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.
Swarthmore mom,
I agree that you should be wary of the tea bag movement. But there’s no harm in actually going to meet people in the movement to humanize them to you and you to them. I believe you are a Christian and Jesus asked the question, who is your neighbor?
Buddha,
There is a governmental framework and then there’s the people who run the govt. into the ground. If you want to take me to task, go for it, this isn’t an important issue to me.
Jill,
I’m going to take you to task on the semantics of that as well.
Segments of the Neocon led GOP (including their puppets the Tea Baggers) and DNC needs We the People to start hating our neighbor, but the government itself is merely the culture and framework in which those bad actors operate. In itself, the government is tasked to seek domestic tranquility.
I disagree with your premise that “the government needs me to hate my neighbor”. I am very wary of this tea party movement and will continue to be.
Swarthmore mom,
Yesterday you said you’d like some ideas for change. Let me put some out. First of all, think long and hard before you turn on your fellow citizen. Remember, the govt. needs you to hate your neighbor so you won’t be looking at what they’re doing, even when the govt. itself acts in horribly racist ways.
Think about talking to the “enemy”. Not to convince them, just to humanize them to you and you to them.
Learn first aid and ham radio. That way if there is an emergency in your neighborhood or city, you can help others out.
Take the money and use the time you might spend on a campaign for a less than ideal candidate and use both on a local project that benefits people locally. Support candidates that you know to be of a good will towards the people, like your friend.
http://thinkprogress.org/2010/07/14/tea-party-racism/ Need more proof that the tea party is racist?
Forget this “public interest story” news channel diversion bullcrap. The front page of every daily paper had ought to give a count of how many of our boys and girls are overseas, and where, and how many casualties each day. Perhaps if we drilled it into the brains of the American public that we are sending our kids to die every day, people would start supporting Obama’s plan to pull back in July 2011. This is Bush Sr’s war, inherited by Obama. Don’t blame him or the rest of the American populous for wanting to withdraw.
On that note, please vote to put the money back into US governing, not into the war. The best thing you can do to support Oakland is vote Dem, as those are the ones in Washington who want to pull out of Iraq and Afghanistan so we can focus our budget on economic reform.
And no to those of you who are questioning, I am not a bleeding heart liberal. My best friend’s boy, who is only 19, has enlisted. We are all proud of him but we are all terrified for him as well.
OTOTOT,
A detailed explanation of VP Cheney’s current state of health:
[youtube=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uoQUc39lnuk&hl=en_US&fs=1]
CCD
Derek Sivers: How to start a movement
http://www.ted.com/talks/lang/eng/derek_sivers_how_to_start_a_movement.html
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Excellent vid, thanks.
Blouise,
Yes.
W=c
Aww, shucks, ma’am. (kicks boot into dirt and blushes)
I don’t have any insurmountable skeletons in my closet although my brief marriage to Satan caused me both a few minor legal and work problems – in addition to complicating a health problem which the stress and crazed schedule of public office would be no good for either. I’m not a felon or a Priest or anything truly damning. But let’s just say I have a lifelong aversion to being on television. I’m not hideously ugly or anything (I’ve been called handsome by attractive women before), but I don’t even like having my picture taken. Never have. And I like being able to become invisible in public. Like all superheroes, I’m loathe to loose a superpower and would like to retain my secret identity. 😀 lol But I think I’ll make a fine party policy wonk. Vision can guide from behind as surely as it can lead from the front. Arthur had his Merlin you know.
“Most certainly agreed, Blouise. I just wanted to make clear I have no interest in being a personality.”
it usually is the ones who are most qualified and have the sharpest and most apt vision of a position who are the least likely to have a desire to do that which needs to be done….
Am I correct in surmising that #9 returns some real power to the states?
Okay .. okay … I think I’ve caught up now … good about #9 ’cause I really like it and yes, something has to be done about electoral college … outmoded is a kind way of putting it.
And as they used to say on Laugh-In, “you bet your bippie” I want to hear what mespo has to say.
Blouise,
I think we are victims of lag. 😀 It’s not tabled, I’m just talking alternative issues.
Wait … are you going to eliminate #9? Wait to hear from some others and add SCOTUS as #11.
Mespo hasn’t even been on the site these last two days … I’m sure he wants to imput.
Many state legislatures meet only a few months a year. Most are not full time. Special sessions are expensive and not popular with the voters.
The No Confidence plank is not tabled, I’m just thinking out loud. 😀 We can have more items, but I have reasons (psychological) for keeping the broad plank number 10 or less (easier for people to digest information in smaller doses and 10 is a psychologically satisfying number as we are base-10 thinkers by nature).
And as far as electoral reform goes, how do you all feel about equalizing the electoral college? It’s an outmoded institution and the imbalances clearly give some states far more sway in Presidential elections than is equitable.
Swarthmore mom
House members are up for election every two years. Why would you need a recall for them?
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A house member can do a great deal of damage in two years … many of them cast those questionable votes in the first few months of the term so that their constituents will have “forgotten” by the time the next election rolls around.
Okay.
Since the problems of Amending for No Confidence processes is so problematic, how about replacing that plank with one that I recently read many Americans would favor: an Amendment limiting terms for SCOTUS (a proposition I’ve been in favor of since Rehnquist) and/or making them elected officials (a proposition I was once totally against, but the Roberts era has opened my mind to the possibilities if we could do so in a post-lobby campaign financed/graft bound electoral system)?