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The point of no return

One thing that I have always been interested in is the page in the instructions for your income tax form that tells you where the money comes from and where the money goes. I use the instructions for the 1040EZ here (pdf warning) and all you have to do is look at page 37 to see what I mean.

According to this page, the government, for fiscal year 2009, took in $2.105 trillion in taxes, with personal income taxes equaling 26% (or about $547 billion) of that. We spent $3.518 trillion, meaning that we borrowed $1.413 trillion. We borrowed three times what we collected through income taxes. This tells me that taxes have nothing to do with revenue. After all, if we can borrow $1.4 trillion, why can’t we borrow $1.9 trillion and simply eliminate income taxes altogether?

This is irresponsible spending at its worst. The Democrats think that the answer is to tax the income of the rich is the answer. However, according to the IRS (excel file- 2005 numbers) the top five percent of income filers made slightly less than $145 thousand per year. That means that the top 5% of earners make a combined total of $2.6 trillion per year. Even if we established an income cap of  $50,000 a year, and confiscated every dime that everyone in this country made over that amount, we would not be able to pay for the government we have now.

The Republicans think that the way to fix this is to cut spending. The size if the cuts that are needed is incredible. A 40% across the board cut is needed to balance the budget. The problem is that we cannot cut the interest that we pay on our debt. Our elderly will not sit still for any medicare or Social Security cuts, but those programs account for over a third of our spending. If we leave them alone, we need to cut Defense, welfare, prisons, and every other expense by 60%. Any politician who suggests the cuts that are needed will find his or her political career cut short.

We owe more money than currently exists. There is no way that we can pay it back, no way that we can stop borrowing, and no way out, except default. The system is broken, and we lack the will to fix it. We will soon lack the ability. Soon, the decision will be made for us. People will refuse to lend us money, and the people will become restless. The government, and the political masters who run it, will become increasingly desperate to maintain their power, and dictatorship will be the inevitable result. In my opinion, we are past the point of no return. We are witnessing history, the fall of the mightiest empire the world has ever known. I wonder if a thousand years from now if we will be studied like the Roman empires, or largely forgotten like the Achaemenid?

Prepare.

By Divemedic, ago

Civil rights, 1983 lawsuits, liability

After the incident that I last blogged about, where a Canton, OH police officer threatened a pair of citizens with physical force, I listened to the recording of the City Council President, where he gives his opinion on the whole incident:

The Council President states that the police officer’s actions were logical because the person involved was legally carrying a concealed weapon in a bad neighborhood at 1:30 in the morning, around prostitutes and drug dealers. Excusing the cop’s actions in this manner is a bit of a problem. Let me explain why:

42 USC 1983 provides that, “Every person who under color of any statute, ordinance, regulation, custom, or usage, of any State or Territory or the District of Columbia, subjects, or causes to be subjected, any citizen of the United States or other person within the jurisdiction thereof to the deprivation of any rights, privileges, or immunities secured by the Constitution and laws, shall be liable to the party injured in an action at law, Suit in equity, or other proper proceeding for redress“

Meaning that the citizen involved gets to sue both of the officers who violated his rights by threatening harm to him, and will probably be successful. You can sue cities and counties under 1983 in what is called a Monell claim. Under Monell, to hold a municipality liable you need to show that your constitutional injury was caused by a policy or custom of the municipality. Monell liability can be established where a municipal official with final policy-making authority ratifies a subordinate’s unconstitutional conduct and the basis for it. The theory behind municipal liability in this context is that the acts of persons with final policy-making authority are considered to be the equivalent of government policy.

To establish municipal liability, a claimant must show a persistent and pervasive practice of the police department in failing to respond to police misconduct. While a single act of misconduct is insufficient to establish municipal liability, a person in a policy making position can show that the unconstitutional behavior of the municipality approved of the act, and thus made the act a de facto policy. In police brutality cases, the municipal entity’s liability can be established by showing that the city encourageed or authorized the conduct.

By stating that the incident that took place is to be expected when people carry concealed weapons in compliance with state law, he has authorized the officer’s conduct and opened himself and the city to a 1983 lawsuit. Damage awards in civil rights cases can be high. In 2007, a man won over three million dollars for damages he suffered from false arrest and other indignities by Oakland, California police officers. That award included punitive damages.

By Divemedic, ago

Officer Harless: background

By now, everyone in the gun community has seen the video where Officer Harless of the Canton, OH police department threatened to put “lumps” on a woman that he suspected of being a prostitute, and threatened to kill a man who was legally carrying a concealed weapon. The law in Ohio states that a permit holder must immediately notify an officer that he is carrying a weapon, if he is approached by that officer. The holder attempted to tell the officer three times, but was told to shut up before he could get the words out. When the officer finally finds out about the weapon, he flips out. See the video below:

I show you this video as background for my next post, where I show you how Canton, OH has officially screwed themselves.

By Divemedic, ago

Work ethic, the 100, and the Dilbert philosophy

A friend of mine, a health care educator, has a quote from Heraclitus that he loves to throw around. If you are a gun person, you have probably heard of it, because gun guys love throwing it around as well. I am not sure that many truly understand what the man was trying to say:

Out of every one hundred men, ten shouldn’t even be there.  Eighty are just targets.  Nine are real fighters and we are lucky to have them for they make the battle.  Ah, but the one.  One is a warrior, and he will bring the others back.
 –Heraclitus, Greek philosopher, around 500 B.C.

 This is easily applied to all human endeavors, including the medical field. Of every 100, ten of them are worthless to have around and cause more problems than they solve. I am sure that you all know who those ten are in your organization. Most organizations eventually get rid of them, even if it seems to take forever. (Either that, or they promote them to a position where they cause even more heartache.)

Eighty of the 100 are the drones. The people who work or do just enough to get by. They watch the clock intently and blaze a trail for the door as soon as the appointed hour arrives. They have no interest in improvement, advancement, or in any other thing that will cause them to do anything above what is absolutely required. In the paramedic world, they are easily spotted: When you talk to them about a new procedure or a new bit of knowledge, they tell you something like, “Well, how is that going to change what I do? It isn’t? Then why do I want to know that?”

Nine of those 100 employees are the ones who strive to be the best that they can be. They attend schools, expand their knowledge, and they always push themselves to achieve more than they did the year before. We are lucky to have coworkers like this, because they are the ones who others turn to when the shit hits the fan.

The one. He is the one that pushes everyone else to improve and to be the best that they can be. The problem is that the first ten hate him because he calls them out when they screw up, and most of the 80 hate him as well, because he is trying to make them do more than the minimum.

Eventually, the one leaves in disgust, six of the nine become burned out and either move one or join the ranks of the 80, and we are left with an organization filled with mediocre people who work just hard enough to get by, and the three workers become disgruntled, cynical, and generally unpleasant to be around.

By Divemedic, ago

I told you so

Just ten days ago, I posted that Washington, DC was using firefighters as an unarmed reserve police force. I said at the time that it was a bad idea that would not work. Turns out, I was correct.

At least three people were injured in four shootings in the District over a 24-hour period Sunday and Monday, according to fire and police officials.
Two locations that officials responded to for reports of shootings were just blocks from corners where D.C. firefighters have been stationed as crime deterrents.

By Divemedic, ago

Paid administrative leave and the Constituion

Anyone who reads this blog on a regular basis knows that I am not shy about pointing out when cops have overstepped their bounds. I am not a cop basher, I just call em like I see em, bashing them when they screw up and I support them when they deserve to be supported. This is one of those times.

Whenever a cop does something stupid or controversial, he is placed on paid administrative leave pending investigation, and many people are quick to scream “paid vacation” and “cover up” because they feel that the cop is getting away with the act. The truth is actually quite different.

Since a cop is potentially going to be deprived of something (his job) by a government agency, he or she in entitled to the same rights and protections as an other person in this nation, and as many are quick to point out, cops are civilians the same as the rest of us, and need to be treated in the same way. This means that the government agency, his or her employer, cannot deprive him of his liberty or property without due process of law. When I studied for my degree in Public Safety Administration, we had to take classes on Administrative Law. I will excerpt some of my class materials/papers below, and attempt to explain:

The Fifth Amendment to the U. S, Constitution states “no person shall be deprived of life, liberty or property without due process of law.” Originally this amendment was construed to be applicable only to the federal government. Later, the Fourteenth Amendment was ratified to provide “nor shall any State deprive any person of life, liberty or property without due process of law.” The Fourteenth Amendment clearly applies to municipalities as well. City of Mobile v, Bouldin, 446 U.S. 55 (1950). Further, Section 1983 of Title 42 of the U.S. Code prohibits any person from depriving another of his or her civil rights under color of state law. Section 1983 covers municipal actions as well.

Here we are concerned about a public employee (cop) who is called by the employer to answer for some transgression and punished. The employee appeals, claiming that the public employer violated the employee’s rights by depriving him or her of property (in this instance, the job) without extending due process of law, and deprived the employee of liberty (in this instance, his or her good name in the community) without providing due process of law. A public employee with a constitutionally protected property interest in that employment must be afforded the process prior to termination. Cleveland Bd. Of  Educ, v. Loudermill, 470 U.S. 532,105 S.Ct 148 (1985).

Two U.S. Supreme Court decisions address these questions: Board of Regents V. Roth, 408 U.S. 564 (1972); Perry v. Sinderman, 408 U.S. 593 (1972). The decisions in Roth and Sinderman involved tenured teachers who were fired and who subsequently claimed violation of due process as to their property and liberty rights. These decisions were applicable to all public employees, whether tenured or non-tenured. The court held that a public employee has a property interest protected by due process if he or she could show a “legitimate claim of entitlement” to the job – a contract, or tenure, or even oral or implied understandings – creating a reasonable expectation of continued employment.

A recent decision in the third circuit, Schmidt v. Creedon, F.3d (3rd Cir. 2011) (pdf) makes clear that absent extraordinary circumstances, prior to suspending a police officer for any reason, a police department must provide the officer with notice and a hearing. A good explanation can be found here.

So when you hear that a cop has been suspended pending investigation, it isn’t a Union that is protecting him, it is the same Constitution that protects everyone.

By Divemedic, ago

Mortgages and politicians

More evidence that politicians of all parties are corrupt and lacking in morals. This article shows that the Republicans in general, and attorney general Pam Bondi in particular, were taking bribes campaign contributions from the mortgage industry in exchange for overlooking the fact that the banks were committing fraud and forging legal paperwork, so that they could steal foreclose people’s homes.

If you look at campaign contributions to Bondi, a certain address comes up a lot: 601 Riverside Avenue in Jacksonville. It’s the home of Lender Processing Services, its subsidiaries, and the company it recently spun off from, Fidelity National Financial.
Altogether, those companies gave $6,500 to Bondi’s campaign directly. They also gave $78,000 to the Republican Party of Florida – which was itself a major funder of Bondi’s campaign
Finally, Lender Processing Services recently hired a new senior vice president for government affairs – Joe Jacquot, who until recently was an assistant attorney general for Bondi.

In exchange for these “contributions,” Bondi fired the attorneys who were investigating claims that the banks were “creating” documents out of thin air and using them as evidence in foreclosure proceedings.

People were signing documents with fake names. They didn’t have the required witnesses. And they weren’t reading the documents they were signing.

Even though they were sworn statements, that the signing party has personal knowledge of the facts. So much for investigating.

It’s OK, it was just legal technicalities, anyway:

By Divemedic, ago

End of an era

As I sit here at my computer, I just heard the twin sonic booms of the space shuttle coming in for the last time. Normally, I am not really happy about government spending money on things like this, but I must admit that the little boy in me likes to watch the space program, and I always have. I watched so many launches from the space center with my Dad, and it is a memory from my childhood that I treasure.

I saw a couple of the moonshots when I was a small child. I was there for the launch of Apollo/Soyuz, and I remember that I was upset that it was the last launch of the manned program. I remember being happy when we returned to space in 1981, and now watching that last shuttle is a bit sad. I leave you with a few pictures.

By Divemedic, ago

DUI checkpoints are not really for DUI

I know that the articles that I am posting are a little old, but this one is revealing about the purpose of DUI checkpoints. These checkpoints are nominally put in place to “keep us safe” from drunk drivers. During the 2009 July 4th weekend in Gainseville, there were 1,131 vehicles stopped at the DUI checkpoint. How many DUI arrests were made? None. However, there were:

2 arrests for outstanding warrants
7 arrests for felony charges (6 of those for drugs)
1 arrest for misdemeanor charges
104 traffic tickets
20 warnings were written

In other words, 1% of the people stopped were arrested, and about 10% of them got tickets, and increased the coffers of the state treasury. These checkpoints are not about safety, they are about making an end run around the Constitution.

The police are not there to make us safe, they are there to take our money. I must admit that I have been the victim of a robbery once (when I was 19, the robber got $23) and I have been the victim of burglary twice (the burglars got a total of less than $500 worth of stuff).

The police have gotten far more than that from me, just in tickets, not counting the taxes I must pay to support them. How is an armed man stealing my money at gun point not stealing from me, simply because he wears a badge? Don’t tell me that if I wasn’t speeding that I wouldn’t get a ticket. There are enough laws out there that a cop can write you a ticket for nearly anything, and regardless of what they will have you believe, they DO have quotas, and they win prizes for writing tickets and busting people for DUI. Those prizes are in the form of cash awards and free vacations.

By Divemedic, ago

Welcome to the police state

The Florida Highway Patrol, like many other police agencies, uses a system called the Automated License Plate Recognition (ALPR) system. This system consists of cameras that can be mounted on patrol cars, like this:

or they can be mounted in fixed locations, like this:

They are connected to a computer network that automatically alerts authorities when a “plate of interest” passes by the camera. The plates that are captured are displayed on the car’s computer screen, and look like this:

According to the website of the manufacturer, each car equipped with this system can scan 5,000 license plates during an average police officer’s shift. The reason this is being sold to departments? Read on:

Long Beach police used two ALPR-equipped vehicles to search for parking scofflaws. In 30 days, they located and impounded more than 300 vehicles – collecting over $200,000 in delinquent fines and impound fees. A study done for the City of Seattle showed that parking ticket collection rates across municipalities vary from 71% to 87%, with 80% being the median – that’s a million dollars or more of uncollected revenue in each city. Searching for parking ticket violators isn’t the most productive use of an officer’s time, so locating serial violators has been left to chance: the officer would have to find the car as part of a routine plate check or another traffic stop.
With an ALPR system, the police vehicle only has to pass the violator – whether parked or in traffic – and ALPR will alert the officer. A quick drive through a large parking lot will often locate several serial violators, whose cars can be towed or clamped until the fines are paid. The end result is fewer scofflaws getting away with nonpayment of fines.

Sure, money is the reason they get the system, but there is also the more sinister applications:

Besides alerting the officer when he passes a vehicle of interest, an ALPR system equipped with GPS can quietly note the time and location the vehicle was passed. This data is then loaded into PIPS’ Back Office System Software (BOSS®) and then mined and cross-referenced to keep tabs on known drug dealers, terrorist suspects, organized crime figures, or crime patterns…Areas such as airports, seaports, water treatment facilities, nuclear power plants – even schools – are targets for both criminals and terrorists. ALPR can assist with protecting such facilities by watching for known persons of interest (such as registered sex offenders), unauthorized vehicles, or simply vehicles that show up too frequently.

The founding fathers of this nation would be thrilled.

By Divemedic, ago