Tag: news

Today New York Mayor Bill de Blasio
announced that the city has reached a settlement agreement with
the lawyers who
challenged the NYPD’s stop-and-frisk program in federal court.
The agreement leaves in place U.S. District Judge Shira
Scheindlin’s August 2013
ruling that the program was unconstitutional and the reforms
she ordered, including a federal monitor and body cameras to record
police encounters. Those changes had been blocked by an appeal that
De Blasio promised to drop if elected mayor. “We’re here today to
turn the page on one of the most divisive problems in our city,” De
Blasio said at a press conference today. “We believe in ending the
overuse of stop-and-frisk that has unfairly targeted young
African-American and Latino men.”

As that remark suggests, the NYPD will continue to stop and
frisk people, which the Supreme Court has said is permitted under
the Fourth Amendment when police reasonably suspect someone is
involved in criminal activity and (for the pat-down) that he is
armed. Statistics at the center of the case Scheindlin heard
indicate that street stops by New York cops, which overwhelmingly
targeted young black and Hispanic men, frequently failed this test.
Between January 2004 and June 2012, when the NYPD made 4.4 million
stops, only 12 percent of the people treated like criminals were
arrested or issued a summons. Even more striking, although police
are supposed to frisk a subject only if they reasonably believe he
is armed, 52 percent of these encounters included pat-downs, only
1.5 percent of which discovered a weapon. Even when officers
reached into subjects’ clothing after feeling what they claimed to
think was a weapon, they were right only 9 percent of the time.

Tellingly, former Mayor Michael Bloomberg’s main defense of
the stop-and-frisk program was that it worked by deterring young
men from carrying guns, not that it complied with the requirements
of the Fourth Amendment. Yet even before Scheindlin’s ruling, the
NYPD responded to constitutional criticism of the program by

dialing it back. The number of stop-and-frisk encounters,
which grew from
about 100,000 in Bloomberg’s first year as mayor to almost 700,000
in 2011, fell to
about 530,000 in 2012. In the first three quarters of 2013, there
were 179,000 stops.

In mid-December I
wrote about Obamacare’s dismal poll numbers amongst the
uninsured. At that point, there was still some possibility that
the poor showing amongst those without insurance was just a lagging
indicator of frustrating with the federal exchange website, which
was essentially non-functional during October and November.

Now it’s the end of January. The biggest problems with the
federal exchange have been bandaged for almost two months. And yet
the
latest monthly tracking poll from the Kaiser Family Foundation

finds that opposition to the law amongst the uninsured has
actually increased since December. The survey reports that 47
percent of say they have an unfavorable view of the law, up from 43
percent in December. Just 24 percent say they favor the health law,
down from 36 percent in November and December.

Here’s the chart:

This is the group of people the law was, in theory, supposed to
benefit most. And yet even as the most prominent benefits start to
kick in, their support is dropping. It’s possible, of course, that
this could turn around at any time. But it’s not a very good sign
for the future popularity of the law.  

• The snow lightly
  blanketing the Deep South is being blamed for at least 13
  deaths.
• The feds will be seeking the death penalty in the case of
  alleged
  Boston Marathon bomber Dzhokar Tsarnaev.

• New York City has reached an agreement to
  reform its stop-and-frisk policy to make it less racist in the
  hands of an independent monitor. Mayor Bill de Blasio is dropping
  ex-Mayor Michael Bloomberg’s fight to keep the tactics as they
  are.
• The Supreme Court temporarily stayed the execution of Missouri
  killer Herbert Smulls, but then later lifted it denying an appeal
  connected to the lack of transparency surrounding the drug the
  state uses to put convicts to death. Smulls was
  subsequently executed.
• A bipartisan bill to
  reform federal drug sentencing guidelines passed the U.S.
  Senate Judiciary Committee today. The bill would reduce mandatory
  minimums, give judges more leeway in sentencing, and retroactively
  fix the disparity in sentences for those convicted of crack
  cocaine-related crimes.
• California Democratic
  Rep. Henry Waxman will retire from Congress at the end of this
  term. The pro-regulation Nanny-Stater will probably not be missed
  by Reasoners.
• Edward Snowden’s latest info is that the United States snooped
  on countries participating in the
  Copenhagen climate summit in 2009 to try to get advance
  information for negotiators.

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In the run-up
to Super Bowl XLVIII (just be happy they don’t use Egyptian
numerals), the New York City Police Department is deploying an
“amazing arsenal of security initiatives,” including 200
“temporary” surveillance cameras to ensure that dirty deeds remain
undone at the big game. That’s remarkable, since City Hall in the
rotten apple is actually about 11 miles from the site of the
kickoff at MetLife Stadium, which is in East Rutherford, New
Jersey. But never fear, writes J.D. Tuccille, security at
the the Super Bowl itself promises to make attendance at football’s
championship game an awful lot like spending several hours at a
very cold TSA checkpoint—with some watery beer. Get used to it
America, this massive demonstration of pointless security theater
just may be a glimpse of the future.

View this article.

In the run-up
to Super Bowl XLVIII (just be happy they don’t use Egyptian
numerals), the New York City Police Department is deploying an
“amazing arsenal of security initiatives,” including 200
“temporary” surveillance cameras to ensure that dirty deeds remain
undone at the big game. That’s remarkable, since City Hall in the
rotten apple is actually about 11 miles from the site of the
kickoff at MetLife Stadium, which is in East Rutherford, New
Jersey. But never fear, writes J.D. Tuccille, security at
the the Super Bowl itself promises to make attendance at football’s
championship game an awful lot like spending several hours at a
very cold TSA checkpoint—with some watery beer. Get used to it
America, this massive demonstration of pointless security theater
just may be a glimpse of the future.

View this article.

In a brief, slideshow analysis of
federal health care policy, the Congressional Budget Office
warns that “federal spending for health care programs is growing
much faster than other federal spending and the economy as a
whole.” That’s partially because of the Affordable Care Act, though
the CBO points out that, even after Obamacare is fully implemented,
Medicare will continue to have the largest appetite for federal
dollars intended to support health care (intentions and results
aren’t the same thing, of course.) The CBO contemplates a few
cost-cutting tactics, few of which are likely to win fans, and some
of which might simply torpedo the provision of health care.

Ever-growing expenditures without revenues or even an economy to
match are a bit of a problem, as the CBO has attempted to explain in
the past, using words such as “unsustainable.”

Despite all of the attention paid to Obamacare‘s economic
idiocy, technical failures, and general incompetence as a piece of
policy, it doesn’t represent a big portion of the federal
government’s projected spending spree on health care issues. Most
of that money will go to the elderly, with Medicare expected to
consume $894 billion in 2023, compared to $560 billion for Medicaid
and CHIP, and $135 billion for Exchange subsidies and related
items.

Using CBO numbers in 2009, the Mercatus Center’s Veronique de
Rugy
prepared the graph above, which shows Medicare spending turning
into the monster that eats…everything over the next few decades.
Note that projections of Medicare spending keep rising, and rather
quickly.

Since all of this looks to get spendy—well,
spendier—really fast, the CBO contemplates a few
approaches for trimming the price tag which “might (or might not)
help the federal budget.” Among those are taxing, bribing, and
nagging people into healthier behavior, capping federal Medicaid
payments (an approach that would kneecap the current push to
expand Medicaid rolls), and paying less to medical
providers.

It’s a good thing crappy compensation from government programs
isn’t already an issue for physicians. Oh…wait.

Oh, yes. Look for the federal government’s forays into health
policy to be an ever-more expensive problem in years to come.