Category: reason

Los Angeles Unified School
District has stumbled upon a revolutionary concept in disciplining
young schoolchildren: Maybe don’t treat them the way the police
department treats parolees? That is to say, LAUSD is pulling back
on responding to common child misbehavior with police citations.
From the
Los Angeles Daily News:

Starting Dec. 1, elementary and some middle school students in
Los Angeles Unified will no longer receive police citations for
most misbehavior.

According to the new policy, Los Angeles School Police will
refrain from writing criminal citations for infractions such as
fighting and writing on desks, instead turning students to school
officials for campus-based punishment that is more in line with
their age and nature of the violations.

“This is an important step, but it also raises concerns that
there is more to be done,” said Manuel Criollo, director of
organizing for the nonprofit Community Rights Campaign, an L.A.
group that has lobbied for the decriminalization of many
school-based offenses. “Some of this should be common sense, and
the next thing is to expand it in the middle schools. Thirteen- and
14-year-olds should also be covered by this.”

This “new policy” smells remarkably old actually, like how
schools handled discipline when those of us who are adults now
attended school. Officials have finally realized that treating
students like criminals discourages them from doing things like
attending school (important, because that’s how school funding is
determined):

The directive from LAUSD Police Chief Steven Zipperman asks
school-based officers to look at misbehavior of students under the
age of 13 as a teaching opportunity rather than a reason to hand
out citations that could discourage them from attending class
altogether.

If a ticket is issued, officers should have an articulated
reason for doing so, as well as the permission of a supervisor. The
policy does not cover possession of contraband.

The Community Rights Campaign calculated that school police have
handed out more than 4,700 citations to students under the age of
14 for the 2012-13 school year.

“Banning Doorknobs, Frat Parties, and ‘God Bless America’
Signs?! Nanny of the Month (‘13-11)” is the latest video from
ReasonTV. Watch above or click on the link below for video, full
text, supporting links, downloadable versions, and more Reason TV
clips.

View this article.

“Banning Doorknobs, Frat Parties, and ‘God Bless America’
Signs?! Nanny of the Month (‘13-11)” is the latest video from
ReasonTV. Watch above or click on the link below for video, full
text, supporting links, downloadable versions, and more Reason TV
clips.

View this article.

If you thought all those assassination anniversary
posts would end after November 22 was over, think again: We’re
just moving on to another assassination. Look what happened 35
years ago today:

On November 27, 1978, the ninth day after Jonestown,
Daniel James White, ex-cop, former paratrooper, and superjock, an
All-American Boy from everybody’s favorite city, strapped on his
police special .38, loaded his pockets with extra hollow-point
bullets that explode upon impact, and went to San Francisco City
Hall to settle some political differences.

That’s from Warren Hinckle’s great piece “Dan White’s San
Francisco,” published in the libertarian magazine Inquiry
in the wake of White’s murder of Mayor George Moscone and City
Supervisor Harvey Milk. The double assassination would be followed
by one of the most infamous psychiatric legal arguments of recent
history — the “Twinkie defense,” in Paul Krassner’s famous phrase
— and then by the White Night riots, when the city’s gay community
reacted to the assassin’s acquittal.

The whole Hinckle article is worth a read.
If you need a soundtrack while you peruse it, here is the Dead
Kennedys’ (*) response to the White verdict:

(* You just can’t escape the JFK references.)

Steve Serrao got a report card in
June. It listed him as a non-voter. His wife, Renee, who teaches
government, strenuously disputes that. “We’re contacting you and
your neighbors today to let folks know who does and who doesn’t
vote,” the report card says. “As you can see below, your neighbors
who have voted are concerned about the community’s well-being. Are
you?” Nancy Meacham of Roanoke got a similarly ominous audit from
the group in November—as did others around the state. Many of them
felt, quite rightly, that the mailings amounted to rank voter
intimidation. As A. Barton Hinkle writes, public shaming of this
sort is nothing new; it has been used often throughout
history—usually by exceedingly undemocratic and illiberal regimes,
such as ancient Rome, Puritan America, contemporary Iran and 20th
century communism.

View this article.

According to the latest polling data, Rob Ford, Toronto’s

notoriously inappropriate mayor, is more popular among his
constituents than President Obama is among Americans. 

A CBS News poll released
last week found that Obama’s job approval rating has hit
37 percent, the lowest of his presidency yet and a nine-point
drop since October. By comparison, a Forum Research survey of 1,049
Toronto voters found that
42 percent support Mayor Ford’s job in the city. 

The CBS poll found what may be the most significant contributing
factor to Obama’s dismal ratings: strong disapproval of Obamacare.
From
CBS News:

A rocky beginning to the opening
of the new health insurance exchanges has also taken its
toll on how Americans perceive the Affordable Care Act. Now,
approval of the law has dropped to 31 percent – the lowest number
yet recorded in CBS News Polls, and a drop of 12 points since
last month. Sixty-one percent disapprove (a high for this
poll), including 46 percent who say they disapprove strongly.

President Obama has also taken a hit on views of his honesty.
During the presidential campaign last fall, 60 percent of voters
said Mr. Obama was honest and trustworthy, but just 49 percent of
Americans think that today.

Obama’s disapproval rating is also at a record high of 57
percent. 

Rob Ford’s approval rating remarkably
dropped by only two percentage points from earlier this month
(since he
made lewd sexual remarks in a live press conference,
trampled over a Councilmember during a city hall meeting,
and was
caught on video shouting about wanting to kill a man), and is
actually three percentage points higher than it was last year
(before he admitted to
smoking crack in a “drunken stupor.”) 

The
Telegraph reports, “The result suggests that Mr Ford could
still be competitive in next year’s municipal election, although
only 33 per cent of those polled said they would vote for him in
2014.” 

In addition to the CBS poll,
Gallup’s daily poll measuring three-day averages shows Obama’s
approval rating today as equal to Ford’s at 42 percent. 

Congress meanwhile, is pulling a
7.5 percent approval rating according to a Huffington Post
poll. 

According to the latest polling data, Rob Ford, Toronto’s

notoriously inappropriate mayor, is more popular among his
constituents than President Obama is among Americans. 

A CBS News poll released
last week found that Obama’s job approval rating has hit
37 percent, the lowest of his presidency yet and a nine-point
drop since October. By comparison, a Forum Research survey of 1,049
Toronto voters found that
42 percent support Mayor Ford’s job in the city. 

The CBS poll found what may be the most significant contributing
factor to Obama’s dismal ratings: strong disapproval of Obamacare.
From
CBS News:

A rocky beginning to the opening
of the new health insurance exchanges has also taken its
toll on how Americans perceive the Affordable Care Act. Now,
approval of the law has dropped to 31 percent – the lowest number
yet recorded in CBS News Polls, and a drop of 12 points since
last month. Sixty-one percent disapprove (a high for this
poll), including 46 percent who say they disapprove strongly.

President Obama has also taken a hit on views of his honesty.
During the presidential campaign last fall, 60 percent of voters
said Mr. Obama was honest and trustworthy, but just 49 percent of
Americans think that today.

Obama’s disapproval rating is also at a record high of 57
percent. 

Rob Ford’s approval rating remarkably
dropped by only two percentage points from earlier this month
(since he
made lewd sexual remarks in a live press conference,
trampled over a Councilmember during a city hall meeting,
and was
caught on video shouting about wanting to kill a man), and is
actually three percentage points higher than it was last year
(before he admitted to
smoking crack in a “drunken stupor.”) 

The
Telegraph reports, “The result suggests that Mr Ford could
still be competitive in next year’s municipal election, although
only 33 per cent of those polled said they would vote for him in
2014.” 

In addition to the CBS poll,
Gallup’s daily poll measuring three-day averages shows Obama’s
approval rating today as equal to Ford’s at 42 percent. 

Congress meanwhile, is pulling a
7.5 percent approval rating according to a Huffington Post
poll. 

The
bizarre and terrifying case of a Georgia man arrested in Ohio for
an empty storage compartment continued yesterday in Oberlin
Municipal Court. Despite early reports, it’s not clear why police
searched the car for a hidden compartment. And, writes Ken Silva,
it’s certainly not apparent why Norman Gurley, an out-of-state
resident, faces charges and prison time over a peculiar local law
that criminalizes…empty space.

View this article.

What do you have to hide? Why
would you want to keep your distance from the creepy
window-shade-peepers of the National Security Agency?
Maybe…Because the NSA is actively monitoring the Internet-usage
of people it doesn’t like so it can embarrass them by revealing all
at opportune moments. Specifically, the spooks watch radical
Muslims to see if they have a taste for Internet porn, so they can
then be portrayed as hypocrites.

Writes
Glenn Greenwald at the Huffington Post:

WASHINGTON — The National Security Agency has been gathering
records of online sexual activity and evidence of visits to
pornographic websites as part of a proposed plan to harm the
reputations of those whom the agency believes are radicalizing
others through incendiary speeches, according to a top-secret NSA
document. The document, provided by NSA whistleblower Edward
Snowden, identifies six targets, all Muslims, as “exemplars” of how
“personal vulnerabilities” can be learned through electronic
surveillance, and then exploited to undermine a target’s
credibility, reputation and authority.

The NSA document, dated Oct. 3, 2012, repeatedly refers to the
power of charges of hypocrisy to undermine such a messenger. “A
previous SIGINT” — or signals intelligence, the interception of
communications — “assessment report on radicalization indicated
that radicalizers appear to be particularly vulnerable in the area
of authority when their private and public behaviors are not
consistent,” the document argues.

Among the vulnerabilities listed by the NSA that can be
effectively exploited are “viewing sexually explicit material
online” and “using sexually explicit persuasive language when
communicating with inexperienced young girls.”

Now, rumor has it, nobody loves a good donkey show as much
as James Clapper and his buddy, General Keith Alexander. Especially
the Clerks
II variety. But we don’t get to monitor their online
habits the way they monitor ours, and that creates a distinct
imbalance of power.

Because there are plenty of things that we might do, and view,
and read in our everyday lives that harm nobody else but might be
awkward if they became public knowledge. There are groups and
people with whom we might deal but with whom we prefer to not be
openly associated. This is really quite normal in life, since most
of us don’t parade around as if we live in glass boxes, but
maintain public appearances as well as private lives. And that
divide potentially provides a basis for blackmail. Your sexuality,
your associations, your politics, your religious activities, your
cultural tastes—these could get you fired, or ruin friendships, or
torpedo politial campaigns, if revealed in a calculated way by
people ill-disposed towards you.

We might not have any sympathy for radical religious fanatics
fomenting violence. I assume very few of us do. But the
surveillance and smear tactics used against them can be wielded
against anybody with a private life who displeases the wrong
people. And, in fact, the NSA has reportedly targeted some radical,
but non-violent Muslims, who just say offensive things
about Westerners and the U.S.

So long as the NSA is out trawling for embarrassing tidbits, you
don’t know who will be targeted next.

Although the people doing the snooping can probably safely
continue to watch their donkey shows.

By now it’s
not a
new
trend, but this
McClatchy article about middle-class Americans turning in their
passports to avoid intrusive IRS probes into their bank accounts is
a usefully detailed example of how cheap legislative populism
against the 1% ends up screwing everyone else:

Born in Oklahoma, [Ruth Anne] Freeborn has lived in Kingston,
Ontario, for more than 30 years as an American expatriate, with a
Canadian husband and 22-year-old son.

But a U.S. law passed in 2010 that will require international
financial institutions to provide the Internal Revenue Service with
information on their U.S. account holders forced her to weigh her
citizenship. Her husband, a $51,000-a-year electronics technician
and the family’s sole income earner, strenuously objected to having
his financial data shared with a foreign nation.

“My decision was either to protect my Canadian spouse and child
from this overreach or I could relinquish my U.S. citizenship,” she
said. “It was with great sorrow I felt I had to relinquish, but
there was no other choice for me and many like me.” […]

“My husband cannot understand why Americans are so offended by
having their personal emails and phone calls monitored by the NSA
yet are very comfortable requiring a Canadian to hand over their
bank account data, which is far more sensitive,” Freeborn said.

The number of citizenship renunciations has surged from 742 in
2009 to more than 1,854 so far this year, according to the State
Department. […]

“The rich can afford expensive tax attorneys,” Freeborn said.
“The poor and the middle class cannot. My bank down the street is
not an offshore account and I’m not hiding money.”

But don’t worry, the Treasury Department knows that the
Freeborns of the world are just freeloaders:

“Individuals that have used offshore accounts to evade tax
obligations may rightly fear that FATCA will identify their illicit
activities,” says a Treasury web posting. “Yet a decision to
renounce U.S. citizenship would not relieve these individuals of
prior U.S. tax obligations, and might well create additional U.S.
tax obligations for certain citizens and long-term residents who
give up citizenship or residency.”

Read the
full article for more outrages. Reason on the Foreign Accounts
Tax Compliance Act (FATCA) here.