so hungry to cut they will make this Congress look like the freshman class of 1975.  To Erickson's despair, let's get over our disappointment at not having Christie or Daniels and let's get behind Mitt Romney's right hand - his signature hand.  Because a new president signing the repeal of ObamaCare, tax reform, halving the size of the EPA, HUD and Education is really what the current dream is about.  You don't need to love Mitt Romney.  You only need to love his right hand.  That's what this election should be about for conservatives.

 

11/3/11      The NYPD - Unquestionably Run Amok     

                In case there remains any question in your mind as to whom is the bigger threat to one's personal safety in New York City, the NYPD or OWS, please read the following link.  I can't add anything to it other than to ask the pointless and rhetorical question: how is the arresting officer still empoyed by the NYPD?  And the even more pointless question: how does City Hall permit this?  Why does this sort of thing happen with ever greater frequency?  If you read this blog, you already know the answer: no oversight or civilian accountability.  Watch for Mayor-for-Life Mike to blame the student in this matter rather than the NYPD.  That is if the NY press corps even bothers to hold him accountable. 

Lookout: Lacking ID Now a Jailable Offense

 

 

11/21/11          Quote of the Day

"Herman Cain makes Sarah Palin look like Averell Harriman."

Joe Scarborough

 

11/2/11            NYC's New Measure of Safety

                Just when you thought Michael Bloomberg's wasteful incompetence could not be laid any more bare, comes news today that as a result of business complaints all Occupy Wall Street security surrounding the New York Stock Exchange (NYSE) would be removed.  In fact, it's already gone.  The rows of steel barricades along with the dozens of cops that manned them, have disappeared.  The question that remains is why were they ever there?

It's been popular over the last six weeks to trumpet the Mayor's claim that the City has been FORCED to spend millions on police overtime as a result of OWS.  A big portion of that was the cordon that was placed around the NYSE and the surrounding streets.  Fox News loves to mention the two million dollar figure so much that SNL parodied it a few weeks ago (2 Trillion dollars a week!!).

As a regular visitor to the area, I have asked myself (and a few cops) the reason for this massive police presence 10 distant blocks from Zuccotti Park.  I have never received an answer.  And now we know why - there isn't any.  If all it took was one very powerful elected official (Assembly Speaker Sheldon Silver) to complain, then how on earth could this have been justified as some security threat.  More to the point, when a review of this was needed, who did City Hall send?  Not the First Deputy Mayor or even the Deputy Mayor for Operations.  No, they sent the Mayor's political director, Howard Wolfson, to make this determination.  Making it abundantly clear to all that this was never about security but rather a political tactic intended to feed into the Mayor's personal hatred of these kids.

The irony of this Administration is that they have had more Deputy Mayors on their organizational chart than any previous administration and yet no one is ever in charge.  Cass Holloway actually went before a City Council committee and faulted City Hall for poor oversight of City contracts.  Even they no longer deny their dysfunctional management style. 

These barricades - and the dozens of cops assigned to man them - are a prime example of this.  The Police Department, left to their own devices, will always overreact.  In the same way that the Water Board will raise rates too much, the Port Authority will raise tolls too much and the MTA will raise fares too much without proper "civilian" oversight and leadership.  But none of that exists in this Administration. 

Ray Kelly's cops have behaved like thugs and wasted millions of dollars and precious uniformed manpower in their ridiculous overreaction to OWS.  It was for City Hall to step in early and say, "Hey, this is a little too much, let's back off some."  But who would say that?  It would require actual knowledge of what is going on at any time within a City agency and we know no one at Bloomberg's City Hall actually does that or possesses that knowledge.  We now know definitively that the First Deputy Mayor doesn't even speak to the Police Commissioner.

Nothing has changed on the ground - Occupy Wall Street is still there and still 10 blocks away from the NYSE.  So how has the security threat been reassesed that lead to this freeing up blocks and blocks of Lower Manhattan after six weeks?  It hasn't by any conventional measure.  Apparently we don't need a color coded alert system in NYC to tell us the risk of danger.  All we need to know is Shelly Silver's level of discomfort and Mike Bloomberg moves the alert from red back to blue.  Yea, I feel much safer with Mike Bloomberg and his ten deputy mayors pretending to run things.

 

11/2/11            Safeway Response

                For those of you, like me, who have been following the unbelievable story from Honolulu regarding the arrest at a local Safeway, one Rudy Veritas reader wrote Safeway expressing horror at the behavior of their staff, pledging never to shop there again and received this response:

Thank you for your recent correspondence.

At Safeway, we're committed to serving families; therefore, we have asked the Honolulu Police Department to drop all associated charges. It was never our intent to separate a child from her mother and we agree that the situation could have been handled differently. On November 1, 2011, our Division President personally called this customer to share this news. It was a good conversation and we are glad that resolution has been provided.

XXXXXX, should you require further assistance, you may reply to this email or phone us at 1-877-723-3929 and reference Contact ID 19781091. One of our associates will be happy to assist you.

Thank you for shopping at Safeway.

Sincerely,

Safeway Customer Service Team

 

If you don't know anything about this story, here's a link to the AP story:

AP: Safeway Arrest

 

11/2/11             Kudos to George

                It's not very often that you will find kind words on these pages for the Greeks or their governments.   But let me be in the distinct minority today to applaud Greek Prime Minister George Papandreou for his decision to call a referendum on the EU bailout and its attendant conditions. 

Let me say once again that I have as much sympathy for the financial plight of the Greek people as I do for underwater homeowners in the United States.  Which is to say none.  Greek governments, with the support of the people, have for decades behaved in a most reckless manner.  Whether conservative or socialist, each government has expanded this profligate, wasteful and bloated society.  While at the same time, de-emphasizing work and producing less.  This day of reckoning was preordained based on these policies and the time of judgment is nigh. 

With that said, what lies ahead for the Greek people is decades of economic hardship and contraction.  Deprivation probably not seen since the end of the war.  In this, the birthplace of democracy, do the people not have the right to weigh in on whether this path is the right one for them?  I am ordinarily a champion of representative democracy - Mr. Papandreou's party was elected and until the next election his parliament makes policy.  But in so dire a moment, when his signature on EU documents will set the course for the lives of the Greek people for the next 20 years at least, how can anyone argue that they shouldn't decide their fate at the polls.  I can tell you that the American people would have felt a lot better about TARP had we had a national referendum at the time.

Most argue a Greek referendum is pointless because what exactly are they deciding: Accept the bailout and endure hardship or refuse it and cause cataclysm both for Greece and the rest of the world. Either way a horrible outcome.  I would argue that's not their problem.  It is most certainly wrong to have lived this way for decades on borrowed money and now decide you don't want to pay it back.  It's immoral and unethical.  But that is a choice for the Greek people to make and suffer the consequences for both their past actions and their future decisions.

Of course Merkel, Sarkozy and Obama hate this idea.  Greece should never have been allowed to join the Euro and now THEY have to live with that mistake.  But rather than doing the right thing - wind Greece out of the Euro Zone - they will waste hundreds of billions of Euros to delay that inevitable day of reckoning.  German taxpayer money will be used to prop up Greece, which in turn will prop up German banks, which in turn will keep Germany's economy humming along.  All of this aimed at preventing contagion to Italy, Portugal and Ireland.  A Greek default would raise borrowing costs on those countries to a level that would be quickly unsustainable.  They almost are right now.

Wouldn't it be better -  from the German point of view - to skip the middleman and just let Greece default and use that money to assist German distressed banks?  This monstrously artificial construct known as the European Union cannot survive in its present form.  The Common Market was a fine idea; basically a giant European free trade zone.  But once they decided to marry economic and political policymaking to that, the clock started ticking towards dissolution.  Couple all that with the European penchant for inept bureaucracy (Brussels) and this day was only a matter of time. 

I agree that the Greeks don't have any palatable choices.  But choices, however few and bad, are theirs to make.  It cannot be that one man, George Papandreou, with the flip of a pen can consign his people to decades of hardship without their consent.  This is not a post war armistice where a country really has no say in the matter.  The Greeks have screwed up their country big time and now they, not Germany, not France, not America, need to decide how to fix it.  Even if that means big banks are exposed to the toxic waste that results (more MF Globals).  We cannot claim to be democratic nations and then tell the birthplace of our ideals that we will not permit them to decide their own fate because Credit Suisse and Deutsche Bank might object.  Something has gone seriously askew if that's where we are.

 

10/24/11    Bloomberg Blames Bklyn Crime Wave on OWS

                Apparently, the Brownsville section of Brooklyn has become a war zone.  Crime and gunfire are rampant.  This is a situation that has been going on for some time.  Focus on this problem intensified over the weekend when a pregnant mother, shielding her children on the street, was gunned down by a sniper on a rooftop.  Mayor-for-Life Mike, never one to take responsibility for ANYTHING, had to find an excuse or a fall guy to explain this appalling situation.  The natural culprit - and the only rational one - is, of course, his police commissioner, Ray Kelly.  Why has this situation been permitted to grow and fester in Brownsville? 

But the Mayor will never blame his staff.  As mediocre as they are, they are always blameless.  So who gets the blame for this wave of crime in Brooklyn?  Of course, Occupy Wall Street.  How does he manage that?  He tells us that all the resources the police department are using to brutally beat the occupiers could be better spent pointlessly Stopping & Frisking black youth in Brownsville.  But, the Mayor claims, he is shorthanded.  

First, that he is even attempting to use a one month old sit-in as the reason for a crime wave that has gone on for months and months is pretty outrageous.  But the real chutzpah here is his attempt to explain the budget shortfall on the overwhelming police presence in lower manhattan.  This would be like Bashar Assad explaining that he can't continue providing fire protection or sanitation services because he has to divert so much money to the army in order to kill his citizen protesters.  While that might be true, that is a choice, not a necessity.  And a very awful one at that. 

No one is requiring the Mayor to vastly overreact to OWS and devote a completely disproportionate police response to it.  This is his choice and choices have consequences.   He may very well be spending millions on police overtime thus far.  But that money has been wasted given what little threat these protestors pose.  He's essentially telling black Brownsville that it's the white hippies fault that he can't protect them.  He is totally shameless.  And talk about creating class divide.

I wish I had a psych degree because I would love to fully understand what Bloomberg's obsession is with OWS.  He rants and raves against them until Howard Wolfson makes him walk back some of those comments.  Over the weekend he said: No more Mr. Nice Guy, from now on they would need permits to march anywhere.  He was immediately contradicted by NYPD spokesman Paul Browne who said they would not so long as things remained peaceful. 

I can only imagine - in fact we don't have to - Rudy Giuliani's reaction had John Miller openly contradicted something the Mayor had said.  What did Rudy do?  He ordered the communications dept at the NYPD drastically reduced and forced Miller out.  What will Bloomberg do now that his PD has openly challenged him?  Nothing.  He has no control over the NYPD just as he has no control over any of his agencies.  Ray Kelly, in Bloomberg's mind, is the one person left that is universally admired from this administration.  That's wrong of course, but Bloomberg hasn't figured out how loathed his police department has become throughout the boroughs. 

Again, as I have asked so many times, where are the minority legislators blasting this attempt to explain his latest incompetence on OWS?  Remember CompStat?  CompStat, had Ray Kelly continued to use it as Bratton, Safir and Kerik had, was designed for precisely this.  Indicators showing crime spiking in Brownsville would have brought a corrective strategy probably last year.  But Ray Kelly in his heart is a community policing guy, not a CompStat guy.  That's one of the reasons Rudy didn't hire him.  So police commanders aren't being grilled or moved out of their positions for screwing up. Instead, as with all things Bloomberg, the answer is not to fix the problem, it's to misdirect blame.  Yea, the hippies in Zuccotti Park are to blame for this poor woman's tragic death in Brownsville, Brooklyn.  Raise your hand if you're buying that.

 

 

10/24/11            Caught Between Reagan & Nixon

                No American, certainly not this one, is sad to see the ignominious end that came to Moammar Qaddafi.  Further, who wouldn't be happy to see a kleptocratic nation that was ruled by one man and his family gone (Libya, Cuba, N. Korea, Iraq, Syria, Tunisia, Egypt, etc.).  But is his death and departure from the scene good for the United States? That is the important question, not whether we loved or hated Qaddafi.

Starting with Bill Clinton, the United States is stuck in a hazy foreign policy drift between the absolutist freedom vision of Ronald Reagan and the realpolitik practicality of Richard Nixon and Henry Kissinger.  We cannot seem to make up our mind what the goal of U.S. foreign policy should be in a post Cold War world.

From Harry Truman on, we had one major enemy - revolutionary world communism.  The application of that containment policy waxed and waned slightly from administration to administration but the basic elements were the same doctrine Truman articulated in 1947.  The United States would fight where possible (Korea & Vietnam) and through our dollars, military sales and diplomatic efforts we would bolster threatened friendly nations where we found them.  It was easy, concise and had great moral clarity.

Richard Nixon went further - many would say too far - in acknowledging the reality of the world as he found it; the Soviet Union controlled half of Europe and we had to come to terms with that in order to focus on larger, more pressing issues (arms reduction, agro sales, opening to China, ending Vietnam, etc.)

Throughout much of this period was the lonely voice of Sen. Goldwater who said we could not accept this reality and had to push back.  Lonely that is until 1981.  Ronald Reagan believed we had to actively engage the Soviets everywhere.  He felt deeply that people who wanted to fight for their freedom should be aided - the Truman Doctrine actualized globally.  He did not accept, as had Nixon, the realities as he found them on the ground.  So we funded proxies in Central America, Africa, Asia and Europe.  We spent heavily to fight the Soviets in Afghanistan and turn that conflict into their first major loss.  There was no realpolitik in the Reagan vision and he believed it where it was an easy foreign policy choice, Nicaragua, or a much harder one, the Philippines.  The White House even brought back the annual commemoration of Captive Nations Day to honor the Soviet dominated Baltic states. A gesture to be sure, but one that said we did not accept that outcome either.

People I knew in the Reagan Administration always commented back then that you never had to speak to the man to know his foreign policy - it was that absolute.  But the Berlin Wall fell, we won and the world was a different place - Bush 41's New World Order.  What did that mean for our foreign policy, its application and our allies?  Was Panama Reaganesque?  No, Reagan would never have invaded Panama.  Reagan never used U.S. troops to settle personal scores.

The next decade took us through Bosnia, Kosovo, Haiti and Somalia.  With the exception of Bosnia, all conflicts that the U.S. had no national or strategic interest with which to become involved.  Then Bush and 9/11, the Freedom Agenda and Iraq.  The Bush Doctrine, had it been serious, would have meant we should engage in conflicts all over the globe.  But it was a prop, like so much of what came out of that administration.

So now Barack Obama timidly "leads from behind."  Yes, ironically, the one area he forges ahead is the "War on Terror" - there he's far more muscular than Bush.  But in the fight that matters, projecting U.S. calm and strength - keeping the world chessboard filled with more U.S. allies and not less - there he fails miserably.  And that of course is the rub.  What should our foreign policy be, Reagan or Nixon?  The reason Reagan was so good at being a leader is that he kept his ideals intact while still insuring a positive outcome for U.S. strategic interests. 

By late 1985 the Marcos regime had to go.  The was no certainty at the time that the result was not going to be an extremely leftist replacement.  But thanks to U.S. involvement throughout, Marcos was removed and Corrie Aquino replaced him.  Free elections, the will of the people honored and a relatively friendly ally took his place.  All while adhering to our principles.  What better outcome could you ask for?

Contrast that with the Obama record: we leave Iraq an Iranian client state (or soon to be), our relationship with Karzai has become downright hostile (and intolerable), Pakistan is now far more enemy than friend, we called for the removal of Mubarak without any idea or plan to insure a satisfactory outcome, we helped remove Qaddafi who was at the time of the uprising a surprisingly helpful fellow to the U.S. and will be replaced with a big unknown.  The one country on the planet that actually does pose a major military and security threat to the U.S., Iran, feels emboldened and there exists no plan to remove that threat - soon to be a nuclear one. 

The one place we can militarily engage and cause the Iranians great pain would be in Syria.  The Syrian response to their indigenous Arab Spring uprising has made a Libya type air strike campaign ours for the asking.  True, a worse outcome in Syria would be a wholesale takeover of the country by Hezbollah, but if there actually exists a reform movement and a forming opposition, we could shape that outcome.  Instead, we do nothing. 

I did not support the intervention in Libya because I am caught between Reagan and Nixon.  Yes, Libyans deserve to live in a democratic society, but they won't even after all this is over - this is not Poland, Hungary or even Bulgaria.  So in 2-5 years we will have another Islamic state hostile to U.S. interests instead of a pliant and cooperative one.  Why help create that?  I never supported a Palestinian State because not only will it always be hostile to Israel, it will from day one aid and abet terrorists and states committed to harming the U.S.  What U.S. President would support that?  

So from Yemen to Tunisia to Egypt to Libya to Bahrain to Syria to Iraq to Afghanistan we sit back and watch.  When the Obama term is over and you tally friendly nations versus hostile (or unknown) nations the ledger will show far fewer friends at the end of his term then there were at the beginning of his term.  That is not an unreasonable measure of success or failure when assessing a president's term.  I wish the president and his team were intellectual enough that these failures rested with their struggle as to whether they are Nixon or Reagan.  At this point I would settle for them channeling either one.  Sadly, they are more like Jimmy Carter who lost the Shah and then didn't aid the mujaheddin in Afghanistan.  He just drifted. 

We seem doomed at the moment to watch the world being reshaped without any U.S. influence.  The hope from the Carter ashes was that we got Reagan.  But what after Obama?  Are we just destined to have third-rate foreign policy presidents for the foreseeable future who can't find either their inner Nixon or Reagan but instead are very adept at killing stateless men with beards and substituting that for a coherent U.S. foreign policy?

 

10/22/11                Trivial and Apropos of Nothing

                When you watch The Big Bang Theory the lines they're speaking are vetted by an actual physicist who reviews the script.  Even the writing on their whiteboards are real physics formulas.  Of course, except for a few nerdy scientists, no one would actually know if they winged it.  So why is so much attention given to a sitcom and yet TV dramas give so little thought to simple civics.  How many shows have you seen where a U.S. Congressman is in a chauffeur driven limo with what looks like Secret Service protection.  I can assure you except for the Speaker of the House and one or two others, no member of Congress drives around in a limo or has a phalanx of security.

Years ago I went to a taping of the show Murphy Brown.  On the newsroom set were TVs presumably tuned to C-Span.  On one TV was a Senate debate.  On another was a Senate quorum call.  Those two things can't exist simultaneously.  All I wanted to do was point that out to someone.

Recently I'm watching a favorite show of mine, The Mentalist, and I counted 5 major errors.

Jane and Lisbon pull up to the scene of a murder.  The location is a grand estate, house is easily worth $30 million.  When asked who lives there, the answer - seeming to explain the opulence - is a federal judge.  Federal judges makes less than first year associates at major law firms.  Imagine a plot where the answer to explain the wealth of a character was that he was a first year legal associate.  But somehow people have it in their heads that federal judges are all millionaires. Usually on TV when a character is very wealthy there's some mention of how they came to it - software entrepreneur, business mogul, plastic surgeon in Beverly Hills.  But on this show all they had to say was 'federal judge' and everyone says Ohhhh, OK.

The judge has a full-time private security team stationed on her estate as well as a full-time doctor.  All this on $169,300 a year.  In the real world the U.S. Attorney would be investigating this woman for graft. 

The judge says that she thinks the murder is linked to a man with a grudge she sentenced two months prior to 40 years without parole.  Interesting.  Congress abolished parole in 1986.  You'd think a federal judge might know that since she couldn't have sentenced him to serve that.

One of the cops says they are going to visit the man at Folsom Federal Prison.  As any Californian knows, Folsom is a state prison, not federal.  Even forgetting that, there is no federal prison located in Folsom, CA.  The judge is of course haughty and demanding.  The cops from the California Bureau of Investigation (admittedly made up) are terrified of her wrath.  In the real world state cops could care less about the displeasure of a federal judge.  Now a high ranking state judge would be a different matter. 

I realize all this is trivial stuff but I just find it interesting that with hundreds of thousands of men and women in federal prisons and millions more family and friends, TV can't be bothered to even get the simplest things depicted accurately.  The saddest thing is these days what little civics most Americans know, they know from TV shows.  The reason so many Americans are disconnected from the justice system - at least those not currently in it - is because they know so little about it.  What they do know, they've learned from the slanted pro prosecution scripts of Law & Order & the bloodlust ravings of Nancy Grace. 

Thanks to Big Bang I now know who Erwin Schrodinger was and all about his famous cat.  All explained correctly.  But there can't be millions more physicists in this country deserving of accuracy than there are inmates and their families.  Not to mention average Americans.  Can there?

 

 

10/22/11                The Outrage Spreads    

                There are two ways you can become offended by the application of police tactics. Either you're targeted directly or you witness firsthand a misapplication of its use.  

When it comes to Stop & Frisk, my outrage is based on the latter.  When I had money and lived in the Upper East Side there was no opportunity to witness citizens being stopped and thrown up against a wall for the sole crime of walking down the street.  Had that been the case on the UES, the practice would have been stopped years ago from the attendant white uproar.  But we lived in blissful ignorance since no one was forcibly turning out our pockets.

But then I had my troubles, went to prison and moved to a halfway house in the Bronx.  While doing my six months at the halfway house I came into direct contact with Stop & Frisk.  Throughout the area where I lived, cops would routinely stop young black and hispanic men and order them to face a wall and spread.  But that's only half my outage.  On a daily basis I would be walking with someone from the halfway house and on each and every occasion that my companion was black or hispanic they would be stopped and frisked.  On not a single occasion, not once, was I stopped.  I was practically begging for it to happen because as a citizen of this country I could not imagine submitting to something like this and I would not have.

On those occasions when my companion was white, we would go by unmolested.  How else could you possibly explain this disparity if not a pattern of racial profiling?  We know from FOIL'd NYPD statistics that these stops produce virtually no results.  Yes, a few knives and even less illegal guns are found.  But I can guarantee you that if you initiated Stop & Frisk on the Upper West Side or Upper East Side you would find plenty of narcotics to claim justification.  But no white community would ever tolerate being treated this way by its police force - NEVER. 

I have been dismayed that the minority community - and especially minority legislators - was tolerating this.  It came to a head for me during the last mayoral election when Bill Thompson, a black man, was asked during a debate if he had problems with Stop & Frisk.  His answer was essentially that he didn't.  At that moment he lost any claim by right to the minority vote.

I have written on here many times of my shock at the passivity of the so-called civil rights community here in NY in response to Stop & Frisk.  Well maybe that's changing.  Emboldened by Occupy Wall Street, demonstrations have begun in Harlem specifically targeting Stop & Frisk.  Mike Bloomberg's police, bridging no citizen dissent, is arresting the protesters en masse.

If you had a community - black or white - that was riddled with crime, then maybe a justification could be made for this practice if it were carried out without racial favor.  But using this as an everyday prophylactic policing device cannot possibly pass any constitutional test and nor should it.  Let's hope these protests are only the beginning to a vibrant push-back to the last 10 years of ever growing civil rights abuses by this Mayor and his police.

Daily News: Stop & Frisk Protested

 

10/21/11       Why Courts Are an Afterthought in Westchester

                Here's my favorite story of the day: The Westchester Dept. of Public Safety decides it doesn't like men meeting up for handjobs (the New York Times calls it 'forcible touching') at a particular park in White Plains.  No amount of arrests seems to stop these men from showing up.  The cops make arrests but the men keep coming (no pun intended).  The cops even do stakeouts in park bathrooms to catch people "exposing themselves" (hard to imagine how you pee in a men's room without exposing yourself, but these are Westchester cops we're talking about).  So Public Safety gets the bright idea to publish the names and pictures of the men they arrested and claim that these men were guilty of public lewdness.  They decide to do this retroactively as well as prospectively.  And they do; releasing the information on 16 men to newspapers, television and websites.

Only problem is that the idiot cops, not realizing their job is limited to arresting people not prosecuting them, forgot to check with the district attorney or the county clerk as to the disposition of these cases.  Turns out almost all had plead to reduced misdemeanor charges that were non-sexual. But best yet, all the records were supposed to have been sealed as part of the plea.  So these cops are busting open records that a judge had ordered sealed; violating these men's rights in any number of ways. 

So when this all blows up and lawsuits are threatened do the idiot Westchester cops apologize or say: OK, we learned our lesson, we won't try and be cute about law enforcement anymore.  Nope, they blame the Clerk's Office for not having thought to notify them that all these records were sealed.  The Clerk presumably being prescient enough to foresee that the cops would devise this moronic scheme. 

This is just another of a million examples of law enforcement in this country trampling average citizen's rights.  The fault for this rests mainly with the courts, especially the Supreme Court, for perpetually creating exemptions for sloppy or negligent police work.  If cops were held to a rigid standard, their behavior would improve markedly.  Allow them maximum leeway and civil liberties violations mushroom. 

I hope cash strapped Westchester is forced to pay large settlements to these men and then maybe, perhaps, County Exec Rob Astorino will call his Public Safety Commissioner on the carpet and explain to him what the function of his agency is.  Although I'm not exactly sure though that anyone really knows. 

White Plains has its own police department that is more than equipped to handle patroling a park.  This is guys giving handjobs, not Al Qaeda.  Departments of Public Safety always make me think of Bull Connor and the segregationist South.  We never had things like that here in New York until recently.  If you need police, have a police department.  If you need medics, have an EMS division.  But what is the governmental and budgetary rationale for a countywide Department of Public Safety?

Answer. It's all part of the Homeland Security mentality that is trickling down to every podunk county and town in America.  Every tiny community in 2011 America needs an Office of Emergency Management and Department of Public Safety.  Without Stalinist sounding agencies, local communities won't attract the mega federal dollars that Washington is eager to dole out like crack.   And once they exist and are awash in federal dollars they have to find a raison d'etre.  Hence park patrols, bathroom stakeouts and imbecilic attempts at creative policing by the Department of Public Safety.  Now don't you feel safer?

NYT: Cases Sealed, Names Released

 

10/21/11                The Bad Guys Win Again

                Mike Bloomberg today escaped from having a  New York jury actually label him a perjurer.  A sad day, however, for John Haggerty and his defense team and all New Yorkers who care about justice.  Mr. Haggerty was found guilty of Grand Larceny and faces certain jail time. 

I never condemn juries for their verdicts.  They sit there and hear evidence no casual oberver drinks in.  They are bound by the law and the judge's instructions.  I've been on two juries, including a federal one.  It's hard work with little thanks.  Your reward - and it's not insubstantial - is leaving that courtroom feeling that you did the right thing.  Given the juries questions to the judge it will be interesting to hear what their thought processes were in the jury room that lead them to a guilty verdict.  As I said, a sad day for anyone who cares about truth and maintaining an untainted justice system.  The bad guys win again. 

 

10/20/11            Joe Lhota to the Rescue

            Gov. Cuomo announced today that he was appointing Joe Lhota as Chairman & CEO of the MTA.  Boy, that's a good appointment.  Joe was New York City's Budget Director and Deputy Mayor for Operations.  He also served as Deputy Mayor during 9/11 and its aftermath.  Rudy gets all the credit - and deservedly so - for the City's reaction, but it was Joe Lhota who was pulling the levers to keep it all functioning during that period. 

Whenever I comment on how awful Bloomberg's deputy mayors perform, Joe Lhota is one of the stellar deputy mayors with whom I am comparing them unfavorably. Joe has a cool head and is an extremely inclusive manager.  He's also very funny and a nice guy.  As a daily rider of both the NYC Subway and Metro North I am looking forward to his leadership.  I'm sure in a few weeks I will be bad-mouthing all his decisions.  But for now I offer him my heartfelt congratulations.

 

10/20/11            Oops, Sorry for the Perp Walk

                You don't need to be DSK to realize how cruelly unfair the Perp Walk is in a country whose justice system is premised on the presumption of innocence.  All over TV and local newspapers two days ago was Joshua Flecha, the suspect in some butt pinching incidences in Brooklyn.  Immediately upon hearing that a woman picked him out from a line-up after seeing him only fleetingly and five months ago, I knew this wasn't the guy.  Or at the very least her identification would be useless in court if that's all there was.  But like in DSK, the police had to rush him out there in front of the braying reporter mob before they had done any due diligence in this case, about this guy or on this woman.

So now this woman, bizarrely, says he's not the guy and she will no longer provide any assistance to the district attorney.  But the D.A. says it still believes her tale of woe.  What purpose is served by parading this man in front of TV cameras other than to bolster the image of the NYPD - we got our man! And moreover, why would anyone believe anything this woman said or says in the future?

So now Joshua Flecha sits in jail because he had a small amount of pot in his possession when he was arrested.  This infraction, incidentally, being the one Ray Kelly told us not ten days ago that cops would no longer enforce. 

From what we know of Mr. Flecha you probably don't want him as your son-in-law.  But we shouldn't know anything about Mr. Flecha.  That he was arrested and placed in a line-up based on suspicious activity or information, fine, that's routine police work.  But why the rush to judgement and display?  In order to calm the neighborhood prematurely and add a win, all at the expense of this man's constitutional rights.  I can only imagine the number of attorneys lining up at Rikers to meet with this guy and beg him to let them represent him in what is sure to be the mother of all wrongful arrest lawsuits. 

So rather than admitting that they screwed up big time by trusting this woman, the NYPD are going to proceed, unfairly, with charges against Mr. Flecha so they can get something out of this disaster.  This coming the same week there appears to be a new scandal in the NYPD relating to officers faking resisting arrest charges against innocent citizens.  This coming after the confession of a former NYPD detective that planting illegal narcotics on citizens is common practice in order to meet arrest quotas.  This coming after a federal lawsuit against the highly capricious and discriminatory NYPD practice known as Stop & Frisk.  All of which comes in the shadow of the continuing, over-the-top, insane and brutal response to Occupy Wall Street.

Now today we read of a new poll that shows Ray Kelly to be leading in the race for Mayor.  Exactly how stupid are New Yorkers after three times electing a man they woke up the next morning regretting, to consider his police commissioner who is running one of the dirtiest, least transparent and most civil liberties unfriendly police departments we have seen in decades?  I guess we are a pretty stupid lot after all who are gluttons for punishment.  In this case literally.

 

10/20/11            The New 9-9-9

                Want to know how to gin up the Republican base?  Forget 9-9-9.  The three new numbers certain to fire-up middle America and provide the nominee with a strong starting point in the campaign are 1-6-108.  What are those numbers?  Newly released government statistics show that San Jose - the home of private sector entrepreneurial capitalism - has been replaced as the richest metropolitan area by Washington, D.C.; the home of wasteful and mammoth spending not seen since the dawn of man.  

Six is the unemployment rate for the D.C. area versus 9.1, the national unemployment rate.  There are plenty of jobs in the Obama federal government.  So many in fact they can't fill them all. 

108 stands for $108,000 ($107,843 to be precise) which is the average civilian federal worker's salary and benefits according to the Office of Personnel Management (OPM). 

Nothing better demonstrates the fundamental shift that has occurred in our economy then those stats. Starting with the Bush years - and the explosive increase in "Homeland Security" and Intelligence related jobs and agencies - through the Obama stimulus hiring binge, Washington, D.C. has become a job and real estate boomtown.  Jobs are plentiful and newly-built glass and steel cathedrals to federal spending and power sprout like weeds.  Is that what Americans want: for their capitol to be the most lavish and prosperous area of the country?  In fact, excluding North Dakota, the only truly prosperous region of the country.  I'm betting not.

Here are some more outrageous stats courtesy of OPM: 1. Over 20% of the 2.14 million federal employees make over $100,000 in salary alone (not counting benefits); 2. between 2007-2009 the number of federal employees making over $150,000 a year more than doubled (not counting benefits); 3. ten federal departments or agencies have average salaries of over $100,000 a year (not counting benefits); 4. the average private sector employee receives $10,500 in benefits versus the average federal employee who receives $43,000 in benefits; and 5. a recent CATO Institute report tells us that, " “The 62 employees of the US Department of Agriculture’s Office of Chief Economist earned an average $177,000 each in wages and benefits in 2010. And when the recession started, the Transportation Department had only one person earning a salary of $170,000 or more.  Eighteen months later, 1,690 employees had salaries above $170,000."

To demonstrate the total disconnect between the federal government and the people they govern, the salaries around the country for federal employees are more lavish than the governors in the states in which they work.  Here are some examples: 11,000 federal workers in Colorado make more than Gov. Ritter; in Maine 3,500 federal workers made more than Gov. LePage; and in Maryland, 7,000 federal workers make more than Gov. O'Malley's $150,000 a year salary.  In total, 77,000 federal workers made more than the governors in the states where they work.

Remember a few years ago there was some statistic that showed a single woman over 40 was more likely to be the victim of terrorism then get married?  That sent everyone into a panic.  On this topic, here's a similar stat: a federal worker is more likely to die in his job then ever be fired or laid off.  The federal government has a 99.7 job security rate; far less than 1%.  In the private sector that number is at least 3%. 

Barack Obama not sits high upon the wealthiest area of the United States and therefore the world.  Something is very, very wrong with the country when its wealth and prosperity is focused around its central government.  That is a troubling sign that the Republican candidates would do well to bring up in their debates.  When Washington waste and bureaucracy now leads private sector innovation for number one status, we are headed in a dangerous direction.

 

10/19/11            It's Up to The Jury Now

The jury in the Bloomberg campaign corruption trial has begun their deliberations.  Here is hoping that 12 good men and true due their civic duty and acquit John Haggerty.  I don't like judges and prosecutors using defendants to send larger societal messages; I've written that here many times.  But juries can and should send messages through their verdicts if they see a wrong being done in the case at hand.  The wrong in this case was the wholesale and orchestrated perjury committed by the Mayor and his staff.  It would be a fine thing if the jury acquitted Mr. Haggerty on the merits, which would also serve to tell the city that they rejected the Mayor's perjurous and self-serving testimony.  Let's wait and see what happens over the next few days.

 

10/18/11               Fed Forfeiture Run Amok

                Please read the Wall Street Journal's continuing series on federal forfeiture laws.  Imagine this: You have a friend visit your house and he asks if it's OK to smoke a joint. He pulls one out and smokes some pot.  From that single act the federal government can seize your home because you permitted drugs to be sold or used inside your home.  Now I am not suggesting that would happen, but that's hardly the point.  Federal law would permit this and it's been upheld in court.  How frightening is that?? 

That's your federal government and that's your Congress that passed these laws without any concept of how far reaching the powers of the federal government would become.  State courts and state laws - some in conflict with the feds - have no overriding authority in these matters.  Republican, Democrat, it doesn't matter - it's the Department of Justice run amok and no candidate, especially the Republicans, are speaking out about this.  That should be a topic of discussion at these debates.

WSJ: Federal Forfeiture Run Amok

 

10/17/11            Another Bloomberg Con

            As any New Yorker knows, it can be infuriating to see a road dug up and repaved by DOT only to see Con Ed, DEP or Verizon come along a few months later and dig up the freshly paved road.  Bigger problem is that they are not required to put the street back to its shiny, pristine post-paved condition.  Wouldn't it be great if the City had a central repository of this information so that all the various entities that dig up roads could access it and coordinate their work?  Well the Bloomberg Adminstration announced today that they had created such a system.  Awesome, right? 

It was when Rudy Giuiani created the system during his first term. In fact, the problem is a trickle compared to what it was prior to 15 years ago when Rudy and Peter Powers created the system.

The truly shocking aspect of this story is that the announcement was made by the Commissioner of Transportation.  The Giuliani system was installed at DOT to coordinate this over a decade ago.  Does the Commissioner not know this or is it simply another Bloomberg con?  More likely our out-of-touch Mayor has no idea what goes on at his agencies to prevent himself from looking foolish.  Certainly Cass Holloway, Deputy Mayor for Operations, is too green to have prevented his boss from announcing a program that dates back to the mid 90's.

It just never ceases to amaze me how this administration cannot come up with original ideas for which to take credit.  They are so desperate for some good news to distract everyone from our billionaire Mayor's endless foot-in-mouth comments regarding Occupy Wall Street and Jamie Dimon's taxes that they've now been reduced to recycling old Giuliani press releases counting on the youth and laziness of the New York press corps.  No one ever went broke underestimating how lazy reporters are.

 

10/14/11         The NYT Attempts Bloomberg Objectivity

                New York Times columnist Michael Powell today assesses the third term curse as it is currently being played out with only our third mayor to achieve one.  Of course the previous two, LaGuardia and Koch, did it legally.  Needless to say that in the same way there is a NYT style guide that all reporters must adhere to when writing their stories, so too Mr. Powell adheres strictly to the NYT policy of no completely negative stories or editorials on Mike Bloomberg.  So while Mr. Powell's piece comes closest to an actually objective analysis, it ends like all Times stories on Bloomberg - a mixed record.  This on the day that we find out the NYPD has a systematic practice of planting illegal drugs on its citizens and then arresting them in order to meet a quota.  Other than in another column, you will find no mention of that trivial piece of civil liberties abuse in any NYT news story thus far.

It should also be noted that in keeping with another Times edict, no completely positive reference may be made to Rudolph Giuliani's record as mayor or any portion thereof, Mr. Powell cites those wildly transformational eight years with only negative mentions.  So all three Times standing orders were observed in Mr. Powell's piece: No overly negative assessment of the Bloomberg Mayoralty; limit negative news stories on the Mayor; and always compare Rudy Giuliani unfavorably to Bloomberg.  Check, check and check.

Now my criticism of Mr. Powell's piece and the Bloomberg Mayoralty would be unfair were I wrong.  If Mike Bloomberg could fairly be judged as having done a pretty good job, then Mr. Powell's piece might even be too negative and I'd owe the Mayor an apology.  But how do we conclude, 3/4 of the way in, whether he has done well?  What basic metrics should we use?  Try these: the city and its citizens are markedly better off; he has maintained the balance between providing public safety and adhering to the rule of law; the City's finances have been handled judiciously and with great care; he will leave his successor a balanced budget; he has appointed quality staff who have made decisions for the good of all New Yorkers; and he and his administration have comported themselves to the highest possible ethical standards. 

Pick any of these and I could make a purely objective argument that he fails.  Only his last budget remains in doubt, but I assure you his successor will face a mountain of red ink if for no other reason than that he/she will have to contend with the geometrically growing personnel and pension costs thanks to the Mayor's labor giveaways.    

If you read Mr. Powell's whole piece he concludes that Mike Bloomberg is a decent, generous, well-meaning manager.  The record - and every press conference and new scandalous revelation - would reveal that he is a short tempered, petulant, society billionaire who could not transfer his business acumen to municipal government.  He certainly did not bring his vaunted managerial skills to the effort.

Every day the editors at the New York Times are forced to go to the vault and take out the unheralded valedictory that they wrote some time ago to be published on his last day in office and red pencil it.  Adherence to the most basic truths compels them to add a bunch of 'howevers' and 'buts' to their effusive final paragraph.  But the concluding sentences will always remain the same no matter what he does.  They sum up to something like, "at least he wasn't Rudy Giuliani."  Where the Times finds that phrase the highest praise, for the rest of us it only makes us wistful for a hard working Mayor and true New Yorker to whom we will forever owe a debt for his tenacity, vision, strength and most of all, achievements.

NYT: Third Term Blues

 

10/14/11        On My Mind

 

                    God Speaks, Mrs. Perry Listens

                Anita Perry, the increasingly unstable wife of Texas Governor Rick Perry, told an audience yesterday that her husband absolutely did not want to run for President and it was she who convinced him to run.  Originally we were lead to believe that God had spoken directly to Gov. Perry and commanded him to run. Apparently we were misinformed. 

Mrs. Perry tearfully told the crowd how after his last re-election God had spoken to her and told her that he had to run for president (nope, I'm not making this up).  She told Gov. Perry that his reluctance to run was based on his not seeing a "Burning Bush" but that others had (figuratively speaking, presumably).  She then went on to blast the news media, the Republican Party and his opponents for "brutalizing" him because of his faith.   Huh?

The only person I can tell who is being beat up because of his religion is Mitt Romney.  Who exactly has been attacking Gov. Perry's Christianity?  I watch as much MSNBC as I do Fox and no one has attacked his faith.  His debate performance, his inarticulate speech, his lack of an economic plan, his obsession with 12yo girls, his crony capitalism - sure all that.  But his religion, not a peep. 

This is why Rick Perry scares so many people.  Not just in the Democratic Party, but across the political spectrum.  No matter how many jobs Texas creates, I don't want an America that looks and thinks like Texas.  In the same way many Americans wouldn't want an entire country that aped California, just as many don't want a nation based on Texas laws, values and culture.  This extremely cynical use of religion to attack his critics and gin up his base is really sickening and, dare I say, unAmerican.  

The reason, as I have stated here before, that Gov. Perry keeps winning in Texas is that he is a complete reflection of those values - he personifies them.  But the pride in executions, wild west gun laws, a lack of any church/state separation and a political system that Boss Tweed or the late Mayor Daley would blanche at is not something any of us want played out nationally.  State sponsored prayer rallies, praying for rain and actually believing God is speaking directly to you, makes perfect sense to most Texans.  It scares the bejesus out of the rest of us. 

Mrs. Perry can't understand this because like Saddam Hussein, who never left Iraq and couldn't make informed decisions having no world view, the Perrys can't process how non-adoring non-Texans don't relate to them the way the people at home do.  All the hype that Perry is a much more savvy George Bush was just dead wrong.  He's an Aggie hick who never ventured out of his comfort zone after college. 

The question here is, what else would the Perrys feel compelled to do if God commanded them once they were in the White House?  And how often exactly is God speaking to them directly?  There's a word for people like this, it's called schizophrenia.  Schizophrenics are defined by those who hear voices.  Check.  Delusional. Check.  Paranoid (everyone's attacking me because of my faith).  Check.  Just to be clear, I am not questioning their faith; I am questioning their sanity.

Here's hoping the next time God speaks to Mrs. Perry he tells her he was just kidding and that even he is now OK with Mitt Romney. 

 

                    Never Prouder to Be a Jew

                I am always proud to be a Jew and a Zionist but never more so than when I heard the news regarding the trade for Gilead Shilat.  It's ironic I feel this way since had I been a cabinet or Knesset member I probably would have voted against it.  The American in me tells me that you can't justify freeing a thousand Palestinian thugs, murderers and terrorists.  That's the reason I would vote against this swap.  But the Jew in me is so proud once again that Israel reaffirms the value it places on a single Israeli life; especially an Israeli soldier.  Moreover, the entire nation supports the decision.

No nation on Earth, especially the United States, would place this much sanctity on a single soldier's life; notwithstanding all the blather about "supporting the troops."  Public opinion would be sharply against any such trade if something similar were proposed here. 

The ratio for this trade doesn't sound right to me though.  It would take far more than 1,100 Palestinians to equal the value of a single brave Israeli soldier.  Cheneyites love to talk about how our enemies hate us because of our freedoms and way of life.  Israel proves by example yet again why its neighbors hate her so much: no Arab nation would ever have this much angst and grief for a single captured solider or take such extraordinary steps to win his release.  Nations that shoot their own citizens in the streets for speaking out can only look upon this deal and scratch their heads.  The next time Barack Obama hates on Israel ask yourself if he would go to these lengths to secure the release of a single American soldier.  I can assure you he would not.   

 

                    The Final Straw

                In a New York City courtroom yesterday a former NYPD Detective testified that it is common for officers assigned to the Narcotics Division to plant drugs on citizens in order to meet a quota for arrests within the department. 

According to his testimony this practice is rampant in Mike Bloomberg and Ray Kelly's police department.  Not bad enough to needlessly violate the civil rights of almost 3/4 of a million New Yorkers each year with Stop & Frisk, not content by wildly overreacting with extreme force to Occupy Wall Street, not even satisfied to ring the city with cameras, now we have police so rogue it appears to be almost policy that they plant evidence on civilians to make arrests in order to meet a quota.  It is beyond shocking. 

And when asked to respond to this, the PD had no comment.  In another time and age the New York City Council would have scheduled hearings within hours of that testimony.  Speaker Quinn, refusing once again to embarrass her patron, is completely silent. 

This is frankly intolerable and is one more sign of what happens when you have a Mayor and City Hall that are totally disengaged.  Mike Bloomberg has left Ray Kelly alone with no oversight for ten years.  This outrageous practice is the direct result of that. 

Rudy Giuliani and Bill Bratton initiated CompStat in order to hold commanders accountable for their precincts and divisions.  There's a philosophy behind that.  Without oversight and accountability inertia sets in.  And in the police department that leads to corruption.  We learned last week that the city's First Deputy Mayor never meets with the Police Commissioner.  Mike Bloomberg similarly provides no oversight. 

Routinely planting drugs on citizens to meet a quota.  Can you honestly get your head around that?  I can't and I have seen a lot.

 

10/13/11            A Question of Faith

                Is Mitt Romney's faith fair game?  Do journalists and other candidates have a right and obligation to question him about it?  The answer is yes and no.  It is no one's business, candidate or not, how Gov. Romney prays or to whom he prays.  Further, I would not consider it reasonable or useful to ask a candidate be he Christian or Jew whether he believes Noah actually had an arc or if God created Eve from Adam's rib.  Events that occurred 2,000 or 5,000 years ago are not helpful in learning about a man's mind or philosophy. 

But I do think it is perfectly fair to ask a candidate about the tenets of his Church as practiced today or during his lifetime as a parishioner.  It's perfectly appropriate, in my view, to ask a Catholic candidate for Governor whether his church's view on abortion or gay rights would influence his legislative agenda once in office.  The religious views a candidate holds are instructional to me as they demonstrate a man's thinking. 

We have a breakthrough moment here with a Mormon coming very close to the Oval Office.  Personally, I think the Mormon faith is on par with Scientology.  I have only met Mormons who were decent, friendly people.  But have you ever met someone in your life who looked totally normal until you struck up a conversation with them and very quickly came to realize that the person was nuts?  To me, that's Mormonism.  Is it useful to know if Mitt Romney really thinks Joseph Smith spoke to angels and found golden plates that he immediately lost?  No, it's not.  But he belongs to a Church that as recently as 1978 refused the priesthood to black people.  If he belonged to a country club that had refused membership to black people in 1978 I guarantee you'd be hearing all about it. 

I'm not a Christian so it doesn't offend me that Mormons adopt an additional text beyond the Bible, as it does so many evangelicals.  But I am cautious of electing a man who holds to the weird precepts of the Mormon faith (i.e multiple Heavens, multiple Gods, Jesus visiting America, etc.).  Faith is about belief where there is no rationality.  But if a candidate came forward who said he believed the only path to spiritual enlightenment came through revering muskrats as God's chosen oracles, I think we'd have a problem with that.  It doesn't harm anyone to believe that, but it makes you question what else this person is capable of believing.

Rick Perry should be roundly condemned for using that stooge Jeffries as a front to start what he's hoping will become a disqualifying debate among primary voters.  It's a waste of everyone's time to debate whether Mormons are Christians.  If Pastor Jeffries comments are meant to imply that only Christians can be president, that's hateful.  If not, then what was the point he was trying to make other than sowing discord?  

I would prefer if we kept religion out of presidential politics.  Its use in the last 30 years has only been cynical.  George W. Bush is a born again Christian who shredded the Constitution and started two endless wars.  His faith has no relevance to me as it relates to the rest of that description.  Only what he did - versus what he said he would do - is relevant to me. 

But just as it was extremely revealing to learn that Jerry Ford did not believe that Eastern Europe was under Soviet domination - and all that that implied about his thinking and decision making - so too I'd like to know more about Mitt Romney's belief in the recent elevation of black people to human status.  I would never vote for a Muslim for president because I believe the Koran to be a hate-filled text that is antithetical to everything we believe in as a pluralistic democracy.  To me it's like saying could I separate out a candidate's Klan membership from his policy positions that I otherwise might support?  No, I couldn't.  The jury is out for me about Mitt Romney's faith. Is it just odd or exclusionary and warping?

I have said I believe he is the only candidate running who can beat Obama and I encourage the party to get behind him.  But I also think he needs to say more about his faith, not less.  I think he needs to provide some comfort to the many who view his faith as cultish.  It's not a matter of whether he should be allowed to run as a Mormon, that's silly.  It's what his values and beliefs tell us about the man and how he may govern.  Some may find no value in that.  I'm not so sure.

 

10/12/11            Iranian Adventurism

                The Attorney General's announcement that Iran has endeavored to stage the most brazen and sloppy terrorist plot since 9/11 immediately made me think of a scene from the movie All the President's Men.  In the scene, senior editors at the Washington Post remain behind after a layout meeting for the next day's paper.  One editor (I think he was supposed to be Howard Simons) says of a forthcoming Post Watergate story something like - I don't believe this story.  McGovern is flailing, Muskie is self-destructing.  Why would they do it?  It just doesn't make any sense.

In the movie - and historically - we know that regardless of the fact that it made no sense, it was nonetheless true.  To this day, it's somewhat inexplicable why CREEP and the White House behaved the way they did in the face of certain re-election.  Notwithstanding its truth, the editor's skepticism was healthy.  One life lesson - maybe the only one - my father taught me was this: If something doesn't sound right, it probably isn't.

I recall a series of John Ashcroft press conferences announcing indictments against terror suspects that later turned out to be based on lies or half lies.  The news media and the public accepted his assurances without any question or reservation.  For that reason and a whole lot of others, I am not one to give the Justice Department the benefit of the doubt in matters such as these.  Especially when on its face it rings hollow.

There is no question whatever that Iran poses the greatest security threat to the United States.  Barack Obama has emboldened them with his entreaties that have been mocked and rebuffed by the Mullahs repeatedly.  But I also know that however buffoonish Iranian leaders appear publicly their intelligence services are no joke.  Iran has one of the most serious and effective intelligence operations in the World.  Although not quite at the Mossad level, they're close.  It would be near impossible to imagine a story like this being attributed to the Mossad and taken seriously.  And because Iran's intelligence services are as good as they are, it is equally hard for me to believe this story as relayed applied to them.  Why would they do it this way?  It just doesn't make any sense. 

Do they hate the U.S.?  Sure.  Do they hate Saudi Arabia?  You betcha.  Would they like to sow discord between the two?  Absolutely.  But hiring Mexican drug gangs through a half-witted Iranian-American to blow up a restaurant in D.C. leaving a string of wire transfers behind as evidence?  And that this cartoonish plan was orchestrated and approved at the highest levels of the Iranian Government?  Nope, I don't believe it. 

Are there elements of this that might be factual?  I'm sure there are.  But this narrative as laid out by Eric Holder is, to me, not credible or believable.  Given the record of the Justice Department in matters such as these I am going to need to see a whole lot more verifiable evidence before I could support lobbing nukes on downtown Tehran in retaliation.  And remember, this is pretty much how George Bush started the Iraq War.

 

10/11/11            Romney Holds, Perry Snoozes

                I usually don't much care what post debate polls show, but I am eagerly awaiting the results after tonight's debate.  First, my favorite moment was when Gov. Romney threw his only question - and a softball one at that - to Michele Bachmann.  Boy was that smart.  He needs to kill Perry and keep Cain from surging.  All three draw from the same base but Bachmann has the weakest support.  So Romney chose to give her more air time to help boost her numbers, if possible.  Very smart.

I think the candidates must have read this blog at some point today.  Every one of my points, nearly verbatim, was used by the candidates: Nancy Pelosi's new stream of revenue, 666, a new federal stream of revenue without tackling the income tax, all my stuff.  I know they didn't read it here but it was nice to see nonetheless.  I was wrong about Chris Christie; Romney only mentioned him once. 

Rick Perry was downright somnolent.  Somebody on his team must have told him to look like he hadn't napped.  Boy was he awful.  He looked like he was scheduled to be somewhere else and wound up in that auditorium at the last minute by mistake.

Romney wasn't terrific, but with Perry so bad he didn't have to be. Gingrich was very good and Santorum was surprisingly effective.  As for Herman Cain, he has this one issue and it sucks.  So I don't see where he goes when the news media start tearing apart the plan and explaining to conservatives why they should innately hate this scheme.  But for now, he's having his moment.

I must say that I thought Charlie Rose and the debate's sponsors were reckless and wasted a terrific opportunity by not including a 30 second response from each candidate on their view of a US response to the Iranian terror plot.  No world breaking news that wasn't economics would be worthy of an answer on a night that had this news with all these candidates sitting there?  Seems insane to me.

 

10/11/11                Way to Go, Mitt

                You gotta hand it to the Romney people; they do not let moss grow under their feet.  They know what we all know which is that if Rick Perry can't knock one out of the park tonight and gives another bumbling debate performance then he is toast, or soon to be toast.  In line with that, they got the Wall Street Journal today to publish a front page story debunking the Perry jobs miracle and basically comparing his economic approach with that of Solyndra. {I don't actually know that the WSJ and Romney campaign are in cahoots.  It just looks that way.}

Then, to insure Perry is viewed as second tier status, they apparently will receive the endorsement this afternoon of Gov. Chris Christie.  This on top of the self-inflicted wound of Pastor Jeffries' hate-filled embrace of Perry.  Strike three.  All very nicely timed on the day of the make or break debate. 

Of course Perry could live up to his previous billing as an amazing campaigner and surprise us tonight.  My guess is that he'll prove true to form: good on the attack in the beginning, bad at defense and flagging by the end.  Charlie Rose, for all of his pompous windbaggery, is not the crew from Fox.  This is sure to be a fairly high-minded economics debate.  I cannot imagine Rick Perry playing well at that level.  We shall see.  Let's also count tonight how many times Romney mentions the Christie endorsement.  Might be a new drinking game.

{BTW - If Romney is smart, he will mention tonight that Rick Perry now has an illegal immigrant college tuition program that is identical to Jerry Brown's.  In fact, when he is attacked for being the model for Obamacare he should shoot back that Jerry Brown has clearly used Perry's plan as a model.  With Ted Kennedy dead, nothing is worse than being compared to Jerry Brown.}

Addendum:  One last thing in the wake of the Christie endorsement.  All that Wall Street money that's been waiting for Chris Christie appears to be moving to Romney.  One fundraiser in particular worth noting is Paul Singer.  I already knew Romney was very strong on Israel, so Singer's signing up doesn't tell me much in that regard.  But as you know, Paul Singer is one of the leading financial backers for marriage equality in this country. Can I assume that Paul Singer's endorsement of Romney means he got some OK answers about gay marriage, Don't Ask/Don't Tell or DOMA?  As good a Republican as Paul Singer is, I can't imagine he would support a presidential candidate who would be vociferously hostile to his son's lifestyle.  At least I'd like to think so.

 

10/12/11                No No No to 9-9-9

                 I think if someone asked an evangelical Christian economist what they thought of Herman Cain's tax plan they might point out that 999 is 666 upside down.  I would tend to agree that his proposal, leaving out any 'fairness' arguments, is pretty evil.

Herman Cain should be applauded for putting out there his long-term tax plan.  His recent meteoric rise in the polls is, I believe, a reflection of voter's appreciation of his candor and willingness to verbalize a refreshingly succinct and comprehensive solution.  It just happens to be, however, the plan someone who is the long-term financier for the welfare state might create.  

I have spent most of my life being opposed to any introduction in the United States of a European type VAT scheme.  I am slightly more sanguine these days about that. But the one thing that hasn't changed for me is my firm belief that in order to introduce one you would first need to repeal the 16th Amendment.  Why?

OK, here is where Herman Cain's plan becomes so dangerous that no Republican anywhere would ever support it or actually vote to enact it.  These numbers of his - 9% income tax, 9% national sales tax, 9% corporate tax - would be legislatively defined and enacted.  That would mean that once created they could be changed by any Congress at any point in the future with a simple vote.  No Republican sitting in Congress - and especially this or any new Congress in 2013 - is going to give the federal government a broad new taxing authority while leaving in place the old one.   You can just see Grover Norquist's head exploding at the mere thought of this.

There would be nothing stopping a majority Democratic House & Senate in the future from raising the 9% income tax to say 30%; or reintroducing a graduated, progressive tax with several rates.  So what you would wind up with would be Nancy Pelosi's ultimate fantasy: an enormous new pool of revenue and greatly increased taxes on higher income earners.  Soon, such a Congress would exempt low income earners from the 9% and we would be right back where we are now EXCEPT we would have this broad national sales tax vacuuming up huge amounts of revenue. 

Herman Cain's plan would vastly expand the federal government's spending and reduce the need for deficit reduction or scaling back federal power.  Many in the Democratic Party would call this a good thing.  And from their point of view of far-reaching, expansive federal power it would be.  But for any Republican, be they Wall Street, Main Street or Tea Party, the effects of Herman Cain's tax proposal without first repealing the 16th Amendment would be disastrous.  9-9-9?  I'm thinking more like 6-6-6.

 

 

10/11/11            How Cool are the French?

                 Like most Americans, I love France but hate the French.  Semi-ironic in my case since I'm sort of, kind of half French - but not really.  So after spending yesterday being thoroughly sickened by Rick Santorum explaining - disgustedly - to Chris Wallace why racial integration in the Armed Forces was OK, but repealing Don't Ask/Don't Tell wasn't, I was heartened and amused by the outcome in the French Socialist primary. 

There is a presidential election next year in France and the incumbent, Nicolas Sarkozy, has popularity ratings that make Obama look like Reagan on Election Day 1984.  The winner of the Socialist primary is therefore given good odds to win the presidency.  I won't bother going into the boring analysis of what Arnaud Montebourg's strong third place showing means for the run-off and the general election, not to mention the Euro and banking stability.  I'd rather focus on the top vote getter in the first round, Francois Hollande. 

While we spend our time in this country debating everyone's sexuality, religion and morality (Michele Bachmann's clearly gay husband & Mitt Romney's cultish faith) the French hold a primary where two of the four candidates (Hollande and Segolene Royal) are former lovers, barely speak to each other and have 4 children together.  Mind you these two were never married. And guess what?  No one focuses on it.  Instead the debate centers on who is more left, who is more moderate and who can beat Sarkozy.  How cool is that?  Royal is the Socialist who lost to Sarkozy five years ago.  She was running to reclaim the party's imprimatur but came in fourth and sadly, cried during her concession speech.  No one knows whether it was the loss, losing so badly or losing to her ex-lover and father of her children that caused her to break down. Ah well, quelle dommage.  In any case, how refreshing to watch a campaign that, while not short on drama, will be primarily issue based and philosophically driven.  There's much to dislike about the indolent French but their lack of hypocrisy is enviable on this side of the Atlantic in this political year.

 

10/11/11            Live Free or Register!

                Is change in the air?  I'm not ready to say that, but there is a piece of encouraging news coming from New Hampshire.  The insanity surrounding sex offender registries gets me mad not just because they're so blatantly unconstitutional and ineffective.  No, what makes me equally mad are the paucity of legal challenges to them.  Legislatures and voters have done really dumb things since the founding of the republic.  And when they do, individuals or groups challenge them in court. 

The problem with sex offender laws and registries is that groups who normally would go back to court again and again in the face of such blatant civil liberties violations, shrink back because of the labels, outcry and myths attached to the subject.  Who wants to defend raping children?  Even though, of course, this isn't about that at all.  The courts are as scared as the voters and accept the myths and lies just as easily.  That's why in the face of a hostile and ignorant court system civil liberties organizations need to go back again and again and again with ever more lawsuits challenging the basic constitutionality of these laws.  Either by citing the U.S. Constitution or state constitutions.

Federal courts are especially hostile to the challenges and like gay rights or the pro-life movement, the best attack is in state courts and challenges that rely on state constitutions.  Pro-lifers can't get Congress to curtail abortions, but they're sure going to drive the number near zero in Kansas and South Dakota.  One state at a time.  

Well maybe, just maybe, the first positive sign will come from New Hampshire.  The New Hampshire Civil Liberties Union has challenged the basic constitutionality of their sex offender laws.  As you read the linked story, try and think of any other crime - murder, arson, treason, terrorism - where this many retroactive punishments would EVER be upheld in any court.  It has never happened and never would.  Only for this crime and only with the flimsiest of rationales and empirical evidence are these exceptions made.

Concord Monitor: NHCLU Challenges SO Law

 

10/10/11            Twelve Good Men and True

                The AP has a very thoughtful story on the wires today nominally centered around the impending sentencing of Raj Rajaratnam this Thursday in federal court.  But the larger story revolves around the wide ranging views federal judges hold on sentencing; in this case of white collar criminals. 

The most interesting aspect of the story contrasts two judges' views on the penalty a defandant should face for having gone to trial and lost.  The government will do anything to prevent a trial including: threatening outrageous sentences; trumped up charges; as well as arrest and prosecution of family members, all in order to obtain a plea conviction.  A defendant going to trial knows that if he loses he will no longer be entitled to the three points for acceptance of responsibility which reduces one's sentence according to the federal sentencing guidelines.  But beyond that, our system of justice has never punished someone for exercising their right to a trial.  That principle began eroding some time ago first from prosecutors and then judges.  Now it is understood in most cases and by most judges that if you don't knuckle under to the government's demands for a guilty plea the judge will aid the prosecution in punishing you at sentencing should you lose.  

Rare is the federal judge who understands basic constitutional fairness when it comes to a defendant's exercise of his Sixth Amendment rights.  The AP story highlights one - Judge Jed Rakoff.  Judge Rakoff not only believes it unfair and without practical value based on legal doctrine but on his own experience as a judge.  They contrast him with Judge Richard Sullivan who tells a convicted defendant, "I am not saying you are going to be punished for going to trial, but there are consequences that flow from that."  He then immediately punishes him for having gone to trial and lost.

It's a piece worth reading:  AP: Sentencing is a Wildcard

 

 

10/8/11         First Deputy Mayor for Going Away Parties

                    During my first 5 years working in the Giuliani Administration - first at City Hall and then at the City's Economic Development Corporation - I responded to dozens of Freedom of Information Law (FOIL) requests from reporters.  They FOIL'd my time sheets, e-mails, cell phone records and calenders.  All these requests were handled through the Counsel's Office and a strict timeframe for responding was imposed by City Hall.  At no time did anyone suggest for me or any other City Hall staffer that we ignore or contest these requests in court.  There are always exceptions.  The only staff member I was aware of who blatantly lied and was permitted to do so by the Mayor was Deputy Mayor Randy Levine who responded to a reporter's FOIL for his appointment logs by saying he kept no appointments calender.  This reporter was attempting to see how much work Randy Levine was doing for the Yankees & MLB while Deputy Mayor (Levine had been given a waiver by the Conflicts of Interest Board (COIB) to do limited outside work for baseball). There is in fact very little a reporter can do even when faced with such a ridiculous response.  But in the main these requests were taken seriously even though in almost every instance they were simply tools of harassment by a liberal press against a Republican mayor. 

Now lets use the Levine waiver to compare and contrast with how the Bloomberg Administration handled the same set of circumstances.  Levine was given a waiver to do limited work for the Yankees and MLB while serving full time as Deputy Mayor.  Did he violate the waiver?  Sure, he did way more work for them and involved himself in matters from both sides that were clearly inappropriate - and explicitly prohibited - as the City bargained with the Yankees and Mets over new stadiums.  But here's the enormous difference: what Bloomberg has done with Patti Harris, his First Deputy Mayor, would be akin to Levine getting a waiver to work on certain outside baseball matters and then using that waiver to justify becoming Commissioner of Baseball while holding on to a "full-time" job as Deputy Mayor for Economic Development (City employees are banned from holding jobs outside their City work, hence the necessity for a COIB waiver).  It would have been ludicrous and no doubt numerous investigations and newspaper editorials would have called for him to be fired.  And they would have all been correct.

Mike Bloomberg on the other hand elevates Patti Harris soon after the resignation of Deputy Mayor Marc Shaw.  A few years later he forms the Bloomberg Family Foundation and routinely has his City Hall staff working there as well.  He eventually seeks and receives a COIB waiver for her to do limited work at the Foundation.  Shortly after that he appoints her President of the Bloomberg Foundation; something the waiver never permitted or ever would have had one been requested for that job.

Since then, as reported in numerous newspaper accounts, she spends the majority of her time at the Foundation while still holding her City title, full salary ($245,000) and benefits as well as a full time City car and driver.  Even having attempted something like this in the Giuliani years would have been madness.  It's important to note that Bloomberg very carefully only released her appointment logs that were prior to her becoming president of the foundation in May, 2010. {For the record, Ms. Harris reports that she spends 5 hours a week working as President of the Bloomberg Family Foundation}

But we live in a different age in post Giuliani New York.  Things that would have hounded David Dinkins, Ed Koch or Rudy Giuliani from office are overlooked and excused by the City Council and especially the New York Times. 

The New York Times, in a face saving effort to maintain credibility, bi annually runs investigative pieces on the failings of the Bloomberg years.  The pieces always - always! - conclude with the same summation; whatever the subject of the investigation, they conclude by saying it's a mixed record.  Never a negative assessment, even if the basic facts of the story lead you to a definitively negative conclusion.  This is the same New York Times that for years said very proudly that they would never endorse a candidate for municipal office who refused to participate in the City's campaign finance program.  And in 2001, true to their word, they endorsed Mark Green and took Bloomberg to task for his spending.  Their subsequent endorsements of Bloomberg always include some sentence at their disappointment at his spending or being the only man in American political history who engineered a coup.  Somehow these minor deficiencies are outweighed by something.  It's never been clear to me what that something is.  He's completely disengaged from his staff and commissioners, wastes City time and money on foolish personal crusades - Olympics, smoking, fat, salt, etc., runs the most civil rights unfriendly police department in living memory and has corrupted the political process of the city through his money on par with the worst excesses of Tammany Hall. But they endorse him over and over again.

So now, in one of their bi annual investigative pieces, they join other newspapers in FOILing the records for Patti Harris.  City Hall took over a year to comply and then only provided less than half the records requested and those were heavily redacted.  Bear in mind with FOIL you can really only redact things of a strictly personal nature: Dinner with Mom, Doctor's Appt at 3pm, Nooner with husband, etc.  It's hard to imagine how a First Deputy Mayor's schedule could be "heavily redacted."  What is she doing?  With most Deputy Mayors their schedule would be packed from 7:30 AM to 9 PM with City business or business related functions (i.e political or civic dinners and fundraisers).  All of those things would be subject to FOIL and have to be revealed.  This is not the NSA or CIA where names and meeting topics would somehow reveal secrets or endanger national security. 

But what little info Ms. Harris's schedule reveals (and in an amusing note City Hall dumped it on reporters not just on a Friday, not just on Yom Kippur, not just even on Columbus Day weekend, but on the very day they laid off the most city employees of the entire 10 years of his administration) tells us a lot about the dysfunctional nature of Bloomberg's management of city government.

Patti Harris is Bloomberg's right hand woman of many years.  Her title is meant to reflect that.  But as with all things Bloomberg, he never realized that her title was also an embarrassment to her.  It is clear, however, that even the mayor recognizes that Ms. Harris's abilities are limited. 

In the history of modern City Halls there has never been a situation where a First Deputy Mayor didn't manage day to day operations of the city.  In City Halls where a mayor for a variety of reasons chooses not to have a First Deputy Mayor, that role is performed by a Deputy Mayor for Operations (even David Dinkins didn't appoint Bill Lynch First Deputy Mayor).  But like Harry Potter, when it comes to those two titles co-existing, "one cannot live while the other survives."  So he made her First Deputy Mayor and recognizing her limits gave her oversight of the Parks Department, Landmarks and Preservation and outreach to the city's cultural organizations - a very light portfolio for a routine deputy mayor, unheard of for a First Deputy Mayor. 

To do the real work of a traditional First Deputy Mayor he appointed a succession of woefully unqualified Deputy Mayors for Operations.  So what you've ended up with now for a few years is an increasingly disengaged mayor, a First Deputy Mayor who worries about parks and museums and a Deputy Mayor for Operations who is either unqualified, lives out of town or both.  Commissioners are left to themselves with virtually no oversight from City Hall.  It only seems to be bewildering to the New York Times that every major City project goes unmanaged and over-budget and that when emergencies occur no one is even nominally left in charge.  It all seems pretty obvious to me and I'm only felonious scum.

OK, so what kind of picture do we get from this limited documents dump.  We learn she likes to travel to D.C, she meets with lots of celebrities, she attends lots of speeches and black tie dinners and spends as much time lunching at the Four Seasons as most of us do at Starbucks.  As for City work, she meets with almost no commissioners or City Hall staff and in one year only a single mention is made of Ray Kelly, the Police Commissioner.  Yup, she's First Deputy Mayor of the City of New York and doesn't speak to the police commissioner.  Nice! 

I worked closely every day with a First Deputy Mayor and Patti Harris's life of parties and celebs bears no resemblance to the hard grinding schedule that the job requires.  Oh, one thing I left out.  The only thing she seems to do on a regular basis at City Hall is attend going away parties for departing staff, 16 of them in 18 months. But she needn't worry.  In Bloomberg world all city staffers, either current or ex, work for the Bloomberg private entities.  She must see them regularly when she's spending her 5 hours a week running a multi-billion dollar foundation.  I'm sure Melinda Gates would agree that that's about all it takes.  More fiction gone unnoticed by the New York Times.

 

10/7/11           On My Mind

 

One Arrest per Crime, Please.

                My favorite news story of the day comes from Delhi, California.  According to Fox News out there, two young men broke into a man's house in search of CDs to burn music on.  They stole 50 of them.  Turns out when they got home the discs weren't blank but contained child porn presumably burned on them by their owner. 

So the burglars go to the police who obtain a search warrant for the man's house and find more.  So far, so good.  But the police decide not to bring any charges against the two young men for breaking into this man's house because, according to the deputy sheriff, "We did not actually go out and arrest the suspects for the burglary. They were obviously the lesser of two evils."  First, notice the use of the word suspects.  They weren't suspects, they confessed.  Second, when was there imposed some sort of restriction on how many people can be charged with a crime in Merced County, CA.?

These two punks decided they didn't want to spend money to purchase CDs so they broke into someone's home, a felony in California; I checked.   Ask yourself this question: in the long run, who poses the greater danger to actual life and property in that county, a lonely old man who for years has sat in front of a computer looking at pictures (and did nothing more) or two guys who have started their life with felony burglary that the county has now told them is fine.  Twenty years from now those two punks will have a rap sheet as long as my arm and it will have started, as far as we know, with felony burglary that went not only unpunished, but excused by law enforcement in the name of some greater good.  In my humble opinion, a society gone mad.

Fox 8 News

 

Who Me, I'm in Charge?

                Mayor-for-Life Mike never fails to disappoint in the many ways he can claim he has no responsibility for anything that goes wrong within his administration.  His best excuse, used many times before, was trotted out once again yesterday but never more ludicrous in the face of the charge.  Asked about Wendell Walters' decade-long  scheme to extort $600,000 through the City's housing programs, Mayor Bloomberg said of this assistant commissioner that there are over 330,000 City employees and he can't know what each one is up to.  In effect, he is comparing a high level appointee charged with overseeing all new construction of City affordable housing and responsible for the Mayor's marquis housing initiative with some clerk at DOT or a teacher's aide in some elementary school. Nice!  That is a real leader for you.

Moreover, as always, he thanked the City's Department of Investigation for all their hard work.  This man had been shaking down developers for a decade, this only came to light through investigations of the U.S. Department of Labor and the FBI and he's thanking DOI.  For what exactly; ten long years, numerous developers, dozens of projects and DOI had no clue this was going right under its nose until so informed by the Feds. 

According to the New York Times, Bloomberg went so far as to assert that DOI uncovered this mess, which the paper says the FBI absolutely disputes.  So pathetic has DOI's ability to ferret out corruption become that the Mayor is now flat out lying about its accomplishments.  As I have told you at least a dozen times on these pages, his first reaction is always to lie.  Yea, thanks DOI.  You're doing a helluva job. 

 

 

10/6/11            The Curse That Keeps on Giving

                    Make no mistake, the third term curse of New York City mayors is going strong.  Aside from the disastrous personnel and operations decisions made, thus far this mayor has managed to keep corruption mainly consigned to his campaign practices.  No longer.

Today a senior official at the NYC Housing & Preservation Department (HPD), Wendell Walters, was arrested for taking $600,000 in bribes.  He had been engaging in bribe taking since day one of the Bloomberg Administration.  Like all other scandals of late, this went on and on and no Bloomberg official became aware.  Early reports are that this only came to light through another unrelated investigation that then lead to Mr. Walters.  Wow. 

Over the last 40 years we've had building inspectors and school officials arrested with small time bribe taking every few years, but I cannot even remember the last time a city official at this level was accused of taking bribes in the performance of his job.  Well, when you don't manage the government this is the result.  When City Hall abrogates all oversight and responsibility to essentially no one, this is what happens.  There really should be nothing shocking about it to a student of city government and at the same time an observer of Bloomberg's City Hall.

Two weeks ago there was a New York Times story about cost overruns for another signature Bloomberg project; the computerization of the City's personnel system.  This is not to be confused with Citytime, the city's scandal plagued payroll system.  The original cost for the personnel system project had ballooned from $66 million to $363 million and is still growing.  All of that is deeply regrettable.  The one piece of the story that made my mouth hang open was that the project leader said that for all his years working on the project no deputy mayor had ever requested a briefing or update on it.

It is hard for me to put into words how completely shocking and unthinkable such a thing would have been in the Giuliani Administration.  A massive Citywide database consolidation that was 500% over cost and no deputy mayor was having regular briefings on that?  Even before the project would have been launched, Peter Powers or Joe Lhota would have known every possible angle and contract.  They would have had a staff member of theirs assigned to monitor this regularly.  When the first signs of trouble appeared, the project's head would have been sitting in the COW (Committee of the Whole room) with some explanation due the deputy mayor.  This is the world of Bloomberg management, oversight and accountability. 

We learned at the trial of John Haggerty that the Mayor - if you accept his testimony as truthful, a hard 'if' - has no oversight or interest in how his multi millions are spent for his campaigns.  According to his testimony he is a disinterested party who just signs checks.  Is it any wonder then that his interest in overseeing the City's money is even more lax?

This man, Mr. Walters, has apparently been taking bribes for the entire Bloomberg term - or terms, three of them.  And no one noticed?  His HPD Commissioners, starting with Jerilyn Perine and continuing through the wunderkind Shaun Donovan had no inkling that the projects they were approving were tainted?  Apparently not. 

As President of the City's Housing Development Corporation I was accused of many things; some true, most not.  I can tell you it would not have been hard to spot if anyone on my staff was pushing a project that had as its antecedents the exchange of cash in little brown bags.  But more than that, had I been so dim as to not spot it, my accounting and treasury staff surely would have.  Mr. Walters obtained this money through the City paying over-billed charges to the developers who funnelled that money back to him.  Were HPD's and OMB's accounting staffs so asleep at the switch as not to audit this or account for the monies in project after project?  This wasn't one project but dozens.  Again, this would have been inconceivable in a Giuliani Administration unless someone at a much higher level had actually wanted this to happen. 

I am not alleging that in this case.   I am saying, however, that his hack staff under Mark Page at OMB and a succession of sub par commissioners at HPD are surely to blame for this at a minimum.  The program from which he stole all this money, the New Housing Marketplace, is Bloomberg's premier housing achievement according to his own words.  For ten long years the man in charge of the program was regularly and routinely slicing off a piece of every project and no one knew or suspected.

And once again - I ask this question with each new Bloomberg scandal - where was the City's Department of Investigation?  Oh sure, they are absolutely there when the handcuffs were placed on Mr. Walters - that appears these days to be their main function.  Ask anyone who works in either US Attorneys Office or any DAs office in NYC what their view is of DOI and you'll hear the same thing: they do no work and crowd in on the kill.  The other 'tell' here that DOI had no role whatsoever in uncovering this is that the case is at the US Attorney for the Eastern District, not the Southern District.  That's your big clue that Mike Bloomberg's Dept of Investigation couldn't ferret out a high ranking city official taking bribes for his entire term of office.  Nice work.

What will this add to the Bloomberg legacy?  It would appear that the curse is taking care of whatever positive legacy the New York Times may still choose to bestow upon the Mayor.  For everyone else, it's the realization not that his third term is so drastically different than the first two, but rather the third term is only when this level of incompetence and wilful managerial neglect would all become starkly evident. 

As I said to you not one week ago, there has to be more coming because his term isn't up.  Only a mayor who is this disconnected from his agencies and staff could produce results like this. I can tell you, having worked in that building, you would actually have to work hard to put in place a management structure this ineffectual; the natural course of things wouldn't even do that. 

As polls today show that many Americans would like to see Mike Bloomberg head a third party effort to solve the nation's problems, I am pressed to paraphrase and upend John F. Kennedy's clarion cry and respond to those calls by saying, "let them come to New York!"

 

10/3/11            Bloomberg Takes the Stand

Here are the links to today's round-up stories from the trial:

NYT: Review of Bloomberg Testimony

NY Daily News: Bloomberg Testifies

NY Post: Bloomberg Testifies

NYT: Live Blogging From the Trial

PolitickerNY: Live Blogging From the Trial

Yahoo: NYC Mayor Takes the Stand

 

10/3/11            Hama on the Hudson

                       I often work in the Financial District and have to confront the daily inconveniences caused by the Occupy Wall Street protesters.  Even though the protesters are encamped many blocks away, the NYPD has turned the area surrounding the New York Stock Exchange into an armed encampment.  As a casual observer it appears to be a massive overreaction.  In fact, the response on the ground by the police seems to confirm much of what these people are saying: that the government is here not for the people but the corporate interests.  Here you have the police spending a fortune in overtime, to provide seemingly needless protection to the physical representation of all they claim is wrong with this country - the Stock Exchange.

Every time the protesters march they are surrounded by more police then there are marchers.  This weekend they marched across the Brooklyn Bridge.  For those of you not from New York, the bridge has two roadways with a walkway above the center.  The protesters marched across the walkway which does not require a permit.  According to all accounts - except the police - halfway across the police lead them onto the roadway and the marchers followed.  When they were nearing the Brooklyn side the police surrounded them with orange nets and arrested hundreds of them - 700 hundred of them.  Put simply, they followed the cops and upon doing so were quickly arrested.  Notwithstanding the revisionist accounts of a few anarchist members who would like to be seen as creating havoc, the marchers appear to be correct that the police lead them into a trap.

This follows an incident this past week in which a high level commander overreacted and pepper sprayed the protesters.  That followed incidences of the cops needlessly beating them.  What exactly is going on here with the police?  This has stopped being isolated cases of overreaction; this is now a strategic response.

I admit that having lived through the protest movements of the 1960's & 70's (women's rights, anti-war, civil rights, etc.) I have found most such movements that followed (anti-abortion, anti-nukes, anti-war) pathetic echoes of those previous efforts.  I also was a captive audience to the near daily protests that accompanied the first two years of the Giuliani Administration.  I would add that back then Al Sharpton lead many a "Day of Rage" over something or another across the Brooklyn Bridge and was never arrested and never had a permit (Giuliani, always smarter than Bloomberg, realized the best thing to do with Sharpton was ignore him and not overreact since that was what he wanted). 

But here you have Mike Bloomberg's NYPD behaving like Selma or Montgomery in the 1960s.  How come? 

First, I originally held that these protesters were just a bunch of ill-informed malcontents who very well might be right in their overall points, but were too disorganized and incoherent to make any headway.  Some are anarchists, some are modern hippies and some are what we used to call 'radicals.'  When asked early on what they wanted, they could offer no coherent agenda or platform - they still don't.  But it seems to me the reaction from the billionaire mayor and his police are more interesting now than the aims of the protestors. 

Mayor-for-Life Mike gave perhaps the most Marie Antionette quote of his ten year tenure and demonstrated yet again in what low regard he holds his constituents.  On his radio show he said that the people the protesters are really attempting to hurt are the $40,000 a year back office workers on Wall Street.  Very clever.  He's not an intellectually developed enough person to realize that no modern Republican neocon has so fully articulated trickle down economics as he did with that one statement.  His point was that we should allow Wall Street to do anything it wants - ANYTHING - because as an ancillary byproduct of their greed comes some jobs.  Billionaire and millionaire investment bankers need secretaries and clerks by the thousands and we shoud be grateful for that employment.  Again, unknowingly, he was embracing a 19th Century robber baron mentality.  Next, he'll be endorsing trusts.

And in support of that vision, his police department is apparently seeking to reenact the 1937 Battle of the Overpass at Ford Motor Co.  While it is not possible for Mike Bloomberg to show any more contempt for the democratic process and those who cherish it - he actually engineered the only successful coup in NYS history - his anti-democratic actions will have a lasting effect on his chosen heir, Council Speaker Christine Quinn. 

Beyond appealing to gay New Yorkers, her only electoral appeal is a Bloomberg fourth term.  She has brought the Council into total lockstep these last ten years with his agenda and no daylight exists between them on any issue.  Beyond a virtual fourth term, what could her appeal possibly be?  And since she only has his record to run on, his brutal treatment of the protesters - and her lack of any criticism of it - spells bad tidings for her in this overly Democratic town that is beginning to sway with sympathy for these protesters and revulse at the heavy handed police response.   

By why is he behaving this way?  I can tell you with absolute certainty that a Mayor Giuliani would never have responded this way.  If these people are all a bunch of aimless hippies, then leave them alone and soon they will peter out.  If it's a serious movement, then they are deserving of an opportunity to air their grievances.  Rudy Guiliani would have let them do their thing with some police oversight.  He would have had his staff liaison with them somehow.  And if asked about them, he would have deftly deflected without uttering any serious inflammatory response.  Trust me, it would have gone down like that;  he was that good and smart.

It remains to be seen what will happen in a few months.  As Napolean and Hitler were defeated by the brutal Russian winter, will a New York winter likewise doom the long-term success of the Zuccotti Park protesters? 

Since I don't fully understand what they're demanding, I can't say I support or condemn their agenda.  But what's now clear is that the general discontent that started with the Tea Party - which has been hijacked by the Christian right - is finding new voice in these protesters.  And similar demonstrations are popping up all over the country.  

Their lack of an agenda, while unintentional, is actually tactically smart.  Like the early Tea Party, anyone can pour their individual anger or frustration into this movement and it will therefore attract growing numbers.  It's interesting that Mayor-for-Life Mike with his staff of sycophantic advisors and his own tin-earred, anti-democratic inclinations, is doing everything he can to ensure that the third term curse effects him in every way possible by his brutal response to these people.

So far the Mayor has beaten the protesters, pepper sprayed them, penned them in, arrested them in mass numbers and begun arresting the reporters who cover them.  It seems he was right when he said the Arab Spring is coming here.  We just didn't know he was intending to play the part of Bashar Assad or Hosni Mubarek.

 

9/30/11            Bloomberg Campaign Corruption Trial Update

Mayor-for-Life Mike is set to testify at the Haggerty trial on Monday.  Here is the latest from the New York Times:  NYT: Bloomberg to Testify Monday

Also, here is a Michael Goodwin piece from the NY Post:

NY Post: Third Term Cloud

 

9/29/11            NYT: Repeal Mandatory Minimums

                 I've written twice this week that while it is very encouraging that the New York Times and Wall Street Journal had front page stories detailing prosecutorial abuses in the justice system, real reform could only start to happen once they transferred that outrage to their editorial page.  Well the NYT did just that and they deserve credit for it.  Naturaly, as evidenced by the language in the editoiral, they come to this view only because there is a racial component to it.  If it were just white defendants being abused, the language leaves little doubt they wouldn't be covering this issue, unlike the WSJ.  But hey, youze takes what you can gets.  

NYT - An Invitation to Overreach

 

9/29/11            ICED!

                So it turns out that the federal agency tasked with ferreting out child porn has one of its main offices headed by a child pornographer.  Nice!  Anthony Mangione, until recently Special Agent in Charge of the Miami Field Office for Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE), has been charged in federal court with possession, transportation and receiving child porn.  Most people aren't aware that it's Customs that hunts down child porn.  Those are the guys who raided my apartment and tore the place apart. 

Unlike Mr. Mangione, I was only charged with possession since there was nothing on my computer tying me to the 11 images they claimed to have found on a lone zip disc somewhere in my apartment.  Mr. Mangione is in a heap of trouble.  But let's not jump the gun.  True, he is not a Justice Department employee which means there won't be a total whitewash of his charges - had he worked at Justice, the 6 month investigation would have merely resulted in a quiet resignation or reassignment -  but ICE looks out for their own too.  By all rights and custom, he should be sentenced to 10 years and have to register as a sex offender in Florida - not a happy thing for the 27 year Customs veteran. 

So will his superiors at ICE "work this out" for him since he's done so much 'good?'  Let's keep an eye on this one.  My hunch is the state crazies in Florida will not sit back and watch the feds let this guy off the hook.  Florida has plenty of state laws to charge this guy with.  Which is why I maintain federal laws in this area are redundant and a terrible waste of money & resources. Here are some stories on his arraignment:

CNN - ICE KIddie Porn

Sun Sentinel - ICE Porn

Also look at this link to a Smoking Gun story as to the insane and questionable lengths the federal government is going to in order to entrap people.  They are now sending out e-mail invites to men to visit porn sites, that once you type in the URL tells you explicitly that the site is not illegal and has a 'Law Enforcement Note.'  Once you preview the site's offerings the FBI captures your IP address and then arrests you.  Does no one else believe this crosses some line constitutionally? 

Addendum - So here's my question:  If Mr. Mangione had viewed these sites as part of his job at ICE and not been arrested, then that's OK legally, right?  But if we now believe that he finds these pictures stimulating can they now charge him with having looked at those sites even in his official capacity?  Is it only OK to look at these sites if you profess to hate what you're looking at?  But if you enjoy it that's when it becomes criminal; even though you've taken no active part in creating the images you're viewing?

I'm guessing to most of you reading this, it all seems to make perfect sense.  However, to the rest of us, there is no other area of the law - none - that these tortured constitutional rationalizations would ever be tolerated by court review.  I'm just saying.

Smoking Gun - FBI's Kiddie Porn Sites

 

 

9/28/11            Into The Fray

                   First, this morning the National Federation of Independent Business petitioned the U.S. Supreme Court to expedite review of the 11th Circuit case that threw out the individual mandate but kept the rest of Obamacare intact.  They were joined this afternoon by the plaintiffs in that case, 26 U.S. states.  So now we are where we should be, at the U.S. Supreme Court.  The court needs to add this appeal to its docket for next year - hear the case in October and render a decision shortly thereafter. 

I remain as opposed to Obamacare as ever.  But whether the court upholds the law or strikes it down - in whole or in pieces - American business needs to know what this all means so that they can plan their future.  This doubt is extremely unsettling in an economic near depression.  I still maintain - as we learned yesterday from the Kaiser Foundation - that rather than decrease costs, Obamacare will drive up costs dramatically while, I believe, providing inferior care.  If we knew where Justice Kennedy stood on this we could all go home since his position is the only one that matters.  But we don't, so we forge ahead into the fray.

 

9/27/11         Bloomberg Campaign Corruption Trial Round-up

 

Here are a few articles about today's proceedings at the Bloomberg trial examining corrupt practices in his re-election campaign.  So far, John Haggerty's attorneys don't seem to be landing any substantive blows.  The Patti Harris and Kevin Sheekey cross examinations appear to have gone nowhere.  But it's early days yet so let's keep hope alive.

NY Daily News - Bloomberg Trial

NY1 - Bloomberg Trial

NYT - Monday's Coverage

NY Post - Bloomberg Trial

 

9/27/11           The Smarmiest Man in America

                If anyone knows former Google exec Doug Edward's home address or e-mail address I would love to post it here so that I can help facilitate the acres of hate mail that's sitting out there waiting to be delivered. 

This is the smug, self-satisfied jerk who asked Obama to please raise his taxes.  He claimed to be "voluntarily unemployed" due to the fact that he's so wealthy from having worked - as he told us in his very cutesy manner - at a "start-up search engine."  People like Doug Edwards and Warren Buffet need to release their tax returns so that we can all see that they are paying "their fair share,"  to quote the president.  Mr. Edwards doesn't need to have his taxes raised.  If he wants to help this profligate beast known as the federal government continue to spend unabated, all he has to do is pay the sticker rate of 35% and not take the deductions that surely bring down his rate to 18 or 20%.  Better yet, just write a monster check to the U.S. Treasury or sell all your Google stock or name the Federal Government as the beneficiary in your will.

But wannabe economist dilettante millionaires and billionaires need to stop putting their hands in the pockets of entrepreneurs and businessmen trying to stay afloat in this Obama depression.

 

9/27/11        Six Flags Sex Offender

                The State of Florida just cant seem to keep its craziness in its pants.  Between their nutso governor and the state's obsession with sex offenders, it seems like Florida is trying to win a crazy contest and yet no one else is competing.

Remember that famous Twilight Zone episode that was shot in all shadows so that you didn't see the actor's faces until the reveal at the end?  At which point you discovered that the unfortunate young woman who was so physically repulsive was actually gorgeous (Jed Clampett's daughter) and that normal mainstream society was comprised of hideously ugly pig people.  The episode ends by the young woman being taken to a community separated from normal society so that she could be with "her kind." 

Florida has a modern version of that.  A sex offender village.  Sounds nice, right?  Sounds like ferris wheels, carnival rides and funnel cakes.  Maybe it's like Epcot, with sex offenders from around the world.   Hmmm, maybe not what it seems.  To further make night into day, the woman opening it seems all sympathetic to the plight of sex offenders in Florida who must currently live under highways and bridges.  Her faux empathy reminds me of those California ballot initiatives that seem to want one thing but are actually underwritten by corporate interests wanting the exact opposite. 

This woman isn't doing anyone any favors other than the zany hysterics who think sex offenders are like zombies - walking around everywhere uncontrollably looking for brains, or in this instance toddlers.   It's always these crazy housewives who have no life and nothing better else to do all day but work themselves up into a frenzied panic from watching daytime TV or clicking on every internet ad selling computer tracking chips for their kids.

Where will it all end in Florida?  Who can say, they aren't done yet trying for the gold in the crazy olympics.   Fox 35 - Sex Offender Village

FYI - This is the same Florida governor, Rick Scott, who said that the winner of the Florida Straw Poll would be our next president.  Hmmm, I don't even think Herman Cain believes that.

 

9/27/11        The Declining Threshold of Guilt

                Under the heading of It Never Rains But it Pours, today the Wall Street Journal is continuing a series on the explosion and questionable constitutional nature of many federal criminal statutes.  This follows yesterday's front page New York Times story on the misuse and coercive nature of plea bargains.  The WSJ's thrust is an important one relating to the very foundations of constitutional law. 

Congress has felt it necessary to rewrite centuries of accepted english common law that one must know one is committing a crime in order to be found guilty of that crime.  There are exceptions, like speeding tickets, but in matters that involve prison or felony convictions accepted jurisprudential practice has always relied on mens rea - or guilty mind.  As today's story points out yet again, federal laws are now routinely written without any requirement that defendants have any idea that their acts were criminal when committed. 

What I love most in today's piece is the single response from Justice to these outrageous abuses.  Justice offers the same line, "He plead guilty" as a means of defending its actions.  Sure, the U.S. Department of Justice threatens you with 50 years in prison, an indictment of your whole family and financial ruin unless you plead guilty.  Then, once you are bulldozed into submission, they defend their actions by saying, "See, in front of a judge he said he was guilty and took responsibility."  Pleas today are generally a hoax where the system forces you to lie and then uses that lie against you forever.  Fewer and fewer defendants actually believe in their own guilt.  But once a judge makes you state affirmatively that you accept blame and do so of your own free will, you're stuck with that forever.  And Justice then uses that to defend its Mafia-like behavior.

These stories - while surely not the NYT or WSJ intent - are all part of the larger Tea Party narrative.  The federal government - whether Congress, the Executive branch or the courts - has steadily eroded fundamental constitutional rights.  These stories demonstrate that both anecdotally and statistically.  As I said yesterday, it is all well and good to write and publish these stories on the front page, I applaud both papers for doing it.  But until they start writing a steady drumbeat of editorials calling for major reform, nothing will change.   WSJ - Fed Crime List Grows

Addendum - Let me just say as a side note, that in the same way I am sick and tired of former members of congress - Dick Armey, Bob Barr, Rick Santorum, etc. - suddenly discovering libertarian values once they leave office, I am equally angry over former federal prosecutors who destroy people's lives while in office, only to decry the laws and system they used once out of office.  Somehow they rediscover the constitutional purity of their law school years only after leaving the DOJ.  This is the rankest hypocrisy and most cowardly of positions.  Their 'come to Jesus' moment always takes place after they leave Justice.  We shouldn't admire these people for their candor and forthrightness.  We should condemn them for their duplicity and their opportunistic nature.

 

9/26/11        Bloomberg Trial

                    I hope everyday to bring you a round-up of some of the coverage at the Bloomberg campaign fraud trial. I don't know anything about Raymond Costello, John Haggerty's defense lawyer.  I only hope he's up to the task of ferreting out all the lies and chicanery from the Bloomberg witnesses.  Because be assured they will lie and perjure themselves in order to keep Bloomberg as far away from this as possible.  But on the other hand, Mayor-for-Life Mike hasn't the faintest clue or interest about what goes on in his City agencies, so I suppose it's entirely possible that this Uber-manager had no idea what was going on in his $150,000,000 re-election campaign either.  Here's the round-up:

 

DNAinfo.com - Bloomberg Trial

Politickerny.com - Bloomberg Trial

NY Daily News - Bloomberg Trial

 

 

9/26/11        How You Achieve a 98% Conviction Rate

                You need to read today's New York Times lead story: Sentencing Shift.  The story uses anecdotal evidence as well as a plethora of statistics to demonstrate what those of us in the criminal justice system already know: nearly everyone takes a plea deal.  Not necessarily because they're guilty, but because the prosecutor can punish you severely if you opt for a trial.  Prosecutors, whether elected like District Attorneys or appointed U.S. Attorneys, want a high win-loss ratio.  It doesn't matter if that's achieved though trial or plea.  In the federal system prosecutors have a 98% conviction rate.  Almost all of that stat is made up from pleas; a win is a win is a win. 

In my own case, I was determined to go to trial and take the stand and argue my case.  I believed in my innocence.  But my lawyer made three things very clear to me: 1. If we went to trial and lost, the Judge, Lewis Kaplan, (who hated my guts and made no effort to conceal that fact) would throw the book at me; 2. the made-up charges that the Feds would have to throw out in a plea deal would be used against me in sentencing even if I were found not guilty of those charges at trial; and 3. If I took the stand and told only the 100% gospel truth, Kaplan would, without any doubt, use his discretion and make a finding that I perjured myself - which, I discovered, he can do unilaterally.  That finding would add years to my sentence. That a judge can find you guilty of perjury for telling the absolute truth, merely because he didn't like that you were defending yourself, was shocking to me.  But Jerry Shargel assured me repeatedly that after watching Kaplan's reaction to me and my case he would absolutely make that finding regardless of what I said on the stand.

So in my case, had I gone to trial and lost, my sentence would have been doubled, I would have had 5 extra years added for a phony finding of perjury, charges that were baseless and would have been discounted by a jury could still have been used against me in sentencing and any reduction in time for pleading guilty - "acceptance of responsibility" - would be lost.   Up until the very last second I was going to go to trial and argue my innocence.  But my lawyers made it clear that with a judge so hostile to me personally, there was really no chance whatever in winning and this would be an exercise in vanity on my part.  So I plead guilty. 

Various scenarios play out like this every day.  Innocent people - or people innocent of the extreme charges brought against them - are bullied by the system into pleading guilty.  The perception the public has from candidates' rhetoric is that criminals have too many rights.  The realities of today's criminal justice system are that defendants have probably never had fewer rights and protections in court.  The diminution of civil liberties, whether from Congress or the U.S. Supreme Court, goes on in earnest every year without abatement.   What will reverse this dangerous trend?  I honestly don't know.  But while stories like today's NYT helps, you need to see the outrage expressed on the editorial page, not the front page.  And in this climate that doesn't look likely.

FYI - For those of you interested in this subject, there is a very accurate - albeit  upsetting - PBS Frontline report entitled The Plea (2004).  It's available at most libraries.

 

9/21/11        Lies Beget Lies and Yet Even More Lies

                Am I ever wrong?  Wasn't it just a few days ago that I suggested that while Mayor-for-Life Mike is definitely not the most corrupt man to have been mayor, he is inarguably the most corrupting man to ever hold the job?  Well it appears it's simply not hard to find proof of that contention.  They just keep coming.

I state without reservation that I am sure Deputy Mayor for Economic Development Robert Steel was for most of his life an honest, honorable man; paid his taxes and abided by all federal and state laws.  And then he met Dan Doctoroff and Mike Bloomberg. 

Dan Doctoroff had left as Deputy Mayor to become President of Bloomberg LLP and thought he had everything squared away at City Hall with his chosen successor Robert Lieber.  But Lieber resigned suddenly and Bloomberg was left without a right hand.  Bloomberg is the least hands-on mayor we have had since David Dinkins and can't function without strong Deputy Mayors.  So Doctoroff rushed to find a new man.  He found a Goldman banker named Robert Steel.  Only one problem, Steel lived in Connecticut.  Here is my imagining of the conversation that ensued:

Steel - Thanks for the offer, Dan, but I don't live in New York, I live in Connecticut.  Doctoroff - Do you have an apartment of some kind in the city?  Steel - No, but I could rent one for appearances.  Doctoroff - Great, so don't sweat it then.  Just change your voter registration to that address and you'll be fine.  I'll clear it with the Mayor.

I can guarantee you that conversation took place.  At which point Steel was well on his way to becoming a law breaker.  

He owns a $5.7 million dollar home in Greenwich,Connecticut.  His Mercedes, Lexus, Chevy and Porsche are registered to that address.  His numerous campaign contributions are listed with that address.  His dogs all have their licenses with that address.  His wife - with whom he presumably cohabitates - has all her relevant documentation, including her voter registration, listed with the Greenwich address.

Only recently did he change his drivers license to the NYC address after claiming he's lived here for 15 months (a violation of NYS law in and of itself).  When asked by the Daily News to produce his tax returns with a NYC address, he refused.  NYC employees covered by the residency requirement, like Steel, cannot file their primary tax return  elsewhere.

So we can assume therefore that in keeping with decades old practice, the NYC Department of Investigation (DOI) would immediately launch an investigation in this, right?  Yea, right! 

In the old days, these types of blatant deceptions were quickly discovered by DOI (all City hires must undergo a background check, including fingerprinting).  But as you know as a regular reader of this blog, DOI has made a Faustian bargain to ignore all malfeasance that takes place within City Hall and by the Bloomberg inner circle.  But there's nothing new here.  Our recently departed First Deputy Mayor didn't live in New York City either.  He beat his wife at his primary residence in D.C., not here in New York.  DOI gave him a pass on both those transgressions.

So another law abiding citizen who has entered the web of Mike Bloomberg has become a law breaker.  And now Steel will continue to lie and maintain he's a resident of NYC although all evidence to the contrary contradicts this assertion.  More lies begetting lies.  More innocent victims of the most corrupting Mayor we have ever witnessed.  Be assured, this is not the end of these revelations.  How could they be?  Mike Bloomberg is still in office.  NY Daily News - Steel Residency

 

9/21/11        DOJ: Let Them Eat Muffins

                This was too good and timely not to post.  I've written often about the two-tired justice system in this country - one for us and the other for Department of Justice employees.  Well today the DOJ Inspector General released an audit listing the outrageous expenditures DOJ makes on parties and conferences.  Examples - $16 muffins, $8 cups of coffee and $600,000 for party planners.  All told they spent $121 million on conferences in 18 months. 

When I was at FMC Devens, a few of us were randomly selected to take part in a survey and were sent to a conference room.  In this room the garbage cans were overflowing with cups, plates and empty boxes from Panera Bread Co.  The receipt for all this was also in the trash.  For what, I learned, was a routine staff meeting, the prison had spent $800 on coffee and pastries.  Even as an inmate in prison, I commented to the people I was with what an incredible waste of money this was.   This is all fine for private industry.  But the BOP/DOJ are not private industry even though their party spending habits would lead you to believe otherwise.

And what is DOJ's unbelievable response to this audit?  They said basically: At the time we did this, no one told us that we couldn't.  Dennis Kozlowski's $6,000 shower curtain (I know, state case) doesn't seem so over-the-top by comparison.  Imagine a private company or not-for-profit spending taxpayer money like this and DOJ came calling.  Indictments and prison for many, to be sure.  Reuters - DOJ's $16 Muffins

 

9/20/11        Reed Hastings Meet Alben Barkley

            Somewhere in Heaven, Alben Barkley is shaking his head.  It would be a good time for Netflix founder and CEO Reed Hastings to look up Alben Barkley on Wikkipedia.  The famous parable, most often attributed to Barkley, goes something like this: Alben Barlkey - U.S. Senator from Kentucky and later Vice President - was campaigning for re-election to the Senate one day and stopped by the farm of an old supporter seeking his vote.

I hope I can count on your vote, Sen. Barkley asked.  I'm not too sure, the farmer replied.  Not sure, the Senator asked with bewilderment.  When your farm was near foreclosure, didn't I call the bank and stop them?  When your son was laid off and needed a job, didn't I call the WPA and get him a job?  When your farm was flooded, didn't I get you federal assistance?  When you had trouble with the Dept of Agriculture, didn't I call them?

Well yea, the farmer replied, but what have you done for me lately?

What part of that lesson about the American people does Reed Hastings not understand?  He had a successful product, Netflix, that offered both DVD by mail and streaming.  His goal was to wean users away from the more costly mail service and get them to go exclusively streaming.  Now the streaming service, while more convenient, is far inferior in terms of content and all users know that.   American consumers want more and better features at an always lower cost.  Not the other way around.  Remember, what have you done for me lately?

So rather than adding value to any drastic change, Hastings added zero value and doubled the price.  In doing so he informed his customers that they had been getting too good a value and would now have to pay up.  He took what was a very loyal customer base and made them some of the most hostile.  Then, when realizing the level of dissatisfaction - from Wall Street, thousands of angry e-mails, and a loss of subscribers - he profusely apologizes and proceeds to screw his customers further by taking away their queues and dividing the business, thus making the service incredibly cumbersome as opposed to seamless.  All the while continuing to provide no added value amidst his heartfelt remorse.   

I am no business genius to be sure.  But how exactly can you tell your customers that they have to pay double for a lesser product and not even offer the hope of improving it?  Currently, when a new movie is released it takes an extra 28 days to show up on Netflix as opposed to Redbox or Blockbuster.  Moreover, when it is available, it's only available on DVD; you might wait years for it to show up on streaming.  Had Reed Hastings, when announcing the price increase, promised that 70% or 80% of all new releases would show up on streaming within 60 days of release, well that would have been something.  But he's not offering that.  He's offering nothing except higher prices and a worse product.  Not to mention that many major studios have withdrawn their product from Netflix, especially streaming.

Steve Jobs offers you improved iPods, iPads and iMacs while lowering the cost for each new item or at least for the item it's replacing.  Reed Hastings, on the other hand, doubles the price and offers you less for your existing product.  Whose business model would you be investing in long-term?  

It seems very clear now this was the plan all along to split the businesses; he just miscalculated badly by deciding to do this in two stages rather than one.  So rather than taking the hit all at once, he stretches out the customer anger and continues to reignite it.  This second round of bad news - without any good news - is only likely to push people over the edge who were wavering as to whether to keep the service at all after the price change. 

American consumers are fucked routinely: Bounty paper towels has reduced by almost half the size of a roll over the last 15 years, but they did it slowly and offered little extras and sales to take the sting out of it.  Tropicana recently reduced the size of their containers by about 8% while keeping the price the same.  Not enough to show but enough to add up.  But imagine if either had said they were reducing the size by 50% tomorrow and charging you the same?  Their market share would plummet and shortly thereafter goodbye Bounty and Tropicana. 

I simply don't get what business course Reed Hastings took that told him creating a hostile customer base in a matter of days would lead to greater profits?  I'm guessing he looked at the NY/NJ Port Authority that recently increased tolls on tunnels and bridges by 50% overnight with no increase in service.  Everyone hates the PA but has no alternative.  I get he wants desperately to get rid of his DVD business and move everyone over to streaming.  But does he really think his customers will just take this lying down without looking for alternatives?  I guess he does.  And that's how great companies become formerly great companies.

 

9/19/11        With Apologies to My Prosecutor

Someone e-mailed me the other day and took me to task for making an allegation that I never substantiated.  As it happens, they are correct.  I made an allegation awhile back against my prosecutor, Deborah E. Landis, that she defrauded the federal government out of tens of thousands of dollars.  I never provided back-up for that charge. Let me now correct that error.

First, let me just explain why I didn't explain sooner.  I have been extremely remiss in posting regular chapters to J'Accuse, the story of my case.  I had planned on posting them faster and with greater frequency.  The back-up to the charge will be in there when it reaches that point chronologically.  But I try very hard on this site not to make an empty charge and never a false one.  So since I didn't follow-up quickly in J'Accuse, I should have written the facts behind that accusation when I made it or shortly thereafter.  I am now correcting that error and thank the reader who prompted it.

Although we know the government has two standards of justice - one for us and one for anyone at Justice, it is still wrong for the U.S. Justice Department to indict people for illegal acts it condones routinely for its employees.  The Declaration of Independence reminds us that "Governments are instituted among Men, deriving their just powers from the consent of the governed..."  That consent is given so long as the Government doesn't abuse those powers.  I think as far as the federal government broadly - and Justice specifically - we're long past the point of no return (i.e Fast & Furious). 

Part of my indictment involved an incident that took place at HDC involving a subordinate and his ailing father.  The father was having triple bypass surgery at the Cleveland Clinic and the employee - for whatever reason - was having financial troubles.  He and his mother were going to stay at a YMCA type facility for little or no charge.  I said that HDC would pick up the charge for a decent motel for the three nights they were there.  I was indicted for that.

In 2005 I was awaiting trial at Butner FMC when I called one of my lawyers, Henry Mazurek for an update.   He informed me that neither he nor Jerry (Shargel) had heard from the prosecutor, Debbie Landis, in weeks.  Her deputy could provide no info because apparently he wasn't hearing from her either.  Henry told me further that it now takes 3-4 weeks to get any e-mail response from Debbie on our pending issues with her.

I was rather stunned by this since as a Senior Assistant U.S. Attorney, Debbie worked on only one case at a time.  Mine was her only case; she had no other work but prosecuting me.  If she wasn't responding to our requests for weeks at a time, what was she doing?  I remember vividly asking Henry if she was on vacation.  No, he replied, she had had herself transferred to another District and was working from there.  Huh?  I am her only case - here in New York City - and she is now working somewhere else on this case?  I told Henry that I did not understand what he was telling me.  He informed me that Debbie had told Jerry that her father was very ill, probably dying.  He lived in the Midwest (I think it was Milwaukee).  So she had herself transferred for the time being to the U.S. Attorney's Office near her father. 

Now ordinarily this bureaucratic/human resources slight of hand would only engender sympathy, not scorn.  But here you have Debbie transferring herself to another District in order to continue being paid her salary - which was mid six figures - and benefits, rather than doing what I can hear her telling the Judge I should have done in a similar circumstance: She could have taken sick leave, vacation leave, unpaid leave or appropriately, leave under the Family and Medical Leave Act.  But she wanted to keep getting paid and accruing benefits.  But that would be one thing.  She wanted to keep getting paid and not perform any work.  That is something entirely different.  During the ensuing months she collected tens of thousands of dollars of salary from the federal government and performed virtually no work on the only case she had, mine.  According to Henry, she spent most days at her father's bedside. 

Now if I had decided to run HDC from Seattle in order to care for a sick relative, you can be sure I would have had that included in my indictment since the very idea that I could do my job from 3,000 miles away for any extended period of time is absurd.  And yet she - conspiring with her superiors who approved this phony transfer - knowingly took salary for work that was never performed.  As I said, Henry told me it took weeks to get any response from her to a single e-mail.  I would hear this over and over again during the following months.  Her deputy said he couldn't get answers to our questions either because she wasn't communicating with him.

The Federal Criminal Code, as you well know, has an Honest Services Statute.  This is a clear violation of that, not to mention a conspiracy charge since her bosses, Karen Patton Seymour and the then U.S. Attorney, Michael Garcia, surely had to know that she could not perform her duties on her one and only case back in New York from the Midwest.   It was a scam as surely as someone scamming Medicare with false claims or a 9/11 victim claiming false injuries.  Whether you employ a strict or lenient standard, it's pure fraud.

So she stayed there for a few months, performed virtually no work, collected her full salary and accrued all her benefits.  Her father died, she buried him and she came back to NY to resume my case.  Under normal circumstances, a very touching story.

But under these, it's obscene hypocrisy.  My case went on for months longer than necessary because she wouldn't come back to New York to do her job, although she was paid her full salary during this period to pretend that she was.  This is one of a thousand examples that happen at Justice where the rules for the governed differ from those of the governing.   We are certainly a nation with a two-tiered justice system.  But the black/white divide is only one part of that. 

Debbie Landis should have been investigated by the Inspector General, fired or at a minimum sanctioned and fined.  Her superiors likewise should have been reprimanded for knowingly allowing this fraud to occur.  But of course no such thing happened.  No one investigates Justice employees for criminal behavior except other Justice employees.  And as we know: A. That happens very rarely; and B. when it does, they are either exonerated, transferred or allowed to quietly resign. No one is ever punished for criminal behavior while an employee at Justice - it just isn't done.

Debbie Landis went on to indict many other people, several for defrauding the federal government; her crime having gone unnoticed, uninvestigated, unprosecuted and unpunished.  I conclude this sorry tale by apologizing to her for alluding to this episode earlier and never explaining it.

 

 

9/17/11        Lies Beget Lies

                Throughout my life, Ray Harding imparted a few memorable thoughts that I have retained in the ensuing years.  One of them was "If something doesn't sound right, it probably isn't."  You'd be surprised how often one thinks back to that phrase in everyday life.

I recalled that line again yesterday when reading Mayor-for-Life Mike's announcement of the new smoking statistics from the New York City Health Department.  Regular readers of this blog are asked to recall two posts.  One was just 3 days ago and the other was on the eve of Mayor-for-Life Mike's coup, I mean most recent re-election.

I told you 18 months ago that one of the reasons I found Bloomberg so odious was that he encourages and condones his agencies routinely releasing stats that are clearly false.  The two most egregious violators of the public trust are the NYC Departments of Health and Transportation.  I reminded you yet again just the other day that he lies to everyone about his staff and their timesheets.  Many City Hall staffers are paid full City salaries while working nearly full-time for his foundation (Of course the City's DOI stays far away from these staffers - the Mayor wouldn't like that.  It's illegal btw for City staff to have other jobs without prior approval.  His staff does not for the work they currently do for his foundation.  His First Deputy Mayor is the full time head of his foundation and has no approval to hold that job.  The City pays her $250,000 a year for a job she shows up for a few hours a week).

DOH reports that their calorie displays mandate is a huge success even though national studies show they have no effect whatsoever on consumer's choices.   They endorse the Department of Education's exclusive contract with Snapple to supply all NYC schools with their products only to make war on Snapple a few years later for too much sugar when the Mayor decides we're all too fat.

DOT has torn up the whole city in accord with the Mayor's war on the automobile.  Tourist friendly pedestrian plazas now back up traffic throughout Manhattan.  In the outer boroughs (a phrase Rudy Giuliani banned from use as insulting) whole neighborhoods have been destroyed in order to install bike lanes that almost no one uses since bikers don't obey city traffic regs.  Prior to each of these neighborhood massacres DOT promises to do a study and report on the impact on traffic and neighborhood businesses.  Every reporter in town knows that when DOT actually does a study - in clearly bad cases the don't even do the study - the results are phony and City Hall approved.  

So now DOH tells us that only 14% of New York City residents smoke.  A dramatic decrease and a huge success in the Mayor's war on smokers.  Believable?  Hardly.

NYC now has a smoking rate that is the third lowest in the nation.  Only less than Utah - Mormons don't smoke - and California.  According to DOH's report, they would have us believe that virtually no one in NYC who lives between 60th St and 96th St on the West Side smokes - less than 5%. 

This last week the New York Times and the Wall Street Journal had big stories - as did the other papers - reporting unquestioningly on these stats.  No reporter asked or reported on DOH's methodology for compiling these stats. DOH routinely releases these smoking stats and all the newspapers gobble them up with big accompanying headlines.

Take a walk on the Upper West Side and tell me that no one smokes.  In fact, I am actually shocked when I walk on the streets of NYC how many people smoke.  I have never seen this many smokers especially considering the price of a pack of cigarettes.  Fewer?  Anecdotally it appears to be at a record high.  These figures are simply beyond belief.  But they lead to an invitation for the Mayor to speak at the UN on smoking, they lead to big headlines, they draw attention to the Mayor's foundation and its global war on smokers.  And at the end of the day that's what this is really about: using City resources to bolster the stated work of the Bloomberg Foundation.  Even if they have to make this shit up in order to achieve their aims. 

There is a new ABC show called Pan Am.  In this show, which centers around international air travel in the early 1960's, no one will be shown smoking.  Yup, air travel in the 60's and no one will smoke.  It's the same thing with these smoking stats; Bloomberg doesn't want anyone to smoke so his Health Department says no one does.  It's as realistic and credible as the TV show.  Except, DOH isn't supposed to be a fantasy factory and doesn't get the same pass as ABC.

Given the indiscernable difference between the staff and work of the Mayor's Office and the Foundation, it is no wonder that their work product is identical. It's only sad that the ever-diligent reporters of the city's newspapers reprint these press releases without ever questioning their motives and methods.  But that is the sad record of the last decade.

 

9/16/11        Somewhere Jimmy Carter is Smiling

 

            Adolf Hitler didn't invent German anti-semitism.  He stoked it, codified it and made it socially acceptable, but it had been a part of German society for hundreds of years.  Similarly, the growing anti-semitism in this country that masks itself under the guise of anti-Israeli advocacy, wasn't spawned by Barack Obama.  He has just given it cover, expression and - in many quarters - legitimacy.

Maya Angelou famously said that Bill Cinton was our first black president.  Of course Bill Clinton isn't black.  But while Barack Obama may not be Muslim, he is unquestionably the nation's first Muslim president. The disproportionate amount of time he spends speaking uncritically of Islam and to its adherents makes even his fans wonder what's behind it.  As Fox News reports endlessly, never a presidential acknowledgement of Easter or Christmas but the president sends greetings to the Muslim world for every single obscure Muslim holiday.

It's not just Jews who are troubled by this.  That Barack Obama hates Israel is only disputed these days - and after the last three years - by his paid staff and the DNC.  Israel is in its most precarious moment short of an actual military invasion in its history.  One could argue it was in better shape when it knew that its neighbors might invade at any moment.  Now its 'friends' - Egypt, Jordan and Turkey - have seemingly become cold acquaintances on their way to becoming hostile enemies.  What emboldens them to do this? 

Yes, the Arab Spring has turned into a beautiful Autumn for the Jimmy Carters of the world.  Israel's ambassador to Turkey has been thrown out and its ambassador to Egypt had to be airlifted to safety.  Yesterday their ambassador in Amman fled back to Jerusalem prior to a large demonstration. 

Here's what Jews the world over have known for the last 5,000 years: when you're in trouble blame the Jews.  The military junta that currently runs Egypt is nervous about more demonstrations as it slips back into its repressive ways, so it feeds the street anti-zionist meat.  The very unTurkish, non-secular government in Ankara came late to the Arab Spring party and wants fans, so it launches into full anti-Israel mode.  Even Jordan - practically a client state of the U.S. - feels emboldened to threaten Israelis.  Can anyone imagine these countries - one a NATO member - behaving this way under a President Reagan, Bush II or even Clinton?  What gives them license to do this is the unprecedentedly hostile talk from this White House towards Israel.  

No single person on this planet has his words, actions and body language studied as closely as does the President of the United States.  It's not that Obama isn't aware of what he's doing, it's that he can't stop himself.  His dislike of the Jewish state is bone deep.  A few weeks ago, apropos of nothing, Obama felt the need to proclaim that Israel must return to the 1967 borders.  This statement wasn't timed for an event or speech to some relevant group; he just said it.  Why?  Because he can't stop telling people that he does not support Israel and that he bleeds for the Palestinians.

NY-9 is only the first political by-product of this.  Since election day 2008, Obama's approval rating with Jewish voters nationally has dropped 28 points.  That ain't nothing.  And it will be felt in Florida, Pennsylvania, New Jersey and quite possibly California - which not only has a large Jewish population, but also the second highest unemployment rate in the country.

I could explain to you the reason why Obama hates Israel at some length.  Its core has to do with a segment of his generation's belief and acceptance in what is known as the 'Alternate Narrative.'  It's especially true if you're of that generation and black. 

Put simply, for decades the conventionally accepted - settled even - view of Israel was that of the scrappy underdog made good (socially, economically, politically) and admired by much of the world for its success in the face of a hostile, ever-threatening region. Then came the 60's and the PLO.  Starting in the 1970's the hard left in this country became enamored with the "Palestinian struggle" and the view of Israel as the oppressor.  Israel was no longer the good guy but had become basically South Africa.  Israel wasn't the victim in 1948, so goes the narrative, it was the aggressor.  And has remained such since 1967.  According to the Alternate Narrative, the Palestinians were permanent victims rather than how they were/are perceived by the vast majority of Americans - terrorists and terrorist sympathizers (recall that on 9/11 the only place on earth - not Iraq, Afghanistan, North Korea or Cuba - where they were joyously dancing in the streets at the WTC having been destroyed was the Palestinian Authority). 

Barack Obama has a more favorable view publicly of Kim Jong-il or Mahmoud Ahmadinejad than he does of Benjamin Netanyahu.  And has been far more critical of him than either of those two despots.  That has not gone unnoticed by the radical left here or by the rest of the world (I cannot, however, blame him for the recent spate of anti-Netanyahu editorials in the New York Times; they adopted the Alternative Narrative a long time ago). 

It's his tone and tenor that allows the Palestinian Authority to proceed without fear of U.S. reprisal in seeking recognition at the U.N.  This is why it's fashionable for colleges to have Israeli divestiture movements on nearly every major campus.  Similarly, here in NYC, paid ads line our transit system calling for an end to U.S. aid to Israel and help for the Palestinian people.  It even helps explain how a bunch of self-hating Jews calling themselves J Street could come to be viewed as a mainstream Jewish lobbying group.  Unthinkable a few years ago or with a different president.  Obama has now made it de rigueur to hate Israel and by extension Jews in general.

Words and actions have consequences.  None more so than those of the President of the United States.  His intense dislike of Israel, coupled with his bungling of the Arab Spring portends very grave things for the State of Israel.  The voters in NY-9 knew that.  Christian evangelicals and conservative Republicans know that.  The question is whether the rest of the Jewish community throughout the U.S. will wake up to this reality by November 2012.

 

 

9/15/11        Why is John Boehner Not Stopping This?

 

Patrick Leahy may be the most fascistic liberal member of Congress.  Ask anyone where this Vermont Democrat rates and they would say, "Oh, he's liberal."  And yet, through his work as either Chairman or ranking member, he has supported, endorsed or sponsored some of the most anti-civil liberties legislation of the last 150 years.  And today he is set to continue that record by shepherding out of his committee a sweeping and unbelievably frightening revision to the Computer Fraud & Abuse Act.  Naturally, this monstrous expansion of federal criminal oversight of the internet comes at the request of Eric Holder.  It will now become a federal crime - a felony, in fact - to lie about your age or weight on your Facebook page; or anything else for that matter.  Why is there a Tea Party movement?  Why do Americans mistrust and viscerally hate our government?  Read this story in today's WSJ and discover why if you're still not sure.    WSJ - Facebook Lies Now Felonies

 

 

9/15/11        How To Tell If Your Husband is Gay

            Sometimes we just need a little levity amidst all the serious issues.  I found this on the Huffington Post.  The HP writer says he's not sure whether it's a joke.  Clearly, if you look at the originating website, ChristWire.com, it's no joke.  This site is so far right they call Rick Perry a pornographer and Sarah Palin a harlot.  My favorite example is that if your husband comes home smelling of liquor, cigarette smoke AND GEL, he must be gay.  Anyway, I think you'll enjoy this.  Not to mention that you'll probably discover based on their examples that many of you are appraently married to gay men.   15 Signs Your Husband is Gay

 

9/14/11    When They Came For Me No One Was Left to Object

            I don't really know what more to add to the attached story from the Knoxville New Sentinel.  As I've told you countless times, if you don't stand up to injustice when it happens to some, it will surely end up happening to all.  Please focus on the paragraph that states, "Grider said at this point no one knows who the man was or whether he was a sex offender, but that the incident was troubling enough to look into."  There's no question that this ordinance will lose in court.  But notice how eager these elected officials are to solve a problem they admit doesn't exist with a remedy they don't much seem to care is unconstitutional.  Also note this ordinance applies to anyone who ever solicited a prostitute of any age.  Take a minute and read this story:  Knoxville Bans Sex Offenders from Libraries

 

9/13/11    WHOOPS!!

            What precisely was going through the minds of the geniuses inside City Hall when they didn't move heaven and earth to prevent John Haggerty from being indicted for fleecing the Mayor's campaign?  They thought what, that the million dollars he was given for 'ballot security' was going to be ignored during a trial?  Perhaps they did.  Whoops! This is all part of the continuing hubris that makes one think that having a billion dollars - or 19 billion dollars - somehow inoculates you from third term disasters. 

Mayor-for-Life Mike officially claims to having spent $120 million on his barely re-election campaign.  Most think the figure was closer to $150 million.  But whatever the obscenity of the number, we know that like a bad drug gang no one kept very good books or asked many questions about where it went, so long as the product got delivered.  The 'product' in this case was votes.

For the non-NYers reading this, the case at bar involves a former Republican operative who was working for a third party, the Independence Party, as a consultant.  The Mayor's campaign wrote the Independence Party a check for somewhere around $1,000,000 for the Haggerty work.  He claimed he could deliver a quality field organization that would turn out votes in Queens County - or so the indictment states.  He then may or may not have spent part of that money on that task but he did spend the remainder on the purchase of a home for himself.  In either case, no one from the Bloomberg campaign asked or seemed to much care what he did with the money. 

Bloomberg thought he had this matter all wrapped up except Mr. Haggerty wouldn't take a plea deal when he was indicted for scamming the Mayor's campaign.  The Manhattan DA, Cy Vance, has tried his best to hide the truth regarding the Bloomberg campaign's spending practices, but the presiding judge isn't playing ball.  He is now allowing, if not a full examination by the defense, at least the questions to be asked of campaign officials as to how they ran their campaign and how they spent their money.  All of this will naturally be under oath.  Unfortunately, when they inevitably perjure themselves the only prosecutor around to indict them will be the one who has tried to shield them from testifying in the first place.  

It's fine that Cy Vance wants to limit testimony in order to convict his defendant.  It's not fine when clearly there is a much larger wide-ranging pattern of campaign spending impropriety going back three elections that vastly outweighs this one minor case at hand.  That should be where Vance's investigators should be sniffing.

But the Bloomberg wizards at City Hall permitted this case to go forward thinking they had it all handled. I am sure that's what Ed Koch thought about Donald Manes, Meade Espisito and Stanley Friedman.  Vance didn't need their cooperation to proceed, but had they refused this matter would have died.  New York City has never seen anything like this.  Millions and millions of dollars for 'walking around money.'  Millions more used to pay off community groups or civic groups or churches on a scale we could never have imagined.  

It's not that Mike Bloomberg is the most corrupt city official we have ever had.  He is not.  He is however, inarguably, the most corrupting man to ever occupy that office.  Little by little everyone around him sells out their morals and ethics.  He takes decent law abiding people and makes them potential felons.  Prime example?  Patti Harris, the City's First Deputy Mayor.  Nice woman, modestly competent, fiercely loyal.  But for the deal made between the City's Dept. of Investigation and the U.S. Attorney's Office not to investigate Bloomberg associates in exchange for all other prosecutions, she'd be wearing prison orange for the gross violation of the Honest Services Statute.  Incidentally, one of the few instances where its application would be appropriate and meet the conditions set down by the U.S. Supreme Court.  The same goes for numerous other City Hall staff who make handsome six figure City salaries and work full time or nearly such at the Bloomberg Foundation.  Nice people who should right now be serving long prison sentences thanks to the corrupting influence of their boss.

But maybe their day has come.  Let's see how badly they miscalculated once inside Justice Zweibel's courtroom.  Is this the denouement?  We'll have to wait and see.

 

9/8/11    Wilson or Truman?

President Obama says he's going to take his jobs plan to "every corner of this country."  The White House thinks he's Harry Truman and he's going to give the Republicans hell.  It's also possible - perhaps more likely - that he's going to come off as Woodrow Wilson who went around the country speaking with utter futility in favor of the League of Nations and like Truman, attacking Republicans he viewed as obstructionist.  He also gave himself a stroke in the process.

Clearly the phrase "pass this jobs bill" tested very well with those Frank Luntz-like dial meters.  Let's admit upfront whether you are a Democrat, Republican or Independent that this proposal won't create any jobs before the presidential election.  Trust me having worked at City Hall that you don't want to cross a bridge or drive on a highway that was dreamed up, planned, designed and built in 14 months.  In NYC it takes an average of 10 years to go from idea to ribbon-cutting on a public school.  Renovations won't take much less time. 

Throughout the Great Depression, FDR never spent a penny of federal money to pay for local teachers, police or firefighters.  It is not the job of the federal government to save unions from reduced ranks, which is what these proposals are truly intended to do.  Obama's complete lack of understanding of how the private sector works was on display tonight.  Employers hire more workers when they feel good about the economy, sense a growing market and feel confident about their companies. 

No one hires based on less taxes in an awful economy that looks to be getting worse.  They increase existing worker productivity until the economy turns around.  That's what Ronald Reagan knew in his bones and was willing to accept a horrible recession because he knew his plan would work, the economy would turn around and the rest would take care of itself.  He knew that because that's how a capitalist market economy works.  That is what Barack Obama fundamentally doesn't get.  You can't game the capitalist system into working in a 14 trillion dollar economy.

I have listened to every major speech he's given and he must have said over a dozen times in the last three years that he know there's waste and over regulation and he's willing to attack it.  And yet he never does!  He could streamline the federal government to a significant degree by fiat - by executive order.  He could propose cuts to wasteful programs in his budgets.  And yet he never does!  How seriously should someone take these empty promises? 

This is even more galling in light of the bankruptcy last week and federal raid today of a company - Solyndra - Obama has personally championed, gave $500 million dollars in federal guarantees to and whose executives visisted the White House 20 times in the last two years.  Naturally they contributed heavily to his campaign and the companies solar panel technology (read green jobs) was dismissed by experts as too expensive and already outmoded before they received their federal money.  Yea, he's guarding your tax dollars with a watchful eye.

Last week he admitted that his EPA is a job killing agency and has now promised to wait until he's re-elected to start killing jobs in earnest through industry destroying environmental standards.  I guess that's something.  It seems particularly credible when federal goons keep raiding Gibson Guitars in order to enforce a federal law on rare woods that is so esoteric that no one understands it well enough to agree on its enforcement.  Nice friendly business climate he's creating.

He's said so often that he's for free trade and wants a free trade pact with South Korea that you would be right to think Congress has refused to pass it.  And yet the truth is he has steadfastly refused to send the treaty to Congress for ratification because a certain Democratic Senator opposes major provisions of it and wants to have taxpayers pay billions to U.S. workers who might be harmed by it after he said he wouldn't insist on the TAA (Trade Adjustment Assistance).  Again, how can anyone believe what he says.

All in all this was a very fine campaign speech and should have been delivered on the stump in Iowa or Michigan.  Once again he demeans his office by using the presidency and its traditions as a prop.  I'm with McConnell over Boehner on this one. It's rehashed Stimulus II and should be ignored by the House and Senate.  The upcoming Republican counter offer heavy with tax reform and deregulation is clearly the right approach at this moment in time.  Obama was right about one thing.  This will really all only be settled 14 months from now.

 

9/8/11    On My Mind

 

Last Night's Debate

            Last night's debate in Simi Valley was much more informative and instructive than I had expected.  I, like many, had bought into the Rick Perry hype that he was some giant killer and last night was going to demonstrate to us the power of his presence.  Here's what we learned:  Like Huey Long - who played perfectly well in Louisiana - Rick Perry is a creature of his environment.  He is Texas; they love him for that, relate to him for it, and re-elect him as a reward for his genuineness.  But that's where it ends.  Ed Koch at the height of his popularity as Mayor couldn't even find support in the rest of New York State, let alone nationally - he was a total creature of New York City.  Rick Perry appeals to the knuckle dragging, gun toting, creationist yahoo culture of Texas (i.e loud cheers from his supporters last night for executing people).  That dog just won't hunt beyond its borders.  

I am now sure he can go on being re-elected Governor there for the rest of his life, but that's all he can expect.  He derides Karl Rove.  But what Karl Rove knew best was that the Texas aspect of George Bush's persona had to be a flavoring, not the main course.  The swagger and G dropping conveyed a machismo that Americans like in their presidents.  Rove knew, however, that a mainstream record as Governor and sound policy proposals were what made the cowboy boots palatable nationally.  The Perry people believe it's the reverse.  And they are wrong.

What last night was mainly about was making many in the party - this writer included - more comfortable with Mitt Romney.  The way forward for my party is now clear, I saw it last night.  Here's the ticket that beats Barack Obama, Romney-Huntsmann.  Conventional wisdom and party history would tell you that I am all wet and that ticket makes no sense.  Here's why that's wrong this year.  Traditionally a party nominee offsets his philosophical shortcomings with his V.P. pick: Ike picks Nixon, Goldwater picks Miller, Ford picks Dole, Reagan picks Bush, Dole picks Kemp, McCain picks Palin (I admit I am not sure how Dan Quayle fits into this narrative). 

But let's look not to GOP practice but to a winning ticket that broke those rules.  Ole Bill Clinton chose another moderate southerner as his V.P.  At the time this was considered very daring perhaps dangerous to their chances.  But Clinton and Carville wanted what Romney needs to win, namely, to narrow laser-like the focus of the general election debate and deprive their opponents of any distractions.

This election is a referendum on Obama and his presidency.  What Axelrod and Plouff want is a debate about the peril of entrusting the nation to their opponents.  You may not like Romney and Huntsmann.  You may not agree with them.  But absolutely no one can say that those two men cannot act as responsible leaders from day one.  No one can make you scared of a Romney-Huntmann ticket.  These two guys ooze competence and quiet confidence.  In fact, what this will be about is two very bright, articulate, competent men who project to the American people what they are craving: competence, confidence and security.  And while you may counter argue that they also don't inspire Reagan like zeal, I would say that's not necessarily a bad thing this time.  We did that in '08' and that didn't work out so well.

Last night Robert Gibbs did the bonehead move of attacking an MSNBC host, Chris Matthews.  Matthews asked him where would the president lead the nation if their were no impediments, essentially what's his ideal plan and vision.  Gibbs couldn't answer and instead attacked Matthews for the question.  First, you know you're in trouble when MSNBC hosts have doubts about your leadership and second, how stupid do you have to be to attack the only openly favorable network on the air?  Btw, Matthews was very clearly pissed at being attacked.

I tell you this to show that the doubts that grow daily about Obama aren't confined to the Tea Party right wing.  They now pervade his base.  No one loved George H.W. Bush in 1988.  But they knew the country would be safe and on sound footing with him in office.  Dukakis appeared to have no clue.  Plouff and Axelrod want to make 2012 all about the dangers of the nominees.  Take that away from them from the start.  They will be left to discuss the future (Obama has no vision) and his record (unprecedentedly dismal).   You simply cannot demonize Romney-Huntsmann.  And imagine Huntmann in a debate with crazy Joe Biden.  Also how cool would it be to have a vice president who could go to China and yell at them in Chinese? 

This ticket has two more advantages.  First, it's a break with the Bush-Cheney past.  Neither Romney nor Huntsmann is tainted by support for the excesses, and in my view criminality, of the Bush-Cheney era.  Giuliani, for instance, would be a continuation of that legacy and debate.  Second, I am no opponent of the Tea Party.  In principle I like their core values.  But what I like more is a Tea Party dominated House and Senate married with a slightly more mainstream White House. That is a winning future for this country.  As for the Mormon problem I have written about here previously....

I have said on these pages that no Mormon can get through successfully a Republican primary process.  I am still not sure I'm wrong.  But Romney-Huntsmann to me is a little like dieting.  I have spent most of my life on and off a diet.  And when I go off a diet I don't, like many, do so a little I do it big time.  If I'm wrong and the party is ready for a Mormon nominee than two ain't going to matter - don't just eat one fry, have a whole plate of fries.   If I am right, then the one is enough to kill it before we ever get to the convention to find out if two is too many. 

As for the argument that in this election year these two men are too moderate for this GOP base, I say again, this year is different.  The GOP base and the Tea Party specifically will be voting against Obama more than they'll be voting for any nominee.  Most of these people don't hate Obma, although many do. But as one of the millions of Republicans and independents who voted for Obama we have concluded that: a. he is totally out of his depth; b. his policies are antithetical to mainstream thinking; and c. the nation can't endure four more years of him.  The base will be very energized to see him gone and will come out in record numbers.  A more conservative nominee isn't going to raise those numbers this year.  In fact, the more fringe you go the more you supress the independent and conservative democrat numbers.  It won't increase the base this time around.

A Romney-Huntsmann ticket in which Romney adopts Huntsmann's economic plan is pretty much unbeatable barring something major happening.  Given the happenings of the last decade that may be a heavy assumption to make.  Perry is never going to be ready for the national stage and we are all going to have to get OK with Romney and figure out how to bolster his ticket.  I believe I just showed you the way.  Unfortunately, the Republican primary electorate and political calendar are, I fear, not going to cooperate.

 

Buddy, You Just Made the List

            If you really want to be scared about the nation we now live in, watch the report that aired last night on PBS Newshour.  Their investigative team asked a slew of police departments across the country to send them ten years worth of Suspicious Person Reports.  I wasn't particularly aware of the fact that there now exists a systematic, institutionalized process by which local police departments catalog and retain electronically reports on activities by citizens they consider - or someone considers - suspicious.  

Only one police department complied and that was the Bloomington, MN PD.  This happens to be the hometown of the Mall of America and the majority of the reports came from the mall.  What they discovered was chilling. 

So here you have mall cops - who basically make TSA employees look like Eliot Ness - writing lengthy reports on their observations of average citizens at the mall.  One report was 16 handwritten pages long and concerned a man who was in the mall with a backpack.  What made him suspicious?  As he walked he had his hand in his back pocket.  That man is now entered into the police database by name.  Another man's suspicious activity was sitting in the atrium writing on a pad of paper.  PBS discovered the man was an artist.  He is now entered by name into a police database as a suspicious person.  There were hundreds of examples like these.  Moreover, until PBS contacted them, none of these people knew anything about these reports or that they were deemed a suspicious person.

In one case, a 70 year old Pakistani-American leaves his cell phone in the food court.  He returns later to retrieve it.  A report is filed and sent to the FBI in D.C. and agents are dispatched to interview the man and his family.  Presumably they are now in a federal terror database.  For the crime of forgetting a cell phone, they were asked if they had terrorist connections back home and if they had ever traveled to Afghanistan.

Every counter-terror expert interviewed, with the exception of a current Dept of Homeland Security official who defended the usefulness of this practice, agreed these reports are less than useless and probably harmful.  Almost all were former Bush DHS officials.  Harmful not just because of the obvious civil liberties issues, but harmful operationally because they clutter an already cluttered system with totally useless information.

Take this one tiny instance of one mall and multiply that across thousands of malls and sporting arenas and police departments.  How many reports like these exist on thousands or millions of Americans who have committed no wrongful act and have no idea they have been reported, ID'd and catalogued.  This is the stuff of East Germany and the Stasi.  They managed to do this effectively using millions of index cards.  We no longer have to imagine how they would have handled the computer age.  It's happening right here in the U.S.A.

 

Why 67 Shootings Scare Bloomberg

                We have had since the second term of Giuliani a murder rate that is essentially zero.  Let me explain.  In economics a 3-4% national unemployment rate is effectively zero unemployment because there are always people who are fluctuating between jobs or simply choose not to look for new work.  You are never really going to get that number much lower and for inflationary reasons, you don't really want to.  With murder rates, every city basically has some number that is effective zero.  You can never predict or prevent the deranged jealous boyfriend who shoots his girlfriend or a domestic dispute that turns deadly.  These things happen and will always happen.  It's the random violence you seek to prevent - strangers shooting other strangers.  In New York City we now know that effective zero is somewhere around 300-400.  With an annual murder rate over the past few years of 500-600 that's pretty phenomenal policing for a city of 8 million people.

And with a near effective zero muder rate a populace can live and work without fear.  That means tourism, job growth, higher tax revenue and general prosperity.  What we learned from David Dinkins is that when you make no effort to curb the rate of crime and particularly the murder rate, and even worse excuse it, all those things disappear.  We reached a high of 2200 murders a year under Dinkins.  Again, if those 2200 were all angry husbands and wives killing each other that wouldn't have been much of a problem.  But 2200 was never the effective zero number back then.  So what you had was rampant gun violence and people being shot randomly all over the city.  On a near daily basis it seemed would be a story about a child dying in his/her bedroom or crib from a stray bullet that came through a wall.  When that happens the poor are trapped - they can't leave - and the middle class flee.  Forget about the political implications for a mayor with stats like those.  A city starts to die. 

So now this past weekend there were 67 shootings in New York City.  An astounding number in the post Dinkins era.  But more than that, 13 people were murdered over the weekend.  Mayor-for-Life Mike tells us he is not to blame.  Rick Perry is to blame, Rick Scott is to blame, Bob McDonnell is to blame.  Essentially any governor in a state that permits gun ownership is to blame for NYC's shooting spree.  Ahh echoes of David Dinkins.  Any day now Bloomberg will start beginning his sentences with "We ought not to...."  The beauty of being Mike is that all good things were your idea and all bad things are not your fault. 

Bloomberg has accomplished very little in 12 years.  The one thing he can say is that he continued much of Giuliani/Bratton/Kerik policing and kept crime down.  Once that starts to slip the legacy he perceives himself having - essentially the one the New York Times has bestowed on him - of being a great mayor, rapidly vanishes.  Numbers and headlines are difficult things to get around.  He can attempt to nationalize NYC's crime problem all he wants.  It's a silly argument that has never worked and will never once the numbers become consistently bad.  He will have an Obama type problem.  There may be many legitimate reasons why you can't solve an intractable unemployment crisis or a wave of crime.  But at the end of the day, people don't care and want a leader who will find the answer and fast.  That's the realm Obama has already entered and may very well await Bloomberg shortly.

 

Two New Studies Show Sex Offender Registries Don't Work

                Under the heading of 'Don't take my word for it' here is a link to the University of Chicago's press release announcing the results of two studies; one done by UoC and the other at Columbia University.  Studies Question SO Registries Effectiveness    The UoC study states that while registration lowers recidivism, releasing that information to the public does the opposite.  The Columbia study claims that registration is a failure in every regard.  In fact, inmates released to states without registries were less likely to reoffend than those released to states with them!!  This adds to the University of Florida study I showed you two years ago that looked only at New York State's SORA Law and found it too to have been worthless and unfounded in its underlying premise and rationale for the law. 

At what point does doing something this drastic and constitutionally questionable come under review when nearly every credible study shows it doesn't work?  At what point will the courts and state legislatures stand up to cable news and talk radio - who drive these laws - and repeal or significantly modify them?  The answer is probably not in my lifetime.  But hey I'm an optimist.  I never thought communism in eastern europe would disappear in my lifetime either.

 

8/21/11    RAH Legal Updates

Two pieces of legal news for me in the last 72 hours.  First, on Friday morning I filed my response to the Shargel Answer to my complaint. 

My response is a little lengthy and perhaps slightly verbose, but I was so offended by the tactics and sloppy logic used by Shargel's lawyer that I went to pains to point them out.  His Answer basically came down to making stuff up that involved me in their alibi and then use that created series of events to claim I knew and approved all along Shargel was taking payments from Ray Harding.  It's the kind of excuse you'd expect from a teenager and not a trio of experienced trial lawyers.

RAH Response

 

The second piece of news came my way Friday night.  My attorney informed me that we lost our appeal in the 2nd Department of the Appellate Division.  I don't mind losing so much, I assumed we would lose in the 2nd Dept and get a proper hearing at the Court of Appeals, New York State's highest court.  What I never could have possibly expected was the decision that was handed down.

My lawyer informed me last month that the Appellate Division has twice requested evidence from the DA's office.  For those of you not schooled in legal matters, appellate courts almost never request evidence from lower courts.  It virtually never happens and in this case happened twice.  As I told my lawyer, I still think we'll lose but it will be interesting to read the decision and see how they reasoned to fuck me. 

My lawyer submitted a lengthy and very good appeal.  Westchester County countered with a response and we, I believe, tore that apart with our response.  The point being, there was a lot of serious paper submitted to the court.  It must have been, they requested evidence based on it.  In their decision they addressed none of it and simply said, in a half-page decision, the lower court was correct. I was blown away by the laziness of the court.  It was shocking.

I'm attaching a link to the decision but note my favorite part of it:  The court says,

"Moreover, under the circumstances of this case, the County Court properly determined that an upward departure to risk level three was warranted."

The thing you need to know is that in the County Court's decision, Judge Jeffrey Cohen - now a member of the 2nd Dept, btw - solely based his rationale on upward departing me from a Level 2 sex offender to a Level 3 sex offender on my HDC conviction - that's what the Appellate Div meant by "under the circumstances."  In his thinking, having plead to expense account irregularities makes me far, far more likely to molest children, notwithstanding that I never have and there has never been any evidence presented anywhere that I have ever attempted to.  The Appellate Division concurred wholeheartedly with his thinking. 

Men who have serially raped children as young as 3 years old are Level 1 and Level 2 sex offenders.  But Judge Cohen and the Justices of the Appellate Division clearly know something no one else does. 

The controlling case in these matters is a Court of Appeals case, People v. Johnson.  Not only is it the controlling case, but it speaks to the facts that are nearly identical to mine.  Johnson was always the reason I expected to eventually prevaiI. I also knew almost from the start, after seeing what a non-serious jurist Jeffrey Cohen was, that we would lose in his court, lose at the Appellate Div and that this would be decided at the Court of Appeals. 

Like any U.S. Supreme Court case that is either ignored, misinterpreted or intentionally perverted by a lower court, at the end of the day only the court that handed down the original decision can restate their intent and set the lower courts straight.  I've read Johnson dozens of times.  The CoA's meaning is clear and I have every hope they will restate their intent once again.  If that's the case, I have every confidence we will prevail.  

Even if you think I'm a bad guy and have all this coming to me, just remember two things: 1. justice granted with this much caprice is a sure sign of a decayed judicial system and society; and 2. I'm nobody special.  If this can happen to me, it can happen to you, a member of your family or someone you love. Never forget that. 

Believe this or not, but I don't fight these fights solely for me.  I fight them for all the other poor schlubs who come after me.  I put myself in imminent risk of being returned to prison in 2008 based on my desire to set a precedent for others even though my case alone could have been settled in my favor had I agreed to a settlement without any finding of fact.  But I put my liberty at dire risk solely to help others.  Had I accepetd that deal - minutes before we walked into federal court - I would have won, but no one else would have been helped.  Had I lost that day, I would have lost the deal and been instantly returned to prison.  How many of you would have done that after spending five years in prison and been out only for two months, all for a principle? 

I'm no saint, far from it.  But after all I've seen and all I have been through I now know that we all have a responsibility to fight a corrupt and corrupting system wherever we can.  Whether that be corrupt defense lawyers or perverted laws and justice.

I've said many times on here that other than having the state kill someone or incarcerate them, no more serious and grave penalty can exist in society than registering citizens.  Especially when it is based on some belief that they may possibly behave in a manner they never have before.  This is very border line totalitarian.  But even if you believe registering people is acceptable as a societal norm, then something this grave has to be done with the highest level of seriousness.  So far Judge Cohen and the 2nd Department have given no indication that they understand that.  Here is hoping that gravity is applied to this case, and many similar ones, by the Court of Appeals in Albany.

NYS Appellate Division 2nd Dept.  Harding Decision

 

 

8/15/11    Ames & Beyond

Two things I wrote on these pages months ago came to pass this weekend.  First, I told you to pay no attention whatever to Tim Pawlenty.  He would flame out fast, as his policies appealed to no group and his personality appealed to no one.  Secondly, weeks before Michelle Bachmann announced, I wrote that anyone who underestimates her and especially her debating skills, does so at their peril.  David Gregory on Meet the Press tried to rough her up good yesterday and she was unflappable and on message. And now enter Gov. Perry.

I was very ready to dismiss him and his candidacy for a few reasons I'll get to in a moment.  But then I heard his announcement and that one line: "I will work every day to make Washington, D.C. as inconsequential in your lives as I can..."  That is powerful, powerful stuff.  The verbiage and phrasing of that line is sheer genius.  Frank Luntz is wetting himself somewhere for not having dreamed that up and sold it to them.

The rap, perhaps deservedly and even proudly, on Republicans from Democrats is that they want to destroy the Federal Government and all the good it does for so many people.  That charge has resonance with independent voters and that's why Democrats use it.  But Perry, by the use of that line is not echoing what many, including this conservative, want to see happen - namely retrench D.C. back to the 1930's - but rather he's tapping into the frustration of the daily news reports of waste, incompetence, gridlock and overreach.  People are genuinely tired of hearing about Washington and encountering D.C. intrusion in their everyday personal and work lives over and over again.  They are also tired that every news program starts with some D.C. crisis.  Washington, to many of us, should exist quietly and unobtrusively, in the deep background of our lives providing a few services efficiently and at low cost.

Additionally, the beauty of that phrase is that many in the country can read different things into it.  Tea Party people hear lower taxes, NRA types hear fewer background checks and gun purchase limits, Ron Paul types hear dramatic rollbacks, Wall Street types hear repealing Dodd-Frank, el al., etc.  All without sounding extreme or threatening to mainstream independents.

And unless you're Pelosi or Obama, who could really argue with the idea that Washington should be inconsequential in your daily routine.  It's really a genius linguistic construction.  It also goes to the heart of the right's greatest goal and that is repealing Obamacare.  Can't have Obamacare and still have D.C. be inconsequential in your daily life.  It's a phrase that says so much succinctly and still lets the listener or reader pour even more into it.

As for Gov. Perry the candidate, possible nominee and maybe President, I am much less impressed with the idea.  I actually shuddered the other day when I heard a voice come on the news that I swore was George Bush's.  But it was deeper with more drawl.  I really don't see how you separate out the Bush problem. 

I advised Obama early on to keep blaming Bush for the country's problems.  I said that to buy him time until his programs began to work.  Reagan used it effectively by blaming Carter through the first 2 difficult years until the tax cuts started to rev up the economy.  But that can't work when his own program has failed so miserably and demonstrably.  And yet, over 50% of voters blame Bush for the current state of the economy.  The causes?  Yes.  It's intensity?  Sure.  I defer to no one in my dislike of George Bush but even I cannot blame anyone but Barack Obama for the current state of things. 

The problem for Gov. Perry - and help for Obama - is that he reminds people of Bush and apparently they still blame Bush.  That cannot be good news for Rick Perry.  Have the multiple nightmares wrought by our last Texas president receded enough to allow us to elect another?  Putting aside money and organization, that is really the fundamental question for Rick Perry.  As for the whole church/state issue, it's a real problem for a lot of people.  Bush claimed to have some personal spiritual awakening.  In Bush's case, I'm sure it was gas and he misread the signs.  Perry doesn't just claim his faith shapes his views, he says he is actually "called" to make this run.  That's some pretty scary stuff.  What else will he claim God called upon him to do when he's elected President?  I don't know that many want to find out the answer to that question.

I expect that once the record of Perry's last 10 years as governor is examined he will be very badly damaged.  Texas is and always has been an ethical and political sewer.  The opposition research teams at Romney and Obama HQs won't be able to catalog and cross reference the stuff fast enough.  Not to mention that policy wise he actually has some problems with the right wing.  His immigration views are a minefield of bad quotes and policies.  If I had to place my bets now, I would say more than likely he is this year's Fred Thompson.  The big test will come on September 7th at the Reagan Library with the next debate.  I doubt he can withstand the shock and awe of liberal media bashing that is about to come his way.  If so, in 90 days we will be back to a Romney - Bachmann race.

But at the end of the day none of this may matter for whomever is the nominee.  This may be one of those years, like 1929, that whomever you put up against a failed president will win.  Or we're about to rewrite the history books with the re-election of a failed president.  It's going to be an interesting political year.

A quick note on the Rudy front.  Perry's entry into the race is very good news for Rudy Giuliani.  If Perry is the nominee it's better than 80% that he will pick Rudy as his V.P.  If Romney is it, there's a better than 50% chance it's Rudy (the regional MA/NY issue isn't relevant here because Rudy is a national figure not a local or state one).  He can't be Bachmann's pick because of his abortion views.

 

 

8/15/11    Britain's Maginot Line

Within every Harry Potter movie/book is a scene where an older character relates to Harry some episode that took place during the Valdemort reign.  At the end of the tale they always conclude by saying, "Was dark times, Harry - dark times."  This past week - looking at what took place on the streets of Britain - I have found myself thinking "dark times, very dark times."

This was never supposed to be.  The promise of the last two Labour Governments was that Britain had seen the last of this type of violence.  Tony Blair and a succession of Home Secretarys had come upon the magic elixir, they believed, to solve all of Britain's crime problems; riots like the ones that took place during the Thatcher era were going to be a thing of the past.  It wasn't anything so mundane as more cops or a proper 21st century policing strategy.  No, the law enforcement panacea was going to be CCTV.  They would spend billions to ring the entire country - nearly every square inch - with cameras that would capture all activity and be monitored in real time.  Police would intercede at crime scenes while they were occurring. They would be caught while they were happening and the tapes would aid in prosecution.  The British people were told that this dramatic diminution of their civil liberties was needed chiefly as an anti-terrorism measure.  So here we are more than a decade into the full implementation of the CCTV program and its promise to end public chaos such as that seen this month.  How goes it?

The mere fact that the riots took place is enough of an indictment that Labour and Conservative governments have completely destroyed what once was a very effective police force, worshipping instead at the alter of technology.  The very idea that the police would stand-by and let these teen hooligans 'tucker themselves out' as their initial response is in itself criminal.  But this was all foretold. 

Almost a year ago I read an account of the most sweeping study done of the CCTV program.  The study looked at all of Britain and examined the entire decade of its use.  Even I, a fierce opponent of CCTV, was surprised by its findings.  The study said that not only had crime not dropped, it had increased.  Moreover, the CCTV program was spawning more brazen criminal acts and seriously hindering prosecutions.  How can this be?  It's all their on film! 

Well the answer is there for everyone to see in these current riots.  Has it occurred to you to ask why the streets of Britain look like the Intifada?  When have you ever seen a large-scale, semi spontaneous mass riot in this country where everyone is covered up like a Saudi wife?  Why are all these kids covered up?  CCTV. 

The report laid out that while the cameras were very good at recording a crime, the criminals were almost always masked.  They had adapted fully, as criminals tend to do.   No proper identifications could be made of criminal acts caught on tape without laborious amounts of detective work to identify the culprit(s).  Further, that the masking had made the common thug more brazen; more serious crimes were being committed by masked criminals than would otherwise have been perpetrated had they been unmasked.  As for prosecuting these criminals, well you only have to look at what's happening in British courts right now.  The lousiest, most overworked public defender could make mincemeat with the witnesses the police are bringing forward.    

 "Can you identify the man who threw the rock in the shop window? Yes, he was wearing a blue puffy jacket and he's sitting right there.  Is my client wearing a blue puffy jacket?  No, he's not today.  Did you see the face of the man or woman who threw the rock?  No, they were masked.  So all you can say is someone wearing a blue puffy jacket - owned by tens of thousands of Londoners - threw a rock.  Correct?  You cannot identify my client as the thrower, can you?  No, I guess not."  

That scene is taking place, and will be for months, as the trials go forward.  And according to the study, it's happened numerous times already in British courts. British governments have reduced police manpower and support costs while bowing at this mystical goddess called CCTV.  The police response and the need to hire Bill Bratton is evidence enough that this plan has failed.

But what of the claim that the real effectiveness of CCTV is in preventing terrorism?  Again, the study tells us that not a single act of terror has been prevented by CCTV.  Assist post facto in piecing together a terrorist act?  Sure, very helpful.  But reducing, preventing or outright eliminating terrorist acts?  Hasn't done a thing.

The British policing situation reminds me very much of the vaunted underground labyrinth of fortifications that France constructed after World War I.  What came to be known as the Maginot Line was, in its time, an eighth world wonder.  Whole cities constructed underground with a connecting railway that could shuttle troops and weaponry up and down the line.  Movie theatres, dining halls, gymnasiums were all part of this subterranean world.  The French were convinced - and gambled their liberty - on the impregnable nature of these bunkers.  They assured the French people that nothing could break the Maginot Line.  The largest army in Europe and the most sophisticated defenses.  What could go wrong. 

Well, two things.  First the heavy gun turrets spaced throughout the length of the line were fixed, they did not rotate.  Meaning, if the enemy came from a different direction, they were useless.  Second, they never completed the Line.  They stopped at the Belgian border and did not continue on to the sea.   Why should they, what was the likelihood of the Germans coming through neutral Belgium.  Hmm I don't know, history. And they did again.  The billions of Francs spent to construct the totally useless fortress is a little like spending thousands reinforcing your front door against burglars all the while leaving the back door unlocked.

CCTV is Britain's Maginot Line.  It has cost a fortune to install and deploy, all the while providing authorities with false comfort and permitting them to lie to the citizenry as to their personal safety. British Governments slashed police funding all the while assuring localites that crime would go down thanks to CCTV.  And all it took to defeat this multi-billion dollar system was not a large army but a piece of cloth costing a few pence. 

It hasn't prevented terrorism. It has increased, not decreased crime.  It hinders prosecution of criminals.  It has drastically infringed on British citizen's civil liberties.

As for the root cause of this hooliganism, on the one hand it's irrelevant - this was totally unacceptable whatever the 'cause' - on the other, there are many to choose from.  The common link to understanding the breakdown of British society is the British Government and its policies.  This is the chief reason why Bratton will fail.  In NYC and L.A it was bad policing coupled with too few cops.  Bratton did nothing to fundamentally reshape society.  Only elected leaders and their governments can do that.  I could list cause and effect for you the bad policies and their attendant results on British daily life, but it was done this morning by a Brit and more effectively than I could.  So I will merely add a link here to Theodore Dalrymple's (Anthony Daniels) op-ed piece in the Wall Street Journal.  WSJ - Britain's Barbarians

But let me finish by bringing this closer to home.  Let us ask this question: Given CCTV's total ineffectiveness and failure to meet the minimum standard of any metric devised, who is the one man who would gamble another state or cities' safety on this failed experiment?  Well, you know the answer already.  A British proposal that costs hundreds of millions of dollars, rife with potential overruns and waste that has the added benefit of seriously eroding civil liberties?  Naturally it's tailor made to entice Mayor-for-Life Mike.  It's British, expensive, unaccountable and best of all treats his subjects life serfs.  NYC is currently installing them everywhere, while at the same time reducing the size of its police force.  Sound familiar?  In a decade NYC's street will look like Britain's or Ramallah's.  Another massive failure in the long list of Bloomberg bad bets that we will be living with for decades.  Why is it that whenever I think of Mike Bloomberg I always want to quote Henry II?

 

 

8/7/11    Hugh L. Carey 1919 - 2011

 

            With such a dearth of leadership nationally, it's significant to note and reflect on the passing of a political leader that we in New York have not seen since FDR and have not seen again since he left the scene.  Hugh Leo Carey died this weekend. 

It is rare in political life these days for Republicans and Democrats to agree on who was a great leader.  Nationally, Democrats now embrace Reagan and Republicans laud Truman.  Here in New York State only one man of the last 50 years has that bipartisan distinction.

I was privileged to be in the Assembly Chamber when he gave his famous first inaugural address.  He spoke earnestly, honestly and soberly about the days of wine and roses being over in New York. Yes, the state was in very bad fiscal shape after decades of free spending by Nelson Rockefeller.  But the dire, immediate problem was the certain impending fiscal collapse of New York City.

Most governors - in fact, in every case where this has happened across the country - realize that no good can come politically from gratuitously linking yourself to problems whose solutions mean only extraordinary pain and taxes.  Constitutionally and administratively he had no obligation to handle the NYC problem; he didn't create it and it wasn't his burden to take the hit to fix it.  But that wasn't this man.

You cannot delink the City of New York from the State of New York.  He knew that.  Truer now than then, as goes NYC so goes NYS.  New York City and State were already in significant decline by the time he took office in 1975.  Even if he solved the state's problems successfully, a bankrupt, defaulted NYC would only hasten what was then believed to be the permanent decline of both.  He never for a second floated the idea that this was not his problem; that Abe Beame was on his own.

And it would have been so easy to do.  Beame, as NYC Comptroller, had signed off on NYC's practice for years of using capital dollars to pay operating expenses.  It's sort of like using your home equity line to pay your mortgage.  It will work for a time but a day of reckoning is inevitable.  That was NYC in 1975.

But Hugh Carey didn't shirk.  He inserted himself fully and galvanized all aspects of NY society towards creating a plan.  No one back then believed you could get the big banks and the powerful municipal labor unions joined together pulling the same cart.  They all took haircuts and made unprecedented concessions.  But that was only half of it.  He fundamentally changed the way NYS did business, from fiscal reform to entitlements to the University system, he improved it all. 

The greatness of the man was that while having a healthy ego himself, he was willing to surround himself with the best and brightest of that era - Berger, Rohatyn, Goldmark.  Like the Ronald Reagan motto, he never cared about who received the credit.

But he was no dry technocrat. He was tons of fun to be around.  Like any good Brooklyn Irishman he liked a good drink or two.  And I loved his sharp wit and great oratory abilities.  A widower with seven kids still at home, he decided he could be the governor NY needed in 1974.  He was not the establishment choice.  He was not even believed to have much chance in the primary against the much better known and polished Howard Samuels. Samuels believed - no knew - that the nomination was his for the asking.  But this Brooklyn Congressman loved a good fight and Samuels, in Dewey-like fashion, never really realized what was happening. 

I was in the ballroom of his election night party.  As soon as it was announced he had won the band struck up Happy Days Are Here Again, the campaign's theme song.  Things were that dire back then that the appropriated FDR 1932 theme song was more than appropriate.

Hugh Carey could have had a much easier path.  Few recall this now, but back then he was on his way toward becoming Speaker of the House.  Had he stayed in Congess and bided his time in the leadership he probably would have ascended to the speakership.  But he was a problem fixer and an extremely serious man for all his eccentricities. 

The New York Times wrote a famous editorial about Carey entitled, A Man for Hard Winters.  That was him.  Although August, we are in a deep, cold political and economic winter now.  Where have you gone Hugh Carey?  You are and will be missed.

 

8/5/11    Shargel Response

 

Shargel Response.pdf

Well here's the Shargel response.  I have included the entire submission minus an attached docket of my whole case.  I cannot see its relevance since half of it doesn't include Shargel.  But maybe it's some requirement.  I will be sending the Committee a detailed response next week but here are some quick points now:

1. I don't believe the 'Dear Jerry' letter is authentic.  What does authenticity mean in this instance?  First, it is surely inauthentic in that I never, ever, at any time authorized or asked Ray Harding to make any payments whatsoever to Jerry Shargel.  Never!  Second, as I will detail in my formal response the phrasing, and above all the date, of the letter are highly suspicious.  Clearly Jerry didn't tell his lawyer all the facts if they chose that particular date. I do not believe that this letter, like the Dinkins 'Dear Dad' letter, would stand up to forensic scrutiny.

2. The letter claims I asked Ray to pay Jerry $100,000 of which this is the first payment.  Mr. Ross states that Shargel only received $50,000 from Ray.  What happened to the supposed second installment?  Apparently, that is left to the reader's imagination.

3. Mr. Ross states liberally throughout the response that my accusations are baseless because I knew of all this as he relates a conversation had between me and Shargel where I acknowledged and approved these payments.  The conversation referenced is wholly fictitious, never took place. 

It's a very detailed restatement.  And fortunately for Mr. Shargel, I cannot provide him with enough waivers and acknowledgements.  How convenient that there is no document with my signature to memorialize that conversation.  Can it be that their defense is based solely on a fabricated conversation?  It may be.  Which partially relates to why they chose that date for the letter. 

4. Rather than addressing the fact that numerous law enforcement officials have stated declaratively that Ray paid Shargel (long after March 25, 2003), Mr. Ross dangles this letter before the Committee in the hopes of distracting them.

5. Mr. Ross quotes from this blog and attaches a post as an exhibit.  At least I thank him for that.  He undermines his entire point by including the whole post.  Yes, in October 2009 I stated that I did not believe Attorney General Cuomo's allegation.  I go on to say that should it prove true, I will file a complaint.  That's all correct.  I did not believe Shargel capable of this then.  However, the numerous subsequent statements - on the record - from a host of state officials, not to mention Ray Harding through his attorney, makes the matter beyond dispute.  And I filed a complaint.  What's his point?

6. Most glaringly, the date of March 2003 is long before the alleged criminal activity Ray Harding was charged with or to which he plead guilty.  Clearly, were this payment even real, it would not be the monies to which Cuomo et al. are referring.

7. Mr. Ross calls me a lot of names (i.e angry, disgruntled, etc.).  To the contrary, I am very at peace.  Seeking to redress the wrong committed by Jerry Shargel doesn't make me spiteful or vengeful.  Rather, it makes me committed and determined to seek the truth.  I hope the committee will do the same after receiving my reply.

Lastly, for the record, I would like to correct here at least one of Mr. Ross's many errors.  Ray Harding is not Jerry Shargel's father (Ross letter pg. 4).  Sadly, he is mine.  Ah, were it otherwise.

 

 

8/4/11    Shargel Response

            Be sure to look out tomorrow for Gerald Shargel's response (his attorney's actually) to my complaint.  I couldn't figure out how he would get around the fact that if he claimed he took no monies from Ray Harding, then Ray Harding's plea deal would look awfully suspicious.  Conversely, if he claimed he did take monies without my knowledge he would open himself up to sanctions.  Well what I never expected - although given my case, fabricated evidence shouldn't have surprised me - was a 'Dear Dad' letter ala David Dinkins 1989.  Given Ray's involvement in that campaign it should come as no shock he turned to this wheezy device to divert the Committee's attention.  Check out the full response tomorrow.

 

8/4/11    Hmmm, Didn't I Say This 14 Months Ago?

              Remind me who was the only person to say publicly 14 months ago that Stephen Goldsmith was the absolute wrong choice as Deputy Mayor for Operations?  Also, who was the only person to publicly point out that a record that included mayor of a midwestern city and a stint in academia teaching urban policy were no experience to run line agencies in the City of New York?  Further, who was the only person to express the view that he was being appointed to the wrong job; the correct position being what was called in the Giuliani Administration the Richard Schwartz position.  Oh yea, it was me.  The sad aspect of this major personnel mistake is that I, not the three-term mayor, saw this clearly.  You would think after three terms he would have learned from his numerous personnel mishaps.  But no, no one can tell the Mayor-for-Life anything.  Least of all that he's wrong.  Cathy Black and Steve Goldsmith all in one year.  When you surround yourself with mediocre sycophants what else can you expect? 

 

7/24/11    Federal Criminal Laws Now Ensnare Nearly Everyone

                Since the beginning of this blog, you've heard me carry-on regarding the vast proliferation of federal criminal statutes; their gross intrusion into state prerogative and their increasingly capricious and inexplicably harsh application.  I'm sure you thought I was alone in this belief or biased because of my past. 

I would have hoped a sweeping analysis of this would come from the left-leaning New York Times.  Rather, it comes from the right-leaning Wall Street Journal - on their front page no less.  When the Heritage Foundation and the ACLU agree that this has to be stopped and reversed, you need to sit-up and pay attention.  As you'll see from the article, there are now so many federal criminal statutes and penalties that no one, not even the U.S. Justice Department, can give any accurate count as to how many exist.  Please read and fume.

WSJ: Federal Criminal Laws Proliferate

 

7/21/11    Sex Offender Hysteria Comes to NJ

                I promised to bring you stories from a nation run amok with Sex Offender hysteria.  Well, there may be none better than this case from New Jersey courtesy of NJ.com.  The person who sent it to me was outraged and speechless at the gross injustice.  But I said stories like this are great.  All these whackos who keep pushing what I call 'dead baby laws' advocating for broad, sweeping interpretations of what constitutes a "sex offender" end up resulting in stories like this one.  It's only when the silent majority who know that these laws are crazy but stay quiet in their oppostion, wakes up will the laws change.  It's cases such as this that may one day cause that to happen.

NJ Justice

 

7/21/11     IT'S A TRAP!

            As Gen. Akbar and the rebel alliance suddenly realized upon approaching Death Star II, the wily Emperor had lured them into a trap.  All the while knowing their plans and intentions he had secured the inevitable destruction of the rebellion.

I'm thinking that House Republicans must wake up these days feeling much like the rebel alliance.  I have never been one to buy into vast conspiracy theories, but if I were a GOP House member I'd sure be wondering about one right now. 

It would appear that the usual allies have all gone over to the Dark Side.  Wall Street, the WSJ, leader McConnell and even Tom Coburn are all playing right into the White House's hands.  What else but a conspiracy could explain how Sen Coburn - a righteous, thoughtful conservative if there ever was - lays out the only half-serious measure to tackle the five pronged problem - spending, deficit, debt, tax reform and reducing the size of the federal government - on the same day he endorses a proposal that does none of those things - the Gang of Six plan.  His plan is a 9 trillion dollar proposal that, love it or hate it, is serious.  Theirs is a phony blue smoke and mirrors 3 trillion dollar plan that raises taxes substantially.  How can he principally be for both?  And why would he support a plan that is essentially a cover for Obama economic mismanagement?  Because, although no mentions this, the Gang of Six plan - or any plan in the $4 trillion range - just pays off the deficit Obama has created in his first 2 1/2 years in office, it does nothing else.  These should all be called The Save Obama's Re-election Acts.  They do nothing about long term problems or dollar amounts.  They just seek to somehow pay off his deficits thus far; and remember, they are not over - he's not done spending - sorry, investing. 

Something is afoot here.  All these measures reek not of compromise but of collusion.  Leader McConnell hates the Gang of Six plan because it raises taxes, but is taking steps to insure that nothing happens except raising the debt limit.  Basically giving the President what he asked for all along, a clean bill.  All that side nonsense about unspecified cuts to be outlined later by the President is utterly ridiculous.  That's why the House is so opposed to it.

The Chris Mathews (whom I generally like) view of the world is that McConnell and Boehner are acting like responsible adults when they capitulate to White House demands for tax increases in order to stave off the "Apocalypse" on Aug 2nd.  They are happy with kicking this can down the road for a few more years.   I simply can't understand this way of thinking.  We are on the precipice of permanent economic decline if we do not act fast and in a major structural way.  This is urgent and principled.  Government needs to shrink, spending needs to be cut sharply, entitlements need to be refashioned, the tax code needs to be scrapped.   Other than Rand Paul, who's talking about this?  Coburn was until he did this odd 180.

Here's my best example as to how absolutely nothing has changed in D.C.  We are nearing a default on our debt that has - according to many - huge implications.  We are annually nearly 2 trillion dollars short in funding.  Our national debt is now equal to our annual GDP.  All serious issues worthy of alarm.  So last week the world welcomes its newest country, Southern Sudan.  And on the day of its independence, what is the first thing the U.S. says to this country?  Which, by the way we have zero economic, military, or geopolitical interest in.  We pledge tens of millions of dollars in foreign aid; forty percent of which we would have to borrow to give them.  That's how much nothing has changed.

What the House Republicans don't seem to understand is that like Dorothy in Oz (to continue the movie metaphors) they have always had the power to determine this outcome.  They just need to act. 

Newt Gingrich, back in the 90's, famously and derisively referred to Bob Dole as "the tax collector for the welfare state."  Dole, for years either chairman or ranking member of the Senate Finance Committee, had been instrumental in shaping tax policy and tax reform in this country.  But that wasn't all Gingrich meant when he devised that label.  There was a larger meaning to it.  Back then - a much purer Gingrich - was arguing genuinely and sincerely for a much, much reduced federal government.  What he saw surrounding him were fellow Republicans who, rather than being champions for change, were instead facilitators of the status quo. In his analysis, correct in my view, they didn't want to reduce or alter the federal government but just slow its growth modestly and maybe alter slightly how we paid for it.  The Gingrich revolution never got enough of a running start to change the nature of that dynamic on Capitol Hill.

Which brings me to 2010 and its aftermath.  Many on both the left and right have derided this House for being obsessed with deficit reduction while ignoring economic growth.  They argue that 2010 was about jobs and the economy rather than fiscal discipline.  They're wrong on two counts.

First, 2010 was about deficits, in part.  But what the Tea Party and those who voted in sympathy with it were saying was ENOUGH.  Enough wasteful programs, enough federal intrusion, enough regulation, enough 10th Amendment encroachment, enough lies and politics as usual.  The message was also the we are ready for hard times in order to enjoy good times once again.  Pollsters would disagree with that last statement as evidenced by recent snapshots of voter sentiment.  But I think that misses the point.  The promise of 2010 was radical change.  Further, no more games and half truths.  If I am correct, and that was the message, then it is wholly unfulfilled.  Since the Republicans in the House have not presented a radical program for reducing the size, scope and power of the federal government there is no actual proposal to analyze except the fear created of one by the Democrats.  It's that fear that is driving voter sentiment.  Pass something sweeping, radical and game changing - not just propose it - and you will see voters start to pay attention (no, Cut, Cap  & Balance is not close to what I'm talking about). 

I am a proud member of what the media is now calling the No Caucus.  They refer to House members who won't budge on taxes and the debt ceiling.  The Republican Party is in a bad spot.  If this proceeds with either a default, shutdown or agreement with the White House, they are screwed. At the moment they have absolutely no winning hand to play the way things are going.  A default and they are responsible for granny eating cat food because there's no Social Security check.  Some partial shutdown in order to rearrange government revenues to continue paying priority obligations (debt, SS, military pay, etc.) and fat tourists standing at the closed gates of Yellowstone will make good media fodder in blaming the GOP.  Worst of all will be an agreement with the White House.  Sen. McConnell wasn't right about much recently, but he was correct when he said Republicans cannot do a deal so long as Obama is in the White House.  Like the budget agreement a few months back, any deal will be all smoke and mirrors.  Four trillion in cuts will actually be one trillion and even then it probably won't be that.  It's really very simple - Obama cannot agree to any deal that's worth having.  Therefore there is no deal to be had from the vantage point of Republicans.  It's really just that simple.

But let's say there is a deal - as I am sure there will be any day now - it still misses the point of what we out in the hinterlands were hoping to achieve in 2010.  After the deal is done, what will the federal government look like in ten years?  It will be behemoth; with enormous deficits and no contraction in either its employees, power or reach.  Essentially like Bob Dole, it's facilitating the continuance of this federal monstrosity.  Slowing it down slightly, maybe.  But at the end of the day, Ryan, Kantor and Boehner are all just searching for a way to pay for this beast at the lowest cost.  What they have taken no steps to do is cut off its head and slay it.  Ten years from now under the Ryan budget the deficits will be enormous, there will be no reduction in federal employees and not a single department, agency or commission will be eliminated.  This is known in D.C. as 'slowing the rate of growth.'   What Gingrich knew, although couldn't affect properly, was that if you're got radical ideas and you're going to be branded as radical, then you might as well implement them.  Because if you don't, all you've gotten is the bad - a radical label - without any of the good, policies and legislative changes that can show results.

If Ronald Reagan had only talked about a three year 25% tax cut, but never actually worked to get it passed, the Democrats would have branded him for generations as irresponsible and a destroyer of our economy.  Instead, he took the barbs and labels, passed his program and voila, huge economic growth.  The results of his "radical" program silenced the critics.  So it has to be with the House Republicans.  Ok, what do I propose?

Lamar Alexander's slogan in his 1988 presidential campaign was, Cut Their Pay and Send Them Home.  He was referring to Congress.  My proposal is that they pass the most radical game changing budget and go home.  In this case not literally go home, but be done with the budget.  Essentially, scorched earth.  Pass it, send it to the Senate and you're finished - attach if necessary a 500 bilion dollar debt increase along with it.  No more negotiations, no more deals, no more anything.  Move on to other business.  Refuse any and all entreaties to discuss budget matters save for a willingness to rewrite the tax code.  There would now sit the budget for the coming year.  If the Senate won't pass it and the president won't sign it, ok.  It sits there waiting to fund a new sharply reduced federal government.  If no one wants to do anything with it, the governement shuts down and we default.  The president could end it at any time by signing the bill(s) and bringing this new federal government back on line.  If the Republicans were smart they would also include repeals of hundreds of tax loopholes, further reducing the deficit now and in the outyears.

How reduced?  The Department of Education - Gone.  The Department of Commerce -  Gone.  HUD -  Gone save for a long term phase out of Sec 8 vouchers.  The EPA - cut by two thirds.  The Dept of Defense - a 20% reduction.  By October no more funding for Afghanistan or Iraq.  Close half the foreign military bases.  Eliminate all foreign aid (it's not much in dollar terms, but it's the message).  Ethanol subsidies and all madates realted to it - Gone.  The DEA and ATF.  Gone.  The Office of the Director of National Intelligence and that whole agency.  Gone.  DOJ, 50%.  If they have $60 million to spend on steroid prosecutions then they have way too much money in their budget.  Head Start - the decades old War on Poverty program that Democrats for generations have held up as the beacon of federal involvement in local affairs -  Gone.  Why?  Because the responsible agency, HHS, now tells us that it's a total abject failure and always has been since its inception. And yet, how much do you want to bet that even knowing this, billions will be spent next year on Head Start after a budget deal. That in a nutshell is the problem.  It's a failure.  Everyone now knows it and the proof is irrefutable.  And yet it will be funded next year and all years going forward under every single plan that has thus far been proposed to reduce spending - Democrat and Republican.  A program that is worthless will be funded with billions annually forever.  That is why we are headed for Greece like cataclysm.  No one in Washington is capable of facing facts and making change happen. 

The Republican House needs to decide if, like the great Barry Goldwater, they want to be right and do right or just win.  Because if their goal is just more victories, they are failing miserably.  Now is the time to - as they say in poker - go all in.  Pass the most radical plan imaginable, shrink this evil monster and then close the betting window.  No more negotiations.  There will be pain and sturm und drang like we have never seen.  Polls will plummet.  But if, in your heart, you know this is the right path for America, then soon the American people will too.  And then the victories will come for decades.  That is the reward in governing for doing that which is right.

 

 

7/13/11 - Child Porn at Justice - The Neverending Double Standard

We've known for years that when it comes to the U.S. Justice Department there has been, regardless of the party in power, two sets of rules for handling criminal behavior: one set of rules has US Attorneys going after any and every American for any infraction, however slight - never giving ground, always asking for the max, using any trick, breaking every rule and threatening families mafia style; the other rule applies to anyone employed by Justice, regardless of the law broken and however egregious the harm on their targets.

We hear these examples almost weekly.  U.S. Attorneys withholding evidence, having witnesses lie, lying to federal judges - there is no means that can't be employed to achieve the end.  Look no further than the Roger Clemens case where prosecutors blatantly violated a judge's order and offered evidence to the jury he ordered them not to present.  This was the second time they had had done that in as many days.   It simply doesn't get more blatant, arrogant and egregious than that.  U.S. Attorneys are drunk with power and totally out of control

Lately Justice is engaged in a Nixonian cover-up involving the ATF ordering their staff - and average citizens - to violate a host of federal laws resulting in scores of deaths including a federal agent.  The Attorney General, setting the tone for his staff, actually perjured himself to a House committee.  And from his cool demeanor, his mendacity is not recently acquired. Holder's Acting ATF Director operated a program where dozens of people died and the man is not fired.  How could he be when he's one of the few people who could actually prove his boss - for the moment anyway - perjured himself.  In fact, no lawbreaker at Justice is ever fired.  They're reassigned, or after a period of time, allowed to resign.  In general, acts that average Americans are prosecuted for routinely go unpunished if committed by a Justice staffer.

But never did we think that US Attorneys possessing child pornography, an issue that Justice claims is of paramount federal importance, would not only go unpunished, but actually unreported.  It's simply covered up.  The Assistant US Attorney in question admitted that he "spent a significant amount of time each day watching pornography."  And when they checked, lo and behold, child porn. He was quietly allowed to resign.  No indictment, no perp walk, no press release, no sex offender registry.  Just a quiet cover-up.  Most shockingly, Justice refuses to release the Asst US Attorney's name.  How do we know this?  Because Sen. Grassley asked Justice for internal investigations that they closed and had not reported publicly.  In that haul was this child porn case.

Grassely is now asking Eric Holder why this man wasn't prosecuted.  Thus far, Holder has refused to answer.  There's not two sets of books at Justice?  One for them and one for us?  When will Congress realize what every major police department in this country knows: you cannot let the police police themselves.  Ask Rep. Issa or Sen. Grassley if they believe Justice's ability to monitor its own criminality is sufficient.  Justice has proved time and again they will not go after their own.  Congress needs to create an outside independent mechanism to do just that.  There is no Justice unless there is justice for all.

Thanks to Rudy Veritas reader Peter F. for bringing this to our attention.

These are the links and Sen. Grassley's letter:

CHILD PORN at DOJ        ABC NEWS - DOJ CHILD PORN

 

 

7/5/11    A Sick, Sick Nation

            If there is any greatness left in this country it is to be found this week in the convergence of a lower-middle class mother from Florida and the once future President of France. 

What could these two people, who couldn't come from more different worlds, have in common?  They, each in their own case, helped expose the darkest side of our society, while giving a glimmer of hope to what was once a great system of justice.

I almost posted on here a few weeks ago this question, "What is the national obsession with this dead baby case in Florida?"  I still have no answer to that question but no case since the O.J. trial has galvanized cable news the way this one has.  Why a local murder case in Florida would be of interest to someone in California or Maine is simply beyond me.  But it's a mute question at this point.  A question without a reasonable answer.

It goes without saying that this violent death of the little girl is incredibly tragic.  We throw that word around a lot these days: Anthony Weiner is tragic, Arnold & Maria are tragic, Terry and Jenny Sanford are tragic.  Those aren't tragedies. A vicious killing of a little girl is surely tragic.  But the national biblical-like condemnation of this woman, Casey Anthony, is beyond any comprehension.  The white trash spectators who spend their days waiting in line to witness a case they have no connection to and involves no national import is sickening.  In their polyester shorts and wife beaters screaming, "Justice for Caylee," these people make us all ashamed to be Americans.

No one has a genuine right to comment on the wisdom of the verdict other than the jury.  They sat through weeks of testimony and more importantly, were shielded from arguments, testimony and newspaper stories of which we all became aware.  You can't unknow that which you know.  Their environment is pure for the purposes of this case, ours is not.  In the meantime this woman - inarguably a lousy person - underwent the most relentless abuse we can dish out in the 21st century.

On TV this evening Nancy Grace came very, very close to condoning vigilante justice against Casey Anthony once she's released.  It was a very scary thing to watch.  Time Warner, certainly making major bucks from her program during this trial, has to be careful with what's going out over their network.  Her program makes a mockery of anyone's criticism of Fox News which had Sean Hannity defending the verdict and Bill O'Reilly presenting something close to a balanced analysis.  The acronym HLN stands for Headline News.  The key word being news.  What goes out at 8 PM each night on HLN is something out of Network, for those of you old enough to remember that film.  Paddy Cheyefsky could not have created a more loathsome, frightening example of ratings at all costs journalism.  Not content to rail against the verdict, she proceeded to outline each of the jurors personal shortcomings, as though that is somehow relevant.  This all from a woman whose victim bonafides, which seem to grant her this license to condemn everyone, has as many holes as the alleged rape victim's.

The not guilty verdicts in Casey Anthony's trial demonstrates two things: 1) Cameras in the courtroom are antithetical to our system of justice.  The U.S. Supreme Court knows this and that's why they refuse to allow them in their court; and 2) Cable news is making it increasingly difficult to receive a fair trial.  You think the over-the-top behavior by the prosecutors in her case was not influenced by the cameras?  It's insane to suggest otherwise.  It was surreal to watch cable news condemn itself for its coverage beginning five minutes after the verdict was announced.  As though they didn't know this yesterday but somehow had a universal epiphany only once the jury spoke.

The verdict in this case notwithstanding, Casey Anthony was blessed and lucky to have a jury this thoughtful and that's why she was acquitted.  That happens rarely anywhere and never in death penalty Florida.  Cameras and cable news will soon bury any presumption of innocence in this country.  Which brings me to the other case.

Dominique Strauss-Kahn was tarred, feathered and as good as sentenced within days of the incident at the Sofitel Hotel. 

Take him off the plane, sure.  Bring him in for questioning, you bet - it's a serious allegation. But then, the proper thing would have been to take his passport and have his attorney guarantee he will stay in the U.S. while the police and D.A. continue to investigate. 

District Attorneys need to use good judgment and not be swayed by lynch mob theatrics or newspaper hysterics.  Cy Vance didn't do that.  He arrested the man, perp walked him, threw him in Rikers, had his ADAs make outrageous and inflammatory statements in court and then asked for outlandish bail requirements.  The judges were no better for buying into all of this.  His accuser now turns out to be the worst sort of person for any number of reasons: chronic and habitual liar, money launderer, opportunist, extortionist - perhaps not a prostitute, as if that improves her character dramatically.

We've heard over and over again, justice for the rape victim and justice for Caylee Anthony.  This is a fundamental misunderstanding of what our justice system is all about and what the objective is in that courtroom.  Yes, it's vitally important to bring the guilty party to account.  But our entire system of justice is predicated on protecting the defendant, not the victim - or at least it used to be.  The power that the state has in a courtroom is so vast and overwhelming (especially the federal government) that the most stringent protections need to be maintained to insure that the accused receives something resembling a fair trial. 

Our system raises the bar so that the prosecution has to meet the highest of ethical standards and conduct while prosecuting a defendant.  That may come as a shock to some of you who have been seduced by the Nancy Grace view of justice, but it's not and has never been the one we operate under.  All those amendments to the Constitution never mention victims, they do repeatedly reference the accused.  That's who the Framers designed these protections for.  What was true in the eighteenth century is just as true today.

Our spineless Mayor, here in New York, said today that perp walks are wrong.  This, after he said not four weeks ago that they were perfectly justified.  Not a surprising turnround from a man who has no moral center or philosophical core.  He's a Democrat, then a Republican and then an Independent - all within a decade.  It's not shocking then that witnessing a seemingly guilty man perp walked is not repugnant to him.  But when a not guilty man is similarly perp walked then it's unseemly.  It either strikes your inner core as wrong or it doesn't.  Having none, he's free to sway from side to side.

He went on to say that although he now opposes it, there's nothing he can do.  Really?  Perp walks are arranged encounters.  The press is informed when and where and the perp is often slow walked to enable the cameras to get repeat shots.  The Mayor can't order his police commissioner to stop doing this?  Really?  Bloomberg is such an on-going disgrace.  He's the weakest man I have ever seen in a major political office.

My greatest fear is that the wrong lessons will be learned from these two outcomes.  The lesson here is not that the system worked; DSK will have his charges dropped and Casey Anthony was properly found not guilty based on the evidence presented.  The lesson here is that these outcomes are virtually unknown in our country.  And especially in low profile cases where the defendant isn't white or wealthy.  Hundreds of times each and every day defendants are convicted in bad circumstantial evidence cases or prosecutors conceal exculpatory evidence.  That is the reality.  Not that our system works, but how often it doesn't.

Sadly, nothing will change as a result of all of this.  These two cases put a mirror up to who we are as a society, what our obsessions are and where we place our priorities.    A small positive glimmer in the end, but generally further evidence of what a sick, sick nation we are.

 

7/1/11  DSK - An Anita Hill/Ray Donovan Moment

One has to be reminded at least a little today of Ray Donovan.  While Dominique Strauss-Kahn has always been a womanizer, there has never been any credible accusation of force.  So where DSK goes "to get his reputation back" is a pretty fair question. 

Publicly withholding a rape accuser's identity - which started in the 1980's as an attempt to make the charge of rape easier to prosecute by allowing women to come forward more readily - has now been proven to be wholly outside the legitimate constitutional sphere of criminal justice. 

I was opposed to this practice from the beginning.  It has been said that rape is not a crime of sex, but rather one of violence.  Fair enough.  So why are the rules different than for any other violent crime?  Is it humiliating to admit to having been raped?  Sure.  But nearly any victim of a violent crime finds the admission humiliating.  Look at the lawyer in all the local NY newspapers who was a hostage in a liquor store robbery.  This man escaped from his captors and then, in the words of the NY Daily News, "sobbed hysterically" - with a picture of him doing it.  Now that's pretty humiliating.  But no one would suggest for a second that this man's name be withheld.   Or a grown man pistol whipped by some 16 year old punk.  A very humiliating thing to admit.  It must be awful to be the victim of rape.  But it's a crime and if one wishes to make an accusation - in an open free society - you have to come forward publicly to do so.

Let's say it was not the district attorney's office who discovered that this woman was a money launderer, drug seller and extortionist.  Her name being withheld pretty much prevented the news media, or a random citizen who might know her, from discovering or revealing her past and present behavior.  Moreover, it is beyond rare to have a prosecutor blow up his own case .  In almost every instance, the prosecutor would have withheld this info and let the case proceed (does the name Mike Nifong ring a bell).  Only years later might DSK, having discovered this evidence, attempt to overturn a guilty verdict.  The Supreme Court has, however, made that nearly impossible.

Who benefits from the identity of an accuser being shielded, beyond the accuser?  Monkeying with the judicial process in the hopes of bringing about some societal good - more rape victims coming forward - is a perniciously bad precedent. Women's rights advocates argue that this would inhibit rape victims from coming forward.  No, it would inhibit gold digging perjurers from coming forth. And that is only a positive thing. 

We all remember the name Reade Seligmann of Duke rape case fame.  But does anyone remember or even know the name of the lying woman who accused those boys?  Nope.  Or the Rutgers case.  Or for decades the Central Park jogger who misidentified those boys and sent them to prison for years.  This should be totally unacceptable.  Can anyone argue seriously that this extra-constitutional protection afforded alleged rape victims encourages these episodes?

And what hath Cyrus Vance wrought?  Yes, certainly justice for all.  But look at the extraordinary damage Vance has caused by treating DSK like any other perp.  The world financial system is perilously close to a domino like calamity.  DSK was uniquely placed and qualified to handle, and hopefully solve, the Greek problem.  This man was, in all likelihood, going to be the next President of France.  Now the voters will probably be denied his tenure or at least the choice of electing him.  And what of DSK personally? 

Although not the major consideration, once you add-up all the legal fees, housing costs and sundries, this episode will cost the Strauss-Kahn family millions and millions of dollars.  Is Vance going to reimburse?  Of course not.  And what of handcuffs, perp walks, Rikers, insane bail conditions and the utter humiliation that accompanies any criminal charge in our current system?  Well, apparently he's just got to suck it up.  Somebody somewhere is saying, "Serves him right for ________."  What?  Visiting the United States?  Trusting African immigrant women?  Generally being a non-criminal letch? Or just being a Frenchman?

The French were horrified by how we treat criminal suspects.  I don't blame them.  No one in this country is presumed innocent any longer.  Ironically, we have traded places with the French.  Their system used to be Napoleonic - guilty until proven innocent.  Ours was the one where the defendant had rights and a presumption of innocence.  An ignorantly complacent electorate coupled with a hostile Supreme Court has turned that all on its head. 

There's no question this is a huge black eye for the new prosecutor.  But in light of all this and the discovery of the HBO documentary footage in another failed prosecution, he took pretty decisive action: he fired the head of the Sex Crimes Unit, he immediately told the defense that this woman had lied and that they no longer considered her a credible witness and quite possibly, his office will agree today to much reduced bail conditions until they figure out where they go next in this case.

None of this excuses bad investigatory work and an outrageous rush to judgment.  This is, whether we know it or want to admit it, an Anita Hill moment.  Men have just as many rights as women constitutionally.  There is also no monopoly of perjury to just one of the sexes.  Women lie as witnesses and complainants just as much as men.  This extra special protection accorded to alleged rape victims must come to a stop. This would at least be a first step towards restoring some balance.

 

6/28/11 - Never Too Much of a Good Thing

I thought that opponents of campaign finance laws, such as myself, would find interesting the hysterical editorial in today's New York Times.  Their basic position is this: the way to combat too much money in elections is to infuse even more money, but at taxpayer's expense.  I think it's the NYT that's upside down.

NYT: 1st Amendment, Upside Down

 

6/28/11 - Little White Cartons

                There is a piece in today's New York Times describing the process by which Federal District Court Judge Denny Chin came to hand down a sentence of 150 years to Bernard Madoff.  If you want to read an indictment of our criminal justice system, this isn't a bad place to start.

Let me just say as someone who was sentenced in federal court, that there is much wrong with the process.  But chief among those faults is the notion shared by so many judges of punishment based on collective guilt.  If you commit a crime you should be punished based on the severity and individual facts of your particular case.  No one has a problem with that. I certainly don't.  What I do have a problem with is this prevalent practice by judges to "send messages."  It is despicable to screw around with people's lives by sentencing them in order to send some societal message. 

In the Madoff case Judge Chin says,“A defendant should get his just deserts.” True.  But he shouldn't get anyone else's either. 

The story goes on, "The judge, explaining why he had rejected the defense’s request for a substantially shorter sentence, provided two reasons why the symbolism of a much longer term was important: to send the “strongest possible message” of deterrence, and to help Mr. Madoff’s victims heal." 

Symbolism, retribution, healing and deterrence.  What does any of this have to do with punishing a crime?  Healing???  Really?  That's how sentences in federal court are handed down, based on the soothing effect they might have?  Why not make Dr. Phil an honorary federal judge and allow him to sentence people.  He will do it much more convincingly then Denny Chin.

The Times piece goes on, "As Judge Chin listened from the bench, nine of Mr. Madoff’s victims described the devastation he had caused in their lives. Mr. Madoff rose and offered a lengthy apology, saying that he felt “horrible guilt.” He turned to face the victims, and apologized again.  To Judge Chin, Mr. Madoff seemed sad, almost as if he were grieving. “But I did not believe he was genuinely remorseful,” the judge recalled."

The man turned himself in before anyone knew of his crime.  He never objected for a second to a guilty plea and never tried to cut a plea deal.  He told the authorities everything he knew and made no effort to hide the bulk of his assets.  He detailed his acts and apologized to the victims.  And Denny Chin says he wasn't "genuinely" remorseful. That is the canard every federal judge hangs their hat on.  It's the lazy judge's approach to sentencing - "the defandant isn't remorseful enough."

"Moreover, any sentence of less than 150 years could be seen as showing him mercy. “Frankly, that was not the message I wanted to be sent,” he said. Judge Chin noted in the interviews that 20 or 25 years would have effectively been a life sentence for Mr. Madoff, and any additional years would have been purely symbolic. Yet symbolism was important." 

Because why?  Bernie Madoff, like some Christ figure, needs to die to suffer for the sins of all white collar criminals everywhere?

The worst part of the story was the absolutely idiotic statement made by Denny Chin regarding victims and friends. He says he received 450 e-mails from Madoff victims.  "He also wrote that he had received no letters on Mr. Madoff’s behalf: “The absence of such support is telling.” 

Yea, it's very telling that no one was willing to publicly proclaim their fondness for a man everyone - including the judge - was saying was the embodiment of evil on earth.  Yea, sure, people want to line-up to receive death threats and worse for writing a letter to the court relating Madoff good deeds.  Yes, it's incredibly telling no one wanted to risk death and harm to their family to write Judge Chin a public letter. How moronic! 

The reporter, Benjamin Weiser, frames this story as one man's struggle to divine justice.  What a load of crap.  What this NYT piece is at the end of the day is another example of a judge giving federal prosecutors whatever they want.  U.S. Probation advised the judge to give a 50 year sentence.  The number 150 only existed as a crazy, outlandish request by Madoff's prosecutors.  In the end, Denny Chin did what federal judges do 98% of the time: he gave federal prosecutors anything they asked for.  How is that an agonizing profile in courage?

 

 

6/27/11 - Whither the CFB?    

                This is honestly not a rhetorical question, I just don't understand.  As a non-attorney, I am curious how NYC's Campaign Finance Law is not in violation after the Supreme Court's terrific decision today in Arizona Free Enterprise Club?  Here is a quote lifted from the Campaign Finance Board's website:

    "When running against a high-spending non-participant, a participant can qualify to receive public funds at an accelerated rate, up to two-thirds the amount of the spending limit." 

This is not a grant but an increase in the matching funds - exactly what the Supreme Court struck down today.  The Arizona decision specifically struck down any provision that sought to "level the playing field" with extra matching funds.  And yet I've seen no reference as to how this would affect NYC's program.  Just asking.

UPDATE:  Thanks to reader Danny B. for sending this WSJ article that addresses the vulnerability of NYC's Campaign Finance Law in the wake of the AZ decision:

NYC's Campaign Finance Law at Risk

ALSO ONE FROM the NYT:

NYT: Where to Now on Public Financing

 

 

6/24/11 - Thank You Gov. Cuomo

                Just as history does not regard those Senators - primarily Democrats - who voted to reject the Voting Rights Act of 1964 as men of conscience, future generations of New Yorkers will not think well of the NY Senate Republicans who could only spare four GOP members to provide the majority for passage of New York's gay marriage bill.

But six men are deserving of great praise tonight.  First, the four Republican senators who voted for the bill.  This was not an easy vote and may in fact cost some of them their seats.  It took tremendous guts. They are Stephen Saland, Mark Grisanti, Jim Alesi and Roy McDonald.

Next, bill advocates owe a particular debt to the eminent fairness of Majority Leader Dean Skelos.  Sen. Skelos was no supporter of this legislation.  But in the end, as he himself said, "The days of just bottling up things, and using these as excuses not to have votes — as far as I’m concerned as leader, its over with."  He's right in what he says, but he could have very easily chosen to not bring the bill to the floor and there it would have died.  This would have been in keeping with Senate practice on bills the majority does not favor.  Sen. Skelos is clearly entitled to his vote, whatever it may be.  As a leader he has a responsibility to allow others to cast theirs.  He behaved in the best traditions of legislative leaders and went a long way to restoring the reputation of the New York legislature. 

Lastly, and most importantly, none of this would have happened without Gov. Cuomo.  I have said some very negative things in the past about Andrew Cuomo.  To paraphrase Winston Churchill on the evening of the Nazi invasion of Russia, "No one has been a more consistent opponent of the Cuomos than I have for the last 25 years. I will unsay no word I have spoken about them.  But all this fades away in the face of the spectacle now unfolding."  Gov. Cuomo said he would do this and did.  He had been previously opposed but realized he was on the wrong side of history and bravely changed his view.  Contrast that with Barack Obama who was for gay marriage ten years ago (most people have forgotten that).  Then he wasn't.  And now who the hell knows.  And for that matter, who cares.

I spent most of my life, as a gay man, being opposed to gay marriage.  I felt I had sound and defensible reasons.  I believed that as a minority in this country - maybe 7% of the population - that it was incumbent upon me and all gay men and women not to overly antagonize the remaining 93%; especially when the behavior we practice is so extraordinarily offensive to so many and repulsed based on religious grounds.  But no group of people can live like that forever in a free country.

I came to realize a few years ago that my views on gay marriage were neither sound nor defensible.  And therefore I did what I always try to do and be consistent in my thinking when it "evolves."  If you can no longer defend your position, then the honorable man must acknowledge that and reverse course.

There are so few reasons these days to be a proud American or a New Yorker.  But I am immensely proud of my state tonight and its leaders.  There can be no question that on this issue nationally, tonight is a game changer.  Thank you Gov. Cuomo and Sen. Skelos.

 

6/20/11 - Perverted Justice

I will never be able to write a more solid, thorough, cogent or unbiased explanation of how the sex offender industry in this country has run completely amok than that which appears in this month's Reason.com magazine.  Perverted Justice

I implore you, even if the topic doesn't hold much interest, to read it.  If you have any concerns about where this country's legal and criminal justice systems are headed, take a few minutes and read this piece.  Just because the government is only violating someone else's rights today, doesn't mean they won't be yours tomorrow.  Your comments - agree or disagree - are always welcome.

 

6/22/11     Line of the Day

                The line of the day goes to Joe Scarborough of Morning Joe.  In responding to John McCain's ever increasing hysterics on troop withdrawls in Afghanistan, Scarborough remarked, "There are more aides on Sen. McCain's staff then there are Al Qaeda in Afghanistan."  Based on Leon Panetta's estimate that statement is not only not hyperbole, it's actually spot on.  Really makes you think what 100,000 or 90,000 troops are doing there fighting fifty guys.  You can't orate that kind of stark logic away.

 

6/22/11    The Fast & The Dubious - Your Lying Gangster Gov't at Work

                How credible is Eric Holder's assertion that neither he nor any senior Justice Department official knew of the existence of ATF's Operation Fast & Furious?  The answer is not very.  He told Rep. Issa's committee in May that he had only learned of it a few weeks prior.  That would mean that when a Border Patrol agent was killed with a weapon from the Fast & Furious program in December, no one briefed the Attorney General as to the precise nature and background of this man's death.  Again, is that believable?  It's actually inconceivable.  Were it true, Eric Holder would make Alberto Gonzales look like Griffin Bell or Elliot Richardson.

But here's the reason you know he's lying and Issa and Sen. Hatch need to pursue this vigorously: he's not in the least upset that an agency head within his department had gone rogue.  An operation of this nature, filled with political landmines and no one told anyone in the AG's Office?  A program that went so awry that a U.S. government employee is dead and the AG isn't fit to be tied about it?  It just does not pass any sort of smell test.

Watch Holder's reactions at the May hearing and judge for yourself whether he's telling the truth to a congressional committee.  It was reported last night that the ATF Inspector General's report will take more than five months.  It was also reported that the Attorney General's Office is hoping this matter will die quickly.  See any connection?

Here's the ever growing problem within federal law enforcement.  It is totally unaccountable to anyone.  So let's say this Fast & Furious business is indeed scandalous.  Who would investigate it?  The Justice Department naturally.  Who's ATF's parent agency, their boss?  The Justice Department. 

I have written here many times that the reason you never, ever hear anything about the Bureau of Prisons and the horrible physical conditions, atrocious medical care and brutal treatment of inmates, is due to the fact that from whom would you hear it?  Naturally, the Justice Department - BOP's parent agency.  You think they have an inherent conflict of interest in telling you that one of their component parts is terribly managed?  No, of course not. 

If you're skeptical that Holder is lying, why in the world would he be letting Acting ATF Director Kenneth Melson resign quietly this week (as quietly as this scandal will allow) if, as Holder implies, this man was running some rogue operation at ATF?  Rep. Issa needs to slap this guy with a subpoena the minute his resignation becomes effective and haul his ass up before the committee. 

But let's say Melson testifies and perjures himself regarding who above him knew about this.  To whom would Issa send a perjury referral?  You guessed it, the Justice Department.  Who polices the police?  In this case, all federal law enforcement would be scrutinized by Justice.  We learned a long time ago here in NYC that letting the police police themselves always ends badly.  Something needs to be done regarding this incestuous federal oversight.

More than ever, Congress needs to become aggressive - Gingrich era aggressive - in their investigations, subpoenas and refusal to fund certain agencies until their witness and subpoena demands are met.  Defund the NLRB (I know, a whole seperate issue).  Defund ATF until all this is fully explained to their total satisfaction.  What harm could be caused by defunding ATF for awhile?  Their mission has now morphed into letting illegal weapons be sold and transported, instead of preventing it.  What harm could anyone claim would be caused under these new circumstances.

Imagine U.S. Customs coming up with the genius idea of letting terrorists smuggle in suitcase nukes and then not even bothering to track them.  All in the hope that after they explode we can figure out their network by backtracking the debris.  That, to a slightly exaggerated degree, was the knuckle-headed idea behind Operation Fast & Furious.  But instead of nukes, ATF allowed known criminals to purchase vast amounts of guns and smuggle them into Mexico to be used by criminal gangs involved in the drug trade.  Moreover, they never informed the Mexican authorities they were doing this.  It's more than likely that many Mexican government officials were slain with guns from this program.

Eric Holder lied to congress and in all likelihood is engaged in some soft or hard cover-up.  This needs to be investigated to the bitter end.  I have so little faith in the tenaciousness of members of congress these days.  But let's hope for once the election season, usually a drag on any action, brings some needed partisan impetus to this cause.

And by the by, what is it with the need to give these overgrown teenagers who populate the ranks of federal law enforcement these 'cool' names?  Fast & Furious, I.C.E., etc.  It's not enough these jack booted thugs are given outrageous salaries, benefits and weaponry that an invading army would envy?  No, their fratboy egos require additional massage by these gangsta rap type labels.  It's too sickening.

 

6/21/11 Mostly Correct Yesterday at the Supreme Court

                 I don't agree with much that emanates from the bench at the U.S. Supreme Court these days.  June used to be a hopeful time for constitutional scholars and court watchers.  These last few Alito years have been pretty dismal.  But yesterday the court got two cases right, likely for the wrong reasons.  They also got one very wrong.

In the biggest case of the day, the court said that no, you can't just make a vague, general claim as to who constitutes a class in a sex-discrimination class action lawsuit.  Merely being a female employee at Walmart is not enough to entitle you to compensation or relief.  There simply has to be more specificity to the action and its provable harm to the plaintiffs.  That didn't exist in this case and the justices were correct in overturning the lower court.  My guess is that most of the five in the majority just sided with Walmart out of a pro business propensity, not because of the lack of real harm to these women.  But they were correct nonetheless.

The other decision worthy of cheering was the unanimous decision to toss the claim by a number of state's attorneys general that power plants were an annoyance and therefore the state could set its own environmental standards governing them - even if the plant was in another state.  I absolutely oppose the regulatory action that the EPA is attempting to promulgate in this area but if there were to be an action it would be coming from the federal government, not the states.  Again, I think most of the judges decided this based on their belief - which I share - that global warning is a hoax.  Not out of any committment to federalism. 

Of course it can never be a totally good day at the Supreme Court and there was a very troubling decision relating to civil contempt proceedings in child support cases.  While Justice Thomas was intellectually correct that the state has no constitutional obligation to provide counsel in civil cases, the explosion nationally in judges jailing errant fathers for non-payment has taken this out of the ordinary civil matter.  Jail is now a routine punishment for child support arrears.  Disproportionately those men being jailed are poor and minority.  Although this is not a race issue. 

When a previously rarely used option - jail - is now becoming the routine, then this is no longer a purely civil matter.  These are also not speeding tickets.  These cases can be very involved and complex.  No reasonable person would go into court on a child support matter that involves potential jail time without an attorney.  That is, of course, unless you're poor.  And then it's just judicial suicide.

The answer here is not, as Justice Breyer's attempts, to insure that states grant "substantial procedural safeguards."  Rather, it's to work to prevent states from jailing these men in a purely civil matter.  Yes, it's horrible that someone fathers a child and walks away from that responsibility.  No question he should pay what he owes if he legitimately can.  But there are stories all over the nation of squads of sheriffs and local law enforcement treating these men like Al Qaeda when they storm their homes to arrest them.  You want to deny someone a drivers license who hasn't made a good faith effort to pay?   Maybe I'd support that. 

Everything lately in this country is lazy and half-assed.  If you want to bring the harshest possible punishment - a loss of liberty - then be prepared for the responsibility of insuring that the proceedings are fair.  Don't take the easy action - jail - and them claim this isn't criminal in order to get out of spending money on court-appointed counsel. 

Jail in routine civil contempt matters used to be a rare consequence.  And in that instance Justice Thomas has a point.  But if it is to be used as the norm rather than the rare exception then you have to pony up the resources.  Moreover, you have to guarantee that the proceedings are fair.  Only appointing counsel in such matters can resolve that uncertainty.

 

6/21/11 - It's CityTime!

                So all the newspapers in NYC today are reporting on the U.S. Attorney's announcement that most, not just some, of the $700 million spent by the City on it's unified payroll system, CityTime, was the product of fraud.  This makes the black eye to the Bloomberg Administration that much purpler.  When asked about this, the Mayor's spokesman said, "  “Our Department of Investigation uncovered this fraud, bringing it to federal prosecutors, and we will be using all available avenues to recover any funding owed to the city. S.A.I.C. has been removed from the project, and substantial reforms have been made to the way large city contracts are managed.”  This continued charade in pretending that the Department of Investigation had anything positive to do with this is akin to claiming credit for having discovered the barn door open two weeks after the horse ran away.  While you may have been first, the usefulness and credit worthiness of that claim is zero.

Rather than doing their job in investigating this massive fraud while it was happening - in its genesis - they came  to it after it was over and $700 million was wasted on fraud, and sought to claim credit.  Why didn't they discover this years sooner?  Two reasons: 1. Everyone knows DOI is totally incompetent, they uncover no scandal until long after it's over, their job is contemporaneous, not post facto; that's the job of a DA, not an internal criminal auditor; and 2. The chief backer and protector of these crooks is the current OMB Director, the Mayor's 'adopted son,' Mark Page.  No DOI Commissioner was going to buck the Mayor's favorite staffer.  So they never looked or questioned the billings.  This, even after the NYC Comptroller and the Daily News pointed out glaringly that this thing was totally corrupt.  Nope, DOI turned a blind eye for years.  And for this they want plaudits.

The absoltuely galling aspect of this debacle is that the Mayor actually crowed last month that CityTime was operational.  His point being, yea it was a massive rip off but it finally works.  Only this man could have such a totally tin political ear to say something that stupid.

At his press conference, U. S. Attorney Preet Bharara mentioned half a dozen times that he wouldn't rest until the City got its money back.  Not once did he or Commissioner Hearn explain why this was a federal matter.  He never mentioned U.S. taxpayers or the interests of the federal government.  And NY reporters being their usual selves, have never asked this question of any of his local non-federal related investigations.  It seems to be that the justification always lies with the convictions.  A conviction isn't proof of relevance or jurisdiction.  As the Mayor's spokesman said, the first thing they did was turn it over to the U.S. Attorney.  True, but why?  The Manhattan District Attorney has ample jurisdiction.  The NYS Attorney General probably has plenty.  New York City is not some backward southern town where all law enforcement is too corrupt to be trusted.  Why the U.S. Attorney?  Why always the U.S. Attorney?

This dates back to a deal reached in 2002 between DOI and the U.S. Attorney's Office.  In exchange for becoming essentially a subsidiary of their office, the U.S. Attorney's Office would look the other way anytime any Mayoral official became involved in one of their investigations.  That is the reason why Preet Bharara has never gone anywhere near Mark Page.  He was/is the godfather calling all the shots in CityTime and no one has touched him. 

This is no proud day for DOI, Rose Hearn and Mike Bloomberg; press conferences to the contrary notwithstanding.  What started as a meritorious $35 million plan by Mayor Giuliani to consolidate the City's vast, unwieldy payroll systems into something manageable turned into a gargantuan taxpayer ripoff with City officials either complicit or too lazy to see the signs.  How bad was DOI's investigatory prowess?  They so bungled this that two of the main players were able to throw them off long enough to flee the country.

I can say with 100% certainty this sort of thing would never have been possible during the Giuliani Administration.  If for no other reason than Mayor Giuliani, while liking his budget directors very much, was never a captive to any of them.  Mike Bloomberg has a Dwight Eisenhower attitude towards Mark Page, he can't do without him.  This serves no one, least of all the taxpayers, well.  How many more examples do we need before the consensus forms that this guy is a lousy mayor?  I don't just mean the poll numbers; the citizenry has already tired of him in a big way.  I mean the informed cognoscenti, they still think he's swell.  It's always amusing to me to watch Bloomberg's arrogance trip him up.  Did he really think the laws of physics were changeable?  Did he honestly believe that his third term would end any less disastrously then every other mayor's?  Sadly, he did.  And now he's paying the price. Strike that, we're all paying the price.  Today alone that cost is $700 million.

 

6/20/11 - I'm Just Saying

                This past week two national studies were released that deserve comment.  In the first, New York State is ranked as the "least free state" among all the states in the union.  This study looked at personal freedoms, state laws and civil liberties violations.  In the second, New York State is ranked last in terms of business competitiveness.  Is it even remotely possible that these two things have some correlation at all?  I'm just saying.

I discovered this weekend - while listening to the always informative Larry Kudlow - that White House Chief of Staff Bill Daley is not only a former Boeing board member but actually voted in favor of Boeing's South Carolina plant.  This being the same plant that the National Labor Relations Board has targeted for eventual closure pending a kangaroo court hearing process.  Can you even imagine what a halfway competent Republican nominee can do with that in a presidential debate?  I'm just saying.

This weekend the NY Post published two charts showing the expenditures of the NYC Board of Education during most of the Bloomberg term.  The budget has gone up by almost 50% during his tenure to nearly $18 billion annually.  During that time the percentage of the budget per student for teacher salaries went up by almost 25% while the number of teachers actually declined.  Moreover, the number of students also declined by 8%.  So where did all that money go given a 50% increase in the overall budget?  The chart shows that teacher fringe and retiree benefits more than doubled from 13.6% to 30% of the budget.  Why?  You can thank Mayor-for-Life Mike's ridiculous teacher contracts for that.  Now, only after driving up the school budget by 50%, he discovers some fiscal religion and seeks to negotiate a tough contract and reform teacher prerogatives.  Meanwhile, city taxpayers will be on the financial hook for these lavish giveaways for decades to come.  He's the great manager, right?  I'm just saying.

Also in the NY Post this weekend, Kyle Smith does a wonderful job of skewering the president and his latest non-violent explanation for the economic morass we find ourselves in.  He blames ATMs and airport self check-in kiosks for displacing workers.  Yup, the 30yo ATM is somehow causing this current unemployment rate and sluggish economy.  Smith rightly points out that the president's logic would make the automatic dishwasher (mexican laborers) and the washing machine (chinese immigrants) equal culprits in explaining our current economic state.  Have they run out of car metaphors in the White House?  Boy, this is getting bad.  I'm just saying.

I watched Los Angeles Mayor Antonio Villaraigosa make the rounds of east coast TV these last few days.  First on Meet the Press and then today on Morning Joe.  Wow this guy is unimpressive.  I had no idea he was so bland and uninspiring as a speaker or national figure.  All problems, according to him and his friends at the U.S. Conference of Mayors, can be solved by Washington pulling out of current military operations in Iraq, Libya and Afghanistan and sending that money to the states and cities for "education and infrastructure."  When asked by NYT reporter Andrew Ross Sorkin where precisely this new money would be spent by the cities, he could only repeat like a mantra "education and infrastructure."  It was like a zombie movie.  But instead of the refrain "brains" you heard, "education and infrastructure."  Watching his performance I could only think that he makes Richard Riordan look like JFK by comparison.  I'm just saying.

One week.  That's how long it took for Chuck Schumer to get back to Sunday press releases as usual.  I mentioned previously how refreshing it was to have a Sunday evening and Monday morning devoid of press coverage from some made-up local issue that Schumer was exploiting on a slow news day.   We can thank Anthony Weiner, Schumer's protege, for keeping the Senator under wraps.   But there he was this week - letter grades for buses.  Yup, not much else going on in D.C.: three wars; debt limit default; disastrous economy; 9.1% unemployment; two trillion dollar deficits and Greek contagion.  It's a good thing all of that is under control so that our federal officials can focus on the other important matters like bus grades.  Is anyone out there who has previously worked for Schumer willing to fall on his sword and create a media firestorm so we can get another delightful pause to his Sunday sideshow?  I'm just asking.

 

6/15/11 - Dining with Rudy

                I would have very much liked to have been a fly on the wall yesterday during the meals Rudy had with Govs. Perry & Christie.  Rudy's law firm is based down in Texas so clearly Rick Perry keeps tabs on the Mayor.  It's also a real player in Texas legal and political circles (the current AG is an alum).  But what does cowboy, secessionist Rick Perry make of drag wearing, pro choice, pro gay rights Rudy Giuliani?  Not much would be my guess.  I think we've all seen this movie before.  Gov. Perry sees Rudy very much as yesterday's news notwithstanding the poll numbers.  Moreover, he believes Rudy is out of touch and off message with the voters generally and Republican primary voters specifically.  Gov. Perry believes this is his time.  Rudy had a great shot in '08' - blew it - and now it's time to move on to a fresh face, the thinking goes.  Fresh being a relative term since Perry has been governor for ten years. 

Rudy these days gets paid the same deference as aging cardinals and mafia dons.  In fact, he's become his matinee idol - Vito Corleone - except not how he envisioned. Not in his prime feared and respected, but rather towards the end of the movie repeating the same warnings over and over again.  The real juice and star power has moved slightly west of NYC.

With Gov. Christie it's so interesting for me to watch.  This is 1994-1995 all over again with the roles reversed.  Back then Rudy was the superstar newcomer and everyone came to City Hall to pay respects.  Now the shining light of the Republican Party is west, not east of the Hudson. 

One pundit yesterday said that Rudy's people are putting out the word that he is near to announcing his candidacy not because of any fire in the belly - trust me, there is none - but rather because he doesn't see anyone able to challenge Romney and he - Rudy - feels the nomination should not go uncontested.  My goodness, how incredibly selfless and noble. All that time, money and effort - sloshing through the New England snows - in order to keep democracy alive in the Republican Party.  I never knew Rudy cared this much about the average Republican primary voter.  

Mayor Giuliani says he will announce something in August.  By then we will know if Romney has this locked, if Huntsman caught fire and if Pawlenty flamed out.  Further, we will know what Sarah Palin's plans are.  The wild card here that Rudydom hadn't calculated on is Michele Bachman (and to some bizarre lesser extent, Herman Cain). She makes a mess of Iowa for everyone and it's unknown right now how well she will play in New Hampshire.  She'll certainly play pretty well with an Iowa win - or strong number two - under her belt, however. 

Somebody was asking me the other day what Rudy is up to.  I said I didn't believe any of this was serious.  But then he went to NH on the day of Romney's announcement and blasted him.  Now that in and of itself didn't lead me to change my view.  What gave me pause about that was I know that Rudy isn't running and he will do nothing to piss off the nominee of the party. Why?  Two reasons: 1. He desperately wants a prime speaking spot at the convention; and 2. his business is partly predicated on the appearance of influence within the Republican power structure. 

Giuliani Partners would fare considerably less well with a Republican president who had been left hooked by Rudy.  So the fact that he's pissing on Mitt Romney may mean something is going on.  But had I any money, I would be placing my chips in the no-go circle.  He ain't running.  He's just trying to find relevance in an electorate that will still kiss his ring out of deference and thanks but wants to move on to new leadership for 2012.

 

6/14/11 - Pawlenty Flinches

                In prison - and much of urban America - when a tough guy wants to assess a new guy, he will fake a punch or head butt to the newbie.  If the new guy blinks or flinches, you know he's no threat.  Last night Gov. Pawlenty flinched, blinked and bent over and grabbed his ankles.  If he ever left the straight and narrow path, he would be someone's bitch in prison in five minutes.

Here are last night's winners and losers:

Winner - Romney: No one even tried to lay a glove on him.  His cool, calm demeanor coupled with his Romneycare/Obamacare answer served him well as front runner.

Winner - Huntsman: I thought it was a mistake for him not to show but I was wrong.  The stage last night did not light anyones's fire.  If Huntsman turns out to be a star in a debate he will shine compared to the other seven.  Last night left much to be desired in terms of new ideas and presentation.  Huntsman could conceivably zoom in the polls with a stellar performance at the next debate in August.  Or he could flame out quickly ala Fred Thompson.  The expectations for him will be very high.

Winner - Bachman: I told you 10 days ago she would be a great debater and not to be underestimated.  She did not disappoint.  For those, like me, who say that as long as Tina Fey draws breath Sarah Palin will never be president, Michele Bachman showed how you get SNL off your back - give a thoughtful, mature performance and soon they'll have nothing to lampoon you with.  Sarah Palin, on the other hand, is the gift that keeps on giving for comics.

Winner - Perry: He's feeling pretty good today after watching last night's debate.

Loser - Pawlenty: Bland, cowardly and uninspiring.  Except for John King's in-his-face moment, the perpetual smirk stayed afixed.  Like I said, this will soon creep people out.

Big Loser - Sarah Palin: Maybe not next week or even next month, but soon the Tea Party will gravitate towards their natural leader Bachman and abandon the empty buffonery of Palin.

Losers - Gingrich, Cain and Paul: Gingrich and Cain are overt xenophobes and that won't play in 2012.  Ron Paul didn't play his natural libertarian lines well.  His message is much better than he presented it last night.  However, his constituency is slavishly devoted and it probably won't matter.  But he's not leaving the second or third tier anytime soon.

The non-Republican winner last night by a small margin was President Obama.  Yes, Gov. Romney looked good, but Obama has become a good debater from his many Hillary losses.  Nothing last night led me to see anyone besting him - even with the miserable record - in a one on one debate.

One personal pet peeve.  When will these Republicans stop aping George Bush with these wimpish foreign policy answers about "deferring to the commanders."  These Republicans are always bowing at the feet of Reagan.  Well, I can tell you that not once in eight years did Ronald Reagan answer a foreign policy question by deferring to his generals.  It's weak and indecisive.  They should stop this Bush phony deference/punting but quick.

 

6/12/11 - The Debt We Owe Anthony Weiner

                I did not think there was anything on earth that could prevent a Sunday Chuck Schumer press conference, short of him being in a coma.  And in that event, I am sure, his office has prearranged contingency plans.  But I was wrong. 

It now seems that a major national scandal that - in its genesis - is of Sen. Schumer's making will keep him from the weekend microphone.  As you may or may not know, Anthony Weiner is a creation of Chuck Schumer.  He worked in his office, was picked by the Senator for the Council seat he won and was his choice to succeed him in the House when he won his Senate race against Al D'Amato. 

There exists no ray of daylight on any policy issue between the two.  Rep. Weiner has never bucked New York's senior senator on any matter at all.  So when the man Chuck Schumer chose to fill his seat finds himself embroiled in the greatest scandal thus far of this young century, he not only demurs in a substantive response, he comes late to today's parade so as not to meet the press.  Chuck Schumer shying away from a camera on a weekend?  The NY cognoscenti would have said prior to today that was unthinkable.

The reason I dislike Schumer so much is the phoniness of his popularity.  No citizen of our state can name a single piece of legislation attached to Sen. Schumer's name since he has been in the Senate.  Not a one.  His popularity in the polls is mainly due to his phenomenal PR machine.  I used to work in PR so I respect the craft and those who are apt practitioners of it.  But at its root, good PR has to be backed by some substance eventually.  A good PR man can make you believe Goldman Sachs isn't evil for a little while.  But because of its true nature, at some point no PR can make you like Goldman.  Unless of course you're a Satanist. 

There is no substance to the Schumer record.  As Senator, just as when he was a congressman, he appears every Sunday (always a slow news day) and feeds the beast.  He picks some seemingly pro-consumer, banal issue to rail against.  Often the issue isn't even a federal matter within his legislative purview. The fascinating thing - which no newspaper has noticed - is that no legislation has been enacted as a result of these press conferences.  He has had them every Sunday for the last 15 years.  What is the net effect of all that ranting?  Nothing.  Occasionally he will introduce some bill a few weeks later.  But they all die.  Why?  Because they were never intended to be enacted.  They were designed for one thing, to get ink in Monday's paper.  From that vantage point his success rate is near 100%.  And the voters read their Monday papers or watch their Sunday 11PM news and think their senator is doing something.  The fact is he does nothing.  Shockingly, Kirsten Gilibrand is a more productive legislator than her mentor.

I said in the last election and will for all future ones, that the belief by the state Republican party that Schumer is untouchable is nonsense.  They look at a 65% approval rating and wilt.  A decent candidate (David Malpass) with some money could defeat Schumer once his record is revealed.

As for me, not having to see Sen. Schumer on the local news tonight or in tomorrow's paper ranting about some semi-contrived issue makes the whole Weiner mess redeeming.

 

6/12/11 - NYT to Pawlenty:  You're Living in Dreamland

                Why the panic and vitriol in the New York Times' editorial on Tim Pawlenty's tax plan?  NYT: Tax Fantasia  The editorial juxtaposed two interesting notions that politically stand zero chance of going anywhere: 1. The rich are not taxed nearly enough; and 2. we need a giant new stimulus plan.

The Times mocks Gov. Pawlenty's proposal to eliminate taxes on dividends and capital gains.  The editorial's authors are deeply disappointed because Gov. Pawlenty's sound ideas no longer make him "reasonable" in their estimation.  Only candidates committed to the status quo and this $4 trillion monstrosity known as the Federal Government can hope to see themselves portrayed as anything but wild-eyed fanatics in future NYT coverage.

It's funny how pundits and the eastern chattering class are always condemning candidates for not proposing new ideas and yet when they do, the roof caves in.  What these types of attacks reveal to me is that even if Pawlenty's tax plan was shown to be revenue neutral, the NYT would still oppose it because the "rich" are simply not being soaked sufficiently.  If somehow magically the federal government could be funded at current levels with the poor and middle classes paying no income tax and the "rich" paying 6%, they would still be aghast.   You would see a NYT editorial calling for the government to increase its budget to $7 trillion and impose a 50% tax on upper income earners. 

Enough is never enough.  There's always more to be done.  Always more areas of our lives in which the federal government can become involved.  More wars to finance, more redundant social programs to fund (37 child nutrition programs), more state and local responsibilities to be subsumed or duplicated.  More, more, more.  They just hate the idea of people with wealth retaining the product of their labor.  It's not that Pawlenty's proposal isn't "reasonable."  His crime is in being bold and endangering the status quo.

 

6/11/11 - Shargel Complaint - Update

                Just a brief update on my complaint to the Disciplinary Committee of the Second Department, Supreme Court - Appellate Division.  They have informed me that they have received my complaint and will next be seeking a response from Jerry Shargel.  Further, they tell me that I will receive a copy of his response and have an opportunity to respond.  As soon as I receive his letter to the Committee, I will post it here.

 

6/10/11 - Paying To be Imprisoned - Part II

                Here is the New York Times' follow-up to their story I posted here earlier (scroll down).  I think people's reactions to the idea of saddling ex-cons with a large debt and refusing to release them from probation until it is payed, has caused many to wonder why this is really being done.  Out of Prison, Into A Vicious Cycle of Debt

 

6/10/11 - Why Obama is Out of Economic Fixes

                Try imagining it's 1978 and Leonid Brezhnev is sitting atop the most powerful military on earth.  Let's suppose the General Secretary surveyed the non-military part of his empire and didn't like what he saw.  A country that could not produce a working pencil, toaster or automobile.  A country that was steadily incapable of feeding itself.  And let's say Brezhnev knew what Ronald Reagan knew, which was that this situation could not go on much longer.  So Brezhnev would turn to his trusted advisors for advice as to how to fix this economic system.  Guess what would happen?  He would receive a steady flow of 5-year plans for greater collectivization of the nation's pencil factories and more, not less, state intervention in the economy.  He would get this advice because that's the only advice they were capable of giving.  Brezhnev would have nowhere to turn within his system to get the advice he needed to fix the problem (of course communism was at its core unfixable). 

Even Mikhail Gorbachev could not do what he actually professed he wanted to do; modernize and open up the system.  He was surrounded by old school Stalinists.  It took Boris Yeltsin's willingness to essentially blow the whole thing up to finally begin achieving some result. 

Barack Obama finds himself in the same state as our fictional Brezhnev.  Obama surrounds himself with true believers - government good, free market bad.  It is to these men and women he now turns to try and understand why their statist policies have failed so abysmally.  First, they don't know; everything they learned at Harvard told them this should be working.  Second, they want dearly to recommend keep doing more of the same - more regulations, more government control of the economy, and finally another one or two trillion dollars in stimulus.  They are desperate to heed Paul Krugman's advice.  But the political realities of the situation tells them that's impossible.  So they got nothing else to offer.

Barack Obama may have many positive character traits.  His worst however is his stubbornness.  Rather than admit this experiment failed, his reelection slogan appears to be, Just You Wait.  He is convinced that his doubling the national debt, tripling the annual deficit, increasing government employees, nearly crippling new energy exploration and issuing a mountain of new federal regulations will pay off in the long run.  There is no one who can convince him otherwise.  Mainly because, like Brezhnev, he only hears day-in and day-out from like-minded individuals. The White House is out of tricks and seemingly paralyzed in the face of the daily awful economic news.  And the president is at a loss to issue any coherent reassurance.

One day we're a car in a ditch.  Next we're a patient undergoing surgery.  Then we're adrift at sea and facing Perfect Storm like headwinds.  Lastly and most gruesomely, the economy is the victim of a vicious auto accident involving a large truck slamming into it and mangling its legs.  YEESH!  Who makes up these metaphors in the White House? 

These attempts at anthropomorphizing the economy are what is now substituting for policy in this administration.  It's not that their policies haven't worked, they believe.  It's that they haven't found the right automotive metaphor to properly explain why they haven't worked yet.  In Obama's view it's not they who are wrong, but us for not understanding the nuance of of how trillions of dollars of debt and spending can produce no jobs and 1.8% growth.  Apparently this is sophisticated economics and we're just too stupid to understand its subtleties.

You don't have to be Milton Friedman or Paul Samuelson to get that 7 trillion dollars of debt has done nothing constructive for the country.  I don't need a Nobel Prize to figure that out.  But apparently our Nobel Laureate president sees things differently.  It will be interesting to watch how, without altering course, he tries to continue to explain this positively through 2012.

 

6/9/11 - Pawlenty's Tax Plan: Halfway There

                Like Paul Ryan's Medicare offering, Tim Pawlenty deserves serious praise for laying out a detailed policy proposal on a very crucial subject.  Also, as with Ryan, I take some issue with a major underlying premise in the package. 

First, here is what he got right:

- a flat corporate tax rate of 15% with no deductions; and

- eliminating the dividend tax, the estate tax and taxes on capital gains.

 

I have been in favor of a flat personal income tax for over 25 years.  My preferred proposal would eliminate all deductions, except possibly a deduction to purchase health care, if that is away around Obamacare.  In my plan there would be a graduated flat tax that would enable every citizen to complete their tax return in under 10 minutes.  I would propose three rates: 5% for those earning less than $50,000; 10% for those earning less than $150,000; and 18% for those making more than $150,000.  You earned $250,000 last year?  Multiply 250K times 18% and deduct from that figure whatever you paid through your payroll tax during the year.  The result is your tax liability or refund. 

Pawlenty's proposal is slightly different in terms of rates and deductions.  But here's the big philosophical divide between me and Gov. Pawlenty - as well as most in my party: I believe everyone should pay some tax.  Under Gov. Pawlenty's proposal, the 45% of current taxpayers who pay no income tax whatsoever, would continue to pay zero taxes - he actually hopes to increase that number.  President Obama routinely talks about how many more people under his administration pay no income tax.  That is clearly a goal of his and most elected officials.  But why?

If I were a state legislator and was asked to vote on a Constitutional amendment to repeal the 16th Amendment I would cast my Aye vote with pride.  The federal government has no constitutional authority to tax our labor; hence the need for an amendment. But that is an issue for another day, not what's on the table this decade.

This idea that it is somehow just and moral to have people labor 1/3-1/2 of the year in order to pay Washington, is to my way of thinking simply obscene.  Your chief burden in terms of funding government should be to your state and locality.  Lastly and leastly it should be to Washington.  Washington is deserving of a tithing, a token, a small tribute; not half your life's earnings.

If we are indeed going to pay individual income taxes as the chief method of funding our government, then why shouldn't we all pay something?  Democrats clearly believe in the income tax and its application to things far and wide.  But at the same time they want as few Americans as possible to pay it.  If it is every citizen's duty to help pay for the Common Defense and General Welfare, then we should all contribute, even just five percent.  The only individuals who should be exempt would be the unemployed (who ironically enough are currently taxed on their unemployment benefits) and maybe some portion of the elderly.  Everyone else in society should pay to the general fund to finance the government.  I don't like the income tax as that method, but if it's what we have then why should only half of all taxpayers contribute?

And what is meant precisely by the Democrats constant refrain that the rich should, "pay their fair share?"  Fair share of what and as determined by whom?  When half the country does not contribute anything towards the funding of our government then anything "the rich" are paying is beyond their "fair share."

Those who argue that the 45% who currently sponge off of the other 55% do pay something through Social Security, I say that's nonsense.  That is supposed to be a dedicated fund to pay for a specific program to which we all contribute.  That has no place in a discussion of the funding of our government in general.  Moreover, if the federal government hadn't stolen trillions of dollars from that fund and replaced them with worthless IOUs we would have a solvent Social Security system for as far as the eye could see.

The great difficulty for lawmakers is to get a serious discussion going involving the necessary budget pain we need with a population that feels entitled to their mountain of benefits to which they've contributed nothing.  Of course most Americans don't want this or that program cut, it's all been free money to them.  The Democratic Party - along with a goodly portion of Republicans - have created this permanent class of freeloaders who are nonetheless invited to the debate.  You can't join a poker game unless you ante up first.  You can't rail at Steve Balmer at a shareholder's meeting unless you've purchased a share of Microsoft.  You shouldn't be a citizen in this country with all the attendant rights and privileges, without contributing toward its financing.

The Obama and Pawlenty goal that we should encourage the notion of a permanent freeloading class of citizens is wrong.  A flat tax?  Awesome, I'm all for it.  But don't just flatten the rates.  Flatten out the disproportionate burden borne currently by only 55% of Americans.  And give the 45% left out of the funding a rightful voice and stake in their government to which they will contribute.  Those two combined are a goal worthy of a serious, non-pandering presidential candidate.

 

6/8/11 - The Congressional Charlie Sheen

                Well first, all us Jewish men owe a debt to Anthony Weiner.  We are mythed to be less gifted than the average man.  So we can all hold our heads a little higher now thanks to the Congressman.

Seriously, however, he is of course toast.  It's now hours or days until he resigns.  Chuck Schumer will be given the task of delivering that message by party leaders.  Kind of like the internet age version of Goldwater and Hugh Scott trudging up the White House driveway in 1974.

You will find no other blogger or columnist who understands what motivated Anthony Weiner to behave in this way better than I.  The big difference is that I never sent my real picture to people I chatted with - X or G rated.  I was just too paranoid that someone, somehow would recognize me; and I was not a media obsessed member of congress.  So his behavior is beyond reckless and based on my experience, was a call for something: help, sympathy, pity, attention.  What, I couldn't guess. 

But here's what's pissing me off about this.  What Weiner did was immature and not in keeping with the behavior we would like to expect from a member of congress.  But that is in my view none of our business.  I could care less that he tweets porn stars and is seemingly desperate to ape Charlie Sheen.  I do care that he inserts himself into all our lives by prolonging this story by lying so baldly.  But still this doesn't rise to the level of inquiry or resignation.  You haven't heard me say he should resign, only that it's now inevitable.

But what I find outrageous is that Charlie Rangel's crimes were so much more severe and yet his colleagues had his back from minute one.  More than his House colleagues, the White House made sure the matter never got too serious.  The U.S. Attorney here in NY indicted a local Councilmember for among other things, overbilling the City for the cost of a bagel and shmear.  In other words, nonsense.  But Congressman Rangel's myriad of ethical and criminal behavior was not even investigated by the Feds - and he's a federal official.  As for lying, every word spoken and offered in writing by Rangel was a lie.  For much more serious matters than sexting.

Why the double standard?  Two reasons.  First, the obvious one, he's black and Chairman of the Ways and Means Committe (at the time this started).  But that's not the main reason.  The main reason is that he's a go along/get along Democrat of long-standing and a favorite of House Democratic leaders.  Short of murder, they were always going to do whatever was required to insure his survival.  And they succeeded.  Anthony Weiner on the other hand bucked his party elders and was generally disliked for his media showboating.  But what should that have to do with the seriousness of his charges or his ethical behavior.  Barney Frank had his home used as a brothel.  Not worse?  Why in the world should Charlie Rangel have been permitted to hang-on long enough to let his constituents weigh-in on his future and Rep. Weiner will be denied that opportunity?  Yes, he has now officially become a creepy guy and an admitted liar.  But he wasn't systematically ripping off taxpayers or using his office and federal dollars to erect monuments to himself and then lying about it.  That strikes me as far worse. 

But nobody ever ever said life - or politics in particular - was fair.  I probably agree with Weiner on not a single public policy issue.  But one thing my trevails have taught me is to point out hypocrisy where I find it.  I'm not a constituent of either Rangel or Weiner but I'd rather have a Congressman who was consistent in his policy views and fought for his constituents however smug, than an unctuous, hypocrtical, tax cheat who feels entitled to behave criminally and uses his military service sixty years ago as some sort of excuse.  But hey, I'm not a House Democratic leader. So what do I know.

 

6/7/11 - Paying To Be Imprisoned

                I'm always going to bring you interesting stories I come across relating to the deplorable state and federal justice system we have in this country.  The latest comes the the New York Times and deals with the crushing debt inmates are handed by the states when they leave prison.  After Prison, a Bill to Be Paid

 

6/7/11 - Rudy's Flat Week

                Not a good week for Rudy.  First, he travels to New Hampshire to test the waters and attempt to make amends with the voters there for having high hatted them in 2008. Thanks to Sarah Palin and Mitt Romeny, he was overshadowed in his efforts and thus far it appears to have been a dud effort.  But Rudy's harsh attacks on Mitt Romney, if he keeps them up, will surely endanger any hopes of a prime speaking spot at the Tampa convention next summer.  And after all, that and drumming up business for Giuliani Partners is what this is all about.

Next, Keiko Fujimori, daughter of imprisoned former Peruvian strongman Alberto Fujimori, hired Rudy's firm to advise her on "citizen security" matters.  Mayor Giuliani even spent a few days down there campaigning with Ms. Fujimori.  Since money has never been an issue for the Fujimori regime, I'm sure Giuliani Partners collected a tidy sum.  Alas, the former Mayor's efforts came a cropper as Ms. Fujimori narrowly lost her bid.  Pundits have said the voters where not comfortable with all her advisors being former members of her father's inner circle.  Maybe that was something that consultant Giuliani could have advised her on.  Personally I think her father's habit of torturing his opponents would have made her candidacy less than desirable.  But torture has never been a deal breaker for Rudy.

 

6/6/11 - Tough Times For Anthony Weiner

                You'd have to be a Fox News host to have watched Rep. Weiner's press conference and not felt some real sympathy for this guy.  That was a hard thing to watch.  Interestingly, it was the Democratic talking heads who were merciless in their condemnation.  Clinton loyalists Carville and Begala were especially harsh.  But it looks like this is a scandal from which there is seemingly no return.  I knew him slightly when he was a freshman NYC Councilmember and I was head of intergovernmental affairs for the Mayor's Office.  All those brash traits that made him stand out also explain why in his hour of need he has so few defenders.

I'm sure everyone today is quoting the Watergate truism that It's Not the Crime But the Cover-up that will do you in.  Never more so then in Anthony Weiner's case.  It wasn't that he texted or Facebooked with young women not his wife.  It wasn't even that he lied about it.  It was how actively he lied and how hard he tried to deflect and dissemble.  For an elected official to go to these elaborate lengths of deception as his first instinct - even in an admittedly private matter - goes to the very heart of trust and leadership.  I've said for years now that one aspect of Mike Bloomberg's character that is so odious is his propensity to lie as his first reaction.  It speaks to his very nature as a man and leader.  But even Mayor-for-Life Mike wouldn't erect walls of deception like this. 

I completely sympathize with Weiner's desire and belief that prevaricating a little in the first instance would make this go away.  I even understand the anger he showed to the news media based on his belief that this was a minor matter and a private one to boot.  But his next reaction was the one that's the killer.  He invited news outlet after news outlet into his congressional office and lied his head off over and over again.  That you cannot do and hope to survive.  Every single news network has their own distinct footage of him lying with apparent ease.   It's now a very painful thing to watch knowing the truth.

He has also put his House colleagues in a very rough spot.  Speaker Boehner has set the bar extremely high with his lightening fast dispatch of Chris Lee.  Boehner said they would be different this time and he was true to his word.  Nancy Peolosi on the other hand has behaved as one would expect.  Like in the Rangel matter, she hopes this will go to the Ethics Committee to die.  All the while claiming the Democratic leadership took action.  Moreover, they will claim it cannot be commented upon because, "it's under investigation by the Ethics Committee."  That's the real reason she sent it there; she wants to resume talking about Medicare as quickly as possible.  And she took the easiest possible path towards doing that.

Nothing new about these House Democrats.  How refreshing it would have been had she immediately called for him to step down after his press conference.  I am assuming she asked him to privately when they spoke before it began and he refused.  That would have set a new tone and tried in some small measure to reestablish their ethical credibility.  It would have also shown Boehner that he's not the only one who can act like a leader.  But she didn't.  And in the process did herself, her party, her colleagues and Weiner himself no favors. 

Just like the mere fact that Tiny Fey continues to breath dooms any hope that Sarah Palin has of being president, those dozens of interviews on digital disc have now finished any hope of the mayoralty for Weiner.  He can win another term from the 9th, that's doable.  But it will take years to wash away those interviews and his contrived indignation. 

I hate when reporters and commentators feel the need at moments like this to label the matter 'a tragedy.'  A promising career cut short, what potential.  I don't think he thinks of himself or his life as tragic.  I think he's a cocky, arrogant and talented guy who had too much success too early.  This is evidence of a lack of maturity - his behavior that got us here as well as his reaction.  Moments like this are profoundly sobbering.  He doesn't know this yet but this whole thing will make him a better man, husband and maybe someday a better political figure.

 

6/4/11 REALLY?!?, Gov. Barbour, REALLY?!?

                You know that SNL/Weekend Update segment called, REALLY?!?  At the Faith & Freedom Coalition today Haley Barbour made a Mitch Danielsesque proposition to the faithful that they forgo criticising the nominee if he takes a social position they can't embrace. That's sensible enough.  Then, in response to reporter's question if there were any one position a nominee could take that he could absolutely not embrace, including tax increases, he said nothing was off the table if you got enough in return for it.  REALLY? Gov. Barbour, REALLY?!?  After that he told the reporter her question was "Stupid."

Stupid?  It may have been the best question leading to the most revealing answer of that silly gathering.  While I generally applaud Gov. Daniels' call to put aside social issues and focus on economics, there have to be some principles that are just that, principles.  Would the Democrats support legislation criminalizing all abortions after 20 weeks? Of course not, they are a pro-choice party.  Nothing gained in return would make that acceptable. 

What lobbyist Haley Barbour revealed today is what many Americans fear is true of all their elected officials: that they have no core ideals and everything is always on the table.  There's a big difference between trading away fundamental beliefs and willing to forgo taking up all the oxygen in a presidential campaign on a very long term policy goal - banning abortions.  The TV punditry thinks Barbour's position is that of a realist and they appalud him.  The American people, however, do not.

Haley Barbour tells us tax increases are possible.  What else is possible from Republican leaders?  Another stimulus package?  More bailouts?  Permitting an Iranian nuclear capacity?  Is there anything worth manning the barricades for?  I think the nominee hopefuls had better denounce Gov. Barbour's 'Washington as usual' philosophy but quick.  Remember, they were supposed to be different this time around.

 

6/3/11 - Birthers, Truthers & Gen. Hayden

                In yesterday's Wall Street Journal former CIA Director Gen. Michael Hayden pleads a case that in addition to Birthers and Truthers (9/11 conspiracy theorists) we should add  'Interrogation Deniers'  to the list of things we all should all roundly reject in our civic discourse.  What he means precisely is that love "Enhanced Interrogation Techniques" or loathe them, honest intellectual debate should acknowledge once and for all that they produced results and probably none more so then in the lead-up to the Bin Laden compound raid. 

He's very passionate about this in his op-ed.  Interestingly - and in my view tellingly - all the while he is pushing his chair as fast and far away from the table as possible in reminding us that he never personally ordered any of these measures to be performed himself. 

He ends the piece with a challenge.  To all those interrogation deniers who deplore the use of these methods, why not just call for the destruction of the fruits of those interrogations; namely, shred all intelligence gathered from those sessions and prohibit their use in all future data analysis.  Gen. Hayden I accept your challenge. 

You may recall about 15 years ago there was a brief but intense controversy within the medical community surrounding the work product from Dr. Mengele's experiments in Aushwitz.  It turned out amidst the horror he may have produced some useful medical findings.  Well guess what?  The outrage surrounding the proposed use of that research was so great and universal that the idea was squashed within days.  The notion was so offensive to the average conscience that even the potential for some good was outweighed by revulsion to this application of the scientific method.  "Shouldn't some good come out of all of that suffering," was the medical community's question.  The resounding answer was, "We'd rather find it another way, even if it takes a few more years of new medical trials."  That's my answer to Gen Hayden.

There's a reason we used to shy away from installing military officers in civilian defense and intelligence posts.  The requisite mindset of a warrior is not the same for the civilian leader.  To argue they are interchangeable is absurd.  It may make perfect sense if you've been inculcated in a world where it's logical to do whatever is necessary to get an enemy on the battlefield to divulge the location of the enemy's guns in order to prevent your troops from being shortly ambushed to argue for the need for torture; however wrong that position may be intellectually.  But you can't take that battlefield commander and make him the civilian head of DoD or the CIA.  We never used to do that.  We were very clear on not doing that.  The one exception was always the NSA, which until recently had a narrow focus and no major policy input - you directed the NSA, you weren't directed by them.

These torture advocates like to pretend that since 9/11 we have faced dozens, maybe hundreds of Jack Bauer moments.  There's a nuclear bomb going to go off somewhere in the city in one hour and the guy sitting in front of you knows where it is and how to disarm it.  What do you do?  Yea, given a Jack Bauer moment I sure do get the moral dilemma.  But I am here to tell you that not one Jack Bauer moment has occured since 9/11.  In the same way that the Congress and the courts are continually justifying and excusing lazy police work by allowing shody searches, these torture advocates try and excuse their cause by saying it speeds up intelligence gathering.   First, there is no evidence that's true.  Second, sure everything in life is speedier if you let the government run amok.  Even I'll concede that.  The question becomes, if you want to endorse those practices then you're going to end up living in East Germany and not the United States.  It's intellectually dishonest to argue you can do both simultaneously.  Freedom and the U.S. or police state and East Germany.  There is no happy middle as they would argue.

This Frank Luntzian world where torture becomes 'Enhanced Interrogation Techniques' only weakens our moral character.  I would have way more respect for these proponents of torture if they would call it that and not try and be cute with this focus group tested phraseology.  You want to torture people?  Then man-up by openly advocating it and call it by its name.  I realize, although we refuse to acknowledge it, that America's sense of right and wrong has changed dramatically over the last decade.  This phony and unwinable War on Terror leads us to do and condone some awful things that are/were anathema to the American sensibility.  I see almost no hope for change when both political parties agree no change is needed.  Two weeks ago the Supreme Court essentially revoked the Fourth Amendment and Pres. Obama now supports nearly every extra-Constitutional measure of the Bush Presidency.  Where's the hope?  I see none.

The blame, in my view, for this continuing debate about torture rests squarely with Pres. Obama.  "Huh," you say.  Obama?  But he banned it.  Not good enough.  I have said since he took office that if he did not make a full-throated effort to investigate and fully expose the Constitutional excesses and abuses of the Bush years then those defenders of torture, rendition, secret prisons, wireless wiretaps, etc., would continue to defend them as a rational policy choice instead of what they are, criminal acts.  

That John Yoo regularly appears on the Op-Ed page of a national newspaper espousing his views without ever having been federally investigated (and I don't mean that joke, whitewash Holder investigation) is to my way of thinking criminal.  The net result is that this man teaches law in a prestigious law school.  He's a law professor!!! I simply can't get my head around that.  Imagine Eichmann having not been executed but sent to prison and upon release taking up a post teaching Constitutional Law at Heidelberg.  Would that be acceptable in civil society?  No, it would not.  Every time John Yoo appears in the WSJ or on Fox News he, and you, can thank Barack Obama. 

Gen. Hayden, Rick Santorum, Fox News, Giuliani, Cheney they are all wrong and always will be on the subject of torturing people.  No amount of useful information - and there is still no evidence that any was produced, notwithstanding Gen. Hayden's vehement protests - can justify losing our national soul.  It's wrong to torture people.  It was wrong on Sept. 10 and it's wrong today.  It's wrong to do it on U.S. soil, it's wrong to do it at Gitmo and it's wrong, as well as cowardly, to send victims overseas to have it done instead.  It should not be acceptable in the United States of America to say otherwise and not be universally denounced.  But thanks to President Obama, you can not only say it, you're paid to champion it at UC Berkeley.

 

6/2/11 - I Too Was Hacked

                What would the Chinese want with me?  In precisely the manner described in today's papers, my Gmail account was hacked 10 days ago.  I can say this with absolute 'certitude.'   A forwarding address was added to my settings and all my incoming mail was forwarded to someone with a Yahoo account that had a .UK extension.  Because Google absolutely, positively offers no customer support features, I had to post a request for help on one of their forums to figure out why this was happening.  Sure enough, in the Gmail settings a forwarding address had been inserted.  I deleted it and the next day it was back again.  Only then did I belatedly realize I had better change my password.  Stupid me.  Since then, nothing. 

Why am I telling you this?  Two reasons: 1) I thought it was kind of interesting; and 2) Clearly Google and the Federal Government are lying when they say that this attack was aimed solely at "senior government officials."   I am surely not that.  If this happened to little ole me, be assured it's happened to thousands more Gmail customers.  Google claims they sent letters to all those hacked.  I received no such communication from them.  I assume with good reason.  Naturally Google has a clear corporate interest in not telling us that many, many more of its user's accounts were hacked than it's letting on. 

With Google's security this bad and its total lack of any customer support, how could anyone think of adopting the Google model of Cloud computing?  Do away with all software on your PC and rely solely on Google's servers for your applications and document storage?  A business model that weak and full of holes could only come from say, a Brooklyn Congressman.

 

 

6/2/11    The ABCs Of Gerald Laughner's Incompetence

                Last week I was reading on Yahoo News about the court's designation of Gerald Laughner as incompetent to stand trial.  I then read some of the most vicious and hate-filled posts in response to that story.  People were saying the most vile things.  These people have absolutely no connection to this case or the victims and yet they wanted, in one man's words, to see him, "sliced open from the balls to the neck like a pig."  I worry for the future of this country.  Not because of the Laughners - there aren't very many of them - but because of the millions who have this irrational need and taste for blood and revenge outside any logical emotional reaction. 

Yea, Laughner killed your daughter, I can understand.  Laughner killed your best friend, totally get that.  But this all stood in marked contrast to one of the actual victims who said that he was fine how things were proceeding and had no problem with the interim finding of incompetence.  And this guy was shot twice by Laughner!! 

You may or may not know this but I too was found incompetent to stand trial in the exact same manner as Laughner (both federal cases).  With that in mind, I thought maybe I could offer-up some insight and clarity as to this process since most people don't understand it and confuse it with a defense claim of insanity. 

First, there are basically two grounds for a psychiatric determination of incompetence in the federal system: 1) You cannot understand the proceedings.  Maybe like Laughner you're too whacked out (that's not a psychiatric term) or maybe you have an IQ of 12.  In either case, you cannot try someone for a crime who has no concept of what's happening to them at trial; and 2) You cannot aid in your own defense.  Meaning, for whatever reason, you are too out of it to help and consult with your attorney on matters relating to your case.

I fell into the second category.  The Bureau of Prisons (BOP) psychologist found that my depression was so severe that I was unable to aid in my own defense.

Initially the court orders you sent for a mental evaluation.  The BOP has 45 days to perform the evaluation.  The doctor assigned to your case can ask for a proforma 45-day extension that is almost always granted since the back log is huge and they almost never get them done in the first 45 days.  The BOP doctor then makes a recommendation and forwards that to the court. 

The BOP made a finding and a recommendation to the court that Laughner was incompetent.  The judge can reject the recommendation and proceed but that never happens because it would be overturned on appeal and the whole trial would have been for naught.  So the judge accepts the recommendation and then by statute the defendant is sent to a Federal Medical Center (FMC) for "Restoration of Competency."  FMCs are BOP prisons that also have a major medical component to them.  There aren't very many of them in the country and in a high profile case only three would be considered: FMC Butner, FMC Rochester or FMC Springfield.  Laughner was sent to FMC Springfield. 

The strange part, as someone who was so designated, is that technically you are being sent to this FMC by order of the U.S. Attorney General for Restoration of Competency.  The law requires the AG to make that designation, so all the court papers say that.  I kept thinking to myself, "Does John Ashcroft really know he's sending me here?"  Of course he didn't, but you can't help thinking that when you see it in writing 20 times. 

After that, the BOP has six months to restore you to competency and report back to the court (I heard a news analyst say it was four months, but I think they misspoke unless the law has been changed).  You cannot be forced to take drugs, only undergo testing and possibly therapy.  The doctors can ask the court to order the forced use of drugs if the defendant refuses.  But that happens rarely during that first six month period.  It's mostly testing and patient history.  Unless you're a very, very high profile case like Laugner's, a defendant would only see his doctor a few times face-to-face in those 45 or 90 days.

If, after that first six months, the BOP doctors report to the court that you have been restored to competency the defense can contest that finding and have a court hearing using their own doctors as witnesses and cross examine the Government's.  In the vast majority of cases that is the determination to the court by the BOP's doctors after that first six month period.  My guess would be over 90% of the time.  At that point the case goes to trial.

If, however, the doctors say they have not restored your competency they get another six months.  You know how some people believe that if you get five or more cards in Blackjack you automatically win the hand?  That's not true of course and there is a similar myth associated with the restoration of competency.  Many defendants so designated believe that after four findings (six months x four) you are automatically deemed officially incompetent to stand trial.  That's a prison myth but many believe it and quote it as fact nonetheless. 

In reality this process - usually in very high profile cases - can go on forever.  In a run of the mill case - at some point - a court will find the defendant incompetent to stand trial and he will be committed; usually to a psych ward in an FMC.  If at some point - either in the near term or many years down the line - the BOP doctors determine he has been restored to competency, they are required to release him and the commitment is lifted.  Furthermore, you will never have a criminal record - you weren't convicted of anything.

One such case where this is in fact going on forever, involves a defendant I served time with.  His name is Russell Weston and you may remember him as the person who shot up the U.S. Capitol and killed two Capitol Hill Police Officers.  We were in the same unit when I was at FMC Butner being restored to competency.  He's still there.  Every six months or so his doctors go to court and claim that he's still incompetent.  The BOP shrinks say he's a paranoid schizophrenic.  This has been happening with him since 1998.  The prosecutors in his case have been desperate for years to put him to death. 

Trust me, I am no doctor, but he's faking.  I knew the guy and can tell you from firsthand knowledge that this is all an act.  He has a very comfy set-up there (relatively speaking since the alternative is The Needle in Terre Haute).  He was an obese man with porcine features and giant swollen legs due to inactivity who confined himself to a wheelchair.  I must admit, I did not like that guy.

My closest friend at Butner - armed bank robbery - also had been committed after having been found incompetent to stand trial.  He was eventually restored to competence and released.  He too had gamed the system.  He had issues to be sure, but not enough to have earned the commitment.  He and his girlfriend had laid clues after his arrest to help in the finding.  Our doctor always referred to him as a "charming sociopath" and warned me not to become friends with him.  Who listens to doctors?

I've given you two examples of men who have gamed the system.  The reality in the BOP however is that there are so, so many inmates with severe mental problems who should never have been found to be competent to stand trial.  Instead they were deemed competent and received in many instances long sentences.  It is heartbreaking to see these men who clearly had no knowing concept of their crimes but due to awful public defenders and an out of control justice system bent on incarceration they were sent away for decades.  Yea, there a few Russell Westons who sneak by who shouldn't but mostly BOP doctors issue findings of competence to defendants who aren't close to being mentally culpable.  The BOP is guilty of so many awful things, but that may be its greatest sin.

 

What's Rudy Up To??

                With six months to go before the first caucus, it's still not clear who is and who isn't running for the GOP nomination for president.  This week's news will only help to make that picture even more opaque. 

Rudy Giuliani is topping a new CNN Poll with 16%.  Further, he is headed to New Hampshire to speak at a series of GOP fundraisers on the very day Mitt Romney is finally announcing his candidacy.  Rep. Peter King tell us that he's as good as running (Program Note: For this election season the role of Guy Molinari will be played by Peter King).  The news of this has caused the punditry to become all atwitter - literally and figuratively. 

But what does it mean?  What's Rudy up to?  Maybe I can offer a little insight at this juncture.  We will know more when we analyze the text and nuance of his remarks on Thursday. { For the record, I find far more intriguing the potential of a Pataki candidacy then a Giuliani run, but hey I chose the blog name and you leave with thems who brought you. }

First, do I believe that six months ago Rudy had the slightest inkling of running?  No, I do not.  It was not being seriously considered.  But he thinks maybe something has changed.  He and his advisors are looking at the current crop of candidates and concluding what we are all concluding; namely, that this is the weakest field in living memory.  They then ask themselves three questions: 1. Is Obama beatable?  They answer yes;  2. Can any of the current candidates defeat him?  They answer no; and 3. They then ask the most important question - Can Rudy beat him?  They're not sure, but they think possibly yes.  Hence the last minute trip to NH to suss this out.

Let me digress for a second to give you my thoughts on where Barack Obama stands.  If you look at an incumbent with his record, 2 1/2 years into his presidency, can he be beaten?  On paper, Obama is eminently beatable.  But that's not the issue.  Campaigns aren't won on paper.  They are fought on the ground, in the ether and in the zeitgeist.   So is President Barack Obama beatable?  Probably not.  And certainly not by Romney, Pawlenty, Bachmann or Paul.  Huntsman?  No one can answer that question yet.  But let me pause and say a word about Michele Bachmann.  She is no dummy.  I can't say why she makes these silly gaffes, but she is one articulate, on- message cookie.  She has a viewpoint and she expresses it very well.  Laugh now, but she would give Rudy a serious run in a debate.

George Will thinks the nominee will be Tim Pawlenty.  But most are betting that Mitt Romney will be the nominee.  Here's what every political analyst knows but is prevented from saying by our current political mores.  Call it the Juan Williams exclusion.  No Republican Mormon can be elected president.  A Mormon Democrat?  Possibly.  Republican?  Never.  It's all about the numbers.  What Karl Rove knew very well was that short a popular candidate or a winning record you had to increase the base in order to win.  At a minimum, you have to start with the base.  That base is comprised largely of Christian fundamentalists.  I, a Jew, am closer to Christ in their estimation than Mormon Mitt Romney.  This is not simply a case of JFK's Catholicism. 

Protestants may not have liked his Catholic faith - many were openly hostile to it -  but they did not view it as alien or otherworldly  (Protestantism after all sprung from a rejection of the rigid orthodoxy of the Catholic Church).  That is precisely how Christian fundamentalists view Mormons.  He might as well proclaim himself a Wican for all the difference it's going to make to the Born Again base.  The Bible Belt?  Their Bible is not The Book of Mormon.  Joseph Smith a prophet, gold plates and sacred undergarments are outright heretical to their beliefs.  To these people you might as well put a sign on Romney's forehead that says, "Enemy of Christ."   Could this be offset with independents and Democrats?  Maybe, but not by pro-choice, pro-life, pro RomneyCare, anti-ObamaCare, flip-flopping Mitt Romney.  So Romney has no chance. As for Tim Pawlenty, that smile perpetually plastered on his face will creep everyone out in short order.  Trust me.  So who's left? 

The punditry on the right looks at 2010 and thinks it can be replicated in 2012.  Love em or hate em but the Tea Party was a genuine phenomenon in 2010.  The right candidate could harness that energy and passion in 2012.  But that requires a dynamic leader.  Dynamic in his persona, or lacking that, in his/her ideas.  As Joe Klein said this weekend, in all his years covering Romney he has never seen the man move a crowd with his oratory up off their butts.

So here we are at the landscape that Rudy surveys.  But that's only the start.  Let's say he thinks he can do this.  That leads to more questions in Giulianiland.  Namely:

1. Something akin to the First Question on Passover.  Why would this run be any different and produce a different result then the last one?  These are not very introspective people over at Giuliani Partners.  I don't suspect they will spend a whole lot of time finding fault within themselves for 2008.  Their problem rests with the fact that Rudy permitted not an inch of daylight between himself and George W. Bush in 2008: tax cuts, unpaid Medicare Part D, Iraq, Afghanistan, deficits, Gitmo, No Child Left Behind, the Bailout and torture. No disagreement - zero.  The Republican Party of 2012 doesn't agree with half those things.  Certain wings of the party today agree with none of them.  How far we've come when freshman Rep. Allen West (R-FL) couldn't disavow Bush enough on Fox News Sunday.  Giuliani/Bush are not aligned with this fast changing Republican landscape.

2. Do we have a message for 2012?  We didn't in 2008, so what's changed?  The circumstances or our message?  Rudy is most unfortunate to find himself in an election year that will favor technocrat wonks.  While I always believe an inspiring message can overcome a candidate's deficiencies with the minutiae, this election is going to require a real command of the federal budget.  More than that, milquetoast responses on very serious issues won't cut it.  You'll recall that the Giuliani campaign was singular in its refusal to provide specific proposals on a whole range of issues in 2008.  Won't work this time.  Bold, not safe, is what's going to win this day.

3. Is the money still there?  He raised and wasted millions on his last run with a top-heavy, expensive roster of Bush staffers that produced one (1) delegate and a third place showing in must-win Florida.  I don't think the Giuliani money machine can crank out those donor checks like they used to.   But we'll see.

4. Can he re-introduce himself?  Is there an alternate Guiliani narrative that can attract the very large part of the electorate that simply now hates him.  But more than that, those who see him as yesterday's news.  Let's recall that there have been many Rudy Giulianis.  There was Rudy the take-no-prisoners U.S. Attorney.  Rudy the obstinate and failed Mayoral candidate in 1989.  Rudy the coalition building, dynamic leader of 1993.  Mayor Rudy of the his first term.  Mayor Rudy of the second term.  Rudy the comforter-in-chief and decisive, man of action after 9/11.  Rudy the consultant without scruples.  Rudy, the Dick Cheney lite of 2008 presidential politics.  And finally, Rudy Giuliani proponent and advocate of torture.

Here's his problem on this front.  Yes, there were many Nixons.  But what Nixon knew was that the Nixon of 1960 not only could not win in '68,' but wasn't what America wanted.  So he proclaimed a New Nixon.  Rudy's problem is that he sees no need for a New Giuliani like he did in 1993.   He needs a do-over and he's unwilling to provide himself with one.

Rudy knew that the 1989 Giuliani that existed in the public's mind was not going to win in 1993 so he reinvented himself, albeit in a very genuine and non-manufactured way.  It was unique in that respect in American politics.  But he claims to be fine with who he is now.  That is, to many, a seemingly heartless millionaire who runs away from, rather than embrace, his positive record of service save for four months.

5. Lastly, the problem that has no easy answer. His clients and the media.  You thought I was going to say his personal life, didn't you?   

Rudy doesn't realize this, but he had the easiest ride of any major candidate from the media.   2012 will be like a bloody horror movie compared to what he went through in 2008.  For starters, he can't refuse to release the client list of Giuliani Partners.  The law firm, maybe.  The rest, absolutely not.  The media simply won't tolerate it this time.  Moreover, they know he has represented some very unsavory people.  Not a chance they are going to let him keep that list to himself this time. Next, many journalists are pissed at themselves and their profession for the fawning way they treated him last time. 

Most journalists don't like Rudy and they really hated his campaign staff.  They want payback for the way they mishandled him in 2008.  That may not be fair, but it's a fact.  I can't tell you how many reporters for major newspapers that I corresponded with after I launched this blog told me the exact same thing.  They may not be printing everything I am writing on here in their papers now.  But their editors told all of them, let him run for president again and we will go back over every post on Rudy Veritas.  I am in no way overestimating my importance or that of this blog.  But I tell you from direct conversations with reporters that these posts will be made into news stories should he run. 

The largest issue for Giulianiland is what would a repeat of 2008 mean for their brand.  2008 redux would be disastrous, perhaps fatally, to the empire built around the post 9/11 mystique of Rudy Giuliani (Lest we forget, on 9/10/01 Rudy had an approval rating in the low forties in NYC).  Is this a sure enough bet to gamble away everything?  That's what this will come down to in the end.

I get tagged sometimes as a Rudy hater or Rudy critic.  I am, to be sure, a critic.  I only hate what he's become because the promise was so great.  He was such a talented man with a really different vision.  And now he's a shill for despotic sheikdoms and a regular on Fox News.  I know there's a large segment of society and my party that considers that the very definition of success.  Sadly, I do not.

Well stay tuned and let's see what Rudy says and how he says it on Thursday.

 

 

Reaction To Ray Harding's Sentencing

                I noticed that on the day of and day after Ray Harding's sentencing there was a spike in views to this site.  I am sure many of you might have wanted to know my reaction.  Well my reaction took place away from the blogosphere on that day.  My reaction took the form of a complaint against Gerald Shargel filed with the Disciplinary Committee of the NYS Bar Association.  A copy of which is attached herein:  RAH LETTER

Did it bother me that my father and his lawyer sought to scapegoat me as the cause of all his self-created troubles?  Not really.    Ray has become a complete coward, so I honestly expected no better.  Mafia bosses don't treat their children this badly.  Still, however, a shocking thing to read.  Bernie Madoff agreed to all the prosecution asked including a 150 year prison sentence in order to protect his wife and sons.  Ray Harding throws his son on the pyre at every conceivable opportunity.  I just watch him in awe and wonder.  What a despicable and decrepit shadow of himself he's become.  Why have I not spoken to the man in eight years?  The answer is on display every time he throws me under this bus of his own creation.

I say that because as you'll see in the letter to the NYSBA I have no idea what Ray is talking about when he's blaming me for his troubles.  He claims to have conspired to defraud the pension fund of $800,000 out of some necessity to pay my legal bills.  Total news to me when I first read it in April 2008 as part of Attorney General Cuomo's complaint. I never asked Ray for a dime since before I retained Shargel through to this moment and had no knowledge of any payment ever made from him to Shargel. 

But as I say in the letter, every law enforcement and judicial player in this Ray Harding drama accepts his 'excuse'.  If that's true, then Jerry Shargel is guilty of gross ethical misconduct at a minimum and perhaps some criminal activity.  The time for casting about blame is over.  The Bar Assoc. needs to find out the truth as accepted by two Attorneys General and act accordingly against Shargel and stop him from doing this to any future clients.

 

 

An Era of Sleaze Comes to an End

The end of an era has definitely arrived in the seedy underbelly of sleaze journalism in New York.  For nearly forty years four journalists represented all that was wrong with journalism in New York City.  They were holdovers from a liberal era long since repudiated by history and the electorate.  An era they longed to revisit and could never recover from its end.  They fashioned themselves muckrakers in the grandest and noblest tradition.  But they were never heirs to Tarbell or Sinclair.  Rather, they practiced the dark arts of journalism. 

Jack Newfield, Joe Conason, Wayne Barrett and later Tom Robbins were all at various points in their careers investigative reporters for the Village Voice.  Newfield had a varied career that balanced his years at the Voice.  Conason sought to rehabilitate himself and put distance between the years slinging sleaze and now working at Salon.  Only Barrett and Robbins clung to the hard, hard left views of their youth.  Moreover, they attempted to eviscerate anyone on the left who veered from the Stalinist orthodoxy of 60's radicalism.  They longed for a return of the Nixon presidency so they could march for his impeachment.  They longed for the Vietnam War so they could march for its end.  And they longed for Ronald Reagan so they could march against, well just about everything the man stood for. And they viscerally hate Barack Obama because in their view he has no appreciation of what his forbears struggled for in the 50's, 60's and 70's and therefore compromises on issues of conscience too readily.  In essence, black man gone soft.

Yesterday Barrett, the Voice's six figured reporter, was finally shown the door.  And we are lead to believe that Robbins resigned in sympathy (I'm assuming this was a save face agreement worked out by all parties).  Barrett's farewell letter in the Voice demonstrates once again the preening narcassim of the hard left.  New York will survive without Wayne Barrett.  Reporting will continue.  The sun will come up over City Hall and the NY Post and the NY Daily News will continue to run investigative pieces. 

The difference is that when those stories will be written in the future they will lack the poison pen and venomous slant that always accompanied a Robbins or Barrett piece and was there trademark.  Just as it was Newfield's and Conason's before them. 

There's nothing wrong with investigative journalism.  In fact, in NY it is not practiced enough.  But there are lines, as with any profession, that you do not cross.  You don't create news when there is nothing to report.  And you certainly never fabricate news in order to get a headline.  I watched all four of those men do just that, first to my father in the early 80's and then to me. 

In my father's case it was created smoke about his law firm's lobbying on behalf of Westway (the never built underground highway on NYC's West Side).  Week after week of front page stories in the Voice that amounted to nothing.  In mine, well you know from reading this blog that Tom Robbins - stymied by an inability to "get the goods" on me - worked with a source to create a series of headline grabbing internet chats purportedly from me.  He then fed the source info to help fabricate these chats and went so far as to instruct the source on which topics to manufacture so that the chats would coincide with that week's planned headline in the Voice.  It may well be the most dastardly act by a reporter that has gone serially under reported. 

 No one will miss these men.  Barrett says he's going to The Nation's think tank.  An oxymoron if one ever existed.  And Robbins?  Who knows.  He's spent most of his career getting bounced from the Voice to the NY Daily News and back again.  So maybe Mort Zuckerman will take him back for stint number 3 or 4.  All I can say is that unlike Newfield who had other achievements in his career to offset his Voice years, these men will be mourned by no one.  When their time comes it will be in a small labor meeting hall somewhere with octogenarian hard leftists wearing little hammers and sickles standing over their coffins reminiscing about the good old days of Henry Wallace. 

One chapter in a sorry legacy of sleaze journalism ended yesterday.  But like cockroaches, these men always resurface.  Here's hoping any prospective employer is as smart or smarter then Voice editor Tony Ortega and doesn't hire these sad, tired old men in the first place.

 

A Sad Potraititure

How bad is Rudy Giuliani's official portrait unveiled this week at City Hall?  Astoundingly bad!  When I first saw it I thought it was a younger Jack Welch, the former head of GE.  But I thought no, it's someone else.  Who is it?  I racked my brain trying to think who it was this artist had painted instead of Rudy.  And then like a flash it came to me.  And once I figured it out I was at first bemused and then shocked to think that for all posterity this was who everyone  would see in Rudolph Giuliani's portrait.  I'll get to who it is residing in Rudy's frame in a moment.

Official portraits need to meet two tests: 1) does this represent the man as he is remembered (i.e. great general, captain of industry, sports legend, etc.); and 2) does it look like him.  Unless the artist painting you is Picasso, the depiction should be a good one - it should at least be recognizable.  In years gone by official portraits sought to depict the man as he was in his time, during his achievements.  Lately - and probably because they are produced years after while the subject is still alive - the paintings show the man contemporaneously.  And that's a shame.  Would we rather see Ulysses Grant as he was in his later years wracked with throat cancer on the $50 bill?  No.  We want to see him at his military peak capturing Vicksburg.

I happened to be at the last mayor's portrait unveiling.  It took place a year or two  after David Dinkins had left office.  We were in the Public Hearing Chamber at City Hall (since transformed into the idiotic bullpen).  Dinkins' portrait was interesting because it showed him not as he sees himself - a strong, proud leader - but rather as an old man, seated and looking rather frail.  Interesting choice by the artist, I thought.  The one unmistakable fact was that the artist had talent.  The facial likeness of David Dinkins was spot on.  This was no one else's portrait.

Rudy's painting fails because he seeks so desperately to escape the man he was and whom we remember.  Strikingly odd since that's how he makes his sustenance these days.  He now wants us and all future generations to remember only what he's become.

Take the flag for instance.  Once past the terrible depiction you soon notice the American flag pin on his lapel.  I happen to know firsthand that old Rudy thought the wearing of these pins was reserved for right-wing politicians of low intellect seeking to impress simple-minded, flag waving, patriot yahoos.  With the possible exception of his last eight weeks in office, Rudy Giuliani never wore a flag lapel pin.  He wouldn't be caught dead in one.   But there it is.

He is wearing a navy pinstripe suit that he also never would have worn as Mayor.  And while never a natty dresser (he was a Men's Wearhouse shopper), he certainly wouldn't have been caught dead in so baggy and ill fitting a suit as he's portrayed in.  Put all that Yankees nonsense aside.  This is banker Rudy that we are meant to see; not poor, always broke, public servant Rudy.  This is the Rudy of Judith, not Donna.

Now who is it clear as day depicted in that painting?  It's Wayne Barrett!  Wayne Barret is a "journalist" who writes for the Village Voice.  Google him and find a 10 year old picture.  You'll be amazed at the resemblance.  Why is this shocking?

For those of you not from New York, try and imagine John D. Rockefeller, Sr. sitting for a portrait a century ago.  Upon completion the artist's rendering is not that of John D, but rather Ida Tarbell.  Or more recently, imagine the Bill Clinton portrait being unveiled and instead of Bill it's Ken Starr's likeness sitting in the frame.  Wayne Barrett is Rudy hater in-chief and has been so for the better part of two decades.  It is such an amazing likeness that I am hard pressed to believe this elderly painter didn't do it intentionally.

When I heard that his portrait was going to be unveiled I was eager to see it.  I had hoped that a painting could remind me of the lost man even if he himself no longer could.  But even in this I am disappointed.    I hope his friends and hangers on in the years to come take a good photograph from his mayoral years to a quality artist and commission a proper painting.  Rudy the man has morphed into something unrecognizable.  His official portrait shouldn't follow him.

 

ENDORSEMENTS IN NYS

Governor: Carl Paldino - I know, I know, I know.  Here's the thing:  I have known Andrew Cuomo on and off since 1977.  I could not in any good consceince vote for him or recommend to any else that they do the same.  For those of you who remember, the tyranny of the 2nd Floor (Governor's Office) during the 80's was always referred to as 'The Cuomos.'  As in, the Cuomos want this guy destroyed or the Cuomos are out to get so and so. The plural in that did not reference Matlida.  It meant Andrew.  As paranoid, petty and meanspirited as Mario Cuomo was, the son is that without his dad's smarts.  That is a pretty toxic brew and not something I could endorse from first hand experience.  The Cuomos are bad, bad people.  It's highly unfortunate that he has been given a total free ride by Paladino on the issues in this campaign.  His record at HUD alone would have him 20 points behind if he were running in any other state this year. 

Moreover, the NY press has completely rolled over for him.  The NY Daily News's coverage should be considered an in-kind contribution to the Cuomo campaign.  All those years of late night drinking sessions with Daily News reporters and coulmnists at bars on Second Avenue are finally paying big dividends for Andrew.

The thing that really galled me was something I read in the WSJ a few weeks ago.  Both Andrew and Mario were quoted as saying extremely complimentary things about former Gov. Hugh Carey.  On its face that wouldn't be shocking since Hugh Leo Carey is arguably the greatest governor NYS had in the 20th century.  But if you know the backstory it's shameful and shameless that those two would go on the record singing his praises.

Hugh Carey made Mario Cuomo.  With no Carey there is no Cuomo, Mario or Andrew.  First as his Secretary of State, then his choice for Mayor in 1977 and finally his Lt. Governor.  And how was he repaid?  As I said, shamefully.  I was there in 1977 when Mario would call our house daily to bitch and moan about how Carey wasn't supporting him enough.  And  in 1978 when Carey's first  Lt. Gov - Mary Anne Krupsak - primaried him and lost, Carey's choice for his next Lt. Governor was Mario.   Mario called incessantly whining that Carey was taking too long in announcing his nomination.  Ray had to constantly calm him down and assumed the role of intermediary between them.  And once in office Mario never stopped complaining that he wasn't included in the Carey inner circle.

Now for those of us with memories, we recall that right after Mario was elected governor it was time to unveil the new convention center in NYC.  Everyone know that it had to be named for Carey.  He dreamed it up, created the state agency and saw it through.  It was supposed to be a fitting tribute to him and his cement  legacy.  Everyone was in agreement and fully expected it to happen. 

But Mario had the agency name it instead for a Republican Senator, Jacob Javits.  Javits was a fine man and a great U.S. Senator.  But the convention center was Hugh Carey's. 

Every governor of NY for the last 50 years has had his official papers published after leaving office.  After publishing just the first year of the Carey Administration, Mario had the funding cut for the other seven.  It would take Republican Governor George Pataki to finally put back the money for completing the project 12 years later.

And what did Mario Cuomo learn from his Carey years?  Never to give someone as ungrateful and treacherous as himself a leg up.  He ignored his first Lt. Governor, former Yonkers Mayor Alfred  DelBello, to such an extent that he resigned.  So happy was Mario not to have a number two he didnt' bother to fill the post until his re-election necessitated it.   His second was a bright guy, Stan Lundine, who became a joke for how totally out of the loop he was during the Cuomo years.  And Mario's Secretary of State?  He ignored her as well.  Well that's not technically correct.  According to every knowledgeable source he was cheating on Matilda for many years with his bow legged Secretary of State, Gail Shaffer.  So I guess that's not totally slighting her.  Just in her official capacity.

These slights, and the Carey badmouthing on the 2nd floor, went on for over a decade.  It was done by 'The Cuomos' - Mario and Andrew.  It's not surprising that Andrew would choose to model a successful governorship on Hugh Carey and not on his father's dismal one.  That only fits with political smarts and the historical record.  But those of us who remember are sickened to hear him now say these laudotory things without the accompanying apology and acknowledgement of the shabby treatment Hugh Carey received at their hands.  As I said, these are bad, bad people.

Is Carl Paladino crazy?  I don't know.  But just think of this.  I'm gay and 'll be voting for Carl Paladino.  That alone should tell you just how bad I believe an Andrew Cuomo governorship will be.

Comptroller:  Boy, am I impressed with this Harry Wilson.  He is a true Arthur Levitt heir.  I head him at length on Larry Kudlow's radio show last week.  He's smart, honest, knowledgeable and articulate.  He probably won't win and it will be us - NYS's taxpayers - who will be the losers, not Mr. Wilson.

Attorney General - Yes, I'd like to see a Louis Lefkowitz type AG who was from the other party to monitor Mr. Cuomo.  But that is not what we have in Dan Donovan.  From the Bloomberg backing to a single Wall Street firm bankrolling 25% of his campaign, he has shown himself to be for sale and singularly unimpressive.  Eric Schniederman is too left for my taste, but I think he'll be an okay AG. And if we have someone who actually attempts to balance prosecutorial fervor with some defendant's rights, that would not be such a bad thing.

 

A FEW PREDICTIONS - Senate Winners:

Alaksa - Murkowski    California - Boxer  Colorado - Bennett   Illinois - Kirk      Kentucy - Paul   Nevada - Angle   Pennsylvania - Toomey   Washington - Rossi    West Virginia - Manchin    Wisconsin - Feingold

Governor:

California - Brown    Colorado - Tancredo    Florida - Scott     Mass. - Baker   Ohio - Kasich   Rhode Island - Chafee 

Here's my wild-card outside prediction for next week's election (besides Tancredo & Feingold):  Rick Perry loses, Bill White wins.

 

Restoring Some Sanity

A very big win for freedom loving Americans today.  The Supreme Court, which is having a mixed year as far as I'm concerned, redeemed itself by intelligently narrowing the scope of the Federal honest services statute.

The statute was always meant to be applied to elected officials who took bribes or kickbacks.  It was intended to convey a serious revulsion at officeholders who were selling out the people who elected them.  It was never intended: (a) for private citizens; and (b) for officeholders who are just venal or "merely" corrupt; there are plenty of other laws to apply in those situations. 

But as is the inherent danger with an unchecked out of control central government, the statute was misapplied by the U.S. Justice Department in more and more indictments.  It became a catch-all charge like wire fraud.  Anyone could basically be charged with not providing honest services.  And as we have seen in both public corruption as well as non-public cases the Government went wild applying this statute to anyone and anything.  Under the Government's interpretation of the statute, any CEO could be charged under it if he, say played golf during business hours. Thereby depriving his stockholders of his full honest services for which they pay him.  Rudy Giuliani used to take off most Fridays in the last 3 years of his Mayoralty to play golf.  Were the Feds inclined to get him, that could surely be one charge under the old use of honest services.  Yup, it's that crazy and out of control.

Jeffrey Skilling of Enron fame bravely objected to both his trial and the underlying charge.  As I have written before, Jeff Skilling's prosecution was a travesty.  The real villain in the entire Enron matter was Andrew Fastow.  He cut himself a sweet deal (including for his wife) in exchange for ratting on Skilling and Ken Lay.  Were Skilling and Lay lousy managers?  You bet!  Did they take unnecessary risks?  Absolutely.  But their actions were far, far tamer and less criminally suspect than what we saw by the major banks and investment houses over the last decade re: the sub prime housing market.  

I had hoped the Court would strike down the statute altogether.  They chose instead to narrow it back to what it was supposed to be in the first place, namely a check against graft-taking elected officials (although the decision covers non-elected officials, there are so few incidence of corporate execs actually taking bribes, it's meaningless to view today's result as anything but a restoration to its corrupt pol roots).  I think they probably got it right.  I don't object to its use in those limited situations.  Elected officials shouldn't take bribes or kickbacks and when they do it's perfectly appropriate to have a tailored law that addresses that.  Maybe called the NJ Law, since seemingly so many pols there are on the take and are so easily lured into selling out their office.

What will become apparent now once the appeals and motions start coming from those convicted under honest services and those awaiting trial, is how widely and egregiously the Justice Department has been misapplying this statue.

It's always good when the Court slaps back the hand of the ever encroaching, liberty draining Justice Department, as they did today.  Sadly, however, they do it too infrequently.

 

 

Chuck Schumer: The Spiro Agnew of 2010

I have a confession to make.  I've begun rooting for Harry Reid to be re-elected in Nevada.  Crazy, right?  I'm no Harry Reid fan.  I hate Obamacare.  I like most of what Sharon Angle has been talking about: eliminate the Dept of Education, repeal the 16th Amendment and reshape Social Security.  So why in the world would I be rooting for such a thing? 

I have to take you back to the early 1970's for the best analogy.  Back then the luckiest man on earth was Richard Nixon.  Why?  Because the only man the liberal Democrats - who overwhelmingly controlled Congress - hated more than him was his Vice President, Spiro Agnew.  Richard Nixon could have gone to the Reflecting Pool and shot busloads of tourists and no one would have impeached him.  No Democratic Congress was going to be responsible for President Agnew.  But then the past caught up with Spiro Agnew.  Some little business about roads and kickbacks while he was Governor of Maryland.  And that's when Richard Nixon's luck ran out.  

Gerald Ford was a 'Man of the House' and a perfectly palatable replacement to most Democrats, as both Vice President and President. 

Why do I mention this?  What could Watergate possibly have to do with this election?  Well, maybe more than you think.  I make two assumptions about this election.  One, that the Democrats will retain the Senate - closely, but retain it nonetheless.  Second, that these bizarre pieces I keep reading that Reid's successor will be Chuck Schumer are true.  I can't imagine why for one second his Senate colleagues would want this self promoting news hound as their leader, but by all accounts he's a shoo-in should Reid lose.  Now that would be very bad news.

If you think Harry Reid is pushing some left wing Obama agenda, just wait for Majority Leader Schumer.  It's too sickening to imagine.  Half of this country hates New York.  The other half hates Jews.  If you want a real kumbaya moment of the country coming together in Woody Allen's apocalyptic nightmare, Chuck Schumer's elevation to Majority Leader would be it.  The whole middle of the country would be united in their New York hating anti-semitism after seeing Chuck Schumer hour after hour on every cable news and talk show.  As a New York Jew, he is so distasteful that I might actually start being bigoted against myself.     It's not just his politics that makes him so loathsome.  It's that he's an unctuous opportunist.

I need no better example than one he provided 24 hours ago.  Yes, we all know I write about so-called 'sex offender' issues and how rotten the system is.  I'm sure you're tired of hearing from me on the topic.  But yesterday Sen Schumer - the man who invented the Sunday press conference - held a press avail to announce his intent to amend the Adam Walsh Act to prohibit law abiding so called 'sex offenders' from opening a wide range of private businesses.  Currently the Act prohibits their employment in a variety of professions receiving federal and state funds or licenses.  But if someone wants to open a childrens barber shop, let's say, no law prohibits that.  Well he wants to expand mightily the commerce these so-called sex offenders can't engage in.  And when asked what if this wholesale increase in banned professions prevents them from finding work, like the Grinch with a wry smile and a twinkle in his eye, he responded, "well that's just too bad."    

Now stay with me on this.  I am not making the point that it is highly doubtful the Courts would uphold this.  That to me seems obvious.  When I called him an unctuous opportunist I chose my words carefully.  Let's say you are one of the wacko majority who believes your child lives in mortal peril daily from millions of ravenous sex offenders.  Then Sen. Schumer's proposal sounds awesome, right?  Only one problem with his proposal that he failed to mention at his press conference.  The Adam Walsh Act is Federal legislation that requires the states to create new rules and standards.  It is not federal legislation as such.  It is a giant unfunded extremely costly mandate on the states.  Now you need to understand that this legislation only has meaning if the states enact its various provisions.  Without the states' adherence, the Act is just air.  So what's happened to the Act since its passage a few years back?  Out of fifty states only one has adopted its provisions.  And that state, Ohio, just basically flipped off the Feds via an Ohio Supreme Court decision that ruled Ohio's laws preeminent in these matters.  It was a very important 10th Amendment decision, even if it was just Ohio and not the U.S. Supreme Court.

So what's the net effect of Schumer's proposal - assuming it even passes both houses and becomes law?  Nothing.  It would be a provision to a law that no state, save one, is even adopting.  The Adam Walsh Act allowed states to seek two year waivers if they couldn't enact the new rules on time.  All states sought waivers and now most states have either past their waiver deadlines or are soon approaching them.  It's a horrible embarrassment to the Justice Department but they draw no attention to it for fear of looking feckless.

So Schumer got his press conference.  Every newspaper and TV station ran with the story.  It made big headlines.  Not a single one mentioned the 10th Amendment issues surrounding his proposal or that its chances of happening are near zero.  But another Sunday of TV and another Monday of headlines for Chuck Schumer.

It's less his anti sex offender zeal - remember he's the one who believes it's within the federal purview to mandate that private landlords of apt buildings don't hire sex offenders as superintendents - than his outright disdain for the 10th Amendment and the rights of states.  There is no issue for his Sunday press avails where he pauses and says, "you know, that's not really a federal matter, maybe I shouldn't demagogue on that."  That is what scares me so much about Majority Leader Schumer.  His total lack of respect for the states and their preeminent place in the Republic and the subordinate role of the Federal Government in most issues.  

I get the Tea Party and Fox News wants a win in Nevada.  I get the echo of sending another Democratic Majority Leader packing.  But is the nation going to be better off with a far left media whore like Chuck Schumer?  Are we going to see less Obama extremism or far more?  I think we know the answers to those questions.

If we were sure that the balance of the Senate hung by one seat, maybe I could get behind enthusiastically for Angle and ousting Harry Reid.  Then we would only have to sufferance Minority Leader Schumer.  But as I said, I believe the Democrats will hold on.  Therefore, I am not willing to spend 2 or 4 or a dozen years with Majority Leader Schumer and his far, far left, pro Washington agenda.

It is interesting that the only time Schumer rediscovers the 10th Amendment and the fact that he's actually representing a state of people and not advancing the cause of Washington, D.C. and the Federal bureaucracy is when it comes to the Wall Street firms who bankroll his campaigns.  Then Washington is being terribly unfair to the states and its policies harmful.  Not when the little guy is effected but when the Wall Street titans are under attack, that's when Schumer rediscovers that there's actually a state attached to his formal title.

It is beyond sad that this man who is so eminently beatable has lucked out to be from the state with the worst, most dysfunctional Republican Party.  In any other state, with his record, in this election year, he would be fighting for his life.  In New York?  He has an opponent that 99.9% of the New York electorate can't even name (it's Gary Berntsen, by the way).

I ask you America, to think long and hard before you inflict the nation with Minority Leader, or worse, Majority Leader Schumer.  If I can find something to like about dull, long-winded Harry Reid, surely you can.

BP - A Rush to Judgment?

For years after he was defeated for re-election in the Democratic Primary, Ed Koch would routinely tell people - half jokingly, "You threw me out and now you must be punished."  He was of course referring to the nightmare years of the Dinkins Administration.

We now apparently live in a parallel dimension where we are suffering for having re-elected our Mayor, not defeated him.  Not content with hijacking the City Charter, purchasing his re-election, and buying a compliant City Council, Mayor-for-Life Mike now feels empowered to lecture the nation on the folly of blaming BP for the worst environmental disaster in U.S. history.  According to the NY Post, he believes we are being unnecessarily hard on BP and cautions us to avoid a "rush to judgment" in assigning blame. In defending Tony Heyward, he said, "he (Heyward) didn't exactly go down there and blow up the well."  Really??  Most observes agree that  BP's gross safety violations and successful attempts to thwart safety protocols did precisely that. 

This rush to judgment nonsense is a little like saying Morton-Thiokol was just a little overzealous in letting the Challenger go up against the advice of their whole team and every protocol.  I think we now know what happens to O-Rings when they get too cold and no one stops the launch at 30º F.  Well what happened in the Gulf is far worse.

I think it's pretty fair to say that his BP comments have given Howard Wolfson all the indication he needs that Mayor-for-Life Mike might toy with a run for higher office, but their ain't none forthcoming.  Even with a billion dollars, no amount of money Bloomberg can spend for elective office anywhere in the U.S. will overcome a few radio, TV and print ads by an opponent recalling his defense of BP.  

Imagine an Indian politician going on Delhi radio and defending Union Carbide circa 1984.  That would be one career dead Indian politician.  You think Rand Paul and Sharon Angle are outside of the political mainstream?  Neither of them have been so arrogant, cavalier and heartless (remember, there are 11 dead) and politically brain dead as to say, "Let's all be nice to BP during the clean up."   There's no issue of 'benefit of the doubt' as Mayor-for-Life Mike claims.  The only issue outstanding is whether or not BP's negligence was criminal.  Their lying, deception and reckless behavior is in dispute by no one.  Except of course the Mayor of New York City.

First he came to the aid of Goldman Sachs and now BP.  Destroying the US economy (not to mention Greece's) and despoiling our shorelines is not enough to earn the ire of Mike Bloomberg.  Nope.  You gotta do much worse than that.

Can you only imagine what his reaction would be if Lloyd Blankfein or Tony Heyward smoked?  Then they'd be in real trouble!!

 

 

I'm Just Asking

Did you notice the Wall Street Journal's choice of Op-Ed columnists today?  The WSJ must be holding Redemption Wednesdays this summer. 

On one page is Steven Ratner, formerly a partner in Quadrangle Partners and President Obama's Car Czar.  On the other is my old boss Charles Millard, he late of the Pension Benefit Guaranty Corporation (PBGC).

Just a few weeks ago Ratner's former firm - although not him personally - settled with the NYS Attorney General's Office for their involvement in the Hevesi/Morris pension fund scandal.  My guess is that settlement, while not covering Ratner specifically, sufficed for him just the same.  Just days ago, Millard was cleared of illegal procurement practices by the Inspector General at PBGC. 

And now here they both are returning to the public eye courtesy of the WSJ.  Can we expect Eric Massa, Charlie Rangel, and Mark Sanford to be appearing soon?

As Arizona Goes, So Goes NYC 

I've scoured the web this morning trying to find an answer to this question: How is NYC's Campaign Finance Law not as unconstitutional as Arizona's?  It's a little bit of a stretch to use the term 'unconstitutional' at this point, since the U.S. Supreme Court only stayed the state government from issuing anymore checks, but it will have the same effect for the moment.

Arizona compensates candidates who abide by its spending limits with public matching funds.  They further enrich candidates in the program who face non-participating high-spending self funders with a bonus match.  This is precisely NYC's program.  I fully understand that what the Court did only applies right now to Arizona and no one else, but why hasn't Ron Lauder or someone else challenged the legality of NYC's law in the past?  Maybe it's a needless gesture to discuss it since once the state appeals the ruling, the Court will accept briefs and possibly hear arguments in the Fall which will undoubtedly lead to the law being struck down with national repercussions.  And good riddance to a program that wastes millions of dollars every election cycle on virtually unopposed candidates.  As for leveling the field, better candidates with popular appeal will accomplish that.  Look no further than Alvin Greene's victory yesterday  in South Carolina or many of the Tea Party victories all over the country.  More private or public monies didn't achieve those election victories.  A popular appeal to voters - whether that's good long-term or not - is what won the day.  State financed speech is a development to be feared, not welcomed.

Had California a campaign finance program like ours in place, that near bankrupt state would have handed over millions and millions of dollars to Meg Whitman's opponents and I guarantee you would not have changed yesterday's outcome. 

Mayor-for-Life Mike Bloomberg never participated in NYC's Campaign Finance Law, obviously.  But his spending triggered huge bonus payments to his opponents.  I have never heard him forcefully advocate for its repeal.  Instead, amidst what he pretends is a cataclysmic budget season, he cuts school lunches, fires teachers, closes firehouses and throws senior citizens out into the street.  I don't fault him for his spending, obscene as it is.  I fault him for not being honest and consistent and advocating for the law's repeal with the same force that he hijacked the last election through legislation.

Here's hoping that the Court definitively tosses Arizona's law and with it puts an end to the further waste of NYC tax dollars in shoring up a deeply rotten system.

The Cynical Device

The question of the moment for voters/citizens of NYC is, how dumb exactly does Mayor-for-Life Mike think you are?  He has empaneled another Charter Revision Commission.  In Bloombergland Charter Revision Commissions exist to settle scores and empower the man - Bloomberg - but not the office.  This commission isn't about bettering the lives of NYers or streamlining government.  We don't have Chris Christie at City Hall.  Mayor-for-Life Mike wants a few things done before he leaves office.  What they are precisely we don't know. But we can guess.

Bloomberg has a pattern of attacking things he doesn't like: guns, cigarettes, automobiles, the Public Advocate (whomever he/she may be), political parties, term limits, constitutional advocates and basically anyone who disagrees with him.

Here's the real danger in this particular Commission's work.  I have no idea what they will recommend or what will be on the ballot.  Presumably, he wants his legacy to be the doing away with of political parties in NYC.  Ordinarily that would stand no chance of voter approval.  But Bloomberg has found a 100% foolproof way to get whatever he wants approved this time by the voters.

NYC voters have twice gone to the polls and approved term limits.  There was really no reason for them to have gone the second time.  They amended the City Charter the first time to limit the terms of City officeholders.   But entrenched pols wanted to keep their jobs and thought they'd have another try at convincing voters their continued service was in the public interest.  They lost.  But then Mayor-for-Life Mike and the NYC Council decided the voter's will was just a suggestion and not in fact an ironclad change of the Charter.  So they passed term extensions legislatively which allowed Bloomberg, Speaker Quinn and the rest of the NYC Council to keep their jobs.  Notwithstanding the complicity of the US Justice Department or court decisions, it was outrageous behavior on their parts and the Bloomberg cliffhanger on election night was the direct result. 

All polls showed then - and show now - that voters have never changed their minds about term limits in NYC - they want them!!  Moreover, term limits are the law of the land in NYC, the Charter was never amended, just hijacked.  So there is no need to place the issue of term limits on the ballot for a third time; there has been no change of law or sentiment - quite the contrary.

But here's the pernicious part.  At Bloomberg's direction, the Commission will place the issue of term limits on the ballot as a part of a whole package of "reforms."  Many of which - particularly non-partisan elections - could never pass on their own.  But voters will be convinced, falsely, that this term limits question is unsettled. 

Rather than phrasing the issue as such,"should NYC repeal term limits," which would receive an overwhelmingly negative response and thereby doom the extraneous proposals attached to it, the issue will be phrased thus, "should the charter be amended to impose....."  This affirmation of voter sentiment will require a 'Yes' vote and carry-in with it all the other "reforms."  Perhaps, the term limit question will need to represent a slight change from current law in order to make it a legal ballot question, but it will be the Clydesdale that will pull along with it all the other things Mayor-for-Life Mike really cares about.

He can't smoke anymore so no one should be allowed to smoke.  He hates guns, so no one should be allowed to own one.  He hates cars, so the city needs to be turned into a giant pedestrian mall (ignoring the obvious point that with his homes around the world he must own literally dozens of personal automobiles).  The Public Advocate and political parties oppose him, so they must be banished.  These are pet peeves not policy.

There is no serious person in this city who believes the Mayor and the City Council had the authority to wipe-out term limits unilaterally.  Placing the matter on the ballot settles neither political nor legal questions.  The whole argument for this in the first place was that we couldn't live without him after the financial crisis.  Could anyone make that claim now with a straight face?

So what will be the rationale?  The fig leaf excuse to be given to explain its inclusion will be the "ambiguity" surrounding the legality of their action.  They all know they had no Charter authority to do what they did, but now they're going to make the voters tell them explicitly to stop doing it.  It's a lot like the serial killer who at the murder scene scrawls on the bathroom mirror, "Stop me before I kill again."  This is what we've been reduced to in NY in place of political leadership.  And why the contorted kabuki theatre to produce this result?  The real purpose is to eliminate political parties from the ballot in municipal elections.

Our Mayor-for-Life loves non-partisan elections for two reasons.  First, since he has no ideology or core political philosophy that guides or shapes his thinking, he loathes it in others.  Secondly, he wants to maximize his billions once he's out of office.  He wants to affect city life for decades to come (Lord knows he can't get elected again legitimately).  The one thing that stands in his way from electing candidates who agree with him are political parties and their closed primaries.  So, therefore, do away with party designated candidates.  Instead of the D or R imprimatur attached to a candidate's name you will have B for Bloomberg.  Whether through a PAC or foundation or his own personal checkbook, we will have a city of officeholders beholden not to the voters but to one man and his personal agenda.  That is some pretty dangerous stuff.  And that is the real work of this Charter Review Commission.

Earthquake for the GOP
 

Growing up in my family, election night - any election night - was a very big deal.  Sort of like the Super Bowl, The Final Four and the finals of American Idol, Dancing With the Stars and Survivor rolled into one.  My father often mocked me because I cared as much about elections and primaries in other states as I did about those in NY.  I saw them as having meaning for national trends and voter sentiment as it related to important issues I cared about.  He would often say about me that I, unlike himself, "actually cared about shit," meaning serious policy.

So last night I was pretty excited to sit in front of the TV and see what the nation was thinking.  Yesterday's political results and news did not disappoint.

First, the news.  There are few members of Congress more repellent than Mark Souder.  I have no problem with his Christian conservatism.  In fact, my family was deeply horrified that in my youth I would spend my Sunday mornings in front of the TV watching the Old Time Gospel Hour with Jerry Falwell.  I have no problem that he cheats on his wife; that's his business. 

I have a real problem that he has been the leader in linking young people's drug use with college aid.  Thanks to him, any prior drug conviction, no matter how small, results in a preclusion from any Federal student grants or loans.  The War on Drugs is wasteful and futile enough.  But to deny someone a college education because of something George Bush, Bill Clinton and Barack Obama did - but were never caught at or convicted - is pretty outrageous.  I'm not even gonna bring up the unbelievable hypocrisy of the whole abstinence crusade while at the same time he's diddling a staff member.  I'll get to the cowardice of his remarks yesterday in a moment.

My other favorite piece of news yesterday involved the holier than thou Richard Blumenthal.  Embellish about your job history, OK.  Fudge your academic achievements, I can get that.  Actually claim to have been "in the shit" in one of the worst military conflicts in U.S. history when you weren't?  That's pretty unforgivable.  Attorney General Blumenthal has been an unforgiving law and order prosecutor.  No compassion or leniency towards non-violent defendants.  I see no reason why anyone should grant him any now.  Which bring me to the "apology."

What Blumenthal and Souder have in common is there sickening lack of personal integrity while copping to there misdeed.  Souder said the responsibility was his alone, and then blamed the toxic culture in Washington for his having to resign.  As though no honorable man would resign for being such a hypocritical scumbag outside the vacuum of Washington.  Blumenthal in my mind did him one better.  Reading from the modern day mea culpa script, he proudly announced that he took, "full responsibility" for his actions.  Really?  He wants some credit for saying that?  As though without saying that he might be suggesting someone made him lie over and over and over again?  Is he suggesting that his staff might have inserted those words into his speeches over and over again.  Well of course he's fully responsible!  He's the one who lied repeatedly and sought to mislead his audiences.  It's not just his lying by commission, he lied scores of time by omission.

As The New York Times reported yesterday, he received numerous profiles from magazines and newspapers where his having 'served in Vietnam' was prominently mentioned.  He never sought to issue a correction or asked the reporters to; even if the fault was the reporters for assuming it from his statements.  Further, his defense that he lies only some of the time should really remove him from serious contention for the U.S. Senate.  I fear, however, that he is still a sure bet to win the seat.

As for the results, more good news. 

Arlen Spector should have left with thems who brought him.  I think my party is totally out of whack, but I'm still in it.  After thirty years in Congress you make the good fight and live or die by the results.  Yes, Pat Toomey would have creamed him.  But thems the brakes.  At least his defeat would have been honorable.  Instead of self-serving and desperate, which is what it was last night.  In Arkansas we won't know for a few weeks what yesterday meant.  A warning shot or a death knell for Blanche Lincoln?  It's meaning, we'll have to see.

Of course the big news of the evening was to be found in The Bluegrass State.  Rand Paul's victory is a seminal event.  It's one thing for a small corner of Texas to elect a libertarian to Congress (his father, Ron Paul).  It's quite another for a whole state to do that.  That hasn't happened yet - and it's entirely possible that once people fully understand libertarianism, they might not embrace it - but in Kentucky it's pretty hard for a Republican to lose a Senate race these days.  And he didn't just beat the establishment's candidate last night.  He trounced him.

The biggest loser last night as a result of Paul's win was not Barack Obama or the Democratic Party.  What all news analysts missed in his victory is how potentially cataclysmic this is for the Washington Republican establishment.  For the GOP, last night might have been a bigger jolt than Iceland or Katrina. 

John Boehner, Mitch McConnell, Sarah Palin, Dick Cheney, Rush Limbaugh, Rudy Giuliani hate everything Rand Paul stands for.  The Republican Party gave us two wars, TARP, warrantless wiretaps, rendition, torture, massive budget deficits, out-of-control earmarks, a federal takeover of our local educational system (No Child Left Behind), the largest new federal entitlement program in decades (Medicare Part D), and the so-called Wars on Terror & Drugs.  Rand Paul and libertarians like him (including me) oppose every single one of those things.

Where is there any evidence his core issues - which do not include lower taxes in the first instance, by the way - will ever be embraced by the Republican officeholders in D.C.?  The answer is, there is none.  They support every single thing he opposes.  His election will also show Scott Brown to be no friend of the Tea Party movement, if that isn't already apparent.  Whereas Rand Paul isn't going to Washington to make friends, Scott Brown wants to fit into the GOP D.C. club. 

If Rand Paul were to succeed in his goals he would fundamentally reshape the Republican Party and what it has become since the 1970s.   The neo-cons don't want that.  The Club for Growth doesn't want that.  The Wall Street Journal doesn't want that.  Christian conservatives don't want that.  Sarah Palin doesn't want that.  Fox News sure as hell doesn't want that!  But perhaps, just perhaps, most of the American people do want that. 

And that scares the bejesus out of Republican Congressional leaders.  We know the Democratic Party - empty and pandering - opposes everything Rand Paul supports.  But what happens when Republican leaders have to start stating on the record their views on his issues?  And worse, taking votes on Rand Paul sponsored legislation.  That's when the real trouble starts.  Republican members of Congress will have to openly declare war on the Tea Party movement's agenda by their no votes.  Up till now they could blame someone else for why there would be no congressional action on their agenda.  No more.  And that is why his victory in November is very bad news for the status quo, big spending, talk a good game, party of 'No.'

No Way Out

None of you were alive when the Supreme Court handed down its decision in Plessy or Dred Scot.  Only a few of you remember the day they handed down the decision in Korematsu.  But all of you will remember the day they decided U.S. v. Comstock; which now joins those other cases as one of the most shameful Court sanctioned violations of fundamental Constitutional liberties in this country's history.

The U.S. Supreme Court has overturned a lower court's decision striking down parts of the Adam Walsh Act.  The lower court found that the U.S. Government did not have the Constitutional authority to prolong a prisoner's sentence after it had been served.  The suit was brought by a group of former inmates who were contesting their continued detention. The Adam Walsh Act empowers the Justice Department - upon recommendation from the Bureau of Prisons - to seek the indefinite incarceration (i.e. civil commitment) of prisoners whose sentence has been served but whom it deems to pose a "danger," should they be released.  This case, and the Act, relates to so-called "sex offenders."  But there is nothing in today's decision that would prevent the Federal Government from applying this same principle to any crime.  Bear in mind that while the blogosphere is filled with posts applauding this decision and ranting about child molesters, three of the five defendants in this case were convicted of child porn possession; they never touched a child.  Further, based on the program rules promulgated by the BOP, there is absolutely no written explanation as to how these interned ex-prisoners can obtain their freedom.  For these men there is simply no way out.  They will be incarcerated forever, since no one has explained to them how they can get out from under the subjective evaluation of their BOP accusers.

You may read much about this decision.  But no where else will you read as authoritative an analysis as you will here.  I was in the same prison and program as those plaintiffs.  I dealt with the same doctors and BOP bureaucracy as they did.  Knowing what I do makes this decision all the scarier.  Because I know that those BOP staff and that bureaucracy are as corrupt as anything you will find in a bad southern jail. 

A little background.  When you are convicted of a Federal so-called sex offense, you are supposed to be sent to a prison that has one of two programs housed within it.  One is a voluntary treatment program, that inmates request to join.  It's called the Sex Offender Treatment Program (SOTP) and inmates live, are monitored and receive "treatment" in a closed housing environment.  If you do not join, you are automatically sent to a prison with a Sex Offender Management Program (SOMP).  This is an involuntary program that requires inmates adherence to certain program guidelines.  But at the end of the day, you do not have to engage with SOMP staff for treatment should you refuse, as I did (not that they offered any to me). They will however blackmail you into taking assessment tests prior to your release.  Since it's an involuntary program, you cannot be coerced into anything that would violate your 4th Amendment rights.  But you are told you either take the tests or your half-way house time is withheld. 

Numerous courts have told the BOP this is illegal, but the BOP claims it does not withhold time for refusing to take the tests.  I can tell you that one is told flatly that no half-way house time will be given unless you take these 3 days worth of tests.  The BOP engages in this behavior in direct contravention of various court orders.  Moreover, prior to taking the tests you are required to sign an indemnification form.  This form indemnifies the private for-profit company that administers the test and collects the data which it then resells.  Failure to sign the indemnification prevents you from being tested and thereby denies you your half-way house eligibility.  Further, at the request of my prosecutor, the SOMP staff rewrote their final assessment of me after I had left the prison to paint me in a more unfavorable light.  But if you've served time in Federal prison, you know this sort of behavior is commonplace.

The astonishing thing to us in the SOMP program was why anyone would volunteer for the residential SOTP program.  It was a well known fact that the SOTP staff, far from providing any treatment, had as its sole goal to find evidence to have inmates civilly committed.   They weren't interested in helping you, since the BOP believes against all psychiatric evidence, that there is no treatment possible.  Their goal day-in and day-out was, A. to trap you into saying something that could be twisted around on a commitment form; and B. making you feel as worthless as possible.  The idea being that by depriving you of any sense of self worth you would be more docile. 

All - and I mean ALL - psychiatric data suggests that conditioning someone to feel worthless will have the exact opposite effect in nearly every case.  The BOP staff were in effect creating a self-fulfilling prophecy.  They claim that so-called sex offenders (and they lump into that category the broadest possible variety of offenses) cannot be cured and therefore need to be monitored forever - inside prison or out.  By designing a treatment program that denies them any self-worth they ensure that these men will re-offend, as would be true in any category of crime if this were the prescribed course of treatment.  You can be 100% sure that if bank robbers were enrolled in programs - voluntarily or forcibly - that reinforced the notion in the harshest terms that they were worthless, I can guarantee you that upon release the recidivism rate for bank robbers would double or triple over what it is currently. 

Towards the end of my stay at FMC Devens (for a long time the only SOMP program in the country) the BOP moved dozens of inmates from FCI Butner to Devens in order to start a SOTP program.  I was able to observe them and had been friends with a number of them prior to their joining the program.  The defendants in the Comstock case were mostly SOTP participants at FCI Butner in North Carolina (I was at the prison next door - FMC Butner - for 18 months).   The main reason the BOP moved them from North Carolina to Massachusetts was they hoped that after the 4th Circuit in Richmond ruled in the inmates' favor, that by moving them to another jurisdiction, their appeal would be stymied since they no longer had standing in the 4th Circuit.  The timing was very suspicious as they were moved mere weeks after the 4th Circuit handed down its ruling.  Devens wasn't even prepared in any way to accept them and yet they came.

You should also understand that these SOMP and SOTP staff are not doctors, at least not medical doctors or psychiatrists.  In my five years in prison I never met a single sex offender staff member who was a psychiatrist.  They are either civilians with no credentials, Ph.D. candidates or holders of Ph.D.s from a variety of disciplines.  The so-called science behind this sex offender treatment amounts to the same science practiced in Salem for witchcraft or used by the Nazis who labeled racial purity and there methods of detection as true science.  In Nazi Germany whole institutes were established in the scientific belief that racial purity could be divined through things such as hair and eye color, as well as phrenology.  In 1939 Germany this was a science just as certain as physics.  Today that has been replaced by the science of Sex Offender Treatment and instead of calipers to measure the skull, they use plethysmographs to measure penis blood flow to determine your level of risk.  Same false claims, same junk science, same eager perpetrators, different hysteria.

Here is the chilling rationale from today's decision, "The statute is a 'necessary and proper' means of exercising the federal authority that permits Congress to create federal criminal laws, to punish their violation, to imprison violators, to provide appropriately for those imprisoned and to maintain the security of those who are not imprisoned but who may be affected by the federal imprisonment of others," said Justice Stephen Breyer, writing for the majority .  Can a reasonable person find any end to that logic that would prevent the Government from detaining anyone based on their theoretical potential to inflict harm?

The irony is that in another decision today the Court said you cannot sentence minors to life without parole in non-murder cases.  Their rationale? They said that minors who commit horrible crimes should still receive some hope of parole or a future outside of prison.  It's ironic because in Comstock the BOP provided the Court with no rules or road-map as to how these former inmates could ever achieve freedom after they have been civilly committed.

It is also important to know that this travesty was argued before the Court by Elena Kagan.   Now that this is decided law, I wonder how many Democrats on the Senate Judiciary Committee will be brave enough to challenge her on Comstock and its dreadful implications.

In just the last month, we are openly discussing rewriting Miranda, revoking defendant's citizenship in terror cases, and now civilly committing inmates who have served their time as proscribed by judge and jury. 

It is no surprise to me that the near unanimous majority decision was written by Clinton appointee Stephen Breyer, father of the Federal Mandatory Sentencing Guidelines.   Liberals so often rail against Scalia and Thomas but if you are a true civil libertarian you know the Constitution has no greater friend than Antonin Scalia and often joining him, Clarence Thomas.  Thomas was the lone dissenting vote today (joined partially by Scalia). 

It took great guts to do that in a sex offender matter.  But Thomas said straight out, he could find no authority in the Constitution for the Federal Government to do what it was proposing in Adam Walsh.  That was brave.  And every card carrying member of the ACLU or anyone who treasures true liberty should say a little thank you tonight to Clarence Thomas for being not only gutsy, but highly principled and consistent in his judicial thinking.  The Court doesn't break down as neatly as far-left liberals and right-wing conservatives would have you believe. 

I opposed Elena Kagan's nomination because far from being in the mold of Stevens or Souter, she will be a Breyer, and that, to any lover of the Constitution, is far worse than any Scalia or Thomas.  Make no mistake she would have voted in the majority today in Comstock.  There's been all this talk about her being a leader on the left or a consensus builder.  She is neither.  She is a moderate through and through.  She will emerge as the bitter disappointment that Breyer already has to those of us who care about protecting instead of eroding defendant's rights. 

 

Is This What They Mean By Liberty?

Congress once again is up to its old big government tricks.  Tucked away in legislation making its way to final passage are two of the most egregious intrusions by the Federal Government into the private lives of American citizens.

In the banking bill is a provision that every single financial transaction must be reported to two newly created entities, the Office of Financial Research (OFR) and the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau.   Orwellian, right?   Sounds like they would be something positive or merely benign.  All of this data mining and collection is being done, sponsors say, to determine the financial stability of institutions.  Included, but not limited to, in their future requests would be: all banking transactions; all credit card transactions; and all market/trading transactions.  The Director of the OFR would have unlimited subpoena power to compel any institution to produce anything he requested.  No court, no judge to check this authority; just total, unbridled federal power.  We provide suspected terrorists with more checks against abuse than is being proposed here for every American citizen.

It is simply amazing to me that with this Tea Party movement - supposedly making an impact and talking non-stop about 'liberty' - that something like this is going-on unnoticed.

The second major intrusion, also for seemingly innocuous purpose, is a proposed rule that all new cars have very sophisticated black boxes installed at the time of manufacture.  The suggested rationale has to do with Toyota and all this unintended acceleration.  It would make it easier to verify and document customer complaints and have more verifiable and accurate data to follow-up on those complaints.  Again, that might sound rather harmless and useful, but here's the reality.  Data collected from those black boxes would be used by NTSA perhaps a handful of times a year.  The real use for that data is by insurance companies.  Right now, whether you know it or not, your car already has a box black, if manufactured after a certain year.  They collect some rudimentary data that is used regularly by insurance companies - even at your objection - in order to prove driver negligence in tort litigation. 

The new boxes would collect loads more information on driving patterns and habits.  Insurance companies will know everything about you.  Nothing would stop them from asking to look at the box before providing you with a policy, for anything.  Insurance for health, life, auto, homeowners, anything.  Think of the conclusions one could draw based on your driving habits and patterns.  And it would be illegal to disconnect this box.  You bought the car, you think you own it, but no.  Now the government has a little friend sitting next to you any time you get behind the wheel.  And can you imagine the extent to which law enforcement will make use of this info?  There will be cases in the courts for years over the objectionable use of this personal information. 

Why am I a disillusioned Republican?  Because legislation like this is precisely why the Republican Party exists.  To oppose it!  And yet, not a word.  This is the kind of thing that filibusters are designed for.  This is exactly why, supposedly, there is this fledgling Tea Party movement and this near unanimous distrust and distaste for the Federal Government. And yet, time and time again we see Congress put forth such anti-libertarian, fascistic proposals. 

Think all this talk from the left and the right about watching out for your interests is real?  Think Congress wants to get tough with big banks?  All you have to do is look at yesterday's vote on capping the size of banks.   61-33 was the final vote to kill that essential reform; 27 Democrats voted against it.  Without it, nothing else they do will matter in terms of financial reform.  Democrats killed it.  Republicans killed it.  And to be sure, the Obama Administration killed it.  As a columnist in The Wall Street Journal made clear this morning, all that Wall Street cash, coming into Democratic incumbents' coffers, insures that whatever bill is finally produced, Wall Street won't be displeased. 

Ponder this statistic (from Barclays Capital): Currently, 12 banks control over 50% of the nation's deposits.  In 2003, it took 25 banks and in 1998 it took 42 banks to achieve that stat.  This consolidation of the nation's wealth into a few untrustworthy hands cannot be a good thing for our country, even if you are a free marketeer. 

Federal power, perpetuating corporate greed, industrial welfare; these are the concerns of your national legislature.  I don't really think voting out incumbents is the answer.  Most of the challengers in this year's election in short time would cast these same votes or blind themselves to the impact their actions have on you, your family and your daily lives. 

Who is Congress working for?  It would seem the answer is itself, the giant financial institutions that nearly brought us to economic ruin, insurance companies and law enforcement.  There is no evidence, whatever, that Congress is working on behalf of the vast, vast majority of us.  The question is, will voting out all of them make a difference or is there another option?  I don't know, but at this point I am discouraged and open to suggestions.

 

The Rise of the Machines

In one sense, yesterday's wild ride on Wall Street is easy enough to understand.  The machines beat back the humans.  You do not need to watch a Matrix, Transformers or Terminator franchise film to see machines defeat humanity.  You only need to trade stocks.  Apparently, the future is now.

For centuries, futurists and science fictions writers have imagined what life would be like in the age of the machines.  Invariably they got the details wrong, but almost always the implications were spot on. 

To understand what happened yesterday, the NYSE  - and its computer driven trading models - has become like a giant poorly designed dam.  In a properly designed dam, the water rushes in against the concrete barriers.  The water is then diverted to tunnels which sends the water either forward to the concrete and penstocks for power generation or it is just released slowly, perhaps for irrigation.  The point being, there is a plan for where it goes and what is done with it. 

At the NYSE, trades come in at moments of calamity and - as we learned yesterday, no one has the faintest idea what happens to them.  Put simply (and that's the only way I could understand it), for some reason (that has yet to be understood) Proctor & Gamble's stock began dropping precipitously for no valid reason.  The NYSE stopped trading in that stock for 90 seconds in order to assess.  And that's when the machines took over.

Unlike in the old days, when a stock was traded only on the exchange where it was listed, now a stock can be traded in dozens of places around the world.  Closing the spigot at the NYSE did nothing in terms of stopping the fall in P&G.  When that 90 second halt in trading occurred the computers did two things: 1) they started selling and as trades came in for P&G they rerouted them (like breaching the dam) to other exchanges to affect the trade.  That caused the plunge in P&G to continue and increase.  Whereupon, 2) the market as a whole - the computers - started selling wildly.  The NYSE, unbelievably, hadn't realized that might be an inevitable consequence of such a halt in trading. 

And now the NYSE says that for the 90 minute span that the market went crazy yesterday they are going to reverse many of the trades that fell within a certain percentage swing.  How unfair is that?  What if you meant to sell?  What if you saw a particular stock going down and you wanted out?  No go, apparently.  Now you're stuck with a stock that is possibly 15-20% lower than what you thought you sold it at.  That's the problem with all the machines running things. This is really about greed, once again, and nothing else. 

In order to have daily trading volume in the billions instead of the millions you need computers, not traders and specialists on the floors.  This allows the investment banks and brokerage companies to reach clients they never could before and at commissions that make it affordable to anyone.  This generates zillions for them.  Is that good?  It's good for them, that's for sure.  Having the whole country invested in the stock market like in the late 1920's may not be such a good idea for us or the economy as a whole.  But those are questions for Stiglitz, Krugman, or Greenspan; it's a little over my head.  What I do know is that the machines won yesterday and we should all be a little spooked about that going forward.

A Kind Word About David Paterson

As the great Kitty Kallen used to say, "Little things mean a lot."  In this modern age we don't give much thought to the license plates we attach to our cars.  When I was a boy it was still a big deal to see a plate from California or Nevada.  Moreover, states left license plates unchanged for decades.  A state's plate design could and would easily become iconic.  Why do we all know New Hampshire's state motto, "Live Free or Die?"  We know it from its license plate.  These days you can choose from a variety of plates with various causes, designs and quotes.  But back in the day we all had to have the same plate.  Its design, not only representative of our state, was also to a large degree, representative of our culture.  A license plate wasn't merely reflective in its appearance, it reflected how we as a state saw ourselves.

Well, a little more than 20 years ago, Mario Cuomo decided that our state's license plate - iconic and unchanged for decades - should be redesigned.  New York had had forever the famous orange and blue license plate.  Back then it just said 'New York,' no other words (Cuomo would add The Empire State).  People around the world could pick out that design as New York's plate.  It was strong, bold and simple - no fuss.  Kinda how we in NYS see ourselves.  It united upstate and downstate.  Live in the city or the sticks, but you had that orange and blue plate in common. 

What the Cuomo Administration produced in its place was God awful.   During those Cuomo years it was truly embarrassing to have a car with a NYS license plate on it.   It very quickly became the ugliest license plate in America.  Ironic, since by the time of his final, failed re-election bid in 1994, the only positive thing Mario Cuomo himself could say about his record was that he had revamped the rest stops along the NYS Thruway. 

When George Pataki took office in 1995, one of the first acts of his Administration was to get rid of that Cuomo license plate.  We were all grateful.  What he gave us instead was bland and lifeless.  Inoffensive to be sure, but not representative of the great state.  And so, with some minor tweaking, it has remained since then.

Now all of a sudden, without any warning, David Patterson has given us back our icon.  His original plan was to raise hundreds of millions of dollars quickly by requiring all NYS car owners to turn in their existing license plates for the new ones and pay a $40 fee in the process.  Twelve million cars and trucks multiplied by $40 and you can see that's a few shekels to close the budget gap.   But that plan was withdrawn.  Now all new plates issued will be the orange and blue.  In a few years time, that's all you will see on the road.

So on behalf of all car owning New Yorkers, I want to thank David Paterson.  He hasn't done much.  He won't be remembered by generations.  But he has given us back our plates and for that we'll remember him fondly.

Newsweek

Will I miss Newsweek, now that it being sold (or given away, more likely)?  Not really.  I'll miss George Will and David Ansen.  But to me Newsweek stopped being relevant or interesting when it became the Fareed Zakaria newsletter.  Whole issues seemingly were devoted to his thoughts on everything ranging from Iraq to Katrina.  I never found him particularly interesting or insightful, so this reliance on his viewpoint was always lost on me.  What market segment was he aimed at?  Was The Post trying to capture the moderate Muslim segment of U.S. readers?  I guess they succeeded.

Newsweek is an institution.  So from that standpoint it will be missed.  It was, in its time (no pun intended), a worthy competitor and sometimes leader in the weekly news magazine wars.  But now that The Washington Post Company has basically stopped being about news gathering and more about Stanley Kaplan, the inevitable realization set-in that dumb high school kids will always be a better bet for profits than educated adults.  I hope some deep-pocketed Murdoch or Zuckerman type - willing to sustain the losses - scoops it up and makes it a worthy read once more.


 

Right Man, Wrong Job
 

In the early weeks of the Giuliani Administration, Rudy commanded that all his commissioners and top staff attend a day-long session at Gracie Mansion.  The idea was to hear speakers who would discuss innovations in government, new ideas and new ways to deliver services.  It took place on a Saturday as not to interfere with weekday business.

One reason I was so excited about a Giuliani Mayoralty was Rudy's enthusiasm for new ideas.  Republican ideas, Democratic ideas, it didn't matter.  Where in the U.S. were the innovations coming from and who was in the vanguard of change?  That's what he wanted to find out.  No city of any size - and especially New York City - had embarked on such a wholesale blank slate in terms of how it looked at doing its job.  

Back in 94 Ed Rendell, the Mayor of Philadelphia, was considered a change agent and had introduced new service delivery methods in his city.  Randy Mastro was old friends with his Chief of Staff and asked me to arrange Rendell's schedule.  I was really impressed that for a Mayor of a big city he traveled alone.  He drove himself down from Philly to NYC.  I arranged with the NYPD to have a police escort meet him at the NY-Penn border and escort him to Gracie for his talk.  Also that day, I believe, James Wilson or George Kelling, appeared as the authors of the 'Broken Windows' theory; the guiding philosophy behind Rudy's policing strategy. 

But the main inspiration for change on the municipal level - and someone the administration had been in touch with going back to the campaign - was the Mayor of Indianapolis, Steve Goldsmith.  Goldsmith had become a true innovator in terms of forcing entrenched municipal unions to compete for existing city services with the private sector.  The results in Indianapolis demonstrated that in those instances where the unions won the bid, they were able to lower costs and increase productivity.   It was proof Rudy needed to try that experiment in union laden NYC.

Richard Schwartz, Senior Advisor to the Mayor, was the man at City Hall responsible for developing the policies, implementing them and riding herd on deeply recalcitrant commissioners and agencies.  Schwartz was in regular touch with Mayor Goldsmith as the Indianapolis experiment proceeded.  I met Steve Goldsmith a few times back then and found him to be bright, energetic and non-doctrinaire.  What he was not, was fluent in managing agencies or a city the size of New York City.  He was a fine, forward thinking Midwestern Mayor.  But running New York City to a Midwestern Mayor would be like being made Mayor of Baghdad; simply beyond their ken or life experience.

So while I applaud Mayor-for-Life Bloomberg for bringing Steve Goldsmith to NYC, I cannot help but be disappointed once again in how the Mayor demonstrates daily how much he disdains actual reform.  Notwithstanding the wholesale capitulation by the Bloomberg cheering NY press corps, and his relatively decent poll numbers, the Mayor has never been a change agent.  Reform, real structural reform, scares the hell out of him.  I don't know why but in his eight years in office he has made zero effort at reforming anything.  His appointment of Steve Goldsmith as de facto First Deputy Mayor - charged with day-to-day running of the line agencies, is misguided and reflective of the fact that even when he has a good impulse it dies of loneliness.  The job for Goldsmith was the old Schwartz job.  Let the former Mayor have an office (not a desk in the idiotic bullpen) in City Hall where he can examine, ruminate and investigate City services and practices.  Give him a free hand to go into every sector of City Government and find the waste, abuse and centuries old worst practices that I know exist. You cannot do that and run the City at the same time.  Peter Powers couldn't do it as a lifelong New Yorker and surely Steve Goldsmith won't be able to as a recent emigre.  With that job it's one or the other.

But Bloomberg specifically does not want him doing that.  For eight long years Bloomberg has had a hands-off approach to his own agencies.  He appoints the Commissioner and then leaves them alone.  No edict for reform or overhaul has even been forthcoming.  The best job on earth is that of a Bloomberg commissioner because no one will ask anything of you.  If you're a top notch administrator - John Doherty (DOS), Emily Lloyd (DEP) - then it's a great opportunity and the city in turn is fortunate.  If you're a dud (the list is too long) then we're all the worse off because unless your tenure is scandalous - Lancaster (DOB) or Scarpetta (FDNY) - no one will ever say a word regarding your tepid performance.  

For eight years Bloomberg has given the City unions every possible concession they've requested.  We will be in hock for many decades because of his repeated pension giveaways alone.  So he's made it clear he wants no reform in how we do business, with two exceptions.  He hates cars (although he owns a fleet), so he wants his DOT Commissioner to return NYC to the 18th Century.  He hates smoking - because he can't partake anymore - and orders his DOH Commissioners to spend millions on anti-smoking campaigns that have created the largest black market for bootleg cigarettes in the United States, possibly the World.  And, of course, the attendant crime increase that would naturally come from that policy.  Further, he hates fat people (no svelte size 32 waist he, btw) and commands said DOH Comm. to uselessly ban cooking oils and sugary drinks that only 4 years ago he declared were going to save his budget and the schoolchildren of NYC (the drinks, not the oils).  Now he wants to forcibly ban salt, although he disgustingly ladens it on pizza like its red pepper flakes.  If you ask me, it's a lot like having Marie Antoinette as your Mayor.

I welcome Steve Goldsmith to the Big Apple.  I am just saddened that he is in the wrong job.  The job he's getting he is not equipped to handle and the job he should have been given, Bloomberg wants no part of.  Assuming he's not lying yet again, this is going to be a long 3 1/2 years.

 

No More Sotomayors

As Barack Obama prepares to winnow down his list to a small handful, it's important to stop and realize just how crucial a Supreme Court appointment this will be.  Each new opening is met by claims that "this is the most important one in a generation."  But in the  case of the Stevens seat, it's true. 

My fear, as realized by the appointment of Sonia Sotomayor, is that rather than doing something inspired, something brave, Obama will play it safe.  A safe appointment for the Department of Interior or Energy is not going to effect many peoples actual day-to-day lives.  A moderate, uninspired choice to replace John Paul Stevens will effect nearly everyone in this country and beyond.  

We have a 5-4 court that with the arrival of Alito - coupled with the departures of O'Connor and Souter - will have fewer and fewer 5-4 decisions where the liberals will be writing the majority opinion.  Sotomayor was a fine Appeals Court judge.  She is a lackluster and ideologically middle of the road candidate/Justice for the Supreme Court.  When he nominated her he had a 60% approval rating.  That political capital and good will (not to mention 60 Senate seats) would have allowed him to pick a legal thinker of extraordinary caliber.  Instead, he fell into the same trap - needlessly, that time - which Bill Clinton did.  To get their nominees confirmed, Democratic presidents find the most liberal nominee who Orrin Hatch can support or at least not vociferously oppose.  But with the Souter seat, there was no filibuster possible.  Obama still had his pre-healthcare numbers and sheen.  His one moment to put a Douglas, Brennan or Brandies on the Court, and he let it pass. 

This time, with his numbers sinking and the nation in a foul temper, he will respond with bland and safe.  He should swing to the rafters and nominate someone truly great.  Republicans nominate extremists like Alito.  Samuel Alito is by no means mainstream; every Republicans favorite word during the confirmation process.  He should nominate the left's equivalent of Samuel Alito.  Republicans get to nominate so-called conservatives and Democrats are only allowed to nominate moderates.  Stephen Breyer.  The man behind mandatory prison sentencing guidelines and he's supposed to be the left's answer to Alito, Roberts or Thomas?   How in the world did we come to that?

I am so sick and tired of these appellate court judges for the Supreme Court.  Moreover, everyone chosen it seems has to have been a former prosecutor.  And these names being floated!  Elaine Kagan argues passionately on behalf of the most horrific Bush era/anti-civil liberties laws.  It's sickening the things she has argued in defense of.  How could anyone on the left support her nomination?  Jennifer Granholm.  Seriously?  And Janet Napolitano?  Secretary of the fascistic sounding Department of Homeland Security.  Liberal foil for Scalia?  It's a joke, right?  Her record in this job makes Michael Brown look like Jack Welch incarnate (I know he's not dead). One of the latest names to emerge is Ann Claire Williams.  Black, woman, former federal prosecutor and an appeals court judge, FROM CHICAGO!   Has he touched every possible base on this one?

Let's get rid of the staus quo.  Let's be bold, daring and appoint someone as inspiring as the ideal of the Supreme Court itself.  I worked one block from the Court and went twice to hear arguments there (Senate staff got reserved seating back then).  It gave me chills every time I passed that building or went inside.  It truly is the great equalizer in this democracy. 

My candidate for this seat is the same as it was for Souter's.  He can knock one out of the park by nominating Kathleen Sullivan, former Dean of the Standford Law School.  A more serious, nuanced, and thoughtful legal mind on the left cannot be found.  She can go head to head with anyone on that Court from day one.  And when I advocated her appointment last year I didn't even know then she was gay.  I've only discovered that recently.  It makes it a much more interesting choice and confirmation.

Here is my money-back guarantee.  Fifty or one hundred years from now, no one is going to remember Sonia Sotomayor or the dullard he most likely picks to replace Stevens.  Is that really the legacy he wants?   Does Barack Obama really want a Stephen Breyer mediocre pick to be what he's remembered for judicially, when he has been given a second opportunity to opt for greatness?  I think I know the answer, but we'll see.

Monetizing Nothing

The benefit of being 46 years old and having lived through the three worst stock market crashes since the Great Depression, is that (a) these panics no longer scare me when they occur; and (b) the current behavior by the Wall Street titans is interesting to analyze and compare with past reactions to extreme market volatility. 

I mention this because Goldman's woes and the SEC case against them takes me back to the 80's and Drexel Lambert.  When cover story after cover story began to lambaste the use of junk bonds - and Drexel's lead role in creating them - Drexel launched a series of TV and print ads aimed at refuting the argument that they - Drexel & junk - produced nothing.  Nothing, that is, but profits for Drexel and vulture greenmailers, it was said.  One ad in particular stuck with me.  It was for Kindercare; then a national chain of day care centers, now 'learning centers.'

The ad - complete with teachers, sandboxes and classrooms - said very simply that without Drexel's high yield bonds (junk) they would not have been able to obtain the financing for their company, its expansion and all the good they were doing for kids.  Notwithstanding Drexel's fate, from a marketing and PR perspective, I thought it was a very effective ad because it explained, at a base level, what purpose junk bonds served and what they could produce.  Love them or hate them, but that junk could actually produce some real bricks and mortar not just profits from over-leveraged acquisitions. It put a face for the public to an otherwise esoteric financial instrument.

The problem for Goldman Sachs - and our financial system in general - is that there is absolutely no way of explaining to anyone the societal or economic benefit of these synthetic Collateral Debt Obligations (the Paulson trade).  When asked yesterday by CNBC and CNN what purpose they served, Goldman CEO Blankfein could only say that they allowed interested parties to seek out appropriate vehicles for their level of risk, both long and short. In essence, these synthetic CDOs or derivatives of derivatives of derivatives, serve no purpose other than creating artificial bets against made-up risk. 

That is Goldman's problem in all this.  There is no Kindercare or any brick and mortar behind any of these synthetic CDOs.  There is no face that a PR company can attach to these financial products.  That is unheard of in the financial marketplace and that is why we stood on an economic precipice in 2008.  Wall Street had become too good at monetizing nothing. And that monetization of nothing didn't benefit companies or even greedy greenmailing individuals, like in the 80's.  No, they only benefited Citi, Bear, Lehman, Goldman, et al.  That is until the housing bubble burst and the transparency of nothing became toxic.

What yesterday demonstrated vividly is that regulatory reform legislation is needed more than ever.  Goldman Sachs said for all the world to hear that their clients interests are never paramount to their own.  Those clients are largely not John and Jane Doe from Omaha but rather huge pension systems, corporations, trusts and banks. The venomous ink that oozes out from 85 Broad Street threatens to poison us all. 

In the old days, investment banks held positions on both sides of a trade to guarantee neutrality. Today, Goldman aggressively sells you "shitty" assets while privately betting that they'll fail.  The marketplace cannot function at this level of sophistication with players behaving in this manner.  If we were in China, after their plundering work on Greek debt, Mexican & Argentinian debt and their windfall off of AIG's collapse, the senior execs at Goldman would be put up against a wall and shot.  But this is America. Here we legislate reform and yesterday, for all the Sturm und Drang we witnessed, it became clearer than ever that something needs to be done to stop the Vampire Squid from killing us all.

 

Congressional Jousting with the Vampire Squid

Having worked in the U.S. Senate for over 2 years, I sat through more committee hearings than I care to count.  You do learn a few things watching Senators question and grill witnesses over and over again.  If you're a regular C-Span viewer you'd learn these same rules.  The number one rule, above all others, is that no matter how stupid or ill informed the Senator is, you treat his/her question as though it's imbued with the wisdom of Solomon.  How many times did I see 85 year old Strom Thurmond reading his staff-prepared questions only to be oblivious to the fact that his witness had gone astray and Thurmond's prepared follow-up had nothing whatever to do with the witness's actual response.  It was to wince.  But no one acknowledged it, no matter how bad it got.

I've seen difficult witnesses, combative witnesses, deceptive witnesses and really stupid ones as well.  But never have I seen the slickness and arrogance that was on display in the Senate Hearing Room today.  I swear to God, there must be something they serve in the executive dining room at Goldman Sachs that breeds this level of hubris, arrogance and contempt. 

The Senators for their part didn't acquit themselves much better.  Granted, Sen. McCaskill is unquestionably an idiot.  Only in a Midwestern state like Missouri could she have become the State Auditor with financial skills as poorly honed as these.  Where she tried to sound 'with-it' and 'in the know,' she came off as lame and out-of-touch.  Where she tried to exert populist anger on behalf of her constituents, she came off looking like a rube.  Also, we now have to ask after listening to her: does she have a gambling problem?  But, nonetheless, the rules say you have to sit there and marvel at her command of financial minutiae.  You have to take your beating.

Not the folks from Goldman Sachs, however.  Never in all my years have I seen a witness as arrogant and contemptuous as Josh Birnbaum.  Wow, what an asshole he is.  But I'll give these guys credit.  Their attorneys prepared them extremely well.  As Sen. Collins noticed quickly, all the witnesses had been instructed to try to run out the clock in how they answered the questions.  Their attorneys had instructed them well in witness behavior.  Rule 1 - never, ever answer a question relating to a document without having said document placed in front of you and relevant section identified; accept no quote or referenced comment as fact; never give the questioner the benefit of the doubt (and in fact the Senators were terribly prepared by their staffs and constantly referred to the wrong documents).  Rule 2 - act dumb.  Have the question repeated back numerous times, feigning ignorance over the nuanced use of phrases or the definition of certain common words or routinely used industry terms.  Their plan was to fake cluelessness and if that didn't work, be brusque.

Ironically, the witness most observers anticipated being arrogant, was actually the best witness on the panel.  Fabrice Tourre (no accent on the E apparently), the "Fabulous Fab", was polite, respectful, humble, and relatively - at least for the Goldman crowd - responsive.   The Wall Street Journal commended him today for his unintentional frankness as displayed by his private e-mails.  He was absolutely sure that all these derivatives were a house of cards and was honest enough to admit it.  He, more than anyone, did himself some good today.

I don't think Carl Levin acquitted himself very well.  And I am not referring to the obscenities, something we never heard publicly when I worked there.  For all his CPA-like knowledge of Goldman's books, his bullying didn't add to his case. I thought, as usual, that Tom Coburn was the fairest and most rational Senator up there.  Goldman Sachs, through no benefit of their conduct today, probably came-out unscathed and ended the day in slightly better shape legally then when it started. 

The issues are far too complex for the average person - or even most Senators - to understand, as they were laid out today.  Sen. Levin tried to land some heavy blows but they fell flat because the substance was too esoteric for most to grasp.  The charges contained in the SEC complaint are not difficult to understand and I believe will stand up in court.  As usual, Senators, in an attempt to grandstand, took a relatively simple matter and muddled it up.

As for financial regulatory reform, that was helped a lot today.  The tricks and tactics, not to mention Birnbaum's behavior, employed by Goldman Sachs only helps to reinforce the public's notion that Wall Street holds Main Street in utter contempt.  Yes, at 85 Broad Street they are popping champagne and slapping backs this evening at how they 'stuck it' to the the Senate today.  In typical Goldman fashion, however, a selfish short-term Goldman victory will prove to be a significant long-term Wall Street defeat.

SB 1077

What to make of Arizona's new illegal immigration measure?  As you know I am a strict 10th Amendment advocate and believe that states have all powers not specifically enumerated in the Constitution to the Federal Government.  I'll agree on it's face what's going on in Arizona might be a confusing matter.  Is this a border issue? Federal.  Or is this a crime issue? State.  I have great sympathy for Arizona and the predicament their legislature, governor and citizens find themselves in.  Because of the insane drug policies in this country parts of Texas and Arizona have become the Wild West.  The Federal Government has ignored the border problem by investing, uselessly, in Buck Rogers virtual border control.  In the process, wasting over a billion dollars, 10 years and achieving almost no positive result.  For that amount of money a real fence could have been erected and the remainder spent on agents.  But a fence - or some physical equivalent - makes liberals squeamish.  It recalls East Germany, albeit their intent in the erection of their wall was for the exact opposite purpose.

Now with that said, I cannot support this law as enacted.  I know almost nothing about Gov. Jan Brewer.  I will tell you, however, that she gave one of the most intelligent, cogent and thoughtful bill signing speeches I have ever heard.  She clearly has top notch speechwriters there in Phoenix.  It was only when she took questions that she revealed why this law won't work.  In fact it can't and still remain comply Constitutionally.  Frustrated at the reporters asking how police would ID an illegal alien for questioning, she said, "We need to trust in law enforcement."

Up until 40 years ago, the one thing we assuredly did not do in this country was trust in law enforcement to protect our civil liberties.  But starting with the '68' election and the law & order platform of Richard Nixon, a backlash occurred over excessive defendants rights and the need for 'balance.'  Courts and Congress started to give the police more and more discretion and leeway in the exercise of their duties and citizens lost more and more essential liberties.  Police corruption and brutality - always bad - only got worse.  Except now we forgive them in the name of balance.  Cops used to be civil servants who performed a tough job and commanded - or should have - respect.  Now cops are held - and hold themselves -  as some sort of virtual deities.  Look a cop in the eye, look at him the wrong way, talk back, and you'll be arrested on a trumped up charge.  Look at NYC and the trial of this cop who pushed a bicyclist.  Had there not been a camera filming the whole thing his perjured account of the incident would have been the truth.  He lied repeatedly as to the provocation and the result.  

Worse yet, in the age of terror, all cops now believe themselves to be Jack Bauer.  Whether NYC, LA or Des Moines, all cops now see themselves as the front line protection against terrorists.  Listen to Fox News.  All cops are heroes and all defendants scum who would challenge their authority.  The balance we need in this country is restoring our natural and historic suspicion of authority, whether political or law enforcement.

The question in Arizona is what does a "reasonable suspicion to suspect that someone lacks identification," look like?  I don't know.  In fact, no one knows, that's why you have to trust law enforcement.  Well I don't and neither should you. 

The head scratcher for me as a New Yorker, is how is this Arizona law in any way different than the 'Stop & Frisk' policy of the New York City Police Department.  Last year almost 600,000 mostly black and Latino New Yorkers were stopped and subjected to a search for no reason.  Merely because they were black and Latino and living in a high crime neighborhood or worse walking in a white neighborhood. 

Our Mayor for Life and his Police Commissioner claim some rationale for each and every stop, but it's ludicrous.  Minority elected officials, civil rights groups and the usual black panderers like Sharption say nary a word about this.  It is the most far reaching and egregious systemic civil rights abuse in the nation and no one says a word.  Even the black opposing candidate in last year's mayoral election basically supported the policy. Imagine a young black man being told to get up against a wall for a frisk and exercising his constitutional right to tell the cop to "Fuck Off."  He'd be arrested.  And for what cause?  None.  Merely because he was young and black.  How is that any better - if not horrifically worse - than what has been enacted in Arizona?  I don't see it.  Imagine if a year from this August (when SB 1070 takes effect) if stats reveal that cops questioned 600,000 Latinos using SB 1070 as the underlying basis.  The country would go nuts.  Where's all this national outrage about 'Stop & Frisk' that exists over SB 1070?  I don't know. 

It is clearly the Federal Government's responsibility to close and control the border between Arizona and Mexico.  It refuses to do the job.  And because of its drug policies, makes the problem worse each and every day.  I sympathize sincerely with Gov. Brewer and the citizens of Arizona in their disgust of the Federal Government and its abrogation of its constitutional mandate.  But unfortunately, this measure simply isn't the answer, won't stand up to challenge and sadly, it shouldn't.

 

Let 'Em Crash

During the time of the financial crisis in 2007 & 2008, I was repeatedly reminded of a line from one of my favorite movies, Airplane.  If you'll recall, the plane is headed for disaster and the action switches to news accounts from around the world on the crisis.  It culminates with a spoof of the 60 Minutes: Point/Counterpoint segment featuring James Kilpatrick and Shana Alexander.  For those of you too young to remember the pre-Andy Rooney days, Kilpatrick was the conservative and Alexander the liberal.  Further, James Kilpatrick was known for being disagreeable and curmudgeonly. 

In the film, the Kilpatrick stand-in is presumably responding to Shana's argument for assistance or compassion for the doomed passengers.  He says, however, "Shana, they bought their tickets.  They knew what they were getting into.  I say, let em crash."

To me that was always hysterically funny because on the one hand it's so outlandishly callous.  But on the other, he's kinda right.  Air travel is inherently dangerous.  Why should this metal tube weighing thousands of tons stay airborne?  It defies common sense even if it doesn't the laws of physics.  It's an extremely laissez-faire view of travel.

When Paulson and Bernanke were scaring the bejesus out of everyone in 2007 with their predictions of imminent worldwide financial disaster, my attitude then was let em crash.  It was not the role of government to save AIG, Bear Stearns, Merrill Lynch and especially Goldman Sachs regardless of the consequences.  What is the free market if their is no cost for failure?  Lehman went under and the sun still shone the next day.  It would have had Bear, Morgan Stanley, AIG and Goldman folded as well.  But no.  The Friends of Goldman Sachs intervened to make sure the cost of failure was enrichment.  The investment houses changed their status to bank holding companies and the billions flowed freely from the Fed's discount window.  Not only was failure and gross incompetence not punished, it was rewarded lavishly.  At every possible stage Congress, at it does so often these days, abrogated it's basic authorities to the Executive and asked no questions.  Hank Paulson broke his word again and again as to how he would use TARP funds.  And like the Iraqi War Resolution that Congress has never rescinded, the blank check Hank Paulson received and bequeathed to Tim Geithner has never been amended or canceled.

Which brings me to today and the legislation being pushed by President Obama and the Democrats to address systemic flaws in the financial markets.  What's my take on this bill?  It's garbage.  It's worse than the status quo.  Why?  Because it gives false comfort to  Americans who are furious at these bailouts and want absolute assurance that they will never happen again.  Better to live with the possible threat of financial collapse and remain vigilant than to be lulled into this phony sense of security.  This bill is like the homeowner who knowingly installs defective smoke detectors in his home.  Eventually seeing them day in and day out will provide just enough comfort to provide a false sense of safety.  Better to have none and be on the look out for grease fires.

I have been absolutely amazed after watching the news and Sunday talk shows for weeks that no journalist has asked the simplest and most fundamental question regarding this bill and the Republicans criticism of it.  I've seen every player in this debate interviewed: Geithner, Bernanke, Emanuel, Dodd, Frank etc., and no one has asked them this; If today, or in the future, we were back in that House conference room and the Sec. of the Treasury and the Chairman of the Federal Reserve were guaranteeing you that if you did not hand them a blank check to seize companies and calm the markets, the financial system would collapse tomorrow, would this legislation do anything to prevent you from 'writing that check?'   We all know the answer.  The answer is NO.  Nothing in this legislation would prevent another weekend bailout of Bear or AIG.  And the American people know that and that is why they are furious.  This is all bullshit window dressing with talk of more regulators and consumer watchdogs.  Regulators are only as effective as the administration that's appointing them.  If, instead of a tough Obama appointee, we elected another Bush/Cheney type ticket, what would stop them or their regulators from being extraordinarily lax and disinterested in enforcement.  The answer?  Nothing.  The same SEC that ignored Madoff, Sanford, and on and on would do it again.  The same Democrats (Summers, Rubin and Geithner) who bullied and threatened Brooksley Born to back down from promulgating derivatives rules could easily do it again.  In fact, they're still running the show.  We don't trust in men in this country, we trust in laws.  Or at least we used to. 

What the American people want to see is the Chinese wall of Glass-Stegall put back up.  They want either legislation or a constitutional amendment to prevent any more bailouts.  And they want caps on the size of these too big to fail institutions.  Personally, I would outlaw any and all derivatives.  They simply serve no useful, fundamental economic purpose.  Other than perhaps for farmers or airlines hedging fuel prices.

Does this legislation do any of those things?  Nope.  If another Bush administration were to take office tomorrow, would anything in this legislation compel them to monitor Wall Street?  Nope.   It provides certain tools, but they're only as potent as the administration in power and who it chooses to appoint to those posts.  

This is flawed legislation and Obama should not be supporting it.  It reeks of Wall Street political contributions that have watered down its effects.  Barack Obama, who was so deft at sensing and capturing the mood of the country in 08, simply doesn't get that this is not business as usual when it comes to market reform.  People are very angry and simple tinkering - which is all this bill does - will not suffice in this climate.  Mitch McConnell is right, albeit for the wrong reasons.  He wants to curry favor with Wall Street money for the 2010 election.  He think the bill is too tough, although he mouths the opposite.  But I agree that this would be worse than nothing.  Let us have a referendum in November on both parties as to their milquetoast treatment of these financial vultures.  Because until we say - like the ersatz James Kilpatrick in the movie - Let Em Crash, companies like Goldman Sachs will keep sucking our blood and draining our economic marrow.  Only a silver bullet or sharpened stake can slay Goldman Sachs.  So far the Democrats have only produced spit balls.  And trust me they are not cowering but rather laughing over at 85 Broad Street as the profits set records and the White House provides them with their lawyers.

 

FOR OLDER POSTS PLEASE SEE - OLD MUSINGS IV

 

 

 

Comments

[Heather]

Mr. Harding,

Will you contact me at heathermlang@gmail.com?

[Art Deco]

The structural problem with 'investigative' journalism is that if their is no scandal, they have no story. It is more troublesome if they have taken a considerable advance from a book publisher and have to produce something. That has been Seymour Hersch's dilemma, again and again.

Hoping your mother and father are well.

[misc]

regarding that whole NYPD "off duty" hiring stuff, check out:
http://www.nypost.com/seven/06222009/news/regionalnews/manhattan/square_tactics_175463.htm

[Pete Fiorillo]

KEEP UP THE GREAT WRITING. I would have paid for the book - I still will if you write it.

Never thought a Gay Guy would be my newest hero. Before that it was Mickey Mantle and Joe D.

[George Cotz]

Your 3/13/09 post about NYPD "overtime" for the TD Bank assignments has a paralell in NJ where municipalities give out "overtime" assignments to police to provide "traffic control" whenever utility work is done in the roadway. It is touted as billed to the utility, but no one has ever answered my questions about how it effects pension calculations. By the way, these are suburban cops whose base is close to $100,000/year.
Another incidental fact-- if it is a municipal crew working in the street, i.e., town sewer or water department, they don't get the traffic control protection!

[Caveman]

I don't know what the point of this guy, putting flyers around riverside california advertizing a websight devoted to a guy, who I guess acted a little immature, not too bad, I don't see a real crimminal here. I was captivated for well over an hour yesturday and I came back today for more. Very engaging writing style. Still I don't see why a guy in california would advertize this page, but whatever.

[june]

Interesting.

[Mary]

You're a piece of crap and everybody should be aware of you. Hope your picture is on every site that marks you as such.

[RA Harding]

Thanx for the nice words, Tom. Keep reading over the next weeks and months. It only gets scarier. Your points are all right on the money.

RAH

[tom]

I just arrived at this blog yesturday and am still trying to absorb the issues about the $400,000 embezzlement and so forth, but from what I gather this was not public money and it is certainly not an extraordinary offense given his position in the HDC, I want to become more clear on the details as time goes by but for now I am just encouraging you to write more. Its really great to read. As for this pontificating cop who comments on blogs, grow up man! "I met you a couple times Russel, once when I pounded on your door" what a jerk! Talking about "owning it" and "growth in prison" or else time in prison will "go to waste"

that is just wierd! As far as I can see the public has both a need and a right to hear everything going on here. Who is this Fred? How on earth do cops obtain warrants based upon what "Fred" gives them? of course we have an interest in knowing what it is that leads to a deprivation of our right to privacy!

Of course cops don't really know the law very well, and when a citizen clings to his rights and declines to submit to a search most pigs think that constitutes probable cause to search "well, if you have nothing to hide...bla bla bla."

Besides, what Russel sais about falsifying chats is true, it is easy and so are emails, the government cannot be trusted, they are out there planting crimminal ideas in people heads, pretending to be women interested in men, getting them to fall in love and then once the guy is hooked, they bring up the subject about sex with minors and direct the conversation in a sexual way untill they have enough to get a warrant.

Now days, they even post salacious adds to URLs that claim to be illegal pornography just to get people to click on them. Once they click on them they go get a warrent and invade their homes. Its all very disgusting. Makeing crimminals out of people who sit passively pointing and clicking on a computer by presenting lively temptations to their sense of curiosity.

Maybe I shouldnt say this, but unlike Russel, I am hot headed, If that cop was speaking to me, I would find out who he is and one day I would give him a double tap right between the eyes.

[Cowleyrobin]

I would think that any kind of insider story on issues that effect public affairs and especially about public offices and officials would be considered valuable information. I enjoy reading these posts and I do not think Russel has committed such bad crimes. The pontificating cops comments not with standing, Russel does not need to accept everything the government throws at him. I noticed he mentioned "Fred" I have only read part one of J'Accuse but I remember a mention of Fred there, if my PDA would down load part two I would read it before posting, but as of now, I suspect the government may have something to do with setting him up. See, I am in suspence, and I want to read more, and I like all these things about gulliani, and others because I suspect politicians of being crooks half the time anyways. Doing things like padding crime statistics for former mayors and then doing the opposite for the present mayor to make it appear that julliani's policies lowered crime! What a joke!

Keep on posting, and ignore the self-rightous, also so far I have not detected vindictive tones to these revelations, to the degree that there is a preponderance about one person or another is just a consequence of writing about ones life.

That cop who arrested you should probably not be posting things like that. I dont know, it seems like it would be against policy or something.

[veritas]

bernard kerik!??!?!? who is he compared to al d'amato!!! Compare the crimes and misdemeanors we all know alfonse has committed compared to the piker kerik. You guys have done a masterful job of taking reality and turning on it's head, spin spin spin, lies lies lies.

[Rudy Corruption]

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zT-ouQPgMmI

People are now in jail having admited that this bus company bribed city officials.

[Larry]

Can you explain the Atlantic Express deal and Guy Molinari's involvement?

[george cotz]

I hope that you haven't lost your enthusiasm for this site, especially as Rudy has lately been touted as a likely GOP candidate for governor. If he is going to run, all of the voters should have as much information about him, and his proven philosophy of governing, before that happens.

[sbyrd@state.pa.us]

A number of Hillary's supporters clearly did not share that sentiment. At the state Democratic Party's convention in Albany that May, they jeered and spat on an Albany Police honor Guard carrying the American Flag. Some of the convention delegates, who would later formally vote to nominate Hillary as their party's candidate for the Senate, pelted the officers with insults. "It's Giuliani's Third Reich!" one protester screamed at the honor guard, which had been invited to participate. Others simply yelled, "Nazis!"

[Pete F]

MR.HARDING,
I find your messages to be quite illuminating. Keep up the good work. I look forward to reading them.

Another poster has asked you to write something about the Giuliani/Kerik/Pirro connection. I would hope to hear your thoughts on this in the coming posts.

I have always believed,and still believe until proven otherwise that the Kerik/Pirro investigation had nothing to do with them, but to embarass Giuliani to withdraw his nomination to run for the presidency. It appears to me that now that this matter has been resolved the Kerik/Pirro matter has been placed on the back burner. Pirro, now seems to not be a concern of the federal government while Kerik's situation requires some attention.

[Larry]

Can you explain the story behind the Atlantic Express deal?
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zT-ouQPgMmI

[steveven cawley]

rudy,screwed the civil servants royal during his run as el duca as a supt. in the nycha i saw his man carbonnetti....clear out good people from this agency nycha to put # his mother and dozens of other morons in.

[Upstater]

When are you going to talk about Rudy's connection to Kerik and Pirro?

[joe t]

russ, glad to see you're doing ok and taking your life back. i knew too but didn't say anything. you always treated me well. keep your head up and give em hell.
joe

[NMI]

I can't seem to click on the new posting links. Any suggestions?

[jill]

First off, Jerilyn Perine would never mention anything to you about Tony or anyone else in the administration.
Second, people get it straight, Russell WAS NOT at HPD, he worked at HDC, not very well I might add.
ARe you going to tell everyone what a son of a bitch you were to your staff?

[Chris]

I still don't get it. Why is your anger all against Rudy? Did he set you up or just not support you when your problems hit the news?

I assume you are trying to get a book deal and the Rudy angle might be the only popular angle, but I still don't get why this all about Rudy and not about you.

Any insight?

[NMI]

Hi Ray,

When is your next posting? I eagerly await to read it.