The Morning Roar: Iraq March Death Toll 1,886, Paul Ryan’s Budget Is Smoke And Mirrors, And 37 Police Shootings In Albuquerque Since 2010
Welcome to your Thursday edition of The Morning Roar!Violence Continues To Rise In Iraq As March Death Toll Reaches 1,886Remember Iraq, the country the U.S. government invaded in 2003 under the auspices of liberation?It's understandable if Iraq has not commanded your attention in the last several months. Suspiciously, the MSM has basically stopped covering Iraq just as violence has drastically increased in the Anbar province. Iraq in 2013 saw the most bloodshed since the worst of the country's sectarian violence began to subside in 2007.Antiwar.com provides a report on the staggering amount of people killed and wounded in Iraq in March 2014.
Another month has come to an end, leaving a staggering number of people dead across Iraq. Antiwar.com figures show 1,886 killed and 2,186 wounded nationwide, with 1,063 of the dead civilians or security members, and 823 militants.That was an increase over the 1,705 killed and 2,045 wounded in February, which was itself a significant rise over January’s figures, as fighting over the Anbar Province continues, unresolved but claiming enormous casualties.The United Nations, as usual, tried to pass off a dramatic undercount as the “official” figures, claiming 592 killed in March, but not counting the Anbar Province at all.
U.S. and allied forces claimed to leave the country in better shape than they found it after ousting former Iraqi President Saddam Hussein. Clearly this was not the case. Iraq did not have one suicide bombing prior to the U.S. invasion. Now the country is engulfed in violence and full of political corruption.The U.S. proclaimed victory and professed to have left Iraq in December 2011, declaring an end to an eight year-long occupation. It turns out when the U.S. government said they left Iraq, they actually meant they left behind a massive $750 million embassy that employees thousands of government workers and contractors that will continue to meddle in the internal affairs of Iraq. The U.S. government's plan of invading the country, forcibly removing the old regime, and bribing factions of the population to quell violence didn't work out as planned.If the U.S. invasion and subsequent civil war that followed did not put the U.S. at risk for blowback, then certainly the huge embassy should do the trick. It serves as a constant reminder of the death and destruction caused both directly and indirectly by the U.S. occupation. If Americans want to know why "they hate us over there," then they should look to Iraq as prime example as to why.Paul Ryan's Federal Budget Proposal Uses Tricky Accounting To Balance Budget By 2024 Paul Ryan, former Vice Presidential candidate and master of accounting tricks, released his federal budget proposal for 2015 on Tuesday. Ryan's budget uses smoke and mirrors to balance the budget in ten years, by 2024. Ryan's 2015 budget uses second-order fiscal effects. He has never used this practice in past federal budget proposals. Andrew Flowers at the superb website Five Thirty Eight provides an excellent summary of how Ryan justifies balancing the budget without ever decreasing overall federal spending.
The mechanics of dynamic scoring in the Ryan budget work like this: His budget has a mix of policies (lower tax rates, increased defense spending, cuts to almost everything else). These policies lower federal spending over the next decade by about $5 trillion relative to baseline projections. Then his proposal assumes that the deficit reduction boosts economic growth, thus raising tax revenue, thus further reducing the deficit.Specifically, the Ryan proposal has a “macroeconomic fiscal impact” line item (see Page 89) that shows this effect. It reduces the deficit by a cumulative $175 billion over the next decade. At 0.3 percent of gross domestic product in fiscal year 2024, it’s just enough to balance the budget in the 10-year span.
To justify its economic growth projections, the Ryan budget cites work by the Congressional Budget Office (CBO) in a report last year. The CBO analysis estimated that $4 trillion in deficit reduction would boost real gross national product by 1.7 percent over 10 years.
Ryan has a huge macroeconomic assumption embedded in his deficit reduction plan. He assumes that the areas he has chosen to cut spending will result in enough economic growth to reduce the deficit by a cumulative $175 billion over the 10 year period.
There is a risk that Congressman Ryan fails to account for. While it is good for the economy when federal spending is returned to the private sector, not all spending is created equal. The capital injected back into the private sector will result in growth greater than what central planning would provide, but the market distortion created by the massive amount of federal spending left untouched by Ryan's budget could easily drag the economy down enough to cancel out any gains assumed by Ryan's minuscule federal spending cuts.
Albuquerque Police Have Shot 37 People Since 2010The mayor of Albuquerque has a plan to bring his city's police officers under control after a turbulent few years, which included thirty-seven police shootings since 2010. The Houston Chronicle reports on the mayor's solution.
Mayor Richard Berry's budget plan sets aside around $1 million for those purposes as the city continues to draw intense criticism over recent police shootings.The move comes as the Police Department faces scrutiny over a string of 37 police shootings since 2010, including two fatal ones in March that prompted a large, violent protest on Sunday. The U.S. Justice Departmenthas been investigating Albuquerque police over allegations of civil rights violations and excessive use of force.
The Albuquerque police were in the news recently after a video was released which showed them gunning down an unarmed homeless man. The video showed the man, James Boyd, turning away before he was shot.More training is not going to solve the burgeoning problem of police on civilian violence. The problem is inherent in the system in which local police officers are granted a monopoly on the institution of justice in a given area. Combine this with a populace that largely accepts tyrannical, right-infringing behavior from these police forces, and the resulting violence inflicted upon civilians should come as no surprise.This issue is not isolated only to Albuquerque. Cities throughout the land have had their fair share of civilians killed or wounded by police officers.The blog JimFisherTrueCrime.blogspot.com compiled a database that tracked all of the police shootings in 2011 across the U.S. Currently, the federal government does not keep statistics on police shootings. The breakdown provided on the site displays the states and cities which had the most incidents of police shootings.
Where People Were ShotMost Deadly StatesCalifornia 183 total (102 fatal)Florida 96 (49)Illinois 64 (26)Texas 58 (26)New York 49 (23)Pennsylvania 49 (23)Ohio 45 (28)Arizona 45 (27)Maryland 41 (16)Washington 39 (29)Most Deadly CitiesChicago 46 total (10 fatal)Los Angeles 22 (14)Philadelphia 17 (7)Las Vegas 17 (15)New York City 16 (6)Phoenix 15 (10)Baltimore 15 (5)Columbus, OH 14 (8)Atlanta 12 (4)St. Louis 11 (3)Cleveland 10 (7)Miami 10 (6)Houston 10 (3)
Read The Morning Roar every weekday Monday-Friday!The Lions of Liberty are on Twitter, Facebook & Google+Receive access to ALL of our EXCLUSIVE bonus audio content – including “Conspiracy Corner”, “Degenerate Gamblers” and the “League of Liberty Podcast” by joining the Lions of Liberty Pride and supporting us on Patreon!
