Government

Karma is Beautiful, But Sometimes Slow

In 2009, I posted about an Oklahoma cop who pulled over an ambulance that had a cardiac patient in the back because the cop believed that the driver of the ambulance had flipped him the bird. The paramedic in charge of the crew told the trooper that they had a patient in the back, asked the trooper to follow them to the hospital and told him they could handle the situation there. It was at this point that the trooper let his oversized ego take over, and instead of doing the sensible thing that would have best served the public that both the cop and paramedic are sworn to serve, decided to arrest and choke out the paramedic.

The reason why the cops were so hell bent on arresting this medic? The trooper was on the way to a call because another cop had been in an accident that was his fault. The trooper was rushing to the scene so he could do a blood draw on the driver that had been hit, hoping that it could be proven that the driver was drunk and thereby make it his fault, and not the cop’s. It seems that the police have some real corruption issues here.

In reviewing the case, the local prosecutor agreed that the cop was in the wrong and had likely committed an unlawful assault against the paramedic, but also stated that pursuing charges would not be in the best interest of the law and decided to give the cop a free pass. All he wound up receiving for punishment was a five day suspension.

I bring this case up because I really missed the ball on the conclusion of this case. Here is how the rest of the story went down.

The paramedic filed a lawsuit in the case, and the cops (as always) hid behind qualified immunity and wanted the case dismissed. While all of this was going on, the paramedic was arrested again by a small town Oklahoma cop as the medic was on the way to the courthouse to testify against another cop in an unrelated case.

The court refused to dismiss the medic’s lawsuit, setting the case for trial, and the cop appealed that ruling. The appeals court sided with the paramedic and the case moved forward. The paramedic wound up getting half a million dollars.

The trooper wound up being investigated again, this time for sexual allegations involving photos with accusations that the photos were of minors.

This is where karma finally decided to show up. The trooper had a heart attack in 2018 and needed an ambulance to take him to the hospital. He was sent to a rehab facility for treatment, where he had a second heart attack, got a second ambulance ride, and finally died. I am not above celebrating the death of someone who deserves it, and it seems that his death was the only way that he was ever going to pay for being a dictatorial asshole, so I am going to gloat over this one. The only way this could have turned out better is for the paramedic who he roughed up to be the one who took him to the hospital.

I will treat people to the best of my ability, no matter how badly they have treated me, because I swore an oath to do so, and my word is my bond. However, I never swore that I wouldn’t be happy that someone got what was coming to them. Karma, after all, is a bitch.

By Divemedic, ago

America’s Sheriff? Not mine.

Let’s not leave out that grandstanding, antigun asshole Grady Judd, who wants to find a way around Trump’s pardon of the J6 defendants.

“I understand the 30,000 foot view of what the President did, but there’s a granular level where they were attacking our police officers who were just doing their job. There was a better way to deal with that,” said Judd.

Nope. Those cops were supporting the theft of an election. That is indisputable. For that reason, “Just doing my job” is bullshit. Shooting an unarmed woman for trespassing isn’t “just doing your job,” nor is inviting people into a building, then showing up to their homes years later to toss them in prison. Torturing prisoners isn’t a job that needs to be done, nor is supporting the outright and obvious theft of an election. That excuse didn’t work for the concentration camp guards of Germany, nor does it work here.

By Divemedic, ago

Pardons Don’t Mean Shit

President Donald Trump ordered that the defendants from January 6 be pardoned. As the chief executive, the power to issue pardons is absolute. That doesn’t mean shit to the leftist enforcers. Although Olivia Pollock and Joseph Hutchinson III have been pardoned for their actions on January 6, the Feds still would not drop the counts of failure to appear in court from 2023. Why didn’t they appear in court?

After reading stories about the abuse suffered at the hands of police that are detaining J6 defendants for trial, knowing how cops will abuse and torture prisoners, and how they are transferring them to Supermax prisons, many J6 defendants began simply skipping out on their trials and sentencing hearings:

So Pollock and Hutchinson did what many would have done- they simply removed their ankle monitors and skipped town. Because of that, the Feds decided that Trump’s pardon didn’t excuse them from criminal charges.

The good news is that a Federal judge ordered that the charges be dismissed. The Federal employees are refusing to obey orders. This is being replayed all over the government- there are employees and former military members who still are loyal to the commies that are trying to overthrow our government. They need to be rooted out- every last one of them.

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By Divemedic, ago

I am the law!

Oklahoma Senator Regina Goodwin famously demanded that Trump be “locked up” because no one is above the law.

So it comes as no surprise that she refused to show her driver’s license when she was pulled over for running several stop signs, escalating the traffic stop into a shouting match, simultaneously proving that she believes herself to be above the law, and disproving the claim that all cops are just looking for a reason to shoot black people.

If it weren’t for double standards, the left would have no standards at all.

By Divemedic, ago

Safety, My Ass

Florida does not require a concealed weapons permit. They also tell you that, if you comply with a police officer’s demands, you won’t get shot. The traffic stop that involved Jason Arrington proved that to be a lie. I tried to find a copy of the bodycam video that I could embed, but that was a no-go. Here are two links to the video:

When you watch this video, note that the man was completely compliant in every way. He answered every question, and complied with every request and order. He was pulled over in a traffic stop and the cop asked him if he had “anything crazy in the car.”

Mr Arrington replied that he did have a gun on his person. The cop then made some small talk and asked if he had a concealed weapons permit, and the man replied that he did not. (That isn’t required under state law.) The cop then asked Arrington if he was a convicted felon, to which he replied that he was not.

Then the cop said that they would have Arrington step out of the car and would disarm him, for the safety of both Mr Arrington and the police. That turned out to be a lie. The statement from the Sheriff’s office tells the rest of the story:

The firearm was secured in a holster and Officer Cardwell [a female backup deputy] had difficulty removing it. When [she] was finally able to remove the firearm from the holster, she unintentionally placed multiple fingers inside the trigger guard of the firearm, causing the firearm to discharge.

The bullet from this negligent discharge struck Arrington in the leg. I don’t blame the female deputy for this. She was placed into this situation without the proper training, and one would assume that the JSO takes guns from people during traffic stops as a matter of course. This wasn’t her fault. The real fault lies in a department policy of unnecessarily seizing firearms, and in not training deputies in how to safely handle unfamiliar firearms.

Unnecessary gun handling increases the odds of a negligent or accidental discharge from near zero to some other, higher chance. A gun that is in a proper holster has a near zero chance of discharging unexpectedly. Additionally, a person who has been pulled over for a nonviolent, noncriminal traffic violation and is otherwise compliant has a near zero chance of attempting to use that firearm to illegally injure or threaten police officers.

This unintentional discharge was the direct result of:

  • Police who are paranoid in believing that everyone who has a gun is a threat to their safety. They are not.
  • Police attempting to handle firearms with which they are unfamiliar is a hazard to everyone around them. Contrary to popular belief, police training in firearms and firearm safety is poor. If official policy of a department requires cops to disarm people, then the department has a responsibility to train officers to handle firearms in a much safer manner than what was displayed here.

For those reasons, the man is suing the Sheriff’s office. As a result of this incident, the Jacksonville Sheriff’s office sent a memo to the entire department, notifying deputies that a person who is in possession of a firearm but not otherwise demonstrating that they are a threat to officers who are present, is not subject to having his firearms seized.

As it should have been all along.

This is also why I don’t inform cops that I am carrying. Florida doesn’t require me to, and I don’t. Asking me “Do you have anything crazy in the car?” isn’t asking me if I am armed, and I will respond in the negative.

By Divemedic, ago

Anchor Babies

Donald Trump is claiming that he will end the practice where a pregnant woman illegally enters the US then presents herself to an Emergency Room while in labor, the hospital delivers the baby as required by EMTALA, and the baby is subsequently declared to be a US citizen. The left then claims that it is unfair to separate a child from the rest of the family, thereby making the child an ‘anchor baby’ shoehorning in half a dozen illegals. This practice is called birthright citizenship.

The left claims that Trump can’t stop this because of the 14th Amendment, which reads (in pertinent part):

All persons born or naturalized in the United States, and subject to the jurisdiction thereof, are citizens of the United States and of the State wherein they reside. 

It isn’t quite as easy as the left would have you believe. The Supreme Court decided this in 1873, and I would think that the court in 1873, a mere 5 years after the passage of the 14th Amendment would have a bit of firsthand knowledge of what the Amendment was for. This is what they had to say in the case of Elk v. Wilkins (1873):

This section contemplates two sources of citizenship, and two sources only: birth and naturalization. The persons declared to be citizens are “all persons born or naturalized in the United States, and subject to the jurisdiction thereof.” The evident meaning of these last words is not merely subject in some respect or degree to the jurisdiction of the United States, but completely subject to their political jurisdiction and owing them direct and immediate allegiance.

Meaning, of course, that it isn’t as simple as “where were you born” but indicating that there are more limits to be explored here. Furthermore, SCOTUS ruled in 1872 that the purpose of the 14th Amendment was:

The first clause of the fourteenth article was primarily intended to confer citizenship on the negro race, and secondly to give definitions of citizenship of the United States and citizenship of the States, and it recognizes the distinction between citizenship of a State and citizenship of the United States by those definitions.

The question isn’t as cut and dried as the left would have us believe. This one is going to SCOTUS, I think. This shows that Trump is not the ignorant buffoon that the left wants us to think that he is.

By Divemedic, ago

Executive Orders

Executive orders are orders written by the chief executive, instructing executive branch employees in how they are to carry out their duties. In the case of the Federal government, the chief executive is the President, of course.

I have long been highly critical of how Executive orders have been used. They cannot be used to create laws out of whole cloth, as that is the job of the legislature. What EOs can be used for, however, is to instruct federal employees in how they will carry out the duties that have been assigned to them by law, in my opinion.

So that brings us to our current problem- there are state and local governments that are refusing to abide by or even comply with the enforcement of Federal law. Namely, there are cities who are refusing to comply with ICE in removing illegal immigrants from our country. I would wholeheartedly approve of an EO instructing Federal employees to refuse to issue or approve ANY grants or Federal funding to any local government who declares itself to be a sanctuary city. That would also include providing access to Federal programs like the NCIC or any other crime related database to any police department who refuses to comply with Federal law.

The entire Federal grant system is based upon Presidential Executive Order No. 12372, which was issued by President Reagan in July of 1982. That EO allows states to establish a Single Point of Contact (SPOC) to review proposed federal financial assistance. So Trump could simply modify that EO to make this happen.

The Feds have been tying funding to their edicts for decades. It’s how 21 became the national drinking age nationwide– it’s time that the Trump team begin playing the game.

By Divemedic, ago