Pope Benedict, leader of the world's 1.3 billion Roman Catholics, delivered his twice-yearly "Urbi et Orbi" (to the city and the world) message and blessing to tens of thousands of people in St Peter's Square on a crisp but clear day as millions of others watched on television around the world.
At the end of his address, the 84-year-old pope, celebrating the seventh Christmas season of his pontificate, delivered Christmas greetings in 65 languages, including Turkish, Hebrew, Arabic, Swahili, Hindi, Urdu and Chinese, reported Reuters.
"May the Lord come to the aid of our world torn by so many conflicts which even today stain the earth with blood," he said, speaking in Italian from the central balcony of St Peter's Basilica.
"May the Prince of Peace grant peace and stability to that Land where he chose to come into the world, and encourage the resumption of dialogue between Israelis and Palestinians. May he bring an end to the violence in Syria, where so much blood has already been shed," he said in a firm, steady voice.
To read more: http://www.reuters.com/article/2011/12/25/us-christmas-pope-idUSTRE7BN0GG20111225
Sunday, December 25, 2011
Wednesday, December 21, 2011
The Cautionary Instruction: Congressional Hearing Repartee Falls Flat
Matthew T. Mangino
The Pittsburgh Post-Gazette/Ipso Facto
December 16, 2011
Last week, the House Committee on Oversight and Government Reform again took up the issue of the ill-fated Department of Justice (DOJ) gun trafficking operation known as “Fast & Furious.”
As the hearing came to a close, Committee Chairman Darryl Issa (R-Calif.), compared Attorney General Eric Holder’s conduct to that of Richard Nixon’s attorney general before Watergate. Holder likened the ongoing congressional inquiry to Senator Joseph McCarthy’s witch hunt for communists in the U.S. government.
Holder told the committee that he does not plan to comply with additional requests for DOJ records, including Holder’s internal emails regarding his response to the operation. “You stand in contempt of Congress unless you have a valid reason,” Issa told Holder.
Holder responded that not sharing the internal department communications with Congress is consistent with the practice of past administrations.
“John Mitchell responded that way, too,” Issa told Holder, referring to Nixon’s former attorney general, who was later convicted of conspiracy, obstruction of justice and perjury in connection with Watergate.
Holder replied, invoking his own historic allusion, “The reference to John Mitchell: Let’s think about that. … As they said in the McCarthy hearings at some point, ‘Have you no shame?’”
Congressman Issa is off-base comparing Holder to John Mitchell and his role in Watergate. Mitchell was no longer part of the Nixon administration during Watergate. He had resigned as attorney general on February 15, 1972, months before the Watergate break-in.
The Watergate Independent Prosecutor Archibald Cox requested eight recorded conversations taped in the White House, two of which included conversations with Mitchell. The request was refused by the White House. Mitchell had nothing to do with that decision.
When Mitchell testified before the senate Watergate Committee it was in his role as campaign director of Nixon’s 1972 re-election campaign. According to Carl Bernstein, certainly an authority on Watergate, "John Mitchell's testimony to the Watergate committee focused on what he called 'the White House horrors,’” crimes committed by Nixon staffers.
Congressman Issa's allusion indicated, at best, a superficial understanding of history -- or, at worst, an ill conceived attempt to lump Attorney General Holder with America's greatest scandal.
Attorney General Holder's retort was close, but also off the mark. He was referring to what had become known as the Army-McCarthy Hearings. In 1954, Senator McCarthy and his staff were accused of using influence to help a former staff member with an army assignment. The Army’s special counsel Joseph N. Welch disclosed to the New York Times that a young lawyer in his law firm was a former member of a left-wing group while in law school.
Although aware of Welch’s disclosure, McCarthy nonetheless confronted Welch about the young lawyer during the nationally televised hearings. Attorney Welch then famously took on McCarthy, "Have you no sense of decency, sir, at long last? Have you left no sense of decency?"
Visit Matt Mangino
The Pittsburgh Post-Gazette/Ipso Facto
December 16, 2011
Last week, the House Committee on Oversight and Government Reform again took up the issue of the ill-fated Department of Justice (DOJ) gun trafficking operation known as “Fast & Furious.”
As the hearing came to a close, Committee Chairman Darryl Issa (R-Calif.), compared Attorney General Eric Holder’s conduct to that of Richard Nixon’s attorney general before Watergate. Holder likened the ongoing congressional inquiry to Senator Joseph McCarthy’s witch hunt for communists in the U.S. government.
Holder told the committee that he does not plan to comply with additional requests for DOJ records, including Holder’s internal emails regarding his response to the operation. “You stand in contempt of Congress unless you have a valid reason,” Issa told Holder.
Holder responded that not sharing the internal department communications with Congress is consistent with the practice of past administrations.
“John Mitchell responded that way, too,” Issa told Holder, referring to Nixon’s former attorney general, who was later convicted of conspiracy, obstruction of justice and perjury in connection with Watergate.
Holder replied, invoking his own historic allusion, “The reference to John Mitchell: Let’s think about that. … As they said in the McCarthy hearings at some point, ‘Have you no shame?’”
Congressman Issa is off-base comparing Holder to John Mitchell and his role in Watergate. Mitchell was no longer part of the Nixon administration during Watergate. He had resigned as attorney general on February 15, 1972, months before the Watergate break-in.
The Watergate Independent Prosecutor Archibald Cox requested eight recorded conversations taped in the White House, two of which included conversations with Mitchell. The request was refused by the White House. Mitchell had nothing to do with that decision.
When Mitchell testified before the senate Watergate Committee it was in his role as campaign director of Nixon’s 1972 re-election campaign. According to Carl Bernstein, certainly an authority on Watergate, "John Mitchell's testimony to the Watergate committee focused on what he called 'the White House horrors,’” crimes committed by Nixon staffers.
Congressman Issa's allusion indicated, at best, a superficial understanding of history -- or, at worst, an ill conceived attempt to lump Attorney General Holder with America's greatest scandal.
Attorney General Holder's retort was close, but also off the mark. He was referring to what had become known as the Army-McCarthy Hearings. In 1954, Senator McCarthy and his staff were accused of using influence to help a former staff member with an army assignment. The Army’s special counsel Joseph N. Welch disclosed to the New York Times that a young lawyer in his law firm was a former member of a left-wing group while in law school.
Although aware of Welch’s disclosure, McCarthy nonetheless confronted Welch about the young lawyer during the nationally televised hearings. Attorney Welch then famously took on McCarthy, "Have you no sense of decency, sir, at long last? Have you left no sense of decency?"
Visit Matt Mangino
Monday, December 12, 2011
California Shifts Prisoners from State Prison to County Jails
In California the early release of inmates has become the means by which the state is complying with a U.S. Supreme Court order to lower its prison population. As the state empties its prisons county jails struggle to accommodate state prisoners flowing into their facilities.
A U.S. Supreme Court decision requires California to lower its prison population by 30,000. To meet the mandate, those convicted of certain crimes who until now served their sentences in state prison now must serve their time in a county jail. No inmates are being moved from state prisons to county jails. But as these people are sentenced, they will be sent to a county jail rather than state prison, according to the Los Angeles Times.
The L.A. County Sheriff is hoping to deal with the influx of state prisoners by developing alternatives to custody — such as electronic monitoring — for low-risk offenders awaiting trial. The Sheriff’s Department oversees the county jail. According to the Times, L.A. County's jails are expected to house as many as 8,000 state prisoners by mid-2012. Los Angeles County prosecutors said in a report that the numbers could fill up the jails as early as this month.
Some counties, including Los Angeles, are under court order to prevent jail overcrowding. So officials said that some inmates will be released to make way for the state prisoners. Some counties — including Los Angeles, Orange and San Bernardino — have also reported receiving significantly more state prisoners from courts than the state projected, reported the Times.
State officials and some sheriffs believe the higher-than-projected number of state prisoners being sent to jails has occurred in part because defense attorneys waited until realignment took effect to settle their clients' cases. By doing that, the attorneys were assured that their clients would get jail time instead of prison time.
The L.A. County Sheriff is hoping to deal with the influx of state prisoners by developing alternatives to custody — such as electronic monitoring — for low-risk offenders awaiting trial. The Sheriff’s Department oversees the county jail. According to the Times, L.A. County's jails are expected to house as many as 8,000 state prisoners by mid-2012. Los Angeles County prosecutors said in a report that the numbers could fill up the jails as early as this month.
Some counties, including Los Angeles, are under court order to prevent jail overcrowding. So officials said that some inmates will be released to make way for the state prisoners. Some counties — including Los Angeles, Orange and San Bernardino — have also reported receiving significantly more state prisoners from courts than the state projected, reported the Times.
State officials and some sheriffs believe the higher-than-projected number of state prisoners being sent to jails has occurred in part because defense attorneys waited until realignment took effect to settle their clients' cases. By doing that, the attorneys were assured that their clients would get jail time instead of prison time.
Sunday, December 11, 2011
Will private prisons work?
The Youngstown VindicatorDecember 11, 2011
Ohio was facing an $8 billion budget shortfall in 2010 when Gov. John Kasich took office. He proposed an ambitious and unprecedented plan to balance the corrections portion of the budget — sell five prisons to private companies.
Lake Erie Corrections Institution, located in Ashtabula County, was the only prison sold. It’s the first state prison in the nation to be sold to a private company.
Correction Corporation of America (CCA) bought the facility for $72.7 million. The state will pay CCA $44.25 per inmate per day in addition to an annual $3.8 million ownership fee.
CCA may be familiar to many because the company operates the Northeast Ohio Correctional Center in Youngstown. The state’s ability to sell only one of five prisons slated for sale was not a concern for the Department of Rehabilitation and Correction. “It’s not a disappointment at all,” Annette Chambers-Smith, deputy director of administration told the Cleveland Plain-Dealer, “... we thought we would need to sell all five of them to net $50 million.”
Major player
CCA operates 60 facilities in 19 states and the District of Columbia. Those facilities have more than 80,000 beds and currently house about 75,000 offenders. CCA owns 44 of the facilities it operates, representing more than half of all the private prison beds nationwide. According to the company website, CCA with its 17,000 employees is the fifth-largest corrections system in the nation, behind only the federal government and three states.
Privatization may seem like a promising way to generate revenue and cut costs in difficult economic times. Ohio’s prisons are over capacity. As of October, Ohio’s 30 prisons had the capacity to house 38,196 inmates, but actually confined 50,334.
There is an incarceration bubble in America. That bubble may burst as budget woes force states to reduce prison populations andthe federal government look for alternatives to an immigration policy that has been a boon to private prisons.
Prison reduction efforts are obviously not part of the package offered by corporate-run prisons. They have no incentive to explore alternatives to incarceration, such as electronic monitoring, half-way houses or other diversionary efforts to reduce the number of non-violent offenders behind bars.
Ohio, like many states, is trying to reduce its prison population. Nonviolent offenders often serve the shortest sentences. There are about 12,000 inmates in Ohio serving state sentences of less than one year. Some estimate that reducing short term sentences in state prison could trim inmate population by about 4,000 within four years.
The Texas-based criminal justice blog Grits for Breakfast recently reprinted portions of CCA’s latest annaul 10-K report filed with the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission. CCA acknowledged that the company is “dependent upon the governmental agencies with which we have contracts to provide inmates for our managed facilities. We cannot control occupancy levels at our managed facilities ... a decrease in our occupancy rates could cause a decrease in revenues and profitability.”
The report continues, “The demand for our facilities and services could be adversely affected by…leniency in conviction or parole standards and sentencing practices.”
Federal threat
CCA is not ignoring the threat of leniency or a reduction in occupancy. According the Chattanoogan, citing a report from the National Institute on Money in State Politics, CCA hired 199 lobbyists in 32 states between 2003 and 2010. On the federal level, CCA spent more than $18 million on lobbying between 1999 and 2009.
CCA’s Ohio lobbyist, Don Thibaut, served as Gov. Kasich’s chief of staff when he was in Congress, says The Associated Press. The connections go beyond a lobbyist. Kasich’s corrections director Gary C. Mohr spent five years as a consultant for CCA.
The incarceration bubble, like the real estate bubble before it, will burst, which could mean trouble for Ohio taxpayers.
Visit the Vindicator
Ohio was facing an $8 billion budget shortfall in 2010 when Gov. John Kasich took office. He proposed an ambitious and unprecedented plan to balance the corrections portion of the budget — sell five prisons to private companies.
Lake Erie Corrections Institution, located in Ashtabula County, was the only prison sold. It’s the first state prison in the nation to be sold to a private company.
Correction Corporation of America (CCA) bought the facility for $72.7 million. The state will pay CCA $44.25 per inmate per day in addition to an annual $3.8 million ownership fee.
CCA may be familiar to many because the company operates the Northeast Ohio Correctional Center in Youngstown. The state’s ability to sell only one of five prisons slated for sale was not a concern for the Department of Rehabilitation and Correction. “It’s not a disappointment at all,” Annette Chambers-Smith, deputy director of administration told the Cleveland Plain-Dealer, “... we thought we would need to sell all five of them to net $50 million.”
Major player
CCA operates 60 facilities in 19 states and the District of Columbia. Those facilities have more than 80,000 beds and currently house about 75,000 offenders. CCA owns 44 of the facilities it operates, representing more than half of all the private prison beds nationwide. According to the company website, CCA with its 17,000 employees is the fifth-largest corrections system in the nation, behind only the federal government and three states.
Privatization may seem like a promising way to generate revenue and cut costs in difficult economic times. Ohio’s prisons are over capacity. As of October, Ohio’s 30 prisons had the capacity to house 38,196 inmates, but actually confined 50,334.
There is an incarceration bubble in America. That bubble may burst as budget woes force states to reduce prison populations andthe federal government look for alternatives to an immigration policy that has been a boon to private prisons.
Prison reduction efforts are obviously not part of the package offered by corporate-run prisons. They have no incentive to explore alternatives to incarceration, such as electronic monitoring, half-way houses or other diversionary efforts to reduce the number of non-violent offenders behind bars.
Ohio, like many states, is trying to reduce its prison population. Nonviolent offenders often serve the shortest sentences. There are about 12,000 inmates in Ohio serving state sentences of less than one year. Some estimate that reducing short term sentences in state prison could trim inmate population by about 4,000 within four years.
The Texas-based criminal justice blog Grits for Breakfast recently reprinted portions of CCA’s latest annaul 10-K report filed with the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission. CCA acknowledged that the company is “dependent upon the governmental agencies with which we have contracts to provide inmates for our managed facilities. We cannot control occupancy levels at our managed facilities ... a decrease in our occupancy rates could cause a decrease in revenues and profitability.”
The report continues, “The demand for our facilities and services could be adversely affected by…leniency in conviction or parole standards and sentencing practices.”
Federal threat
CCA is not ignoring the threat of leniency or a reduction in occupancy. According the Chattanoogan, citing a report from the National Institute on Money in State Politics, CCA hired 199 lobbyists in 32 states between 2003 and 2010. On the federal level, CCA spent more than $18 million on lobbying between 1999 and 2009.
CCA’s Ohio lobbyist, Don Thibaut, served as Gov. Kasich’s chief of staff when he was in Congress, says The Associated Press. The connections go beyond a lobbyist. Kasich’s corrections director Gary C. Mohr spent five years as a consultant for CCA.
The incarceration bubble, like the real estate bubble before it, will burst, which could mean trouble for Ohio taxpayers.
Visit the Vindicator
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)