French Police Clash with "Youths"

Full article here:

ROMANS-SUR-ISERE, France (AP) - A French police officer was shot and wounded during clashes with youths that broke out after a teenager died while fleeing police, authorities said Tuesday.
The officer appeared to have been shot in the leg with a hunting rifle, said the police prefecture in Romans-sur-Isere, a southeastern town located 60 miles from Lyon in the Rhone Valley on the edge of the Alps. The officer's life was not in danger. Dents from bullets and buckshot were also found in police vehicles nearby.
Police used tear gas and rubber pellets to push back some 50 youths during clashes late Monday and early Tuesday. Several cars were burned and about 15 shop windows were smashed.
After nightfall Tuesday, some 300 riot police officers and gendarmes took up positions around the center of town to prevent a second night of clashes. Some teams of officers were brought in from neighboring regions.
The violence broke out after a 16-year-old died by driving a stolen car into a wall while fleeing police. Four other minors in the car were lightly injured.
Accidents involving police and youths have been particularly sensitive in France since riots in 2005 that were sparked by the deaths of two teens electrocuted in a power substation while hiding from police.
Jean-Pierre Nahon, a prosecutor in the regional capital, Valence, said a police watchdog agency will investigate latest incident.
Nahon said that, according to a preliminary investigation, the five teenagers had stolen the car overnight and were driving at high speed through the center of Romans-sur-Isere when police began chasing them. The young driver took a sharp turn and lost control of the car, running into a wall.

A few questions come to mind immediately: Why are armed officers being deployed to defend against teenagers? What insecurity must police in France be feeling right now that they must send 300 officers to deal with a small town worth of unruly kids? The teenagers are obviously slightly out of control; they are stealing cars and crashing them into walls, for one. The police, too, are out of control, from the looks of things.

I must reserve judgment. I'm going to research this, try to put it in context, and hopefully be able add some examples from the US to the discussion. More later.

Wall Street Bail-Out Fails in the House

By a vote of 207-228. Perhaps this means we'll get another stab at converting large chunks of our economy to a socialist model. Perhaps it just means that the House knew how outraged their constituents would be if this hand-out passed.

Ultimately, I don't think that giving the money to Wall Street would solve the problem. If it is true that we have $700 billion laying around to give to firms who lost their money honestly (perhaps crookedly), I believe the better bet would be to offer an unprecedented stimulus to the American economy by giving every adult American an equal share of that pie. Why is this such a bad idea? As of 2006, the Census Bureau estimated that almost a quarter of Americans were under the age of 18, out of a total population of 300,000,000. That's 75,000,000 minors, leaving 225,000,000 persons over the age of 18.
Here's the math: $700,000,000,000 divided by 225,000,000 = $3111.11 per American over the age of 18.
We all know that Wall Street is only going to get itself in trouble again, or find some way to weasel out of its obligations from whatever version of the bail-out bill passes. Give the money to ordinary Americans. Those bankers who have helped cause the crisis we are now in are Americans, too, and so of course they will get their $3111.
Assume that money is taxed at a rate of 20% (in places too low, in places too high, but a good middle number depending on the bracket). That's $622 less $3111 = $2489. $622 x 225,000,000 = $140 billion right back into the government coffers to make the total cost of this unprecedented economic stimulus a paltry $560 billion.
Let's make it happen!

Who Thinks the Bail-Out Stinks?

Not as many people as press reports suggest, apparently. The crew at FiveThirtyEight parse the polling data, looking closely at how pollsters word their questions, and how such wording elicits seemingly obvious responses. Well worth a gander by anyone who cares about this sort of thing (read: More people should care about this sort of thing).

Also, here's a .pdf link to the full proposal as it is being debated in the House of Representatives right now.

Debate

8:05 pm: Obama takes on McCain & Bush

8:06 pm: McCain: "Not feeling great about a few things lately...but I'm feeling better now..." thanks to bipartisanship!!

8:07 pm: McCain avoids the "greatest crisis since WWII" line.. He "Palins" around to "we must end our addiction to foreign oil"! Where did that come from?

8:10 pm: McCain still goes back to WWII with his Eisenhower story. Promises "accountability" in government but declined to answer whether or not he would vote for bail out - won't offer accountability for himself.

8:15 pm: Members of Congress "sitting in jail now" because of earmarks... exactly where McCain will probably end up if he gets 4 years of the kind of unfettered power Bush has had.

8:18 pm: Obama stumbling on laying blame at McCain's feet. He could've done better than that. Also weak on refuting McCain's charge of out of control spending.

8:19 pm: Why keep going back to this "people facing charges" / "in prison" idea? Is he going to propose criminal charges for the Wall Street CEOs who have fleeced America into a new Depression?

8:24 pm: What is Obama's definition of "rich"?

8:33 pm: There we go, Obama. Bring the spending discussion right back to the Republicans. Iraq's $79 billion surplus?!

8:37 pm: Was McCain against Charles Keating's unnecessary spending when it went directly into McCain's pocket?
& There's that Miss Congeniality line again. Did he forget he's already used it? MAVERICK! "& I've got to say that I have a partner who's a good maverick with me now." This is golden. That McCain smile, too.

8:40 pm: McCain takes credit for the surge but shirks responsibility for getting us into Iraq in the first place?

8:41 pm: Bin Laden - there he is. I forgot about that guy.

8:44 pm: Obama putting his own responsibility for foreign policy on Biden. Good move but I can't say I agree with it. Obama is running for president, not Biden. He has to display his own command of the subject and explain the actions McCain brought up.

8:48 pm: Tactics and strategy. McCain is speaking directly to press reports that his "campaign suspension" was a mere tactic. He wants Americans to think that it was part of a larger strategy?
What did Admiral Mullen say?

8:51 pm: Obama emphasizing civilian control of military by deferring to Sec. Gates' recommendations while McCain sticks with the generals. It isn't surprising that McCain sticks with the generals, given his military background, but the fact is that the United States is not a country whose foreign policy is controlled by the military. Our Commander-in-Chief is a civilian for that exact reason. I'm curious to see how the top brass will react to an Obama presidency. How will the policy shifts be enacted in our strategic thinking?

8:56 pm: What's McCain squinting at in the audience? Is he expressing distaste with Obama's "If John disagrees, he can let me know" line? Those two seemed to be action-reaction. No similar reaction to the "if you want to sing songs about bombing Iran" line.

8:59 pm: If he's wearing the bracelet now, has he been wearing it for over a year?

9:00 pm: Obama - "I've got a bracelet, too.... No US soldier ever dies in vain because they're following in the service of their commander-in-chief." He turns it back to judgment, something McCain hasn't been showing much of lately. How can Obama win this debate when McCain returns time and again to the military honor line? I don't think Obama can overcome that among the majority of Americans.

9:05 pm: "The Iranians have a lousy government and therefore they have a lousy economy..." - McCain.
The United States has a lousy economy therefore...?

9:13 pm: "What Senator Obama doesn't understand..." That line has been repeated about 10 times so far by McCain.
A minute earlier, too, I really thought Obama was going go after Palin for calling Kissinger "naive" when Obama started saying he had been called "naive".

9:15 pm: Here goes the McCain temper!! & in defense of Kissinger?
(9:29) Was McCain thinking about Palin when he began to get heated there for a moment?

9:18 pm: McCain pounding Obama for being "naive." It's sort of disrespectful, isn't it, the way he's doing it? The tactic and the tone he's using to discredit Obama?

9:21 pm: "Vladimir Putin: Our President" - Did the Russians sneak across their border and post Putin propaganda?

9:24 pm: One more lede question: Thank the Lord, this is getting boring.

9:31 pm: "Senator Obama still doesn't seem to understand..."

9:34 pm: Is McCain seriously comparing Obama to "this Administration"??? OMG!

McCain Campaign Technique: Positive Visualization

I've seen posted the video of Chris Weber calling time-out against Duke when Michigan was out of time-outs, but I think another basketball analogy works much better here. I remember watching an old basketball instructional video, probably sent to my Dad from Sports Illustrated, starring the late, great Red Auerbach and the still great Larry Bird. Auerbach asks Bird about his free-throw shooting technique. Bird replies that before he even takes the shot, he closes his eyes and visualizes the ball going through the hoop. Astonished, Auerbach asks (something to the effect of), "You mean you actually watch yourself shooting and making the free throw before you even take the shot?" "That's right, Coach," Bird says.

Maybe McCain is using the old visualization technique for his campaign. He was practicing for the debate earlier this week when he began visualizing how things would actually go against Obama Friday night. Clearly, he freaked out and realized that there was no way that ball was going through the hoop unless he did something maverick-y right away. Hence, "suspends" his campaign, mucks up bail-out negotiations, un-suspends campaign. McCain opened his eyes and realized that he was still standing at the free throw line with the entire arena watching him sway back and forth with his eyes closed, waiting for him to shoot the ball.

Only he isn't a basketball player at the free throw line. He's the Republican Party's candidate for PRESIDENT OF THE UNITED STATES OF AMERICA. And no one fouled him, so he should never have been at the free throw line.

Can't wait to watch the debate tonight!

That Damn McCain Campaign

So amidst all the fury over the Obama camp's legal drive to stop the NRA ad, the McCain camp (could it really have been anyone else?) pulls the Sarah Palin Miss Alaska pageant video.

A few key points:

• There is some dispute over the veracity of the anti-Obama NRA ad
  
• No one denies that Sarah Palin competed in the 1984 Miss Alaska Pageant.

• As far as anyone can tell, the Obama campaign operates within a commonly agreed upon reality.
• As far as anyone can tell, the McCain campaign seeks to create its own reality based upon its desires.
  

That last point refers to the already much discussed ad McCain placed in online today declaring his victory in tonight's debate. The problem? The debate is tonight, which means it hasn't taken place yet.

Sarah Palin Miss Alaska

Nice score by Andrew Sullivan:


The best part, and I'm being serious here, is the trumpet player in that band!!

UPDATE: (16:56 CT) Sullivan posted the version you see now after the earlier version was taken down.

Ouch

This looks bad:

Video from The Weekly Standard.

Apparently the same Democrats who are pushing their bail-out plan ignored former Treasury Secretary John Snow and former Fed Chair Alan Greenspan's dire warnings to increase regulation of Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac. McCain, on the other hand, sponsored a bill calling for reform of financial regulation.

For McCain's part, don't forget so easily that Rick Davis, his campaign manager and a top advisor, was getting paychecks to the tune of $15,000 every month to lobby against regulation. Was McCain still trying to atone for his Keating 5 involvement? What is different about then-McCain versus now-McCain?

Ed Rollins on Motives of House Republicans

Former Huckabee campaign manager Ed Rollins, Anderson Cooper 360, speculates on why those pesky House Republicans aren't playing ball with the bail-out:



He doesn't address Rep. Spencer Bachus directly, who we know wasn't authorized to speak for his party, but Rollins answers in the affirmative to Cooper's question/statement that House Republicans are putting party over country right now. We can expect those same House Republicans will conjure some argument that makes them look like uber-patriots while their colleagues are cynical pols.
Video from TPM.

Bachus the Maverick

Apparently I'm not the only one who thinks that Bachus is playing maverick.

House Republicans protest they are not playing politics with the bill. Bachus, they say, is a maverick who told the Democratic negotiators six times that he did not have the power to speak for his caucus. The press conference, they contend, was a staged production to give the illusion of an agreement and force it down the throats of unwilling House Republicans.

What is Bachus getting out of all this? Is McCain grooming him to replace Phil Gramm as his Secretary of the Treasury?

From the Detroit Free Press:

[House Minority Leader John Boehner] did not say why Bachus was sent to a meeting between parties if he did not have power to make a deal.

"We don't believe there's been a bipartisan negotiation," [Boehner] said.

Bachus is certainly, in my estimation, doing McCain's bidding. The sequence and timing of events offer few explanations to the contrary. A deal is imminent; McCain shows up; the deal is off, with Bachus serving as a lonely, though vocal dissenter. I doubt anyone (including myself) remembers how long ago Bachus endorsed McCain for the Republican nomination? January 25, 2007. Bachus has stuck by McCain's candidacy for almost longer than anyone. Does he sense a payoff?

Rep. Spencer Bachus (R-AL) stands to the right of Rep. Barney Frank (D-MA) today at the Capitol. (photo: REUTERS)

Rep. Spencer Bachus for VP?

What else is Bachus doing for the McCain campaign? For all we know, Bachus could be jockeying for McCain's next vice-presidential nod after he's forced to dump Palin when Biden tears her apart in their first debate, should it ever happen.

A Bachus press release from today:

As I made clear in the meeting this morning, I was not authorized by my colleagues to make any agreement on behalf of House Republicans.
There was progress on many issues, but no agreement other than to continue discussions.

I suppose after pulling a stunt like he pulled earlier today he'd better make an effort to "make clear" what exactly he was "authorized" to do.

I wonder, though, why wouldn't the Ranking Member of the House Financial Services Committee be authorized to speak for his party? I can't help but suspect that the McCain campaign has inserted itself actively into the House negotiations, which would enable McCain to vote with his fellow Republican senators when it is politically expedient for him to do so while still exerting some level of control over the discussions in the House.

Deal Breaks Down; Rep. Spencer Bachus

From Politico:

Frank gave reporters copies of the House Republicans’ set of principles, and he said that their primary goal — insuring bad bank loans, rather than buying them — had already been rejected by Paulson as unworkable. He noted that no House Republicans raised the insurance idea at a House hearing yesterday; if anyone had, he said, Paulson would have rejected the idea out of hand.

Paulson rejected the insurance plan as unworkable because he knows probably more than any of us how worthless the FDIC is and, similarly, how worthless any loan insurance issued by the federal government would be.

From the same article:

Rep. Spencer Bachus (R-Ala.) stood in for the House Republicans. But as Frank said after the meeting, “he wasn’t even marginally deputized” to speak for his caucus, having been publicly chastened by House GOP leadership earlier in the day. Bachus, said Frank, excused himself from the meeting, explaining that since he wasn’t authorized to speak on behalf of his caucus it wasn’t useful for him to stay.

Who is this guy? Did those McCain staffers he had breakfast with Wednesday dose him with some sort of "maverick juice" that turns once sane individuals into unrepentant risk-takers? It clearly isn't just Barney Frank who was irritated by Bachus' comments, he had been "publicly chastened" by the leadership of his own party! Why don't the Senate GOP do the same to John McCain?!

Chase Bail-Out of FDIC

Sources close to the Chase bailout of the FDIC tell me that the WaMu CEO held a conference call with top WaMu management in which he explained that Chase had no intention of actually buying WaMu until the FDIC, short on the cash it needed to bail-out WaMu itself, leaned on Chase to follow through on the bid. Chase, in return, wanted its own back scratched by the FDIC. What happened? Where does the FDIC go now when it needs money? You guessed it. Chase.

Chase just bought the FDIC. When the next big bank folds, who bails it out? Chase. When Congress moves to pass tighter oversight of the banking industry, who is going to threaten to stop funding the FDIC? Not the taxpayer. It's going to be Chase. We're taking giant steps toward the private sector takeover of government. While the nets and the blogs scream bloody murder about Main Street bailing out Wall Street, about these private firms becoming public trusts, the most liquid of the liquid firms left swoops down to gobble up Main Street.

Guess Bush showed remarkable foresight when he tried privatize Social Security. The next time private rapacity drains public coffers, some other solvent private entity will likely follow the example set by Chase today and offer a lifeline. How poetic that, as Bush leaves office, private interests score a major financial coup against the public good.

Police Violence Leads to Police Death

This article by Radley Balko over at Reason. A Chesapeake, Virginia police officer killed while breaking into a man's home to serve a warrant for a nonviolent drug offense. The substance of the article speaks directly to the point in this blog's first post about the need for citizens to keep a watch on the police.

Venetian Gondola Song

This from Andrew Sullivan at The Daily Dish:



The best part may be the slant rhyme between "joe bi-DEN / vice-presi-DENt / oh yes we CAN." I seem to recall a very shady deal with a certain Venetian gondolier that ended up with myself and several companions out 30 Euro each, but hey, no hard feelings.

McCain-Bush meeting plus Obama

David Kurtz over at Talking Points Memo goes some way toward answering the question I posed about the substance of the White House meeting between Bush, McCain, and Obama. He quotes Dana Perino:

"Sen. McCain is the one who called for the meeting, and we thought it was a good idea."

What?! So now Bush is letting McCain call the shots at the White House? When in the course of American history has any candidate for president called a high-level meeting at the White House? Perhaps if the candidate was Vice-President at the time. Maybe. The simple fact that McCain and Bush belong to the same political party does not entitle McCain to wield such clout.

Perino's comments came about two hours ago. The stories in the mainstream media all suggest, however, that Bush called the meeting and invited McCain and Obama.

McCain as key to Bush's legacy

Here's a quote from Robert Draper’s McCain piece in the latest issue of GQ (Oct. 2008, p. 296):

"On June 22, 2004, Bush took McCain’s buddy Lindsey Graham aside during a White House function and, standing on the Truman Balcony, told Graham that, as the latter would remember it, “he saw John as the guy who would carry on his legacy in Iraq.”"

This isn’t merely about Bush helping McCain as a fellow conservative; this is about Bush helping McCain because he thinks McCain is the best guy to “stay the course.” Remember, too, that this Graham-Bush conversation took place BEFORE the 2004 election, before Bush was even assured of a second term in which to cement his legacy.

What is the actual substance of the meeting Bush invited McCain and Obama to attend? Is Bush offering both of his potential successors a legitimate stake in contributing to the bail-out efforts, one that they wouldn't have merely as senators but earn only as candidates? Doubtful. He's doing everything he can to prop up McCain's non-existent chances at furthering the Bush legacy in Iraq, and if that means letting McCain grandstand about fixing the economy then so be it. I'm just not sure why Bush invited Obama, as well. Bush has politicized every branch of government in his eight years; why is he pretending to be bipartisan now? His legacy?

A friend suggested to me last night that McCain is like that guy who was assigned to your group project in class who never came to any of the meetings, never contributed anything to the project, but who came into class the day of the presentation and took credit for the whole thing.

Policy Politics Police

Policy because this is what we call citizens' ideas for what government should do. Since citizens run government, it is citizens' ideas that matter most. This blog will be a forum for its contributors to comment on the operation of the United States Government and all the various localized governments within the United States federal system.

Politics because our citizen-politicians operate and compete for power in a forum in which political traditions determine the rules. Elections matter. Congress matters. State governments matter. Local governments matter. Neighborhood associations matter but really should be wholly out of the purview of the federal government.

Police because police officers account for by far the most direct violations of citizens' rights by members of any branch of government, and someone independent of the authorities should keep an eye on the authorities at all times to make sure the they never exercise their power illegally. Think of this blog's third mission as an online CopWatch program.

It occurs to me as I write that many refrain from criticizing the police out of fear of reprisals. Those same individuals would not hesitate to voice criticism of elected officials because elected officials cannot stop us on the street at anytime in the way police officers can. The state of affairs I describe is, of course, anathema to a free society. Communities need better lines of communication with their police departments. Citizens must control the means of communication directly. Citizens should learn legal means of controlling interactions with police officers. The mission of police departments should be minimized significantly in order to reduce and eliminate violations of citizens' rights.