Morning Ed: World {2017.01.02.M}
In 1939, Lina Medina gave birth. She was five years old.
The Israeli Army is putting autism to use.
There’s a new-ish book on the mysterious disappearing Japanese. But maybe you should skip it?
Venezuela: Lynchings every three days.
A look at the history and conflict in Tibet.
Peter Hessler looks at life along the Chinese-Russian border.
How the Soviet Union could have won (or at least survived) the Cold War.
Romania has 99 problems, but right-wing populism apparently isn’t one of them.
As LeeEsq has pointed out, the Romanians have survived Trump’s closest analogy probably:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nicolae_Ceau%C8%99escu
They probably have very little desire to experience something like this again.Report
People should watch documentaries about Nicolae Ceausescu. There are a few them for free on youtube. Its scary. The man turned all of Romania into stage and everybody had to take part in his theatrical productions as a cast member or as part of the audience.Report
What I remember about Ceausescu is the discovery about the orphanages, filled with babies no one wanted as a result of the ban on abortion.Report
Actually the real problem wasn’t the ban on abortion but was instead the ban on contraceptives.Report
Comparing Trump to a communist,really? Try harder.Report
The how could the Soviets win article was dumb. The best way for the Soviet Union to win the Cold War was to avoid it entirely. This meant that Stalin does not come to power and Bukharin and the Right Bolsheviks become the leaders of the Soviet Union. NEP continues and the USSR develops into something like China under Deng. It will be market oriented enough not to scare Midwestern Americans into thinking that the Soviets are out to destroy American Protestant capitalist civilization.
If we are assuming that the point of departure is after World War II than the easiest way for the Soviet Union to survive is not to invade Afghanistan. That gave the Americans and British an excuse to ramp up defense spending in the late Cold War, which the USSR had to respond to, and the eventual collapse.Report
I was watching the Disney channel with the kid and they are rebooting DuckTales. I hope they don’t mess it up.Report
Trump blasts Chicago mayor Rahm Emanuel for record-setting 762 homicides and 4,331 shooting victims in 2016 and says he ‘must ask for Federal help’ if he can’t fix Windy City.
http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-4080790/Chicago-records-762-homicides-2016-making-bloodiest-12-months-20-YEARS-Windy-City.html
I’m beginning to wonder if the Tweets are a way to speak to the people directly without the media filter.Report
What the heck are the feds going to do? Send the 101st to patrol the streets? If Obama did something like this conservatives would howl over meddling in local issues and turn it into the sequel to Jade Helm 15. But I guess now that Republicans are in power local control is passé.Report
Help them enforce federal guns laws with the atf and federal prosecutors, who knows? I’m sure there are several things the feds can help with that don’t involve troops. If they need troops, the Ill gov should call in the natl guard.Report
Do you really think the issue is they have all of these guys arrested and nothing that they can book them with? Chicago’s issue is manpower, an undisciplined police force that the public doesn’t trust and poor leadership. Maybe the feds can drop money from a helicopter, but there’s not much else they can do.Report
It must be nice to be all knowing that nothing the feds can possibly do will work. I guess the only answer then is to do is nothing, exactly what Rahm has done.Report
25 years ago, the Chicago PD homicide clearing rate was 80% (with a higher homicide rate), today it’s 25%. The national average is 64%. The things that Chicago needs done are not what the feds do. They don’t have the manpower or expertise to do it. The organizations that could help are other big city municipal PDs like the NYPD, LAPD or Dallas PD. The CPD has 3 times as many officers as the ATF has total employees, including officers, what are they going to be able to do?Report
Whoa, whoa, whoa. Let’s slow down here. Rahm is gonna create a task force to look into this, and they’ll write up a proposal on how to resolve this problem, and then Rahm will go to the voters with the proposal written by the task force looking into how to resolve this problem. S’all good.
Oh wait. Now that I think about it, maybe the problem is Rahm.Report
Sure, there are no federal gang laws that might be applied and the feds have never run an anti gang task force either. Keep dreaming that there isn’t anything the feds can do to help.Report
The issue in Chicago is that they’ve drawn down police coverage and social workers, a federal anti-gang task force isn’t going to solve that. Also, modern gangs in Chicago are much smaller and more splintered than the old large, cross-state gangs that the federal task forces are good at penetrating and breaking up.
The biggest issue is the mistrust between the community and the PD. Trump’s rhetoric and instinctual responses, to back the PD no matter what, are the precise opposite of what is needed to improve trust and communication. That mistrust is why the police has had to disengage.Report
Funny, I didn’t say solve, I said help. All I keep hearing is nothing can be done which is BS.Report
How does calling in the feds help them improve community relations? How does it help them hire more social workers? The feds aren’t good at local crime problems, that takes local knowledges and community engagement, exactly what you don’t get from the feds. The feds help you connect the dots, identify large, mutli-state organizations. They’re not good at small gangs that arise from projects that got closed and their residents dispersed in the city. And something tells me the Trump/Sessions DoJ isn’t going to focus on working on reducing local police bias and the mistrust caused by it.
So what exactly do you think are the specific issues relevant to Chicago that the Feds can help out with? Because it sure seems like your former support for local wisdom went out the window because you need to reflexively support something Trump said.Report
Let’s be honest, your arguement depends on you proving that there isn’t any way for the feds to help. This simply isn’t possible.Report
So you don’t have an answer and choose to deflect.
I pointed out the problem is the close rate flipping from 80%-25% due to a combo of departmental issues and local mistrust. That’s local police stuff, ATF and federal prosecutors doesn’t solve that core issue.Report
I didn’t say that the feds could help in every area, just some of them. I’m sure they could fund some community social programs via block grants or some other means. Maybe they can’t help in that area, who knows. You want to focus on this one area because you think that can’t help while purposefully ignoring other ways they can help. You keep insisting there isn’t anything the feds can do to help which is just BS.Report
Odd that you say, “I’m sure they could fund some community social programs via block grants or some other means,” and say that I insist that there’s nothing that they could do, when you cribbed that from my earlier comments about dropping money on the problem.Report
The fact the feds can help in some way, form or fashion still remains unrebutted by you. You really shouldnt make such unequivocalable statements as they are the easiest to argue against.Report
Give the guy some slack, notme. None of us can tell whutcher bitching about from moment to moment. I certainly don’t know and I don’t think anyone does including you. Just general bitching. Then more of it.Report
It’s simple enough for even you if you read the entire thread, instead of whinging. Mo contends that the feds can’t do anything to help but has yet to prove it.Report
“Prove”. There’s that word again. You, being a lahhyer and all, should know ….
Oh you know the rest by now.Report
Yes, I know that is your BS answer when you don’t have anything relevant to add. Or maybe that is your way of trying and failing to bail Mo out of the spot he is in.Report
“relevant to add”?
How bout this: I didn’t know you were such a big Obama fan.Report
26 children gunned down.
Eh, whaddaya gonna do? Maybe pass out guns to the toddlers.
A slightly higher level of urban homicides.
ERMAGERD, lets call out the National Guard!Report
Gun control clearly hasn’t worked has it?
As long as the culture says this type of behavior is okay then it will probably contineReport
What Chicago needs, clearly, is Moar guns.Report
“Help them enforce federal guns laws with the atf and federal prosecutors, who knows?” – NotMeReport
More than slightly.Report
But lower than 20 years ago, and lower than 30 years ago.
I don’t recall Clinton calling out the National Guard.Report
Sure, and I don’t support sending in the feds (or collecting the guns) now. But a problem is a problem, and no point in waving it away as slight.Report
Last time I checked, clinton wasn’t ever the gov of Illinois. When he was gov of Arkansas, they didn’t have such a high murder rate. Additionally, I don’t remember Arkansas’ cities having lots of gun control either.Report
When he was gov of Arkansas, they didn’t have such a high murder rate.
Other than the people he and Hillary killed personally, of course.Report
“I’m beginning to wonder if the Tweets are a way to speak to the people directly without the media filter.”
Yes, because before Twitter, we all know that the President was incapable of having his voice heard by the people.Report
It’s not an entirely invalid point.
Your typical Presidential message is typically chopped up and repackaged into short clips as part of a larger story on whatever subject the President is talking about. (And guys like Reagan and B Clinton were able to lean into this sound byte culture to get the desired effects of their message) But still, there’s a chance of something being lost in translation.Report
If only there were ways other than the major media outlets or Twitters… I mean, I guess Lincoln used MySpace and FDR held his fireside Facebook Live shows.Report