Marilyn Mosby on ‘Witch Hunt, Cop Hunt. Whatever You Want to Call It’
[brid video=”22693″ player=”2077″ title=”Former Baltimore Cop Mosby on Witch Hunt BPD Losing Officers “Right and Left””]
A former Baltimore cop appeared on “The Kelly File” Wednesday night to discuss the mistrial in the first Freddie Gray case, claiming Marilyn Mosby was on a “witch hunt” and the city is losing officers “right and left.”
On Wednesday, Circuit Judge Barry Williams declared a mistrial in the case of the first officer charged in the death of Freddie Gray after jurors in Baltimore remained deadlocked on all counts. The charges against Baltimore Police Officer William Porter carried maximum prison terms totaling 25 years.
Job seekers wait on a line to interview with jobs fair and Labor Department officials in NYC. (Photo: REUTERS)
Weekly jobless claims as measured by first-time unemployment benefits fell to 271,000 for the week ended Dec. 12, down from an unrevised 282,000 the week prior. Economists polled by Reuters had expected a shallower decline to 275,000.
The decline marks a fall from a 5-month hight and the 41st straight week that claims remained below 300,000, which is a threshold historically associated with strong labor market conditions. While that is the longest such run since the early 1970s, it is also true that chronic long-term unemployment simply shrinks the pool of eligible applicants.
The 4-week moving average–widely to be a better gauge as it irons-out week-to-week volatility–was 2,199,750, an increase of 16,250 from the previous week’s unrevised average of 2,183,500. A Labor Department analyst said no special factors influenced the data this week.
Meanwhile, the Federal Reserve on Wednesday announced it raised the benchmark overnight interest rate by 25 basis points to between 0.25% and 0.50%, marking the first hike in nearly a decade and the first since President Barack Obama took office. The U.S. central bank said there had been “further improvement” in the labor market and that “underutilization of labor resources” had diminished appreciably since the beginning of the year, though the timing and trajectory indicates a lack of confidence in the sustainability of economic activity.
Syed Farook, 28, and Tashfeen Malik, 27, the suspects responsible for the San Bernardino Islamic terror attack. (Photos: AP/EPA)
FBI Director James Comey said on Wednesday the San Bernardino terrorists used “direct private messages” and there was “no evidence of posting on social media.” Director Comey made the remarks regarding the San Bernardino terrorists Syed Farook, 28, and Tashfeen Malik, 27, at a press conference after his speech at the NYPD Shield Conference in New York City.
“I see no indication that either of these killers came across our screen, tripped any trip wires,” said Director Comey, who also added he hadn’t seen evidence that “should have put them on our screen.” He pushed back on what he called “garbled” reports that indicated Tashfeen Malik and Syed Farook may have posted openly about their jihadist tendencies to social media accounts.
Farook, an American-born citizen, and his jihadist wife Malik, a Pakistani national who came to the U.S. on a K-1 visa, killed 14 and wounded 22 others on Dec. 2 at a Christmas party for county workers. The two married Islamic terrorists were killed by police shortly after the attack.
Comey was attempting to clarify the type of online communication Malik and Farook actually participated in because the Department of Homeland Security has come under fire for having a policy of not checking certain visa applicants social media accounts as part of the background check process. The White House dumped the blame for the policy on DHS Secretary Jeh Johnson, who apparently didn’t want to offend the privacy of applicants. But Comey Wednesday specifically stated the messages they exchanged were “not public postings.”
“I’m talking about the kinds of messages that billions, trillions are sent every day,” said Comey, who wouldn’t name the specific social media platform the Islamic terrorists used. “We don’t intercept the communications of Americans without predication.”
Comey also underscored how the San Bernardino terrorists used some products or services that were designed so not even the provider could access the communications. Other systems are secure and have email encryption when a message is sent, but also allow companies to read communications if they’re served with a court order. The private sector’s unwillingness to comply, however, is somewhat being misreported to the public. The administration has not even formerly asked technology companies to participate, according to several Silicon Valley executives we have spoken to at PPD.
“I think the conversation we have to have is, ‘what do consumers want?'” Comey said in a questionary statement. “And how do businesses want to conduct themselves?”
A shopper organizes his cash before paying for merchandise at a Best Buy Co. store in Peoria, Illinois, U.S., on Friday, Nov. 23, 2012. (Photo: Daniel Acker/Bloomberg/Getty)
Whenever I pontificate about the health of the American economy, I feel like Goldilocks. Instead of arguing that the economic porridge is too hot or too cold, or that the economic bed is too hard or too soft, I conclude that we’re stuck in the middle.
But while Goldilocks always liked the middle option, I obviously think we should be more like Hong Kong and Singapore.
With this bit a background, let’s look at some supposedly really bad news that actually is modestly good news.
The folks at the Pew Research Center just issued a major report on income trends over the past 40-plus years. Based on their headline, you would think it’s filled with horrible news. Sort of like saying the economic porridge is way too cold.
So is it true that the middle class is “losing ground” and “falling behind”?
Michael Fletcher, writing for the Washington Post, seems to accept that spin. He opened his column by portraying the report’s findings as a sign of dystopian inequality.
After more than four decades of economic realignment and creeping inequality, the U.S. middle class is no longer the nation’s majority.
Yet even he was forced to acknowledge that this supposed “tipping point” is primarily the result of more households earning more money.
The nation has arrived at this tipping point in part because more Americans are moving up the income ladder. In 1971, just 14 percent of Americans were in the upper income tier, which Pew defined as more than double the nation’s median income. Now, 21 percent of American households are in that upper earning category — at least $126,000 a year for a three-person household.
Though he does his best to find a dark lining to this silver cloud, using loaded language to imply that those with modest incomes are disadvantaged because income is being “captured” by the rich.
…at the same time, many Americans are falling behind…. In 1971, a quarter of American households fell into the bottom earning tier, which Pew defined as less than two-thirds of the nation’s median income. By 2015, 29 percent of American households fell into that category. …The decline of the middle class has been accompanied by growing inequality, as a growing share of the nation’s income has been captured by those at the top.
But the Pew Report confirmed that the economy is not a fixed pie. Yes, the rich have become richer, but even Mr. Fletcher concedes that their income gains are not at the expense of the less fortunate. This is because the rest of us are becoming richer as well.
…Americans of all income levels have grown more prosperous, Pew found. Middle class families have seen their income grow by 34 percent in inflation-adjusted dollars since 1970, while lower-income Americans have experienced income growth of 28 percent.
He also reports that African-Americans have enjoyed above-average income growth.
…black Americans have made more economic gains than others in recent decades. Between 1971 and 2015, for example, the share of black Americans in the upper income tier more than doubled to 12 percent.
Here’s a chart from the Pew report. Note that these numbers are not based on changes in actual income, but instead measure how each group is faring relative to other slices of the population.
Maybe I’m just a naive Pollyanna, but the numbers in the Pew Report, even as characterized by the Washington Post, don’t seem like a damning indictment of American society.
Indeed, they sort of validate my view that things are getting better over time, albeit not as quickly as they would be improving if we followed the right recipeand had smaller government and less intervention.
In other words, we may not have hot, Hong Kong-style porridge, but it’s at least room temperature.
But Scott Winship of the Manhattan Institute is the real expert on these issues, so I was happy to see that he wrote an article on the Pew study for National Review.
Here are some of his key observations, starting with the essential insight that it’s much better to focus on income trends rather than income distribution.
Pew’s definition of “middle income” isn’t anchored to any fixed standard of living. In fact, it represents a rising standard of living over time. Imagine that the incomes of the poor, middle, and rich all increase by 50 percent over time. The Pew measure would indicate that the share of adults who are “middle income” would be no higher than it was initially. It is not obvious why we should care that the middle class, in this example, is no larger over time.
We should care about whether living standards for ordinary people are increasing, not whether rich people are getting richer.
Scott then looks at those income trends and finds good news.
…between 1969 and 2007, the household income of the median adult rose by 52 percent. …the 25th percentile (the income of the person poorer than 75 percent of adults) rose by 40 percent from 1969 to 2007. …While middle-income adults, by Pew’s definition, have shrunk by 11 percentage points as a share of the population since 1970, 7 points of that decline is due to more Americans’ being in the upper-income group. …Using the Pew measure of household income, the middle fifth grew richer by 53 percent from 1969 to 2007. My preferred measures showed a rise between 54 percent and 64 percent, depending on whether one adjusts for declining household size. …poor and middle-class Americans are both substantially better off than 45 years ago.
If they can convince people that the economy is a fixed pie, and combine that falsehood with rhetoric about higher incomes earned by the rich, that bolsters their case for ostensibly saving the middle class with soak-the-rich tax policies and greater levels of redistribution.
And that probably explains why the folks at Pew (along with certain journalists) decided to imply that the glass is 90 percent empty when it’s actually 60 percent full.
Winship hits the nail on the head in his conclusion.
A policy agenda designed with a crumbling middle class in mind is not only inappropriate, but it could actually hurt the living standards of the middle class in the process.
He’s exactly right.
Nations such as Greece and France have pursued the policies favored by American leftists and the net result – at best – is anemic growth and stagnant living standards. To conclude, here’s a video that I saw on Ted Frank’s Twitter feed. I couldn’t figure out how to embed it, but was able to download it and put it on YouTube.
[brid video=”22687″ player=”2077″ title=”Pew Income Distribution”]
You’ll notice a big jump over time in the amount of households earning above $200,000 per year. Call me crazy, but I want there to be more rich people, so this is a good development.
But if you play close attention, the other big takeaway from this data (and the one that merits some celebration) is that more and more people are earning higher and higher levels of income over time. And remember, these are inflation-adjusted dollars.
So let’s be happy that ordinary people in America are climbing the economic ladder. But let’s recommit ourselves to fight harder for pro-growth policies such astax reform and entitlement reform so their ascent up the ladder will be faster.
P.S. Here are some examples of how statist policies increase inequality.
P.P.P.S. And I never get tired of sharing this Margaret Thatcher video because she succinctly explains that many leftists would rather hurt the rich than help the poor.
[brid video=”21274″ player=”2077″ title=”Margaret Thatcher on Socialism”]
U.S. Republican presidential candidate Ted Cruz speaks at a 2nd Amendment Coalition announcement at CrossRoads Shooting Sports in Johnston, Iowa, December 4, 2015. (Photo: Reuters/Brian C. Frank)
Terrorism is not going away. We saw that in the closing of the Los Angeles schools after what was deemed a “credible” threat. The threat turned out to be not real, but with the country under heightened alarm, local authorities have become hyper-vigilant. That was 650,000 students sent or kept home.
When a good piece of time passed without a serious terrorist attack, politicians went soft. Many hawks on the right switched gears, turning on “big government” as the predominant evil and its national security programs as an assault on the privacy of innocent Americans.
With the massacres in Paris and San Bernardino, California, still in the headlines, many Americans are wondering what was so terrible about the federal bulk surveillance program that Congress ended in September. Rekindled fears of terrorism have changed the conversation.
Hence the violent pendulum swinging of Republican presidential candidate Ted Cruz in Tuesday’s debate. Cruz had championed the law that stripped the National Security Agency of the power to collect the metadata of Americans’ communications. He had some explaining to do on Tuesday.
“Metadata” refers to such information as the time and length of calls and the numbers called. It does not include the content of the conversation or even names. In the now-ended program, the NSA could delve deeper only when a disturbing pattern was detected. And even then, it had to first obtain a court order.
During the debate, tweeters stuck on horse race politics thrilled to the brawl between Cruz and the other Cuban-American candidate, Marco Rubio. But there was real substance in their battle. Rubio, who supported the NSA program, came off as the man for all seasons. Cruz dissolved into frantic evasion.
What was Cruz’s reason for supporting a bill to stop the NSA program? “It ended the federal government’s bulk collection of phone metadata of millions of law-abiding citizens,” he explained.
Well, yeah. Every day, security officials at American airports inspect the baggage of over a million law-abiding citizens to find the one possibly carrying a bomb. The jihadi terrorists who have preyed on this country appeared to be law-abiding, even model, citizens. By what magical, mystical powers of clairvoyance does Cruz think we can spot the “bad guys,” as he puts them?
The candidates routinely bashed President Obama as weak on terrorism. In truth, he fought like a tiger to retain the NSA’s ability to conduct bulk surveillance. In doing so, he often butted heads with fellow Democrats jumping on the same phony privacy-rights bandwagon as did Cruz.
(Would someone please explain why an NSA computer’s going through raw metadata — a computer that doesn’t even register our names — is somehow violating our privacy? Furthermore, what is so private about information that the phone company has?)
Republican backers of the NSA program, such as Rubio and Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell, also had to buck their own party. As it turned out, the program was killed by a Republican-run Senate and a Republican-led House, with considerable help from Democrats.
The collection of the metadata has already ended, and soon all the information will reside with the phone companies. To get at it, the NSA will have to obtain a warrant and take it to a phone company, of which there are thousands.
The goal of protecting both security and privacy is a worthy one, but it requires two things: One is the maturity to accept the often-difficult trade-offs. The other is an understanding of what the data collection being considered actually involves.
It’s unclear how we can have security without a federal bulk surveillance program. Terrorists don’t walk around wearing neon “bad guy” signs.
Democratic frontrunner and former secretary of state Hillary Clinton tossed a Black Transgender Lives Matter activist and he/she interrupted a campaign event in Cleveland, Ohio. (PHOTO: PPD)
While the country has been fixated on Donald Trump’s tormenting his Republican primary opponents and deeply concerned about the government’s efforts to identify any confederates in the San Bernardino, California, killings, a team of federal prosecutors and FBI agents continues to examine Hillary Clinton’s tenure as secretary of state in order to determine whether she committed any crimes and, if so, whether there is sufficient evidence to prove her guilt beyond a reasonable doubt.
What began as an innocent Freedom of Information Act request by Judicial Watch, a D.C.-based public advocacy group promoting transparency in the executive branch, has now become a full criminal investigation, with Clinton as the likely target.
The basic facts are well-known, but the revealed nuances are important, as well. When the State Department responded to the Judicial Watch FOIA request by telling Judicial Watch that it had no emails from Clinton, Judicial Watch filed a lawsuit. When the State Department made the same representation to the court — as incredible as it seemed at the time — the judge accepted that representation, and the case was dismissed.
Then The New York Times revealed that Clinton used a private email server instead of the government’s server for all of her work-related and personal emails during her four years as secretary of state. After that, the Judicial Watch FOIA case was reinstated, and then the judge in the case demanded of State that it produce Clinton’s emails.
When Judicial Watch expressed frustration to the judge about the pace at which it was getting emails, the judge ordered Clinton, “under penalty of perjury,” to certify that she had surrendered all her governmental emails to the State Department.
Eventually, Clinton did certify to the court that she did surrender all of her governmental emails to the State Department. She did so by sending paper copies of selected emails, because she had wiped clean her server. She acknowledged that she decided which emails were personal and which were selected as governmental and returned the governmental ones to the State Department. She has denied steadfastly and consistently that she ever sent or received any materials marked “classified” while secretary of state using her private server.
All of her behavior has triggered the FBI investigation because she may have committed serious federal crimes. For example, it is a crime to steal federal property. What did she steal? By diverting to her own venue the digital metadata that accompany all emails — metadata that, when attached to the work-related emails of a government employee, belong to the government — she stole that data. The metadata do not appear on her paper copies — hence the argument that she stole and destroyed the government-owned metadata.
This is particularly troublesome for her present political ambitions because of a federal statute that disqualifies from public office all who have stolen federal property. (She is probably already barred from public office — though this was not prominently raised when she entered the U.S. Senate or the Department of State — because of the china, silverware and furniture that she and her husband took from the White House in January 2001.)
Clinton may also have committed espionage by failing to secure the government secrets entrusted to her. She did that by diverting those secrets to an unprotected, nongovernmental venue — her own server — and again by emailing those secrets to other unprotected and nongovernmental venues. The reason she can deny sending or receiving anything marked “classified” is that protected government secrets are not marked “classified.”
So her statement, though technically true, is highly misleading. The governmental designations of protected secrets are “confidential,” “secret” and “top secret” — not “classified.” State Department investigators have found 999 emails sent or received by Clinton in at least one of those three categories of protected secrets.
Back when Clinton became secretary of state, on her first day in office, she had an hourlong FBI briefing on the proper and lawfully required care of government secrets. She signed a statement, under penalty of perjury, acknowledging that she knew the law and that it is the content of emails, not any stamped markings, that makes them secret.
Earlier this week, my Fox News colleagues confirmed the certain presence of top-secret materials among the 999 emails. Intelligence from foreign sources or about foreign governments is always top-secret, whether designated as such or not. And she knows that.
As well, she may have committed perjury in the FOIA case. When the House Select Committee on Benghazi, in its investigation of her role in the deaths of the U.S. ambassador to Libya and three other Americans, gathered emails, it found emails she did not surrender to the State Department.
Last week, the State Department released emails that give the FBI more areas to investigate. These emails may show a pattern of official behavior by Clinton designed to benefit the financial interests of her family’s foundation, her husband and her son-in-law. Moreover, the FBI knows of a treasure-trove of documents that may demonstrate that the Clinton Foundation skirted the law and illegally raised and spent contributions.
Two months ago, a group of FBI agents sat around a conference table and reviewed the evidence gathered thus far. Each agent was given the opportunity to make or detract from the case for moving forward. At the end of the meeting, it was the consensus of the group to pursue a criminal investigation.
The Federal Reserve announced Wednesday it approved the first interest rate hike since the Great Recession following seven years of rock-bottom, near-zero rates. The decision marks the historic break from unprecedented interventionist monetary policy that propped up economic activity throughout the presidency of Barack Obama, which was initiated in the wake of the 2008 financial crisis.
However, the timing and trajectory of the move indicates the Fed policy-making committee is not at all confident in future U.S. economic stability.
The policy-setting Federal Open Market Committee (FOMC) voted unanimously to raise rates by 0.25% to a range of 0.25%-0.50%, not a whole lot but enough to test the still-weakened U.S. economy’s ability to absorb the higher borrowing costs that will follow the increase.
“The Committee judges that there has been considerable improvement in labor market conditions this year, and it is reasonably confident that inflation will rise over the medium term to its 2% objective,” the FOMC said in its statement released at the conclusion of Wednesday’s meeting.
With interest rates increasing it will soon be more expensive for consumers to borrow money to buy big-ticket items, including homes, cars and appliances. Business will also pay more if they borrow to cover labor costs and other capital investments. However, it will also be more expensive for the U.S. government, which has accumulated what is nearing $19 trillion in debt, to borrow to fund deficit spending. Without sustained economic growth above the abysmal 2% average since the financial crisis, revenues will be insufficient to offset the cost to service debt and deficits.
“The Committee expects that economic conditions will evolve in a manner that will warrant only gradual increases in the federal funds rate,” the FOMC also said in the statement.
The longterm impact of the Fed’s loose monetary policy remains to be seen. American savers and retirees living off of income investments, as well as social security payments, suffered under quantitative easing. Meanwhile, the investor class thrived in the booming equity markets, shrinking the middle class and widening the gap between the rich and poor.
William Porter, left, one of six Baltimore city police officers charged in connection to the death of Freddie Gray, arrives at a courthouse as jury deliberations continue in his trial, Wednesday, Dec. 16, 2015, in Baltimore. Porter faces charges of manslaughter, assault, reckless endangerment and misconduct in office. (Photo: AP/Mark Wilson/Pool)
Circuit Judge Barry Williams declared a mistrial in the case of the first officer charged in the death of Freddie Gray after jurors in Baltimore remained deadlocked on all counts. The charges against Baltimore Police Officer William Porter carried maximum prison terms totaling 25 years.
Joseph Murtha, Officer Porter’s defense attorney, got up with his client and a female supporter and walked out of the courtroom without comment. Baltimore City State’s Attorney Marilyn Mosby, who brought charges against six officers in the arrest and death of Gray, also declined comment.
“When Officer Porter began this journey through the judicial process, we asked that everyone allow him his day in court as is promised to all citizens,” Gene Ryan, president of the Fraternal Order of Police Lodge No. 3, which represents Baltimore police officers, said in a statement.
“Seven months later, Officer Porter is no closer to a resolution than he was at that time. Our legal system, however, allows for outcomes of this nature, and we must respect the decision of the Jury, despite the fact that it is obviously frustrating to everyone involved.”
It was not immediately clear whether Porter would be tried again, who is the first of six officers slated to be tried for the death of 25-year-old Gray, who allegedly suffered spinal injuries while in the police van after being arrested on April 12. He died a week later.
Though an administrative hearing was scheduled for Thursday to discuss a possible retrial date, experts observing the trial weren’t surprised with the outcome. In closing arguments, the prosecution made what was widely believed to be a major mistake when they conceded that ensuring prisoners wear seat belts was not the norm. Yet, prosecutors’ case hinged on Porter being partly responsible for failing to buckle Gray into a seatbelt and for not calling an ambulance when Gray indicated he was in distress. Porter told jurors that he didn’t think Gray was injured and that it was the van driver’s responsibility to fasten Gray’s seat belt.
Freddie Gray, a 25-year-old man who died last week from a severe spinal cord injury he suffered before or during an arrest.
Meanwhile, a small group of protesters was seen outside the courthouse chanting “send those killer cops to jail,” after the judge declared the mistrial. The sheriff called it an unlawful assembly, and at least one protester was arrested. In the wake of the Baltimore riots in April, polls showed Americans continued to support police over activists claiming rampant police brutality is a reality in the country. The surveys of Baltimore were in line with polling PPD examined after the riots in Ferguson, Missouri last August, following the justified police shooting of a black 18-year-old, Michael Brown.
While there was a significant difference between the sentiments of white and black America — or more accurately characterized, white and urban black America — just 25% said the mob protests were primarily legitimate outrage. However, 52 percent saw it mostly as criminal behavior, or 11 percentage points less than those polled over Baltimore. A majority of American adults in most all demographic groups believe the mob violence in Baltimore was primarily criminal.
Mayor Stephanie Rawlings-Blake, who took heavy criticism for saying she wanted to give rioters space to destroy, repeated calls for Baltimore residents to respect the outcome of the trial.
“In the coming days, if some choose to demonstrate peacefully to express their opinion, that is their constitutional right. I urge everyone to remember that collectively, our reaction needs to be one of respect for our neighborhoods, and for the residents and businesses of our city,” she said in a statement. “As a unified city, we must respect the outcome of the judicial process. In the case of any disturbance in the city, we are prepared to respond. We will protect our neighborhoods, our businesses and the people of our city.”
However, NAACP National President and CEO Cornell William Brooks called for a continuation of protests “while using all of the available nonviolent means to seek justice for a violent death.”
“While we respect the legal process and still await justice, the death of Freddie Gray and other tragedies continue to point to the need for systemic reform both within the municipal police departments and statewide,”he said in a statement.
Three black men, four black women, two white men and three white women made up the jury. Gray was black. Porter is also black, as are two of the other five officers charged.
Donald Trump, left, and former Florida Gov. Jeb Bush, right, trade blows in the fifth Republican debate hosted by CNN in Las Vegas on Tuesday Dec. 15, 2015.
A newly released post Republican debate poll conducted by Gravis Marketing is good more good news for the frontrunner at a time when he is enjoying his highest level of support ever. As I previously examined, the poll confirms the night was not a strong showing for the former Florida Gov. Jeb Bush.
The survey of 1,641 registered Republican voters conducted directly following the debate found Donald Trump the winner with 35%, while the insurgent Texas Sen. Ted Cruz came in second at 25%. A separate national survey also finds Trump on top with 42% of the primary vote. Cruz also surged to second place with 16% of the vote nationwide.
The post Republican debate poll has a margin of error of ± 2.4% at a 95% confidence level. The total may not round to 100% because of rounding. The polls were conducted using automated telephone calls (IVR technology) and weighted by voting demographics. The poll was conducted for One America News Network.
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Charles Krauthammer reacted to the fifth Republican debate hosted by CNN in Las Vegas on “The O’Reilly Factor” Tuesday night, criticizing Jeb Bush.
BILL O’REILLY: It was Bush’s land stand. He had to make an impression. Jeb Bush had to. He is standing there and had to go after the big dogs. He did. Now, my question to you is, did Bush do himself any good by doing that
CHARLES KRAUTHAMMER: My argument is that it would make no sense. Do you think that attacking trump moved the needle one bit for Bush? The answer is no, of course.
O’REILLY: Did it hurt him?
KRAUTHAMMER: It would have in the first debate. In the second debate when Bush was losing altitude, Trump is rising that is the time he had to stand up and defend himself. The spread now is 40% Trump, 5% for Bush… I would say he was given the biggest opportunity of the night. Trump said he would kill the relatives of terrorists. I thought Trump would deny it. He essentially said yes. Bush muffed the answer. It’s an irresponsible semi-insane policy and Bush swung and missed.
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