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There is some justice

Monday, May 5, 2008

In the world:

The 2008 General Conference of the United Methodist Church, the governing body of Southern Methodist University, today voted to reject SMU’s bid to host the George W. Bush Presidential Library. And the vote tally?

844-20.

HAHAHAHAHAHAHAHA!!!!

That’s really too much. Out of 864 voters, only 20 — that’s 2.3%, if you’re into that sort of thing — supported the idea of having SMU host the Library.

Among other things, it seems the Methodists aren’t too keen on providing Karl Rove with a base of operations, or of the torture friendly policy of the Bush crime gang.

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Counting crimes

Monday, May 5, 2008

The Washington Post reports that fiscal restraints may be leading some states to reverse the trend toward ever higher rates of incarceration. What logic and proportion cannot do, the lack of money can sometimes accomplish. It seems that it is very expensive to incarcerate people, and there does come a point at which even politicians eager to appear tough on crime have to accept the fiscal facts of life.

Matthew Yglesias, at the Atlantic, had this to say:

We do over-imprison people in the United States, so from a humanitarian point of view this is nice to see. On the other hand, it’s also true that the crime rate in the United States remains at what I’d consider an unacceptably high level and there are some indications that it’s on the rise again.

Measuring crime, and computing crime rates, appears to be a tricky business, and I wonder whether we can draw many meaningful conclusions from crime rates. In a recent post I complained about the “home invasion” scare, and the seeming exaggeration of one “home invasion” in the New Haven Independent. I made the point that we already have laws on the book that cover the subject, and we don’t need another one. One commenter pointed out that the one person arrested immediately after that incident was charged with:

# First-degree kidnapping
# First-degree burglary
# First-degree robbery
# First-degree larceny
# First-degree unlawful restraint
# First-degree reckless endangerment
# Second-degree conspiracy to commit assault
# First-degree conspiracy to commit kidnapping
# First-degree conspiracy to commit unlawful restraint

That’s 8 crimes for a single incident. If we pass a law against “home invasion” that would make nine in similar circumstances. When the crime rate is computed, is this one incident counted as one crime or eight? To the victim it certainly must have felt like a single incident. The Wikipedia article to which I’ve linked above notes:

The calculation of crime rates uses data that is obtained either from criminal justice systems or from public surveys. Comparisons between the two types of data are problematic, and so are comparisons using the same type of data between different jurisdictions. The United Nations publishes international reports of both Crime Trends and Operations of Criminal Justice, and Crime Victim Surveys

The reported rate of crime here in the states is, I believe, higher than in other countries, but it seems to me that one would have to be very careful before concluding that the actual crime rate is much different. One would have to control for variables such as multiple charges. Another factor, of course, is the number of crimes. We here in the states seem to feel that we should criminalize everything we don’t like. Some countries are more rational. In addition, at least by some measures a crime doesn’t occur until there is an arrest. If you start arresting for crimes to which you once turned a blind eye, then the crime rate goes up, though behavior hasn’t changed. If other countries in the Western World are more tolerant of victimless crimes then their crime rates will be lower.

I can’t prove any of this, of course. Nonetheless I do suspect that crime rates fluctuate not only because of a real rise in the number of crimes, or in rates of incarceration, but in response to political events or changes in attitudes. We have more people in jail in this country not, necessarily, because we have more criminals, but because it has suited the interests of politicians to put them there. We may very well have a higher crime rate for the same reason. Fear appears to sell in this country. Before there was terrorism there was crime in the streets, and it’s still a useful political diversion. Just ask Jodi Rell.

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Deliver us from (NY Times sanctioned) Experts

Sunday, May 4, 2008

Today the New York Times celebrates the anniversary of Mission Accomplished by asking nine “experts” how we should proceed in Iraq.

Among those experts: Frederick Kagan, L. Paul Bremer, Kenneth M. Pollack and Richard Perle, each of whom has been consistently and disastrously wrong about Iraq from the very start. They are joined by Anne Marie Slaughter, of whom I’ve never heard before, but, through Google, I learn was also a supporter of the war There is not a single article by anyone who opposed the war from the start. One (Anthony Cordesman) warned of potential problems, but does not appear to have actively opposed the war.

We lawyers use experts in court cases. We tend to avoid experts who would fall apart under skillful cross examination. That possibility is, of course, enhanced if the expert in question can be proven to have been consistently wrong in the past.

The Times might consider taking a page from us lawyers. We look for experts who will support our position (which I assume the Times would deny it is doing), but we try to avoid people with a demonstrated record of incompetence. The Times might consider asking someone who has been consistently right about the war to appear in its pages as an expert.

Update: I note from Digby that I missed one. Danielle Pletka, of whom I have apparently been blissfully ignorant, is also a wrong-from-the-starter. I forgot to Google her.

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Friday Night Music, Fats Domino

Friday, May 2, 2008

Okay, so I was looking for Sam Cooke, but there’s slim pickings at youtube for one of the greatest rock/soul pioneers. I try to avoid the videos that just consist of music and still pictures, but that’s pretty much all there is on Sam. At least on that Sam. I also discovered that there is another Sam Cooke, who has talents entirely different than the legend. Search the name at youtube and you’ll see what I mean.

So, by the process of free association, I got to Fats, seen here in what appears to be a clip from some sort of movie. (Is that Danny Kaye in there?) Could you possibly get away, today, with having a group of black performers play to an all white audience? It is a better world today, in many ways. Here’s Fats singing “Ain’t That a Shame”.

[youtube]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2OG3uPULQRs[/youtube]

As a bonus, here’s another, definitely not lip synched, at a joint Ricky Nelson-Fats Domino concert from 1985, which gives me an idea for future Fridays. Blueberry Hill:

[youtube]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Dl5hknXqXps&feature=related[/youtube]

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In case you missed it

Friday, May 2, 2008

Yesterday the Longshoreman’s Union closed the ports of the West Coast to protest the Iraq war. If you’re a Times reader you’d know all about this, if you made your way to page A12.

West Coast ports were shut down on Thursday as thousands of longshoremen failed to report for work, part of what their union leaders said was a one-day, one-shift protest against the war in Iraq.

Cranes and forklifts stood still from Seattle to San Diego, and ships were stalled at sea as workers held rallies up and down the coast to blame the war for distracting public attention and money from domestic needs like health care and education.

“We’re loyal to America, and we won’t stand by while our country, our troops and our economy are being destroyed by a war that’s bankrupting us to the tune of $3 trillion,” the president of the International Longshore and Warehouse Union, Bob McEllrath, said in a written statement. “It’s time to stand up, and we’re doing our part today.”

The Times has sometimes expressed regret for its shameless pimping of the Iraq War in the palmy days of Fall, 2002, when Judith Miller had a direct line to the very best WMD fantasies money could buy. It has never expressed regret, so far as I know, for systematically ignoring and downplaying the extent of war opposition at that time. No doubt a closure of our ports is nowhere near as important as yet another story (Page 1, of course) about the tiresome Jeremiah Wright. The Times always has it both ways. They will bemoan the press feeding frenzy distractions on their editorial pages, while joining in with gusto on their front page. We await with patience similar coverage of McCain’s bigoted religious supporters.

Anyway, good for the Longshoremen.

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It’s a holiday!

Thursday, May 1, 2008

For most of the world, it’s May Day. For George Bush, it’s Mission Accomplished Day. For us lawyers, it’s Law Day, a reaction to May Day, no doubt.

Herewith, (via Lawyers, Guns and Money) in honor of Law Day, a liberal lawyer’s wet dream, at least the first half of it is:

[youtube]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-GG7sj2APpc[/youtube]

Being a TV illiterate, I had no idea where this was from. I couldn’t believe anyone would put dialog like this into a real show about lawyers. But someone did. It’s from a show called Boston Legal. Totally absurd. But anyway, it was fun viewing.

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Crime wave in Connecticut

Wednesday, April 30, 2008

I suppose it’s just me, but I find the “Home Invasion” scare that is currently the rage a little puzzling. These incidents are covered as if they represent a species of crime without precedent. We have, in fact, had laws on the books for years that deal with all aspects of this type of crime. Burglary, breaking and entering, assault and battery, murder and manslaughter have all been against the law since the Middle Ages. In fact, if my dim recollection of my law school education is correct, some of them were actually crimes at common law, meaning that there was originally no positive legislation on them. I could be wrong about that, but in any event they have an ancient lineage.

Nor do I quite understand the push for new laws. All of these crimes carry penalties more than sufficient to provide whatever deterrent the criminal law provides, and more than sufficient to punish if punishment is the objective. The legislation that Rell briefly threatened to veto, passed in response to these incidents, might do some good in terms of improving the judicial system or the probation and parole system, but it’s not going to provide deterrence. A potential “home invader” is not likely to pause due to the prospect that there are two laws covering conduct previously adequately covered by one.

What brings this to mind is my growing suspicion that we will see a rash of these incidents as the definition of “home invasion” is broadened, so that the newspapers and TV stations can do what they like to do best: spread fear. Here’s a possible case in point, a story about an incident which, according to the New Haven Independent, has an entire neighborhood “reeling”:

A 55-year-old woman was house-sitting at 97 Loomis Place Tuesday night when three men burst into the house, according to police. They beat her in the head with a baseball bat and tied her to a chair while they looted the home. After stealing some items, including a computer and some ice cream, they drove off in the woman’s car. The woman called 911 at 11:40 p.m.

I am having trouble believing that this story belongs in the big leagues. Of course, I could be wrong, but a few details give me pause. First of all, I am not the strongest person in the world, but it’s hard for me to conceive that I could avoid killing or causing serious brain injury to a person should I choose to “beat her in the head with a baseball bat”. (In my dictionary the first definition of “beat” is “to strike repeatedly”) A baseball bat is a very hard object, and unless one is gripping it only a few inches from the sweet spot, it packs a powerful punch. And I know skulls are hard, but I’d put my money on a properly wielded bat any day of the week. I can’t honestly see why anyone would need to tie someone up after truly beating them on the head with a bat. These invaders must have been singularly inept batters to cause such little injury that the lady was able to call 911 shortly after being beaten. Maybe they were, since they also appear to be rather inept looters, if “ice cream” made the list of specified stolen objects.

I’m not suggesting this was not a serious act. (Double negative, I know, but I’m sticking with it). I’m merely suggesting that the Invasion of the Home Invaders is being seriously overhyped in this state, and that the details of this incident may have been enhanced in the re-telling. We need to take a deep breath and recognize that there’s nothing new under the sun. Not every incident of this sort is a replay of the tragedy in Cheshire, so not every incident of this sort should be compared to that situation, as the Independent does with this story.

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Pushing back

Wednesday, April 30, 2008

Apparently John Kerry learned something from the Swift Boat episode:

This is what Democrats need to do. Like all bullies, and the broadcast press is composed primarily of bullies, they back down in the face of determined opposition. Notice the look on her face when he pushes back.

One of the reasons we need to get rid of Hillary now is so that every Democrat in front of any camera anywhere can get on message and start pushing back against these people. They will stop if they are constantly challenged. Right now, the Hillary folks, dead enders that they are, are getting plenty of air time and are feeding this frenzy.

Even Kerry’s approach is only half way there. Just as the Republicans have accused the media of having a “liberal bias”, the Democrats have to accuse the media of bias at every turn. At this point it happens to be true. When these things come up they should be ready to ask why the media is not following John Hagee around, and why they’re not hanging Hagee around McCain’s neck. Stephanopoulos was roundly criticized after the Pennsylvania debate and he felt compelled to confront McCain on that issue the following Sunday. Of course he wasn’t nearly as offensive with McCain as he was with Obama, nor did he press McCain as he would have pressed Obama, but these things take time.

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Distractions continue

Tuesday, April 29, 2008

I mentioned a couple of days ago that my kids were visiting this weekend, so I wasn’t paying attention to the Jeremiah Wright 24/7 coverage. Apparently a Clinton supporter unleashed the man onto the national stage and the press, as is its wont, dutifully engaged in the pack journalism that is the hallmark of our times. Chris Matthews, for instance, was amused at the idea that the press should recognize that Obama is not Wright. According to Chris, they are Jekyll and Hyde.

I don’t remember the book Maybe he’s right. Was Mr. Hyde intent on destroying Dr. Jekyll in the same way Wright appears to want to destroy Obama? And are the members of our vaunted press corps so stupid that they can’t see that Wright can not be oblivious to what he is doing. In the face of that, can they continue to hold Obama responsible for Wright’s views? Of course they can!

I have faith, though. Now that Obama has thoroughly disassociated himself from Wright, the press will start to cover John Hagee, report breathlessly on his every pronouncement, and will hector John McCain until Mr. Maverick Straight Talker denounces Hagee in equally unequivocal terms. Surely it is not only black preachers that represent a threat to American values and of course the press can see that seeking the endorsement of a confirmed bigot is far worse than being a parishioner of a loose cannon. In fact, I’m sure Chris Matthews will lead the way.

Here’s part of Obama’s speech.

[youtube]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JicZeBkg67A[/youtube]

I have to give this guy credit for trying to keep the national conversation out of the gutter. I hope it works. I’ve seen it fail too often, but these are no ordinary times. Whether the media like it or not, the sorry state of our country might just concentrate people’s minds on what’s important. The media cannot, after all, always sell their narrative. After all, if they could do that, Hillary would now be the former wife of an impeached President.

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AP accepts Republican spin as gospel

Tuesday, April 29, 2008

We liberals are often frustrated by the refusal of the press to call the Republicans or the right when they out and out lie. No claim they make is absurd enough to warrant anything other than “on the one hand, on the other hand” type of coverage. Not to worry, that type of coverage is not universal. The AP proved today that it is perfectly ready to point out falsehoods, but only, it appears if its Democrats that are doing the falsifying. Here’s what the AP had to say about a Democratic ad attacking John McCain:

“The Republican National Committee demanded Monday that television networks stop running a television ad by the Democratic Party that falsely suggests John McCain wants a 100-year war in Iraq.”

Now, as Editor and Publisher points out, the AP is accepting the Republican spin, it is not saying that the Republicans allege it is false, it is saying that the ad falsely suggests something. Here’s the ad:

[youtube]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=f6ul9iMgmOw[/youtube]

In fact, there is no allegation either way. You can infer what you want. The AP has taken Republican spin as gospel. What else is new though. By the way, there is a Republican politician who disagrees with what McCain says is his position: that we should stay in Iraq indefinitely as we remain in Europe and Korea. That would be straight talker John McCain (2005 version) who had this to say:

Three years before the Arizona Republican argued on the campaign trail that U.S. forces could be in Iraq for 100 years in the absence of violence, he decried the very concept of a long-term troop presence.

In fact, when asked specifically if he thought the U.S. military should set up shop in Iraq along the lines of what has been established in post-WWII Germany or Japan — something McCain has repeatedly advocated during the campaign — the senator offered nothing short of a categorical “no.”

“I would hope that we could bring them all home,” he said on MSNBC. “I would hope that we would probably leave some military advisers, as we have in other countries, to help them with their training and equipment and that kind of stuff.”

Host Chris Matthews pressed McCain on the issue. “You’ve heard the ideological argument to keep U.S. forces in the Middle East. I’ve heard it from the hawks. They say, keep United States military presence in the Middle East, like we have with the 7th Fleet in Asia. We have the German…the South Korean component. Do you think we could get along without it?”

McCain held fast, rejecting the very policy he urges today. “I not only think we could get along without it, but I think one of our big problems has been the fact that many Iraqis resent American military presence,” he responded. “And I don’t pretend to know exactly Iraqi public opinion. But as soon as we can reduce our visibility as much as possible, the better I think it is going to be.”

We will, of course, hear nothing from the “liberal” press about this flip flop, not even from Matthews, to whom he made the statements. Throughout the campaign we will be told that McCain is a guy who sticks to his positions and gives us nothing but straight talk.

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