Excessive force

Anyone who reads this blog knows that I defend cops who are doing the right thing, and I call cops who are not doing the right thing out for what they have done. In this post, I want to take a look at body cam footage from Fort Worth. The relevant action begins at about 1:45.




The woman speaks to the cop in a "disrespectful" tone, and cop attempts to arrest her, deploys his Taser, and then does the same to the woman's daughter. The charges against the two were dropped, and the cop suspended for ten days AFTER someone leaked the body cam footage. The police chief claims that the timing of the footage being leaked, the dropping of charges, and the suspension are all coincidental.

Officer Martin, a 10-year veteran of the force, received a 10-day suspension because of the arrest. Chief Joel Fitzgerald said his violations included neglect of duty, discourtesy and inappropriate contact with two females. The officer has a record of doing this before, where there was a previous complaint against him for excessive force back in 2013.

How does the police chief respond? Not with criminal charges against the officer, which is what SHOULD have happened, but with an investigation into who leaked the video and the officer's record.

Watching this video made me angry, and made me want to approve of a law allowing people to resist illegal arrests with force.  This man is a criminal, a bully, and I would have applauded a citizen who used force to stop him. A criminal is a criminal, even if they are wearing a badge.

This is why there is such a big movement from groups like BLM. Police need to clean up their own ranks, or they will continue to be painted with a broad brush.

Women's march

How can Madonna go to the Womens' march and complain about how Trump talks about women, when she was offering oral sex in exchange for HRC votes? How can you demand that others respect you, when you don't even respect yourself?

‘If You Vote for Hillary Clinton, I Will Give You a Blowjob’

I don't have a problem with the US denying entry to foreign nationals who state that they are only coming here to protest our elections. If you don't like who we elect, too bad. Stay in your own country, mind your own business, and stop trying to get into ours in order to protest what we do.

Going to jail for paper airplane

There is a story out of South Carolina of a teen who threw a paper airplane at a teacher, and was subsequently arrested for assault.

The facts are not in dispute. The teen admits to throwing the airplane and admits that he meant to hit the teacher in the head. The student has been involved in other (unspecified) altercations with the same teacher.

The fact that the student faces up to 30 days in jail has parents in an uproar. They claim that jail is too harsh.

My take:

1 The 17 year old teen is old enough to know better.

2 Touching someone, or throwing something at someone without their consent is battery.

3 The fact that it is only a paper airplane is why he was charged with the lowest class of crime, a third degree misdemeanor. The maximum penalty for this is 30 days in jail, but absent other factors, he is unlikely to get more than probation, especially if this is a first offense.

Teachers are attacked in school at an alarming rate. I myself have been attacked in the classroom. Maybe this will prevent the child from moving on to more serious crimes. No one should have to put up with being physically attacked at work, no matter how minor. I applaud the school and the police for taking action.

Trump derangement

The news and social media is all abuzz with proclamations on how tacky and unrefined President Trump is, all because he chose to replace the red curtains in the Oval Office with gold curtains.

From New York Daily News:

 Trump White House could mean gaudy gold decor and tacky touches

Occupy Democrats:

Trump is known for being so insecure that he MUST bathe his home in gold accents and interior decorating. Now, he’s brought the same tacky insecurity to the Oval Office.

Hollywood Life:

We’re not 100% sure about this, but Donald might be the only president in America’s history to renovate the Oval Office so dramatically.

Overseas, as well. The UK Mirror:

Really? No other President has so dramatically renovated the Oval Office?

Every President has redecorated. Some made big changes, others did not. Take a look:

2015 (Obama):

2010 (Obama):

1990 (GHW Bush)

1998 (Clinton):

1963 (JFK)

1936 (FDR)

 1945 (Truman)

1956 (Eisenhower)

1933 (Coolidge):

1909 (Taft):

Don't we have more important things to talk about than how the man chooses to decorate his office?

Were you wrong, or just lying?

So it appears as though Liberals are all of a sudden becoming pro gun. Let me enjoy a bit of sweet, sweet schadenfreude as I rehash a few liberal arguments:

1 You claimed for years that no militia can defeat the US military, making the right to keep and bear arms useless. Remember? Were you wrong? Or lying?

2 You claimed that you wanted to change the law, and give gun owners a choice: "You can have all your guns and no changes to law, or your narrative about how you’re The Good Guys. You may not, under any circumstances, have both. "  Have you changed your mind? Or were you lying?

3 You claim that owning a gun has been linked to higher risks of homicide, suicide, and accidental death by gun. We have all heard you claim that a person who owns a gun is 7 times more likely to die by being shot than a person who doesn't. Were you wrong, or lying?

4 For years, you have claimed that gun ownership is a sign of a man with small genitalia. Did your dick fall off? Did you finally see a naked man and realize that you don't measure up? Or were you lying?

Were you wrong, or just lying? Were you lying in an attempt to disarm us because we couldn't then resist your policies? Now that your candidate has failed, you have either decided that you were wrong, or finally admitted that you were lying. Which is it?

Lochloosa, Florida

This is a GREAT song.

Two sides

When engaging in the debate over gun and self defense rights, we have Supreme Court decisions, facts, figures, and evidence to support our arguments.

They have dick jokes.

Cue a website called the National Small Penis Association, which is apparently there to make fun of gin owners. I won't provide a direct link, because I don't want to give them the traffic.

This is not a political debate. It is a school yard set of childish insults. Any childish insults that the followers of this put up will be memorialized.

Not free speech

The First Amendment enshrines the right to freely assemble and petition the government for a redress of grievances by prohibiting the Congress from establishing a law that would abridge those rights. That is, the Amendment recognizes that the People have those rights.

But what if a group of citizens uses force to prevent other citizens from exercising those same rights? That is exactly what Democrats who are upset over the loss of their candidate in a free election are attempting. In thier own words:

 "We're exercising our freedom of speech and really want to set a tone for the next few years that there's a massive body of people ... who are very concerned about the dangerous direction Donald Trump is taking our country in. [We hope to] turn the inauguration into as big of a clusterf--- as possible.”

Note that the stated goal is NOT to speak their own minds, but to disrupt and prevent other citizens from exercising their own rights to assemble and be heard. They are using force to deny people their rights.

Others have advocated using the Military to delay the inauguration. While this will not happen, it shows that Democrats are not the anti-war pacifists that they profess to be: they have no problem with using violence to achieve their own ends.

The days of civil discourse are over. We are one the verge of another civil war.

Tell me again how the Republicans are different...

Paul Ryan stands up and supports people who flout the law at the expense of law abiding citizens. Tell me again how the Rs and the Ds are different...

Impossible

Guns are all but illegal in New York City. That is why crimes like this don't happen: 12 year old boys don't attempt to rob little girls on the New York Subway. This MUST be fake news.

More DIY gunsmithing

I always thought that rifling the barrel was the hardest part. Here is a video that shows how to get it done. and also illustrates why gun control will never be able to eliminate all firearms.

Basketball

In the 2016 NBA finals, the Championship was wrongly awarded to Cleveland because they won 4 games of the 7 game series. If you look at the scores for those seven games, the Golden State Warriors scored 699 points, with Cleveland scoring only 629 points. Since the goal of basketball is to score points, the team scoring the most points should win the championship. I demand that the NBA take the Championship title from Cleveland and declare the Golden State Warriors to be the winner!

Ridiculous, right? Both teams knew the rules, and the majority of games won in the series determines the winner. To demand that the rules be changed after the winner is determined is disingenuous. After all, if the rule were such that the winner was determined by points instead of games won, the teams would have pursued different strategies and the outcomes would have been different.

This absurd argument is the exact same one being made by the people who claim that Trump lost the popular vote, and therefore shouldn't be President.

Violence in school

Several months ago, I was attacked in my classroom by a student. It all began when I was visited in my classroom by the Principal, who was there for an unannounced visit to evaluate the effectiveness of my teaching style as a part of my annual evaluation. During that observation, she noted that there were several students who were engaged with their cellular phones out of my sight. I lost points on my evaluation for not noticing and preventing students who were using their phones.

So, the next day I announced to all of my classes that I would be strictly enforcing the "no cell phones in class" rule that the school had in place. One student in my fourth period class continued to use his phone. I told him that if he continued to use that phone, I would take it to the front office, and he could explain why he was using it to the Principal, who would administer punishment in the process. The student replied: "I would like to see you try to take it."

As per school policy, we cannot write a discipline referral without first contacting the parent, so that afternoon, I sent an email to the student's mother. I never got a reply.

The next day in that class, students again were using their phones. I told them to put them away. It took two announcements, but all finally put them away, except the one student. I saw him there, typing a text message. I took his phone, and he said "Why are you being such a jerk?" I told him that he would have to get it back from the office. I wrote the incident up, and sent it to the Vice Principal.

When class was over, it was time for lunch and the student hung back a bit. He approached me and asked for the phone. I again told him he could get it from the office. At that point, he tackled me. A short struggle ensued, and we wound up in the hallway, with me lying on top of him, holding him down.

While legally a child, this student was large. Larger than I am. A defensive back on the football team, the seventeen year old junior is over six feet tall and weighs more than 170 pounds. He bench presses 205 and can dead lift 375 pounds. This is a child in name only.

There were no witnesses, since the other students had left the class. The evidence seemed to all be on my side: the email to the mother, the referral, the fact that he stayed behind to confront me. The police investigated. I was reassigned to temporary duties that did not involve student contact while the investigation was carried out. I hired a lawyer. She told me that even if the school cleared me, it was likely that I would be fired, because I was now a liability.

His friends on Facebook post pictures and videos of themselves with handguns. I am disarmed while at work, and while driving to and from work, because I cannot have a weapon in my car. They are not similarly encumbered. 

I decided that even if I were to return to the classroom, I would not be safe. I would have to watch my back every day. A month and a half later, I was still not back in the classroom. I no longer felt safe ir supported, so I resigned.

The student? All he got was a week of out of school suspension- for "fighting" - not for attacking a teacher.