Corruption by the Numbers

Adrian Schoolcraft is a US Navy Veteran and an eight year veteran of the New York Police Department.

Schoolcraft is ethical. I would say ethical to a fault but I don't believe there can be a fault in being ethical.  Over the course of eight years documenting via voice recording a systematic method of statistical manipulation.  Another term for it is cooking the books.  Another term, popularized by the show the Wire, is called juking the stats.  

It's a method of fudging the numbers with respect to law enforcement so that the Police Department, politicians, and cities look better.  It means making rape charges into assaults.  It means making grand theft charges into petty larceny.  It means arresting citizens simply so that a precinct can say their doing their jobs despite a citizen having done nothing wrong.

The consequences are dire.  Rapists walk free while a victims faith in the justice system dies.  A working citizens property is stolen and months of economic output is down the drain while a thief is free to strike again.  A citizen is arrested, given an arrest record, and now may be unable to get a job just so a politician or a police commander can look good.

Adrian Schoolcraft thought this was wrong and so do I.  He recorded his commanders for years.  The evidence is damning.  It is clear that there is an multi-year conspiracy to subvert justice for reputations sake.  It is frightening to say the least.

In retaliation Schoolcraft was involuntarily institutionalized by officers from his precinct once he internally filed charges against them (or rather for the people of New York City).  As a result Schoolcraft was suspended without pay. 

Just recently Richard A. Brown, the District Attorney in Queens, refused to file charges with the Grand Jury in Queens, New York, citing that the police hadn't committed any crime.  He cites an extensive investigation but refuses to release any information about the investigation.  Corruption stinks from the head and the Queens DA's office smells atrocious.

This level of corruption can not be allowed to stand.  If it can stand with years of recordings the illegal arrests will continue, violent criminals will walk free, and citizens will be in danger.  The people of New York must demand an investigation not only into the Schoolcraft case but into CompStat so that it can be utilized and not abused.  While it is run by math and algorithms the results of this computer program are all too real.

Police officers are asked to fabricate charges for the system.  Real crimes are ignored in order to keep up appearances.  Citizens are harassed and arrested.  And civilians are put in danger.  

There must be an investigation, not only to punish corrupt cops in this case, but to help cops.  The tail is wagging the dog.  That tail is a computer system.  And for once it's the cops that need our help because otherwise there is no way to stop it.

The Problem with Comprehensive Immigration Reform

I have no problem with poor Hispanics coming to the United States.  The fact of the matter is that there are lots of jobs that Americans simply won't do.  It's because we don't have to do that type of work.  

The average American can read.  The average American can speak English.  With those two skills alone the average American can become a clerk in a clothing store or a customer service representative or a UPS driver.  These aren't the best jobs (outside of UPS which is actually pretty good) but they're not picking turnips or feeding chickens or working in a 24 hour diner.  

Those are terrible jobs, backbreaking, low paying, non-prestigious jobs that most Americans simply will not do.  We won't even apply for them.  Therefore I have no problem with some brown people coming over the border to make sure the countries basic needs are taken care of.  Who am I to criticize immigration reform when every guy who delivers my food to my apartment is an illegal immigrant?  These people want jobs, they need jobs, we need workers, next question.

However I do have a problem with a little caveat in immigration reform that no one is talking about.

The Obama administration and members of Congress keep talking about importing STEM Immigrants.  This is an entirely different breed of immigrant from the South American crossing the border to simply have a shot at the American Dream.  This type of worker is highly educated, will be highly paid, and will displace the American white collar worker.  

Make no mistake.  We've seen this movie before.  Business leaders of every stripe told the people of Ohio, Michigan, Indiana, Wisconsin, Western Pennsylvania, and the rest of the Industrial Midwest that NAFTA would be good for them.  Let Adam Smith's Invisible Hand of Commerce pave the way.  They were right.  The way was paved. It was a straight road from Middle Class Way to Poverty Place.  Jobs, factories, and solid wages moved South of the Border and across seas at an alarming place.  The Industrial Midwest is still reeling.

Now the same thing is happening again. 

Don't believe me.  Ask the business community. They'll tell you themselves.

Corporations are telling Congress, piggybacking off of the Hispanic populous (which is a shame in and of itself), to open the borders.   Don't just deal with the illegal immigration issue that is currently on the books but open up the ranks of white collar workers as well.  Open the borders to cannibalize white collar wages. 

The infection of outsourcing is moving up the food chain and into the nation proper.  Instead of outsourcing work we are importing workers.  Make no mistake, we are creating a new class of struggling Americans.  Only this time with college degrees.

What happens with H1-B (visa) workers is very simple.  They are in essence indentured servants.  If the employer revokes their employment they are required to return to their home country.  Therefore they will take a lower wage, work under unreasonable conditions, ultimately sacrificing self-respect in order to maintain a visa.  Employers then take liberties with American workers because they can.

Only in America do the politicians and business leaders cut the throats of their own workers in one breath and then ask for their votes and loyalty in the next.

The coming comprehensive immigration reform bill is a Trojan Horse and is the new NAFTA for what's left of the middle class.  Those same Millennials that voted for Barack Obama will be disillusioned in the next ten years.  This will be a textbook lesson in how a voter becomes jaded.  

We often criticize France, Germany, and England.  But try to get a job over there as a foreigner.  It is near impossible.  Yet Americans seem to be the only country where politicians will serve up their workers on a silver platter.  Don't worry middle class.  Apologies will follow.  Your financial security however will be gone forever.

The Case Against Susan Rice and For Chuck Hagel

When Susan Rice's nomination went down in flames I felt incensed.  How dare Hillary Clinton not step up and take responsibility?  (I still feel that way.)  Why didn't President Obama defend her?  (I've reconsidered that view.)  Then the emotions subsided as emotions do and logic took it's rightful place, in the driver's seat of the mind.  And I realized two things.  One: Obama was right to accept Susan Rice's withdrawal.  The reason he was right:  Chuck Hagel.

Susan Rice is capable.  Make no mistake.  She's a Stanford and Oxford graduate, has a Ph.D.,  graduated Phi Beta Kappa, and was a consultant at McKinsey, no small feat.  She worked for the Clintons, the premier political establishment in nascent years.  

While I am no fan of qualification as birthright (I think it's un-American) there is something to be said for surroundings.  Her father was a Federal Reserve Board Governor and a Ph.D., as well which means he had a familiarity with the political culture.  Rice also grew up around luminaries.  Madeline Albright says she knew Rice since Rice was four years old.  It's safe to say Rice had some pretty enlightening conversations around the dinner table.

Alas, the problems.

Susan Rice

For the job in which she was in the running, ironically, Rice has a temperament problem.  She is not given to small talk, is a straight shooter, smart, but is also known to be no-nonsense and have sharp elbows.  This temperament  very similar to Barack Obama's, has endeared her to the President.  But while that is a plus in a lot of fields it may not be so as a Secretary of State.  

If Rice were to be in negotiations with the Foreign Minister of China she may have to waltz about many issues delicately balancing the Senkaku Islands (or the Diaoyu depending on your view), the issue of rare earths, as well as relations with the Vietnamese.  This requires a soft touch, a touch that Rice may not be temperamentally befitted.  To quote the Russian Ambassador to the U.N., when informed that Rice would be remaining on that job, he said that his employer would have to compensate him with "double pay" to make it worth the "stress."

Second, it doesn't seem that Rice knows when to kiss the ring, when to show a little leg.  John McCain is no friend of Susan Rice.  She hurt him during his campaign for President.  Lindsay Graham has an election to win and may face a primary challenge.  Susan Rice has never faced an election for anything in her life.  

Creatives are the kings in Hollywood.  Celebrities and Money Men (and Women) are the kings of New York.  Elected officials, empowered by the people of their districts, are the kings in Washington, D.C.  It's what the founding fathers intended and it's a damn hard job: balancing fundraisers, business leaders, constituents, unexpected events, unions, and politically shifting terrain can't be easy.  To quote Jay-Z: "I paid the cost to be the boss and floss this hard.  I recall a year ago I almost lost this job."  Susan Rice never paid the cost.  

Therefore she must cow-tow  show deference, and realize that her position is in deference to every elected official in D.C.  In short she had to take crap from McCain, Graham, and Collins and placate them, assuage them, salve wounds, soothe egos, make promises, romance and seduce them.  In short she had to politic. (And to be sure, that's not a man-thing or a woman-thing, it's a politics thing.)  She was unable to do that.

To have a Secretary of State that does not know when or even how to politic, that is, to use Susan Collins' word "troubling".

Chuck Hagel

Chuck Hagel's resume is flawless:  Vietnam War veteran, well-liked by his colleagues, former business executive and CEO in a innovative field for it's time: cell phones, two-term Senator, described as amiable and smart, Georgetown professor ... the list goes on and on.

But the most glaring difference between Hagel and Rice is this: when trouble came Susan Rice was alone in the wind but Hagel's friends ... are legion.  

When he was attacked by pro-Israel groups and pro-marriage equality groups his friends came out of the woodwork to defend him.  See below:

Postscript: Already, Hagel has been defended by a strikingly diverse array of voices, including (in addition to people I mentioned in the piece) Dana Milbank of the Washington Post; John Judis ofThe New Republic; Andrew Sullivan of the Daily Beast; Scott McConnell and Daniel Larison of The American Conservative; the progressive pro-Israel group J Street; the Center for American Progress blog ThinkProgress; Stephen Walt of Foreign Policy and Harvard; Steve Clemons of The Atlantic and the New America Foundation; Jim Fallows of The Atlantic; Emily Hauser of Open Zion;Marsha B. Cohen and Jim Lobe at Lobeblog; Nicholas Kristof of The New York Times; Clyde Prestowitz, formerly US Trade Representative in a Republican administration, in Foreign Policy;Robert Merry at The National Interest; former U.S. Ambassador to Israel Daniel Kurtzer; and former U.S. Middle East negotiator Aaron David Miller (author of the book in which Hagel's "Jewish Lobby" quote appears). Update: Also, former National Security Adviser Brent Scowcroft and former Deputy Secretary of State Richard Armitage. Update, 12/20: A bunch of former US ambassadors--including five former ambassadors to Israel--have now written a letter saying Hagel has "impeccable" credentials to be secretary of defense: Nicholas Burns, former Under Secretary of State for Political Affairs, Ambassador to NATO and Greece; Ryan Crocker, former Ambassador to Iraq and Afghanistan; Edward Djerejian, former Ambassador to Israel and Syria; William Harrop, former Ambassador to Israel; Daniel Kurtzer, former Ambassador to Israel and Egypt; Sam Lewis, former Ambassador to Israel; William H. Luers, former Ambassador to Venezuela and Czechoslovakia; Thomas R. Pickering, former Under Secretary of State for Political Affairs, Ambassador to Israel and Russia; Frank G. Wisner, former Under Secretary of Defense for Policy, Ambassador to Egypt and India.

Need I say more.  Washington is a town of relationships.  This is the reason Leon Panetta has served in every major office in D.C.   Politics is a business of loyalties. If you don't have loyalty, if you don't have a network of relationships by which one can gain information, insight, and see around curves, it strikes me that you might be toast.

Hillary's Cowardice and Christie's Appeal

On Morning Joe  tragedy was followed travesty.  The tragedy was the deaths of Chris Stevens, Tyrone Woods, Glen Dougherty, and Sean Smith.  These were four brave Americans looking to serve their country, not in some cushy post in France or Thailand but rather in Bengazi.  No one goes to Bengazi for the nightlife or the food.  Their service was the hard work that needs to be done.  In an impure world their work was pure and done out of love of country.  Period.

Then comes the tragedy (see below: 3:15 - 4:20).




Hillary Clinton ran the State Department.  In essence Barack Obama outsourced it to Hillary letting her run it as she has seen fit.  And by and large she has done a magnificent job.  Libya. Syria. The Arab Spring. Handling Iran.  All exemplary work.  But success has 1,000 fathers.  The character of a leader is revealed in failure.  Then came Bengazi.

Instead of Hillary Clinton standing up, saying 'this happened on my watch, I'll stand tall, and take responsibility,' what has she done?  She has been a coward, plain and simple.  Some would call it smart.  I call it cowardice.  

Instead of her saying that Bengazi happened on my watch.  I'll do the talk shows.  I'll take the heat she had Susan Rice take the political bullet.  Susan Rice was politically bludgeoned and hung out to dry.  

Now that the Bengazi report is actually out and says that there were a multitude of errors Hillary Clinton is now sick like a kid who falls ill on the day of the final exam.  How convenient.  Who does she think she's kidding?

Finally,the media and Republicans are complicit, completely complicit.  Jane Harman is the perfect example in this case.  But make no mistake.  She's not alone.   

Hillary is running in 2016.  Bet it.  And political hacks like Jane Harman are playing the game and bastardizing the truth.  They are downplaying Hillary's leadership role on this issue and deflecting blame every which way hoping to parlay threadbare integrity (on this issue) for a potential position in a Hillary Administration.  Like I said, it's a sin and a shame.

Finally, the Republicans.  They got shellacked in the last election.  They think it was because of demographic groups.  They couldn't be more wrong.  They got shellacked for an entirely different reason.  They got beaten badly because they can't explain, from their perspective, why Republican ideas are the best ideas for America.  It's that simple.

But instead of taking away the right message, Republicans have decided to be cowards.  Shame on John McCain.  Taking out Susan Rice at the knees but because Republicans are scared of offending women they won't take on Hillary Clinton on this essential, leadership issue.  I guess the straight talk express is out of service.  Demographics are not destiny.  Vision is victory.

This is why Chris Christie is appealing.  He has a reputation for standing up and calling a spade a spade.  The calculating, the type of calculation that voters find unappealing about Barack Obama, is the same thing that voters find unappealing about Hillary.  Smart?  Yes.  American?  Not so much.

The Newtown Women versus the World

Yesterday I thought that despite all the rhetoric nothing would come of the Newtown massacre.  Despite the emotional outpouring emotions dissipate and time moves on.  But today I'm not so sure.

It won't be men that drive this change.  While men will be participants it won't be men that drive the changes in gun laws, and yes, there will be changes in gun laws.  But it will be women who drive it.  

I don't know why.  Maybe it's the fact that every child is actually physically connected, and lives inside their mother from inception.  Maybe it's the fact that mothers physically nurse and are the first people to bond with their children.  Maybe it's the fact that she is the one who feeds you first.  But the fact remains that for most people the bond between mother and child is inexplicable and unbreakable.  Now the worst possible nightmare for any mother and therefore in this scenario, for all mothers have happened.  An occurrence all too common for mothers, dropping their young ones, their vulnerable, off at school, their first socializing experience, their first educational experience, resulted in death, massacre, by the hands of a madman armed by both a gun and the law.

Just as mother's decided that drunk driving must stop.  Just as mother's decided that breast cancer research must be funded so mothers will decide that the gun laws must be changed.

This change will happen because both Republican and Democratic women will unite forming an unbreakable bond that supersedes party, the bond of motherhood.  "In Rana there was a voice heard, lamentation, and weeping, and great mourning, Rachel weeping for her children, and would not be comforted, because they are not." -- Matthews 2:18.  

Know that the women of Newtown and the women of America will not be comforted until they change the laws because until all children are safe their consciences will not rest in God's eternal grace.

The Newtown Solution

Let's be real.  After every tragedy we lie to ourselves.  The television hosts stand on a soap box and say "enough," for the fifth time.  The conservative politicians say "it's the video games and the movies" knowing that there is no way they're going to curb violence in movies and video games.  The liberal politicians say "get the assault rifles," and that won't happen either.  The mechanics of Washington, the NRA, the MPAA, and the campaign dollars that they give, kick into action.  And we all wait for the next killing fields coming to a theatre, a school, a mall near you.

So what can we actually do?  We know the problem.  The problem isn't the guns.  The US has 200 million guns and 200 spree killings.  That's less than .1%.  

The problem isn't the movies and the video games.  The US sells more movies and video games globally than locally.  Yet you don't hear about spree killings in Korea or in Dusseldorf, Germany.  Yet these people consume as many or more US media products than anyone else.

Rather, the problem is the intersection of these items with a sick mind and ignorance. Law enforcement has no idea where these intersections occur. So what's the solution.  What's really possible?  Perhaps the solution isn't simply legal, cultural, but is rather digital.

The Solution:

The Consumer Protection Financial Bureau has one of the most user friendly interfaces out of any government agency I've ever seen.  Complaints are trackable, responsive, and it's interface is modern unlike most government agencies.

Step 1:  Get these same people to write a suite of applications across all devices, iPhones, Androids, tablets, and the Internet.  The purpose of this system is a receipting system.  

Step 2:  Congress must pass a law that says very simply any weapon or weapon related item (extended clips, bulletproof vests, etc.) that is transferred must be registered on this system.  Also any future sale must be registered at the point of sale whether that sale is conducted in brick and mortar facilities, at a trade show or online.

Step 3:  The penalty for a weapon transfer without registration must be a stiff one with no exceptions, 5 years in federal prison with no parole for both the giver and the receiver of the item.

Step 4:  The ATF should hire data engineers.  These engineeers should build algorithms that basically spit out the names and addresses of anyone building an arsenal used to kill people.  Not a family with a passion for hunting but people killing weapons, AR-14s with extended clips, full body armor, large ammo caches, etc.

Step 5:  This information should be fed to local law enforcement.  Local law enforcement should then stop by to convey three messages.  First, here is a class for securing any new weapons.  Two, here are mental health resources if need be.  And finally, a police officer can tell whether this is a person that needs to be watched.  Eyes can be put on that person and community leaders quietly alerted to be on the look out.

This is a doable solution.  It allows for as many guns as a person wishes to own.  It doesn't require a societal shift that would stop the creatives from creating the next Matrix trilogy which nets this nation billions of dollars globally and is one of the bases of American soft power.  It doesn't require a massive mental health infrastructure which is never really going to happen because that costs money.

Rather this has a light footprint with a substantive hand attached.

Curtis Sumpter

The Logic Behind the Conservative Case for Michigan

Let me start by saying that I am a conservative Democrat, emphasis on conservative.  That being said, sometimes I feel like I have to make the conservative argument because self-proclaimed conservatives can't.  How terrible is that?!?

Richard Snyder is a businessman and the Governor of Michigan.  He just signed a law that basically puts unions on a long death march.  Make no mistake about it.  Allowing free riders into union shops will effectively kill the unions.  These workers will have no loyalty to the unions and as their percentage goes up, which in inevitably will, management will pressure down wages, seeing a crack between union-workers and freeriders.  Eventually (and that eventuality will not be long) they'll do what Caterpillar did in Joliet, Ill.  They'll simply break the unions back.

See the debate on Morning Joe.  It's compelling. 

Visit NBCNews.com for breaking news, world news, and news about the economy

But the bigger question is, 'Is what Richard Snyder did right?'

Look, let's face facts.  The future is here.  And it's moving into our lives faster every day.  Apple is moving some manufacturing back here to the USA.  And manufacturing workers are dreaming.  But their dream will turn into a nightmare.  

Apple said they're moving manufacturing back.  But did they say anything about jobs?  There are quiet laughs in Silicon Valley because the punchline to owners and the punch in the gut to workers is that those factories will be workerless factories.  

The day of completely robotic factories is coming.  And it's coming faster everyday.  Don't believe me.  Believe your own eyes.

Automated Manufacturing Videos

Perhaps Richard Snyder is a forcing function (i.e. your family coming to visit for the Holidays forces you to wash your windows).  But the fact of the matter is that sooner or sooner these jobs are going away and the wage scale for these jobs will inevitably be compressed.  Therefore it is important that we start forcing the labor force to adapt and get used to adapting.  

Adapting is the way of the future and Richard Snyder just might be showing tough love, forcing workers to recognize and accept that fact which will eventually be for the benefit of all, especially the workers.