More bad apples in NYPD? I’m shocked!

Posted on October 29, 2011 by oddmanout215

How many bad apples does it take to spoil the whole barrel?

Every week, all over the country, police misconduct takes place, much of it violent. Cops take heat if the misconduct is related to big stories — the tear-gas-and-rubber-bullets attack on Occupy Oakland that has left Scott Olsen with brain damage, the pepper-spray attack on women protesters in Manhattan by Deputy Inspector Tony Baloney — but most of their bad behavior is never challenged by the media or the general public.

Politicians laud cops as heroes, except for the “bad apples.” Once in a while, a reporter shines a light on some flagrantly illegal police action — sometimes violent, sometimes not. When this happens, police officials accuse the media of casting all cops as bad apples.

All of which is to preface the following — no big deal except insofar as it reminds us of the extent of the rot in the apple barrel:

Sixteen New York Police Department officers pleaded not guilty to charges of widespread fixing of traffic tickets as well as more serious crimes, in the second scandal to hit the force in a week. Five civilians were also netted in the nearly three-year undercover probe that involved the wire tapping of more than 10,000 phone calls and resulted in indictments containing some 1,600 misdemeanor and felony counts.

Although most charges were for relatively minor crimes of tampering with traffic tickets to help friends and relations, the probe bared an ugly side to New York’s so-called “Finest” just days after the arrest of officers in an unrelated gun-running scandal…

On Tuesday, eight serving or retired officers were among 12 people arrested on charges of conspiracy to smuggle assault rifles, handguns and other items worth more than $1 million…

Footnote: I think my anti-cop fervor flared after I read of how closely the NYPD is tied to the Wall Street robbers they should have arrested a few years ago.

Update: Even the NYT couldn’t help commenting on the NYPD’s arrogance: “A three-year investigation into the police’s habit of fixing traffic and parking tickets in the Bronx ended in the unsealing of indictments on Friday and a stunning display of vitriol by hundreds of off-duty officers, who converged on the courthouse to applaud their accused colleagues and denounce their prosecution.”

Posted in Goldman Sachs, Great Recession, mainstream media, movies, Occupy Wall Street, The New Depression, Wall Street | Tagged , , , | 1 Comment

Romney lies faster than I can type

Posted on October 28, 2011 by oddmanout215

Yesterday I wrote, “The pious Mr. Mitt has been telling a new lie each day concerning where he stands on workers’ bargaining rights.” This was in response to a story out of Ohio. I filed my blog entry and went about my real-world business.

Meanwhile, Romney was in my hometown, serving up a whopper to contradict his previous statements on another subject:

Speaking to a crowd in Philadelphia yesterday, former Massachusetts Governor Mitt Romney (R) suddenly changed his position on whether humans contribute to climate change, insisting that “we don’t know what’s causing climate change on this planet.”

He added that “the idea of spending trillions and trillions of dollars to try to reduce CO2 emissions is not the right course for us.”

Romney’s comments might confuse those who listened in on him in June, when he told an audience in New Hampshire, “I believe that humans have contributed” to climate change.

“Trillions and trillions…” There should be a blog just for Romney’s lies and flip-flops. New material would be available every day, every time he made a public statement. We know where you stood on health insurance this morning, Mr. Mittens, I mean Mr. Romney. What’s your opinion this afternoon?

Posted in climate change, economic collapse, environmentalism, Great Recession, humor, mainstream media, Philadelphia, Politics | Tagged , , , , | 2 Comments

Oops, I didn’t really mean to unleash the goons

Posted on October 28, 2011 by oddmanout215

It’s a sad commentary on her leadership skills, but I believe Oakland Mayor Jean Quan meant well. She doesn’t seem like someone who would tell weasel-y lies (hello, Mitt Romney) about her words and actions. Well, maybe one or two lies:

After a violent, nationally televised clash between police and Occupy Oakland protesters on Tuesday, [Quan] is facing a growing list of heated voices recommending — or demanding — that she step down…

… Quan, who was out of town at a meeting in Washington D.C. during the clash, authorized the morning raid of the Occupy Oakland campsite but has been stumbling over the incidents that occurred at the violent protest following night. “I don’t know everything,” she said at a press conference on Wednesday, when asked if she was satisfied with how police handled the incident…

… In response to the incident, MoveOn released a video showing clips of the protests and tear gas raids, climaxing with footage of the critically injured Iraq war veteran, Scott Olsen, being carried to the medic. A narrator asks, “Mayor Quan, is this your city? Is this how we treat free speech in the United States of America?”

For her part, Mayor Quan has been aggressively attempting to amend the situation. On Thursday, she granted the protesters access to Frank Ogawa Plaza. Later that day, she personally visited Olsen in the hospital, shook his hand, apologized and promised an investigation.

It seems Quan is simply in over her head and needs to take a crash course on our rights to assemble and petition without fear of attack from police departments that turn into goon squads when dispatched to protest sites.

Posted in economic collapse, Great Recession, mainstream media, Occupy Wall Street, Politics, The New Depression, unemployment | Tagged , , , | 1 Comment

Mr. Mitt goes to Washington? Let’s hope not.

Posted on October 28, 2011 by oddmanout215

David Brooks and Mitt Romney should get married. Brooks is the foremost weasel among pundits. Romney is No. 1 among politicians, and that’s saying something.

Latest example: The pious Mr. Mitt has been telling a new lie each day concerning where he stands on workers’ bargaining rights, which is exactly what we should expect from a guy who made a fortune putting thousands out of work:

In June, Romney expressed his support for SB 5, a law pushed through by Ohio’s Republican legislature and Gov. John Kasich that curtails workers’ bargaining rights. (Among other things, the law bans public-employee unions from bargaining over health insurance and makes public-employee striking illegal). Romney wrote on Facebook on June 18: “My friends in Ohio are fighting to defend crucial reforms that the state has put in place to limit the power of union bosses and keep taxes low. I stand with John R. Kasich and Ohio’s leaders as they take on this important fight to get control of government spending.”

Then yesterday, when visiting an Ohio phone bank in support of SB 5, which Ohio voters have a chance to repeal in a November referendum, Romney refused to take a position, saying he was “not terribly familiar” with the ballot initiatives.

And today? Another 180. Romney told reporters that he supports Gov. Kasich “110 percent.”

Posted in David Brooks, economic collapse, Great Recession, mainstream media, Politics, The New Depression, unemployment | Tagged , , , , , | 2 Comments

The class war started 30-some years ago, Frank

Posted on October 27, 2011 by oddmanout215

Frank Rich’s recent article in New York magazine included an excellent capsule history of the Depression-era Bonus Army and a good summary of how corporate welfare boosted G.E. and other corporate monsters, but the headline on the story — “The class war has begun” — is misleading.

The modern-era class war by the super-rich against the other 99 percent of Americans began in the Reagan years, and was being schemed back in the 1970s. The aspect of the class war Rich refers to is the recent backlash by the 99 percent against the privileged few who’ve been waging war on them for decades.

Rich correctly points to the cynicism of politicians regarding class war, an attitude they couldn’t sustain without a lot of help from the corporate media:

Politicians in either party, of course, never use the term “class warfare” to describe what’s going on in America, unless it’s Republican leaders accusing Obama of waging it every time he even mildly asserts timeless liberal bromides about taxing the rich. Nor do most politicians want to talk about the depth of the crisis in present-day capitalism, since to acknowledge its scale would only dramatize how little they intend to do about it.

Posted in Congress, Great Recession, mainstream media, Occupy Wall Street, Politics, The New Depression, unemployment, Wall Street | Tagged , , , , | 1 Comment

Manhattan D.A. chips away at protesters’ rights

Posted on October 26, 2011 by oddmanout215

Last night Keith Olbermann asked something I’ve wondered about since the police crackdown on Occupy Wall Street protesters began several weeks ago with beatings and arrests in Manhattan, and mass arrest-by-trickery at the Brooklyn Bridge:

“At what point did we all decide that you had to have a permit that designated where you could and could not protest?”

“We” never made this decision, as Olbermann knew before asking the question. Rather, issuance of permits is a law enforcement tactic increasingly being used to undermine our First Amendment rights of assembly and petition for redress of grievances. The tactic is often predicated on the notion that public parks and plazas and streets aren’t really public at all, except during those hours when police choose to allow people to use them.

Olbermann’s guest, attorney Yetta Kurland, noted the illegal containment methods used on protesters at the Republican National Convention in 2004 as a turning point in NYPD efforts to chip away at protesters’ rights.

Olbermann reminded viewers that cops around the country are using trumped-up anti-camping regulations to attack or intimidate OWS protesters, and he noted that Manhattan D.A. Cyrus Vance Jr. has come up with a new dirty trick to discourage protests. Vance has offered to drop charges against 340 people arrested during OWS protests if they don’t get arrested again within the next six months.

In short, anyone who hasn’t noticed democracy in America is in big trouble is either an idiot, a recluse, or too corrupt to care.

Posted in economic collapse, Great Recession, mainstream media, Occupy Wall Street, The New Depression, unemployment | Tagged , , , , | 1 Comment

Occupy newsrooms. Use all those empty desks.

Posted on October 25, 2011 by oddmanout215

For as long as I can remember Gannett was known as an outfit that skimped on news coverage by using skeleton crews of reporters and editors, for no other reason than to further enrich the owners of the Gannett company.

Good job by David Carr in nailing Gannett and reminding us that reporters and editors who work for the corporate media, whether they realize it or not, are in the same predicament as the unemployed and underpaid who have taken to the streets:

Almost two weeks ago, USA Today put its finger on why the Occupy Wall Street protests continued to gain traction.

“The bonus system has gone beyond a means of rewarding talent and is now Wall Street”s primary business,” the newspaper editorial stated, adding: “Institutions take huge gambles because the short-term returns are a rationale for their rich payouts. But even when the consequences of their risky behavior come back to haunt them, they still pay huge bonuses.”

Well thought and well put, but for one thing: If you were looking for bonus excess despite miserable operations, the best recent example I can think of is Gannett, which owns USA Today.

The week before the editorial ran, Craig A. Dubow resigned as Gannett”s chief executive. His short six-year tenure was, by most accounts, a disaster. Gannett”s stock price declined to about $10 a share from a high of $75 the day after he took over; the number of employees at Gannett plummeted to 32,000 from about 52,000, resulting in a remarkable diminution in journalistic boots on the ground at the 82 newspapers the company owns.

Carr recounts similar bad news about The Tribune Company, owned by the execrable Sam Zell, who put thousands of journalists out of work and ruined some top-tier newspapers through his greed and stupidity, meanwhile paying out huge bonuses to remaining managers.

The story is only slightly different in Philly, where I live, and all over the country. Newspapers are having a tough time transitioning to the digital age, and their worst enemies are their owners.

As for Carr’s semi-facetious notion of “occupying” the newsrooms… Well, there certainly would be plenty of room in most newsrooms these days if protesters chose to camp out in them.

Posted in economic collapse, Great Recession, humor, mainstream media, New York Times, Occupy Wall Street, Philadelphia, The New Depression, unemployment, Wall Street | Tagged , , , , , | 3 Comments

Will the circle jerk of one-percenters be broken?

Posted on October 24, 2011 by oddmanout215

Members of outlaw motorcycle gangs used to call themselves “one-percenters,” meaning they were in the tiny minority of Americans who are unabashed sociopaths. However, when we hear “one-percenters” these days, the reference usually is to establishment types who are obscenely wealthy and powerful and, arguably, much more sociopathic than outlaw bikers.

Here is economist Joseph Stiglitz describing the odious gang of one-percenters that runs our country:

The Supreme Court, in its recent Citizens United case, has enshrined the right of corporations to buy government, by removing limitations on campaign spending. The personal and the political are today in perfect alignment. Virtually all U.S. senators, and most of the representatives in the House, are members of the top 1 percent when they arrive, are kept in office by money from the top 1 percent, and know that if they serve the top 1 percent well they will be rewarded by the top 1 percent when they leave office. By and large, the key executive-branch policymakers on trade and economic policy also come from the top 1 percent. When pharmaceutical companies receive a trillion-dollar gift – through legislation prohibiting the government, the largest buyer of drugs, from bargaining over price – it should not come as cause for wonder. It should not make jaws drop that a tax bill cannot emerge from Congress unless big tax cuts are put in place for the wealthy. Given the power of the top 1 percent, this is the way you would expect the system to work.

Stiglitz ends his piece on an optimistic note. He reminds readers that one-percenters, in various countries and eras, often forget “their fate is bound up with how the other 99 percent live.” They become too complacently greedy and eventually spark a populist backlash. In contemporary America, the backlash may have begun with the Occupy Wall Street movement.

Posted in Congress, economic collapse, Goldman Sachs, Great Recession, Occupy Wall Street, Politics, The New Depression, unemployment, Wall Street | Tagged , , , | 1 Comment

Don’t go near the wood-er, quack quack

Posted on October 23, 2011 by oddmanout215

One of those bizarre amphibious “duck boats,” jammed with tourists, cruised past me on South Street today. The tour guide, using a mic and amp system, was shouting, “Pay attention, I’ll tell you how to speak Philadelphian. One, two, three… Yo cous, how ya doin’, wadda ya say?”

If I was on the boat I would have replied, “I’m OK, cous, but don’t go near the wood-er. I don’t wanna get drowned-ed.”

I know, bad joke. I’m just hoping the duck-boat people and the tugboat operators on the Delaware River have their act together, and I’m glad there haven’t been any more unfortunate accidents on land or in the water. One improvement — the tours aren’t half as annoying to locals as they used to be, now that passengers don’t receive their “duck call instruments” until after the rides are finished.

Posted in Philadelphia | Tagged , , , | 1 Comment

Ain’t nothin’ I wouldn’t do, sugar…

Posted on October 22, 2011 by oddmanout215

The perfect Saturday night song if you’re looking to sit at a bar and drown your lust for someone, or to start a fight if you can’t drink enough to drown it.

I don’t sit at bars anymore, but I often feel nostalgia for the self-lacerating insanity of the ritual described above. You know how it is with romantics.

Muddy Waters was one of the only vocalists I can think of who could do justice to “Just To Be With You,” recorded in 1956. Little Walter’s harmonica sounds like a giant keyboard in a juke joint the size of a cathedral.

The title of Scott Spencer’s novel A Ship Made of Paper — about crazy love, of course — is from this song:

On a ship that’s made of paper,
Oh yeah, I will sail the seven seas.
Fight a shark with a toothpick,
Crawl home to you on my knees.
There ain’t nothin’ I wouldn’t do, sugar,
Oh yeah, baby, just to be with you.

Posted in arts, fiction, humor, pop music | Tagged , , , | 1 Comment