Various campaign links

Election Day is three days away, or less if I'm slow posting this. 538 is predicting nearly 90% chance that Biden will win. I hope that's right this time. 

Trump lauds his token African Americans, as do his supporters. Ice Cube was 'persuaded' conditionally by policy promises. Yeah, right, the GOPers in Congress will be right on it.

Back to the polls. Is this a repeat of 2016 with too much confidence in the polls, and Trump pulls another upset? There is so much early voting going on and heavy turnout. It looks like it favors the Dems, right? Well, maybe not. There are some indicators that Trump is doing well. Higher new voter registrations for Trump. Major GOP turnout too. Polling showing support for Dems weakening among black and Latino folks. A Rasmussen poll had black folks supporting Trump 31% of the time. I hope it's as inaccurate as other Rasmussen polls. Trafalgar is predicting a Trump victory, like they did in 2016. However, 2016 was a lesson to 2020, and I don't think people will be staying home with overconfidence. 

And since it's now almost two weeks after Election Day, I'll rush in the rest of my pre-election links.

Dems weren't the angels they should have been about Hunter Biden. Oh pleeeze, give me a break. 

And that was it. Publish!

Image: ccbiznews.com

Details and loose ends of the covid disaster

This is a mishmash of links related to covid-19. Like this one, zerohedge declare that Bill Gates planned this hoax. The virus is real, but the warning of carnage are hype meant to control the populace.

3M is exporting masks when the US doesn't have enough. Terrible but with a good explanation. It may be the main or only supplier to other countries that need masks too.

The conservative site Washington Examiner says that Trump is right to focus on reopening the economy. Maybe, but they also claim that he was thwarted from this task by 'collusion of the public health network, both political parties, and the media.' Clueless! Tin-foil hat theories of collusion with no realistic understanding of this disease's spread. This is a more serious report about the goal of the Trump administration to reopen. Trump may feel that it's necessary to his prospect of winning that the economy is in good shape again, but the virus may ruin those plans, and Trump won't be able to get around that.

A cogent analysis of Trump's attempts to grab the headlines. That's still the most important outcome to Trump, the huge egotist. And unable to handle criticism. Hopefully this is the last addition to this short list of people criticizing Trump for his egotism during this crisis. This time it's mild criticism from other Republicans. For a broader view of how Trump handled the beginnings of this crisis, see this article and this one.

What happens when non-experts drown out the experts: we have Trump touting a drug (based on an adviser's beliefs), that then gets bought up and creates shortages for the people who need it.

Slices from the crisis in New York. The field hospital set up at the Javits Center, the hospital ship, and protective clothing and masks being manufactured right in the vicinity. One sick person pushes another sick person, causing a fall and subsequent death. Not unforeseeable in crowded, chaotic conditions. Perhaps New York is over the hump of admissions, but the death toll drops much later.

Another concern. Covid is striking minority communities harder. Why?

Fallout from Wisconsin being unable to delay it primary due to inaction on the part of Republican legislators: many mail-in ballots won't be counted. Yes, the Republicans are looking like power-hungry charlatans, but that's what some people want. Lip service to fairness is ok, but the GOP needs to maintain its power (my interpretation). The country will need to consider how to run elections if this pandemic continues, but the GOP will be keeping an eye on what helps them electorally.

I intensely dislike that lying jerk Alex Jones and his conspiracy factory. He is at it again, this time with a mouthwash that protects you from covid-19. More ugh from a Florida police chief who connected a covid-19 death of a deputy to homosexuality in a long rant to other deputies.

A brouhaha over Dr. Fauci stating the obvious--that earlier distancing measures would have saves lives. Trump got petulant and retweeted someone who called for #FireFauci. But that could have been partly to stir the pot and capture eyeballs yet again. Scientists also warn that cheap easy immunity tests may not be coming soon. That's bad news for workers

Close to my home. The Soldiers Home in Holyoke had a growing problem with covid-19 and a director who didn't do anything about it, and didn't seek help. It spread through the workforce and the residents. Who knows how many will be dead when it's all done? So far about 20 residents but there's no reason to think that will be all. More local news.

Image: propublica.org

Extras and updates added free-form. It's worth seeing how CNN fact-checks Trump. How fair are they?

A nursing home in New Jersey handled its outbreak by stacking the bodies in its morgue and not telling state authorities. A short-term solution, not long-term.

Nurses suspended from their jobs for refusing to care for covid patients if they weren't given safety equipment. For workplaces have a safety first ethos where you're not supposed to put yourself into harm's way. I support that.

Important picture. Bodies laid out in a refrigerated trailer in New York City.

Image: talentrecap.com

Hotspots---------

South Dakota has a large cluster based around a large meat processing plant. Because there was a partial voluntary social distancing, the state government thinks it's in good shape to handle the cluster. Other meat processing operations are also having problems. Also other food processing operations.

Bus drivers are dying at higher rates, though not everywhere.

Lots of elderly are dying in Sweden. It seems like it was planned not to provide protective equipment to workers in elder care facilities. Or at least the lack of equipment didn't change in response to all the information blasting around the world.

In the US, longterm care facilities are sitting ducks. They don't have enough protective equipment, the right kinds of protective equipment, the extra personnel or time for gowning, and a population in close quarters that is ideal for spread. Lots of older people are dying in nursing homes (see New Jersey item above), including in my state, Massachusetts. Here's a report from Illinois, but it's going to be the same everywhere. There is at least one law firm ready to sue if Grandma died. Never mind that this is very tough to protect residents from. A reasonable list of precautions from a different law firm, but based on my experience, it's not enough. I'm very worried that the court cases after this epidemic are going to be a clusterfuck. And... New York fucks over nursing homes by requiring them to take covid patients. Yes, recovering covid patients need rehab, which nursing homes normally do. However, they are ill equipped to do the necessary separation, so separate facilities should have been set up. Cuomo screwed this one up. Let me emphasize that: SEPARATE FACILITIES. A long article about many facilities and the problems with staffing that they faced even before the virus hit. Reference materials for Massachusetts and the US as a whole.

Related: The lieutenant governor of Texas defends his view that grandparents would happily die to keep the economy going. I disagree that the choice was that clear or easy. Many people 50 and younger are getting sick too, and that's very disruptive to workplaces.

Also related: Another long term institution with crowding and vulnerable people: prisons. I support somewhat early release for those nearing the end of their sentences, but not releases in general. Criminals are imprisoned for the reason that they are a possible danger to society, and also because they are sserving time earned by their criminal actions. Those issues don't disappear because there's an epidemic.

Covid-19 is a weird virus with unexpected behavior, including causing clots and strokes in youthful adults.

One of the important turning points was when Trump started talking about potential deaths in a serious way. The first estimates that the administration released (when they got serious) was 100-200K deaths. That was revised down to 60K deaths by Aug. 4. Instead we passed the 60K mark on April 29.

A shooting/killing with racial overtones happened in February, but complications and covid has delayed the investigation and arrests. Also perhaps because it as a white-on-black shooting with a connection to law enforcement. Video has energized the issue, but it shows the very worrisome effects of covid-19 on fair and reasonable application of the laws. I hope this won't be an opening for backsliding in bad old habits of discrimination. (Not that discrimination in law enforcement has been eliminated.)

No, Bill Gates, don't give China a pass on what they did wrong, especially the coverups and misinformation.

Rats are suffering and getting desperate since restaurant garbage isn't available.

A church that defied social distancing norms was burned down in an arson incident. Congregants had been aggressive, even staging a mass gathering at a Walmart.

November - December links

I wrote more posts in November than in any other month in the past year. The collection of links aside from the Ukraine scandal are paltry. Not much new in America.

Surprising Arizona politics. A tough, nasty, bigoted sheriff prompted many Latinos to run for elected office. This is another sign of the self-correction in the American political system. (But is it enough?)

Illegal gun sales. By law enforcement officials. Did they trust that the guns wouldn't be used on fellow police?

2nd amendment rationale. A viewpoint on the 2nd amendment, including its racial aspects. It's inspired me to look into the background of the 2nd amendment and try to sort out the contradictory arguments.

The GOP southern strategy. An article from back in 1970. It's the typical NYT style with a lot of side trips, but very interesting, focusing on the strategist who foresaw the realignment of voters.

How Kamala Harris failed. She lacked a clear strategy beyond being intelligent, black, and female.

Centrism is deluded. This article makes a strong case that there's no chance of working with Republicans. However, that's not the only reason to support someone like Biden or Buttigieg. Another reason is that those further left may not be able to win, not worth taking the chance, or just too socialist.

Flynn facing sentence. Mike Flynn tried to delay his sentence by promising he'd cooperate more with the Russian investigation. Then he fired his lawyers, brought in a new team to push the deep-state conspiracy narrative, and attacked the people he's supposed to cooperate with. The judge is not amused. A shorter version of the newstory and a longer version.

Media bias measured. Well, I'm not sure how the determination is made, but this site lists how biased a media outlet is, and how factual the reporting is. Plus it gives examples when there are issues with factual reporting.

Trump talking points. Someone allied with Trump launched a special site just for those holidays spent with your stupid liberal family members. It tells zipperheads how to argue, just in case they haven't watched enough Hannity lately. Are these good arguments? OF COURSE NOT. When do Trump supporters care about the quality of their arguments? Blather and blind, willful assertion are fine by them.

Image: snowflakevictory.com

Short: Headline of the times

Trump pinatas becoming hot items in Albuquerque, Santa Fe
-- article here.

Image: eonline.com

Analysis of the Cincinnati shooting video

Earlier this month, a security officer for the University of Cincinnati shot and killed an unarmed driver during a traffic stop. The officer was indicted for murder, and also indicted on the lesser charge of manslaughter.

He was wearing a body camera throughout the incident, and the video was just released. Now, accordingly to the prosecutor, the video shows "the most asinine act by a police officer I have ever seen."

That's not what I saw when I closely watched the video, though admittedly I wasn't able to watch it frame by frame.

The officer pulled over the driver for a minor infraction--not having a front license plate... or did he pull him over for driving while black? The officer asks for his license. The driver searches around for it, but doesn't produce it. That is an expedient move by the driver because his license had been suspended (as investigation showed after the fact). If he had produced his license, the officer would quickly confirm that he was driving with a suspended license. That would probably mean an arrest, towing the car, and lots of fines for the driver.

Here is a chronology of how the altercation unfolds:

• At 3:12, the officer starts to open the car door. The driver grabs it to keep it closed. He moves his right hand to the ignition. The officer's right hand is on the roof of the car. The driver says "I didn't even do nothing."
• At 3:13, the officer says "Come on and take your seatbelt off." His right hand is still on the roof of the car.
• At 3:14, the driver starts the ignition (can be heard) and the officer reaches with his left hand into the car to grab the ignition.
• At 3:16, the officer yells "stop, stop." At the same time, the sound of the engine revving is audible. The gun is visible in the officer's right hand.
• At 3:17, the officer fires this gun. The driver slumps to his right. The car is also moving forward.
• At 3:18, the officer is falling backward. The camera shows the sky.
• At 3:19, the officer is starting to stand up. His gun is clearly seen in his right hand.
• At 3:24, he is running after the car down the street.

Clearly, the driver was fleeing the traffic stop. Clearly, the officer reached for his weapon and shot within 3 seconds of the driver starting the ignition. Both men were acting and reacting very quickly. As the prosecutor said:

"You won't believe how quickly he pulls his gun and shoots him in the head."

The officer claimed he was dragged, and that doesn't seem to be true. However, the driver must have put the car in gear while the officer was reaching in, so the officer had good reason to worry that he might be dragged or knocked down and run over.

To understand and judge the criminal charges, we will have to consider how officers should act when a driver tries to flee a minor traffic stop. We have to consider whether the officer was in danger, or whether he was trigger happy, or both. This is not an open-and-shut case.

It does seem to me that many officials in Cincinnati have ganged up on the officer. It's not just the prosecutor, who laid on charges of intentional murder and incompetence, The university fired him. The mayor stated that he wanted charges. No one there wants Ferguson-type riots and demonstrations. The officer seems to have been thrown under the bus as Cincinnati tries not to be the next epicenter of race-based demonstrations.

This isn't my final word on this case. I might write a post on how the video refutes the claims that the prosecutor made in his (grandstanding) press conference. Maybe I'll learn more about police training that leads officers to shoot first and shoot fast. Maybe I'll unravel how a simple traffic stop ends up with someone dead, not just once, but too many times already this year.

3:12 -- Look where their hands are.

Image: youtube.com

Extras. USA Today's list of events at the end of this article differs from mine. They're wrong and they seem biased against the officer: "Without a word, Tensing fires a single shot," "the car rolls a short distance." The car didn't roll a few feet, but probably at least 150 feet. You can hear the rev of the engine as though it was accelerating, not 'rolling.'

More of the chronology:

• At 3:27, someone asks "Are you alright." The officer, while running, says "I'm good."
• At 3:41, he is close to where the car has crashed and we can see another security officer enter the frame.
• At 4:15, we can see that a third security officer is also already on the scene.

Were these other two officers already at the other end of the block? What did they see? Did they have body cameras too? Maybe their footage isn't important since we have video of the entire event at close range. Or maybe it is important if it is shows more of what happened.

Update 7/31/15. Video from the body cameras of the two officers who arrived just as the altercation erupted.

Update 8/1/15. A Cincinnati officer killed in June of this year.

My pocket analysis of the same-sex marriage ruling

Ok, I broke down and read much of the Supreme Court's same sex marriage ruling. We have conservatives calling the majority opinion jumbled and impossible to follow, and progressives calling the dissents 'hysterical.' So I have to read them, don't I?

I started with Clarence Thomas's dissent. Why? Because the outtakes listed here were the most hilarious. Thomas's dissent was a mess. First he defines 'liberty' as mostly meaning 'freedom of movement.' So he ignores the freedom or right to marry. Even in discussing the most relevant earlier case, he ignores the right to marry, and says the case was important because people could be imprisoned for being a spouse or a minister in an illegal wedding. Yes, it's a bad opinion.

Comparison to prior case law

The most relevant case, Loving v. Virginia, was a 1967 case where Virginia refused to recognize the marriage of a white man and black woman who had married in Washington DC but returned to Virginia to live. The Supreme Court, in its ruling, overturned all state laws against interracial marriages. The analogy couldn't be clearer.

So how does Loving v. Virginia figure in this latest ruling? In the text, Loving is cited 22 times, mostly by the majority. Both Scalia and Alito ignore it, and Thomas makes the wackadoodle argument about imprisonment being the issue, not marriage. No one says that Loving was wrongly decided because it clearly wasn't wrongly decided.

So if Loving was decided correctly, how does this inform the current case? Neither side makes a slam-dunk argument. The majority doesn't hammer home the point of a couple's status changing as one or both cross a state line. That is the most ridiculous aspect of the situation, and why states are compelled to recognize the marriages and divorces performed by other states.

Recognition or chaos

But it's also a bit ridiculous for one state (Massachusetts) to unilaterally change marriage law in all other states. I supposed the other states could have decided to recognize marriages performed in other states, and maybe we wouldn't have had this ruling. But so many states resisted doing so, and the conditions were set for this confrontation. This was absolutely inevitable. Same-sex couples were:

• Going to get married where they legally could.
• Going to move to states that refused to recognize their marriages.
• Going to sue for their rights. 

I can't respect Roberts' dissent because he doesn't acknowledge this. He wants the legislative process to carry on. To make that decision, Roberts has to ignore the rights of couples who are legally married in one jurisdiction but living or traveling in another.

I stopped reading Alito's dissent because he was whining about how religious people were being labeled as bigots. Alito seems to have missed the facts that 1) a Supreme Court ruling can't prevent public opinion from going that way, and 2) a whiny dissent can't prevent it either. I didn't read Scalia's dissent because I figured it would make me too angry.

So, overall, I was disappointed with the reasoning of this decision. No group really wrestled with the problem of states being required to recognize marriages of other states, and what we're going to do when there are conflicts. Are we going to follow Loving, and now this decision, and force them to recognize the marriages, or are we going to do something else? Who gets to decide?

Finally, what happens when a state allow plural marriage? All hell breaks loose again.

Image:skydancingblog.com

Surviving the same-sex marriage decision

As I wrote often, Rod Dreher, a religious/cultural blogger, regularly moaned about the growing support for same-sex marriage. His complaints reached a pinnacle (or maybe more than one) as he tried to find the culprit for the fall of marriage from a holy sacrament (joining man, woman, and God) to a piece of toilet paper freely available to perverts.

How badly has Dreher freaked out now that the US will have legal same-sex marriage all over the country?

He's not doing too badly. He's on a trip to Italy right now, enjoying the food, history, and street festivals, or preferable all three at the same time. He's got the right idea. Before the total downfall of Western civilization, I'd like to spend more time in Italy too.

Image: theamericanconservative.com

It's rather sentimental of me to wonder whether this opponent has survived the ruling. Not that I really worried that anyone was going to kill himself over this ruling. Nearly everyone saw it coming. Justice Kennedy, the usual swing vote on the Supreme Court, had voted to declare some of DOMA unconstitutional two years ago, so it wouldn't take clairvoyance to foresee this ruling.

So almost all saw this coming. Almost all let the LGBTQ and allies celebrate their victory unmolested. There were rainbow sprinkles all over Facebook, and, with triumphalism, rainbow lighting on the White House. Not exactly tactful or magnanimous.

Image: forum.bandmix.com

Some GOP presidential candidates said stupid things, but that's an everyday occurrence. Let's see, Bobby Jindal called for the money-saving move of abolishing the Supreme Court. I wonder if he followed up with a paean to the Constitution. Based on headlines, Jindal won the 'GOP leader stupid contest' over the perennial winner Ted Cruz. Cruz was probably runner-up, though, with the suggestion that Supreme Court justices face elections every 8 years. This idea suffers from being too complex, especially compared to Jindal's simple and pure stupidity.

Culture warriors warn of several looming crises.

1. The polygamists are coming!
2. The pedophiles are coming!
3. It won't be safe to express anti-gay beliefs.
4. Churches will lose their tax-exempt status.
5. This is the final straw that ends marriage in the US.
6. This is the final straw that ends the American experiment in democracy.
7. Anyone who doesn't cheer on same-sex marriage will risk losing their job.

Except for the panicking dissenting justices, there aren't many who are still predicting the swift demise of the US, so the response is more moderate than expected. After all, not all these looming crises are completely ludicrous. No, pedophilia won't be legalized, but the concerns about the chilling of viewpoints are well founded. (More posts later on that.)

One fascinating thing I learned is how widespread the gay pride movement is. I looked for images of the rainbow flag, and found it in Venezuela, Brazil, Peru, Mexico, Turkey, Israel, Russia, Serbia, Taiwan, Cambodia, China, and a huge number of images for India. The movement for tolerance is a world-wide phenomenon, not just a parochial battle in the US culture war. I still haven't grasped how momentous this movement is.

Image: citizenside.com

Extra. Perhaps before he left for Italy (judging from the tone), Dreher wrote a hilarious post about the future. It includes: polygamy, gay gated communities, all marriages gone queer, and no religious institutions left standing. No irrationality there! Here is Chicken Little:

"I remember a time, practically the day before yesterday, when conservatives who warned that gay marriage would inevitably deconstruct marriage and family entirely were called paranoid bigots."

This prediction is based on one gay novelist's imagination of life in 2035. But that is enough to declare "gay marriage [will] inevitably deconstruct marriage and family entirely." Yeah, right.

A vignette in America's racist history

Sadly, I don't know enough of the history of my own country. That's part of the reason I'm only now realizing the extent of racist beliefs among my own generation.

One historical issue I'll delve into are the anti-lynching laws. I've heard about them before, but I never thought very deeply about them. Of course, lynching is horrible. But it's a terrible reflection on the US that lynching was acceptable to many people. Therefore lynching opponents tried to stop lynching through force of law.

Here are three historical artifacts connected to anti-lynching law:

• The text of a 1919 anti-lynching bill supported by the NAACP. The law would have created a $10,000 penalty against any county where a lynching took place. The bill passed the House of Representative but died in the Senate due to a filibuster.
• Warren Harding (in 1921) was a supporter of this anti-lynching bill. Harding was a progressive Republican elected in part due to his support for voting rights for women. Americans were less enthusiastic about his support for black civil rights. 
• Even in 1938, the anti-lynching bill was blocked in the Senate by a filibuster.

So when did Congress finally pass anti-lynching legislation? 

It never did.

Image: cb14.raimistdesign.com

Extra. Go here to read about the lynching depicting in this image. It's the Jones lynching in Kentucky.

The fall of the Confederate flag

I wish I could say that this was a victory for civility, but it's not. People like Nikki Haley, Rand Paul, and Mitch McConnell aren't dropping their support for the confederate flag because they suddenly realized its unfriendly overtones, or because they suddenly decided it's wrong to offend large numbers of people.

No, it was a cost analysis. It finally cost them too much in terms of general respect to continue supporting the flag or being non-committal about it. But I wonder how they made that calculation. Are there snap polling firms that will alert a politician to such changes in the political winds? Maybe there are. Some firms probably track hashtags, and the pol's PR czar will be watching anxiously. One large polling firm, Public Policy Polling had a poll, but the report didn't break down lack of support by state, so it's hard to tell whether there was useful information there.

Maybe anxious PR czars tracked the number of clicks on stories about the confederate flag flying high over the South Carolina capitol grounds, protected from lowering unless a supermajority of legislators saw fit to debate and vote on it. I certainly clicked on that story. I read the history of the flag in South Carolina, and how pols grumpily moved it off the State House because of a boycott.

What it really symbolized

I also checked the history of the flags' use, and how it was adopted in wake of the civil rights movement. It was a fuck-you to the federal government and to northerners and to blacks and to those who supported the principle that all men are created equal, not just all white men. Fuck all those people! Give them a big middle finger by flying an old confederate battle flag, one that is clearly different from the stars-and-stripes.

So its modern popularity started as a banner for segregationists/racists. Since then it has become many more things, including a fuck-you to all authority figures (a rebel banner), a southern pride symbol, a fuck-you to diversity and political correctness advocates, a redneck pride symbol, and so on.

Hung out to dry

Last week was a very bad week for the confederate flag. First the Supreme Court decided that Texas didn't have to issue vanity license plates with the symbol on them. Then a racist shot nine black people in a church in a southern state that still proudly flies the fuck-you-I-support-segregation flag. That's a PR disaster, I guess.

Still, I'm surprised at how quickly it turned. Has it really become unsafe or unpopular to be a crypto, under-the-radar, soft racist? Can they no longer hide behind southern tradition?

Yes, that's a big surprise. Yet it really seems to have turned. Already Walmart and Ebay have stopped selling goods with the symbol. That is lightning fast--faster than I ever would have expected. I'm astounded, and I hope someday to understand how and why it happened now.

One final thought. I wrote above that I don't think civility has broken out across the country or the South. I'm afraid it's a matter of giving up an outward symbol without changing any actions or any sentiments.

To quote Nathan Gunn, speaker of the House in Mississippi: "As a Christian, I believe our state’s flag has become a point of offense that needs to be removed." Translation: We got away with this hate for a long time, but the party's over.

Image: lawyersgunsmoneyblog.com

Extras. An explanation of the societal and business trends against the confederate flag. HotAir: It's the Dems' fault for "happily tolerating" the flag for years. Is it because social liberals have reached parity with social conservatives? Uh oh--more flags to change. Complete text of the racist shooter's manifesto.

Update 6/24/15. Here's an interesting report. Maybe the PR czars were following what business leaders were tweeting. Possible boycott was definitely in the air. And does Romney deserve kudos for being the first top GOP figure to call for the removal of the confederate flag? Looks that way to me.

Major black writer absolves the killer of Mike Brown

Ta-Nehishi Coates, perhaps the pre-eminent black columnist in the US, writes very clearly that Darren Wilson, who shot Mike Brown in Ferguson, Missouri, was innocent of a wanton crime:

"The investigation concluded that physical evidence and witness statements corroborated Wilson's claim that Michael Brown reached into the car and struck the officer... The investigation concluded that there was no evidence to contradict Wilson's claim that Brown reached for his gun... That he did not shoot Brown as he was running away. That Brown did stop and turn toward Wilson. That in those next moments 'several witnesses stated that Brown appeared to pose a physical threat to Wilson.' "

Coates doesn't shy away from declaring this as fact, which is good because honest people should deal honestly with facts. They need to draw their opinions based on fact, not on presupposition and bias. Coates seems to have no trouble accepting these facts now that they have been thoroughly investigated. I don't know how late Coates was in coming to accept these facts, which I discerned back in November, or perhaps earlier. Amid all the "Hands up" protests, there was a steady drip of evidence pointing toward the conclusion that Mike Brown had attacked the officer, and not the other way around.

I'm not going to look back at Coates' columns to see if he turned a corner and when. This isn't a game of gotcha to me. Instead, this was a heart-breaking incident where all the players had feet of clay. This police officer was innocent of willfully mistreating this young black man, but that wasn't true for a significant portion of the police force. The police were oppressive to the black citizens, and the anger that erupted was in proportion to that oppression.

I can easily understand the growing anger if I was being targeted for traffic stops, searches on flimsy grounds, and multiple fines for tiny infractions. If I thought I'd have to worry about being shot and killed, that's too much to bear. So I have sympathy for the protesters--the ones who actually lived in the area and were subject to the oppression. I hope this can and will change now.

To the hypesters, race-baiters, knee-jerk partisans, arsonists, and hooligans, I hope you have no incident to flock around for a very long time. You turn misery into your sport, which is just sickening. Please, go hide in some holes while the good people of this country work to heal and make this better.

Image: henrypayne.com

Extra. Predictably, some don't face facts.

The strange struggle between NYC cops and mayor

I'm having a very hard time understanding the disagreement between the New York City cops and the mayor. Why are the cops so incredibly pissed off at Mayor DeBlasio? He's not directly responsible for a maniac from Georgia shooting and killing two cops in Brooklyn. (Who's directly responsible? Obviously the guy who did it, but he killed himself so there goes the chance for vengeance.)

Is DeBlasio indirectly responsible for the cops' deaths? Wow, that's a tough one... that reasoning works only if you include as 'indirectly responsible' anyone who makes the public criticism of lethal police action. If that's true, millions of people are indirectly responsible. See--it makes no sense, at least on the surface.

The case against DeBlasio

When a situation makes no sense on the surface, there are usually factors below the surface, and that's the case here. It was fascinating to read a non-ranting explanation of why the police force is upset with the mayor. DeBlasio ran as a progressive who would end police stop-and-frisk policies and give a friendlier ear to minority complaints. In itself, that shouldn't anger the police. However, DeBlasio took that friendship to places that were bordering on offensive. DeBlasio has embraced Al Sharpton as a major ally, even seating him in a place of honor at a large public event that was supposed to be conciliatory. Sharpton has never apologized for the times he was wrong about supposedly racial incidents--not for his role at Ferguson, and not for the Tawana Brawley accusations. This is a double-standard that supports minority grievances and blames police 100% of the time, so I understand how the mayor's embrace of him angers the police. As a bit more gasoline on the fire, the boyfriend and son of a top aide to DeBlasio's wife tweeted remarks about 'pigs.' There are to be plenty of reasons for the police to be angry with the mayor.

The case against the NYC police

But it's equally fascinating to see forces within the police pour accelerant on their justified anger. Possibly even before the shooting of two officers on Dec. 20, some police circulated a request that the mayor stay away from police funerals (not it's not a new tactic). The head of the PBA (Patrolmans Benevolent Association) said that many people had blood on their hands and it "starts at City Hall in the Office of the Mayor."

And of course there's the biased media

I consider that rhetoric to be over the top, but it's not the only extreme rhetoric against the mayor. In the New York Post (a Murdoch-owned newspaper with pulp standards), a columnist wrote:

"Determined not to let a crisis go to waste, the mayor has spent the last two days cranking up the volume and the vitriol of his anti-cop agenda... Imagine that. The city is in turmoil over the Staten Island case and the mayor throws gasoline on the fire by painting the entire police force as a bunch of white racist brutes. Has he no shame? He certainly has no facts."

It's unlikely that the mayor "has no facts" or that he said anything like "the entire police force as a bunch of white racist brutes." Attributing those sentiments to him is vilification, which is obviously what the columnist intended to do. 

It's not just a local fight either. Here's Bill O'Reilly:

"...many on the left believe the American police are the guardians of the oppressive justice system. They prop it up.

Apparently that is what Mayor de Blasio believes, that there is injustice among his own police officers... That point of view that the left is putting out there saying the police are instruments of oppression rather than a protective force is causing outrage on the part of the cops themselves. Any fair-minded person can understand that. It is easy.

...'Talking Points' believes Mayor de Blasio does not respect law enforcement, has directly insulted each and every member of the New York City Police Department and should resign his position."

O'Reilly mixing in a few reasonable points, but he ends up over-the-top nonetheless--calling for the mayor to resign not for what the mayor did, but for how the most disgruntled can spin it.

Strangely (again), the head of the PBA (Patrick Lynch) got some of his own medicine, as some police shouted at him that they wanted more equipment, not the apology that Lynch insists on. Pushing ensued, but no injuries. Polls show pushback from the populace against the disrespect among the police.

Reasonable protest vs. sickening protest

So far I've given more criticism to the police and conservative media who are fanning the flames. But what has the mayor done to worsen the situation? Working with Sharpton and similar minority individuals and groups. The rhetoric of these groups varies. Some marchers against the lack of criminal charges from the death of Eric Garner chanted "Black Lives Matter" and "Hands up, don't shoot." On the other hand, one break-away group chanted for "Dead cops."

The extreme groups are definitely a problem that taint those protesting police actions. How do you draw a line between a peaceful protester and those a short distance away who are burning and looting? For the peaceful protester, the choice is tough, You may not want to give up a legitimate protest, yet you don't want to be associated with unwarranted hooligan behavior.

I personally have no trouble distinguishing between different types of protesters, but it's not just that some are responsible and some are violent. Some advocates, like Sharpton, will never change their rhetoric, even when the evidence shows that guilt and innocence weren't as originally portrayed. I don't know whether DeBlasio looks at evidence or not. I know that many of his detractors don't look at evidence, however. Is there something wrong with DeBlasio supporting retraining so that police use less force? I can't see what's wrong with that. We consider changes in medical procedures all the time to reduce negative outcomes. This is an intelligent response, not a hateful one.

Why do folks have to hate?

Maybe what surprises me the most is that too many people reach for the hateful response. There were responsible demonstrators in Ferguson who stopped looting, and then there were the looters. There are the people hoping that police will be killed ("pigs in a blanket, smells like bacon"), and then there are the ones who mocked the dying words of Eric Garner, who died during an arrest. Why all this nastiness?

And even among those who aren't as hateful as this, why can't they work to find some middle ground and understand the important issues for the other side? Do we have to vilify everyone who doesn't agree 100%?

I'm rather hoping that the people of New York City will be able to demonstrate how to let tempers cool and move on to a more productive dialogue. Maybe that hope is crazy, but the alternative is even more heated words and protests. There won't be a constant ratcheting up, cooling will happen sometime, so now is a good time for it. I recommend a new chant:

CHILL OUT!

vosizneias.com

Extras. The police chief of Nashville is an example of cooling tempers. What would happen if you screamed into the face of a white cop? It depends on the cop, what kind of day he's had, and lots of things.

My bias regarding police

I tend to be biased toward believing a police officer's account in a controversy. However that doesn't mean my bias is rigid--I absolutely know that there are rotten, lying, prejudiced cops who shouldn't be believed. So I make sure to be alert to inconsistencies in a cop's story.

I got to observe my bias at work with the Ferguson shooting. My guesses about what had happened went back and forth, showing the interplay of my biases and the weight of evidence. Here's the account of how my thinking evolved.

*****************************************************

At first, the witness's story seemed logical and consistent. A cop got pissed off at the two young men, provoked an argument, grabbed one of them, and then shot him dead. It's certainly possible.

However, this witness (Dorian Johnson) was soon discredited. Video showed that he and Michael Brown were at a store where they allegedly stole some cigars and Brown pushed and intimidated a clerk. From the video, you can't tell either the cigars were stolen or not, but the pushing and lunging are clear enough.

Also, in the meantime, the cop's background was reported as being clean--no prior issues with excessive force. A clean record isn't what I'd expect from a cop who had a bad enough temper to shoot an innocent person on purpose. But a record can be misleading. Perhaps the cop had always managed to avoid disciplinary measures while still being aggressive. This 'fact' is not as convincing as the video.

With these two new 'facts' to mull over, I revised my initial opinion. It now seemed likely that Brown was very much at fault. He had just committed a crime. The witness's story that the cop grabbed Brown was dubious, and instead it seemed likely that Brown grabbed the cop.

At this point, my usual bias toward believing the cop was supported by evidence, or it seemed that way to me. I was still gathering information and evaluating the testimony of the witnesses who went public. I was waiting for photos showing any wounds the cop (Darren Wilson) might have received. I was also waiting to hear what the autopsy showed. This evidence took a long time to arrive and is still subject to dispute. The conclusions of the county medical examiner don't completely match the conclusion of the medical examiner hired by Brown's family.

**************************************************

So did the 'facts' depart from what I expected at all? Yes, and that's where I learned something new. The people of Ferguson had a particular reason to be angry. They were being plagued with punitive fines and enforcement aimed at extracting as much money as possible (more details here).

Of course, the burden of excessive fines doesn't excuse theft or assaulting an officer, but it explains some of the response. Nonetheless, most of the response is due to bigger issues such as the history of police aggression against minorities and cultural clashes between law enforcement and a 'no-snitching' ethos in black communities. I wish there was a giant reset button we could push that would erase the historical animosity and let people start fresh. But there isn't, so we are doomed to reinforce our biases unless we actively work against them.

Image: politic365.com

Update 12/8/14. I recant what I said about the 'giant reset button.' That disrespects the legitimate and deeply-felt grievances minorities have. There is no wiping the slate clean. Instead, there should be amends, trust-building, and reconciliation.

Immigration reform is a massive hot potato

How much immigration reform have we had in the last 30 years? Aside from the amnesty in 1986, we haven't had much. And since then, we've had roughly one million per year of legal immigrants and large numbers of illegal immigrants.

Our policy ... and our real policy

Our de facto national policy has been to tolerate illegal immigration. There are been very few sanctions against employers of illegal immigrants, or landlords, or merchants who sell to illegal immigrants. Schools are required to teach children who are illegal immigrants, and hospitals are required to treat them. Considering this, it's not surprising that illegal immigrants numbers have grown in the country.

The lure is pretty clearly jobs and a better life in the US. Wages are lower in Latin America; crime and corruption are higher. Of course the US will be a magnet. Yet we haven't changed our policies to counteract those forces that draw immigrants here. Why not? Well, just take a look at who benefits from illegal immigration.

Pros and Cons

Different groups have different reasons for supporting illegal immigration. Humanitarian groups see the conditions the immigrants are fleeing, and they are sympathetic to their plight. I'm pretty sure this is reasonable, up to a point. Businesses like hard workers who can't or won't demand higher pay--it's good for their profit margins. This is less defensible. However, if your competition is hiring illegal immigrants and paying less, you may have to do the same or shutter your business. Businesses also benefit from a larger consumer base, and they won't complain about that. Democrats like illegal immigrants because supporters/allies of illegal immigrants also generally support of most of the Democratic agenda--social spending, cultural diversity,  . . . and voting Democratic, naturally.

Actually, it sounds like everyone should like illegal immigration. I must have neglected the downside. Let's see . . . it costs extra to educate them, provide medical care, jail them, enforce laws, etc. They are stiff competition for desirable jobs. Some people dislike that they are Latino (or Asian or black) rather than European stock like the majority of the country, but I strongly disagree with that as a valid reason.

So with a bunch reasons to support illegal immigration and also a bunch of reasons to be against it, it's no wonder that we haven't controlled the level of illegal immigration that well.

The Unspoken Reason for Allowing Illegal Immigration

I think I forgot to mention another major reason to support illegal immigration: it helps prevent wage and price inflation. For some economists and a bunch of politicians, that is a major reason to tacitly support it. Inflation is quite the bogeyman, but if you can prevent it, you can have all sorts of wonderful growth numbers that make you look like a shining success. You can have growth in housing (built for less using illegal immigrant labor), growth in jobs, growth in GDP, growth in tax revenue--all these good things without the growth in costs. You don't have to give the economy a dose of that nasty anti-inflation medicine of raising interest rates to prevent overheating.

Yes, this is the biggest reason that we haven't exercised control over the level of illegal immigration. It's because the economy as a whole benefited in the short term. It's too bad that it was actually a bubble, and had to pop sometime. Now, we have over 11 million illegal immigrants, most of whom are working, are integrated into our economy and communities, and many of whom have American-born or naturalized family members. How are we going to disentangle this situation?

Incomplete Solutions

I don't see a good solution. Much of the GOP (except for the businesses that benefit and the economists who like very low inflation) don't really have a solution to offer. Some GOP-led states have tried to make employment and renting difficult for illegal immigrants, forcing them to move to other states or go back to their home countries. (I wonder how they go home. Do they have passports in order to board planes and cross borders? I don't know.)

I don't think that this squeezing has actually worked, though it seems like it should. There is certainly a lot of resistance to these tactics. It's not a humanitarian course--making life so inhospitable that people give up and go home even though the home country is a wreck. You've not only angered the illegal immigrants, you've also angered all their supporters. And, those state laws have been mired in the courts, so they haven't had a noticeable effect.

The GOP also says that it wants much tighter border security. I've read that the border is so wide open that anyone can cross. I doubt this, but I'm not close to any border, so I don't know if it's true or not. Border security sounds reasonable, but it's limited in its effectiveness. Many illegal immigrants come to the US in legal ways--on visitor or student visas, and then stay on. Border security isn't going to do anything about that. I seriously wonder how much improvement can be made. Should we erect walls like Israel has? We haven't even started the discussion and assessment to make a cost-conscious decision on this.

I don't hear the GOP talking as much about putting the screws on employers so they won't hire illegal immigrants. This should be part of their proposal, except that it antagonizes businesses, who are necessary GOP allies. That's yet another case of political necessity trumping principle.

The Democratic proposals are even weaker. Most Democrats want amnesty for illegal immigrants and a path to citizenship (and voting for Dems in elections). They don't say much about preventing further illegal immigration.

Punt

I don't have a good proposal myself. I lean towards deportation, but that may be economically disruptive and it's a humanitarian nightmare. Is there a way to legalize the good illegal immigrants, send the marginal ones back, and then cut off the flow in the future? That's what I'd like, but I don't know how to accomplish that. So I'd appoint a bipartisan commission, have them study the issues and make recommendations. And unlike other times with other commissions, I'd actually listen very carefully to what they recommend. That's how I'd handle this hot potato--give it to people who are smarter than me.

Do you want to know what's the most ironic thing here? Both sides say they want 'comprehensive immigration reform.' HAHAHAHAHA. Yeah, right. That's why we've had so much progress in the last 28 years.

Image: mwfpress.com

Extras and sources. Watered down employer sanctions and other problems in the 1986 reform. Texas is still not ready to hold employers accountable. Anti-immigrant site with its take. Does the announcement on immigration fall under the mantle of legitimate discretion? It's not lawless, according to a conservative legal scholar. What can the GOP actually do about Obama's plan? A history of the recent promises of immigration reform.

Thoughts on the Ferguson shooting: No indictment

I agree with the grand jury's decision not to indict the policeman who shot Michael Brown in Ferguson, Mo. For what it's worth, that's my opinion. It's not worth too much because I haven't been one of the jurors or investigators, so I haven't had access to the evidence. Instead, I've had to rely on news reports.

With those caveats, here is my reasoning. It's clear that Michael Brown strong-armed a store just minutes before. He shoved and intimidated a clerk. It seems pretty certain that Michael Brown attacked Officer Darren Wilson, punching him while he was in his police car. It's likely that he tried to get this gun.

I think this adds up to Michael Brown being a dangerous person at that time. After he attacked Officer Wilson, Wilson wasn't out of line shooting him when he didn't immediately get on the ground. Instead Brown stayed standing, possibly still moving, and therefore still a threat.

Proponents for Brown and for an indictment ignore a lot of evidence, and they make excuses for why Brown should be forgiven for his aggressiveness, while Wilson should be held accountable for his response. That's a double-standard, and I won't be part of it.

Policing is a dangerous job. Police are definitely a target for too many criminals. Lately, the death toll among cops has been quite high. This job is going to be impossible if police have to put up with being attacked, and then made out to be wrong in their responses. So, the decision not to indict Officer Wilson was the correct one. Here is a good summation:

"The grand jury accepted that Brown was the aggressor throughout the confrontation and that Wilson feared he might be overpowered and lose his gun. According to the grand jurors, that justified the officer’s firing of a dozen rounds. Wilson, therefore, will face no criminal charges in connection with the deadly shooting."

So, what evidence (through news reports) did I use in coming to the same conclusion? The video of Michael Brown pushing someone at the store. The friend who was with Michael neglected to mention the incident, so his testimony is questionable at best. The reports (with physical evidence) that shots were fired inside the police car. A picture of Wilson showing bruising on his face. Michael Brown's blood on the gun. Reports that witnesses on the scene contradicted the story that Brown's hands were up (not enough of a surrender anyhow), and that these witnesses were frightened of telling their stories due to the likely reaction in their neighborhood.

There is some contradictory evidence, but it isn't as strong. As for those who say that Michael Brown's robbery a few minutes earlier is immaterial--uh, no. It's quite pertinent. This isn't a case of a cop gunning down a black teen with no provocation or due to a mistake. The boy (18 years old, 300 lbs.) provoked the incident. That is something that should matter to everyone.

Image: abcnews.com

Extras. Abysmal forensic procedures, including washing away blood evidence. The transcript of Officer Wilson's testimony, which I haven't read yet. Very detailed article examining some of Wilson's testimony. Eye-witness testimony that was shown to be wrong and likely fabricated.

The high stakes of culture: Mississippi

I continue to see the effects of culture almost everywhere. I listen for cultural differences, and the effect of culture on values and the choices that people make.

So I thought this was a very striking observation by Jamelle Bouie, a black political columnist:

"White supremacy built a politics of racist antagonism. Blacks were substandard people & thus received substandard schools, services, & law. Anything public had to be kept separate from blacks, and if that wasn’t possible, it had to be degraded..."

Further down in the same post, the author links to a tragic story of what happened to ACA in Mississippi. It's a worthy of Shakespearean treatment. There are the heroes who try to step above the usual bitterness, and the banal villains who shred those attempts and congratulate themselves while doing it.

I'm a northerner and  hardly know about the south. But when I read these kinds of stories, and consider what I do know about the south and about Arizona (settled by southerners, and where my parents now live), I start to see the patterns that Bouie writes about. Why do northern states spend more on education than southern states? Entrenched racism and the resulting antipathy to public services could be the answer. What a sad answer that is. And is it just a 'neutral' cultural difference, or is it actually a inferior culture that should change? I can't be a fair advocate for southern culture, but I'll keep my ears open for such an advocate.

Image: blogslucianneloves.com

Oh, the humanity in Ferguson, Missouri

Real life is always more complicated than it seems. Always. Take the first impressions of the shooting in Ferguson, Missouri.

At first, it seemed that a cop either went nuts or was intent on killing this young black man. Now it seems that there was more to the altercation than a cop shooting a young black man for walking down the middle of the street. There's a lot more to the story.

At first, it seemed like the bullet-ridden young man was "a gentle giant" who was about to go to college. Now it seems like he used his size to intimidate a shopkeeper just minutes before he died. Maybe he behaved in a threatening way to the cop too.

At first, the other young black man seemed like a bewildered soul--his friend killed in front of him. Now he seems like an unreliable witness who leaves out important details. It's hard to know how much he's a victim vs. being a perpetrator. Will this man be able to openly talk about what really happened, or will he hide behind his partial truth?

At first, the police in the town were secretive and aggressive in handling the resulting protests and violence. Then the governor called in black state police commander who could be a fair arbiter. Will the local police learn how to address the community concerns about this terrible incident, or will they remain defensive and self-serving?

At first, the community mourned the inexplicable shooting of an upstanding young man. Then it turns out that the man wasn't so upstanding, but they are angry with the police for making them face that truth. Will they be able to deal with the truth?

Finally (for now), it seems that perhaps the cop had a reason to shoot his weapon. But did he have a reason to keep firing it, more times than the witnesses could count, at a man who had raised his hands in surrender?

There were so many poor choices in this incident:

• The theft by the young men earlier that day
• The cop who continued to shoot when the man was surrendering
• The witness who omitted pertinent facts
• The looters who took advantage of the protest to smash and steal
• The local police who increased tension with military-like responses
• The local police who are so slow in releasing pertinent facts and are lying about their reasons for what they release

Yet there are some promising signs. The state has found a fair arbiter to talk with the community and ease tensions. He can bridge the gap because he's both a police officer and a black man who grew up in a neighborhood not far away. In the community itself, some local folks have stepped up to stop others from looting during a return to looting. They're still angry, but they know that violence isn't the answer.

We need to be able to admit the imperfections, to accept that people have made mistakes, and not to assume the worst about one another. Maybe then we can learn to be better people and be fairer to each other. I have some hope for a silver lining in this terrible storm.

Image: riverfronttimes.com

Sources. Video of the robbery. The body left for hours on the street.  The unreliable witness. Two reliable witnesses. Counterproductive police response. The fair arbiter. Stopping the looters.

No emergency money without concessions

It makes plenty of sense to me that the GOP, with their strength in the House and Senate, should attach some strings to the money for the immigration crisis. People don't usually open the wallet and get nothing in return. However, Dems think they aren't bound by this.

The Republicans want a change in a 2008 law so that central American immigrant minors can be sent home as readily as Mexican minors can. Immigrant groups are flexing their muscles, and have gotten Nancy Pelosi to oppose this change. But without the change, no extra money.

What will the Obama administration do? They can divert funding, which is probably not legal or they wouldn't be asking for the money in the first place. They can use their emergency authority under the 2008 law to send the minors back quickly, thus saving some money. Or they can make the deal with the Republicans. I don't know how badly they need the money, though it does seem that extraordinary measures are taking place--minors transported to lots of different facilities, warehouses and other buildings being converted for temporary use as detention centers. That sounds expensive.

I don't think the administration can continue to slow-ball the handling of this surge of young immigrants. These refugees aren't going to get the drawn out hearings that have been customary. Instead, the process will have to be expedited, much to the disappointment of immigrant and Hispanic groups. If Obama really does need the money, he has little choice but to agree to the concessions.

Image: breitbart.com

On second thought: It's going to be hard for Obama to put together a deal. Some Republicans are definitely going to vote against it, so Obama needs some House Democrats. If Pelosi is signaling to her pawns how to vote, will there be enough votes for whatever deal is negotiated? That will be close.

I have to wonder what is worse: the current configuration of power in Washington, and whatever the next stage will be. I'm fed up with them, but I'm terrified should any group gain a lock on power with House, Senate, and presidency. 

Another bizarro Fox News world

Here's a Fox News opinion piece where they beat up Obama for not doing more for immigrants using executive means. Here's one where Murdoch is paraphrased as supporting citizenship for immigrants, because, well, he was one too. Here's a  Fox news piece where Boehner says he won't do anything about immigration, but then it's all on Obama. Here's a Fox News piece where readers are reminded that it may be dangerous to upset minorities.

Where are we? Not in Kansas anymore, Dorothy.

Meanwhile, in the normal universe, Obama is sure to infuriate the GOP by acting alone as president on immigration issues. Immigrants are released to your neighborhood instead of being detained. Bug-infested children are transferred by charter plane or bus--one that you might enter next week.

How can these all be Fox News posts?

Because the first group is from Fox News Latino. Here's a piece:

"The question becomes, why does the President need the rest of the summer to determine what actions he may take that are constitutionally permissible? ... The answer to me is clear: President Obama is delaying the expansion of prosecutorial discretion initiatives to time their announcement as close to the midterm elections as possible to maximize their political impact. In the meantime, while we wait for the President’s next Rose Garden press conference, tens of thousands of immigrants that could potentially benefit will be deported." 

It's comforting to know that in all Fox News universes, Obama is still the problem. 

Image: wagingnonviolence.org