to bear/bare arms without the right to a hospital, but
it seems that things are getting way out of control.
I don't want to moralise about the Memorial Day
weekend "festivities" of gang rivalries and crimes
of passion, but I just want to add up the two sides
of this balance sheet and see where it gets us.
If you have a society where the the middle class
is shrinking due to the Oligarch Wars (banking crises,
banking crimes, the Banking Supremacy, TTIP etc),
while being told "the economy is doing just fine"
and "GDP is growing", all bullshit, you tend to
get down on yourself, like it's your fault that you've
sold everything off.
That leads to some rash decision-making and more
than a little frustration. ergo-gunplay!
Next factor, weakening police coverage. I get the
impression that police numbers are down, while
police have shifted to safe work like shaking down
citizens with petty fines (see my other stories),
such that crime is not being reported, then if reported,
is not being chased up and solved.
Then the victimisation of young black males ends
up as the result of citizenry being frustrated at
being shaken down.
Frustration meets no-fear-of-police-investigation
and BOOM.
UPDATE: Now even the courts are screaming for mercy.As the NY banks have stolen from city, state and country,
including pension money, there is little money for
jailing and trying people in the way we are accustomed to
seeing on television on "Law and Order". It's gonna be:
Lawless & Disorderly
see the story below from ZerohedgeIn previous stories, I have expressed the belief
that this will reach crisis point. And it might
even shift to a civil war, on the slightest of
pretexts.
My hope is that it leads to political changes and
the end of the Oligarch Wars with bankers
heads rolling. That's the only way to bring peace.
Here's the Baltimore policing side, on
The Real News (support them, please, by donating $)
visit: http://therealnews.com/t2/index.php?option=com_content&task=view&id=31&Itemid=74&jumival=13921
Here's a news report on the "festivities"
and a ZH story on the jammed up "penile" system:
1
checkit: Guardian
At least 108 people shot over three days in Chicago, Baltimore and New York
American cities reach violent new highs over warm Memorial Day weekend as Baltimore city councilman says: ‘I’ve never seen anything like it’
New York shooting
Police conduct an investigation at the scene of a shooting in Brooklyn’s East New York section on Tuesday. Photograph: Seth Wenig/AP
Lauren Gambino in New York
Tuesday 26 May 2015 17.43 BST
Last modified on Wednesday 27 May 2015 19.57 BST
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At least 108 people were shot across three of America’s most crime-plagued cities during the holiday weekend, as violent new highs from a nationwide gun epidemic intersected with outcries over police violence in Chicago, Baltimore and New York.
Chicago, which tends to see a dramatic annual increase in firearm-related homicides beginning with warm weather at the Memorial Day holiday, experienced the worst violence. At least 56 people, including a four-year-old girl and three teenagers, were shot between Friday afternoon and early Tuesday morning, according to the Chicago Tribune. Twelve people were killed over the three-day weekend, twice as many as during the same period last year.
In Baltimore, a city still reeling from the death of 25-year-old Freddie Gray, who suffered a spinal injury while in police custody just six weeks ago, Baltimore police said 28 people were shot, nine fatally, over the weekend. The latest spate of shootings makes May the city’s deadliest month since 1999, according to the Baltimore Sun. Since late Sunday, two people were killed and eight injured in shootings across the city.
“It’s deplorable,” city councilman William “Pete” Welch was quoted as saying in the Sun. “The shootings and killings are all over the city. I don’t think any part of the city is immune to this. I’ve never seen anything like it.”
The city erupted in protests over Gray’s death, which was the latest in a spate of shootings involving the death of a black resident at the hand of police. Six police officers have been indicted in the incident.
One year after the Isla Vista massacre, a father's gun control mission is personal
Read more
In New York City, 23 people were killed or injured in 16 separate shooting incidents across the city over the long weekend, according to the New York police department. There were five reported homicides over the holiday, including one stabbing. The number of shootings had mostly stayed the same year over year, dipping slightly from 17 incidents reported over the weekend in 2014.
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Last year, Memorial Day weekend in the US was marred by a mass killing in Isla Vista, California, when 22-year-old Elliot Rodger stabbed his two roommates and one of their friends to death; shot and killed three people on the University of California, Santa Barbara campus; and injured 14 more before killing himself.
According to the Gun Violence Archive, 9,366 people have been injured by gun violence in America since 1 January 2015, up from 7,145 last year. A total of 4,868 people have been killed since the first of the year, up from 4,123 last year.
That number includes 1,155 children and teens injured or killed and 486 instances of defensive gun use.
In total, there have been 18,935 incidents of gun violence reported in 2015; among them, according to the gun-violence site, 1,705 were officer-involved shootings.
2
checkthis: Zerohedge
Biker Breastaurant Shootout Arrests Threaten To Blow Hole In County Budget
Submitted by Tyler Durden on 05/29/2015 15:20 -0400
On Thursday evening we outlined what we called the “pension ponzi”, whereby state and local governments resort to the issuance of pension obligation bonds to plug underfunded pension liabilities. The idea is to arbitrage the spread between coupon payments and what the pension funds can presumably expect to make by investing the proceeds from the bond issue. Here’s a refresher:
Much like transferring a balance on a high interest credit card onto a new card with a teaser rate, this gimmick only works if you do not max out the original card again, because if you do, all you've done is doubled your debt burden. As it relates to pension liabilities, this means that what you absolutely cannot do is use the cash infusion as an excuse to get lax when it comes to pension funding because after all, that's what caused the problem in the first place.
Aside from the rather obvious fact that borrowing huge sums of money to paper over problems has a tendency to promote the very same type of irresponsible behavior that got the borrower into trouble in the first place thus setting the stage for a scenario that ends up being twice as bad as it was initially, there's also the fact that, as documented in these pages extensively, investment return assumptions for public pension plans are often at odds with reality. That is, projecting a 7% return in a world governed by ZIRP and NIRP means that in the best case scenario you are being absurdly optimistic and in a worst case scenario you're likely taking greater risks in an effort to maximize returns.
The reason why officials are resorting to pension obligation bonds is that state and local governments in the US are finding themselves mired in fiscal crises, some of which are the result of poor policy decisions and others stem primarily from exogenous factors such as slumping oil prices. Compounding the problem was an Illinois Supreme Court decision which struck down a pension reform bid. That effectively set a legal precedent and left states and municipalities with fewer options when it comes to closing funding gaps.
We’ve covered all of this extensively and we thought we had likely seen it all when it comes to excuses for state and local budget gaps but in fact we have discovered yet another way for local governments to find themselves fiscally challenged: “true biker shootouts.”
The now infamous biker breastaurant shootout that unfolded two Sundays ago in the parking lot of a Waco, Texas Twin Peaks Sports Bar And Grill led to the arrest of more than 170 bikers and as you might imagine, that type of influx into the prison and legal system doesn’t come cheap. Here’s The Waco Tribune-Herald with more:
As lawyers threaten civil rights lawsuits, seek bond reductions and clamor that their biker clients have done nothing wrong, McLennan County is spending $7,958 a day to house those jailed in the May 17 Twin Peaks shootout.
According to county records, 173 of the 175 people who were arrested in the wake of the deadly brawl, which left nine dead and 18 wounded, remain jailed. Two bonded out with ankle monitors.
The mass arrests are presenting unprecedented challenges to the county’s criminal justice system and have McLennan County officials keeping a close eye on the potential devastating budgetary fallout from the incident. A week and a half after the shooting, the county has spent upward of $80,000 just to house the inmates.
“We’ve never had an issue of this magnitude, but another thing is all the other business here at the courthouse is still going on,” said 19th State District Judge Ralph Strother, the county’s senior judge who presides over one of McLennan County’s two primary felony courts.
It's not just the cost of jailing the bikers that's taking a toll, but the cost of litigation as at least 63 bikers have requested court-appointed attorneys:
Cathy Edwards, the county’s indigent defense coordinator, said of the 175 bikers at the county jail she interviewed, 63 have requested court-appointed attorneys. Edwards said she appointed 14 attorneys Wednesday to represent the bikers, including attorneys from Waco, Corsicana, Temple and Copperas Cove...
Court-appointed defense attorneys are paid $750 for a guilty plea in a first-degree felony case, $500 for a second-degree felony and $400 for third-degree and state jail felonies. They are paid the same fee if cases are dismissed.
If they itemize their time and prefer to be paid hourly, they are paid $75 for out-of-court preparation and $80 an hour while in court.
With the influx of new cases, county officials are keeping a close eye on how the cases are affecting budgets.
And although officials believe the current budget can withstand the pressure, country commissioner Ben Perry admits that "adjustments" may be necessary:
Stan Chambers, the McLennan County auditor, said if many of the bikers are released in coming days or weeks, the current county budget should be sufficient to handle the increased costs
“The commissioners court obviously has to support the decisions that law enforcement and the district attorney’s office make, and any adjustments that need to be made to the budget, we will do so," Perry said.
So, in a hilariously absurd twist of fiscal fate, we can now add "incarcerated bikers" to the list of things which are imperiling state and local government finances in America.
It should also be noted that this serves to validate an important point we made earlier this month. Namely, that when it comes to true biker shootouts, accurately assessing the fallout ahead of time is virtually impossible.
