Divemedic

So Schwarzenegger wants to run for President. There is a Constitutional issue here, in that he is not a natural born citizen.

This sets up an interesting dilemma. Regardless of whether or not you believe in the birthers’ theory that Obama is not a natural born citizen, the court battles surrounding the claim raised an interesting point: According to the US Court system, no one has standing to enforce the Constitution in the even that someone is elected President in defiance of the Constitution.

I stumbled on a website where women can buy fashionable articles of clothing to hide their concealed weapon. I have no idea about quality or suitability, I am just aware that many women have problems finding things like this, and thought I would pass it along.

A couple gets arrested for having oral sex on a plane. Consensual activity. They are fined $250 each in a plea deal. The man loses his job.

A Federal Air Marshal gets arrested for taking pictures up women’s skirts on board an airplane while he is supposed to be looking for terrorists. A non-consensual act. Bartsch was arrested, and according to a police report had taken 10 to 12 photos. He told authorities he had done it before. He MAY be suspended or terminated. He is charged with ‘disorderly conduct’ (a misdemeanor) instead of being charged under Tennessee’s video voyeurism law. That law is a class E felony, and carries a penalty of 1-6 years in prison.

This guy was charged for the same thing in my neck of the woods. It must be good to be one of the anointed ones.

A woman is attacked in a Wal Mart parking lot, and an employee of the store tried to help her. He was fired, because the retail store has a policy against it.Businesses do not care about you. To them, you are a walking wallet with a potential lawsuit attached, and they will do whatever the law will allow to escape that liability.

This is why I do not follow “no guns” signs. The law says that they can avoid the liability of a lawsuit if they prohibit weapons, even if prohibiting weapons means that the criminals are free to kill everyone in the store. It also says they are liable if there is not a policy, and someone with a weapon injures someone. No brainer: they prohibit weapons.

The law also says that they are liable if one of their employees uses force to injure someone, even if that someone is a criminal. So the result here is that you, as a customer, are on your own.

However, at least in Florida, the law also says that I am free to ignore your silly sign, and that is exactly what I do.

The Republicans prove that they pay mere lip service to their stated principles:

We can preempt the debt explosion. Backed by a Republican Senate and
House, our next President will propose immediate reductions in federal
spending, as a down payment on the much larger task of long-range fiscal
control. We suggest a tripartite test for every federal activity.
First, is it within the constitutional scope of the federal government?
Second, is it effective and absolutely necessary? And third, is it
sufficiently important to justify borrowing, especially foreign
borrowing, to fund it? Against those standards we will measure programs
from international population control to California’s federally
subsidized high-speed train to nowhere, and terminate programs that
don’t measure up.

 They always tell you that they want to cut the deficit, but never do. The politics always get in the way. The recent government shutdown was ended because certain Republican congressmen were paid off with pork being sent to their districts.

Key
Republicans get pork for their district, Federal workers got paid for
the time they missed during the shutdown, proving that this was
political theater and politics as usual in Washington. Party of
principles, my ass.

This train wreck is not going to be avoided. We are on a road to ruin, and there is no avoiding it. $17 trillion already borrowed, more printed, and $100 trillion promised. Sooner or later, the house of cards will fall.

The Osceola School Board admitted wrongdoing Tuesday night after
administrators suspended an 8-year-old for using his finger as a toy gun
in September. After a public outcry, the school initially offered to change Jordan’s
punishment from an “act of violence” to an “inappropriate or obscene
gesture,” but the boy’s mother refused to accept the punishment.

After some debate, the school board agreed to reinstate the boy, and count the suspension as an excused absence. I want to know which school board members were on the side of the debate that wanted to keep the suspension in place. That way, we know who to campaign for removal from office, come next election.

EDITED TO ADD ALL OF THE FOLLOWING:

Video of the school board meeting can be found here. The portion of the meeting that is applicable begins at 49:00 and ends at 61:03 of the video labelled “October 01, 2013 Board Meeting.”

Board Members with common sense:
Jay Wheeler “We are elected to represent the public, not the school district.”
Kelvin Soto “That doesn’t mean that you can’t come to us. I don’t subscribe to the idea that the principal has the final say. The parents do have a voice through us, the school board.”

Board members who deserve to lose their jobs in the next election. Each of them adopted an attitude towards the parent that it was not the school board’s place to second guess the principal, and basically told the parent to sit down and shut up.

Tom Long “It is not this board’s job to intervene in individual cases of discipline.” That is exactly your job, tool. That is why we have an elected board.
Tim Weisheyer
Barbara Horn

In addition, the school superintendent Melba Luciano and deputy superintendent Tom Phelps need to be out as well. They are appointed by the board.

She had to hire a lawyer, Mr Nejame, to protect her son for making a finger gun. The county’s attorney pointed out that there is no appeals process for a child being suspended: the principal has the final say in all discipline matters. This is insanity. A child attends school under mandatory order of the government, and the child is having his or her permanent school record damaged by this discipline, there needs to be a review process.
I will be voting accordingly in the next election.

Last year people the news was buzzing about a drug called Bath Salts.
This year the buzz is about a drug called Krokodil. But according to a
confidential source the reality is these drugs are a cover up for zombies.

(BTW- this is a site that is well known for satire.)

While researching this post, I came across the story of Turbeville, SC. This town is a small town that sits astride the route between I-95 and Myrtle Beach, a popular tourist destination. This town passed an ordinance that allows the cops in the town to write speeding tickets that are much higher than the state penalty for speeding: Up to $500 each.
The way it works is that the speed limit drops from 60 mph to 35 mph in a matter of a half mile or so. Cops sit there and catch motorists (tourists, mostly). They threaten to arrest them and give them 30 days of jail time. Then they offer to let them go in exchange for paying cash to the officer.

The officer didn’t arrest Hudson for driving without a license, instead he made Marques an offer.

“He asked me for $488, so they can let me go,” he said.

“So, it was either you pay the money or go to jail?” Barr asked.

“Or go to jail, yep,” Marques said.

The chief gave Marques a receipt for the bond
he posted, then allowed one of the other men in the van to drive away
from the scene.

“At the end though, you decided: either you comply, pay the ticket or you go to jail?” Barr asked.

“Yeah, I pay the ticket, I don’t want to go to jail because I’m working, so I just pay him cash,” Marques told WIS.

According to the report, the reporters watched the chief of police write 8 of those tickets in just two hours. All but one of the drivers was from out of state and paid the fine rather than stay around to go to court. Lucrative for the city. This way, the city keeps the entire fine, while writing an actual speeding ticket causes them to split the money with the state.

The town encompasses only 1.3 square miles and has a population of  only 766 people. This town has 4 cops that write $650,000 a year in traffic tickets. (pdf warning) The total city budget is $1.9 million a year, with traffic tickets comprising a third of the city’s income.Even more amazing is that the per capita income of the city is $13,465, and the per capita cost of city government is $2,482, or about 18%.

It is things like this that make me believe that we are becoming a third world, banana republic police state. Since this is illegal under state law, how are the cops in this case any different from any other armed robber?

An off duty cop, drinking in a bar, propositions a female soldier in a bar. She rebukes his advances, so he goes out to his car and retrieves his handcuffs, gun, and badge, and then arrests her. Here is the story.When other bar patrons try to intervene, he threatens to arrest them for interfering with police business.

At one point, he says “This is how a Marine deals with soldiers.” He even orders them to stop recording and to leave the bar, threatening them with arrest for not obeying his orders. He also, according to the patrons on the recording, displayed a firearm. The patrons discuss the fact that concealed weapons are not allowed in bars. They are mistaken.

Cops are allowed to carry guns almost everywhere, even when drunk in a bar. It is illegal to resist an officer in most states, even if the cop in question is breaking the law himself. This means that anyone that tried to stop him would have wound up shot or in jail. We need to do away with the idea that cops are always on duty. If that is the case, then they should never drink, and should all be placed on salary with no overtime pay. After all, if they are always on duty, then they need their wits about them at all times, right?

The sheriff stands behind his deputy, and insists that he did nothing wrong.

However, Sheriff Leon Lott says the CPD made a mistake in arresting Derrick.
Lott says columbia police believed Derrick did not have the authority
to make an arrest. He says Derrick does have that authority.
The sheriff also disputes a suggestion in the CPD incident report
that Derrick was making an advance on the woman but had been rejected.
He says his deputy was trying to calm the soldier. 

 I’m betting you that he will be back on the job in a few days, with no consequences.

EDITED TO ADD YOUTUBE VIDEO