20080625 This week in The Tentacle

20080625 This week in The Tentacle

This week in The Tentacle

Wednesday, June 25, 2008
The MML and the COPS Program
Kevin E. Dayhoff
The annual Maryland Municipal League summer convention in Ocean City wraps up four days of seminars and meetings at the Ocean City Convention Center today.

Greasing the Wheels
Tom McLaughlin
We purchase billions upon billions of dollars of goods from the Chinese. They, in turn, take those dollars and invest in conservative and safe instruments like American T-Bills. This circular path has caused alarm among some that they have the power to wreck our economy and bring America to its knees. However, to destroy our economy would also mean wrecking theirs.


Tuesday, June 24, 2008
Political Street Gossip – Part 5
Richard B. Weldon Jr.
Yesterday, we ended our discussion of Frederick’s delegation races in 2010 with an observation about Sen. Alex Mooney's vulnerabilities. Here's some proof of that.

What War?
Roy Meachum
Reasonable doubt exists that most readers do not know that a week ago 50 Shiite Iraqis died in a tremendous blast, engineered by al-Qaeda Sunnis. In the same forgotten category: Afghanistan's Taliban seized and held a series of towns and villages.

Enjoying What Life Brings on Two Wheels
Nick Diaz
You’ve seen them on the road – all those guys on motorcycles, parading down the boulevard, on Saturdays or Sundays. Where are they going? I’m sure many of you have wondered the same thing.


Monday, June 23, 2008
Political Street Gossip – Part 4
Richard B. Weldon Jr.
We've looked at federal, city, and county upcoming election cycles. The 6th District congressional race is upon us, the others are more distant and definitely less clear.

Ear to the Ground
Steven R. Berryman
Once again, awash in too much real news, here is a smorgasbord of the events I witnessed last week. You may call it “Short Takes 2,” as I keep my ears to the ground for The Tentacle and Frederick County.


Friday, June 20, 2008
Goodbye, Beautiful Long Legs
Roy Meachum
She danced while others simply walked. Parts of two days I spent with Cyd Charisse; the night belonged to her new husband, Tony Martin. He did all the talking, as I recall. She satisfied herself with smiles and a quiet but fiercely radiated warmth.

Before and After November 4, 2008
Edward Lulie III
I have to concede that my regard for President Bush have been on a sliding scale downwards for several years. I believe going into Iraq was the right thing to do; but we never should have based the reason on weapons of mass destruction without solid proof. He also wasted effort and prestige trying to convince the European Union (EU) to go along when half of its leaders were in bed with Saddam Hussein anyway. It was a waste of time.


Thursday, June 19, 2008
For Freedom and Liberty
Chris Cavey
Last week was Flag Week; Saturday, June 14, was Flag Day. It’s a shame that many Americans take this symbol of our freedom for granted. Here at the “Cavey Compound” Old Glory flies everyday because we are free…and my Dad makes sure it happens.

The Death Toll for the DRRA
Joan McIntyre

Well, it seems the Developers Rights and Responsibility Agreement (DRRA), is about to receive last rites. The county is trying to give it CPR but the family, Land Stewards, has said pull the plug, there are no signs of life. It’s heading to the incinerator; this isn’t recyclable.


Wednesday, June 18, 2008
Holes in Our Safety Net
Kevin E. Dayhoff
Tim Russert, “a giant in journalism and in politics” passed away unexpectedly last Friday. It followed by less than a week the death of ABC’s Jim McKay.

Quantity vs. Quality
Tom McLaughlin
For the first time, it was announced recently, the life expectancy in the United States reached above 78 years old. Some may rejoice at this news, but one must be very careful because the quantity of life may have increased but the quality of life has decreased. This quality not only affects the individual who has reached the golden age mark, but the many people who care for him or her.


Tuesday, June 17, 2008
So Be It
Roy Meachum
Iraq was never about military success; the war has always been a political mess: unwinnable at its best. That truth trumped all American pretensions from the start. But U.S. deaths settled down to a point when the casualties could be tolerated by the public. More or less.

20080417 Mikulski slams White House on lack of DOJ COPS funding

Mikulski slams White House on lack of DOJ COPS funding

During a Senate Appropriations Committee hearing on April 16, 2008, Maryland Democrat Senator Barbara Mikulski gave White House budget director Jim Nussle a piece of her mind over the Bush administration’s lack of funding for Department of Justice domestic law enforcement programs… Hat TIP: “Think Progress” and “Amanda.”

20080416 Mikulski slams White House over DOJ COPS funding

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7uxZHgRSo24



[Postscript: By way of the wonders of technology – the visual and the audio are not well synched. And perhaps that is prophetic – as upset as Senator Mikulski is in this clip. Listen to the words – smile at the out of synch technology…]

Related: 20080528 Bush cuts aid to US cops by David Lightman; 20080416 Mikulski slams White House over DOJ COPS funding; 20080623 What is Community Policing?

Think Progress:

Mikulski Slams White House: ‘Since You’re Pugnacious, Guess What? I’m Going To Be Pretty Pugnacious, Too’

http://thinkprogress.org/2008/04/17/mikulski-nussle/

By Amanda on Apr 17th, 2008

The White House has proposed a $108 billion emergency-spending bill to fund the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan. Frustrated that U.S. taxpayers continue to pay for the wars while domestic needs go unmet, lawmakers have attempted to attach spending for domestic programs to the bill. But Bush has balked, promising to veto any such bills.

During a Senate Appropriations Committee hearing yesterday, White House budget director Jim Nussle ironically blasted lawmakers for “sky-is-the-limit mind-set” on the spending bill. One of the most combative moments came when Sen. Barbara Mikulski (D-MD) chastised Nussle for his “snarky, scolding, dismissive” responses to the senators and the Bush administration’s attitude toward funding the nation’s law enforcement officers:

Your testimony has been disappointing in both tone and substance. I personally take offense at the snarky, scolding, dismissive way that this testimony represents. And I think it’s inappropriate. […]

This is an ideological commentary, not the testimony of OMB. So since you’re pugnacious, guess what? I’m going to be pretty pugnacious, too, only my pugnaciousness is not going to be directed at the Congress. It’s going to be pugnacious about the people I represent. […]

Number one, let’s go to safety and security. We have funded the surge of Baghdad, but we have not funded the surge of violent crime in Baltimore, Biloxi, or other places. You have zeroed out the COPS program. You have zeroed out the Byrne grant.

Bush has requested $603 million to train Iraqi police. But at the same time, his FY 2009 budget includes a 61 percent cut for state and local law enforcement programs at the Justice Department.

Transcript:

MIKULSKI: Thank you, Mr. Chairman. And thank you very much for calling this hearing. I think it’s the essential thing we need to do.

Mr. Nussle, I’ve got to tell you, I’m really disappointed in your testimony. It’s been some time that I have heard the kind of tone that has been expressed by a representative of the Bush administration. Your testimony has been disappointing in both tone and substance.

I personally take offense at the snarky, scolding, dismissive way that this testimony represents. And I think it’s inappropriate.

[…]

This is an ideological commentary, not the testimony of OMB. So since you’re pugnacious, guess what? I’m going to be pretty pugnacious, too, only my pugnaciousness is not going to be directed at the Congress. It’s going to be pugnacious about the people I represent.

So let’s get to it. Pugnacious? You bet. Let’s pick up on what Leahy and Harkin said about the Byrne grant. You want the regular order? I am the regular order. I chair CJS. And what this administration has done here has been outrageous.

Number one, let’s go to safety and security. We have funded the surge of Baghdad, but we have not funded the surge of violent crime in Baltimore, Biloxi, or other places. You have zeroed out the COPS program. You have zeroed out the Byrne grant.

When Shelby and Mikulski tried to do something last year in the regular budget, we were told, Eat $3 billion or face a veto threat. So we foraged and we skimped and we squeezed in to be able to make sure that our bill didn’t get a veto threat, and we came up with $170 million.

You can talk about all your smokestacks and whatever, but you bet there’s smoke. There’s smoke right here and now, and there is frustration from state and local police officers that say they need help. They need help.

And this administration has funded $5 billion over the last couple of years to fund the training of Iraqi police. You bet they need training. But I am telling you, I need the money, Senator Shelby and I need the money to make sure that our local law enforcement, the thin blue line, gets the money that they need to fight violent crime. So I’m going to ask in plain English: If, in fact, we (inaudible) the supplemental, restore the Byrne grants and only the Byrne grants to the needed level of $560 million, will you support it or will we face a veto threat?

NUSSLE: Well, Senator, I can only repeat what the president has said.

MIKULSKI: The president didn’t say anything about this. You think if I went to see the president, he would say, No ?

NUSSLE: Senator, I can only repeat what the president said. And his two priorities that he stated were that the bill stay within the $108.1 billion request and that it support the troops. That’s what he has said on the topic.

Beyond that, I don’t believe he has — I think the senator is correct — not spoken directly to those issues. But I also believe that the regular appropriations process is the time and the place to deal with those challenges. And…

MIKULSKI: But you eliminated it. You eliminated the COPS program, and you eliminated the Byrne grant program in your regular appropriations request.

So you’re saying, Don’t fund it in the supplemental. The president doesn’t request it in the regular order. And now you’re telling me you can’t accept it in the supplemental because the president didn’t talk about it. And when you sent us the CJS president’s request, it’s not in there for ‘09.

[…]

Mr. Chairman, with your cooperation, I hope that we do and fund it. If we’re talking about a safe and secure America, I want to make sure the streets of the United States of America are safe and secure. And I will work on a bipartisan basis to do it.

BYRD: Senator Murray?

MURRAY: Mr. Chairman, thank you very much for having this hearing.

And, Mr. Nussle, I share the anger, frustration, I guess pugnaciousness of the senator from Maryland. It is extremely disturbing to me that we are getting an emergency supplemental request for Iraq and Afghanistan five-and-a-half years into this war that’s being paid for off the books.

Public Safety Law and Order DOJ Federal Domestic Grants

People Maryland Mikulski – US Sen. Barbara Mikulski

20080417 Mikulski slams White House on lack of DOJ COPS funding

20080528 Bush cuts aid to US cops by David Lightman

Bush cuts aid to US cops by David Lightman

Bush cutting aid to U.S. cops

MORE BUDGETED FOR IRAQI POLICE

http://www.kentucky.com/216/story/417234.html

Posted By David Lightman on Wed, May. 28, 2008, DLIGHTMAN@MCCLATCHYDC.COM

WASHINGTON -- At the same time the Bush administration has been pushing for deep cuts in a popular crime-fighting program for states and cities, the White House has been fighting for approval of $603 million for the Iraqi police.

The White House earlier this year proposed slashing the Edward Byrne Memorial Justice Assistance Grant program, which helps local law enforcement officials deal with violent crime and serious offenders, to $200 million in the next fiscal year, which begins Oct. 1.

In 2002, the year before the Iraq war, the program received $900 million.

The administration and the Democratic-controlled Congress are headed for a showdown over the domestic money, probably next month. When the Senate last week passed the emergency Iraq war funding bill, it allotted an immediate $490 million for the domestic grants while keeping the Iraqi police funds intact.

[…]

"State and local policing should be left to state and local governments. I don't see any advantage to federal meddling," said Chris Edwards, an analyst at Washington's Cato Institute.

Cato opposed the Iraq war, but Edwards said the issue of Iraq's police funding "is a foreign policy question, and foreign policy should depend on things other than economics."

But Travis Sharp, military policy analyst at the Center for Arms Control and Non-Proliferation, disagreed.

"There are tradeoffs in the federal government, and one of the arguments a lot of people make is that money spent in Iraq is not spent here," he said.

Those angry with the administration have a powerful ally in Sen. Barbara Mikulski, D-Md., who chairs the Senate Appropriations Subcommittee on Commerce, Justice and Science that oversees the Justice Department.

"While President Bush requests millions of dollars for the war in Iraq, his domestic spending continues to shortchange our safety at home," she said.

When Budget Director Jim Nussle testified before her subcommittee last month, neither side showed any desire to compromise.

Mikulski called Bush's policies "outrageous" and labeled Nussle's testimony "snarky, scolding, dismissive."

"We have funded the surge of Baghdad, but we have not funded the surge of violent crime in Baltimore, Biloxi or other places," the senator said. She then asked Nussle if Bush would support restoring most of the Byrne grant.

[…]

The Iraq police funds are listed as money due to Iraq's Ministry of Interior. Also included in "new obligations" to the "Iraq Security Forces Fund" are $603 million for the Interior Ministry, $744 million for the Ministry of Defense and $153 million for "quick response."

The Congressional Research Service estimates that since the war began, the United States has spent about $20.75 billion to train and equip Iraqi soldiers and police officers.

Read the entire article here: Bush cutting aid to U.S. cops

20080528 Bush cuts aid to US cops by David Lightman

20080623 What is Community Policing?

What is Community Policing?

http://www.cops.usdoj.gov/default.asp?item=36

Retrieved from U. S. Department of Justice Office of Community Policing Services website (http://www.cops.usdoj.gov/default.asp?Item=34) on June 23, 2008

A central goal of the COPS Office is to help law enforcement agencies implement and enhance community policing. We have previously defined community policing as "a policing philosophy that promotes and supports organizational strategies to address the causes and reduce the fear of crime and social disorder through problem-solving tactics and police-community partnerships." In an effort to help discern what community policing is, what interactions between the police and citizens are central to this philosophy, and how the field should measure movement towards community policing, COPS has attempted to further outline the elements that are central to the philosophy of community policing.

This document is considered living, just like community policing itself, and it is meant to inform current practice and the discussion surrounding the advancement of community policing. It is not intended to be a prescriptive listing of central elements, but is meant to stimulate discussion in what is an ever-expanding body of experience and knowledge about the practice of community policing.

Community policing focuses on crime and social disorder through the delivery of police services that includes aspects of traditional law enforcement, as well as prevention, problem-solving, community engagement, and partnerships. The community policing model balances reactive responses to calls for service with proactive problem-solving centered on the causes of crime and disorder. Community policing requires police and citizens to join together as partners in the course of both identifying and effectively addressing these issues.

The core elements of community policing are described below:

Organizational Elements:	Tactical Elements:	External Elements:
1. Philosophy Adopted Organization-Wide 2. Decentralized Decision-Making and Accountability 3. Fixed Geographic Accountability and Generalist Responsibilities 4. Utilization of Volunteer Resources 5. Enhancers	1. Enforcement of Laws 2. Proactive, Crime Prevention Oriented 3. Problem-solving	1. Public Involvement in Community Partnerships 2. Government and Other Agency Partnerships