Sunday, January 4, 2015


News Clips For The Day


http://www.nytimes.com/2015/01/03/opinion/a-republican-ruse-to-make-tax-cuts-look-good.html?_r=0

The Opinion Pages | OP-ED CONTRIBUTOR
A Republican Ruse to Make Tax Cuts Look Good
By EDWARD D. KLEINBARD
JAN. 2, 2015

LOS ANGELES — As Republicans take control of Congress this month, at the top of their to-do list is changing how the government measures the impact of tax cuts on federal revenue: namely, to switch from so-called static scoring to “dynamic” scoring. While seemingly arcane, the change could have significant, negative consequences for enacting sustainable, long-term fiscal policies.

Whenever new tax legislation is proposed, the nonpartisan Congressional Budget Office “scores” it, to estimate whether the bill would raise more or less revenue than existing law would.

In preparing estimates, scorekeepers try to predict how people will respond to a new tax law. For example, if Congress contemplates raising the excise tax on cigarettes, scorekeepers consider existing trends in cigarette consumption, the likelihood that the higher taxes will induce some smokers to quit, and the prospect that higher prices will increase incentives for cigarette smuggling. There are no truly “static” revenue estimates.

These conventional estimates do not, however, include any indirect feedback effects that tax law changes might have on overall national income. In other words, they do not incorporate macroeconomic behavioral changes.

Dynamic scoring does. Proponents point out, correctly, that if a tax proposal is large enough, then those sorts of feedback effects can aim the entire economy on a slightly different path.

Such proponents argue that conventional projections are skewed against tax cuts, because they do not consider that cutting taxes could lead to higher economic output, which would make up at least some of the lost revenues. They maintain that dynamic scoring will, therefore, be both more neutral and more accurate than current methodologies.

But the reality is more complex. In order to look at the effects across the entire economy, dynamic modeling relies on many simplifying assumptions, like how well people can predict the future or how much they care about their children’s future consumption versus their own.

Economists disagree on the answers, and different models’ predicted feedback effects vary wildly, depending on the values selected for those uncertain assumptions. The resulting estimates are likely to incorporate greater uncertainty about the magnitude of any revenue-estimating errors and greater exposure to the risk of a political thumb on the scale.

Consider the nonpartisan scorekeepers’ estimates of the consequences of a tax-reform bill proposed last year by Representative Dave Camp, Republican of Michigan. Using different models and plausible inputs, the scorekeepers estimated that, under the bill, total gross domestic product might rise between 0.1 percent and 1.6 percent over the next decade — a 16-fold spread in projected outcomes. Which result should be the basis of congressional scorekeeping?

But the bigger problems lie deeper. Federal deficits are on an unsustainable path (as it happens, because of undertaxation, not excessive spending). Simply cutting taxes against the headwind of structural deficits leads to lower growth, as government borrowing soaks up an ever-increasing share of savings.

The most optimistic dynamic models get around this by assuming that the world today is in fiscal equilibrium, where the deficit does not grow continuously as a percentage of gross domestic product. But that’s not true. If you add the reality of spiraling deficits into those models, they don’t work.

To make these models work, scorekeepers must arbitrarily assume either that we tax more and spend less today than is really the case — which is what they did for the Camp bill — or assume that a tax cut today will be followed by a spending cut or tax increase tomorrow. Economists describe such a move as “making counterfactual assumptions”; the rest of us call it “making stuff up.”

In practice, these models are political statements. They show the biggest economic effects by assuming that tax cuts are financed by unspecified future spending cuts. The smaller size of government, not the tax cuts by themselves, largely drives the models’ results.

Further, the models are not a step toward more neutral revenue estimates, because they assume that, while individuals make productive investments, government does not. In reality, government spending contributes significantly to economic output. Truly dynamic modeling would weigh the forgone economic returns of government investments against the economic gains from lower taxes.

The Republicans’ interest in dynamic scoring is not the result of a million-economist march on Washington; it comes from political factions convinced that tax cuts are the panacea for all economic ills. They will use dynamic scoring to justify a tax cut that, under conventional scorekeeping, loses revenue.

When revenues do in fact decline and deficits rise, those same proponents will push for steep cuts in government insurance or investment programs, because they will claim that the models demand it. That is what lies inside the Trojan horse of dynamic scoring.

Edward D. Kleinbard, a law professor at the University of Southern California and a former chief of staff of the Congressional Joint Committee on Taxation, is the author of “We Are Better Than This: How Government Should Spend Our Money.”




“While seemingly arcane, the change could have significant, negative consequences for enacting sustainable, long-term fiscal policies.... In preparing estimates, scorekeepers try to predict how people will respond to a new tax law. For example, if Congress contemplates raising the excise tax on cigarettes, scorekeepers consider existing trends in cigarette consumption, the likelihood that the higher taxes will induce some smokers to quit, and the prospect that higher prices will increase incentives for cigarette smuggling. There are no truly “static” revenue estimates.... Such proponents argue that conventional projections are skewed against tax cuts, because they do not consider that cutting taxes could lead to higher economic output, which would make up at least some of the lost revenues.... But the reality is more complex. In order to look at the effects across the entire economy, dynamic modeling relies on many simplifying assumptions... Economists disagree on the answers, and different models’ predicted feedback effects vary wildly, depending on the values selected for those uncertain assumptions. The resulting estimates are likely to incorporate greater uncertainty about the magnitude of any revenue-estimating errors and greater exposure to the risk of a political thumb on the scale.... But the bigger problems lie deeper. Federal deficits are on an unsustainable path (as it happens, because of undertaxation, not excessive spending). Simply cutting taxes against the headwind of structural deficits leads to lower growth, as government borrowing soaks up an ever-increasing share of savings.... To make these models work, scorekeepers must arbitrarily assume either that we tax more and spend less today than is really the case — which is what they did for the Camp bill — or assume that a tax cut today will be followed by a spending cut or tax increase tomorrow. Economists describe such a move as “making counterfactual assumptions”; the rest of us call it “making stuff up.”...Further, the models are not a step toward more neutral revenue estimates, because they assume that, while individuals make productive investments, government does not. In reality, government spending contributes significantly to economic output.”

“The Republicans’ interest in dynamic scoring is not the result of a million-economist march on Washington; it comes from political factions convinced that tax cuts are the panacea for all economic ills. They will use dynamic scoring to justify a tax cut that, under conventional scorekeeping, loses revenue. When revenues do in fact decline and deficits rise, those same proponents will push for steep cuts in government insurance or investment programs, because they will claim that the models demand it.”

I only took one economics course which just taught the most rudimentary principles of currently popular economic theories. My professor did not go into the Keynesian section of the book at all, or into what the book called “econometrics.” The claims of the textbook were buttressed by countless pie, bar and other shapely charts, but never showed any real world statistics or other math underlying those charts and theories. I would have found that incomprehensible, perhaps, since I have studied much less math than other subject, and I would have hated reading it, but as it was, I didn't really see any evidence of whatever truths lie behind the charts and theories. I thought the course through the best I could and used my workbook religiously, with the result that I made a good grade on the course. I didn't come out convinced that what I read was, “in the real world,” the way our economy works, however. In fact, I became even more convinced that it is impossible to tackle a system as complex and numerically overwhelming as the US economy and really be able to predict exactly what is going to happen, or control undesirable outcomes, by some means or other, with or without pie charts.

One of the theories that was taught is that levying lower taxes magically produces higher gains for the GDP. To someone who is used to depending on a limited income from which I have to pay rent, insurance, food, and other costly items, one thing is clear -- less money does not equal more goods and services in the real world. That only works for people who have a much higher level of income, say half a million or more dollars a year. With a cushion that large we can lose money here and there without really missing it, because it's only possible to buy so many goods and services. When that occurs in the federal budget, the Republican theorists see that as a need to strip the Social Security and Medicare system, Medicaid, now Affordable Healthcare, of their funding so that AT&T can pay less in taxes.

Now the Republicans want to change the way the economy is being measured to cover up the losses from more and more tax cuts. Kleinbard states: “But the bigger problems lie deeper. Federal deficits are on an unsustainable path (as it happens, because of undertaxation, not excessive spending).” I will say one thing about the Republicans, they have all memorized the same song so they can sing it in unison whenever a discussion of almost any subject comes up. Every problem we have in this country can be solved by cutting taxes again, and then again, and again. They do not want to spend any money at all on human needs, environmental protection, good public school education, or on anything else other than the inevitable openended expansion of the military and tax deductions for large corporations. From reading these articles on the theory of tax cuts producing more money – especially the “'Laffer Curve' (i.e. tax receipts vs tax rates) of the Reagan administration – I do think I do see the basis of the “trickle down theory,” or as George W. Bush was later to call it so effectively “voodoo economics.”

The following articles on dynamic scoring may add understanding to the situation. They add information, but both reflect the utter complexity of the economic system we live under. To me contemplating the trillions of dollars in our economy is like trying to count the googles of stars that exist. I can't focus on it, and as a result soon lose interest.


http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dynamic_scoring

Dynamic scoring
From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

Dynamic scoring predicts the impact of fiscal policy changes by forecasting the effects of economic agents' reactions to incentives created by policy. It is an adaptation of static scoring, the traditional method for analyzing policy changes.

Due to the complexity of modeling economic agents' behavior, applying dynamic scoring to a policy can be difficult. Economists must infer from economic agents' current behavior how the agents would behave under the new policy. Difficulty increases as the proposed policy becomes increasingly unlike current policy. Likewise, the difficulty of dynamic scoring increases as the time horizon under consideration lengthens. This is due to any model's intrinsic inability to account for unforeseen external shocks in the future.

The methodologies of scoring have origins in Arthur Laffer's "Laffer Curve" (i.e. tax receipts vs tax rates) of the Reagan administration.[citation needed] Using dynamic scoring has recently been promoted by Republican legislators to argue that supply-side tax policy, for example the Bush tax cuts of 2001[1] and 2011 GOP Path to Prosperity proposal,[2] return higher benefits in terms of GDP growth and revenue increases than are predicted from static scoring. Some economists[who?] argue that their dynamic scoring conclusions are overstated,[3] pointing out thatCBO practices already include some dynamic scoring elements and that to include more may lead to politicization of the department.[4]

On May 9, 2013, Rep. Tom Price introduced the Pro-Growth Budgeting Act of 2013 (H.R. 1874; 113th Congress) into the United States House of Representatives.[5] The bill would require the Congressional Budget Office to provide a macroeconomic impact analysis for bills that are estimated to have a large budgetary effect.[6] This would mean using a dynamic scoring method.



http://www.forbes.com/sites/joshbarro/2012/04/14/a-problem-with-dynamic-scoring/

The Problem with Dynamic Scoring
Josh Barro Contributor
4/14/2012

When you measure the effects of the tax plan, you have to decide what to do with “dynamic effects”–changes to the economy that are caused by the tax changes themselves. If your tax plan causes the economy to grow faster, greater economic growth will mean more tax receipts. The most extreme case is “a tax cut that pay s for itself,” a situation where a tax was so onerous that reducing or eliminating it actually results in more total tax receipts. Such situations are rare in the real world, but growth-inducing tax cuts do have dynamic effects that offset a portion of revenue lost. Tax scoring that does not consider dynamic effects is known as “static scoring.”

There are a number of problems with dynamic scoring, most importantly that it is difficult to know what the economic effects of a tax cut will be. Proponents of tax cuts tend to be partial to models that are excessively optimistic about economic performance and therefore dynamic effects: see, for example, the model from the Heritage Foundation that estimated that Paul Ryan’s budget proposal from last year would push the unemployment rate down to 2.8 percent. Of course, a static model involves its own assumption (namely, that tax changes do not affect economic activity) which is also wrong.

But let’s say that you have a dynamic model that accurately reflects the economic effects of tax changes. In general, proponents of tax cuts will argue that greater economic activity will provide enough tax revenue to finance the government at lower rates than would otherwise be necessary. But there is a key assumption here: that when GDP grows faster, all of the incremental growth should accrue to the private sector. A tax cut package will make our economy larger than it otherwise would have been, but the government should be the same size that it otherwise would have been.

This assumption is wrong. As a country’s income grows, that income gets spent on a variety of goods and services. Some (like housing and food) should be purchased mostly with private dollars. Others (like health care and education) are often best purchased with public dollars. In other words, as GDP grows, so too does the ideal size of government in absolute terms, if not necessarily in percentage-of-GDP terms. (And sometimes even in percentage-of-GDP terms.)

So, even if a pro-growth policy produces extra tax revenue, you can’t count all of those extra dollars as making room for cuts in tax rates. Some of that extra economic growth should be plowed into extra government spending–meaning that dynamic effects do not make as much room for tax cuts as their proponents claim.

This actually makes me partial to static scores. When we look around the world, we generally do not see advanced countries significantly reducing their tax shares of GDP because they undergo strong long term economic growth. Faster GDP growth will mean faster growth in tax receipts, but it will also mean faster growth in government spending. That’s not a bad thing–it’s just a reflection of the fact that we’re all getting wealthier–but it does mean that faster GDP growth is not a ticket to getting by with lower tax collections.

Edit to add: To be clear, tax policies that foster GDP growth are of course desirable, and it is important to figure out which policies will do this. My point is simply that they are desirable because they increase GDP, not because they allow for a decline in the tax share of GDP.





http://www.slate.com/articles/news_and_politics/politics/2015/01/selma_and_lbj_why_critics_are_wrong_about_how_the_film_portrays_president.html

What Matters in Selma
Critics say Ava DuVernay’s film isn’t fair to LBJ. That’s because it’s about a movement, not leaders.
By Jamelle Bouie

Jamelle Bouie is a Slate staff writer covering politics, policy, and race.

Ava DuVernay’s Selma is likely a top contender for the Academy Award for Best Picture. With its focus on the power of activism to force political and moral change, the highly praised film has the right message for our present moment of racial unrest. But not everyone is happy with the way it approaches history, and in particular, how it portrays President Lyndon Johnson.

Johnson “is devoid of any palpable conviction on voting rights. Vainglorious and power hungry, he unleashes his zealous pit bull, FBI chief J. Edgar Hoover, on King, who is determined to march in protest from Selma to Montgomery despite LBJ’s warning that it will be ‘open season’ on the protesters,” writes Lyndon Baines Johnson Library and Museum director Mark K. Updegrove in a column for Politico magazine. “This characterization,” he continues, “flies in the face of history.”

Even harsher is former Johnson staffer Joseph A. Califano Jr., who accusesDuVernay of taking “trumped-up license with a true story that didn’t need any embellishment to work as a big-screen historical drama.” “In fact,” writes Califano, “Selma was LBJ’s idea.”

That’s a huge exaggeration. Activists had been organizing in Selma, Alabama, for at least two years before Martin Luther King Jr. met with Johnson, and weeks prior to his meeting with the president, King and his allies had decided on Selma as the site for new action and protests. By the time Johnson suggested something similar to King, the plan was already in motion.

But more than that, that entire line of criticism is misplaced. Selma isn’t a documentary or even a dramatized history. It is a film based on historical accounts, and like all films of its genre, it has a loose relationship to actual history. In Alan Parker’s Mississippi Burning, the investigation to solve the murders of three civil rights workers in 1964, is transformed into a story of FBI heroes, one that ignores the role of local activists in bringing the killers to justice and doesn’t touch the bureau’s famous antagonism—under J. Edgar Hoover—toward the civil rights movement.

Just as egregious is the narrative of Kathryn Bigelow’s Zero Dark Thirty, which shows a relentless Central Intelligence Agency—personified in Jessica Chastain as Maya—whose methods, including torture, lead to Osama Bin Laden and the military raid that killed him. The factual problem, as detailed in December’s Senate Intelligence Committee report, is that torture didn’t lead to unique intelligence. As such, it’s not clear that it helped find Bin Laden. But Bigelow made a choice to say otherwise, and in the context of the film, it’s defensible.Zero Dark Thirty—to my eyes at least—is less about the particulars of finding Bin Laden and more about the costs of obsession. What happens when you’re willing to give up everything for a single goal? What will you sacrifice? In this reading, torture is the moment when we—through Maya—commit to darkness in pursuit of our ends.

This is all to say that it’s wrong to treat nonfiction films—even biopics—as documentaries. Instead, it’s better to look at deviations from established history or known facts as creative choices—license in pursuit of art. As viewers, we should be less concerned with fact-checking and more interested in understanding the choices. Why did the director opt for this view and not a different one? If she omits and distorts, why? What is she trying to communicate?

It’s with these questions in mind that we should approach Selma. But first, we should look at how DuVernay actually presents Johnson (played by Tom Wilkinson) and his relationship with King (played by David Oyelowo). 

At worst, DuVernay depicts Johnson and King as wary allies. In the film, Johnson agrees with King on the need for a Voting Rights Act, but he wants him to wait—Johnson has a Great Society to build—and warns that he doesn’t have the votes to push another civil rights bill on the heels of the 1964 Act, which outlawed discrimination in public accommodations. It’s not that King and Johnson are enemies—they both want to dismantle Jim Crow—as much as they have different responsibilities and priorities. In order to act, Johnson needs a push. And King gives it to him.

Now, there’s a case that even this is unfair to Johnson. While it’s true he didn’t want to introduce a voting rights bill so soon after the Civil Rights Act of 1964—he needed votes for his economic program, and he didn’t want to alienate Southern Democrats—it’s also true that, in late 1964, Johnson told Attorney General Nicholas Katzenbach to write the “the goddamndest, toughest voting rights act you can devise.” This draft was written with help from Senate Majority Leader Mike Mansfield and Senate Minority Leader Everett Dirksen, and was the basis for the bill the leaders introduced in March 1965. The Johnson of Selma, in other words, is much more reluctant than the Johnson of reality.

This is most clear in the scenes with Hoover (played by Dylan Baker), where Johnson allows the FBI director to harass King’s family with evidence of his infidelity. This is a far cry from real life. Yes, Johnson knew the contents of the FBI’s file on King, but there’s no evidence he conspired to smear him. That was a Hoover project, with no connection to Selma or the Voting Rights Act. Johnson may have been frustrated, but he wasn’t stupid, and attacking King would have only radicalized the movement, pushing it closer to its more militant activists. As much as King needed Johnson, Johnson needed King.

Which brings us back to our original question, arguably the only one you should ask of a movie that fictionalizes historical events: Why did the director make these choices? What is DuVernay trying to tell us when she makes Johnson more reluctant than he was, or when she shifts the timeline to give him a role in the FBI’s smear tapes? It’s possible these choices reflect ignorance, but I don’t think that’s right—Selma gets so much right about the period that it’s hard to believe DuVernay just didn’t know. It’s also possible they reflect malice, but again, Johnson isn’t the villain of the film—that distinction goes to Tim Roth’s (delightful) George Wallace, who doesn’t care that he’s on the “wrong side of history.”

If you need a clue, look at the people portrayed in the movie. If you don’t count Martin Sheen, who plays federal Judge Frank Minis Johnson Jr., Johnson and Wallace are the only politicians. Almost everyone else is an activist or an ordinary citizen: Carmen Ejogo’s Coretta Scott King, Lorraine Toussaint’s Amelia Boynton, Wendell Pierce’s Hosea Williams, Keith Stanfield’s Jimmie Lee Jackson, Stephan James’ John Lewis, Jeremy Strong’s James Reeb, André Holland’s Andrew Young, and many, many others.

Selma, simply put, is about the men and women who fought to put voting rights on the national agenda, and it engages history from their perspective. By hardening Johnson—and making him a larger roadblock than he was—DuVernay emphasizes the grass roots of the movement and the particular struggles of King and his allies. In the long argument of who matters most—activists or politicians—DuVernay falls on the side of the former, showing how citizens can expand the realm of the possible and give politicians the push—and the room—they need to act.

By those terms, Selma mostly succeeds. But there are flaws. “Except for a few scenes, we see little of the bravery Selma’s citizens displayed,” writes historian Gary May for the Daily Beast. “Annie Lee Cooper, well played by [Oprah] Winfrey, is shown trying but failing to register to vote. We are not told that Cooper had been able to vote without hindrance when she lived in Kentucky, Pennsylvania, and Ohio. But when she returned to Selma in 1962 to care for her aged mother, she lost that right.”

If Selma could have been better, it wasn’t because DuVernay didn’t do justice to Lyndon Johnson, but because there was so much to show about the ordinary people of Selma, and we—as viewers—don’t see it.




I was sorry to see that the movie Selma is said to present President Johnson as being negative on the idea of civil rights legislation. I do consider that unfair. He was a large, unattractive, overweight, loud man with huge nose and ears, but he was behind the Civil Rights struggles and the Great Society. Bouie says of him in this article, “Now, there’s a case that even this is unfair to Johnson. While it’s true he didn’t want to introduce a voting rights bill so soon after the Civil Rights Act of 1964—he needed votes for his economic program, and he didn’t want to alienate Southern Democrats—it’s also true that, in late 1964, Johnson told Attorney General Nicholas Katzenbach to write the “the goddamndest, toughest voting rights act you can devise.'”

Modern blacks should be grateful to Lyndon Johnson because he used his outsized energy and force (to go along with his ears) to ramrod those bills through the legislature. It was undoubtedly not a coincidence, of course, that white conservatives had seen huge numbers of black people and whites as well marching down the streets of the country under the leadership of their Moses, and I think the image of that gave proof of a newfound power in the black community. Their pacifist technique gave them a great deal more moral authority than endless rioting would have, though the public reaction in black communities when MLK was killed made the point even more strongly. That's one problem with some of the marchers behind the Ferguson issue today – they have too often involved rioting, looting and blocking traffic on freeways.

King and his people always strictly refrained from doing harm, submitting to police with no struggle, even when harm was done to them. As they were arrested and taken away and locked up they sang “We Shall Overcome.” The result was that they won the respect – if grudging respect – of many conservatives and caused our society to gradually accept blacks on jobs, in schools, etc. to a much greater degree than had ever happened before. Most whites, even racist whites, are not crude enough to use the N word. When the white political candidate in the last few years called a black man “Macaca” he was roundly and instataneously critizised on the Internet and in the news. It didn't work to his favor.

I would like to see blacks and whites go to church together, but by what looks to be mutual consent they tend not to. I mentioned to a black woman I know my UU church and she said that sounded “too quiet” to her. So, there you go. A commenter on my Google Plus account a couple of days ago called me a “racist,” “irresponsible,” and my writing “babbling.” Because I have strongly espoused racial integration and the healing of our country's wounds by cooperation and not war, I may be a “racist,” but I'm on the side of good over evil in my opinion. I personally think we, as humans, should make friends, and yes marry if we want to, people of differing skin hues. The more miscegination there is, the more our racially based hatreds will go away. Everybody will be a light tan color. Of course, the man – who calls himself Lieutenant John so he is either a police officer or in the military – went on to attack several other commenters in the same vein as well, and gave a long defense of the KKK in the history of the South. That was all in response to the article on the Republican Scalise who has been found giving a speech to a David Duke organization. To me one of the most basic tenets of our society of good American people is that we should not discriminate against and otherwise harm anyone over their race, religion, social status, personal opinion, etc. I have no desire to be around “my own kind” all the time. I like – and dislike – people of all races. I associate with those individuals whom I like.





http://www.dailykos.com/story/2014/12/23/1353804/-U-S-Senate-Gives-Black-Eye-to-House-Fundamentalist-Christians?detail=email

U.S. Senate Gives Black Eye to House Fundamentalist Christians
Mikey Weinstein
TUE DEC 23, 2014

The U.S. Senate has courageously just stood up to the Christian-supremacist bullies in the House of Representatives. Oh yes, the Senate has just completely ripped away from their religiously bigoted, House counterparts a would-be treasured bible-thumping bonanza of immeasurable, unconstitutional proselytization.  This erstwhile prize of legislative plunder had been specifically designed by these Congressmen and Congresswomen from the House, in nefarious collaboration with their legions of fundamentalist Christian parachurch allies, to be embedded deep within the confines of the 2015 Pentagon authorization/funding act.

Fortunately, the plan by these Christian crusader Members of the House failed. Please let me briefly explain, my friends.

For nearly a decade we at the Military Religious Freedom Foundation (MRFF) have fought night and day against the noxious trespasses of the Religious Right upon the rights of the brave men and women in our United States armed services. It’s been a bruising fight, no doubt, one filled with angry words, violent threats, as well as lies, damned lies, and hideous distortions lifted straight from the era of McCarthyism. Many of the vicious battles MRFF has engaged in have involved commanding officers, senior NCOs and chaplains operating on the assumption that it is their uncontestable and absolute right, if not their divine duty pursuant to The Great Commission (see Mark 16:15 or Matthew 28:19), to relentlessly proselytize the un-churched (or those who aren’t “the right type of Christian) and use their superior military rank as a bully pulpit from which to hammer in the "Good News". As if the unique set of pressures our servicemembers undergo isn’t enough, these fundamentalist Christian monsters have piled insult upon injury, mercilessly forcing their weaponized version of the Gospel of Jesus Christ upon their helpless military subordinates while hypocritically claiming to do so under the banner of “religious freedom.” However, those of us who’ve been fiercely combating this ongoing war of attrition waged by Christian extremists and triumphalists against the U.S. Constitution have received a truly surprising holiday gift of sorts. 

It turns out that sometimes miracles DO happen, and not just on 34th Street but on Capitol Hill, too.

In what we can only describe as an amazing early holiday present for servicemembers, Constitutional loyalists, and those who value the separation of Church and State, an obscure, but extremely detrimental amendment to the House-passed H.R. 4435 version of the bill“miraculously” disappeared from the final version of the Fiscal Year 2015 National Defense Authorization Act (FY2015 NDAA). If the House had its way, next year’s Federal roadmap for America's armed forces would have included the following painfully ugly provision designated as "Section 525” in the Hoped-for House version:
 
 “…if called upon to lead a prayer outside of a religious service, a military chaplain may close the prayer according to the traditions, expressions and religious exercises of the endorsing faith group.”
 
One needn’t rack one’s brains to read between the lines and see where such a course may lead. For those of you imagining a chaplain shouting “Takbir!” with Quran in hand followed by nervous soldiers chanting “Allah Akbar,” think again. No doubt about it, Section 525 would have amounted to a precious, blank check for every wannabe missionary comprising the sectarian Dominionist/fundamentalist Christian fifth column in the U.S. military. Hordes of these religious predators unfortunately can be found lurking throughout the ranks of the military chaplaincy. In fact, it’s an open secret that the military chaplaincy hardly matches the diverse cross-section of faith (and non-faith) groups represented in our armed forces. Instead the chaplaincy has been transformed largely into a clearing-house for evangelizing zealous zombies. For these chaplains, the military isn’t a place for Constitutionally mandated pluralism, religious respect and mutual tolerance. On the contrary, these missionizing maniacs see their government-paid chaplaincies as an inexhaustibly fruitful proselytizing venue and unlimited, open season “mission field”. Thus, a chaplain would be permitted to end all MANDATORY military gatherings with such standard patriarchal, monotheistic benedictions as “Thank you Father God for your blessings upon us in Jesus’ name, amen.” Or any other seething sectarian permutations of the same such as “I pray that our troops assembled here today come to understand that they must utterly surrender themselves to our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ before they die or ELSE.” Cue the “burning in hell for all eternity” music.

As I have said many times in many places for many years, in the U.S. armed forces you may have mandatory formations and you may have religious formations but you CANNOT have mandatory, religious formations.

Luckily for us, the United States Senate took the side of the U.S. Constitution, its construing Federal and state case law in conjunction with DoD directives, instructions and regulations. Further, the Senate obviously and carefully considered U.S. national security as well as the compelling governmental interest in optimizing the unit cohesion, mission readiness, good order, morale, and discipline of our valued armed forces members. 

In the end, it turned out that not only could the Lame Duck Senate fly, but upon taking wing it was able – just barely – to avoid the evangelical, fundamentalist Christian buckshot being fired in its direction. 
And for that proud and rare occasion, we should all be truly thankful.                

The Military Religious Freedom Foundation is up against well-funded extremist religious organizations. Your donations allow us to continue our fight in the courts and in the media to fight for separation of church and state in the U.S. military. Please make a fully tax-deductible donation today at helpbuildthewall.org.

Michael L. "€œMikey"€ Weinstein, Esq. is founder and president of the 7-time Nobel Peace Prize-nominated Military Religious Freedom Foundation (MRFF), an honor graduate of the Air Force Academy, and a former J.A.G. in the U.S. Air Force. He served as a White House counsel in the Reagan Administration and as the Committee Management Officer of the "Iran-Contra"€ Investigation. He is also the former General Counsel to H. Ross Perot and Perot Systems Corporation. His two sons, daughter-in-law, son-in law, and brother-in-law are also graduates of USAFA. In December 2012, Defense News named Mikey one of the 100 Most Influential People in U.S. Defense. He is the author of "With God On Our Side"€ (2006, St. Martin'€™s Press) and "€œNo Snowflake in an Avalanche"€ (2012, Vireo).
ORIGINALLY POSTED TO MIKEY WEINSTEIN ON TUE DEC 23, 2014 AT 12:50 PM PST.


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HUFFINGTON POST BLOGS – Religious Accommodation – A Wolf in Sheep’s Clothing
– NOVEMBER 25, 2014

Fireworks at the Hearing- Representative Forbes(R-VA) vs. Mikey Weinstein Executive Director of the Military Religious Freedom Foundation

Anyone who has ever watched a Congressional hearing knows it is a set up. The majority runs the show. They select the majority of witnesses for any given panel. The outcome is preordained. Just this last Wednesday, November 19, 2014, when the Personnel Subcommittee of the House Armed Services Committee held its second hearing on Religious Accommodation in the Armed Services it was not just a set up, it was far more- the perfect ambush.

The five-person panel was made up of three ultra conservative Christians from the Liberty Institute, Family Research Counsel and the Chaplains Alliance for Religious Liberty. They were "balanced" by a retired Jewish Navy Chaplain and MikeyWeinstein, also Jewish, from the Military Religious Freedom Foundation.

The purported purpose of the hearing was to hear the views of nongovernmental parties about the recent changes in religious accommodation mandated by Congress. In the last two, must pass, National Defense Authorization Acts (NDAA), Congress, at the behest of ultra conservative Christians, included provisions that expanded the rights of service members and chaplains to express their religious beliefs. On its face, the expansion of such a right would appear perfectly fine. But, part of what is really going on is an attempt by the ultra conservative Christians in Congress to allow chaplains to witness for Christ to all service members AT ALL TIMES, without fear of accountability.

If you watch the video of the hearing, you will notice that the only Democrat attending and asking questions was the subcommittee ranking member, Susan Davis(D-CA) (Jewish). Where were the rest of the Democrats? On the Republican side, there were not only the chair of the subcommittee, Joe Wilson (R-SC)(Associate Reformed Presbyterian Church),and fellow subcommittee member, Walter Jones (R-NC)(Roman Catholic but previously Southern Baptist), but also seven ultra conservative Christian members of Congress, not members of the subcommittee, who were permitted to question the witnesses. Trent Franks (R-AZ), Randy Forbes (R-VA), John Fleming (R-LA), and Doug Collins (R-GA) are all Southern Baptists. Vickie Hartzler (R-MO) is a member of the Fellowship of Evangelical Churches. Doug Lanborn (R-CO) claims to be a nondenominational Christian and Tim Huelskamp(R-KS) is a devout Roman Catholic. With these reinforcements the ambush was set.

The true goal of the chair was to establish that Christian evangelists, including chaplains, were having their religious expressions unjustly limited. This hearing was a set up to prove that, even with these new protections, Christians were being mistreated and oppressed. Congress would therefore be compelled, in the next annual NDAA, to provide unprecedented legal protections beyond those already the law.

This claim of persecution of Christians is not new. The Family Research Council and others have been making hyped up, often false, accusations for the past several years. Many of these claims of persecution have been debunked and completely discredited. In reality, it is ultra conservative Christians, and the evangelistic chaplains who share their strict partisan biblical opinions, who are unhappy with the cultural changes in the Military. The real elephant in the room at this hearing was the repeal of the "Don't Ask, Don't Tell"(DADT) law and the finding by the Supreme Court that portions of the Defense of Marriage Act (DOMA) were unconstitutional. Is it purely coincidental that the members of Congress participating in this hearing, as well as the conservative members of the panel, were some of the strongest obstructionists to the repeal of DADT and staunch supporters of DOMA?

What is happening to the Military is that the chaplaincy has been taken over by ultra conservative Christians who not only object to these cultural changes, but who see the armed services as a mission for Jesus. While they make up 18 percent of the Force, they have 63 percent of the chaplains. It is these chaplains who want unfettered access to be able to publically ostracize LGB service members, and also proselytize aggressively, without restriction. They are looking to their allies in Congress to aid and abet them.

As this charade of hearing was going on in DC, contrary to the testimony of several of the panelist that there was never proselytizing in the field, an evangelistic Christian chaplain was using a mandatory event to do just that. During a compulsory suicide prevention-training program at a Ranger Battalion in Georgia, this chaplain proclaimed " Invite Jesus into whatever you are feeling." Mandatory troop formations have never been appropriate venues for religious proselytizing of any kind, an axiom seasoned chaplains have always respected.

What these members of Congress don't seem to understand, or more likely don't care about, is that the military chaplaincy is different from ministry in the civilian world. As one chaplain endorser and member of the Forum on the Military Chaplaincy recently stated:

Military chaplains exist first and foremost 'to perform or provide for the free exercise of religion.' There is a sacred institutional trust that chaplains must save their theology and creeds for formal worship services and/or private, client-invited pastoral counseling. Suicide prevention presentations and other mandatory presentations, ceremonies, and personnel formations are NOT the time to theologically opine and sermonize. Chaplains should and are mandated to be sensitive to the needs of A-L-L in their spiritual care and institutional responsibility -- and they are never to attempt to proselytize or even opine when such possibly can be construed as either coercive or an undue influence! I would think that such actions in the context of mandatory formations and presentations and even written columns in official unit publications could easily be construed as command-sponsored or command-endorsed policies or positions and as such are likely violations of that sacred trust, if not outright illegal. If professional military chaplains are uncomfortable laboring with sensitivity and sincere adherence to and genuine respect for their proper roles in such contexts, it may be time for some chaplains to reconsider their sense of calling and definition of ministry -- before the military is compelled to take action to insure the rights as well as the (career and emotional) safety of personnel.

The accommodation being considered by this committee is clearly a subterfuge to allow criticizing of LGB service members and proselytizing of all non-Christians. While any legislation this committee might propose would give cover to these ultra conservative Christian chaplains and their fellow believers, it would in all probability also have an adverse impact on those service members who do not share these religious beliefs. Such unrestricted criticism and proselytizing would clearly have a negative effect on unit morale, good order and discipline. Providing legal cover, with no accountability, would be counterproductive for the military, may present a challenge to the military chaplaincy's continued survival and viability, and clearly would be bad for our country.




“This erstwhile prize of legislative plunder had been specifically designed by these Congressmen and Congresswomen from the House, in nefarious collaboration with their legions of fundamentalist Christian parachurch allies, to be embedded deep within the confines of the 2015 Pentagon authorization/funding act.... For nearly a decade we at the Military Religious Freedom Foundation (MRFF) have fought night and day against the noxious trespasses of the Religious Right upon the rights of the brave men and women in our United States armed services. It’s been a bruising fight, no doubt, one filled with angry words, violent threats, as well as lies, damned lies, and hideous distortions lifted straight from the era of McCarthyism.... In fact, it’s an open secret that the military chaplaincy hardly matches the diverse cross-section of faith (and non-faith) groups represented in our armed forces.... For these chaplains, the military isn’t a place for Constitutionally mandated pluralism, religious respect and mutual tolerance.... As I have said many times in many places for many years, in the U.S. armed forces you may have mandatory formations and you may have religious formations but you CANNOT have mandatory, religious formations..... Luckily for us, the United States Senate took the side of the U.S. Constitution, its construing Federal and state case law in conjunction with DoD directives, instructions and regulations. Further, the Senate obviously and carefully considered U.S. national security as well as the compelling governmental interest in optimizing the unit cohesion, mission readiness, good order, morale, and discipline of our valued armed forces members.” 

These constant efforts by the religious right to wriggle their way into the inner workings of our free society is not only enfuriating, but scary. Their goal is to take over and remold the American mind – they would say “Yes, that's right” – and get around the Constitutional bans that have been set up specifically to keep radical and politicized religious elements from establishing a state religion here. I had nothing against the Baptists other than personal differences in belief, but now that they have become so politically radical I am feeling that we are indeed, not merely moving toward a psychological war in this country, but already in the middle of it. I'm not in the military, but I would hate to have to listen to religious indoctrination against my will. I'm glad to see that the Senate caught the irregular wording and eliminated it.





http://www.hawaiinewsnow.com/story/27725688/republican-representative-joins-democratic-party

Republican representative joins Democratic party
By Keoki Kerr
Posted: Dec 29, 2014

HONOLULU (HawaiiNewsNow) -

State Rep. Aaron Johanson, who had been a rising star in the Hawaii Republican Party and minority leader of the State House, announced Monday he is leaving the GOP for the Democratic Party.

Democratic legislative leaders surrounded Johanson - who represents Moanalua, Foster Village and Fort Shafter in the State House -- at a news conference Monday afternoon outside the State Capitol as he announced he's leaving the GOP to become a Democrat.

He said he has increasingly increasingly put at odds with Republicans and said many members of the GOP have become "more narrow in their demands for ideological purity."

"I think much of my district voted for me in spite of being a Republican as I have gone door-to-door over multiple election cycles," Johanson said. There are so many Democrats, Independents, Republicans and people who are not affiliated with a party who have supported me."

Johnason, who's been in the House for two terms, became the youngest minority leader in recent history when fellow Republicans elected him to the post in 2012 when he was 32 years old.

Since this fall's election, the House's eight Republicans have been unable to organize, because some Republicans want to replace him, saying he's been too collaborative with Democrats.

"Rather than being focused on remaining the loyal opposition as some would like, and I understand that some Republicans really want that," Johanson said. "That's not who I am, that's not who I committed to be. And I just look forward to making a collaborative, constructive and positive difference."

Republican Party Chair Pat Saiki called the switch "disgraceful," noting that 4,000 voted for him as a Republican less than two months ago.

"To find out that he's willing to sacrifice his own political principals for his own ambition is a real disappointment," Saiki said.

A tearful State Rep. Cynthia Thielen (R-Kailua, Kaneohe Bay) said, "We've lost a wonderful, moderate voice. And I'm very sorry about it."

Thielen, the longest-serving Republican in the State House, said right-wing conservatives pushed Johanson out of the Republican Party.

"It's basically the social conservatives that want to control the Republican caucus and the Republican Party. This is not Hawaii. Hawaii supports mainstream Republican ideas," Thielen said.

But another longtime Republican activist and occasional political candidate said it's dishonest for Johanson to switch parties just two months after winning re-election as a Republican.

"If he's going to be with the Democrats, he ought to try to be elected as a Democrat, rather than fraudulently elected as a Republican," said Mike Palcic, who starts a job working for State Sen. Sam Slom, the State Senate's only Republican, on Friday.

Palcic heads a group called Citizens for Recall, a committee to establish recall, referendum, initiative and term limits on state issues and for state lawmakers. Local laws allow county elected officials to be recalled by voters, but state law precludes state lawmakers from facing a recall by angry voters.

As a result, Palcic said voters in Johanson's district have to wait 22 months to decide whether he should be re-elected and can't mount a recall election against him.

In 1985, the Democratic Party of Hawaii successfully launched recall elections against three members of the Honolulu City Council who switched from the Democratic Party to the GOP, to align themselves with the late Honolulu Mayor Frank Fasi, who was then a Republican. The three councilmen - Toraki Matsumoto, Rudy Pacarro and George Akahane - were defeated in the recall elections by Democrats Donna Mercado Kim, Arnold Morgado and Randy Iwase.

Honolulu elections became non-partisan in 1994, after Oahu voters approved a change to the Honolulu City Charter in 1992.

Before Johanson's departure, the GOP ranks in the State House had increased by one to eight in the 2014 election. Now the Republicans are back down to seven members - the same number they had last year in the House. The overwhelming majority -- 44 of the 51 state representatives -- are Democrats.

Gov. David Ige said he was pleased to welcome Johanson to the Democratic Party.

"Over the years I have had a good working relationship with Aaron and was able to observe his commitment of always putting his community first," Ige said in a statement. "I am also impressed with his desire to finding common ground on issues that impact all of our residents, no matter how divisive those issues are."  

State Senate President Donna Kim said, "I don't anything will change, we'll continue to agree and disagree on issues as we have in the past. But he does have a bright future, he is a shining star and we need to nurture the newcomers and young people, the next generation."




“Democratic legislative leaders surrounded Johanson - who represents Moanalua, Foster Village and Fort Shafter in the State House -- at a news conference Monday afternoon outside the State Capitol as he announced he's leaving the GOP to become a Democrat. He said he has increasingly increasingly put at odds with Republicans and said many members of the GOP have become "more narrow in their demands for ideological purity."... "Rather than being focused on remaining the loyal opposition as some would like, and I understand that some Republicans really want that," Johanson said. "That's not who I am, that's not who I committed to be. And I just look forward to making a collaborative, constructive and positive difference." Republican Party Chair Pat Saiki called the switch "disgraceful," noting that 4,000 voted for him as a Republican less than two months ago. "To find out that he's willing to sacrifice his own political principals for his own ambition is a real disappointment," Saiki said.... Thielen, the longest-serving Republican in the State House, said right-wing conservatives pushed Johanson out of the Republican Party. "It's basically the social conservatives that want to control the Republican caucus and the Republican Party. This is not Hawaii. Hawaii supports mainstream Republican ideas," Thielen said.... Gov. David Ige said he was pleased to welcome Johanson to the Democratic Party. "Over the years I have had a good working relationship with Aaron and was able to observe his commitment of always putting his community first," Ige said in a statement. "I am also impressed with his desire to finding common ground on issues that impact all of our residents, no matter how divisive those issues are."  

Saiki accused him of sacrificing “his own political principles,” but those who have known him in the legislature, including the Republican Thielen, the most long-term member of the Republican party, said strongly that a new right wing group of Republicans forced him out. He didn't “sacrifice” his beliefs, but rather followed them -- he just courageously disagreed. He just isn't a right wing thinker. This is great news. A few other similar cases have happened in the last few years. I have hope that as Republicans become ever more rigid and restrictive on their members, more people will opt out and join another group, hopefully the Democrats. If we lose the American belief in freedom of thought where will our other freedoms go?





http://thinkprogress.org/climate/2014/10/02/3575249/baker-hughes-fracking-chemical-disclosure/

Major Drilling Services Company Will Now Disclose All Fracking Chemicals
BY KATIE VALENTINE
POSTED ON OCTOBER 2, 2014

Photograph – A jar holding waste water from hydraulic fracturing is held up to the light at a recycling site in Midland, Texas, Sept. 24, 2013.

Drilling services company Baker Hughes will from now on disclose all the chemicals they use in fracking, under a new policy announced Tuesday.

Baker Hughes, which is one of the world’s largest companies providing drilling and other services to oil companies, pledged Tuesday that it would disclose 100 percent of the chemical makeup in the fluid it uses for fracking, “without the use of any trade secret designations.” The company said in a statement that it hopes its decision to disclose its chemical mix will help instill more public trust in the fracking process.

“Introducing greater transparency about the chemicals used in the hydraulic fracturing process and protecting the ability to innovate are not conflicting goals,” Derek Mathieson, Baker Hughes chief strategy officer, said in a statement. “The policy we are implementing today is consistent with our belief that we are partners in solving industry challenges, and that we have a responsibility to provide the public with the information they want and deserve. It simultaneously enables us to protect proprietary information that is critical to our growth.”

Baker Hughes had previously announced plans to disclose fracking chemicals in April. The company will now list all the chemicals they use for each fracking job on FracFocus.org, a site that collects voluntary submissions of chemicals used by fracking companies.

In most states, oil and gas companies aren’t required to disclose the chemical makeup of their fracking fluid, which means the exact cocktail used by most companies is kept secret. FracFocus has compiled a list of chemicals used by fracking companies, but a report from the Department of Energy in March found that 84 percent of the wells that had provided chemical information to FracFocus withheld information for at least one chemical, invoking trade secret protection.

Last year, California passed a law that requires oil and gas companies to list the chemicals they use in fracking operations, but the state remains the only one to have such a strict law on fracking chemical disclosure. In January, North Carolina passed a rule that gives fracking companies the right to keep their chemical mixes secret. Wyoming requires fracking companies to disclose some of the chemicals they use, but the state allows exemptions for trade secrets. Ohio has a similar rule.

Critics argue that disclosing chemicals used in fracking could help protect residents that live near fracking operations, by informing them of what toxic substances to test for in their water. There haven’t been many studies on how exposure to the water mixture that’s used in fracking operations affects humans, but one study found that exposure to fracking wastewater caused stillbirths and death in cattle. The Environmental Protection Agency is currently looking into rules that would require oil and gas companies to disclose the chemicals they use, but the rules aren’t likely to be binding and will likely include exemptions for trade secrets.

Baker Hughes’ announcement came the same week that ExxonMobil released a report that documents the risks of fracking for its shareholders. Some say the report doesn’t go far enough, however — Danielle Fugere, president of As You Sow, told the AP she wished Exxon’s report had gone further.

“Exxon continues to discuss generalized practices…but provides no concrete data on whether it is actually reducing risks and impacts at each of the plays in which it is conducting fracking,” she said.




“Drilling services company Baker Hughes will from now on disclose all the chemicals they use in fracking, under a new policy announced Tuesday. Baker Hughes, which is one of the world’s largest companies providing drilling and other services to oil companies, pledged Tuesday that it would disclose 100 percent of the chemical makeup in the fluid it uses for fracking, “without the use of any trade secret designations.” The company said in a statement that it hopes its decision to disclose its chemical mix will help instill more public trust in the fracking process.... Derek Matthews of Baker Hughes said, ““The policy we are implementing today is consistent with our belief that we are partners in solving industry challenges, and that we have a responsibility to provide the public with the information they want and deserve. It simultaneously enables us to protect proprietary information that is critical to our growth.”.... There haven’t been many studies on how exposure to the water mixture that’s used in fracking operations affects humans, but one study found that exposure to fracking wastewater caused stillbirths and death in cattle.... Baker Hughes’ announcement came the same week that ExxonMobil released a report that documents the risks of fracking for its shareholders. Some say the report doesn’t go far enough, however...”

FracFocus.org gives a long list of fracking chemicals. None of them sounded like a familiar or commonly known poison, but one is added to kill bacteria. Bacteria can cause a problem in the fracking process. The above article does say that wastewater from fracking has caused stillbirths and deaths in cattle. Another article which I didn't clip said that the law passed in the state of North Carolina has actually made it illegal for anyone to disclose the list of chemicals used in fracking. The Congress wrote it as a felony, but the Senate reduced the charge to a misdemeanor after strong complaints from Democratic Party members. Some of the state laws have a “doctor gag rule” which prohibits any health worker from disclosing information on illnesses suspected to be from fracking chemicals, even in a peer to peer effort to document useful treatments. This is beginning to read like a thriller, don't you think? And it's true. See the following articles for more information:

http://www.reuters.com/article/2014/05/22/us-usa-fracking-secrets-idUSBREA4L0YC20140522
http://stateimpact.npr.org/pennsylvania/tag/fracking-disclosure/.





http://www.cbsnews.com/news/buddhist-monks-to-lead-slain-nypd-officer-wenjian-liu-funeral/

Buddhist monks to lead slain NYPD officer's funeral
CBS/AP
January 4, 2015

Photograph – New York Mayor Bill de Blasio (C) arrives to attend a wake for police officer Wenjian Liu at a funeral home in New York's borough of Brooklyn on January 3, 2015.  

NEW YORK - Thousands of uniformed police officers from across the U.S. are expected to attend the funeral Sunday of the second New York Police Department officer fatally shot with his partner in their patrol car two weeks ago.

Buddhist monks will lead a Chinese ceremony for Officer Wenjian Liu, followed by a traditional police ceremony with eulogies led by a chaplain. The funeral follows a somber wake the day before as mourners lined up for blocks on a cold, rainy day to pay their respects.

Liu, 32, had served as a policeman for seven years and was married just two months when he was killed with his partner, Officer Rafael Ramos, on Dec. 20. Ramos' funeral was held a week ago.

"This is a really tragic story," Gov. Andrew Cuomo told reporters following the wake, held just two days after the death of his own father, former New York Gov. Mario Cuomo.

"This is really pointless. It had nothing to do with them," he said of Liu and Ramos. "They did nothing wrong. ... It was pure and random hatred."

The shooter, Ismaaiyl Brinsley, killed himself shortly after the brazen daytime ambush on a Brooklyn street.

Investigators say Brinsley was an emotionally disturbed loner who had made references online to the killings this summer of unarmed black men at the hands of white police officers, vowing to put "wings on pigs."

The deaths strained an already tense relationshipbetween city police unions and Mayor Bill de Blasio, who union leaders have said contributed to an environment that allowed the killings by supporting protests following the deaths of Eric Garner on Staten Island and Michael Brown in Ferguson, Missouri.

The head of the rank-and-file police union, which is negotiating a contract with the city, turned his back on the mayor at a hospital the day of the killings. The act was imitated by hundreds of officers standing outside Ramos' funeral who turned their backs toward a giant TV screen as de Blasio's remarks were being broadcast.

Many people, including Cardinal Timothy Dolan, have since called for calm, urging all parties to tone down the rhetoric. And this weekend, police Commissioner William Bratton sent a memo to all commands urging rank-and-file officers to refrain from making political statements at Liu's wake and funeral.

"A hero's funeral is about grieving, not grievance," Bratton said in a memo read to all commands at roll calls Friday and Saturday. "I issue no mandates, and I make no threats of discipline, but I remind you that when you don the uniform of this department, you are bound by the tradition, honor and decency that go with it."

On Saturday, officers standing outside the Brooklyn funeral home where Liu was displayed dressed in full uniform in an open casket saluted as the mayor and commissioner entered.

Jeanne Zaino, who teaches campaign management at New York University, told CBS News correspondent Jericka Duncan that it's important for the police and the mayor of the largest city in the United States to get along.

"The mayor's first responsibility is the safety and security of the city, and he is dependent on the police in order to fulfill that goal," Zaino said.

But she didn't think that de Blasio needs to apologize.

"I do think it would serve him well to say that 'If I have given any indication that I am less than fully committed to the officers in this community, the safety of the community I apologize for that,'" she said.

De Blasio will deliver remarks at Liu's funeral.

Liu's funeral arrangements were delayed so relatives from China could travel to New York. Burial will follow at Cypress Hills Cemetery.

On Saturday, a small vigil was established in Chinatown and community members gathered, burning pieces of paper in honor of Liu in keeping with Chinese tradition.

Uniformed officers from across the country said they traveled to remember Liu because of their own tradition - solidarity among those who wear the uniform.

"When it happens here, it happens to us," Los Angeles Police Department Officer Hannu Tarjamo said of the killings Saturday after the wake. "It doesn't matter if it happens here, or in L.A., or in Louisiana. It's an act of savagery that should be condemned by society."



http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2014/12/21/ray-kelly-bill-de-blasio_n_6362762.html

Ray Kelly: Bill De Blasio Ran 'Anti-Police Campaign'
By Molly Reilly
12/21/2014

Former New York Police Commissioner Ray Kelly said New York City Mayor Bill de Blasio had contributed to police officers turning against him by running an "anti-police campaign" for mayor in 2013.

Kelly appeared on ABC's "This Week" Sunday to discuss the killing of two NYPD officers. When asked by host George Stephanopoulos if it's fair for critics to partiallyblame de Blasio for the death of the two cops, Kelly said the mayor had set off a "firestorm" by raising concerns over his son's safety.

“Obviously, there's a lot of emotion involved when two police officers are killed," Kelly said. "When the mayor made statements about how they had to train his son, who is biracial, to be careful when he’s dealing with the police, I think that set off this latest firestorm."

On Saturday, Wenjian Liu and Rafael Ramos were shot dead in their squad car by a gunman identified by police as 28-year-old Ismaaiyl Brinsley. Brinsley had reportedly posted on social media boasting of his plan to kill two cops in revenge for the deaths of Michael Brown and Eric Garner at the hands of police.

The head of the largest police union in New York City, the Patrolmen's Benevolent Association, accused de Blasio and those protesting the deaths of Brown and Garner of inciting violence that led to Saturday's shooting.

"There's blood on many hands tonight," NYC PBA president Pat Lynch said Saturday. "That blood on the hands starts on the steps of City Hall in the office of the mayor."

Kelly served as police commissioner from 2002 to 2013, and is a staunch defender of the city's stop and frisk policy -- which de Blasio promised to reform during his mayoral campaign.

"Quite frankly, the mayor ran an anti-police campaign last year when he ran for mayor,” Kelly told ABC.

"You're talking about his opposition to stop and frisk," Stephanopoulos asked. "Is that what you think was anti-police?"

“I think a lot of the rhetoric was -- at a time when the police had a 70 percent approval rating," Kelly replied. "Obviously that’s not the case now."

Kelly's remarks echoed those of former New York Gov. George Pataki (R), who disparaged both the mayor and Attorney General Eric Holder:

Former New York City Mayor Rudy Giuliani also criticized de Blasio, accusing him of "allowing protests to get out of control" following a grand jury's decision to not indict police officer Daniel Pantaleo for using a fatal chokehold on Garner.

"If I was in the situation that Mayor de Blasio is in, and I feel sorry that he's in this situation, I would give a speech to the police department and I would explain that maybe I was wrong about a few things," he said during an appearance on "Fox News Sunday."

Giuliani also blamed the murder of the two officers on anti-police propaganda.

"We've had four months of propaganda, starting with the president, that everybody 

should hate the police," Giuliani said. "I don't care how you want to describe it -- that's what those protests are all about."

Giuliani said that protests across the country after the deaths of Brown and Garner, even if they were peaceful, had led people to think that the police were bad.

"That is completely wrong. Actually, the people who do the most for the black community in America are the police," he said.

Speaking at a press conference on Saturday, de Blasio praised the slain officers and strongly condemned the "heinous individual" responsible for the attack.

"When a police officer is murdered, it tears at the foundation of our society," he said. "It is an attack on all of us. It’s an attack on everything we hold dear."



Community policing
From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

Community policing, or community-oriented policing, is a strategy of policing that focuses on police building ties and working closely with members of the communities.

In the United States, the Violent Crime Control and Law Enforcement Act of 1994 established the Office of Community Oriented Policing Services (COPS) within the Justice Department to promote community policing. According to the definition of COPS:

Community policing is a philosophy that promotes organizational strategies, which support the systematic use of partnerships and problem-solving techniques, to proactively address the immediate conditions that give rise to public safety issues such as crime, social disorder, and fear of crime.

—Community Policing Defined[1]

There is no universally accepted definition of community policing however can commonly be descried as:

Defining Community Policing[edit]

"Community policing is a philosophy of full service personalized policing, where the same officer patrols and works in the same area on a permanent basis, from a decentralized place, working in a proactive partnership with citizens to identify and solve problems."

—Bertus Ferreira[2]

Community policing is a professional management organization that is structure for the support in the community to create proactive problem solving to address the immediate conditions that give rise to the public safety issues such as crime, social disorder and fear of crime. Community policing has partnerships between law enforcement agency and other organizations like government agencies, community members, nonprofit service providers, private businesses and the media. Government agencies includes probation and parole, public works departments, neighboring law enforcement agencies, health and human services, child support services, ordinance enforcement, and schools. Community members can include partnerships with neighborhood association that has meetings, town hall meetings and storefronts decentralized in the community. Nonprofit organizations includes advocacy of groups like service clubs, support groups, issue groups and community development corporations. These groups work with individuals that have the same interest in the community. Private Businesses have a bigger impact on the community from the health perspective. Private Businesses often identify problems that provide the resources which can include security technology for the community. The media represents a powerful pattern by which it can communicate with the community. The community policing uses the media to assist with publicizing concerns and solutions that will impact the community. The media can have an impact on the fear of crime, crime problems and perceptions of the police in the community. Community policing recognizes that police can’t solve every public safety problem alone so interactive partnerships are involved. The policing uses the public for developing problem solving solutions.

Community policing was derived out of the “Broken Windows” theory; which suggested that since a broken window is not against the law then it would be ignored by the “professional” police officer. However, it is an indicator of social disorganization, and therefore requires the attention of the community-orientated officer. There have been multiple experiments, such as the Flint, Michigan experiment involving foot patrol officers be assigned to a specific geographic area to help reduce crime in hot spots. Many community-oriented police structures focus on assigning officers to a specific area called a “beat” and having those officers become familiar with the that area or beat through a process of “beat profiling.” The officers are then taught how to design specific patrol strategies to deal with the types of crime that are experienced in that beat.[3]

Many common elements in community-oriented policing include:

°Relying on community-based crime prevention by utilizing citizen education, neighborhood watch, and a variety of other techniques, as opposed to relying solely on police patrols.

°Re-structuralizing of patrol from an emergency response based system to emphasizing proactive techniques such as foot patrol.

°Increased officer accountability to citizens they are supposed to serve.

°Decentralizing the police authority, allowing more discretion amongst lower-ranking officers, and more initiative expected from them.[4]

Traditional V. Community Policing[edit]

Very few incidents of crime are isolated, most are results and symptoms of underlying problems. Meaning they will recur predictably, while officers handle the problem at the time they do not address the underlying issue in many situations. The goal of traditional policing is to protect law abiding citizens from criminals. They do this by identifying and apprehending criminals while gathering enough evidence to convict them. Traditional beat officers focus on duty is to respond to incidents swiftly, and clear 911 calls. Many officers working busy shifts only have time to respond to and clear 911 calls, this type of policing does not stop or reduce crime significantly it simply makes a temporarily fix to an on-going problem. [5]In contrast community policing’s main goal is to assist the public in establishing and maintaining a safe, orderly social environment. While apprehending criminals is one important goal of community policing it is not necessarily the most important goal. Community policing [6] is concerned with solving the crimes that the community is concerned about, and solving citizens concerns by working with and gaining support from the community. The most effective solutions include coordinating police, government resources, citizens, and local business to address the problems affecting the community. They get in touch with the community in a variety of ways including: polls or surveys, town meetings, call-in programs, and meeting with interest groups. They use these connections to understand what the community wants out of its police officers and what the community is willing to do to solve the crime problem.

Evaluating Community Policing[edit]

Determining whether or not community policing is effective or not is a whole different dilemma. For traditional policing determining whether police or policies are effective or not may be done by evaluating the crime rate for a geographic area. A crime rate is determined by using the Unified crime reporting system (UCRS), which is an index of crimes reported to the police. Community policing is more complicated than simply comparing crime rates. Due to the fact that there is no universally accepted definition of community policing and policies vary widely between departments there is also no universally accepted criteria for evaluating community policing. However there are some commonly used structures. One possible way to determine whether or not community policing is effective in an area is for officers and key members of the community to set a specific mission and goals when starting out. Once specific goals are set, participation at every level is essential in obtaining commitment and achieving goals. Street-level officers, supervisors, executives, and the entire community should feel the goals represent what they want their police department to accomplish. Objectives and goals should be reevaluated periodically to determine what progress the department and officers have made; along with whether or not those same goals are important to the community[7]




“Many people, including Cardinal Timothy Dolan, have since called for calm, urging all parties to tone down the rhetoric. And this weekend, police Commissioner William Bratton sent a memo to all commands urging rank-and-file officers to refrain from making political statements at Liu's wake and funeral. "A hero's funeral is about grieving, not grievance," Bratton said in a memo read to all commands at roll calls Friday and Saturday. "I issue no mandates, and I make no threats of discipline, but I remind you that when you don the uniform of this department, you are bound by the tradition, honor and decency that go with it.... "The mayor's first responsibility is the safety and security of the city, and he is dependent on the police in order to fulfill that goal," Zaino said. But she didn't think that de Blasio needs to apologize. "I do think it would serve him well to say that 'If I have given any indication that I am less than fully committed to the officers in this community, the safety of the community I apologize for that,'" she said. De Blasio will deliver remarks at Liu's funeral.... On Saturday, a small vigil was established in Chinatown and community members gathered, burning pieces of paper in honor of Liu in keeping with Chinese tradition.”

I have read most of the reports on de Blasio's statements. He stated clearly that he was going to be looking into police reform during his term as Mayor, but I didn't see anything that was “anti-police,” but rather that he saw a need for changes. He particularly mentioned the stop-and-frisk policy, which I particularly hate. I think it's abusive and too often unnecessary.

The Huffington Post article above digs into the issue of why NYPD officers are so strongly against de Blasio -- “ Kelly said the mayor had set off a 'firestorm' by raising concerns over his son's safety. 'Obviously, there's a lot of emotion involved when two police officers are killed," Kelly said. 'When the mayor made statements about how they had to train his son, who is biracial, to be careful when he’s dealing with the police, I think that set off this latest firestorm.' The head of the largest police union in New York City, the Patrolmen's Benevolent Association, accused de Blasio and those protesting the deaths of Brown and Garner of inciting violence that led to Saturday's shooting.”

So the mayor, when he stated a simple truth that his biracial son had to be taught specifically how to act around police, brought up “the elephant in the room,” thus showing a lack of trust in the NYPD officers on de Blasio's part. Giuliano accused him of letting the demonstrations after the Ferguson and Garner killings “get out of hand,” thus contributing toward the hate crime against the two NPYD officers Liu and Ramos. The young man who killed them had been making statements on the Internet against police of a hatefilled and violent nature, and clearly was mentally disturbed. I think he very likely would have done the crime or a similar one on his own without the heightened racial tensions in the community. I certainly don't think the Mayor should have to refrain from saying his black son has been taught to be careful around police.

Besides, there clearly is a problem between police and the black community, and it needs to be changed from the top down – and in cities all over the country not just Ferguson or NYC. I personally think some federal laws need to be made issuing more instructive as well as restrictive conditions under which police are to work – less aggressiveness for no good reason (like stop and frisk ), no more patrolling alone and without body cameras, a penalty of dismissal or at the very least retraining for egregious violence up to and including death, more training in the field dealing with blacks and other ethnically different people in a peaceful way, greater skill in “talking people down” whether they are mentally deranged or merely angry, and the systematic building of friendly and helpful relationships with the black/poverty stricken community.

The police, unfortunately, sometimes seem to be fighting a war against the public. We should not be the enemy, but fellow citizens. Officers who want respect should behave politely in their first approach rather than coming up to a citizen and ordering him around roughly, unless of course the person actually is violent, selling or buying drugs, committing an assault or robbery, trying to break into a building, or carrying a weapon. Walking down the street off the sidewalk shouldn't be grounds for arrest, much less threats – a jaywalking ticket, yes. Wilson when he first approached Brown ordered him roughly to get on the sidewalk (one report said he used the “f...” word against them), which was clearly overkill given the situation.

The police should watch what words they use in general. Using provocative language like that just isn't good philosophy or good psychology. It immediately escalates the hatred and anger that is involved in the situation. In short, it's abusive and insulting. The excuse that Wilson suspected Brown of being a criminal was later recanted, saying that he had received the radio report of the attempted snatching of cigars after he spotted the black men. I think he focused on their blackness and the fact that they were “disrespectfully” acting like cocky and immature people. Its like the boys who go around with their drawers showing. It's disgusting, and I think it should be against the law (indecent behavior), but it's not really a serious problem. It's a mental assault, not really a threatening behavior. They're just too childish and angry to behave like young gentlemen. They probably haven't been taught as they should have been at home, either. Too many parents let their kids run wild.