It wasn't just a deception. It was doctored on purpose, which is, again, consciousness of guilt. So now, even the ground the Administration was demanding the debate take place on has fallen out from under then. They insisted everything was fine because a.) there was no quid pro quo and b.) they released a full transcript. Both have now been proven to be flat-out lies based on testimony of members of his own Administration, who magically become "Never-Trumpers" the moment they talk to Congress. The truth is, they aren't willing to perjure themselves to help Trump when the chips are down. No one is.
So where does the right go now?? It doesn't matter, because anyone who has believed what they've been selling up to this point would believe them even if they said the entire incident was really just a simulation that took place in the Holodeck on the Enterprise.
We always knew it was never an entire transcript. First, it even SAYS it is not an entire transcript on page 1. Second, ellipsis use indicates stuff got cut.
We also knew it was going to be incredibly damning, because if THAT was their benchmark for what they thought they could get away with and bury the rest, then the rest had to be REALLY, REALLY bad.
I watched this video by a lawyer a few days after it came out (Maybe around Sept. 29-30). And then again couple days ago. It's really long, but kind of funny in a terrible way.
"For 19 hours, the suspect holed up in a bathroom as a SWAT team fired gas munition and 40-millimeter rounds through the windows, drove an armored vehicle through the doors, tossed flash-bang grenades inside and used explosives to blow out the walls."
For a shoplifter in someone else's home...
That happened in 2015. The owners of the home sued the city for the damage (after only being offered $5000), the house was condemned and demolished, under the fifth amendment. The family lost as " three-judge panel for the U.S. Court of Appeals for the 10th Circuit unanimously ruled that the city is not required to compensate the Lech family for their lost home because it was destroyed by police while they were trying to enforce the law, rather than taken by eminent domain."
The guy had a handgun and stole a shirt and a couple of belts from Walmart. We're talking less than a $100 worth of items. The cops blew up an innocent person's home for that, costing the home owner nearly $400, 000. But according to the police, the city and now the courts, this trade off is worth it because the "police were just doing their job."
I really don't even know what to say about such insane decision-making. It would be bad enough if they HAD been paid back considering the police used their home as if it was a training area at the beginning of a Call of Duty game. But to NOT compensate them every penny and more in the aftermath is just pure lunacy.
And it begs the question just what the role of police is. In most cases, if a high-speed chase gets too dangerous, the cops back off because the danger of taking the lives of other motorists is too great if it continues. But blowing up someone's house (literally) over what wouldn't even be a rounding error on the ledger at Wal-Mart is a sure sign of what some of us like to call "late-stage capitalism", where the police would rather destroy someone's home rather than see a business lose a single penny of merchandise.
My take on it: the flash bang grenades and gas munition cost more than the items he stole. I guess the city didn't want to pay the family out because that'd be less money for these toys the next time someone shoplifts.
"For 19 hours, the suspect holed up in a bathroom as a SWAT team fired gas munition and 40-millimeter rounds through the windows, drove an armored vehicle through the doors, tossed flash-bang grenades inside and used explosives to blow out the walls."
For a shoplifter in someone else's home...
That happened in 2015. The owners of the home sued the city for the damage (after only being offered $5000), the house was condemned and demolished, under the fifth amendment. The family lost as " three-judge panel for the U.S. Court of Appeals for the 10th Circuit unanimously ruled that the city is not required to compensate the Lech family for their lost home because it was destroyed by police while they were trying to enforce the law, rather than taken by eminent domain."
The guy had a handgun and stole a shirt and a couple of belts from Walmart. We're talking less than a $100 worth of items. The cops blew up an innocent person's home for that, costing the home owner nearly $400, 000. But according to the police, the city and now the courts, this trade off is worth it because the "police were just doing their job."
pathetic.
Also think of how much it cost for almost 20 hours of dozens of officers to siege the house, plus materials use. That had to have cost probably $10,000-$20,000.
I read the whole article and it's a lot more complicated than what it sounds like. Read the article then judge...
Well that's part of the point (which actually ties into what I mentioned above). The police engaged in a high speed chase over the theft of some clothing that escalated into a shot being fired from inside this house. If catching the guy was THAT important, I'm reasonably sure it could have been accomplished in a much more prudent way by backing off and tracking and apprehending him at a later time. Instead, it escalated into something more akin to a showdown at The Alamo. Certainly, holding shoplifters accountable is important, but there is no way it was THIS important. My favorite part is reading the comments placing the blame on the owner for not having insurance to cover the damages, as if one is supposed to anticipate your house being demolished in a police standoff.
I think the general concern here is that we've turned the policing of civilians into a literal war and the cops, because they have been trained to (especially since 9/11 when they started getting surplus war on terror equipment) treat communities like a battlefield.
Anecdotal observation: considering every time I go to a Wal-Mart there is a set of cop cars parked out front, my feeling is cops are spending an inordinate amount of time dealing with petty theft calls. And I guess my point is it takes a hell of a lot of really questionable decisions from a "is this worth it??" perspective to get from stealing a belt to turning someone's house into Fallujah. Sometimes you just gotta temporarily eat a "loss", so to speak. Somewhere along the line, the importance of racking up a W with an arrest becomes a luxury that may not be worth it.
I read the whole article and it's a lot more complicated than what it sounds like. Read the article then judge...
I did. He had a hand gun. Had a chance to take a hostage (the 10 year old in the house at the time)
but didn't. Literally fled the city that the Walmart was in. All they had to do was cut the utilities to the house and wait him out, or go in more carefully. Swat has bullet proof armour and riot shields. That literally is enough to stop one junky with a hand gun and at most 11 bullets.
Hell, I bet if the police said to him during the negotiations, "ok, we're leaving, just give this family their home back," the guy would have left the premise eventually and then be apprehended by the cops parked in the unmarked car down the street.
The armoured car through the door was way too much. Just ask the homeowners for the keys! Like, it makes no sense.
~
And about insurance, you know what is insured against theft? Those items that were stolen from Walmart. Shoplifters are also creatures of habit. I guarantee if he got away with it, he'd be back in the same walmrt a week from then stealing underwear, where if you have properly trained staff and security would be recognized doing so and arrested then.
The article said that the owner had 'ample' insurance but the renter didn't pay for renters insurance. The $5k offered by the city more than covered the insurance deductible and the cost of renting an apartment during the repairs. Another article I read about it said the owner was also having work done on the house that had nothing to do with the damage done, including repouring the foundation. There's more to this than meets the eye. Just like everything else reported by so-called news these days...
Edit: Oh btw, this perp not only had a gun, he even fired at the cops through the garage of the house he invaded. Where there was a kid, btw. At least he had the decency to let the kid leave the house and not hold him hostage. Oh, he also owns a Lexus and had drugs on his person when they arrested him. Owns a Lexus but needs to steal clothes from Wal-Mart? This is just one weird story all the way around...
I read the whole article and it's a lot more complicated than what it sounds like. Read the article then judge...
I did. He had a hand gun. Had a chance to take a hostage (the 10 year old in the house at the time)
but didn't. Literally fled the city that the Walmart was in. All they had to do was cut the utilities to the house and wait him out, or go in more carefully. Swat has bullet proof armour and riot shields. That literally is enough to stop one junky with a hand gun and at most 11 bullets.
Hell, I bet if the police said to him during the negotiations, "ok, we're leaving, just give this family their home back," the guy would have left the premise eventually and then be apprehended by the cops parked in the unmarked car down the street.
The armoured car through the door was way too much. Just ask the homeowners for the keys! Like, it makes no sense.
~
And about insurance, you know what is insured against theft? Those items that were stolen from Walmart. Shoplifters are also creatures of habit. I guarantee if he got away with it, he'd be back in the same walmrt a week from then stealing underwear, where if you have properly trained staff and security would be recognized doing so and arrested then.
Again, in my experience, Wal-Mart simply uses local police forces AS their security. Come to think of it, I've never seen a security guard at a Wal-Mart. Undoubtedly they have loss prevention people diligently watching as eyes in the sky, but there is no on the ground personal at the exits other than normal employees and greeters. Also, let's face it. Wal-Marts generally are in poorer sections of town. They aren't on the pay-day loan and liquor store blocks, but they aren't near upscale homes either. Wal-Marts are going to be significantly more susceptible to shoplifting than your average store because they specifically cater to a clientele with less money. People who can't buy what they need are certainly more likely to steal it. I cashed my checks at Wal-Marts for years when I didn't have a bank account. They aren't "predatory" like pay-day loans are, but it becomes very clear once you stand in line to cash your paycheck there a few times where you stand on the socio-economic ladder. I guess what I'm saying the amount of theft that takes place in any given Wal-Mart on any given day is likely off the charts high.
The article said that the owner had 'ample' insurance but the renter didn't pay for renters insurance. The $5k offered by the city more than covered the insurance deductible and the cost of renting an apartment during the repairs. Another article I read about it said the owner was also having work done on the house that had nothing to do with the damage done, including repouring the foundation. There's more to this than meets the eye. Just like everything else reported by so-called news these days...
The insurance deductible may be covered but when the insurance company raises rates then what?
So what if he was having work done, the cops destroyed his house.
This is about militarized police and extreme overreaction and destruction of private property by the state.
The article said that the owner had 'ample' insurance but the renter didn't pay for renters insurance. The $5k offered by the city more than covered the insurance deductible and the cost of renting an apartment during the repairs. Another article I read about it said the owner was also having work done on the house that had nothing to do with the damage done, including repouring the foundation. There's more to this than meets the eye. Just like everything else reported by so-called news these days...
The insurance deductible may be covered but when the insurance company raises rates then what?
So what if he was having work done, the cops destroyed his house.
This is about militarized police and extreme overreaction and destruction of private property by the state.
The work on the foundation was after the incident. He wanted the cost of that covered too. Btw, this a $400k house, so definitely not in the poor part of town.
His main beef should be the renter losing his uninsured personal items. I think it was his son or son-in-law that was renting it. Trying to tie this into eminent domain is going to get him nowhere, even if SCOTUS bothers to look at this case. My Spidey-sense is tingling that his lawyer(s) sold him a bogus story about how much money they would get him.
Watch as Durin's Bane tries to justify demolishing an entire house and using thousands of dollars of equipment to catch a shoplifter who stole maybe $100. Because police are somehow always blameless, no matter what. Nevermind that they perpetrate almost a thousand extra judicial killings every year.
"Two studies have found that at least 40% of police officer families experience domestic violence, in contrast to 10% of families in the general population," the National Center for Women & Policing says. "A third study of older and more experienced officers found a rate of 24%, indicating that domestic violence is 2-4 times more common among police families than American families in general."
The study says the number is concerning considering spouses and children of police officers have "unique vulnerability."
That's because of three things, the study says:
-The officer who is abusing them has a gun
-The officer who is abusing them knows the location of battered women's shelters
-The officer who is abusing them knows how to manipulate the system to avoid penalty and/or shift blame to the victim
Additionally, victims often fear calling the police, because they know the case will be handled by officers who are colleagues and/or friends of their abuser. Victims of police family violence typically fear that the responding officers will side with their abuser and fail to properly investigate or document the crime.
I'm not sure what to make of those stats.
"Two studies have found that at least 40% of police officer families experience domestic violence, in contrast to 10% of families in the general population," the National Center for Women & Policing says. "A third study of older and more experienced officers found a rate of 24%, indicating that domestic violence is 2-4 times more common among police families than American families in general."
The study says the number is concerning considering spouses and children of police officers have "unique vulnerability."
That's because of three things, the study says:
-The officer who is abusing them has a gun
-The officer who is abusing them knows the location of battered women's shelters
-The officer who is abusing them knows how to manipulate the system to avoid penalty and/or shift blame to the victim
Additionally, victims often fear calling the police, because they know the case will be handled by officers who are colleagues and/or friends of their abuser. Victims of police family violence typically fear that the responding officers will side with their abuser and fail to properly investigate or document the crime.
I'm not sure what to make of those stats.
High pressure jobs make people do dumb things? Even if you're one of the 90% of officers who never have to draw their weapons in anger, you're still exposed to the worst side of human existence imaginable. Police officers, intelligence specialists and soldiers, how can you be one and not be jaded after a while?
Obama words of wisdom. I didn't really like him, but I didn't dislike him either. I never really thought he was as bad as people on the right made him out to be. Remarks like these are probably why...
Watch as Durin's Bane tries to justify demolishing an entire house and using thousands of dollars of equipment to catch a shoplifter who stole maybe $100. Because police are somehow always blameless, no matter what. Nevermind that they perpetrate almost a thousand extra judicial killings every year.
Hey, I resent your stereotyping of Balrogs. We're just misunderstood dwellers of the deep places. Durins's Bane wasn't doing anything to anybody before a rude halfling woke him up by throwing a suit of armour down a well...
"Two studies have found that at least 40% of police officer families experience domestic violence, in contrast to 10% of families in the general population," the National Center for Women & Policing says. "A third study of older and more experienced officers found a rate of 24%, indicating that domestic violence is 2-4 times more common among police families than American families in general."
The study says the number is concerning considering spouses and children of police officers have "unique vulnerability."
That's because of three things, the study says:
-The officer who is abusing them has a gun
-The officer who is abusing them knows the location of battered women's shelters
-The officer who is abusing them knows how to manipulate the system to avoid penalty and/or shift blame to the victim
Additionally, victims often fear calling the police, because they know the case will be handled by officers who are colleagues and/or friends of their abuser. Victims of police family violence typically fear that the responding officers will side with their abuser and fail to properly investigate or document the crime.
I'm not sure what to make of those stats.
Finally you are understanding that the police is not omnipresent and infallible. People should be allowed to defend thenselves or pay for private security without depending the state not only by this reasons but because states can go bankrupt, cataclysms can happens, an racist influential policeman can refuse to patrol """poor areas""" and even in a perfect situation, police takes minutes to arrive.
You need to right to self defense in order to preserve other rights. For eg, Abortion clinics are often victim of violent attacks ( https://www.nytimes.com/interactive/2015/11/29/us/30abortion-clinic-violence.html ), one or two well armed security guards can dissuade a possible attack. And this is not limited to freedom of association and the right of life/propriety. Religion freedom, mainly for those who practice religions "demonized" by the majority of the population like Thelema NEEDS rights of self defense.
I don't know much about freedom of religion on US but here practitioners of Afro religions ( https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Afro-American_religion ) often suffer a lot of persecution mainly in poorer areas.
Anyway, people with high stress jobs have a greater chance to do "dumb" things like Balrog99 said.
It’s a frightening tightrope we walk. We think left, we think right but how many think that the continuity of humanity relies on balancing the two. Probably not many.
I have often wondered if we have outgrown our evolution. Evolution demands we take sides, like two chimpanzee groups meeting but is it so cut and dried? When does the law of diminishing returns take effect and evolution begin to be a detriment to the continuation of the species. Right here, right now. We will keep colliding into this wall until we somehow make it over or the species dies. I say right here, right now because NOW is the time! It’s like billions of years of life was meant for this time, this juncture where we can make it or fail. Billions of years have left energy resources that will be gone within the next one hundred years, like it or not, we will never get another chance at this run if we fail now. We don’t figure this out now, we likely don’t make it off the planet and our species will die. Yet we are still taking sides. J P Morgan, Carnegie and now Trump are/were willing to sacrifice the hope of everyone’s future for their profits today, and Karl Mark and socialism are will to sacrifice the drive of those people in order to make a more fair world and let the species die, but die equally. Without drive or fairness we die, but hey, let’s keep taking sides.
My boyfriend watches history shows and animal shows all of the time. I hate them both, because both point to the same thing, the bigger critter eats the little critter, the bi products and leftovers feed the tiny critters and plants that let the little critters thrive enough to get eaten by the big critters again, BUT! no little critters the big critters die. Evolution. Inescapable isn’t it? But we better because our evolutionary instincts are leading us to our species doom.
I don’t have the answers, but I have stoped looking out for my own self interest or blaming someone else enough to see that we are all messed up and none of us make it alone. It’s a group effort. Unfortunately the group isn’t talking to the effort right now, and the effort is calling the group fake news. So....
I think that I will have some ice cream.
It's not the future lack of energy resources per se that's the problem. There's vastly more energy available in the natural environment than we could ever use - sunlight, wind, wave, tidal, ground, air, hydro etc. Fossil fuels appear so cheap now largely because of the historic infrastructure that's been built to process them (pipelines, refineries etc). Despite that historic advantage, however, much of the above renewable resources are already cheaper than most fossil fuels. For instance, in many places in the US it's cheaper to both build and operate a windfarm (and the infrastructure to connect it to an electricity grid) than it is to continue operating a coal power plant - that's before you even consider the future costs of decommissioning such a plant or building a new one in its place.
What will be a major problem in the future is the climate change resulting from the current and historic use of fossil fuels. In itself that change will not be sufficient to threaten mankind to any significant effect. It will cause plenty of areas of the Earth to become unproductive, but much of that will be balanced by increasing productivity elsewhere (in Siberia for instance where the permafrost is already melting and agriculture will become possible in the fairly near future). There will be an increase in the severity of storms and the unpredictability of the climate and California has been seeing recently some of the problems that can cause - but again that's not a direct threat to mankind.
What is a direct threat - at least to our current way of life - is the mass movements and struggles over resources that will be triggered by climate change. Many millions of people live on marginal coastland and the process of them moving has already started - and there will be similar pressures in the future from people living in arid areas that can no longer grow crops. Thus far the movements (in places like Bangladesh) have been mainly confined to moving within their existing country, but as the movements get larger there is going to be vastly more pressure on national borders than the sorts of movements in Europe and America that have caused so much concern in recent years. The potential for conflict erupting between nations as a result of such movements currently seems high to me. There will also be conflicts over diminishing resources, particularly water, in many areas - that's always been a problem, but climate change will exacerbate it.
Climate change is not a national problem, but an international one. It will affect different countries in different ways, so there will be no single set of solutions (we're already past the stage where effects could be rendered minimal by reducing the emission of greenhouse gases, so solutions in the form of adaptation rather than just avoidance will be needed). It seems to me inescapable that such solutions will need international cooperation, as well as national adaptation - which is why Trump's attempts (knowingly or unknowingly) to destroy the mechanisms for international cooperation are so dangerous. In a situation where stress on existing systems becomes so high we need robust means to talk about the problems and work out solutions. If talking is not available, there will be conflict - and a lot of it.
Another interesting read. 42% of Americans are avoiding the news altogether. Gee, I wonder why that is?
My guess is straight up laziness combined with the plausible deniability of "not paying attention=not having to take a side". There is nothing wrong with taking extended breaks from politics. But the voters who pay absolutely pay no attention to anything but for about 2-3 months every 4 years?? Shit, I have even less respect for them than I do my most ardent political opponents. At least they believe SOMETHING.
You'll find that alot of these deified "undecided voters" are just people who can't be bothered but twice a decade to give a shit. This is how I treat the Olympics and the World Cup. Watching these events every 4 years is EXACTLY how much I want to watch them. Treating the future of your country the same way isn't as excusable. The lack of civic engagement in this country is embarrassing, and while it may not seem like two viable parties is much to choose from, the idea that there isn't any difference between them an equally lazy opinion. Decisions are made by those that show up.
A short Bill mandating a general election in the UK completed its passage through Parliament yesterday and will receive Royal assent shortly. The election will be on 12th December and political campaigning for that is already underway.
This will be the first general election in December since 1923 and potential problems associated with the weather, availability of polling stations (competing with school plays for instance) and the rival attractions of Christmas shopping all add to the difficulty of predicting the result.
Brexit is sure to be a significant issue, but it won't necessarily dominate politics in the way it has done in the last couple of years. Even if it does though, what that means for results is a total unknown. The Conservatives have a comfortable lead in the polls and will play on the fact that they successfully negotiated a deal with the EU to try and squeeze the vote of the Brexit party. Farage won't though take that lying down and will point out that Johnson was forced to agree an extension to Brexit despite saying he'd prefer to die in a ditch than do that - his pitch will be that only the Brexit party will really guarantee an exit will happen.
There's a slight majority in the country for anti-Brexit parties, so if the Brexit vote is split it's quite conceivable that the Conservatives will suffer huge losses. That's the hope of the Liberal Democrats who have the clearest anti-Brexit message and will wish to see lots of tactical voting in their favor. Jo Swinson, their leader, has been putting out the message that she could be the next Prime Minister. While that's unlikely, it's not inconceivable if she does pick up the bulk of anti-Brexit votes while the pro-Brexit vote is split.
The Labour party has the muddiest message on Brexit of all the main parties and doesn't have anything to gain from campaigning on that. That's why Corbyn has immediately gone on the attack on more traditional political areas - like schools, the NHS, elite corruption and crime. Corbyn has always been popular with rank and file Labour members and his messages will appeal to them, but I don't think he has a broad enough appeal to have the possibility of gaining a clear victory (in the way the Conservatives could if they can hold the Brexit party off).
We've referred to it before, but one of the good things about the UK system compared to the US is the short duration of campaigns. Five or six weeks is enough to get your message out without everyone being turned off by endless repetition. The fact that there are strict spending limits on political messages also helps avoid the campaigning being too intrusive.
I read the whole article and it's a lot more complicated than what it sounds like. Read the article then judge...
I did. He had a hand gun. Had a chance to take a hostage (the 10 year old in the house at the time)
but didn't. Literally fled the city that the Walmart was in. All they had to do was cut the utilities to the house and wait him out, or go in more carefully. Swat has bullet proof armour and riot shields. That literally is enough to stop one junky with a hand gun and at most 11 bullets.
Hell, I bet if the police said to him during the negotiations, "ok, we're leaving, just give this family their home back," the guy would have left the premise eventually and then be apprehended by the cops parked in the unmarked car down the street.
The armoured car through the door was way too much. Just ask the homeowners for the keys! Like, it makes no sense.
Hrm, I guess I'm lucky now that when a drug running fugitive was in my (parent's) house while I was the only one present a few years ago, the only damage done was 3 officers kicking a back door in. I was with them, and if I had been thinking a bit more rationally, I could have gotten the hidden key. Which is literally the first thing BOTH my parents asked me, separately, when I told them what happened. "Why why didn't you get the key?" "Because 3 officers want in NOW, not in 2 minutes, and I'm too caught up in the moment to think about it."
It's not the future lack of energy resources per se that's the problem. There's vastly more energy available in the natural environment than we could ever use - sunlight, wind, wave, tidal, ground, air, hydro etc. Fossil fuels appear so cheap now largely because of the historic infrastructure that's been built to process them (pipelines, refineries etc). Despite that historic advantage, however, much of the above renewable resources are already cheaper than most fossil fuels. For instance, in many places in the US it's cheaper to both build and operate a windfarm (and the infrastructure to connect it to an electricity grid) than it is to continue operating a coal power plant - that's before you even consider the future costs of decommissioning such a plant or building a new one in its place.
It's worth noting that we're not even a 1 on the Kardashev scale. That is, our entire energy use worldwide does not even equal all the energy that the Earth gets from the sun. We're like .72.
Which in turn the Earth gets a very, very, very tiny fraction of the energy the sun is radiating in all directions, which is a 2 on the Kardashev scale.
This will be the first general election in December since 1923 and potential problems associated with the weather, availability of polling stations (competing with school plays for instance) and the rival attractions of Christmas shopping all add to the difficulty of predicting the result.
Does this mean the entire Parliament gets fired and everyone has to be voted back in? This isn't normal?
Does this mean the entire Parliament gets fired and everyone has to be voted back in? This isn't normal?
All MPs have to get voted in, yes - even current prime minister, speaker of the House etc. That's standard practice for general elections. Those are normally every 5 years, but Parliament can agree otherwise - which is what they've just done this week by passing a law to bypass the normal procedure.
"Two studies have found that at least 40% of police officer families experience domestic violence, in contrast to 10% of families in the general population," the National Center for Women & Policing says. "A third study of older and more experienced officers found a rate of 24%, indicating that domestic violence is 2-4 times more common among police families than American families in general."
The study says the number is concerning considering spouses and children of police officers have "unique vulnerability."
That's because of three things, the study says:
-The officer who is abusing them has a gun
-The officer who is abusing them knows the location of battered women's shelters
-The officer who is abusing them knows how to manipulate the system to avoid penalty and/or shift blame to the victim
Additionally, victims often fear calling the police, because they know the case will be handled by officers who are colleagues and/or friends of their abuser. Victims of police family violence typically fear that the responding officers will side with their abuser and fail to properly investigate or document the crime.
I'm not sure what to make of those stats.
Finally you are understanding that the police is not omnipresent and infallible. People should be allowed to defend thenselves or pay for private security without depending the state not only by this reasons but because states can go bankrupt, cataclysms can happens, an racist influential policeman can refuse to patrol """poor areas""" and even in a perfect situation, police takes minutes to arrive.
You need to right to self defense in order to preserve other rights. For eg, Abortion clinics are often victim of violent attacks ( https://www.nytimes.com/interactive/2015/11/29/us/30abortion-clinic-violence.html ), one or two well armed security guards can dissuade a possible attack. And this is not limited to freedom of association and the right of life/propriety. Religion freedom, mainly for those who practice religions "demonized" by the majority of the population like Thelema NEEDS rights of self defense.
I don't know much about freedom of religion on US but here practitioners of Afro religions ( https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Afro-American_religion ) often suffer a lot of persecution mainly in poorer areas.
Anyway, people with high stress jobs have a greater chance to do "dumb" things like Balrog99 said.
1. Abortion is not a right....
2. Two, especially in poorer areas Africans that experience prosecution for practicing African religion are prosecuted by, drumroll please.... Other Africans...
3. Americans have a right to defend themselves, despite Democrats trying to tear apart the second amendment, which is quite ironic...their trying to destroy the second amendment while claiming the government is evil... Take away the arms and leave the people at the whims of that very government that the progressive have called authoritarian and racist...
4. A company or corporation having its own "well armed security guards" is no different than the state having a police department, except unlike the state, corporations aren't beholden to the constitution or the bill of rights and can/have abused their position in ways that violate both. It's way senators are trying to pressure social media to do their censoring for them and to shut down opposing speech.
@_Nightfall_ "Demonizing a group because of the actions, real or perceived, of a few is a slippery slope."
Its not a few. This one case alone is an entire police department and the court deciding that completely destroying a house is a reasonable response to cathcing someone who shoplifted $100 in merchandise. "A few" did not murder 15 children last year, a few did not murder 213 disabled people last year. This is not "a few". Everytime that an officer kills a child, or an unarmed person, or the disabled, and they are PROTECTED from consequence by the courts and by the their department, then that ENTIRE DEPARTMENT is corrupt and a danger to everyone. This not a few. This is the STANDARD.
"3. Americans have a right to defend themselves, despite Democrats trying to tear apart the second amendment, which is quite ironic...their trying to destroy the second amendment while claiming the government is evil... Take away the arms and leave the people at the whims of that very government that the progressive have called authoritarian and racist..."
Really? Because I've never seen any kind of legislature put forth to remove the 2nd amendment. Got some citation there? Also no, the Democratic Party is not the "evil government" party. They advocate for a strong government to better take care of the populace. The conservative platform is the one that campaigns on less government intervention, ironically.
Comments
We always knew it was never an entire transcript. First, it even SAYS it is not an entire transcript on page 1. Second, ellipsis use indicates stuff got cut.
We also knew it was going to be incredibly damning, because if THAT was their benchmark for what they thought they could get away with and bury the rest, then the rest had to be REALLY, REALLY bad.
I watched this video by a lawyer a few days after it came out (Maybe around Sept. 29-30). And then again couple days ago. It's really long, but kind of funny in a terrible way.
https://www.oregonlive.com/nation/2019/10/police-blew-up-an-innocent-mans-house-in-search-of-an-armed-shoplifter-too-bad-court-rules.html
"For 19 hours, the suspect holed up in a bathroom as a SWAT team fired gas munition and 40-millimeter rounds through the windows, drove an armored vehicle through the doors, tossed flash-bang grenades inside and used explosives to blow out the walls."
For a shoplifter in someone else's home...
That happened in 2015. The owners of the home sued the city for the damage (after only being offered $5000), the house was condemned and demolished, under the fifth amendment. The family lost as " three-judge panel for the U.S. Court of Appeals for the 10th Circuit unanimously ruled that the city is not required to compensate the Lech family for their lost home because it was destroyed by police while they were trying to enforce the law, rather than taken by eminent domain."
The guy had a handgun and stole a shirt and a couple of belts from Walmart. We're talking less than a $100 worth of items. The cops blew up an innocent person's home for that, costing the home owner nearly $400, 000. But according to the police, the city and now the courts, this trade off is worth it because the "police were just doing their job."
pathetic.
And it begs the question just what the role of police is. In most cases, if a high-speed chase gets too dangerous, the cops back off because the danger of taking the lives of other motorists is too great if it continues. But blowing up someone's house (literally) over what wouldn't even be a rounding error on the ledger at Wal-Mart is a sure sign of what some of us like to call "late-stage capitalism", where the police would rather destroy someone's home rather than see a business lose a single penny of merchandise.
As I said, it's pathetic.
Also think of how much it cost for almost 20 hours of dozens of officers to siege the house, plus materials use. That had to have cost probably $10,000-$20,000.
Well that's part of the point (which actually ties into what I mentioned above). The police engaged in a high speed chase over the theft of some clothing that escalated into a shot being fired from inside this house. If catching the guy was THAT important, I'm reasonably sure it could have been accomplished in a much more prudent way by backing off and tracking and apprehending him at a later time. Instead, it escalated into something more akin to a showdown at The Alamo. Certainly, holding shoplifters accountable is important, but there is no way it was THIS important. My favorite part is reading the comments placing the blame on the owner for not having insurance to cover the damages, as if one is supposed to anticipate your house being demolished in a police standoff.
I think the general concern here is that we've turned the policing of civilians into a literal war and the cops, because they have been trained to (especially since 9/11 when they started getting surplus war on terror equipment) treat communities like a battlefield.
Anecdotal observation: considering every time I go to a Wal-Mart there is a set of cop cars parked out front, my feeling is cops are spending an inordinate amount of time dealing with petty theft calls. And I guess my point is it takes a hell of a lot of really questionable decisions from a "is this worth it??" perspective to get from stealing a belt to turning someone's house into Fallujah. Sometimes you just gotta temporarily eat a "loss", so to speak. Somewhere along the line, the importance of racking up a W with an arrest becomes a luxury that may not be worth it.
I did. He had a hand gun. Had a chance to take a hostage (the 10 year old in the house at the time)
but didn't. Literally fled the city that the Walmart was in. All they had to do was cut the utilities to the house and wait him out, or go in more carefully. Swat has bullet proof armour and riot shields. That literally is enough to stop one junky with a hand gun and at most 11 bullets.
Hell, I bet if the police said to him during the negotiations, "ok, we're leaving, just give this family their home back," the guy would have left the premise eventually and then be apprehended by the cops parked in the unmarked car down the street.
The armoured car through the door was way too much. Just ask the homeowners for the keys! Like, it makes no sense.
~
And about insurance, you know what is insured against theft? Those items that were stolen from Walmart. Shoplifters are also creatures of habit. I guarantee if he got away with it, he'd be back in the same walmrt a week from then stealing underwear, where if you have properly trained staff and security would be recognized doing so and arrested then.
Edit: Oh btw, this perp not only had a gun, he even fired at the cops through the garage of the house he invaded. Where there was a kid, btw. At least he had the decency to let the kid leave the house and not hold him hostage. Oh, he also owns a Lexus and had drugs on his person when they arrested him. Owns a Lexus but needs to steal clothes from Wal-Mart? This is just one weird story all the way around...
Again, in my experience, Wal-Mart simply uses local police forces AS their security. Come to think of it, I've never seen a security guard at a Wal-Mart. Undoubtedly they have loss prevention people diligently watching as eyes in the sky, but there is no on the ground personal at the exits other than normal employees and greeters. Also, let's face it. Wal-Marts generally are in poorer sections of town. They aren't on the pay-day loan and liquor store blocks, but they aren't near upscale homes either. Wal-Marts are going to be significantly more susceptible to shoplifting than your average store because they specifically cater to a clientele with less money. People who can't buy what they need are certainly more likely to steal it. I cashed my checks at Wal-Marts for years when I didn't have a bank account. They aren't "predatory" like pay-day loans are, but it becomes very clear once you stand in line to cash your paycheck there a few times where you stand on the socio-economic ladder. I guess what I'm saying the amount of theft that takes place in any given Wal-Mart on any given day is likely off the charts high.
The insurance deductible may be covered but when the insurance company raises rates then what?
So what if he was having work done, the cops destroyed his house.
This is about militarized police and extreme overreaction and destruction of private property by the state.
The work on the foundation was after the incident. He wanted the cost of that covered too. Btw, this a $400k house, so definitely not in the poor part of town.
His main beef should be the renter losing his uninsured personal items. I think it was his son or son-in-law that was renting it. Trying to tie this into eminent domain is going to get him nowhere, even if SCOTUS bothers to look at this case. My Spidey-sense is tingling that his lawyer(s) sold him a bogus story about how much money they would get him.
The study says the number is concerning considering spouses and children of police officers have "unique vulnerability."
That's because of three things, the study says:
-The officer who is abusing them has a gun
-The officer who is abusing them knows the location of battered women's shelters
-The officer who is abusing them knows how to manipulate the system to avoid penalty and/or shift blame to the victim
Additionally, victims often fear calling the police, because they know the case will be handled by officers who are colleagues and/or friends of their abuser. Victims of police family violence typically fear that the responding officers will side with their abuser and fail to properly investigate or document the crime.
I'm not sure what to make of those stats.
High pressure jobs make people do dumb things? Even if you're one of the 90% of officers who never have to draw their weapons in anger, you're still exposed to the worst side of human existence imaginable. Police officers, intelligence specialists and soldiers, how can you be one and not be jaded after a while?
Obama words of wisdom. I didn't really like him, but I didn't dislike him either. I never really thought he was as bad as people on the right made him out to be. Remarks like these are probably why...
Hey, I resent your stereotyping of Balrogs. We're just misunderstood dwellers of the deep places. Durins's Bane wasn't doing anything to anybody before a rude halfling woke him up by throwing a suit of armour down a well...
Another interesting read. 42% of Americans are avoiding the news altogether. Gee, I wonder why that is?
Finally you are understanding that the police is not omnipresent and infallible. People should be allowed to defend thenselves or pay for private security without depending the state not only by this reasons but because states can go bankrupt, cataclysms can happens, an racist influential policeman can refuse to patrol """poor areas""" and even in a perfect situation, police takes minutes to arrive.
You need to right to self defense in order to preserve other rights. For eg, Abortion clinics are often victim of violent attacks ( https://www.nytimes.com/interactive/2015/11/29/us/30abortion-clinic-violence.html ), one or two well armed security guards can dissuade a possible attack. And this is not limited to freedom of association and the right of life/propriety. Religion freedom, mainly for those who practice religions "demonized" by the majority of the population like Thelema NEEDS rights of self defense.
I don't know much about freedom of religion on US but here practitioners of Afro religions ( https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Afro-American_religion ) often suffer a lot of persecution mainly in poorer areas.
Anyway, people with high stress jobs have a greater chance to do "dumb" things like Balrog99 said.
It's not the future lack of energy resources per se that's the problem. There's vastly more energy available in the natural environment than we could ever use - sunlight, wind, wave, tidal, ground, air, hydro etc. Fossil fuels appear so cheap now largely because of the historic infrastructure that's been built to process them (pipelines, refineries etc). Despite that historic advantage, however, much of the above renewable resources are already cheaper than most fossil fuels. For instance, in many places in the US it's cheaper to both build and operate a windfarm (and the infrastructure to connect it to an electricity grid) than it is to continue operating a coal power plant - that's before you even consider the future costs of decommissioning such a plant or building a new one in its place.
What will be a major problem in the future is the climate change resulting from the current and historic use of fossil fuels. In itself that change will not be sufficient to threaten mankind to any significant effect. It will cause plenty of areas of the Earth to become unproductive, but much of that will be balanced by increasing productivity elsewhere (in Siberia for instance where the permafrost is already melting and agriculture will become possible in the fairly near future). There will be an increase in the severity of storms and the unpredictability of the climate and California has been seeing recently some of the problems that can cause - but again that's not a direct threat to mankind.
What is a direct threat - at least to our current way of life - is the mass movements and struggles over resources that will be triggered by climate change. Many millions of people live on marginal coastland and the process of them moving has already started - and there will be similar pressures in the future from people living in arid areas that can no longer grow crops. Thus far the movements (in places like Bangladesh) have been mainly confined to moving within their existing country, but as the movements get larger there is going to be vastly more pressure on national borders than the sorts of movements in Europe and America that have caused so much concern in recent years. The potential for conflict erupting between nations as a result of such movements currently seems high to me. There will also be conflicts over diminishing resources, particularly water, in many areas - that's always been a problem, but climate change will exacerbate it.
Climate change is not a national problem, but an international one. It will affect different countries in different ways, so there will be no single set of solutions (we're already past the stage where effects could be rendered minimal by reducing the emission of greenhouse gases, so solutions in the form of adaptation rather than just avoidance will be needed). It seems to me inescapable that such solutions will need international cooperation, as well as national adaptation - which is why Trump's attempts (knowingly or unknowingly) to destroy the mechanisms for international cooperation are so dangerous. In a situation where stress on existing systems becomes so high we need robust means to talk about the problems and work out solutions. If talking is not available, there will be conflict - and a lot of it.
My guess is straight up laziness combined with the plausible deniability of "not paying attention=not having to take a side". There is nothing wrong with taking extended breaks from politics. But the voters who pay absolutely pay no attention to anything but for about 2-3 months every 4 years?? Shit, I have even less respect for them than I do my most ardent political opponents. At least they believe SOMETHING.
You'll find that alot of these deified "undecided voters" are just people who can't be bothered but twice a decade to give a shit. This is how I treat the Olympics and the World Cup. Watching these events every 4 years is EXACTLY how much I want to watch them. Treating the future of your country the same way isn't as excusable. The lack of civic engagement in this country is embarrassing, and while it may not seem like two viable parties is much to choose from, the idea that there isn't any difference between them an equally lazy opinion. Decisions are made by those that show up.
Decisions are best made by the educated not by the ones that have an axe to grind or who despise a certain way of think.
Watching CNN or Fox does not make anyone an educated voter, it makes them the rot that the rest of society has to cut off before it infects the whole.
This will be the first general election in December since 1923 and potential problems associated with the weather, availability of polling stations (competing with school plays for instance) and the rival attractions of Christmas shopping all add to the difficulty of predicting the result.
Brexit is sure to be a significant issue, but it won't necessarily dominate politics in the way it has done in the last couple of years. Even if it does though, what that means for results is a total unknown. The Conservatives have a comfortable lead in the polls and will play on the fact that they successfully negotiated a deal with the EU to try and squeeze the vote of the Brexit party. Farage won't though take that lying down and will point out that Johnson was forced to agree an extension to Brexit despite saying he'd prefer to die in a ditch than do that - his pitch will be that only the Brexit party will really guarantee an exit will happen.
There's a slight majority in the country for anti-Brexit parties, so if the Brexit vote is split it's quite conceivable that the Conservatives will suffer huge losses. That's the hope of the Liberal Democrats who have the clearest anti-Brexit message and will wish to see lots of tactical voting in their favor. Jo Swinson, their leader, has been putting out the message that she could be the next Prime Minister. While that's unlikely, it's not inconceivable if she does pick up the bulk of anti-Brexit votes while the pro-Brexit vote is split.
The Labour party has the muddiest message on Brexit of all the main parties and doesn't have anything to gain from campaigning on that. That's why Corbyn has immediately gone on the attack on more traditional political areas - like schools, the NHS, elite corruption and crime. Corbyn has always been popular with rank and file Labour members and his messages will appeal to them, but I don't think he has a broad enough appeal to have the possibility of gaining a clear victory (in the way the Conservatives could if they can hold the Brexit party off).
We've referred to it before, but one of the good things about the UK system compared to the US is the short duration of campaigns. Five or six weeks is enough to get your message out without everyone being turned off by endless repetition. The fact that there are strict spending limits on political messages also helps avoid the campaigning being too intrusive.
Hrm, I guess I'm lucky now that when a drug running fugitive was in my (parent's) house while I was the only one present a few years ago, the only damage done was 3 officers kicking a back door in. I was with them, and if I had been thinking a bit more rationally, I could have gotten the hidden key. Which is literally the first thing BOTH my parents asked me, separately, when I told them what happened. "Why why didn't you get the key?" "Because 3 officers want in NOW, not in 2 minutes, and I'm too caught up in the moment to think about it."
It's worth noting that we're not even a 1 on the Kardashev scale. That is, our entire energy use worldwide does not even equal all the energy that the Earth gets from the sun. We're like .72.
Which in turn the Earth gets a very, very, very tiny fraction of the energy the sun is radiating in all directions, which is a 2 on the Kardashev scale.
Does this mean the entire Parliament gets fired and everyone has to be voted back in? This isn't normal?
All MPs have to get voted in, yes - even current prime minister, speaker of the House etc. That's standard practice for general elections. Those are normally every 5 years, but Parliament can agree otherwise - which is what they've just done this week by passing a law to bypass the normal procedure.
1. Abortion is not a right....
2. Two, especially in poorer areas Africans that experience prosecution for practicing African religion are prosecuted by, drumroll please.... Other Africans...
3. Americans have a right to defend themselves, despite Democrats trying to tear apart the second amendment, which is quite ironic...their trying to destroy the second amendment while claiming the government is evil... Take away the arms and leave the people at the whims of that very government that the progressive have called authoritarian and racist...
4. A company or corporation having its own "well armed security guards" is no different than the state having a police department, except unlike the state, corporations aren't beholden to the constitution or the bill of rights and can/have abused their position in ways that violate both. It's way senators are trying to pressure social media to do their censoring for them and to shut down opposing speech.
Its not a few. This one case alone is an entire police department and the court deciding that completely destroying a house is a reasonable response to cathcing someone who shoplifted $100 in merchandise. "A few" did not murder 15 children last year, a few did not murder 213 disabled people last year. This is not "a few". Everytime that an officer kills a child, or an unarmed person, or the disabled, and they are PROTECTED from consequence by the courts and by the their department, then that ENTIRE DEPARTMENT is corrupt and a danger to everyone. This not a few. This is the STANDARD.
@DragonKing
"3. Americans have a right to defend themselves, despite Democrats trying to tear apart the second amendment, which is quite ironic...their trying to destroy the second amendment while claiming the government is evil... Take away the arms and leave the people at the whims of that very government that the progressive have called authoritarian and racist..."
Really? Because I've never seen any kind of legislature put forth to remove the 2nd amendment. Got some citation there? Also no, the Democratic Party is not the "evil government" party. They advocate for a strong government to better take care of the populace. The conservative platform is the one that campaigns on less government intervention, ironically.