The Left, Donald Trump, Law and Order, and Hitler

By Michael P. Tremoglie

Last night, Tamara Holder, a liberal commentator on Fox News, characterized Donald Trump's acceptance speech as "Hitlerian." What was Holder's proof of this? Because, she said, Hitler gave speeches talking about law and order. 

If ever there was a leftist shibboleth, it is declaring someone or something as being related to Fascism or Nazism or Hitler. (Unfortunately, many on the Right have used this as well - which indicates how successful the Left has become in controlling the popular culture). 

Law and order is a bothersome concept - a huge cause of concern - for the Left. They do not like the concept of law and order because it works against their efforts to obtain power. The Left wants fear, chaos, and violence. 

So the Left tries to discredit Donald Trump and those whose feelings he represents as "Nazis." The Huffington Post and Slate.com - two uber leftist journalistic institutions - have repeated the Trump=Nazi theme ad nauseam. The height of absurdity was when Slate published an article claiming talk show host Laura Ingraham ended her RNC speech on Wednesday night with a “Nazi salute.” Another ludicrous comparison was a Huffington Post article stating that NJ Gov. Christie’s RNC speech, in which he mentioned an effort  to make it easier to fire public sector union civil service workers, is the same thing as the Nazi legislation that excluded Jews from government service.

There is no absurdity too great for the Left in their Nazi comparisons. Even purportedly mainstream media will use the Nazi parallel. I read someone tweet the other day that liberty and safety are incompatible. Another claim made in an allegedly mainstream newspaper editorial page was that Trump’s law and order campaign was unAmerican.  When claims like these are made one should know its origins are in the Leftwing propaganda machine.

The fact is the idea of law and order is supremely American. No less than one of the Founding Fathers, John Jay, who later became the first Chief Justice of the United States Supreme Court, wrote in Federalist No. 3:

"Among the many objects to which a wise and free people find it necessary to direct their attention, that of providing for their safety seems to be the first.”

Debunking Obama’s “Persistent Racial Disparities” in Criminal Justice myth

By Michael P. Tremoglie

The left makes the argument - ad nauseum- that blacks are arrested, killed by police, etc in percentages that are higher than their percentages in the general American population. Indeed, even President Barack Obama said through a spokesperson that there are “persistent racial disparities” in the criminal justice system. But, as we shall see, some “persistent racial disparities” are more equal than others according to liberals and their Leftist leaders.

The Left - including liberal Democrats - make many fallacious statements. They are famous for their sophistries. But their sophistry of racial-disparity-proving-racism-in-the-criminal-justice-system is the most menacing.

Why? Because it is used as an excuse to be lenient for criminal behavior or it is used to claim all police are racist for acts that have no racism at all. This then leads to more crime and the people affected most by crime are the very same black communities they deceitfully claim to want to help.

Let us take the most recent controversy that begins with the killings by white police officers in Lousiana and Minnesota  on July 5 and July 6.Immediately, the media template is “white” police officers kill unarmed “black” men. But these headlines were wrong on two counts:1- One of the police officers was Hispanic and 2-Both men were armed.

The media replayed these incidents repeatedly on the news. But two weeks earlier the video of an unarmed white male shot and killed by police made barely a ripple in the news. So we know a large part of the racial disparity fallacy is propagated by newsroom editors who see nothing significant about unarmed whites being killed by police. Because of this the reportage of police shootings is racially skewed.

So Fact One that Debunks the Criminal Justice Racial Disparity Proves Racism Myth is the skewing of police shootings by the media.

Fact Two - The Washington Post, Fox News, and other media reported that blacks are more likely to be killed by police than whites. But they omit the statistics that blacks are more likely to kill police officers than whites. Why does the media, “civil libertarians,” and some academicians ignore some “persistent racial disparities” and not others?

Fact Three - According to my own research (not only am I a former police officer, I have a Master of Science degree in Criminal Justice) but according to one of the most preeminent criminology statisticians in the world, and according to a former director of the Department of Justice’s Bureau of Justice Statistics (BJS) and according to a former acting director of BJS, as well as other criminologists, the comparison of the percentage of blacks killed by police to blacks in the general population is specious. The more appropriate comparison is to compare with the percentage of blacks involved in crimes. Because otherwise it is like saying boys hit more home runs than girls.

Fact Four - Leftists/liberals will say blacks are arrested in disparately higher percentages because of racism. This is the case President Obama makes. But the fact is - which also omittted by the media and the Left - blacks comprise a disparately higher percentage of crime victims!!!

Fact Five -There are - to use President Obama’s words - “persistent racial disparities” in professional sports and in the entertainment industry. Is this a function of racism? Of course it is not.

So there you have it, five facts that debunk the Leftist/liberal argument that racial disparities are proof of racism - to reiterate:

There are “persistent racial disparities” - to use Pres. Obama’s term - of blacks:

Who kill police officers
Who are victims or crime,
Who are included in the media reportage of police shootings,
Who are included in the erroneous statistical conclusions made by untrained ignorant journalists
Who are in professional sports and the entertainment industry because it disproves the racism = racial disparity argument.

Please share with me your thoughts.

Mike

What I asked the Washington Post Reporters about their Police Shooting report

By Michael P. Tremoglie

The following is an email I sent to the Washington Post reporters who compiled the paper’s police shootings survey. It was sent to them on July 8, 2016. I did so because their report is specious.

Regarding your reportage of police shootings (http://www.washingtonpost.com/sf/investigative/2015/12/26/a-year-of-reckoning-police-fatally-shoot-nearly-1000/), I noticed that you broke it down into unarmed blacks shot by police. I have several questions:

1- You wrote, “Although black men make up only 6 percent of the U.S. population, they account for 40 percent of the unarmed men shot to death by police this year” How did you determine they were unarmed and who audited your conclusions? 

2- How did you arrive at the figure of six percent of the U.S. population? What age cohort did you use and why? 

3- What in your opinion does this prove - if indeed it is true - that blacks are 40 percent of unarmed suspects killed by police but only six percent of the population?

4- Do you also break out the percentage of Asians killed by police? If not, why not? If so, what was that percentage in relation to the general population?

5- You wrote, “ But a hugely disproportionate number — 3 in 5 — of those killed after exhibiting less threatening behavior were black or Hispanic…” What did you mean by “less threatening" and how did you define this?

6- Do you also break out the percentage of women killed by police? If not, why not? If so, what was that percentage in relation to the general population?

7- Do you also break out the race of the officers doing the killings? If not, why not? If so, what are those percentages?

8- What percentage of killings were intraracial? If you do not know why do you not know?

I look forward to receiving your replies.  

Regards,

Michael P. Tremoglie

The Washington Post’s Role in Perpetuating the Racial Hatred of Police

By Michael P. Tremoglie

A friend asked me if I had any ideas how to curb the problem between some of the black community and the police. Yes, I do have some ideas about how to curb this problem. As an introduction to my thoughts I would ask you to watch these two C-SPAN video clips of my opening remarks and a segment of the subsequent panel discussion at the Federalist Society’s National Lawyers convention last November. 

(http://www.c-span.org/video/?c4569628/opening-remarks)

(http://www.c-span.org/video/?c4593528/refute-police-vilification)

The first thing I feel is needed is to shine the light on the role of the politicians, media, academia, civil libertarians, and “activist” groups in this. They are perverting the statistics to perpetuate a racism narrative that does not exist.

For example, I had some questions about what the Washington Post’s much ballyhooed 

‘study’ of police shootings. I questioned its accuracy, methodology and conclusions. A cursory review confirmed my doubts. But I am not an expert even though I have more education, training, and experience in this matter than the Post’s reporters.

So I consulted with two expert criminal justice statisticians about the Post’s reportage of their police shooting findings. It was important to do so since the Post’s conclusions were uncritically reported by every major news outlet - conservative and liberal ( CNN, Fox News, Fox Business, MSNBC, CNBC etc).

One of my sources is Prof. Richard Berk. He is a world renown criminologist and statistician at the University of Pennsylvania. Another is Prof. Larry Greenfeld, who was the Director of the Dept of Justice Bureau Criminal Justice statistics - and famous for being fired by the Bush administration. 

Both of these highly regarded criminologist statisticians said - without qualification - that the conclusion the Post published that blacks are six times more likely to be shot by police officers than whites is totally inaccurate. The Post, they all said independently of one another, omitted a very important variable. Blacks have more interaction with police than whites because of the amount of crime that occurs in the black community (e.g.  Blacks constitute disparately higher percentages of crime victims than white. Blacks also kill police officers at a higher rate than whites ( but this is never mentioned).

As Prof. Greenfeld told me, "I would have looked at the numbers very differently from the Post.  As the per capita rates show (I calculated on "young" black males) these are very rare phenomena and we know that crime commission rates, for those offenses involving violence, vary by race. So it is reasonable to expect that the probability of violent confrontations with police will also vary by race.  It is not so much that what they did was wrong or right; it is, to me,  it is simply not at all persuasive.  Again, if about 40% of those arrested for violence are black is it so unexpected that 40% of those killed during violent confrontations with police are black?  That to me is the more relevant and compelling comparison.”

As Prof. Berk said, "Suppose police are as likely to mistakenly shoot an unarmed blackmale as an unarmed white male. So the shootings are race-neutral. But suppose black males commit 3 times more crimes than white males and therefore have about 3 times more police apprehensions. You expect even in this race-neutral scenario about 3 times more black males shot than white males. The proper comparison is not the proportion of black males in the population but the proportion of black males apprehended by the police. This is just the kind of error I go over when I teach elementary statistics. "

Unfortunately, my research will never be published because even in conservative circles - like the Heritage Foundation - it is considered verboten to mention high crime rates among blacks. I have been on several national and local radio talk shows. But the newspapers and even conservative think-tank blogs have prohibited publication of my work.

BTW these high crime rates are historic according to Randall Roth a crime historian professor at Ohio State University whom - like Messrs. Berk, Greenfeld, Bessette and others - I have come to know over my years of research and writing about this issue.

So this is the first thing that needs to be done to stop the hate. Ensure the media is reporting the facts. But as Prof. Berk says “the facts do not seem to matter anymore.”

Mike

The Washington Post’s Role in Publishing Inaccurate Information Perpetuating the Racial Division

By Michael P. Tremoglie

The Washington Post’s ’study’ (and I use the term loosely) is contributing to America’s racial divisiveness. They do so by their inaccurate conclusions published from their ‘study.’

I asked several questions about the Post’s information. But I doubt I will get an answer.

I wrote to the Post’s reporters:

Regarding your reportage of police shootings (http://www.washingtonpost.com/sf/investigative/2015/12/26/a-year-of-reckoning-police-fatally-shoot-nearly-1000/), I noticed that you broke it down into unarmed blacks shot by police. I have several questions:

1- You wrote, “Although black men make up only 6 percent of the U.S. population, they account for 40 percent of the unarmed men shot to death by police this year” How did you determine they were unarmed and who audited your conclusions? 

2- How did you arrive at the figure of six percent of the U.S. population? What age cohort did you use and why? 

3- What in your opinion does this prove - if indeed it is true - that blacks are 40 percent of unarmed suspects killed by police but only six percent of the population?

4- Do you also break out the percentage of Asians killed by police? If not, why not? If so, what was that percentage in relation to the general population?

5- You wrote, “ But a hugely disproportionate number — 3 in 5 — of those killed after exhibiting less threatening behavior were black or Hispanic…” What did you mean by “less threatening" and how did you define this?

6- Do you also break out the percentage of women killed by police? If not, why not? If so, what was that percentage in relation to the general population?

7- Do you also break out the race of the officers doing the killings? If not, why not? If so, what are those percentages?

8- What percentage of killings were intraracial? If you do not know why do you not know?

I look forward to receiving your replies.  

Regards,

Michael P. Tremoglie

What are the chances I will receive a reply?

Mike

Too Many People in Prison? The Ignorance of the Intelligentsia

By Michael P. Tremoglie

There are politicians, pundits, lawyers, scholars and think tank advocates who say we imprison too many people in the U.S.A. They do so on the basis of a report issued by a researcher for a university in London that could be considered opposed to incarcerating criminals. 

Unlike Bernie Sanders, George Will, the ACLU, the NLG, Cato Institute, Reason, the Sentencing Project, the World Socialist Web Site and others - I actually spoke to the author of that report. I asked him how many people should be in prison in the U.S.A.  Predictably, he declined to answer saying it is up to Americans to determine this.

I would also like to point out that a DOJ report about those sentenced to be executed for murder determined that about 40 percent for whom a legal status was available were on parole when they committed the murder and 30 percent were on probation. I ask you to think about the gravity of this. 

Worse yet, nine percent of whites, ten percent of African-Americans, and seven percent of Hispanics had a prior homicide conviction when they committed the murder for which they are being executed. This has changed little from when I first learned of this data about twenty years ago. I implore you to consider the magnitude of this. 

Racially speaking, a higher percentage of African-Americans and Hispanic-Americans than whites were on parole or probation when they committed the murder for which they have been sentenced.

So how do we have too many people in prison?

How can anyone take Bernie Sanders, George Will, the ACLU, Cato, Reason, the Sentencing Project et al seriously? They simply do not know all the facts.

Happy Independence Day (BTW I send this from outside of the Graff House where Thomas Jefferson wrote the Declaration of Independence .)