Tag: news

A very interesting Atlantic
article about prison gangs devotes a lot of attention to the
work of David Skarbek, a graduate of George Mason’s economics
program who now teaches at King’s College London. Here are some
excerpts:

“Prison
is set up so that most of the things a person wants to do are
against the rules,” Skarbek says. “So to understand what’s really
going on, you have to start by realizing that people are coming up
with complicated ways to get around them.” Prison officials have
long known that gangs are highly sophisticated organizations with
carefully plotted strategies, business-development plans,
bureaucracies, and even human-resources departments—all of which,
Skarbek argues, lead not to chaos in the prison system but to
order….

Prison, Skarbek claims, is the ultimate challenge for a
rational-choice theorist: a place where control of the economic
actors is nearly total, and where virtually any transaction
requires the consent of the authorities. The Soviets had far less
control over their people’s economic activity than prison wardens
do over the few dollars available for prisoners’ commissary
purchases. Both settings have given rise to alternate currencies
and hidden markets. Most famously, cigarettes have become the
medium of exchange in many prisons. But when they are banned, other
currencies take their place. California inmates now use postage
stamps….

What’s astonishing to outsiders, Skarbek says, is
that many aspects of gang politics that appear to be sources of
unresolvable hatred immediately dissipate if they threaten the
stability of prison society. For example, consider the Aryan
Brotherhood—a notoriously brutal organization whose members are
often kept alone in cells because they tend to murder their cell
mates. You can take the Brotherhood at its word when it declares
itself a racist organization, and you can do the same with the
Black Guerrilla Family, which preaches race war and calls for the
violent overthrow of the government. But Skarbek says that at
lights-out in some prisons, the leader of each gang will call out
good night to his entire cellblock. The sole purpose of this
exercise is for each gang leader to guarantee that his men will
respect the night’s silence. If a white guy starts yelling and
keeps everyone awake, the Aryan Brothers will discipline him to
avoid having blacks or Hispanics attack one of their members. White
power is one thing, but the need to keep order and get shut-eye is
paramount.

There’s much more, including an argument that “prison gangs are
the courts and sheriffs for people whose business is too shady to
be able to count on justice from the usual sources.” Read the rest

here. Buy Skarbek’s book The Social Order of the
Underworld here. See
him describe the world’s freest prison here. Peruse Reason‘s
special incarceration issue here.

Just
a few months ago, when Rep. Kevin McCarthy (R-Calif.) became the
House Majority Leader, he announced the the GOP would allow the
Export-Import Bank, which subsidizes purchases of goods made by
politically connected U.S. firms, to expire “because it’s something
the private sector can be able to do.”

That was then. The budget resolution approved by Congress
yesterday not only continues funding for the Export-Import Bank, it
signed off on the Iraq-Syria War of 2014 without actually putting
the matter to a constitutionally mandated vote:

The GOP, which claims to be the party that pledges maniacal
fealty to the Constitution, can’t be bothered to push for a
declaration of war, but it’s happy to shovel more borrowed money
toward a dodgy group of Syrians. “I frankly think the president’s
request is a sound one,” Speaker of the House John Boehner
told The Washington Times. The only real disagreement
among Republicans is whether to put American soldiers on the ground
to fight ISIS in Iraq and Syria, which appears to be what Sen. John
McCain is pushing for.

In a new column for

The Daily Beast, I argue that the GOP’s inability to stand
for anything other than occasional attempts to screw poor people,
vilify brown people, and demagogue gays and lesbians is the main
reason its once-seeming lock on taking the Senate has
disappeared:

As the differences between the two parties are blunted, it’s no
wonder that Republican chances for retaking the Senate are
evaporating faster than those anticipated federal surpluses in the
early Aughts. “Democrats now have a 51 percent chance of holding
the Senate,” reports The Washington Post’s Chris
Cillizza, who notes that just a few months ago, the odds were
better than 80 percent that the Republicans would pick up six seats
to gain a majority in both houses of Congress….

In a two-party system, we’re effectively down to one party that
wants to keep spending essentially the same and to start a new war
without having to go on the record as voting for it or against it.
No wonder that just 25 percent of Americans identify as
Republican, according to Gallup, and the GOP probably won’t win the
Senate despite appalling poll numbers for Obama’s Democrats.
Because when you go from being stupid to being useless, voters are
smart to stick with the status quo, no matter how miserable it
might be.

Whole thing here.

Just
a few months ago, when Rep. Kevin McCarthy (R-Calif.) became the
House Majority Leader, he announced the the GOP would allow the
Export-Import Bank, which subsidizes purchases of goods made by
politically connected U.S. firms, to expire “because it’s something
the private sector can be able to do.”

That was then. The budget resolution approved by Congress
yesterday not only continues funding for the Export-Import Bank, it
signed off on the Iraq-Syria War of 2014 without actually putting
the matter to a constitutionally mandated vote:

The GOP, which claims to be the party that pledges maniacal
fealty to the Constitution, can’t be bothered to push for a
declaration of war, but it’s happy to shovel more borrowed money
toward a dodgy group of Syrians. “I frankly think the president’s
request is a sound one,” Speaker of the House John Boehner
told The Washington Times. The only real disagreement
among Republicans is whether to put American soldiers on the ground
to fight ISIS in Iraq and Syria, which appears to be what Sen. John
McCain is pushing for.

In a new column for

The Daily Beast, I argue that the GOP’s inability to stand
for anything other than occasional attempts to screw poor people,
vilify brown people, and demagogue gays and lesbians is the main
reason its once-seeming lock on taking the Senate has
disappeared:

As the differences between the two parties are blunted, it’s no
wonder that Republican chances for retaking the Senate are
evaporating faster than those anticipated federal surpluses in the
early Aughts. “Democrats now have a 51 percent chance of holding
the Senate,” reports The Washington Post’s Chris
Cillizza, who notes that just a few months ago, the odds were
better than 80 percent that the Republicans would pick up six seats
to gain a majority in both houses of Congress….

In a two-party system, we’re effectively down to one party that
wants to keep spending essentially the same and to start a new war
without having to go on the record as voting for it or against it.
No wonder that just 25 percent of Americans identify as
Republican, according to Gallup, and the GOP probably won’t win the
Senate despite appalling poll numbers for Obama’s Democrats.
Because when you go from being stupid to being useless, voters are
smart to stick with the status quo, no matter how miserable it
might be.

Whole thing here.

More “campus rape crisis” weirdness came from the White House
today, where President Obama and Vice President Biden announced the
launch of a new initiative called “It’s on Us”. The campaign will feature
celebrity-studded public service announcements aired during college
sporting events and promotions from the likes of MTV, BET, and
video-game company Electronic Arts. 

In explaining the initiative
on the White House blog, Jeffrey Zients—Obama’s economic
adviser (because nothing about this makes any sense)—wrote that
“It’s on Us” is “not just a slogan or catchphrase”:

It’s the whole point. Because in a country where one in five
women on college campuses has been sexually assaulted— only 12
percent of which are reported—this is a problem that should be
important to every single one of us, and it’s on every single one
of us to do something to end the problem.

Reading Zients’ post, I was reminded of author and professor
Joel Best speaking on the hallmarks of how media hype (and
the attendent bogus statistics) get promulgated: First there is
a high-profile tragic event, then the need to define the event as
part of an identifiable Problem (“the heroin epidemic”), and then a
desire to quantify the problem so as to place it in a larger
context. I put “campus rape crisis” in quotes not to diminish the
seriousness of sexual assault but because I think the phrase is a
prime example of the phenomenon Best describes. Rape is a problem
wherever it happens, which is sometimes on campus and more
frequently not. The “campus rape crisis” is a thing perpetuated by
people interested in profiting from the fear in various ways.

When you make up a problem—and again, let’s be clear that I’m
not saying rape, the underreporting of rape, or the way campuses
handle rape is a made-up problem, but rather the idea that college
campuses are some sort of rape epicenter—it is much easier to get
credit for solving that problem. The White House doesn’t actually
have to impact rape rates or rape prosecution rates or anything
tangible, because that’s not how it has defined the problem. It’s
central concern is raising awareness about rape on
college campus, a goal both amorphous and measurable in Facebook
likes.

What’s “on us”, according to the newly-launched campaign
website, is the imperative “to recognize that non-consensual sex is
sexual assault”, “to identify situations in which sexual assault
may occur”, “to intervene in situations where consent has not or
cannot be given,” and “to create an environment in which sexual
assault is unacceptable and survivors are supported.” If you agree
with these vague statements, you can take The Pledge: “a personal
commitment to help keep women and men safe from sexual assault” and
“a promise not to be a bystander to the problem, but to be a part
of the solution.” I took the pledge and received the following
message:

Thank you for your commitment to stopping sexual assault. Turn
your profile photo into an It’s On Us badge to show your pledged
commitment to helping stop sexual assault.

The It’s on Us site also offers sexual-assault prevention tips,
which range from the banal (“keep an eye on someone who has had too
much to drink”) to the oddly aggressive. “If you see something,
intervene in any way you can”, says one. “Get in the way by
creating a distraction, drawing attention to the situation, or
separating them” says another. The focus on “bystander
intervention” comes across unsettling—less an insistence that
friends help friends avoid creeps than a world where one’s to be on
the lookout always for ways to stop strangers from serving each
other drinks. 

It’s not a terrible campaign, all-around. Some of the tips are
sensible. And a sexual-assault prevention initiative aimed equally
at men and women that explicitly eschews victim blaming and
highlights the importance of consent is actually pretty radical. If
this were a campaign run by MTV or a private foundation or a
network of college campus-groups, I might be more applauding of
their efforts. But I reject that this is a job for the President
and Vice President. 

And I reject the larger premise of the It’s on Us campaign: that
all societal problems require federal government action, and that
college sexual assaults in particular are an area in need of
“bystander intervention” from Uncle Sam. Zients says “this new
initiative will help move (the Administration’s) work forward
by creating a new energy and awareness around these issues on
campuses across America.” I’m convinced this campaign is designed
to advance the White House’s goals, just not in the way Zients
suggests. 

While the Obama administration splits hairs over
whether literally having armed American soldiers on Iraqi soil
counts as “troops
on the ground” (hint: It does) and quibbles about whether it’s
a good idea to arm so-called moderate rebels in Syria to fight ISIS
(hint:
The CIA says it’s not), the U.S.’s primary strategy in Iraq War
III has been airstrikes. How many billions of dollars is this going
to cost America, though?

It’s an important question posed by
Foreign Affairs, which calculates that “current estimates
put the yearly price tag for ISIS bombings at anywhere between $2.7
billion, if the current pace continues unchanged, and $10 billion,
if the United States escalates the air campaign and expands it into
Syria.” Obama has
suggested that fighting the Islamic state will take three
years. The U.S. began conducting air surveillance over Syria last
month, but so far has not dropped bombs.

Foreign Affairs contrasts this war with the
March-October 2011 bombing campaign in Libya, which “was shared
among several allies,” and cost about $1.1 billion. The global
price tag of bombing the Islamic State will rise since France just
initiated its own campaign
today.

The journal has put together some
impressive data on this war alongside comparisons to the U.S.’s
other air campaigns in countries like Yemen and Somalia, and notes
that “in the sheer number of strikes, the intensity of the U.S.
effort against ISIS has already exceeded both of these much
longer campaigns.” The U.S. has already conducted 174 strikes in
about a month’s time (two since
this Wednesday), compared to 350 in Pakistan, which we’ve been
bombing since 2008. 

Also notable is that in past campaigns, “airstrikes took a small
but significant toll on the civilian population.”

The three-year war plan makes a big assumption that things go
smoothly, which looks less and less likely as more volatile groups
emerge.

There are now over 50 Iran-backed Shiite Muslim militias
fighting ISIS, which is Sunni Muslim. Foreign Policy

notes that these “highly ideological, anti-American” groups
commit human rights violations that make them hardly better than
the Islamic State. They’re doing just as much as their enemy to
undermine the Baghdad government’s claim to authority, and they’re
throwing a huge wrench in “Obama’s stated
goal of working with an inclusive Iraqi government to push
back [ISIS].”

There’s a big can of worms, and the president can’t seem to
resist opening it.