Retired AF Guy
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My understanding is that the Fifth Circuit is a lot more friendly towards Conservative views.
A Deeply Fractured US
- Thread starter BeyondTheNow
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kkwd
Sr. Member
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It's not about the person it's about the law. If Tiny Tim hobbled in on his one crutch (he can only afford one) and Scrooge came in with his golden cane then the court must determine which side the law supports. A bleeding heart as a judge does no justice to anybody. As Justice Scalia said:
Scalia Quotes
Scalia Quotes
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A fair amount to unpack in this one. I also wonder if they are worried the presiding Judge will also shoot it down and impose a jail sentence?
kkwd
Sr. Member
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Here go-to for not answering a question is "Hatch Act". Further up thread it was mentioned she was historic in terms of her immutable characteristics. Being historic in no way equates to competence. Her job it to communicate but she's god awful at it. The "heads down" approach to answering makes it seem like she doesn't know the subject and has to rely on written aids.
I’ve not been bothering with most of the little updates on the classified documents case, but this is noteworthy. Trump’s counsel tonight has filed a response to the government’s proposed trial schedule, asking to essentially push the trial til after the next election. Part of their grounds include complexity and volume of evidentiary disclosure, and it’s not outlandish to me to think that December is very fast to get this to trial. Prosecution will have to put up a very strong response outlining why they feel it’s reasonable to maintain (at least for now) the existing trial schedule of December 2023.
The motion response is here, and is an interesting read if anyone else is nerding out on this:
The motion response is here, and is an interesting read if anyone else is nerding out on this:
daftandbarmy
Army.ca Dinosaur
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Well, this is counter-intuitive....
Official crime statistics are only released after a substantial delay, so for nearly a decade I’ve collected and compiled big-city crime data as a way to assemble a more real-time picture of national murder trends. And this spring, I’ve found something that I’ve never seen before and that probably has not happened in decades: strong evidence of a sharp and broad decline in the nation’s murder rate.
The United States may be experiencing one of the largest annual percent changes in murder ever recorded, according to my preliminary data. It is still early in the year and the trend could change over the second half of the year, but data from a sufficiently large sample of big cities have typically been a good predictor of the year-end national change in murder, even after only five months.
Murder is down about 12 percent year-to-date in more than 90 cities that have released data for 2023, compared with data as of the same date in 2022. Big cities tend to slightly amplify the national trend—a 5 percent decline in murder rates in big cities would likely translate to a smaller decline nationally. But even so, the drop shown in the preliminary data is astonishing.
The good news comes with the caveat that murder is not uniformly falling everywhere. Memphis, for example, has experienced an uptick following the killing of Tyre Nichols in January. Additionally, even a record double-digit percent decline in murder in 2023 would still mean that a couple thousand more people will be murdered in America this year than in 2019. Finally, mass shootings are on the rise even as overall gun violence appears to be falling.
All of that said, the good news is, well, good. Murder is down 13 percent in New York City, and shootings are down 25 percent, relative to last year as of late May. Murder is down more than 20 percent in Los Angeles, Houston, and Philadelphia. And, most significantly, murder is down 30 percent—30 percent!—or more in Jackson, Mississippi; Atlanta, Georgia; Little Rock, Arkansas; Minneapolis, Minnesota; Milwaukee, Wisconsin; and others.
Explaining the trend is much more difficult than describing it. The cause of the Great Crime Decline of the 1990s, when murder fell 37 percent over six years, is still not fully understood, so any explanations of the current trend must remain in the hypothesis phase for now. The national nature of both the surge in murder in 2020 and the apparent decrease this year suggests that national explanations will be more convincing than local anecdotes. Moreover, the factors that caused murder to begin to spike in the summer of 2020 may not be the same factors (now, theoretically, in reverse) that are contributing to its decline in 2023.
“It is possible that police departments have returned to some of the proactive work that they curtailed during the COVID pandemic and after George Floyd, activities that may be inhibiting some gun violence,” Jerry Ratcliffe, a criminal-justice professor at Temple University in Philadelphia, told me. In Baltimore, for example, a new effort to focus policing resources on the small subset of the population that is believed to be responsible for a disproportionate share of violence has produced promising initial results.
Many cities have used federal COVID-relief money to hire more police officers, and there is some evidence—albeit preliminary—that adding police officers helps to reduce homicide, while also leading to more arrests for low-level offenses. We do not yet know how successful agencies have been at growing their ranks or whether more police officers are resulting in fewer shootings. Murder is down in Chicago, New Orleans, and New York, for example, but Chicago’s number of police officers is virtually unchanged from last summer, while New Orleans’s is down more than 8 percent and New York has roughly 2 percent fewer officers.
The end of the emergency phase of the coronavirus pandemic may also be contributing to the decline in murder. “With COVID restrictions being lifted and a return to some degree of normalcy, the traditional constraints that occurred within society affecting the routine activities of people have returned,” Ratcliffe said.
Anthony Smith, the executive director of Cities United, an organization working to address community violence, agrees that the end of the pandemic is playing a role in falling violence. “Structures and systems that folks relied on are back open and driving. A lot of this took place during COVID time when a lot of stuff was shut down and folks didn’t have access. There was a lot of bleakness, there was just nothing,” Smith told me. “The world opened back up.” Smith believes that young people were particularly disconnected by the shutdown in services prompted by COVID, contributing to increasing violence among youth.
Smith also points to additional efforts to fund community interventions from the federal government and the efforts of philanthropic organizations to fund violence interventions. “There are more resources for the work, more investment in the work,” Smith told me. “A lot of cities have used [American Rescue Plan Act] dollars or general-fund dollars and decided to invest more in the intervention and prevention work around violence prevention.”
Smith highlighted the Department of Justice awarding $100 million to community groups addressing gun violence last year as an example of this investment. Cities have “increased their community-violence-intervention ecosystem and have focused in on identifying [those residents] most at risk and creating systems where they can identify, engage, and support them,” he told me.
The current downward shift in murder may reverse between now and December, and even if it doesn’t, it may ultimately prove to be a one-year anomaly. But whatever the causes—and whatever the staying power—the first five months of 2023 have produced an encouraging overall trend for the first time in years.
www.theatlantic.com
The Murder Rate Is Suddenly Falling
The first five months of 2023 have produced an encouraging overall trend for the first time in years.Official crime statistics are only released after a substantial delay, so for nearly a decade I’ve collected and compiled big-city crime data as a way to assemble a more real-time picture of national murder trends. And this spring, I’ve found something that I’ve never seen before and that probably has not happened in decades: strong evidence of a sharp and broad decline in the nation’s murder rate.
The United States may be experiencing one of the largest annual percent changes in murder ever recorded, according to my preliminary data. It is still early in the year and the trend could change over the second half of the year, but data from a sufficiently large sample of big cities have typically been a good predictor of the year-end national change in murder, even after only five months.
Murder is down about 12 percent year-to-date in more than 90 cities that have released data for 2023, compared with data as of the same date in 2022. Big cities tend to slightly amplify the national trend—a 5 percent decline in murder rates in big cities would likely translate to a smaller decline nationally. But even so, the drop shown in the preliminary data is astonishing.
The good news comes with the caveat that murder is not uniformly falling everywhere. Memphis, for example, has experienced an uptick following the killing of Tyre Nichols in January. Additionally, even a record double-digit percent decline in murder in 2023 would still mean that a couple thousand more people will be murdered in America this year than in 2019. Finally, mass shootings are on the rise even as overall gun violence appears to be falling.
All of that said, the good news is, well, good. Murder is down 13 percent in New York City, and shootings are down 25 percent, relative to last year as of late May. Murder is down more than 20 percent in Los Angeles, Houston, and Philadelphia. And, most significantly, murder is down 30 percent—30 percent!—or more in Jackson, Mississippi; Atlanta, Georgia; Little Rock, Arkansas; Minneapolis, Minnesota; Milwaukee, Wisconsin; and others.
Explaining the trend is much more difficult than describing it. The cause of the Great Crime Decline of the 1990s, when murder fell 37 percent over six years, is still not fully understood, so any explanations of the current trend must remain in the hypothesis phase for now. The national nature of both the surge in murder in 2020 and the apparent decrease this year suggests that national explanations will be more convincing than local anecdotes. Moreover, the factors that caused murder to begin to spike in the summer of 2020 may not be the same factors (now, theoretically, in reverse) that are contributing to its decline in 2023.
“It is possible that police departments have returned to some of the proactive work that they curtailed during the COVID pandemic and after George Floyd, activities that may be inhibiting some gun violence,” Jerry Ratcliffe, a criminal-justice professor at Temple University in Philadelphia, told me. In Baltimore, for example, a new effort to focus policing resources on the small subset of the population that is believed to be responsible for a disproportionate share of violence has produced promising initial results.
Many cities have used federal COVID-relief money to hire more police officers, and there is some evidence—albeit preliminary—that adding police officers helps to reduce homicide, while also leading to more arrests for low-level offenses. We do not yet know how successful agencies have been at growing their ranks or whether more police officers are resulting in fewer shootings. Murder is down in Chicago, New Orleans, and New York, for example, but Chicago’s number of police officers is virtually unchanged from last summer, while New Orleans’s is down more than 8 percent and New York has roughly 2 percent fewer officers.
The end of the emergency phase of the coronavirus pandemic may also be contributing to the decline in murder. “With COVID restrictions being lifted and a return to some degree of normalcy, the traditional constraints that occurred within society affecting the routine activities of people have returned,” Ratcliffe said.
Anthony Smith, the executive director of Cities United, an organization working to address community violence, agrees that the end of the pandemic is playing a role in falling violence. “Structures and systems that folks relied on are back open and driving. A lot of this took place during COVID time when a lot of stuff was shut down and folks didn’t have access. There was a lot of bleakness, there was just nothing,” Smith told me. “The world opened back up.” Smith believes that young people were particularly disconnected by the shutdown in services prompted by COVID, contributing to increasing violence among youth.
Smith also points to additional efforts to fund community interventions from the federal government and the efforts of philanthropic organizations to fund violence interventions. “There are more resources for the work, more investment in the work,” Smith told me. “A lot of cities have used [American Rescue Plan Act] dollars or general-fund dollars and decided to invest more in the intervention and prevention work around violence prevention.”
Smith highlighted the Department of Justice awarding $100 million to community groups addressing gun violence last year as an example of this investment. Cities have “increased their community-violence-intervention ecosystem and have focused in on identifying [those residents] most at risk and creating systems where they can identify, engage, and support them,” he told me.
The current downward shift in murder may reverse between now and December, and even if it doesn’t, it may ultimately prove to be a one-year anomaly. But whatever the causes—and whatever the staying power—the first five months of 2023 have produced an encouraging overall trend for the first time in years.
The Murder Rate Is Suddenly Falling
The first five months of 2023 have produced an encouraging overall trend for the first time in years.
www.theatlantic.com
Alabama being Alabama.
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My mother tells me Alabama, being Alabama, was a great place to conceive.
Lots of theories.
THE YEAR IN IDEAS; Ambulance-Homicide Theory, The (Published 2002)
Research shows that most significant factor in keeping homicide rate down is something quite practical: faster ambulances and better care in emergency room (Article in The Year in Ideas special section) (S)
kkwd
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Possibly. This seems ideologically driven by something unrelated to promotions.
Duckworth seems to have blocked promotions on the basis of Vindman not getting promoted due to politics.
Either way it’s a weird feature that members can just do this for political points.
I am sure you agree.
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I wonder how the "patriot veteran" GOP supporters are feeling right now.
Where's the red button meme?
kkwd
Sr. Member
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Yes, it's dirty pool.
kkwd
Sr. Member
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Mostly pissed I would guess.
kkwd
Sr. Member
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So sometimes it is ok due to the "cause". That just sends you down a big old slimey hole that is impossible to get out of.
OldSolduer
Army.ca Relic
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A few of those politicians need a good counselling in human behavior..... ya know?
Not sure I would go that far, I don’t think I like that feature in their promotion process.
It seems to allow for causes like small pet projects like Duckworth who is a veteran who lost her legs in combat and seemed to think Vindman was being unfairly treated in that same promotion process and looking for answers…to Tommy Tuberville who has no military background at all using this process in his fight against abortion.
While there is a fundamental difference and scope in both « causes », the system ends up being penalized either way.
kkwd
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Nope, it's disagreeable no matter the senators background. There is no class system in the senate, one member's vote or actions, within the rules, are just as valid as any other.
Sure but that has no bearing on on my statement on the fundamental difference in scope.
Brad Sallows
Army.ca Legend
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Senate "holds" aren't limited only to appointments, and can be overridden. The process for overriding is time-consuming, but could be used to move some appointments through. Or, the Senate could vote to change the applicable rule to narrow the scope of what can be held.
Holds, like filibusters, are a vital linchpin of American democracy to the minority party, and an obstructive anti-democratic abomination to the majority party.
Holds, like filibusters, are a vital linchpin of American democracy to the minority party, and an obstructive anti-democratic abomination to the majority party.
