Once again, Michael Moore
Category: Crimes
Yes, This Both Cowardice and Hypocrisy
Roger Simon (not the Pajamas Media Guy) notes that both Presidential candidates are full of it in their expressions of sympathy for the victims of the Batman shootings.
The issue here is that both candidates, while expressing sympathy, are refusing to do anything, even the most basic stuff, like keeping records of gun purchases, as they do with explosives (and many types of fertilizer), so when someone purchases 6000 rounds and multiple weapons, someone might flag this as being a matter of concern.
Here is the money quote from the OP/EE:
What was baloney is that he intends to do nothing about preventing it in the future.
His White House press secretary had announced as much to reporters on Air Force One on the flight to Colorado. Jay Carney said Obama “believes we need to take steps that protect Second Amendment rights of the American people but that ensure that we are not allowing weapons into the hands of individuals who should not, by existing law, obtain those weapons.”
That “existing law” was painfully inadequate to protect the 70 people who had been shot in a movie theater was obvious to all. All except for politicians running for reelection, that is.
Mitt Romney is no better. Having opposed “deadly assault weapons” as governor of Massachusetts in 2004, he now does “not support any new legislation of an assault weapon-ban nature.”
But he, too, said he was “deeply saddened” by the Aurora shootings. Just not deeply saddened enough to promise to do anything about future shootings.
I think that every player in American politics is Wayne LaPierre’s bitch.
Penn State Gets Slap on the Wrist
Let’s look at the term of the so called punishment:
- A $60 million fine. (For a program routinely generates revenue, not counting alumni donations in the $50 million dollar range).
- Vacating all victories since 1998, which means nothing except that Paterno is no longer the winningest coach in college football.
- A 4 year ban on bowl games.
- Loss of 20 scholarships for the next 4 years.
- Allowing players to transfer into other programs.
The biggest deal is the post season ban. It reduces revenue, and makes recruiting of top level players all but impossible, so everything else is pretty much nothing.
Compare this to SMU, which had the temerity to conspire with boosters to pay its so-called “student athletes”, and had its football program shut down for a year, and their football program has never recovered.
http://www.latimes.com/sports/sportsnow/la-sp-sn-dufresne-ncaa-penn-state20120723,0,6729566.story
Obviously, the Dark Knight Shooting Spree Should Raise Questions About Gun Control
But it won’t:
The reality is that we will not see gun control in my life time, but as Tom Tomorrow notes, that does not keep the gun nuts from being whiny bitches about it.
Republican Family Values
It appears that a Utah Republican activist, Greg Peterson dabbles in serial date rape as a hobby:
News that a Utah Republican activist is accused of raping four women — two of whom say they were taken to the Heber cabin where the man hosted major political events — caused ripples of unease Thursday throughout the GOP.
Gregory Nathan Peterson has hobnobbed with the likes of Sens. Orrin Hatch and Mike Lee, Gov. Gary Herbert, U.S. Rep. Jason Chaffetz, and candidates such as 4th District congressional contender Mia Love. [Ed Note:
But for the past 14 months, the 37-year-old Orem man allegedly has led a double life as a serial date-rapist.
Peterson was charged Wednesday in 3rd District Court in Salt Lake City with 23 felony counts, including rape and kidnapping, and two misdemeanors. A jail log indicates U.S. marshals arrested Peterson in his home in Heber and booked him into the Salt Lake County jail. He remained there Thursday in lieu of $750,000 bail.
Charging documents allege sexual assaults against four women Peterson met in Salt Lake County beginning March 26, 2011. In the first case, the documents allege, he met a woman at a church function and she agreed to go to a movie with him.
But instead of going to a theater, the documents allege, Peterson told the woman he had a gun and took her to his five-bedroom, five-bathroom, 3,000-square-foot cabin in Heber. The documents allege he sexually assaulted the woman and hit her when she did not do as he wished. Peterson drove the woman back to her vehicle the next morning.
Peterson’s Heber cabin is where he has held annual Republican barbecues and gatherings.
The charges allege Peterson met another woman online and she agreed to go to a movie with him July 2, 2011. But this time Peterson threatened to expose the woman’s expired immigration visa and drove her to the Heber cabin, documents allege. Peterson raped and assaulted the woman there, court papers say, then drove her to his mother’s Lewiston residence in Cache County. Peterson and the woman stayed there until July 5. The documents say Peterson took the woman to her home July 8.
On Dec. 11, 2011, Peterson met a West Jordan woman for a lunch date, the documents allege, and at her home he pushed her on a couch and sexually assaulted her.
It’s amazing how fast his former BFFs are falling all over themselves pretending not to know him.
How is Penn State Like the Catholic Church?
Their attempts to cover up child rape are so heinous that even the hiring of the hactackular Louis Freeh to run the investigation cannot mitigate the truth:
The independent panel investigating Pennsylvania State University’s role in the Jerry Sandusky child sex abuse scandal has determined that the school’s top leaders, including legendary football coach Joe Paterno, tried to cover up the abuse for 14 years.
Former FBI Director Louis Freeh, who led the investigation, outlined the findings of the panel’s 162-page report in prepared remarks released in advance of a 10 a.m. news conference in Philadelphia.
The report is available at www.philly.com/freeh
“The most powerful men at Penn State failed to take any steps for 14 years to protect the children who Sandusky victimized,” Freeh said.
Naming Paterno, former Penn State President Graham Spanier, former Athletic Director Tim Curley and Gary Schultz, a university vice president once in charge of the campus police, Freeh said they “never demonstrated, through actions or words, any concern for the safety and well-being of Sandusky’s victims until after Sandusky’s arrest.”
To state the obvious, if this had been curling, or for that matter college Baseball, they would have turned this matter over to the police over a decade ago.
There is no better case to be made that big ticket athletic programs are a corrupt and corrupting influence on higher education, and they need to be excised from higher education, either by the schools themselves, or by the IRS pulling tax exempt status from these programs.
And On a Related Note
4 Heredim have been charged by the Brooklyn DA with covering up child abuse within the community:
The Brooklyn district attorney, facing a wave of public criticism about his handling of sexual abuse allegations in the ultra-Orthodox Jewish community, on Thursday charged four men with attempting to silence an accuser by offering her and her boyfriend a $500,000 bribe, and threatening her boyfriend’s business.
The district attorney, Charles J. Hynes, alleged that the men were part of an effort to protect a prominent member of the Satmar Hasidic community, Nechemya Weberman, who has been accused of 88 counts of sexual misconduct, including oral sex with a child younger than 13 years old. The charges all involve one girl, now 17, who was referred by her school to get counseling by Mr. Weberman, and then alleged she was abused by him during therapy sessions.
The charges are the first time in at least two decades that Mr. Hynes has charged Hasidic Jews with intimidation of a witness in a sexual abuse case, even though victims, their advocates and prosecutors say intimidation has long been a major obstacle to prosecution of abuse among the ultra-Orthodox. In recent weeks, Mr. Hynes has been saying that the intimidation of witnesses in the ultra-Orthodox community is worse than in the world of organized crime.
“I’m hoping that this will be a message to those who are intimidated that they should come forward and help us,” Mr. Hynes said at a news conference. “No one can engage in this kind of conduct and feel free that, based on prior experience, nothing can happen to them.”
Prosecutors charged Abraham Rubin, 48, of Williamsburg with bribery, witness tampering and coercion. They said that he had been recorded offering the accuser’s boyfriend the money, and he suggested that the young couple could flee to Israel to avoid testifying. He also offered to provide them with a lawyer who could help them avoid cooperating with prosecutors.
Prosecutors also charged three brothers, Jacob, Joseph and Hertzka Berger, with coercion, saying they threatened and then removed the kosher certification of a restaurant run by the accuser’s boyfriend. The brothers are sons of a local rabbi who issues kosher certifications to stores.
Good.
I will note that, much like the previous post, it is very likely that this will lead to senior Rabbinic authorities in the region.
Finally!
Monsignor William Lynn, assistant to the late Cardinal Bevilacqua of Piliadelphis, has been convicted of child endangerment for covering up child abuse:
Msgr. William J. Lynn, a former cardinal’s aide, was found guilty Friday of endangering children, becoming the first senior official of the Roman Catholic Church in the United States convicted of covering up sexual abuses by priests under his supervision.
The 12-member jury acquitted Monsignor Lynn, of the Archdiocese of Philadelphia, of conspiracy and a second count of endangerment after a trial that prosecutors and victims rights groups called a turning point in the abuse scandals that have shaken the Catholic Church.
The single guilty verdict was widely seen as a victory for the district attorney’s office, which has been investigating the archdiocese aggressively since 2002, and it was hailed by victim advocates who have argued for years that senior church officials should be held accountable for concealing evidence and transferring predatory priests to unwary parishes.
Monsignor Lynn, 61, sat impassively as the jury foreman announced the verdicts, but relatives behind him were in tears. Judge M. Teresa Sarmina of the Common Pleas Court revoked his bail, and the monsignor stood up, removed his clerical jacket and was led by sheriff’s deputies to a holding cell area. His conviction, on the 13th day of deliberations, could result in a prison term of three-and-a-half to seven years; sentencing is set for Aug. 13.
The trial sent a sobering message to church officials and others overseeing children around the country. “I think that bishops and chancery officials understand that they will no longer get a pass on these types of crimes,” said Nicholas P. Cafardi, a professor of law at Duquesne University, a canon lawyer and frequent church adviser. “Priests who sexually abuse youngsters and the chancery officials who enabled it can expect criminal prosecution.”
Here’s hoping that his conviction will encourage other priests to roll on those involved in the coverup.
It’s fairly likely that the path will lead directly to Rome.
So, Now Your Credibility is Shot, and the Judge Hates You
Shellie Zimmerman, George Zimmerman’s wife, has been arrested for perjury:
Shellie Zimmerman, wife of George Zimmerman, charged with murdering Trayvon Martin, was arrested Tuesday on one count of perjury, the Seminole County, Fla., Sheriff’s Department said.
………
George Zimmerman, 28, was charged with second-degree murder in the Feb. 26 shooting of Martin. He pleaded not guilty. Police say that he claimed on the night of the shooting that he acted in self-defense.
………
His $150,000 bond was revoked after allegations that during an April 20 bail hearing he and Shellie Zimmerman misled the court about their finances, neglecting to disclose they had raised at least $135,000 in a PayPal account.
The order issued Tuesday by Assistant State Attorney John Guy charged Shellie Zimmerman with knowingly making false statements during the April hearing.
George Zimmerman’s attorney, Mark O’Mara, said Tuesday evening outside his office that he had just returned from two days in court and had not heard previously of Shellie Zimmerman’s arrest. He would not comment further.
Today, I think that George Zimmerman’s lawyer has the worst job in the world.
And I, For One, Welcome Our New Zombie Overlords
Over the past few weeks, there has been an outbreak of zombie apocalypse sort of behaviors, we had the (all allegedly):
- The face eating incident
- The guy who ate his roommate’s heart and brain
- The pr0n star who raped and ate a man, and then mailed body part to authorities.
- Brain eating, (plus toes) mother to infant, using swords. (This one is 3 years old)
- A man cutting off and eating his wife’s lips in response to suspected adultery.
No wonder the CDC has issued a denial of the existence of any disease that causes zombiesim.
I don’t believe in the undead, but something weird is going one here.
H/t CD at the Stellar Parthenon BBS.
You Have Got to Be Kidding Me
I did not think that it was possible for a pedophile priest could get any less sympathetic, but the Transportation Security Administration has proved me wrong, because they hired him as a supervisor of the gropers at Philadelphia International Airport:
The CBS 3 I-Team has learned that a Catholic priest who was removed from the ministry over sex abuse allegations now holds a sensitive security post at Philadelphia International Airport.
The security checkpoint between Terminals D and E is a busy place where thousands of people – including lots of kids – pass through every day. But you might not believe who the I-Team observed working as a TSA supervisor at that checkpoint this week: Thomas Harkins.
Until 2002, Harkins was a Catholic priest working at churches across South Jersey. But the Diocese of Camden removed him from ministry because it found he sexually abused two young girls. Now, in a new lawsuit, a third woman is claiming she also is one of Harkins’ victims.
The I-Team asked Harkins about the suit as he was leaving his shift at the airport.
“I have nothing to say,” was Harkins’ reply.
The new lawsuit, filed in federal court against the Camden Diocese says quite a bit. It accuses Harkins of sexually abusing an 11-year-old girl 10 to 15 times in 1980 and 1981. The lawsuit, filed on behalf of the alleged victim, claims the abuse occurred while Harkins was a priest at Saint Anthony of Padua parish in Hammonton, NJ, with one assault even occurring in Harkins’ bedroom at the rectory.
Seriously, this just boggles the mind.
BTW, props to the Camden Diocese, which, unlike to many other dioceses, got rid of this guy, but f%$# the TSA.
H/T Americablog.
Despicable People, Heredi Edition
Specifically, the Orthodox Jews in New York, who are shunning and harassing co-religionists who report child rape to the authorities:
The first shock came when Mordechai Jungreis learned that his mentally disabled teenage son was being molested in a Jewish ritual bathhouse in Brooklyn. The second came after Mr. Jungreis complained, and the man accused of the abuse was arrested.
Old friends started walking stonily past him and his family on the streets of Williamsburg. Their landlord kicked them out of their apartment. Anonymous messages filled their answering machine, cursing Mr. Jungreis for turning in a fellow Jew. And, he said, the mother of a child in a wheelchair confronted Mr. Jungreis’s mother-in-law, saying the same man had molested her son, and she “did not report this crime, so why did your son-in-law have to?”
By cooperating with the police, and speaking out about his son’s abuse, Mr. Jungreis, 38, found himself at the painful forefront of an issue roiling his insular Hasidic community. There have been glimmers of change as a small number of ultra-Orthodox Jews, taking on longstanding religious and cultural norms, have begun to report child sexual abuse accusations against members of their own communities. But those who come forward often encounter intense intimidation from their neighbors and from rabbinical authorities, aimed at pressuring them to drop their cases.
Abuse victims and their families have been expelled from religious schools and synagogues, shunned by fellow ultra-Orthodox Jews and targeted for harassment intended to destroy their businesses. Some victims’ families have been offered money, ostensibly to help pay for therapy for the victims, but also to stop pursuing charges, victims and victims’ advocates said.
This behavior is profoundly and deeply evil.
Retaliating against people who report child rape to the authorities is contemptible, and I call on the Brooklyn DA to pursue anyone who does participates in these efforts at intimidation to the fullest extant of the law.
Well Here’s Some Interesting Information
In the matter of the killing of Trayvon Martin by George Zimmerman, we have a new development.
It appears that the detective originaly assigned to the case wanted to arrest him for manslaughter:
The lead homicide investigator in the shooting of unarmed teenager Trayvon Martin recommended that neighborhood watch captain George Zimmerman be charged with manslaughter the night of the shooting, multiple sources told ABC News.
But Sanford, Fla., Investigator Chris Serino was instructed to not press charges against Zimmerman because the state attorney’s office headed by Norman Wolfinger determined there wasn’t enough evidence to lead to a conviction, the sources told ABC News.
Police brought Zimmerman into the station for questioning for a few hours on the night of the shooting, said Zimmerman’s attorney, despite his request for medical attention first. Ultimately they had to accept Zimmerman’s claim of self defense. He was never charged with a crime.
Serino filed an affidavit on Feb. 26, the night that Martin was shot and killed by Zimmerman, that stated he was unconvinced Zimmerman’s version of events.
The fact that Zimmerman’s dad is a retired judge makes this decision even more suspect.
Then there is the fact that Martin’s body remained listed as a John Doe in the coroner’s office for 3 days, while repeated calls to his cell phone went unanswered. (Maybe that would have allowed them to identify the body)
Whatever else happened, given the Sandford, Florida PD’s long and notorious record of corruption and racism, it’s tough to conclude that their handling of the case was racially tinged.
BTW, Lawrence O’Donnell was going to interview Zimmerman’s lawyer, but when he realized that it wasn’t going to be softball questions he fled the studio.
O’Donnell then asked the questions of the empty chair, and they were very basic questions:
- Who is paying you? Who hired You? When, exactly, did they hire you?
- Does George Zimmerman have a job? Does he have any property? Does he own anything?
- Did you represent him when he was arrested for assault on a police officer in 2005? Did you represent him in a domestic violence case in 2007 when his girlfriend accused him of assault?
- You said Zimmerman got a broken nose, can you show us photos of him that night with the broken nose, or even the next day?
- You said Zimmerman’s clothes had grass stains and other evidentiary material … do you have that garment, can you show us what happened to it?”
These are not unexpectedly hard hitting question. Certainly they are a bit hostile, but if you are doing the media rounds as his lawyer (to my mind always a bad decision) you have to be able to answer these questions.
One of the interesting things here is just how hard the right is trying to smear this teenager.
It’s an article of faith among them that there is no longer any racism in the United States, and the obvious racism here kind of gets in the way of that.
I Don’t Know Whether to be Heartened or Depressed
I am talking about the murder of Trayvon Martin, where both the Feds and the DA are opening investigations of what is clearly a murder. I guess that a few days of international condemnation got them moving:
Seven years after Florida adopted its sweeping self-defense law, the shooting of Trayvon Martin, an unarmed black teenager, has put that law at the center of an increasingly angry debate over how he was killed and whether law enforcement has the authority to charge the man who killed him.
The law, called Stand Your Ground, is one of 21 such laws around the country, many of them passed within the last few years. In Florida, it was pushed heavily by the National Rifle Association but opposed vigorously by law enforcement.
It gives the benefit of the doubt to a person who claims self-defense, regardless of whether the killing takes place on a street, in a car or in a bar — not just in one’s home, the standard cited in more restrictive laws. In Florida, if people feel they are in imminent danger from being killed or badly injured, they do not have to retreat, even if it would seem reasonable to do so. They have the right to “stand their ground” and protect themselves.
That is precisely the question in the case: Was the gunman, George Zimmerman, 28, a white Hispanic crime watch volunteer in Sanford, Fla., in imminent danger and acting in self-defense during his encounter with Trayvon Martin, as he asserts?
In the three weeks since Trayvon, 17, a well-liked high school student from Miami with no criminal record, was killed, public protests have grown larger and louder, and so have calls for Mr. Zimmerman’s arrest. The Police Department in Sanford, near Orlando, said that under the law, it had no call to bring charges.
But late Monday, the Department of Justice said it had opened an inquiry into the shooting. It will run parallel with one announced on Tuesday by the state attorney in Seminole County, who said a grand jury would be convened. State attorneys use grand juries in cases when they cannot make a clear independent call, or when a case is explosive.
(emphasis mine)
Let’s be clear what happened: A white, self appointed “neighborhood watch” with a history of harassment in the neighborhood, chased a black child down down, and shot him, and the police said that they were sorry, but there was nothing that they could do.
It was only after this blew up that the DA decided to convene a grand jury, because, it became too embarrassing.
If this hadn’t made the news, it would just be one more dead black person, in a town with a long and notorious history of law enforcement racism and corruption, and it would have been “nothing to see here, move along.”
So, it looks like there might actually be an investigation (good) but only because there was an international outcry (not good).
Me, I’m a glass half empty kind of guy.
The Hair of Doom is Arrested
The Hair of Doom!
Specifically, Rupert Murdoch protege Rebekah Brooks, along with her husband and other Murdoch Staffers:
Rebekah Brooks, the former chief executive of News International, the British newspaper division of Rupert Murdoch’s media empire, was arrested early Tuesday on suspicion of obstruction of justice, according to a person with knowledge of the arrest. Her husband, Charlie, a friend of Prime Minister David Cameron from their days at Eton three decades ago, was also arrested, the person said.
The police said in a statement that six people in and outside of London had been arrested on Tuesday as part of Operation Weeting, the criminal investigation into phone hacking and other illegal activities at The News of the World and other newspapers. None have yet been formally charged with crimes; in the British system, charges can be filed months after an arrest, and sometimes not at all.
Following standard procedure, the police statement did not identify those arrested. But a person with knowledge of the arrests said that besides Ms. Brooks and her husband, they included Mark Hanna, the head of security for News International.
The police statement said the six had been arrested between 5 a.m. and 7 a.m. and were being interrogated at different police stations on suspicion of “conspiracy to pervert the course of justice,” the British equivalent of obstruction of justice. This could relate to activities like destroying e-mails, computers and other evidence, people with knowledge of the investigation said.
Two former editorial staff members at News International said they had heard from inside the company that the questioning was related to e-mails that were deleted before the police widened their phone hacking investigation last year.
It’s never the crime, it’s the cover-up.
Motherf%$#er
Jake Burris, the campaign manager for Ken Aden’s (D) had his cat beaten to death by some teabagger scum:
Police were investigating Monday after a cat belonging to the family of a Democrat’s campaign manager was beaten to death and the word “liberal” scrawled across its side.
The cat belonged to the family of Jake Burris, who manages Democrat Ken Aden’s bid for Arkansas’ 3rd Congressional District.
Burris was returning to his Russellville home with his four children when he found the cat on his doorstep Sunday night, the Aden campaign said in a press release.
The mixed-breed Siamese cat had one side of its head bashed in to “the point the cat’s eyeball was barely hanging from its socket,” the release said.
Aden told Reuters that the event was “horrible, to say the least.”
If we find out who did this, I would hope that the US Attorney finds a way to treat this as terrorism, and go full Patriot Act on his ass.
I Don’t Want to Start Any Blasphemous Rumours…*
Because the one of the Vatican’s child safety coordinator has just been sentenced to jail for downloading child pr0n:
He was arrested after uploading images of pre-pubescent boys on to the Ning social networking website.
Police officers who traced him to his home in Plymouth, Devon, found more than 4,000 child porn images, mainly of boys aged 10 to 12, on his church-supplied computer and a memory stick when they raided the house in Penrose Road.
The court heard that 4,389 images were found on the laptop and memory stick.
The majority, 3,721, were at Level One, the lowest level for abusive images.
But there were 120 at Level Four, which includes scenes of child rape, and 12 at Level Five, which can include scenes of torture and sadism.
Jarvis, who the court heard claimed he was abused as a child, was sentenced at the city’s crown court after admitted 12 counts of making, possessing and distributing indecent images at a previous magistrates’ court hearing.
You know, notwithstanding the assertions of people like ……… You know ……… the Pope that it’s all an aberrations and caused by our wicked society.
I think that a bit of self examination is order here, because lashing out at the rest of the world over this seems to be just a bit delusional.
H/t Americablog.
*The refrain from the Depeche Mode song Blasphemous Rumors is, “I don’t want to start any blasphemous rumours, But I think that God’s got a sick sense of humor, And when I die I expect to find Him laughing.”
Just Desserts
You know, generally, I’m not in favor or murder.
That being said, when I heard about this Chinese Tycoon’s poisoning, and I looked at the recipe, I thought, well, he had it coming:
Poisonous Herb Spices Cat Stew in Felonious Pot
By DAVID BARBOZA
SHANGHAI — There was one very disagreeable ingredient in the steaming hot pot of stew that may have killed a Chinese tycoon. And it was not the cat meat.
The police have detained a local township official on suspicion that he murdered the tycoon, a business associate who may have caught the official cheating, by dropping a poisonous herb into a cat-meat hot pot, a shared stew that is a local delicacy, China’s state-run news media reported Wednesday.
(emphasis mine)
I understand that they have different customs and dietary habits, but cat?
Whiskey Tango Foxtrot?
Adventures in the Law Enforcement Industrial Complex
It turns out that no one has every really tried to do a comprehensive census of child sex workers, and when researchers from the John Jay College of Criminal Justice conducted a census of those in New York City, they discovered that conventional wisdom on this problem is wrong:
- Pimps are a very small (10%) part of the picture.
- About half of the child prostitutes surveyed were male. (45%)
- They were majority local (56%) and overwhelmingly US citizens(90+%).
- A large majority (70%) had contacted social service agencies for help.
- 95% said that they did this out of economic need.
The money quote here is, “In other words, the typical kid who is commercially exploited for sex in New York City is not a tween girl, has not been sold into sexual slavery, and is not held captive by a pimp.”
How does this involve the “Law Enforcement Industrial Complex”? Like this:
Curtis and Dank were amazed by what their research had revealed. But they were completely unprepared for the way law enforcement officials and child-advocacy groups reacted to John Jay’s groundbreaking study.
“I remember going to a meeting in Manhattan where they had a lot of prosecutors whose job was to prosecute pimps,” Curtis recalls. “They were sort of complaining about the fact that their offices were very well staffed but their workload was…not very daunting, let’s say. They had a couple cases, and at every meeting you go to, they’d pull out the cherry-picked case of this pimp they had busted, and they’d tell the same story at every meeting. They, too, were bothered by the fact that they couldn’t find any pimps, any girls.
“So I come along and say, ‘I found 300 kids’ — they’re all perky — but then I say, ‘I’m sorry, but only 10 percent had pimps.’
“It was like a fart in church. Because basically I was saying their office was a waste of time and money.”
As to what this means in terms of policy, what does this mean>
Well, the obvious is that staffing DA’s office on the basis of what you saw on Law and Order: Special Victims Unit, is not a good policy.
What is also clear from this study is that these children need long term support, and not just transitional support:
For example, the John Jay study found that when asked what it would take to get them to give up prostitution, many kids expressed a desire for stable, long-term housing. But the widely accepted current social-service model — shelters that accommodate, at most, a ninety-day stay — doesn’t give youths enough time to get on their feet, and instead pushes them back to the streets. The findings also point to a general need for more emphasis on targeted outreach, perhaps through peer-to-peer networks, as well as services of all kinds, from job training and placement to psychological therapy.
One interesting question here is whether the numbers are different, particularly with regards to foreign sex workers, in countries with stronger social safety nets, because it sounds like this is largely being driven by our general lack of a meaningful social safety net.
Of course, there are a lot of problems in the US that would be solved by a better social safety net.
If You Believe in His Hope and Change, You Are Deluded
Because financial fraud prosecutions have fallen even further under Obama than under Bush:
During the first 11 months of the 2011 fiscal year, the federal government filed 1,251 new prosecutions for financial institution fraud. If that pace continues, TRAC projects a total of 1,365 prosecutions for the fiscal year. That’s less than half the total a decade ago.
The decline in these new cases stands in contrast to the government’s broader approach to federal criminal prosecutions. Federal prosecutions for other crimes have grown tremendously, with the number of total new prosecutions filed for all federal crimes nearly doubling over the last decade:
(emphasis original)
As you can see, federal prosecutions have skyrocketed:
But prosecutions for financial fraud have fallen.
If you were wondering whether or not Obama was a willing captive of Wall Street, this should disabuse you of this.
The only hope here is to play on his weakness and cowardice to force him to do the right thing, because it’s clear that his better angels lie with the Vampire Squid.*
*Alas, I cannot claim credit for the bon mot describing Goldman Sachs as a, “great vampire squid wrapped around the face of humanity, relentlessly jamming its blood funnel into anything that smells like money.” This was coined by the great Matt Taibbi, in his article on the massive criminal conspiracy investment firm, The Great American Bubble Machine.