Government

Ripple Effect

This kid found out his teacher needed a car before starting a fundraiser to get him one. Officials tell the kid that it’s illegal for students or their parents to give a teacher a gift worth more than $25.

One could argue that the car isn’t a gift from students or their parents. It’s from the anonymous donors who gave to GoFundMe. I wonder if there is a Montana attorney that would have donated some assistance…

Back when I worked for the fire department, the mayor of our city was caught taking season floor seats to the Orlando Magic in exchange for awarding city contracts to a particular company. The city then put a rule in place that no employee was permitted to accept any gift whatsoever from any business within the city, not even a cup of coffee or a discount on soda.

This didn’t stop the cops from getting free apartments, because many apartment complexes give cops a free apartment in exchange for the cop agreeing to be the on site security guard. Of course the apartment was always right in front of the office, so people would see the officer’s take home patrol car parked in front.

Anyhow, it all came to a head back in 1998, when the state of Florida was struck by a drought. The wildfires that happened as a result caused 10,000 firefighters from all of the country to spend weeks putting out fires. I know I was out there for a week and a half at a time, sleeping on the ground in the woods. I actually enjoyed it.

As a result of these fires, Florida businesses decided that firefighters would be appreciated through various discounts. Disney offered free one-day tickets, Sea World and Bush Gardens were giving free annual passes to firefighters, local restaurants were giving discounted meals, those sorts of things. Our city manager prohibited us from accepting any of it, on penalty of immediate termination. Even though Disney was in our back yard, firefighters from Illinois who didn’t even participate in putting out the fires were enjoying free days there, while we were stuck without. This made a few guys angry. Disney wasn’t within the city limits, so we couldn’t possibly do them any illegal favors, it was just the city manager being petty, as far as some guys were concerned.

So one of our firefighters called a local news radio station. The station called the city manager on the air, and the dumbass actually said, “I saw one of our firefighters towing a boat behind his pickup truck the other day. If they can afford boats and new trucks, they make enough money to buy their own Disney tickets.”

The radio DJ’s then said, “How is it any of your business what they buy? Is that how you decide what your employees make? You decide what they should be able to buy, then pay them accordingly?” It all blew up, and the resulting PR storm eventually saw the firefighters being allowed to accept the discounts. The city manager took it out on the fire department for the next few years by giving the rest of the city employees raises, but not the fire department.

After 4 or 5 years of that kind of treatment, the firefighters voted to become a union department. That is how my department went union. All because of a boat, a truck, and a mouse.

On a side note, those fires changed the way Florida’s firefighters handled wildfires. Up to that point, firefighters in the state put out every wildland fire. This caused there to be fewer fires, and allowed debris like dead bushes and trees to pile up in the woods. Naturally, lightning caused fires usually burn this dead material off periodically and clean up the woods. Wildfires, it turns out, are a big part of nature. Some plants and animals count on those fires as a part of the life cycle. (For example, there is a species of pine tree that requires a wildfire in order to reproduce)

We were disrupting the normal cycle of life. So now, firefighters allow these fires to burn, as long as no structures are in danger. In addition, the forestry department occasionally does prescribed burns of areas of state land that haven’t had a fire in awhile. Now the woods aren’t filled with large fuel loads of unburned debris.

By Divemedic, ago

Why is the Answer Always College?

The latest trend in the press thinking that they are experts in all things, is the claim that US police training needs to be more like police training in Europe. They claim that police in other countries receive more training than the 6 months that is typical in the US.

police recruits in Japan get between 15 and 21 months of training. Police in Germany get 2.5 years of training. And in Finland, police education takes three years to complete.

So they want to make police training a 4 year degree? What will that cost? I do agree with them that police training is too much like military boot camp. If you train your police like soldiers, you can expect that your police will act like soldiers. I don’t think that the problem is in how long the training is, I think the problem is in the institutional mindset- “War on crime,” the “War on drugs,” that sort of thing. When you think of criminal justice as warfare, you get police who act as if they are on a battlefield.

That’s where my agreement with them ends. The next claim simply tells me that they have never dealt with someone who needs to be taken somewhere, but isn’t going to go. You are assuming that the people who police contact are rational.

As a street medic, and even in the ED, we encounter people who can’t be reasoned with, yet still need to go somewhere or do something. Whether it’s due to mental illness or simply because they are assholes, some people just need to be forced into compliance. Talking only works on people who are rational.

Imagine negotiating with a spree shooter. Someone who believes in what they are doing so strongly that they are willing to gun down a dozen or more people isn’t going to be negotiated out of their act.

You can tell that some people have juts never had to deal with those kinds of people.

By Divemedic, ago

Regarding the Balloon…

Many have suggested that the Air Force should have just shot down the balloon using a laser or bullets to pop the Chinese balloon, instead of a missile. The reason that the fly boys used a missile is because popping a rogue balloon has been tried before, and it doesn’t work.

It was 25 years ago when the Canadians shot a balloon full of 1,000 holes and they found that this didn’t pop it, because the pressure inside of a balloon at that altitude isn’t high enough to burst the balloon.

Now you know…

On a side note, I was surprised that an AIM-9, which is a heat seeking missile, was capable of locking on to something like a helium balloon.

By Divemedic, ago

Picture This

This exchange is caught on guy’s security system:

Cop 1: We need you to step outside. One of your neighbors says that you pointed a gun at them, and you need to step outside and give us a statement to prove your innocence.

Guy: Uh, I didn’t do anything and I can answer your questions through the door just fine.

Cop 2: Why are you being so confrontational?

Guy: My entire property is on camera. I can prove I did nothing. Hang on. (closes door)

Cop 2 (says to other cop): He definitely pointed a gun. Well, it was that or a flashlight.

Cop 1: We don’t have enough to charge him.

Cop 2: I don’t care. I’m gonna charge him with something if we don’t.

If I were a juror in this case, I would vote not guilty if a defense attorney played this video in court. Watch closely:

I will repeat: Never talk to the police. They aren’t there to help you. All you can do by speaking to them is give them the evidence they need in order to arrest you. Tell them to go away. Oh, and having plenty of cameras around doesn’t hurt.

Just don’t resist them if they decide to use force. We all know that many cops can’t wait to get their violence on. Say nothing. Hire the best lawyer you can afford. Spare no expense- it’s better to go into bankruptcy than it is to spend the rest of your life in jail. Let the lawyer talk for you. But above all, SHUT THE FUCK UP.

By Divemedic, ago

Chipping Away

Granted, this ruling has no real precedential value, but a Federal judge has said that marijuana users cannot have their 2A rights taken away. Essentially ruling that marijuana is commonly used, and using it isn’t an indicator of a propensity for violence, therefore making a user of the drug into a prohibited person is a step too far, in light of Bruen. That’s the second significant case this week.

That case is the gift that keeps on giving. The best part of this ruling is that the left will be torn: Support marijuana use, or oppose guns. What to do? LOL

By Divemedic, ago

Kavanaugh Is Wrong, IMO

This past week saw a huge win for gun rights, in that SCOTUS the Fifth circuit struck down a part of the GCA that was added during the Clinton administration– making eliminating a provision of the law that prohibited persons out of people who are subject to domestic violence restraining orders. AWA over at GunFreeZone did an excellent post on the ruling, and I won’t attempt to recreate that here.

There are those who oppose that ruling and are claiming that there will be domestic abusers lining up to kill their former partners over this. I don’t think that there will be any big changes. Those who want to kill their partners just aren’t deterred by a piece of paper saying that killing someone is illegal, even if signed by a judge. The left always assumes that criminals are simply honest people who gave in to a moment’s impulse, and each of us is equally likely to give into an impulse to kill others. An interesting insight into the leftist mind, eh?

My opinion on these DV orders is that they are bullshit aimed at men in an attempt to give women another arrow in their lawfare quiver. About ten years ago, I was the subject of one of those orders. It was sought and granted without me even being present, with the initial order not even having my correct name on it, by a woman that I hadn’t even seen in months, and in that order she alleged that I did things in stalking her that were impossible because I was not even in the country when they were alleged to have happened.

David Letterman was once subject to a DV order that was obtained by a woman who lived thousands of miles away, after the woman alleged that they were in a secret affair and that Letterman was sending her secret messages using his top 10 lists as a code. Using accusations of domestic violence has become a common tactic for women who wish to win divorce and child custody cases, as well as angry girlfriends who wish to get back at former boyfriends. Men have no legal recourse against women who are proven to be lying.

 Here are the disturbing statistics:

The decision that is the subject of this post fixes some of that. That isn’t how the left, or apparently Brett Kavanaugh, sees it. Kavanaugh wrote a concurring opinion in the Bruen case, arguing that sometimes we have to weigh in on whether or not a law is a good idea.

That’s where he is wrong.

The Amendment says “shall not be infringed.” It doesn’t say “… unless you have a really good reason to do so.” The Supreme Court isn’t there to decide whether or not a law is a good idea. The court is there to decide whether or not a particular law comports with the Constitution. Deciding whether or not a law is a good idea is the job of Congress. All of the authority of the government derives from the Constitution. Any power or authority that the government takes upon itself that is outside of that authority is nothing more than tyranny, an unconstitutional power grab that is based upon the principle of “might makes right” that flies in the face of the principles upon which the “government of the people, by the people, and for the people” was built upon.

There are those who would try and make the case that there is some balancing act to be done, but that isn’t how our government is supposed to work. Thomas sees that. Scalia, although a pragmatic sort of man, saw that as well. Kavanaugh does not.

The left, well, they don’t see the Constitution as anything more than a piece of paper containing words that can be worked around, as long as the words are pretty enough.

Fuck them. Not one more inch. This decision is proof to me that the jury box isn’t completely dead. The war continues.

By Divemedic, ago

Hate Crime

Take a look at this before I comment on it. I’ll wait while you watch it.

Note that there are at least two, perhaps as many as four, black kids as old as 14 are beating on a 9 year old white girl. What the video doesn’t show is the rest of the facts here.

  • Her 10 year old brother was beaten on the same bus at the same time
  • All of the assailants were black
  • All of the attackers were older than the victims
  • The two victims had only been students there for three weeks at the time of the beating
  • The mother had been reporting escalating physical beatings and school officials refused to take action

Now the school wants to do something, and has had the oldest of the assailants arrested. I think it should be a hate crime. Imagine if the situation were the same, but races were reversed: a group of white kids were harassing and beating two black children. What would happen then?

I also blame the mother. She let her white kids go to a school that is 2% white , likely because she wanted to show how progressive and inclusive she is.

Coconut Palm K-8 Academy placed in the bottom 50% of all schools in Florida for overall test scores (math proficiency is bottom 50%, and reading proficiency is bottom 50%) for the 2020-21 school year.
The percentage of students achieving proficiency in math is 27% (which is lower than the Florida state average of 48%) for the 2020-21 school year. The percentage of students achieving proficiency in reading/language arts is 31% (which is lower than the Florida state average of 52%) for the 2020-21 school year.

You let your kids go to a public school just to prove a point. Now they are paying the price.

When my son was in school, he was bullied and physically attacked by a larger boy. I went to the school and asked them what they would do about it. The reply was that “We can’t watch the entire outside during PE.” So I told my son that he was being given permission to beat the shit out of the other kid. He did.

The school called me and said my son was about to be suspended. My reply to that was my son had a right to legal representation before being suspended, and that I would return for his suspension hearing with an attorney, who would want them to state on the record why one kid can beat others, but no defense is allowed. They decided not to suspend him.

That kid never touched my son again, and my son learned an important lesson about bullies.

By Divemedic, ago

Free Welfare House

Substitute teachers in Highland county make $119 a day. It’s a part time job, where they only work when there is a classroom needing a teacher for the day. They are only needed on days that there are students in the school in need of supervision, so at most they can work 180 days per year. That maxes out their earning potential at less than $25,000 a year.

One of those substitutes, Lashawn Kinsey, bought a house in Highlands County, Florida on January 13, 2021. She did it by getting a mortgage for $127,645, meaning that she made a down payment of $2,355. At the time of the mortgage, she had three kids, which placed her below the Federal poverty level of $26,500 for a family of four. I can’t confirm this, but she is almost certainly on public assistance. On top of that, she is a college student, meaning that we are likely paying for her education with Pell grants, because she is a black single mother.

It’s no surprise then that she was soon unable to make the payments, and had to seek assistance from the Florida homeowner assistance fund to avoid foreclosure. The state has been picking up the tab for her mortgage and utility payments, or at least they were until an administrative screw up caused payments to stop back in October.

I don’t feel sorry for anyone in this story, except the US taxpayer. As all of you know, I am shopping for a new home. In order to do so, I had to allow the bank to do a net worth audit, income verification, and credit check. How could a bank loan money to someone with a part time job and no assets? This sounds like the stuff that was going on in the early part of the 2000s that caused the mortgage collapse.

The fact that I had to work a full time and a part time job while going to school, so I could afford to pay tuition, then had to save money and build credit in order to be able to buy a house, while some black woman gets a free one at taxpayer expense must be all of that white privilege I keep hearing about.

By Divemedic, ago

Defamation

Being tough on crime is one thing, but grandstanding for votes is entirely another. It began with Arpaio’s tough on prisoner approach of making prisoners live in tents and eat baloney sandwiches. Then it morphed into Grady and his political grandstanding. Now it’s gotten to where Sheriffs are posting people’s names and pictures on television to tell the world that those people are criminals, even when they aren’t.

Don’t get me wrong, I am not against being tough on crime, but there is a process for that. We don’t allow police in this country to punish lawbreakers. There is a process for that, and it doesn’t include destroying people’s lives because you are trying to garner a few votes. In this case, they were putting people’s pictures on television with the accusation that they are criminals without actually making sure that those people were actually accused of having committed a crime.

Keep in mind that Florida Sheriffs went to the state legislature and lobbied against carry laws. They went to the state legislature and lobbied against SB 234, which would have allowed those people in Florida who have a concealed weapons permit to carry a weapon openly. This proposed law wouldn’t have changed who may carry a weapon, only how they carry it.

The rule is innocent until proven guilty. Things like this show, red flag laws, and ex parte court hearings are destroying that principle. Everyone is entitled to their day in court, and I don’t mean the court of public opinion. I hope the guy wins.

By Divemedic, ago

Until Proven Guilty

One of the basic tenets of this nation is that you are innocent until and unless you are proven guilty as confirmed by a jury of your peers.

Yet another is that you can’t be forced to testify, if that testimony can be used to prove your guilt, and the fact that you refused can’t be used against you.

That’s why this hit piece, insinuating that President Trump’s refusal to testify is in any way a reflection on his guilt or innocence.

By Divemedic, ago