New Evidence for the Ferguson Effect Recent studies support a long-standing theory connecting police protests and rising violent crime. Charles Fain Lehman

https://www.city-journal.org/new-evidence-connects-police-protests-and-rising-violent-crime

In 2015 and 2016, the coincidence of a major surge in homicides following mass protests over the police killing of Michael Brown in Ferguson, Missouri, prompted a heated debate about whether the demonstrations, and the anti-police hostility they engendered, helped cause the murder spike. Law enforcement leaders and some public commentators—including City Journal contributing editor Heather Mac Donald—identified a “Ferguson Effect,” whereby public scrutiny reduced police proactivity and led to an increase in violent crime. Supporters of the protests just as fervently derided the idea as imaginary and “debunked.”

Social scientists made a few contributions to this debate, but the research they produced offered limited insight into the causal relationship between scrutiny, proactivity, and crime. Two new studies, however, rely on better data sets and methods to provide strong evidence that highly scrutinized officer-involved fatalities reduce discretionary police activity and lead to an increase in violent crime.

The more-recent study, just published in the Journal of Public Economics by university economists Cheng Cheng and Wei Long, looks at the effect of Brown’s death on police activity and crime on a week-to-week level in St. Louis (which is near Ferguson), and on a month-to-month level in 60 big cities. The St. Louis police department collects high-quality data on self-initiated activity, the authors note, allowing them to assess in specific detail police behavior just before and just after Brown’s death.

Their findings manage somehow to be both unsurprising and shocking. In the immediate aftermath of Brown’s death, self-initiated arrests fell 62 percent. Similar declines are seen across nine out of 11 categories of self-initiated activities, including foot patrol (down 82 percent) and pedestrian checks (76 percent). Notably, the decline in arrests is concentrated among misdemeanor arrests (more discretionary than felonies) and among arrests of blacks (rather than whites). This reduction in police activity persisted for at least the next two years. In the same period, the city experienced a significant rise in homicide and aggravated assault.

USA: Reliving the Nightmare of a Shocking Christmas Carnage Every Day by Lawrence Kadish

https://www.gatestoneinstitute.org/18124/shocking-carnage

In America’s most important city, and within Manhattan, there is now a District Attorney, Alvin Bragg, who has redefined evil: in his view, it is the criminal who needs protecting, not the victim. Bragg (pictured) has directed his office to stop seeking prison sentences for criminals who prey on those unfortunate enough to be walking the streets of Manhattan.

One would have thought that after a repeat felon out on a $1,000 bail is alleged to have driven his car into a Christmas parade in Waukesha, Wisconsin, killing six people and injuring countless others, those who have sought to dismantle our criminal justice system would have recognized how their actions have created murderous carnage across the nation.

But that is far from the case and the lawless cannot believe their good fortune.

In America’s most important city, New York, and within Manhattan, its most famous borough, there is now a District Attorney who, in changing what his office will prosecute, has essentially redefined evil.

In a staff memo leaked to the media, Alvin Bragg has directed his office to stop seeking prison sentences for criminals who prey on those unfortunate enough to be walking the streets of Manhattan. In addition, he has instructed assistant district attorneys to downgrade felony charges in cases ranging from armed robbery to drug dealing.

If a foreign nation sought to destabilize our society by creating such a scenario we would consider it an act of war.

Stephen L. Miller :Democrats defeated by their own pandemic promises ‘Shut down the virus’ will be remembered as the most damning moment in political history since ‘read my lips’

https://spectatorworld.com/topic/democrats-defeated-pandemic-promises/

“It’s time for us to do what we have been doing and that time is every day” was the much ridiculed answer from Vice President Kamala Harris in an interview with NBC News on Thursday. It has been lampooned in almost every corner of the media and memed all over the internet, and rightly so.

Harris has been plagued her entire electoral career by a sense that she isn’t prepared. This time the test is the pandemic, which is a major problem for her and Joe Biden almost a year into their administration. It’s a term they were elected to almost exclusively on the promise of “shutting down the virus.” But viruses are a non-political problem, despite Biden’s politicizing it during the 2020 election.

Biden leveraged that politicization effectively to oust Donald Trump, whose own rhetoric on Covid was sloppy and absurd. Yet despite a national media that told the country the virus only affects restaurants and beachgoers in Florida and not social justice protesters, and despite Biden’s own seven-point plan that amounted to not much more than demanding and attempting to mandate vaccination on the population, the virus rages on.

There are now record numbers of cases in both blue and red states (hence the media panic and the adjustment of reporting case numbers in hospitals, as the AP is doing). There is a national shortage of tests, long lines at testing sites, and school closures at the behest of Biden’s teacher’s union donors. There’s also an effort to double down on masking kids, a strategy that is likely to radicalize parents even more, as all evidence now points to masking children being unnecessary, as kids already have strong natural defenses against Covid.

Will the media ever be honest about Joe Biden? The president is polling worse than ever…by Grace Curley

https://spectatorworld.com/topic/media-president-joe-biden-honest-appraisal-polling/

Joe Biden usually likes being compared to Donald Trump. During the 2020 presidential campaign the media often contrasted the two figures in order to highlight how much more decent and compassionate and normal Biden is, as opposed to Orange Man. However, the empathizer-in-chief might not be as crazy about the latest parallels emerging thanks to his poll numbers.

A headline in Newsweek, not exactly a right-wing rag, reads, “Joe Biden’s Approval Lower Than Donald Trump’s at Same Stage of Presidency: Poll.” The president’s current approval rating according to the Quinnipiac poll is a dismal 33 percent. Considering how slanted these polls can be, the real number might be even worse.

Imagine how dreadful Biden’s approval rating would be if the mainstream media were even remotely honest about his administration’s myriad of failures. But will journalists eventually tire of trying to polish a t-…a terrible president? Spinning Biden’s barrage of bad news grows harder by the day.

This week Joe couldn’t even get Georgia Democrat Stacey Abrams to show up for his tirade on voting rights in Atlanta. His rant, which Al Sharpton described as a “you’re going to Hell” speech, failed to strike the right tone with…well, anyone.

Time for the CDC to get a clue And cool it with the Covid hysteria by Peter Wood

https://spectatorworld.com/topic/time-cdc-get-clue-rochelle-walensky-comorbidities/

“I’d also advise Dr. Walensky to steer clear of the library. She has the quadruple comorbidity of knowing too much, lying too often, panicking too many and reassuring too faintly.”

“The overwhelming number of deaths, over 75 percent, occurred in people who had at least four comorbidities. So really these are people who were unwell to begin with.”

That declaration by the director of the Centers for Disease Control, Dr. Rochelle Walensky, is one of those fall-out-of-your-chair moments. You’re tempted to repeat it several times just to be sure every syllable is in the right place.

Did she mean the deaths of all the people who died of Covid? Seventy-five percent. Or did she mean the people who died with Covid? The preposition, we have learned, matters muchly. “Of” means Covid is the murder weapon. “With” means Colonel Mustard did it with a poker in the library, and Covid was just standing in the corner. Listen carefully to the tape of Walensky on Good Morning America and it sounds like she means “with.” How many people actually died of Covid has been a dark CDC secret from early on.

China: Buying Up Europe by Judith Bergman

https://www.gatestoneinstitute.org/18082/china-buying-up-europe

A staggering 40% out of 650 Chinese investments in Europe in the years 2010-2020, according to Datenna [a Dutch company that monitors Chinese investments in Europe], had “high or moderate involvement by state-owned or state-controlled companies.”

When the Chairman of the UK parliament’s Foreign Affairs Committee, Tom Tugendhat, wrote that Chinese ownership of the British microchip plant, Newport Wafer Fab, “represents a significant economic and national security concern”, UK Business Secretary Kwasi Kwarteng responded that the deal had been “considered thoroughly”. Only after considerable pressure did British Prime Minister Boris Johnson agree to a national security review of the sale.

The European Court of Auditors, an EU institution that oversees EU finances, has found that gaining an overview of Chinese investments in the EU is difficult because of the lack of comprehensive data; it seems no one is recording it.

Efficient systems for blocking foreign investments based on national security concerns also appear either to be lacking or simply not used sufficiently.

The “strictest screening frameworks” clearly are not stopping China.

What appears to be urgently needed in Europe now is a deeper understanding of the threat that China poses, as well as the political will to act on it. Action is urgently needed to block investments that serve up Europe’s strategic assets on a silver platter to China’s state-owned companies, which the Chinese Communist Party then use to advance its expansionist ends.

For more than a decade, China has been stealthily buying up European companies in strategic sectors, particularly in technology and energy. China appears to be using these European assets to help fulfil the Chinese Communist Party’s (CCP) ambitions of becoming a global force, technologically independent of the West and ultimately supplanting the US as the world’s economic, political and military superpower.

The Idiocy of ‘Shared Oppression’ by Wilfred Reilly

https://www.tabletmag.com/sections/news/articles/idiocy-shared-oppression

“I have no dog in this unfortunate fight, other than to point out that women’s rights and transgender inclusivity clearly are not the same cause, any more than racial equality will be advanced by eliminating carbon emissions. All of which is a good argument for old-school, incremental, single-issue activism, and for leaving the old LGBT pride flag alone.”

It’s not true, and betrays the reality of historical suffering

Has anyone else noticed that the rainbow flag of sexual diversity keeps expanding to include the full possible spectrum of visible colors? I recently saw that something called the Intersex Inclusion Campaign introduced a new “intersex inclusive pride progress flag,” which is the old LGBT pride flag altered from six bars to 12, with the bonus introduction of triangles and a circle. I learned that these fresh shapes and colors symbolize not only the transgender community and the intersex people once crudely called hermaphrodites, but also Black people, Hispanics, and other “brown” folx. In an unforgettable piece of symbolism, the new identity markers now take up more than half the old pride flag, swooping into it (from the left, naturally) in a wedge shaped vaguely like a boar’s head. “A bit invasive,” I thought.

Tablet columnist Wesley Yang has referred to this kind of thing as the “unity of oppression thesis,” “the astroturfed credo of the activist class” which insists, for example, that “LGBTQ parades have to call for freeing Palestine and White House plans for gender equity have to call for the elimination of cash bail.” Kristine Hadeed, a left-leaning writer and apparent member of that class, made a good-faith attempt to explain the phenomenon to Yang on Twitter: “It’s because they recognize that the roots of oppression are intertwined. None of us are truly liberated unless all of us are liberated. Oppressed people uniting for collective liberation is the only way liberation will ever happen.”

DEEP IMPACT: CNN Ratings Crater Nearly 90%, Jeff Zucker Needs to Go By Stephen Green

https://pjmedia.com/vodkapundit/2022/01/13/deep-impact-cnn-ratings-crater-nearly-90-jeff-zucker-needs-to-go-n1549107

Pedophilia scandals, Trump Derangement Syndrome, and poor programming choices take their toll as CNN ratings crash to Earth like a massive asteroid in a doomsday movie.

Remember when CNN let anchor Chris Cuomo spend a year fluffing his own older brother, then-New York Governor Andrew Cuomo, live on the air, even as Andrew’s COVID-19 policies needlessly killed thousands?

Remember when that same governor was forced to resign over sexual harassment allgations?

Remember when Chris was finally forced out of CNN when the infotainment network was publicly humiliated by the younger Cuomo’s misdeeds?

Remember when it turned out that Chris Cuomo had serious sexual misconduct allegations against him, too?

Remember when, just a few days later, a CNN producer quit over accusations of “luring girls for ‘sexual subservience’ training?”

Remember how that was just the first CNN producer who left in December over “improper conduct with a minor” allegations?

That’s just the juicy stuff. CNN ratings have been in a tailspin since Presidentish Joe Biden took office (and I do mean took office) last year. The Trump-obsessed infotainment service has been floundering for months — but that was nothing compared to its latest ratings woes.

458 Police Officers Died in the Line of Duty in 2021, the Deadliest Year on Record By Eric Lendrum

https://amgreatness.com/2022/01/13/458-police-officers-died-in-the-line-of-duty-in-2021-the-deadliest-year-on-record/

The year 2021 saw the highest number of police officers killed in the line of duty in modern history, with 458 officers dying over the course of the year.

As reported by Fox News, the number is the highest since record-keeping first began, surpassing the previous high of 1930, which saw 312 officers killed on the job. The report was released on Tuesday by the National Law Enforcement Officers Memorial Fund (NLEOMF), pointing out that the numbers reflected an increase of 55 percent over the 2020 total of 295 deaths. The comprehensive report includes officers at every level, including municipal, county, state, and federal, as well as military, territorial, campus, and tribal law enforcement.

The report claims that COVID-19 was the leading cause of law enforcement deaths, with NLEOMF executive director Troy Anderson remarking that “this number appears to be increasing almost daily.” The second-highest cause of death was firearms-related incidents, with traffic fatalities coming in third.

“The magnitude of this type of loss is everlasting in the hearts and minds of those left behind to continue the work of public safety,” Anderson said in a video statement. “While much of this report is delivered through numbers and statistics, it is paramount that we keep in mind that every number here represents someone’s loved one – a life, a son or daughter, a mother or father. A law enforcement officer who made the ultimate sacrifice for a profession that they believed in and died for.”

Although the group mentioned that the numbers in the report were preliminary and not complete, it claimed that 301 officers, roughly 66 percent of the overall total, died of the coronavirus. Sixty-two officers were killed by firearms, with October being the deadliest month for these types of incidents, seeing eight officers killed in the line of duty. Another fifty-eight officers died in traffic-related incidents.

Another Resignation: Read Tara Henley on Why She’s Leaving Legacy Media A distinguished journalist rejects the blinkered ideology of the Canadian Broadcasting Corporation—and strikes out on her own. Tara Henley

https://bariweiss.substack.com/p/another-resignation-read-tara-henley?token=eyJ1c2VyX2lkIjoxND

The story of Tara Henley is the story of countless liberals. Until recently, they were the ones pushing everyone else to be more tolerant, more understanding, more open-minded, more compassionate. Then, something happened — call it ideological succession or institutional capture or the new illiberalism — and, all of a sudden (or so it felt to them), they found themselves to the right of their friends and colleagues. Their crime? Refusing to abandon their principles in the service of some radical, anti-liberal dogma. Bari Weiss

For months now, I’ve been getting complaints about the Canadian Broadcasting Corporation, where I’ve worked as a TV and radio producer, and occasional on-air columnist, for much of the past decade.

People want to know why, for example, non-binary Filipinos concerned about a lack of LGBT terms in Tagalog is an editorial priority for the CBC, when local issues of broad concern go unreported. Or why our pop culture radio show’s coverage of the Dave Chappelle Netflix special failed to include any of the legions of fans, or comics, that did not find it offensive. Or why, exactly, taxpayers should be funding articles that scold Canadians for using words such as “brainstorm” and “lame.”

Everyone asks the same thing: What is going on at the CBC?

When I started at the national public broadcaster in 2013, the network produced some of the best journalism in the country. By the time I resigned last month, it embodied some of the worst trends in mainstream media. In a short period of time, the CBC went from being a trusted source of news to churning out clickbait that reads like a parody of the student press.

Those of us on the inside know just how swiftly — and how dramatically — the politics of the public broadcaster have shifted.