RUTHFULLY YOURS

Is it any wonder crime is on the rise?

Ms. Mac Donald is a contributing editor of City Journal and the John M. Olin Fellow at the Manhattan Institute. This article was adapted from the Autumn 2013 issue of City Journal.

California Gov. Jerry Brown and the federal judiciary are locked in a dramatic constitutional battle over control of the state’s prisons. In 2009, three federal judges issued what Supreme Court Justice Antonin Scalia has dubbed “perhaps the most radical injunction issued by a court in our nation’s history”: an order that California release up to 40,000 prisoners within two years to correct allegedly unconstitutional prison health care.

California has since spent more than $1 billion on new prison medical facilities, brought its correctional health care far above constitutional standards, and shed more inmates than are housed in all but a few states. Yet the judges show no sign of relinquishing their hold. California’s recent sharp increase in property crime—a rise eight times greater than the national average—may be one consequence of the judicial intervention.
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In this photo taken Tuesday, Feb. 26, 2013, inmates walk through the exercise yard at California State Prison Sacramento, near Folsom, Calif. Associated Press

The prisoner-release order was the culmination of two long-running lawsuits, Coleman v. Brown and Plata v. Brown, in which an advocacy group representing California inmates, the Prison Law Office, challenged prison medical treatment. The attorneys alleged that understaffing and the incompetence of prison doctors resulted in serious misdiagnoses and long, sometimes fatal, waits for care.

In 2007, after years of litigation, a special three-judge panel was convened to consider the plaintiffs’ latest argument that overcrowding was now the primary source of remaining constitutional violations. The panel agreed, and in 2009 it ordered the state to bring the prison population, then at 150,118, down to 109,805. In May 2011, the Supreme Court, in a 5-4 majority led by Justice Anthony Kennedy, affirmed the panel’s release order, marking the first time the court had put its imprimatur on a prisoner-release directive. The panel then set the population reduction deadline for the end of 2013.

In response, Gov. Brown and the Democrats in the state legislature passed what Stanford law school Prof. Joan Petersilia has called the “biggest penal experiment in modern history.” Assembly Bill 109, known as “realignment,” would lower the prison count by sentencing felony property and drug offenders to county jail instead of state prison. The bill also virtually eliminates parole supervision—a perverse but simple solution to the alleged problem of too many parolees winding up back in prison for parole violations.

The complex bill has imposed potentially disastrous burdens on county sheriffs and city police departments, but it did accelerate California’s already falling prison count. From 2007 to the start of 2013, the prison census fell 42,000, and is now—at 120,000—at the lowest level in 17 years.

In January, Gov. Brown declared that California was capable of operating its own prison system and asked the three-judge panel to lift its prisoner release order. Prison overcrowding was a thing of the past, Gov. Brown maintained. The makeshift dormitories in prison gymnasia that had played so large a role in the Supreme Court’s opinion had been eliminated and prison health care is now far above the de minimis constitutional standard, he argued. California spends $17,924 per prisoner on medical treatment—four times what the federal government spends in its prisons and three times New York’s rate. Most offenders get better medical attention in prison than they would in their own neighborhoods.

Sometimes rock ‘n’ roll can accomplish more to promote freedom than translating the Federalist Papers. (Oh Puleez!!!! I appreciate Lou Reed but this is balderdash!!!! rsk)

It is somehow fitting that rock star Lou Reed died Sunday, in this season of American national angst over government shutdowns, mounting debt and declining influence abroad. That’s because the Velvet Underground frontman not only motivated Václav Havel and the Czechoslovak dissidents who challenged their Communist rulers and helped bring down the Soviet Union. He also demonstrated why, for all we hear about Washington’s sclerosis, it is still smart to bet on America in this century as in the last.

Not that Reed himself would have put it this way. Starting in the mid-1960s, his lyrics about urban life, drugs and sexuality made him one of rock’s leading transgressives. Later he lambasted the concept of the American dream (“Give me your hungry, your tired, your poor I’ll piss on ’em/That’s what the Statue of Bigotry says”) and railed against New York Mayor Rudy Giuliani and the religious right. In recent years, he supported Occupy Wall Street and performed in Israel, even as some of his left-wing contemporaries boycotted the Jewish state.
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Former Czech President Vaclav Havel (R) and U.S. singer Lou Reed (L) arrive for a news conference in Prague, January 10, 2005. Reuters

But whatever his personal politics, Reed’s music took on a life of its own behind the Iron Curtain. In the 1970s Czechoslovakia’s anti-Communist movement coalesced around a Velvet Underground-inspired rock group called the Plastic People of the Universe. The Communist government branded the rockers enemies of the state for their long hair, crazy outfits, secret concerts and anti-authority lyrics.

One of President Obama’s steadfast second-term priorities is his regulatory “climate action plan.” If the point is to reduce carbon emissions, the evidence suggests he’d accomplish more counting on capitalism.

The federal Energy Information Administration (EIA) reported last week, to too little media fanfare, that U.S. energy-related carbon-dioxide emissions declined 3.8% in 2012, bringing C02 emissions to their lowest level since 1994. The only year since 1990 with a steeper decline was 2009 amid an economic recession. The 2012 decline occurred even as the economy grew 2.8%.

Much of the 2012 decline was due to a warm first quarter that reduced the use of heating fuels, as well as fewer transportation emissions, as Americans drove less and overall vehicle miles were flat compared to 2011.
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Associated Press

More notable is that 2012 saw the largest drop in the overall “carbon intensity” of the economy since the feds began keeping records in 1949. The EIA reports that the boom in natural-gas production “substantially reduced the carbon intensity of electricity generation in 2012.” The switch to natural gas, mainly from coal, was so substantial that the resulting CO2-emissions decreases offset what was an “overall decline” last year in renewable power generation.

The EIA report also cited such Administration policies as mandates for more fuel-efficient cars as contributing to the carbon decline. But those mandates played a token role in the overall reduction, though they have cost consumers in higher costs for vehicles.

For all of the Affordable Care Act’s technical problems, at least one part is working on schedule. The law is systematically dismantling the individual insurance market, as its architects intended from the start.

The millions of Americans who are receiving termination notices because their current coverage does not conform to Health and Human Services Department rules may not realize this is by design. Maybe they trusted President Obama’s repeated falsehood that people who liked their health plans could keep them. But Americans should understand that this month’s mass cancellation wave has been the President’s political goal since 2008. Liberals believe they must destroy the market in order to save it.
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Until this month, consumers who weren’t insured through their jobs were allowed to buy insurance that provides the best value based on their own needs. One of every 10 private policies is sold through the individual market, covering about 7% of the U.S. population under age 65.

Some states have ruined this market through regulation and price controls, and in others costs can be high. But the individual market works well for millions of people, who can choose from many plans—from Cadillac coverage to cheaper protection against catastrophic illness.

Last May, reading a British Daily Mail article about the umbrella incident, during which two U.S. Marines were ordered to hold umbrellas over the heads of President Barack Obama and Turkish Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan during a press conference in the White House Rose Garden, other than expressing my disgust for the degrading chore the Marines had to perform (against protocol), something else tickled my memory. At the time, I was engaged in other issues and that little gray gremlin never came out of the closet. Specifically, it was the picture of Erdogan, a policy pal of Obama’s, flapping his gums while a Rock of Gibraltar Marine stood stoically holding an umbrella over his head, which prompted the gremlin to make his presence known.

At the time, I couldn’t make the connection between Erdogan and that elusive something.

This morning, after having imbibed over the past year a number of stories of how Obama goes out of his way to emasculate the U.S. military or turn it into his personal policy enforcer (Libya, Syria, etc.), the gremlin emerged, garbed in a tall funny hat with plumes and long robes and brandishing a wicked-looking scimitar, and greeting me in Turkish – Uyan, yavaş zekâlı biri! – and in Bosnian – Probudi se, tupoglav jedan!*

Janissaries.

Who or what were the Janissaries? They were a private army of Turkish sultans recruited from prisoners of war, chiefly from the Balkans. A Harvard Center for Middle East Studies study document describes this special military arm of the Ottomans:

The Janissary Corps, yeniceri ocak or “new soldier corps,” was one of two main branches of the Ottoman armed forces, the other being the Sipahis or provincial free-born Muslim cavalrymen, organized in the fourteenth century. The Janissaries were the kapukulu, “slaves of the sultan.” The corps members were educated and trained for the Ottoman military and government service and became the private standing army of the Ottoman Sultan. The Janissaries became an efficient and formidable fighting force and the most outstanding army in Europe. Over time the Corps’ essence and behavior and the empire’s needs changed and the corps was abolished in 1826.

The Janissaries were recruited from captured Christian adolescent boys who were made to convert to Islam. They were a key element in the final capitulation of Constantinople in 1453.

http://www.israelhayom.com/site/newsletter_opinion.php?id=6141

Israel’s decision on Sunday to backtrack on its boycott of the U.N. Human Rights Council, and to attend the council’s Universal Periodic Review in Geneva on Tuesday, was disappointing. If this, as was reported in Haaretz, is because Germany warned of the “severe diplomatic damage” that would ensue if Israel remained steadfast, it is downright disgusting.

Israel severed ties with the UNHRC a year and a half ago, in March 2012, after having grown completely fed up with being the repeated target of unfair resolutions. The UNHRC was established in 2006 to replace the U.N. Commission on Human Rights, which allowed countries with poor human rights records to be members.

Now there’s a hoot. Anyone who expected the name change to make a difference in the snake pit that puts primitive Third World states headed by abusive despots on a par with North America and Europe ought to have his head examined.

In fact, in the Orwellian universe we all currently occupy, the very term “human rights” means the exact opposite. When embedded in a title of an organization, it is a clear indicator of that body’s bias towards the forces that would bring down Western values. The fact that even U.N. Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon and his predecessor, Kofi Annan, accused the UNHRC of disproportionate focus on Israeli violations of human rights shows just how pernicious and pointless it is.

Indeed, according to U.N. Watch — a non-governmental organization whose mission is “to monitor the performance of the U.N. by the yardstick of its own charter” — the Human Rights Council “has criticized Israel on 27 separate occasions, in resolutions that grant effective impunity to Hamas, Hezbollah and their state sponsors.”

Livni promised that she will never quit politics again. Let’s hope her word on that score is as solid as her national security credentials.
For Justice Minister Tzipi Livi, all politics are personal.

She can be trusted, because she is good. Her opponents must be rejected, because they are evil.

In her speech at The Jerusalem Post’s Diplomatic Conference in Herzliya last Thursday, Livni insisted that the only “legitimate” basis for opposing a Palestinian state is ideological. Livni stridently rejected the notion that one can oppose the establishment of a Palestinian state – in the two-state solution framework – for security reasons.

As she sees it, everyone cares equally about security. And since she cares about security just as much as her political opponents do, the question of whose policy will better protect the country is illegitimate.

She’s nice. She cares. So she’s just as competent as the next guy.

There’s just one problem with Livni’s claim.

She has a track record.

ISRAEL ENACTED two major strategic initiatives that have her signature on them: the 2005 withdrawal from Gaza, and UN Security Council Resolution 1701 from 2006 that set the terms for the end of the Second Lebanon War.

Both were massive failures. Both caused Israel’s national security to deteriorate. And in both cases, Livni’s political opponents warned that her strategies were wrong-headed, dangerous and unhinged from strategic realities.

Livni built her career on her support for the withdrawal of all Israeli civilians and security forces from the Gaza Strip.

http://righttruth.typepad.com/right_truth/tabitha-korol/

One of the Plain Dealer’s Pajama Diaries’ comic strips this month, October, by Terri Libenson, showed the following headings across four frames: “There is no doubt our society is kid-centric. But there seems to be a growing backlash. Taking a cue from Europe, families are trying a more laid-back approach to parenting. Still, much of Europe has certain advantages: better work hours, government-mandated childcare, and most of all, no Americans.”

In the last panel, our American mother sees a French couple enjoying a beverage at an outdoor café and asks, “Who wants to carpool to soccer? Parlez-vous anglais? Art club? Chuck E. Cheese? Bonjour?”

And the French utter, “L’Americaine stupide.”

Should we be taking our cue from Europe? While the intensity levels differ, the magnitude of unemployment is the thrust of their financial system, necessitating an austerity program that led to a recession. At this writing, Germany, Austria, the Netherlands and Luxembourg’s unemployment is below 6 percent, Denmark’s is at 7.4, the UK at 7.7, Poland at 10.6, Italy at 11.7, Lithuania at 13.3, Ireland at 14.6, Portugal at 17.6, and Spain and Greece at a whopping 26.2 and 27 percent respectively. Portugal, Spain and Greece’s unemployment match the US’s during The Great Depression, and the rule is that for every one person unemployed, three others are affected. Therefore, at 25 percent unemployment, everyone is affected. France’s rate, close to 11 percent, is concentrated at its north and south poles, giving them the “enviable” leisure time.

http://frontpagemag.com/2013/david-e-firester/liberal-academia-and-my-struggle-for-survival/

Kudos to Firester, but, alas, by the time they get to college students are fully indoctrinated. And, it starts in grade school. Teachers call Republicans “dumb”….Reagan “insignificant compared to Obama”….and books that demean Christianity and Judaism but teach that Islam a “peaceful religion”….and “nationalism akin to fascism.” This occurs in the public schools as well as tony and expensive private schools where the faculty is comprised almost entirely of ignorant and biased leftists…..rsk

When Stephen Hawking decided to boycott Israel earlier this year based on the opinions of academics like Noam Chomsky I was astonished. How can it be that one of the smartest people in the world can hold such a dumb view? It turns out that this is quite common. As I began to teach at Queens College (City University of New York), I have seen firsthand how this can be.

It has often been said that there is no cure for stupid, while ignorance is easily treated through education. What happens when educators willfully steer their ships in an ignorant direction? It seems that many academic ships are sailing in this direction. I happened to board one myself recently.

I began teaching “Introduction to Political Science” (PoliSci 101) at Queens College as a Graduate Teaching Fellow this semester. As I am new, I was given a “mentor” whose syllabus I essentially mirrored. After a brief review of the content I got a sense of what textbooks are being used in the practice of college-level teaching. I researched syllabi elsewhere to get some more ideas. It seems that what is being assigned at Queens College is not all that different from what professors assign elsewhere.

When I looked a little deeper into the material I was assigning I began to notice what I could only say is institutionalized liberal bias. As a Ph.D. student who has sat through some of the most virulent professorial liberal rants, I knew it was quite common. (In the past I had attended numerous schools, mostly in New York; they include State University of New York Orange, the City University of New York that included study at Brooklyn College, Hunter College, City College and the Graduate Center). I swore that my pedagogical style would be centered on the presentation of opposing viewpoints and not descend into the sort of demagoguery that thrives on sycophant head bobbing.

In reviewing some of the chapters of the “textbook” I was requiring students to read I saw a clear socialist trend. When I think of a textbook a few adjectives come to mind. It should be a technical guide on concepts. It should be dispassionate and devoid of fiery ideology. Well, that isn’t quite how it works.

http://frontpagemag.com/2013/frontpagemag-com/to-crush-a-swastika-on-the-glazov-gang/

Obama’s Broken Website — on The Glazov Gang

This week’s Glazov Gang was joined by John Duffy, a Film Producer from the South Bronx, Ann-Marie Murrell, the National Director of PolitiChicks.tv, and Orestes Matacena, a Filmmaker whose latest project is SwastikaTheMovie.com, dedicated to the memory of the Jewish resistance in the streets of Warsaw in WWII.

The Gang gathered this week to discuss Obama’s Broken Website. The discussion started at the 16:00 mark and focused on the meaning of The ObamaCare Meltdown.

The dialogue was preceded by a focus on Orestes Matacena’s new film project, SwastikaTheMovie.com, which sets out to pay tribute to all those who fought in the resistance against the Nazi occupation in Europe, the Middle East and Africa during WWII. The guests analyzed why the lessons of that resistance are so crucial for our generation to grasp — as the West confronts IslamoFascism and the Obama administration’s destructive agenda:

Part I:

In Part II, the Gang focused on Breaking Ranks With The Left, as each guest shared their brush with the totalitarian inferno. The segment ended with the Gang members’ analysis of Obama’s War on America and how Americans can best safeguard their freedoms:

Part II: