Red Light, Green Cash

An interesting story from Bloomberg this weekend:  red light cameras aren't generating the revenues cash-strapped local governments were looking for because drivers are actually paying attention to them and obeying traffic laws, and costs for lawsuits against the cameras are mounting.

Miami, which counted on $10 million in fines from motorists caught on camera running red lights, is planning to furlough some workers in part because penalties didn’t come close to forecasts as drivers began obeying the law.

Houston, where voters banned cameras in November, will receive about $10 million less than anticipated and faces a potential claim from supplier American Traffic Solutions Inc. for canceling a contract. The Los Angeles Police Commission voted last month to let its agreement with American Traffic expire, citing the expense.

Since cameras began spying on motorists in the late 1980s, they’ve faced lawsuits challenging their constitutionality, been banned in voter initiatives and restricted by legislation. That hasn’t stopped U.S. cities from deploying them: The number of municipalities with cameras has doubled to 539 since 2007, according to the Washington-based Insurance Institute for Highway Safety.

“This is about money and not about safety,” Ted Hollander, a Fort Lauderdale attorney who defends people charged with traffic offenses, said in an interview.

Redflex Holdings Ltd. (RDF), a South Melbourne, Australia-based camera supplier, successfully defended itself against lawsuits challenging its product in 10 states last year and legislation that would ban them in six, according to its annual report.

An Arizona employee of the company was shot and killed while monitoring a speed-detecting camera in 2009. 

Imagine that.  They actually worked too well, and the cost of having them is starting to exceed the revenues generated, despite some 2000 localities having these things around.  Talk about unintended consequences.

There's no doubt cities put these up to make money.  Anyone who tells you different is lying.  But motorists don't often run red lights when these things are around.  Maybe people are driving smarter.  Maybe gas costs mean people are driving less or relying on public transportation more.  But these cameras aren't the gold mines cities thought they'd be...they're more like land mines.

More On The Most Spiked Story This Year

There's been very little said about the biggest domestic terror story of the year: the white supremacist movement in the Pacific Northwest, its connections to a bomb planted at the Spokane, Washington MLK Day parade in January, and what it really means in an America with a black President.  There's been little to no information to report about suspect Kevin William Harpham, but after six months the legal defense for Harpham is beginning to firm up.

Kevin Harpham's attorneys wrote late last month that none of the four definitions of a "weapon of mass destruction" in federal law referenced an "improvised explosive device."

"Mr. Harpham's preparation for trial, including his consultation with potential expert witnesses and confrontation of government witnesses will differ, depending on what legal definition of 'weapon of mass destruction' forms the basis of the indictment," Kimberly A. Deate and Kailey E. Moran wrote on Harpham's behalf. "Clarification of this issue will also ultimately be necessary for the formulation of jury instructions."

In a motion this week, federal prosecutors responded to a request for a bill of particulars by attorneys for Harpham. The Justice Department's lawyers said that under federal law a weapon of mass destruction is a destructive device, which is defined as an explosive, incendiary or poison gas bomb, grenade, rocket having a propellant charge of more than four ounces, missile having an explosive or incendiary charge of more than one-quarter ounce or mine.

In other words, his lawyers aren't going for the defense that Harpham wasn't trying to kill black celebrants at a parade to honor the nation's most famous civil rights leader, but that the device he was using to try to kill people didn't have enough bang to be considered a weapon of mass destruction.  That's what his lawyers are saying.

Awesome.  Maybe David Duke should make a statement on Harpham's behalf as part of his Presidential campaign.

No Dealing On The Debt Ceiling, Part 31

Ahh, the Debt Ceiling battle.  You know something's up when Orange Julius has gone right back to his position from early this year, which is "If we don't raise the debt ceiling and America defaults, it'll be catastrophic for the economy."

In a political role reversal Friday, House Speaker John Boehner (R-OH) warned that Congress risks severely harming the economy and exacerbating the unemployment crisis if it fails to raise the national debt ceiling in the next four weeks.
"While some think we can go past August 2nd, I frankly think it puts us in an awful lot of jeopardy, and puts our economy in jeopardy, risking even more jobs," Boehner told reporters at his weekly Capitol briefing.

So what's his game?  Why the reversal?  Republicans have not only spent months trying to convince Americans of the fallacy that federal government spending should operate exactly like an American family's finances ("macroeconomics at the highest level should work exactly like microeconomics at the smallest" which is patently ridiculous) but they've been adding that the country can default on its debt and miss a payment without any real world consequences, either.

I've said for months now that the consequences of a default would be to cause interest rates to double or triple from their current position.  The cost of borrowing gobs of money would skyrocket, and Wall Street has been happily borrowing gobs of money at ridiculously low interest rates for a couple of years now.  They're having a great time doing it, too.  Corporate profits are up sharply.  Stockholders are generally happy.  CEOs are raking in the cash.  For Wall Street especially, they've got all kinds of cash to play Big Casino games with the economy just like they were during all of the last decade.  A default would mean the end of the gravy train.

The Crazy Tea Party wing and the Greedy Evil Corporate wing of the GOP are now in open conflict.  Eric Cantor, Michele Bachmann, Jim DeMint, Rick Santorum and the rest may be taking orders from the former, but Orange Julius is taking his orders from the latter, and they want this debt ceiling default nonsense gone.  Yes, the Tea Party types have been shrieking that raising the debt ceiling will be done over their politically dead bodies, but the guys with the gold-plated toilets and the billion-dollar hedge fund manager incomes figure they're in charge of the Republicans, and Orange Julius here proves it.

Oh yes, the Tea Party will threaten to remove Boehner from power, just like they did in December when President Obama pulled a fast one over on them.  He's not going anywhere.  Not unless the voters across the river from me in the tony Cincy suburbs north of the 275 loop suddenly develop souls.  I said long ago that the GOP would never be allowed to blow up the bond markets.  This complete reversal proves the moneyed interests are now playing hardball and want a deal ironed out now.  Orange Julius has been given his marching orders.

The only question at this point is what the details of the deal are.  But it's happening and soon.

[UPDATE] And the reason I said there would be a deal soon was that otherwise, Orange Julius's career was over.  But looks like he just blew it big time. Looks like Orange Julius is pulling out of the talks, which means he doesn't have the votes, which means that while Wall Street is certainly leading him around by the nose, the Tea Party crazies have just sabotaged the whole thing and have decided there will never be a deal.Orange Julius just lost control of the asylum.  By comparison, President Obama looks like the adult in the room.  It's almost like President Obama knows what he's doing in these negotiations, and he's just put Boehner in an untenable position.  Things will fall apart quickly now for the GOP.

Up In Smoke - Willy Style

From my beloved TMZ:

The judge in Wilie's Texas marijuana case rejected a plea deal struck between Willie and the D.A. in which Willie would have paid $500 and the case would have gone away.  The judge felt the deal reeked of celebrity justice so he told them to come up with a stronger punishment -- with a maximum of one year in jail.

But sources connected with the case tell TMZ ... there's a "strong possibility" the prosecutor will not recommend a stronger punishment, but instead just sit on the case until it's dismissed for lack of prosecution.

Call it defiant, but the prosecutor is riding a wave in Texas to treat marijuana possession for what it is ... and not fill the overcrowded jails with recreational potheads.

The Kroog Versus The Current Narrative

Via Steve Benen, Paul Krugman has a point:

After the release of the June job numbers, there were plenty of worthwhile charts and graphs making the rounds, but this one from Paul Krugman was especially helpful.

If the bond markets truly thought we had a debt problem, the 10-year would be at double-digit yields. Instead it's at historic lows. We can afford to borrow the money to fix the unemployment problem. It's right there in the numbers. We can do it. US debt is a good investment according to the people who put their money where their mouths are.

Why we're not doing so is pure politics.

Like Father, Like Son

Rupert Murdoch's son James is apparently the guy that's going to be left holding the bag for the News Corp. phone hacking scandal.

Mr. Murdoch appeared to act quickly to close The News of the World, Britain’s largest-circulation Sunday paper, which his father has owned for more than four decades.

Yet the decision was nearly four months in the making, and was as much an effort to shed jobs and save money in a beleaguered industry and shift resources to broadcasting as it was a response to the outcry over the scandal’s new revelations, according to the two people briefed on the matter, who spoke on the condition of anonymity to discuss internal concerns. Some employees are expected to move eventually to the Murdochs’ other tabloid, The Sun, when it expands to publish on Sunday, they said.

James Murdoch has already faced renewed criticism for the way the company has managed the investigation since 2007, when he was given oversight of News International, the News Corporation’s British subsidiary. On his watch, the company blamed one “rogue reporter” for the scandal, and he approved payouts to some hacker victims.

He suddenly finds himself a target of the British political and business establishment that his father influenced by wielding the power of his newspapers to decide elections and tarnish — or burnish — reputations. When Prime Minister David Cameron was asked Friday if James Murdoch should be questioned by the police in the hacking scandal, he said anyone, “no matter how high or low,” was fair game for investigators. 

That shows you just how pervasive this scandal was, and how ruthless Rupert is:  it's clear that the plan is for him to serve up his own son to keep the pitchforks and torches at bay.  Not that James Murdoch is an upright guy or anything, he's a sleazebag like his dad.   But ol' Pops just put his son on the griddle, and dinner is about to be served, folks...

You Just Have To Tighten A Couple Nuts, Apparently

The husband of GOP presidential "contender" and Minnesota Rep. Michele Bachmann, psychologist Dr. Marcus Bachmann, has already stirred the pot with his horrible comments referring to gays as "barbarians".  But Mariah Blake over at The Nation has discovered that the good doctor's antipathy towards the gay community extends to efforts at his counseling clinics to try to "cure" homosexuality.

As Republican presidential contender Michele Bachmann has surged in the polls, the spotlight has turned on her husband and main political adviser, Marcus Bachmann, who has a PhD in clinical psychology and owns two Christian counseling centers in Minnesota. There has been a great deal of speculation that his clinics, which have received $161,000 in state and federal funding, try to cure homosexuality—and the chatter has only grown louder since his comments likening gays to “barbarians” who “need to be educated” and “disciplined” surfaced in the blogosphere last week. Marcus Bachmann has denied these allegations. “That’s a false statement,” he replied when the Minneapolis City Pages asked if his clinic tried to cure gays. And until now there was no firm evidence to back these allegations up. But information obtained by The Nation suggests that Bachmann & Associates therapists do, in fact, try to change sexual orientation. It also sheds new light on the Bachmanns’ embrace of the controversial ex-gay movement and related psychological approaches, which portray homosexuality as a disease to be rooted out.

Some of the most potent material was provided by Truth Wins Out, a gay-rights group that opposes the ex-gay movement. In late June, a Truth Wins Out activist named John Becker donned two hidden cameras—one embedded in a wristwatch—and attended five treatment sessions at Bachmann’s Lake Elmo clinic. Becker, who is openly gay, presented himself as a committed Christian who was struggling with homosexuality. The video he collected seems to confirm Ramirez’s allegations that staff members at Bachmann & Associates try to change sexual orientation. Becker’s therapist (another of Marcus Bachmann’s employees) repeatedly assured him that homosexuality could be overcome.
“At the core value…in terms of how God created us, we’re all heterosexual,” he explained, according to the footage. “God has created you for heterosexuality.” The therapist also mined Becker’s personal history for traumatic experiences that might have turned him gay. To curb Becker’s gay impulses, the therapist urged him to pray and read Scripture and suggested Becker “develop” his masculinity. He also encouraged him to find a “heterosexual guy” to act as act as an AA-type sponsor. Later, he referred Becker to Outpost Ministries, a church that helps “the sexually and relationally broken”—in other words, homosexuals—“find healing and restoration through relationship with Jesus Christ.”

At moments in the videos, Becker seemed to try to bait the therapist into saying something controversial. For instance, Becker brought up a conversation in which his brother told him that gay people could just as easily go to heaven as anyone else and pressed the therapist to say this wasn’t so: “I mean, he was wrong, right, with what he said? He was wrong, wasn’t he?” The therapist tried to dodge the question. Becker pressed him again, and the therapist changed the subject. In later sessions, Becker spoke excitedly about ex-gay literature he’d found, which raises the question: to what degree was the therapist simply following his lead?

Both Bachmann & Associates and the Bachmann campaign declined to comment for this story, though in the past Marcus Bachmann has insisted his clinics don’t push people to change their sexual orientation. “If someone comes in a homosexual and they want to stay a homosexual, I don’t have a problem with that,” he told the Minneapolis City Pages. Nevertheless, the techniques the therapist at his Lake Elmo clinic used were typical of so-called reparative therapies, which cast homosexuality as a mental disorder and see conversion to heterosexuality as the only healthy outcome. “The explicit goal of the sessions was transforming Becker from homosexual to heterosexual,” says Wayne Besen, Truth Wins Out’s executive director.

This is pretty heavy stuff.  Any actual mental health professional would have helped Becker cope, or would have suggested a support network, or organizations that could have assisted them.  But trying to "cure" homosexuality is ridiculous.  And Marcus Bachmann is a licensed psycholgist?

Michele and her husband are the kind of people we should be putting in the White House to run the country?  That's, well, insane.  If you didn't think there were serious problems with these two before, this week pretty much seals the deal.

StupidiNews, Weekend Edition!

• Former First Lady Betty Ford, breast cancer survivor, feminist icon and warrior against substance abuse, has passed at the age of 93.
• Civil rights groups are suing the state of Alabama over its immigration law that criminalizes having an undocumented immigrant as a vehicle passenger.
• South Sudan is the world's newest country, coming into existence Saturday after years of civil war and struggle.
• Former News of the World editor and UK PM press pointman Andy Coulson has been arrested in connection with the Murdoch voicemail hacking scandal.
• Renewable energy sources now top the amount of power provided by nuclear reactors in the United States.

Last Call

David Leonhardt explores the steep cost of austerity hysteria to our economy.

In all kinds of ways — consumer demand, the federal deficit, even the weather — the medium-term future is highly uncertain. But this uncertainty, while the main problem, is not the only problem. We are also committing an unforced economic error. We’re cutting government at the same time that the private sector is cutting.

It is the classic mistake to make after a financial crisis. Hoover and even Roosevelt made a version of it in the 1930s. The Japanese made a version of it in the 1990s. Now we are making it.

Federal payrolls have been roughly flat for years (even as the population has been growing). But state and local payrolls grew over the last decade, by almost 20,000 jobs a month on average.

Since the crisis began and state and local taxes began plummeting, though, governments began to cut back. At first, the federal government stepped in, with the 2009 stimulus bill, and sent fiscal aid to states. Then the aid stopped.

In round numbers, state and local governments have cut about a half million jobs over the last two years. If they had continued to hire at their previous pace — expanding as the population expanded — they would have added about a half million jobs.

Oh, that's not the bad part.  This is.

Source: Bureau of Labor Statistics, via Haver Analytics

In other words, the state and local austerity of the last two years has cost the economy about one million jobs.

And best case scenario the jobs that are replacing these government jobs:  teachers, firefighters, cops, etc, pay far less.  But this is exactly what state and local Republican party officials told us needed to happen.  We had to "trim the fat".  We had to "get rid of people making money off the government dime".  We were told that if we did this, the private sector would hire them.

And so we did, slashing jobs and putting these employees on unemployment and early retirement, and the private sector?  Well, let's just say they haven't added a million equally-paying private sector jobs yet.  Surprise!  The private sector is sitting on their cash waiting, or sending job overseas because that's where the demand for their products is growing.  The middle-class?  Certainly not growing in America, nope.

Once again, we're doing exactly what the Republicans say we should have done, and lo and behold, it's making the economy worse.  Shocker.  Republicans don't know a damn thing about economics.  But they're the party of fiscal responsibility, alright.

Ban-imal Cruelty

Post of the day goes to Steve M. for this:

Michele Bachmann is the first presidential candidate to sign the pledge currently being circulated by the Family Leader, a religious-right group formerly known as the Iowa Family Policy Center. The main thrust of the pledge is a vow to protect "traditional marriage" from usurping gay, "quickie divorce," and other reportedly dire threats. But as I noted in an update to my previous post on the pledge, it also includes this pronouncement (from the PDF of the text of the pledge, at the Family Leader's site):

Slavery had a disastrous impact on African-American families, yet sadly a child born into slavery in 1860 was more likely to be raised by his mother and father in a two-parent household than was an African-American baby born after the election of the USA‟s first African-American President.

So not only was slavery an good thing for marriage, but illegitimacy was apparently invented by the guy who was inaugurated on January 20, 2009. Bachmann reads that and says, "Yup, sounds good to me."

The source for this, according to the text of the pledge, is a paper (PDF) published under the aegis of the Institute for American Values ... in 2005. So not only is our evil Negro president destroying marriage, he's using a time machine to do so. The fiend!

Best part of the Winger defense of this nonsense?  If you don't agree with Bachmann, you hate women.  Hating gays, minorities, and President Obama's time machine?  Well, that's perfectly okay.

So glad our Republican 2012 Clown Car Kids are pledging to deal with the important issues to voters.

No Dealing On The Debt Ceiling, Part 30

Over at Power Line, John Hindraker is incensed that the Republicans are even considering a deal.

Republicans should have nothing to do with such banana republic proceedings. There should be no eleventh-hour cosmic bipartisan deal on the budget. The nation’s fiscal future should be debated and legislated on in an organized, transparent, legal, public manner. First choice: Republicans vote against an increase in the debt limit. Contrary to hysterical pronouncements from the likes of the discredited Tim Geithner, this would not cause the federal government to default on its bonds. Rather, the government would continue to pay principal and interest as it comes due, and would be forced to cut spending in other areas. Second choice: Republicans vote to increase the debt limit in exchange for specific, tangible spending cuts or other consideration–e.g., reductions in the continuing resolutions that fund FY 2011 spending–not in connection with a grand compromise. Third choice: Republicans vote to increase the debt limit with no conditions and no grand compromise, reserving all issues relating to the federal budget, future taxes, entitlement reform, etc. for another day and for an appropriate legislative process. Worst choice: Republicans join hands with Democrats and go over the fiscal waterfall together, to the Democrats’ everlasting political gain.

That's his plan: refuse to raise the debt ceiling, and spending cuts will simply happen.  What he doesn't mention is how deep and painful those cuts would be, especially with no revenue boosts.  In fact, as NRO's Andrew McCarthy pointed out in April, that's exactly what the Republicans want to happen.  Paying for Social Security, Medicare, and Medicaid would then not even leave enough to cover defense spending at the Pentagon...and that would mean the end of every single other government program.

The $395 billion can’t cover the nearly $700 billion for the Pentagon, and it certainly can’t be further stretched to cover another $115 billion or so for homeland security, $82 billion for HHS, $77 billion for Education, $42 billion for HUD, $21 billion for DOJ, $22 billion for agriculture, $14 billion for Treasury, $13 billion each for the Labor and Transportation Departments, $12 billion for Interior, $10 billion for EPA, and on and on and on (see here for relevant OMB tables — discretionary spending is table S-11). And all of that doesn’t count the prohibitive costs of Obamacare down the road.

So, no national parks.  No federal money for schools.  No Pell grants.  No money for highway repair.  No federal law enforcement.  No airport security.  No farm subsidies.  No federal unemployment benefits.  No food and drug testing.  No food stamps.  Nothing.  Drowned in the bathtub.  And that is the optimal outcome according to these guys.

So no, the notion that there's a deal coming on the debt ceiling?  I don't buy it.

Rotten Apple

Turns out there's a big security flaw in Apple's iOS (and has been for a long time now) that hackers could use to gain control of an iPhone or iPad.

The security flaw in Apple's iOS operating system came to light on Wednesday as the website www.jailbreakme.com released code that Apple customers can use to modify the iOS operating system through a process known as "jail breaking."

Some Apple customers choose to jail break their devices so they can download and run applications that are not approved by Apple or use iPhone phones on networks of carriers that are not approved by Apple.

Security experts warned that criminal hackers could download that code, reverse engineer it to identify a hole in iOS security and build a piece of malicious software within a few days.

"If you are a malicious attacker, it is fairly doable," said Patrik Runald, a senior researcher with the Internet security firm Websense.

Apple says they're going to fix it in a future release, but until then, who knows.  Android certainly has its share of security issues being an open system, but iOS is nowhere near bulletproof, either.  Both Google and Apple need to get to work, apparently.

Show Me Progress

COLUMBIA, Mo. (AP) — Missouri marijuana advocates want to ask voters next year to legalize the drug and regulate its medical use.

A group called Show-Me Cannabis filed its initiative request with the Missouri Secretary of State on Wednesday.

If the state approves the ballot language for the proposed Missouri constitutional amendment, supporters would need to collect enough signatures from registered voters by next May to get the question on the November ballot.

The measure would decriminalize pot use, possession and small-scale cultivation by Missourians age 21 and older. It would also require the state to issue retail licenses to sell the drug and oversee a medical marijuana program.

Sixteen states have medical marijuana programs. Activists are targeting several other states next year.

It's interesting to see what happens in this state, because Missouri so often surprises in the polls.  However, it would have a huge impact on surrounding states.  Drug enforcement programs are losing the war on meth, this would better direct resources while budget cuts make those departments take efficiency to whole new levels.  That is putting the cart before the horse, however.  The real fun will be watching it play out and seeing who dares show support.   

Missouri's budget can't pour much more into the black hole of the war on marijuana.  When it comes to a little hippie action versus the ravaging plague that is meth, to me there is no question what should be a priority.  But as we know, the most intelligent solution isn't always the most profitable.

That's Some Fine Police Work There, Lou

ST. LOUIS • With police on high alert from a spike of car break-ins — and Mayor Francis Slay demanding gates and guards at public parking lots — authorities fumbled an unusual opportunity last weekend to catch a thief red-handed.

A cellphone swiped from a car near Union Station late June 24 contained a tracking device that lets its owners follow every movement. But they said they were unable to get St. Louis police interested for hours, until after the phone's battery died and the chance was lost.

This is more than just a phone, however.  There was approximately $4,000 in property stolen as well.  Thanks to an app on their iPad, the victims were able to watch their property move from house to house in real time. Police are now watching the neighborhood because yet another phone was tracked there.  But here is the kicker, the couple was advised to go track the phone themselves, and then call the cops when they got there.  They exposed a family to known criminals on flaky advice, and the police didn't show up for ten hours.  It's a miracle they weren't spotted and harmed.

Upon realizing they had found a direct link to the probable thief, the couple called the beat officer who responded earlier. He transferred them to the 6th District, where they spoke to someone on the desk whom police officials have not been able to identify. The couple said that person told them officers were too busy and that they should drive to the location themselves the next day — because calling from there would ensure a response.

They followed the instructions, driving out after their son's Saturday morning baseball game. By the time officers arrived, 10 hours had passed since their call.

The mayor decided to blame the security at the parking lots, claiming they had failed to put up proper lighting and fencing, and insufficient guard coverage.

Jobapalooza

June unemployment numbers are in, and they are not good.

Nonfarm payrolls rose only 18,000, the weakest reading since September, the Labor Department said on Friday, well below economists' expectations for a 90,000 rise.

The unemployment rate climbed to a six-month high of 9.2 percent, even as jobseekers left the labor force in droves, from 9.1 percent in May. 

"The message on the economy is ongoing stagnation," said Pierre Ellis, senior economist at Decision economics in New York. "Income growth is marginal so there's no indication of momentum. 

The government revised April and May payrolls to show 44,000 fewer jobs created than previously reported. 

That laser-like focus on jobs the Republicans promised when America voted them into power?  Yeah, still waiting on that.  Remember, the GOP jobs program is to cut corporate taxes on corporations already paying zero taxes.  Jobs bills, zero.  Abortion bills?  Dozens.  Focus, people!

Meanwhile, U-6 is up to 16.4% again.  Not good.