Government

College Scam

In 1970, only half of Americans graduated from high school, less than 10 percent went to college. When you were 15 or 16, you went out and got a job. Those who DID go to college were guaranteed a good career, because they were overwhelmingly doctors, accountants, lawyers, and architects. Parents saw that, and told their kids that the key to a great job was going to college. It was good advice, except too many people followed it.

The government, being run by those same parents and their peers, approved a plan to give out student loans and grants so all of those people could go to college. This greatly increased demand and money chasing those college educations. Everyone wanted to have a high paying college job because they considered physical labor to be for people who weren’t smart enough to go to college. We’ve all heard the insults- if you don’t have a college degree or if you joined the military, it’s because you are stupid.

Colleges attempted to meet demand by adding all sorts of degree programs. The government soon passed rules requiring a college degree, any college degree, in order to get a job. You couldn’t get a job sweeping the floors of the courthouse without a 4 year degree. Tuition began to rise- much faster than inflation. By the time of the turn of the 21st century, the cost of a semester’s tuition was up from $400 in 1970 to over $3,500, an increase of 11.2% per year- more than 3 times the official rate of inflation. During the same period of time, $400 in gold increased to $2,600 worth of gold. By 2000, it cost more than $55,000 to get a 4 year degree by the time room and board was factored in. The demand and profit in college became so great that colleges began opening in strip malls.

In the Orlando area alone, there are more than 40 colleges and 500,000 college students. Of course, most of them won’t graduate. That’s actually good news because there can’t possibly be enough jobs to handle 100,000 college graduates a year in a town of only 3 million. Even so, more than 25,000 people a year graduate with bachelor’s degrees each year, and another 16,000 with associates degrees.

So by the year 2000, people were earning degrees in things like Outdoor Recreation, or Medieval and Renaissance French Poetry. (Yes, I actually have met people with degrees in these majors) There being no demand for those jobs, the people who took out those huge loans were now having to pay $550 a month for a degree that didn’t get them a job paying nearly enough to do that. So that’s how we got here:

This woman thinks she is better than the cashiers at Target. A minimum wage job is beneath her. You can see the attitude. She thinks her bachelor’s degree- whatever it happens to be in- guarantees her a job because she is smarter than those uneducated morons who didn’t go to college.

The college majors with the highest unemployment are:

  1. Anthropology
  2. Computer Engineering
  3. Fine Arts
  4. Performing Arts
  5. Computer Science
  6. Architecture
  7. Art History
  8. Physics
  9. Early Childhood Education
  10. Environmental Studies

Note that 3 of the 10 most unemployable majors are in the arts. Art and expression aren’t things you can learn from a book for the most part. Sure, there are some things you can learn like music, but there aren’t nearly enough jobs in that field to keep up with new graduates.

Computer science and engineering are in that list because the technology of computers is changing so rapidly that the things you learn in college are obsolete before you even graduate. The professor teaching your course is likely passing on obsolete knowledge using outdated textbooks, and granting you degree certifying you are well versed in yesterday’s technology.

Physics and education are there for teachers. Those fields, even for those who CAN get a job in them, don’t pay enough to justify those loan payments.

The best degrees for employment are the same as they were in 1970: medicine, law, and civil engineering. The only problem is a medical degree now costs half a million dollars and twelve years of your time. College needs to be trimmed down and made cheaper. For most people, college is simply a bad investment, especially in a useless major. However, picking a good major won’t help if you can’t understand or master the material.

Two year colleges have a 43% graduation rate. Four year colleges are better at 71%, but how many of them are graduating with useless degrees? Of 2018’s entry class, 77% of Asian students, 73% of white students, 52% of Hispanic students, and 45% of black students graduated. Black student enrollment at elite U.S. colleges has declined significantly following the 2023 Supreme Court ban on affirmative action, with some institutions seeing nearly a 50% drop in new black students.

Factoring in the useless majors and dropout rates, perhaps only 20% of those who go to college will actually gain real benefit from them.

Colleges like Yale and Harvard report graduation rates in the 98% range, but I can’t help but wonder if that is due to students being passed along whether they learn anything or not.

I got a nursing degree. Half of the people trying to get into nursing couldn’t even finish the prerequisites. Half of those who entered the two year nursing program didn’t finish by getting their RN license. So we are talking 25% of those who tried to become nurses actually made it. Of those who DO make it, unemployment rates are under 1.5%, indicating a shortage of nurses.

Firefighting was about the same. There were 25 people in my fire academy class. There was a waiting list to get in. 80% of those who began the class went on to be licensed firefighters. It was still difficult to get a job, though. When my department had an opening, we generally had more than 200 applicants for every job opening. A third of those who became licensed never got hired. About a third of them left the profession within 5 years. It’s a tough job with a high attrition rate. About a third of them wound up rising to the ranks to retirement , and couple of them became chiefs. All of them I have spoken with have retired or left firefighting.

By Divemedic, ago

Asset Forfeiture

This violates the Eighth and Fourteenth Amendment. A person whose Corvette is taken after a DUI is paying a much higher fine that a guy who loses a moped for the same offense. He is also paying a fine that is disproportionate to the crime. A Corvette costs at least $70k, with many approaching 6 figures- which is the fine for bank fraud, a monetary crime.

I make no bones about being opposed to asset forfeiture as it is currently practiced. I think that it’s immoral and unconstitutional to take someone’s property without due process. It goes like this: you are pulled over on any pretext, no matter how weak. They ask for permission to search the vehicle. It doesn’t matter if you agree or not. If you refuse, they get a drug dog to alert on your car and search it any way. Even if the dog finds no drugs, and you aren’t arrested or charged with a crime, they will take any money they find. They tell the motorist to sign a form abandoning the cash or face a felony arrest. Sign it or not, they are taking the cash and you are never getting it back. This guy lost more than $100k in cash and PMs in a case just like this.

Many states and localities have made this scenario illegal, but the cops don’t care. They cops simply file the forfeiture in Federal court where the local law doesn’t apply. No matter what, if you have money, they are taking it. Any cop who tells you that civil asset forfeiture is morally or Constitutionally acceptable is a tyrannical asshole, and I will cheer when there is a video of them getting smoked. Even in the presence of a criminal conviction, taking thousands of dollars from someone is a violation of the Eighth Amendment. Don’t bother quoting any bullshit case on the matter. I can fucking read, and some lawyer in a black dress trying to justify his boss’ theft of the people’s hard earned money is a travesty.

To those who think that the cops or the military will take your side in the civil war that we all see coming: they won’t. They will take the side of whomever is signing their paychecks, and that isn’t you. I think that most people who are drawn to police work do so for good reasons. They are then captured by the lust for power and money.

In this case, the cops want to drive a cool car, so they pull you over on a pretext and simply take your car, Constitution be damned. Power corrupts.

This is why the original Constitution purposely kept the government weak and subservient. People, however, just love having the power to tell others how to live. In order to be able to control others, the citizenry gave the government more and more police powers. Those police agencies are now so powerful that we are in a police state. One where you can’t even be confident in your ability to drive down the highway without being robbed at gunpoint by a gang member wearing a badge.

EDITED TO ADD:

A second DUI in Florida is a misdemeanor. It’s punishable by up to 9 months in jail and a $2000 fine. If your BAC is greater than 0.15 or there is a minor in the car, the penalty increases to 12 months and a $4000 fine. Additionally, the car is disabled for 30 days after the convict is released from jail. I don’t think it should be legal to take a $100,000 car for a misdemeanor that carries a max fine of $4000. That’s blatantly unconstitutional.

On a different note, the police should not profit from asset forfeiture. That creates a conflict of interest. Any proceeds from forfeited property should be paid into a fund that reimburses victims of crime. The cops shouldn’t be looking at a cool sports car while trying to figure out how to take it for their own use or profit.

SECOND EDIT

In this second edit, I want to point out that all burglaries nationwide result in $3 billion a year in losses. Ironically, the amount seized by the cops under asset forfeiture laws is about $2 billion at the Federal level and a total for all government forfeitures is $4.5 billion a year, with 71% of all forfeitures done without a hearing- they take it, and that’s it.

We would lose less money as a society if we just didn’t have cops.

By Divemedic, ago

Mom, he’s looking at me

The Chicago Cubs are suing a bar located near their stadium, because the bar isn’t paying the Cubs for allowing their customers to look at the team while they play baseball. The team is claiming the rooftop bar is misappropriating the team’s property rights because the bar is selling admission to the bar and allowing patrons to watch Cubs games from that vantagepoint. It looks like the courts are going to side with the team. In the meantime, the city is investigating the structural integrity of the roofs, issuing citations to those in danger of collapse. I’m sure those investigations are totally legit and were in no way sponsored or encouraged by the billionaire team owner.

Money talks, I guess.

The Ricketts family, billionaire owners of the Cubs, began purchasing the nearby rooftop properties in order to control the marketable sight lines into the stadium and by the end of the 2016 season, owned (or controlled via agreement) 11 of the 13 rooftop locations that had a view into the nearby baseball field. Wrigley Rooftop is one of the two that has thus far refused to sell.

I don’t care what the court says, if I can see it from my property, then you have no claim to force people to pay for looking at it. This will open all sorts of legal maneuvering. If my neighbor can see into my yard, can I sue him for watching me swim in my pool?

If the Cubs don’t want people in nearby tall buildings watching them play, perhaps they should build a dome. I’m sure they can get taxpayers to foot the bill. After all, teams build sports ball complexes at taxpayer expense all the time. For example, the Tampa Bay Rays are getting a Billion dollars of taxpayer money to build their new stadium, even while the local governments of the state are assuring the taxpayers that property taxes are totally needed to fund things everyone agrees are needed- things like firefighters, police, schools, and roads: “The money we take in from property taxes totally is being used for needed services and is in no way being used to fund billion dollar sports complexes. The money going to build places of business for billionaires to pay millionaires to play children’s games is totally coming from a different line item that was totally taken from taxpayers in a different way, so it doesn’t count.”

If that doesn’t work, perhaps the team could try the Scooby Do method and pay someone to dress a ghost in order to force the owners to sell.

Meanwhile, the shortstop for the Rays is being paid $182 million to play baseball. Jason Heyward is being paid $184 million to play the game by the Cubs. Meanwhile, the bar in question (Wrigley Field Rooftop Bar) is estimated to be making $1 million a year.

This is one of those times where a billionaire is doing something immoral to make more money, and the government shouldn’t be getting involved. Government should not be in the business of picking winners and losers. Remember, when the legislature decides what can be bought or sold, the first thing to be bought and sold are the legislators themselves.

By Divemedic, ago

Don’t Even Open the Door

This is why you don’t talk to cops, and my advice is that you don’t even open the door.

Also, you DO have cameras in your vehicles and on the perimeter of your house, right?

My wife’s new Lexus? Yeah, I just got done putting her dash camera in. It’s worth it. Cops lie, because in many cases, their jobs require them to make arrests. If they aren’t good at their jobs, they become good at faking their jobs.

I am not familiar with Colorado law, but this cop just writes a summons on the spot for her trial. No discovery, no opportunity for a lawyer, no due process? That seems rather sketchy.

By Divemedic, ago

Nope

Several members of Congress have introduced a bill that would allow current and former members of the US military’s special forces to carry concealed weapons nationwide, despite any other laws to the contrary. I’ve seen stories about this bill in a few places over the past few weeks, and I just can’t support it. The idea that we are going to pass a Federal law that grants some sort of “super citizen” status to certain people, who then have rights not available to the rest of us?

No.

I would note that all three of the congressmen who sponsored this bill are former special forces. It’s typical self serving crap that politicians vote to give themselves more rights than the rest of us. The same thing happened with LEOSA. The entire premise behind that travesty of a law was cops might run into some criminal they arrested and need to defend themselves, as if some cop from Bumfukt, Iowa has a higher chance of running into a criminal while spending the day at Disneyland in California than I would is simply ridiculous, and there is no evidence that it actually happens.

The same for special forces soldiers. They don’t need such a permit while carrying out their duties, because they are on duty. For former soldiers, there is no need for them to have more rights than the rest of us. Don’t give me the line that this will be used as a stepping stone for more bills later- as soon as cops got their special LEOSA rights, they promptly turned around and lobbied against our right to carry. I’m not falling for that one again.

If these Republicans want to expand carry rights: do it for everyone, not just yourselves and your friends.

By Divemedic, ago

Lies, Lawyers, and AI

This is why I am opposed to the death penalty. A prosecutor caught fabricating evidence using AI:

By Divemedic, ago

Quotas

Brianna Longoria was driving in Phoenix when she was pulled over for running a red light on December 29, 2024. The officer who conducted the stop, a woman by the name of Annette Hannah, pulled her over claimed that she had red, bloodshot, glassy eyes, a sign of marijuana intoxication. Accompanied by her partner, Annette Hannah, they put her through sobriety tests, a breathalyzer, and then arrested her for DUI, saying there were signs of impairment. Brianna had just gotten married the day before, and had to cancel her honeymoon in order to use the money for her legal defense. The arrest also caused her issues with her employment as a nurse, and she lost her driver’s license for 6 months.

She blew a 0.00 breathalyzer. Later, blood tests would show no drugs or alcohol in her system. None. You can beat the charges, but you can’t beat the ride.

Later, her attorney requested body camera footage, which would show that the light was green, so there was no probable cause or RAS for the traffic stop. The officer performing the stop was assigned to the city’s DUI unit, and her body camera caught this:

Her partner, officer Mary Methany: “Triple zeros. Just like I thought.”

Hannah: “They’re going to kick me off squad if I don’t get a DUI. But I seriously pulled like so [unintelligible] …”

Metheny: “No. No. There’s nights where I don’t get any. You’re fine.”

Hannah: “But I’m like, I can’t just conjure one up. I have tried.”

Metheny: “You can. You can.”

Hannah: “I hung out on Seventh Ave., by those bars.”

While Longoria was being arrested, her husband was talking to another police officer who said even if Longoria’s blood alcohol level was 0.0, “the city can do whatever they want to do with those results.”

The police department investigated themselves and found no signs of wrongdoing, and released this statement:

The Phoenix Police Department does not have DUI quotas. DUI enforcement assignments are based on operational needs, and officers assigned to impaired‑driving enforcement are expected to take action when their observations and training lead them to believe a driver may be impaired. Officers are required to base enforcement decisions on observed driving behavior, indicators of impairment, and the totality of the circumstances.

I’ve written about this before- police departments claim not to have quotas, but a few have admitted it. Whether the department has an official, written quota or not, every cop knows that if you don’t write enough tickets, your career is in danger. She certainly wants to protect a career that is paying her $36.90 an hour, and all she has to do to keep it is lie and destroy people’s lives.

Qualified immunity needs to go. Officers need to carry malpractice insurance so the taxpayer doesn’t have to fund this sort of open corruption. Any department found to have quotas, whether they be written or defacto, should result in the lead officer of the department losing their jobs and any law enforcement licenses.

By Divemedic, ago

Psychotic

This video is truly terrifying. I found it while researching an entirely different and unrelated post. This cop is the scariest one I have seen. Listen to the way he talks. He is treating that man like a THING, an object. I have literally met serial killers, and he sounds just like one of them, IMO. Imagine for a moment, being his prisoner. You are in his power, he can do whatever he wants with you, and judging by the behavior of the other cops, he will get away with it. Now think about how you would act towards him while you were in his custody. You bet your ass you would do what it took to survive. Yes, sir, no, sir, I’m sorry sir. Otherwise, there is a pretty good chance that he will kill you.

I know the video is a bit long, but it’s worth your time. Truly chilling.

As one of the comments to the video said, “Cops don’t become psychopaths, but there are plenty of psychopaths who become cops.”

In this case, the FBI actually investigated and prosecuted him. I don’t know why, because I don’t have access to the trial, but a jury found the cop not guilty of wrongdoing.

The other thing that really disturbs me, is that the other cops (both at the scene and in the jail) just stood there as this guy did this. As far as I am concerned, that makes each and every one of them “bad cops.” If anyone wants to tell me that I shouldn’t say that since the jury found him not guilty, then I don’t want to hear a word when some criminal walks on a technicality or because a jury found them not guilty.

I saw the video shot by the police officers’ own body cams, and I can judge for myself when I see wrongdoing. I don’t need a jury to tell me it’s OK.

When I was in the military, I once had a commanding officer (Captain, O-6 type) who told us that if he had 100 enlisted men with 100 video cameras who said a junior officer had committed a criminal act, but the officer denied it, the Captain would have no choice but to trust in his officer and assume that the enlisted men and their video recordings were wrong.

I disagreed with that statement then, and I disagreed with it in 2023.

In August of ’23, a handful of coworkers and I watched as a cop tortured one of the patients in our emergency room. After we jointly filed a complaint, we were all told that the supervisor had investigated, and the officer involved said that it didn’t happen that way. All of us, we were told, must have misunderstood what we all saw, because we don’t understand police procedure. Besides, the dude who was tortured was not a nice guy, even though he was in jail for a misdemeanor and had an otherwise spotless record. I was so disturbed by this, that I wrote a post about it.

That’s how cops investigate. Cops investigate themselves and find they committed no wrongdoing. It happens all of the time. I have seen it on more than one occasion. In my profession, I meet and see a lot of cops, a lot of scummy people, and a Venn diagram of the two groups would have a good amount of overlap. The prosecutors, judges, and the rest of the legal system need cops in order to keep their jobs. My guess is that the entire system is playing team politics: half of them on one side, half on the other. Justice is lost somewhere in the middle.

I don’t know why the jury let him walk. Maybe they didn’t see the video. Maybe it was heavily redacted. Maybe the prosecutor deliberately tanked the case, I don’t know. I do know what I saw.

I know that some cops try to go right. I also know that, put on the spot, a cop will nearly always side with other cops, even over and above their own families. That makes all of them bad to one extent or another. I get it- you can’t expect a cop to arrest his mother or wife, they’re human with human weaknesses. That’s all the more reason why we can’t treat them as if they are above the law.

Let me close with a funny meme.

By Divemedic, ago