title: GUT WRENCHING: OBAMA Meets With Rappers To Discuss Criminal Justice Reform…Doublespeak For Pardoning Criminals, Investigating Cops
text: Is there any question what Obama s priorities are in his final 8 1/2 months in office? His legacy will most certainly be that of the most divisive President (and First Lady) to ever occupy the White House. Every law enforcement officer in America should be concerned about his obsession with taking them down a few notches.President Obama is meeting with a group of music stars on Friday to discuss his push for criminal justice reform and his initiaitve dedicated to helping young men and boys of color.Rappers Busta Rhymes, Common, J. Cole, Wale, Ludacris and Chance the Rapper are all attending the meeting, according to a senior administration official.The meeting comes as Obama is trying to beef up support for the My Brother s Keeper Initiative, which is designed to help young African-Americans get an education, college degree and job training.Obama and his supporters launched a nonprofit group last May that will allow the president to continue the work once he leaves office.The president has also tried to keep momentum behind a bipartisan coalition looking to pass legislation in Congress that would reduce prison sentences for many non-violent drug offenders. Senior adviser Valerie Jarrett and My Brother s Keeper task force chairman Broderick Johnson also attended the meeting.War On Cops: President Obama says his  criminal justice reform    doublespeak for pardoning criminals and investigating cops   is gaining bipartisan support. New FBI crime data should stop the movement in its tracks.Last fall, we argued that Obama s war on police, prosecuted with the help of his Black Lives Matter goons, sparked a  national crime wave.   Violent criminals are getting the upper hand as the  Ferguson effect  takes hold in cities across the country,  we noted.  Less-aggressive policing has emboldened the bad guys, leading to a nationwide spike in murder. Officers fear violating softer new use-of-force and arrest policies, pushed on cities by the Obama Justice Department, will open them up to civil-rights prosecution. Many have backed off patrols and stops in dangerous urban areas as a result. The result: Year-over-year homicide rates are up 76% in Milwaukee; 60% in St. Louis; 56% in Baltimore; 44% in Washington, D.C.; 22% in New Orleans; 20% in Chicago; 20% in Kansas City; and 17% in Dallas. Single-digit rises have been seen in New York and other cities. Soon after, FBI Director James Comey indicated that spiking murder rates may be partly due to the  Ferguson effect    police reluctance to carry out their duties over fear of being investigated for abuse or discrimination, or shot by angry thugs in the line of duty.Police chiefs echoed his concerns, prompting the attorney general to gather major police chiefs and mayors together in Washington for a crime summit. It was supposed to be a closed meeting, no press allowed.But a Washington Post reporter snuck in and recorded Chicago Mayor Rahm Emanuel complaining that all the vitriol thrown at cops had put them in a  fetal  position. Obama s former chief of staff said they were backing off crime in gang-infested areas of his city.Obama pooh-poohed the city-by-city reports of climbing murder rates, arguing that there wasn t any aggregate data to show a national trend. But now we have the national data from the FBI. It confirms that the U.S. murder rate shot up 6.2% in the first half of 2015 from a year earlier. The spike reverses a three-year downtrend.Overall violent crime   murder, rape, robbery, aggravated assault   rose almost 2%, in contrast to a nearly 5% drop in the comparable period of 2014. Violent crime rose in all but one of the nation s four regions, the FBI said, and all but two city groupings.If liberal pundits and politicians want to stop soaring crime rates, they should stop vilifying cops. And they should start speaking out against the Black Lives Matter race-mongers and their  criminal-justice reforming  patrons in the White House. 