For the sake of argument lets say Scott Walker is our next president. This will be the chain of events:
Barry appears on 60 minutes.
Visit Counter
Monday, July 13, 2015
155 homicides (and counting) in Baltimore this year
I bet the vast majority of those killed were black but the only one who really mattered was Freddie Gray.
----------------------------------------------
Baltimore Mayor Stephanie Rawlings-Blake speaks at a press conference.
BALTIMORE — On the day after Mayor Stephanie Rawlings-Blake fired her police commissioner last week, a man was doing a brisk business selling DVDs from a folding table in front of a Baptist church in West Baltimore. A block away, a CVS Pharmacy stood as a reminder of riots in April, its windows still boarded with plywood, its red brick stained by black smoke.
But the talk at the DVD stand was of the latest trauma here: a surge in killings that has mothers keeping their children indoors. And the consensus, in that riot-scarred neighborhood at least, is that the mayor, and not the ousted commissioner, Anthony W. Batts, is to blame.
"Batts was made to be the fall guy. To save herself, the mayor fired him," declared Woody James, 50, a burly out-of-work deliveryman, as he perused the movies for sale. At that, the DVD salesman, Tony Morse, a city worker on his day off, chimed in: "Fire her, too!"
Ms. Rawlings-Blake, 45, a Democrat, learned long ago that being black does not insulate her from criticism in this majority black city. Even before the death of Freddie Gray, whose fatal spinal cord injury in police custody set off the April unrest, she walked a fine line in trying to repair what she has called the "broken relationship" between residents and the police.
Now the surge in violent crime — as of Wednesday there had been 155 homicides in Baltimore this year, up from 105 in the same period last year — has made the mayor's balancing act even trickier: Can she rein in a Police Department with a long history of aggressive, sometimes abusive behavior and at the same time bring crime under control?
Ms. Rawlings-Blake, who last month became the first black female president of the United States Conference of Mayors, is hardly the only American mayor facing this question. While the deaths of unarmed black men after confrontations with the police over the past year have spurred debate over police use of force around the country, violent crime has also been ticking up in many places.
Homicides are higher than a year ago in New York, Chicago, Philadelphia, Milwaukee, St. Louis and other cities. In Los Angeles, Mayor Eric Garcetti recently announced a 12 percent increase in overall crime, though killings were down slightly.
But unlike most of those cities, Baltimore bears fresh physical and emotional wounds of unrest. So the challenge for Ms. Rawling-Blake, who faces re-election in 2016, is all the more complex.
"I think her biggest challenge is that she has to demonstrate that Mayor Stephanie Rawlings-Blake is the leader of the city of Baltimore, and that she can manage the city," said Edward Reisinger, the City Council vice president, who called for Mr. Batts's ouster on Wednesday hours before she fired him. "As far as I'm concerned, she was doing a good job, but with the civil unrest, I think it lowered her stock."
Ms. Rawlings-Blake says she has already proved that she can make the city safer and improve police-community ties; in 2011, on her watch, there were 197 killings in Baltimore — the lowest number in a decade — and, her office says, brutality complaints dropped. She frames her challenge another way.
"The challenge is rebuilding the hope and the spirit of a traumatized community," she said in a brief interview Thursday after attending a night basketball league game that featured police officers and firefighters shooting hoops alongside teenagers.
The vitriol directed at her does not surprise her, she said. "There are scars. There's anger. We have been through a very rough time."
Ms. Rawlings-Blake grew up around civil rights and politics; her father, Howard Rawlings, known as Pete, was a civil rights activist and one of the most powerful men in the Maryland legislature. At 25, with his help, she became the youngest member of City Council in Baltimore history.
In 2010, when Mayor Sheila Dixon was forced out by scandal, Ms. Rawlings-Blake, who was the Council president, became mayor. She kept the job after winning an election in 2011. But the populist Ms. Dixon is trying to stage a comeback and has just announced that she would challenge the mayor in the Democratic primary next year.
A little something on Dixon from Wikipedia:
On January 9, 2009, Dixon was indicted on twelve felony and misdemeanor counts, including perjury, theft, and misconduct. The charges stem partly from incidents in which she allegedly misappropriated gift cards intended for the poor.
On December 1, 2009, the jury returned a "guilty" verdict on one misdemeanor count of fraudulent misappropriation and Dixon received probation provided she resign as mayor as part of a plea agreement, effective February 4, 2010. She was succeeded by the Baltimore City Council president, Stephanie Rawlings-Blake, on February 4, 2010.
By December 2012, Dixon had completed all of the terms of her probation. The case expected to close by the end 2012. In March 2013, Dixon was said to be considering a return to Baltimore politics. On July 1, 2015, she announced a plan to run again for mayor of Baltimore City.
Why am I bringing this up? Because If she pulls this off can the return Jesse Jackson Jr be far off?
Ms. Rawlings-Blake dismissed any potential threat — "She's not going to be able to run away from her record," she said of Ms. Dixon — but here in West Baltimore, support for Ms. Dixon runs deep. Partly that is because Ms. Dixon is regarded as more of a woman of the people. But people blame the mayor for a slow police response to the riots, and for urban blight and persistent poverty, problems that predate her time in office.
"Look at the streets," said Jackie Washington, 54, a chiropractic assistant, waving an outstretched arm to take in a littered thoroughfare. "It's a mess. It's depressing to come here, to see the things that you see — people getting shot in broad daylight."
This is not the reaction Ms. Rawlings-Blake envisioned in 2012 when she brought in Mr. Batts, a former chief in Oakland and Long Beach, Calif., who likes to call himself "a change agent." He was hired over the objections of one of the mayor's closest allies, City Councilman Brandon M. Scott. Mr. Scott preferred Anthony E. Barksdale, who had overseen the department's operations when crime was declining. Mr. Barksdale retired last year.
With his tough approach to internal discipline and community-minded initiatives—he called for officers to wear body cameras — Mr. Batts, who is also black, rankled the rank and file. But his support in the community began to erode after the riots; an alliance of prominent ministers quickly called for him to resign. "That's not going to happen," he said then.
Even as homicides ticked up — almost half the killings in Baltimore this year have happened after May 1 — the mayor stood by him. But pressure on her built in recent weeks.
On Monday, The Baltimore Sun sparked an uproar with an opinion article by a man who had been mugged while riding his bicycle and found his local police station closed overnight when he arrived to report the crime. Mr. Reisinger, the Council vice president, called it "stupid with a capital S."
On Wednesday morning, a community coalition called for Mr. Batts's head. The City Council began circulating a letter asking the mayor to oust him. The police union issued a report calling the riots "preventable." By afternoon, Mr. Batts, 55, was gone.
Ms. Rawlings-Blake said Mr. Batts had become "a distraction" that hindered the more pressing imperative to fight crime. Some critics wonder what Mr. Batts's removal will really change.
"I'm going to be frank with you: I think this looks like a desperate move," said Delores Jones-Brown, a former New Jersey prosecutor and founder of the Center on Race, Crime and Justice at John Jay College of Criminal Justice in New York. She predicted that it would be hard to replace Mr. Batts with someone equally as community-minded, "who will try to change the crime situation, but who won't be heavy-handed or brutal."
Ms. Rawlings-Blake says she is convinced she can do both; she spent part of Thursday visiting Baltimore police commanders with her interim commissioner, Kevin Davis. A day earlier, he told reporters that, for him, "it's all about the crime fight, and it's all about the relationship with the community."
Councilman Nick Mosby — to the husband of Marilyn J. Mosby, the prosecutor who brought charges against six officers in the death of Mr. Gray — said Ms. Rawlings-Blake had learned, perhaps the hard way, a lesson that all mayors ultimately learn.
"I don't care what race you are or how old you are, I don't care if you are the mayor of New York City or the mayor of Mayberry," said Mr. Mosby, who is often mentioned as a possible mayoral candidate. "Public safety is paramount in the way people judge effectiveness. It's one of the sole barometers of: Is this person a leader or not."
Sunday, July 12, 2015
Our broken immigration system
It's broken alright!
All dead at the hands of illegals.
Believe me this is just the tip of the iceberg.
And who do we have to thank?
Saturday, July 11, 2015
Offensive vs Acceptive
Offensive
Acceptive:
Bill Cosby's star will not be removed from the Hollywood Walk of Fame because it is 'part of its historic fabric'
FICO
Wary euro zone to pass bailout judgment on Greece
BRUSSELS Sceptical European finance ministers gathered on Saturday to decide whether to negotiate a third bailout for Greece after Prime Minister Alexis Tsipras won lawmakers' backing for painful austerity measures his leftist party was elected to prevent.
With Athens staring at a bankruptcy that could see it crash out of the euro zone after financial markets reopen on Monday, EU officials forecast agreement would be reached by the end of the weekend to keep Greece afloat, but not before ministers and government leaders had vented their wrath at Tsipras.
Wolfgang Schaeuble, finance minister of its biggest creditor Germany and a veteran stickler for the EU's fiscal rules, said negotiations would be "exceptionally difficult".
Since Tsipras's leftist government won power in January, he said, emerging optimism about Greece had been "destroyed in an incredible way in the last few months".
Other ministers arriving for the Eurogroup meeting also spoke of a fundamental lack of trust after years of broken Greek promises and a snap referendum Tsipras called, in which voters massively rejected creditors' terms he has since had to embrace.
However, sources familiar with a preparatory meeting earlier on Saturday said ministers' aides had endorsed with reservations a recommendation by EU institutions and the IMF that Tsipras's proposals did provide a basis to launch negotiations.
"We are still far away," said Jeroen Dijsselbloem, the Dutch finance minister who was chairing the meeting. "On both content and the more complicated question of trust, even if it's all good on paper the question is whether it will get off the ground and will it happen ... We are facing a difficult negotiation."
LEFTIST DEFECTIONS
In Athens overnight, Tsipras had to rely on opposition votes from the right in parliament after some of his leftist lawmakers resisted spending cuts, tax rises and other measures he proposed in order to unlock 54 billion euros in three-year credit.
But Germany, the biggest lender in two previous bailouts totalling 240 billion euros ($265 billion) since 2010, is deeply sceptical after five months of abortive talks with Tsipras.
"The high figures for financing needs over the next three years may be too high and too sudden," one euro zone source said. He said officials believed Greece may need 82 billion euros, factoring in cash from the IMF and other EU sources.
Slovak Finance Minister Peter Kazimir, one of the most hawkish critics of Greece, said making the country's debt sustainable was going to be "a huge problem".
A positive assessment of the Greek proposals delivered by the European Commission, European Central Bank and International Monetary Fund late on Friday, along with bullish comments from Athens' key euro zone ally France, had raised expectations that the Eurogroup would give a green light to new loan negotiations.
But several ministers said on arrival that more spending cuts and reform measures were needed, with swift enactment by parliament to show that Greece was serious this time.
Even French Finance Minister Michel Sapin, Greece's most powerful ally in the euro zone, said: "Confidence has been ruined by every Greek government over many years which have sometimes made promises without making good on them at all.
"Now we need to have confidence again, to have certainty that decisions announced are decisions which are actually taken by the Greek government."
German Chancellor Angela Merkel has made clear she does not want to see a "Grexit" that could disrupt a fragile European economic recovery and undermine a supposedly irreversible union. However, she faces stiff opposition among her own conservatives.
Euro zone leaders, including Merkel and French President Francois Hollande, are due to meet on Sunday, either to endorse the ministers' verdict or, along with other EU leaders, to take steps to contain the fallout from a looming Greek bankruptcy.
PARLIAMENT DIVIDED
With Greece's banks shut and completely dependent on a credit lifeline from the European Central Bank, the measures were seen as a last chance to avert financial collapse.
But in an ominous sign for the stability of the Greek government, 10 members on the ruling benches abstained or voted against the measures and another seven were absent, leaving Tsipras short of the 151 seats needed for a majority of his own.
Prominent left-wingers in his Syriza party signalled before the vote that they could not support the mix of tax hikes and spending cuts proposed by Tsipras, following the rejection of similar austerity measures by voters in Sunday's referendum.
Energy Minister Panagiotis Lafazanis, Deputy Labour Minister Dimitris Stratoulis as well as the speaker of parliament, Zoe Constantopoulou, all called "Present", in effect abstaining from the vote and withholding their support from the government.
"The government is being totally blackmailed," Constantopoulou said.
Following the vote, where many leftists in his own party were stunned by his acceptance of previously spurned austerity measures, Tsipras said he would now focus on securing a deal.
"The parliament today gave the government a strong mandate to complete the negotiations and reach an economically viable and socially fair agreement with its partners," he said.
"The priority now is to have a positive outcome to the negotiations. Everything else in its own time."
"HEAVY HEART"
After the jubilation in Athens last Sunday following the resounding rejection of further austerity in a referendum, there was bitterness that parliament was being asked to accept a strikingly similar package of measures.
The leader of the right wing Independent Greeks party, the junior coalition party in Tsipras' government, said his lawmakers would back the proposals "with a heavy heart".
U.S. Treasury Secretary Jack Lew said on Friday that Greece and its creditors appeared to be closer to a deal, calling for an adjustment to Athens' debt burden to ease its cash flow.
Greece asked for 53.5 billion euros ($59 billion) to help cover its debts until 2018, a review of primary budget surplus targets in the light of the sharp deterioration of its economy, and a "reprofiling" of the country's long-term debt.
A senior EU official said the Eurogroup talks would include discussions on whether Greece needs some debt relief.
In addition to cash from the euro zone, if Greece makes payments it missed last month to the IMF, the global lender still has a facility to lend Greece some 16 billion euros.
Any deal would also have to be endorsed by national parliaments including in Germany, which must also formally approve the loan negotiations being started.
The latest offer includes defence spending cuts, a timetable for privatising state assets such as Piraeus port and regional airports, hikes in value added tax for hotels and restaurants and slashing a top-up payment for poorer pensioners.
Greek banks have been closed since June 29, when capital controls were imposed and cash withdrawals rationed after the collapse of previous bailout talks. Greece defaulted on an IMF loan repayment and now faces a critical July 20 bond redemption to the ECB, which it cannot make without aid.
Subscribe to:
Posts
(
Atom
)