“Civil asset forfeiture” sounds like a wonky term for some arcane practice in a secluded cranny of the justice system. In fact, it can be a powerful law enforcement tool in the battle against crimes such as drug trafficking — when used correctly. When abused, it can result in innocent people having their property seized, often without criminal charges.
Forfeiture involves officers taking property they suspect is related to a crime, such as cash from a drug transaction, leaving the person from whom they confiscated it with only arduous options to show it is clean and get it back. For years, the Justice Department’s Office of the Inspector General has prodded federal law enforcement agencies to use this tool more responsibly. At the Drug Enforcement Administration, the most persistent abuser of federal forfeiture, those efforts have failed, a recent IG report shows.
The report found that, at mass transportation facilities such as airports, DEA officers defied agency protocols as they harassed passengers and snatched their cash.
As should be needless to say corruption of law enforcement agencies isn’t limited to civil asset forfeiture and it isn’t limited to the DEA. If the FBI is looking for a job they might consider monitoring the federal government’s several dozen armed law enforcement agencies with police powers more closely. Their staffs are humans and as such are fallible. They cannot merely be trusted.
The remaining question is who should monitor the FBI?
I’m getting to it a bit late but Merry Christmas to all!
As you can see they’re pruning trees a bit more narrow this year. That’s a new Moravian star at the top of our tree. Our old star finally died. It was 40 years or so old—you can’t expect these things to last forever. The new star was missing a couple of pieces. I don’t think you can tell.
I took out a home equity loan and got a small (prime) beef roast. A couple of guests joined us for dinner. I also made Basque baked beans (an easy recipe that everybody but vegetarians like) and a green salad. My wife made the birthday cake she’s been making for the last several years for me. Gingerbread cake with ermine frosting. It was the best ever this year.
Probably my favorite present this year was my wife sent some of the ribbons that Kara won to a lady who turns them into beautiful Christmas ornaments.
Can someone please explain to me what is happening in the Congress? In particular how the Democrats benefit from the course of action they’ve selected? The only explanation I have is that they’re doing what they’re doing when your highest priority is “owning” you opponent rather than accomplishing anything.
Chicago’s machine politics is legendary, but the power play now on display in the Windy City would make the late Richard Daley blush. On Friday Mayor Brandon Johnson’s handpicked school board voted 6-0 to fire Chicago Public Schools CEO Pedro Martinez without cause to jam through a new contract for the Chicago Teachers Union (CTU).
The city is in revolt over the move. Chicago City Council members and school principals oppose the mayor’s putsch. Alderman Andre Vasquez called the mayor’s leadership “dysfunctional.” Alderman Silvana Tabares told the school board “there is still a difference between right and wrong, and you know this is wrong.” By following the orders of the mayor who will “personally benefit from a costly union contract,” she continued, “you’re intentionally clearing a way to saddle taxpayers with billions of costs.” All true.
concluding:
The corrupt bargain between the union and the mayor is now in plain sight. Mr. Johnson and Ms. Davis Gates want a blowout contract that funds the union political machine that funds the mayor. Only 17 cents of every dollar of union money is spent on teacher representation: your big-city Democratic rulers at work.
The editors are wrong in one particular. Mayor Johnson’s machinations have nothing to do with Chicago machine politics and everything to do with the hopelessly corrupt Chicago Teachers Union.
Mayor Johnson’s approval rating is presently 15%. If Chicago voters had the power to remove obviously incompetent and/or corrupt politicians as should be the case there is little question in my mind that he would be impeached. As I have been saying since he was elected, I have no idea what those who voted for him expected him to do. Presumably, not spend money the city didn’t have on migrants.
He’s doing exactly what I expected him to do: whatever the CTU wants him to do. Fewer than a third of CPS students read at grade level and their proficiency in math, which remains stubbornly below 2019 levels, is even worse. Spending per student is between $15,000 and $24,000 per year and the CTU wants more. There is little demonstrable relationship between increased spending per pupil and improved performance by students.
The CPS is broken and cannot be fixed. It should be dissolved and public education contracted out.
Yesterday afternoon I streamed The Six Triple Eight on Netflix. Recommended. It’s the sort of movie Hollywood should be making rather than the historically revisionist patronizing garbage they seem to prefer. It had a brief theatrical release earlier this month so I expect the movie, Kerry Washington, and Tyler Perry to garner some nominations when Oscar time comes around. They’ll be well-deserved.
As Sam Clemens (Mark Twain) said about the weather, everybody talks about it but nobody does anything about it. What is going to happen with the federal budget? What should happen?
One small observation. There are more than 900 federal grant programs that account for nearly three-quarters of a trillion dollars in spending, administered by just under 20 federal agencies. Most of these grants are for healthcare but they extend to transportation, education, and dozens of other areas. Why do these grant programs exist? I think it’s because the Congress isn’t doing its job but delegating its responsibilities to the executive branch. The Congress should be allocating these grants itself or they shouldn’t exist. Not only would that be a lot of work and distract the members of Congress from their main jobs (raising money for their re-election campaigns) it would leave their fingerprints all over the place. Mustn’t have that.
I also think that in the final analysis the bickering over the budget is a sideshow. Our real problems are in entitlements and taxes not in what is referred to as “the budget”.
One more thought. When Social Security was enacted in 1935, full retirement age was 65. Life expectancy was 60. Today full Social Security retirement age is 67 and life expectancy for men is 75 and for women 80. That’s a bit misleading since those statistics are life expectancy at birth but you get the general idea.
When I wrote my book, the United States was spending a larger share of our GDP on Medicare than other countries spent on health care for the entire populations. So anyone who thinks that making more people eligible for Medicare would solve our over-spending problem is delusional.
The over-spenders are us. We go for too many expensive tests that rarely make a difference to our lives. We get surgeries and take drugs for ailments that people used to just live with.
and the most upvoted comment there:
I am a physician. Been one since 1979. The system rewards procedures and is financed by healthcare being delivered in “units” rather than outcomes.
which you will note echoes observations I have made here.
There’s only one little, tiny problem with Arnold’s take. In the United States “we” (meaning patients) are not prescribing our own tests and procedures. That is done by physicians. That’s who creates the demand for healthcare services.
I thought you might find this graph interesting. Yes, costs were much more stable in 2023. That’s not the case now. The factors mentioend in the linked article include higher labor costs and consolidation among hospitals.
Overall, CMS projects that, under current law, after adjusting for inflation, spending for Part A and Part B services will rise by an average of 4.5% annually between 2023 and 2032, driven entirely by growth in the number of beneficiaries and growth in the volume and intensity of services used.
The emphasis is mine. Do providers potentialize the care provided to Medicare recipients? If my experience is any gauge the answer is undoubtedly “yes”. A factor that needs to be kept in mind is that in the United States at least much of the demand for healthcare is driven by providers. You may call it what you like but I would call it potentialization.
I’ve been having a back-and-forth on another blog about the prospects for a single-payer healthcare system in the United States and I wanted to solicit some opinions here. One of the arguments made for a single-payer system is that having everyone within a single-payer system will reduce costs. My view is that under certain rather stringent circumstances that might be the case:
Providers accept a pay cut.
There is enough unused capacity in our healthcare system to provide care of at least present quality to everyone.
We close our borders, particularly our southern border.
The will to constrain costs emerges.
but, since those are vanishingly unlikely, I seriously doubt that will happen. My own view is that the reason that healthcare is so expensive in the United States is not because we’re not all covered under the same system but that prices are too darned high and no one has the incentives to cut costs. Getting private insurance out of the picture might help a little but in the absence of real will to control costs it would only be a litte.
Let me explain just one of those. I don’t mention closing the border out of any prejudice against migrants. Will this single-payer system cover everyone in the United States or just some of the people in the United States and what percentage of the people need to be covered by it before the economies kick in?
Consider Illinois. In Illinois something between 5% and 15% of the population consists of illegal immigrants. Will they be covered under this single-payer system? If they are not, everyone in the country will not be covered by a single system. If they are it seems to me that the costs will be significantly higher than has been estimated (and the estimates are high as it is) plus is will add yet another “pull” force to attract illegal immigration.
It’s not just Illinois. California, Oregon, Washington, Colorado, and New York have large populations of illegal migrants as well. That may be part of the explanation for why those states’ Medicaid systems support illegal migrants.
I have a question. Israel is moving troops into Syria from the south. I’ve read some reports that Israel is planning to increase its settlement of the Golan substantially. There are fears that Turkey’s buildup of troops at the border may signal an incursion by Turkey is immanent. There are also some reports that Iraq is considering an incursion into Syria.
Lots of people are speculating about Syria’s future. Does Syria as we have understood it have a future? Today’s Syria is made up of a number of different Ottoman sanjaks and vilayets that have never cohered particularly well. Will Syria disintegrate?
The UN Special Envoy for Syria concluded talks in Damascus on Wednesday, expressing optimism that the fall of the Assad regime could mark the start of a peaceful and democratic transition for the shattered country, while acknowledging challenges remain.
and
Members of the UN Security Council also highlighted the importance of an inclusive and Syrian-led political process based on resolution 2254 (2015) that is facilitated by the United Nations.
In a press statement issued late on Tuesday, ambassadors reaffirmed their strong commitment to Syria’s sovereignty and territorial integrity while urging all nations to respect these principles.
“They also underlined the need for Syria and its neighbours to mutually refrain from any action or interference that could undermine each other’s security,” the statement noted, emphasising the need to combat terrorism and prevent extremist groups like ISIL/Da’esh from regaining a foothold in the country – where they have been active for years.
Council members also reiterated the obligation to respect human rights, including the right to seek justice, and international humanitarian law in all circumstances.
That strikes me as at best aspirational and at worst fantasizing.
