#Supreme Court Road Safety

[townpostin]

Zonal IG Addresses Rising Crime Rates In Jamshedpur Meeting

Akhilesh Jha Expresses Concern Over Increase In Road Accidents And Thefts Police officials receive directives on crime reduction and traffic safety strategies. JAMSHEDPUR – Zonal IG Akhilesh Jha held a crucial meeting with district police officials on Thursday, addressing the city’s rising crime rates and road accident fatalities. "We’re concerned about the increase in crimes like robbery and…

[batboyblog]

Things Biden and the Democrats did, this week #10

March 15-22 2024

The EPA announced new emission standards with the goal of having more than half of new cars and light trucks sold in the US be low/zero emission by 2032. One of the most significant climate regulations in the nation’s history, it'll eliminate 7 billion tons of CO2 emissions over the next 30 years. It's part of President Biden's goal to cut greenhouse gas emissions in half by 2030 on the road to eliminating them totally by 2050.

President Biden canceled nearly 6 Billion dollars in student loan debt. 78,000 borrowers who work in public sector jobs, teachers, nurses, social workers, firefighters etc will have their debt totally forgiven. An additional 380,000 public service workers will be informed that they qualify to have their loans forgiven over the next 2 years. The Biden Administration has now forgiven $143.6 Billion in student loan debt for 4 million Americans since the Supreme Court struck down the original student loan forgiveness plan last year.

Under Pressure from the administration and Democrats in Congress Drugmaker AstraZeneca caps the price of its inhalers at $35. AstraZeneca joins rival Boehringer Ingelheim in capping the price of inhalers at $35, the price the Biden Admin capped the price of insulin for seniors. The move comes as the Federal Trade Commission challenges AstraZeneca’s patents, and Senator Bernie Sanders in his role as Democratic chair of the Senate Health Committee investigates drug pricing.

The Department of Justice sued Apple for being an illegal monopoly in smartphones. The DoJ is joined by 16 state attorneys general. The DoJ accuses Apple of illegally stifling competition with how its apps work and seeking to undermining technologies that compete with its own apps.

The EPA passed a rule banning the final type of asbestos still used in the United States. The banning of chrysotile asbestos (known as white asbestos) marks the first time since 1989 the EPA taken action on asbestos, when it passed a partial ban. 40,000 deaths a year in the US are linked to asbestos

President Biden announced $8.5 billion to help build advanced computer chips in America. Currently America only manufactures 10% of the world's chips and none of the most advanced next generation of chips. The deal with Intel will open 4 factories across 4 states (Arizona, Ohio, New Mexico, and Oregon) and create 30,000 new jobs. The Administration hopes that by 2030 America will make 20% of the world's leading-edge chips.

President Biden signed an Executive Order prioritizing research into women's health. The order will direct $200 million into women's health across the government including comprehensive studies of menopause health by the Department of Defense and new outreach by the Indian Health Service to better meet the needs of American Indian and Alaska Native Women. This comes on top of $100 million secured by First Lady Jill Biden from ARPA-H.

Democratic Senators Bob Casey, Tammy Baldwin, Sherrod Brown, and Jacky Rosen (all up for re-election) along with Elizabeth Warren, Cory Booker, and Sheldon Whitehouse, introduced the "Shrinkflation Prevention Act" The Bill seeks to stop the practice of companies charging the same amount for products that have been subtly shrunk so consumers pay more for less.

The Department of Transportation will invest $45 million in projects that improve Bicyclist and Pedestrian Connectivity and Safety

The EPA will spend $77 Million to put 180 electric school buses onto the streets of New York City This is part of New York's goal to transition its whole school bus fleet to electric by 2035.

The Senate confirmed President Biden's nomination of Nicole Berner to the Court of Appeals for the Fourth Circuit. Berner has served as the general counsel for America's largest union, SEIU, since 2017 and worked in their legal department since 2006. On behalf of SEIU she's worked on cases supporting the Affordable Care Act, DACA, and against the Defense of Marriage act and was part of the Fight for 15. Before working at SEIU she was a staff attorney at Planned Parenthood. Berner's name was listed by the liberal group Demand Justice as someone they'd like to see on the Supreme Court. Berner becomes one of just 5 LGBT federal appeals court judges, 3 appointed by Biden. The Senate also confirmed Edward Kiel and Eumi Lee to be district judges in New Jersey and Northern California respectively, bring the number of federal judges appointed by Biden to 188.

[warningsine]

Bangladesh’s top court has scaled back the quotas on government jobs that led to widespread student-led protests and violent clashes that killed more than 100 people.

On Sunday afternoon the supreme court overturned a ruling that had reintroduced quotas for all civil service jobs, meaning that 30% were reserved for veterans and relatives of those who fought in the Bangladesh war of independence in 1971.

The supreme court ruling, which was brought forward in light of the protests, stipulated that only 5% of jobs would now be reserved for descendants of freedom fighters and another 2% for those from ethnic minorities or with disabilities, with the rest open to candidates based on merit.

The return of the quotas, which had been scrapped in 2018, sparked anger among students, who argued they were unjust at a time of economic decline and unfairly benefited those in the ruling Awami League party, which was founded by those who fought in the independence war.

Peaceful demonstrations initially broke out on university campuses across the country as students mobilised through social media to demand an end to the quotas. However, the unrest turned violent last week as pro-government groups were accused of attacking the protesters with weapons and riot police used rubber bullets and teargas to break up protests.

Protesters hit back at police with bricks and stones in clashes across the country and stormed the headquarters of the state broadcaster in Dhaka, setting it alight. In another city, protesters broke into a prison and released hundreds of inmates.

The clashes between pro-government forces and protesters have left thousands injured and killed about 150, though the government has refused to release official data on the death toll. Witnesses have alleged that police violence is responsible for a large number of the fatalities.

The government has also imposed a communications blackout, with the internet shut down and phone lines widely jammed. At least 70 leaders of the political opposition and several student leaders and activists have also been arrested, accused of stirring up unrest.

As the court ruling was given on Sunday, the country remained under a strict indefinite curfew, with people banned from leaving their homes and gathering in any capacity. Police were granted “shoot on sight” orders for those who violated the curfew and the capital, Dhaka, resembled a war zone, with military personnel and tanks patrolling the streets and army helicopters flying low over the city. While the roads were largely deserted, protests continued in some quarters of the capital.

Student organisers said the supreme court ruling did not mean the end of the protests, which have escalated into the greatest challenge in years to the prime minister, Sheikh Hasina, with many calling for her resignation. Hasina, who has been in office since 2009, has been accused of authoritarianism and rampant corruption and her re-election in January was widely documented as rigged.

Mahfuzul Hasan, a protest coordinator from Jahangirnagar University, said they still had several demands that the government must meet before they would call off the demonstrations.

“Now we want justice for the lives lost of our brothers. The prime minister has to apologise and those who are guilty have to be tried,” he said. Hasan said student groups were also calling for the removal of vice-chancellors of universities where protesters faced violence, and politicians who spread inflammatory remarks about the protesters.

He said he was among many student protest leaders who now feared for their safety and were concerned about being “abducted” by law enforcement agencies, as has often happened to critics of Hasina’s government.

Hasib Al-Islam, a Dhaka university student and protest coordinator, said he saw the supreme court verdict as positive but said students were waiting to see how Hasina’s government responded and were demanding that a quota reform bill be passed through parliament.

Islam said: “Our protest against the quota system is already under way, and it will continue until the government issues a executive order in line with our reform demands.”

Among those calling for justice was the family of Abu Sayeed, a final year English student who killed in the protests on Thursday, allegedly by the police. A video of Sayeed being fired at by police during a protest at a university in the city of Rangpur had gone viral on social media before the government shut down the internet. Hospital sources said Sayeed had rubber bullet wounds on his body when he was brought in dead.

Sayeed’s brother Abu Hossain said Sayeed had been the only one in the family to make it to university. “The entire family was so proud of him; we had such high hopes for him,” said Hossain. “My parents are in shock; our only hope is lost.”

Hossain said his family stood behind the protesting students and wanted justice for his murder. “My brother died for demanding fair rights for every student,” he said. “He died a martyr. I hope he’ll be remembered for it and his death was not in vain.”

[jewish-vents]

I'm an American Jew. The confluence of events we're witnessing now is unbelievably fucking terrifying.

If you take the massive uptick in acceptance of antisemitism on both the left and the right, and you combine that with the increasing likelihood of a second Trump presidency, and you put all of THAT together with the latest Supreme Court disaster that says well ACKSHUALLY it's kind of OK for presidents to do whatever they want with no real legal repercussions....

Well, this doesn't add up to anything good. Historically speaking, there is ample proof of all this adding up to something extremely bad. Even if nobody decides to go after Jews in an official capacity right now, we're getting more and more precursors in place that will make it possible for someone to do it down the road.

And I don't know how to explain to anybody that we can't afford to keep heading down this path. And it's clear to me that there's really nowhere left to run to. My ancestors made their way to the US because it was one of the last safe places to go at the time. The US is getting less and less safe by the minute, but the rest of the world is just as bad or worse. There's still Israel, but there's bombs falling on it all the time so that doesn't exactly count as safety either.

I had not thought to see it get this bad in my lifetime. I don't know what to do.

.

[haggishlyhagging]

It would take Diane Joyce nearly ten years of battles to become the first female skilled crafts worker ever in Santa Clara County history. It would take another seven years of court litigation, pursued all the way to the U.S. Supreme Court, before she could actually start work. And then, the real fight would begin.

For blue-collar women, there was no honeymoon period on the job; the backlash began the first day they reported to work—and only intensified as the Reagan economy put more than a million blue-collar men out of work, reduced wages, and spread mounting fear. While the white-collar world seemed capable of absorbing countless lawyers and bankers in the 80s, the trades and crafts had no room for expansion. "Women are far more economically threatening in blue-collar work, because there are a finite number of jobs from which to choose," Mary Ellen Boyd, executive director of Non-Traditional Employment for Women, observes. "An MBA can do anything. But a plumber is only a plumber." While women never represented more than a few percentage points of the blue-collar work force, in this powder-keg situation it only took a few female faces to trigger a violent explosion.

Diane Joyce arrived in California in 1970, a thirty-three-year-old widow with four children, born and raised in Chicago. Her father was a tool-and-die maker, her mother a returned-goods clerk at a Walgreen's warehouse. At eighteen, she married Donald Joyce, a tool-and-die maker's apprentice at her father's plant. Fifteen years later, after working knee-deep in PCBs for years, he died suddenly of a rare form of liver cancer.

After her husband's death, Joyce taught herself to drive, packed her children in a 1966 Chrysler station wagon and headed west to San Jose, California, where a lone relative lived. Joyce was an experienced bookkeeper and she soon found work as a clerk in the county Office of Education, at $506 a month. A year later, she heard that the county's transportation department had a senior account clerk job vacant that paid $50 more a month. She applied in March 1972.

"You know, we wanted a man," the interviewer told her as soon as she walked through the door. But the account clerk jobs had all taken a pay cut recently, and sixteen women and no men had applied for the job. So he sent her on to the second interview. "This guy was a little politer," Joyce recalls. "First, he said, 'Nice day, isn't it?' before he tells me, 'You know, we wanted a man.' I wanted to say, 'Yeah, and where's my man? I am the man in my house.' But I'm sitting there with four kids to feed and all I can see is dollar signs, so I kept my mouth shut."

She got the job. Three months later, Joyce saw a posting for a "road maintenance man." An eighth-grade education and one year's work experience was all that was required, and the pay was $723 a month. Her current job required a high-school education, bookkeeping skills, and four years' experience— and paid $150 less a month. "I saw that flier and I said, ‘Oh wow, I can do that.’ Everyone in the office laughed. They thought it was a riot. . . . I let it drop."

But later that same year, every county worker got a 2 to 5 percent raise except for the 70 female account clerks. "Oh now, what do you girls need a raise for?" the director of personnel told Joyce and some other women who went before the board of supervisors to object. "All you'd do is spend the money on trips to Europe." Joyce was shocked. "Every account clerk I knew was supporting a family through death or divorce. I'd never seen Mexico, let alone Europe." Joyce decided to apply for the next better-paying "male" job that opened. In the meantime, she became active in the union; a skillful writer and one of the best-educated representatives there, Joyce wound up composing the safety language in the master contract and negotiating what became the most powerful county agreement protecting seniority rights.

In 1974, a road dispatcher retired, and both Joyce and a man named Paul Johnson, a former oil-fields roustabout, applied for the post. The supervisors told Joyce she needed to work on the road crew first and handed back her application. Johnson didn't have any road crew experience either, but his application was accepted. In the end, the job went to another man.

Joyce set out to get road crew experience. As she was filling out her application for the next road crew job that opened, in 1975, her supervisor walked in, asked what she was doing, and turned red. "You're taking a man's job away!" he shouted. Joyce sat silently for a minute, thinking. Then she said, "No, I'm not. Because a man can sit right here where I'm sitting."

In the evenings, she took courses in road maintenance and truck and light equipment operation. She came in third out of 87 applicants on the job test; there were ten openings on the road crew, and she got one of them.

For the next four years, Joyce carried tar pots on her shoulder, pulled trash from the median strip, and maneuvered trucks up the mountains to clear mud slides. "Working outdoors was great," she says. "You know, women pay fifty dollars a month to join a health club, and here I was getting paid to get in shape." The road men didn't exactly welcome her arrival. When they trained her to drive the bobtail trucks, she says, they kept changing instructions; one gave her driving tips that nearly blew up the engine. Her supervisor wouldn't issue her a pair of coveralls; she had to file a formal grievance to get them. In the yard, the men kept the ladies' room locked, and on the road they wouldn't stop to let her use the bathroom. "You wanted a man's job, you learn to pee like a man," her supervisor told her.

Obscene graffiti about Joyce appeared on the sides of trucks. Men threw darts at union notices she posted on the bulletin board. One day, the stockroom storekeeper, Tony Laramie, who says later he liked to call her "the piglet," called a general meeting in the depot's Ready Room. "I hate the day you came here," Laramie started screaming at Joyce as the other men looked on, many nodding. "We don't want you here. You don't belong here. Why don't you go the hell away?"

Joyce's experience was typical of the forthright and often violent backlash within the blue-collar work force, an assault undisguised by decorous homages to women's "difference." At a construction site in New York, for example, where only a few female hard-hats had found work, the men took a woman's work boots and hacked them into bits. Another woman was injured by a male co-worker; he hit her on the head with a two-by-four. In Santa Clara County, where Joyce worked, the county's equal opportunity office files were stuffed with reports of ostracism, hazing, sexual harassment, threats, verbal and physical abuse. "It's pervasive in some of the shops," says John Longabaugh, the county's equal employment officer at the time. "They mess up their tools, leave pornography on their desks. Safety equipment is made difficult to get, or unavailable." A maintenance worker greeted the first woman in his department with these words: "I know someone who would break your arm or leg for a price." Another new woman was ordered to clean a transit bus by her supervisor—only to find when she climbed aboard that the men had left a little gift for her: feces smeared across the seats.

In 1980, another dispatcher job opened up. Joyce and Johnson both applied. They both got similarly high scores on the written exam. Joyce now had four years' experience on the road crew; Paul Johnson only had a year and a half. The three interviewers, one of whom later referred to Joyce in court as "rabble-rousing" and "not a lady," gave the job to Johnson. Joyce decided to complain to the county athrmative action office.

The decision fell to James Graebner, the new director of the transportation department, an engineer who believed that it was about time the county hired its first woman for its 238 skilled-crafts jobs. Graebner confronted the roads director, Ron Shields. "What's wrong with the woman?" Graebner asked. “I hate her," Shields said, according to other people in the room. "I just said I thought Johnson was more qualified," is how Shields remembers it. "She didn't have the proficiency with heavy equipment." Neither, of course, did Johnson. Not that it was relevant anyway: dispatch is an office job that doesn't require lifting anything heavier than a microphone.

Graebner told Shields he was being overruled; Joyce had the job. Later that day, Joyce recalls, her supervisor called her into the conference room. "Well, you got the job," he told her. "But you're not qualified." Johnson, meanwhile, sat by the phone, dialing up the chain of command. "I felt like tearing something up," he recalls later. He demanded a meeting with the affirmative action office. "The affirmative action man walks in," Johnson says, "and he's this big black guy. He can't tell me anything. He brings in this minority who can barely speak English . . . I told them, 'You haven't heard the last of me.'" Within days, he had hired a lawyer and set his reverse discrimination suit in motion, contending that the county had given the job to a "less qualified" woman.

In 1987, the Supreme Court ruled against Johnson. The decision was hailed by women's and civil rights groups. But victory in Washington was not the same as triumph in the transportation yard. For Joyce and the road men, the backlash was just warming up. "Something like this is going to hurt me one day," Gerald Pourroy, a foreman in Joyce's office, says of the court's ruling, his voice low and bitter. He stares at the concrete wall above his desk. "I look down the tracks and I see the train coming toward me."

The day after the Supreme Court decision, a woman in the county office sent Joyce a congratulatory bouquet, two dozen carnations. Joyce arranged the flowers in a vase on her desk. The next day they were gone. She found them finally, crushed in a garbage bin. A road foreman told her, "I drop-kicked them across the yard."

-Susan Faludi, Backlash: the Undeclared War Against American Women

[c-optimistic]

For months now, I’ve watched in horror as posts about genocide and stopping a war have stopped and turned into talking points for the election. ‘Vote blue no matter who’ I see plastered everywhere, as though this messaging is anything but a fresh coat of paint over a rotten and dirty and collapsing structure, unable to hide the stench or the oozing of the blood of those who suffer every single day under the policies enacted by the current administration.

I don’t particularly care who any of you vote for. And I’m happy to reassure you I live in a red state where my vote is meaningless. I just don’t really comprehend this refusal to admit that we’ve been down this road before. ‘We gotta save our democracy,’ and ‘don’t you know that we’ll be living in Gilead,’ and ‘how can we save anyone else unless we secure our rights first?’

A lot of people much smarter than me, more eloquent than me, with bigger followings than me, have spoken on this. And I don’t particularly care to rehash political arguments beyond pointing out one thing: when a party stops talking policy and starts only fear-mongering, we’ve already lost. Blame citizens united, blame the Supreme Court, blame lobbying groups, blame dark money, but at the end of the day, the two parties have far more in common than they have differences. They got the time to send billions worth of weapons to kill innocents, got the time to ban TikTok, got the time to make the rich richer, and while they’re doing all that, they have us squabble over scraps. The red guys drape themselves in a flag and shout that the gays and immigrants are out to get them, and the blue guys drape themselves in a rainbow and say actually no, men with guns are gonna force us into nuclear families.

It’s funny, isn’t it. How both these parties get along just fine when it comes to money and murdering babies. But somehow, when it comes to helping vets or giving kids a good education or respecting a small government or caring about the environment or getting affordable healthcare, then the other guys are intransigent and out to get us.

I don’t care for the lesser of two evils argument. I don’t believe that our only choice every four years is to be scared enough to vote for a politician who seems to keep doing the same thing no matter whether there’s a R or a D next to their name. It’s heartbreaking to see people I respect choose to turn away from those who suffer in the name of minimizing damage, as though we’re all powerless somehow.

Most of all, I wonder if any of us truly comprehend what those who suffer at the hands of our policies hear when we say these things. That our safety matters more? That it’s okay for us to halt pressure on our elected leaders for the sake of a democracy that we’ve convinced ourselves we have? Do we think the homeless vet with cancer in California dealing with sweeps by a democratic governor has time to wait? Or that kid with polio in Gaza? While innocents are sentenced to death as a result of a broken criminal legal system and the democrats have—for the first time in over a decade—removed death penalty abolishment from their platform? We scream ‘vote blue no matter who’ and our tax dollars go to bombing kids in shelters, go to separating families at the border, go to funding wars and havoc and pain worldwide, and we ignore that both the nominees are more willing to appeal to the basest of human behavior rather than choose to make the world a better place for everyone and not just a few.

I didn’t watch the convention. I couldn’t. Why this celebrity worship of politicians who have done nothing to deserve the praise? Why turn our political leaders into paragons without reproach rather than what they all actually are: people. People who are corruptible, greedy, easily manipulated, and willing to sacrifice large swaths of innocents for the sake of their careers. Why should we celebrate either of these nominees? Why shouldn’t we instead demand better? Demand real policy outside of just ‘the other guy is worse.’ I know he is. That’s not the issue.

I don’t want slogans and pretty words. I don’t want to be scared into voting for someone I know will carry on a genocide, all in the name of saving myself. I want real actionable plans. I want to keep pushing those in politics to fight for something other than lining their own pockets. Civic duty is about more than harm reduction. It’s about more than merely securing the best outcome for ourselves. It’s about fighting, with each other, not against, for a fair and equitable society for everyone. I don’t believe we are without power, that true change is out of reach. They wouldn’t try so hard to silence us and keep us distracted by fighting each other if we didn’t have power.

And yet, I have no hope whatsoever that we will obtain any meaningful political change. Not today, not in November. Not for those children in Gaza, not for those unhoused folks in California, and certainly not for the average American, who has more in common with her flag waving and rainbow wearing neighbors than any politician.

But don’t you worry, I’m sure in four years’ time, we’ll all have a new bogeyman to be scared of, and we can start this whole process yet again.

[mariacallous]

Five years since Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s government stripped Jammu and Kashmir of its autonomous status, the central government’s iron-fisted approach to the region has left it more vulnerable to regional and geopolitical threats.

While Kashmir Valley, which has withstood the brunt of armed insurgency since 1989, continues to simmer with militancy-related violence, the theater of terrorism has now extended into the otherwise peaceful province of Jammu. Since 2019, at least 262 soldiers and 171 civilians have died in more than 690 incidents, including the February 2019 Pulwama terrorist attack. The unsustainable and disproportionate loss of lives underscores the risks to both regional stability and India’s national security.

In 2019, the Modi government revoked Article 370 of the Indian constitution, which granted the state of Jammu and Kashmir its special status, annihilating the contested region’s symbolic autonomy. Concurrently, the central government also imposed an indefinite curfew in the region and used internet shutdowns and arrests to control and suppress the local population. The result was a transformed landscape. Already scarred by militarization, Kashmir became enmeshed in barbed wire.

This undemocratic exercise, though later stamped and endorsed by India’s Supreme Court, has since spurred further legal changes. For example, the local population no longer has access to exclusive protections that previously allowed only permanent residents of Jammu and Kashmir to apply for government jobs and buy property in the state.

In March 2020, the government repealed 12 and amended 14 land-related laws, introducing a clause that paved the way for a development authority to confiscate land and another that allowed high-ranking army officials to declare a local area as strategically important.

Local residents are appalled at the ease with which government agencies can now seize both residential and agricultural lands in the name of development and security—enabling mass evictions and the bulldozing of houses that are disproportionately affecting Muslim communities and small landowners.

Meanwhile, the ecological fallout from introducing massive road and railway networks, coupled with the addition of mega hydroelectricity projects, is polluting riverbeds and causing villages to sink. Since 2019, there has been a lack of local representation which could act as a buffer against massive development projects, most of which now fall under New Delhi’s governance. Meanwhile, the region’s unemployment rate, as of 2023, remains high at above 18 percent, as compared to the national average of 8 percent.

Over the last few years, the Modi government has also squashed dissent in the region by redirecting the military to maintain surveillance and control of the civilian population. According to the Forum for Human Rights in Jammu and Kashmir, over 2,700 people were arrested in the region between 2020 and 2023 under India’s contentious Unlawful Activities (Prevention) Act and the Public Safety Act. Those arrested include journalists like Fahad Shah and Sajad Gul, human rights defenders like Khurram Pervez, and prominent lawyers like Mian Qayoom and Nazir Ronga.

Modi’s repressive policies have deepened the trust deficit between Kashmiris and the Indian government. The top-down administration has further sidelined local bureaucrats and police officers, further widening the gap between the central government and local ground realities.

All of this has not only pushed the local population into distress, but also jeopardized India’s already fragile relations with its two nuclear neighbors, Pakistan and China.

The Kashmir conflict, rooted in the 1947 partition of India, has led to three major wars and several military skirmishes between India, Pakistan, and China. And though the region has always been contentious—India controls more than half of the total land, while Pakistan controls 30 percent, and China holds the remaining 15 percent in the northeast region near Ladakh—Modi’s aggressive handling has further provoked its neighbors.

Following the revocation of Article 370, the region was split into two separate union territories—Jammu and Kashmir forming one and Ladakh forming another, with both falling under the central government’s control.

This redrawing of the region’s internal borders, which signaled New Delhi’s assertions of reclaiming the Chinese-occupied territory near Ladakh—as well as India’s increasing tilt towards the United States—resulted in a deadly clash between India and China in 2020 and another one in 2022. Despite diplomatic efforts to resolve tensions over the disputed Himalayan border, New Delhi has accused Beijing of carrying out “inch by inch” land grabs in Ladakh since 2020.

Meanwhile, Pakistan-administered Kashmir has been rocked by mass protests of its own this year, owing to the country’s political and economic crisis, exacerbated in part by the abrogation of Article 370. Those living in Pakistan-administered Kashmir fear that Pakistan may similarly try to dilute the autonomy of the region.

With refugees flooding in from Afghanistan on its west amidst Imran Khan’s standoff with the Pakistani Army, Islamabad has been on edge and looking for diversionary tactics. The deepening of Pakistani-Chinese relations, including military ties, has contributed to a volatile mix.

But Kashmir’s vulnerability has worsened partly because of India’s own tactical blunders, too. The last decade witnessed a spurt in home-grown militancy, but since 2019 the landscape has been dominated by well-trained militants from across the Pakistani border who have access to sophisticated weapons and technology.

Indian security forces, including paramilitaries and the local police, have turned a blind eye to these emerging threats, especially in the twin districts of Rajouri and Poonch along the border with Pakistan. It is in this area that the impact of terror attacks has been most felt.

The region is home to the nomadic Gujjar-Bakerwal communities and the ethnolinguistic Paharis. These groups are parts of divided families straddling the India-Pakistan border, and this shared cultural linkage between the Indian and Pakistani sides has been weaponized in the past by intelligence networks of both countries.

The Indian armed forces have historically relied on the Gujjar-Bakerwal communities for intelligence gathering in part because of their nomadic lives and deep knowledge of the region’s topography. However, since 2019, the evictions of nomads from forest lands, following the amendment of several land-related laws, as well as affirmative actions for Paharis, a rival ethnic group, have led to the disenchantment of the Gujjar-Bakerwals—and an eventual loss of traditional intelligence assets for India.

Another blunder has been the redeployment of troops from Jammu to the border with China in the northeast, following China’s incursions in Ladakh’s Galwan Valley in 2020. This has left Jammu dangerously exposed to militants who have been infiltrating the region from across the line of control on the western side and carrying out their operations with a fair degree of success.

In 2024 alone, Jammu has witnessed numerous attacks which have resulted in the deaths of 16 soldiers and 12 civilians. In June, for example, the region experienced one of its deadliest attacks when militants opened fire on a bus carrying Hindu pilgrims, killing nine and injuring over 30.

Kashmir’s internal politics has the potential to spill over and push the region into disaster. While India has made some significant strides in international diplomacy under Modi, it tends to neglect the neighborhood where the risks to India’s national security remain the highest. Its diplomatic engagement with China comes in fits and starts but diplomacy with Pakistan remains nonexistent, despite the resumption of a ceasefire in 2021. And while India considers the removal of Jammu and Kashmir’s special status an internal matter, Pakistan sees it as a provocation. All in all, there is a dangerous lack of engagement between the two nuclear rivals in South Asia.

In theory, the ongoing regional elections in Jammu and Kashmir provide a glimmer of opportunity for the people to choose their own local government for the first time in a decade. However, irrespective of who wins the elections, the local leaders will lack the power to enact meaningful change, given that the region remains under the control of New Delhi following its demotion from a state to two union territories.

For instance, Ladakh does not have a legislative assembly, and while Jammu and Kashmir have an elected assembly, the real powers are vested in the hands of a governor, who was appointed to lead the region by the Modi-led central government. As recently as July, the Indian government ruled to further expand the governor’s oversight powers, delivering a blow to local politicians and voters.

Much more needs to be done to change the status quo. Though it remains unlikely, New Delhi must consider meaningful solutions that could assuage some of the political wounds inflicted by the complete erosion of Jammu and Kashmir’s autonomy, including, for example, the restoration of statehood to the region. In order to win back the trust of Kashmiris, the Indian government must reinstate civil liberties and deliver on its promise to provide economic development and jobs.

To improve the region’s safety, Indian agencies must acknowledge their security lapses and repair their broken intelligence networks. And while the Indian security forces must not lower their guard against terrorist activities, terrorism should not be proffered as an excuse when it comes to the normalization of relations in the neighborhood.

Neither Pakistan, nor India can afford the war which is looming over their heads. Diplomatic negotiations, including over Kashmir, must begin with a sense of urgency.

[gatekeeper-watchman]

Who may be committing a crime? Protests that turn violent are called "riots." First Amendment rights aside, there are laws against rioting and inciting others to riot. The following article looks at federal and state prohibitions against rioting and inciting to riot.

The right to protest is among the oldest and most respected rights in the American democratic system. The right of citizens to peacefully protest is protected by the First Amendment of the U.S. Constitution. But there are limits to even the most important rights.

Most states have their own laws defining what constitutes a riot and incitement to riot. After the 2021 insurrection at the U.S. Capitol, hundreds of people faced charges under federal laws, including offenses based on their role in the riot that day.

What Are Rioting, Inciting to Riot, and Related Offenses?

Federal law defines what a riot is. It needs to have all the following criteria: A public disturbance

Involve three or more people

The group engages in acts of violence

There is a clear and present danger of damage to property or injury to people

The law includes threats of violence if those involved could immediately act on the threat.

Under federal law, inciting a riot (18 U.S. Code Section 2101) includes acts of "organizing, promoting, encouraging, participating in a riot" and urging or instigating others to riot.

The criminal code clarifies that incitement is not the same as simply advocating ideas or expressing beliefs in speech or writing. To qualify as incitement, the speech must advocate violence, the rightness of violence, or the right to commit violent acts.

Federal riot crimes provide up to five years in prison upon conviction.

Protected Speech Versus Incitement

Citizens have a right to free speech in the First Amendment of the U.S. Constitution. The extent of that right has been continually tested. It has been strongly protected at all levels of government, but that right is not unlimited.

In the case of Brandenburg v. Ohio (1969), the Supreme Court found that speech is not constitutionally protected if it is:

Intended to produce imminent violent conduct

Likely to produce imminent violent conduct

However, the limits of free speech are still being defined in the courts. A Ninth Circuit decision found that statutory language was "overly broad" in the federal riot statute that criminalizes "promoting" or "encouraging" a riot.

Restrictions on Unlawful Assembly

The First Amendment's right to freedom of assembly is also not unlimited. First, the right only applies to the right to "peaceably assemble." There is no right to assemble to engage in violent acts.

Cities can also regulate the right of peaceable assembly by requiring permits or limiting demonstrations to a designated area. Cities may have practical concerns regarding crowd size and protestor safety. Cities must also safely maintain or divert road traffic. During a demonstration, law enforcement must watch for groups engaging in vandalism or other crimes.

If a group of people gathers intending to disturb the public peace, they could be charged with unlawful assembly or a similar offense like civil disorder. 

When Is Rioting a Federal Crime?

A person would be charged under federal law if the following are true:

Rioting occurs on federal lands, federal government buildings, VA hospitals, military bases, etc.

The person traveled between states or countries to participate in a riot (though the law specifically states it is not intended to prevent travel for legitimate purposes)

The person used interstate or foreign commerce (internet, mail, telephone, radio, television, or social media) to communicate intent to:

Incite a riot

Organize, promote, encourage, participate in, or carry on a riot

Commit any act of violence in furtherance of a riot

Aid or abet any person in inciting, participating in, or carrying on a riot or committing any act of violence in furtherance of a riot

Federal law enforcement uses its discretion. They may not involve themselves in protests or demonstrations that do not occur on federal property.

In most circumstances, state and local police will take action to suppress a riot. Thus, most riot charges will occur under state laws. State laws apply to anyone present in the state when the criminal act happens.

Prosecutions in Both State and Federal Courts

In most cases, a person can be prosecuted for committing the same criminal acts in both state and federal court.

The U.S. Supreme Court affirmed this view in its ruling in Gamble v. United States (2019), upholding the dual sovereignty doctrine. That doctrine states there is no violation of double jeopardy because the state and the federal government are separate sovereigns.

But, sometimes, a statute will say a person cannot be charged in both federal and state court. In the case of rioting, the federal statute specifically states that a judgment, conviction, or acquittal under state law bars federal prosecution for the same act. This statute creates protection from federal prosecution that would not typically exist.

Rioting and Inciting to Riot: California State Law and History

California serves as an example of state rioting laws. The state has seen major protests during tense periods in U.S. civil rights history.

California witnessed riots in 1992 after news spread of not-guilty verdicts. The criminal case was against the police officers charged with beating Rodney King.

After the 2020 murder of George Floyd at the hands of police officers in Minneapolis, large protests occurred in several California cities and counties. In Los Angeles, Riverside, and Orange County, protests turned violent when individuals at the protest damaged store windows and police cruisers. In one Los Angeles demonstration, protesters placed an L.A.P.D. officer in a chokehold and kicked him.

Large-scale protests always present a risk of violence, whether from the protesters themselves or counter-protesters that appear and cause trouble. Law enforcement must balance the rights of protesters to demonstrate peacefully and the need to maintain order and public safety when things spin out of control.

Differences Between Riot and Incitement To Riot Charges

California prohibits participating in a riot and inciting a riot.

California Penal Code section 404 defines a riot as:

Any use of force or violence, disturbing the peace, or any threat to use force or violence

Accompanied by immediate power of execution

By two or more persons acting together

Without the authority of law

Participating in a riot is a misdemeanor offense. Upon conviction, an offender may face up to one year in county jail, a $1,000 fine, or both.

The crime of incitement to riot is similar. The elements of the crime are as follows:

With the intent to cause a riot

A person acts or engages in conduct

That (1) urges a riot, or (2) urges others to commit acts of force or violence, or property damage (the burning or destroying of property)

Under circumstances that produce a clear, present, and immediate danger

Of acts of force or violence, or property damage

Incitement to riot is also a misdemeanor offense. An offender faces up to one year of jail time, a $1,000 fine, or both after conviction. The offense can become a felony if an offender commits incitement to riot at a prison or county jail and it results in serious bodily injury. The penalty can increase to up to three years in state prison.

Legal Defenses to Riot and Inciting a Riot

Most defense strategies for riot or inciting a riot focus on the protest's turmoil once things get out of hand. Common defenses in such cases may include the following.

Mistaken Identity

The defendant may claim that they were present at the protest or rally, but they did not engage in acts that amount to riot or incitement to riot. The defendant may use the chaos to question witness accounts of the defendant's role or behavior. The witness or law enforcement may have mistaken the person's identity. 

No Clear and Present Danger

The defendant may admit to some role in urging protestors to engage in violent acts. But they may deny that the circumstances presented any clear, present, and immediate danger. If the evidence supports this view, the defendant may seek to reduce the charges to disorderly conduct or disturbing the peace.

Self-Defense or Defense of Others

The defendant may claim that misconduct by the police forced the defendant to engage in violent acts or to urge violent acts in self-defense or defense of others. Depending on the law of the jurisdiction, the defendant may claim a right to reasonably stand their ground if they perceived an assault by the police.

Tips for Organizing a Peaceful Protest

Protest organizers must exercise free speech and assembly rights carefully to avoid criminal charges. Impassioned protests could surge beyond organizers’ control. You cannot determine the actions of everyone who attends. This risk can make planning a protest challenging.

Learn about your local and state protest laws. You may need a permit to hold a march, rally, or parade. You might also need a permit to protest in certain areas.

You may want to take precautions to reduce the risk of incitement to riot charges, such as the following:

Get guidance from a civil rights lawyer during planning activities

Clearly state that the protest will be nonviolent in all related communications

Share accurate legal sources to inform the attendees about protesters’ rights and obligations

Learn how the law defines violent language

Review drafts of your speeches and online posts for potentially violent language or expression

Avoid verbal speech that may appear to be a call or threat of violence

Prepare for emergencies with plans for if violence begins or you face an arrest, including knowing phone numbers for emergency contacts like a criminal defense lawyer

Protest organizers’ liability for violence is a complex area of civil and criminal law. Despite the best intentions, you may encounter accusations of inciting a riot. A strong legal defense may become essential to protect your civil rights.

Get Legal Help With Your Riot or Inciting to Riot Charges

You can face serious penalties if you have been charged with rioting or incitement to riot at the federal or state level. You will want to seek the best defense from a skilled lawyer. Talk with a criminal defense attorney in your area today and learn how they can help.

[lindstromm]

The National Highway Transportation Safety Administration is the federal agency in charge of making cars safer. There's a summary about how the NHTSA makes safety regulations at this link. Here's a couple of paragraphs:

Internally, the agency’s first step is to quantify the safety problem by analyzing police-reported fatal and non-fatal crashes in its databases. The agency may also use information from industry stakeholders, ***consumer complaints***, and insurance companies to assist in this task. NHTSA then conducts research using systems designed to address the safety problem. This research focuses on: developing one or more tests to evaluate the performance of the systems; determining the metrics that would be most effective at evaluating their performance; and determining the pass/fail criteria that would achieve the desired safety benefits.

If you go to the NHTSA website (https://www.nhtsa.gov/), there's a button in the top right corner labeled "Report a Safety Problem." Any federal agency collecting consumer comments has to read and catalogue every single complaint submitted.

Regulations about headlights would be handled by a federal agency, not by a law passed by Congress. Or at least, that's the way it works right now. The uber-conservative Supreme Court (motto: destroying the American government while you watch) is hearing cases this term about undermining federal agency authority and otherwise making it lots easier for corporations to make more money by ignoring safety stuff.

But in the meantime, click on that "Report a Safety Problem" and have your say. I recommend listing specific makes and models of vehicles with awful headlights. Definitely explain the migraine trigger and the problem it causes with night blindness and how it isn't safe for other drivers on the road.

How do I petition congress to pass legislation regulating headlights

LEDs are illegal, especially ones that flicker, that shit is so fucking distracting and triggers my migraines.

There will be a max color temperature headlights can be; aka, they will only be allowed to be warm colors, aka, white and blue fucking headlights will be illegal.

There will be a maximum lumens level set for regular night headlights. I refuse to be blinded.

[whatsissue]

Supreme Court Declines to Hear Appeal of Man Convicted in Fatal Shooting of Métis Hunters in Alberta

Supreme Court Declines to Hear Appeal of Man Convicted in Fatal Shooting of Métis Hunters in Alberta Canada’s Supreme Court has opted not to hear the appeal of Anthony Bilodeau, one of two men convicted in the tragic shooting deaths of two Métis hunters in eastern Alberta. The court's dismissal of Bilodeau's leave to appeal was announced on Thursday without providing reasons for the decision. Background of the Case The incident occurred in March 2020 when Bilodeau and his father, Roger Bilodeau, became concerned about a truck parked at the end of their rural property. After chasing down the vehicle, a confrontation ensued, resulting in the fatal shooting of Maurice Cardinal, 57, and his nephew Jacob Sansom, 39. The two men had been moose hunting prior to the incident and were found shot and left on the side of the road near Glendon, Alberta, approximately 200 kilometers northeast of Edmonton. In a trial that garnered significant public attention, Anthony Bilodeau was convicted of second-degree murder for Cardinal's death and manslaughter for Sansom's death. He received a life sentence with no chance of parole for 13 years. His father, Roger Bilodeau, was convicted of manslaughter in the deaths and sentenced to 10 years in prison. Trial Arguments and Crown’s Stance During the trial, the defense argued that the Bilodeaus acted in self-defense, believing that the hunters were attempting to steal from their family farm. However, the Crown contended that the father and son took the law into their own hands by pursuing the hunters, leading to the deadly confrontation. The case sparked discussions about vigilantism and the responsibilities of citizens when confronting suspected crimes, particularly in rural communities where tensions can run high. Roger Bilodeau’s Parole and Community Dynamics Roger Bilodeau was released on day parole in May, and last month, the Parole Board of Canada extended his release for an additional three months. In their decision, the board described him as a low risk to reoffend. They noted that his criminal actions stemmed from a "complex interplay of personal beliefs, misinterpretations, and deep-seated frustrations." The board's assessment highlighted Bilodeau’s background, stating, “Growing up in a crime-free environment and living a law-abiding life, you harbored a strong sense of responsibility towards family and property.” However, on the day of the offence, his judgment was affected by anger and mistrust, leading him to confront the hunters under mistaken beliefs about their intentions. As a condition of his day parole, Roger Bilodeau must adhere to several stipulations, including no contact with the victims' families, ongoing therapy, and a curfew due to the community dynamics related to the case. Conclusion The Supreme Court's decision not to hear Anthony Bilodeau's appeal marks another chapter in a case that has raised significant questions about justice, self-defense, and community safety. As Roger Bilodeau navigates his parole conditions, the impact of this tragic incident continues to resonate within the Métis community and beyond, reminding all of the complexities surrounding vigilantism and the tragic consequences of misperceptions. Thank you for taking the time to read this article! Your thoughts and feedback are incredibly valuable to me. What do you think about the topics discussed? Please share your insights in the comments section below, as your input helps me create even better content. I’m also eager to hear your stories! If you have a special experience, a unique story, or interesting anecdotes from your life or surroundings, please send them to me at whatsissue@gmail.com. Your stories could inspire others and add depth to our discussions. If you enjoyed this post and want to stay updated with more informative and engaging articles, don’t forget to hit the subscribe button! I’m committed to bringing you the latest insights and trends, so stay tuned for upcoming posts. Wishing you a wonderful day ahead, and I look forward to connecting with you in the comments and reading your stories! Read the full article

[werindialive]

Supreme Court Allows LMV License Holders to Drive Transport Vehicles with Conditions

In a significant ruling, the Supreme Court of India has declared that individuals holding a Light Motor Vehicle (LMV) license are permitted to drive transport vehicles, provided they comply with certain conditions. This decision has raised discussions across various sectors, especially among those involved in the transport industry.

The Supreme Court’s ruling comes after a petition challenging the restrictions imposed on LMV license holders. According to the Motor Vehicles Act of 1988, an individual with an LMV license is only authorized to drive private vehicles, not commercial transport vehicles like buses, trucks, and other heavy-duty vehicles. However, the latest judgment revises this stipulation, allowing LMV license holders to drive certain transport vehicles as long as they meet specific qualifications outlined by the court.

Key Details of the Ruling

The court emphasized that while LMV license holders can now drive transport vehicles, they must undergo additional training and obtain a certification for the specific type of transport vehicle they intend to operate. For instance, those wishing to drive large commercial vehicles such as trucks or buses would need to attend special driving schools that focus on transport vehicle operation. The ruling ensures that drivers are well-equipped to handle the unique challenges of driving transport vehicles, ensuring safety and efficiency on the roads.

The Supreme Court further clarified that the transport vehicles in question must meet certain weight and size restrictions. For example, the judgment specifies that an LMV license holder can drive vehicles with a maximum weight of 7,500 kg, a typical threshold for many light commercial vehicles.

Implications for the Transport Industry

This ruling could have significant implications for the transport industry, especially in terms of the availability of drivers. India has faced a shortage of skilled commercial vehicle drivers, and this decision could provide a new pool of potential drivers who are already familiar with the operation of light motor vehicles. It could also reduce the burden on transport companies that struggle to recruit qualified drivers.

However, the ruling may face some opposition from road safety experts and transport associations who express concerns about road safety and the lack of experience among LMV license holders driving heavy vehicles. They argue that transport vehicle driving requires specialized skills that go beyond what is typically learned while driving lighter vehicles.

Conclusion

The Supreme Court’s decision marks a notable shift in India’s road safety laws and regulations, aiming to address the ongoing shortage of commercial vehicle drivers. As this judgment unfolds, it will be essential to monitor how it affects road safety, driver training, and the transport industry as a whole.

[dankusner]

Steep cost-cutting, jump in lawsuits among possibilities if S, T, U prevail, experts say

ELECTIONS ’24 CITY CHARTER Unknowns swirl about Dallas Hero proposals

It would be historic if voters approved three charter amendment proposals backed by Dallas Hero and touted as a way to address public safety and government transparency.

None of the charters in Texas’ largest cities set minimums for police staffing, mandate a public survey that could get the city manager a bonus or termination, or waive governmental immunity.

Dallas would be the first if Proposition S, T, or U is approved.

“We believe our message is a strong one,” said Pete Marocco, executive director of Dallas Hero.

“We continue to hear from the community that recognizes that we need more police, and we’re going to continue getting the message out that this is the clearest plan to do so.”

The uncertainty of the real impacts has led to uproar from the City Council, with all 15 members urging voters to vote no on all three proposals.

“If propositions S, T and U pass, their cost would force cuts to things residents tell me they want more of, like street repair, library locations and hours, park upkeep, and it could even affect pay for our tenured police officers,” said council member Gay Donnell Willis.

“That’s nothing but bad.”

The City Council initially approved three counterproposals, Propositions K, M and N, to cancel out the Dallas Hero propositions.

The Texas Supreme Court in September ordered the council to remove the three amendments, saying they didn’t clearly tell voters their approval would nullify Dallas Hero’s three proposals.

Experts say while the reasons some people support the Dallas Hero propositions may make sense, the proposals could have unintended consequences.

“If any of them do pass, it’s likely they won’t be felt immediately,” said Brian Owsley, an associate professor at the University of North Texas at Dallas’ College of Law.

“But there is probably going to be some sort of inadvertent impacts down the road.”

The cost of public safety

Proposition U requires the City Council to approve setting aside at least 50% of any excess yearly revenue for the police and fire pension system and other public safety-related initiatives.

The proposition describes excess revenue as when a higher revenue amount is obtained during a fiscal year than the previous year.

Documents show the city estimated receiving $3.5 billion in all city operating revenue last fiscal year, which ended on Sept. 30, and around $143 million more this fiscal year.

According to the proposal, the State Pension Review Board or the City Council would set how much of the 50 percent goes to the police and fire pension.

If any money is left of that 50%, it should go to public safety objectives like increasing police officers’ starting salaries and non-pension benefits within the top five city police departments in North Texas with populations over 50,000, the proposal said.

“It would tie the hands of future government bodies who may not have the same issues that need to be prioritized as today,” said Rita Kirk, a Southern Methodist University professor of communication studies and director of the Maguire Center for Ethics & Public Responsibility.

The police and fire pension system has a funding gap of around $3 billion.

In September, the City Council approved a plan for Dallas to contribute $11 billion to the system over 30 years to address the shortfall.

Dallas Hero’s Proposition U also would require the city to have at least 4,000 police officers.

The Dallas Police Department is the highest-funded city agency, making up 38% of Dallas’ $1.9 billion general fund and 14% of the city’s overall $4.97 billion budget.

DPD’s $719 million budget covers nearly 3,100 officers and more than 600 civilian employees in a city with 1.3 million residents.

Interim City Manager Kimberly Bizor Tolbert estimated during an Aug. 7 council meeting it would cost the city at least $175 million to hire, train and equip 900 new officers.

“Overall, you would be looking at drastic, very extreme cuts that we would have to make across the board,” Tolbert told council members.

“And that’s not just from a day to day, but that’s a drastic cut in every single service that we provide at the city.”

Police Chief Eddie García noted in the same meeting that more academy space, trainers, patrol cars and supervisors would be needed to accommodate 900 recruits and that it would be difficult to absorb so many recruits in one year.

He said he believed growth should happen over time and retention is as important as recruitment.

“I’ve never had an argument with any of you or our community that we definitely need to grow, but we need to grow slowly,” García said, who is leaving Dallas to become an assistant city manager in Austin overseeing public safety starting Nov. 4. “We didn’t get into this mess overnight, we’re not going to get out of it overnight.”

Funding source unclear

The lack of clarity on where the money would come from is a concern, said Ted Benavides, an associate professor of practice of public and nonprofit management at the University of Texas at Dallas.

He also is a former Dallas city manager.

“If the citizens vote for it, the city would have to figure out how to get there,” Benavides said.

“But I haven’t seen any analysis of what kind of difference having 4,000 officers would make.”

Officials said the force peaked at 3,600 around 2016.

A failing pension plan caused the police department to lose hundreds of officers to retirement, attrition and higher-paying jobs.

“I’d like to get back to that. I think that should be our goal and then reassess where we’re at as a city,” García told the council in August.

The city plans to hire 250 new officers this fiscal year, though it has missed the mark in recent years and lost nearly as many officers due to attrition.

Dallas projects hitting 3,600 officers by 2033.

García hasn’t publicly said his position on the Dallas Hero proposals.

Dallas Police Association President Jaime Castro hosted a news conference Monday to announce the organization’s opposition to them.

“Budgeting for this level of hiring would not make the city safer, and it would spell doomsday for the city budget,” Castro said from the Dallas Police Association’s headquarters near City Hall.

“Parks, streets, libraries and other city services improve our quality of life and contribute to a safer city.”

The Dallas Fire Fighters Association also opposed all three amendments.

DFA President Lt. Jeff Patterson noted the city’s contract with the police and fire associations has a mechanism to keep pay competitive and reflective of the market.

Starting pay for a Dallas police officer and firefighter is currently $70,314.

Effective Jan. 1, the starting pay for both positions will be $75,397.

Patterson described Proposition U as the “most damaging for fire and police,” fearing it could jeopardize the city’s contract with the public safety associations.

“There is no plan on how to pay for the increases or how they would be implemented, which could lead to cuts from firefighter pay to afford the police pay,” Patterson said.

The 4,000-officer goal borrows from the Police Department’s previous goals.

City officials in 2015 said an analysis showed effective staffing levels were about three officers per 1,000 residents.

Marocco pointed to the Police Department’s response times as a key reason the proposal is needed.

This year, police data shows officers take about 11 minutes, slightly less than in 2023, to respond to priority 1 calls, which include shootings, stabbings and major crashes.

The department’s goal is to respond to those calls within eight minutes.

Response times

Response times have fallen this year compared to last year for priority 2, 3 and 4 calls.

On average, it takes police four hours to respond to priority 4 calls, the lowest category of calls like motor vehicle burglaries and criminal mischief.

The department’s goal is an hour or less.

Last year, the department mandated residents report low-priority calls — like car burglaries, identity theft and graffiti — online instead of through 911 so officers could devote their time to more serious crimes.

Even the lowest priority calls are crimes that impact the quality of life of residents and their perception of whether they feel safe, Marocco said.

“To tell citizens to wait until 2033 for police officers to fully be staffed to adequately respond to calls is completely unrealistic, unacceptable and unprioritized planning,” he said, noting he believes the faster the city can boost officers’ pay and benefits to among the top in North Texas and improve recruitment, the easier it will be to ease concerns about public safety.

City manager survey

Proposition T would require Dallas to conduct an annual survey of at least 1,400 residents, rating the city manager’s performance on five topics: crime, homelessness, litter, panhandling and street condition.

The consequences range from a bonus equal to the city manager’s base salary to termination.

The survey must be conducted and published between Jan. 1 and March 15 each year and poll at least 100 residents from all 14 council districts. Each topic would be rated on a scale of 1 to 4, with 1 being “a major problem” and 4 being “not a problem.”

Dallas has around 1.3 million residents, with roughly 90,000 people in each council district.

If less than 30% of the responses on all five topics are a 1 or 2, then the city manager would be paid a performance bonus equal to their annual base salary.

The bonus amount decreases if the threshold isn’t met for all five issues.

Tolbert’s base salary as of September was $319,725.

If no more than two topics yield less than 30% of the responses as a 1 or 2, then the city manager would be fired by the council within 30 days and disqualified from being reappointed for 10 years.

The proposal says the impact of the survey results only applies if the city manager has been on the job for at least 18 months as of Jan. 1 in the year the poll results are published.

It could deter many candidates from considering the job, Owsley said.

“If someone takes that job and gets fired because of a survey given to a fraction of the residents, they become the poster child for, ‘Why you don’t want to work for Dallas,’” he said.

Benavides declined to say whether, as a former city manager, he thought any of the three Dallas Hero proposals were good or bad ideas, but he said the survey could cause some candidates to “think twice,” knowing that was the standard.

“If they’re worried about deterring candidates, I say good,” Marocco said. “We’re glad they won’t consider the job because we don’t want a city manager that does not care about accountability.”

He noted Dallas already has an annual community survey polling a portion of residents on their satisfaction with the city on a series of topics.

Owsley asked how aware residents are of what the city is doing beyond their neighborhoods because that becomes more important with the survey’s increased stakes.

He wanted to know what safeguards would be put into place to ensure a selection of polled residents is truly random and what would stop people from giving all positive or all negative reviews without explanation.

What if you have no idea who the city manager is, Owsley asked.

“I think I’m a reasonably informed person, and I don’t know that I would trust myself if I was on that survey,” he said.

“The level of engagement to fairly evaluate the job of a city manager is asking a lot, and I don’t know that most people really are that engaged on a citywide level.”

Benavides said systems are already in place to evaluate the city’s top municipal executive.

The City Council hires, fires and approves pay raises for the city manager.

It can also set performance goals and objectives; failure to meet those targets could result in the city manager’s firing.

“We vote for people that supervise the city manager, and they’re representatives of the people,” said Benavides, who was city manager from 1998 to 2004.

“I and other city managers — we serve at the will of the council, and that can end at any time because we don’t have term contracts.” Governmental immunity

Proposition S would require the city to waive its governmental immunity to allow any resident to file a lawsuit alleging the municipal government isn’t complying with the charter, local ordinances or state law.

A “resident” is defined as someone who lives within the city limits or any firm, corporation, limited liability company, joint venture, trust, estate, nonprofit, or association either physically in Dallas or conducting business in the city, the proposal states.

Texas provides governmental immunity to cities, protecting them from lawsuits and liability.

The law does allow people to sue the state and cities for damages in some cases of negligence.

The proposed charter amendment language states the person suing the city must give the municipal government at least 60 days’ notice before filing legal action and “reasonably describe” the part of the charter, city ordinance or state law they believe has been violated.

“We have to establish a redress for citizens and that is exactly why this pressure relief valve is there — for direct democracy,” Marocco said.

“This is exactly the accountability that the Constitution of Texas had planned for citizens when their city leaders are being abusive and not adhering to the law.”

Removing governmental immunity would likely open up all municipal government employees to more lawsuits, including police officers, Owsley said.

“Even if the claims are later dismissed,” he said, “the litigation would likely go further than it would otherwise and all of that can get expensive.”

Even if there are legitimate lapses in government decision-making, removing governmental immunity could amplify the consequences, Kirk said.

She pointed to the 2022 Robb Elementary School shooting in Uvalde‚ where 19 children and two teachers were killed.

Law enforcement’s delayed response to confronting the shooter has been among criticisms of how it was handled.

“You’d open the floodgates, and at some point, the money has to come from other places,” she said.

“We all want somebody to pay for bad decisions. But the question is always going to be how much, and should all of us pay for those bad decisions.”

[batboyblog]

Things Biden and the Democrats did, this week. #6

Feb 16-23 2024

The EPA announced 5.8 billion dollars in funding upgrade America's water systems. 2.6 billion will go to wastewater and stormwater infrastructure, while the remaining $3.2 billion will go to drinking water infrastructure. $1 billion will go toward the first major effort to remove PFASs, forever chemicals, from American drinking water. The Administration all reiterated its plans to remove all lead pipes from America's drinking water systems, its spent 6 billion on lead pipe replacement so far.

The Department of Education announced the cancellation of $1.2 billion in student loan debt reliving 153,000 borrowers. This is the first debt cancellation through the Saving on a Valuable Education (SAVE) Plan, which erases federal student loan balances for those who originally borrowed $12,000 or less and have been making payments for at least 10 years. Since the Biden Administration's more wide ranging student loan cancellation plan was struck down by the Supreme Court in 2023 the Administration has used a patchwork of different plans and authorities to cancel $138 billion in student debt and relieve nearly 4 million borrowers, so far.

First Lady Jill Biden announced $100 million in federal funding for women’s health research. This is part of the White House Initiative on Women’s Health Research the First Lady launched last year. The First Lady outlined ways women get worse treatment outcomes because common health problems like heart attacks and cancer are often less understood in female patients.

The Biden Administration announced 500 new sanctions against Russian targets in response to the murder of Russian dissident Alexei Navalny. The sanctions will target people involved in Navalny's imprisonment as well as sanctions evaders. President Biden met with Navalny's widow Yulia and their daughter Dasha in San Francisco

The White House and Department of Agriculture announced $700 Million in new investments to benefit people in rural America. The projects will help up to a million people living in 45 states, Puerto Rico, and the Northern Mariana Islands. It includes $51.7 million to expand access to high-speed internet, and $644.2 million to help 158 rural cooperatives and utilities provide clean drinking water and sanitary wastewater systems for 578,000 people in rural areas.

The Department of Commerce signed a deal to provide $1.5 billion in upgrades and expand chip factories in New York and Vermont to boost American semiconductor manufacturing. This is the biggest investment so far under the 2022 CHIPS and Science Act

the Department of Transportation announced $1.25 billion in  funding for local projects that improve roadway safety. This is part of the administration's Safe Streets and Roads for All (SS4A) program launched in 2022. So far SS4A has spent 1.7 billion dollars in 1,000 communities impacting 70% of America's population.

The EPA announced $19 million to help New Jersey buy electric school buses. Together with New Jersey's own $45 million dollar investment the state hopes to replace all its diesel buses over the next three years. The Biden Administration's investment will help electrify 5 school districts in the state. This is part of the The Clean School Bus Program which so far has replaced 2,366 buses at 372 school districts since it was enacted in 2022.

Bonus: NASA in partnership with Intuitive Machines landed a space craft, named Odysseus, on the moon, representing the first time in 50 years America has gone to the moon. NASA is preparing for astronauts to return to the moon by the end of the decade as part of the Artemis program. All under the leadership of NASA Administrator, former Democratic Senator and astronaut Bill Nelson.

[xtruss]

Kashmir, Five Years On

Fascist, Hindu Extremist, The Butcher of Gujrat And The World’s Most Wanted Criminal Modi’s Iron-Fisted Approach To The Disputed Region Has Left It More Vulnerable To Local And Geopolitical Threats.

— By Anuradha Bhasin | September 19, 2024

Indian security personnel patrol along a street in Srinagar, in Jammu and Kashmir, on August 15, 2024. Tauseef Mustafa/AFP Via Getty Images

Five years since The Fascist, Hindu Extremist, The Butcher of Gujrat and The World’s Most Wanted Criminal Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s government stripped Jammu and Kashmir of its autonomous status, the central government’s iron-fisted approach to the region has left it more vulnerable to regional and geopolitical threats.

While Kashmir Valley, which has withstood the brunt of armed insurgency since 1989, continues to simmer with militancy-related violence, the theater of terrorism has now extended into the otherwise peaceful province of Jammu. Since 2019, at least 262 soldiers and 171 civilians have died in more than 690 incidents, including the February 2019 Pulwama terrorist attack. The unsustainable and disproportionate loss of lives underscores the risks to both regional stability and India’s national security.

In 2019, the Modi government revoked Article 370 of the Indian constitution, which granted the state of Jammu and Kashmir its special status, annihilating the contested region’s symbolic autonomy. Concurrently, the central government also imposed an indefinite curfew in the region and used internet shutdowns and arrests to control and suppress the local population. The result was a transformed landscape. Already scarred by militarization, Kashmir became enmeshed in barbed wire.

This undemocratic exercise, though later stamped and endorsed by India’s Supreme Court, has since spurred further legal changes. For example, the local population no longer has access to exclusive protections that previously allowed only permanent residents of Jammu and Kashmir to apply for government jobs and buy property in the state.

In March 2020, the government repealed 12 and amended 14 land-related laws, introducing a clause that paved the way for a development authority to confiscate land and another that allowed high-ranking army officials to declare a local area as strategically important.

Local residents are appalled at the ease with which government agencies can now seize both residential and agricultural lands in the name of development and security—enabling mass evictions and the bulldozing of houses that are disproportionately affecting Muslim communities and small landowners.

Meanwhile, the ecological fallout from introducing massive road and railway networks, coupled with the addition of mega hydroelectricity projects, is polluting riverbeds and causing villages to sink. Since 2019, there has been a lack of local representation which could act as a buffer against massive development projects, most of which now fall under New Delhi’s governance. Meanwhile, the region’s unemployment rate, as of 2023, remains high at above 18 percent, as compared to the national average of 8 percent.

Over the last few years, the Modi government has also squashed dissent in the region by redirecting the military to maintain surveillance and control of the civilian population. According to the Forum for Human Rights in Jammu and Kashmir, over 2,700 people were arrested in the region between 2020 and 2023 under India’s contentious Unlawful Activities (Prevention) Act and the Public Safety Act. Those arrested include journalists like Fahad Shah and Sajad Gul, human rights defenders like Khurram Pervez, and prominent lawyers like Mian Qayoom and Nazir Ronga.

Modi’s repressive policies have deepened the trust deficit between Kashmiris and the Indian government. The top-down administration has further sidelined local bureaucrats and police officers, further widening the gap between the central government and local ground realities.

All of this has not only pushed the local population into distress, but also jeopardized India’s already fragile relations with its two nuclear neighbors, Pakistan and China.

The Kashmir Conflict, rooted in the 1947 partition of India, has led to three major wars and several military skirmishes between India, Pakistan, and China. And though the region has always been contentious—India controls more than half of the total land, while Pakistan controls 30 percent, and China holds the remaining 15 percent in the northeast region near Ladakh—Modi’s aggressive handling has further provoked its neighbors.

Following the revocation of Article 370, the region was split into two separate union territories—Jammu and Kashmir forming one and Ladakh forming another, with both falling under the central government’s control.

This redrawing of the region’s internal borders, which signaled New Delhi’s assertions of reclaiming the Chinese-occupied territory near Ladakh—as well as India’s increasing tilt towards the United States—resulted in a deadly clash between India and China in 2020 and another one in 2022. Despite diplomatic efforts to resolve tensions over the disputed Himalayan border, New Delhi has accused Beijing of carrying out “inch by inch” land grabs in Ladakh since 2020.

Meanwhile, Pakistan-administered Kashmir has been rocked by mass protests of its own this year, owing to the country’s political and economic crisis, exacerbated in part by the abrogation of Article 370. Those living in Pakistan-administered Kashmir fear that Pakistan may similarly try to dilute the autonomy of the region.

With refugees flooding in from Afghanistan on its west amidst Imran Khan’s standoff with the Pakistani Army, Islamabad has been on edge and looking for diversionary tactics. The deepening of Pakistani-Chinese relations, including military ties, has contributed to a volatile mix.

But Kashmir’s vulnerability has worsened partly because of India’s own tactical blunders, too. The last decade witnessed a spurt in home-grown militancy, but since 2019 the landscape has been dominated by well-trained militants from across the Pakistani border who have access to sophisticated weapons and technology.

Indian security forces, including paramilitaries and the local police, have turned a blind eye to these emerging threats, especially in the twin districts of Rajouri and Poonch along the border with Pakistan. It is in this area that the impact of terror attacks has been most felt.

The region is home to the nomadic Gujjar-Bakerwal communities and the ethnolinguistic Paharis. These groups are parts of divided families straddling the India-Pakistan border, and this shared cultural linkage between the Indian and Pakistani sides has been weaponized in the past by intelligence networks of both countries.

The Indian armed forces have historically relied on the Gujjar-Bakerwal communities for intelligence gathering in part because of their nomadic lives and deep knowledge of the region’s topography. However, since 2019, the evictions of nomads from forest lands, following the amendment of several land-related laws, as well as affirmative actions for Paharis, a rival ethnic group, have led to the disenchantment of the Gujjar-Bakerwals—and an eventual loss of traditional intelligence assets for India.

Another blunder has been the redeployment of troops from Jammu to the border with China in the northeast, following China’s incursions in Ladakh’s Galwan Valley in 2020. This has left Jammu dangerously exposed to militants who have been infiltrating the region from across the line of control on the western side and carrying out their operations with a fair degree of success.

In 2024 alone, Jammu has witnessed numerous attacks which have resulted in the deaths of 16 soldiers and 12 civilians. In June, for example, the region experienced one of its deadliest attacks when militants opened fire on a bus carrying Hindu pilgrims, killing nine and injuring over 30.

Kashmir’s internal politics has the potential to spill over and push the region into disaster. While India has made some significant strides in international diplomacy under Modi, it tends to neglect the neighborhood where the risks to India’s national security remain the highest. Its diplomatic engagement with China comes in fits and starts but diplomacy with Pakistan remains nonexistent, despite the resumption of a ceasefire in 2021. And while India considers the removal of Jammu and Kashmir’s special status an internal matter, Pakistan sees it as a provocation. All in all, there is a dangerous lack of engagement between the two nuclear rivals in South Asia.

In Theory, the ongoing regional elections in Jammu and Kashmir provide a glimmer of opportunity for the people to choose their own local government for the first time in a decade. However, irrespective of who wins the elections, the local leaders will lack the power to enact meaningful change, given that the region remains under the control of New Delhi following its demotion from a state to two union territories.

For instance, Ladakh does not have a legislative assembly, and while Jammu and Kashmir have an elected assembly, the real powers are vested in the hands of a governor, who was appointed to lead the region by the Modi-led central government. As recently as July, the Indian government ruled to further expand the governor’s oversight powers, delivering a blow to local politicians and voters.

Much more needs to be done to change the status quo. Though it remains unlikely, New Delhi must consider meaningful solutions that could assuage some of the political wounds inflicted by the complete erosion of Jammu and Kashmir’s autonomy, including, for example, the restoration of statehood to the region. In order to win back the trust of Kashmiris, the Indian government must reinstate civil liberties and deliver on its promise to provide economic development and jobs.

To improve the region’s safety, Indian agencies must acknowledge their security lapses and repair their broken intelligence networks. And while the Indian security forces must not lower their guard against terrorist activities, terrorism should not be proffered as an excuse when it comes to the normalization of relations in the neighborhood.

Neither Pakistan, nor India can afford the war which is looming over their heads. Diplomatic negotiations, including over Kashmir, must begin with a sense of urgency.

— Anuradha Bhasin, Managing Editor of Kashmir Times and Author of A Dismantled State: The Untold Story of Kashmir After 370. (Argument:

An Expert's Point of View on a Current Event.)

[warningsine]

KOLKATA, India (AP) — Police in India fired tear gas and water cannons to disperse thousands of protesters demanding the resignation of a top elected official in the country’s east, accusing her of mishandling an investigation into a rape and killing of a resident doctor earlier this month.

The Aug. 9 killing of the 31-year-old physician while on duty at Kolkata city’s R.G. Kar Medical College and Hospital triggered protests across India, focusing on the chronic issue of violence against women in the country. Kolkata is the capital of West Bengal state.

The protesters say the assault highlights the vulnerability of health care workers in hospitals across India.

Protesters from Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s Hindu nationalist Bharatiya Janata Party tried to break the police cordon and march to the office of Mamta Banerjee, whose Trinamool Congress party rules the West Bengal state, and demanded her resignation.

Modi’s party is the main opposition party in West Bengal. Police had banned its rally and blocked the roads.

Police officers wielding batons pushed back the demonstrators and fired tear gas and water cannons. Four student activists were arrested ahead of the rally, police said, accusing them of trying to orchestrate large-scale violence.

India’s top court last week set up a national task force of doctors to make recommendations on the safety of health care workers at the workplace. The Supreme Court said the panel would frame guidelines for the protection of medical professionals and health care workers nationwide.

An autopsy of the killed doctor later confirmed sexual assault, and a police volunteer was detained in connection with the crime. The family of the victim alleged it was a case of a gang rape and more were involved.

In the days since, mounting anger has boiled over into nationwide outrage and stirred protests over violence against women. The protests have also led thousands of doctors and paramedics to walk out of some public hospitals across India and demand a safer working environment. The walkouts have affected thousands of patients across India.

Women in India continue to face rising violence despite tough laws that were implemented following the gang rape and murder of a 23-year-old student on a moving bus in Delhi in 2012.

That attack had inspired lawmakers to order harsher penalties for such crimes and set up fast-track courts dedicated to rape cases. The government also introduced the death penalty for repeat offenders.

[ejesgistnews]

Top Nigerian Newspaper Headlines online Today, What are the top Nigerian Newspaper Headlines for Today, Friday, 23rd August, 2024.   Staying updated on the latest developments in Nigeria is essential, especially in today's fast-paced world. Here are the top 13 Nigerian newspaper headlines for August 23, 2024, that capture the most significant news across the country. From breaking stories to in-depth analyses, these headlines reflect the top news in Nigeria this morning. Whether you're interested in politics, business, or social issues, these latest Nigerian newspaper headlines will keep you informed. Dive into the top stories in Nigeria today and stay ahead with the latest updates. The latest Nigerian headlines for August 24, 2024:   Here are the latest Nigerian newspaper headlines for Saturday:   1. Supreme Court Affirms Ododo’s Election as Kogi Governor: The Supreme Court has upheld the election of Usman Ododo as the Governor of Kogi State, dismissing the appeals challenging his victory in the gubernatorial election.   2. Supreme Court Affirms Diri’s Re-election as Bayelsa Governor: The Supreme Court has reaffirmed the electoral victory of Bayelsa State Governor, Duoye Diri, of the Peoples Democratic Party (PDP), dismissing all petitions against his re-election. 3. Tinubu Promises to Equip Nigeria’s Military: President Bola Tinubu has pledged to further equip and empower the Nigerian military to enhance national security. This promise was made during a meeting with military chiefs in Abuja   4. Flood Risk in Abia, Ondo, 8 Others as Nigerian Govt Issues Alert on River Niger Rising Level: The Federal Government has issued an alert on the rising water levels of the River Niger, warning of potential flooding in Abia, Ondo, and eight other states. Citizens in these areas are advised to take precautionary measures.   5. FG Claims Over 20,000 Holding Fake Certificates in Nigeria: The Minister of Education, Prof. Tahir Mamman, revealed that at least 21,600 people are using fake certificates obtained from institutions in Benin Republic, Togo, and other countries. The government is taking steps to address this issue.   6. Tinubu Swears in Justice Kekere-Ekun as New CJN: In a significant milestone for Nigeria’s judiciary, President Bola Tinubu has administered the oath of office to Justice Kudirat Kekere-Ekun, formally inaugurating her as the 23rd Chief Justice of Nigeria.   7. Afreximbank Finances Oando’s Acquisition of NAOC: The African Export-Import Bank (Afreximbank) has provided funding for the $783 million acquisition of Nigerian Agip Oil Company Limited (NAOC) by Oando Petroleum and Natural Gas Company Limited   8. Dispatch Rider Dies in Lagos Auto Crash: A dispatch rider tragically lost his life in an auto crash along the Lekki-Epe Expressway in Lagos on Friday. The incident has raised concerns about road safety in the area.   9. Edo Queens Make History with WAFU Champions League Triumph: Edo Queens have become the second Nigerian club to win the WAFU B CAF Women’s Champions League qualifying tournament, marking a significant achievement in Nigerian women's football.   10. Leverkusen Begin Title Defence with 11th-Minute Stoppage-Time Winner: Super Eagles forward Victor Boniface played a crucial role for Bayer Leverkusen as they began their Bundesliga title defence with a dramatic victory, scoring an 11th-minute stoppage-time winner.   11. Police Rescue 20 Kidnapped Medical Students, House Officer: The Benue State Police Command has successfully rescued 20 medical students and a house officer who were abducted in Otukpo Local Government Area. The rescue operation, led by a tactical squad deployed by the Inspector-General of Police, was carried out without any ransom being paid.   12. Indians Taking Over Jobs in Nigeria’s Oil & Gas Sector – PENGASSAN Laments: The Petroleum and Natural Gas Senior Staff Association of Nigeria (PENGASSAN) has raised concerns over the increasing number of Indians occupying jobs in Nigeria’s oil and gas sector.

The association is calling for stricter regulations to protect local employment.   13. Lagos Diverts Traffic for Reconstruction of Lagos-Badagry Carriageway: The Lagos State Government has announced traffic diversions to facilitate the reconstruction of the Lagos-Badagry Expressway. Motorists are advised to follow alternative routes and adhere to traffic management measures put in place.   14. Nigeria Records 40 Confirmed Mpox Cases: The Nigeria Centre for Disease Control (NCDC) has confirmed 40 cases of Mpox (formerly known as Monkeypox) across the country. The NCDC is urging the public to maintain good hygiene practices and report any suspected cases to health authorities. Nigerian Newspaper Headlines – Top 13 News Stories in Nigeria This Morning, August 23, 2024   15. Botswana Discovers World’s Second-Largest Diamond: Botswana has announced the discovery of the world’s second-largest diamond, weighing 1,174 carats. This remarkable find was made by the Debswana Diamond Company and is expected to significantly boost the country’s economy.     That is all for today on Nigerian Newspaper Headlines. Click here more Naija News.