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Tuesday, February 07, 2017

QOTD




Here's a quote from President Trump, right? 
"I see Chicago and it's horrible.  I don't even want to go there. it's like a war zone. Something thas to be done to get the city under control."
It certainly sounds like Trump. After all, we know he recently threatened to "send in the Feds" if Chicago doesn't "fix the horrible carnage going on" there.  But, no, the above quote isn't another Presidential tweet. It's from Sidney Torres.

A new cop drama premiered on FOX Monday night. The show's premise, "loosely based" on Sidney's occasional dabbling in the faux vigilante business through a series of private "security" initiatives in the French Quarter, dares to ask us what would happen if a billionaire "partnered" with a big city police department and ran crime fighting like a business. Answer: The bad guys would finally meet their match, apparently.

In this promo piece run by the local FOX affiliate in Chicago (the show is set there) Sidney shares his above quoted comments about the Chicago "war zone." He also talks up the great success of his ventures in New Orleans.

Also on Monday, probably not by coincidence, an op-ed by Torres appeared in the Times-Picayune.  I guess I'll post the link  just for the sake of documentation.

 But here's the short version:

1) We gotta run our gubmint like a business.
Also, the success of the unique (and cost-effective) approach to crime we started in New Orleans -- the French Quarter Task Force -- showed that a business-like approach with a fundamental emphasis on accountability and transparency should be a key part of any plan to address crime.
2) There is "unimaginable bloodshed" in Chicago.

3) Drugs are bad. Education is the key. Community policing. Several other such empty cliches while also saying let's not talk in cliches.

4) Also this. 
I regularly speak to young people who have gotten into some trouble. Their eyes open wide when they learn, and I show them the numbers, that you can make more money as a chef than you can dealing on the street corners, and without any of the risks.  
This must be some sort of alternative fact.  Maybe Sidney means you can make better money if you are John Besh or something. For most of the "young people who have gotten into some trouble" a career in food service probably means putting in several years or decades as a line cook where wages in New Orleans peg somewhere between $11 and $13 per hour.

If Sidney has an innovative solution to this conundrum, he isn't sharing it. Not yet, anyway.  Maybe we'll learn more after he qualifies to run this fall.

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