Oakland’s police chief Anthony Batts has announced that Oakland Police will not responded to 44 different crimes if planned layoffs occur at midnight. It was useful for Batts to announce the categories in advance for criminals to chose from a criminal dim sum list of free crimes including grand theft, burglary, vehicle collision, identity theft and vandalism.
If you are the victim of burglary, you will be told to make a report online and not to expect police to respond.
Here the list of free crimes in Oakland:
burglary
theft
embezzlement
grand theft
grand theft:dog
identity theft
false information to peace officer
required to register as sex or arson offender
dump waste or offensive matter
discard appliance with lock
loud music
possess forged notes
pass fictitious check
obtain money by false voucher
fraudulent use of access cards
stolen license plate
embezzlement by an employee (over $ 400)
extortion
attempted extortion
false personification of other
injure telephone/ power line
interfere with power line
unauthorized cable tv connection
vandalism
administer/expose poison to another’s
That allows ample room for most criminals to plan a life of crime without the risk of police interference.
This is the response to the planned layoff of 80 officers. That is roughly one-tenth of the force. As we continue to gush billions in Afghanistan and Iraq, our cities are returning to a state of nature. According to the city of Oakland, each of the 776 police officers currently employed at OPD costs around $188,000 per year. The city council asked OPD officers to pay nine percent of their salary toward their pensions. However, the union would only agree if the city promised no layoffs. The city refused.
Source: NBC.
That’s great that your friend is running. If you refer back to what I wrote earlier I said Obama and the Republicans play for the same team. By way of backing up this claim I pointed out the Obama has adopted (or exceeded) most of Bush’s economic and war policies and that he has further appointed the same people who committed financial and war crimes during the last administration, to run his own depts. These are people who should be indicted, not running our economic and war policies.
Dropping the partisan blinders allows us to see who is a real ally and who is not. One of the best ways to control people is to give them an “enemy”. The trick is, this “enemy” must distract people from seeing the truth concerning their “own” side. Enemies are invented by the powerful all the time. Have you noticed how the tea party movement appears and disappears at strategic times in the political cycle? The tea party is a group of sincere people led by a group of insincere, powerful people. Like most Americans, as is our birthright, they are completely fucked up about class issues. They serve the ruling elite well. First, they make certain the Democratic base isn’t paying attention to what their own leadership is doing in the class war. If the Democratic base was paying attention they might vote third party or use primaries to elect people who do represent their class interests. That is the last thing the ruling elite wants.
The tea party also keeps the Republican base in line. OHHHHHH…Obama is a socialist, we must oppose him. If Republicans were paying attention, they would realize they should vote for Obama, that is, unless they really didn’t like Bush. If they didn’t like Bush, they should vote for a Republican who is an actual conservative.
A Republican who votes for a real conservative is as much a danger to the ruling elites as a Democrat who votes for an actual liberal or progressive candidate. Yes, there’s a lot of show and manipulation going on.
So if someone breaks into your house, just tell them someone has broken into your house and has lit up a joint. Possession of marijuana isn’t on the list.
One thing I know first hand is that my friend Tarryl Clark who is running against Bachmann in Mn 06 is not on the same team as Michelle.
I certainly agree with Yissil’s first post and I agree with Jill’s posts.
I am a strong union advocate but I do not support the stated plans of the Oakland Police Dept. and believe that firing them all and starting over would be best. Union busting happens when workers go on strike, refusing to do a job and giving up the pay … The Oakland Police Dept. is refusing to do the job but still expects to get a pay check … if the Chief is not speaking for the department then he should be fired and the officers should resume their full duties. If the officers are going to follow his orders in refusing to do their jobs fully, while still expecting a pay check, then they are all gone. It’s not complicated. Bye, bye pensions.
This country became much more partisan in 1994 when the republicans took the house in the Gingrich revolution. If they work for the same team why are politics so brutal now? Do they just do it for the show? No they do it for the advantage.
He is basically announcing the “rationing” of police work that will happen and to some extent is already happening. I appreciate that he is being upfront about it in advance, so those with the power to make decisions can judge the impact in advance. Its the same with health care (my field). Without the resources, care is rationed and people go without the basics.
John: it’s not the union or the cops on the beat, it’s the police chief saying he doesn’t have enough money. The problem is that they can’t afford to pay the 80 officers, not that they are on stike. If they could afford to replace them they wouldn’t have to replace them.
Or something like that.
He wasn’t wasting time at all. They work for the same team. Look at the policies and the people Obama’s put in place in the financial and war industries. Most of them were Bush’s people. If you truly wanted to make change would you keep the same team who’d fucked up that badly in place? No you wouldn’t. If you’re playing for the same team, you would do just that. Obama isn’t called a cult brand for no reason. The amount of propaganda and techniques for keeping the Democratic base from seeing the truth are mind boggling in number. They have been extremely effective. It’s part of the reason that people excuse anything Obama does, even when they objected to these same actions when Bush did them. It is a type of brainwashing and we have to break out of it.
Isn’t it ILLEGAL for the police to hold us hostage like this? Isn’t this just Blackmail? This police chief is committing a crime, he should at least be fired from his job. He works for the people and the people should decide what is most important to investigate.
I’ve run businesses, and we also never have enough money to do what we want or enough people. So we prioritize, we do the best we can with the budget we’ve got and try to get the most bang for the buck, whether the bucks are going to salaries, marketing, supplies or floor space. If they have less money they should be doing the same thing, not threatening people with burglary.
They should not have said anything; if they DID say anything it should be a press release like this:
“We prioritize our responses by the severity of the crimes committed or investigations and situations where our officers are deployed, and with fewer officers it is likely that on some days the lesser functions will, of necessity, get little or no attention, or much delayed attention. We hope our citizens understand that we are striving to provide the maximum safety and law enforcement we can with the resources they choose to provide us.”
As for union and pension negotiations, they should only say, “Our officers choose to risk their lives to serve their community, and it takes a certain amount of pay, health and insurance benefits and financial security to offset that risk. Without those assurances, their inclination to serve can be overwhelmed by the risks they would be taking with the financial security of their families, spouses and children. It is one thing to ask a brave officer to risk their life, it is another to ask them to risk the financial future of their loved ones in the bargain. Less financial security for cops means fewer cops and less security for the community.”
The partisan facts remain. The maximum amount of republican votes you can put together for anything remotely progressive in the Senate is 3. Collins,Snowe and Brown voted for fin reg. I do not think one republican would vote for unemployment extension. Mitch McConnell is holding his caucus together. Obama has wasted time trying to reach across the aisle because come next January there will be many more republicans.
Did Congress order our troops to Costa Rica, Afghanistan, and increase the numbers of contractors in Iraq? I think that was the work of the president, a Democrat. Also, if you look carefully at what happened/is happening with unemployment insurance, you will see this was/is not simply the work of Republicans. This is a time where relentless partisanship needs real reconsideration. We are facing an economic and environmental crisis such as our nation has never faced before. Therefore, it becomes essential to understand what is actually happening in our govt. If we keep our partisan blinders on, we will fail to understand the situation and be unable to take effective action to remedy the situation. If you would like me to bash Republicans on unemployment insurance, please let me do so. Here is what I just wrote my lousy, no good, stinking ass hole Republican Senator: “The Toledo Foodbank has had a 54% increase in requests for aid this year and has gotten more requests since unemployment insurance was cut off.
This is a desperate emergency and we have a moral obligation to help the people of our state. That moral obligation is not to be abrogated. If you want to cut the budget, end the wars.”
http://www.talkingpointsmemo.com/archives/2010/07/kyls_law.php?ref=fpblg Republicans favor keeping the Bush tax cuts but not extending unemployment compensation. Extending unemployment adds to the deficit but keeping the tax cuts does not. Logical?
If they won’t do their jobs, then its time to get people that will.
Just ask the air traffic controllers, they weren’t allowed to strike either, and were ALL replaced.
I don’t care for union busting, but if they aren’t going to do their jobs, it looks like they are walking off the job.
I agree with Yissil as well. There is something else to consider. The govt. isn’t really interested in deficits otherwise our “defense”/homeland security” budget would look drastically different than it does now. Everyday policing is being slashed and burned. This is true of other essential services such as fire and education (to name two). In the meantime, other parts of unlaw enforcement garner more money to uparmor and increase surveillance on our population. That money is hidden under various budgets, including the “defense” budget. It’s clear that the govt. is deliberately targeting the middle, working class and the poor while redistributing vast sums of public money to the top tier of our society. This is both despicable and terrifying.
You may also like to know that while the gulf is burning and poisoned our govt. just sent 46 warships, 7000 Marines and 200 helicopters to Costa Rica for “drug interdiction”.
Choices are being made here, ones with truly dire consequences. There is nothing benign about what is happening. The govt. is making purposeful choices which do great harm to most people and the environment.
Good post Yissil. Paul Krugman said in his blog today, “the Keynesians won”. Obama wasted too much time trying to garner republican support for his programs.
Pensions for government workers are becoming untenable.
Yissil, you are spot on. This is absolutely the worst time to be considering ridiculous “austerity” measures. I just wish that the President had pushed for a much larger stimulus at the outset because I believe that recovery would have been farther along by this point.
The Oakland police force did announce, however, that the police brutality against the citizenry would continue unabated.
What’s the difference? They already don’t. Took them three hours to respond when my brother got mugged and beaten so badly that he had to be hospitalized.
I hate to get all liberal and keynsian, but part of the stimulus package was to give money to the states to prevent just this sort of thing. But the original stimulus was a half-measuere, and at this point the Dems can’t even get the Republicans to keep unemplyment checks going out.
There are two choices now: government creates demand to avoid a downward cycle of deflation and further economic collapse, or the feds legislate “austerity measures” and speeds the collapse and its hello great depression.