Just about every day now brings fresh reason for New Yorkers to worry about their safety. Fixated on racial bean-counting, Mayor Bill de Blasio is constantly tightening an already short leash on the Police Department and clumsily trying to persuade the public that Commissioner Bill Bratton is a full partner in the effort.
The result is two-fold: concern that the changes are nothing more than wacky left-wing social engineering, and suspicions that City Hall is not being honest about Bratton’s role.
The pattern certainly holds with the new policy of reducing marijuana arrests. Although the mayor and the top cop held a press conference to announce the policy, the changes are, for Bratton, a flip-flop. Earlier this year, he recommitted himself to “broken-windows” policing and vowed the NYPD would not stop making arrests for pot possession even after the Brooklyn district attorney announced he would not prosecute low-level cases.
Yet City Hall claimed Bratton and his aides hatched the new idea and that it was “fully supported” by de Blasio. My money is on the sources who told The Post that de Blasio ordered the changes and Bratton was forced to agree.
If so, the mayoral motto would be: If at first you don’t succeed, mislead again.
The changes mean simple possession of nearly an ounce of pot brings a summons instead of a misdemeanor arrest in most cases. Exceptions include public smoking and failure to produce an ID, though they have loopholes.
The mayor, citing the fact that most pot arrests involve non-white males, said, “When an individual is arrested, even for the smallest possession of marijuana, it hurts their chances to get a good job; it hurts their chances to get housing; it hurts their chances to qualify for a student loan.”
No doubt there are some cases where that parade of horribles is true, but getting the Legislature to change the law is the way to resolve demonstrated unfairness. Republicans in the state Senate refused to go along with a similar proposal last winter, saying nearly an ounce of pot was too much to excuse. Their resistance is probably why de Blasio made the change unilaterally now, days after the GOP won an outright majority.
Moreover, it is worth paying attention to the reaction of police unions skeptical of de Blasio’s overall approach to law enforcement.
“I just see it as another step in giving the streets back to the criminals,” said Michael J. Palladino, head of the Detectives’ Endowment Association.
The head of the Sergeants Benevolent Association, Ed Mullins, was similarly worried. “People are asking: ‘What is going on? Is this department losing its mind? Has the city lost its mind?’ ”
And Pat Lynch, head of the police officers union, said, “We do not want police officers left holding the bag if crime rises because of poor policy.”
Their worries get us back to Bratton. His deal with the mayor is the worst-kept secret in Gotham: His crime-fighting chops give the lefty de Blasio credibility, and Bratton gets his old job back as a reward for bashing the department under Ray Kelly.
But the deal is inherently unstable because it depends on crime staying down. The problem is that the mayor, with both a personal bent and a political base largely hostile to the NYPD, always looks for ways to pull back on enforcement and even surveillance. To keep his job, Bratton is forced to go along and publicly sing his boss’ praises.
The upshot is that it seems they intend to keep tightening the cops’ leash until crime takes off.
None of this is a happy thought, nor a lasting state of affairs. Something has to give, and at this rate, it will give soon.
O’care not just sick, it’s stupid
It’s the stupid, stupid.
In the annals of elitist contempt for ordinary Americans, the remarks of an ObamaCare architect stand out. Jonathan Gruber of MIT, who helped shape the complex law, admitted the opaqueness was intentional.
“Lack of transparency is a huge political advantage,” he told a 2013 conference that had remained secret until now. “Call it the stupidity of the American voter or whatever, but basically, that was really, really critical for the thing to pass.”
Gruber’s arrogance became public only because a conservative group, American Commitment, posted his remarks on YouTube. His words shock without surprising.
Remember Nancy Pelosi’s outrageous argument in 2010 that “we have to pass the bill so that you can find out what is in it.”
Remember, too, the quid pro quos where a handful of Senate Democrats sold their votes for grants and carve-outs.
There was the Louisiana Purchase, the Cornhusker Kickback and the Gator Aid. And many big unions that wanted the bill belatedly discovered they needed to be exempt from its provisions, or their members would suffer a rollback in benefits.
And don’t forget President Obama’s dozens of rewrites, a key plank in the claim that he has stretched executive power past the breaking point.
ObamaCare was the largest piece of legislation ever passed on a strict party-line vote, and it marked the height of Democratic power. Two midterm elections later, Dems have lost both the House and the Senate, and ObamaCare was a prime reason.
Still, it is the law and remains unpopular and unworkable. It is going back to the Supreme Court for another challenge and Republicans say they will move to repeal and replace the whole thing.
They won’t succeed as long as Obama is in the White House, meaning we haven’t heard the end of this misbegotten mess.
A cynical glovefest
President Obama, man of principle. Or principal.
The president stumbled through his press conference after the midterm massacre, claiming he wasn’t “mopey” about the drubbing. But Monday, he posted a photo of himself in a boxer’s stance, saying, “I’m going to be fighting” until his time is up.
The switch isn’t a mystery. As he adopted the new feisty tone, political operatives asked for donations, saying “the fight for change” goes on.
What they’re really saying is that accepting the will of the people and working with the other side doesn’t inspire donors to write checks. So it’s back to the barricades for the fundraiser-in-chief.
Times feint by numbers
Lies, damn lies, statistics — and The New York Times.
In an article that urges free housing for victims of domestic violence, even for those abused in other states, the Times says, “Homicides involving intimate partners inched down to 37 last year, compared with 40 in 2012 and 47 in 2011.”
The honest way to describe the change would be that such homicides fell by 21 percent in three years. But admitting big progress would undercut the advocacy angle, so the numbers only “inched down.”
Headline: ‘Robot Uses Humans as Helpers’
Finally, a jobs program with a future.