Prosecutors: Oklahoma ex-policeman preyed on women ‘no one cared about’

Daniel Holtzclaw, 28, of Oklahoma City is charged with 36 counts of sexual assault, including six first-degree rape counts for attacks on 13 women. He could face life in prison if convicted of the most serious charges and was seen weeping when the judge read out the charges against him. Holtzclaw targeted his victims by going after women he came across while on patrol. He ran background checks and went after those who had outstanding warrants, previous arrests or carried drugs or drug paraphernalia, prosecutors said. They said he did this because he did not think authorities would take the victims’ word over his if he had to defend himself against sexual assault allegations.

Source: Prosecutors: Oklahoma ex-policeman preyed on women ‘no one cared about’

Drunk Ohio cop shoots neighbor in the head after a paid suspension for killing another man

ter killing his neighbor, an inebriated Pike County sheriff’s deputy was arrested and charged with felony manslaughter for accidentally shooting him in the head. Although the deputy initially reported the shooting, he neglected to inform the dispatcher that he had pulled the trigger.

Source: Drunk Ohio cop shoots neighbor in the head after a paid suspension for killing another man

Celebs

Pippin poses with the WWE Total Divas! She’s a diva too! #WWENorthCharleston @NChasColiseum @LowcountryLive pic.twitter.com/aatef5LyGh

— SC Aquarium (@SCaquarium) December 7, 2015

 

Greed’s Doing Fine

Around the world, pockets and circles mark poverty–it’s structural many say, others blame corporations and workers (greed and laziness); or national leaders in dictatorships and new democracies (crony thief). But big wheels keep turning out the oil and currency that creates winners and losers–and growth and no growth. What makes this recession different (its political economy!) is that the winners have aligned with non-growth! They prefer to concentrate wealth rather than increase it. They consume more of the global pie rather than make more pies; they prefer to drain rather than feed.

Paul Krugman has demonstrated this behavior in economic numbers and charts, as basic principles, as a conservative and European pattern, and its effects on growth and wages (slow or non-existent!). Yet profits and wealth are increasing at the same time as economies and wages are stagnant. New wealth is being extracted from working wages and family net worth!

Beginning when businesses cut expenses to improve profits, increase by decrease became widely applied during and after the recession through government austerity, corporate trimming and wage tightening and unemployment. The strategy is in oil, as dropping prices run off competition and allow major players a larger share.

Political economy looks at the behavior that drives the numbers, looking for the widest cause, going beyond policy. The answer? The art of politics is lost; money is the main candidate. It is a bidder’s war. The price of the 2016 elections will be insane. So the answer is: It’s still greed. Otherwise, we would be doing fine.

President Obama’s Tough, Calming Talk on Terrorism – The New York Times; My Comment

 

The president properly sought to reassure Americans on counterterrorism, but warned against sacrificing the nation’s values out of fear.

Source: President Obama’s Tough, Calming Talk on Terrorism – The New York Times

(My Comment /wr)

New conditions never call for a return to cliches. “Beat ISIS” as a slogan or the President saying “Islamic terrorists” has no alchemic value. Intoning words creates no spell which carries the power to defeat terrorists ideas and acts. If Obama has been too cautious, Republican leaders and candidates have offered only empty promise. With the new terror arising from within the West, a real problem is exhibits of force and bombast (including speeches and state attacks overseas!) tend to multiply it!

The radicalized minority listens and looks at the screams of the Western majority for military attacks; bombings, ground troops, full campaigns of death. Those calls reset the domestic terrorists launch button–not some command from a cell network or central authority.

If you understand this as a central cause-and-effect for domestic terrorism, then you see few working on good answers and even fewer properly defining the problem. Home grown terrorism outstrips threats from overseas. Two separate problems, they work in different ways, require different strategies.

Traditional “war” fights to win borders and bounty! The new war has declared over bad behavior and a god who fines divine favor in death.

Nothing sensible for its defeat will emerge from the slogans on the table. Don’t wrap this new thing in the shards of broken, old conventions–it is a product of that brokenness! But it is also a poison from a new stir of the spoon.

 

WPA Archives, A Dorothea Lange Photograph.