US Politics Mega-thread - Page 1837

On April 11 2015 07:12 wei2coolman wrote:

*insert jon oliver's twil video*

that isn't a law enforcement created idea though, that culture has a lot more to do with cities setting up ways to generate funds without increasing "taxes".

On April 11 2015 07:06 wei2coolman wrote:
lmao, I don't think you can use Oakland Police as the "standard" for American law enforcement.

anything in plain view is free game, to actually search requires a warrant, or probable cause.

The authors of the city-commissioned study surveyed HPD division commanders who revealed "excessively high numbers of cases with leads that were not investigated in 2013 due to a lack of personnel."

The report noted that 15,000 burglaries and thefts, 3,000 assaults and nearly 3,000 hit-and-runs were not investigated last year. The data was based on monthly HPD management reports of cases with workable leads.

SEATTLE -- A confidential memo leaked to KOMO 4 News contains a bombshell admission by the city's police department. The document says north precinct detectives are too short-staffed to investigate most burglaries.

A police source said that unless burglary detectives have a suspect's name, evidence photos or surveillance footage, and complete witness interviews, it's unlikely a case will even get worked let alone solved.

Pete Rogerson works with Seattle police through the North Precinct Advisory Council, where he offers citizen input on police operations. Rogerson said in all his years in that role, he's never seen anything like this memo.

"I think this memo is very troubling," he said.

The memo is marked confidential and not for public display, but what it says about burglary investigations could trouble anyone.

"It's very surprising," Rogerson said. "I cannot believe this is the case."

The memo says at one point, 14 detectives worked burglary, theft and juvenile cases for the north precinct. Today it's down to two detectives and an on-loan patrol officer, even though the memo says cases have climbed to 1,500 a month. The memo concludes, "misdemeanor and even many felony crimes can no longer be investigated except on a very rare, case by case basis."

On April 11 2015 07:18 OuchyDathurts wrote:


I'm not even talking about asset forfeiture which is complete bullshit.

I'm talking about quotas and bullshit crime statistics where case closed is the same across the board. Whether its catching a serial killer or a kid with some pot a conviction is a conviction is a conviction. We need to make our numbers look good so we go after the low hanging fruit. If we have a bunch of cops going after a bunch of low hanging fruit our numbers look ownage! We're not making the community any better or safer in reality, but who gives a shit? We can justify our jobs existing because we've over inflated an excel spreadsheet somewhere.

On April 11 2015 07:18 GreenHorizons wrote:





Source



Source

Is that enough? or is there a specific department you are thinking of?

On April 11 2015 07:22 wei2coolman wrote:

so you're telling me law enforcement don't put resources to work cases that have little to no evidence to work off of?

On April 11 2015 07:19 wei2coolman wrote:

What do you think those fix it ticket money goes? it's not about asset forfeitures.

On April 11 2015 07:19 wei2coolman wrote:

What do you think those fix it ticket money goes? it's not about asset forfeitures.

WASHINGTON -- General Electric said Friday that it will sell off most of its financial operations, in what will be the most dramatic restructuring of the American banking system yet effected under the 2010 Dodd-Frank Wall Street reform law.

"I see this as a win not just for too-big-to-fail, but for the extension of the regulatory perimeter in Dodd-Frank," said Marcus Stanley, policy director at Americans for Financial Reform. "You basically had one of the largest consumer and investment banks in the country stapled onto a major industrial corporation, and because it was part of this conglomerate, it wasn't being regulated like a major bank. When the Fed changed that regime, GE decided it wouldn't be as profitable."

GE will sell off real estate assets to Wells Fargo and the private equity firm Blackstone. The industrial behemoth will retain its financing operations related to aircraft, energy and health care, but the overall value of its banking business will shrink to $90 billion, down from $538 billion in 2008 and $363 billion at the end of 2014.

GE said it would "work closely" with regulators to take whatever action is needed to shed its status as a "Systemically Important Financial Institution," which subjects the firm to tougher capital and regulatory standards.

On April 11 2015 08:13 Simberto wrote:
Well, you do need the police. Since apparently you don't have a lot of policemen actually doing useful investigating.

The problem is that you basically expect your police force to be self-sufficient. And writing random tickets for small shit brings in more money than investigating burglaries. That is due to this gigantic aversion to any taxes.

A reasonable system would have police being paid by taxes, and investigating crimes. You often have the police as a ticket writing apparatus to bring in money.

On April 11 2015 09:22 JonnyBNoHo wrote:
I'm enjoying all the liberals complaining about the government wasting money and enforcing onerous regulations.

Fresh change of pace

On April 11 2015 09:35 OuchyDathurts wrote:


Regulation can be an amazing and a completely necessary thing. Also I don't think me or Greenhorizons having an issue with the way law enforcement goes about their business is new.

On April 11 2015 09:47 GreenHorizons wrote:


Certainly not for me. Nor government wasting money, I've rang that bell plenty of times also.

On April 11 2015 09:35 OuchyDathurts wrote:


I wouldn't get too used to it. I have a problem with enforcement of horseshit that leads to murder, assault, and constitutional right violations of regular people. All it does is turn people against you. It makes it an us vs them mentality. Citizens should never be seen as the enemy, never seen as "them". Shit like that leads to police assuming the role of occupying force instead of public servant.

Regulation can be an amazing and a completely necessary thing. Also I don't think me or Greenhorizons having an issue with the way law enforcement goes about their business is new.

WASHINGTON — The Obama administration is planning to impose a major new regulation on offshore oil and gas drilling to try to prevent the kind of explosions that caused the catastrophic BP oil spill in the Gulf of Mexico, administration officials said Friday.

The announcement of the Interior Department regulation, which could be made as soon as Monday, is timed to coincide with the five-year anniversary of the disaster, which killed 11 men and sent millions of barrels of oil spewing into the gulf. The regulation is being introduced as the Obama administration is taking steps to open up vast new areas of federal waters off the southeast Atlantic Coast to drilling, a decision that has infuriated environmentalists.

The rule is expected to tighten safety requirements on blowout preventers, the industry-standard devices that are the last line of protection to stop explosions in undersea oil and gas wells. The explosion of the Deepwater Horizon oil rig on April 20, 2010, was caused in part when the buckling of a section of drill pipe led to the malfunction of a supposedly fail-safe blowout preventer on a BP well called Macondo.

It will be the third and biggest new drilling-equipment regulation put forth by the Obama administration in response to the disaster. In 2010, the Interior Department announced new regulations on drilling well casings, and in 2012, it announced new regulations on the cementing of wells.

The latest regulation, a result of several years of study, will be imposed on all future offshore drilling equipment and will be used by the administration to make the case that it can prevent a BP-like disaster as oil exploration expands in the Atlantic. The Interior Department is also reviewing a proposal from Royal Dutch Shell to drill in the Arctic’s Chukchi Sea, off the coast of Alaska.

“We’re coming on five years, and we’ve been working tirelessly in the regulation division since it happened,” said Allyson Anderson associate director of strategic engagement in the Interior Department’s Bureau of Safety and Environmental Enforcement. “We’ve doubled down on building a culture of safety,”

But environmentalists remained highly skeptical.

REASON - Apart from underscoring the ways in which police tactics and criminal justice policies disproportionately hurt black and poor communities, he [Paul] is alone among presidential contenders in highlighting the role of the drug war in turning the United States into something approaching an open-air prison. Taking to the pages of Time again last fall, Paul wrote, “I will continue to fight to end the racial disparities in drug sentencing. I will continue to fight lengthy, mandatory sentences that prevent judges from using discretion. I will continue to fight to restore voting rights for non-violent felons who’ve served their sentences.” Appearing on Bill Maher’s HBO show, he proclaimed: “The war on drugs has become the most racially disparate outcome that you have in the entire country. Our prisons are full of black and brown kids. Three-fourths of the people in prison are black or brown, and white kids are using drugs, Bill, as you know...at the same rate as these other kids.”

These are positions that resonate with Americans, though not with most politicians of either party. Indeed, Hillary Clinton, reportedly ready to launch her presidential nomination campaign this weekend, is trapped in a prohibitionist mind-set that underwrites the evisceration of the Constitution and leads to all sorts of outcomes that have horrible, disparate impacts on the poor and minorities. Do liberals really think somebody who says we can't legalize drug trafficking because "there is just too much money in it" has even a basic grasp of economics and reality when it comes to prohibition?

But when it comes to government policies that screw over blacks, Latinos, and the poor in today's America, getting service at a McDonald's or the equivalent of a Woolworth's luncheonette simply isn't a pressing concern. It's getting shot or killed by cops and, far more commonly, being subjected to an entire system of oppression that predictably funnels black-market drugs into poor minority communities and then punishes them through criminal justice policies that break up families and visits violence upon the guilty and the innocent alike.

On April 12 2015 00:15 Acrofales wrote:
If all of Rand Paul's positions made as much sense as that one, I think he would be a no-brainer for the candidacy.