Local governments are clearly shifting from chasing criminals to chasing revenue. Which, from the point of view of their own self-interest, makes a lot of sense.
Let's say that you are a local government, and you think of your budget as YOUR resources and not those of your constituents. You have a choice of two broad strategies (or a mix thereof): either pursue actual criminals for CRIMINAL OFFENSES, a process which requires the expenditure of resources and can be hard/dangerous work. Or you can pick on generally law-abiding citizens for civil offenses via revenue light cameras, roadside BAC screenings, "driving while talking" laws, seatbelt enforcement, aggressive parking enforcement, laws limiting grass/weed height, etc. While those non-criminals may sometimes show up in court to fight the charge, they typically don't run or put up much of a fight (physical or otherwise). They pay their fines and get on with working, raising their families, paying their taxes, etc.
Given the quality of our political class, and given how many bureaucrats and government employees see their job as a birthright rather than a solemn responsibility, it should come as no surprise that taxpayers are getting it from both ends, and are seen as prey for both criminals and bureaucrats.
PHILADELPHIA (CBS) – Surrounded by members of the Philadelphia Building and Construction Trades Council, Philadelphia mayor Michael Nutter today signed at executive order that will once again make project labor agreements (“PLAs”) a part of the bidding process for public works projects of $5 million or more.Win-win? But not win-win-win. Not when Philly taxpayers will have to pay inflated prices for construction work.
Both city and organized labor officials believe this is a win-win for everyone.
Mayor Nutter says PLAs are a contract between the city and the trades that establishes benchmarks for the hiring of city residents and minorities.
Waters is wrestling with a long-running ethics investigation over whether she helped secure federal funding for a bank in which her husband owned stock and previously served as a board member. Waters has maintained her innocence, and two attorneys on the House ethics committee were placed on leave for mishandling the case. An outside attorney is now investigating the matter.
"They're going to go with people who are universally respected," said the financial executive. But a trade group president and former Hill staffer believed the top spot is Waters's to lose. This source pointed out that Waters brings geographical and racial diversity to the committee.
Jumping over Waters to another Democrat would also be a headache for Democratic leaders because it would risk angering the Congressional Black Caucus.
Few House Members have made a bigger legislative mark, and arguably no one so expensively. Mr. Frank deserves to be forever remembered—and we'll help everyone remember him—as the nation's leading protector of Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac before their fall. For years Barney helped block meaningful reform of the mortgage giants while pushing an "affordable housing" agenda that helped to enlarge the subprime mortgage industry.Here's his famous reaction to being asked if he thought he bore any responsibility for the housing bubble.
"I do think I do not want the same kind of focus on safety and soundness that we have in OCC [Office of the Comptroller of the Currency] and OTS [Office of Thrift Supervision]," Mr. Frank said on September 25, 2003, in one of his many legendary rhetorical hits. "I want to roll the dice a little bit more in this situation towards subsidized housing." The dice came up snake-eyes for the housing market and U.S. economy.
Grant Achatz is the chef/owner of Alinea which is widely considered America’s best restaurant, and surely by now among the demonized 1 percent. But what many don’t know is that he got his start flipping eggs at his parents’ diner in Michigan.Luck plays a part in most of these success stories but the harder people work and the more natural talent they have, the less luck they need. And let's not forgot, drive, focus, and the ability to work hard are talents too.
Importantly, it’s not where we start in life that dictates where we end it, and having learned the basics as a child and teenager, Achatz eventually matriculated to the Culinary Institute of America. Once there, not content to rest on the achievement of having gotten in, Achatz skipped the “bars and partying” that animated the experiences of his classmates and instead “hit the gym every day and then spent each night reading cookbooks.” Early sacrifices that others wouldn’t make now have Achatz at the top of the culinary world.
On a psychoanalytic level, Obama is someone who tries to disconnect himself from fury through intellectual exertion and by strenuously trying to keep matters in clear focus. He doesn’t simply contain his rage or hold it inside his mind; he dissociates–a psychoanalytic term for disconnecting thought from feeling. This allows him to operate in a purely intellectual state, protected from the disruptive influences of excessive passions.Fascinating. But it sounds a little like Justin is generously describing a sociopath. Traits include:
Glibness/Superficial CharmEtc.
Language can be used without effort by them to confuse and convince their audience. Captivating storytellers that exude self-confidence, they can spin a web that intrigues others. Since they are persuasive, they have the capacity to destroy their critics verbally or emotionally.
Manipulative and Conning
They never recognize the rights of others and see their self-serving behaviors permissible. They appear to be charming, yet are covertly hostile and domineering, seeing their victim as merely an instrument to be used. They dominate and humiliate their victims.
Grandiose Sense of Self
Feels entitled to certain things as "their right." Craves adulation and attendance. Must be the center of attention with their own fantasies as the "spokesman for God," "enlightened," "leader of humankind," etc. Creates an us-versus-them mentality
Pathological Lying
Has no problem lying coolly and easily and it is almost impossible for them to be truthful on a consistent basis. Can create, and get caught up in, a complex belief about their own powers and abilities. Extremely convincing and able to pass lie detector tests.
An observer from Mars would find this confusing. Noting that the overwhelming majority of American Blacks vote for liberal and left wing candidates, the Man from Mars would expect exiguous Black turnout at right wing demonstrations and on the other hand predict substantial Black support for left wing events. More, the Martian would note that while many Tea Party protests took place in suburbs far from the homes of inner city Blacks, OWS protests are more conveniently located in urban areas with large Black populations. To a Martian, “Blacks Skip Remote Wingnut Shoutfest” is not news, while “Blacks Boycott Nearby Moonbat Hootenanny” is.Heh.
Police had no plans to evict anyone, Chief Inspector Joseph Sullivan said about 6:30 p.m. (last night.)It's certainly been good for police officers interested in collecting overtime.
"We look forward to working with Occupy Philadelphia and a resolution of the problem. Confrontation is never good. Anyone who is being fair would have to say that there is a big difference between the police reaction to Occupy Philadelphia than in other cities," he said.
"I definitely, definitely want to really stress that the vast majority of people participating in this movement have been cooperative, nonviolent, and very respectful," he said.
I met this guy, Michael Pierce (pictured in the Inky) Saturday. He was manning the information booth. Nice guy. Very friendly. He said he was from Mt. Holly, N.J. He didn't mention he was a Philosophy professor. But he did say he was the Pastor of the East Baptist Church in Fishtown.The philosophy department has two full-time faculty and several adjunct instructors. The full-time professors are Francis (Rusty) Conroy and Anne Miller.UDATE II: Philly.com has demoted Pierce from professor to "instructor" here.
Dr. Conroy holds a BA in philosophy from Haverford College, an MA in philosophy from Yale University, and a PhD in philosophy and sociology (with an emphasis on East Asia) from the Union Institute. He has been a post-doctoral fellow at Princeton University and at the East-West Center (Honolulu). He also teaches in the sociology department. Dr. Conroy’s special interests are Eastern philosophy and religion, existentialism, Marxism, philosophy in literature, and ecological thought.
Prof. Miller holds a BA in philosophy from Rosemont College and an MA in philosophy from Boston University. Her special interests are ethics, philosophy of the person, history of Western philosophy, philosophy of religion, and literature. She has also taught English and literature.
Army Reserve Sgt. 1st Class Charles Crouchman nearly teared up as he arrived to their cheers and applause. It was a warm welcome after seven months in Afghanistan. After clearing customs, he headed for the USO, where he was grateful to be able to call his wife and daughter in Schenectady, N.Y., for free.From a grateful nation.
"You always know with the USO, you've got a phone to use, Internet to use, a place to sit down and relax or watch a movie," Sgt. Crouchman said. "That's a blessing."
WEST GOSHEN — Police arrested Sean O’Neill Jr., 22, early Thursday morning on suspicion of drunken driving after he allegedly drove a car into a house.That sounds like a pretty quick turnaround. Let's hope he got home in time for Thanksgiving dinner.
At 12:55 a.m., township police found O’Neill driving a black Cadillac that had run off the road and into a side of a house in the 800 block of Westtown Road. When police arrived, O’Neill was attempting to drive the car away, a police report says.
O’Neill was arrested and later released pending a summons.
The day after the snowstorm, I had coffee with Alec, the young medical doctor I mentioned earlier. At various points during our conversation, he quoted Virginia Woolf, the Brazilian poet Vinicius de Moraes, the futurist Filippo Marinetti, and the scientist John Holland, developer of “genetic algorithms.” Talking with him, as with Katie, I was reminded of the so-called Tercer Mundista priests I met in Mexico in the early 1970s, who broke with the Vatican and actively supported revolutionary movements in Central America. Both Alec and Katie possessed that calm sense of devotion to a higher calling—not a certainty of belief so much as a certainty of purpose. They both spoke of the movement in unabashedly spiritual terms. And while neither talked explicitly of religion, they seemed to have faith that they were progressing toward the kind of social system that would provide participants a measure of peace and “mental fulfillment.”Hardly been tried? It's been tried across centuries and failed miserably as Matthew Continetti recently pointed out.
Part of their optimism seemed to derive from the fact that anarchism, as they loosely conceived it, had hardly been tried.
I had to remind myself that the movement was only a few months old. Most of the core organizers had been strangers before September. They were still trying to figure things out, improvising as they went along. When I spoke with Katie again, she had a nasty case of bronchitis from living in Zuccotti Park. “I want us to be the country’s moral touchstone,” she said. “Its unofficial conscience. Its model for what is good.”A nasty case of bronchitis is about the best that can be hoped for from this dreamy and idiotic movement.
“I have been talking w/ folks in the states about finding an investigative journalist to investigate and expose” skeptical scientist Steve McIntyre, Mann writes in another newly released email.Mann sounds more like a scientician than a scientist. He must be thanking Gaia for Jerry Sandusky right now.
When the police officers and sanitation workers reclaimed Zuccotti Park, Occupy Wall Street’s supporters cried, “You can’t evict an idea whose time has come.” Whether the sympathizers or the critics really understand the idea and the method of the movement is a good question. The idea is utopian socialism. The method is revolutionary anarchism.Read it all.
And about Sharon Bialek, the Chicago woman who has accused Cain of groping her? Those are serious charges. “Putting his hand up her dress and forcing her head down? No friggin’ way,” Vachal says. “There is no way. No way. I bet my bottom dollar it’s false.”
“Nobody ever came to me and complained about him,” she says. “And trust me, they would have. We talked. There was nothing like what you see on Sex and the City, or those other shows. We were pretty boring in Omaha, Nebraska.”
“Women, especially then, had a lot to deal with in corporate America,” she says. “I knew of other things that went on, but there was never anything with him.”
“He was a true gentleman, always.”
If the Republicans nominated Mitt Romney and the election was today Barack Obama would probably lose Pennsylvania, fundamentally reshaping the 2012 electoral map.And PPP is a Democrat-owned and operated firm. Apparently, Keystone staters would rather cling to their guns, bigotry and religion, than this particular president.
Obama has dreadful poll numbers in the state, with only 42% of voters approving of him to 53% who disapprove. With white voters he's at only a 36/59 spread, numbers we're more used to seeing in the South than the Northeast. He's also at a much lower than normal 69% approval rating with Democrats while independents split against him 45/53 and only 9% of GOP voters give him good marks.
Obama and Romney are tied at 45% each but if you dig in on the undecided voters only 24% of them approve of Obama's job performance to 70% who disapprove.
The confrontations came to a head in 2007, according to one former school official, when six football players were charged by police for forcing their way into a campus apartment that April and beating up several students, one of them severely. That September, following a tense meeting with Mr. Paterno over the case, she resigned her post, saying at the time she left because of "philosophical differences."One case involved Wallingford's very own Dan Connor, the All-American linebacker.
In a statement Monday, Dr. Triponey said: "There were numerous meetings and discussions about specific and pending student discipline cases that involved football players," which she said included "demands" to adjust the judicial process for football players. The end result, she said, was that football players were treated "more favorably than other students accused of violating the community standards as defined by the student code of conduct."
In an email to Mr. Spanier on Sept. 1, Dr. Triponey wrote of Mr. Paterno: "I do not support the way this man is running our football program. We certainly would not tolerate this behavior in our students so I struggle with how we tolerate it in our coach."The assistant coach was Joe Sarra, not Jerry Sandusky, who was also recently retired.
That same fall, Dr. Triponey's office suspended Dan Connor, a Penn State linebacker, who had been accused of making harassing calls to a retired assistant coach. Shortly after the suspension was handed down, Mr. Paterno ordered the player to suit up, according to a person familiar with the matter. Dr. Triponey informed the player that if he suited up for practice, he would be in violation of his suspension and could face expulsion. Mr. Connor says he recalled being suspended only for games, not practice.
The incident prompted Mr. Spanier to visit Dr. Triponey at her home. Dr. Triponey confirms he told her that Mr. Paterno had given him an ultimatum: Fire her, or Mr. Paterno would stop fund-raising for the school. She says Mr. Spanier told her that if forced to choose, he would choose her over the coach—but that he did not want to have to make that choice.
Later, Mr. Connor's suspension was reduced to 10 days, allowing him to return to football.
Even at this late date, he could tell his aides: "I see the bill coming due for a generation of excesses and the last thing we need is more excesses. I want growth. I want only proposals that encourage growth."
Our economy has great internal resiliency, even with Europe imploding, even with households weighed down by underwater mortgages. Population continues to grow. Families form and need homes. Cars wear out and need replacing. Domestic energy development is booming. Manufacturing is enjoying a renaissance. Boeing just announced its biggest plane sale ever. McDonald's is doing great.
Yet his greatest miscalculation is still to come. His aides are sizing up a re-election campaign that gives up on growth, that resorts to score-settling and resentment.
On Thursday, the Daily News reported, Watts was seated atop a wall on the border of the park, hurling AAA batteries at cops standing along the street. He then jumped off the barricade, charged the mass of cops, grabbed a hat off the head of one of them, and dashed back into the park, with cops in pursuit. They were eventually able to wrestle him to the ground as he fought back; his bloody wound came from striking his face against the ground, and required four staples when the police brought him to the hospital.And he's from Philly no less.
Watts has now been arraigned and charged with assault and grand larceny, and held on $1,500 bond (it’s expected that the protesters’ financial committee will provide his bail).
This is Watts’s fifth arrest since the protests began — previously, he had been detained for escaping from a prison van, resisting arrest, stealing temporary police fencing, and loitering in disguise. In an October interview with the New York Times, Watts claimed he had actually been arrested eight times already.
..
