As the owner of two Labrador retrievers this story just flat out makes me angry:

Last Tuesday, [Mayor Cheye Calvo] arrived home from his full-time job as an executive with SEED Foundation, which establishes urban public charter schools. He took the unopened package inside and placed it on a table near the door. He changed clothes and walked the dogs, waving to the men and women sitting in cars near his home. He did not know they were police.

He returned and went upstairs to get dressed for an event. As he changed clothes, SWAT team members darted across the fenced-in lot. Porter, 50, was cooking artichokes in the kitchen and screamed when she saw the approaching masked men with guns.

The door was kicked in and gunshots rang out, [Mayor Cheye] Calvo said. Police killed one dog, Payton — named for football running back Walter Payton — even though Porter was standing next to him.

Police have said the dogs “engaged” officers. Calvo confirmed that Payton probably moved toward the door but would have ultimately done nothing more than lick them.

…

Chase was shot while running away from sheriff’s deputies, Calvo said.

“He was hunted down and shot in the back while he fled,” he said. “They didn’t deserve to die. They don’t deserve to be blamed for their deaths.”

There isn’t one thing about the story that doesn’t stink.  Who shoots dogs in the first place, especially notoriously friendly dogs like labs?  Who chases down a dog, which obviously implies it wasn’t a threat, and shoots it?  Psychopaths, that’s who.

The reason the police were at the mayor’s house was that some drug runners were using a tricky method to move their product.  They would have it delivered to the doorstep of an unsuspecting person’s house and one of the drug runners would retrieve it.

The police said one of the reasons they broke in without notice was that they heard someone scream.  Hell, if I saw armed men with masks coming through my yard towards my door I just might scream too.

The police haven’t even apologized, much less tried to make amends, to the completely innocent couple despite killing their dogs, shooting up their house, and tracking blood all over the floors.

I’m no fan of lawyers, but this is why we have them.

From the Huntsville Times:

Times columnist Lee Roop was arrested Friday night and charged with driving under the influence of drugs, possession of cocaine and speeding.

According to Huntsville Police spokesman Wendell Johnson, Roop was pulled over at 10:30 p.m. in front of the Shell Food Mart at U.S. 72 East and Old Gurley Road, for driving 65 mph in a 40 mph zone. Johnson said that, according to the police report, the officer saw a clear plastic bag with a white powder substance in Roop’s car and tests on the scene verified the substance was cocaine.

Roop was taken to the Madison County jail without incident, Johnson said.

I knew something was askance when I glanced at the bottom of the page that Roop’s Sunday column always appears on and didn’t see it.

I hate hearing stories about people (allegedly) making poor decisions that can ruin lives.  I hope that Roop is able to get the help he needs to get through this tough patch in his life and career.

NPR had a story this afternoon about “grow houses” - regular homes in neighborhoods that are covertly used to grow marijuana indoors.  Their story focused on such operations in the Pacific Northwest, but it isn’t exactly a new phenomenon in the U.S.  These “grow houses” are a testament to the ingenuity that people have when it comes to making money.

Such stories often blame the lending industry for offering zero down and other such mortgages, often with minimal documentation, that the entrepreneurs frequently use to set up their operations.  But I don’t see the problem.  If someone with money wants to lend it to someone else on mutually agreeable terms then that should be allowed.  If the debtor chooses to use the funds to establish a criminal enterprise then that is not the lender’s fault and it should be the government’s responsibility to enforce their laws, not the lender’s.

In one of Dave Chappelle’s stand up acts he jokes about cops sprinkling crack on the bodies of blacks that they kill.  He uses the joke throughout the set and it’s always good for a laugh.  It’s not so funny in real life.

A while back I mentioned the story of a 92 year old Atlanta woman being gunned down in her house during a very suspicious police raid.  The two officers in that case have admitted to lying to obtain a no-knock warrant, killing the woman, planting three bags of marijuana in her basement, and fabricating a cover-up.  They fired a total of 39 shots at the lady.  She fired a single shot at the officers who entered her house, which was located in a crime ridden area, without notice.

Good thing we have this War on Drugs.

NPR has a five part series on what they call “The Forgotten War.”  They are referring to the War on Drugs of course.  In lieu of a diatribe on the War on Drugs I’ll leave you with a quote from the late comedian Bill Hicks:

It’s not a war on drugs it’s a war on personal freedom, keep that in mind at all times.

From the New York Times:

Frustrated by government policy and inaction, a group of advocates for medical marijuana sued two federal health agencies on Wednesday over the assertion that smoking it has no medical benefit.

The group, Americans for Safe Access, a nonprofit organization based in Oakland, filed the lawsuit in Federal District Court, challenging the government’s position that marijuana, “has no currently accepted medical use in treatment in the United States.”

It is sad that this is what our country has come to - free people having to prove medical utility in order to use a substance that they should be free to use to begin with.

American taxpayers are spending about $9,000,000,000 (that is $9 billion for the numeral challenged) every year arresting, prosecuting, and incarcerating people for marijuana offenses.

American taxpayers are now spending more than a billion dollars per year to incarcerate its citizens for pot. That’s according to statistics recently released by the U.S. Department of Justice’s Bureau of Justice Statistics.

According to the new BJS report, “Drug Use and Dependence, State and Federal Prisoners, 2004,” 12.7 percent of state inmates and 12.4 percent of federal inmates incarcerated for drug violations are serving time for marijuana offenses. Combining these percentages with separate U.S. Department of Justice statistics on the total number of state and federal drug prisoners suggests that there are now about 33,655 state inmates and 10,785 federal inmates behind bars for marijuana offenses. The report failed to include estimates on the percentage of inmates incarcerated in county and/or local jails for pot-related offenses.

Multiplying these totals by U.S. DOJ prison expenditure data reveals that taxpayers are spending more than $1 billion annually to imprison pot offenders.

The new report is noteworthy because it undermines the common claim from law enforcement officers and bureaucrats, specifically White House drug czar John Walters, that few, if any, Americans are incarcerated for marijuana-related offenses. In reality, nearly 1 out of 8 U.S. drug prisoners are locked up for pot.

Of course, several hundred thousand more Americans are arrested each year for violating marijuana laws, costing taxpayers another $8 billion dollars annually in criminal justice costs.

The total spent just on marijuana offenses amounts to about $30 for every person in the U.S.  I can think of better ways to put that money to use without infringing on the liberties of our citizens.

Despite all that spending marijuana is the largest cash crop in the country and we constantly see surveys like this that show that marijuana use among teens is as high, if not higher, than alcohol use.  Money well spent?

From Jacksonville:

Police tactics are being called into question by some in the Jacksonville community after two people were killed in separate police shootings in the span of 7 days.

Two men, ages 18 and 80, were shot and killed by police over the last week. In each of the shootings, the stories being told by police are very different from those reported by witnesses. Sources with the Jacksonville Sheriff’s Office (JSO) say its officers did exactly what they are trained to do when their safety was compromised. But witnesses say the officers over-reacted.

…

The second incident occurred over the weekend when 80-year-old Issac Singletary was shot during another undercover drug sting.

Police say Singletary saw a drug deal going down in his yard Saturday night, and walked outside with a gun. Authorities say he and the officers fired shots at each other, although it is still unclear who fired first. The shooting left Singletary dead.

Keep this in mind: if drugs were not illegal then no one - police or criminals - would have been selling them in Singletary’s front yard.  Instead, such a deal was taking place, instigated by none other than an undercover officer, and Singletary was shot and killed by that police officer - a man charged with serving and protecting us - while exercising his right to protect his private property.

Just take a moment and think about how many people have been killed or incarcerated as a direct or indirect result of the government using force to try to prevent private citizens from engaging in an activity that is harmful only to themselves.  Not to mention the vast amount of public treasure expended in a foolish attempt to curtail supply in the face of unyielding demand.  The War on Drugs has been one of the gravest public policy blunders of at least the last 100 years, exceeding the failure of Prohibition in both breadth and length.  It is also sad how it has institutionalized the philosophy of dependence on the government for protection from potentially inflicting harm to one’s self.

Kudos to Loretta.

More good news from the war on drugs!  Police in Florida almost arrested two men for transporting some marijuana.  Instead they roughed up two completely innocent men in an impressive show of incompetence and unwarranted post arrest jocularity.  Oh well, you win some, you lose some.

ST. PETERSBURG - Pinellas County sheriff’s vice and narcotics detectives briefly lost a car they had under surveillance one afternoon in August, but then it reappeared: A white Chevrolet Lumina, with tinted windows, a yellow license plate, and two black men inside.

They didn’t check one thing, however, when they spotted the Lumina the second time - the license tag.

That oversight Aug. 17 led to pandemonium at an Enterprise Rent-A-Car, when two detectives stormed the business, their guns drawn, and wrongfully arrested two black men.

The two sergeants thought they were arresting suspects who might have picked up 30 pounds of marijuana in a 1997 Lumina at a south St. Petersburg address.

The two men they took to the floor instead were Desmond D. Small, 26, and Christopher Lobban, 20, who had just finished their shift at Suntasia Marketing, a telemarketing firm in Largo.

Small was having problems with his 1995 Lumina, and decided to rent a car so he could put his own in the shop.

The two sergeants each have been suspended for 12 days, Sheriff Jim Coats said Wednesday, one day after the county commission agreed to pay the men a total of $100,000 in an out-of-court settlement.

“It’s something we’re not proud of,” Coats said.

They were disciplined for failing to verify the license plate, and for using such force with the two men. Their names were not released because they continue to work undercover.

In a surveillance video, one sergeant was seen repeatedly putting his foot on Small’s shoulder - or giving him a “foot strike” - as Small was prone on the floor, but trying to look around; this sergeant also pushed Small’s face into the floor, the video shows.

“I stomped down trying to step on him and flatten him to the ground,” the sergeant told internal affairs investigators.

After Small and Lobban were handcuffed, members of the squad gave each other high-fives, the video shows.

To the sergeants, Small was resisting while Lobban was not, according to their interviews with internal affairs. No one in the vice and narcotics division who was involved, including the captain in charge, had a problem with the level of force used.

However, Coats and the Enterprise employees who witnessed it did, the case file shows.

I’ll be honest, if I’m walking around minding my own business and a SWAT team comes and knocks me to the ground I would probably be “trying to look around” in addition to saying some choice words that would most certainly be used against me at a later time.  I would be EXTREMELY pissed, to say the least.

Kudos to The Whistler.

Many years ago President Lyndon B. Johnson announced a War on Poverty.  His program consisted of an elaborate mix of social programs intended to transfer wealth to impoverished Americans.  Initially the program enjoyed some modest success, dropping the poverty rate from 19% when it was announced in 1964 to a low of 11% by 1973.  Of course the entire decline can’t be solely attributed to Johnson’s program, but it was a major factor.  Since that time the poverty rate has stagnated; bouncing between 11 and 15% since then.

I think that poverty can be dramatically reduced - or at least recycled - in our country through two controversial and politically suicidal moves: the elimination of the federal minimum wage and the decriminalization and regulation of illegal drugs.

Income and wealth disparity continue to exist today.  It comes with the territory in a capitalist economic system where every individual has the freedom to make both sound and poor decisions that affect every facet of their lives.  We can’t - and shouldn’t - attempt to “solve” the issue of wealth disparity.  Poor people, on average, end up in their situation due to one or many bad decisions that have affected their earning and saving power.  Wealth disparity cannot be solved without the imposition of a socialist or communist system.  And then we’re all equally poor!

However, persistent wealth disparity is a problem.  It is indicative of endemic impediments to opportunity and advancement.  It is analogous to a stagnant pond that slowly chokes off the life within.  One might argue that the son of a poor man is statistically more likely to be poor himself due to the bad habits he might learn growing up.  To an extent I would agree, but it cannot fully explain multigenerational poverty.  I hypothesize that opportunities lost as a result of a legislated wage floor coupled with the lure to enrich one’s self by selling illegal drugs is the core cause of pervasive poverty.

First it should be made clear that a person’s “fair” wage is dictated by the market and cannot be prescribed by the government.  Labor is treated as a commodity by an employer, not unlike a machine or a building.  Like any other commodity, every person has a fair market value based on what talents they possess.  If an employer can find a lower cost method of performing your work then he will dispassionately replace you - whether it is another person, machine, or a different process altogether.  Humans have the unique ability to actually improve our talents over time, which increases our market value.  Machines are not capable of this without additional investment of capital.  Human capital, as it is referred to, is not unlike art.  The price paid for a painting is not determined by the painter or the art critic.  The price is determined by the individual willing and able to purchase the painting.

When an arbitrary wage floor, or minimum wage, is imposed by the government businesses face a dilemma and their options are somewhat limited.  They can pass the costs on to consumers, but their ability to do so is outside their control.  A second option would be to let the increased labor costs erode profits.  Contrary to popular belief, businesses do not have infinite profits.  Profits represent return on investment and all businesses, which are ventures of various degrees of risk, must have a certain level of profitability or the owners will simply pull their money out and invest it elsewhere.  The third, and most attractive, option is to keep the labor costs constant by eliminating some jobs.  The fired employees are effectively “priced out of work” by the supposed benevolence of the government.

Historically, low wage jobs have served as the first step up the ladder of achievement.  They allow people with nascent job skills to prove that they are both capable and reliable.  Companies might be willing to hire a worker with no proven job skills at a low, introductory wage to evaluate the employee.  If the employee proves to be qualified then his wage will automatically increase (if his current employer won’t step up to the plate he can take his new found talents elsewhere).

The minimum wage has taken significant opportunity out of poor communities - harming the people it ostensibly benefits.  Privileged children have an easier time financing post high school education, which effectively allows them to bypass low wage entry level jobs.  Poor people have only their ambition, will, inherent talents, and whatever they are able to acquire from the notoriously ineffective government run schools that serve their communities.  In other words, they REQUIRE opportunity to both start and advance.

Where the minimum wage has created an opportunity vacuum the illegal drug market offers a very lucrative opportunity to poor youth.  Much like the situation created by prohibition, it has become clear that government can attempt to crimp supply, but they cannot stem demand.  The result is high prices, which attracts the impoverished, who see no other viable way to succeed.

As young men enter the drug trade in order to take advantage of the “easy” money, many of them find their way into our penal system.  Unfortunately, many of these men (and women) have children.  Other than abusive parents, I don’t think anyone would argue that children are better off without one or both of their parents.  As the parents in these communities are incarcerated, the children suffer and are almost forced down the same path.

Decriminalizing and regulating illegal drugs can turn the jobs of transporting and selling those drugs into safe, legitimate occupations - not unlike the men who drive around beer distribution trucks (at one time they were bootleggers).  Opening the supply valve will drive down prices (prices will fall for other reasons as well), making these jobs less attractive to poor, talented youths, which in turn will encourage them to pursue more socially acceptable and beneficial occupations.

The harmful impact of illegal drug abuse is not restricted to poor citizens, but they certainly feel the effects.  Most critics would be quick to say that decriminalizing drugs would only exacerbate that problem.  That is where the regulation comes into play.  The government could set caps on the active and addiction causing chemicals, not unlike brewed beer has a maximum alcohol content rating.  That would help mitigate addiction rates and the number of people getting “stoned out of their minds.”  More potent drugs would no longer be viable to produce and distribute illegally.  Right now a substantial portion of the price paid for illegal drugs on the street represents the costs to evade law enforcement and (sometimes violently) suppress rival dealers.  If people could buy legally buy inexpensive, low grade drugs at the corner market then the restricted, potent drugs, which will still carry the evasion price penalty, will no longer be cost competitive.

There are numerous additional reasons to abolish the minimum wage and to decriminalize drugs independently, but I’ll leave those up to the imagination (or you can pry them out of me through comments).  Together though, those two acts would do wonders not to eliminate poverty (that is not possible), but to create churn - to give people born into poverty a greater chance to escape its grasp.  That dynamism is good not only for the direct beneficiaries, but also for society as a whole.  The beauty of a free market system is that when hungry people are willing to work hard and take risks they can trade places with those who become fat and complacent.  Government intrusion into this process through laws such as a minimum wage merely entrenches people into the caste they are born into.  And if they try to seek out the most attractive opportunity still in their field of view they are incarcerated.  We can do better in this country.