Sunday, August 26, 2012

END ROUTINE MALE POLICE SEXUAL BATTERING (frisking) OF FEMALES



Three videos of male officers trained to subject female victims to (ever so slow motion) sexual battery:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8RxH1CnYhd8&feature=related (groped in first minute – released at tenth minute) 

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3NI7JEA4iK4&feature=related
http://www.wktv.com/news/local/FULL-DASHCAM-VIDEO-OF-21111-Utica-traffic-stop-136602198.html (groping begins at 12 minutes -- no longer available)


The NYPD’s atrocious policy for male-on-female cross-gender friscking is that  “a woman is just like a man."  To most police departments around the country this is policy – including slipping hands down hips, over legs and even lifting breasts with the back of the hand (the supposedly less sensitive side).  That's policy; as far as they are concerned the criminal statuted doesn't prohibit a male officer doing pretty much anything likes to a female. 

Departments cite Terry v. Ohio’s “hands over clothing” formula as carte blanche to ingore the differences between sexes – the magic words of supposed "empowerment."  Terry spelled out the limits of police leeway to conduct a bodily search imposed by the Fourth Amendment.  Terry in no way dealt with felony prohibitions against sexual battery.

Courts may only decide issues brought before them -- may not reach out and mandate anything beyond that: checks and balances.  No female -- no ruling.

Were criminal law at issue the judiciary would more likely have been at work elaborating limits in the same sense that Gardner V. Tennessee set limts -- by reinforcing the prohibition against sexual battery as Gardner reinforced the prohibition against unjustified shooting of suspects.  No way any court would -- could -- set aside the felony prohibition, categorically saying: "A woman is just like a man."

Any woman groped privately by a male officer except under the most dangerous exigent circumstances should sue for a million dollars.  I don’t understand why there are not hundreds or thousands -- or hundreds of thousands -- of these cases across the country.  

The eighth-grade math: New York City has 30,000 male police officers.  If they sexually batter one woman apiece over their twenty year careers (maybe 90-95% of them have more sense -- maybe it's the other way around -- I have no way of knowing), that multiplies to 600,000 sexual attacks on women over twenty years -- to possibly save one or two police lives?  

A teen girl recounts her ordeal -- much resembling the last video above:  “He started on my left ankle and worked his way up, with the FRONT of his hands until he touched, well you know. Not for very long but still. He then continued down my right leg and then around my waist and up my sides until his hands rested under my armpits, his fingers touching the sides of my breasts. WTF IS GOING ON??? I didn't stop him because I couldn't speak. He then started digging in the pocket on my sweatshirt, which was large because it's my boyfriend's and the pocket hangs low over my...you know. I felt his hand in my personal area quite a few times, as he's trying to play it off by asking me about the simple objects he's pulling out of my pocket.”  http://answers.yahoo.com/question/index?qid=20110420051241AA7ncqq 

These are felony sexual assaults -- that is what the law says -- police department policy is irrelevant.  In my opinion, a woman may not legally give her permission to a male officer to grope her sexual areas -- anymore than she could give her permission to perpetrate any other kind of battery.

Balancing tradeoff claimed (if anybody else objects):
"Officer safety comes first": 8 out of 8 citing “officer safety.”  http://answers.yahoo.com/question/index?qid=20090210210037AAXeuFi 

You can run a small flashlight [*] or similar object along anywhere a hand can reach and a gun might be concealed (checking wrists, ankles and waistline by hand not wrong). A rear-cuffed female -- checked for guns -- would have to, first, do the Houdini and slip the bracelets and, and then, do the Incredible Hulk and tear aside the police car partition in order to draw a sharp object from her bra and scratch the police officer (don't drive a bus. or God-forbid a taxicab, if you are afraid of that).

[*] "Searches are usually conducted in one of two ways either with the hands or with the aid of a mini-flashlight or Kubotana. Personally, my preference is for the mini-flashlight or Kubotana technique. It has been instilled in me repeatedly during my career that personal contact with anyone other than extremely close friends and/or family members should be avoided, whenever possible. The mini-flashlight or Kubotan search methods allow for thoroughness yet remove the intimate, up-close, personal contact."

He seems to include both sexes in avoiding "personal contact" -- nevertheless he advises the following -- as if  male hands where we know they don't belong were remained a legal option:
"When searching a female it may be helpful to:
    · Have a female officer present, if possible.
  • Be certain that the written report of the incident contains details of the arrest, mention of any weapons or contraband that were being sought, what if anything was found in the search.
  • The more immediate or important the arrest the better. If there is a legitimate belief that she is carrying weapons or contraband a search should not be delayed.
  • Do not search a female alone unless it is absolutely necessary.
  • Conduct the search of a female in the same manner that you would search a male.
  • Before starting to search the front of a female, tell her that the search is not meant to embarrass her. Ask if any weapons or contraband are concealed in her clothing or body. She may deny having any weapons or contraband, search anyway. If she admits to having weapons or contraband locate it, seize it, safely secure it and resume your systematic search.
  • Use good judgement and discretion. These basic steps may be employed similarly when a female officer searches a male."]   http://www.correctionsone.com/products/apparel/articles/1334679-Optimum-Search-Frisk-Techniques-For-Law-Enforcement-Personnel/
Law enforcement doesn’t really think there is any legislated need to do any balancing trade off at all.  "We are professionals doing a job” – even -- "We are like doctors.”  Law enforcement thinks Terry's words allowing frisking "over clothing" gives them -- undifferentiated -- carte-blanche to treat females just like a male.

Terry went out of its way to state that cops are nothing at all “like doctors”:   "… it is simply fantastic to urge that such a procedure performed in public [my note: presumably straight male on straight male] by a policeman while the citizen stands helpless, perhaps facing a wall with his hands raised, is a 'petty indignity.' It is a serious intrusion upon the sanctity of the person, which may inflict great indignity and arouse strong resentment, and it is not to be undertaken lightly." (392 U.S. 1, at 16–17) 

"One lawsuit alleged—and the then-corrections commissioner largely confirmed—that an instructional videotape that DOCS then used to train officers suggested that a pat-frisk was to be conducted as follows: “An officer begins by ordering the inmate to stand against the wall with her back to him. The officer then approaches the inmate from behind, placing his hands on the inmate’s neck and inside the collar of her shirt. He works his hands down every inch of the surface of her body. Probing for small items, the officer runs his hands under and over the woman’s breast, brushing her nipples. Searching the woman’s legs, the officer grips one inner thigh. His hands press against the woman’s vagina before moving down her thigh toward the ankle. He then grips the other thigh and repeats this procedure on the woman’s other side.  [Emphasis mine]

“The policy mandated that officers conduct this procedure in certain situations. For instance, officers were required to pat-frisk every woman returning from a visit in which she had contact with un-incarcerated people. But the policy also allowed officers—regardless of their gender—latitude to conduct random pat frisks when an inmate aroused suspicion."
http://www.thefreelibrary.com/Chapter+four%3A+A+clash+of+rights%3A+decades+of+debate+over+male+guards...-a0257675118  (13th-14th paragraph)

In the New York example there was no question of prison security – or even convenience of prison security. The prison system did not want males routinely frisking females – only in emergencies – or even guarding females in housing areas where naked viewing and clothed frisking most likely come into play. In the New York case it was the Department of Corrections’ effort to be in compliance with the fair employment provisions of Title VII of the Civil Rights Act of 1964 that introduced male sexual battery into female lives.

But that cannot happen to female travelers at the airport, right?  Think again: 
“B. The STSO must ensure that the following notice is provided to an individual of the opposite gender before the individual enters the WTMD:
1) A TSO of the same gender as the individual presents him or herself to be is not available.
2) A TSO of the opposite gender will be required to complete the screening process, which may include physical contact between the TSO and the individual.
3) An LTSO or STSO, if possible, will be present.
4) Once the individual enters the WTMD, the individual must complete the screening process.”

[Note: how to avoid a gay male frisking you -- a male -- at the airport: “present yourself” as a female.]

Do touch; don’t tell:
“No personal or identifying information must be taken from the passenger for purposes of this report. For example, “three female passengers underwent opposite gender screening at Airport X” is an adequate count; however, including the names of the three female passengers in the count would be inappropriate.”  
http://ontodayspagelinks.blogspot.com/2010/12/tsa-opposite-gender-screening-mandatory.html 

”There is a standing legal decision in the 9th Circuit US Federal Court called Jordan v. Gardner (986 F.2d 1521 (9th Cir.1992) that found it is cruel and unusual punishment to have male officers conduct clothed body searches on female prisoners.”   
http://www.examiner.com/article/san-diego-women-doing-time-california-prisons-vs-human-rights 

Violates the Eighth Amendment in jail: automatically violates the Fourth Amendment in jail.  But not at the airport? 
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LkRPS0pSScQ  (The gay acting TSO in this audio would not likely have performed this frisk -- division of labor.)  Why does the TSA want to strip or grope air travelers arriving from outside the US without cause?  Haven't the federal court precedents specifically barred invasive searches of persons arriving over land borders without probable cause? Wouldn’t such even fail the Fourteenth Amendment’s  “rational test”: does the TSA fear air passengers will blow up taxi cabs?

Put an end to the training of male law enforcement and security to routinely molest females (and of gay males doing the same to males) with the kind of lawsuits that stopped dead same-sex strip searching for traffic violations in Chicago (only women; men not bothered); ACLU, are you awake?; Ms. Foundation, are you there?  Next is to give notice to law enforcement professionals that felony prohibitions of sexual batter actually apply to them.  (“There is no rule that a male cannot frisk a female.”)  New Hampshire and Texas, are you awake ---- do you want the courts to be wide awake when your legislation goes to the airport? 

For the meantime they think nothing of it:
They even staged it (!) with a female TV journalist -- would they have staged a stranger molestation – he even runs his hands up a leg he has already run down:  http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zFEML_BlRrc&feature=related 
They even practice teenage boy cadets on teenage girl cadets (!): http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=W1-dcSUDPE8&feature=related 
Talk about inexcusable -- even in a safe courthouse -- a widely reported AP story that notes without taking any notice of a mother with two little boys groped -- scanner stripped at the courthouse entrance too; fear panties bombs in the courthouse (?):  http://www.realclearpolitics.com/news/ap/us_news/2010/Nov/24/full_body_scanners_popping_up_at_courthouses.html 

For the meantime ladies, your driver's licenses; don't leave home without them!




Male officers cannot currently be prosecuted for sexually battering females as long as they are trained by the state to do so -- as long as they have any job motivated fig leaf: agent provocateur. 





Thursday, August 23, 2012

A prolife constitutional amendment you can't refuse


A prolife constitutional amendment you can't refuse:

Even is we accept that a fully human fetus (medical consensus: 14 to 20 weeks?) is not a legal person until born -- if liberals incongruously insist on going Robert Bork, Edwin Meese-strict construction on this lone issue -- everyone should agree to the inalienable right to life of prenatal humans (and all other human rights) whether recognized by the Constitution or not.  

Therefore, all should equally easily accept a constitutional amendment insuring full equality of born and unborn rights -- to be regulated by legislatures prior to the stage of medical consensus on humanity.

Someday medical advances will permit prenatal humans to go temporarily postnatal -- to be temporarily removed from the womb and then returned to complete gestation.  Extracted fetuses will travel as legal persons and must retain that status upon return.  Will the courts then allow one class of fetuses to be "slave" and another "free"?  So much for strict construction.

Under strict construction, if a future traveling fetus leaves a stay behind twin, does the left behind become a legal person at any point in the travelers journey; and if so, when?  Under strict construction I would say that at the moment the traveling twin sees the light of day, the stay behind becomes a legal person: the social equal of my legal equal must be my legal equal.  For certain, when the stay behind is rejoined with the company of now a legal person it must be a legal person.  So much for silliness. 

For full silliness: if the courts use the kind of logic (or whatever it was) that produce the old "born alive" common law rule -- that if you injured an unborn baby and it was born alive and died you could be charged with murder (but not if it died prenatally) -- then in the case of a traveling fetus not rejoining the left behind, the courts could possibly rule that the left behind would not become a legal person; but if it returned the stay behind was a legal person from the beginning of the other's journey.  So much for the silliness of liberal-strict construction.

Wednesday, August 22, 2012

Is New York's stop-and-frisk disease all about ethinic cleansing -- or plain foolishness -- or both?


Next spring I may return to New York (after 30+ years absence) to cure New York City of stop-and-frisk disease – by organizing folks there to walk up to police and take their IDs off their badges (mimicking police asking citizens to ID) and then ask them one of more questions that make them feel uncomfortable (too). 

The likely question : “What is your private address?”  There are laws preventing the publishing of cops’ personal addresses – for obvious reasons.  But a legislature could not constitutionally pass a law preventing asking the question -- most especially if the question has a political aim. 

(Male) police may react fiercely to the question (note: females don't have the balls -- to make them want to react fiercely anyway), but that is not a true measure.  Look at the question as a "tickle."  When we are tickled we feel vulnerable but we really are not.  The political aim to to educate New York City police to stop ruining everybody’s sense of freedom with unwarranted (pun intended) personal intrusions -- by giving them a harmless taste.

Another ploy to give cops a bad taste about stop-and-frisk disease is to point out that New York’s mayor enthusiastically supports his ethnic group’s criminally brutal ethnic cleansing of the Palestinian people from even the remaining 22% of their historical homeland the 1949 partition which was supposed to leave them 45% but the Jews grabbed 78% instead.  

(Am I an anti-Semite? No: but I am not an ethnic cleansing "denier" -- as in not a Holocaust "denier."  I am not afraid to embarrass Jews over here to get Israel to behave over there -- better for them here in the long run.  Right now, Jews here are being tarred with the actions of rouge Israel.  If you switched the 6 million Jews here with the 6 million there -- Israel would never cause trouble again.  The Jews here would never act like the crazy Jews over there [only 1 1/2% from US] -- but support Jews there.  Everybody understands their absentee amorality on Israel -- aren't we all guilty?  Embarrassing them here while -- explaining the difference -- is the only thing that will make a difference there -- and wont hurt them here.  And now back to our regular program.)

The only practical consequence of making 24X as many stops per reported crime (6X as many stops after something like a 4X drop in crime) is making the poorer ethnic groups’ lives (even more) difficult.  Could New York’s self-made, billionaire mayor be so foolish as not to understand that? 

Sad to say he could be that foolish.  In first years of this century – after crime had dropped 4X -- the Mad Mayor Bloomberg built a new $400 million dollar courthouse in the Bronx – right next door to the old-new $120 million courthouse that had been opened in 1977 to take the crimewave overflow from the stately not-so-old landmark courthouse up the street.  He built another $670 million dollar courthouse in Brooklyn -- after crime dropped 4X.


So Mayor Bloomberg could be a complete fool, about crime and justice -- or he could be a make-room-for-more-yuppies (now moving in on Harlem and the South Bronx) ethnic cleanser – or both.  Nice choice.  

Addendum:
http://www.thenation.com/article/170413/stopped-and-frisked-being-fking-mutt-video
Watching this video reminded of the racist Chicago I arrived in back in 1980.  Now Chicago has been cool racially for a very long time -- but this video makes me wonder if New York City has gone the way of the old Chicago.  ???

Wednesday, August 8, 2012

Should gay males who admit attraction to boys be scout leaders (or school basketball coaches, etc.)?


Should gay men who admit attraction to boys be scout leaders (or school basketball coaches, etc.)?  Even "pretend-liberals" should be able to figure out the rest out for themselves.

In a lifetime of observations -- I usually know who is in the closet (Mr. voit-comp) -- most gay males I have known have "light up" around early pubescent girls.  I'm not saying they molest them -- not at all -- but it illustrates they have a problem and it is not just shortage of male partners (maybe especially if they are in closet) that can make their sex drive cross normal border lines looking for fulfillment.

Gay males also do not get enough of something else they need from fellow males (gay or straight).  Females give a lot of recognition -- I know you're there; I know you're there -- like a light house that keeps going off.  Males do not give that much of that (even gays to gays).  I believe the classic understanding is that this lack makes gay males go more hedonistic -- heavily into their pastrami sandwiches or whatever -- for compensation.

This can lead to some pretty bizarre compulsions.  When I first showed up in San Francisco in late 1996 the sneaky feel scene was unbelievable.  I had to keep my hands behind my back like I was handcuffed while browsing the shelves at the public library or inevitably the light touch would brush across my back (first time I remember was at the motor vehicle, bent over a shelf, filling out a form -- infuriating).  It was 100 times out of 100 -- and, the opposite of the bar scene, age and condition meant nothing.

When gays first made a move on the Boy Scouts back then I "panicked" and wrote and described this zany scene to Pat Robertson's ACLJ -- whom I addressed as "homophobes" BTW; I'm not; I just understand that gay males are every inch males -- also the early pubescent girl thing.  The drive dropped after that -- Pat and company confront them in the background?

A month after I sent said letter, in January, later I returned to San Francisco for three months -- one of them got me within five hours; in front of the checkout at the hardware store in the first block of Fourth Street (across from the Marriott) -- the light brush -- nothing but room to pass behind.

Next January I returned for seven months.  Somebody must have put it to them (Pat's folks?): perfect behavior.  No more leaning out of the way on the bus to let your girl friend by and then leaning hard up against you as you pass. 

But, next to last time I was in San Francisco: for four months every other gay male who rode in my taxicab had to pat on the soft part of the shoulder two or three times at some point in the ride -- or alternately extend their hand hard against the same place waiting for their change.  Not sex but intimacy.  Infuriating, but I didn't have the heart to tell them; they would have felt so mortified (which I might have mollified by assuring them that we -- heterosexuals -- see and accept men as predators, not as nice girls). 

(This would be a good spot to note that homosexuals of both sexes see the big, giant, overweening ego in females and completely miss it in males -- seems the core difference -- programmed between 3 and 6 years old.) 

Last time I was there for four months (2004/) it had stopped.  Somebody put it to them again?

I have always assumed that most gay males are attracted to boys.  I have been spotting boys and men since I was a boy -- propositioned between the lines to join the fun (nothing is between to Mr. voit-comp) by a 14 year old boy on my paper route.  About 25 years ago I witnessed two uniformed Chicago cops grabbing at the butt of a 15 year old boy on a bike about 15 times -- easy to figure out.  About a mile away was a store where I believed one of the two owners was running delivery boys -- or the boys were running themselves (sounds like a logical opportunity if you understand that 10% of males are gay; maybe even another 10% are serious switch-hitters).

It's just what they do.  The young boys have the bodies and the old men have the money and the toys.  Sound familiar?

Even if a gay male thinks he is not attracted to boys (most, I have always assumed, are extremely attracted) when he is surrounded by 25 boys he may find he has a change of mind. 

Age 13, I heard an openly gay male admonish another openly gay male against approaching a very young teen: "Don't play with fire and you wont get burned."

Tuesday, August 7, 2012

Does it make any legal difference where Obama was born?


Does it make any legal difference where Obama was born?  Even if he was born in Indonesia -- just to make up an example -- he was an  American citizen -- born of at least one American parent.  As long as he lived his life in the states from the time he was aware -- say, from the age of reason (7 years old) -- would any court disallow his right to be president?

The Constitution is not clear on this -- plenty of room for "judge made law."  Democratic judges would definitely rule in favor -- (most of the) Republican judges would be afraid to take the heat. 

BELATED DISCOVERY:
I found this: http://www.usconstitution.net/consttop_citi.html

Currently, Title 8 of the U.S. Code fills in the gaps left by the Constitution. Section 1401 defines the following as people who are "citizens of the United States at birth:"

Anyone born inside the United States *
Any Indian or Eskimo born in the United States, provided being a citizen of the U.S. does not impair the person's status as a citizen of the tribe
Any one born outside the United States, both of whose parents are citizens of the U.S., as long as one parent has lived in the U.S.
Any one born outside the United States, if one parent is a citizen and lived in the U.S. for at least one year and the other parent is a U.S. national
Any one born in a U.S. possession, if one parent is a citizen and lived in the U.S. for at least one year
Any one found in the U.S. under the age of five, whose parentage cannot be determined, as long as proof of non-citizenship is not provided by age 21
Any one born outside the United States, if one parent is an alien and as long as the other parent is a citizen of the U.S. who lived in the U.S. for at least five years (with military and diplomatic service included in this time)
A final, historical condition: a person born before 5/24/1934 of an alien father and a U.S. citizen mother who has lived in the U.S.

* There is an exception in the law — the person must be "subject to the jurisdiction" of the United States. This would exempt the child of a diplomat, for example, from this provision.

Anyone falling into these categories is considered natural-born, and is eligible to run for President or Vice President. These provisions allow the children of military families to be considered natural-born, for example.


ALSO: 
In 2008, when Arizona Senator John McCain ran for president on the Republican ticket, some theorized that because McCain was born in the Canal Zone, he was not actually qualified to be president. However, it should be noted that section 1403 was written to apply to a small group of people to whom section 1401 did not apply. McCain is a natural-born citizen under 8 USC 1401(c): "a person born outside of the United States and its outlying possessions of parents both of whom are citizens of the United States and one of whom has had a residence in the United States or one of its outlying possessions, prior to the birth of such person." Not everyone agrees that this section includes McCain — but absent a court ruling either way, we must presume citizenship.

FUNNY

Tuesday, July 31, 2012

Halt the spread of New York stop-and-frisk disease



Parkinson’s constitutional law: If New York cops can ignore the Fourth Amendment there, then other cops can -- and soon will -- ignore it anywhere. Stopping kids (about half of New York stops mean a frisk) on their way to school or home from sports practice is as about as far from Fourth Amendment acceptable practice as any police can get.
                  
”The demographics of Teachers Preparatory High School in Brownsville are 99 percent black and Latino.  It takes only five minutes to find a group of 14-year olds here who say they have been stopped by police two, three, even seven times.”  “Last year, there were more than 120,000 stops of black and Latino children between 14 and 18. The total number of black and Latino boys that age in the entire city isn’t much more than that – about 177,000 …”  http://www.wnyc.org/articles/wnyc-news/2012/may/29/city-teenagers-say-stop-and-frisk-all-about-race-and-class/

Males 15 to 34 who live in one Brownsville housing project are liable to be stopped on the average five times a year.  http://www.nytimes.com/2010/07/12/nyregion/12frisk.html?_r=4&pagewanted=all

And for what?  “The 13,200 stops the police made in this neighborhood last year resulted in arrests of 109 people. In the more than 50,000 stops since 2006, the police recovered 25 guns.”  Police could find more criminal evidence – likely much more – kicking down 50,000 random doors without warrants.  http://www.nytimes.com/2010/07/12/nyregion/12frisk.html?_r=2&pagewanted=all

For what?  56 stops, 36 frisks in sector E of the 75th precinct on one day -- May 13, 2012 -- yielded no weapons, one arrest for transporting building materials without proof of ownership, one ticket for open container.  http://www.bkbureau.org/one-day-life-stop-and-frisk

All for what?  2005 – 2009 violent crime fell nearly 20% across New York City – in the "assume the position" 73rd Precinct only 1.5%.  http://video.nytimes.com/video/2010/07/11/nyregion/1247468422062/stop-and-frisk-in-brownsville-brooklyn.html

Before other American habitats emulate New York's mayor’s hyperactive stop-and-frisk habits, would do well to ponder too his concomitant, out of control mega-courthouse constructions.  The late '60s, early '70s crime blowout overloaded Bronx County Courthouse – the architectural anchor of the Grand Concourse since 1933 (seen in home plate views from the old Yankee Stadium).  To catch the overflow the city built a brand spanking new $120 million courthouse down the block in 1977. 

Beginning in the '90s crime receded something like 4X across New York City.  But Mad Mayor Bloomberg thought nothing of upping another $400 million for a mega-courthouse down the block from the old-new Bronx courthouse and the not-that-old landmark in 2005 (in the poorest congressional district in the country). Same year, same post-4X drop in crime, same Mayor "over-do everything for nothing" Bloomberg dumped another $670 million for a mega-courthouse in Brooklyn. 
The new:

6X as many stops and frisks – inaugurated after -- New York crime dropped 4X = 24X as many stops and frisks per reported crime. All visited upon minorities who never possessed much more of this world's goods than their personal dignity (they used to possess that). Now San Francisco's Mayor Lee (and doubtless many local governments; Oakland's for one) is reported pondering what benefit imposing New York style Fourth Amendment nullification might do for his poorest neighborhoods.  If it’s all pain and no gain for New York's minorities (nullifying the Fourth Amendment is not acceptable even if it does accomplish something), it’s no good for anybody, anywhere.

[LATE NOTE -- TO BE WORKED IN SOME WHERE ON THIS BLOG: http://www.dnainfo.com/new-york/20120921/concourse-village/stop-and-frisk-data-projected-onto-bronx-buildings] 

Thursday, July 12, 2012

I would love to offer a million dollar prize for A REALISTIC answer to America's problems that did not include sector-wide labor contracts


I would love to declare a contest prize of million dollars to anyone who could propose A REALISTIC answer to most of America's economic and social cancers ("cancers" is not too strong a word at this point) that did not include legally mandated, sector-wide labor agreements -- just to make the very vivid point that there is no other realistic way out. 

The -- innate -- behavioral block that prevents even the most momentary consideration any new direction in economic policy in human males (hunting pack imperative?) to refuse to think through any new policy direction on MERIT ALONE if it is too different than what society is doing already -- have to see all the wheels within wheels working together in one second or wont consider it for a single second.

Tragic case in point: human males will not consider the efficacy of legally mandated, sector-wide labor agreements as the cure for most all of America's economic and social cancers -- as the only possible cure or at least the only practical cure anyone has ever thought of -- not to mention tried and tested in the first world (Germany, France, etc.), second world (Argentina), third world (Indonesia) -- not to mention for as long as 60+ years.

Instituted by post WWII industrialists (not Marxists or left wingers) to limit labor's race to the top, it works just as wonderfully to limit labor's race to the bottom -- and -- keep the political muscle of the average person in heavy lifting shape.

Human females are capable of evaluating any idea on MERIT ALONE (individual gatherers imperative; shoppers) -- and then, if it seems practical, actually believing they can sell the idea to others on merit alone.

Monday, July 2, 2012

When does $15 million + $10 million + $15 million = $15 million? Chicago parking meter rip


When does $15 million + $10 million + $15 million = $15 million?  When Chicago sells its parking meter system for $15 million a year -- $1.15 billion all at once averaged over 75 years ...
... and the new owners sue Chicago for $15 million a year for street closings ...
... and the new owners sue Chicago for $15 million a year over handicapped parking ...
... and the new owners levy a "street tax" -- raise rates across the board -- which wide spread character I have to imagine adds at least as much to the take as the two fractional charges (closing and handicapped).

Now for the really big question: If Chicago were getting the $15 million one year at a time instead of all at once -- would this multi billion dollar bamboozle be allowed to continue -- for one more year?


http://www.suntimes.com/news/watchdogs/12299030-452/chicago-parking-meter-company-wants-more-money-mayor-balks.html 

http://www.chicagotribune.com/news/local/ct-met-rahm-emanuel-parking-meter-lease-20120630,0,1767149.story?dssReturn 

http://www.selectsmart.com/DISCUSS/read.php?16,945663 

http://www.bloomberg.com/news/2010-08-09/morgan-stanley-group-s-11-billion-from-chicago-meters-makes-taxpayers-cry.html

http://www.rollingstone.com/politics/blogs/taibblog/new-york-to-repeat-chicago-s-parking-meter-catastrophe-20120613

Saturday, June 30, 2012

EARLY DRAFT: STOPPING MALE POLICE FROM SEXUALLY BATTERING FEMALES





FOR LATEST DRAFT CLICK ON:  
http://ontodayspage.blogspot.com/2012/08/taking-male-leo-hands-of-females-late.html  
(this page has just become a collection of links and ideas to be used elsewhere)











http://texweswomenlaw.blogspot.com/2008/02/stop-and-frisk.html

http://answers.ask.com/Society/Other/how_to_frisk_a_woman
http://stlouis.cbslocal.com/2012/09/26/controversial-new-measures-planned-to-curb-violence-in-east-st-louis/


http://www.nytimes.com/2012/08/16/nyregion/in-police-stop-data-pockets-where-force-is-used-more-often.html?pagewanted=all




Move to TSA airport genital groping

Move to gay male TSA groping

Move to male on female “mandatory” TSA groping

Move to California and New York federal courts on male prison guards groping females – 11 circuit said violates 8 the Amendment – New York area courts I think allowed groping to avoid conflict with federal job non-discrimination statute (what would legislators who voted for that have thought?)
If the courts have been coming down on the side of barring male prison guard on female frisking on a constitutional basis, then, I can draw a very interesting parallel between that and the TSA policy and the local male police officer practice of intimately frisking women.

Move to local police male on female frisking;
Three videos of police sexually groping females with no realistic safety issue whatsoever:
They think nothing of it:
They even practice teenage boys on teenage girls:

If somebody, somewhere does not begin to oppose the steady withering away of freedom from unreasonable search, the Fourth Amendment could eventually disappear everywhere: just a version of Parkinson’s law of bureaucracies. 

A widely reported AP story at the time scanners were being introduced at the airport – “Full-body Scanners Popping Up at Courthouses” – contained this in the body:
“Angela Hellenbrand received a quick pat-down Tuesday by security guard Mike Couts at the Castle Rock courthouse about 30 miles south of Denver.  A guard in another room monitoring the full-body scans alerted Couts to an object in Hellenbrand’s left-rear pocket.  It was the paper backing of a ‘Junior Deputy Sheriff’ sticker that one of the guards had given her two young boys.”

Coming to a courthouse – or a neighborhood; or a train station or a school -- near you?

No amelioration of indignity described in Terry for a man – none at all for the horror of sexual battery for a woman;
No case yet testing police sexually battering a woman – court cannot originate, must wait for a “test case” (in case you think this has been tried before
If male police do not consider this sexual battery because "they are professionals doing a job ('we are like doctors!')", then, if their teenage daughter is frisked over every square inch by a private security guard at her high school every day that is not sexual battery because "he is a professional doing a job."
If the "professional" business had any validity, then, we would not need Terry in the first place because no indignity would be suffered by persons who are frisked because police are "professionals doing a job."
Latest comparison: by today's police "we are professionals doing a job" logic for negating any concern for what would otherwise be considered gross sexual battery, a male school principal could ethically hand spank their 15 years old daughters over their gym pants.  Most people I know would be concerned about sexual abuse if a male principal spanked a girl with a paddle -- but police should not because "he is a professional doing a job."

Move to TSA X-rated scanners;
Male sneaking to see females – children;
Can feds make exception to federal child porn law – if balance violates 4th Amendment?;
Can feds make exception to local assault or voyering laws?;
Only way for courts to address these questions is to give them cases to adjudicate.

Remember British WWII going to Shakespeare during Blitz: "They are not going to change the way we live."

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I remember when I was in my twenties in Chelsea, walking in an empty back street somewhere above 14th street (had to be a weekend; there are no empty back streets in Chelsea now) with a can of soda in my jacket pocket – big and obviously heavy.  A police car passed on the other side of the street, took a take on my bulge and went on the way.

Police cannot stop everybody who might possibly have a gun.  Otherwise we don’t have a free country anymore and every adult will feel like they are living in some crazily strict high school.  That is the sense of the Fourth Amendment.


If this were a sensibly run country, when you stepped into the TSA X-ray machine you would push a toggle switch for the gender you wished to seen stripped by – your naked outline going to a remote room staffed only by your own sexes TSOs.  How high-tech would that be?

Under that sensible modus, were a sick male TSO to hear of a girls soccer team going through scanners and be caught sneaking over to the female viewing room for a look, he would certainly be arrested on multiple charges including viewing child pornography. This scenario should lay to rest any question of whether the scanners are a real strip search and whether adult males viewing children's naked outlines are really viewing child porn.
******
Ditto, if gay male TSOs were sensibly banned from groping every square inch of male bodies all day at the airport.  If one such snuck in to grope in incoming basketball team he would certainly be arrested for sexual battery. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LkRPS0pSScQ


The letter of the law: 4.3.14. OPPOSITE GENDER SCREENING … … B. The STSO must ensure that the following notice is provided … 1) A TSO of the same gender as the individual presents him or herself to be is not available. … … 4) Once the individual enters the WTMD, the individual must complete the screening process.  http://www.airsafe.com/issues/security/tsa-sop-not-redacted.pdf

Can federal administrative law make viewing child porn at the airport not a federal crime? Arguably, that's the same as asking if Congress – which made child porn viewing a crime – can make it not a crime for TSOs at the airport?

Can federal administrative law make sexually battering a woman at the airport not a state crime? That should be like asking if Congress can make physically battering a woman not a crime for TSOs at the airport? Federal courts have not show much interest in male LEOs routinely (w/o immediate danger) frisking females as a constitutional issue [www.rbs2.com/travel2.pdf ].  Would seem a lot harder to duck protecting women as a criminal law issue.

While legislatures are at it they can shoulder tap their local law enforcement – which currently seems to feel free to routinely sexually batter females, at least from what I read and see (videos below) on the net – though I have not seen it in person.

Officer safety? First, an arrested woman would have to do the Houdini and slip her restraints and then do the Incredible Hulk and rip aside the police car partition.  Guns may be checked for without touching anything.

Probable cause cross-gender search of a female supposedly okayed by Terry: We are professionals doing a job – we are like doctors? The indignity described by Terry that a stop-and-frisk subjects a male to is in no way ameliorated by the fact that cops are professionals doing a job. Neither does that ameliorate the harm of sexual battery. Wait for a female officer or cuff them and take them in (probable cause).

Tuesday, June 26, 2012

Index the official federal poverty line to the real poverty line


The official federal poverty line was based, in 1965 (or 1968), on three times the price of an emergency diet (dried beans only; no canned); about $5/day X 3 = $18,000/yr for a family of three. This was based on a 1955 study which in 1965 was not yet too far off the true mark.

I used the numbers in the MS Foundations book "Raise the Floor", table 2-3 on page 44 to come up with a minimum needs figure also based on $5/day for food but plus everything else from telephone to income tax and it came to $42,000/yr (2008 dollars) for a family of 3 -- not $18,000/yr ...

... which looking at the US Census family income charts put American poverty at 37% not 12.5% if all these families had to pay for their own medical insurance -- 26% if they all had paid for medical -- likely about 30% if I knew who had paid medical and who didn't.

I propose that some one or some organization set up a year by year index of the ratio between the official poverty line and a real minimum needs line like I derived from MS' chart. Then when some economically unenlightened essayist wants to complain that poverty has (only) stayed the same since LBJ they can easily check and see that LJB's 12.5% might have been an adjusted 15% in 1968 -- compared to today's adjusted 30% -- that poverty may have doubled since LBJ ...

... while average income doubled ...

... especially if you have been getting people used to the stagnation of median income and the 30% drop in minimum wage ...

... while average income doubled.

http://www.amazon.com/Raise-Floor-Wages-Policies-That/dp/0896086836/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&qid=1340721563&sr=8-1&keywords=RAISE+THE+FLOOR

http://ontodayspage.blogspot.com/2008/02/are-38-of-american-families-living.html

Saturday, June 23, 2012

Must ask children because they don't tell

Children seem rarely to report even persistent molestation.  Simple solution: all children must be asked.  Once a year?

Some kind of protocol must be worked out.  Even if the method turns out not so good a detecting it will serve as a huge deterrent.  Even if a child does not tell this year because he or she may do so next year and because it will put the matter much more in the upper thoughts when the child turns adult.

Thursday, June 14, 2012

A note on education to Chicago's Republi-crat mayor

Before Chicago’s Republi-crat mayor adds to many hours to public school days he might ponder what economist/political scientist Sánchez-Jankowski says about why ghetto schools don’t work in his book “Cracks in the Pavement” after spending nine years on the ground in five New York City and Los Angeles poverty neighborhoods: the schools there did not work because too many students – and teachers – did not expect the job market to pay them enough to work when they got out.  Ergo, many feel it not worth making extra effort.

What the good professor was unaware of and what the Chicago City Council is unlikely aware of – nobody else in America seems to know – is that, as average income doubled over the last two generations due to advancing technology and management skills, the federal minimum wage by now has sunk $3.28/hr from a high of $10.53/hr in 1968 ($1.60/hr nominally). 

It took more than inadequate teaching to put 100,000 gang members on Chicago streets (per Dean Renolds).  In my reading of Venkatesh’s American Project the Taylor Homes became gang infested hell only as the minimum wage dipped below 63% of LBJ’s minimum ($5.15 nominally) in 2000).

I am not expecting Chicago’s City council to straighten out what I call America’s “post apocalyptic” labor market.  I’m just trying to point out the deep labor market sickness at the bottom of most of America’s worst troubles.  Least of all do I expect a Republi-crat to care.
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FWIW; jumping to a federal minimum wage to $15/hr would add about 4% direct inflation – easily computed:
[70 million (half the workforce); $3.75/hr average raise ($15 is today’s median wage, optimistically) X 2000 hours (work year)] + [3.5 million * extra half raises for those now at or below the minimum (2009) X $3.75 X 2000 hours] = $551.25 billion altogether -- out of a GDP of $14 trillion = 3.9% direct inflation.]  * http://www.bls.gov/cps/minwage2009tbls.htm 

If a McDonald’s union could hold out for double pay they would add 33% to the price of a burger: fast food labor costs being 33%.  If McDonald’s union could do that a Target union could hold out for a raise from $10/hr (don’t know exact figure) to $15 which would add only 5% to Target’s prices: most business labor costs being more like 10%.  If the minimum any American business paid was $15/hr (Germany’s 10 percentile wage last I looked years ago) half of America would get a raise to $30,000/yr and McDonalds would do fabulously.  Which gives you an idea how little money we are talking about in absolute terms in restoring pay levels in half the American labor market.

Friday, June 8, 2012

MY REPLY to this question on Thoma's "Economist's View" blog ...

MY REPLY to this question on Thoma's "Economist's View" blog: "Can you describe how industry-wide or common labor agreements work in Germany?" ******

I am no expert on how sector wide is done in different economies. If you are studious -- you seem much more so than I -- you can look up the 1992 book "Union of Parts -- Labor Politics in Postwar Germany" by Kathleen A. Thelen (which I have on my lap but never got around to).
http://www.amazon.com/Union-Parts-Politics-Postwar-Political/dp/0801425867/ref=sr_1_fkmr0_1?ie=UTF8&qid=1339119485&sr=8-1-fkmr0

Of course there is the recent: "Were You Born on the Wrong Continent?: How the European Model Can Help You Get a Life" by Thomas Geoghegan.
http://www.amazon.com/Were-You-Born-Wrong-Continent/dp/1595587063/ref=sr_1_1?s=books&ie=UTF8&qid=1339119525&sr=1-1

I just know that when I saw the idea somewhere, years ago, I recognized the answer to American labor's powerlessness instantly. I had been like one of those "cross of gold" farmers reading pamphlets, trying to figure out why their world was falling apart (deflation making their mortgage payments more expensive all the time).

Sector wide's advantages are so obvious that when you see it you genuinely wonder why you never thought of it yourself (at least I did).

As far as I can see, anywhere in the first-world where it is in practice, the average person has full empowerment -- political as well economic because full unionization means equal financing to match ownership's to go with the overwhelming majority of votes. The late David Broder, dean of the Washington press corps, wrote that when he first arrived there fifty years ago the lobbyists were all union.

Anywhere in the OECD it is not the average person is screwed more all the time.
Sector wide is over half a century proven -- and -- tried even in the second world (Brazil) and third world (Indonesia).

Funniest thing is that sector wide labor agreements were instituted in post WWII Europe by INDUSTRIALISTS to prevent labor unions going on a race to the top (with each other). The welfare state -- which is what everybody over here FOOLISHLY thinks as the big economic difference between Europe and us -- was actually offered to compensate labor for putting up with sector wide agreements.

Sector wide collective bargaining ends the race to the bottom just as well. Wal-Mart had to close 88 big boxes in Germany because they could not compete paying the same wages and be benefits.

I've got a human behavior theory that males being pack hunters are somehow able to relate to the big world only on the terms the world (stupidly?) works on already. Human males seem to automatically eject any solution too original like a spent cartridge -- literally incapable consider the novel on merits alone.

Human females being individual gatherers by DNA can according to my cabdriver theory think for themselves -- are actually able to ponder a new direction on merit alone -- not because they are "receptive" but because they can think for themselves.

Thursday, June 7, 2012

How sector-wide labor agreements could reshape the American labor market

If McDonald's (not to pick on one brand name) had to come to a labor agreement -- ACTUALLY IF ALL FAST FOOD businesses had to come to a common labor agreement with all employees, so called sector wide labor agreements -- the price of labor would tend to come to equilibrium where the most money would get split by labor and ownership.

A wage of $15/hr would double the take home pay of fast food labor while raising prices one-third. Fast food has the largest by far labor usage (one-third of all costs).

Other businesses tend towards one-tenth of costs.  Think Target ("Can somebody help me?")

If fast food can pay $15/hr, most any business should be able to (sounds like).

$15/hr is now the median wage in the US labor market.  Give half the country (the half at or below the median) a raise to $15/hr and McDonald's should do wonderfully.
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Roughly, 90-97 percentile earners have kept the same share of income the same earners had in 1968 -- double the average income since.  This suggests that the reason for so-called "inequality" (would the average non-academic recognize that phrase -- how about something like the "post-apocalyptic American labor market"?) is not a higher-tech economy making unskilled labor worth less.  Ball players, CEOs and news anchors are not the reason for economic growth.  Robots and programs are -- humans, I suspect, retain the same economic worth relative to each other.