To those who claim that the military won’t hunt down people on the right, simply because the President orders it:
and this guy.
Economy
Fair Share
The refrain from the left is that the “rich” need to pay their “fair share” as if they aren’t paying taxes. Let’s take a look at what that means.
The top 1 percent of taxpayers pay nearly double the income taxes than the bottom 90 percent. The top 1 percent of taxpayers paid more than $1 trillion in income taxes while the bottom 90 percent paid $531 billion.
The share of income taxes paid by the top 1 percent increased from 33.2 percent in 2001 to 45.8 percent in 2021. Over the same period, the share paid by the bottom 50 percent of taxpayers fell from 4.9 percent to just over 2.3 percent in 2021.
That’s right- the lowest 50% of wage earners paid just 2.3% of all income taxes, while the top 25% of wage earners pay 89.3% of them.
So just how much do you have to make to be in that upper 50%, or upper 25%? To be in the top 50%, a taxpayer must earn at least $46,637 per year. In order to be in the top 25%, a taxpayer would need to make $94,440. The top 25% isn’t all that rich- there are tons of people like nurses, firefighters, restaurant managers, electricians, and auto mechanics who fall into that top 25% category. The top 10% of wage earners? Those are people making $169,800 or more. Those are your doctors, chiropractors, accountants, lawyers, and many entrepreneurs. Successful, to be sure, but hardly evil people playing the part of Ebenezer Scrooge.
The left claims that they are only going to raise taxes on people making more than $400,000 per year. That is the top 3% of all wage earners, a group that is already paying more than 24% of their income on taxes, and who are already paying 60% of all Federal income taxes.
Even if we were to confiscate every penny made by the top 5% of earners, the government would only get $6.1 trillion. Since the government spends more than $6.2 trillion a year, that amount wouldn’t even be enough to run the government for the year, and I guarantee you that those wage earners wouldn’t be there to fleece next year.
No, when the left tells you that they want to increase taxes, they mean for everyone. Of course that won’t affect them, because they are getting a cut for themselves. You didn’t think that those billions going to Ukraine were all for beating Russia, did you?
Government
Government
Man, I am on a roll today with the number of posts.
Normally, I don’t believe that government is the answer. However, in cases where the government has created the problem, we need to call on government to make adjustments to fix the problem that they created. Case in point:
Fake service dogs are only possible because government has made it a crime to discriminate against those with service animals, and have made it a crime to even ask them to prove that the animal is, in fact, a service animal. This is where the law needs a tweak. Service dogs cost thousands of dollars. Adding the requirement that the owners who have a service animal have a government issued ID for the service animal, proving that the animal in question is actually a service animal, would keep people like this blue haired freak from faking it to be a pain in the ass.
tyranny
Not Murder in My Book
A man kidnaps and rapes a 14 year old girl. He is arrested and released on bond. A condition of the bond was that the man was to have no contact with the victim or her family.
That same night, the girl is again found to be missing at 1 am. The police and the girl’s father were looking for her. The father found her first. In a truck. In a park. With her rapist.
An argument ensued, shots rang out, and the rapist was dead.
The cops arrested the dad for first degree murder, and the dad is now out on bond. The cops said that there was no reason to shoot the man, because they were on the case.
“This guy that preyed upon their daughter was released on bond, and we had stopped him that night and got him with her,” the Sheriff said. “That bond would have been revoked. He would have never got out of jail. None of the bond companies would have let him out. We wouldn’t let him out.”
The mother of the child said that she and her husband were in fear that the man was going to murder their daughter.
“We absolutely called 911 during the entire event,” she wrote. “We had no idea this man was in contact with our child again. He was waiting 6-9 felonies for what he did, not 2. He was looking at the rest of his pathetic life in jail, and our daughter was the only witness.”
“Some things we will never know, but we know that the police department afforded this predator privacy they did not give our family,” she wrote. “I’m deeply offended by the way this was handled by the county sheriff’s office.”
The prosecutor has not yet filed any charges. Gofundme is not permitting the father to raise money for his defense, because they claim to not allow collections for legal defense of an alleged violent crime.
The child’s mother claims to know why the police are so determined to arrest her husband: the dead rapist was a retired police chief and former school resource officer from Indiana:
[The mother] said the Lonoke County Sheriff’s Office’s actions are proof that the sheriff “supports predators” and that he will prosecute those who are trying to protect their families.
I am not sure you will be able to assemble a jury that will find him guilty, unless the court wants to cheat the system and prevent the defense from mentioning the events that led up to the shooting.
I do know that in Florida, the law says that you can use lethal force to prevent the imminent commission of a forcible felony, which includes sexual battery and kidnapping. Of course that won’t stop a crooked cop or politically motivated prosecutor from charging you anyhow, leaving you penniless. Ask George Zimmerman how that works.
Police State
No More Qualified Immunity
Why? Because you need an ID to lie on a park bench, but you don’t need one to vote.
It’s time for qualified immunity to go. As a health care professional, I have to carry a million dollars in malpractice insurance. It’s time we make cops do the same.
Can we here in Florida get a petition to have this added to next year’s election as a State Constitutional Amendment?
Facts of this case:
On June 7, 2019, Keokuk, Iowa Police Officer Tanner Walden responded to a report that someone was sleeping in a park. Walden found Land, who was watching the sunset on a park bench. Land told Walden that he had not been sleeping and was not in distress. Walden asked for identification, and Land refused. Walden arrested Land for misdemeanor interference with official acts. During a search, officers found drug paraphernalia and added a misdemeanor charge of possession of drug paraphernalia. The incident was captured on Walden’s body-worn camera.
On August 27, 2019, a judge dismissed the charges against Land because the pretext for the stop was improper.
On June 6, 2021, Land filed a federal lawsuit against the city and Walden, claiming violations of his rights under the Fourth Amendment.
On September 20, 2021, the city claimed that Walden “exercised all due care to comply with the law and is entitled to qualified immunity” and also (in October 2022) that Walden had reasonable suspicion as required by Terry v Ohio and probable cause to arrest Land.
On October 26, 2022, the judge disagreed when he ruled that Walden’s contact with Land should have ended when it became clear that Land was not sleeping in the park or in need of assistance, and that the city was not responsible for Walden’s actions.
On November 22, 2022, the city settled the lawsuit for $30,000.
Government
Florida Knows Hurricanes
Floridians are the hurricane experts, even if those in South Carolina would disagree. When we went to Hurricane Katrina, the overwhelming response was “The experts from Florida are here, hurray.” The police in Alabama and Mississippi were still “commandeering” our truckloads of supplies as they travelled down the highway, to the point that we had to have armed escorts for them.
Even so, our state is constantly looking for better ways to respond and handle hurricane responses. A few years ago, Florida tried a plan called “contraflow” for evacuation routes. This plan was that both sides of a highway would be used for evacuating the danger zones along the coast, thus doubling the number of lanes available for evacuation. It turns out that this plan didn’t work as well as hoped, so the state is trying out a new plan called “ESU,” or Emergency Shoulder Use.
ESU is a plan where any vehicle that isn’t a tractor-trailer can use the road shoulders, sometimes called “emergency lanes” as an extra lane of travel. This makes two extra lanes available for traffic.
This enables two lanes to become four.
When loads of supplies are travelling and using these lanes to get through traffic, they are escorted by highway patrolmen. This is especially true for fuel deliveries to the fuel stops along Florida’s main emergency routes: the service plazas on Florida’s Ronald Reagan Turnpike, along with selected fuel stops on I-75 and I-95, the main routes for the west and east coasts, respectively.
So when you see police escorting trucks of fuel and supplies, it isn’t due to crime or hijacking of trucks, it is merely to help them get through the logjammed traffic.
Hope this makes things a bit more clear.
Cops
Shooting a Cop in Self Defense
An off duty Atlanta cop attempted to break into a residence before being shot and killed by the homeowner. Shockingly, his fellow officers didn’t show up and SWAT the homeowner.
Government
BCEGS Schedule
Not only does the Insurance Services Office (ISO) rate fire departments, it also rates building code effectiveness. The Building Code Effectiveness Grading Schedule (BCEGS) assesses community building codes and their enforcement, with special emphasis on mitigation of losses from hurricanes, tornados, earthquakes, and other natural hazards.
Areas with well-enforced, up-to-date codes have a better loss experience, which can be reflected in lower insurance rates. Lessening catastrophe-related damage and ultimately lowering insurance costs provides an incentive for local and state governments to enforce their building codes rigorously — especially as they relate to windstorm and earthquake damage.
Just like the ISO fire protection class, the BCEGS rating is based on a scale of 1 to 10, with 1 being the best and 10 being the worst. ISO develops advisory rating credits that apply to ranges of BCEGS classifications (1-3, 4-7, 8-9, 10). So a community that is in the 1-3 zone would receive the best rate credit, while on in the 8-9 would be charged more for insurance. A community that refuses to participate would fall into the same category as a eight or a nine (called a nine eight, and written as 98).
The BCEGS program assesses a community’s building code enforcement in three areas:
- Code administration
- Plan review
- Field inspection
The classification uses 1,243 data points to calculate two scores: One for one- and two-family residential construction, and another for commercial or industrial construction. The scores are assigned a scaled class rating of 1 (exemplary commitment to building code enforcement) to 10. The classifications apply to communities under the jurisdiction of each building code department. Here is the nationwide breakdown of BCEGS ratings:
The ratings vary by state. In Florida, the lowest BCEGS rating is in the Florida Keys, which has a 5 rating. The rest of the state is 4 or higher. Most of the coastal counties are a 1 or a 2. In Tennessee, more than half of the state is rated a 6 or lower.
The states with the lowest ratings are Kansas, South Dakota, and New Mexico, which are all an 8 for residential buildings. The highest rating for residential is California as a 3. Florida averages to a 4.
The BCEGS is an important datapoint used by insurance companies in determining the risk they face when insuring property against natural hazards.
Government
ISO Ratings
Every fire department in the nation is ranked and graded by insurance companies. The Insurance Services Office (ISO) rating, also known as the Public Protection Classification (PPC) program, is a measurement of each community’s fire preparedness. The ISO rating is based on a scale of 1 to 10, with 1 being the best and 10 being the worst.
The ISO rating of your area is important for calculating insurance rates. Fire and lightning account for almost 25 percent of all homeowners insurance losses, with the average fire and lightning claim resulting in $83,519 in insured losses. Insurance companies know that fire losses are the single biggest cause of large insurance payouts. This is why the ISO rating is a major factor in determining your insurance rates.
The rating is based on data collected about the quality of public fire protection, including: emergency communications, fire department capabilities, water supply systems, and community efforts to reduce the risk of fire. Each thing that your community does to handle fire preparedness earns points. The points are totaled, and the score is used to determine the ISO rating of the area.
Things that you wouldn’t usually think of earn points. A backup generator for the radio repeaters that the fire department uses, the amount of fire hose on the local fire engine, the average distance of homes to the closest fire hydrant, all of these are accounted for when the score is calculated.
Each department is inspected every ten years, and sometimes upon request, to determine their ISO rating. When I worked for the fire department, we were inspected about a year before I retired. I was the coordinator to ensure that our fire trucks got the maximum points that they could for the inspection. (That’s what having a Bachelor’s in Public Safety Management gets you- more work.) I took a copy of the sheet that listed what points were available and made sure that we got the maximum points. Things like how many gallons of foam, how many feet of 3 inch hose, and how many spare air tanks for breathing apparatus were carried on each truck were all worth points. I spent months doing an inventory and placing equipment on the trucks to make sure we got as many points as possible.
Calculating the ISO Rating
The ISO uses a manual called the Fire Suppression Rating Schedule (FSRS) to determine what points your community scores. There are four different areas where your department can earn points:
- Fire Department: The amount and condition of fire trucks, what equipment they carry, and the training level of firefighters is used to calculate points. For example: a full time firefighter counts for three times as many points as a volunteer. How complete are the department’s training records? How often does the department maintain the trucks, hose, and other equipment? All of those things earn points, and the points earned in this category make up 50% of your community’s score.
- Water Supply: Does your community use ponds for water supply, or does it have city water? How many hydrants are there? How far are houses from those hydrants, on average? Is there water storage? How much pressure? Over a two hour period, what is the minimum water volume in gallons per minute that the fire department can deliver to any point in their service area? Water supply is 40% of your community’s score.
- Communications: How well does the fire department receive and respond to emergency calls? How many call takers are there in the emergency call center? Does the center have computer aided dispatch? Does the call center and radio system have a backup generator? Communications is 10% of your community’s score.
- Risk Reduction: How does your community prevent fires? Fire safety education, fire prevention techniques, building codes, and fire investigation all play a role here. This category is an “extra credit” category, since the rest of the score already adds up to 100%.
Any given community adds up to a total possible 105.5%. The biggest category is the fire department, which accounts for 50 percent of the score, but the hardest to improve is an area’s water supply. A lack of fire hydrants and access to an adequate amount of water cannot be easily remedied and would require extensive infrastructure development to fix. That, combined with the fact that volunteers earn far fewer points than do full time city departments, make the ISO ratings for rural communities served by volunteer departments much lower than their city based counterparts. The reason for this is simple- insurance companies have far more and greater fire losses in rural areas than they do in urban areas.
An ISO rating of a 10 is no fire department to speak of at all. A rating of a 9, the easiest one to get, is essentially a volunteer department consisting of four volunteers with a pickup truck and a fire extinguisher. The hardest jumps to make for a fire department is the jump from a 9 to an 8, and the jump from a 2 to a 1.
An ISO rating of 1 is the rarest, with only about 1 percent of fire departments earning the top rating. There are less than 500 fire departments nationwide that have an ISO 1 rating. In Florida, departments that are ISO 1 include: Orlando, Palm Beach, Kissimmee, Miami-Dade, Clermont, Deland, Key West, Pompano Beach, Lauderhill, Melbourne, Apopka, Stuart, Miami Beach, Lake Mary, Fort Lauderdale, and others.
It gets even more complicated. Some departments serve an area with hydrants, but also include an area without them. In those cases the department gets a hybrid rating, with areas that are more than 5 road miles from the nearest fire station, or more than 1,000 feet from a fire hydrant receiving a higher ISO rating than those within those limits. For example, one department in Central Florida that I am aware of is an ISO 5/9. That is, the department is an ISO 5 in areas within 5 road miles of a fire station and 1,000 linear feet of a hydrant, but an ISO 9 outside of those limits.
A great example of this is in Osceola county, which has a rating of 3/10. Meaning that if you are in Osceola county are are more than 5 miles from a station or 1,000 feet from a hydrant, the ISO says you really don’t have a fire department. I would be pissed, because you pay the same taxes and fire fees, but the county has written your property off if you are in a rural area. Those poor bastards in Yeehaw Junction are paying for things that they will never receive.
In general, residential fire insurance rates aren’t affected by any ISO rating that is better than a 4. ISO ratings of 1 through 3 primarily affect commercial and industrial insurance rates. This means that a department in a residential community would be wasting money chasing any rating better than a 4 or a 5.
You can find the ISO rating of your local area by going to your fire department’s web page. Nearly every department lists their ISO rating there. If they don’t have it on the website, you can call and ask them.