Stop and Frisk More Trouble Than It's Worth

Last Sunday people from both sexes, all races, all religious denominations and sexual orientations marched through the streets of New York City to protest the strict Stop

and Frisk laws used by The City's Police Department. The march which begin at 110^th Street passed by Gracie Mansion, home of New York City Mayor Michael Bloomberg before ending at 78^th Street.

If you aren't familiar “Stop and Frisk” is the policy where police officers in the city are given license

to stop people who they deem suspicious. Who would have ever imagined that of the 685,000 people

stopped last year as a result of the policy 87% would be Black and Latino. As calculated as the march strolling thru the Mayor's neighborhood was it was also extremely fitting.

Under Mayor Bloomberg Stop and Frisks in New York have skyrocketed 603% since 2002 when the city was ran by then mayor Rudy Giuliani. When you are to the right of Rudy in Gotham on the issue of police misconduct it's not a good place to be as far as the Black and Brown communities are concerned, Giuliani wasn't the second coming of Eugene “Bull”Connor, but he might as well had spit on the graves of Patrick Dorismond and Amadou Diallo, two black men who were killed by NYPD under his stewardship.

One of the interesting developments in the increase of Stop and Frisks is that fewer than 10% of those being stopped have been arrested, while the percentage of crime in the city has not gone down because of it. These numbers and asinine comments by the mayor himself only lead to more hostility between the community and its cops. Bloomberg was quoted as saying Sunday that “Innocent people who are being stopped can't be disrespected, that is not acceptable”, then as to appease people of color by quoting a man who he still clearly thinks was the first Black President Bill Clinton he said “The practice should be mended not ended”.

There are so many things that are wrong with the Mayor's outlook on this entire situation, for one the fact that the numbers are so skewed towards black and brown people tells me that Bloomberg and Police Commissioner Ray Kelly don't think that white people commit crimes. Even in more priviledged parts of the city where the diversity of the residents is almost non-existent people of color make up a higher percentage of those who are stopped, which is basically a situation where the officer is saying “what the hell are you doing in this neighborhood”.

Secondly, some of these stops have led to the arrests of teenagers and young people who have had small amounts of marijuana in their possession. We can debate the pros and cons of marijuana, but no seventeen year old kid should placed in the criminal justice system, tagged as a felon, and be put at risk of ever getting into college or getting an apartment, which is what this does. White kids who are not stopped nearly as much as kids of color are basically given a license to experiment with weed without being subjected to the same possibilities.

What this policy does more than anything though is just heighten the tensions between these two communities and the police department that is suppose to protect them. Bloomberg knows very well the history of New York, not only the murders of Dorismond and Diallo, but the murders of Sean Bell and Ramarley Graham. Graham was an 18 year old black kid who was shot and killed by an NYPD officer in his Grandmother's bathroom earlier this year. While apparently being tone def on these individual situations, The Mayor seems intent on pushing a policy that continues to exacerbate negative feelings that Black and Brown people have about “The Men in Blue”.

The Father's Day March on Sunday was great because it was an example of the community using it's voice to shed light on injustice, I get the feeling however that real change won't come until there is a new occupant in the aforementioned Gracie Mansion. Let's just hope Mikey B. doesn't use anymore of his vast personal fortune to buy himself another term.

I want to know what you think e-mail me at ebrew79@live.com for the latest columns and updates, also follow me on twitter @ebrew79

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Obamacare Decision Is Important For A Lot of Reasons

As we sit here in the middle of June we are nearing a Supreme Court decision on The

Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act. Now for those of you who are not familiar with

the names of Constitutional Laws, it is primarily known nationwide as “Obamacare”. The Court

will be weighing whether to uphold the law which was signed by President Obama in March of

2010, overturn the law altogether, or throw out the key provision within the law, The Individual

Mandate, which calls on everyone to purchase private health insurance.

As both political parties setup their respective talking points in anticipation of the verdict, and the

court prepares for the attacks from diehard lefties and righties, The importance of the decision will

be felt not only in the upcoming Presidential Election, but with individual citizens in this country going

forward.

From a personal perspective The ACA is kinda of like eating White Castle burgers when you have this

huge craving for steak. Any Progressive worth his salt wants and desires a single-payer health care system, but those liberals who think the striking down of this law will pave the way for single-payer are not realistic, not with this Republican House and if the dreaded happens not this future Republican President.

GOP Presidential nominee Mitt Romney has been vocal about the fact that he as The Commander and Chief would repeal the ACA if the SCOTUS doesn't overturn it. Romney repealing the law is like a parent disowning one of his children because it was Romney, who as Governor of Massachusettes implemented his own healthcare law with an individual mandate, basically providing the President with a blueprint..

If President Romney follows through on his promise he says he will replace the ACA with a plan that basically does not guarantee mandates. The Obama Administration in it's brief to the SCOTUS about the Constitutionality of the ACA said that without mandates “premiums would increase significantly and the availability of insurance would decline”. In short the working poor, and the middle class who didn't have health insurance prior to 2010 will return to a world where it would be increasingly difficult to acquire some under Mittens.

The fact that we find ourselves in a position where a Supreme Court that is becoming more partisan by the day (see Citizens United) is now going to decide the fate of the ACA has to be laid at the feet of the Obama Administration. Don't get me wrong there are a lot of Tea Party activists out there who would have called Barack Obama a Kenyan, socialist, Marxists, even if he had done away with every government job and called British Prime Minister David Cameron for austerity tips, but the messaging or lack thereof by the Administration until fairly recently has been weak at best, and they wasted the opportunity to win over true middle of the road moderates.

How many people out there who have no political agenda whatsoever and are only interested in getting themselves and their family quality healthcare know that the ACA will provide financial assistance to people who have to buy insurance on their own, expands Medicaid, and eliminates copays for some preventitive services. Sure anyone can get lost in the weeds when it comes to this stuff, but if your not out there selling the way the President and his staff should have been and the fact that you put in place measures that won't allow a lot of these things to kick in until 2014, of course every right-wing think tank on the planet is going come up flat out lies and negative connonatations such as the name “Obamacare” itself.

As I say all of this I realize that it may all be a moot point. The Supreme Court could go two of three ways, strike down the law and force the President to start over (without single-payer), or throw out the individual mandate, which in a sense guts the law anyway. Given Justice Samuel Alito's response to the President's feelings on the Citizens United decision rendered by the court I'm not expecting this group to do the right thing.

Obama Takes Lead on Immigration

Obama Takes Lead on Immigration.  This June 15^th was shaping up to be another ho-hum day in the political sphere, with talks of grand

speeches, jaw dropping gaffes, and a lack fresh new ideas from either Presidential Candidate. That was until about 10:15 a.m eastern time when President Obama announced that his Administration will halt the process of deporting young illegal immigrants from the U.S..

Even the right-wing hacks over at Fox News cannot underestimate how much of a gamechanger this is

for this November's election, and how much of a shot in the arm this is for a President who may have been struggling with one of if not the biggest and most influential voting block in the country.

The disenchantment with the President from the Latino Community has been well documented, There has still been no comprehensive immigration reform that the President promised throughout his campaign in 2008, not to mention the fact that 400,000 illegal immigrants have been deportated by The Obama Administration. Friday is a reversal of that somewhat, and even though it is not the pathway to citizenship that the Latino Community wants, hopefully it will be a conversation starter for Congress and persuade them to pass The Dream Act that has been sitting on their desk for almost two years.

To go along with the political implications of this decision it places Republican Presidential Nominee, Mitt Romney and The Republican Party in general in a perilous position. Romney in order to secure his party's nomination placed himself as far to the right as he could on the issue of immigration during the primary season. Romney expressed his want to veto The Dream Act, and touted the virtues of Self-Deportation. Last September Romney was quoted as saying “I would be civil and resolute in terms of securing our borders even if that means constructing a high tech fence and investing in adequate man power and resources”.

Unless Romney thinks the electorate is really stupid, doesn't have the luxury of the internet, or suffer from memory loss, they are not going to forget those things. Even the possibility of Florida Senator Marco Rubio as a Vice Presidential running mate may not have the positive effect that he would've hoped for. Rubio referred to the President's announcement as a “short-term answer”, but the question is if Rubio were as popular on the hill as Republicans would like you to believe he would have enough pull to get his bosses, John Boehner and Eric Cantor to pass the aformentioned “Dream Act” which is similar to what Rubio has proposed in the past, and what the President has proposed today!

The Jeb Bushes and the Haley Barbours of the GOP understand the changing demographics of the country, and why the rest of the party needs to join them in their way of thinking. “We need to secure the borders for a lot of reasons, and we need to realize we are not going to deport 12 million people and we don't need to” said Barbour who spoke on Friday morning during a breakfast sponsored by The Christian Science Monitor. If only the elected officials inside the party like Romney, Boehner and Cantor were listening to those outside of the party the GOP would be viewed more favorably by so many, instead by taking these harsh stances they may be giving away the White House by alienating the groups that exist outside of the good ol' boy network that has propped them up for so many years.

I would like to hear from you. email me at ebrew79@live.ebrew79@live.com or follow me on twitter @ebrew79

Too Big To Fail Still In Effect

Listening to J.P.Morgan Chase's CEO Jamie Dimon tell members of the House Financial

Service Committee that he and his company are doing everything it can to restore confidence

in the U.S. financial system left me awed. The thing is I don't know if I was awed by Dimon's

apparent delusion or his impressive ability to lie with a straight face.

Dimon was called to testify before the committee on Wednesday so that he could explain the $2 billion

dollars in losses that JP Morgan Chase experienced due to a risky trade back in May. The losses called into question the companies practices and whether or not it had learned anything from the financial meltdown that ravaged Wall Street at the end of 2008.

After patting himself on the back for not accepting bailout money from the government during the crisis, Dimon went into a diatribe about how the company that paid him almost $21 million in compensation pay in 2010 is less like Wall Street and more like Main Street. “We provide health-care

coverage for 417,000 people, we have long standing relationships with 400,000 small businesses, and last year our Foundation made charitable contributions of approxiametly $100 million across the U.S.”

Dimon conveniently glosses over the fact that not much if anything has changed on Wall Street, including banks like his still being “Too Big to Fail”. The Dodd-Frank Wall Street Reform and Consumer Protection Act was signed into law almost two years ago by President Obama. The law implements financial regulatory reform. However the law has yet to be fully put in place, and Congressional Republicans have typically tried to water it down at every turn. Dimon himself has tried to use his considerable clout to trash one of the bills key provisions “The Volcker Rule” which places restrictions on proprietary trading. He has even gone on every money grubbing CEO's favorite network

CNBC (or Fox Business News, there is no difference) to publicly voice his displeasure with the rule to the sympathetic ears of Maria Bartiromo.

A repeal of Dodd-Frank, which is what every Republican under the sun including Presidential nominee Mitt Romney wants, means a return to the wild wild west atmosphere of 2007-08 that Jamie Dimon and Wall Street bigwigs everywhere loved. Who cares about families being thrown out of their homes and the nation's economy being thrown into a tailspin that makes it virtually impossible for average Americans to find a job that pays a living wage, I'm getting another yacht and a summer home to boot.

The real problem lies not with the Dimons of the world, who are insatiable vultures when it comes to cash, and will stop at nothing when allowed to take advantage of the system. The problem lies with elected officials, particularly Democrats who are in a position to stop them.

As a huge fan of President Obama, I have been disappointed with the fact that none of these billionaire CEO's have been perp walked into police stations in front of millions. The President can go a long way in rectifying this, assuming he gets re-elected by using 2013's State of the Union address to announce his intention to bring back the Glass-Steagall Act of 1933.

Unlike Dodd-Frank, Glass-Steagall is cut and dry. It imposed banking reforms to control speculation and it also limited activities between commercial banks and securites firms. This will in effect break-up the “Too Big to Fail Banks” and restore some sanity to the banking system, and the President without the threat of Wall Street's money being used to vote him out of office will restore consumer confidence.

Surely, Republicans in Congress particularly Eric Cantor and John Boehner assuming they are still around will try to stop the President on this, After all the GOP begin watering down the original Glass-Steagall in the early 60's. By 1998 Bill Clinton and Congressional Democrats basically said “the hell with it” and allowed the rest of the law to be struck down, despite the pleas of former Democratic Senator Byron Dorgan, one of the loudest proponents of the law.

I know, the chances of the President actually doing this are extremely remote, but if it were to happen the great thing about the unbrideled joy that I would have, is that it would be matched by the downright anger and disgust felt by Jamie Dimon and every other CEO on Wall Street.

I would like to know what you think email me at ebrew79@live.com and follow me on twitter @ebrew79

Government-Sector Jobs Are Needed Now

The President of the United States took advantage of being just that on Friday Morning. Barack Obama

used the “bully pulpit” as it is referred to in D.C circles to address the fact that Government-sector jobs are needed now. After basically asking German Chancellor Angela Merkel to use her nation's thriving economy to bailout the rest of the continent he then took on that obstructionist faction known as The United States House of Representatives and urged them to pass his American Jobs Acts Bill that he put in front of them last summer.

In explaining the importence of the bill being passed the President had an unfortunate slip of the tongue by referring to private sector job growth as being “fine” when it comes to the jobs picture, and while Fox News and conservative bloggers predictably pounced, What the mainstream media and liberal outlets failed to give enough attention to, (Are you listening MSNBC) is an event that happened literally minutes after the President left the podium.

Speaking at a campaign event in Iowa Republican Presidential nominee Mitt Romney could not wait to respond to the President's comments. “He (Obama) says we need more fireman, more policeman, more teachers. Did he not get the message in Wisconsin? The American People did. It's time for us to cut back on government and help the American People.”

Now I hate playing “Let's compare the gaffes” whether it's with surrogates or the candidates themselves ,but if we are The President's brief mischaracterization of the economy doesn't compare with Romney's verbal smack of public sector workers. Romney might as well had walked into every police station, every firehouse and every classroom with his middle fingers extended, also the notion that helping the American People means turning your back on public sector workers and people with public sector experience is as ridiculous as anything uttered by anyone associated with the GOP game we have seen this political season.

What Romney and the Republicans fail to understand or choose to publicly ignore is if American Corporations are setting on two trillion dollars in cash, but not investing it, and American consumers are not spending their own hard earned cash because they need to put food on their table or pay their bills, The only entity left that can revive the economy is government, and they do it by hiring the dreaded teachers, firefighters and construction workers that the GOP hate so much.

Let's also not forget the Tweedledee and Tweedledum of American Politics right now, House Speaker John Boehner and his second in command House Majority Leader Eric Cantor, who when the dissapointing May jobs numbers came out were in front of every television camera possible screaming about how the country is going in the wrong direction, yet they will for the rest of this year not even look at the Jobs Act Bill, because putting into law means helping the economy, and possibly assuring the President's re-election, which if you listen to Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell was not the number one goal for Republicans in Congress.

The great New York Times Columnist Paul Krugman who's alter I worship at when it comes to everything on the economy recently wrote that “If public employment had been allowed to grow the way that it did under George W. Bush, we'd have 1.3 million more government workers and an unemployment rate at 7% or under. The destruction of public sector jobs has also cut along racial lines. The New York Times also recently reported that “tens of thousands of once solidly middle class African-American public-sector workers, police officers, firefighters and bus drivers have been laid off since the recession ended in June of 2009.

Republicans want their cake and the ability to eat it saying on one hand government jobs are an impediment to dealing with the nation's debt crisis, while accusing workers of leaching off of the wealthy by accepting government assistance and unemployment insurance when their jobs are taken away. Despite what Roger Ailes and every Fox News talking point will tell you the conservative solution, austerity is what has Europe in the financial mess they find themselves in, Great Britain who was served up a huge dose of austerity by Prime Minister David Cameron is now experiencing a double dip recession.

Public-sector jobs are needed in this economy and needed now, and Mitt Romney needs to understand that a guy who has car elevators for multiple cars at his multiple mansions, needs construction workers to build roads and bridges to drive those cars on.

I want to know what you think, e-mail me at ebrew79@live.com with your comments or just to find out about previous columns and new ones coming up. Also follow me on twitter @ebrew79. thanks

The Real Damage of Citizens United

In the wake of Governor Scott Walker's resounding victory in Wisconsin's Gubernatorial Recall

Election on Tuesday, those of us on the left side of the political ledger are left to lick our wounds

and ask ourselves several questions. Was the Badger state's recall effort worth it at the end of the day,

after all many efforts have been made over the years to recall Governors who have driven the train off the tracks, yet only two prior to the Walker case have even made it to a ballot. There is no doubt that Scott Walker misrepresented himself as a candidate for the office in 2010, but thinking that Tom Barrett was going to pull off a 1980 “Miracle on Ice” type upset may have been asking too much.

The effectiveness of labor union leadership in this country might also be called to the carpet. A mesmerizing stat from Tuesday's exit polling revealed that 37% of union workers in the state cast a vote for Scott Walker. If there is a greater example of a group voting against it's own interests someone would have to point it out to me. The question is however, Is union leadership conveying the message that Republican Governors really aren't looking out for them.

The biggest question of all however brings us back to one we've been asking all year long. What will be Citizens United's impact on the 2012 Presidential Election. For Democrats if Wisconsin is any indication the impact will be huge and not good.

As of late last month almost $46 million had been spent on Scott Walker's candidacy compared to almost $18 million spent on Tom Barrett's. When all was said and done Walker, with the aid of the Republican National Committee and their cast of mega rich conservative reliables like Charles and David Koch wound up with a seven to one advantage in cash.

Whether it's the Koch's who will stop at nothing in terms of spending to advance their right-wing wetdream of lower taxes and less regulation, or billionaire clowns like Shelly Adelson and Foster Friess who kept alive Newt Gingrich and Rick Santorum respectively in the Republican primaries, long after those two campaigns should have been taken out back and put out of their misery, conservative sugar daddy's have been given a license to be big players in this political cycle.

According to Politico, GOP groups are planning to spend $1 billion on November's campaign. Koch related spending alone adds up to about $400 million, which is $30 million more than Sen. John McCain spent on his entire Presidential campaign in 2008. There are also groups like “Restore Our Future” Mitt Romney's SuperPac and Karl Rove's American Crossroads and Crossroads GPS all spending somewhere north of $200 million. Compare that to Priorities USA Action the SuperPac supporting President Obama that is expected to raise only $100 million.

The fact that the President of the United States is a black man who in the eyes of the right is somehow illegitimate has forced Republicans to empty the coffers in terms of campaign spending and Citizens United has aided them in doing so, throwing the entire political system out of whack.

Barack Obama is now forced to scrounged for political contributions wherever he can find them because of his reluctance to initially embrace SuperPacs, this has caused some friction between the White House and Congressional Democrats who are up for re-election over the amount of limited funds. There is only so much steak to go around and The Obama team's insistence that they eat first may also help Republicans in the long run.

If the GOP can't achieve their ultimate goal of ousting the President there ability to outspend the Democrats may give them the next best thing, having possession of both chambers of Congress. If that somehow happens the amount of bad legislation that will be placed on the President's desk will make your head spin, never mind the fact that anything proposed by Obama and the remaining Dems in D.C. won't have a snowball's chance in hell of passing either chamber. When the money and congress is on their side what incentive would there be for John Boehner and Eric Cantor to play ball?

So let's all raise our glass to Citizens United and the five conservative justices on The Supreme Court that gave us it's existence, The ability to take the voices of 120 million people and give them to a select 450 is quit impressive.

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Wisconsin Recall Is Important For A Lot of Reasons

Unless you're one of those people who watches ESPN and Lifetime as oppose to MSNBC or you
read Sports Illustrated and In Style Weekly over The New York Times and The Washington Post you
know that the state of Wisconsin is set for a recall election that is set to take place on June 5th. The
incumbent Republican Scott Walker, who was elected to the job almost two years ago, will face off with Milwaukee Mayor Tom Barrett, the man who Walker beat in that gubernatorial election in 2010.

At the risk of putting my liberal credentials on the line I generally am not a fan of recalls. As one of my favorite political pundits MSNBC's Melissa Harris-Perry often says elections do matter, plus I still have the terrible taste in my mouth from the California recall election of Governor Gray Davis in 2003. Uber-billionaire and all around scumbag Congressman Darrell Issa basically funded the recall from his vast personal fortune. It was also the recall election that made Arnold Schwarzenegger think he had a legitimate future in American Politics, because defeating the likes of the late Gary Coleman and porn star Mary Carey will make you think balancing budgets and getting us out of Afghanistan is easy.

Now at the risk of being called a hypocrite by the folks on the other side of the isle (as if I care) There is something different about this recall. Scott Walker the candidate and Scott Walker the Governor might as well be two different people. Candidate Walker campaigned on the notion that he would sit down at the table in good faith and negotiate with public employees concerning their collective bargaining rights as a move to tackle the state's budget problems, Once Governor Walker was unleashed however he in effect “took away the table” according to Wisconsin State Senator Lena Taylor.

Walker has become the poster boy for the Republican agenda to break every union in every state in the country. The GOP fascination with public unions stems from union support leaning largely Democratic, without that support Left-Wing candidates would not stand a chance of getting elected in places like Ohio, Pennsylvania, and yes Wisconsin. With other tea party darlings occupying Governorships like Nikki Haley in South Carolina and Bobby Jindal in Louisiana, The rights attacks on public unions are as commonplace as they ever were.

The bigger question I have going forward is no matter the outcome what is this going to mean not only for Wisconsin, but for the country. If Barrett pulls off the upset does he become what he never really has been, a guy who is beloved by public unions. The other thing is can Barrett as Governor repeal the state law signed into effect by Walker which cripples the collective bargaining rights of the public employees in the state. People may not be aware that four Republican State Senators are also up for recall on Tuesday. If Democrats are successful in turning one of those seats from red to blue they become the majority party and have more leverage to fight Walker's future measures assuming that he hangs on to his job.

The Wisconsin recall election could have ramifications nationally as well. A lot has been made about President Obama's absence from the state even though former President Bill Clinton has been to Wisconsin and stumped for Barrett. Would a Barrett win strengthen the President's standing in a state he won 4 years ago, or would it pour gasoline on a Republican fire that will stop at nothing (legally or illegally, Florida Governor Rick Scott) to evict him.

If you throw in The John Doe Investigation where allegations about Walker's time as a Milwaukee County executive are being called into question, The Wisconsin Soap Opera gets weirder by the day. The whispers about Walker included everything from embezzlement to doing campaign work with taxpayer money, think John Edwards without the mistress, unprotected sex and small child. Walker has been adament in saying that he is not a target of the investigation, but as the Barrett campaign has stated on numerous occasions, When you're Governor is the only one in the country with a criminal defense fund, it's not exactly the best image for the state to project. For those in Wisconsin who are worn out by all of the political talk It will all be over soon, at least until the next recall.