Monday, January 19, 2015

Barker's Newsbites: Monday, January 19, 2015


Back to the grind...


Posted by at

6 comments:

William R. Barker said...

http://www.wsj.com/articles/eric-holders-good-deed-1421680450?mod=hp_opinion

It isn’t often that we...

* THE WALL STREET JOURNAL EDITORIAL PAGE AND BILL BARKER...

...praise Eric Holder , but the Attorney General deserves praise for reining in the increasingly abusive practice of “civil forfeiture,” which is the polite term for policing for profit.

The Justice Department announced on Friday that it is suspending a program known as “adoption,” whereby state and local officials seize property and then hand off the process and a share of the loot to the Justice Department. The federal government would keep 20% of the value of the seizure and send 80% back to the states, where it financed the police departments and prosecutors who seized the property in the first place.

The scheme became popular because it let state and local prosecutors evade state laws, which often require that the proceeds from civil forfeiture be kicked into a state’s general fund. The practice has brought in an astonishing $3 billion since 2008, covering about 55,000 individual seizures. Many are small businesses caught unfairly in some prosecution maw without the legal means to fight back.

* AGAIN...

Many are small businesses caught unfairly in some prosecution maw without the legal means to fight back.

According to the Institute for Justice, which tracks and litigates civil-forfeiture cases, 80% of people whose property is seized by the feds are never charged with a crime. The funds gathered by state and local law enforcement often exceed annual operating budgets, creating incentives for police to take property first, answer questions later.

* AGAIN...

80% of people whose property is seized by the feds are never charged with a crime.

Mr. Holder said the suspension is part of a comprehensive review of civil asset-forfeiture practices, and Friday’s order doesn’t erase the problem by any stretch. The order explicitly allows forfeiture programs that occur in the context of federal-state joint task forces — such as when the Drug Enforcement Administration works with local cops — and makes no changes in forfeiture programs operated under state laws.

(*FROWN*)

Mr. Holder’s order is also merely a suspension, so some future Attorney General could presumably reinstate it.

(President Obama ’s nominee to succeed Mr. Holder, Loretta Lynch, has been a big civil-forfeiture practitioner. Someone in the Senate should ask her if she’ll return Justice to bad practices as AG.)

A long-term solution rests with Congress, which ought to address abuses nationwide. Senate Judiciary Chairman Chuck Grassley, Senator Mike Lee, and House Judiciary liberal John Conyers and conservative Jim Sensenbrenner have encouraged Justice to act, and we hope they can find a way to put a more thoroughgoing reform on Mr. Obama’s desk in the current Congress.

* I'M FOR THAT!

It’s true that Mr. Holder is responding to bipartisan pressure, and his partisan history suggests he wouldn’t have acted if liberals and Democrats weren’t joining small-government conservatives in pushing reforms. But whatever his political motive, this may be the best legacy he’ll leave at Justice.

January 19, 2015 at 3:10 PM
William R. Barker said...

http://www.wsj.com/articles/dont-do-it-mr-romney-1421367202

Peggy Noonan's conversation with a Mitt Romney:

To the governor I said, in a world in which foreign affairs continue to be more important than ever, in a dangerous world with which we have ever more dealings, shouldn’t we be thinking about senators for the presidency, and not governors?

He listened closely, nodded, then shook his head. No, he said, governors still have the advantage. Why? Because foreign policy still comes down, always, to your gut, your instincts. And your instincts are sharpened by the kind of experience you get as a chief executive in a statehouse, which is constant negotiation with antagonists who have built-in power bases. You learn what works from success and failure with entrenched powers that can undo you, from unions to local pressure groups to unreliable allies. Being a governor is about handling real and discernible power. A governor can learn what a senator knows more easily than a senator can learn what a governor knows.

This will be one of the subtexts of the 2016 GOP presidential race.

If every voter in America were today given a secret toggle switch and told, “If you tug the toggle to the left, Barack Obama will stay president until January, 2017; if you tug it to the right, Mitt Romney will become president,” about 60% of the American people would tug right.

It must be hard for him to know that, and make him want to give it another try. But it’s also true that America would, right now, choose your Uncle Ralph who spends his time knitting over the current incumbent.

I add two reasons Mr. Romney should not run.

This is a moment in history that demands superior political gifts from one who would govern. Mitt Romney does not have them. He never did. He’s good at life and good at business and good at faith. He is politically clunky, always was and always will be. His clunkiness is seen in the way he leaked his interest in running: to mega-millionaires and billionaires in New York. “Tell your friends.”

Second, Romney enthusiasts like to compare him with Ronald Reagan, who ran three times. This is technically true, though 1968 was sort of a half-run in which Reagan got in late and dropped out early, because he wasn’t ready for the presidency and knew it. But his 1976 run was serious, almost triumphant, and won for him the party’s heart.

The real Romney-Reagan difference is this: There was something known as Reaganism. It was a real movement within the party and then the nation. Reaganism had meaning. You knew what you were voting for. It was a philosophy that people understood. Philosophies are powerful. They carry you, and if they are right and pertinent to the moment they make you inevitable.

There is no such thing as Romneyism and there never will be. Mr. Romney has never encompassed a philosophical world. He has never become the symbol of an attitude toward government, or an approach to freedom or fairness. “Romneyism” is just “Mitt should be president.” That is not enough.

He is a smart, nice and accomplished man who thinks himself clever and politically insightful. He is not and will not become so. He should devote himself to supporting and not attempting to lead the party that has raised him so high.

January 19, 2015 at 3:23 PM
William R. Barker said...

* TWO-PARTER... (Part 1 of 2)

http://www.wsj.com/articles/mary-anastasia-ogrady-hillarys-half-baked-haiti-project-1421018329?tesla=y

On the fifth anniversary of the 7.0 magnitude earthquake in Port-au-Prince, Haiti remains a poster child for waste, fraud and corruption in the handling of aid. Nowhere is the bureaucratic ineptitude and greed harder to accept than at the 607-acre Caracol Industrial Park, a project launched by former Secretary of State Hillary Clinton with U.S. taxpayer money...

* OF COURSE!

...under the supervision of her husband Bill and his Clinton Foundation.

(*SMIRK*) (*SNORT*) (*SNICKER*)

Between the State Department and the Inter-American Development Bank (IDB), which hands out grants to very poor countries thanks to U.S. generosity, hundreds of millions of dollars have been spent on this park in an attempt to attract apparel manufacturers. But the park is falling far short of the promises made to provide investors with necessary infrastructure. If things continue this way, frustrated investors will look for greener pastures.

Successful industrial parks are built by people who know the business and who demand accountability. This park was put in the hands of State, the IDB and Bill Clinton. The results have been predictable.

* ACTUALLY THIS ISN'T A "SMIRKING" TALE... IT'S AN OUTRAGE. WE SHOULD ALL BE DISGUSTED - AND REPELLED!

I had been warned about Caracol going to the dogs by sources on the ground in Haiti. So last month I traveled east by truck from Cap Haitien, across the poor rural north of the country to see if the alarm was justified. I found a project in trouble. It can be saved, but only if it is handed over to professionals with skin in the game.

* BUT THE WASTED TAXPAYER MONEY IS THE WASTED TAXPAYER MONEY... NEVER TO BE RECOUPED.

On paper Caracol makes sense. Thanks to special trade legislation passed by the U.S. Congress in Dec. 2006, Haitian-sewn apparel enters the U.S. duty free and the manufacturers can use fabric purchased from anywhere in the world. This gives Haiti a big advantage over apparel exporters to the U.S. who have to source the fabric in the U.S. even if they sew overseas.

* Er... BTY... IT ALSO SCREWS DOMESTIC GROWERS AND MANUFACTURERS! YES... THE U.S. GOVERNMENT IS SCREWING OUR OWN TEXTILES INDUSTRY AND OUR OWN TEXTILES WORKERS!

The State Department initially promised that the park would be able to support 65,000 direct jobs by 2020. The Clinton Foundation has made similar statements. That means constructing 40 10,000 square-meter buildings for garment assembly. It won’t happen at the current pace.

(*SILENCE*)

* TO BE CONTINUED...

January 19, 2015 at 3:41 PM
William R. Barker said...

* CONCLUDING... (Part 2 of 2)

The total job-creating capacity since the foundation stone was laid in November 2011 is three assembly buildings and a 10-megawatt power plant. A fourth workshop is under construction but is unlikely to be completed before late spring.

This must be tough to take for the anchor tenant, the Korean manufacturer Sae-A Trading Ltd. It has committed to a $78 million investment at Caracol and currently employs some 4,500 Haitians. It says it wants to hire 20,000. To do so it needs another dozen buildings.

A Dec. 12 IDB press release says the Haitian government is approved for a new $70 million grant to construct, among other things, three new production buildings by 2018 with a goal of providing space for 6,800 workers. Bank officials have to know that putting Haitian government officials in charge of such a project is likely to doom it. But let’s suppose I’m wrong and the buildings go up. The Caracol workforce will then be 11,300 — a far cry from the State Department’s estimate of 65,000 direct jobs or even the IBD’s forecast of 40,000.

(*SIGH*)

It’s understandable for the IDB to want to lower expectations. But the target should be higher and it shouldn’t take three years to boost capacity. Craig Miller, president of the Boston-based Waterfield Design Group and a consultant for the Haitian apparel sector, told me that “once the materials are on site, a 10,000 square-meter production workshop can be built in six to eight months.”

Apparel manufacturers in Haiti are hungry for production space but my sources say investors were not given an option to build their own workshops in Caracol. The Clinton planners — Hillary at State and Bill at the Clinton Foundation — wanted to retain that responsibility for reasons that can only be guessed. So now the producers have to wait.

(*ROLLING MY EYES*)

This is tragic for the thousands of Haitians eager to get the sewing jobs. Factory workers earn three times the average income in Haiti’s north. Sae-A produces for a wide number of American labels, such as Target and Wal-Mart, and the American companies regularly dispatch auditors to inspect work conditions. Even without the U.S. Labor Department breathing down its back, Sae-A has incentives to care for workers to retain them and boost productivity. Getting a spot on the assembly line opens the door to economic mobility, and that’s unusual in Haiti.

Haiti has a rare opportunity. Investors want to invest, workers want to work, and consumers want to buy. This seems like a good time for government to get out of the way.

January 19, 2015 at 3:42 PM
William R. Barker said...

* TWO-PARTER... (Part 1 of 2)

http://www.chicagotribune.com/news/opinion/chapman/ct-obama-nixon-boehner-state-union-address-perspec-0118-jm-20150116-column.html

Mid-January is the time to ask the annual question: Are we ready for a big, noisy, over-hyped prime-time production that has outgrown its simple origins and usually leaves us feeling both gorged and disappointed? If not, you may want to skip the State of the Union address and prepare for something humbler, like the Super Bowl.

(*THUMBS UP*)

President Barack Obama has been doing his best to make a low-news event a no-news event, by traveling the country unveiling the sort of programs presidents normally use the speech to unveil: free community college, paid job leaves, universal broadband access and more. By the time he actually ascends the House dais on Tuesday evening, we will already know pretty much everything he's going to say.

Too bad he isn't canceling the whole exercise. It would not be unprecedented. Richard Nixon decided to stay home in 1973, and that decision was not listed in the articles of impeachment. Dwight Eisenhower, recovering from a heart attack, elected not to appear in 1956, and both he and the country survived.

Not showing up on Capitol Hill used to be the norm. The Constitution says the president "shall from time to time give to the Congress information of the state of the union," but it doesn't specify the means of communication.

George Washington and John Adams delivered the address in person, but Thomas Jefferson sent written messages instead.

(The change, according to the Congressional Research Service, "was intended to simplify a ceremony that he believed to be an aristocratic imitation of the British monarch's Speech from the Throne, and thus unsuitable to a republic.")

His successors followed that commendable example of restraint for more than a century.

(It was the notably unrestrained Woodrow Wilson (D) who had the grand idea of visiting the Capitol to dazzle Congress with his radiance.)

It took another champion of the imperial presidency, Franklin Roosevelt (D), to cement this as the consistent practice.

Lyndon Johnson (D), no shrinking violet, moved the show to the evening to get a bigger TV audience.

* TO BE CONTINUED...

January 19, 2015 at 4:31 PM
William R. Barker said...

* CONCLUDING... (Part 2 of 2)

Republicans are also happy to exploit the occasion to the hilt: Ronald Reagan began the tradition of inviting and paying tribute to ordinary citizens who have done admirable things. There have been so many of those guests that there's a book about them.

The public appetite for the whole spectacle, however, is less than before. Since Obama's first one, the TV audience has shrunk every year. The 2014 viewer count was 33.3 million, down from 52.4 million in 2009.

(Laying out his agenda in advance is not likely to boost this year's Nielsen rating.)

There will always be those citizens who will tune in hoping to see Obama clutching a Koran or Joe Biden throwing a spitball at John Boehner. Or - who knows? - maybe some livid House member will interrupt the president to bellow, "You lie!"

* AND TELLING THE GOD'S HONEST TRUTH VIA THE ACCURATE ACCUSATION!

But most people who watch most likely will do so out of a heavy sense of civic duty rather than any urgent interest or any expectation that they'll learn much.

Presidents, of course, love these occasions for letting them occupy the undisputed center of attention, basking in waves of applause. The occasion dramatizes the theme of the 2008 book "The Cult of the Presidency," by Cato Institute analyst Gene Healy: the chief executive as "the great leader of the Progressives' dreams, Herbert Croly's 'Thor wielding with power and effect a sledge hammer in the cause of national righteousness.'"

The State of the Union address has grown in step with presidential presumption. It's a conspicuous symptom of a dangerous malady: We expect too much of our presidents and limit them too little.

Whether this event is still worth their time, however, is doubtful. If there was ever a time that direct exposure to presidential eloquence could melt the hearts of hostile legislators, it has passed. Even the public seems to have acquired immunity.

The effort often backfires. "In a 2013 analysis of SOTU polling," Healy has noted, "Gallup found that 'most presidents have shown an average decrease in approval of one or more points between the last poll conducted before the State of the Union and the first one conducted afterward.'"

Obama might be surprised to learn that killing it off would have no downside. When Calvin Coolidge woke up from his daily White House nap, he would puckishly ask an aide: "Is the country still there?" It always was.

January 19, 2015 at 4:31 PM

Post a Comment

Subscribe to: Post Comments (Atom)