Government

What if the entire Barrel is Bad Apples?

Check this arrest of February 2023 out:

The guy was arrested for making an obscene hand gesture and 2 counts of obstruction for refusing to provide ID as a result of the unlawful stop. It’s a violation of the man’s Constitutional rights to initiate a traffic stop because you don’t like his hand gestures. The fact that the cop even admits this as a reason for the stop makes this case a slam dunk, IMO. The officer even put this in writing in his arrest report, claiming that giving the middle finger isn’t allowed, as it is a hand gesture that is not being used to signal a turn. You can read the arrest report here.

He was held in jail for four days on a cash only bail. The charge for hand gestures was dropped, and one of the obstruction charges was dropped. I expect the second one will go away as well, since the entire pretext for the stop is unconstitutional and a violation of Mr. Lambert’s rights. There is a lawsuit pending.

This is the same police department that paid a $3.5 million settlement when they stopped a pedestrian for not walking on the sidewalk. They shot the man 22 times, and even though he had been armed with a knife, it was after he was incapacitated, not moving, and was lying on top of the knife, thus he was no longer a threat to the officers.

Of course, the cops tried to hide behind qualified immunity. Sorry, but that legal concept has to go. Force cops to buy malpractice insurance. It’s one area where I disagree with Trump. Cops don’t deserve more immunity, because this will only get worse.

There are some who are trying to make this about race, but I don’t think that police abuse of power is about anything other than power corrupting those who wield it. It’s time that cops lost a bit of that plenipotentiary power.

By Divemedic, ago

Federal Issue

The man who killed the Unitedhealthcare CEO is being charged with the Federal crimes of stalking and murder. I don’t think that he should be. I would go one step further to say that stalking and murder shouldn’t be Federal crimes. Stalking and murder are already crimes in each and every one of the states. In this particular case, he committed both crimes and their predicates primarily within the state of New York.

If New York wants to charge him under those statutes, then the state of New York can request that he be extradited to stand trial, then so be it, but I don’t see where we need a Federal law making either of those acts a crime. In fact, I think that most laws at the Federal level can be dispensed with as redundant. The only exceptions would be crimes specifically against the Federal government, such as assassination of a Senator, accepting bribes, or other crimes that are particular to the operation of Federal government.

Otherwise, you might as well admit that the states are merely political subdivisions of the Federal whole and stop pretending that we are a United system of independent states.

By Divemedic, ago

Guardians

Some of the cops who are acting as SROs in Orange county schools are demanding raises. This will result in $18 million in costs to the county for police coverage in schools located in 5 different Orange county cities. The school district says that they can’t afford it, so they are going to transition to using Guardians.

Don’t get excited. That doesn’t mean that teachers and other staff who want to carry concealed weapons will be permitted to do so. No, I have already posted on how the Guardian program is being misused because school administrators are leftists who only want guns in the hands of their friends.

Mom’s Demand Action is demanding that the schools simply find the money somehow.

It’s a little scary that our children’s safety can be negotiated, especially based on dollars

Yep, that’s the left- there is no tax to high, no gun control too onerous, no Constitutional right that is off limits, nor government spending that is too much when it comes to doing what they want done.

Keep in mind that cops who are charged with defending students have claimed in court that they don’t have to do anything, and the court has agreed.

Orange county was not previously a participant in the Guardian program. They would rather squander tens of millions of dollars each year in paying cops to arrest and hassle kids, but then hide in the parking lot when God forbid there IS an actual shooter.

When the Guardian program was first announced, I bought a new handgun just for what I thought it was going to be- armed teachers. I practiced with that firearm until I could exceed the minimum standards on the course of fire for Federal Air Marshals. Then the program was actually put in place, and what do you know- only cops and people who were politically connected were allowed to be part of it. May issue ALWAYS becomes a grift for leftists to steal more money from the public trough. It isn’t that the left is antigun, they are just only in favor of guns for other leftists.

By Divemedic, ago

Automatic Money Generators

Osceola county is installing cameras at schools that will issue speeding tickets to drivers who exceed the speed limit in front of schools. The county claims that a law enforcement officer will verify each infraction before a citation is issued.

We all know how that really works. About a decade ago, 2,000 Baltimore red light camera traffic citations which require a police officer to swear that he or she has reviewed the photos as showing a traffic violation when it was discovered that all the verification signatures on the citations issued were from an officer that had died a year before the citations were issued.

By Divemedic, ago

Hating Government

However much you hate the evil government we have, you don’t hate them enough. The latest installment is that time the Broward County Sheriff’s office made a bunch of crack cocaine, then had undercover deputies sell it purposely within 1,000 feet of a school so they could get 3 year sentences on those who bought from them.

The State Supreme Court has since ruled the actions to be unconstitutional entrapment, but thousands of convictions remain on people’s records.

Like the FBI, cops follow Ayn Rand’s theory:

The only power any government has is the power to crack down on criminals. Well, when there aren’t enough criminals, one makes them.

By Divemedic, ago

The Cold, Hard Truth

In our recent discussion, many of you say that this financial situation the nation finds itself in is fixable. All we have to do is eliminated this Federal department, that one, and then convince the recipients of all the Fed Bucks that it’s for everyone’s benefit that they stop getting government checks. Do you even hear what you are saying? Comments like this are simply not realistic:

  • Once DOGE is done and we quit using the Federal Reserve Note…
  • Flat Taxes have to come with spending cuts and entitlement program reform…
  • Did you know that snowballs last longer in hell if you put little hats on them?

Ok, that last one is me. Still, there is no way that millions of Federal employees, a hundred million welfare recipients, and 70 million Social Security recipients are going to sit idly by while DOGE and DJT tell them that the money faucet is being shut off. Even the medical field, my own profession, cannot survive without government money.

  • In 2022, 53% of Americans received at least a quarter of their income from government aid, up from 1% in 1970.
  • Government transfers account for 18% of all personal income in the United States
  • One in four Americans received Medicaid in 2022
  • One in five Americans received Medicare in 2022
  • One in five Americans receive Social Security
  • 12% of Americans are on Food Stamps, and 39% of children in school receive free lunches at school
  • In fact, Americans received $3.8 trillion in government transfers in 2022
  • Then there are employees. There are 28.5 million people directly employed by governments in the US.
  • Millions more are employees of businesses that owe their livelihoods to government largesse.

More than half of the residents of this nation are net receivers of government funds, and there is no recovering from that. To illustrate- what would you say if DJT and DOGE announced tomorrow that to save the nation, the entire Social Security and Medicare system was ending on January 21, but the taxes would remain in order to pay off the massive $40 trillion in debt? Would you be OK with that, or would you scream some variation of “That’s my money! You took it from me, and I want it back?” Or would you calmly walk into personal bankruptcy, secure in the knowledge that your personal sacrifice saved the nation?

Call it doomsaying, call it black pill, call it what you want- but saying that we can vote our way out of this is foolishly mistaken. There are no cuts, no magic wand waving, and no solution that the people of this nation will accept until they are forced to accept it. This only ends when the current system collapses.

Whatever your own personal theory on how to save this sinking fiscal ship, there isn’t one that enough people will accept that will be doable. It just isn’t going to happen. Instead of fixing it, we kept kicking the can down the road, and we will continue to do so until it all collapses.

This isn’t a new thing- I have been telling people this for 20 years.

By Divemedic, ago

Gangs with Badges

Read this story about cops selling NFA weapons to criminal gangs and then tell me again how only the government can be trusted with guns.

ICE lost $100 million worth of firearms and no one cares. BATFE says that police departments are let off off with warnings. They claim that prosecutors are reluctant to charge these cases, and the bureau stated that “it is our goal to educate, not investigate.”

“We’re not looking to prosecute fellow law enforcement officers,” said Eric Harden, former special agent in charge of the ATF’s Los Angeles field division.

What would BATFE do to a citizen or FFL who did this?

It’s time for Federal law enforcement to be disbanded. All they are is a tool of government tyranny.

By Divemedic, ago

Inside Job

More and more evidence is pointing to J6 being an inside job. If it turns out that the FBI can be proven to have been the driving force behind the events on J6, the only rational response is to eliminate the entire agency and fire every single one of its agents. Take off and nuke it from orbit, it’s the only way to be sure.

We are in the middle of watching segments of our government try to overthrow the legitimate powers that be in order to institute a dictatorial police state. I have been saying this for nearly five years.

By Divemedic, ago

What If

I have always maintained that using the military to hunt terrorists is not an efficient way of using government resources. We should instead use letters of marque or reprisal. Imagine if Congress had simply issued a letter of reprisal, offering a reward of $1 Billion for anyone who brings Osama bin Laden into American custody to stand trial, or $700 million if they bring in his dead body. His own followers would have brought him in within a month, or in the alternative, a dozen private companies would have competed for the prize.

We would have saved trillions of dollars and nearly a million lives.

By Divemedic, ago