Politics

A Policy Dichotomy of Extraordinary Hypocrisy

/ Joe Broadmeadow / Leave a comment

Okay, class, we are going to start the day with a pop quiz. Simple two question test on current affairs. Ready?

Who WAS Alejandro Carranza?

Who IS Juan Orlando Hernández?

Come on, now. This should be easy. Okay, times up. Can anybody tell me the answers? No? Okay, I’ll explain.

Alejandro Carranza was the name of a Columbian fisherman on a boat allegedly smuggling cocaine into the United States. While the identification is unconfirmed, as is the allegation of drug smuggling, Mr. Carranza now resides in the digestive tract of any number of species of fish or other ocean going carnivores having been obliterated by a US Navy missile(s).

Juan Orlando Hernández, on the other hand, is the former president of the Honduras arrested, tried, and convicted under our due process procedures after an extensive multi-year investigation by the Department of Justice for orchestrating and benefitting from smuggling 400 ton of cocaine into the United States.

Now, here’s an easy bonus question. Besides one being alive and breathing and one being disintegrated, what is the difference between them?

In Mr. Carranza’s case, the President of the United States unilaterally ordered him executed. In Mr. Hernández’s case, the President ordered him pardoned and released.

So the policy of the United States government, this most Christian nation born of the doctrine of Jesus of Nazareth and, apparently, less than enthusiastic about innocent until proven guilty, is to kill people on the lower end of the drug cartel hierarchy we “think” might be smuggling drugs and to pardon those of the upper echelon we CONVICTED of smuggling drugs.

I can see how this will indeed make us great again.

While we are at it, in keeping with our new naming policy of various departments within government, i.e. Department of War, let’s rename the Department of Justice to the Department of Smiting Offenders without Having a Trial (SO WHAT)

The Longest War

/ Joe Broadmeadow / 1 Comment

If you were to ask most Americans to name the longest war we have ever fought, they would say the war in Iraq and Afghanistan.

They would be wrong by a factor of three. This one is still ongoing.

The longest war, a war the President declared at the time with the advice and consent of Congress, is the war on drugs. President Richard Nixon, in 1971, a few months before his fateful decision to authorize the Watergate break-in, announced drug abuse to be “public enemy number one” (don’t you miss the days when we declared public enemies?) and began increasing the funding for federal, state, and local law enforcement.

For ten years, the war on drugs was more public relations than combat. It took President Ronald Reagan, in 1981, fresh off his “success” with the Iranian Hostage crisis, to fully ramp up the effort.

Focusing almost exclusively on enforcement and incarceration, the number of people imprisoned for non-violent drug offenses went from 50,000 in 1980 to  400,000 in 1997. Reagan’s wife, Nancy, contributed in her own way with the wildly “effective” Just Say No campaign.

The U.S. Congress passed the Anti-Drug Abuse Act of 1986, which allocated $1.7 billion to the War on Drugs and established a series of “mandatory minimum” prison sentences for various drug offenses. A notable feature of mandatory minimums was the massive gap between the amounts of crack and powder cocaine that resulted in the same minimum sentence: possession of five grams of crack led to an automatic five-year sentence. In comparison, it took the possession of 500 grams of powder cocaine to trigger that sentence. Since approximately 80% of crack users were African American, mandatory minimums led to an unequal increase in incarceration rates for non-violent Black drug offenders, as well as troubling indications that the War on Drugs was fundamentally racist.

This is not a Republican or Democratic policy issue; it is shared across the political spectrum.

When the use of civil process to seize drug dealers’ assets became available, it was like winning the lottery. We took cars and cash and, as the theory held, used them to enhance drug investigations. Making drug dealers pay for the investigations into drug dealing seemed genius.

It turned out to be our own form of addiction. Many agencies became more focused on seizing the assets to pay their budgets than on stopping drugs. They lost sight of the goal. If an agency became aware of a kilo of cocaine in a location, they could get a search warrant and seize it. But, if they waited a few days, they could seize the remaining cocaine AND get the money from the sale of the rest.

Don’t believe that happened? It did, all over the United States. A very astute Assistant U.S. Attorney in Rhode Island at the time predicted as much in a conversation we had one day.

Not every agency engaged in such questionable activity. Still, it was enough to create a challenge to effectiveness and a stain on the whole purpose.

Now I was a loyal soldier during these halcyon days of the war, having served in a police department and working in various units focusing on drug enforcement. But over time, it became apparent that we were fighting a single-front war on a multi-front battlefield.

The majority of people we arrested, while engaged in breaking the law, were as much slaves to the drugs as those in the higher echelons were to the revenue.

If one is going to fight a war, one needs a strategy that identifies the enemy’s strengths and weaknesses.

In the war on drugs, we face three enemies. First, those engaged in the manufacture and distribution of drugs, both domestic and foreign. Second, we face the powerful force of addiction. And lastly, we face an even more powerful force, greed.

Putting all of our resources into targeting just one aspect of this three-pronged front is self-defeating. Over the years, the type of drugs has changed, the methods of smuggling adapted, and the avenues for laundering the proceeds have grown more sophisticated. Yet we continue fighting with the same strategy.

It hasn’t made us drug-free. It has put us in the top five countries in terms of the number of individuals we incarcerate per capita. We are just behind El Salvador, Cuba, Rwanda, and Turkmenistan at 541 per 100k.

And, one might argue, one of the “benefits” to come from the war on drugs is private prisons. Now, there is something we should be proud to have invented. Good old capitalism at its best.

To put it in the context of a war. If we had focused all our efforts on fighting Japan during World War II, because it was the only nation that directly attacked us, what would have happened in Europe?

Some Presidential administrations and some state and local authorities recognize the need to expand the war to address these other fronts. But not consistently. Treatment facilities for addiction, alternative sentences for non-violent drug offenses, and targeting the banks, businesses, and financial institutions reaping the largesse of drug money are not conducive to public relations campaigns.

Blowing up boats makes for great theater, like a 21st-century Circus Maximus. It is all show and little substance. It makes people who don’t understand the complexities involved excited, gives the politicians a moment in the public spotlight (their own addiction,) and accomplishes nothing.

I dare say some would embrace the idea of putting drug dealers in the middle of a stadium and letting lions devour them for the entertainment of the masses. It would generate excellent TV ratings, even better than UFC. But it would have no effect on reducing the level of drugs being consumed in this country, would be another waste of efforts, and do nothing for the lions but make them lazy and fat.

 Our fifty-five-year war on drugs drags on, casualties mount—and not just the ones clinging to an overturned boat miles from shore—and we are no closer to our goal.

The Twelve-Year-Cycle Redux

/ Joe Broadmeadow / Leave a comment

Coming up on the twelve-year-cycle I wrote about here, https://joebroadmeadowblog.com/2019/01/24/an-american-twelve-year-memory-loss/, I wonder what 2028 will offer us?

The last time I wrote about this, 2016, we had just elected Trump to his first term. Somehow we survived, chose not to re-elect him to a second term, had four years of relative stability, then exhibited the most common symptom of insanity by repeating an action and expecting a different result.

I will give him this, we are not engaged in any active combat at the moment, but it would seem he desperately wants to try out the effectiveness of his renamed Secretary of War department by starting his own. (A bigly, better war. They say it’ll be the best war we ever had.)

We now find ourselves acting in the manner of enemies we long despised, where someone in the military chain of command orders a second strike to kill wounded combatants (I’ll grant the assumption for now, absent evidence to the contrary) in clear violation of the rules of engagement.

We have a President who supports the Secretary of War’s assertion that the decision for the second strike did not come from him, but from a field commander instead. This raises important questions about accountability and the chain of command in our military actions. There is no denial of the order. No announcement that this field commander has been relieved of duty pending an investigation. Nothing.

And keep in mind, while the designation of these alleged drug runners may be lawful, it does not mitigate the rules of engagement. Even if we assume the initial strike is lawful, no one has ever claimed these vessels posed a danger to the military assets engaged with them.

No one was shooting back at the Navy and one would be hard pressed to claim that two likely wounded men floating in the ocean posed any hazard to a 100,000 ton displacement aircraft carrier. They wouldn’t have even left a spot of the hull had they been run over by the ship (which would have been a less messy explanation of their demise.)

“Come to heading 250,”
“Aye aye sir,”
Bump!
“What was that?”
“I didn’t hear anything”
“Sir, there’s a small red stain on the hull.”
“No worries, we’ll paint it later”

2028 is on the horizon. Let’s hope we regain our senses before then. A new President, not a recycled one, will (hopefully) take office. We have frightened the world enough for this cycle.

A Childish Miscreant and Menace in the Oval Office

/ Joe Broadmeadow / Leave a comment

We live in a time of chaos with a President whose behavior mirrors that of a petulant child rather than a statesman. The Oval Office, once a symbol of dignity and deliberation, becomes a stage for tantrums, impulsive decisions, and self-serving theatrics. The “childish miscreant” is not merely immature; they are dangerous in their recklessness, wielding power without restraint or reflection.

Want to make America great again? Then recognize that the single greatest threat to the success of that goal is sitting in the White House like Jabba the Hut.

If you agree with his policies (why and how do you even articulate his T.A.C.O. gyrations), then find someone with a modicum of civility and put them in the position. This poisoned tongue, inarticulate, uncouth, uncivil, unkempt, unkind, uncaring, unrefined, unsophisticated, unintelligent, unworldly, inept shell of a human is an embarrassment to this country, to the world, and to humanity.

The terms idiot, imbecile, moron, and their derivatives were formerly used as technical descriptors in medical, educational, and regulatory contexts. They have fallen out of favor, but I think we need to resurrect them to accurately describe the individual currently occupying the Oval Office.

There is something seriously deranged with that man, and more consequently, with any individual who can, with a straight face, ignore, tolerate, or justify the unmitigated idiocy of the verbal projectile vomit expelled from his mouth.

This poisoned tongue, inarticulate, uncouth, uncivil, unkempt, unkind, uncaring, unrefined, unsophisticated, unintelligent, unworldly, inept shell of a human is an embarrassment to this country, to the world, and to humanity.

Joe Broadmeadow

That anyone, A N Y O N E, in this country can stand silent in the face of him calling their fellow human beings retarded, piggy, stupid, or any other epithets is abhorrent. There is no justification, no rationalizing, no mitigating the damage this causes.

That anyone voted for this man after he openly and publicly mocked a handicapped individual is disgusting. And for those evangelicals out there who find it convenient to embrace this man because he echoes (but doesn’t practice) what you want to hear, I hope, should your belief turn out to be true, that you’re working on your defense for when your God asks you to explain your tolerance of this most unchristian behavior.

Those who either laugh it off as Trump being Trump or think it harmless are enablers. Those who are shocked by it but remain silent are cowards. Those who embrace it are the lowest form of life in the universe.

Suppose a high school freshman were to call someone retarded, or piggy, or stupid in front of the entire school, or mock a handicapped person. In that case, they’d be suspended in a heartbeat. But if you’re the President of the United States, using these terms against those who disagree or challenge him is somehow acceptable.

Until everyone in this country recognizes this boorish and uncivilized behavior for what it is and challenges it, this country will never be great again.

The End of the World is Nigh

/ Joe Broadmeadow / Leave a comment

In one of the better examples of how failing to understand history can lead to repeating the same mistakes, we have this.

1960 The Catholics are Coming; The Catholics are Coming.

2025: The Muslims are Coming; the Muslims are Coming

This latest baseless hysteria arises from the election of Zohran Kwame Mamdani as Mayor of the City of New York.

In 1960, many saw John F. Kennedy as a threat to America because he was Catholic and would be subservient to the Pope. I’d love to hear Marilyn Monroe’s take on how strict a Catholic Mr. Kennedy was, but she is unavailable.

Before Kennedy there were other examples of hysterical fear based on race, national origin, or other unchangeable aspects of individuals.

No Irish Need Apply

Whites Only

And here we are amid an administration, set on widening the gaps between those who agree with their policies and those who are horrified by them, doing everything it can to fuel this raging inferno of ignorance and intolerance.

And the good ole’ evangelical Christians are right there leading the ‘moral’ charge. The “all men are created equal” line in the founding documents be damned,

I would venture to say much of this fear and loathing arises from those Christians who—having never actually read the Bible, or even a Cliff Notes version—fail to embrace the nuanced allegory of religious doctrines and went right to the inerrant word of God version. They are driven by the same religious hysteria that caused the Crusades, witch hunts, and the stoning of heretics.

And they add the finishing touch of wrapping themselves in the flag of patriotism.

That they cannot see the contradiction in their proclamations is astounding.

“Mamdani is a democratic socialist!” they scream, making the same mistake as those who embraced McCarthyism, lumping the propaganda-driven definitions of communism and socialism and bundling them into one. Given the challenge to define either term, they’d fail. Most would point to countries like Russia, China, or North Korea as examples of communist or socialist states.

They are not. In the history of the world, no true communist or socialist state has ever existed.

Communism is defined as,

“a political theory derived from Karl Marx, advocating class war and leading to a society in which all property is publicly owned, and each person works and is paid according to their abilities and needs.”

Socialism is defined as,

“a political and economic theory of social organization which advocates that the means of production, distribution, and exchange should be owned or regulated by the community as a whole.”

Some aspects of these systems sound attractive; the problem is that every form of government involves people, and they are not naturally inclined to live in such systems.

Democratic Socialism is defined as,

“Democratic socialism is a socialist economic and political philosophy that supports political democracy and some form of a socially owned economy, with a particular emphasis on economic democracy, workplace democracy, and workers’ self-management within a market socialist, decentralised planned, or democratic centrally planned socialist economy.”

Not if you can set aside your fear-based revulsion of socialism, and take a step back, you would see we have a blended version of a socialist democracy. We have a free-market economy with many restrictions and controls in place. Just a brief look back in history at the abuse of labor by big businesses, the monopolies created in some industries, and the environmental damage done absent legislated controls will demonstrate the reality.

Whether Mr. Mandami is a Muslim, a Christian, or a non-believer does not, by our laws and practices, matter. All that matters is he follows the laws and rules of government in setting policies.

Whenever I hear the nonsense claims that “sharia” law is coming to New York, I find it hard to believe there are people who believe such idiocy.  Then again, many of these are the same people who would welcome a Christian-based government imposing Christian-based rules and morality on the nation.

They are blind to their own hypocrisy. But, just in case, they are investing some money in a Pakastani company that exports hijabs.

My Sarcasm ruffled some feathers

/ Joe Broadmeadow / Leave a comment

A lightly sarcastic post on Facebook about the ineptness of certain members of the Trump administration, illustrated with an image of the Three Stooges, brought an unusually virulent torrent of criticism from those who blindly and enthusiastically support this administration.

Now I enjoy these moments, but I thought I should explain the facts and reasons behind the sarcasm and criticism of the administration.

These individuals rising to the defense of the President seem to be thrilled by the specter of the American military being tasked with blowing up boats, ostensibly trafficking in narcotics, with little evidence other than a few war whoops from the Secretary of War and similar chest pounding by Mr. Trump.

So, let’s play devil’s advocate here.

Assuming these boats are transporting drugs—and in all likelihood they are, but that is beside the point—how effective will this policy be in interdicting the flow of narcotics into the United States?

Here are some interesting facts from the Drug Enforcement Administration (DEA) and Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE).

According to ICE, 95% of Fentanyl is seized at Points of Entry (P.O.E.). The overwhelming majority of which are land-based border crossings or airports.

Of the Sea-based routes, 75% are Pacific Marine Routes.

China plays an integral part in providing precursor chemicals to Mexico, where the majority of Fentanyl is produced and then smuggled into the US through P.O.E.

According to U.S. Customs and Border Protection statistics, 90 percent of heroin seized along the border, 88 percent of cocaine, 87 percent of methamphetamine, and 80 percent of fentanyl in the first 11 months of the 2018 fiscal year were caught trying to be smuggled in at legal crossing points, and that trend has continued.

While other means are certainly used, including boats offloading offshore and coming in under cover of darkness, the statistics are a good indication of the preferred methods of smuggling.

Because most fentanyl seizures occur at ports of entry, the majority of fentanyl is smuggled by people who can enter the United States legally. These individuals can evade detection by posing as normal travelers entering or re-entering the United States. As a result, transnational criminal organizations tend to recruit U.S. citizens, who receive the least scrutiny on entry.

From FY 2018 through FY 2024, over 92 percent of all fentanyl was seized either at a port of entry or at a Border Patrol vehicle checkpoint.

Importantly, fentanyl seizures peaked in spring 2023 and have been declining since. CBP fentanyl seizures hit record levels in April 2023 at 3,220 pounds. Although the exact reason is not yet clear, seizures fell nearly every month after that, and by March 2025, had dropped to just 760 pounds. This drop in seizures occurred almost entirely at ports of entry, with nationwide Border Patrol fentanyl seizures in April 2025 (133 pounds) remaining at roughly the same levels as April 2024 (140 pounds) and April 2023 (137 pounds), despite dramatically fewer migrant crossings.

Evidence suggests that less fentanyl may be coming into the country because there is less demand for it in the U.S. as opioid overdoses fell dramatically in 2024, with official CDC data through November 2024 showing that overdose deaths dropped in all but two states (Arizona and Hawaii). Should these trends continue, it suggests the worst of the fentanyl crisis may be behind us.https://www.americanimmigrationcouncil.org/fact-sheet/fentanyl-smuggling/

This policy of targeting drug boats in international waters focuses on the least common method of smuggling drugs into the country. Perhaps, if one can believe the information from DEA and ICE, by not stripping resources away from P.O.E. and redirecting them to capturing Walmart shelf stockers and McDonald’s hamburger flippers, we could focus on the routes delivering the overwhelming majority of drugs to the US and, perhaps, catch more Americans who are active and willing participants.

Mr. Trump’s administration may lack many things, but creativity is not one of them. They crafted a convenient end run around domestic law and inconvenient principles like Posse Comitatus and designated organizations like Tren de Aqua as terrorist organizations and declared them as enemies engaged in attacks on US sovereignty.

In this particular instance, I agree with them. When Nixon declared drugs to be “public enemy number one” and started the War on Drugs campaign, it was anything but a war. Like other failed policies with good intentions, it lacked a clear purpose, a clear method of application, and a clear goal.

It was never a war.

Mr. Trump’s designating the issue as one of armed aggression against the United States is a wise one, but it shouldn’t be the basis for derailing our system of justice and, at the very least, should operate under the rules of war.

The United States, unlike many other nations, always weighs the value and purpose of a military action against the risk to innocent civilians. The history of the world reflects very few countries that do so. Yet even the United States resists some limits imposed by well-articulated international law.

One of those is the United Nations Convention on the Law of the Sea. This defines the principle of self-defense in international waters. UNCLOS+ANNEXES+RES.+AGREEMENT

The principle of self-defense under Article 51 of the U.N. Charter only allows the use of force against an imminent threat. It is hard to see how a drug-laden speedboat in international waters hundreds of miles from U.S. territory posed an imminent threat to the United States. (Interestingly enough, the US Congress, despite decades of lobbying by other Presidents and supporters, refuses to ratify this treaty.)

With the level of surveillance sophistication available to the military, tracking these boats to our territorial waters, then interdicting them by whatever means necessary, including destruction, would not only be lawful but also offer the kind of proof needed to justify the actions.

And maybe, in our on-again off-again relationship with China, our on-again agreement on trade can be expanded to get the Chinese to cooperate in stopping the flow of precursor chemicals.

Thus, my criticism and sarcasm are based not on the method or goal of this policy, but that they are focusing on the least effective methods and areas at risk. And the process and willingness to ignore accepted military and civilian law enforcement protocols is clearly un-American.

Why, you might ask, should we care about some smugglers getting blasted out of the water when it is clear they are trafficking? Because if we are willing to accept that blurring of the lines, where does it end?

The Founding Fathers were wise in devising our form of government. Power is not concentrated in any one branch. If we allow one branch to ignore that balance, and subvert the equal parts of government, we face a reduction in our rights and an inexorable march toward totalitarianism.

In simplest terms, you can blow up all the boats you like, twelve miles off the coast, as long as you follow our laws.

“Fortunately, I keep my feather numbered for just such an occasion.”

An Unforced Error

/ Joe Broadmeadow / Leave a comment

If Mr. Trump has a unique talent as President it is the ability to ruin moments of true statesmanship with pettiness and vindictiveness.

Mr. Trump’s bringing the Peace Agreement together in Gaza is a significant accomplishment. I dare say it may warrant a Nobel Peace Prize for ending, at least for the moment, the terrors rained on that land by Israel and Hamas.

Whether it lasts or not, and history doesn’t offer much hope in these matters, is immaterial.

Whether Biden deserves some credit for starting the process is meaningless.

Whether the success was more timing–with Netanyahu accomplishing his purpose of utter destruction of the area to render Hamas ineffective regardless of the cost in innocent lives–than anything else is academic. To argue that Israel’s response was appropriate is to ignore reality. To justify or excuse the attack by Hamas that triggered the response because of the treatment of Palestine is abhorrent.

The fact remains that President Trump cajoled, threatened, persuaded, and convinced Israel and Hamas that ending the war was in both their interests, no matter how diametrically opposed those interests are.

But Mr. Trump cannot help being Mr. Trump the serial complainer. At his speech following the signing of the agreement, when a statesman would have intuitively known it was a rare moment of agreement that this was a good thing, Mr. Trump could not stop himself from going from talking about ending the hostilities to complaining about Joe Biden and Barrack Obama.

Had Mr. Trump acknowledged, as anyone with an iota of common sense would know, that the previous administration crafted the basics of the agreement, it would have done two things. First, it would demonstrate some fundamental understanding of the decades-long complexities of the regions. And, secondly, it would silence his most ardent opponents who delight in pointing out a lack of such understanding.

But he didn’t.

There is little hope that this is the end of the cycle of violence in the area. Ever since the nitwits who created the artificial borders and took the land for the Jews after World War II, the situation has been like a volcano erupting when the pressure grows too powerful to be contained.

I am no fan of Mr. Trump. I have no doubt the damage he continues to wreak on this country and the rest of the world will far outweigh any good actions such as this agreement. But he deserves our respect for bringing this to fruition.

The tragic part is he will not build on this moment. He will not use this as a basis for further successful actions on domestic or foreign matters. He has surrounded himself with trained parrots whose only job is to agree with him on everything.

Even those in his cabinet smart enough to see the opportunity here, merely repeat the party line.

Lincoln had his team of rivals, and they served him and the country well. Trump has his carnival of perfect charlatans, and they remain silent in the face of each moment of success wasted by Presidential obstinacy.

The Most American Thing

/ Joe Broadmeadow / 3 Comments

“I hear a train a’comin’…”

By most estimates (except, of course, by those who routinely produce attendance numbers of the crowds at MAGA Events that are beyond believable), seven million Americans took to the streets all across the country to protest the abomination that is the Trump Administration.

And the reactions of those who support Mr. Trump were pathetically predictable.

Speaker Mike Johnson called them “unAmerican.”

Veterans Affairs Secretary Douglas Collins wrote on X,

“Good Morning to my fellow Americans who are celebrating No Kings Day today. While most of us celebrate this reality on July Fourth, you do you.”

Secretary of Veterans Affairs Douglas Collins.

Note to Mr. Collins and Mr. Johnson.

The Fourth of July celebrates the end of the Revolutionary War where we fought to rid ourselves of a King. It was the culmination of decades of protests and resistance over unfair government policies and the use of military troops occupying the cities and towns in America. Actions that ultimately ended with troops firing upon protesting civilians under orders of this Monarch.

Perhaps you missed this in history class. Perhaps you prefer willful ignorance. Perhaps, since you enjoy the favor of this wannabe King, you long for a return to a monarchy.

Does any of this sound familiar? Could this be one of those moments of history that rhyme?

There is nothing more American than peacefully protesting the wrongful actions of the government. You’ll also notice the lack of violence by these millions of Americans and the low number of arrests. These protests are clearly anti-fascist in nature, yet none of these protests in any way resembled the actions of a “militarist, anarchist enterprise that calls for the overthrow of the U.S. government…” as Mr. Trump has designated them.

Mr. Trump sees opposition to his policies as anarchy, something to be suppressed by all means. Those of us who have actually read the Constitution and support it understand better that these disagreements are the very foundation of our success.

At least up to this point in history, the future is more precarious.

Perhaps Mr. Johnson would have preferred these protests take the form of violent storming of the US Capitol building and the threatened lynching of government officials? It is clear Mr. Trump, by pardoning the J6 insurrectionists, and Mr. Johnson, by supporting such actions, prefer that form of “American” protests.

Their concept of a patriot also has precedents in history, generally attired in brown shirts and particularly proficient at breaking glass.

We should take heart in the number of Americans peacefully voicing their open disgust at this march toward totalitarianism. Seven million Americans of courage and conviction took the most patriotic of actions and “petitioned their government for a redress of their grievances.” Something those patriots of the Revolutionary War gave their lives to obtain for future generations, Mr. Collins, but you’ll ignore that reality out of blind fealty to your dear leader.

Take heart, for this large gathering of Americans is the sign of hope rising.

Come this mid-term election, and, more importantly, the next Presidential election, the world we see that the American people can weather the worst of storms raging against us, even those we create ourselves, and restore these United States to the country our forebearers intended it to be.

Mr. Trump and his maniacal band of charlatans will become just another scab on a long history of self-inflicted wounds in this country, soon enough to heal and fade away.

Right Wingnuts or Right Wing Nuts?

/ Joe Broadmeadow / Leave a comment

Free Speech in this country is apparently about as solid a concept as an ice cube in the desert.

The President of the United States, the Attorney General of the United States, and the Director of the FBI all said they will investigate groups based on the sole criteria of, in their determination, left-leaning organizations. They intend to scour websites, publications, social media, speeches, etc, looking for evidence that these groups encourage or support political violence.

Now to play Advocatus Diaboli, any organization that encourages or supports political violence should be investigated.

But this is the height of hypocrisy.

These are proud (dare I say Proud Boys?) supporters of the most recent organized and orchestrated attempt of a violent takeover of the government of the United States that happened on January 6, 2021.

But let’s use their logic in how they rationalize that event into something it was not.

On January 6, 2021, an assembly of American citizens joined together in solidarity to support and defend the Constitution of the United States by the exercise of their First Amendment-protected right to protest the government for a redress of grievances. A select portion of this group was exploited by a corrupt and weaponized government operation which entrapped, targeted, defamed, violently arrested, maliciously and falsely charged, fraudulently convicted, and unjustly punished and imprisoned them. (https://www.wearej6.com/the-story)

If that was an expression of their First Amendment rights to free speech, freedom of assembly, and to redress grievances, and does not rise to the level of encouraging political violence, let alone engaging in it, how does a monologue on late-night television foster something the federal government need investigate?

Or, more troubling, what argument does the government make that statements made by Jimmy Kimmel warrant government-imposed censorship?

Kimmel said “”We hit some new lows over the weekend with the MAGA gang desperately trg to characterize this kid who murdered Charlie Kirk as anything other than one of them and doing everything they can to score political points from it,”

When the government says it will investigate organizations based on the government’s determination of its political affiliation or policies, absent any reasonable and articulable suspicion of criminality, i.e. probable cause, we should all be gravely concerned.

“…upon the death of a principal government figure or in the aftermath of a national tragedy.”

Let’s call this what it is. This involves using the power of the government to investigate and prosecute crimes and turning it into a means to suppress political opposition. If those who shouted from the mountaintops that prosecuting the J6 defendants was weaponizing the Justice system against “innocent” citizens, absent any actual proof of such, here it is in real time.

That any American sees this as a legitimate means to “Make America Great Again” is astounding. But if you need more evidence of this troubling government trend targeting those who do not support this president, here it is.

DOJ removed a study showing far-right extremists are responsible for higher levels of violence than far-left groups or Islamic Jihadists. (Deity of your choice) forbid we have information to base our opinions and actions on.

Since 1990, far-right extremists have committed far more ideologically motivated homicides than far-left or radical Islamist extremists, including 227 events that took more than 520 lives,” the study said. “In this same period, far-left extremists committed 42 ideologically motivated attacks that took 78 lives.

This is an image of the report from archive searches. Why conceal a report if one is interested in the truth? Because they’e not interested in the truth, they’re interested in suppressing dissent. And every American who doesn’t realize that dissent from government policy is the very foundation of our power over the government is suffering from delusions.

All this came about, or at least was brought into the light of day, with the murder of Mr. Kirk. The leadership of the FBI, the Justice Department, and political allies of the President have worked themselves into a frenzy trying to paint the suspect as a left-wing ideologue programmed by NPR, Sesame Street, and other “left-leaning organizations.

Which brings me to my final point. By what measure do we determine a situation requires the flag to be flown at half staff? From various organizations (none of them left-leaning if that gives you comfort) “The President of the United States can order the flag to be flown at half-staff. This happens upon the death of a principal government figure or in the aftermath of a national tragedy.”

Mr. Kirk was a controversial individual who made frequent and outrageous remarks that were homophobic, xenophobic, disparaging of individuals and groups, and promoted clearly false theories of election fraud and the great replacement concept.

And he had every right to do so under our principle of Free Speech.

However, to accord such an individual with the honor of flags being flown at half-staff, transportation on official government aircraft, and the trappings of an official state funeral is to sully the purpose of such honors.

Mr. Kirk’s death was a criminal act, tragic, unfortunate, and horrifying. But it was not a national tragedy any more than any other violent act. If the deaths on the same day of two young children in school who were also murdered aren’t even mentioned, how is that the appropriate use of this practice? Perhaps, if it were, the flag would never be flown at top staff again, and that might be too painful a reminder of our continued violent tendencies.

Having seen over the years how Mr. Trump treats those in his circle when they no longer suit his purpose, there is only one conclusion here. Mr. Kirk served the president well in his campaign, and now his death is a convenient way for Mr. Trump to foment more government control over those who would challenge him.

If that were not the case, none of this would be happening.

Mr. Kirk was not a saint or someone to be venerated any more than any other human being. Mr. Trump should not be empowered to target his enemies in such a manner. And those who are blind to this virus will come to regret it.

Crime Reduction Myths: Politics vs. Reality in America

/ Joe Broadmeadow / Leave a comment

Now the President intends to send the National Guard into Memphis so they can “fix it like we did DC.” This wasn’t his original plan; he did a T.A.C.O. in Chicago, no surprise there. Guys with a brain like J.D. Pritzker scare him.

The “fix it like DC” requires some huge assumptions about the effectiveness of the deployment, but, for the sake of argument, let’s say there’s been a reduction in crime because of the presence of the Guard and additional law enforcement resources.

That would be a positive. But what is the long-term plan? Do we flood the streets of America with military force as our long-term crime reduction strategy?

In 1972-1973, the Kansas City Police Department conducted a landmark study about police deployment.  The study had several goals.

  1. Would citizens notice changes in the level of police patrol and crime?
  2. Would different levels of visible police patrol affect recorded crime or the outcome of victim surveys?
  3. Would citizen fear of crime and attendant behavior change as a result of differing patrol levels?
  4. Would their degree of satisfaction with the police change?

The design took three different police beats in Kansas City and varied patrol routines in them. The first group received no routine patrols. Instead, the police responded only to calls from residents. The second group had the normal level of patrols, while the third had two to three times as many patrols.

The experiment had to be stopped and restarted three times because some patrol officers believed the absence of patrols would endanger citizens. This full study went twelve months, from 1 October 1972 to 30 September 1973.

Victim surveys, reported crime rates, arrest data, a survey of local businesses, attitudinal surveys, and trained observers who monitored police-citizen interaction were used to gather data. These were taken before the start of the experiment (September 1972), and after (October 1973), giving ‘before’ and ‘after’ conditions for comparison.

The results of the study;

  1. Citizens did not notice the difference when the frequency of patrols was changed.
  2. Increasing or decreasing the level of patrol had no significant effect on resident and commercial burglaries, auto thefts, larcenies involving auto accessories, robberies, or vandalism–crimes.
  3. The rate at which crimes were reported did not differ significantly across the experimental beats.
  4. Citizen-reported fear of crime was not affected by different levels of patrol.
  5. Citizen satisfaction with police did not vary.

The Kansas City Police Department concluded that routine preventive patrol in marked police cars has little value in preventing crime or making citizens feel safe and that resources normally allocated to these activities could safely be allocated elsewhere.

A significant factor derived from the study was that crime prevention was more highly dependent on the willingness of citizens to report suspicious and/or criminal behavior to police than on the levels or types of patrol. 

(Kelling, G.; Pate, A.; Dickman, D.; Brown, C (1974). “The Kansas City preventive patrol experiment: A technical report”. Police Foundation. 
Braga, Anthony (27 June 2012). “Hot spots policing effects on crime” (PDF). The Campbell Collaboration. The Campbell Collaboration. p. 23. Archived (PDF) from the original on 11 January 2017. Retrieved 10 January 2017.)

There have been targeted programs of increased police presence (Operation Hot Pipe in San Diego during the crack cocaine epidemic) that have been successful. However, all were characterized by intense planning, officer training, a defined implementation and scope, and a limited duration. (https://popcenter.asu.edu/content/benefits-and-consequences-police-crackdowns)

Both pre- and post-implementation analyses were used to evaluate the process and adjust future projects. None of that is taking place with the deployment of the National Guard.

What does this tell us? A great deal.

Anecdotal data (or more accurately, public proclamations) showing a positive effect on reducing crime with the deployment of National Guard and other resources to aid local law enforcement is incomplete at best and political confirmation bias at worst.

Now I am certain those who support this approach will say it makes people feel better when they see the guard on the street. So does morphine when you break your leg, but the leg is still broken and will take proper treatment and a long time to heal. The morphine eventually wears off.

Deploying the National Guard is an improperly prescribed analgesic applied to a false perception of rising crime. It is a crisis with no basis in fact. And even if it has some positive effect in certain areas, it is not a long-term solution.

Until one is willing to take a three-pronged approach to deterring crime– strong, effective, and equitable enforcement, available economic opportunities, and providing access to solid education and vocational programs –a single-focus approach will not reduce crime in the long run.

But that doesn’t lend itself to as pithy a slogan as “Lock’em up and throw away the key.” We’ve done that to an entire class of individuals (look into minority incarceration rates and US incarceration rates). All that’s accomplished is creating a new (and lucrative) industry of private prisons.

I would argue our abandonment of public education to the false and inherently biased promise of “school choice” is a fundamental cause of inequity in our country and a significant contributing factor to criminal behavior in those who don’t have the luxury to “choose” their school.

None of this is news to anyone with any background in criminal justice. None of this is absent from the mountains of information available to criminal justice agencies and the political entities that control them.

Where it is absent is from the current management team at the Department of Justice and in the Office of the President.

The choice to have National Guard troops patrolling the streets of our cities is optics, pure and simple. And it is a lesson in the propagation of propaganda and unadulterated politics influencing decision-making.

Contrary to all valid measures of crime conclusively showing it is decreasing, the President contends that we are in a tidal wave of violence and criminality. Strange how he focuses on Democratic led cities and ignores issues in the red states.

The reason is apparent and the manner transparent.

Invent a problem, demonize a convenient entity as the cause, focus your solution on those in the political opposition, and declare victory after a few weeks.

All this amounts to wasted resources that could have been used to reduce crime (which already was in decline) in a more effective and lasting manner.

One has to wonder if this is more about making people fearful about turning out to vote in the mid-terms or, more troubling, creating a false crisis, an opportunity to declare martial law, and a suspension of basic human rights than it is about any concern over crime.

Open your eyes, America.