Page 6 — THE LACONIA DAILY SUN, Saturday, April 6, 2013
Michelle Malkin
Bloody Chicago President Obama’s hometown of Chicago still goes by the old nickname “Windy City.” But after three miserable decades of strict gun control and permanent Democratic rule, Chicago has cemented its reputation as America’s Bloody City. No amount of statistical whitewashing can cover up the stains of the left’s ideological failures there. But as Obama continues to wage war on law-abiding gun owners, his home team is trying its hardest to spread smiley-face lies upon damned lies to downplay Chicago homicide statistics. On Monday, April Fools’ Day, Chicago Mayor Rahm Emanuel and Chicago Police Superintendent Garry McCarthy held a press conference to tout a “dramatic” drop in the city’s homicide rate. The headlines read: “March homicides drop dramatically in Chicago” (USA Today); “Murders fall 42 percent in America’s deadliest city: Chicago” (NBC News); and “March homicides drop 69 percent in Chicago” (Las Vegas Sun).” Emanuel trumpeted the drop as a “good sign.” He hyped statistics to the Associated Press showing that first-quarter 2013 murders in Chicago tied the same time period in 2009. Murders decreased 69 percent compared to the same month last year; first-quarter homicides fell by 42 percent compared to the same time frame last year. Emanuel insisted: “We are clearly having an impact on the homicides.” But it’s all in how you slice, dice and spin it, of course. Let’s face it. Gun-grabbers in Democratic-dominated cities have an institutional incentive to fudge the numbers. In New York City, which rivals Chicago when it comes to out-of-control gun-control regulations, a New York Police Department whistleblower recently exposed systemic manipulation of crime data. As anti-Second Amendment crusader Michael Bloomberg made the rounds last spring touting the Big Apple as “the safest big city in America,” an internal NYPD report confirmed that more than a dozen crime reports had been manipulated — including felonies downgraded and incident reports deep-sixed — to lower the crime rate. As punishment for exposing the tampering and corruption, the whistle-blowing officer, Adrian Schoolcraft, who secretly taped the manipulation, was suspended and forced into a psych ward. He’s still fighting for justice and has never received an apology. So, call me crazy, but I wouldn’t put it past Team Obama’s Chicago theater directors to goose their
numbers to improve the optics for Dear Leader. Speaking of the lobbyist in chief, he parachuted into Colorado this week and surrounded himself with Denver police officer human props during a gun-control campaign event. The rank-and-filers were none too happy with being exploited for political purposes. “To protect and serve” is supposed to be a public safety imperative, not a campaign imperative. But back to the Bloody City. In 2012, Chicago racked up the nation’s deadliest death toll, with 506 of its residents murdered. The murder rate has simply returned to its bloody business as usual over the past five years. Here’s the firstquarter death toll breakdown: 2013: 70; 2012: 120; 2011: 75; 2010: 75; 2009: 70. The Second City Cop crime blog adds that Emanuel’s claim regarding the homicide rate dropping to levels not seen since the 1950s “is based solely on the population decrease in the city of Chicago. This is an amazing abuse of numbers, but as Mark Twain said, ‘There are lies, damned lies and statistics.’ Welcome to ‘statistics.’” Local Chicago CBS 2 reporter Jay Levine didn’t buy the whitewashing bunk, either. He challenged City Hall with a piece entitled: “City Touts Lower Homicide Stats, But Context Reveals Return To Normal.” Put simply, “2013’s 70 first-quarter homicides was a major improvement over 2012’s 120 — but not over 2011 or 2010 or 2009.” While Emanuel sang “Don’t Worry, Be Happy” for the press, the Bloody City was still reeling after a 6-month-old baby was shot and killed in gang crossfire. On Easter weekend, a mob of violent teens terrorized shoppers in the Magnificent Mile district. Similar outbreaks of racially driven attacks have escalated in Chicago under the reign of Daley-Emanuel-Obama. By some police estimates, gang violence accounts for up to 80 percent of the city’s homicides. Plagued by juvenile delinquency, organized crime, ruinous government dependency, corruption and out-of-control spending, these liberal-dominated hellholes have proved impervious to progressive “social justice” engineering. It’s the insane demagogues blaming guns who need their heads examined. (Syndicated columnist Michelle Malkin is the daughter of Filipino Immigrants. She was born in Philadelphia, raised in southern New Jersey and now lives with her husband and daughter in Colorado. Her weekly column is carried by more than 100 newspapers.)
LETTERS Trouble is, Listens’ organizers have already decided the outcome To the editor, After I picked myself up off the floor, I re-read Bruce Mallory’s “N.H Listens’ Role is Complimentary ....” letter to the editor (March 29 edition of The Laconia Daily Sun) once more to make sure I didn’t miss something. Dr. Mallory wrote, “We weren’t sure exactly what that was, so we Googled it.” Rest assured that prior to tapping out the letters on his keyboard, he had both a profound and a deep understanding of the word “that” in the quote above. “That” refers to the Delphi Technique. Dr. Mallory had quite a few half truths in his letter, and you know the old saying don’t you? A half truth is a whole lie. How can I make such a bold statement? It’s easy. I’ve had several conversations with Dr. Mallory, both in person, on the phone and via e-mail. In a recent email conversation, Dr. Mallory clearly talked about the Delphi Technique. You can read his exact words here: http://go.askthebuilder. com/mallorydelphi. One face-to-face conversation about the Delphi Technique happened in the presence of two of his minions and two of my friends. We were all sitting in the warm sun gathered around an outdoor table at the Burrito Me restaurant in downtown Laconia. In case Dr. Mallory can’t remember that either, the date was August 23, 2012. I still have Dr. Mallory’s e-mail invitation to that meeting if you’d like to see it. Yes, he invited me to discuss NH Listens and how it’s perceived in the community. While sipping iced tea, I clearly told Dr. Mallory that NH Listens employs the Delphi Technique. He denied it. Speaking of facts, here are a few more. The Delphi Technique is a highly unethical method of running a meeting. The organizers of the meeting position the gathering to make the attendees believe they’ll be providing valuable input that will guide an initiative. Highly trained facilitators run the meetings using powerful psychological triggers. Dr. Mallory clearly said in his letter that his NH Listens meetings are facilitated. The meetings that employ the Delphi Technique all have the same or similar structure. The attendees
are first addressed as an entire group with a welcome introduction. Then the attendees are broken up into circles or smaller discussion cells. These cells meet privately for at least 90 minutes. Each cell has it’s own facilitator. The meeting concludes with all attendees gathering together once more where a brief summary of points from each cell is presented to the entire group. These summary points are then combined into a consensus document that the organizers publish. The trouble is the organizers have already decided on the outcome of the meeting’s consensus document. They steer the discussion by providing discussion points that are highly biased, and the facilitators cleverly extract what they want from the attendees as they chat in the small discussion cells. What’s more, there are almost always plants in each discussion circle that are loyal to the initiative’s cause and/or are paid to be part of the discussion. Their programmed input in the small discussion cells is almost always favored by the facilitator and the other plants. This input always makes it into each cell’s summary points. As they say, the proof’s in the pudding. Just a little over two weeks ago I attended one of the “facilitated small group discussions” as Dr. Mallory calls them in his letter to you. It was held at the Plymouth Senior Center. The topic was the Granite State Future. I attended the listening session as a member of the media to cast a harsh spotlight on this unethical meeting format. One of Dr. Mallory’s UNH’s peers, Molly Donovan — the head facilitator that night — tried to stop me from video taping the event, but I politely informed her that I have crystal clear First Amendment rights in that setting to tape, record, quote and photograph the attendees and event. You can watch the video here: http:// go.askthebuilder.com/delphi After watching the video evidence you’ll clearly see that NH Listens uses the Delphi Technique. You’ll see the warm and fuzzy introduction. You’ll see the small discussion cells. You’ll see me holding the handout that contains the biased discussion points. You’ll see the limited summary points given at the end. The only thing