Saturday, December 28, 2019

Abolish the Police? A dangerous new idea is inspiring some criminal-justice activists.

Contrary to the utopian vision of Rousseau and his intellectual descendants, chaos is not freedom; order is not slavery. In the modern world, civilization cannot be rolled back without dire consequences.

Manhattan Institute for Policy Research  "The latest call to action from some criminal-justice activists: “Abolish the police.” From the streets of Chicago to the city council of Seattle, and in the pages of academic journals ranging from the Cardozo Law Review to the Harvard Law Review and of mainstream publications from the Boston Review to Rolling Stone, advocates and activists are building a case not just to reform policing—viewed as an oppressive, violent, and racist institution—but to do away with it altogether. When I first heard this slogan, I assumed that it was a figure of speech, used to legitimize more expansive criminal-justice reform. But after reading the academic and activist literature, I realized that “abolish the police” is a concrete policy goal. The abolitionists want to dismantle municipal police departments and see “police officers disappearing from the streets.”
"One might dismiss such proclamations as part of a fringe movement, but advocates of these radical views are gaining political momentum in numerous cities. In Seattle, socialist city council candidate Shaun Scott, who ran on a “police abolition” platform, came within 1,386 votes of winning elected office. During his campaign, he argued that the city must “[disinvest] from the police state” and “build towards a world where nobody is criminalized for being poor.” At a debate hosted by the Seattle Police Officers Guild, Scott blasted “so-called officers” for their “deep and entrenched institutional ties to racism” that produced an “apparatus of overaggressive and racist policing that has emerged to steer many black and brown bodies back into, in essence, a form of slavery.” Another Seattle police abolitionist, Kirsten Harris-Talley, served briefly in as an appointed city councilwoman. Both Scott and Harris-Talley enjoy broad support from the city’s progressive establishment.
"What would abolishing police mean as a practical policy matter? Nothing very practical. In The Nation, Mychal Denzel Smith argues that police should be replaced by “full social, economic, and political equality.” Harris-Talley, meantime, has traced policing’s origins back to slavery. “How do you reform an institution that from its inception was made to control, maim, condemn, and kill people?” she asks. “Reform it back to what?” If cities can eliminate poverty through affordable housing and “investing in community,” she believes, the police will become unnecessary. Others argue that cities must simply “help people resolve conflicts through peace circles and restorative justice programs.' ” . . .


No police? Well, there will always be the National Guard.  Or will there?

Isn’t Bernie a socialist? Why, yes, he is and that’s bad. Updated, and that's good!

Update: Hat tip to Levi England
Bookworm Room
Contrary to the promise in a pro-Bernie website that socialism is great, it’s not: It destroys economies and makes people prisoners of their own government.
"The website I Like Bernie, But…, which was created in 2016 and has been updated for 2019, takes it upon itself to answer concerned readers who ask “Isn’t Bernie a socialist?” It assures these people that Bernie isn’t a socialist socialist. Instead, he’s a democratic socialist, which the website promises is something entirely different:
"The above conclusions are just wrong, and they’re so very wrong that they need to be corrected and explained in a lot of paragraphs.  Here goes:" 
"To begin with, you need to understand what it really means to be a socialist.  Only then can you understand that putting the word “democratic” in front of “socialist” doesn’t change anything.
"So, what is a “socialist” system?  Think of the realm of available politics as a line moving from left to right.  On the far left side are totalitarian regimes, which means government has all the control and the people have none.  At the far right side is anarchy, which means there is no government at all, although the resulting chaos usually means that people have no control either.  (Ironically, anarchy usually ends when a strong man takes over and creates a totalitarian regime.)"

Why Bureaucracy, Not Your Doctor, Is Making All Your Medical Decisions

The Federalist
With the current third-party payment structure, you doctor does not practice as much medicine on you as insurance executives and federal bureaucrats do.
"Americans, who practices medicine on you? The answer may seem self-evident, but it is not. In our current health-care system, millions of nameless, faceless government or private insurance bureaucrats practice medicine on you without a license for medicine.
"You may think your life is in your doctor’s hands, but it is not. The bureaucrats, not you or your doctor, make your medical and financial decisions. Consider these health-care decisions:

  • Diagnosis
  • Treatment: what, when, where, by whom
  • Medications
  • Paying for care
"Your doctor does not express your diagnosis in words such as arthritis, asthma, or heart failure. If a physician or hospital wants to be paid, they must use a letter-number diagnosis listed in the International Classification of Disease (ICD-10) code book, which turns 1,400 human ailments into more than 68,000 codes. Examples of these “diagnoses” include: W55.21 (bitten by a cow); W61.33 (pecked by a chicken); V00.01 (pedestrian on foot injured in collision with roller blader); Z63.1 (problem with in-laws); and my personal favorite, Y92.146 (injured at a swimming pool within a prison).
"Once a diagnostic code is established, you expect the doctor to recommend the correct treatment by the most experienced operator in the best facility at the optimal time given your medical condition. In reality, you will receive whatever the insurance carrier allows, whenever the carrier allows it, at a contracted facility, by a specialist on the insurance carrier’s panel. All those medical choices are made by nameless, faceless bureaucrats, not your personal medical caregiver.
"Doctors Don’t Get to Make the Decisions  
"Clinical advisories and guidelines written by federal administrators have become medical mandates. These treatment plans generally work well for large populations but do not allow for the specific idiosyncrasies, variations, or allergies of individual patients that only their personal physicians know. Although wanting the best care for you, if the doctor deviates from the approved treatment plan, he or she risks reprimand, financial penalty, and even loss of clinical privileges." . . .

US Air Force deploys new weapon to deal with Iran, North Korea

“We hit every target we wanted to,” Boeing’s CHAMP Program Manager Keith Colman said in a company press release. “Today we made science fiction into science fact.”
Graphic shows the Counter-electronics High Power Microwave Advanced Missile Project (CHAMP) missle taking out a target.

"(by Ronald Kessler for UK Daily Mail) – The U.S. Air Force has deployed at least 20 missiles that could zap the military electronics of North Korea or Iran with high-power microwaves, rendering their military capabilities virtually useless without causing any fatalities….
"Known as the Counter-Electronics High Power Microwave Advanced Missile Project (CHAMP), the missiles were built by Boeing’s Phantom Works for the U.S. Air Force Research Laboratory (AFRL) and tested successfully in 2012. They have not been operational until now.
"The microwave weapons are fitted into an air-launched cruise missile and delivered from B-52 bombers. With a range of 700 miles, they can fly into enemy airspace at low altitude and emit sharp pulses of high power microwave (HPM) energy that fry computer chips, disabling any electronic devices targeted by the missiles without causing any collateral damage.
"Mary Lou Robinson, the chief of the High Power Microwave Division of the Air Force Research Lab at Kirtland Air Force Base, confirmed that the missiles are now operational and ready to take out any target."


Murkowski is 'Disturbed,' All Right; "Impartiality"? Come now!

Interestingly, Murkowski’s became “disturbed” after #NeverTrumper Bill Kristol of the now-defunct Weekly Standard and his group, Republicans for the Rule of Law, targeted Murkowski with a million-dollar ad buy to persuade her and other wavering GOP Senators to turn on Trump:
Daniel John Sobieski   "Today the character of Jeff Flake, the former resident Hamlet of the Senate, is being played by GOP Sen. Lisa Murkowski, who originally inherited her Senate seat from her daddy, Frank Murkowski. Murkowski the daughter says she is “disturbed” by Sen. Majority Leader Mitch McConnell’s statements that he will be working closely with and taking his cues from President Trump in any impeachment trial in the Senate.
"Imagine that -- the leader of her party in the Senate defending the President from her party from a political coup involving one sham investigation after another with no real crime, not even a poll-tested crime. There is no real evidence, except for fake evidence paid for by the DNC and Hillary Clinton and/or manufactured and manipulated by Obama’s corrupted FBI, DoJ, and intelligence community complete with forged documents and hidden exculpatory evidence. This does not disturb Murkowski, but McConnell objecting to and refusing to participate in this charade does disturb her: . . .
. . . 
Full and fair process?  Murkowski was silent when. Rep. Adam Schiff was conducting his star-chamber depositions of hearsay witnesses in the House catacombs, when Team Trump was being denied due process, the presumption of innocence, and the right to confront one’s accuser. McConnell called it what it is – a charade. . . .
. . . 
Murkowski is hardly a profile in courage. During the confirmation of Supreme Court Justice Brett Kavanaugh she invoked her own purity test in opposition: . . .
. . . 
Chuck Schumer blasts Mitch McConnell for declared partiality on impeachment but said the same thing himself in 1999
. . . "Actually, what I'm most amazed about is that CNN[!] of all places spotted the hypocrisy and double standard." . . .
WSJ's Jason Riley: Murkowski Using "Democratic Talking Points" On Trump Impeachment Trial  "We know how it played out in the House. They were not able to peel off Republicans, even Republicans that were retiring like James Sensenbrenner and Will Hurd. They had nothing to lose. The Democrats were unable to peel them off.
"Murkowski is not up for election. She is quirky. She does have an independent streak. We saw that in the Brett Kavanaugh hearings, we saw it in the Obamacare repeal vote. I do wish she would stop using Democratic talking points to make the argument that she is making. I mean, the fact of the matter here is that the House's job is done and this idea that they should have any say in how the Senate conducts this trial just is not supported by what is written in black-and-white in the Constitution.

"The idea that Mitch McConnell isn't going to be bipartisan enough or objective enough, that is not his job. I expect him to be as bipartisan as Nancy Pelosi was and as Adam Schiff and Jerry Nadler were. The job of being objective lies with Chief Justice Roberts, who will be overseeing the Senate trial. Mitch McConnell is a Republican leader in the Senate and I expect him to act like it." . . .

Democrats seeking votes around the country

Photosnark by The Earl of Taint