From NJ Spotlight:
HOUSING MARKET’S STATEWIDE WOES ARE REFLECTED, MAGNIFIED IN TRENTON
Capital city’s plight made worse by safety concerns, loss of jobs and departure of businesses, overall weakness of New Jersey’s economy
If New Jersey’s political leaders want to study the state’s battered housing market, all they have to do is look out their windows in Trenton.
As most of the nation continues to recover from the Great Recession, real-estate data and analysis firms report housing sales are slowing and foreclosures increasing in the Garden State. But the situation is particularly dire in the state’s capital city.
Around the nation, foreclosures have declined to their lowest level since before the housing bubble burst in 2007, according to RealtyTrac of Irvine, CA, whose data is used by the real-estate industry and government agencies.
But in New Jersey, state court records show 31,500 new foreclosures cases have been filed as of Aug. 1, on track to be at least the third-highest annual total in state history. Sheriff’s sales have hit a four-year peak, and bank repossessions almost doubled in May.
Some towns are doing better, but only with modest recent gains, New Jersey sale prices are still down 22.2 percent from the pre-recession peak, according to CoreLogic, another Irvine, CA, analytics firm. That is worse than all but four other states, the firm found.
Trenton could be the poster child for New Jersey’s mix of economic weakness, a troubled housing market and ineffectual political responses.
The 2,473 foreclosure homes in Trenton represent 21.5 percent of the city’s homeowner properties as reported by the U.S. Census as of 2012.
Even a relatively obscure statistic reflects significant trouble. RealtyTrac’s latest numbers show more than twice as many homes in the state capital area are in foreclosure, or have already been seized by banks, than the total number the firm currently lists for sale.
…
“Think of New York City and its comeback,” Hughes said. “A lot of it has to do with reduction in crime and perception of safety — Trenton is the exact opposite.“All the Italian restaurants are gone — people told them they didn’t feel safe coming at night — and much of that community has moved to Ewing or Lawrence,” Hughes said.
Even on RealtyTrac, some raw numbers appear even more calamitous in a few other communities, such as Paterson or Newark. But housing sales are up in both those cities on a year-over-year basis, which is preferred by analysts because it avoids seasonal fluctuations. In both cities, median prices are about $150,000-$160,000 and even bank-owned homes average $107,000-$110,000, a smaller gap than the New Jersey average.
In Trenton, the data show sales are down 26 percent from a year ago. So far this year, 19 percent of homes sold in the city have been at sheriff’s sale, by banks after foreclosing, or short sales, in which borrowers are able to walk away from “underwater” mortgages that saddled them with more debt than the current value of the properties. Last year’s figure was 9.9 percent.
…
Trenton’s median home price is only a bit less than those of Newark and Paterson, but it is heavily weighed down by those 2,473 foreclosure properties. Even before the new surge in foreclosures, Trenton’s homeownership rate for the five-year period ending then was 40.5 percent, compared to 66.2 percent for New Jersey as a whole, according to the Census.Those foreclosed homes that are being resold in Trenton are going for an average of just $40,000, according to RealtyTrac, and their prices have remained below $50,000 for at least seven months, less than a third of market price.
“That is a very large disparity,” said RealtyTrac Vice President Daren Blomquist, and unusual for its persistence without normal monthly market fluctuations.
Many Trenton homes fit the pattern of places like Detroit, “older properties, smaller properties, close to the city center that are less desirable,” he said. But the large overhang of foreclosed and threatened properties extends into neighboring Ewing, which has 808 of those but just 364 current RealtyTrac sale listings.
Trenton clearly not Harlem, from Bloomberg:
Manhattan Condos at Half Price Reshape New York’s Harlem
Jason and Robyn Turetsky watched from their window as, brick by brick, a new condominium development rose across 116th Street in New York’s Harlem.
The Turetskys, who married in December, decided to buy a three-bedroom, 1,500-square-foot (140-square-meter) unit at the Adeline, right across from their current rental. Staying in the neighborhood presented a better value than anywhere else they’d considered, including the Upper East Side and Upper West Side, where Robyn lived before moving in with Jason, the couple said.
“For the amenities that were going to be provided at the Adeline and the size of the apartment, we could just get much more for our money in Harlem,” said Robyn Turetsky, a 28-year-old clinical dietitian.
The Adeline is one of at least three luxury-condo buildings opening in the next six months in central Harlem, a historically black neighborhood that has gentrified as Manhattanites seeking cheaper real estate head to the northern part of the borough. Buyers like the Turetskys are fueling demand that led to homes selling at the quickest pace on record in the second quarter.
…
The latest real estate surge follows a transformation over the past two decades that already has enriched succeeding waves of homeowners. Central Harlem condo values have almost doubled since 2003 and more than tripled over the past 20 years, according to the Furman Center for Real Estate and Urban Policy at New York University.
In that time, developments have replaced many of the vacant lots and burned-out buildings that blighted the community during the 1970s and 1980s, while a commercial revival has brought retail and restaurants, museums and concert venues.
Or even Asbury, from the NY Post:
Arty and affordable, Asbury Park is now NJ’s summer-home spot
More than a decade ago, architect Matthew Berman heard that Asbury Park, NJ, was emerging as an “up-and-coming” summer retreat.
But when he paid a visit to the Jersey Shore town best known for launching Bruce Springsteen’s career at The Stone Pony, he recalls the place was blighted.
“There were no pavilions, there was no boardwalk,” says Berman, partner at New York-based architecture firm workshop/apd, “and Cookman Avenue, downtown, was boarded up.”
At the time, Berman and his partner, who now have a 6-year-old son, were also considering a second home in Phoenicia, in the Hudson Valley, or Fire Island, but the former was too far from New York City and the latter too expensive.
Asbury Park — just 60 miles south of the city — was both close and affordable. So, looking beyond the unsightly surroundings, Berman and his partner bought a vacation home there in 2002.
Since then, Asbury Park has been transformed into a lively hamlet of art, culture, cuisine and surf shops.
It’s emerged as a hot destination not just for beach revelers — and a sizable LGBT population — but eager condo seekers, as well.
Over the past few years, condos in the beachside town have risen not just in popularity but in price. True, sales numbers have not yet recovered to pre-recession levels, but prices have spiked.
@nypost:
Cops fire tear gas at protesters as violence grows in Ferguson http://t.co/uHyUaCDkk5 Photo via @AP http://t.co/nTwu4M3z8f
@WSJ:
Police fire tear gas at protesters in #Ferguson as unrest continues following the shooting of Michael Brown. Video: http://t.co/PQpfu5VrkI
@HuffingtonPost: Now leading HuffPost: BAGHDAD USA http://t.co/5Pix3r5wtA http://t.co/tZdKAeLNRM
unmod
From Bloomberg:
Bigger Down Payments Add to U.S. First-Time Homebuyer Blues
The challenges facing prospective buyers of the least expensive homes in the U.S. are getting harder to overcome.
Already beset by stagnant wages, growing student debt and competition from investors who are snapping up listings, those looking to purchase moderately priced houses must also provide more cash up front. The median down payment for the cheapest 25 percent of properties sold in 2013 was $9,480 compared with $6,037 in 2007, the last year of the previous economic expansion, according to data from 25 of the largest metro areas compiled by brokerage firm Redfin Corp.
The higher bar is a symptom of still-tight credit that is crowding out first-time buyers even as interest rates remain near historical lows. Younger adults, who would normally be making initial forays into real estate, are among those most affected, weakening the foundations of the housing market and limiting its contribution to economic growth.
“The numbers tell the story of why we have millions of potential homeowners who are renters or living with their parents,” said Susan Wachter, a professor of real estate and finance at the University of Pennsylvania’s Wharton School in Philadelphia. “What has changed is the ability to become an owner. And that’s changed through a down payment that’s more than doubled.”
…
The median down payment for the cheapest 25 percent of homes was 7.5 percent of the sales price last year, up from a low of 3.1 percent in 2006 and compared with an average 4.2 percent from 2001 through 2007, according to Seattle-based Redfin. For properties in the middle 50 percent, the share rose to 8.8 percent in 2013 from an average 8.2 percent in the seven years leading to the last recession, and for the top quarter it climbed to 20.9 percent from 19 percent.
One of the main reasons for the jump is that fewer first-time buyers are applying for loans backed by the Federal Housing Administration, which require smaller down payments, after the government agency boosted mortgage-insurance premiums, said Malcolm Hollensteiner, the director of retail lending products and services for the U.S. unit of Canada’s Toronto-Dominion Bank. FHA raised the cost of borrowing and tightened underwriting to cope with losses on mortgages it backed as the property bubble burst.
The fathers of the civil rights movement would be outraged, we are all animals now.
More interesting is that hackers have targeted public sector networks in a series of cyberattacks and hacks in an attempt to gather and release data on the shooter (Anonymous has taken credit). It was rumored that one of the protesters cut the fiber optic cable leading into city hall.
Yeah right, bullshit, it was city hall who cut their own cable, realizing they were outgunned. They realized the only way to keep the data away from hackers would be to physically destroy any external network connections.
Rises in housing prices have been profitable to private equity firms and institutional investors that bought foreclosed homes to flip them or to rent them out. Now the recovery in housing is fueling a niche market for newly minted bonds that are backed by the most troubled mortgages of them all: those on homes on the verge of foreclosure.
And it is not just vulture hedge funds swooping in to try to profit from the last remnants of the housing crisis. The investors making money off these obscure bonds — none are rated by a major credit rating agency — include American mutual funds. And one of the biggest sellers of severely delinquent mortgages to investors is a United States government housing agency.
The demand for securitizations of nonperforming loans illustrates Wall Street’s never-ending hunt for higher-yielding investment opportunities. The market also reflects in part an effort by regulators to close a chapter on the housing mess.
1 & 2 – The wash-out is done, this is the wash-in. Suburban and Exurban expansion is done; the wealth and the youth now move toward and into the cities for the next few generations.
Move the statehouse to Jersey City
[10] I always found it odd how state capitals seem to rarely be in the major city of the state. I imagine in some cases the capitol city might have at one time been the major city, or maybe the thought was that capitals should be somewhere around the demographic middle of the state? Boston is a glaring exception when compared to Albany, Trenton, or Sacramento.
yes, amazing how entrenched racism remains. cops in ferguson, and teatards around here, must be sorry can’t lynch a few more people to teach them a lesson.
grim says:
August 14, 2014 at 6:46 am
The fathers of the civil rights movement would be outraged, we are all animals now.
Did they get the snitch yet?
http://www.npr.org/templates/story/story.php?storyId=206884484
“GREENE: OK. So the point he’s making is that when politicians are sort of isolated in these places, they have less connection with tons of people. And so they can sort of do sneakier things and not be held accountable?
VEDANTAM: That’s exactly right, and the ironic thing is that these capitals were often located in isolated places in the first place, in order to protect them against financial influence. The thinking was if the state capital is located in the financial center of the state, there’s going to be undue influence of money in politics.”
11. For a brief time, Trenton was the capital of the United States.
Could I kindly recommend you follow this twitter account:
https://twitter.com/blackrepublican
She also has an interesting blog.
http://blackconservative360.blogspot.com/
anon (the good one) says:
August 14, 2014 at 8:10 am
yes, amazing how entrenched racism remains. cops in ferguson, and teatards around here, must be sorry can’t lynch a few more people to teach them a lesson.
There are more reporters than protestors in that town. No surprise the cops fired off some tear gas in their direction.
Re: the next president
The only thing Hillary Clinton qualifies for is an -ss dragging contest. I saw a pic of her recently walking on the beach and it looked like hurt butt cheeks were bouncing off her heels as she walked. Hope there were no baby sea turtles in the sand.
I’m surprised the Huffington Post didn’t find black reporters to get arrested. Strange that they didn’t record the slamming into the soda fountain as well. Come on guys, you’re slipping.
Trenton was also the cross roads between Philadelphia and NYC as it had the most favorable river crossing on the Delaware. I’m often amazed at what dumps most capitol cities are.
#10
One of my ‘beyond belief corrupt’ cousins would love that.
Have they moved the film crews in to stage the photos and videos appropriately?
You sure that’s tear gas, last I heard they were looking for additional smoke machines to move into the area. Photoshoppers are in higher demand than oil field welders these days. Are those protesters or extras? Even the media are animals.
16- from your second source—- this is exactly what I’m talking about yesterday. These idiots creating this picture chasing ratings need to go
“And, in some quarters of the media, pundits have begun to pretend that America’s cops are routinely gunning down unarmed young black men for their own pleasure.”
Hit a black win a prize.
23- another quote from your source that gets it. Let’s wait for the facts before we create the hysteria and divide our country on some misguided information. Nothing good comes from this for our country. It only hurts us both socially and economically. Can the media be hanged for creating this mess without knowing the facts? They paint a picture that cops are just hunting down and shooting innocent African Americans, which is just crazy to believe.
““Justice,” Benjamin Franklin suggested, “will not be served until those who are unaffected are as outraged as those who are.” There is no virtue to playing judge, jury, and executioner before the facts are known. Nor is there anything to be achieved by turning a dispassionate process into a partisan game. No doubt, as in the cases of Trayvon Martin and Jordan Davis, we will witness sects forming where they do not belong. Conservatives should resist indulging in this at all costs. But they should also resist appearing uninterested. By asking those who wish to talk about authority what they think about civil society instead, many among us are giving off the impression that there is no circumstance in which Franklin’s outrage is going to be forthcoming — however clear-cut the guilt might be. The question of who guards the guardians pertains now as keenly as it ever has. The Right’s answer should be “we do” — and we’re happy to hang them high if we know that they have transgressed.”
Plug is ripping right now on their earnings report.
26- should have known that was a bullish sign that their CEO and top members of that company were closing the Nasdaq bell on an earnings day.
el Joyco…..from the lips of De Blasio….
Mayor de Blasio gave his unflinching support Wednesday to a call from the city’s top cop that New Yorkers being placed under arrest should submit to police rather than fight back.
“When a police officer comes to the decision that it’s time to arrest someone, that individual is obligated to submit to arrest,” the mayor said.
“They will then have every opportunity for due process in our court system.”
De Blasio said Police Commissioner Bill Bratton was “absolutely right” for urging an end to a recent spate of incidents where cops were forced to subdue alleged law-breakers physically.
The issue has become a hot-button topic since the death of Eric Garner, a Staten Island man who was put in a fatal NYPD chokehold after he resisted arrest for selling loose cigarettes.
“Arrest is not always the goal . . . but once an officer has decided that arrest is necessary, every New Yorker should agree to do what they need to do as a citizen and respect the police officer and follow their guidance. And then there is a thorough due-process system thereafter,” de Blasio said at a Harlem press conference announcing the expansion of an anti-gun initiative.
He was responding to questions about Bratton’s comments a day earlier on WNYC radio.
“What we’re seeing . . . over the last several months [is] a number of individuals just failing to understand that you must submit to an arrest, that you cannot resist it,” Bratton told host Brian Lehrer.
“The place to argue your case is in court, not in the middle of the street.”
Video of the Garner confrontation has stirred anger toward police and put de Blasio in an awkward spot between his left-flank supporters — who are calling for widespread reforms to the Police Department — and his sweat-the-small-stuff police chief and police unions.
Richard Aborn, president of the Citizens Crime Commission, said the mayor’s message is an important one not just for would-be criminals to hear, but for rank-and-file police who have been feeling the heat lately.
“It’s important the mayor supports the cops, not just the commissioner,” said Aborn. “People can’t be permitted to decide if a police officer is making a good arrest or not.”
While charges of resisting arrest are actually down 5 percent this year compared with the same period last year, a number of altercations between cops and alleged criminals have been caught on video in recent weeks.
Year-to-date statistics also show a slight increase in the number of cops who have been assaulted, up 4 percent.
“I will always tell young people to follow the orders of police: Do not resist what they are asking you to do, and follow their orders,” said City Council member Jumaane Williams (D-Brooklyn), who has been a vocal critic of certain police tactics.
“But we have to acknowledge that people feel there is no recourse – so we have to fix that second part, too.”
The lead item on much television news since the weekend has been the shooting in Ferguson, Mo., a suburb of St. Louis, of 18-year-old Michael Brown by a police officer. On display was what has now become the fairly standard response in these matters: the inconsolable mother, the testimony of the dead teenager’s friends to his innocence, the aunts and cousins chiming in, the police chief’s earnest promise of a thorough investigation. The death in Ferguson added to the mix three nights of protest and looting, with police using tear-gas and rubber bullets to quell the crowds, but otherwise the feeling was not dissimilar from what we saw two years ago after the shooting of Trayvon Martin in Sanford, Fla. The same lawyer who represented the Martin family, it was announced, is going to take this case.
Missing, not that anyone is likely to have noticed, was the calming voice of a national civil-rights leader of the kind that was so impressive during the 1950s and ’60s. In those days there was Martin Luther King Jr. of the Southern Christian Leadership Conference; Roy Wilkins of the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People; Whitney Young of the National Urban League, Bayard Rustin of the A. Philip Randolph Institute—all solid, serious men, each impressive in different ways, who through dignified forbearance and strategic action, brought down a body of unequivocally immoral laws aimed at America’s black population.
King died in 1968, at age 39; Young in 1971 at 50; Wilkins in 1981 at 80; and Rustin in 1987 at 75. None has been replaced by men of anywhere near the same high caliber. In their place today there is only Jesse Jackson and Al Sharpton, each of whom long ago divested himself of the moral force required of true leadership. One of the small but genuine accomplishments of President Obama has been to keep both of these men from becoming associated with the White House.
Demonstrators protest the killing of teenager Michael Brown on Tuesday in Clayton, Missouri. Getty Images
The NAACP and the Urban League and the Southern Christian Leadership Conference still exist, yet few people are likely to know the names of their current leaders. That is because no black leader has come forth to set out a program for progress for the substantial part of the black population that has remained for generations in the slough of poverty, crime and despair.
In Chicago, where I live, much of the murder and crime that has captured the interest of the media is black-on-black, and cannot be chalked up to racism, except secondarily by blaming that old hobgoblin, “the system.” People march with signs reading “Stop the Killing,” but everyone knows that the marching and the signs and the sweet sentiments of local clergy aren’t likely to change anything. Better education is needed, politicians say, perhaps a longer school day. Jobs, yes, more and better jobs, that’s what’s required. Got to get the guns off the street, everyone says. The black family—the absence of fathers—is the problem. The old dead analyses, the pretty panaceas, are paraded. Yet nothing new is up for discussion. Discussion itself is off the table. Except when Bill Cosby, Thomas Sowell or Shelby Steele and a few others have dared to speak about the pathologies at work—and for doing so, these black figures are castigated.
President Obama, as leader of all the people, is not well positioned for the job of leading the black population that finds itself mired in despond. Someone is needed who commands the respect of his or her people, and the admiration of that vast—I would argue preponderate—number of middle-class whites who understand that progress for blacks means progress for the entire country.
The older generation of civil-rights leaders proved its mettle through physical and moral courage. The enemy was plain—rear-guard segregationists of the old South—and the target was clear: wrongful laws that had to be, and were, rescinded. The morality of the matter was all on these leaders’ side. In Little Rock, in Montgomery, in Selma and elsewhere, they put their lives on the line. And they won.
The situation today for a civil-rights leader is not so clear, and in many ways more complex. After the victories half a century ago, civil rights may be a misnomer. Economics and politics and above all culture are now at the heart of the problem. Blacks largely, and inexplicably, remain pledged to a political party whose worn-out ideas have done little for them while claiming much. Slipping off the too-comfortable robes of victimhood is essential, as is discouraging everything in ghetto culture that has dead-end marked all over it. The task is enormous, the person likely to bring it off, a modern-day Moses able to lead his people out of the desert, nowhere in sight. Until that person or persons arrives, we can expect more nights like those in Ferguson, with cries of racism, with looters and bottom-feeders turning up, with sadness all round.
Mr. Epstein is the author, most recently, of “A Literary Education and Other Essays” (Axios Press, 2014).
Your unneeded visual of the morning….
The second-worst Secret Service assignment is Vice President Joe Biden, Kessler said. Though Biden is reportedly “very nice to agents,” Kessler said, his security detail is exhausted from frequent last-minute trips to his home in Delaware, and some are offended by what Kessler writes is a “habit of swimming in his pool n*de.”
“He likes to skinny-dip both at the pool at his vice president residence in Washington and his home in Wilmington, and female agents are very offended by that,” Kessler said. “And, in fact, you could make a case that it’s almost se*ual harassment.”
http://news.yahoo.com/blogs/power-players-abc-news/new-book–being-assigned-to-hillary-clinton-s-secret-service-detail-%E2%80%9Ca-form-of-punishment%E2%80%9D-213322171.html
@HuffingtonPost: When the media treats white suspects and killers better than black victims http://t.co/M4fciDCuIt
John Bad Elk v. United States, 177 U.S. 529 (1900), was a case in which the United States Supreme Court held that an individual had the right to use force to resist an unlawful arrest and was entitled to a jury instruction to that effect.
“People can’t be permitted to decide if a police officer is making a good arrest or not.”
Yup, we’re all too stupid to make any decisions for ourselves. Wait, where was that article from a few years ago saying that police departments routinely discriminate against people who score TOO HIGH on their intelligence tests?
http://blogs.discovermagazine.com/gnxp/2012/01/too-smart-to-be-a-good-cop/
Maybe, they’re not smart to decide either…
Anon,
The wheel’s spinning, but the hamster’s dead.
32 –
John Bad Elk v. United States, 177 U.S. 529 (1900), was a case in which the United States Supreme Court held that an individual had the right to use force to resist an unlawful arrest and was entitled to a jury instruction to that effect. In 1889, a tribal police officer, John Bad Elk, shot and killed another tribal police officer who was attempting to arrest Bad Elk without legal authority to do so. The Supreme Court reversed his conviction, noting that a person had the right to resist an unlawful arrest, and in the case of a death, murder may be reduced to manslaughter.
This case has been widely cited on the internet, but is no longer considered good law. Most states have, either by statute or by case law, removed the unlawful arrest defense for resisting arrest.
AHB,
Yup, I know most states have ignored that precedent. Most recently the Indiana supremes gave a ruling in which cited all the previous precedents going back to the Magna Carta… yet still ruled that one does not have the right to resist unlawful arrest.
If you let that statement sink in, it’s not referring to for example an arrest warrant being invalidated after the fact or some other “technicality”. It’s stating up front that even if the cop is arresting you unlawfully… F U pay me.
re #30 – That old Onion story from 2009 is not too far off on Joe Biden.
http://www.theonion.com/articles/shirtless-biden-washes-trans-am-in-white-house-dri,2718/
re: resisting arrest, these days it can quickly turn into assault charges. Just ask that hipster chick who the NYPD kicked out of Zucotti park. A NY Jury convicted her of assault on a police officer she just got out of Rikers.
Juice Box,
Quickly? How about automatically.
The phony outrage over the censorship and denial of the right to assemble is pretty hilarious. The press has been turing it’s back on the decimation of the constitution for decades.
I think it was Clinton who started sending non uniformed goons out in front of the white house to beat up protesters. It’s only when a few sissy reporters catch a club upside their head that the alarm bells over the emerging police state are sounded.
Juice 37 – This Onion article always managed to give me the chills.
http://www.theonion.com/articles/terrorist-extremely-annoyed-by-delayed-flight,277/
For the 1,000,001 th time, it Has nothing to do with nj property tax rates though, at least that’s what they have convinced themselves in trenton
@CNBCPolitics:
Pres. Obama on situation in Ferguson, MO: Police should not be arresting journalists who are just trying to do their jobs.
@BBCBreaking:
President Obama calls for “peace & calm” in #Ferguson, Missouri, after killing of teenager by police http://t.co/UbBvdBEFEj
Joyce –
http://www.msnbc.com/andrea-mitchell-reports/watch/rep.-lewis-on-ferguson—we-can-do-better–318105155709
Around 1:50, this Rep decides its time for Martial Law “to Protect the People”. Granted he wants to protect the people from the Police so I am not sure which side I fall on… but just strangely coincident after referencing “The Siege”.
Lmao!! So true. We turned into a police state a long time ago. Why the all the rage now? As if the 1% haven’t planned for this a long time ago. You don’t think they know what the end result will be when you ship every low wage job to another country. Why do you think they have been militarizing the police force in ghetto areas? It’s all prep in case the poor start to rage. Simple as that.
nwnj says:
August 14, 2014 at 11:39 am
The phony outrage over the censorship and denial of the right to assemble is pretty hilarious. The press has been turing it’s back on the decimation of the constitution for decades.
I think it was Clinton who started sending non uniformed goons out in front of the white house to beat up protesters. It’s only when a few sissy reporters catch a club upside their head that the alarm bells over the emerging police state are sounded.
You don’t think every town, even your special town with the great schools, has a SWAT team / MRAP / and other sh-t it doesn’t need?
Michael says:
August 14, 2014 at 1:19 pm
Why do you think they have been militarizing the police force in ghetto areas?
Militarization has been going on for a bit…no more police “cars” in my town, all new vehicles are SUVs…
@vicenews: “I’ve already tasked the Department of Justice and the FBI to investigate the death of Michael Brown.” – Obama http://t.co/DiAAIOecsP
AHB,
Yes, weird timing. I hope this congressman realizes that activiating the national guard doesn’t (or shouldn’t) equate to martial law.
Think we’ll see fire hoses?
Isn’t that a step backwards from tear gas?
Or did you mean the national guard firing their water canon at the policle? ha!
You bet your ass they do. I have county and local protecting my town from Paterson.
joyce says:
August 14, 2014 at 1:21 pm
You don’t think every town, even your special town with the great schools, has a SWAT team / MRAP / and other sh-t it doesn’t need?
@GuardianUS:
Ferguson police: a stark illustration of newly militarised US law enforcement
Obviously, Ferguson needs one of these.
http://tinyurl.com/Montclair-waste
54. Tell that to the folks in So Orange when the SHTF. That line of militarized police are all that would stand between you and complete chaos/death.
Don’t want to be a ‘victim’ here, then don’t go out on looting sprees. Methinks.
Cops need heavy artillery as the good citizenry are a bunch of bottom feeders.
Or one of these…
http://tinyurl.com/Ferguson-solution
Rise in Condo Values in last two years has also led to Banks and Condo Boards finally foreclosing on dead beats.
Banks and Boards are loathe to foreclose on broke people with underwater units as it is a lot of work and legal fees. I particular a Condo board is non paid and slow moving and second in line to primary mortgage so very rarely they would get paid even after paying to foreclose.
However, rising condo values combined with the deadbeat folks finally getting jobs mean lien and lawsuits are finally coming to those who truly deserve it.
Only downside this will put a bit of a lid on condo price appreciation short term as these destress units get squeezed out.
We are all just moving quickly along to one United States Police Force:
August 14, 2017 – “Hey Clot, I heard you was dead”.
[53] Michael
Not necessary in our semirural county. Everyone is armed and there are plenty of open spaces in which to dig shallow graves. And I am so close to the county line, I can drop the bodies there and create a jurisdictional buffer.
Lmao!! So true. We turned into a police state a long time ago. Why the all the rage now? As if the 1% haven’t planned for this a long time ago. You don’t think they know what the end result will be when you ship every low wage job to another country. Why do you think they have been militarizing the police force in ghetto areas? It’s all prep in case the poor start to rage. Simple as that.
Yeah right. Post 9/11, the funding for anti-terror went waaaaaaaaaaaaaay up and a lot of it went to the police stations. The cops in Colts Neck have the same weapons as the cop sin Newark. It has nothing to do with dealing with a hypothetical uprising. It has everything to do with the departments being flushed with cash and were told, use it or lose it.
Passion Fruit
So you agree that it’s not just the “ghetto areas” which have militarized police. Do you have any clue what you say from one post to the next?
Michael says:
August 14, 2014 at 1:38 pm
You bet your ass they do. I have county and local protecting my town from Paterson.
oh my god, the gang has ’em completely out numbered
http://tinyurl.com/kyg5zug
Essex says:
August 14, 2014 at 2:09 pm
54. Tell that to the folks in So Orange when the SHTF. That line of militarized police are all that would stand between you and complete chaos/death.
Don’t want to be a ‘victim’ here, then don’t go out on looting sprees. Methinks.
Cops need heavy artillery as the good citizenry are a bunch of bottom feeders.
You are a smart guy and usually on point, but are you sure? I read about the militarization coming from the fed govt. I know local and state pay too, but the fed has been pushing this across the country. That’s where ferguson got their military vehicles, from a fed program.
Ben says:
August 14, 2014 at 2:22 pm
Lmao!! So true. We turned into a police state a long time ago. Why the all the rage now? As if the 1% haven’t planned for this a long time ago. You don’t think they know what the end result will be when you ship every low wage job to another country. Why do you think they have been militarizing the police force in ghetto areas? It’s all prep in case the poor start to rage. Simple as that.
Yeah right. Post 9/11, the funding for anti-terror went waaaaaaaaaaaaaay up and a lot of it went to the police stations. The cops in Colts Neck have the same weapons as the cop sin Newark. It has nothing to do with dealing with a hypothetical uprising. It has everything to do with the departments being flushed with cash and were told, use it or lose it.
Ben 61 – I’m pretty sure that the Montclair FD got new gym equipment with some of their 9/11 money. I hear Lib ranting about that all the time.
Smart ass, in nj, the ghetto is right by wealthy areas. That’s why almost every town has it.
joyce says:
August 14, 2014 at 2:29 pm
Passion Fruit
So you agree that it’s not just the “ghetto areas” which have militarized police. Do you have any clue what you say from one post to the next?
Michael says:
August 14, 2014 at 1:38 pm
You bet your ass they do. I have county and local protecting my town from Paterson.
oh my god, the gang has ‘em completely out numbered.
That picture would have been much scarier if those cops were not wielding paint guns.
Why are cops in forest camo in that picture?
The only guy with a paintball gun is the guy on the far right.
Do want examples of small towns with SWAT teams?
And your response to Ben, seriously did you eat paint chips as a kid? Where do you think the anti-terror funding he mentioned is coming from?
Michael says:
August 14, 2014 at 2:39 pm
Smart ass, in nj, the ghetto is right by wealthy areas. That’s why almost every town has it.
joyce says:
August 14, 2014 at 2:29 pm
Passion Fruit
So you agree that it’s not just the “ghetto areas” which have militarized police. Do you have any clue what you say from one post to the next?
Hype [59];
Reminds me of another quote:
Charlie: They said you was hung.
Bart: And they was right.
63. get back in the kitchen woman, I think i smell something burning.
Joyce [63];
How asinine is that? Forget for a minute what they are carrying, look at what they are wearing. What possible use is pixelated forest camouflage in an urban environment? They’d look less like clown if they just ware black, or better yet, the same blue that they wear on patrol.
The only purpose of the camo is to make them feel like the look “badass”. They got it half right.
there is always Bloomingdale SWAT who loves their military gear. Listen the police are at war and have been since Regan thanks to recreational dr*g use. Since 911 they ramped it up and are at war with us. People are only just starting to realize it.
http://www.northjersey.com/news/bloomingdale-mother-taken-into-custody-after-holding-swat-team-at-bay-1.750752
Wow!! He stated that the departments were flush with cash, so they were spending for the hell of it. I’m saying that the fed govt was specifically giving the supplies. They want the police to be militarized. The police weren’t militarizing just to spend money. Go look it up.
Stop jumping down my throat. Pms?
“And your response to Ben, seriously did you eat paint chips as a kid? Where do you think the anti-terror funding he mentioned is coming from?”
74 – If I was there, I would have pulled together everyone I knew and put together a pick up stickball game right in the middle of that street, completely ignore the cops.
#58, all very 1993 to me…
First hand account:
I’m from St. Louis, and am actually surprised at the representation of the situation locally vs. nationally. For some reason the national reaction has been largely one-sided as depicting cops as being out of control militants; locally I think they’re showing more of the story from both sides.
Ferguson is a smaller city (~20,000) and much of the rioting that has been happening has been a result of sketchy people from the city of St. Louis taking advantage of the situation there.
The police have repeatedly told individuals to protest during the day and stay indoors at night, for everyone’s safety. The past few nights, tear gas has been used to disband the crowd as a result of cops getting fired at, having rocks thrown at them, or molotov cocktails being tossed. Cops in and around Ferguson are now working 12-hour days with no days off. Many are receiving death threats, are spit on and cursed by protestors, and I can understand why they’re uptight.
On the other hand, the people of Ferguson have a right to be angry and many have been peacefully protesting with no problems whatsoever. They’ve been walking around with their hands up, chanting “Hands Up, Don’t Shoot.” From the footage I’ve seen, the cops have rarely been pointing weapons at people (especially in the daytime) except to clear out certain areas. I imagine that’s what’s going on here.
Sadly, a small group of idiots has made the entire situation into a shitstorm with looting and violence, causing even more tension between police and citizens. The other night police responded to four masked men with shotguns in the street (one of whom was shot by police after pointing his weapon at them) and a woman was shot in a drive-by shooting (which never happens in Ferguson).
It’s disheartening and infuriating to see the situation spiral out of control like this. The media is consistently turning it into a racial issue when it isn’t. A recent twitter movement revealed a number of individuals claiming that individuals should “attack rich white neighborhoods” rather than attack their own city, which has resulted in fighting and the lockdown of stores and malls in surrounding areas. The New Black Panthers recently sent a letter to the FBI promising violence, which has only added fuel to the fire.
This entire situation has been a distraction from what’s important. An individual was shot by a police officer – was the officer in the wrong, or was he justified based on the evidence? We don’t know and we need to let the FBI and Justice Department determine it as unbiasedly as possible. Regardless of what happens it’s so far been a case of he-said-she-said with racial tension mounting.
Street hockey grim ala Wayne’s World
hold up MRAP!
Moose,
You want something even more assinine?
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=EnKLEOXenow&feature=player_embedded
From a few years ago: Seattle cop shoots homeless wood carver (a.k.a. knife weilding man if you ask the pig). Skip to 1:55 in to the video in which the cop still stands far away from the dead motionless victim. Then watch all the other heroes gather behind him and at 2:40 they approach him in some kind of “maneuver” I’ve never seen before.
Alright, Passion Fruit,
I’m going to try one more time. This is exactly what Ben said. Trying reading slowly and read the sentences in the correct order.
“Yeah right. Post 9/11, the funding for anti-terror went waaaaaaaaaaaaaay up and a lot of it went to the police stations. The cops in Colts Neck have the same weapons as the cop sin Newark. It has nothing to do with dealing with a hypothetical uprising. It has everything to do with the departments being flushed with cash and were told, use it or lose it.”
It is first stated the anti-terror funding went sky high (from the Fed Gov). He then states it’s even in places like Colts Neck (not just Irvington and Patterson). He finishes with the departments being flush with cash (from anti-terror funding from the Fed Gov).
So are you still going to tell Ben was wrong and you were right when you said the same thing he did?
Michael says:
August 14, 2014 at 3:16 pm
Wow!! He stated that the departments were flush with cash, so they were spending for the hell of it. I’m saying that the fed govt was specifically giving the supplies. They want the police to be militarized. The police weren’t militarizing just to spend money. Go look it up.
Stop jumping down my throat.
Looking for a referral for a mortgage broker to refi my home and an investment property. Any suggestions? Long time lurker…..Thanks!
In America today, the views of the voting public are nearly meaningless; wealthy individuals and business-backed special interest groups are almost entirely responsible for the stances that politicians take on the issues. That’s the takeaway from a new study by Martin Gilens of Princeton University and Benjamin Page of Northwestern University.
Where can I suggest a change to Trenton’s motto: Trenton makes the world takes
It really should be: Trenton takes
http://www.drjtbc.org/assets/delawareriver/bridges/trentonmakes.jpg
It shouldn’t be much work to move the letters, hell, just turn off the ones in the middle.
How much would it cost me to fund this prank?
Star Ledger calling authorities out in another crime:
On the morning after Brendan Tevlin was killed in West Orange, the Essex County Prosecutor’s Office issued a news release that included these words: “The victim has been identified as a Brendan Tevlin, 19, of Livingston. The preliminary investigation indicates he was targeted.”
That suggests the killer had some private beef with Tevlin and went after him. And because so much violence in America is tied to the drug trade, a reasonable person could read between the lines and conclude that Tevlin was somehow involved in that black market.
With that assumption in mind, the public could breathe easy. This was a private argument. The danger is confined to people who associate with killers.
We now know nothing could have been further from the truth.
@HuffingtonPost: Dad dies after deputies hit him with taser http://t.co/Gzsw2hpQPR
When does construction of the Great Wall of Orange begin?
87. It’s almost comical how dysfunctional the area is. A real model for diversity I tell ya…
‘wealthy individuals’? like the 1%? wow, truly breaking news
Essex says:
August 14, 2014 at 4:12 pm
In America today, the views of the voting public are nearly meaningless; wealthy individuals and business-backed special interest groups are almost entirely responsible for the stances that politicians take on the issues. That’s the takeaway from a new study by Martin Gilens of Princeton University and Benjamin Page of Northwestern University.
89. I think my family is easily in the 1% but then who is counting….I mean the .05%…and the big multinationals.
@AP: BREAKING: Tony Stewart says he will not race Sunday in NASCAR Sprint Cup event at Michigan.
#84 Essex
That suggests the killer had some private beef with Tevlin and went after him. And because so much violence in America is tied to the drug trade, a reasonable person could read between the lines and conclude that Tevlin was somehow involved in that black market.
First point of action when the prosecutor doesn’t want to aggressively pursue a case….character assignation. Also in defense lawyers’ playbook.
92. Spot on. It also gave people a false sense of security. I see some “retirements” coming from this one….
You are a smart guy and usually on point, but are you sure? I read about the militarization coming from the fed govt. I know local and state pay too, but the fed has been pushing this across the country. That’s where ferguson got their military vehicles, from a fed program.
This came directly from a cop in Colt’s Neck. He was directing traffic at the orchard I was working at. I asked him why he had a semi-automatic weapon in the car. He said that they were given the money to spend it post 9/11 from anti-terrorism funds. He said every department in Monmouth county did the same. Not for nothing, but I seriously doubt they need semi-automatic weapons to stop an uprising in colts neck.
As for the police being militarized in Newark. They need it. During the Newark riots, rioters were actively shooting at people from buildings.
What is Missouri’s Waffen SS up to tonight?
[83] grim,
LOL, I rolled by that sign on Amtrak so often I can’t get it out of my head.
And you reminded me of a great idea for a prank that I had once: Figure out a way to short out the middle three words on the sign. In the alternative, set up giant scrims that would drop and cover them.
On how cops get MRAPs and other sh1t, I believe I posted this before:
http://www.dispositionservices.dla.mil/leso/Pages/1033ProgramFAQs.aspx
[96] redux
Guess I shouldn’t read when tired, Grim had the same prank idea. I did give it thought and I figured that shorting out the middle words would be hard. You have to figure that this sort of prank is expected. Also that bridge sees a lot of traffic so you would be noticed right quick.
Noonan:
I think things just got sparky, a term I once heard a military figure use to denote a battle that has both commenced and turned hot.
In her interview in The Atlantic, with Jeffrey Goldberg, Hillary Clinton sounded as burly and hawkish on foreign policy as John McCain. That’s not a surprise to longtime Hillary observers, though that she chose to declare it so uncompromisingly at so early a point in the 2016 presidential cycle, is. Mrs. Clinton came into politics from the McGovern wing of her party, but that was long ago. She has been more publicly hawkish since she ran for the U.S. Senate in New York in 2000 and 9/11 happened a year later. She famously voted for the Iraq war, which opened up running room for a young man named Barack Obama.
Everyone knew that Mrs. Clinton would have to detach herself politically from Mr. Obama, an increasingly unpopular president. But she was his secretary of state for four years, so the distancing would have to be done with some deftness and delicacy, and deeper into the election cycle, not now. Instead, it was done with blunt force. In the interview Mrs. Clinton went square at the president’s foreign-policy vision, or lack of it. “Great nations need organizing principles, and ‘Don’t do stupid stuff,’ is not an organizing principle.” This is both true and well stated, but it is remarkable to hear it from, again, a person who until February 2013 was his secretary of state, presumably an intimate and part of the creation of his foreign policy.
Just as remarkable, by throwing down this gauntlet Mrs. Clinton starts an argument within her party that might have been inevitable but certainly could have been delayed and, with pleas for unity, softened. By starting the argument now she gives time, space and reason for a progressive Democratic opponent to arise.
***
The 2016 Democratic presidential cycle has begun with this interview and has begun early.
The tone and content of Mrs. Clinton’s remarks seem to assume a Democratic Party base that is or will prove to be in broad agreement with her hawkishness.
But is that the feeling of a major portion of the Democratic Party base right now?
Enlarge Image
Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton sits between Senate Foreign Relations Chairman Sen. John McCain, R-Ariz., right, and Sen. Elizabeth Warren, D-Mass., in 2013. Associated Press
You can see the progressive pushback in David Axelrod’s remarks when he took to Twitter to remind Mrs. Clinton that stupid stuff “means stuff like occupying Iraq in the first place, which was a tragically bad decision.” The Obama White House is reportedly angered by Mrs. Clinton’s remarks. Left-wing websites have taken issue with her.
Mrs. Clinton was always going to have a challenger or challengers for the party’s nomination, and in fact needed one: She needs someone to beat for the nomination, she can’t just glide to it. At the same time it was in her interest to own a lot of political ground and give no big stark issue to the left. But she’s given them one now, and she is probably going to get a bigger challenge than she thinks.
Who might it be? Democrats are suddenly full of names—that itself is significant, they weren’t a few weeks ago—but the first person who always comes to mind could cause Mrs. Clinton a lot of trouble.
In a smart piece in The Washington Monthly, writer David Paul Kuhn takes a look at Massachusetts Sen. Elizabeth Warren and reminds the political class not to write her off and not to assume that her stated position up to now—that she does not intend to run for president—will hold.
Mr. Kuhn notes that Ms. Warren has a powerful appeal among the party’s activist left. Her rhetoric is pure firebrand: “The game is rigged . . . and the rich and powerful have lobbyists and lawyers and plenty of friends in Congress.” She draws big, enthusiastic crowds. Mr. Kuhn quotes Democratic campaign veteran Joe Trippi, who suggests things may be more dynamic than they look: “The progressive wing is looking for a candidate.” With Hillary, as they say, Democrats are falling in line but not in love.
Yes, Mrs. Clinton is the favorite; yes, she has the money, the clout, the stature, fame and relationships. But she’s no populist, and populism is rising. Hillary is close to Wall Street; they’re her friends, her donors, they hire her for big ticket appearances. Ms. Warren has no use for Wall Street; they’re the ones who crashed the economy and got away with it. Mr. Kuhn notes that Ms. Warren’s signature line—the game is rigged—is no longer radical; it is the view of 6 in 10 Americans in some polls that our economic system unfairly favors the wealthy.
Ms. Warren would also take Hillary’s most powerful argument—that it’s time for a woman president and she is an accomplished woman—off the table.
I’d add two points.
One is that Ms. Warren has the hard-to-quantify power of the person who means it. She’s a real leftist, she didn’t get it from a poll. Second, though Ms. Warren and Hillary are almost the same age (65 and 66, respectively) they represent two wholly different political experiences. They are of different Democratic generations.
Hillary is a post-Reagan liberal. Her generation of liberalism was defined by a reckoning with and accommodation to popular modern conservatism.
Ms. Warren is a post-crash progressive. She came to politics during and after the financial crisis of 2008, and her political message was shaped by it. To some in the base Ms. Warren may seem fresher, more pertinent.
As for her repeated statements that she does not plan to run for the presidency in 2016, Mr. Kuhn notes that Barack Obama said things like that in the years before 2008. Then he ran.
***
On the Republican side, of course, no one’s certain who’s running; some of those who think they might won’t, some who think they won’t might. But, as a smart party veteran said the other day, the primaries could in time turn into Rand Paul Versus the Guy Who Isn’t Rand Paul, the guy who stands for a greater perceived moderation.
But what if the nominee were Rand Paul? And he went up against Mrs. Clinton? The Kentucky senator would, presumably, be to her left on foreign policy. That would be historic enough. But what would the GOP’s establishmentarians, its money men and opinion shapers, do if the 2016 election came down to Mr. Paul versus a more moderate-seeming Hillary? They just might choose Mrs. Clinton. Bolt the party, or sit this one out.
We could see a rising populist candidate pretty much split the Democratic Party this year, and a rising libertarian one pretty much split the Republicans.
Yes, we are getting ahead of ourselves. No, this is not where you’d put your money, in part because it’s too dramatic, and when you expect history to get dramatic it often doesn’t, just as when you don’t it sometimes does.
But only months ago people were thinking 2016 might be ho-hum, a Bush versus a Clinton, with mournful commentary about the decadence of America’s acceptance of political dynasties. Maybe it will be sparkier than that. And maybe the sparkiness began this week, with that interview in The Atlantic.