Kudos to O'Malley.
Thank You!

Nothing says "I can't think rationally" like a post hoc ergo prompter hoc fallacy.

But good luck with that.

...using the Latin name of a fallacy. Then both using and spelling it wrong...

Lis Smith @Lis_Smith · 6m 6 minutes ago
GovernorOMalley did something a lot of these mayors don’t do: He walked w/ the small people…He walked the streets”

http://www.democraticunderground.com/128164

He isn't just taking, he is doing something about the issues, and has a record to back him up. People need to take the time to check him out, and when they do, I think they are going to like what they see.

which is why I spend a fair amount of time trying to inform people here about him.

I really appreciate all the information that you and others over on the Martin O'Malley board post. Keep up the good work.

Crediting O'Malley with a 43% drop in crime in Baltimore from 2000-2010 is dishonest given that O'Malley wasn't even the mayor the last four of those years. After he left office, his zero-tolerance police methods were abandoned and the murder rate plummeted.

He walked w/ the small people…He walked the streets”

From 2000-2010, the incidents of crime in Baltimore dropped 43 percent, outpacing by a stretch the 11 percent drop that the nation saw during that period. The crime rate dropped by 40 percent. Graduation rates rose. Median home prices doubled. A new biotech park was built on the city’s east side. A new performing arts center was built on the west side. O’Malley was obsessed with numbers and metrics, and set up a 311 call center to track citizen complaints. A program called Project 5000 enlisted volunteer attorneys to help deal with the city’s massive vacant home problem as titles to those homes was eventually transferred to individuals and non-profits for redevelopment. The school system was pulled back from the fiscal brink. CitiStat, designed to track crime, helped bring the crime rate down and created a budget surplus of $54 million that was then reinvested in schools and programs for children. At last, the population stabilized. It was no longer necessary to flee, if you could. The number of college educated 25-to-34-year-olds living within three miles of downtown Baltimore increased 92 percent in the ten years after O’Malley became mayor, fourth among the nation’s 51st largest metro areas.

Time Magazine named O’Malley one of the five best big city mayors in America. Esquire named him the best young mayor in America. CitiStat won Harvard University’s Kennedy School of Government “Innovations in American Government Award.” . .

O’Malley won statewide twice though, boosted by those same Baltimore neighborhoods that he is now blamed for turning into powder kegs.'

I guess you can't see the problem.

...on policies a decade ago.

However, to your point, the figures cover a decade...

O’Malley is referring to 1999-2009 data from the FBI, which tracks crimes reported to law enforcement agencies. Part 1 crimes are serious crimes that are likely to be reported to police, and are divided into violent and property crimes. These crimes include criminal homicide, forcible rape, robbery, aggravated assault, arson and motor vehicle theft.

O’Malley usually clarifies that he is referring to Part 1 (i.e., overall) crimes.

FBI data confirm his calculation. The overall crime rate (the number of crimes per 100,000 people) fell by 48 percent during that decade, more than any other large police agency in the country. Specifically for violent crimes, the Baltimore City Police Department saw the third highest drop (behind Los Angeles and New York City) during the period.
http://www.washingtonpost.com/blogs/fact-checker/wp/2015/04/28/omalleys-claim-about-crime-rates-in-baltimore/


...Baltimore crime rates, across the board, actually made a steady decline DURING his term:

check the statistics: http://www.city-data.com/crime/crime-Baltimore-Maryland.html

is happening today in Baltimore. I am very familiar with the statistics you cite. But O'Malley didn't produce much of a drop in the murder rate during his tenure. Some of O'Malley's defenders (not saying you are one of these people), including the author of the article cited by elleng, pad his stats by extending the relevant period beyond O'Malley's term. That seems dishonest to me. That is what my post was about.

...during O'Malley's term which was significantly more than the national average.

There's nothing 'dishonest at all about citing the FBI statistics, as the WaPo fact check confirms. The article cited by elleng does not restrict that to 'murders, as you do; it actually understates the progress...from the article:

From 2000-2010, the incidents of crime in Baltimore dropped 43 percent, outpacing by a stretch the 11 percent drop that the nation saw during that period. The crime rate dropped by 40 percent.

Last edited Tue Jun 16, 2015, 09:33 PM - Edit history (1)

Look, I am not saying that crime didn't fall under O'Malley. But the statistics for murder, which are the hardest to juke, show that the murder rate didn't come down much at all, and that was in spite of O'Malley's horrific corner sweeps. O'Malley's claims to a significant reduction in violent crime rely heavily on the stats for rape, robbery, and assault. Those stats have been questioned by criminologists and by former police officials, and I don't trust them. Here is a good read on the subject: http://davidsimon.com/omalley-bad-math/

(By the way, please don't offer the usual ad hominem response to Simon. His having produced a fictional TV show about Baltimore doesn't negate the fact that he was a crime reporter in Baltimore for years and knows a lot more about what went on there under O'Malley than you or I know.)

...that's the point. There are zero published FBI statistics which are restricted O'Malley's exact term, but to keep pointing to just the out years of that survey, you completely ignore and discount the drop in crime during his term. That was significant and it outpaced the national average.

It's interesting how disconnected critics of his zero-tolerance policy are from his overall approach to crime in Baltimore which saw the violent crime rate drop on a wide range of offenses, many of those which could well have resulted in deaths. That overall approach included the institution of a community policing program; a focus on police accountability which resulted in a sharp reduction in police shootings; and a crime tracking program which was hailed as a major innovation by Harvard and others.

It's also notable how violent crime has increased decades after his term, coinciding with a drop in the number of arrests. I find it remarkable how much criticism there is about an arrest policy which coincided with a reduction in violent crime, and the failure to even acknowledge the actual lives saved as a result of his police department's efforts.

Please see my edited post. As for the claim that his disrespect of rights in Baltimore saved lives, that is simply unproven. (And of course, security is always used as an excuse for taking away individual liberty.) Crime was reduced in Baltimore without the mass arrests after O'Malley left office and there is no evidence that the mass arrests as opposed to other factors (some of which you mention in your post) reduced violent crime under O'Malley.

...you and other critics like to represent the zero-policing program as the totality of his police dept. crime reduction efforts. That's a false representation of his PD's overall approach to crime which included the institution of a community policing program; a focus on police accountability which resulted in a sharp reduction in police shootings; and a crime tracking program which was hailed as a major innovation by Harvard and others.


(I'm late for work)

And well they should. Those policies were awful.

Practical action is a double-edged sword. The ivory tower of theory is one thing; the real world of practice is another. Having the right positions is one thing; dealing with messy problems is another. Anyone involved in practical executive decision-making and action will have both failures and successes. That is what trying to solve problems is all about. And even the good things one accomplishes will always offend some people. Many people were relieved (and spared death) when O'Malley's policies allowed them to walk the streets again and not have to enter their own homes by the back door, while gangs congregated in their front yards. Lives were saved by O'Malley's policies.

Yep, the "other candidate" is fortunate that he never had to take on the task of bringing down crime in a major, diverse, and poverty-ridden city. It is O'Malley's misfortune that he took on an impossible task and had mixed results, including actual reduction in crime and murder rates. O'Malley has never run from a challenge. Perhaps his record would have been unblemished if he had just run from the challenge of being mayor of Baltimore and limited himself to taking ivory tower positions in a more trouble-free environment. In fact, O'Malley has strong principles and the courage to act upon them. It is the fate of human moral endeavor that all ethically intended action is subject to conditions and forces outside of one's control. To those who try to get something done to improve the lot of others, it is sobering to face the fact that one fails as much as one succeeds. Surgeons save a lot of lives, but they kill some people. It is tempting to avoid hard choices and to steer clear of doing anything that might have unforeseeable unfavorable results.

Heck, it is safer to be a teacher and pontificate from a safe and well-funded university chair about all the problems of our oligarchic society, than to be mayor of Baltimore or governor of Maryland. Or write some books about the evils of capitalism and the virtues of labor, as Marx did, without working in a factory one day of his life. But to take on the impossible, armed only with principle and good common sense, and to accomplish sometimes a little and sometimes a lot, is very dangerous. Some of the many people you have helped will remember you; others will quickly forget. But your mistakes will haunt you, and your enemies will never leave you alone. Executive experience is "learning experience," where one tries to do better in the future, based on successes and failures in the past.

I commend O'Malley for his executive experience, with all that that entails.

...important point about the open-air drug markets which ran 24-7 and plagued those neighborhoods. There is zero acknowledgement from critics of those hazards to the community, and zero acknowledgement from critics of the actual lives saved as a result of the overall approach to crime which was far more than one arrest policy.

Moreover, much is being made today abut the 'atmosphere' created by those policies without any acknowledgement at all of the steady drop in violent crime which occurred during and after O'Malley's term as mayor. In fact, what is being noted today is the way the violent crime rate has actually increased in conjunction with a drop in arrests. Policing is not a perfect science, and the devastating effect of crime on the community shouldn't be disregarded by critics who aren't, themselves, directly involved in efforts to make those communities safer.

We are fortunate to have the two of them running - either would be phenomenal as the nominee!

5 - 4 - 3 - 2 ....

That means criminals will submit their fingerprints to obtain a license now?
Yeah, that's real gun control, only the honest citizens will obey these laws, the criminals? Not so much.

Bernie's my guy.

Since criminals will only disregard them.

Want to lower the crime rate? How about ending the war on drugs? How about better mental health services?
Those 2 proposals alone would do more to lower the crime rate than those bills he signed into law.

See this article:

http://www.washingtonpost.com/blogs/post-politics/wp/2014/04/14/omalley-decriminalizes-marijuana/

and here:

http://www.washingtonpost.com/local/md-politics/maryland-gov-omalley-will-sign-marijuana-decriminalization-bill-senior-aide-says/2014/04/07/d50ec44c-be8f-11e3-bcec-b71ee10e9bc3_story.html

Gun control was only one area that O'Malley devoted himself to. His policies also helped lower prison incarceration and recidivism.

No matter how excellent mental health services are, it is common sense to make it more difficult for severely mentally ill persons and criminals to own guns. Sensible gun control regulations go a long way in this regard.

Criminals are, by their very nature, outlaws, they're not going to obey any laws, so how do these laws lower crime rates?
Criminals will always be able to get weapons, they'll steal them, buy them on the black market, get someone to do a straw purchase for them, etc., short of an outright ban on firearms, which is NEVER going to happen, you will not stop the criminal element from acquiring what they want.
The only people these laws effect are the law abiding citizens who are not the problem.
Sorry, but that's just the way it is.

Now, I'm all for laws that actually do some good, like universal background checks, which I believe Maryland already has, beef up the ATF to actually go after FFL dealers violating the law, prosecute those who lie on form 4473 when purchasing a firearm, I have no problem with submitting fingerprints for a first time buyer, there are other sensible laws I would support, and there are laws I would oppose, like registration, license to own, etc.

A little inconvenience? Delay in purchasing? No one is talking about banning guns altogether, although I would be in favor of it.

Gun control is a small price to pay, if even a few mentally ill or "potentially" criminal types are kept from owning guns. We need enforcement to back up regulation, in this and every other regard.

And everyone is a law-abiding citizen until he breaks the law. People are not born as law-abiding or law-breaking individuals. Having a gun around makes it easier to go from law-abiding to law-breaking.

When it comes to gun-control, I am strongly in favor of it; and I believe that Sanders' mixed position is unfortunate in that regard. The Brady bill was just common sense.

In general, I believe that Americans have too many guns, drive too many gas guzzlers, and watch too much television.

Our gun-happy culture is way out of control. Gun control is common sense.

It's tough to choose between him and Sanders.

Personally, I give the edge to O'Malley because as Governor he was able to enact his policies. It is much harder for a single Senator to get anything passed, especially in this political climate.

AAR, we are lucky to have such excellent candidates.

being the Governor gives him an edge on recognition for the passage of his policies. I lean Bernie, but like you, I feel lucky that we have great candidates to choose from.

We have candidates that will actually do something to fix the problems, while republicans have a "clown car" filled with people who "ONLY" work for the 1%, and who would take the country back to the "good old days" of George W. Bush, and that should scare the crap out of anyone!

I would have no problem voting for whoever our nominee is, yet I still prefer O'Malley because of what he has already done.

I love both Sanders and O'Malley, and will be ecstatic if either get the nomination. Both have excellent records, in my opinion.

too many purple states to be won.

'governing' experience SHOULD be.

However it will be an issue for the nominee once they are in the WH. This country is going crazy when it comes to guns. Hell I own guns, but the idea that everyone should be packing, or that you can carry a gun any damned place you want, as is being done in many republican states, is plain insane. Which ever democrat wins the WH will end up having to deal with this problem some time down the line. O'Malley has shown he is willing to do that.

if gun violence continues its 20 year decline, the public pressure for radical change simply won't be there. It is not a priority for American voters now and I doubt it will be after the election. Congress certainly doesn't seem too willing to make gun control a priority.

Now if President Clinton was smart, she would focus on a nation wide anti-suicide campaign. That would save a lot of lives since two thirds of gun deaths are suicides without setting off the political firestorm that any calls for gun control automatically ignites.

...to bring about increased restrictions. If it weren't for the terrible tragedy of 20 dead young children in Sandy Hook, he might not ever tried.

I hope Sanders' good pro-2A record won't keep some from voting for him should he be the nominee.

Has the law been implemented? Has it withstood the inevitable legal challenges by the NRA?