True Crime Reports, the Tiny Jim show and the likelihood of a slow and painful war
The vote for House Speaker occurs today at noon Eastern. The online rumors yesterday suggest Jim Jordan will be the next House Speaker, in the first or second vote. I’ve no way to verify rumors so won’t venture a guess about the outcome.
What’s certain is Jordan will prove incompetent if he wins. He has yet to get even one bill signed into law since he was first elected in 2006. Some history watchers suggest he’ll lead he House to a decision to not certify the results of the 2024 election, just as he tried to do in 2020. That’s probably his aim but again, his level of incompetence is so high that I suspect he’ll lose all credibility well before November 2024.
It would be good timing if HBO decided to release the George Clooney film about the Ohio State wrestling team sexual abuse scandal if Jordan is selected. That’s wishful thinking, sure, but after everything that’s occurred in the past 8 years, it’s becoming clear that many are invested in setting traps to catch crooked Republicans that didn’t get involved in the debacle that was the entire Trump presidency.
I feel safer making predictions about the other major issue in the news, the unfolding humanitarian crisis in Israel and Gaza after the HAMAS surprise attack ten days ago. Just because Israeli intel completely missed the boat with that original attack doesn’t mean they’ve suddenly become completely inept. I firmly believe they’re actively engaged in setting numerous traps to take out Hamas and perhaps Hezbollah too.
In their initial response they aimed for known Hamas hideouts. Yes, civilians died too because Hamas typically hides out in heavily civilian areas. That aggressive response sent the message that Israel’s ready to break all the rules in pursuit of the terrorists. Step two was warning all Gaza residents to flee or be bombed. The UN and others warned it would be a massive clusterf*** if the followed through. But the Israeli government has indicated they’d do what they want despite that.
That leaves the perception that a massive attack was immediately imminent. Which could be the whole point: to create a worrisome picture of a massive bombing campaign that might never come.
What if they’re warning people to flee while carefully monitoring who’s moving and where? They could be tracking where known Hamas enclaves are going. outside of negotiation it’s the only other way that they might be able to recover any hostages. Warn them to move, watch where they go. Some might lead them to where the hostages are hidden.
Or do you think Israel’s hoping to face international condemnation and a larger Middle East War with a massive civilian murder spree? I don’t.
Since the day of the attack, Secretary of State Blinken has been all over the Middle East, speaking to numerous Arab and Israeli leaders and even a Palestinian leader. Tomorrow, President Biden will be flying into Israel too. He’s already sent two naval groups into the area, instead of the usual one. That show of force is designed to discourage nations like Iran and Syria to stay far away.
Saying they’ve ‘found no evidence that Iran was involved’ in this specific attack could be a way to let Iran save face, an added incentive to stay away. There’s approximately 125 hostages. It’s a situation that doesn’t project to end well. If it takes house to house fighting, that’s some of the toughest fighting possible. For all who’ve been hurt in the initial attacks and the hostages, and their families, and for the troops and their families, I wish for peace and love and a kind path through any grief or struggle they face.
Humans have to evolve beyond so much war. Everywhere.
The FBI released their annual crime report yesterday. Murder and violent crime has been declining. Hate crimes have increased. Property crimes, which had declined for many years to a bottom 2 years ago, has been increasing. Historically, it’s still quite low. The biggest jump there has been in auto thefts.
That’s the reality. GOP politicians will remain on the attack this election year, claiming crime’s out of control under Biden. Facts, after all, no longer seem to matter to half of the Republicans.
But even the facts the FBI provides is only a partial picture because they don’t even track certain types of crime. Like white collar crime. Since 1929, the FBI’s crime categories are directed at street crimes. Police chiefs across the nation aren’t tracking crimes like bribery and embezzlement. One area that rarely gets any attention at all may be the biggest area of crime increase: wage theft by employers.
Per the nonprofit journalism group, The Appeal, that does extensive research on crime:
These offenses aren’t even necessarily the most harmful from a societal perspective. Property crimes accounted for roughly $30 billion in economic losses in 2019; in contrast, a 2014 estimate by the Economic Policy Institute found that wage theft cost workers nearly $50 billion every year. Similarly, just under 19,000 people were killed in homicides in 2020, less than one-tenth of the number of people in the U.S. who die of pollution-related causes each year. Although most of those deaths are caused by perfectly legal means (operating a coal power plant isn’t illegal), criminal enforcement of environmental laws is virtually nonexistent.
The FBI’s limited definition of “crime” means that official statistics present only a partial picture of criminality. If someone robs a McDonald’s, the robbery might show up in the annual crime statistics. But if McDonald’s steals money out of its workers’ paychecks, the FBI’s crime figures won’t count it. In this way, the outsized focus on the most sensational types of crime allows some of the most egregious offenders to escape notice. This matters because many police departments use crime data to decide where to invest their resources. If the data placed an equal emphasis on white-collar crimes, police might struggle to justify their current enforcement priorities.
I’m pretty sure the FBI also doesn’t track the crime spree the Trump gang’s responsible for, though that’s likely declined considerably since January 6, 2021.